Voices (10 page)

“I hate everything about them,” I said. “I can’t help it.”

“Of course you can’t help it. What you’ve told us—how could you see them except as hateful?”

“I don’t want to see them any other way,” I said.

I don’t believe Gry ever didn’t hear what people said, but sometimes she ignored it. She walked on a little and then turned to me on the path with a sudden grin. “Listen, Memer! Why don’t you come with us to the Palace.? Second groom. You make a fine boy. Fooled me completely. Would you like to? It’s interesting. The Gand’s a kind of king, how many chances do you get to meet a king? And you can hear Orrec—he’s going to tell them the
Cosmogonies.
That could be risky, they’re so stuck on Atth being the one and only god. But the Gand was asking him for it yesterday.”

I only shook my head. I longed to hear Orrec speak that poem, but not among a lot of Alds. I wouldn’t say any more about how I hated them, but I certainly wasn’t going to go be polite and meek and slavish to them.

After dinner the next day, though, Gry brought up the idea again. Evidently she had talked Orrec into it, for he made no objection; and to my dismay, the Waylord didn’t either. He asked how dangerous they thought it might be. When they both said they trusted the Alds’ law of hospitality, he said only, “The hospitality they showed me wasn’t of a kind I want Memer to know. But that our people and theirs know so little of one another, after so many years—that is shameful. For us as well as for them.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “And Memer is a very quick learner.”

I wanted to protest, to say I refused to go anywhere near the Alds, I didn’t want to learn anything from them or about them. But that would be wilful ignorance, a thing the Waylord despised. And also it would sound like cowardice. If Orrec and Gry were willing to risk going to the Palace, how could I refuse?

The idea was more frightening the more I thought about it. Yet I was curious about the Palace, the Alds, as Orrec and Gry talked about them. Everything had been the same in my life for so long that I’d wondered if it would always be the same—the housework, the market; the empty rooms of Galvamand, the secret room and it’s treasures of reading and learning, and the dark strange part of it where I dared not go; no one to teach me anything new but my dear lord, no one but him to be with, to give my love to. Now by the coming of two people the house had come alive. The ancestors were awake, were listening—the souls, the shadows, and the guardians of sill and hearth. The One Who Looks Both Ways had opened the door. I knew that. I knew that our guests had come on the path of Ennu and with Lero’s blessing, and that to refuse what they offered me was to refuse the gift, the chance, the turning of the way.

“Do you want to go, Memer.?” the Waylord asked me. I knew if I protested he wouldn’t insist. I shrugged, not even speaking, as if it were a matter of no importance to me if I went or not.

He looked at me searchingly. Why did he agree to send me among our enemies? And I saw why: because I could go where he could not. Even if I was a coward, I could carry his courage. He was asking me to play my part as the heir of our house.

“Yes, I’ll go,” I said.

That night for the first time in my life I dreamed of the man who was my father. He wore the blue cloak the soldiers wear. His hair was like mine, a dun, dull, crinkly mass too fine to comb, sheep hair. I could not see his face. He was climbing, clambering hastily over ruins, broken walls and stones, such as our city was full of. I stood in the street watching him. As he passed he looked straight at me. I could not see his face clearly, but I thought it was not a man’s face but a lion’s. He looked away again and climbed over a ruined wall, hurrying, as if pursued.

W
hen Orrec Caspro set off the next time to entertain the Gand of the Alds of Ansul, his retinue was Chy the lion tamer, Shetar the lion, and Mem the groom.

Mem was anxious and uneasy. What if the Alds asked me to unsaddle Branty, or tried to talk groom-talk with me? They’d know in a moment that I didn’t know a hock from a pastern. No fear, said Gry, they were just like Gudit, they wouldn’t allow a strange boy in their stables with their prized horses. Anyhow, she’d keep me right beside her when we were at the Palace. All I had to do as Mem was walk through the streets at Branty’s head, groom fashion, as if Orrec needed help managing his horse.

So I did that, feeling foolish and quite frightened. Branty was a comfort to me. He walked along, his shod hoofs ringing loud and regular on our stone-paved streets, his big head nodding up and down beside me, ears flicking forward and back; now and then he blew air out his nostrils. His big, dark eye had a kind look in it. He was old—older than I was—and had travelled over all the Western Shore. Where Orrec asked him to go he went with a noble patience. I wished I was like him.

We followed Galva Street up the low hill from Goldsmiths’ Bridge to the square before the Council House. I looked at that building with a swell of pride. It is broad and tall, built of silvery-grey stone, with rows of high, delicate windows. It’s dome of copper rises lightly above all the roofs of the city as Sul floats above the lower mountains. Steps go up from the great square to the terrace in front of the doors, where people used to make speeches and debate, when we governed ourselves. The Waylord had told me the terrace was so constructed that if you stood in front of the central doors and spoke only a little louder than usual your voice could be heard all over the square. But I’d never been up those steps; I’d never even walked on the square before. It belonged to the Alds, not the citizens.

In the middle of it stood the huge tent with it’s red peaks and long red banners flying from the poles, almost hiding the Council House.

An officer came to meet us as we approached the entrance to the square and ordered the blue-cloaked guards to let us pass.

Men came to meet us from the stables, off to the left of the square. I held Branty while Orrec dismounted, and an elderly Ald took the reins from me and with a little
tck-tck
to Branty led him away. Chy the lion tamer came up next to me, with Shetar short-leashed, and we followed Orrec across the pavement. There was a carpet in front of the tent and a folding chair and a parasol for Orrec; no seats for us, but a little boy, a siege brat, a slave, handed Chy a parasol of red paper. We stood behind Orrec. Chy at once gave me the parasol to hold over the three of us, and stood with arms folded in a lofty posture. I saw that this would make sense to the Alds, who would see me as Chy’s or Orrec’s slave.

The Alds’ slaves here at their court all wore a robe or tunic of coarse striped cloth, grey and white or dun and white. Some were Alds and some my countrymen. They were all men or boys. The women would be kept elsewhere, indoors, hidden. And none of them would be Alds.

Various courtiers in various kinds of finery came out of the tent, and several officers came up from the barracks which the Alds built above the East Canal behind the Council House, where our voting booths used to be. When at last the Gand came out of the big tent, everybody stood up. Two Ald slaves followed him; one held a huge red parasol over his head, while the other held a fan in case the Gand needed to be cooled off. It was a mild spring day, the sun mostly veiled by light clouds, a soft sea wind blowing. Seeing the slaves stand there with their silly equipment I thought how stupid the Alds were—couldn’t they look around and see they didn’t need parasols, or fans, or the wide-brimmed hats the courtiers wore? Couldn’t they see this wasn’t the desert?

Imitating the behavior of the Ald slaves, I didn’t look directly at the Gand Ioratth, but stole glances. He had a heavy, seamed face, sallow like most Alds, with a short hawk nose and narrow eyes. The Alds’ pale eyes always make me queasy, and I’ve thanked my ancestors many times for letting me have the dark eyes of my people. The Gand’s sheep hair was short and grey, frizzing out under his hat; his eyebrows frizzed out too, and a short rim of close-cut grey beard followed his jawline. He looked tough and tired. He greeted Orrec with a smile that lightened his face and a gesture I had never seen any Ald make, opening out his hands from his heart in welcome with a bow of his head. It seemed a greeting to an equal. And he called Orrec “Gand of the Makers.”

But he won’t let him under his roof, I thought.

“Heathen,” they called us. A word we learned from them. If it meant anything, it meant people who don’t know what’s sacred. Are there any such people? “Heathen” is merely a word for somebody who knows a different sacredness than you know. The Alds had been here seventeen years and still hadn’t learned that the sea, the earth, the stones of Ansul are sacred, are alive with divinity. If anybody was heathen it was them, not us, I thought. So I stood stewing in my resentment and not listening to what the men said, Ioratth and Orrec, the two princes, the tyrant and the poet.

Orrec began to recite, and the viol of his voice woke me to hearing; but it was some Ald poem the Gand had asked for, one of their endless epics about wars in the desert, and I wouldn’t listen.

I looked among the courtiers for the Gand’s son Iddor, the one who had teased Shetar. He was easy enough to pick out. He wore a lot of finery, with feathers and cloth-of-gold ribbons on his fancy hat. He looked a good deal like his father, but was taller and handsomer, although very light-skinned. He was restless, always talking to a companion, fidgeting, gesturing, moving his body. The old Gand sat unmoving, intent on the story, his linen robe falling as if carved of stone, his short, hard hands spread on his thighs. And most of his officers listened as intently as he did, drinking in the words. Orrec’s voice sang with passion, and I began hearing the story in spite of myself.

When he stopped, after a tragic scene of betrayal and reconciliation, the hearers all applauded by hitting their palms together. The Gand had a slave bring Orrec water in a glass. (“They’ll break it, afterwards,” Chy murmured to me.) Plates of sweets were offered about, not to Chy or me. Ioratth leaned forward holding out a morsel of something to Shetar. Chy led her forward. She sat down, sniffed the candy politely, and looked away. The Gand laughed. He had a pleasant laugh that creased his whole face. “Not food for a lion, eh, Lady Shetar?” he said. “Shall I send for some meat?”

Chy, not Orrec, answered him, gruff and brief: “Better not, sir.”

The Gand was not offended. “You keep her to a diet, eh? Yes, yes. Will she do her bow again?”

I could not see that Chy moved or did anything, but the lion stood up and did a deep cat stretch in front of the Gand. While he laughed, she looked round for the little ball of bone marrow that was her reward, and Chy slipped it into her mouth.

Iddor had come forward and said now to Orrec, “What did you pay for her?”

“I got her for a song, Gand Iddor,” Orrec said. He spoke still seated; he was tuning his lyre, an excuse for not rising. Iddor scowled. Orrec looked up from the instrument and said, “For a tale, more truly. The nomads who had the cub and her mother wanted to hear the whole tale of
Daredar
told, so they’d know more of it to tell at their shows. I told it for the three nights it takes to tell, and for that my reward was the lion cub. We were all well satisfied.”

“How do you know that tale? How did you learn our songs?”

“I hear a tale or a song, and it’s mine,” Orrec said. “That’s my gift.”

“That and the making of songs,” said Ioratth.

Orrec bowed his head.

“But where did you hear them?” the Gand’s son insisted. “Where did you hear
Daredar
told?”

“I travelled in northern Asudar, Gand Iddor. Everywhere the people gave me their songs and stories, telling and singing, sharing their wealth with me. They didn’t ask for payment, not a lion cub, not even a copper penny—only a new song or an old tale retold. The poorest people of the desert are most generous in word and heart.”

“True, true,” the elder Gand said.

“Did you read our songs? Have you put them in books?” Iddor spat out the words “read” and “books” as if they were turds in his mouth.

“Prince, among the people of Atth I live by the law of Atth.” Orrec spoke not only with dignity but fiercely, a man whose honor has been challenged answering the challenge.

Iddor turned away, daunted either by Orrec’s direct response or by his father’s glare. He said, however, to one of his companions, “Is it a man, then, playing that fiddle? I thought it was a woman.”

Among the Alds, only women play the plucked and bowed instruments of music, and only men the flutes and horns—so Gry told me later. All I understood then was that Iddor wanted to insult Orrec, or wanted to flout his father, and insulting Orrec was a way to do that.

“When you are refreshed, Maker, we should like to hear you speak verse of your own making,” Ioratth said, “if you will forgive and enlighten our ignorance of the poetry of the west.”

It surprised me that the Gand spoke so formally and elaborately. He was an old soldier, no doubt about that, and yet everything he said was measured, even flowery, with archaic words and turns of phrase, pleasant to hear. It was the way you might expect a people to speak who shunned writing and made all their art of words aloud. Until now I had hardly heard an Ald say anything, only shout orders.

Orrec was quite able to give as good as he got in polite exchange as well as verbal duelling. Earlier, reciting from the
Daredar
epic, he had laid aside his northern accent and spoke like an Ald, blurring the harsher consonants and stretching out the vowels. Answering the Gand now he kept that softness. “I am the last and least of that line of makers, Gand,” he said, “and it is not in my heart to put myself before far greater men. Will you and your court permit me to say, rather than my own verses, a poem of the beloved maker of Urdile, Denios?”

The Gand nodded. Orrec finished tuning his lyre, explaining as he did so that the poem was not sung, but that the voice of the instrument served to set the poetry apart from all words said before and after it, and also to say, sometimes, what no words could. Then he bowed his head to the lyre and struck the strings. The notes were plangent, clear, impassioned. The last chord died away, and he spoke the first words of the first canto of
The Transformations.