Читать книгу The Constant Tower - Carole McDonnell - Страница 13

CHAPTER 7

AN UNEXPECTED TOWER

During the next two years, the war waged on. Warfare, congenital illnesses, and Tomah had exacerbated the illness—and claimed the lives—of many studiers. Many, like Mion, were dispersed from their home sub-clans. Only Psal and Ephan remained in the royal longhouse. Fewer in number, the studiers’ duties narrowed to tending the wounded, tracking towers, and war communications. The Wintersea Master, too, had died, but not the wanderlust he had poured into the spirits of his charges. Those fires remained alive within Psal, along with his love for Cassia and his desire to prove himself worthy of becoming a chief.

When the war began, each Wheel Clan longhouse warred against the Peacock sub-clan that had devastated it. But as longhouse after longhouse became decimated or destroyed in battle, many Wheel Clan longhouses merged. Moreover, many Peacock sub-clans not part of the original treachery allied themselves with Tsbosso. War flourished and so plagued Odunao that the neutral Falconer, Macaw, Grassrope, and Waymaker clans continually attempted to effect a truce between the warring clans; but to no avail.

It happened then that one day, in the second month of the year, the Qerys longhouse was engaged in a battle with the powerful Full Blossom Peacock longhouse, the Peacock sub-clan Cassia had married into. Throughout that day and sleepless night, as the royal longhouse keened toward a home region, and as the studiers tended to warriors newly rescued from Chief Orian’s longhouse, Psal’s mind was set on these two towers. He sent more queries to Renan, the Qerys studier, than to all other battling longhouses. In the morning, when most of the Wheel Clan towers sang victory or rest, the Qerys tower was faint. Moreover, its tower song was undirected and the tower itself had missed its home port, docking instead in a nearby region.

Pacing, weary from sleeplessness, Psal climbed the tower staircase to the rampart to see if Renan or any warrior of the Qerys had sent a smoke signal but no smoke darkened the horizon. The Qerys has landed in a valley. The lack of smoke doesn’t necessarily mean all are dead. Caverns abound there. If they remained there, protected from the night—but they need pharma.

He looked out over the burial grounds in the far distance. The air was redolent with the aroma of orchard fruits, the scent of the lake, and the odor of burned flesh from pyre burnings. In the near orchards, nets swayed under the trees catching fruit windfall. The lovely Waterfall home region had become a place to bury chiefs and burn corpses.

Psal turned his face to the east, listened. The tower wails of itself; No one directs it. Does Renan yet live? Faint though the Qerys tower was, he heard it. Its tower music was fading fast. Perhaps Lan could reach them. He’s swift. Using the horses in the longhouse and in the home field corrals? Too far a journey, though. Even the fastest horse will not return before the third moon reaches its height. And, what do our warriors know of mixing pharma? Perhaps Ephan…but Ephan’s been working all night. And Cassia, Cassia. Your tower weeps.

Psal closed his eyes and listened. An unexpected tower song arose. He descended the stair again. Why do we not know how to keen in the daytime? We will have to wait for night to keen the Qerys to a home region.

“Daris!” he called.

The boy appeared at the door, his yellow tunic stained with blood. Pale, white-haired, eight-year-old Daris was the son of the comfort woman Lyrenna and had been born with the Wheel Clan’s evil. Had not war prevented it, he would’ve been a studier, learning from one of the old masters.

“Chief Studier,” he said, “Ephan says he’s already told you all he knows. Therefore if you’ve called me to relay your question about the Qerys and the Full Blossom, he will not answer it. He also says—”

“Tell him to come now.”

The boy wiped his bloody hand on his tunic. “He won’t.”

Psal shouted in the corridor. “Cloud! I’ve heard another tower. Come now!”

“He has an answer for that as well.”

“Don’t you have duties to attend to? Garlic and fig poultices to make?”

“Already made. I was about to take inventory of our pharma after leaving the sick room.”

“Oh? Well, then…do the inventory. And after…try to sleep.”

The child frowned. “Are Chief Orian’s rescued warriors to live with us?”

“It seems so. Nahas has his reasons, I suppose.”

“Orian is hard to endure, is he not?”

“Quite hard to endure.” Psal raised his voice. “Cloud! Have you not heard me?”

Moments later, Ephan appeared, his tunic also stained with blood. He leaned against a nearby wall as if the wall alone could hold him up.

“Did you hear this other tower?” Psal picked up a spyglass from a nearby shelf.

“I have.”

“Remember the day I thought I charted a Falconer tower and it turned out to be a Peacock tower. Could it be…I was wondering…maybe Cassia’s tower added some false notes to their own song. The Peacock Clans have been experimenting with coded and musical interference—”

“While it is true that the Peacock Clans have learned some tricks from the Mockingbird clans, it is not a Peacock tower. Truly, Storm, is this why you’ve called me?”

Psal pointed to the forest. “Then, a night-tossed tower’s nearby. Several different rhythms, but primarily Peacock rhythms.”

“Sleeplessness has made you wary. The Peacock Clans are not ‘upon’ us ready to strike. Now, may I return to my sick room?”

“You’ve taken Rangi,” Psal observed. “You’re always nasty when its influence begins to wane. Even if it helps you bear your duties better, you must avoid it. Daris imitates us and—”

“I have not enslaved myself to Rangi. But you.…” Ephan took a deep breath. “You exasperate me, Storm. All night and morning you have been agitated worrying for Cassia. If Nahas suspected.…”

“My only concern is this stray Peacock tower in our fields,” Psal defended himself.

“Give me the parchment.” Ephan slowly slid down the wall to sit. A gray parchment that tracked the warring Peacock Towers lay near, but he reached for a blue one and a yellow chart that noted changes in level two tower songs. “As I expected. It’s a night-tossed tower that has happened upon our fields.” He looked back and forth between the two parchments, then dipped his stylus in the jar of red dye and made a correction on a blue parchment. “Its song’s a cross-pollination. Towers are good students. Always learning. Even when they’re damaged. It’s been here and there and has created a lovely song along the way. But no, not a warring Peacock tower.”

True, towers often modified their songs, tuned them to other towers they crossed paths with, or to human dwellers, or to regions. They were always adding strange variations. The tendency of damaged towers to transform their tunes made tracking them difficult.

“Mostly Peacock rhythms, though?” Psal’s ivory dagger leaned against a large thatched basket. He picked it up. “The towers are their own clan. They would rather avoid each other than meet while some dispute still persists. So why is this tower here? It should not be here in Wheel Clan lands.”

Ephan hauled himself to his feet and walked toward the door. “Why pay attention to level two night-tossed Peacock towers? No one cares about them. And since the war began, few communicate with them. They’re useless in war.”

Lan entered, rubbing his eyes. “Watchmen,” he asked, “what of the night?”

“The Qerys tower lies fainting at the end of this region,” Psal told him. “And—contrary to all common sense—a strange Peacock tower has arrived in our fields.”

“The Qerys?” Lan frowned. “Shall I go to them?”

“You and Deyn, perhaps. If the king allows.”

Lan walked to the window. “As for this Peacock tower, warring towers avoid each other unless a skirmish is planned. So, unless it’s one of Tsbosso’s tricks, it’s probably night-tossed.”

Ephan sorted through the parchments scattered on the floor, then picked up the blue one that tracked the level three towers, those well-maintained towers whose inhabitants had little or no tower science. He then studied the tracks of the abandoned and failing level four towers.

“They are indeed night-tossed.” He pointed to a tiny speck. “Orphaned from the Peacock Clan. They’re hardly worthy of the Peacock name. They probably aren’t even aware we’re at war. There’s no indication they’ve encountered any of the great Peacock Clans or any of its allies since this damned war began.”

“And yet,” Lan said, “Tsbosso is so wily.…”

Ephan stifled a yawn. “It’s difficult to give a tower a false history. The Peacock Clans are not that clever. No Peacock towers are missing or unaccounted for, are they? Therefore, we will tell Nahas to let these night-tossed orphans glean today in our fields while we burn our dead. When night comes, they will be glad to be rid of our corpses and pyres.” He stumbled toward his hallway. “It really is quite a lovely song! Their tower’s core rhythm is wholly swallowed up by other tunes. It flows gently, unrestrained. Even with the drumming undertones.”

Psal pushed aside the embroidered cotton screen and limped into the hallway, but he returned immediately. “Convincing Wheel Clan warriors to allow a stray Peacock Clan to glean in our field? Their very presence…here…on a day we are burning our dead? Cyrt and Seagen’s son was burned here. Lebo’s son. How can I ask them to spare—”

Ephan groaned. He took a spyglass from a straw basket. “Upstairs!”

“Nahas isn’t cruel,” Lan said. “He will not kill innocents. And, look, it is possible these night-tossed aren’t of the Peacock Clan at all. Perhaps some other clan found this tower and now inhabit it. Perhaps this is all useless worry.”

“I had not thought of that,” Psal said.

* * * *

On the tower’s rampart, Psal and Ephan searched the forests and the home fields for the green-brown tunics of Peacock Clan warriors. They saw none. The unexpected tower lacked the grandeur and sophistication of Tsbosso’s longhouse or any of the larger Peacock Clanhouses. Like all smaller Peacock Clanhouses, its tower was built at one corner and attached to a rectangular dwelling. Two stories tall, the top story was built like a wooden cage that served as both a keep for their animals and an open-roofed rampart. The longhouse front wall bore the oval-eye markings of the Peacock Clans, as well as the painted vertical and perpendicular lines, swirled arcs and half-circles of the Macaw clan. Brown-skinned men and women stood in front of their longhouse building a fire and looking out at the Wheel Clan fields.

Psal lowered his spyglass. “A Peacock Clan. I counted one hundred and thirty-nine in all. Men, women, and children. No doubt others are inside, but even so…it’s a small longhouse. They aren’t allied to my uncle Bukko’s longhouse, but still…a Macaw marking.”

“And you’re our Macaw peace child,” Ephan added. “And the Wheel Clan’s chief studier. It’s done, then. Nahas will—”

“Nahas will say, ‘In a war, a warrior does not choose which enemy to kill.’” Lan shaded his eyes with his hand. “They’re from the Peacock Clan. Their longhouse is small but not small enough. Innocent or not, they will not be spared.”

“How cynical you are!” Ephan said.

“Not cynical at all, but I know Nahas.”

“Storm, ask Nahas to spare them nevertheless,” Ephan said. “What harm can these do to us? Or, are you still thinking of inheriting the kingship?”

Lan shook Ephan’s shoulder. “As a king’s Firstborn son, it is his right! And if he does not become king, he should at least be made a chief over his own longhouse.”

“Let Netophah rule the Wheel Clans.” Psal leaned against the rampart wall. “Netophah has the mind and the heart to be a king. I’m a studier. The world is my kingdom. But, yes, I do desire to be chief of my own longhouse. So the king’s respect matters to me. If I ask Nahas to spare an unallied innocent Peacock Clan, won’t he think me weak? Nahas has forgiven my trust in Tsbosso. But…to remind him of my foolish youthful mistakes?”

“Fools do not become chiefs. And the king’s memory is persistent.” Lan sighed. “This is my counsel. Search out the king’s thoughts. See what his orders are concerning the Qerys. The ride to their stricken longhouse is far, but it is not arduous. If Nahas hurries to send pharma to the Qerys sub-clan today he has forgiven Qerys’s attempt to usurp the rule. But if he shows no care and seems to perhaps wish that all in the Qerys succumb to their injuries, then his anger is hot within him and neither will these innocents have mercy.”

“How terrifying you are at times, Lan!” Ephan squinted into the sun, then turned toward the tower stairs. “Yet you have spoken wisely. However, Storm, do not let innocents die in order to get your chiefdom.” He glanced at Psal who lingered behind. “Come, Foolish Chief!”

* * * *

Downstairs, the warriors—about four hundred in all—awaited Psal in the gathering room. The longhouse population had changed much since the war began. Death had claimed many. Others, maimed, had been transferred to steward longhouses to guard farmers and stewards from Peacock attacks. New faces had come to the royal longhouse. Warriors, women, and children from destroyed longhouses, adopted children, foundlings. Women from the Macaw, Waymaker, Falconer, Grassrope clans, other Wheel Clan longhouses, and foundling women from mixed clans had married into the clan before the neutral clans forbade the marriages. About seventy new wives in all. There were children also, born from the new marriages, babes who played in the shadow of their treacherously-killed sisters.

Psal approached the hearth and surveyed the chief captains and the warriors standing to the left and right of his father. Broqh and Kwin, Gaal and Cyrt, Seagen and Lebo, Lan and Deyn.

Lan, Kwin, Broqh, and Deyn were his friends; they would support his decision. Cyrt and Seagen would not; they still grieved for the wife they had shared. Lebo would be gentle even if he disagreed with him. Gaal, because many of his fellow stewards had been killed, would cry for vengeance. Chief Orian, lately rescued after a bloody battle with the Bright Sun Peacock Clan, longed for blood. The other warriors in the longhouse, although the king’s kinsmen, generally remained silent. Then there was Netophah and Nahas.

“The Qerys tower is faint,” Psal started. “But it still sings of human life. It’s on the northern edge of our region. Too far for riders to go and return by third moon. Too far to carry the wounded. One of our warriors could ride there with pharma. Lan, perhaps, he has some knowledge of healing.”

“What was the last word from Renan?” Lebo asked.

“That the battle was hard-won, that Chief Qerys was slain, and Qerys’ son Antun was now chief.”

A smile flickered on the king’s face. “Qerys is dead, you say?”

Psal ignored his father’s apparent pleasure that the attempted usurper was dead. “Perhaps that’s why the tower has grown faint. Because it grieves for the old chief or the studier or both.”

“Tonight keen the Qerys tower to join us here,” the king said.

“But Lan and Ephan could bring them pharma,” Psal said, “Even now, they—”

The king interrupted him. “The women of the Qerys understand how to bind up their wounded. Ephan and Lan need not ride to them.”

Seagen whispered in the king’s ear. Nahas nodded then continued. “We heard another tower somewhere in the forest. Seagen says it sounds like a Peacock tower.”

Ephan handed the king a parchment. “Yes,” he said, “we were about to mention that.”

Nahas studied the charts then gestured to Netophah to approach. Psal hoped his brother would ally himself with him. Ruddy, well-liked, tall, the heir of all the Wheel Clans was hard for Psal to decipher at times.

“They’re harmless, Father,” Psal said. “A night-tossed mixed clan.”

“As you can see,” Lan pointed at the parchment. “In the past they made controlled journeys to the thirty Peacock homelands. Then some ten to fifteen years ago, they apparently lost their knowledge of keening. For some reason, their tower—perhaps because it fears arguments—has kept itself reclusive, purposely avoiding encounters with other towers.”

“Probably wounded by some disagreement within the longhouse,” Ephan said.

“As happens with these Peacock Clans,” Lebo said.

“I doubt they’re entirely Peacock Clan now,” Ephan said. “It’s probable that other clans and foundlings have joined themselves to them.” He looked at Psal, and raised his left eyebrow.

“They seem to be allied to a Macaw clan,” Psal added quickly.

“Are they markings of a Macaw longhouse allied to us?” Gaal asked.

“Not any Macaw clan we know,” Psal admitted, “but the longhouse itself seems unimportant. Too small for—”

“You show your weakness, Firstborn,” Cyrt said. “The Peacock Clans have murdered our innocents. Seagen and I have lost a son and you demand they be spared?”

“Demand?” I have not demanded at all.

Orian, who had been in the royal longhouse for only two days but who already had begun to try Psal’s patience, now spoke. “I also have lost a son, my Rask. Killed by the Sky Peacock warriors. His body burned in the Eagle’s Nest pyres! Moreover, two days ago, I engaged the Bright Sun Peacock sub-clan in battle. Who has not seen the corpses of his own kinsmen? You have not asked my opinion, Nahas. Nevertheless, I will give it. And I will speak in words plain enough for all to hear. Kill them. All the Wheel Clan will hear of your weakness if you spare these people.”

“All the neutral clans will hear of his cruelty if he murders them,” Ephan countered. “It will be rumored among their towers. Already the great clans have rebuked both the Peacock Clans and the Wheel Clan for this war. Why add further—”

Netophah raised his hand: a gracious hand, a fair hand, yet marked and bruised by war. “Father, if the Firstborn is right and these strangers are unallied to the warring Peacock Clans, they should be spared. If they’re a small clan, what can they do?”

“Much!” Gaal said. “Have you not seen how the Peacock Clans have rallied other unallied tribes? These outcasts may have been set to ensnare us.”

“If they’re night-tossed, they should not die,” Netophah said. “We will do what we do with all night-tossed towers who cross our path. We will ally ourselves to them and repair their damaged tower. But we will not teach this unallied people any tower science. No, not so much as how to keen.” He turned to his brother and winked. “What say you to that compromise, Firstborn?”

“I like it very much,” Psal said. “An alliance with them could not harm us.”

“A marriage alliance, perhaps.” Ephan approached the king. “Especially since the neutral clans have forbidden their women from marrying into our clans. Some of these Peacock women are undoubtedly unmarried and will be pleased to marry into our clan. And to meet so many men from one longhouse at once would be agreeable to them. They would consider it fortunate that many of their sisters could marry into the same longhouse. In addition, fourteen is a Peacock girl’s marriageable age. Younger than our tradition, but Nahas would be ready to overlook that. Do you not think so, Adopted Father?”

The king laughed. “Ephan, you were born to persuade.”

“Inter-marriage with our enemies?” Cyrt shook his head. “Nahas, your dead father would laugh to hear this.”

“I’ll make my decision after we’ve spoken with this lost clan.” Nahas gestured toward the longhouse entrance. “War whistles will signal my decision. I and our warriors will journey toward this tower. Have our women prepare a feast.”

“Father,” Psal began, but Nahas raised his hand.

For a moment, Nahas seemed to study him like an alchemist examining an unknown ore, searching out its value. When Psal was younger he had believed the searching out would one day end, but he knew better now: Nahas was permanently ill at ease with his damaged son.

The faint rhythmic drumming of Cassia’s tower continued, but Psal pushed its song from his mind. He could not think of Cassia now, he had to save the Peacock Clan innocents.