Turtledove, Harry - Anthology 07 - New Tales Of The Bronze Age - The First Heroes (with Doyle, Noreen)

by The First Heroes (anth. ) (lit)

  Impatience almost snapped: "Yes, I've been through this often enough."

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  He leaned back, lifted his glass, and said ruefully, "And, no doubt, the rather far-out theory behind everything. I merely want to make sure. You'd be surprised at what surprises I've had along the way."

  Yes, theory, I thought. I've tried to grasp it. General relativity. A world line as the path through space-time of a body, like for example a human individual. Except that it doesn't commence at birth or end in the grave. At the moment of conception, it springs from the joining world lines of the mother and father, and when we heget our own children, their world lines spring from those moments. What Rennie's discovered is that the mind—or the soul, or some kind of memory, or whatever; nobody, including him,, knows—can be made (persuaded?) to go back down those branchings and for a while—not exactly be, but share the mind of an ancestor. Why we can't go likewise into the future, he doesn't know either. It suggests a lot about the nature of time, maybe even of free will. But his work isn't scientifically respectable. Easy to see why. So complex, so tricky, so much in need of exactly the right touch.

  Maybe he can help me a little. And maybe afterward I can help him a little.

  We talked onward for a while. He mainly wanted to put me more at my ease, but how he did it was interesting in itself. At last we agreed to start. He took me upstairs and had me remove my shoes and loosen my clothing before I lay down. The pill he gave me was simply a tranquil-izer, the meditationlike exercises through which he led me simply to establish the proper brain rhythms. Then he turned on the induction field and I toppled away.

  As the short, light night, that is hardly night at all, whitens toward day, my lady and I follow the trumpeters up onto the hillcrest. There I look past two plank-built crafts a dozen logboats drawn ashore, westward and outward. Already the water gleams like molten silver. Across it, Longland and, far ther off on my right, Yutholand are still darkling. Clouds loom huge and murky beyond them. A stiffening wind whines and bites. It has raised chop on the straits. Even this early, the seafowl, gulls, terns, guillemots, auks, are fewer than I have formerly seen. Their cries creak faintly through the wind.

  Will a rainstorm drench the balefires—again?

  We turn around and take our stance, the trumpeters side by side, I on their right with a spear held

  straight, Daemagh on their left with fine-drawn gold wrapped about the holy distaff. Now I am

  looking east, widely over our great island, past the massive-timbered hall and its outbuildings, past the

  clustered wattle-and-daub homes of my folk, past their grainfields and hayfields and paddocks, on to

  the forest. Thus far the sky yonder is clear, a wan blue from which the few faint stars of midsummer

  have faded, and treetops shine with the oncoming light.

  Below the hill, the people stand gathered, not only those of the neighborhood but outlying farmers, herders, hunters, charcoal burners, and others, some with their women and small children along, come together for the blessing and the fair, the feasting and dancing, merrymaking and lovemaking and matchmaking that ought to be theirs. As yet I cannot make them out very well, but I feel their eyes. Several are my guests at the hall, the rest have crowded in with kinfolk; all, though, are Skernings, and today one with me.

  The sun rises above the forest. It sets the disc-shaped trumpet mouths ablaze like itself. My lady's bronze beltplate shines as bright, her amber necklace kindles with its own glow, and my cloak of Southland scarlet becomes a flame. Kirtles, breeks, blouse, skirt, headgear, the best we have, taken from their chests at times such as this, lend their softer hues to the sunrise. The trumpeters set lips to mouthpieces; the deep tones roll forth, hailing the sun at her height of the year, overriding the wind.

  Suddenly—it has happened before—I am not altogether Havakh, son of Cnuath, nor is Daemagh altogether my wife and mother of my children. These are not altogether Saehal and Eikbo between us, who have been taught and hallowed to play at the holy times but are otherwise a farmer and a boat-owner. As they stand here with the trumpets curling mightily over their shoulders, one left, one right, and above their heads, the gods take us four unto themselves.

  The sun swings higher on the tide of the music.

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  It ends, ringing off to silence. I lift the spear, Daemagh the distaff. We cry the words that were cried at the beginning of the world.

  The wind seems to scatter them.

  And then we are merely the lord and lady of the manor and two men. We start back down to carry out the rest of the day and the following night. By now the light overflows, though somehow it is as unseasonably bleak as the air. I see all too clearly how thin the millet, emmer, and barley stand in the fields, the grazing kine and sheep not fat; and I know all too well that the pigs have lean pickings in the woods. Let the weather hold till tomorrow, only till tomorrow, I pray. But I do not promise an offering if it does, for such vows have done little if any good in the past score or worse of years.

  Maybe it will. At least this isn't as bad as the spring equinox. Then, when I plowed the first furrows, wind, rain, and sleet lashed my nakedness, I could barely control the oxen, my left hand shook so, holding the reins and the ard. Leaves were scant on the green bough in my right hand. After I came home, I shuddered between sheepskins for a long while.

  Fears ill become the lord of the Skernings. I straighten my shoulders and my heart and stride downward with my companions.

  Men mill around and greet me. I reply to each by name, and ask those whom I seldom see how they have been faring. There is more to being a lord than leading the rites, taking the levies, judging disputes, sustaining the unfortunate, going armed against dangerous wild beasts or the rare evildoer, and otherwise upholding the peace and honor of the domain.

  Savory odors drift to my nostrils as I near the hall. Now my lady and I shall provide the morning feast. Afterward come the giving and receiving of gifts. Both will be meager, set beside memories of past holy days. Even the king's yearly procession around Sealland is less showy than it used to be, and no longer lavish. Still, no one is in dire want, my own coffers and storerooms are far from empty, and—at least this year—the folk need not crowd inside out of the rain but can spread themselves over the grass in the sunshine, freely mingling while they enjoy the meat and ale.

  "Happy morning, Lord Havakh."

  The hoarse voice jars me to a halt. There stands Bog-Ernu. How long since he last trudged the weary way here to take part in anything!5 I reckoned that a sullen pride kept him away. He was too poor to bring more than a token gift. When I gave him something better in return— which I must, of course, not to demean myself—it would lower his standing further yet. Men might not openly mock him, but their eyes would. So he, his woman, his children, and a few others like them have stayed apart. Three or four times a year, a trader or two comes by for the peat they have cut and dried, and maybe dickers for some pelts they have taken; else they are mostly alone. They hunt, trap, gather, and herd pigs in the forest, they grow a little grain in grubbed-out plots, and whatever Powers they offer to are not likely our great gods.

  It has not always been thus with him. A tide of memory rises in me. My words seem to come of their own accord. "Happiness to you, Ernu—old crewmate—" They break off. Another man has thrust forward from behind his broad back. A snaggle-toothed grin stirs Ernu's unkempt, greasy beard. "You know Conomar too from those days, nay?" How could I forget? Conomar the Boian says nothing, only stares straight at me, but the hatred in that gaze has not changed.

  "Well—well, he shall partake, since he's with you," I answer lamely.

  Glee throbs. "You'll be glad, my lord."

  They stand there in their stinking wadmal and birchbark leggings like a clot amidst clean, well-clad, well-groomed people—these two, and three more, younger, whom I suppose must be Ernu's sons. Flint knives at the belt are common enough among commoners, but theirs are crudely homemade. Despit
e the ban on killer weapons at folkmeets, the staves they grip could easily shatter skulls. Nevertheless they are Skernings, with that much claim on my hospitality and justice— except for their captive wolf—and once Ernu fared and fought at my side.

  I give him a nod, turn, and continue to the hall, unheeding of anyone else. Memories are overwhelming my soul. Why? It is almost as if something beyond myself is calling them up, seeking

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  to understand.

  Oh, we were young when we set forth, all of us except Herut, and he just a bit grizzled. However grim our goal might prove to be, for us the venture began joyously. New lands, high deeds, fame to win and maybe wealth to regain!

  But we were not callow. As the second son of Lord Cnuath, I was of course in command. Yet I meant to heed the counsels of Herut, a skipper who had thrice made the first part of this journey as well as plying our more usual trade routes. Besides, I'd already been on a few voyages myself. Mainly they were short, among the familiar islands or to Yutholand, but one went across the Sound and north along the coast yonder as far as anybody lived who shared our ways, while another went clear over the Eastern Sea to trade with the colonies.

  About half my followers had had some such experiences, being of well-to-do families. Most of the rest had paddled logboats as far as needful for fishing, sealing, or taking birds' eggs. A few had not, Ernu among them; their sort had all it could do scratching out a bare living inland. I supposed—then—that none of them came along for anything more than the reward he was offered or gave the meaning of our emprise any more thought than would an ox. However, their backs were strong, and if we must fight, their flintheaded axes and spears should be almost as good as sharpened bronze.

  Sixty men in two ships of twenty-four paddles, we left behind cheers and wellwishings. The aftermath of yestereve's farewell carousel buzzed in us like bees. The wind soon blew that out. It was not unduly high, nor were the seas ever violent. When anyone got sick, he suffered chiefly from the jokes of his comrades. Back in those years, the weather seldom turned truly evil. Old folk did say it had been worsening throughout their lifetimes. But more often than not it was still mild. The question that troubled us until it prompted this expedition was: What had gone wrong in the far South, and what must we look for in time to comer1 What should our kings do?

  I could not feel fearful now. The water sparkled, the wind bore salt and tang and enough cold to rouse the blood, the sky was full of wings, bird-cries and wave-whoosh mingled with the paddle-master's chant, keel and sheer horns traced our path before and abaft our hull, curving up toward heaven, while withy-bound strakes slipped through the waves as lithe as a dancer.

  Thus we went onward, north along Yutholand until we rounded its tip and bore south again. At the end of each day, we'd beach our craft and make camp for the night, unless we came on a settlement. When we did, we were received gladly. A small gift or two from our stock of trade goods was enough for such villagers. Sometimes after the dining and drinking, some girls, low-born but pleasing, would wander off into the meadows hand in hand with some of us leaders. The nights of late spring were shor tening and lightening toward summer, and the moon turned full just then.

  We did not linger. Before long the shore bent west. Shortly thereafter we reached the estuary of the River Ailavo and started up it.

  I have heard that it is a torrent in the mountains from which it rises. But that is far south—far indeed; somewhere beyond them, bordering seas warmer and gentler than ours, lie the lands of such peoples as the Hellenes, which to us in this shrunken age are almost fables. Once in the lowlands, the river runs broad, slow, often shallow, northwesterly through a distance that it might take an unhindered man half a month to walk, until it empties into the Western Sea. Paddling against that current wasn't hard, but sometimes we had to jump overboard and manhandle our ships across sandbars.

  This is a land of vast and gloomy forests, dominated by the oak, but one finds much clearing and a few settlements along the stream. The dwellers are akin to us, though there is less wealth among them. Livestock are plentiful but small and scruffy. Men often wear no more than a leather cloak, and anything else is likely to be skin also; however, women usually have coarse linen undergarments and are always long-skirted, never bare-legged in warm weather. These people burn their dead like us, but still raise mounds over chieftains. Not even those men go clean-shaven in life, though all who are free do trim their beards and coil their hair up in a braid. Yes, chieftains; there is no king over any tribe, let alone over several, and each tribe is scattered in single farmsteads or tiny hamlets through a large territory. Maybe it is their backwardness that makes them so apt to wage war on

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  each other.

  However, traders have little to fear, unless that too has changed by now. They have always been traveling on the Ailavo, from both the North and the South and back again. The riverside folk have long since learned that leaving them in peace means more goods than their back-country cousins can hope for. I think that meeting strangers, hearing new tales, getting some ongoing knowledge of the world beyond these woods, enriches their lives still more. Certainly a visit delights them.

  I recall one especially, because it came to matter very much to me. We had been on the river for several days, the fog and tidewater of the coast lay well behind us, when, following Herut's advice, we stopped at a village called Aurochsford. It was the biggest we had seen and the farthest he himself had ever reached: for it was a staging post. Few men have made the whole distance between North and South, none in living memory, and it is said that they went by sea, steering clear of mountains, wildernesses, robber tribes, and alien languages. By far the most wares have gone overland, year after year, from hand to hand, the exchanges usually occurring at time-honored meeting grounds such as this. Not everything passed all the way, of course; cattle, slaves, and the like began and finished their journeys at places in between. But amber, furs, train oil—and copper, bronze, brightly dyed cloth, finely wrought cauldrons—flowed from end to end of a network of routes across the whole known world.

  So had it been. So was it no longer.

  We drew our boats ashore where, I could see, traders were wont to. Townsfolk flocked eagerly around. Nevertheless we left a guard, our thirty-odd commoners, camped nearby. They would have been ill at ease anyway, unused to foreigners as they were. The tongue spoken here was so changed from ours that I myself, who had ranged abroad somewhat, could follow it only slightly and with difficulty and say almost nothing. I put my young kinsman Athalberh in charge. Somebody high-born must be. He sulked, but a duty is a duty. The headman, named Wihta, invited the rest of us to feast. There was barely room in his house for so many. Herut, I, the captain of our second craft, and two more sat benched with him and a few others at a trestle table which was brought in. Most were crowded wherever they could find a space, mainly on the floor. Come night, they would be quartered in humbler homes. Not that this one was any better than a fairly well-off farmer's in Sealland—nothing like my father's hall, where hangings decked the walls, gold and copper gleamed, the carven pillars seemed well-nigh alive. Nor were we served a meal to boast of— game, cheese, barley bread, with never an herb to season it. I can tell Athalberh that he's missed very little, I thought with an inward grin.

  The trenchers had been cleared away and the women were going around with jugs of ale to refill horns when Wihta wondered aloud, "Few have come to us straight from their homelands; yet you tell us that you mean to go on. Never have I seen traders traveling in two boats at once, or ships so big, yet you have filled them much more with armed men than goods. What is your intent?"

  This is how I remember the talk. It really went slowly and awkwardly through Herut, the interpreter. He glanced at me. As commander, I ought to reply. "We seek to learn how it is that no more wares are coming from the South," I said. "That's a grave matter, especially the metal."

  "Why, you've got to have heard. Wild tribes with terrible weapon
s have poured in from the Southeast, plundering, killing, taking the land for themselves. Who would be so mad as to try carrying riches through?"

  "Yes, we know. Tidings have reached us, piece by piece, year by year. And we know the weapons are iron. Somehow those folk have learned to smelt and work the stuff. Maybe renegade southerners taught them the art, maybe their gods did—who can say?" A shiver went through the company. I groped for workaday words. "First they'd have to find the ore, whatever it looks like. My father thinks it must be plentiful in their homeland, wherever that is. Be this as it may, suddenly they are as well-armed as Hellenes or Persians or, or any of the nations that live in . . . cities}" I knew only tales of huge and wonderful settlements where there were gleamed buildings of polished stone, and wasn't sure whether I had the name right.

  Belike Wihta had never heard it. "We haven't thought so deeply." Well, they were simple tillers and woodsmen here. They had no ships trafficking from the Eastern Sea gulfs to the Tin Isles and the

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  Island of Gold in the far West. They actually saw little of the merchandise that formerly went to and fro and sometimes was bartered at this very spot, because they could not afford it. His admiring tone harshened. "There's begun to be talk of our tribes getting together to build earthworks, lest we too be overrun." He gulped his hornful down and beckoned for another. The ale was soothing him a bit. "But they're still far off, the wild men, and have more to gain by attacking countries ahead of them than struggling through our forests. Don't they?"

  "That's one thing we want to make more certain of than you are," I said.

  He blinked. His friends gaped. "You're bound yonder—to them?"

  "Yes. As scouts, if nothing else."

  "They'll kill you!"

  "We trust not. We may even be able to talk with them, if we can get an interpreter."