Brothers of Earth

by C. J. Cherryh

  She actually considered it. He went cold inside^ realizing that she could and would do it, and knew suddenly that she meant this for petty revenge, taking his peace of mind in retaliation for her humiliation of a moment ago. Pride was important to her.

  "Do you want me to ask you not to do that?" he asked.

  "No," she said. "If I decide to do that, I will do it, and if I do not, I will not. What you ask has nothing to do with it But I would advise you and Elas to remain quiet."

  XII

  The fog did not go out. It still held the city the next morning, the faint sound of warning bells drifting up from the harbor. Kurt opened his eyes on the grayness outside the window, then looked toward the foot of the bed where Mim sat combing her long hair, black and silken and falling to her waist when unbound. She looked back at him and smiled, her alien and wonderfully lovely eyes soft with warmth.

  "Good morning, my lord."

  "Good morning," he murmured.

  "The mist is still with us," she said. "Hear the harbor bells?"

  "How long can this last?"

  "Sometimes many days when the seasons are turning, especially in the spring." She flicked several strands of hair apart and began with quick fingers to plait them into a thin braid. Then she would sweep most of her hair up to the crown of her head, fasten it with pins and combs, an intricate and fascinating ritual daily performed and nightly undone. He liked watching her. In a matter of moments she began the next braid.

  "We say," Mim commented, "that the mist is the cloak of the imiine, the sky-sprite Nue, when she comes to visit earth and walk among men. She searches for her beloved, lost long ago in the days when god-kings ruled. He was a mortal man who offended one of the god-kings, a son of Yr whose name was Knyha; poor man, he was slain by Knyha, and his body scattered over all the shore of Nephane so that Nue would not know what had become of him. She still searches and walks the land and the sea and haunts the rivers, especially in the springtime."

  "Do you truly think that?" Kurt asked, not sarcastically- one could not be that with Mim. He was prepared to mark it down to be remembered with all his heart if she wished him to.

  Mim smiled. "I do not, not truly. But it is a beautiful story, is it not, my lord? There are truths and there are truths, my lord Kta would say, and there is Truth itself, the yhia. Since mortals cannot always reason all the way to Truth, we find little truths that are right enough on our own level. But you are very wise about things. I think you really might know what makes the mist come. Is it a cloud that sits down upon the sea, or is it born in some other way?"

  "I think," said Kurt, "that I like Nue best. It sounds better than water vapor."

  "You think I am silly and you cannot make me understand."

  "Would it make you wiser if you knew where fog comes from?"

  "I wish that I could talk to you about all the things that matter to you."

  He frowned, realizing that she was in earnest. "You matter. This place, this world matters to me, Mim."

  "I know so very little."

  "What do you want to know?"

  "Everything."

  "Well, you owe me breakfast first."

  Mim flashed a smile, put in the last combs and finished her hair with a pat. She slipped on the chatem, the overdress with the four-paneled split skirt which fitted over the gossamer drapery of the pelan, the underdress. The chatem high-collared and long-sleeved, tight and restraining in the bodice, rose and beige brocade, over a rose pelan. There were many buttons up either wrist and up the bodice to the collar. She patiently began the series of buttons.

  "I will have tea ready by the time you can be downstairs," she said. "I think Aimu will have been-"

  There was a deep hollow boom over the city, and Kurt glanced toward the window with an involuntary oath. It was the sighing note of a distant gong.

  "Ai," said Mim. "Intaem-lnta. That is the great temple. It is the beginning of Cadmisan."

  The gong moaned forth again through the fog-stilled air, measured, four times more. Then it was done, the last echoes dying.

  "It is the fourth of Nermotai," said Mim, "the first of the Sufak holy days. The temple will sound the Inta every morning and every evening for the next seven days, and the Sufaki

  will make prayers and invoke the Intain, the spirits of their gods."

  "What is done there?" Kurt asked.

  "It is the old religion which was here before the Families. I am not really sure what is done, and I do not care to know. I have heard that they even invoke the names of god-kings in Phan's own temple, but we do not go there, ever. There were old gods in Chteftikan, old and evil gods from the First Days, and once a year the Sufaki call their names and pay them honor, to appease their anger at losing this land to Phan. These are beings we Indras do not name."

  "Bel said," Kurt recalled, "that there could be trouble during the holy days."

  Mim frowned. "Kurt, I would that you take special care for your safety, and do not come and go at night during this time."

  It hit hard. Mim surely spoke without reference to the Methi, at least without bitterness; if Mim accused, he knew well that Mim would say so plainly. "I do not plan to come and go at night," he said. "Last night-"

  "It is always dangerous," she said with perfect dignity, before he could finish, "to walk abroad at night during Cadmisan. The Sufak gods are earth-spirits, Yr-bred and monstrous. There is wild behavior and much drunkenness."

  "I will take your advice," he said.

  She came and touched her fingers to his lips and to his brow, but she took her hand from him when he reached for it, smiling. It was a game they played.

  "I must be downstairs attending my duties," she said. "Dear my husband, you will make me a reputation for a licentious woman in the household if you keep making us late for breakfast. No! Dear my lord, I shall see you downstairs at morning tea."

  "Where do you think you are going?"

  Mim paused in the dimly lit entry hall, her hands for a moment suspending the veil over her head as she turned. Then she settled it carefully over her hair and tossed the end over her shoulder.

  "To market, my husband."

  "Alone?"

  She smiled and shrugged. "Unless you wish to fast this evening. I am buying a few things for dinner. Look you, the fog has cleared, the sun is bright, and those men who were hanging about across the street have been gone since yesterday."

  "You are not going alone."

  "Kurt, Kurt, for Bel's doom-saying? Dear light of heaven, there are children playing outside, do you not hear? And should I fear to walk my own street in bright afternoon? After dark is one thing, but I think you take our warnings much too seriously."

  "I have my reasons, Mim."

  She looked up at him in most labored patience. "And shall we starve? Or will you and my lord Kta march me to market with drawn weapons?"

  "No, but I will walk you there and back again." He opened the door for her, and Mim went out and waited for him, her basket on her arm, most obviously embarrassed.

  Kurt nervously scanned the street, the recesses where at nights t'Tefur's men were wont to linger. They were indeed gone. Indras children played at tag. There was no threat, no presence of the Methi's guards either, but Djan never did move obviously. He had had no difficulty returning to Elas late, probably, he thought with relief, she had taken measures.

  "Are you sure," he asked Mim, "that the market will be open on a holiday?"

  She looked up at him curiously as they started off together. "Of course, and busy. I put off going, you see, these several days with the fog and the trouble on the streets, and I am sorry to cause you this trouble, Kurt, but we really are running out of things and there could be the fog again tomorrow, so it is really better to go today. I do have some sense, after all."

  "You know I could quite easily walk down there and buy what you need for supper, and you would not need to go at all."

  "Ai, but Cadmisan is such a grand time in the market, with all the country
people coming in and the artists and the musicians. Besides," she added, when his face remained unhappy, "dear husband, you would not know what you were buying or what to pay. I do not think you have ever handled our coin. And the other women would laugh at me and wonder what kind of wife I am to make my husband do my work, or else they would think I am such a loose woman that my bus-ban would not trust me out of the house."

  "They can mind their own business," he said, disregarding

  her attempt at levity; and her small face took on a determined look.

  "If you go alone," she said, "the fact is that folk will guess Elas is afraid, and this will lend courage to the enemies of Elas."

  He understood her reasoning, though it comforted him not at all. He watched carefully as their downhill walk began to take them out of the small section of aristocratic houses surrounding the Afen and the temple complex. But here in the Sufaki section of town, people were going about business as usual. There were some men in the Robes of Color, but they walked together in casual fashion and gave them not a passing glance.

  "You see," said Mim, "I would have been quite safe."

  "I wish I was that confident."

  "Look you, Kurt, I know these people. There is lady Yafes, and that little boy is Edu t'Rachik u Gyon-the Rachik house is very large. They have so many children it is a joke in Nephane. The old man on the curb is t'Pamchen. He fancies himself a scholar. He says he is reviving the old Sufak writing and that he can read the ancient stones. His brother is a priest, but he does not approve of the old man. There is no harm in these people. They are my neighbors. You let t'Tefur's little band of pirates trouble you too much. T'Tefur would be delighted to know he upset you. That is the only victory he dares seek as long as you give him no opportunity to challenge you."

  "I suppose," Kurt said, unconvinced.

  The street approached the lower town by a series of low steps down a winding course to the defense wall and the gate. Thereafter the road went among the poorer houses, the markets, the harborside. Several ships were in port, two broad-beamed merchant vessels and three sleek galleys, warships with oars run in or stripped from their locks, yards without sails, the sounds of carpentry coming loudly from their decks, one showing bright new wood on her hull.

  Ships were being prepared against the eventuality of war. Tavi, Kta's ship, had been there; she had had her refitting and had been withdrawn to the outer harbor, a little bay on the other side of Haichema-tleke. That reminder of international unease, the steady hammering and sawing, underlay all the gaiety of the crowds that thronged the market.

  "That is a ship of Ilev, is it not?" Kurt asked, pointing to the merchantman nearest, for he saw what appeared to be the white bird that was emblematic of that house as the figurehead.

  "Yes," said Mim. "But the one beside it I do not recognize. Some houses exist only in the Isles. Lord Kta knows them all, even the houses of Indresul's many colonies. A captain must know these things. But of course they do not come to Nephane. This one must be a trader that rarely comes, perhaps from the north, near the Yvorst Ome, where the seas are ice."

  The crowd was elbow-to-elbow among the booths. They lost sight of the harbor, and nearly of each other. Kurt seized Mim's arm, which she protested with a shocked look: even husband and wife did not touch publicly.

  "Stay with me," he said, but he let her go. "Do not leave my sight."

  Mim walked the maze of aisles a little in front of him, occasionally pausing to admire some gimcrack display of the tinsmiths, intrigued by the little fish of jointed scales that wiggled when the wind hit their fins.

  "We did not come for this," Kurt said irritably. "Come, what would you do with such a thing?"

  Mim sighed, a little piqued, and led him to that quarter of the market where the farmers were, countrymen with produce and cheeses and birds to sell, fishermen with the take from their nets, butchers with their booths decorated with whole carcasses hanging from hooks.

  Mim deplored the poor quality of the fish that day, disappointed in her plans, but selected from a vegetable seller some curious yellow corkscrews called lat, and some speckled orange ones called gillybai. She knew the vegetable seller's wife, who congratulated her on her recent marriage, marveled embarrassingly over Kurt-she seemed to shudder slightly, but showed brave politeness-then became involved in a long story about some mutual acquaintance's daughter's child.

  It was woman's talk. Kurt stood to one side, forgotten, and then, sure that Mim was safe among people she knew and not willing to seem utterly the tyrant, withdrew a little. He looked at some of the other tables in the next booth, somewhat interested in the alien variety of the fish and the produce, some of which, he reflected with unease, he had undoubtedly eaten without knowing its uncooked appearance. Much of the seafood was not in the least appealing to Terran senses.

  From the harbor there came the steady sound of hammering, reechoing off the walls in insane counterpoint to the noise of the many colored crowds.

  Someone jostled him. He looked up into the unsmiling face of a Sufaki in Robes of Color. The man said nothing. Kurt made a slight bow of apology, unanswered, and turned about to go after Mim.

  Another man blocked his way. Kurt tried t6 step around him. The Sufaki moved in front of him with sullen threat in his narrow eyes. Another appeared to his left, crowding him back to the right.

  He moved suddenly, trying to slip past them. They cut him off from Mim. He could not see her any longer. The noisy crowds surged between. He dared not start something with Mim near, where she could be hurt.

  They forced him continually in one direction, toward a gap between the booths where they jammed up against a warehouse. He saw the alley and broke for it.

  Others met him at the turning ahead, pursuit hot behind. He had expected it and hit the opposition without hesitation. He avoided a knife and kicked its owner, who screamed in agony, struck another in the face and a third in the groin before those behind overtook him.

  A blow landed between his shoulders and against his head, half blinding him. He fell under a weight of struggling bodies, pinned while more than one of them wrenched his arms back and tied his wrists.

  He had broken one man's arm. He saw that with satisfaction as they hauled him to his feet and tried to aid their own injured.

  Then they seized him by either arm and hurried him deeper into the alley.

  The backways of Nephane were a maze of alien geometry, odd-shaped buildings jammed incredibly into the S-curve of the main street, fronting outward in decent order while their rear portions formed a labyrinthine tangle of narrow alleyways and contiguous walls. Kurt quickly lost track of the way they had come.

  They reached the back door of a warehouse, thrust Kurt inside and -entered the dark with him, closing the door so that all the light was from the little door aperture.

  Kurt scrambled to escape into the shadows, sure now that he would be found some time later with his throat cut and no proof who his murderers had been.

  They seized him before he could run more than a few steps, hurled him to the dusty floor and slipped a cord about his ankle. Finally, despite his kicking and heaving, they succeeded in lashing both his ankles together. Then they forced his jaws apart and thrust a choking wad of cloth into his mouth, tying it in place with a violence that cut his face.

  "Get a light," one said.

  The door opened before that was done. Their comrades had joined them, bringing the man with the broken arm. When the light was lit they attended to the setting of the arm, with screams they tried to muffle.

  Kurt wriggled over against some bales of canvas, nerves raw to every outcry from the injured man. They would repay him for that, he was sure, before they disposed of him.

  It was the human thing to do. In this respect he hoped they were different.

  Hours passed. The injured man slept, after a drink they had given him. Kurt occupied himself with trying to work the knots loose. They were not fully within his reach. He tried instead to stretch the c
ords. His fingers swelled and passed the point of pain. The ache spread up his arms. His feet were numb. Breathing was an effort.

  At least they did not touch him. They played at bho, a game of lots, and sat in the light, an unreal tableau suspended in the growing blackness. The light picked out only the edges of bales and crates.

  From the distance of the hill came the deep tones of the Intaem-Inta. The gamers stopped, reverent of it, continued.

  Outside Kurt heard the faint scuff of sandalled feet on stone. His hopes rose. He thought of Kta, searching for him.

  Instead there came a bold rap on the door. The men admitted the newcomers, one in Indras dress, the others in Robes of Color; they wore daggers in their belts.

  One was a man who had watched outside Elas.