Soldier of the mist l-1

by Gene Wolfe

  Hypereides said that I must have fought for the Great King, and I asked him if I were a barbarian. "Not a real barbarian," he said. "Because you talk like a civilized man. Besides, there were a lot of us fighting for the Great King-almost as many as were on our side. See those people I've got chained up? They're from Hill-you can tell by the way they talk. Their city fought for him, and we mean to burn it around their ears, just as he burned ours."

  The sun was high and hot, but the base of the mast was in the shadow of the sail; so when Hypereides went to talk to the kybernetes, I went to talk to the prisoners. One of the bowmen was watching them, and he looked to Hypereides to see whether he minded. Hypereides had his back to us, and the bowman said nothing.

  I want to write about the bowmen before I forget that I intended to. They wear leggings and tall fox-fur caps. Their clothes look very uncomfortable, and while I was talking to the prisoners the bowman watching them took off his cap to fan himself.

  Their curved bows are of wood and horn, and they bend backward now because they are not strung. It seems to me the right way to carry arrows is over the back, but the bowmen have their quivers at their waists. The quivers have a beard at the top that folds over the opening to keep out the spray.

  The bowmen have cheeks that come straight up to their fierce eyes, like the cheek-pieces of a helmet. Their eyes and hair are lighter than ours, and their beards are longer. They cut the hair from their enemy's dead and wear it on their belts and wipe their hands on it. They cannot speak the tongue I speak to Hypereides and the rest as well as I can, and they cannot speak the tongue in which I am writing this at all. They smell of sweat. That is all I know of them.

  No, there is one thing more, which is why I wrote all I just did. It is that the bowman who watches the prisoners watches me as no one else does. Sometimes I think he is afraid, sometimes that he wants some favor. I do not know what his look may mean; but I thought I should write of it here, to read when I have forgotten.

  The prisoners from Hill are a man, his wife, and their daughter. When I came to them, they called me Latro. At first I thought they believed me such a one-a hired soldier or a bandit. But they have nothing to steal, and who has hired me? Then I understood that Latro is my name and they knew me. I sat on the deck beside them and said that it was cooler there and if they wished I would bring them water.

  The man said, "Latro, have you read your book?"

  I glanced about and saw it in the beakhead where I had left it. I told the man I had been examining the ship and had not.

  The woman saw it too, and looked frightened. "Latro, it will blow away!"

  "No, it won't," I told her. "The stylus is heavy, and I've put it through the cords."

  "It's very important that you read it," the man said. "You offered to bring us water. I don't want water-they gave us enough earlier. I want you to bring me your book instead. I swear by the Shining God not to harm it."

  I hesitated, but the child said, "Please, master!" and there was something in her voice I could not resist. I got it and brought it back, and the man took it and wrote a few words on the outside.

  I told him, "That's not the best way. Unroll it like this, and you can write on the inner surface. Then when the book's closed, the writing's protected."

  "But sometimes the scribe writes where I have written too, when he wishes to leave some message for a person who otherwise would not open the book. He might write, 'Here are the laws of the city,' for example."

  "That's so," I admitted. "I'd forgotten."

  "You speak our language well," he said. "Can you read what I've written?"

  I shook my head. "I think I've seen letters like those before, but I can't read them."

  "Then you must write it yourself. Write, 'Read me every day,' in your own language."

  I took the stylus and wrote what he had told me, just above his own writing.

  The child said, "Now if you'll read it, you'll know who you are and who we are."

  Her voice pleased me, and I patted her head. "But there is so much to read here, little one. I've unrolled it enough to see that it's a long, long scroll, and the writing is very small. Besides, it was written with this and not with ink, and so the writing is gray, not black, which makes it hard to read. You can tell me these things, if you know them, much faster than I could read about them."

  "You have to go to the house of the Great Mother," the child announced solemnly. Then she recited a poem. When it was over she said, "Pindaros was taking you there."

  "I'm Pindaros," the man told me. "The citizens of our shining city designated me as your guide. I know you don't remember, but I swear it's the truth."

  A black man who had been sleeping with the sailors rose and climbed from his bench to the deck where we sat. It seemed to me that we had met before, and he looked so friendly and cheerful that I smiled to see him now.

  He exclaimed, "Hah!" when he saw me smile. Some of the sleeping men stirred at the sound, and those who were not asleep stared at us. The bowman, who had been watching and listening, put his hand to the knife in his belt.

  "You must be less noisy, my friend," Pindaros said.

  The black man grinned in reply and pointed from his heart to mine, and then, triumphantly, from mine to his.

  "You mean he knows you," Pindaros said. "Yes, perhaps he does, a bit."

  I said, "Is he a sailor? He doesn't look like the others."

  "He's your comrade. He was taking care of you before Hilaeira and Io and I met you. Perhaps you saved his life in the battle, but he was using you to beg when I first saw you." To the black man he said, "You got a great deal by your begging, too. I don't suppose you still have it?"

  The black man shook his head and pretended to gash his arm with his knife. Filling his hand with the unseen blood, he counted it out as money, making a little click with his tongue for the sound made by each imaginary coin as he put it on the deck. When he was finished he indicated me.

  The child said, "He gave it to the slaves that night when we camped, while you were writing poetry and talking to Latro. It was for the slaves Latro killed, because the slaves were going to kill him when we got to the Silent Country."

  "I doubt if the Rope Makers would have let them. Not that it matters; I had ten owls, but they got them in Tower Hill. I'd rather we were prisoners in Rope than in Tower Hill, but even Tower Hill would be preferable to Thought." Pindaros sighed. "We're their ancient enemies, and they are ours."

  Hypereides had been telling me how the ships of Thought had fought the barbarians, implying that I was a barbarian myself; now I asked Pindaros if his city and Thought were worse enemies.

  His laugh was bitter. "Worse by far. You forget, Latro, and so perhaps you've forgotten that brothers can be enemies more terrible than strangers. Our fields are rich, and theirs are poor; thus they envied us long ago and tried to take what was ours by force. Then they turned to trading, growing the olive and the vine, and exchanging oil, fruit, and wine for bread. They became great makers of jars too and sold them everywhere. Then the Lady of Thought, who loves sharp dealing, showed them a vein of silver."

  The black man's eyes opened wide, and he leaned forward to catch every word, though I do not think he understood them all.

  "They had been rich. Now they grew richer, and we proved no wiser than they and tried to take what was theirs. There is hardly a family in our shining city that is not related to them in some way, and hardly a man in theirs-except the foreigners-who's not a cousin of ours. And so we hate one another, and cease to hate every four years when our champions give their strength to the Descender; then we hate again, worse than ever, when the games are done." He pursed his mouth to spit but thought better of it.

  I looked at the woman. She had eyes like thunderheads and seemed far more lovely to me than the woman painted on our sail. I did not wish to think this, but I thought that if Pindaros was a slave, I might somehow buy her and her child. "And are we friends," I asked her, "since we've traveled together?"r />
  "We met at the rites of the God of Two Doors," the woman said. She smiled then, remembering something I could not recall; and I felt she would not object, that she would be content to live with me and leave her husband wherever his fate might take him. "Then the slaves of the Rope Makers came," she said, "and while Pindaros and the black man faced their first antagonists, you killed three. But the others were going to kill Io and me, and Pindaros stepped in front of you and made you stop. For a moment I thought you were going to cut him down, and so did he, I think. Instead you dropped your sword, and they bound your hands and beat you, and made you kiss the dust before their feet. Yes, we're friends."

  I said, "I'm glad I've forgotten that surrender."

  Pindaros nodded. "I wish I could forget it too; in many ways, your state is a most enviable one. Nevertheless, now that the Shining God has directed you to the Great Mother, you'd better go to her and be cured if you can."

  "Who is this Great Mother?" I asked him. "And what does the child's poem mean?"

  Then he told me of the gods and their ways. I listened intently as he spoke, just as I had to Hypereides's account of the Battle of Peace; but though I do not know what it was I hoped to hear from each, I knew when each was finished that I had not heard it.

  Now the sun is hidden behind our sail, though I sit in the bow again; the ship rocks me as a mother rocks her child. There are voices in the waves, voices that laugh and sing and call out one to another.

  I listen to them too, hoping to hear some mention of my home and the family and friends I must surely have there.

  CHAPTER IX-Night Comes

  Across the sea, black shadows race like chariots. Though it will soon be too dark for me to write here, I will write as much as I can, and if I cannot write everything where I am, I will go to one of the fires and write there, then sleep.

  I had hardly put away this stylus when the kybernetes spoke to the sailors, who stopped gambling and talking to furl the sail, strike the mast, and run out their oars.

  It is wonderful to travel in such a slim, swift ship under sail; but it is far more so when the rowers strain at the oars and the ship leaps from the water at every stroke and falls back shouting. Then the wind is not behind the ship, but the ship makes her own, which you feel full in your face though silver spray blows across the bow.

  Then too the flute boy plays, and the sailors all sing to his piping to keep the stroke; their song calls up the sea gods, who come to the surface to hear it, their ears like shells, their hair like sea wrack. For a long time I stood in the bow watching them and seeing the land brought ever nearer, and I felt that I myself was a god of the waters.

  At last, when the land was so close I could see the leaves on the trees and the stones on the beach, the kybernetes came and stood beside me; and seeing that he meant to give no order for a few moments more, I ventured to tell him how beautiful I thought his ship and the others, which we had outdistanced and now saw behind us.

  "There's none better," he said. "Hardly one as good. Say what you please about Hypereides, but he spared no expense on Europa. You may say it was to be expected, because he meant to take the command himself; but there's many another who did the same and got his timber cheap anyhow. Not Hypereides. He's got the wit to see that his honor's gone aboard her as well as his life."

  "He must be brave too," I said, "to take charge of this ship himself when he could have stayed safely at home."

  "Oh, he couldn't have done that," the kybernetes told me, glancing at the beach. "They're foolish enough in the Assembly at times, but never such fools as to let the men who supply the army and navy stay clear of the fighting. Not that Hypereides would have been safe in the city anyway; the barbarians burned it. Still, he could have served on land if he wanted. A good many did. But look at Clytia there. She's a fine ship too. My brother's kybernetes on her. Do you know what that poet said to me?"

  Not knowing who the poet might be, I shook my head.

  "He said her oars, with the foam on them, made her look like a bird with four white wings. And it's true-just look. He may be a pig from Cowland, but he's a fine poet all the same. Were you there when he sang for us last night?"

  I said, "I'm afraid I don't remember."

  "Ha, ha! You drank too much and fell asleep!" He slapped my back. "You've the soul of a sailor. We'll train you to the oar when that head wound heals."

  "Were they good poems?"

  The kybernetes nodded. "The men couldn't get enough of him. I'm going to ask Hypereides to make him perform for us again tonight. Not that I'll have to ask, I expect." He raised his voice. "Easy now! Easy!"

  "Are you going to beach the ships here?"

  "Bet on it, stick. The wind's favoring, so we might round the cape before sundown; and if we hadn't a day to spare, I'd try it. But if there was trouble, we'd have to spend the night at sea, and that's no joke. I told Hypereides we ought to put in, and he agreed. There's a little place called Teuthrone not far from here, and we may be able to buy some fresh food-what we got from Tower Hill's about gone."

  He shouted another order, and all the oars on one side remained raised when they left the sea. The ship spun about like a twig in an eddy. In a moment more, the oars were backing water, rowing us backward to the shore. Half a dozen sailors dove from the stern and swam to the beach like seals. Two more threw them coils of rope.

  "Ship oars!" the kybernetes shouted. Then: "Over the side!"

  I must have shown how astonished I was, because he rubbed his hands and said, "Yes, it's a good crew. I chose most of them myself, and the rest are men who worked for Hypereides before the war."

  By that time there was hardly a score of people left aboard-the kybernetes and I, the soldiers (whose breastplates and greaves would have sunk them like stones had they dived into the sea), the bowmen, the black man, the three prisoners, and Hypereides. Without her crew, the ship seemed so light I was afraid she might turn over.

  "Come here!" the kybernetes called. He waved, and the soldiers and prisoners joined us in the bow, making the stern rise a bit more.

  Ashore the sailors were heaving at their ropes. I felt the keel scrape, come free, then scrape again. The deck began to tilt and we grabbed the railing.

  "Don't jump now," the kybernetes said, seeing that I was considering it. "That's a rock bottom."

  The deck was almost too steep for us to keep our footing when we made our way aft, but from there it was easy to climb over the taffrail and onto the beach without so much as getting our feet wet.

  By the time I stood on land, the sailors were already gathering driftwood for a fire and the other ships were backing water a stade or so from the beach. The black man and I helped collect wood, having seen that it was a point of honor with the sailors to get the best before the crews of the other ships reached shore.

  This coast is low and rocky, with a few scrubby trees; and yet it cannot really be said that beauty ends where the clear seawater comes to shore. While I watched, a hawk came racing down the ridge, caught the updraft from the sea, and soared on it like a gull, never moving a wing; when I saw it, I saw this rocky land too for what it is, a finger of the forest on a hand held out to the sea.

  Hypereides took three soldiers and a score of sailors and went into the village to buy supplies. Acetes posted two more soldiers on the ridge as sentries. The rest of us threw off our clothes and plunged into the water to swim and wash. Even the prisoners, I noticed, were allowed to wash, though because of their chains they could not swim. I myself swam only a little, careful to keep the bandages on my head out of the water. I noticed that the bowmen went some distance away so they might wash out of sight of the rest of us.

  When I returned to the beach, the child was sitting on a stone beside my possessions. I thanked her for watching them, and she said, "I didn't want anyone to take your book, master. Then you wouldn't know who you are, or who I am."

  "Who are you?" I asked her. "And why do you call me master?"

  "I'm your slave
Io."

  I explained that I had thought her the daughter of the couple with whom she had been chained.

  "I knew you did," she said. "But we only met them a little while ago. I'm your slave, given you as your personal property by the Shining God when you were in Hill."

  I shook my head.

  "That's the truth, master, I swear by the club of Heracles. And if you'll just read your book you'll find out all about it, and about the curse the Great Mother laid on you. Then you'll see it isn't right for me to be like this"-she held up her chain to show me-"when you're free. I should be free too, to serve you."

  I tried to recall what the woman had told me this morning. "The soldiers captured us when we were going somewhere."

  "Not these soldiers, master. Those were the slaves of the Rope Makers. They beat you, and they treated me like a woman and made me bleed there, though I'm not a woman yet. Hilaeira says I won't have a baby, but she might." Io sighed, recalling much pain and weariness, I think, that I have forgotten.

  "Then we met some real soldiers, shieldmen with helmets and big spears. They made the slaves of the Rope Makers give us up. I hid your book because I was afraid they'd take it from you, and they made us go to Tower Hill, but I don't think the people in Tower Hill wanted to keep us-they're afraid of the Rope Makers like everybody else, and they didn't want to have prisoners that were taken from them. But they're afraid of the People of Thought too, and the soldiers from my city helped burn theirs. So after a while they gave us to Hypereides. He separated us, but I could see he liked you, so when you came to talk to me I gave your book back. I had it under my peplos, with the cords around my waist. Did you read it? I told you to."

  "I don't know," I said.

  "Maybe you did. But if you didn't write anything afterward, it doesn't matter now."

  "You're a very knowing little girl," I told her, pulling on my chiton.

  "It hasn't helped me much. I was owned by a pretty nice family back in Hill. Now I'm here, and all I've got out of the trip is a bath. Will you talk to Hypereides and ask him to let me take off my chain?"