Again Tonorosant stepped forward, took command, and again Jerred Northi and Jerred Northi’s memories of Pemath were subdued and sank away. A bird sang, briefly, overhead. He cursed it. It was life, and life was loathsome. What use was it to flee from Pemath, child-hunt-tolerating Pemath, catering to the most corrupt tastes of the most corrupt rich — what use? — if all one’s efforts accomplished nothing more than this: to find in Tarnis, golden dream: this, this, this?
Weakness and despair took him and shook him. He reached out for supports which were not there. It was a black moment, long and bitter and sick. It did not vanish away with a click, either, but it ebbed away, slowly, like water ebbs away into wet sand. He looked up and he blinked. Life was life. It need not be loathsome for long. And, certainly, it was better than death. Parallel lines might meet in infinity, he did not know, he had never been there to see. But sure it was that they never met before then. The parallels which only a moment before had so disturbed his mind and body were no parallels at all. Those hunted in Pemath had sinned in nothing, neither by commission nor by association. It was quite different here in Tarnis. This was a case of evil returned for evil. Nor could one nor need one nor for that matter should one be moralistic to the extent of describing this as evil. It was a mere matter of simple fact that on the present occasion the Volanth had struck the first blow, committed the first killing, the first rape, the first child-murder. And as for any question of who had struck the first blow over a thousand legend-shrouded years ago, what could be more futile than trying to follow such a trail. Probably no one and yet everyone.
He sighed. Like Pemath, Tarnis had a curse upon it. But he had needed not remain forever in Pemath. And nor need he here.
• • •
Long lines of sweating Volanth staggering beneath poled bales and baskets filed into Compound Ten, set down their burdens at direction of the drab-capped and -kilted clerks. The stores were being piled in steps and by now some of the steps had already been filled in solidly up to the tops of the compound’s walls. Timber and resin and grain, edible seeds and stables and sun-dried fruit, packed and sacked, root crops and dried fish, herbs and bark, and other items for which Tonorosant had no names. Most of the levy-men milled about, talking excitedly, giving the burdens and their bearers no more than an indifferent glance. One, however, went up to the tally-man.
“There’s more food-chop down there in the mud granaries along the ridge,” he said, gesturing.
The tally-man made a precise tick on his chart, gestured a gasping porter to halt. “Yes, master. We know. We not go-take it.”
“No? Oh. Why not, boy?”
The Pemathi gave a very slight shrug of his neat shoulders. “If we go-take all food-chop, master, tese Volant go-starve.”
“Let them!”
“If tey go-starve, master, be nobody go-grow food-chop here, next year.”
The Tarnisi, grown bored even before the answer was finished, turned and walked away. The tally-man made another tick on his chart, looked up, spat neatly in the middle of the porter’s face, gestured him onward, and brought his withe down in a stinging blow across the bent, retreating back. Then he beckoned the next one forward.
Tonorosant moved about, looking, listening. Lord Tilionoth was the center of a little group, all of whom were smiling. “No, really, did I take the first dip this morning?” he asked. “No one was in before me? Well, well … .” He preened himself. “I got in twice more, after that, you know — ” There was laughter.
“Here we do our best,” an older man said — grizzled Lord Mialagoth, “to keep their numbers down … and young lusty sprigs like my brother’s son here do their best to keep the numbers wp!” There was more laughter.
Tilionoth said, with shy determination, “And if we can get together after lunch, I will get in twice more or so, I must hope.”
Another burst of merriment. “ — spearsman in more senses than one,” Mialagoth guffawed.
“One grows tired of it, you know,” the young man went on, “if it becomes just a matter of rolling over in bed for it. But when a man has to run and wrestle for it — eh? You see what I mean. Well. I hope lunch isn’t long delayed. This whole campaign has given me the keenest appetite I’ve had in years. One should really be very grateful to the Volanth … wouldn’t you agree?”
They smiled and chuckled and nodded, and they patted him on the back.
CHAPTER SIX
Tonorosant had never been so active as now, after his return to the inlands. He swam, furiously and alone, hour after hour, in the cold and misty dawn alike as in the heat of noon. He spent long successive days checking and rechecking every detail of business with his clerks. He skimmed and darted and sped up and down the waterways, sometimes avoiding by none too safe a margin the nets and the weirs of the squat, sullen River Volanth. At night, often exhausted, but never, never pleasantly weary, he took the aids of drugs to help him sleep. They did not banish his dreams, they made them dimmer, and in the mornings he could remember only that they had not at all been nice.
But from people in general he remained away as much as he was able. The elegant young men, now laughing, now languid, so proud of their sleek and supple limbs and all the skills they had with them — these young men now aroused in him no longer any feelings of friendship, but only of disgust. He avoided the contacts which had previously served both friendship and commerce. Curiously — or, perhaps, not at all curiously — this seemed to arouse no hostility. On the contrary.
Lord Losacamant’s wife visited him, ostensibly to inquire if a “foreign toy” in which an older grandchild had expressed interest, was really both safe and proper. If this was her real reason or not, the mission was one which gave little good excuse to linger. She looked at her host, as he saw her out, with interest and sympathy.
“Poor young man,” she said, “he looks both sad and drawn. Ah, in your lonely exile you thought little, I must hope, that life among your own people could bring such sharp pain.”
“Lady Losacamant is very kind. I shall look happier another time, I must hope.”
“And I. You have seen dreadful things … . Well. They won’t occur often enough for you to grow used to them, I must hope, but may it not be that memory will fade? Come and see us at your convenient pleasure. We have old, sunken gardens which have, and have deserved some fame. I shall show you around. You will plan on it, I must hope … . I have many charming granddaughters,” she added, a trace of a smile stirring the composure of her mouth.
Another visitor, and, to Tonorosant’s subsequent surprise, one who to turned out to be not long unwelcome, was gray-haired Guardian Othofarinal. He had come to remind him of his former agreement to interest himself on behalf of the returned exiles.
“Unless action is taken, and firmly, and soon, they may in large measure merely augment the lackland class … which is, my sister’s sib, already large enough; in fact, over-large.”
Something flashed through Tonorosant’s mind and was evidently reflected on his face, however fleeting-fast, for the Guardian leaned forward and looked at him, keenly.
“You have already had some thoughts upon that subject, then, I take it? I would hear. I would hear.”
He hesitated. Then, slowly, and without mentioning a name, he recounted the incident of the lacklander in the levy at the time of the outland campaign: first, his distinctive type of unpleasantness; and, next, his resentment at the possibility of its being perhaps thought not essential to bury the desecrated bodies because they might have been lacklanders. Othofarinal nodded.
“Their resentment is perhaps only too well-founded and of too long standing, although it is often based upon trifles, or, indeed, upon nothing at all. And it is also true that their near-poverty is usually the reason for their accepting of positions which no one else would want. That murdered warden up there in the Outlands was undoubtedly happier and — until the end — better off than he would have been back here among us; still, though I never knew him, I’m in no doubt
that he also resented his being there every single day, intensely and bitterly.
“What is to be done for them? The Lords, surely, will do nothing. It is a basic principle of theirs that, if anything should have been done about a particular thing, it would already have been done; since nothing was done about it, nothing should be done about it. So we see a class on whom the burdens of aristocracy are pressed and at the same time deprived of the means of maintaining that burden. Lacklanders. Why need they lack land? There is land enough for all … .
“More sons of the exiles are returning from abroad in these days than in any others. This is, basically, a good thing. It was a bad thing that anyone ever went into exile at all. But the good may be swallowed up in the bad if provision for them — other than the personal kindnesses of individuals — continues to be not made. I do not necessarily say — necessarily, mind you — that an estate ought to be taken away from a family which has occupied and enjoyed it for two generations, and given to a returned exile whose family had it until two generations ago. Moreover, heirships are often matters of dispute, people often lack documents, not seldom they have only vague notions or sometimes none at all of who, precisely, their forebears were. Nor is it of signal consequence. Do they have the Seven Signs? They do? Enough.”
The older man grew free and eloquent. Now and then he very softly beat the cushions of his palms gently for emphasis. There were, for example, he pointed out, the idle lands, lands which had escheated to the governance for a variety of non-political reasons. Why should not division and choice be made among those for the benefit of, on the one hand, the older, lackland class; and, on the other, the newer, returned exile class?
“It would provide them with funds and income, basic essentials. It would give them interests, lawful and proper interests. Occupation. How can it be gainsaid that a dissatisfied portion of the populace is a dangerous portion of it?
“And there are other possibilities, too. Why might not new lands be opened up? There are legions of leagues of them, where nothing human moves or has ever moved — not even Volanth! Yes, yes: Ah, there’s no shortage of possibilities. The thing is to make a beginning, and in order to do that we must make a decision. The Guardians cannot do it alone, you know. Nor could the Lords — assembled or otherwise — not that they would want to. All the elements of governance must be together in this, and the only way to assure that is to make it plain and public that elements outside of the governance are determined. They should be. So I have come to you. So I have come again to you. Begin to act. You must do so and you will do so, I must hope.”
So began another sort of work in which to immerse himself. Involved in factionalism and intrigue? He shrugged the thought away. It was perhaps possible that the Guardians were no better than the Lords, but that, too, was worth no more than a shrug. He would distract his mind until, at last, it needed no further distraction; and he would entrench his position here until its roots and its strength went as deep into Tarnisi life as they could go.
Atoral had ceased to come to see him because of his sullenness and coldness during his most moody period. He did not, could not blame her. But now he felt that it was time for him to go to her.
He found her in the golden garden of her small town house; an old-fashioned custom or conceit which she cherished: to have a garden consisting in only plants whose leaves or flowers were gold-colored, so chosen and so situated that the tint stayed dominant in the area in every season of the year. She came up to him gravely but not reproachfully and put her fingers on his hands as she had done that first time and she said, “You will stay some little while with us at least, I must hope.” He took her hands in his and then held her in a light embrace, but did not kiss her.
They walked in slow silence up the shallow steps furred in golden moss, under the branches of trees from which little leaves dropped like a golden rain; they walked back again through the golden buds and golden blossoms, and thus, back and forth and to and fro, he managed to tell her something of the deep, frozen hate and horror which had come upon his heart. “They say, you — all of you — you always say, the Volanth are like animals. And I’ve seen how they can be, and I know it. But I’ve seen the Tarnisi like animals as well. And so I see nothing to choose between them, and it’s made all this land I longed so long for, it’s made it abhorrent and abominable to me.”
She murmured, “Oh, not all of it, not all of us, I must hope.”
With fiercely twisted face thrust suddenly so close to hers — but she did not flinch nor turn aside — he said, “I couldn’t stand to have you near me because it makes me think of your flesh and my flesh — together — and I could not dare to do that and to think of what I saw of flesh and flesh — ” His voice choked. It was as though blood had choked it. And they turned in unspoken consent and they walked again in silence, up and down the golden walks and through the golden shrubbery, until, at last, he knew (and knew she did, too), that he was healed as well as he might hope to be; knew, too, that this was healed enough.
For more than that he might never hope to be healed, unless he was healed of life itself, “that disease whose only cure is death.”
• • •
Now, with his mind so much more at ease, and his position as at least symbolic, representative, of the returned exiles more firm, Tonorosant had time to look around and into other matters.
Lady Losacamant had been guilty of not even pardonable exaggeration when she said that she had “charming granddaughters.” There were three of them, lovely as newly blossoming flowers, and not less lovely were the famous sunken gardens which they graced — though, “lovely” was perhaps too light a word to describe the gardens’ grace and dignity; handsome, they were; rather, even than beautiful. The aery trickery of the golden gardens seemed, in comparison, to be transient and insubstantial — and merely pretty.
At length their grandfather himself, the spare-of-words Lord Losacamant, appeared upon the scene, as Tonorosant had known he would. He greeted the girls with a grave though affectionate gesture, and to his guest was courteous without being curious. There was, after all, not very much of the curious in the visit. They were neighbors of no great distance, the lady had specifically invited him to adventure hither, and if the girls were still a shade too young to be taking lovers, why, they would not be so always or forever. And it might also be said that the two men were or had been comrades-in-arms. Officer and follower.
His lordliness dismissed the girls to their grandmother, who gracefully though nonetheless promptly withdrew with them to the house. Host and guest regarded one another a moment. However reasonable the reasons which Tonorosant had given in his own mind as not only justifying his visit but making it close to commonplace, he could now no longer believe that Losacamant believed in one of them, even for a single moment. There was no challenge in the calm look the lord gave his visitor, nothing of derision or displeasure. It did not even estimate. It did not even announce. It merely let it be known.
The massive blocks of stone which formed the walls of this part of the sunken gardens dripped with moisture which cooled the air as well as nourishing the infinity of green and flowering plants set between them. The turf was both firm and springy. Overhead a palisade of heavy grasses thick as thin saplings arched inward. It was gratefully dim and cool.
Looking at his host’s characteristic walk, which seemed to pronounce without any degree of boasting the existence of the small but muscular body concealed within the robes, Tonorosant wondered if this were typical or merely peculiar — and if the former, if some lesson were not therein embodied.
“My former interests,” he said, at last, after Losacamant had made some polite reference to the subject, “have seemed of less concern and importance to me of late. I think you may understand why, my father’s kin.”
The levy-lord nodded, unsurprised. “Life among foreigners had not prepared you,” he said, “for the facts of war. Although they also lack the Seven Signs, they cannot be compared to those who
lack them here … not in all respects.”
“Can nothing be done about the Volanth?”
Losacamant’s eyebrows rose very slightly. “You saw what was done. ‘Nothing?’ ”
“Nothing to prevent its happening again … ?”
“Ah. ‘Again.’ How? A Volanth no more recalls last year than a bird does last week.”
“Then you say, in effect: ‘No. Nothing.’ ”
A slight cant of the head, a slight move of the hand. “Destroy them? It has sometimes been counseled.” He seemed to consider it all over again, and, after a long moment, said, “No.” Another long moment passed. “However … .”
“Yes, august lord?”
“Since you show interest — and it pleases me that you do — the matter is not unimportant … . Go and see my lord Mialagoth. He will have useful words for you, I must hope.” They turned and walked up slowly from the sunken gardens to where the sun was bright and warm.
• • •
Lord Mialagoth’s brows were black and bushy, with here and there a long white hair writhing indignantly — or so it seemed. “What puzzles you?” he asked.
“For one thing, that no particular effort was made to discover the actual murderers of the march warden’s family.”
“What was there to discover? Who could they have been? Tarnisi? Lermencasi? Pemathi? Bahon? They were Volanth! None but Volanth act like that. None but Volanth were there to act at all.”
Tonorosant saw his point, which had seemed so clear to him, escaping, and he tried hard not to let it do so. “Agreed, then, my mother’s uncle, that the murderers were Volanth. I must ask, which Volanth? How can we be sure that the ones who committed the actual murder are not still alive?”
Something like a faint spasm passed over the face of Lord Mialagoth. Here he had been, painting leaves at his easel, a task requiring the utmost subtlety — and then came this unsought visitor with his exceedingly unsubtle and intrusive questions. With a brief sigh he lay down his brush. “The best of the light has passed. I will paint no more today.” He rose and faced Tonorosant. “It seems to me that you are suggesting that we proceed as though we are police. I know that they are much concerned with police matters in foreign parts, but it is not our way in Tarnis. I say this not to reproach you, not at all. I say it to make you understand that I do understand your concern. But … .
The Enemy of My Enemy Page 9