The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (36 page)

       
The headman laughed,
slapped him on the shoulder, then drew thirteen crescent moons in the dust. He
pointed first to the moons, then to Togura, then to the woman.

       
"A year?" said
Togura in dismay.

       
The woman was already
getting dressed again. It seemed he would have to endure his virginity for
another year. But he was tough. He would survive.

       
And life, in the days
that followed, was sweeter than it had been.

       
Togura had a hut of his
own now. And a knife, a spear, a bow, arrows, saddles and harness. And a horse,
given to him by the headman. He wished he had a stallion which could have
challenged the wind. Instead, he had a scrubby little gelding with a hard mouth
and an evil disposition; he vowed that as soon as success in battle gave him
something better, he would volunteer the gelding for sacrifice.

       
Early that summer, when
Togura had just about finished cataloguing the defects of his present mount,
some strangers arrived in the village. They were clean-shaven foreigners in
long robes, who brought with them bearded, heavily tattooed tribesmen who acted
as interpreters. The strangers spoke at a public meeting; each man of the
village then had his say at length. Togura wondered if all this palaver had
anything to do with him, but nobody was discussing the life and fate of Togura
Poulaan.

       
What they were talking
about was war.

       
The very next day, all
the men began to pack. They were taking all the food,weapons and clothing they
could muster, so this was not likely to be a casual overnight raid. Not knowing
what the future might hold, Togura packed the magic casket holding his
triple-harp, stuffing it down to the bottom of one of his saddlebags. He hated
the very sight of it, but knew it would be valuable if they ever reached
civilisation.

       
Once packed, they rode
south. A day along their journey, they fell in with another group. To Togura's
surprise, those in the other group had their hair knotted in front and tied in
three pigtails behind; he recognised them as enemies. But everyone got on very
well, singing, joking, laughing, and, in the evening, engaging in friendly
wrestling matches. So where were they going? What superior power had made them
allies?

       
As they rode south, the
places they passed were more substantial. The villages became little towns.
They picked up a track, which became a road. At one of the larger towns, there
were negotiations with a blacksmith, after which their unshod horses were shod
for the first time in their lives.

       
At that town, another
foreigner in long robes handed out a little bronze coinage to everyone,
including Togura; he had to sign for it by inking his thumb then pressing it on
a piece of paper against some foreign writing. It was the first piece of paper
he had seen for months. He regarded this little ceremony as proof positive of
his involvement in a great adventure - and found it increasingly disconcerting
not to know where he was going, or why.

       
They began to travel
through farmland under cultivation; the fields of grain by the roadside had
been badly damaged by trampling horses, as if a great body of mounted men had
passed this way, and had found the road too narrow for their numbers. Those
fields which had survived intact were badly in need of weeding, suggesting a
labour shortage.

       
Their journey through
cultivated land lasted a day. Late in the afternoon, they surmounted a rise and
saw before them the sea, which occasioned many great shouts of amazement. They
came to the water's edge in the early evening. Men tasted the water and
exclaimed in delight or dismay; much money changed hands. There had obviously
been heavy betting on the question of whether the sea was really salty. One man
rode his horse right into it, then returned, grinning, and claimed some money
from a sceptic who had refused to believe in the existence of such a vast
amount of water.

       
The next morning, they
rode into a huge harbourside city. It was larger than Keep, D'Waith and the
ruins of Lorford all rolled into one. A foreigner in long robes did a roll
call. Togura was delighted to find that his name was on the roll. He was
Someone now - he only wished he knew what. A little more money was doled out to
each person in turn. They housed their mounts in vast, empty stables; they were
shown to a great, gaunt, empty barrack building where they could sleep.

       
And now what?

       
Now the men began
drifting off in ones or twos; Togura gathered that they had a free day. He
wandered off on his own, careful to take good note of his route, so he could find
his way back. The city was almost depopulated, the streets filled with sunlight
and silence. It stank, but only in a half-hearted way. Togura saw some
children, some old women, and a few legless beggars propped up against walls.
No whorse accosted him, their bodies hot for his money, though he lived in
hope.

       
Walking down one narrow
street, past some buildings which had been looted and burnt out, Togura heard
Galish voices. Turning a corner, he saw two Galish merchants in conversation.

       
"Please,
please," he said, running to them.

       
His voice sounded
hoarse, febrile, over-loud. He was in a panic in case these miraculous people
suddenly vanished. They did not. But they looked as if they wouldn't mind him
vanishing.

       
"Run away,
beggarman," said one.

 
      
"Oh,
please. I have to talk to someone, where am I?"

       
"On your two feet,
by the looks of you."

       
"Is this
Selzirk?"

       
The men laughed.

       
"No,
seriously," said Togura. "Where am I?"

       
"Away with the bats
in the darkness," said one, meaning that he was crazy.

       
They began to stroll
away. When he went pestering after them, they first ignored him, then turned on
him with knives drawn.

       
"I've got a magic
harp I can sell you!" cried Togura, desperate to keep in conversation with
them.

       
"Yes, and a sister,
for sure. Go back to your lunatic kennel! Leave us alone!"

       
He did not think it wise
to risk his life just to find out where he was; he let them escape. Now that he
had met two people who spoke Galish, he was sure he would find others. But he
did not. He had a long, hungry day wandering the city; there was little food
for sale, and what there was was high-priced. Using sign language, he bartered
for some fish; he was almost certain that the fishmonger knew Galish, yet could
not persuade the man to converse with him.

       
Toward the end of the
day he managed to buy a considerable amount of garlic, which he ate raw, hoping
to rid himself of the worms which had been troubling him of late. He bought
some more in case his war band moved on without warning.

       
They did.

       
The very next day, they
boarded a ship, one of the few vessels in the harbour. It had been modified to
take horses; ramps led from the deck to the reeking darkness down below, and it
was a devil of a job to get the horses down it. They then sailed south. The
ship, a big-bellied two-masted trader, trudged along through the big blue
oceans, rolling heavily. The journey seemed to last forever, as Togura had
nothing to do but complete his worm cure - which had partial success, though he
resolved to obtain a proper vermifuge when he could - and to watch off-duty
crew members fishing for fish and for seagulls.

       
For this coasting
voyage, they had the western shores of the continent of Argan on their left
hand side. The land was flat; much of it was marshy. They were four days south
when the winds turned against them. The ship, almost as broad as it was long,
could not tack against the wind with its big square sails; the crew, used to
long, leisurely voyages, cheerfully anchored.

       
The next few days were
very hard work. A raft was made from barrels and spars; a horse-hoist was
improvised with ropes, pulleys and big leather slings; the horses were lowered
onto the raft and rowed ashore so they could exercise and pasture on the bitter
salt shore grasses as best they could.

       
Two horses drowned; a
crew member was kicked in the head and died; Togura's mount, the first time he
exercised it, stumbled and dropped dead under him, possibly of old age. The
dead horses were all recovered, cooked and eaten; the dead crewman was stuffed
into a barrel of brine, to be taken back to his family.

       
Togura, horseless,
helped gather mud snails from the marshes; boiled up, they made a hearty dish
to supplement increasingly meagre rations. He looked out to sea, often, longing
for the wind to change; as he was a landsman, he did not trouble himself over
what would happen if the wind started blowing onshore and the anchor started to
drag.

       
Finally, graced with
favourable winds, they sailed on south. The headman had a bad stroke, and died
a day later; they tossed his body overboard, and watched the seagulls mob it as
it floated inshore with the tide. Togura felt desolated by this death; he had
come to feel that he could trust the headman, and did not know how he would
fare in that worthy's absence.

       
The next day, they made
landfall at a rivermouth city. With the help of boats and ropes, their ship was
muscled into a harbour protected by a mole. The harbour was crowded with ships,
and every ship was crammed with men.

       
A bureaucrat arrived in
long robes, accompanied by an interpreter who spoke Savage. They were given a
harbourside sail loft to sleep in, through they had to park their horses in the
street. Both men and horses got fed and watered, after a fashion.

       
Togura never got to
explore this new city, for, soon after arrival, he feel sick. Perhaps the
riverwater was to blame; in any case, he was soon down with dysentry. A
bureaucrat came and inspected him, and he was shifted out of the sail loft and
into a hospital - the hospital being a ship in which dozens of people in a
similar condition lay in the darkness between decks. Body handlers came round
daily, to see which of the filthy, stinking bodies had become corpses
overnight; other workers served up soup and water at noon each day.

       
Togura fully expected to
die, and was soon past caring. He was marinated in filth, embraced by the
stench of filth, jostled by the moaning, groaning darkness. Rats scampered
across him, occasionally testing his powers of resistance with their teeth.
Lice, fleas and bedbugs bit him. Cockroaches set up houses beneath his shadows.

       
This, he was certain, was
his end.

       
Nevertheless, though he
was sick, suffering, humiliated by his predicament - no chance to get from here
to the topdeck jakes, and no such thing as a chamber pot to hand - he retained
enough cunning to protect his prospects as best he could. He put his
triple-harp, his most valuable possession, in a small pouch, which he hid
beneath his clothes, knotted round his waist on a piece of rope; everything
else, including the last of his garlic, stayed in a saddle bag which he used to
pillow his head.

       
The saddle bag got
stolen while he was sleeping, and he once woke and kicked away a villain who
was trying to remove his boots, but the triple-harp stayed with him.

Chapter 34

       
Heat oppressed him.

       
Footsteps click-clocked
back and forth, treading on timbers overhead. He did not know whether sunlit
air lay above him, or whether there were more layers of death and suffering
between him and the daylight. He did not know, but it would not be true to say
that he did not care, for today he felt stronger - strong enough, in fact, to
be appalled by his physical weakness and his degraded condition.

       
A couple of body
handlers clomped by, dragging a corpse which they had shuffled into a canvas
removal bag. When they were gone, there were the usual moans and groans, but
apart from that it was strangely quiet. It was daylight, certainly; a little
blade of sunlight had prised apart the timbers not far away, giving Togura a
proof of the sun. Usually, by day, the harbour was loud with shouts, swearing,
battle drills and the constant clamour of woodwork and repairs. Today, nothing.
Except, somewhere, a gull crying claw-claw-claw.

       
Togura tried to sit up.
He impressed himself by accomplishing this feat. He impressed himself less by
promptly fainting. When he roused himself again, it was soup time. He drank
greedily from a serving bowl; it was good.