Lord Tyger (Grandmaster Series) by Philip Jose Farmer

Author:Philip Jose Farmer [Farmer, Philip José]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857689696
Publisher: Titan
Published: 2012-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

13

CAPTOR, WHO’S THE CAPTIVE?

Three years before, one of Ras’s periodic visits to the Wantso village had coincided with the third day after the capture of Gilluk. From his observation post on a tree across the river from the western gate, Ras had seen the cage in front of the Great House. The bamboo cage had been about seven feet high and four feet wide. It had hung by a rope from a horizontal bamboo log suspended at each end on three hardwood legs. Both the cage and the support had been specially built for the occasion, as Ras had learned when he had moved in closer to eavesdrop.

He had listened to the women weeding in the fields and to the guards on the northern gate. The whole village had been swinging between exultation and apprehension. The capture of the king of the Sharrikt would be talked about, sung of, for generations. The Wantso had captured other Sharrikt—the last one four years before—but never had they caught a king. He would be treated royally; his torture was to last a month, if not more, before he would be burned alive in the cage.

This had been the cause of the exultation. The apprehension had been caused by the possibility that the Sharrikt might come in force to rescue Gilluk. It had been necessary to keep additional guards on the village and also to send out scouts to check on the Sharrikt movements. This had worked a hardship, because the Wantso could not afford to tie up so many men with such duties. The guards and scouts should have been hunting. The reduction in the meat supply had already caused complaints. Tibaso, the chief, had made a speech to the men in which he had urged them to be patient and enduring. They were to silence their wives if they complained. This was a time of grave crisis but also a time for great jubilation. Nothing so good occurred without a need for self-sacrifice, hard work, and unceasing devotion and unremitting vigilance.

The Wantso would keep a united front and would defeat any invasion force, as they had done in the past. The Wantso were a great people—in fact, The People, the meaning of the word Wantso—and they must, by the very nature of things, win out over the Sharrikt, a kind of two-legged, very depraved animal. And so forth.

There had been loud shouts of approval, a mass repeating of his most fiery phrases, and much clashing of spears and drinking of beer. The whole village, men, women, and children, including the guards, had got so drunk the first night that the Sharrikt could have walked in before dawn and taken their king out without disturbing anybody except the chickens and hogs. Ras had heard this from the women, who had been laughing about it and also passing back and forth some gossip about events that night.

Tibaso had reprimanded his people the next day and said that they must stay sober until they were sure the danger was past.

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