King and Emperor thatc-3

by Harry Harrison

  Carefully, four servants lifted the box, held it up to the wind, walked to the edge of the tower. The winchmen heaved a trifle, took up a yard or two of slack. Shef heard a rising buzz of excitement from outside, which slowly stilled.

  “Is this dangerous?” he said quietly to Suleiman, not trusting his own Arabic at this stage. “I do not want the boy killed on my account.”

  Suleiman spoke aside to bin-Firnas, while the serious-faced child remained poised on the edge of the tower, the wind tugging at him. He turned back. “Bin-Firnas says, of course, that all is at the will of Allah. But he says also that as long as the cord is retained, all may be safe enough. The danger would come if they released it, let the boy try to fly free.”

  Shef stepped back, nodding. Bin-Firnas saw the gesture, turned to feel the wind, and then in his turn made a gesture to his servants. With a grunt they heaved the box up to arm's length above their heads, felt the wind catch it, let go all together.

  For an instant the kite sagged below the wall of the tower, then some updraft or eddy caught it and it rose again. The winchmen span their handles, let the cord out five fathoms, ten. Slowly the kite rose in the sky, the little face still framed in its open end. Shef saw the vanes twist and turn slightly, the box rotate upwards, turn, level off. It dipped and bucked in the wind, but the boy seemed able to control it, to keep the box facing the way he wanted. If it had swooped and plunged like the earlier one once they had cut it free, he might have been thrown out of his harness, Shef guessed. But no, it seemed to ride stably. No worse than a boat on a choppy sea.

  Silently bin-Firnas passed to Shef a device like the one Mu'atiyah had demonstrated, a far-seer. Without words he showed that it was different from the last one: in two halves, one sliding over the other in a case of greased leather. It meant you could alter the length of the tube. Bin-Firnas made a squinting face, as he moved the bottom half in and out. Shef took the device from him, trained it on the kite and its flyer's face, gently moved the tube up and down till the image came into focus.

  There it was. The boy's tongue stuck out between his teeth, he was concentrating grimly on managing his vanes, trying to hold the kite steadily into the wind. There was no doubt, anyway, that the kite could carry his weight.

  “How far can you send him?” he asked.

  “As far as the rope will run,” reported Suleiman.

  “And what if the rope is cut?”

  “He says, does the ferengi king wish to see?”

  Shef lowered the telescope from his eye, frowning. “No. If they've done it once already I'd like to hear about that.”

  He focused again as a long dialogue broke out. Finally Suleiman addressed him again.

  “He says, fifteen years ago, first they let it fly free with a boy inside. When the boy survived he himself, bin-Firnas, risked the attempt He says he learned three things. First, it is much easier to control flight into the wind than before it. Second, there is a skill in controlling the vanes which the boy had, from many trial flights on the tether, but which he himself had not had time to learn. He says you must react with the body before the mind has time to issue an order, and that is a skill that only time can bring. Third, he learnt that he should also have fitted a vane to control flight side to side, as well as up and down. He says the kite turned on its side as he flew down the valley of the river, and he could not turn it back. So, instead of landing gracefully like a water-bird, he turned end over end in the rocks. Since then he has not walked without support, for all the surgeons of Cordova could do. He says, his legs were his gift to Allah, for knowledge.”

  “Winch the boy in,” said Shef. “Tell the master of the house how grateful I am to him for showing me this, and how much I respect his readiness to try for himself. Say we would like to make careful drawings of his contrivance. We may be able to find a better place to test it than the banks of the Guadalquivir. And tell him also that we are amazed by his tubes of glass, and would like to know how to make them for ourselves. We wonder how he came upon the idea.”

  “He says,” the translation came back, “that the lens which makes small writing large has been known here for many years. After that, it was only a matter of mechanical skill and many tests.”

  “Making old knowledge new,” said Shef with a beam of pleasure. “This is a wiser man than his pupil.”

  In one of the innumerable tiny tenements of the city, a man sat cross-legged in front of an open window. His hands moved continually as he stitched, the seam he worked on moving through his hands as if it were a living serpent. His eyes never looked down, never left the street. Everything that went by was observed. In the corner to one side of him sat another man, out of sight from outside.

  “You got a close look at it?” asked the tailor.

  “I did. They walk through the city all the time, gaping like monkeys. They wear no more than a tight tunic on their upper bodies, and many of them not even that. They would walk naked as apes in the sun if the Cadi allowed it. It is easy to see what they wear round their necks. And I have stood as close to the ferengi king as I am to you.”

  “What did you see, then? And what did you hear?”

  “All the strangers wear a silver charm round their necks. Often it is a hammer, many times a horn, or a phallus, or a boat. There are some signs that only a few wear: an apple, a bow, a pair of strange sticks. Usually these are worn by the bigger strangers, the ones who entered the city wearing mail, but the apple is worn only by the very small one in white, whom they say is a leech.”

  “And what does the king wear?”

  “He wears a graduale. There is no doubt of that. I have peered so close I could smell the sweat of his shirt. It is a graduale. It has three steps on the right and two steps on the left.”

  “Which is uppermost?”

  “Two are level at the top, like a cross. Below that, the right as we see it.” The left as he wears it, the tailor reflected, still sewing.

  “Tell me what you have found out about these signs.”

  The other man hitched his stool conspiratorially closer. “We found soon that all these men are very eager to find strong drink of the sort forbidden by the Prophet, more eager for it than for women or for music. We approached some of them, said that we were Christians for whom this was not forbidden, that we had a store of wine for the service of our God. We found then that the bigger ones were shocked, looked askance, wanted the drink but cared nothing for the Christ. Some of the smaller ones, though, said easily that they had been Christians too, knew all about the mass and the holy wine. These we drew aside.”

  “Had been Christians?” muttered the tailor. “So they are apostates now?”

  “That is so. But they told a clear story, as far as our interpreters could follow. They said that their whole kingdom had been Christian once, but they spoke with horror of the practices of their Church. Some of them had been slaves to abbot or bishop, and showed us stripes to prove it. Then they had been freed by the one-eyed king, who had converted the land to what they call ‘the Way.’ It means much the same as shari'a. The sign of this is the pendant they wear, one sign for each of the many gods they have.”

  “And the graduale?”

  “All agree that it too is the sign of a god, but none was very sure what god it might be. The name they gave was ‘Rig,’ which I think is one of their words for ‘king.’ It is like our word mis, or the Spaniards' reje. All say without exception that no other man wears it, except some of the slaves rescued by the one-eye, who wear it as a sign of their gratitude to him. If he did not wear it, the sign would never be used at all.”

  Both men fell into a reflective silence. Eventually the tailor, putting his pile of clothing aside, rose stiffly to his feet.

  “I think we may have to return home, brother. This is news that we must share. A strange king, wearing a sign personal to him alone, the same as our holy graduale, though with rungs reversed, as a token of devotion to the King. Surely this must have some meaning.”

 
; The other man nodded, more doubtfully. “At least we can get the stink of the lowlands out of our nostrils, and breathe cool air again. And wake without the salat ringing in our ears.”

  He paused. “As they became drunk, the small Northerners said again and again that to them this man is not just their king. They call him ‘the One King.’ ” He spat neatly through the window. “Whatever he may be, they are apostates and idolaters.”

  “To the Church,” the tailor replied, “so are we.”

  Brand settled his massive shoulders back against the walls of the room with a contented sigh. He had been sure that the English, at least, had managed to get hold of strong drink somehow. But every time he had approached one of the pygmies, they had gone into their usual state of glassy-eyed denial. Finally, pocketing his pride, he had edged over to Cwicca and Osmod, and appealed to them as former companions, guests, and shipmates to let him in on the secret.

  “Just you, then,” Cwicca had finally said.

  “And you can bring Skaldfinn,” Osmod had added. “We have trouble understanding them most of the time. Maybe he can get a bit more out of them.”

  They had been guided deftly out of the crowd leaving the flying demonstration and taken into a little shabby room: where, Brand had to admit, they had been given, cheerfully and without a word of payment, surprising amounts of good red wine—good as far as Brand could tell, since he had not drunk wine a dozen times in his life. He emptied his pint pot and passed it forward for more.

  “Aren't you supposed to be looking after that priestess-female?” inquired Cwicca.

  Skaldfinn scowled. “Don't call her that. She just says she is. She hasn't been accepted.”

  Brand looked round as if surprised to note that Svandis was not present. “I suppose so,” he muttered. “She makes me feel cold just looking at her. Daughter of the Boneless One! I knew she existed all right, there was a good deal of talk about it. I just hoped the whole Hel-spawn family was dead.”

  “But you are supposed to be looking after her,” pressed on Cwicca. He and Hund, born and bred within twenty miles of each other, had a strong fellow-feeling. If Hund and his master Shef accepted the woman, the rules and rituals of the Way would not count for much with him.

  “She's safe enough,” said Osmod. “Find her own way back, I dare say.” He too waved his mug at their smiling hosts for a refill. “In some towns, I know, woman wanders off, she'll end up raped in an alley with a sack over her head. Not here! Chop your hand off as soon as look at you, and other bits too. And the Cadi's men everywhere.”

  “Cursed noisy woman,” grumbled Brand. “Not sure six drunken sailors isn't what she needs.”

  Skaldfinn retrieved Brand's mug and tipped half the contents of it into his own. “I don't like the woman,” he said, “but you're wrong there. Six drunken sailors isn't a tenth of what she's met already. And it hasn't done her any good at all.

  “But she'll make her own way back to our quarters right enough,” he added pacifically. “She's got no choice. Doesn't speak a word of the language. Any language they speak here.” He turned and called out to their hosts in the bastard Latin, studded with Arab words, which he had already recognized as their native dialect.

  In a cool courtyard not far from the hot shut-in room where the men were sitting, Svandis sat on a bench eying the circle of women who sat with her, round the fountain. Slowly she put a hand up to her veil, pulled it away from her face, threw back her hood. Her copper hair spilled down, framing the pale ice-water eyes. Some of the women around her drew in deep breaths. Others did not.

  “You speak English, then,” said one of them. She too dropped her veil, as the others did. Svandis looked at the one who had spoken: realized she was almost as fair as herself, with hair the color of pale ash-wood and green eyes. Realized too that she was a woman of amazing beauty. Since she had grown past childhood Svandis had been used to being the center of all eyes. If this woman were in the room, she admitted to herself, that might not be so.

  “Yes,” she replied, in English also. “But not well. I am a Dane.”

  The women looked at each other. “Danes took many of us from our homes,” said the first one. “Sold us to the harems of the powerful. Some of us did well—those who knew how to use their bodies. Others not so well. We have no reason to love Danes.” As she spoke there was a continual patter of translation from English into Arabic. Svandis realized that those around her were of mixed race and language. All, though, young and beautiful.

  “I know,” she said. “My father was Ivar Ragnarsson.”

  This time the expressions moved from fear to rage. Hands moved inside the all-covering cloaks. The ash-blonde girl thoughtfully pulled a long steel needle from her hair.

  “I know what my father was. I know what he did. It happened to me too—and worse to my mother.”

  “How could such a thing happen to you? A princess of the Danes? Of the Viking woman-stealers?”

  “I will tell you. But let me make it a condition.” Svandis looked round the circle of a dozen women, trying to estimate their age and race. Half of them Northerners, she could see, but some olive-skinned like the men of Cordova, one almost yellow-skinned, others—she could not tell. “The condition is that each of us shall tell the others what is the worst thing that has happened to her. Then we will all know we are on the same side. Not English, or Danes, or Arabs. All women.”

  The women looked sidelong at each other as the translation pattered out. “And I will begin. And I will tell you not of the day I lost my virginity for a crust of stale bread. Not of the day I buried all my friends at once, in one grave. No, I will tell you of the day my mother died…”

  By the time the last woman had finished speaking, the sun had moved off the central courtyard and the shadows were lengthening. The ash-blonde girl wiped the tears from her face, not for the first time, and waved imperiously at the cloisters round the fountain. Silently slave-bodyguards appeared, setting out small tables with dishes of fruit, jars of cool water and sherbet, faded back into the shadows to watch their masters' property.

  “Very well,” she said. “So we are all the same. Even if you are a Dane and the daughter of a madman. But now, tell us what we want to know. What brought you here? Who is the one-eyed king? Are you his woman? And why do you wear the strange robes, like the priests they talk about? Have they made you a priestess, and of which God?”

  “There is something I have to tell you first,” said Svandis, her voice dropping even though she was sure none of the men in the shadows could understand her tongue.

  “There is no God. Not even Allah.”

  For the first time the mutter of translation ceased. The women looked at each other, unsure how to put what she had said into other words. So close to the shahada: there is no God but God. So far apart. And if saying the shahada made man or woman irrevocably a Muslim, saying its opposite—that must mean death at the least.

  “Let me explain.”

  Chapter Eight

  What do you mean, you don't know where the Nithhögg-gnawed woman is? I told you not to let her out of your sight!“

  Brand, never used to being spoken to in this way since the day his beard had first begun to grow, clenched his massive fists and started to rumble a reply. By his side, almost two feet shorter, stood Hund, his face anxious both at the disappearance of Svandis and at the growing confrontation between a guilty but unapologetic Brand and an angry, overburdened Shef.

  All round them turmoil reigned. The Northerners had been assigned a whole courtyard, a kind of barracks by the banks of the Guadalquivir. Now men ran in and out of every door, the air was filled with shouts of rage and inquiry. Gear accumulated on the sanded courtyard floor, with men standing guard over it against comrades who might be inclined to remedy their deficiencies at the expense of someone more careless. Viking skippers and English captains of crossbow platoons counted their men and tried to work out who was missing.

  “Look at the goats'-turd mess,” Shef shouted on
. “Twelve men missing, Skarthi says some bastard's sold half the oars for his ship—the oars, for Christ's sake, I mean Thor's sake—and the towel-heads screaming at me all the time to get moving, get back down river, the Christians are coming with a fleet and an army and Loki knows what. We'll get back to the ships and find they've already been burnt to the waterline without throwing a rock because everyone's asleep. And now I have to stop and look for some useless woman because you couldn't keep your hands off the beer-bottle!”

  Brand's rumble turned into a growl, he thrust both hands firmly into his belt in an attempt to keep from strangling his king, lord and former crew-carl, Hund ludicrously stepped between the two much bigger men in an attempt to hold them back: Shef realized that the grinning faces watching the confrontation were now looking over his shoulder. He turned.

  Through the gates of the courtyard, still in the early morning shadow, stepped Svandis. Her veil was still discreetly pulled across her face. As she met fifty hostile stares, set in a growing silence, she stripped the veil back. The pale ice-water eyes glared out over a set jaw. Brand clutched his belly instinctively, with a low moan.

  “Well, she's back,” said Hund soothingly.

  “Yes, but where has she been?”

  “Out tomcatting,” muttered Brand. “Out all night. Probably some Arab picked her up for his harem and then realized she wasn't worth the trouble. Don't blame him.”

  Shef considered the angry face in front of him, looked sideways at Hund. In his culture every woman was the property of some man, husband, master, father, brother. For one to stray sexually was above all a matter of disgrace for the man. In this case, as far as he could see, if Svandis had an owner it was the man who had taken her as apprentice, Hund. If he seemed unaffected, or undisgraced, then no harm was done. In any case, Shef reflected, he had a strong feeling that Svandis had not seized an unwatched moment to find herself a new lover, whatever Brand thought. She seemed far more angry than flirtatious, for all her beauty. From what Hund had told him, or hinted to him, that was only natural.