Audiences: Prolog

Audiences: Prolog, A Glutted Audience

“It is time!” The announcement made heads swivel all over camp. When they saw who had made it, all of the adults and half the adolescents stood up and began gathering their possessions. The remaining adolescents and all of the children turned their attention back to the foreigner seated by himself at one end of the firepit. There was no doubt about his status, even without seeing his face, it was clear from his clothing. While everyone else wore heavy wool robes decorated with a few simple shapes in dark colors, he wore a light tunic with pale blue and yellow stripes and big puffy pantaloons all bright purple with red and gold lacy edging. He had raked together a small mound of rocks which raised him just a little higher than the licking flames; to the others it seemed as if he were rising out of them. It was just one of the many little ways he had of making himself seem mysterious and special. Mysterious? Certainly. But special? How could he be special, he was not a rinker.

The woman who had made the announcement was not here to admire the stranger’s clever positioning. She brandished her sword, it was the huge, back curved, split ended kind the rinkers called a flying pennant, and dragged it side on through the fire, scattering chunks of burning wood everywhere. “Has someone forgotten their discipline?” she roared. The malingerers hurried to comply. In a moment, all clothing was fully tied and secured. Everything else they had was stowed in a pocket or saddlebag. Food leavings were thrown into the latrine trench, which was then filled with tufts of grass. The fire was covered but not extinguished, in case someone else might be able to make use of it. Twenty two people headed for the horses, taking their longest and lightest steps. The last two walked backward, smoothing out their traces.

Three remained. Three rinkers, that is. And the foreigner.

“It is time”. the woman repeated. “Ty-mee fo’ whad?” the stranger asked. He spoke broken rinker in order to seem less threatening; he could be perfectly clear when he wanted to. He also pretended to understand far less than he did, but he knew exactly what she meant.

“It is time for us to go”, she said. “The clan will leave our current grounds and set up home elsewhere. You will not follow us.” He looked distressed. “Oh no, Froo-nee-yat, whad hafe I done? I thoud me stories was at least moderately pleashing…”

“I am a kuum, not a froonyat!” she snapped, irritated that this— stone dweller— couldn’t seem to understand ranks and titles. “And your stories have held some interest. But they are not our stories. They are like the sweets that your traders bring, which give delight for a time, but do not nourish us as our plain meats do. And too much indulgence makes the eater sick. We have enjoyed your stories but now we stop before you give us stomachaches of the words!” She spun around and left. One of the others, a small child, followed, dutifully erasing both their tracks.

The foreigner looked at the remaining rinker. “Ah, Seltheen Eeyunk, joy of my heart! At last you have come to see me alone. Dare I hope that you will finally show me what treasure you hide beneath your coverings? Besides all those weapons, I mean.” She laughed. “Alas, Yar, you must seek your treasure elsewhere. I am not one of those great warriors who can have two men in her tent at once.” “So, you say I am as good as two ordinary men, huh?” “I say you are as wide as two ordinary men. And heavier.”

Yar sighed. “Sadly, that is true. Unlike your wise kuum, I seldom recognize when it is time to move away from the sweets. So it is to be goodbye then, without the thirst of love slacked? I will try to control my tears, dear heart. Just let me leave you with one last ballad.” He slipped off the leather case that hung on his back and began to untie the thongs. She put out a hand to stop him. “You can sing your syrupy songs of desire on the road. I am going with you. No, stop! Seriously, I have long thought of seeing the lands to the north, and you seem to know them well. You can be my guide, and I will be your bodyguard.

“I understand”, said Yar. “I shall continue to enjoy your intoxicating company, if not your body. But if you intend to come with me all the way, you should know that it’s going to be a long journey. I will be visiting most, perhaps all, of the lands of the Empire.” “Good”, she replied. “I have never been to the Empire, it will be useful to know something of the enemy.”

Yar bent down and pretended to adjust a bootlace so that she wouldn’t see him smile. The rinkers liked to pretend that the Empire was still an unknown foreign entity some distance away, that the nildrer people who ruled it were just another group of overfed city folk. Their soft living weakened their bodies, their book learning weakened their common sense, and their buildings weakened their connection to the natural world. Yes, yes, and their elaborate music weakened their appreciation of the sound of birdsong. He heard many versions of the same endless litany. Sometimes he’d make up his own complaints just for fun. Reciting reasons to feel superior to the nildrer, or any other people, was a traditional rinker pastime.

In rinker popular history, which was mainly oral, was the memory of a small battle, more like a large skirmish, actually, in which a rinker force had been defeated by an imperial one. It had happened in the hill country north of the Rinks, when another group of settled (and therefore inferior) people had asked for imperial help against rinker raids. The aid was successful. However this only emphasized rinker superiority, since the nildrer had had a ten to one numerical superiority and had used dirty tricks. Even then, it had been a near thing. So the rinkers had retreated grudgingly, while inflicting great losses on the enemy, and had kept their honor intact.

Later, a truce had been arranged, and the nildrer, chastened by the high cost of their victory, had promised never to bring their troops close to the Rinks again. In a magnanimous gesture, the rinker leaders had offered to stop raiding in exchange for payment. This was accepted and that is why, when traders came in from the Empire, they always gave tribute to the rinker leaders before doing business. They referred to it as `gifts’ in order to save face, of course.

Yar knew the truth. The battle had been a total rout. The nildrer had had superior numbers and guile, that was true, but also superior tactics, intelligence, and magic. And it had been no small skirmish and no attempted raid. This had been a full scale punitive expedition involving all the tribes. And every tribe had taken serious losses. It was the rinker elders who were saving face by referring to gifts from traders as `tribute’, when such gifts were mere the common practice of traders who needed approval from local authority. No, no tribute involved. Indeed so far from collecting tribute, the rinkers were actually paying taxes. Because the truth was that the Rinks had become part of the Empire, not through military action, but through more subtle forms of conquest. And now, as the traders and other foreigners moved deeper and deeper into rinker territory, bringing new ideas into rinker consciousness, they were strengthening the tiny threads of that conquest, threads that added up to unbreakable bonds.

But if the rinkers wanted to act as if they were the winners and still independent, let them. The nildrer didn’t care about saving face, they cared about pragmatic results. And those included one undeniable fact: the rinkers no longer attacked their neighbors. Tribes still raided each other and the clans within each tribe occasionally jostled over territory but that was it. Those who wanted more would have to join the imperial forces and fight under nildrer direction. Or go somewhere else and become a mercenary. Increasingly, more and more rinkers were becoming personal guards, a profession that allowed them to show off their skills while incurring less risk than actual warfare.

Yar straightened up, his face all businesslike. “Well then” he said briskly, it is time for us to leave as well. “So away we go! On to further adventurers and hungrier audiences.”