“Yi-ah, like our totems,” the Bear Creek clansman said. “I don’t eat bear-meat, myself.”
King smiled. To vastly oversimplify, he thought.
His grandfather had eaten beef now and then; so his father had, at formal banquets among the sahib-log, though rarely at home. His own generation mostly didn’t touch it at all, although as Christians it wasn’t against their religion in theory. More a matter of not offending. The idea made him a bit queasy, in fact. Well, you don’t expect a taboo to make rational sense. That doesn’t make it any less real.
Luckily, Ranjit Singh was a Sikh, and so—apart from cow’s-flesh—had fewer problems with the ritual purity of his food than most Hindus. Nanak Guru, the founder of that faith, had made a point of having his followers eat from a common kitchen with converts of all castes, and even outcaste ex-Muslims; they were the Protestants of the Hindu world, more or less. It simplified traveling no end.
A stout middle-aged serving woman brought wooden platters of steaming-hot corn bread, butter, grilled pork-ribs slathered with some hot sauce, and bowls of boiled greens; the food was strange but good, in a hearty peasant-countryside sort of way. Local courtesy, according to Banerjii, meant that you had to eat with someone before getting down to serious business. And drink; the maize-beer was vile, but better than what the Seven Tribes called whiskey. The stuff they imported from the south, made from a cactus, was worse. The local wine was unspeakable even by those low standards.
“So,” Robre said. “You two are from the Empire?”
“Yes,” King said. Technically, so are you, of course, my friend. “We’re here to hunt. Mr. Banerjii tells me that you’re the man to see about such matters.”
“Awful long way to come just to hunt,” Robre said. “How’d you get the meat ’n’ hides home?”
“Ah—” Eric frowned. Obviously, the concept of hunting for trophies wasn’t part of the local scene. “We’re on our way home from England to India, which is the…biggest part of the Empire. That’s where I and my man here live….”
Robre frowned. “England is part of your Empire? In the old songs, we spent a powerful amount of time fighting England.” He threw back his head and half chanted
“Fired our guns ’n’ the English stopped a-comin’ Fired again, ’n’ then they ran away—”
“Ah…well, that was before the Fall, you see.”
Local notions of geography were minimal; evidently these people had lost all literacy and most sense of the past during the Fall. Not surprising, since this area was on the southern fringe of the zone where total crop failure for three freezing-cold summers in a row had killed nearly everyone but a few cannibals who survived by eating their neighbors. These Seven Tribes might well be descended from no more than a handful of families. Small numbers meant fewer memories and skills passed down, and the older people who might remember most were most likely to die.
The lands farther south, what the old maps called Mexico, had preserved some remnants of civilization, with gunpowder and writing and a few small cities atop a peasant mass. India and the Cape and Australia had done much better, thanks be to Christ and Krishna and St. Disraeli….
There was no sense in stretching poor Robre’s idea of the world too far—and for that matter, King’s own schooling hadn’t covered the Pre-Fall history of the Americas in much detail. The Mughals and the East India Company had taken up a good deal more space, and so had the Romans. He did know that there had been a temporarily successful rebellion against the Old Empire here in North America by British colonists just about a century before the Fall, and that the New Empire had only started to make good its claim to the continent in the last couple of generations.
There’s so much else to do, he thought wistfully.
The growing tension with Dai-Nippon, for example, or the chronic menace of the Czar in Samarkand, hanging over the North West Frontier, and the Caliphate of Damascus in the west. It was a shame that the Powers spent so much time hampering each other, when the world was so wide and vacant, but such seemed to be the nature of man, chained to the Wheel and prey to maya, illusion.
“I’m sorry if I, ah, interrupted,” King went on, nodding back toward the door where the redhead had made her spectacular exit.
“Naw,” Robre said. “That was Sonjuh dawtra Pehte. Pretty girl, hey?”
“Indeed. Hope I wasn’t queering your pitch,” King said cautiously. He’d gotten the impression that the locals were more free-and-easy about such matters than most higher-caste Indians or other Imperials, but making assumptions about women was always the easiest way to get yourself into killing trouble in a strange land.
It required a little back-and-forth before his meaning was plain. Robre shook his head. “Coyote’s dong, I’d sooner sport with a she-cougar. She’s pretty, but mad as a mustang on loco-weed, or ghost-ridden, or both. Well, no wonder, seein’ as she saw all her kin killed ’n’ eaten by the swamp-devils, ’n’ they held her captive for two, three days. ’S too bad. Not just pretty; she’s got guts, too. Probably get herself killed some hard, bad way, mebbe some others with her.”
King listened to the story with a frown: keeping the peace and putting down feud and raid was his hereditary caste duty, and such lawlessness irked him even in a place only theoretically under the Imperial Pax.
“Well, no wonder she’s not looking for a man, then,” he said.
That took another bout of struggling with the language, and then Robre shook his head. “Oh, swamp-devils don’t force women. Kill ’em and eat ’em, yes; that, no.”
“That’s…extremely odd,” King said, conscious of his eyebrows rising. Unbelievably odd, he thought. Perhaps it’s some sort of make-believe to protect the reputations of rescued women?
Robre frowned, as if searching for some memory. “Near as I can recall, they questioned a swamp-devil ’bout it once, a whiles back. He wasn’t quite dead when they caught him, ’n’ he could talk—not all of ’em can. Anyways, story is he said our women didn’t smell right.” He shrugged. “Now, ’bout this hunt-outfit you want—”
Apparently there was a long-established etiquette for setting up a caravan, for trade or hunt. After an hour or two, they could talk well enough to exchange hunting stories. Robre enjoyed the one about the elephant in musth hugely, while obviously not believing a word of it—drawing the long bow was another local custom, in fact an art form, from what the merchant had said…. King found the story of the yellow-striped black tigers even more fascinating, and the circumstantial detail very convincing indeed. Killing those beasts, alone and on foot and with only bow and spear…that took a man. He’d already bought both pelts, for what he suspected was several times the sum Banerjii had paid—not that he’d queer the little Bengali’s pitch by telling the natives, Imperials should stick together—but that wasn’t the same thing at all as a trophy brought down on his own.
“My father will be dumbstruck, for once,” he said, sobered by the thought of the fierce scarred face of the lord of Rexin. “He’s always on about a lion he got in the Cape with a black mane big as a hayrick. It gets a little bigger every year, in fact.”
Robre laughed and slapped the table. “My pa’s dead, but I know that feeling from the old days, when I was young.”
King kept his face straight; if the native wasn’t within six months of his own twenty-two, he’d recite the Mahabaratha backwards. “It’s a bargain, then,” he said.
“A bargain,” Robre agreed.
They shook hands again, not making it a trial of strength this time. “You can come collect the rifle tonight, if you want,” King said.
He’d seen the naked desire in the blue eyes when they spoke of that payment; modern weapons were deliberately kept expensive by Imperial policy and taxation. Trade in guns over the frontier wasn’t banned altogether, though, except in a few particular trouble spots: control over supplies of ammunition and spare parts was a powerful diplomatic tool, once buyers had become dependent on them. Robre surprised him by shakin
g his head.
“Put it with Banerjii,” he said. “I wouldn’t be good enough with one to be much use on this trip. Not enough time to practice—though I do expect some training with your weapons as part of the deal, you understand.”
“Koi bat naheen… I mean, not a problem,” King said, and yawned. The local whiskey tasted vile, but it did its business. “And now, adieu…I mean, see you tomorrow.”
Sonjuh woke slowly, feeling stiff and sandy-eyed and with a dull throb in her head. Crying yourself to sleep did that, the more if you had been drinking; at least she hadn’t woken herself up screaming again, though a heaviness behind her eyes told her that the dreams had been bad. She swallowed past a dry throat and scolded herself for the whiskey.
Jeroo, how much did I drink? It’s too damn easy to crawl into a jug to forget, she told herself, rubbing her eyes fiercely. You don’t want to forget.
She ignored the stiffness, as she ignored the small voice that said oh, yes, you do, and sat up, scratching and frowning as she cracked a flea. Slasher stirred and whined beside her as she rose from the straw of the loft. The beasts below were starting to stamp and blow in their stalls, and they’d be up in the farmhouse soon—her uncle wasn’t what she considered a hard worker, and it wasn’t the busy season, but a farmer got up with the sun, like it or not. She slipped down the ladder and watched the dog follow more cautiously—even now, the sight of Slasher on a ladder made her smile—and tossed hay into the feed troughs, took up pitchfork and wheelbarrow to muck out, rubbed them down. Two of the horses and a mule were hers, and the others all knew her, blowing affection at her and then feeding heartily.
Then she took down the bowie and tomahawk and worked the rest of the sand out of her joints by shadow-fighting, lunge and guard, stab and chop, her bare feet dancing across the packed dirt of the threshing floor outside the barn.
Move light and quick, she told herself, in an inner voice that sounded like her father’s. Light and quick. Anyone you fight’ll have more heft, so you’d best move right quick.
Pa had taught her; being sonless and indulgent with his eldest daughter, and living far enough offside that neighbors wouldn’t be scandalized. Besides, a lone steading needed more than one fighter, and it was old law that a woman should fight when her home was attacked.
After a while sweat was running freely down her body, the sun was over the horizon, and her head felt clear. She worked the counterbalanced sweep to bring more water out of the well, drank as much as she could, then dashed more buckets over herself; at least her relative didn’t grudge water, having three good wells and a creek. She was rubbing herself down with a coarse piece of cloth when she became aware of a disapproving glare from the cabin; her uncle Aydwah’s wife, throwing cracked corn to the hens and taking in more wood for the hearth fire.
And she’s no brighter a candle than those broody birds, Sonjuh thought. Always there to have their heads chopped off just ’cause she throws them some corn of a morning. Still, no harm in being polite.
She tied on a fresh breechclout, slipped on her leggings and laced them to her belt, cross-gartered the moccasin-boots up her calves, and then pulled on a clean shift of scratchy undyed cotton. By then the house was roused, adults and older children scratching and spitting as they spread out for their dawn chores, naked towhaired toddlers tumbling about, dogs keeping a wise distance from Slasher.
Aydwah had a big place, two shake-roofed log cabins linked by a covered dogtrot, several barns besides the one she slept in, loomhouse where the women of the family spun and wove, slatted corncrib of poles, toolsheds, smokehouse and more. Several poorer kin and hired workers lived with him, too, sleeping in attics and lofts, and a single Kumanch slave taken prisoner from a band raiding the westernmost of the Seven Tribes, beaten into meekness and sold east. It was a prosperous yeoman’s spread, no wealthy Jefe’s farm, but two steps up from her father’s place.
Cooking smells came from the house, and Aydwah’s wife came out to beat a long ladle against an iron triangle hanging by the cabin door. Sonjuh’s belly rumbled as she sat with the others at the long trestle-table set out in the dogtrot, where everyone ate in good weather. Breakfast was samp-mush, with sorghum syrup and warm-fresh milk poured on, and she bent over her bowl with the wooden spoon busy.
Her uncle had the family hair, gray streaking bright fox red in his case, but he was heavier set than her father, slower of mind and words. His voice was a deep rumble as he spoke from the head of the table: “We’ve the last of the flax to plant today, ’n’ the goobers to lift. Sonjuh, you’ll—”
“I’ve got business of my own today, Uncle,” she said, trying for respectful firmness and suspecting it came out as sullen. “I cleaned out the workstock barn.”
Aydwah flushed; it showed easily, despite forty years’ weathering of his fair freckled skin. “You’ll do as you’re told, girl, ’n’ no back talk! I took you in—”
“’N’ you’re well paid for it,” Sonjuh said. “This milk’s from my folk’s milch cow, isn’t it? All that stock’s mine, not yours—that’s the law! You’re getting more than I’d pay in Dannulsford for tavern-keep.”
Her uncle’s flush went deeper; that was the truth, and he knew it and that the Jefe would uphold her.
Her aunt-by-marriage was shriller: “’N’ the stock ’n’ gear might get you a husband, if you didn’t gallivant around like some shameless hussy!”
Sonjuh restrained herself, not throwing the contents of her bowl in the older woman’s face. Instead she set it down on the puncheon floor, where Slasher gave the huffing grunt that meant don’t mind if I do in dog and went to it with lapping tongue and slurping sounds. He was used to yelling.
“I made an oath ’fore God, ’n’ I can’t make it good sitting in the loomhouse, or married off to some crofter you bribe to take spoiled goods with my kin’s stock,” she shouted back. “What’s worse luck ’n oath-breaking to God?”
“Fighting is man’s work, ’n’ so are oaths ’fore the Lord o’ Sky,” her aunt screamed, shaking her fist at Sonjuh; several of the younger children around the table began to cry, and most of the adults were looking at their feet, or the rafters. “You’re a hex-bearer, ’n’ you’ll bring His anger down on us all.”
“Lord o’ Sky saved us all in the Hungry Years, didn’t he? Brought back the sun after Olsaytan ate it? Leastways, that’s what the Jefe says come midsummer ’n’ midwinter day when he kills cows for God; you telling me he’s lying? Lord o’ Sky hears an oath, don’t matter who says the say.”
Aydwah’s head had been turning back and forth like a man watching a handball game. Now he rose to his feet and roared at her: “You speak to your aunt with respect, missie, or I’ll take my belt to your backside—that’s the law, too, me being your eldest male kin. Or have you forgot that part?”
“You could try!” Sonjuh yelled, all caution cast aside.
Her uncle’s roar was wordless as he started a lunge for her. Sonjuh jumped backward from the bench, cat-lithe, looking around for something to grab and hit with—never hit a man with your bare hand unless you were naked and had your feet nailed to the floor, her father had told her. An ax handle someone had been whittling from a billet of hickory was close by, and she snatched it up and held it two-handed.
That wasn’t needful; Aydwah froze as Slasher came up from beneath the table, paws on the bench and bristling until he looked twice his size—which was considerable, because the dog had more than a trace of plains wolf in his bloodlines, and outweighed his mistress’s 115 pounds. His black lips curled back from long wet yellow-white teeth, and the expression made his tattered ears and the scars on his muzzle stand out. Slasher had been her father’s hunting dog—fighting dog, too; the posse had found him clubbed senseless and left for dead at the ruins of her family’s cabin, and he’d woken to track the war band that carried her off.
“Get me my bow,” Aydwah said, slow and careful, not moving as others tumbled away from the table and backed to a safe distance.
“Sami, get me my bow. That there dog is dangerous and has to be put down.”
“You shoot at the dog saved my life, you die,” Sonjuh said flatly. The words left her lips like pebbles, heavy dense things not to be called back. “I’m leaving. I’ll send for my family’s gear later; look after it real careful, or I’ll call the Jefe to set the law on you.”
She backed away toward the stable, her eyes wary and the ax handle ready, but none of the other grown folk tried to stop her; Aydwah wasn’t quite angry enough to call on them to bind her, although his son Sami did bring his bow. By that time Slasher had followed her, walking stiff-legged and looking back over his shoulder frequently. Stunned silence fell, broken only by the idiot clucking of poultry and noises of stock and a few dogs barking at the fear and throttled anger they smelled. Sonjuh saddled one of her horses, stashed her traveling gear on the mule’s pack saddle, slung the blanket-roll over her shoulder, and swung into the saddle; the morning’s mush was a cold lump under her breastbone, but her face was a mask of pale, controlled fury. The last thing she did was to use the goatsfoot lever to cock her crossbow, setting one of the short, heavy steel-headed and leather-feathered bolts in the groove.
She held the reins in her left hand and the weapon in her right; the spare horse and mule were well-enough trained to follow without a leading rein. Aydwah waited by the laneway that led out across his land to the Dannulsford trace, between the tall posts carved with the figures of the Corn Lady and Lord o’ Sky.
“I cast you out!” he called, as she came near. “You’re no kin of ours! I put the elder’s curse on you, Lord ’n’ Lady hear my oath!”
There were gasps from the other folk of the farm; that was a terrible thing, to be without immediate family. Not as bad as being outlawed from your clan, but close. Sonjuh dropped the reins for an instant to flash the sign of the Horns at him, turning the curse.
There were more shocked exclamations at that, and someone burst out: “She’s ghost-ridden!”
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