Chapter 173 The Monster's Positioning

A monster, under the open light of day? Lora didn't believe a word of it. She was on her feet and starting for the bank before Leon caught her arm: "Even knowing it's no monster — until you know what you're walking into, don't go charging at it." "Awr! Awrr~" Lora whipped her face around, watching him tight: "It's not a monster. It's an elephant!" Lyle and his party came pelting back in short order, every torch flung away behind them, and he got his breath out in gasps: "It's huge — I've never seen any beast that size! It came for us, and where it set its feet the ground went like thunder!" "Did this monster of yours have a long nose, and great big ears?" said Lora, laughing. "There are elephants in this province of ours — have none of you ever laid eyes on one?" "Elephant?" They had never met a real elephant; but Lyle had seen the pair of elephant stools at the Crown Prince's mansion. Set his mind to it, and the shape answered — and his breath came easier: "An elephant it is! Only I never dreamed a true one would stand that tall." Leon had been born too late for the years when the palace kept elephants. The spread of the plowlands, the wars and the rebuilding, winters that cooled year on year — all that had pressed the elephants' country back south of the great southern river. What he had ever seen of one was a pedestal carved of alabaster, a stool painted up in wood, and every manner of trinket cut from ivory. "The two capitals haven't seen hide or tusk of an elephant in years. However did a herd come to be here?" Lora shook her head, thought a little, and went on: "Perhaps they were hunting water, or food. This country is netted over with rivers — no want of water there. As for food... elephants browse on tender leaves, wild fruit, grass — that doesn't answer either. Perhaps... the lead cow simply wandered, and the herd followed her off her road." "Elephants in the Yarrow country — that's a first I'm hearing too. But I have heard, once or twice, of elephants showing themselves at Yellowcastle in Yexham," said Lorne Chase, dredging his memory. That was some years back, though: the magistrate of Yexham in those days had led his people out with horns and drums and drummed the herd clean across his border. "Yexham?" Something moved in Lora: the Yexham he meant — was it the same Yexham she was thinking of? She asked, careful as a fisherman: "How far does Yexham lie from Lohenheim?" "Yexham belongs to Ruward — the southernmost county of the whole Lohenheim jurisdiction. How far could that be? Not past fifty leagues, any way you count it." Lorne Chase knew the country south of Lohenheim like his own hand. By torchlight Lora's face had gone faintly pink. She had no modern map, and the survey maps in the General's house were none too fine. There was no city of Tablehill yet in the Empire — nothing there but unremarkable farmland — and Yexham sat farther off than in her day. But one thing stood firm: this herd was well and truly lost. Perhaps men had driven them; perhaps the roads on the ground had shifted under them. Either way they had overshot their road by forty leagues and more. They had been bound for Yexham in Ruward, and had fetched up instead in neighboring Lornmere. For Yexham had rock salt — and these elephants, steering by the memory of their grand-dams, had come back for the salt of it. And in the modern day, Yexham belongs to Tablehill. Tablehill has open-cast coal — easier winning by half than sinking deep pits — and Yexham has well salt. It was this salt-hunting herd of elephants that fixed the spot for Lora: the Tablehill that was, as yet, only wilderness. "It must have been your torchlight startled them just now. Elephants don't eat meat — press no harm on one, and it will press none on you." At the news that elephants were no eaters of men, those Grey Wolf lads loosened up considerably. They had truly never seen an elephant — never so much as heard of one. Nansen had been out there with the scouting party too, and at sight of that mountainous silhouette he'd taken it for a god manifest. If Lyle hadn't hauled him off, the next heartbeat would have had him down on his knees in worship. Nansen: Good lord a'mighty! Lyle: There's your civilization for you, just when it counts — clap eyes on anything bigger than yourself and down you go. Was your brain grown just to hold up a futou cap? "Come along, come along — Brother Lyle will tell you all about elephants. No more plaguing the young lady." "Elephant stories? Is Brother Lyle going to teach us to kill elephants?" "Not kill — he'll teach you how to weigh one." "Isn't that killing it too? Cut it in pieces so it'll fit the scale." Lora saw Corin standing off to one side. He wanted to come over — the two of them weren't close enough for easy talk, and it embarrassed him. Of this whole company, only he and young Lord Gareth's guard Jinks had missed the journey to Yorvik. She tipped Shawn a wink. Shawn read it, strolled over, slung an arm across Corin's shoulders, and steered him off toward Lyle and the rest. "What have you dreamed up now? The smugness is about to walk off with your whole face." Leon and Lora went aboard. The boat cabin stood empty; he took her hand, and the two of them crossed and sat down on the couch. By day it was the couch they ate and talked on; at night, with the bedding spread, it made a bed none too wide. Lora sat cross-legged on it, tipped her head onto Leon's shoulder, and grinned: "Do you remember my telling you — that the Lohenheim jurisdiction holds treasure?" "I do. And aren't we here this minute to dig the gold out?" "There's more than this one place. That herd just now truly did come into the jurisdiction hunting food — only not leaves or fruit. Salt. The Yexham we spoke of has rock salt." Leon started. "Rock salt? Like in the Riverlands?" "Exactly. The Riverlands has it too — only there you dig it out of wells sunk like coal shafts. But in some mountains there's water in the rock, and the salt seeps out with it, to the surface or down the cliff face — and the elephants found it. That's why they go back to those places on schedule to take their salt. If you want to know where the rock salt sits, send men to follow that herd, quietly, and quietly is where it will lead them." "I see. But they're lost now — blundered in here. Can they find their way back?" "Give them a little patience and steer them toward Yexham, and they'll find it themselves." Lora had all confidence, and went right on: "But that's not the end of it." "What else, then?" Lora stretched her legs out and kicked them against the couch: "Ah — my legs are sore! They want pounding!" Leon eyed her sideways, grinning: "You haven't walked a hundred paces the whole day long — where's the soreness coming from? I'd say what you're angling to be is a regular wanton of a queen, leading kings around by the nose." "I am not, I never was, I admit nothing..." "Fine, fine — no wanton queen, then. Make me a besotted king instead." Lora was still kicking her protest, half in earnest, when Leon gathered her in, bent down, and kissed her. When he let her loose, they were wedged together on that narrow couch, her arms and legs with no place of their own to go — to lie flat she'd have had to lay them on him — and she didn't know whether to laugh or scold. She gave one kick and sent him off onto the floor: "Besotted king! We're not even married, and already you want to sleep together!" Leon sat on the floor laughing too: "With a wanton who's kicked off both stockings to lead a man on, what's one bout of besottedness between friends?" Lora looked down — and so she had: bare feet entirely. The socks of this age have no stretch; they hang loose as little cloth meal-sacks, and two kicks had sent hers flying. In the modern world, bare feet are nobody's business. On a woman of this age, showing her feet is next to showing her body. But then, who told her to be a shameless modern? Lora slid down to sit beside him on the floor, leaned against the couch with him, and put her mouth close to his ear: "Ruward is a treasure-ground. Besides the rock salt there's coal there — the kind you don't sink shafts for. Coal you can dig wide open!" "And I only want to be a besotted king. Who cares a button for coal or charcoal..." In the shadow of the boat cabin, a besotted king and his wanton queen wound round each other, dreaming their dream of the Great Empire's coffers brimming full.

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