A pain went through me, sharp as a knife. There was a sudden longing in me to stay, to be his wife, and ride with him, and later perhaps to bear him children, and be a female only, and a slave as the others were. I knew he would love me, and leave me myself. He would let me search out my past and the Green Jade, once I had persuaded him. But somehow I could not speak.
There was a silence. I could not look at Darak’s face, I knew the contempt that would be on it. In a moment he would say to me: “Well, then, take him, and my blessing on you both.” But Darak did not speak either.
The chief said: “Such a woman would bring honor to us. One day, if it was her will, she might bear sons and make our tribe great. I will answer for my son Asutoo. He is a brave warrior, and has killed many of our enemies. One morning he will wake to be chief of the Star.”
Darak wheeled his horse then. He rode back to me, and snatched the rein out of my hands.
“We are honored by your words, chief. But our laws are different ones. This woman is mine.”
Asutoo’s face whitened. His hands clenched.
I wanted only to break away, to say, “No, Darak, I am not anything of yours,” and go to the white-faced boy. But I could not do it.
Darak did not glance at me. His arm went up to salute the tribes and their chieftains, and then he spun us around, his free hand still on my reins even before he had regained his. I had no free will left, he had stolen it, yet I had given it, too. It was so terrible to be in his power, doubly terrible because it delighted me. Anger and joy to have him drag me with him away from all safety and hope of freedom, and to have no say in it.
“Darak,” I called, “let go of him, you will cut his mouth.”
“Don’t tell me, you damned bitch,” he shouted back. The sky rushed in our faces. “I’ve handled horses for three years or more before you broke your egg.”
But he was laughing. Both of us were laughing. I had forgotten Asutoo already, and the ruins of any hopes he might have had, and his shame.
Part IV: Ankurum
1
We did not return to the road, but moved parallel to it on a newer track. A little beyond Kee-ool it seemed the paving had broken up, and it was no longer fit to ride. An ignominious end for the master-built Way of Kings.
It seemed to be the finish of my troubles. No more dreams and no more strange happenings. Not even any longings beyond what I had. Only the dull hot ride, the jokes, the sense of comradeship, however absurd. And Darak. That was a good time for him too, I think. I do not know if he loved me or not, or how he could, but there was something between us then. I do not forget.
And then we reached Ankurum, the Red-Haired, her feet on the footstool of high rock hills, her back against the low mountains, and beyond her altogether, the sky-touching shapes of the Mountain Ring, faint and far off, their caps already creamed with snow. There is an old legend about Ankurum that the scarlet vine which grows all over her, and will never grow in another place, brings her prosperity.
For a day or so, before we even sighted her, we went through villages and towns that grew in size as we got nearer. A complex struggle of houses, inns, and markets wound up the rock hills to her gates. It should have been an inhospitable region, and barren as the plain, but somehow there were orchards and woods, and fields cut through by little streams. Perhaps they were right to worship the goddess of the vine.
Beyond the walls, the city rose up in banks and terraces, and twisting alleys, carved out of the hillside.
The buildings were almost entirely of stone, a warm yellowish stone like the ramparts. Apart from the color of the vine, which ran wild everywhere, pictures had been painted on house and garden walls, and all over the fronts of inns and drinking houses. Signs swung, crimson, green, and yellow, the symbols of hammers and flagons and loaves. It was midday, everything wrapped in a brass stormlight.
“Impressed by all this opulence?” Darak asked.
I was looking around me, fascinated despite myself at this first contact with the massed bundle of humanity which is called a town. The pattern of it intrigued me, all of it winding upward to the great fortress-house of its warden, who held it in turn from his warden, the overlord of this region. There were laws in this place, and taxes taken regularly in money, not occasionally in sheep and goats. In most streets braziers stood, waiting to light up the dark, but in parts houses grew together overhead and shut out the sky. I noticed horse troughs, and drains to let rainwater away, and I noticed bad smells, too, and side alleys packed with hovels. Not all opulence, it seemed, but I let Darak tease me.
Not that he had been in Ankurum himself before, but he had been in other similar towns along the foot of the Ring. No doubt it was rare for him to visit the same town twice. They would always finally discover they had bought their goods from a thief.
I realized how dangerous this game was that he played when I found his name had abruptly changed from Darak to Darros a few moments after we were in the town. As Maggur told me later, Darak the bandit was too well-known. Darros, the merchant’s son, however, was another proposition entirely. He was an impressive if eccentric figure, daring to bring his caravan through the hills and plains with their cordon of dangers; one who had the favor of his gods. True, merchants here would think him wild and crazy, jealous of his achievement. And then his men would turn out to be such unruly scoundrels, drinking and whoring from one bordello to another throughout their stay. Nevertheless, the cargo was the important thing. Yes, despite his youth and failings, they would find a place in their greedy hearts for Darros of Sigko.
There were not many people about, for this hour they kept sacred to their stomachs. Half the gaudy shops were closed, but the taverns were bursting, spilling raucous gobblers out among trestles at the roadside.
We found a hostelry with some trouble. The caravan was a large one and looked very imposing now, particularly with its black, skull-masked outriders, a fearful product of the trader towns in the north.
At first there was always some man with a hot face saying “No room. Ankurum’s packed for the Games.
Try farther up.”
“What games are these?” someone called the first time.
“Are you barbarians or what? We’ve always had our Games. And now that the new stadium’s built, men have come for miles. Are you barbarians, you northerners?”
A fight might have broken out over this, but Darak, Ellak, and Maggur got the others quiet, and we rode off without any blood or brains spilled to mark our passage.
We soon had it through our heads, in any case, that Ankurum was full, and why. In the wider streets there were even posters hammered up on doors or walls, mostly in pictures or symbols—garish wrestlers, shown blue and orange, and chariots carried along by mauve horses. It had clouded over by now and was raining, and their colors were running all down the gutters. It seemed late in the year for games to be held. Probably they had delayed for their new stadium, The Gigantic and UnrivaledSirkunix of Ankurum, as their dripping artistry called it.
At last we found a place large enough, and nasty enough that it still had room to hold us. The big stone rooms thrummed with neglect and cold. The beds had not been aired in a million years. They lit fires for us, and brought out moth eaten sheets, and began a meal. There were only five or six others there, and I imagine they were residents, not guests. They were old and timid, and crept out of our way like small frightened animals. Whenever I met one—on the stairs or in the dining hall—they slid aside in abject terror; from Darak or the others, they fled squealing down side passages, and all night long their doors might be heard nervously opening and banging shut, as they attempted to scurry to and from the latrines, without seeing any of us. I think they were my initial lesson in pity, but I laughed at them, too.