The Windsingers

by Megan Lindholm

  He would be in Bitters by now. Ki wondered if he had found a team yet, and what kind of bargain he would wrangle. That he would get a team she doubted not at all. He had a tongue that could persuade a Dene to eat meat. If his wheedling could not win them over, he would resort to using his personal trinkets as collateral. If that did not work... Ki shut the thought out of her mind. Vandien took care of himself. He wove his life in and out of hers in a random pattern. He did not fear commitment; he simply saw no need for it. He was an impulsive, reckless, and totally loyal friend, and she refused to sigh over him. He'd be back soon enough, dragging disorder and self-indulgence through her tidy life. It was all so much simpler when he wasn't around. The worst part of it was that he was becoming a habit with her. Damn.

  She crawled out of the cuddy, sliding the door closed behind her. Settling on the wagon seat, she picked up the reins. A kick freed the wheel brake and a shake of the reins roused the team. Dusk was settling, bringing with it a small coolness. The moon had begun to claim the sky when she rolled out of the city gates, past guards singularly disinterested in her cargo. Tonight she would sleep on green grass beside her wagon, and let the team graze free. She was weary of shutting herself tight within the stuffy cuddy and listening to her beasts stomp and shuffle all night. It was good to be working again.

  THREE

  The mart at Bitters was little different from that in Dyal. Except for the stink of fish. Vandien had not thought that shipments of fresh fish would stay edible over the two-day haul from False Harbor, yet folk here were buying them, and smiling at the fishmonger as he wrapped his noisome wares in sacking for them. Vandien leaned forward past a customer to prod a silver fish with a firm finger. The indentation of his touch remained. Vandien gave the fishmonger a different sort of smile, and edged away from his booth, wiping his finger on his breeches.The aroma of fresh breads wafted past him. He swallowed as he pushed his way past the booth where an expressionless Dene was listlessly hawking breads and pastries. Dark brown high-topped loaves vied with the shining flat cakes of greenish hue that the T'cheria favored. Vandien's hand went to the fat pouch at his belt. The thin leather disguised the small stones that kept company with two small coins. A carter had given him a ride from Dyal to Bitters, feeding him and giving him the coins in exchange for Vandien's assistance in unloading the bundled raw hides. The coins were not much, but were a generous payment for the small amount of work Vandien had actually done. He suspected she had paid him more for the stories he had spun on the long drive than for any real labor.

  He strode resolutely past the bread stall. He was hungry, but that could wait. He had business to conduct. He hurried past the farmers' section, past the chickens and piglets and chattering glibs, on past T'cherian stalls festooned with strands and streamers of slickly shining greens. A glowering Brurjan presided over a hot meat stall, with a private chamber in back for devouring the kill. The dying squeal of a glib, cut short, told Vandien that a meal was in progress. To a Brurjan, 'hot meat' steamed with body heat.

  He slowed as he passed the crafters' stalls. Beads and boots, armor and amorous potions all vied for his attention. A T'cherian merchant was politely curious about this Human browser who looked but did not buy. Vandien smiled at him, and pointed to a pale yellow crystal. 'Two tallies,' the merchant lisped in Common. Vandien touched his purse and gave a shrug of resignation. But the smile did not leave his face as he strode away. Now he sought the hiring end of the market. He didn't pause to look at any other stalls.

  Only three teams were awaiting hire. A scarred Brurjan stood at the heads of two monstrous horses. Their restive hooves were scarlet. Their harness was heavy with studs and spikes. Manes were clipped and tails bobbed short. No farming horses these, but coursers, trained to pull a hunter's chariot over the brushy river plains. Those horses would follow the cries of the questing hounds with no guidance from the driver. Vandien veered to avoid the hooves that helped strike down prey for their masters.

  A dozing Human sat in the shade of his big plowhorse. Vandien gave this beast only one look before discarding him. Huge he was, but his age showed in his greying muzzle and threadbare tail. There was no gloss to his coat, and one fetlock was swollen.

  Two mules in harness were next in the lineup. A young Human boy stood at their heads. He had oiled their hooves and braided their manes as if for a festival. The gawky creatures tossed their heads, flirting their long ears at every shout in the market. Vandien looked down into the scrubbed face looking up into his so eagerly. 'I'm sorry, lad,' he said regretfully. 'They just aren't big enough for what I must do.'

  'They'll pull their hearts out for me,' the boy countered. His eyes pleaded with Vandien.

  'I'm sure they would,' Vandien replied gravely. 'Perhaps another time, boy. They're a fine-looking team.'

  And that was all. He had come to the end of the teams for hire. Vandien strolled on a bit farther, considering his dilemma. He must get his team here, and drive it into False Harbor as his own, born and trained. So much depended upon first impressions. False Harbor would be expecting a teamster of skill and determination. He could not let them see him as a trickster, come to live off their hospitality and make a mockery of their customs. Ki had said that the task would border on the impossible. Let them doubt him, and he would be certain to fail. Vandien did not intend to fail.

  But there was another team. The last team was stretched flat on the street, their flat feet burrowed under the sun-warmed dust. Their tails were coiled on their rumps like fat grey snakes getting ready to strike. Small eyes were closed above piggy snouts. Gouts of dust rose with their rhythmic breathing. There were four of them, their thick hairless hides mottled from grey to black. Each was as long as a horse, but there the resemblance ended. 'Are you pigs, or lizards?' Vandien asked the beasts. They ignored him. Their legs were squat but thick with muscle. The four harnesses fanned out from a single large ring set over a peg hammered into the ground. Vandien glanced about for their owner, only to discover him right beside the team.

  The T'cherian had decided to follow his team's example. He was mostly withdrawn into his carapace. Some passing cart had coated him thickly with the fine deep dust of the street. But for his drooping eye stalks he resembled a rock. Vandien cleared his throat and the eye stalks began to stir. Perhaps the team was not exactly what he had sought, but the owner was perfect.

  The T'cherian's dark red eyes regarded Vandien solemnly for a moment. Then, in deference to Human customs, he raised his body on his jointed legs until his 'face' was on a level with Vandien's. Carefully he lowered his eye stalks until his visual orbs were on nearly the same level as his mandibles. Vandien dipped his head to the T'cherian gravely, already impressed with his manners. He knew of no other race in the world who went to such lengths to put others at ease. Shrewd bargainers they were, and as callous in business as a Brurjan, but all their inflexibility was gloved with velvet courtesy.

  'I wish to hire a team to pull a heavy load,' were Vandien's opening words.

  'My team will do so. Humans seldom use skeel. You may judge them poor beasts to look at, accustomed as you are to your long-legged horses. No doubt you find my skeel ugly beasts.' The T'cherian paused in his lisping, clicking sales pitch to allow Vandien to disagree. Vandien knew that many Humans were reluctant to do business with T'cheria, claiming that their strong accents made their Common barely intelligible. But Vandien had developed an ear for the way they turned and sharpened the consonants of Common, and found dealing with them no task. Now he strove to match the creature in courtesy.

  'I would not propose to judge a beast by its appearance. If you tell me they can pull, I am sure that they can, however foreign they may be to me. May I ask if they drive in the same manner as horses, or is a special skill involved?'

  'A special skill to driving such as these? You honor and flatter a poor farmer like myself. No, they are the mildest creatures, so easy to control that one of your egglings would find it as play. With a driver behind them with m
y turns of experience, you will find that there is little we cannot do. Even the heaviest of loads will yield to our tenacity. Would you have a field freed of rocks? Pull logs down from a hillside? They are equal to the task. And no thrifty person could hope for a better team. Having fed three days ago, they will not hunger for two more spans of days.'

  Vandien worked the math swiftly in his head. The beasts went for nineteen days between feedings, a particularly useful trait in his situation. Delicately, he broached the touchy part of his bargaining.

  'I doubt not that your years of experience make your team the fine one that they are. But for the task I face, I would be the driver, and must be assured that they would obey a stranger. For ten days you must trust them to my care. Would you agree to such a bargain?'

  The T'cherian's eye stalks moved slowly from side to side in a learned pantomime of the Human gesture for 'no.'

  'I regret that I must refuse. My team are my children to me, and the sole means of my livelihood in these days of dry weather and Windsinger animosity. I dare not entrust them to a stranger, no matter how sincere of countenance and noble of carapace. Yet happy would I be to join you in any task you might propose. You, too, would be gladdened to see how the difficulty of any labor would be dissipated by my experienced handling of the team. Beasts always pull better for the master they know and trust. Cannot we still find a bargain here?'

  Vandien heaved a tremendous sigh. He let his hands rise to shoulder height, and then fall away in a mimicry of a T'cherian's drooping eye stalks when saddened. 'I must respect your reservations. My respect honors the one who feels the responsibilities ownership puts upon one. I understand the concern of the wise master for his beasts. Sure I am that no coin could dissuade you from your views. For no amount of coin would you entrust these worthy creatures to a stranger.'

  'No coin could buy my honor,' the T'cherian repeated. He and Vandien both knew that the stage was being set for the bargain. The T'cherian waited.

  'Nor would I demean your sensibilities by even offering such coins to you. What do you know of me? How can I gain the trust and thus the service I seek from you? These questions I have asked myself as we have stood here, in this unpleasantly noisy place, seeking to make a bargain like civilized folk in the midst of this most uncivilized din, in this whorl of disruptive movement and unharmonized noises. In this blatting of beasts, this heat, this caking of dust upon our countenances, in these body smells of those who pass disrespectfully close to us, how can I prove myself to you? How can I show you that I, though a Human and not endowed with those superior sensitivities that are the racial treasure of the T'cheria, am not totally without sensitivities myself?'

  As Vandien slowly catalogued the discomforts that he knew annoyed the T'cherian to a far greater degree than he could imagine, he could almost see the creature shrinking back within its carapace. He shared the T'cherian preferences for coolness, dim lights, and muted sound. But in a town dominated by Human and Brurjan populations, this T'cherian must brave all discomfort to earn his algae for the day. That discomfort would turn this bargain for Vandien.

  'For no coin?' the T'cherian mumbled. A T'cherian mumble consisted of aspirating the words, with almost no vocalization. But Vandien picked them out. It was the perfect opening.

  A brown sash belted Vandien's short tunic and supported his purse. Vandien's hand went to it now, but he did not touch the purse itself. What he sought could not be bumped about with coins. He carefully spread the rolled cloth of the sash, until a small object wrapped in a soft grey cloth dropped into his waiting hand. The T'cherian had followed his every move. At first, his eye stalks had lengthened and begun to track Vandien's hand, until he recalled himself to Human courtesy and retracted them. But Vandien was sure of his interest, and played his moment for maximum suspense.

  Carefully he readjusted the sash that had cradled the fragile object. That done, he allowed himself a moment to straighten his tunic, and to wipe each hand in turn down his breeches. Only then did he begin to unfold the soft thin grey cloth. Slowly he unwound the wrapping, using both hands to remove the cloth as if fearful the object within would be lost. Vandien's fingers gave the cloth a final twitch. The T'cherian gave a sudden rattle of its mandibles. Neither spoke.

  Revealed on Vandien's palm was an orange crystal, about the same length and diameter as his ring finger. With gentle fingers he held it to the light, as if the delicate thing would crumble at a touch. Held to the sun, the light touched the individual facets that made up the many crystals joined into one structure.

  Vandien made a show of lifting the crystal to his nose and sniffing it delicately. To his nostrils, it gave off almost no odor. The T'cherian remained desperately silent. His agitation was betrayed by a bare tremble in the fingerlike pincers of his primary limbs. The clatter of the market went on, but Vandien let the T'cherian listen to the silence that had fallen between them. When he finally spoke, he whispered.

  'For no coin.'

  'What do you propose?' the T'cherian hissed. 'It is a very small crystal,' he added hesitantly.

  But Vandien was not to be fooled by the size of his ware. 'Yes. It is. And of the deepest color. A crystal such as this would be an ornament to the richest of queens, small enough to be carried about with one, to be enjoyed whenever the turmoil of this workaday world threatened the inner peace so vital to any civilized creature. I have been in the home caves of wealthy T'cheria, who graced their walls with crystals, and hung them in ranks from their food grids, but seldom have I seen a crystal to match this one for color or bouquet. Long have I treasured its comforts upon the open road. To see its blinking light, to draw in its sweet odor of drowsy peace; these have solaced me in many trials. By this sign, I show you that I am a civilized creature, just as you are yourself. I am to be trusted, even when I come to rent your team away from you, and am forced by commercial convention to offer despised coin to you.'

  Vandien's brown eyes met the T'cherian's stalked ones, radiating open sincerity. He casually began to wind the grey wrapping around the crystal again. The tremor of one T'cherian eye stalk betrayed him. He followed every shifting of the crystal. His mandibles rattled briefly before he recalled himself to Common.

  'Your sign impresses me, Human. Never before have I seen one of your kind with a sopor crystal, other than as a trade item. My name is [a hissing rattle here], called by your kind Web Shell, for my carapace markings.'

  'I am Vandien.' Together they bowed gravely at this formal introduction that marked the true beginning of all T'cherian bargaining. What had gone before was but a prelude, an arranging of forces. 'Then, Web Shell, you find out today that not all Humans are barbarians. Some of us treasure peace as dearly as yourselves.'

  'What is the job you would hire my team to do?'

  'A small bit of work in False Harbor.'

  'A rough town that is, with little to recommend it. No T'cheria reside there; and I have heard evil things of the Humans that make it their home. What surety will I have of the safety of my team? How can you guarantee that they will not be stolen, or poisoned, or maimed for sport?'

  Vandien slowly waved the hand holding the crystal before his face, the Human equivalent of a T'cherian showing distress at the mere thought of something. 'May the Moon forbid such evil deeds!' Vandien's hand went to his belt pouch. The T'cherian still tracked every motion of the hand that held the crystal. Vandien patted his purse so that the two small coins chinked together. 'You present me with a dilemma. You seem to say that you would hire me your team, if you could be sure of their safety. Have I understood you, or has the limitations of this poor Common corrupted the thoughts you seek to convey?'

  'Let us take that as a premise,' the T'cherian hedged. 'If I were willing to hire out to you these precious skeel, more companions to me than work animals, what could you offer me as a bond for their well-being while in your care?'

  Vandien again jingled the pouch. 'What, indeed? Coin will pay you when I return, but that is not what is needed now. A cr
asser man than I might offer you coin now, not understanding that a show of money is not always a show of good faith. But I perceive that what is needed is not mere monetary security, but a personal commitment. A hostage, if you will.' Vandien paused and turned his eyes up to the sky. He posed silently. Then, with seeming reluctance, he slipped the crystal back into his sash. The mandibles of the T'cherian rattled lightly at this, but Vandien appeared not to notice. With tightly folded lips and a resigned expression, he unscrewed a ring from his left hand. It came free slowly, revealing a band of whitened skin. With a great sigh, he held it out for the T'cherian's inspection.

  The eye stalks bent to it briefly. It was an exceptionally plain ring. The single black stone did not sparkle, though the facets of the square cut gleamed dully. The band was of plain-silver. Vandien hefted its heaviness.

  'There is this,' he said slowly. 'Long has it been since it left my hand. But if you would have a token of my good intentions, I offer you this. From my mother's father's grandmother, it was passed to me.' He paused again and took a deep breath to clear the huskiness from his voice. 'Little enough is left to me to remind me of the heights from which my line has fallen. But this I retain, a reminder to myself of all we once were, and all I hope to be again. Never would I forsake it! Never! If I were to leave your team to you in good health, or die trying!'

  Vandien's fist closed convulsively over the ring. For in instant every muscle and tendon in his arm and hand stood out against his skin. He blinked his eyes rapidly. Then, gravely, he extended his hand, palm up, to Web Shell. The hand that held the ring trembled.

  'Return your ring to your hand,' the T'cherian said solemnly. 'Although we put no metal ornaments upon our shells, we understand the high regard you Humans have for them. This one means too much for you to part with it as a token in a marketplace.'