The Vistor

by Sheri S. Tepper

  "I am," she breathed, settling against him with a languorous sigh, purposefully hiding the fury she felt toward her dear, dear friends Bice Dufor and Ardis Flenstall. "I am very, very interested."

  Dismé waved at the keeper as she went by, wondering why the woman was so red in the face and even more flustered than usual. None of the keepers were what one would think of as personable, but Livia Squin seemed to be perpetually walking a fence between anger and tears. Dismé thought the woman called her name, but she chose not to stop. Better get her clothes and go.

  In her room, she pulled the bundle from beneath the bed, untied it and took out the clothes she intended to wear. Time was growing short, so she would change into them now.

  As she struggled with her petticoats, the keeper down the hallway shifted from buttock to buttock in indecision, wiped her nose, bit a fingernail, finally rose from her chair, went out into the corridor and started down it, only to stop at the top of the stairs when she spied a girlchild making her way up the flight toward her. The little girl was wearing a hooded cloak over her nightgown and staying tight to one wall as she hummed softly to herself. The keeper had often heard small children make that tuneless humming when they were up past bedtime and badly needing sleep. She had the lagging steps of a tired child who had climbed a long way.

  The keeper fixed Bobly with slightly protruding eyes as she whined: "Child, what are you doing here. You don't belong here."

  "I know," said Bobly, rubbing her eyes. "My mommy is here visiting my aunty, and I got tired, so my aunty said come up and go to her room and lie down. She gave me her key."

  "She should have come with you," said the keeper, disapprovingly. "You shouldn't be wandering around alone."

  "My aunty says, if a child isn't safe in the Fortress of the Regime, then where is she safe? Isn't it safe here? I can tell her you said so..."

  A look of alarm crossed the pasty countenance, "No, no, child. No such thing. It's just, you're such a wee little one."

  Bobly pursed her lips in an offended manner. "I know my numbers. I'm old enough for that. Anyhow, I like exploring."

  "You're sure you know the room number?"

  "It's down there," said Bobly, yawning and pointing. "I've been to my Aunty Dismé's before."

  "Dismé!" cried the keeper. "Oh, my child. I'll go with you."

  "You don't need to."

  "Oh, yes. I do, I do. I should have gone myself, right away. I should have, after what I heard, oh, my..." and the keeper was off down the hallway at top speed, with Bobly trotting close behind her.

  Dismé had not locked the door. When the keeper and Bobly burst in, she was sitting on the bed, a bottle of cider at her lips.

  "Don't drink it," cried the keeper. "Oh, no, don't drink it."

  And at that moment, the doctor's voice came from over their shoulders. "What's going on?"

  "Oh, oh, you shouldn't be here," squeaked the keeper. "Or maybe you should. You're Dr. Jens, aren't you. Why, then perhaps you should be. Don't let her drink it. I think it has poison in it."

  Once Dismé assured them the cider had not touched her lips, the story took some time to elicit, for it began with a great deal of information about Livia Squin herself, necessary information, Livia thought, to establish why she so resented the rude woman named Rashel Deshôll. And to establish why the keeper believed she was up to no good. And to establish why the keeper sneaked down the corridor after her to listen outside the door and hear the unmistakable sound of a cork being pulled, and the subsequent chanting which was enough to freeze one's blood.

  "That one's sister left it for that one to drink, meantime making a wicked spell that I heard every word of, and talking to herself, which I also heard, and sure as certain, this wicked potion is something to send that one to sleep for a time, and wake as a mindless slave. Also, that wicked woman talked of somebody called Hetman Gone, ah?"

  All in all the experience had been both mysterious and horrifying, as her tears and shaking hands now gave evidence. The doctor took the cider bottle into his hands and looked at it curiously, noting the sediment in the bottom.

  "Well now, we'll take charge of this," said the doctor, patting the keeper on her bony shoulder. "It would be wisest not to say anything about it, don't you agree?"

  Keeper Squin nodded frantically, still trying to stanch her tears.

  "You run along. We'll see to Dismé's welfare."

  "Yes," said Keeper Squin, somewhat recovering herself. "And while you're seeing to welfare, that child ought to be in bed!"

  When she had gone, when they made certain she had really gone, Bobly said quietly. "We don't want to walk past her with a bundle. Even if she doesn't mention this other, she'd talk of that to anyone."

  Without explanation, she pulled a chair over to the left-hand window, climbed upon the chair, opened the window and thrust the bundle out, swinging it from side to side to make it fall away from the windows that extended in a straight line below. She leaned on the sill to watch it fall to the left, a barely visible blotch upon the dark rock roots of the fortress.

  "Bab can get it from there," she said. "It will take him no time at all."

  She opened the front of her gown to disclose a capacious bag fastened to a belt, and into this she slipped the cider bottle, buttoning her gown up again and pulling her coat closed across it, while smiling innocently at the others.

  "And what is that for?" asked the doctor in a stern voice.

  Usually, the bag was used for stealing groceries from the market, or pilfering some little thing or other that Bab could sell for a few Hold-marks, enough to buy cloth or whatever else they might need. Not that the doctor didn't provide. He did, and well, too, but one couldn't sit underground all day, every day, living on largess!

  "Apples," said Bobly. "When Bab and I go past the orchards. Even though they're windfalls, you'd be surprised how huffy some growers get."

  "Oh, I can imagine," he replied.

  "Now," she said, "let's get back down below, where the four-legged rats are cleaner than the two-legged ones up here."

  They went, the doctor holding Bobly with her head on his shoulder, she humming and sucking her thumb, a ruse they had obviously used before. Dismé paused long enough to give the keeper her thanks and a small reward, which earned her far more regard than she might have supposed possible. One flight down, the doctor moved into less-traveled corridors, and they came to the lower ways quickly after that.

  Once inside, when Bobly gave him the bottle, the doctor turned it in his hands, gently sloshing the contents, hearing something like an evil whisper in the movement. "It's no doubt black stuff, Bobly. I'm going past the clinic when I leave here, to pick up some supplies. I'll store it away at the clinic, behind lock and key."

  "Can't you dispose of it," she said.

  "Where? Who knows what vileness is contained in it, what might leach out of it no matter where I poured it. No. I'll keep it safe until I can burn it to nothing. The demons have a furnace for doing that. They use it to dispose of ancient evils, evoked by old sorcerers, like ash-beast's toes and sigh-anigh."

  "Who is this woman you're speaking of?" asked Bab, who had been wakened by their arrival.

  "Rashel Deshôll," said the doctor. "Who knows someone named Hetman Gone."

  "So, that's who your sister is!" exclaimed Bab, with a sharp look at Dismé. "Well, I saw her enter Gone's door not long ago, when Bobly and I were visiting Apocanew. Seeing that's where the weather lies, I think you'd better put the potion in something besides a cider bottle. Something no person in his right mind would think was food or drink."

  Thinking this sensible, Bobly looked among the things she had salvaged here and there, finding a small blue bottle etched on the outside with a skull and crossbones, though the design was almost all worn away. She transferred the stuff from the cider bottle to the blue one and broke the cider bottle to shards. Once Bab returned with the bundle of clothing, the doctor said he saw no reason they should not take the opportunity
to sleep until morning.

  35

  wife and children

  Before dawn, Bobly wakened Dismé and helped her dress, insisting that she wear the cloak the doctor had left for her.

  "One never knows," chirruped Bobly. "Any little thing that can be noticed probably will be noticed. Better wear it because likely any sensible woman would wear something like it, out so early. Also, I'll braid your hair for you."

  "I thought only young girls braided their hair," said Dismé.

  "That's here in Hold, but out on the road you'll find it's best braided. Roads are dusty and hot water's in short supply."

  When the braiding was done, Bobly folded the edge of a large head scarf into a band and bound it over Dismé's forehead, pinning the band at the back and letting the rest fall loosely over Dismé's neck and shoulders in the manner of the country women of Comador. Taking up their belongings, they went along the corridor to a door which opened easily but was backed by a tightly locked metal gate. Bab lifted out the hinge pins, and when they had gone through, he restored them, smearing mud over the bright scratches he had left. The rude stonework of the fortress wall loomed behind them, the windows reflected the waning moon.

  "Softly now," murmured Bobly, turning down the wick in her lantern so the flame barely lit the cobbles. At this hour, streets were empty and smoldering cressets oozed smoke that lay pooled on walks and gutters. Only insomniac roosters called wakeful into the darkness now and again.

  Bab said, "We go down this back lane through the town, just a little way, Mama and her two children. And what do we call you? In case someone overhears."

  "You'd better call me Mother unless we're alone. If I need a false name at any point, you can call me by my mother's name, as it's not one I'd forget. She was called Bahibra."

  "She was a Comador?"

  "I'm told she was. She went away when I was a little girl."

  "You and the doctor," said Bobly. "His mother did the same. Or had it done to her. And Bab and I, also."

  "My friend Michael, too," she replied. "All motherless."

  "Bahibra it is, then," said Bab. "We turn here," and he lifted the lantern to light the entrance to a wider street lined with tall houses, eyes shutter-lidded against the dawn.

  "There," said Bab, pointing. Ahead of them, by a watering trough in a market square, a canvas-topped wagon stood behind a team of four horses who were stamping and shaking their heads as a shadowy form moved about them.

  "Who's he?" asked Bobly, suspiciously.

  "It looks like Michael Pigeon," said Dismé, happily.

  "It is Michael Pigeon," said Bab. "He's all right. I've known him for ages. Now, give me the bundles." He gathered them together with astonishing strength for one so small and carried them down the street to Michael, returning quickly.

  "The doctor will join us later," said Bab. "Come now. We've seen what the wagon looks like and we've unburdened ourselves. We turn left again here."

  "Aren't we going to..." began Dismé, gesturing.

  "No, we aren't," answered Bobly. "Come along."

  They trudged down the indicated street, coming in a few moments to a slit of descending shadow through a hulking tenement, a steep lane of uneven stone that debouched almost at once at the top of a steep stair leading down to the Holdwall.

  Dismé pulled down her hood as they started down the fitfully torch-lit stairs under the eyes of two guards sitting half asleep beside the gate at the bottom. Bobly ran on ahead, taking a small sack from the basket she carried.

  "What's she doing?" whispered Dismé.

  "Making friends, or renewing them," muttered Bab. "She baked sweet cakes early this morning."

  "Good children you have here, Ma'am," called one of the guards, happily munching as they approached.

  "Oh, they are indeed, thank the angels," chirruped Dismé in a syrupy voice, lifting one hand in a casual wave while keeping eyes down and lantern low to negotiate the uneven cobbles.

  "Where you off to, little'uns?" the guard called.

  "Farmer down the way," cried Bab. "He's got berries for the picking. Got to get there before they're gone!"

  Then they were through the gate and moving down the road, which in the space of half a mile bent itself around a hill and became invisible to the city.

  "Now what was all that about?" Dismé demanded.

  Bobly replied, "Our things are in the wagon, for berry pickers carry baskets, not baggage. We don't want to be seen with the wagon inside the city. We don't want to be seen with the doctor inside the city. The doctor doesn't want to be seen with us or the wagon anywhere. After the appearance of that mysterious great woman in the cellars, no woman alone should be seen leaving the city. All these matters have been considered."

  "I can see that," Dismé agreed, looking eastward, where the horizon was limned with pallid light. "There's the dawn of the new day: summerspan five, threeday, and now what?"

  "Now without stressing ourselves a bit we just amble along slowly until we and the wagon coincide at a time when no one is around to observe that fact," said Bab.

  "And when we've coincided, we stay inside the wagon for the first day's travel," said Bobly. "Because it's nobody's business who's in that wagon. You may be sure the doctor won't be, for he went another way entirely, and what has any of that to do with a mama and her two little ones, going berry picking?"

  Dismé accepted all this obfuscation as being in keeping with the rest of the languid and dream-wrapped world. Soft-fingered dawn woke to pat the cloud-pillowed mountains and smooth the mist-blanketed valleys; the first rays of sunlight tiptoed among the hills like careful house-guests, not to disturb sleeping copses. Even the birdsong was drowsy.

  Dismé yawned. "That's why we left so early? So we could be out of town before others left?"

  Bab said, "Exactly. We didn't sneak, lurk, or skulk, any of which would have attracted notice. But we left very, very early, which nobody noticed at all."

  "The doctor says late night doings are universally suspect," commented Bobly. "But rising early is staunch and meritorious, provoking only admiration from the capable, or aloof distaste from those who are slugabeds."

  They had gone some way into the sunlit morning before the horse-drawn wagon, which had left the city through another gate, caught up with them and passed them by. A little farther on they entered a narrow strip of forest, where they found the horses browsing while Michael reclined in the wagon, waiting.

  Bab greeted him like an old friend.

  "Where do you know one another from?" Dismé demanded.

  "Oh, Bab's been very helpful to me, now and again," said Michael. "Both in Hold and in Apocanew. Finding out things."

  "People pay very little attention to children," said Bab, giving Dismé a level look. "Including your sister."

  Dismé's brows went up. "Rashel? How do you know her?"

  "Do you know of a Hetman Gone?" asked Michael.

  Startled, she said, "I never heard of him, or it, until last night. Who or what is he?"

  Michael replied. "We've never laid eyes on him or it, but Rashel, it seems, serves the creature, whatever he is."

  Bobly nodded. "The keeper of Dismé's corridor heard Rashel invoke the Hetman's name when she planted poison in Dismé's room."

  "Poison!" cried Michael, horrified.

  "Which I cannot understand," murmured Dismé. "She was eager enough to drive me mad, but she never threatened my life."

  "This stuff might have left your body quite alive, but without the will to oppose her," Bobly reminded her. "So the keeper overheard, and so the doctor thought. At any rate, he took the stuff away to the clinic with him early this morning."

  "Is this Hetman in Apocanew?" asked Dismé, thoughtfully.

  "He is at least some of the time," Michael said, going on to tell them all about the summons that had arrived at Faience after she had gone, and about Rashel's subsequent visit to Hetman Gone.

  "Ah," Dismé said. "Then there is a connection..." and she in t
urn told them of the time, years before, when Rashel had arrived home in the care of her mother, obviously injured. "It's the only time I ever saw her like that, not in control of the situation."

  As the grazing horses tugged the wagon along the verges and the sun rose higher, they had time to speculate, fruitlessly but at length, before the doctor's voice came from among the trees.

  "Miss Dismé. Bobly and Bab..." A bay horse with white leggings emerged from the woods bearing a corpulent farmer with wide suspenders, a full beard, and a squashed hat.

  "Now who would have known that's our friend the doctor?" cried Bobly, clapping her hands.

  "Ah, yes," said the doctor. "Farmer Hypocky Rateez, an olden name from an olden time. Call me Hypock."

  "You're late," said Michael. Since hearing Dismé was in danger, he was not amused by this raillery.

  The doctor made a face. "I had a devil of a time evading the scrutiny of good Captain Trublood. When I went out the northeast gate, toward Praise, there he was behind an inadequate tree, all eyes-on-horseback, set to follow me to the ends of the earth, or a goodly way toward Praise, whichever came first. My good horse made sure to kick up considerable dust, which a helpful headwind laid upon him by the bushel. Several miles out he decided too much was enough and turned back. I couldn't change identities or horse markings until he was gone. Luckily, the horse moves more quickly than I would have managed on foot. And how is Miggle, our driver?"

  Michael bowed to him, still frowning.

  "... and you are, Ma'am?"

  "I am to be called Mother, or Bahibra," said Dismé, "though I cannot truthfully answer your question."

  "Not quite sure who you are, eh?"

  "Not quite, though this morning I seem to be mostly myself. Enough so that I'm worrying a good bit about Rashel finding me."

  "If Captain Trublood is true to Regimic form, Rashel has been or will soon be forestalled. As for your name, while Bahibra is very nice, I shall never think of you as anything but Dismé or Dezmai. Your proper costume is in the wagon, in case."

  "In case of what?" she asked, taking off the scarves, which made her head ache.