Watson, Ian - Black Current 03 (6 page)

 
          
Off she went again. Five minutes
later she was back, whistling

 
          
Masts
High! Breezes Fly!

 
          
"While the river's open to
everyone, we'll hold a Grand Regatta here, that's what. We'll bring the date
forward from the autumn. We'll invite men from Verrino and Gangee. There'll be
a grand initiation ceremony, with flags and bunting and masquerades and dances
aboard the boats. It'll be a sort of official opening of the
Ka-
store to men—though obviously
Pecawar men can join in earlier, and the 'jack army will be passing through
beforehand."

 
          
"Hang on! Aren't all our boats
going to be full up with prisoners and armies?"

 
          
"I'm sure we can spare a few
more vessels—if we suspend ordinary trade for a while, and cram those
prisoners in tight."

 
          
"Poor
sods."

 
          
"You don't mean that."

 
          
"Maybe
not."

 
          
"That's how we'll do it."

 
          
"Yes, but we're sending the Sons
north under hatches for security reasons. Now we're going to have men dancing
on deck—not to mention a whole 'jack army on the water."

 
          
"Ah, but the command in the west
will assume we've made a compact with the current. They won't know what sort,
so long as they don't see their own men benefiting.
Actually,
it would be really neat if we could fool them into
launching rafts across the current. Maybe we ought to feed some half-truths to
the captives? Stuff they could blab when they got back home?"

 
          
"Some people can be too clever
for their own good, Chanoose."

 
          
"I thought that was
your
speciality, Yaleen." Oh, she
was indefatigable.

 
          
"So," I said, "We'll
recruit lots of fellows from nearby towns by offering free trips to the Pecawar
regatta."

 
          
Chanoose looked amazed. "Free?
Who said anything about
free?
Does it
cost nothing to build your dikes? Or to
lay
on a
regatta? Plus a balloon—we'd better get hold of a balloon to accustom young
lovers to the idea. Free indeed! What an impractical child you are."

 
          
"Not quite! Maybe we ought to
discuss the royalties for my next book here and now!" Here I was feeding
her
a half-truth; for I was pinning my
hopes on the copy, not on the original.

 
          
She ignored this feint. "I'm
grateful for your comments. You point up the need for tight logistics."
And off she went, humming her time.

 
          
After this I put on a spurt in my
writing, other duties notwithstanding.

 
          
Time flowed.

 
          
I made one trip out of town, suitably
escorted and on a day set by Chanoose, to point out to Tam and herself exactly
where his clays were supposed to lie bedded underwater.

 
          
Naturally, the night before setting
out, I had reminded the Worm of its promise to shut its man-trap down. Even so,
my heart was in my throat when Tam waded out into the water, wearing
anti-stinger gear, carrying a scoop-trowel and with a safety line around his
waist. Breathing deep and ducking under, he brought up samples from the bottom,
carried them ashore, dissected them with his gloves off, kneaded them, sniffed
them, and even tasted them with the tip of his tongue before pronouncing them
pukka. Probably; he wouldn't be absolutely sure till he had ground and fired
the clay.

 
          
That evening
Chanoose sent the signal for the 'jack army to set sail from Verrino; and for
the prisoners to be freighted north, in the opposite direction.
The
'jacks’ voyage would span twice as many leagues as the captives covered, so the
captives would be carried more slowly. Nobody wanted to erect temporary prison
pens in the pastures by Aladalia.

 
          
Work commenced on the two dikes, and
proceeded at a leisurely pace as ordained by Chanoose. Tam wasn't idle
meanwhile; nor had he been so before that day when we sought out the clay.
Already, with Peli's assistance, he had rigged up a grinding wheel and a
potter's kick-wheel and had built a kiln to his own design.

 
          
The kiln was housed in a hut in a
small yard abutting the north end of the temple, the only access to which was
through the temple itself. A high claybrick wall tipped with jagged glass
surrounded the yard, so I wouldn't be able to smuggle anything out by that
route. Since the said area wasn't enormous, Tam stored finished wares in his own
room, and a good number of items spilled into my own quarters. He wasn't
producing porcelain (yet), but I liked his handiwork to be around.

 
          
To fuel the kiln he relied on quite
costly nuts of coal imported by the sack from Guineamoy. Not for him the oil of
Gangee which most people in Pecawar used for cooking and lighting and
occasionally to take the chill off midwinter days. Occasionally; by no means
everyone went in for such luxury. A Pecawar winter was never especially bitter.
We preferred to shiver a bit (as I had shivered during the first week or so in
the temple) and don a few more clothes. Wood, of course, was scanty in the
region; imported timber was reserved for building and furnishing, not for
fires.

 
          
So while I was turning out pages to
lock in my trusty scritoire, Tam was creating nicely glazed brickware—painted
with fleur- adieus, to keep his hand in, he said. Soon he was selling his wares
through one of the stalls along the arcade. And Peli, sweating at the kiln,
seemed happy as a flutterbye which has found a saucer of syrup.

 
          
Obviously I couldn't ask Tam to take
time off to copy my pages. He wrote a neat hand, but that wasn't what his hands
were for. I certainly wouldn't impose on him for something slavishly routine.

 
          
The problem of how to get a copy made
resolved itself in an unexpected way with the arrival of the savant from
Ajelobo. Aye, resolved itself, and led to an awful outcome. . . .

 
          
But I anticipate.

 
          
Already a fleet had conveyed our
victorious army homeward, southward, through Pecawar. During the few days of
the stop-over the scene was quite like the promised regatta, what with all
those boats tied up at quays or anchored offshore, and the streets thronged
with 'jacks in much gayer mood than when I'd spent time with them in Verrino.

 
          
My temple was also thronged; and many
were the slugs of black current dispensed to ex-soldiers.

 
          
True, a certain stink of crowded
travel hung about the 'jacks. (The guild was economizing on boats as much as
possible, to meet all its commitments.) At least they weren't footsore, with
holes in their boots and blisters and bunions. Their gait was sprightly. You'll
recall my nagging sense of guilt in the matter. At least now I'd put things
right—albeit I'd principally been thinking of how to supply Tam with petuntse
and kaolin.

 
          
Thou shalt not congratulate thyself.
Reality reared its head when I discovered that the hale and hearty 'jacks who
strode jauntily along
Pemba Avenue
and crowded into my throne room were not the whole complement. A number of
disabled 'jacks hadn't disembarked. Those sad fellows were lying in bunks on
various vessels, tucked away out of sight. Still, this way they would get home
alive, even though they might never shin up a jungle-giant again.

 
          
Given all this influx of visitors, it
wasn't surprising that some old acquaintances turned up at the temple. One such
was Captain Martan, the officer with whom I had conducted interrogations of
prisoners—in another body, during another life.

 
          
As soon as I saw him, I wanted to
grant him a private audience; but Donnah wouldn't allow it. With so many
fighters infesting the place, my guards were in a high state of alert. During
those days of the fleet's lay-over, a pile of weaponry often lay in the entry
porch atop the purple stairway, confiscated from the 'jacks before they could
enter my presence. Donnah ever kept her hand close to her pistol during
audiences, while the other guards dangled best Guin- eamoy machetes behind
their backs in addition to the daggers they wore in their belts. My women had
little enough experience in wielding such—compared with the visiting soldiery!
Maybe that was why the visitors regarded my armed guards so nonchalantly, by
and large, and didn't take offence.

 
          
I had to hold my tettytet with Martan
in public.

 
          
"You witnessed an important
moment in my lives, Captain," I said to him.

 
          
"You are
She
who has several lives." Martan gave a practical kind of a nod, as though
by the law of averages important moments were bound to crop up more often
during the course of several lives, then during one; irrespective of how short
they were. He sounded as though he was bestowing a title: She Who Has Several
Lives.

 
          
"Do you recall that brute of a
Son we questioned?
The one who berserked?"

 
          
"How could I
forget, little lady?"
Oh, wasn't he the one for fine labels of a
sudden! Or was he teasing? There seemed to be a twinkle in his eye. The Martan
whom I remembered had been an honest, wholesome, realistic fellow, doing a
dirty job as decently as possible. He hadn't been one for airs and graces, or
hypocrisy.

 
          
So I grinned at him, and he grinned
back.

 
          
"If we'd gone ahead and
tormented that Son," I said, "we would have learned about Edrick for
sure. He likely wouldn't have killed me. So none of what has happened would
have happened."

 
          
"Just as well we didn't torture
him, eh?" Torture: he used the true word.

 
          
"It was you who tipped the
balance, Martan."

 
          
He looked surprised. "Oh, I
don't think so."

 
          
"You told me you wouldn't want
to be tortured yourself. That was a crossroads in my life. And even though
Edrick got to torture
me
on the
planet Earth—"

 
          
"Where?
He did what?"

 
          
I lowered my voice. "You'll have
to wait for my next book,
The Book of the
Stars.
And though he tortured me, I say, I still believe we made the right
choice that day. I learnt a lesson from that. If we on this world wouldn't like
our brains burnt out by the Godmind of Earth, neither would anybody else
wherever they are, whether they're Sons of Adam or fishpeople of a far star.
We've no right to save ourselves at their expense."

           
He spoke
softly too. "What's this about burning people's brains?"

 
          
"Hush for now, Martan. Keep your
ears open."

 
          
He gazed at me a while, then nodded.

 
          
Among soldiers who have risked their
lives together I suppose there's a comradeship beyond even that of a guild. I
hadn't fought alongside Martan and his 'jacks, but we'd spent several weeks
together at the prison pens; and thanks to that rabid Son's assault on us, I
believe I shared a bond of comradeship. When Martan was departing, Donnah
buttonholed him. I heard her demand to know what I'd whispered. "Just
giving me her private blessing, that's all,"
came
Captain Martan's reply. He spoke loudly so that I would hear, and looked calmly
across at me.

 
          
Another visitor whom I received later
that same day was the acerbic "Moustache", last encountered in the
Jay-Jay Hall at Jangali

 
          
This fellow wanted neither to bless
me nor to receive my blessing. (Not that I'd been especially obsessed with
"blessing" people, until Martan came up with this excuse! I'd stoutly
resisted having my hand slobbered on by ancient grannies, who were looking
forward to reliving their gay young days in the £«-store.)

 
          
Moustache's attitude to me hadn't
changed. He sketched a parody of a bow.

 
          
"Thanks for the ride home,
Trouble.
Though no thanks for the walk to the war."