Anderson, Poul - Novel 18

by The Winter of the World (v1. 1)

  “How did you escape?”

  “Well, Gairloch’s not too bad a dingo. He knew I hadn’t decked him for fun, and wasn’t sure but what there might be, uh, excuses for me. Maybe I just deserved five years in a labor gang, not ten. He’d come and question me. I was tethered in a spare cabin. Yesterday he got in reach. I saw he was relaxed, and hit him, took his knife, cut myself free, burst loose. Five years breaking rock or cleaning fish for some damned greasy contract buyer is still too much.” Josserek described his journey. “Your lads saw me land and brought me here.”

  Casiru blew smoke and nodded anew. I’ll bet he’s already had my story pretty well checked out, Josserek thought. “They would simply have relieved you of what you carried and let you go,” Casiru said, “but you told them you wanted work in the Lairs.”

  “What else can I do? Sir.”

  Casiru stroked his whiskers. His tone grew pensive. “It isn’t as easy to become a Knife Brother as to become a bravo in a slum elsewhere. If nothing else, we have our past to maintain, which no mere brute can do. Men built Arvanneth before the Ice came. In days when they could fly, when myth says they went to the moon (and myth may not be lying), in those days—ten thousand years ago?—under whatever name, already Arvanneth was. Everything here is time-hallowed, all usages have prevailed for uncounted centuries. Yes, in the Lairs too. This particular Brotherhood, for example, was founded when the Ayan Imperium ruled in Rahfd. It has outlived that civilization, and it will outlive the successor civilization which today, for a moment, bestrides these parts. We do not lightly admit strangers to our secrets. How do we know you are not a spy for a rival Brotherhood or for the Imperial viceroy who is so eager to exterminate us?”

  Josserek quirked a smile. “Sir, I’m not exactly inconspicuous among your people. You’d know if I’d been around. As for serving Rahfd, didn’t I arrive on a ship from Killimaraich?”

  “How do you come to speak our language, then?”

  “Well, I’d been as far as the Hurricane Sea earlier. Was on the beach on Mandano several years back, after jumping ship because of, uh, personal problems. You probably know the Dramsters’ Guild has a factor there who deals with the rum distilleries. He gave me a drayman’s job. I stayed for more than a year, became his transport supervisor, but that meant learning Arvannethan. I’ve always been good at languages. Faring between the Mother Ocean islands, it’s a talent worth developing. After I left Mandano, I met a woman of your folk, she’d gotten in trouble and gone off with a sea captain from Eaching, he abandoned her there, we lived together a while and talked her talk—No matter.” Especially since every bit is a lie. Almost every bit. I am good at languages. A plausible yam though. Better be. Mulwen Roa and I worked hard on it.

  “M-m-m—What do you think you can do among us?”

  “Practically anything. I’ve been a sailor, longshoreman, hunter, fisher, miner, field hand, timber cruiser, carpenter, mason, shepherd, animal trainer, mercenary soldier—” Josserek called a halt. True, if incomplete.

  Casiru studied him, in a silence which deepened till the rain on nighted windowpanes rushed loud. Finally: “We shall see,” the leader said. “Consider yourself my guest ... provided you do not leave these premises without permission and an escort. Do you understand? We will discuss things further, beginning at supper in an hour’s time.” He addressed a guard: “Secor, show Josserek to my bathroom.” To the companion: “Aranno, find ... m-m ... Ori and send her to meet him there and tend him. And have someone lay out clean clothes and what else he will need, in the Manatee Room.”

  “You are very kind, sir,” Josserek said.

  Casiru chuckled. “Perhaps. It will depend on you.” .

  A corpse in the Lairs is nothing except food for stray dogs. On the way from the pier this morning, I saw a little naked child at play in the street. He was rolling a human skull around.

  Turrned amiable, Secor guided the foreigner through oak-paneled corridors. In the bathroom, two sunken tubs waited steaming full. Ori proved young and pretty. She slipped off her own brief garment when Josserek was in the first tub, scrubbed him clean, shaved him efficiently, then gave him a manicure and sang to him while he lounged in the perfumed water of the second tub. His reaction didn’t embarrass her. It had been long since his ship left Eflis. When he emerged and she started toweling him, his hands roved. “Please, sir,” she whispered. “Casiru would not like your being late. I will be in your bed tonight if you wish.”

  “I sure do!” Josserek stopped, stared down at the slight body, the almost childish face caught between raven braids, let her go and asked slowly, “Are you a slave?”

  “I am a Lily Sister.”

  “What?”

  “You haven’t heard, sir?”

  “I’m a stranger in the city, remember.”

  “We ... our lines ... are bred for looks—have been, oh, for always.” Ori crouched to rub his feet dry. “I am a cull,” she said humbly. “Casiru’s agent got me cheap. But I will try to please you.”

  Above her back, Josserek grimaced.

  I should be used to slavery. The gods bear witness I’ve seen it aplenty. Even in Killimaraich, where they brag they don’t have it, they’re a free people, even there they not only keep labor gangs—well, I suppose you must get some value out of convicts—but the waterfronts are full of crimps. He sighed. What I can't get used to is the way most slaves accept it.

  The Manatee Room was less pretentious than its name; somebody had once painted a sea cow on a wall. It was adequate, however. Several tunics hung in a closet for him to choose from, plus a cloak and two pairs of sandals. He removed the robe Ori had given him before they left the bath—Arvannethans had a nudity taboo, which fact reminded him of her lowly status—and clad himself. The garments fitted. “Did you expect company my size?” he laughed.

  “We sometimes entertain Rahidians, sir. Or Northfolk— Oh!” Appalled, she laid fingers across her lips. Josserek curbed response; but his pulse leaped.

  A purse, attached to his snakeskin belt, chinked. He inspected the contents: coins, lead and bronze, stamped with incantations in the spidery Arvannethan alphabet. From what he’d heard about price levels, he judged he could live ten days on the sum if he wasn’t extravagant—and if Casiru let him out, of course. Bribe? No, far too small. Either goodwill token or sly insult. I can’t tell which. Mulwen should have sent a man who knows this race. But, aye, aye, he did say nobody who does has my other qualifications.

  The image of his chief rose before Josserek, Mulwen Roa, himself not from Killimaraich but from Iki near the equator, on which island folk had coal-black skins and snow-white hair and frequently, like him, yellow eyes. But it was Eaching where they sat, in a room whose windows stood open to salt summer air and a view of red tile roofs drooping steeply downhill toward a bay where barks lay at rest and, far, far out amidst blueness, two whales were playing....

  No. Don’t get wistful. You can’t afford to.

  Hospitality here included a carafe of wine, cigarettes of both tobacco and dream weed, toiletries, but not knife, scissors, or razor. (Ori said she would barber him.) The containers were wooden. Glass or fired clay could have made a weapon. Doubtless the girl would report daily on everything he said and did. Josserek accepted this. If Casiru really was what he hoped—if, by sheer luck, he’d found those he sought on this first day of his quest—then Casiru did right to be cautious. Same for me.

  “Will you come dine, sir?” Ori asked.

  “Hungry as yonder flipperfoot,” Josserek said.

  She conducted him to the appropriate chamber, where she departed with a promising smile. Frescos on its walls were long faded to blurs. No one had ventured to restore them. Instead, embroidered draperies hung between many-branched bracketed candelabra. A mosaic floor of peacocks and flamingos remained bright, save for a badly chipped place repaired with red mortar and an inlaid name. Josserek guessed the chipping had happened during a fight, perhaps centuries ago, when a head of the Rattlebones got kille
d, and was left as a memorial to him. Lace, crystal, porcelain, silver decorated a table where three places had been set. Lighting was ample, savory odors filled warm air, servants moved noiselessly about. But they were all male, black-tunicked, daggerarmed, close-mouthed, stark-faced. And the windows were full of night and flooding, whispery rain.

  Casiru entered. Josserek bowed. “Well,” said the Arvannethan. “You were certainly keeping a different person beneath that wild man appearance of yours.”

  “A person who feels a lot better than he did, sir. Uh, we’ll have a third?”

  “You do not want the Watch to know where you are, Josserek Derrain. You might well kill for the sake of silence about it. I trust you will understand that your fellow guest—a highly honored guest—requires a similar discretion.”

  “What must I do to prove myself to you, sir?”

  “That is what we will seek to discover.”

  Then she arrived, and Josserek’s blood shouted within him.

  She was a hand’s-breadth less tall than he. In the forests of southern Owang he had seen tigers move as superbly. The fullness of her body had known much running, riding, swimming, hunting, fighting, and surely lovemaking. Her eyes, set far apart and obliquely above high cheekbones, were the hue of winter seas in sunlight. Her amber-colored hair, shoulder-length, was as carelessly worn as her undecorated, man-style tunic. She had a knife sheathed at either hip, a heavy one and a slender one. He saw that they had seen use.

  “Donya, of the Hervar kith and country in the Northlands,” Casiru said solemnly. In Arvanneth the most respected were named first. “Josserek Derrain from Killimaraich.”

  She drew near and they bowed in the manner of the city, which was alien to them both. Killimaraichans laid their right hands on each other’s shoulders. Rogaviki— what Rogaviki did was a matter of choice among them, or of family practice. It was said that they rarely liked to touch at first meeting. But her head came near enough his that he believed he caught a hint of sunny woman-fragrance off her skin. He did see how that skin was finely lined between yellow hair and black brows, and at the comers of the eyes. She must be some years older than him, though else she bore no sign of it.

  “Casiru told me a little about you. I hope you will tell more.” She spoke the language rather awkwardly, in a husky contralto. He couldn’t be sure whether her interest was real or feigned. The Rogaviki were also said to be a very reserved folk.

  If she doesn’t care, he thought, let’s try if we can change that. She must be part of what I’m searching for.

  Casiru gestured, servants moved chairs back, the three sat down. White wine, doubtless chilled in an icehouse, gurgled into goblets. Josserek raised his. “We have a custom at home,” he said. “When friends meet, one among them makes a wish for well-being, then the group drinks together. May I?” Casiru nodded. “To our happiness.”

  Casiru sipped. Donya did not. She locked her gaze with Josserek’s and said, “I do not know that we are friends.”

  He could only gape. Casiru sniggered.

  When the silence had stretched, Josserek floundered, “I hope we’re not unfriends, my lady.”

  “Neither do I know we are such,” she replied. “We will find out. But until—” She smiled, astonishingly gentle. “No harm intended. Many Rogaviki would have— drinked? —with you. But in my Fellowship we have a way which is like this, kept for the closest friends.”

  “I see. And I apologize.”

  “Apo—?”

  “He means he intended no harm either, and regrets if he fretted you,” Casiru said.

  “Eyach!” Donya murmured. She surveyed Josserek across the table. “Should a rough man have soft manners?”

  “I got in trouble,” Josserek said, “but that doesn’t mean I’m an oaf.”

  “Casiru told me what you told him. A part. I would like to hear the whole, from the first.” A tiny frown, as of puzzlement, touched Donya’s forehead. “I cannot grasp how anybody would freely go where terrible might things happen to him.”

  “We can’t all be hunters and metal traders, my lady. I must earn my keep somehow.”

  “And you are a ... a sailor, then? I have never met a sailor before.”

  “M-m-m, a sailor when that’s the best work available. What I really am is a shully.”

  “A what?” Casiru inquired.

  “Common word around the Mother Ocean,” Josserek said. “We have people, mostly men, who go rootless, wander around from island to island, living by whatever comes to hand and never staying put for long. Some are—worthless, or dangerous, beggars, swindlers, thieves, bandits, murderers, whenever they think it’s safe.”

  Casiru smiled a shade grimly. “That was not the most tactful possible remark in this house,” he said. The nearest serving man glided closer.

  Josserek’s muscles bunched. Donya broke the moment with a whoop of laughter.

  Josserek collected his wits. “No offense, sir,” he said. “Different practices from ours are, uh, institutionalized in Arvanneth.” Everything is.

  “Ho, what is a shully?” Donya asked, and tossed off her wine.

  “An—” All right, I’ll say it. I’ve got a sudden notion she won't let him tell any of these slinks to knife me. “An honest migratory worker.” He felt tension ease, and smiled into her eyes. “Not necessarily law-abiding. There are too many silly little laws, in the countless silly little nations around Oceania, for us to keep track of. But we have our code. Also, we take pride in being skillful workmen. Not that we’re formally organized or anything. We have a king, ceremonies, yearly meetings, but nobody keeps a register of membership, or initiates new chums, none of that nonsense. Word gets around. Everybody soon knows who is and is not a proper shully.”

  “Not before have I heard aught in the South that sounds so much like home,” Donya said.

  Turtle soup came.

  She was no coquette, flipping her eyelashes to let Josserek expand his ego. She was simply, bluntly interested in his world. He was surprised at how much she already knew about it. But that was book knowledge. He was the first of the Seafolk whom she had ever actually encountered.

  If his guess was right, she was the one whose confidence he must win. Casiru was only a means to that end.

  (A dangerous means. He too must be attracted, gratified, made an ally of sorts. Especially since it was not yet sure why Donya was his house guest. Asked, she replied, “We are acquainted of old, he, me. I came down to learn what I can about what to expect, now when Rahfd has swallowed Arvanneth.” No more. In the Northlands, taciturnity was not rude.)

  Josserek found himself telling them about his life, again truthfully if partially.

  He was born to the daughter of a dockside innkeeper in Eaching, result of an affair between her and a scion of a noble family. (“We still have a limited monarchy in Killimaraich. It presides over the Seniory—squirearchs and capitalists—and the Advisory—popularly elected by tribes, though these days the tribe you belong to doesn’t mean a lot more than a surname.”) They might have married, but commercial competition destroyed the father’s inheritance, and he died in an accident trying to work as a longshoreman. Josserek’s mother and grandfather raised him. He always liked the tough, shrewd old man, but never the stepfather eventually wished on him; that sent him into the street gangs. Long afterward—after his conviction, and flight, and knocking around a quarter of the globe—he returned to the inn for a visit. His grandfather had died. He stayed quite briefly and didn’t come back.

  “Weren’t you wanted as a loose prisoner?” Casiru wondered.

  “I’d done a favor for somebody who wangled me a pardon,” Josserek said. “But isn’t this enough about me?”

  “You talk like a more educated man than your career would suggest.”

  “You’d be surprised how much spare time a soldier of fortune can find, to read or think or listen to intelligent people, if he has a mind to. Like my lady Donya. I’d like to listen to her.”

  “Another
while,” she said, and thought for a bit. ‘Tomorrow? You must want an early bed tonight. And I—” she stirred—“once again I begin feeling penned. I am going away to be alone. Tomorrow let us drift about, we two, Josserek Derrain.”

  “Wait,” Casiru started to object.

  A glance from her overrode him. “We will.” Unspoken, unmistakable: I can handle him. If need be, I can kill him.

  —No matter his weeks of singleness, Josserek found Oni curiously insipid. He didn’t tell her so. That would have been unfair. She had done her knowing best. Maybe the trouble was that he couldn’t imagine ever pitying Donya.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Once,” the woman from Hervar said, “I saw the Glimmerwater. What you call the Mother Ocean. I can never forget.”

  “How was that?” asked the man from Killimaraich. “I thought your folk were complete inlanders.” He called forth maps he had studied. They were damnably vague. Civilization knew little of Andalin outside that southerly stretch occupied by the cultivators of Rahfd and Arvanneth. The east was mostly the Wilderwoods, from the Rampant seaboard to the low Idis Mountains. Thence the plains swept westward which the Rogaviki held, on across the Jugular Valley and beyond to the Tantian Hills, enormous plowlessness bounded northward only by the glacier.

  “We go trading and trapping in countries not ours,” she told him. “Past the Tantians is a great windy plateau, where little save jackrabbits and coyotes can live, and past them rise the Mooncastle Mountains, in the grip of the Ice. But there are passes, and lower ranges on the far side where beaver, mink, cat abound—and oh, the heights, strength, hugeness, the speaking silences! At night are more stars than is darkness.”