by Karen Lord
Taran showed his face once to Bini during the interview; after that he covered himself entirely, robes, gloves, boots, and veiled headdress with only his eyes glinting beyond a rectangle of mesh. He looked like a desert prince travelling incognito. He offered no explanation for his sudden change in garb. As a human, Bini would come up with his own speculations??hen again, as Bini he would probably not care.
I myself have wondered why Taran did not simply change his shadow to blend into his environment. I suspect—and this is subject to correction—that such large-scale changes to one's own shadow were performed infrequently. It may be that the act of shadowcrafting not only requires great effort, but also creates a ripple that can be sensed by like beings. For all his pride, Taran was not above using stealth in order to gain the advantage. Or maybe it was indeed pride that made him cover himself so that he would not be soiled by human touch, not even by their eyes resting on his features. I do not know.
The underlings hired by Bini did speculate. He overheard one declaring that he was probably hiding ghastly scars from a severe burning, and another guessing that the mark of pestilence was what caused him to hide his skin. The most inventive hypothesis thus far was that he was terribly sensitive to heat and light due to albinism, which would also explain the strange purplish hue of his eyes that could be detected even through the mesh.
Taran had not forgotten his plan. He ensured that his clothes were tailored to fit him well so that all could see that his shadow was healthy, excellently proportioned, and lacking in deformation of any kind. He correctly assumed that his wealth would provide sufficient attraction to counter the unseen but imagined flaws. Beautiful women like Neila are not interested in competitors. Without a doubt she would prefer a man with the means to display her beauty to its best advantage over a man whose beauty rivalled hers.
When all was made ready and his staff and stores fully equipped, Taran made one more request of Bini. Before their departure, he wished to hire a poet. This was in keeping with the strange scruples of his fallen state. Like all his kind, he was incapable of lying, but he had too much pride remaining to twist truth in the manner of tricksters. Hiring a man to lie for him was the perfect compromise. Besides, for poets it wasn't lying, it was art.
* * * *
Back in Makendha, Paama was adjusting to the fact that little Giana was not what she seemed. She saw her often, at least once a day, when fetching water or tending to the animals or washing clothes. Otherwise they met in the kitchen, but there they had to be careful of Neila and Tasi stumbling in on a strange conversation filled with strange words. In spite of that, it seemed to be Giana's favourite place??r perhaps she was merely enjoying the sweet tooth of childhood amid Paama's pastries and sweets.
'Why should it come to me?’ had been Paama's first real question, the question that signalled her acceptance that this was not a dream or a joke. ‘This is a powerful thing, the way you describe it. Why should any human being have such power?'
'I do not know,’ Giana replied softly, as if ashamed to admit it. ‘I only know that I was told to give it to you, and that once you had it, you began to use it as if it were a lost part of yourself. There may be a reason, but it is beyond my knowledge.'
Paama looked at her, itching to ask more questions, but these were the ones she dared not have answered, so she wisely did not ask them.
'What am I supposed to do with it?’ she asked instead.
'For now? Learn it, understand it so that it becomes more than instinct. A stranger is coming to Makendha, Paama. He is nearby, making his preparations. I have already seen his spies. You must be strong against him, for he wants to take back the power that was once his.'
'Then why did you waste time teaching me to spin five hundred different configurations of sugar spirals?’ Paama scolded her, alarmed at this news. ‘You should have been showing me how to fight him!'
'Set your mind at ease, Paama. It is not power that you should be concerned about. Power you already have. I have been teaching you control. Plus, they were delicious. Now I have told you all that I can, all that you need to know. Remember it well, because I cannot stay with you any longer.'
'Where are you going?’ asked Paama, forgetting for a moment and wondering why she had not heard of Giana's family leaving Makendha.
'Giana must come back. It has been almost seven days, and that is the limit for a child. I mustn't abuse her generosity.'
'Where is Giana?’ Paama asked, this time with an edge of apprehensiveness in her voice.
'Come and see.'
Paama walked with the djombi into the pasture and saw the faint, sleeping shape of another Giana. It was the final feather to tip the balance of her teetering belief-disbelief. She felt the ground falling out from under her feet.
'You cannot leave me by myself! Will I never see you again?'
'You may see me, or not, but I will definitely see you. Don't be afraid, Paama. But be cautious. Trust your instincts. Now, let me speak to Giana alone.'
Paama turned away, shivering under the high, hot sun. She stood looking back at the village and was very startled when a small hand tugged at her belt.
'I'm ready to go back now,’ said that familiar voice, but a subtle difference told Paama who it was who now lived beneath the child's skin.
Paama looked beyond Giana, but the pasture was empty. She extended cold fingers and took the child's hand. They walked slowly back to Makendha in a silence mildly tinged with the sorrow of loss.
Both the gift of the Stick and the djombi's words meant something quite significant to Paama. Even before Ansige had arrived, she had wondered to herself how much longer she should stay with her parents. Now she felt she had even more reason to try to order her life—a life outside of Makendha. She wanted to travel. A good cook could find work anywhere, in a household, on a ship, in a guest house. She had long desired to see the world, but Ansige's strong dislike of travel and utter dependence on her had thwarted that dream soon after their marriage.
She made preparations. She began to compile her recipes, printing them carefully in hardcover books and then putting the books into an old biscuit tin where they would be sealed away and protected from damp and vermin. She took up her savings, money earned from her share of the family's lands and livestock. She did this swiftly and quietly, because she did not wish to discuss with her family what she could not fully explain. Part of her still refused to believe in the mysterious stranger, but if there were such a person, all the better that she should leave Makendha to keep her family safe.
Then she began to tell her family by degrees.
'I think I need a small vacation, a change of scenery. You can spare me for a few weeks, can't you Maa?'
And later, more seriously, to her father:
'I can't stay here forever, you know. Our lands were never intended to support so many husbandless daughters. Let me go up to the House of the Sisters and see what work they may have for me.'
Semwe listened to the words and what he thought was behind them, and reluctantly gave his approval. He thought that she was seeking a sense of worth after her failed, childless marriage, desiring a status that could not be found as an adult under her parents’ roof.
'But a few weeks only, as you hinted to your mother,’ he said, raising a finger in caution. ‘Then you must come back, and we will talk again.'
Paama agreed.
She said nothing at all to her sister, which, in retrospect, may have been a mistake.
* * * *
Taran arrived, ironically, with exactly the entrance Ansige had hoped to have. He rode a fine horse at the head of a small procession of servants and pack animals. On arrival, he sent his majordomo ahead to the chief to present a gift and his compliments, and to convey his formal request to pitch camp in the fields near Makendha. This was a common practice for nomad merchant princes, so the chief happily accepted the generous gift and sent back one of his own servants to guide Taran to Makendha's pastures and woods.
The entire train wound through the streets of Makendha. People stared and muttered, and behind his veil Taran stared back, eyes glittering coldly. He was looking for a familiar face, and listening for a familiar voice.
But nothing has as fine a sense of drama and comedy as chaos. Thus it was that Paama, leading a single mule for a pack animal and carrying the Stick at her belt, left by the back roads which went up towards the hills and completely missed Taran's arrival into Makendha.
* * * *
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10
paama among the sisters,
and alton the poet finds his muse
* * * *
Many times has the tale been told of the composer Lewis and how, fasting, he spent a full day and a night creating his famous chorus Entry into the Courts of Heaven, a chorus which would become the axis, the centrepiece of the latter portion of his symphonic diptych Redemption. After completing it, he was moved to tears and declared that it needed no revision, for he had but recorded the music exactly as he had heard it when, transported from his study, he had stood in those very courts with angels thronging to the left and right of him.
Less embraced by oral history is the equally interesting tale of Jacob's Ladder, the centrepiece of the first half of Redemption, which, though almost as renowned and adored as Courts of Heaven, caused him many pangs of labour to deliver live and not stillborn. Inspiration had been in such short supply that he had been constrained to cobble together pieces from his musical ragbag, that collection of orphaned snippets of likely pieces whose greater works had either suffered from drought or block at a critical point, or which, though performanceworthy, had been deemed unfashionable by patrons and were thus abandoned as unprofitable. To the trained ear it was evident—new lyrics sat oddly on musical trills that had been tailored to fit other, more secular words—and yet the public loved it and found in it something near to that other, effortless God gift.
Paama knew of both tales and often consoled herself that since very few people could tell the difference between gross human toil and sublime heavenly message, there might be an element of the heavenly in the former, and of the human in the latter. She had never realised that others thought the same way until she saw the legend on the arch of the gate to the House of the Sisters:
Work is Prayer.
She rang the gate's bell and waited.
A woman shuffled down the dusty path, her head bound in a simple cotton wrap, her feet in mended canvas shoes. She was familiar to Paama, but it was not until she was much closer to the gate that her old eyes brightened in recognition at the sight of her visitor.
'Paama, come in, come in and welcome! How good to see you.’ She fumbled back the gate's iron latch and opened the way for Paama and her mule to enter.
'Aunty Jani,’ Paama said, embracing her warmly, cheek to aged cheek.
It was the wrong form of address, of course, but Sister Jani had known Paama from her youngest days and had been an aunty for longer than she had been a sister.
'Will you take in a kitchen helper for a few weeks?'
Sister Jani laughed. ‘Kitchen helper—you? Please, take over with my blessing. But you did not come all the way up here just to cook for us, did you?'
With that mild encouragement, Paama suddenly found herself pouring out the story of her bizarre life, starting with when Ansige came to Makendha to fetch her back home. She talked for so long that the mule grew bored and started to chew at her sleeve, and still she was only to the point where Ansige tumbled into the well. Sister Jani pulled the mule away, and they laughed together for a moment.
'Let us give this one something more nourishing to chew on and take your bags into the House,’ suggested Sister Jani.
Within an hour or so, Paama was sitting on a mat before a low table set with simple but delicious refreshments: fruit, soft cheese, semisweet cakes laden with nuts, and the drink the House had made famous—lime juice with just the right proportions of mint and ginger. She managed to eat and continue her tale. When she reached the part about the djombi, she hesitated and then went on cautiously, speaking in vague terms about having received a gift and a warning. Sister Jani gave her a long, close look that had nothing to do with physical nearsightedness, but she said nothing until Paama came to the end.
'I think that you have come to consult with a Reader,’ she said.
Paama kept silent. She had thought nothing of the kind, but suddenly it seemed an excellent idea. The House of the Sisters was renowned for its scholars and wisewomen. The Readers of the House represented one of the special branches of learning of which she knew little, but she had heard of people consulting them for problems that could not be solved by herbwomen or surgeons.
She did not know what to expect and was therefore more than a little startled when Sister Jani led her to a large room where a woman stood at a joiner's worktable assembling what looked like shelving. The woman looked up, wiping her hands free of sawdust on her apron.
'Someone for a Reading, then?’ she said cheerfully, seemingly not bothered about being disturbed midtask.
She untied the apron and tossed it on top of the table. Motioning Paama over to sit on a long bench by the wall, she pulled up a stool and positioned herself in front of her.
'This is Paama, Sister Elen,’ said Sister Jani. ‘Can you help her?'
'We'll see,’ smiled Sister Elen. ‘Tell me your story.'
Paama began slowly at first, but soon the words flowed. Sister Jani withdrew so quietly that Paama did not even realise when she left, but by then Sister Elen seemed so well known to her that there was no self-consciousness in her. She did not trim the facts this time but told the full story while the patient listener opposite sucked it in as if she were a benign vacuum. Then, at last, it was over, and there was a long silence during which the Reader stared at the silk-wrapped Stick fastened to Paama's belt.
'I think,’ she said slowly, ‘that you should consult with our Speaker. Follow me.'
Bemused, Paama let the woman lead her through passages and doorways into a cool storeroom where a sister was diligently labelling and listing the sealed containers on the shelves.
'Sister Deian. This is Paama. I have read her story, but there is more to it than meets the eye. Perhaps you could do a Speaking for us?'
Sister Deian turned from her work and greeted Paama. Paama was dismayed to see that in contrast to the warmth and welcome she had so far encountered, Sister Deian's face was not friendly but tense, as if Paama represented something she would rather not face. For the first time, Paama felt tainted, like one with a contagious disease.
'There will be no Speaking for this one, I fear. Her tale is true, and that is all I can say. More than that is impossible with that thing in her keeping.'
She nodded towards the Stick, and her expression was that of someone determined not to show the fear she was feeling.
'She had better go straight to a Dreamer, perhaps,’ mused Sister Elen. ‘I hope you are willing to spend a little time with us, Paama. Dreaming is not quickly done, and more than one Dream must be examined for a full understanding.'
'Will I be safe here?’ Paama asked, suddenly feeling vulnerable and exposed, like a person who wakes to find she has walked in her sleep into the middle of a battlefield.
'Why, Paama! You're worried about your safety? With that you could protect all of us,’ said Sister Deian.
Paama found that to be even more worrying.
* * * *
A spare pasture near Makendha had been selected for Lord Taran's temporary address, and it now sprouted a tent city with one large palatial tent at the centre and a few satellites sprinkled about its circumference. One of the smaller tents was occupied by the man whom Taran had hired to speak for him all the words that a djombi would never say and could never mean. He was pretending to set his pens and writing desk and other paraphernalia in order, but in reality he was brooding.
Alton the poet was a man setting out on a long journey for the f
irst time. Because he did not look young, people assumed that he had been a long time at his job and must be something of a master. The reality was that premature greying had crowned him with an appearance of greater maturity than was actually the case. He truly was a poet, but a very young one who was only now testing out ways to make money from his art??f art it was. A terribly shy man, he was far too self-deprecating, an unhelpful trait in any person who aims to sell snatches of empty air shaped around vowels and consonants, or worse, bits of white paper irregularly stained with black ink.
When he had been hired by Bini, he had mistaken the majordomo for the master, but when he saw who the master really was, his worries increased. Once, he would have thought himself beyond fortunate to be in the household of a rich merchant prince, but fantasies and dreams worked well enough when unfulfilled. Now he would have to produce work worthy of his exalted position, and the muse in him fled in terror at the thought.
On reaching Makendha, he relaxed slightly. This was the kind of village that a city man like himself rarely took seriously. It was his own fault, perhaps, that he was so lulled and vulnerable when Bini called him into his tent-office to receive his first assignment.
'You are to write a love poem.'
Alton looked at him, expecting more, but Bini's face was poker-bland.
'Just?? love poem? Might I ask for whom? I mean?? don't want to be nosy, but it helps if you can imagine who??ho you're writing to??nd maybe why you're writing to them? Or is this just an arbitrary love poem?’ he stammered.