The Brave Free Men (11 page)

The Anome's policy of evacuating women to the maritime cantons is doubtless correct; the effect however has been to stir and stimulate the Roguskhoi to ever more ferocious depredations, that they may gratify their apparently insatiable lust. Where will this dreadful process end? If the Anome in his might cannot thrust the fearful hordes back from whence they came, in five years Shant will be a solid seethe of Roguskhoi. Where will they turn next? To Caraz? It must be so assumed, since the Palasedrans would not loose so fearful a weapon upon the folk of Shant without reserving for themselves a means of control.

Another article, surrounded in dark scarlet and gray, described the Maseach militia in sufficient detail that Etzwane decided to make no personal representations. With an uncomfortable grimace he read the final sentences:

Our brave men have come together; they now familiarize themselves with military minutiae, long put aside and almost forgotten. With eagerness and hope they await the powerful weapons the Anome prepares; inspired by his majestic leadership they will smite the vicious red bandits and send them howling like scalded ahulphs.

"So they await my 'powerful weapons,' my 'majestic leadership,'" muttered Etzwane. If they knew him as he was—a bewildered musician, without competence, experience, or aptitude—they would be less sanguine. . .. His eye fell on a notice bordered in gray and ultramarine. Etzwane read:

Last night at the Silver Samarsanda the druithine Dystar made his appearance. His meal was paid for long before he ordered it and anonymous gifts were pressed upon his uninterested attention. As usual he rewarded the company with astonishing hurusthra
^[11]
and told of places where few are privileged to go.

 
Dystar may return tonight to the Silver Samarsanda.

Etzwane read the notice a second and a third time. Recently he had thought nothing of music; now a wave of longing came over him: what had he done to himself? Must he pass all his life in these sterile circumstances? Luxury, frosted wine, four-room garden suites—what were they to the life he had known with Frolitz and the Pink-Black-Azure-Deep Greeners?

Etzwane put the journal aside. In contrast to the life Finnerack had led he had been lucky. He turned to examine Finnerack, wondering what went on behind the taut brown countenance. "Finnerack!" Etzwane called out, "have you seen the news?" He handed the journal to Finnerack, who scanned the page with a scowl of unguessable import. "What are these mighty weapons the Anome is preparing?" asked Finnerack.

"To the best of my knowledge, they are nonexistent."

"Without weapons, how do you expect to kill Roguskhoi?"

"The technists are at work," said Etzwane. "If weapons are forthcoming, the men will be armed. If not they must fight with dart guns, bows and arrows, dexax grenades and bombs, lances and pikes."

"The decision to fight comes tardily."

"I know this. The former Anome refused to attack the Roguskhoi, nor will he now explain his reasons."

Finnerack evinced a degree of interest. "He is not dead then?"

"No, he was deposed and replaced."

"Who performed this remarkable feat?"

Etzwane saw no reason to withhold the information. "Do you know of Earth?"

"I have heard it mentioned: the human home world."

"On Earth is an organization known as the Historical Institute, where Durdane is remembered. By chance I met a man named Ifness, a Fellow of the Historical Institute, who had come to study Durdane. Together we learned the identity of the Faceless Man and urged him to take steps against the Roguskhoi. He refused, so we deposed him and set new processes into motion."

Finnerack inspected Etzwane with glittering eyes. "An Earthman is Anome of Shant?"

"I wish he were," said Etzwane. "Unfortunately he refuses the job. . .. The Anome is someone else. I assist him; I myself need an assistant: perhaps yourself, if you have the will to serve Shant?"

"Shant has done me nothing but harm," said Finnerack. "I must live for myself alone."

Etzwane grew impatient. "Your bitterness is understandable, but should you not focus it more carefully? Working with me, you could help other victims. If you don't do this you become no better than Hillen, and far worse than the ordinary people, whom you despise so much. Who here in Maschein, for instance, knew of Camp Three? No one."

Finnerack shrugged and stared wooden out over the Jardeen, on which violet evening light was falling.

Etzwane presently spoke, in a voice he tried to keep even: "Tonight we dine at the Silver Samarsanda, where we will hear a great druithine."

"And what is that?"

Etzwane looked around in astonishment. Nothing could have better dramatized the scope of Finnerack's deprivation. Etzwane spoke more warmly, "A druithine is a musician who wanders alone. He may play the gastaing, or the khitan, or even the darabence, and his music is usually of high quality."

"I don't know one note of music from another," said Finnerack in a flat voice.

Etzwane controlled a new sense of impatience. "You will at least enjoy your meal; the Maseache are famous for their fine restaurants."

The Silver Samarsanda stood above the Jardeen, behind a line of tall pencil cypress: an irregular bulk of masonry, plastered and whitewashed, with a wide, many-slanted roof of mossy tiles. Beside the entrance five colored lanterns hung in a vertical line: deep green, a dark, smoky scarlet, a gay light green, violet, and once more dark scarlet; and at the bottom, slightly to the side, a small, steady yellow lamp, the purport of all being:
Never neglect the wonder of conscious existence, which too soon comes to an end!

Through a pair of tall timber doors Etzwane and Finnerack passed into the foyer, where a small boy

served each a phial of grass wine and a morsel of crystallized fish, tokens of hospitality. A smiling maiden came forward, wearing the plum-colored flounces of an ancient Maseach maenad; from each young man she clipped a trifle of hair and touched their chins with yorbane wax: a quaint survival of the olden times when the Maseach were notorious for their immoderate pleasures.

Etzwane and Finnerack entered the vaulted hall, still almost empty, and took a table close beside the musician's bench. A dish of sharp, bitter, pungent and salt pastilles was set before them. Partly from a malicious desire to confound Finnerack, Etzwane commanded the traditional Feast of Forty-Five Dishes, and also instructed the steward to lay out the best for Dystar, when and if he appeared.

The meal was served, one dish after another, with Finnerack at first grumbling at the smallness of the portions, which he considered over-dainty, until Etzwane reminded him that so far he had consumed only twelve of forty-five dishes.

Dish after dish was brought, conforming to the theoretical absolute of a gastronome dead four thousand years. Texture against texture, aroma contrasting with flavor, the color and placement of each morsel to the ancient stipulation upon the ritually correct bowl, plate, or board. With each dish came a specified wine, tincture, essence, or brew. Finnerack's complaints dwindled; he became fascinated, or perhaps subdued. . . . At the twenty-eighth dish Dystar appeared in the entrance: a tall, spare man with well-shaped features, wearing gray

trousers and a loose gray-black tunic. He stood a moment looking across the hall, then turned and made a fretful remark to the man standing behind him, Shobin the proprietor. For a moment Etzwane wondered if Dystar might not simply depart the premises, but Shobin went off to correct whatever deficiency Dystar had pointed out. . . . The lights in the arched alcoves near the musician's bench were bright; Dystar disliked illumination too strong or emphatic. Shobin made the adjustments; Dystar came forward, still not in the best of moods. He carried a khitan and a darabence with a green jade fingerplate; he placed these on the bench and then settled at a table only six feet from Etzwane and Finnerack. Etzwane had seen him on a single previous occasion, and had then been fascinated by Dystar's ease, strength, certainty.

The steward announced that his meal had been spoken for, to which Dystar gave an indifferent nod. Etzwane studied him sidelong, trying to read the flow of Dystar's thoughts. Here was his father, half of himself. Perhaps it was his duty to announce himself. . . . Dystar might have a dozen sons, here and there across Shant, reflected Etzwane. The revelation might only irritate him.

The steward brought Dystar a salad of leeks in oil, the crust of a loaf, a dark sausage of meats and herbs, a jug of wine: a modest meal. Dystar had been sated with fine food, thought Etzwane; richness was no novelty to him, nor the attention of beautiful women. . . .

Dish after dish after dish. Finnerack, who perhaps never in his life had tasted good wine, had become more relaxed and examined the surroundings with a lessening of reserve.

Dystar finished half his food, pushed the rest away, and sat back, fingers around the stem of his goblet. His eyes passed across Etzwane's face; with a faint frown he looked back, as if troubled by a fleeting recollection. . . . He took up his khitan and for a moment examined it as if surprised to find such an ungainly and complicated instrument in his hands. He touched it lightly here and there, bringing all the unlikely parts into consonance, then put it aside for the darabence. He played a soft scale, adjusted whines and drones, then played a merry little jig, first with simple harmony, then with two voices, then three: a bit of virtuosity which he managed without effort or even any great interest. He put the darabence down and mused over his wine. . . .

The tables nearby were now crowded, with the most discriminating and perceptive folk of Maschein on hand to gain enlightenment.

Etzwane and Finnerack examined their thirty-ninth dish: pith of marrow tree, slivered, crisped, salted, in a pale green syrup, with a ball of purple jelly flavored with maroes and ernice, barely sweet. The accompanying wine, a subtle quick liquid, tasted of sunlight and air. Finnerack looked doubtfully at Etzwane. "Never in my life have I eaten so much. Yet—my appetite remains."

"We must finish the forty-five dishes," said Etzwane. "Otherwise they are not allowed to accept our money, the pleasant fiction being that the cooks have incorrectly prepared the dishes, or served in a crude manner. Eat we must;' "If such be the case I am the man for it." Dystar began to play his khitan: a soft lilt, with no obvious pattern, but as he proceeded, the ear began to anticipate and hear the pleasant corroboration. So far he had played nothing which Etzwane could not easily duplicate. . . . Dystar struck a set of soft strange chords, then began to play the melody with the chords tolling below like mournful sea bells. . .. Etzwane wondered as to the nature of Dystar's talent. Part, he thought, derived from ease and simplicity, part from profundity, part from a detachment which made him indifferent to his audience, part from a sleight which allowed him to play as the whim took him. Etzwane felt a pang of envy; for his part he often avoided passages whose resolution he could not foresee, knowing well the fragile distinction between felicity and fiasco. . . . The music came to an end, without notable accent or emphasis, the sea gongs fading into mist. Dystar put the instrument aside. Taking up his goblet he gazed across the hall; then, as if in sudden recollection, he again lifted the khitan and tested a set of phrases. He played them again with an alteration of harmony and they became a twitching, eccentric melody. He modulated into another mode and the melody altered; effortlessly Dystar played the first and second together in wry counterpoint. For a moment he seemed to become interested in the music and bent his head over the

neck of the khitan. . . . He slowed the tempo, the doubled tunes became one, like a pair of colored images joining to create the illusion of perspective. . . .

The last of the forty-five courses was served to Etzwane and Finnerack: a sour-sweet frost in shells of purple lacquer, with thimble-size goblets of Thousand Year Nectar.

Finnerack consumed the frost and tasted the nectar. His brown face seemed less gaunt; the mad, blue glitter was gone from his eyes. Suddenly he asked Etzwane: "How much must be paid for this meal?"

"I don't know. .. . Two hundred florins, I suppose."

"At Camp Three a man might not reduce his indenture two hundred florins in a year." Finnerack seemed rueful rather than angry.

"The system is archaic," said Etzwane. "The Anome will make changes. There will be no more Camp Threes, or Angwin Junctions, for that matter."

Finnerack turned him a glance of dour appraisal. "You seem very sure of the Anome's intentions."

For want of an appropriate reply, Etzwane let the remark go by. He raised a finger to the steward, who brought a tall earthenware flask, velvet with dust, from which he poured a cool pale wine, soft as water.