Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

He stopped, looking down at the floor and frowning. "Well, I mustn't stretch the comparison too far. I'm not a general or a statesman, so I'm not an empire-doctor-- only a people's doctor. But nonetheless, I'm going to risk telling you something which may seem like impudence. If you'll--er--allow me to imagine for a moment that the empire is a human body, then the place where its illness shows most clearly is Belishba. Not Chalcon, but Belishba."

He seemed now to be waiting to see whether the High Baron or anyone else would interrupt him, but none did. After a few moments he looked up at Kembri, who merely nodded.

"I wonder," he went on almost gropingly, "that's to say--I'm not sure--whether you already know--all of you what the one thing is which makes people ill more than anything else. You'll tell me the gods inflict illness for their own best reasons, and you're quite right; so they do. They visit illness on people who for one reason or another are thwarting or crossing their divine purposes. I expect you think I mean you, Lord General, but I don't. Not in the least."

By this time he had caught the interest of everyone in the room, and there was silence as he refilled his goblet, took a few sips and cleared his throat.

"What I've learned, after years of experience of sick people, is that the one thing that makes them most likely to get ill--that holds the door open, you might say, for illness to come in--is hopeless frustration. The gods want people, don't they, to be human beings--to work and play and eat and mate and love and hate and all the rest of it? What's called living a natural life. They'll struggle for that. That's to say, when they haven't got what they want they'll struggle for it, because it's the will of the gods that they should. That struggle's healthy--quite often they thrive on it. But when they can't struggle--when struggle's not possible, so that they have to resign themselves and to give in, do without wives or children or money or cows or whatever it is--then they often get ill and in some cases they may even become deranged in one way or another. In other words the chief single cause of illness, in my experience, is hopelessness.

"People will go to almost any lengths to avoid hopelessness, and that's not really surprising, since the gods are telling them to--inwardly, I mean--and threatening them with illness or madness if they won't. I don't know whether you know this, but slaves get ill more than anybody else-much more than free people, even poor ones. The gods make them ill for not being what they want human beings to be; for existing for other people's benefit and not for their own. I'm not talking about slaves like bed-girls, who sometimes quite enjoy it and usually have the hope of buying themselves free. I'm talking about working slaves all over the empire. Their frustration's not so much a question of not getting paid. Quite a lot of free peasants hardly use money, come to that; in Suba it's almost unknown. No, their difficulty is that they're not free to come and go, not free to get married, to leave work or a master they don't like and so on. And that's where Belishba comes in.

"The governor here said just now that Belishba's a ploughman's province. So it is; but also, Lord General, as I'm sure you know, it's the principal province where wealthy Leopards work estates with slave labor. The slave quotas taken from local villages are high, too, and there are two slave-farms where children are being bred for slavery. The gods are continually telling these people in their hearts that if they accept that they have no hope of living naturally they'll become either ill or mad. So of course a lot of them have tried to prevent that by desperate measures. You've got a province full of desperadoes there, terrorizing villages. But Belishba's no more than the biggest abscess. The poison's all through your empire to some extent, I'm afraid."

He stopped, bending his head forward, scratching the back of his scrawny neck and screwing up his face as he did so. The effect was grotesque, but no one laughed. At last he said, "I think that's what this man Erketlis has in mind, really. Abolishing slavery--he doesn't think it's going to make anyone more prosperous. But it will mean that people can keep their own children, feel safer in their beds and journey about without having to choose between risking their lives or paying bribes to bandits."

"Isn't it more likely," interposed Durakkon, "that he's just a small baron who's suddenly seen a chance to become powerful and has hit on this idea as a way of gaining support?"

"I wonder, my lord," answered Nasada, "whether you'd forgive me if I leave you for a minute or two?"

He smiled wryly at Durakkon. "Old men have to pass water rather more often, I'm afraid." As he stood up Donnered handed him his stick and Eud-Ecachlon opened the door for him.

When he came back he said, "I suppose, my lord, that the time's come for me to admit--and if you don't like it I can only say I'm sorry--that in a way, I'm here as a sort of envoy or emissary or something like that, although it's entirely on my own account, I assure you. Erketlis hasn't sent me and neither has Karnat. I'm just an old Suban medicine-man. They both know I'm here--at least I think they do--but neither of them's told me what to say."

"Then what is it you want?" asked Kembri brusquely. "We've been waiting long enough to hear it."

"Well, I think, to avert bloodshed, really," answered Nasada mildly. "Like Maia, who swam the river, you know; though I don't look much like her, do I? But I am a doctor, after all, and that's my only excuse. I must admit it's gratifying that my reputation's apparently respectable enough to have got me in here: I never really thought it would. I feel rather out of place and I'm quite ready to go if you want me to."

"But you have some suggestion to make?" asked Durakkon.

"Yes; at least, I think I have," said he. "You see, the trouble is that this woman Fornis is back in Dari-Paltesh, and a good many people in Suba think that if you, my lord, get mixed up in a lot of fighting with Erketlis in Yelda and Lapan, she's quite likely to seize the opportunity to march on Bekla. If she and Han-Glat were to do that, Sendekar couldn't possibly stop them, you know--not with the troops he's got now; to say nothing of the state Belishba's in."

"For a country doctor, you seem to know a lot about the empire's problems," said Kembri sardonically.

"If you'll allow me to say so, my lord, I think he does," put in Bel-ka-Trazet from his seat in the window.

"But what's to be done about them's another matter."

Durakkon inclined his head towards Nasada.

"What is to be done?" he asked.

"Well, since you ask me, my lord," replied Nasada, "and I assure you it's only because you ask me--I'd say, give Erketlis reliable pledges that you'll abolish the slave-farms and slave quotas step by step during--well, say the next six or seven years; reduce the burden of taxation on the peasants and small landowners, and then invite him to join you in getting Belishba under control and perhaps in superseding Fornis."

"And you're seriously suggesting he'd agree to that, are you?" said Kembri.

"I happen to know it," said Nasada quietly. "I'm not saying anything about the possible long-term consequences for Suba, because I'm really here on Karnat's sufferance; but naturally I'm not unmindful of them."

Before Durakkon could speak again, Kembri had stood up and, gently enough, raised the old man to his feet with an arm under his shoulders. "Well, you won't be expecting an answer to all that this afternoon," he said. "You'd better leave us to think about it. I'll call my aide to escort you to your quarters."

77: NEWS OF FORNIS

"D'you know you've fair took my breath away?" said Maia. "I reckoned you'd jump down my throat and call me all manner of fool, that I did."

"Well, of course it's lunatic," answered Occula, "and damn' dangerous, too. But how can I tell you to drop it when it's no crazier than what I'm tryin' to do myself? If you love this Katrian boy, then you love him and that's all there is to it. Anyway, by all I ever heard of Katrians he might do you a lot better than any of these miserable Beklans--that's if you ever get him back, and if he's still of the same mind, which doesn' seem very likely, does it? No, I'm not really worried about you fallin' in love with a Katrian--or a Suban, or a bastin' Deelguy if

you want to. What's worryin' me is whether you can survive this mess you've got yourself into. You'd say I'm tough and cunnin', wouldn' you? No one could say I'm not, actually. And even I nearly came unstuck over Sencho. In fact I would have come unstuck--dead and gone by now--if you hadn' saved me and got me in here. But you! Well, you're not silly, banzi, I know, but you're no match for Fornis, are you? What the bastin' hell d'you think your chances are of reachin' Dari-Paltesh and gettin' this man out? The whole place is in the hands of Fornis, for a start, and doesn' she just about love you?"

They were sitting in the cool air of the roof of the Sacred Queen's house. It was nearly two hours after sunset and the lower city, spread out below the Peacock Wall, was everywhere dotted with points of lamplight. The half-mile length of the Sheldad, where it ran from the Caravan Mar-ket to the western quarter, showed as a bright line, while beyond lay the similar but longer, more irregular line formed by Masons Street, the Kharjiz and the Khalkoomil. The five towers stood black against the deep blue of the night sky, and above all shone the cool, still radiance of the comet. Vigilant it seemed to Maia, like a silent, heedful judge presiding over the contention of a court-room. Suddenly the imposing, stone-built city appeared to her as nothing more than an anthill of scurrying midgets, meanly self-absorbed and pitifully unconscious of their own triviality, the brief duration of their lives and the committed watchfulness of the supernal powers. They would all die: they were all answerable. She, too: for her life, for her love.

Reaching out, she caught Occula's hand in her own.

"Sorry, banzi," said the black girl, returning squeeze for squeeze, "have I put the wind up you? Well, could be all for the best--"

"No, 'twasn't you, dear," replied Maia. "Well, I mean, yes, 'course I'm scared, but I feel I've just got to go on and that's all there is to it: else there's no sense in anything."

"But how the hell are you goin' to set about it, banzi? Have you really thought seriously? I doan' like it one little bit--not on your own. You'll come unstuck fpr sure."

"Well, I was hoping as you might come with me, Occula. If we could only get to Paltesh together, I might help you to kill Fornis and you could help me to get Zenka out."

A flock of wild duck flew over the roof in their usual arrow-head formation, calling together as they disappeared into the darkness.

"Be all right if we could pop down to Baltesh like that, wouldn' it?" said Occula. "Peck her bastin' green eyes out and back for breakfast. No, I'm sorry, banzi, it woan' do: I only wish it would. You see, everythin' in my little game depends on keepin' Fornis's favor and confidence. If I went to Paltesh, I'd have disobeyed her--anyway, I'm a slave, remember?--and I'd almost certainly have given the game away, too."