by M J Engh
“And what comes of that?” asked Lethgro; for he thought that if these people's idea of justice resembled the White People's, there was trouble ahead.
“An investigation,” said the Exile. “There always has to be an investigation. But only a small investigation, because I have already explained what happened. It's too bad—” He stopped, and started again with a different thought: “Then my captain will decide what to recommend.”
Now Repnomar inquired sharply what the stranger captain would be recommending to whom about what; and the Exile answered that there were three possible recommendations: to leave this world unexamined, hoping that not much damage had been done to it; or to plant the devices as secretly as could now be done and try to cover their traces; or (and here the Exile hesitated, as if he disliked what he had to say) to call for another ship.
“Another ship to do what?” Repnomar snapped, ignoring for the moment the fact that he had not answered all of her first question.
“To make the survey,” said the Exile, using a word that he must have learned at Sollet Castle, for it was ordinarily used of the Warden's periodic progresses through the Upper and Middle Sollet country, observing the countryside and dealing with its problems. So there was a little confusion till the Exile explained that by “survey” he meant the studying of a world, the gathering of all those reports that the devices were meant to send; “except,” he said, “that a survey crew can learn more than the devices alone, and do more damage.”
“And to whom,” Lethgro put in, “does your captain make his recommendation?”
“To certain officers of our league,” he answered. “And they decide, though usually they follow whatever recommendation is made to them. And all this may take several watches to settle.”
“And if a survey crew comes,” said Repnomar, “how long does it take to do its work?”
But the Exile said dolefully, “When the survey crew comes, your world begins to die.”
This chilled Lethgro. But he said, looking curiously at the Exile, “That makes you sad?”
And the Exile answered, “Yes.”
Here the conference was interrupted by those wounded Quicksilvers that the strangers had been treating. These bounded into the light with musical trills, dancing about their comrades, who petted and patted them eagerly with their swift paws and joined in the trilling. And they opened the flaps of their chests to each other, which the Exile said was a kind of greeting. Lethgro waggled the fingers of his useless arm painfully, and Repnomar ran her hand over Broz's head; but they said nothing, for there were other things still to settle.
30
A Dinner in Rotl
We know we could have done worse,” the Warden said feelingly. “But we won't know for a while whether we've done well.”
“Knowing is one thing, and being sure is another,” the Captain answered. “And I'm as sure as I need to be that we've done very well, Lethgro.”
The Warden filled his plate again. “May you be right this time, Repnomar,” he said devoutly.
Repnomar waved a juicy drumstick, scattering gravy. “We got the Mouse home safe,” she said, citing first the point closest to her heart. “And you got the League a treaty with the White People, if the Councils decide to sign it when they're through with their yammering. And you're Warden of Sollet Castle again, in spite of not bringing back the Exile—which shows that a Council's threats aren't worth much more than a god's.”
“Drink your ale,” said Lethgro, who did not much approve of such imprudent and irreverent remarks, even in private. He poured her another cup, pleased to be able to do it with his right arm. “If we hadn't been able to prove he was dead, we would have had a different welcome.”
“That's true,” the Captain agreed cheerfully. It had been chancy enough as it was, for though the Council of Rotl had accepted their story after only six or seven hours of deliberation, the Council of Beng had been harder to convince, citing a lack of material evidence. Only a long procession of sailors, one by one deposing under oath that they had seen the Exile plunge from the top of the Dreeg waterfall and disappear into the roiling waters, had persuaded the councilors not only to revoke the sentence of outlawry but to concur in restoring Lethgro to his former office (to the general pleasure of the folk of Sollet Castle, Castle Wharf, and all the Middle Sollet, for with some exceptions they had missed Warden Lethgro). That had been a nervous time for Lethgro and Repnomar on two counts. Not only were their necks in danger, but there was the chance that one sailor or another would testify too much—though they had all taken awesome oaths in the frozen darkness of Quicksilver country, and more recently (in case they had forgotten) outside Beng harbor, never to mention what they had seen and heard of the strangers from beyond the clouds. ("They'll tell their families, of course,” Repnomar had observed philosophically, “and bit by bit stories will get around. But it won't hurt if these are a few more gods worshipped. And these at least are real ones.")
But not a sailor had said too much or too little. They had all been notably well paid; for Lethgro had received a fat bonus from the Council of Rotl, which he had promptly divided among the sailors, on top of the pay they had already had from his own money-box.
“I know you're worried,” the Captain added, setting down her cup, “and so you should be, Lethgro, because it's your job to worry. But the only thing that worries me is Brask over there on her own. If I don't get back there soon, she and that cutthroat crew of hers will have finished work on the Dreeg portage and headed upstream to see what they can steal from the Low Coasters.” She chuckled. “That should be a fair match.”
“It will surprise me,” the Warden said gloomily, “if they've been working on the portage at all.”
“They know they won't get their pay, let alone their pardons from the League, till they've finished that job and I've checked their work,” Repnomar said. “We'll have a portage that's as easy going up as going down, and easier both ways than you and I have seen it.” This was said with some feeling, for it had been a rough haul up the rugged slope beside the waterfall, and the Mouse's planking, as well as the temper and limbs of all three crews, had been sorely strained. “What we really need,” the Captain added musingly, “is a canal, if it could be made somehow in steps.... And you know, Lethgro, if we could do that on the Dreeg, we could do it easier on the Sollet. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to sail a canal upriver all the way to Sollet Castle and beyond, given a few more years. With what we know now —” She broke off with a laugh. “With what we knew all along, Lethgro—there's the joke of it! I've been sailing against the wind for more years than I like to count; but it never occurred to me or anyone else to try sailing against a current—not till I learned from watching outlanders that there are more ways than one to travel, and to think, too.”
This was a topic that interested the Warden personally, and he leaned across the table. “I thought you said you'd undertake to sail a ship up the Sollet anytime,” he said a little anxiously, for he was weary to the very bones of uncomfortable and hazardous journeyings, and he longed to be back at Sollet Castle.
“Yes, if I had the ship for it. A step-canal would be easier going, with no current to speak of, but I'd sail you upriver right now if the Mouse weren't hauled out for repair. A Sollet ship doesn't have the rigging for the job, nor the hull either. Besides, as soon as the Mouse is ready and loaded, I'll be off with my first cargo for the Quicksilvers. Give me another year, Lethgro.”
The Warden chuckled ruefully. “It's been a long time already, Rep, and another year or so won't matter. If it happens in my lifetime, that will surprise me enough.”
“And I have to send my report,” the Captain said with relish. This was the finest plum that she had plucked from the whole adventure, and she was mightily proud of it. There had been some difficulty when the Exile first proposed this compromise, for, as he had regretfully admitted, regulations did not provide for such an arrangement. It was not thought proper, he explained, to
leave the reporting devices at the mercy of natives of the world under study. Those devices should be either well hidden, or protected by a crew of his own people. Nor was it thought right for such a native ("meaning me,” as Repnomar had observed with some indignation) to gather and send such information as his league desired. But the Exile had explained at some length to his captain that Repnomar, who had already flown his pods, was well able to work the message devices, and was moreover an experienced ship's captain and therefore much at home with weather and skilled at noting its changes. And after some further conversation, the Exile had reported with shining eyes that there were precedents of a sort, at least for the gathering of information by natives, and that something might be worked out. in fact it had taken many watches to work out everything: peace with the Quicksilvers (for there was evidently some inclination among the strangers to regard them as enemies to be fought), the oaths of secrecy (which the strangers did not seem to value highly, being more moved by the consideration that, as Lethgro, put it, “Whatever we say will be taken for lies or madness, or else the doings of gods"), the placing of the devices and the agreement with Repnomar (whereby she was to watch over them and make her own reports each year with one of their talking boxes, giving them such news of the weather as their devices could not collect alone). This last agreement was provisional, and reached after the stranger captain had received what the Exile admitted was a grudging approval from the officers of their league.
The placing of the devices had been in itself a matter of some delicacy. The Exile's captain insisted that no one but his own people and Repnomar should know their exact locations, which was sensible. But when he proposed to take Repnomar in his ship to set them up, and the Exile hinted that this would be somewhere near the far edge of the darkness, Lethgro had swallowed once and demanded to be taken along. This was partly because he doubted that he could face the sight of Captain Repnomar getting into that outlandish ship with none but a passel of alien godlings and flying off to an unknown destination; and partly because he wanted to talk to the White People, if indeed they were going to that part of the world. So in the end Lethgro and Repnomar and Broz had climbed into that ship together, leaving Brask in charge of the remaining humans (with firm orders not to harass the Quicksilvers). And while Repnomar and Broz went with the strangers to view the setting up of the devices and note bearings and landmarks, Lethgro had gone off with the Exile to negotiate with whatever White People they could find. They had all returned well satisfied to Quicksilver country, and found things there still peaceful. “More thanks to Whistle,” as Repnomar remarked, “than to Brask.”
But during all these momentous and historic doings, there had been a weight upon Lethgro that grew heavier and heavier. He had watched the Exile plead the humans’ case with his own people, and the Quicksilvers’ case as well (though they had killed his friend). He remembered how the Exile had rescued them once from the Quicksilvers, and many times stood by them sturdily in time of trouble (though there were times enough, too, when he had deceived and abandoned them). Most recently, the Exile had labored along with him to make peace with the White People (and of those dealings, Lethgro had saved up many good stories to tell Repnomar, and especially how the spirits of Broz's victims had been pacified by the slaughtering of two of those savage sheep, which had provided a considerable banquet). That labor had been to such effect that Lethgro now carried the draft of a treaty and a trade agreement in his pocket to be submitted to the League.
He was, in short, fonder than ever of the Exile, in spite of all his efforts to think of him as nothing but a dangerous and unreliable alien. And though it was possible that the Councils might be persuaded to a pardon, that hope seemed to Lethgro still more dangerous and unreliable. Nevertheless, the Councils had entrusted him with a responsibility, and it was not his own liking that he must consider.
So when the time for good-byes had come, and all were listening politely while the stranger captain made one last speech, Lethgro composed a short speech of his own, clearly explaining that he could not return to civilization without the Exile, or proof of the Exile's death; so that, if the Exile sailed off beyond the clouds with his comrades (as he seemed about to do), Lethgro himself would be an exile and disgraced forever. When his turn came, he drew himself up very stiffly and delivered this speech word for word as he had thought it out, not trusting himself to speak his feelings freely. But the Exile, with that childlike look of his, said simply, “Yes, I know.” And then cleared his throat and added, “I think we can arrange it.”
They had arranged it, the Warden thought, rather well. “And it was no easy thing he did,” he said now, pensively cutting himself another slice of mutton, “devices or no devices. You couldn't have paid me to jump off the top of that waterfall.”
“We both did it once,” Repnomar reminded him, dipping her bread in the gravy.
“With a proper sail, yes—and I'm not sure I'd do that again. But all he had for a sail this time was that little bit of a thing that barely carried him away from the rocks. And then the weights in his pockets to drag him under, and not knowing surely if he could clap that thing to his face soon enough to breathe with—” ("There was plenty of time on the way down,” Repnomar said,) “— or if he could swim safe to shore underwater against the current.” ("He had that device to drive him through the water,” Repnomar said.) And Lethgro drew a long, whistling breath at the thought of that maelstrom under the falls.
But the Captain, who saw no need for regrets where all had ended happily, poured out more ale for both of them, saying, “We know his ship was waiting for him a little way downstream. And we know he got there, because the crow came back to us.” This had been her own idea, to leave one of the crows secretly with the outlander captain, to be released when the Exile returned to his ship.
“We don't know it for certain,” the Warden said with stubborn gloom. “That captain may have turned it loose just to keep us from tramping up and down the riverbank looking for the Exile, and maybe seeing his ship sail off again. Or just to get rid of the noisy thing.” For the crow had not liked being left with such peculiar strangers.
Now the Captain laughed at him outright, but fondly. “Drink your ale, Lethgro. What's done is done. And we have other things to do now: you to make your deals with the White People, and I to take the Mouse across to the Low Coast again.” She squinted her eyes thoughtfully. “And I'll bet you a better dinner than this one” ("It's a very good dinner,” Lethgro said,) “that once I have it worked out properly, and know my courses and my times, I'll be visiting you in Sollet Castle every year. Or at least every other.”
“You mean to make the whole circle of the world every year?” Lethgro asked, with a bit of a shudder, for he remembered vividly those dreary and desperate watches among the ice rivers and snowfields and belching mountains of the dark side.
“Why not?” Repnomar retorted. “It didn't kill us the first time. But I'd rather take it the easy way, and that's by water. There's Broz to think of, too.” (Here Broz, who was lying at her feet, rolled his eyes upward to look at her and thumped his tail comfortably once or twice on the floor.) “He's done enough trekking through the dark for a while. So first we'll sail across the Soll and down the Dreeg to trade with Whistle's people and check the devices there; then back the same way with a cargo for Beng and Rotl. Then up the Sollet—up the Sollet, Lethgro! and that's when I'll visit you—and into the Mountains to check the second set of devices and send my messages and trade with the White People; and back down the Sollet again.”
Now the Warden chuckled deeply. “And my job, Rep—aside from taking care of matters on the Upper and Middle Sollet, which till now I thought was job enough—is to keep you from making a mess of things with your voyaging and your trading.” For he had taken the Exile's stories much to heart.
“And I'll know in half a year or less,” the Captain added optimistically, “if he's all right.” For half her mind, like Lethgro's, was on the Exile. “Don't f
orget he promised to answer my messages, and maybe come back now and again for a visit.”
“Which is a sign,” Lethgro agreed, “that these outlanders are fairly sensible beings; for the Exile is the only one of them who knows this world, and it's only right he should be the one to deal with us.”
“Fairly sensible for gods,” Repnomar said, with a snort of laughter.
“But they're not gods,” the Warden corrected her. “You've seen for yourself the Exile has no special powers without his outlandish gear, and I don't doubt that's true for all of them.”
“Which is what I mean exactly,” the Captain insisted. “I say that's what gods are—and what most people call gods are bad dreams and indigestion.”
And they began to argue with such vigor, and went on for so long, that the innkeeper looked in on them three times, wiping her hands on her apron, for she would have liked to close her dining room and get some rest. But she did not disturb them, for they were notable personages, and likely to leave good tips.
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