The Shasht War (25 page)

"I will see the girl in my chamber. Alone. Now."

The glittering gold suit had risen from the throne, taken a slightly unsteady step or two, and then disappeared down the stairs behind the throne that lead to the Emperor's private office.

Trembling she had risen to her feet and followed a soldier in full-battle armor around the throne and into a small passage leading to a plain wooden door.

Inside, in a room furnished with chairs, desk, and a lovely Nisjani rug, she found the Emperor waiting for her. She had not expected such civilized treatment.

He grilled her, of course, but it was not the terrifying experience she might have imagined. In person the Emperor was nothing like his image from afar. He was not huge, merely sturdily built. His black beard was trimmed short, his hair, now grey was cut short as well. He was a kindly person, obviously intelligent, with careful, crafty eyes. They frequently crinkled to show that he was amused.

Rather than terrifying her, he behaved like a friendly parent. The whole experience astonished her.

"Do you know what was in the message?" was his first question as soon as they were together.

"No, Your Majesty, I have no idea."

"Good," he said, and ordered hot tea.

She discovered she liked the Emperor enormously. Aeswiren had been such a successful ruler because he could charm a lion out of its skin. The palace eunuchs said of him that he could catch trout just by talking with them for a little while in that special "gentle" voice of his.

She told him everything she could think of about the Land and the folk who dwelled in it. He listened and asked more questions, and in the end sent her away with words of affection.

Since that fateful day she'd come several times to see him, always in his private apartments.

The Emperor was fond of expensive rugs and furnishings, but beyond that he was not a greedy or ostentatious man. His private office boasted a different rug every time she visited.

Aeswiren was solidly built, a former soldier who fought to keep the flab off his body. Once he'd been a brutal man, and cruel to his enemies. But for more than twenty years he'd simply tried to govern his huge, polyglot empire. The job was too big for any one man, but he had to try. He was fortunate that his sense of humor had survived the transition from warlord to Emperor.

Now when she came to see him, she found him dressed in casual cotton pants and vest, usually with a black silk jacket. She was expected to bow deeply, but not to kneel. He would offer her tea from the tray kept constantly resupplied in the corner. Sometimes they would eat while they talked, but mostly they just talked. The foods they ate were very simple, for Aeswiren had plain tastes. Apart from his appetite for women and new rugs, Aeswiren had little interest in hedonism.

"Welcome, Simona of the Gsekk. Have some tea, it is freshly brewed."

"Thank you, Your Majesty, I would be honored."

"Good, good, tell me, how are your new quarters?"

The Emperor poured tea with a spirited expertise, keeping the pot a foot from the tiny cup and yet never missing or losing a splash.

"Wonderful, Your Majesty. My father asked me to express his boundless thanks for your kindness."

As indeed both Filek and Simona should, for they now inhabited a wonderful apartment on the upper floor of a three-story house in the imperial city. Being under the Emperor's favor had brought them a vast increase in status.

"Your father has an original mind, Simona. His work may outshine my own in the end."

"Surely not, Your Majesty?" The tea was hot and strong, as she'd expected. "Without tea," he had said to her on her first private audience, "I would have been overthrown many years ago. This empire runs on tea."

"Yes, dear, there have been twenty-three emperors, but there will only be one discoverer of medical science. My work will mostly die with me. But your father's work will inspire the world. Others will build on his discoveries. It may be the beginning of the climb back to the stars for our race."

"The stars, Your Majesty?"

"Yes, child, you heard me. There is nothing to limit our race now. We can attain the glories of the ancient time. Not overnight, not in our lifetimes, not even for hundreds of years, but your father is helping us put our feet back on that path."

"I know nothing of these things, Your Majesty."

"Yes, yes, of course, you say that, but I know you now, miss penny bright eyes. You understand me most of the time."

He rubbed his hands together and smiled.

"But now, to work. We talked last about the manner of their agriculture in the Land. I had many questions."

"Yes, Your Majesty, you always have many questions."

They both chuckled, enjoying the intimacy they had achieved despite the vast difference in their status.

"You described the land there as having abundant water. Pools, ponds, and fields deliberately flooded and then drained again."

"Yes, Your Majesty. They are called the 'watermots' because they work so much in water. They build weirs and dams to deepen the rivers and lakes. They channel the water wherever they want it."

"The principles of this way of farming are well understood. We have similar powers, and there are places in our own territories that employ the water in the same way. No, the difference lies elsewhere." Aeswiren sipped from his small white porcelain cup.

"They farm only in a small area, they leave much of the rest to wilderness?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. They farm on the bottomlands of the rivers, but not on the higher land, not at all."

"You say they have cities, that says they have a certain level of population. How do they feed themselves from so little arable land?"

"I asked a very similar question. They said they simply worked very hard. And the wild lands provided them with game all year-round."

"Hah, if only we could have the same." The Emperor put aside his cup and stood up and stretched. Now he paced up and down in bare feet on the lovely new Nisjani rug that had been put down this week. It had a delightfully firm but silky feel.

Simona had seen the Emperor pace like this on every visit. It was his way of marshaling his thoughts.

"You also mentioned a plant that is unknown to us in Shasht."

"There are many plants like that there. The forests are enormous."

"Yes, but they grow this plant for food."

"Oh, yes, Your Majesty, that is the plant they call 'waterbush.'"

"Waterbush, yes, and that is very productive, too."

"They revere the waterbush, Your Majesty."

"It tastes like toasted wheat bread you said."

"Sometimes, but other times it has no taste. They flavor it with eggs and fish and other things."

"And they grow the waterbush everywhere?"

"On the bottomlands. It needs a lot of water."

"Yes. And what else do they grow?"

"While I was living among the mots, I saw fields of oats and wheat. Their fields are small."

"Yes, you mentioned that before as well. So they restrain their use of the land. And no one objects?"

"According to those I spoke with it seemed that all accepted the need for this way of doing things. They all share the bounty of game from the land, but they carefully manage their hunting to preserve the stock of game. They have seasons to hunt for the deer and the wildfowl, and everyone partakes of the feasts. Among the worst crimes, I was told, is that of the poacher."

"Yes, this is extraordinary. We have all the same rules and dreams, but in practice they have all failed us. Their culture seems built on the same foundations but to have become very different from our own."

"Yes, Your Majesty, it is."

He placed his hands together, palm to palm.

"And now that culture is being crushed and extirpated by my armies."

Simona could only bow and fight off a sob.

Aeswiren turned again and walked on the Nisjani rug.

"Well, I will have to do something to try and stop it, won't I?"

Simona fell on her knees in front of him.

"Oh, Your Majesty, I thank you with all my heart..."

"Yes, yes, child, get up now. I don't like that kind of thing in my private quarters." She rose up once more.

He was studying her with those careful, dark eyes. She saw him make a decision. The sight frightened her a little, as if she had glimpsed a place where enormity ruled and mere human beings were like ants.

"Come, I want to show you something. I'm going to ask you to take on a most formidable task."

Simona put on veil and hooded robe and followed the Emperor out of his private suite, down a public stair past guards on every landing and then to the ground floor of the palace. He turned to her and gave her that deep look again.

"Now prepare yourself for something quite remarkable."

A door opened before them, and they entered a cool, stone corridor. Another door lead to a narrow room and a stair that took them to a darkened gallery overlooking a large room below.

In that room sat a single figure. Wearing dun-brown trousers and a loose shirt of similar tone. At first Simona thought it was a woman with a shaved head. Then with a little shock she saw that it was a mor.

"Be very quiet," whispered Aeswiren. "She does not like to be watched." The Emperor motioned for them to take seats in the gallery. The stone felt cool to her body.

As they watched, the figure in the room down below stood up and began to move around.

Her movements were initially slow and graceful, and obviously part of a long practiced program of maneuvers that went from arm circles and leg raises to a kind of stately slow dance on the spot, the arms sweeping out and back and around behind. And then to Simona's amazement the figure bounced forward on her feet and did a perfect forward somersault hands tucked in, legs straight, head over heels and back on her feet again with her arms outstretched.

Simona felt her heart skip a beat at the indescribably fluent nature of the move. She looked to the Emperor and saw him watching intently, blind to all else.

The show continued as the mor down below performed somersaults in both directions, plus other tumbles and rolls that took her back and forth across the stone floor at a dizzying pace. Then finally she tired, drew herself up with her arms raised above her head, and came down to a resting position. A moment later she had left the room through a narrow door.

The Emperor turned to Simona.

"Well, child, what do you think?"

In the darkness Simona could not see his eyes, but his voice was husked by something akin to desire. The mor acrobat had an astonishing grace and beauty, something quite transcendent, and he had responded.

"She is amazing to see, Your Majesty."

"Isn't she? Well, here's what I want you to do. Either way it's going to be very hard. You can speak their language, can't you?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Exactly. So I want you to teach this divinely beautiful creature to speak Shashti."

Simona felt her jaw drop for a moment, but he had not noticed.

"Otherwise," he went on, "you'll have to teach me the monkey talk."

The door to the cell opened again. They never knocked, of course. Nuza looked up but remained sitting and fought to maintain a calm appearance. She succeeded. She looked away from the door and calmed her breathing and slowed her pulse. Thru would be proud of her, she was keeping an iron grip on her emotions, no longer jumping at every sound.

On the voyage it had been easier. She hadn't been alone for one thing. And for another the stone walls of this place unnerved her. Harsh sounds echoed in the passages outside the door and the armed men terrified her.

Someone came through the door. When Nuza turned to look, her eyebrows flashed up and down involuntarily. Instead of the huge, heavily armed guards a single figure, wrapped in black cloth entered. When the door shut, the figure bowed to her. The person in the black robe was scarcely any bigger than Nuza herself.

Nuza rose slowly to her feet, pushing back the wooden chair, struggling to keep her composure. What did this sinister figure portend? Was this to be her death? She wondered for the hundredth time whether they were finally going to kill her and get it over with.

To tell the truth she was tired of waiting. Death would be a release.

The black robe was pulled open, then removed, and Nuza felt her jaw drop. The figure revealed was not a man, it was undoubtedly female from the hips to the breasts, but it was no mor. It was "wo-man," as Thru had named it, or rather, her.

It was the first woman that Nuza had ever seen.

Nuza studied her carefully. The wo-man was a little taller than herself, but was not as muscular. It was strange to see a face so naked, so exposed without beard or helmet. The pale colored hair was pulled back behind the head exposing the pale skin of the forehead. The lips were thick, heavier even than those of men, and similarly reddish. The eyes seemed set too close together, the characteristic of men.

No fur. That was the thing that stood out the most in her mind. Were the full young breasts of wo-man as naked as the rest of her? Nuza felt a twinge of something like competitiveness for a moment. Then she felt chagrin at such pettiness.

The wo-man was smiling, she carried no weapon. Nuza concluded that she was not about to die.

"D'thaam,"
said the wo-man quite clearly. "Greetings, my name is Simona," she continued in a slightly halting speech, the tongue of the Land.

Nuza had to sit down again to absorb this. Not since she had been torn from her companions on the ship had she heard the sweet sounds of the tongue of the Land. All around her had been nothing but the harsh babble of Shasht.

The wo-man came closer and reached out. Nuza gave a little shriek and sat farther back.

"I will not hurt you," said the wo-man.

Nuza knew that either she was hearing this for real or she was losing her mind at last. This was an incredible hallucination if that's what it was.

At times during the lonely days of the long voyage, she had thought she was falling into insanity, but nothing had been quite so "real" as this.