The
Arrow laid off the northern coast of Khanlar a few hours before dawn and, when
it was deemed time by both Sandar and the ship's Captain, one of the ship's
boats landed Jarin and Colonel Sandar on the beach some miles to north of the
City of Norden. They crossed the wind swept cold sands in the darkness,
then scrambled up the steep incline and traveled inland a way before they came
to the road to Norden. As a road it more resembled a well used farm track,
deep rutted and with indeterminate edges where weeds and grass encroached upon
the gravel strewn mud. Few aristocrats, priests or government officials
would ever travel this route, for they would always journey between Norden and
Predon by ship, carefully tended by their servant's and heeding their comfort in
some warm cabin. This road was only for the poor and down it they would
spend long days driving cattle, leading wagons or merely traveling in one
direction or the other searching for work.
It
began to drizzle sleet just as the light announced that day had begun somewhere
beyond the ominous leaden gray clouds above them. The wind came from the
north and although it was not constant, it cut to the bone when it gusted every
now and then.
As
Manator had promised, Jarin was dressed in the winter clothes of a traveling
merchant. Heavy gray serge trousers tucked into sound leather boots, a
tunic of worn purple damask and an overcoat of purple serge trimmed with brown
otter fur. His ears were protected from the wind by a cotton scarf he had
wound over his head and tied beneath his chin, over which he wore a large
brimmed leather hat boasting a rather sad-looking purple feather. Colonel
Sandar was attired in similar clothing of a lesser quality and obviously
hand-me-down by their ill fit. Instead of a hat however, his coat had a
hood which he had pulled tight with it's cord until only his red tipped nose and
watering eyes showed to the world. The proud Colonel Sandar, disguised now
as Jarin's body slave, carried a large pack over his shoulders and supported his
balance with a quarter staff, tipped at both ends with iron bosses. Jarin
himself carried a somewhat ornate walking stick, which he had been relieved to
find carried a sword of the finest steel within it's hollow body. Sandar
wore a short sword beneath his coat and Jarin had watched him hide away two long
slim blades into his boots, before they had left the ship. They were of
course quite common equipment for a body slave charged with attending to the
safety of his traveling master on long trips, whereas the matched knives hidden
in Jarin's own boots were far beyond the financial resources of the average
merchant he was pretending to be.
"I
had forgotten how cold it could get up here in the northern Nations."
Sandar said as they started south towards the city, "And this
damn iron collar around my neck. . . Gods it feels like it was crafted out
of ice."
"Have
patience my friend and have trust in the Guardians judgment,"
Jarin answered, "They have given us only good advice to
this date and I for one expect this journey to be the valuable lesson they have
promised us it would be."
"I
am a soldier." Sandar said forcefully, "Loyalty
and following orders, that's my code. Yet I feel we would do more good
with a troop of your Guards along with us. . ." He stopped
himself from adding the habitual "Sire" and instead, said with a
smile, ". . .Master Tassinar."
For
the next two hours they trudged down the muddy track, which had been named a
road only by someone too kind to call it by it's true name, with their backs to
the biting wind and their faces covered as best as they could manage.
Words were a waste of warmth, so apart from the occasional curse against this
desolate gray world that was the Nation of Norden, they saved their conversation
for the warmer and more comfortable times they prayed might be ahead of them.
When
at last they came over a rise in the ground and saw the City of Norden, Jarin
for one considered traveling on to the next habitation without even bothering to
stop. High gray stone walls surrounded the city, which was perched on gray
stone cliffs, with hundreds of chimney stacks spouting clouds of gray smoke into
an ominously leaden gray sky. The drizzle became a downpour even as they
approached the gate house and after ringing the heavy bell to gain entrance,
they stumbled into that stone hut cold, angry, soaking wet and ready to drop
from exhaustion. Inside they found two overweight guards playing cards in
front of a dismally small fire.
"Shut
the door, idiot!" One of the guards shouted, as Sandar fell
through the door behind Jarin, tripping over the wet doorstep and slipping to
crash head-long onto the stone floor. Jarin stepped around him and slammed
the door back into it's frame, cutting off the wind that had reduced the
temperature of that little room by no less than half in the time it took them to
get into it.
"Your
pardon, my good man. . ." Jarin ventured, ".
. .but we have been traveling on foot ever since our horses bolted during the
night. . . They didn't turn up here by any chance, a fine looking gray and a. .
."
"No
horses came here this night." The second man said, getting up
and crossing the room to stand in front of Jarin in less than half a dozen
steps. "Let's see your papers, Merchant."
Sandar
had regained his feet and brushed himself off by then and he handed Jarin the
documents the Arrow's captain had given them prior to their leaving the ship,
which Jarin in turn handed to the guard, who then studied them with the
concentration of a man who can hardly read. "Fair
enough, Merchant. You'll find lodging at the Golden Hawk".
He handed back the oilskin wallet and documents and was seated back at the card
table again almost immediately. "This
time close the door fast idiot!" He yelled at Sandar, as the
latter went to open the door for Jarin. They did exactly as the guard bade
them and entered the City of Norden through the back door of the gate-house.
It
had stopped raining for the moment and yet the scene seemed no more the cheerful
for it. The main road from the gate was wider than the one Jarin had seen
in Atlar, or Lunza for that matter and led straight as an arrow through the town
towards a stone keep on the west wall. Obviously that would be the Palace
of this desolate city's Prince and a place they would avoid at all costs.
Calling it a main road was in fact a compliment, for the thoroughfare was just
another expanse of mud, strewn with gravel and flooded in more places than it
was visible as a road. They found and took advantage of, a narrow board
walk that ran westward on the southern side of the street. The rain came
again as they walked and there were few citizens abroad that winter morning to
hamper their progress, and before long they came to the stone walls of the
Golden Hawk Inn.
The
Inn was built like a fort. It's gray stone walls rising up four stories
with windows that looked more like crossbow defense slits, than apertures to
allow sunlight into the building. A pair of great oak gates, liberally
strengthened with iron bars and bolts, showed the owner's lack of trust of his
fellow man. The gates were on this occasion however, wide open and led
into a covered courtyard where no less than three dozen slaves, several beggars
and an assortment of the old and poor of the City of Norden, sheltered this day
from the elements. One old woman in black rags and a shawl that might once
have been a charcoal sack, scuttled away from the only horse at the posts.
A few grains of oats fell from her hand as she stuffed the evidence of the theft
she had just committed into her toothless mouth. She swallowed it in a
throat constricting gulp, her frightened eyes looking directly at Jarin.
The lowest level of Nordenese society watched them with a cross between avarice
and fear, as the two visitors avoided the door into the tap room and walked to
the open door beyond it, above which hung a faded sign saying Rooms for Rent.
The
door was just past an exterior stairway and as they reached it they gained yet
another glimpse of the continuous inhumanity of the lower classes of
Khanlar. There, hidden from the sight of those in the courtyard, two
laborers were helping themselves to the body of a young beggar girl. The
shorter of them, overweight and with dirt streaked face and arms, had his left
hand over the girl's mouth, while his right hand held a handful of her greasy
hair. The young woman's only clothing, a ragged homespun dress, had been
pushed up around her shoulders, while the second man, his trousers round his
ankles, was using her in the way of an animal. His eyes were closed, while
his mouth was open most of the time showing broken and stained teeth, as he
grunted his way to the vile satisfaction of a rapist. His frenzied grip on
her thin hips had already brought blood from her skin, but his filthy finger
nails continued to grip her like a hawk grabs it's prey. The girl's eyes
rolled in terror when she saw them, but she was wise enough not to struggle or
cry out as those gutter vermin used her. The rapists did not see the
Merchant and his servant arrive and the shock of what Sandar and Jarin saw held
them for enough time for the one clamping his hand over the girl's mouth to
grunt,
"Come
on Barik. Finish it. It's my turn again." The
drink he had taken was already affecting his balance and he was slobbering as he
said the words, then he saw Jarin and Sandar and gasped, "Oh
Gods . . ." Then to them, "She's stupid
Master, we're only having a little fun with her, we'll let her go and . . ."
He
stopped speaking as Sandar smashed his staff directly into the drunkard's
face. After the metal boss cracked the bone and tore the sinew of the
man's face, speaking would have been a problem, so instead the villain coughed
blood and broken teeth as he fell to the ground. The second man opened his
eyes, looking at Jarin with an amazed expression that he and his partner had
been discovered, even as Sandar grabbed him from behind by his private parts and
pulled him from the whimpering girl. The knife in Sandar's hand flashed so
fast the man actually relaxed, thinking he had been released, until Sandar threw
everything that had made him male onto the stone slabs in front of him.
Jarin hoped the man fainted before Sandar's blade sliced across his filthy
throat, but by the gurgling noise the rapist made as he tried to scream he would
never be sure.
Sandar
looked around quickly to establish that no-one had seen what had happened, nor
that the noise had attracted anyone's attention, which anywhere else would have
been amazing. Then he carefully placed the knife that had done the work
into the hand of the fat fellow, who was now laying unconscious besides his dead
friend and closed the man's fist firmly around it's hilt. Then he
collected a door stone from under the stairs and dipped it in the gathering pool
of blood, before placing it carefully beside his first victim, whose dead hands
even now covered the seeping gash across his neck, while his terrified eyes
stared at the gray sky above him from the blindness of death. Sandar's
face was emotionless as he planted the evidence of the two murdering each
other. The good Colonel then wiped his hands on the second man's tunic and
confirmed for himself that Jarin had already calmed the girl, before he stood up
and yelled at the top of his voice. "Guards!
Guards! Murder! There's been a murder!"
In
seconds there was a crowd around them and confusion took over, during which
Sandar pushed Jarin and the girl into the door marked Rooms for Rent and they
booked in, while the old man who took their copper complained about the
lawlessness abroad in Khanlar these days. "What's
the ruckus out there now!" The clerk asked of no-one in
particular.
"A
couple of thieves appear to have killed each other, there's blood all over the
place out there, along with the usual crowd of onlookers, who are base enough to
get satisfaction from watching the evidence of someone else's violent end."
Sandar replied, moving the shocked young beggar girl into the shadows and wiping
her face with his kerchief. "It was enough to damn near send
this child into a state of shock."
The
clerk lifted his bloodshot eyes and looked at the girl as best as his obviously
faulty vision could help him.
For
a moment Jarin felt like slamming his fist into the old cynic's leering face,
but decided against it and urged Sandar to start the girl moving up the
stairs.
"Send
up some hot water and some refreshment." Jarin snapped at the
clerk.
"It'll
be up there in no time my Lord." The clerk said, as he handed
Jarin a large iron key, "You'll be in room eight Sire. .
. Up the stairs, turn left and right down the corridor to the back.
Just get the girl out quietly when you finished with her Sire if you will, the
Landlord would beat the Hell out of me if he found out I'd let her in."
Jarin
walked away in disgust, unable to answer lest he lose his temper. He was
to wonder later why no-one thought to question them about the affair they had
both witnessed and reported, but no-one ever did. Obviously the level of
society which the rapists came from in Norden, made them not important enough to
bother foreign Merchants about.
The
rooms they had been given faced out onto the street behind the Inn, showing them
the working side of the city. Despite the terrible weather slaves trudged
the muddy street below their window carrying loads to feed blacksmith's forges,
empty or fill storage barns and all the other types of business activity that
was engaged in inside those barns and small factories which lined that poor
street.
The
rooms themselves, three of them, were serviceable, if not well furnished, but
they smelled of mold and were unaired; however when Jarin opened one of the
windows onto the street he soon realized why no one had done it before, for the
smells from the street below were obnoxious to say the least.
Sandar
tended to the girl as if she were his own daughter, removing her dress and
allowing her to wash herself in the privacy of one of the smaller rooms in the
hot water which two women servants had quickly brought, as Jarin had ordered the
clerk to provide them with. It was obvious from the looks on the women's
faces that they at first believed that Jarin and Sandar had brought the girl to
their rooms against her will. Not that either of those middle-aged women
were going to get involved if two gentlemen decided to have some sport with a
beggar girl. Sandar however muttered something to one of the serving
wenches who had brought the water and she went away smiling, whispering to her
friend words that brought some relieved and even thankful looks from the other
woman. The older woman returned soon after with a dress for the girl,
thanking Sandar for the copper he pressed into her hand as he took the cloth
from her.
The
scratches on the girl's hips and face Sandar treated with salve from his own
supply and he brushed out her tangled hair with his own comb, every now and then
crushing a flea caught in it's teeth between his thumb and finger nails.
At last the girl had calmed enough to sit down and the wild fear of them had
gone from her eyes, replaced now by a look of cynicism, as if she waited only
for them to abuse her also. In her new dress she showed to be no more than
sixteen, if she was that and when the food arrived she tore into it like a
starving animal, proving she had not eaten properly for days, or what might very
well have been weeks by the look of her.
"How
did you come to be a beggar, Lass?" Jarin asked at last, when
she had finished off even the crumbs from his own plate.
"My father died in the War. Then my mother got into debt and us children were to be sold off by our Lord to cover it, but I did not want to wear the collar, so's I ran away. Now I beg." Her voice had an accent, but then almost all voices had accents strange to Jarin, Sandar however picked up on it straight away. "You're from the East, Nation of Magor, maybe?"
Fear
came into the girls eyes, proving that Sandar had guessed right and she looked
towards the door, obviously judging if she could make a break for it before they
could stop her. Sandar smiled and touched her arm in a gesture meant to
calm her, but which instead only made her jump and look even more frightened.
"Don't
have one." She answered defiantly, "Look if
you want to have a go at me, you don't have to make up excuses, just mount up
and get it over with, then I can get out of here. You deserve that much
for saving me from those scum downstairs, but you don't own me mister.
No one does." And with that she stood up, turned round,
hoisted her new dress up to expose her rear end and took a grip on the
chair. Sandar laughed and lifted her gently upright into a standing
position again.
"That's
no way to treat Gentlemen, girl. Especially seeing that we have only just
finished eating. Cover yourself." He pulled her dress
back down, took her by the hips, turned her and pushed her gently back into the
chair. "You keep that up girl and you'll be carting bastards
around on each hip before you see a year out and then you'll end up with a
career of selling your milk to lazy farmer's wives."
"My
name is Liana." Her face suddenly looked tired and dismayed,
obviously affected by Sandar's fatherly admonishment. "You're
the first men I've met since I ran away who have not wanted to fill me, but I
guess I don't know much about gentlemen, I don't think I ever met one before I
met you two."
"Well
you have now little one and not before time I think." Sandar
took her arm and almost lifted her from the chair, "Now I think
you need a good long sleep in a warm bed to regain your strength."
He led her into the bedroom, pulled back the covers and encouraged her to get
in. It was obvious that she thought now was the time and that Sandar just
preferred to do it laying down rather than standing. She obliged by
hoisting her dress once more to expose her womanhood.
"By
the God's girl!" Sandar exclaimed, "When I
need you to open your legs, I will tell you. Now get some sleep."
He pulled the cover up around her neck, shaking his head in mock
astonishment. She smiled at him then, not the smile of a know-it
As
he came out of the bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar, he saw Jarin's
interest and answered the unspoken question with a curt reply, in a voice too
quiet for the girl to overhear,
Jarin
decided to let the matter lay right there, for it was obvious that Sandar was
not inviting questions, nor did he seem intent to enlarge upon his
statement. Jarin stood up from his chair and grasped the Colonel's arm in
understanding, then he turned and retired to the other bedroom, to see if his
body could ever be truly warm again and if sleep was not just a fairy tale he
had dreamed about in some other life.
* * * * * * *
A Worldly Agent
When
Jarin woke it was late in the evening and he wandered out into the main room of
their apartments to find Sandar sat in front of the fire, using a whet-stone on
the already sharp edge of the dagger he had earlier seen him place into the hand
of the fat rapist, thereby accusing him of the castration Sandar himself had
performed so efficiently. As Jarin dressed in clothes now dried out in
front of the fire Sandar noticed his look and smiled. "Funny
how anything worth anything always ends up in one of the witnesses' hands in
this sort of place. Not an hour after you had gone to sleep a toothless
old beggar woman knocked on the door and sold it back to me for four pence."
He balanced it at the hilt on his forefinger before spinning it up to fall
handle first into his waiting hand, then with a practiced movement it
disappeared into it's sheath within his boot. Jarin finished dressing and
hoisted his walking stick from where it had laid on the threadbare couch.
"Manator
told us to explore and learn with every chance we got. You feel up to
doing a little exploring before we eat dinner?" Jarin said.
"Yes
Sire. . . Master!" Sandar corrected himself with a
smile, throwing his overcoat across his shoulders as he took up his staff,
immediately ready to leave. Then, as if by afterthought, he went into the
bedroom where the girl was sleeping. Through the open door Jarin saw him
shake her awake and then say something to her in a low voice that Jarin could
not hear. She turned over and pulled the covers over her head as Sandar
left the room, closing the door behind him.
"What
happened to the slave's collar Sandar?" Jarin questioned,
when he saw that the narrow iron band no longer girded the Colonel's throat.
"Seems
slaves have to sleep and eat in the outhouses, or down in the courtyard.
So I became a freeman." He laughed, "If it
were that easy for all slaves to slip their collars, I wonder how many there
would be left by this time tomorrow wearing an iron necklace?"
To illustrate the craftsmanship of the collar which had previously adorned his
neck, Sandar lifted it from his pocket and with an easy twist opened and closed
it for Jarin's education.
Laughing
together they left the room, locking the door behind them and then they made
their way down the stairs into the tap room. Sandar called for a couple of
tankards of ale and the Innkeeper obliged immediately, using his foot to clear a
place for them near the fire, by pushing a snoring red-faced drunk onto the
floor from the bench he offered them. Two serving wenches appeared without
summons and dragged the still snoring man away without ceremony.
The
room should have been a happy place. It was large, well furnished for a
tap room and there were plenty of people in it, but instead it had the sad, if
not painful atmosphere of people trying very diligently to be happy, but every
so often the false good cheer would wane and one could see that these people had
known better times and missed them greatly. At the far end of the room a
purveyor of pleasure sat with his three charges, picking his nails in a bored
manner with a small knife. The women in his string tried to put on joyful
expressions every time a man looked their way, but no matter how they smiled,
they were without a doubt the least happy people in the room and the iron
collars about their pretty necks looked totally out of place. They were
all young, ranging from perhaps fifteen to twenty and wore well made clothes,
obviously bought second-hand from some drummer. Their eyes showed that
their young lives were marked by a demanded lack of sleep, for the tap room
rarely closed. They each showed signs of suffering from slaps and punches,
delivered by their master every time he saw one of them start to nod off.
One such attack on a tall dark haired girl in a blue dress almost had Sandar up
to defend her honor, but Jarin's hand on his arm restrained him, as the girl
licked the blood from the side of her mouth where her master's hand had slapped
her for whispering to her neighbor. At the same time as all of this was
happening an old man sat near the bar, sixty years old at least, began to argue
with the serving girl who had just brought him a fresh pot. The
establishment's bully boy intervened, listened to the girl's frightened
explanation and then lifted the old man up by his tunic and shook him, until he
suddenly remembered that he had indeed forgotten to pay the girl the copper
necessary to save her from a beating.
The
place stank of wood smoke, stale ale, stale sweat and a lack of airing and soon
Jarin began to feel confined. He touched Sandar's arm, nodded towards the
door and Sandar willingly followed him out into the cold courtyard. A
dozen or more dirty hands reached out to them begging alms, with their owners
prepared to jump out of the way of the well aimed kick they expected for their
trouble. Instead Sandar's knife appeared in his hand and the beggars
disappeared almost as fast as the blade had appeared. Jarin led the way,
not out onto the main street, but into the narrow thoroughfare which ran behind
the Inn, the same one they had looked down upon from their rooms earlier.
It
was dark now, even though it was at least an hour before the evening meal would
be served and there had been a fall of snow while Jarin had slept. It had
improved the look of this mean street markedly. Here and there along it's
length a torch burnt in it's bracket, throwing a circle of yellow light onto the
snow and every barn and workshop seemed to have it's own fire and collection of
lamps spilling light onto the thoroughfare. The street was a hive of
activity with people coming and going about all kinds of work and
commerce. Peddlers shouted their wares, ranging from ribbons to hot pies
and even on this cold night a few ladies of the street approached them with
promises of the pleasures of paradise, spoken out of yellowed teeth and carried
on breath tainted with cheap wine. It seemed to be a prosperous place for
all it's squalor, yet the only children they saw were not playing, they were
rolling empty barrels into lines, or carrying rolls of cloth, or speeding in rag
wrapped feet with what were obviously messages considered important by their
masters.
Jarin
and Sandar walked along the pavement in isolation from the other inhabitants and
observed the industry of that street for nearly an hour. It took them only
a few minutes to realize that what had appeared to be joviality when they had
come out of the Inn, was indeed only rudeness and bickering. Inside the
workshops slaves chained to their anvils hammered out plow shares, pots and pans
and other assorted iron work, while others sweated to manhandle bales of straw,
or stack sacks of charcoal and grain, sweep out storage space or pump bellows,
with sweat running down their staring faces even on so cold a night as this
one. Even the five horses they saw during their walk were all skin and
bones and pulling loads far to great for them in a single drive, so they would
stop and lather, wild eyed, while some oaf with a stick beat on their flanks to
make them move again. In all their time on the street they only saw two
troopers from the City's Garrison and they were drunk and busy bullying a pair
of slaves who had crawled into a convenient doorway, to escape their labors for
a few minutes.
Jarin
had taken about all he could of this tortured place and was about to return to
the Inn, where at least they could enjoy the privacy of their rooms, when a
voice whispered one word at him. Manator."
The owner of the voice was a well dressed middle aged man, small of stature and
boasting a well trimmed gray beard.
"Guardian."
Sandar replied, before Jarin could say anything.
"Welcome
to Hell, Master Tassinar. My name is Perigan Marlingar."
The man smiled in a wistful way, "It was not always like this,
but then that could be said of any city in the land today I suppose."
He turned and started walking back towards the Inn with them, trudging through
the snow which was fast turning to a dirty slush. "I have
performed the task entrusted to me Gentlemen and your journey from this place is
prepared for you. An hour's walk south of the City, you will find horses
for you to ride and pack horses bearing the requested trade goods. You
will see a large round rock beside the road, behind the rock you will find a
track, follow it over the ridge and my people will have everything you need
waiting for you." He stopped, looked carefully at each of
them in turn, then turned to cross the street. As he left them he called
back over his shoulder, "Good Night Gentlemen. May you
travel safely."
* * * * * * *
A Different World
The
next morning after a hearty breakfast and with Liana in tow, Jarin and Sandar
left the City of Norden and set out on their journey towards the south.
Jarin had thought to object to taking the girl with them, but on second thoughts
realized that she assisted their disguise, once Sandar had her cleaned up and
wearing some newly-acquired clothes. The girl had accepted Sandar's offer
with joy and the clothes with the excitement of a birthday present.
She
was a tiny little thing, standing about five feet tall and as lithe as a racing
dog. Her skin was a light copper in color, with a healthy shine to it that
looked as if she had been bathed in the finest soaps and massaged with the most
expensive oils all of her life. Her hair was almost black with golden
highlights and was as thick as the fur on an otter, hanging down her back almost
to her waist like a thick mane. Her bone structure reminded Jarin of the
carving on his Khanlar pieces back in Lunza, making her face look like it had
been sculpted with a loving hand and, to cap it all off, she had the largest
amber colored eyes Jarin had ever seen. Apart from the narrowness of her
waist and the mounds of her budding breasts, she had a figure which could only
be described as boyish, until she walked away from you, when the pure pride that
only a woman can exhibit when just walking, exuded from her every step.
The dress that the serving woman had brought the night before was packed away
somewhere and now she was wearing an outfit that would have made a stranger
think she was indeed the daughter of a rich merchant. Her tunic was of
dark green serge, held at the waist with a thin leather belt and her riding
skirt was of a lighter shade of the same color, ending near her ankles over knee
high riding boots which were topped with black otter fur. Around her
shoulders she had on a black cloak, fastened at the neck with a bronze broach of
heavy Dynlarian design and her hands were hidden by soft black leather gloves.
Sandar
had dressed her to his taste shortly after breakfast, having taken her out into
Norden and outfitting her at a small tailor's shop near the palace. They
had returned to the Inn with her striding along beside the Colonel for all the
world as if she were a soldier in his company, her strong young teeth flashing a
brilliant white smile of gratitude at him every time he noticed her with a word
or a glance. As they had left the city Sandar had told her to keep her
words to a minimum to ensure they did not change their mind about taking her
with them. She had said nothing other than "Yes sir" and
"No sir" from that moment on.
Perhaps
the most striking thing about the City of Norden to come to Jarin that morning
was the obvious age and lasting quality of the place. The great stone
blocks which had been used to build the major structures of the place had been
aged by time and the constant attack of the elements, until one suddenly
realized how many years it would take for the water dripping from a stone gully
to wear away the flagstones beneath it. Or the great oak beams which
served to hold the doors of the Inn, which had aged into iron-like columns,
becoming gray with age. Or the sudden realization that even the
cobblestones of the street were showing the sign of centuries of feet walking on
them. Norden was an ancient city, continuing it's relentless march through
time and making it's inhabitants the less important for the very fact that they
would be born, live their lifetimes and die, without ever so much as making a
mark upon the place. Like a mindless giant Norden served it's inhabitants
without ever changing, Jarin guessed. A huge prison for humanity, where
time stood still as the centuries passed outside of it's walls.
As
their small party walked through the gates and out of the city, Jarin felt a
feeling of relief he had never experienced before and was glad that their
journey away from that place had begun. The road meandered southward and
the horses and pack animals did indeed await them just over an hour's walk from
the city. They were by no means thoroughbreds, but they seemed hardy and
reasonably well-fed animals. The servant who held them pending their
arrival was a deaf and dumb creature, who retreated from them when they tried to
thank him and finally took off at a run, when Sandar's gruff manners frightened
him. Nevertheless the gain of the animals and the goods they carried, put
them all in high spirits and they continued their journey in a much better mood
than they had started it.
For
several hours they traveled ever southward enjoying the scenery of the mountains
to their right and the river valley and meadows to their left and soon the sun
came out and cast it's winter brightness on the land, helping them to forget the
sooner the nightmares that were the lives of poor people in the city of
Norden. Pine forests are the most common sight along the road south from
the city of Norden, huge towering spires of green majesty that scent the air and
contrast to the slabs of bare blue gray rock that make the mountains in that
land.
Much
of the Nation of Norden is made up of moors that are famous for their huge
flocks of sheep and the fertile rolling weald where some of Khanlar's best wheat
was harvested each year, yet the main road south from the City of Norden
followed a desolate river valley of broken rock and virgin pine forest.
After the city it was clean and invigorating, still cold enough to brace the
skin, but made easier by the weak winter sunlight and it was quiet. So
quiet in fact that the echoes of their horses' hooves striking stone rang back
to them like drum shots from the towering rocks around them.
They
were so lost in enjoying the solitude, that the sound of a gong high up in the
trees to their right made even the horses jump with shock. It sounded
three times, not loud, yet obviously sounded without fear of who might hear it.
"There.
To the right of that pointed rock!" Sandar stood in his
stirrups, pointing up at a small figure standing beside the rock.
"What
is it?" Liana asked no one in particular, her voice tinged
with fear.
"Gods
know who it is, I suggest we go and find out." Jarin said.
"Maybe
I'd better go." Sandar said, "It could be a
trap."
Jarin
did not answer and Sandar heeled his horse to move up into the trees towards the
dark robed figure, who had obviously realized that he had been seen, yet still
stood where they had first sighted him. Sandar's horse picked it's way
carefully up the slope, until they could see him beside the cloaked figure
holding the small brass gong, which caught the sunlight every now and then and
Jarin could see that they were in conversation. At last Sandar turned back
towards them and waved for them to join him. That in itself was not so
easy, for the pack horses would have preferred to have stayed on the trail,
however in a short space of time they had climbed the slope and could look down
upon the stranger.
What
Jarin had taken to be a man was in fact a slightly built woman, well past
middle-age and dressed in well made, if simple and unadorned clothes. She
was physically small, one might even say frail, yet her bearing was confident
and the sparkle in her eyes as she greeted them, contrasted totally from the
general dismay they had encountered in the eyes of the citizens of Norden.
Two well behaved dogs lay at her feet, jumping up with obvious joy when she
spoke to them and they ran ahead of her as the woman led them along an almost
invisible path, with Jarin's party following the woman's brisk pace.
They
followed the trail for half an hour, before she turned into a small break in the
rocks and led them into a hollow that was almost a valley, surrounded as it was
by tree covered slopes. There, held in it's secluded safety, a hamlet of
less than a dozen well kept buildings awaited them. The cottages and barns
were obviously old, several centuries at least Jarin guessed, however they had benefited
from generations of loving care and set as they were in carefully
tended and walled gardens, they presented a picture that a pastoral artist might
have chosen to dedicate to posterity.
It
had always struck Jarin as strange that certain places in this world are able to
give one the feeling of happiness and safety by the very air that surrounds
them. This village was such a place. There was no litter to be seen
anywhere, no broken farm implements or wagons waiting for nature to rot and rust
them away, no banks of weeds and no unfinished or collapsing walls. The
place had the feeling of being loved and kept beautiful, purely because the
people who lived there wished it that way. Fruit trees, bare in these
winter months, had been carefully pruned in the small orchards which stood
behind each house and flower beds and vegetable gardens had been turned ready
for the Spring planting. A thatcher was working on the roof of one of the
buildings, a roof that already looked better than any Jarin had seen in Atlar or
Norden and in the blacksmith's shop the smith was honing a plow share, sending
streams of sparks from his grinding wheel, flying and dying like a shower of
falling stars in the shadows of the smithy. A dozen or so children were
chasing a hoop along the street, all of them warmly dressed and wearing
shoes. Yet the most striking thing about the place was that there were no
slaves to be seen anywhere.
The
woman led them to one of the houses and bid them tie their horses to the
hitching posts and then she ushered them into her home. There is a
difference between a house and a home that Jarin had almost forgotten since
leaving Havor's Holding. A home is a place where a family has arranged
it's treasures for the visitor to enjoy, without the obvious show of one who
needs to display everything that they have managed to accumulate, this place was
such a home. A young man came in while they were divesting themselves of
their cloaks and was sent to feed, water and house the animals, while they were
sat down at a freshly scrubbed table, to enjoy a hot meal of mutton stew and
fresh-baked bread.
They
were to spend several days in the hamlet of Paramal, days of quiet conversation
with the simple, yet intelligent and educated people who had escaped the
hardships of the war and it's aftermath due to their isolation and seclusion in
this place. That first evening Wernat the smith explained how during the
war, armies had marched within a few miles of them, stripping the land of
everything, yet missing Paramal and it's inhabitants, hidden away as they were
in their little valley.
"This
place being locked in it's own small valley, tucked in the other side of the
ridge you crossed from the road, has meant that almost no-one ever comes here or
knows about it. We see the Buyer once a year, but he is more interested in
keeping us a secret than we are." Wernat laughed at that and
took a generous swig of his mug of home brewed beer.
"Why
would that be Wernat?" Sandar asked.
"Digman
Passant, that's the buyer. . ." Wernat wiped his mouth with a
big work hardened hand, ". . .well him an' his fathers a' fore him, have made a tidy penny out of us I don't wonder, so's telling everyone
we're here would give him competition. He don't want that, an' we don't
want folks to know we're 'ere. So everyone is happy see? During the
war we used to keep a lookout up on the ridge where Massira waited for you
today. Gods know how many armies we counted during the war, going one way
or the other, up or down the main road, an' none of 'em ever even guessed we was
'ere you know."
Chumana,
the midwife who farmed a small holding of an acre or so, took up the
conversation then and explained how her husband had gone off to the war and
returned a cripple, whom she had buried several months later. "He
was a foreigner you know," She added as an
afterthought, "From up in the City of Predon. He was
visiting his mother when the Prince up there decided to recruit an army.
Poor old Manigor just got unlucky and the next thing he knew he was fighting
some battle down in Mozag he said. They won the battle he told me, but one
of the men he killed got him in the leg with a pike. He run off that night
an' made his way back here. He died a month or so later though, wasn't
nothing we could do for him though, the poison had already spread too far you
see."
They
each took their turn in the conversation and they all talked as if somehow
Khanlar was a million miles away, or as if they were talking about a place lost
in the mists of history and they seemed content to wait the years that they
expected would be necessary for the world to recover from it's insanity, before
they would be able to again join with it and the future. Like a time
capsule, Paramal had escaped the years of woe and hardships that Khanlar had
suffered, just as had Havor's holding which have saved Jarin, yet the Guardians
had known of them Jarin realized and had interceded on their behalf for these
people to wait for them and bring them into their world.
When
finally the time came for them to move on, Sandar talked to Massira, the woman
who had waited for them on the mountain slope and he arranged that Liana would
stay on with her. The old woman greeted the idea with joy and she and
Liana were standing arm in arm and smiling, as Wernat the smith led Sandar and
Jarin back to the road. Later that day as they rode towards Zikon, Jarin
asked Sandar the question that had been on his mind for some time, "How
many places do you think have survived like Paramal has Sandar, just hidden away
from the mainstream and waiting for sanity to return to the land?"
Jarin said.
"Khanlar
is a land where there are many such out of the way places, hidden hamlets and
holdings." Sandar answered, "It would be my
guess Sire, that there are more people living like those we have just left than
the Church would care to admit to, or would like to have to think about too
often."
"I
hope so Sandar." Jarin said seriously, "For
it is the good people like them that the future depends upon, ordinary people
who have not been driven down by the fear and greed that these last few years
have scarred so many of our citizens with. It will be the simplicity and
goodness of folk like those we have just left, that our civilization will need
to depend upon to allow us to survive and grow." How pompous
and boorish the words sounded, yet once said he could not contradict them, for
they did indeed describe his beliefs exactly.
Paramal was to occupy Jarin's mind for many weeks after they had left it's tranquility. The simple morality and goodness of it's people was to give him hope for the future, when everything else about him in Khanlar only served to feed his fears that perhaps the population had been hardened to the point of never being able to change.
* * * * * * *
A Merchant Prince
In
the following days the two men traveled south and in the hamlets, villages and
holdings along the way they worked as merchants, in fact they proved quite
efficient at their newly adopted profession and were to end their adventure with
a modestly large profit, an impressive accomplishment seeing that they were
complete beginners at the art of trading. Jarin also began to understand
the reasoning behind the Council's demand that he go out and move among the
people of Khanlar, for it became clearer to him the further they traveled, that
he had in fact known little or nothing about the actual lives of the population
of Khanlar in general before this trip. Little things, personal
experiences and seeing the nuances of behavior in the people they met, actually
pointed out to him an understanding of the underlying lack of morale and trust
in others that was epidemic throughout the land. Years of deprivation,
hardship and daily reminders of their helplessness within the system, had
created a way of life the people as individuals could only endure, with the
patience that only the acceptance of hopelessness is able to muster.
The
obvious lack of security felt by the Church since the War, had made it's mark
upon every level of the social strata. Many of the local laws, imposed by
local Priests or Guard Commanders, tax collectors or even local government
officials, seemed not only to make life more difficult for everyone, but at
times it seemed that they had no basis at all in the true needs of the
situation, or even in the basic understanding of reality itself.
No-one,
with the possible exception of the Church hierarchy, the aristocracy, the Army
and local officials, thought in terms of improving their lot any more.
Everyone was far too busy and worried about just holding onto whatever position
they already had. In the day to day existence of the majority of the
population, the future had become something to fear and rather than hoping for
better things, everyone seemed to live in terror of setbacks which could destroy
them. Few people had anything saved anymore, unless they were numbered
amongst the extremely wealthy. Farmers did not plan for bountiful harvests
anymore either, they spent all of their time praying that there would not be a
bad one. Poor artisans did not stockpile the wares they produced, but
instead sold them as soon as a potential buyer appeared, often discounting the
asking price down to a point where they merely made back the cost of the
materials and gained a slave's wages for their labor.
Throughout
the land Jarin was to find that wives tried hard not to become pregnant, though
they rarely seemed to be successful, by the evidence of the swollen bellies
everywhere and single men kept away from marriage, unless there was a large
dowry involved, in which case the lady concerned, no matter her age, character
or beauty, would be sure to find a crowd of willing suitors outside of her door
every hour of the day. Inflation had caused chaos in every market and
endeavor and in the short time they were traveling in Khanlar, the two men saw
the price of winter wheat fluctuate as much as two hundred percent, up and down,
depending upon the amount of daily supplies reaching the marketplace concerned.
Jarin
soon accepted for himself that it is stability of fair prices that brings
confidence to the majority of men and women in the world. The state of
affairs most honest men prefer, will always be that where everyone knows the
worth of everything, for this promotes thrift and husbandry and prevents the
abject despair of the under-privileged lower classes of society.
Continuance of value of those objects and supplies a person needs to support
their family and be productive, also controls the development of that devouring
greed often found in those with ample funds. It is the poor who most often
get caught up in the results of the rich profiting from the financial anarchy of
inflation. In the end of course, those who make greed for wealth their
most important directive in life and play their heartless games with the price
of the basic goods necessary for survival, are the ones who suffer the greatest
personal destruction. For as these exploiters of the situation strive to
make that extra coin on every deal they enter into, above that line which
separates their customers, or victims if you will, from being poor to suffering
the despair of abject poverty, will soon find that at first they will be
despised, then shunned and finally persecuted.
There
was no stability in the everyday life of Khanlar for the majority of people
Jarin and Sandar met in their journey, even those with an above average standard
of living lived with a constant fear of being pushed into poverty by ever
changing prices. Therefore, there was little confidence in the goodness of
man, or open kindness to others, for none felt they could afford such luxuries
as trust, charity or investment in these frightening times.
To
make things even worse for the poor, the sudden flood of slaves onto the market,
made available by the Church's policies after the war, had robbed the laborer
and small craftsman of even their tenuous security of past times. The
fields were worked by men in chains, while the laborers who had previously been
engaged for such work were reduced to begging, or their families suffered
hardships of deprivation through the lack of a regular wage coming into the
household. At the same time, he who had a store of gold could become a
lord within a matter of months, for by buying from those made desperate by
poverty and worry, seeking to just feed their family this month, he would be
able to steal away the land and belongings of the less fortunate. Then, by
purchasing slaves to work at employment previously done by men who had demanded
both care and wages, the rich man could quadruple his hoard of gold with the
profits of a single year and then repeat this system of financial rape again and
again.
What
was most disgusting about this new class of rich people was their adoption of
airs and graces. They all to often developed an exaggerated exhibitionism,
that they tried to disguise behind the all too common front of being religious
and charitable. They would happily turn widows and children out on the
street to make a profit, while buying gifts and holding parties for those in
their employ, where they would quote pious passages from Holy Books and stand up
and praise themselves for their heartless, yet financially rewarding, success,
in front of an audience of their employees, servants and debtors who had no
choice but to applaud them, or risk losing their own source of income. The
pomposity and cruelty of it all made Jarin sick to his stomach just to think
about it. These people would willingly and without concern, destroy the
lives of others just to enrich their own lives a little more with a few more
coins. They were parasites, which any reasonable government would weed out
of the system without debate; however the government of Khanlar was presently
controlled by the very people, the priests, the lawyers and the money-counters,
who lived themselves as parasites upon the parasites.
Jarin
and Sandar traveled through a land where such was the way of things and they
were to see the results it brought in areas that had previously changed little
in a thousand years. Villages which had once been populated by the same
families ever since men could remember, lost their unity and productivity, as
people moved away and were replaced by refugees from even more desperate
conditions. New stone mansions rose on landscaped grounds, while in the
nearby village a poor man's house would be in such disrepair, it was almost
uninhabitable for his family. Honest country folk dressed in rags begged
for work at a wage less than a quarter of what they could have expected before
the War, often to be turned away as slaves were led out to perform the same
tasks for two meager meals a day. The newcomers in the lands that had once
passed from father to son for generations, then spent their ill-gained gold
acquired from others misfortune and bought up the land of their poor
neighbors. They dressed in flamboyant finery and wasted money on trinkets,
while those they took advantage of were reduced to poverty, soon to be moved on
when their despair and need began to affect the conscience of their
exploiters. They contributed to charitable causes only in actual gain, or
as a salve for their conscience, giving back only a meager portion of what they
had gained to create the need for those charities in the first place and doing
little in real terms to actually help the impoverished.
The
result of it all was empty hamlets and holdings across the land, deserted by
their inhabitants. Once proud and happy villages were reduced to a
collection of hovels, with decaying roads and irrigation systems, where illness
and suicides, crime, drunkenness and the reduction of any value to human life,
became so commonplace that few bothered to comment upon it anymore, except in a
passing acceptance of how things had changed. The highways and by-ways
were filled with wandering families, seeking work and hoping that the next
village would hold the answer to their prayers. Holdings failed as old
folk tried to keep them going, after their sons and daughters had either left
home to seek their individual fortunes, or had been bonded out to clear a family
debt brought on by usurious interest and unfair controls on the market for their
labor and produce.
The
small hamlet of Wraenis on the northern side of the River Zafrin, which was the
border between the Nations of Zikon and Mozag, was typical of the economic
decline in the Nations of the former Asigan Alliance. Jarin and Sandar
arrived at it's outskirts late in the day. Here there was none of the
optimism they had seen in Paramal, here there was only despair. The
hundred or so people who made this place their home did not welcome them, but
instead stopped to watch the two strangers in worried silence, as Jarin and
Sandar moved through the hovels which stood in that damp smoky place that
afternoon. There were few men in Wraenis and those that there were, were
either too young to be called men, or were old enough to be grandfathers, yet
most of the women seemed to be either well pregnant, or carrying babies with
them as they worked and in many cases, both!
The
citizens of this poverty stricken hamlet were engaged in the manufacture of
wattles, wickerwork hurdles that they crafted by weaving willow wands together
to produce a woven panel some five feet long and three feet high, which richer
folk than they would use as fences or building materials somewhere. The
raw material for their handiwork grew in abundance along their side of the River
Zafrin and while young boys climbed the trees to hack away the pliable new
growth, young women carried huge bundles of their produce on their backs, each
bundle wrapped in an old blanket and held in place on their bent backs by a wide
rag headband, which allowed the women to maintain their balance as they trudged
through the mud to where older women and the even older men, manufactured the
hurdles, gathered around a wide damply smoking fire, where they burnt off the
waste in an obviously losing battle to ward off the cold.
A
path ran along the banks
of the river, down which Jarin and Sandar had ventured from the bridge carrying
the road they had been following over the river into Mozag. They had
discovered the place after asking a young boy they had met on the road, where
they might find food and lodging for the night and true to his word, the youth
delivered them to a small house at the end of the village where an old man was
tending a small vegetable plot. Thanking the boy and giving him a farthing
for his trouble, they tied their horses to a tree and greeted the man who had by
then ended his gardening.
"We
seek an evening meal and a room for the night." Sandar stated
simply.
"Well
this is the only house in Wraenis where you have a chance of getting it."
The old man said and beckoned them to follow him into the house, leaning his old
hoe against the wall beside the door.
The
front door opened into a large enough room, which served obviously as the living
room, dining room and kitchen and from it four other doors proved to be the only
entrances to the smallest bedrooms the two of them had yet seen on their
journey. It turned out that for Sandar and Jarin to have a room apiece,
five other members of the old man's family would have to sleep elsewhere that
night, but so it was arranged. After bringing all of their trade goods,
saddles and all the other things which might otherwise have been lost during the
night into the house, Jarin and Sandar bribed the landlord with a couple of
coppers to watch their goods and returned outside to better view the village and
it's inhabitants.
Wraenis
had obviously never been a wealthy settlement, but as it looked to the pair of
them as they walked through it today, that there were probably prisons in
Khanlar where people fared better. The houses, if they could truly be
called that for they were more like huts, were built of wattle and daub and
thatched with river reeds, yet all of them were in bad repair and surrounded by
a sea of mud. Their doors were made of planks and none had windows that
they could see, it was obvious also that their stone chimneys were in dire need
of repair. Two erstwhile homes had obviously burnt down in the recent
past, most probably set alight by sparks escaping from those ill built
chimneys. Here and there, a small vegetable garden struggled to survive
and there were a few fruit trees waiting for the spring, but all in all it was a
dismal place and soon both Jarin and Sandar were happy to return to the house.
"Not
a pretty sight is it my Lord?" The old man greeted Jarin, as
his visitor ducked his head to enter the house.
"A
sad place my friend, a sad place indeed." Jarin agreed, as he
took off his overcoat and settled into a chair near the fireplace and asked
their landlord if there might be wine or ale that he might purchase. When
the old man informed them that he not seen either in several months, Jarin
dispatched Sandar to collect a flask of wine from the room they had piled their
trade goods in, then the three of them sat before the fire and shared both it
and some conversation.
The
old man, whose name was Jarindar Wraenis, explained how Wraenis had once been
his father's holding, but had become a hamlet that housed one hundred and
nineteen members of his clan since the war. For it turned out that after
the war first one and then another of the wives and daughters of his brothers,
cousins, sons and nephews had come here after losing their men folks to the war,
or to the chain gangs that had followed it.
"With
their age and hard work, I would have thought those old men would have been too
tired to find the energy to sire as many children as we saw today."
Sandar joked.
"They
did not." The old man looked dismayed as he explained,
"Raped, every one of them or so they say, although it's just as
likely that some of them exchanged favor for favor along the route to get
here. Who knows?"
Three
young women entered the house then, two of them heavily pregnant, and began
preparing the evening meal, which turned out to be no more than adding a few
more vegetables and a couple of newly snared rabbits to the huge iron pot, which
had obviously been simmering in the hearth all day. Soon the whole
population of the village began arriving in groups of twelve or so to be given
bowls of the soup, leaving as they came with a small nod of respect and thankful
look or smile to the old man, who returned each nod with one of his own.
Some of them brought vegetables with them, which they left as if in payment on a
small table set up just inside the door, obviously for tomorrow's meal.
Within an hour the play had ended and the three young women served Jarindar,
Jarin and Sandar with their meal. After serving the old man and his paying
guests they ate also, squatting down near the door as they hungrily spooned the
stew into their drawn and tired faces, seeming to choose that place for it's
being as far as they could get from the men.
The
meal done Sandar returned his bowl to the hearth near the pot and then addressed
the old man. "Jarindar." Sandar stood with
his hands on his hips, his shadow cast from the fire almost filling the
room. "Have you heard that ex-members of the Brotherhood are
being offered work and homes on the island of Dag working for the Guardians of
Lunza."
"Aye,
I have heard that. Is it true?" Tiredness waxed through
the old man as he spoke, ". . .and if it be, how could I
transport this lot halfway across the world to take advantage of it?"
"Would
you rather stay here?" Sandar asked in disbelief.
"Aye,
if we could bring a few changes in, I think we would be a lot better off staying
here. There is still a market for wattles you know. Mind you it
would take a lot more changes than we could bring together to achieve any kind
of life worth living these days, otherwise I would have done it already."
"What
would you need to make life livable here then?" Jarin asked.
"Money!"
The old man laughed, ". . .and a lot of it, which there is
not. Money for a horse and cart to transport the wattles to Mozag or
Zikon. Money to buy medicine and food and a cow or two so's the young ones
could get milk. Money for clothes, for pots and pans and for axes and
hammers. See what I mean, these days we need so much just to be poor."
"How
much?" Jarin asked quietly.
"Thirty
crowns at least." Jarindar Wraenis stopped smiling, the
number obviously crushing his enjoyment of the conversation.
"Then
I will buy half of your profit for next year for fifty crowns."
Jarin replied.
The
old man looked like he was going to faint, first jumping from his seat as if a
wasp had just stung him and then sitting down again as quickly.
Jarin
reached inside his pocket and extracted a purse and from it he counted twenty
golden crowns onto the arm of his chair in piles of five coins each, unable not
to notice the looks of amazement on the faces of the young women squatting down
by the door, rewarding their shock with a smile.
"I'll
take your money, an' glad to do so my Lord, but why would you do such a thing
for people like us?" Jarindar accepted the golden coins into
his hands, while the three women by the door looked on in astonishment.
"You are obviously rich folks my Lord, why would you care about a few
more pennies in profit from the few wattles I might be able to sell?"
Jarin
tried to adopt the countenance of a wise and wily merchant, so that he would not
expose himself for the soft-hearted fool he was probably being, before he
answered.
"You
trust me then not to just take your money, change my name and run for some far
off city my Lord?" Jarindar obviously still had trouble
believing in his good fortune.
"Trust
you? More than that my friend," Jarin replied,
"I
expect you to devote your life to fostering and nurturing our enterprise for the
benefit of not just our contract, but for the security of all of your clan whom
you have brought together in this place. I expect the babes soon to drop
from the bellies of those two girls there to drink sweet milk from your own
cows, and for the children I watched in industry earlier, to eat good food in
the weeks to come. I expect you to use my coin to repair this sorry place
and provide for it's people, to till the ground and bring forth a crop, and to
build my fortune as you build your own."
"What
else do you want?" The words came from a small blond haired
girl, one of the women who had prepared their meal, her belly swollen by eight
or nine months of carrying some man's seed. She could be no more than
seventeen years old.
"Quiet
girl!" Jarindar snapped at her, making her pull back
immediately, her face colored by that immediate embarrassed sulk youth will
retreat into when reprimanded by their elders.
"Nothing
child." Jarin addressed her,
"I am a
follower of the One and Only God, and I give you this money to assist all
involved, there are no secret bargains or hidden intent in my offer. Your
need financed this way may well assist my own needs, but should it not I have
given the coin openly to you knowing all the risks I have accepted by doing
so."
"The
Gods bless you my Lord." The girl offered by way of apology.
"Child
I care not what the old gods, as you call them think, I only care that the One
and Only God shall bless the seed I intended to plant this night with my
offer. In fact I will give you something worth far more than the coins I
give your grandfather tonight, or the profit I shall share with this place in
the years to come." Jarin pulled from his tunic a scroll and
handed it towards the young woman. She half crawled, half walked across
the small room to take it from his outstretched hand. "This is
my own copy of the Laws of the One and Only God, it is my present to you and
your child. Can you read?"
"Aye
my Lord." She responded, already unrolling the paper.
"Then
you have received something far better and worth more than any gold can buy,
than any of us have received from our bargain tonight my dear."
Jarin said, as he watched the girls eyes move to read the words, her lips
mouthing them as a child will do while she did so.
They
talked a little more that evening and Jarin and Sandar slept well in Jarindar's
rooms that night and left Wraenis just after dawn the following morning, heading
their horses towards the City of Mozag. Sent forth by a crowd of smiling
and happy people, as if they were indeed sending two of their own sons off to
make their fortunes.
Jarin,
his beard now beginning to fill out to be every inch the product of a healthy
and successful merchant, arrived in the City of Mozag on a cold but clear
afternoon, when the lake beneath the city shone like a silver mirror reflecting
the light blue sky above it. It was a sorry place, for these days it's
position on Lake Asiga had turned it into a staging town for Northerners heading
into the southern half of Khanlar to make their fortunes, or it entertained
those who came to this place to buy the produce of those occupied lands as it
entered the North. It was a place of profit, not a city that men invested
in with an eye to the future. In Mozag, the large ferries and ships
unloaded their cargoes directly onto the docks, to be transported a few hundred
yards to where they would immediately become the subject of haggling merchants
from all over the north.
Mozag
had always been a city of commerce, yet in the years since the Great War it had
deteriorated to the point where there were none of the softer signs of it also
being the home of a homogeneous and caring citizenry. Today every house,
every street and every alley was merely a place where a deal could be made, or a
price haggled. Those buildings that were home to the newcomers, who had
emigrated here upon the fall of the Asigan Alliance, were obviously only the
temporary dwellings of men who saw their futures elsewhere. Many of the
prestigious homes of the original upper and middle class inhabitants of the city
had been converted to overnight hostelries for visiting merchants, or worse
still housed openly advertised dens of iniquity for men (and women), who would
pander to their more basic cravings here, while pretending the lives of upright
and religious folk in their own home environments. Here slaves could be
rented to perform grotesque acts of degradation upon each other, for the
titillation of people who at home with their families would decry such
behavior. Here taverns were the most profitable enterprise only after the
brothels and the only law that was available was that of coin.
Cattle
were herded into the courtyards of what had once been fine houses to be kept
until they were sold, prodded by men in a hurry along the main streets of the
city with no-one to clean them later. Furniture, clothing and household
goods that had been bought, or more likely looted, from what remained of the
occupied lands, were carted through the city to great auctions where the pride
of southern craftsmanship exchanged hands in assorted lots. Jarin and
Sandar stopped for a few moments at one such auction, watching slaves in chains
loading and unloading four great carts of household furniture, destined for sale
on a hastily erected auctioning block.
"Another
load of rubbish." The speaker was, Sandar noted, obviously a
merchant from somewhere in the North West by his accent. "I
guess there ain't nothing left worth selling in the Occupied Lands after all
these years of combing 'em."
"Makes
you wonder what they're using down there if we keep bringing it out, doesn't
it." Jarin ventured, trying to egg the man on for more
information.
"Always
the way you know. By the way the name's Lirisar Sapurtan, from Samur." The merchant offered, his eyes never leaving the
merchandise in front of them. "War will always share out the
spoils amongst the victors, until the defeated have nothing left. But
compared to the deals I made a few years back, this stuff was hardly worth the
trip. Five crowns the lot!" A set of furniture had
caught his eye and while he bargained with the auctioneer Jarin and Sandar
slipped away.
"Five
crowns. That set was worth fifty plus cartage for what he'll sell it for
in Samur." Sandar commented as they walked.
"Like
he said, the victors always get the spoils." Jarin noted
aloud.
They
met with their contact, the merchant Zamoran, a little later and confirmed
Jarin's deal with the old man of Wraenis. Zamoran turned out to be a
slightly overweight Mozag who wore his clothes with an effeminate style, yet
when he talked he obviously was not a man to be trifled with and there was
nothing effeminate about him beneath the clothing he had adopted as a
disguise. While they shared a luncheon in the dining room of the Holy Star
near the docks, his eyes rarely concentrated upon them, instead he seemed to be
continuously taking mental snapshots of everything that happened around
them. A great number of the passers by nodded to him, or openly showed
their respect of him with their greetings, while Jarin established his support
for the deal he had made with the wattle maker and his clan. Jarin and
Sandar shared a happy lunch with the man before taking the ferry across the lake
to Asiga late that afternoon.
The
ferry Lady of Minas was no more than an oversized row boat, employing forty
slaves beneath the great open deck. It's age was attested to by the color
of the oak planks with which it was constructed and the almost glass like
surface of a deck that had been polished by generations of shuffling feet of
passengers crowded aboard it's open promenade. Like a great engine it
traveled across the sparkling water of Lake Asiga with a well learned purpose,
it's great oars dipping and lifting in ice cold showers of diamond like
displacements each time they left the water. The monotonous beat of the
timing drum soon became unconsciously accepted, so that when it ended as the
oars were lifted and they coasted into the dock at Asiga, the silence hung
around them for several minutes.
Asiga
was all that Jarin had dreamed it would be and the great Marketplace that
Manator had described to Kirene and he as they had traveled to Atlar, Jarin
found to be even a greater marvel of architecture and engineering than the
Guardian General had promised them. Asiga had an air of timelessness and
solidity that no city, not even Norden, had impressed upon Jarin. Every
stone looked as if it had been in it's place for a thousand years, every tree
and hedge grew as if designed by the Gods themselves for the position it
occupied in that place. The Great Marketplace was everything that Jarin
had imagined. Built to last a millennium, it was almost religious in it's
adherence to line and form, balance and counter-balance. The Guild Halls
were marvels of architecture and the small communities of shops and inns which
grew up between them, were the essence of taste and civilized life. Jarin
and Sandar spent three days in the market, soaking up the sophistication and
splendor which abounded there, even in the sad times they were now in, but
eventually they decided to move on and they left Asiga and journeyed through the
western portion of Natan until they reached the Monastery City of Mansa late one
morning some days later.
* * * * * * *
The
Monks of Mansa
The
monks of Mansa were of a Military Order, which had once been a fashion, but had
now been reduced to that city and no more than a handful of smaller such
settlements across the Nations. Centuries before the Warrior Monks had
served the Church as an elite in the domination of the Nations of Khanlar and
their deeds in those far off days were legendary and the stories which many a
young Khanlarian boy grew up on. Mansa still had that look of power and
permanence, crowning the top of a hill which grew out of a lake in the forests
of northern Dang. A great causeway of stone linked the castle to the Great
Road as it cut through that virgin landscape, unchanged before the fortified
city's construction for a thousand years. There were no graceful minarets
here, no pretty leaded windows nor architectural features for beauty.
Mansa was a simple, if huge, stone fort where men learned the art of war and the
code of religious warriors, but nature had still managed to give it a beauty
that men had not cared to give it. The great sun bleached stones with
which it was constructed and the green open swath of grass around it, were set
in a blue virgin lake surrounded by a mature forest, like a jewel in an
expensive setting.
Jarin
could not but compare this imposing place to the small countrified town of Kiba,
which had once been the home of a similar history. Mansa was to Kiba what
a broadsword is to a dinner knife, it's greatness magnified by the great lake
and forest around it.
At
the end of the half mile long causeway was a fortified gate house that guarded
the massive oak drawbridge which gave access to the causeway itself. Here
Jarin and Sandar handed over their licenses and papers and requested that they
be allowed to offer their wares within the city and gain a night's
lodging. The four guards who held the gate house were all dressed in full
chain mail coats and wore great closed helmets in the fashion of two hundred
years before, yet their manners would have suited teachers or priests as well as
they did warriors. They welcomed the travelers and soon Jarin and Sandar
had entered the city over the drawbridge at the other end of the causeway which
guarded the entrance to the main walls.
Once
inside they made their way to the city's hostelry and arranged for a night's
lodging. Then they led their pack horses to the small square set off the
main courtyard where they found an empty stall and laid out their trade goods
for all to see. There were no mud roads or dirty alleys in this city,
every courtyard, square, thoroughfare and lane was cobbled and kept clean by
small bands of novices, who seemed everywhere engaged as men always are on army
installations. Everything was neat, clean and well maintained and here and
there throughout the city great trees grew in stately maturity, making one
realize by their age just how many generations of short lived men they had seen
pass through this place over the centuries. With regularity small troops
of fully equipped knights marched from one place to another, two abreast and
always in step, as they went from one training hall to another or from the
barracks or dining rooms to the library, which was famous throughout Khanlar for
it's volumes describing both the Order and military tactics of centuries of
history, a place where Jarin and Sandar were to spend many expensive hours.
The
library occupied the third and uppermost floor of the largest building in
Mansa. Over three hundred feet long and eighty feet wide, its walls were
lined with bookcases crafted from local oak and were no less than fifteen feet
high. Along one wall seven great windows, which all faced south, allowed
light into the room all day long and at night heavy chandeliers festooned with
hard wax candles allowed the library to be used well into the morning hours.
In
the center of the room the longest table either of them had ever seen, stood in
regal grandeur surrounded by fifty identical chairs. Two young men acted
as the librarians, bringing to them books on any subject the collection held,
placing them upon the table in front of the visitor as if they were antiques and
works of art, which in fact many of them proved to be. In this silent
temple to literature every fact having bearing upon the art of warfare was
described, in books dating back to the times of their great-great-grandfathers,
a time when this place was the greatest university for warriors in the whole
world. There would not be many visitors here Jarin noted, for they were
charged a golden crown each to enter the place with an agreement to leave within
three days, or they would need to pay again.
Jarin
and Sandar read about the heroes and generals of the past, their strategies and
tactics, as they were victorious, or they were defeated, throughout Khanlar's
turbulent history. Battles whose names had long been forgotten sprang to
life from those pages, names that men no longer remembered were feted and given
triumphs, deeds of valor and acts of disgrace were catalogued for them in detail
and slowly both men came to agree, that somewhere along the path of history the
art of warfare had become a dogmatic and codified procedure that no-one had
questioned for hundreds of years. There was a way to conduct a war, it was
described in detail in book after book, nuance after nuance, which had not been
challenged, improved or changed in generations. And this discovery alone
made their adventure worthwhile, considering what they were planning to
undertake in the not too distant future.
Mansa
was the greatest producer of Generals and senior officers of the Church Army,
sending forth it's graduates like a great University and during the afternoons
that Jarin and Sandar traded with it's inhabitants, they learned of the great
pride, discipline, tradition and sense of history the warrior monks seemed bred
to within this place, but it was in the evening when they retired to the
hostelry, that they learned the most about their enemy's officer corps.
The
hostelry was home to all visitors to Mansa, for there were no families or
private houses in this place. Next to the hostelry was a large pensioner's
house, where they discovered no less than two hundred retired warrior monks
living under the care of their Order. Many of the younger of these
pensioners visited the hostelry in the evening to meet with friends and
relatives, staying there while they visited them. Jarin and Sandar fell
into conversation with one of these pensioners and his younger brother, who was
visiting him from the Nation of Rangar, the first evening they were in
Mansa. Both men were in their late sixties or early seventies and the
younger one took little encouraging to discuss the changes in Khanlar since they
were both Jarin's age.
"You
would not believe how the world has changed since we were your age young
merchant. . ." Sangitor said with a smile more wistful
for the past than happy, ". . .and your lot is the worse for it
I would bet. When we were young everything was dictated by tradition and
so little changed from year to year a man could look at his life like an
unfolding carpet, knowing what the rest of the design would be, merely by
knowing what he had already seen. Today life is more like a scarf made up
of tying many small pieces of different width, strength and color together and
rather than unrolling a carpet, life is now more like pulling that scarf through
a hole in the fence. You never know what is coming in the next minute, let
alone next year, nor can you judge when it might end, or break in the
pulling." Sangitor's brother merely nodded in agreement,
neither offering comment or debate to his younger brother's monologue.
"When
I was young I lived in the same holding our family had lived in for five hundred
years and when Rolingar here left for Mansa, it was a tradition of many
generations and as the eldest son it never occurred to him to argue with our
father. With my sons now. . . the eldest refused and moved to Eron
to marry the daughter of a wealthy merchant there, (no insult intended sir), my
second son also refused and now it looks like neither of their sons is going to
follow my brother here into the Order. Five hundred years of honor
thrown out the window with no more thought or feeling than tossing aside a used
toothpick."
"Sometimes.
. ." Jarin ventured ". . .traditions outlive
their usefulness, or lose their power of conviction, do you think your sons
might have thought that the great days of the Order of Mansa were already part
of history?"
"Perhaps,
but it's not just that, it's everything in Khanlar as far as I can tell.
It is as if this part of History is ending and another is about to begin.
Show me a man with honor or pride and I will show you a man past his
prime. The young of today do not appear to be committed to anything, other
than the mundane act of just living. Add to that the breakdown in the
social structure and you will begin to see that I am right. No one knows
his place anymore, because gold is far more important today than honor and
everyone knows that when that happens, you are well on your way to a lawless
society."
"I
thought during the last War that perhaps we might see a resurgence of our Order.
. ." Rolingar ventured,
". . .Several of our
members served well during it you know. Even I got to help with the
training, but it was over too soon and won without much opposition so things
went back to normal within weeks of the end of it."
"Be
a good thing too." His brother chimed in,
"Gods
know some of today's soldiers ain't much better'n the outlaws they'se
fighting." The drink was beginning to blur the man's words.
"May
be a chance yet." Said Rolingar,
"Old
Toragor was made General of the Army a while back, he did his training here you
know and right now he is one of our most famous members. But I doubt if
they will ever field an army of monks again, we'll just be used to staff the
Officer Corps. Pity really, 'cause a legion of us would wipe out these
leftovers of the old Brotherhood in no time, if they would give us the orders to
go out and do it, you know."
"You
are so sure of that my friend?" It was Sandar who
spoke, "The Church Army has had thousands of men trying to do
just that for near on five years or more and it just gets worse. How can
any army handle such a situation? There is no one to fight. They
come out of hiding, strike, and then disappear before the soldiers can get
there."
"It
is only difficult because the soldiers of today are soldiers only because they
don the uniform to survive, not to achieve anything. These peasants and
plough boys, tavern vermin and laborers, have no Cause. They wear the
uniform, only because it gives them three meals a day and an income and if they
took it off they would be dead in a year. What the Church needs is some
men with conviction. Men who would take up the challenge as a thing of
honor, not these illiterate louts who strut proud during the daytime and hide up
with their cheap liquor at night."
"So
say you were in command," Jarin prompted the old soldier, "How
would you deal with the remnants of the Brotherhood?"
"Chain
Attack!" The old warrior monk replied emphatically, "Chain
Attack. Draw up a skirmish line of these untrained troops the Church calls
an Army these days, from the Northern Coast south to the Waterway, shoulder to
shoulder, with formations of cavalry paced behind them, like a great human
chain. Then advance eastward one step at a time towards the eastern coast
driving the vermin before us. Eventually we would have them all between us
and the ocean. An' 'fore you throw a knife in the soup, I'd have ferries
and barges full of crossbowmen the length of the waterway, to prevent the vermin
from swimming across and escaping us. Then do the same on the southern
continent. Six months an' they'd all be dead or in chains!"
Jarin
winced. The plan was simple and forthright and it would work. Inside
he gratefully thanked the Gods that Rolingar was pensioned off and not giving
his simple, yet brilliant, advice to the Priest of Priests right now. And
so they talked, a Prince/merchant, a soldier/body servant, a farmer/grandfather
and a Knight/pensioner. They talked until most had gone to their beds and
when finally they said goodnight to each other and retired to their own beds,
Jarin felt as if he had witnessed the end of an Era that evening.
* * * * * * *
The
Village of Grandar
So
it was that Sandar and Jarin passed through the Nations of Norden, Zikon, Mozag,
Asiga and Dang, as often as they could keeping away from the main cities until
they came to the village of Grandar in the Nation of Natan, at the halfway point
between the monastery town of Mansa and the City of Sedanna and it was in
Grandar that they saw how in time, even the most oppressive system will destroy
itself and a more humane way will force itself back into use.
Grandar
was obviously enjoying a revival of prosperity, for the ordinary folk of the
village and the estates that surrounded it appeared blessed by abundance.
Jarin and Sandar were not to know as they entered the village, that it was
flourishing, simply because it had suffered probably more than most places from
the excesses of gold rich newcomers immediately after the war. The first
thing they noticed, was that there were no slaves to be seen in the streets and
fields and the obvious prosperity, if modest, of the peasants of the place,
showed that they all had to have regular work at fair wages.
There
is a small Inn in Grandar, a neat little building called the Bluebird with two
public rooms and five lodging rooms above them. Sandar and Jarin rented
two of the upstairs rooms and then went down into the tap room to discover what
had brought good fortune to this one village, out of all such similar places
they had so far seen in their travels, that had almost without exception become
centers of despair.
The
Inn also differed from the other Inns they had visited along their route, in
that the tap room was almost empty that warm afternoon and there were no beggars
gathered outside the door to bother customers entering or leaving the
place. The Bluebird was clean and they were surprised to be asked for
their order by a girl who did not wear the collar of a slave. They
obtained two plates of fresh bread and cheese, along with tankards of ale that
they were told the Innkeeper brewed himself and then they invited the owner to
join them and explain the obvious prosperity of Grandar. The Innkeeper
arrived wiping his hands on a terry cloth, obviously having just washed his
hands in the kitchen before going out to meet his guests. He was a portly
man, red-faced and bearing a resemblance to the girl who had brought them their
ale and indeed they learned later that she was his granddaughter.
Jarin
worded his first question regarding the obvious prosperity and peace in hamlet
very carefully, but even he was surprised at the way he was answered.
"Because
you are Lunzans, I will tell you the real truth of the matter my Lord, even
though I risk it all in not giving you the tale we normally tell to
outsiders. We are indeed a lucky place Gentlemen," The
landlord agreed, taking an empty chair at the table with them, "After
the War most of our men folks, those young enough to have fought that is, were
carted off in chains, or simply had not returned from the fighting. Then
the Newcomers started to arrive and our people suffered like most of the other
places you have passed through by your description. We lost many of the
older folk during an outbreak of the coughing sickness that came three years
after the war ended and the future in those days was something a wise man had
reason to dread."
"You
survived the plague and the slave quarters then?" Sandar half
asked and half accused.
"The
first because I always drank my own brew and avoided the water from the village
pump with a vengeance, for anything other than washing myself with. The
latter I did not escape gentlemen, I had my years under the collar."
He pushed a finger under his tunic and showed them the faint marks a slave's
necklet will always leave on a man. "I got lucky however, they
made a mistake with the papers and sent me back here to work in the
fields. Pure chance, but the best Fate ever handed me. Even so, if
my family had not brought me extra food whenever they could afford it and often
when they could not, I might well have died that first winter of starvation, as
did many in Grandar and throughout Natan that first year after the war."
"I
have never heard of a citizen of the Brotherhood Nations who got a collar, being
sent to work in his own Nation, let alone his own village."
Sandar said quietly. "And you are the first Brotherhood slave I
have heard of who has been freed of his collar."
"Well
there are thirty or so of us who managed it here in Grandar."
Kavor laughed, for that they had discovered was their landlord's name, "And
our owners were not very happy about it at the time, but they still live here,
some of them above the ground and some under it and we've all decided it came
out for the best."
"You
mean they just decided to give you your freedom?" Jarin
asked, showing that he was obviously amazed by the Innkeeper's answer.
"With
a little assistance from a band of ex-brotherhood outlaws and the advice of our
local priest, Ligorian." Kavor looked as if he was telling a
joke at their expense, "Ligorian was in Kiba when the Lord went
to them and he was saved. Then he came here and started preaching against
the evils of slavery, quietly of course, but in the right ears. . . laying
the groundwork for what came later."
"And
what was it that came later?" Jarin asked.
"Seeing
that you are Lunzans and not involved in what happened here on the mainland, the
story should appeal to you. A raid by a band of ex-Brotherhood fugitives,
that is what changed everything. They came charging into the village late
one night, after I had already served too many years under the collar and before
our local troopers, all fourteen of the poor fellows, could do anything about
it, all us slaves were free and the Newcomers were wearing our shackles.
It was then that Ligorian stepped up and started preaching. What happened
after that was a minor miracle in itself. Ligorian got everyone to agree
that those of the troopers and some of the newcomers who would not agree and
might make trouble, ought to be sort of sent away, so the outlaws took them away
later and no-one missed them. The rest of us agreed to work together as
freemen."
"Just
like that?" Jarin asked,
"You mean no-one
did anything about it afterwards, no retribution or betrayal to the
authorities?"
"Ah.
You have not met Ligorian, nor heard him speak, have you?"
Said their host. "If you had you would not be so
surprised? Though it didn't hurt that the outlaws offered to come back
from time to time, to make sure no-one got turned in or punished for what had
happened."
"After
that tale, I would very much like to meet your Priest, Master Kavor."
Jarin said truthfully and as if in answer to his request, at that very moment
the door opened into the tap room from the street and a priest dressed in a dark
blue habit came into the Inn.
"Now
you can have your wish stranger, let me introduce you to him."
Kavor lifted his hand to indicate the man who had just stepped into the
room, "Ligorian, these gentlemen would very much like to speak
with you."
Ligorian
proved to be a very ordinary looking man, average height, average build, sandy
hair going thin on top and blue-green eyes that looked somewhat vacant.
His clothes were not impressive either. His gown of coarse, dark blue wool
was held at the waist with a belt of cheap leather. He wore open sandals
to protect his feet and about his shoulders was a cloak that was at least two
sizes too large for him. Around his throat he wore the thin silver band,
which proved him to be a priest of the established Church, as well as the Church
of the One and Only God, yet it looked a little out of place on so ordinary a
person. He sat down at their table, on a chair offered by the Innkeeper
and nodded a greeting to Sandar and Jarin. Welcome
to Grandar," He said after he had swallowed a mouthful of the
ale brought by the girl, "What do you think of our humble
little village?"
"We
were surprised at the sense of peace and the obvious wealth hereabouts."
Jarin said truthfully, adding, "The Innkeeper tells us it is
the result of your wisdom and advice that it is so."
"No!"
The priest replied strongly and quickly, "It is not by me that
Grandar enjoys peace, but by the will of the One and Only God and his faithful
followers in this place."
"We
heard that you worship the God that was disclosed in Kiba,"
Jarin said, "Are His ways always so just and profitable."
The
Innkeeper had left them and the Priest looked first at Sandar, then at Jarin and
then he smiled before he spoke again.
"Look
about you strangers, here the One and Only God is worshipped and his Laws are
obeyed. The choice on whether His Way is the right way for men, must be
your own." He finished his ale quickly and stood up, bowed
his head to Jarin, touched Sandar on the shoulder and turned and walked back out
into the street from which he had so recently arrived. They looked at each
other in surprise, for they had both expected at least a much longer lecture, if
not a sermon. However, the food arrived then and they gave that their
attention for a while.
Jarin
would always remember that meeting with Ligorian, because of his simplistic
acceptance of what he had seen in Kiba to be a fact and therefore not needing
any verbal support from them, or anyone else for that matter. However, he
also saw the danger in accepting monotheism in the very simplified way that
Ligorian did, for if a natural or man-made tragedy was ever to strike the
village of Grandar, the moral shock might well destroy the people who lived
there, unless the Priest was able to instill in them a sense of fatality that
would convince them that even the most dreadful experience, was still a tool of
a loving protector, used for their own eventual benefit.
* * * * * * *
The
Most Beautiful City on Earth
After
staying in Grandar for only two days, Jarin and Sandar headed south out of the
Nation of Natan and into the Nation of Sedanna. The busy city of Sedanna
when they arrived there late in the day, was a head-splitting conglomeration of
noise, smells, body contact and the feeling of being unimportant, amongst the
importance of events that passed all around you, unaware that you even
existed. They had arrived in Sedanna just two hours before midnight,
gaining entrance only minutes before the curfew bell signaled the closing and
bolting of the city gates. The streets were still busy even at that hour
however and the street lamps that still operated guided their way to the
Merchant's Rest, a large old-fashioned thatched and timbered building
overlooking the Market Square where they obtained lodging for the night.
When
they awoke the next morning it was to the noise of the weekly market opening up
below their second story window. Carts with iron rimmed wheels rang
against the cobblestones, hammers hitting nails accompanied the erection of
stalls and young boys and not a few adults of both sexes seeking work for the
day, sang out their capabilities to potential employers. Jarin knew at
that moment why such well appointed chambers had been vacant for them the night
before. The final straw came however, when someone decided to butcher a
pig directly below their window and they got dressed quickly and went downstairs
for breakfast, joining a varied collection of merchants and stall holders who
had preceded them into the Merchant's Rest dining room. A flustered
serving girl wearing the iron collar of a slave delivered two large earthenware
plates piled with fried potatoes, slices of grilled gammon and fried eggs.
Fresh rolls, butter and coffee came next and it took them half an hour to do
justice to all that food. When they had finally eaten all that their night
starved bellies could contain, they paid their coppers to the girl, watching her
eyes widen as they dropped an extra coin into her hand for her attention.
Then they went out into the street to inspect the new day and the city it found
them in.
Jarin
fell in love with the City of Sedanna the moment he stepped out of the
Merchant's Rest and if it was not love at first sight, then it took very few
seconds for him to be overcome by the beauty stretching out before him.
The city was perched on a promontory, overlooking the most wonderful bay he had
ever seen and one that was contained within it's own safety barrier, for it was
as if the world was held protected within the circle of mountains that
surrounded the city. In the center of that world was a large expanse of
blue water where the ocean comes into the natural inlet, created he was sure, by
the Gods just to be admired by the eyes of man. Between the sea and the
mountain peaks, forests of pine, oak, maple, beech, alder, larch and ash climbed
the slopes on carpets of lush green spring grass. Man, in his usual quest
for coin, might well have destroyed all of the beauty they were able to admire
as it stretched before them, however wise architects, now long dead, had ensured
that the Market Square was built with buildings only on three sides, for the
fourth side of the square was free of structures of any kind. The open
side of the square was built at the edge of a cliff which dropped some seventy
feet to the dock area of the town below, which was invisible to the observer,
unless he walked to the edge and looked down.
The
view of the bay beyond the city was therefore only obstructed by a low
balustrade of stone pillars, which stood no higher than a man's waist and the
expanse of brilliant blue green water lay before the city for all to
enjoy. The cherry trees planted at intervals along the promenade,
separating that low barrier from the square itself, must have been a favorite
walk for young lovers and aged citizens alike. The ancient and well-cared
for trees were already in blossom, reflecting light and shadow in the early
morning sunlight and sea gulls floated above them like white angels seeking
souls. Like many other men before him, Jarin fell in love with Sedanna at
that moment and knew he would love it forever.
The
problem with all love affairs however, is that they are based for the most part
on a fantasy you wish to live in, rather than the reality of fact and experience
that exists in the objectivity of hard truth. Just like a woman will love
a man, never noticing that he ages or abuses her love by slowly turning her into
his servant, only to realize it when he leaves her for a younger mistress, in a
similar way Jarin's love affair with the City of Sedanna received a sudden, if
not crude awakening. Jarin wanted to see the grandeur of Sedanna's
location, the beauty of it's ancient architecture and the peace of it's
flowering cherry trees sheltering strolling lovers from the sun, but instead his
morning was abruptly brought back to reality by the sight of a line of slaves in
chains being paraded past him into the square and herded towards the selling
block that stood in the center of it. It was only then that he realized
that during his rapture with the beauty of the city overlooking the bay, he had
taken a table outside the Inn and had obtained a flask of iced wine.
Sandar was no-where to be seen and the smells of the market suddenly assailed
his nostrils, breaking through the imagined perfume of cherry blossom.
Jarin stood up suddenly, overcome by anger that his fantasy could be torn apart
in so cruel a manner and in so doing he jolted the table, so that only instinct
made his hand catch the wine flask before it crashed to the ground.
"Back
among the living then?" Sandar took the flask from Jarin's
hand and filled himself a glass, refilling his master's at the same time.
He was smiling in a way that made Jarin feel rather childish, as if his love
affair with the beauty of Sedanna had been expected by the cynical old soldier.
"I
don't think I have ever seen a place so beautiful, but then reality. . ."
Jarin pointed to the slaves now being pushed and bullied to climb the
steps up onto the block, ". . .crashed into my day
dreaming."
"There
will always be slaves." Sandar said offhandedly, as he sipped
the wine and watched the human movement around and across the square.
"Why?"
Jarin asked, feeling that a point must be made and made at that very
moment. "Grandar and Paramal seemed to work very well without
them. Perhaps if we educated the people better we would have less beggars,
thieves and pickpockets and if we paid them living wages we might have less
debtors. If we could achieve that, then slavery would be without a steady
supply of product, would it not?"
"More
likely we would just end up with more intelligent thieves and even more ruined
landowners and merchants. Anyhow there would still be slaves, the price of
buying one would just go up that's all." Sandar replied.
"Well.
. ." Jarin said slowly,
". . .if the cost
were higher, maybe they would be better treated."
"Where
are we going now?" Sandar said, finishing off his glass and
joining him.
"I
am a merchant. I have money. I am going to buy some slaves." Jarin
said defiantly.
"Wait
up." Sandar put a hand on his arm, then looked around to see
if they could be overheard, decided that they would not be and continued. "I
was down at the docks. There is a Lunzan sloop sat down there ready to
take us back home. If you have no objections, I think we have learned
enough about Khanlar as it is today to last us a lifetime, so why don't we thank
the Gods for our luck to date and just sail out of here today?"
"Good
idea." Jarin snapped,
"Us and as many slaves
as I can purchase with the coins in my purse."
"Whatever
you say, Sire." Sandar said indulgently and they began
walking towards the slaver and his wares.
The
sight of Jarin and Sandar leading two dozen slaves down the steps to the docks,
without guards and having removed their neck and wrist shackles, caused more
than a few stares and a lot of comments, but the looks only increased Jarin's
sense of accomplishment. Once aboard the Lunzan vessel, they instructed
the captain to remove the slaves remaining chains and send out for food to give
them. Jarin had decided that there was one more thing he wanted to do
before he returned to Lunza.
The
temple was impressive. On the outside fluted columns supported the roof,
with a flight of steps leading up to the entrance that would tire a grown man to
climb, without him stopping from time to time to regain his breath. If the
exterior was impressive, the interior was overpowering in both size and
design. It was dark inside the temple, even though hundreds of candles
flickered throughout the space and the incense which rose in clouds from a dozen
burners, stung the eyes and gave it's occupants a heady feeling as the heavy
perfumed clouds were breathed in with the motionless air of the temple
itself. The majestic domed ceiling of the place was supported by a forest
of pillars and in the marble floor were the mosaic portraits of many gods and
goddesses, the majority with offerings of flowers laid upon them. The
entire space was inhabited by statues made of every medium from wood to
brass. Gods in such profusion that neither Sandar nor Jarin could name
them all, surrounded as they were by more than a hundred effigies which stood in
the shadows towering above the faithful who had entered the dark and cluttered
interior of the temple this sunny afternoon.
Rich
Merchants purchased offerings of lambs and birds and joined the line of peasants
who had spent their copper on bunches of fresh flowers. Everyone in the
line was waiting his or her turn to climb the steps that would bring them to the
ledge, where a priest was chanting prayers, as he tossed the offerings by
scattering flowers or throwing squealing lambs into the huge iron cauldron that
contained the Holy Fire. As they watched, a farmer with a pigeon reached
the ledge overlooking the fire and the Priest took the bird, neither looking at
the man nor pausing in his chanting, as he wrung the bird's neck and let it's
dead body drop through the air to plunge into the fire.
Jarin
and Sandar were standing beneath the plinth that supported the Priest's ledge
when Sandar saw the treadmill. Observation showed that it controlled the
fan which drew the smoke from the sacrificial fire out of the temple, pushing it
through the back wall of the structure. Three scrawny men trod the steps
of the wheel, their eyes blank and their faces without emotion. One of
them tripped and fell even as Sandar watched, the man's body being bruised as he
tumbled around trying to regain his feet, while the steps of the wheel thudded
into him as his fellow prisoners continued their pointless march, as if they had
not noticed him fall.
Sandar
looked around him and realized that no-one thought the tread wheel worthy of any
attention, stood as it was in the shadows against the wall. He slipped
across to it, drawing the knife from his right boot. It only took seconds
for him to pry off the padlock which secured the door of the wheel, and then
push the blade through the moving bars and slammed it into the step next to the
nearest man, removing his arm as fast as he was able so that it should not be
caught up by the slow moving spokes of the wheel. Emotion had returned to
the faces of the slaves treading the wheel, but it was surprise rather than hope
that showed there. The man nearest to them took the blade and looked at
Sandar almost without understanding.
"Use
it on your chains." Sandar whispered urgently, watching the
man suddenly catch on and smile.
"Come
on. . ." Jarin said taking Sandar's arm and pushing him
towards the exit, "Any minute now all hell is going to break
loose in here."
As
they hurried towards the exit, through it and then through the town towards the
docks, Sandar asked Jarin a question. "Well? What do you
think of Khanlar's Church, Gods and Priests now my Lord?"
"I
think they need to be destroyed and as soon as possible."
Jarin replied, wondering if those men in the treadmill would ever enjoy life
again the way the ex-slave Innkeeper in Grandar was able to enjoy it.
Perhaps not, but it did not stop him from hoping, nor would it stop him from
spending his whole life to bring such a state affairs into being, if there was
any way at all for it to be done.
* * * * * * *
A Holy Battle Plan
Even as Jarin and Sandar were descending the steps from the City of Sedanna to the docks where their ship awaited them, Ragarian, Priest of Priests, was entertaining several of his staunchest supporters to a light luncheon in one of the dining rooms of the Great Temple of Ka. They had gathered that day to discuss a plan they had put into place only a few days before and Ragarian was still evaluating in his own mind whether or not it was enough, or too much, in his constant worrying about the Order of Guardians.
"General.
. ." Ragarian addressed General Toragor with the respect of
an old friend, "You say your spies have already been dispatched
to find out exactly what those magic makers are up to, however have you
considered what we shall be able to do, or should do for that matter, if we do
find that what they are doing threatens us in any way?"
"We
shall have to wait and see Sire." The good General replied,
easing a morsel of the cold chicken into his mouth with a finger from where it
had perched itself upon his lip. "For all we know they are
merely clearing and planting the land as they told us they were planning to
do. If they are actually doing something other than that and you decide
that it threatens Khanlar in any way, well then Sire the entire Army is at your
disposal."
"Sire."
It was the Prince of Rigan who spoke, "I have seen with my own
eyes no less than three or four thousand men, women and children board Lunzan
ships since you gave them Dag and allowed them to export outlaws and the
remnants of the Brotherhood. I have heard Sire that there are several
cities where as many have embarked in similar numbers." The
little man was obviously angry. "These people do not leave in
chains Sire, nor do they leave with any fear, as one would expect of men going
off to a life of slavery and hard labor. They go with eagerness, sometimes
they cheer as the ships come in, as if they were being saved or offered a great
prize. Something is wrong my Lord. This is not right. I fear
that Lunza is building a new Army and if it is, then my Nation will be one of
the first to suffer the consequences."
"They
are building a great causeway that links all four islands into one My
Lord." This time it was Bishop Fradaran of Vanzor who
spoke, "One of our fishing boats, which has used the passage
between Palan and Dag for years to reach the kelp beds there came upon a great
stone wall where a year ago there was an open water passage to the Great Eastern
Ocean. He also reported that he saw a great fleet of strange ships a week
or so later, when he sailed round the southern tip of Palan to reach his
favorite grounds. He says there were no less than fifty of them, but the
idiot can not count so who knows how many he saw, yet there remains the question
of why the Guardians would need such a fleet Sire."
"Indeed
there does." Ragarian said, feeling as if he was again
missing something in this great play that had begun many months before in his
own chambers, when he had granted deed of Dag and it's two small sisters to the
Guardian's delegation. "How soon will your spies return with
factual news General?"
"A
week or so Sire. However long it takes for them to gather real
intelligence and get back to the mainland."
"When
they return General you will bring them to me immediately."
Ragarian lifted his glass for a servant to refill, "It will be
interesting to discover just what those clever old men are actually up to.
Perhaps it is time at last to bring these Guardians to a reckoning."
* * * * * * *
Chapter Fifteen