by Paula Volsky
The creation of the Jumo-Dasune Passage had changed all of that. A scant twenty years earlier, the will of an Aennorvi monarch eager to facilitate the swiftest possible transfer of diamonds from the mines of the South Ygahro Territory to the tables of the master cutters in Feyenne had mandated construction of a roadway slicing straight through the seventy-odd miles of deep jungle that separated Jumo Towne from the coast. The task—over three years in completion, and beset with every possible difficulty—had claimed the lives of several hundred native laborers, but eventually the great work had drawn to its conclusion and the wheeled traffic had commenced flowing between Jumo Towne and Dasuneville.
Within weeks of completion, however, it had become apparent that certain difficulties persisted. The jungle—slashed, burned, hacked, chopped, and paved over with stone—remained invincibly vital. The greenery so murderously pruned required no encouragement to regenerate, and every spattering of warm rain prompted wild vegetative incursion. The Jumo-Dasune Passage demanded continual maintenance, and to this end the colonial authorities legislated the formation of road gangs composed of convicted felons sentenced to hard labor.
There was no dearth of manpower. Criminals of the legally disenfranchised native Ygahri stripe abounded. Those legions succumbing to malnutrition, heat, disease, exhaustion, and abuse were easily replaced. The road gangs slaved almost unnoticed from dawn until dark every day of the year, and the diamonds streamed on toward Aennorve.
Toward Grewzland, now. The crystalline flow had recently altered course.
The coach rumbled by a chained gang engaged in tearing weeds from the cracks in the pavement, and Luzelle caught a clear glimpse of fettered wrists, scarred naked backs, and empty ageless faces. They were gone within seconds, but their image lingered, a voiceless reproach.
She breathed a small sigh. Leaning her head back, she let her eyes close. She discovered that she was deeply tired; not surprising, for she had scarcely rested within the past twenty-four hours. She could afford sleep now, and she drifted off within seconds.
She woke around noon, when the coach halted at the side of the road. While the horses rested, the passengers vanished briefly into the bush, then reappeared to stride vigorously back and forth, stretching cramped muscles.
Some twenty minutes later the journey resumed, and now her fellow travelers produced small sacks containing provisions for the midday meal. Simple-enough fare—bread, cheese, dried fruit, sweet biscuits—but her stomach clenched at the sight of it. She had tasted no food since yesterday’s jail-house supper, and she had brought nothing with her.
Nothing but money.
Slipping a surreptitious hand through the aperture in her robe, she drew a couple of coins from her wallet-belt. Proffering the silver to her nearest neighbor, one of the slicked-down young men, she suggested in halting Grewzian, “You sell some bread?” He stared at her blankly, and she added for good measure, “I am hungry.”
He took the coins, handed her a substantial chunk of bread, and added a fistful of dried fruit for good measure. Seeing this, the sour-faced threadbare fellow passed her a couple of hard-cooked eggs and a sugar biscuit. When she attempted to pay him, he shook his head gruffly.
“Thank you,” she murmured, and looked down shyly, terminating the exchange.
Head bent modestly over her lap, she lifted the veil of mourning and proceeded to eat her lunch. Without looking up she knew that her companions were watching for a glimpse of her face, but they weren’t about to get one. The dangling lappets of her cap hid her profile, obscuring western complexion, fresh bruises, split lip, and all. When she finished eating, she carefully lowered the veil back into place before lifting her head. The desultory curiosity surrounding her promptly expired.
The two young men began playing cards. The generous sour-faced fellow cogitated frowningly. Luzelle went back to sleep. She was dimly aware, a couple of hours later, that the coach halted again beside the road, but she did not trouble to emerge.
Progress resumed. The vehicle passed another fettered road gang, and paused once more for a half hour in the late afternoon. It did not stop again until early evening, at which time the driver pulled up at the entrance to the Halfway Inn, whose location marked the halfway point between Jumo Towne and Dasuneville.
The passengers disembarked and the driver handed down their luggage. Having no suitcase to wait for, Luzelle preceded her companions into the building—a curious hybrid structure, long and low-slung in the native style, with walls of whitewashed western brick and a roof of curved red-brown tile.
She registered under a false name, and once again her lack of luggage went unquestioned, while her New-rekkoes were accepted without hesitation.
Her room was clean, spacious, and equipped with a private bath, which she promptly used. Only when she had scoured herself pink and the water was starting to cool did she emerge, feeling thoroughly and marvelously clean for the first time in days.
She toweled herself dry, then went to the mirror hanging above the washstand, wiped the moisture away, and checked her face. The bruises were still fresh and dark, but most of the swelling had subsided. Encouraging, but she would need to remain covered for another few days to come.
Resuming the Iyecktori garb, she ventured forth as far as the common room, where the lamplight shone on a sizable gathering of travelers. She spotted the passengers and driver from her own coach at once, but made no move to join them. Presumably an orthodox Iyecktori matron in mourning would minimize contact with infidels.
She ate alone, head bowed and lappets dangling. Afterward she paused briefly at the desk to order a boxed lunch for tomorrow’s journey before returning to the pleasant chamber altogether devoid of books, newspapers, or any other source of entertainment.
There was really nothing to do but sleep. Extinguishing all the lamps, she climbed without undressing into a soft bed furnished with clean lemon-scented sheets. She was comfortable there, but she had slumbered through most of the afternoon, and she was thoroughly wakeful now. She lay motionlessly alert, uneasy, ears straining to catch the sound of—what? Flutes in the jungle? The roar of some forest man-eater? The shriek of a constable’s whistle?
What she actually heard was the whir and hum of the airborne creatures inhabiting her room in defiance of all window screens. The mosquito netting guarded her space, they could not get at her flesh, but they could sting and goad her imagination, filling her head with visions of Girays v’Alisante in manacles, behind bars, in trouble and even in danger because of her. She pictured him slaving in a chained road gang somewhere along the Jumo-Dasune Passage, and her eyes tingled behind their tightly closed lids. Absurd, of course. Such things did not happen to men of means. M. the Marquis possessed money, rank, connections, influence—
Thousands of miles away.
More important, he owned a sharp mind and a cool head. The police wouldn’t catch him, they wouldn’t even come close.
Perhaps.
She lay wide awake for hours. At last she slid into restless sleep poisoned with bad dreams, only to waken before dawn. Rising from bed, she stepped to one of the windows, opened the louvers, and stood staring up at the southern stars.
The skies lightened gradually. The insect chorus diminished, the night birds muted themselves, the stars faded away, color bloomed in the east, and a rim of sun rose into view above the Forests of Oorex.
She washed, finger-combed her clean hair, then resumed her cap, veil, and thumbless gloves. After breakfasting in the common room she returned to a busy lobby, stood in line to pay her reckoning at the desk, collected the boxed lunch she had ordered, then walked out the front door to find the stagecoach waiting amid a clutter of assorted commercial and private conveyances. The driver greeted her as she drew near, and she muttered a modest muffled courtesy in reply before taking her seat.
Fifteen minutes passed before the two slicked-down young men handed their luggage up to the roof and boarded. There was no sign of yesterday’s sour-faced passenger.
Another ten minutes passed, and he did not appear. The driver snapped his whip, and the coach rattled away from the inn.
The second day’s travel along the Jumo-Dasune Passage was a repetition of the first; a tedious long span, its hot monotony broken only by periodic rest stops and by periodic glimpses of convict-slaves tending the roadway. This time, when her companions invited her to join their card game, Luzelle accepted. Probably the choice compromised her orthodox disguise, but she was almost beyond caring, so thoroughly had boredom corroded caution.
The afternoon wore on to its finish, and so at last did the journey. The sun was hovering above the horizon as the coach lumbered up to the posting house in the old port town of Dasuneville. A busy place, she saw at a glance; rough-hewn and utilitarian, coarse by comparison with Jumo Towne’s studied elegance, but attractive nonetheless, thanks to its air. Fresh sea air, very warm but braced with a salty tang, rushing through the streets to sweep Dasuneville clear of jungle miasma. She drew a deep breath that seemed to clean her lungs out for the first time in days. New vigor filled her, and her spirits rose.
The passengers disembarked and went their separate ways. Unencumbered with personal belongings, Luzelle strolled the old brick-paved avenues until, with the aid of directions gleaned from random citizens, she found her way to the waterfront.
The ticketing agencies had already closed for the evening, but timetables posted on wooden walls offered unwelcome information. The next steamship bound northeast for Aveshq was not scheduled to depart until the day after tomorrow. There were no alternatives. No possibility of engaging private transport across the wide Sea of Aveshq. No balloons, no revolutionary subaqueous vessels, no convenient magic. Nothing to do but hang around town for the next thirty-six hours.
During which time, Girays might turn up. For all she knew, he had reached Dasuneville ahead of her. He could be holed up in some nearby inn or hotel, he might be eating an early dinner, he might be wandering the streets or the waterfront. She cast a glance around her, half expecting to spot him, but the faces she confronted belonged to strangers. A pang of disappointment twinged through her.
Inappropriate. She’d been waiting for weeks for a chance to leave him behind, hadn’t she?
Departing the wharves in dissatisfaction, she wandered the darkening streets until she happened upon a clean old rooming house, where she engaged lodgings for two nights. She ate a forgettable meal in her own room, and then, thoroughly bored, retired early.
The sun was high in the sky when she awoke. For once she could afford the luxury of late slumber, one of the few advantages of the present situation. She could also afford to devote the day to the replacement of her lost belongings.
She sponge-bathed unhurriedly, and the mirror above the washstand reflected a face whose bruises had faded to greenish-yellow. Another day or so, and she would be able to discard the veil. But then, another day or so and she would be clear of the South Ygahro Territory, and it would no longer matter if her face drew notice.
Resuming her orthodox disguise, she marched forth into bustling streets plentifully greyed with uniformed Grewzians. No sign of Karsler Stornzof among them, and she realized that she had been looking for him.
She breakfasted on fried pastries purchased of a sidewalk vendor, then hurried back to the waterfront to book passage aboard the steamer Talghya Jeria, sailing east under the neutral Strellian flag. Money changed hands and she received her ticket, which vanished into her wallet-belt. Thereafter she was free to explore the shops and booths of the town.
It wasn’t Jumo Towne. Dasuneville offered no rich profusion of luxury goods, but the old port was moderately prosperous, and a couple of the local tradesmen stocked ready-made garments of decent quality.
Her purchases were massive. Within the space of a few hours she acquired two new and reasonably well-fitting western dresses, two skirts and blouses, a soft shawl, a couple of muslin nightgowns, shoes, stockings, and linen. There was a hooded rain cloak and umbrella, a miraculously compressible wide-brimmed straw hat, a drawstring reticule, handkerchiefs, assorted toiletries, a new valise, matches and penknife, a supply of new books printed in Vonahrish, even a tiny jar of rice powder to disguise her bruises.
Only one necessity of civilized life was absent—a corset. She might have purchased one easily enough. She should have purchased one; it was hardly respectable to go without. Having enjoyed weeks of freedom and comfort, however, she could not quite bring herself to submit once again to the tyranny of steel stays.
Later, she thought. In Immeen. Or Rhazaulle. Later.
A native porter carried her boxes and bundles all the way back to the rooming house. And if the citizens of Dasuneville thought it strange to see an orthodox Iyecktori woman, veiled in mourning and supposedly indifferent to material luxuries, trailed through the streets by a walking mountain of parcels—well, they were free to wonder.
The porter deposited her packages on the floor. She paid him and he left. No sooner had the door closed behind him than she was down on her knees, tearing the wrappings away from half a dozen pasteboard boxes. The contents were hardly remarkable—just a few fresh garments of unexceptional quality, and a collection of ordinary personal items. But they were new, and she had done without for so long that the most commonplace necessities now sparkled like treasures.
When she had done gloating over clothes and toiletries, she turned her attention to the books. One of them, a collection of essays by one of the Exalted wits of prerevolutionary Vonahr, held her attention through the rest of the afternoon.
That evening she dined in her room, read for a while, packed the new valise with care, retired early, and slept soundly.
She woke, rested and genuinely refreshed, in the humid warmth of the dawn. Rising without reluctance, she washed, and studied her face in the mirror. Not too bad. The bruises had paled to faint lemon smudges. When she patted rice powder across her nose and cheeks, the yellow splotches disappeared. She coiled and anchored her hair into a proper chignon, clothed herself in one of the new dresses—serviceable grey broadcloth softened with wine trim—and, for the first time in days, beheld the reflection of a respectable and recognizable self.
Departing her lodgings, she emerged into sea-scented streets already bustling. Even at that early hour it was easy to secure a porter to carry her new valise to the wharves, where the Talghya Jeria awaited. The Strellian vessel, carrying both passengers and cargo east from the Bay of Zif around the tip of Cape Finality, was large, modern, and clean-looking. Luzelle boarded, and a steward conducted her to the best stateroom she had encountered since the journey began. Ninety minutes later the Talghya Jeria steamed out of the harbor, continuing its course toward fabled Aveshq and the eastern extremity of the Grand Ellipse.
THIS TIME SHE ACTUALLY ENJOYED the crossing. The ship was well appointed and well managed, the food was good, the accommodations agreeable, the passengers and crew congenial. Even the elements cooperated, offering a succession of warm, bright, breezy days and mild moonlit nights. Luzelle spent her time reading, strolling the decks, and playing cards with fellow travelers. She was relaxed, comfortable, and in good spirits. Saving her concern for the safety of Girays and Karsler, she was content.
The first three sunny days of the voyage were nearly identical, but the fourth witnessed a change. The day dawned grey and dull, and stayed that way. The morning advanced, the wind strengthened, and the skies darkened. By the time a rim of dark coastline appeared on the horizon dead ahead, a light rain had begun to fall.
It was, Luzelle recalled, monsoon season in Aveshq.
The rain continued throughout the following hours, intensifying as the ship neared land. In the early afternoon the Talghya Jeria docked at the ancient port of UlFoudh in the princely state of Poriule, where the sacred Gold Mandijhuur emptied into the Sea of Aveshq. Those passengers displaying valid passports were permitted to disembark in the midst of a downpour.
Blessing the inspiration that had purchased her a rain cloak and
umbrella back in Dasuneville, Luzelle stood on the wharf and surveyed her surroundings through curtains of rain. The buildings lining the waterfront were predictably utilitarian, and largely western in style. The signs and placards, she noted with a lift of her heart, were printed in Vonahrish, and the flag of her country dangled wetly above the most imposing edifice in sight, probably the customhouse.
For the state of Poriule, ostensibly ruled by a hereditary ghochallon, was, like so many other native states of Aveshq, a Vonahrish protectorate, tightly controlled by western authorities. The figurehead ghochallon might lament his lot to the skies, the disenfranchised natives might grumble in secret and threaten revolt—perhaps something would come of all that grumbling one day—but for now Vonahrish power remained absolute, unshaken even in these days of Vonahr’s imperiled autonomy. The wars engulfing so much of the world had not as yet reached Aveshq.
The wharf teemed with fair westerners and golden-skinned Aveshquians alike, most of them all but lost in the shade of their umbrellas and rain hoods. But she spied not a single grey uniform in the crowd. No Grewzian soldiers. No Endless Fire. No Imperium. Not here. The rain was pelting down in torrents, but suddenly it seemed as if the sun shone. She was smiling as she splashed her way through the puddles lying between herself and the big building she took for the customhouse, where her passport might receive the civic stamp of UlFoudh required by the rules of the Grand Ellipse.
It was the customhouse, the Vonahrish lettering above the entrance identified it as such. She went in and found the clerks surprisingly busy. At least a couple of ships must have reached the port almost simultaneously. A polyglot babble assaulted her ears, a crush of miscellaneously garbed humanity confused her vision, and she hesitated, momentarily bewildered, then spied a placard announcing, or enjoining, VONAHRISH NATIONALS, and launched herself at it.