02 | Amongst Farmers
"Has it ever borne fruit?" I asked my uncle.
After crossing paths in the courtyard, we had stopped under the single ancient tree that grew there and were presently looking up at the evergreen foliage. It was showing its first tentative purple blossoms. It was a sure sign that winter was finally over.
"Not in living memory," my uncle replied. "It faithfully blossoms every year, but there are never any seeds or fruit... nor saplings. Nothing."
"It is beautiful, though, for the short time in spring when it is in full bloom."
"Beauty is a virtue in its own right," he acknowledged, "and therefore it is good and right to preserve this tree even if it doesn't have any mundane uses. Besides, it seems to be one of a kind—I have never seen another one like it." He looked at me over the rim of his glasses. "Another reason to take care of it; one-of-a-kind things are special."
With his personable manner it was easy to forget that the Keeper of Secrets was one of the most powerful men in the City. He guarded the Book of Names and he entered a Guardian's name—divined by a medium at the Naming ceremony—into it. Moreover, he was the one to interpret the meaning of each name that was revealed. For all I knew, he was the only person besides myself who knew my name—unless the entranced medium, a priestess, had not been as out of it as she had appeared.
"If all goes well your brother's work in the Hills will be completed by this time next year," he pointed out. "It seems interminable now, but it will pass." He suddenly smiled, as if stricken by a thought. "Actually, did you know that—no matter how different they are in most other things—all Tribes have a Naming ceremony, and all of them keep their names a secret... I have heard rumours that the Miners' Naming takes place in a cavern underground. Should you hear more about their customs while you're in the east, you must tell me all about them."
"But... I can't possibly pry on their secrets!" I exclaimed, taken aback. No other Tribes, not even the Farmers, our closest allies, were allowed anywhere near our Naming ceremonies.
"Who's talking about prying?... But people chat. Even Miners, I should imagine."
I gave him a sceptical look. "Telling by a sample of one—an armourer I had dealings with earlier today—I'd consider this highly unlikely." I laughed. The idea to find a Miner engaging in idle chitchat seemed so ludicrous. "Have you ever met a Miner, uncle?"
"Oh, you'd be surprised," he said cryptically.
Well, I was surprised; as the Keeper of Secrets he wasn't allowed to travel, and he rarely ever ventured outside the City walls. So, on what occasion would he have met a Miner?
The following morning at daybreak I found myself back at the marketplace, looking for the group of tradesmen that were to be my travel companions on the way to the Valley. Although I wouldn't be travelling incognito on the first leg of my journey—there was no need for subterfuge just yet—no-one accompanied me to see me off. I hated public scenes, and therefore had asked my relatives to say our goodbyes in private. I had bid them farewell at my uncle's house on the night before.
I hadn't seen much of my mother lately—all necessary things had been said between us on the night of the banquet—but I had made a point of spending time with my uncle and cousin on my last day in the City. Being privy to my cousin's concerns, I was aware that nothing had been resolved by the time I was taking my leave, but there would be another dozen days before her betrothed was to depart for the north. Plenty of time to speak up.
But what if he doesn't? What if he never intends to?
Apparently, there were couples who kept the secret between them. Having never given it much thought before, I had simply assumed that those were marriages of convenience, allegiances to ensure that a widow had a provider, or a family of young children a new mother. I had always believed that love and revealing their names to each other came hand-in-hand. But, perhaps, I was just being naïve—
The man I was looking for was standing next to the gate of the compound; he was in conversation with half a dozen Guardians. Most of the men in his company were not young, and they had the look of seasoned soldiers about them. If nothing else, the number of sharp-edged weapons gracing their persons gave them away, and I thought that I glimpsed the odd telltale piece of whitish fleece. Mercenaries, hired to protect the trade caravan on its way east.
I approached them and, raising my voice to be heard above their conversation, I called out, "Good morning, Trader."
"You're just in time," he called back, coming towards me and giving me a nod in greeting. "We're about to set out."
We had been introduced at my uncle's house on the day before. He was a heavy-set man clad in leathers and a cloak with a shaggy fur collar, and with a set of studded bandoliers crossed over his chest. He had a short straight sword strapped to his waist. Not a weapon frequently encountered with guardians, and one definitely lacking in style, but it might have its advantages in a tight brawl.
From the moment I had made my presence known, six pairs of eyes had fixed themselves upon me, taking in not only my face and form—what little of it could be discerned underneath my leather mail and cloak—but also my weapons. There were no obvious sneers, and yet there was something offensive about their close scrutiny, telling me as plain as day how green I was in their eyes.
I decided to ignore them; but when the time came I would not be bullied by them. "All yours?" I asked the trader instead, pointing at the array of mule carts lined up in the yard.
"Eight of them," he said proudly. "Three others belong to the fellow over there—" He pointed at an elderly Guardian about to mount the box of one of the carts. All of the other drivers were Farmers, except for one. "—and then there's this chap at the back with just the one cart. He's taking some of my wares and, as you are vouched for, I'm asking you to drive with him. Keep an eye on him, see if he's trustworthy." He looked around, counting. "Right. All present... We're good to go."
A shout, and four of the mercenaries sauntered to their horses while the other two hitched a ride on the carts. I went to the man with the single cart who was to make up the tail end of the caravan—bar the mounted rearguard, that was.
"He said I'm to drive with you," I said, pointing at the trader who was busy directing the carts into the correct order as they rumbled out of the gate of the compound.
"Hop on," he replied. "There's some space to store your stuff right behind you. And as for your... staff—" The blade of my spear was sheathed in a formless leather bag, somewhat obscuring its purpose. "—you can put it..." He trailed off when he saw that I was already shoving the tall weapon in between the bales of goods and the side panel, out of sight but handy when needed.
He extended a hand to help me alight, a gesture I pointedly ignored as I scrambled onto the box. What does he think I am?—a damsel?
He shrugged, looking faintly amused. A click of the tongue, a shake of the reins, and the mules reluctantly pulled away; slowly the cart was following the train out of the compound. We were on our way.
We forded the River just behind the southern outskirts, and then we took the road that followed the stream due east, the light of the rising sun in our faces. Every so often I turned in my seat and glanced back at the Mound. I couldn't help myself. We were travelling atop the river bank and, with the Mound the only elevation for miles on end in an otherwise entirely flat landscape, it would remain visible for a good while yet. The City looked resplendent from afar. Tier upon tier of white masonry crowned by the many-turreted Citadel, it was testimony of the Guardians' dominance over the Plain.
I had never lived anywhere else. As the Mound lay gleaming in the light of the morning sun, I had a strange premonition—and with a sinking heart I wondered if I was about to travel from a bright present into a gloomy future.
My travel companion didn't seem bothered by my silence. He sat relaxed, steering the mules with an occasional tug at the reins or a quick command, and alternately kept an eye on the road and the dry grassland that bordered it. This part of the Plain north of the River was used as pasture for the Guardians' horses, and I could see a herd of them it the distance, guarded by a team of riders.
The river was but a stone's throw away to our right. This far north the river wasn't navigable for the Fishermen's swift sailing ships, and all through the day we only encountered some small towed barges laden with salt and pickled fish. Any raid—and it was unlikely that there would be one in daylight and so close to the City—would come from the Plain south of the River. It was the Nomads we had to be wary of, and the further away from the City we went, the more the possibility of an assault increased.
Eventually I cleared my throat to ask a question. It would have been rude to stay mute for very much longer. Besides, a bit of conversation would pass the time. "What are you dealing in?" I said, glancing sideways at him.
He was young—no more than eight or ten years my senior—and brawny for a Guardian. His clothes didn't give anything away; they were quite utilitarian. He wore a loose layered tunic similar to the traditional costume of the desert tribes, going to his knees and with breeches underneath. He even wore a cloth wound several times around his head. It obscured most of his hair—so there was no telling if he was wearing a braid—but, unlike the Nomads' headgear, it left his face bare. It was an arresting face with expressive features—strong, but not exactly handsome.
What is he doing here, driving a cart, rather than be in active service?
He let the silence linger for another moment before he replied. "My trade?... Oh, this and that. Whatever comes my way."
As answers went this one was rather circumspect—hardly an answer at all. No wonder the Trader mistrusted him.
"And right now? What is it you're carrying?"
"Most of the stuff on the loading bay belongs to the Trader... besides a number of smaller items people asked me to deliver to the settlements. I'm not fast but cheap... I'm going to take on ingots of crucible steel for the return journey... that kind of stuff."
"You find this satisfactory?" I blurted out. I was being rude, but he baffled me. What was he exactly?
Unsurprisingly, he ignored my question.
"You are not from the City, are you?" I asked instead. "While I wouldn't claim to know everyone there, I do know most people by sight—"
"No. I never lived on the Mound."
"Where are you from?" It was not my habit to needle others with questions—and, had I been me, I would not have tolerated such an inquiry. But he piqued my curiosity. Lowly position and all, he was unlike any Guardian I had ever met.
"The east," he curtly replied. There was a faint smile playing around his lips. He was being deliberately enigmatic.
There were Guardian enclaves in almost all the territories of the Plain, settlements fortified in anticipation of such times when relations with their respective neighbouring Tribes suddenly became strained. I knew little else about them, and nothing of it first-hand. Rumour had it that living amongst the western desert Tribe, the Nomads, equalled a truce at the best of times, but their default relations were low-level hostilities. Guardian settlers from the west were a hardy bunch, and the few who entered active service and were deployed to the north were said to make excellent trackers but abysmally uncooperative squad members. They were loners with a violent reputation.
The eastern settlers were considered marginally less difficult.
Well, this explained a few things about my travel companion. I wondered if his home was the settlement where me and my brother were headed for in a short while.
"Do you happen to know the settlement by the Gorge?—the one nearest the main Miner town in that area?" I might as well pump him for information while I had the chance.
He didn't answer me at once. When I turned to look at him, he gave me a broad grin, white teeth flashing. "You're asking an awful lot of questions, lady," he remarked. Calling me 'lady', a term only used by servants or merchants, was both a rebuke and an impertinence. In any case, he was making it abundantly clear that he would not be drawn out by me.
Well, I'd be up for the challenge. After all, there were another two days' travel ahead of us, riding together. Plenty of time to keep poking at what—if anything—he was hiding...
At dusk we made camp at a distance from the river, on a flat piece of land with just one shallow rise to the east, be manned by a lookout during the night. At the base of it there was a small clear pool, a natural spring, just big enough to provide both humans and beasts with drinking water. Traces of old fire pits proved that this place was regularly used as a camp.
One of the drivers, a Farmer, quickly built up a small fire to boil water for the fragrant mint tea that, as he told me then, was a staple with all travellers on the Plain. After brewing the concoction in a large copper kettle, he quickly extinguished the flame. Rather than cook we would live on our supplies that night, freshly replenished in the City. Although it was only spring the southerly wind—typical for the time of year—would make sure that the night was only chill not cold.
A homely fire at camp was a treacherous comfort at night. It destroyed your night vision.
Not yet prepared to call it a day, I sat by the cooling fireplace, with the Trader, the elderly Guardian who owned three of the carts, and my travel companion keeping me company. The three mercenaries currently not on guard duty had gone to sleep. The Farmers had gathered a little apart next to one of the carts, and the sound of their voices, speaking softly in their guttural Valley dialect, floated across to us whenever the wind picked up.
It was the time of day for stories, and the Trader had a great fund of them from his various mercantile expeditions. He was a seasoned narrator who knew how to create suspense, and he obviously liked a rapt audience. But in the end it was the hitherto quiet elderly man whose choice of story came as the most surprising because it was a tale all of us knew well—almost at a visceral level—and therefore it was hardly ever told amongst adults. It was our origin story...
In the beginning there was nothing.
Then the Creator clapped His hands, and nothing became anything.
Anything had no time or direction, no day or night, no up or down. Anything was chaos.
He swept across it with the flat of His hand, and anything became something. Something was a plain.
With His hands He shaped, and something else became a river meandering through the plain; mountains at one side of it and the sea at another, a desert to the left, and hills to the right. Something had direction.
A sun to brighten the day and, in its absence, night. Moon and stars. Something had time.
Something was missing—Purpose.
And so He created the tribes. In the centre of the plain, along the river, He put the Farmers. He gave the hills to the Miners and the desert to the Nomads, the sea and islands to the Fishermen—and the mountains to the Guardians.
Because beyond the mountains chaos still reigned. The icy grip of mayhem and destruction, reaching out to reclaim what was taken from it.
There was little to fear that night. The sky was clear, and the pale light of a nearly full moon illuminated the landscape. It was almost too bright, and so I took my sleeping mat and blanket and put it in the shadow under the cart. The carts were drawn up in a circle, and all around me I heard the men make their preparations for the night. Like me, the drivers were either sleeping under or next to their wagons. The mules, their front legs hobbled, stood in the centre of the circle of carts, their heads drooping. Except for the occasional braying all was quiet. The mercenary up on the hill remained invisible, but the other two guarding the perimeter stood out in stark relief against the nighttime sky whenever they sauntered by on their rounds.
My travel companion was one of the last to return. I heard him approach, then saw his boots stand next to the cart as he rustled inside for his bedroll.
"Everything all right?" I asked.
"Fine," he said. Then, after a moment, he added, "I was afraid the gelding was going lame, but it's only a horseshoe coming loose. I shall fix it in the morning."
"Right," I said. "Night, then."
He dropped his bedroll on the ground beside the cart and unrolled it, then he slumped down next to me. The wheels of the cart were between us, and his boots were next to my head.
"That's my place you've hogged just there," he grumbled as he pulled a blanket over his shoulders. "If it's raining tonight you'll be in trouble."
For a while I was kept awake by the unfamiliar night-time noises of the Plain, and by the sound of the deep even breathing of my companion. I saw the shadows shift as the moon slowly wandered across the firmament. Eventually I fell asleep, with my hand on the hilt of my dagger.
It was a night of broken sleep; I woke from every small sound—every rustling of hooves, one of the men stumbling away from the circle of carts to pass water behind a bush, every snore and cough—and only when the first light of dawn brightened the eastern sky, my state of alert ceased...
"Oi! Sleepyheads—" Someone stubbed my foot. "—get up! We're about to decamp."
I bolted upright—and hit my head on the axle. I groaned, rubbing my scalp. Bleary-eyed I looked for the speaker, but only saw boots, knees, and a hand holding out a steaming mug towards me. I crawled out from under the cart and looked around. Some of the mules were already harnessed; we would indeed be on our way in a few moments.
My travel companion looked bright and well rested, and ready to go.
I took the mug with a mumbled word of thanks and put it down on the loading bed, then I stooped to retrieve my bedding from under the cart. As I rolled up my bedroll I said, "Weren't you going to shoe that mule this morning?"
"Already done—while you slept through the din... You snore, by the way."
I don't! was on the tip of my tongue to reply. But then, how would I know? Anyway, this was beside the point. What really bothered me was that I had slept like the dead—and that anything could have happened while I had been in the Land of Nod.
My sense of humiliation made me taciturn that morning, and for a while we drove in near silence again.
My companion seemed in rather better spirits than on the day before, if his whistling was anything to go by.
"So, you're coming with us as far as the Village, the Trader said?" he eventually asked me.
"I'm going to join my brother who's currently there," I replied, with no intention to give away any more information than was strictly necessary for the sake of politeness.
"What's he doing there?" It was a fair question. The crops were generally transported and traded by the Farmers themselves, so there was no need for an intermediary. The small working farms in the Valley, along with the inconvenience of annual Flooding and mosquitoes, offered very little in terms of a life of leisure for, let's say, a retired Guardian soldier. And the nearest military outpost was at the southern end of the Valley, and therefore well away from where the caravan was headed.
"He's a surveyor," I said.
"Is this so." He gave me a look I was at odds to decipher.
The services of a surveyor were essential for the Valley. The annual flooding of the River regularly erased all borders between fields. In the normal course of events this wouldn't pose much of a problem. An array of boundary stones set above the flood line on both river banks made sure that borders could be redrawn along the sightlines once the river had returned to its bed—unless parts of the banks had collapsed during the Flooding; or the river had carved out a new bed through the Valley, thus destroying large stretches of fertile land. In such cases the Guardians would interfere as arbiters in the otherwise independent dealings of the Farmers, and redistribute the farmland between neighbouring hamlets. In turn the City received an annual levy set according to the expected yield of the farmland for their services—and for protecting the Valley from marauders from the south.
The whole arrangement was, to some significant extent, objectionable because said marauders were the Fisherman, our military allies on the Coast. It was an open secret that they were trading in Farmer slaves whenever they could get away with it, which put us Guardians between a rock and a hard place; we had to protect our closest ally in the Valley from another, less close but still strategically important one.
Politics was ugly business, if one thought too closely about it.
"While in the west did you ever have dealings with the Nomads?" I asked him, pointing at his headgear. The midday sun, though not yet strong, was making me drowsy, and the landscape offered no distraction; the River still ran to our right—fringed by trees on both sides—and on the far and near side there was nothing but the Plain. To the east of us, in the far distance, a haze on the horizon might have been the Hills, but having never seen them I couldn't tell with certainty.
"I've been to the edge of the Desert at the height of winter," he said. "Trying to establish a bit of trade with the Nomads... Nothing came of it, alas."
"What kind of trade?—Spice?" Talking the proud tribe of Nomads into dealing with him directly rather than selling to the highest bidder in the City would have been no mean feat.
"I wish!" He chuckled wryly. "Alas, no such luck. No Spice trade with the Nomads for me, nor anything else. I was lucky to get away with my life... well, that and some stories."
"You trade in stories?" I couldn't help teasing him.
"You remember the old man yesterday? On the road a story can be of as much worth as hard currency."
"But... telling the origin story?" I gave him a doubtful look. "Granted, he told it well. But then, who wouldn't? Everyone knows it by heart."
"Except the Nomads tell a different story."
"But isn't it the origin of all Tribes?" The Five, the Tribes of the Plain, were very different. We didn't look anything alike. We each spoke our own dialects, and our cultures and most of our habits were utterly dissimilar. And yet I had never doubted that we shared the same origin.
"Only from the Guardians' point of view," he said. "The Nomads believe that they fell from the sky like shooting stars—"
Every day, since the beginning of time, the Firebird chased the Sun across the sky. From dawn until dusk he hunted after her, from the first rays that glimpsed above the horizon until the final red glow, long after she had completed her journey.
Why did the Firebird chase the Sun so relentlessly?
The Firebird was envious of the Sun's brightness that outshone everything, that outshone even the Firebird's own flame. He wanted to burn brighter, as bright as the Sun. If only he could catch the Sun and swallow her.
And so he chased and chased...
... until one day he caught up with the Sun. And as her rays seared his wings and as he writhed and shrieked in pain, his burning feathers fell to the ground like ruby droplets. Where they touched the white desert sands they sprang up as men.
Thus the first Nomads came into existence.
The children of the Firebird and the Sun.
"Well, yes... It's some explanation, I suppose," I conceded. "But I can't fail to notice that the other Tribes don't feature largely in it."
"In the Nomads' view of the world we don't feature largely at all," he said, grinning. "We're a mere commodity—good enough to flog goods at, and for providing sport every once in a while."
"Oh—" I knew the Nomads for a proud people, but I had never contemplated that they considered all others beneath them.
Even us Guardians.
We spent the following night in a Farmer hamlet at the northern edge of the Valley.
We arrived at it just after passing the Bend; at this point the River, having flown due east for two days, was turning south again at a sharp angle. The Hills, farther to the east, were already clearly visible from here. Downriver the floodplains on both banks widened. The fertile dark soil glistened slickly, still mottled with pools and puddles. It would yet take another few days before the ground was firm enough to plough.
The hamlet stood above the flood line; a dozen flat-roofed buildings made from mud brick, with just the number of shuttered window openings distinguishing houses from barns. It's inhabitants came forward to greet us; a caravan to charge for bed and board was a welcome sight at a time when the barns were emptying and it would be a while before the first new market crops were ready to harvest.
As the only woman in the company I was asked to stay the night at the house of the elder. The Trader, the mercenaries, and all the drivers would sleep in one of the barns, while the home paddock was cleared for our mules.
I was offered a small chamber on the ground floor behind the main room. The house itself was small. It had two floors, the upper one probably the family's sleeping quarters. My chamber had a single window—just wide enough to squeeze through in an emergency—and it contained nothing but a bedstead with a straw-filled mattress and a washstand, but the bowl and pitcher filled with water were a welcome sight after two days and the night in between dressed in the same clothes.
With the dust from the road washed off and all my obvious weapons left behind in the chamber, I went to join the family in the main room. They were seven. Besides the elder there was a couple—perhaps a son and his wife—another, younger woman that may have been an unmarried daughter, and three children, the youngest still a toddler.
The elder invited me to sit at his right in the place of honour. However, there was no Passing of the Cup before the meal began. Like the Naming it was one ritual all tribes observed, or so my uncle had told me. But I was only a paying guest, and with Spice being scarce they would reserve it for more special occasions than the present.
As soon as the steaming earthenware pot was set on the table, all took their places and looked expectantly at the elder. He raised his gnarly hands in a surprisingly graceful gesture and recited a verse in their own dialect, chorused by his family and accompanied by them slowly tracing a circle in the air with their hands. It seemed to be some ritual of saying grace, but one I had never seen our servants observe at my uncle's house. Not knowing what it meant I felt ill at ease and remained immobile with my hands in my lap.
During the meal the elder made polite conversation, expressing his hopes that my journey had been uneventful and asking me where I was headed for. The others never spoke to me, and barely looked my way, though the wife seemed shyly pleased when I thanked her for the delicious meal, a spicy stew of chickpeas and goat, accompanied by unleavened bread. Although wine was cultivated nearby, there was none with our meal, just more of the ubiquitous mint tea.
As the family one after another climbed the ladder to the upper floor, I wondered whose room I had taken, and who would have to sleep by the hearth that night. It made me feel like an intruder, a feeling the coins for my fare—which I handed to the elder in the morning with a bow and a word of thanks—couldn't shift. I was glad to be on my way again.
When I stepped outside, blinking for a moment to adjust from the dimness within to the brilliant morning light outside, I saw movement by the copse at the edge of the hamlet. I quickly stepped back into the shadow of the doorway, and I watched a single person approach the barn. Although not exactly sneaking up on the building, there was an air of subterfuge about him that alerted me. As he drew nearer I recognised him; it was my travel companion, and he was carrying his bedroll under his arm. But why would he choose to sleep away from the others in a foreign place?
At just before noon we arrived at my final destination. Not a hamlet this time, but a substantial village sitting at the junction of the southerly road, following the River all the way to the Coast, and the eastern road that led to the Hills. This made the Village significant enough to have its own market place. The caravan would stop here for a bit of trade, before heading east later in the day.
As we slowly made our way towards the centre of the Village, I looked out for someone to meet me. My brother wouldn't be here—he would be busy surveying at this time of day—but he would have sent someone in his stead to take me to his lodgings.
We stopped at the edge of the market place; and the moment we came to a halt the Trader's men rushed in to unload the cargo we carried in the back of our cart.
"Hey!" I exclaimed sharply as hands grabbed my luggage.
"Easy, guys," my travel companion interfered. He jumped off the box and went to the rear of the cart. "This here is the lady's—" He pointed out my luggage and spear. "—and the three crates and the stuff over there's mine. You're welcome to unload all the rest, so that I can be on my way again."
"You won't be travelling with the caravan any longer?"
"No. The eastern road forks a little outside the Village... I'll be travelling to the Gorge and the caravan will be heading the other way."
"To the Gorge?" I asked in surprise.
"Yes," he replied with a lopsided smile, "that's where I'm from."
So, I might be seeing him again! I wasn't sure whether to be pleased or taken aback by the prospect—by the thought that he might blow my cover with the Miners.
As the only woman arriving with the caravan, I was, of course, easy to spot. No sooner had my travel companion driven away—the dust was still settling around me—than a Farmer approached me. Bowing deeply he said, "Good day, lady. Are you perchance the Surveyor's sister?"
"I am, indeed."
"Then, please, follow me... Is this your luggage?" he asked, indicating the meagre pile waiting by my feet. He stooped to pick it up but I stopped him.
"I thank you, but I shall carry it myself," I said. I was no longer a fine lady, but someone who worked for a living. I did notice how ill at ease my Farmer companion looked as I slung the bag across my shoulder and hefted my spear. However, he could hardly act against the wishes of a Guardian.
"This way, lady," he beckoned. We left the market by the nearest lane, a narrow opening between two houses, one of them a tavern, the other a shop of sorts, and entered a deserted labyrinth of outhouses and mews. We went around corners several times and, with no straight lines of sight, I started to lose my direction.
I surreptitiously felt for my dagger—my spear would be all but useless in such a confined space—and asked my guide with seeming unconcern, "How far is it to my brother's lodgings?"
"Just past the next junction and to the right," he eagerly replied. "We'll be arriving by the backdoor. But with the streets so busy because of the market I thought it best to come this way, lady."
Just as he had said, after the next bend we stopped in front of a wooden door set into a high garden wall. Inside there was a small patio overgrown with rambling vines, and a fig tree in the middle of a tidy little garden. It looked quiet and inviting. In front of the wide doorway leading into the house stood a woman, another Farmer. She welcomed me and told me that she and her husband—indicating the man who had brought me here—were keeping house for my brother.
I was astonished; my brother had never let on about his lodgings here in the Valley being so commodious. I had expected him to live in a room or two above a tavern.
"I didn't know that my brother had a house in the Valley," I admitted.
"It is the house the Surveyor has been provided with by our community for the duration of his stay in the Valley," the housekeeper explained. "There are two more cabins in other places along the Valley, and the Surveyor lives wherever closest to his work."
"I see." It struck me how little I actually knew about this part of my brother's life. "And where is he now?"
"Nearby," the woman replied. "He will be back in the evening."
Inside, the house was very utilitarian. The room we entered was dominated by a large desk spread with papers, one wall was covered with shelves stacked with rolled-up documents while on another a map of the Valley was mounted.
"I'll show you to your room, lady," the woman said and went ahead of me to the far side of the room where, in a recess in the wall, a steep staircase led upstairs. Still stubbornly holding on to all my luggage, I had some difficulties navigating the narrow stairs. Upstairs two doors led off from the landing.
"The Surveyor's room is on the garden side, in case he requires assistance." She vaguely indicated with her hand towards the patio. "My husband and I live in the outbuilding on the other side of the garden. The kitchen's there, too... So, you will have the front room. But the lane is quiet," she hastily added as she opened the door for me.
"Thank you. I am sure it will be fine." I had a look around. A bedstead, a small table and chair, and a chest. Both windows were covered by a gauzy screen, that bathed the room in a diffuse light. It was not unpleasant as such, but it was disorienting. I dropped my bag, leant my spear against the wall and then went to inspect the screens. By the look of it, they could be unhooked. Good!
"You may want to keep them in front of the windows during the night," the housekeeper warned, "because of the mosquitoes."
What a prospect! A dozen days of boredom with a chance of getting eaten alive...
"That's why work stops before sunset," the woman went on to explain. "This is when the mosquitoes start to swarm... Of course, we Farmers wouldn't be much bothered by them—" She touched her cheek; her leathery skin characteristic of Farmers would offer some protection. "—and we don't get sick from their bite, but a Guardian—" She let the rest of the sentence hang in the air. "You may want to come downstairs again," she suggested. "I have a bath drawn for you... and afterwards your meal will be ready."
The house came with the luxury of a bathroom, its bathtub carved out of the rocky ground on which the building was erected. The water was tepid rather than hot, but as the day was unseasonably warm it would do nicely. I bolted the door, undressed, and then, with a sigh of pleasure, sank into the water.
An array of small pots and jars lined the rim of the bathtub and gave off a faint floral scent. Investigating, I lifted the lids of each of them in turn and sniffed. They were essences of flowers and herbs intended to fragrance the bath water. I closed the last lid and reached for the bar of green soap, smiling at the thought of my brother faced with a choice of sweet floral bouquets.
My brother. Twelve years my senior I had been a young child by the time he had finished his studies and training, and from that point he had been frequently away from the City. However, travelling didn't agree with him—which was barely surprising—and there had been times in between his assignments he had spent at our uncle's house, recuperating. He hadn't been the easiest of people to deal with then, and I wondered how it would be for us to spend so much time together, henceforth. We both had a temper, after all.
I rubbed some of the citrus-scented oil into my skin the housekeeper had pointed out as another means to keep the mosquitoes at bay, and then donned the linen tunic she had laid out for me. It loosely fell almost to my sandaled feet, and it had long sleeves and therefore would disguise the sheath of the slim knife I usually wore strapped to my left forearm.
After lunch—consisting of bread, cheese, and a dish of pickled eggplant—I sat in the garden for the remainder of the afternoon. Without a purpose I was strangely in limbo. On the morrow I would draw up a schedule, but for the present this was as good a time as any to take stock.
For the following year, and maybe longer, I would be my brother's protector. I wasn't yet sure just how much protection he would actually need at his new job, but rumour had it that the Miners were restless due to the scarcity of Spice—and for a tribe that produced sharp-edged metal goods on an industrial scale, 'being restless' was not a reassuring state of affairs.
But once his task was completed, then what? My status amongst the Guardian troops would always be menial—and I wouldn't be able to bear this for any length of time. I had no trade or other skills. Not that there were many artisans amongst us Guardians to start with—armourers, goldsmiths, and craftsmen tinkering with clockwork and intricate mechanisms were more or less the only ones—and as for getting married and raising a family...
I felt that I was as little cut out to be a mother as a priestess. And then, there was the slight problem that I had as yet to come across a man I would feel the least bit inclined to start a family with.
No. In all probability I would remain a personal guard for those considered more important than myself for as long as my body was up to it; and once I was old and broken, I would return to live in my cousin's household, as her children's weird scary aunt. My mother might just have started a family tradition.
But at least I would go places in the meantime...
Still sitting in the patio, gone cool and shady with the setting of the sun, I heard my brother's slow uneven step approach long before the gate in the garden wall opened to admit him. There he stood, leaning on his crutches and smiling at me—and even though I had never seen him hale, the sight of him once again tore at my heart.
A broken hip and shattered femur, the results of a collapsing scaffolding that half-buried him under masonry as he happened to walk by a building site when he was thirteen, had rendered his legs all but useless, and had ended the career of a talented young swordsman.
I jumped to my feet and quickly crossed the yard to greet him with an awkward kiss on both cheeks. We were both not cut out for showing affection. As I did so, a Farmer youth, laden with the tools of my brother's craft—a tall surveyor's wooden rod, a tripod, and a large leather bag containing a dioptre prominently among them—slipped in through the gate and shyly bowed in front of me. Then he went inside the house and, telling by the muted clanking, stowed away the tools.
"He's my housekeepers' son, and my assistant," my brother explained. His assistant!—of course! I knew then just what I had to do in order to be inconspicuous as his bodyguard amongst the Miners.
"How are you, little sister?" he said. "You look well... Being on the road seems to agree with you."
"I wish I could say the same about you," I said bluntly. "You look exhausted, brother." The lines that bracketed his mouth had become more prominent since the last time I had seen him. At thirty-two years of age, he looked a lot older. "Come sit with me and rest."
"Later," he said. "But first let me get changed." He had once told me that when living in out-of-the-way places, upholding a modicum of civilised behaviour was of the essence. Start losing your standards and, before you knew it, you would have turned into a savage.
It was already getting dark outside when he joined me in the large room on the ground floor. In the meantime the housekeeper had been in to set the table. The patio door was shuttered and screened, and the warm flickering light of a couple of oil lamps made the room look less bare.
"So, tell me, how is everyone back home?" he said, tucking into his meal.
I told him about the banquet, our cousin's betrothal, and that I had seen our mother lately—"She's sending you medicines. Remind me to give them to you later... Oh, and she said that she couldn't get hold of as much as you've asked of one of the items. She said that if things get dire you'd know who to contact." I looked at him questioningly. "Does this make any sense to you?"
"It does," he said, looking grim—or rather, looking grimmer than usual.
With my brother not given to idle gossip, our conversation soon turned to his work once dinner was over.
"Are you still planning to leave for the Hills at the time of the new moon?" I asked.
"Work is on schedule... There was a substantial mud slide at a nearby river bank, which is taking up the bulk of my time this season, and some minor damage just south of the village, but apart from that all marker stones are still intact. So, with no need to travel up and down the Valley, I don't see what should keep me." He creased his forehead. "Ten more days of work, and approximately two more to finish the reports—that's the plan."
"Right. This gives me a few days to ask around for a carriage," I said. "By the way, I'd think it best if you were to introduce me as your assistant once we arrived in the Hills."
"You don't know a thing about surveying," he cautioned.
"Plenty of time to teach me now," I said. What could possibly be so difficult about carrying his gear and holding a measuring stick?
"I won't dismiss the boy—" He gestured with his thumb towards the other side of the garden. "—on account of you." He scoffed. "But you may come and watch—and learn... as long as you keep out of our way."
Well, it hadn't taken long for him to return to his usual brusque self.
I got up early the following morning—the sun was not yet above the horizon—and dressed in breeches, short tunic, and boots; then I went outside into the yard for my spear practice. I was only halfway through the motions when the boy arrived, and shortly afterwards my brother joined us.
"Are you ready?" he asked me, stepping out of the house. I nodded. "So, tag along... and, please, leave that spear behind, there's a dear," he said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. "We don't want to scare the locals—"
No, he didn't beat about the bush that he considered being saddled with a bodyguard a nuisance—especially when said protector was his own younger sister.
I followed them to the edge of the village where two more Farmers were waiting next to a driver and cart laden with digging tools and pegs. My brother laboriously mounted the box while the boy stowed away the surveying tools. Then the cart rumbled into motion and the rest of us trudged after it.
It wasn't long before we arrived opposite the slipped river bank. My brother alighted and one of the Farmers unloaded the tripod and leather bag.
"You'll better stay with me today," he said as the rest of them, including the boy, set out to ford the River.
We had to walk some distance up the slight slope of the floodplain. The ground had dried out a little since my arrival at the northern end of the Valley two days before, but it was still boggy in places, and I saw that my brother was struggling. However, I knew better than to offer my help. At last we arrived at the edge of the flood line, and the Farmer set up the tripod over a marker stone, distinguished by a carved-in cross on top, and fastened the diopter. Then my brother stepped forward and adjusted the dials. It seemed a fiddly task and he was at it for a time. Meanwhile, on the opposite bank, the team seemed to have arrived at their destination.
What followed was a strange pantomime. Out of shouting range my brother directed the team on the other bank by expansive sign language and the occasional shrill whistle. Every now and then he looked through the dioptre, read the scales, and then jotted down some numbers. Whereas the boy, on the opposite bank, walked this way and that to set up the measuring stick according to my brother's prompting. Finally, they seemed to have come to a result, and the boy marked the place where he stood with a peg. Then he headed further north, and we did the same on our side of the River. Looking back I saw the rest of the team drag a large stone to the place marked by the peg.
At the next marker stone, it started all over again... and, no matter for how long I watched them, I couldn't even begin to image how my brother arrived at his conclusions.
The following two days were spent in much the same vein. Their manoeuvres were still without rhyme or reason to me, therefore I quickly became bored with watching them.
I had my dagger with me and both of the slim knives I generally wore hidden about my person. This would be as good a time as any to teach myself in the art of knife-throwing, I decided. The dagger was useless in this respect because its balance was wrong for the task, but the knives, though a little on the lightweight side, might do if thrown with some heft.
I chose a wooden pole for a target, and at first things didn't go well. More often than not my knives ended up in the dust next to it rather than stuck in the wood. But after a while both my aim and technique became better. I managed to hit the pole from further and further away when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a strange rippling of the reeds next to where my brother stood. Then there was movement on the ground just behind him, little more than two steps away.
Without conscious thought I twisted on my heel and threw the knife. The frantic writhing of the sleek dark body told me that it had found its mark. "Behind you!" I called out to my brother.
He still had the instincts of a Guardian; with one of his crutches he trapped the snake just behind its head, then I closed in and severed it with a single swipe of my dagger.
"An asp," he said soberly. "Quite venomous... It seems I may need protecting after all, sister."
"Glad we agree," I grinned, although deep down I was rattled at how close my 'charge' had come to getting hurt. Even here, in the relative safety of the Valley, I mustn't sleep on the job.
The incident with the asp marked a turning point in my relationship with my brother. Of course, he didn't become affable all of a sudden, but he made an effort to include me into his life in the Valley—and the more he explained to me about his work and the people he lived amongst, the more I came to understand certain aspects of him.
For one, there was his sincere respect for the culture of the Farmers...
"The Farmers are masters of artificial irrigation," my brother told me one late afternoon on our way back from the surveying site when I drew his attention to the network of channels on the upper slopes of the floodplain. All around us small teams of Farmers were busy putting them back in working order after the Flooding. Others were erecting a wooden framework next to the River.
"All the water for the fields comes from the River," he explained. "There are next to no natural runnels in this area, and in order to get the water from the river up to the level of the highest fields, they've devised a system of pumps—" He pointed at the scaffold. "—irrigation channels, and sluices. It is quite an admirable achievement."
He gave me a sideways glance before he added. "They are accomplished engineers, and they know more about growing crops than we ever will... Don't underestimate them just because they're a gentle people."
... and then, there were his reservations about our Guardian customs and claims.
We were sitting in the patio in the shade of a rambling vine, my brother copying his report after finishing the field work—the draft was to stay here whereas the fair copy was meant for the City—while I was mending a rent in one of his shirts. Years of repairing the cuts and tears in my shirts and breeches after weapons training had made me an accomplished, albeit an unenthusiastic, needlewoman, and, with my brother being busy while I was not, I had offered to help. And, for once, he had willingly accepted my help.
He pensively scanned the cloudless sky. The wind had been blowing from the south for some days now, and it brought a sultry warmth with it.
"Have you ever wondered what would happen if the priests stopped Summoning the Winds?" he asked.
I looked up in disquiet. That he would utter such an improper thought in front of me!
Every year, when the battles with the Ice Giants in the north raged at their fiercest, the Guardian priests and priestesses would hold their Vigils and eventually summon the Southerly Winds in one supreme effort. And year after year the defeated Ice Giants would retreat. After we had lost our Mountain homeland in the north a long, long time ago, being able to beat the Giants from afar was our one big claim on predominance amongst the Five. We, and we alone, were guarding the Plain against the threat from the north.
"What do you mean?" I said hesitantly.
"I've been wondering what would happen after the priests stopped... Would spring come anyway?" He looked me straight into the eye. "Maybe the seasons change on their own accord... and we are taking credit for something that happens independently of us—"
The seed of doubt. I well remembered when the same thought had first occurred to me. I had been nine years old at the time; and I had known then that I could never be a priestess.
"Where are we going?" I asked my brother. It was our last day in the Valley. Our bags were already packed, and we would leave the following day at the crack of dawn.
We were walking away from the Village—slowly plodding along in my brother's case—following a rutted path towards a large group of villagers gathered in the distance by a copse that bordered the freshly ploughed fields.
"I've been invited by the elder to attend the ceremony that marks the beginning of the planting season," he said. "It is an honour for an outsider to attend—" He frowned when he saw me smirk. "You think that you know them because they prepare your meals and wash your clothes back in the City," he snapped. The pain in his legs had been making him cranky the previous few days. "But year after year I have lived amongst them all through spring, and I've come to understand that there is more to them; and while their traditions may, perhaps, not be as refined as ours, there's still no reason to ridicule them."
He stopped in his tracks. "However, you are free to return to our lodgings—"
I raised my hands, palms out, to appease him. "You are right, of course... and I wouldn't want to seem ungrateful."
"I am glad we agree," he said wryly and proceeded to move forward. I watched him for a moment before catching up. I wasn't angry about the reproof, not really, but I found that the occasion could hardly merit the exertion he made on its behalf.
As I watched him I once again felt the familiar outrage at his fate. I had never understood how he managed to be reconciled with his condition—to accept his restrictions as a matter of course. Hardly out of his sickbed and barely able to move on crutches, he had started to study in order to become a surveyor. Our uncle had offered to take him on as an apprentice librarian, but he had found that the pain in his legs was worse sitting for any length of time than standing up and moving about.
Once we drew nearer to the group, we saw that some of the people were holding a small item in their hands, and I briefly wondered if there was something we should have brought with us. But then I shrugged, slightly irritated. If we were meant to participate, they should have given us a hint.
By the copse the head of the Village stepped forward to greet my brother, and there were smiles on the faces that surrounded the elder. Everyone was wearing their finest clothes, and many had spring flowers in their hair or attached to their shirtfronts.
My brother's young assistant led him to the place of honour in the shade of a stately tree with an expanding crown. I, following in their wake, was very much ignored. An expectant murmuring filled the air. Our arrival seemed to mark the beginning of the celebrations.
All the children and young people from the Village stepped forward into a wide circle, and when they raised their hands I saw that they held little crude figurines of soft clay, small human forms with a dimple in their chests. It was at the exact spot where the heart would have been in a person.
The head of the Village stepped into the centre of the wide circle with a bowl of grain in his hands.
"For our benefit they will hold the ceremony in the Common Language," my brother softly told me.
"Clay is what we are made of," the elder intoned. "The earth is our mother, from her we come and to her we shall return in the fullness of time." He slowly walked the circle, dropping a single seed into the cavity in the chest of every clay figure. "We are the first men. We sprang up from the soil; we nourish what nourishes us. The plants are our brothers, and we are our brothers' keepers."
"We sow and we harvest," the group chanted in unison. "We give and we take—in an eternal cycle of growth and decline."
"Go forth and spread the abundance of a new beginning!" the head of the Village proclaimed once he had come full circle. The youths sprang to life, left the circle, and scattered in all directions. Some stayed close to the copse while others were running further afield. One of a nearby group, a young boy, stopped by the edge of the field closest to us and reverently placed the clay figurine onto the soil. Those further away seemed to do the same thing as they reached the borders of different fields.
Then they returned to the grove, embraced their family and friends, and wished them a happy planting season. Slowly the copse cleared as the Farmers returned to the Village where there was food and drink waiting for all of us. Later in the day they would return to the fields for the sowing.
"Well, that was quick," I murmured to my brother. "Lucky for us that they're not into real human sacrifices."
"I daresay we'd be quite safe," her brother replied just as softly. "One would only sacrifice the most perfect of specimens to ensure that there was a good harvest—and you are rather on the scrawny side." He winked at me.
"This whole clay figure thing seems a little morbid, though... I wonder, were there human sacrifices at one time? Human bodies to fertilise the soil?"
"There may have been... Just look at these groves!" He pointed at the trees around us, only one copse amongst many others sprinkling the edge of the Valley. "This is where they bury their dead, and whenever they do so they plant a new tree."
"You mean we are standing on the remains of people?" I said, taken aback. I felt an urge to quickly step out from under the shadow of the tree crown.
Do they also plant fruit-bearing trees atop their dead? And if so, do they eat the fruit? Did I?—these last few days.
We Guardians didn't put our dead into the ground; we burnt them and took the ashes into the Mountains to scatter them there.
—