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 Caste of DroversHere are relevant references from the Books where the Caste of Drovers is mentioned. I make no pronouncements on these matters, but report them as I find them. Arrive at your own conclusions. I wish you well, Fogaban There were many walled, guarded warehouses, requiring their staffs of scribes and guards, and, in hundreds of hovels, lived kaiila tenders, drovers, and such, who would, at the caravan tables, when their moneys had been exhausted, apply, if accepted, making their mark on the roster, once more for a post with some new caravan. Guards for these caravans, incidentally, were usually known by, and retained by, caravan merchants between caravans. They were known men. Tenders and drovers, on the whole, came and went. Elaborate random selection devices, utilizing coins and sticks, and formulas, were sometimes used by merchants to assure that applying tenders and drovers were selected, if they were not known, by chance. Tenders and drovers were assured that this was to insure fairness. Actually, of course, as was well known, this was a precaution against the danger of hiring, en bloc, unwittingly, an organized group of men, who might, prior to their hiring, have formed a plan to slay the guards and merchants and make off with the caravan. Tenders and drovers, however, like men generally, were an honest sort. These various establishments, and more than forty others, from the point of view of tenders and drovers, have one thing in common. They succeed in separating, with celerity and efficiency, a fellow from his money. I do not feel this way myself. I think most of them, with the exception of the Silken Oasis, are reasonable. The drover's objection, I think, is largely a function of the fact that he does not have a great deal of money to spend. What there is; accordingly, seems rapidly diminished. Tenders and drovers often proceed from one cafe to the other, for several nights. The wages for a caravan trip, which often takes months, commonly will last the fellow about ten days, or, if nursed out, some fifteen days. They are, of course, a rather pleasant ten or fifteen days. At the end of this time, after a day or so of some physiological discomfort, usually violent nausea and blinding headaches, it is common to find the man again back at the tables, once more attempting to vend his services to the master of a caravan. I wore now the rags of a drover of kaiila. After coming from the tents of Farouk of Kasra, outside the walls of Tor, I was returning late to my compartment, which lay in the district of tenders and drovers. It was late when I returned to the compartment in the district of tenders and drovers. "There will soon be war between the Kavars and the Aretai," he said. "Caravan routes may be closed. It may be difficult to get tenders and drovers who will, in such dangerous times, venture into the desert." "It is so certified," he smiled. "He is used in cleaning the pens. He is a drover who falsified the quality-markings on spice crates." I saw drovers, holding the reins of their beasts, shading their eyes, looking over the dust to the west. Some twenty of them, with Farouk, and certain guards, began to work their way down the caravan, beast by beast, checking the drovers and kaiila tenders. The drover threw back the hood of his burnoose, and pulled down the veil about his face. Beneath the burnoose he wore a skullcap. The rep-cloth veil was red; it had been soaked in a primitive dye, mixed from water and the mashed roots of the telekint; when he perspired, it had run; his face was stained. I saw certain of the kaiila being led past. Others were left with their drovers. The zadit is a small, tawny-feathered, sharp-billed bird. It feeds on insects. When sand flies and other insects, emergent after rains, infest kaiila, they frequently alight on the animals, and remain on them for some hours, hunting insects. This relieves the kaiila of the insects but leaves it with numerous small wounds, which are unpleasant and irritating, where the bird has dug insects out of its hide. These tiny wounds, if they become infected, turn into sores; these sores are treated by the drovers with poultices of kaiila dung. "Ho! Ho!" called their drovers, riding behind them, swirling their coiled rawhide ropes in the air. I and the others backed against the wall of the compound of Ram Seibar. The kaiila, perhaps a hundred to a hundred and fifty of them, thundered past. I did not think such beasts should be run through the streets, but it sometimes pleases their drovers to do so. Seven or eight men, in the boots and garb of drovers, thrust in the door. Two or three of them carried half-emptied bottles of paga. Two of them had drawn swords in their hands. "Hei! Hei!" cried the boys, in the distance, bringing together the members of the herd. Their ropes swung. Their whips cracked. Then the herd was together, well grouped by its young drovers. It now occupied, its members bunched and crowded closely together, a small, tight circle. It was now, in effect, a small, relatively fixed, directionless, milling mass. In such a grouping it may be easily controlled and managed. In such a grouping it has no purpose of its own. In such a grouping it must wait to see what is to be done with it. It must wait to see in what direction it will be driven. "Hei! Hei!" called the young drovers, kicking their heels back into the flanks of their kaiila, waving their ropes, cracking their whips. The herd now, the young drovers on either side of it, and slightly behind it, began to move in my direction. "Hei! Hei!" cried the young drovers, ropes swinging, whips cracking. The herd then began to run towards me. I could see the dust it raised. Lagging beasts were incited to new speeds, treated to the admonishments of hissing leather, falling across their backs, flanks and rumps. Then one of the lads sped his kaiila about the herd, heading it off and turning it. He had done this expertly. Not more than a few yards away, below me, below where I stood on the small rise, the herd was again in a small tight circle, turned in on itself, purposeless, milling, stationary. "You boys drive them well," I said. "Presumably no drover, or low person, a mere employee, say, would have had a baby with him," she said. Girls, thus, and perhaps some stripped free women among them, would draw the wagons. Doubtless drovers would be with them on the road, with their whips, should they be tempted to lag in their zeal. "Am I ready to go out on the floor now?" I asked. The "first girl" in a tavern often inspects her inferiors, before she permits them on the floor. "I think not," she smiled. "But you would perhaps do in the hay for the rough pleasures of a drover." "I would like a space near the wall, preferably in a corner," I said. "So would everyone else," he said. "Your space is S-3-07. That is 97, in the south wing, on the third floor." "Very well," I said. "Try not to step on any drovers," he said. "They can be ugly fellows when stepped on in the middle of the night." Too, he did not seem to have the refinement of a high merchant nor the roughness of the drover. Drovers, flush with coins, would be here, of course, returning from Ar's Station. On the journey there they would be with their animals, probably verr or tarsk. Soldiers were taking their midday meal. Some drovers lay in the shade beneath their wagons. The order to march was then received. Standards were lifted, and flashed in the sun. Drovers called out to their animals, whips cracked, wagons creaked. Supervising each group was a man, not a soldier, or guardsman, merely an attendant, a drover, a hireling, usually loitering nearby. I later arranged that she be sold to a kaiila drover, and she was muchly pleased, so I whipped her well and lengthily before I had her delivered to him. Matters had been explained by crier to hundreds of mercenaries. Many others, drovers, tarnsters, skilled artisans, and such, were not permitted on the beach. "A Tarnster, or Drover," speculated another. I did not understand that, as it seemed one driver for a wagon, particularly as the wagons were small, would be sufficient. There were, as of now three wagons. Astrinax drove one, Lykos the last, and Desmond mine, the second wagon. Indeed, the tharlarion of the second wagon, my wagon, was attached, by its nose ring, to the back of the first wagon, and the tharlarion of the third wagon was attached, by its nose ring, to the back of my wagon. Accordingly, it seemed three Drovers, or teamsters, would be enough. To be sure, I knew little about such matters, and, possibly, Astrinax might be returning to Ar, rather than accompanying us into the Voltai. It might be noted, in passing, that Seremides, Xenon, and myself were in a rather nondescript garb, which suggested that we might be of the drovers or wagoners, commonly understood as a cousin caste to, if not a subcaste of, the Peasantry. "Ar thrives," said the Wood Worker. "That is because, outside the walls," said the first Peasant, "we plant and harvest in peace." "We are the ox on which the Home Stone rests," said the second Peasant. "Merchants buy and sell," said the Tarnkeeper. "Initiates eschew beans and charge for prayers and spells. Scribes ink scrolls, Builders build, Physicians heal, Bakers bake, Metal Workers work metal, Leather Workers work leather, Players battle on the kaissa board, Warriors, in the kaissa of steel, battle on the field and in the sky. Things go on much as usual." "Who are you, really?" asked the Tarnkeeper. "Simple drovers," I said, "long absent from Ar, inquisitive fellows now seeking to learn what might be new in the city." "Why did you guest us at your table?" asked the Wood Worker. "Was it not because paga loosens tongues?" asked the Tarnkeeper. "We have been long from Ar," said Seremides. "We merely wished, I assure you, as said, to learn what was new in the city." "You must know friends of ours," I said, "another drover, one who recently returned from the west, perhaps Torcadino, Rufus, Rufus of the Village of Two Branches, near Torcadino, and his free companion, Pechia." "I know he of whom you speak," she said, "but he has no free companion." "Where is he?" I asked. "We would sup and drink with him." "He has not been here in days," she said. "He has changed his name to Ruffio. I think he came on wealth. His fortunes seem to have much changed, and for the better." "Where is he?" I demanded. "He moved," she said. "I am not sure where. I think I heard the Tower of Philebus. Yes, that is it. The Tower of Philebus." "Excellent," I said. "When we returned her to Rufus, if that be his name, the drover, he offered us half his load of suls in gratitude," I said. "That, in itself, should have made me suspicious. Peasants are narrow traders, eager to drive hard bargains. They are shrewd and thrifty. A Peasant might have offered half his load before his companion's return, but, the return assured, I think his gratitude would be less likely to extend so far." "I have better than twenty-five hundred vielts under cultivation," she said. "I have over eleven hundred and fifty slaves, field slaves and house slaves. Indeed, as a part of our tour, along our route, we shall pass between two lines of kneeling slaves, a corridor of slaves, so to speak, who will cry out joyfully, wishing us well, as we pass. Too, I have over two hundred men in my employ, overseers, guards, accountants, clerks, drovers, wagoners, and such. I am the major supplier of produce for a hundred pasangs east and west on the Vosk." |
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