The Cache (11 page)

“We will do that. Although, it is not as necessary in your case that we have you as a guide because we would not have much difficulty in locating your people. But these two,” he added, indicating Joel and Benoni, “come from a land so far away we have never heard of it. We need them to show us the way and also to act as intermediaries.”

“May I speak?” said Benoni. Seeing the Pwez nod, he said, “On our way to Fiiniks, I would like to investigate a very strange thing I saw on the great plains. That is a great house, or fort, or some kind of building, made of a silvery seamless metal. It is shaped like a needle, and it is inhabited by a strange people. It . . .”

“The Hairy Men from the Stars!”

It was the Usspika who gasped out those words and who rose and clutched the edge of the table with his gnarled hands.

“The ship of the Hairy Men from the Stars!”

“Wha . . . what?” said Benoni.

The Usspika sat down again, and, after ceasing to breathe so hard, regained some of his composure and said, “You do not know what I am talking about?”

“No,” said Benoni.

The old man looked thoughtful but did not offer to explain. The Pwez, whose face had lit up at Benoni’s description of the metal building but who had maintained more self-control, said, “We will discuss that later. Not that we are not interested but that we must take one thing at a time.

“Now, my honored uncle may have given you the impression that both of you Fiiniks would be sent as bearers of our offer. But he did not mean to give that impression, I am sure.”

Benoni saw the Usspika’s eyes flick in her direction, and he was sure that the old man had meant to give that impression. But the Pwez did not want them to think this nor to know that she was over-ruling her uncle. That the Usspika did not object showed Benoni that she was the ruler, although a woman and young. It also showed him that she probably depended upon his wisdom and counsel and did not wish to offend him by blatantly acting in an autocratic manner. Nevertheless, when she made a decision, she would follow it through.

“One of you is lying,” she said. “One of you is vicious, untrustworthy. We would not want to send such a man to act for us, for we could only expect him to betray us the first chance he got to better himself by so doing. Therefore, we must determine who is telling the truth and who is lying. The liar will be killed, for he has dared to lie to the Pwez, which is the same thing as lying to the people of Kaywo and the god of Kaywo.”

She paused, and Benoni felt the sudden sweat trickling from under his armpits and down his ribs. He had seen enough of the customs of this nation to know that even proving one’s innocence might be very painful. Besides, how could either he or Joel prove or disprove anything? There were no witnesses to Joel’s treachery.

The Usspika spoke. “If my beloved niece and revered superior will hear an old man, in private, she may learn within a short time how to determine which is guilty. And it will not be necessary to go through a long and perhaps fruitless attempt to wrest the truth from these two. They both look tough and as hard as the skin on the soles of their feet. They might die, and we would be left without a guide. Even if one survived, he might so hate us, because of the ordeal, that we could never trust him. No, if I may be forgiven for interceding, I can clear this up within a short time.”

“Since I was a little girl, I have listened to my uncle,” said Lezpet. “I am not offended.”

She spoke to the three standing before her. “You may go to apartments that have been prepared for you, for we expected that you would accept.”

We would be fools if we had not, thought Benoni. Probably dead fools.

“You will be taken care of there. I imagine,” she said, smiling briefly, “that you are hungry after your prison fare. Tomorrow, we begin an intensive training. Within two weeks you should know enough to speak for us. That is,” she added, “two of you will be our guests. One of you will not be concerned with our affairs. Or, indeed, your own.”

Benoni began to sweat even more. He knew that she, like most of her people, was cruel. Far better to have gotten the suspense over with inside a few minutes, as the Usspika had said it could be, than be tortured with uncertainty all night. And she could speak so calmly of the possibility of taking his life. He could not imagine Debra, soft and oh, so kind Debra, speaking in such a manner.

A few minutes later, Benoni and Zhem were inside the suite of rooms that would be—for one of them, at least—permanent quarters for the next two weeks. Joel was taken to another suite, the one next door to theirs. Apparently, the Pwez or whoever had ordered their domiciling had decided that the wisest thing to do would be to keep them separated. Otherwise, one might be dead before night fell or dawn broke.

Benoni and Zhem were not alone for some time. Two slave girls washed their hands and faces for them, as was required by Kaywo religious custom, before they sat down at the table. Then, two other girls served them their meals. And Zhem, famished from little and bad food during his stay in prison, ate as if he would never eat again. He also drank heavily of the wine offered him, so that it was not long after eating before he went to sleep sitting up in a chair and talking to Benoni.

Benoni did not eat nearly as much as his companion, for he had been taught from childhood that it was an offense against himself and his God to stuff his belly. A man could not be quick and also be fat. Moreover, food had never been overplentiful in the Valley of the Sun; necessity had made a virtue of moderation. He wandered about the suite, inspecting each room and the furnishings. These consisted of three large chambers: the anteroom and two bedrooms. The stone walls were concealed by scarlet and gold draperies, the floors were covered with thick rugs into which were woven scenes from Kaywo’s early history, and the furniture was of a dark brown dense-grained wood that must have been imported from some land to the south.

The most interesting item, to Benoni, were the windows. These were tall and narrow, just wide enough for a man to slip through side-wise, if they had not had two iron rods barring his passage.

Benoni finished his inspection just before the slaves returned with a portable wooden bath tub and many buckets of water. Much to Benoni’s relief, the slaves were not girls, but men. He did not like the idea of being bathed by men but it was better than being scrubbed by women. Later, he found that some of the
kefl’wiy
males were bathed by women but that this was a new custom, not widely spread. In the palace, which was governed by the rigid morality of the old-style aristocrats, such a thing would not have been permitted.

Zhem was awakened and bathed; Benoni took his bath and the clean clothes given him. His long hair, which fell to his shoulders, was oiled and combed. Then, their new tutors arrived, men to teach them more of the Kaywo language, of the origin and rise of the nation, the religion, and the destiny of Kaywo, which was to be glorious.

An hour before supper, their teachers left. The two, wanting exercise, asked the guards before their door if they could go down into the courtyard. They took them to the ground floor and into the huge inner court of the palace. Here, the two practiced with dull-edged swords and shields until they could hardly lift their arms. Then, they tried wrestling, two falls out of three. Benoni won two but lost the third. Panting, sweating, but feeling fine, they returned to their rooms, bathed again, and ate. Zhem duplicated the feat of eating and drinking himself to sleep; this time, Benoni took his hand and led him, stumbling, to his bed. Zhem sank into it and was snoring before Benoni went to his own room.

Benoni took a book left by a tutor and sat down under the oil lamp to read a history. Or try, for the Kaywo alphabet differed somewhat from the Fiiniks, and the vocabulary used by the author was based on the literary dialect, the form of Kaywo that had ceased to be spoken a hundred years before except in the
Uss a Spika
(House of Speakers) and during public religious ceremonies.

After struggling for an hour, he realized he would be able to read only with the help of an educated Kaywo. So, rising, he ate an apple from a large bowl of fruit on the table. Then he went to bed. But he could not sleep. He was too worried about what might happen to the Eyzonuh if they did accept the Kaywo offer to become a borderguard people, a march.

First, there was the migration of a whole nation across the cruel desert and the broad prairies. It was one thing for a lone man or a small war party to traverse those dangers; they could move swiftly without attracting much notice. But a whole nation with small children and women, their dogs and cats, their cattle, sheep, and chickens, their wagons, bedding, clothing, and everything they needed for the exodus!

For one thing, they would have to move very slowly, no faster than the slowest wagon could go. Then, they would have to fight their way out of the Valley of the Sun, for he was sure that the Navaho would know of this great move and would summon all their strength to attack. Having battled against the Navaho, the crossing of the desert between the Eyzonuh mountains and the great plains would be next. They would need much water to bring them across. And they would be harried by Navahos. Possibly, by raiders from the land of Deseret to the north. Then, having reached the plains they knew not what other dangers they faced. He did not think the lions and the wild dogs were much to dread; the presence of so many people would make them scurry, though it was likely they would try to stalk anybody who left the main body. But there were many nomadic tribes on the plains; he had seen enough of them to be sure of that. And the news of this great mass moving eastward would reach the ears of the savages living along the line of travel.

But, if the Eyzonuh did survive all the dangers, what then? Would they not be in even more peril than in their earthquake-and-volcano-ridden land? Was not the chance very strong that they would be crushed in the war between the Skego and Kaywo? Exterminated or worse, taken as slaves? Oh, the Eyzonuh could fight, they would make their conquerors pay bitterly. But he had to be a realist. If the Skego land was as thickly populated as the Kaywo, and if, moreover, they had a horde of Skanava allies to draw upon, the Skego could overwhelm the Eyzonuh by numbers.

The Kaywo must know this, must be expecting this. They were willing to sacrifice the Eyzonuh, hoping that the desert people would check the men from the Northern Seas long enough for Kaywo to rebuild her strength, that the Eyzonuh would inflict such losses that Skego would be weakened.

But, suppose, that the Kaywo supported the Eyzonuh so that Skego was repelled? Suppose, that Kaywo even won the war? Then what?

If peace came, if the Eyzonuh settled down on the rich black soil along the L’wan River, if they built villages, grew crops, multiplied, became rich in food and in trade goods? To the south of them, and close, would be their mighty patron, Kaywo. The borders of Kaywo, with its swiftly growing population, would move northwards, touch upon the Eyzonuh march. And she, with her superior civilization and numbers, would insidiously influence the Eyzonuh. Kaywo customs and language would be admired and adopted. The religion would attract the young Eyzonuh. Within a generation or two, Eyzonuh would be, in everything except name, Kaywo. And the next step would be to offer the Eyzonuh citizenship in Kaywo.

Or, as was unlikely, if the Eyzonuh were stiff-necked and resisted all these influences, retained stubbornly their own customs and culture, then what? Once the danger from Skego was past, the gratitude of the Kaywo would last no longer than spring snow under the noon sun. It would be easy to pick a quarrel and to march upon the Eyzonuh, crush them, enslave them to add to the wealth of Kaywo. And to send their own citizens to live in the L’wan.

Benoni tossed and turned in bed a long while before he finally fell asleep. His last thoughts were that he would advise his people against accepting the offer. Migrate, yes, but not to L’wan. They could go elsewhere; the world was a large place and had many fine lands. Of course, their rejection of Kaywo would anger Kaywo, and they would be classed as enemies. But Kaywo might not survive the Skego war. And, if they did, they would be too busy licking their wounds for a long time to turn their attention to the Eyzonuh. Especially, if they did not even know where Eyzonuh were.

He fell into a sleep that was not so deep that he did not dream of Debra Awvrez. But Debra’s face melted, became Lezpet.

“Let us . . .” she said, and she never finished. He was awakened by shouts and the clang of steel upon steel.

Benoni rolled out of the great bed and ran from the bedroom and to the door of the anteroom. He pulled on the upright hook furnished to swing the door inwards and found that the door would not move. Evidently, the bar on the outside had been shot into the socket in the wall to lock the door.

He put his ear against the thick wood to hear the commotion in the corridor, could make out voices but could distinguish only a few words here and there. The ring of sword against sword was still making a din; twice, it was punctuated by shrieks.

Behind him, Zhem said, “Wha . . . what’s going on?”

Benoni turned to see him standing close to him, his face thick with sleep and his eyes bloodshot.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But such a battle inside the walls of the palace could mean only one thing. Treason. An attempt to assassinate the Pwez. Or, maybe, Skego agents managed to force their way in and are trying to kill her.”

Zhem spread out his hands before Benoni. “We are unarmed, and the windows are barred. What can we do?”

“I’m not sure we should do anything even if we could,” said Benoni. “Yet, we’ve accepted the hospitality of the Pwez, we are under her roof, eating her food.”

“Have you forgotten that she may have you killed in the morning?” asked Zhem. “You are her prisoner, not her guest.”

Benoni said, “If this is an assassination attempt, if Skego is behind it, the Skego would not want either of us to live. They would not care for us to take the offer of the Pwez to our people. So, they would probably kill us.”