by Patty Jansen
She figured out that the group was talking about people in the guesthouse, not in a nice way. One person in the room smelled bad, apparently, and another made too much mess. Of course those stupid Mirani were at fault.
They clearly had no idea that she understood Coldi. She hesitated a few times, preparing Coldi words that she had never spoken aloud. But she said nothing, because she wasn't sure if she had the syntax right or whether the way she had learned Coldi grammar was specific to the Trader dialect, because it was definitely not the same as they spoke. And she could probably do without making enemies of random people.
The group left soon after—she noticed that Coldi bodies were hairless, too—and as soon as Mikandra was alone, she grabbed her clothes, emptied her pockets into a little pile of coins, and dunked her shirt and trousers in the water. She had no soap and wasn't sure how to wash clothes anyway—Rosep looked after the laundry at home—but she scrubbed until her knuckles hurt and hung her things over a bench to dry.
She was so incredibly tired. It was so quiet here. Voices of the men in the other courtyard sounded far off. Thunder rumbled in the distance. A stone duct trickled steaming water into the pool. If she sat really still, steam rose in curls off the water's surface.
Hot water springs. She had seen those in Bendara. This was where the smell of farts came from, not because the place was dirty.
She should probably get something to eat before it got dark or started raining.
Her clothes were still soaking wet, so she grabbed a towel from the stack that she hoped was there for the use of all guests. It was a thin cloth of loosely-woven fabric. She wrapped it around herself and took her clothes upstairs to the dormitory where she hung them over the end of her bed.
Already, the courtyard downstairs was filling with people in preparation of tonight's partying and the sound of talk and laughter drifted through the building.
Damn, she should have bought food before making her clothes all wet. She sat cross-legged on the bed and spread her collection of coins before her. Would it be enough to buy more clothes?
While she sat there, two small figures slunk into the door and past her bed to the corner of the dormitory. One of them lit a pearl on a stand next to the bed. Both were women, Kedrasi with brilliant red hair and sun-kissed faces with large brown markings around the eyes and hairline. She had seen them before, quietly going about their business while the guesthouse's Mirani guests were being loud.
The women spoke to each other in low voices. One of them had brought something wrapped in crinkly paper which she unpacked on the bed. The women sat down at either end, reaching inside the crinkly parcel and popping things in their mouths. Crunchy things.
A heavenly smell spread through the room.
Damn, she was hungry.
The woman facing Mikandra noticed that she was watching. She said something and held out her hand. She was the oldest of the two, with flecks of white hair marking her temples.
The other woman turned around and beckoned. "You want some?" Her voice was soft and gentle. She was much younger and her fine-featured face was almost child-like.
Mikandra was going to say no, but what else was she going to do? Sit in the dark and listen to the drunken singing downstairs while waiting for her clothes to dry?
So she went to the bed. One of the women made place for her and gestured to the paper parcel.
Mikandra hesitated although her mouth was watering. "I don't want to eat your dinner."
"Is too much for us anyway."
The paper contained a mass of curled crisp-fried stringy things which she had never seen before.
"What's this?"
"Nice. From the markets."
Mikandra picked up one of the fried curls. It was thin and crispy, and reddish brown. "Is it safe?" But it would be, because like Mirani, Kedrasi also ate the yellow coded food.
She put the end of the curl in her mouth and bit a tiny piece off. A strong taste—spicy, tangy, salty—exploded in her mouth. Nothing like she'd tasted before. Mirani food was refined. It wasn't such a riot of tastes.
She knew the signs. "It's Coldi, isn't it?"
The older woman said, "Machizu has the best stall in the markets. She makes up her own dishes and they're all green-coded, so everyone can eat them."
Coldi indeed. She remembered the Coldi woman in the markets and her very popular stall.
She wondered what the curly things were. Coldi didn't eat vertebrate animals, but they would eat slugs and worms and snails.
Mikandra bit off another piece. The taste was so strong that it made her eyes water, but she kept eating just for the thrill of eating Coldi food. What would her father make of that? Who cared what it was? Worms, snails, grubs. If it was green-coded, there would be no harm. And it tasted good.
She smiled at the women and stuffed the rest of the piece in her mouth. "It's nice." She chewed and picked up another piece.
A short time passed in silence. Both women were also eating. They wore local dress, the loose tunic and wide trousers she had seen a lot of people wear and that were sold at almost every stall at the markets. You could get many different colours, but the Kedrasi women had stuck with the reds and pinks that Kedrasi usually wore.
After a while, the older one said, "I'm Melvi and she is Ariani."
The younger woman smiled. "She is my mother."
"I'm Eydrina." Mikandra cringed. She wished she had never started using a false name. All these lies were getting her deeper and deeper into trouble. "What are you doing in Barresh?"
"We work for the masterbuilders who are contracted by the council."
"It seems like everyone is working for the council."
"Yes, Barresh put out calls for workers, because they need to fix a lot of things."
Mikandra couldn't disagree with that. "Do you get paid or it this a sort of paid sightseeing trip for you?"
"Oh no, we get wages. Everyone else does, too. I'm pretty sure our employer gets paid for his work in the normal way, because Damarcian builders do not work for nothing."
That was true, too. She took another curl from the paper, since it didn't look like the two women were still eating.
Melvi smiled at her. "Go on. It's too much for us. We're not very big."
It was true; they weren't big. Kedrasi would only come up to well below Mikandra's shoulders.
"But then who is paying for all this?"
"The council."
Mikandra didn't ask further because it was clear the women didn't know more and didn't care where the council got the money. They spoke instead of both women's husbands who were at home in Kedras. The younger one seemed too young to be married, but maybe she was older than she looked.
Mikandra asked about their family customs. When she went to the Trader academy, she would live on-site and not have much to do with the Kedrasi society but many of the Guild's employees were Kedrasi.
They talked about life at Kedras and the differences between that and Barresh.
"They use so much water," Melvi said. "All this washing and washing and washing."
"The people in Barresh think it is rude to be smelly and not to bathe after going to the private room," Ariani explained.
Damn.
That explained Jocassa's odd advice earlier today and Bakimay's displeasure.
* * *
That night, Mikandra discovered why she'd been given the bed near the door. When it wasn't raining, it barely cooled down at night, and with no thunderstorms to put it along, the breeze didn't reach far into the room. She lay sweating, without any covering, and too afraid to take off the towel. The cold mountain air of Miran seemed impossibly far away.
By the time the sky showed a faint tinge of light blue, she couldn't stand it anymore. It was still far too early to go to the library, but she'd go the Exchange on the off-chance that Rehan had responded to her small message.
Her clothes were still damp but they were no longer smelly. Mikandra went for a quick dip in the pool�
�thank goodness for her short hair—and got dressed. The stack of towels had grown overnight. She couldn’t see anywhere to leave the dirty one, so she put it in a little heap in the bench next to the clean ones. Someone would probably think that was rude, too.
Well, she was doing her best. If they wanted her to be perfect, they should provide her with a manual.
At least the Exchange operations were the same everywhere.
Mikandra was given a cubicle and when she turned on the screen and typed her code, she found a message for her. The communication was marked security-encoded and had no identifying features but when she opened it on the screen, it was definitely from the Andrahar Traders. From Rehan, to be precise, and the length of it surprised her.
Thank you for your update and your concern. We are safe for the time being. I managed to sell the aircraft for a good price, and have already paid off the Hedron account, as well as a few other dues. The only thing that galls me is that the Tussamar brat Thaeron gets to use it.
We hope to avoid having to make other sales, but if necessary, we will sell Braedon's aircraft, then the office. For now, Taerzo will be supplementing our income by doing aircraft maintenance. Braedon is negotiating with the hospital to set up a service doing simple home visits to sick and elderly of the Endri who don't want to visit the hospital for minor problems. The hospital doesn't want him charging for it, but he's not interested if he can't.
I am over my ears into the court case. I've been going through the Exchange documents to try and find out what happened and what the charges are. I've engaged a Guild lawkeeper and an investigator. I'm not leaving any evidence on the table, but I don't trust the Mirani Lawkeepers Guild, because their political motives are too mixed up with their work ethic.
Yesterday, the council went through a long day of debating the new residency laws. I wasn't there, but apparently, there were a lot of people in the gallery. According to those who were there, at some point in the debate, a group of protesters against the law grew too rowdy and were asked to leave. When they refused, scuffles broke out which spread to the street after the guards finally managed to get the detractors out of the assembly hall. The protesters congregated in an area of the lower Endri quarter, and prevented a number of families leaving or returning to their houses.
That explained what Mother and Liseyo had been talking about. But—since when could she hear the things people were saying from this far off? The thought that Leitho's hallucinations might be real chilled her.
All of a sudden, this climate-controlled room was too cold for her, and the presence of a screen made her nervous. The Exchange's communication links were not completely secure, that was the first thing people always said about them. If you need to send something absolutely confidential, send a courier.
He ended the letter with, I sincerely hope that you are doing better than we are, because the shunning and scorn is getting to all of us. Walking into the Guild headquarters has become a very unpleasant experience with all the disagreements that rage about whether we should actively oppose the council's request for cooperation with their laws or invoke the non-interference clause. The battlefront continues at home. Taerzo continues to think that we can take the easy way out and accept Nemedor Satarin's money. Give me strength not to assault him the next time he brings it up. Please keep in touch.
She stared at that line for a bit. How could such a curt and stand-offish man write such an honest letter with details he would never share with her face-to-face?
Did this mean that she could be chatty to him as well? Probably not.
She replied in a formal way, explaining that she was going to stay until she had to go to Kedras, and that she was investigating some leads. Her reply sounded a lot more positive than she felt, and she regretted it the moment she'd sent it. She should have asked directly for the wellbeing of her family. She should have told him of her problems. She should have asked him for more details about Iztho.
Maybe tomorrow.
Right now, she had to go to work.
* * *
In the library, the pile of boxes to be sorted appeared to have grown since yesterday, and there seemed to be even more builders in the hall, if that was possible. They were putting floorboards on the structure they had built, and the hall was filled with sounds of hammering and shouting, of whining winches and saws.
While she stood a few paces inside the door, looking for a Pengali figure with lots of bead-adorned plaits, someone behind her said, "You came, hah?"
Mikandra whirled around. Bakimay had entered the hall behind her. She stood with her hands at her hips, as if in a challenge.
"You thought I wouldn't come?"
"Mirani. Never know. Sometimes they come, sometimes they don't."
"I stick to my promises. If I say I'll come, I'll come." What was it with these people never trusting her? "I'll work, too, and I'll come back. You'll pay me, not once but again and again. Because that's the kind of person I am."
Bakimay met her eyes in a silent challenge. "We'll see. We'll see, hah."
Her huge eyes studied Mikandra's clothing, but, finding nothing to complain about, she jerked her head and led Mikandra to the area under the completed mezzanine floor. Her tail moved at knee-level, which Mikandra had deduced signified a neutral state of mind. The more angry or emotional, the higher the tail.
Bakimay showed Mikandra a desk half-buried under a huge pile of musty old books and told her that each book needed a summary of its contents, written on a page and attached to the outside. The books were then to go to someone who would translate her Mirani into keihu and the books would be put away in other boxes.
Mikandra sat down and took the first book off the stack. If she had hoped to be given material that might tell her something of interest, she was disappointed. It was an account book more than thirty years old. Moisture had affected the cheap covers, creatures had sharpened their teeth on the edges and the pages were spotted with grey dots. The writing, in hasty scrawls, was untidy and barely legible, full of spelling errors.
She leafed through pages disintegrating with moisture, hardly knowing where to start. She asked Bakimay whether these books were worth keeping, but was told that initially everything should be catalogued. Make a summary, note dates. That was easier said than done. The books were a mess.
Bakimay said, "Never said it was easy. You work. Get paid. Five days. Leave early, no pay."
"Yes, I get that you don't trust me." Didn't like her, even.
"I tell you, so no surprise if you stay two days and ask for pay." She accompanied this with a snap of her tail.
"I will surprise you." Damn, this tiny woman was starting to get under her skin.
"I seen everything from Mirani. Cannot surprise me."
"You want to bet?" She gave Bakimay a determined look and started working.
The work was mindless and boring, but at least it was dry in the library, because judging by the noise on the ceiling window, the sudden downpours continued outside. One moment the weather would be fine, the next it would be pouring.
At night in the guesthouse, Jocassa said that this was normal. Mikandra resolved to buy one of those rain hats as soon as she got paid. That, and two sets of clothes that were more comfortable and dried quicker than her hunting gear. And sandals, because he shoes were wet and smelled disgusting.
* * *
There was another message from Rehan the next morning, this one even longer than the previous.
Nemedor Satarin came back to the house yesterday morning. Unfortunately, none of us were home except Mother. The first thing I knew about it was when the High Council secretary sent a message to complain that his boss objected to being called "a bloodsucking leech" and a "selfish prick" and suggested that we should consider appointing a carer for Mother if she was so obviously mentally unstable. It was most embarrassing, because I could hear Mother's words as I read them, and was trying very hard not to laugh. I did manage to say that we'd look into it, although I'd rather ha
ve told him that there is nothing wrong with Mother's sense of perception and that she does tend to be rather honest about her opinions. Part of me wishes that I could have seen that confrontation.
That said, her run-in with Nemedor Satarin has not made things better for us. Disagreeing with the council is one thing, abusing them quite another. We have to be inconspicuous and non-offensive. If we make too many powerful enemies, the situation will blow up. If Nemedor Satarin gets into a fight with the Traders, your aunt will get involved, Antho Tussamar will get involved. You haven't heard Aithno Ilendar in full flight. His speeches are scathing and lethal. He doesn't care about unity of the Mirani chapter. He just cares about his rights as Trader.
The Trader Guild has the power to force Miran into sense, but only if they are united. Miran has the power to destroy the businesses of individual Trading families. They have the power to divide the Guild. They are flexing their muscles and trying those powers on us. Support our laws and we will give you money. Don't support them and we will not help you at all or might even cut you loose. Some of us want to fight back because the residency laws go against everything the Guild stands for. Of course Antho Tussamar says that we should support the council. Rumours are that the first Traders are ready to pack up and leave Miran.
Mikandra guessed those Traders would be men who had brought foreign wives or adopted heirs to Miran, because there were a number of Traders who, for the lack of heirs, appointed an apprentice as heir. Most of those apprentices were Mirani, but she knew at least two Traders who had foreign apprentices.
He also wrote a detailed commentary on the Guild Lawkeeper's work so far in making a case for Iztho's innocence. He had opened the entire business archive to the Lawkeeper to show that no one except Braedon dealt with menisha fungus, and that he only sold medicinal extract. He said that the lawkeeper was applying to get all the import and export records for the relevant day for all the relevant Exchanges, but that this was going to take some time.