by John Norman
"No," I said.
"Look," he said, gesturing.
I glanced to the right, and upward. On the summit of a small hill I saw some seven or eight riders, riders of the high tharlarion, the tharlarion shifting and clawing about under them, with tharlarion lances. They were clad in dusty, soiled leather, riding leather, to protect their legs from the scaly hides of the beasts, and helmeted. Two had shields slung at their back. Shields of the others hung at the left sides of their saddles. They were an unkempt, dirty, grim lot. About the beasts' necks, and behind the saddles, hung panniers of grain and sacks of woven netting containing dried larmas and brown suls. Across the saddle of one were tied the hind feet, crossed, of two verr, their throats cut, the blood now brown on the sides of the tharlarion. Another fellow had a basket of vulos, tied shut. Another had stings of sausage hung about his neck and shoulders. There was no herded tarsk or bosk with the group. Such animals were probably extremely rare now, at least within one or two day's ride of the march. Still the fellows seemed to have done very well. Doubtless they had fared far better than most engaged in their business. Too, I noted that their interests had not been confined merely to foodstuffs. From the saddle of more than one there dangled armlets, two handled bowls and cups. Too, from the saddle of one a long tether looped back to the crossed bound wrists of a female. Doubtless she had been found pleasing. Thus she had been brought along. Doubtless she was destined for the collar. Near the pawing feet of the leader's tharlarion, in their tunics of white wool, there stood two stout peasant lads, bound, heavy sticks thrust before their elbows and behind their backs, their arms bound to these at the back, their wrists, a rope across their bellies, held back, tied at the sides. They would be recruits for some captain, requiring to fill gaps in his ranks. They would probably bring their captors in the neighborhood of a copper tarsk apiece.
The fellows on the tharlarion looked down at the wagons and then moved down the hill and forward. Two or three women, I now saw, coming over the hill, had apparently been following them, probably on foot from some village. One of the fellows, shouting angrily, turned his tharlarion about and, waving his lance, urging it up the slope toward them, charged them. They scattered before him, and he, not pursuing them, turned about and, in a moment, had rejoined his fellows. The women how hung back, daring to follow no further. I looked after the riders, now two or three wagons ahead of us, the two peasant lads, and the female, stumbling behind them on her tether.
"Foragers," said the driver.
I looked back at Feiqa, and she lowered her eyes, not meeting mine.
"The units ahead of us," I said, turning about, "are the rear guard of the army, I take it."
"No," he said.
"Oh?" I said.
"There are units," he said, "and wagons, and units. I do not know how far it goes on. I was then silent, for a time. There must be an incredible amount of men, I surmised. I knew, of course, that considerable forces had been landed at Brundisium. What I was not sure of, however, was the current distribution, or deployment of these forces.
"You are sure you are not a spy?" he said.
"Yes," I smiled. "I am sure." I supposed, of course, that Ar must be attempting to keep itself apprised of the movements of the enemy. Presumably there would be spies, or informers of some sort, with the troops or the wagons. It is not difficult to infiltrate spies into mercenary troops, incidentally, where the men come from different backgrounds, castes and cities, and little is asked of them other than their ability to handle weapons and obey orders. Yet, if men of Ar, or men in the pay of Ar, were attending to these matters, and submitting current and accurate reports, Ar herself, for whatever reason, unpreparedness, or whatever, had not acted.
I looked at the string of wagons ahead.
How different things seemed from the marches of the forces of Ar, and others of the high cities. When the men of Ar moved, for example, and whenever possible they would do so on the great military roads, such as the Viktel Aria, they used a measured pace, often kept by a drum, and including rests, would each day cover a calculable distance, usually forty pasangs. At forty-pasang intervals there would generally, on the military roads, be a fortified camp, supplied in advance with ample provisions. Some of these camps became towns. Later some became cities. These roads and camps, and measures, made it possible to move troops not only efficiently and rapidly, but assisted in military planning. One could tell, for example, how long it would take to bring a certain number of men to bear on a certain point. The permanent garrisons of the fortified camps, too, of course, exercise a significant peace-keeping and holding role in the outer districts of a city's power. Too, training and recruiting often take place in such camps. To be sure, these forces of Cos could not be expected to have come over and taken a few months to attend to the leisurely construction of permanent camps along the route of their projected march. Still, judging from the nature of the supply column, or columns, their progress seemed very slow, almost leisurely. It was as though they feared nothing. Their numbers, I speculated, might have emboldened them. Why had Ar not acted, I wondered.
"Have you tarnsmen in the sky?" I asked.
"No," he said. Cos, of course, would have tarnsmen at her disposal. But even those, it seemed, were not patrolling the line of march.
"Why are there no guards with the supply train?" I asked.
"Surely that is unusual."
"I do not know," he said. "I have wondered about it. Perhaps it is not thought that they are necessary."
"Have there been no attacks?" I asked. Surely it seemed that Ar might be expected to apply her tarnsmen to the effort to disrupt the enemy's lines of supply and communication. Perhaps her tarnsmen had not been able to reach the wagons. If command in Ar had been in the hands of Marlenus, her Ubar, I had little doubt that Ar would have acted by now. Marlenus, however, as the report went, was not in Ar. He was supposedly on an expedition into the Voltai, conducting a punitive expedition against raiders of Treve. Why he had not been recalled, if it were possible, I did not understand.
"What would you do if tarnsmen of Ar arrived?" I asked.
"That is not my job," he said. "That is the job of soldiers. I am paid to drive. That is what I do."
"What of the other drivers?" I asked.
"They would do the same, I would suppose," he said. "We are wagoners, not soldiers."
"The entire train then," I said, "or at least these wagons, is open to attack. Yet Ar has not attacked. That is interesting."
"Perhaps," he said.
"Why not?" I asked.
He shrugged. "I do not know. Perhaps they can't get here."
"Even with small strike forces, disguised as peasants?" "Perhaps not," he said. "I do not know."
It was now growing dark along the road. Here and there, back from the road, on one side or the other, there were small camps of free women. In some of them there were tiny fires lit. Some small shelters had been pitched, too, in some of these camps, little more than tarpaulins or blankets stretched over sticks. Sometimes some of the women about these tiny fires stood up and watched us, as we rolled past. I recalled the free woman I had met last night in her hut. She had not come down to the wagons as far as I knew. We had left her before she had awakened. I had left some more food with her, and had tied a golden tarn disk of Port Kar, from my wallet, in the corner of the child's blanket. With that she might buy much. Too, with it, or its residue, she might be able to make her way to a distant village, far from the trekking of armies, where she could use it as a bride price, using it, in effect, to purchase herself a companion, a good fellow who could care for herself and her child. Peasants, unlike women of the cities, tend to be very practical about such matters. She had shown me hospitality.
"We will be coming to the camp soon," said the driver.
I heard Feiqa suddenly gasp in horror, shrinking back. Beside the road, on the right, a human figure, head and legs dangling downward, on each side, was fixed on an impaling stake. The stake was some ten feet i
n height, and some four inches in diameter. It had been wedged between rocks and braced with stones. Its point was roughly sharpened, probably with an adz. This point had been entered in the victim's back and thrust through with great force. It emerged from the belly, and protruded some two feet above the body.
"Perhaps that is a spy," I said.
"More likely it is a straggler or a deserter," said the driver.
"Perhaps," I said. This was the first sign I had had today, that there were truly soldiers ahead of us on the road.
A girl looked up from the small fire in one of the roadside camps, and then, suddenly, rose to her feet and, in the shadows, darted out to the road. "Sir," she called. "Sir!" The driver did not stop the wagon. She began to run beside the wagon. "Sir!" she called. "Please! I am hungry!" Her face was lifted up to us. "Please, Sir!" she begged. "Look upon me! I am fair!" She hurried along beside us. "See!" she wept. She tore down her robes to her hips. "My breasts are well formed!" she said. "My belly is wet and hot! I will serve you even as a slave. I will do whatever you want. I do not ask for food for nothing. I will pay! I will pay!"
"Away," said the driver, "before I use the whip on you!"
"Stop," she wept. "Stop!" Then she ran to the head of the tharlarion and seized its halter. The beast grunting, slowed, dragging the girl's weight; she clung fiercely to the halter; it moved its head about, pulling her about, from side to side, shaking her; it tossed its head impatiently upward, lifting her literally from the ground. But she held firmly to the halter and was then, in a moment, still clinging to it, again on the ground. The beast stopped.
The driver angrily rose in his place and the long whip lashed out. "Ai!" she cried, in misery, struck for perhaps the first time with a whip. She released the halter and then stood there in misery, in the shadows, in the road, facing us, a foot or so from the jowls of the animal. "Let me please you!" she begged. Then the whip flashed forth again, like a striking snake, and she, struck once more, sobbing, stumbled back on the road. "Do you not know me?" she cried. He lowered the whip, looking out into the shadows.
"I am Tula from your village," she wept, "she who was too good for you, she who refused your suit!"
"You shame the village!" he cried.
"Whip me!" she wept.
He leaped down from the wagon box. Another wagon, to one side of us, rolled by. He dragged her, two stripes on her body, gray in the shadows, by the arm, back, and to the rear of the wagon. He stood her by the back, right wheel of the wagon. "Face the wheel," he said. "Hold the wheel rim!" She seized it, putting her head down. He lifted the whip, in fury. "Whip me," she said. Three blows fell upon her. "But feed me!" she begged. Two more blows struck her. Then she clung to the wheel, gasping, sobbing. As a male of her village it was his duty to discipline her for what shame she had brought on the village. "Do not strike me again!" she begged. She sank to her knees beside the wheel. Another wagon rolled by.
"So Tula, the proud, the beauty of our village, now bares her beauty before strangers," he said, "and begs to sell her body for a crust of bread!" She leaned against the wheel, sobbing.
"Disgraceful!" he said.
She held the spokes of the wheel, her head down.
"Shameful!" he cried.
"The strong women take what food there is," she said. "I am hungry." "Tula, the proud," he said, angrily, "has now become only another slut by the road."
"Yes," she said.
"What have you to say for yourself!" he demanded.
"Feed me," she said.
"Turn about," he said, angrily.
She turned about, facing him, on her knees.
"Pull down your robes," he said, "until they are about your knees, lying fallen, back upon your calves."
She did this and then lifted her head to him.
"On what conditions?" he asked.
"On yours, totally yours," she said.
"Pull up your robes, about your hips," he said. "You may follow the wagon." Sobbing with gratitude, she clutched at her robes and drew them up about her hips. He angrily returned to his place on the wagon box and with an angry cry and a fierce snap of the whip put his ponderous draft beast once more into motion, taking his place between two other wagons. It was now rather dark but the road shone clearly in the moonlight. It glistened, too, from tiny chips and plates of mica ingredient in its surface. The girl followed the wagon.
"Is the camp far ahead? I asked.
"No," he said.
4 Feiqa Serves in the Alar Camp
I heard the sudden, hesitant, choking cry of the newborn infant.
Genserix, broad-shouldered and powerful, in his furs and leather, with his heavy eyebrows, his long, braided blond hair and long, yellow, drooping mustache, looked up from the fire, about which we sat. The sound came from one of the wagons.
The bawling was now lusty.
"It will live," said one of the men, a sitting warrior near us.
Genserix shrugged. That would remain to be seen. Feiqa knelt behind me. We were now within the laager of Genserix, a chieftain of the Alars, a nomadic, wandering herding people, and one well known, like the folks of Torvaldsland, for their skills with the ax. The laager of the Alars, like that of similar folks, is a fortress of wagons. They are ranged in a closed circle, or concentric, closed circles, draft animals, and women and children within. Also, not unoften, depending on the numbers involved, and particularly when traversing, or sojourning in, dangerous countries, verr, tarsk, and bosk may also be found within the wagon enclosure. Sewage and sanitation, which might be expected to present serious problems, do not do so, because of the frequent moving of the camps.
"It is a son," said one of the women coming from the wagon, nearing the fire. "Not yet," said Genserix The wagons often move. There must be new grazing for the bosk. There must be fresh rooting and browse for the tarsk and verr. The needs of these animals, on which the Alars depend for their existence, are taken to justify movements, and sometimes even migrations, of the Alars and kindred peoples. Needless to day, these movements, particularly when they intrude into more settled area, often bring the folk of the laagers into conflict with other peasants and, of course, shortly thereafter, townsfolk and city dwellers who depend on the peasants for their foodstuffs. Also of course, their movements often, from a legal point of view, constitute actual invasions or indisputable territorial infringements, as when, uninvited, they enter areas technically within the jurisdiction or hegemony of given cities or towns.
Sometimes they pay for passage through a country, or pasturage within it, but this is the exception rather than the rule. They are a fierce folk and it would take a courageous town indeed to suggest the suitability or propriety of such an arrangement. From the point of view of the Alars, of course, they feel it is as absurd to pay for pasturage as it would be to pay for air, both of which are required for life. "Without grass the bosk will die," they say. "The bosk will live," they add. They often find themselves temporarily within the borders of a town's or city's lands, usually about their fringes, but sometimes, depending on the weather and grazing conditions, much deeper within them. Most often little official notice is taken of them, no war challenges being issued, and they are regarded merely as peripheral, unwelcome itinerants, uninvited guests, dangerous, temporary visitors with whom the local folks must for a time live uneasily. It is a rare council or citizenry that does not breathe more easily once the wagons have taken their way out of their lands.
The woman who had come to bear tidings to Genserix now turned about and returned to the wagon.
When there is weakness or chaos in an area, and when the ordinary structures of social order are disrupted, with the concurrent disorganization, failures of responsibility and discipline, it is natural for folks like the Alars to appear. They have a tendency to pour into such areas. Indeed, sometimes they can make them their own, settling within them, sometimes turning to the soil themselves, sometimes assuming the roles and prerogatives of a conquering aristocracy, and becoming, in their tu
rn, the foundation of a new civilization. I had little doubt that it was the current weakness and disorder in this area, attendant on the Cosian invasion, which had drawn the Alars this far south. On the other hand, officially, as I had gathered from the driver with whom I had ridden on the Genesian Road, these Alars had been approached to serve as suppliers and wagoners to the troops. It was in this capacity that they were this close to the road. In accepting this arrangement, the Alars, of course, were in an excellent position to observe the course of events, and, if it seemed practical to them, take possible action. Here they could watch closely for opportunities, either monetary or territorial. Perhaps the men of Cos, no fools, had invited them inward that they might remain in this area, thus rendering more difficult its reoccupation by the forces of Ar. Perhaps, in virtue of gifts of lands, they hoped to make them grateful, pledged allies.
I could hear movement in the nearby wagon. A woman climbed into it carrying cloths and water. I heard the child crying again.
Besides the ax Alars are fond of the Alar sword, a long, heavy, double-edged weapon. Their shields tend to be oval, like those of the Turians. Their most common mount is the medium-weight saddle tharlarion, a beast smaller and less powerful, but swifter and more agile, than the common high tharlarion. Their saddles, however, have stirrups, and thus make possible the use of the couched shock lance. Some cities use Alars in their tharlarion cavalries. Others, perhaps wisely, do not enlist them in their own forces, either as regulars or auxiliaries. When the Alars ride forth to do battle they normally have their laager behind them, to which, in the case of defeat, they swiftly retire. They are fierce and redoubtable warriors in the open field. They know little, however, of politics, or in siege work and the taking of cities. In the cities, normally one needs only to close the gates and wait for them to go away, compelled eventually to do so by the needs of their animals.
A woman now descended from the wagon, carrying a small object. She came near to the fire and Genserix motioned for her to put the object down, to lay it on the dirt before him, between himself and the fire. She did so. He then crouched down near it, and gently, with his large hands, put back the edges of the blanket in which it was wrapped. The tiny baby, not minutes old, with tiny gasps and coughs, still startled and distressed with the sharp, frightful novelty of breathing air, never again to return to the shelter of its mother's body, lost in a chaos of sensation, its eyes not focused, unable scarcely to turn its head from side to side, lay before him. The cord had been cut and tied at its belly. Its tiny legs and arms moved. The blood, the membranes and fluids, had been wiped from its small, hot, red, firm body. Then it had been rubbed with animal fat. How tiny were its head and fingers. How startling and wonderful it seemed that such a thing should be alive. Genserix looked at it for a time, and then he turned it over, and examined it further. Then he put it again on its back. He then stood up, and looked down upon it.