The Margarets

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “I take no offense, Oastkeeper. We are not good for business. We are not supposed to be. Comfort yourself with the knowledge that if I find what I seek, I will not be here long.”

  “And that would be…?”

  “Do not trifle with me, Oastkeeper. You know what I’m here for and probably where it is and who has it. It’s likely everyone in the district knows, including the children in their cradles. I have no doubt the whispers began the day he or she brought it home, whoever that person may be.”

  B’Oag mimed innocence, widening his eyes and pursing his lips. “Envoy, I have no idea…”

  I turned away from him impatiently. “I left my burden in your lockroom, Oastkeeper. When my task is done, I’ll go my way, taking it with me. If my task is weary and long, it will grow tired of its imprisonment, and then…then you will wish you had made it easy for me.”

  Without waiting to judge the effect of this threat, I went to the table by the wide, bell-shaped copper that hung over the heat source: a hot spring, a little fumarole, maybe a boiling mud pot, though it didn’t smell like a mud pot. The copper funneled the heat upward into coiled flues that ran first through the oasthall, then into the rest of the place, including the spaces for animals. The laundry probably had its own source, preferably a hot spring that provided hot wash-water for clothes and linens.

  The cider was already on the table, along with a plate covered by an overturned bowl to keep warm a dish of stewed meat, legumes, grain, and herbs. I took off the scarf, then the coat, hanging them on the back of a nearby chair. I wore boots to my knee, and trousers above that, thick with padding to keep out the cold. I stripped off my gloves and my padded jacket, becoming smaller as each layer was removed. At last I sat down in my shirtsleeves. I knew what they saw. A slender woman not yet of middle years, pale brown hair in many tiny braids making up a complex pattern that ended in a beaded knot at the nape of the neck, golden eyes glittering in the firelight, skin reddened by the unaccustomed heat. I must have looked quite ordinary, except for the eyes and the gold Siblinghood diadem with its jewel blooming upon my forehead as though it carried fire within itself.

  Something moved at my throat, and I took it from beneath my shirt, a tiny feathered thing that blinked in the firelight before settling itself on the table beside my plate. I beckoned, and B’Oag came to my side. “A pinch or two of raw grain, Oastkeeper. I found this little one in the snow, barely alive. Do you know what sort it is?”

  “Chitterlain: one that waited too long to go south.”

  “Well, I am of no mind to let it freeze.”

  He fetched the grain, a small handful, and scattered it on the table where the chitterlain lay. It stirred itself to peck at the offering, at first doubtfully, but then with renewed energy, stretching its four wings, first one pair, then the other. I poured a bit of water into a saucer and put it where the creature could drink from it.

  B’Oag whispered to his son while I ate, the others in the room kept their voices down. Several times, all speech stopped when sounds came in from outside, a ragged howling, a snuffling at the summer door, a low growl, almost like a purr, a shrill yap or two followed by shriller yips. Dire wolves and their pups. Ice cats and their kits. The great ape-bears had already gone deep into their dens. All feathered creatures except the thunder-buzzards had fled south long ago. Now there were only the winter beasts, the winter men (for their womenfolk stayed home in snowtime), and one envoy from who knew where.

  “What’s in the basket?” the boy asked B’Oag, in a voice I could hear clearly, his curiosity overcoming his prudence.

  I saw B’Oag go white again, lips pinched. “Ojlin, hush, or I’ll hush you! We don’t mention it! We don’t question it! We don’t know about it! It’s not of us, it’s of them!”

  The opening of the icelock door went unnoticed among the howling and growling outside until a chill draft announced the cracking of the inner door to admit a tall form, as thickly bundled as I had been. From the corner of my eye I saw him removing his gloves one finger at a time, slapping them against his thigh to remove the ice crystals, laying them on the nearest table while he unbuttoned the thick coat, furred outside with a shag woven of the long, curly winter locks of adult mountain gnar, furred inside with the soft woven fleece of the young. Beneath it were seemingly endless layers of other clothing, which he merely unbuttoned in series, all the while looking about himself, ceiling, floor, shuttered windows, the hot copper with its armspan wide coil of metal flue above it, both hood and flue radiating welcome heat.

  I ignored him and went on with my meal.

  “Oastkeeper?” he asked at last, through the scarves still hiding his face.

  “B’Oag Thenterson,” he said. “An ’ow may we serve you, sir?”

  “Food. Whatever she’s having smells good. And a pitcher of cider, if you have it.”

  “This early in the icetime, we’ve got it,” said B’Oag, as the stranger paced slowly across the floor.

  Before I realized what he was doing, he was at my shoulder, leaning above me. “Envoy?” he whispered, almost in my ear.

  I turned, startled, looking up into a face I remembered as in adream. “Fernwo…” I breathed. “Where did you…what are you…?”

  “Hush,” he murmured. “There’s a roomful of ears about us, don’t you know? Ears ready to mishear, noses to smell conspiracy where none exists, mouths to twist good intentions into evil certainties. We know all about it, Envoy. We were told often enough.”

  “Sit down,” I quavered, taking a deep breath. Then, more evenly, “You’re being conspicuous.”

  “Thank you, yes. I’ll sit here next to your friend. Chitterlain, isn’t it? A bit far from its kindred. But then, so am I. It’s been a long road, finding you.”

  I set my spoon down, lifted my glass to sip at the cider it contained, willing myself to appear impassive. Envoys were always impassive, facing life or death with the same quiet comportment, the same emotionless mien. This wasn’t death. It was suddenly too much life, but appearance could be everything.

  B’Oag arrived with plates, bowls, a pitcher of cider, another glass. He stood uncertainly nearby.

  “Put it here,” said the new arrival. “The envoy is an old acquaintance, and I’ll sup with her.”

  The oastkeeper had only waited for the word. The plates came down with purposeful clatter, Fernwold pulled out a chair and sat facing me. I had again dipped my spoon.

  “Good?” he asked.

  “Passable,” I said. “Anything made with smoked or salted meat is passable at best. This is dried in the smoke, not too salty, and the oastkeeper has traded for seasonings, too, which some of them up here don’t bother to do. They figure people get hungry enough, they’ll eat anything.”

  “Including envoys?”

  “I doubt they consider envoys among the general run of people who frequent oasthouses.”

  “And you’re here for…?”

  “In pursuit of duty, Fernwold…”

  “Ferni,” he suggested, smiling. “You called me Ferni.”

  “Fernwold,” I said again firmly. “Why are you here?”

  “I learned you were sent. I had some time and a reason or two. I decided to offer assistance to my old friend, Margaret.”

  I shuddered, only slightly. How long had it been since I had heard that name? “Say it as B’yurngrad says it, if you say it at all. I am M’urgi, shaman of B’yurngrad steppes. You are Fernwold, seeker and assessor. I am, from time to time, given the crown of an envoy—as are you, I’ve been told—and we’re not allowed assistance.”

  “We’re not allowed to ask for it. It can be given, and it often is.”

  “By whom?” I whispered. “I’ve never had help!”

  He shrugged, took a great gulp of the steaming cider, belching slightly as it expanded the cold air in throat and belly. “Perhaps they never thought you needed it until now. No. Perhaps I knew you never really needed it until now. Don’t go all proud on me, love. We know one another
too well for that.”

  “Knew,” I breathed. “Once.”

  “We need one another’s help, whether you know it yet or not. And everything we knew of one another, we still know, Shaman, and it was a good deal more than can be dismissed as ‘once.’ I told you then what I tell you now. I knew you the moment I saw you. We are mates, M’urgi, whether we meet once a lifetime, once a decade, or every day. Nothing changes when we are apart.”

  My hand on the pitcher trembled only slightly. “Some of that is right.”

  “Which part?”

  “Nothing changes when we’re apart. It’s when we’re together things must change. Ferni, where have you been!”

  He gritted his teeth. “My recent life has not been one I wanted to drag you into. Or thought I had the right to. I worry about the parts of my life I don’t remember!”

  I paled. “The Siblinghood wiped your mind?”

  “Perhaps they. Or someone, something else that’s left me missing a few years here and there. I remember everything since meeting you, however. And before that, the academy, I remember that.” He drank again. “Are you carrying?”

  I bared my wrist, letting him see the round sucker marks where it had drunk my blood, not much of it, just a little every day, enough to keep it from going dormant, but not enough to give it the power to overcome my will, so long trained and tried, like steel forged, folded, beaten, and hardened, over and over again. I pulled the sleeve back into place. “They have a lockroom. Built of stone, a maht thick.”

  He touched the marks gently with a fingertip, erasing them and the soreness that had accompanied them. “I’ll never understand northerners. It’s carried in a basket woven out of reeds or straw. Any latched closet would hold the crippled ones we carry, but they build a lockroom thick enough to hold the devil.”

  “They’ve never seen one, Fernwold. I have seldom seen one. We take some pains not to look at them until we have to, don’t we? Fear and superstition always follow the unseen, the unknown, the whispered of.” I sighed, wiggling my fingers, now free of pain. “I would have healed me after I’d eaten, when I felt warmer, but thank you.” They taught us this healing of the ghyrm wounds. It took only concentration and a little strength. A little more than I had had when I came in.

  “I know,” he said, returning to his supper. The chitterlain moved over near his plate and regarded him with beady eyes, then began preening its feathers as though it had decided he was harmless. He smiled. “They talk, did you know that? The chitterlain?”

  “I did not,” I said. “You mean like a…what was it, a parrot? A mimic?”

  “No, no. They talk. There’s a one-eyed old fellow, a member of the Siblinghood, I think, hangs about from time to time. He says they’re the last remaining of a race of creatures that once were starfarers, city builders.”

  “This little one?”

  “Yes.” He leaned down close. “You understand what I’m saying?”

  “Sooor,” it trilled. “Loor ti ellld.”

  “Which means?” I asked.

  “Which means, ‘Yes, I speak of old times.’ They live in colonies, the chitterlain. They spend the winters in the south, getting fat and telling stories to their children. In the spring, they fly back to the northland.”

  His voice was weighted with sadness, and he turned back to his meal. When the soup and cider had warmed him somewhat, he turned to the more substantial and savory stuff. “Are you here on retrieval?” he asked between bites.

  “I thought you were told where I was.”

  “I was. I didn’t ask why, for my errand had reason enough.”

  “And what was that?”

  “First to find you, then warn you, then to protect you. There’s a threat against your life.”

  I shrugged. “That’s been the case since I left Earth.”

  “This is specific, but I don’t think anyone’s followed you here. What’s the situation?”

  “The Siblinghood tells me they have a ghyrm here.”

  “Recent enough that nobody has…?”

  “We’re never quick enough to prevent somebody from playing the fool!” I snapped. “Otherwise, this retrieval could have waited until the thaw.”

  “When are you going to find it?”

  I shook my head, looked around the room, where this chair and that had been emptied since his arrival. “Not here. This isn’t the place to discuss any such thing. Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Very well. Have I told you it’s a good thing you stayed out of Mercan space. I’ve been on a few of those worlds recently. Rinwall. Bonxar. Fajnard.” He dropped his voice, almost to a whisper. “I’ve gone into the mountain fastnesses of Perepume a few times, visiting the Gibbekot, who say revolution’s brewing on Fajnard: Gibbekot, Ghoss, and umoxen on one side, Frossian overlords on the other.”

  “You go spying for the Siblinghood?”

  “The Siblinghood is merely keeping an eye on what’s happening. They haven’t offered the Gibbekot any help as yet. You’d have known if they had.”

  “I’ve been away from the news for some while,” I said. “Are the Frossians involved in this supposed threat to me?”

  “It’s possible. Their nature is to be loyal supporters of whatever demagogue has the most power, and though there are no Frossians on B’yurngrad, the threat could come through them to someone local.” He frowned. “You’re thinner, M’urgi. You look well, but thin. It’s strange, when I see you I think how well you’ve taken to the discipline of our calling. Most women don’t like the solitude.”

  I considered this. “Most people don’t, male or female, but people who grow up as solitary children already know the eremitic life. We find it more comforting than onerous. The work is easy enough, except when we’re carrying, and that isn’t often.”

  “True. This one you’re hunting, any idea where it came from?”

  “The wild tribes have been using them as weapons for as long as I can remember.”

  “None reported on Chottem,” he murmured. “None on Thairy. Fajnard is suspect, of course. Frossian society would be meat and drink for the ghyrm-things.”

  “Except among the tribes, we’ve heard of few on B’yurngrad. Not here, not yet.”

  “Except for the ones in our keeping, no?”

  I made a face. “Let’s not talk about them. I have far more than enough of them. What’s the news?”

  So we talked: of the legal maneuvers in the city of Bray, on Chottem, to have the heiress of Bray declared dead so the ancillary branches of the family could claim the fortune; how the sudden arrival of the heiress had thrown all that into a heap; of the most recent results of the Great Walling-Off, Dominion’s social experiment on Tercis; of rumors that the Queen of the Ghoss, Wilvia the Wise, who had disappeared from Fajnard long ago, had been seen on Tercis some years before; of the Reunion of Academy Alumni that was to take place at Point Zibit on Thairy and of Ferni’s friends who would be there. Inconsequential talk, as the chitterlain ate and drank its fill; casual talk as the chitterlain flew to my collar and burrowed into the warmth of the scarf about my throat. All the time, Ferni’s eyes never left my face.

  When we had finished our meal, he asked, “Have you a room here?”

  I slanted a sideways look at him, deciding whether to admit it or not, deciding I really had no choice.

  “May I share it?” he whispered.

  “Ah, Ferni,” I murmured, half to myself. “After all this time. Over ten years! Sometimes I thought I’d only dreamed you, now here you are. Why now?”

  “Couldn’t help myself.” He smiled as he started to reach for my hand but stopped, aware of the eyes and the ears still in the room. He stood and went to the counter where B’Oag stood. “We’d like another pitcher of cider, Oastkeeper. Is there a heating coil in the envoy’s room? If so, we’ll talk out our business there, rather than ruin your trade for the whole evening.”

  “I thank you for your consideration,” said B’Oag, glancing around his nearly e
mpty oasthall. He turned to his son. “Ojlin, be sure the steam coil is turned on full in the envoy’s room, and take up a pitcher of cider.”

  “That’s all right, Oastkeeper,” Fernwold murmured. “Here’s your pay for our dinner tonight and for the room. I’ll carry the cider and set the coil myself.”

  B’Oag, bewildered at the largess on the counter before him, made no objection to this at all.

  I Am Ongamar/on Cantardene

  On Cantardene, years had passed since I, that is, Miss Ongamar, had witnessed the sacrifice on the funeral hill. I had fed the thing with parts of that happening, fed it to such satiety that it hadn’t bothered me for several days. Then came rumors of the population crest on Earth and the accompanying restoration of the planet, fed day after day by statistics showing that Earth’s population was actually and consistently falling. Within a century, so it was whispered, the population would be reduced from eighteen billion to the tenth of that advised by Dominion as a sensible maximum human population for the foreseeable future. On hearing of this, the K’Famir threatened to sue for damages in the Interstellar Trade Organization. If Earth’s population fell, there would not be enough surplus humans to provide slave labor, and the K’Famir had contracted for slave labor!

  Responding to the suit, the Dominion announced that humans would continue to be shipped as bondslaves into both Omniont and Mercan areas of influence for the term of the contract, which was fifty Earth years. The Mercan Combine, and its K’Famir representatives, immediately accused the Dominion of restraint of trade and threatened various unpleasant consequences, such as tariffs, raids on colony worlds, and the like if the downward trend were not immediately reversed. To all of these the Dominion replied that Dominion business was Dominion business, not subject to Combine or Federation demands.

  The matter had then been appealed to the ISTO, who referred it to the IG Court of Justice, where the Dominion view had recently been unanimously sustained, the court holding that habitable planets, being few and extremely valuable, were more in need of protection than was the provision of cheap labor on planets with an enormous population of an idle elite, and further, that the welfare of the planet must always take precedence over the greediness of its inhabitants or, in this case, their purchasers; and, yet further, that a decline in the population of a previously highly proliferative species, if indeed this had happened, was more a matter for celebration than harassment.