Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1986

by Cahena (v3. 1)

  “The Moslems are religious enough about it,” Wulf reminded. “They spread faith by the sword. They’ll kill you if you don’t accept their Allah.”

  “True.” Djalout nodded. “Come have the noon meal with me.”

  They ate almonds, dried dates and figs, and barley bread with honey, and drank good wine. Afterward Wulf went to the Cahena’s council chamber, where she and Mallul sat to learn Arabic. He taught them numbers from one, wah, up to a thousand, alf. He made them say simple words for hot and cold and fire and water and so on. Both were quick at learning a new language, though not so quick as Wulf himself.

  “What’s the word for surrender?” asked Mallul. “The command to surrender?”

  Wulf told him, and Mallul repeated it. “I’ll make them surrender to me,” he vowed.

  “Another lesson tomorrow, after I’ve drilled the men,” promised Wulf.

  The damp autumn passed in such exercises, and winter set in, chilly and sometimes heavy with clouds. Fires burned in the houses, the people wore heavy, hooded capes. Wulf repeatedly inspected the storehouses of grain and other provisions. He made a trip southward to Ketriazar’s town, a place mostly of heavily woven tents with leaves and branches piled on the roofs. Ketriazar took Wulf to see his stark Medusi warriors drill at planting spears for a hedge against cavalry, at throwing javelins, at riding headlong in attack formations. Gaunt, bushy-bearded Daris was there, too.

  “My men work like yours,” Daris said to Ketriazar. “They’re trained to a hair.”

  “We could whip those Moslems tomorrow,” declared Ketriazar.

  “I’d say we need sixty or ninety days more,” said Wulf.

  The three ate supper in Ketriazar’s tent, chunks of a roasted wild hog with an alelike brew of fermented grain. Ketriazar gnawed a rib and studied Wulf appraisingly.

  “You organize and train well,” he said. “The Cahena did right to make you a chief. What do you and she do these days?”

  “I’m teaching her Arabic,” replied Wulf.

  “I’ll wager that she learns well. She does all things well.”

  Wulf was back at Tiergal the following day, as another of Bhakrann’s scouts reported. He said that he had gone all the way into the smashed streets of Carthage, and that Hassan was receiving reinforcements from Moslem strongholds to the east. Fine Arabian horses had been brought by ship. There were mountains of food and trains of camels to carry it.

  “They talk as if they’d already beaten us,” said the scout.

  “Confidence is good in moderation,” said the Cahena. “But overconfidence can mean disaster. True, Wulf?”

  “That’s always been true, Lady Cahena,” said Wulf.

  Glowingly she smiled at him. “Not an original observation, but a true one,” she said. “Have you time to give Mallul and me a lesson in Arabic?”

  With each lesson she and Mallul grew more proficient, and began to talk Arabic to Wulf and to each other. And she called Wulf to her now and then, to make love. It was always she who called. He kept himself from making an advance. He wondered what she would do if he made one.

  Winter went on, now crisp, now soggy. The men of Tiergal and nearby villages drilled in all weathers, began to act like veterans. Everyone had a good sheaf of javelins, and some had captured Moslem swords. The Cahena kept couriers on the trails to her chieftains, carrying and bringing back news. Scouts rode in from time to time, with Bhakrann’s reports on the great mustering of the enemy around Carthage’s remains, Moslems from many nations, all the way to Persia. The Moslems prayed and prayed for victory.

  So did the Djerwa in Tiergal.

  Djalout accompanied Wulf to a sort of service held in the home of professed Jews, with kneeling listeners and a gaunt-faced man struggling to say some sort of ritual. Smiling, Djalout stepped forward to conduct the service himself. He quoted from what Wulf recognized as a psalm of David: “You will make them turn their back; you will make ready with your bowstrings against their face.” When he had finished, the listeners loudly thanked him.

  Outside, the Cahena joined them and they entered another house. The people gathered there were pattering prayers to a whole battalion of images. When they saw the Cahena they fairly howled welcome and prostrated themselves to kiss her shadow.

  “Make your hearts strong,” her voice rang out. “Be ready with your weapons. Where’s a javelin?”

  One was put into her hand. She carried it to the curtained doorway. “Here!” she cried. “Let this find their hearts!”

  Fiercely she thrust the javelin into the open, brought it back and let the curtain fall again. “See!” she cried to them.

  The javelin’s head ran with blood. It dripped from the lashings. The onlookers moaned their awe.

  “Be strong,” she said again. “We’ll win, my voices tell me.”

  In the street, Wulf asked, “How did you do that?”

  She smiled her smile. “I just did it, Wulf. Don’t you believe in my magic?”

  “I have to,” he said, with an air of confession.

  Spring came, with early, rugged-seeming wildflowers, with new leaves on the trees, with blossoms foretelling fruits and nuts. The days grew warm, balmy, bright.

  Bhakrann reported to the Cahena in her council room. Lamplight made bloodred sparks in his beard as he told of Hassan’s marshaling of his forces. There were swarms of mounted warriors, columns of camels to carry supplies. Hassan had proclaimed the blessing of Allah and of the caliph in Damascus on his host, had named a day for the march westward.

  The Cahena sat up on her cushions. Her eyes flashed like knives.

  “I’ll name the day for our own advance,” she said ringingly. “We’ll meet this good old man Hassan. Start messengers to all our chiefs, and to Lartius at Cirta. They must start at once. They’ll meet us Djerwa — say a day’s ride eastward from here. What place do you say, Bhakrann?”

  “At that distance there’s the valley called Chaiuta,” said Bhakrann promptly. “Springs and a stream there, groves of trees.”

  “I know Chaiuta.” The Cahena nodded. “There’s a tomb there; nobody knows who’s buried in it. We’ll assemble here, move out as quickly as we can. Start those messengers at once.”

  * * *

  XII

  Two busy days and most of their nights were spent at gathering and organizing for the march to the rendezvous.

  The Cahena directed everything efficiently. A squad of messengers hurried here and there with her orders. Wulf admired those orders, clipped and decisive, and he admired the promptness with which they were obeyed. Sinewy, hairy fighting men rode in from all the Djerwa communities, rode in on hardy horses, each man with what armor he had, with his sheaf of javelins. The Cahena assigned these contingents to camp tracts around Tiergal. Their subchiefs kissed her shadow and saw that her directions were obeyed. The area filled.

  Trains of camels were assembled to carry bales of supplies. Some of the camel drivers were women and boys. Warriors were divided into thousands, more or less. The thousands were divided in turn into hundreds, each hundred with a self-important minor leader.

  Women loudly insisted that they would follow the host. Those who would stay mostly had young children. Wulf ordered his own female servants to stay in charge of his cave. He thought that the Cahena disapproved of such a jumble of camp followers, but she did not forbid it. One who would go was Daphne, whose father, Jonas, commanded a pickup company of archers.

  “What if the Moslems captured you?” Wulf asked Daphne.

  “Let one come within range.” She smiled, showing him a bow and quiver. “He’ll wake up in wherever his paradise would be. I’ve used a bow ever since I was a little girl.”

  Djalout, too, would join the host. He chose a sturdy mule to carry him. “I’ll be needed,” he said to Wulf. “You’ll see that. And a spring jaunt ought to stir up my old blood.”

  Wulf took both his war-horses. His servitors Susi and Gharna rode unshowy Imazighen mounts of their own.

  The
stars had barely winked out in a dim gray dawn as the Cahena formed her warriors of the march. All were mounted, and she mustered them in three long columns of fives, every man with two days’ rations in his saddle wallets. The baggage camels formed other long columns behind. Women rode donkeys and mules and scrubby little horses.

  The Cahena started at the front, with Wulf and Mallul and Bhakrann with her. Mallul flourished the red war banner for the march to begin. Bhakrann rode along the columns, calling out men he knew and trusted to trot out and form a line of scouts. Returning, he fell in beside Wulf. “If you like war, you’ll like what’s coming,” he said.

  “I don’t particularly like war,” said Wulf. “It never really proves anything.”

  “This one will prove that the Moslems can’t beat us.”

  “You’re sure of that,” said Wulf.

  “Isn’t the Cahena sure? Look at her. She knows what these invaders are planning, knows it before they know it themselves, and she knows how to stop them.”

  Now and then a halt was called, to rest the horses. At noon the marchers nibbled food from their wallets. The warm sun slid low behind them as they came to the place where the Cahena had ordered her other forces to join them.

  It was a spacious depression in the slope, with a sizable stream running its length and smaller rivulets feeding in. There were tufts and belts of trees, clumsy growths of cactus, which the camels ate, thorns and all. The Cahena posted guards at the smaller streams, to keep them to draw from for cooking and drinking, while the larger course would serve to water the animals and for bathing. Susi and Gharna found a camping spot well away from any stream and picketed the horses. Other groups of men made fires and cooked. Their gatherings reached as far as Wulf could see. The most distant of them looked like groups of tiny ants. Horses and camels were haltered to stakes.

  Wulf, picking up firewood, suddenly straightened and stared. Up the slope and not too far away stood a sort of obelisk of plastered brown and gray stones, twice the height of a tall man, with a foundation almost twice its height in width. “What’s that?” he wondered aloud.

  “An old tomb,” said Djalout beside him. Djalout seemed cheerful, almost jaunty, as though the day’s ride had agreed with him.

  “Whose tomb?” Wulf asked.

  “Who am I that I should know? Let’s go look.”

  They walked over together. The tomb was ancient, Wulf could see, incredibly ancient. Djalout pointed with his staff to a picture on the base, crudely but strongly chiseled into a broad stone.

  “See that, Wulf? Something with wheels, horses drawing it, a man driving — a chariot. Once the Imazighen had chariots, I wonder how many lifetimes ago.”

  Wulf studied the picture. It was primitive but lively. The horses galloped. Almost, it seemed, the wheels turned. “The Imazighen must have been more civilized back then,” he ventured.

  “Yes. They had powerful princes and ruled this whole southern shore of the inland sea. They grew wheat for the whole Roman empire — no wheat these days, at least not around Tiergal. The Romans were glad to have them as allies sometimes, though other times they cheated and massacred them. When the Vandals were here, the Imazighen fought them.” Djalout looked up at the spire. “I wonder who’s buried here. We might dig for his bones, but that might be bad luck.”

  “You believe that?” asked Wulf.

  “Well, I consider it. I consider everything.”

  Wulf studied the chariot picture. If the Imazighen had chariots now, would they help in this war? Something else was carved there, something ahead of the galloping horses, half obliterated by time. He bent to see better. Yes, a fleeing figure, on two striding legs like a man — but with the horned head of a bull. He pointed.

  “Look. That chariot’s after something that looks like Khro.”

  Djalout glanced quickly and turned away. “Don’t say that name, Wulf. Now, may I invite myself to supper with you?”

  They went back to where Susi stewed couscous and strips of smoked pork. Wulf poured from an earthen wine jug for all of them . Bhakrann joined them to accept a bowl of stew, a cup of wine. In the last light of day, the red glints were in his beard.

  “I keep remembering what I heard in Carthage,” he growled. “Hassan promising his men Imazighen women. He thought I was a volunteer. He made that promise to me.” A fierce clearing of Bhakrann’s throat. “I wish I could kill him with my own hand, the way I killed Okba.”

  “You like to kill,” said Djalout, spooning stew.

  “Yes, I like to kill,” said Bhakrann. “Wulf says he doesn’t, but he kills mighty well.”

  A shadow in the dim evening, there by their fire. The Cahena had come, silently, unexpectedly, as usual. Bhakrann and Susi and Gharna fell down to kiss her shadow. Wulf rose to face her. Djalout sat and stroked his beard.

  “The other musters will be coming,” the Cahena said to Wulf. “Where shall we camp them?”

  She sat beside him. He took a twig and sketched in the dirt for various positions near the smaller streams. She looked at the diagrams and asked questions.

  “We’ll camp Lartius and his Cirta people here next to us,” she said. “Close enough for me to inspect, maybe make a speech to them.”

  “Speech?” echoed Wulf, and he must have sounded stupid, because both Djalout and Bhakrann laughed.

  “You’ve heard her speak,” said Bhakrann. “When she speaks, people listen and obey. They follow her into the mouth of hell.”

  “You think there’s a hell?” drawled Djalout.

  “Yes,” Bhakrann snapped. “I’ve been there in my time and back here again, and it’s better here than there.”

  “This is enough talk for tonight, I think,” said the Cahena.

  Off at a level space upstream, a fire had been built. It glowed pinkly there.

  Then rose the sound of instruments beside it. Drums beat a steady rhythm and some sort of flute or pipe joined in, shrill and weird.

  “They’re going to dance the blood dance,” said Djalout. “A dance of prayer for victory.”

  “Who does it?” asked Wulf.

  “Young women dance it, and warriors watch,” said Bhakrann. “It hasn’t been danced for years — no occasion for it. Let’s go watch.”

  All rose and headed for the fireglow, the squall and thump of music.

  “Do you know about this dance?” Wulf asked Djalout.

  “Just that it’s ancient among the Imazighen. Symbolic in some way that’s hard to understand. Here we are, and a big circle of watchers.”

  Men ringed the fire, some squatting, others standing behind the squatters. In the firelight sat girls and young women, a dozen of them in patterned robes with hoods over their heads and faces. To one side male musicians beat painted drums while one drew wild strains from his flute. A woman entered the open space by the fire. Wulf recognized her as one of the Cahena’s servants. She began to sing, and the audience of men clapped hands in time to the music. The woman pointed to a sitting girl, who rose to her knees and began to gyrate her body.

  She moved lithely, her bare arms twisting like snakes, her hooded head darting forward and from side to side. So swiftly did she fling herself about that the hood slid from her dark hair, her pretty oval face. The mistress of ceremonies waved for her to subside, and another dancer performed. The music grew faster, the hand clapping speeded up. Again a hood dropped, and a third dancer went into wriggling motion on her knees. At last only one was left, and she stood erect and shook her hood down. It was Daphne, all smiling, her bright hair in disarray.

  The onlookers raised joyous shouts. The music drummed and skirled. Daphne threw her cloak aside and stood there in a flimsy shift of light blue cloth. She danced, her sandaled feet flickering, her body swaying and undulating.

  “Hai, hai!” Wulf heard Bhakrann yell, all enthusiastic approval.

  Daphne postured, ever more agile, more alive. She shuddered with her whole body. Her hands flew to her shoulders, she whipped off the shift and danced in her
nakedness. She was pinkly, chubbily symmetrical. Her opulent breasts tossed like billows. Clapping hands made an accompaniment that drowned the music.

  The other dancers rose, tossed off their garments, joined in. There was a whole rhythmic spectacle of bare flesh, a drawing together in a bounding jumble, a spreading out into a living frieze of motion. All the dancers were pretty. They were such prizes as Hassan was said to have promised his Moslem warriors. The watchers struck hands together.

  Then, abruptly, the music was silent, the dance stopped. The girls scrambled back into their clothes. Daphne glistened with sweat, as though she had run a race. The troupe ran out of the circle and into the dark.

  Wulf headed back to his camp with Djalout and the others.

  “What did it mean?” Wulf asked Djalout. “Blood dance, you called it, but I didn’t see any blood.”

  “I think the name’s symbolic,” said Djalout. “Since they dance it before battles, maybe the beauty of the dancers reminds warriors what they’re fighting for.”

  Wulf slept near his fire and awoke at first light. Susi and Gharna produced a breakfast of retoasted barley cakes and a pungent tea of herbs in boiling water. Afterward, Wulf walked out to campsite after campsite. He knew many of the warriors, and was glad to find them ira good spirits. Daphne greeted him from among a group of women. Her nose was smutted from bending over a fire, but her eyes and smile were bright. He remembered her buxom nudity at the dance.

  “Will you eat with us?” she invited him.

  “I’ve eaten,” he said. “I still think your father should have left you at Tiergal.”

  “He couldn’t have done that, and neither could you.” Boldly she eyed him up and down. “Wait, you’ll be glad I came along.”

  Ketriazar and his Medusi arrived at midafternoon, and Daris’s Neffusa just before sundown. The Cahena assigned them camping areas. The wide valley seemed to swarm with men and beasts. There was a council in front of the Cahena’s low-pitched makeshift tent of brown cloth, with Ketriazar and Daris there, along with Wulf and Mallul and Bhakrann and Djalout. Scouts had brought word that Hassan was ready to start from Carthage.