“And Slowth is the best known wombow on Shikhari, or so the dawn shift at enclosure number three aver.”
Tomás and Kor both laughed. “And not for his docility and obedience, I take it?” Tomás managed after a long moment.
“Alas, no. It seems the presence of a large, captive audience has only fed his ambitions to become a professional vocalist.”
“At least he does not fancy himself a dancer, dear,” Tomás advised. Rigi covered her face with her hands, hiding from the thought. Creatrix no, please do not strike Slowth with that idea, please, please, please. Her fingers itched to draw a wombow as a court dancer, and she gave up trying to fight the giggles that bubbled out of her.
“This site, Mistress Rigi?” Kor asked once the males had calmed their laughter. She opened her latest sketchbook and turned to the page before setting it on the small table beside his seat. He lifted it from the table and looked, ears twitching. The page turned and his ears moved more, and his lower jaw shifted back and forth just a touch.
“Where is it from here?” Tomás asked as she refilled his tea.
“Up on the mountain overlooking both the settlement and the camp, this side of the road to the pass. Makana also found something odd, a set of what seem to be buried faults. I suspect they are local land slips, nothing truly important, but they have nice ash layers demarcating them.”
Tomás set his cup down and looked past her, eyes narrowing as he thought. “On the hillside? What kind of road leads to it?”
“I did not find any roads, but they could be buried. It has a small fountain, or mineral spring, actually. It,” she hesitated, groping for the words she wanted. “You need to see it. The location doesn’t match anything we’ve seen thus far, which could simply mean we have not looked hard enough at upland sites.” She shrugged a little. “Makana and I did not dig or take any measurements.”
Kor’s ears remained tipped half-way back as he handed the sketchbook to Tomás. “You are correct. The location makes no sense, an observation which suggests that perhaps it was a meeting place for the local Staré council.” Rigi winced a little and Makana flinched at the implications in Kor’s words and scent. Apparently his disdain for the Staré leadership had grown stronger while he was in the field.
“These subdivisions within the sections,” Tomás said, tapping the page with one brown index finger. “How large are they?”
Rigi tried to remember what she’d guessed at the time. “Ah, two meters by three meters on average? At least that is the ratio. They are all longer than they are wide, at least the ones I could see clearly. The site is somewhat overgrown. The stonework is beautiful, much finer than anything I can recall seeing humans build here, but then we do not use drystone construction.”
“Dry stone?” Kor enunciated in Common.
“No glue holding the stones together, sir. They are fitted so that nothing is needed to hold them in place,” Tomás explained.
Makana released a hint of //agreement.// “I could not fit the tips of my forefoot claws between the stones, first-Stamm sir.”
“Huh.” Kor wrinkled his nose, lifting his divided upper lip enough to reveal strong, wide, yellow upper teeth. “And the mammals?”
“Not wombeast related, sir. More like the white-puff-grazer of Two-hop Island, except this tall at the shoulder, and with four horns, two in front and two on the side.” Rigi held her hand about a meter off the floor. “Maybe larger. When threatened they form a ring around their young, horns facing out.”
Kor crossed his forefeet. “We go to the site, unless a sky-fire storm threatens. Tomorrow if possible.”
Could Slowth pull all five of them in the cart, plus Martinus, up that long slope? Rigi tried to calculate their mass and the number she reached was higher than she’d ever asked Slowth to do before. “We’ll need to borrow a two-wombow wagon, or I’ll need to leave Martinus here.” And possibly Makana as well, which she’d rather not do. The more often people saw him with her, the stronger an argument she had for not dismissing him if someone like LeFeu ordered Makana away.
“We’ll take one of the power flitters,” Tomás said after finishing his tea. “If I remember correctly, we can park on the road without blocking it, and it will be much faster than wombow wagon. I’ll make the request as a scout, with a civilian expert and medic as outside passenger, and that should satisfy the major.” He stood and went to his military short-comm to make the request as Rigi put his cup into the cleaner and then put more water on to boil for Kor. “What? That’s passing strange.” He turned to face her. “Dear, the request was blocked due to your coming along. Kor and I can go, with Makana, but not you.”
Rigi set the water boiler down with exquisite care as a terrible realization swept her. “The major. Would that be Major LeFeu?”
“Yes. He’s responsible for all government-provided transportation resources, civilian and military.” Tomás’s eyes narrowed, and out of the corner of her eye, Rigi saw Kor and Makana both shifting their weight forward. Oh dear. “Did you offend his wife in some way, dear?”
“I think not, given that according to Major LeFeu she is ill and remained on Southland.” She didn’t want to start trouble, but neither did she want to be blamed for LeFeu’s actions. And she could have misunderstood what he wanted. Rigi took a deep breath. Creator and Creatrix, please create harmony and smooth the way of truth. “Shortly after you went into the field, he approached me as I waited to check on Slowth. He suggested that his wife’s illness left him in need of a hostess for social functions, and since you were away, there would be no difficulty if I took up that duty.” Rigi did not like the three males’ stillness, but she continued. “I declined his offer as politely as I could, and he seemed most unhappy. I hope I did not do something rude, but I did not recall anything like that described in any of the books and files your mother and Aunt Kay gave us.
“And he approached me again, the morning Makana and I found the new site. He invited me to a private supper that evening at his quarters.”
A dark red flush of blood suffused Tomás’s already sun-dark skin. Rigi smelled //anger/possession/male// from Makana and Kor, and Tomás’s fists clenched at his sides. “You refused.”
“Yes, Captain, and when I returned I refused again because I had to comm Dr. Xian at the scheduled time. As I’d told him that morning. I have the comm log register as proof.”
“So the thumping network told true,” Kor snarled.
“Yes, first-Stamm sir,” Makana’s ears lay flat back. “A fifth-Stamm cleaner Salnar reported to Kortala Eesah that Major Fire-dark speaks often of the Wise Eye, and in ways not appropriate to speak of either a Wise One or a mated female.”
Tomás opened his mouth, fist raised. His mouth closed and he shook all over. Rigi imagined a cloud of shed fur around her husband. He crossed the distance between them and rested his hands on her shoulders. “Rigi, love, I believe you and I trust you. There have been stories, unflattering stories, about that—individual—for some time.” He looked down, and when he looked back up, his face seemed a touch pinker. “Stories not fit for your ears, so I did not mention them. It seems that at least some of those are true.”
“Um, dear, he threatened to ruin your career if I don’t agree to, ah,—”
“No,” he interrupted. “Don’t say it. I can guess, and if I don’t hear it, I won’t be obligated to act on it publically.” He thumped into his chair, then shifted a little at the warning creak and faint groan from the straining wood and leather. “Because if I officially know, I will have to call him out on it, in front of witnesses. It is not one of those matters the ladies’ books describe, because it is not supposed to happen, it is not official, but it is one of the unspoken, iron-clad rules of the Army. And if I know that he has attempted to compromise your honor, it means my honor and rank are compromised if I do not act.”
A long silence followed his words. Makana’s left ear eased back toward vertical. //Question/anger// “Master Tomás, what if Mistress Rigi d
ealt with the,” a word she vaguely recognized as dreadfully unflattering, “male herself, as she did with the hidden-hunter-jumper-killer?”
“She is within her rights as a Wise One,” Kor added //hopeful/anticipation/anger.//
Dealt with him herself? What did they—? Rigi’s eyes flashed open as she realized precisely the two Staré had in mind. A first Stamm female had the right to challenge anyone who impugned her Stamm and lineage, just as the males of all Stamme did. She couldn’t. She could not, dared not, no. She still had nightmares about the Staré she’d been forced to kill in self defense when she’d been on the Indria Plateau. To kill a human simply for possibly asking her to be unfaithful? Rigi wanted to be sick. She locked her jaws, breathing through her nose, reciting one of the prayers for calm, concentrating on air in and air out, on the wear-smoothed wooden chair arms under her fingers and palms, on the little itch on her low back where something on her blouse rubbed, anything to keep from thinking that thought.
She felt something strong and warm on her hand. “I believe my mate, being wise as well as Wise, will take the appropriate actions. I apologize Master Kor, Makana, but it appears Mistress Rigi is far more tired than she thought.”
“A difficult healing is indeed tiring, or so I have been told,” Kor agreed.
She closed her eyes as the Staré males departed, resting, trying to return the memory back to its proper place. “Rigi, love?” Tomás helped her to her feet, then held her as she sobbed against his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Tomás. I’m sorry. I didn’t know, I should have asked one of the senior women what it meant, asked Aunt Kay. I didn’t mean to cause you trouble. I don’t want to kill another person. I didn’t want to kill that Staré. I’m sorry.” All the slights, the strains, the exhaustion and fears of the past days gushed down on her like the first storm of the wet season, heavy and strong.
He held her, stroking her back. He did not shush her, or tell her it would be all right, he just held her until she could calm down. “I’m sorry,” she sniffed at last. “I didn’t mean to cry all over your shirt.”
He laughed, but quietly. “Dear, love, Miss Rigi, I’d be surprised if you didn’t cry on my shirt, not after the work you did this morning, and the shocks this evening.” Tomás caressed her hand, kissed it, then caressed it again. Their eyes met and Rigi saw something more than just humor in them, a hint of something deadly, the predator beneath the surface. But also love and desire, desire she shared. He was home.
The next morning she made him breakfast, contenting herself with tea and a barely-stale rusk or two. “Are you ill?”
Rigi blushed. “Only in the morning.” She was late, but she did not want to say anything yet, not until she knew without a doubt.
Not that day, but the next, he handed her into a small run-about. He’d spent the day before seeing to his men and finishing reports while Kor did whatever it was that Kor did and Rigi attended a tea, then colored in some details on a nicer drawing of the not-a-kitfeng, this one with some of the local plants included as well.
Rigi wiggled a little as she secured the safety harness and tried not to yawn. The sun had yet to cross the eastern horizon, and she’d brought hot tea for them, while Makana carried a hamper for himself and Kor. Martinus had to content himself with his fresh deep-recharge from the day before. Rigi decided that he needed a good polishing as well, and wondered if that was one of those unseemly things she was not supposed to do herself. No, caring for a dependent was never unseemly, not according to the Book of Traditions. Kor rode in front with Makana, who drove. Tomás sat beside Rigi. All carried shooters and knives, just in case. “I am most delighted that m-dogs, when damp, do not smell like bio-dogs,” Tomás observed once they had cleared the military camp’s gates.
“Do I want to know?”
Kor’s voice answered. “Let us merely say that no matter how full of hot air a junior officer might be, it does not improve his buoyancy.”
“Oh dear.” Rigi could imagine.
“Stop here please, Makana,” Tomás said. The run-about slowed and Makana eased off the track into a suitable grassy spot to park for a moment. Tomás and Kor got out, and Tomás helped Rigi climb out. Together they looked back at the camp and the half-buried structure. Rigi opened the appropriate sketchbook and had the matching drawing available for the males. “Ah, there it is, curving around,” he peered through a set of military distance viewers. “To there, then… Kor, sir, look at the southern end of the arc, please.” Rigi moved out of Kor’s way.
“There’s a break. Perhaps a gate.” He lowered his own viewers, ears twitching. He hop-turned to the left, looking over his shoulder, then slowly moved his gaze around the sweep of the arc, pale against the lush early-cool-season growth. “Something in memory, something long ago, something almost lost,” he murmured to himself. Rigi and Tomás exchanged looks behind Kor’s back. Part of what made first Stamm males and females the leaders of the Staré was their much longer and more complex memories. Rigi wondered if some of those memories were actually somehow fixed in their very genes, a form of instinct transmitted only within the first Stamm. “Perhaps it will return,” Kor said. Rigi made a note about the possible gate and they climbed back into the six-wheeled run-about once more.
Makana stopped where he and Rigi halted before, near the fault. Tomás frowned as he studied the gash in the ground but remained silent. Then he pivoted and joined Rigi looking at the step site. He frowned again, blinked, looked through his viewers, and blurted, “Jumping Jehoshaphat! By the great Magellanic cloud!” He sounded so much like Uncle Eb that Rigi almost glanced over her shoulder to look for Uncle Eb’s infamous m-mule. “I’ve never seen— That can’t—” He turned to her, suddenly grave and serious. “You do realize that Micah De Groet will never forgive you and Makana for finding this.” He winked.
“Alas yes, and then he could very well starve to death excavating it because he will refuse to leave the site.” She looked to the mountains on the other side of the stream valley to the west. “Or freeze to death.” She looked at Tomás and winked. “And Aunt Kay will fuss because Uncle Eb will ruin the knees of his trousers.”
“Is that not part of the ritual?” Kor inquired.
The humans blinked at each other. “I believe sir, that after this long, it is.” Tomás gave Rigi a speculative look, and she wagged a cautionary finger at him. Certain family traditions were best stopped before they started.
The males walked down the slope, hopped the little stream by the large boulders, and skirted the natural rock shelter exactly as Rigi had. She felt better about her caution as she watched them. They moved more quickly once they realized what lay before them, not quite running, but forcing her into an undignified trot to keep up. As she’d anticipated, they screeched to a halt at the carved portrait set into the stones of the wall.
What she did not anticipate was Kor hopping up slope, watching the wall to his left as he did. After three jumps he stopped, pawed away some of the long grass overhanging the stones, and pointed. Tomás hurried after him. Kor hopped upslope again, and Rigi ordered, “Martinus, follow Kor. Stop where he stops and wait.”
“Weeoof!” The m-dog dashed off while Rigi found a clean page in her current sketchbook, sharpened a pencil, and went to see what Tomás was staring at. Makana followed at a healthy distance, keeping watch for animals.
“A male, I believe.” Rigi crouched so she could see what Tomás had found. Indeed, it was another carved head-and-shoulders Staré, probably male given his shoulder to neck ratio, and wearing some kind of a pendant on a thing or chain around his neck. It looked as if he might have been wearing a vest as well, but the lichens on the stone covered the details. Rigi sketched quickly, fixing the image in her memory, then she and Tomás trailed up to the waiting Martinus. Once they got there, the m-dog set off again to where Kor crouched, inspecting more wall. “Another male?”
“Hmm.” Tomás found a light in his utility bag and shone it at an angle, trying to bring out the
details as he held the grass out of the way. Rigi frowned, then said, “I can’t tell without scraping away the moss and lichen. We’d do better to take a digital image and a topo-scan and reconstruct the surface that way.”
“You can carry all that equipment up here, my dear,” Tomás generously offered. “I’ll wait in the run-about with the beer and sandwiches.” Rigi stuck her tongue out at him even as her hands moved. When she finished her drawing, Tomás and Makana both peered over her shoulders. “Another necklace.”
Strong //puzzlement// underlain with something Rigi didn’t recognize made her twist her head around to look at Makana. He kept his thoughts to himself, so she shrugged and initialed the sketch after making notes about the colors.
Kor and Martinus both waited for them at the next location, again three hops from the previous carving. “Male and female,” Tomás said as he lifted away more of the weeping grass. “A couple?”
“No.” Kor sounded strained. Rigi wanted to wrinkle her nose at the //distress/wonder/puzzlement// in the air, but made herself stay composed and concentrate on drawing. “They share blood and birth.”
Siblings? No, Rigi realized, the pair were twins. She went down on one knee, nose almost to the stone, smelling the herbs and wet soil and something almost musty or decaying. The two figures wore necklaces, but where one had beads, the other seemed plain. Both had identically-shaped pendants, flat circles with a hole in the center. “It is said, before the end of the First World, that double births happened more often.” Kor seemed to gather himself and he jumped up, over Rigi and onto the edge of the wall. “Take care, the ground inside is lower and appears uneven.”
“How wide is the wall, sir?” Tomás moved a little so she would have better light.
“A meter, perhaps more. Thicker than downslope. There is something, something…” He sounded frustrated, although Rigi couldn’t smell it. Was it an almost-memory? She nudged the distraction to the side of her mind and focused on finishing the sketch so Tomás could let go of the grass.
Woman's Work: Shikari Book Four Page 13