On Blue's waters

Neither will my sons, except, perhaps, for Sinew. It was very strange-I must remember to write more about this-to come to Pajarocu knowing that Sinew had been there before us. Can he have followed me from Green to the Whorl, and from the Whorl back here? Surely not. Yet stranger things have happened. I almost hope he has.

Bahar came in to tell me we have been pushed back again, nearly to the town. It was an interruption, but not enough of an interruption for me to draw the three whorls again. Or so I judge.

He is a thin and nervous-man, is Bahar. How did he get such a name, which should mean that he is fat? He combed his scraggly beard with his fingers, rolling his eyes to let me know that all is lost, the town will fall within a day or two, we men will be slaughtered like goats, our children enslaved, our women made off with. I chirped at him like a cricket, and heartened him a little, I think. Poor Bahar! What can it be like to be a good man, yet always expect bad luck, and a whorl of thieves and murderers?

I have a wife from Han, if the others haven’t killed her already. We call her Chota. The name (it is “small”) fits her.

Too cruel, maybe.

Just talking to Bahar has made me hungry. He always looks so thin and starved. I cannot remember the last time I was hungry.

Chandi was slow when I rang the bell. To punish her I told her I wanted someone else to bring my food. If only I had thought, I would have realized that she was afraid I was going to ask her to kill me. Moti will have told her, as I should have realized; they tell each other everything. At any rate, inspiration struck. Everyone has a good idea now and then, I suppose, even me. Nettle had most of ours, except for the paper.

(And yet, the paper was our one great idea.)

She wrote a clearer hand than I did, too, but hated thinking everything out in sentences and paragraphs; left to her, our book would have been nothing but summary.

Like this one. I can hear her say it.

So Chota brought in my wine and fish and fruit, the fresh and the pickled vegetables, the pilav, and the thin panbread that everyone eats here at every meal, as round and flat and sallow as her face. She remained to serve, and I soon realized that she was hungrier than I was. They have not let her eat, or kept her too upset to eat.

I made her sit beside me and scooped up some pilav for her, little balls of boiled dough mixed with chopped nuts and raisins, and made her eat it. Soon she was talking of home and begging me to keep her here with me. She told me her real name, which I have forgotten already. It means music played at shadelow.

I talked to her about the war, and said I hoped that Han would welcome her back if Gaon fell. She insists that her sister-wives would surely kill her the moment they heard I was dead, and that if they did not her own people would cut off her breasts.

What is the matter with us? How can we do such things to each other?

She is asleep now. Poor, poor child! I hope the gods send her peaceful dreams.

Bahar wanted me to sacrifice to Sphigx. Maybe I will. That might hearten our people, too.

It is a weary work, to write about everything. Briefly then, and I will sleep beside Chota.

She begged me to take her with me, so I did. She had never ridden on an elephant. Our troopers were overjoyed to see me, or at any rate they were polite enough to pretend that they were. I think they thought I was dead and that nobody would tell them. I left Chota in the long tent on the elephant’s back and borrowed a horse, and rode up and down our line, smiling and blessing them. Poor, poor spirits! Most had never handled anything more dangerous than a pitchfork. They are brave, but few have any idea what they are about. Their officers have read about Silk, just as Hari Mau and Bahar have, and that is why I am here. These poor troopers have only heard tales-fantastic tales for the most part. Yet they cheered for the one-eyed man with white hair.

We have elephants, but they will not trample our enemies. The booming of the guns frightens them, just as it does me. The elephants frighten our horses, who are not afraid of guns. What a whorl!

Elephants frighten our prisoners as well, as I soon saw. We have twenty-two, everything from grandfathers with wrinkled faces to boys who cannot yet have reached puberty. When I saw that they were afraid of my elephant, I had three of them sent up the ladder one by one, so that I could question them upon its back. Chota helped me greatly at times, explaining the customs and idioms of Han. She had brought along the pickled parsnips, pilav, and some other food; our prisoners’ mouths watered as they watched her eat. They are as hungry as she was, I think. Food is scarce, so Hari Mau has allowed them very little.

Now that I come to think of it, I was told that one had been captured only an hour or so before we got there.