The Margarets

by Sheri S. Tepper

  The males, however, were uniformly sly and vicious, even before they were sent to their male-only religious schools. By the time they left those schools, they were sufficiently menacing that pets, servants, and children stayed out of their way, and even consorts and pleasure-women were careful of their demeanor. There was no K’Famir law against the negligent or purposeful slaying of children or wives by male K’Famir, or the slaying of male K’Famir by male K’Famir, though penalties were exacted for slaying the mates or children of other males, which was considered to be theft.

  As Ongamar, I was allowed to take my own exercise unsupervised in the walled gardens, which were extensive. My usual food was a tasteless kibble, made especially for pets of several humanoid races, but I was also fed scraps from the table, many of them delicious, though some were revolting. Adille’s previous pet had been of another race, but Adille learned which foods were acceptable while I invented ways to avoid being stuffed with foods that made me ill. Vomiting on the carpets resulted in a beating with one of the special slave whips made of flemp hide. The skins had microscopic, hook-shaped scales on them that tore the flesh and prevented the wounds from healing. Pets were beaten for any “dirty” behavior such as tracking in soil or leaves or failing to put clothing away, or spotting anything with blood, which occurred when I began to menstruate, some little time after arrival.

  The first bleeding upset Adille, and I was taken to a K’Famir veterinarian, who explained the biological function to Adille, not to Ongamar, and gave a kit of supplies to Adille, not to Ongamar, that Ongamar was to be trained to use. Thereafter Adille speculated from time to time whether it might not be fun to breed Ongamar and raise a litter of little ones. When she mentioned this in her current patron’s presence, however, his throat sac bulged to its fullest as he bellowed that one animal in the house was barely tolerable and there were to be no more.

  The semiaquatic K’Famir wore clothing as protection when outdoors, or as adornment. While at home they were constantly in and out of the fountains with which most of the rooms were furnished, Clothing for pets was allowed. When my own clothing began to wear out, I begged Adille for fabric to make simple, long-sleeved shifts. In public, K’Famir and pets without fur or scales wore voluminous scarves to prevent sunburn.

  During the first year of captivity, I accompanied Adille and her current patron, Bargom, to the pleasure quarter to meet some old friends. They stopped at various stalls, including one tiny one where Adille saw a kind of bib lying under a glass bell. Made of many tiny beads, it created pictures.

  “Bargom!” Adille cried. “Look at this! Doesn’t that look like you?” As it did, the bead colors shifting suddenly to create the very likeness of Bargom when he was startled, side-eyes very wide and angry.

  “Nonsense,” he said. “It looks like your mother.”

  I stepped a little to one side and saw what he meant. It did resemble Adille’s female parent, who from time to time cohabited with Adille.

  “How does it do that?” cried Adille. “Oh, Bargom, look at the tag. It’s only twenty mantrim. You promised me something fun to amuse me during my molting. Buy it for me.”

  “Surely it’s only a trick,” he said.

  “Not at all,” murmured the stall owner, who had appeared from behind a curtain as they stared. “It portrays memories, which it captures from the minds of those who confront it. Each owner helps it develop more complexity. Here on Cantardene, K’Famir images mostly, though on occasion it will portray events.”

  I recognized him as a Thongal, a serpentine, periodically sexless race that was occasionally seen in the Cantardene markets. I had been told of this race at school. This particular Thongal had tattered ears and abraded hollows below his eyes where his heat sensors and rudimentary sex organs should have been, routine punishment on the home planet. It lifted the glass bell so Adille could see the necklace more closely while she stroked the shining surface of the minute beads.

  “A strange thing to be so cheaply priced,” said Bargom, peering at it but coming no nearer.

  “A strange thing is not always much desired,” the Thongal said, with a deprecating snarl. “K’famir prefer the familiar.”

  “Is it a necklace?” cried Adille.

  “It could be, if one wished to wear it, though I am told it may become too heavy to be worn comfortably.”

  Adille reached forward and picked it up from the velvet pad, hefting it between her palps, laughing. “Not heavy at all! Oh, Bargom, do get it for me.”

  I reached up to stroke the glowing beads, running the tip of one finger over them, looking up to catch the Thongal’s eyes fixed upon me.

  “Pretty pet the lady has,” said the Thongal. “May one ask its name?”

  “Ongamar,” said Adille, casually. “Though it had another one. What was it, human?”

  “Margaret,” I murmured, catching a peculiar expression in the Thongal’s eyes. Amusement? Glee? Satisfaction?

  “Margaret,” it purred. “From Earth, no doubt.”

  Bargom had found a forty-mantrim note in his pouch, and the Thongal took it with a gloved hand, passing the necklace and the change back to Adille in those same gloved hands. Adille waited while I fastened the clasp around her neck, then we went on to the evening entertainment: dinner at a restaurant, where I stood beside Adille’s place to cut her food, meantime watching her necklace shifting and changing, sometimes somber, sometimes violent in color and action.

  After the meal, Adille and Bargom had front-row seats at a pouch-howling concert, while I waited in the “servant races” section, just far enough off the lobby to be spared the worst of the cacophony. When we reached home, the necklace was taken off and laid upon the ledge of Adille’s grooming trough.

  “You know,” said Adille, rubbing her throat pouch, “it really is heavier than it feels. My neck is quite weary from it.”

  I stood beside the trough, examining the necklace without touching it, for when I had touched it before, I had felt a threatening emanation, tangible as a smell, as though something dangerous had wakened and looked at me with recognition. As the Thongal stall owner had done. As though he knew of me, which was an unpleasant thought.

  “Great Lady,” I murmured, “perhaps it might be best not to wear it very often.”

  “Nonsense, Ongamar,” said the K’Famira. “It’s just that we’ve had a long day, and I’m a bit tired.”

  I was unconvinced. To all the regrets I had brought from Earth, I now added one more: a deep regret at having touched the thing at all. Somehow, though Adille had received the gift, I felt it had been intended for Margaret-by-any-name, as a trap intended for a particular victim might allow someone else to fall into it first. So Adille had been caught, but the trap was not dissatisfied, for it had caught me as well.

  I Am Naumi/on Thairy

  The ship bringing me from Earth landed on the colony world of Thairy. A door opened from the ship into a somewhere outside, a place full of mist, an impenetrable nothingness. Voices echoed, but they made no sense. Words were meaningless. I was moved here and there. I had a sense of motion but not a sense of being, as though it happened, had happened, was happening to someone else. I was aware, but not sensible of. I laughed quietly to myself, finding this all most amusing.

  Then suddenly, not. Something reached inside me and pulled. It wasn’t pain, one couldn’t call it pain, but it was not something one wanted to happen, it was a strangeness one wanted desperately to stop happening. I cried out. There was an abrupt sound, as though someone spoke angrily in an unknown language, and a dark curtain came down.

  When I, Naumi, wakened, I found myself in a narrow bed in a small, very clean room. Very clean, I thought, and empty, for it held only the bed, a stool beside the bed, and a few pegs with clothing hanging on them on the far wall. Above the pegs was a label: Naumi’s clothes. Below the peg, a shelf, a label: Naumi’s shoes. I read this with some concern. Who was Naumi?

  The sound of feet outside somewhere, then a white door op
ened through a white wall and someone came in. It was the very nice old man who only had one eye. His name. His name was…

  “Mr. Weathereye,” I said.

  “You remembered,” the man chuckled. “Very good! You see, I told you it would all come back to you. What else?”

  “My…my ma. She was killed.”

  “That’s right. And your father, also. But that was a long time ago. Since then, you’ve been living…where?”

  “With…Pa Rastarong. He took me in.”

  “Exactly. You see, you knew all this. It’s just that bump on your head that made you forget for a little while. You live near the town called Bright on the colony world of Thairy. You live with your pa, and your name is…?”

  “Naumi Rastarong,” I said.

  “Exactly. What else?”

  I frowned.

  “Reach for it!” demanded Mr. Weathereye.

  I reached. There was something there, just out of reach. Ah. Well. What was it?

  “Some other language,” I said. “I know some other language!”

  “You do indeed. Several, as a matter of fact.”

  We fell silent, the man smiling, humming quietly to himself while I was preoccupied with something else. “Mr. Weathereye,” I said at last, “I don’t feel like my skin fits!”

  “That’s natural,” the old man said. “Any time you get a good bump on the head, that’s natural. You’ll feel a little strange for a while, but you’ll get used to it.”

  We fell silent again, and this time I drifted into what was almost sleep. An elderly lady and a lanky, lazy-looking fellow came into the room and sat on chairs near Mr. Weathereye.

  “Rastarong,” he said. “Lady Badness.”

  They nodded. The woman asked, “How is he?”

  “Ah,” replied Mr. Weathereye, “feeling a little strange, as who wouldn’t. All that long journey.”

  “Does he know his name?” asked the other man.

  “Naumi,” said Mr. Weathereye. “I asked him, the way we do, when he was half asleep, ‘Hey, boy, what’s your name,’ and he said Naumi.”

  “What does it mean?” asked Lady Badness.

  “How in galactic parlance should I know?” Mr. Weathereye said in a testy voice, running his finger around the edge of his eye patch, as though it itched him. “It’s his name. I asked, and he told me.”

  “When can I take him home,” asked Rastarong.

  “Soon. Just don’t hurry him.”

  “I have fostered before,” said the other, slightly peeved.

  “Of course,” soothed Mr. Weathereye. “Haven’t we all.”

  They rose and departed. Behind them, I was surprised to find my face wet with tears, my heart swallowed up in a sorrow I couldn’t or identify or connect. Mama and Papa, dead and gone? No, not that. That was long ago. This injury they said I’d had. I couldn’t even remember that. No, it was some word, some label that lay within reach of my tongue but not within reach of my mind. Who was that? And why was I grieving for her?

  I Am Wilvia/on B’yurngrad

  Joziré and I sat on a haystack above a town with no name, the remains of our picnic luncheon scattered around us. I was chewing on a straw and making pictures out of clouds when Joziré asked, “Willy, do you know when your birthday is?”

  I thought a moment. “I don’t even know how long a year is, here. I’m not even sure how long we’ve been here.”

  “Here is somewhere on B’yurngrad, and we’ve been here about three school years,” he said. “I know because I’m working on volume three of the history of governance.”

  “I’m still reading about laws.” I sighed. “The sisters at the temple say I have to learn all about laws before I can study justice. I think it ought to be the other way around, but they say not.”

  “It’s the same with the brothers at the abbey. I have to learn all the stuff that didn’t work before I can study the things that did. They say if a ruler doesn’t know what didn’t work, and why, he’ll waste time, treasure, and lives learning it the hard way.” He stared at the sky, cleared his throat, chewed his lip.

  I made a face at him. “What are you so twitchy about?”

  “Lady Badness says I have to go away to school next year.”

  I sat up, horrified. “Just you? Not me? Where?”

  “Just me. Maybe it’s only for boys. She didn’t say where.”

  “I guess that’s how Lady Badness got her name,” I said angrily. “She’s all the time bringing bad news.”

  “It’s not bad, exactly. It’s just…troubling. Lady Badness says I can’t come into my full powers until I’m well schooled, and I can’t be king until I come into my full power….”

  “What powers?”

  “I have no idea. Something Ghossy, I guess. She says when I’m well schooled, I’ll know, and if I don’t get well schooled, it won’t make any difference. I’m sure she’s right, but…I don’t want to leave you, Wilvia. Four years is a long time.” He turned his head to stare sightlessly at the two nameless hills that rose gently above rolling grasslands, each bearing a school on its crest: the gray-towered abbey for boys, the white-domed temple for girls. His school; my school. Between the two, the town straggled down into the valley on both sides of a boisterous, nameless river crossed by half a dozen old stone bridges. From the hayfield where we sat, we could see the whole town: gardens, farmlands, orchards. For all we knew, it could be the only town on B’yurngrad.

  “It’ll probably be just as remote as this is,” he said. “My mother sends me letters by couriers, telling me I have to stay hidden.”

  “Because of the Frossians trying to kill you.”

  “Well, they killed my father, they’ve tried three times to kill my mother, they’ve been hunting for us ever since we left Fajnard. Mother’s spies on Fajnard say the Frossians want to wipe out the royal house before they invade, so our family won’t be a center of rebellion.”

  I whispered, “The sisters told me about it, and I’ve studied all your mother’s writings. I know she was the one who established the Court of Equity on Fajnard. Think of that, Joziré! A court dedicated to pure justice, one that can overrule the law! They didn’t even have one of those back on old Earth!”

  “I know.” He fidgeted. “Willy…?”

  “What, Jos? Don’t fidget.”

  “When I go away, will you wait for me until I come back?”

  “Unless they send me somewhere else. Of course.”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean, will you not get too friendly with any other boy until I come back.”

  I felt myself turning red. “You mean wait for you…that way.”

  He sighed deeply, running his fingers through his dark, curly hair. “You’re really too young to make a promise like that. You’re probably about thirteen, developmentally speaking, and I’m probably about sixteen. I know I have to go to this school, but I don’t want us to be separated. That sounds soppy, but I don’t want us to forget one another…”

  I took his hand. “Jos, I’ll wait for you forever. My stomach won’t let me forget. No one else in the world can make a fried garlwog sandwich the way you can.”

  He aimed a blow at me. I blocked it and aimed one at him. I didn’t dare let him go on talking that way, or I’d start to cry, and I didn’t want to cry. We tumbled into the hay and came to rest, me with arms pinned at my sides, him above me, nose to nose.

  “Promise!” he demanded. “Or I’ll leave you here for the big wild garlwogs to make dinner of.”

  “They don’t eat meat.” I tried to laugh.

  “You,” he said, fixing me with his eyes. “You, they’d eat. Now promise.”

  “I promise Prince Joziré, heir to the throne of the Ghoss, that I, Wilvia, will not…get friendly with any male person until said prince returns.”

  He let me go suddenly and turned away to hide his face before he got up to gather the remnants of our picnic lunch into the basket. I had promised, but I could see it hadn’t helped much.

&n
bsp; “Jos,” I whispered from behind him. “I really mean it. I will wait.”

  He forced himself to grin. “I know you will.”

  We walked back along the farm road, each of us thinking of all the wrong things we could say and do. At least I was. I was having other thoughts, too. Old ones. As we came near the town, we saw Lady Badness sitting on a waystone.

  “There you are,” she cackled. “I’d about given up on you. If you don’t mind, Highness, I must speak with Wilvia.”

  He was Highness instead of Majesty because he hadn’t been crowned king, yet. And he did mind, but he gritted his teeth and plodded on.

  “He told you he’s going away,” said Lady Badness, after he had gone halfway to the town. “You’ve promised to wait for him, but…”

  I felt the words leave me like a gush of water. “I’ve promised. But is it because I really want to wait for him, or is it because I’m supposed to be a queen, and the only way I’ll ever be a queen is if I marry Jos.” I put my hands to my face, which was burning, wishing to call the words back. They had been true, the words, but I hadn’t meant to speak them out loud.

  “Ah,” said Lady Badness in a satisfied tone, “that’s the true question, isn’t it. One you have to answer, Wilvia. Do you want to be queen?”

  I stared at my feet, unable to answer.

  “You see yourself with a crown. I know you do. You see yourself being gracious and wise. Isn’t that true.”

  “Yes,” I said grudgingly.

  “Are you gracious and wise?”

  I desperately wanted to lie, knowing it would do no good. “I…I don’t…No. I’m not.”

  “Well, no matter how much Joziré loves you, he will not marry you unless you are gracious and wise, for the Queen of the Ghoss must be both. Becoming a queen is extremely hard work, and why would you want to do it? To be queen? Or to be with Joziré? Or because it is a worthy thing to be? If Joziré were gone, dead, would you go to all that work, just to be queen?”