The Blood-stained Belt (27 page)

After one
meeting at which Sharma patiently explained the policy to a group
of disgruntled men, Abozi rubbed his chin and said to me quietly,
'But there's more to it than that, isn't there, comrade
brother?'

'You think
so?'

Abozi winked at
me. 'One day the kingdom might be re-united, don’t you think?'

'That would be
a desirable outcome.'

'And are you
telling me that you've never considered the possibility that Sharma
might be involved when that day comes?'

I replied,
'Well, that would be a step-up for Sharma, wouldn’t it?'

Abozi scratched
his nose thoughtfully and, looking at me keenly, replied, 'And a
step-up for some others too, no doubt.' Then, even-voiced, he
continued, 'If that happened, then a reputation for leniency would
count in Sharma's favour, wouldn't it?'

'No doubt it
would.' I put a hand on Abozi's shoulder and said, 'Why, brother,
who knows what the future might bring?'

Abozi replied
stolidly, ‘Indeed, who knows?’

Once Vaxili's
troops heard that they would be treated leniently if they
surrendered, they turned themselves over to our forces in droves.
Most of them didn't have the stomach for occupying Keirineian towns
and fighting their compatriots and were only too pleased to be
returned to Upper Keirine safe and free. The troops surrendered at
such a rate that within two months we had cleared away most of the
garrisons and outposts in the north. Of course, Vaxili couldn’t
stand by idly while he lost ground hand over fist in Lower Keirine.
He countered by announcing that soldiers who surrendered would be
court-martialled and he was as good as his word. Within a few days,
fifty returning soldiers were court-martialled and were sentenced
to be indentured for twenty years to the King of Kitilat where they
would serve in the royal salt mines. After that, we met fiercer
resistance. However, Vaxili's oppressive tactic also worked in our
favour because many of the soldiers, particularly those who did not
come from Orifinre, chose to surrender and join our force.

I knew of only
one prisoner of war who wasn’t treated leniently. One afternoon, a
detachment of our men arrived with a captured unit commander whose
men, when ambushed on the open road near Osicedi, had cheerfully
laid down their arms. Only the commander offered resistance, so
much so that he was wounded twice before he was overpowered.
Pushing and shoving their captive, our men demanded to see Sharma.
At first Sharma asked irritably why they hadn't either released
their captive or offered him the chance to join us. However, his
tune changed when he heard who the captive was.

‘Don’t you know
this man, Commander Sharma?’

‘No. Why should
I know him?’

There was an
apprehensive pause before someone shouted, ‘Ask the bastard what he
did to your father!’

Sharma's eyes
narrowed and the flecks in his eyes glowed like coals. He asked the
captive, 'Is this true?'

The man writhed
on the ground, begging for mercy and forgiveness. It was pathetic,
but no one felt any more sympathy for him than they would have for
a sacrificial fowl or goat. He had committed a blood crime and he
was already as good as dead.

Sharma's eyes
narrowed even further as he said in a steel-cold voice, 'We will
not be lenient with him. Punish him as the law prescribes.'

Someone
shouted, 'No, commander. First let him suffer as your father
suffered. After that, the law can take its course.'

Sharma lifted
the man's chin with the toe of his boot. While the man cried out
for mercy, Sharma looked down at him dispassionately, shook his
head, and growled, 'As the law requires! No more and no less! Take
him away.' He shrugged and looked down at the man with hard
eyes.

While our men
dragged their captive away, Sharma called after them, ‘No more and
no less than the law requires! We are not savages. You hear
me?’

When the men
came back without their captive about half an hour later, they were
sombre and subdued. We didn’t enquire how the man had died.

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN: THE FUTURE KING

When Vaxili
finally did march northwards, he came with an army of almost two
thousand men. He re-established the garrisons that we had
eliminated and then began to move towards our base in the
mountains. On the way, out of pure vindictiveness, he sacked
Osicedi. Fortunately most of the townspeople got away before the
attack and sought refuge with us. Even as we welcomed our friends
and family members, we sighed inwardly at the thought that now we
not only had to contend with a superior force but also had to deal
with destitute refugees.

What was to be
done? We couldn't feed the refugees properly, we couldn't take them
with us when we maneuvered against the enemy, and we couldn't
abandon them. Finally, we decided to move them to an oasis for
temporary refuge while we applied to Durgenu for assistance. Ever
the obliging businessman, Durgenu agreed to a deal by which he
would care for the refugees for six months, deferring payment for
two years at an agreed rate of interest.

Abozi and I
suffered a personal misfortune when our father died during the trek
from Osicedi to the mountains. My mother told us that he lingered
on a hillside, watching Vaxili's soldiers enter the town, and only
turned his back on Osicedi after he saw our house, workshop, and
warehouse going up in flames. Then my parents turned and trudged
along in the wake of the rest of the refugees with father going at
an ever-slower pace until finally, in the heat of mid-afternoon, he
sat down under a tree complaining that he was feeling tired. While
my mother was reaching into a pack for a water container, she heard
a loud sigh. She turned around and saw that my father had toppled
onto the ground. My mother tried to pull him back into a sitting
position but he just sighed once more, very faintly, and then
died.

My mother was
strangely calm while she was telling us the story. She concluded by
saying reflectively, 'It is the way of the world. Husbands usually
go before wives, and parents usually go before children. I will
mourn for your father and my life will never be the same again but
I will have the consolation of my memories.'

Abozi said
fiercely, 'You would have had a longer life together if it wasn't
for Vaxili.'

Mother was
still very calm. She said, 'Be thankful that your father is at
peace now. Vaxili has to live with the consequences of his actions.
Pity him, that he has travelled so far into the wilderness of his
own making that it is unlikely that he can ever turn back to find a
place of peace.'

Abozi was still
incensed. He said, 'We'll see to it that he never escapes from this
wilderness, either. We'll make it his graveyard.'

Mother drew
Abozi to her and held his head against her breast as if he was a
child again. She said, 'Leave it to Zabrazal to punish Vaxili. Free
your heart of vengeance or you will be as desolate as Vaxili.' She
sat forward and said, ‘I can bear the loss because your father and
I were coming to the end of our road together. But I don't know if
I can bear to see one of you -- worse still, both of you -- die
before me.'

I said, as
gently as I could, 'We're soldiers, mother.'

She sighed
heavily. 'I know. Every day I fear for you in more ways than
one.'

When Sharma
heard what had happened to our father, he called Abozi and me aside
and said, 'I want both of you to lead the unit that escorts our
people to Durgenu.'

Abozi and I
protested at being assigned to such a peripheral task when action
against the enemy was imminent but Sharma just looked at us
impassively and replied, 'I'm your commander. You will do as I
say.'

I said
heatedly, 'We appreciate why you're doing this, but --'

Sharma cut me
short, saying firmly, 'You will do as I say. When you have
completed the task, hurry back. I can assure you that you won't be
short of action.' When we left him, he said gently, 'Look after
your mother. Take care of her for me as well.'

As we left the
cave that served as Sharma's headquarters, a woman brushed past us
on her way in. Most of her face was covered with a shawl and she
was wearing a long cloak, once elegant but now creased and grubby,
that concealed her figure. She murmured a greeting and hurried past
us. I didn't pay much attention to her but after a few steps,
recognition stirred in the back of my mind. I asked Abozi, 'Don't I
know that woman?'

He answered,
'You should know her. That's Roda.'

I stopped and
looked back, halted in my tracks by the implications of what I was
thinking. I asked, 'By Zabrazal, Sharma wouldn't be such a fool,
would he?'

Abozi replied,
'If that's what you think, my dear brother, then you don't know
your friend Sharma as well as you think you do.'

By this time I
knew that when it came to women, Sharma could be a great fool. In
all other aspects of his life, Sharma was orderly and far-seeing.
He never undertook a venture until he had assessed all the risks
and had investigated all the possibilities. He was like a chess
player who could see ten moves ahead while other players could only
calculate the consequences of the next one or two moves. But with
women, Sharma was just the opposite. With them, he seemed to court
danger and uncertainty. After being closely acquainted with Sharma
for many years, and after sharing both hardship and affluence with
him, as well as disasters and triumphs, I can only conclude that
Sharma's relationships with his women reveal a deep and
subterranean stratum of his personality. The patient, stalking
Sharma is also the Sharma who quivers with passion and rejoices in
his heedlessness as he leaps into the snare of a beautiful woman.
It is a paradox but it is true.

Abozi and I
reluctantly obeyed Sharma's orders and escorted the refugees to
safety in Durgenu's territory. As we left the oasis, a man riding a
donkey called to me. It was Aggam. I hadn't seen him for a long
time, perhaps ten or twelve years, but he looked the same as ever.
His lean face still had the same sardonic, supercilious expression
and in spite of his age he still had the rigid bearing of a soldier
on parade. Aggam waved a stick at me – it looked like the same old
Corrector – and called out, 'So, you see that I was right.'

I asked. 'How
so?' Aggam glared at me with narrowed eyes. Old habits asserted
themselves and I corrected myself by saying, 'How so, teacher?'

'How so? Didn't
I always say that Keirine should not have a king? Didn't I always
say that Zabrazal is the only leader that Keirine ever needed?'
Aggam waved his stick around and sneered. 'You see how things have
turned out? The consequences of disobedience – ha!'

I said,
'Perhaps it is the fault of the priests.'

‘The fault of
the priests! What a foolish idea! How could that be? Explain
yourself, man.'

'It was the
High Priest who anointed Vaxili as king.'

'Ha! But it was
the people who rebelled against the High Priest and demanded a
king.' Aggam's lips curled contemptuously around the word
'people'.

I didn’t want
to continue the conversation. My schooldays were far behind me and
this renewed acquaintance with Aggam revived unpleasant memories.
As for Zabrazal, priests, and kings – well, only Zabrazal knew what
was in Zabrazal's mind and I was getting tired of trying to
understand the thoughts of an inscrutable god. Nor was I any more
interested in finding out what a sour old fool like Aggam thought
about the matter. I walked off, saying, 'I wish you a safe journey,
teacher.'

Aggam called
after me, 'You will see that I am right, Ghazila. This business of
the kingdom will do nobody any good.'

Ghazila? He
couldn’t even get my name right. I stiffened my shoulders and
ignored him. There were more important things to do than listen to
the frustrations of an old has-been.

I never saw
Aggam again. I heard that he became a tutor to the children of some
of Durgenu's officials and died peacefully in his sleep about five
years later – which, in my opinion, was better than the old
miscreant deserved.

When Durgenu
learned that I was Sharma's deputy commander, he provided my mother
with an apartment within his palace. He made light of his kindness,
saying genially, 'It is self-interest, my dear friend, nothing but
self-interest. One day Sharma will be a great man in Keirine and
you will be at his right hand. Then I will be repaid many times
over for my kindness, not so?' He guffawed and slapped my back,
saying, 'My friend, make sure that you tell Sharma what I have
done. What use is an act of self-interest if no one knows about
it?'

We hurried back
to our base where we found that Sharma had moved our men to the
southern edges of the mountain to face Vaxili's force. As we were
leaving to join them, Roda appeared out of Sharma's personal
quarters. Roda! My heart sank. Damn it, so Sharma really had taken
up with her again! Roda greeted me curtly – we had been on cool
terms ever since I had done Sharma a service at her expense – and
asked superciliously, ‘What, Jina, not at the frontline with
Sharma?’

I replied, ‘I
have my duties’ and pushed past her, not wanting to be diverted by
someone who could only bring me trouble.

She called
after me, ‘Where are you going, if I may ask?’

I stopped and
said, ‘Now that you’ve reminded me of my duties, I’m going to leave
for the frontline as soon as I’ve had a meal and got my kit
together.’

Roda’s eyes
flickered as if she wanted something but didn’t know how to ask.
Then she put out her hand, dangling a bracelet, saying, 'Please
give this to Sharma. Tell him that I'm thinking of him and waiting
to greet him with a hero's welcome when he returns.' She said the
word 'greet' with such an accent of insinuation that I bridled. I
refused to take the bracelet, saying, 'Sharma will have more things
on his mind than trinkets.'