Читать книгу Spiders' War - S. Fowler Wright - Страница 4

CHAPTER I: THE ANTICIPATION OF A GOOD MEAL

She lay on her side. Her wrists were tied tightly behind her back. Her ankles were tied also, painfully. That was the one clear consciousness in a mind that was confused by two conflicting memories, and only dimly aware of the seated figure before her, in the gloom of the fire-lit room.

For the magician had kept his word. She could still remember that she was Marguerite Cranleigh—a memory still clear, but strangely remote. But she was Gleda now, and she could also remember the violence which that young woman had suffered in the last hour—the useless struggle against a strength far greater than hers; the binding of hands and feet; the rough tumbling into the bottom of the canoe, which, in the next moment, had been loosed from the bank, and swept down the swift current of the river toward the falls; and the sight of the strained face of the man who paddled desperately to escape a danger which, she supposed, must otherwise bear her to unavoidable death, bound as she was. (But what better had she to hope now, beyond the delay of a few hours?)

There had been the sound of the falls, louder and nearer with every stroke of the frantic paddle. And then the grating of the keel, as the canoe grounded, just as she thought that all hope had gone.

After that he had pulled her out, and flung her over his shoulder, and brought her here, for a purpose which she did not know, and could only fear—the man who was sitting before her now.

The magician surely could not have meant this—that she—Marguerite—should come here only to die in a few hours, and that in a most repugnant way, and for a use which no one would wish to serve. He must have made a mistake. Perhaps, when dealing with enormous distances of time, it was possible, even for his art, to be a few years, or a few centuries, wrong. Or a single hour might mean that the rolling earth would receive her at a widely different point. (Or was that nonsense, or not?) Or perhaps she was to have some miraculous escape, for which her ingenuity would be enough. But that was hard to think, for she—Gleda—was now on the side of the river far from any friend. And to recross it would be, for her, an impossible thing. She would have said impossible for anyone a few hours before.

She looked at the man. He was the largest, best-made man that she (as Gleda) had ever seen. Now he wrote as though he had no other interest on his mind; a student rather than the man of action that she had seen him to be, to her own cost. He wrote as one who works against time, as, in fact, he did.

He wrote from right to left, using his left hand, which did not seem strange to her, though her dual memories conflicted. Would the old memory become weaker, and the newly acquired one stronger, as the days passed? That seemed likely enough, but then, what days would there be? The consciousness of present peril, dimmed at intervals by the strangeness, the unreality, of the whole event, became acute. If there had been no mistake, and if she were to make no nearer acquaintance with the black caldron which stood by the great kitchen fireplace which could be seen through the half-opened door, she must exert her ingenuity to avert her impending fate. Could she break her bonds? It seemed hopeless to try as they now were. Could she induce him to ease them? Anything may be asked. She said: “The ropes are too tight. They are cutting my flesh.”

He looked up. Speech was different on her side of the river, but not so much so that he failed to understand. She met eyes that were not hostile, but unconcerned. He said: “You must be safely tied. I do not mean you to wriggle free. If I should have to catch you again, you might get more hurt than you are now. You will not feel it for long. You must find comfort in that.”

“It is no consolation at all. Could I not be of better use?”

“Not for us. We need food. Would I have risked so much for anything else?”

It was to continue the conversation, rather than from any acute discomfort in the fire-warmed room, that she went on: “I am cold, being uncovered. Is there any profit in that?”

The man did not answer, but he got up, showing a tall and muscular form. He wore a fur cloak, loose from his shoulders, open in front. He had no other garment at all. At need, he could draw it closely, fastening it with thongs.

Seeing his height and girth, she understood how he had been able to cross the great river below the peninsula without being carried over the falls, which she had been taught to regard as beyond human capacity. From the point where the two rivers joined, there was no more than a half a mile of swift, smooth water. He had crossed it by launching his canoe at the highest possible point, and had been carried down the very verge of the falls before he could reach the opposite shore.

Then he had carried the canoe as far as would be of any avail up the opposite bank, lain in wait for one he could capture without rousing alarm, and had been fortunate enough (as he saw it) to get someone who was young and well-fed.

It had been a bold adventure, with extreme perils, both from the flood and from human foes. Yet his face was rather that of one who thought than of one who lived by physical deeds. Now it had no expression at all, as he took down a fur cloak from a wooden peg and threw it over her with a careless but accurate cast.

She saw that furs were everywhere. They hung on the walls. They made soft coverings for the floor. On her side of the river, this would be a certain sign that he was a man of high rank.

She might have said more, but at that moment a woman entered the room. She was young and well, though rather heavily formed, yet with the gauntness that came from some weeks of scanty feeding.

She had a blunt-featured, unattractive face—particularly so to Gleda, as she licked her lips, and said: “What is the catch like?” adding: “I’ve not had a real bite since yesterday.”

“You can judge that for yourself,” he said, and already she had twitched off the fur, and was looking down on the bound form with greedy anticipation, hard to be endured.

She knelt down for closer examination, prodding here and there. She said, grunting with satisfaction: “She should be fit for the knife now. There’s some meat there!”

She stood up, and walked round to her victim’s back, pushing her toes into a well-shaped buttock. She said: “We owe Relf a ham. I suppose we must send it back. It’s a better one than we had from him.”

“Yes,” the man replied. “I dislike a debt. I shall be glad for it to be cleared.”

The woman left the room, followed by Gleda’s warmest hatred.

Gleda said: “I should make a better wife for you than she.”

The man gave her a glance which seemed both speculative and amused. He said “Well, so you might,” but did not appear to regard the proposition seriously, and the woman was back before the idea could be developed further.

She came with a burden of wooden logs, which she piled on the fire. She asked: “You have all you need in the pen?”

He rose, saying: “I am not sure. Shall we go see?”

She looked surprised, and made no motion to follow him as he moved toward the door. She said, while he opened it, and the light of the setting sun shone inward, relieving the gloom of the low-ceiled room: “You don’t need me out there.”

“Yes. Come on. There may be things to arrange.”

She looked puzzled, but followed, being eager in her hunger that the details of slaughtering should not be delayed.

Gleda was left alone in the stillness of the fire-lit room. The shadows leaped on the walls. There was noise and a scatter of sparks when a log fell, but she was unconscious of that. Her mind was on the terror of what must be in the next hour. Fundamental customs were the same on both banks of the river, on neither of which was cannibalism a frequent practice, as indeed, for economic reasons, it never has been in the history of the human race, Supplies would fail. But if an enemy, a criminal, or a lunatic, had to be destroyed, who would waste good meat? There would be plain folly in that.

But now there must be a condition of abnormal famine, of which she had not been aware, so completely did the river separate communication. It was a division which had also secured her people from the same privations, for the epidemic which had destroyed the swine had not crossed the barrier of the flood.

Here was a civilization at once high and simple. Sources of food were few, but they had been normally reliable, and involved little toil. In the summer men fed largely on nuts and fruits, which the forests gave. During winter, which was sharp, though short, they relied mainly on stores of nuts, which would have been gathered on warmer days. And through all the year they had ample supplies of flesh from a species of swine, herding in half-wild condition in the great woods, which spread far in a level land. There were many clearings sufficient for the spacious wooden houses of a large population, but, instead of their being surrounded by wide open spaces of arable or pasture land, here which bore many varieties of nuts and fruits, edible in their seasons, or fit to be stored for the winter months. And, if they fell ungathered—well, there were the fattening swine below that would avert waste.

The trees gave abundant material for building. They provided fuel and food. Some of them supplied a thread from which strong cloth could be woven. Here was a civilization which had become simple and self-sufficient; which had rejected the worship of mechanical power, that had brought its predecessors to servitude and then to destruction. Almost the only trade was with distant hillmen, who sold them furs in exchange for the food which they had always been able to spare abundantly. To use these skins was the privilege of the only aristocracy—an aristocracy of intellect—which their social order recognised or required. And the right to these skins was the only privilege which that aristocracy had. It had no power—unless that of persuasion—at all.

But now calamity had come. A fatal infectious disease was destroying their herds of swine in such great numbers it seemed that in a few further weeks there would be nothing left to destroy. It had followed months of drought, which were over now, and there was fresh green in the rain-drenched woods. But damage had been done which was quite as serious as the fever that killed the swine. For the nuts had fallen before they filled.

Loss of the nut crop would not have meant absolute famine, nor would loss of swine—but the two at once were bringing starvation upon the land.

Left alone, Gleda began a desperate, futile effort to loosen her bonds. She caused herself some additional pain, but otherwise did nothing, and it was only for a few brief moments that she had strained and wriggled when she was startled by a shrill and surprising sound.