David Drake - The Reformer

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The Reformer -- David Drake
ONE
The High City of Solinga had been the core of the ancient town once; first a
warlord's castle, then the seat of the city council. Three centuries ago, when
Solinga was capital of the Emerald League, several million arnkets of the
League's treasury had mysteriously found their way into a building program to
turn it into a shrine to the city's gods—to the Gray-Eyed Lady of the Stars,
first and foremost.
Money well stolen and spent, Adrian Gellert thought, as the procession mounted
the broad flight of marble stairs that led to the plateau. Right hand tucked
into the snowy folds of his robe, left hand holding the gold-capped scroll
that marked him as a Scholar of the Grove, he kept to the slow hieratic pace
suitable for a religious occasion. About him gulls swooped and shrieked;
before him stood the cream-white marble pillars, the golden roofs, the great
forty-foot statue of the Maiden holding Her bronze-tipped spear aloft to guide
the mariners home. Behind him was the tarry workaday reality of Solinga
smelling of fish and offal and sea salt, narrow crooked streets and
whitewashed walls peeling to show the mud brick, tile roofs and only
occasionally the walls and colonnades and courtyard gardens of the rich. But
here, amid the scent of incense and the light silvery tones of hand bells, was
the ideal the reality served.
We may have fallen from our forefathers' power, but this at least we can say—
that we alone gave godlike things to the gods, he thought with a melancholy
pride that edged out the anxiety and grief of his father's funeral.
The procession halted as a priest confronted them, a blue-edged fold of his
blanketlike mantle over his head like a hood. "Why do you come to this holy
place?"
"To render homage to the Goddess, in such seemly wise as is allowed to mortal
men," Adrian's uncle said, speaking as the eldest adult male of the Gellert
clan. Besides, he was paying for the ceremony. "In memory of Ektar Gellert, a
free citizen of this city, that the Maiden may judge him kindly; and in the
name of his sons, Esmond and Adrian Gellert, that She may watch over them in
the trials of life."
"Come, then, and do worship."
The procession resumed; Adrian, his brother Esmond, uncles, cousins,
grandfathers, hangers-on, with hired musicians following behind playing
double-pipes and lyres. Pilgrims and priests and citizens making sacrifice
parted before them. Their sandals scuffed across the pavement, slabs of white-
veined green marble edged with gold. They passed the Plinth of Victories, a
huge column set with the beaks of captured warships; past the black-basalt
fane of Wodep the War God, the pink and gold marble of Etat the All-Father,
and at last to the great raised rectangle of the Maiden's fane. It was a
simple affair of giant white columns, each ending in a riot of golden acanthus
leaves. The roof was copper-green tiles, and all around from pediment to
architrave ran mosaic panels done in gold glass, lapis, amber and semiprecious
stones. Some showed the Goddess giving Her gifts to men—fire, the plow, the
olive, ships, the art of writing. Others were scenes from the Five Year
Festival, the city's knights on their velipads, the Year Maidens bringing the
great embroidered shawl, the athletes naked in their iron pride.
"Follow, then," the priest said.
Hot charcoal fires burned in a pair of tall tripods of fretted bronze.
Gravely, Esmond and Adrian strode up the steps. Each took a silver bowl from
the acolytes, pouring a stream of translucent grains into the white-glowing
bed. Fragrant smoke rose, bitter and spicy.
The others drew up a fold of their mantles to cover their heads as the priest
raised his hands; the Goddess' moon was visible over the horns of the roof,
the other two moons being below the horizon at this hour. Adrian's uncle led
the sacrifice forward, a white-feathered greatbeast with four gilded horns and
a myrtle wreath around each. It came to the altar willingly enough—drugged, he
thought: no sense in courting a bad omen—and collapsed almost soundlessly as
the broadaxe flashed home with a wet, heavy thud on its neck.
Slowly, the tall ebony and silver doors of the temple slid open, rolling
soundlessly on bronze bearings. Adrian's mind reflexively murmured three
citations and an epic poem on the building of the Maiden's Temple; all of them
described the effect, and all of them inaccurately as far as he knew. The cult
image came forth on brass rails set into the marble of the pronacs floor,
gliding with oil-bath smoothness. It was hidden in a tall cedarwood and silver
shrine, emblazoned with the full moon on all sides. At a touch the sides sank
down to reveal a rock. Black, slagged and metallic-looking in spots with a
trace of rust, a metorite and very ancient.
Adrian Gellert had long since been trained in the precepts of the Grove; that
God was Number and Form, and all the lesser images merely avatars or
imaginings of men unable to conceive of the One. God did not need to Do, only
to Be—but he still felt a trace of numinous awe as he extended his hand. And
of course a gentleman showed respect for the ancient cults.
"Scholar of the Grove—"
Adrian held up the scroll in his left hand.
"Scholar of the Blade—"
His brother Esmond raised his sheathed sword.
"Receive the blessing of the Goddess, your patron."
Adrian closed his eyes and let the hand rest on the sacred rock. It was cool,
cooler than it should have been, and—
* * *
Where am I? Where am I?
He thought he screamed the words, but he had no lungs. No eyes, for surely
even the darkest night at the bottom of the silver mines of Flowerhill was
brighter than this. He was nothing but Fear, adrift in a world of midnight.
Stroke. Heart attack.
Compose yourself, he thought sharply. Remember that anything that can happen,
can happen to you. All men are initiates of the mysteries of death.
That was the comfort of philosophy, but a little hard to remember when one was
only twenty-one.
Light. He blinked . . . and saw a room around him. Furnished in an alien
style, strange padded furniture, a fire burning in an enclosed brick space in
one wall, tables and chairs of subtly foreign make. And a man standing there,
a dark man with bowl-cut black hair. Odd clothes, something like those worn in
the Western Isles, or even among the Southron barbarians; trousers, those
marks of the savage, a curious tailored coat of blue with tails dangling
behind. A curved sword and a holster with something rather like a carpenter's
tool were lying on one table.
Either I have gone mad, or something very strange has happened, Adrian
thought. He was conscious of his own terror, but it was distant, muted. He
looked down at himself, and he was there again—not in the snowy draped robe of
ceremony, but in an everyday tunic, with inkhorn and pen case slung from his
belt.
"Adrian Gellert," the oddly-dressed man said; he spoke good Emerald, with a
hint of a soft accent. "What is it that you desire?"
It was the manner of the Academy to teach with questions. He closed his lips
on his own enquiries, on the fleeting ephemeral desires of every day, on the
anxieties of his father's untimely death. That question had asked for truth.
Perhaps there was truth in the old stories of Divine intervention in the lives
of men.
"I want to know," he blurted.
The dark man nodded.
* * *
"An excellent dinner. Many thanks, Samul," Esmond said, from his couch across
the table.
Adrian nodded and murmured something. His brother-in-law Samul Mcson had been
a catch for his sister Alzabeta. A catch of sorts; the Mcson family was
important in the dye trade and had a fish-sauce works whose products were sold
by name as far away as Vanbert, the Confederacy capital. He'd never liked the
man, and the sneer on the heavy fleshy features showed the feeling was
returned. Also there was honey-glaze sauce on the front of his robe, which was
rose-colored silk from the Western Isles. Probably brought back on one of
Father's ships, he thought, smiling and nodding at his surly relative by
marriage.
The servants—Mcson retainers as well, since the Gellert retainers were
dispersed—cleared away the fruits and pastries and cheeses; the dinner had
been the traditional seven courses, from nuts to apples. Restrained, at least
by Confederacy standards; the simple tastes of the antique Emeralds only
survived in Cadet training and the Academy's dining halls. The broken meats
and scraps would be distributed at the door to the city's poor, who gathered
whenever the garlanded head of a greatbeast was hung over a door to mark a
household that had made sacrifice.
Adrian dipped water into his wine and poured a small libation on the mats set
out on the tile floor. He suppressed a stab of unphilosophic anger at his
father for dying at such an inopportune time; the business had been going well
enough, but the capital was all in goodwill, contacts and ongoing trade, and
neither of the Gellert sons were inclined to take up the shipping business to
the Western Isles. Their father wouldn't have heard of it, anyway; what had
all his ignoble labor been for, if not to buy his sons the leisure to be
scholars and athletes, gentlemen of Solinga, greatest of the Emerald cities?
But he'd died too early. By themselves the physical assets were barely enough
to cover the debts, dower their youngest sister and provide a modest but
decent living for their mother. The younger Gellerts would have to cut short
their education and find their own way in the world.
He looked around the room; two dozen guests reclining on the couches, some of
them rented for the occasion. It was the men's summer dining room, open to the
garden on one side, with old-fashioned murals of game and fish and fruit on
the walls. Scents of rose and jasmine blew in from the darkness of the
courtyard, and the sweet tinkle of water in a fountain. Most of the guests
were older men, friends or business acquaintances of his father. Esmond lay on
one elbow across from him, his mantle falling back, exposing the hard muscle
of his chest and arm, tanned to the color of old beechwood. It made the corn-
gold of his hair more vivid as it spilled down his back; a rare color for an
Emerald, and the only thing besides blue eyes he and his brother had in common
physically.
I'm weedy, in fact, Adrian thought. Short, at least, and only middling
competent in the athletic part of the two-year course of Cadet training every
well-born Solingian youth had to take when he turned eighteen. Once it had
been preparation for military service, but that had ceased to be important
long ago, in his great-grandfather's time, when the Confederacy's armies had
conquered the Emerald lands.
The servants brought in another two jugs of wine, yard-high things with double
looping handles and pointed bottoms. They splashed into the great bulbous
mixer; light from the oil lamps flickered on the cheerful feasting scene
painted across its ruddy pottery. Not much like tonight's memorial dinner; no
flute-girls or dancers or acrobats here, since it wouldn't be seemly. His
father hadn't hired such for most of his parties. These things are for men
with no conversation. He smiled slightly, remembering the deep gravel voice
and the face weathered by twenty years of sea weather and spray.
"Excuse me," he murmured. Three parts wine to one of water now, and the talk
grew louder.
The garden was warm and still, starlight and two of the moons showing the
brick pathways between beds of herbs and flowers. Not very large, only fifty
paces on a side, but tall cypress trees stood around the perimeter wall,
throwing pools of stygian blackness. The pool and fountain shone silver; he
could see the mouths and tentacles of the ornamental swimmers breaking the
surface, hoping for a few crumbs of bread as he passed. Down towards the end
of the garden was a little pergola, an archway of withes covered in a
flowering vine, with a stone seat beneath and a mask of the Goddess in Her
aspect as patron of wisdom set in the wall behind.
The most private place in the house. Outside the womens' rooms, and from the
noise coming from those, the female side of the party was getting more lively
than the mens'. He'd often come to this bench to read, meditate and think.
"If you wish to speak—if you are more than the imaginings of my mind—then
speak," he murmured.
it is not necessary to vocalize your thoughts, the cold, relentless voice in
his head replied. It felt . . . heavy, as if it were packing more meaning into
the forms than the words could properly carry. merely articulate them
internally.
He did so, not an easy task . . . but then, he'd trained himself to read
without speaking, or even moving his lips, an uncommon skill even among
scholars.
Who are you?
We, the other voice replied, the voice of the strange dark man. I am Raj
Whitehall, and my . . . companion is Center. I'm . . . I was a man, on another
world. Center is a computer.
Despite the utter strangeness, Adrian's dark brows drew together at the last
word. Computer. It wasn't one he was familiar with, but in the Scrolls of the
Lady's Prophet there was a remote cognate . . .
A daemonic spirit? he thought. Interesting. I thought those superstition. And
you are a ghost, you say?
A mental sigh. Not exactly. Let me start at the beginning. Human beings are
not native to this world . . .
An hour later he was sweating. "I . . . understand, I think," he muttered, and
looked up at the starry sky.
Other worlds, whole worlds attendant on the stars! The stars are suns! It was
more radical than even the speculations of the ancient Wisdom Lovers, the ones
who'd spent their time trying to measure the sun or the shape of the earth,
before modern philosophy turned to questions of language and virtue. The scale
of time involved staggered him; the vision of men coming to this world of
Hafardine in great ships of the aether, falling out among themselves, tumbling
down into savagery after wars fought with weapons that had eerie parallels to
the most ancient legends.
"Why?" he went on. "Why me?"
Because, lad, you're a man who wants to find out the truth of things, Raj's
voice said. This world has gotten itself on a wrong road, and we need a man to
set it right. So that, in due time, Hafardine may take its place within the
Federation of Man.
Adrian gave a shaky laugh. "Me, a world-bestrider like Nethan the Great?" he
said. "You should have picked my brother Esmond; he's the warrior in our
family, the one who burns to bring back the days of the Emerald League."
not a conqueror, the slow, heavy voice of the . . . machine? continued: a
teacher. although elements of collective violence may well be necessary to
disturb the established order on this world.
"What's wrong with the established order?" he said, curiously. "Apart from
those vulgarian bumpkins from the south ruling the Emerald lands, that is."
observe:
The world vanished, as it had in the High City by the temple of the Maiden.
Again he saw Hafardine as it had been just after the fall of the Federation's
machine civilization. Little villages of farmers scattered through the valleys
and plains of the figure-eight-shaped main continent and along the coasts of
the islands; bands of hunters in the vast forests of the mountains and the
southlands. Some of the villages grew. He gasped as he recognized the great
cities of the Emeralds in their earliest days, their rise to greatness, the
long struggle with the Lords of the Isles and the founding of the Emerald
League. His heart beat faster as he saw Solinga in the days of her glory, as
the deathless beauty of the High City rose from the dreams and hands of men.
Then the long, terrible civil wars, city against city, the League against the
Alliance. Solinga's defeat that solved nothing, and then the Confederation's
armies moving in from the south.
observe. the world as it now exists.
A view from above, first. The Confederacy's wall across the narrow waist of
the continent, separating the barbarian southlands from the land of cities and
law to the north. The estates of the Confederacy's nobles expanding across
valley and plain; Vanbert growing from a straggling shepherd's camp to a city
far vaster than any in the Emerald lands. He could sense years passing.
the maximum-probability result of a continuation of present trends.
Images . . .
. . . armies clashed, both sides in the armor and equipment of the
Confederacy. Behind them a city burned . . .
. . . a view down a street. It was the buzzing heat of noon, and nothing
moved; a fine broad paved street, arrow-straight, obviously in the
Confederacy's heartlands. A body lay in one gutter, the exposed skin purple
and swollen. Flies buzzed around it. A handcart came slowly down the pavement,
drawn by men with cloth masks around their faces and more of the swollen
bodies piled high behind them.
"Bring out your dead!" one of the men called. "Bring out your dead!"
. . . men in shabby tunics and women in drab gowns gathering as a proclamation
was read from a plinth in some anonymous farm town. The plump official droned
on, and on, some sort of edict setting prices and wages: "And the price of
leather harness for a carriage velipad shall be no more than one hundred
twenty-five New Arnkets, of which one in four shall be paid to meet the needs
of the State, in cash or kind. Sandals shall be no more than . . ."
. . . slaves worked on a hillside, dragging boxes of earth on ropes looped
over their shoulders; he could see the cheap sleazy fabric of their tunics,
hear them grunt as they tipped the earth into a deep gully that slashed across
a sloping wheatfield. It began to rain, and muddy water torrented down the cut
in the field, washing away the earth a hundred times faster than the slaves
could hope to haul it back.
. . . Vanbert itself, capital of the Confederacy and the known world. But it
was on fire, greasy black smoke rising to hide the outlines of temple and
palace and tenement block. Down one street a noblewoman ran, the silks of her
gown trailing behind her. Behind her rode a Southron, a barbarian in greasy
furs, his long yellow braids swaying with the gallop of his velipad. He leaned
sideways in the saddle, one arm out to scoop the fleeing woman up and a gap-
toothed grin on his face. A priestess' necklace of amber and gold bounced on
his bare, painted chest.
. . . Vanbert again, but it took a moment for his eyes to recognize it. Trees
covered the ruins, old trees. A few small fields stood, among log longhouses.
A woman scattered grain to chickens, and a lean bristly pig rooted along the
outskirts of a fly-buzzing midden.
Adrian gasped as the vision released him. Raj's voice spoke in his mind: Your
world is trapped in a cycle of war, empire, decline and war, he said. It could
repeat itself indefinitely, the only difference that each cycle falls further
and climbs less as the land itself becomes less fertile.
this is what you must prevent, Center's passionless tones went on. we have
waited seven hundred years for a man such as you.
"Me?" Adrian squeaked. "Why not my brother Esmond?"
this world does not require a warrior, Center said. it needs . . . wisdom.
"Philosophy?" Adrian asked, bewildered. "Rhetoric? Yes, they're the arts of
civilization, but our thinkers and speakers are the finest that have ever
lived. How can I—"
Raj cut him off. I'll explain; the concept wasn't very easy for me, either,
back on Bellevue—back on the world where I was born, he said. It's called
"technological progress."
Adrian felt a familiar excitement; it was like the first time he grasped that
this syllogism thing the lecturer was talking about meant something, or
understood just why the angles of a right-angled triangle had to add up in a
certain way—the feeling of real knowledge, like a conduit to the mind of God.
"Tell me," he whispered.
* * *
"Way!" the soldier's voice rang harsh and loud. "Make way!"
Adrian and Esmond reined their velipads to the side of the highway. It was a
Confederation road, built a century ago to nail down the Confederacy's control
of the coastal river valleys to the north. Twenty paces broad, ditched, and
paved with hexagonal blocks of volcanic rock, built to last for the ages—
Adrian had seen one undercut by a flash flood once, and it was five feet
thick. A layer of fist-sized stones in lime mortar, a layer of sand, another
of mortar with smaller rocks, then a layer of mortar and gravel, and then the
paving blocks . . .
Hobnailed sandals crashed down in unison as the battalion came down the center
of the roadway in a column of fours, legs moving like a single centipede.
There goes the thing that ended the glory of the Emerald cities, Adrian
thought. Out of the corner of his eye Adrian could see Esmond's hands
tightening on the reins, then relaxing with an effort of will, one going
forward to stroke the feathery bronze-colored scales of his mount's neck.
Their ancestors had fought in dense-packed squares, each man locking shields
with his neighbor and thrusting with the long spear. The Confederates . . .
Adrian focused on one soldier, conscious of a very slight feeling of pressure
behind his eyes, more mental than physical. Raj was taking an interest.
The trooper was a typical Confederate peasant of the central territories, a
little stockier and thicker-built than the average Emerald, a little lighter
in complexion, his face a beak-nosed harshness closed in with the long effort
of the march and wet with sweat. He wore a short-sleeved tunic of mail that
hung to his knees, with doubling patches on the shoulders; beneath it was
another tunic of scarlet wool. On his left shoulder hung a big curved oval
shield with an iron boss; on the march it was covered by a canvas sheath, with
the bearer's name and unit neatly stenciled on it. Clipped to the interior of
the shield were three short thick javelins with barbed points, each weighted
behind the point by a small lead ball. On his feet were thick-soled sandals
studded on the bottoms by iron nails, and strapped up the calves over wool
leggings. On his head was a round helmet with a shelflike projection over the
eyes, hinged cheekguards and a lobster-tail flare at the rear protecting his
neck.
A pack and rolled blanket were on his back, but beneath them rested the weapon
that had cut the proud spearmen of the Emerald cities to so much bleeding
meat. Ready to draw over the right shoulder jutted a three-foot length of
hardwood, topped with a lead ball. In the sheath hidden by the pack was the
business end, a broad two-foot blade that tapered to a razor point; in battle
the man would throw his darts in volley with his companions, then pull the
assegai free and close, shield up, blade poised for the underarm gutting
stroke. The column gave off a peculiar smell, of sweat and leather and the
olive oil rubbed on armor and weapons, a rank masculine odor.
The battalion's commander rode at the column's head beside the standard-
bearer, on a high-stepping velipad. He wore a version of classic Emerald war
gear, bronze breastplate cinched with a scarlet sash, long single-edged sword,
bronze helmet with a flaunting scarlet plume running fore-and-aft like a
cock's comb, kilt of leather strips. He rode easily, one hand on his hip,
hawk-nosed face disdainful; beside him the standard swayed, an upright hand
with gold wreaths below it to mark the unit's victories. The standard-bearer
himself wore an antique hauberk of brass scales, and his face was hidden by
the tanned head of a direbeast, eternally snarling defiance and hunger at the
world.
"Useless bastard," Esmond muttered. "It's the noncoms make the Confederacy
army what it is." He grinned suddenly; neither of the brothers had seen three
years past twenty. "Useful bastards, those are."
Adrian nodded in agreement, looking at the weathered faces beneath the
transverse helmet crests, marching along in ranks with the others.
Several centuries of collective experience there, Raj murmured at the back of
his mind, scanning the veterans' faces. A lot of stored knowledge.
"Reinforcements for the Ropen forts," Esmond said judiciously. "Islander raids
out that way, I heard."
The last rank of soldiers tramped by, followed by a few plowbeast carts and
pack-velipads; most of those were probably carrying the commander's dunnage.
Merchants, travellers, pilgrims and peasants surged back into the roadway, the
brothers with them; the travellers on foot mostly made way for the brothers,
given their gentlemen's cloaks and the loaded pack-velipad behind them. They
made way in their turn, for a courier, a noble lady in her palanquin borne by
picked slaves who could trot longer than a velipad . . . although the armed
outriders helped, there. They could smell the towns coming a fair distance
before the road arrowed through them. Not from the sewage; Confederates were
lavish builders of sewers and water systems.
"Another token," Esmond said, wrinkling his nose and glancing up.
The pole stood leaning slightly in a barren patch of sand by the side of the
road, the unevenness giving it a weird demihuman quality. The man hanging on
it was suspended twenty feet in the air; the short crosspiece ran through the
elbows of his bound hands so that his body slewed forward, twisting at the
spike that nailed his feet to the wood. A leather-winged flyer landed, hooking
onto the naked body with the small claws on its wings and the longer ones on
its legs. The long snaky neck bent and twisted as the toothed jaws poised
consideringly. When they lanced home and began to worry loose a titbit the man
awoke and began to scream weakly, unable to thrash hard enough to disturb the
feasting scavenger. His cousins had taken much of the meat off the bones of
the next half-dozen.
"Savages," Esmond muttered. "Why not an axe across the neck, if a man needs
killing?"
Adrian nodded, breathing through his mouth. "Probably to keep the rest in
order," he said.
Most of the bodies had lead plates nailed beneath, inscribed with their
crimes. RUNAWAY SLAVE was the most common, next to INCENDIARY. There were
slaves everywhere, of course, but in the heartlands of the Confederacy they
outnumbered the free men, sometimes by a considerable margin, the fruits of
centuries of conquest.
The velipads were sniffing with interest, opening both pairs of eyes and
pulling the rubbery lips back off the stubby ivory daggers of their omnivore
teeth.
"Let's keep going," Adrian said. He glanced up; the sun was about a
handsbreadth from the mountains on the west, turning their snowpeaks to blood-
red. "We can stop with father's guest-friend in Kirsford."
"Better than fighting bedbugs in an inn," Esmond agreed.
For a moment Adrian let himself envy his brother. Now, there's the picture of
a hero from the age of greatness, he thought. Chiseled straight-nosed, square-
jawed features, six feet tall, broad shoulders tapering to a flat stomach and
narrow waist, long legs, every muscle moving beneath the tanned skin like
living bronze. And he's not even stupid. Not a Scholar of the Grove, but he'd
read the chronicles of Themston on the Pelos War, and Epmon's work on the Art
of Battle. Sunny-natured, too; and the gods had stinted him nothing, making
him brave as well.
Soon Esmond was whistling through his teeth, a jaunty marching song popular
among the Cadets of Solinga; their father's guest-friend proved to set a good
table, and they set off early the next morning. The land rolled away before
them, sloping to the great central basin that held Vanbert, the largest of all
the valleys in the center of the northern lobe. Tall forests of broadspike and
oak mantled the mountains and foothills; then came the lush level lands. It
was more orderly than an Emerald countryside, lanced through with the straight
tree-lined expanses of the Confederacy's military highways and gravelled
secondary roads, every town laid out on a grid. Canals looped more gracefully,
carrying water from dams in the mountain valleys and spreading it into
irrigation channels. The fields were almost painfully green, where great
blocks of fruit trees were not flowering; Adrian looked with interest at
cherries and apples, rare on the subtropical northern coast.
No olives or citrus, he thought. Must be too cold in the winter.
Here and there a peasant cottage stood, often abandoned and falling down; on
hills some distance back from the highway he could make out the groves and
gardens of a gentleman's mansion. Four-horned greatbeasts grazed quietly in
the meadows, or pulled plows turning the rich reddish earth; herds of baaing
fleecers went clumped with shepherds and dogs guarding their brainless
vulnerability. Once they passed a field of maize that must have been a hundred
acres in a single stretch, with fifty or sixty leg-hobbled slaves weeding in
long rows.
Esmond looked and made a tsk sound between his teeth. "I'll say this, when
these Confederate magnates are rich, they're rich. How much did it take to get
into the highest voting class in Solinga, back in the old days?"
"Four hundred bushels a year, or equivalent," Adrian said, reaching up and
snatching a spray of blossom, putting it to his nose for a second before
tucking it behind one ear.
"Four hundred lousy bushels," Esmond said, shaking his head. "By the way,
you'd better not do that when we get to Vanbert."
"Why not?"
"Because only pansies wear flowers in their hair, among the Confeds," Esmond
grinned. "Pansies and girls. So unless you want to attract the attention of
some rich old Councillor—other than as a teacher of rhetoric, I mean—"
Adrian laughed and punched his brother on the arm; it was like striking a
tree. "You're the pretty one in the family," he said.
They passed the field, and rode under the arches of an aqueduct that ran over
the road as it dipped into a shallow valley. Esmond's mouth tightened again as
they glanced back along the length of it, where it disappeared into the heat-
haze.
"Arrogant bastards," he muttered.
"And you'd better learn to control your tongue, or you may lose it, in
Vanbert," Adrian said. "They don't take kindly to Emeralds who don't keep
their place."
Traffic grew steadily thicker; by the time they were within a day's travel of
Vanbert itself, they rarely managed more than a trot. Everything comes to
Vanbert, Adrian quoted to himself. Most of it prosaic: long wagon trains of
grain and jerked meat, herds on the hoof stopping traffic—one memorable half-
day spent behind a flock of waddling geese ten thousand strong—salt fish,
smoked sausage, vegetables, cheeses and butter and giant tuns of wine. Once a
fast two-wheeled carriage, with snow packed inside its sawdust-insulated box
摘要：

TheReformer--DavidDrakeONETheHighCityofSolingahadbeenthecoreoftheancienttownonce;firstawarlord'scastle,thentheseatofthecitycouncil.Threecenturiesago,whenSolingawascapitaloftheEmeraldLeague,severalmillionarnketsoftheLeague'streasuryhadmysteriouslyfoundtheirwayintoabuildingprogramtoturnitintoashrineto...

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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：168 页 大小：388.38KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-14

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