Atlan saga omnibus, p.143
Atlan Saga Omnibus, page 143
And marriage was now considered.
I’m not thinking that Quantumex seriously considered marrying this preposterous woman. But it was now a public possibility, and a long preliminary ‘courtship’ began, the sort of courtship which only royalty can enjoy, where everything is in the air and nothing is exactly afoot. Quantumex adored guessing games and riddles. He was quite abubble with this courtship. His blue eyes twinkled constantly in his big healthy tanned head. His thick lips pouted, pursed, leered, persuaded.
He knew ‘how invaluable the Dictatress’s land could be as a base. He knew that if he had both Juzd’s friendship, (and thus the alliance with Ancient Atlan herself) and full and entire permission and cooperation in basing himself on the Dictatress’s mountain-protected peninsular with its unparalleled access to the route to Atlan fastness, then Zerd would be intriguingly outmanoeuvred.
He played his game with the Dictatress for all it was worth, his ‘maybe’ game. He was used to charming and bullying people into having crushes on him.
The Dicta tress meanwhile played by all her own rules. She had advised Cija so many times on the infallible means by which to ensure a man, any wanted man. Now she utilised her own rules. She flatteringly let Quantumex win at chess, but displayed an interesting skill at guessing-games. She was awed by all he showed her. She was useful—she cooked little possets when he was out of sorts, she entertained at his private suppers, she displayed all her tactical brilliance and they discussed details of old battles (in which they had been on opposing sides) till late into the autumn dark.
Also, I have never known anyone like my grandmother for wearing her jewels all the time, and the awful thing is that it was effective. One would have thought that any royalty of Quantumex’s standing and experience and sophistication would have known that another royalty owned a few jewels, a few decent heirlooms, just like anybody else, without their having to be on any display. But the more vulgar the Dictatress’s attire, the more she appeared at breakfast in a crown or two and diamond earrings and a broach of the finest water and the size of a thoroughbred pigeon’s egg pinning her dressing-gown together, the more Quantumex muttered asides to his advisers about investment. This was a King who prosecuted, for instance, if any of his subjects was foolish enough to recover from a suicide attempt—they had attempted to deprive him of a body and a soul.
A new development was the autumnal Northern determination to put an end to the siege. “He is sitting out there,” Quantumex restively said of the Dragon, of his son-in-law, “like a man applauding opera.”
The conundrum was put to the scientists, and to protect their cogitations an extra wall or two were built around the laboratory, created of bricks from houses which had been torn down for the laboratory’s sake.
A demented scientist arrived one day at Quantumex’s salon, demented and stuttering and jerkily paralysed because in his old black rusty gown and clumpy boots he had no idea how to behave socially with a King. However, he was to tell the King in person what plan he had conjured up for the discomfiture of Zerd.
A long-range spray had been almost perfected by this genius, which was to coat (if sprayed when the wind was exactly right) the thorn-bushes through which Zerd’s main body must pass on their regular reconnaissance, with a sticky insidious and deadly poison. “Thorns being particularly excellent for this purpose, Majesty…” spluttered the scientist. He had brought a sheaf of diagrams showing the way thorns press into flesh, or into garments or even the fine mesh of mail-armour, later to become worked into the bloodstream itself.
I was watching from my favourite place. My place was a step on the ladder scaling one wall of Quantumex’s salon, which was lined with books, those useful draught-excluders. I munched a pastry and recognised the scientist who planned my father’s undoing. A nasty undoing.
The scientist was a shy ferocious stale-clothed teacher of mine who had been known in the laboratory for his smackings. Once in a while, when wrong -had been discovered, he would appear in the doorway to his study and rap out a name. We all knew that we would not see the criminal for a long time.
Once this lonely gentleman had smacked me. His study had skylight-windows, high up in his draughty plank-panelled room. It was raining that day, and the grey runnels sluiced down the skylight panes and tapped and pattered endlessly. Occasional chill drops blew in and plopped on the papers shuffled between test-tubes on his several desks. He stood there sternly without a word and indicated to me that I must bend over and lift my skirt. I knew what I had done that was wrong—I had spilled precious liquid—and I bent over.
I was sure his hand must smart. His arm must ache. I was in no doubt that it was a heroic action of his. He must know the sniggerings went on behind his back. The rain had settled in for the day and so it seemed had the smacking. The rain pattered on without any sign of hope of ceasing, and here I was in this man’s power, not too terrible a power, a fairly mild and occasional power, but for this afternoon complete—for no one would come in, he would call no one in, he had locked the door, he was intent on my punishment, intent on justice. Justice had set in for the afternoon, and my bottom was getting sore under the regular slapping crack!—as regular as the rain.
I noticed a protuberance in the venerable black old-fashioned voluminous trousers at my upside-down eye-level.
I thought ’This could go on for ever, and presumably at the end of it all, when both of us are bored and exhausted, he will still be miserable and puzzled with himself.’ I reached out kindly and gently, so as not to alarm nor insult him, and very gently and fast undid his trouser-slit. Nothing popped out. It did not know how to do that, it was quite unused, obviously, to being handled. I had to reach one or two fingers in and grope about a little for it. The smacking hesitated, uncertain, but he was into his rhythms, half-hypnotised while the strength of Ms arm and the drumming of the rain should last, and he did not stop my fingers. Soon he could not have stopped them had he been dying, had the door opened and a whole classful of students and colleagues appeared in the doorway. The smacks became eager, melting, shy, cruel, pitiless, grateful, amazed, transported, inexorable, controlling his arm as a tail wags a transported dog. There was a smell which amused me and which I liked too—as though this had till now been utterly private and was suddenly released from long isolation. Sweet busy private veins stood out and quickened. He came magnificently, frighteningly, from the depths of the matted crispy curls which lately had begun thrusting out fully from the rusty academic slit that had seemed so secretive. Presumably he came from plenty of depths. I straightened up. He stood panting, staring wildly at me. “You need this,” he croaked harshly. He handed me his big folded spotless kerchief. I regretfully wiped off the velvet-soft globs, wishing there were some way to transport them back to my mother—she had begun to worry about her dry undernourished complexion, and I knew this would moisturise wonderfully.
He had hardly righted himself before he had hurried me to the door. But before he hurried me out there was a little tap on my shoulder—not a silly tap, but a warm though hardly-perceptible, swiftly-curtailed tap—he had understood me and my understanding of him. Ever after in the laboratory day-to-day life, he had been very stria with me, if he could not avoid me, and I thought that once in perspective my action had become an intolerable memory to him, and I hated danger, even though I am voiceless. But once he had been kind when a student was teasing me; he had frowned very blackly, and said to the student: “Go home at once. Do not return for a week—which fee will not be refunded to your parents—or, if it takes longer, until you have learned manners.”
Now, I thought, ‘my appearance on its own will fairly discompose him. He will never have forgotten me, no matter how changed my attire and circumstances.’
I kicked the ladder so that it fell, and I hung by one arm to the bookcase, unable to cry out Help, help! but hoping nevertheless to be noticed.
Indeed, I was noticed. The scientist looked up and saw me. Two amazements chased his face—surprise at the sight of a small girl hanging by one arm from the bookcase above his head, and surprise, deadly paralysing surprise, at the fact that I was me.
I dropped towards his papers, hoping to snatch up while he was still bemused the crucial paper—the one I had seen which was covered with his spidery notes in terms of the preparation of the spray-mechanism. Of course, he would have others, but this one was his fair copy, and would take a long while to get together again.
Quantumex cursed and sprang athletically backwards, both kingly heels together, in one bound. I had pulled the bookcase too hard. The shelves had come away from their wall. The books rained, poured, pounded, thundered down upon us. Men ran to help, beating their way through the banging books. “Help ho!” roared Quantumex. “We need help. Mind our spines. Our spines.” He was well out of danger anyway, and did not mean my little spine and the poor scientist’s vertebrae. He meant the spines of his leather-bound volumes. But the scientist’s spine was cracked. When the books were cleared off him, he was still not to be roused. A little froth ran into his beard, that was the last sign of life they drew from him.
His papers were shuffled together. The crucial paper was missing and they could find it nowhere. It was not to be found copied in his laboratory either—he had hidden his notes when he came to the Palace so that his colleagues could not root about among them.
* * *
Quantumex became jovial, in general, with me after that. I had not until then existed for him except as an .abstraction, the Dictatress’s grandchild, Zerd’s daughter (though possibly not of absolute marketable value to either of those forces). Now I had become real to him. I was the person who had killed one of his scientists. In the middle of a conference, what’s more, about one way to defeat the enemy. Quantumex had not failed to note that the enemy in question was my father. Quantumex had noted the disappearance of the crucial paper. He would never forgive me, but he had been shocked in a way that rarely happened to him, and thus I had delighted him.
He was more careful, however, about where I was allowed. I had to sneak around a great deal more in order to be where I might see or overhear anything of the slightest interest.
In this way, what I did find out about was the informing life of the Palace. Here many doors were opening, many shutting. The backstairs were in places worn almost away. Each spider, devouring flies in tortuous torturous webs, was a fly in somebody else’s trap. I was glad that no one could pull me into all this. My words never can be held against me, not twisted before nor behind my back.
I was able to repeat to my mother and Juzd, on my slate, what I heard—the behind-doors of the siege and who was jockeying for how much honour at the ending of it. What was certain was that the North had decided that Zerd must in some way be destroyed—Sedili did not matter so much, she would cease to battle once Zerd was dead, her reason would be dead, her teeth drawn.
It was amazing to walk in the lanes around the Palace with Juzd, who gave coin to every beggar, just as the Dictatress withheld coin. Juzd, noting my surprise when he gave to some who seemed as well-heeled as he (for he did not look rich) said to me, “I’d sooner be ‘made a fool of’ several times and incidentally give to those who need it, than turn away possibly one in need among others ‘making a fool’ of me. How can I be ‘made’ an anything of?” He helpfully added that if I wanted to keep my gold coin, I mustn’t give—or I wouldn’t be real anyway, just storing up hatred of the beggars I had been ’forced’ to give to, as the Wife had fermented a tangible living haunting hatred of the husband she had been ’forced’ (by her self-image) to worship.
Juzd began to re-dispose his mirrors. Instead of arranging them to catch sunlight, he began to send sunlight with them. He could send sunlight at great intensity—long distances. He could direct it into beams that hurt. He could dazzle. And finally, he directed the beams during an attack, which we could see very small and bustling, at one wall of the city of Northstrong—Eastwall. I saw the patch of dazzle Juzd aimed, flickering over a wooden tower to our own nearer east. I saw it settle on a particular spot, which I suppose looked dry and tindery to Juzd, and then he brought in two more mirrors and concentrated the day’s noon light on this place. Being autumn, the bright dry day provided only just enough heat, but I saw a thread of smoke rise thinly from the spot. Presently a flame followed it. The clangour of battle continued in the background. The wooden tower was deserted—an old warehouse I think, Juzd had picked it with knowledge. Its roof began to blaze. I watched band after band of the seasoned wood take. Juzd stood behind me with his hand on my shoulder. The baby mewed in one corner. My mother was not there. She visited away often now. Many people wanted to entertain her.
The wooden tower fell to the slant-roof of a hall beside it. This too began to burn. A pall of black smoke rose now into the pale shining air.
Huge flames now were hurling themselves into the pall. The side of the second building took. It was of brick, but on a timber frame. It was some kind of public building, close to our part of Eastwall. Bricks were spat out from the building as from a masticating giant maw. We could hear now a sound of screaming. From now on, water was brought and efforts made to stop the fire, but they did no good. The flames had taken hold. They spread rapidly now to Eastwall. This was Where the enemy had been able to reach nearest, though the wall winding on its high mounds with their ancient well-kept trenches was famed as impossible to approach effectively. These walls contained a great deal of timber. Beams, baulks and bulwarks. The wall burned. It did not burn down entirely—most of it stayed standing—but breaches were created in it. Men were leaping about the breaches attempting to fill them with anything to hand—rubble, canvas, more timber —but nothing was to hand that would repair the damage really. The tide of the battle over in the distance down the length of Eastwall began to change direction. Word had spread of the breaches in Eastwall. The fighting became very fierce just below us. The ’enemy’ were bringing up reinforcements. What had been a routine engagement on the wall became a major launch. I saw a flash of red, a skirl of red cloak. Here the fighting was massed. A ragged cry went up that even we could hear in its hoarse multi-variety. They were through. They were through! They were in Northstrong. Zerd was in Northstrong. The siege was broken. We were taken. We were occupied. “Your father is less likely now,” said Juzd wryly, “to be poisoned in his camp, yes?”
I started to write on my slate, “Why you do when you want no Zerd in Atlan?” but my scrawl trailed away as Juzd said, “Come quickly. Let us get your mother. She is visiting one of three people I guess at—but I could not wait till she was safe with us, the heat and brightness of the year was dying, and with that attack so near on Eastwall it was now or never.”
He caught up the baby, so that it should not be in some place where the rest of us were not, if a crisis struck.
As we hurried down the stairs, the Palace was already in uproar. Juzd never cursed, but his lip was caught between his teeth. “Panic begins fast,” he said. “I lost time. She will no longer be where she was.” But we stayed on the main stairway, though at times with difficulty, and found Cija pushing her way through, climbing up towards Juzd’s room. She fell into Juzd’s arms, shivering, groping for me. “Seka. You are all right? You know what has happened, Juzd? He is in. Zerd is in.”
“What do you want to do?” Juzd asked her.
She thought a moment, shaking, clinging to the stair-post.
“Do you want to stay with Quantumex?” Juzd asked.
She shook her head. “No. No.”
“You want to go to Zerd?” he asked her levelly.
She thought more carefully, her hand pushed against her brow as though to keep the thoughts in.
“If that is my other choice, then yes, I suppose yes.”
“You have other choices. We can make for Atlan. There is a way from here, not locally known.”
“Then, Juzd, get me to Atlan. I can think again there. I cannot think that to cast myself on Zerd’s kindness now would do me or my little ones any good. Sedili is with him. This is Sedili’s home.
She has allied herself with Zerd, and he with her, for a reason. She is still invaluable to him here.”
People were jostling against us, people shouting and trampling, carrying great bundles of gilt and enamels and the luxuries without which life cannot be lived.
“Everyone is making for the Citadel,” said Juzd.
“Then let us make there for the time being,” said my mother. “After that, when the way is clearer, we can leave Northstrong altogether.”
The Citadel, the centre of the nobles’ barracks adjoining the Palace, was already occupied by Quantumex and the Dictatress. Progdin was out in the streets, directing the Northern defence. Quantumex stood at a high private window, staring out over his occupied city. His big hands were quite quiet on the sill before him. He looked very interested. The Dictatress grabbed my mother. “Thank all the Gods, you got here. I have had men out looking for you.”
“A habit of yours, my dear,” Cija said; and they consented to laugh at each other.
A server brought wine and Quantumex sipped carefully.
“Here rides my daughter,” Quantumex said. The Dictatress was not interested. But after a moment my mother moved to stare down over Quantumex’s shoulder, and I saw past them.
We were not over-high here, and could see in some detail the big woman on the white bird. She was accompanied by a small force, but no one was fighting. That she had got thus far was significant.
Truly she was Quantumex’s daughter. She carried herself with a solidness, which she thought was style, but she looked like a housewife returning from market after beating a neighbour for a bargain. She looked unutterably pleased with herself, it was true: she put a hand on her hip from time to time, or on her waist, which with Sedili was much the same filing, she pivoted, she let the poncho she wore (composed all of the skins of those little Northern gnawers called mink, where each hair has a sparkle on its end, so that all became like black fur stars) slung over her wide shoulders flirt up in the wind like a dancer’s veil.
