To Conquer Chaos

XI

“Of course I believe you, even if no one else does!” Idris insisted. But a little imp of doubt rode snickering on the words, and Conrad’s heart sank.

“No, you don’t,” he said. “You think this is just another of my stories. I’ve told you so many tales you think I can’t keep my life and my dreams apart any longer.”

In her eyes he could read that his guess was correct, but he had no chance to hear her confirm or deny it, for at that moment the kitchen door of the house, which she had been holding ajar while speaking to him, was snatched fully open.

“Idris!” Her mother’s bony-knuckled hand fell on the girl’s shoulder and pulled her back. “If I’d known you were talking to Conrad I wouldn’t have let you come to the door!”

Past the woman’s acid face Conrad saw the interior of the kitchen. There was a man standing there, legs astraddle on the tiled floor-tall, brawny, finely dressed, watching the scene with some curiosity.

“Now you listen to me, Idle Conrad!” the mother shrilled. “Idris doesn’t want you plaguing her any more, understand? And I don’t want you around here either-my daughter’s meant for someone better than a no-good stewer of soap! If I catch you at this door again except to fetch the ashes, I’ll lay about you with a broomstick, is that clear?”

Yes. It was all too clear to Conrad. It was clear to anyone in Lagwich who had a girl with an ambitious mother and who was not already formally betrothed. That man standing behind Idris there, with a sneer on his face, now lifting a hand to twist his fine black mustachios-that was a prize in the sight of Idris’s mother. All the mothers of the town seemed to regard the arrival of the army as a glorified marrying expedition, and there was already an unspoken competition to be the first to have a daughter pledged to one of the Duke’s soldiery.

Conrad looked at Idris. Idris looked at the Esberg soldier, at her mother, then back at Conrad, and could not meet his eyes. She lowered her gaze to the floor and her cheeks grew red.

Wordlessly, Conrad turned away, and the door was slammed behind him.

The whole universe must be conspiring against him-either that, or he was going out of his mind. He had killed the thing from the barrenland … hadn’t he? Yet when he came back there was no carcass to bear him witness-only the broken vat and the pile of ash, tossed now and scattered by the wind. They had wanted to beat him for tricking them; as it turned out, they were content to laugh, and drove him away to hide by himself and yield to unstoppable weeping.

Was his life ever going to be worth living?

He walked moodily down the streets, kicking at pebbles, dodging out of sight whenever he heard young people approaching. He saw several groups of soldiers on their way to visit with families for the day, proud, overweening, mocking this little town simply by the way they walked.

Arrogant bastards, Conrad thought bitterly. All of them, from their Duke down to the lowliest chowhand, acted as though being born in Esberg made them the next thing to gods.

Maybe it would be better to go to the barrenland-his father had wished him there often enough …

Go to the barrenland?

He stopped in mid-stride. As though the lightning of an idea had welded shut a circuit in his mind, he found himself remembering clues picked up from gossip of the past few days.

Go to the barrenland! Of course! If he was ever to shake the dust of Lagwich from his shoes, he might best do it now, while opportunity offered. The chance might never come again.

Next morning he rose very quietly so as not to disturb his father-who as usual had come home late, full of beer, and who now snored as though he might never wake. He had gone last evening to the stream and cleansed himself as thoroughly as for a harvest-day. Now he sorted out from the bag which held his entire clothing the least tattered and most presentable garments he owned; some of them dated back to his early teens and were ridiculously tight on his full-grown body, but they would have to serve.

Then he collected from its hiding-place a sack of the fine white soap which he had put away in accordance with his plan to sell soap at the army camp. The plan had come to nothing of course. The loss of two of his vats alone meant that he had no surplus to spare from the town’s requirements; moreover, since the disastrous episode of the disappearing carcass there had been some houses where he could not face calling for ash or grease-the occupants were too ready to lash him with taunts.

But this little batch of good soap wasn’t for sale. It was just evidence of his ability as a soap-maker. He wasn’t sure how to use it-maybe it would be best to march smartly up to the camp and say he wanted to give it to the Duke …

He postponed a decision. He would have to play it by ear.

When he sneaked out of the house, he sensed even through the veil of excitement and tension his decision generated that the mood of the town had changed overnight. He didn’t care any longer what became of Lagwich and its people. But-no doubt of it: something serious was wrong.

Puzzled, he made his way through the streets, more boldly as he discovered that the people up and about so far had their minds on something other than jeering at him. He cast his memory back, hunting a reason. There had been some sort of commotion during the night, he recalled vaguely-shouting in the streets and the tramping of feet-but he’d stirred, half-waking, and assumed it was merely the military police taking a drunk in charge, the sort of thing he’d heard a dozen times in the past few days.

The biggest shock, and the measure of how wrong he’d been about last night’s uproar, came when Waygan forgot to gibe at him as he passed the gate, but called to know if he was going to the army camp.

Almost, Conrad spat out the defiant answer that rose to his lips: “Yes-to join them and let Lagwich go to hell!” But he checked himself in time; it would be too easy for Waygan to remember to be rude as usual and ask what made him think the Duke would want a layabout like him.

He confined himself to a cautious nod and a heft of his sack. Then a point which he had so far overlooked struck him, and he blurted out a question.

“There are no soldiers in town this morning, are there?”

Frowning, staring towards where wisps of smoke indicated the camp-site, Waygan confirmed the suggestion. “Something’s gone amiss, and I’d dearly like to know what it is. First they come clamoring in the middle of the night and call all their men back to camp-now this morning they turn away with insults everyone who goes to peddle goods. … I’m beginning to think they weren’t so friendly disposed after all.”

He waved Conrad out of the gate. Heart thumping, the youth complied. So they were turning trade away today! It wasn’t possible that he’d delayed too long-was it? He wouldn’t be able to stand it if, after finally summoning the courage to make a break with Lagwich, it turned out his chance was gone!

It cost him all his self-control to keep from hurrying until he was out of Waygan’s sight. Then he burst into a frantic run.

The camp was an impressive change for so short a time to have wrought in the local landscape. Palisaded all around, with a ditch and a rampart, with gates knocked together from lengths of wood carried by the soldiers and tents set up orderly by streets inside, it was three times the size of Lagwich. Conrad rested his sack and stared, his mouth going dry. How in the world was he to find the-the gall to march in and demand to be recruited?

“Hey, you!” A sharp voice rang out behind him. Conrad spun to find two outpost guards with levelled guns coming towards him.

“What are you doing here, boy?” snapped the taller.

Conrad swallowed hard and tried to make his garb of miscellaneous castoffs look dignified. He said, “I’m the best soapmaker in Lagwich. I’m tired of the place and I want to join the Duke’s army.”

“He wants to join it-hear that?” Guffawing, the shorter guard elbowed his companion in the ribs. “Makes a change, doesn’t it? Well, he can have my place any time he asks!”

“Shut up!” the tall one snapped. Addressing Conrad again, and emphasizing his words with waves of his gun-muzzle, he said, “Listen, boy-you picked a bad day. You take that sack right back to the town and be grateful you’re near home.”

Finding a moment’s worth of boldness deep inside him, Conrad stood his ground. He said, “What’s wrong? Has something bad happened at the camp?”

The guards exchanged glances. After a pause, the shorter one said, “No business of yours, boy. And you’re lucky, like my friend told you. Now get on your way.”

Still Conrad hesitated. The tall guard lost patience and barked at him. “Move, or you’ll never move again!”

So something was very wrong indeed. Slowly Conrad raised his sack to his shoulder, sick with disappointment. He moved away as the guards directed, but not back towards Lagwich-vaguely in the direction of the soap-vats. He wouldn’t be able to face returning to the town till he’d digested the bitter pill of this setback.

Suddenly there was a shrill and distant blast on a horn, and he tensed, taking it for Waygan’s danger signal. But the sound hadn’t come from Lagwich-there was a man dimly visible at the nearest gate of the camp, blowing on a shiny metal bugle. The noise made Conrad’s scalp prickle.

But at least it got rid of the two outpost guards. At the first note they had shouldered their guns and headed incontinently for the camp.

At the sight of their retreating backs, Conrad felt a fresh stiffening of his resolution. Was he to let a couple of chance-encountered soldiers undo all his hopes? Not in a lifetime! He was going to stay out here in sight of the camp, watching and waiting for things to return to normal, then seize a favourable opening to get the ear of-of Yanderman, perhaps, who would remember him from their first meeting. Of course: that was the way to get a hearing. He should have thought of it at once.

He looked about for a convenient vantage point from which he could keep an eye on events, and settled in the shade of a tree on top of a rise not far away. Peering down, he could make out that there was some turmoil in the camp-men going and coming, officers shouting orders so fiercely that their voices, though not their words, drifted up to him.

Vindictively he hoped that whatever was going on the man with the black mustachios whom he’d seen in Idris’s kitchen was right in line for the biggest trouble. Then he made a moody correction. He didn’t care about the man with mustachios. He didn’t care about Idris, either, or anyone else in Lagwich. He was through with them for good and all.

For a long while-at least an hour-nothing much happened down at the camp. The shouted orders ceased; judging by the red and black formation of banners in the centre of the camp-site there was some sort of parade or review in progress. It was distinctly uninteresting to gaze at it from this distance, so Conrad let his attention stray to the sun-hot glimmer of the barrenland stretching over the horizon.

Go to the barrenland …? Was it true that it was the purpose of Duke Paul’s venture to march into the barrenland and empty it of terror? Conrad shivered as he considered that consequence of his decision. Now if the barrenland were as he could picture it in his visions-green and pleasant, full of friendly smiling people in gaudy clothes who commanded such powers as one might only dream of …

His mind drifted off in the familiar half-delightful, half-terrifying manner to which he had been accustomed since childhood, conjuring up the spectacle of an impossible world.

It was only the sudden crackle of gunfire that brought him back to the present. With a start, he swung to look at the camp again. The orderly ranked banners had vanished. From near where they had been a thick column of greasy black smoke was swelling into the air. Shrieks mingled with the shots. The sun glinted on bright metal as on broken water. Gasping, Conrad jumped to his feet.

And the nearest gate of the camp flung open to release a flood of shouting men on the countryside-a mob, less organised than ants whose nest has been disturbed, heedless of their officers, their arms, anything.

Was this the stuff of which Duke Paul’s army was made? Conrad stared in horror, while in the wake of the fleeing men flames leapt up randomly to consume the neat rows of tents.