It was cold on the water. While the boatman sat by the tiller, the others crouched below the tarpaulin, out of the wind. Toress Lahl was disinclined to talk, but Besi plied her with questions.
‘Where are you from? I can tell by your accent that you’re not from here. Is this man your husband?’
Reluctantly, Toress Lahl admitted that she was Shokerandit’s slave.
‘Well, there are ways out of slavery,’ said Besi feelingly. ‘Not many. I’m sorry for you. You could be worse off if your master dies.’
‘Perhaps I could find a boat in Koriantura which would take me back to Campannlat — once Lieutenant Shokerandit is safe, I mean. Would you help me?’
Fashnalgid said, ‘Lady, there will be trouble enough for us when we get back to Koriantura, without helping a slave to escape. You’re a good-looking woman — you should find a good billet.’
Ignoring this last remark, Toress Lahl said, ‘What kind of trouble?’
‘Ah… That is up to God, the Oligarch, and a certain Major Gardeterark to devise,’ said Fashnalgid. He brought out his flask and took a long swig at its contents.
With some reluctance, he offered it round to the women.
From under the tarpaulin, Shokerandit said, slowly but distinctly, ‘I don’t want to go through this again…’
Toress Lahl rested a hand on his burning head.
Fashnalgid said, ‘You’ll find that life is essentially a series of repeat performances, my fine lieutenant.’
The population of Sibornal was less than forty percent that of its neighbour Campannlat. Yet communications between distant national capitals were generally better than in Campannlat. Roads were good, except in backward areas like Kuj-Juvec; since few centres of population were at a great distance from the coast, seas acted as thoroughfares. It was not a difficult continent to govern, given a strong will in the strongest city, Askitosh.
A street plan of Askitosh revealed a semicircular design, the centre point of which was the gigantic church perched on the waterfront. The light on the spire of this church could be seen for some miles down the coast. But at the rear of the semicircle, a mile or more from the sea, was Icen Hill, upon which granite mound stood a castle housing the strongest will in Askitosh and all Sibornal.
This Will saw to it that the land and sea roads of the continent were busy — busy with military preparation and with that forerunner of military preparation, the poster. Posters appeared in towns and in the smallest hamlets, announcing one new restriction after another. Often the announcements these posters bore came in the guise of concern for the population: they were for the Prevention of the Spread of Fat Death, or they were for the Limitation of Famine, or for the Arrest of Dangerous Elements. But what they all boiled down to was the Curtailment of Individual Liberty.
It was generally supposed by those who worked for the Oligarchy that the Will behind these edicts regulating the lives of the inhabitants of the northern continent was that of the Supreme Oligarch, Torkerkanzlag II. No one had ever seen Torkerkanzlag. If he existed, Torkerkanzlag confined himself to a set of chambers within Icen Hill Castle. But such edicts as were currently being issued were felt to be consistent with the nature of someone who had so little love for his own liberty that he locked himself up in a suite of windowless rooms.
Those higher up the scale had their doubts about the Supreme Oligarch, and often maintained that the title was an empty one, and that government was in the hands of the Inner Chamber of the Oligarchy itself.
It was a paradoxical situation. At the core of the State was an entity almost as nebulous as the Azoiaxic One, the entity at the heart of the Church. Torkerkanzlag was understood to be a name adopted on election, and possibly used by more than one person.
Then there were the obiter dicta supposed to filter down from the very lips — the beak, some claimed — of the Oligarch himself.
‘We may debate here in council. But remember that the world is not a debating chamber. It more closely resembles a torture chamber.’
‘Do not mind being called wicked. It is the fate of rulers. That the people want nothing but wickedness you can ascertain by listening at any street corner.’
‘Use treachery where possible. It costs less than armies.’
‘Church and State are brother and sister. One day we will decide which shall inherit the family fortune.’
Such morsels of wisdom passed through the oesophagus of the Inner Chamber and into the body politic.
As for that Inner Chamber, it might be expected that those who belonged to it would know the nature of the Will. Such was not the case. The Members of the Inner Chamber — they were now in session and came masked — were collectively even less sure of the nature of the Will than the ignorant citizens living in the damp streets below the hill. So close to that formidable Will were they that they had to fence it about with pretence. The masks they wore were but an outer cover for a barrier of deviousness; these men of power trusted each other so little that each had developed a posture with regard to the nature of the Oligarch by which truth could not be distinguished — much like insects which, if predatory, disguise themselves as something innocuous whereby to deceive their prey, or, if innocuous, as a poisonous species to deceive their predators.
Thus it might be that the Member from Braijth, the capital city of Bribahr, was a man who knew the truth about the Will that dominated them. He might admit to his cronies the truth of the matter; or he might tell a guarded half-truth; or he might lie about the matter in one way or another, according to what best suited him.
And in the case of that Member from Braijth, in actual fact, the degree of his deceitfulness could scarcely be judged, since, beneath the imposed continental unity, guaranteed by many a solemn pact, Uskutoshk was at war with Bribahr, and a force from Askitosh was besieging Rattagon (as far as it was possible to besiege that island fortress).
Moreover, other Members feigned to trust the Member from Braijth according to their secret sympathies with his country’s policy in daring to challenge the leadership of Uskutoshk. Feigning was all. Their very sincerity was feigned.
No one was secure in his understanding. With this they were collectively content, finding security in believing that their fellow Members were even more deluded than they were themselves.
Thus the soul of the most powerful city on the planet had at its core a profound obfuscation and confusion. It was with this confusion that they chose to meet the challenge of the changing seasons.
The Members were currently discussing the latest edict to descend from the unseen hand of the Oligarch for their ratification. This was the most challenging edict yet. The edict would prohibit the practice of pauk, as being against the principles of the Church.
If the required legislation was passed, it would entail in practice the stationing of soldiery in every hamlet throughout the continent in order to enforce the prohibition. Since the Members considered themselves learned, they approached the subject by leisurely discourse. Their lips moved thinly under their masks.
‘The edict brings under consideration our very nature,’ said the Member for the city of Juthir, the capital of Kuj-Juvec. ‘We are speaking here of an age-old custom. But what is age-old is not necessarily sacrosanct. On the one hand, we have our irreplaceable Church, the very basis of Sibornalese unity, with its cornerstone God the Azoiaxic. On the other hand, unrecognised by the Church, we have the custom of pauk, by which living persons can sink their selves down into a trance state to commune with their ancestral spirits. Those spirits, as we know, are supposed to be descending to as well as being descended from the Original Beholder, that inscrutable mother figure. On the one hand is our religion, pure, intellectual, scientific; on the other hand is this hazy notion of a female principle.