Down to the Sea (12 page)

Both of them looked at Abraham Keane, who throughout the conversation had stood in respectful silence behind Vincent.

Vincent started to make an angry remark, but Jurak extended his hand. “Indulge him. Besides, he is the son of Keane. Go on, boy, speak.”

Abraham blushed. “Sir, my father has often said that his hope was that somehow we could finally learn to coexist, side by side.”

“And you believe this?”

“I want to.”

“I know enough of your father to believe him and you, at least as to what you might wish.”

“It is what many of us wish,” Vincent interjected. “Wishes, always wishes,” Jurak replied sharply. “I must deal this winter with facts.”

“We could send food to you.”

“Ahh, so now we are reduced to beggary. Should we come to the depot and bow in thanks? Suggest that to my warriors up on the ridge and see what they say. They would choose one of two things in reply to that: either cut their own throats or cut yours. The Ancestors would spit upon them for such an infamy.”

“You are telling me, then, that there will be war?” Vincent asked.

Jurak leaned back and closed his eyes, then finally shook his head.

“No. But I am telling you that unless something changes, no matter what we desire, things will become impossible. Either we are allowed to expand our range to new lands, or we starve. No other alternative you suggest can work.”

“And that is what I am to carry back to Congress?”

“Tell your Congress to come to our encampments and see the starvation. Then ask them what is to be done.”

“Jurak, I hope you know enough about me to know that I will honestly tell them the truth regarding your situation.”

Jurak nodded. “Yes, I believe you will.”

“But I promise nothing. I will suggest expansion to the north. It is land belonging to the Nippon, which is still open range. They are very testy about such issues, but if we could give you access to the Great Northern Forest, there is game aplenty there. Perhaps that might help.”

“For the present at least.” Jurak’s voice was cool, distant.

Vincent shifted uncomfortably, and Jurak could sense that he wanted to talk about something else.

He nodded to his son, who refilled his goblet with kumiss.

“We’ve had reports,” Vincent continued.

“Of what?”

“The Kazan.”

Jurak looked straight ahead, wondering how his son was reacting. His gaze focused on Keane’s son, standing behind Hawthorne. The boy was staring straight at him, penetrating pale blue eyes that, if of the Bantag, would mark him as a spirit walker.

Somehow he sensed that the boy knew, and it was disquieting.

Hawthorne looked back over his shoulder at Keane. “Abraham, could you fetch that item you’re carrying for me?”

The boy stirred and turned away.

Abraham Keane opened the saddlebag on his mount. As he reached inside, he looked back at Jurak, who was still staring at him.

Something is bothering him, Abraham thought. All of the Qar Qarth’s attention was focused on him.

Why?

He pulled out the package, wrapped in an oil-soaked wrap, and brought it up to Vincent, who motioned for him to open it. Untying the binding, Abraham laid the cloth open. He picked up the revolver, the bulk of it so large that he felt he should hold it with two hands.

The steel was burnished to an almost silver gleam, and the grips were made of ivory. It was not an old cap and ball weapon from the war, but a cartridge-loaded weapon, the cylinder holding eight rounds of a heavy caliber. As he held it forth, he looked again at Jurak.

Abraham wondered what it would be like to do what his father had done. More than once his father had leveled a revolver into the face of one of the Horde riders and fired, so close, he had heard veterans say, that their manes had burst into flames.

What was it like to kill? he wondered.

Jurak stared at him, the flicker of a smile crossing his features. “Ever been in battle, boy?”

The words were a deep grumble, spoken in the slave dialect, which was taught at the academy to young cadets who would be assigned to the cavalry on the frontier.

“No, sir.”

“Your father killed scores of my warriors with his own hands.”

“I know.”

“Does that make you proud of him?”

Abraham hesitated.

“Speak with truth.”

Abraham nodded. “It was war. Your race would have destroyed, devoured mine. He’s told me he fought so that I would grow up safe, which I have.”

Jurak laughed softly. “He did it for more than that. He did it because he loved it.”

Abraham shifted uncomfortably, gun still in his hands, pointed not quite at Jurak but in his general direction.

What does this one know of me, of my father? Abraham wondered. Is it true that my father did love it, that he gloried in it? He thought of Pat O’Donald, of William Webster, who was now secretary of the treasury and holder of the Medal of Honor for leading a charge. And he thought of the few others of the old 35 th Maine and 44th New York who were still alive, who would come to the house in the evening and never did a night pass when they did not talk of “the old days.” Always there’d be that gleam in their eye, the sad smiles, the brotherhood that no one else could possibly share. Is that what they love, the memories of it? Or was this leader of a fallen race correct, that they loved it for the killing?

“Did you love it as well?” Abraham asked. “I heard it said that after you defeated us at Capua, you rode before your warriors carrying one of our battle standards, standing tall in your stirrups, acknowledging the cheers of your warriors. Did you love that moment?”

Jurak, caught off guard, let his gaze drop for a second. Hawthorne, who had been watching the exchange, reached out and took the heavy revolver from Abraham’s grasp and inverted it, holding the stock toward Jurak.

“Go ahead, take it.”

Jurak, smiling, accepted the revolver, hefted it, half cocked the weapon and spun the cylinder. He raised it up, pointing it toward the flyer, which still buzzed overhead. “A gift?” Jurak asked.

“No, a return.”

Jurak laughed softly. “You speak in riddles, Hawthorne.”

“I think you know what I mean, Qar Qarth Jurak.”

“Then enlighten me.”

“This weapon was taken from one of your dead after the fight at Tamira. You can see it’s of the finest craftsmanship. Its precision, according to my designer of armaments, exceeds anything we could now make. It is obvious it is not an old weapon left over from our war.”

“So?”

“Where did it come from?”

“You said it was looted from one of my dead.”

“A commander of ten thousand as near as we could figure out from his uniform and standard.”

Jurak was silent.

“It is either one of two things, Jurak. First, if you are now making such things, it is in violation of our treaty.”

“You, however, can make whatever machines that please you,” Garva interjected, voiced filled with anger. He stepped up to his father’s side. Nearly as tall as his sire, he looked down menacingly at Abraham.

Abraham struggled for control, not willing to let this one see fear, and yet he suddenly did feel afraid. It had a primal edge, as if he were confronting a terrifying predator in the dark. He suddenly wondered if this one had ever tasted human flesh, and he knew with a frightful certainty that if given the chance, Garva would do such a thing without hesitation.

He forced himself to stare up at Garva and not back down. Jurak extended his hand. “Go on, Hawthorne.”

“Did you make this weapon?”

Jurak shook his head. “The machinery required, the lathes, to cut the cylinder to such perfection, even the refining of the steel—you know we couldn’t do that and keep it hidden for long.”

“Then if you did not make it, how did one of your warriors come to possess it? It’s not sized to a human. It does, however, fit your hand perfectly.”

Jurak looked straight at Vincent, but did not answer.

“The Kazan. Is that it?”

There was a long silence. Abraham turned his gaze away from Garva, again focusing on Jurak. He wondered how one learned to read them, to understand the nuances of gesture, and found it impossible. Always there was that impenetrability he had heard his father speak of so often.

“They are fifteen hundred leagues or more from here,” Jurak finally replied, waving vaguely toward the south.

“And twelve hundred of those leagues are ocean, which they know how to sail. Have you been in contact with them?”

Jurak actually smiled, but said nothing.

“Is that from the Kazan?” Vincent pressed, and though Abraham’s command of the Bantag slave dialect was far from good, he could clearly catch the tone of anger and even of threat in Vincent’s voice.

“Given how this conversation is progressing, I’d certainly take pleasure in meeting these Kazan,” Jurak replied, leaning forward menacingly, the revolver in his hand now almost pointed at Vincent.

Abraham looked up to the riders who, throughout the meeting, had remained motionless on the ridgeline behind them. He could see that they were intently watching the exchange, and more than one was shifting. Several had old rifles from the war out of their saddle sheaths. He could sense their eagerness, their hope that something was about to explode.

“The possession of that weapon…Vincent continued, ignoring the implied threat in Jurak’s gesture. “If there is contact between you and the Kazan, I must urge you to step back.”

“Why? Is there something about to happen between you and them?” Jurak replied, the slightest of mocking tones in his voice. “If so, it could prove most interesting for the Bantag.”

“Don’t get involved in it, Jurak,” Vincent replied. He sounded almost as if pleading, which Abraham found uncomfortable, but then he realized that it was a heartfelt warning.

“I don’t want another war with you. We fought our fight. We don’t need another such bloodletting, because if there is, we both know the end result.”

Jurak grunted and shook his head. As if bowed under with weariness, he slowly stood up and stretched, then stepped closer to Vincent.

Abraham realized that at last he was seeing anger—the flat nostrils dilating, mane bristling slightly along the neck, the brown wrinkled skin shifting in color to a brighter hue. “Human, we are not slaves. We are not cattle.”

He said the last word in the old tongue, the meaning of it quite clear.

Vincent stood up as well, though the effect simply made the difference in their size more pronounced. Hawthorne barely came up to the Qar Qarth’s chest.

“If they are out there,” Vincent said, “stay out of it. If we do find them, and there is a war, stay out of it. I tell you this not just as a representative of my government, but as a soldier who once faced you in battle. We do not want another war with you. You have nothing to gain by it except slaughter.”

“We have our pride,” Garva interjected.

“Silence!” Jurak shifted, gaze locked on his son for a brief instant, and yet Abraham wondered if he was indeed angry, if the son had not spoken what Jurak felt.

Jurak pointed the gun straight at Vincent. “This weapon proves nothing to me other than your fears. Your fear of a Horde you cannot even find; a fear of us, a fear of yourselves.” He laughed darkly. “You are afraid of becoming like we once were, aren’t you? Your pity stayed your hand, and now you are afraid.”

“Pity?” Vincent cried. “In the name of God, we were all sick of the killing. Remember, it was a human, a cattle who saved your life from that insane animal, the Qar Qarth of the Merki.”

There was a flicker of doubt, of sadness, on Jurak’s face. “Yes, Hans,” he said quietly.

“Then in his name, stay out of this. I’ll see what I can do about expanding your territory, perhaps even easing the restrictions on making machinery, as long as it can’t be used for weapons. I’ll do that in the name of Hans and on my honor as a soldier.”

“You would do that, Hawthorne. I have heard of this religion you once believed in, this thing called Quaker. Tell me, do you still have nightmares over all whom you’ve killed?”

Vincent stiffened and then stepped back. “I’ll forget that question,” he said, his voice filled with icy menace.

Jurak nodded. “I offer apology.”

Vincent, struggling for control, could only give a jerky nod of reply.

“There is nothing else to be said here today,” Jurak announced. “We understand each other. I have begged, and you have threatened, and now we understand.”

- “I have not threatened,” Vincent finally replied, his voice strained. “I have tried to explain things as they are.”

“As have I.”

“My adjutant will deliver a written statement to your camp tomorrow, detailing our understanding of what transpired today. Let us ponder what we’ve discussed and agree to meet again tomorrow or the day after.”

“You have such a love of things in writing, you humans. My old world was like that, too. It is one of the few things about it I don’t really miss.”

“If there is anything else you wish to communicate, I’ll remain camped here for a while.”

Jurak looked at him warily.

“By the treaty signed between us, I and an appropriate escort have the right to traverse your territory, though I would prefer if I did so as an invited guest who has received your permission.”

“My permission?” Jurak laughed softly.

“This is, after all, your land.”

“By your sufferance.”

“I wish you saw it differently.”

“How can I?” There was an audible sigh. “You humans, how can you know what I think? You know nothing of the world I came from, where we were the sole masters. The things I knew there, about the history of our greatness, the half-formed knowledge I still carry of weapons that could sweep you away in a single day, but which I do not understand how to make. Tell me, on your old world, did you not have nations that subjugated and annihilated others solely because they could?”

Vincent did not answer.

“I see that here now. No matter what your intentions, your sense of honor, as you call it—the fact that you and I can in some way respect each other as two former enemies—will not change the inevitable. I know how such things must always end.”