Eltrienn arrived while Brokols was packing his bag. The ambassador would carry two dress suits, carefully folded, for whatever special audiences there might be. On the road he'd wear an ordinary traveling suit and carry another.
Brokols could see problems in travel here that hadn't been foreseen back in Almeon when the mission was being planned. They hadn't appreciated how hot it would be. Hrummean summer clothing was cool and easily cared for. His own clothing, on the other hand, was woolen, from fleece of the porta. He was, after all, an Almaeic nobleman. But woolens were hot, and not properly amenable to cleaning while traveling. Here at their lodgings, Stilfos could maintain them nicely, with careful laundering and ironing, but Stilfos would remain in Theedalit to look after the apartment instead of traveling with him. And nothing at all could be done about how hot they were, unless one cut off the legs and sleeves, which was unthinkable.
It was tempting to obtain Hrummean clothing, but Brokols had decided it wouldn't be proper; a representative of the emperor should look the part.
They rode off behind a matched pair of kaabors, in a strong-wheeled shay with the top let back, beneath a dazzling sky that seemed not to have heard of the summer monsoon. And over the next two weeks, toured a broad cross-section of Hrumma.
There were no other cities than Theedalit. The infrequent sizeable towns, with three or four thousand people, might have their main street paved, but otherwise dirt streets were the rule, sometimes graveled and with the softer places cobbled. And invariably their water came untreated from streams, dug wells, and cisterns. Still, their people were civilized. Their buildings were almost always whitewashed, while planted trees, shrubs, and flowers were abundant.
Most of the country was less prosperous than the rural valley above Theedalit. They visited fishing districts where the people lived on tiny subsistence farms along the shores of firth or inlet, people who worked with net and set-line, drying rack and smokehouse and large pickling crocks, to produce fish for local consumption, cartage to other districts, and export to the Djezes.
There were also rough mountainous districts where almost the only economic activities, aside from tending the household's fruit trees and vines and vegetable gardens, was the herding and shearing of vehato, an animal rather like the porlo but horned, the spinning of thread from their fleece, and the weaving of textiles. An animal called kienno was used to help herd the vehato. The kienno was seldom used for other purposes, the Hrummeans regarding it as a sophont not properly kept subject to humans.
Sausage was also made, highly spiced to prevent spoilage. Much of what was produced from the vehato—cloth, yarn, fleeces, sausage—was consumed in the home district, but cartage to other markets and to harbors for export was an important business.
Less rugged hill districts bore vineyards and orchards, or were grazed by gleebor bred for milk or meat. In thick-walled houses with cool sod roofs, or in caves where there were any, farm wives and daughters made cheeses that would be eaten at home or sold. Here too, meat was smoked, chopped, ground with spices, and stuffed into gut to be shipped as sausage.
In broader valleys, fields of food crops were tended for waiting bins and sheds. And there, a much smaller carnivore than the kienno was common. Slender, short-legged, pointy headed, it seemed invariably present around graneries and storage cellars. Called chissa, it too was regarded as a sophont, and as an associate of man was more independent than the kienno. Chissas served the purpose of controlling vermin, and farmers put out milk to encourage their presence.
Almost every rural home had its lorrchios, short-furred omnivores kept penned or sometimes tethered, fattened on wastes of the kitchen, the creamery, the orchard and winepress and butchering table. To be butchered themselves in their time. There were two evident varieties, one fairly large and rangy, one small and round, to suit the family and the farm.
Though agriculture and fisheries were by far the largest industries, Brokols saw ships being built, and only half a day's ride from Theedalit, a limestone quarry and cement mill. The mill was an ingenious-looking arrangement of sheds and ramps, and cylinders some twenty feet tall, with carts, barrows, gleebor-driven capstans, and smoke. While one narrow firth they visited was astink with fumes from a factory that cooked down vats of oil fish to provide for Hrummean lamps.
A common element everywhere were the archery butts. Outside every village where the two of them spent their evenings, men and boys would gather after supper to shoot at targets. Their skill was impressive, both in measured fire and rapid. Several times, Brokols and Eltrienn had gone to watch. Eltrienn had shot a set once, very creditably, and with a borrowed bow at that.
And everywhere, Brokols found the people wearing cool summer clothes of plant fibers, the cloth imported from the Djezes, mostly Djez Seechul. And as important as the fabric was the coolness of its cut, the general bareness or partial bareness of limbs. For the people in the countryside were less style-conscious and wore less clothing than in Theedalit. Children commonly ran naked till seemingly age eight or ten. Brokols wondered what games such children played behind the stone fences or in the dense coppice patches. Or what games the adolescents and adults might play, inflamed by the sight of each others' limbs.
He was more comfortable with these thoughts, though, than he might have expected. It was as if that night on Tirros's boat, or whoever's boat it had been, perhaps reinforced by the strange dreams of the following night, had dulled his sense of propriety and morals.
In every district there were coppice woods, with stout stumps scant inches tall, a ring of shoots sprouting from their bases to be cut off for fuel when they'd reached the thickness of a wrist, more or less. Seemingly every farm had its own small coppice stand, for home fuel. Other stands were large, for commercial production. These fed the charcoal kilns that supplied smithies—and towns, for they too needed fuel. And for more than just cookery. Winter would come to Hrumma in its time, winter cool enough for woolens, though mild compared to those in Almeon or inland districts of the continent north of Hrumma.
Winter weather in Hrumma tended to be dry and breezy, he was told, with infrequent days of mists and rain. On winter nights it sometimes froze, especially in the higher interior valleys. Now and then, brief damp weather even brought transient snow, which might persist for two or three days in the interior, or longer on the higher plateaus and hills.
* * *
After fourteen days, Brokols had seen much of Hrumma—a representative cross-section, according to Eltrienn—while being rained on only six times. On the fourteenth evening they sat in an inn, eating a late supper and talking.
"You know," said Brokols, "I haven't seen your metal works—the factories or shops where you make steel. Nothing but little local smithies."
Eltrienn nodded. "They're in the deep valleys of the east coast, where most of the ore is. They're too far; it would have taken too long. And in Hrumma, they're a very small part of our economy. All together they employ fewer people than we saw working in the fields that one short afternoon above Theedaht."
He changed the subject then. "Tomorrow we'll cross the Aettlian Plateau. There'll be little to see but gleebor herds—few villages, and the houses are far apart—but the country is mostly near flat, and we'll make good time. The soil is fertile, but too stony to cultivate; it's the greatest pasturage in Hrumma. We'll carry our lunch, and in late afternoon stop at a villa that belongs to the Hanorissios', called Sea Cliff. They own several thousand acres of rangeland there. Zeenia Hanorissia manages it, and if you let her, she'll tell you more than you want to know about the business. We'll spend tomorrow night there and be in Theedalit the next afternoon."
Brokols nodded, staring absently at his glass as he swirled the sour and watered wine. Something else had occurred to him, but he didn't know how to broach the subject. Simply begin, he told himself, but that was difficult. In Almeon, discussion of sex and reproduction would be almost out of the question, but here, he thought, it might well be acceptable. And if he offended his friend and guide, he'd rely on communication and the centurion's good nature to repair any damage.
"Eltrienn—" he began, then stopped. It occurred to him that he didn't know the Hrummean word for sexual intercourse. He'd have to translate the Almaeic euphemism and hope it was understood.
"Yes?"
"Do the Hrummeans—do they, uh, couple a lot?"
"Couple? What do you mean by couple?"
Brokols took a deep breath. "By coupling, I mean—do the men and women . . ."
He stopped, Eltrienn looked quizzically at him. "Make babies," Brokols finished. "A lot, I mean."
Actually it wasn't what he meant. From the way they dressed in Hrumma, and the way Tirros and his two girls had comported themselves, it seemed to him you'd see a lot more children around than he'd actually noticed. The number of children in Hrumma seemed rather low in fact, for the number of adults.
"You mean fuck?" asked Eltrienn.
Brokols blushed. The Hrummean word was unfamiliar to him, but he was pretty sure . . . the very sound was uncouth, suggestive, much like the sound of coupling while sweaty. "I believe so," he said. "Yes."
Eltrienn didn't look at all perturbed at the question; only curious. "Why do you ask?"
With that, a little haltingly, Brokols told him how the partial and juvenile nudity seemed to him, yet there didn't seem to be a great number of children.
Eltrienn's expression was surprised and bemused. "I suppose," he answered slowly, "that we're used to seeing skin. In the right circumstances it can be quite—stimulating of course, but ordinarily it's not."
It occurred to Brokols that pleasure droids might well be engineered to perform sex well but not have strong sexual desire. Or perhaps it was simply as Eltrienn had said—they were used to seeing skin.
"As for the number of children," Eltrienn was saying, "Hrum would have us live in harmony with the land. For a long time now, in Hrumma, our number has not much increased."
"But then . . ." The notion of no increase was utterly foreign to Brokols, and to the Book of Right Comportment. "But then, do you stop coupling, once you've had two or three children? Or four?"
Eltrienn misunderstood, or rather, understood only the lesser part of Brokols' reaction. "That's no problem," he said. "There's an herb that grows along brooks; I can show it to you. We call it lamb foil; vehatos sometimes eat it, when they're hungry enough, and if they eat it in breeding season, they don't conceive. They breed, but there aren't any lambs. The flowers of lamb foil, dried and powdered, can be added as a condiment to food and protect a woman from conceiving. Many people raise it in their gardens."
Brokols was thunderstruck. These people, these pleasure droids, not only coupled without intention to conceive, but deliberately prevented conception!
"Is something the matter?" Cadriio asked.
He shook his head in quick denial. "No, no. It's simply that . . . the possibility is new to me." He paused. "Then—how often does one couple here? A—say a typical married man of our age?"
Eltrienn made a face and shrugged. "I never asked anyone. They share the same home and presumably the same bed, so I suppose they might couple very frequently." He tilted his head quizzically. "And in your country?"
The question took Brokols unprepared. "In my country? It, it varies with the person, I'm sure. But it's forbidden, criminal in fact, to couple with other than one's wife. And with one's wife, one couples only with the intent to produce a child."
Eltrienn's eyebrows jumped. "Oh? Interesting. You have large families then?"
Brokols wasn't sure what Cadriio considered large. "I was one of five children. Nine, including those my father sired by his second wife. My mother died in childbirth, and later my stepmother also. In his grief, my father has since declined to marry again."
"Hmm. Nine children. And did your father couple only nine times in his life?"
Brokols could feel the color rise in his face, though he felt no anger. "I—could hardly know. It's very doubtful. One might couple numerous times before successfully conceiving."
Eltrienn nodded, his lips pursed. "Ah! Then they do not know the birthwort in Almeon. Here, if a couple wishes a child and does not get one, the wife takes birthwort. It's an herb with flowers much like those of lamb foil, but the potency resides in the root, or actually in the skin of the root. One digs it up, or the herbalist does, strips and dries the inner bark, powders it, and adds it to food. It's available from any herbalist, and it's fairly reliable."
A thought occurred to Eltrienn then. Large families like Brokols' meant large populations, even if epidemics sometimes decimated them. "How many people are there in Almeon?" he asked.
"Forty million. More than forty-three million at last count."
The number stunned the Hrummean, but Brokols didn't notice because another thought had taken his attention. "Do you have any other herbs that deal with coupling?" he asked.
The question brought Cadriio's attention back. "None," he answered. "Or, there is one other, of the same family, but its use is illegal."
"Illegal? Why so?"
"It causes strong sexual desire. With it, a person can be gotten to 'couple' who otherwise would not. Which is a crime before Hrum. Also it's somewhat poisonous."
"Poisonous?!"
"It makes one ill, and prolonged use can kill. In the Djezes it has been used by nobles for extended orgies, and people have died from it. Though even there, it seems seldom used."
Brokols sat, shocked. Eltrienn nodded. "It is strange, I agree. Apparently if you take a second dose before the sickness strikes, the sickness is forestalled until you stop. But then you get twice as sick. Thus you can take it a number of times, one after the other, continuing the orgy without illness until, after several days, you drop dead." He shrugged. "There are those who otherwise are no longer able to couple, who consider it the best way to die. The reason it's illegal is the temptation to give it to someone other than yourself, someone who might otherwise refuse you."
The centurion's clear gray eyes were intent on Brokols; when the ambassador became aware of it, he shook his head as if to clear it. "This is all . . . all utterly strange to me," Brokols said. "I had not imagined such a thing as these herbs."
Eltrienn nodded. "We seem so much alike in some ways, it's interesting how different our two countries are. Perhaps as we come to know one another better, we will learn from each other."
* * *
Elver Brokols' biggest shock had not been the herbs. It had been a feeling—a feeling that hit him when Eltrienn had mentioned their countries learning from each other: He didn't want Hrumma to become like Almeon! He preferred it as it was! And that was not consistent with why he was here—with the emperor's plan.
* * *
Eltrienn Cadriio had something on his mind, too: Almeon's population of forty-three million! That was a great number of people, twenty times Hrumma's. Twice that of the two Djezes combined. He wondered how large an army Almeon might field.
* * *
A buzzer burped loudly in the luxurious palace apartment in Haipoor l'Djezzer. Lord Vendel Kryger, dressed in silk lounging pajamas, put aside a book and strode briskly to the radio room. Argant was there ahead of him. Kryger sat down and, after positioning a pad of paper, tapped out an acknowledgement, then picked up a pencil and sat ready. A moment later the set began to rattle off a series of letters which Kryger jotted as they came, Argant craning his neck to see.
* * *
STILFOS TO KRYGER STOP RELIGIOUS LEADER HERE SPEAKING AGAINST ALMEON STOP SOME LESSER RELIGIOUS FIGURES HAVE JOINED HIM STOP THIS EVENING I ATTENDED RALLY STOP—SPEAKER KNOWS ALMOST EVERYTHING INCLUDING FLEET OF 200 SHIPS STOP CROWD NOT VERY LARGE ABOUT 500 600 NOT UNRULY STOP REQUEST INSTRUCTIONS STOP STILFOS END
* * *
Kryger's mouth twisted into something like a snarl. He began rapidly tapping out his reply without taking time to write it down first, voicing the words as he sent them, so that Argant could jot them down.
"Message received. Stop. What meant by 'knows almost everything.' Question."
Stilfos answered that the Hrummeans knew about the impending imperial invasion. That apparently they thought it would be, or at least would include, an invasion of Hrumma.
Kryger sent again. "Received. Stop. Unless dangerous to you, attend future meetings until B returns. Stop. Keep me informed. Stop. Kryger End."
He waited briefly. The machine began to rattle again:
* * *
MESSAGE RECD STOP STILFOS END COMPLETED
* * *
Kryger's finger tapped out a final "Kryger end. Communication over." Then he got up and left the room and Argant. There's only one way they could have found out our plans, he told himself grimly. That ass Brokols has a loose mouth—either that or he's turned traitor. Which seemed highly unlikely; there'd be nothing in it for him, with an imperial takeover a certainty.
Or was it a certainty now? This security breakdown might cost heavily in Almaeic lives, but could it also change the outcome? He needed to reevaluate.
He threw himself down in his reading chair, but left his book where it lay. How could Brokols have let so much slip? Had the man begun drinking? Or gotten mixed up with a droid woman? He'd been investigated thoroughly before the prime minister appointed him. They all had. One might expect that any problems with drink or women would have been found out.
The most serious thing was, the problem went beyond Hrumma. Fortunately, King Gamaliiu had no ambassador in Hrumma, but he might well have spies there, Hrummean traitors perhaps, in which case they'd report all this to him. Which would be bound to alarm him.
If that happened, Gamaliiu would no doubt ask some hard questions. It would be well to have some good answers in advance. Probably the best would be a simple denial—say that the Hrummeans were imagining things. And that according to his informant, it was frightening the people there. Taking the heart out of them.
That just might work. Beneath those waxed curls, Gamaliiu was not an imbecile, but he had an unreasonably low opinion of the Hrummeans. Unreasonable because, if they were as inept as Gamaliiu insisted, they'd have fallen long ago.
Meanwhile, when he sent his weekly report to Larvis Royal, day after tomorrow, he should probably make a case for advancing the timetable. Get this place conquered before too many things went wrong. Of course, he'd have to think of a good reason without telling the truth. It wouldn't do for the emperor to know about the leak. Because he, Kryger, was in charge of this mission, and the blame would be his regardless of where it properly lay.
Meanwhile he'd speed Djez Gorrbul's attack on Hrumma. If Gamaliiu advanced his timetable, the emperor would advance his of necessity.
Fortunately, lacking wireless, word would travel slowly from Theedalit to Haipoor l'Djezzer. Probably not many Gorrbian ships went to Hrumma. The Gorballis had few ships; Djez Gorrbul just wasn't a maritime nation. So most cargoes would go in Hrummean hulls. And the Gorballis felt enough disdain for Hrumma and things Hrummean that probably few, if any, Gorrbian seamen understood the language there anyway. Or would attend a Hrummean religious rally.
As for Brokols—he was a liability now. Stilfos, Kryger decided, would have to become ambassador there. And . . .
That meant getting rid of Brokols. Would Stilfos do it if ordered to?
He should have discussed Brokols with Stilfos while he had him on the wireless, he told himself, but that could wait. Replacing Brokols could wait, as far as that was concerned. The damage was done, and he'd see what the man said when he reported in from his tour. According to his pre-trip plan, he'd be back in Theedalit any day now.
Kryger sat down at his desk and began to diagram the problems and possibilities on paper.