Killer Plants of Binaark Part 4

"Blade of England, why did you take it upon yourself to deal out First Justice to the archer?"

"I did not take it upon myself, Your Grace. It was thrust upon me by the fool himself." He pointed at the dead man.

"You could have stepped aside and let him slay Curim."

"Then I would have been guilty of Curim's death."

"This worries you, after Curim sought your life by treachery?"

"If I let him die, his men would want my blood, and there are many of them. Why should I make more enemies than necessary?"

"Blade, I could still almost believe that you lied about not being of Elstan. They have a way of fighting without weapons much like yours. But to defeat three of our guardsmen-well, even if you are not of England, you are certainly of no land under any sun which has ever shone on Jaghd or Elstan." She laughed again and rested one hand lightly on Blade's shoulder. She had to reach up rather a long way to do so.

At this point one of the guards collapsed on the gra.s.s, overcome by the heat. The doctor hurried forward to help him, and behind the doctor came Sikkurad. He also looked as if he would like to faint, but his voice was steady.

"Your Grace, the G.o.ds have shown us that Blade is not of Elstan, and that Curim is-"

"Never mind Curim, Keeper. You are claiming your reward for proposing this test of Blade?"

"Yes." Blade noticed that unlike Curim, Sikkurad was able to meet the queen's eyes. "I would ask Blade to take guest-right in my house, while you find a place for him."

"Such a warrior should be a guest among warriors, not in the house of a Keeper."

"He should also be at a safe distance from Curim, at least for a month or so."

"That also is true. But-" Blade half expected her to say, "But you will obey." Instead it was the queen who looked away, and the Keeper who looked at Blade.

"Will you accept my house and all within it for a month, Lord Blade?"

"I will."

"Good." He hurried off, to help the doctor with the sun-stricken soldier. The queen's back was still turned to Blade, and he risked a quick look at Jollya. She seemed to feel his stare and turned slightly to look back at him. Unmistakably, she winked. Blade smiled, and resisted the temptation to laugh.

He might have rejected Tressana's friendship or even made an enemy of her by accepting Sikkurad's hospitality.

On the other hand, he suspected that he would learn more, and be in less danger, in the Keeper's house. Sikkurad could certainly answer most of his remaining questions about this Dimension, and the Keeper's guards seemed to be honorable men even if Curim, their captain, was not.

He also looked forward to seeing more of Jollya.

Chapter 9.

Neither Sikkurad nor his daughter turned out to have as much time for Blade as he'd hoped. Sikkurad's duties as Keeper of the Animals forced him to travel all over Jaghd, although he hated riding and groaned aloud at the thought of a day in the saddle. As for Jollya, rumor said that the queen was finding all sorts of new errands for her, to keep her away from her father's house and thus away from Blade.

Blade had plenty of time to listen to this rumor, and to all the others going around. He had nothing to do, in fact, but eat four meals a day, run, swim, exercise, and get back the rest of his strength. After a week of this he was becoming irritable from sheer boredom. He would cheerfully have taken one of the servant girls to bed, or gone into Sikkurad's library of books, scrolls, and parchments to start learning about Jaghd on his own. Unfortunately the servant girls were curiously reluctant to approach him, although he heard admiring comments about him when they thought he wasn't listening. The library was simply forbidden territory, guarded by six or eight of Sikkurad's household fighters who were as deaf as fence-posts to all Blade's arguments.

Without the rumors, Blade might have started feeling that he was simply in another, more comfortable, prison. Instead he was able to put the rumors together into a picture of how things were going in Jaghd. He could have done a better job if he'd known a little more about the history of this Dimension, but he could be sure of one thing: Jaghd was getting ready for war against Elstan.

There could be no other explanation for all the tales of rolghas and draft animals being gathered, metal h.o.a.rded for weapons, new soldiers recruited and trained, hard bread and salt meat piled up high in the storehouses. If half these tales were true, the war might even break out while Blade was still in this Dimension.

That explained why everyone was so ready to see spies under every bush and behind every door. It didn't explain how the army of Jaghd was supposed to get over the mountains that lay between it and Elstan. Blade had seen just enough of the mountains to agree that they were completely impa.s.sable to any large body of men. The only other ways to invade Elstan were by boat up the Adrim River, or through the forest of Binaark itself.

The Adrim was navigable only two months of the year, and in those two months the Jaghdi and the Elstani did all their trading. The rest of the year it was either too shallow, too fast, or jammed with ice which flowed down from the river's source in the mountains. An army coming up the Adrim would find the Elstani ready for it. After a month or two it would be completely cut off from its homeland, trapped by the water level, the currents or the ice. The army would have no supply source and the Elstani would only have to hold out for that month and a little longer, then round up the starving survivors of Jaghd's fighting men. The fact that the Jaghdi were all cavalry and that their rolghas ate ten or fifteen pounds of meat a day made matters even worse.

As for marching through the forest of Binaark-no one had ever led an army through it. The killer plants were dangerous enough to a man on foot, where a single slip could kill him. But an army of men, even though they were armed, equipped, and trained until they had at least a fighting chance against the killer plants, could never make it through the forest. Any army would need baggage and draft animals, as well as untrained servants, teamsters, and laborers. A Jaghdi army would need thousands of rolghas. There was no way of getting all these vulnerable targets past the killer plants. Sending an army into the forest of Binaark would make the Charge of the Light Brigade look sensible. A third of the army would die among the killer plants, a third would die of starvation and disease, and the Elstani would hit the survivors over the head as they staggered out of the forest.

The idea was ridiculous. There was no other word for it.

Sikkurad finally called on Blade late one hot afternoon, when Blade had just finished running two miles. The sweat was pouring off him but he knew he had all his strength back now.

"Lord Blade, I would speak with you;" said the Keeper. "In my library."

"I would like to bathe before I-"

"Your life may hang on what I have to tell you." Sikkurad's voice was low, so that only Blade could hear him, and his face was even paler than usual. Jollya had a tan any fashion model would have envied, but her father remained as pale as a mushroom no matter how much he rode in the sun.

The Keeper's words were so melodramatic that Blade would have laughed if it hadn't been for the man's tone and expression. "Something to do with the queen?"

"Yes."

Blade rose and followed Sikkurad into the library. Inside he sat down on a leather-covered bench, while the Keeper pulled a heavily-padded inner door into place behind the main one.

"No one can hear us now. I trust my guards in most things, but I will not trust even them in this matter."

"Very wise."

Sikkurad frowned. "Blade, do you think the queen wants you in her bed?"

Blade had to a.s.sume that this pointless question was meant seriously, but found it hard not to laugh. "I'd wager my manhood on it."

"You may be wagering your life."

"Perhaps. But I've wagered it before without losing it."

"Not against Tressana of Jaghd. For a woman she is something terrible. She frightens even Keepers who have fought in war." Sikkurad pulled at his hair in a distracted manner.

This time Blade had to fight down anger. If he had to sit here until Sikkurad got his nerves under control and started making sense, they'd be here all night. He stood up.

"Sikkurad, do you remember what I said in the prison? I do not like long talks that go nowhere. You seem to want to tell me something of great importance about Queen Tressana. Something where my life may even be at stake. But so far you have told me nothing. Now tell me quickly, or I am going to go and take my bath."

"You would not get past my guards."

Blake tried to bluff. "Perhaps not, unless I took you a prisoner."

Sikkurad swallowed but shook his head. "That would not save you or stop them, even if I died. And if I died, how would you learn what I am about to tell you? Without learning it, how could you help our people? Blade, I think you will not let a chance to do much good pa.s.s simply because you do not like the way I talk. You are skilled in war, but you will work for peace as well."

Blade sat down, smiling. He'd expected his bluff to fail, but not quite so thoroughly. Sikkurad's courage might be well hidden under all the roundabout talk, but it was definitely there. So was an exceptionally keen eye for other men's strengths and weaknesses. Blade would have been happy to see Sikkurad's words-"you are skilled in war, but you will work for peace as well"- carved on his tombstone, in this or any other Dimension. He decided to listen to the man no matter how long-winded he was.

"I will work for peace when I can. But right now it seems that Jaghd is preparing for war against Elstan."

Sikkurad started. "You know? Who told you?"

Blade explained how he'd listened to the rumors, and gradually the Keeper relaxed. Then he sighed, and began talking in short, jerky sentences. "You're right. Tressana's war is coming. How soon, we do not know. Not too soon, because she has asked you to the palace. It will need time, time for her to learn your ways, deal with Curim, have her guards accept you. Jollya would be happy to see you leading the men."

"No doubt," Blade murmured politely. This would all make sense if he listened long enough.

"We must let you go. Now. So you must learn all you need to know here, today. We don't have the rest of the month. Tressana will be suspicious if we take it." "We?" Sikkurad charged on as if he were deaf. "You must learn how Tressana will deal with Elstan. Everything depends on that. If she will join their strength with ours, well and good. If not, something must be done."

"About what?"

"Tressana's war, of course."

"Why the hurry?" It began to sound as if Blade was to spy on the queen. If that was so he wasn't going to refuse completely, but he'd be d.a.m.ned if he'd let Sikkurad hustle him! Trying to do intelligence work in a hurry was usually unsuccessful and sometimes disastrous. "The Adrim won't be navigable again for months, and if you're going through the mountains-"

"Oh, we won't be doing either. We're going through the forest of Binaark. "

Blade ran the incredible words back and forth through his mind several times. After a moment he decided to believe in the simplest explanation: Sikkurad had said it and meant it.

"How?"

Sikkurad pulled down a scroll from a pigeonhole in one of the cabinets, unrolled it on his desk, weighted down both ends, and motioned Blade to join him. Blade saw that the scroll was a map. Then Sikkurad began to speak. After listening for a few minutes, Blade understood a good deal more about the history of this Dimension. He even understood how the army of Jaghd was planning to march through the forest of Binaark.

As Blade suspected, this Dimension had once been devastated by war. Nuclear weapons, chemicals, and bacteria had all been used freely, and not just once but several times over the course of a century. In Jaghd this was called the Time of the Burning. In Elstan it was called the Time of the Dead. Among the barbarian tribes to the west of Jaghd it was called the Time when the G.o.ds Slept.

"No doubt there are other lands where it is called other things," said Sikkurad. "The world before the Burning was much larger than it is now. But we know nothing of those lands and the men who may have survived elsewhere. Indeed, until Tressana came to rule Jaghd, only the Keepers did not fear to learn about the people of other lands."

Blade nodded. The idea that a stranger must be an enemy runs deep in most people. If the people are the survivors of a nuclear war the fear runs even deeper than usual. If Tressana had done anything to fight that fear, she had done at least one good thing for her people.

How long ago the Time of the Burning was, no one could be sure. No way of accurately dating it was known, even to the Keepers. Certainly much of the damage from the war had disappeared, but not all. Wide stretches of land were still blighted, particularly in Elstan. Strange and sometimes terrible mutations were not unknown among men and animals, and quite common among plants.

"The killer plants of the forest of Binaark were one of those mutations?"

"Yes. They grew quickly after the Burning, and bred true."

Blade also learned from the keeper that by the time the survivors on either side of the forest recovered from the burning, the killer plants stood between them. The mountains were completely inaccessible half the year and impa.s.sable for trading purposes the rest of the time. The Adrim could carry any amount of trade, but only for two months out of the year. Slowly but surely, the survivors to the east and west of the forest became two separate peoples.

On their plains, the Jaghdi became stockbreeders and farmers, with rich fields and herds. In their mountains, the Elstani became miners and metalworkers. Among both, there were men with the duty of pa.s.sing down what knowledge had survived from before the Burning and, if possible, recovering what had been lost. The Jaghdi called these men the Keepers; the Elstani called them Masters.

In Jaghd the Keepers were experts in the biological sciences, including stockbreeding, plant grafting, medicine, and organic chemistry. They were also skilled builders in stone and wood. In Elstan the Masters knew just about everything there was to know about mining and metalworking.

In both lands the knowledge was very much rule-of-thumb-neither the Keepers nor the Masters had rediscovered the scientific method nor the advanced technology of their predecessors. That didn't mean their knowledge couldn't be taken seriously. Blade knew that the Roman Empire had worked rather well for several centuries with out anything resembling the scientific method or modern-day technology.

The generations went by and turned into centuries. The trade between the Jaghdi and the Elstani became essential to both, although each tried to get the best of the bargain. The Jaghdi sold the Elstani only sterile animals if possible; the Elstani preferred not to sell the Jaghdi finished metal weapons. Both understood that as long as Binaark and its killer plants stood between them, neither could do much to change the situation.

"It seemed willed by the G.o.ds," said Sikkurad. "Indeed, there are some who believe that the killer plants are the G.o.ds. Once these people even made human sacrifices to them. It will be interesting what they say when our army marches through 'the home of the G.o.ds' in the forest."

The Keeper went on to explain that more than any other person in Jaghd, it was Queen Tressana who'd started the Jaghdi on what might be the road to the conquest of Elstan. She'd married Prince Manro when she was only fourteen, five years before he came to the throne of Jaghd. Two years after being crowned, he became seriously ill. After a while his body recovered, but his mind never did.

"Did Tressana have anything to do with the illness?"

Sikkurad started, even though they were as secure as possible from prying ears. Then he shrugged. "That is a question not often asked these past ten years."

"I know. But it is one I need answered. A woman who will have her husband poisoned to destroy his mind-"

"I understand. Tressana has shown that she could do such a thing now. Whether she could have done it then-and whether she had the opportunity to do it even if she had the will-no one knows."

Blade would have liked to know more, but he was glad to learn that Sikkurad wasn't the sort of man to peddle gossip or boast of knowledge he didn't have.

So Tressana was a childless widow at twenty-one. Within a year she was ruling as Queen of Jaghd in her own right, the first woman ever to do this. Ruling queens weren't exactly unlawful in Jaghd, but no one had ever expected to see one. The women of Jaghd were supposed to bear the children, manage the houses, and no more.

"It's different in Elstan?"

"Yes."

Among the Elstani, women could do everything except fight in war, and since the Elstani seldom fought wars this hardly mattered. There were even women Masters in Elstan. Why the two peoples were so different, Sikkurad couldn't explain. It had been this way as long as the Jaghdi and Elstani were two peoples.

"And it will probably always be this way, no matter how many young women Tressana puts in armor and sends riding off on rolghas!" growled Sikkurad. For a moment the Keeper was only a sad father whose hopes of a brilliant career for his daughter had been dashed.

In fact, forming the Women's Guard was about the only really surprising thing Tressana had done. She'd taken her share of lovers, of course, and she'd occasionally been cruel, but these were traditional privileges of the rulers of Jaghd. After a while most people got used to the idea of a woman ruling them, even if they didn't like it. It helped that Tressana gave wise judgments when she knew the facts, appointed honest officials when she could find them, lowered taxes when she could afford it, and generally worked hard and well at the job of ruling Jaghd.

Five years of this was enough to seat her firmly on the throne of Jaghd. Then she gathered the Keepers in secret, and told them she wanted a way of taking an army through the forest of Binaark. She didn't care what it was or how they found it or what it cost. She wanted it.

"It is time to undo the work of the Burning," she said. "And for more than that. It is time for Jaghd and Elstan to be one people."

It was three years before Tressana got what she wanted, even though the Keepers worked harder than ever before. Some worked in the hope of great rewards; others worked in fear of horrible punishments. But eventually they discovered that the secretions of a gland in the bone-eating green beetles gave off a distinctive scent, which suppressed the attack reflex of the killer plants. Would a man giving off the same scent also be safe from attack? Probably. But that meant finding some way of synthesizing the secretion, or at least its scent. There wouldn't be enough beetles in the whole forest to protect more than a handful of men.

Sikkurad was proud of the work he'd done in searching for a synthetic scent. He talked about it so long that Blade began to worry about their being interrupted by visitors or guards. Then suddenly he realized what Sikkurad was really describing, and stopped worrying about anything else. Sikkurad was describing the rediscovery of the scientific method. He wasn't using words like "experiment" or "result" but he was certainly describing them clearly enough. Blade wondered if Queen Tressana would ever realize what a gift she'd made to her people and her world, or how she'd pushed civilization in this Dimension an enormous step forward. Now it hardly mattered whether her planned invasion of Elstan succeeded or not.

Or did it? Sikkurad was going on, describing how hundreds of gallons of the synthetic scent were now being made at a time. A wad of cloth soaked with the scent and worn around the neck would protect a man for nearly a week. Two or three would protect a rolgha or a draft animal. There was already enough synthetic scent to protect thousands of men, with more being made every day. As soon as the harvest was in, the Jaghdi would be able to march through the forest and surprise the Elstani.

"We think the scent is still a secret. So even though the Elstani may know that we prepare for war, they don't know how. They will be ready for us to come up the Adrim, or over the mountains. They will leave the forest unprotected, as it has always been. That may mean the end of them."

"The end of them?"

"Yes, perhaps. We do not know what Tressana plans to do with the Elstani when she has defeated them. Does she intend to make them one with the Jaghd people, as she has said, or does she intend to make them slaves? We want you to learn this."

"Who is 'we'? And it's too late not to tell me," Blade added sharply.

"The Keepers. Or at least seven of the twelve."

"I thought so." There was no reason to refuse the request, but he still wanted to know more. "Why should Tressana tell me anything about her plans which isn't common knowledge?"

"She has summoned you to the palace, Blade. That means she is impatient to have you in her bed. Women say things in bed they do not say elsewhere."