The Desert and the Blade

by S. M. Stirling

  The food was simple but honestly prepared and she felt sharp-set. A very tasty chicken soup with ball-shaped dumplings was followed by skewers of grilled lamb and emu seasoned with garlic and chilies on steamed semolina, round loaves of risen wheat bread shaped much like the cushions they were all sitting on, a mush of mesquite bean flour and maize-meal and beans enlivened with caramelized onions and herbs, and a number of spicy sauces and oily pastes of things like ground chickpeas for dipping the bread. There were refreshing sweet peeled prickly-pear fruit and small honey-sweetened cakes rich with dates and piñon nuts for dessert. A hot acrid herb tea of some sort and water cooled in a porous earthenware jug accompanied the food, and tiny glasses of some sweet fruit liqueur followed it.

  There were about a dozen participants, with women sitting to the left and the rather more numerous men to the right of the Judge. All were adults and with an average age north of thirty years, so this was obviously not a family dinner though it included the Shofet’s wife, a comfortable-looking woman of about his own age who Órlaith judged was shrewd but quiet. She noted that while Dov wasn’t here Meshek was, probably because he was the heir. The introductions went quickly, and everyone was speaking English reasonably fluently. She’d always been good at remembering names and faces, even before the Sword, and now she was faultless at it.

  Two of the guests weren’t of the bnei Yaakov; a man and a woman of middle years, in tunic-like shirts and pants of coarse bleached cotton, the man’s long black hair braided and wound around his head, the woman’s worn shoulder-length and cut square over the forehead. He wore a black sleeveless vest over the shirt, and the woman a colorful shawl worked with beads; there was more beadwork on their knife-belts and sheaths.

  The other reason besides Reiko that they’re using English, Órlaith thought. Hmmm. I think they’re just as happy when outsiders don’t speak their language. I’ve seen myself it can be an advantage to have one that others can’t follow.

  Both of them had ruddy-brown complexions and high cheekbones and tattoos of crisscross and vertical bars on their faces, and the sort of build that could easily turn plump if food was abundant and hard work unnecessary, which it was obvious wasn’t the case with either of them. They had blocky farmer’s muscles, and looked strong in a rather different way from the bnei Yaakov.

  “Greetings,” she said in their language, when they’d been introduced as Henry and Jackie of the ruling Council of the Pipa Aha Macav. “I’m pleased to meet some of the People By the River. And very pleased to see that they flourish in their ancient land.”

  That got her astonished smiles. It turned out she spoke the Mojave language better than either of them did, since only a small group of mostly elderly people had used it before the Change, and she switched back to English after the greeting. Though the dialect of English they spoke now after generations of seeing few outsiders was heavily salted with loanwords from the old tongue, and you could detect the influence of the way it was put together on the grammar too.

  One advantage of the Sword was that intelligent people who’d heard of it rarely mistook it, or its bearer. Raanan was both, and he’d convinced everyone else he’d included in this meeting; the subdued glances they gave it where it lay on the rack of polished dark red-brown wood by the doorway showed that, as well as the effect it always had.

  That didn’t mean his concerns were hers, or that the outside world mattered to him the way his own people’s affairs did, and still less for his followers. At least one of the men was trying to pretend she wasn’t there, and looking either frightened or hostile when he couldn’t, and he sat at the Shofet’s right hand. From what she picked up she gathered he was their religious leader, though one who also did duty in related fields like teaching.

  “Frankly, Your Highness,” Raanan said, when they’d exchanged news, spun the news as best they could, and filled one another in with details, also spun, “we’re doing quite well, we and our Friends. That was my father’s vision—a land of our own for our own people, where we could live at peace among our own and wouldn’t be dependent on outsiders. Many of whom . . . again frankly . . . sometimes hated us for no good reason.”

  Órlaith nodded. “And your father was obviously a great man,” she said . . . also sincerely. “I didn’t know him, but we can be judged by the legacy of our deeds.”

  A brilliant man, in fact, if somewhat crazed, she added to herself. But then, plenty of my own near relations in the past few generations were insane in one way or another . . . and often in ways much more unpleasant. It was a time of madness. And the rest were mostly . . . eccentric . . . at least.

  Solid, sensible, reasonable people had been much more likely to simply die back then waiting for things to return to normal. Oak Barstow Mackenzie’s father Chuck had said something right after the Change which had become a proverb among Mackenzies: When the going gets weird, the weird get going. The details differed, but that had been true nearly everywhere.

  Raanan stroked his abundant gray-shot beard; he’d have been born around the time of the Change, give or take.

  “We fought off the Eaters and Rovers and bandits,” he said. “We took in many of the desperate. We learned how to live decently in this land, though that was hard, hard—I remember hungry times when we were far closer to the edge than we are now. There was knowledge in books, but learning to apply it in the real world is a different thing. We’re not hostile to anyone who respects our borders, but why should we want closer relations with the likes of the Delgados?”

  “For starters, because you can’t avoid it,” Órlaith said. “The day of utter isolation is passing . . . at least in these lands. Topanga has signed the Great Charter. So have the House of Delgado.”

  Which produced surprise and alarm, only slightly lessened when she told them where the frontier line would run. Their latest news from the west was several weeks old.

  “That means the realms on your western border will have more trade and more contact with the outside world, for good and ill, which will strengthen them. And the Delgado lands nearly fell into the hands of the enemies of human kind . . . and that would have been a disaster for your people in the long run.”

  The dark-clad rabbi on Raanan’s other side leaned close and whispered in his ear. The Shofet listened, nodded, and then made a gentle but firm gesture for silence when he tried to go on.

  “Your ways are not ours,” he said to Órlaith. “That could create problems.”

  “Yes, it will,” Órlaith said, made a gesture of assent and then raised her eyebrows. “Is there a time or place without problems?”

  Everyone chuckled. More seriously:

  “The time of isolation total and complete is passing, but the old world isn’t going to return, either. Your lands here . . . which I and the Crown freely recognize as yours forever . . . are never going to house great cities or attract throngs of outsiders.”

  She tactfully didn’t mention the obvious reason; that the lands of the bnei Yaakov were a howling wilderness of dry death where a two-day walk could kill you without elaborate precautions in the way of specialist knowledge and gear, something she’d just very nearly demonstrated personally. There was a grim spare beauty to this country, but she couldn’t imagine more than the odd scholar or eccentric coming here just for that. Or possibly a mystic.

  “The outside world is coming to you willy-nilly, but you can control that traffic, if you use good judgment. So that there will be enough of it to enliven and enrich your lives, without threatening your way of life. If you—eventually—choose to sign the Great Charter and become formally part of Montival, you get substantial control of who settles here.”

  “But not of who passes though,” Raanan said shrewdly. “From what I’ve heard there is a free-passage and free-trade clause in this Great Charter?”

  Órlaith made a gesture that indicated the desolation around them, where the encampment of the bnei Yaakov w
as a single dot of wavering yellow light in the darkness.

  “Would many want to?”

  The Shofet chuckled at that, and his son did too. She went on:

  “In fact, with your skill with camels and the advantage of being on the spot, I imagine you’ll dominate what long-distance trade there is around here.”

  “Something to consider,” Raanan said. “But to consider at length.”

  “Exactly. I wouldn’t ask you to, mmmm, make such a decision offhand, without sending your own folk to see the truth of the outside world and bring you detailed reports.”

  The male of the Mojave pair spoke: “Shofet, I think it is worth sending envoys. Ka’avak! Listen! We have raids from the Dilzhe'’é—”

  Her Sword-assisted mind translated that as Apache.

  “—and the Navajo, and sometimes from the Chino Valley Federation, those bandit chiefs in Sonora, and even from the Trans-Pecos. From outlaws in those places, at least, and their bosses don’t care or don’t have the heft to stop it.”

  Meshek spoke: “We fight by the side of our Friends against all such threats!”

  The Mojave chieftain nodded. “You do, Seren. We couldn’t have done nearly so well, without our Friends and their camel-fighters. And we value your trade.”

  He grinned. “Camel is tasty, too,” he said. “If you stew it long enough.”

  There was a general laugh; evidently the bnei Yaakov got around the ban on the flesh of their beasts by swapping them for cattle raised by their neighbors.

  He went on seriously: “But it would be much better to end the fighting. We are farmers and hunters, not crazy men who live to prove themselves in battle, and all we wish is to live as we choose in peace.”

  He looked at Órlaith again. “Would your High Kingdom give us that, if it came here?”

  She thought for a moment, sighed, and spread her hands.

  “We would try to stop raiding and disorder, so we would,” she said. “And eventually we would succeed, or at least keep it down; but it would be a matter of sending you help, not doing it all ourselves. To be honest with you, Councillor Henry, one reason you haven’t seen anyone from Montival before this is that you are very, very far away from the heartlands of the Realm, and we have many calls on our resources and are reluctant to shoulder more responsibilities and spread ourselves too thin. That’s changing, to be sure it is, but . . . slowly.”

  Unexpectedly the dark man smiled, and the woman beside him nodded and spoke: “If someone promises you the moon in a bowl for a light, they’re lying. Loaning you a lamp and warning you the jojoba oil’s short, that may be the truth.”

  He looked at the Shofet. “News does travel. We heard of how Montival sent food to the coastal people, when they were in a bad way four years ago.”

  Raanan stroked his beard again, then looked at her. “We heard, yes. That was well-done, and you asked no return for it.”

  Órlaith smiled and spread her hands. “But when I arrived there, I did receive a return, a return of friendship, trust and help. I think your holy books have a phrase, cast your bread upon the waters, it shall return to you many times? In my religion, we say deeds will return to you threefold, for good or ill.”

  There were nods at that. The Mojave councillor went on: “I told you of what we’d heard of the San Luis, and the Land of the Honeybee, Shofet.”

  New Deseret, she thought; its flag had a beehive, and its thinly held southwestern-most territories were only most of a thousand miles of deserts and mountains away.

  And we admitted the Federated Districts of the San Luis, which is about the same distance, up in what used to be southern Colorado . . .

  “We’re certainly not eager to extend the Great Charter to these lands,” Órlaith said. “Even the areas on the coast right west of here might have waited a generation or two, if it hadn’t been for the . . . special circumstances. If you don’t want to become member-realms . . . we certainly aren’t going to try to force you, as long as you don’t become a wanton trouble to those of your neighbors who have, which from all indications you don’t want to do anyway. There will be plenty in Dún na Síochána just as happy to use you as a useful buffer for our new members, a shield that will take blows for us and to which we don’t have legal obligations.”

  Plenty including my mother, who’s a wee bit conservative as a strategist, Órlaith thought but did not say. She’ll accept the Topangans and Chatsworth Lancers because the Charter itself says we have to recognize anyone within the borders who wants to join, and we defined the borders broadly at the start. But she won’t be over-happy to be hurried into it, especially with this war brewing across the Mother Ocean. And sure, there are real arguments favoring a slow approach, not least that it spares the burden of taxes, which always rest on the shoulders of the common folk in the end. But some things just need doing.

  Órlaith also didn’t mention that ambitious and restless youngsters would undoubtedly filter out of this country for greener—literally—pastures, once that became possible. It would probably never be a real problem for the bnei Yaakov as a whole, though it might for individual families. In fact life could be easier for the rest of them, or at least more tranquil, because of it.

  “But for the present, Judge Raanan, what I would ask of you is much simpler. I and my party at—”

  She described the place where she’d left her companions. Raanan nodded to his son, who produced a rolled-up map from a pocket in the cloth wall of the tent and spread it. It was quite large, hand-drawn on densely-woven cotton, and included things like notes on the seasonal availability of water at various places.

  “If you read our script—”

  She nodded.

  “That’s here. At haNakik Oleh,” he said, using his curved dagger as a pointer. “There is water, but not much this time of year.”

  She nodded. “Yes, Emigrant Canyon,” which was exactly what haNakik Oleh meant. “We need transport back to the seaward side of the San Bernadino Mountains. The faster the better. I assure you this will be regarded as a gesture of goodwill, and will be remembered.”

  Even by my mother, in fact. I say absolutely nothing of how refusing it would be remembered; one of the pleasant things about dealing with smart people is that you don’t have to be blunt about such matters.

  “Sixty-four of you, and none used to handling camels,” Raanan said.

  His eyes narrowed in calculation, juggling time and space and carrying capacity, watering holes and available animals.

  “Say twenty escorts . . . better than a hundred camels and their gear.”

  “We could get help quickly from Arik and Tuvyah’s companies,” Meshek pointed out.

  Unexpectedly, the Rabbi leaned forward. He was a man of about his ruler’s age, but thinner-faced and with more white in his beard, and he’d been avoiding talking to her directly during the meal. Now he spoke harshly.

  “But that leaves the question . . . Princess . . . of what you were doing in that place. The to‘eba.”

  Órlaith nodded gravely, and obviously surprised the man. “The abomination, yes; that is an excellent term for the evil thing. We were cleansing it, learned rav,” she said.

  Rav was an Ivrit term that literally meant master and in the bnei Yaakov’s dialect of the language was the precise, if somewhat formal and very respectful, term for a religious specialist. His use of to‘eba was completely sincere; she could sense the freight of loathing and unacknowledged fear.

  To be sure, simply denying it is often the best way to deal with fear.

  He blinked. Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t that immediate agreement.

  She went on: “You found it impenetrable, and sensed peril and great evil, am I right?”

  He nodded reflexively. “I performed the ritual of Rabbi Gershon, with prayer and the blowing of the shofar. That helped to contain the wickedness.”
>
  Órlaith nodded sincerely; it probably had. The rav didn’t seem to be a particularly nice man, but the sincerity of his belief was like a banked fire, and vaguely behind him she sensed Power—less a person than the glowing might of an absolute WORD. The Shofet spoke:

  “Ever since the Change, I think; my father passed by that way in the early days. The books say there are a clutch of buildings and a consistent spring with a substantial flow. That would have been useful—it’s scorched this time of year but there’s good winter and spring grazing around there if you have a watering-point. The secret to herding in this country is to keep your beasts moving with the seasons and the ground cover, never the same place for too long and rarely the same area for two years in a row. But we found we couldn’t . . . approach it. We send patrols periodically around the perimeter of the . . . effect.”

  “That’s what I was doing. Sometimes we’d find tracks heading in,” his son Meshek said. “Once they came out again, but he was a babbling madman who soon died in his sleep, in the middle of a screaming nightmare. And listening to what he was babbling . . . not a good idea. An abode of Lilit.”

  His father nodded. “Or like an ant lion trap.”

  Órlaith grimaced; that metaphor hadn’t occurred to her, but it was unpleasantly apt. That type of insect was more common in dry sandy places. It dug a pit and waited at the bottom. Once past its edge, no matter how the prey scrabbled it circled down and down towards the waiting jaws.

  “So it was declared forbidden,” the Rabbi said, and glared at her. “But you chose to violate that ban.”

  “With respect, rav, no,” she said. “It was not a matter of choice. I would have avoided that place of horrors my life long, were it not necessary.”

  Reiko nodded vigorously, and Órlaith went on: “Your war-captain Meshek ben-Raanan will have told you that the barrier about it no longer holds, and that there was a great fire. If you go there again, you’ll find nothing but a burned ruin no more dangerous than any other. The spring is open for your use.”