Peter Dickinson: The Ropemaker

Nineteen generations before Tilja’s time such a period had just ended, with the barns empty, the cattle driven away, houses smashed by soldiers looking for hidden treasures to make up for their unpaid wages, children snatched into slavery. Some people chose to go south with the soldiers, to make new lives for themselves in the Empire, but most stayed where they were. However difficult and dangerous life might be in the Valley, this was where they belonged.

A year passed, and things were better. Another year, and they were better again, and still the tribes did not come. (There was a horse plague raging across the plains.) The barns had new roofs on them, doors were sound and tables laden, and markets began again, with stuff in the stalls worth bargaining for. After market people would sit around, drinking the harsh local cider, and wondering how long the good times would last. On one such evening somebody sighed and said, “If only there were a way of closing the pass.”

“Fugon the Magnificent tried that,” said someone else. “In our grandfathers’ grandfathers’ time, wasn’t it?”

“No, before that,” said someone else. “Fugon the Fourth, he was the Magnificent. It was Fugon the Second tried to close the pass.”

They argued about dates and Emperors until somebody said, “Anyway, whoever it was, he didn’t manage it. And if the Emperor couldn’t do it, who can? No one’s stronger than the Emperor.”

“Asarta is stronger than the Emperor,” said a man. “She could close the pass if she chose.”

This man’s name was Sonnam, which is not a Valley name, because he had not been born in the Valley, and spoke with a southern accent. He was in fact a deserter from the Emperor’s army who had fallen in love with a girl from one of the farms by the river. She and her mother had hidden him for three whole years, but now the garrisons were gone and he was married to her and lived openly.

Because he was not a Valley man they did not take him seriously, and laughed when he spoke. But his wife said, “You are fools. Sonnam has lived in the Empire, and you have not.”

“Very well,” they said. “Tell us about this Asarta. One story is as good as another at the end of a long day.”

“Only what Asarta chooses to be known is known about her,” said Sonnam. “But my family are mostly soldiers, and my father’s uncle was a corporal in the Emperor’s guard. In those days there were pirates raiding along the western coast, and when the Emperor built navies to punish them they banded together and sank his ships before his eyes. Twice they did this, but the third time the Emperor, on the advice of his courtiers, sent to Asarta for help. She agreed on a great price and came. So the navies met once more and the Emperor sat on the cliff to watch the encounter, with Asarta beside him, a small old woman in a gray gown. As the navies bore down against each other she called aloud, and serpents came out of the ocean, six of them, and smashed the pirate ships in their coils and tossed them about and snatched the pirates out of the air as they fell, and ate them.

“Then the Emperor clapped his hands and his servants brought three strong chests and laid them before Asarta, and she looked at them and pointed her finger and they fell apart, so that everyone could see that only the top layer in each was gold, and the rest was lead. The Emperor told her that it was his treasurer who had done this, hoping to keep the gold for himself, and again he clapped his hands and the treasurer was seized and strangled before he could speak. Then Asarta looked the Emperor in the eye and pointed her finger once more, and the Emperor shrank until he was no bigger than my thumb, and Asarta picked him up and put him in a gold cage which she brought out of the air, and hung it on a golden pole.

“At that the Emperor’s guard, my father’s uncle among them, rushed to the rescue of their lord, but they too dwindled as they came nearer to Asarta, to the size of mice and then of ants, so that they were afraid to come closer lest they should vanish altogether. Next Asarta spoke, a cry so loud that those around her fell to the ground, but the body of the treasurer rose to its feet and walked toward her with its head dangling aside, and she placed her hands round his neck and spoke quietly to him, so that his head straightened and the life came back into him. He gave orders, and more gold was brought, up to the price that had been agreed. Then Asarta vanished, taking the gold and the treasurer with her.

“The Emperor’s guards, my father’s uncle among them, grew slowly in size, until by evening they were the height that they had been that morning. But the Emperor himself never grew to more than half his proper stature, and spoke always in a thin, high voice, like that of a bird, so that he should not forget that Asarta was more powerful than he was.

“All this my father’s uncle saw with his own eyes, but being a prudent man he at once changed his name and his regiment, for few of those that were known to have seen the Emperor dangling in his cage lived many days after.”

“Not a bad story,” said someone.

“So Asarta is stronger than the Emperor,” said Sonnam’s wife.

“If she’s still alive,” said someone else.

“And if the story’s true,” said another.

“Can’t be,” said yet another. “All that magic and stuff.”

Most of the listeners grunted in agreement. That was how Valley people thought about magic, even then, though there was magic in the Valley in those days, just as there was magic everywhere else in the Empire. Only no powerful magician had bothered to come to so remote a province for many, many years.

More peaceful seasons came and went, as the horse plague continued to ravage the plains, and the problems of the Empire boiled up elsewhere. Indeed, there was such turmoil south of the forest that the Emperor’s clerks forgot that the Valley even existed, and for long years nobody came to collect the taxes. It was a full generation before shepherds came running into market one evening with the news. They had been with their flocks in the high pastures and had seen a party of wild-looking horsemen beneath them, at the lip of the pass, looking down at the Valley, and pointing and laughing. It had been clear from both stance and gesture what had been in their minds, before they had turned and trotted away north.

By now those sitting around over their cider were the children of those who had listened to Sonnam telling the story of Asarta. Indeed, there were two of his sons among them, in one of whom the old soldiering blood still ran strong. It was he who said, after they had listened with dismay to the shepherds, “There is nothing for it. We must arm ourselves and fight.”

This, with much misgiving, they did. They caught the raiders in an ambush beside the river, but they had no experience of battle, while the raiders were hardened to it, so it was a desperately close affair, but in the end the raiders broke and fled. When it was over they met in council. Some said, “We have beaten them once. We can do so again.” Others said, “Next time they will be more, and warier. We must send to the Emperor for help.” Yet others said, “The Emperor’s help will destroy us as surely as the horsemen.” At last somebody said, “We might as well send to Asarta.”

This was, or was meant to be, a joke. By now “sending to Asarta” had become a sort of proverb in the Valley, something one said when one was in a fix and couldn’t think which way to turn. Then someone said, still joking, “At least it would be better than sending to the Emperor.” And someone, joking rather less, said, “Indeed it would.” So, gradually, without their noticing how it happened, the joke became a proposal, and the proposal became a decision, and they were discussing how it should be done.