Exile's Return

by Gayle Greeno

  “New things, new thoughts are scarier than old ones. I know. No ghatti’s ever done what I’ve done,” Kharm told him, but he didn’t find it reassuring.

  I daun no how much mawr of this i kin stand. How do u xcape it? How do u xcape the sounds inside yer hed? Or is that why Marg went mad? I love Kharm with al my hart and think mayhap i cld git usted to her beeing in my hed. But hauw did all the others git inside me? Evreone inside me—Granther, Ryk, Nelle, the whole village weather i want to here them or not. Wear can i go two xcape them? Must i wander in xile?

  Matty ruminated over the words he’d written two octants past, paged forward through more recent entries, sparser than he liked, but all an equally repetitive refrain of fear. The world hadn’t changed, had it? He’d been transmuted, transformed into something else—but what he still wasn’t sure. If he’d pictured himself the odd one out before, the loner, outsider, that had been nothing compared to the dissonances clashing within him now.

  “Not so bad, beloved, not so different.” Kharm wreathed around him as he huddled on the floor in the corner of their hut. Almost half-grown now, long and limber, scrawny with rapid growth, kittenish antics and clumsiness mingled with the sure-footed stealth that was the hallmark of her breed. “Don’t you want to know what they think, not just what they say? Better to be warned, hear everything.”

  “I don’t want to know everything!” he ’spoke back, used to the outward silence that cloaked his inner turmoil. “Besides, it’s rude to hear their thoughts when they don’t realize you’re listening!”

  “Rude?” she pondered the idea. “Rude to listen to every forest noise, sounds in the fields, in the sky? Any sound, every sound, could cry danger! If I didn’t listen, I might not hear the fox’s jaws snapping at my neck!” Front paws on his clasped knees, she stretched her cinnamon nose to touch his.

  Irritable, he pushed her down, only to relent and scratch her ears. “But you have to ignore things, at least we have to. If Ryk listened to each slight, each curse he heard, he wouldn’t survive!”

  “Might survive better if he did! Not be hurt so much.”

  He shook his head, lips tight. “Oh, he’d have fewer bruises, but his soul’d be bruised even worse. ”

  “Rather pretend everything is pretty-seeming? Fox pretty-seeming, cheery red color, handsome white teeth in foxy smile. Fair without, foul within.”

  “Most of us humans are, love, as I’m sure you’re discovering.” He paused, tried to explain it. “Just don’t tell me everything people think unless you truly believe I should know. That it’s a matter of life or death. ”

  “Matty? Are you in there, boy?” His grandfather stuck his head inside the door, squinting in the dimness. Guiltily, Matty squirmed and shoved the diary into the crack between floor and wall where it stayed safe from prying eyes.

  “See what happens when I don’t warn you?” Kharm crowed.

  “Yes, Granther?” He rose reluctantly, tucking shirt into trousers. Weather grew much colder, his grandfather’d be sewing on the bottoms of his trouser legs soon. The trousers weren’t as loose-waisted as they’d been at the beginning of the summer—a good sign. Mayhap he’d grown some after all. Or mayhap the shirt helped fill the waist. A wonder he hadn’t shrunk, been reduced by the often unpleasant, even frightening thoughts Kharm shared.

  “Coming to the meeting, Matty? Always proud with you at my side, and you’ve a right to a place since you reached fifteen.” The door opened wider, Granther’s large figure blocking the setting sun. “Should be a short one, that’s why we decided to get it done before dinner.” Still the eternal optimist, Matty thought sourly, even after all these years of loss and disappointment.

  Lagging behind, Kharm at his heels, he followed his grandfather to the bonfire at the village’s center, fully aware of the other figures already there, waiting for them. Thirty-nine adults would be the maximum turnout, although only slightly less than thirty had gathered; all ready to voice and vote on tonight’s problems, accept Granther’s word as law. That was all the law they had, based on the rules of confrontation and conciliation from Spacer life, although that assumed a higher authority on a distant planet or a higher-ranking spaceship. Here, the entire burden was theirs, each to care for the other, each responsible for the other, including the meting out of punishment, from censure to fines of reparation to death.

  Matty sat cross-legged, as unobtrusive as possible at the rear. No sense having Granther accused of favoritism if he pushed any closer. His age earned him this space. Besides, he enjoyed it back here now that mosquito season had ended, darker, easier to concentrate on both the external and the inner voices Kharm relayed. What troubled him was his increasing inability to clamp down on his tongue when he heard an egregious falsehood, an out-and-out lie, whether intentional or something wrongheadedly believed. Spacer’s glory, he tried, but sometimes he couldn’t contain himself, the falsehood unbearable, so he stood and waited diffidently to be recognized, asked a leading question, desperate not to reveal the wrongness of a person’s statement. Often an innocent question or two lured others onto the track that had been laid, the scent of falsehood carrying them on. Never yet had he directly confronted anyone, stood toe to toe with them and called them liar at these council meetings.

  Worst of all he was building a reputation as a canny young man, a youth with a ripe head on his shoulders. Ripe as a melon and ready to split, more likely. And while this new reputation should have pleased him, evidence he wasn’t like his spoony-loony father or his odd little uncle, he felt set apart. Set apart by knowledge that he shouldn’t have, didn’t deserve, illicit knowledge from Kharm that made him a phony, a cheat. That they could hail him as a young man on the rise, one of their best, one of their own, only pointed out how truly different he was.

  Wrapped in three shawls, Josee Killanin stood, waiting for recognition, a drab, washed-out woman who looked incapable of having borne such strapping, healthy, and mean specimens as Rommel, the late Willem, and Kuyper. Appearances deceived, because she harbored a bitter meanness the way a dull, dingy little viper harbors its poison. What her placid, stay-at-home husband, obviously at their own hearth cooking dinner, had contributed to the boys’ personalities was unclear.

  A reluctant nod from Amyas Vandersma, and she spoke. “Don’t ye think it right and proper Mad Marg move along to another village now? Them as have the ‘evil eye’ shouldn’t be allowed to settle too long in any one place—best they wander, spreading their evil thins it out, makes it bearable.” When Amyas opened his mouth to interrupt, she overrode him. “Oh, I know some don’t hold with such things as evil eyes, but some do believe. Many,” she emphasized. “Whether Marg means it or not, is one thing, but ’twas her caused Spence’s cow to calve too soon this spring, a calf we couldn’t afford to lose. And we’ve all seen her squinting, muttering time and time again since spring. How long’re we to wait for worse? Burrowing round like a groundhog and hiding things. How long afore she digs up a Plumb, sets one off, and another of my sons dies?”

  Hands on hips, she played for the crowd’s support. “Well, share and share alike, I always say, and it’s time some other village took her in, took care of her. Winter soon, and you know what that means,” a pregnant pause designed to let the women grasp her point.

  What it meant was that with the coming winter and time on their hands, some of the men and older boys would start frequenting Marg’s hut, drinking, dicing, indulging in a slap and tickle with Marg. Most of them reaped a slap from her, but a few, a very lucky few received a tickle instead.

  “First of all, Miz Killanin, her name’s Margare Wyngate, not Mad Marg.” Striving for neutrality, Amyas ventured a mild reproof. “Secondly, most of us accept bad luck for what it is—bad luck—not the result of some mythical evil eye. And finally, Miz Wyngate always supports herself, earns her own keep, whether you approve of her methods or not. None of us has to have dealings with her unless we so choose. The few times she couldn’t support herself, we’ve all pitc
hed in to help, just as we’ve helped others caught in the same pinch—yourself included.”

  Kharm butted Matty’s elbow, “Want to know? Want to know or not?” Come to think of it, the larchcat had been remarkably circumspect so far tonight, but his own thoughts crowded so thick he’d scarce noticed. Without waiting for an answer, she burst out, “Jealous old shrew! Greedy, too! Pushing Marg out of her nest, wants to, claim it herself. Easier than making her own nest winter-tight. Doesn’t care if Marg finds another place, dies in the snow or not! Hopes she does!”

  The woman had the grace to color at Amyas’s carefully chosen words, not a full blush because she was too worn for that, but flushed patches stained her cheeks, as if Amyas’s retort had stung like a slap. “I’m worried about the morals of our young ones, most of all. How can they resist if she sets her eye on them, fills them with perverted thoughts? All well and good to have her here for a time, but seems her time must be up. Eight years is long enough!”

  Though he didn’t want to, Matty had risen, waited until she turned to gauge who would support or deny her plea. “Miz Killanin, Miz Wyngate has many good points, although they’re sometimes a trifle hard to appreciate at first glance. Look at what a tight, cozy cottage she’s built all by herself. No evil eye could help do that. Why, I’m sure she could offer sound advice on improving your cottage, what with winter coming on. If you don’t start soon, the snow’ll be sifting through your roof and the wind whistling through your walls before you know it. Late in the season to build a new one, and it’s not as if we have any empty cottages to spare.”

  A guffaw rang on his right, a smothered chuckle farther along. Maxwell Denster waved to be recognized. “Marg brings us to repentance sometimes, but it’s our fault for drinking too much of her beer. Can’t blame a hangover on the evil eye. What say we get up a work party with Marg Wyngate in charge to winterize the Killanins’ house? After all, you don’t need a license to live anywhere, your license is that you’re a productive member of the community, and that Miz Wyngate is.” Amyas called for a show of hands and it was quickly settled.

  Head buried in hands, Matty sat quietly through the rest of the meeting, praying nothing more would interest Kharm. He was fast approaching a decision, had sensed it building but had refused to acknowledge it.

  “And now that Miz Killanin—as well as her boys—has taken a hatred to you, it might be just as well.”

  This time he accepted the truth, because he’d finished arguing in his head, was sore weary of it. No sense arguing with the ghatta as well when she was right. “I’m scared she or the boys’ll take it out on Ryk to spite me. Maybe with me gone they’ll find someone else to torment. ”

  “Where are we going?” The ghatta sounded excited.

  “Don’t know. Anywhere, everywhere. Mayhap look for my father. Look for someplace that respects the truth, is willing to hear it, no matter how much it hurts—if there is such a place. ”

  “If there isn’t, we could make our own, couldn’t we?”

  Men and women streamed by, clutching papers, precariously balancing stacked folders. They, at least, looked purposeful, as if they belonged. It was he and his fellow petitioners who looked out of place, drifting, eddying into each other’s paths, struggling to claim comfortable places on the benches along the walls, or crowding the tables where they left their names. These were the outer waiting rooms to the High Conciliators’ offices, shared waiting rooms at that, Bazelon Foy realized. A mate to this one stood across the hall, and from the hollow footsteps overhead, the stair traffic, another matched set occupied the floor above him. Four waiting rooms, twenty-four provinces, six provinces congregating in each room, all eager to press their own individual requests, pleas, permissions, favors. Tadj stirred nervously beside him, protective of the straw-stuffed wooden box sheltered between his feet.

  “Get along with you, find something else to occupy your time.” A hand under Tadj’s elbow levered him to his feet, the younger man rising with a smoothly compressed tension that garnered more than a few admiring looks. “It’s going to be a long wait. I’m sure you could put it to better use elsewhere, but be circumspect.” Baz’s lips curved in a cherry-red smile, richly rosy, well aware of the contrast they made, his olive complexion, sleek-curved features, and mass of curly dark locks against Tadj’s pink and white sharp profile, his carefully combed, fine blond hair pomade-slicked but fighting its confinement.

  “If you’re sure ...” the younger journeyman hesitated, fingers playing with a high collar marred by two tiny punctures barely visible in the navy fabric. “I don’t mind waiting, would hate for you to be bored.” For Baz bored was likely to be Baz dangerous, mercurial, ready to erupt with joy or wrath depending on the occasion, the cause. But it was all worth it in the end, for he’d never met anyone with Bazelon Foy’s charisma and magnetism—such beauty, such strength of purpose, his single-minded ability to conquer a problem. Ever since that first day at the glassworks, Tadj’s devotion was absolute, both to the man and to his cause, their cause. He ventured, “You’re a close friend of Darl Allgood’s. I can’t believe he’s making you wait this long.” Tadj was outraged at the thought that anyone could deny the demands of this bronzed god whose wisdom and actions soared so high above most shallow, unenlightened human planes. And now Baz was encouraging him to test his own wings, giving him more latitude in the cause, as long as he met his sales quotas.

  Baz tucked the wooden box safely under his seat, rested a heel on the edge. “I am, but good friends don’t presume, push themselves forward, cry for notice. All the High Conciliators have constituents to hear when they’re not in meetings, council sessions. It’s part of the price they pay. Darl’ll get to me when he can. After all, I’m only here to tender my good wishes.” It sounded convincing, even to himself, and it was mostly true, but the waiting rankled. Taking off a rich cocoa velvet jacket that denoted his stature, a prosperous member of the Artisans’ Ward, he folded it across the back of the bench, pushed up his shirtsleeves to reveal smooth, muscular arms. “So go along with you, drum up some business. And remember, there’s business and there’s business, and you know which is more important.”

  Tadj nodded and slipped through the crowd like a child released from lessons. Thoughtfully, Baz tapped his lip with a forefinger, kissing it as he noticed a shapely young woman watching him. Pennington Province, he’d bet a copper on it, by her garb. Send Tadj Pomerol there to drum up sales? No, north or northwest might be better. Harsh mountain land bred equally harsh, uncompromising individuals, who didn’t relish change, disruption. He smiled at the woman, a secret, inviting smile that made her tremulous, and then sat back, let his mind wander, sick and tired of the seething humanity, the waiting and wanting that clogged the air with need. He didn’t want anything, he only wanted to give Darl something, something very precious.

  Pillowing his head on an arm folded behind him, he lazed against the hard bench. To have advanced so far—literally and figuratively—to have journeyed to a new land and reclaimed his heritage, to have risen so high in the world so quickly, and he had Darl Allgood to thank for much of it, for inspiring him, guiding him along the right paths. That other life, that earlier life, a squalid, oppressive nightmare....

  The baby’s cry came high and demanding, splitting the air as Baz knelt beside his grandfather’s pallet, sponging the lined face. Not a breeze stirred the fronds of the hut, the air weeping humidity, filming everything with moisture. Methodically he dipped the cloth and wrung it, wiped the face. Funny to add water to something already damp with sweat, but his mother said the evaporation cooled. He wiped his own forehead with the rag but couldn’t feel a difference. The wailing rose another notch, thin and querulous—and constant. “Baz! Do something about the baby, will you?” his mother called from outside where she stirred a boiling pot of corn mush, looking so limp that she herself might melt into the pot.

  “Ya,” he called back, although he didn’t move. Damn baby always squalling because of the heat, bod
y prickly pink with rash. Damn baby. His grandfather needed him more, the fever and chills almost entirely immobilizing him, weakening the already weak legs. He didn’t cry and bawl, complain, appreciated whatever Baz did for him. He worshiped his uncompromising grandfather, hated to see him laid low in this pitiful thatched hut village, some perched on stilts by the river’s mouth, others looking like haystacks dumped on marshy ground. Damn Sunderlies, damn them for being here. Was the whole world like this soggy, steaming, heat-plagued place? Not Canderis, according to his grandfather, but his grandfather had willingly given that up to do what he thought right, had acted on his convictions even though it meant exile to the Sunderlies. The Sunderlies were all that Baz had ever known in his ten years, all that his mother had known as well, born here two years after his grandfather, her father, had been deported, left to survive on these shores as best as he could.

  “Baz, the baby!” He jumped guiltily, racing from his grandfather’s hut and into the only marginally larger one that housed his family, mother, father, and four children, including Baz. He snatched the baby from its basket and bundled it against his sweat-slicked chest, the baby flailing in a paroxysm of gassy pain, kinking like a slippery eel, fighting every gesture of comfort. He patted the rash-covered bottom and the baby howled louder, tiny fists pounding and shoving as he eased him higher on his shoulder. The baby drew spindly legs tight to its belly, shoved against Baz’s ribs, and to Baz’s shock the infant arched backward over his restraining arm, landing with a thud on the packed earth floor.

  The cries ceased, the thatched hut silent except for the rustle of lizards and insects, tiny hopping rodents roaming the thatch. He touched the baby’s head, the soft spot his mother always warned him about; it felt softly ripe, like a crushed melon under his fingers. He hadn’t intended it, hadn’t meant it to happen, but he was glad. Another reason gone why he and his family couldn’t make the arduous trip back to Canderis, even if it meant abandoning his grandfather. But that was what his grandfather wanted for them and Baz would obey.