Travel Light

by Naomi Mitchison

  In a fold of the cloak was food; there was water to hand. Day and night she drifted and slept. Her mind was clear, not more than a little sad or lonely. She was neither dragon nor bear. Once there had been a dragon’s claw, hard and sharp, hidden between her breasts. It had dropped from her somewhere, on land or water. But that was not the way to remember Uggi; she wept for him a little in the early mornings, in mist and soft rain. But the sun, drying the rain off her cloak, also dried her tears. As her fingers trailed in the water the earth of the forest washed out of skin and nails. She remembered that once she had a treasure, but she did not long for it any more. She trusted in the Wanderer.

  The river, low, spreading, winding between marshes or sandy bluffs, skimmed over by birds, ringed by fishes, seemed to go first towards the rising sun, then towards the noon sun, which became daily hotter and higher. In clearings of tilled land there would be huts, and nearby herded cattle, and boats with nets for the river fishing, from which men would wave and shout to the small boat. And Halla had neither fear nor hate of them, for it seemed to her they were going about the business of being people, peaceably, with no great desires nor greater burdens than they could lift. And she knew their speech, whether by virtue of dragon’s blood or the Wanderer’s cloak. She steered her coracle by its paddle in to land at one place or another, and she was given food and got news of crops and cattle, of life and death, and in turn took the news on to the next settlement and was welcome. Men and women would be working all day, but in the evenings they danced in rounds and sang so that their voices came clear and sad over the river.

  And so in time she drifted down the Dnieper to Kiev on the high bluff and curve of the river. In Kiev there were riches and a prince; there were horsemen and pride of gold and jewels, and a market. This virtue was in the Wanderer’s cloak, that folk trusted Halla and, because they trusted, were kind. So it was that a company of merchants, going to Micklegard, in a wide ship with sails and rowers, said to her that she should come with them. In return she could wash and mend and polish, and when, besides that, she did the small tricks of magic which she still remembered, they thought themselves well served and they thought, too, that Halla was under the hand of some God. As they were a company who had come together and made their merchant agreements at Kiev, their Gods were various, and there were many several ways of luck and worship in which they hoped to bring themselves fortune and safety.

  Halla listened to them speaking of Micklegard, and some had been there and some not. But it seemed that in the middle of that city there was a palace in which you might go from one hall into another all through a summer day and never come back again to the one from which you had started. And in these halls there was every imaginable thing. There were golden birds set with jewels that by some art opened their wings and sang. There were rare foods and delicious scents, strange animals held by golden chains, lamps that turned night into day. And in the innermost hall was the Purple-born, and on orders of the Purple-born was all done: by his word was feasting, was dancing, was racing with chariots or fighting of wild beasts or honey-sweet moving of smooth-smiling women. So this, thought Halla, sitting among hounds and hawks on the deck of the ship, listening, was the Master Dragon of Micklegard. And indeed things were believed of the Purple-born that could not be believed of any man, and nothing was too strange but that it might happen within the bounds of that place they were faring to.

  As they sailed on down the river between steep brown banks, Halla spoke to the hounds, that mostly mourned for masters who had sold them, cruel though they might have been, and longed to stretch themselves in running and feel in their nostrils the scent of the nearing and fear-struck quarry. She spoke to a great hooded falcon from the north, that still in its darkened eyes saw, beyond the edges of bird-busy forest, the far crests and snow peaks and an occasional spire of dragons’ breath. She spoke to horses, bred and trained for racing, that hated the sea and their captivity, the stained, evil-scented food and tainted water, horses that kicked and bit when they could. All these were merchandise going south, and so were the chained slaves, but Halla was afraid of them and they did not trust her. She said to all the animals that they would serve new and kinder masters and maybe see the Master Dragon of Micklegard, the Purple-born itself, and that they would be able to use their limbs and powers and satisfy themselves. And if the beasts were ill or hurt they would tell her, and often she could help them.

  They had passed out of the mouth of the great river. Slowly the land had dropped away, and now the sails spread, almost like the great wings of a dragon. She did not think it likely that there would be mermaids in this sea, though she kept an eye open for them at first, and knew not to trust a word that they said or sung. But none came and the ship put in at one place and another along the shores of the Black Sea, and bought and sold. The merchants made profits and were glad. At a certain place called Marob they took on board three men who came down at night secretly and bargained with the Captain for a small space to lay down their cloaks and bundles. These men were anxious and afraid and yet they seemed to be good men. Only one of them could speak Greek, and that not well. But Halla, for whom all tongues were one, spoke to them in their own and they wondered at it, and after they came on board and the boat sailed, they questioned her long, how did she speak their tongue. And then they asked her, would she stay with them in Micklegard and be, as it were, their voice when talking to the Greeks.

  So Halla said yes, she would do that, why not, and she asked them, did they hope to see the Master Dragon? And they said yes, that was what they wanted. They came from a country where there were no dragons, but for all they knew this could be the right way to speak of the Purple-born. For it was to him that they needed to go, to complain of tyranny by the one he had set over them, to rule them. And if once they could come to the Purple-born to tell him about this, all would be well, for was he not the ruler appointed by God over the whole world? So after that Halla began to think he must be a man and not a dragon.

  The Marob men had been sent by the whole of their people to do this. But secretly: and they knew that, when it was found out as it most likely would be, by this wicked governor, then things would go ill with their own homes and the ones they had left. And one of them whose name was Tarkan Der and who was the youngest, would sit with his chin on his hands staring out over the water and thinking of this, and thinking above all of one girl and what might be done to her if things went badly. But the other two, who were older a bit, said to him that this girl, as all of those who were left, was in God’s keeping, and unless it were the will of God none should be harmed. And was it not a sigh from God that this being, who called herself Halla, had been sent to them? For either she was an angel or else it would have been an angel that taught her their speech, since she could not anyhow else have learnt it.

  Chapter Two

  Men Without Treasure

  They came at last to the city on the narrow straits that some called Byzantium or Constantinopolis, but that was the same as Halla’s Micklegard. It was hot and noisy and frightening, and the three men from Marob huddled together, in an altogether new kind of fear, which they had not expected, for they were all three brave men in rather different ways. Halla stood quietly, smelling about at what were new and for the most part nasty smells. Then they consulted for a little and went up together steadily from the great harbour, Halla whispering to them what the Greeks were saying so that they were not too much despised and cheated. In a while they found themselves an upper room in the narrow street of the shoemakers that stank of tanned hide, and a small room off it for Halla Godsgift, whom they treated with great gentleness and courtesy, being afraid that, if they did not, she would fly away. They brought her a blue linen dress down to the ground, and a veil for decency’s sake, but always she went out wearing the ragged end of a dark cloak, and slept under it, and they said to one another that this was surely in some way holy, perhaps a thing that had belonged to some saint, at the least a gift of God. Tarkan Der,
whose far-back grandfathers had been Corn Kings of Marob in the old days, had often tried to find out from her how all this had come about. She had said to him: “Once I loved treasure and hated men. And men were cruel to me. Now I do not see men as cruel.”

  “Some men are cruel,” said Tarkan Der and his face screwed and twitched with pain, for he knew the Governor would not hesitate if once he knew what was being done behind his back. But then he said, laying his hand timidly and reverently on the cloak: “But the gift was given to you and afterwards all was changed?”

  “Yes,” said Halla, “afterwards all was changed.”

  The people of Marob had been Christians for more than a hundred years now. But it had taken its own form, and there were things believed now in Marob that might have been believed in the days of the old saints, but were no longer believed in Byzantium. It was, for instance, believed there that God was good, and that the Emperor, who had been anointed and blessed, was, if once one could come to see him, the regent and representative on earth of God, and justice would be in him, if once he could be told what had been done in his name by the wicked Governor of Marob. And then all would be well. The Governor would be punished and the oppressed would be succoured. The hungry would be filled with good things, the meek would inherit the earth. The thing was, how to get to the Emperor, the Purple-born? In Marob in the old days it had been simple enough for anyone, man or woman, to come to the Corn King and ask for help. But the Corn King had gone among the people, touching them, had gone among their crops and beasts. The Emperor was somewhere inside, in his palace, and when he came out of it there were guards and courtiers, swords and spears and gold and purple between you and him. It had been otherwise also with Jesus; He had gone among the people, touching them, like a Corn King. It would not have been too hard to speak with Him.

  Morning and night the three men prayed together and at length in the small room where they had slept. For a little while after that, Tarkan Der would have a feeling that the girl, who was mostly called Sweetfeather, was in God’s hand and safer than even in his own. But, the world soon seizing on his again, he was uneasy in a short time. Sometimes Halla would join them, but she did not know what the words they were saying meant, and it was not for them to tell her. The older men, Roddin, and Kiot, grandson of Niar, who had been a martyr in the days of the first Marob Christians, thought that, in her own time, she would reveal herself; meanwhile she went with Roddin to interpret, not only for their daily food, but when they tried to find the way to the Purple-born.

  But it seemed, beyond all, difficult to see the one they had to see. It had appeared to them, in their innocence, that they would be able to tell a priest of what wickedness was being done in the name of the Emperor. They had been to the great church, where God and His saints and His many four-winged angels and archangels stretch overhead across the gold-glittering dome, terrible like doom, like thunder, beautiful like blessing, like the risen sun, like justice. Here surely they would find what they were seeking. They spoke the truth, humbly, in God’s name, Halla saying it after them, without much thought but in Greek, so that they were understood. They were taken before a higher one, whose robes were embroidered with a wonderful glory of standing saints. One came and wrote with a pen, on a long roll. They were told that the matter would go to a higher authority. They thought that all was well. They knelt for blessing. They went back. They waited. And still they waited. And the days passed. And the money that they had brought with them became less.

  In the evening, while they were sitting sadly, not even speaking to one another, a priest came. He named himself Father John, though that might well not have been his real name. All rose and signed themselves and bowed. Halla, too, made the sign of the four winds, as a bear might make it, lifting his nose to tell him from where came the sweetest scents. All spoke together for a long time and Halla took the words from one man to another. They lighted the lamp, which gave a little light but not enough to see the face of Father John and know whether or not he was speaking truth. And it was terrible for the men of Marob to need to think this of a priest, but after being in Micklegard for even as long as this, they found themselves having to.

  Outside in the street of the shoemakers there was singing and some kind of tingling instrument that was played in the dusk; after a time this stopped and they could hear that the shoemaker in the shop across the street, who never took his shutters down till late in the morning, was working still. Far off there was a scream and sounds of street fighting, then nothing much. The moon had risen and was shining through the broken corner of the shutter, seeming brighter and more silver than the lamp. After a time all seemed to be said that could be said, and yet they did not know how this Father John had taken it. They did not know if he had been touched by the thought of justice and Christian brotherhood or even by the thought of compassion. They looked at one another. Halla looked at a mouse that had come out in the quietness and now sat back, combing its ears with its small claws. Then with a small rustle that yet frightened the mouse away, Father John got up and went quietly down the stairs on the dark side where the moonlight could not show him to anyone who might have been watching.

  “What do you make of it, Roddin?” said Kiot, running his fingers through his beard.

  “If only I knew!” said Roddin. “In this place—one can never see from one end of a street to the other, let alone men’s hearts.”

  “It should have been easy: among Christians. But things are otherwise. It seems to me that it is as though we had come into marshes full of secret roads, and if we take a wrong step we shall drown in deep mud. We and our people.”

  “We cannot stand still!” said Tarkan Der. “The money is going. And so is time. And at home—at home—”

  Roddin put a hand on his arm. “We may need to risk taking the wrong step. None of us wants to be here one day longer than we need. I have my wife and the four children. Remember, Tarkan.”

  “They would not dare—with you,” said Tarkan Der. “But Sweetfeather—it is not as though her father were powerful—” There was a terrible pain in his voice; it reminded Halla of a wound hurt; she wanted suddenly to lick the hurt place with a soft warm, bear’s tongue, to lick it clean and into a shape of healing. But there was no wound on him that could be seen, nothing she could do but lay a hand on his shoulder, uncertainly. He put up his own two hands and gripped hard for a moment on hers, and fear came choking up in her as he did it, fear because for a moment he had seemed to her like a hero, and her hand went still as a woodcock chick hiding among leaves at a step coming.

  Yet gently he loosed her and she knew it was only his wound speaking to the scar of her own. And she settled back and listened to them talking about the people of Micklegard. Roddin said: “I see it this way. Whether the Emperor knows of it or not—and God help me, I cannot be sure if he does or does not know—the Governor is protected by this high-up one that Father John told us of, the one who has got the by-name Iron Gate. It is likely that some part of what the Governor, in his injustice, takes from us, goes into the hand of Iron Gate. And Iron Gate buys land and he buys men.”

  “And he buys the favour of the Purple-born,” said Kiot sadly.

  “This is what we need to think now. Having heard. And the first priest to whom we talked will do nothing against Iron Gate. And it is only by luck that the thing has not got to Iron Gate—and through him to the Governor.”

  “Not by luck,” said Kiot, “but by Grace. The innocent shall not always suffer.”

  “That is true,” said Roddin. “But the scribe that wrote it down knew that there were those that hated Iron Gate, of whom one is Alexius Argyris. And Father John is his man. So the scribe said to Father John that he had something to tell him if he got his price, and by luck Father John had the money and gave it to him.”

  “Not by luck,” said Kiot again, but this time Roddin did not seem to hear.

  He went on: “Father John only chooses to help us because we might be the means of bringing do
wn Iron Gate. He does not love us. He is not thinking about justice. That is true!” he half shouted.

  “I see it that way,” said Tarkan Der.

  “Perhaps it is only half true?” said Kiot. But the other two, who loved him, thought all the same that he was wrong.

  “So it is a question,” said Roddin, “of how it will be thought we may be used as part of their design. And we must submit to be that if the Governor is to go.”

  “We should have given some money to Father John!” said Tarkan Der suddenly.

  The others looked shocked. “But still, he is a priest of God!” said Kiot.

  “I am not sure. I am not sure that what they call God here is at all the same as God.”

  “He must have been consecrated.”

  “By one like himself!”

  “But it goes back—back to Saint Peter. There can be no flaw in the river of blessing. My grandfather said so.” Kiot was saying this, his face anxious and troubled.

  But Tarkan Der answered: “I begin to think things are different now. Can milk stay good that is left too long in the bowl, however good the cow it comes from? But it remains that we must think, how can he use us? And then we must try to use him. If nobody here cares for justice it is the only way we have—”

  “I do not think that is altogether so. But the justice must look well. From their side. I think the Argyris might be the means of our getting before the Purple-born. And perhaps the only means.”

  Tarkan Der said: “If we give the money to Father John as a thank-offering towards the care of his poor, there is a way out for God. If he is truly a priest as we see it, then the money will go to the poor but his heart will be turned towards us. If he is not, then he will take it for himself, but we shall have bought his good will.”