A Bait of Dreams

by Clayton, Jo;

  “Tetaki, what’re you doing here?”

  “Visiting my sister.”

  “Idiot.”

  “Well then, we’re here to set up some things for the thissik.”

  “How did they winter?”

  “Might have been better. Most of them lived. They’re starting to wake the sleepers. Got most of the houses cleared out, but they need help with growing food and harvesting the sea.” He grinned again, nacreous pointed teeth gleaming bloodily in Horli’s read light. “Month or two from now, the Keeper and I … remember the Keeper?”

  Gleia snorted. “No winter ice in my head, brother. I remember the Keeper. What about him?”

  “He’s bought into a trade circuit with Temokeuu-my-father. We’re going to hit the ports and cerns south of here far as the Drylands.” He reached out and took her hand. “Temokeuu’d like you to come home with me.”

  Jevati stirred, gave a small sharp cry quickly cut off. A protest. Gleia saw her troubled face and felt a pang of regret. Then she moved her shoulders impatiently and turned back to Tetaki. I’m not ready yet, brother.” She looked past him toward the Grinders. “You came from the south.”

  “Got a message for you.”

  Gleia stiffened, a fluttering in her stomach.

  “Juggler was mad as hell when you disappeared.”

  “So?” She looked down and found her hands clenched into fists. She straightened out her fingers and rested them on her thighs. “That was a long time ago. There’s a winter between us now.”

  “Well, I calmed him down by explaining about Jevati’s widow journey.”

  “Then he knew where I was. He could have been here if he wanted to.” Again she looked down, feeling a growing chill that made her tremble in spite of the day’s warmth and the soft pressure of the wind.

  “The thissik needed him. So he stayed.”

  She closed her eyes, remembered the worn cynical face of the Juggler. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

  Tetaki laughed. “You knew him—how long? Three days? Four?”

  Gleia shrugged. “You said you had a message.”

  “Right.” He flipped a hand at the boat rocking beside a pier, sails taken down, the seaborn crew sitting on the pier, legs dangling, waiting for him. “We’re just back from Thrakesh. Left the Juggler there. He said for you to come if you want, but get there by the end of this month or don’t bother.” He bent down and touched her cheek. “That’s it, sister.” He straightened. “Got work to do. See you when.” He eased himself over the edge and began climbing down the rock.

  Jevati dropped her head onto her crossed arms a moment, then looked over at Gleia. “What are you going to do?” Her voice was soft and sad, her mouth drawn down into a gentle droop.

  “You know it already, little fish.” She got to her feet and stood looking to the south. “Shove everything into the Dragonfish and go. Help me?”

  Jevati rose and moved across the rock to stand beside Gleia. After a minute she slid her arm about Gleia’s waist and leaned against her thin nervous body. “I don’t want to. I will, of course.”

  Gleia hugged her affectionately. “Little fish.”

  “Will you be back?”

  “Don’t know. I won’t forget you, Jevati. That’s all I can be sure of.” She felt the seaborn trembling. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”

  Gleia left Jevati staring wistfully after her as she sent the Dragonfish quartering the wind, her heart as light as the wisps of cloud skimming over the spring blue of the sky.

  For a week she sailed south and west, keeping the great black cliffs on her right, each day much like the one before. Occasionally one of the seaborn would surface, wave a greeting and sink under again. Sometimes one would swim alongside the boat to talk with her awhile. She was amused to find herself something of a hero among the seaborn because of her part in turning the stranded thissik from slavers to a vigorous new market for seaborn trade. Her very small part. But there was a rising excitement among the seaborn about Tetaki’s coming trade circuit.

  On the eighth day the wind was suddenly gone. The sail slapped idly against the mast and the boat rocked up and down, creeping south along the Sestatiri ocean current. Gleia grimaced at the empty sky. Horli was high and Hesh had moved behind her so that the day was hot and still and red, but free of Hesh’s dangerous bite. The sluggish current took the boat along, bobbing like a long slim cork on the purple-tinged water. As the day crept on, she stripped off her cafta and went over the side. The water was cool, moving in long slow-rolls. She swam along beside the boat until she was tired, then pulled herself back inside, stretched out naked and unprotected in the bottom of the boat and let the sun dry her body. Sun-bathing was rare on Jaydugar. Hesh would take the skin off any fool who tried it. The rocking of the boat lulled her into a heavy sleep.

  The creaking of the sail against the mast jerked her awake. She sat up, clutching at her head as a dull pain throbbed behind her eyes. The wind was back, coming from the north this time. Gleia uncleated the mainsheet and let the boom swing out so the sail filled with wind. The little boat began skimming southwest again. She breathed a sigh of relief, glad to be free of the calm.

  Horli was low in the west, half of her red circle gone behind the stone. Gleia felt the wind pushing at her, cold fingers pushing through her sweat-stiffened hair. In spite of the growing chill in the wind, she felt sticky and uncomfortable and nervous for no reason she could discern.

  The sun vanished completely, leaving streaks of crimson and violet along the horizon. By the time these had faded, Aab was already high in the sky and glowing like a crescent of milky opal. Gleia looked about. She wasn’t sleepy, and the night was bright enough. She decided to sail as long as she could into the night to make up for the day’s lack of progress.

  Later, when Aab and Zeb were both close to setting, the wind turned erratic, eventually circling around until it swung north to south and back to north. Curls of fog began peeling off the water. Gleia sighed with regret and brought the nose of the boat into the wind. After lowering the sail, she dug out a blanket and settled herself to sleep. She drifted into a series of nightmares, dipping in and out of sleep as the fog thickened and closed in around the Dragonfish.

  A dull thud and a jarring impact that sent the Dragonfish rolling violently woke her. She jerked up and looked about hazily, her mind dulled by sleep. She heard shouts, saw dim figures bending over the railing of a ship looming out of the fog like some ancient monster of the sea. Splashes and a thud; men overside, one in the boat, others in the sea beside her boat. Hands closed over the side. They were up and in. Catchvine slapped around her arms and torso. The misty figures stood over her a minute then were shouting for a line from the ship.

  That night she woke in darkness with her wrists hurting. Groans and stenches filled the hold-section around her as the other captives cried out in their sleep, broke wind, or let overburdened bladders find relief. She pressed her wrists together, trying to quiet the pain. She had struggled to force her hands through the cuffs until her flesh was scraped raw and her muscles strained, then leaned back against cushions that smelled of old sweat and other less pleasant things.

  Cushions. Thinking about them amused her briefly. She folded her hands in her lap, smiling into the darkness. When the Captain had looked over the plunder from her boat, the caftas and uncompleted work the men had dumped in front of him, his eyes had sparked with greed. He knew the worth of what he saw. His scorn altered instantly. He looked from the embroidery to her. “Your work?”

  When she nodded, he grunted with satisfaction and beckoned to one of his men. Gleia was led off and taken down into a forward hold. Inside the black and stinking enclosure, the seaman’s lantern threw a flickering light over a mixed clutter of chained bodies. Two catmen, drugged into dullness to keep them from fighting against the chains until they killed themselves. A leather-skinned Drylander blinking watery eyes at the light that was painful for him. Six or seven women of various races.

>   As Gleia waited unhappily, toes curling up off the slimy floor, a luscious young girl with a pretty, sullen face was kicked unceremoniously off the cusions and chained farther down on bare boards. Gleia was shoved forward and chained in her place. In the uncertain light she was dismayed to see the girl’s rage and jealousy.

  Now she looked into the thick blackness toward the place where the girl lay. So dependent on the valuation of others. She shook her head. Better to be gifted than pretty. Chains rattled as she lifted her hand to rub again at the brands on her cheek. A plain brown thing with a face badly marred. The Captain’s first opinion. Not worth selling, barely worth raping. The skill made the difference. Shining gold on the hoof. She jerked about on the cushions, itchy with annoyance and frustration. Plans shipwrecked. Something has to be done. A woman who simply wants to be left alone to do things her way should be left alone. As it is she’s prey to any lout with the strength take her. Me. I am prey. Aschla curse them. She moved her hands again, listening to the clink of the metal. Slave. I’m tired of having to work myself loose over and over again. With a sigh she lay back on her meager cushions and closed her eyes.

  She woke again to the sound of shouts, violent and continuous, muffled somewhat by the walls of the ship but still audible. She listened a moment, then grinned into the fetid darkness. The Captain was arguing with a Thrakeshi official about wharfage rates. This went on for a while longer, then the voices dropped to a conversational level as they reached agreement. When the sounds outside diminished, she began to hear chains clinking as the other captives awoke and sat up.

  Some time later she heard several loud thumps then blinked as a square of light opened above them and bold yellow light flooded the hold, shocking tears from her. When she climbed out on the deck the first in a chain of five, she stood blinking at black cliffs looming over the ship.

  The markets of Thrakesh were famous. The stalls were barges moored in the ever-warm waters of the harbor. On market days the blue circle was a magic world of color and noise. The wharves and warehouses, inns and taverns, the decaying hovels and more substantial homes, all these were built on a narrow crescent of land circling the horseshoe bay and backing up against the mighty cliffs. The city itself perched on that sheer stone rise, a hundred meters over the commercial area.

  Following the irregular curve of the cliff, a thick stone wall shut off from view all but the bright gilded roofs of the great houses of the lords of Thrakesh and of the merchant masters. The human sea-wrack that came to land here where the hot springs on the harbor bottom made life easy during the long winter, the ragged boatmen, the longshoremen, the hired officials, the visitors, the traders: these outsiders could look with envy and awe and resentment at the roofs, but none of them dared climb the twisting paths that led up to the gates in that wall, gates that stayed mockingly open all day and half the night.

  The black cliffs that looked so formidable were riddled by blowholes and bubbles. Some of these were used to store food against siege, others emerged to the air high up on the cliffs and housed barrels of oil that could be heated and dumped on attackers.

  The traders of Thrakesh were notorious for their scrupulous honesty and for the outrageous prices they charged for that honesty. The market was the safest place on the coast—if the trader or traveler had enough money and cared to pay the price of safety.

  Waiting to be told what to do next, Gleia continued to look about. I’ve heard a thousand stories about this place, she thought. And for what I can see, I think most of them are true.

  The seamen prodded the slaves into longboats, a chain to each boat, and started ferrying them out toward the market, cutting solemnly through darting water-taxis moving about on the calm blue of the bay like brilliant water beetles, filled with city folk from above, with visitors staying in the inns, with others from the many ships at the wharves or anchored out by the breakwater.

  Other than the cerns, which were closed to all but the seaborn, and now perhaps the thissik, Thrakesh was the best anchorage for hundreds of stadia along the coast. Many of those converging on the market barges were ship captains and master traders looking as often to exchange complete cargoes as to buy outright. Most of the breakwater-side barges were rented to those outsiders.

  As the longboats moved through these, Gleia looked around with intense interest. The somber gray structures of the rented barges were silent, all the drama and color confined inside the walls, the only signs of life the dozing boatmen hunched under their bright canvas awnings, and the more alert seamen keeping an eye on their masters’ boats. Under the Captain’s grunted orders the rowers sent the longboats working into the stream of traffic moving toward the inner lines of market barges. Then the longboat she was in emerged into a stretch of open water.

  Some distance to her right she saw a crowd gathered on a flat, open barge with a platform in the middle and an orange-and-blue canvas roof stretched out like a huge tent. In the center of the crowd, on the stage a meter above their heads, a gaudy figure postured and turned, a man with long red hair flying in the erratic breeze. Shimmering blueness swung up and down, sometimes replaced by glimmers of gold that vanished and returned to blue as they touched his white painted hands, swinging up and around the blankness of his white-painted face. Shounach. He was too far for her to make out his features, but it had to be Shounach.

  She moved her hands and the chains clinked. She frowned down at them. He was so close. She slid her eyes cautiously around. No one was paying any attention to her. Without the chain she could be over the side and away. Without the chain. So close and so far away. She looked wistfully at the tiny colorful figure as the boat slid between two tall barges, blanking out the scene.

  Gleia sat in a wooden straight-backed chair, shut into a small bare room with a single barred window set high in the wall. The chain was off her neck. She was free of any restraint at all. Simply she could not leave the room. She’d expected—well, she didn’t know, something more like Carhenas when several ships were new in port and celebrating their temporary victory over the treacherous sea. But the slave market she saw was extraordinarily decorous. She wasn’t exposed naked on a block. There was no auction with cold-eyed buyers prodding and poking her.

  The Captain had greeted the barge master as an old acquaintance. The small sober man had inspected the chains of captives, nodding, shaking his head, clicking his tongue, muttering offers as he moved. Occasionally the Captain had argued. Occasionally the murmured price was raised. When the barge master reached the end of the chains, the slaves were led away to be cleaned and re-clothed.

  When she was clean, with her hair washed and towelled as dry as possible, then combed neatly back from her face, a tiny Mariti slave handed her a fresh cafta with narrow vertical strips of black and white. The material was coarse, unpleasant to the skin, but it was clean, and Gleia accepted it with a gratitude that annoyed her when she became aware of this sneaky surrender of her body.

  In the little room she sat mute as the barge master brought in a series of men to look at her and at her work. They all dismissed her with a glance but her work held them. She surprised herself with the intense pride she felt when she saw their appreciation.

  Then the barge master led in a man, he treating him with extravagant deference. Despois Lorenzai, the little man called him. He was a big bulky man but looked solid—with the strength of a mountain tars and something of its feral quality. The belly that pushed out the front of his robes was more muscle than fat. He kept a sober demeanor, spoke in low measured tones; but when he stood over Gleia, his eyes brooding down at her, when he arched his heavy body over her to peer at the brands on her cheek, she sensed a wildness in him that was sternly repressed but not eradicated. With this meager evidence she decided that he was a man who might succeed greatly or might destroy himself utterly but taking impossible chances. Amused at her mindleaps, she watched him turning her caftas over in his hands, examining the stitches and designs with a glow in his eyes that the barge master r
ead as quickly as she.

  The small man murmured a price. Gleia wrinkled her nose, disgusted. She’d wanted to hear the price set on her. Though she had no intention of remaining a slave, fetching a respectable sum would soothe her pride and give her something to laugh about with Shounach later on.

  Lorenzai raised a heavy eyebrow and turned to leave. Hastily the barge master plucked at his sleeve and began talking again in low swift mutters. The merchant looked over his head and met her eyes. The laughter in them challenged him, and he began bargaining in earnest.

  She waited in the small room until Lorenzai’s housemaster came for her. He was a short brown man whose head topped out at Gleia’s chin. He had a round wrinkled face like an ancient, evil baby. With a smirk on his face he bent over her and snapped a slave ring about her neck. When she stood, he looked evilly at her and stalked out, leaving her to follow as best she could.

  Gleia carefully suppresed a smile as she moved through the narrow corridors to the landing where the water-taxi waited. She was forever barred from his favor by the length of her head.

  The water-taxi was square-ended and narrow, roofed with bright colored canvas stretched flat over a rectangular frame. There was a seat for one person at the bow, a second seat in the center of the boat, and a third for the boatman at the stern. It glided smoothly from the landing and slid toward the end of the line of wharves. Gleia pushed back her hood and let the breeze wandering over the water flow through her hot sweaty hair. The little room had been airless and dull. She sighed with pleasure, not caring if Ussuf heard.

  Hesh and Horli were approaching zenith, Hesh visible as a tiny bead of blue on the side of Horli. It was coming up high heat so the bustle of the morning was dying to a drowsy amble. Gleia glanced toward the tent barge as it came into view, but the crowd was breaking up and the stage empty. She was disappointed, then surprised at the extent of her disappointment. He’s finished for the day, that’s all. He’ll be back, I hope.… Days before the month ends. Days yet.