Waterborn

Perkar was readying a sarcastic reply when he realized his brother was not talking about Kapaka the head bull, but Kapaka, the High Chief of the nine valleys. Kapaka, the king.

'Oh,' he said, to himself more than to his brother. He looked helplessly back toward the damakuta, two pastures and a forest away.

'Hop on up,' Henyi said, smiling. 'But don't complain about the lack of a saddle.'

Perkar nodded and climbed up behind the boy. Ten years old, he had his mother's auburn hair and the same eagle nose that Perkar had gotten from Sherye, though Henyi's was still snubbed short by youth.

The powerful muscles beneath Perkar bunched and played, and then they were running, the pasture rolling beneath them.

The Kapaka. What might be want? Perkar's stomach felt tight.

 

 

'You've grown, Perkar,' the old man acknowledged after the formal greetings were over. He accepted the first cup of woti and saluted them with it before raising it to his own lips. The Kapaka was perhaps sixty years old, perhaps a little more. His face was seamed and brown, rough with time and beard stubble. Even seated he was clearly a head shorter than Father, which made him half a head shorter than Perkar, who sat on the floor; one should be facing up when addressing a chief.

'Yes, I remember a stripling, covered in mud. But I suppose those days are past. You've become a man now.'

Perkar's father clapped Perkar on the shoulder. 'That he has. One of the best sword arms I've seen, and he can work all day without letup.'

'Good, good. It's good to see a boy grow up straight.' The Kapaka took another sip of his woti, carefully inhaling the warm vapors as he did so. 'Now,' he said as he set the cup back down. 'Sherye, let me ask about your cattle…'

Perkar found his attention wandering. His father and the Kapaka would compare their Piraku, neither boasting but each careful to list all of his assets. It was a game men played but one that—of course—Perkar had no part in. Rather than listening to the exchange, he instead let his gaze wander curiously over to the handful of men who had accompanied the chief from his home at Morawta.

Like the king, they seemed ordinary enough—in dress, anyway. The four of them sat together at the far end of the hall, their greetings exchanged. They were conversing in low whispers. One was about Perkar's height, heavier, with tangled black hair and a fierce smile; his hands gestured expansively. Next to him in the circle was a fellow that Perkar had met before, if only briefly: Eruka something or other, a member of the rather small Kushuta clan. He was almost skeletally lean, hollow-cheeked, with hair the color of dried hay. Perkar seemed to remember he was a singer, of sorts. The third man was older than the other two, who were not much older than Perkar. His seamed face and gray-shot red hair suggested someone about the age of Perkar's father, perhaps thirty-five or forty. He wore his hair oddly; rather than cropped at the ears, he let it grow long and braided—like a woman. Other than that, however, he did not resemble a woman in the least.

The fourth person in the company was truly eye-catching. He seemed to be speaking the least, holding a bit aloof from the others, watching their conversation with large, black eyes. His hair was white, white as a cloud, shoulder length and tied back in a tail. This had the unfortunate effect of emphasizing his forehead—what there was of it. His head sloped back sharply from rather thick brows, beneath which his eyes crouched watchful in deep sockets. His mouth was wide, expressive. If he grinned his head would probably split into two pieces. To Perkar this did not seem a real danger: This man looked as if he never smiled. If man he was. In fact, he more resembled—

Suddenly those black eyes were focused on him, twin tunnels empty of any clear emotion. In an instant Perkar felt himself discovered, dissected. This man was used to being stared at and at returning better than he got. Perkar tried to hold that gaze for a moment, but it was too cold, too unearthly. Embarrassed and with the beginnings of anger, he twitched his eyes away, turning his attention—or at least his regard—back to the Kapaka and his father.

Perkar missed the shift in conversation, but when he realized what the Kapaka was talking about, his attention became absolute.

'… That's why I think we need some new territory. Did you know that Anawal's son over there put together a raid against my brother? Of course they didn't accomplish much, but someone could have been killed. Too many sons, Sherye, too little land. Soon they'll be going down to join the Mang out on the plains.'

Perkar's father nodded. 'Maybe. But it's been a long time since land was added to the Domain.'

'I know. I was thinking about an expedition, Sherye.'

'Against the Mang?'

'Oh, no. We tried that a few years ago, remember? How many good men did we lose?'

'I suppose it cut down on the number of landless men, though,' Perkar interjected, hoping to be clever.

'Yes, well, one of those men it cut down on was my son,' the Kapaka returned. His tone was light, an old grief admirably well hidden.

'I… I apologize, Kapaka. I spoke rudely and without thought.'

The old man shrugged. 'What else should the young do? No, it's all right, friend. But I don't foresee going to war against the Mang again anytime soon. Too many fathers lost sons at the battle of Ngatakuta, and my powers of persuasion are limited.' He smiled. 'The best chief is the one who never tells his people to do anything they do not already want to do.'

Perkar nodded. His mind was racing ahead, though, to the obvious conclusion. It was as if his frustration, his conversation with Angata earlier that day were both just two of a set of ripples, moving outward from where a stone had plunged into deep water. Now the ripples had come to the edge of the pool and were beginning to come together, bunch up, as if discussing the stone that made them, or perhaps the hand that threw it.

Could she have some part in this? he wondered. But it seemed unlikely. Since his manhood she had only twice come from the water to love him, and she always turned the conversation away from important matters.

'The thing is this, Perkar—this is why I had your father send for you. These men over here are going with me up into the mountains, into Balat, the old forest. I want to bargain with the Forest Lord for a few more parcels of land.'

'The Forest Lord? Balati? Why not just bargain with the local spirits, the ones who live right there?'

The Kapaka raised his hands. 'We've tried that, but like us, the gods in the land obey their High Chief. He has commanded his people not to give out more territory without his leave. There is also a further complication: Between our own lands and Balat there is a buffer zone of some few leagues; after that are the vast, vast countries of the Alwat. We must bargain to take land away from them, you see.'

'Why should that be so difficult?' Perkar asked, a bit of scorn in his voice. 'The Alwat are naked creatures, without Piraku. Why should they have the land over us?' Perkar had heard young men say this before—he assumed it was a general sentiment. But the Kapaka frowned at this and Sherye looked a little embarrassed.

'Because their claim is a thousand, thousand times as old as your people's,' a quiet, almost whispery voice said from next to Perkar's ear. He jumped: How could anyone move so silently?

It was the strange man, the white-hair.

The Kapaka cleared his throat. 'Perkar, this is Ngangata, from the west country. Probably the most valuable member of our expedition.'

'You're an—' Perkar blurted, then stopped himself.

'My father was Alwa,' Ngangata confirmed. 'I have no clan.'

Perkar nodded, wondering what that could mean, having no clan. Surely it made a man mean, hateful. To be feared.

Perkar would rather confront fear than back away from it. His eyes narrowed as he considered some insult he might give, to get it over with, to unsheath swords, if that was what it would come to. In his own home, this creature had made him to seem foolish.

'Perkar.'

It was his father. It was his father, reminding him that this clanless halfling had the king's regard. It was his father reminding him that sometimes one did not seem foolish but instead