Mammoth Book of Steampunk Adventures

by Sean Wallace

  “It’s best to still consider other options at this stage.”

  “Mmm.” I was glad when Gariagdy changed the subject. “There was something else. Apparently, one of the men travelling with the caravan has been talking about strange devices – things that he wants to make and sell to people. Things that could be used as transport for people or goods, for instance.”

  “Sounds Russian to me. Or British.” My father muttered under his breath, as if not wanting those powers to hear him utter their names so foully.

  “Oh, they say he’s not a foreign man.”

  “We don’t want that kind of man here, either. Don’t need his devices, anyway. Treat him politely, send him on his way.”

  I knew some people suspected of involvement with foreign powers were treated far less generously. It was unsettling, to think that such a person might be coming to our village.

  My impending betrothal troubled me more.

  By the time the caravan arrived, fifty strong with camels and donkeys and a few yurts, my father had agreed to let me accompany him. The first night, he stayed for hours with them at the other side of the village, no doubt reuniting with old friends and forging contacts for the next day’s trade. And looking at potential sons-in-law. He liked sleeping outside, so I didn’t hear him return. In the morning, when pre-dawn seeped through the open flap at the top of our yurt, he roused me and Gariagdy to eat breakfast. We sat outside to eat our bread and drink the tea prepared by sleepy Yazjemal, who leaned against Gariagdy’s shoulder with their two-year-old daughter on her lap. I stroked the little girl’s hair and stared across the plains, which stretched from my boots to the horizon, undulating gently. Green and brown and vast, where the wind blew for years. I slitted my eyes as a gust hit us, still cold from the night.

  “Let’s go,” my father said.

  “Have fun,” Yazjemal whispered to me, grinning. “You have to tell me everything you see.”

  “I will.”

  Anxiety knotted in me like rope.

  I wanted to see the men before my parents decided to marry me to one of them – yet I didn’t want to see any of them at all.

  The sun lifted above the horizon, stretching our shadows out in front of us. Among the yurts of our village and the nomads, scattered across the grass on either side of a narrow stream, other people walked in the same direction. I could see the traders ahead, setting out bags and other items I couldn’t identify at a distance. I imagined wheat and tea and far-off trinkets everywhere.

  Maybe, I thought, I’ll meet a man who makes me actually able to imagine myself married. My anxiety got worse.

  I tried not to think of Cheper.

  The traders were set up in a rough oval, with their goods on mats or placed together on the ground, where the grass was already flattened by their footsteps. Their other possessions often lay nearby; their camels and donkeys grazed further across the grass, except for those hobbled for sale. Though the men all gathered so close, the lack of yurts made the market feel open. Alongside the traders I saw Hadjis, in well-worn robes with sparsely covered mats of small wares: needles, glass beads, combs, knives, dates. My father didn’t deal with them, but he nodded respectfully at each pilgrim, whose eyes had looked upon Mecca. I knew the Hadjis wouldn’t make most of their money here, among men. In the village, girls would peek shyly around the curve of their yurts or run straight up to the pilgrims, offering a melon or a piece of bread for the beads or a needle. I smiled faintly, remembering my own childhood purchases. The main business in this market was with the traders, who stood by large sacks of wheat and rice and smaller bags of tea. In one corner there were also slaves, a few scrawny individuals who looked more capable of dying than working.

  My father spoke to several traders, who clasped his arm, and Gariagdy’s, and then nodded their heads at me. As if he had not already spent hours the night before talking to these men, my father spoke at length about things utterly unrelated to the goods Gariagdy held patiently. My attention drifted elsewhere, taking in every sight and sound and smell of the market.

  The wind touched my cheeks, softened by all the other people it had to blow through first. It barely chimed my earrings.

  I couldn’t ignore the men. They appraised me, some directly, some askance – I saw eyes that tallied the silver I wore at my ears and head and neck and wrists, eyes that counted possible children, that noted my looks. Shiny black hair, clear skin, a healthy flush in my cheeks, slender but not worryingly so. My bride price would be high, I saw them think, but my children would be healthy.

  I wanted to hide myself from them.

  Only one looked at me differently, a young man from among the nomads whose father bred horses, and he complimented my father on the skill of my stitching. “I hope you will forgive my curiosity,” he went on, “but I’m sure I recognize some of the patterns on your daughter’s jacket.”

  “I believe your oldest brother’s wife is the cousin of my wife,” my father said. “No doubt she uses similar patterns to the ones my wife has taught my daughter.”

  “And she’s taught her own children the same,” the young man, Biashim, said with a smile.

  I glanced at him, returning the gesture.

  As we moved on, Gariagdy murmured, “There are men who have better means to care for you than Biashim.”

  “Mmm,” I said. I didn’t want to marry Biashim, either.

  My father strode ahead, towards a small, plain yurt sitting away from the market. In front of it, a man dozed with the sun on his face. “We must be careful of this man,” my father said quietly as we caught up. Just as I wondered what he meant, I remembered the report that one man wanted to trade more than the usual items. His yurt looked ordinary enough, as did he.

  “Good morning!” my father called out, waking him.

  Introducing himself, the man, Houran, said that he hailed from the south-west and brought wheat to trade. Not one word of that hinted at foreign inventions.

  “Would you come inside?” he asked. “My wife would enjoy your daughter’s company.”

  “Of course,” my father said, with only a hint of unwillingness in his voice. “You are travelling with your whole family, then?”

  “It’s just me and my wife.” Houran opened the door and gestured for us to step inside. “We were recently wed.”

  How strange, I thought, and from the brief frown on my father’s face, I knew he was wondering the same. A man with his first bride usually shared his parents’ yurt. Yet Houran had travelled a long distance with just his young wife, bearing his grain – which had been grown where? Politeness kept us from prying.

  The woman who sat inside was tucking something into a plain bag, and she smiled warmly, saying, “Would you like some tea?”

  The inside of their yurt was almost as bare of decoration as the bag. Plain, old cloth covered the dirt in some places, letting us sit. No carpet bags hung from the walls, no carpets or felts covered the floor – and barely any jewellery adorned Houran’s wife, Aynabat, who served tea in milk-coloured bowls.

  The men all sat together, talking. As I walked around the stove to where Aynabat had been sitting, I heard Houran mention something about difficult circumstances forcing them to find a new home. I sat on the cloth and Aynabat brought me tea.

  “Dursun,” she said as she sat down beside me. “What a beautiful name.”

  “Your tea is really delicious.” I didn’t know what else to say. How could she not know what “Dursun” meant? She scrutinized me – not as men did, but with a kind of assessment in her eyes, as if measuring the patterns on my clothes, the way I wore my hair, the silver hanging from me. Perhaps Houran would buy some of our jewellery for her, in return for the wheat my father wanted.

  “There are usually very few women in the markets,” she said. “Or is it more typical here?” She spoke with a strange accent, but that matched her unusual features. Her dark hair curled more than most people’s; her brown eyes were lighter, and shaped differently. Her cheeks were s
oft, as if the wind barely touched them.

  “Men usually deal with trade,” I said, “but sometimes women join them. Where are you from?”

  “Very far. Have you ever left this place?”

  “Yes.” What place did she want to keep hidden behind her questions? “My mother’s family are nomadic, and I’ve spent some time living with them. Her brother’s wife was very ill for several years before she died, so I went to help with their children. I used to accompany them out onto the plains with the sheep, and I helped teach my niece how to sew and weave. I taught them all how to sing.” I remembered racing horses, singing at night with the sheep to scare away wolves, watching my little niece work on her first straight line on a huge carpet while the other women of the family ate lunch. I remembered being too young to think of marriage.

  “Twice a year they move to a new area,” I said, “and sometimes they come here, when the market is especially big. Not this time. Here my uncle found a second wife.”

  “And what do you do now?”

  “We live here almost all year. Sometimes when it’s very dry or hot, we go elsewhere.”

  “And you make carpets and felt.”

  “Yes.” I realized that she didn’t – how could she, alone?

  “My husband hopes to trade his wheat for your carpet. He wants our yurt to be more beautiful.”

  I wanted to ask what they intended to do once they sold all their wheat.

  The men stood up and excused themselves, saying they would take their business outside and leave us in peace. The moment the door settled against the frame, Aynabat said, “My husband tells me that in the towns and cities, the women are kept indoors, not allowed to ride horses or sing with the sheep.”

  “Yes. Apparently.” Everything I heard about those places made me grateful for my life on the plains, and until it looked likely that I would marry Tagan, I had often prayed that I wouldn’t be forced to move to a town. I wanted the wind in my hair sometimes, chiming my earrings against my cheek.

  “Then I envy you, living here,” she said.

  “It’s possible I won’t be for much longer. I need to be married soon.”

  “Oh.” For a moment she said nothing, then she took one of my hands. “I hope you find a good man.”

  “Mmm.” Normally I’d agree with such a statement – yes, a good man, to give me healthy children. With no one around except a woman from far away who would soon leave and never return, I couldn’t force myself to be the happy bride-to-be my family wanted.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” I said, and hoped that I didn’t seem rude.

  Aynabat smiled warmly. “Are you good at keeping secrets?”

  “Um . . . I suppose so.”

  “Then let me show you something.”

  She moved quickly. First she opened a wooden box that rested against the wall of the yurt. Then she went to the stove, which still smouldered from heating the tea, and reached in, removing a stick that with a few careful breaths she coaxed back into flame. She carried it to the box and bent over it, lighting something inside. I leant forward, curious, but she said, “Please, wait there.”

  Several minutes passed. I finished my tea and listened to the murmur of the men’s voices outside – and a faint whirring that came from the box.

  Smiling like a proud mother, Aynabat placed a metal horse on the floor. It was as long and high as a pot, with a large rump. It walked across the dirt floor with the very faint sounds of its parts running against one another.

  “Oh,” I said softly.

  “This is a clumsy model,” Aynabat said, though she stroked its neck fondly. “I’m working on something far more delicate. We hope to sell these, in Khiva.”

  “You make these?”

  The foreign devices were small metal animals, made by a woman who equated them with carpets. How could my father and brother be worried? I glanced up at Aynabat’s face, suddenly thinking that her slightly different appearance didn’t mean that she originated in a far-off tribe. I’d never seen a European person before.

  “I do,” she said. “I will be a strange wife, kept indoors but not at carpets.”

  I imagined her bent over the horse, working with tools – I couldn’t picture the tools’ shape, but just as our jewellery needed tools to birth metal and stone into beauty, surely she used some to make her metal into horses and whatever other devices lay in her box. I itched to see inside. But she opened the horse’s rump and blew out the small fire there, and packed it all away. A few minutes later we sat sipping freshly poured tea as the men re-entered, wearing the flush of a good trade.

  “I hope you will come to see me again,” Aynabat said to me as we all parted. “Your company was very enjoyable.”

  I was still too shocked by my realization about her origins to say anything but, “And yours.”

  Outside, away from the yurt and the market, my father asked me about her.

  “We talked about our lives, our futures. Apparently their ultimate destination is Khiva.” I didn’t know whether to mention the horse.

  “Did she say where she came from?” Gariagdy asked. “Because she doesn’t look like she comes from anywhere near here.”

  “She only said ‘very far’.” She only made metal animals – what threat could she pose? Yet I felt uneasy. I remembered my brother reporting that some of the devices would be able to transport people and goods. Had Aynabat kept me from looking in her box because it held some secret part of a larger creation? The boxes in their yurt hadn’t been numerous enough to hold something so huge, but perhaps she planned to make something besides animals in Khiva.

  “Wherever she’s from, I think now she just wants to live happily here,” I said. The lie worried at me, like a loose thread.

  “Mmm.” Gariagdy and my father looked unconvinced, but said nothing more on the matter.

  In our yurt, I told Yazjemal about the market and everything in it, and that I spoke to a strange, far-off woman about families and food and our lives. My nervousness about keeping Aynabat’s secret lingered.

  When Yazjemal asked if I’d liked any of the men I saw, I sighed and looked away, remembering Aynabat’s smile.

  “Begench hasn’t come back for the boys’ lunch,” my mother said, loud enough for everyone in the yurt to hear. “Who will ride out to check on them?”

  “Me!”

  Across the yurt, where he sat eating with my father, Gariagdy frowned.

  “Dursun will go,” my mother said, silencing him with one of her looks. To me she added, “Finish your own food first.”

  I gulped down my lunch, took the bundle of bread and dry meat and melon from my mother, and stepped outside into sunlight that seared my yurt-accustomed eyes.

  Melekush nuzzled my shoulder and I saddled her in carpets and my seat. For a moment, I leaned into her flank and imagined nothing more complicated than riding her, checking on my little brothers, drinking some of the tea they would be brewing.

  I led her to the edge of the village. Just as I was about to climb onto her back, I saw Biashim – and he saw me and approached, smiling. “Dursun! I hope you and your family continue to be well.” His fingers tangled. Did he know that? I very rarely spoke to unrelated men, but I didn’t think they were meant to be nervous.

  He kept a suitable distance from me, and I saw two women sitting by the nearest yurt turn their eyes on his back.

  “They are,” I said, “although my little brothers are out watching our sheep and they haven’t come back for lunch. Hopefully it’s nothing serious. Are your family well?”

  “Yes, all of us.” He looked up at Melekush. “She’s a fine animal. Do you breed her?”

  “Sometimes. If you’ve got breeding stock at the moment, I’m sure my father would like to talk to you.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  My cheeks flushed.

  Of all the men I’d seen, I liked Biashim best – no measuring my hips with a glance, no counting babies. Even Tagan looked at me like a potent
ial wife, despite the games we’d played only a few years ago. Biashim treated me as someone who might become a friend.

  I still couldn’t imagine marrying him.

  “You must be keen to track down your brothers,” he said. “Go – and I hope they’ve just fallen asleep while the sheep are perfectly content.”

  “Probably. See you later!”

  I glanced back as I rode away, and saw him watching me. He waved. Conscious of the women, who still kept their eyes on us, I turned to face the open plains without returning the gesture.

  Batir sat on a rock, surrounded by sheep. As I drew closer, he stood, waving, but not urgently. “One of the sheep went missing,” he explained. “Begench is looking for it. We think it’s just wandered off.”

  “I’ll go help.”

  I found Begench riding towards me after a short time, the wide-eyed ewe lashed across his horse’s back.

  “I think she wanted to get to the sea!” he exclaimed, and we laughed.

  We sprawled in the sun, all three of us, my brothers too young at ten and six to even mention weddings. They shared their lunch, poured me some tea, and we all idly watched the sheep grazing below the rise of our hill. The plains stretched ahead. In the distance, I thought I saw our village – thin tendrils of smoke, a hint of dark felt. I closed both my eyes and ran my fingers through the grass and flowers. Why would I want to stroke a man’s head, when this was so perfect?

  “Oh, I miss this,” I told my brothers.

  “Sing something!” Batir demanded.

  “Must I?” I yawned in the sun. But Batir begged and Begench said he was tired of singing, so I began, alternating little songs with snippets of epics, and suddenly I was singing out so loudly the sheep scattered to a safer area. For all his alleged tiredness, Begench couldn’t resist a contest, so we tried to out-sing each other, with Batir adding a discordant melody, until Begench won by trying to shove me down the hill. My song collapsed into laughter moments before his.