Campas seemed curious. “Why do you ask me, then?”
“I might be wrong. It’s good to have independent confirmation.’’
Campas frowned, seemingly puzzled. Truth was a received thing in his culture, Fiona thought, transmitted by family, tradition, religion, personal observation; the idea that data might be assembled from different sources to create a new whole, a new truth, was foreign to him.
“And of how many people have you asked these questions?” Campas asked.
“Not many. The Classani, mostly. But I wanted to talk to someone outside their world, someone who doesn’t share their... attitudes.” She looked up at the sound of hoofbeats: a galloper was trotting north from the camp, a dispatch-case bouncing on his hip. An Arrandalla this time, tall in a plumed helmet, a case of javelins strapped to his saddle. The rider trotted past, ignoring them.
Campas was looking at her steadily. “Will you be asking the Brodaini about us?” he asked.
“I have already.”
He rubbed his chin. “It’s as if you don’t trust your own judgment.”
“I don’t.” She spoke quickly, trying to drive home her point. “Not in everything. I haven’t known your people long enough, so I ask them to explain themselves, and I ask others — other foreigners — to explain them to me.” She paused, trying to think of an example. “It’s like your poetry,” she said. “I admire your gift with words, your understanding of their rhythm, the way the sounds can be linked into music, all resonating, echoing one another. That much I can understand; that much I know.
“But I don’t understand the subject matter. All the shepherds and shepherdesses, all the plant symbolism, all the references to other poets. I come from another place; our poetry is based on other traditions, other forms. I have to have kloss — klossilo — “
“Klossila,” Campas corrected.
“Klossila. Thank you. I need to have it explained to me; I haven’t lived in Arrandal long enough to understand it.”
Campas, uneasy, looked down into the valley. “It’s as I said before, in that other conversation,” he said. “My life’s work is suddenly out of date. Your people can’t comprehend the form.”
“There are many people on this planet,” Fiona said, “who can’t understand your work. Many of them in Arrandal. Why should you suddenly be concerned for the opinions of a few Igaralla?”
“Because you’re the future,” Campas said. His answer was prompt, though his tone was moody, uncertain; it was clear he’d been thinking this out. “A poet writes for posterity, you see — or at least he does if he has any sense of his own worth — and suddenly posterity has appeared in Arrandal, and doesn’t understand my work.” He looked down at his hands, then pushed them out, a gesture of denial. There was a grating desperation in his voice. “I’ve been forced to look at my work again, with new eyes. Your eyes. And there’s so much I don’t like, don’t understand. It’s frightening.”
He looked at her suddenly, his uncertainty plain. “Your poetry — Igaralla poetry,” he said. “What’s it like? I’d like to know.’’
Fiona shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s not written for you, any more than your work is written for us. It wouldn’t make sense here.” She paused for a moment, then added, “You can’t simply adopt Igaralla forms; they’re not suitable for you, and you’d just be an imitator. You have to find your own way. You don’t need our approval.”
He absorbed her words in silence, his hands absently plucking at the sod. When he spoke, his voice was hesitant, without assurance. “I — I’ve had some ideas, some words running through my head. I don’t know what to make of them... they’re not klossila, though. This is something new. A new form. Brodaini, almost, in its straightforwardness, but much more lyrical.” He frowned. “Maybe it’s time for klossila to die,” he said. “It was a revolution, fifty years ago, insisting on the rights of poetry to be itself, to be independent of the popular understanding; perhaps it’s moribund now.” He shook his head. “I haven’t written it yet. It’s slow in coming.”
“I would like,” Fiona said, “to see your new work, if you ever write it. Not to approve or disapprove. Just to read it.”
His eyes rose to hers, held them for an instant; then he nodded. “I’d like that,” he said.
A possible revolution in poetry, Fiona thought. It wasn’t what she’d been sent to accomplish; but it certainly hadn’t been forbidden, either. An interesting conceit, to think of herself as a muse.
She gave him a grin. “I’m done with my questions,” she said. “I’ve got as much as I can deal with, for the moment.”
Campas gave her a slow nod. “You’re very welcome, Ambassador,” he said. “I hope you can take me away from my dreary tasks some other time.”
Fiona busied herself repacking their meal, while Campas brought the horses back. She looked down the slope, seeing the bottle Campas had thrown; and then she walked down the slope to pick it up and return it to her pack.
Old habits die hard, she thought. The bottle would be thrown on the camp rubbish heap in any case, but at least she would keep this grassy slope uncluttered, in case another couple ever came for a picnic. She laughed at the silliness of it all — a lone foreign woman, tidying up after this horde of soldiers — and then walked merrily up the slope, digging in her pack for a handful of grain, a treat for her horse.
CHAPTER 12
Tegestu felt his muscles tighten with anger as he read the dispatch. Some of Tastis’ cavalry had forded the river and circled behind him; they’d intercepted one of the trains of bridging-boats that were being carried overland to the army, chopped up the escort, and made a pyre of the boats. All this would set the river-crossing back several days, until the boats were replaced.
He looked up at the solemn faces of the staff, seeing the hesitation in their eyes, their apprehension at his sudden blaze of anger. Deliberately, disdainfully, Tegestu crumpled the dispatch one-handed and let it fall to the floor of the tent. He turned to Cascan.
“Who is this Osta Tolmatu Tosta y’Tosta?” he asked.
Cascan bowed. “My cousin, drandor Tegestu,” he answered carefully. “A whelkran of two hundreds.”
“Your cousin has shown himself a fool,” Tegestu said. “A fool with the bad taste to survive his disgrace.” Tegestu’s tone grew brisk. “You will convene a kamliss court in ten days to decide his punishment. Inform him.”
“Thank you, drandor Tegestu,” Cascan said, relief apparent through his grave mask. The ten days’ delay would allow some time for Cascan’s cousin to redeem himself, traditionally by a raid, with a few friends to act as witnesses, on the enemy. If, that is, he could find any friends to accompany him on such a suicidal mission — if not, he’d have to bring back proof of his actions, usually in the form of enemy heads accompanied by rank badges. Either Osta would die on his raid or he’d bring back enough heads so that the kamliss court would not have to embarrass themselves by handing out a major reprimand: either way kamliss Tosta would avoid the major disgrace Osta might otherwise represent.
“Acamantu,” Tegestu said. “You will assign someone of proven competence to guard the next bridging train.”
“Aye, bro-demmin.”
Tasting bile in his throat, Tegestu rose from his stool, the others rising with him, and then walked out of the staff tent toward his own. There was a skin of cider hanging from his tent pole; he pulled the cork and drank, washing away the bitter taste of anger. He had given that young cadet more leniency than he deserved, he knew: he should have had him back in camp, reprimanded publicly, and broken in ranks to a spearman; yet something had urged him to be lenient.
Perhaps, the thought came to him, because he himself had seemed unable to do anything but as Tastis wished. And in Osta’s incompetence he had seen a reflection of his own.