Brother red, p.28
Brother Red, page 28
With gifts of plant and white honey given, we walk the wagons up through stands of pines, the farms shrinking with the lack of good soil to rice fields, the air getting colder with each day passing and the snow thickening; hard-going mud giving way to frozen ruts that break the wheels of one of the wagons, pitching the Ososi over the side of it. We cram them onto the two other wagons and do our best to hide their belts and spears. It’s hard on Ufra, for we cannot dress them in the furs the van has ready for this part of its journey and she can do nothing but watch them suffer with it. Scattered about are hamlets, tucked into the banks of the great rivers and falls that spawn in the heights above us. Their duts surround the van and their men push their women inside their huts as they point at our wagons. They present us with poles of smoked mascha fish, stinking bear hides, yak-bone carvings. We gladly buy a bag of two hundred black walnuts and the bark of the same tree, a treasure almost unheard of in Farlsgrad. Even the Ososi are lifted to see it and there’s much chattering in their tongue with the Oskoro Master regarding the various uses to which it can be put. Five more slow and demanding days on steep trails see us at the Cargamun border poles. We’re not quite at the snowline and we’re grateful for the trail flattening out to a high valley, a wasteland of stone and boulders spotted with rhododendrons and birch trees. The mountains have been sharpened to axe heads, as though Sillindar’s carved them. Giant rock bowls have been made of the land here and there’s the welcome sight of a fast river whose rapids and falls we’d passed on the way up. I call the van to halt to let us and the horses drink and rest.
What must be the Cargamun lodge is ahead of us, surrounded by sixty or so huts about the river, pens of yaks, chickens and tuikas. The huts are all mud-stone and wood, two roofs to each of them, wide overhangs. Ufra tells me it is because of the rains here. There’s a little soil they can work for lentils and it takes me a moment to notice that all of those planting them are in chains. A guard that’s watching over them whistles back to the lodge on seeing our van having arrived in the valley.
“You should put your hood over,” I say to the Master.
“I will not hide the flower here. They will believe I am Scar’s brother and I do his work.”
I’m surprised to see they have horses up here. They’re led quickly out of stables that must sit behind the lodge, itself larger than the Ilkashun’s. Fifteen riders trot out to us.
“The trail’s cleared here, see? These boulders have been dragged away, many ruts ahead of us and snaking off over there, through that narrow valley. The vans move on up there.” Ufra this is, pointing over to the right of the lodge. I take the chance to wash in the icy water and it thrills my skin. This isn’t only the shock of cold water, but something else. I have no words for it; a sense of the water’s life is what I want to say.
These are all soldiers, the riders approaching. At their head must be the chief, yet he wears a steel helm and a chain shirt, the helm chased with great artistry, a decorative helm such as would be worn at a coronation. He has similarly detailed boots and his horse too is extravagantly barded, with a fine shaffron and petral unmarked by battle. Some of the other horses have leather barding, mail crinets. In this land it would be less surprising to see a bear with wings.
The chief of the Cargamun dismounts clumsily. As I approach him I see his yellowy eyes, a drooper. He stinks, both his body and his breath, confirming it. We clasp arms; there’s a faded strength there, good muscle gone bad. In his mouth is a bone pipe, chased silver rings on its stem and carved fit for a king. I’d laugh if we were in any other place.
“I am Marghoster, of the Post.” I want to see if there’s any surprise in him at hearing that. He has not reacted to my red cloak.
He points to himself. “Chief Ifmot. You been due many days,” he says, his Farlsgrad limited. “We take betony.” He’s about to say more when he looks past me to the Master.
“What?”
“He is brother to Scar.”
I’d say he was coming down off some betony, a twitchiness about him, but thankfully his reason, any suspicion he might have had, are doused by his come-down and the mention of Scar.
“We take betony. What blocks you have?”
“We can spare eight points.”
“Eight? No, no. We get twenty. Twenty?” He uses his fingers to show me. He turns then to the men behind me, and they’re all men. He cups his hands about his chest and chuckles, flicks his tongue out and they all smile, looking at my babs.
“I like strong. I like fight on my mat,” he says, looking me over as he would a prized yak.
“Eight.” The betony blocks are ready; Curic holds up the blocks, two four-pointers, before putting them back in their linen.
He nods, as though he’s forgotten his original demand. He walks over to the wagons where the Ilkashun and Ososi posing as slaves are. As he does one of the Ilkashun starts crying out a name, “Lughre! Lughre!” She reaches out with her arms over the side of the wagon, looking into the field. There, a child, also in chains, turns and looks back. She immediately tries to run to us – “Ma! Mata!” she shouts – but the chains trip her and she falls. Still she scrabbles, howling with longing.
Fuck. I turn to Ensma behind me, speak in field lingo, “Shut her up, now! She’ll fuck us all.”
There’s a flicker of surprise in her eyes until she remembers the stakes, then she takes out a knife and starts shouting at the woman to sit back in the wagon unless she wants to lose her tongue. The woman’s mouth drops in horror; understandably she’s lost all reason now she’s seen what must be one of her kidnapped children. Her eyes widen then, fixed as they are on the field behind me, and I turn to see one of the tribesmen grab the girl by her throat and shove her to the earth, pulling a club from his belt. He cracks her twice on her back and the girl is silenced, shaking with fear and grief.
Ensma talks rapidly in another lingo, must be one they know something of, the Ilkashun and Hidzuc. The woman looks at me and then at the Master, but we cannot react. She stares at the Cargamun chief and spits in his direction. He pulls out his sword and reaches for her.
“Enough!” I shout. He turns, in a rage; his men dismount and take their swords out, all of them fine and shining blades, the work of Farlsgrad smiths I don’t doubt, gifts to appease this kurch while the vans roll through.
“Chief, not one can be hurt,” I tell him. “They are my orders!”
He’s trapped between two courses then. I can’t have him look any closer at the wagon, see the weapons and belts in the straw.
“More betony, yes?”
I gesture to Curic. He understands immediately, holds up another two four-pointers.
The chief’s eyes flash with hunger, and it appeases his men too, gazing at the betony like moths drawn to a candle.
I take my chance to catch the Ilkashun mother’s eye. She reads my plea for her to calm down and I touch my belt so she knows I’m fearful of Ifmot seeing the weapons in the wagons. The sorrow in her eyes is hard to bear as she looks for her girl again.
“Fine horse,” I say to Ifmot. “Fine blade as well.”
He swells at these compliments and bids me follow him so I may inspect the barding more closely.
“We can set camp, Chief Ifmot?” Ufra this is.
“Yes. There, where others stop before.” The grass has gone and the soil is torn about by the vans that previously stopped here after the days on the hills up from the Flintre kurchpoles.
His crew settle back down. They puff themselves up a bit as they face us soldiers; none have much colour or posture about them. They don’t carry full belts, just some muster belts as would be used at ceremonies. More than one has struggled to get the belt near his belly, and they curve under instead. Curic whistles those crewing the vans to move the wagons away from the lentil fields into the common. I don’t see lookouts about us. They do not guard their kurch and it is as if they have no need.
I sign, behind my back, for Ufra and Ensma to join me as I follow the chief, Ensma taking up the betony blocks Curic had held up earlier.
“Who has made you such fine gifts as these?” I ask, gesturing to their armour. “This is beautiful work.”
“The man in red,” he says, pointing to my cloak. “He promise more whore, more young.”
“Who?”
“He is older then he is younger and he smell same.”
“Ekri-mustau,” says one of his men, and he mimes something like lumps being pulled from his head.”
“He dream catcher. Ekri-mustau, Dream Catcher,” says Ifmot.
“What do you mean?”
“You sleep before him. You touch, you see dreams. He takes. He happy. I’m happy belly now.” He slaps his paunch and smiles.
I look at Ufra and Ensma. We’re all struggling to understand his meaning.
“You follow for smoke,” he says. “Bring Scar,” meaning the Master.
“I will secure wagons. I’ll follow you then.”
Ifmot takes the bag of betony blocks from Ensma, holds it up to his crew, all of whom are delighted with their new supply. I wait until they’re far enough back they won’t hear us.
“You did well, Driwna,” says Ufra. “They are droopers.”
Ensma looks about her with disgust. The string for the lentils has been laid in long rows to the right of the river, where most of the sun will be at this time of year. There are many from the plains here and they are being beaten back to their work after stopping to watch as the girl was beaten and her mother threatened by Ifmot.
“What is her name, the mother of that girl?”
“You must ask her, Driwna,” says Ufra.
I see no way to free the girl as it stands. I must persuade her mother that we go on, that we will come back for her daughter.
“Did you follow what that Ifmot was saying?” says Ensma.
“No. Hope I can get more sense from him about where we have to take these vans and what sort of place it is we’re taking them to.”
But something is bothering me about what he said. About the dreams.
“He wasn’t surprised to learn you were Post, Driwna,” says Ufra.
“Yes. It’s become clear the Post is involved; he spoke of someone in red. Crejda’s ledgers being too clean and her and Morril being told to move lots through the Brasks and Marghosters proves it anyway.”
“Stroff?” asks Curic. “Out here?”
“This red he spoke of must have some command to be treating with him. Stroff wouldn’t, couldn’t come up here. A marschal perhaps?”
“I have to stay with the wagons,” says Ufra. “They will not believe there is another Ososi like the etza-Oskoro.”
“I think your people will be glad of that anyway. I hope we can leave here in the morning with directions north.”
I kiss her. Such is not forbidden on a van, but neither is it encouraged when discipline and clear minds are required. Ensma clears her throat, making us both smile as we kiss.
She and Curic then join me in walking along the riverbank to the lodge ahead.
I can see how angry Ensma is, a Sathanti looking across lentil fields at other Sathanti in chains, their slavers calling themselves the same.
“How can they do it to their own people? This is Farslgrad coin.” She spits, takes a breath to manage herself. She might be cursing her own kurch for their relations with Farlsgrad as much as the slavery here.
The men wielding the clubs over the slaves are all armed and armoured for battle. I’ve never seen so many swords in a kurch, so many mail shirts. It saddens me as we approach the first of the huts that I am reminded of my own kurch, my pa’s house. There are barrels here, crates full of rope, sacks of what must be rice piled in newly built sheds. A child, a boy ten winters at most, is in ankle chains and is cleaning clothes at the edge of the river. There’s three stood about him, kicking him, trying to get him off balance, Cargamun duts, themselves a similar age. The boy looks at us approach; he’s in tears, but still tries to do his work, beating at the robes and shirts he has laid out on the huge rocks the like of which are strewn all about this valley. The children follow his gaze. One has a pipe, I can smell betony. The other two move with a predictable slowness and care.
“We wash, we wash red, two silver!” They gesture at our Post cloaks. The boy in chains is pulled back by his hair. “He good wash.” They start barking with laughter, fuelling each other’s humour until they’re almost insensible. They forget about the boy for a moment and he turns back to the pile of woollens in baskets about him, another armful into the river to have their dirt trodden out of them.
The Cargamun are all those who are not working. Women, elders, cripples, all those who might be expected to keep the kurch, its tuika runs, chickens, yaks, plant, all are sitting about, some singing, most smoking. It is the afternoon and they are in their cups, flutes playing jigs, bacca and kannab filling their pipes. To me, it is some strange reflection of what could be seen in any king’s palace, between nobles and their servants. Some of the men and the older boys stand over the Ilkashun slaves as they do everything from make butter to weaving and cooking. There’s none come near us as we walk up through the huts on the main trail to the lodge. It is being extended: there is a work party a hundred yards off at the face of one of the cliffs rising high over the camp; carts for the stone, more slaves, men and women of prime age I expect, working with picks and hammers. In appearance the lodge is a grander version of the huts about it, three roofs with great eaves that are supported by six stone columns, creating a large verandah on all sides, enough for firepits and, it seems, the provisions they’ve earned as tithe for their acquiescence to vans like ours moving through. Stone steps lead up to the main level of it, straddling a gulley cut all about it to manage floodwater from the river. The kurchpole stands before the steps. We pay our respects to this storied twelve-foot length of a vast trunk of some fir tree I don’t recognise, easily three feet wide. At its base, leopards and wolves dance with yaks and Cargamun hunters, speaking of worship centuries past, the offering of babies even. My ma told me of similar stories carved on our own kurchpole but hacked away by my greatpa for fear it would harm our relations with Farlsgrad. The carvings at the top of their story, five or so feet up, are more finely worked, and it’s here that Ifmot has himself standing on the backs of men on their hands and knees, his erect cock carved to be the size of his leg, and from his hands appear to flow water, or milk, a river in which stand Cargamun soldiers with their spears and drums.
I am used to such poles and the lodges they announce being places of veneration, of respect. But from the Cargamun lodge I hear only laughter, shouting and more singing from inside. I hear the grunting of sex from open shutters along one side of the lodge. There are only three guards outside, as ridiculously dressed as Ifmot and the other Cargamun.
“We would see Chief Ifmot,” I say.
One of the guards walks across the verandah to the doors, giving them a knock with the end of his spear. One door opens a crack and, shortly, more widely to let us past.
“In,” says the guard, as though this has been more effort for him than we deserve.
The fug of betony, roasting tuika and ale is heavy inside. It must be Ufra’s plant; my growing senses – my sight, hearing, smell – snag on something, as though squashed. The Song of the Earth cannot always be called pretty.
There is a hall, a firepit in it tended to by a boy and a girl, both naked, grimy with ash. Doors along the sides of the hall would, in other kurches, lead to rooms saved for esteemed visitors. Most doors are closed, but the door to the room I heard grunting from is open, and it sickens me, what’s being done in there. I reach for Ensma’s arm, squeeze it, for she’s seen it as well and we have to keep calm.
“Chief Ifmot!” I call, trying to bring my crew’s attention to the end of the hall, away from the gasping and short cries of pain, to where Ifmot sits, predictably, on a small dais in a grand chair that has the cut of Farlsgrad craftsmen. Ifmot fancies he’s a king here. Between us and him sit ten or eleven of his crew, in two groups, at long tables either side of the pit. There are sconces along the walls and on the tables candles are lit, for despite the roofs being far above us, their tiered design lets only a dribble of light in.
One of his men opens a door to our left, halfway along the hall. The slaves here are whores. He has nothing on but an unbuckled leather tunic. Behind him a woman sits with her knees up to her chest, her face against her thighs, breathing heavily, shuddering. The man stares at us, and absently rubs his gums with his thumb, which must have had a sliver of betony on it.
“He fuck for hours, Ekrad, bang bang bang,” says Ifmot, his words spoken through teeth clenched about that stupid fucking pipe. He laughs and we’re encouraged to smile, to share his humour. Next to him, on the steps of the dais, sit a Cargamun woman and one of the men we saw earlier. She sits on a higher step, and between her legs sits a boy. She’s got her arms about him and a pipe in her hand, which she pushes into his mouth and on which he draws in kannab, its sweetness thickening further the awful stale heat of the hall. On the other side of the dais must be Ifmot’s champion, or what passes for it; big and heavy, shirtless, a ratty unkept beard, the build of a rockbreaker, though he’s likely done little of that since the vans came.
“Tuika!” Ifmot claps his hands and the two children at the fire run to us, point to seats on the end of the table nearest to the left of the dais. They cannot look us in the eyes and I see Ensma’s own fill up, for they are beaten, that is clear, scabs and bruises where there shouldn’t be, dried lines of blood from their heads that the ash sticks to. They find two tin plates and some rags to get at the tuika spits.
