A strap of cunningly interwoven metal, much like a bracelet, supported a transparent panel in which three sets of numbers glowed.
They read the numbers aloud as he pointed to them with a blunt finger.
The numbers writhed and changed as they watched. The CaraBansitys looked at each other in mute astonishment. They watched again.
‘I never saw such a talisman before,’ Bindla said in awe.
They had to look again, fascinated. The figures were black on a yellow background. He read them aloud.
As CaraBansity put the mechanism to his ear to see if it made any noise, the pendulum clock on the wall behind began to chime thirteen. This clock was an elaborate one, built by CaraBansity himself in his younger days. It showed in pictorial form the rising and setting times of the two suns, Batalix and Freyr, as well as the divisions of the year, the 100 seconds in a minute, the forty minutes in an hour, the twenty-five hours in a day, the eight days in a week, the six weeks in a tenner, and the ten tenners in a year of four hundred and eighty days. There was also an indicator to show the 1825 small years in a Great Year; that pointer now stood at 381, the present date by the Borlien-Oldorando calendar.
Bindla listened to the mechanism, and heard nothing. ‘Is it a clock of some kind?’
‘Must be. Middle numbers make it thirteen o’clock, Borlien time…’
She always knew when he was at a loss. He chewed his knuckle like a child.
There was a row of studs along the top of the bracelet. She pressed one.
A different series of numbers appeared in the three apertures.
‘The middle one’s the year, by some ancient calendar or other. How can that work?’
He pressed the stud and the previous series appeared. He set the bracelet down on the bench and stared at it, but Bindla picked it up and slipped it over her hand. The bracelet immediately adjusted itself, fitting snuggly to her plump wrist. She shrieked.
CaraBansity went across to a shelf of worn reference books. He passed over an ancient folio copy of The Testament of RayniLayan, and pulled out a calf-bound Seer’s and Deuteroscopist’s Calendrical Tables. After fluttering through several pages, he settled on one and ran his finger down a column.
Although the year by the Borlien-Oldorando calendar was 381, this reckoning was not universally accepted. Other nations used other reckonings, which were listed in the Tables; 828 was listed. He found it under the ancient, discarded ‘Denniss Calendar’, now associated with witchcraft and the occult. Denniss was the name of a legendary king supposed to have ruled all Campannlat.
‘The central panel of the bracelet refers to local time…’ He tested out his knuckle again. ‘And it has survived inundation in the sea. Where are there craftsmen now who could manufacture such a jewel? Somehow it must have survived from the time of Denniss…’
He held his wife’s wrist and they watched the numbers busy with their changes. They had found a timepiece of unparalleled sophistication, probably of unparalleled value, certainly of unparalleled mystery.
Wherever the craftsmen were who had made the bracelet, they must be secure from the desperate state to which King JandolAnganol had brought Borlien. Things still held together in Ottassol because it was a port, trading with other lands. Conditions elsewhere were worse, with drought, famine, and lawlessness. Wars and skirmishes wasted the country’s lifeblood. A better statesman than the king, advised by a less corrupt scritina, or parliament, would make peace with Borlien’s enemies and see to the welfare of the population at home.
Yet it was not possible to hate JandolAnganol — though CaraBansity regularly tried to do so — because he was prepared to give up his beautiful wife, the queen of queens, to many a stupid child, a half-Madi. Why should the Eagle do that, if not to cement the alliance between Borlien and its old enemy, Oldorando, for his country’s sake? JandolAnganol was a dangerous man, all agreed — but as much under the cudgel of circumstance as the lowest peasant.
The worsening climate could be much blamed. The madness of the heat, increasing generation by generation, till the very trees caught fire…
‘Don’t stand dreaming,’ Bindla called. ‘Come and get your ridiculous contraption off my wrist.’
II. Some Arrivals at the Palace
The event that the queen feared was already in process. King JandolAnganol was on his way to Gravabagalinien to divorce her. From the Borlienese capital of Matrassyl he would sail down the River Takissa to Ottassol, there to take a coastal ship westward to Gravabagalinien’s narrow bay. JandolAnganol would present his queen with the Holy C’Sarr’s bill of divorcement in front of witnesses. Then they would part, perhaps forever.
This was the king’s plan, and very stormy he looked about it.
Accompanied by a brave sound of trumpets, escorted by members of his Household in finest array, King JandolAnganol was driven in his state coach down the hill from the palace, through Matrassyl’s crooked streets, to the quayside. In the coach with him was a solitary companion: Yuli, his pet phagor. Yuli was no more than a runt, with the brown hairs of his infancy still showing through his white coat. He had been dehorned and sat against his master, shuffling in nervous anticipation of the river journey.
As JandolAnganol stepped out of the vehicle, the captain of the waiting ship came forward and saluted smartly.
‘We’ll get under way as soon as you are ready,’ JandolAnganol said. His queen had sailed into exile from this very quay some five tenners earlier. Groups of citizens stood along the riverbank, eager to observe the king who had such a mixed reputation. The mayor had come to bid his monarch farewell. The cheering was nothing like the roar that had sped Queen MyrdemInggala on her way.
The king went aboard. A wooden clapper sounded, crisp as hoof on cobble. Rowers began to row. The sails were unfurled.
As the boat slid out from its mooring, JandolAnganol turned sharply to stare at the mayor of Matrassyl, who stood with his attendants drawn stiffly up on the dock in farewell. Catching the king’s glance, the mayor bowed his head submissively, but JandolAnganol knew how angry the man was. The mayor resented his monarch’s leaving the capital when the city was under external threat. Taking advantage of Borlien’s war with Randonan in the west, the savage nations of Mordriat to the northeast were on the move.
As that surly face fell behind the stern of the ship, the king turned his head to the south. He admitted to himself that there was some justice in the mayor’s attitude. From the high, restless grasslands of Mordriat came news that the warlord Unndreid the Hammer was active again. The Borlienese Northern Army, to improve its morale, should have had appointed as its general the king’s son, RobaydayAnganol. But RobaydayAnganol had disappeared on the day he heard of his father’s plan to divorce his mother.
‘A son to trust in…’ said JandolAngonal to the wind, with a bitter expression. He blamed his son for this journey on which he was embarked.
So the king set his profile southwards, looking for loyal demonstration. On the timbers of the deck, the shadows of the rigging lay in elaborate patterns. The shadows doubled themselves when Freyr rose in splendour. Then the Eagle retired to sleep.
A canopy of silk provided shelter in the poop of the ship. There the king remained for most of the three-day journey, with companions by his side. A few feet below his coign of vantage, almost naked human slaves, Randonanese for the most part, sat at their oars, ready to assist the canvas when the wind failed. The scent of them drifted up occasionally, to mingle with the smells of tar, timber, and bilges.