Snare

by Katharine Kerr

  Four males carrying spears marched at the head of the column, but right behind them, moving with a calm and even step, came an enormous ChaMeech, a deep royal blue in colour, draped in green cloths. At her approach the villagers raised their pseudo-arms high and began to chant – a high-pitched yodelling sound that Warkannan could hear clearly. Behind her came more males with spears, and following right behind came horses – H’mai on horseback, he realized – three riders and a pack horse, with yet more ChaMeech bringing up the rear.

  ‘It’s Hassan,’ Warkannan said. ‘Zayn and two women.’

  ‘Two?’ Jezro said. ‘Greedy bastard! Are they prisoners?’

  ‘I can’t tell.’

  Their guards, who had been standing near the hut door, suddenly boomed and took a few steps forward. From the crowd in the village someone must have answered, because the guards went trotting off to join the welcoming committee.

  ‘The guards are gone,’ Warkannan said, and he let himself drop back to the floor. ‘And they never lock the door.’

  Jezro strode over to the door and pushed it open. ‘Right you are. We can get some fresh air at least.’

  Outside the air smelled no cleaner, thanks to the proximity of the village, but it was, at least, different air, stirred by a warm summer wind. Warkannan and Jezro walked a few yards away from the hut, then stopped to watch as the procession filed into the village. The enormous blue female swung her head from side to side as she walked, apparently looking over the territory, because in the central round of the village, she stopped and raised a pseudo-hand to signal her followers to do the same. Other females hurried up to flock around her. The contingent of green-kilted spear males spread out around the perimeter of the village to secure it.

  ‘So much for our chance at escaping,’ Warkannan said.

  ‘We wouldn’t have got far on foot anyway,’ Jezro said. ‘Besides, with Hassan come to rescue us, escaping would have been rude.’

  The H’mai had dismounted and were leading their horses up to the enormous blue female. Warkannan watched the two women, one tall and blonde, obviously a comnee woman from her clothing, and the other short and dark, wearing khakis like a Canton soldier. The comnee woman gave a shout and pointed at the two Kazraks. Warkannan noticed that she was carrying a pair of red and white saddlebags over one shoulder – the spirit rider, most likely. Zayn shouted in answer, tossed her the reins to his horse, and came running, grinning like a maniac. A pair of blue-kilted ChaMeech males lumbered after him, but they held their spears carelessly, point down.

  ‘Well, Hassan.’ Jezro glanced at Zayn’s escort and spoke in Hirl-Onglay. ‘Good to see you and all that, but what in hell is going on?’

  ‘You ordered me to bring help, sir.’ Zayn snapped off a salute. ‘Here it is.’

  ‘Very good, Captain.’ Jezro returned it. ‘But who is that? The blue female, I mean.’

  ‘The Great Mother, sir. The Great Mother herself.’

  The servants were swarming around her, the other females lowered their necks before her, while the males kept a respectful distance.

  ‘It’s true, then?’ Jezro said. ‘The ChaMeech have a female ruler?’

  ‘They do, sir, yes.’ Zayn glanced at Warkannan. ‘It’s a shock, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ Warkannan said. ‘If I’d never served on the border I’d be shocked, but not after getting to know the comnees.’

  Apparently the two males with spears found this opinion amusing. They each stamped a foreleg, then inflated their throat sacs and thrummed.

  ‘I’ve got to talk fast,’ Zayn said in Kazraki. ‘When she asks you if you’re going back home, your life depends on saying yes.’

  The nearest ChaMeech male swung his head around and glared over the obsidian blades on his spear.

  ‘Sorry,’ Zayn said in Hirl-Onglay. ‘Allow me to introduce you. Jezro Khan, this is Stronghunter Man. Stronghunter Man, Jezro Khan and Captain Warkannan.’

  When the ChaMeech held out a pseudo-hand, Jezro shook it solemnly. Warkannan followed his lead. Since the ChaMeech’s finger and thumb were, after all, a good deal cleaner than his own, he saw no reason to give himself airs. Stronghunter Man swung his head around to look back over his shoulder, then inflated his throat sac and boomed. One of the female ChaMeech near the Great Mother answered with a booming sound of her own. The other ChaMeech were milling around and trotting back and forth in their usual chaotic way. The H’mai women were standing off to one side. A young ChaMeech had taken their horses and was keeping them clear of the confusion.

  ‘The short woman? That’s Loy Millou,’ Zayn said. ‘I was right. She did go with Ammi.’ He smiled, a bare twitch of his mouth. ‘And that’s Ammi with her. I mean, Ammadin, the spirit rider from my comnee.’

  ‘I see.’ Warkannan could indeed see a number of things, all of a sudden, just from Zayn’s smile and the way he coupled it with the family usage of her name.

  ‘Hassan, what should we do now?’ Jezro said. ‘The last thing I want to do is insult the powers that be.’

  Stronghunter Man tapped the khan on the shoulder, then pointed towards the gathering.

  ‘We need to join them,’ Zayn said. ‘The Great Mother wants to talk with you.’

  ‘I’m honoured,’ Jezro said, ‘but can we wash off some of this muck first?’

  Stronghunter Man looked them over, then rumbled a barely audible ‘yes’.

  ‘How come you can understand everything we say,’ Jezro said, ‘but you only speak a few words of our languages?’

  Stronghunter Man stamped a forefoot. ‘Hurts.’ He laid a pseudo-hand on his long throat just above the sac. ‘Squeaky high talk hurts.’ He turned and gestured to the other blue-kilted males. Four came trotting over at the summons.

  ‘They’ll keep you safe,’ Zayn said in Hirl-Onglay. ‘Don’t trust anyone wearing yellow. That’s the faction that wants to kill you.’

  ‘I see,’ Warkannan said. ‘It’s a bit premature, then, to assume we’ve been rescued.’

  ‘A perfect Idres remark,’ Jezro said, grinning. ‘Now let’s go. I want to get clean. Or wait. Hassan, do you have any news of Soutan?’

  ‘Yes sir. He’s not far away, and he knows where Sibyl is.’ Zayn turned to Warkannan. ‘Ammadin’s seen your nephew a couple of times in her crystals. He looks healthy, if not exactly safe at the moment.’

  ‘Ah.’ Warkannan managed to keep his voice steady. ‘Glad to hear it.’

  ‘Ammi can tell you more. I’d better get back to the others. Water Woman needs to know what you’re doing.’

  As he walked back to the village, Zayn was arguing with himself. He should tell Ammi about his broken Bane. He should keep his mouth shut and hope she never found out. He’d promised her that he’d never lie to her again, and while simply avoiding any mention of his transgression might not count as actual lying in a court of law, in the court of his own conscience he knew himself convicted. Seeing Jezro Khan had reminded him, somehow, that he had a conscience. For that matter, what if Jezro or Idres casually mentioned the truth? In his mind he could imagine Ammadin’s face, stricken with profound disappointment. The image helped him find the courage to confront her.

  In the centre of the village, the Great Mother’s servants were unrolling her green and white ground cloth. Her spear Chur had taken up positions among the houses as well as at the village perimeter. Herbgather Woman trotted this way and that, booming out instructions, waving her pseudo-hands, alternately raising and lowering her neck as if she felt unjustly treated. Her servants and yellow-kilted Chur loped back and forth, following her orders. Water Woman had gathered her people out in the grass off to one side. Carrying her saddlebags, Ammadin and Loy were standing next to her, and a young Chur had taken charge of the horses.

  ‘Zayn Recaller!’ Water Woman said. ‘Where be Jezro Khan?’

  ‘Bathing,’ Zayn said. ‘They were kept prisoner in a filthy hut, and they didn’t want to insult the Great Mother.’

  ‘Good, good, this
be smart of them. I go-now tell-next Stronghunter Man some things.’

  Water Woman hurried off towards the canal, booming and thrumming. Zayn watched until he saw Stronghunter Man coming to meet her; then he gathered his courage and strode over to Ammadin.

  ‘Ammi?’ he said. ‘I’ve got to talk with you.’

  ‘All right,’ Ammadin said. ‘Here?’

  ‘No. Privately.’

  They glanced at Loy, who smiled as if to say she understood.

  ‘Ammi,’ Loy said, ‘I’m going to get my horse and mount up, so I can see what’s going on. Should I fetch yours?’

  ‘Yes, good idea.’

  Loy hurried off, and together Zayn and Ammadin walked through the mob of spear Chur to the grassy meadow beyond. She slung her saddlebags over one shoulder and laid her free hand on his arm.

  ‘You look terrified,’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘I’ve broken Bane.’

  Ammadin took her hand off his arm and stepped back. ‘How?’

  ‘I told Jezro Khan about your quest to meet Sibyl. Soutan heard me, and that’s why he’s out here. He was following you.’

  ‘Gods, that was stupid!’

  He winced. ‘I know. I’m sorry, oh God I can’t tell you how sorry. It’s been hell, this past few days. I knew I should tell you, but I was – well, hell, I was afraid of what you’d think of me. I was afraid you’d just send me into exile.’

  Ammadin crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him for an agonizing span of moments. The noise and bustle around them was quieting, he realized. He glanced back and saw that Water Woman had returned. The Chiri Michi was both talking and thrumming, pointing this way and that with her pseudo-hands as she gave orders to her servants.

  ‘I might have done just that, once.’ Ammadin spoke at last. ‘I might have spat in your face and turned you out of the comnee to live or die alone.’

  ‘I was afraid of –’

  ‘Let me finish! I’ve learned too much, these past few weeks. I’ve lost something, Zayn. I used to feel so sure of the laws of the gods. Now I don’t.’

  ‘You must think I’m contemptible anyway.’

  ‘No, I think you were really stupid. Why did you tell him?’

  ‘I’d mentioned you were with me in Sarla.’ Zayn could no longer look her in the face; he stared at the ground between them. ‘So the khan asked me why you were there. And I forgot who I was. Can you understand, Ammi? Just being with Jezro and Idres, I turned back into the man I used to be. And that man was a Kazraki officer, not a comnee man, and the idea of Bane – I forgot it, because Kazraki officers don’t give a shit about it.’ He forced himself to look up. ‘But later I remembered. It was like waking up from a dream. And I knew I’d done something wrong. It’s been eating me alive.’

  ‘It should. You’re ritually unclean. You will be until I give you some kind of penance, and you do it. Until then, you’re going to have to eat by yourself and ride at the rear of the herd – well, behind us all, I mean – and you can’t speak to anyone but me unless there’s some kind of danger threatening. I’ll explain the ritual to your friends.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So am I. Very sorry.’

  Ammadin turned on her heel and strode off, leaving him heartsick behind her.

  Out in the centre of the village the Great Mother was sitting haunched on her striped cloth. Herbgather Woman and Water Woman had taken up positions in front of her with their spear Chur behind them. Loy had retrieved her black horse and was sitting on horseback some yards off to the side with the grey gelding in tow. Ammadin trotted over, took the reins, and mounted.

  ‘I couldn’t see a damn thing otherwise,’ Loy said, ‘not in all this confusion. God, I hate being short!’

  Chof, both male and female, were bustling around, approaching the Great Mother, backing away again, rushing from house to house or standing talking in little groups. Both horses, Loy’s black and Ammadin’s grey, snorted and pulled at their bits. At times when the Chof came too close, the horses danced and tossed their heads, but they never made a serious effort to bolt. Neither Water Woman nor Herbgather Woman seemed to be in any hurry to have the formal proceedings start – if indeed there would be a formal proceeding.

  Ammadin was just as glad of the delay. Zayn’s confession had caught her completely off-guard, to the point where she hardly knew what she felt, except a certain dull anger that she’d been sleeping with a man who was ritually unclean. Had they been back on the grass, she could have consulted another spirit rider and come up with a purification for both of them. As it was –

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Loy said suddenly. ‘Something is.’

  ‘It shows?’ Ammadin said. ‘I was just wishing I’d never left the plains. I used to know exactly what to do about almost everything.’

  ‘What?’ Loy turned in her saddle to look at her.

  ‘Oh never mind! Here come Jezro Khan and Warkannan, anyway.’

  Stronghunter Man and a cluster of his spear Chur were striding through the village. In their midst walked the two Kazraks, dripping from wet clothes, bearded and shaggy-haired, but clean. When Stronghunter Man filled his throat sac and boomed, the yellow-clad Chof scrambled out of his way. Stronghunter Man and the Kazraks stopped at the edge of the striped cloth, and even though Jezro carried his walking stick, they both stood straight-backed and proud, officers still, at attention before an authority, but an authority over equals, not superiors. The Chur Vocho gestured at his two charges to stay, then led the rest of his men away to take up a position behind Water Woman. Loy leaned in the saddle to speak with Ammadin.

  ‘Where’s Zayn?’

  ‘I don’t know, and at the moment I don’t care.’

  Loy’s eyes widened.

  ‘We’d better be quiet,’ Ammadin said. ‘It’s starting.’

  The Great Mother boomed several times, and gradually the other Chof fell silent and stood still. She folded her pseudo-hands across her chest, stretched out her long neck, and studied Jezro and Warkannan with her pairs of golden eyes. The two Kazraks held their ground. Jezro was even smiling in a pleasant sort of way. Through his dark beard welts of scar tissue glistened with damp.

  ‘So now,’ the Great Mother said in Hirl-Onglay. ‘You be Jezro Khan, son of the former Great Father of Kazrajistan?’

  ‘I am, your highness,’ Jezro said. ‘I’m honoured to be in your presence.’

  ‘You speak-now nicely for a Karshak. I hear-two-day-past about your brother. I think-then, this brother be a foul sort of H’mai, stealing from his own people.’

  ‘Yes, foul’s a good word for it. I have a personal reason to hate him, too.’ Jezro raised a hand and pointed to the scars across his face. ‘He had this done to me. He was trying to kill me, you see, so I wouldn’t pose a threat to his rule.’

  ‘I hear-then he kill any person who speak-dare to argue with him.’

  ‘That too, and he’s demanded so much money from his people that many of them don’t have enough to eat.’

  The Great Mother made a trilling sound through both nostrils. ‘He be-very a bad ruler.’

  ‘Very bad, yes.’

  The Great Mother considered him for several moments. ‘So then,’ she said at last, ‘you go home not go home to fight this brother?’

  Jezro took a deep breath. ‘I am going home, or I should say, I’ll go home if your people allow me to. At the moment we seem to be your prisoners.’

  ‘Not my prisoners, no. So, you go-soon home if you have power to go home. What you do-next there?’

  ‘Try to take the throne away from my brother. My friends tell me that I’ve got an army waiting for me.’

  ‘I hear-then this, too.’ She lowered her head a scant foot and peered into his face. ‘So, you swear not-swear upon your god’s name that all this be true?’

  Jezro Khan stood silently, staring at her, his face a little pale, his mouth half-open in mute surprise. Warkannan made an odd sound, rather like a whoop of triumph suddenly cut off, then rais
ed a hand to cover his mouth and pretended to cough. The Great Mother swung her head and contemplated him.

  ‘You be wet and cold,’ she said, then returned to studying Jezro. ‘I ask-then you a question. Jezro Khan, you swear not swear?’

  Jezro took a long deep breath. ‘I swear to you, Great Mother. By my god the Lord, the merciful and compassionate, I’m going to go home and try to free my people from my brother’s misrule.’

  ‘Good. This please-now me, and it please-next your people even more.’ The Great Mother turned her head and looked at Herbgather Woman. ‘Lastunnabrilchiri, you hurt-not this man. You set-now him and his friend free. You give back their horses. You give back all their goods. You let him and his friends go free from your village.’

  Herbgather Woman whined, but she lowered her head almost to the ground. ‘I obey-now and next and soon you, Great Mother.’

  ‘Good. Tomorrow Jezro Khan leave-next your camp with all the H’mai. I stay here with my people. I visit-not you in too long. It be time-many-days for a nice visit, and we share much food.’

  ‘Yes, Great Mother,’ Herbgather Woman said. ‘I be-now so glad you visit me.’ Her words dripped misery, but she stamped a flaccid foreleg anyway. ‘We share much good food.’

  The spear Chur on both sides boomed and pounded the hafts of their spears on the ground. Water Woman could no longer contain herself; she stamped her forefeet in such a rapid flurry that she seemed to be dancing. Herbgather Woman turned and strode off, thrumming to her servants, while the Great Mother’s servants rushed to tend their mistress.

  In a few brief moments the Chof villagers changed from participants in an orderly court of law to a random sort of mob, with individuals wandering this way and that, booming and chattering among themselves, picking up sacks and bundles only to lay them down again elsewhere, over and over. Loy and Ammadin dismounted and led their horses through the confusion to join the khan. Jezro hurried forward to meet them with Warkannan right behind. The captain’s height and the strength his body displayed surprised Ammadin. She’d seen him so often as a tiny image that she’d been thinking of him as short and slender.