“When they recover, the Entreveans can assume your route in the Slope. In the meantime, we need to establish these Bulkokans . . . if we are to have honey in a country called Bee-Jor.”
Zedral was quiet, then stroked his mustache in thought. He looked at the last bag of honey crystals.
“How do these Bulkokans expect to build a home at the top of a tree?”
“I don’t know. But perhaps by summer we will have some honey. Cheap honey.”
Zedral was quiet again, his eyes darting back and forth.
“If it is our labor that brings these bee people to the North and helps them build their home, are we not—under your edict—entitled to the fruits of that labor?”
Anand exhaled loudly through his nose. “It would be the Bulkokans’ honey.”
“And their wax and propolis and bee-meat and eggs,” said Daveena.
“But we would be entitled to their products’ second sale and have exclusive rights to their transport across Bee-Jor,” said Zedral. “And the other lands.”
“Yes.”
“And we would have a right to occupy homes on Mound Palzhad.”
“Abandoned homes, yes.”
“And on Cajoria—if we are to be near these bee people.”
Anand hesitated. Cajoria has enough housing disputes.
“Ten homes on Cajoria.”
“Fifty.”
“Fifteen.”
“Twenty-five.”
“Twenty. No more.”
“Twenty, it is. By Madricanth, I swear to uphold these terms,” said Zedral.
“As do I,” said Anand, “by Madricanth.”
The two used their hands to make the sign of the Roach’s six legs before rubbing their antennae to secure the agreement.
He thinks he got the better end of that deal, thought Anand. But he’s yet to meet the Bulkokans.
When Anand and Daveena stepped outside, they saw that the crowd had turned away from the stalls and the tent. The Smaxans were staring at the bizarre sight of exotic beings in bee garb spinning on the Pleasure Wheel. The Bulkokans were utterly quiet, intrigued yet frightened, dizzy and sick as they went around and around . . . which is exactly how Anand felt at the moment.
This is a mistake. I’m not sure how. But I shouldn’t have brought these bee people here.
Chapter 20
A Harsh Lesson
“I don’t want you going with the Entreveans into the West,” Anand said to Daveena in the morning as he pulled his clothing over his armor.
“Why not?”
“Because of what’s inside your belly, for one thing.”
“I’m as safe there as I am in Bee-Jor.”
“Not if they learn who you are: the wife of the Dranverite who took half their nation.”
“Just where do you want me to go?”
“With the Pleps. To Cajoria.”
“So I can help the Bulkokans establish their tree-home.”
“No. So you can be with your husband in his chambers at night—so he has one less worry while he governs this mess.”
“I can’t live in that palace. Not if she’s there.”
“There are four palaces. You would never have to see her. Think about it. I have to fly home and figure out the next five hundred crises.”
Anand went to hug and kiss her, but she felt stiff in his arms and would not pucker her pouting mouth. He stepped out of the sled to find his guards waiting for him on the ground below, when Daveena burst through the curtains and yanked him back to become a shaking, bawling mess in his arms. “I’m going west with the Entreveans,” she managed to say. “After we trade at Venaris.”
“Well, of course you are,” he said and sighed.
The guards below looked away as the two rocked in each other’s arms. “Come, men,” Anand finally said, pulling away from her. “Let’s fly home.”
That afternoon, Anand did not fly directly to the top of Mound Cajoria, then rush to meet Medinwoe. He ordered the pilot to land at the locust cages on the mound’s outskirts, where they could return the insect to be fed and watered for later use. After that, he took a leisurely bath to get rid of some roach-scent, and it was evening when he and his guard finally took an ant train up the main artery. Instead of going straight to the throne room, he went to his bedchamber to check on his father. A messenger was waiting at the door.
“Commander, you are expected in the throne room. Queen Polexima is there with King Medinwoe. They have been waiting.”
“Please tell the king he is invited here, to my bedchamber, where he and Polexima may join me for dinner. Let them know I am looking after my father.”
The messenger nodded and ran off. Anand went to Yormu, who was sitting up in a bed positioned to give him a view down the mound through the quartz window.
“How are you, Dad?” Anand asked. Yormu smiled, then bobbed his head from side to side—his way of saying he could not complain.
“Healing up all right?”
Yormu nodded.
“You must be bored,” Anand said, and Yormu bobbed his head again.
“I wish you could tell me how I might better help,” Anand said. Then he was struck with a thought.
“Messenger!” he called to the runners waiting near the door. The first in the queue trotted up. “Go to the stores of the priests and ask one for a dust-box and a stylus. Please.”
Polexima and her acolytes arrived at Anand’s bedchamber at the moment the torch makers were leaving after lighting the room, and the kitchen workers had arrived to set out the evening meal. She saw Anand seated next to a dark-skinned man on a raised bed with a dust-box on his lap.
“Now you try,” Anand said, and gave the man the stylus. As Polexima came nearer, she saw Anand had drawn his Dranverish letters into the dust. He was expecting the man in bed to replicate the simple drawings in the space below, but he set the stylus down when he noticed Polexima. He dropped his head, went suddenly still.
“Polly, good to see you,” Anand said.
“I am glad for your safe return, Anand.”
“This is my father, Yormu.”
Yormu did not look at her.
“He is not rude,” Anand said. “One sheriff took his teeth. Another took his tongue. Together they took his speech.”
Polexima shook her head and felt shame. “And why would they do that?”
“I have never known. It happened before he met my mother. But perhaps one day, through writing, he might be able to tell us.”
At that, Yormu raised his head to look at Anand and seemed intrigued. He turned to the dust-box, picked up the stylus, and replicated the figures.
“What does that say?” Polexima asked.
“It spells his name.”
“Yormu,” she said. “I am pleased to meet you, Yormu. You must be very proud of your son.”
Yormu nodded his head, kept his eyes, which she could see were watering, down.
“Dad, you should meet her eyes, please,” said Anand. “It is rude not to look someone in the face when you speak to them. Even your queen.”
Yormu lifted his face and looked at Polexima and nodded. She saw that his earlobe was clipped, and felt the mild wave of revulsion she had felt all her life when encountering dark-skinned workers. I must overcome this, she scolded herself. For this man’s son is no one’s inferior.
“Here’s how you write ‘Polexima,’” Anand said, taking the box to scratch eight simple figures in its fine powder. He extended the box and the stylus to her where she attempted to re-create the scratchings.
“When do Dranverites learn to read?” she asked when she finished.
“When they are children.”
“Children!”
“Yes. Children don’t work in Dranveria. They learn all day, and read books in buildings called schools.”
“They must have many eunuchs.”
“None whatsoever. They are called teachers and they are the most valued members of Dranverish society. All of them wear purple robes a
nd live in fine houses. Half of them are women.”
“How would we get schools here?”
“Schools are the easy part. The real trouble is finding the teachers.”
“King Medinwoe has arrived,” shouted one of the guards, and the Dneepers’ leader entered with several of his men, bowlegged from the bandages around their legs. Anand stood. Medinwoe used a cane as he limped towards Anand, averting his eyes. His nephew, Prince Tappenwoe, was hobbling in on crutches and openly scowling. As Polexima turned to greet them, they bowed towards her as deeply as was possible.
“King Medinwoe. Our sympathies . . . for your suffering,” she said. “We believe we have determined the source of these insidious mites.”
“Thank you, Majesty,” Medinwoe said. “Night wasps are to be avoided at all costs for several reasons. But I must state plainly that we should have been informed about this possibility.”
“You should have,” Anand said. “But we did not know this was a possibility.”
“But you had ridden on a night wasp before,” said the king. “You who taught us.”
“I did. And I did not get infested my first time. You have my deepest apologies,” Anand said. “And I am deeply sorry about this attack on your men in the Dustlands. Please let us know what we can do to aid your recovery and it will be done.”
“There is something,” said Medinwoe.
“I’m listening. Have a seat, please,” said Anand, pointing to a table and chairs. “I believe all of us will be more comfortable seated upright at a table.”
“We are not eating,” Medinwoe said.
“King Medinwoe,” said Polexima. “I think all of us with our weak legs should take a chair.”
“We are comfortable standing, if you please.”
She noticed that he made eye contact with her but not with Anand. They had completely ignored Yormu.
“All right,” said Anand. “Let’s speak plainly. What is it we can do for you?”
“The Promised Clearing. Our Promised Clearing, south of Palzhad, is occupied by Hulkrites.”
“It is occupied by refugees from what was Hulkren,” Anand said. “Few, if any of them, would call themselves Hulkrites.”
“He is right,” said Polexima. “Nearly all of them were slaves or captives—as I myself was a captive slave in Hulkren.”
“Whoever they are, they are occupying the land you promised us. And from what we have seen of them, many, if not most, are impure.”
“Impure?” said Anand, bristling.
“At least half of them are dark-skinned, some so dark they reflect the blue of the sky. People of Ledack, Sathrevo, Pellicosta, and elsewhere.”
Polexima looked at Anand as his eyes slitted and his nostrils flared.
“They may be dark or light,” said Polexima, “but all of them suffered under the Hulkrites.”
“These people are here because of the mission that one sent us on,” said Medinwoe, pointing at Anand. “A mission that endangered our lives and turned these slaves into starving derelicts after we killed their food source—the ghost ants and their regurgitation. It is good we never completed this mission, or even more of these refugees would be swarming here from even further south.”
“Would you rather these refugees remained in Hulkren, to suffer and die?” Polexima asked.
“Would they suffer and die? From what we saw, the ghost ants provided everything for them,” said the king. “They are coming here because they think this place is a land of leisure, drink, and honey.”
“The refugees are coming here because they can’t go home or have no home left,” said Anand. “And if left with colonies of living ghost ants, these people of the Dustlands would build new armies to start new wars.”
Medinwoe was quiet. “Your Bee-Jor is a place for people of any color,” he finally said in Anand’s direction. “Am I correct?”
“You are,” said Anand.
“If you can’t send these people back to where they came from, then let them settle here.”
“We can’t possibly accept them all,” said Anand.
“What we will not accept is letting these people squat on our land, which has been set aside for the yellow-skinned. You made us a promise, Commander Quegdoth. We have sacrificed much and expect as much.”
Polexima looked at Anand and saw a mirror of her growing rage. “So I would be welcomed to visit your Promised Clearing,” she said.
“Of course, Majesty.”
“But Commander Quegdoth would not be.”
“Why would he want to come there? The descendants of Locust have their own land, a place where the dark-skinned can be among their own kind.”
“Regardless of their skin color, all men and women are my own kind,” said Anand.
“Then you will gladly welcome in these refugees.”
“King, there is plentiful open space south of the border weeds,” said Anand. “You could have all of that land and more.”
“You know and I know that the lands you speak of are the Dustlands. And as we have learned, they are not hospitable to our roaches.”
“Medinwoe . . . we are a new nation, struggling at the moment,” said Polexima. “We are not ready to absorb uncountable people who do not speak our language or know our ways.”
“Understood. Then send them back or put them somewhere. Or put them out of their misery. If you like, we can drive them back.”
Polexima gritted her teeth as she gripped her staff and willed herself not to use its blunt end to fracture Medinwoe’s skull. Anand no longer attempted to hide his feelings, and his face was tightened with rage.
“We are awaiting a response,” said Medinwoe as a messenger arrived, waited to be acknowledged.
“You agreed to exterminate all the ghost ants of Hulkren at all their mounds,” said Polexima. “Did you not?”
Medinwoe hesitated.
“We did, Your Majesty.”
“And you also promised me the safe return of my babies left in Dneep.”
Medinwoe was quiet. “Yes.”
“Your bravery is celebrated and your dutifulness is admirable,” said Polexima. “And much appreciated by me. You will have your Promised Clearing and Commander Quegdoth will have his extermination of the ghost ants. And I will have the return of my babies, which, I am sure, are being well taken care of.”
Medinwoe looked at her and then Anand, a quizzical look on his face.
“We assume you will resume these missions when you have recovered,” Polexima added. “After that we will have a more substantive conversation about your compensation.”
“How many mounds in the Dustlands have active ghost ants?” Anand asked Medinwoe.
“From the map you drew for us, I remember there were two, maybe three, we did not reach in the extremes of the South. We left our roaches there, to die. We will need new ones.”
“Roaches are something I can provide,” said Anand.
“Your Majesty,” said the messenger boy, bowing to Polexima as he gingerly came closer. “I bring you sad news from Palzhad. Your mother, Queen Clugna, is very ill. The priests do not believe she will be with us much longer. If she is still with us.”
“Good gods,” said Polexima, and her legs turned to water.
“I’m so sorry, Polly,” Anand whispered.
“So am I,” said Polexima. “Commander Quegdoth, I’m afraid this means we’ve got another problem on our southern borders—a very great problem.”
Chapter 21
A Day of Ecstasy
A few days after his arrival, Pleckoo awoke to find the Palzhanites even slower to leave their hammocks. The women were humming or singing to themselves as they laid out the most elaborate breakfast yet, which included a barrel-jar marked with a crisscross of grooves to indicate its contents.
“Fermentation? At breakfast?” he said to Glip’s wife, then regretted the scolding tone in his voice.
“It’s a day off,” she said.
“Off of what?”
�
�From work. Good eighth.”
“Good . . . eighth.”
“You can call me Naloti.”
“But you are another man’s wife.”
“I didn’t say I would sleep with you. I said you could call me by my name.”
Pleckoo was astonished by her good-natured rudeness, and even more so by this idea of a “day off” as he pulled himself out of his hammock. When he went outside, he saw others in the dew-spattered weeds, where they gathered drinking water, washed their faces and hands, and happily chatted. “Good eighth,” they wished him, and smiled.
When he stepped back into the house, he saw honey crystals at each setting on the perimeter of the breakfast leaf. The wall shrines were opened and glittering with new encrustations of the jewels traded at the markets. The statue of Anand on his wasp had been given a little necklace of chunky jewels, which Pleckoo thought made him look both effeminate and ill-prepared for war—and it made Pleckoo smile. He was tying on his face kerchief when Moosak approached him with a stick of skin paint, and he felt circles being drawn on his forehead. When he went to the little clip of a silver beetle wing the family had for a mirror, he saw a pattern that reminded him of rain ripples in a puddle. He folded the kerchief to hide only his nose so that others could see his smile.
As the family took its seats, Naloti and Glip used little scrapers to dip into the barrel-jar, and then inserted a drop under the tongues of all the adults. Pleckoo received his drop and felt a minor irritation as he let the liquor linger on the floor of his mouth. From the grassy taste, he worried this was an infusion of cannabis, an herb that the Prophet Tahn forbade as it made a warrior passive and stupid.
“Creet-creet,” someone shouted through the door, and Pleckoo saw men outside the house hauling a sand-sled that carried a little sun-kiln. Naloti reached into the side of her garment and took out a thin rectangle of rose quartz, then went out the door and returned with a loaf of fresh mushroom bread wrapped in a basil leaf. “Eat while it’s warm,” she said, and all tore into it. Pleckoo tasted a mix of mushrooms in the rich, bubbly paste, and thought it the best thing he had ever eaten until he sampled the other foods before him. The fermentation was having a quick effect, but something else was flowing through him and freeing him, finally, from the crushing pains of the Great Loss. He closed his eyes for a moment to experience a moment of purest bliss. He did not see darkness, but a living weaving of worms that unraveled to reveal a crimson sky, where jewel-colored moons bounced on the horizon. Ants, beetles, and humans were all crawling to the moons, and when they captured them, they sat on top of them to bounce up to star nymphs that reached out with sparkling hands to catch and tickle the riders in the ribs.
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