Marshlands (15 page)

“We're not barbarians,” the Magheed said. He nodded to the guard, who drew a wicked little knife, lifted the boy's wrist, and in one fluid motion made a shallow incision all the way around.

“When he wakes up,” the Magheed said, “he'll be told that his hand was indeed removed, but you insisted on sewing it back. You'll be famous. Tales of your mercy will precede you. Now, as for your tour, anyone in the street could have told you that the marshes are closed.”

“Closed? I didn't know,” Gus said. Actually, he'd heard something to that effect, but he'd also been told that access to the ruins was routine, a matter of a few simple bribes.

“Not to worry,” the Magheed said. “You'll have your tour. I'll see to it myself.”

2

The Magheed's party quit the port city the next day. Gus had hoped to send his parents a cable to the effect that he was being dragged into the marshes by a band of friendly natives, but there wasn't time. If only his father could see him now, barreling along on a flatbed truck with the Magheed's men, their long black robes chattering in the wind!

After clearing the city gates, the caravan rolled unchallenged across trackless scrubland, trailing the marshmen's songs and laughter. The so-called closure of the marshes hardly posed a problem. Most of the checkpoints were shuttered. The few that were open were manned by local militia who took pains to seek out the Magheed and pay their respects.

There was plenty of trading along the way. At each stop, as crates were tossed down from idling trucks and others heaved up and secured, Gus was served food and water in Bakelite bowls from an old picnic set. The other men on the truck passed earthen jugs and baskets of fruit. He would have been happy to share in these communal meals, but was told that the Magheed's daughter had prepared his portion herself.

By late afternoon, as scrubland gave way to fertile ground, the caravan's wake no longer boiled with red dust. The ride began to set Gus's teeth on edge; the tires, which had been bled for traction in the sand, vibrated badly on hardpack. Through a slit in his borrowed headcloth, Gus watched for changes in the drainage ditch that paralleled the road. As the trucks rolled on, the bottom of the ditch grew dark and moist; then the velvety silt erupted in cordgrass, sedge, and cattails. By the end of the day, the ditch ran with water and was choked with phragmites, the typical reed of the marshes, arrayed in an endless picket that swayed as the caravan rumbled past.

When the road finally ended at the trucking dock of a dilapidated warehouse, the Magheed's party dismounted, filed through labyrinthine gates designed for livestock, then loaded onto several private barges. The boats were tethered in the final lock of a canal that stretched north into the darkness.

Being on the water made the marshmen easy. Once the baggage was secured, some shared silent cigarettes; others arranged themselves on pyramids of rolled rugs and dozed. The tang of goat stew wafted from the women's barge.

After everyone had fed, the decks were transformed into a patchwork of grass mats and heavy quilts. The Magheed descended from the towpath like a father coming to kiss his children good night.

Gus rose when the Magheed appeared beside his pallet. The Magheed embraced him and welcomed him to the marshes as if this were the first time they'd met. He asked if there was anything he could do to make the journey more pleasant. Gus thanked him and said that Thali was taking good care of him.

The Magheed's eyebrows rose in surprise, but then he turned and opened his arms to take in the high brick walls of the canal. “Built to accommodate the rainy season,” he said, “but as you see, passable in the dry months, as well. Unlike the old canal.”

“A fine piece of engineering.”

“I asked for gunboats,” the Magheed said, “and this is what I got instead. Thali thinks I should be more grateful. She tells me the canal represents progress.”

“Doesn't it?”

“Perhaps,” he said, “but for whom?”

*   *   *

The barges got under way in the night. Gus slept fitfully, his dreams fed by groaning beams, bullwhips, the burble of onrushing water. He was woken in the foggy predawn by a small boy who tugged his sleeve and called him
Master
. After a breakfast of flatbread and yogurt, the boy led him up a ladder to the towpath, where a hunting party was convening.

Gus was approached by one of the Magheed's guards, a grizzled elder with a leather eye patch named Fennuk, who knelt and opened a soft rifle case.
Your weapon
, he said, presenting Gus with the cape gun that had been bought with his tour money, but not before burnishing it one last time with a chamois. Then he stood and gave Gus two pouches of ammunition—a gift, he emphasized, from his own pocket, not the Magheed's.

Open them
, Fennuk said.

One of the pouches had rifle slugs; the other, cartridges of bird-shot. Gus hefted the pouches with an appreciative nod.

Ten of each
, Fennuk said. He seemed put out that Gus hadn't bothered to count them.

Fennuk and the other marshmen of the Magheed's inner circle carried brand-new automatic rifles. Gus examined the markings on one of the barrels; the weapons had been manufactured in a suburb of the capital city, not far from where he grew up.

The marshmen shouldered their rifles when Gus walked by, assuming stern expressions and sometimes even offering salutes, which he reluctantly returned. The deference made him uncomfortable. Yes, he was an officer, an ambassador of the nation that had sent rifles, but hadn't his people also built the canal?

The foreign guns were for the Magheed's retinue, but every marshman had a weapon, although some of them were so thick with rust that Gus doubted they could be fired. Even the youngest member of the party, the little fellow called Hamza who'd woken Gus that morning, carried a reed slingshot. In fact, Hamza's slingshot was responsible for the day's first kill: a thrush the boy managed to shoot through the eye with a lead pellet.

A steady walking pace outstripped the barges. When the fog burned off, Gus was finally able to photograph the ancient alluvial plain he'd spent so many hours daydreaming about as a child: an Eden of reeds and silver waterways, where ruined Bronze Age palaces seemed to doze like exhausted parents, oblivious to the joyful birds that ran riot along their spines.

The marshmen waited patiently while Gus composed his pictures, but he felt guilty for slowing the hunt. He kept telling himself to put the camera away, and even managed to slip it back in its leather case a few times, but it never seemed to stay there long.

After nearly an hour of walking, someone gave a signal, and Gus was rushed up the towpath to a clearing, where space was made for him atop a crumbling clay wall.

Fennuk pointed out a disturbance in the grass at a hundred meters.
Wild pig
, he said.

Gus was handed a battered spotting scope whose optics flattened the animal into a tiny menacing silhouette. The pig was rooting in clumps of arrowgrass. Gus waited for someone to take a shot, but apparently that honor fell to him. Fennuk motioned for the marshmen to step aside, then fished a slug from one of Gus's pouches and pressed it into his hand.

Gus was willing, but there was a problem. He held up the cape gun and confessed that he didn't know how to open it.

Pursing his lips in disbelief, Fennuk worked the latch behind the barrels. The gun broke soundlessly. Gus tried to load the slug, but it was loose in the barrel, and the action wouldn't close. He wondered if Fennuk had given him slugs of the wrong caliber.

Fennuk exchanged puzzled glances with the other marshmen. He took the cape gun, pulled the slug from the left barrel, and slid it into the right barrel, where it fit perfectly. Then he took a bird-shot shell from Gus's other pouch and loaded the left barrel.
Bird-shot, left; slug, right
, he said, closing the action and handing the gun back.

By the time the gun was loaded and Gus had taken a kneeling stance, the pig had moved farther off. Now it was a tiny blur in the V of the open sight. Gus doubted he could hit it from such a distance, but he lined up the shot; rested his finger on the trigger; took two deep breaths and held the third; then fired.

He wasn't prepared for the recoil, which knocked him over and somehow bloodied his nose.
A hit?
he asked. At this, the marshmen couldn't contain their laughter. Fennuk shook his head.
Wrong trigger
, he said.

Gus had fired bird-shot instead of the slug.

The shot startled the pig, but didn't spook it. Instead, it turned to the noise, twisting its huge head and snorting.

As if to prove there was nothing wrong with the gun, Fennuk took it from Gus, swung it to his shoulder, and quickly fired.

The marshman with the spotting scope raised his hand and whooped. The party fanned into the swamp grass, the young men racing ahead, the older ones chatting excitedly. Fennuk brought up the rear with a confident unhurried gait.

Gus supposed he was embarrassed, but he was happy for Fennuk and thrilled with the sight of the marshmen celebrating around the fallen pig, which made for some excellent pictures.

*   *   *

When the barges finally caught up with the hunting party, most of the men climbed down to the decks to rest. Gus stayed on the towpath, where there was at least a breath of wind. Fennuk made a place for him in the shade of a defunct tollhouse and offered him boiled water from a canteen. For once, Gus was happy to be singled out for special treatment. The typical solution for a marshman's thirst was a leather bag dipped in the canal.

Fennuk squatted by him in the shade. After Gus had drunk his fill, Fennuk fixed him with his good eye.
Did you like the ammunition?
he asked.

Very much
, Gus said.

There was a long silence between them. Somewhere, a mule driver laid into his animal with a whip.

They say you're a doctor
, Fennuk said.

Gus nodded.

Fennuk turned and stripped off his tunic, revealing an angry carbuncle between his shoulder blades.

Gus examined the carbuncle.
Use a warm wet cloth
, he said.
Let it sit
.

Fennuk pulled his dirk and mimed heating it, then using it as a lance.
Like that
, he said.
Fast
.

Gus shook his head.
Fast is risky.

Fennuk gave a thumbs-up and said, “Yes, okay!” The foreign words sounded false on his tongue.

All right
, Gus said.
But I'll need my bag.

Fennuk grinned and said he'd already sent Hamza to fetch it.

*   *   *

Word got out that the foreign doctor was willing to treat marshmen. In the two days it took to reach the end of the canal, Gus was very busy. The health of the marshmen was generally good. Their teeth suffered from the grit in their diet, and there were many cases of poor vision caused by river parasites, but the difficulty of life in the marshes, coupled with a healthy if monotonous diet, made for vigorous men.

Nearly a dozen youngsters presented botched circumcisions, weeping infections that were traceable to an itinerant barber, apparently the only man in the northern marshes who circumcised.

Gus took his concerns to the Magheed. “The man's a butcher,” Gus said. “His dressings are filthy.”

The Magheed sighed. “Yes, he's a charlatan, but we lost most of the good barbers to the war. We can't stop our boys from going to him. An uncircumcised marshman can't marry.”

“It's a simple procedure. I'd be happy to do it—with your permission, of course. I'd just need some supplies.”

“Supplies aren't a problem,” the Magheed said. “Let's talk about your fee.”

“My fee? Well, you could teach me how to shoot that damned cape gun.”

The Magheed laughed. “Teach a spy to shoot?” he said. “You drive a hard bargain.” Then he embraced Gus, pressing a rough palm to the back of his neck, and said, “Thank you. It's not easy to find a doctor who will treat marshmen.”

“You'd be surprised,” Gus said. “My friends in the fleet are all big believers in this mission. Your neighbor to the north had no business in the marshes.”

“That's true. He was a threat to your interests as well. An enemy of free trade. You know our saying,
The enemy of my enemy is my friend
?”

But Gus wanted the Magheed to understand just how deep his feelings ran. “It's not just that,” he said. “This is a beautiful place—an important place. I came because I wanted to help.”

The Magheed nodded sympathetically. “Thali was right about you,” he said. “You're an idealist. I like idealists, but they don't last very long out here. Sometimes, I wish I was one myself.”

*   *   *

At the end of the canal, where a tributary of the ancient river lapped the concrete of a new dike, the Magheed's party changed to smaller, river-going barges made of bundled reeds. Gus was looking forward to climbing onto one of those picturesque boats, but the Magheed had other plans.

“You're with me,” he said. He led Gus to a landing where a long black chief's canoe lay grounded in the shadow of the reeds.

Gus was elated. He'd tacked an antique postcard of just such a boat over his childhood bed; when his mother finally threw the card away, on the grounds that it was filling his sheets with inky crumbs, he'd sulked for a week.

He put his shoulder to the heavy canoe side by side with the Magheed's men. It was awkward on land but rode surprisingly high on the water, its sharp keel parting the red algae like a knife.

“A full day's journey,” the Magheed said, as the prow swung into the current. “Take all the pictures you like, but keep your head down. For some unhappy souls, the war will never be over.”