Ruff was licking her cheek. Her eyes were heavy, and closed. She began to sob, in her sleep.
‘This is awful,’ said Dann. ‘It’s awful.’
‘Yes,’ said Shabis and got off the bed as Ali came in with a brown bag of provisions.
‘Brown, good, not noticeable,’ said Shabis. ‘Which reminds me. Those garments Tamar and I came in. See that one gets back to Leta. They are very good for escaping in.’
And now he stood there, at the door, already a fugitive, looking back at them all. ‘When I see you all again…’he began, could not go on, and with his last look for Tamar, who was lying between the paws of the snow dog, he went out.
‘I’ll sleep outside the door, here,’ said Ali. And he showed them the slender curved knife of his people, where it hung under his tunic.
‘I’ll go to the room through there,’ said Griot.
‘When the child wakes—I’ll be awake early,’ said Dann.
Ali said, ‘Sir, remember your—friend.’
‘Yes,’ said Dann. He called softly to Ruff and the two ran out down to the gates and out on to the road. There Dann stopped and embraced the snow dog, and then the animal began racing around Dann, leaping and woofing, in greeting.
Griot and Ali, watching, exchanged smiles.
‘In my country I had two hunting dogs,’ said Ali. ‘They were my friends.’
Griot returned to the room that had been his. Tamar was in a heavy sleep. He sat down as carefully as he could on the foot of the bed. On the pillow by the girl’s head was a smear of dirty white—Ruff’s shed fur. He needed a good wash. And the child would need…Ali, who had had a family, would know what she needed. Griot was beginning to suspect that it was a lack in him, a place uncultivated, not knowing anything about children, a family. Tamar was younger than he had been on that night of fire and fighting. Would she perhaps forget she had had a father? Would that be good, saving her from pain? Saving her from conscious pain. Griot contemplated this steadily. But if you started thinking like this…in Griot’s mind, walls, barriers, screens of all kinds were shaking, threatening to collapse: he sat hunched there, staring at the child, holding fast to a little sense of his wholeness…his woman down in the lines; she had never said she wanted a child. She had had a child, he believed, and it had disappeared in some raid, or battle. He himself had never once thought: I’d like a child. Well, now the subject was here, in his mind, did he want a child? He thought, no; suppose he and his woman in the lines did have a child, it would be a constant torment of worry. And a child could disappear, just like that. For the very first time he thought, On that night, I’ve always taken it for granted my parents were killed. But suppose they are alive somewhere, wondering about me? This was such an intolerable burden on him that he thrust it away. Too much, it was all too much. No, it was a good thing he was alone, had no child, no family; look what was happening now. One small girl and three people were concerned with her: Dann, himself, Ali. And, of course, the snow dog.
Barks and Dann’s voice outside, and the two appeared in the doorway. Ruff was a ball of fuzzy wetness; his fur was covered with minute drops. There was mist out there, or fine rain. Just as Ruff was about to shake himself Dann enveloped him in a cloth and the two rolled over and over on the floor, Dann laughing, Ruff woofing in play, and Tamar woke and cried, ‘Where’s my father, where’s my Shabis?’ Dann at once sprang up; Ruff bounded to the child and lay down near her.
‘Your father is well down towards the river and the boats,’ said Dann. ‘He will travel a good way by water. It’ll be safer.’
‘But won’t it be dangerous, on the water?’
‘There’s marsh sickness and river sickness. But luckily if you bribe the boatmen well they protect you from—bandits.’
‘Bandits?’ said Tamar. ‘Will there be bandits?’
‘He’ll be safer on the water,’ said Dann again. ‘Kira won’t know where to look for him. It’s good that it’s drizzling. It will be harder to see him. Slippery, of course, but Shabis knows how to move through the marshes. Better, perhaps, if he lies up when the light comes—plenty of bushes and rushes and reeds to hide in.’ Dann was out in the night with Shabis.
Ali said, ‘They say that in Agre it is sandy and dry. That’s what he’s used to.’ Meaning that was what he was used to.
Dann said, ‘It seems we can be lizards in sand and then take to water like birds. All our early lives Mara and I were dying of drought and then we became water people.’
Tamar was quiet now. Dann went to the bed and laid his hand on Ruff’s head. The snow dog let out his sad protesting groan, but watched Dann go without him to his room.
Griot extinguished all the candles but one and went out past Ali, who was already drowsing, leaning against a wall.
Griot tried to sleep, but could not, thinking of that child, so helpless there, asleep, guarded by Ruff. Well, yes, but was that enough? And Ali, that little thin man, but he was asleep…Griot went to the door of the child’s room and saw Ruff’s great head lift, then, when the animal saw who it was, the head dropped down again. But Ruff’s eyes gleamed there: he was awake, on guard. Dann was in the opposite doorway, outlined by the rush light behind him. Ruff’s tail beat once, twice, on the bed. Dann saw Griot and raised his hand silently in greeting. This was a precious moment for Griot: he and Dann, standing silently there, acknowledging each other. Then Dann turned and left: his light went out.
Griot stepped carefully past Ali and made his way through the hall, nodded to the sentries, and stood for a while on the road running east to west, empty now, this dangerous marsh road, that was usually so busy.
A sentry left his place and came to Griot. ‘Sir.’
‘Yes, soldier?’
‘Some pretty suspicious types have gone past, but they didn’t take the path General Shabis took.’
‘If they come back, send them east.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The sentry went back to his place.
Griot returned to his room, tossed and turned, and was pleased when the light came seeping in.
Outside Tamar’s room—his room, that had been—Ali was waking. Dann was emerging. And the child was beginning to stir, then sat up, with a cry. She was wan, she was tear-stained, and on her upper arm where a sleeve had fallen back showed the thin red scar.
Ruff licked the scar, and Tamar began to cry and put her arms round the animal’s neck. The little arms disappeared into the thick white fur. There was something so sad about this, and Ali turned away, hiding tears.
‘Oh, Tamar,’ said Dann humbly, ‘don’t be sad. You’ll see, we’ll look after you.’
‘Perhaps I’ll never see my father again,’ said Tamar, but she tried to compose herself.
Ali took her to where she could wash. Soldiers brought food to the table out in the hall. Dann, and Tamar, Griot and Ali, sat at the table. Ruff was between Dann and the girl, who fed her breakfast to the animal.
Then Dann said, ‘Now, Tamar, I’m going to send you with Ali through the Centre and he’ll show you as much as possible in the time…’ here he nodded at Griot, acknowledging what he had said, as a promise.
‘And Ruff will come too?’
‘Yes, Ruff will stay with you.’
‘There won’t be time to show you more than a little part of it…’
‘Show me what?’
‘Just a little, little part of the knowledge that they had once, the old people…long long ago…yes, I know that saying long ago doesn’t tell you much, Tamar, but you’ll understand, as much as any of us, and I’ll explain, we’ll explain…’ And now Dann got up, pushing Ruff towards Tamar, to keep him from following him. ‘You see, Tamar, in a certain place—and we’ll show you—there is all that’s left of a knowledge so wonderful, so extraordinary…even a tiny part of it…things so far beyond us that…and when we leave here, that will be the end of it all.’
‘And why do we have to leave?’
‘Griot will tell you. Griot knows. Yes, Grio
t, I do understand that we have to hurry. And I’m going to be as quick as I can.’
The scribes and savants were coming into the hall to take their places at the tables for the day’s work.
Dann strode off, and the two men watching knew he was escaping from his emotions over the child, or trying to.
Now began a time when anywhere you looked, Dann was with Tamar, talking, explaining; at every meal it went on, and meanwhile Griot was watching, and waiting, then it all burst out of him, surprising Griot, but apparently not Dann.
‘Dann, sir, you owe it to me.’
It seemed Griot did not have to explain, or to apologise, for when Dann heard these reproachful words he only glanced at Griot, smiled and nodded.
‘Yes, I do owe to you. What do I not owe you, Griot?’ His smile was medicine for Griot’s poor heart, which was sick and swollen with worry, so he felt.
‘Well, then, Griot, what exactly do you want?’
The very next day, the square was filled with ranks of soldiers. Griot had ordered ‘everyone not on duty’. How many? Griot knew there were well over a thousand people in the camp. All dependent on him, which was why anxiety accompanied him like an enemy. All these soldiers, and each distinguished by a red shoulder blanket. Dann walked out from his room; Tamar was with him and, behind her, the snow dog. Dann had his red blanket folded in his arms, like the last time he stood there before them, and Tamar had a little red strip on her shoulder. She had tied a loop of red round Ruff’s neck. A platform had been erected at the end of the square, for Tamar to stand on. Dann stood near the platform by Tamar, and the snow dog was on the platform with her. What a tall man Dann was, though he lounged there, making no attempt at a soldierly stance. Griot was watching from a doorway. Dann had said Griot should be there by him, but Griot knew better. His General, General Dann, should be there with the child.
Dann smiled and took his time, looking over the ranks of the soldiers, as if memorising their many faces. Every soldier was smiling, because of the child. How many of them were thinking of their lost or left behind or captured children? Most of them, Griot knew. And here was this child, fresh and lovely, unmarked by war—so they could all think; though every one of them would have been told about that red scar on her arm and know who caused it.
Dann said, not shouting, not even raising his voice much, more conversational, as if he were talking with each one of them alone, ‘Welcome to you all. I want to introduce you to this girl, my relative, the daughter of my sister Mara and General Shabis, who is on his way back to Charad, to the Agre armies, which he will command. Hands up anyone who knows about Charad, or about Agre?’
A few hands went up.
‘Beyond Bilma, beyond Shari, are the countries of the Hennes and the Agre. They have been at war for a long time. General Shabis will be commanding the armies of Agre. And this is his daughter.’
Everyone looked at Tamar. The child was stiff with the responsibility of her position. She smiled and was brave, but those close to her could see that she trembled. She put out a hand to rest it on Ruff’s back. And then unexpected cheers rang out. Griot was pleased no one was near him. He was weeping: he had to; those three, Dann, so handsome, and the lovely child, so like him, and the snow dog, the shining animal with its thick white ruff into which Tamar’s little hand had disappeared. A gleam of weak sunlight fell at this propitious moment from a wet cloud, and at first Dann, Tamar and the snow dog, and then the whole square, were touched with a gold light.
‘And I promise you that soon you will hear the news I know you are all longing for,’ said Dann. The cheers rang out again, alarming Griot because of their intensity. How badly every person there wanted to leave; how sick they all were of being cramped up on these edges of land, and the rumours that never seemed to come to anything: ‘We’ll be off next week.’ ‘We’ll be off soon.’
As they cheered, the phalanx of snow dogs who stood in their place in the middle of the soldiers began to bark, and Ruff barked back once, twice, as if they were saluting him and he was acknowledging their salutation.
Dann put out his hand to help Tamar jump down. The dog stepped down. Dann saluted the soldiers, and the man and the girl left the cheering soldiers and the barking snow dogs.
Ali was taking the child and the snow dog around the endless rooms and halls and museums of the Centre, showing her what he had decided, or Dann had told him, was important.
In the evenings, at the supper table, there was something new. It had begun with Dann’s saying casually, ‘And what did you see today?’
Tamar had chatted happily: ‘Oh, so many things, didn’t we, Ali, and some of them were so funny.’
‘Now, choose one of them—in your mind. Tamar, have you done that?’
‘Yes.’ And Tamar sobered, because of Dann’s seriousness.
‘And now, look at it in your mind’s eye. Now, what do you see?’
At first she said, ‘It was big. It was black. It was full of sharp bits.’ That was how the game had begun, which Dann said he and Mara had played.
Now Tamar was choosing this or that special item for the evening game.
‘What did you see?’
‘The best thing was a flying thing. It is a tube, with wings, but one is broken, and it had flakes of red on it. Once it was all red. Inside there are twenty seats. But it is too small for even one or two people, so it is a model. I think most of the things in the museums are models. I didn’t understand that to begin with. There are a lot of things that were meant for flying. They are mostly broken.’
‘Once they flew all over the world. You know what that means, Tamar. You saw the maps at the Farm.’
‘How do you know that they did?’
‘It is known.’ This had become the short way of saying, ‘We know because the information is in the sand libraries.’
‘You say once,’ said Tamar. ‘What does it mean, once?’
‘A long time ago.’
‘But there are different long times ago. You say once, and so does Ali but I never know which long time ago you mean.’
‘Almost the longest time ago was before the Ice,’ said Ali. ‘In my country there are tales every child is taught, about times before the Ice when they had stories about their long time ago.’
Griot said warningly, ‘Dann, Ali…’ The child’s eyes were filling with tears.
‘Yes,’ said Dann. ‘You’re right, Griot. But she should try and remember everything she sees because there will come a time when the Centre is gone, and no one will know about these things.’
Ali said, ‘I think it is time this little one went to bed.’
Griot watched Ali take Tamar by the hand and, with her other hand on the snow dog’s back, the girl went to her bed. ‘When I’m asleep you can have Ruff back,’ she said to Dann. ‘But please let him be there when I wake up tomorrow.’
‘You’re asking a lot of her,’ said Griot.
‘I’m asking a lot of you too,’ said Dann.
These acknowledgements from Dann were new and part frightened Griot. He did not like a sadness, a desperation, he saw in his General. More than once he thought, The poppy? Is that it? But no, he thought not.
Quietly, not hiding it, but not telling Dann, he was planning the move out of the Centre. He was sending small parties ahead, five or six at a time, to find places in Tundra’s cities, which were so chaotic, turbulent, that a few more arrivals could not draw much attention. They were well prepared, these advance parties. All day he spent with his soldiers, explaining, instructing, training scouts—the women were good at that, the ones that went and came back to report—teaching the geography of Tundra. For while the area of Tundra that was south of the Centre, and a short way east, was lake and marsh and mud, this was only a small portion of Tundra, which stretched all the way to the great river in the east. Tundra was enormous. Many of the refugees knew about a part of it. In the Centre was a room filled with maps drawn with coloured inks on prepared skins. Some of the skins were snow dogs�
�, which were being bartered and bought and sold in the markets of Tundra. Griot ordered that every platoon should have its maps. This meant a lot of work.
Sometimes he found Tamar in the map-making room, Ali with her, explaining, showing her…‘See here, all this is high dry land, and here is a line of mountains.’ When Ali talked everyone stopped to listen. He had been an important man, educated, an adviser; now he was nurse to a little girl. That’s what he wryly called himself.
‘Nurse?’ said Dann. ‘You are educating her. What could be more important than training that child? One day she will rule Tundra.’
‘If we ever get there,’ joked Griot.
‘We’ll get there. I see that some of us are already there—eh, Griot? But Griot, you must see that I am not going to make old bones.’
Griot’s ears could not accept this. He did not hear it.
Dann was taking Tamar to the secret place. There he held her up level with the pages pressed against the transparent wall and read to her from the languages he knew. He told her that what she saw there were ancient variations of those spoken now. Sometimes one had to puzzle out meaning from the old, crooked words. Did she see that while there were languages he did not know—that no one knew—the three he did know gave up their meaning to him? It was essential that she should learn Mahondi well, not just the baby Mahondi she spoke now, but grown-up language; and she must know Charad, and Agre, because it was her father’s language. And the languages of Tundra. The child was possessed with the need to please him. She sat with Ali in the great hall in the fleeting or sometimes steady light from the damp skies and followed Ali’s finger, repeating after him words in one language after another. Ali, whose several children had been blown away by tempests of war, bent tenderly over his charge, always patient, always ready to repeat, explain, and when he saw tears trickling he took her on his knee and held her tight.
‘Little one, don’t cry, you’re doing so well.’
‘Dann will be cross with me,’ wept Tamar. ‘He won’t love me. I’m so slow and stupid.’
Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog Page 18