The Stone Dogs

by S. M. Stirling

  "In fact, the Conservancy people said go ahead an' take them, not worth the trouble of trappin'."

  John sat down again; behind him, Yolande noticed Colette playing with an irritated vehemence.

  "I could ride over tomorrow morning with the dogs; take Menchino and Alfredo… Join me, Pa?" he said eagerly. "Ma?"

  His parents shook their heads reluctantly. "Winnifred went and broke her arm, can't spare myself," Thomas Ingolfsson said.

  At John's frown, Johanna added: "Can't come myself either; we're sortin' the yearling colts fo' the Sienna show. Tell yo' what, though, Johnny, why don't yo' take Yolande and her friend Myfwany P."

  "Thanks—" Myfwany and Yolande began in chorus, then broke off with a giggle. John opened his mouth to say what he thought of taking his baby sister and an unknown teenager along on a leopard hunt, caught his mother's eye, and nodded.

  "Glad to, sprout. An' yo' too, Miz Venders," he added.

  "Thanks awfully," Myfwany said. "No leopards on Sicily yet, an' my elder sister got one down in Kenia last year an' she's always on about it."

  Johanna turned smoothly to the other girls. "Best not to cluttah up a huntin' party too much; I'd be honored if y'all would come with me and assist at selectin' the yearlings, we're rather proud of our ridin' stock here at Claestum… An' to be sure, pickin' out one each fo' yo'selfs, as well."

  Mandy smiled with delight. John-boy, you still can't compete with horses, Yolande thought satirically. Muriel and Veronica were enthusiastic as well: of course, they like anything they can do together. She suppressed envy and hunted a last blueberry around her plate.

  "I'm sure there'll be one left yo'll find suitable, Miz Venders," Johanna continued." 'Landa's been half-livin' in the stables since she was knee-high, she can help yo' pick."

  "That was beautiful," Myfwany said.

  They were riding their horses through the Quarters, but blossom from the orchards still clung to their shoulders and hair. Yolande could see them starring the other's dark-red mane, pink cherry and white of apple and peach; the blossom season had overlapped this year, which was a little unusual.

  "Y-" Yolande cleared the stammer from her throat with an effort. "Yo' are beautiful."

  "No," Myfwany said fondly, looking around. Side by side with their boots touching, they were just close enough for private talk. "I'm good-lookin', just. You are beautiful." A smile quirked her mouth as the other girl shook her head in a spray of flowers.

  A companionable silence fell, and Yolande enjoyed the feeling of communicating without speech. The roofs of the Great House were just visible on the distant hilltop, over the cypresses and the outer wall of the gardens; some plantations tucked the serf village away out of sight, but the Ingolfssons were Old Domination and not shy about the foundations of their wealth. The cottages were native stone, tile-roofed and closely spaced along brick-paved streets; shade trees flanked the lanes, and each four-room house stood in a small patch of garden, vegetables and often enough a few flowers. It was getting on towards evening, and the Quarters were noisy enough to drown the clop-clatter of hooves and the occasional metallic kiss of stirrup-irons.

  Heads bowed towards the riders from passing serfs, dutiful routine deference to the Landholder and her daughter, curiosity towards the guests. Folk were back from the fields and the compulsory evening shower, work-gnarled older men in shapeless overalls, short thickset women brown as berries and seemingly built of solid muscle. Younger ones with enough energy left to throw jokes and snatches of song at each other as they scattered to their homes. Children played run-and-shout games along the sidewalks, or helped their mothers carry home baskets of round loaves that gave off the tantalizing scent of fresh baking. Cooking-smells came from the cottages, tomato and garlic and hot olive oil. They reined in to the little plaza where the lane joined the main road to the manor, and Yolande called to her mother:

  "Ma!" Johanna Ingolfsson reined up. "Ma, Myfwany and I'll go right around to the stables an' walk up."

  The Landholder raised one brow; the grooms could take their mounts from the Great House steps just as well. A touch at her stirrup made her look down; Rahksan was there, and gripping her ankle. She frowned slightly at the lapse in decorum and bent low to listen to an agitated whisper.

  "Please yo'selfs, girls," Yolande's mother said after a moment. She extended a hand; the serf gripped her wrist, put a foot on the toe of Johanna's boot and swung up pillion behind her owner. The Landholder looked around, abstracted. "Two hours to dinner," she finished, and touched heels to her horse. There was an iron clatter of hooves as Johanna and their friends spurred up the road.

  Myfwany and Yolande walked their horses across the square. There was a small fountain in the center, Renaissance work salvaged from some forgotten hill-town. The public buildings of the Quarters lined the pavement, the larger houses of the Headman and senior gang-drivers, the school, the infirmary, the bakery, and baths. There was a church as well, a pleasant little example of Tuscan baroque reassembled here at some little expense, and another building that served as a public-house with tables set outside; a few workers sat there over a glass of wine or game of chess. Serfs never touched money, of course, but Claestum had an incentive-scheme that paid in minor luxuries or tokens accepted at the inn. Farming is skilled work, Yolande remembered her father saying. Difficult, and easily spoiled. Needs the carrot as well as the stick. She nodded to the priest in his long black gown and odd little hat as they passed, and he signed the air.

  "Funny," Yolande said, as they turned their mounts left to the laneway that skirted the base of the hill. "Nothin' much has happened today, but it feels special, somehow."

  "Know what yo' mean, 'Landa." Myfwany ran her hands through her hair and rubbed them together, shedding bits of petal. "Smell."

  Yolande leaned her head to the other's extended hand; it carried hints of soap and leather, overlain by the spring-silvery scent. Like a ghost memory of the orchard, tunnels of white froth against black branches, sun-starred with water diamonds and rainbows from the sprays. Her heart clenched beneath her ribs and she felt suspended, floating in a moment of decision like the arch above the high-dive board. She bent to kiss the soft spot inside the wrist, and felt cool fingers brush across her lips. Glanced up, and their eyes met.

  The moment passed and they laughed uneasily, looking around. The garden wall was still on their right, whitewashed stone along the gravel of the road. The lawns were a vivid green beyond it, trees and flowerbanks, groves and summer-houses, ponds and statues. Hedges and onyx-jade cypresses gave glimpses of the workaday area to their left, barns and pens, round granaries and the sunken complex of the winery, smithies and machine-shops. The sun was sinking behind the Great House and they lay in the shadow of its hill, an amber light that turned the dust-puffs around their horses' hooves to glinting honey-mist. They passed under an arched gate and Yolande waved her riding-crop to the one-armed man who bowed from the veranda of the cottage next to it.

  "Evenin', Guido," she said, as they passed. A boy had run ahead, and they turned downslope into an area of low stucco-coated stables and paddocks fenced in white board. The horses side-danced a little at the smell of home and feed, eager for their evening grooming and mash. Yolande smoothed a hand down the neck of her mount as stablehands came up to take the reins.

  "Nena, Tonio," Yolande said as they swung down.

  "Mistis Yolande," they replied. "Buono ride, Mistis?" Tonio continued, with a flash of white teeth against olive-tanned skin.

  "Tolerable good," Yolande said, grinning back. Both Draka gave their mounts a quick once-over before turning over the reins, and Yolande slipped a piece of hard sugar to hers. Slipping into local dialect: "Did that barn-cat have its kittens?"

  The young man shrugged and spread his hands apologetically, but his sister dipped her head. "Stable four, Mistis," she said. "Up in the loft, I heard it."

  Myfwany looked at her with raised brows; the patois on her family's Sicilian estate was different enough to
be a distinct language.

  "Cats?" she said.

  "Kittens," Yolande replied. "Have a look?"

  "Meeeroeuuu," the cat said warningly. It had been reasonably polite, but it was not going to tolerate strange fingers touching the squirming, squeaking mass of offspring along its flank.

  The two young Draka backed away on hands and knees across the loft's carpeting of deep-packed clover hay. It had a sweet smell, still green after a winter's storage. They flopped back on the resilient prickly softness; the long loft of the stable was almost night-dark, the last westering rays slanting in through the louvered openings above them. Yolande stretched, feeling the breathless heat as a prickle along her upper lip. There were soft sounds of shifting hooves through the slatted boards beneath, and the clean smells of well-cared-for horses. There were a dozen of the long two-story stables here below the hill: personal mounts for the Landholders and their retainers, used for the routine work of supervision, or the hunt or pleasure-riding.

  Yolande turned on her side, watching her friend's face and probing at her own feelings. Happy, she decided. Myfwany's face was a pale glimmer in the darkness, her eyes bright amber-green. Scared.

  "Yes," she said, to a question not spoken in words.

  They moved together, embraced. Yolande gave a small sigh as their lips met; a shock went over her skin, like the touch of the ocean when you dove into an incoming wave. Their arms pulled tighter, and her mouth opened. She tasted sweat-salt and mint.

  "Gods," she murmured, after an eternity. "Why did we wait so long? I'd've said yes months ago. Didn't yo' want to?"

  Myfwany chuckled softly. "Almost from the first," she said, and laid her hands lightly on the other's flanks. "Beautiful, muscle knitted to yo' ribs like livin' steel. I waited because the time wasn't right." Yolande shivered as the hands traced lightly up to her breasts.

  Voices from below, jarring. Yolande fought down a surge of anger; what did they have to do for some privacy, go check into a hotel? A dim light shone up through the floorboards; the voices of serfs, angry and quarreling.

  "Send them away," Myfwany breathed into her ear.

  Yolande controlled her breathing and crawled toward the big square hatchway that overlooked the tack-room; a little light was coming up from below, a hand-lantern's worth. Not that it was any serfs business what she did or with whom or where, but she was suddenly tooth-gratingly conscious that the estate rumor mill would be passing news of every straw in her hair and undone button before morning. Whoever it was—sundown was after plantation curfew, and there had better be a good excuse for this, or somebody was going to be sorry and sore. She recognized the voice as her head peered over the timber frame of the trapdoor, and the anger left her like a gasping breath: Rakhsan, and her son Ali. She was five meters above their heads; it was unlikely in the extreme that they would look up. Myfwany caught her tension and froze beside her.

  Ali's voice, speaking Tuscan. A tall young buck, in groom's breeches and shirt and boots, tousled brown hair. He had run tame with the House children when she was younger, a little rambunctious but fun. Sullen past his early teens, with that buried-anger feel you got from some serfs, always quarreling with the other houseboys. Semi-serious trouble once or twice, pilfering or breaking curfew. A friend of his beside him in driver's livery; she hunted for the name: Marco. Understudy pilot for the aircar.

  Rahksan put the lantern down and stood with her arms crossed. Underlighting should have flattered the well-kept prettiness of the serfs face, but somehow brought out the High Asian cast of the strong bones. The voice was as familiar as her own mother's to Yolande, but the tone was one she had never heard the Afghan use. Flat, level, uninflected; she replied in the Old Territory serf-dialect.

  "Ah'," she said. "This isn't trouble yo' in. We not talkin' whippin' here, we not talkin' sniffin' around Masta John's bedwench an' havin' her laugh at yaz." She leaned forward, and her clenched fists quivered by her sides with throttled intensity. "Goin' bushman means death, boy. The greencoats ties yo' to a wheel an' breaks yo' bones slow with an iron rod, an' then they rams the stake up yo' ass an yaz dies, it kin take days, the crows pick out yo' eyes an'—" Her voice broke and she grasped for control, panting. "Oh, Ali', my baby, my chile, please listen to me."

  Ali jerked; Yolande could sense threads of argument reaching into the past, like walking into a play halfway through. "I—It's worth the risk, to be free."

  "Free." Then there was emotion in the woman's voice, an anger and hopeless compassion. She pressed her fists to her forehead for a moment, then looked up. "Ali," she said, her voice calmly serious. "We beyond gamin' an' twistin' words to make points. This the time fo' truth."

  Marco made an impatient sound; Ali cast him an appealing glance and gestured before returning his gaze to his mother and nodding gravely.

  "Did I have a magic stick, I'd wave it an' send yo' to England. Break my heart to lose yo', son, but I'd do it. Yo' happiness that impo'tant to me. Does yo' believe me?"

  "Yes, Momma," he said, with warmth in his voice.

  "But I don have no magic stick!" She buried her hands in her hair. "Allah be merciful, whats can I say to a boy of nineteen? Yo' doan' believe yaz can die…" Rahksan stepped to her son and reached up to take his face between her palms. "Ali, my sweet, my joy, I knows yo' full of pride an' shame. What yo' think, I says cast them out 'count it makes trouble fo' me?"

  She kissed his brow. "Son, that sort o' hard pride, that fo' Draka; an' I wouldn't be Draka iff'n I could, I seen what it make them into. It ain' no shame to be serf! We not serf 'count of bein' bad, or worthless, it just… kismet, our fate." She paused, licked her lips, continued. "Mebbeso the Mastahs take the world, like they dreams. Mebbeso they loses, an' then they dies, on 'count they don' accept they can ever lose. Win or die, every one; think on it, boy, does yaz see strength or weakness in that? Whatevah happen, we still be here. That the honor an' pride of serfs; to live. We is life, boy. Yo' wants pride… Look at this place. Who built it? We did, our folk. Who builds everythin', grows everythin'? Our folk. We is the world. That cause fo' pride."

  "Momma…" Ali gestured helplessly. "Momma, maybe… you could be right, but I can't, I just can't. Please, come with us. I want you with me there, Momma; I want to see you free, too. I know it's risky, but maybe they won't catch us."

  "Oh, son," she said, in a voice thick with unshed tears. "They caught me long ago. I'm bound with chains softer an' stronger than iron. I'd send yo' if I could, but my life is here."

  "Don't listen to her, Ali!" Marco burst in. "She's a Draka-lover. Be a man!"

  Rahksan straightened and glared at Marco, glanced him up and down. "Man?" she said with slow contempt, and the Italian flushed. "Big man, makes his momma an' poppa stand an' watch while the headhunters break his bones, an' they gots to watch and cain' do nothing."

  Her voice went whip-sharp. "Yaz poppa, Marco, he a man. Live through the War, an' help yo' momma live. Right afterwards, they was hard times, plenty folks dyin'; yo' poppa keep othahs from gettin' theyselves killed, riskin' a night-time knife in't 'back to do it. Then I hears him myself, talkin' to the mastahs, respectful an' firm, askin' fo' let-up so's the rest don' do nothin' foolish. There're Draka who'd've skinned him fo' that. Ours wouldn't, but how he know then? He settle down with yaz ma,'t' make the best of what fate give him; yo' doan' think that take a man? Works hard, helps her raise their chillen. That a man. Yo'? Yaz not even much of a boy."

  Marco clenched a fist, would have swung it at the beginning of any movement. "Julia and I can never have children of our own," he rasped, and his flush of anger Bided to white around his mouth. "Is a man supposed to lie down for that?"

  Rahksan touched her stomach. "Yo' don't have chillen, boy. We do. Julia, she can go down't' the clinic ever' six months, same as any wench on the plantation, an' get a shot. I does, regular. She fo'get o' don' care, have her two while she a housegirl, so they ties her tubes. Mebbeso yo' wants to get six mo' with her to prove yaz a man, then see them sold
off to the serf-traders when they turn fourteen? The Ingolfssons don' breed us fo' market. An' I notice Julia ain't here, hmmm?"

  Rahksan extended a finger toward him, and he flinched. "Marco, like I said, I'm no Draka; so I won' take no pleasure in seein' yo' die. But I savin' my sorrow fo' yo' folks. My boy Ali here, he bein' bull-stupid, but it honest stupid. Yo' doin' this outa bent spite, lyin' to yo'self an' draggin' my son in to make yo'self feel bettah about it. Mebbeso yaz got cock, balls, an' voice likeso a jackass, but that don' make yo' much of a man't' my way a' thinkin'."

  She turned back to Ali. "Tell me honest, son. Bring it out. Yo' agreein' with his opinion of yo' momma what bore you?"

  "I—" The boy's eyes hunted back between them. "You—" He stopped, then the words burst free. "You love her children, you always have, better than you love me; it was smiles and stories for them, and lectures for me! Isn't that being a Draka-lover?"

  "Ali." Rahksan forced her son's head back toward her. "Yo' my son. Nine months beneath my heart, inside my body. Blood an' pain when I bore yo', an' the midwife laid yaz on my belly. My milk fed yo'. Yo' the dearest thing in all the world to me! Iff'n I been hard on yo' sometimes, that love, too, tryin' to teach yaz how to live. Loves yo' mo' than life."

  She took a deep breath. "No, I'm not a Draka-lover. Yes, I love the Mistis' children. They children, Ali." She put her hands beneath her breasts for a moment. "One I gives suck to. All I cleans, an' picks up when they cries. Holds they hands when they learnin' walkin'. Plays with. Hears they babblin' an' first words. Comforts when they skins they knees o' they pet rabbit dies; same's I did with yo'. Woman who don' love a chile aftah all that, she don have no lovin' in her heart!" A wry smile. "There some othah Draka I likes, o' anyway respects; that not 'lovin' the Draka.' As fo' the Mistis,—" a shrug, "—we best friends, always have been."

  Ali spoke with ragged calm. "How can you say that, say that you're the friend of someone who owns you, uses you, who—" He paused, continued almost in a mumble. "I can't… can't stand to see them touch you. It makes me feel ashamed."