Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 (22 page)

 
          
"Upstairs,"
he ordered. "Bolt the door, Andri." Picking up an oil lamp, he
preceded us.

 
          
And
so I first made the acquaintance of Doctor Edrick.

 
          
I
was to spend three weeks in his house being questioned every afternoon and
evening while Doctor Edrick made notes in spidery handwriting in a black
ledger. At first Andri assisted in the interrogation; and where he had
established general outlines, now Edrick filled in the minutest particulars.

 
          
I
must have spilled out the whole of my life and of all our eastern lives.
And why not?
Why should I have held back? Was I betraying
our way of life, our river-way? Hardly! I felt more like an ambassador of
sanity, showing these westerners how life could be conducted more
satisfactorily than they obviously conducted it. Was I in any way their enemy?
How could I be, when these two had helped and sheltered me? Had there been no
Andri and Edrick doubtless I would have spilled out all the same details under
much less comfortable circumstances, with a bonfire
awaiting
what was left of me at the end of it.

 
          
Besides,
Edrick in particular had a nose for any pussyfooting on my part.

 
          
So
I told; and told.
Trying to put to the back of my mind the
fact that I was trading my treasure of information, all for a hope and a song.

 
          
It
transpired that Edrick was a Doctor of Deotheory: an influential man. He must
be leading a double life, it seemed to me, if he was also mucking about with
the river and was willing to protect me. Each Firstday that I was there he
dressed in white robes, to proclaim in the prayerhouse by the Theodral. Though
when I begged to go there, out of curiosity, he flatly refused; I knew none of
the responses. Every weekday morning, wearing a less formal version of these
same robes, he departed for the Theodral itself. While he was out of the house
I browsed through a number of treatises from his small library. That was when I
had finished cleaning the house, scrubbing clothes and platters, cooking, and
feeding the hound. . . .

 
          
For
those were my duties. Doctor Edrick had a "housekeeper" apparently
devoted to him and thoroughly loyal. But he had sent her away on the morning
after my arrival to visit her family in Adamopolis, something which she had
been hinting at for many weeks. I was to be her temporary replacement. My
presence was more explicable this way.

 
          
All
in all, this was rather like being aboard the
Spry Goose
again—as an impoverished passenger, who had been set to
work cleaning the bilges for my keep!

 
          
Edrick's
library: it was small mainly because paper was scarce—a fact I had noticed in
the night-soil shack out back, where a bundle of rags was spitted on a nail.
What books there were, were crudely printed in very small editions—each with
the permit of the worthy Brotherhood stamped in them. Maybe that was why paper
was scarce, too. The censors restricted the supply.

 
          
From
Edrick's books I didn't learn much beyond what Andri had already told me on the
journey. Or rather, I learned
more\
but I wasn't much more enlightened by all the casuistical hypotheses and dogmas
about the motives of the God-Mind, or the nature of the Snake, a topic with
which I felt better acquainted than any westerner could possibly be. Nor did I
gain an inkling of what Doctor Edrick's private river project was about.

 
          
He
came back home one day to find me—with some cleaning chore suspended
midway—perusing a yellowing old tract entitled
The Truesoil of Manhood.
Taking this from me, he tossed it carelessly
on a table.

 
          
"You'll
wear your eyes out, girl."

 
          
I
was about to mention that his own peepers could well benefit by replacing those
crude spectacles of his with some decent lenses ground in Verrino; however, he
frowned as if anticipating some such impertinence.
Though
actually other matters were on his mind.

 
          
"Things
are boiling up," he said. "Few know it yet, but it's so. That fine
brother of yours set the cat among the chicks a year ago."

 
          
"Did
he? He was more like a chick among the cats."

 
          
"I
know, and I'm sorry. That was the decision of the local Sons in Minestead.
Understandably."

 
          
"Did
I hear you—?"

 
          
"My
dear
girl, those folk have
to live close to the river,
on account of the ore deposits. So they're
specially
sensitive to river-witchery. When the Theodral at Manhome North heard about the
incident, they would far rather have talked to Mr Capsi in a lot more
detail."

 
          
"Maybe
Capsi was lucky they didn't get the chance!"

 
          
"At
least they had his gear to study, at the Academy. The underwater garment
wasn't destroyed. Of course, there's still the problem of men only being able
to use the river once. . . ."

 
          
So
that was where Capsi's diving suit had ended up!

 
          
"Manhome
North: where's that?"

 
          
He
looked amused.
"Four week's walk and more.
It's
the other great centre. Anyway, since the Capsi episode there have been two
schools of thought . . . I'll rephrase that: two schools have existed for a
while. Now events are honing the intellectual conflict between Conservers and
Crusaders.
The latter being in the minority as yet."

 
          
"These
Conservers want to keep things as they are?"

           
'They intend to keep our Truesoil
secure and pure."

 
          
"Whereas Crusaders want to make contact with the East?"

 
          
"Contact?"
He smiled grimly.
"In
a manner of speaking."

 
          
"And
where do
you
stand, Doctor?"

 
          
"What
a busybody you are, girl! Still, your
family appear
to
have a history of poking their noses in." He hesitated. 7 view
myself
as a sort of mediator between the two schools. The
Crusaders, should they prevail, have it in them to provide us with much more
exact knowledge of our enemy, the Satan-current, and its minions.
All the
better to safeguard our human way of life—not by
crude fire and torment but by refined skills, by techniques."

 
          
"Hence
your secret river project in the south?"

 
          
"My
project?
Not so! A project on behalf of the Crusaders! One from which I had high hopes
of squeezing juicy knowledge. . . ."

 
          
"To feed back to the Conservers!"
I was guessing,
but this seemed unlikely.

 
          
"You
make me sound . . . cynical. I would rather describe myself as a pragmatic
idealist." He debated with himself. "That project was only in its
first stages. Maybe now it's stillborn."

 
          
"Because I turned up?"

 
          
"And
maybe it only needs twisting askew of its original aim. One item of great
interest stands out from your narrative, Yaleen." Doctor Edrick adjusted
his spectacles.
"To wit, the existence of a certain
fungus drug in the southern jungles."

 
          
"Oh
no," said I.

 
          
"Ah
yes," said he. "What a shame you never saw the plant itself!"

 
          
"It
may not grow on this side of the river."

 
          
"You
already told me that you survived our southern jungles because of your
knowledge of similar jungles on the other bank. Therefore by and large the
vegetation corresponds. Most likely that fungus grows in our jungles,
too—further south than explorers have ventured recently.
Though
you have."

 
          
"I'm
not going back there!"

 
          
"Could
it be that you're going to Minestead?
Opposite Verrino?"
Edrick chuckled. "There to stand on the shore and wave a kerchief?
In Minestead, where they bum people so impulsively."

 
          
"You
could tramp around those jungles for ages collecting hordes of different fungi,
and none of them the right one!"

 
          
"That,
Yaleen, rather depends on the effort put into an expedition.
The
investment, the number of personnel.
We'll need rabbits to screen out
what's poisonous; and human volunteers to test what isn't."

 
          
"I'm
not volunteering."

 
          
"Goes without saying.
You're too valuable as a source
of different information. Oh, we'll need lots of other women to cater for such
a party, who can act as volunteers."

 
          
"So
you see women as a superior form of rabbit?"

 
          
He
wagged his finger astutely. "Point one: you've said that the drug is used
in erotic orgies.
Presumably involving men and women, though
not provenly so.
I can imagine many perversions of natural behaviour on
your east bank.

 
          
"Point
two: it's the
women
of your Port
Barbra who orchestrate these lecherous rites; and the only time you saw the
drug in action was in the case of a woman, your boatmistress.

 
          
"Point
three: the female brain must have different gland-juices in it than a man's.
Hence the woman's vulnerability to the Snake.
The effect of
the drug on women may be more noticeable than the effect on men. And the effect
on the Snake. . . ." He looked pleased at his lucid grasp of the
situation.

 
          
I
could only feel an abject horror. I'd thought I had reached a sort of
sanctuary. I'd imagined that somehow this might lead me back to my homeland.
I'd fancied that I understood Doctor Edrick—the mediator who stood between me
and the cruel Brotherhood.

 
          
I
hadn't understood a thing. Instead, I was simply a traitor.

 
          
"Black
current," I whispered silently within me,
"help me.
Help us all." I prayed in the prayerhouse of my
skull as a witch might pray to the Satan-snake.

 
          
No
response. Alas.

 
          
Doctor
Edrick fiddled pedantically with his glasses. "One adjusts to new
circumstances, Yaleen. One adjusts. Have I not adjusted to your arrival here
from the land of Satan? I trust I've conveyed
my
position well enough to help you adjust your own—to what must
be."

 
          
One
thing was obvious. I would have to escape from Edrick's house. I would have to
get away from Manhome South.
To flee, alone, to somewhere
else.
Probably with Sons and Crusaders hunting for
me.

 
          
Where
could I go?

 
          
I
believe the black current may have heard my plea for help, across all those
leagues of male land. . . .

           
That night I dreamed. I dreamed I
was at Spanglestream with Jambi. We were standing together on the esplanade.
Her husband was loitering some way off. Fishing smacks rode on the water, their
emblazoned eyes lit by the shimmer of phosphorescence. Streamers snaked across
the river like slow lightning flashes—silver arrows pointing the way from west
to east.
Pointing towards Spanglestream.