Blade drank the rest of the water, piled some sacks under his head and his wound, then fell asleep quickly. The wagon was a more comfortable and secure sleeping place than any he'd found in the jungle.
Blade rode in the wagon for three days and caught up on a good deal of the sleep he'd missed during his trek through the jungle. During the day he listened carefully. The men and women around him talked as freely as if he was deaf, but the wagon ride came to an end just as he was beginning to understand something of what was going on in this Dimension. He'd played the same game with captors in many different Dimensions and often saved his life with what he learned. This time what he learned made him feel he'd read a book with every other page torn out. There were two lands in this Dimension, or at least two everyone knew about. There was Jaghd, where Blade was, and Elstan, on the other side of the forest of Binaark with its killer plants. Although the forest and the mountains on either side of it were almost impenetrable barriers, somehow the Jaghdi and the Elstani managed to conduct a flourishing trade.
Jaghd was a land of plains and forests, and Elstan a land of mountains and hills. The Jaghdi were farmers and stockbreeders, who traded their grain and meat for the metal and jewels the Elstani miners dug out of their native hills. The Elstani were obviously unpopular if not hated among the Jaghdi, but their metals were needed and their jewels valuable. No doubt the Elstani were in the same position when it came to the food they bought from the plainsmen.
Manro and Tressana were king and queen of Jaghd, and Manro was definitely a half-wit. Whether he'd been this way from birth or become half-witted later in life Blade couldn't learn. In any case, Tressana was definitely the real ruler of Jaghd. She seemed to be respected rather than loved, particularly by the men. One thing in particular she'd done to make them suspicious was to form a body of armed and mounted young women, who served in her personal guard. Jollya was apparently the leader of the Women's Guard, and Curim was the leader of the men. Most people thought Jollya was brave and a good rider, but some said she'd got her post by sleeping with the queen and most of the others said she'd got it because of her father, the Keeper of the Animals.
A Keeper seemed to be a combination of priest, professor, and cabinet minister, and Jollya's father was one of the more respected Keepers. He'd probably be one of the more important ones too, considering that much of Jaghd's wealth seemed to be in its animals. Blade was satisfied to know that the closest thing he had to a friend so far in this Dimension was the daughter of somebody important.
Jollya didn't come to talk to Blade again during the three days of the trip, but one of her amazons brought fresh food and water every morning. Others rode by to look at him at intervals during the day. Blade couldn't be sure how far the royal party traveled during each day's march, but he knew that the wagon swayed and lurched like a ship in a hurricane. His wound was healing nicely, but he picked up fresh bruises almost every hour from boxes falling on him.
Each evening the caravan made camp by a pond or a stream. The draft animals were unhitched and the riding animals (which were called «rolghas») were unsaddled. All were fed and watered. Hunters rode in with the day's catch, including rabbits the size of small antelopes and several kinds of bird. The meat was roasted over strong-smelling fires of animal dung and roots.
Blade had to sit, drink his musty water, eat his thin porridge, and smell the roasting meat. After his days of grubbing roots and insects in the forest, he felt this was adding insult to injury. By the third evening he would cheerfully have fought Curim for a chance to stuff himself with roast meat and fowl.
On the third evening the caravan made camp by a well with an elaborately carved stone wall around it. In the distance Blade saw the tall chimneys of a town trailing smoke against the sunset.
The next morning Blade was unchained, allowed to wash in a bucket of cold water, then turned over to a squad of soldiers. The soldiers arrived in four chariots, each drawn by three rolghas harnessed abreast. Blade was bound hand and foot, propped up in one of the chariots, and carried off toward the town. The last thing Blade saw of the caravan was Jollya on her rolgha looking after him, then turning her back and shouting orders more loudly than usual to her women.
On the rough ground the chariots rattled Blade's teeth, but beyond the town they reached a well-made gravel road. The rolghas leaped forward, and the chariots seemed to fly down the road. In seconds the town behind vanished in the dust.
There were other towns for Blade to look at that day as the chariots rattled north, changing rolghas every couple of hours. He quickly learned that the Jaghdi were more than stockbreeders and farmers. They were superb builders. The road itself was a notable achievement for any civilization without modern machinery. Blade had driven on worse ones in England.
Each paddock full of sleek animals had a solid wall of stone or wood. Farmhouses and barns were roomy and sprawling, with thatched roofs, carved wooden shutters, and decorated clay chimneypots.
In the towns the houses were usually smaller, but many had two or three stories, with glass in some of the windows. The roofs were covered with glossy blue or red tiles, and the main doors decorated with iron bands. The streets were paved with cobblestones, and Blade saw sprinkling carts and men with brooms keeping the stones clean. He saw other carts hauling barrels of garbage and human wastes out to fertilize gardens and orchards.
Most of the buildings showed nothing but stone, slate, tile, and wood in their construction. Blade remembered that nearly all Jaghd's metal had to be imported from Elstan. Iron was used where its strength was needed, however, and also where someone wanted to show off his wealth. Judging from the number of metal-decorated houses Blade saw, there were a fair number of wealthy men in Jaghd.
In fact, everything Blade saw gave him the impression that Jaghd was a prosperous and peaceful land. Otherwise the road wouldn't exist and the flourishing towns would be huddled for protection behind solid walls or around massive castles. Blade felt a little safer knowing this.
Not that peaceful and prosperous lands couldn't be unjust or cruel to suspected criminals. The Jaghdi seemed to execute suspected Elstani spies on very little evidence, tearing them limb from limb with teams of rolghas. If he could prove his innocence, though, he'd be much safer in Jaghd than in a land torn by civil war or feudal lords quarreling with their neighbors. There strangers often got knifed in the back simply because no one could be quite sure they weren't enemies.
The chariots rolled on through the night. By dawn there was a red-roofed city larger than any Blade had seen in Jaghd to the south, and a rugged range of hills to the north. When the chariots left the road, they turned toward the hills.
They followed a track into the hills, dustier than the road and much rougher. Blade was alternately coughing from the dust and being thrown violently against the side of the chariot to pick up a whole new set of bruises. At last they came out of the valley in front of a massive square castle perched on a crag. A tower rose at each corner. The gate was made of solid slabs of stone bound and riveted with iron. It was the first purely military building Blade had seen in Jaghd, and he was impressed by the amount of labor it must have taken to build it up here.
It was also the last Jaghdi building he saw for quite a while. The chariots rolled in through the gate, and Blade was untied in the middle of thirty guards with spears. Then the guards led him down a dark winding flight of stairs into the depths of the castle, and locked him in a lightless, airless cell, cold, damp, and dismal.