“He says he’s never seen anybody with skin like iron on the soles of his feet,” said Zhem. “He says your name should not be Rider, for he sees no callouses on your buttocks. It should be Ironfoot.”
“So you two want to join the Foreign Legion and fight for the glory of Kaywo and the Pwez Lezpet?” he said. “What crimes have you committed that you had to flee your native countries?”
Zhem told him the story of his capture by Benoni, though he neglected to mention that his war party had murdered a farmer and his family. He explained also the reasons for Benoni’s presence here.
“A strange tale,” said the captain. “A suspicious tale. If it were not for his ironshod feet, I might doubt it. However, we’ll see. You two will be conducted to the capital where the Usspika might be interested in your story. He had ordered that anybody from the unknown lands be taken to him. I do not know why, nor am I supposed to know.”
He then gave orders for the two to surrender their arms. Tomorrow, they would start their journey, under escort, to the capital. There, they could begin their training as rookies in the Foreign Legion. If they could qualify as worthy fighting men, they would be sworn. If they did not, they would be sold as slaves. If they misbehaved, their heads might be cut off and placed on poles.
Benoni did not understand the full meaning of the last remark. Next day, after he was put into a cage on a wagon, and the wagon drove along the smooth highway with its great slabs of stone, he understood. On both sides of the road, spaced every twenty feet, were ten-foot high wooden poles. A human head, in varying stages of rottenness, or a skull, topped every pole. Ravens flew around them or sat on the pates and picked off shreds of flesh. Along every one of the hundred miles to the capital, the skulls grinned and the heads stared emptily. Most of the heads were those of black men.
“The Fifth Army brought back thousands of captives when it defeated the invading barbarians of Juju,” said one of the prisoners sitting beside Benoni. “Many were sold, but over half were beheaded. We couldn’t afford to have so many savages working for us. If they revolted, they might cause us much trouble. We remember the slave revolt of six years ago.”
The prisoner added, proudly, “Kaywo is mighty indeed, wild-men. While the First, Second and Fourth Armies stormed Senglwi, the Fifth defeated the Juju in the south. And the Third hunted down and destroyed the Hayo River pirates.”
Fascinated and awed, Benoni watched the display of the might of Kaywo for a long while. Then, as the wagon rolled on, he began to notice the countryscape. The farms were becoming more numerous and closer together. The structure of the farmhouses and the barns remained fundamentally the same: very steep double roofs, no windows on the first story, narrow windows on the second story, a three or four-story narrow round stone tower, built for lookout purposes, near to every house. And, in every front yard, a twenty-foot high wooden totem pole on which were carved animal and human faces. Every pole was topped by the double-headed wolf, the patron beast of Kaywo.
He began to see more villages. These were always surrounded by high stone or wooden walls with many watchtowers. Every now and then he saw a small fort of stone on top of a hill; these, he was to find out, belonged to the kefl’wiy, the aristocrats. The kefl’wiy and their families and soldiers and their families lived in these.
The road followed the contour of the Great River, called Siy by the Kaywo. There were hundreds of boats, some military, most commercial, on the Siy. A few were sailing craft, but the majority were propelled by oars pulled by men.
Benoni talked, as well as he could, to the other occupants of the wagon. These were criminals going to the courts of the capital, where they would either be sentenced to serve in the galleys or mines or would be placed in a special work-battalion in the army.
By the time they reached the capital city, Benoni could speak Kaywo with fifty per cent efficiency, as long as the conversation stayed on a simple level.
On the evening of the fourth day, the wagon rolled through the famous Gate of Lions. Benoni stared at the towering limestone block statues of bearded lions guarding the gates, which were a hundred feet high.
“Dhu wya,” he said to the man who sat next to him. “ Those lions. Are they just figures of imagination? Or do lions with beards really exist?”
“Zhe,” said the man. “Yes. I have seen them. They are like the lions of the great plains to the west except that they are smaller and have short dark-red beards, both male and female. There are some in the woods to the north, between Kaywo and Skego. But there are many in the forests of the east.”
Benoni continued to look wide-eyed at the broad streets, the buildings reaching as high as six stories, the crowds he had never seen in such numbers even during the Truce Market in Fiiniks.
The wagon went down the two-hundred yard wide Avenue of Victory and entered the Circle of the Wolf. This lay in the heart of the city; in the middle of the Circle was a thirty-foot high pedestal topped by four granite statues. These represented the legendary founders of Kaywo: the giant man Rafa and his mate, the double-headed timber wolf Biycha, and their twin sons, Kay and Wo.
According to the Kaywo religion, the she-wolf had given birth to a two-headed infant. After Kaywo had reached manhood, he fought the arch-enemy of mankind, Lu, the giant cannibal from the Northern Seas. Lu had split Kaywo with his sword and left him for dead. But their mother Biycha, had restored them to life. Now two individuals, they fought Lu again and killed him and buried him on the very spot where the statue was. Then they built the city of Kaywo, prophesying before they died that Kaywo, though small then, would some day grow big enough to rule the world.
Around the Circle of the Wolf were the Pwez Paleh (the President’s Palace), the Temple of the First (a colossal flat-topped pyramid), and many governmental buildings. A mile past the Circle, the wagon stopped at the entrance to the Kaywo Legions. Here, Benoni and Zhem were taken into a barracks. They were put in the care of a tough sergeant charged with shaping the “wild-men” into disciplined soldiers.
Benoni had expected to be called before the usspika (the Speaker of the House of Kefl’wiy) at once. But weeks went past, and he was busy from sunrise to sunset with drill, arms instruction, indoctrination, parade, weapons-cleaning and sharpening. There was, however, no kitchen duty. Slaves performed that menial task.
The days were getting shorter, and the nights were colder. Benoni asked Zhem about the winters. He knew what intense cold and high snows meant. As part of the toughening every Fiiniks youth went through, he had spent several winters in the mountains to the far northwest of Fiiniks. But he had not liked it, and the prospect of being sent off to garrison duty in some remote snowbound forest made him wonder if he should not desert now. How could he serve Fiiniks by doing such duty?
Zhem replied that, when he was a very little boy, he had been told by his grandfather that winter had once been very cold and snowy. But they had been getting warmer for a long time now. If the increasingly temperate weather kept on getting more temperate, a man would not be able to tell when summer left off and winter began.
Oh, Benoni would see some snow, and he would freeze his buttocks off at night on maneuvers. But it was not too bad.
A few weeks after this conversation, the recruits were given a weekend pass. Before they were released from the walls surrounding the Legion Grounds, their sergeant, Giyfa, told them exactly what they could and could not do. Specific about their limitations, Giyfa was even more detailed about what would happen to them if they strayed outside the proper area and behavior of a rookie wild-man on leave. Punishment, varying according to the degree of offense, ranged from a light flogging of ten strokes of the lash to beheading. However, it was better to lose one’s head than be roasted slowly over a fire. And so on.
Giyfa advised that, if they had to find a release for their cooped-up spirits, they should not stray outside the Funah section of the riverfront. This area, inhabited mainly by the very poor, sailors, resident foreign merchants, traders, and ex-sla
ves, was more tolerant of wild-men’s actions. Moreover, a crime committed there was not as grave as one elsewhere. Provided, of course, that no Kaywo citizen of reasonable wealth or standing was offended or injured.
“You think Giyfa meant all that?” said Benoni to Zhem as they left the barracks.
“I hope we never find out,” replied Zhem. “You know what a mean man he is with a whip. He could take every inch of your skin off with ten strokes.”
Benoni looked at the pay in hand. Twenty new hexagonal steel coins. Stamped on one side with the eagle profile of the late Pwez of Kaywo and on the other with the two-headed wolf and the rayed eye of Kaywo’s god, the First. “We can’t do much with this,” Benoni said.
“When we run out, we can always take some from a drunk,” said Zhem. “Catch him in some dark alley.”
Benoni said, “Be thieves?”
“You don’t mind robbing an enemy, do you?”
“But we are guests,” said Benoni. “In a way, that is. You don’t rob your hosts.”
“We are prisoners,” replied Zhem. “It’s true we’re willing prisoners; how else could we visit Kaywo? If we had told the border guards we just wanted to see Kaywo, we would have been arrested. No, we may be serving this country, but this country is the enemy of my people and yours. Don’t you ever forget it. When Kaywo has conquered Skego, Kaywo will look to the south for new conquests. And when the south is laid low, Kaywo will conquer your desert country, if she thinks it worthwhile.”
“What you say is undoubtedly true. But as long as I take Kaywo’s pay, I serve her,” said Benoni. “And that means that I will not be a thief.”
Zhem shrugged and said, “You have some peculiar ideas, Ironfoot. But you are my elder blood-brother. And if you say that we do not rob, then we do not rob. But that means we do not have much fun.”
“What is your idea of fun?”
“The beer of my people is good,” said Zhem. “But I understand that the beer of Kaywo is even better, and they have something called vey, made from grapes, that is sweet and makes your head spin. And they also have, so I’ve heard a much stronger drink called vhiyshiy. Half a bottle of that, and a man thinks he is a god.”
“I have never tasted any of those,” said Benoni. “We do have a drink called kiyluh. The Mek call it takil. And we have another, puk. But these are drunk only during religious ceremonies and then only by men. I am forbidden to touch any such stuff until I have returned to Fiiniks with a scalp at my belt.”
“You said something about beer once.”
“We get that from the Mek during Truce Market,” said Benoni. “But I have noticed that men who drink beer get short-winded and fat-bellied. That isn’t for me.”
Zhem threw his hands up in the air and rolled his eyes.
“Gehsuk! Then there is nothing left for you but women! Not that that is bad, but you don’t have enough money to buy more than one woman for one hour—if that!”
Benoni turned red, and he said, “When I was confirmed, I swore an oath of chastity to Jehovah. I would not think of betraying my god.”
Zhem goggled at Benoni as if he were a monster. “But, but, your god is a long distance off!”
“He can see everything,” replied Benoni. “And even if he could not, I have given my oath.”
Zhem burst into loud laughter and slapped his thigh again and again. After he had controlled himself, he said, “You mean every youth in your country remains a virgin until he takes a wife? Every one?”
“There are some who break their oath with a slave-girl,” said Benoni, thinking of some stories he had heard about Joel and others. “But if they’re caught, they’re whipped. And they must take wives from among the freed slaves, for honorable fathers would never allow their daughters to marry such men. And . . .”
“Tell me no more, blood-brother,” said Zhem. “You frighten me. Your people must be inhuman! To ask hot-blooded youths to deny their natures!”
“It is what our god asked of us,” said Benoni stiffly.
“Your souls must be as hard as the soles of your feet,” said Zhem, and he laughed again. “Well, never mind, let’s go to the Funah. But you must not ask me to obey the strange laws of your strange god. Or,” he said anxiously, “would I dishonor my blood-brother by following the ways of my people?”
“When you mingled your blood with mine, you swore only to fight for me, as I swore to fight for you,” said Benoni. “You may do what you wish. After all, I wouldn’t ask you not to eat a certain food because I am forbidden to.”
They were silent for a while after, too intent on watching the buildings and the people in the streets. By noon, they had walked to the Funah district. Here they found the variety of dress and speech even more exotic than in the citizen’s section of town. Within the space of a block, they heard three languages, not a word of which they recognized; saw men wearing high-piled turbans, masks over the eyes, and long beards; saw others wearing helmets with bull horns and clothed in skins; saw women with rings in their noses, and one man whose face was covered with blue, green, and red tattoos.
“Kaywo sits at the meeting of two great rivers,” said Zhem. “The Father of the Waters, which runs from the north to the south and cuts the world in half. And the Hayo, which runs from the east to the west and cuts the world in half until it joins the Msibi. Far to the east are two great nations: the Iykwa and the Jinya. These are too far away for the Kaywo to make war against. That is, as of now they are. But they use the Hayo to send their trade goods to this nation. And even the Skego, who are at war with Kaywo, use the L’wan River and the Msibi to trade with Kaywo. The Skego dominate the Miys Sea, and the other Northern Seas are ruled by the Skanava.”
Zhem pointed at a tall, broad-shouldered man with a long red beard and a bullhorn-helmet.
“A Skanava. They say his people came over the great river far to the east about two hundred years ago and over-ran the Kanuk in the North. They speak a tongue such as you never heard before. Some say the river they crossed is even wider than the Msibi, but that I do not believe. Everyone knows that the Msibi is the Father of the Waters and that all other rivers are his little children.”
Near the riverfront, the two saw a building with a sign hanging over the door. On the board was a crudely painted image of a creature half-cock and half-bull.
“Any time you see that kabuh,” said Zhem, “you know you’re standing in front of a tavern. Let’s go.”
Benoni, feeling very self-conscious, and also somewhat guilty, followed Zhem into the tavern. He went down a flight of six steps and found himself in a low-beamed room about fifty by seventy feet wide. Coming in from the bright sunlight, he could not, at first, see very well. The room had only two small windows, and, though several lamps burned on a table in the middle of the room, the light was overcome by the thick clouds of tobacco smoke.
Benoni sniffed these and the strong odor of beer and liquor, and he said, “This place stinks.”
“Smells good to me,” said Zhem. He went to the bar and placed one of his coins on the counter and bought five cigars. Then, he spent another coin to buy a stone mug filled with dark beer.
Benoni turned down the cigar offered by Zhem. Zhem shrugged and lifted the heavy mug and drank. And drank. His Adam’s apple rose and fell, rose and fell. Not until the huge mug was half emptied did he lower it to the bar. And he belched loudly.
“At that rate, you’ll spend all your money before the sun quarters the west,” said Benoni.
“Can’t be helped. I built a giant thirst while we were in the barracks. Let’s sit down. Get waited on by one of these pretty girls.”
Benoni did not think the girls were so pretty. They were too old, there could not have been one under twenty-six, and their big flabby breasts and bulging stomachs told of too many tipped mugs. He felt a pang, then, thinking of the beautiful face, clear eyes, and trim figure of Debra Awvrez.
Zhem, who must have seen Benoni’s grimace, said, “Drink some of this. They’ll all start lo
oking like queens, then.”
Benoni shook his head and wondered if he would have to sit here all day and possibly half the night. He would have no fun doing this. He wanted to get outside, where he could breathe and walk around, see the wonders of this metropolis. Also, find out the weak spots in its defenses, just in case the Eyzonuh ever did storm Kaywo. It was a fantastic idea, he had to admit, but he had seen so many strange things since leaving Fiiniks.
At least, he could eat. He called over a waitress and tried to give her an order. But she asked him if he wanted to go upstairs before ordering anything, and he suddenly was unable to remember the words for the dish he had intended to order.
Zhem, seeing Benoni’s red face, laughed and then told the woman they would like to eat.
Benoni felt like walking out. Not only because he was disgusted but also because he felt that Zhem was laughing at him and that, perhaps, Zhem doubted his manhood. But he stayed. If he deserted Zhem, he might be thought a coward.
Within a few minutes, the waitress placed before him a wooden bowl containing steak, fried potatoes, and a salad of lettuce, tomatoes, and onions. Benoni’s mouth watered, and he began to cut the thick meat. But he never got the tender juicy piece into his mouth. As he raised it on the end of a two-pronged fork, he heard a voice behind him. A loud voice, speaking Kaywo with a barbarous accent.
“Joel!” said Benoni, and he dropped the fork into the bowl.
He rose from the stool, turned, and saw Joel standing at the foot of the steps. Joel was blinking, his eyes unaccustomed as yet to the twilight. He wore the bobcat skin vest and the helmet fashioned to look like a bobcat’s head, so that Benoni knew that Joel was a sworn-in soldier of the wild-man Feykhunt (Five Hundred). His scabbard was empty, for nobody was allowed to carry weapons inside the city walls unless he was a soldier on duty or a member of the kefl’wiy. His companions, four wild-men, stood by him, also blinking.
Benoni, growling, unable to articulate, charged Joel. Out of the twilight and the tobacco smoke, he charged, and he caught Joel around the throat with his two hands, and Joel fell backwards against the stone steps.