The Choir Boats (45 page)

Sanford said, with one of his frugal smiles, “Besides, it was not
the best
hara masala
I ever et, but nor were it the worst.”

Sanford stepped aside as Barnabas approached.

Barnabas reached for his daughter’s hands and said, “I owe you
an apology I shall make for the rest of my life. I wronged you before
ever you were born. Please join this family so I can make amends.
Please.”

Afsana took her father’s hands, with Tom still holding her. In her
mind’s eye Sally saw two books, a pair of
som-manri
, one her uncle’s,
one her cousin’s. She could not see what was written in the books
of atonement but she saw that in each there suddenly appeared one
blue flower, the
sela-manri
, the flower of repentance. The flowers
were pressed between two pages and the books were shut.

After that meal, the McDoons looked forward to an improvement
in events, an upturn away from their maladventures and disappointments. But that is not what happened.

The Ambassador from Orn, no more than five feet tall, walked into
the royal audience hall on the balls of her feet like the champion fencer
she was. A scar ran from one cheek over the bridge of her nose to her
other cheek, the mark in Orn of a leader of a noble war-clan. Her black
uniform was bare except for one red stripe down each pant leg and
one red stripe around each sleeve-cuff. A sword in an unadorned black
scabbard swung from her hip. Behind her walked her delegation, five
diplomats dressed in identical black uniforms (except that theirs
lacked the cuff-stripe), each with a sword swinging to match hers.
With lethal grace she advanced down the long carpet towards the
dais which held the throne upon which Queen Zinnamoussea sat.
The Lord-Chancellor, the Arch-Bishop, and the Queen’s other chief
counsellors sat behind her. The audience hall was filled to overflowing
with people, more even than had jammed into it for the hearing after
the events at the Sign of the Ear. The McDoons sat on one side, with
Nexius, Reglum, Dorentius, and Noreous.

The Ornish delegation paced forward: the creaking of the leather
scabbards was audible as they swung in unison. Ten paces from
the foot of the dais, the Ambassador from Orn and her delegation
stopped. As one they reached up and took off their hats, which to the
London McDoons looked like the fore-and-aft hats of officers in the
British Navy. As one the six Ornish placed the hats under their arms
and stood at attention. Their hats seemed to have more life than their
faces. So expressionless were the Ornish that — to Sally’s eyes — they
looked like cephalophores, the decapitated saints who were pictured
in stained glass holding their heads tucked under their arms.

It was one week after the McDoons had decided to stay in Yount.
The Ambassador from Orn had demanded an audience with the
Queen. No ambassador had demanded, as opposed to requested, an
audience in almost a century, not since the Incident at the Island of
Loism in the Liviates had almost caused the War of Affirmation to
resume. Nor had the Ambassador from Yount Major to the Coerceries
demanded an audience with the Tyrannulets in all that time. Yount
Major and the Coerceries of Orn had skirmished, bickered, and
sniped at each other for almost a century, sued each other over
alleged or real breaches of the Treaty of Malipad-Em, but done so
within what the two sides agreed were normal diplomatic channels.
Demanding an audience broke the system and both sides knew it.

The Ambassador from Orn took two more steps forward, and
said to the Queen: “In the name of the Mother and by the Five
Trees, I represent the Four-Coerceries of Orn-Acting-in-Concert:
Nash, Wheyse, Khoof, and Moozhe. I bear the greetings of the Four
Tyrannulets, may their ferocity be commended, and of the Ornish
College of Hierophants, may their wisdom be praised, and of the
collected noble war-clans, may their loyalty be shown against all
enemies.”

Queen Zinnamoussea, with a look that said she was keen to skip
the formalities, welcomed the Ambassador.

The Ambassador nodded and said, “Unfortunately, exalted
Queen, as you no doubt have surmised, I am not come on a happy
errand or to exchange pleasantries. Rather, I am instructed to deliver
to and lodge with you and your government a formal complaint, and
to issue a demand to you and your government stemming from that
complaint.”

Queen Zinnamoussea replied without emotion, “And what,
Ambassador, are the specifics of the injuries and harms your
government alleges under the Treaty of Malipad-Em, and what are
the specifics of the demand?”

The Ambassador shifted her balance from one foot to another,
as a fencer does, and said, “Our first complaint is that you and your
government did, without informing us in advance, let alone seeking
our consent as the treaty constrains you to do, enter the holy Temple
of the Mother at the Sign of the Ear, did employ several so-called
Karket-soomi, strangers from outside Yount — procured through
means and in a nature expressly forbidden by the Mother — did
endeavour to open and did actually for some short time succeed
in opening the Door in the Moon, but in so doing roused a demon
against all of Yount and, in general, through your heedless and selfish
actions did violate the wishes of the Great Mother and prolong the
suffering of all Yountians in our place of exile.”

No one on the dais moved. The Ambassador might have been
delivering her speech to a collection of statues.

“Our second complaint is more serious still. We understand that
one in particular among the Karket-soomi you have called here and
caused to be brought here has extraordinary powers, and that this
person, a female, might be in truth the key to the salvation of Yount.
In short, the Hierophants in Orn believe that this person might be
the
sukenna-tareef
, the Saviour. If this is true, then Yount Major
has no right to hold her for its own narrow, selfish, and misguided
purposes, but must release her for the greater good of all Yount.
If the female in question is, in fact, the Rescuer, then the time of
Yount’s deliverance is at hand, and anyone denying, obstructing,
deterring, or in any fashion standing in the way of that event must be
considered anathema, enemies to be destroyed in the righteousness
of the Mother’s merciful cauldrons.”

A ripple ran through the audience hall. The figures on the dais
moved.

The Ambassador put up her hand and continued: “Allow me to
finish, for I am almost done. Our demand is that this female, known
in her native language as Sarah Margaret McLeish, be brought
immediately by us to Orn to be examined by the Hierophants, so
that they can determine if she is the
sukenna-tareef
.”

Queen Zinnamoussea remained seated but gripped the arms
of her throne, leaned forward, and said in the coldest voice Sally
had ever heard, “Ambassador, by our count, the Coerceries of Orn
have broken the treaty eighty-seven times since it was signed. Your
complaints have no standing, rationale, or basis in principle that
merit their discussion. We find them groundless, at best a willful
misreading of facts ill understood. As for your demand, even if
your complaints had merit — which, as I assert, they do not — it is so
odious as to be beneath our dignity even to think about it. The one
you demand is an honoured guest here. In short, we utterly reject
your complaints and your demand.”

The Ambassador smiled at this, knowing she had come to the real
point of her embassy. She stepped two steps back and said, “Suspecting
that you might respond thusly, my government has instructed me to
make the following declaration.”

She took her sword out of her scabbard and held it easily, as a
fencer does, dangling at an angle in front of her with the point facing
the floor. The Ambassador, with an ironic bow, knelt and placed
the sword on the carpet leading to the dais, with its sword pointing
directly at the Queen.

“My delegation and I will sail for Orn in forty-eight hours,” said
the Ambassador. “We maintain our demand to take with us, for
Yount’s sake, the female we have named. You have until then to reevaluate your response. Your failure to re-evaluate will mean Yount
Major wishes to flout the wishes of the Mother by denying Yount
an opportunity to host, foster, and encourage properly the one who
may be the
sukenna-tareef
. Your failure to change your decision will
be tantamount to a declaration of war on the Coerceries of Orn and
all other right-thinking Yountians. Much as we will regret having to
do so, the Coerceries of Orn will respond in kind to your unjust and
provocative action.”

The room was so silent when the Ambassador finished that
Sally heard her heart racing, and thought she heard the hearts of
everyone in the hall. She moved her hand to Reglum’s arm without
knowing she did so.

The Queen stood up slowly, walked to the edge of the dais, and
said, “I am Queen Zinnamoussea, sixth in direct line of the Hullitate
dynasty, the House which emerged to rule Yount Major during the
War of Affirmation. I have prepared my entire life, as my forebears
did before me, for this moment. Orn will receive no different answer
in forty-eight hours, or in forty-eight years, from the one I gave you,
Ambassador, just now.”

The Queen held out her right hand, without looking back. The
Lord-Chancellor and the Arch-Bishop stood up, together picked up
a scabbarded sword from behind the throne, and walked the sword
to the Queen. Zinnamoussea took the sword and with a practiced
motion swept the sword out of its scabbard. A throaty sigh went
through the room. She held the sword in front of her the way a fencer
does, perhaps not with quite the balance of the Ambassador but with
easy resolve nonetheless. She walked down the five stairs of the dais,
and paused on the carpet with her toes almost touching the point of
the Ambassador’s sword. She looked at the Ambassador but did not
bow before kneeling down to place her sword at right angles to the
Ornish sword.

The Queen stood up and said, “Ambassador, your embassy is
at an end. By our laws and the treaty, you are granted safe passage
from Yount Major back to Orn, provided you leave within forty-eight
hours. From this moment, as a result of your egregious and wholly unfounded demand and subsequent hostile actions, Yount Major and the
Coerceries of Orn are at war with one another. I bid you farewell.”

Queen
Zinnamoussea
turned
and
walked
up
the
stairs.
She
stood in front of her throne and signalled to the soldiers guarding
the doorway, who opened the doors. Outside stood a company of
drummers, headed by two soldiers bearing flags. The drummers,
twenty in unison, began a tattoo the instant the doors opened. In
they marched, with the dolphin, tree, and moon of Yount Major flying
in front of them. The sound, coming after the close exchange before a
near-silent audience and in an indoor space, was remarkably loud.

The drummers lined the carpet, ten to a side, beating the tattoo,
with a flag-bearer at the head of each line. The Ambassador from
Orn retrieved and sheathed her sword, paced through her cohort
with the same grace as she showed when she entered. With the
drums drowning out all else, the Ornish put their hats on as one and
marched down the carpet, past the hundreds assembled, past the
standard-bearers, past the twenty drummers and the guards and
out of the hall. The drummers played on and on.

Within the hour the drum-ships beat in the harbour of Yount
Great-Port, ketches holding enormous drums which were each
beat by five drummers, the sound echoing off the windows of all
the buildings, putting the gulls to flight, pulsing into the sea. All
day and all that night the ship drums beat, like giants clapping over
the entire city. The drumming was heard in the outlying precincts
of the city, where drums were set up in the market-squares to pass
the message to the industrial suburbs, where in turn drums beat,
passing the message to innermost market towns and so on out to the
villages and to every remote hamlet. The drumming spread from the
Great-Port down the coastal roads, relayed to every city and every
farmstead. By dawn the next day, all of Farther Yount knew the War
of Affirmation had begun again, and drum-ships were on the way
to the Margravate (Yount Major’s march-land on the island of Orn
itself), to the Northern Fief-lands and the Liviates, to confirm what
alarm blasts by ansible had already transmitted.

That afternoon Queen Zinnamoussea went to the Winter
Garden with her counsellors and had all the blood-red carnations
harvested. She went herself to the royal flagship in the harbour
and, to commemorate the sacrifice of the
Lanner
in the first war, she
nailed a large bunch to the mast. She turned on the deck and raised
her arms, and from the ship and from shore came a roaring call, “For
the
Lanner
! Death to Orn!”

Sally and the other McDoons, watching from the Palace windows,
felt both dread and a fierce will to action. Sally reached for her St.
Morgaine medallion, but she did not recite the Hamburg churches.
Down below she saw blue-uniformed companies marching on the
promenade to escort the Queen back to the Palace. Shouts and cries
cracked off the cold building facades. The boom-boom of the drumships did not stop.

So, they think I might be their saviour, the
sukenna-tareef, Sally
thought, holding Isaak up to the window.
If I am, I do not feel like it,
no matter how far or deep I sing. If I am, then I do not think I want to be.
Me, the saviour?! As the cook would say, “There’s more boke than corn in
that bushel.” Well, whatever I am or whatever they think I am: one deep
breath and forward we go!

Aloud she said, “
Kaskas selwish pishpaweem
, dear Mother protect
us.”

The debut staging of “Hero of the Hills” in Yountish had gone forward
as planned, in fact had become a royal command performance. Given
the declaration of war, Nexius, Reglum, and the other Fencibles had
assumed that the production would be cancelled but, at the Lord-Chancellor’s recommendation, the Queen had asked that it be staged
as scheduled. She felt it would be good for morale, especially once
she heard of the play’s martial theme, and most especially because it
was to be staged as part of the Marines’ spring soiree.