It was to be a forlorn hope.
Chapter 12: What to Do?
Yozef’s daily routine gradually altered during the next two Anyar months. He switched to mornings to accompany Carnigan at his work assignments. Language study changed to expanding vocabulary, tackling more advanced readings, and exposing himself to social situations, including attending the Keelan version of evening bible lessons, musical evenings, or a discussion or a lecture by one of the scholastics, all at the abbey.
The religious lessons gave Yozef a grasp of the Caedellium theology—a single God, who made the world and watched and judged but seldom intervened.
Sort of a monotheistic lite, he first thought.
Later lectures and discussions showed a more complex, evolving theology. The theophists at St. Sidryn’s saw a single God, who interacted with humans through three divine aspects: healing, wisdom, and discipline. From this view had developed the four Orders: theophists for humans’ obligations to God, medicants to heal, scholastics to know God’s creations, and militants to teach humans self-control. Details varied among and within clans, and more so elsewhere on Anyar, with variations on a single god, four separate gods, and hints of minor gods and entire pantheons.
The enemy of God was the Evil One, a version of Satan who tempted humans but who had no power over God. Yozef also read The Word of God, the holy book canonized a thousand years earlier, and The Commentaries, writings interpreting and extending the Word and which could still be added to. These writings were not universally accepted throughout Anyar, and there were allusions to past religious wars on the major continents.
The music evenings provided an interesting introduction to local music. None of the instruments had exact analogs on Earth, but some had similar tones, while others were weirdly novel for Yozef’s ear.
The scholastic evenings provided an opportunity to understand more complex aspects of the Caedelli language and intellectual discourse, meaning half of the time he had no idea what was being discussed.
Same here as on Earth, he often reminded himself. Scholastics anywhere could talk up a storm without saying anything.
The only times he left the abbey vicinity was once or twice a sixday when he visited Abersford with Carnigan. The village had a central square with official-looking structures, two perpendicular main streets filled with shops, and houses of various sizes, enough to account for the village’s population of nine hundred. The number of shops in Abersford surprised Yozef, until he realized the village drew business from ten or more miles away. The square, the main streets, and some side streets were cobblestone, with the rest of the streets covered by a mixture of gravel and crushed seashells. At the edge of the village, the roads turned to dirt—or mud, depending on the weather. The walls of the larger structures around the square and the more affluent-appearing houses were made of stone with slate roofs. Lesser structures were stone, wood, or a combination, with roofs of wood or thatch.
On those nights when Yozef accompanied Carnigan, they walked to the opposite side of the square, a block down the north-running main street, and turned a corner to Carnigan’s favorite pub. While there were two other pubs in the village, Carnigan patronized only the one he considered the best. Yozef went along with the choice, since Carnigan was paying. Yozef had no “coin,” as the locals referred to money, and he was obliged to agree with Carnigan’s opinion.
A day when Yozef’s life changed again came when he anticipated an evening with Carnigan at the pub. The first event of note that day occurred in the afternoon. He had taken time away from helping Carnigan to walk the gardens and the groves within the abbey complex, then exited the east gate to a nearby grove and came to his log. A major branch, some three feet in diameter, had split off a truly heroic tree whose canopy topped out at more than two hundred feet. The leaves seemed Earth-like, more rounded with serrated edges, instead of the slenderer leaves of Anyar trees, and of a familiar green, instead of the shadings from deep green to purple of most indigenous plants. He didn’t think the tree oak—maybe elm or chestnut. The log was partially decayed, just enough to be soft, without splinters, and shaped in a curve that fit his body. He could lie on the curvature and stare upward through the leaf-filtered light to the sky. The sound of the wind through the branches and the dancing of the leaves sometimes lulled him to sleep, but on this day, he thought about the future, as he had many times previously.
He repeatedly asked himself the same question, because he still didn’t have an answer. What am I going to do? The Caedelli at the abbey were gracious, understanding, and caring. However, there must be a limit to how long he could merely exist here. He might not be reading the signs correctly, but he got the feeling even the abbot was hinting about him finding a place in this society.
So. What could he do? He had no physical resources, none of the coins he saw others use, no experience or skills in trades or farming, and although he was communicating well, given everything, he was still far too ignorant of the culture and the histories of these people. This left . . . what?
“Knowledge,” he blurted out, switching from internal dialogue to speaking aloud to the trees and sky. “The answer that keeps coming back is my knowledge of chemistry and the other sciences. Within my brain is more knowledge of the physical universe than this entire planet will possess for centuries. There has to be a way to tap into that knowledge. A way that will provide a living for me and still let me avoid getting in too much trouble with local beliefs and superstitions.”
A problem was no infrastructure—the totality of knowledge, skills, and industry needed to use science from Earth. He knew the processes to make almost any, save the most complex, chemical compounds and molecules, but most required reaction ingredients, each of which might take a set of other ingredients to produce, and they in turn—on and on. Most would take decades or longer to develop, even under the best of circumstances.
Yet there must be simpler reactions and products he could start off with. He needed to speak with the abbey staff and troll the village shops for ideas. Between the two, he should be able to gauge the level of chemical knowledge and what chemicals were already available. There might also be books, even if not formal textbooks, in the abbey library that could at least give clues.
“Why haven’t I thought of this before? Maybe the accident, the Watchers and Harlie, being dumped on Anyar never to see Earth or hear English again, all stunned my brain more than I realized.”
Chapter 13: Great Hall of the Keelans
Great Hall of the Keelans, Caernford, Keelan Province
Two structures dominated the twenty-acre brick-paved plaza of central Caernford, Capitol of Keelan Province—St. Tomo’s Cathedral and the Great Hall of the Keelans. The walls of both buildings were made from two-ton stone blocks quarried from the craggy mountains of the Wycoff and Brums districts of northeast Keelan. The white stone with the yellow veins was unique to Caedellium, and the polished outer surfaces gave the illusion of sparkling gold in the early morning and late afternoon suns.
While the cathedral soared to signify glory to God, the Great Hall was an edifice with a different design, a single-story octagon with high multi-paned windows on its eight sides to let light enter from all directions of the province and serving as a symbol of clan unity and strength. The interior measured 220 feet diagonally from corner to corner, with 2-foot-diameter trimmed tree trunks supporting a ceiling peaking at 40 feet. The flooring consisted of slate slabs from the eastern slope of Mount Orlos in Shamir Province, the slate trimmed and fitted so carefully a finger could stroke the floor without detecting seams. Below that floor, a basement housed clan records and relics of the clan’s history.
Although the Great Hall served the people of Caernford and nearby villages and farms for festivals and events requiring a large indoor space, the true purpose of the structure was for a “Gathering of the Clan.” By tradition, every clan member could attend, and when the hall was built 130 years earlier, it could hold the entire clan. Now, with numbe
rs having risen five-fold since that time, the hall was large enough to squeeze in only a fraction of the clan’s people.
A yearly Gathering of the Clan opened the five-day festival marking the New Year and the transition from winter to spring. Each district sent proportional representatives, with clan members attending at least once every ten years, if possible. On such occasions, the hall held up to seven thousand standing clansmen and clanswomen surrounding the central platform and dais. There, the hetman, supported by the clan’s leaders, would greet the clanspeople, followed by the scholastics’ traditional recitation of the clan’s history, and ended by the hetman’s report on the condition of the clan. The entire ceremony seldom lasted more than two hours, there being only so long so many bodies could stand packed together into a single room.
The only other occasion for a formal Gathering of the Clan was under extraordinary circumstances, when the entire clan needed to be addressed. No such occasion had occurred in Culich Keelan’s nineteen years as hetman or in his father’s or grandfather’s tenures, on back to the time the gathering was held in a natural amphitheater near Caernford.
On this day, three somber men stood at the base of steps leading to a meeting room attached to the south side of the Great Hall.
“Nothing new about the Narthani, Culich?” Pedr Kennrick addressed his hetman.
Culich Keelan shook his head. “Only what I passed on to you and Vortig two days ago. Although they’ve still made no major overt threat to the other clans, every instinct tells me it will happen. For myself, the only two questions are when and where? And that’s what eats at my gut.”
“I beg to disagree, Hetman,” said Vortig Luwis, slamming a fist into his other palm. “I know all three of us think the Narthani are not yet finished expanding, and although I agree with your two questions, there’s a third one that may be even more important—and that’s if the other clans can somehow agree to cooperate when the Narthani do make their next move.”
Culich didn’t disagree. He and his two major advisors had chewed to exhaustion the possible Narthani intentions. Kennrick was Culich’s age, a lifelong friend, and a shrewd mind atop a short, rotund form. With his ruddy complexion and red hair and beard, he always appeared to be escaping from something. The Kennrick family owned tracts of farmland, but Pedr’s sons managed the family estate ten miles north of Caernford while their father advised and assisted Culich with clan affairs.
Vortig Luwis was a few years younger and not a close friend, but his loyalty to the clan and hetman was absolute. His family had timberland and mines in the Nylamir district, but as the Narthani threat increased, so did Luwis’s role in overseeing clan security, organizing the clan’s men of fighting age, and serving as liaison with counterparts in allied Gwillamer and Mittack clans. Luwis’s height and bald head made him easily identified in any crowd, as did his habitual frown, hook nose, short-cropped, prematurely graying beard, and cold, dark blue eyes. His stern countenance and known fearlessness hid a sharp mind. Few knew, Culich being one of those, how much Luwis doted on his wife and three daughters and how, as a youth, Luwis had considered becoming a theophist. He was also blunt, honest, and honorable, sometimes to even Culich’s annoyance.
Culich placed a hand on Luwis’s shoulder. “All we can do is all we can do, Vortig. Along with praying for God’s grace to guide and deliver us, should the worst happen. The three of us have critical tasks in front of us. I must try to convince more of the other clans to come around to my fears.”
The hetman rested his other hand on the shorter man’s shoulder. “You, Pedr, must see to increasing arms production and food stores, while you, Vortig, must see to the clan’s fighting men and patrolling our borders. I’ve said to you two what I’ll not yet say to the rest of our people. I fear the future. A storm is gathering that bodes disaster for all of Caedellium.”
Neither of the other men had anything to add or counter.
Culich removed his hands from their shoulders, and his tone enlivened. “In the meantime, routine clan affairs continue, no matter what else.”
“Speaking of routine affairs, I think the others are gathering,” said Kennrick, looking through the glass-paned door into the meeting room.
A boyerman led each of Keelan Province’s eleven districts. The semi-hereditary position normally passed through the current boyerman’s lineage, unless altered either by lack of the district people’s support or by hetman decree. Today was the quarterly meeting of Culich with his advisors and the eleven boyermen or their representatives.
Culich turned to the door. “Then, by all means, let’s greet our boyermen.”
Luwis climbed the three stairs, held open the back entrance door, and followed Culich and Kennrick inside. The meeting room was a twenty-five-foot square with a fifteen-foot-diameter round table and chairs dominating the room. Additional, less ornate chairs lined the walls, and a double door led into the Grand Hall. Small tapestries depicting events in clan history hung between windows along with objects of renown: a nicked sword, several banners, copies of documents encased in glass, a long lock of fiery red hair intertwined with another of deepest black, and a pair of aged leather shoes purportedly worn by the first ancestor of the clan to set foot on Caedellium. All other participants would enter through the Great Hall’s north side main door and cross the empty hall to the meeting room
Three men already occupied boyermen chairs, the men either looking at papers or talking to aides attending the meeting. One grizzled and harried face looked up as Culich entered from the outer door.
“Hetman!” said Boyerman Arwin. “We need to discuss the Mittackese fishing in our waters. It’s getting worse, and my fishermen are tiring of waiting for this to stop. I’m afraid there may be clashes unless something is done.”
Culich scowled. Fishing boundaries were loosely agreed to between and among clans, with details left to local leaders. Although Mittack was a neighboring clan and ally, formal agreements between hetman didn’t always seep down to the local level. This particular issue had festered for several years, and it displeased Culich that the issue remained unresolved without the clan hetmen becoming involved.
“No, Belman,” answered Culich, “it won’t be on the agenda today. Stay after the meeting, and you and I can discuss how to proceed.” The Arwin boyerman was Belman Kulvin. Custom allowed he could be addressed by his title, which Culich had nearly done. However, that would have signaled his level of displeasure. If the later individual discussion didn’t go well, “Belman” could quickly change to “Boyerman Arwin.”
He wished that either he could light a fire under Belman or the man would demonstrate enough incompetence so Culich could replace him. As hetman, it was Culich’s right to remove any boyerman, though a right judiciously asserted and best resorted to only when the other boyermen recognized the necessity.
Moving on from Arwin, Culich greeted the other two boyermen, as he sat in the hetman’s chair facing the open double doors through which he could see the cavernous hall. The boyermens’ path to the meeting room was intentional. As they crossed the empty hall, each man’s eyes invariably rose to the central platform and dais, the tapestries and the banners on the encircling walls. He would hopefully be humbled by the expanse, the emptiness reminding him of the hall packed with clanspeople on Gathering Day and of his responsibilities to the clan and its members. Culich knew the feeling himself ever since his father first took him at the age of twelve to the meetings.
One at a time or in clusters, the men attending this day came through the double doors, exchanged greetings and small talk, and found their places. Nine of the eleven boyermen were present. A tenth had broken a leg, and his eldest son represented the district. An eleventh boyerman was too old to travel and had written a formal request to step down from his position, in favor of a nephew who had served as proxy at several previous meetings. Culich would soon make the formal appointment.
When Culich Keelan greeted the last seating boyerman, he sat back in his chair
and surveyed the other eleven men at the table. The general bustle died down, as everyone sensed the meeting was about to begin, and all eyes turned to their hetman. Naturally, Culich’s chair was slightly larger and more ornate than the other eleven, appropriate for the hetman of the Keelan Clan and Province. The hereditary leader of the Keelan Clan was imposing. Not so much his actual size, which was of good height and still robust, in spite of his gray hair and beard, but more the aura of his personality, his ability to project the difficult-to-describe essence of a leader, his known history of fairness to those recognizing him as their liege, and his decisiveness in defense of the clan’s interests.
The men representing the eleven districts of Keelan Province sat in seats randomly assigned yearly at the round table, the shape and assignments to avoid hints of favoritism toward any boyermen. The table and seating arrangement were traditional since the time of Culich’s great, great grandfather, the precedent set to avoid squabbles about positioning and rank among the boyermen from provinces of differing populations, wealth, and shifting political aspirations. Still, there were always grumblings. The provinces in the best condition, at least in their own minds, thought they should sit closest to the hetman. Naturally, nothing was spoken. Tradition and the expected response from Culich eliminated overt complaints.
Behind the twelve men at the round table sat aides—sons, advisors, others of note, and occasionally church prelates, depending on the agenda. Behind Culich were three occupied chairs: Kennrick, Luwis, and one other.
All of those present were men, with the one exception. Maera Keelan was twenty-three Anyar years old—twenty Earth years—and the eldest daughter of Culich Keelan. She sat with serious demeanor, her green eyes shifting with moods from warm to impassive, to cold. Her hair coiled atop her head, and, as some in the room knew from experience, that head housed a tongue capable of flaying the purveyor of parochial interests or slovenly arguments. That she was in the room at all rested on Culich’s simply saying so. For the last three years, Maera had attended all of the most important meetings, including those of the hetman and his eleven district boyermen, in the formal role as recorder, since Culich insisted he needed a written record to remind him of advice from the boyermen, as well as the necessity for a record of their deliberations for the clan history.
Cast Under an Alien Sun (Destiny's Crucible) Page 13
