Template: A Novel of the Archonate
Page 13
Conn made a noncommittal sound.
“Of course, I’ve changed,” she went on, and he had the impression she was talking more to herself than to him. “But home is always home and family is always family.”
Again he made no definite answer but her remark set him thinking. Horder’s Unparalleled Gaming Emporium, its public rooms as well as its staff dormitories and retirement areas, were all that he could ever have called home – though he had never done so, that he could remember. Now, whether Horder’s had been truly home or not, it was gone and the people he had known there were scattered. He asked himself if he had any strong desire to return to Thrais, if the lights and towers of Bay City held any nostalgic allure, and the answer came: not really.
“What will you do?” she asked him. “Once you’re disentangled from the lawsuit?”
He had not yet given it much thought. “Perhaps I will charter a space yacht and go find this world I seem to own.”
“You still have the mystery of who you are and where you came from.”
That reminded him of something Hallis Tharp used to say. “What are you, where do you come from, where do you go?” he quoted then had to explain the reference.
She bit her lower lip pensively then said, “Those are questions that do not press many Old Earthers. And those who ask them find the answers obvious and jejeune: ‘I am what those around me are, what my forebears were and what my descendants will be. Thus I neither come nor go. I am simply here, as were the ten million generations before me and all those who will come after until the sun’s belly swells and swallows this old world. In the meantime, I get along as best I can.’“
“Put that way, existence seems colorless,” Conn said. “Is that why you went out there?” He gestured to the swath of light that blazed across the vault of black overhead.
“Perhaps,” she said.
“And did you find much color?”
“I found Skrey,” she said, “and almost found worse.”
“But now you are coming home.”
“That is because I also found you, strange though you are.”
He made another noncommittal sound.
“Perhaps our destinies are entwined,” she said.
“Destiny must be an Old Earth concept,” he answered. “I am not aware of owning one.”
She looked thoughtful. “I think there is a fourth question to add to the three that Hallis Tharp proposed. Perhaps it is the only one that matters.”
“What is the fourth question?”
“Where do you belong?”
Graysands was a mid-sized island by the standards of the New Shore: a fit man could walk across it in a couple of hours or, if he was very fit, swim its circumference in a summer’s day. Its north and center were filled by a broad, grassy hill decorated with copses of shade trees, but the land sloped south toward a shingle beach and a trim wharf on short pilings.
Here rested at anchor the Mordene family’s foranq. Conn recognized the great barge from Jenore’s description: its carved towers and minarets, painted arches and domes, most in white and gold, like a city from a children’s tale but shrunk down to manageable dimensions and set upon a floating hull that was long and ample in beam. Just above the waterline was a repetition of red eyes painted on a blue field, the clash of colors making the eyes seem to stand out from the wood.
“Remarkable,” Conn said as the Omororo warped in to the other side of the dock and he got a closer look at the intricacy of the carved embellishments and decorations. He saw columns twined with leaves from behind which the faces of humans and animals, and some forms that seemed a combination of the two, smiled or smirked or grimaced. There were walls entirely filled with dioramas in low or high relief: battle scenes, moments frozen from history or myth, landscapes populated by people or wild beasts. Other spaces were given over to individual portraitures so finely carved and painted that he half expected the eyes to move and the mouths to speak.
“How long has this been in the making?” he asked Jenore.
“The keel was laid in my great-great-great-great-grandfather’s time,” she said, “but many of the illuminations – that’s what the carvings and paintings are called – were carried over from earlier versions.”
The scope of the endeavor, generation after generation making their contributions then handing the work on, made an impression on Conn. What must it be like, he wondered, to be embedded in a process that began long before one’s birth and that would continue long after? On Thrais, each worked for his own enrichment. Here was an artifact created by generations, even centuries, of effort, a distillation of artistry and artisanship. But for whom was it made?
“Who owns it?” he asked.
Jenore looked puzzled. “The question has never come up,” she said after a moment. “My father is responsible for it at the moment, and I suppose my brother Iriess will take over when the time comes. In a sense it belongs to all of us, all the Mordenes, living, dead and yet to be.”
They climbed onto the dock and Jenore pointed to a small face in a lower corner. “That is me,” she said. “My grandfather did it when I was a young girl.”
Conn studied the illuminated wooden face. The artist had caught the girl in a mood of wistful pensiveness, a child immersed in a child’s wonderings. It was an endearing image.
Jenore also regarded the representation of her younger self. “He said he wanted to capture me before I spoiled,” she said. “I didn’t know what he meant, then.”
Gallister had tied up the boat. “Come,” he said, “let us wake up the house and give them the good news of your return.”
At the foot of the wharf was a trail of wooden blocks set into crushed shell. It led to a rambling structure above the high-water line, a series of shingled walls that met at different angles to surround rooms of various sizes, from small chambers to a sizable hall. Gallister followed the blocks to a central door made of dark polished wood and pulled a rope hanging by the lintel. From within the house came a musical tinkling.
Conn followed but noted that Jenore hung back. He saw a kind of fear in her eyes washed over by guilt. “Do you not expect to be well received?” he asked her.
Now the look in her eyes fell away into sadness. “I do not know what to expect,” she said.
Gallister rang the bell again and there came sounds of creaking floorboards and slow footsteps from within. A peephole opened in the upper center of the door, darkened as an eye filled it, then closed again. A lock snapped open and the door was pulled wide. A man, of senior years but still burly and vigorous, with sleep-disordered hair and clad in a knee-length bed robe, stood in the doorway.
“Gallister?” he said. “What brings you to my doorstep at dawn?”
“I have brought you a present.” Gallister turned and directed Eblon Mordene’s eyes toward his daughter.
The old man blinked then stared for several heartbeats while the young woman stood expectant. Then Eblon Mordene swept aside Grove Gallister as if he were an intervening stalk of grass and came down the pathway, house slippers slapping loosely against his heels. He gathered Jenore into a rib-straining hug, pulling her from her feet.
“Ha!” he cried as if he had been searching for something he had lost and now held it in his grasp. He swung the girl around and stood her down on her feet again but scarcely relaxed his embrace. He was saying things into her ear that Conn could not hear but the expression on Jenore’s face left no doubt: she was home and all was well.
Finally, the old man held her out at arm’s length and looked her up and down as if surprised to find her still possessed of all her pieces. Then he put an arm around her shoulders and drew her toward the house, saying, “Come in. We’ll rouse your mother and set the pot to bubbling.”
“Father,” Jenore said, “this is Conn Labro.”
Eblon Mordene registered Conn for the first time, taking him in a single glance that ended with an expression in which the younger man read no great appreciation for off-worlders or any perso
n who might have some claim to the daughter’s affections. “And he is...?” the old man said.
Conn stepped forward and offered a formal greeting. “Your daughter’s employer,” he said. “I required a guide on Old Earth and engaged her for that purpose.”
Jenore threw him an odd look. “I think of us as traveling companions,” she said. “He is also in need of our help.”
Eblon’s inspection was now more penetrating. “Whatever we can do,” he said.
“I do not wish to be a burden,” Conn said. “I will repay any costs once my affairs are settled. Would you care to discuss a contractual framework?”
The old man cocked his head to one side and took another, longer look at Conn. Jenore said, “He is a transactualist, father. “I wrote you about them.”
“Ah,” said her father. “So you did.”
Grove Gallister re-entered the conversation at that point. “Breakfast sounds good,” he said. “Also, I would be delighted to see your workshop again. Those figurines of water spirits are admirable.”
The old man gave Gallister a dry look. “Let us go in,” he said. He went ahead of them through the door, his arm around Jenore, crying, “Munn! Glad news! Everybody, come and see who has returned to us!”
Conn had never experienced a whirlwind but he had seen them depicted and what shortly ensued in the home of Eblon Mordene seemed a close equivalent. A round-faced woman came from the kitchen, flour on her hands and forearms, and threw herself at Jenore. There were tears and soft words. Then sleepy Mordenes of all ages appeared from all directions, rubbing eyes and stretching limbs then breaking into smiles and happy shouts as they competed with each other to enfold the returned daughter of the house in their embrace.
There were at least three generations present, Conn thought, considering the shifting eddy of men, women and children that ebbed and flowed around the kitchen. The noise of conversation and laughter formed a constant background as two tables were set, stove and boiler activated and pots and skillets were put to work. A clatter of cups and dishes soon followed as a sweet pulse porridge, fruited breads and pots of aromatic tea and punge were laid out.
“Sit,” said Eblon Mordene and they did, adults and larger children on chairs, toddlers and infants on laps, midsized children standing in the gaps between seats. Conn was pressed to a place between a table and a wall. A mug of punge appeared before him, followed by a bowl of porridge with an oasis of cream in its center, delivered by the pie-faced woman called Munn who he thought was likely Jenore’s mother, although there were two other candidates of the appropriate age. She put a spoon in his hand and said, “Dig in.”
Eyes asparkle and face flushed with pleasure, Jenore ended up across the table and down two places, surrounded by people roughly of her own generation, some of whom were surely siblings while the others he assumed were relations by marriage. A dark-haired girl with the same eyes must be the Corali the younger sister, she who would someday have crystal eardrops from Firenz, though right now it seemed that her older sister’s return was gift enough.
Conn dug his spoon into the porridge and found it excellent as was the punge with which he washed it down. He was taken back for a moment to scenes from his own youth, to the sporting house refectory with its scarred tables and rows of hardseat stools. He imagined what the indentor’s reaction would have been if ever a breakfast had provoked such noise and ebullience: demerits and confinements all around.
He spooned up more of the porridge and suddenly it struck him that this was the first time in his life that he had sat down to a meal in someone’s home. The realization brought up an emotion he could not name. After it came a realization that all of these people belonged here. They were at ease with themselves and with each other; even Jenore who had been for a long time far away appeared to have slipped seamlessly back into the fabric of her family. He looked at her, and it seemed that her face actually glowed with happiness. That is how it feels to be where one is supposed to be, he thought, and he felt something like envy when he considered that his face had never worn such a look of warm contentment.
Perhaps there is some place where I, too, could feel that way, he thought. Some place where I belong.
His thoughts were broken by a voice beside him asking, “So what would you rather do?”
Conn turned to find himself an object of interest to a man a few years older than himself who by the set of his eyes and shape of his nose was a brother or at least cousin to Jenore.
It was a puzzling question. At Horder’s, one did what one was required to do. Likes or dislikes had no bearing. He sought for a reply, but was rescued by Jenore who obviously had heard the question even over the hubbub.
“Conn is from Bay City on Thrais,” she called down the table. “They play games and sports there and everyone gambles. Conn was one of the best players, quite famous.”
Her remark brought a strange cessation of noise, as if everyone around the table was suddenly drawn to an inner tension touched off by the mention of gambling. It seemed an odd response to Conn, but he would have put it down to another cultural dissonance if he had not seen the complete puzzlement on Jenore’s face as she looked from one relative to another.
“What is it?” she said.
Her father cleared his throat, his face suddenly stiff. “We’ll talk of it later.”
The man who had questioned Conn spoke up. “There’s no shame in it, father,” he said.
“I said we will talk of it later, Iriess,” Eblon Mordene responded, in a tone that would brook no argument. “In my house we do not wipe our feet on the traditions of Shorraff.”
The man beside Conn put his chin out but after a glance at Jenore’s uncertain and worried face he reluctantly subsided. Still tension around the table remained high and though the conversation resumed, the unfettered joy of only minutes ago was muted.
Into a conversational lull, Grove Gallister made another mention of the sea spirit figurines. That prompted Eblon Mordene to make a wry face but he rose and led the sailor to his workshop. When he was gone, Jenore spoke to Iriess. “What is wrong? Have you and father quarreled?”
Iriess looked at his hands and said nothing. Jenore turned to the round faced woman. “Mother?” she said. “What is going on?”
But Munn gave her a smile steeped in sadness and said, “Time enough for all that folderol later. Tell us where you have been and what you have seen.”
“Yes,” said Jenore’s sister, eyes wide, “do they really all do... you-know-what on Mizere?”
Jenore rolled her eyes. “Do they? They scarcely ever stop. One wonders how they can summon the energy to tend the foodbeasts. They say it’s something in the water.”
“So you are a sportsman?” Iriess said. After breakfast, he had invited Conn to walk with him and some of the young men of the household along the Graysands shore. Jenore had been bustled away in a knot of women and girls and the children had been dispatched to their tutors.
“That was more usually a term for our customers,” Conn said. “We simply called ourselves players.”
“As do we,” said Iriess. “Have you heard of the game of birl?”
Conn said he had not.
“It’s a blaze,” said one of boys tagging at their heels. Another said, “Blatantly ferocious.”
Conn assumed the phrases were colloquial. “How is it played?” he said.
The young Shorraffis enthusiastically competed to describe the details and glories of the sport. Despite the overlapping voices and the tendency of one source to qualify or amplify what another was saying even before he had finished speaking, Conn thought he was developing a fairly clear image of what was essential to a lively game of birl.
It was a team sport, organized into a league of four divisions. Iriess played left forward on the Cresting Wave and every one of the men and boys escorting them was a fierce partisan of the team. “We are second in the Gold Division after a resounding victory over the Green Fins of Balakshi Cove last week.”
The game was played on a roped-off rectangle of sea, three times as long as it was broad, in which large and small islets called “plats” were anchored. In some of the channels and gulfs between the firm footing of the plats were the “rolls” – floating logs which would turn under a player’s foot and throw him into the water unless he exercised quick footwork to keep the wood spinning beneath him.
The players advanced and defended by leaping from plat to plat, while passing a fist-sized hollow ball from one to another, using a short handled racket with a netted basket at one end. The passing was hedged about with rules about being off-side or zoned-out. At either end of the pool was an undefended circular goal not much larger than the ball which had to pass through it.
The game was designed to minimize direct physical contact between opposing players although the referees tolerated a certain amount of jostling that inevitably led to dunkings. But one-on-one log-rolling duels were a crucial element of the contest, the most nimble-footed players competing to stay on top and earn a free shot on goal.
It sounded like a simple game that could become complex in the hands of skilled, experienced players. The play moved fast and there was scope for both team strategy and individual excellence. Particularly prized by aficionados were instances when the opposing teams’ finest players landed simultaneously on the same roll and dueled to see who would be pitched into the water. The techniques of “variance” and “saltation” – the former an alternation between slow and fast footwork to throw an opponent off his rhythm, the latter a sudden daring leap straight up into the air, causing the other end of the log to sink – afforded delightful suspense to those who knew how to gauge a first-rate match.