Anand was quiet again. “Ulatha, let’s please get a clarification. That seems an awfully long time.”
Anand listened as Ladeekuz answered a series of short questions and then the two conferred over some counting beads on the chain around Ulatha’s neck.
“Yes,” said Ulatha, “she meant to say exactly that. For thousands of years, they have counted every day of their enslavement.”
Anand was marveling at these people. Had he underestimated them? If what Ladeekuz said was true, they had sustained a tribal identity as captives of another culture for twenty-four centuries.
“Who are the Icanthix?” Anand asked.
“They resemble the Carpenter people with their greenish-brown skin and black hair. All of them are ignorant thieves, descended from primitive ant peoples—like these disgusting people who live among leaf-cutter ants and eat their awful mushrooms.”
Anand watched as Ladeekuz pointed and scowled at the Palzhanites.
“Respectfully,” Anand said. “Your Highness should know there are many kinds of ant peoples. Some of them are quite respectable.”
Ladeekuz and her husbands had a good chuckle. “There are no respectable ant people,” she said. “The rightful place of our tribe is in the trees that Goddess Bee gave to her Bulkokan people.”
Anand thought a moment.
“Perhaps Your Highness and her people would wish to live in the northern part of our country, near our capital, Cajoria. We have trees just beyond that are strong and tall and younger than here in the South.”
“Perhaps,” said the queen, nodding.
“How long will your queen bee survive in that cage? It will be a journey of many days to arrive at Cajoria.”
“As long as our egg-layer is tended to, she could survive for a moon or longer.”
Anand turned over his shoulder and saw that the Palzhad caste of garment workers had arrived with sand-sleds full of proper, well-made tunics and gowns suitable to the merchants’ castes.
“Very well,” Anand said. “In order to journey through these lands, you will need to change your kin-scent. Our priests are preparing the baths. The garment makers of Palzhad have arrived with clothing we hope you will find comfortable and attractive.”
Queen Ladeekuz made a sour face, conferred with her husbands.
“We will not wear the kin-scent of an ant.”
“Well, of course you would need to,” said Anand, frowning. “You cannot travel safely in leaf-cutter territory without adopting their kin-scent.”
“We would sooner bathe in our own vomit than wear any ant’s kin-scent.”
“Madame,” Anand said, then started over. “Your Majesty. Sand-coaches will be arriving shortly, drawn by leaf-cutter haulers, to bring you safely to your new home in comfort. But unless you are wearing leaf-cutter kin-scent, the hauling ants will slice you into pieces with the sharpest, most powerful mandibles of any ant on the Sand.”
Ladeekuz conferred with her husbands again.
“We will never agree to this. What we will do is adopt roach-scent to repel these gruesome ants. This roach caravan will continue to haul us to our new home in the North.”
Anand was quietly burning inside as he turned to Daveena. “I suppose we could contact the Pleps, who are at Mound Smax. With fresh roaches, the Pleps could take the Bulkokans north.”
“Or we could call them out for the rude, arrogant bee-shits they are and kick their ample bottoms back into the Dustlands,” whispered Daveena.
“Tempting,” Anand whispered. “But Bee-Jor must have bee people.”
Anand stood his tallest and managed a forced smile as he clasped his hands behind his back.
“Very well, Majesty. We will summon our Two Spirit, and bathe your people in as much roach-scent as we can gather today. It will help to abandon your clothing, as its hive-scent may be overwhelming and attract . . . night wasps and fleas. As well as ants.”
“Agreed,” said Ladeekuz. “But we will wear nothing derived from ants. I like what you’re wearing, this cape of yours. You should give that to me. And we like these dyed and polished silks your roach people are wearing under their capes. We’ve heard you have a store of robes and skirts and jackets in your sleds’ compartments to sell in the Seed Eaters’ markets. We’ll dress in those until you can make something specific for each of us. You can tell these ant people to take their filthy, polluted rags back to their wretched mound.”
Anand’s teeth were gritting as the translation was completed. “That’s it!” he said, shouting. “All of these people—these ant people—have come here to welcome you, to see to your comfort!” Anand made a sweeping point to the Britasytes, to the Bee-Jorite guards, the priests of Palzhad, and the laborers who focused on him as his fury exploded. “These ant people—as I am also an ant person—defeated the Hulkrites and helped to free you. So at this time you and your people need to say something to me and to all of the roach and ant people here before we go one step further!”
Ladeekuz and her husbands stiffened in a fearful awe as the translation was completed. A squeak passed from her trembling lips as she shrugged her shoulders.
“What? What do you expect me to say?”
“You are going to say ‘thank you.’”
Ladeekuz and her men looked to have been punched in the face by invisible hands.
“THANK YOU!” Anand shouted, which Ulatha shouted in turn. “You and all your people are going to stand and thank everyone here who risked their lives and shared their food and came to your aid—who welcomed strangers into our land. And if that doesn’t interest you, you can walk back to Hulkren with my boot in your buttocks!”
The husband-kings huddled and whispered around Ladeekuz, who sobbed, shook her head, and had difficulty breathing. She signaled with the scepter in her chubby little hand to all her people that they were to rise. The Bulkokans were on their feet, looking humbled, and repeating, “Thank you,” in their tongue as they nodded to the strangers around them. At that moment, a locust fell from the sky, landing nearby on a dead ranunculus flower. As the pilot patted the locust’s head to keep it from flying off, a boy dressed in a messenger’s tunic climbed out of the saddle and down the flower’s stem to run towards Anand.
“Commander Quegdoth,” he said, and bowed. “King Medinwoe anxiously awaits your return and relays his displeasure. He has summoned you and says it is best you return immediately to the capital, that it is urgent.”
“Summoned me?” said Anand, feeling new flashes of anger rolling up his spine to explode in his head. “Just what is his displeasure?”
“He did not relay it, Commander. He asked that you replace me as the rider on this locust if none were available—so that you could make haste.”
“Please tell the king I . . . I am attending my own urgent business,” Anand shouted, stifling his rage. “And I will join him at my earliest convenience.” The messenger bowed, then climbed up the ranunculus to fly away.
“What’s this urgent business of yours?” Daveena asked Anand with a whisper.
“Spending time with my wife.”
Daveena smiled, squeezed his hand. He looked at her and was soothed but a moment later he noticed Queen Ladeekuz giving him a sideways stare as she muttered to her husbands.
“This all might have been a mistake,” he said to Daveena.
Chapter 19
Negotiations
Anand spent the afternoon with his wife in the privacy of the chieftain’s sled where they engaged in lovemaking that was both tender and tentative. He had to lie on his back, and Daveena worked with the heaviness of her pregnancy. As mild as they had been with each other, he still endured the reopening of leg wounds. Once the caravan was ready, the two rode with Thagdag at the front of his sled to Mound Smax, where the Pleps were camped before their autumn venture to the mounds of the crippled Slope.
“The Pleps won’t like being redirected back to Cajoria’s north,” said Daveena.
“I would rather they were venturing into t
he Slope—to be my eyes and ears,” said Anand.
“How do you think it goes for the sedites in the West?” Thagdag asked. “Any signs they plan to conquer and reunite the Slope?”
“Not while they are taking back Gagumji from the Carpenter Nation,” said Anand. “If the Beetle people know the Slopeish army is made up of old men, boys, and drunkards, they are planning on grabbing it all.”
“If the Carpenters take over the Slope, Bee-Jor would be next,” said Daveena.
“At some point we’ll make it plain to the king in Gemurfa that a war on the Slope is a war on Bee-Jor,” said Anand.
The moon was getting low and orange in the sky when the caravan reached Smax. Anand remembered it was somewhat more populated than Palzhad and more prosperous, with a deposit of green clay near its mound. He remembered his mother’s treasured green bowls and jars from Smax, which were durable and decorated with the grooves from a craftsman’s stylus. Lights were visible in the windows of the mound’s lower rings, a heartening sign that commerce was expanding for all.
As the Entreveans approached the south end of the clearing set aside for Britasytes, they found the Pleps in the midst of a performance. Anand could see the spectacle was well attended, but something about the crowd was different. As the roach wranglers herded the insects into their pens for the night, he and Daveena pulled on hooded capes to hide themselves, and ventured towards the Pleps’ stage.
“I know what’s different,” Daveena said, smiling as she sniffed the air. “Can you smell it?”
“Oh. Yes,” said Anand, feeling surprised and a little worried. As they got closer to the crowd, they saw what their noses suspected: half the people, maybe more, were women and they were doused in too much perfume, a substance no longer forbidden to them. Unlike the men, the women had not come to the Britasytes’ camp in disguise. Their faces were exposed and they were flaunting their new, if used, finery. All of them were entranced by the spectacle, but a few were in jealous contempt, folding their arms and frowning as they compared themselves to the women onstage. The happy ones were not just watching, but moving to the music and yelping, an indication that they had drunk the phantom-berry punch and were delirious from its touch of the Holy Mildew.
Jalinget, the clan’s famed singer, belted out a new song that praised the Dawning of the Age of Locust as the dancers stripped their costumes to reveal skin covered in glow-paint. Anand was surprised when some women in the crowd imitated them and went as far as to remove the tops of their own clothes to shake their breasts. This angered, shocked, and intrigued the men nearby. Brothers, fathers, and caste kin turned on these women, shouting their reprimands and demanding modesty.
“This is what happens when we allow women out of the shelters at night,” said an angry father when he saw his daughter. She was smiling, oblivious to his scolding as she danced. “Do you think we can find you a husband now that everyone has seen your nipples?”
“I think now you can find me a thousand husbands,” she said before her father grabbed her ear and dragged her away.
The show neared its end when a large and ornate puppet of Locust the Sky God was pushed onstage. Some dancers climbed onto the puppet’s back, and others grabbed handles on its massive rear legs. Tugging at a network of cords, the dancers made the effigy’s wings spread and flap while the legs in the back were pumped up and down. Naked and bobbing atop the puppet, the women waved farewells, as mild explosions filled the stage with a sweet, thick mist that cleared to reveal an empty platform. Applause and cheers went on and on as the Britasyte merchants moved the stage’s lights to the market stalls and the roach-drawn rides. A few lights went into the Tent of Forbiddens where the dancing beauties entered through the back to climb atop ladders and stand out of reach of admiring men. A few women of Smax, infected with curiosity, attempted to enter the tent, but were blocked by roach-men who refused their money.
Anand had only ever seen men browsing the night markets to find a trinket or some cloth to return home with; but now it was women who jammed the stalls, excitedly buzzing at their first opportunity to purchase these goods for themselves. “Just look at them,” Daveena said as the women pressed in to the jewelry stalls, noisily shoving and snipping at each other. “Like a horde of locusts ravaging the barley.” The jewelry sellers went on the defense, pulling away their trays of bangles and necklaces and shouting at the women to stand back. As the supply of jewelry grew smaller, the last few items were held overhead and auctioned to buyers shouting their bids. The rug weavers, cloth salesmen, and boot makers were almost as mobbed, and the sellers of honey and aphid crystals ran out of stock in an instant.
Anand’s attention was drawn back to the Tent of Forbiddens when he saw some bee people, not quite bravely, making their way through the grounds. The eyes of the young Britasytes guarding the tent went wide with astonishment to see these chubby people dressed in stripes and fuzz jackets, clinging to each other as they took in their first carnival. They attempted to follow the Smaxans into the Tent of Forbiddens without paying. When they were rejected in a language they did not understand, they buzzed angrily, in their foreign tongue, but soon moved on to gape at the roach-drawn rides. They were most entranced to see people seated in little carriages rise up on the fungus-lit Pleasure Wheel, then dip back down.
Once Anand was sure a crisis had been averted, he and Daveena pushed through the mob to reach Chieftain Zedral inside his sled. “Permission to enter, Good Traveler,” shouted Daveena at the curtained opening.
“Enter,” said Zedral, and the two slipped through the curtains to see overflowing barrels of gold and silver pyrite, as well as chips of rose quartz. Much of the treasure had spilled onto the floor. The chieftain should have looked ecstatic to be surrounded by a wealth that could not be contained but his long, wrinkled face was as droopy as his mustache. To Anand, Zedral looked little different from when he had been rescued from Hulkren. He might never be plump and jolly again.
“Chieftain Zedral. You are rich for life,” Anand said through a polite grin as he and Daveena removed their hoods.
“Anand! Good Roach Lord! We are honored. But surprised.”
Daveena bowed her head to Zedral and, sensing his aches and pains, helped him to fill his barrels and then some buckets in the light of the cabin’s torch.
“We should hide most of this treasure,” the chieftain said. “Since we will have to rely on savings for the days ahead.”
“Why do you say that, Chieftain? It should only get better,” said Anand.
“Not for everyone. This edict of yours, allowing Slopeish laborers to make and trade their own goods, has been a boon for them. But now that they conduct their own markets, they will have no need for ours. It won’t be long before they have instruments to make their own music, and before their women will dance in their own shows. Their craftsmen are already making their own jewelry—copies of ours.”
Anand was quiet. What Zedral said stirred up worries.
“They can’t craft like we can,” said Daveena to fill the silence. “And we still have markets in the pine and barley countries.”
“Perhaps. But the sedites have less fear and awe of us. We are losing our . . . our . . . ”
“Mystery,” Anand said.
“They are still quite in awe of my husband,” said Daveena.
“This man they think of as a demigod,” said Zedral. “Someday they’ll know he is just a boy from a wandering roach tribe.”
“Permission to enter,” said a voice outside, and Anand and Daveena resumed their hoods as the chieftain’s nephews entered the sled. “Do we have any more sweets?”
Zedral went to the wall chest at the back of the sled and took out some net-bags full of amber-colored crystals.
“This is the last of the dried honey,” he said. “And we’ve no more aphid sugar. I’ll keep this last bag for ourselves.”
The boys disappeared with the bags. Outside the sled, Anand heard the clamor of the crowd. Another auction began and the c
rowd shouted what they would pay or trade for the crystalized honey.
“I think that for some of us,” Zedral said, “our days as wanderers may be at an end. That someday, we too will want to live in houses and be . . .”
“Sedites?” Daveena said, not hiding her disgust.
“Settled,” said Zedral. “Able to wander, yes, but able to live in a house among . . . settled people.” Zedral looked at them under heavy lids and they heard his breathing. “I must admit . . . I am weary of journeys. Shouldn’t the Britasytes who fought in the war have the chance to live in a house on a mound, safe from the rains, with rooms warmed by the sun in winter?”
“If such houses were available to them,” said Anand, after giving it some thought. He imagined Britasytes becoming neighbors to Slopeites, a people who had feared and hated them for centuries. A wave of apprehensions soured his stomach.
“Perhaps some Britasytes might settle in Palzhad, which is still so empty,” Anand said.
“What would you do for work?” asked Daveena.
“Whatever ant people do—or perhaps, what they don’t want to do. Like raise roaches, whose products they need.”
The three of them were silent. Anand imagined that Daveena and Zedral, like he himself, were pondering a future where Britasytes no longer roamed. It was a thought that was bright and hopeful, and at the same time saddening.
“You have come here for a reason,” said the chieftain to Anand.
“I am asking your clan to go north with the bee people, and help them establish a new tree-home.”
“Anand . . . we were headed to the mounds of the Old Slope where their priests and merchants are anxious for our goods. If the Entreveans have brought these bee people this far, they should continue with them.”
“The Entreveans are depleted. Many of their roaches died in Hulkren—in what is becoming the Dustlands again,” said Anand.
“We have always known the Dustlands are not good for our insects,” said Zedral. “Something in that dust sickens them.”
The Prophet of the Termite God Page 17