Epashti woke in the morning, and took an empty skin bag and went down to the river. All along the bank the heavy stony ground had been pounded down into the river; the brush and water plants were all trampled into the muck. The water was brown and thick and dozens of people were already crowding the shallows, some of the bigger children splashing out in the deep water. Epashti went off upstream a few steps, to where the current ran in close to the shore, and the bank curved inward. In that shelter she relieved herself, and wading out to her knees in the flow of the water she washed her face and hands.
The river burbled and sang around her, heedless of what lay beyond its banks. She stooped and laid her hands on the surface, and sang a few words to it, but it only banged against her hands and went on.
She straightened, her gaze going off across the wide swiftmoving current. Across the way the trees grew down close over the bank, their tumbling leaves bright in the new sunlight. If she could get across the water, into that wildness, they would never catch her.
She went back to the bank for the skin bag. From where she stood, she could see a lot of people, and she made a show of starting to fill the bag and deciding the water was bad. She watched around her as she did this and nobody seemed to be heeding her. The shrieks of the playing children kept most of these people turned that way. With the skin bag in her hand she went up the stream, watching for a way to get across the river.
Before she had gone more than a few steps a leather man stood up before her, his spear out. He said nothing. She held up the water skin, and pointed to the river. “I’m getting water.”
Another leather man came up from the shore of the river, his spear on his shoulder. “What’s this?”
“I’m getting—” She started to explain, holding out the skin bag, but then the second man was coming at her, and she saw what was in his eyes. She whirled and ran.
One of them shouted. A hand caught her arm; she jerked around, lashing out with the bag, and struck the man behind her across the head. He staggered back and she fled away down the riverbank, back toward the muddied water and the shrieks of the children.
She loitered there a while, the baby in her belly rolling like a stone, her mouth tasting bad. After a while she took the bag and went south along the riverbank, watching for a way to cross the flood; here the water of course was bad to drink, filthy from all the people in it upstream, so she had no excuse. Anyhow the bank ahead of her began to rise into a steep slope, and she saw a leather man on the height, and she turned at once and went back.
She had no heart to fill the skin; she went back toward her place in the camp. Now, trudging up from the river onto the sunbeaten plain, she realized that the whole camp smelled bad. She walked along, looking for something familiar. The camp stretched on all sides of her, endless rows of strangers. For a moment she could not see where she belonged, and her belly fluttered in panic. Then across two rows of indiscriminate bodies she saw Pila, the fat woman, and went quickly toward her.
Leilee was sleeping still, curled up like a baby. Epashti sat next to her and laid down the empty skin. Pila reached out and took the skin and shook it.
“Where is the water? Are you witless?” Her voice rose sharply, her cheeks red.
Epashti said, “The water is foul. People are stirring it all up, the leather men won’t let me go anywhere else.” She pushed her hand back with her hair. Without good water they could not stay here longer. She said, “Has the maz come by yet?”
Pila waggled her finger at her. “Maz only comes for those who do the work! Where is our water?”
“I’ll get it.” Another of the women rose up, took the skin, and went off down the row.
Epashti sat still, her hands in her lap. Pila’s words rankled her. She thought of the leather men on the riverbank and now Pila here in the camp, ordering her around; she thought again of escaping. Her belly hurt with hunger, and now she was thirsty.
She couldn’t stay here, where the water smelled so foul. Tired already, she rested her hand on her stomach, above the baby. She had to have some food to take. When the maz came, she would try to save some, and hide it. She wished she had her carrying pouch; she had nowhere to hide much.
Pila was still staring at her, frowning. “Just because you are the healer doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work. Are you proud? Do you think we should work for you?”
Two or three other women, sitting beside her, murmured in agreement and stared reproachingly at Epashti. Epashti turned away; she needed someone to help her, and she put one hand on Leilee, shaking her awake. The thin girl stirred, rising, her hair in her eyes. “I don’t feel good,” she said. She got up and walked away, stooped, her arms dangling.
Epashti sank down, her shoulders rounded, abandoned. Pila had stood up, and was looking around the camp; she said, “Here comes the maz, and plenty of it!” She turned toward Epashti. “Which you may have your fill of, no matter how little you do.”
Epashti said nothing. When the baskets came, she took two cakes and hid one in her dress.
Pila said, “They are so good to us. They treat us very well, I think. I will be happy to see Cibala.”
“Cibala,” Epashti said. “Where is that? is that where they are taking us?”
“I hope so,” Pila said. “Cibala is the most wonderful place in the world. All the lodges are of stone, and very great, and there is plenty to eat, even in the worst winters.”
Epashti swallowed, her hand on her belly again, thinking of the baby. Leilee came back, with the woman who had gone for water, and sat down heavily and lay down again, her head on her bent arm.
Pila said, “Everybody has to work. Is your sister a healer too?” She made it sound as if being a healer was only an excuse to sleep.
Epashti flushed. “She feels bad.”
“Heal her, then,” Pila said, with a snigger.
One of the other women murmured, “We should tell the leather men they are not working.”
Epashti recoiled from them, whose names she hardly knew, whose lineages and signs she could not know, whispering against her. A tingle went down her back. She lowered her eyes, afraid, her throat dry with thirst. Pila was talking about the wonders of Cibala again. Epashti lay down and tried to sleep.
In the morning, before dawn, all the Itzen gathered in the center of their tents and watched Tok Pakal, in a long cloak made of feathers, stretch his arm out toward the east, pronounce words, and slowly move his arm up and over his head until it pointed west. After that they went to their own places, and the sun rose, and everybody ate.
Corban and Erkan sat side by side with Tok Pakal, but they were not given food; they would not eat until the chieftain was done. Corban watched the people who served them—all little people, as the Itzen called them. They worked quietly, quickly, their eyes down, their bodies bent; they were easy not to notice.
Slaves, he thought. Like me.
He turned to Tok Pakal. “Will your men play the game again today?”
Tok Pakal glanced at him. He had taken off the headdress he wore for the ceremony; a slave held it behind him, a bird’s head, with staring eyes. Tok Pakal still wore the cloak, which smelled musty, the feathers at the edges bedraggled. Still, under the dust, the feathers glinted green and gold.
“Yes,” Tok Pakal said. “You like the game, I see? I’m glad.”
“I like to gamble,” Corban said. “But it’s true, the game is very exciting.” He saw Erkan turn and frown at him. “I wish I could play it.”
Tok Pakal gave a harumph of laughter, and didn’t even bother replying to that. He stroked one hand over the feathered cloak.
Corban said, “I can’t, of course. But I’d like to try myself against your men. I think I could beat them in a race, for instance.”
Tok Pakal’s eyes flew open, and he gave a bellow of mirth. All around them people swung around to stare. The chieftain reached out and palmed Corban’s shoulder. “You do, do you? What an impudent little upstart you are. Qikab and Kan Chak will leap at
that, I’ll tell you now.” His face softened, kindly. “Don’t do it, Corban. It will only make you feel badly.”
Corban said, “Perhaps. But I want to try. If I am so much beneath them, I would like to know it.”
Tok Pakal snorted at him. “I’ll put it to them. They’ll accept. all of them, everybody is very curious about you. We’ll see if you grow bison feet.” He chuckled again. “Once up and down the ball court, how does that sound?”
“Well,” Corban said, “they’d certainly beat me on the ball court. Won’t you give me a chance? Let’s race from here to the hills and back.” He waved his hand toward the low foothills in the west. “There are trees. Everybody could pick a twig to bring back, to show he’d made it that far.”
Tok Pakal was wagging his head back and forth, the smile broad on his face, his eyes twinkling. “A handful of twigs. Very likely.” He raised one hand, holding somebody else off: one of the older men, standing deferentially off to one side. Tok Pakal nodded to Corban.
“We’ll do it as you wish. You’ll see, it will make no difference. Go on, both of you, go get yourselves something to eat. I have boring work to do.”
Erkan clamored out of the palanquin; Corban was already starting away. The Itzen went by them, going to Tok Pakal’s side. Corban walked off across the pounded dirt of the ball field, looking down toward the foothills; he judged them two miles away, maybe three miles.
A sharp tug on his sleeve brought him back. Erkan had hold of him, and was staring hard at him. “What are you doing?”
“Stay out of this,” Corban said.
The dwarf studied him, his face mournfully long. “They will never let you beat them. Even if you could.”
Corban lengthened his stride. His stomach was rolling, his nerves tightening; what he had started was out of his hands now, and he was beginning to see all sorts of problems with it. The dwarf didn’t try to keep up with him; he walked on alone, through the Itzen camp. Many of them turned to stare at him: He wondered if the news of the race had already gotten around. Likely they were all laughing at him, as Tok Pakal had laughed. He went on grimly toward the fire pits, to get some food—maz, made by slaves like him. But he was hungry, and he had to eat.
C H A P T E R N I N E T E E N
The palanquins were all different, Corban noticed; he was walking up from the drum line toward the ball court, where the four chairs sat side by side on the swell of land opposite the tree, looking with their tall hoods and outstretched arms like huge old giants squatting on the ground. Two were bigger than the others, and one of them was wider than all the rest: that was Tok Pakal’s, of course. The colors and patterns were different, although Tok Pakal’s in particular was so patched it was hard to make out any pattern at all.
In among the patches he saw eyes looking out of the swirls and lines, eyes and faces, with the beaks of birds. People stood in rows, their heads down, their penises drooping. He put his hand down to his crotch, a witness.
He went up between Tok Pakal’s and the next, where often the older counsellor sat, whose name was Sak Nik. Everything was ready for the race. They would start from the poor lopped tree and a crowd of young Itzens already stirred and laughed and shouted around it. The sun was well up into the sky; it would be a hot, windless day. He had gotten some water in a skin bag, and he stopped now to hang it on his shoulder, under his shirt, where it would keep cool.
He went around the palanquin, to Tok Pakal, who was sitting there as always with his cup and the dwarf at his knee. Corban was uneasy about this next part, not knowing how to manage it, but Tok Pakal greeted him with a broad grin.
“Ready? Why aren’t you down there? They’ll start without you!”
Corban said, “We haven’t settled on a wager.” He leaned on the side of the palanquin. Tok Pakal’s smile slipped a little, suspicious.
“I thought your knife again.”
“If I win,” Corban said, “I want to win something important. I want—” he fixed his eyes on Tok Pakal “—if I win, I want all the people that you’ve taken to be, set free.”
Tok Pakal’s jaw dropped. Behind him the dwarf shrank back into the dark corner of the palanquin and glowered at Corban. The Itzen chief’s lips curled, and his thick brows heavy in a frown; he leaned forward a little, intense.
He said, “Now I see what’s going on here. Who’s been talking to you? Whoever they are, they’re wrong. We are doing only good for these people. We brought them the maz, which keeps them alive—”
“You take it from them,” Corban said. “You take their people away.”
“We take only enough to keep us.” Tok Pakal turned suddenly, snatched something off the bench beside him. “See this?” He shook a little soft pouch at Corban. He was in a rage, shaking, his voice edged like glass. “We will give this to the Kisko, in exchange for what we take. This will let them grow more and better maz. They will never miss what we take. These other people will go back to Cibala with us where we will teach them the arts of life, and eventually they will come back here and raise their people up.”
He paused a moment, his eyes blazing. But he was convincing himself. He calmed himself. He sat up straighter, his chin out, proud. “Without us, these people would be mere animals, starving in the woods—slaves, if you will, to their wicked superstitions and their savage rites. We have come to save them.”
Corban stirred, a little, hearing in this some uneasy echo of words he had said once to his sister. His gaze went to the pouch, wondering what was in it. He thought of the winters in the Wolf village, the hunger month, when he spent days catching one skinny rabbit to divide among thirty people.
He thought of his sister, and what she had promised him. He lifted his eyes to Tok Pakal’s.
“Will you make the bet?”
“You’re impudent,” Tok Pakal said. “Choose something else.”
Corban’s gut tightened. Slowly, he said, “I will not race for anything else. Everybody knows now about the race. Are you afraid I’ll win?”
He was watching Tok Pakal’s face; he saw the golden man’s eyes widen at the challenge, dark with temper. Corban said, to give him something, “If I lose, I will submit to you. I will go with you, wherever you take me.”
Tok Pakal’s broad face settled a little. “You will already.” He bit that off; his eyebrows jacked up and down. “Very well, Corban. You need to learn. You will learn, now, why we are the masters. Go. Race.” He waved his hand. Corban turned, and went down toward the tree.
They were to start the race when the shadow of the lopped branch crossed a line drawn in the dirt at the foot of the tree. He went up to the edge of the mass of men waiting for this to happen. At first nobody noticed him; he was smaller than any of them, and they were chattering in their own language, boasting and laughing, and making bets between themselves. Then Kan Chak, the halfman prince, glanced down and saw him.
He gave a chuckle, and they all turned, and they all began to laugh. Corban went up toward the tree, his ears itching, feeling hot all over. Beneath the tree, he lifted his eyes toward the hills in the distance, wondering what he had gotten into.
The sun sailed along in the sky, and the shadow of the limb crept toward the line; now it was nearly touching the dent in the sandy ground. The laughter of the other men faded away, everybody watching the line; only Corban stood aside a little, his gaze on the Itzen. Then all at once, like startled horses, they whirled around, and raced off toward the hills.
He saw at once that they were all trying to outrace each other, as he had hoped, and certainly they were all running as if the end of the race were fifty strides on. He started off at a walk after them. He could hear people laughing behind him, and knew they were laughing at him. He felt like a fool; he was going to lose. Already the Itzen were far ahead of him He had seen them before this, sitting around the camp, fighting for the chance to ride in palanquins and dropping out of their games to rest, and he had misjudged them: they were better than he was.
He couldn’
t quit now. He began to trot.
Epashti could not endure to sit long on the ground and do nothing. Leilee cried or slept, and the other women, under Pila’s spell, would have nothing to do with her. In the heat of the day at last she got up, and went down to the river, and splashed in the filthy water to cool down.
Many of the women had brought their children down to play in the shallows and their shrieks and screams made the place loud. She went off a little upstream, looking for someplace to rest, out of the sun, quiet.
A leather man came along the bank toward her. She stopped, alarmed, looked around. The crowd at the riverbank was in plain sight, but he was coming straight at her. She moved, starting back toward the camp, and another one strode up in front of her.
She stopped. She said, “Leave me alone.”
They came up so close to her she could smell the raw sweat of their bodies. One said, “We hear you’re a troublemaker, woman.”
She fixed her eyes on the broad leather-covered chest in front of her. The leather was shiny and hard, like a beetle’s back. He braced himself on his long spear, as she had seen many of them do. A spurt of anger stiffened her; she knew where this was coming from.
She said, “Pila is lying. Let me go.”
The man behind her said, “Just so you know. We’re allowed any woman we find outside the camp.” His voice was smooth, and suddenly a hand was stroking down her back, feeling her skin through her dress. “Got that?”
She put her hand over her belly, her breath small in her throat. She said, “I am not outside the camp now.” It would help nothing to let them frighten her. She lifted her eyes from the armor to the face of the man inside it. “Does that hurt?” She touched her own neck, on the side, where on his neck the armor had worn the skin raw.
“It’s nothing,” he said, angry.
“I am a healer,” she said. “I can help you if you’re hurt.” She turned and looked at the man behind her. “Any of you.”
The Serpent Dreamer Page 19