He had to admit that Calandra's presence had been a help on this part of the journey, rather than the unmitigated nuisance he had expected. She didn't complain about having to squat on the deck of a creaking packet boat steaming slowly against the current; she didn't say anything about the clouds of midges that descended with the evening sun, or the burning heat of midday; she didn't object to scooping her share of the midday lentils and spiced sauce from the communal bowl with two fingers of her right hand or to washing them down with slightly muddy spice tea. In fact, for the first two days she said remarkably little; like Gabrel, she sat and listened. Unlike him, she bounced up and down with excitement at the sights revealed by the river: the painted villages gay with their patterns of red and black and ochre mud drawn on the walls; a troop of horned bhagghi drinking at a ford and throwing up their heads and fleeing into the forest as the boat approached; the great grey ruined walls and crumbling carvings of a long-abandoned palace of the First Empire. Somehow he had expected a Diplomat to be scornfully blasé about the sights of Kalapriya. He liked Calandra even better for her unabashed enthusiasm.
And the combination of silence and visible enthusiasm helped immeasurably, as the chattering old women decided that this quiet girl who looked so thrilled at what they considered everyday sights must be another bride, this one from a village too small to name, being escorted upriver to some mountain state whose ruler was wealthy enough to hire an outlander soldier as her guard. Gabrel felt a little chagrin that they'd seen through his disguise so easily—but what matter, as long as they told themselves a story that accounted for his presence in a way that wouldn't come to the ears of the Society representatives? It was their good fortune that Calandra was slim and dark enough to pass for an exceptionally tall and pale-skinned Rudhrani, and beautiful enough to make it plausible that she'd been sold as a bride to some mountain Vakil or Wazir. And it was his good fortune that she must have picked up on the old ladies' gossip and decided to help it along; all through the first day she spoke only to him, and that in an undertone, which helped immeasurably in creating her character as a shy girl being sent away from her home to an unknown husband.
Private conversation was all but impossible on the crowded boat; even at night the passengers slept shoulder to shoulder, rolled into their traveling rugs and crowded so close on the deck that the nightmares of one became the property of all. But toward the end of that first day, during the splashing and colorful curses that accompanied the off-loading of some crates onto a half-rotted village quay Gabrel found a chance to speak quietly to Calandra and to compliment her on helping him out. "You're acting the shy village bride very well. Keep it up; they made me for an outlander, and the explanation they've given themselves for my presence will do very well as long as they think you're a Rudhrani, too proud and too shy to speak to any common passengers."
Also, their blatant speculation about her probable destination helped to fill him in on the current political situation in the hill country. He knew, of course, that Thamboon and Narumalar had been taken over by Udara; that was the source of Orlando Montoyasana's complaints. He claimed that the Udaran army was using weapons of prohibited technology that could only have been smuggled in from offworld. But when Gabrel was called back from Dharampal to dance attendance on the Diplomat, there'd been no hint that Udara was menacing that state as well. Now the old women chattered about an Udaran envoy to Dharampal, assessed the probability that the young Vakil of Dharampal would meekly give in to the Bashir's demands and that his state would become another vassal state of Greater Udara, and debated the possibility that the Vakil was making a marriage alliance with Calandra's village as an excuse to bring in a whole troop of outlander soldiers against the Udaran threat.
The land where the Dharam-jara joined the Vaisee-jara was too rocky and precipitous to support a village, but over the years a small outdoor bazaar had grown up to meet the needs of traders and travelers. Here one could purchase anything—intricately carved nut shells with magic words carved into them to protect the wearer from evil spirits, sweet syrup with dozy-juice for a fretful baby, poison for a brutal husband, a birth-chart from a native astrologer or an earful of gossip about the doings of the hill kings. Having no particular desire to add more than necessary to the gossip of the bazaar, Gabrel overpaid for a pair of ghaya and refused the offer of overpriced lodgings in the mud-walled serai behind the bazaar. The sooner he and Calandra were out of here, he thought, the less chance there was that anybody would recognize her for an outlander.
That happy belief was rudely shaken by the gratitude of the trader who sold him the ghaya. While Gabrel was adjusting the harness on the great, shaggy beasts and demanding ointment for the sores left on their backs by the previous owner, the trader approached him and said quietly, "For the ointment, one tul; for a word more precious than all ointments, you have already paid enough. Two outlander men on turagai were here two days past, demanding word of an outlander couple, a man and a woman, whom they believed to have ridden this way. At the time, naturally, no one knew anything of interest to them."
"The noble lady whom I escort to her wedding . . ." Gabrel began.
The trader spat sideways into the mud around the ghaya stalls. "The noble lady," he said, "speaks Kalapriyan like a child of four years, and had never seen ghaya before, nor eaten yao pai. You may have dyed her hair and tinted her skin to make her pass for Rudhrani, but she is too ignorant to be anything but another outlander. I have no love for the men of Barents, but you have paid me well and those others offered little enough; I have no reason to babble tales of what I surmise to them. But they will be back, and some other will have noticed as much as I did and will tell it them for a handful of tulai. Get her out of here, and have your trouble with the other outlanders somewhere else, not in my bazaar."
The trail that snaked along the rocky side of the Dharam-jara was quite rough enough if one took it directly from the place where the two streams met. After the trader's warning, Gabrel thought it prudent to follow the narrow stream that was the origin of the Vaisee-jara east from the bazaar until they were well behind the first range of hills, and then to cut back across the barren, rocky country to intercept the trail they really wanted. That made for some interesting and strenuous walking, interrupted periodically by the necessity to persuade the ghaya that they did want to take the thorny uphill path and did not want to lie down and roll on the thorns, luxuriously scratching their thick hairy hides and squashing the packs they bore. And in many places there was no path at all. Gabrel consulted his compass frequently, watched the passage of the sun closely, and wished devoutly that he had not packed his maps so carefully at the very bottom of one of the long leather rolls now bound in the pack-harness of the larger ghay. But there'd been no need to consult a map while they were on the boat, and—he hadn't exactly planned to leave the bazaar so precipitately, or in a direction so different from that he really wanted. He envied Calandra her Diplomat's head, doubtless loaded with detailed maps of Kalapriya as well as vocabulary, grammar, and whatever other information Rezerval had thought she might need. But he didn't want to ask her for help, as if he were such an idiot as to get lost as soon as he was out of sight of the Vaisee-jara. Besides, he knew where they were. Approximately. More or less. With reasonable certainty . . . oh, devils, what was that crag of rock doing in front of them? He'd intended to cut across in a westerly direction, to meet the Dharam-jara well before they got anywhere near the Old Man's Head, but the steep eroded gullies had forced them north and north again. Now, to reach the smoother going of the trail along the river before nightfall, they were going to have to go right across that eerily eroded hill.
The Dharampalis believed that such hills were the homes of the serpent-people, the Nagai and Takshakai, avoided by all right-thinking hill people, and that was just the good part; what really worried Gabrel was the maze of water-drilled holes that splashed across the surface of the limestone rock, perfect for catching and breaking a pack-ghaya's leg, and the n
arrow fissures that ran across the rock and gave homes to poisonous snakes.
Gabrel studied his compass again, squinted at the sun, and tried to convince himself that they could afford the time to backtrack and pick up the Dharam-jara somewhere south of the Old Man's Head. Even if they didn't quite reach the river this night, wasn't camping among the rocks better than crossing this pockmarked disaster area? No—the ghaya needed water, were used to drinking their fill twice a day, and there was barely enough water in the gullies they'd passed, this time of year, to keep a snake alive. Besides, he wasn't entirely sure they could find a better way through the hills; there was a reason why this triangle of land between the Dharam-jara and the Vaisee-jara was so empty. Only a madman or an outlander would attempt to cross it.
He caught Calandra studying him, a slight frown between her dark brows, and snapped, "If you know a better way to get back to the Dharam-jara, feel free to mention it!"
"If you feel we should go this way, I'm sure you're right," she said cheerfully. "Much farther now?"
"You know as well as I do. About three hours more to get back to the river." If they were lucky, if neither men nor beasts broke a leg crossing the Old Man's Head, if his guess as to their position was right.
In the event, it was nearly four hours, and the sun was down before they had a fire to light their campsite, and Gabrel was not quite sure that they had reached the Dharam-jara at the point he had been aiming for, well north of the two villages upstream from the bazaar but south of the Dharampal border. And he did not find leisure to study his map until all the work of camping for the night was done: pack beasts fed and watered, tent up, firewood collected. As he had expected, Diplomat Vissi had been quite useless at all these tasks; as he had not expected, she had been cheerfully ready to pitch in where she could and to learn what he wanted to tell her. She was hopeless with the pack animals, of course, probably had spent all her life on high-tech worlds; he had to tell her several times that they weren't machines where you punched a button and got a response.
"Got that," the woman said the third time he made this explanation. "They're dumber than machines."
"That too," Gabrel acknowledged with a smile. Nobody had ever accused Kalapriya's native ghaya of high intelligence. But they were strong, tireless, and reasonably obedient when handled by somebody who understood their limitations. "But they'll take us up into the High Jagirs on paths none of your machines could negotiate."
"Flitter could, though," Calandra said.
Gabrel mimed astonishment. "What, you'd take a flitter over these mountains and give these simple hillmen the surprise of their lives? And you here to investigate allegations of inappropriate technology importation? I'm shocked, Diplomat Vissi, shocked!"
"Didn't say I wanted to," Calandra pointed out. "Just said a flitter could do it. And a sight easier and faster than these ghays."
"Right. The plural, in case you're interested, is ghaya." Gabrel studied the Diplomat's face in the uncertain firelight. "I would've thought your language implant would tell you that much."
Calandra looked down. "I told you, the chips ain't like magic."
"That's clear," Gabrel said meanly. "The chap who sold me these beasts said you speak Kalapriyan like a four-year-old."
Calandra blinked hard and Gabrel wondered at his own snappiness. The woman had really behaved quite well; why was he suddenly being bitchy at her? He felt desperately uneasy and couldn't quite put a finger on the reason.
" 'Scuse me, I gotta . . ." Without saying exactly what it was she suddenly needed to do, Calandra crawled into her tent and dropped the flap. Leaving Gabrel on his own to prepare their meal. Well, what had he expected of a pampered offworlder? It must have been quite a shock for Diplomat Vissi to live under the primitive conditions of Kalapriya outside the coastal enclaves; she'd taken the boat journey well enough, but trekking on foot over the High Jagirs with only the supplies a pair of ghaya could carry might well be more than she'd bargained for.
* * *
In the privacy of her tent, Maris stuck a plug into her right ear and settled down to concentrated study of the audio plugs of Kalapriyan for Dummies that she'd boosted from Moylen Cornelis's rooms. That had been a lucky find, but it wouldn't do her much good if she didn't get more time to use the plugs. The slow, lazy days of the boat journey upriver had been a gift from the gods; both Gabrel and the other passengers had invented their own story for why she didn't say much, and with her curly hair worn loose to cover the plug in one ear she'd been able to listen her way through a good half of the language lessons. By the time they reached the bazaar she had acquired enough vocabulary to get the gist of most conversations. If the people were speaking slowly. If she already had a good idea what they were talking about.
Was that enough to pass for a Diplomat's downloaded language capabilities? It would make sense that the download would help more with understanding than with talking; nothing substituted for actual real-time talking with real people, but apparently she hadn't learned enough yet. Okay, she would pretend exhaustion, spend as much time as possible in the minuscule tent, get a good grasp of ishti-class verbs. Just as well not to spend the evening out by the fire, chatting with Gabrel, anyway; the more she said, the greater was the chance that he'd catch on to her imposture. It was exhausting, watching every word she said, always trying to guess how a highly educated Diplo would react to these surroundings.
It was exhausting, remembering not to trust Gabrel.
It had been easy at first, when he was so stiff and full of resentment toward her. But that had started to change at the ball—and after, the attack in the dark alley—they worked together well, Maris thought sleepily. Concealing the body, cleaning up the mess, getting out of town fast and inconspicuously . . . the man had a natural talent for her kind of work, a talent that probably didn't get much exercise in the confines of the Society's military branch. No wonder he preferred slightly covert upcountry assignments, no wonder he'd resented being pulled back from the field to dance attendance on an offworld VIP. Johnivans would have tried to recruit him as a natural talent . . . but Johnivans wouldn't have had much luck, would he? There was something about Gabrel Eskelinen that would never bend to the sort of underhanded dealing Maris had grown used to on Tasman. He could lie fast and fluently, he could disguise himself, he could dispose of a corpse, and Maris didn't think he would have much compunction about killing somebody who attacked him. But she couldn't imagine him stabbing somebody in the back, or arranging . . . arranging to have a girl killed just because her dead body was more useful to him than her living self.
She swallowed hard. Ishti-class verbs in the past conditional chattered unheard in her right ear while the memory of her last hours on Tasman swamped her. Who did she think she was to make guesses about Gabrel's character? She had trusted Johnivans absolutely, damn near worshipped him ever since he'd seen a talent in her that made it worthwhile for him to take her into his gang and save her from working the corridors as a child-whore . . . and all the time she'd been nothing to him, less than nothing, a card to be played when convenient. And now she was tempted to trust Gabrel as she'd trusted Johnivans, to confess her imposture to him, because something about him felt straight and true and she was hating her lies more every day. Idiot! So she didn't feel that Gabrel Eskelinen would dump her if he knew the truth, so what? She hadn't felt any warning about Johnivans either, had she? Face it, she had no judgment for people. The only thing she knew was that she knew nothing and could trust nobody.
"Calandra?"
"Dhulaishta, I would have betrayed—dhulaishtami, you would have betrayed—dhulaishtaiyen, he, she, it would have betrayed—dhulaishtamai, no, you leave it out in first- and second-persons plural—dhulamai, we would have betrayed," Maris muttered under her breath, wishing whoever wrote the language plugs had picked a different example of ishti-class verbs. She'd already conjugated betrayal in present, simple past, simple future, and present conditional, and with each tense the choice of verb seem
ed more personal.
"Calandra!"
"Dhulamiye, you plural would have, oh shit." Between Gabrel's ratty mood and the ishti-class conjugations, Maris had temporarily forgotten her assumed name. She jerked the plug out of her ear and stuffed it into a fold of the embroidered sash that held her coarse woven shirt and leggings together, backed out of the tent and tried not to think about the impossibility of exiting these tiny tents with any degree of grace. Sitting up, she scowled at Gabrel and pushed her hair back. "What is it?" No great emergency, obviously; he was leaning against the broad back of a resting ghay while peering at some folding papers in the firelight.
"I just wanted you to compare this map with the ones your people downloaded to you," he said, holding out a page covered with spidery brown lines.
"Thought you knew this country backwards and forwards," Maris said.
"Last time I visited Dharampal," Gabrel said patiently, "I was officially there on official business, and I could simply follow the Dharam-jara upstream. This time I thought we might save time by cutting across where the river loops, here—" he pointed to a curved double line "—and then we could drop down from here to water the ghaya. Looks like about a day's travel, and then go back off-trail again and straight for Dharamvai—the Vakil's city. But I didn't make this map, some clerk in Valentin drew it up from Orlando Montoyasana's notes last time the man visited the Enclave, and he just might have left out a few little things like hostile villages or impassable cliffs on the route I'm thinking of taking. So I wanted to check it against what you know of the territory."
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