Seg the Bowman (7 page)

When the miserable coffle had struggled on and was out of sight and sound, Diomb stretched and said:

“Now, Seg, tell me what that was all about. I am most anxious to find out about the outside world. But I own I do not understand what I saw.”

“Those ugly brutes were Katakis, what we call Whiptails. Steer clear of ’em unless you want trouble.

The slaves were—”

“Slaves?”

Seg tried to explain. Diomb interrupted.

“I know that a person may own certain items — my blowpipe and darts, my apron. But nothing much else. The elders have explained much of the outside world to us, for we are not ignorant savages. I thought I understood the principle of possession. But owning people—”

“There’s a lot in the world you have to learn about,” said Milsi. “And I shall be happy to show you and Bamba.”

The trouble with a lot of this wonderful world of Kregen could be summed up in the one word —

slavery. Seg had had his run-ins with the diabolical custom and so he could, while deploring Milsi’s attitude, understand it. He did not look forward with any pleasure to what the future held when he began the process of correcting her attitude. He was long past the stage when he consulted his conscience on the matter. He was long past the stage when he worried over the problem of whether or not he had the right to change people’s minds on the question of slavery. He had seen enough. He had lost a great deal over the slavery business, quite happily, and he was prepared to go to great lengths to do what he could to stamp out the evil.

He did not doubt that his explanation of slavery would be somewhat different from Milsi’s.

A few dwaburs farther on they ran into a marshy area.

“We have the Malar Marshes in Erthyrdrin,” said Seg. “I am not enamored of them. We had best find another way around.”

That being agreed, they cut inland a trifle to circumvent the noxious areas.

Milsi chattered away to Diomb and Bamba. Seg strode on silently, biding his time.

When he had an opportunity at the next halt to tell Milsi a thing or three, he found himself instead attempting to explain the nomenclature customs of Erthyrdrin.

“My children may call themselves Segutorio, or Segutoria, as a kind of surname when out of the country.

That is, if it fits in with the country’s customs. But the Torio is reserved for the eldest, and the first syllables are always the same. The girl child will take her mother’s name as a second name, and when she marries may attach her husband’s name if she wishes.”

He picked a scrap of meat from between his teeth with a sliver of clean-stripped wood and not his finger.

He was finicky with the operation. Milsi noticed this.

He went on, “My lad Valin, Silda’s twin, is called Valin Segutorio at home; but that is not really correct and we would not do so in Erthyrdrin. He—”

“But, Seg. I thought your home was Erthyrdrin? Where is it you call home, then?”

No good for Seg to castigate his loose tongue.

He replied easily enough, and with enough truth to ease his conscience.

“Oh, we have a fine home in Valka. But, as I was saying—”

“Valka? I have not heard of it.”

“North of here. But, as I was saying—”

“North?”

Seg sighed. Women were the very devil for sticking to a point you didn’t want explored, and likewise the very devil for being loose-minded and scatty when it pleased them. Damned clever, women, usually.

“It’s a small island in the Sea of Opaz.”

“H’m. It must be a very small island, then, for I know most of the more important ones along the north coast of Pandahem in the Sea of Opaz. Although, Seg, we Pandaheem more often call the sea the Ocean of Panda.”

“Oh, yes, that shows how cut off we are there.”

He did not dare to look at her in case she saw the unease in him. The devil Chanko-taroth take it! He did not wish to lie to Milsi; but he didn’t want too much of his past to be revealed until he was ready to do the revealing.

Milsi ran swiftly over the major islands whose names she knew up there off the north coast of the main island. Valka? There was a ring in the name, a faint memory of hearing it, spoken in great passion by her father. But the memory would not coalesce.

Around almost all the coasts of Kregen the islands clustered as thickly as bubbles on the surface of boiling milk. There were far too many for all to be recalled at will.

“You were saying?”

“Oh, yes. Valin will never be Valin Valintorio unless he gains great renown, is recognized, can persuade the elders and the secret ones to grant him the torio. Then he will have a family, and lands, and may call himself Valin Valintorio. I look forward to the day.”

“And the name Seg will go on through the main line?”

“Just so.”

“With us it is different.” Then she stopped and bit her lip. “I mean, well, here the male line is recognized only if the female line is in accord.”

“That means, exactly?”

“Well, Seg, to give the example that has exercised the minds of everyone in Croxdrin lately. The king, Crox, lost his wife and entire family in a dreadful accident. It was through his wife that his legal entitlement to the crown was established.”

“So he had to look around for the next legal heir?”

“It has been known in the past for fathers to marry their daughters to secure the throne — in name only, I hasten to add. So—”

“Oh, I see. I heard that this poor Queen Mab whom you served was married to the king and he departed in the same hour to this fateful expedition into the Coup Blag. Then Queen Mab followed — she must have loved him, then, although I was told the marriage was political only.”

“It was only political! There was no love there, only a dreadful acceptance of fate.”

“Well, you should know, you were her lady in waiting.”

“Yes.”

“Diomb and Bamba have stopped frisking about and are looking expectant. It is time we moved on.”

Then she surprised him.

“Time is a terrible thing, Seg the Horkandur! I could almost wish this journey, which now is far more pleasant than when we began, could go on forever.”

“But you want to get home to Mewsansmot!”

“I do, I do. And yet...”

“Come on, you two!” called Bamba. “Diomb is quite impatient in this as in other refined things.”

“Coming.”

Their route to skirt the marshes lay northwest, north, northeast and then, just to make sure, they curved down a little and struck along east-northeast.

“And, my fine young friends,” quoth Seg, lustily, striding along. “At the first decent hostelry we run across, I shall treat you to roast vosk, momolams, squish pie, and a heaping dish of palines.
And
there will be ale, and wine — believe you me!”

“We had best, perhaps,” said Milsi, most anxiously, “be very wary regarding ale and wine for Bamba and Diomb.”

“Naturally. But they’ll down their jugs with the best in no time, you will see.”

“We have strange stories about the dinkus from the forest. We must take care.”

“If anyone offers insult to our friends, Milsi—”

“You, Seg Segutorio the Horkandur, had best stay out of stupid arguments until we—”

“Assuredly, my lady,” and Seg bowed a deep and most ironical bow.

“Oh, you!” flared Milsi, the color rising.

Seg could well understand what Milsi meant when she said she wished this journey could go on forever.

The forest had now become far less hostile, the Snarly Hills dwaburs to the rear. There were few habitations, as most of the villages and towns were located along the river; but there were villages within the forest. The slavers operated here, and that made life terrible. But for the adventurers marching through the forest, eyes and ears alert, the dangers were by now a part of life, accepted by the two apims in the same spirit as the two dinkus.

The air breathed less oppressively. There was food aplenty, and water — boiled to drink. The life made men and women hardy and inured to hardship. And yet, surely, to a lady brought up as a handmaiden to serve a queen, this rude out-of-doors adventuring life could not hold aught of pleasure? Yet Milsi throve.

Seg, wistful, was reminded of ancient days.

He said, once: “Milsi, do you know the difference between fallimy and vilmy flowers?”

She laughed in an off-hand way. “Of course.” Then she saw how serious he was beneath the casual attitude. “One is good for poultices, the other to clean disgusting corroded cesspits and cisterns.”

“Yes. And you could tell them apart?”

“Well, would I put a cistern-cleaning poultice on your wound—” She saw him. “Seg!”

“It is all right. I am ashamed. I should not have said anything—”

“Can you tell me?”

“Not now.” He walked on ahead, very quickly, and even in the state he was in he knew Milsi would be safe with Diomb and Bamba. He should not have spoken! It was cruel, degrading. It was unholy. Poor Thelda! He had loved Thelda, he had. They had had their quarrels, as who hadn’t, but they had had a splendid life. And now she was gone, married to another man, and here he was, a wandering adventurer desperately trying to relive a part of his life that was dead.

He was not the same Seg Segutorio who had so happily marched through the Hostile Territories, all those seasons ago, with Thelda, and with his old dom and Delia. No. He was different now. He’d been a great noble, lording it over rich lands, and he’d lost all that because he’d tried to outlaw slavery. He’d told kings and emperors what they could do. He’d commanded armies in battle. And now he had found a woman in his life for whom he could cherish a great and genuine affection, who might turn back the years for him, cause the clepsydra’s water to run back up into the upper vessel...

Milsi wouldn’t so confidently, meaning the best, have slapped a harsh cistern-cleaning poultice on the wound in his old dom’s chest... Poor Thelda! She was gone. He no longer loved the woman who was Thelda and who was married to Lol Polisto. He recalled the love he had felt for the Thelda of long ago, when they’d marched through the Hostile Territories, when they’d struggled for an empire.

No. It was so.

He could find it in his heart to love this Milsi, for all the oddness he sensed about her history. He had not so much found in her a new meaning to life, as a new reason to live a proper life once again.

As to her feelings for him, they remained obscure, despite that he felt she had been shafted with him by the same bolt of lightning. It was entirely possible when they returned to civilization and her home she would give him a cool “thank you” and then turn away and forget him.

Well, so be it, by Vox! He knew what he wanted, now. So, if that was how the adventure turned out, he’d use what skill and cunning he had to alter that outcome...

All that had happened was gone. It was smoke blown with the wind.

“By Beng Dikkane!” he said, calling on the patron saint of all the ale-drinkers of Paz. “I could do with a wet right now!”

Following on, Diomb kept up a stream of questions.

“What is vosk? What are momolams? What is ponsho? What is dopa?”

Half-laughing, Milsi explained carefully. She was mindful of the responsibilities she had taken on with her acceptance of the two dinkus as companions.

Seg could not fail to notice the way in which she handled them, easy and yet with a quiet manipulation she must have learned as a lady in waiting to a queen.

Bamba chattered as much as Diomb.

“What is a spinning wheel? What are carts?”

And Diomb: “What is a ship?”

Seg slowed, ears cocked, listening.

Milsi showed no hesitation in her reply. She spoke with the same sure conviction anyone would use explaining what a cart was.

“Oh, a ship is a very large boat, and I have told you that a boat floats on water and carries people and things. Ships travel far over the seas, driven by the winds of heaven, and bring strange and exotic merchandise back home.”

Walking on, Seg reflected that Milsi knew much and spoke warmly of ships. Here, in the midst of a jungle with a river, a great river, to be sure, as her only source of information? She could have learned this from books. But, from the way she spoke, Seg was convinced she had seen what she so vividly described, had seen the armadas of sail ploughing the shining seas, venturing to the corners of the world, sailing home again, argosies of treasure.

If his honorable intentions toward her were ever to be realized there was much, a very great deal, he must learn about her history. Then he laughed to himself in his old reckless raffish way. By the Veiled Froyvil! What did her history matter to him? He would do what he would do, and play his part manfully, and if Erthyr the Bow smiled on him he would win what his heart desired.

They reached the Kazzchun River in good order and turned north along the bank. The brown water slid past and upon its still amiable flow the keels of commerce passed up and down. There were still plenty of sails to be seen, for Milsi said the head of navigation lay far upriver, and beyond that the paddle driven barks penetrated for many more dwaburs yet.

They entered the first township with due caution, although Milsi insisted that strangers would receive the need that was their due.

“A hulking great Bowman warrior, and two dinkus from the forest may attract unwelcome attention,” she said, with that tiny dint between her delectable eyebrows. “But a few cheerful words, and perhaps a small offering to the local godling in his temple, should smooth the way.”

“I trust so,” said Seg. “Although the local godling’s temple I am most in need of is to be found in the nearest tavern.”

“I shall begin to believe you are a drunkard, Seg Segutorio!”

“Not so, my lady. Just that a fellow needs to wash away the dust from his throat from time to time.”

“We shall see.”

The place was called Lasindle, small and rundown, with wooden airy houses roofed with the leaves of papishin that were commonly used for this purpose in many parts of Kregen. Neither Seg nor Milsi felt any surprise that places in the world separated by vast distances should grow the same kinds of plants and harbor the same kinds of animals. That was perfectly natural to them. There were plenty of strange and weird plants and animals to be found inhabiting selected portions of the world to make those found universally to pass without comment.