by Betsy James
“Press gangs? Breath tax?”
“Regular little emperor they got here,” said Jake. “It don’t concern me. Nor you, neither, long’s we’re past the checkpoint by dusk. Because if we ain’t, it’s fines or jail.”
“Checkpoint?”
We were coming up on an ugly wooden building with several wings, raw and new. The wagon ahead of us had stopped for an exchange that sounded angry. Something was handed across, and the wagon creaked on. The little goatherd had stopped to watch.
“Checkpoint,” I said again. A road toll meant somebody to take it. If we had stayed with the caravan, there would have been a crowd, diversion, places to hide; alone with Jake, I would never pass unnoticed.
I put my hands to my hair. Should I cover it? Who might know me? What could they do?
“Wait,” I said. I pulled my bundle from under the seat. “Stop. I’ll get down here, this is a good place. I’ll go to Downshore by the cattle paths.”
He stared. “What’re you sneaking about for? You in trouble?”
“No, no! The cattle paths are quicker.” I stood up, gripping my bundle. The wind shifted, bringing the smell of sea, of water, weed, and bone.
The goatherd gaped. So did the fat little clerk in a white shirt who waved us forward.
The cart jerked. I sat down with a bump, my bundle in my lap.
The clerk bustled over. “Your papers,” he said.
“Papers?” said Jake.
“That’s right.” The clerk was nobody I knew. He spoke the Plain tongue with a South Road accent.
Two paidmen armed with truncheons and dirks and short, black fighting bows lounged on benches in the low sun. They perked up and strolled over, looking for fun.
“Papers,” said the clerk.
Wariness came down over Jake’s face like the membrane over a reptile’s eye. His voice went dull and stupid. “Un never needed no papers.”
“It’s a new rule. It does not apply to caravans. Drivers of solitary carts transporting merchandise across the Upslope borders must show papers.”
It would not apply to caravans, I thought, because the carters were big men and too many to bully.
The clerk’s eyes had strayed to my bare ankles. In Upslope women’s ankles were hidden under gray hems and black wool stockings. I tucked my dusty feet back out of sight.
He recovered himself. “Your papers. And the girl’s.”
“Them ain’t merchandise,” said Jake. “Them’s turkeys. And that’s my granddaughter; she was proper got, and I don’t need no papers to prove it.”
I stared at Jake. He glared stonily ahead.
“It’s the law,” said the clerk. “As of this afternoon. Show your papers. Your other options are: to turn back; to purchase said papers; or to pay a fine.”
“A fine!” said Jake. His alarm was real. “I can’t pay no fine. I got nothing in this world till I sell them turkeys!”
The clerk read from a folded parchment. ‘ “All single carts crossing the borders of Upslope shall be registered. Merchandise shall be inspected, and upon it a tariff shall be paid—’ ”
“Tariff!”
“ ‘—or a fine shall be levied, equal in worth to one fourth part of said merchandise—’ ”
“Onefourth!”
“ ‘—in cash or kind, payable at the guardhouse.’ ” The clerk folded the paper with a flourish. The mules startled and the cart jerked forward, nearly throwing me from the seat. The paidmen sniggered.
“This way,” said the clerk. The guards laid hold of the harness and led the mules plodding to the near wing of the guardhouse, where the clerk disappeared into an office and came back with a portable writing desk. He sat on a bench and laid it on his knees, opened it, got out quill, ink bottle, paper. I thought of Nondany writing down the songs of children. He would be arriving at his sister’s house now, embraced and welcomed.
The clerk rolled up his cuffs, adjusted the gold ring on his forefinger. He tried another keek at my ankles. When it was unsuccessful, he scowled up at Jake and said, “Name?”
“There’s never been no tariff! Not to cart turkeys to Least Night!”
“There is now. Name?”
“Jake.”
“Jake what? Second name.”
“The name’s Jake. First, second, and nothing else. Jake what raises turkeys.”
“We’ll register you as Jake Turkey,” said the clerk. He would ask me next. What name could I give? He raised the paper, blew on the ink. “Your granddaughter will be a Turkey as well.”
I opened my mouth. “I’m—”
“Excuse me, dear. Your grandfather’s name will suffice. Mister Turkey, ask the girl to stand.”
Jake gaped. I did not move.
“Assessment,” said the clerk. “For the tariff. Buyers and sellers both. All merchandise.”
“Merchandise,” said Jake.
“Come now. A pretty girl like that? At festival time? She’s income. Stand up, dear, and turn around—let’s have a look at you.”
He leaned forward. Heat rushed to my face and arms, not from shame. I leaned forward too.
“I’ll see your papers first,” I said.
The paidmen roared; they slapped each other’s backs as the clerk cried, “I am a customs officer! This is a border crossing! Humor is not appropriate!”
He snatched at the mules’ harness and tugged them into a shambling walk. “We’ll see what the deputy says about this!”
The cart jarred in the ruts, the guards ran alongside laughing, the turkeys gobbled like a host of fiends. From a safe distance the goat boy gawked.
Under the pandemonium Jake muttered to me, “You’re my granddaughter. Don’t forget it. They don’t like women here.”
I could only nod, pulling my tangled curls across my face. The cart brought up at the far wing of the building, and a gangly young man put his head out the door, open-mouthed. He had a beak nose, ash blond hair, and a bad complexion, and he wore the sober clothing of an Upslope Leagueman: white shirt, tweed jacket and trousers, high black boots. He settled his broad hat on his head, looked stern, and said, “Yes?”
He had grown. It took me two looks to know him.
But he barely glanced at me. Puzzled, then officious, he said, “State your business.”
“I’ll talk to the boss, sonny,” said the clerk.
“He’s not to be disturbed.”
“Go get him. We have a violation.” The clerk returned to stand beside the cart.
The boy shuffled his feet in their big boots, then took off his hat and turned it in his hands. Clutching it to his chest, he disappeared indoors. I heard his timid rap and call. “Sir?”
Jake leaned toward me. Without moving his lips he murmured, “Away with you and run.”
Sweating as if in fever, I gripped my bundle. My legs tightened to jump. Yet I whispered, “No. I’ve already brought trouble on you.”
“My life is my own. Get gone!”
“What could they do—”
“Ye stupid chit. To a woman?”
The boy called again. “Ab Seroy?”
No answer. Rap and call were repeated, answered at last by a muffled shout. “What the hell do you want?”
“We have a violation, sir.”
“Damn it to hell!”
“Hey!” said the clerk. “Stop her!” as Jake gave me a hard shove and I half fell, half jumped down over the far wheel, and ran.
The paidmen leaped after me. But Jake slashed the reins down across the clerk’s round face. “Hup!” he cried, and for once the mules obeyed. The cart slammed forward, knocking one man to the ground. The other leaped backward, stumbling; he recovered, dodged round the back of the cart, and in three jumps was on me like a greyhound on a rabbit, pinning my arms.
I did not struggle. He dragged me back, snatched up my bundle, and hurled it on the steps. The second guard had scrambled to his feet and caught up with the cart, had hauled Jake off the seat, and was beating him with a truncheon. The goatherd scampered off, whippi
ng the nanny with the stem of grass.
Ab Seroy came out in his shirtsleeves, a lean man scowling with sleep, the boy at his heels.
“This had better be good,” he said.
“I’m wounded!” The clerk dabbed at his cheek with a handkerchief. “The girl submitted a false identity! She attempted to effect an escape!”
“Well, well,” said Ab Seroy, buttoning one pearl cuff link. “Who are you, sweetheart? And what are you running away from?”
His hand began on the second cuff. Stopped.
“Good evening, Uncle,” I said.
He flushed. He gripped me under the chin, as one grips a dog’s jaw to make it stand straight for show.
“I know who she is,” he said. “And I know who she’s running from.” He turned my face to the boy. “You ought to recognize her. You almost married her.”
“She’s grown to be a pretty wench,” said Ab Seroy. “Makes the blood race.”
Queelic blushed and stared, picking at his chin. Ab Seroy jerked me around to face himself. “Come to dance on your father’s grave?”
Through his hold on my jaw I said, “Is Father dead?”
“If he is, you killed him.” Ab Seroy dropped his hand. I could feel bruises starting. He took my elbow. “Come along, girlie. You’re home, and you want a welcome.”
He half dragged, half lifted me across the yard. The paidman hauled Jake to his feet; the old man held his bleeding mouth. From my abandoned bundle a tongue of honey oozed.
Ab Seroy yanked me up the broad steps of the guardhouse, through double doors into a wide hall dark with evening. Even in the dusk its walls gleamed with new whitewash, its oak floorboards with scouring. I had scrubbed many floors in Upslope, and remembered the smell of the bleach. There was another odor under it, of garbage or decay; it made my nose wrinkle.
One of the guards lit a candelabrum, eight candles on a wrought-iron stand. The other shoved Jake against my elbow. In the Hill tongue I asked the old man, “Why did you do that for me?”
Ab Seroy slapped me. “Shut up!”
As if to himself, Jake said in the Plain tongue, “Travelers got to stick together. There’s vermin on the roads these days.”
The clerk pressed his hankie to his cheek. “No conversation!” he said.
“I’s remarking, like. On the state of the roads.”
“That’s what we’re here for! Your tariffs at work! You have attacked an Upslope official who keeps your roadways safe from criminals!”
“I was sweating about that goat boy,” said Jake.
“Shut up,” Ab Seroy said again. He gave a low-voiced order to a paidman, who left running. The remaining guard lit a second candelabrum.
The hall could have held a hundred men. It had two sets of wide double doors, standing open now to let out the heat of the day; perhaps paidmen were marched in review—in one set of doors and out the other, past whoever might sit at the broad, empty desk in the middle of the room. In the hall’s south wall were smaller doors with barred windows, above them a clerestory that let in the last daylight. Dozens of straight wooden chairs lined the walls; otherwise the polished floor was bare.
My mind was still on its way to Downshore. It ran to the end of its tether, stopped with a jerk, came back, and ran again. Ab Seroy threw his hat on a chair. Queelic stared and bit his nails until his fingers bled.
Jake and I were shoved to stand in front of the desk. Behind it the clerk bustled, straightening its few papers, flicking away imaginary dust. He did not pull up a chair and sit down. Someone else was waited for.
Boots rang on the steps. My younger uncle entered—Ab Jerash was his proper title. It was in his house that I had lived after my mother died, and of my two League uncles he had been most nearly kind. Now he looked wary and angry.
“Niece,” he said.
Ab Seroy took his elbow, scowling. He fell silent and went to stand beside Queelic, frowning at his bitten nails. Queelic put his hands behind his back.
One by one up the broad steps and through the double doors came those Leaguemen of Upslope, heads of households, who were not away on the roads. I knew most of them. Cruel Ab Lesh was there, the road dust still on him; Ab Hiun, young and jut-jawed; Ab Spelmar, who secretly drank; a dozen others. I had seen them in the Rulesward, I had cooked for them, pulled weeds in their gardens, washed their children, traded milk for raspberries at their kitchen doors. They looked at me and looked away. Their hands were in their pockets, jingling small change.
At this sound I began to be truly there, and truly afraid. I was small again, Katyesha Marashya N’Ab Drem, listening to the beginning of my father’s rage.
But Father was not there.
The clerestories were soft with evening light. Through them, to the east, I saw something invisible from the road: a short gibbet. From it a bundle dangled, turning a little. A crow picked at it. At first I thought nothing because I could think nothing. Then I thought, So that’s what smells.
There was a stir at the back of the crowd as it parted for Ab Harlan, chief Leagueman of Upslope, Queelic’s father, and owner of the desk.
Perhaps he had once been gangly like Queelic. Now he was fat, and moved as though he did not often walk. The details of his plain, new-washed garments were exquisite, down to his gold cuff links and the ring with one diamond. He carried a gold-headed cane. That, and his polished boots, rapped the hollow floor.
“Well, look who’s here,” he said.
The League made way for him. They took their hands out of their pockets.
Ab Harlan leaned close. His clean face shone. He tipped his head this way and that and did not so much look as whiff at me, drinking my odor here and there.
I shrank away.
He smiled.
“I thought you’d come,” he said. “I wasn’t wrong to expect you. You’ve grown up, and prettily too. But I don’t like how you’re doing your hair.” Shortening his grip on the cane, he used the tip of it to lift a curl from my cheek.
I stood straight, though I shook.
Quick as a snake, he raised the stick. I cowered, my arms over my face.
He laughed, lowering the stick. “So you know what you deserve. And you’ll get it, wench, with plenty of people watching. A good beating has set many a wandering woman right.”
His face did not change, nor the pleasantness of his voice. “Not that we want you back in Upslope. Would we want a dirtied cloth? Unless …” He turned to the other men. His eyes twinkled. “Unless one of you has use for damaged goods?”
They looked uneasy. Ab Jerash said, “Harlan. She’s my niece.”
“A spell of Detention for her, then? Shall we kiss her? Since she’s one of us.”
Ab Jerash bit his lip.
“She’s your niece, Jerash, but”—Ab Harlan pointed the cane at Jake—“that’s her mother’s father. Lice breed lice.” To a paidman he said, “Take the old man outside and send him on his way.”
“I ain’t going!” said Jake. “Where’s my turkeys?”
“Government property!” said the clerk. “Tariffs and fines! The mules, too!”
“I ain’t got no living without my mules!”
“Just my point,” said Ab Harlan. As the paidman bundled Jake, scuffling, out the door, he added, “We all know what market towns are like, especially at festival time. A man sells his turkeys, drinks the profit, fights, and gets a drubbing. Indeed, he might die in a brothel, or run off. Who’s to know?”
The Leaguemen looked at one another. From the courtyard came the sound of blows, regular and slow.
Ab Harlan brought his face close to mine. His voice was mild. “You shamed me,” he said. “You shamed my son. You disgraced your father and your race. You will pay me in full. With interest.” Smiling, he said, “Queelic, come here.”
“No, Father!”
“Come here.”
Queelic sidled from the crowd as though his boots dragged the rest of him.
“Here she is,” said Ab Harlan. “Your wife-to-b
e. See what you missed? Don’t you long to touch her, even now?”
“Stop it, Father!”
Ab Jerash said, “Harlan.”
“Such a sweet wench? In such a pretty bodice?” Ab Harlan gripped his son’s wrist and dragged his hand to my neck. “Be a man, damn you! Aren’t you a man?”
He forced the hand downward. My blouse tore. Queelic jerked his hand away, screaming in a high voice, “She’s horrible! She has scars all over her!” He wiped his hand on his thigh, again, again.
I stood before them all, my breasts marked by the claws of the bear.
Ab Harlan drew back. His eyes bulged. Behind him muttering voices said, “They said she slept with a native, a devil. There’s its mark!”
“You,” whispered Ab Harlan. “Witch. Dirt of darkness. Filth that crawled on this coast before we civilized it. Beast men—hair and flesh in the dark.”
He caught himself. His voice went shrill. “Lock her up!” He sweat, he shook. “Animal! I shall purge myself of you!”
He left, with a clatter of boots.
It was a paidman who seized me—the Leaguemen would not touch me—and tied my hands at my back with a prickling horsehair rope. In a buzz of argument I was pushed to the nearest cell. I caught a glimpse of my uncles: Ab Seroy avid, Ab Jerash shocked and stern. The cell had a high, barred window, a tin chamber pot without a lid. The paidman gave me a shove and slammed the door.
I lay where I fell, my cheek on the bare floor. Then I sat up.
Boots shuffled outside the door. Maybe they were looking at me through the little grate; I did not look at them. After a while the voices died down. Boots were leaving, loud on the steps.
Daylight was almost gone. Outside, I heard shouts and thumps. A ladder was carried past the high window; I saw its shadow. More shouts.
After another long while I stood up. Even on tiptoe I could not see out.
I pushed the chamber pot to the window, turned it over with my foot, and stood on it. I looked as far west as I could, but I could not see the sea. I looked east, and there, just at the limit of my vision, I saw the gibbet.
From it, turning slightly in the evening breeze, hung the body of Jake the turkey man. No fear that anyone might recognize his battered face.