The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog

‘So, Ruff, you remembered me so well after all this time’ and before he reached the stream of refugees, he knelt by Ruff and held him. The dog put his head on Dann’s shoulder and Dann was crying again. He’s my friend, Dann was thinking.

The stream of refugees became agitated when they saw Dann with the snow dog. Heads turned, hands went to knives and sticks were raised. Dann called out, ‘It’s all right, he’s tame,’ in one language and then another but no one understood. More effective was how he stepped into the stream, his knife in his hand. People fell back behind him and left a space on either side of him. Dann was afraid of a stone thrown from behind his back, but was reassured by Ruff’s thick coat – no stone could make an impression on that – although there was his long tender muzzle, his bright eyes, emerging from the ruff, his small, neat ears. So Dann kept turning to make sure no one was creeping up to attack the beast. No one did. They were too full of frightened thoughts of their hunger, of how to get to safety. And they went along, Dann and his snow dog, who kept looking up at Dann to see if all was well, and so the day went by until he began looking for the place where he had stepped off the path and seen whitish masses floating in a pool.

It was further than he expected. So slowly were they travelling today, because of the wariness over Ruff and having to stop, whereas when he had run to find help for the pup he had been going as fast as he could – faster than he had known. At last he saw a pattern of pools he recognised and stepped from the stream of people on to a soggy path between the pools. And there in the water he saw two foamy white masses. Ruff was by him, looking where he looked. He glanced up to see Dann’s face, looked back at the water. Then he began to whine anxiously and it seemed he was going to jump into the water. Dann took a good hold of the snow dog and said, ‘No, Ruff, no, Ruff, no.’ The water was very cold. Films and crinkles of ice lay here and there on it and enclosed the stems of reeds. All that time had passed, but the bubbling white was still there: not the flesh and the bones, only the mats of hair. Ruff let out a howl, causing the travellers on the path to stop and look. Dann smoothed his head, thinking how he had stood here with the dead weight of the soaked young animal against him. Dann led him to the soggy path and all the way Ruff was looking back, even when the pool became screened with reeds. He remembered, or half remembered, and Dann kept his hand on the animal’s head as they rejoined the people and talked to him: ‘Ruff, Ruff, you’re safe, I’ll look after you. I’ll always look after you.’ The snow dog barked, in answer, and kept looking up at Dann for reassurance.

Now the night was coming and there was a difficulty. On this path there was nowhere to shelter, as he knew from his journey the other way. A place would have to be found down the side of the cliff. There were bushes, but quite a way down and the stronger refugees would try to reach them. He was hungry and so was Ruff, but Dann had seen people eyeing his bulging sack and he knew what they would do if they saw him giving precious food to a hated snow dog. At last he saw a great boulder, resting on another. There was a ledge. It would take ingenuity to climb up there and Dann doubted whether anyone would try it. He slid down over shale to the boulder and found a way up; Ruff followed him and lay down. There below them was the gleam of the Bottom Sea, and to the east dark blobs that were the islands. The evening sky was a pearly lake, flushed pink. The bushes back near the path were crowded with people, already fighting off others who were trying to crowd in. Now Dann could open his sack and give some bread and some fish to Ruff. The animal had been drinking from the marshes as they came. Soon there was a moon and Dann was glad of it: he saw shadows creeping towards the boulder and he shouted and saw scuttling off some lads, who had planned to join them. Ruff was moving about restlessly, and whining, but Dann held his muzzle shut and whispered, ‘Don’t bark, don’t.’ And Ruff lay down, head on his great white paws, and was silent, watching the side of the cliff. So passed the night and the first light saw the refugees crowding back to the path. Some had used their clothes to scoop up marsh fish, and soggy fishbones lay about.

That next night was spent in a hollow between rocks a good way from the travellers. Ruff lay close to Dann, who was glad of the warmth.

More days passed, and then a wide enough track ran off south through marshes that were shallower here, not so dangerous. Part of the refugee stream turned off on the track, which lay on a route through Tundra to its frontier. Well, they wouldn’t find much comfort there, and he tried to tell them so, but one after another they turned sullen and uncomprehending eyes on him. Those who still kept to the path on the cliff’s edge were, it seemed, because there were fewer of them, relieved of the necessity for keeping the peace. They began quarrelling and fighting, if they suspected one had food hidden. They surrounded Dann and the snow dog, for Dann’s sack, which was much depleted now, but still had a promising bulge. Ruff barked and made short rushes at them, and they fell back; Dann led off the track into a path that went south-west, still through bogs and marshes, but they were not so bad. The ground soon became a little higher, there were some bushes and clumps of tall reeds. There came into sight a building, not more than a shed, on the right of the track. On the door of this shed was scrawled ‘No Refugees Here. Keep off’. He knocked and shouted, ‘I’m not a refugee. I can pay.’ No sound or movement from inside. He knocked again, a shutter moved and the face of a scowling old woman appeared.

‘What do you want?’

‘Let me in. I’ll pay for food and shelter.’

‘I’m not having a snow dog here.’

‘He’s tame, he won’t hurt you.’

‘No, go away.’

‘He can keep guard,’ shouted Dann.

At last the door, which was made of thick reeds held together by leather thongs, moved open and an old man’s voice said, ‘Be quick, then.’

Two old people stood facing him, but looking at the great beast, who sat down at once and looked at them.

The room was not large, and it was dark, with a single fish-oil lamp on a rough table. The walls were of turves and the roof of reeds.

Dann said, ‘I’ll pay you for some food for me and the animal.’

‘Then you must leave,’ said the old woman, who showed that she was afraid of Ruff.

‘I’ll pay you for letting us sleep here, on the floor.’

At this moment there were shouts and knocks on the door, which would give way in another instant. The old woman swore and shouted abuse. The old man was peering out through cracks in the shutter.

‘Bark, Ruff,’ said Dann. Ruff understood and barked loudly. The people outside ran off.

‘He’s a guard dog,’ said Dann.

‘Very well,’ said the old woman. She said something to the old man, and Dann didn’t recognise the language.

‘Where are you from?’ asked Dann. Their faces, under the dirt, were pallid, and their hair pale too. ‘Are you Albs?’

‘What’s that to you?’ demanded the old man, afraid.

‘I have friends who are Albs,’ said Dann.

‘We are half Albs,’ said the old woman. ‘And that half is enough to make us enemies, so they think.’

‘I know the trouble Albs have,’ said Dann.

‘Do you? That’s nice for you, then.’

‘I am from Rustam,’ said Dann casually, to see what they would say.

‘Rustam, where’s that?’

‘A long, long way south, beyond Charad, beyond the river towns, beyond Chelops.’

‘We hear a lot of travellers’ tales – thieves and liars, that’s what they are,’ said the old woman.

Outside, moonlight showed that some refugees had found this higher drier track and were lying on it, sleeping.

‘There are quite a few children out there,’ Dann said – to see what they would say.

‘Children grow up to be thieves and rascals.’

Dann was given a bowl of marsh fish, muddy and grey, with a porridge of vegetables thickened with meal. Ruff got the same: well, he didn’t have much better at Kass’s house.

Then the old woman said, ‘Now, you and that animal sit near the door and if there’s knocking, make him bark.’

Dann settled near the door, the dog beside him. He thought that there would probably not be disturbances now it was late. But once knocks did rouse them all, and the dog barked and the intruder left.

‘We don’t like snow dogs,’ said the old woman, from her ragged bed on the floor. ‘We kill them if we can.’

‘Why don’t you make one into a guard dog?’

But in the corner she muttered and gloomed and the old man, who clearly did what he was told, said that snow dogs were dangerous, everyone knew that.

Dann slept sitting, with the snow dog lying close, both glad of the warmth. They must be very cold out there, those poor people … Dann surprised himself with this thought. He did not see the use of sympathising with people in trouble, if he could not make cause with them, in some way. But he was thinking that once he and Mara had been – often enough – two frightened youngsters among refugees and outcasts, just like those out there in the cold moonlight that sifted over them from wet cloud.

In the very early morning, as the light came, he woke and looked at the mud floor, the turf walls, the low reed roof that leaked in places, and thought that this was called a house. It was worse by far than Kass’s. Under the marshes were the marvellous great cities that had sunk through the mud. Why was it such cities were not built now? He remembered the towns he and Mara had travelled through, fine towns, but far from the drowned cities around him – and such a longing gripped him for the glories of that lost time that he groaned. Ruff woke and licked his hands. ‘Why?’ he was muttering. ‘Why, Ruff? I don’t understand how it could happen. That – and then this.’

He coughed, and Ruff barked softly, and the two old ones woke.

‘So, you’re off, then?’ said the old woman.

‘Not without our breakfast.’

Again they got a kind of porridge, with vegetables.

‘Where are you going?’ the woman wanted to know.

‘To the Centre.’

‘Then what are you doing in a poor place like this?’

Dann said he had come from the east, had been down in the islands, but the old people were uneasy, and did not want to know any more.

‘We hear the islands do well enough,’ said the old man angrily.

Dann asked, as casually as he could, what was heard about the Centre these days.

‘There are ruffians there now, they say. I don’t know what the old Mahondis would say.’

‘I am a Mahondi,’ said Dann, remembering what it had once meant to say that.

‘Then you’ll know about the young prince. Everyone is waiting for him to put things right.’

Dann was going to say, Hasn’t the time gone past for princes? – but decided not to. They were so old: in the cold morning light they were like old ghosts.

A banging at the door. Ruff barked; again the sound of running feet.

‘It seems to me we’ve done well enough by you, keeping them all away,’ said Dann.

‘He’s right,’ said the old man. ‘Let him stay. He and that animal can keep watch and we can get some sleep.’

‘Thanks,’ said Dann, ‘but we’ll be off. And thanks for your hospitality.’ He had meant this last to be sarcastic, but those two old things were making him feel as if he were hitting babies.

‘Perhaps you could ask your Alb friends to visit us?’ said the old woman.

‘There’s an Alb settlement not too far from here,’ he said, and she said, ‘They don’t want to know us, because of the half of us not Alb.’

These two old toddlers could not get much further than the clifftop track, if as far as that.

‘It would be nice to see something of our kind’ – and even the nets of wrinkles on her face and the old sunk eyes seemed to be pleading.

Dann thought of fastidious Leta in this hut but said nevertheless, ‘I’ll tell them to visit you.’

The old woman began to cry, and then the old man, in sympathy.

‘Don’t leave us,’ she said, and then he said it too.

‘Why don’t you invite the next snow dog in?’ said Dann. ‘They make good companions.’

He and Ruff left, making their way on little-used paths back to the track westwards, and there they went on until one crossroad led to the Centre and the other to the Farm. Mara, there’s Mara, he was thinking, longing to go to her, but he took a few steps and came back, hesitated. The snow dog went forward and Dann followed, but stopped. The snow dog stopped, his eyes on Dann’s face. It was as if the way west were barred with a NO, like a dark cloud. He wanted so much to go to the Farm, but could not. Ruff came and sat by his knees, looking up, then licking his hands, and by this Dann knew the dog was sensing more than his indecision. When Dann was sad, Ruff knew it. ‘Why can’t I go, Ruff?’ he enquired aloud, standing there by the grey watery wastes, the white marsh birds standing in their pools, or calling and looking for fish and frogs as they floated low, the wind in their feathers. ‘Why can’t I?’ And he set himself northwards, to the Centre.

Long before he reached it he saw it rise up there, its top gone into low cloud. How large it was, how imposing – if one didn’t know about the ruins and halfruins, the waters soaking its northern and western edges, the smell of damp and rot. No wonder it had dominated the whole area – no, the whole of Ifrik – for so long. With the sun coming on to it from the western sky it gleamed, it glowed, the golden cloud crowning it, the outer walls shining. Dann went towards it, thinking now of Griot, who had every reason for reproach, noting changes, one of them being the sentry who challenged him at the gate. He wore something like a uniform: brown baggy top, baggy trousers, a red blanket over one shoulder. A surge of rage overwhelmed him; he pushed aside the youth, whose eyes were on the snow dog. Ruff disdained even to growl.

In the great hall, where he and Mara had waited to be recognised, he saw Griot sitting at a table, which had on it the frames with beads used for counting, and piles of reed tablets. Dann approached quietly. Griot raised his head and at once a smile appeared, like an embrace. Griot stood and his arms did rise, but fell again as he put on an expression more suitable for a soldier, though he need not have bothered: he was an embodied cry of joy.

‘Dann … Sir … General …’

‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ said Dann, who was, at that moment.

‘You’ve been such a long time.’

‘Yes, I know. I was detained by a witch on an island in the Bottom Sea.’ He was trying to jest, but amended, ‘No, I was joking, it is pleasant down there.’

Now Dann saw something in Griot’s face that made him stand, quietly, on guard, waiting: was Griot going to speak? No. Dann asked, ‘Tell me how things are going.’

Griot came out from behind his table and, standing at ease, as he had been taught when a new soldier under Dann’s command, ‘We have six hundred trained men now, sir.’

‘Six hundred.’

‘We could have as many as we like, so many come to the Centre from the east.’

Here Ruff went forward to inspect this new friend, his heavy tail wagging.

‘We have quite a few of these snow dogs trained as guards,’ said Griot, stroking the animal’s head.

‘People seem to be afraid of them.’

‘Enemies have good reason to be afraid of them.’

‘So, what are those reed huts I saw coming in – they’re new.’

‘Barracks. And we must build more.’

‘And what are we going to do with this army?’

‘Yes, that’s it, but you’ll have heard about Tundra. It’s falling apart. There are two factions. There will be more, we think.’

Dann noted the we.

‘The administration is hardly working. One faction has sent us messages, to join them. It’s the prestige of the Centre, you see, sir.’ Griot hesitated, then went bravely on. ‘It’s your prestige, everyone knows you’re here, in command.’

‘And the other faction, presumably the weaker?’

‘They’re just – useless. It will be a walkover.’

‘I see. And do you know how many refugees are pouring into Tundra from the east?’

‘Yes, we know. Many turn up here. The majority. I have a friend in Tundra, he keeps me informed.’

‘So, Griot, you have a spy system?’

‘Yes – yes, sir, I do. And it is very efficient.’

‘Well done, Griot. I see our army in Agre trained you well.’

‘It was Shabis.’ And at the mention of Shabis Griot’s eyes were full of – what? Dann was on the point of asking, but again evaded with, ‘And how are you feeding all these people?’

‘We are growing grains and vegetables on the foothills of the mountain, where it’s dry. And we have a lot of animals now – there are so many empty buildings on the outskirts.’

‘Why did you build the huts, then?’

‘First, if people are in the Centre they pilfer, and then, keeping the men in barracks makes for uniformity. The empty buildings come in every size and shape, but the huts take two men each or two women and no one can complain about favouritism.’

There was a pause here. Griot was standing on one side of the table, Dann on the other, the snow dog sitting where he could observe them: his eyes went from face to face and his tail wasn’t wagging now.

‘Are you hungry?’ Griot asked, postponing the moment, whatever it was.

‘No, but I am sure Ruff is.’

Griot went to the door and Ruff went with him. Griot shouted orders and returned.

‘You’re honoured, Griot, he doesn’t make friends with everyone.’

‘I get along with snow dogs. I train ours.’

‘Tell me more abut the provisioning,’ said Dann, and Griot did so until a bowl of food arrived and was set down. The soldier who brought it kept his distance from the snow dog. Ruff ate, the two men sat and watched.

‘Better than he’s had in his life. I don’t think much meat has come his way.’

A pause, and now Dann could not help himself. ‘Out with it, what is it?’

Griot sat silent, and then said in a low voice, ‘Don’t blame me for what I have to tell you. Bad enough to have to sit on the news for so long …’

‘Out with it.’

‘Mara’s dead. She died when the child was born.’ Griot averted his eyes from Dann’s face.

Dann said in a matter-of-fact way, ‘Of course. I knew it. That makes sense. Yes.’

Griot risked a swift glance.

‘I knew it all the time, I must have,’ said Dann. ‘Otherwise, why …’ and he fell silent.

‘The message came just after you left.’

Dann sat on, not moving. The dog came to him, put his head on his knee and whined.

Dann rose up from his chair mechanically, slowly, and stood, hands out, palms up. He stared down at them. ‘Of course,’ he said in the same reasonable voice. ‘Yes, that’s it.’ And then, to Griot, ‘You say Mara’s dead?’

‘Yes, she’s dead, but the child is alive. You’ve been gone a good bit, sir. The child …’

‘It killed Mara,’ said Dann.

He began moving about, not consistently or purposefully, but he took a step, stopped, and again there was that way of staring at his hands; he took another step or two, whirled about as if ready to attack someone, stood glaring.

Ruff was following him, looking up at his face. Griot watched them both. Dann took another jerky step or two, then stopped.

‘Mara,’ said Dann. ‘Mara’ in a loud emphatic voice, arguing with someone invisible, so it seemed, and then threatening: ‘Mara dead? No, no, no,’ and now he shouted, all defiance, and he kicked out wildly, just missing Ruff, who crept under the table.

Then in the same erratic jerky way he sat down at the table and stared at Griot.

‘You knew her?’ he said.

‘Yes, I was at the Farm.’

‘I suppose the other one, Kira – Kira had her baby and it’s alive?’

‘Yes.’

‘I suppose we could count on that,’ said Dann grimly, and Griot, knowing exactly why he said it and feeling with him, said, ‘Yes, I know.’

‘What am I going to do?’ Dann asked Griot, and Griot, all pain for Dann, muttered, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know, Dann, sir …’

Dann got up again and began on his jerky inconsequential progress.

He was talking nonsense, names of places and people, ejaculations of protest and anger, and Griot was not able to follow it.

At one point he asked about the old woman, and Griot said that she was dead.

‘She wanted me as a stud, and Mara as a brood animal.’

‘Yes, I know.’

This tale, like the others of Dann’s and Mara’s adventures, was known generally, but sometimes told fantastically. The custodians of the Centre had waited for the rightful prince and princess to arrive and start a new dynasty of the royal ruling family, but they had refused. So far so good. But then the public imagination had created a battle where the old pair were killed because they would not share the secret knowledge of the Centre, and Dann and Mara escaped to found their own dynasty, and would return to the Centre to take over … all of Ifrik, all of Tundra, or however far the geographical knowledge of the teller extended. And in these versions Dann had become a great conquering general who had fought his way here from far down Ifrik.

Dann talked, then muttered, while Griot listened and Ruff watched from under the table. Dann was more than a little mad, and at last Griot got up and said, ‘Dann, sir, General, you must go to sleep. You’ll be ill. You are ill.’

‘What am I going to do, Griot?’ And Dann gripped Griot by the shoulders and stared close into his face. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’

‘Yes, sir. Just come with me. Now come.’

For all the time Dann had been gone, two rooms had waited for his return. One was Dann’s and Griot knew this, but the other had been Mara’s, and that Griot did not know. When Dann stumbled through this room and looked down at the bed where Mara had been, he began crying.

Griot led him through this room and to the next. It had a door open on to the square where the soldiers drilled, and this Griot shut. He led Dann to the bed and, when he did not do more than stare down at it, Griot helped him lie down. Ruff lay by the bed, keeping his distance.

Griot went off and returned with a sticky black lump which he showed to Dann. ‘It’s poppy,’ he said. ‘You’ll sleep.’

At this Dann shot up, and grabbed Griot by the shoulders and shook him. With a terrible laugh he shouted, ‘So, you want to kill me.’

Griot had seldom smoked the stuff, he did not care for it. He had no idea what Dann meant; Dann saw that anxious puzzled face and let him go.

‘It did nearly kill me once,’ he said and, of his own accord, lay down again.

‘The soldiers use it. They burn it. They like the fumes.’

‘Then forbid it.’

‘There’s not much of it in the camp.’

‘I said – forbid it. That’s an order, Griot.’ He sounded sane enough.

Griot covered Dann’s legs with a blanket and said, ‘Call me, if you want me,’ and went out.

He sat on the bed in the room next door and heard howling. Was that Ruff? No, it was Dann, and Ruff was whining in sympathy. Griot put his head in his hands and listened. At last there was silence. He crept to the door; Dann was asleep, his arms round the snow dog’s neck. Ruff was not asleep.

Now Dann was ill, and it went on, and time went on, and Griot looked after Dann, not knowing if what he was doing was right. Yet Dann did take some responsibility for himself. First, he told Griot that if he ever asked for poppy Griot must refuse. ‘That’s an order, Griot.’ He demanded to be kept supplied with jugs of the beer the soldiers made, alcoholic if enough of it was drunk, and he stayed in his room, sometimes walking about, sometimes lying on the bed, and he talked to himself or to Mara, or to the snow dog. He kept himself drunk. When he walked about, Ruff went with him, step for step, and at night Ruff lay close, and licked his hands and face. Dann told Griot he must call Ruff to go out, have his meals and run around a little. Ruff went willingly with Griot and he made the acquaintance of the other snow dogs – a tricky thing this, because Ruff had not been with others of his kind. But they got on well enough, provided Ruff kept his distance. He never became one of their pack. He always wanted to return to Dann. Weeks passed. Griot was thinking that now was the time to invade the Tundra cities; all the news he was getting confirmed this, but he needed Dann because he was General Dann and known through all of Tundra. And, too, Griot needed Dann for his superior military knowledge.