Northshore

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Now the last of the delegations was on his knees before her. One lonely man.

  ‘They came on us before dawn, Highness,’ said the lonely man in an emotionless voice. ‘Most of the camp was still asleep when I left. When I heard the cries, I came back. They rounded up the women and children, even the babies, and killed them while the men were forced to watch. After the killing, they let the men see the bodies just to be sure all the women and children were dead.’ He went on in that same dead voice, describing the scene, the cries. ‘The Jondarite captain told them they had no families to return to,’ the man said at last, falling silent. He knelt before her, eyes on the floor, as though he expected nothing from her at all, as though he expected nothing from anyone.

  Fibji had bitten her tongue in the need not to speak. Strenge had spoken for her, as he usually did, knowing what was in her heart.

  ‘How did you escape?’

  ‘I had gone out before dawn to visit the mud grave of my father, to leave offerings to his spirit. I was returning when the Jondarites came. I hid, watching from the hill. I should have been taken with the others, but I could have changed nothing, and someone needed to tell you, Highness.’

  Fibji had recently spent some time at the Chancery, going there under a banner of truce, appealing to the Protector of Man, attempting to get something from the Council of Seven, a treaty, an understanding, anything that would stop the taking of slaves and the mindless killing. She had not even seen the Protector. The council had refused to consider her request. She had failed in every effort, all the time afire to get home. Now she regretted being here. At the Chancery there might be something more she could do; there was nothing here. She could do nothing here except listen to the endless tales of slaughter and rapine, endless pleas for action against the Jondarite tax collectors and slavers and murderers, pleas that received a sympathetic hearing and no action at all. ‘Because they have me,’ she told herself. ‘That damned general has us all, like birds caught in a net.’ General Jondrigar would not mind if all the Noor were dead. He welcomed those times when the young men of the Noor rebelled against their queen to wage war against him, for then he could kill them more quickly. He welcomed uprisings, for then he could mount a major assault. The only hope for the Noor lay in not provoking him to a major effort, not until the plan could be put into effect. Then … well, then they would either live or die, but they would not go on as victims.

  If the young men would hold their peace. If they could move onward with the plan. If she could have seen the Protector.

  Oh, surely, surely Lees Obol would have listened. Surely the Protector of Man would not consider the Noor unworthy of his protection. Were Noor not men? But she had not seen the Protector. Only Maintainer of the Household Shavian Bossit, who had put her through half a dozen inconclusive and frustrating sessions.

  ‘Have you seen Jondarites take your people slaves?’ he had asked half a hundred times. ‘Have you seen it?’

  No, she had not seen it. Had not seen the slavers come, had not seen the tax collectors come, had not seen the murderers come, had only heard about it afterward, from the survivors, when there were any. ‘Take me to your metal mines, Lord Maintainer. Let me identify the slaves there. They are my people.’

  ‘Tsk. Your Highness is misinformed. We have no slaves in our mines. Only bondsmen from Northshore. And as for those who took your people, how do you know they were Jondarites? Rebel townsmen, perhaps, in Jondarite dress? I’m sure that’s who it was. Apply to the Supervisor of the Tower of whatever town they are from, Queen Fibji.’

  As well apply to the moons, she thought viciously. There were no rebel townsmen, only Jondarites, Jondarites who kept the depredations remote from the Queen’s tents and thus could not be directly accused by the Queen.

  ‘We will accept without question anything Your Highness has seen personally,’ said Bossit, smiling, always smiling, dripping politeness and courtesy as a rotten fruit drips juice. ‘In accordance with the treaty the Chancery has always had with the Noor,’ he said, showing his tiny teeth, a curve of threatening ivory, like a knife.

  In accordance with the treaty! A treaty, made generations before, in an untrusting age when the Noor King had feared anyone speaking in his name and would speak only for himself. Used against them now to prevent her speaking. If she camped north of Thou-ne, the Jondarites struck above Vobil-dil-go. If she went to the lands above Vobil-dil-go, the Jondarites would take captives above Shfor. Wherever the Noor moved upon the open steppes, the Jondarites could find them. There was no stone, no tree, to hide behind. There were no chasms, no caves. There was only the steppe, open to the sky, and the tethered balloons of the Jondarite spies, who would see their quarry from miles away. And she, Fibji, would see the pain of the wounded and the mud graves of the dead – assuming there had been anyone left to bury the dead – but she would not see Jondarites. She knew that someone reported on her movements. Perhaps those winged demons, seeing where she went and being sure the Jondarites knew it.

  So, now, she heard the man from the slaughtered tribe. He was alone. Without near-kin. Well, that, at least, she could pretend to remedy. She gestured, a tiny movement, at once interpreted, as she called out a few words in the secret naming language of the Noor.

  ‘Mumros, Her Highness takes you into her tribe, into her family. She calls you Kalja Benoor. Adopted Near-kin.’

  The man who had brought the news leaned upon his hands and wept. It was not for joy. He knew as well as she the adoption was only a gesture. Near-kin could not be so easily replaced, nor grief so easily stayed. Still, when he left the tent it was with a steadier gait than that with which he had entered.

  ‘Your Highness?’ A murmured voice at her ear.

  ‘Yes, Strenge, what is it?’ Of all her men he was her favorite: strong, not at all servile, yet attentive to her dignity, virile, father of two of her children.

  ‘The delegation from the boatmen.’

  ‘Haven’t there been enough delegations for one day?’ There was despair in her whispered voice. He heard it. Among all her people he was the only one she let hear it.

  ‘They have Glizzee spice, Your Highness.’ His eyes were down, his posture dignified. If they were alone, he would call her Fibby. They had been children together. And lovers later. And lovers still.

  ‘And we have no spice, is that it? And our people have few enough pleasures, they should not have to do without this one. And the boatmen won’t deal without seeing me?’

  ‘Your Highness sees the invisible and hears the inaudible.’ He gave her a secret glance, one she knew as well as she knew the feel of her own skin.

  ‘My Highness is dying of the agony of my people, Strenge. Of inanition and frustration. Of the duplicity of the Chancery and an unapproachable creature that calls itself the Protector of Man. Put them off.’

  ‘Ma’am, one of them is the man called Fatterday. He claims to have seen Southshore.’

  Fatterday! Was Fatterday a real person, then? Not a mere story hero, favorite protagonist of the Jarb Mendicants’ tales? Was he here, now? Bringing word of a larger world out there than this circumscribed one, squeezed between the Teeth of the North and all the little, biddable towns of Northshore, and chewed to death by Jondarites? Fatterday, who had perhaps seen what Fibji had only dared hope for, a homeland beyond the reach of the general’s troops? She gasped, holding Strenge with the fire of her eyes. ‘Do you think he tells the truth?’

  ‘Who could know, ma’am? However, I knew you would want to see him.’

  ‘In the small tent, then. I’ve a cramp in my butt from sitting on this damn thing, and I must be able to question him.’

  Strenge affected not to have heard her, his face impassive as he turned to bellow at the courtiers and warriors hanging about. ‘You have Her Highness’s leave to go. The boatmen may await her pleasure outside.’

  They left quickly. Protocol prevented her rising until they were gone, and they knew her displeasure at being kept waiting. When th
e heavy tent flaps dropped behind them, she stood up, rubbing her rump, kicking off the jeweled boots and harness, handing over the holy scepter to be put in its case. Strenge was ready with a soft robe and shoes of quilted pamet embroidered with flowers. Against the white fiber her skin glowed dark, like oiled fragwood, and when she pulled off the high, feathered crown, her hair tumbled across the fabric like a thousand twining little vines, twisty and moving as though each lock had its own life. Her hawk-nosed face relaxed somewhat from its audience expression, the lines around her mouth and eyes smoothing out, dropping decades from her appearance. I’m an old woman, she thought to herself, knowing she wasn’t, yet, but needing to get used to the idea. Too old for all this sitting.

  The small tent adjacent was her own living space, the piled carpets dotted with soft pillows and small tables. ‘Let them come in here,’ she said, taking one of the huge pillows for her own. ‘Have someone bring us some wine. I ache all over.’ –

  They came in, three of them, one lean, two stocky, brown men all, though none so dark as she. Their darkness was merely of the sun, while hers was of an ancient race, so it was said among the Northlings.

  ‘Your Highness.’ Three voices, all of them muffled from being spoken into the carpet, three backs bent impossibly to prevent their eyes meeting hers.

  ‘Oh, stand up,’ she said impatiently. ‘I have to have all that out there where people are watching, but I haven’t time for it here. Which one of you is Fatterday?’

  He stood forward, the leanest one of the bunch, burned almost as dark as she by the sun and with deep white lines radiating from his eyes where the sun had not reached down into squint lines, smiling irrepressibly. ‘Your Highness. I’m Fatterday.’

  ‘And you’ve truly seen Southshore?’

  He bowed again, nodding assent, not speaking.

  ‘Well, tell me! What is it like? Are there people there? Are there fliers?’

  ‘Your Highness, we were cast ashore on a rocky coast among high mountains. From the top of a mountain I saw an endless plain under the sun.’ His eyes were alight, his fingers twitching as they described the outlines and dimensions of the lands, the rivers. ‘I saw no fliers, no people. After many days, we managed to repair the boat enough to sail northward once more. Only we three survived to bring you the tale.’

  ‘A great land.’ She regarded him thoughtfully, wondering if he told the truth. ‘For the taking, boatman?’

  ‘From all I could see, free for the taking, Your Highness. If one could come to it. I saw no fliers.’

  And that was it, of course. No fliers. No Jondarites. She lusted for it. The dream required lands. Lands for the people of the north, free from fliers, free from attacks by the Jondarite tax collectors, free from the constant pressures of the Chancery. Lands to hold without taxation. And lands with beasts. In her mind she saw wagons pulled as they were in the Chancery lands, by beasts instead of by her people. Oh, with beasts one could move, move, out of reach of pursuing armies. Oh, why not have lands, Northlings? Why not have beasts?

  ‘How did you come there?’

  ‘We were prospecting among the islands for Glizzee, Your Highness. We followed a great school of strangeys. Came a strong, wild current in World River, and we were driven south. Came storm and great wind driving us, days and days, until we lost track of them. Many died. Most. Only seven of us came to that shore, and only we three returned.’ He did not say how they had lived or what they had eaten. They could not have eaten the local animals and survived, not without human grains to go with them. They could have eaten fish. It was better, perhaps, not to know how they had survived.

  ‘So, how would we come there, if we chose to go?’

  ‘If you chose to go, Highness, you should go well provisioned. It is a long voyage. Still, I would not hesitate to make it again. There are wonders there.’

  She waved him away. That was the question, wasn’t it? How could one get better provisioned with the Chancery taking all but a bare sufficiency. They were lucky if the scavengers from the Chancery left them grain enough for the cold season and a spare bit more should the warm come late. When that was all they were allowed to assemble, how could they put together a store for a long voyage? And how put together the boats, come to that? Fibji’s people numbered some hundreds of thousands, not many compared to the population of Northshore, but a great horde when one considered the size of most boats. Fifty at a time, perhaps. Hundreds of thousands of Noor, and only fifty at a time. If they took one boat from every town …

  She shook herself, shedding the vision of lands beyond the River. Fatterday was still standing there, as though he had not seen her excuse him. The man was still to be dealt with.

  ‘You came north across the World River to Thou-ne?’

  ‘We did, ma’am. With Glizzee spice as the whole of our property, all that was left us after the storm save the shell of our boat.’

  ‘And you brought it here because the price is better so far from the World River?’

  ‘As Your Highness says.’ He grinned knowingly.

  ‘And it would help you, now, if we bought your spice from you?’

  He bowed, unspeaking. It was probably the only thing that would help him, she thought. He had likely been impoverished by his adventure. He must have had everything he owned lost on the voyage. She beckoned to Strenge, signaling him to send for the coffer keeper. They had little enough in stores of food or obvious possessions, the Noor, but the Melancholies did keep the Queen’s coffers filled. So let Fatterday be paid, and let him think it was for the spice. Actually, the payment was for the news he brought her. News she could use.

  When the boatmen were gone, she summoned her near-kin, not forgetting the lonely survivor most recently adopted. They drank sammath wine as they talked of Southshore, of the goddess, of themselves and the Jondarites.

  ‘But what of the plan?’ they asked, uncomfortable at the thought of giving up the thing they had been working on for so very long.

  ‘We are not yet changing the plan,’ she replied. ‘It was too long in the making to change it unless for something far better. So far, we have only the word of an explorer. He could be lying. He could be mistaken. No, we are not yet talking of changing the plan. But let us investigate the dream. If Southshore is within reach …’

  She did not need to complete the thought. The old plan had been fifty years in the making, thirty in implementation. Here and there across the steppes were great complexes of tunnels dug secretly by the Noor. There beneath the steppes were towns, cities. There beneath the scattered grainfields were dormitories and meeting halls and storehouses now beginning to hold some grain and roots hidden from the tax collectors. Timbers supported the corridors beneath the earth, timbers bought from the Queen’s coffers, moved at night, hidden by day. Clever mechanisms brought air into the depths, mechanisms paid for from the Queen’s funds. Melancholies went south into the cities and returned with goods and coin, and both went into the underground cities Queen Fibji was building. Fifty thousand of the Queen’s people dwelt beneath the moors already, and more were descending every day. In twenty years more, or thirty, all would have made themselves a redoubt within the earth. Then, the scouts would watch for Jondarite balloons, would signal the approach of armies, but those armies would find no one on the open steppes, no one to enslave, no one to tax. Or if they did, they would fight tunnel by tunnel, room by room, against strong defenses.

  And across the breadth of the steppes hundreds of thousands of mud graves stood mute evidence of the soil dug out in the dark hours. If any had had sense to see it. How could so sparse a people have had so many dead? But the Jondarites had not asked that question.

  ‘And yet,’ she whispered to herself, ‘and yet, in that thirty years or fifty years, how many more will really die?’ The young men grew belligerent in the underground places. If they could not fight the Jondarites, they fought one another. Queen Fibji had made a rule that boys could dwell below only until they had fathered two children; t
hen they must return to the nomad tribes above. Which made it more peaceful below but left the children without fathers to learn from. She sighed. Thinking again of Fatterday, she wondered how many of her people might be saved if there were truly a Southshore and she could find some way to come to it.

  Now her near-kin were saying the same things over and over, worrying the subject to rags. Her mind wandered, remembering.

  On one particular day long ago she had walked with her father across a stretch of the arid lands, away from the tribe, free for the moment from servitors or petitioners. He had taken her on these walks sometimes, talking and talking, as though to gift her with the essence of his thought to store for some future time. She was his only child.

  ‘The young always want to go to war,’ he had said. ‘And the old are too often eager to send them. The young revel in thoughts of battle. They think blood is wine, that it can be spilt without consequence and a new vintage bought for tomorrow’s feast. And the old are sometimes willing to have young men gone, to have their exasperating numbers thinned to a biddable fraction, for they, the young men, are the source of dissent and confusion. It is among them that revolution Breeds, often to no point. But what good are dead warriors, Fibji?’

  He stopped, as though taken by a sudden memory. ‘Long ago, when I was only a youth and my father was yet King, I came upon a Jarb Mendicant sitting on a stone here on the steppe, wreathed in the smoke of his pipe. I was joyful and sanguine then. I said to him, “Mendicant, give me a prognostication for our people.” He looked at me through the smoke, as they do, and said at last, “I see peace and prosperity for the Noor, Prince, but only when the ruler of the Noor can answer the question, ‘Of what good are dead warriors?’ ” ’