The Carpet People (7 page)

"Did they win?"

"No."

"You see? Fools," said Bane.

"I'm sorry," said Brocando.

"You needn't be. It was only one of a number of disagreements I had with the Emperor," said Bane.

Snibril took each of them by the shoulder. "Anyway," he said, "just because you're sworn enemies doesn't mean you can't be friends, does it?"

When they were having the evening meal Glurk said to his wife: "He's very gracious. Asked all about me. I've met a king. He's very important. He's called Protocol, I think."

"Good name. Sounds royal," she said. "And Pismire's a philosopher, he says."

"I never knew that. What's a philosopher?"

"Someone who thinks, he says," said Glurk.

"Well, you think. I've often seen you sitting and thinking."

"I don't always think," said Glurk conscientiously. "Sometimes I just sits."

He sighed. "Anyway, it's not just thinking. You've got to be able to talk about it entertainingly afterwards."

The people turned west. It was a cheerful journey to Jeopard, with Brocando riding by the leading cart. They were going somewhere that only a fool would attack.

Many of the Munrungs were frankly in awe of the small king, but Glurk was fast becoming an uncritical royalist. Brocando sensed his respectful audience, and chatted to him in that special way royalty has for commoners, which leaves the commoner feeling really cheered up without actually remembering very much about what was said to him.

Snibril jogged along on the other side of the cart, listening with half an ear for any signs of Fray and half to the Deftmene's chatter. "And then in the north wing of the palace my ancestor, Broc, built a temple to Kone the Founder. It took the wights seven years, carving pillars of varnish and wood and laying the great mosaic of the Carpet for Broc. We're still paying them for it. The walls were set with jet and salt, the altar of red wood inlaid with bronze. Really that was the centre of the present palace, which was built by my great-grandfather, the Seventh Broc, who added the Wood Gate when he was made king. And I mustn't forget the treasure rooms. I think there's at least nine. And only the reigning king may enter. Tarma the Woodcarver himself made the Crown. Seven pointy bits, with salt crystals on each one."

"We had a rug in our hut," said Glurk.

And so it went on, Glurk eagerly following the Deftmene through the treasury and the armoury, the banqueting halls and the guest bedrooms, while the carts got nearer and nearer to Jeopard.

Gradually the Carpet changed colour again, from red to deep purple and then dark blue. They camped under blue hairs, hunted the small shelled creatures that dwelt in dust holes, and wondered if Jeopard was as good as Brocando made out because if it was, it looked as though they'd better stop eating and drinking right now so as to leave room for the feasts they were going to have.

The track began to turn into a road, not a great white road like the Dumii built, but a neatly laid track of thick planks on a bank of dust. On either side the hairs grew thinner, and Snibril noticed many stumps. That was not all. No Munrung ever planted a seed. They liked vegetables when they could get them, and knew what grew where and which hairs dropped seeds that could be eaten, but except for Pismire's private herb garden everything that grew around them grew wild. The reason was quite obvious, to a Munrung: if you planted something you had to stop and watch it grow, fight off the animals and any hungry neighbour that happened to be passing, and generally spend your time, as Glurk put it, hanging around. Vegetables to a Munrung were something to give the meat a bit of a special taste.

But in the blue land of Jabonya, around the little city of Jeopard, the Deftmenes had turned the Carpet into a garden. There were hairs there that even Pismire had not seen before, not the great sturdy trunks that crowded the rest of the Carpet, but delicate stems, their branches laden with fruit. Dust had been carefully banked up beneath them to make soil for all sorts of shrubs and vegetables. The travellers were shown ripe purple groads, that tasted of pepper and ginger, and big Master Mushrooms that could be dried and stored for years and still kept their delicate flavour. Even the track had been raised above the gardens, and small shrublike hairs grew along its border in a low hedge. It was an ordered land.

"I never noticed that it looked like this," said Bane.

"It certainly looks better without Dumii armies camped on it," said Brocando.

"The men under my command were always instructed to treat the country with respect."

"Others were less respectful."

"Where are the people?" asked Glurk. "I'll grant you that a nice baked root goes down well, but all this didn't grow by being whistled at. You're always having to hang about poking at the ground, when you're a farmer."

There were no people. The fruit hung heavy in the bushes along the roadside, but there were none to pick it, except the Munrung children, who did it very well. But there was no-one else.

Snibril took up his spear. This was like hunting. You learned about the different kinds of silence.

There was the silence made by something frightened, in fear of its life. There was the silence made by small creatures, being still. There was the silence made by big creatures, waiting to pounce on small creatures. Sometimes there was the silence made by no-one being there. And there was a very sharp, hot kind of silence made by someone there-watching.

Bane had drawn his sword. Snibril thought: soldiers learn about silences, too.

They looked at one another.

"Shall we leave the carts here?" said Snibril.

"Safer to stick together. Don't divide forces unnecessarily. First rule of tactics."

The carts moved on, slowly, with everyone watching the hairs.

"The bushes just up on the right there," Bane said, without moving his head.

"I think so, too," said Snibril.

"They're in there watching us."

"Just one, I think," said Snibril.

"I could put a spear into it from here, no trouble," said Glurk.

"No. We might want to ask it questions afterwards," said Bane. "We'll circle around it on either side."

Snibril crept towards the bush around one side of a hair. He could see it moving slightly. Bane was on the other side of it and Glurk, who could walk very quietly for such a big man, appeared as if by some kind of magic in front of it, with his spear raised.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

"Yeah."

Bane took hold of a dust frond, and tugged.

A small child looked up at three trembling blades.

"Um," it said.

And ten minutes later ...

A small group of Deftmenes were labouring in the vegetable lines between the hairs. They did not look happy or, for that matter, very well-fed. Several guards were watching them. Even from here, Snibril could see the long snouts.

Among the hairs was Jeopard itself.

It was built on a piece of grit. The actual city was a cluster of buildings at the very top; a spiral roadway wound several times around the grit between the city and the floor. It had a gate at the bottom, but that was just for show. No-one could have got up that road if the people at the top didn't want them to.

There was a movement in the dust, and Glurk crawled up beside Snibril.

"The boy was right. There's mouls and snargs everywhere," he said. "The whole place is crawling with them."

"They've got the city?" said Snibril.

Glurk nodded. "That's what comes of running around looking for treasure when he ought to have been at home, reigning," he said, disapprovingly.

"Come on," said Snibril. "Let's get back to the camp."

The carts had been dragged into the undergrowth some way off, and people were on guard.

Pismire, Bane and Brocando were sitting in a semi-circle, watching the little boy drinking soup. He had a bottomless capacity for food but, in between mouthfuls, he'd answer Brocando's questions in a very small voice.

"My own brother!" growled Brocando, as the others slipped into the camp. "But if you can't trust your own family, who can you trust? Turn my back for a few days-"

"A year," said Bane.

"-and he calls himself king! I never did like Antiroc. Always skulking and muttering and not keen on sports."

"But how did mouls get into the city?" said Snibril.

"He let them in! Tell the man, Strephon!"

The boy was about seven years old, and looked terrified.

"I ... I ... they were ... everyone fought ... " he stuttered.

"Come on! Come on! Out with it, lad!"

"I think," said Bane, "that perhaps you ought to wander off for a minute or two, perhaps? He might find it easier to talk."

"I am his king!"

"That's what I mean. When they're standing right in front of you, kings are a kind of speech impediment. If you'd just, oh, go and inspect the guard or something ... ?"

Brocando grumbled about this, but wandered off with Glurk and Snibril.

"Huh. Brothers!" he muttered. "Nothing but trouble, eh? Plotting and skulking and hanging around and usurping."

Glurk felt he had to show solidarity with the unofficial association of older brothers.

"Snibril never kept his room tidy, I know that," he said.

When they got back Strephon was wearing Bane's helmet and looking a lot more cheerful. Bane sent him off with an instruction to do something dangerous.

"If you want it in grown-up language," he said, "your brother took over the throne when you didn't come back. He wasn't very popular. There was quite a lot of fighting. So when a pack of mouls arrived one day-he invited them in."

"He wouldn't!" said Brocando.

"He thought he could hire them as mercenaries, to fight for him. Well, they fought all right. They say he's still king, although no-one has seen him. The mouls do all the ruling. A lot of people ran away. The rest are slaves, more or less. Quarrying grit. Forced labour in the fields. That sort of thing."

"The mouls don't look as if they'd be interested in vegetables," said Snibril.

"They eat meat."

Pismire had been sitting against one of the cartwheels, wrapped in the blanket; travel was not agreeing with him. They'd almost forgotten about him.

His words sunk in like rocks. In fact it wasn't the words themselves that were disturbing. Everyone ate meat. But he gave the word a particular edge that suggested, not ordinary meat ...

Brocando went white.

"Do you mean-?"

"They eat animals," said Pismire, looking more miserable than Snibril had ever seen him before. "Unfortunately, they consider everything that's not a moul is an animal. Um. I don't know how to say this ... do you know what the word 'moul' means in moul language? Hmm? It means ... True Human Beings."

This sunk in, too.

"We'll attack tonight," said Brocando. "No-one's eating my subjects."

"Er," said Glurk.

"Oh yes," said Bane. "Yes, indeed. Fine. Five thousand soldiers couldn't attack Jeopard."

"That's true," said Brocando. "So we-"

"Er," said Glurk.

"Yes?" said Brocando.

The chieftain appeared to have something on his mind. "I've heard one or two references just recently to 'we'," he said. "I just want to get this sorted out? No offence. As a reward for rescuing you, we're now going to attack this city that no amount of Dumii soldiers could capture and fight a lot of mouls? You want my tribe, which hasn't got a home now, to save your city for you, even though this is impossible? Have I got it right, yes?"

"Good man!" said Brocando, "I knew we could depend on you! I shall need half a dozen stouthearted men!"

"I think I can let you have one astonished one," said Glurk.

"We've got to help," said Snibril. "Everyone's too tired to run away. Anyway, what will happen if we don't? Sooner or later we've got to fight these things. It might as well be here."

"Outnumbered!" said Bane. "And you're not soldiers!"

"No," said Glurk. "We're hunters."

"Well done!" said Brocando.

Glurk nudged Snibril. "Have we just volunteered for practically certain death?" he said.

"I think we may have, yes."

"This kinging is amazing," said Glurk. "If we get out of this, I think I'm going to try to learn it."

Night came. A blue badger, hunting early, nearly blundered into the line of would-be invaders and waddled off hurriedly.

There was a whispered argument going on among the Deftmenes. Some of them wanted to sing as they went into battle, which was a tradition. Brocando kept pointing out that they were going into battle secretly, but one or two diehard traditionalists were holding out for the right to sing peaceful songs, which would-they said-totally confuse the enemy. In the end Brocando won by playing the king, and threatening to have everyone who disagreed with him put to death. Glurk was impressed.

When it began to seem to Snibril that the dark Carpet had no ending they reached the road again and, ahead of them, torches burning along its walls, was the city of Jeopard.

The wights built Jeopard. They brought red wood and sparkling varnish from achairleg to pave its streets; from the Hearthlands they led great caravans of the rare jet, to be made into domes and cornices, and cinder and ash for bricks and mortar; at the distant High Gate Land of the Vortgorns they traded their varnish wares for beaten bronze, for doors and pillars; salt and sugar, in great white crystals, were dragged between the hairs by teams of sweating horses, for walls and roofs. And they brought different coloured hairs from all parts of the Carpet. Some became planks and rafters, but most they planted around the city.

Everywhere there were gardens. In the evening light it looked peaceful, but they had to lie low twice when moul cavalry went past on the road.