Someone gently touched Duke’s shoulder.
‘Hey, my friend. Wake up.’
Surprised that he had dozed off after all, he opened his eyes and saw his father standing before him, with a thick grey forelock and luxuriant moustaches, dressed in a grey tunic. But Duke had never seen his father in his life. He had to open his eyes again and wake properly. Now First Mate Rigard stood over him. He handed Duke a packet and told him to ride to the municipal offices in Vasilkov. Seeing the jack staring dully at him, he ruffled his hair and caught him by the nose.
‘Come on, my friend. You’ve had a little sleep; that’ll do. Take a ride to Vasilkov, clear your head. We’ll sleep tomorrow.’
Only now did Duke wake completely. A tide of vigour swept through him; his head cleared and everything fell into place. He shook his forelock, tucked the letter inside his tunic, jumped up and strode briskly across the deck. Gorvat called him over, pushed money into his pocket and told him to stop at Kochetov’s shop on the way back, just outside town, for five bottles of the local juniper vodka. Time to shave the rough edges off and drink to their brothers. Gella asked for two packets of long Bonna-Chakka cigarettes and a small bottle of cherry liqueur. By rykar standards Gella hardly drank at all. Gorvat drank heavily even for a rykar, though he despised tobacco vodka and called the pure spirit so plentiful aboard the ark ‘disinfectant’.
Duke climbed into the seat of his new cadaver. The past few days had proved Allegro excellent in action: economical in its movements, obedient and so calm under fire as to be indifferent. That same brutish indifference had allowed it to accept a new master and forget the old one before he was even dead, while he still called from his stretcher to say goodbye. Evidently his voice had already been too weak to command so proud a beast. Remembering this, Duke wholeheartedly gave the cadaver a long, powerful discharge and barked cheerfully:
‘Get moving!’
Allegro sprang smartly forward.
‘I won’t stand on ceremony with you, you brute.’
In the west, the thunderstorm rumbled closer, heaving its dark-blue body. After fifteen minutes of swift hoof-flight along the empty road, Duke was halfway to Vasilkov, in a tunnel of blue wilderness closed above his head: the protected grove where urns containing the ashes of Stavrian godkin lay among the roots and hollows of sacred spruces. Before the war, on Saturdays and Sundays, the road would be lined with cars, and from the thickets came many-voiced memorial songs and the smell of sacrificial meat roasting over fragrant spruce cones. Now there was only a solitary rider, the foreknowledge of a storm, and a list of dead men inside his tunic.
Duke rode out of the sacred grove straight towards the Crematorium. Its chimneys smoked as never before, lifting impenetrably black columns of human smoke into the sky. A line of lorries stood at the rear gates, unloading human-sized sacks on stretchers. At the entrance a priest in a tall hat swung a censer and sang the Heavenly Receptions in a tired voice. A loader emerged through the gates carrying red-hot urns and tipped them onto a heap of other cooling urns. Around them professional mourning women worked hoarsely and monotonously, wringing their hands without expression and keening wearily.
Duke rode down from the Crematorium into Vasilkov. In spring and early summer, between seasons, the town was always neat and empty, awaiting the rykar weeks of remembrance. From July to September, oratai, gentlemen and lords in black would gather in the Crematorium’s baths and dining halls. Later, towards October, the rykars of the Stavrian, Polonna and Povet regiments returned from the Expanse with their fallen comrades’ ashes. They brought the velvet season to an end with devastating drunkenness at funeral rites and memorial feasts. At the winter solstice holidays the two waves, oratai and rykar, merged and mingled in the carnival whirlpool of the winter Turning. But this year the ancient pattern had been broken.
Riding along Hero Leroy Street, Duke met only a couple of patrols before stopping his cadaver in the square at the town-hall steps. There stood the magnate Scylla’s chrome-glittering Pontiff. On the whole island of Whale-Fish there was no other car like it, just as there was no man richer than Scylla, industrialist and owner of the mines in the Salair Ridge. Two enormous opolosks in leather tunics stood smoking beside the car. Duke jumped down and strode past, measuring them from below with a challenging look. While bakers and bookkeepers died at the front, these sleek bandit faces basked here in the sunshine.
In the mayor’s anteroom: a dusty green runner, a window behind burgundy curtains, a portrait of the sovereign pantsar, the arms of Vasilkov, and a dry, grey secretary in a blue suit. Along the wall, seated with hands on knees and eyes on the floor, were two municipal officials and the elderly chief of the fire service. An argument could be heard in the mayor’s office. A brazen, insolent voice pressed its demands; another, muffled and weak, made excuses. Duke could not quite make it out, but apparently Scylla himself was demanding that some passes be issued at once, while the mayor mumbled that it was forbidden: wartime, no orders.
Near the window opposite the office sprawled a stout youth of about sixteen in a beige velvet suit, with a porcelain face and thick thighs in tight corduroy trousers. He had propped one foot on a rubber-plant pot and was digging at the soil with his heel. This was Kholos Scylla’s younger brother, Poloz. Rumours circulated around Whale-Fish and the neighbouring country that he had loved tormenting animals since childhood, and that something was wrong with him—either in the head or sexually, perhaps both. Yet the elder Scylla dragged him everywhere. Some even whispered that he was not merely his brother but his son, or his nephew and son; some vile secret, at any rate.
Poloz looked lazily at the rykar boy as he entered. Duke took an empty seat. Kurts gave a bored sigh, waited a second and spat lustily at the green cloth-covered wall opposite. A wet patch was already forming there, seeping saliva. Duke glanced at the secretary: her nose was buried in her papers. He looked at the officials and the fire chief: they were resolutely studying their boots. Insolent abuse and pitiful mumbling still came from the office. Poloz sighed again and spat at the wall.
Duke whistled softly through his teeth. Poloz turned his haughty face towards him, with its wet red lips and brown eyes fringed in thick lashes. Duke smiled and told him that if he spat once more, he would take him by the scruff and make him lick the wall dry. Poloz blinked rapidly. He was already prepared for his next spit, his mouth full of saliva; he could not even speak. He had either to swallow or to spit, but this boy in rykar uniform was looking at him far too amiably. Beneath that gaze Poloz rapidly began losing his composure. It was as though the boy were not looking at him but aiming a taut catapult at his eyes. The younger Scylla’s red, wet lips crawled over his white face like earthworms across the blade of the spade that had cut them in two. The saliva in his mouth grew hot and sour. Duke abruptly rose and advanced on Kurts, who shrank into his corner and swallowed.
Duke approached the office, trying to make his heels ring as heavily as possible. Without looking at the wretched Poloz, he pushed open the door and entered. The mayor sat on a visitor’s chair beside his own desk, on which Kholos Scylla had planted his broad backside. Another opolosk occupied an armchair by the window. Ignoring the others, Duke went up to the mayor, handed him the letter and curtly reported that it was from First Mate Rigard. He clicked his heels and went back into the corridor, catching a glimpse of the younger Scylla baring his teeth resentfully from his corner.
A minute later Duke was already thundering over the cobbles on his cadaver’s heavy hooves, revelling in impunity brought low, smiling as he remembered the cornered little bastard Poloz choking on his own vile slime. Filthy magnates hired seasoned opolosks and even old rykars, conducted their shady business and imagined they could do anything they liked on Whale-Fish. Like hell they could. Let them keep their tails between their legs before fighting rykars.
Lost in thought, Duke almost rode past the Yegoryevs’ shop on the way out of town. He bought everything Gorvat and Gella had requested, then spent the change on a box of nuts in cinnamon syrup. By the time he came out and continued on his way, it was growing dark. Storm clouds gathered over the Sacred Grove, lightning flashed, and thunder rolled through the motionless, sultry air. Suddenly, without warning, a thick, warm downpour burst over him and instantly soaked him to the skin. He sent a discharge through his spurs, and Allegro began gathering speed, striking swift makhs of road from beneath its hooves.
He was almost at the turning for the old fortress and could already see the stone cross at the junction when he noticed a woman and a girl of about twelve walking along the road. The girl wore the blue uniform of Sirenium school. The woman held a cloak over them; the girl dragged a suitcase too heavy for her, which kept banging against her leg. Duke drew level and asked where they had come from and where they were going. The woman was frightened and rattled out a confused stream of words and lamentations.
The girl interrupted her. She had thick black hair tied with yellow ribbons. Studying the handsome rykar boy with interest, she explained clearly and to the point that they were walking from Khorovody to Vasilkov to take a motor ship to Guernica, but seemed to have taken a wrong turn because they had followed that man over there. Duke looked where she pointed. A man blurred by rain and twilight was trudging along the road to the old fortress. He had almost reached the regiment’s first sentry post.
A short, straight road ran from Khorovody to Vasilkov. By taking the wrong turn they had wandered aside, and now had farther to walk than when they had set out. Rain lashed down as on the day of the Flood. He could not leave them, and had no time to take them to Vasilkov. Duke decided to carry them to camp, only five minutes away at a slow pace. They could wait out the downpour there, then go on to Vasilkov in some vehicle. He jumped down, slung their suitcase onto a side rack, tossed the girl, with a startled cry, onto the footboard and told her to climb onto the tank behind the seat. He helped the woman onto the footboard, climbed into his place, put his feet in the stirrups and gave a light discharge. The cadaver moved off slowly.
At camp Duke took mother and daughter—or whatever they were to one another—into the medical tent. No one was inside. It was warm and dry; rain hammered the canvas, a fire burned in the iron stove and a kettle puffed on top. Duke told them to settle in and warm themselves. Beside the stove, the woman began pulling the girl’s sodden uniform blouse off, but the girl sharply broke free and shot Duke a look mingling shame and annoyance. Duke smirked, stepped out into the downpour and looked around. The man the refugees had followed was nowhere to be seen. A suspicious sort. Duke took the bags of treats for Gorvat and Gella from the rack and went towards the ark.
Naturally, everyone had been washed off the upper deck. Now, however, the great panels on the ark’s starboard side stood open, and bright light shone from the refuge amid songs and a cheerful hum of voices. In truth, since lunchtime Duke had felt the air ringing with an impending rykar drinking bout. In his inexperience, he had thought it was the approaching storm.
Among the other voices he heard a familiar rolling bass. The little wolf shepherd Yaquinta had descended on their camp. There was his cadaver too, carrying two small casks of memorial tobacco vodka. Now the sacred funeral feast would roar until the last star, until the rykars quenched their hot blood with spirits.
Duke and his bag of clinking bottles were greeted in the refuge with whistles and laughter. Gella’s expensive cigarettes were torn open and passed from hand to hand; Gorvat’s bottles were poured into mugs and goblets, empty or already containing spirit. Gorvat himself no longer scorned the spirit. Goblet in hand, he stood on the great table with an arm around Shepherd Yaquinta, fiercely singing the requiem ‘To Paradise on a Burning Horse’. A rykar becomes drunk as he becomes enraged: in a single second. Once enraged, he takes a long time to recover and remembers every insult for ever. But once his revels reach a certain pitch, he grows no drunker, only gradually tired, as though the surplus fuel burns away inside his heated body.
First Mate Rigard sat to the left of the empty captain’s place; to the right sat Rainbow, the spirit keeper. He had rested, changed into a light civilian suit and combed his sparse hair, and as usual looked like a grandmother’s darling grandson. The regimental doctor, Svit, sat beside him. On the oratai side of the table, Mammoth-Noah and Var-Gurevich occupied the places of the fallen deck foreman and keeper.
Duke reported to First Mate Rigard that he had delivered the packet, was dismissed and took his place behind the table, his back against the warm wall of the spirit compartment. Then he saw a man come into the refuge from the rain. Without looking at anyone, he sat on an ammunition crate in the far corner. Duke almost jumped out of his seat. It was the ber from Zhuravlyovo.
Duke sprang up and ran over, eager to ask how he had escaped the Solo and where his wife and son were. But he ran into a blackened gaze, the gaze of a man crushed by grief. Other rykars approached. They saw the hero’s star on the veteran’s chest and the black desolation on his face, gave him a blanket to wrap himself in and left him alone. The wet guest set his suitcase on his knees, clutched it and seemed to lose himself.
Mammoth-Noah finished his barrel-sized tin of food, licked the spoon, wiped it with a handkerchief and put it in his breast pocket. The oratai ration tin scarcely needed washing: he had scraped it to a shine. The giant petulantly pushed it away. What filth one had to eat, and still not enough. Var-Gurevich had finished his ration too. The giants exchanged hungry glances. Oratai do not love war, its constant danger, discomfort and half-starvation. But the ancestral curse—an irresistible sense of duty—compels well-brought-up oratai to the soldier’s trade and service.
For now, all they could do was wait for morning. Neither felt remotely sleepy; they had slept during the day. The rykars drank and made merry, offering the giants spirit too, but they refused. What dismal swinishness, sloshing spirit and tinned rations about in a half-empty belly. Tedious hours at somebody else’s celebration lay ahead, until entertainment suddenly arrived: the rykars began a game of Candle. The oratai brightened. Any oratai enjoyed watching rykars shoot at one another, and now they were taking bets as well.
It was the joker Gorvat who started the game. He pestered Gella: come on, let’s shave the roughness off our hearts, exchange a shot, amuse the lads. The proud, melancholy lamenter did not hold out long, hinting to the tipsy Gorvat that the score in their private contest had long been against him. That only goaded the swarm rykar further. Gorvat shouted for the barrier to be prepared: today was his day, his voice was steeped in war and his hand as firm as death. He called on little Yaquinta to judge.
Notes and coins flew into a cap on the table. A pistol was brought, a candlestick set in the middle of the communal table, and a jack of spades fixed in the candle’s softened wax. Everyone stepped aside. The game worked like this. One rykar challenged another. The challenger became the target, the challenged man the shooter. They moved away from the barrier with the card by as many paces as the judge specified. The shooter stood with his back to the target.
On the count of three, the shooter had to turn and immediately fire at the target, hitting the card on the candle as he did so. The higher the hit, the better; grazing the top edge was considered supreme skill or luck.
The target had to receive the shot with a roar without stepping back, missing his moment or catching the bullet between breaths—which did happen now and then. After the shot, the card was changed, shooter and target exchanged roles, and everything was repeated. If both were alive, both had stood their ground and each had hit his card, the judge compared the holes: the higher hit won. Simple. All you needed was a devil’s aim and the ability to stop bullets with your voice.
A case containing an antique long-barrelled, single-shot revolver was brought to Gella. He loaded it, went to his mark and turned away. Gorvat took his position, threw off his tunic and stood in a red shirt unbuttoned to the navel.
‘Ready?’ boomed the wolf shepherd.
The refuge fell quiet. Gorvat took a fencer’s stance, feet wide apart, crouched a little, shook his head to shed some excess drunkenness, let his arms hang loose, lifted his chin, thrust out his Adam’s apple and coughed thickly into his moustache. Shepherd Yaquinta began counting. One. Gella cocked the hammer. Two.
‘Three!’ shouted the shepherd.
Gella spun round and raised the pistol. Shot and roar. The card flew up in a spray of wax; the candlestick toppled. Gorvat shuddered in the rumble of his roar, swayed, bent a little under the impact, but did not retreat. The bullet clinked to the floor at his feet. He kicked it with his boot and burst out laughing, rubbing his chest.
‘Fun!’ he bellowed, wagged a finger at Gella and asked for the pistol.
Gella handed it over, clasped his hands behind his back, put his left foot slightly forward, shifted his weight onto his right, inclined his head a little and stared at his opponent. Gorvat turned away, grinning.
‘O-one,’ said the shepherd.
With a thrust of his diaphragm, Gella awakened the rykar tremor in his chest.
‘Two.’
Gella hummed so deeply that a blush appeared and trembled on his white cheekbones.
‘Thre-e-e!’
Gorvat wheeled round and fired from the hip like a bandit. Gella’s answering roar met him. The jack of clubs stayed on the candle. The bullet fell a good metre short of Gella, but the blow against his wall of voice was still so strong that he had to fling out his arms to keep his balance and avoid stepping back.
All that remained was to inspect the cards. Gella had hit right at the bottom: a poor shot. Gorvat, however, had taken the feathers off the jack’s beret, the bullet passing along the very topmost edge. With wolfish howls and laughter he celebrated his long-awaited victory. The refuge roared louder than ever, while Gella yawned indifferently and went to bed.
Winning at Candle put Gorvat in high spirits. He poured another mug of spirit into himself and went after the oratai.
‘Come now, godkin brothers, let’s have a contest, pit our strength against each other! Let’s cut sheaves and see whose guts are strongest!’ he teased, clumsily imitating an epic warrior’s chant.
Other rykars joined in with jokes and quips, shouting, hooting and challenging the oratai. Wolf Shepherd Yaquinta climbed onto the table again—he liked to hold forth from a height—and bawled in his trumpet voice:
‘Come on, let’s cut sheaves! C-c-c-cut the sh-sh-shea-ea-eaves!’
Mammoth-Noah merely
smirked. Not likely. Cutting sheaves was no joke; you could strain a tendon. Get mixed up with these rykars and it would never end well.
‘No, no, no. Thank you, gentlemen. We pass.’
But little Var surprised him. He rose, slapped his belly with both palms like a taut war drum, and said:
‘I’ll do it. Get the sheaves and the sword ready.’
Damn it. He had these surges of merry foolishness, coming from nowhere without the slightest warning. Quiet as water one moment, then there you were. Still waters, as they said. The rykars roared, boomed, whistled and guffawed, acclaiming the reckless champion.