Hour of the Octopus

by Joel Rosenberg

  It’s not hard: you wake up, you fold up, you put it in a bag, you put the bag on your back, and you go.

  Leaving “promptly in the hour of the cock” seemed to have a different meaning for our beloved ruling class. As far as I could tell, they didn’t have a thing to do but empty their bladders and bowels, and as far as I knew their personal attendants could have done that for any of them. But there were clothes to pack, panniers to be loaded up, horses that not only needed to be fed and saddled but apparently would become better mounts if, saddled, they stood in the hot sun for hours.

  Narantir was amused. “You haven’t traveled with nobility before, I take it?” he asked, his smile broadening. “Or you would long since have given up shouldering your pack.”

  As an acrobat, I’d carried two bags. The other, the equipment bag, was long gone with the troupe, but the canvas bag in which I carried my own possessions and my share of the cooking and camping gear was on my back, feeling familiar, yet strange. It was too light, and the balance was off.

  Such was my life, eh?

  I shook my head.

  “I’ve seen them on the road, of course.” And gotten out of their way, naturally, even if that meant leaping into scraggly brush along the side of the road rather than chance frightening a noble’s horse.

  “If you’d ever seen them try to get ready, you’d likely still be in bed.”

  Other than his ample bulk, the wizard carried only a small leather sack. Either he didn’t think that he would need a change of clothes—always a possibility—or he was awfully sure that the procession wouldn’t proceed for a while, and didn’t see any need to haul his gear around with him.

  Well, if you’re so smart, why are you awake? I didn’t say.

  He answered the question anyway. “Because you’re not particularly bright, and were likely to be awake right now.”

  “I didn’t know we were such boon companions.”

  Narantir shrugged. “We are this morning, because Madame Rupon makes the best biscuits in Den Oroshtai, and because I have an appetite for good biscuits this morning, and because it’s my guess that there may be some made quite freely available to the wizard accompanying the dan’shir who talked Lord Toshtai out of having her head cut off.”

  I thought about it for a moment. The way of our beloved ruling class is sometimes easy to figure: they wouldn’t wait for me, but since the morningwise road out of town, the road toward Glen Derenai, passed through the Bankstreets, and since Madame Rupon’s house was on a Bankstreet corner, there would be no problem for me to wait there, complete with my bag.

  It would be fun, though, if I could keep it going long enough, to watch Narantir have to hustle his bulk back up the hill to the keep in order to get his gear. Given Madame Rupon’s biscuits, and the apple orchard honey she served them with, this was a decided possibility.

  I nodded. “Your biscuits await.”

  I hadn’t tried to count the number of biscuits I’d eaten, and had stopped counting Narantir’s at seventeen, as we sat on the front porch at Madame Rupon’s, looking out at the street and the day.

  I sipped at my hot mug of urmon tea, and before I had set it on the weatherbeaten arm of the chair, FamNa had bustled out through the door, poured another cup, dispensed a smile that I’m sure she thought was ingratiating, and bustled on back, while her mother sat on the other side of the broad porch, close enough to hear, if she was of a mind to eavesdrop, which she likely was.

  Narantir rearranged his bulk in the chair facing mine, a smug smile on his scraggle-bearded face. “You see, little Kami Dan’Shir, I sometimes do know what I speak of.”

  His eyebrows needed combing; they stuck out all helter-skelter, like a cat’s vibrissae.

  I hid a smile. Go ahead and feel so superior, wizard.

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” I said.

  “Well and good.” He didn’t bother to hide a belch behind his hand. “We’ll find good food in Glen Derenai, but I doubt we’ll find biscuits of this quality.” He frowned. “I suspect that I’ll have to urge Tebol to do better from the keep cooks; he has little appetite, and less sense of taste.”

  “Tebol?”

  ‘The wizard at the keep. An old friend of mine; we apprenticed together.“

  I had an acquaintance or two in Glen Derenai, but not the local wizard. I shrugged.

  It was taking a long time for Lords Toshtai, Edelfaule, Arefai, and Minch and the rest of the noble part of the party to get themselves ready, but the hour of the cock was giving way to the hour of the hare, and they would have to be leaving shortly.

  Narantir was too involved in satisfying his appetite to notice how late the morning was getting. My bag sat on the porch; I could join the procession out of town, but it would do me good to watch Narantir have to hurry up the hill back to the keep to get his own gear.

  Hmm… if I was hearing right, there was a distant clomping of hooves off to morningwise.

  Just a few more moments, wizard, and we’ll see if your bandy legs can churn like a—

  His head straightened. “Listen.”

  “Eh?”

  “Do you hear that?”

  Off toward sunwise, there was a sound like running, the rapid tattoo of beating feet.

  His bare feet taking impossibly swift steps, a Runner rounded the corner and leaned heavily into his turn as he changed direction and headed up the Bankstreets toward the road to the keep. For a moment it looked almost as though he would lose his balance, that he’d leaned too heavily into the turn and would slide away across the flat stones of the street, but appearances are deceiving; the reality is all.

  He had raised kazuh, and a kazuh Runner could maintain his pace indefinitely, perhaps forever; I don’t know. There are secrets to each of the kazuhin, and while I knew those of the Acrobat and had to learn those of the Dan’Shir, I would never know those of the Runner, anymore than I would know those of the Ruler or Painter.

  All I knew was the obvious: he was there, and then, long before the dust marking his passing could settle, he was gone.

  Narantir sighed. “There and gone. The morning dispatches received, and others to be dispatched. The Long War but simmers in the south and boils in the Ven while the lords of D’Shai play their endless games of status and superiority, eh?”

  I sipped my tea. “Of course that is not so.” A shtoi approximation: You could lose your head for such loose talk, Narantir. Or: I agree, but I will not agree openly. Shtoi is not precise.

  What did he think, that I’d keep quiet if asked? And in front of Madame Rupon? She was over on the other side of the porch, yes, but she was neither deaf nor mute.

  Narantir ignored my understatement. “What is there to fear?” The wizard smiled. “Madame Rupon? If you please?”

  She nodded and walked back into the house.

  Eh? I didn’t follow at all.

  Narantir set the palms of his hands on his chair and pushed himself to his feet just as the lead horse rounded the corner, coming from the direction that the runner had taken.

  Arefai was on the lead horse, probably the same fine black mare that he had ridden to the hunt the other day, except that both he and the mare were decked out in silks of black and yellow, fluttering madly in the light breeze.

  He nodded at our bow, and smiled. No comment about being late, which was just as well, all things considered.

  Close on his heels came a troop of a hundred soldiers of the Lord Toshtai’s personal guard, with old Dun Lidjun, in full armor and regalia, mounted on a coal-black mare at their head. Lances were all properly set into stirrups, their tips graced by garlands of ochre orchids and ruddy roses that wouldn’t slow them down much at all, whether they clove through the air or through flesh. Short horn bows were strapped to the odd saddle here and there, although Dun Lidjun’s own bow, a long one of horn so translucent as to be almost transparent, was in the boot of his saddle.

  Minch’s personal guard followed, followed in turn by another detachment of mounted Den Oroshta
i soldiers. And then came the palanquins.

  Pebbles, wheels, and Bhorlani are forbidden on D’Shaian roads, by order of the Scion. It is worth the lives of an entire peasant’s family to leave the tracks of a wheelbarrow across a road—as opposed to a path or trail—separating two paddies, even if owned by the same peasant family. The Scion owns all roads, and does not care for them to be mistreated, not even by our beloved ruling class, and certainly not by the peasantry.

  I couldn’t actually see him behind the beaded curtains that let in air and light but let none escape, but it didn’t take a dan’shir to figure which palanquin was Lord Toshtai’s. It was suspended between two huge horses, each probably a third again as large as the other horses. The animals were probably originally of farming stock, but had been caparisoned as though they were the finest of saddle horses, from their intricately braided manes down to their lacquered hooves.

  Mixed among the palanquins were a trio of musicians, playing as they walked. The drummer, his instrument a long and narrow one, manipulated the top with only his thumbs, keeping up a marching pace that was acknowledged rather than echoed by a silverhorn and wolute.

  Behind the palanquins came the rest of the staff: the head cook and his nine assistants, some carrying pots and pans, others carrying cages filled with squawking chickens and ducks or sad-eyed squirrels, some leading a harnessed pig, chivying along a somber steer, or twitching a milk cow into a more rapid gait; the servitors, bearing trays of sweetmeats and striped clay bottles of honeyed wine to offer the occupants of the horses and palanquins; the porters, either carrying huge bags strapped to their strapping backs or pulling reluctant draft donkeys fully laden with boxes and sacks of all shapes and sizes; a team of five hostlers, each leading two spare mounts; a claque of six concubines, exchanging whispers and giggles among themselves and the launderers accompanying them; a brace of woodsmen with their climbing gear, ready to climb trees and cut down the highest, softest pine branches for the base of Lord Toshtai’s bed; and, finally, a troop of walking soldiers, their bone armor clicketyclicketyclicking as they walked.

  A simple expedition from Den Oroshtai to friendly, almost allied Glen Derenai.

  I figured that the end of it all would be a good place for me—if the dan’shir brought up the end, I decided, he was about as far away from Lord Minch and his displeasure as was possible—so I picked up my bag and stepped off the porch.

  “Bide a moment,” Narantir said.

  Puzzled, I turned.

  The door opened, and Madame Rupon stood there with a small wicker basket, its contents concealed by the several sheets of greased rice paper that had been tucked around the perimeter.

  “Be well on your trip,” she said, “and thank you again, Kami Dan’Shir.”

  I knew I’d missed something, something important. Narantir had just talked treason openly, and as a result Madame Rupon had prepared some food for the road.

  The wizard was fingering a smooth piece of glass that I hadn’t seen him holding before. He rose, tucking it away in his robes.

  He smiled. “Just a little cantrip using the Law of Predisposition,” he said. “It doesn’t take much magic to make something be itself or do what it wants to do. Works for starting an avalanche, and it’s a terrific aphrodisiac for the eager-but-hesitant. I’d use it for sharpening a knife, but a whetstone works better.

  “It also can be used to make a simple and loyal middle-class woman hear that somebody has enjoyed her food—something she is predisposed to hear—rather than that he has talked treason, eh?” His grin broadened. “I might even want to use it, some time, to make you make a fool of yourself.”

  I held back my own smile. It wasn’t hard. As soon as he figured out that he was going to have to run to catch up…

  He jerked his thumb at the basket. “Carry the food, eh?”

  “My pleasure,” I said, shrugging my bag over one shoulder and taking the basket in the other hand as we walked out onto the road, following the last of the soldiers. One turned to look at the two of us for the longest time, but then he turned away.

  “I’ll meet you further on,” I said. “After all you have to run up to the keep and get your bags.”

  It would be fun to see. And a bit of revenge. Narantir had enjoyed sticking me with needles the time he’d fixed my broken bones, and he had particularly appreciated his own cleverness in getting me to be the victim, or subject or whatever you want to call it, the time he had run the pathos spell and joined me with a sword.

  Now it was time to get a little self-appreciation back.

  Narantir shook his head. “Not at all. I woke up early to stow my bags aboard the packhorses.” He tapped me on the chest, not lightly. “You see, if your gear is first aboard, then additional horses will be laid on to carry that of the nobles. You must always know your place, Kami Dan’Shir, and know how to fit into it.” His smile was gone. “And you must learn who to trifle with… successfully, eh? Bring the food.”

  There wasn’t much to amaze me that morning and afternoon as we walked down the road toward the camping ground. I had been walking the roads of D’Shai since I was old enough to walk, and before that I had been carried. It wasn’t going to surprise or amuse me that the sunwise road out of Den Oroshtai passed through paddies of rice and fields of wheat and fulgum before it twisted into the cool green of the Korbi Copse and up into the wooded hills, snaking almost to crests before it dropped down into the valleys, sometimes bridging rivers, sometimes dipping beneath streams at a ford, emerging from the water on the far side.

  Yawn.

  The first time you walk a road, something new is around the bend, and its newness makes it interesting. Anything will do: a fence, a field, a flower, a flight of fidgetbugs. The second time, it’s still entertaining. By perhaps the fifth time, if you’ve any memory at all, there’s the same old thing around the same old bend or over the same old hill, and by the time you’ve lost count nothing new will either surprise or please. By the thousandth time you’ve stepped out on the roads of D’Shai, it’s all the same, no matter which road you’re on. There’s nothing to surprise.

  Yes, birds sat in the trees: redbirds in the lowland areas, watching unafraid from the green leaves, as though they blended safely in; blackly sleek crows, mocking us from perches on the heavier limbs; the odd sparrow flitting back and forth.

  But a bird is a bird.

  Trees were trees, whether they were the giant elms that canopied over a flat stretch, shielding us from the heat of the afternoon, turning it all into a cool green tunnel, or whether they were the fertapines that stretched straight up toward the sun, tapering so slowly and elegantly that perspective momentarily betrays you and you think they’re actually cylindrical, really reaching up and scraping the clouds as they go by.

  But, as I said, trees are trees.

  Only three things amazed me.

  One was how slowly the procession moved. I guess I should have foreseen it; it’s obvious in retrospect that any group that’s going to stay together is delayed by the slowest of the party. For the troupe, that had been Evrem the snakehandler, and his preferred pace wasn’t really much slower than that of the Eresthais.

  Here, the slowest walkers, much slower than the average, were the concubines and the oxen. I’m tempted to try to learn something from that, but I guess I’d better not.

  The second thing that amazed me that day was how quickly I had gone soft, lost my edge. It had only been a month or so since the troupe had left, but when we reached the first night’s camping ground in the hour of the octopus, I was actually tired. No, not tired: exhausted, and in pain.

  The last thing that amazed me was how much I hurt. I had walked the roads of D’Shai barefoot, in sandals, and in heavy peasant boots; it hadn’t occurred to me that my new bourgeois boots would rub the inside of my big toe into a mass of blisters.

  I didn’t have much to do in camp, once the hour of the snake had given way to the hour of the bear. A razor-sharp knife, a basin of tepid wat
er, a cloth, some horrid-smelling Estrani soap, and a surprisingly odorless salve from Narantir had dealt with my blisters. Dinner was over; the chief cook and his top assistants were already in their tents, presumably asleep under the soft red silk that rippled in the light wind. The animal handlers, both hostlers and stablemen, wrestled with their appropriate animals at the far—downwind—end of the huge clearing. Most of the soldiers were asleep, in regular lines and files, in their blankets, while others kept watch out in the night, or sang quietly among themselves.

  A nice time of night. Back in Den Oroshtai, I would have been walking in the gardens, hoping to accidentally encounter TaNai trying to accidentally encounter me. It was nice to be able to take things slowly with her, but our time would come, perhaps.

  But not now.

  Two bonfires had been lit; in their flickering light, Lords Minch and Arefai shot at the target box they had set up at the far end of the clearing. Estrer, Edelfaule, and Toshtai watched, seated on the middle three of the five thrones, while fat Narantir stood behind, occasionally snatching up a sweetmeat from the tray between the two of them.

  I was going to see if I could strike up a conversation with one of the servitor girls, but as I started to turn away, Minch’s head turned toward me. He made a two-fingered gesture, beckoning me over.

  “Lord Arefai and I have been trifling with some target shooting,” he said. He hadn’t given up on his theme of red and gray in his clothing, although he was wearing hunting clothes, and the red of his thick overshirt was muted almost to the point of brown, while the gray of his pantaloons was mottled with brown blotches; he could easily disappear in the woods.

  Arefai grinned. “Trifling, indeed. I’ve put seven into the box, and three arrows into the night.”

  Lady Estrer chuckled behind her hand. “Between the two of them, I suspect the night’s ready for dressing out and cutting into thick, juicy steaks.”

  Minch pretended not to hear her. “I would like to see you shoot, after that heart shot of such fame,” he said. His thin lips narrowed. “I might even like to shoot with you.”