by Jo Clayton
“What?”
“Maybe we should just go off after Da. Not go in at all.”
“You know what he’d do.” He got to his feet and floundered over beside her. “Running off and leaving Mama to face that Decsel all alone.”
“She wouldn’t be alone, there’s Sanani and the ties and the baby and … well, and the cousins and Uncle Kimor and Aunt Salah.”
“You know what I mean.”
She held up a hand, turned it around in the mote-filled light. “I better change then and wash.” She sniffed, made a face. “You too, twin. You stink like macai-shit.”
“You shouldn’t say that.” He sounded shocked and disapproving.
“Hah, you turning into Nilis?” She eyed the fork rope, shook her head, gritted her teeth and waded back to the ladder. As she swung herself over, she muttered every bad word she’d gathered from her years of night running, listening with and without Teras to the patrons of Jango’s tavern and to the herders around their night fires when they didn’t know she was there. She stormed out of the barn, thinking she wouldn’t wait for Teras, but she stopped anyway and waited.
Teras dropped beside her, spat on his palms, wiped them on his tunic. “You should go for a meie,” he said, then dodged back, laughing as she swung at him. “See?”
“Brothers, hah!”
He started walking backwards a few paces in front of her as she strode for the place in the wall where the mortar had crumbled, leaving cavities that made easy climbing. “I was just teasing, Tuli,” he said, “but I really mean it; I think you’d be a good meie, or maybe a healwoman.” He grinned and pointed as she kicked impatiently at the damp heavy skirt. “You wouldn’t have to wear those long skirts no more.”
She didn’t answer until they reached the wall, then she set her back against it and folded her arms over her small breasts. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “When things get … get too shut in, I think about it. And then I think I’d like kids sometimes. And I know Fayd likes me and we laugh a lot at the same things and he doesn’t mind that I’m no good at housework.”
“Not now, maybe, but in a couple years?” Teras scowled; he never liked it when she talked about things she couldn’t share with him. He didn’t bother with girls and couldn’t see why she should be any different. He snapped his fingers absently, again and again. “So he’s fun now,” he burst out. “But you know what his Da’s like. And Tuli, I thought I saw him at the tilun, Fayd’s Da, I mean.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, whispered, “Oh Teras; why does everything have to change, why can’t it stay like it always has been?”
The assembly hall that occupied the greater part of the House’s ground floor was filled with people. To the right, a clutch of ties in Follower black (silvergilt circled-flame badges pinned to chests male and female), unnaturally quiet children herded behind them, stood in rigid ranks, smug smiles on their faces, knowing glitters in their eyes. To the left, the other tie-families waited together, nervous and uncertain, hushing their children when the noise got too loud, talking quietly among themselves or looking around with a growing apprehension in their faces. As Tuli came slowly down the stairs, she saw the tide of black washed up to her right and wanted to spit on them. Trembling, she reached out. Teras took her hand, held it hard. In the strength and hurting of his fingers, she felt his anger and fear and knew it matched hers. They came down the rest of the stairs together and stopped just behind Annic and Sanani. Annic turned her head when she heard them, nodded unsmiling and turned back to face the armed men separating the two groups of ties. “All my children are here now, Decsel. Unless you want me to have the baby brought, he’s all of four years old. I’m sure he’d find you very impressive.”
Hars stood a little apart from the other ties, his worn sun-dark face blank, his wiry body held very straight. A slight smile touched his face at Annic’s speech. When he saw the twins, the smile widened very briefly, then his face was as blank as before, a mask carved from seasoned hardwood. Teras took a step toward him, but Tuli caught his arm. “Not now,” she whispered. She heard a sound behind her and turned.
Nilis was coming down the stairs, chin high, triumph in her squeezed smile, her shining eyes. (Tuli remembered her mother’s words: all my children are here, and felt a momentary sadness for her mother and even for Nilis who didn’t know what she’d lost.) Her sister’s eyes swept over Tuli as if she were less than a spot on the polished floor. Tuli forgot sadness and started for her.
Teras caught her shoulder and pulled her roughly against him, whispered in her ear, “Not now. Let Mama handle her.”
Tuli leaned against her brother and drew on his calm. She needed it when she saw the Agli move from behind the massive, scarred Decsel, a hard-faced woman beside him, and cross the flags to greet Nilis. She chewed on her lower lip and held onto her temper as she saw the Agli flick a slender white hand at the Decsel.
The big man nodded, then stomped with a martial rattle of his accoutrements across the intervening space to confront Annic. In spite of his military bearing (exaggerated somewhat, perhaps in disgust at his present duty, Tuli thought, then wondered if she was reading her own feelings into that scarred mask), he seemed a little uneasy as if he caught a hint of how ridiculous he looked in his metal and leather, his iron-banded gloves and boots, his sword swinging with the shift of long meaty legs, marching to face down a smallish woman with grey-streaked brown hair and brown-gold eyes that often twinkled with amused appreciation of the world’s absurdities or a comic exasperation when one of her children played the fool. Tuli saw her mother’s cheek twitch, saw blood rush to darken the already dark face of the Decsel and felt a bit sorry for him. She knew only too well that glint in her mother’s eyes, that twitch of the lips that said without words: Don’t you know how foolish you look? Come, laugh at this with me and be sensible next time. Poor man, she thought. After all, he’s just doing his job; at least he’s not enjoying this, not like THEM. She scowled at Nilis, the Agli, the strange woman.
The Decsel cleared his throat, pulled a parchment roll from under his arm.
Annic didn’t wait for him to speak. “You come into this house unasked, Decsel.” Her voice was pleasant but there was a touch of steel in it. Across the Hall Nilis stirred, started to speak, Annic stared her into silence then continued, “On Gradin land you walk by leave of Gradin tarom or Gradin Heir and only by their leave. That is both law and custom. You have the leave of neither. I must ask that you get out of this House and off this land. Or are you Outlaw, Decsel?”
Nilis scowled, started to speak again, but fell silent at the touch of the Agli’s bone-white fingers. Tuli felt Teras laughing under his breath behind her; in spite of her growing apprehension she found herself smiling. Nilis was rapidly working up a major snit; this business wasn’t going the way she obviously thought it would; she wasn’t the center of attention, wasn’t the avenging flame of Soäreh.
The Decsel waited until Annic stopped speaking then he opened out the parchment roll. “Torma, this warrant of arrest and seizure arrived an hour ago, bird-flown from Oras, sealed with the seal of the Doamna-regent. In it the Agli Urith is appointed conservator of the Gradin holdings until the Gradin Heir is of an age to hold the Tar.” He spoke in a monotone, gabbling the words as if he wanted this over soon as possible. “Tesc Gradin uran-tarom is proscribed rebel and traitor. He will be arrested and tried as soon as he reaches Oras for conspiracy to deprive Floarin Doamna-regent of her just tithe by secret concealment and open conspiracy.”
Tuli held her face as still as she could; she knew her hands shook, she felt her twin’s hands close hard on her shoulders, but she wouldn’t let Nilis or any of those others see how afraid she was. We have to warn Da, she thought. I was right before, we should’ve took off already after him. She looked up when she heard the Decsel clear his throat.
“There’s more, torma.” He looked down at the scroll and read in a dull voice. “‘Because the Maiden cult has fostered treachery and rebelli
on and an immoral, unregulated populace, we, Floarin Doamna-regent of the mijloc and Oras—” there was a growing disturbance among the loyal ties that the Decsel ignored, leaving their quieting to his men—“who must always cherish the well-being of the people of the mijloc, do hereby declare the cult of the so-called Maiden Outlaw an Anathema. All artifacts of that cult are to be purged from the homes of the people, the shrines in the towns and villages are to be closed and dismantled, the shrine-keepers are to be reeducated in the nearest House of Repentance. To facilitate the redemption of the populace, Houses of Repentance will be established in each of the larger towns of the Plain. Be these edicts announced to the recalcitrant and posted in the public squares of all towns. I say it who am Floarin Doamna regent of Oras and the Plains.’”
Annic held up a hand, quieting the ties on her left (to her right the Follower-ties were smirking or piously raising their eyes to the ceiling.) “I have heard you, Decsel.” She stressed the heard. With a brisk flourish he handed her the parchment.
She read the scroll, her hands quite steady, her face calm. She read slowly, deliberately, ignoring the Agli’s growing impatience, and Nilis’s nervous dance from foot to foot. When at last she finished she rolled it back into a tight cylinder, held it at arm’s length and dropped it with quiet contempt to rattle and roll on the stone flags. Still ignoring the Agli, she walked briskly across to Nilis (one heel coming down on the end of the parchment roll). She stopped in front of Nilis, eyed her for a moment until Nilis looked down, unable to endure the accusation in her mother’s gaze. With a soft expulsion of air, not even a sigh, she slapped Nilis hard across the face, hard enough to send her stumbling against the Agli, the loud splat of hand against face lost almost immediately in the explosion of cheers and stamping from the loyal ties. Annic walked with quiet dignity to the stairs. When she’d gone up several steps she turned and stood with one hand resting lightly on the banister. In the sudden silence her quiet voice rang out more clearly and strongly than any shout. “Decsel, do what you must, but I call on you to search your conscience and restrain the excesses of your masters. To you who are still my friends, I say, do what you must to live but never serve with willing hearts or willing hands. For you, I ask the Maiden’s Blessing and pray that you will see better times. To you who have sold yourself body and soul to this abomination, I pray that you get exactly what you wish, no more no less.” She watched them without further words, her light brown eyes filled with contempt, then she turned and continued up the stairs.
For several moments there was only the sound of breathing in the great hall and the scraping of booted feet on the stone flags. The tableau held until they heard a door close above, then the Agli touched Nilis’s arm, led her across the room to the Highseat where Tesc adjudicated disputes and awarded prizes and oversaw the celebrations of the seasonal festivals. Tuli sucked in a shocked breath as Nilis mounted the steps and took her father’s place. Nilis heard, glared at her, then smoothed her face into a smile as she looked up at the Agli who had mounted the steps to stand at her shoulder. He snapped his fingers.
The Decsel bowed his head very slightly as if his neck were stiff, again evidencing distaste for what he was doing. But he would do it, being a man who left moral judgments and strategy to those who gave him his orders, a man who circumscribed his honor in duty well performed. He called one of his Ten, pointed to the scroll on the floor. The guard scooped it up, brought it to his leader, saluted smartly and stepped back to his line. The Decsel popped out the place where Annic’s foot had flattened it and stood tapping it against his thigh. “By order from Oras the entire harvest of this Tar is forfeit to the Doamna-regent.” His voice had the same dull lack of resonance. “Gradin-ties who wish to remain on the land must apply to the Agli Urith or Nilis new-torma Gradin-daughter for food and other necessaries. Who will receive and who must leave will be theirs to judge.” The loyal ties stirred. Tuli heard muttered protests, saw people who’d been her friends glance furtively or openly at the three of them, Sanani, her and Teras. She couldn’t help them; she couldn’t help herself. Though they oppressed her spirit and irritated her mightily at times, the ties were her folk, she was Gradin and bound to them as strongly as they were bound to the land, bound by blood and custom and law, yet she couldn’t stop what she saw happening. Some would leave, she saw it in their faces, knew they’d never bend knee to Nilis or the Agli; some would stay, awhile at least and be miserable with it. A culling, she thought. They’re culling the ties. They’ll keep the weak and send the strong off to starve.
The Decsel was still speaking, she’d missed some of what he’d said, but now she heard, “… return to your houses and cast out everything proscribed, every book or picture or other artifact touching on the Anathema. When this is completed the Agli and the new-torma will inspect your dwellings. Any objects concealed will be burned and that tie responsible will be sent to join the Gradin-born in the House of Repentance where he will learn to recognize error. After the noon meal all objects discarded by the free will of the ties will be burnt before the House for the purification of the House.”
So fast, Tuli thought. How can this be happening so fast?
Her face troubled, Sanani turned to follow Annic up the stairs. She put one hand on the finial of the newel post, then spun around. “No,” she said, her voice shaking with the anger that had been building in her, her shyness momentarily overwhelmed by that anger. “How dare you do this, you … you.…” She jabbed a forefinger at the Agli. “Get out of this House and take your toad with you.” She brought her hand down, wiped it against the front of her blouse as if just pointing at the Agli had soiled it. “And you, Nilis, sister-not-sister, I hope you dream about drinking kinblood; kinslayer, I pray the Maiden sets her Scorpions on you; dream about them crawling over you. You aren’t Gradin. You’re nothing.” She raised her chin, turned her back on Nilis. “Tuli, Teras, come,” she commanded and marched up the stairs, her head high, her back militantly erect. Still holding hands, the twins followed her. In the thick, strained silence behind them they heard Nilis say bitterly, “When was I ever your sister, Soni? When was I ever treated like a Gradin-born?”
CHAPTER IV:
THE QUEST
Where the road twisted in a last switchback high on the side of the mountain Serroi whispered the macai to a halt and swung around to gaze with a valedictory fondness at the Valley, whose gold and green and brown sublimed into the blue of distance. The harvest was coming in well enough, many of the grain fields had only dry stubble left and leaves drifted into heaps in the orchard aisles as apprentices stood on ladders and dropped ripe fruit into canvas sacks. Wind like oven-breath whistled up the slope while overhead the sky was cloudless with a coppery shimmer about the bloated sun as if the air itself had been compressed into a great burning lens that magnified the orb until it seemed three times its usual size. Wisps of hair, sweat-dampened, clung to her temples, collecting and loosing salt droplets down her face, into her eyes, into the corners of her mouth. She brushed impatiently at the trickles, moved her shoulders, uncomfortably aware that she was developing a rash under her arms where the sleeveholes of her tunic rubbed against her skin. She stared up at the sun, remembering all too vividly a small girl sitting and sweating on a pile of blankets in the empty animal pens of her Noris’s hold as the stones of the island itself threatened to melt beneath her while her Noris fought and slew two others of the great Nor.
The macai moaned his displeasure as the wind blew grit and heat into his eyes and nostrils. He bent his limber neck, drawing his head around behind the bulk of his body until he was nuzzling her leg. She patted his shoulder, strained to see the top of the great cliff across the valley. The stone wavered like water behind the heat-haze, but after some minutes she thought she saw him by the cliff edge (he liked to stand a totter away from disaster, it seemed to please something in him), a ragged line like a brief stroke of a writing brush on ill-made paper; she couldn’t even be sure she saw him, the air was too filled w
ith windborn dust and fragments from the partially denuded fields below, too unsteady as heat climbed from the valley floor to that burning lens above. Her eyespot throbbed painfully. She touched it, sighed. Behind her, she heard Dom Hern curse and call her name, heard the impatient scratching of his macai’s claws against the stony rutted road. He sounded snappish already, give him half a chance, he’d start ordering her about. She ignored him and continued to gaze at the cliff and the bit of blackness there. “Watching me still,” she whipsered. “You drove me out of my sanctuary. What now?”
Abruptly she bent, slipped her fingers into her boot top and drew out the silver box. She held it a moment, her fingers closed tight around it, the corners digging into her palm. “Maiden give you rest, my Noris, though I suppose you wouldn’t want such a blessing.” She forced her thumbnail under the tight-fitting lid and shoved it up. The thing inside seemed little more than one of those dull grey pebbles, water-polished to a flattish egg shape, found so plentifully in mountain streams.
Before she could lift it out, she heard the scrabble of macai claws and felt rather than saw Hern looming beside her. “What’s that thing?” There was an arrogant demand in his voice. She knew it was bred in him too deep for simple warnings to eradicate, still it irritated her.
“Tajicho,” she said curtly. “A near impenetrable shield against magic.” She took it from the box, closed her fingers about it as it came awake, taking its power form—a clear crystal with fire at its heart. Light leaked through her fingers, through the flesh itself, turning it redly translucent until, for a moment only, she could see the bone shadows in each finger. “Good-bye, my Noris,” she whispered as that first effulgence faded.
With the tajicho humming gently against her palm, she turned to Hern, intending to explain further the properties of the shield, but he’d already started to swing his macai about, having forgotten the thing in her hand. The tajicho takes care of itself, she thought, turns men’s eyes away. Even if they saw it they soon found urgent reasons for turning away from it, some overriding concern to replace wonder about the glowing stone which they forgot as soon as they looked away.