by Diana Rivers
Pell seemed to be enjoying this. Crossing her arms and leaning back against a tree with her eyes narrowed, she went on, speaking loudly for the benefit of the other women who were gathering around, “I venture you will not go very far. You can barely ride a horse, and besides, none of the horses are yours. You know nothing of the land. The first time you try to use your valuables in the market, you will likely be fingered by an informer who may well end up with your gold and jewels as well as a reward. Even I cannot go buy potatoes in the Hamishair market with Shokarn gold without having the market spotters on me in a second. We need Wanderers and the Thieves Guild as go-betweens. You, of course, know nothing of all that. But if you want to try it on your own be welcome to it.” Pell made a mock bow. “Let me know your will in an hour ‘Lady.’ We can have a sentry take you out blindfolded and leave you near a road to town. Understand that you cannot come back to us no matter what. You are too inexperienced. You would bring the guards riding down on our necks.”
Pell turned as if to leave. By now there was a fair-sized circle around us listening to her every word. Lhiri had come up beside us looking quite agitated. “Wait, Pell, please,” she said, pulling insistently on Pell’s arm. Then she whirled around to Nunyair. “Nunyairee, have some sense. Everything she says is true. It is too dangerous for you out there.”
Nunyair ignored her. She was glaring at Pell and actually stamped her foot. “You are the leader here?! You are no better than a common thief. You are telling me I must give over my jewels and gold or lose my life, is that it?”
At that Pell chuckled, looking openly amused. “Exactly right, very observant. I am indeed a common thief as you say, and have been for some time, though what I steal goes into the ‘common’ pot and not my pocket. And yes, you are right again: it is your valuables or your life, that simple.” She nodded to us all and once more seemed ready to walk away. Lhiri was looking back and forth between them frantically. “Do not be a fool!” she shouted to Nunyair, grabbing her arm. “You would not make it through one day on the road alone. Do you think Starmos Great-House prepared you for any of this?”
Nunyair shook off Lhiri’s hand and drew herself up to an even haughtier pose, “You think to speak to me that way, who less than two weeks ago was my slave in my father’s house!?”
“Oh come, Nunyair, what nonsense. I was no more your slave than you were mine. What use is a slave who cannot be compelled. That is no slave at all but someone to be feared. I sheltered in your father’s house because Askarth made a place for me there.”
“Fool’s talk! All lies!” Nunyair shouted, all her annoyance turning now on Lhiri. “You know as well as I do that you were my slave since we were children together. My father bought you for me.”
“Only because Askarth persuaded him to,” Lhiri answered instantly. They were facing each other now, old anger flashing and flaring between them, the rest of us forgotten. “You,” Lhiri was pointing at Nunyair, stabbing the air with her finger as she spoke, “you are the one who was a slave to the Great-House of Starmos. Being a ‘Lady’ you were like a prisoner there and could not leave unguarded while I had free run of the city.”
Nunyair knocked her hand away and began to shout something back in bad-tempered Shokarn, too fast for me to follow. Lhiri was shouting in return. Both their faces were ugly and distorted with anger. Other women were backing away in haste. With shame, I thought that is how Rishka and I must look to others when we fight.
Pell bowed again. “Excuse me ‘Ladies’ but this thief has business elsewhere. I think you can carry this on without my help. Only let me know soon what you decide.”
This time Pell went striding off decisively. I had to struggle to keep pace. Behind us I could hear Lhiri and Nunyair, their voices rising higher and higher in anger. “Pell,” I said anxiously, “what will you do if she refuses? Will you really put her out on the road?”
Pell slowed her steps a little and gave me a funny sideways look out of the corner of her eye. “Now, Tazzi, do you think me such a fool as all that? We will just have to find some other way to persuade her. After all, she would be as much danger to us out there as to herself. Most of my little talk was for the benefit of other ears. Besides, I could not do that to Askarth, we owe her too much. Rest easy, though, she will settle up. Lhiri will bring her around soon enough after they are done with their shouting. Nunyair has her fears as well as her prides.” Then much to my surprise she threw an arm over my shoulder, saying, “Well, Tazzi, my foolish friend, after that little exchange with a real fool, you do not seem so foolish after all. I can even see your value shining through.” She was shaking her head, “So having said all that, now I suppose I must forgive you.” At these words she stopped suddenly and turned me around so we were facing one another.
I began to protest, “But you were right, Pell, what I did was unforgivable...”
She cut me off, “Hush, hush, enough said. If I am going to forgive you then you must forgive yourself, else you make a fool out of me.”
We went on, more slowly now, with her arm over my shoulder again, the weight and warmth of it resting there like a badge of honor. I saw other women watching us curiously. Most of them were new ones, women who had witnessed my abject re-entry into camp and only knew Pell as a leader. My Pell! Mine! My thoughts broke through as clear as spoken words. Mine before any of you saw her.
Pell threw back her head and laughed while I blushed and looked away.”Well, would you fight for me then, Tazzi?” she asked, grinning with amusement.
“I would try to,” I answered, serious in spite of her mockery. “Oh Pell, I hate it when they call you names or lie about you as Murghanth did. It is so unfair!”
She shrugged and answered, still with a look of amusement on her face, “Believe me, Tazzi, I will be called worse things than thief before this is all over and it matters little; in fact, it matters not at all. I have none of Rishka’s bristly pride. How glad I am not to have to carry that heavy burden everywhere I go. What am I, after all, but a Kourmairi thief and also the child of dirt-farmers just as you are? They can call me whatever they please as long as they end by doing what is needed.” Then she said more seriously, “But thank you for your loyalty, Tazzi. It is not that that I am mocking. In fact, I am quite touched by it. I have not treated you very well, have I? But then I suppose I have not treated any of us very well. It is these times. These are the Zarn’s times. I do the best I can. Later, when we are free of his power, I will be a very different person, the one who for now is locked away inside. Know that I love you, Tazzi, maybe not in the way you might wish, but I love you none the less.”
I was crying and grinning at her at the same time. “My Pell,” I said speaking aloud this time, “my comrade, my captain, my chief.”
She kissed me on the cheek. “Well, you may as well take back your second-in-command since you already have it, in all but name.”
Soon after that Lhiri caught up with us. She held up a little red pouch encrusted with embroidery in front of Pell. “You see?” Pell said to me with a wink as she took it. When she opened the pouch I saw her eyes go wide in surprise. “Well, well, well, it may not be such a skinny winter after all,” she said pulling the strings tight to close it again. “Good thing I am not greedy. Now let us get packs or hats and take up the collection.”
The three of us walked through camp and valuables poured into our hands, sometimes from the most unexpected sources. Women seemed almost in a rush to be rid of them. In the end we amassed quite a sizable stash. Some of this we turned over to Hereschell. He was leaving that day and would pass it on to the Thieves Guild in return for spendable currency. This he would use to arrange for food at our final gathering place. The rest of it we hid in a crock on Alyeeta’s shelves where she could watch over it and it would be instantly available.
After that the three of us went arm in arm down to the stream to bathe. I hoped all the camp was watching Pell walking next to me. Afterward we lay out on the bank together. Lhiri had a stran
ge pained look on her face. Pell watched her for a while before she said, “Nunyair gave you a bad time of it today, eh?”
“There is another side of her, loving and kind, that she does not show among you. We have been together so long, I know her so well, I cannot help loving her. I know she loves me, too, and always has. But she is also a child of her house, trained by them in the uses and abuses of power. In some ways it is a blow to her Shokarn pride to have her heart held captive by a slave.
“Sometimes her love for me is like an open flower we can both take pleasure in. Sometimes it is like a bleeding wound for the pains we both have suffered. Then she tries to find ways to remind me that she is the mistress and I am the slave.”
Pell nodded, saying thoughtfully, “You said yourself a slave who cannot be compelled is no slave at all but a thing to be feared.”
Lhiri burst out, almost in tears, “Why does she have to talk that way? Even slaves and servants are people with feelings and some will of their own. Look at Askarth, she was only the servant to a Great-House, yet there was no finer woman, no one braver and stronger or more loving.”
Pell sat up and drew something from her pouch which she handed to Lhiri. It was the pendant Askarth had pressed into my hands for trust. I heard a gasp of surprise from Lhiri. “Is it yours?” Pell asked, looking at her intently.
“Oh yes, yes,” she said, snatching it from her and pressing it against her heat. “Where did you get it? I gave it to Askarth for a safesign when she left us to go in search of you.”
“Lhiri,” Pell said softly, “Askarth was your mother.”
“What are you saying? What do you mean? My mother died when I was born.”
Pell was shaking her head, “When Askarth gave that to Tazzi to gain our trust, she said it belonged to her daughter. I did not think to give it back to her while I had the chance. Now I give it back to you.”
“Is it possible? Is it possible? All that time I never knew. I thought she was my mother’s friend.” She was turning the pendant over and over in her hands. “Why did she never tell me? All those years...all those years...why did she never tell me?” The tears were running down her face unheeded now.
“I think she was under a pledge of silence,” Pell said gently. “Perhaps under threat, perhaps for honor’s sake.”
“All those years,” Lhiri said again, shaking her head. “All those years lost.” Suddenly her expression changed, and she turned to face Pell. “Then who was my father, tell me that?”
Pell shook her head. “That I do not know.”
I turned away and bit my tongue to not blurt out “The Lord of Starmos,” so strongly did I feel it to be so. I was not sure if this was the time to say it or even if it was mine to say.
Soon after that Pell got up to leave. Lhiri reached out to take hold of my hand. “Please stay a while, Tazzi, and tell me everything you knew of Askarth—or, rather, of my mother.”
I stayed and did as she asked, telling her how I had first seen Askarth selling apples by the road, and how calm she had been when the soldiers came, and how she would go with no one but Hamiuri. I told her how she had prodded and pleaded and insisted that we go to Eezore to free Lhiri and the others. I described our terrifying trip through the tunnel with Askarth leading and told her of our wild entrance into the Great-House itself, telling her everything up till the very moment we were in their closet. Then I told her what I knew of Askarth’s death and how she had likely gone back to try to save Merrik’s life after his part in their escape.
We cried and laughed and cried together many times over. Some parts she made me tell again and yet again. At moments she gripped my hand so hard I felt as if my bones were cracking. After a while, we talked of other things. I was even able to speak of my own mother and cry for her with Lhiri’s arms around me. While we sat close together, sharing so many things, I kept remembering Lhiri’s hand pressed in mine as I was fleeing Eezore, the last person to be at my side when I escaped. That afternoon by the stream was when we began our friendship. How strange to think that I was becoming Lhiri’s friend as Rishka had become Nunyair’s. One might have thought that would have brought us all together, but it was not to be.
That night at dinner, after Pell had given me back my command in front of everyone, there was another sharp exchange between Nunyair and Lhiri with Lhiri saying again fiercely, “I was never your slave there, never. Get over that notion. I always had more freedom there than you did.”
I saw Rishka leaned forward suddenly as if for an attack. Her eyes had a strange gleam them. “Then why did you stay?” she asked in her nastiest tone. “Why did you stay under that roof and in that city if you were free to go? Tell us that, eh?” There was a look of triumphant malice on her face.
Lhiri whirled on Rishka, all her anger shifting to this new target. “And what did I see out there that looked half so free as being a slave in a Great-House? You tell me that! What should I have been instead, a serving wench in a tavern? Some peasant’s wife to be used like his beasts? I thought I had the best of it where I was. This is the first time I have ever felt a wind of freedom blowing through the Zarn’s lands, the first time I have ever seen something worth risking my life for. Before that, show me where I would have been any bit more free than where I was standing, what you call a slave?” With those words she leapt to her feet, shouting into Rishka’s surprised face, “Show me! Show me that! Show me!” Several of the other women who had themselves been slaves were shouting in sympathy with her and banging on the table. “And you, Muinyairin,” she went on stabbing her finger at Rishka, “why did you stay among people who beat you, people whose marks you still bear across your back? Was it because you were a coward, afraid to leave? Or was it because you could not imagine being somewhere else, could not picture another life? Because, in fact, there was none for us until now, not for any of us. No place...no place in the world...” Suddenly her voice cracked as grief broke through the anger. More gently she said, “We are all slaves to our skins, are we not? Sometimes the only choice left is to die or to be a slave.”
The other women who sided with Lhiri, former slaves themselves, all with the brand of Eezore on their foreheads were gathering around her now, shouting, “Tell her! Tell her! Tell her, Lhiri!” and banging louder and louder with their cups and bowls. “Tell her, tell that arrogant sand-eater! What does she know about us? Tell that Muinyairin bitch how it really is.”
Other Muinyairin had come and were quickly gathering in back of Rishka, glowering at Lhiri and the women around her and muttering loudly about “those branded cows.” Rishka herself was looking quite uneasy, frightened even, having suddenly gotten far more trouble than she had planned on. Her eyes were darting about, but with no will to mischief in them now. Pell and I signaled to each other across the table, both ready to jump to some quick action, and neither of us certain what to do. This was by far the worst scene I had witnessed in the camp and seemed to be worsening by the minute. I was aware that Renaise had come up from the cook fire and was also standing ready. At any moment I was expecting one of Alyeeta’s silencings to fall on us and might even have welcomed it.
One of the women who had been a slave, Yargir, I think her name was, leaned across the table shaking her fist and shouting at Rishka, “You started all this trouble, you devil-woman, and now you call in your Muinyairin bullies to protect you.” Another said in the most insulting way possible, “Are those really the Muinyairin? They look more like piles of horse dung to me.” And a third said contemptuously, “What do they know? They are all horse-fuckers!”
With that, Daijar gave a roar of anger. I thought she was getting ready to vault over the table when there was a sharp clap of cymbals from the far end of the table, followed by a loud shout of, “Make way! Make way! Make way for the Penny Street Players!” I turned to see Murghanth dressed in bright, gauzy scarves. She was not wearing much else but a wristlet and anklet of bells. With her arms raised, she struck the cymbals twice more, shouting, “Back, back, leave us s
ome room. Clear away all those things. Quickly! Quickly!”
To my surprise women set themselves to doing as she said, clearing away their eating utensils and then leaning back out of the way. All eyes were now on Murghanth. She tossed her cymbals to Teko, who was standing there waiting. With no more warning than that she gave a high melodious cry and threw herself into a series of flips down the length of the planks that served us as a table. All her little bells were ringing wildly. As soon as she came to the end, she gave that same high-pitched cry and made her flips back the other way, landing on the ground with her arms raised. There was a moment of stunned silence, then a few women began clapping, then a few more and soon there was a thunder of clapping and stamping and whistling and many voices were shouting, “More! More! More!” Murghanth leapt back up on the table, calling out, “Give me three cups and three plates.” She took them from eager hands and began juggling and dancing, her hands flashing and her bright scarves swirling around her like flames. Teko, all dressed in black, jumped up beside her. The plates and cups flew back and forth between them. Other Sheezerti in bright clothes had gathered and began playing drums and tambourines and snapping their fingers. The women at the table were soon clapping and stamping in rhythm with them.
I looked across at Pell again. She winked, nodded and made the sign of the circle with her fingers. I signed the same back to her. Now I could breathe again. Much relieved, I retreated up to Alyeeta’s shelter. She had evidently been watching it all from her entryway and grinned at me, eyes flashing with amusement.