Down in The Bottomlands (27 page)

"I'll—try, Judge," Dunedin said.
"Aka."
He pronounced it wrong again.

Park sighed. Nobody could make his thane a linguist, not in the couple of days before their steamship docked at Uuraba on the northern coast of the landstrait of Panama, not in the new sea journey down from the land-strait's southern coast to Ookonja, the port nearest Kuuskoo—and not with twenty years to work, either. A talent for languages simply wasn't in Monkey-face. The most to hope for was that he would learn more with Park bullying him than without.

"I'm going up on deck for some fresh air," Park announced. "You stay here till you've played that record two more times." Dunedin gave him a martyred look, which he ignored. The cabin was hot and stuffy; no one in this world had thought of air conditioning.

Park grabbed a hat and a couple of books and climbed the narrow iron staircase to the deck. The air there was no less humid than it had been inside, and hardly cooler: summer on the Westmiddle Sea (Park still thought of it as the Caribbean, no matter what the map said) was bound to be tropical. But here, at least, the air was moving.

The deck chairs were deck chairs, right down to their gaudy canvas webbing. Park threw himself into one. It complained about his weight. He sighed again. All the alter egos on his wheel of if seemed to run to portliness. They were all losing their hair, too; he put on the hat in a hurry, before the sun seared his scalp.

Soon he forgot sun, humidity, everything: when he studied, he studied hard. And he had a lot of studying to do. He felt like a student dropped into a class the week before exams. Ever since his—actually, Ib Scoglund's—appointment to the International Court for the continent of Skrelleland the year before, he'd done little but study this world's languages, history, and legal systems. They were still strange to him, but as soon as he got to Kuuskoo he would have to start using them.

He wished he'd been assigned a case involving the Bretwaldate of Vinland. Its customs were recognizably similar to the ones he'd grown up with. But assigning legal actions to disinterested outsiders made a certain amount of sense. Disinterested, Allister Park certainly was. Nothing like either country involved in this dispute existed in the world he knew.

Tawantiinsuuju was, he gathered from the text in his lap, what the Inca Empire might have become had Spaniards not strangled it in infancy. In this world, though, Arabs and Berbers still ruled Spain.
Among other places,
Park thought. That was part of the problem he'd have to deal with. . . .

A shadow fell on the book. After a moment, Park looked up. A man was standing by his chair. "You are Judge Scoglund?" he asked in Ketjwa.

"Yes, I am," Park answered slowly, using the same language. He was just glad he was talking with a man. Men and women used different words for kin and for other things in Ketjwa, and he wasn't any too familiar with the distaff side of the vocabulary. "Who are you, sir?"

"I am called Ankowaljuu," the fellow answered. He was in his late thirties, close to Park's own age, with red-brown skin, straight black hair cut a little below his ears, and a high-cheekboned face dominated by a nose of nearly Roman impressiveness. He wore sandals, a wool tunic, and a black derby hat. "I am
tukuuii riikook
to the Son of the Sun, Maita Kapak." At the mention of his ruler's name, he shaded his eyes with one hand for a moment, as if to shield them from the monarch's glory.

"Tukuuii riikook,
eh?" Park looked at him with more interest than he'd felt before: Ankowaljuu was no ordinary passenger.

"You understand what it means, then?"

"Aye," Park said. A
tukuuii riikook
was an imperial inspector, of the secret sort outside the usual chain of command. Most empires had them under one name or another, so the rulers could make sure their regular functionaries were performing as they should. Frowning, the judge went on, "I do not understand why you tell me, though."

Ankowaljuu smiled, displaying large white teeth. "Shall I speak English, to make sure I am clear?"

"Please do," Park said with relief. "I am working to learn your tongue, but I am not yet flowing in it."

"You have the back-of-the-throat sounds, which are most often hardest for Vinlanders to gain," Ankowaljuu said. "But to go on: I tell you because I want you to know you may count on me—I speak for myself now, mind you, not for the Son of the Sun—for as long as you have a hand in judging this dealing between my folk and the Emirate of the Dar al-Harb."

"Oh? Why is that?" Park hoped his voice did not show his sudden hard suspicion. His years in the DA's office told him no one ever offered anything for nothing. "You must understand I cannot talk with you about this dealing—all the more so
because
you are a
tukuuii riikook,
a thane of your emperor."

"Yes, of course I understand, That you naysay shows your honesty. I must tell you, the Son of the Sun was sorry he gave our quarrel with the Emir to the International Court when he learned the judge would be from Vinland."

"Why is that?" Park asked again, this time out of genuine curiosity. "My country has little to do with either yours or the Emirate."

"Because so many Vinlanders are forejudged against Skrellings," Ankowaljuu said grimly. "But when I came up to New Belfast to find out what sort of man you are, I found his mistrusts were misplaced. No one who has swinked so hard for the ricks of the Skrellings in Vinland could be anything but fair in his judgments."

"Well, thank you very much," Park murmured, a little embarrassed at taking credit for work that had actually been Ib Scoglund's. "I won't needfully choose for you, either, just
because
you're Skrellings, you know."

Ankowaljuu made a shoving motion, as if to push that idea aside. "I would not reckon anything of the sort. But it is good to know you will not turn against us just because the folk of the Dar al-Harb are incomers to Skrelleland like you Vinlanders."

"I never thock of that." Park clapped a hand to his forehead. "This bounds strife is quite embrangled enough without worries of that sort."

"So it is." Ankowaljuu chuckled, a bit unpleasantly. "At least I need not trouble myself about any faithly forejudgment on your part. As a one-time Christian bishop, no doubt you will have glick scorn for the Emir and his Allah on the one hand and our hallowing of the sun and Patjakamak who put it in the sky on the other."

"I think all faiths can be good," Park said.

Ankowaljuu's eloquent grunt showed just how much he believed that. The funny thing was, Park really meant it. Anyone who wanted to play politics in New York had to feel, or at least act, that way. And nothing in Park's experience with criminals had shown him that people who followed any one religion behaved conspicuously better than those who believed in another.

Trouble was, both the Tawantiinsuujans and the Emir's subjects took their religions so damned
seriously.
"Dar al-Harb" itself meant "Land of War"—war against the pagans the Moors of Cordova had found when they crossed to what Park still sometimes thought of as Brazil. Since
all
the Skrellings in the southern half of Skrelleland were pagan, the past few hundred years had seen a lot of war.

"Well, maybe this is one war we'll stop," he muttered.

He didn't know he had spoken aloud until Ankowaljuu said, "I hope we do." The
tukuuii riikook
raised a hand to the brim of his derby and walked off.

Park opened his book to the place his thumb had been keeping. Religion, politics, greed . . .
embrangled
wasn't nearly a strong enough word for this case. A word that was came to mind, but not one suited for polite company. He said it anyhow, softly, and plunged back in.

Reed flutes whistled mournfully. Allister Park didn't think it was fit music for a fanfare, but nobody'd asked him. "Judge Ib Scoglund of the International Court of Skrelleland!" a flunky bawled in Ketjwa. Park bowed at the doorway to the big reception hall, slowly walked in.

Slowly was the operative word, he thought. Kuuskoo was more than two miles above sea level; the air was chilly and, above all, thin. He'd come by train from the broiling tropical port of Ookonja in less than a day. Any sudden motion made his heart pound wildly. He looked around for a chair.

He spotted one, but before he could sit down, a big, red-faced man came over to pump his hand. "Haw, good to meet you, Hallow, er, Thane, er, Judge Scoglund," he boomed. "I'm Osfric Lundqvist, the Bretwaldate's spokesman to the Son of the Sun."

"Thank you, Thane Lundqvist," Park said.

"My joyment." Lundqvist did not let go of Park's hand.

"Thank you," Park repeated, trying to find some polite way to disengage himself from the ambassador. Lundqvist was, he knew, an amiable nonentity who drank too much. Because several nations lay between Vinland and Tawantiinsuuju, this was a safe enough post for a rich squire with more influence than ability. No matter how badly he blundered, he could not start a war by himself.

As if by magic, Eric Dunedin appeared at Park's elbow. "Judge, the Son of the Sun's warden for outlandish dealings wants to meet you."

"Outlandish dealings?" Then Park made the mental leap between the English he was used to and the Bretwaldate's dialect: the foreign affairs minister, Monkey-face meant. "Oh. Of course. Thanks, Eric."

"Here, let me inlead you to him," Lundqvist said eagerly.

"That's all rick, your bestness, but I ock to go alone. I'm here as judge for the International Court, after all, not as a burgman of Vinland."
And,
Park thought,
I'll get you out of my hair.
Lundqvist looked disappointed but managed a nod.

The warden for outlandish dealings was a middle-aged Skrelling with iron-gray hair cut in a pageboy bob like Ankowaljuu's. Unlike Ankowaljuu, though, he wore in each ear a silver plug big enough to stopper a bathtub. Only the high nobility of Tawantiinsuuju still clung to that style.

Park bowed to him, spoke in Ketjwa: "I am glad to meet you, Minister Tjiimpuu."

Tjiimpuu bowed in return, not as deeply, and set his right hand on Park's left shoulder. "And I you, Judge Scoglund. How fare you, in our mountain city? The climate is not much like that to which you had grown accustomed traveling here, is it?"

"No indeed." Park tried a Ketjwa proverb:
"Patjam kuutin—
the
world changes." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he had them back; the saying's implication was,
for the worse.
 

But Tjiimpuu laughed. "Lowlanders always have trouble catching their breath here. Sit down, if you need to." Park gratefully sank into a chair.

Tjiimpuu gestured to a servant, spoke rapidly. The man nodded and hurried away. He returned a moment later with a painted earthenware cup full of some gently steaming liquid. Tjiimpuu took it from him, handed it to Park. "Here. Drink this. Many lowlanders find it helps give them strength."

"Thank you, sir." Park sniffed the contents of the cup. The liquid was aromatic but unfamiliar. He tasted it. It was more bitter than he'd expected, but no worse than strong tea drunk without sugar. And by the time he'd finished the cup, he did indeed feel stronger; for the first time since he'd reached Kuuskoo, his lungs seemed to be getting enough air. "That's marvelous stuff," he exclaimed. "What is it?"

"Coca-leaf tea," Tjiimpuu said.

Park stared at him. Back in New York, he'd spent part of his time throwing cocaine peddlers and cocaine users in jail. He wondered if the foreign minister was trying to trap him in an indiscretion. Then he noticed Tjiimpuu had a cup of the stuff too. "Oh," he said weakly. "Most, uh, invigorating."

"I thought it would do you good," Tjlimpuu said. "I still should warn you not to exert yourself too strenuously for the next moon or two, or you may fall seriously ill."

"I will remember," Park said. After a moment, he added, "Could you please send some over to my servant?" Of the two of them, Dunedin would likely be doing more physical work.

A waiter soon gave Monkey-face a cup. Park caught Dunedin's eye, nodded. His man had been looking doubtfully at the stuff. Now he drank, though he made a face at the taste. Park nodded again, sternly this time, and watched him finish the tea. When Dunedin felt what it did for his insides, he grinned at his boss, which only made him look more like a monkey than ever.

"Now to business," Tjiimpuu said in a tone of voice different from the one he'd used before. "I must tell you that the Son of the Sun will not permit the boundary between ourselves and the Emirate of the Dar al-Harb to be moved from where his father, the great Waskar, fixed it twenty-eight years ago." Under Waskar, Tawantiinsuuju had won the most recent clash with its eastern neighbor.

"Setting conditions at the start of talks is no way to have them succeed," Park said.

"For the Son of the Sun to abandon land his father won would disgrace him before Patjakamak, the creator of the world, and before the holy Sun that looks down on all he does," Tjiimpuu said icily
.
"It cannot be, Judge Scoglund."

That was the wrong tack to take with Allister Park. "Do not tell me what can and cannot be," he said. "When Tawantiinsuuju agreed to let the International Court decide your latest quarrel, you put that power into its hands—and, through it, into mine."

"I could order you out of my land this very instant," Tjiimpuu growled. "Perhaps I should, for your insolence."

"Go ahead," Park said cheerfully. "I'm sure you will make the Son of the Sun happy by disgracing Tawantiinsuuju before all Skrelleland, and for showing it thinks itself above the International Court. You and the Emir had me brought down here to do a job, and by God—Patjakamak, Allah, or plain old Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—I'm going to do it."

Someone behind Park spoke up: "Well said."

He turned. The newcomer was a tall, smiling man, dark but not Skrelling-colored and wearing a neat black beard no Skrelling could have raised. He had on flowing cotton robes and a satin headscarf held in place by an emerald-green cord. He was, in short, a Moor.