Against the Tide of Years

by S. M. Stirling

  “Your land of Nantukhet is colder than Kar-Duniash? Like Hatti-land, or the mountains.”

  Kenneth-Hollard nodded. “Somewhat colder, in summer—a warm night here would be a hot day there. Much colder than your land in the winter—cold rain that turns to ice, and much snow.”

  Kashtiliash had campaigned along the edges of the Zagros in winter, and he shivered a little inwardly at the memory. “Great forests, too, I hear.”

  “Not Nantucket on,” Kathryn said—her Akkadian wasn’t as good as her commander’s—“On mainland not far away, yes. Trees half as tall as ziggurat of Ur, cover land many thousand . . . how do you say ... thousand day walks. We cut, cut fuel, cut timber, cut for farms, still always more.”

  “All the logs you want, for the cutting—it seems unnatural, like picking gold up off the ground,” Kashtiliash said. Kar-Duniash grew nothing but poplar and palm and had to buy abroad for anything that required large, strong timbers, or hard and handsome ones. “But doubtless you need the fuel.”

  “We show, you have the black oil that burns?” Hollard said.

  He puzzled at that for a second, then realized she meant the black water; he’d never thought to call it “oil,” as if it were sesame pressings or pig lard.

  “Yes, that will burn, but only with a stinking smoke,” he replied.

  “If you—” she hesitated, frustration on her face, and talked with the other two Nantukhtar. “Our word is distill . . . distill it, parts burn clean, it will. For lamps, for make . . . for making bricks. And for firing our steam boats.”

  He hid a slight shudder. Many had gone on their faces—or screamed and run—when the first of those came walking upstream without oars or sails. It still caused uneasiness, fear of ill luck. Yet already some of the merchants of the karum had hired those boats to haul cargo upstream. And—

  “Those could be very useful to us when it comes to war against the Assyrians,” he said.

  Kathryn and the others nodded. “A road for supplies right into the heart of the enemy’s country,” she said.

  “We have a saying, O Prince,” Kenneth-Hollard said. “ That . . . ah, novices talk of the clash of arms, and experienced warriors speak of supplies.”

  “That is true; it cannot be denied!” Kashtiliash agreed.

  They not only have wonderful weapons, but they understand how weapons should be used, he thought with relief—he must tell his father of this. That was the difference between a civilized realm like Babylon and mountain tribesmen or Aramaean sand-thieves; the scribes and storehouses and skilled men to keep bread and beer and salt fish, fresh horses and arrowheads, flowing out to the armies in the field. And the silver to keep soldiers longer than the smell of loot, and the engineers to build fortresses and bridges.

  He had a sudden, daunting thought; did the Nantukhtar view him as he might a chief of the Aramaeans? For that matter, his remote forebears had been hill-chiefs, hungry strangers who came down into these rich lowlands during the chaos that followed the fall of Hammurabi’s dynasty.

  Kashtiliash followed the conversation, appreciating how skillfully the Nantukhtar picked up slivers of information in answering his questions, and equally how they avoided telling him more than they wished him to know without giving offense. Here I am, discussing affairs of war and state with a woman, and it seems quite natural, he thought. Disturbing and intriguing at once.

  At last their minds turned from larger matters to the hunt, through discussing what the rifles could do.

  “My thanks to you,” he said. “You killed five. Perhaps if we had many of these rifles, we could finally kill the vermin faster than they breed, and our stock and the peasants’ children would be safe.”

  The Nantukhtar looked at each other again. “Well,” Hollard said, “that’s one way of looking at it.”

  “I proclaim these men free!” William Walker shouted. “Slaves no more!”

  He stepped forward and twisted the metal collar around the first man’s neck. The soft wrought iron had been filed nearly through, and it parted easily under the strong, wrenching pressure. The man fell to his knees, tears leaking down his face, and gripped the king’s shins, babbling his thanks. He had a thick accent and pale eyes; he’d probably been bought in trade with the barbarians of the north. They were always willing to sell their tribal enemies for silver and wine. For steel swords, sometimes their relatives.

  “If you wish to thank me, work well and faithfully,” Walker said, restraining an urge to kick the new freedman loose, smiling and patting him on the shoulder instead; the guardsman dragged him back. Mustn’t spoil the tone of the occasion.

  He went on down the line of slaves who waited in the strong sun; there were thirty men and twenty women, about average for a week when he hadn’t been away. As he took the collar off each, a clerk handed the new-made freeman or woman a certificate of manumission on parchment and a small leather bag of coined silver. When he was finished, he climbed the steps from the floor of the stadium and stood once more at the front of the royal box.

  “Let all men know,” he went on, “that these royal freedmen are now citizens of the kingdom, for they have labored hard to make those things we most need. Let them be paid a wage; let them be free to marry and establish their own households, to own land and to bear arms, to testify on oath in court. Let any children of theirs be enrolled in the royal schools, and let all men know that they have earned the king’s favor, and the honored title of Stakhanovites!”

  A long, rolling cheer went around the stadium, buffeting his ears. There were about ten thousand here, nearly all the free population of Walkeropolis and their families, minus guards and the duty roster of the garrison, plus the most favored element of the slaves—most favored next to this crop of ones being manumitted, of course. It was walking distance from town, and they’d run out a spur from the city’s wooden-rail, horse-drawn trolley system as well.

  The public stadium was a compromise between what he remembered of Greek Odeums and an American football stadium. From here everyone could see him when he stood and stepped forward to the gilded railing of the marble-and-lapis king’s box to speak, but a few steps back under the great striped awning one could enjoy shade and privacy without sacrificing a good view.

  Walker walked backward three paces to seat himself on the throne, raising his hand high to acknowledge the roaring of the crowd. A fair number of them had been freed themselves in ceremonies of just this kind—less elaborate in earlier years, of course. Around the edge of the royal box stood a platoon from his guard regiment, in their gray chain-mail tunics, helmets, and cloaks, their bayoneted rifles across their chests. On every shoulder was his wolfshead badge, red on black; in the smooth marble front wall of the box the same symbol was set in orilachrium and onyx, and it flapped from the flagposts all around the amphitheater.

  Pity we don’t have good enough lighting for night games, he thought. Or that pillars-of-ice effect that kraut Speer got with searchlights. Cool.

  The new freedmen were laughing now—some still weeping as well—and waving as they were led around the circuit of the sands by a brass band and drum majorettes tossing flaming batons; that had been Alice’s idea and surprisingly popular. Alice was sitting on his right hand in a big silk lounger, occasionally giving the silver chain in her hand a bit of a jerk; it was attached to the choke-collar around the neck of one of her latest toys.

  That one won’t last long, Walker thought, looking at the circles beneath the staring eyes where she knelt on the marble tiles at Hong’s feet. Pity. Pretty little thing. Soft, though. The harder ones sometimes came through the Hong Re-education Process alive.

  Although they were always . . . changed.

  She had half a dozen of her friends there, too. Wives and daughters of various Mycenaean bigwigs, mostly—members and prospective members of that cult thing she’d been working on for years, the Sisterhood of Hekate. It stroked her various twitches, and it was useful as well. Some of the Achaean noblewomen were wearing the new
fashions that Alice and the women of Walker’s retainers had spread—a knee-length tunic, sash belt, loose trousers, and gold-stamped sandals, in various combinations of color and cut, embroidery and jeweled additions.

  “I don’t know why you make such a big thing of these manumissions,” the doctor said sulkily.

  “Hey, do I object to your human sacrifices?” Walker said, chuckling. He considered a date stuffed with minced nuts and took a handful of popcorn instead, making a mental note not to forget his sparring practice later that day.

  Aloud he went on, “Alice, Alice—you really don’t understand personnel management all that well. Why do you think we go in for all this slavery to begin with?”

  “Ah . . . because it’s fun?” she said.

  “That’s your hang-up. Me, I just want to get the work done the way I want it done, as cheap and fast as possible. If I could, I’d hire ’em—less trouble if they find their own rations and flophouses. Thing is, there’s no proletariat here. Damned few people here work day to day for wages, and those mostly only for the harvest or something like that.”

  “The telestai squeeze the peasants fairly hard,” Alice objected.

  “Yeah, but the barons don’t employ them. The peasants manage their own land and hand over a share of what they grow. The artisans were all contractors, except for the slave women working the looms. There just isn’t a hired labor force available. The only way to get big groups of people doing unfamiliar things under supervision in this setup is slavery—only way to get them working regularly to clocktime, too; they just purely hate that. Not that I’ve got anything against slavery, but mainly it’s a management tool. But you’ve got to have a carrot as well as the stick. Manumission’s a safety valve.”

  “I don’t understand it; you’re the one who enslaved them in the first place, Will. You knock someone down, then give them a hand up, and they’re grateful?”

  “Mostly they are. Hell, if you wait for human beings to be rational, babe, it’ll be a long, dull month of Sundays. These guys are useful.”

  Walker looked over to where Althea and Harold were sitting with their minders. God, they grow fast, he thought. There were a few more coming up behind them, too—for that matter, Ekhnonpa was pregnant again; he still slept with her occasionally, for old time’s sake.

  “Remember this,” he said to them. “It’s part of the art of ruling, knowing when to use rewards and when to use punishments. It’s not how much you give, but how much it is in relation to what the man had before. If he’s a slave with nothing, a little can get you a lot.”

  The boy and girl both nodded solemnly; they knew his teaching tone. Then excitement broke through again and they bounced on the cushions, forgetting the bowls of ice cream in their hands and endangering the upholstery.

  “What’s next, Father?” Althea asked.

  “Hmmmm—Alice, you handle the programming; what is next?”

  “Well, it’s on the printed schedule, Will—honestly, sometimes I don’t think you appreciate my work at all.”

  Oh, but I do, babe. Particularly the medical school, and the library project—getting everything she knew down in print, with multiple copies. And training assistant healers, not up to full doctor status but able to do extension work in teaching things like sanitation—she’d gotten that idea from the Chinese Communists, of all people. Without you, I’d have goddam epidemics gumming up the program all over the place.

  The cheering in the stands had settled down to a steady hum as the freedmen were led out through a gate of wrought iron; criers were going up and down the stairways chanting their offers of cold watered wine, sausages in buns, popcorn, and candied fruit and pastries. Walker inhaled with a nostalgic pang; it wasn’t quite the scent of a high school game, but it wasn’t entirely unlike it, either.

  “Let’s see, kids,” he said, unfolding the sheet lying on the table beside his glass.

  Nice crisp printing, and they’re getting the engravings better, he noted.

  That was Selznick’s department. He glanced over; the man was in a lower box two places over in the nobles’ section, with one of his concubines wiping grease off his double chin and another holding a tray of souvlaki next to this thick, ring-bedecked fingers. Walker felt the detached contempt he always did for a man who couldn’t control his appetites. The information minister’s vices didn’t interfere with his job, much, so they were tolerable, and they did make him easier to control.

  None of his original American retainers were stupid enough to think they could get along without him, and one thing he’d insisted on from the first was that they trained plenty of understudies. He was increasingly able to get along without them, and they knew it.

  “Footraces first,” he said to his son and daughter. “Then long jump and javelin. Then the ironworks boxing champion versus the road haulers’ man, for a prize of three hundred dollars to the winner.”

  “That ought to be good, Father,” Harold said eagerly. “That’s even better than a soccer game.”

  Walker nodded; none of that nonsense with gloves or Queensbury rules here, it was bare knuckles and last-man-standing.

  “Then it’s three women with spears against a tiger,” he concluded. His eyebrows went up, and Althea squealed with excitement.

  “A tiger?” the blond girl said. “Oooooh!” She lifted a bored-looking Egyptian cat from its basket beside her and kissed its nose. “Wouldn’t you like to be a tiger, Fluffy Fury?”

  Walker looked over at Hong. “Maybe I don’t appreciate you enough, querida mia—where did you get a tiger, of all things?”

  Lions were available in Greece; you found them all over the Balkans in this era, though they weren’t common. Bears, too. Tigers, though . . .

  “Colchis,” Alice said smugly. “I wanted it to be a surprise, so I got the captain of the Shark to pass the word there when you sent him around the Black Sea on the show-the-flag cruise, and then I kept it out at my country place. It’s big, and it’s mean. The women are all recaptured runaways, lots of spirit. They look very fetching too, all buff and fierce.” She smiled and patted the head of her toy. “I trained them and designed the costumes myself.”

  “That will be interesting,” he said.

  “Three gets you two on the tiger,” Cuddy said. “Hey, tell you what—I’ll bet those litter-bearers you liked against . . . whatever-her-name-is there. That’s four-to-one.”

  “Done,” Alice replied, ignoring the sudden wild flare of hope in the toy’s eyes. “She’s sort of boring, anyway.”

  A clerk came through, with a murmur to the guard. He bowed and handed Walker a sealed message marked with the high-priority stamp and with Enkhelyawon’s sigil in the red wax. Walker split the wax with a flick of his thumbnail and read quickly.

  “Trouble?” Alice said.

  “Intelligence report.”

  He snapped his fingers, and another servant glided forward with a silver tray and pen-and-ink set. She knelt to present the tray as a writing surface, holding it motionless as he scribbled, “Received. Well done.” Definite news of the Nantucketers’ arrival in Babylonia was worth interrupting him for. “We will meet in my sanctum to discuss this after dinner tonight.” Then he would schedule a cabinet meeting for later in the week. The clerk bowed again and left, moving with the same unobtrusive swiftness.

  Damn, the one drawback with being ruler of all I survey is that I spend so much of my time reading reports and holding meetings. Sort of like being a CEO. Of course, most corporate executives couldn’t crucify the people who really annoyed them.

  Walker stood again. “Let the games begin!” he called.

  “You have not been idle,” Kashtiliash said mildly. The sun of Shamash was declining toward the west as they approached the Nantukhtar base.

  His face was impassive, and only the formal phrasing showed how startled he was. He’d heard reports that the Nantukhtar were building on the land his sire had bestowed; the kudurru exempting the grant from all tax and service stood in t
he courtyard of the great temple in Ur. He’d even heard that the foreigners had hired many peasants after the harvest, paying well and barging them downstream by the thousands.

  But I expected an earthwork fort, not a small city! Walls defined a space the size of a minor nobleman’s estate, several hundred acres; a broad road ran down through cultivated fields to the water’s edge, where stood piers and slipways and a cluster of buildings.

  The walls were like nothing he’d ever seen either. A low mound, a deep, broad moat, and then massive low-slung ramparts sunk behind the protection of the ditch. They formed a square, with triangular bastions at each corner and more before the gates. The surface . . .

  “Is that all baked brick?” he asked, amazed.

  Hollard nodded. “Look there, lord,” he said, pointing. Down by the riverside was a series of low structures, shaped like long half-tubes.

  “Kilns fired by . . . dis-till-ed black water? I did not know there was a spring of it here,” Kashtiliash said. He would have known; the stuff had many uses, although it was costly.

  “We drilled a well for it. That is what our steamboats burn here, too.”

  The prince nodded, hiding a shiver. He’d heard the Nantukhtar explanation, and it was true—a sealed vessel of water put on the fire did explode, so there was much force in the vapors of heated water. It was still eerie.

  He glanced at the lavish, manyfold thousands of bricks. We should look into using the black water thus ourselves. Building was one of the primary duties of a king, and the better the buildings, the greater the mana.

  “The residue is bitumen, also useful,” Hollard went on.

  “What is that other building, then, beside the kilns?”

  “That is where we turn your reeds into . . . into a stuff like Egyptian papyrus. We call it paper, and it was our thought that your merchants could make it and then sell it to ours in return for our goods. We show them how, there.”