”Everyonehas my permission, from this moment on,” she told him firmly. “I’d much rather that you all be practical. And while we’re at it, let’s just forget all the other protocols as well, shall we? There’s no one out here to see or be offended; there’s no one out here to report you for ‘insubordinate behavior.’ Even if there was, it would beme they’d have to report to, and it will be me who will be making a report on you all when this is over. I am not going to be offended if-oh, just as an example-you were to knock
me to the ground to keep something from swooping down on me! In fact, I will probably be very grateful. Just behave the way Faro does. That will be the easiest, all the way around.”
She wasn’t sure how he felt about this; she couldn’t read him the way she could read Faro and Ware. But at least he kept his eyes raised, and he didn’t seem overtly disturbed at the idea of abandoning “proper” demeanor. Was there a hint of approval? Was there a touch of wary humor? She thought perhaps that there was. She would find out more, in a little while.
“I’m going to be riding the middle today,” she said, before he could take his place in the ranks and escape her. “I would like you to stay beside me, and watch the left while I guard the right.”
“If you wish, mistress,” he said immediately. He couldn’t have said anything else, of course. He was the slave; her word was law. Still, she hoped he didn’t think her craven for taking the middle position. She didn’t want these men to regard her as a coward; that would undermine her authority. Her authority must come from strength and from their admiration, not from custom and habit, or they would not believe in her or obey her orders when they thought their lives were at risk.
But Hazard was about to surprise her. He cast a sideways glance at the “forest,” and immediately returned his gaze to her. “There will be no safe position in the column in growth like that, will there, mistress?” he said shrewdly. “I know that if I were a bandit, I would let the foreguard pass and attack the middle. And if I were a monster-well, who can tell what a monster will do? Were you planning on guarding the provision-wagon? If there is an attack to the middle, it will probably come there. The scent of the food in the wagon could draw a predator.”
She nodded, slowly, pleased with his quick intelligence. “Yes, I thought so too, and I was planning on riding beside the food-wagon. In fact, why don’t you pick two other men to stay right with the wagon along with us? That way we can have one on each corner.” She smiled. “I’m sure the driver will appreciate the extra guards.”
“Yes, Mistress Xylina,” he said, “I will do so at once.” And there was no doubt that he looked faintly disappointed. For a moment, she could not imagine why he would be disappointed. As he went off to choose the other two guards, she realized the reason.
He thought he was going to have her all to himself; she felt embarrassed amusement. He thought he was going to have a chance to attract her attention, and perhaps attract more than just her attention. Ah, well. Perhaps it was better to getthat misunderstanding over with quickly! Such attentions as poor Hazard was hoping for would likely cost her more in respect than it would ever gain. She let him go off by himself, and busied herself with rechecking the saddle on her mule. Better to spare him any discomfit; better to let him think she had not guessed what his hopes and motives had been.
When the group formed up, at the opening under the plants that signaled the beginning of the road through them, she took her place at the right front corner of the provision-wagon, and Hazard took the left. To the rear were two of the older men, career guards who had been trained to fight all of their lives. They were good choices for this position; of all of the men, it was the ones who had seen combat before who had been the least shaken by Kyle’s death. One of the men Hazard had chosen was a man called Gurt, the other, a bearded fellow, Jan. The driver of the provision-wagon was Horn, the cook, and he seemed very glad to see them all. He was no kind of fighter, and he had seemed very disturbed after Kyle’s death.
With Ware in the lead, the expedition crossed the last of the rock-waste, and plunged into the green gloom of the “forest.” Faro had been right; the leaves tended to sway over the primitive road, and the road itself wound around them, so that once the entire train was inside the area, she found she could not see either the front or the rear of the cavalcade.
It was, in fact, quite dark under those leaves after the brilliant and unshaded sunlight of the rock-waste. Xylina was not entirely certain what to make of the plants they traveled beneath. She could not imagine how they remained standing. They were nothing more than a cluster of immensely long leaves, each as wide as her mule, but very narrow in proportion to the length, and standing cubits above her head. The clumps of leaves, six or seven to a cluster, were joined only at their bases. Fat roots plunged from that joining straight into the ground. There seemed to be no support for the plants except for a thick central rib, which hardly seemed strong enough to bear the weight of the enormous leaves. The ground underneath was entirely devoid of growth except for a few pale fungi; it was not possible to see the earth, however, for the remains of dead leaves piled up beneath the plants. Xylina would have been surprised to see anything growing here, actually; there wasn’t enough light under these plants to grow much of anything. Even a fern would have had a hard time subsisting here. Odd: this place actually looked as if it had been planted and then left to itself.
The road, or at least the remains of one, continued on under and through the plants. That made it a bit easier for the wagons; the plants didn’t seem to care for what was left of the roadway, and did not grow up through it. There was plenty of room for the wagons to pass between them so long as they stayed on the road.
Once they had passed a few lengths into the depths of the forest, it was impossible to see the area that they had just left; Xylina looked back once or twice, and could see nothing, not even the hint of sunlight. They could have been in another world entirely. And there was a whole new set of noises under these trees: creaks and chirps, squeaks and chatterings. Xylina took a certain amount of comfort in the fact that none of these sounds was terribly loud. She hoped this meant that whatever produced them was not terribly big.
Though something didn’t have to be large to kill; yesterday had proved that. She must not assume that if something was small, it was harmless. She must not assume anything. That thought led to another, and questioning Hazard about his burial rite might be a good place to start a dialogue with him. “Hazard?” she said, prompting the young man to jump just a little in startlement. “If you don’t mind answering, how did you come to know what to do for Kyle yesterday? I did not wish to simply leave him-but I had never heard that the-the men had special burial customs.” She had almost said, “the slaves” and had stopped herself just in time.
He gave her a very strange look, but replied slowly, “I am not surprised, mistress. Few of the Mazonites pay our customs much heed. It was-something I was trained in by my father. These things are passed from father to son, whenever possible. And when they are not, the man who is trained finds a likely boy in the household and trains him. More than one, if the first boy is taken away from the household. In that way, there is one Rite-Holder in every household, so that the proper rites may be observed.”
That answer seemed to imply that there was more to this than just a simple rite or two; it seemed to imply an entire religion. She said nothing, however. It seemed to be almost a secret, and she did not wish to make him think she was trying to force his secrets from him. “What do you generally ask to be reborn as?” she asked impulsively. “I mean, you probably never even heard of the Pacha before you all came on this expedition. So what do you usually ask for at home, as a rebirth?”
It was not Hazard who answered, but the cook, who knew her better than the others. “Simple enough, mistress,” Horn said, with a crooked grin. “A girl. Which of us wouldnot rather be reborn as a girl?”
“Ah.” She nodded, and the others seemed relieved that sh
e was not offended. “I can understand that.”
Jan snorted, just a little. “Oh, there are some pampered pretties who like their soft lives; they generally ask for the same rebirth as what they enjoyed. But not all of us are born with pretty faces and winning ways. And some of us that are-well, Kyle found out the hard way that a pretty face don’t always stay pretty forever. Then-” Jan coughed. “Then, well, life don’t stay soft.”
That was a good opening for a change of subject. “I was very sorry about Kyle, yesterday,” she said, and hoped that she sounded as if she meant it. “I never dreamed those purple things were alive. I wish there had been some way to know what was dangerous….”
She let her voice trail off for a moment, then cleared her throat. “This is a very strange place we are entering. Ware says that it is full of wild magic, and that we should expect nothing and be wary of everything. Well, we just had that proved to us, I suppose. But it is hard to be alert all the time.”
“What’s a demon doin’ with us, mistress?” asked the other man behind her, Gurt. “What’s a demon doin’ outside of the court? Is the Queen’s word gonna hold him out here? I’ve heard they were pretty nasty customers before the Mazonite Queens made ‘em behave. What’s to stop him from kicking over the traces now?”
Now that was a very good question, and one she hadn’t considered. Not that it mattered, because what Ware wanted was something the Queen’s word had nothing to do with. He would not endanger them, because he had sworn his word to her that he would protect them, and she knew, somehow, that he was an honorable creature. She didn’t care to announce that Ware also wanted to possess Xylina herself, and knew that any dishonor on his part would immediately destroy any chance of that. But still, she could see how the men might be nervous about the demon. She could only imagine the kinds of stories they’d heard about his kind.
“Ware knows how to find the thing that we’re hunting,” she said, choosing her words with care. “He knows where it is, and how to get at it. The Queen trusts him, so I suppose her word must hold him even outside Mazonia.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Hazard looked dubious, as if he feared these were not good enough reasons to trust a demon. She thought quickly, trying to find a reason they would believe among all the ones she did not want to tell anyone else. “He also wishes to keep me very safe, because-because I owe him a great deal of gold.”
She heard Gurt trying to stifle a chuckle at that, and turned in her saddle to grin at him. “Oh, go ahead and laugh! I don’t mind! If it hadn’t gotten me in such trouble, thiscould be very funny, and I fully expect one day to be able to laugh at my dilemma myself!” Carefully, she gave the men an edited version of her misfortunes, leaving out the fact that the crown had guaranteed her debt, and leaving out Ware’s other “offer” entirely. “So you see, if he’s to be repaid in gold or in silver he must keep me safe, and in order to keepme safe he will have to do his best to keepyou safe. That was why the Queen ordered him to come along-but I do think that even if she had not ordered him to come, he would have done so anyway. He would not want me to escape him before his debt was paid.”
All of that was entirely true. It simply was not the whole truth.
“Now that’s a reason I can understand,” Gurt declared roundly. “Everyone knows how the demons feel about good gold. Always after more of it. Trading and selling, training and bargaining with the freedmen-even going outside the kingdom to get it.”
“Well, they can’t exactly live on air, can they?” Horn demanded. “Even a demon’s got to eat! And if he’s got to eat, he might as well eat good. They live forever; living forever shackled would be just plain stupid! With their magic and all…” He coughed. “Well, it stands to reason they want to live good and they got the means.”
Not like us. Horn didn’t say it, but Xylina almost heard it. The demons, who looked so human, had all the privileges human men did not. And all because the men had no magic.
“Old Ware’s all right,” said Jan, who had a deeper voice than the others. “Never has high-and-mighty ways. Never puts up a fuss about not having his fancy house to live in. Puts up with the same things we do. He does-well, he never fusses about our-ah-entertainment.”
Hazard again cast a sideways look at her, as if to see whether she understood that oblique reference to the paw women and their purpose-and whether she was offended by it. She simply nodded. “I’m glad to hear that,” she said, striving not to blush. “I will never know whether he is doing as the Queen asked him to in that way unless you tell me. You are all doingyour duty, and you deserve everything you are entitled to. But unless you say something to me about the things I cannot oversee-well, it will be like the little girl who did not speak until her nurse salted her honey-cake-I will have to assume that you do not speak because everything has been fine until now.”
Horn grinned at the old joke-or possibly, at her acceptance of the situation. Hazard looked a little embarrassed. She could not see the other two without turning, but she had the feeling that they approved. “Everything is still just fine, Mistress Xylina,” Horn said forthrightly. “Hazard or me will tell Faro or you if it ain’t.”
“Good. In fact,” she continued, “if there is something you are entitled to that I have somehow missed, I would like you to tell Faro. If you have any ideas that might bear trying, tell him as well. This is new territory for all of us, and anything that might help us defend ourselves should be tried. I have no prejudice against trying something new, and I can see you are all intelligent men.”
She glanced at the two she could see out of the corner of her eye. Horn was nodding with pleased satisfaction; he had worked with her during the “Pacha entertainments,” and she suspected that she had just confirmed the opinion he had formed of her then. Hazard looked quite stunned.
Good. Now they saw her as a person, not just as “the mistress.” It was going to be harder to desert a reasonable person than an icon, someone who did not seem quite real to them, someone who did not have their welfare at heart.
“You know, Horn, we must have fed several thousand Pacha back there, and yet I hardly know anything about you,” she said, after a moment. “Where did you ever learn to cook so well? I can’t imagine how you make dried peas and old leather turn into such wonderful stews.”
Horn was only too happy to talk, and she was only too happy to listen. Horn’s words, and those of the other three men, gave her a window on their world. Faro had given her a glimpse of that world, but only a glimpse. This was a broader, wider view, not filtered through the educated caution of a scribe. And she suspected that it was a view very few other Mazonites ever had.
She learned how the boys were segregated early in their lives, left to be educated-or not-by other slaves, some not even their fathers. How what happened to these children was largely a matter of chance. If the fates smiled upon them, they remained with their fathers and their families, growing up as part of a household, and given nearly the same education as their favored sisters. Then, when they grew to manhood, they would find themselves noticed by a young woman and bartered off to her as her chosen husband, earning their families an agreed-upon spousal-price. But if the fates were not kind, if they were not part of a small family or the offspring of a “marriage,” they would find themselves sent off to a nursery until the age of five, with one slave to simply tend to the needs of thirty small boys and boy-babies. Then they would be appraised and tested, their aptitudes determined-and sent off to be trained. Once trained, at the age of fifteen or thereabouts, they went on the auction-block. There would be little chance for a family or to better their lot. They were, simply, property. No different from a horse or a mule.
And even if the fates were kind at first, that did not mean they would continue to turn a smiling face. Kyle had learned that, being discarded for the sake of a younger, handsomer man. There was another of Kyle’s ilk with them, a man called Marie, who marched just behind Ware.
The other men of this expe
dition were of the second class, the sons of harem slaves with little or no chance at a better fate. They felt, for the most part, that they were at least fortunate that they had not been sold off as common laborers. Such a mind-numbing fate was the worst thing that could happen to a slave. Save, perhaps, being condemned to the arena as a gladiator. All of them looked up to Faro as a survivor of that experience. And she had the feeling that her act of inadvertent mercy in saving him from death had also begun the work of earning their respect.
When they halted at noon for a quick meal, she felt that she had a good start on her goal, to make herself their leader by loyalty rather than by default.
It was in the late afternoon that the first of the monsters appeared.
These were singularly peaceful “monsters,” and they seemed to take no notice of the humans on the road below them.
The first of them appeared floating through the leaves, pushing them apart, and gliding between them. The entire caravan froze in place, as the creature’s snout appeared above them, shoving the fronds aside. Xylina’s heart was in her throat, and the men around her grew pale with fear. The thing was about the size of one of the wagons, patterned in brilliant scarlet and gold chevrons, and shaped roughly like a teardrop. It floated majestically above them, about halfway between them and the tops of the leaves, with no sign of anything supporting it.
And no sign that it noticed them.
As they watched it drifting above them, they held their breaths, hoping that it would continue to ignore them. Its round black eyes remained fixed on the fronds around it, however; it stopped once or twice to nibble off a nodule-like growth on the ribs of one of the leaves, but otherwise paid no attention to anything about it.
After a long wait, it drifted further off into the leaves, and was lost to sight.
Xylina let out her breath, and color returned to the faces around her. After a moment to be sure that the monster was not going to return, the caravan started off again. They had not gone very far, however, when several more of these floating creatures appeared. All were brightly colored, patterned regularly in blue and green, red and yellow, orange and black. They varied in shape from long, pipe-like forms to round, ball-like creatures. They did not seem to have heads as such; their faces were built into one end of their bodies, with their eyes so positioned that they could not look directly at something but could see only what one or the other eye was aimed at. They had no kind of a nose that Xylina could see, and their mouths varied from a slit that could readily have encompassed one of the mules to tiny round holes hardly larger than her fist. None of them paid any attention at all to the figures so far below them.
If I Pay Thee Not in Gold Page 28