A Mosaic of Stars: Short Stories From Other Worlds (9 page)

History

The Muqanni's Tale

All I wanted was to be left to farm. To till the soil and grow enough beans and barley to feed myself through the winter. But the valley was growing dry, dust rising from the tread of our oxen. With each passing week, we had to walk further to fetch water for the plants. With each passing year, our bellies went more empty.

My neighbour had married a woman from another tribe. She told us about the qanat in their valley - a tunnel that drew water out of the hill into the fields. This was the marvel we needed, but digging it was the art of a specialist, a man called a muqanni.

All of us drew lots, and I lost. Reluctantly leaving my fields in the hands of others, I set off to find a muqanni.

When I returned my crops looked weak. But I had the muqanni , a cranky, white bearded man whose tools I had carried all the way from the Euphrates. Now I could return to my work.

“You will help,” he told me after meeting my neighbours.

“But my field needs tending,” I said. “And you don’t even like me. You complained about my manners the whole way here.”

“I like them even less.” He scowled at my neighbours, whose expressions ranged from outraged to relieved. “You will have to do.”

“You are the youngest of us,” one of my neighbours said.

“The strongest,” another added.

“The most resilient,” said a third.

What choice did I have?

The first morning we walked the sides of the valley while the muqanni decided where to dig. As he prodded the ground and peered at the rocks, I took the time to enjoy views. It was pleasant, but it was not helping my farm.

“The mother well will be here,” he said at last. “Now dig.”

Have you ever spent weeks on end digging holes? I thought not. Let me tell you, there is no joy in it. Your hands become raw and blistered. Digging downwards, you descend into darkness, losing the warmth of sunlight. Soon your world is just dirt and aches.

I have never felt so relieved as when the dirt grew damp beneath my feet, and I knew that we had hit the water level.

“It’s done!” I reached the top of the hole and threw my spade down in front of the muqanni.

“Good.” He point toward a series of poles set every forty yards down the hillside. “Now go start digging the next one. Once I have measured the mother well, I will tell you how deep.”

Until then I had tried to tend my crops as well as dig, using the dusk hour to look after my farm. But now I saw how much more work there was to do, I surrendered. If I wanted an end to the digging and the deep, dark holes, I must throw my whole self into making the qanat.

For weeks I dug. The muqanni showed me how to dig each ventilation hole to the right depth, using a measuring stick and a knotted rope. He dealt with the dirt that came out, and with shoring up the holes. At the bottom of the slope we marked out the canal which would carry the water to the fields - my neighbours could at least dig that part - and then began the water channel, heading back into the hill.

I was amazed to see the results of the muqanni’s skill. With his guidance, the tunnel easily hit the bottom of each hole I had dug. Day by day, my lanterns and I headed deeper into the hillside.

“Be careful when you reach the mother well,” the muqanni cautioned me one night. “It is deep with water now.”

But water was life. Water was the gift we sought. And so I paid no attention, but kept driving forward as hard and fast as I could. When I saw water seeping through the dirt ahead of me, I did not hesitate. Instead I cheered and plunged my spade into the soil.

The earth burst open, water gushing behind it. I staggered back, plunged into darkness as my lamps were washed away. I was thrown from my feet, choking and struggling to reach the air. Even as I burst gasping to the surface, a fresh torrent swept me away again.

Water filled the tunnel. There was no more air for me to reach up into. I would be dead before I ever reached the end of the tunnel.

Then I saw a flash of light as we passed beneath a ventilation hole, and hope sprang anew. If I could keep near the ceiling for another thirty yards, another twenty, another ten…

I burst up into the next hole, and grabbed the side before I could be swept away again. With slow, aching movements I gripped protrusions in the side of the hole, and started dragging myself toward daylight.

At last I crawled out into fresh air. In the valley below, my neighbours were cheering and waving as water flowed into their dusty fields. Exhausted and half drowned as I was, I felt huge satisfaction at the sight.

The muqanni stood looking down at me.

“I should have listened,” I said. “I should have been more careful.”

“Next time.” The muqanni smiled. “Now gather the tools, we are wanted in the next valley over.”

That is how I became a muqanni. So next time you tell me that I work you too hard, or that my lessons make no sense, remember this - my apprenticeship was ten times worse than yours.

After Londinium

The ashes of the city were still warm underfoot. They felt gentle against Luigsech’s skin, until she trod on something broken beneath them - a snapped bone or shard of pottery. Then she was reminded of the destruction they had brought to pass here, unleashing their rage upon the people living within the invaders’ walls.

She had thought that vengeance would help her feel better about losing Seisyll, but she was still as lost as she had been for months. The ashes were meant to hold something, anything to soften the blow. That was why she had come back here, axe still in hand, while the rest of the army formed up behind their queen and marched on. But the ruins were too empty, too quiet to bring any comfort. The black stain of ashes would forever scar this land, but it could not drive away her grief. Walking here just left her feeling hollow inside.

The wind blew, lifting ash from the base of a fallen pillar. Perhaps that was what she needed to do, to imitate the wind and dig deeper.

Kneeling, she sank her hands through the ashes, flinging handfuls aside. The air around her becoming a grey cloud, until her fingers touched upon something strange and angular.

Carefully now, she brushed the ashes from its surface, revealing a fallen statue. The man it depicted had been handsome before they tore him from his plinth, smashed chunks from his face and scoured his building with fire. What remained still had a stark beauty, with the remnants of smooth lines and perfectly carved muscles.

Tears ran down Luigsech’s cheeks. She had never seen such a breathtaking work of art, and she had played a part in destroying it. How many more things of beauty had they ruined? She had wanted to create balance for Seisyll’s death, but all she had done was bring more loss.

She pulled off the fur in which her chest was wrapped and used it to brush the ashes from that beautiful, broken face. Then she worked her way along the prostrate form, flinging aside the ashes that covered his belly, his pelvis, his legs.

At last she came to his feet and saw what he stood on. Another body, this time a rendition of one of her own people, trampled underfoot. She didn’t know if it was the way he was carved or just her fond memories, but this man looked so much like Seisyll that she wept again.

This time the tears were hot with anger, her breath coming fast in her rage. It sickened her to think that people capable of such beauty should use it to depict the terrible things they had done. She felt ashamed that she had wept for these people, ashamed and angry.

Snatching up her axe, she pounded at the smug face of the Roman, smashing away what remained of his beauty in a frenzy of blows.

She had helped to ruin something wonderful, and it had all been worthwhile.

Ruina Montium

I was not one of those who feared the coming of the Romans. I had heard the same stories the others had, of these fearsome fighting men who were conquering the world. We knew they were the reason Carthaginian traders didn’t come up into the hills any more. But I had heard about the lives people lived under the Romans, about stone houses and heated floors, soft beds and softer clothes. I wanted that life.

When they came it was for our hills. Hardly surprising - they were beautiful hills.

There had always been a few men digging gold from the rocks or finding it in streams, trading it for tools and cloth. But the Romans longed for gold like a fisherman longs for oysters, and they were willing to smash through the hard shell of the mountains to find it. That meant they needed more than a few men, and when they came looking for labourers I eagerly signed up.

“How will this lead to gold?” I asked Trassus, the scarred old soldier in charge of our labouring team. He had us digging a broad pit on a hillside, while others dug the channel that would fill it with water.

“You’re a curious bastard, aren’t you?” He grinned. “Always with the questions.”

“I want to learn.” I grinned back. “One day I want your job, and then after that his.” I pointed to the supervisor who stood in his toga high on the hillside, directing construction of an aqueduct. “I want gold and soft bedding, and how else will I get that? So tell me, how will this lead to gold?”

Trassus laughed. “You’ll see.”

I frowned as I ran a hand through the wilting wheat. Hidden in dusk’s long shadows, the vegetables in my other field were smaller than in previous summers. I had been so busy at the mine, I had not had time to feed and water them properly. Even my three pigs looked skinny and discontented.

A hollow, tingling feeling rose in my chest. What was I doing, letting my livelihood dwindled like this?

Tightening my fist, I felt the solid edges of silver coins - more this week because I had worked so long and hard. Coins that could buy me more food if I needed it, as well as fine jewellery and a soft bed.

The fields could wait. I needed sleep, so that I could work even harder the next day, and earn even more coins.

The gate opened and water rushed from the basin we had dug, roaring down the channel and into a narrow cavity dug by other miners.

“We call it ruina montium.” Trassus bellowed to be heard. “The wrecking of mountains.”

As water rushed into the cavity there was a cracking sound, and then another. Rocks tumbled down the hillside.

“But how?” I asked. “It’s only water.”

Trassus hadn’t heard me, too busy shouting at another labourer. So instead I hurried down the hill, to get closer and see how it worked. I thought I heard him shouting something behind me, but the noise obliterated his words.

The ground beneath my feet trembled in anticipation of the gold to come. The sound of cracking stone echoed around the valley, and I looked up to see a chunk of the hillside, already swept clear of soil, breaking away.

I screamed and ran as rocks flew. One hit me in the side. I stumbled, fell, rose again just as a boulder crashed past to my right.

“Stupid Iberian bastard!” Trassus grabbed me and dragged me uphill. Behind us, half a hillside broke away and crashed to earth in a rush of escaping water.

Terror turned to relief as I realised how close I had come to death. A few last small rocks landed around us. Gold gleamed from them, and I knew that we would be well paid tonight.

But as I looked up at the red wound in the rocky hillside, water dripping from its surface like blood, I felt that same hollow tingling I’d experienced at the sight of my withered crops.

“No slacking.” Trassus pointed to where another basin was being dug. “You want to get paid, don’t you? Earn those silk sheets you’re always talking about?”

I nodded and followed him, my legs heavy, eyes still on the hillside.

How much did I want soft bedding now?

Cousin Isaac is Missing

I open the door and step out into a cold spring day, my cloak wrapped tight around me, flattening my woollen dress. Pulling up the hood, I cover my hair and cast my face into shadow, hoping that I will blend into the crowd. It is safer that way.

This close to the castle our streets are cobbled. Perhaps that is one of the things that people resent about us. Perhaps not. I am not sure I will ever understand the why of it, though I will always know that the resentment is there. Fear and suspicion are my constant companions, hanging at my shoulders day and night. More so now, since cousin Isaac is missing.

I have to go to the market. Not far, but far enough. Past the corner where they beat my father two summers back. Beneath the shadow of St Peter’s. I will be quick, buy the things I need and hurry back home. Tensions have been high. None of us linger in the streets.

My footsteps echo along Weavers Lane. As I emerge into the marketplace a gust of wind snatches back my hood, exposing me to the eyes of dozens of traders and shoppers, even a guard down from the castle in his chainmail and tabard. I feel like they are all staring, even after I pull the hood back up and lose myself among the stalls.