THE PURPLE BERRIES OF PANDOROTH
Gak knew he’d made a mistake the moment he stepped into the cool
gloom of the tiny bar.
He’d drunk here often, in the dim and distant past, stopping
to have a few glasses of cherry wine en route to the city temple,
swapping baskets with other merchants. There had been one man – a
heavy bear of a fellow called Bartok - who’d been something of a
drinking buddy. He’d often teased Bartok that his berries were too
large and too sweet to be accepted by the city’s high priests. He
could still hear the man’s booming laughter now. ‘But they are
good, yes?’He had nodded and grinned. ‘Yes.’
These days Bartok had the biggest stall in the crowded desert market where Gak plied his wares. Or so it was said. The market was so vast these days, Gak had never crossed paths with his old friend, although finding the man was simply a question of asking around. Truth be told, he preferred to keep it that way. Bartok would be forever associated in his mind with the days before he had stopped coming to the city and set up his own stall out in the desert. With this place.
How many hours had he whiled away here? And why did it seem so depressing and dingy now? Because most of the people he’d drunk and joked with had long since abandoned it for the desert? He saw only one familiar face – Kurdak. He wasn’t surprised. Kurdak was a sour beanpole of a man, his thin features pinched in a perpetual expression of disapproval. Kurdak had grown up in the city and was deeply religious. Selling at the market would be the blackest sort of blasphemy as far as Kurdak was concerned and – sure enough – the moment Kurdak spotted him, the man scowled and looked away. More a cause of concern were the two men propping up the bar. He took them at first for hard-bitten Daskrian mercenaries who had wandered in by accident, but watching how the two straightened up as he approached the counter - how their flinty eyes narrowed in faces that were little more than scar tissue - he realised they were bouncers. Of course any bar needed bouncers, but these men looked like trouble: ruffians who would pick a fight with a customer rather than maintain the Pax Romana. Automatically he hid his small basket of berries in the folds of his robes.
The barman was familiar – a plump, balding individual with a nervous face. He nodded. ‘Gak Ra’an. Long time, no see.’
He nodded back, the man’s name coming unbidden to his lips. ‘Shardak.’
‘What can I do for you?’
‘A glass of cherry wine, please.’ Gak did his best to ignore the subtle alteration in the two bouncers’ demeanour, one man had turned his back to him and was pretending to be deep in conversation with the other, yet he had seen their expressions change the moment Shardak had greeted him, their eyes suddenly cold and flat. They had recognised his name. He was frightened, surprised but also (truth be told) a little flattered. Had his reputation spread as far as the city? Surely the High Priests of Pandoroth did not feel threatened by the berries being grown and sold by one humble merchant?
He had heard stories. Once cartload after cartload of berries had trundled through the city gates. Entering the city was simply the first of many obstacles. The temple guardians waited for you outside the temple entrance. They could tell by sampling one berry if your produce would pass muster with the priests. And if your berries were not up to scratch, you had no choice but to dump them in the gorge outside the city walls. Those that passed by the temple guardians and earned the approval of the High Priests would see their berries dried and boxed, each crate stamped with the church’s seal, then exported to the furthermost corners of the Empire. It was said that of every hundred carts that passed through the city gates, only one cart’s worth was deemed of satisfactory quality.
Times had been hard then. You might spend a year tending your crop only to discover that your berries did not meet the High Priest’s exacting standards. Your berries might be too dark or too light. Or – in Bartok’s case – too large and too sweet.
Then everything had changed with coronation of King Aziz.
Aziz’s land bordered that ruled by the High Priests. The two kingdoms were separated by a mountain range – simply known as the Mountains of Pandoroth, on whose mist-shrouded slopes the famous berries were farmed – but whereas Pandoroth was lush and green, Aziz’s side of the mountain consisted of little more than desert. Aziz was something of a glutton, with a particular fondness for Pandoroth’s purple berries and he had bitterly resented the extortionate prices charged for them by the priests. It was Aziz who had decreed that the desert could now be used as a market place by any willing to defy the edicts of Pandoroth’s High Priests so that they might sell their wares to whomsoever they chose. ‘Colour, size and flavour bedamned.’
The bouncers had heard his name. Gak hunched over his drink and sipped quickly and nervously. Could Aziz’s actions have proved so injurious to the High Priests of Pandoroth that he, Gak Ra’an, had become a person of interest? Certainly he had something of a reputation amongst his fellow stall-holders, but that this same reputation should have reached the city –
No. It was unthinkable. Impossible.
He had come to the city today with one intention. To show its citizens that – even if the High Priests of Pandaroth’s berries were rightly regarded as of the best possible quality – what constituted a luscious berry was also a matter of personal taste. He had hoped to pass the basket around this very bar, maybe encourage the few who still remained loyal to the High Priests that better opportunities awaited them in Aziz’s market, but the place was empty apart from Kurdak and the two bouncers.
‘What’s that you’re hiding under your robes, merchant?’
It was one of the two bouncers, the larger of the two. The man was smiling as he spoke but those eyes were scrutinising Gak Ra’an thoughtfully.
‘Some berries –‘
‘Ah yes.’ The bouncer had already eased the basket out of his hands. The man plucked one berry from the basket, examined it closely, then popped it into his mouth. After a second his lips puckered in an elaborate expression of distaste and he deliberately dropped the basket onto the stone floor, grinding it beneath one booted heel. ‘Your berries are worthless, merchant,’ he said, calmly and levelly. ‘They are too small and their flavour is too bitter.’
Gak’s fear suddenly vanished. A great calm descended on him. They would beat him up. He knew this. It was inevitable. He was a small man, small and naturally timid. He could never hope to get the better of hardened soldiers. That did not mean he could not speak his mind however. ‘Too small and too bitter for whom?’ he asked.
The bouncer’s tiny eyes widened in disbelief. ‘What?’
‘You say my berries are too small and too bitter and I ask – for whom?’
The bouncer grinned and glanced at his comrade, who grinned back. ‘Too small and too bitter for the priests, you fool. Who else?’
Gak swallowed hard. ‘Aziz –‘
The man shoved him so hard he stumbled backwards. Suddenly the mercenary’s face was flushed and angry, his eyes like two small, black pebbles. ‘So!’ he sneered. ‘A heretic!’
‘I simply –‘
The beating was mercifully brief. Gak thought himself lucky to have gotten off with nothing worse than a broken nose and a loose tooth. Throughout he caught occasional glimpses of Shadrak the barman, busily wiping the counter, his face always averted.
Later though, limping out of the city, he saw that there was only one cart waiting outside the gates and for the first time that day he smiled.
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13 Comments
Hard enjoyable work for me.. now post the forward or the first chapter....
It seems we are all growers of sour berries.......
Very clever.
I'll be much more warry of your work in future.....
Thanks for that and beware the zealots of both sides of that equation......
The road was attacked last night. We had phone- calls - the library might be targeted.
I remember reading Galbraith and his theory of the underclass. There will be a revolution in America because a large section of the community does not have a vested interest in the country in which they live. (I think did not happen because this underclass is, itself riven by rivalries.)
This problem has been simmering for years. Last Friday I went for a meal with two colleagues from work. We went to an Italian restaurant in East Dulwich. It seemed to me that the cleantelle were all white and middle-class. I do not drive and made my way, on my own, back to the suburbs by public transport. The requisite bus did not turn up. I began to walk and the streets became more deserted. I found my way to a railway station. No staff were there. A sign indicated that the train was cancelled. The platform was dark. Fear and hostility is what i felt and i look like a tramp! Deliberately, but not too trampish, or I will be kicked - just enough to suggest i do not have money. This is london. It is divided city and the biggest divide is money.
Re the allegory. The priesthood represent the closed economic system that constitutes traditional publishing, the berries are books (which must conform to specific criteria in order to be published) while Aziz represents Amazon and the rise of a virtually limitless marketplace in which anybody can self-publish. By extension, the bar is a web-site (not unlike this one, in which fellow writers compare notes) while the bouncers represent the sort of people who police such websites but sometimes go to the bad. I should add I wasn't thinking of the Word Cloud - otherwise, I would have described a bar crowded with an assortment of interesting and diverse people, with your good self sitting over in the corner, wearing a cape and a broad-brimmed hat and sipping a dry sherry!
Skylark. Thanks for commenting! Yup, I'd have to agree. I was still annoyed when I wrote it, which is probably not the best way to write (or indeed, do) anything.
I can also see it working as a full-blown story if you felt like developing it - don't know what genre you prefer to write - and would be interested to read more.
As a story, it was interesting and I felt you were getting at something - but didn't know what. I thought the berries were currency and liked that idea very much. I also liked the idea of cherry wine, although why it wasn't *berry* wine to reinforce the idea, I don't know. You have a fluid way of writing which always makes me feel it'll be worth reading.
If it were self-contained, I'd have said there were too many odd names to divert attention, who didn't really earn their keep for the trouble they caused in remembering who was who and what was what. And some of the names were similar to other names as Mike points out - I wondered if they were clues; but they weren't. I also didn't feel there was enough oomph at the end; having said that, the story stayed with me so it had something about it.
As part of a larger work, the odd names and places wouldn't have been a problem, nor the muted oomph.
It feels that you've created a world with a strong identity in few words, which I know is a skill of yours. It definitely has legs if you felt so inclined; it was surprising and interesting.
As for the allegory, I agree with Skylark that writing out frustrations can be therapeutic. And since it's written in the style of a fable, keeping the issues simple and clear is good and you made your point. As for the tradpub/selfpub debate, there seem to be zealots on both sides with lots of wavering and/or rational people in the middle. Each side has their plusses but I also feel I'm drowning in mis-information.
Your allegory didn't occur to me at all. I wasn't looking for one but isn't much fiction an allegory for some morality or another the author wishes to comment on?
Masterly writing. Love it :-)
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