Friday, June 15, 2012
Minor
Keys No. 6
The next characters momentarily to cross
the pages of Azimuth are the Spice Traders. They make me think of Fellini’s Satyricon, strange creatures that
inhabit the margins of social life. Given that Azimuth is an arterial river of a book, fast flowing and dangerous
enough for the intrepid adventurer on the surface but with depths to satisfy
the seeker of hidden treasures, minor characters can bring jeopardy and
unexpected insight in equal measure. This is how the women are introduced:
He and the girl permitted themselves to
be seen at some distance. The richly coloured robes of the two caught and
shimmered in the sun. They were both women as like each other as two fruit from
the same branch. He tried to restrain the hope in his mind. They each rode a
horse and towed a mule. The horses were wiry mountain beasts. The women
themselves were tiny with facial features unlike any he had seen before;
moon-like, angle eyed and with unblemished skin faintly greened by colouring
powder and shaded by wide-brimmed hats. Their hands were gloved.
At this point in their own great adventure,
the Magus and a small girl he has saved from a child abductor come across the
spice traders selling their wares on the endless trail which runs across the great
continents, east to west. The hope he feels in the extract above is that they
will take the child off his hands. The women, though occupying little space in
the grand design of the Azimuth
trilogy, nevertheless have a much significance in the development of the Magus’
thought about life’s purpose. They pass on to him a small fraction of the
wisdom they have acquired in their ceaseless travelling.
I expect, in the fifty or so years of their
lives they endured extraordinary privations, abuse as well as the degree of idolization
which was usually afforded exotic travelers passing through the isolated and
culturally insulated villages of that time. Born twins, within a minute of each
other, they brought good fortune to their parents for a while, being heralded
as having occult powers owing to their ability to speak in seamless sentences,
beginning and finishing each other’s words, their telepathy and the gift they
quickly developed for cosmetics.
They cut hair, dyed it, painted faces for weddings and other festivals
and gave advice on jewelry and other accessories. But, as so often happened to
money spinners of this sort, they were abducted and made to work for the owner
of a caravan train before they had reached their first blood shows. On a night
when storms the like of which had never been seen brought violent rain, frogs
and fish falling from the skies and a burning light that crossed the heavens to
plunge into the earth close by, they took advantage of the fearful disarray to
lead two frightened horses away from the chaos and into the battering darkness.
Thus began their nomadic life. Befriended and protected by horse traders they
travelled across great steppes, learning at first to trade by gathering plants
and soils to make paints, creams, ointments and medicines. After years of journeying
from east to west and back again they gained more wealth by buying and selling herbs
and spices common to certain places but rare in others. They gave their
bodies happily to the horse
herders as payment for their peace of mind but never conceived children, having
ways of preventing it, as well as ways of ensuring their bodies remained free
of disease. Finally they travelled alone being older and less in demand for
their bodies. The terrible acts that were perpetrated on them prior to being
saved by he Magus did not break their wills. Their lives remained in constant
movement with an empathic sharing of the wisdom they gained regarding people,
gods and nature. It was as if this was sufficient Purpose for them. When, by
mutual consent they felt that enough was enough and no further knowledge might
be gained on their travels, they stepped off a cliff together, hand in hand, carrying
their wisdom with them and smiling in exultation.
(Azimuth by Jack Sanger also in Kindle
books at Amazon)
All works by this author at www.chronometerpublications.me
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