Esha swallowed, and rubbed her eyes. “Alright.”
“Might we have some tea?”
“Yes, yes.” The leaves were broken to crumbs now but that would make them steep quicker, anyway. “Go on — please.”
“Phoenixes do not like proxy discussion about a person half a world away,” Atarangi said. “It's a trait of their language, and therefore a guideline for how they see the world surrounding them. They don't always name things clearly — not in the way we think of it — and many individuals never even accept a name as theirs. “
“Can't imagine that they would,” Esha said. Names were for people, for heaven-blessed humans who could understand such significance.
“Negotiating through my kin birds can save me journeying — so it's a tool worth trying. But it makes me a distant object in a phoenix's mind, just a speck on the ground below. They respond better to diplomacy when I'm standing right before their eyes. And ideally, the wronged party is standing there with me. That means that if we both travel to the wild phoenix's home plateau, and stand within her territory to make our request, maybe she will reconsider returning your khukuri somehow.”
This was a punishment, Esha felt in her waterlogged heart, in the burning tears threatening to spill. She wasn't an old woman but she didn't have the strength to drag herself up the mountain.
“I didn't mean it,” she said quiet, “when I said I'd journey up there.”
Atarangi hummed, a flat stone of a sound.
“It's just that I can't afford a yak cart for the spiral road. A-And the time I'd need to spend away from work, and—“
“I know this must be difficult,” Atarangi said, soft as a wool blanket. “I will aid you any way a diplomat reasonably can. But the decision is yours to make.”
With a deep breath, Esha found balance. “There's no decision. I need that khukuri back. When will we leave?”
“I suggest tomorrow,” Atarangi said like an apology. “Waiting won't help.”
Esha's breath escaped in a sigh, a long deflating of air from a tired woman's body. “Yaah, I suppose. Will the property token and the phoenix's capture be payment enough for your trouble?”
“It will if you guide me along the way. You are more familiar with Tselaya Mountain than I am.”
“I'm no guide. I can't carry much — my bones ...”
“The land provides food and shelter. And so do towns.”
It was a reckless but simple plan, like seeds thrown aimless onto bare earth. Esha filled their teacups once more and murmured, “Alright.”
“I will visit your farm's owner,” Atarangi said, “and request hiring your services. Janjuman Farms will receive compensation for your absence, and you will receive a small salary for your service in locating a wild phoenix. For filing purposes, we will describe this wild phoenix as a problem bird.”
It certainly had upended Esha's life. She nodded. “Tomorrow is Shiva's Gift. My work won't be missed — yaah, but I'm sure you know that.”
“Will the clerk be present at Janjuman?”
“I'm not convinced he ever leaves.”
“Very well,” Atarangi said. “Then let us arrange some more particulars. About your legs ...”
The trip would be a collaborative effort, they decided. Atarangi would provide a supply of painkiller herbs; Esha would do the bulk of the fuel-cutting and meal preparation; both would bear the burdens of travel. One of Atarangi's phoenixes would accompany them, for negotiations and for an additional pair of eyes while on the road. The others would mind Atarangi's house, she said, and
And since climbing the spire passes made for faster travel than a steep-priced yak cart, they would climb.
“I haven't got a yak but I do have a cart to use,” she explained. “A travelling pack with a wheeled frame, able to carry a human being's weight in supplies. It'll spare our backs for most of the trip.”
“You've done this before,” Esha guessed.
“I don't need to tell you: I'm not from here.”
She smiled at her soft-spoken enormity, and kept laying out terms. If all efforts turned out successfully, Atarangi would recruit the clever thief as one of her own flock; Esha would pay one property token; and they would divide between them any resources gathered while walking the wilds. The deal would then be complete; the truth of it would be shared with no one.
With jet-black ink, Esha signed Gita's name on their agreement of slanted ethics, and Atarangi locked it away in an iron chest. All that remained was for Atarangi to formally commandeer Esha as her travelling companion. Simple business, since any one farm woman was a small request to make.
Except that Atarangi would be asking about Gita, the name of a missing dead woman. This entire bargain was based on a lie. Esha was stepping into another trap knotted by her own hands and she didn't want to face it, didn't want to see any more plans fall to tatters.
“Good diplomat,” she finally managed, while stepping out into the night. Dread made her hands shake. “About requesting my leave— Well, there may be trouble when you give my name ...”
Atarangi only smiled, a firm mercy beneath the mask. “I know who to ask for, Esha Of The Fields.”
Here it was, the lie exposed. To Atarangi's credit, she kept holding the door open.
Chapter 7
In her bed that night, Esha stared unseeing at the ceiling shingles. Of course a diplomat had permission to view taxation records and property documents. What a simple fact to overlook. Esha had tried to lie to someone more resourceful than herself — yet Atarangi's human smile was what stayed in her mind. Atarangi saying her true name when Gita's false-inked name was barely dry. For all their differences, the animist seemed trustworthy. Esha hoped that was true, since her hands were bound and all she could do was have faith.
A fragment of a dream receded — something about running, needing to get somewhere and cover up the goat-hooved monstrocities where her bare feet ought to be— and she couldn't get back to sleep. She spent the time preparing travelling food. By the guttering light of a candle, Esha picked all of her garden onions and rubbed the dirt from them. She dug up the sesame plant with careful spadestrokes and settled it inside a dirt-filled sack: if she was careful, it might tolerate the travel and provide some green food. Once that was done, she filled her humble home with the scent of fresh-baked chapattis and popped maize. If nothing else, this was a good way to remember the place.
Morning was bleeding white through the chimney when Atarangi arrived. Esha hardly looked up from her work; the doll's body would hold together after one more sure knot.
“Hail,” Esha said. The gumgrass stems muffled and bittered her words. “Grant me a moment to finish this, if you would.”
“Granted.” Atarangi shifted closer, a Manyori-patterned haze in Esha's side vision. “Another one of your dolls?”
Esha tugged a leather trimming, tightening the doll's selfrope into place over her jute chaff sari. “I make them sometimes. Not always for reasons. Today, the doll will rest in my stead.”
“Ah. Is that a custom?”
She shrugged. “Grewiers make dolls on the Day of Colours, when we're children. I've just found that dolls are a good offering for any occasion. Like I'm leaving someone else here to keep watch. Not simply wandering away.”
“I am sorry about all this,” Atarangi said. “My birds and I have managed smaller bargains over distances ...”
“It can't be helped. It's my own fault. One more moment, please.”
The doll was done, Esha realized after a moment of fussing with its gum-leaf skirt. She had nothing to do but place it and carry on with her own life. She turned away from Atarangi, the enormous presence in her home, and stood the doll on her clay-brick prayer stand. Beside it, Esha lit a juniper twig until it flared and smoldered.
Closing her eyes, immersing in her own voice, Esha hummed the hymn of invitation. Everyone knew this song, no matter their caste. She asked the gods to be present here, to listen to her request and grant her a small
forgiveness. Rising and falling notes came from deep within her, from the unnamed place of memories that didn't hurt.
When she opened her eyes again, the doll still laid there staring with charcoal-dot eyes, silent as the earth that made up the prayer stand, humble as the lashed bamboo walls. The air weighed with divinity. Glancing to Atarangi — who watched intent — Esha said, “I've worked on holy days before. I imagine it's one of the minor sins.”
“Seems like a small tool to borrow,” Atarangi agreed.
Esha stood there still, balanced on her own aching joints, bound by the gravity of her staring doll.
“We'll spend a few days climbing. Few more to come back.” Esha grimaced; it had been years since she used her selfrope to haul herself between plateaus and she didn't recall liking the trip. “How long will it be to negotiate with the thief? She'll either drive us off immediately or agree to haggle, is that right?”
“Likely,” Atarangi said, turning her empty palms skyward. “But I can't promise anything but to try.”
“That's plenty,” Esha said immediately. She watched the juniper's flame smoulder and dwindle. “Alright. Let us go.”
There outside the door was Atarangi's phoenix. It was her favourite partner bird, she said, the one she placed most confidence in. Esha was reasonably sure he was the tolerant male who had unknotted the door for her, the one with red streaks in his crests that Esha was starting to recognize. He sat on a canvas pack nearly the size of another person: it was fitted on a metal frame, with four spoked wheels each the measure of Esha's forearm.
“Tell the dealmaker that we're travelling to meet her,” Atarangi told the bird, with herbs rustling in her voice. “Ask her not to destroy the flower-stone; we'll bring better trades. Something more valuable to her than a single song-flower.”
That wasn't anywhere near the truth. Esha's packed savings chest and trade goods — the entirety of her worldly possessions — couldn't buy back the khukuri, never mind buy anything better.
But the phoenix creaked agreeably, and took flight. He circled upward, sending gusts of lungta spinning in his wake, before soaring away toward the higher plateaus.
Janjuman's clerk went tight-mouthed at Atarangi's suggestion, but he couldn't refuse a diplomat's slightly superior rank. Watching him sign and seal the papers was like a warm meal in Esha's belly.
And once the deal was done, Esha followed Atarangi out of the clerk's office and off Janjuman Farms. She pulled her wheeled pack by a canvas strap; Esha's pack and satchel felt weightier by the moment.
The town passed them by, with fewer stares than before. Flags flapped in the day's breeze; a goatherd led patchy-furred tahr goats to market; people carried celebration kites and grinned to one another.
Esha grabbed glances at the familiar patterns of windows and roofs, to tamp them sure into her memory before she left this plain expanse she called home. If she was fortunate, she would return. But if her bones failed her, maybe it would be best if she didn't.
They walked on; Esha watched Atarangi's bristled cloak bounce with her every sure stride. The Farback passed them by and the main road rambled around ragged stands of bamboo. Men cut bamboo, their khukuris thunking into the fibrous stalks. Once they were past the coppices of bamboo stumps, the chopping sounds faded behind them, Atarangi flicked a glance back over her shoulder — like Esha might escape into the wilderness unless watched.
“Come here, my business partner. Walk beside me if we're to be allies.”
Her back was unreadable. Esha was sworn into a leave of absence, trapped in a net of her own sins, and so sick of lying that she wanted to spit. It was a chafing relief to hold her tongue silent and take one step after another, to stand at Atarangi's side. Like yaks yoked together, they began awkwardly to walk again.
“So,” Atarangi asked, “Should I speak to you as Gita, or Esha?”
“Esha.” Speaking her own name was a pleasant sting of truth, like a meal spiced with too much cayenne.
“Esha, then. Why are you using two names? Just to match the property tokens?”
“I ... It's a story full of troubles.”
“Rocks hear all the waves in the ocean.”
“What?”
Atarangi slid a glance to her. “I'm a rock. I have time to listen.”
“I ... Gita is gone. So I've been using her name as mine sometimes. Her property, too — but you know that, I suppose.”
“That will get you demerits if you tell the wrong person,” Atarangi said. It hung prickling, like a question.
Esha nodded, and hummed flat answer. “Will you be reporting me?”
“Why would I? I use two names, as well.”
The two of them were equals, in a way — using names like false flags, and slinking about in the shadows. Atarangi just managed to have a way of dignity about her. Esha mulled that truth in her mouth; they walked steady and the bamboo thinned; the next block of farmers' square-hewn homes came rising out of the grass and the dust.
“You are registered with the Empire as Atarangi,” Esha asked under her breath, “are you not?”
She didn't look up but she felt Atarangi's brown-gold eyes on her, lancing through the headwraps.
“That is right. Atarangi Te Waaka, gifted with the diplomat caste. Birdnose is a name no bureaucrat knows.”
“I won't be telling it to them. You need not worry about that.”
Wind stirred light between them. Gwaras tumbled in the street dust, and festival music drifted from the distant well plateau, and at Esha's elbow, Atarangi the high-ranked was smiling her simple smile.
“I'm pleased to hear that, Esha.”
Wind carried the scent of popped maize and spices, and the robust sound of people in the town square. Shiva's Gift revellers parted around Atarangi and Esha, glancing curious at the wheeled cart and the animist's mask and carrying on, unworried. Field sisters saw Esha across the busy street — and meeting their eyes made Esha freeze like a hunted hare — but then the sisters saw the diplomat Esha walked with and they only gestured namaste, that simple well-wish.
Atarangi and Esha kept on down the road, and the festival petered away behind them, the drum-beaten songs fading into the wind. The only rhythm was their two sets of footsteps on the worn dirt, and the grinding cart wheels, and the wind swirling silvery-red lungta flecks to earth.
Atarangi's phoenix returned after half an hour's walking. It swooped down to Atarangi's offered arm and landed light as a thrown rag, then hopped onto her shoulder and settled. From open beak and working tongue, he croaked a long tirade that Atarangi listened to, her head tipped thoughtful.
“The dealmaker bird has been notified that we're coming to negotiate,” Atarangi finally said. “She will tolerate our presence, but only in specific areas of her territory.”
“Lot of nerve she has,” Esha muttered. “Making conditions when she's the thief.”
She regretted saying it, as Atarangi turned a look of stony pressure toward her. The tame phoenix, mirrored the motion but all Esha saw was her newest friend gathering disapproving words.
“I know this has caused you difficulty, Esha Of The Fields,” Atarangi said in crisp syllables. “But I must ask you to be civil.”
“I'm sorry,” Esha said. She found that she meant it, moreso when she looked at Atarangi's expression half visible under the mask. “I shouldn't be disrespecting your birds. It's only that the— the wild phoenix could have had anything else. Some other khukuri, or ... plant food, I don't know.”
The wind blew between them, while their footsteps crunched onward and regret soaked into Esha's heart. A yak-drawn cart passed them by on the road; the driver stared bowl-eyed at Atarangi and the phoenix settled peacefully on her shoulders. The cart's dust settled and waxwings trilled in the roadside pines.
“Life washes all manner of things onto the shore,” Atarangi finally said. She sounded calm now, like quoting someone's wise teachings. “All I ask is that you open your thoughts a little, Esha.”
“Ope
n my ...?”
“Just try to understand. I'll need to sort out your arrangement from a clumped mess of misunderstandings and phoenix customs — and phoenixes do have customs, just like you do. So I must ask you to try.”
It was an absurd thought, that a phoenix had the same standing as Esha. She hadn't fallen that far. She was a person, a child of heaven even if heaven didn't want her back.
“I can try,” Esha pushed from her mouth. She did have to admit, in the bitterest corners of herself, that Atarangi's phoenix had opened a door for her and invited her inside. That was more than any flower-crowned noble had offered her lately.
A shadow of Atarangi's smile returned as she said, “Good.” She turned her gaze back to the road ahead.
Her phoenix still watched Esha though, with his head canted and eyes intent. Like a child peering at a stranger. Esha tried deciding whether it was unsettling or charming and couldn't choose.
“So, she asked, “does this bird have a name?”
“He does. Why do you ask?”
“If he's going to be staring at me for this entire trip, I'd like to know what to call him.” Esha definitely couldn't call him vermin now.
“I call him kin,” Atarangi answered. It was plainly a broken-off crumb of the entire answer. “You might earn his friendship. Then you may know his name.”
“Ah,” Esha ventured, “it's a custom?”
“That's right.”
“I can live with that.”
They kept on as the sun reached its zenith. They only had half of Yam Plateau to cross to get to a set of climbing spires: to Esha, the walk was brief and yet endless.
Coming here was inevitable. In recent years, Esha had avoided consideration of retirement farms but also wordlessly hoped for a good one. Maybe one of Maize Plateau's renowned retirement farms, the free-roaming kind where a wretched woman could grow her hooves under treeshade. Esha had never been so ambitious, though, that she imagined hiring a cart to get there. She knew she would climb the spires herself: the dream had involved Gita travelling with her. One last secret plan. The plan was unfolding, just not nearly the way Esha had imagined.
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