Marko’s saddle was part of an elaborate structure, which fitted around the camel’s forward hump, with a gap in the middle through which the shaggy apex of the hump projected. Behind the hump was one seat, on which Marko sat. Forward was another, on which sat Boert Halran with his feet resting on the back of the camel’s neck.
The caravan consisted mainly of thirty-two camels, carrying riders or loads. There were also a wagon pulled by two camels, a carriage drawn by a pair of horses, two other horses with riders, and the four mounted archers. The camels had little sticks tied to their tails with flags to indicate ownership.
“Go!” cried the conductor, whose name was Slim Qadir. The procession formed as mounts and vehicles took their places in the line, which crawled out of the main square of Thine.
They plodded out of the square, through the streets, and along the west road. They passed through the avenue of stupas that Jorgi the First had planted many years before. These were mere saplings compared to those of the Borsja Peninsula, none being over twelve feet in diameter.
As the caravan climbed towards the Pindo Hills, a northward continuation of the Skudran and Zetskan hills, the trees became smaller and sparser. Their place was taken by the crowding, bamboolike kackinsoni. The sky clouded over; the rain began. They sloshed through the Borgo Pass, between the volcanoes Elikon and Parnasso, and down the long slope towards the Saar.
On the following day after siesta, Marko saw the Saar for the first time. The sandy soil stretched away to the horizon, sparsely covered with patches of phosphor grass and little bat-veiled fungi. Here and there rose a clump of the onion-mushroom, Scallionis. Slim Qadir warned his party that the local variety, although it looked just like other onion-mushrooms, was deadly poisonous. When they got closer to the Medranian Sea, the onion-mushrooms would become safely edible again.
Hours ticked slowly past as they jounced across the vast waste. Its aridity was due to the long spur of hills, which the Equatorial Range thrust northward from the spine of the Borsja Peninsula. The Skudran and Zetskan and Pindo hills were links in this chain, which wrung most of the moisture out of the prevailing northeasterly winds in passing over them.
The terrain varied from hour to hour. Sometimes it was fiat or gently rolling sandy country with scattered fungi and spiny shrubs. Sometimes there were lifeless dunes. They passed jagged outcrops of rock and clumps of low, steep-sided hills, and sometimes a group of smoking volcanic cones. Little life was to be seen, save an occasional herd of dromsors, slender running lizards something like a reptilian ostrich in shape, or a flock of batlike tersors flying overhead.
Once they were well into the Saar, Slim Qadir forbade cooking fires. “Robbers,” he explained. “Zaki Riadhi’s band lurks in these hills.”
“Oh, mercy!” said Halran. “I hope we shall not encounter them.”
North of the L-shaped peninsula of Vizantia lay the Khlifate of Arabistan, including not only the base of the peninsula but also the great offshore island of Mahrib. The territory of the Khlifate extended southward along the shores of the Medranian Sea to take in the whole Saar. Under the feeble and disorderly goveminent of the Khlif, Yubali the Third, the Saar was for practical purposes not governed at all.
During the first days after leaving Thine, Marko learned how to manage a camel. He also tried to engage Boert Halran in conversation. Although a man who did not make friends easily, he felt such a wealth of mutual interests with Halran that he had no hesitation in talking to him. In fact, Marko became positively garrulous, babbling openly about his ideas of man and the universe.
Halran, normally a much less inhibited person, remained aloof and taciturn. The philosopher’s attitude became so marked that Marko, realizing, finally said:
“Dr. Halran, have I beenahhave I been boring you? Have I offended you in some way? I know I’m justjust a backwoods bumpkin”
“No, sir,” said Halran. “I find you, yourself, a personable and likable young man. It is your bloodthirsty social ethos that I take exception to.” “Oh? Why, I wouldn’t harm you!” “You do not understand. You are proceeding to Anglonia, where murder is the most serious crime on the calendar, with the avowed intention of killing this fugitive pair. When you have done so, the law will take you and hang you. Because you have associated with me, it might be proved that I had knowledge of your designs. In that event, the law is likely to throw me into prison for the rest of my life as well.”
“But you are not asked to take any part in this deed!”
“Nevertheless, I shall be what our law calls an accessory before the fact. By merely keeping silent and failing to turn you over to the law to imprison or deport, I incur part of your guilt. Now do you see what a difficult position you place me in? For all I know, you may decide your only security lies in killing everyone having knowledge of your intentions, and split my skull with that frightful cleaver.”
Marko was shocked. “I didn’t know that! I’mI don’t know what to say. I wouldn’t antagonize you for anything.”
“Well, you see how things look to others.” “I know. I have never understood how other people’s minds work. But look, doesn’t an Anglonian whose wife has been stolen have any recourse? Is he expected to say merely, ‘Yes, sir, thank you, sir, is there anything else, sir?’ “
Halran shrugged. “In the first place, our law does not class people as property. So, as one can only steal property, one cannot ‘steal’ a wife or husband. And the mere fact that one’s mate prefers somebody else does not constitute damage.”
“Not damage? Isn’t breaking up a home and family damage?”
“Well, if she were kept against her will, your life with her would be unhappy anyway, so is it not better to let her go? If you .can show actual damagesay from loss of her services as housekeeperyou can recover that amount by a suit at law. But our courts are slow and expensive, and the amount awarded is usually trivial.”
“But your loss of honor”
“Honor is a subjective, intangible loss. Therefore our laws take no cognizance of it.”
“One might say,” said Marko, “that most Anglonians have so little honor that it isn’t worth bothering about. If you’ll excuse my saying so. Isn’t there some maxim about the law’s not taking account of trifles?”
Halran laughed, throwing back his head. “I believe there is. However, we do think we have, by eliminating all these subjective and sentimental considerations like ‘honor’ and ‘purity,’ attained a degree of rationality in our legal system surpassed by no other nation.”
“It may be rational, but how about the results? Many people are naturally lustful and polygamous. So we set up a strict barrier of custom and law to restrain these impulses. You say, what harm does it do to indulge them, and let people do as they please?
“As a result, you Anglonians trade mates every year, and your children grow up a feckless, irresponsible lot from always changing parents and never having any consistent rules to obey. We have a saying, ‘Distrust three things: a wild onion-mushroom, a quiet volcano, and an Anglonian’s word.’ “
“Oh, we are not so bad as that. Wait until you have visited Anglonia before you condemn us.”
“I shall be most interested to see it, sir.”
“For instance,” said Halran, “I have been married to the same woman for fifteen years, and each of us had been married only twice before we met each other. True, our friends do regard us as a trifle quaint.”
“Well, Anglonians shouldn’t go marrying Vizantians and then revert to the Anglonian moral standard. We don’t stand for that sort of thing. Petronela knew I expected to be her first, last, and only man”