Shattered Stone

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  But there was a disquiet in him, too. He kept remembering the small figure standing in the darkness beside his prison bars. He watched for her in the crowd and thought of the line of her chin and the way her brown hair fell over her shoulders.

  He remembered last year’s Singing, the way she had played her gaylute, and had sung “Jajun Jajun” and “Smallsinger Tell Me.” He remembered her dancing wildly while Shanner played for her.

  She had changed a lot, he thought. She had been a child then.

  He thought of her dark eyes, and wanted to ask her—ask her what? He looked up and searched the crowd as if he would see her suddenly then stepped aside as two Kubalese on great heavy horses came around from behind a wagon. How could they show their faces, with Urobb so lately slaughtered? Why did the Landmaster allow them in Burgdeeth? He stared after them coldly.

  There was a Sangurian ballad troop in one wagon, and Thorn stood for a while listening to the man and his three women singing softly the stories of Bede Thostle and the Goosetree of Madoc, and of the Demon of Sangur Neck. Then when he turned away to wander once more, he came around a little tent with brass wares from Pelli, and he stopped suddenly, to stare.

  The man was turned away from Thorn, but the set of his shoulders was familiar as he adjusted the harness of a fine butternut mare. His white hair caught the light. His tall thin frame seemed taut and hard as a sapling. The wagon the mare pulled was brighter than any on the square, painted with birds and flowers in every color you could name. And across its side, in letters lined with gold, were the words, JUGGLER AND MASTER OF TRICKS. As Thorn stood staring, the man turned; one quick motion, and he was looking into Thorn’s eyes; and Thorn knew at once he must not speak or recognize him in any way.

  “Fancy my wagon, do you, boy?” the old man said lightly in a manner of speech that was certainly not his own and loud enough for people to hear. “Fancy a trick or two? Silver, boy!” The old man’s voice was loud and beguiling. “Silver will get you a trick . . .” But Thorn grumbled something rude and turned away as if he were not interested. He could feel Anchorstar’s satisfaction, feel his warm and silent greeting so his own pulse raced as he turned indifferently to examine a display of tin. The old man took the team’s heads and backed the wagon into an alley. Thorn turned in time to see the two horses’ noses bobbing as they guided their burden out of the way. He knew Anchorstar would speak to him later, speak privately.

  It was not a snake’s breath later that he rounded the square and heard Loke’s voice raised in anger, heard one of the bucks bellow a challenge. Alarmed, he leaped across a wagon tongue and some barrels to come around the statue’s hedge.

  A group of children had gathered around the bucks as children usually did, to admire them and to push their hands into the thick wool coats and grin at their warmth and silkiness, to pull a head down and feel the spiraling horns; the bucks could be bad-tempered with an adult, but were patient enough with children.

  But it was not the children, laughing with delight, that had caused Loke’s shout and the angry bellow. The cream buck stood apart with his head lowered and his ears back, ready to charge. His quarry was the dark Kubalese, Kearb-Mattus. The man cowered, now, against a wagon. Had he been teasing the animal? The cream buck, the worst tempered of the lot, did not take to strangers. Thorn took his halter and settled him. Loke’s face was red with anger. “He was feeling in the pack, he said it was a game.”

  Thorn gave Loke a restraining look and turned to face the Kubalese. “What were you doing?”

  Kearb-Mattus smiled, his body relaxing now. “It was a game, friend. A game for the children—a game of hide-and-search. Come, let us have a game, it’s innocent enough. What say you, goatman?” A curious crowd had gathered. Thorn studied the Kubalese closely; then he caught a glimpse of Anchorstar moving in through the crowd, and the sudden command of Anchorstar’s thoughts was plain. Thorn swallowed his temper and stepped back.

  “Play your game then, Kubal. One game.”

  The Kubalese looked mildly surprised. Loke went pale with fury.

  “Play your game,” Thorn repeated, at Anchorstar’s silent command. The Kubalese held up his hand and a gold piece flashed bright between his fingers; the crowd caught its breath; the children stepped forward with a sigh of longing. Such a coin would buy sweets they could not count. Kearb-Mattus smiled, turned his back, and began to rummage among the packs and into the bucks’ thick coats. You couldn’t tell where he hid the coin. Or did he still have it? The bucks shifted their feet and twitched their ears nervously, but Thorn spoke to them and they quieted. The children watched the Kubalese without blinking. When he was finished, be made a signal and they scattered at once, searching frantically.

  All but three. Three children held back, stood close together to stare up at the Kubalese. Kearb-Mattus pretended not to see them, but Thorn thought his interest was keen. One of them, the smallest boy, darted a quick glance at the black buck then looked away at once; the other two followed his gaze. Kearb-Mattus’s voice rose, “Sweets it will buy, sweets and wonders . . . The little boy—Toca, Thorn thought, Toca Dreeb—had a hot pink look about him as if he could hardly contain himself. Then suddenly for no apparent reason he turned and melted into the crowd. The other two followed him.

  Kearb-Mattus scowled, stood for a moment uncertain, then clapped his hands. “Hunt’s over, children! Time’s up! No one found the gold piece.” He walked to the black buck and drew the coin from deep beneath its saddle. “Game’s over,” he roared, “No one was quick enough this time.” He turned to go, but Thorn stepped into his path.

  The Kubalese raised his hand to push past, making Thorn’s temper flare. He grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted the coin from his fingers. He felt Anchorstar’s distress too late, ignored it in his fury.

  “It’s not over, Kubal! You said the finder would keep the coin, and that implies a finder. They had too little time. Hide the coin again. Or shall I?”

  The Kubalese’s look was black. He raised his fist—it was like a ham . . .

  But before he could swing, his arm was grabbed from behind and twisted until he knelt. Anchorstar stood over him; he scowled down at the Kubalese, then nodded to Thorn to continue speaking.

  “Hide it,” Thorn said.

  “Why should I?” The Kubalese was furious.

  “Because you promised them. And because if you don’t, this trickster and I will break both your arms for you.”

  The Kubalese accepted the coin with a look of hatred and flicked it carelessly into the air so it lit among the bucks’ feet; at once the children were on it, surging and scrambling—a big boy screamed his success and disappeared, running.

  Zephy couldn’t see all that happened, the crowd was too thick, people too tall in front of her. She pushed and stretched, saw Kearb-Mattus raise his fist, saw Thorn’s red thatch, saw the white-haired man move quickly through the crowd, heard the voices raised in anger. Beside her Meatha was pale as milk, staring; but Zephy paid her little attention, until Meatha shook her arm and breathed, “Anchorstar. It’s Anchorstar! It’s the man I saw—on the wagon . . .”

  Zephy turned. She stared at Meatha, uncomprehending. Then she understood what Meatha was saying. But Meatha must be mistaken: This was not the way Meatha’s vision had been. Where was the bright wagon, the horses? Then Meatha’s urgency was forgotten as Thorn’s voice rose in anger. Zephy pushed through the crowd frantically, trying to see, trying to understand what was taking place.

  When the crowd dispersed at last, wandering off, she was little the wiser about what had happened, except that Thorn and the tall white-haired man had stood facing the Kubalese together. She turned shy and uncomfortable then and pulled Meatha away. She didn’t want to talk to Thorn; she didn’t know what to say to him.

  Meatha seemed glad enough to go. Had she been wrong, then, about the tall man? They made their way to the other side of the square and occupied themselves among the wonders of leather and tin and weavings; and neither spoke fo
r a long time. The colors of the wagons were like fire; indigo and saffron and crimson spilled upon the day. There was a display of sugar spinning and a wagon of glinting pearls and sprika shells from the Bay of Pelli. And an old woman wizened as a dried fig laid out wonderful needlework with her brown, trembling hands. There were ginger pies filled with clotted cream, to eat in the shade of a Sangurian wagon, and all the time Zephy was silent and preoccupied. Wanting to be with Thorn but too shy and making herself miserable.

  Then it was noon suddenly, the sun overhead. Mama would be furious, serving up the meal without her. She fled through the crowded streets guiltily, tripped over a clutter of bright brooms, and burst in through the sculler to meet her mother’s hot, angry frown.

  NINE

  The kitchen was unbearably hot. Mawzee cakes and side meat were sizzling on the great black stove. Mama flipped half a dozen cakes onto the platter before she looked at Zephy. Her face was flushed from the heat. She pushed back a wisp of hair with that quick, angry motion Zephy dreaded. “The honeyrot, Zephy. Pour it out. Where have you been! Put some charp fruit in a basket and cut the bread.”

  Zephy fled gladly to the sculler, grabbed up a basket, filled it with charp fruit, and laid six loaves on top. She hurried through the kitchen with her attention fully on the basket and pushed through the door into the long-room.

  The clatter of voices and plates hit her like a blow. The two chamber girls were hurrying between the crowded tables with steaming platters, Sulka’s pale hair fallen around her shoulders, and Thara having trouble getting her bulk through the narrow aisles between the backs of the seated men, her platter held high. Zephy dropped her basket on the serving table and began to cut the bread, then stopped to pour out honeyrot as the men around her clambered for drink. The noise, trapped under the low rafters, churned so the voices came in scraps of shouting that seemed to explode around her. She loaded a tray with bread and brimming mugs and started down between the aisles. The food and drink were grabbed away by great hands with seldom a thank you or a notice of whether anyone carried the tray or whether it walked by itself. There were four Kubalese sitting with Kearb-Mattus. Where had they come from? How could they show their faces after sacking Urobb! Kearb-Mattus’s voice drowned out his neighbors. She watched them with hatred, listening in spite of herself.

  “—of Fire Scourge, it should be a sight, all the pomp and fuss. You’ve never seen such a—” She lost some of it in the ruckus, then, “Five days of praying on their knees and wouldn’t you know—” She held her breath, straining to listen, her fury growing. “—on the last night!” Kearb-Mattus shouted, and the men laughed fit to kill. Zephy turned away, toward the serving table.

  The Trashsinger and the Vendor were sitting on a bench out of the way, their backs to the wall, making themselves a part of the hubbub of market day; remembering, she thought, when they, too, were shouting young men strong in their bodies and boisterous in their ways. She smiled down at them and handed them honeyrot and bread.

  And when she turned to look back at the room, Elij Cooth had joined the Kubalese. He sat among them laughing. She stared at him, her anger rising anew. Elij was as much a traitor as his father if he could pander to the Kubalese so. What was the pact that Kubal and Cloffi were supposed to have made, anyway? Did the Landmaster believe the Kubalese would honor any pact? She stacked dirty plates onto her tray, pressing through between the crowded rows. Elij was leaning over the table, reaching for bread. Zephy gave him a look of hatred as she passed—and suddenly she was jerked back and pulled around so she lost her balance and fell, groping, across Elij’s lap.

  She kicked at him and struggled; the tray fell, the dishes clattering. Elij’s grip was like steel. He was drunk, drunk and pawing her. She twisted, kicked again; there was laughter all around her—then Elij had his hand under her tunic. She snatched up the tray and jammed it into his stomach, felt his grip loosen, then was on her feet, shoving the greasy tray in his face.

  She stood in the sculler seething with rage, hating Elij Cooth, hating everything; hating a system where a girl could be pawed and everyone laughed. Hating, most of all, her own weakness for not being able to fight back.

  At last, her rage hard and cold inside her, she straightened her tunic and went back into the kitchen.

  Mama had left the pans soaking. Zephy began to scrub them, her anger driving her so she broke a nail at the quick and swore like a man. Thara came to help her, then Sulka with another load. They glanced at her and grinned, but she didn’t acknowledge their looks. Her anger was so great it kept even those two silent, and at last she escaped toward the square.

  The sun was warm on the empty streets. Burgdeeth seemed utterly deserted; only the myriad smells—tannery, baking, tammi drying, outhouses—would tell you anyone lived there. The cobbles glinted in the sunlight, and ahead of her the colors in the square were as brilliant as Zandourian silk. She came around a wagon into the square—and stopped.

  Coming down the street she had heard no sound from the square. Now she could only stand staring at the people who were crowded there utterly silent: the square overflowed with wagons and animals, and with people still as death, everyone staring in one direction.

  They were watching a bright wagon, and Anchorstar, she thought wildly, her mind exploding with the word; for the man of Meatha’s vision stood tall in the open back.

  She drew closer and could see flowers and birds painted on the sides of the wagon, and the words, JUGGLER AND MASTER OF TRICKS. The two Carriolinian horses were just as Meatha had described them: butternut, all butternut, not a stroke of white.

  The back of the closed wagon had been opened out like a stage, and there above the crowd, the tall imposing man held the throng silent by his still presence, his hands raised. The sunlight slashed across his satin cloak so it shone with every shade of red; the gravity of his face seemed to hold the crowd in awe. . . .

  Then suddenly he was juggling. She didn’t see him start, one minute he was still, and the next he was tossing a dozen glinting spinning objects high in the air. His expression and stance had not changed. Most jugglers—though they had few enough in Burgdeeth where the Landmaster hardly tolerated them—would be grimacing and frowning now, dancing around to keep their wares balanced, smiling and scowling as they performed their simple tricks. Anchorstar’s face was quiet, his eyes vivid and cool. His hands seemed hardly to move as the objects flew and twisted and fell to be tossed again, twelve tumbling golden cages glinting and winking in the sunlight And in the cages—birds! Bright little birds, each one lifting to the rise and fall of the golden cages with little lithe movements as if they had done this trick a hundred times and in truth were enjoying it. There was no frantic fluttering, only the graceful, delicate balancing as the cages tumbled and gleamed.

  And then she saw Meatha, standing farther along the edge of the square. She was staring up at Anchorstar as if she had been turned to stone. And, though Anchorstar seemed to be looking beyond her across the crowd, Zephy felt sure it was Meatha on whom his attention really dwelt.

  Meatha, pale as whitebarley flour. Meatha, caught in something—caught . . . And then Zephy knew: they were speaking. Like Ynell, silently speaking across the heads of the crowd. This was the vision Meatha had seen: the old man, the wagon, the silent communication.

  When Anchorstar had finished juggling, the crowd remained quiet, as if it had been mesmerized with the flirting circle of motion and light; and then their silence broke, they roared with applause, stamping and shouting and pressing closer around the wagon.

  Where the back of the wagon had been dropped to make the stage, and the sides folded back, you could see that the inside was painted in small intricate patterns of red and gold. The tailgate was supported on the carven legs. And there around the juggler’s feet was the paraphernalia he used to entertain, cages and boxes and jars, and a brightly painted barrel, which he now held up, pouring water out into three cups and passing them down into the crowd. He had ceased to look at Mea
tha; and Meatha herself seemed dazed, shrinking into the crowd as if she wished not to be touched or disturbed.

  The banners in the square hung slack in the windless afternoon; the statue of the Luff’Eresi shone blindingly in the harsh sun, a small pool of shadow dark around its feet. Now the juggler was holding up the cask, and the liquid he poured was red wine; it was tasted, was passed around, and a sigh of wonder escaped the crowd. Zephy learned later that he had made an egg jump in the air from one hat to another, and then had put it into a yellow silk bag, handed it to a trader and, when the trader opened the bag, a full-grown rooster had flown out. He had made divvot cards appear in the hats and pockets of the crowd; and he had pointed out silver coins in empty pails presented to him, pails which he never touched. But the juggling—the juggling of the cages was the most wonderful.

  He held up a silver staff now, and the noise of the crowd died as sharp and quick as if a knife had sliced it

  And there . . . Oh, but the Deacons had ridden into the square. They paused as one, silent and ominous, their swords across their saddles and the purple flag of Burgdeeth hanging limp but commanding atop the color-bearer’s staff. The crowd began to shift and mutter, to glance around, some to leave the square.

  And Zephy saw that in the opposite corner the Landmaster waited, his gray stallion pawing. The Landmaster’s girth and height were impressive; his uniform shone. The people glanced at him and shrank more quickly from the painted wagon, pushing and shouldering each other.

  The space around the wagon widened. Soon the juggler stood alone.

  Zephy pushed through the crowd to the hedge where Meatha stood staring in frozen panic. The shadow of wings darkened her face.

  The Deacons surrounded the wagon. The girls watched as Anchorstar descended and began to tighten his harness, and to close up the tailgate and the sides. There were no harsh words, hardly any words. They seemed unnecessary. The Deacons’ intent was clear.