Sunset Mantle
Authors: Alter S. Reiss
Alter S. Reiss
A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
NEW YORK
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For Israel and Myriam Reiss, for Uriel, and for Naomi
It was a heavy wool mantle dyed black and lined with rabbit fur, the sort of cloak that might be worn by a captain at arms, or a prosperous merchant. The embroidery followed all around the edge of the cloak, all the reds and oranges and yellows of a sunset close threaded, twisting up until here and there the dark shape of a swallow could be seen. Farther up the mantle, there were more birds, and more, until the embroidered birds could not be distinguished from the black of dyed wool. It was the finest thing Cete had ever seen.
He stood there, in the street leading out of Reach Antach, looking at the mantle hanging beside the door of the seamstress’s shop, reaching out to touch it, and then pulling back, his fingers clumsy and blunt beside the glory of that cloak.
“Is there some help I can give you?” asked a woman coming out from the inside of the shop.
Cete turned like a startled cat. It had been time out of memory since someone had come upon him unawares. He had been so lost in the embroidery that he had neglected even the most basic caution.
The woman did not start back at his turn, just waited, with the same questioning look on her face.
“It is remarkable work,” said Cete, finding his voice.
“The mantle, you mean?” she replied. “Thank you. It is three years of stitching. A commission; bought, but not paid for.”
Cete looked again at the mantle, at the sunset, at the cloud of swallows rising up into the sunset. Even if he could afford it, it was not for him. It was beautiful, and it had looked like he could have it, but it was already gone. Much like the Reach Antach. It seemed a fine place, but Cete was sure it had already been given over to slaughter.
“I would give a great deal to own something so fine,” he said.
“Mm?” asked the woman.
Without thinking, without looking away from the mantle, Cete unhitched his belt. “Would this be sufficient?” he said, passing it over. “I cannot ask for a thing that has been sold, but . . . perhaps this could . . .”
“No,” she said. “No; this is of no use to me, and of great value to you. I cannot take it.”
Cete looked away from the mantle to see the woman. She was holding the belt, running her hands over the links. “The workmanship is no better than serviceable,” he said, “but it is not flawed. And there is the value of the silver, and the clasp and the boss are stamped; surely—”
“It is a merit chain from the prince of the Hainst clan,” she said. “Since I did not earn it, I could take no pride in what it is. The silver value is too much less than the chain’s true worth. This is of no use to me.”
As she talked, she held the belt out, but did not look at it. She didn’t look directly at Cete, either. Her clouded eyes rested a bit to the left of where she should be looking. Blind. Blind, but she could make a thing like that cloak. Blind, but she wore her hair in the braids of an unmarried woman, not loose like an outcast, and her shop was near the center of the Reach, not beyond the walls.
During the afternoon services, Cete had seen the Antach of the Antach speaking to a tribal chieftain. In an instant, he had seen the reasons for the Reach Antach’s prosperity, and the inevitability of its destruction. This came together just as neatly. Although she was blind, the community chose not to identify her as such. If she sold a merit-chain for its silver value, she would be seen as the ruin of a fighting man. It would erode the goodwill on which she relied. Cete took the belt back from her. “I understand,” he said.
“If you wish to commission an embroidery,” she said, “use the belt to earn coin; I will make something fine for you.”
“Thank you,” he said. And he hesitated. The Reach Antach had made an alliance that the city clans would have to destroy. It might be in a day, in a month, in ten years. But the Reach Antach would burn, and everyone who bore the name Antach would die. There was no reason for Cete to stay a moment longer than he had to, no reason to say his name within the walls of the Reach.
“I am Cete,” he said.
“Marelle,” she replied, and smiled. Her face showed the signs of long hours of hard work, rather than the untroubled smoothness of ease, and her hair was dark and coarse. She looked forward when she smiled, rather than to the side, and she showed her teeth, rather than merely turning up her lips. It was the smile of one man to another, rather than that of a woman to a man. But Cete could not help being struck by it.
“I will consider your advice, Marelle,” said Cete, and with one last look at the embroidered sunset, he left.
* * *
He had arrived at Reach Antach an hour previous, looking for somewhere to stay. The town was a fine one, built on a strong position on a hilltop, with groves of olive and apricot down on the lower slopes. From all reports, the silver mines were profitable, and the soil was black, and smelled rich. The church was well built, with a scholar-priest of the Irimin school sitting on the dais, her mantle bound up with gold and silver threads that told of a great lineage and notable achievements. When Cete had gone in for the afternoon services, he had let himself hope that Reach Antach would suit. When the services were done, he knew that he would have to leave.
The cities built the reaches. They defended the walls as they went up, they provided dressed stone and cut lumber, they opened their storehouses until the reaches could feed themselves. In return, the reaches provided men and silver to the cities that had founded them, until the debt was paid. Repayment took centuries, and the reaches were always looking for quicker ways out. The method that the Reach Antach had chosen would never be allowed to succeed.
Cete knew he had to leave, but rather than taking him to the gate that would lead to Reach Tever, his feet brought him to the Brotherhood Hall, where men who had no clan connection would look to sell their labor, and those who needed labor would go to buy. Perhaps the crisis he had seen brewing would be delayed, or perhaps he could find work that would spare him from what he foresaw. But while it was far more likely to mean his death, he could not leave Reach Antach, could not walk away from the glory of that mantle or the hope of having something that fine for himself.
The Brotherhood Hall was not far from Marelle’s shop, and its iron-bound doors were open. There were a half dozen older men inside, sipping cups of tea, chatting softly amongst themselves, and three times as many younger men standing in the artificially relaxed poses of men who felt they had something to prove. Exactly what one would expect from the Brotherhood Hall of a prosperous reach.
During the afternoon service, Cete had marked who had sat where. The man he had picked out as the factor of the mine—a thin man with little hair left and hands that showed no calluses—had sat among the scholars. Perhaps overly pious, but not excessively so, and unlikely to risk the smell of dealing badly. At least not in the open.
As Cete ambled towards him, the factor’s eyes marked his merit chain, the fine-grained wood and thrice-forged steel of the axe Cete wore at his side, and the breadth of his shoulders. Not a fighting man, but a man who knew what to look for when evaluating warriors.
“Come in, be welcome,” he said, standing. “Would you join us for tea?”
No contract.
If there were something to bargain for, the factor would have been less welcoming. “Thank you,” said Cete. “It is a kind offer, for a stranger in your halls.”
As was expected of him, he sat and drank tea for the better part of an hour. He talked with the older men, kept silent more often than speaking, showing his respect for their position and for their clan and for their Reach.
When enough time had passed, he finally broached the possibility of selling his labor. He had no expertise in pick or shovel, no apprenticeship in carpentry or fine metalwork, no training in the mathematics of pulley and lathe, of mine and trench. He had hoped that there would be some need for guards for the mines, or for the caravans carrying the silver back from the Reach to the city clans who owned the Antach debt, but at that suggestion, there was nothing but regretful shakes of the head.
“Full complement here,” said the factor. “The tribes have been quiet of late, praise God, and the work has been steady; not many leave.”
“I suppose the same is true of the private holders,” said Cete. Most families had no need of protection beyond that which the clan armies and the troops of the Reach provided. But there were wealthy families who had reason to fear an enemy attack, and there were those who engaged in risky ventures, and there were those who pretended to the status of the one group or the other.
“Yes, and my apologies for saying so.” The factor shook his head, an apologetic gesture. But there was nothing but pride in his eyes. “We are blessed in having veterans of the Reach army available for service, known to the heads of families and the private holders; there is little need to buy the work of outsiders, even from a man who wears a merit chain of the Hainst. Even the militia is at full complement.” A militia contract was two days of labor a month, for training and drill—it wasn’t enough to feed a man for a week. And not even that was available.
It all fit into place, all pointed to the same thing Cete had seen at the afternoon service. There was nothing unusual about a tribal chieftain attending services in a reach church during times of peace. The men of the tribes worshipped God with the same prayers as the men of the cities. But though one wore braids in his hair and beard, and a raw wool robe dyed red and blue, and the other had his hair closely cropped and wore the office chain of the head of a reach, there could be no mistaking the fact that chieftain and Antach were brothers. Of course the tribes had been quiet, of late. Of course peace had rippled out to the private holders. But when the ripples reached the cities, the wave would come crashing down upon them.
Well. Cete had made his choice; all that was left was to thank the mine factor for the tea, and get directions to the mustering grounds for the Reach army. No hope of winning a place in the Antach clan army, not without a connection. Besides, even if he could earn a place there, Cete would not take it. A remnant of the Reach army might survive the coming disaster. Of Clan Antach, there could be no survivors.
* * *
The army of Reach Antach mustered outside the wall, below the northern gate. So far as Cete knew, there were no reaches north of Reach Antach, and certainly no cities. Just tribal lands, and wastes, and the endless stretch of the unknown; that there was a gate in the northern wall was a testament to hope; the army mustered beneath showed the sensible limits of those hopes.
The encampment didn’t show any obvious rot. The clan and Reach banners were clean and crisp, there was no rust on the armor of the sentries, and the drills that Cete could see as he went down from the town towards the encampment were solid; footwork for long spear and training with axe and shield. There would be rot. If nothing else, Reach Antach had been enjoying an unnaturally extended period of peace and prosperity. But nothing could be seen on the surface.
The recruiting sergeant’s tent flew the banners of Reach Antach, of Clan Antach, and of Clan Termith—a city clan. Cete tried to remember what he knew of the Antach’s background. They’d been a family from the Coardur clan, and the Termith were one of the five city clans that had backed the Antach’s claim to build a reach and become a clan themselves. Presumably, the Reach general was a Termith, and that’s why their flag was flying. Cete went in, provoking a scowl from the sergeant behind the table, who had scattered skewers and lamb gristle amidst parchment scrolls.
“Fancy chain,” said the sergeant. “How’d you get it?”
That wasn’t necessarily a sign of rot; sergeants were not known for their manners.
“By performing a service for the Hainst chief,” said Cete.
“Ha! Likely story. If you’re in with the Hainst, what’re you doing in the reaches?” There was a little gobbet of fat in the sergeant’s beard. It bobbed when he talked, and Cete felt an urge to brush it off. Possibly with the head of an axe.
“The madding took a Hainst lordling in battle. I slew him. The service and exile came as one.” It was a story that Cete preferred not to tell; his shoulders bowed with the weight of it. He ought to have anticipated. Eber Hainst was on the edge of madding often enough; Cete ought to have shifted his position so that he was not the one who had to kill Eber when the darkness swallowed him.
The recruiting sergeant shook his head, not quite dislodging the fat in his beard. “You never killed a warrior in the madding. Little guy like you, and old? More like it’s a merit chain for rolling drunks in an alley.”
If Cete fought this sergeant, he would be outlaw, win or lose. But when the time came, a reckoning would be paid.
The sergeant picked up a bit of bone and gristle, gnawed at it. “You want to list, you run the gauntlet.”
“Fine,” said Cete, his shoulders unlocking, his hands opening. There had been enough talk; it was time for blood. “Line it up.” The gauntlet was more used as a threat or a punishment than as a recruiting test—men were injured regularly, maimed often. But he had set his purpose towards work in Reach Antach. Fighting was the work he knew, and this was the only buyer of the labor of fighting men in the Reach.
“Damn fool,” said the sergeant. “Go on to field six, and wait there.”
Whatever else this Reach army was, it was scarcely a welcoming place. For a moment, Cete considered turning around and leaving, taking his pack and heading on to Reach Tever or beyond, and leaving Antach to its fate.
But there was that mantle and the woman who had made it. Cete was a rational man, but the glory of her work had trapped him like a boar in a pit. He went to field six, folded his cloak and tunic atop his pack, laid his axe beside it, sat himself down on the earth, and prayed.
Cete did not count himself a pious man, but this was a time for prayer. He said the war psalms, lost himself in the poetry, bathed in the fire of the living God. When the gauntlet was assembled, he was ready. He knew what he would do.
Cete stood, stretched, smelled the dirt in the summer air, looked across the field. There were two lines of men drawn up, holding bludgeons and blunted swords. They were young, and their cotton arming shirts were a clean white, showing none of the ground-in rust that marked veterans. Too far apart for a proper gauntlet; they each wanted room to swing. They were almost all taller than him, and some were larger. Those he could see wore smiles, all broad white teeth. Cete held back his own smile.