The Carpet People Page 12

  ‘Plan?’ said Careus. ‘I don’t know. I just fight. Fought all my life. Always been a soldier. All I know is what the messenger said ... all the legions are going back to Ware.’

  ‘All fifteen?’ said Snibril. He rubbed his head. It was feeling . . . sort of squashed . . .

  The sergeant looked surprised. ‘Fifteen? We haven’t got fifteen. Oh, yes. We’re called the Fifteenth. But a lot got disbanded. No need for ’em, see? Hardly anyone left to fight. It’s like that, empiring. One day you’re fighting everyone, next day everyone’s settled down and being lawful and you don’t hardly need soldiers.’

  ‘So how many are there?’ said Snibril.

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Three legions? How many people is that?’

  ‘About three thousand men.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  Careus shrugged. ‘Less than that now, I reckon. All scattered around, too.’

  ‘But that’s not enough to—’ Snibril stopped, and then raised his hands slowly to his head. ‘Tell everyone to lie down,’ he muttered. ‘Put out their fires and lie down!’

  One or two horses started to whinny in the picket lines.

  ‘Why?’ said the sergeant. ‘What’s the—’

  ‘And they must be ready to fight!’ said Snibril. His head felt as though someone was treading on it. He could hardly think. Somewhere in the hairs, an animal screeched.

  Careus was looking at him as if he was ill. ‘What’s the—’ he began.

  ‘Please! Can’t explain! Do it now!’

  Careus ran off. He could hear him shouting orders to the corporals. The Deftmenes and Munrungs didn’t need telling twice.

  A moment later, Fray struck.

  It was away to the south . . . not far. The pressure built up so that even the Dumii could feel it. The hairs bowed, and then whipped furiously as a wind blew clouds of dust through the Carpet. The soldiers who hadn’t been quick enough to follow orders were picked up and bowled over and over in the dust.

  And then there was the thump.

  Afterwards, there was that long, crowded pause in which everyone decides that although they are very shaken, and possibly upside down, they are, to their surprise, still alive.

  Careus crawled around until he found his helmet under a bush and then, still not standing up, shuffled over to Snibril.

  ‘You felt it coming,’ he said. ‘Even before the animals!’

  ‘The mouls can, too,’ said Snibril. ‘And they’re better at it than me! They don’t summon Fray! They can sense when it’s going to happen! And then they attack afterwards, when everyone’s shaken—’

  He and Careus looked around at the hairs.

  ‘To arms, everyone!’ the sergeant yelled.

  A Deftmene raised his hand. ‘What does that mean?’ he said. ‘We’ve all got two arms.’

  ‘Means you’ve got to fight!’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  It was only seconds later that the mouls attacked. But seconds were enough. A hundred of them galloped into what should have been a camp of bewildered, wounded and unprepared victims. They found instead bewildered, wounded and extremely well-prepared and moreover enraged fighters.

  They were surprised. But their surprise didn’t last long. It was, very accurately, the surprise of their life.

  The moul attack changed things. Deftmenes and Dumii had always fought, but never on the same side. It’s hard to feel so bad about someone when last night he was stopping other people hitting you with axes and things.

  The little army swung down the road to Ware, singing. Admittedly there were three different marching songs, all to different tunes, but the general effect was quite harmonious if you didn’t mind not being able to make out any of the words.

  ‘The lads sing one about me sometimes,’ said the sergeant. ‘It’s got seven verses. Some of them are very rude, and one of them is actually impossible. I have to pretend not to hear it. Have you noticed the wights ran away in the night?’

  ‘Not ran away,’ said Snibril. ‘I don’t think they’ve run away. That doesn’t sound like them. I think . . . they’ve decided to do something else.’

  ‘They went into a huddle after the fight,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘Perhaps they’ve got a plan—’ Snibril began.

  He stopped.

  They had been passing through the area that had been right under Fray. Hairs were bent and twisted. And over the road was an arch. Had been an arch.

  There were some dead soldiers nearby, and one dead moul.

  The legion spread out in silence, watching the hairs. A squad was sent off to bury the dead.

  ‘That could have been us, without you,’ said Careus. ‘How much warning do you get?’

  ‘A minute or two, that’s all,’ said Snibril. ‘Perhaps a bit longer if it’s quiet.’

  ‘What does it feel like?’

  ‘Like someone’s treading on my head! What is this place?’

  ‘One of the gates to the Ware lands. The city’s further on.’

  ‘I’ve always wondered what it looked like,’ said Snibril.

  ‘Me too,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘You mean you’ve never seen it?’ said Snibril.

  ‘No. Born in a garrison town, see. Done all my soldiering around and about. Never been to Ware. Heard it’s very impressive, though. A nice place to visit,’ said Careus. ‘We should be there in a few hours.’

  ‘Ware!’ said Snibril.

  Chapter 18

  Ware had been built between and round five giant hairs. There were really three cities, ringed one inside the other. Inside the thick outer walls was Imperial Ware, a city of wide avenues paved with wood and salt, lined with statues, a city of impressive vistas and magnificent buildings, and at every turn monuments to old battles and glorious victories and even one or two defeats of the more glorious sort.

  Few people actually lived in Imperial Ware, except a few caretakers and gardeners and dozens of sculptors. It was a city for looking at, not living in.

  Outside it, separated by a wall of sharpened hair stakes, was Merchants’ Ware, the city most people thought of as the real city. Normally its narrow streets were crowded with stalls, and people from all over the Carpet. They’d all be trying to cheat one another in that open-and-above-board way known as ‘doing business’. All sorts of languages could be heard, often very loudly. Ware was where people came to trade.

  The Dumii had built their Empire with swords, but they kept it with money. They’d invented money. Before money, people had bought things with cows and pigs, which were not very efficient for the purpose because you had to feed them and keep them safe all the time and sometimes they died. And suddenly the Dumii turned up with this money stuff, which was small and easy to keep and you could hide it in a sock under the mattress, which hardly ever worked with cows and pigs. And it could be cows or pigs. Also, it had little pictures of Emperors and things on it, which were interesting to look at. At least, more interesting than cows and pigs.

  And, Pismire had once said, that was how the Dumii kept their Empire. Because once you started using Dumii money, which was so easy and convenient and didn’t moo all night, you started saving up for things, and selling things in the nearest market town, and settling down, and not hitting neighbouring tribes as often as you used to. And you could buy things in the markets that you’d never seen before – coloured cloth, and different kinds of fruit, and books. Pretty soon, you were doing things the Dumii way, because it made life better. Oh, you went on about how much better life was in the old days, before there was all this money and peacefulness around, and how much more enjoyable things were when people used to get heavily-armed in the evenings and go out and make their own entertainment – but no one was anxious actually to go back there.

  ‘Economic imperialism!’ Pismire had once said, picking up a handful of coins. ‘A marvellous idea. So neat and simple. Once you set it going, it works all by itself. You see, it’s the Emperor who guarantees that the money
will buy you things. Every time someone hands over or accepts one of these coins, it’s a little soldier defending the Empire. Amazing!’

  No one understood a word of what he meant, but they could see he thought it was important.

  And then, off to one side of the bustling city, was a tiny walled enclosure, about the size of a village.

  This was Ware. The first Ware. The little village where the Dumii had begun. No one really knew how, or why Destiny had picked this one little tribe and then wound them up like a big rubber band and sent them out to conquer the world. Hardly anyone went into old Ware these days. Probably it’d soon be pulled down, to make room for some more statues.

  Snibril didn’t see Old Ware until much later. He saw the walls of the city, stretching away on either side. He could see the glint of armour on the walls, too, as the sentries marched sedately along. Everything looked peaceful, as if something like Fray had never existed.

  Careus took off his helmet and surreptitiously gave it a bit of a polish. ‘There could be trouble if we try to take the Deftmenes in,’ he whispered to Snibril.

  ‘Not could,’ Snibril agreed. ‘Would.’

  ‘So we’ll camp outside for now. You better come on in with me.’

  Snibril scanned the walls. ‘It’s all so quiet and peaceful,’ he said. ‘I thought there’d be a war! Why were you called back?’

  ‘That’s what I’m here to find out,’ said Careus. He spat on his hand and tried to flatten his hair a bit. ‘Something’s not right,’ he said. ‘You know how you can sense when there’s going to be an attack by Fray?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m the same way about trouble. Which is what there’s going to be. I can feel it. Come on.’

  Snibril rode after the sergeant through the streets. It looked normal. At least, it looked as he thought it’d probably look if things were normal. It was like Tregon Marus, only bigger. Much bigger. He tried to keep up, among the crowds that filled the streets, and tried to look as if it was all familiar.

  Whenever he’d thought of Ware, when he was younger, he’d imagined a kind of glow around it. It was the way people spoke about it. He imagined Ware as all kinds of strange places, but he’d never imagined this – that it was simply a much bigger version of an ordinary town, with more people and statues.

  Careus led him to a barracks just outside the Imperial city, and eventually they reached a table, out in the open air, at which a skinny little Dumii was sitting behind a pile of papers. Messengers kept picking up some from the table, but others kept on bringing new ones. He looked harassed.

  ‘Yes?’ he demanded.

  ‘I am—’ the sergeant began.

  ‘I don’t know, people barge in here, I expect you haven’t even got any papers, have you? No? Of course you haven’t.’ The little man shuffled his own papers irritably. ‘They expect me to keep track, how can I keep track, is this how you’re supposed to run an army? Well, come on, name and rank, name and rank ...’

  The sergeant raised his hand. For a moment Snibril thought he was going to hit the skinny man, but instead it turned into a salute.

  ‘Sergeant Careus, Fifteenth Legion,’ he said. ‘We’re outside the city, those of us who are left. Do you understand? I’m seeking permission to come into the barracks. We’ve fought—’

  ‘Fifteenth Legion, Fifteenth Legion,’ said the skinny man, shuffling through the papers.

  ‘We were summoned back,’ said Careus. ‘There was a messenger. Return at once to Ware. We had to fight most of—’

  ‘There have been a lot of changes,’ said the paper shuffler.

  There was a tone in his voice that affected Snibril almost as much as the approach of Fray.

  ‘What sort of changes?’ he said quickly. The man looked at him.

  ‘Who’s this?’ he said suspiciously. ‘Looks a bit . . . native to me.’

  ‘Look,’ said Careus patiently. ‘We’ve come all the way back because—’

  ‘Oh, this Fray business,’ said the skinny man. ‘All sorted out. There’s been a treaty.’

  ‘A treaty? With Fray?’ said Snibril.

  ‘A peace treaty with the mouls, of course. Don’t you know anything?’

  Snibril opened his mouth. Careus gripped his arm.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, loudly and distinctly. ‘Well. Isn’t that nice. We won’t disturb you further. Come, Snibril.’

  ‘But—!’

  ‘I’m sure this gentleman has got some very important things to do with his paper,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ said Snibril, as the sergeant hurried him out.

  ‘Because if we want to find out things, we won’t find ’em out by making that clerk eat all his little bits of paper,’ said Careus. ‘Well spy around for a while, get the lie of the land, find out what’s going on – and maybe later on we can come back and make him eat all his bits of paper.’

  ‘I haven’t even seen many other soldiers!’ said Snibril.

  ‘Just a few guards,’ agreed Careus, as they hurried out into the street.

  ‘The other legions can’t have got here yet,’ said Snibril.

  ‘Do you think they will?’ said Careus.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We met you and the little people. If we hadn’t, I don’t think we would have made it,’ said Careus gloomily.

  ‘You mean . . . we’re all there is?’

  ‘Could be.’

  And we’re less than a thousand of us, Snibril thought. How can you have a peace treaty with mouls? They just destroy things. How could they be here, making treaties?

  *

  The army camped out among the hairs. As one of the Deftmenes said, it was hard to feel at ease surrounded by enemies, especially when they were on your own side. But at least he grinned when he said it.

  It was while groups of them picked up firewood among the hairs that they found the pones.

  There were a dozen of them. Pones could hide quite easily in the Carpet. They were so big. People think that it’s easiest to hide things that are small, but it’s almost as easy to hide things that are too big to see. The pones just looked like mounds, except that they were chewing the cud and burping occasionally. They all turned their heads to look at their discoverers, burped, and then looked away.

  They looked as if they’d been told to wait for someone.

  The sign outside the shop said Apothecary, which meant that the shop was owned by a sort of early chemist, who would give you herbs and things until you got better or at least stopped getting any worse.

  The apothecary’s name was Owlglass. He hummed to himself as he worked in his back room. He’d found a new type of blue fluff, which he was grinding down. It was probably good for curing something. He’d have to try it out on people until he found out what.

  A hand touched him on the shoulder.

  ‘Hmm?’ he said.

  He turned around. He peered over the top of his spectacles, which were made out of two circles of carefully-shaped varnish.

  ‘Pismire?’ he said.

  ‘Keep your voice down! We came in the back way,’ said Pismire

  ‘My word, I expect you did,’ said Owlglass. ‘Don’t worry, there’s no one in the shop.’ He looked past the old man, to Glurk and Bane and Brocando. ‘My word,’ he said again. ‘After all this time, eh? Well . . . welcome. My house is your house.’ His brow suddenly furrowed and he looked worried. ‘Although only in a metaphorical sense, you understand, because I would not, much as I always admired your straightforward approach, and indeed your forthright stance, actually give you my house, it being the only house I have, and therefore the term is being extended in an, as it were, gratuitous fashion—’

  Owlglass was clearly having some trouble getting to the end of the sentence. Glurk tapped Pismire on the shoulder.

  ‘He’s a philosopher too, is he?’ he said.

  ‘You can tell, can’t you,’ said Pismire. ‘Um, Owlglass . . . thanks very much.’

  The
apothecary gave up the struggle, and smiled.

  ‘We need some food,’ said Pismire. ‘And most of all—’

  ‘—we want information,’ said Bane. ‘What’s happening here?’

  ‘Which would you like first?’ said Owlglass.

  ‘Food,’ said Glurk. The others glared at him. ‘Well, I thought he was looking at me when he asked,’ he said.

  ‘Make yourself at home,’ said Owlglass. ‘Although of course when I say home I don’t precisely mean—‘

  ‘Yes, yes, thank you very much,’ said Pismire. Owlglass bustled over to a cupboard. Glurk stared at the jars and pots that littered the back room. In some of the jars, things stared back.

  ‘Owlglass and I went to school together,’ said Pismire. ‘And then Owlglass decided he was going to study the Carpet. What it’s made of. The properties of different kinds of hair. Rare and strange animals. That sort of thing.’

  ‘And Pismire decided he was going to study people,’ said Owlglass, producing a loaf and some butter. ‘And got sentenced to death for calling the last Emperor a . . . a . . . what was it now?’

  ‘Well, he deserved it,’ said Pismire. ‘He wouldn’t give me any money to preserve the Library. All the books were crumbling. I was supposed to look after the Library, after all. It’s knowledge. He said we didn’t need a lot of old books, we knew all we needed to know. I was just trying to make the point that a civilization needs books if there’s going to be a reasoned and well-informed exchange of views.’

  ‘I was trying to remember what you called him.’

  ‘An ignorant sybarite who didn’t have the sense of a meat pie,’ said Pismire.

  ‘Sounds pretty nasty, sentencing someone to death just for that,’ said Glurk, putting the loaf on his plate. He kept turning around to look at the jar behind him. It had something hairy in it.

  ‘Actually, he got sentenced to death for apologizing,’ said Owlglass.

  ‘How can you be sentenced to death for apologizing?’

  ‘He said he was sorry, but on reflection he realized that the Emperor had got the sense of a meat pie,’ said Owlglass. ‘He was running at the time, too.’