Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1986 (8 page)

“I’ll expect Wulf to think usefully,” she said at
last. “Now, we’ll ride fast and far tomorrow. Let’s get some rest.”

Another authoritative dismissal, but she smiled at
Wulf, a somewhat stealthy smile.

Back with Cham and Zeoui, Bhakrann sat and
surveyed Wulf thoughtfully. “You’re hard to believe,” he said.

“I hope not,” said Wulf, dragging off a boot.

“I mean how the Cahena listens to you, how she
snubs others when they question you. Why? Is it because you’re from so far
away? She says she knew about you before she saw you. She knows everything.”

“I don’t know everything,” said Wulf, stretching
out.

The journey went on for days. The Cahena rode
alongside wounded men, and they seemed to be better for that. Foraging parties
went here and there. The way became steeper and rockier, curved here and there
to mount rises or find passages among thicketed pinnacles and ridges. There
were streams, where they refilled bottles and watered their animals. The sun
glowed, wind stirred eddies of dust.

“I want to know how your people are organized and
ruled,” Wulf said to Bhakrann as their horses jogged together. “The Cahena
wants my advice about war, but I heard so little about the Imazighen while I
was at
Carthage
.”

“You can say that they obey their fathers and
their fathers obey something like grandfathers,” said Bhakrann.

He went on to explain that, away from the
half-ruined Roman and Vandal coastal towns, the Imazighen lived mostly in small
settlements, grazing herds and growing barley and fruits. A community was made
up of related households with a patriarchal chief. Several groups in the same
area were further organized, with a commander to call local chiefs to council.
The various tribes — Wulf had met their leaders like Daris, Ketriazar, Yaunis —
all obeyed the Cahena. She herself lived simply, as Wulf had seen.

“You may laugh at our town of
Tiergal
,” said Bhakrann.

“You haven’t heard me laugh much at anything.”
Wulf watched some foragers driving in a flock of plaintively bleating goats.
“There’s not much to laugh about when you have to raise an army.”

“She said it would be raised,” returned Bhakrann.
“Ask her how. She seems to answer your questions.”

“And asks puzzling ones herself.”

They kept riding upward on what, said Bhakrann,
was the great eastern ascent of Arwa. The horses grew tired, and the Cahena
ordered frequent rests and waterings. People emerged from clumps of dwellings
to cry greetings. A number of women could be called
comely,
several might even be called beautiful. They were straight-standing,
bright-eyed, with flowing hair and ready smiles. On the cheeks of some he saw
small tattooed crossmarks. Bhakrann said that these harked back to some old
pseudo-Christian belief.

In camp that night, among rocky points, Wulf and
his companions ate stewed goat’s flesh with their barley cakes. Nearby,
warriors crooned songs. To Wulf, these songs seemed unwarlike. One in
particular was melodiously minor, to celebrate certain appetizing features of a
girl drawing water from a well.

“Do you like that music?” said a voice behind him.
The Cahena stood there. Bhakrann lowerd his face to where her shadow fluttered
in the firelight. Wulf rose to his feet. She smiled.

“An army needs songs, Lady Cahena,” he said.

“They all sing at Tiergal. They play harps and
flutes.” Still she smiled, as Bhakrann rose and stood listening.

“I have you to thank for seconding me, when I
didn’t want to speak before thinking,” said Wulf.

“You still have to learn that I see things far
off, and things to come,” she said, her voice musical. “I see things in you
that I’m glad to find.” She tilted her dark head. “For one, I see your beard’s
growing. That will make you more handsome.”

She turned and paced away into the darkness.

“I’ve never heard her talk like that to anybody,”
said Bhakrann. “When I killed Okba she said she’d call me her son, but that was
just praise. I’m not handsome, anyway. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking of how wise she is, how she leads her
people,” Wulf mused.
“And how beautiful she is.”

“Yes,” said Bhakrann, sitting again.

It rained in the night. Wulf propped his cloak on
sticks and refused to be miserable in the wet — how often in the past he had
camped in the rain. They marched next day under foggy clouds.

“It’s moving eastward,” Cham pointed out. “It’ll
rain where those Moslems are. Good.”

Once more the ascent of the
mighty mountain, among cluttered rocks and thorny trees.
Wulf looked to where the Cahena rode among companions.
Ketriazar was there, and Daris and Mallul, but no word came for him to join
them. At
noon
they paused by a stream where another mountain path
crossed theirs. Ketriazar rode off south with his Mediuni followers, and Daris
led his men southwestward. As Wulf and Bhakrann watched the departures, excited
hails rose from men at the rear. A horse stumbled toward them, its rider bent
above its sagging neck.

“Bhakrann!” the man croaked, tumbling to earth. It
was Tifan, caked with sweaty dirt. His horse crept toward the stream.

“Water?”
Tifan mouthed. “I’ve been short on that — and food and
sleep. I’ve ridden days and nights…”

He snatched the bottle from Bhakrann’s saddle and
swigged.

“Easy,” warned Bhakrann, taking the bottle away.
“Drink too much and you won’t be able to talk. What’s your news?”

Tifan managed broken sentences. The scouts had
watched the Moslems carry their wounded through the pass, had cautiously
followed. On the far side, the enemy had headed limply eastward. They had
seemed to fear pursuit. Tifan said he had ridden one horse into the ground to
bring the news, had traded a jeweled dagger for another.

“It’s ready to drop, too, like you,” said
Bhakrann, studying the fagged beast. “Don’t let it drink too much, Zeoui. Take
another swallow, Tifan. Now you can walk — come and give the Cahena your
report.”

Wulf went with them. The Cahena stopped the
tottering Tifan from kneeling to kiss her shadow and listened as he told, in
greater detail, of how the Moslems were plainly in no case to fight.

“I thought that,” said the Cahena. “Look after
this brave scout. Sponge his face, get him a fresh horse.”

She looked past Tifan and smiled briefly at Wulf,
as though they shared a specific knowledge.

They marched on the hot, irregular road. The sun
sank among western clouds as Wulf rose in his stirrups to peer ahead.

“I see houses, there among those crags,” he said
to Bhakrann.

“That’s Tiergal,” Bhakrann told him. “That’s
home.”

Tiergal, once they reached it, was a collection of
homes that huddled here, sprawled there, in a considerable depression in the
mountain. In more distant stretches were grain fields and gardens, with clumps
of trees among them. As many as twelve thousand people might live here, and
there were other coin-munities of the Djerwa. They were, he had heard, the
largest tribe of all the Cahena’s alliance.

Some dwellings were of stone or roughcast brick,
or of dried mud spread over wattles. Here and there were simple tents with
thatching on top. Other homes were dug into the rocky walls of the place, tier
above tier. There were wells with curbs and sweeps. A brook flowed. Through the
town ran its principal street, with thatched market sheds and chaffering
merchants. Women sat at their doors, weaving. A hubbub of welcome rose up as
the men rode in.

“The Cahena!”

“Cahena, there is also the Cahena!”

Riders left the column as though heading home. The
Cahena sidled her horse toward Wulf.

“Wulf, Bhakrann, come to supper with me,” she
said. “I’ll send for Djalout, too.”

She rode away, attended by two warriors.

“Cham, Zeoui, will you look after our horses?”
Bhakrann said, dismounting. “Look after Tifan, too; get him some hot soup and
barley beer. We’ll tell you later what’s good for you to know.”

He and Wulf walked a narrow passage between
close-set houses. Men and women hailed Bhakrann from doorways, and he called
back that the invaders had been beaten again. They crossed a busy street and on
the far side climbed a sloping alley where roofs merged above them. Clouds
thickened with the sunset.

The Cahena’s home lay under a jutting shelf of
dark rock. Its front seemed made of broken bits of carved stone, perhaps from
forgotten Roman ruins. Bhakrann knocked at a red-painted door,
then
pushed it inward. A guardsman saluted with his javelin
and gestured toward a dark curtain with light seeping from behind. They lifted
it and passed into a broad, low-ceilinged room.

The floor was of great mortared pebbles, with rugs
and blankets spread upon it. A low round table stood at the center, with a
brass lamp upon it. The Cahena stood there. At her motion, Wulf and Bhakrann
sat on the floor beside the table.

Someone else came in. He was a fragile old man,
his body like a handful of sticks in his gray robe. A dark red scarf bound his
head. A tassel of silvery beard hung below his seamed face. He raised his
meager right hand. On its forefinger gleamed a
ruby.

“Wulf, this is Djalout,” said the Cahena. “Sit
with us, Djalout,
give
us your counsel.”

Creakily the gaunt body lowered itself to sit at
the table. Djalout’s brow was high and broad, his eyes deep-set and brilliant.
His lean claw of a nose shone softly.

The Cahena, too, sat down and clapped her hands.
Two handsome women came in with bowls and trays of food. There were partridges
and doves, stewed with herbs and onions and quinces, and a mess of seasoned
greens and hot barley bread. The Cahena broke the bread into fragments and
passed them around. A servingwoman poured wine into cups. Her eyes studied Wulf
demurely. The Cahena took the wing of a bird. The others helped themselves.

“What good wine,” said
Wulf.

“It’s pressed from pomegranates,” Djalout informed
him.
“Apples of
Carthage
.
We grow them.”

“Djalout,” said the Cahena, “Wulf thinks the
Moslems are better horsemen than the Imazighen.”

“They conquered
Syria
and
Persia
and
Egypt
by riding, Lady Cahena,” said Wulf.

“And you think they’ll conquer us.”

It was half an accusation. Bhakrann and Djalout
watched.

“Not if we don’t fight their way,” Wulf said. “We
might fight them on foot.”

“You’re joking,” she said, “and it’s no joking
matter.”

“I’m serious. I’ve told you how the Romans
conquered whole horseback nations on foot, conquered even elephants.”

“What’s he saying, Djalout?” asked the Cahena.

“The truth,” replied the thin old voice. “It
happened and happened.”

“Horses trample men,” said Bhakrann, gnawing a
drumstick.

“Not over close formations with spear points to
the front,” said Wulf. “The Cimbrians were big men on big horses, but Caius
Marius and his infantry ate them up.”

Djalout nodded. “That’s in Plutarch.”

“How did they do that?” Bhakrann prodded.
“How?”

“With just about the weapons we have — javelins
and shields and short swords,” said Wulf. “The Romans could use them.”

“I want to hear more from Wulf about it,” said the
Cahena.

“I’d meet a cavalry charge with close ranks on
foot, four or five javelins to a man,” said Wulf. “Throw javelins at close
range, knock down horses,
break
the formation. Then
stop them with the last javelin. That would be an extra big, strong one.

Bhakrann shook his head. “It couldn’t be done.”

“Could it, Djalout?” asked the Cahena.

Djalout crumbled bread. “As Wulf says, it’s been
done. What strikes me is that the Moslems wouldn’t expect it.”

“Who
would
expect it?” cried Bhakrann.
“Not me. Don’t tell me to get off my horse and fight a charge with javelins.”

“You’d stay on your horse,” said Wulf. “When the
charge was checked, you and other mounted men would countercharge.”

“It would take planning, but it could happen,”
said the Cahena.

“I’ll have to be shown,” insisted Bhakrann. “So
will all the other men. They’ll need a lot of talking to.”

“They’ll be talked to,” promised the Cahena.

“Meanwhile,” Wulf went on, “we must scout to see
which way the enemy will try to come after us.”

“They won’t come at once,” said Djalout. “The
rains have started, and they’ll want good weather to travel in.”

“Giving us time to train,” added the Cahena.
“Experiment with formations, maybe choose a battleground.”

She clapped her hands again. The servingwomen
brought trays of figs and fresh dates and rosy grapes and a gourd bowl of honey.
Djalout dangled a fig in the honey before biting it. Bhakrann, too, visited the
bowl with a bunch of grapes. The Cahena dipped her grapes in wine, one by one,
as she ate them.

“Choose where we’ll meet them,” she said again.

“As good ground as where we fought that advance
party,” offered Bhakrann.

“Ground that Wulf chose,” reminded the Cahena,
looking at Wulf as she spoke his name. “But I think closer than that. I’ll call
the chiefs to a council.”

“Wulf can explain to them,” said Bhakrann. “Or
maybe I will. They might not listen to a stranger with foreign mud on his
boots.”

“Not you, Bhakrann,” said Djalout. “Only the
Cahena can explain and be heard. You agree, Wulf?”

“Yes,” said Wulf at once. “There’s nobody else
this whole alliance will obey. Nobody else can get them out there in the face
of death.” He felt her eyes on him. “If she says to fight on foot, they’ll do
it. If she says to fight bare-handed, they’ll do that.”

“You have faith in me, Wulf,” said the Cahena,
putting a grape between her red lips.

“I’ve watched you with your men, and your men with
you,” he said. “They live or die by your word.”

“Javelin throwers on foot,” harked back Bhakrann,
“and horsemen to countercharge. Is that your whole battle plan?”

“I’ve also thought of bows and arrows,” said Wulf.

“We aren’t a nation of archers,” the Cahena
objected.

“Bhakrann says that children play with bows,” said
Wulf. “Maybe we can train archers.”

“I’ll call the chiefs to hear,” said the Cahena
again. “Well, that’s enough military planning for tonight.”

They all rose. “Wulf,” said Djalout, “I’d be glad
for more conversation with you.”

“Of course.”

“When you’re finished with Djalout, return here,”
said the Cahena. “I’m going to make you one of us.”

“I’d hoped I’d proved myself one of you,” Wulf
said.

She smiled at him faintly, meaningfully. “I’ll
make you my son,” she half whispered.

“You call all of us your sons,” Bhakrann said.

“Wulf is different,” said the Cahena, as though
settling the matter. “He came as though I’d called him. He must be adopted by
me.” Her gaze kept on Wulf. “Come back when you finish your visit with
Djalout.”

Bhakrann scowled. Djalout stroked his lean beard.

“Whatever you ask,” agreed Wulf.

From somewhere she had picked up a copper-bound
hourglass — of Roman make, Wulf guessed — and set it on the table. The sand
began to trickle from the upper bulge into the lower.

“Come back when it’s run its course,” she said.

Djalout sought the doorway. Bhakrann followed him,
and Wulf followed Bhakrann. He felt the Cahena’s gaze on his back, almost like
the touch of a hand.

The sentry bowed them out. A foggy rain fell in
the night. In the street stood a man in a hooded robe, bearing on his shoulder
a great crude key. It was made of a slab of wood as long as his arm, with three
metal pegs to the edge at one end. He bowed to Djalout and walked away as
though to escort them.

“That’s Gata,” said Djalout to Wulf.
“My servant.”

Gata walked past several dwellings to another door
set in the bluff. A span-wide hole showed beside the wooden portal. Gata thrust
in his key and turned it. The lock groaned as it yielded. Gata opened the door,
and Djalout beckoned Wulf in.

They came into a cubical chamber, lighted by two
copper lamps in brackets. The walls were hewn rock, and on the floor lay coarse
mats.
Along one wall extended a low shelf of bricks, piled
with rugs.
Djalout nodded to Gata, who went out again. Djalout waved
Wulf to a seat on the shelf and
himself
took the
chair. From the stand he lifted an elaborately worked silver flagon and poured
from it into two clay cups.

“This is better than what the Cahena served us,”
he said, handing a cup to Wulf. “Not all my tastes are as simple as hers.”

Wulf drank. The wine was excellent.

“Bhakrann and I are two of her various upholding
strengths,” went on Djalout’s thin voice. “Now she finds more
strengths
in you.”

“You mean warrior and thinker,” said Wulf.

“Bhakrann drinks the blood of whole tribes and
smacks his lips. And yes, I think, I plan, rationalize dreams into realities.”
The curved nose stabbed into the cup. “Maybe you’re as much warrior as
Bhakrann, as fierce with the sword.
And more, a strategist.”

“Thank you,” said Wulf.

“But maybe not the thinker I am.”

“Probably not,” conceded Wulf.

“I’ve been at the business of thinking for more
than twice as long as you,” said Djalout. “I’ve been successful at it. But I’m
no fighter; I only think about fighting.”

“So do I think about fighting,” said Wulf. “I’ve
had to.”

Djalout’s narrowed eyes raked him. “You agreed
that the Moslems wouldn’t hurry here. The rainy season will slow them up.”

“And something else,” said Wulf. “The Imazighen
have defeated them — first Okba, then Zoheir, and the other day we whipped a
strong advance party. Each time they were too headlong in unknown, hostile
country. They won’t keep making that mistake. Likely they’ll consolidate their
present holdings, refortify
Carthage
,
organize
carefully for any new advance.”

“They’re rich with the plunder of
Syria
and
Persia
and
Egypt
,” said Djalout. “They’ll use those things.”

“Not at once,” argued Wulf. “Not even Caesar
outran himself. Alexander did, but war was simpler then.
Festina lente
— make haste slowly, says the Roman proverb borrowed from the Greeks.”

“Caesar,” repeated Djalout. “Alexander.
Greek and Roman proverbs.
You’ve been to school.”

“When I was young, and I’ve always studied when I
had time,” said Wulf.
“Mostly military matters and languages.
I can read and speak in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and others.”

“And your Imazighen is good,” said Djalout. “You
seem to catch languages as others catch diseases. You may want to look at some
of my books. Maybe you’ve learned things that men like me — and we’re few, Wulf
— have always more or less known and used.”