Farmer, Philip Jose – Riverworld 06 – ( Shorts) Tales of Riverworld

The foraging detail took charge of the black men’s grails. The Muslims gave them up even more reluctantly than their arms. Without grails, they were at their conquerors’ mercy. If they did not obey henceforward, they would not eat. Oh, a few might slip off and survive on River fish and fruits and tubers from the plants that grew from the riverbank back into the foothills. But a stretch of land that would support a thousand people with grails might only let a double handful live on it without them.

After the last of the weapons and grails were surrendered, Alexios’s record-keepers began taking the names of the Bornu men, women, and adolescents alike. Bamboo pulp replaced the parchment and papyrus the scribes had used at their desks in Constantinople. The Franks, Alexios remembered, had been amazed at the minutiae his offi-

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cials recorded. But how were you supposed to run a state if you didn’t keep track of the people it contained?

The sun began to set over the mountains to the west. As the town’s—now his town’s—grailstone roared and flamed, he let himself feel how tired he was. Then he had to force himself back to abrupt alertness, for one of the scouts who had gone downstream from the former Bornu capital came pelting back, shouting, “An army’s heading our way!”

One of the black men must have learned some Greek since being reborn along the River, for he made a dash for the piled weapons. Rhomaioi sprang after him, speared him down. He lay writhing in agony. “Finish him,” Alexios said. One of his warriors smashed in the Bornu’s skull. Let some other king far away deal with a troublemaker, the Basileus thought.

Another scout panted into town. “It’s the men of Shy town,” he said. The Rhomaioi cheered as if to make their cries echo from the distant mountains. Alexios instantly ordered the news translated into Arabic. The Bornu sank even deeper into despair.

With a well-armed bodyguard around him, Alexios went out to greet his allies. The Shytowners whooped with glee when they recognized him in the failing light. For the moment, all was concord in the two victorious armies. But Mayor Daley also had protectors when he stepped out to meet Alexios between his men and those of the Basileus.

Daley spoke. Father Boyle turned his half-intelligible words into Latin for Alexios:.”It really did go just as we planned. How often does that happen in war?”

“Not very,” Alexios said, wondering how much the afterman really knew of war. But that didn’t matter, not

now. As Mayor Daley had said, they’d won. Alexios pushed through his bodyguards, held out his hand to the Mayor. Daley broke through the ranks of his own soldiers to clasp it. For one brief, proud moment, the alliance between them teetered on the edge of true friendship.

Then Daley said, “When do you think you can come to Shytown to be sworn in as Vice Mayor?”

A curious phrase, Alexios thought. But that was by the by. He focused again on what he would have to do, the gains and the probable costs. He said, “I think we would be wise first to consolidate and garrison what we have won today. Your men are already largely in place, since you are taking five of Bornu’s Riverside grailstones to our four. But we still have to push away from the River to seize our extra inland stone to compensate. We may have a bit more fighting to do, though Musa concentrated his men along the River. I will join you—hmmm—in one week’s time. Then you will visit New Constantinople to be anointed as our Kaisar.”

Alexios held his voice steady only with effort. A foreigner as Kaisar of the Rhomaioi— It had happened once before, when Justinian II rewarded Tervel the Bulgar for backing in a civil war. Alexios still reckoned it disgraceful. But he’d needed Daley as Justinian had needed Tervel. He would pay the price.. .in his own fashion.

Father Boyle translated his words for the Mayor. Daley said something in the English of the opisthanthropoi. The priest dipped his head, then turned back to Alexios: “Hizzonor gives me leave to say a few words of my own to you. In our time and country, the land Constantinople ruled was more often called the Byzantine Empire than the Roman Empire. Byzantine became a word in our