Страница 134 из 186
"Land sacred to the Lady of Tartessos and the Grain Goddess," she recited. "Let no man harm or diminish it, or let his stock or flock do so, on pain of the Cold Curse and the anger of the King."
At Alston's look, she explained: "The Cold Curse-a cold hearth and a cold womb and cold loins for all around it." A frown of puzzlement. "That's odd-the Earth Folk have that curse too… this must be the edge of the territory of that village the herald mentioned."
Marian Alston nodded and signaled the party forward; normally there would be guardians to keep animals out, as well. Her eyes took in the cultivated fields on either side in expert appraisal; estimating an enemy's food-producing capacity was an important part of war, in any era. The plowlands and plantations sent her eyebrows up. The olive orchards were all new, just coming into bearing; before the Event, the Tartessians simply grafted wild trees, more than enough for their limited needs. The grain was planted in large fields, ten or twenty acres each, larger than any whole farm hereabouts until recently, divided by lanes of graded dirt scattered with gravel. And the wheat and barley in them had obviously been planted with a seed-drill; that was easy to see, since the shoots were only just starting to show across the rich dark-brown earth in neat rows. Some scattered oaks had been left in the fields and young cypress trees edged many of the fields, standing like tall green candles drawing a rectilinear pattern across the land.
Mmmm-hmmm. They're using disc plows, from the look of it-six-furrow type. There were harvested fields of corn- maize-as well, chick-peas, lucerne, sunflowers, and-
"Halt," she said, and heeled her horse aside, over the ditch and up to the edge of the post-and-rail fence. "Cotton, by God!" Well picked-over, too. Nobody had raised cotton in the Sea Islands since long before her birth, but she'd seen it growing, visiting relatives up-country as a child, and since the Event in the Olmec country and Peru. This field had furrows ru
A scattering of houses stood off by themselves amid the fields or nearer the road. Many were mere tents of brushwood and reed, evidently the traditional farmer's housing here. There were others made of adobe brick, rectangular and roofed in tile, all looking new, surrounded by young orchards of apricot, peach, orange, lemon, and fig. Each of the smaller buildings had an outhouse standing behind. Such a minor thing, but important.
One imposing structure was large enough to be called a mansion, foursquare and massive on a low hilltop in the middle distance, whitewashed, with a tower at one corner, looking for all the world like a Mexican hacienda, down to the row of rammed-earth cottages outside.
Leveling her binoculars she could see that the walls of the big building on its hilltop were black with the heads of people peering over, probably all the folk of the countryside round about, gathered for what protection they could find at the manor of the local aristocrat. Mmmm-hmmm. Loopholes for small arms, looks like a light swivel gun in that tower, dry moat. Though… mmmm-hmmm, those adobe walls would turn to powder under any sort of ca
"Forward," she said.
"Walk-march… walk."
The little village at the center of the cultivation looked to be entirely post-Event, bowered in olive groves and orchards and sitting on a slight rise. Ritter halted the truce party well short of it.
"Squads one and three dismount," the lieutenant said, her eyes darting about for hidden assassins and ambushes. "Sergeant, check it out."
"Ma'am!" the noncom said, and barked orders of his own.
Marines fa
The buildings were all adobe and tile-roofed, many gaudily painted on wall and door and shutter, set well back from the road and the secondary street that ran down to an inlet of the bay and a dock. Trees shaded the houses and walled gardens surrounded them, well watered from cha
Larger buildings surrounded a square. One had tall wooden pillars brightly painted, carved in the shape ‹?f a three-legged, one-eyed monster, an armored man set about with weapons and chariot wheels all topped by a golden disk, a woman holding a sheaf of grain and another whose legs were a fish-tail, a bit like a mermaid… although unlike conventional Western representations, the wood-carver had equipped her to do more than tantalize a sailorman. Hooves clattered on rock, for the square was paved with neatly fitted blocks of pale stone in a herringbone pattern.
Beside the fountain in the center was a stone pillar with a bronze plaque attached, rather like the historical markers you saw by the roadside sometimes before the Event.
"It's the King's Laws, according to this," Swindapa said, leaning down to read. "Mmmm… all free children to attend the Place of the New Learning four days in eight except in harvest season, every family to contribute food and cloth for the teacher in rotation…"
Alston looked around. Yes, one of the buildings had the look of a schoolhouse, long and rectangular; she heeled her mount over and sheltered her eyes with her hand to peer through thick wavy window glass. She saw rows of benches within, and a large slate blackboard; times-table in Arabic numerals on one wall, a big map of some sort on another, and a print of King Isketerol's face hanging over a teacher's table at the front.
Swindapa was still reading: "… then there's the Great Taboo of Shit Avoidance-that's what it says, I swear, and a good many others. Everyone to wash with zapotlkez… soap? It looks like a sort of combination of public-hygiene notice and list of… well, there's stuff about farming-nobody to grow grain for more than two years in the same field before sowing it to fodder crops-money to be accepted for all debts, each household's public work on the roads and irrigation canals-taxes, the King's Fifth, what can be paid in kind and what in cash… all the Laws to be read out to the assembled people once in every moon-turning."
The Republic's commander nodded. Well, he can't explain everything, I suppose. The Nantucketers had used persuasion and example in Alba; with fewer teachers and more power, Isketerol seemed to be relying more on rote-learning.
One of the buildings off the square was a smithy, well equipped with a selection of cast-iron anvils, two hearths with piston bellows and a wallful of tools, from pincers to rasps. Even a grindstone and a simple lathe powered by foot-cranks… Bins outside held coal-coke as well as charcoal.
And those rafters were cut in a sawmill-probably floated down the Guadalquivir… machine-drawn nails, too. Mmmm-hmmmm.
Next to it was a warehouselike affair; Swindapa read the sign over the doors: "Depot of Things for Households: Let Any Who Will Buy Tools From the King on Credit."