Jango (13 page)

"And what do you say, Elder?"

The Elder gave another long sigh.

"I don't know, boy. My mind is not as clear as it was."

He held out one hand before him.

"See. My hand trembles. I can no longer stop it."

Seeker took the trembling hand and drew it to his lips and kissed it. The trembling ceased.

The old man saw this and tears came to his eyes. He bowed his head to Seeker.

"Thank you."

He raised one hand, and out of the shadows stepped his attendant meek. This came as a shock to Seeker. He had thought they were alone.

"Now I will go back to the meeting," said the Elder. "We meet to decide what is to be done with you. You will wait here."

"Yes, Elder."

The meek then wheeled him out of the room. Somewhere in the darkness of the passage Seeker heard a door close and a key turn in a lock. It seemed he was a prisoner.

He went to the shaft of daylight and looked up into the white sky above. The shaft was no more than twelve inches wide at its widest. On either side, the walls were solid rock. He explored the passage and found the door and felt it. It was heavy, but he knew his own strength now and reckoned he could break it down if he chose. But this imprisonment was the will of the Community. So he returned to the light and sat himself down on the floor and waited.

He recalled the tears in the Elder's eyes, and there came back into his mind the words the Elder had spoken to him long ago.

"We weep for pity of those we must hurt, and our hearts break for those we love."

T
HE IMMENSE ARMY OF
A
MROTH
J
AHAN MOVED SLOWLY
across the fertile plains of the Great Basin, devouring all the winter-stored grain and slaughtering all the cattle as they went. Word of the Orlans' ruthlessness went before them, and they met no resistance. The people of the regions through which they passed gathered in silent clusters to watch them go by, and stared in awe at the warriors' elegant Caspians. They were the first horses ever seen in these parts.

Echo Kittle, carried along as part of the Great Jahan's entourage, had still not mounted the horse that had been given her to ride. Each day she asked the Jahan if she was ready, and each day he shook his head and said, "Not yet."

It must be soon now. The more time she spent by Kell's side, the better he seemed to understand her. Often she would look round and see him gazing at her, his wide-spaced eyes thoughtful and steady, and she would say, "What, Kell? What is it?" Then he would toss his beautiful head and come to her and stand close, and she would feel he wanted her to know he would look after her.

To add to the hardship of her life on the road, the Jahan's sons had become bolder in her presence and were turning into a constant irritant. Everywhere she went, there was Sasha moodily brushing his fingers through his long bushy hair, which he believed to be his most attractive feature; or Alva, as often as not stripped to the waist, showing off his well-muscled torso; or Sabin, who never spoke, but who watched her like a hungry puppy.

Small gifts began to appear in her tent: a plate of honey cakes, a beaded bracelet. There was never a written note to say who they came from, so Echo didn't know who to thank. This suited her well enough, as she didn't feel at all grateful. She felt harassed. She put the gifts outside her tent, where the Jahan saw them.

"What's this?" he said.

"They're not mine," she replied. "Someone left them in my tent by mistake."

"These are love gifts."

"Then why are there no messages?"

"Messages?"

"To say who they're from."

The Jahan laughed.

"My sons can't write. These are gifts from them, to win your favor."

"Then please tell them not to waste their time."

"I will not tell them so. At my command, they are competing for you. The winner will receive you as his bride at a celebration in the city of Radiance. Do you know the city of Radiance?"

"I've never been there," said Echo.

"I'm told it's very rich and very beautiful. It will please me to have the king of Radiance offer his homage. Afterwards, at the victory feast, you will be married."

"Am I to be given away as a prize?"

"You will give yourself away. To the one you favor."

"I don't favor any of them. They're all as dull and ugly as each other."

The Jahan sighed at this.

"I don't deny it. I'm hoping that the competition for your favor will bring out qualities that have not yet been revealed."

"I won't do it," said Echo. "You can't make me."

"Of course I can make you. You will do what is necessary to please me. What displeases me, I crush beneath my feet."

After this the love gifts ceased. In their place came words. Echo found this even more aggravating.

"Your eyes are like ripe plums," said Alva Jahan to her one morning. He spoke without preliminaries, coming up behind her as she was stroking Kell. She made no reply. After a few moments, he wandered away.

Sasha Jahan was more persistent.

"Your mouth is soft as a foal's," he told her, "sucking the udder of love."

Echo pretended she hadn't heard him. He went on.

"My beloved's head is a cake. Her skin is pale as marzipan."

This was too much. She rounded on him.

"Where do you get this nonsense?"

"From the matchmaker," he said, blinking a little.

"Then you need a better matchmaker."

"It's true," said Sasha gloomily. "All the best matchmakers are women. But we're on campaign, and we have only men."

Later that day Echo heard scuffles and cries, and came out of her tent to find a man bent over a barrel, being whipped. He was one of the camp cooks.

"What's he done?" she asked, flinching at his piteous cries.

"Been making out he's a matchmaker," came the reply. "He should stick to making pies."

That evening Echo sought out the cook. He was lying on a cot with a cold mud poultice on his raw back.

"I'm sorry you were whipped," she said. "It wasn't your fault."

"My love words failed," said the cook sadly. "I don't know what went wrong. They've always worked well before."

"They came out a little suddenly," said Echo.

"Ah, well. There you are. They do need leading up to. You do have to prepare the ground."

"Yes, I expect that would have made all the difference."

"Your buttocks," the cook recited tenderly to himself, "are the pillows of my dreams."

"They didn't use that one."

"I think that's my favorite."

"Tell me," said Echo. "These love words. Is your method to work through the parts of the body, and then find something to compare them with?"

"That's exactly what I do!" exclaimed the cook, very surprised. "But don't tell anyone. They might set up a rival business once they understand the method."

"I won't tell."

Echo would have laughed at the cook-matchmaker but for the whip wounds on his back. And as for herself, it was all very well to sneer at the Jahan's sons, but their father had let it be known throughout the camp that one of them was to have her for his wife. His immense pride would never allow her to refuse all of them for much longer.

The most persistent of her suitors was Alva, the Great Jahan's second son. The most athletic and warlike of the three, he announced one day that he would challenge all comers in the traditional Orlan mode of courtship: a contest of skill and strength called the jagga.

"I fight for you," he declared to Echo. "If I win, you must give me a kiss. That is our custom."

"It may be your custom," said Echo, "but it's not mine."

The great army had made camp at the end of the day. Word spread rapidly that Alva Jahan had called a jagga, and a number of young men lined up to try their skills. Echo had no notion what a jagga was, and at first was curious enough to linger and watch.

Mounted, naked to the waist, armed only with his whip, Alva faced his first opponent across a cleared space. He raised his whip in salute to Echo and then gave a great shout.

"Ya, jagga!"

He rode at his opponent, whip cracking, and the two tangled in a blur of combat. Both were agile and adept at evading the flying whips; and so they parted unharmed.

The Jahan himself came to watch, and he applauded loudly.

"Ha, Alva! Bring him down, boy!"

Echo understood that the object of the sport was to unseat your opponent. As she watched she saw Alva's whip curl and catch and tug, but the other rider made his horse spin round on the spot, and so he escaped. This dexterity amazed Echo. At such times horse and rider seemed to fuse into a single being.

"Don't let him go, boy!" yelled the Jahan. "Follow! Follow!"

Alva was dominating the contest. There was little doubt of the outcome. Even now he was dancing round his opponent, taunting him, readying a winning strike. Then he would come prancing over to Echo, glowing with glory and sweat, and demand his winner's kiss.

Echo waited for his attack, when the attention of the onlookers was all on the combat, and she slipped away.

"Come, Kell," she whispered; and Kell picked his way with delicate hooves over the tussocky grass to her side.

But she had left it just a little too late. A shout went up from the spectators, and turning, she saw that Alva Jahan had just unseated his opponent.

"Sorry, Kell," she said. "No more time to get to know each other. I need you now."

She swung herself up onto the horse as she had seen the Orlans do, and lying low over his back, she wrapped her arms round his neck and gripped tight with her thighs. Kell set off at once at an easy canter across the camp. Echo was quite unable to look behind her, so she had no idea whether Alva had seen her go and was chasing after her.

Kell cantered faster and faster, past the last of the tents and into open farmland. Echo felt herself being thrown from side to side, but she clung on grimly for as long as she could. When her grip began to slacken out of sheer exhaustion, she decided to risk sitting upright. She rose up and at once felt herself tip to the left. She threw her weight to the right and fell off.

Kell came to a stop just ahead, then turned round to gaze at her with big reproachful eyes.

"What do you expect?" she said. "I've never done it before."

She climbed to her feet, and Kell trotted back to her side. She looked around. No sign of any pursuers.

It struck her then that she had now ridden for the first time—badly, it was true, but she had begun.

"Let's try again," she said. "And, this time, slowly."

She climbed onto Kell's back once more and gripped tight to his mane. Kell set off at a slow walk. She felt the rolling rhythm beneath her and wondered very much how she could possibly stay on at a faster pace without clinging to his neck. She tried to anticipate each roll with a shift in her own body weight, and got it wrong. Once again she tipped too far to one side, and once again she fell off.

Falling off hurt. She felt annoyed. It looked so easy when the Orlans did it.

She mounted once again.

"Please, Kell," she whispered, "don't make this any harder than it needs to be."

Kell started off walking sedately once more, and Echo rolled from side to side on his back, staying on only by means of the viselike grip of her thighs. Then Kell broke into a trot, and everything changed. Up and down she bounced, like a pea on a drum, and every moving part of her body from her teeth to her toes jiggered and jaggered, so that she supposed very soon now she would fall to pieces. Then, with a sudden lurch, Kell broke into a canter. After the bone-rattling jog of the trot, this was a far easier matter, but they were now moving fast, and with each swoop of motion, Echo so very nearly fell off that she threw herself forward and wrapped her arms round the horse's neck as she had done before. But then Kell changed rhythm again, and now he was thundering over the hard earth at a true gallop.

Now Echo knew she would fall—and would fall hard.

"Kell! Please, Kell!" she gasped.

But on they swept, down the cart track and along the edge of a leafless wood. The trees flashed by in flickers of light and dark. Echo lurched this way and that, expecting each lurch to land her in the ditch. Then it seemed to her that Kell was slowing down. She felt the kinder rhythms of the canter and sighed with relief. Then came the trot.
Shaken and aching as she was, the trot was more than she could manage. She released her tensed legs and let herself be jiggled to one side; and from there she slithered gracelessly to the ground.

So that was riding. Not the elegant birdlike flying she had imagined. Not sweeping and effortless, like racing through the trees. It was bumpy and scary and made her ache all over.

"Not your fault, Kell. I'm just not doing it right."

Kell pressed his nose against her shoulder, as if to say, Come on, get up.

"Let's just walk for a while."

She had no idea of the way back to the camp. She had been too busy holding on to take account of where they had come. So she let Kell lead as they walked, trusting that he knew where he was going.

Soon they were on a roadway that ran alongside an old tumbledown wall. Sitting by the wall, on nothing at all that Echo could see, was an elderly man. He had long tangled gray hair, and his face was the wrinkliest face she had ever seen. The wrinkles went up and down, and running across the up-and-down wrinkles were sideways wrinkles, and all round his eyes were arrow wrinkles. Even his nose seemed to have been scrunched up and left out in the rain. The effect of so many wrinkles was to give him a permanent expression of humorous kindliness.

His brown eyes peered shortsightedly at Echo and Kell as they approached. He was wearing clothes of a style that was unfamiliar to her. The outer coat was dark blue and long, with buttons up the front, and split at the back like a bean pod. The inner coat was gray and belted at the waist. He was barefoot.

"Good afternoon," he said, rising to his feet. He drew from behind the split in his coat a stout walking stick with a hinged handle that doubled up as a small seat. He made Echo a small bow.