Moongather

by Clayton, Jo;

  Serroi stared at the road when the guards rode past, knowing that the changed color of her skin was her best disguise, that they weren’t interested in a dusty boy. She began to relax, trusting to her misleading appearance. Then a Nor rode slowly past on a jittery macai.

  Dinafar caught her hand and held it tight when Serroi flinched away from the dark rider. Her warm fingers gave Serroi the steadying she needed. She kept the girl between her and the Nor, watched him with a fear and an old hunger she thought she’d forgotten. This Nor was an ascetic minarka with the olive-tinged gold skin of his race; his russet hair, straight as corn floss, rippled in the wind of his passage; he wore the tight-laced black cloak, the narrow black tunic and loincloth, the Nor’s riding garb. She squeezed her fingers tight around Dinafar’s, watched the Norit ride unheeding past her. As the black figure melted into the crowd ahead, she drew a long breath and exploded it out. She was on foot and invisible. She grinned at Dinafar. “He didn’t even see us.”

  Dinafar pulled her hand loose, giggling. She danced in front of Serroi, began walking backward. “We fooled him. We’ll fool them all.” A man ahead of her growled as the girl bumped into him. Subsiding, she dropped back to walk beside Serroi. “Meie, no, what am I going to call you? We haven’t talked about that.” Her green-brown eyes were suddenly wide and serious.

  Serroi rubbed at her nose. “Right A name. Jern. My next oldest brother, a good enough name. Jern.” She examined Dinafar as they walked along. “Neither of us looks much like mountain stock.” She sighed. “I’m not much good at this kind of thing.” She shook her head. “Trained in all kinds of weapons, trained until I can’t even move naturally any more. I know how to sew a wound and kill a fever, how to tame anything on four legs, and dammit nothing much about putting together a good believable lie.” She chuckled. “When I get back to the Biserica I’ll have to suggest some courses in underhandedness to Yael-mri.” She fell silent, frowning down at the black springy surface moving past under her boots, Dinafar humming and skipping beside her.

  Pilgrims moved around them, peasants and landless farm-workers by the hundreds, cobblers, mountebanks, minstrels, acrobats, tinkers, beggars, children, some scowling Sons of the Flame with clustering Followers—a selection of all the trades and types from all corners of the Mijloc moving noisily along the Highroad. Only the sick or those too old or too weak to stand the journey, or those forced to stay behind as caretakers were left out of the great flood of humanity traveling north. Tiny motes in that flood, Serroi and Dinafar walked safe and unnoticed, Serroi more relaxed, even content, now that she accepted her practical invisibility. She watched Dinafar, relishing the change in her.

  The once sullen, angry girl was blooming. Her eyes shone more green than brown, shone with interest and delight—though sometimes she edged closer to Serroi, brushing against her with tiny touches. Serroi felt these and was gently amused, a little sad, seeing her own need for reassurance reflected in Dinafar. She’s really attractive when she’s happy, Serroi thought.

  Dinafar’s skin was olive, browning to a deep fawn, unprotected in the sun. Her black-brown hair was straight and long; she wore it unconfined with a kind of defiant pleasure. It blew about on the breeze, fine and silky and very thick. Her mouth was wide and mobile, alternating this morning between quivering smiles and broad grins. She wasn’t pretty but had a charm of spirit that gave her an illusion of beauty when she was happy, when her eyes shone, her skin gleamed bright gold, her cheeks turned a delicate pink. She was broad-shouldered and would be heavy bosomed like her mother’s people, but her bones were fine, her wrists and ankles as narrow as Serroi’s though both hands and feet were generously made. Young as she was, she was already a head taller than Serroi and apt to keep growing a while longer. Serroi quieted her uneasiness about where she was taking Dinafar by contemplating these changes, telling herself anything was better for the girl than her soul-destroying existence in the fisher village.

  More Norim and Sleykyn assassins rode past. Though she shivered and felt a tremble in her stomach with each of them, she no longer succumbed to that mindless panic that had driven her into equally mindless flight. The memory of her betrayal darkened the day for her. She brooded until Dinafar slipped a hand into hers. She looked up into anxious green-brown eyes. “Maybe she is still alive, J-Jern.” Dinafar bit her lip when she stumbled over the name.

  “That doesn’t change what I did.” Serroi smiled at Dinafar, lifted her hand and lightly kissed the back of it. Dinafar blushed and trembled. When Serroi felt her withdrawal, she dropped the girl’s hand. “I don’t want to talk of that.”

  The ambling horde thinned around noon. Many of the travelers climbed down from the Highroad to eat and rest on the grassy slopes before continuing their pilgrimage. Serroi and Dinafar kept walking with the rest, the more impatient ones. Chewing on handfuls of dried fruit, sipping from canteens, they kept moving. Far ahead there was a darkening on the horizon like smoke against the sky. Serroi felt excitement begin to build in her. Oras. Another day and she was there, back in the trap. She turned to the girl beside her. “Dina, tired yet?” She scratched at her palms; they were sticky from the fruit. She wiped them down the sides of her vest, forgetting it was red thick cloth not the treated leather of her meian tunic. She looked down at herself and wrinkled her nose with disgust.

  Dinafar giggled, then shook her head. “I’m all right.”

  Serroi heard the splat-scrape of macai feet coming up behind them and moved hastily to the edge of the road. She risked a glance over her shoulder, stumbled and stopped walking as her eyes met the casual glance of a Nor, a tall thin man with blue-black hair braided into fantastic coils, skin the color of syrup over coal, and eyes a brilliant indigo with flecks of azure that caught the light like small sapphires. The eyes grew and grew as she stood frozen, unable to turn away. Then two Sleykynin rode past, the claws of their mounts throwing up bits of the black surface against her, tiny stings that she brushed at absently as she watched the Norit ride past no longer interested in her.

  Her breathing labored, her heart thudding in her throat, Serroi looked back along the Highroad. As far as she could see, until the road was lost in the blue mists of the southern horizon, there were no walkers left on the road, only clumps of riders. Stenda and merchants, Sleykynin and Norim. She looked up. Traxim in groups of five were circling idly over the plain, moving toward the city lost in dark smoke ahead of them. She began walking again, lost in thought.

  Dinafar touched her arm. “Should we stop?” She gestured at the groups of walkers resting on the grass, laughing, sleeping, eating, or simply sitting and talking as they waited for the noon heat to pass. “We’re the only ones still walking.”

  Serroi shook her head. “I’d like to get on as far as we can before nightfall. Unless you’re tired.”

  “No, not really.”

  They moved steadily along the side of the road, keeping on the verge to avoid the trampling feet of the various beasts and the clumsy wheels of the carts. Several more Norim rode past, ignoring them, to Serroi’s vast satisfaction. The road began to fill again as the walkers climbed back up the embankment.

  A boy who couldn’t have been more than four years old raced ahead of his family, scrambling up the grassy slope, agile as a mimkin. At the edge of the blacktop, he teetered a minute, looking back at his people, laughing and waving. Without bothering to check behind him, he skipped onto the roadway.

  Dinafar giggled as he caught his heel and went down on his buttocks, then gasped with horror as a Sleykyn rode past her, eyes half shut, within half a step of trampling the small form frozen on the blacktop.

  Without stopping to think, Serroi dived under the clawed pads of the macai, making him shy wildly. She snatched up the terrified boy and rolled away with him, feeling a slash of blinding pain, then she was tumbling over and over down the steep embankment, her body cushioned by the grass, unable to stop until she jarred against the bottom of the slope.

  Stifling a cry of pa
in, she sat up and set the wailing boy on his feet. She touched her arm. The tips of her fingers came away covered with blood. She twisted her head around. A long straight line cut across the material of her sleeve and a ragged cut bit into her muscle. Blood was oozing from the wound and dripping down her arm. The whip, she thought. That bastard used his whip on me.

  “J-Jern.” Dinafar was stumbling down the embankment. Serroi looked past her to see the boy’s family pouring toward her also. Dinafar fell to her knees beside her. “He used his whip!” The girl’s voice shook with indignation. “His whip!”

  Serroi rubbed her thumb across the blood on her fingertips then wiped her hand on the grass beside her. “Sleykyn. They’re like that.” Dinafar scowled and parted her lips to speak. “Hush, Dina. Later.”

  As the older women fluttered about the whimpering boy, his father stumbled to a stop in front of Serroi, stood gasping and passing a blue and white kerchief repeatedly over his round red face. Serroi ran her eyes quickly over him. A farmer probably, not rich, but prosperous enough to keep his family well-fed and healthy and support besides several hands and maids. Two of his children stood silent behind him, a boy and a girl, obviously in harmony with each other, twins perhaps, both watching Serroi and Dinafar with a cool, assessing intelligence. Serroi pushed her torn sleeve up to cover the bits of skin showing through the cut. “Thanks, lad.” The big man waved a broad hand at the noisy group around the boy. “My youngest. I owe you.”

  Serroi shrugged, touched her hand to his, let it be swallowed up in the huge paw, pulled it away again. “A man has to live with himself, tarom.” She deepened her voice; her disguise was good but this man couldn’t be a fool, not with the smell of prosperity that hovered about him.

  He tucked the kerchief away and grinned amiably at her. “I nomen Tesc Gradin, Tartineh from the west of Cimpia plain. My wife Annie.” He waved a hand at the older woman. “Daughters Nilis and Sanani. Those brats.…” He grinned at the two standing with arms linked. “… Teras and Tuli, twins. The lad you scooped up is Dris. Spoiled brat.” He looked fondly at the boy who was reveling in the attention of his mother and sisters, then turned back to Serroi, examining her with kind, shrewd eyes. “You and your sister are over-young to be on your own. You run away?” Disapproval was strong in his voice. “Leaving your folks to worry?”

  Serroi moved her hand gingerly. The whip-cut was drying, beginning to sting badly. “I nomen Jern, tarom. This my sister Dina.” She looked down at her hands, knowing that she was very bad at lying. Tayyan used to tease her about her compulsive honesty. If she’d thought, she’d have prepared a story. So many things she should have done. She reached up to touch her eye-spot, jerked her hand down again. Dinafar stirred beside her. Serroi reached out and caught her hand, hoping that the girl wouldn’t yield to impulse. “No, tarom,” she said slowly. “Well, not exactly.” She flicked a glance at his frowning face, then looked down again. “Our father died, you see, when we were babies.” She licked her lips, hating this, wanting to say as little as she could. “Our mother married again two years ago.” She looked up again, feeling the strain in her stiff face muscles.

  Tesc nodded his understanding. “And now there’s a new family started with you much in the way.” The big man’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction as he put his own interpretation on her words. “So the two of you ran away.”

  “Yes.” Serroi stared down at the grass, letting the silence grow, startled and amused to see how real this was becoming to the landsman as he built a story for her out of his own imaginings, a story all the more convincing to him since it was his own. I’ve learned a new thing, she thought and was a little sad because she hated having to lie, especially to this kindly man. It eased her conscience, though, when she saw how much he was enjoying his fiction.

  “Stout lad,” Tesc said. “Have you got a place to go? If not, you and your sister are welcome to stay with us and come back with me to my tar.” He looked sternly at Serroi. “You’ll earn your keep, that be sure. But a little hard work never hurt a lad or a lass.” He frowned at his children who had come up behind him and knelt with the twins watching Serroi and Dinafar with avid interest.

  Serroi glanced at Dina who was returning the stares with equal interest. She poked her back to alertness, then answered the tarom. “We thank you, tarom, but our uncle, our mother’s brother, he lives in Oras. A fisherman with a tidy boat and no children.”

  “Well, lad, I wish you luck. You’ll share our supper with us and travel with us next day? I’ll feel better about you that way. Good hot meals and safe sleeping will make the walking easier.” He nodded at the small shunca cropping patiently at nearby grass. The packbeast carried a load that looked bigger than he was. “We have tents and plenty of food.”

  Serroi nodded, hiding her reluctance. “My turn to thank you, tarom.” Dinafar’s hand closed hard on hers; she smiled at the girl, but shook her head, enjoining her to silence.

  Annie clucked her disapproval when Serroi wouldn’t let anyone but Dinafar touch her. Dina washed the wound, tied a clean rag Annic provided around it, then sewed up the bloody sleeve, working with sufficient skill to pacify the woman. When she was finished and Serroi had tried out still shaky legs, the party climbed back to the road and walked companionably along, separating into small groups as they did so. Tesc kept Serroi beside him, his words flowing in a gentle ceaseless stream as he talked about his land and his family. Shy at first, Dinafar began chattering with the twins; to Serroi’s relief, from what she heard of that conversation, Dina was getting them to talk about their part of the Cimpia plain, asking questions and giving them little time to ask questions of her.

  By the time night fell, Serroi was weary and sore, grunting responses almost at random to the tarom’s monologue. Her arm felt tight and hot. She had no appetite but was terribly thirsty. Dinafar left off her chatting and came quietly to her side, helping her unobtrusively down the embankment as the family left the road to camp for the night.

  Serroi forced herself to eat and drink, then stumbled apart with Dinafar. The girl touched her forehead with a rough cool hand. “You’re burning up.” She jumped up, ran to the family fire and brought back a cup of cha. Kneeling beside Serroi, she said, “Drink some of this, then you have to tell me what to do.”

  Serroi took a few sips then pushed the cup away.

  “Meie,” Dinafar whispered, “you said you had medicine.”

  Serroi blinked, then fumbled the tail of her shirt out of her trousers and began running her fingers along the weaponbelt she wore buckled under the loose shirt. After a moment she let her hand fall. Dinafar shook her. She gasped, but the pain did break through the fever haze. She fumbled at the belt and dragged out her small stock of herbs. “Pyrnroot,” she murmured. In the uncertain light from the fire and the first glow of the Gather, she looked through the herbs and took out a twist of parchment. She dropped two pinches of greyish powder into the lukewarm cha, then sat holding the cup a minute while the powder dissolved and released a pungent, sickly odor. She took a breath, let it out, then emptied the cup in several gulps. “Hah, that tastes bad.”

  Dinafar glanced over her shoulder at the family. They were talking and laughing together around the fire. Once, when Dris started over to them, Tesc caught his shirt tail, spanked him lightly, and sat him by his mother, ignoring his outraged protest. “They’re giving us privacy, Jern. If you keep your back to them, you can take off the shirt so I can fix the cut better.”

  Serroi rubbed at her temple, using the hand on her uninjured side. She was beginning to feel a little better as the drug took hold, but her eyes drooped from her need to sleep. She moved around so her back was to the fire and let Dinafar pull off the bloody shirt. When it was finally off, she was sweating profusely, her arm was bleeding again, her lower lip bleeding too where she’d bitten into it as Dinafar eased the sleeve off her wounded arm. Dinafar bullied her into finding her store of antiseptic salve which she spread over the wound before she bandaged it again. S
he dug a clean shirt from Serroi’s pack and handed it to her, then bustled around, spreading the ground sheets and the blankets while Serroi sat regaining her strength, still shaken and sick from her ordeal. After a while, she moved slowly, carefully, to tuck her medicines back into the belt.

  Overhead the wind was rising and lightning beginning to flicker among the rolling clouds. No trees here and that meant no shelter from the storm. Tesc had invited them under his tent but she’d refused as politely as she could and he hadn’t pressed her. She looked enviously at the dark bulk as the first drops came splattering down. Then she worked her feet under her and stumbled across to Dinafar.

  Both ground sheets were spread out with the blankets folded between them, the packs resting at the head where they could be used to keep the top sheet clear of the sleeper’s face. Serroi lowered herself to the grass and began tugging at her boot, but found her hands gently set aside. Dinafar pulled off her boots and helped her get herself tucked in the blankets. Serroi touched her hand. “I’m glad you were stubborn and insisted on coming, Dina.”

  Dinafar smiled and pulled the groundsheet over the pack, tucking it in carefully. Then Serroi heard her footsteps moving around to the other side of the sheet. The girl sat down, pulled off her own boots, then crept under the groundsheet, wriggled about until she had her skirt straight and her body wrapped in her blankets. “Goodnight, meie,” she whispered, then lay still.