“They may have captured Braijth, but Rattagon is impregnable. The Oligarch is wasting his time.”
“Set in the middle of a lake, I hear.” “That’s Rattagon.” “Well, I’m glad I’m not a soldier.” “You’re too much of a fool to be anything but a sailor.” As the two men laughed together, Shokerandit fixed his gaze on a poster on a wall by the door. It announced that henceforth Anyone Entering the State of Pauk committed an Offence. To Enter into Pauk, whether alone or in company, was to Encourage the Spreading of the Plague known as the Fat Death. The Penalty for defying this law was One Hundred Sibs and, for a Second Offence, Life Imprisonment. By Order of the Oligarch.
Although Shokerandit never practised pauk, he disliked the stream of new orders the State was issuing.
Shokerandit thought to himself as he drained his glass that he probably hated the Oligarch. When the Archpriest-Militant Asperamanka had sent him to report to the Oligarchy, he had felt honoured. Then Fashnalgid had stopped him almost at the Sibornalese frontier; and it had taken him some while to believe what the man claimed, that he would have been cold-bloodedly killed with the rest of the returning army. It was even more difficult to realise that all of Asperamanka’s force had been wiped out on the Oligarch’s orders.
It made sense to take rational measures to keep the plague from spreading. But to suppress pauk was a sign that authoritarianism was spreading. He wiped his mouth with his hand.
As a result of circumstance, Shokerandit was no hero but a fugitive. He could not imagine what his fate would be if he was arrested for desertion.
“What did Harbin mean, I’m a man of the system?” he muttered. “I’m a rebel, an outcast—like him.”
It behoved him to get home to Kharnabhar and remain under his father’s powerful protection. At least in distant Kharnabhar the forces of the Oligarch would not reach him. Thought of Insil could be left for later.
With this reflection came another. He owed Fashnalgid something. He must take him on the arduous journey north if Fashnalgid could be persuaded to come. Fashnalgid would be useful in Kharnabhar: there he could help bear witness to the massacre of thousands of young Shiveninki by their own side.
He said to himself, I had courage in battle. I must have courage to fight against the Oligarchy if necessary. There will be others at home who feel as I do when they hear the truth.
He paid his coin and left the inn.
Along the waterfront stood a grand avenue of rajabarals. As temperatures dropped, the trees prepared for the long winter. Instead of shedding their leaves, they drew in their branches, pulling them into the tops of their vast trunks. Shokerandit had seen pictures in natural history books of how branches and leaves would dissolve to form a solid resin plug, protecting the featureless and undecaying tree until it released its seed in the following Great Spring.
Under the rajabarals, soldiers from a ship which flew the flags of Sibornal and the Oligarchy were parading. Shokerandit had a momentary fear that someone might recognize him; but his metamorphosed shape was protection. He turned inland, towards the marketplace, where there were agents who handled the affairs of travellers intending to visit Kharnabhar.
The cold winds from the mountains made him turn up his collar and lower his head. But at the agent’s door, pilgrims eager to visit the shrines of the Great Wheel were gathered, many poor and scantily clad.
It took him a while to arrange matters to his liking. He could travel to Kharnabhar with the pilgrims. Or he could travel independently, hiring a sledge, a team, a driver, and a jack-of-all-trades. The former way was safer, slower, and less expensive. Shokerandit decided on the latter as more befitting the son of the Keeper of the Wheel.
All he needed was cash or a letter of credit.
There were friends of his father’s at hand, some men of influence in the town’s affairs. He hesitated, and eventually chose a simple man called Hernisarath, who ran a farm and a hostel for pilgrims on the edge of town. Hernisarath welcomed Shokerandit in, immediately supplied a letter of credit for the agent, and insisted that Shokerandit join him and his wife for a midday meal.
He embraced Shokerandit on the doorstep when it was time to take leave.
“You’re a good and innocent young man, Luterin, and I’m happy to help. Every day as Weyr-Winter approaches, farming becomes more diEcult. But let’s hope we shall meet again.”
His wife said, “It’s so nice to meet a young man with good manners. Our respects to your father.”
Shokerandit glowed as he left them, pleased to have made a good impression; whereas Harbin was probably drunk by now. But why did Hernisarath call him “innocent”?
Snow began to fall from the heights, whirling as it came, like fine white sugar dissolving in a stirred glass of water. It thickened, muffling the sound of his boots on the cobbles. The streets cleared of people. Long grey shadows sprouted penumbras, dark for Freyr, lighter for Batalix, until the cloud extended over the bay and enveloped all Rivenjk in murk.
Shokerandit halted suddenly behind a rajabaral.
Another man came on from behind, clutching his collar to his throat. He walked past the tree, glanced back, shuffled his feet, and hurried into a side street. Shokerandit saw with some amusement that it was called Perspicacity Alley.
With uncharacteristic forethought, he had not told his fellow travellers that on the head of the Hero guarding entry to Rivenjk harbour was a heliograph signalling station. Warning of the deserters aboard the New Season could have reached the port long before the brig docked…
He returned to Odo’s house by as devious a route as he could contrive. By then, the worst of the snow shower was over.
“How fortunate that you arrive in time,” Odo said, as Shokerandit entered the door. “My brother and I and the rest of the family are about to go to church to give thanks for the New Season’s survival. You will come along, please?”
“Oh… yes, of course. A private ceremony?”
“Absolutely private. Only the priest and the family.”
Shokerandit looked at Odim, who nodded encouragingly. “You are about to embark on another journey, Luterin. We who have known each other such a short while must part. The ceremony seems appropriate, even if you don’t believe in prayer.”
“I will see if Fashnalgid will come too.”
He hastened up the winding wooden stair to the room Odo had lent them. Toress Lahl was there, lying under her skins on his bed.
“You’re meant to be working, not lying about,” he said. “You’re not still mourning your husband? Where’s the captain?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find him, will you? He’ll be drinking somewhere.”
He ran back downstairs. As soon as he was gone, Fashnalgid climbed out from under his bed and laughed. Toress Lahl refused to smile.
“I want food, not prayer,” he said, peering cautiously out of the window. “And that drink your friend mentioned would be welcome… .”
The Odim clan was gathering in the courtyard, where slaves were still meddling inefficiently with long rods, climbing in and out of the biogas inspection pit, despite the sleet in the air. The place was filled with excited talk.
Shokerandit appeared. Some of the ladies who had been on the New Season ran up and embraced him, in a manner more reminiscent of Kuj-Juvec than of the rest of Sibornal. Shokerandit no longer contrasted such free behaviour with his own formal upbringing.
“Oh, this is such a good place, this Rivenjk,” said one well-wrapped grand-aunt, taking his arm. “There are many fine buildings, and much statuary. I shall be happy here, and mean to set up a press to print poetry. Do you think your countrymen like poetry?”