Authors: Avram Davidson
Her husband clapped his hands. “To think that we are privileged to live in the days of the return of the Great Men! and to have given them our food for their first meal! The children of our children’s children will tell of this!”
Rond shifted slightly in his place, whispered to Jory Cane, in Inter-Gal, “Will you take a look over the terrain with your farseer?”
Jory nodded, rose. But he had not counted on custom, curiosity, and Lord Clanan. Lord Clanan immediately rose, too — and so did his wife and her Lady guest. Jory smiled, moved off to the highest point at hand. So did everyone else. And there, before Jory could think what else to do, Sejarra squinted — frowned — pointed.
“Look there!” she exclaimed.
Jory had not counted on such clear vision. He himself could see nothing until he lifted his glass, but Moha at once exclaimed, “A courier! See the white band on her helmet! … I wonder what — it must be for me. It will be hours before she can get here.” Her finger pointed far down into the depths of the land.
It was O-Narra who spoke.
“I can tell you what tidings the courier brings,” she said. Moha swung around, her face eager, wondering. “It is only the formal confirmation of the tidings
I
bring. Forgive me for saving the surprise. Fief-Moha,
kneel
.”
And, while Moha obediently knelt, and the others drew back, O-Narra said, “The Dame, the Great One, Hanna, High Keeper of the Castles of the
O-Ban
, bids you conduct at their pleasure the Great Men to the Temple of the Clouds, and to be their guide and guard until relieved of such task by the Holy Presence Himself. She has said it.”
Whatever astonishment Moha himself was feeling, it could hardly be less, Jory thought, than his own. But it took him only a moment to recover. A warm wave of appreciation washed over him. Try as he might have, he could have thought of no better scheme than the one which O-Narra had so deftly brought into being — so deftly, and so quickly, too; making the occasion suit her purpose.
Moha had bowed her head to her knees. Then, grudgingly assisted by Sejarra, she rose.
“What is the pleasure of the Great Ones?” she asked, diffidently. “When shall we break camp and be off to the Holy Court of King Mukanahan?”
For the first time Rond spoke to her. He flung out his hand in a wide, sweeping gesture.
“Now!”
he said.
A
GAINST THE FACT THAT THE COURIER, HER FANTASTIC
and barbarous war mask topped with a knot of white cloth, was making her way up the slope, while the rest of them were heading down, there had to be balanced the fact that they were burdened with baggage and gear — plus Lord Clanan’s palanquin. It would be a near thing, much too near for comfort.
“Should we leave someone behind to kill the courier?” Jory inquired, as hasty preparations for breaking camp were made.
O-Narra considered, briefly. Then, “No,” she said. “Your man might never find us. We’ll have to try to decoy her…. Ho! Lady-Moha! A note for the courier — shall I take care of it for you?”
“My thanks, my thanks!” Moha called, hastily, her full face redder than usual. Red — except for one scar which stood out, whitely: gotten, O-Narra told him later, during one of the periodic feuds which were both encouraged and strictly controlled by the Keeperate as a means of maintaining the warrior class in martial spirit and practice.
In only a few minutes they were off, at an easy trot; a cleft stick with a streamer attached to it thrust into the ground and the note slipped in it. Rond grumbled. “Surely we can go faster than this?”
“Yes … but we could not keep it up,” O-Narra pointed out. “Believe me, this pace is best.” To Jory’s inquiring look she replied that, while the courier might think it odd that the party was heading back for Fief-Moha so soon, as the note left for her said, it would not occur to her that she was being deceived. “Undoubtedly, she will try and save time by going cross-country to the road, thinking to meet us there. And she will wait … How long, I don’t know. But long enough.”
The courier, then, represented a potential rather than an actual, present menace. There was no lack of the latter; there was no way of telling whether they would be able to make it to the royal precincts, within which no sword was allowed, no creature ever put to death; from which no one seeking sanctuary was ever expelled. Soldiers of the septs might cross their path from the east, and — since it was not possible, without betraying themselves, to persuade Moha to travel by night — there was an almost equal danger from the Border forces as soon as word should reach them to mobilize.
Meanwhile, with enforced appearance of calm, they trotted at an easy pace through the peaceful countryside. Their route was on a downward grade still, but would not always remain so. Once, as they paused on a bluff for refreshment and relief, O-Narra pointed. “Jory — look — ”
He looked, but not, at first, where she had pointed. He looked at her. This was the first time she had addressed him by name. Moha had lent her one of the green hunting-costumes which she and Sejarra wore, and, Jory now observed, it deepened the green of her own eyes. She caught his look, flushed slightly, but her smile did not change.
“See there,” she said, still pointing.
Long away and down a great stream curved in an oxbow. A thin thread of smoke rose from an island, and a line of sailing-barges floated restfully against the slow current.
“The River Lin … and there are the meadows where I thought we would hide. We won’t hide, now.”
“Suppose we are overtaken?”
“We would have to be overtaken by the Dame herself before Moha would allow her guests to come to harm.”
Preparations for resuming the journey were being made with less speed than Jory found comfortable, when Sejarra raised her hand for silence. After a moment, Moha asked, “What do you hear?”
“I thought … I am almost sure … a war-rattle.”
Jory tensed. O-Narra laughed. “Was this what you heard, Lady-Sejarra?” She shook the pouch of bullets at her belt. Moha chuckled. Sejarra looked unconvinced.
Rond said, “I am eager to look upon the face of the Holy King.” And, indeed, he did look eager — as he, and all of them, Jory thought, had every right to look.
Hastily, apologetic, Moha said, “Pardon our delay, Father. Ho! We move on!”
As the bearers swung up Lord Clanan’s palanquin, who held the infant in his arms, and they all resumed the journey, the little Lord called out, “Moha, wasn’t there talk, before we left, that the bad feeling between Fief-Lanna and the Heiress of old Menna might break out into an open feud?”
Moha, trotting by her husband’s side, exclaimed. “It might be so! Perhaps it was one of
their
war-rattles that Sejarra heard — ”
Sejarra’s thin, sour face broke into a thin, sour smile. “It might be so,” she repeated Moha’s words. “And if it is — ”
O-Narra broke in. “It would be a shame if this journey were disrupted or delayed for any reason. We know how loyal Lady-Sejarra is to her friends, but the Heiress herself would understand your sacrificing this chance to engage your Sword in the conflict.” Moha matter-of-factly urged the same course, suggesting that the Old Sword would probably sue for peace as soon as a token fight had cleared her daughter’s honor. Sejarra nodded, rather reluctantly, and no more was said.
It seemed to Jory that O-Narra now shook her pouch of bullets rather more often than it would have shaken normally by itself. A war-rattle itself would have to be very near and very loud to make itself noticed.
But when the danger actually came, it came unheralded.
• • •
They had left the roughlands and came down to the foothill country. The sun was declining, the old road was smooth, the air cool. No directive had been given but the pace had slowed. All were tired. Rond should have liked to push on through the night, but Jory advised against it.
“Let’s not press our luck too far,” he said. “As things are now, Moha is our greatest resource. It wouldn’t do to make her suspicious — or, more to the point, to make Sejarra suspicious, and spoil the atmosphere. These things tend to be contagious.”
Reluctantly, Rond agreed.
Then, where the road seemed to give itself a slight heave as if to gather strength for passing through a defile, a group of people suddenly appeared. Moha’s party stopped, abruptly. Moha muttered. Her hand went toward her left shoulder, where the hilt of her sword rested, bound in a green ribbon to indicate a peaceful mission. But the sword remained slung across her back and the hand stayed at her bosom. Moha might be slow, Jory noted — noted, too, that they were well out-numbered — but she was no fool. And, unless Moha drew, it would be bad manners of the worst sort for either of the other warriors to draw. Still, it was with no pleasure that he drew near the group which barred their way.
Several women of the group wore armor, but it lacked the natty look of warrior armor. Too, the circumstance of its being all black, without a single trace of scarlet, gave a somber air to the outfit. Neither did he see a single sword, although the new arrivals were by no means unarmed. The armored women carried weapons which were something between a cutlass and a machete; the others had pikes with rather sharp-looking edges.
But the blades were sheathed, the pikes carried points down.
One of the women, her hair cut short and close, like the others’, came forward. In her hands was a leafy branch.
“Is it peace, Moha?” she asked in a husky voice.
Stiffly, cautiously, Moha said, “You know there is no peace with outlaws, only truce.” She moved slowly to the side of the road and, without taking her eyes from the outlaw, broke off a branch from a bush. Jory heard O-Narra release her breath in a long sigh. Everyone seemed to relax.
“Truce, then,” said the outlaw. Ignoring the warriors, she fixed Rond with a bold look, which traveled from one to another of
Persephone’s
men, finally coming to rest on Jory. “My name, Giant, is Nelsa … we’ve heard that you were hereabouts, and came to see for ourselves.”
Jory bowed, slightly, said nothing. It would have been foolish for them to have assumed that they could move even through wild country without being observed at all. And then, too, rumor must have spread swiftly, more swiftly than the couriers. He noticed how the two warriors and all the servitors had gathered around the palanquin in which Lord Clanan and the child sat silently. His own men, along with O-Narra and Little Joe, were grouping, now, alongside him and Captain Rond.
Said Moha, in a low voice which did not tremble, “I warn you, Nelsa, that we are traveling on the Dame’s orders, taking these Great Men to the Holy Court. Do not interfere.”
Nelsa nodded, casually … almost indifferently. She flicked her branch of leaves toward Moha, but her eyes never left Jory.
“The Holy Court … That’s good. The people of the forest, Giant, have never set themselves against the King. Why should we? He’s a god. But now, it seems … perhaps there may be new gods in the land.” Jory saw Sejarra snap her head back. She frowned. Her mouth curled open in an ugly grimace. There was a movement among Moha’s servitors, but a quick glance from her quelled it.
“The Dame, says Moha, is sending you to the Temple. Well, Moha’s a woman of honor. She wouldn’t lie. But maybe the Dame hasn’t taken Moha all the way into her confidence. After all, the Dame has nothing to gain by new gods in the land when she and all the Keepers before her have had the old gods walled up, safe and sound. All sorts of things have been happening, Giant, today and yesterday. The other Sword over there seems worried. Maybe for good reason. What do you say, Giant?”
Jory waited for someone to give him a lead. The blue air thickened into early dusk. The warriors were silent, O-Narra looked aside to him in a look of pure question, and Rond stared at the ground. Jory took in a deep breath of the clean, cool evening. Nelsa, plainly, was no fool, either. Her eyes were fixed on him. He was not at all sure of what she wanted, except that she probably wanted
him
, but he was reasonably sure that she wanted more than that.
“I say what Lady-Moha says. And I say this, too: come with us. At the Holy Court no harm can come to any, and there, questions will be answered.”
Nelsa thrust her lips out a little, asked, “What does Moha say now?”
Moha, plainly, would have liked to say much. But Lord Clanan, in the palanquin, shifted slightly, and the baby let out a faint little cry. “Be it so,” said Moha.
There was a movement among the black-clad outlaws. One of them moved forward, disclosing that it was a black robe and not a coat of mail that she wore. Jory realized, with some surprise, that this was the first
old
woman he had seen. And Nelsa asked, “What does the priestess say?”
The old woman nodded her head several times, then began to speak in the same singsong tone in which Little Joe, Rahan, had recited his old tales to Captain Rond.
“The great bird slays her dam,”
she quavered,
“Heaven and Earth burn, the Great Men dwell in the Land, ruling in equity
. …
”
Her head nodded and nodded. It was undoubtedly a quotation.
“Be it so,” said Nelsa. “We’ll camp here. No fires.”
• • •
That night, having set the guard-wires, Jory went to have a final word with Rond. He hoped, he said, that his suggestion about the outlaws had been the right one. “At least, sir, we now have more of the Val people on our side.”
But Rond seemed both tired and petulant. It came as somewhat of a shock for Jory to think,
He’s aging…
.
“It’s just so many more people to slow us. down, Mr. Cane,” Rond complained. He listened, finally, to what Jory had to say. It was about the Holy King. Jory thought the King, Mukanahan, might be an answer to their problems. Suppose they were — somehow — to hold him as a hostage. Wouldn’t the Dame, or the Keeper, or any indigenous group or person, be willing to ransom him with borax — and time to make boron?
To the Captain’s objection that the King was only a figurehead, Jory countered that therein lay the whole point: he was a
sacred
figurehead! A ruler was sure to have enemies. Dame Hanna … suppose they captured Dame Hanna? The result might well be only a palace revolution, or the uprising of some rival sept, setting or aiming to set in power another Dame. But the King, who reigned without ruling, had no enemies — had never had the opportunity to make any. His person was holy, he was a saint, a god. No desire which anyone of the Val people could have to see
Persephone’s
people punished could equal their desire to see their Holy King released.