Taller than Tjiimpuu, Da’ud looked down his long nose at him. “I could answer in several ways. First, my ruler, the mighty Emir Hussein, does not recognize your seizure of Kiiniigwa. Second, surely you do not claim this was carried out by the army of the Dar al-Harb?”
“If I claimed that,” the Tawantiinsuujan foreign minister growled, “my country and yours would be at war now, International Court or no International Court, and you, sir, would be on the next train out of Kuuskoo.”
“Well, then, you see how it is.” Da’ud spread his hands. “Even assuming the report is true, what do you expect my government to do?”
“Tracking down the raiders and striking off their heads would be a good first step,” Tjiimpuu said. “Sending those heads to the Son of the Sun with a note of apology would be a good second one.”
“But why, when they’ve broken no law?” Again Da’ud smiled that silky, irritating smile.
“Wait a bit,” Allister Park broke in sharply. “Since when aren’t arson and kidnapping — and probably rape and murder too — against the law?”
“Since they are worked against pagans by Muslims seeking to extend the sway of Islam,” answered Da’ud ibn Tariq. “In that context, under the shari’a, under Islamic law, nothing is forbidden the ghazi, the warrior of the jihad.” He meant it, Park realized. He’d read about the holy war Islam espoused against what it called paganism, but what he’d read hadn’t seemed quite real to him. Jihad smacked too much of the Crusades (which hadn’t happened in this world) and of medieval times in general for him to believe the concept could be alive and well in the twentieth century. But Da’ud, a clever, intelligent man, took it seriously, and so, by his expression, did Tjiimpuu.
“Ghazi.” The Tawantiinsuujan made it into a swear word. “The Emirate uses this as an excuse to send its criminals and wild men to the frontier to work their crimes on us instead of on its own good people — if such there be — and to lure more criminals and wild men to its shore from the Emirate of Cordova, from North Africa, even from Asia, so they too can kill and steal in our land to their hearts’ content.”
“The answer is simple,” Da’ud said. Tjiimpuu looked at him in surprise. So did Allister Park. If the answer were simple, he wouldn’t have been here, halfway up the Andes (Antiis, they spelled it here). Then the ambassador went on, “If your people acknowledge the truth of Islam, the frontier will no longer be held against pagans, and strife will cease of its own accord.”
“I find my faith as true as you find yours or the one-time Bishop Scoglund here finds his,” Tjiimpuu said. Park had the feeling this was an old argument, and sensibly kept his mouth shut about his own occasional doubts.
“But it is false, a trick of Shaitan to drag you and all your stubborn pagan people down to hell,” Da’ud said.
“Aka.” Tjiimpuu pronounced the word as Eric Dunedin had, but he did so deliberately. “Patjakamak is the one real god. He set the sun aflame in the sky as a token of his might, and sent the Sons of the Sun down to earth to light our way. One day the whole world will see the truth of this.”
The ache that started pounding inside Park’s head had nothing to do with the altitude.
“Gentlemen, please!” he said. “I’ve come here to try to keep the peace, not to see you fight in the hall.”
“Can there be true peace with pagans?” Da’ud demanded. “They are far worse than Christians.”
“Thank you so much,” Park snapped. The Moor, he thought angrily, was too fanatical even to notice when he was insulting someone.
Tjiimpuu, though, was every bit as unyielding. “One day we will rid Skrelleland of you hairy, sun-denying bandits. Would that we were strong enough to do it now, instead of having to chaffer with you like potato merchants.”
“Potatoes, is it? One fine day we will roast potatoes in the embers of Kuuskoo.” Da’ud ibn Tariq whirled around and stormed off. His exit would have been more impressive had he not bumped into the envoy from Araukanja, the Skrelling land south of Tawantiinsuuju, and knocked a mug of corn beer (aka in the other sense of the word) out of said envoy’s hand. Dripping and furious, Da’ud stomped out into the chilly night.
Even in summer, even within thirteen degrees of the equator, early morning in Tawantiinsuuju was cold. Allister Park pulled his llama-wool cloak tighter as he walked through the town’s quiet streets.
The exercise made his heart race. He knew a cup of coca-leaf tea would be waiting for him at the foreign ministry. He looked forward to it. Here it was not only legal but, he was finding, necessary.
A goodwain chuffed by, its steam engine all but silent. Its staked bed, much like those of the pickup trucks he had known back in New York, was piled high with ears of corn. Probably taken from a tamboo — a storehouse — to feed some hungry village, Park supposed. A third of everything the locals produced went into tamboos; Tawantiinsuuju was more socialistic than the Soviet Union ever dreamed of being.
The goodwain disappeared around a corner. The few men and women on the streets went about their business without looking at Allister Park. In New York — in New Belfast in this world — such an obvious stranger would have attracted staring crowds. Not here.
The town was as alien as the people. It had its own traditions, and cared nothing for the ones Park was used to. Many buildings looked as old as time: huge, square, made from irregular blocks of stone, some of them taller than he was. Only the fresh thatch of their roofs said they had not stood unchanged forever.
Even the newer structures, those with more than one story and tile roofs, were from a similar mold, and one that owed nothing to any architecture sprung from Europe. Vinland’s close neighbors among the Skrelling nations, Dakotia especially, had borrowed heavily from the technically more sophisticated newcomers. But Tawantiinsuuju had a thriving civilization of its own by the time European ideas trickled so far south. It took what it found useful — wheels, the alphabet, iron — smelting (it had already known bronze), the horse, and later steam power — and incorporated that into its own way of life, as Japan had in Park’s home world.
The foreign ministry was in the district called Kantuutpata, east of Park’s lodgings. A kantuut, he knew, was a kind of pink flower, and, sure enough, many such grew there in gardens and window boxes. The Tawantiinsuujans were often very literal-minded.
The ministry building was of the newer sort, though its concrete walls were deeply scored to make it look as if it were built of cyclopean masonry. The guards outside, however, looked thoroughly modern: they were dressed in drab fatigues very much like the ones their Vinlandish counterparts wore, and carried pipes-compressed-air guns — at the ready. Their commander studied Park’s credentials with scrupulous attention before nodding and waving him into the building.
“Thank you, sir,” the judge said politely. The officer nodded again and tied a knot in the kiipuu whose threads helped him keep track of incoming visitors.
Inside the ministry building, Park felt on more familiar ground. Bureaucrats behaved similarly the worlds around, be they clerks in a DA’s office, clerics, or Tawantiinsuujan diplomatic officials. The measured pace of their steps; their expressions, either self-centered or worried; the sheaves of paper in their hands-all were things Park knew well.
He also knew all about cooling his heels in an outer office. When some flunky of Tjiimpuu’s tried to make him do it, he stepped past the fellow. “Sir, the excellent Tjiimpuu will see you when it is convenient for him,” the Skrelling protested.