Bells of the Kingdom (Children of the Desert Book 3)

by Leona Wisoker

  He shrugged, not particularly concerned, and went on.

  Past the line where whipgrass tussocks and sandseed vines kept the sand from blowing back down into the sea, the ground turned to a silty dirt overlaid with a short, spiky, hard-bladed grass. Kolan winced a little as the sharp edges jabbed between his toes.

  Movement to his right drew his attention: two forms, a larger and a smaller, plodding in a large circle a fair distance away. Kolan hesitated, watching them; then, intrigued and hoping that they might have food to share, went toward them.

  Closer, the two resolved into a man and a boy, dressed in worn clothes and carrying long forked sticks. They barely glanced up as Kolan approached, all their attention on the large pit they were walking around. The older one stopped, pointing, and said, “There. Push that one over a handspan, it’s above.”

  The boy pushed with his stick. The man grunted approval and signaled him to resume walking. Neither one looked at Kolan, now less than a stone’s throw away.

  “S’es?” he said tentatively.

  They ignored him, all of their attention on their work. Kolan stepped in a little closer and looked at the contents of the pit: a mass of long, thin reeds, soaking in water. A faint scum had begun to form on the surface, and now and again the reeds shifted slightly, bobbing above the water. The man and boy shoved each protruding bit back under the water as it arose, with an attentiveness that suggested dire consequences for allowing the reeds to dry out. Nearby, a double-bucket shoulder yoke rested on the ground, empty; not far from that sat a close-woven, covered basket.

  “S’es,” Kolan said again, “do you have any food? I can pay you.” He put a hand to his belt pouch, not at all sure if that were true. It was hard to remember money as a concept, let alone keep track of how much he held.

  “No food,” the older man said without looking up. “Don’t have any ourselves. Go away.”

  Kolan found himself looking at their feet as they plodded round and round. The older man was barefoot, his heavily callused feet nicked and bleeding; the boy wore shoes too large for him, obviously stuffed with padding to make them fit. Kolan looked at the shoes for a while, blinking slowly, then said, “You took my shoes.”

  “You wasn’t using them,” the man said, still not looking up.

  “I’d like them back,” Kolan said mildly.

  “Demons don’t need shoes.”

  “I’m not a demon.”

  “Then you’re a ghost. Nothing human stands and stares at the water days on end without moving like you done. Every time we go to fill th’ bucket for the pond refill, we seen you. Same spot. You ain’t human.”

  Kolan smiled, genuinely amused. “I’m very human,” he said. “I’m also very hungry.”

  “Told you,” the man said, prodding a bobbing clump of reeds back down under the surface, “ain’t got none. Had our bread this morn, we’ll have our millet this even. None to spare, not for man nor demon, so move along and find someone else to haunt.”

  Kolan began to turn away, then paused and came back. “If you think I’m a demon or a ghost,” he said, “why aren’t you afraid of me?”

  The man flickered a glance up at that, his blue-grey eyes smoky with contempt. “You’ll kill me or you won’t,” he said. “No point running away from the only thing as puts food in my son’s mouth over a maybe.” Then, to his son: “Look, there—”

  “Got it,” the boy said, already prodding with the pole.

  The older man grunted and went back to his silent, sour plodding; stopping now and again, scowling at the pool, then moving on again. His gaze never left the reeds, ever attentive for one breaking the surface.

  Kolan stood still, watching them; looking at his stolen shoes, and the older man’s bleeding feet, and the pool of submerged reeds. At last he slung his pack to the ground, then stepped forward, lifted the yoke, and settled it over his shoulders.

  “You walk off with that,” the man said without any particular emotion, “you’re killing us.”

  “Just to the water’s edge and back,” Kolan said, and plodded off.

  When he returned, he set the buckets down by the edge of the pit and stepped back out of the way. The older man grunted, set his pole aside, and tipped in the fresh seawater with care; moved the yoke and buckets out of their walking path, and resumed his own steady plodding.

  “Piece of bread left in the basket there,” he said after two more circuits. “If’n you get another round of water.”

  Kolan sat down beside the basket without comment. The piece of bread was larger than his fist, and stale. He picked at it slowly, mindful of how long it had been since he last ate. When half the piece remained, he put it back in the basket, stood, and picked up the yoke again without a word.

  “Leave ‘em,” the older man said when Kolan returned with the buckets. “Won’t need ‘em for a few more hours.” He waved a hand at the boy. “Ablo, take him home. Get him a place to sleep tonight, rest yourself. Come back at moonrise. Not you,” he added to Kolan. “You’ve helped enough. By nightfall the retting pit’ll be throwing off the gods’ own stink.”

  Kolan squinted at the pit. “That’s not flax, is it?”

  “No. Blackreed. Rather work with flax, the smell is worlds better’n blackreed, and it don’t take so much attention. But it don’t pay half as good as this. Rich folk like cloth from this stuff. Say it’s softer an’ lasts longer. I wouldn’t never know; couldn’t afford a fingertip’s worth, myself.” He prodded a floating reed back under the surface, scowling.

  “I can endure bad smells,” Kolan said, smiling.

  “Not like this, you can’t,” the man said dourly. “Smells like a cow with diarrhea died and busted wide open. I got a mask for me and the boy. Go on. Get my boy safe back to the house; been all sorts round here of late.”

  The boy opened his mouth to protest, outrage on every line of his face.

  “I’ll be glad of the protection,” Kolan said with a straight-faced earnestness that silenced them both. “And the guidance. I’m not quite sure where I am, truth be told.”

  “Not far outside Sandsplit,” the man said, and spat to one side in bitter commentary. “Where a man of means can be nothing the next day from a word said wrong. Go on, while there’s light to go with. Ablo, stay away from the girls, mind—Get back here to help at moonrise.”

  The boy nodded, blank-faced, and motioned Kolan to follow him. When they were out of earshot, he said, “Man of means, my grandmother’s arse. We never been but a drink’s price from the poorhouse my whole life.”

  “Everyone needs their lies,” Kolan said peaceably.

  The boy looked sideways at him. “Sounds like a soapy’s talk, there.”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. So all that standing and staring out at the water—you’re on some sort of fasting pilgrimage, then?”

  Kolan smiled. “Something like that,” he agreed.

  “You should have said.”

  “Does it really make a difference?”

  The boy said nothing for a few steps, then: “No. Not really.”

  They plodded through the late-afternoon light in companionable quiet. Around them, tall stands of feathertrees shook pale blossoms into the steady breeze; long, striped grasses bowed and danced. A large black bird circled high overhead, veering along the air currents with no apparent goal in mind other than to enjoy the moment.

  A faint sea-brine aroma clung to Kolan’s clothes and hair, and sandy grit squished between his toes, driven into abrasiveness by the sharp grass. He ignored the discomfort and put his attention on other sensations: the wind against his face, the steady glare of the sun from his left, the mournful screech of sea-birds battling somewhere nearby.

  The footpath sloped up a high bank. At the crest, a group of young children in tattered breeches ran in circles, pouncing on each others’ shadows and on each other, shrieking with laughter. They paused as Kolan and Ablo came over the slight rise, staring wide-eyed; then tumbled back into their game wit
hout further concern.

  Not far away, a group of equally ragged huts stood around a central fire pit already heaped high with dry and green branches and grasses. Several large logs that looked to have been well-tumbled by the sea sat around the fire. A small girl in a brown shift stitched about with white flowers was walking along the narrowest log, her eyes squinted in concentration, skinny arms out for balance. As she caught sight of Ablo and Kolan, she slipped sideways, stumbling, and barely avoided sprawling on the ground.

  Ablo hooted derisively. The girl stuck her tongue out and darted into one of the huts. A few moments later she emerged with a tall, lean woman whose harsh grey hair matched her severe face.

  “Ablo,” she said, then stared at Kolan with instant distrust. “What’s this? Did something happen to Imin?”

  “He sent me home to get some sleep,” Ablo said. “This one came along and helped a bit. Imin says to get him a place to rest.”

  The woman glanced over her shoulder, then back to Kolan, her frown deepening. “Just where is he expecting us to find a free bed?” she demanded. “And I’m supposing a meal is expected!”

  “S’a,” Kolan inserted, “I’ll be content with a patch of grass free of bloodants, and a bit of bread is more than enough to spare.”

  She snorted, surveying him with a sharp, assessing stare.

  “We’re not so poor as all of that,” she said at last. “Sit. We’ll find you a space and a bowl.” She turned and went back into her hut.

  Ablo, smiling, waved to Kolan and went off to another hut. Kolan sat down on the log the small girl had been balancing on. Without really thinking about it, he pulled out his marble and began rolling it between his hands. He sat still, staring at nothing in particular, and time blurred as it had while he stood before the water.

  Around him, people moved, spoke, laughed; lit the fire, ate a meal, danced around the fire. Warmth washed over his face, someone slapped his back, nudged him, shook his shoulder. He sat still, working the marble from hand to hand, dimly aware of everything but too contented with the moment’s experience to respond to anything.

  At last he blinked and shook his head, rousing from his dazed contemplation of nothing. A pale half-moon hung far overhead, a thin scattering of clouds trailing across the glowing surface; a bowl of thin millet soup sat at his feet, a few enterprising ants digging through the contents. He lifted up the bowl, picked out the ants with care, then gulped down the soup in three long swallows.

  From across the firepit, the grey-haired woman watched him, her face ruddy in the dying light of the fire.

  “You’re an odd one,” she said. “Ablo said to leave you be, that you’ve had a fit like that before and you would move when it suited you.”

  Kolan looked back at her and said nothing.

  “There’s a spot in with me tonight,” she said.

  “That’s kind of you, s’a,” he said. He studied the lines of her face with care, then shook his head slowly. “I won’t impose on your good nature.”

  “Imin will be staggering in a few hours past moonrise, once he’s too tired to mistrust Ablo’s capability any longer,” the woman said. “The others won’t stir nor share, not for gold; they work at trades like charcoal and lime, dawn to dusk, and don’t care for company other’n their own sort. The smell, for one; it’s no sweetness to one as isn’t in the trade themselves.” She paused. “I work fields,” she added, smiling a little. “Gathering and such. It’s a bit nicer at the end of the day; and in the off-season, there’s always caring for this lot to keep me busy.”

  Kolan studied the dying fire without speaking. After a while she got up and came round to sit beside him. He looked at her sidelong, not moving. She put a hand on his knee, leaning in; a dizzying surge of raw desire twisted through him—Gods, how long had it been since someone touched him with any kindness?

  Memory turned sharply sideways into recalled agony.

  Her skin was gold and red with reflected fire, the air was hot and humid, and her eyes were black, so black, so very very—and the man they’d brought in began to scream—and Kolan wrenched at his chains, screaming at her to stop, for the love of the gods, don’t do this, harm none—

  With a harsh gasp, he put up a warding hand and leaned away.

  He could feel the woman’s temper begin to shift even before she said, “What are you, some kind of soapy, then?”

  “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “I am.”

  “Oh,” she said, dismayed. “I didn’t think—I’m sorry, s’iope.”

  He made a faint gesture, not looking at her. She retreated to her former seat.

  Kolan stared at the fire, grimly shoving that memory, like a protruding blackreed in the retting pool, safely back beneath the surface. That time, those days, needed to be as dead to him as Ellemoa.

  Am I really sure that she’s dead? What if—No.

  The edges of that thought bore a brutal blackness that warned him not to explore it further. He sighed and stood, scooping up his pack and cautious of his balance until he was quite sure the world would stay steady around him.

  “I’ll walk along,” he said. “I’ll manage without sleep for a bit longer.”

  She stared at him, the severe lines settling back over her face, and said nothing.

  He bowed once, both hands to his heart in genuine gratitude. His failings weren’t her fault; she deserved what courtesy he had to offer.

  “Which way to Sandsplit proper, s’a?” he asked.

  She pointed silently and gave no return farewell as he walked away.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  I’m going home. With my mother. I’m going to meet my family at last.

  It was a large concept to absorb, and Idisio walked without speaking, trying to take it in. It had been easier to accept that he was ha’ra’hain, that he deserved the respect of all he encountered by that fact alone, that he had power where he had always seen himself as powerless.

  Family. A community. Arason, according to his mother, understood how to treat ha’ra’hain. There were certain... agreements in place that made the relationship a civil one. “Of course, that held while the chekk was there,” she added, her smile fading. “Once the others left... and it was only me... they weren’t as respectful. But we’ll change that, you and I. We’ll start a new chekk, and they’ll return to the proper ways.”

  Chekk seemed to be equivalent to tribe or community; Ellemoa had trouble translating the concept, and dodged questions about why the chekk had left and she had stayed.

  Idisio, still struggling with the basic concept of I have a family, didn’t really try to pin her down. He had too much to think about already. My father. I’m going to meet my father.

  She smiled as they walked, hummed often, and stopped to pick bright flowers and wind them into her hair. Now and again she broke into open song: children’s ditties, for the most part, few of which he had heard before. One, a lullaby clearly developed in a farming community, she repeated several times:

  A flower falls, a drop of rain, a seed in ground, a new life sprouts; a seed to bloom, a bloom to fruit, a plate of food, a stomach full, and off to bed, and off to bed, it’s time to rest your weary head... A dream of stars, a star of dreams, a journey made, a life complete; a step to home, a home to build, a bed to rest your weary head, and off to bed, and off to bed, it’s time to rest your weary head... The fire warm, the warmth of home, the ale in hand, the shutters closed; outside the wind, outside the cold, inside the warm and drowsy home... and off to bed, and off to bed, it’s time to rest your weary head ... and off to bed, and off to bed, it’s time to rest your weary head.

  She varied the lyrics sometimes, apparently making them up on the spot; but they always dealt with the pleasantness of family and home, shelter and security. Idisio soon found himself smiling every time she sang it, and even joined in on the chorus a few times: which brought a radiant joy to her expression.

  By the time they reached Sandsplit proper, Idisio scarcely remembered that he’d
ever distrusted his mother, or seen her as a monster in the least. She was simply his mother, his kin, his family—and he would fight to protect her, and she him, as it should be.

  Sandsplit was the same tidy, quiet, sprawling town Idisio remembered; but an odd smell hung in the air, and the back of his neck began to itch as they walked along the sandy paths. His mother appeared completely serene, humming softly, even singing small snatches of childhood lullabies.

  “Do you want to stop for the night, son?” his mother asked, pausing at a crossroads.

  Understanding that she was offering him a concession to make him happy, he considered declining; but his feet hurt and his back ached from walking, and her constant singing of that lullaby had put him in mind of the pleasures of a good hot meal and a bed. He said, “Yes. Please. I’d like that.”

  “Is there a place you’d like to stay at? You know this town better than I do.”

  “I only came through once,” he said. “I don’t want to stay at the same place as last time—it’s too expensive, and we’re going to need the money we have to get to Arason.”

  She smiled at him fondly. “No, son,” she said, “we don’t need to worry about money at all. But I’ll follow your lead.”

  “Money makes everything easier,” he said pragmatically. “I’m not sure what other inns there are here, though. I suppose I’ll just ask—”

  “You don’t need to ask a human for directions, son,” she said. “Close your eyes and think of yourself as a bird, soaring high above the city. Wait—” She tugged him to the side of the road as a cart rumbled past. “Now.”

  He shut his eyes, stared into the multicolored darkness behind his eyelids, and tried to think of himself as a bird. A moment later, he staggered, dizzy, and felt his mother catch his arm in a steadying grip.