The men slept on the ground, wrapped in whatever blankets and hangings they had been able to loot from Kaik. Most had managed to keep hold of their scarlet cloaks also, and so in the evenings there was almost a uniformity about their appearance. The foraging parties usually made it back into camp around dusk, each two or three centons strong, each—if they had been lucky—resembling a rural circus, for the procession of braying, bleating, clucking animals they drew along in their ranks. By the time they returned, the wood-gathering parties would have come in, and the water-haulers. The fires would be lit under the big centoi with the water bubbling within. In all, perhaps a third of the army was scattered across the surrounding countryside by late afternoon of every day, stripping it clean of anything the Macht could possibly make use of. By the time the army were a week out of Kaik this had become routine, and despite the Kufr scouts watching them from the tallest of the surrounding tells, there was as yet no other sign of the Great King’s pursuit.
Tiryn sat near one of the central fires in the midst of the baggage, her Juthan slave heating something in a copper pot over the flames. Jason looked out for them, making sure they had food at the end of each day, and the common soldiery knew better now than to try and molest the general’s Kufr. When he could, he would join them at the fire in the later part of the night, and he and Tiryn would trade words in each other’s tongues, she reaching Asurian and learning Machtic as he did the opposite. It was a little piece of routine which anchored Tiryn to some kind of reality in a bewildering world, and she had come to look forward to those quiet nights by the campfire, even the animals asleep in their rope corrals, Jason and she exchanging quiet words, using their minds for something other than the day to day business of survival.
He was frowning as he arrived this night. He wrapped his cloak about his knees as he took his usual place by the fire, as if to keep out the memories of the day as much as the cool night air. He looked around at the wagons and carts parked in lines, the hobbled horses and mules, the nodding oxen, and the lines of chained Juthan sitting silent and exhausted by their day’s labour.
“They’re damn near as good as mules, these people,” he said to Tiryn, nodding at her personal slave. The Juthan girl sat eyes downcast on the other side of the fire, a hemp slave collar about her broad throat. In her hands the copper pot sat forgotten.
“Her name is Ushdun,” Tiryn said. “She was born in Junnan, in northern Jutha, and was given to an Imperial Tax Collector as part payment for her father’s debt.”
Jason considered this, disgust on his face. “These people give up their children to pay a tax?”
Tiryn’s eyes burned. “It is the way the Empire works. Arkamenes told me it was good for the... the circulation of the population, and it avoided beggaring the smallholders. Most have too many mouths to feed as it is.” Like my father, she thought hut could not say—would never say.
“Then they deserve their Empire,” Jason said with contempt.
“Do you not have slaves in your homeland?”
“Yes, but they’re taken in war, not freely given up by their parents.” He thought again, shrugged a little. “Well, maybe the goatherder tribes—but they’re little better than animals.”
“And are we, then, little better than animals?”
Jason looked at her, head cocked to one side. “Your Machtic is very good now. What say you, we try and get my Asurian up to the same mark?”
“The word for slave is durun. The word for animal is qaf. Have you heard of the Qaf?”
Jason smiled. “I see I am to be educated in several ways tonight. I have heard of them, yes.”
“They are taller than the tallest Kefre, and broader than Juthan. They live far north of here, in the snows of the Korash Mountains. They do not like the heat of the lowlands, but I saw some in Ashur.”
“They sound like fearsome creatures indeed.”
“The word for angry is irghe. You are angry tonight.”
“Did Gasca bring you that jar of wine? I’d have some, if there’s any left.”
She ordered the Juthan to get it out of the wagon. Jason clicked off the clay lid and drank straight from the lip of the jar. He wiped his mouth, nodding. “That’s the right stuff. I was sick of palm wine. It’s a relief to know someone here makes a drink out of the grape.” He caught Tiryn’s eyes still upon him. “Yes, I am angry.”
“Why?”
“I do not come here to discuss my day.”
“I know. You come here to receive language instruction from animals. Why are you angry?”