The Call of Earth: 2 (Homecoming) (27 page)

But then, couldn’t Rashgallivak also be a tool God was using to mislead him? It had been many days since God had attempted to block him from any action. Was it possible that God, having failed to dominate Moozh directly, might now be trying to control Moozh by leading him after foolish imagined conspiracies? Many generals had been destroyed by just such fancies as the one Rashgallivak had now brought to him.

“Couldn’t the drycases be for something else?” asked Moozh, testing.

“Of course,” said Rashgallivak. “I only pointed out the most extreme possibility. Drycases also work very well for transporting supplies through the desert.
Volemak and his sons—his oldest boy, Elemak, in particular—are more familiar with the desert than most. It holds no fear for them. They could be planning to build an army. You
do
have only a thousand men here.”

“The rest of the army of the Gorayni will be here soon.”

“Then perhaps that’s why Volemak needed only twelve drycases—he won’t need to supply his little army for very long.”

“Army,” said Moozh scornfully. “Twelve drycases. You were found with a draft for jewels of very high value. How do I know you haven’t been bribed to tell me foolish lies and waste my time?”

“I wasn’t
found,
sir. I turned myself over to your soldiers deliberately. And I brought the draft instead of the jewels because I wanted you to see that it was Shedemei’s own hand that wrote the note. This amount is far more than the drycases are worth. She is clearly trying to buy my silence.”

“So. This is where you are now, Rashgallivak. A few days ago you thought you were master of the city. And now you betray your former master once again, in order to ingratiate yourself with a new one. Explain to me why I shouldn’t retch at the sight of you.”

“Because I can be useful to you.”

“Yes, yes, I can imagine, like a vicious but hungry dog. So tell me, Rashgallivak, what bone do you want me to toss you?”

“My Life, sir.”

“Your life will never be your own again, as long as you live. So again I ask you to tell me what bone you want to gnaw on.”

Rashgallivak hesitated.

“If you pretend to have some altruistic desire to serve
me or the Imperator or Basilica, I’ll have you gutted and burned in the marketplace within the hour.”

“We don’t burn traitors here. It would make you look monstrous to the Basilicans.”

“On the contrary,” said Moozh. “It would make them very happy to see such treatment meted out to
you.
No one is so civilized as not to relish vengeance, even if later they’re ashamed of how they loved to see their enemy suffer before he died.”

“Stop threatening me, General,” said Rashgallivak. “I’ve lived in terror and I’ve come out of it. Kill me or not, torture me or not, it doesn’t matter to me. Just decide what to do.”

“Tell me first what you want. Your secret desire. Your dream of the best thing that might come to you from all of this.”

Again he hesitated. But this time he found the strength to name his desire. “Lady Rasa,” he whispered.

Moozh nodded slightly. “So ambition isn’t dead in you,” he said. “You still have dreams of living infinitely above your station.”

“I told you because you insisted, sir. I know it could never happen.”

“Get out of here,” said Moozh. “My men will take you to be bathed. And then dressed. You will live at least another night.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The soldiers came in and took Rashgallivak away— but this time without dragging him, without any brutality. Not that Moozh had decided to use Rashgallivak. His death was still an attractive possibility—it would be the most decisive way for Moozh to declare himself the master of Basilica, to mete out justice so publicly, so popularly, and so clearly in violation of all Basilican law and custom and decency. The citizens would love it,
and in loving it they would cease to be the old Basilica. They would become something new. A new city.

My city.

Rashgallivak married to Rasa. That was a nasty thought, conceived in a nasty little mind. Yet it would certainly humiliate Rasa, and clinch the image of her in many people’s minds as a traitor to Basilica. And yet she would still be a leading citizen of Basilica, with an aura of legitimacy. After all, she
was
on Bitanke’s list. As was Rashgallivak.

It was a fine list, too. Well thought out, and quite daring. Bitanke was a bright man, very useful. For example, he was wise enough not to underestimate Moozh’s powers of persuasion. He didn’t leave people off his list just because he fancied that they’d never be willing to serve Moozh by ruling Basilica for him.

So the names that led the list were, unsurprisingly, the very names that Rashgallivak had mentioned as possible rivals: Volemak and Rasa. Rashgallivak’s name, too, was there. And Volemak’s son and heir, Elemak, because of both his ability and his legitimacy. Volemak’s and Rasa’s youngest, too—Nafai, because he linked those two great names and because he had killed Gaballufix with his own hands.

Was everyone who might serve Moozh’s need linked to Rasa’s house? That was no surprise to him—in most cities he’d conquered, there were at most two or three clans that had to be either eliminated or co-opted in order to control the populace. Almost everyone else on Bitanke’s list was far too weak to rule well without constant help from Moozh, as Bitanke himself pointed out: They were too closely linked with certain factions, or too isolated from any support at all.

The only two who weren’t tied by blood to Volemak or Rasa were nevertheless nieces in Rasa’s house: The
waterseer Luet and the raveler Hushidh. They were still only girls, of course, hardly ready to handle the difficult work of governance. But they had enormous prestige among the women of Basilica, especially the waterseer. They would be only figureheads, but with Rashgallivak to actually run things, and Bitanke to watch Rashgallivak and protect the figurehead from being manipulated against Moozh’s best interest, the city could run very well while Moozh turned his attention to his real problems—the Cities of the Plain, and the Imperator.

Rashgallivak married to Rasa. It sounded so pleasantly dynastic. No doubt Rash’s dreams included supplanting Moozh one day and ruling in his own right. Well, Moozh could hardly begrudge him those dreams. But there would soon be a dynasty that would surpass Rash’s poor dreams. Rash might take the Lady Rasa, but how would that compare with the glorious marriage of the waterseer or the raveler with General Moozh himself? That would be a dynasty that could stand for a thousand years. That would be a dynasty that could topple the feeble house of that pathetic little man who dared to call himself the incarnation of God—the Imperator, whose power would be nothing when Moozh decided to move against him.

And, best of all, by marrying and using one of these chosen vessels of the Oversoul, Moozh would have the triumph that pleased him most: The triumph over God. You were never strong enough to control me, O Almighty One. And now I’ll take your chosen daughter, filled with your visions, and make her the mother of a dynasty that will defy you and destroy all your plans and works.

Stop me if you can! I am far too strong for you.

* * *

Nafai found Luet and Hushidh together, waiting for him in the secret place on the roof. They looked very grave, which did nothing to calm the fear in Nafai’s heart. Until now, Nafai had never felt himself to be young; he had always felt himself to be a person, equal to any other. But now his youth pressed in on him. He had not thought to marry now, or even really to
decide
whom to marry. Nor was it the easy, temporary union that he had expected his first marriage to be. His wife would probably be his only wife, and if he did badly in this marriage, he’d have no recourse. Seeing Luet and Hushidh, both looking at him solemnly as he made his way across the brightly sunlit roof, he wondered again if he could do this: If he could marry this girl Luet, who was so perfect and wise in the eyes of the Oversoul. She had come to the Oversoul with love, with devotion, with courage—he had come like a bratty child, taunting and testing his unknown parent. She had years of experience in speaking with the Oversoul; perhaps more important, she had had years in speaking
for
the Oversoul, to the women of Basilica. She knew how to dominate others—hadn’t he seen it there on the shores of the lake of women, when she faced them down and saved his life?

Will I be coming to you as a husband or a child? A partner or a student?

“So the family council is over,” said Hushidh, when at last he was near enough for easy speech.

He seated himself on the carpet under the awning. The shade gave him little enough respite from the heat. Sweat dripped under his clothing. It made him aware of his own naked body, hidden from view. If he married Luet, he would have to offer that body to her tonight. How often had he dreamed of such an offering? And yet never once had he thought of coming to a girl who
filled him with awe and shyness, and yet who was herself utterly without experience; always in his dreams the woman was eager for him, and he was a bold and ready lover. There would be nothing like that tonight.

He had a wrenching thought. What if Luet wasn’t ready yet? What if she wasn’t even a
woman
yet? He quickly spoke a prayer in his heart to the Oversoul, but couldn’t finish it, because he wasn’t sure whether he hoped she
was
a woman, or hoped that she was
not.

“How thickly woven are the bonds already,” said Hushidh.

“What are you talking about?” asked Nafai.

“We’re tied to the future by so many cords. The Oversoul has always told dear Luet, here, that she wants human beings to follow her freely. But I think she has caught us in a very tight-woven net, and we have about as much choice as a fish that’s been dragged up from the sea.”

“We have choices,” said Nafai. “We always have choices.”

“Do we?”

I don’t want to talk to
you,
Hushidh. I came here now to talk to Luet.

“We have the choice to follow the Oversoul or not,” said Luet, her voice coming soft and sweet, compared to Hushidh’s harsher tone. “And if we choose to follow, then we are not caught in her net, but rather carried in her basket into the future.”

Hushidh smiled wanly. “Always so cheerful, aren’t you, Lutya.”

A lull in the conversation.

If I am to be a man and a husband, I must learn to act boldly, even when I’m afraid. “Luet,” he began. Then: “Lutya.”

“Yes?” she said.

But he could not ignore Hushidh’s eyes boring into him, seeing in him things that he had no desire for her to see.

“Hushidh,” he said, “could I speak to Luet alone?”

“I have no secrets from my sister,” said Luet.

“And will that be true, even when you have a husband?” asked Nafai.

“I have no husband,” said Luet.

“But if you did, I would hope that he would be the one you shared your inmost heart with, and not your sister.”

“If I had a husband, I would hope that he would not be so cruel as to require me to abandon my sister, who is my only family in the world.”

“If you had a husband,” said Nafai, “he should love your sister as if she were his own sister. But still not as much as he loved
you,
and so you should not love your sister as much as you loved
him.”

“Not all marriages are for love,” said Luet. “Some are because one has no choice.”

The words stung him to the heart. She knew, of course—if the Oversoul had told
him
, it would certainly have told
her,
as well. And she was telling him that she didn’t love him, that she was marrying him only because the Oversoul commanded it.

“True,” said Nafai. “But that doesn’t mean that the husband and the wife can’t treat each other with gentleness and kindness, until they learn trust for each other. It doesn’t mean they can’t resolve to love each other, even if they didn’t choose the marriage freely, for themselves.”

“I hope that what you’ve said is true.”

“I promise to make it true, if you’ll promise me the same.”

Luet looked at him with a chagrined smile on her
face. “Oh. Is this how I’m to hear my husband ask me to be his wife?”

So he had done it wrong. He had offended her, perhaps hurt her, certainly disappointed her. How she must loathe the idea of being married to him. Didn’t she see that he would never have chosen to force such a thing on her? As the thought formed in his mind, he blurted it out. “The Oversoul chose us for each other, and so yes, I’m asking you to marry me, even though I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of
me?
”

“Not that you mean me any harm—you’ve saved my life, and my father’s life before that. I’m afraid—of your disdain for me. I’m afraid that I’ll always be humiliated before you and your sister, the two of you, seeing everything weak about me, looking down on me. The way you see me now.”

In all his life, Nafai had never spoken with such brutal frankness about his own fear; he had never felt so exposed and vulnerable in front of anyone. He dared not look up at her face—at their faces—for fear of seeing a look of wondrous contempt.

“Oh, Nafai, I’m sorry,” whispered Luet.

Her words came as the blow that he had most dreaded. She pitied him. She saw how weak and frightened and uncertain he was, and she felt sorry for him. And yet even in the pain of that moment of disappointment, he felt a small bright fire of joy inside. I can do this, he thought. I have shown my weakness to these strong women, and still I am myself, and alive inside, and not defeated at all.

“Nafai, I only thought of how frightened I was,” said Luet. “I never imagined that you might feel that way, too, or I would never have asked Shuya to stay here when you came to me.”

“It’s no great pleasure to
be
here, I assure you,” added Hushidh.

“It was wrong of me to make you say these things in front of Shuya,” said Luet. “And it was wrong of me to be afraid of you. I should have known that the Oversoul wouldn’t have chosen you if you weren’t a good-hearted man.”

She
was afraid of
him?