The Enemy of My Enemy (4 page)

Nor was he very much interested in the conversation of slow, whitebearded old Sapient Laforosan, who had devoted most of his life to cataloguing or lexicographizing the various Volanth languages or dialects. Evidently their host was not over-fascinated, either, for he said, “When you are utterly finished with that, Sapient, you’ll turn your attention, I must hope, to doing similar work with the speech of dogs. I have, does it surprise the Sapient to hear? almost no desire to speak to or to be spoken to by Volanth. But I should love, I must hope, to understand what my dogs are saying.”

Laforosan smiled and stroked his long white beard. “It is not always given to us to select our fields of interest,” he explained. “When the lots were drawn at last selection, the black lot of Commercial Deputy fell upon you, my brother’s child. My own involvement is of course not precisely the same. No fine to be paid to the State, should I refuse. But … . Well … .” He smiled again. “It began as I was painting leaves. My leaves, I must confess, were not much good, and, being young, I preferred to place the blame anywhere but on myself. ‘I am bored with these local leaves,’ I said. ‘They are over-familiar and this is why they bore me.’ So I went to the arboretum in Tarnis Town and to the arboretum in Thias Town and in Rophas Town and perhaps it may be that I no longer remember all of the places in which I painted the leaves of uncommon trees. It seemed to me that my paintings of leaves were getting somewhat better, and I must hope they were, for, after all, I was getting somewhat older!” He chuckled. The water hissed beneath the hull.

“But still I was not contented, and that is how I came to work my way out into the Outlands, I was seeking for new trees, you see. I found some. And I found something else, of course, as one is bound to in the Outlands: I found the Volanth.” Again he chuckled, this time perhaps with somewhat less mild good humor. “I heard them speaking to one another as they slashed the boles of the trees for resin. ‘Speech?’ I asked myself. ‘Can this be
speech?
These animal gruntings and howlings? Surely they suffer some racial malformation of the organs of expression … ’ And there came to my mind that scene in the
Volanthani
— ” He quoted words in the ancient tongue:

Mothiosant murmured something, evidently the succeeding line; the old man nodded. “He saved the life of the Volanth pinned beneath the fallen tree, and the Volanth tried to warn him of the ambush. But Lord Maddary could not understand the language, and, as a result, he lost his only son … .” Laforosan gave a long sigh. “And thus it all began. I gave up trees and leaves and I took up tongues and languages. My painting chamber I converted into a study chamber, I got a license to allow three of them to come live at my place for a year — all stags, of course — and I got to work. It wasn’t easy. Oh, they complained bitterly that their quarters were too clean, and it took about ten men to hold them down and clip their pelts … I wanted no little souvenirs, you understand. And their attention-span was about three minutes. But we began to make progress,” and so the old man babbled on. And on.

Someone beneath the patterned awning on the aft-deck asked, after a while, “How many of these languages or dialects would you say there are, Sapient? You have found this out, I must hope, in all the years of study?”

“The answer really depends on classification. There are two main and one minor language groups, in a ratio — the approximate number of those speaking them — of about sixty, thirty-five, five. The two main ones seem distantly related, but the third is quite apart from them. As for dialects — ” The boat seemed to give a slight lurch, there was a slight disturbance in the river, the old man frowned, paused a moment, someone above in the pilothouse laughed, the old man frowned, but continued to talk; and the boat went on. Scarcely a minute later, as they began to navigate yet another of the river’s innumerable curves, Laforosan stopped, lifted his hand.

“Is anything not in total order, Sage?”

“That is so, and my plea is for you all to go inside and below immediately. Immediately, I must hope — ”

But before any of them did so, the mud flats and shallows and river banks seemed to come alive. Things danced and shrieked and howled, a flock of small black birds rose and winged towards the boat.

Only they were not birds at all.

“Volanth! Volanth!”

Screams, scrambles, shouts, thuds, cries …

The boat trembled, careened, spun —

The boat continued round the curve in good order. Something had struck Krakar in the shoulder; the blow had sickened him a bit, but he could move hand and arm and had reason to believe nothing worse than soreness and stiffness would follow. But his outer shirt was mucky-black and rank smelling at that spot. All around him the fine Tarnisi had almost immediately recovered their poise. Even one, whose forehead trickled blood and mud, smiled at Ronk politely as their gazes met. In fact, all gazes seemed to meet his.

“We are ashamed, I must hope, that your first visit should be disturbed at all.”

“Oh, my kith and kin! do, please, allow us to have your august shoulder examined!”

“Boy! Boy! Quickly go-bring clean clothes-chop for Bahon master!”

Bewildered, Krakar asked, “What
was
that?”

“Ground-apes. Man-pigs. Mother-maulers. In other words, Volanth,” said one irascible and dirtied gentleman — who, a second later, recovered, apologized for his language. “Why? Ah, ‘Why have they done so?’ Who can say, my nephew’s cousin. Last night there was a small shower of meteorites. They might, for all one knows, have thought that bad. And blamed it on us. And punished us for it.”

But the old scholar, who had not moved from his chair, shook his head. “It was not that. And it may not be immodest, one must hope, to observe that the rogues know that they have at least one friend aboard: Has it been observed that this poor old student remains untouched? … The foreign guest asks, ‘Why?’ Here comes the answer — ”

Pemathi deck hands pattered by, as swiftly as their burden would let them, burden with dragging hands and head laid open to the crushed bone, eyes staring futilely, blood dripping, dripping, drip … .

“The pilot boy. He broke up their fish weirs there, just above the bend. Needless. Needless. Even such creatures may eat, one must hope. Done for sport; surely it was not I alone who heard him laugh?”

Ah, the pilot boy. A crude Pemathi. The passengers clearly all felt better that the attack had been intended only for a Pemathi. “You don’t mean, sir — or do you?” Krakar asked, bemused, “that at such a distance they can not only hit things, hit
people
? by thrown objects? but fatally? and can even avoid touching another individual person near by?”

Sapient Laforosan nodded. “Such is true. They have no other weapons. We allow them none. But with a stone or a shell or a stick, it is astonishing how, with their long arms, they can with precision strike and bring down flying birds and running game. It is perhaps their only art, poor rogues; well, one must not expect anything of them, they lack the Seven Signs, I must hope — well.” He coughed in some embarrassment, source unknown to the Bahon guest; then, doubtless perceiving this, the Sapient went on, “They are really subhuman. There are morphological differences. The frenum under the tongue, for instance, which explains … . But digression must not persist: our ancestors, I should begin explanation, found them living in trees and caves, tried to teach them husbandry and crafts, soon found that there was a limit to their capacity of retaining knowledge, but none, alas! to their innate brutishness, decided henceforth to leave them alone to their cannibalism and incest. But again — and I say, again, alas! — this stern and meritorious isolation could not be maintained; it became necessary to set controls upon them. Difficulties, difficulties … still … this poor old scholar for one has not always found them utterly indifferent to favors shown. No. Only for the most part. We will talk of this at length, but another time, I must hope.

“Yellowtrees! Do you see? — up beyond the next bend? Have you never been there? You will enjoy your stay … one need not hope!”

• • •

Yellowtrees was more than the grove of flowering
ayilli —
unfortunately not then in bloom — which had given the estate its name. It was not an estate, as most were, which had come down in one family, generation after generation. Mothiosant’s family’s own hereditary lands had been escheated, forfeited, in fact, during political troubles a generation or two before; he himself had been born and raised abroad, wandering from place to place with his listless, disaffected father, homesick and yearning for the land unseen since childhood. Yellowtrees had belonged to another of the exiled families; its buildings and walks were famous. But that family had died out in exile. Mothiosant had returned … a very tentative return … to the homeland which he had never seen, when he was a young man. In point of fact, he had returned to nothing, but he found such welcome everywhere that he had volunteered to brave the outworld, the foreign lands, once more, to persuade others to return. He had been so successful in this, he had made such a niche for himself, had married so well and so nobly, that at length and not so very long ago, the Assembled Lords had granted him the tenure of Yellowtrees for his own lifetime. In a way, his occupancy of it brought him more éclat than if he had inherited it. There were apparant drawbacks … the Tarnisi had grown used to visiting it when it was a public place, and this habit still persisted … permission to visit could not tactfully be refused … there were often guests completely unknown to master and to mistress.

And it was one such guest who was the cause and center of an unpleasant incident on the second day of the Bahon’s visit.

The lawn around the main house sloped down to the river in a shallow curve, but the back of the house overlooked not the river but a small stream which disembogued into it a short way below. At this point there was a walk of stone which led up two steps to the place where a bridge had been — but only the entrance pillars still remained; the bridge itself had been swept away in a long past-freshet. Flowers, now, swept up to and around walk and pillars, frothing like many-colored waves. This scene was one of the well-known sights of the estate, as was the house itself, designed as it had been by that man of many parts, Sohalion, three centuries before. The reedy shallows where stream and river met, and the tiny wooded island nearby offshore, were always loud with the song and the cry of the birds which gathered there.

A light second lunch was set out by the soft-spoken, immaculate Pemathi servants, and the visitors — invited and permitted ones alike — were helped to it as a matter of course. Mothiosant’s young brother-in-law had been getting in some target practice with a spear-thrower before an audience consisting of his sister and her husband, the old scholar, the Bahon business agent, two old ladies, two young ladies, a middle-aged couple, a puffy-faced man who talked a trifle too loudly about the beauties of the estate — and, of course, the servants. Perhaps he had missed the precise center of the target once too often. The thrower, though it gave extra power to the spear, was long and heavy. Perhaps the audience had not been sufficiently admiring. At any rate, as the young man, his smooth strong chest shining with the sweat of his efforts, came up to the tables, his almost too-handsome face was rather sulky.

“Better luck another day, young cousin!” the puffy visitor said, his voice as always a bit over-loud, his remark calling attention to perhaps just that on which the brother-in-law desired least to hear comment.

He swung around so swiftly that the puffy-faced man jumped, gazed at the puffy-faced man with such naked scorn that even Krakar felt scorched by it, and said, almost spitting the words, “I’m — not —
your
— cousin!” Something seemed to crackle in the air. A Tarnisi insult? Was it possible? All present ignored what was occurring. All, that is, except the principals. The puffy-faced man seemed to sicken and turn pale. His tongue touched his trembling lip. The young man, after a long moment, turned away.

It might have passed over if the older man — he had a cup in one hand and a dish in the other — had found a seat and sat down and said nothing. But he did not. Almost uncomfortably openly attempting to change the subject, he said, inclining his head to the side, “How beautifully the sun shines through the branches of the trees.” Or, at least, so it sounded to Krakar. But … again … something unspoken echoed in the languid air. And the young man turned back.

“What did you say?” he asked, as over-soft as the other had been over-loud.

The puffy-faced man now had himself under control. “How beautifully the sun shines th — ” he hesitated — “in the foliage,” he concluded.

“No … ” said the brother-in-law. “
Not
what you said. ‘ … The
bwanches of the twees
… ’ you said … Didn’t you?” He took a step forward. The puffy man shook his head. He looked around him. The Tarnisi looked away. The Bahon looked on, uncomprehending. The brother-in-law took another step. Repeated, in a tone obviously peculiar but still completely baffling to the Bahon, “ ‘The
bwanches
of the
twees
… ’ ” Then, in a suddenly changed, suddenly cheerful voice, “Do you not find it hot, my cousin? Eh?” The puffy-faced man smiled in sudden relief, but suddenly his smile trembled as the other raised his hands. “You
must
find it hot. And you all buttoned up and your august hands encumbered. Allow me,” he said, voice begging, still moving forward, “to open your august shirt. Oh, do not step back. You will allow me the pleasure of assisting you, one must hope.”

His hands darted forward, the puffy man jumped backward, stumbled, dropped cup and dish, stooped for them, jumped up, put his own hands to his shirt. A most curious look of shame, confusion, pain, and hate passed across his face. “Sick … ” he muttered. “Sun … I must go … .” He bowed and bobbed hastily at the host and hostess, who still looked away, faces polite, absorbed, blank. “You will excuse me, I must hope … .” His voice died away. He turned and walked away, rapidly.