After a long time, somewhere far out on the plain Sharma turned to me and cried, 'I cannot take it any longer.' He hurled himself onto the ground and, lying on his back, thrashed like a man with a convulsive fever. I threw myself across his chest fearing that he would injure himself and -- I must admit it now -- because I was terrified of the passion that energised his thrashing, writhing form. I pressed down onto Sharma saying urgent things to him -- soothing words, comforting words, words of dumb and hopeless consolation -- while he howled and thrashed under me.
Much later, we headed back towards our base. Stumbling like a man recovering from a fever, Sharma asked me weakly, 'Jina, Jina, what is to be done?'
I replied with more confidence than I felt, 'We have to pick ourselves up, consolidate, and then start climbing again.'
'Climb? You think so? Climb? I don't have the heart to do anything at all.' Sharma stopped and sat down with his legs crossed, his arms folded across his chest, and his head drooping. Rocking backwards and forwards, he cried out, 'I want to die! I want to die right here! Leave me, Jina. I can't go on.'
I kneeled next to him and, with my arms around his shoulders, said some things to him -- something about having courage, something about how all things pass, even the most terrible and vile atrocities, and something about how we would be victorious if only we could pass this test. While I was murmuring these words of stupid consolation, Sharma began to sob. I took him in my arms and held him tight with his head pressed to my chest, caressing him and murmuring more helpless words. His cries subsided gradually and, as he leaned back on his elbows, he looked at me, his face taut and wretched, tears glinting in the moonlight, and said in a strangled voice, 'It's all gone, Jina. It's gone. It's gone.'
'Have courage, Sharma.'
'My parents are dead! The kingdom is dead! Mecolo and my child have been taken from me! We're hunted like animals!' Sharma cried out again, 'It's all gone, Jina.'
'Courage, Sharma, courage.'
'Courage! I can't even face tomorrow. I would rather die. Courage, you say?' Sharma lay back, outstretched on the ground, while I hunched next to him, guarding against any desperate move that he might make. Gradually his breathing became easier and more regular and I thought that he had fallen asleep. However, after about ten minutes he asked in a tight but steady voice, 'Dana said that the clouds ask the questions, didn't she?'
'Yes, she did.'
'Do you see any clouds up there, Jina?' I shook my head. Sharma said shakily, 'We'll have to ask the questions ourselves, won't we?' He sat up with his arms around his legs and his chin resting on his knee. He asked, 'What are the questions, Jina?'
I said, 'That's easy to answer, Sharma.'
'Is it? Tell me?'
'There's only one question that concerns us right now.'
'What is it?'
'It's simple -- how do we survive? In time, there might be other questions but right now there’s only one.'
Sharma muttered, 'You'll have to answer the question for us, Jina. I'm useless. Do you hear me? I'm useless! I’m useless, I say – useless!'
When we got back to our base just before dawn, I took over command while Sharma slept all of that day and half of the next. After that, he was alert and refreshed and, as he resumed his daily duties, it looked as if he had weathered the crisis. However, the corners of his mouth were tight and there was a sharp wariness in his eyes that never left him for the rest of his life. Also, those who knew him well, like me, could see that something had died in him while something new -- something harder, heavier, and blunter -- had emerged from his crisis. I noticed something else, as well: Sharma had shut the door on the events of that night under the desert sky. Shut the door? It would be more correct to say that he had obliterated them. He never again referred to his desperate despair and in all the time that I knew him after that, he never again mentioned his parents.
By now Lower Keirine was in an uproar. Vaxili responded by establishing garrisons in the major towns of the region. To do so, he had to increase the size of his army. This inflated his expenses so he levied a further tax on Lower Keirine. He called it a Home Security Tax, saying that the inhabitants of Lower Keirine would appreciate the fact that they were being provided with better protection against the bandits and desperadoes who had evaded royal justice. Of course this measure only increased resentment and opposition throughout Lower Keirine and that swelled our numbers so much that within a month we had a force of nearly five hundred men. Most of them were former soldiers, either former prisoners or men who fled from the army to escape Vaxili's vendetta.
Secure in our base in the mountains, we harassed Vaxili's forces’ supply lines and launched attacks on garrisons and outposts. We had the advantage and we enjoyed success. Our men moved easily and openly through a friendly countryside gathering supplies and information wherever they went while Vaxili's forces occupied isolated islands in a sea of hostility.
Sharma took the moral high ground right from the start when he ordered that captives should not be harmed. Instead they should be disarmed, escorted as close to the border with Upper Keirine as possible, and set free. Many of our men, enraged at what they and their families had suffered, vehemently disagreed with this practice. However, Sharma refused to rescind his order. He explained, firstly, that Vaxili's soldiers were our compatriots who were also victims of Vaxili's weaknesses. Secondly, the practice would encourage our adversaries to surrender more quickly, rather than to continue fighting out of sheer desperation. Finally, leniency on our side would result in the occupying forces treating civilians less harshly than they would otherwise do.
After one meeting at which Sharma patiently explained the policy to a group of disgruntled men, Abozi rubbed his chin and said to me quietly, 'But there's more to it than that, isn't there, comrade brother?'
'You think so?'
Abozi winked at me. 'One day the kingdom might be re-united, don’t you think?'
'That would be a desirable outcome.'
'And are you telling me that you've never considered the possibility that Sharma might be involved when that day comes?'
I replied, 'Well, that would be a step-up for Sharma, wouldn’t it?'
Abozi scratched his nose thoughtfully and, looking at me keenly, replied, 'And a step-up for some others too, no doubt.' Then, even-voiced, he continued, 'If that happened, then a reputation for leniency would count in Sharma's favour, wouldn't it?'
'No doubt it would.' I put a hand on Abozi's shoulder and said, 'Why, brother, who knows what the future might bring?'
Abozi replied stolidly, ‘Indeed, who knows?’
Once Vaxili's troops heard that they would be treated leniently if they surrendered, they turned themselves over to our forces in droves. Most of them didn't have the stomach for occupying Keirineian towns and fighting their compatriots and were only too pleased to be returned to Upper Keirine safe and free. The troops surrendered at such a rate that within two months we had cleared away most of the garrisons and outposts in the north. Of course, Vaxili couldn’t stand by idly while he lost ground hand over fist in Lower Keirine. He countered by announcing that soldiers who surrendered would be court-martialled and he was as good as his word. Within a few days, fifty returning soldiers were court-martialled and were sentenced to be indentured for twenty years to the King of Kitilat where they would serve in the royal salt mines. After that, we met fiercer resistance. However, Vaxili's oppressive tactic also worked in our favour because many of the soldiers, particularly those who did not come from Orifinre, chose to surrender and join our force.
I knew of only one prisoner of war who wasn’t treated leniently. One afternoon, a detachment of our men arrived with a captured unit commander whose men, when ambushed on the open road near Osicedi, had cheerfully laid down their arms. Only the commander offered resistance, so much so that he was wounded twice before he was overpowered. Pushing and shoving their captive, our men demanded to see Sharma. At first Sharma asked irritably why they hadn't either r
eleased their captive or offered him the chance to join us. However, his tune changed when he heard who the captive was.
‘Don’t you know this man, Commander Sharma?’
‘No. Why should I know him?’
There was an apprehensive pause before someone shouted, ‘Ask the bastard what he did to your father!’
Sharma's eyes narrowed and the flecks in his eyes glowed like coals. He asked the captive, 'Is this true?'
The man writhed on the ground, begging for mercy and forgiveness. It was pathetic, but no one felt any more sympathy for him than they would have for a sacrificial fowl or goat. He had committed a blood crime and he was already as good as dead.
Sharma's eyes narrowed even further as he said in a steel-cold voice, 'We will not be lenient with him. Punish him as the law prescribes.'
Someone shouted, 'No, commander. First let him suffer as your father suffered. After that, the law can take its course.'
Sharma lifted the man's chin with the toe of his boot. While the man cried out for mercy, Sharma looked down at him dispassionately, shook his head, and growled, 'As the law requires! No more and no less! Take him away.' He shrugged and looked down at the man with hard eyes.
While our men dragged their captive away, Sharma called after them, ‘No more and no less than the law requires! We are not savages. You hear me?’
When the men came back without their captive about half an hour later, they were sombre and subdued. We didn’t enquire how the man had died.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE FUTURE KING
When Vaxili finally did march northwards, he came with an army of almost two thousand men. He re-established the garrisons that we had eliminated and then began to move towards our base in the mountains. On the way, out of pure vindictiveness, he sacked Osicedi. Fortunately most of the townspeople got away before the attack and sought refuge with us. Even as we welcomed our friends and family members, we sighed inwardly at the thought that now we not only had to contend with a superior force but also had to deal with destitute refugees.
What was to be done? We couldn't feed the refugees properly, we couldn't take them with us when we maneuvered against the enemy, and we couldn't abandon them. Finally, we decided to move them to an oasis for temporary refuge while we applied to Durgenu for assistance. Ever the obliging businessman, Durgenu agreed to a deal by which he would care for the refugees for six months, deferring payment for two years at an agreed rate of interest.
Abozi and I suffered a personal misfortune when our father died during the trek from Osicedi to the mountains. My mother told us that he lingered on a hillside, watching Vaxili's soldiers enter the town, and only turned his back on Osicedi after he saw our house, workshop, and warehouse going up in flames. Then my parents turned and trudged along in the wake of the rest of the refugees with father going at an ever-slower pace until finally, in the heat of mid-afternoon, he sat down under a tree complaining that he was feeling tired. While my mother was reaching into a pack for a water container, she heard a loud sigh. She turned around and saw that my father had toppled onto the ground. My mother tried to pull him back into a sitting position but he just sighed once more, very faintly, and then died.
My mother was strangely calm while she was telling us the story. She concluded by saying reflectively, 'It is the way of the world. Husbands usually go before wives, and parents usually go before children. I will mourn for your father and my life will never be the same again but I will have the consolation of my memories.'
Abozi said fiercely, 'You would have had a longer life together if it wasn't for Vaxili.'
Mother was still very calm. She said, 'Be thankful that your father is at peace now. Vaxili has to live with the consequences of his actions. Pity him, that he has travelled so far into the wilderness of his own making that it is unlikely that he can ever turn back to find a place of peace.'
Abozi was still incensed. He said, 'We'll see to it that he never escapes from this wilderness, either. We'll make it his graveyard.'
Mother drew Abozi to her and held his head against her breast as if he was a child again. She said, 'Leave it to Zabrazal to punish Vaxili. Free your heart of vengeance or you will be as desolate as Vaxili.' She sat forward and said, ‘I can bear the loss because your father and I were coming to the end of our road together. But I don't know if I can bear to see one of you -- worse still, both of you -- die before me.'
I said, as gently as I could, 'We're soldiers, mother.'
She sighed heavily. 'I know. Every day I fear for you in more ways than one.'
When Sharma heard what had happened to our father, he called Abozi and me aside and said, 'I want both of you to lead the unit that escorts our people to Durgenu.'
Abozi and I protested at being assigned to such a peripheral task when action against the enemy was imminent but Sharma just looked at us impassively and replied, 'I'm your commander. You will do as I say.'
I said heatedly, 'We appreciate why you're doing this, but --'
Sharma cut me short, saying firmly, 'You will do as I say. When you have completed the task, hurry back. I can assure you that you won't be short of action.' When we left him, he said gently, 'Look after your mother. Take care of her for me as well.'
As we left the cave that served as Sharma's headquarters, a woman brushed past us on her way in. Most of her face was covered with a shawl and she was wearing a long cloak, once elegant but now creased and grubby, that concealed her figure. She murmured a greeting and hurried past us. I didn't pay much attention to her but after a few steps, recognition stirred in the back of my mind. I asked Abozi, 'Don't I know that woman?'
He answered, 'You should know her. That's Roda.'
I stopped and looked back, halted in my tracks by the implications of what I was thinking. I asked, 'By Zabrazal, Sharma wouldn't be such a fool, would he?'
Abozi replied, 'If that's what you think, my dear brother, then you don't know your friend Sharma as well as you think you do.'
By this time I knew that when it came to women, Sharma could be a great fool. In all other aspects of his life, Sharma was orderly and far-seeing. He never undertook a venture until he had assessed all the risks and had investigated all the possibilities. He was like a chess player who could see ten moves ahead while other players could only calculate the consequences of the next one or two moves. But with women, Sharma was just the opposite. With them, he seemed to court danger and uncertainty. After being closely acquainted with Sharma for many years, and after sharing both hardship and affluence with him, as well as disasters and triumphs, I can only conclude that Sharma's relationships with his women reveal a deep and subterranean stratum of his personality. The patient, stalking Sharma is also the Sharma who quivers with passion and rejoices in his heedlessness as he leaps into the snare of a beautiful woman. It is a paradox but it is true.
Abozi and I reluctantly obeyed Sharma's orders and escorted the refugees to safety in Durgenu's territory. As we left the oasis, a man riding a donkey called to me. It was Aggam. I hadn't seen him for a long time, perhaps ten or twelve years, but he looked the same as ever. His lean face still had the same sardonic, supercilious expression and in spite of his age he still had the rigid bearing of a soldier on parade. Aggam waved a stick at me – it looked like the same old Corrector – and called out, 'So, you see that I was right.'
I asked. 'How so?' Aggam glared at me with narrowed eyes. Old habits asserted themselves and I corrected myself by saying, 'How so, teacher?'
'How so? Didn't I always say that Keirine should not have a king? Didn't I always say that Zabrazal is the only leader that Keirine ever needed?' Aggam waved his stick around and sneered. 'You see how things have turned out? The consequences of disobedience – ha!'
I said, 'Perhaps it is the fault of the priests.'
‘The fault of the priests! What a foolish idea! How could that be? Explain yourself, man.'
'It was the High Priest who anointed Vaxili as king.'
'Ha! But it was t
he people who rebelled against the High Priest and demanded a king.' Aggam's lips curled contemptuously around the word 'people'.
I didn’t want to continue the conversation. My schooldays were far behind me and this renewed acquaintance with Aggam revived unpleasant memories. As for Zabrazal, priests, and kings – well, only Zabrazal knew what was in Zabrazal's mind and I was getting tired of trying to understand the thoughts of an inscrutable god. Nor was I any more interested in finding out what a sour old fool like Aggam thought about the matter. I walked off, saying, 'I wish you a safe journey, teacher.'
Aggam called after me, 'You will see that I am right, Ghazila. This business of the kingdom will do nobody any good.'
Ghazila? He couldn’t even get my name right. I stiffened my shoulders and ignored him. There were more important things to do than listen to the frustrations of an old has-been.
I never saw Aggam again. I heard that he became a tutor to the children of some of Durgenu's officials and died peacefully in his sleep about five years later – which, in my opinion, was better than the old miscreant deserved.
When Durgenu learned that I was Sharma's deputy commander, he provided my mother with an apartment within his palace. He made light of his kindness, saying genially, 'It is self-interest, my dear friend, nothing but self-interest. One day Sharma will be a great man in Keirine and you will be at his right hand. Then I will be repaid many times over for my kindness, not so?' He guffawed and slapped my back, saying, 'My friend, make sure that you tell Sharma what I have done. What use is an act of self-interest if no one knows about it?'
We hurried back to our base where we found that Sharma had moved our men to the southern edges of the mountain to face Vaxili's force. As we were leaving to join them, Roda appeared out of Sharma's personal quarters. Roda! My heart sank. Damn it, so Sharma really had taken up with her again! Roda greeted me curtly – we had been on cool terms ever since I had done Sharma a service at her expense – and asked superciliously, ‘What, Jina, not at the frontline with Sharma?’
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