Lands of Red and Gold #80: The Closure
This post continues on from previous encounters between the English East India Company and the Aururian kingdom of Daluming, the notorious head-hunters who inter worthy skulls behind glass in the pyramid they call the Mound of Memory. See previous posts
#56,
#58,
#60 and
#63. Also, a map of Daluming can be found
here.
* * *
“A battle-axe is the ultimate password.”
- Weenggina (better known in English as Wing Jonah), captain of the king’s guard, Daluming
* * *
Time of the Closure [March 1648]
Yuragir [Coffs Harbour, New South Wales], Kingdom of Daluming
Summer had departed, according to the calendar, but its heat still lingered in the royal palace. The days were long, the heat cloying, and humidity in the air kept even the nights warm. A sign, perhaps, of the much more dangerous heat now being inflicted on the flesh of men.
Ilangi, senior priest, found that heat affected him more with every passing year. Summer he could tolerate, but not such a continued burden. If not for the current pressing problems, he would have considered retreating to Pepperhome [Dorrigo] in the highlands for contemplation, until the seasons reverted to a more usual pattern.
Instead he had to contemplate matters here, in circumstances much less welcoming. The throne room itself was acceptable. After over fifteen years of service in the palace, Ilangi was closely familiar with the skulls of the honoured dead in their niches around the walls. But the heat made thought difficult
Worse, the other people in the room were not of the sort who would assist in his contemplation. The two other priests here were quite junior; the lower of them was in fact a skull-polisher. The other three men in the room were all king’s warriors, led by Weenggina himself. While Ilangi would never doubt their courage, he doubted their ability to assist him in proper contemplation.
Weenggina, who was no fool, had no doubt assigned more junior warriors to guard the king’s chambers during this most difficult of times. If he could not be absent altogether due to quarantine, he could limit his contact with those afflicted by the fever.
As much as he could, Ilangi forced his thoughts clear of the surroundings. The Closure weighed on his mind, as it had done for years. Twelve years, in total. Twelve years since the Raw Men came. Twelve years since the king proclaimed the Closure... and still the message lingered without resolution.
Priests and scholars had argued endlessly about what would happen in the Closure. Ilangi had spent years searching every record, every parchment, to find out what had been foretold. What he had never expected, and which none of them had ever predicted, was that it would involve... nothing. Twelve years of nothing.
Now, though, he knew that even nothing would eventually come to an end.
Light-fever [1] gripped Yuragir. The capital was now sealed from the rest of the kingdom. Though the last desperate reports before the gates were sealed were that the light-fever had spread further across the kingdom. Other plagues had afflicted the kingdom over the last few years, but light-fever seemed the worst. More, it had struck down King Otella himself.
The king was fevered. To worsen the disarray, the last Father [chief priest] had recently been banished to Anaiwal [Armidale] in the western highlands, tasked with proclaiming the Closure to the restless vassal chieftains. The new, just-installed Father was even more severely fevered than the king, and the healer had declared that the chief priest would not live through the night.
This, surely, marks the Closure in truth. The Raw Men must have been merely a prelude. The Mound of Memory, after all, was not yet full. Four niches remained for the skulls of the most worthy dead. If His Majesty succumbed to the fever, his skull would be interred there. So would that of the Father, whose own royal blood was strong enough to claim Memory.
Two niches left. Closure is truly at hand.
Footsteps on wood roused Ilangi from his contemplation. The healer-priest emerged into the throne room. A tall man, wrapped in a white tunic to mark his uncorrupted nature. His face was shaven, while his head hair grew long, tied into a braid at the back of his neck. He wore only the most basic adornments, a sapphire nose-stud and glass pendant, and was otherwise unadorned.
Ilangi stood to speak, but Weenggina forestalled him. “How fares the king?”
“The fever worsens. His Majesty knows not his own name,” the healer said. “Invocations continue, but they have not been heard.”
The king will be lost, and the Father before him. Who will steer the kingdom through the Closure now? Ilangi was the obvious replacement, of course. The most senior surviving priest who had not disgraced himself. But the king was not in a fit state to confirm his appointment now, when the Father’s eyes closed. How would the kingdom continue with both the monarch and chief priest lost?
*
The good galleon
Lady Harrington led the way along the Aururian coast. With the wind blowing up from the south, this massive four-masted ship found greater speed than any of the smaller vessels trailing behind.
Colonel Oliver Fairweather needed to travel on board this ship in particular, since it carried held the bulk of the “sea-soldiers” the Company had commissioned. But he would have chosen it anyway; as the largest vessel, it was not as sensitive to the movement of the waves as its smaller companions. Fairweather now fared better in inclement weather than when the
Lady Harrington first left England, but he doubted he would ever be truly comfortable at sea.
The stopover at Fort Cumberland [Geelong] had been a welcome relief, even if navigating the treacherous channel into the great bay [Port Phillip Bay] had the navigators sweating. He had welcomed it both for being a return to land, and for some time to drill his “sea-soldiers” properly in combat. They needed it; too many of them thought that piety was both weapon and armour.
Now, though, the long voyage neared its closure. The navigators claimed that they would reach Glazkul today. Of course, they had said that yesterday, too, but they were more insistent today. Whether today or tomorrow or even the day after, Glazkul beckoned. The great monument to the savagery of these Mexicans, of which he had heard so much, he would soon behold.
Fairweather turned away from the coast and started to walk across the deck, searching for any of the navigators. As he did, he passed a man with a sword strapped to his back and two pistols at his hips. The man muttered to himself over and over, his eyes open but not focused on anything of this world.
It could be worse. The sea-soldiers were a God-crazed lot, and that man Totney was the worst. Better to have him talking to himself than announcing his grand visions to the sea-soldiers and any sailors who happened to be within earshot. Long speeches proclaiming himself a soldier of God, and this voyage a mission to bring the Word of God to the heathen Mexicans, to cast down the new Babylon. The man found many listeners, but then the sea-sailors had little else to do on long voyages.
The relative silence was a blessing, especially since Totney was under-dressed by his standards. Usually he carried his musket with him too, despite there being no need for it on board ship.
Fairweather found such fanatics tiresome, but they were unavoidable. The Company faced a war-that-is-not-a-war with its Dutch rivals. An expensive war. The Dutch had been first in Aururia, and had first pick of its gold and spices. They had more money and more ships than the Company, and could afford to recruit proper, well-paid veterans.
Whereas the Company’s recruiting agents had picked whoever was willing to sail across the seas for, essentially, food and weapons supplied. For this expedition, the Company could not even rely on the lure of gold. Prince Rupert had done that, organising a private army of his own to seek gold amongst the Yatchee [Yadji], but those troops were not paid by the Company. But if Glazkul concealed any gold, no reliable tale spoke of it.
The sea-soldiers who had been recruited to come to Glazkul were being paid a pittance. The kingdom here grew valuable spices, according to Baffin’s account, but those kinds of spices were unfamiliar. They were not well-known enough to attract many recruits, particularly when most of the profits from the spices would go to the Company’s shareholders. What
was well-known was the murder of a Christian sailor who had been interred in a heathen temple.
And so who had been attracted? Fanatics, disturbed men, the dispossessed and displaced who had suffered from the plagues and their aftermath. Those who saw the world’s turmoil as inflicted by God, if not a sign of the end of days. And where better to fight the end of days than in the place where heathens had butchered good Christian Englishmen and interred their skulls behind glass in Glazkul?
That was what Fairweather had been given to work with.
He had done well, he believed. The sea-soldiers had learned about weapons, and discipline. The drills at Fort Cumberland had been helpful, even if he did not dare stay too long. The Yatchee were not meant to know about these sea-soldiers, in case word leaked ahead to warn Daluming. Or worse yet, if their Emperor tried to forcibly recruit the sea-soldiers into his own war.
The sea-soldiers had been taught their way around ships, too. They could perform nautical tasks at need. But they were soldiers, not sailors. A truth which both they and the sailors repeated at every chance.
Totney’s mutterings grew louder, enough to make out the words “Mexico shall burn as an oven.”
Ignoring him as best he could, Fairweather looked for the navigators. If the ship truly drew close to Glazkul, he needed to know. For the shipmaster would need to be informed to ready the cannon. He intended to give these heathens a message which would be understood in any language.
*
Thunder. Or what sounded like thunder. Coming not from the sky, but from the sea.
Ilangi had imagined the Closure in many forms. But never had he imagined
this.
Long had he looked for the ships of the Raw Men to return. Now they had done so. Ships sitting at sea, just off the coast from the Mound of Memory. The largest of those ships was the closest to shore. And now it was obscured by a rising cloud of smoke.
Thunder unchained. Thunder that drove balls of metal at the Mound of Memory. Thunder that broke the final resting places of the honoured dead, the honoured heads.
It is not yet time for the Closure! The Mound of Memory had not yet been filled. King Otella and the last Father had passed into the next realm, but their heads wee still to be cleansed of flesh and interred behind glass. Even if they had been, two other niches would remain unfilled.
Who could have imagined such a travesty? The Mound of Memory, the great repository, the final resting place of the most honoured fallen of Daluming for centuries, was being desecrated. The Raw Men were not just merchants, as they had appeared on first meeting. They were the most loathsome agents of destruction.
He wanted to shout his denial to the heavens.
This is not how the Closure should be! All that restrained him was concern for the dignity of his new office, and for the faith of those watching him.
Ilangi was now the acknowledged Father of Daluming. Acknowledged by every man of consequence who remained in Yuragir, that is. Now it fell to him to decide how to respond to the Closure.
*
“Put your backs into it, men!” cried out one sailor, from the boat just in front.
Fairweather cast his gaze from one side to the other. The line of boats was nearing the shore, with the sea-soldiers rowing as hard as they could. The first couple of boats were almost at the sand.
No sign of the natives on shore. He would not have sent the boats ashore if there were any natives nearby, and would instead have chosen another beach north of the main city. The landing was the most vulnerable time, but he had to secure a beachhead here rather than try to sail into a defended harbour. The ships’ lookouts were keeping watch for any natives who might try to return, and would signal if the natives were drawing closer.
So far, everything had gone as planned. The bombardment was unopposed. As it would have to be; the natives here had no guns, and certainly no cannon. Let that shock bring them to terms sooner. Fairweather knew his sea-soldiers could fight, but there were lots of natives. Better to awe them than fight them, given the choice.
Boat after boat landed on shore. Fairweather’s boat landed near the middle. He was first ashore from that boat, leaving the sea-soldiers to drag the boat above the high-tide mark and then ready weapons.
Sea-soldiers assembled around him, with some scouts advancing to watch the perimeter. His officers shouted out the necessary commands, and Fairweather did not interfere with them. They knew their assigned roles, and he needed to do no more. If they were not capable, they would not remain officers for long.
When the boats were all ashore and the last of the men nearly in place, Fairweather stepped forward from his officers, ready to address the sea-soldiers. Belatedly, he realised that someone was already standing in front of the men. A man with a musket resting by his side.
Totney?
Totney shouted, “Babylon has been wounded! The armies of God have come! Let the cleansing begin.”
“For God’s sake, someone get that man back in ranks,” Fairweather said.
He stepped forward, about to give firmer instructions – and felt something slide into his back. The air escaped from his lungs in an involuntary gasp, and he collapsed to the ground. As light and life faded, he heard Totney’s declaration continue, “I am the Captain-General under my Master Jehovah, and I will lead you, the People of God.”
Then came only darkness.
* * *
[1] Light-fever is what the Bungudjimay call epidemic typhus. They have named it that as a combination of the high fever produced by the disease, and the sensitivity to bright light which it induces.
* * *
Thoughts?
