After only a few minutes the rain stopped, and he turned to me and smiled. "It comes like this nearly every day, often twice a day. If it didn't, we might have to fear a fire. But as it is, our only problem is getting peat dry enough to burn for cooking."
I smiled back and nodded. "I can see that might be a problem." Obviously he had guessed at my observaltion about the city's vulnerability to fire, and wanted me to understand by direct experience exactly how useless a weapon fire would be against them.
The ground was mud six inches deep, which made for very unhealthy walking, and I was surprised they made no effort to corduroy or cobble any sort of path besides the road. But then we found a rope ladder and swung up into the air. I didn't touch the ground again for weeks.
Chapter 3 -- Nkumai
"Would you like to rest?" he asked, and for once I was glad that I appeared to be a woman, because the platform was an island of stability in an absurd world of swinging rope ladders and sudden gusts of wind. The Mueller's son could never have admitted he wanted to rest. But a lady emissary from Bird lost no face by resting.
I lay down on the platform so that for a few moments I could see only the still-distant roof of green above me and pretend I was on steady ground.
"You don't seem very tired," my guide commented. "You aren't even breathing very heavily."
"Oh, I didn't want the rest because of the exertion. I'm simply unaccustomed to such heights."
He casually leaned back over the edge of the platform and looked at the ground. "Well, we're only eighty meters off the ground right now. A long way to go."
I stifled a sigh. "Where are you taking me?"
"Where do you want to go?" he countered.
"I want to see the king."
He chuckled, and I wondered if a lady of Bird was supposed to consider it an affront to have someone laugh in her face. I decided to be slightly annoyed. "Is that amusing?"
"Of course you don't really expect to see the king, lady," he said.
He said this with a smirk, but I had had plenty of practice at putting down those who dared to condescend to me. I knew how to make my voice sound like it had been aged all winter on ice. "So your king is invisible. How amusing."
His smile dampened a little. "He doesn't meet with the public, that's all I meant."
"Ah. In civilized countries, emissaries are extended the courtesy of an audience with the head of state. But in your country, I imagine foreign embassies must be content with climbing trees and visiting each other."
His smile was gone now. The condescension was all going the other way, and he didn't like it. "We don't get many embassies. Until recently, our neighboring nations I have regarded us as 'tree-dwelling apes,' I believe is the term. Only lately, as our soldiers have begun to make a little noise in the world, have emissaries begun arriving. So perhaps we aren't acquainted with all the customs of 'civilized' nations."
I wondered how much truth there was to that. On the great Rebel River plain, every nation had exchanged embassies with every other nation ever since the Families first divided up the world. But if Nkumai had turned outward enough to go a-conquering, surely they had also learned how to deal with emissaries from many nations.
"We have only three emissaries right now, lady," he said. "We had several others, but of course the emissary from Allison is now a loyal subject of the king, while the emissaries from Mancowicz, Parker, Underwood, and Sloan were sent home because they seemed far more interested in our Ambassador than they were in promoting good relations with Nkumai. Now only Johnston, Cummings, and Dyal have embassies here. And since we're quite economical with living space, we've had to house them together. We're a backwater of the world, I'm afraid. Very provincial."
And you're overdoing it a bit, I commented silently. But however unsubtle he had been, I had got the warning well enough. They were alert to what most emissaries were probably looking for, including, most particularly, myself. So I would have to be careful.
"Nevertheless," said I, "I am here to see the king, and if there is no hope of that, I shall go home and tell my superiors that Nkumai has no interest in good relations with Bird."
"Oh, there's a chance that you can see the king. But you have to make application at the office of social services, and where that will lead you who can say." He smiled faintly. We were not friends.
"Shall we go?" he suggested.
I advanced wanly to the rope ladder that still swung gently in the breeze, moored loosely to the platform by a thin rope tied around a low post.
"Not that," he said. "We're going another way." And he took off running, away from the platform, along one of the branches, if you call them braches-- neither of them less than ten meters thick. I walked slowly to where he had climbed up the branch, and sure enough, there were some subtle handholds that seemed more to have been worn than cut into the wood. I clumsily got myself from the platform to the place where my guide waited impatiently. Where he was the branch had leveled out a little more and now rose more obliquely up into the distance, criss-crossed by branches from other trees.
"All right?" he asked.
"No," I answered. "But let's go on."
"I'll walk for a while," he said, "until you're more accustomed to the treeway." Then he asked me a question that seemed out of place, after so many days, travel together. "What's your name, lady?"
Name? Of course I had prepared myself with a name, back in Allison-- but the occasion had never arisen when I was required to use it, and now it had slipped my mind. I can't remember even now what name I had chosen before. And since my confusion by now was obvious, there was no way I could simply make another one up without arousing his suspicion. So again I resorted to a pretended custom to cover my momentary need. I sincerely hoped the government of Bird did not choose anytime soon to send a real emissary, for I doubted such a woman would wish to follow the script that I had improvised. And if Nkumai was as efficient as Mueller, and sent spies to learn more about a nation that had sent an embassy, my little fabric of lies would soon unweave itself.
"Name, sir?" I said, now covering confusion with haughtiness. "Either you are no gentleman, or you do not think me a lady."
He looked momentarily abashed. Then he laughed. "You must forgive me, lady. Customs vary. In my land only ladies have names. Men are called only for their duties. I am, as I told you, Teacher. But I meant you no disrespect."
"Fine," I said, forgiving him curtly. The game was becoming amusing, trying to assert some superiority over him in a situation in which I couldn't help but be inferior, just as I imagined a genuine female diplomat might find herself forced to do. It almost let me forget the fact that though the path we followed was no more difficult than climbing a steep hill, this hill happened to be a thick tree branch that sloped away quickly on both sides, and if I were to stray from the path I would soon find myself hurtling downward. I dared not look and couldn't guess how far, but, perversely, couldn't resist trying to find out, either. "How many meters to the ground?"
"At this place I would say about a hundred and thirty, lady. But I'm really not sure. We don't measure it much. Once you're high enough to kill yourself falling, it really doesn't matter how far the ground is, does it? But I can tell you how much higher we have to go."
"How much?"
"About three hundred meters."
I gasped. I knew trees could grow to phenomenal heights on Treason-- hadn't I walked through Ku Kuei?-- but surely that high up the branches would be too weak and slender to support us. "Where are we going? Why so high?"