“Take mine, Wepizi,” Neime said, climbing down. “Your highness—please, be careful,” he said looking up with pleading eyes.
“I’ll take personal responsibility for his care, Neime,” Wepizi said, swinging up into the saddle.
“Neime, I want you to report to me in person at noon. We’ll eat lunch together.”
He bowed. “Yes, your highness.”
The two mounted soldiers fell into line behind them and they began their careful progress across the crowded square. People seemed glad to see him, but it was clear from the tired faces that most had spent an unrestful night. “We need to get all of them bedding and shelter today,” he said to Wepizi as they headed to the side of town least affected by the earthquake—he was keen to learn what assets they had to deal with the problems.
“We’re doing our best, your highness—we can start retrieval of belongings today from the wreckage, but with luck, we can get some of them back into their houses in the next day.”
“Only once there have been no major shocks for twenty-four hours. My predecessor was firm about that.”
“As he should be. People can cope another day or so—if we don’t get rain. If we do, we might have to take our chances with the houses.”
A hard decision, Juimei knew—between the risk of people being crushed to death in their sleep, or dying of exposure. Still a risk at this time of year, if they got wet. They were moving off the square now, and behind the stone buildings lining the square, the destruction was immediately much worse—many houses had collapsed almost flat, while others tilted crazily. But even here, where the force of the quake had been so strong, some houses stood apparently unharmed. Some houses, some shops, one or two warehouses. “We should start by making these habitable, and clear that warehouse—we could sleep a hundred people in there, if it was emptied.”
“We were planning to do that—there are others, cloth warehouses, on the river side, which are more promising.”
“Do it,” he ordered. “Unless the stores themselves are essential, like food, they’re expendable. Use the cloth to make pallets if need be. I take responsibility for any complaints.”
“Certainly.”
Wepizi suddenly whistled, and Juimei realised there were more soldiers about—examining the standing houses, he now saw. He gave the order regarding the warehouses, and Juimei said he wanted a list of what was standing and available, and what houses were deemed safe to use right now, to be brought to the square. Then they carried on their tour.
It was heartbreaking seeing so many homes destroyed, knowing each held the memories and belongings of a family who would have to start from scratch. Some houses had killed their owners too, and that was the next thing he would have to worry about. “Can we spare some people to dig graves, and is the cemetery the best place?”
“The cemetery is blocked by the wall collapse, your highness—we’ll have to take them outside.”
“Then choose a place that doesn’t interfere with our water supply or the encampment, and have the graves prepared. I’ll announce when the burials will occur. I don’t want people tied up with this too long—it’s bad for morale.”
There was so much to decide, so many details to work out, but he’d been right—seeing it for himself made the decisions much easier and clearer, though no less harsh. But even as his mind was occupied with a hundred different thoughts, things he had to remember to deal with and discuss with Wepizi, one small part of him quietly exulted.
I’m riding again! He couldn’t believe how easy it was. All right, so this mount was about as sleepy and docile as one could wish for, and certainly nothing like the animals he used to ride, but he was still sitting in the saddle, not falling off, looking completely normal, just as Wepizi did.
His companion noticed his glee. “Told you, you could do it,” Wepizi said casually as they turned a corner.
“Indeed. Needs must and all that,” he said, just as carelessly, but then he saw something that ended his smug satisfaction. “Oh, Sephiz’s beard,” he whispered, horrified.
He pulled his mount to a halt. Here, the ruination was complete. Three streets, completely flattened, steam from pipes and smoke from smouldering fires, rising up above the smashed wood and glass. Household cisterns were about the only thing still standing above the wreckage. “This is where most of them died?”
“Yes. There was a family of six in that house there,” Wepizi said, pointing with his riding crop. “We think they were sitting vigil over their grandfather who was dying. At least, we found them all together, around a man in bed.”
What possible comment could he make in the face of something that appalling? Yet Wepizi persisted in believing in the benevolence of his god despite this? “Let’s move on.”
They spent nearly two hours, slowly moving from street to street, making notes, giving orders to the soldiers ready to begin the clear up, and then they returned to the square. Dismounting was an inelegant affair, but strangely, Juimei didn’t mind at all—he had bigger concerns. He called all the elders and the mayor for a meeting, clearing the area around the podium and having chairs brought for them to use.
This did not please Elder Frankel. “Must we conduct our business in the street? Why can’t we meet in the mayoral residence?”
“Because people need to know where I and the tezrei are at all times, and this is the central point. The residence is being used for more important things, and besides—if we’re making decisions which affect these people, should we not do this in plain sight? Elder, I don’t have time to argue about such petty issues,” he added sternly. “Now we have about eighty houses completely intact. We’ll allow their owners to return to those tomorrow if we suffer no more large aftershocks today, and the owners will then be responsible for hosting three or four people each at the minimum—I’d like to see an extra family housed in every home. The engineers are still assessing if the more damaged houses can be repaired quickly—we’ll assume they can’t. However we do have six warehouses which we can empty—the paper and cloth stores belonging to you, Mayor Gixiel, will be the first ones as they are the soundest.”
“Wait a minute,” the man blustered. “You can’t just toss my goods outside! If they get wet, they’ll be ruined, and so will I!”
“Mayor, if people get wet and cold, they die. I’m sure you would agree that would be a far worse prospect.” Juimei glared at him, daring him to disagree, but with a sour look Gixiel subsided. “We’ll do what we can to minimise damage, but when so many have lost so much, it’s not going to be high on the list. Elders, I need your assistance. Tezrei, we need to organise the civilians into teams.”
Apart from the housing, they had to get essential services like the bakery and grain mills back in operation. Waste removal had to be strictly controlled or their water supply would be contaminated. The mayor squawked again when Juimei said they would be using his cloth to make bedding, but this time Wepizi gave him the evil eye, and that shut him up completely.
The graves were dug, and after consulting with the holy man, Juimei announced burials would occur the following morning, a joint funeral to be held at the graveside. There were some mutterings of discontent that it wasn’t right not to bury the dead in the cemetery, but mostly people accepted this was better than nothing—or a mass grave, which was the only alternative.
He sent the elders away to work with Wepizi’s officers, who would lead the civilians in groups of about a hundred each. The important thing was to make sure everyone had something to do, that no one was allowed to sit and fret and worry about lost homes, loved ones or businesses. All residents with the smallest carpentry, building or technical skill, were seconded and placed under the direct control of the army engineers. Other able-bodied men and women were put to work clearing the streets around the standing houses and warehouses, and the bakery was allocated a team all of its own. Pallets were made from straw, and slowly essentials like blankets and clothes were retrieved from the less damaged houses. Food was s
erved in shifts, and utensils taken out in batches to the river to clean. He made sure that simple pleasures like drizu and camp tea were readily available, knowing that sometimes it was the lack of the smallest things which sent people into a depression.
The school teachers and some of the parents had taken charge of the smaller children, and these were all safely away from the damaged town out in the camp. The older children were set to work on lighter chores, or running messages. He created a title for those working for the adults in this way—‘His highness’s special couriers’—and, using some of the commandeered material upsetting his honour the mayor so much, had one of the soldiers fashion them all blue sashes. Then, even frantically busy as he was, he made time to assemble them all at the podium and put the sashes on the children personally, co-opting Wepizi to assist. When they were all decorated, he raised his hand.
“Now, do your duty for king and council!”
The fifty or so children cheered wildly, a bright spot of happiness among all the worry, and then ran off back to the tasks already assigned to them. He grinned a little at their enthusiasm, turned and found Wepizi looking at him thoughtfully. “I thought it would make them easier to find,” he said with a shrug.
“Indeed it will,” Wepizi agreed, smiling and stroking that ridiculous moustache of his. “An excellent idea.” He looked up. “Noon. We should eat before we forget to—ah, and here comes Neime.”
Home Ground: 14
Wepizi was relieved to see his young friend arrive promptly. There was something about the prince’s manner which made him think Neime wasn’t handling things as easily as he appeared, and it was a mighty responsibility he’d taken on. But the lad seemed calm and cheerful, and Juimei greeted him with affection, cuffing him gently and asking how things were going. The infirmary was one of their greatest worries, but though two more injured had died in the night, not unexpectedly, the other patients were stable. “I’ll come and inspect things, if you think it’s wise. Let people know we’ve not forgotten them,” the prince said.
Neime grinned. “I think that would really help. But I’m starving—breakfast was ages ago. Do we have to queue?”
Wepizi shook his head. “Rank has its privileges.” He whistled up a couple of the newly inducted ‘special couriers’ to bring them soup and bread.
Neime stared after the boys curiously. “What are they wearing?”
“Badge of office,” Juimei said cheerfully. “They’re all in his highness’s service, oath sworn and everything.”
“Seriously? What a wonderful idea. We should keep it as a permanent thing when this is all over.”
“Let’s get through this first. Give me your report.”
Wepizi’s attention was taken up with two grois having difficulty over one of the warehouses they were clearing, so he had to let Juimei and Neime discuss the infirmary on their own. But he kept a watch on them out of the corner of his eye, because he was worried about the strain on two civilians taking so much responsibility without any experience of such a disaster. Much to his surprise, the prince was blooming under the pressure, and while Neime might be struggling a bit, he drew strength from his master, where just a scant week before, it had most definitely been the other way around. He’d seen it before—people rising to challenges and discovering their true worth—but he’d seen it too often go the other direction, where so-called leaders had collapsed completely, unable to cope at all with so much stress.
He’d honestly have thought the prince would have been of that type—but he was very glad to be proved wrong. That business with the children and the sashes—inspired, truly inspired, and it wasn’t just the children who got a lift from it. He saw parents talking to their sons and daughters and admiring the simple bits of pretty cloth, pleased at such personal recognition from the governor and the son of the king, even with all their worry and sorrow. This was what the prince had taken such a long time to understand. At least he’d worked it out in time.
Their runners returned with the food—both the prince and Wepizi spent a couple of minutes talking to the children, asking how they were, and how they were managing. A small thing, but they could only do so much, and Wepizi believed in the ripple effect. Tiny kindnesses could create more goodwill than was obvious at the time, and with so much misery, every opportunity to boost morale was precious.
A lesson the prince had learned well, because he was very solicitous of Neime over lunch, and kept his hand on his shoulder as he talked to him. Something had happened, Wepizi realised, that had made the prince worry about his friend. But he seemed to be handling it, so Wepizi didn’t interfere.
He was just wiping the end of his soup out of the bowl with the last bit of bread, when he looked up at the sound of running hooves and the clatter of cart wheels. A cart was being driven at speed from the town gate into the square, the driver waving, and the woman beside him frantically calling to them.
“Help us! Help us, please, we have injured!”
Soldiers ran towards them from all sides of the square to help. Neime jumped down from the podium, and Wepizi helped the prince climb down the stairs to meet the cart that pulled up in the street hard by them. It was a farmer’s cart, pulled by a pair of doigs and driven by an elderly couple.
“What have you got?” he asked. The cart was covered, so the problem wasn’t obvious at first.
“In the back,” the man said. “Young girl. She’s hurt, and there’s a dead boy as well. Please hurry—we’ve driven as fast as we can!”
Wepizi whistled up some soldiers, and Neime ran to the infirmary to fetch a medic. The prince and Wepizi went to the back of the cart where a young girl—sixteen, seventeen, no more—was lying, bloodied and unconscious, with her lower leg and foot heavily bandaged. Something body-shaped lay under a bit of sacking, a dirty bit of hair the only sign of it being human—the quickest examination proved there was no hope for the boy. He ordered the girl be lifted gently from the cart and taken to the infirmary. Soldiers climbed in, lifted her by the blanket she lay on—the pain of movement roused her a little and she moaned, but she never really regained consciousness as she was carried out of the back of the cart. Once Neime and the medic had taken charge and she was removed to safety, Wepizi turned to the couple who had dismounted and were waiting for his pronouncement.
“Is she your daughter? Is this your son?”
“No, sir,” the man said. He was obviously a farmer in his fifties, poor, worn, weary face not just from immediate worry, but a life of hard toil. His grey-haired wife held his arm anxiously and stared at Wepizi with wide, scared eyes. “Don’t know who they be. We found the two of them in our barn yesterday, when we came to try and get the animals out. The boy was dead when we pulled them out—the girl, well you can see the state she’s in. We kept her overnight, but she’s getting worse—all we could do was get here as fast as we could, because we got no healer near us at all. Our boys are still on the farm but we had to do something. We left at dawn, been driving all day. Forty miles, sir—we came as fast as we could.” He seemed anxious Wepizi understood they’d tried their best. Which they had, poor souls.
“You did the right thing—have you eaten?” They shook their heads. “Then we’ll find you food and shelter for tonight.”
He called more of his people over, had the couple taken in hand, their exhausted doigs unhitched to be given water and food, and the boy’s body removed to their makeshift mortuary. He was only a child too, perhaps a little older than the girl. His chest and abdomen were crushed, his face showing a little of his struggle but otherwise unmarked. They must have been sleeping in the barn or caught unawares somehow. What a dreadful waste of a young life.
“Sephiz keep your spirit safe,” he said quietly as the body was lifted out and carried off.
“Where can their parents have been? I’ve never heard of children just turning up on a farm like this, have you?” the prince asked, limping to his side, and staring hard at the cart and the departing injured girl.
“No—we need to ask that girl about it, but you can see she’s in no fit state. Those people have come forty miles. This earthquake’s spread the harm a long way.”
“And not a damn thing we can do about it,” the prince said grimly. “We’ll have to trust our remote troops are doing some good, but in reality—the people outside a day or two’s ride are beyond our ability to help, at least until relief comes from the south or Tsikiugui. It’s not what I want, but it’s what’s true.”
“And I’m sure they know that,” Wepizi said. “We have to trust them to come to the town if they really need us—and if they can’t get here, we can’t get there in time either. Our soldiers will do a sweep, and know to get reports to us. We don’t have the personnel to send patrols—not and deal with this here,” he added, waving his hand at the controlled chaos of the square and the town beyond it.
“I know but it’s still hard.” He sighed. “Are you coming with me? I should go to the infirmary now.”
“Yes, I want to see my soldiers.”
An army medic met them as they entered the infirmary grounds, and she acted as their guide, supplementing Neime’s reports with her own observations. “We’ve got six people we think won’t survive—they wouldn’t survive regardless,” she said, before they entered the tent at the front of the infirmary building. “But if we can stave off infection, and we have adequate water and food, then we have hopes the rest will make it. Your highness, sir, please wash your hands, and be careful who and what you touch. Cleanliness is our main weapon against infection.”
They did as she asked, in a bucket set near the door with disinfectant soap and cloths, and were then led through the tent. Though it was crowded with pallets and cots, Wepizi was pleased to see all was ordered, clean and neat in military fashion. Patients, medics and their carers all looked their way as they came in.
“For king and council!” one of the patients cried weakly, and though some of the patients looked barely able to speak, his cheer was taken up with enthusiasm.
Home Ground (Darshian Tales #4) Page 37