Empire of Ivory (39 page)

fruits and water and cocoanut milk, and his questions were

of generalities and trade, wide-ranging. He had a bolt of

cloth to show Laurence, calico-patterned and certainly from

the mills of England; some bottles of whiskey, unpleasantly

harsh and cheap by the smell, also of foreign manufacture.

"You sell these things to the Lunda," Moshueshue said, "and

those also?" indicating the muskets.

"They have lately fought a war against them," Mrs. Erasmus

said, quickly adding her own explanation, at the tail of

the translation: there had been a battle won, two-days'

flight from the falls. "North-west, I think," she said, and

asked Moshueshue permission to show him the territory, on

the great map of the continent: north-west, and still deep

inland, but in a few days' striking-distance of the ports

of Louanda and Benguela.

"Sir," Laurence said, "I have never heard of the Lunda

before two weeks ago; I believe they must have these goods

from perhaps the Portuguese traders, upon the coast."

"And do you only want captives, or will you take other

things in trade? The medicines you stole, or-" and one of

the women carried over at Moshueshue's beckoning a box of

jewels, absurdly magnificent, which would have made the

Nizam stare: polished emeralds tumbled like marbles with

diamonds, and the box itself of gold and silver. Another

carried over carefully a tall curious vase, made of woven

wire strung occasionally with beads, in an elaborate

pattern without figures, and another an enormous mask,

nearly tall as she herself was, carved of dark wood inlaid

with ivory and jewels.

Laurence wondered a little if this were meant for another

sort of inducement. "A trader would oblige you, sir, I am

sure. I am not a merchant myself. We would be glad-would

have been glad-to pay you for the medicines, in what barter

you desired."

Moshueshue nodded, and the treasure was taken away. "And

the-cannon?" He used the English word, himself, with

tolerable pronunciation. "Or your boats which cross the

ocean?"

There were enough jewels in the box to have tolerably

purchased and outfitted a fleet of merchantmen, Laurence

would have guessed, but he did not think the Government

would be very pleased to see such a project go forward; he

answered cautiously, "These are dearer, sir, for the

difficulty in their construction; and would do you very

little good without the men who understand their operation.

But some men might be found, willing to take service with

you, and such an arrangement made possible; if there were

peace between our countries."

Laurence thought this was not further than he could in

justice go, and as much attempt at diplomacy as he knew how

to make; he hoped as a hint, it would not be badly

received. Moshueshue's intentions were not disguised; it

was not wonderful that he, more than the king, should have

taken to heart the advantages of modern weaponry, more

easily grasped at musket-scale by men than by dragons, and

should have cared to establish access to them.

Moshueshue put his hand on the map-table and gazed

thoughtfully down upon it. At last he said, "You are not

engaged in this trade, you say, but others of your tribe

are. Can you tell me who they are, and where they may be

found?"

"Sir, I am sorry to say, that there are too many engaged in

the trade for me to know their names, or particulars,"

Laurence said awkwardly, and wished bitterly that he might

have been able to say with honesty it had been lately

banned. Instead he could only add, that he believed it soon

would be; which was received with as much satisfaction as

he had expected.

"We will ban it ourselves," the prince said, the more

ominously for the lack of any deliberately threatening

tone. "But that will not satisfy our ancestors." He paused.

"You are Kefentse's captives. He wants to trade you for

more of his tribe. Can you arrange such an exchange?

Lethabo says you cannot."

"I have told them that most of the others cannot be found,"

Mrs. Erasmus added quietly. "-it was nearly twenty years

ago."

"Perhaps some investigation could locate the survivors,"

Laurence said to her doubtfully. "There would be bills of

sale, and I suppose some of them must yet be on the same

estates, where they first were sold-you do not think it

so?"

She said after a moment, "I was taken into the house when I

was sold. Those in the fields did not live long, most of

them. A few years; maybe ten. There were not many old

slaves."

Laurence did not quarrel with her finality, and he thought

she did not translate her own words, either; likely to

shield him from the rage which they could provoke. She said

enough to convince Moshueshue of the impossibility,

however, and he shook his head. "However," Laurence said,

trying, "we would be glad to ransom ourselves, if you would

arrange a communication with our fellows at the Cape, and

to carry an envoy with us, to England, to establish

peaceful relations. I would give my own word, to do

whatever could be done to restore his kin-"

"No," Moshueshue said. "There is nothing I can do with

this, not now. The ancestors are too roused up; it is not

Kefentse only who has been bereft, and even those who have

not lost children of their own are angry. My father's

temper was not long when he was a man, and it is shorter

since his change of life. Perhaps after." He did not say,

after what, but issued orders to the attending dragons:

without a chance to speak, Laurence was snatched up, and

carried out at once.

The dragon did not turn back for the prison-cave, however,

but turned instead for the falls, rising up out of the

gorge and to the level of the plateau across which the

great river flowed. Laurence clung to the basketing talons

as they flew along its banks and over another of the great

elephant-herds, too quickly for him to recognize if any of

his compatriots were among the followers tending the

ground; and to a distance at which the sound of the falls

was muted, although the fine cloud of smoke yet remained

visible, hovering perpetual in place to mark their

location. There were no roads below at all, but at regular

intervals Laurence began to notice cairns of stones, in

circles of cleared ground, which might have served as

signposts; and they had flown ten minutes when there came

rearing up before them a vast amphitheater.

It was near to nothing, in his own experience, but the

Colosseum in Rome; built entirely of blocks of stone fitted

so snugly that no mortar, visibly, held them together, the

outer enclosure was built in an oval shape, with no

entrances but a few, at the base, formed with great

overlapping slabs of stone laid one against another like

the old stone circles in England. It stood in the middle of

a grassy field, undisturbed, as he would have expected from

some ancient unused ruin; only a few faintly worn tracks

showed where men had come into the entries on foot, mostly

from the river, where stakes had been driven in the ground,

and a few simple boats were tied up.

But they flew in directly over the walls, and there were no

signs of disuse within. The same drymortar method of

construction had raised a series of terraces, topped and

leveled out with more stone slabs, laid flat, and

irregularly arranged; instead of even tiers, narrow

stairways divided the theater into sections, each a

haphazard arrangement of boxes intended for human use and

filled with wooden benches and stools, some beautifully

carved, and large stalls surrounding them for dragons. The

higher levels simplified further, into wide-open stands

with sections marked off only with rope; at the center of

it all, a large grassy oval stood bare, broken up with

three large stone platforms, and on the last of these, a

prisoner with drooping head, was Temeraire.

Laurence was set down a few lengths away, with the usual

carelessness, jarring his back sorely; at his repressed

gasp, Temeraire growled, a deep and queerly stifled noise.

He had been muzzled, with a piece of dreadful iron

basketry, secured upon his head with many thick leather

straps, which allowed his jaws a scant range of motion: not

enough to roar. A thick iron collar around his throat, at

the top of his neck, was leashed with three of the massive

grey hawsers, which Laurence could now see were made of

braided wire, rather than rope; these were fixed to iron

rings set in the ground, equidistant from one another, and

preventing Temeraire from throwing his weight against any

one of them more than the others.

"Laurence, Laurence," Temeraire said, straining his head

towards him with all the inches the cables would yield;

Laurence would have gone to him at once, but the dragon

which had brought him set its foreleg down between them: he

was not permitted.

"Pray do not hurt yourself, my dear; I am perfectly well,"

Laurence called, forcing himself to straighten; he was

anxious lest Temeraire should have done himself some

mischief, flinging himself against the collar: it looked to

be digging into the flesh. "You are not very uncomfortable,

I hope?"

"Oh, it is nothing," Temeraire said, panting with a

distress which belied his words, "nothing, now I see you

again; only I could not move very much, and no-one comes to

talk to me, so I did not know anything: if you were well or

hurt; and you were so strange, when I saw you last."

He backed slowly and cautiously one pace and let himself

down again, still breathing heavily, and gave his head a

little shake, as much as the chains would allow, so they

rang around him; like a horse in traces. "And it makes

eating a little difficult," he added bravely, "and water

taste of rust, but it does not signify: are you sure you

are well? You do not look well."

"I am, and very glad to see you," Laurence said, businesslike, though in truth he was at some pains to keep his

feet, "if beyond words with surprise; we were mortally

certain we should never be found."

"Sutton said we would never find you, by roaming wild about

the continent," Temeraire said, low and angry, "and that we

ought to go back to Capetown. But I told him that was a

very great piece of nonsense, for however unlikely we

should find you looking in the interior, it was very much

less likely we should find you back at the Cape. So we

asked directions-"

"Directions?" Laurence said, baffled.

He had consulted with some of the local dragons, who,

living farther to the south, had not been subject yet to

the slave-raiding, and were not so disposed to be hostile.

"At least, not once we had made them a few presents of some

particularly nice cows-which, I am sorry, Laurence, we took

quite without permission, from some of the settlers, so I

suppose we must pay them when we have got back to

Capetown," Temeraire added, as confidently as if nothing

stood in the way of their return. "It was a little

difficult to make them understand what we wanted, at first,

but some of them understood the Xhosa language, which I had

got a little of from Demane and Sipho, and I have learnt a

little of theirs as we came closer: it is not very

difficult, and there are many bits which are like Durzagh."

"But, forgive me; I do not mean to be ungrateful," Laurence

said, "-the mushrooms? What of the cure? Were there any

left?"

"We had already given all those we collected to the Fiona,"

Temeraire said, "and if those were not enough, then

Messoria and Immortalis could do very well taking back the

rest, without us," he finished defiantly, "so Sutton had no

right to complain, if we liked to go; and hang orders

anyway."

Laurence did not argue with him; he had no wish of giving

any further distress, and in any case, Temeraire's

insubordination having been answered by a success so

improbable, he would certainly not be inclined to listen to

any criticism on the subject: the sort of break-neck

reckless venture crowned inevitably, Laurence supposed, by

either triumph or disaster; speed and impudence having

their own virtue. "Where are Lily and Dulcia, then?"

"They are hiding, out upon the plains," Temeraire said. "We

agreed that first I should try, as I am big enough to carry

you all; and then if anything should go wrong, they would

still be loose." He switched his tail with something

halfway between irritation and unease. "It made very good

sense at the time, but I did not quite realize, that

anything would go wrong, and then I would not be able to

help them plan," he added plaintively, "and now I do not

know what they mean to do; although I am sure they will

think of something"-but he sounded a little dubious.