Grand Vizier of Krar

by W. John Tucker

  After half an hour they came to a place where they could rest for a while. There was a small island of completely dry land rising two fathomes above the water, populated by trees and bushes which afforded good cover. From there they could peer out through the vegetation and see the main river channel nearly half a mile away.

  They heard a loud, deep horn coming from upstream. It repeated at regular intervals. Soon they saw a flotilla of ten dragon boats, each with a crew of twenty oarsmen and carrying another ten crossbowmen on guard. These were not the simple longboats typically used for river transport; they were the sort with a fearsome dragon’s head at each end, made for warships and for battles in the open seas.

  “The enemy must be building dragon boats on the river,” Pelembras remarked.

  “There were old dragon boats at Belspire,” Arnapa explained. “My guess is that they have repaired those rather than build new ones.”

  It was not long before they saw the source of the horn blasts. The ten dragon boats were followed by a huge barge which carried a container the size of a modest family house or small ship. The horns were on the barge and no doubt intended to signal river traffic downstream of the convoy to get out of the way. The barge was followed by another ten dragon boats with similar crews.

  “They are transporting something very important to them and my guess is that a Geode is in that container, on its way to Quolow,” Arnapa speculated.

  “It must be the communication device I heard about at General Utukin’s camp,” Pelembras said. “They will have to leave it below the waterfall because the canal is not yet ready. Even so, it will speed up his link with Black Knight and make it more likely that Black Knight will discover that Blan is already in the power of his army; possibly Memwin too.”

  While they all took some food and drink, Pelembras offered to look at Arnapa’s wound. “Shipbuilding is a very dangerous business,” he said. “In that, as well as in my battle and mountaineering activities, I have come to know quite a lot about wounds of all kinds. Let me look at yours.”

  He gently removed the bandages that Zeep had hastily applied while they were fleeing from the longboat. He examined Arnapa’s wounds. They had almost stopped bleeding. He cleaned them, bound them up comprehensively and made a sling for Arnapa’s arm.

  “They should heal quickly if you keep them clean,” he advised. “The bolt passed almost cleanly through your arm just below the shoulder, but it probably nicked your left humerus and caused a slight fracture. When it struck your side it broke a rib but it does not seem to have gone any further. You are lucky, if that is the right word. I think the bolt misfired and that is why it did not have the power to strike into your chest. Furthermore, I don’t think the bolt was poisoned. The soldiers were not expecting trouble and were more likely hoping to use their crossbows against waterfowl for their table. They would not wish to poison their own food.”

  Arnapa was much relieved and felt somewhat like a little girl. It had been years since anyone else had attended to her personal problems.

  The companions exchanged their stories about all that had happened since Pelembras had waved them off four days earlier. After escaping with the help of Karldros, Pelembras had made his way toward the confluence of Polnet and Southport. It had not been as easy in a small boat as it would have been in a canoe. However, once he was a safe distance from the falls, he moved into the main river channel and used his shaky Kraran accent to bluff his way past barges hurrying with goods and slaves to the canal site. He had just crossed to the north side of the main channel of the Southport when he saw the first longboat. He hid in the marshes and, when he saw his companions emerge from the opposite marsh, he secured his boat with a long rope, so he could draw it to him when he wanted. Then he positioned himself ready to dive underwater to intercept the first longboat as it came toward him. However, when the second longboat approached he pulled his boat into it and himself back to it. Then he used a shipwright’s trick with a special tool he always carried with him to break a hole in its hull big enough to disable it or sink it.

  The main events of their adventures told, they lay in silence to rest until dark. They watched the convoy pass out of sight downstream, and then they watched as an overcrowded longboat appeared and passed slowly upstream towing the rowing boat that Pelembras had abandoned, now also overcrowded. By the time the longboat and its tow passed out of sight the sky was becoming dark.

  “We must press on,” Arnapa said, now more comfortable with new, dry bandages and the full effects of the herbs she had taken to ease her pain. “I’m guessing that Blan spent two nights near Quolow and another two nights at the large river port just upstream from here. For the last two nights she would have been further upstream, probably at another river port, on her way to Belspire. If their plan is to spend two nights at each location then she will have been moved further up river today and will be at another river port tonight and tomorrow night. The next stop after that must surely be Belspire.”

  “Belspire is fifty-five leagues away via the main channel and much further if we dodge around in side channels, so perhaps we should head straight there,” Zeep suggested.

  “You are right, Zeep,” Arnapa agreed. “There is little hope that we will catch up with the circus before it reaches Belspire. It’s now dark enough and we are rested a bit, so let’s go. We’ll push on by both day and night, risking the main channel at night, unless the cloud breaks up and moonlight puts us in peril; through the marshes during daylight but with more stops for rest. Is everyone happy with that?”

  They all nodded with resignation. They were soon gliding through the waterways back toward the main channel.

  76

  Belspire – 13th November

  After the circus had departed from the camp near Quolow there had been a tedious journey by wagon to a port. Blan overheard that it was on Southport River. She did not care. Her mind had been bruised far more than her body and she was still struggling to recover, trying to force herself to think about what she could do to recover Actio 28 and take it to Port Fandabbin. The first time she saw Southport River had been when, after two nights on the outskirts of a town, the circus wagons had been loaded onto barges to be taken upstream.

  Blan had found the river cruise to be strangely relaxing, despite being sick quite often. She wondered why river travel did this to her when sea travel had no such effect.

  For most of the trip the river was hedged on both sides by marshes and swamps. Occasionally a fishing craft would suddenly appear or disappear into the marshes and Blan guessed that there were other channels hidden from view. She saw many waterfowl, some dolphins, even flying fish, and she tried to identify the types of plant and tree she saw; anything to keep her mind from recent events. Beyond the marshes and swamps she could see hills rolling away into the distance and, on the northern horizon, a chain of mountains, some of them high enough to have snowy peaks.

  After that terrible first night Blan had been paraded each night with the other girls, but no gladiator had chosen her. They had avoided her and that was a relief. Despite her depressed mood she could not help but overhear whispers about how Carnus had met with a horrible fate. As much as she resented the man, she did not support death as a punishment for wrongdoing, yet she struggled to find in herself any sympathy for him. Since she had left her home she had come across such evil that she had questioned her former view about death penalties, a view she had held from the comfort of a very law-abiding and respectful community. She could still not bring herself to condone a death penalty and yet she saw that perhaps some criminals deserved death for the extremity of the suffering they inflicted on others. The fact that she could not make up her mind troubled her. Surely she should be able to make a moral decision about it. Perhaps some criminals did deserve death, but who would judge the accused, and what if that judge made an error or was himself evil? Blan found science attractive because there always seemed to be an answer to any question, even if one could not yet find it, but in m
atters of punishment there seemed to be no final answer, even if one sought it forever.

  The girl chosen as gladiator’s prize on the second night had made no secret of the fact that she had enjoyed the experience and looked forward to being chosen again. She was indeed chosen twice more. Another willing girl had been chosen on three occasions. Two girls had not been chosen yet. The remaining girl, chosen on the fourth night, had reacted very badly. Blan had tried to comfort her. The gladiator who had abused that girl succeeded in becoming one of the competitors in the following night’s contest. During the fight he had suddenly cried out and doubled over clutching his stomach for no apparent reason. His opponent had lost no time sweeping the man’s head off.

  There had been two more river ports, each at the confluence of a major tributary to Southport River. Each stop was followed by two nights of circus performances. Then, at the end of the third cruise, the circus barges came to another fork in the river. Between the two rivers Blan saw a ruined city rising before her.

  The crumbled masonry of broken towers and the stumps of what had been avenues of trees, all blackened by fire, sloped up like a half-forgotten nightmare to a bulbous hilltop that sat like an earthenware bubble two or three miles from the river bank. Blan tried to imagine what the city had looked like in its heyday. It would have been very beautiful, she decided, and full of happy people. She felt a great sadness pass over her, like a host of lamenting ghosts. She thought about the suffering of those who had been snatched from their happiness and their dreams by merciless fire and sword, all to satisfy the greed of predators. She wept for them.

  The circus disembarked at the city’s partially reconstructed port and the wagons were drawn northwest along a road that tracked the narrower river. After a league they arrived at the gates of an army camp, itself the size of a city and surrounded by wooden palisades and watchtowers. It was considerably larger than the other camps Blan had seen so far. She overheard that the ruined city was Belspire and that, this time, the circus would be staying for seven nights because this was the most important camp in the region.

  77

  Belspire – 14th November

  The day after arriving at Belspire, Blan and the other Prize Girls were allowed to bathe in the river. Blan guessed that it had come from the range of snow-capped mountains she could still see north to northwest. When her body had adjusted to the initial shock of the cold, she dipped her head into the icy water and suddenly remembered that she knew all about the mountains from the maps she had seen in Citadel Library and on Actio 28. The Bel Mountains curved southward and eventually became the range of low hills that ended at Belspire. That memory made it seem to Blan that she had been in a dream for the last nine days, as though a veil had been draped over her mind’s eye, and that she had just woken up. Memories started to flood back to her and she was able to grasp hold of many facts and figures which had seemed just out of reach since she had been drugged by Galnet.

  Fortunately, one of the two eager Prize Girls had been chosen again last night. Another Prize Girl ordeal was due to be acted out tonight. Blan decided that she would try to escape then, whether or not she was chosen, and whatever the cost. Now her thoughts had started to straighten out at last, she resolved not to tolerate one more day of the loathsome humiliation of Prize Girl competitions.

  While pretending to wash her hair in the river Blan looked around carefully for any means of escape. The other side of the river was confused by marshes and swamps in much the same way as the Southport had been on the way up. She recalled that this tributary was called Belspire River. It would have been an excellent escape route if not for the multitude of sentries overlooking it from the camp watchtowers, and beacons had been set up along the river bank. There was a long line of beacons going upstream and out of sight. They were not communication beacons; they were there to light up the river and foreshore at night so the guards would not suffer night-blindness or be too much on display, as they would have if the beacons had been set up on the palisade; and yet the guards could easily see anyone trying to attack or escape across the river.

  The camp stretched along Belspire River as far as Blan could see, and it stretched inland almost to the bulbous hilltop. That hill drew on Blan’s attention. It was as though she had seen it before, but her thoughts were still not clear enough to remember where or how it was familiar.

  Now that she felt more like her old self, Blan listened intently to every sound around her. She mentally screened out the louder noises coming from the camp, from the other girls splashing nearby and from the river itself. She started to make out the whispers of the guards on the beach. At first, there was nothing of interest to her. Then, she tensed when she heard several guards hush one of their comrades. Blan was sure that the last two words the guard had said were, “Memwin Prophecy.”

  Blan looked up and saw her. The small figure wore a floppy hat, which concealed most of her face, and she wore dirty rags like a poor peasant child. To everyone else she would look like some waif used by kitchen staff to run and fetch, which appeared to be what she was now doing, taking kitchen refuse to a dump outside the palisade. However, Blan was not fooled by the floppy hat, nor by the bleached hair that found its way past the hat, nor by the gum or cloth or whatever it was in the child’s mouth to make her face look broader, nor by the subtle use of charcoal to alter the reflection of light and so make her eyes appear a slightly different shape and width apart. As Blan opened her mouth in shock, Memwin turned to her and put her finger to her lips. Blan recovered quickly and dunked her face in the water as though to suggest that she had opened her mouth only to take air.

  As the shock wore off, Blan realised that Memwin had not been captured. Otherwise, she would not be in disguise and she would not be walking around the camp doing chores. In retrospect, it did not surprise her that Memwin had found a way to follow her. The fact that enemy soldiers were whispering about a Memwin Prophecy suggested that the girl had already been active. The thought fleetingly crossed Blan’s mind that Memwin might have had a hand in the gruesome end met by Carnus and perhaps also the gladiator who had raped Pinja, the other victimised Prize Girl. However, she was confident that Memwin, however misguided, would have acted according to a reasoned and honourable agenda, albeit one affected by the misfortunes of war and the mishaps of inexperience.

  Blan now had mixed emotions. She feared for Memwin and yet she recognised that, out of the two of them, Memwin had so far managed a lot better. Seeing no clear path of escape herself, Blan decided to wait for Memwin to come up with something. Anyway, she resolved that she must escape with Memwin or not at all.

  78

  Belspire – 14th November

  Memwin had been shocked and confused when the Prize Girl chosen after Blan had actually relished the experience, and again when the girl chosen on the following night had been of like mind. She soon put her confusion out of her mind and decided that she need not be concerned about those girls. Only one more time had she needed to resort to her hidden collection of mushrooms, again with unintended consequences.

  As it would have been too obvious to try again to punish the wrongdoer with drink on the night of his crime, she planned to do it with food next morning. The gladiator who raped Pinja had gone off hunting next morning without taking his breakfast, and then entered the competition for that night. He had crammed his breakfast into his mouth and gulped it down just before the competition, so his disabling stomach-ache occurred during combat. Memwin had intended that he live to mend his ways, after a great deal of suffering, of course, to bring home to him how he had hurt Pinja.

  Whilst Memwin’s plan had not worked as intended, she reasoned that the man’s death was due to his engagement in a stupid and unnecessary life-or-death fight with another gladiator, so it was not her fault. She reasoned that her actions might even have saved the other gladiator’s life; a man who, as far as Memwin was aware, had not committed crimes against Prize Girls since he had chosen one of the willing girls. Wha
tever her arguments, Memwin had put her guilty secrets to one side by the time she reached Belspire.

  Since she joined the circus caravan she had spent most of her time doing chores, ingratiating herself with the women who worked in the kitchen, cleaning and laundry departments (for, unlike the case in Proequa, few men did any of that kind of work in the enemy camps) and taking every opportunity to run errands which would enable her to spy on anything and everything that might affect her or Blan. Today, these errands brought together two remarkable opportunities and she acted on both without hesitation.

  At the request of one of the cooks, Memwin was searching for herbs on the hillside east of the camp when the first opportunity arose. She was surrounded by burnt tree stumps and broken masonry. However, many small plants had established themselves despite the salt that had been ploughed into the ground when the enemy had destroyed the city in the last war.

  The bulbous hilltop which overlooked the city rose up just a few hundred paces away. This close, it looked more like a huge domed building than part of the hill, though it was covered in earth and rubble. Memwin approached it. There were guards on the palisade watchtowers not far away but they were accustomed to seeing small children sent on errands to service the camp, so they paid little attention to Memwin.

  There was some thicker vegetation around the edge of the dome, so Memwin went to this and started to pick at it. She crawled under it several times and came back each time with some herbs or anything that looked like herbs. Each time she stayed longer out of sight. The one guard who had been watching her more closely decided that she was not intending to run away, so he moved his attention elsewhere, eventually settling on a pretty young woman who had been enslaved by one of the centurions and could be seen working nearby.