A Time of Omens

by Katharine Kerr

  “All right.”

  “I wonder what’s he doing with it?” Keeta got up and stretched. “Spending it all on her?”

  “Probably.” Marka felt the ice-knowledge again, slicing down her spine. You should tell her, she thought, you should tell her the truth right now. Saying the words aloud would mean admitting the truth to herself, as well.

  After a long moment Keeta sighed and shook her head.

  “Well, let’s practice. Some sticks of driftwood are what we want, something unbalanced like the torches.”

  As Marka followed her down to the beach, she was feeling like the worst coward in the world. But I’ve got to be sure. I can’t tell anyone till I’m sure. That, at least, was her excuse.

  A good session’s practice with a friend turned Marka as sunny as the day, but when they got back to the campground, she found her father awake, or just barely awake. He came stumbling out of the tent, yawning hugely, rubbing his sticky eyes, and glancing round him with a stupid sort of smile that made him look like a stunned ox. Hamil was as tall as Keeta, and much stockier, a handsome man with his wide black eyes and full mouth, his close-cropped curly hair just touched at the temples with distinguished gray. But just lately he’d been looking old, his eyes often distant or glazed, his speech slow, and he’d been putting on a flabby kind of fat round the middle.

  “Marka?” Hamil said. “Did you work over the market?”

  “Yes, just about an hour ago. There were only two acts to worry about. One has apes and monkeys, and there’s nothing we can do about that. And then there’s this juggler, but he’s just a single player. I’ve never seen anybody throw scarves the way he does. He’s really fantastic.”

  “Oh, really?” Orima said with a simper. “Maybe we should prentice you out to him.”

  Marka opened her mouth for a smart reply, but she noticed Keeta, standing behind her father and stepmother and shaking her head grimly.

  “He could teach us all something,” Marka said instead. “The best thing is, he’s a barbarian. A real northern barbarian.”

  “A draw in itself.” With one last yawn Hamil ambled over to the fire circle and sat down on a low stool near his wife. “Huh. Wonder if he wants to join up with a bigger outfit. We could use a new draw.”

  “If he’s that good, he doesn’t need to split his take with anyone.” Keeta came forward and joined the circle. “Maybe we should try monkeys.”

  “Smelly things. And they bite,” Orima broke in. “And they leave messes all over. It’s all that fruit they eat. I wouldn’t want them in my troupe.”

  “If you ever get your own troupe,” Marka snapped. “You can decide then.”

  “Marka!” Hamil and Keeta snapped in unison. Hamil went on alone. “You apologize to your stepmother.”

  “For what?”

  Hamil got up, raising one broad hand.

  “I’m sorry, Rimi.”

  Orima simpered and sneered; everyone else in the circle looked awkwardly away; Hamil sat down again.

  “I’m going to practice some more.”

  As Marka turned on her heel and strode off, she was wondering if she could murder Orima and get away with it. The thought was so strong that it terrified her.

  “It is her, O Puissant Princess of Powers Perilous,” Salamander said. “Would the Great Krysello be mistaken over a matter of such grave import? Of course not. I saw her, I tell you: my own beloved Alaena, reborn and come back to me.”

  “I have my doubts,” Jill said. “There hasn’t really been enough time, you know, since her last life.”

  Salamander turned sulky and devoted himself to pouring more wine. They were sitting in the best inn chamber that Luvilae had to offer—a palace by Jill’s standards though close to a hovel by his—a small room with a chipped tile floor, scattered with cushions for want of furniture. Jill took one of the flat wine cups from him and considered the problem.

  “I don’t mean to stir up painful memories.” She made her voice as gentle as she could. “But how long has Alaena been gone?”

  “Thirty years. Well, almost. Well, maybe a score and eight.”

  “How old is this lass, anyway?”

  “Uh, well, sixteen or so.”

  “That’s not much time as the Lords of Wyrd reckon time. It’s possible, of course—just not likely.”

  “I know, I know, but I keep thinking, ye gods, our marriage lasted but such a little while! She would have wanted to come back as soon as she could.”

  “For your sake I suppose?”

  He winced.

  “Not for me,” he said at last. “But because she loved life so much.”

  Jill wondered if she could ever be objective in this situation. Since she herself seemed to be destined to lose every man that she allowed herself to love, she refused to let her own bitterness spoil his chance to be happy. He sat frowning into his goblet until the, for him, bizarre silence got on her nerves.

  “Does her family live here in town?”

  “Um?” He looked up, startled. “My apologies. What did you say?”

  “Your heart is really troubled, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll admit to that. I was just remembering when Alaena died.”

  He got up and paced over to the one small window, leaned against the sill, and stared fixedly out at the courtyard below. Old grief turned his unnaturally handsome face slack. Jill waited for the tale and his usual flood of words. It never came.

  “Does her family live here in town?” she repeated.

  “It doesn’t. I did a bit of asking round in the market before I came back here. She is—of all things—an acrobat. One of a troupe of acrobats just come from Main Island.” As he turned back a glossy smile smoothed and masked his face. “Fancy that! I’ve heard of strange and solemn twists and turns of wild and wandering Wyrd before, but this—”

  “Hold your tongue, will you? I suppose there’s no harm in getting to know her a bit. But for the sake of all the gods, will you try to remember this? That even if by some bizarre chance this is the soul you knew as Alaena, she isn’t the same person anymore. You have no idea what this child is like. None.”

  “True enough, much as it aches my eager heart.”

  There were times when Salamander could irritate Jill beyond belief, and this was one of them. For all that his half-elven blood kept him looking young, he was fifty-some years older than she, but although he’d started studying their mutual craft of the dweomer long before she’d been born, she’d so far overtaken him that she was, in a very real though unspoken way, the master now to his journeyman. Though he acknowledged her authority, which came ultimately from Nevyn himself, it didn’t take dweomer to see that he resented it as well.

  “You’re truly angry with me, aren’t you?” Salamander wiped his smile away.

  “Ye gods! You promised me you were going to devote yourself to your studies, but you’ve kept finding one cursed distraction after another. Now this! And there’s the lass to consider, too, you know. She’s but a child,”

  “Old enough to have been married for years in Deverry.”

  “This isn’t Deverry.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that. Jill, is it me you’re angry with, or is it everything? The delay, I mean. We’ve been wandering round Bardek for months and months, finding but a trace here and there of the things you want to know.”

  Jill took a deep breath and considered.

  “There’s that, indeed. Patience has never been my right-hand weapon, has it?”

  “And now glorious Luvilae has been but another dead trail, a road with no ending, a house with no doors, a—”

  “One wretched image is enough, please. But there’s still that bookseller in Inderat Noa. I have hopes of him.”

  “I suppose you’ll want to head back there straightaway.”

  “I was thinking of it, truly. Why not? Oh, of course. The lass. I suppose you want to spend a few days sniffing round her.”

  “How crudely you put things!” He grin
ned, tucking his thumbs into his belt and leaning back against the wall. “But I did think I might take a stroll in the marketplace tonight. No doubt her troupe performs in the evening, when it’s cooler.”

  When it came time for the show, it seemed at first that the gods were going to grant them a decent take. In the cool of the evening a big crowd gathered in front of their improvised stage, set up between two trees to support the slack wire. As the men raised the huge standing torches and Marka ran round lighting them, she noticed a number of fairly well-dressed people in the crowd, the kind who looked like they weren’t above throwing some small change to a street performer. Best of all, her father was wide-awake and alert, laughing and joking with the troupe as they gathered backstage. The first turns went well, too, her own juggling, the apprentice tumblers, and Keeta’s routine with the flaming torches. When the troupe broke to sling the slack wire, coins came in a copper shower, but here and there Marka plucked a silver one.

  With great ceremony the flute boy and the drummer sat down cross-legged at the edge of the stage, paused a moment, then began the music for the centerpiece of the show, the slack rope routine. Wiping her face on a scarf, Marka stood off to one side and watched the crowd more than the show. Until Orima came along, the slack rope had been her own turn, one she’d learned as a small child from her mother and at which she was particularly skilled. A cow prancing on a string—that’s our Rimi, she thought to herself. Then she saw, standing off toward the back, the barbarian juggler. Her heart thudded, her fingers tightened on the scarf, and she couldn’t understand why in the least, except, perhaps, that he was so handsome. All at once he noticed her watching and smiled right at her. Blushing furiously, hating herself for it, she turned away.

  Dressed in a brief but flowing silk tunic over a loincloth, Orima was just approaching the wire-wound rope, which hung loosely between the twin wooden towers of the mounting platforms, a good six feet above the stage itself. With a big smile for the crowd she climbed up and did a back flip on the platform. She bowed—several times too many in Marka’s estimation—then took the balance pole and leapt to the rope for a graceful half run across, balancing in the middle. When the crowd cheered and clapped, she executed a good turn, and ran back to the platform so lightly and easily that the crowd yelled in delight. Marka could practically taste her own anger, a black bile in her mouth. As Orima mounted the rope again, she hesitated for the barest second, just the split of a moment too long. The rope swung, then snapped back; her lead foot groped and grabbed—too late. With a shriek she fell, landing spraddled on all fours, unhurt but furious as the crowd burst out laughing. Swearing under his breath Hamil rushed to help her up while the tumblers ran back on stage and hurled themselves into an improvised routine. It was no good. Laughing and chuckling, calling out a few insults, the crowd broke up and drifted away, and they didn’t bother to throw a single coin behind them, not even for good luck.

  In a sullen silence, barely able to look at each other, the troupe doused the torches, stripped the stage, and loaded everything into the wagons while Orima cowered under a nearby palm. Marka was frankly terrified, blaming her ill will for the fall even as she told herself, over and over, that such things were impossible. Much to her relief, no one mentioned the fall until they got back to the campground, where Delya and young Rosso were keeping an eye on the tents. While the men tended the horses and wagons, Hamil and the women drifted miserably over to the fire. Delya took one good look at their faces and said nothing. The silence grew until Orima screwed her face in a pout and pointed one painted fingernail at Marka.

  “She hexed me!” Orima screeched. “Your precious little daughter hexed me! She’s got the evil eye.”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” Hamil snapped. “We all fall now and then.”

  “She’s got the evil eye!” Orima stamped one slender foot.

  “Will you shut up? If your head wasn’t so empty you might have better balance on the rope.”

  “You pig! You filthy rooting hog!”

  Orima and Hamil began sneering and screeching in turns. The rest of the troupe rolled eyes heavenward and trotted off, bursting into chatter as soon as they were well away from the slanging match by the fire. Marka raced off after Keeta. She knew how the fight would end; they would suddenly be all kisses and hugs and creep into their tent … she didn’t want to think about it. In the moonlight the two women walked along the edge of the cliff and watched the waves foaming below.

  “Keeta?” Marka said at last. “You don’t think wishing someone ill can work them ill, do you?”

  Keeta laughed, her dark rumble of a bellow as reassuring as a motherly hug.

  “No, I most certainly don’t. Why? Feeling a bite of guilt, hum?”

  “Well, it sounds silly now.”

  “Understandable enough, little one. But don’t vex your soul over it. She fell because she hurried her step, that’s all” Keeta sighed profoundly. “At least we earned enough to eat for a while.”

  “But how are we going to get home? This is the only stinking town on this rotten little island, and they aren’t going to want to watch the cow capering again.”

  “Oooh! Nasty little tongue!”

  “But I’m right.”

  Keeta made a sort of grunt.

  “Well, aren’t I right?”

  “About the audience, yes. I wouldn’t call Rimi a cow. Your father’s right. We all fall now and then.”

  “I never did! And she hates me for it, too. You know what I’m afraid of? That she’ll work on Father, and he’ll sell me to a slave trader. That’d buy passage for all of you, wouldn’t it? I bet I’d fetch a lot.”

  “Will you be quiet? That’s the most awful thing I’ve ever heard anyone say! Your father would never do such a thing.”

  “Maybe not, but she would.”

  Keeta’s silence spoke a scrollful of answers.

  In the morning Marka slept late. She shared a tent with Keeta and Delya, but woke to find them long gone, their bedrolls neatly folded and stowed off to one side, the hot sun streaming through the canvas. From outside she could hear voices, laughter and amiable squabbling, snatches of singing and pretend-oaths, all the normal life of the camp. She dressed, found her bone comb, and wandered outside to stand blinking in the sunlight and work at smoothing her tangle of curls. Although everyone else was up and around, there was no sign of her father or Orima. Still in bed, probably. She made a face at the thought.

  “There you are!” Keeta called out. “Fresh bread in that basket by the fire pit.”

  Together they sat down, by a pile of firewood while Marka nibbled at her breakfast,

  “I was talking to Vinto,” Keeta said. “He’s worried about money, too. Your father’s been making hints about not having enough to give the acrobats their full wages.”

  Marka felt suddenly sick to her stomach.

  “But if he shorts them, they’ll leave. They’re good enough to travel on their own.”

  “I know. I thought maybe you might have a word with your father. You’ve still got a lot of influence with him.”

  “If I say something, the cow will say the opposite, just to be mooing.”

  “Marka!” But Keeta hesitated, her mouth twisting in a bitter recognition of the truth. “Maybe I’ll talk to him, then. I was stranded once, with another troupe, years ago now, but I remember it awfully well. Too well. I don’t—” She hesitated again. “Wait a minute. Isn’t that the barbarian?”

  His face shaded by a floppy leather hat, the juggler was riding up to the camp on a beautiful—and expensive-looking—gray gelding. He dismounted just outside the circle of tents, stood looking round for a moment, then led his horse over to the fire pit while everyone else in camp strolled over to meet him. Marka felt her heart start pounding when he made them all a lazy bow, just because he was so lithe and graceful.

  “Good morning, all,” he announced with a grin. “My name’s Salamander, and I was wondering if I could have a word with the head of your
troupe. I might have a business proposition to lay before him.”

  “Um, well, he’s still in his tent,” Keeta said. “Should be up anytime now.”

  Salamander glanced at the sky as if to check the position of the sun. Vinto and Keeta exchanged significant looks and went on surreptitiously judging the cost of his beautiful clothes and horse gear.

  “Well, I’m his daughter,” Marka said. “Maybe you could tell me what you want.”

  “Perhaps you can help me, indeed. I was wondering where you were all heading to next, since it would seem that this town no longer provides a fresh and profitable field for your talents to cultivate.”

  Again Keeta and Vinto glanced at each other, this time with a hint of agony.

  “Er, we haven’t exactly decided. Going back to Main Island, maybe, but I’m not sure.”

  “I see. Well, my companion and I are less than sure of our next destination, too, you see, and I thought that…” He let his words trail away.

  Hamil was crawling out of his tent, and when he stood up, he lurched and swayed so badly that Marka at first thought he was ill. She bolted and ran to steady him, shocked at the inert force of his weight upon her shoulder as he leaned sideways. Dimly she was aware of the camp breaking out into a buzz of talk.

  “Papa, what’s wrong?”

  For an answer he merely smiled, a slow, secretive smile, and his eyes turned her way slowly, too, all heavy lids and droop. Around him hung a smoky scent, like incense, Marka grunted as the ice-knowledge chilled her to the spine. For a moment she felt the earth turn beneath her.

  “It’s the white smoke again. Well, isn’t it! Oh, Papa, you promised!” With a howl she thrust him away.

  “Hey.” He staggered and sat down heavily. “Little beast.”

  “Not again! Why … it was her, wasn’t it? She’s been getting, it for you! Curse her guts!”

  By then the rest of the troupe was hurrying over. Marka dodged away and ducked into her father’s tent. Naked, on her hands and knees, Rimi was desperately scraping earth over a hole in the dirt floor. The stem of a pipe stuck up through it. Marka grabbed her by the hair, pulled her up, and slapped her across the face. She squealed like a pig and slapped back, ail feeble and limp-wristed.