Soldier of the Mist

Soldier of the Mist Page 7

"The Great King, so Hypereides said."

"And the Great King rules the Empire. You were in his army. We've got your sword and pot-lids now. How'd you think you got that wound?"

I shook my head and somewhere found the memory that had once been painful to do so, though it was no longer. "In a battle. Other than that, I don't know."

"Of course not, poor stick. Somebody ought to look at it for you, though. Those bandages are dirty enough to beach on."

The black man had been listening to us, and though he did not speak, he seemed to understand what he heard. Now he said by signs that if he were allowed to, he would take off my bandages, wash them (vividly pantomiming how he would scrub them on a stone and beat them with another), dry them in the sun, and replace them.

"Ah," Lyson said, "but if I go with you, this one'll wander off."

The black man denied it, clasping my hand and saying by signs that he would not leave me, nor I him.

"He'll forget."

The black man cocked his head to show he did not understand the word.

Lyson pointed to his own head and traced the ground with his finger as though writing or drawing, then smoothed the imaginary scratches away.

The black man nodded and pretended to draw too, then with his finger indicated the course of the sun across the vault of heaven, and when it had set rubbed the drawing out. "Ah, it takes all day."

The black man nodded again and unwound my bandages, and the two of them went off together, fast becoming friends.

As for me, I finished the reading of this scroll I had earlier begun. Now they have returned, and I write but feel I know less than ever. So many strange things - events I cannot credit - are described here. So many people are mentioned whom I have forgotten. Surely Io was the little girl who gave me this yesterday; but where are Pindaros, Hilaeira, and Cerdon? Where is the serpent woman, and how did the black man and I come to be where we are?

Chapter 8 At Sea

Our ship rolls in a way that makes it hard to write, but I am learning to allow for it. The sailors say it is often much worse and I must walk and write and drink on board, and do everything else, before the sea grows rougher. "When we round Cape Malea, forget your home," they say; but I remember it, though I have forgotten every other place.

Our ship is the Europa, the largest of the three, with triple-banked oars. The men who sit highest have the longest oars, and they think themselves the best because they can spit on the rest; but all get the same pay. Now we are under sail, and they have no work, save for one or two who are bailing and the like. Soon there will be work enough, they say. Some are sleeping on the rowing benches, though all slept, I think, last night.

I am writing in the bow, leaning comfortably back against the high, straight post that marks the front of our ship. Below it (I remember, though I cannot see it from where I sit) is our ram. It does not look like a real ram at all - the dark eyes painted on the bow make the green metal look like the bill of an angry bird, at least to me. I can see the ram through the water when I stand and look over the bow. The water is sky-colored and very clear; but there is a second sky below, and I cannot see to the bottom.

A big rope runs from my bow post to the very top of the mast, and there are more such ropes there, going to both sides of the ship and to the stern, all to brace the mast against the pull of the sail. The one above my head bends a trifle, but the rest are stretched as straight as spears; the wind is behind us now, and our rowers are idling on their benches while the wide sail labors for them.

This sail hangs from a long, tapered yard raised almost to the top of the mast. There is a bull painted on it, not just a head like the carved bull's head on the sternpost, but every part; and I think I like him best of all our decorations. He is black, his nose is gold, and his blue eye rolls to see the woman sitting on his back. He has a brave tail, and it seems to me that if I were on one of the other ships it would appear that his golden hoofs ran upon the sea.

The woman who rides him has red hair and blue eyes, and two chins. She smiles as she rides; her hands stroke the bull's horns.

The long, narrow deck runs from the place where I sit to the stern, where two sailors hold the steering oars and the kybernetes watches them and the sail. The prisoners are chained to the mast where it goes through the deck.

Our captain's name is Hypereides. He is a man of middle years, bald and thick at the waist but erect and energetic. Not as tall as I. He came to talk with me, and I asked him the name of the country to our left. He said, "That's Redface Island, my boy."

It surprised me and I laughed.

"Not much of a name, is it? But that's all the name it has. Named for old Pelops, who was king there hundreds and hundreds of years ago."

"Did he have a red face?"

"That's what they say. The satirists make jokes about him, saying it was red from drinking, or that he was always angry, stamping up and down and sneezing. If you ask me, neither can be right. How could his mother know he was going to drink too much? Maybe he was angry all the time as a baby - the gods know a lot of them are - but who ever heard of one's being named for it? If you ask me, my boy, he was born with one of those red patches on his face that some children have. Anyway, that's where Tower Hill is, and the Rope Makers' city."

Then he told me about the Battle of Peace and how his ships had been hidden in a bay on the isle of Peace. Very early in the morning, when there was still fog on the water, the barbarians' ships had come into the strait. A lookout had seen them through the fog and heard the chants of their rowers, and he sent a signal. Hypereides and his ships, and all the other ships of the city came out then, and the Rope Makers' ships too. "You should have seen us, my boy - every man shouting out the Victory Hymn, and every oar bent like a bow!"

They met the barbarians ram to ram, and the ships from Peace came out of the bay behind the Dog's Tail and caught the barbarians in the flank; but there were so many barbarian ships that even when they fled they were a great fleet. No one knows where they are now, and most of the ships from Thought and Rope, and all the ships from Tower Hill, are hunting them among the islands.

Hypereides said that I must have fought for the Great King, and I asked him if I were a barbarian.

"Not a real barbarian," he said. "Because you talk like a civilized man. Besides, there were a lot of us fighting for the Great King - almost as many as were on our side. See those people I've got chained up?

They're from Hill - you can tell by the way they talk. Their city fought for him, and we mean to burn it around their ears, just as he burned ours."

The sun was high and hot, but the base of the mast was in the shadow of the sail; so when Hypereides went to talk to the kybernetes, I went to talk to the prisoners. One of the bowmen was watching them, and he looked to Hypereides to see whether he minded. Hypereides had his back to us, and the bowman said nothing.

I want to write about the bowmen before I forget that I intended to. They wear leggings and tall fox-fur caps. Their clothes look very uncomfortable, and while I was talking to the prisoners the bowman watching them took off his cap to fan himself.

Their curved bows are of wood and horn, and they bend backward now because they are not strung.

It seems to me the right way to carry arrows is over the back, but the bowmen have their quivers at their waists. The quivers have a beard at the top that folds over the opening to keep out the spray.

The bowmen have cheeks that come straight up to their fierce eyes, like the cheek-pieces of a helmet.

Their eyes and hair are lighter than ours, and their beards are longer. They cut the hair from their enemy's dead and wear it on their belts and wipe their hands on it. They cannot speak the tongue I speak to Hypereides and the rest as well as I can, and they cannot speak the tongue in which I am writing this at all. They smell of sweat. That is all I know of them.

No, there is one thing more, which is why I wrote all I just did. It is that the bowman who watches the prisoners watches me as no one else does. Sometimes I think he is afraid, sometimes that he wants some favor. I do not know what his look may mean; but I thought I should write of it here, to read when I have forgotten.

The prisoners from Hill are a man, his wife, and their daughter. When I came to them, they called me Latro. At first I thought they believed me such a one - a hired soldier or a bandit. But they have nothing to steal, and who has hired me? Then I understood that Latro is my name and they knew me. I sat on the deck beside them and said that it was cooler there and if they wished I would bring them water.

The man said, "Latro, have you read your book?"

I glanced about and saw it in the beakhead where I had left it. I told the man I had been examining the ship and had not.

The woman saw it too, and looked frightened. "Latro, it will blow away!"

"No, it won't," I told her. "The stylus is heavy, and I've put it through the cords."

"It's very important that you read it," the man said. "You offered to bring us water. I don't want water - they gave us enough earlier. I want you to bring me your book instead. I swear by the Shining God not to harm it."

I hesitated, but the child said, "Please, master!" and there was something in her voice I could not resist. I got it and brought it back, and the man took it and wrote a few words on the outside.

I told him, "That's not the best way. Unroll it like this, and you can write on the inner surface. Then when the book's closed, the writing's protected."

"But sometimes the scribe writes where I have written too, when he wishes to leave some message for a person who otherwise would not open the book. He might write, 'Here are the laws of the city,' for example."

"That's so," I admitted. "I'd forgotten."

"You speak our language well," he said. "Can you read what I've written?"

I shook my head. "I think I've seen letters like those before, but I can't read them."

"Then you must write it yourself. Write, 'Read me every day,' in your own language."

I took the stylus and wrote what he had told me, just above his own writing.

The child said, "Now if you'll read it, you'll know who you are and who we are."

Her voice pleased me, and I patted her head. "But there is so much to read here, little one. I've unrolled it enough to see that it's a long, long scroll, and the writing is very small. Besides, it was written with this and not with ink, and so the writing is gray, not black, which makes it hard to read. You can tell me these things, if you know them, much faster than I could read about them."

"You have to go to the house of the Great Mother," the child announced solemnly. Then she recited a poem. When it was over she said, "Pindaros was taking you there."

"I'm Pindaros," the man told me. "The citizens of our shining city designated me as your guide. I know you don't remember, but I swear it's the truth."

A black man who had been sleeping with the sailors rose and climbed from his bench to the deck where we sat. It seemed to me that we had met before, and he looked so friendly and cheerful that I smiled to see him now.

He exclaimed, " Hah!" when he saw me smile. Some of the sleeping men stirred at the sound, and those who were not asleep stared at us. The bowman, who had been watching and listening, put his hand to the knife in his belt.

"You must be less noisy, my friend," Pindaros said.

The black man grinned in reply and pointed from his heart to mine, and then, triumphantly, from mine to his.

"You mean he knows you," Pindaros said. "Yes, perhaps he does, a bit."

I said, "Is he a sailor? He doesn't look like the others."

"He's your comrade. He was taking care of you before Hilaeira and Io and I met you. Perhaps you saved his life in the battle, but he was using you to beg when I first saw you." To the black man he said,

"You got a great deal by your begging, too. I don't suppose you still have it?"

The black man shook his head and pretended to gash his arm with his knife. Filling his hand with the unseen blood, he counted it out as money, making a little click with his tongue for the sound made by each imaginary coin as he put it on the deck. When he was finished he indicated me.

The child said, "He gave it to the slaves that night when we camped, while you were writing poetry and talking to Latro. It was for the slaves Latro killed, because the slaves were going to kill him when we got to the Silent Country."

"I doubt if the Rope Makers would have let them. Not that it matters; I had ten owls, but they got them in Tower Hill. I'd rather we were prisoners in Rope than in Tower Hill, but even Tower Hill would be preferable to Thought." Pindaros sighed. "We're their ancient enemies, and they are ours."

Hypereides had been telling me how the ships of Thought had fought the barbarians, implying that I was a barbarian myself; now I asked Pindaros if his city and Thought were worse enemies.

His laugh was bitter. "Worse by far. You forget, Latro, and so perhaps you've forgotten that brothers can be enemies more terrible than strangers. Our fields are rich, and theirs are poor; thus they envied us long ago and tried to take what was ours by force. Then they turned to trading, growing the olive and the vine, and exchanging oil, fruit, and wine for bread. They became great makers of jars too and sold them everywhere. Then the Lady of Thought, who loves sharp dealing, showed them a vein of silver."

The black man's eyes opened wide, and he leaned forward to catch every word, though I do not think he understood them all.

"They had been rich. Now they grew richer, and we proved no wiser than they and tried to take what was theirs. There is hardly a family in our shining city that is not related to them in some way, and hardly a man in theirs - except the foreigners - who's not a cousin of ours. And so we hate one another, and cease to hate every four years when our champions give their strength to the Descender; then we hate again, worse than ever, when the games are done." He pursed his mouth to spit but thought better of it.