Riverworld Anthology - Tales of Riverworld Part 14

"It should, by the Virgin," Alexios said. To his surprise, he found himself liking Hizzonor. Could the afterman have been trusted for a single instant out of Alexios's sight, he would have made a good Kaisar. As it was, he would make a bad enemy if he didn't get his way. Alexios smiled. Of course he intended to keep his promise to Daley....

The army of Rhomaioi swept over the border a little before dawn. A few sentries shot arrows at the soldiers. More fled screeching into the interior of Bornu.

"Had it been my choice instead of Musa's, I would have had the Shytown boat searched and taken me off it were I found," Alexios said to Isaac. "But Mayor Daley was right there: the men of Bornu dared not antagonise190.

191.him and me at the same time, and so I came home safely."

"I'm glad of it, too," Isaac Komnenos answered. "From all you've said since you got back, the opisthan-thropos would be too much for a plain old honest soldier like me." He laughed to show he didn't mean to be taken altogether seriously.

Alexios laughed too. "One thing at a time, brother of mine. The first thing we have to do is settle Musa ar-Rahman. Only after Bornu ceases to be a problem will Shytown become one... unless, of course, Hizzonor means to sit this fight out, let us and the Muslims weaken ourselves, and then pick up the remains." That he had entertained that possibility earlier was a measure of Daley's skill at lulling him. Something new to worry about...

With every pace the Rhomaioi marched, they could see farther. The sun rose as they drew near the grailstone closest to the border. Bornu warriors boiled out of the town that had grown up around the grailstone. Like Alexios's men, they carried spears and bows, stone axes and sword-clubs with wooden bodies and flint or obsidian blades. Also like the Rhomaioi, they wore several layers of kiltcloth as armour.

There the resemblance ended. Alexios's soldiers marched in an orderly hollow diamond; the men of the outer ranks carried s.h.i.+elds of wood and fish-leather to protect themselves and their comrades from missile weapons. The Bomu scorned both order and s.h.i.+elds. Screaming "Allahu akbar!"-"G.o.d is great"-they hurled themselves at their Christian foes.

Isaac Komnenos waited till the black men were very close before he shouted, "Loose!" Hundreds of arrows flew as one. The archers reached over their shoulders for more shafts, shot again and again. Their bows, made from dragonfish mouthparts, were better than any they'd had in their previous lives.

Even so, not many Bornu fell. Draped as they were in kiltcloth, they were armored against most archery. But some were hit in the face, others wounded in arms or calves and thus out of the fight. The Rhomaioi suffered almost no casualties.

The black men's woes grew worse when the fighting came to close quarters. They were as brave as their foes, maybe braver-the Rhomaioi seldom showed more courage than an occasion demanded. But the Bornu fought as individuals; they had no notion of battle as anything but a series of single combats.

They paid dearly for their education. To Alexios and Isaac, the success of the army as a whole came first, with individual glory a long way behind. Alexios fought at the fore, true, but more to inspire his own men than out of love for combat. He cared more for the power that came through war than for war itself.

The Bornu flung themselves at him, one after another. He could read their thought: if he fell, the army's aggressive spirit would perish with him. He knew they were wrong; Isaac was no diplomat, but made a perfectly capable soldier. Alexios took the series of attacks to mean Bornu resistance would fall apart if he killed Musa ar-Rahman.

The Basileus carried a stout stone-headed club. It was a pragmatist's weapon, one that would break bones even through kiltcloth. A tall, screaming black man thrust a spear at his face. He ducked, stepped close, swung that club. A man's ribs were a bigger, less elusive target than192.his head. The black man moaned. Pink foam spurted from his nose and mouth as he crumpled. The advancing Rhomaioi trampled him into the dirt.

Quite suddenly, the Bornu quit fighting and turned to flight. Alexios was tempted to open his tight formation and pursue, but decided against it: let the defeated Muslims spread panic ahead of New Constantinople's army. Nor could he be sure the Bornu weren't trying to lead him into an ambuscade.

As the Rhomaioi approached, shrieking women fled from the village around the grailstone. That convinced Alexios he really had won a victory worth having. When a few of his warriors seemed about to break ranks and run after the women, he called, "We'll have as many of these wenches as we like once the Bornu are beaten. Till then, we risk ourselves if we chase them without discipline."

His lines held steady. Unlike the black men, the Rhomaioi knew what discipline was worth; they could put off immediate pleasure for the sake of a greater gain later. They made him proud.

Ahead in the far distance, smoke rose against the sky. "Is that what we hope for?" Isaac asked.

"It should be," Alexios answered. "Mayor Daley promised the men of Shytown would burn the palisade the Bornu built to keep them out. The aftermen seem clever with incendiaries, and to be acquainted with more of them than our liquid fire." Yet another thing to worry about, he thought. But not until later. Worry about Musa ar-Rahman came first.

Alexios detached a company of troops to fill grails on the grailstone of the captured town. Some of those grails belong to his own soldiers; others were seized from captured blacks. The Basileus pushed on with the main193.body of his force. The supply company had carts to carry the loaded grails (minus liquor, smoking hemp, and dreamgum) up to the rest of the army. The Bornu in the wake of the imperial forces would go hungry, but that was their hard luck.

"Do you think they'll try to attack us again, this side of their capital?" Isaac asked.

"I wouldn't, if I'd got myself into a mess like this," Alexios said. "But who can read Musa's mind with certainty? He might split his forces against us and Shytown, or he might try to beat one foe first and then turn back and quickly smite the other. But if it were me, I'd await attack where the works of the town favour defence. It's not as if we can starve him out in a hurry, worse luck."

Isaac chuckled. "Grails do make this whole business of sieges more complicated than it used to be."

Here and there, Bornu archers sniped from ambush at the advancing Rhomaioi. They did little damage. Alexios's scouts captured and hamstrung a couple of them and confiscated their grails. If the skirmishers were trying to slow off the Basileus's army, they failed.

Musa did as Alexios had guessed. After the first repulse, no sizable Bornu force appeared to challenge the men from New Constantinople. The second Bornu grailtown along the riverbank was all but deserted when the Rhomaioi reached it. The townsfolk had fled downstream with their grails. The same was true of the third town, where Alexios stopped to fill grails for the noon meal.

The fourth grailtown downstream from the border with New Constantinople was the capital of Bomu. Its grailstone was no bigger than any of the rest, so its normal population was like those of the other little cities, but Musa ar-Rahman had lavished far more care on it than on194.them. Its tall wall was built of stout timber and bamboo, and draped with kiltcloth to ward against torches. The second story of the Sultan's palace overtopped even the wall. That would be Musa's citadel if he lost the rest of the town, Alexios thought.

The wall was packed tight with black men who bellowed defiance at the Rhomaioi. Isaac Komnenos scowled up at them. "This place would be no joy to besiege even if they weren't able to feed themselves with their grails."

"I won't argue, brother of mine. However-" Alexios nodded to the musicians who accompanied the army. Shrill squeals from the flute, deep notes from the drum ordered the warriors to s.h.i.+ft position. Alexios missed military trumpets, but not enough copper had been found in New Constantinople to make even one.

The front ranks of the army opened out, allowing the engineering detachment that had travelled in the middle of the hollow diamond to advance. They pushed their carts (quite different from those of the foragers) up toward the wall. s.h.i.+eldmen moved forward with them, protecting them from the storm of missiles the Bornu loosed.

A man at the rear of each cart worked a kiltcloth bellows. Kiltcloth also lined the interior of the long bamboo tubes other engineers aimed toward the top of the wall. When the men at the bellows cried a warning, the s.h.i.+eldmen, as they'd practised, skipped nimbly out of the way.

A golden liquid burst from the ends of the bamboo tubes. The aimers ignited it with carefully h.o.a.rded firestarters. Half a dozen streams of flowing fire rose to drip from the wall and the Bornu atop it.

Alexios watched in cold satisfaction as shrieking infidels dashed every which way in their agony, spreading195.the flames as they ran. The liquid fire dripped between lengths of kiltcloth. In moments, the wall itself began to burn.

Some of the black men had the courage and wit to stick to their posts. They poured buckets of water onto the burgeoning flames. The Basileus smiled at their cries of dismay, for the fire refused to go out. It was not the precise recipe the Rhomaioi had used in Constantinople; no one on this strange new world had yet found petroleum oozing up from between the rocks. But dragonfish oil made a good enough subst.i.tute. Mixed with naphtha, sulphur, and a few other ingredients so secret the engineer who knew them refused to name them even for Alexios, the oil made a h.e.l.lbrew that burned until it consumed itself or until it was smothered with sand.

The Bornu, though, were ignorant of that trick and had no time to learn it. More and more of them scrambled or jumped off the wall as the flames spread. The Rhomaioi cheered the thick black smoke mounting to the sky.

Alexios gave new orders to the musicians. Their sharp notes pierced the din. The men of New Constantinople obediently formed themselves into a wedge-shaped formation. Here were soldiers you could do something with, Alexios thought-they were brave and obedient at the same time.

A section of the wall fell over with a rending crash. Sparks flew upward. The flutes screamed. Crying Alexios's name and "Christ with us," the Rhomaioi surged into the town.

Fighting raged fierce for a few minutes. Then the Bornu began to break and to stream toward the citadel. Alexios caught Isaac's eye. They both grinned. If the town wall, draped with kiltcloth, had burned, what a196.merry bonfire Musa ar-Rahman's palace would make. The Bornu capital was as good as theirs.

Some of the black men saw that, too. A detachment of perhaps fifty smashed headlong into Alexios's army, struggling desperately to force the men from New Constantinople outside the walls once more. At the head of the detachment was a hook-nosed man with full kiltcloth armour and gleaming copper rings in both ears and one nostril. Such a display of wealth could belong only to Musa.

The Sultan spied Alexios at the same instant Alexios recognised him. "To the death between us!" he shouted in Arabic. "Let the winner rule both folk!"

Alexios advanced on him. But when Musa ar-Rahman charged into what he thought was single combat, Isaac Komnenos and three other Rhomaioi also a.s.sailed him. Alexios crushed the Sultan's skull with his club, but was never sure afterward if that was the mortal blow.

The Bornu wailed in horror at the treachery. Alexios remained unfazed. Like the Prankish barbarians whose crusade he'd had to deflect, they were foolish enough to think war was about honour. War was about winning, nothing more.

Their ruler's death took the heart out of the black men. Soon screaming women impeded the army of New Constantinople more than the soldiery of Bornu. Men raised their hands and gave up their grails in token of surrender. "Keep as many alive as you can!" Alexios shouted. "If they die, we lose the food and other good things controlling them would give us."

Musa had been an exception to that rule. He was too cunning, too dangerous to keep around as a grail slave- better that he be reborn somewhere far from New197.Constantinople and make trouble there. Mutilating him every few months was another alternative, but Alexios didn't care for it. He had his own notions of honour, and cruelty without cause was not part of them.

Before long, only the Sultan's palace still held out against the Rhomaioi. Alexios sent an Arabic-speaking herald forward with a message: "Yield your weapons and your grails and you will not be badly treated. Otherwise, we will use liquid fire against you. You may be born again afterward, but your deaths will be slow and hideous. Decide quickly, or we will use it anyhow."

He waited. Just as he was about to order the engineers forward, the palace doorway opened. Dejected black men began filing out. They threw their bows and spears and clubs in a pile to the right of the doorway. The pile became mountainously high. The weapons were as good as anything the Rhomaioi used. Alexios decided to store them against future need.

The foraging detail took charge of the black men's grails. The Muslims gave them up even more reluctantly than their arms. Without grails, they were at their conquerors' mercy. If they did not obey henceforward, they would not eat. Oh, a few might slip off and survive on River fish and fruits and tubers from the plants that grew from the riverbank back into the foothills. But a stretch of land that would support a thousand people with grails might only let a double handful live on it without them.

After the last of the weapons and grails were surrendered, Alexios's record-keepers began taking the names of the Bornu men, women, and adolescents alike. Bamboo pulp replaced the parchment and papyrus the scribes had used at their desks in Constantinople. The Franks, Alexios remembered, had been amazed at the minutiae his offi-198.

199.cials recorded. But how were you supposed to run a state if you didn't keep track of the people it contained?

The sun began to set over the mountains to the west. As the town's-now his town's-grailstone roared and flamed, he let himself feel how tired he was. Then he had to force himself back to abrupt alertness, for one of the scouts who had gone downstream from the former Bornu capital came pelting back, shouting, "An army's heading our way!"

One of the black men must have learned some Greek since being reborn along the River, for he made a dash for the piled weapons. Rhomaioi sprang after him, speared him down. He lay writhing in agony. "Finish him," Alexios said. One of his warriors smashed in the Bornu's skull. Let some other king far away deal with a troublemaker, the Basileus thought.

Another scout panted into town. "It's the men of Shy town," he said. The Rhomaioi cheered as if to make their cries echo from the distant mountains. Alexios instantly ordered the news translated into Arabic. The Bornu sank even deeper into despair.

With a well-armed bodyguard around him, Alexios went out to greet his allies. The Shytowners whooped with glee when they recognized him in the failing light. For the moment, all was concord in the two victorious armies. But Mayor Daley also had protectors when he stepped out to meet Alexios between his men and those of the Basileus.

Daley spoke. Father Boyle turned his half-intelligible words into Latin for Alexios:."It really did go just as we planned. How often does that happen in war?"

"Not very," Alexios said, wondering how much the afterman really knew of war. But that didn't matter, not now. As Mayor Daley had said, they'd won. Alexios pushed through his bodyguards, held out his hand to the Mayor. Daley broke through the ranks of his own soldiers to clasp it. For one brief, proud moment, the alliance between them teetered on the edge of true friends.h.i.+p.

Then Daley said, "When do you think you can come to Shytown to be sworn in as Vice Mayor?"

A curious phrase, Alexios thought. But that was by the by. He focused again on what he would have to do, the gains and the probable costs. He said, "I think we would be wise first to consolidate and garrison what we have won today. Your men are already largely in place, since you are taking five of Bornu's Riverside grailstones to our four. But we still have to push away from the River to seize our extra inland stone to compensate. We may have a bit more fighting to do, though Musa concentrated his men along the River. I will join you-hmmm-in one week's time. Then you will visit New Constantinople to be anointed as our Kaisar."

Alexios held his voice steady only with effort. A foreigner as Kaisar of the Rhomaioi- It had happened once before, when Justinian II rewarded Tervel the Bulgar for backing in a civil war. Alexios still reckoned it disgraceful. But he'd needed Daley as Justinian had needed Tervel. He would pay the price.. .in his own fas.h.i.+on.

Father Boyle translated his words for the Mayor. Daley said something in the English of the opisthanthropoi. The priest dipped his head, then turned back to Alexios: "Hizzonor gives me leave to say a few words of my own to you. In our time and country, the land Constantinople ruled was more often called the Byzantine Empire than the Roman Empire. Byzantine became a word in our200.English, too, meaning subtle, complex, and cunning diplomacy. Having worked with you now, Your Majesty, I can see how the word gained that definition."

"You flatter me." Alexios's voice sounded uncommonly like a purr. The thing about flattery, though, was to enjoy it without letting it sway you. "You may tell Hizzonor that he has no mean ability along these lines himself."

Daley rumbled laughter. "One horse thief knows another," he said. That made Alexios laugh too, and again friends.h.i.+p nearly flowered. But he saw that Daley's smile never quite reached the Mayor's unsettling eyes. The were two of a kind, all right, each trying to manipulate the other.

The Basileus nodded to Hizzonor once more, then backed into the company of his own bodyguard. Trouble would come very soon, he thought, if the men of Shytown didn't draw back from this grailtown. The agreed-upon boundary was halfway between it and the next one downstream.

Fatigue smote Alexios again, this time irresistibly. Tomorrow would be time enough to worry about borders.

Michael Palaiologos and other dignitaries from New Constantinople watched as Alexios Komnenos became Vice Mayor of Shytown: with Bornu gone, Palaiologos would serve as the Basileus's envoy to Mayor Daley. Only Isaac Komnenos stayed home for the ceremony, so treachery from Daley could not wipe out all the leaders of the Rhomaioi at once.

Alexios found himself envying his brother. The aftermen might be devious politicians and clever artisans, but they ran boring ceremonies. Hizzonor made a speech that201.went on and on. Alexios tried for a while to follow the English dialect the opisthanthropoi used, but gave up when he concluded Daley wasn't really saying anything.

The Basileus expected Father Boyle to administer the vice-mayoral oath to him. That gave him pause: some of his subjects considered followers of the Roman pope like Boyle schismatics. But in fact, a man dressed all in black kiltcloth swore him in; through Boyle, Daley introduced him as Judge Corcoran.

"Judge?" Alexios asked. "A secular t.i.tle?"

"We separate church and state," Father Boyle answered. Alexios shrugged; that struck him as falling somewhere between incomprehensible and just plain crazy. But how the Shytowners ran their affairs wasn't his business.

"Raise your right hand," Judge Corcoran said. Alexios obeyed. The judge gave him the oath: "Do you solemnly swear to carry out the duties of Vice Mayor of Shytown honestly and to the best of your ability, so help you G.o.d?"

The duties of Vice Mayor were, in essence, none. The oath did not refer to any point that had set theologians from Constantinople at odds with those from Rome. In its way, it was admirably simple. Alexios said, "I swear."

Everyone cheered. Like the oath, Mayor Daley's way of celebrating was simple but effective. "Now let's get drunk," Hizzonor boomed. Servants carried in trays with flasks of wine and whiskey.

Since being reborn along the River, Alexios had developed a taste for whiskey. He liked the way it burned going down but warmed when it got to his middle. He sipped from a flask. "When you come to us," he told Daley, "I'll show you our way of doing things." Hizzonor nodded and reached for another whiskey himself.202.

203.When Mayor Daley descended from his boat to the riverbank, he advanced into New Constantinople through a double file of torchbearers. A chorus sang his praises. Pretty girls strewed flowers at his feet. He grinned enormously. "Fancy stuff," he said when he met Alexios in front of the imperial palace.

"Why not?" Alexios answered agreeably. "You've met my brother Isaac, I think-the current holder of the t.i.tle Kaisar."

"No hard feelings, I hope," Daley said, perhaps sincerely-his own former Vice Mayor had been a nonent.i.ty, not his brother. But Isaac only smiled and shook his head. Hizzonor beamed. "Good, good."

"And here is the ec.u.menical patriarch of New Constantinople, Evstratios Garidas," Alexios said, pointing to a man in glittering gold kiltcloth. Most priests among the Rhomaioi took the loss of their beards here along the River very hard, but Garidas had always been smooth-chinned-in Constantinople, he'd been a eunuch. Between having his stones for the first time as an adult and the aphrodisiac effects of dreamgum, his chast.i.ty took a beating in the days after New Constantinople's folk were resurrected, but he remained a good and pious man.

Daley bowed politely. So did Father Boyle, which, given his probable att.i.tude toward the church of Constantinople, might have required more discipline. The patriarch, his voice more than an octave deeper than Alexios remembered it from the imperial city, said, "Is the Mayor of Shytown prepared to take the oath as Kaisar of New Constantinople?" Alexios translated his Greek into Latin for Boyle, who turned it into the aftermen's English.

"I am," Hizzonor said, his voice solemn.

The oath Garidas had Mayor Daley swear was far more ornate and imposing than the one Judge Corcoran had given the Basileus. It invoked all three persons of the Trinity, the Virgin, and a squadron of saints (among them St. Andrew, patron of Constantinople), and called down upon the mayor anathema and d.a.m.nation if he violated its terms by so much as an iota. "Will you, then, hold to these terms, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?" the patriarch finished.

Daley crossed himself. "By the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I will."

"Bend your head," Garidas said. When Hizzonor obeyed, the patriarch anointed him with fish oil made sweet-smelling with perfume from the grailstones.

Alexios set a circlet of woven gra.s.s dyed scarlet round Daley's head. "Hail to our Kaisar!" he cried. The people of New Constantinople cheered along with the delegation from Shytown. The chorus sent up a song of praise and thanksgiving.

"Now what?" the newly made Kaisar asked.

When do we celebrate, Alexios took him to mean. He said, "We have one thing left to do before the feast begins." Daley folded his arms across his beefy chest and composed himself to wait. The Basileus raised his voice: "By elevating Hizzonor to the rank of Kaisar, I have left my brother Isaac without a t.i.tle to suit him. As he is both flesh of my flesh and always at my right hand, by your consent, people of New Constantinople, I propose for him the dignity of Sebastokrator, august ruler, said dignity to rank in honour between my rank of Basileus and that of the Kaisar."

"Let it be so!" the people shouted, as they'd been coached. Sebastokrator, a rank Alexios had invented back204.on Earth, was the t.i.tle Isaac Komnenos had held most of his life there; in New Constantinople, the Basileus had resimplified the hierarchy. But the old t.i.tle remained there in case it ever seemed useful, as it did today.

Alexios did not translate his proclamation of Isaac as Sebastokrator into Latin for Father Boyle; the longer Mayor Daley remained in blissful ignorance of what was going on around him, the happier the Basileus would have been. It transpired, however, that Father Boyle understood enough Greek to realise what was happening. That did not surprise Alexios; the Mayor was merely being prudent by having in his retinue someone who could follow the language of New Constantinople. Alexios had had a couple of English-speakers with him at Shytown.

He could gauge almost to the second when Hizzonor realised he'd been tricked. Daley must have had Celtic ancestors, for his skin was as fair as any Prankish Crusader's. All at once, he turned brick red. "What the h.e.l.l!" he bellowed, a roar of outrage even Alexios had no trouble translating.

Evstratios Garidas had almost finished administering the oath to Isaac. He paused, looked a question to Alexios. "Continue, Your Holiness," the Basileus said calmly. Garidas continued. Only after he had finished anointing the newly named Sebastokrator, thus making Isaac's tide indissoluble, did Alexios concern himself with his profanely displeased Kaisar.

Voice bland as b.u.t.ter, the Basileus turned to Mayor Daley. "Why are you unhappy? I named you Kaisar of New Constantinople as I promised. Had we gold, I'd have given you a crown rather than that fillet, but it is no less fine that the one Isaac wears."205.Daley threw the red-dyed fillet on the ground and stamped on it. "You son of a b.i.t.c.h, you cheated me!"

"Before G.o.d, I did not," Alexios answered. "As a condition for our alliance, you required me to name you Kaisar. I agreed, and the alliance did all we hoped it would: Bornu is no more, and we have divided its lands fairly between Shytown and New Constantinople. Nowhere did you require me not to appoint a lord of rank intermediate between mine and yours. That I have done, for the security of my own realm. But cheat you? I deny it, and deny it with clear conscience."

The Mayor stared at him. Cool calculation alone should have been enough to calm Hizzonor's wrath; the Rhomaioi had him and his delegation at their mercy, if they chose to attack. But Daley's glance never went to the gathered men of New Constantinople; he watched Alexios alone. And then, to Alexios's amazement, Hizzonor threw back his head and shouted laughter to the sky. "You son of a b.i.t.c.h, you cheated me," he said again. The words were as they had been a minute before, but their tone altogether different.

The Mayor slapped the Basileus on the back, hard enough to stagger him. A couple of Alexios's guards growled and took a step toward Daley, but Alexios waved them back. "Now that you know I can, perhaps we'll have a better chance of living next to each other in peace," he told Hizzonor. "One thing I've noticed about you opisthanthropoi is that you think anyone from before your own time has to be foolish. Would you have proposed this arrangement of ours to one of your contemporaries? They would have seen through it to your true intentions, and so have I."

"Most of them wouldn't, by G.o.d," Daley said. He206.did not mention that his true intentions were murderous, any more than Alexios had. Sometimes that was part of the game. Hizzonor laughed again, even louder than before. "All right, I'm Kaisar and it doesn't matter worth a d.a.m.n. I know what I do the first thing I get back to Shy town, though."

"What's that?" Alexios asked. "Appoint myself an a.s.sociate Mayor-what else?" It was the Basileus's turn to laugh. "Fair enough. Now we feast."

FOOL'S PARADISE.

Ed German

I heard the voice but I tried to ignore it. I didn't want to wake up. I was dreaming of the apartment on Eddy Street in the sunny autumn of 1921, a few weeks after my daughter Mary Jane was born, and of how tender and pretty my wife looked in those days before I betrayed her and ended our marriage.

Then it was more than just a voice, the summoning, it was quick, small hands shaking my shoulder and saying over and over, "Please, Mr. Hammett. Please wake up."