Red Country

by Kelso, Sylvia

  These repeated blows numbed the major changes: the dispossession of vine and hethel lords whose estates were being cut into scores of tiny holdings, the royal council replaced by an “Assembly” supposedly elected by the people instead of selected by age and competence, the highlands’ ample horizons lost under a flood of small settlers still squatted under tent or bark or branch; the town gates and towers that flew, instead of Everran’s shield and vine, Estar’s white star on gray. I think the only time tears actually came into my eyes was when I rode up through Saphar to the palace gatehouse, and glanced up at the arch to see the crest had been chipped away.

  It was older than our dynasty, indeed older than Beryx’s. It had been the personal crest of the kingdom’s founder, Berrian, not the shield and vine of our standard but a wide unblinking eye. In childhood I had imagined its stony stare rebuffing night-walkers and bogeymen, and taken courage from the fancy. Now it was gone, and some intangible protection seemed to have gone with it, leaving Everran naked, at the mercy of the world and time.

  The palace had changed too, of course. At home Estar’s real rulers either flaunt or eschew luxury, but abroad its minions are wise to avoid extremes. Kastir had deemed the palace decorations an extreme. The carpets were gone, the queen’s mosaic was painted over, scribes had replaced servants, only absolute necessities like the audience hall’s rosewood roofbeams had been left alone. The journey had prepared me for that, as it had for soldiers instead of a chamberlain who were ready to bar me at the gatehouse; until I found a savage pleasure in pulling down my turban and saying with the full blast of regal frost, “Kastir will see me. I am the princess Sellithar.”

  Kastir did not only see, he came to meet me in person. We eyed each other across the stone gatehouse floor with doubt, awkwardness, awareness of all that lay between us, neither confident enough to begin. Then he bowed deeply.

  “Princess,” he began. “Sellithar. . . . There is much you must regret. As I do. I did try to respect your orders. And to . . . divine your wishes. You always wanted to remove the past. I have tried to . . . do what would please you, within my power.”

  And he looked at me so beseechingly it was almost easy to forget what he had done to Everran. To answer, “What’s done is done, Kastir. Now is now. I came to remind you that you once made me an offer.” His hands jerked. “I told you I needed time to think. But I have done thinking now.”

  For a moment he seemed paralyzed. Then he caught his breath. Bowed yet more deeply. After a moment, with great awkwardness, he captured my hand, kissed it, and murmured, “I can only hope I shall make you as . . . happy as you make me.”

  * * * * * *

  If I was neither happy nor contented in that time, it was not misery. Rather, it seems, I felt very little at all. Everran’s changes, Estar’s ascendancy, dethronement itself did not seem to touch me, any more than Kastir himself. Our marriage never sank to quarrels, hatred, even loathing. It was always correct, usually calm, often amiable. And cold. Not that Kastir was a poor or clumsy lover. But in bed it is not skill or the body itself that matters. It is the flame, or absence of the flame within.

  I did take a kind of bitter pleasure from learning to outplay my teacher on the Estarian political instrument. I played it so well that I won access to that holy of holies, the archives of Estarian intelligencers, and with it, the truth of that ancient supposed conspiracy. And when I knew beyond doubt that a forger had copied my mother’s hand, that it was all planned as leverage for a Quarred House faction seeking to rule the Tingrith, then with the patient pressure, enlistment of this one’s favor, compulsion of that one’s assistance, satisfaction of the other’s greed, which passes as the people’s consent in Estar, I contrived the return of my family to Saphar; found them a house in the city, and assured Sazan and Haskar of a future, if not that of a royal prince.

  I also managed to have a large part of the Estarian army train in Stiriand, where they most effectively buffered the Lyngthirans, while I secured the livings of old retainers like Nerthor, and promoted the careers of those, like Karyx, who still mattered to me. Further, I achieved a diplomatic success that actually drew the Estarian shophet’s congratulations, when a compromise with Quarred permitted the annual return of their sheep. In smaller numbers, since the tide of settlement was creeping up the Raskelf hills, but sufficient to restore our balance of trade, which pleased Kastir too. He was ever sensitive to the need for Everran to pay its way. We both knew that if it did not, Estar might replace its governor.

  I shut my mind to that threat, just as I shut it to the unruly images that sometimes escaped from memory, glimpses of a red country capricious as the wind, cruel, lavish, austere, beautiful, of a red-gold sunset on the looming rocks of Eskan Helken, of secret waterholes that exploded into jeweled gweldryx flights, of gray eyes in luminous motion against a backdrop of vivid, ephemeral flowers. When one of those caught me unawares I would go down to look at the blank shield over the gatehouse, and tell myself sternly, The aedryx have forsaken Everran. They are no longer any concern of yours.

  * * * * * *

  It was three years—or four?—to the breaking of the spell. I do recall the season very clearly. In other times it would have been Earth-day, but the Sky-lords’ festivals had been phased out as “relics of the past,” “waste of work hours,” a “reduction in productivity.” We seemed to waste far more time and productivity in the strikes which regularly paralyzed our labor force, but I could not bring myself to care overmuch about any of it.

  Nevertheless it was the day that should have been Earth-day, blazing and shaking over the dusty swell of Saphar Resh where small farmsteads now outnumbered the vines, over the distant red blur of ranges, over the city which had burst its walls, obliterated the park along Azilien, and lined the roads for five miles in every direction with the small, mean houses where those descending the social scale lived cheek by jowl with those who would one day rise.

  Kastir had been away in Gebria, busy with a new irrigation project intended to bring water south from the Kemreswash. I had purposely kept clear of it. The very idea rubbed raw spots in my memory. I had had a difficult day with an Estarian “trade delegation”—which meant an unofficial mission to barter more wine at a lower price—and had retired to the tiny pleasance under what had been the hearthbard’s tower, and was now a state orphanage. From there you can see clear to the Tirien foothills and the gray Meldene olive slopes, with the line of the Helkents, like a warrior’s shield arm, ringing the south and western sky.

  When Kastir appeared I summoned a smile, and he kissed my cheek as usual. But the kiss held an unusual zest. We asked about each other’s progress, of course. Superficially, we cared about each other, and I must admit we made an efficient team. But when Kastir finished with his canals and sluices, I noticed his fidgets remained.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He rose and paced about. One of the foibles that did irritate me was his habit of addressing me like a public meeting, down to clearing his throat before he began. I was slouched on one seat with my feet on another, shoes off, hair twisted up anyhow for the heat. “My dear,” I remarked, somewhat acidly, “there’s only the one of me. You don’t need rhetoric here.”

  He gave me a perfunctory smile and did not sit down. “I purposely kept this from you until now, Sellithar. I wanted it to be a surprise.”

  There was something pathetic about his hopeful look. He had never ceased to search for the magic key that would admit us from a tepid gray world into one of color and delight, and mostly he sought it in schemes that, by improving Everran, might also be a way of pleasing me.

  I could not bring myself to pour acid on that hope. I said, “I’m sure it will surprise me, dear.” Insensibly, I had drifted into addressing him as if I were the elder. Indeed, I sometimes felt it. Old as the very hills. “What is it, then?”

  “I have already submitted the plans to Estar.” A familiar gleam entered his eye. Another sewerage project, I thought. “The approval was
here when I returned. Whenever we like, we can start.”

  “Good,” I said. “Start what?”

  “For the last two years,” he continued his address, “the east has been much in my mind. I felt we had not fully exploited its potential. Certainly,” as my mouth opened, “Gebria’s population has increased tenfold, its production threefold, the new water should improve it again. But. . . .” He shrugged. “On last year’s tour, I decided to visit the Gebros towns.”

  A tiny prickle of warning went down my spine. “Yes?” I said.

  “I actually rode out past the border,” he said, “into Hethria. Sellithar, it’s a goldmine out there!” I had never seen Kastir display enthusiasm in my life. “Virgin soil—mostly better than Gebria’s—only wanting cultivation to blossom like a rose. Think of the grain we could produce, the sheep we could run—we could double Quarred’s wool clip inside five years. Cattle, too. They eat some kind of native weed in the rainy season, but we could import grasses—bind down the sand—improve the soil. We could farm that country for wine, fruit, silk, vegetables—we could make it the cornucopia of the Confederacy!”

  My voice sounded oddly flat and loud. “How?”

  “Irrigation, Sellithar.” He was positively ablaze with eagerness. “There’s a dam on Kemreswash already, my surveyors found and studied it. Inefficient, of course. We’ll build a better one, stone instead of logs, not a barrage, a wall with proper spillways, and keep all the flow instead of just a part. Then we can channel it clear down to Gebasterne. There are some channels too, they’ll have to be replaced, far too small, but we can re-use the materials. And, my dear, we have the population to practice intensive farming all over that country, on a scale beyond Estar’s own. We’ll make the place a paradise!”

  I gaped at him. He did not notice. His dream had carried him away.

  “No one knows the extent of Hethria, but we could probably expand indefinitely.” The glow had become a perfect beacon. “So, my dear, I laid my plans. Then I conducted surveys, made costings, ordered designs. This spring I submitted them to the Land Commission. They were delighted. We’re going to level the Gebros, Sellithar, and colonize Hethria. And we can begin right now!”

  My mouth must have hung open like an empty bag. I heard myself say, faint, far and distant, “You’re going to do what?”

  “Colonize Hethria. Make Everran the jewel of Estar, and ourselves. . . . Well, my dear. What do you think of my surprise?”

  I goggled up at him as he stood there, the light and hope slowly dying from his face, and part of me was sorry to hurt him, when he had clearly meant to give me pleasure, part of me was reeling in bottomless consternation, and part was rigid with inexplicable fright.

  He said uncertainly, “Sellithar?”

  I pulled myself together. “Kastir, I don’t wish to sound ungrateful. But . . . irrigation. In Hethria. You do know that irrigation brings salt? That you have to be very careful, act with the greatest moderation, or you’ll upset the balance and sterilize the desert completely? And the balance is so delicate out there. . . .”

  “Of course, I forgot you’d been there.” He sounded relieved. “It’s quite simple. Our new dam will harness the whole Kemreswash, producing so much water that even with new farms we can just wash the salt away. Chop down all those helliens, they thieve water. There’ll be plenty then. You see, my dear?”

  My head reeled. I said desperately, “That isn’t right, the trees suck up the salt the water brings,” and he gave me a kind, just short of patronizing smile.

  “No, no, I had my researchers study it. I can show you the figures. They prove conclusively that more water, more cultivation, will solve the entire problem, and give a return as well. Which the trees do not.”

  I could not assemble an argument. The whole world had suddenly gone insane, turned upside down. I stammered, “But the Gebros—raze the Gebros. . . .”

  “My dear, what earthly use is it? A monument, no more. As useless as those wretched dragon bones they’ve finally managed to bury in Gebria, and which our new Saphar scholars have already proved to be a dinosaur’s. The Gebros stone will be ideal for a score of things, the dam, the canals, the new farmsteads—”

  “But the Hethox. . . .”

  “They will be no problem. They never did threaten Everran. We can establish reserves for them on some of the really useless land. My dear, this is progress. Surely you can see they’ve roamed about out there, wasting natural resources, occupying valuable country, for far too long? They’re a relic, like the Gebros. It’s time Hethria came out of the past.”

  He looked sure of approval, having quoted my own battlecry. Frantically I snatched the first pertinent argument to hand.

  “The roads, the Sathellin . . . what will happen to our trade with Assharral?”

  His face hardened. “The Sathellin. Yes. Frankly, Sellithar, I think it’s time we did do away with them. They have exploited something. They import trash at exorbitant prices, they maintain this ridiculous pretence that no one else can cross the desert; they have a monopoly on a lucrative trade that drains off wine. Wine for which we get no return.” I remembered, with a start, that Estar had recently complained of a decrease in our export of wine. “Once we settle Hethria, we can trade with Assharral for ourselves.”

  “But they’re nomads, it’s their way of life! They’re free, they could never cope with settling—”

  “I’m sure some arrangement can be made. After all, they are a minority group. We can hardly expect, Sellithar, to halt the march of progress, to deny so many others an improvement in the quality of life, just for a minority’s sake.”

  I think I gasped. He looked enquiring. Scrabbling to avoid the thought that just so he must have described the people of Everran, I fell back on the fatuous.

  “Hethria. You saw it. It’s a wild place, it shouldn’t be tampered with.” An echo in my mind threw back at me: Math is respect for That-which-is. It should not be tampered with unless you must. “Surely, Kastir, we don’t need all this expansion? We have a favorable trade balance, a stable population, no food problems, our finances are solid as a rock. . . .”

  “My dear Sellithar.” He looked quite shocked. “I never thought to hear you produce such a feeble argument. Have you actually let emotion fog your wits?”

  There was nowhere to go but the last ditch, so I went. “Yes, I have! You saw Hethria. Surely you realized how beautiful it is?”

  He was stunned. “A howling wilderness full of rocks and sand, nomad peddlers and naked savages? It will be beautiful, I assure you. But now?”

  He had seen the potential. He had not so much as glimpsed the reality. Memory burst its dam and I saw Zam accepting the cost of mending the Hethox’ delinquency, the cruelty of a langu, the wait for a flood once in five generations, the harshness of a lonely, unrewarded life spent maintaining a desert’s equilibrium. “Because that’s how Hethria is.”

  And I saw what it was to me.

  However I denied the memory it had been there in my mind all along, the red country, untouched, untamed, safe from the gray flood that had drowned Everran, a land of color and delight whose strength was in the very harshness from which they sprang, a citadel whose existence made my own gray world bearable. The spell I had lived under broke on a surge of protective panic so sharp it pained, the most intense emotion I had felt in three long years.

  “Yes, it is beautiful!” I cried. “And I like it how it is—I don’t want it changed!”

  We gaped at each other. Then he made one last attempt to bridge the rift.

  “Sellithar, the plans have been approved. The funds are allotted. How can I tell Estar that it won’t be done?”

  “You’ll just have to, that’s how!”

  His face chilled. He said sternly, “Sellithar, I have always done my best to further your wishes, but this whim is too ridiculous. You’ve ignored the facts. You’re letting emotion run away with you.”

  “No, I am not! The facts are that Hethria’s a desert w
ith a limited population and a fragile natural balance and you can’t alter either without causing a disaster—and as for chopping down the helliens and expecting your new dam to wash the salt away, you must be out of your head!” I had never spoken so hotly in the length of our marriage, he could not believe his ears. “If you had any idea of the facts you’d never have drawn up your plans at all!”

  It was done. He looked not cold but ruthless, the Estarian power-lord I suppose he had always been. You may change the livery, but not the skin.

  He said without expression, “I am sorry to say this. But I am the governor of Everran. My plans for the development of Hethria have been approved. And I shall see that they go ahead.”

  * * * * * *

  For a good while after he left my mind simply ran about like a beheaded chicken, incapable of thought. I could only feel. Fear, a frenzy of protective panic, desperate urgency to stop him at any cost, no matter how. At last I calmed enough to grow constructive, but the picture the materials presented was grim.

  My first thought was Estar itself. Get the approval rescinded. I knew the methods. Feed the news-talkers, raise a pressure group, by threat or enticement enlist enough power-lords to ensure public opinion became law. But could I do it? In that trade Kastir was as adroit as I.

  Moreover, he was Estarian, a palpable vantage. Further, I had never before opposed him in earnest. And he would be in earnest, I had offended him too deeply to leave a doubt. Three years had taught me that when Kastir made what he felt was a correct decision he could be formidably stubborn. And I had steeled his resolution. In addition, if I tried and failed, it would damage my standing, and possibly his. Then I should be politically impotent, not even a power behind the throne.