The Summer Palace

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  In exchange, Sword was permitted to keep the smallest of the spearheads—which was still, counting the tang, well over a foot long. Uplanders took their spears seriously.

  Upon installing it in the bone-and-sinew staff, however, Sword found that the resulting construction was still not really adequate as a spear—the joints between bones were far too flexible. “You didn’t put on any resin,” Whistler explained. “It keeps the sinew from drying out, and stiffens everything up. Without resin, the sinews dry out and lose flexibility, and in a year or so, at best, they’ll snap and the whole thing will shatter.”

  “Resin?” Sword asked. “What kind of resin?”

  “It’s made from the talons,” Whistler replied. “Gnaw Gnaw knows how to make it.”

  Sword sighed.

  It took another six days of hard work before his spear was finally finished, all the materials paid for with his labor. Bone, sinew, steel, resin, and varnish had all been properly assembled, the whole thing dried and polished.

  With that, Sword had declared himself a man again—but he still needed to earn his keep by cleaning hides, hauling water, and so on, mostly at the behest of the old women.

  Still, his treatment improved. When he was finally able to dress himself properly in trousers, vest, and feather shirt, the old women began to defer to him, even as they gave him his orders. And young women were willing to speak to him; he managed to spend an evening or two talking to a couple of them, out of earshot but within sight of older members of the clan who made sure that it was only talk. He described a few of his adventures, and talked a little about his plans for dealing with Artil im Salthir, then tried to steer the conversation to the possibility of arranging a rendezvous for later that night.

  The women just giggled and changed the subject. Sword was not sure whether he was missing some aspect of Uplander courtship, or whether they just didn’t want him, but he was never able to do more than talk.

  After completing his spear, he began on a second set of clothing, a pack to sling on his shoulder, and assorted other supplies he thought he might need to survive a winter in the Summer Palace, including a thick coat stuffed with ara down.

  A month slipped away, and most of another, and although he had accompanied his tent-mates on a second hunt and even a third, he had barely equipped himself with all the necessities of everyday life in the Uplands, let alone the supplies he would need for his schemes to defeat the Wizard Lord, when the Clan of the Golden Spear began their own preparations for the journey to Winterhome.

  [ 7 ]

  Making jerky was a messy job.

  To begin the process, a rectangular pit, perhaps six feet wide and thirty feet long, was dug and filled with grass and dung—Sword, along with several children, was given the task of gathering this fuel. A thin layer of wood and charcoal was then laid over that. While the pit was being readied, most of the clan’s tents were taken down—for the next few days the clan would make do either sleeping in the open, or crowded into the remaining few—and the poles that had supported them, some wood and some ara bone, were assembled into a large framework, or rack, about six feet above the fire pit, with coarse fabric over that.

  On the next hunt more than a dozen ara were speared in quick succession; normally the clan sent only a small party to kill four at a time, since that was enough to feed everyone for a day, but this time all the clan’s hunters participated, even Sword, and they brought down as many as they could before the others fled, screeching, across the plateau. Then the wounded birds were finished off, and hauled back to camp to be plucked and gutted.

  Then the meat was cut into thin strips, much thinner than the usual roasts, which were thrown into buckets of an herbal brew the women had prepared while the men were hunting, and left to soak while the fire was lit. Some of the offal from the dead birds was thrown into the pit to burn. The entire clan then tended the flames to produce a bed of coals that would generate just the right amount of heat and smoke. The fabric spread across the top of the rack was wetted down, to help hold the heat and smoke in—Sword was called upon to haul much of the water needed for this.

  When everything was ready, strips of meat were fished out of the buckets and hung on the frame to smoke.

  Sword found himself working at the nastiest jobs—cleaning blood away, spreading the offal on the coals, and so on—because even now, he was the least experienced member of the entire party, with no idea of how the more delicate processes should be done. He watched the others intently as he labored, though, trying to learn as much as he could.

  He had had some warning of what to expect, so he wore his battered old Host People clothing, rather than either of his two new outfits. This turned out to be a very wise decision. He hoped that after this he would never have any need to wear the filthy, stained, smoke-saturated garments again.

  When the preparation work was done and there was nothing to do but wait for the meat to smoke, he stood by the pit, taking it all in. He was sweating for the first time in days—the weather had been cooling steadily ever since he climbed the cliffs, but the effort he had put in, the heat of the fire-pit, and the smoke that stained his face, hands, and clothing, had more than made up for it, and his blackened skin was slick with perspiration.

  “How long will the meat keep?” he asked Gnaw Gnaw, who happened to be nearby.

  She shrugged. “Months,” she said. “Though it gets tougher the longer you wait, and you have to keep ants and rats away from it.”

  That was exactly what he wanted, then—enough of this smoked meat to last through the winter. This lot was intended to feed the entire clan for just a few days, while they made their way westward across the plateau and down the path to Winterhome; he would only be one man, but he would need enough to last a hundred days or more—probably more.

  In other words, he might need more or less a second batch the same size as this one.

  “Where’s Whistler?” he asked.

  Gnaw Gnaw looked at him curiously, then pointed.

  Sword did stop at one of the buckets to clean himself up a little, though the rag was already dirty from a dozen others having used it before him, and did little more than smear the smoke and sweat around. When he could stand the feel of his own skin, he pulled his sleeves back down and headed out in the direction Gnaw Gnaw had indicated.

  He found Whistler readily enough, and began asking his questions. He was not especially pleased by the answers.

  The clan was not going to leave the frame set up for him; it would be disassembled and cleaned as soon as the meat was ready, and taken down to Winterhome when the clan made their pilgrimage—the ara-bone shafts had taken a great deal of work to produce and were not to be discarded easily, while the few long, straight wooden poles were rare and valuable in the sparsely treed Uplands. Yes, they could buy wooden replacements in Barokan, but why should they? These were already cut to length and sized exactly right for their various purposes. And the bone poles, though not as carefully made as spearshafts, still represented a considerable investment of time and effort, and would not be left behind, either.

  As for building another fire, grass and dung were easy enough to find, but this one burning had used virtually the clan’s entire supply of firewood and charcoal. Again, some things that were cheap and plentiful in Barokan were precious up here.

  And while Whistler could find out what went into the herbal broth, he did not already know, and he suspected that they had already used the entire year’s supply of that, as well.

  “I need you to find out for me what’s in it,” Sword told him.

  “But I don’t think there is any more!” Whistler insisted.

  “That’s why I need to know how to make my own,” Sword explained.

  “I mean, I don’t think we have the herbs.”

  “So I’ll have to find them, and I can’t do that until I know what they are.”

  “But . . .” Whistler grimaced in frustration. “But I think you can’t find them this time of year
!”

  “Perhaps not, but I’ll worry about that later. You just find out what they are.”

  Whistler frowned, then glanced at Gnaw Gnaw.

  “I’ll try,” he said. He turned away.

  Sword watched him go, then looked back at the pit.

  Setting up something like that single-handed, and salting away an adequate supply of meat before winter closed in, would be a huge challenge; he wasn’t at all sure he could do it. A thought struck him, and he turned to find Fist.

  The young man was sitting by a bucket, wiping his arms with a wet rag, as he talked to a few of his friends. He looked up as Sword approached.

  “You said the ara go south?”

  Fist glanced at his companions, but they offered no guidance in dealing with the crazy Lowlander. Uplanders were not given to rhetorical questions outside formal meetings with the Patriarch, and after almost two months in camp, surely even Sword already knew that the ara went south in the winter.

  “Yes, of course,” Fist replied.

  “Where do they go?”

  Fist shrugged. “No one knows. When the time comes, they just start running, the entire flock, faster than a man can follow, and they run south. I’ve heard that long ago a few people tried to follow them, but they couldn’t do it—they managed to keep the birds in sight for a few days, but they just ran and ran and ran, from the first light of dawn until the last glimmer of twilight, day after day, and no one could ever maintain the pursuit for more than four or five days.” He glanced at the others again, then asked Sword, “Why? Were you thinking of going with them?”

  “Something like that,” Sword muttered, frowning.

  Fist shook his head. “Can’t be done,” he said. “People have tried going south in the summer, but most of them didn’t come back, and the ones who did said there was nothing to eat or drink, and the heat was unbearable. There’s a desert. The ara cross it when they make their great run, but if any man’s ever crossed it, I’ve never heard about it.”

  “You said the ara will be leaving soon, then? They all go?”

  “Well, the old and sick sometimes die on the way, but other than that, they all go. And they’ve already started moving—so far they’re just making short little runs of maybe a hundred yards at a time, but you can see them preparing. They’re stuffing themselves fat, getting ready.” He waved at the smoking pit. “That’s why we’re doing this now; the ara could go any day now, and when they do, we head for the cliffs and the climb down to Winterhome.”

  “Any day?”

  Fist cocked his head to one side. “Any day, yes.” He glanced in the direction of the grazing flock, though they were too far from the camp to see as much more than a haze on the horizon. “I’d guess four or five days; we don’t like to cut it too close. Wait too long, and you’ll wake up one morning to find the ara are gone, and you’ll have to starve on the way to Winterhome. That’s happened to some clans, and it’s bad, it’s one way they wind up a bunch of scattered survivors instead of a clan.” He held up the wet rag. “But we got our stocks in; we’ll be fine.”

  “I see,” said Sword. He also glanced toward the flock of birds, thinking. “Could I perhaps get some rope? Quite a lot of rope, actually.”

  Fist looked baffled. “Rope?”

  “Yes.”

  “There isn’t time to work for it. Don’t you have rope?”

  “Not enough. I was hoping perhaps someone could simply give me some.”

  “You’ll have to talk to the Patriarch, I think.”

  Sword nodded. “I’ll do that.”

  He did. He found the Patriarch chatting with two women about the trip down to Barokan, and waited until they had finished before presenting his request.

  The Patriarch was puzzled. “Why do you want rope, Chosen?” he demanded.

  “I have a plan to defeat the Wizard Lord, O Patriarch, but it requires capturing a few ara alive and preventing them from going south for the winter. I need ropes to catch and hold them.”

  The Patriarch stared at him thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “They can’t be tamed. Many people have tried.”

  “I don’t want to tame them,” Sword replied. “I just need to keep them from going south.”

  “Do you think you can catch them single-handed? A Lowlander like you?”

  “Perhaps not,” Sword admitted. “I would be grateful for any aid your hunters could give me. Along with the rope.”

  The Patriarch stroked his beard silently, then shrugged. “Rope is easily had in Winterhaven,” he said. “You can have whatever isn’t needed to pack the camp for travel.”

  “Thank you, O Patriarch!” Sword said with a deep bow.

  “You’ll need to hurry. The flocks are already restless. We’ll probably be breaking camp the day after tomorrow.”

  “Thank you,” Sword repeated.

  The Patriarch waved a hand in dismissal.

  Sword emerged from the tent into the slanting light of late afternoon and frowned. The day after tomorrow? But he still had so much to do! With so little time left, he could hardly afford to waste any; he found Whistler and explained his scheme.

  It was simple, really; he couldn’t prepare enough jerky to see him through the winter before the ara and the Clan of the Golden Spear left, so that meant he had to keep a few ara at hand until he could slaughter and smoke them.

  After butchering and cleaning, each bird yielded about forty pounds of good meat, before it was dried and smoked, and he had to survive about a hundred days; he thought that three birds ought to be plenty, but intended to capture four, if he could. Then he would drag them to the Summer Palace, and when he was ready, he would kill them and use the palace kitchens to smoke the meat. It wouldn’t be true jerky, since he didn’t have the herbs and knowledge to make that properly, but it ought to keep well enough in the cold.

  It wouldn’t be a very entertaining diet, either, living on nothing but smoked ara for months, but he thought it would keep him alive.

  Whistler had his doubts. “I’m not sure you can get them to the Wizard Lord’s palace alive,” he said. “Not four of them. Ara are strong, you know, and they’ll fight you.”

  “That’s why I need your help,” Sword said. “You know far more about ara than I ever will. How can I do this?”

  “I don’t know,” Whistler said. “I’ve never heard of anyone doing anything like this.” He hesitated, then added, “In the children’s stories, ara always die rather than accept captivity.”

  “Those are just stories, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Whistler admitted. “In the stories ara can talk, and even fly.”

  “Then they don’t mean anything.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Well, will you help me catch them, then? I’ll get them to the palace somehow.”

  Whistler shrugged. “All right,” he said.

  “Tonight?”

  Whistler snorted. “Tomorrow,” he said.

  Sword had to admit that was reasonable, with the day almost gone, but at the same time, he hated to wait. The clan would be moving west the day after; he was not leaving himself any margin of error.

  And in the event, Whistler had to call in a dozen favors to get friends to cover his duties before he could leave the camp; everyone was preparing for departure, and that would not ordinarily include accompanying the Lowlander on his foolish hunt. Sword left all that to Whistler.

  At last, though, all was arranged, and Sword retired for the night with everything in place.

  He had trouble sleeping; there was too much to think about, and he did not manage to doze off until very late. Thus the sun was well above the horizon when Whistler shook him awake. “We need to go if we’re going to do this!” Whistler told him.

  Sword started, then sat up. “Of course,” he said, pulling at his clothes. “Who else is coming?”

  “No one. They’re busy, and they think you’re crazy to try this.”

  That was a disappointment, but not a surprise.
It was a good thing, Sword thought, that they would be bringing the captured birds back alive; two men might not be able to carry four ara. His prizes would need to walk.

  A few minutes later the two men were walking eastward, toward the flock of ara. Each of them carried two coils of good rope on one shoulder. Whistler moved with the calm smoothness of an experienced hunter, setting each foot silently in place before he put his weight on it, carefully avoiding anything that might crunch or rustle, but still keeping up a good pace.

  Whistler moved faster than on their previous hunts; Sword did not ask, but guessed that this was partly due to their late start, and partly because Whistler wanted to get the whole thing over with. Despite his three hunts, the inexperienced Sword was not able to match Whistler’s skillful hurry; his feet thumped, he stumbled over rocks and weeds. He did manage to keep up, though, without falling or dropping anything, and before long the two were crouching by a bush, watching the ara.

  The birds were restless; they were all eating enthusiastically, preparing for their migration to the south, just as Fist had said, but even as they ate they seemed fidgety, moving their feet in odd little patterns and switching their tail feathers back and forth. They had not behaved this way on any of Sword’s previous encounters; it was obvious that the cooling weather—or perhaps the recent killing of better than a dozen of their companions—had disturbed them.

  “Now what?” Whistler asked.

  Sword hefted the coils of rope he had brought. “Now we catch one,” he said.

  Whistler frowned, and his hand opened and closed as if adjusting his grip on the shaft of a spear. At Sword’s insistence they had not brought a spear, despite Whistler’s argument that they might need to defend themselves from angry ara at some point—Sword had not wanted to risk killing his prey. He wanted them alive.

  Whistler, however, was obviously missing his familiar weapon. “How?” he asked.

  Sword considered carefully before replying.

  He had actually devised three possible methods, and had not decided which to use. One would be to make a lasso and try to throw it over one of the huge birds; another would be to rig a trip line and chase a few ara into it, just as the hunters usually did, but then tie the tangled birds up rather than spear them.