第12节

clear-skinned like

long-dogs and the Sons of Ne-Issan.

He was not alone.

Lord Hiro Yama-Shita had made exactly the same mistake some months

before - despite the fact he knew more about the Plainfolk than anyone

else in Ne-Issan.

Over the years, Yama-Shita had amassed a considerable body of

information about the nomadic Mutes, but only senior members of his own

family had access to it.

The annual expedition by the wheelboats across the Great Lakes was one

of the many enterprises that had made the Yama-Shita rich and

powerful.

The Mutes were not only a source of cheap labour; the goods they

supplied helped to feed and clothe their captive brethren. The facts

at his command were trade secrets; knowing his clients' strengths and

weaknesses enabled Yama-Shita to extract the most favourable rates of

exchange, and the rivalry between the various clans usually meant his

trade-captains got the best of the bargain.

Unlike the majority of Iron Masters, Yama-Shita did not despise the

Mutes, even though he personally found their disfigured bodies somewhat

repugnant - in particular, their hairy armpits and bushy sexual

organs.

But, despite their bizarre appearance and their lackadaisical approach

to hygiene, they possessed a certain nobility and, in their natural

state, were strong, fearless individuals with their own code of honour

which, in many ways, paralleled that of the samurai. They also had

sufficient good grace to recognise and defer to a higher authority

namely himself and his entourage and the wit to realise that the

continuing exchange of goods and people for arms and artefacts was a

profitable enterprise for both parties.

The picture they presented to outsiders was that of a largely untutored

race endowed with a certain low cunning, but with more brawn than

brains. However, there were some Mutes - notably the wordsmiths - who

displayed a keen intelligence and an unexpected degree of subtlety.

The individual named Mr Snow, the wordsmith of the clan M'Call, was one

of them, and it was to him that Yama-Shita had turned for help in

acquiring a flying-horse.

The domain-lord was also familiar with the unsubstantiated claims that

certain Mutes possessed supernatural powers: mysterious gifted

individuals known as summoners and seers. The Iron Masters, who

worshipped at shrines dedicated to AmeratsuOmikami, believed that the

world of nature was permeated by the spirit-world - the realm of the

kami - but YamaShita treated the stories of Mute magic with derision.

In his view, the Mutes posed no danger to the Iron Master.

Despite their vast numbers, the fragmentary nature of the clan system

and the traditional hostility with which the rival factions viewed each

other made it impossible for them to mount a large-scale military

action against their benefactors in the east or their enemy in the

south.

The Plainfolk were fiercely territorial but they were not

empire-builders. That was why it was safe to supply them with

rifles.

Their implacable hatred for the long-dogs, and the guerrilla tactics

they employed, were ideally suited to counter the probing advances of

the Federation's overground war machines.

Yama-Shita sometimes wondered if the Plainfolk realised they were being

manipulated, but it never occurred to him that they might also be

inspired by a sense of destiny. He had never heard of the Talisman

PropheCy but, had it been brought to his notice, he would have given it

short shrift. His curiosity about the Mutes was blinkered by the

innate belief in his own superiority and that of the system he

represented. In his view - which was shared by all Iron Masters from

the Shogun downwards - there was nothing to be learned from the Mutes,

one could only learn about them.