“One of those things you can learn about if you can discover how to find out what you want to know.”
Roberts told himself he had assimilated enough for now, anyway. “I’ll try to figure it out, sir, when I accumulate the strength. Thanks very much for what you’ve told me.”
“Perfectly all right, Roberts. You were entitled to it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have told you.”
* * *
As the days passed, the results of their efforts began to show up. Going out into town, they could not help but hear word of the “Great Road,” as the people called it. Soon, they saw a more tangible sign—peasants who rode into town on weekends, money jingling in their pockets. Business picked up and became brisk. A boom developed, and merchants and artisans labored overtime to supply goods to meet the demand. Then, as the road came closer, the laborers began to come into town on weekday evenings.
Watching the cheerful throngs buy necessities, and later watching them buy the worthless trinkets that increasingly appeared in the shops, Roberts began to feel uneasy. Approaching a peasant laden with several dozen strings of glass beads, three stuffed dolls, a large bolt of cheap cloth, and fifteen pairs of sandals slung over his shoulder on a woven grass cord, Roberts spoke apologetically.
“Pardon me, sir, but I am a stranger here. If you will excuse my ignorance, I would wish to ask a question.”
The peasant looked at him with shrewd good humor. “Ask away. But speak quickly, as I must return on the Great Road tonight with these goods.” A glint of pride showed in his eye.
Roberts said apologetically, “I mean no offense . . . perhaps it is just that I am a stranger here . . . but I seem to notice a spending of good money for what, where I come from, some might think to be goods more for pleasure than for use. I mean no offense, but only wonder at such freely-spent wealth.”
The peasant smiled and nodded. “We are all become like nobles, and spend money as they do. It is that the Neighbor King, who builds the Great Road, spends lavishly of his substance, for labor that is no worse than a man must do in his own fields for half the sum or less. Thus we have quickly supplied our needs, and that done, to what use shall we put the money? True, some of the silver can be put in the floor, and the spot smoothed over, but to earn much money and spend little is to tempt robbers, and that is not wise. Why should not my wife have that which will please her eye, and my children have that which will enliven their play, and keep sharp stones from their feet—especially when these are things that will be seen by those who steal, and these things will say to them, ‘No money here. That fool Ayok has thrown it all away on his family.’ Eh?” The peasant jabbed Roberts lightly with his elbow. “Are we, then, such fools?”
Roberts smiled. “Not now that I understand it. Your words have cleared up the mystery.”
“Come work on the road. The silver flood cannot last forever, but while it lasts, it is better than to break your back in the fields. Nearly all who farm, and can reach the Great Road, will have a welcome rest this summer. You can share in the wealth.”
Roberts smiled. “Perhaps I will. Thank you.”
The friendly peasant moved away.
And then, like a blow to the back of the head, suddenly the next link in the colonel’s chain of events came across to Roberts.
Here, all around him, spending cheerfully the money earned on the road, were a large proportion of the farmers of the country.
Across the road, under the sign “Logash and Brothers,” grain and dried vegetables were being weighed out to a line of children who handed over their coppers, and hurried home with the food they’d been sent to pick up.
As, across the street, last year’s grain was weighed out from the storehouses, over here the peasants laughed and joked, and then headed home to rest up for another day’s work—on the road.
“My God,” said Roberts.
He walked across the street, uncertain exactly what he had in mind, and nodded to a smiling man who stood in the storehouse, a little back from the wide doorway, watching the money rattle into his till.
“Sir?” said the man, half-bowing. “Will you have dar, qadron, or perhaps a measure of nerbash? We have dried rashids, pinths, and still some ground-nuts, though we are completely out of tekkary. I believe Gashar, across town, has some, but beware his qadron. It is said the rats have been in it, though do not say I said it.”
Roberts said hesitantly, “I am a stranger here—”
The man said warily, “Do you have money?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, but you do not know our delicacies? Well, our rashids and ground-nuts are very good this year. The rashids are three coppers the bunch, and the ground-nuts are a small silver-piece for one hand of them. It is high, but this is the last of the season’s. Will you buy?”
“Yes.”
“I will serve you myself. Ah, this Road is a great thing, is it not? When it is done, we will have spice from far Iandul, and not at the price of two hands of silver wheels to the half-leaf of spice, either.”
Roberts said hesitantly. “But the Road takes many farmers from their work, does it not?”
“Yes, but how else? Who would not work at double the wage for less labor? Everyone prospers. Look at the money flow! Even those who do not work on the Road are rich, because of what they sell to the road workers!”
Roberts tried again. “How will the harvest be this year, do you think?”
“Who can say? There is something no man knows. But we’ll get through. There are those who say that this prosperity will go on forever. And why not? If there is much silver, men can buy. And if they buy, other men have the silver and they can buy. Thus is everyone become prosperous. Here you are, sir. Thank you. If you find my goods to your liking, come back, and I think you cannot do better. You will find no rat tails and offal weighed out to you from my scales, even with the scrapings before harvest.”
Dumbfounded, Roberts nodded and started back to the ship. On the way, he stopped, and gave his purchase to a little girl, who accepted it smilingly, and looked wonderingly after the somber stranger before running in to hand the food to her mother.
X
The Road approached the city, at first as a sound of crashing trees, and the shouted orders of men urging on beasts of burden. Then the crews clearing away the forest and bridging the streams actually came into view. Then came the bulwark of yellowish-brown dirt, rocks, and gravel, more dirt, rocks and gravel, endlessly cascading down as double files of wagons unloaded and went back, and endless lines of men, carrying wicker baskets between them, filled the gaps between the wagons, then walked back single file to let the unloaded and now faster wagons go ahead. To either side of the Road, swarms of men cleared away the undergrowth, and made tangled barriers of felled trees as a discouragement to robbers when the road should be put into use.
The city, by now, was in the grip of delirious prosperity, the men working overtime to fill the unheard-of demand for goods, and the women and children coming out in crowds, to observe the steady advance of the cause of all this wealth. Silver and copper changed hands in a magical flow, but Roberts and Hammell, going out into the countryside to look at the farms, saw only kitchen gardens, tended by the women of the families, and weedy fields, with occasional boys, too young for heavy work, out pulling up thorny vines, lest they grow big and interfere with the next year’s harvest. At rare intervals, there was a good field, tended by an old man, who preferred to stay home, and do work he was used to, rather than make the trip to work on the road. But, with rare exceptions, the food-producing regions within reach of the Road were a wasteland.
“Will you have enough,” Roberts asked a road worker in town, “when the stored food is gone?”
“Oh, Shachrim and Fazir have many good farmers, and when the Road crosses the border, we can buy from them. This Road will solve many problems. We never could buy from them before until after the ground froze, because the roads were so bad. Now all will be different. Excuse me, now, good sir, I am a moneyed person, and have many important purchases to attend to.”