They left the women to their work. Boaz stum-bled several times as he returned to the headman’s hut and his bottle of whiskey. Basil left him with the lamp and returned in the fire-lit night to his hut.
A man was waiting for him in the shadows. “Boaz is still drunk.”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“Major Joab of the Imperial Infantry at your service.”
“Well, major?”
“It has been like this since the Emperor’s death.”
“Boaz?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see the Emperor die?”
“I am a soldier. It is not for me to meddle with high politics. I am a soldier without a master.”
“There is duty due to a master, even when he is dead.”
“Do I understand you?”
“Tomorrow we take down the body of Seth to be burned at Moshu among his people. He should rejoin the great Amurath and the spirits of his father like a king and a fine man. Can he meet them unashamed if his servants forget their duty while his body is still with them?”
“I understand you.”
After midnight the rain fell. The men round the fire carried a burning brand into one of the huts and lit a fire there. Great drops sizzled and spat among the deserted emben; they changed from yel-low to red and then to black.
Heavy patter of rain on the thatched roofs, quick-ening to an even blurr of sound.
A piercing, womanish cry, that mounted, soared shivering, quavered and merged in the splash and gurgle of the water.
“Major Joab of the Imperial Infantry at your service. Boaz is dead.”
“Peace be on your house.”
Next day they carried the body of the Emperor to Moshu. Basil rode at the head of the procession. The others followed on foot. The body, sewn in skins, was strapped to a pole and carried on the shoulders of two guardsmen. Twice during the journey they slipped and their burden fell in the soft mud of the jungle path. Basil sent on a runner to the Chief saying: “Assemble your people, kill your best meat and prepare a feast in the manner of your people. I am bringing a great chief among you.”
But the news preceded him and tribesmen came out to greet them on the way and conduct them with music to Moshu. The wise men of the surrounding villages danced in the mud in front of Basil’s camel, wearing livery of the highest solemnity, leopards’ feet and snake-skins, necklets of lions’ teeth, shrivelled bodies of toads and bats, and towering masks of painted leather and wood. The women daubed their hair with ochre and clay in the fashion of the people.
Moshu was a royal city; the chief market and government centre of the Wanda country. It was ditched round and enclosed by high ramparts. Arab slavers had settled there a century ago and built streets of two-storied, lightless houses; square, with flat roofs on rubble walls washed over with lime and red earth. Among them stood circular Wanda huts of mud and thatched grass. A permanent artisan population lived there, blacksmiths, jewellers, leather workers, ministering to the needs of the scattered jungle people. There were several merchants in a good way of business with barns storing grain, oil, spices and salt, and a few Indians trading in hardware and coloured cottons, products of the looms of Europe and Japan.
A pyre had been heaped up, of dry logs and straw, six-foot high, in the market place. A large crowd was already assembled there and in another quarter a communal kitchen had been improvised where great cook pots rested over crackling sticks. Earthenware jars of fermented cocoanut sap stood ready to be broached when the proper moment arrived.
The feast began late in the afternoon. Basil and Joab sat among the chiefs and headmen. The wise men danced round the pyre, shaking their strings of charms and amulets, wagging their tufted rumps and uttering cries of ecstasy. They carried little knives and cut themselves as they capered round. Meanwhile Seth’s body was bundled on to the fag-gots and a tin of oil sluiced over it.
“It is usual for the highest man present to speak some praise of the dead.’
Basil nodded and in the circle of fuzzy heads rose to declaim Seth’s funeral oration. It was no more candid than most royal obituaries. It was what was required. “Chiefs and tribesmen of the Wanda,” he said, speaking with confident fluency in the Wanda tongue of which he had acquired a fair knowledge during his stay in Azania. “Peace be among you. I bring the body of the Great Chief, who has gone to rejoin Amurath and the spirits of his glorious ancestors. It is right for us to remember Seth. He was a great Emperor and all the peoples of the world vied with each other to do him homage. In his own island, among the peoples of Sakuyu and the Arabs, across the great waters to the mainland, far beyond in the cold lands of the North, Seth’s name was a name of terror. Seyid rose against him and is no more. Achon also. They are gone before him to prepare suitable lodging among the fields of his ancestors. Thousands fell by his right hand. The words of his mouth were like thunder in the hills. Weep, women of Azania, for your royal lover is torn from your arms. His virility was inexhaustible, his progeny numerous beyond human computation. His staff was a grown palm tree. Weep, warriors of Azania. When he led you to battle there was no retreating. In council the most guileful, in justice the most terrible, Seth the magnificent is dead.”
The bards caught phrases from the lament and sang them. The wise men ran whooping among the spectators carrying torches. Soon the pyre was enveloped in towering flames. The people took up the song and swayed on their haunches, chanting. The bundle on the crest bubbled and spluttered like fresh pine until the skin cerements burst open and revealed briefly in the heart of the furnace the in-candescent corpse of the Emperor. Then there was a subsidence among the timbers and it disappeared from view.
Soon after sunset the flames declined and it was necessary to refuel them. Many of the tribesmen had joined the dance of the witches. With hands on each other’s hips they made a chain round the pyre, shuffling their feet and heaving their shoulders, spasmodically throwing back their heads and baying like wild beasts.
