“I want to hear of his adventures when he comes back,” said Djalout. “If be does come back, that is.”
The Cahena called a council to consider all reports of Hassan and his line of fortresses where, said Bhakrann, reinforcements kept trickling in. Ketriazar told how he and Daris had fought and driven Lartius’s men and had destroyed fields and orchards there and elsewhere along the coast. “It’s a desert up there now,” Ketriazar said happily. “Those soft city people can find out how to live in the wilderness. It’ll toughen them up.”
“We ran them like rats at Cirta,” added Daris. “You should have been there, Wulf, with that big old widow-making sword of yours.”
“I’m glad I wasn’t,” said Wulf, and the Cahena turned her brilliant eyes upon him.
“Why are you glad of that?” she challenged.
“Lady Cahena, I get sick of killing,” he said. “War has been my trade ever since I was a boy, but I see that war gets nobody anywhere. I wish we could stop it, among ourselves and with the Moslems.”
“I thought that war was your great study in life,” she said.
“More or less, but I’ve studied other things, and wish I’d studied them better.”
The Cahena listened to more reports of how the northern country had been laid waste, and frowned over Lartius’s defiance. “Well,” she said at last, “he may hold on top of his mountain, but his crops are ruined. He’ll have to leave Cirta, and we’ll move in and raze it. How about Yaunis?”
“He didn’t like to obey, but he did,” said Ketriazar. “Packed up his people and went away with their herds and their tents. I tried to talk to him, but he didn’t listen.”
“Let him sulk until he sees my wisdom,” said the Caheria. “Or, should I say, Khalid’s wisdom.”
“You flatter me, Lady Cahena,” said Khalid, with his smile.
“Wulf, you and Bhakrann will scout to see to the destruction of the crops,” went on the Cahena. “Go tomorrow morning, and get a good rest tonight.”
Wulf rested only part of the night, because Daphne came stealing in to him. So tenderly she treated him, so passionately, that he felt guilty again that he did not utterly love her. She was so good.
* * *
XXI
Wulf was busy in the months that followed. The Cahena sent him northward to the seacoast, where details of Ketriazar’s and Daris’s men busily destroyed trees and crops and dismantled fishing villages. The inhabitants scowled but did not dare resist.
The land parched and grew bare. Smaller settlements obeyed the Cahena. They told Wulf that they would harvest one more crop of grain, pick the last fruit from their trees, then destroy everything and wander. They knew the hunting life.
Wulf talked to various wise men and women, who missed wonders they had known. They could not guess the weather, could not foretell what hunting parties would bring back to eat. When the Cahena heard his report, she was more or less pleased. He talked to Djalout. over cups of the good wine Djalout always found for them.
“What do you think of all this?” Djalout asked.
“I think nothing, I just obey orders. The Cahena tells me what to do, and I do it.”
Djalout stroked his beard. “I wonder what voice she hears these days, other than the voice of Khalid. What do you think of him?”
“He has the ear of the Lady Cahena.”
“Is that enough for you, Wulf?”
“It has to be enough.”
Djalout smiled creasily. “Well, maybe the Moslems will come back and starve in a starved land. If that happens, if we can turn them back, maybe we can grow food and have towns again. I don’t presume to forecast.”
And there was Daphne, always Daphne. She came to Wulf whenever she could. He made love to her and wished he could talk to her. But she was not like the Cahena in talking. Or like the Cahena in lovemaking. There had never been one like the Cahena, in anything.
He had much to do. He drilled the men in various formations with javelins and stabbing spears, lest they grow rusty. He saw to bringing in supplies from far to the south, and paid for them. By now the Cahena had set up relays of riders to bring reports from all regions of the lands she ruled, and Wulf heard messages from Daris and Ketriazar; their tribes adjusted well to the old roaming, hunting life. From Yaunis came querulous complaints — his people did not like being primitive. From Lartius at Cirta came no word at all.
“Lartius is sulking,” said the Cahena. “Let him sulk until he sees the wisdom of what we’re doing.”
“Yes,” agreed Khalid, his eyes upon her.
Shua the Ethiopian came drifting back to Thrysdus, grotesque on his grotesque horse. Wulf and Djalout entertained him and he grumbled to them.
“I’ve been to that Tomb of the Christian Woman,” he told them, scowling into a cup of Djalout’s wine. “It’s empty. The people graze their flocks around it and tell tales of whatever it was you managed to kill there. I take it that life isn’t so interesting in those parts, not anymore.”
“Not any more,” Wulf echoed him.
“The women, for instance,” resumed Shua sourly. “A traveler wants women to divert and refresh him. Don’t stare, I’ve probably had more women in my time than the two of you together. But out there in your burned-over desert the women try to do old magics, old rites, and nothing comes of that. They complain about how they live. When the last grain is gone from the last harvest, what will be left to eat? Love, they say, isn’t worth talking about. Their love gods don’t appear. Maybe their love gods have vanished somewhere to a place where wonder still abides.”
“Ah,” crooned Djalout. “Any woman I may have once loved is now grown old and probably boresome.”
“I’ve had my successes, in places where my magic worked.” Shua’s eyes glittered. “Love is magic, it must have magic to exist. Now, there’s your Lady Cahena, as beautiful a woman as I’ve ever seen. Does she love? Wulf, you’ve been a close companion to her, does she love?”
“How should I know?” Wulf parried the question.
“What about that pretty young gallant of hers, Khalid? Do they love?”
“He advises her, and she takes his advice,” said Djalout. “It was on his advice that she scorched all the land, destroyed the towns, to leave the invaders no plunder anywhere.”
“That was bad advice,” said Shua. “The people don’t like it. They scold the Cahena’s name. I gather that some of them have sent messages to the Moslems, hint that the Moslems would be welcome. How’s that for news?”
“Sad news, but not totally surprising,” said Djalout gravely. “I daresay that Wulf isn’t totally surprised, either.”
“Wulf seems to obey your Queen Cahena in everything,” said Shua. “Maybe he loves her and doesn’t dare say so.”
“You’ve been arguing that love is dead here, like all magic,” Wulf reminded him. “I wonder if you think that the death of that creature at the Tomb of the Christian Woman brought all this new aspect of life.”
“It helped, it helped,” growled Shua. “Now, my friends, I want to go back home to Ethiopia, where we can still have magic.”
“Ethiopia,” said Wulf. “It’s an old country, a proud one.”
“Yes, we’re proud,” Shua told him. “Our kings are descended from Solomon and Queen Balkis. Shabak came from Ethiopia to be pharaoh of Egypt. We’ve a right to be proud.”
Wulf and Djalout found supplies for Shua’s journey and bade him good-bye and good luck.
“He left in comparative good humor,” commented Djalout. “He liked you, Wulf, your philosophies.”
“You think I’ve become a philosopher?”
“I think you’ve always been a philosopher. Well, Shua’s gone, but yonder I see Bhakrann, back from one of his hostage-trading trips.” Bhakrann greeted them gloomily, but brightened when Djalout poured him wine.
“Good,” said Bhakrann, smacking his lips over the cup. “Those Allah worshippers give you good things to eat, but nobody has wine except maybe in secret
. And Hassan gets hard to bargain with.”
“For hostages?” asked Wulf.
“He’ll pay, but he wants to pay what he wants to pay. I asked him for swords, and he had none to spare.” Bhakrann gritted his teeth. “None to spare? Why, he has bundles of swords, tied up like faggots of firewood. He won’t let them go.”
“He wants them for his own men,” suggested Djalout.
“Yes, and he has lots of men. They crowd his string of forts. More men, I judge, than he had when we fought him and whipped him. He’ll come against us again. A woman defeated him, and he wants revenge.”
As Wulf pondered this, a messenger came to say that the Cahena summoned him to discuss an assignment.
She sat in her chamber with Mallul and Khalid. “You’re to visit Yaunis and other peoples to the west,” she said. “To see how they obey me. If the Moslems come again, I want them to starve wherever they invade.”
“You’ll see to that,” put in Khalid. “Speak plainly to the people. Explain our reasons and remind them what will come of disobedience.”
Wulf stared at him. “You’re giving me orders, are you?”
“His orders are my orders,” said the Cahena.
Wulf shifted his gaze to her. “I obey orders from you, not from Khalid or anybody else.”
“Then obey my orders,” she said bleakly. “Ride out tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Wulf said after her. “Yes.”
Daphne was with him that night, enveloping him with caresses. She wanted to go with him on his mission, and pouted when he said that that was out of the question. Between kisses, she said that she had been drilling archers in a field outside of Thrysdus, teaching them a harrow formation to send blizzardlike flights of arrows.
“But they’re not the best archers,” she complained. “Archers should be trained from when they’re children. Those bowmen from Cirta are better.”
“Cirta doesn’t approve of what we’re doing,” said Wulf.
“Doesn’t approve of what we’re doing? You mean, like this?”
Her arms were around him. She laughed as he responded. She was so good.
Wulf left next morning. He took half a dozen Djerwa riders along, including Cham and Smarja. As they left Thrysdus, another man rode at a lope to join them. It was Mallul.
“I want to come with you, see what happens,” he told Wulf.
Wulf wondered if Mallul would be a spy on him. “Did she send you?” he asked.
“No, I said I wanted to join you, and Khalid thought that was good, so I was given permission.”
Wulf gazed off toward distant knolls. “Khalid gave you permission?”
“He suggested it, and my lady mother granted it.” Mallul, too, stared away for a moment. Then: “Don’t you like Khalid?”
“Do you?” parried Wulf.
“We get along well together. He knows so much. He and I talk in Arabic, and he’s been teaching me to write in Arabic, too. Yes, I like Khalid.”
The party crossed great expanses of what once had been good farmland. It was bare now, dusty now, and a spell of hot weather made it bleakly ugly. When they camped at the sides of streams, they filtered the sluggish, murky water through a cloth before they drank it. Here and there they found encampments of people, small family groups. Men seemed meditative, women were shy, children looked gaunt. Mallul talked to these people, eloquently assured them that the Cahena had their interests at heart. They heard him and said little in reply.
Wulf came to where Yaunis and his people lived. They had returned to their town, rebuilding huts and tending crops. Yaunis greeted Wulf courteously and answered questions by Mallul.
“You don’t seem to be obeying orders,” said Mallul.
“Wait until the Moslems come,” Yaunis said. “If they should get this far, we could set fire to our homes, our grain, destroy everything within hours. As well wait till then as do it now.”
“You wouldn’t be here to see to it,” reminded Wulf. “If the Moslems come, you’ll be with us in the east to fight them.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” said Yaunis impatiently. “I’ve never turned my back on .my duty. But it’s hard to destroy all your own food and shelter. Lartius feels the same way at Cirta.”
Wulf looked Yaunis up and down.Yaunis wore a handsomely patterned tunic and a jeweled chain. His beard was carefully trimmed to a point. Wulf remembered how Yaunis had talked of visiting Carthage, appreciating Carthage, the Carthage that again had been destroyed. After a moment, Wulf asked, “Is that the word you want me to take back to the Cahena?”
“Yes. She’ll understand.”
“She may understand much better than you’ll like,” said Wulf, and departed.
Wulf’s companions protested as he led them by the southern trail toward Tiergal, and liked it even less when he ordered camp made at the palm-fringed spring where once the Cahena’s escort had been aware of strange voices and appearances. They kept watch that night, in pairs, but no disturbance came. The haunted spring was haunted no more. The magic of the whole country had vanished.
He turned his march eastward and reached Thrysdus. The Cahena heard what Yaunis had said, and frowned over it.
“He’s slow to obey, and I’d have expected better of him,” she said. “It’s not so strange that Lartius isn’t trustworthy, but Yaunis — I’ll have to bring him back into line. Where’s Khalid? Bring him here, I want his views on this.”
Wulf left her talking earnestly to Khalid, and found Djalout and Bhakrann idling among the horses grazing in the arena. He told them of his interview with Yaunis. Bhakrann scowled.
“Yaunis has always wanted the city life,” he said. “It would do him good to live in the open, chasing deer and picking up snails. Will he stay with us?”
“I’m not sure,” Wulf confessed.
“Which means you suspect he won’t stay,” said Djalout. “If he and Lartius desert us, there will go nearly half of our fighting force. And the Moslems will be coming again.”
“My scouts say that more men show up almost every day at Hassan’s line of forts,” said Bhakrann. “And he collects big mountains of supplies — food, weapons, everything. Maybe making this land into a desert won’t starve him. He’ll bring along his own lunch. How do we fight them, Wulf?”
“It’ll take some doing,” said Wulf. “I must think about it.”
“We must all think about it,” said Djalout. “Thinking is difficult — that is why so few people do it. We try to consider the nature of reality and then the nature of wonder.”
“And sometimes we find both those natures the same,” said Wulf, and Bhakrann blinked at him.
“The things you say are strange things until you say them,” he vowed.
“Maybe he associates with me too much,” said Djalout, with one of his rare laughs. “Or can he associate with me too much?”
The Cahena summoned Wulf, to tell him to make a new survey of the land, to see if people obeyed her. Obediently he set out, with Susi and Cham. Daphne begged to go, and Wulf hugged her close and would not permit it.
The year out there was a dry one. The felling of orchards, the burning of crops, had had their effect. Wulf found bands of people haunting old farming areas in hopes that volunteer stalks of barley would grow and be worth reaping. Again, women looked tired, children looked unhappy and hungry. Men hunted every day, and brought back little.
“The world’s dead out here,” said one.
“If the Moslems come, they’ll find it so,” Wulf replied as he knew he must, and the man grinned mirthlessly.
“I wish they would come,” he said. “We could capture their food.”
“At least they wouldn’t get food from us,” said Wulf, and the man narrowed his eyes.
“Nobody can get food from us,” he grumbled. “Not even us.”
An arid winter came. Wells and streams dried up. People wandered here and there, for water and for what wild food they could find. Those who fared best were Ketriazar’s Medusi a
nd Daris’s Nefussa, with their traditions of roaming and hunting. Coming back to Thrysdus with his findings, Wulf met the Cahena and saw that she was almost hysterical with worry.
“It’s Khalid,” she said. “He’s sick, lies on his bed and won’t eat, won’t talk. And I can’t make him well.”
Wulf went with her to Khalid’s quarters. Khalid did not seem to he in a desperate condition. He drooped languidly on a couch draped with embroidered silk, nibbled at a fig, and drank clabbered camel’s milk. He seemed petulant when the Cahena asked him how he felt. “Only tired,” he said. “Only bored.”
“Bored?” she cried, as though that were a particularly dire symptom. “Wulf, why can’t I cure him? You’ve seen me heal the blind, stop the flow of blood from wounds. This is strange.”
“It was strange when you healed the sick,” said Wulf. “This is natural, no magic in it. If you let him alone, maybe he’ll get better.”
“Maybe!” she echoed. “Maybe! What can we do?”
Djalout answered that. He came and peered at Khalid, felt his forehead and the pulse at his wrist, then went to fetch back an array of dried plants to brew in hot water. Khalid drank this, complaining at the bitterness, and then Djalout wrapped him in heavy rugs until sweat streamed on his doleful face. At last Khalid deigned to sit up and say that he felt stronger, would have some food. The Cahena brought a basin of mutton soup and spooned it to his mouth with her own hands.
When Khalid was well, the Cahena spent hours alone with him. Yet again she sent Wulf on a long journey, with Mallul to accompany him, all the way to Cirta. Lartius received them, but complained about the Cahena’s orders.
“How can we destroy Cirta?” he challenged them. “It’s a natural fortress on this dome of rock. If we had food enough, we could hold off all the Moslems who would come, but we don’t have food enough. Your men have wrecked our orchards and fields and driven our cattle away to be wild. Tell the Cahena we’re not happy.”
“I’ll take that to her as your message,” said Mallul. “I’m her son, I can do that.”
Wulf and Mallul rode away, dissatisfied. They went on westward to the village near the Tomb of the Christian Woman. The old priestess gave them a welcome that was not much of a welcome.
Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1986 Page 21
