“None?” asked the governor.
“None,” she replied. “I suppose that no one has thought it important because there have been plenty of caravans from other areas and caravans are often delayed due to weather or other difficulties. It is only minor, but this is the only thing that I have noticed.”
“Has there been any indication that the tribes have been making more of a nuisance of themselves than usual?” asked the governor.
“No, the opposite,” said the senior battle mage. “We are coming up to their Festival of the Dragon, although why they hold it at the end of the sign of the Butterfly—over four months late—no one knows. In the lead up to the festival they usually do not even fight one another. This is always the best time to cross the plains. Many merchants will sell everything they carry to the Khitan before they make it all the way across. They then get to return early either here or to Freehold back to their homes. Some may even manage to fit in a second trip into the season. We have not seen any of those for a while either, now that I think of it.”
The discussion continued for a while, but nothing important was added. Eventually, as the night grew late, Rani stood and thanked the Governor and the others for their hospitality and retired.
Chapter XVIII
Rani woke up in a guest house at Garthang to find that a breakfast of cool juices and fruit, naan bread and yoghurt was laid out on the veranda outside her room, overlooking the river. Her travel clothes, those that she had arrived in the day before, were laid out dry upon her bed when she returned inside. Rani looked at the clothes briefly but decided that in light of all the attention that she was receiving and in particular what Sanjeev had said about what he thought she was about, she should go dressed as a soldier, not a dilettante lady on a holiday jaunt. She packed away the riding clothes and donned the padded armour, strapping on weapons and a wand pouch, and slipping four extra wands into the long pockets on the jacket.
The pouch with the Maharajah’s note in it went onto her weapons belt. Rani hesitated over wearing the helm, but eventually decided her equipment was incomplete without it. However, until it was needed, she decided to keep the mail drape of the camail up off the face. After letting the servants in to take her baggage she proceeded down the stairs to find most of last night’s party assembled to see her off. They all wore their armour and looked ready for battle and she was glad that she had decided to take this course for herself.
Rani greeted Sanjeev. The Subadar had a patrol of two hands of cavalry and a junior battle mage standing there in front of their mounts. Two grooms held her horses. Sanjeev introduced her to the other mage, Amin Ramanujan, who seemed a little nervous. Perhaps his patrol leader had told him of the note. Rani thanked the governor for his hospitality and then turned to the Subadar.
“Shall we be gone then?”
He nodded. “Mount.” he called. When all had done so and the packhorses were collected he added, “Danger trail formation, ride out.”
One rider went out fifty paces before the next moved. When he had moved thirty paces two more started out, riding abreast. When they had moved ten paces Sanjeev turned to Rani. “We ride,” he said, and they set off followed by Amin Ramanujan.
Looking back Rani could see that next in line came a pair of riders leading the packhorses, including Juggernaut, who dwarfed the other animals and finally there rode the last hand of cavalry, moving in pairs knee to knee. All were clad in fine mail and, except for the first two scouts they wore their camails down over the face. Green cotton was wrapped around the helms and a gold-plated unit badge held it in place at the front. They all carried a round shield on their left arms and held long stout bamboo lances, each of which had a small green pennon edged with gold near the head. All of the lances were held at exactly the same angle as they rode out.
Rani had been here before and she thought about what was here. Garthang Keep was the very frontier of Haven and it was more a defensible border and trade settlement than a real town and so, while there are farms around it, mainly to the south over the river, they are nowhere near as extensive as they are elsewhere. Around the keep, forming a muddy moat that covered most of the land approach from the north, there stretched some rice fields. The elevated road was three hundred paces long—a very long bowshot and dominated by the ballistae of the keep. After that came some higher ground dotted with orchards of palm and fruit trees, gardens of berries and herbs and even some wheat. Further out was the jungle. It was not as dense this far north as it was around Pavitra Phāṭaka and the firmer ground here made for a long and wide path that was easier to travel on than the wet-footed jungle, in places marsh, that made up the Swamp to the east.
Ahead the road disappeared ahead into a wall of green as the sun rose, golden and blinding, to the east. Suddenly, when they were almost across, an arrow appeared from the glare, aimed directly at Rani, and from so close that there was little chance to dodge it. Even as she noticed it, the arrow stopped, scant hands from her face, and fell to the ground.
Sanjeev yelled a command, “Forward to the trees,” blew a whistle and stood in his stirrups. He turned so the guards in the keep could see what he was doing and waved his arms in battle talk before pointing to roughly where the arrow had emerged.
Rani and the rest of the patrol headed into the forest while this was going on, the soldiers closing around her.
“Get clear,” she cried, “how can I use magic if you crowd me?”
Amin was left holding the packhorses as two sections of a hand of cavalry each formed a line in front and behind Rani, facing forward and back and leaving lines clear along the sides. No more arrows came in, nothing looked suspicious.
By the time Sanjeev had joined them the duty patrol was galloping from the keep over the raised road and towards the jungle, lances at the ready. Two files of infantry were running after them, one of spearmen in kilts with wicker shields, their bamboo spears of over five paces length held at the slope and the other of archers with long bows and wicked two-handed swords slung over their backs. At the end of the procession were two mounted mages with wands held ready to be fired at anything that was found. The cavalry were there to flush out any major threat and to allow the others to deal with it, but this didn’t stop them. Sanjeev didn’t wait to see the outcome but, once they were past, urged his unit on in a return to their original formation. Rani now held a wand in one hand for offence.
“At least I now know that something I am wearing stops missiles. I am betting on the helmet,” she said to Sanjeev as they moved rapidly along
When they camped that night, at a caravan campsite, she tested this by getting Amin to throw a rock at her in full armour. It stopped just short of her, as the arrow did. Gingerly she removed her helm and placed it to one side and Amin threw again. This time only her nimbleness saved her from being hit, the rock kept coming.
“I think that we can safely conclude that the helm has a virtue of protecting its wearer by stopping at least some missiles. Trial and error testing of magic items,” said Rani to Amin, slipping into the role of a teacher to a student, “can be dangerous and should be discouraged generally. In most cases an information mage will give you more detail, more quickly and far more safely. In this case, however, I have no choice. We will test my armour tomorrow.”
They would have three watches, each of four soldiers for the night. Rani insisted on being a part of the watch, so Sanjeev took the first watch as the heat of the day faded, then would come Rani, and lastly Amin. Before retiring, Rani looked at her cards to see if they could tell her anything at all about the day that lay ahead. It was not something she did when she was at home, but she decided that now it was safer to make this a part of her daily routine. Apart from a need to cautiously make haste, there was nothing new. She also laid out her rolled up pentagram and carefully pegged it down so there were no creases. Add this to the list: another item to do daily.
They may as well have all just slept through the night, thought Rani in the morning. It
had all passed uneventfully. Not once did anyone raise a peep on their signal whistles.
~~~
The next day’s travel was still mainly through jungle, but the occasional cooler weather plant showed that they were moving north. At lunch Rani had cut two lengths of paperbark and spent the afternoon’s ride peeling, trimming and then smoothing them until she had two rods, each a bit over a pace long and about an inch thick. When they stopped for the night she again asked Amin to help her.
“I notice that you wear a sword,” she said. “Can you use it?”
“I am no master,” he replied.
She thought somewhat smugly, but I am no novice either.
Rani then handed him a rod and they moved clear of the activity of setting up a camp. It turned out that Amin was in fact more adept with a blade than Rani and was able to land blows on her fairly easily—particularly since she had not cut herself a parrying weapon. After one particularly strong cut from Amin, Rani realised that she was being hit but not feeling anything. It looked like the padding’s virtue was to reduce the power of a blow. To test this Rani forced herself to stand still and had Amin hit her with the stick hard across the stomach. She knew she had been hit, but it had no effect on her, so at least that small amount of harm was being absorbed. Rani could not think of a better test than this for her armour without a considerable risk of injury to herself, but this was as much information as she really needed at present. She had some protection at least, more than she looked to have.
~~~
Three more days saw the jungle plants disappear and the oppressive heat of the south lessen as they moved up the right bank of the river. On the first day Rani had seen it close on their left, and sometimes as they moved through low hills and across streams that were running down from the last vestiges of the swamp that lay to their east, there was no sign of the major watercourse. Mostly she could not see the river at all.
They came upon some small-scale traders returning from Erave Town, but they passed no long distance caravans coming from further away. They met and overtook one going north and spent the night with them before continuing. Eventually they moved well away from the river and entered the forest itself.
During the trip north Rani had become quite familiar with Sanjeev. She decided that he was handsome, friendly, intelligent and witty and the fact that he had been given the job of escorting her probably meant he was well regarded by his superiors. Even though he was Kshatya, it was a pity he was merely an armsman and not a mage. But that was not insurmountable, Rani thought. She might look for him when she returned. Amin was the right caste, but she remembered his face as a student, although not one of hers, in the last year, and he was far too junior. She was sure that the alacrity with which he obeyed her was partly because he remembered her from the faculty as well. Still, she mused, if she was really not going to return, she might have to send for a husband willing to follow her. She didn’t feel anything for him at all, but then few had that good fortune to start with. If she had to send for a husband, it may as well be someone that she liked as a person and so she might try and make sure her parents knew of Sanjeev.
~~~
It took a bit more than a week of travel, but eventually they came across assarts and a hamlet and then, close by, the clearing around Erave Town. Rani looked at it as they finally left the forest behind. The cleared area was far bigger than that around Garthang Keep. It surrounded a fortified trading town that she had been told had more than three thousand people inside the wall. Also, like Garthang, it sat upon a spit of land. In Erave Town’s case she could see the sparkle of water from the lake. She knew that the Rhastaputra River left the lake here to head to Haven, but she could not see that from here. She could see boats were drawn up upon the sand beach of the lake and had been told that there was a river port as well.
As they rode upon the road into town Rani hit upon an idea and turned to Sanjeev. “We are quite obviously a military party. In case someone is searching for me let us take advantage of being seen as merely military and so hide our true purpose. We will tell them that we are enquiring about the missing caravans. Such an issue will justify our presence and will even explain a Haven military party continuing further north. On the way back you can even say that you left me behind to keep trying to find an answer.”
Sanjeev nodded in agreement.
They passed the campsite where trade caravans stayed, intent on being inside the walls. There was already a group of traders there and, to Rani’s surprise, it looked like not all of the guards were fully Human. Some were at least partly Kharl and the rest were more than partly so. From their appearance and weapons it looked like at least two tribes of Kharl were represented. It was easy to see that both groups of travellers looked at each other in open curiosity. Neither had seen anything quite like the other before.
They entered the town on a drawbridge, over a ditch that nearly made the town an island, with Sanjeev in charge. He had been here before and he indicated to a guard where they would be staying and asked to see the mayor. They were invited to go to see him when they were settled in. Sanjeev led them down the street and past what was obviously a large temple that was unfamiliar in shape to Rani. What she presumed was a priest was standing outside. He was a tall, broad-shouldered bearded man dressed all in black and wearing a strange black cylindrical hat. He watched them go past without comment. They rounded a corner and she finally saw the docks ahead, just past a building that Sanjeev was turning into.
Rani looked up at a sign with a net and two crossed poles on it and the name ‘The Fisherman’s Arms’ written on it, incongruously, in Hindi. It had a ground floor of stone and two upper stories of timber. With a few words Sanjeev left his soldiers to take their gear inside and stable the horses down the road while he gathered up Rani and went across a lane to where the noise of metal beating metal indicated a smithy.
“The mayor is Cynric the Smith,” said Sanjeev.
Rani was aghast. It was all she could do to prevent her jaw dropping open in astonishment. The ruler of this overgrown village was standing before them engaged in the hard manual work of a blacksmith. All her life rulers had been Kshatya, while a smith was Sudra. Although she spoke other languages; Darkspeech, Dwarven, and the Faen of the Swamps as well as her own tongue and the High Speech of magic, Rani had never been outside Haven before and so had had limited contact with real outsiders other than sometimes with people studying at the university.
Although, intellectually, she knew that foreigners had little notion of propriety and the dire implications that it had for rebirth, this crossing of caste boundaries, and by a ruler, was a shock to her. She was obviously going to have to get used to such things. She would be in constant contact with these people and would have to worry about getting cleansed at another time if she managed to return to civilisation. In the meantime she had a prophecy to fulfil and would have to pretend that none of this mattered.
She realised that this was going to be very hard for her. She had, after all, been properly brought up and, although she only went to the temples occasionally, she did know what was correct. The mayor was a taller man than Rani was used to seeing and very wide. She had seen tall and large men before, but his most striking features were his hair, the colour of beach sand, and his vivid blue eyes. They contrasted with his darker skin that told of someone from Haven being in his ancestry not too far back. Rani could see that the mayor was just completing the bit for a horse, and it looked to her untrained eye to be very good work.
“So,” said Cynric as he began racking up his tools, “what does the army of Haven want from Erave Town? Do we need to man our defences? Isn’t it enough that you are running a new route for your caravans and are trying to bankrupt us? Do we tax your traders that much?”
“A new route?” interrupted Rani. “What do you mean?”
She saw Cynric look at her cautiously. “Some of your traders from the west and the far north are avoiding us and have been doing it for more than six
weeks. Are you trying to tell me that this is not deliberate? Where are they going if we are not seeing them?” asked Cynric.
“Actually,” said Sanjeev, “that is what we came to ask you. I am a part of the Garthang Keep garrison. We are seeing all of our caravans come in from every route except these two. We wondered if you might know of anything happening that might stop them.”
“Damn,” Cynric spat out, his brow wrinkled. “It was such a good explanation and simple. Who could target and stop that much trade? It would be much simpler if it were just re-routed. Fetch Leonas and Metropolitan Cosmas to the hall and tell the Metropolitan that we need the map.” This last was addressed to a young man who had the look of an apprentice. He nodded and hurried off.
Cynic turned back to the Havenites. “Leonas is the Captain of our militia and Cosmas is the Metropolitan of this part of The Land. Let me wash up a bit and I will take you to meet them.”
Cynric did that, keeping up a loud commentary on the weather (warm for late autumn) and on the possibilities becoming open now with the start of trade with Darkreach (good). Neither Sanjeev nor Rani was able to get in more than a word or two and, after exchanging looks, Rani settled for nodding and making ‘yes’ or ‘no’ sounds and Sanjeev did the same. This seemed to be enough to content the Mayor.
Eventually he led them down the street that separated his forge from the inn and past the stables, where the horses were being installed, to a large two-storey hall. Cynric ushered them upstairs where two men were waiting. The first was the man in black that they had seen upon entering the town and the second was a grim-looking stocky man, with a much shorter square beard, who was clad in half plate even while inside the town. He indicated the man in black. “This is Metropolitan Cosmas Camaterus. He is the head of our Church for this area.”
The Metropolitan smiled and held out his hand to Sanjeev, who took it in his own and shook it.
Intimations of Evil (Warriors of Vhast Book 1) Page 25