Tesseracts Fourteen: Strange Canadian Stories

by John Robert Colombo

  I looked down at Katla as Astrith slept. The baby was restless, her eyes wide open. She gave off an incredible heat. In my fatigue, I thought I saw her frown as if concentrating. Darkness pooled around her head, making her hair appear longer than it had been when we were outside. The air seemed to shimmer around her; in my mind I chastised my wife for insisting on stoking the fire so fervently. But the coals had been banked hours ago.

  Katla’s struggles subsided and with them my worries. My head was leaden with weariness, so I laid it on the edge of Astrith’s pillow, telling myself I’d hear the cock’s crow soon enough. I just needed to rest my eyes.

  The sun was well above the horizon, her rusty light streaming through the caravan’s west-facing windows, when I was woken by Astrith’s insistent shaking. I blinked to clear away the sleep, rolled over to discover that Katla was no longer on the bed beside me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, instantly awake. “What’s wrong with the baby?”

  Astrith clucked her tongue at me, like a practiced mother already. Her voice wasn’t nearly so assured. “Nothing’s wrong, Tomaken. Not really. It’s just… Do you think it’s possible for a child to be too healthy?”

  As she stepped aside I got a clear view of the cradle. I didn’t have to ask what she meant.

  Katla was sitting up.

  My daughter blinked at me as I met her gaze — her knowing, flashing green gaze. She stretched her mouth wide in a yawn. Her gums, glistening with dribble, were studded with the tips of white teeth.

  My stomach clenched as I looked at the child I’d created. Less than a day on this earth, and already more robust than my brother’s two-year-old son. I knew the color was draining from my tanned face: I could tell this by the look of fear on my wife’s.

  “Perhaps it’s always this way,” I said, sitting up, my mind racing. “Growth-spurts aren’t uncommon—”

  A knock at the door interrupted my flawed explanations.

  “I’ve brought some dried curds for you, Tomaken.” My mother’s scratchy voice barely penetrated the wagon’s thick paneling. Words must be whispered around a house of the dead, for fear of calling the spirit’s attention before it reaches the ghost fields. “And some bantan for Astrith, to help her regain her strength.” I tapped three times on the wall, a sign of thanks that wouldn’t invite further conversation.

  I waited until the sound of my mother’s shuffling bootsteps had moved beyond earshot before I dared speak again. “Do you think she heard us?”

  Astrith ignored the question, silenced me with a sharp gesture. “We mustn’t introduce Katla like this.”

  I got out of bed, paced over to the cradle, took Katla up in my arms. She was heavy, and smelled of sour milk. Her skin was pale to the point of translucence. And she was enchanting, no matter her size.

  “But what if she cries?” I asked. “What will we do with the clothes she soils? They’ll know she’s here eventually, and I’d rather not enrage the ancestors. Not when we’ve become a real family at last.”

  My wife, always sensible, shook her head. “The clan won’t see her now, not without suspecting — as we do, My Breath — that the Meito are playing tricks with us.”

  Once again I looked at my daughter, knowing full well it wasn’t the guardians who were responsible. Not this time.

  “Give me a day to think,” I said. I pressed a kiss on my wife’s forehead and the child into her arms. “Just keep her quiet until I return.”

  I avoided my kin as I left Astrith’s caravan. Head down, I skirted the clearing and broke a new path through the forest. Walking would do me good; it clears the mind, gives a man the distance he needs to think. The air was still, pungent with the scent of damp leaves. Fresh, with an undertone of rot. I felt my blood pumping as I blazed the trail, filling me with good energy, releasing the bad. My face, chest, armpits, crotch all grew moist with sweat — still I walked. Over the river, whispering now that it was day; through the copse of silver birch, where I gathered strips of bark for luck; past the sentinel pines whose needles seemed tipped with flames, silhouetted against the setting sun; until the moon had risen high overhead, burnishing leaves and branches and animal eyes with silver.

  My pulse throbbed in my ears as I emerged on the other side of the woods. The plains stretched out before me, a vast sea of gray and black. Long blades of sweet-grass undulated in an unfelt wind; the ancestors busily moved from place to place, shifting grasses the only sign of their passing. Hours of walking had taken me far away from my problem, but no closer to a solution. I crouched down, caught my breath, and dug my fingers into the earth.

  The grasses waved in a hypnotic rhythm. Night predators rustled in the undergrowth behind me. Clouds streamed past the moon, strobing its soft light. Treetops swayed, shushed. My heartbeat slowed, evened out. Loose soil streamed through my fingers. The night was filled with echoes of the ancestors’ busy feet.

  I must have dozed, then. A waking sleep in which time passed but I remained frozen, eyes open. A kestrel swooped down before me; the yellow ring around her eyes, the bright cere of her beak, and her dangerous feet were luminous in the waning moonlight. In a flash, she snatched a vole, who had innocently poked his head out of the ground not two feet in front of me. Her shrill cry of triumph shook me out of my stupor, set my heart pounding once more.

  As I stood, my joints stiff and aching, my boots covered in dew, I noticed a russet feather sticking up out of the earth where the kestrel had made her kill. Smiling, I plucked it like a flower. The Meito had given me a sign — and signs, unlike the swift growth of cat-infants, could easily be deciphered.

  I would consult with Temudzhin, the Meito’s interpreter. My smile broadened. Clutching the feather tightly in my fist, I turned back to the woods, my heart and footsteps light.

  They did not remain so for long.

  I arrived back at our encampment by mid-afternoon, only to notice a flattened patch of grass where Temudzhin’s wagon and supply tent should have been. My cousin, Chuluun, walked past as I stood gaping at the deep ruts Temudzhin’s caravan had left in the ground. Chuluun bowed his head, touched fingers to brow by way of greeting.

  “How long has he been gone?” I asked, pointing at the white scattering of Temudzhin’s fire, noticing new shoots of grass already sprouting where the tent had been staked. His departure was clearly not recent.

  “Four sunrises ago,” Chuluun replied. “The Pasha wanted an audience with him before the autumn markets get too hectic.” Chuluun looked up at the sky, gauging the sun’s path. “If his journey has gone smoothly, he shouldn’t be too long in reaching Zhureem Ordon.”

  I thanked my cousin, then headed for Astrith’s wagon. If anything, my heart was heavier now than it had been yesterday. Even if I left right away, I’d never catch Temudzhin before he ascended the Pasha’s mountain, before he passed the palace’s bronze gates. And if I tried, there was no doubt the clan would discover Katla before my return. They would see what I’d done, and they would banish me for it. It’s one thing to heal a wounded yak, to encourage horses to stud or to provide supplies from next to nothing — it was another thing altogether to invite ghosts into our community and to make one my heir.

  Astrith opened the caravan’s door before my foot had made contact with the bottom step. She looked as frantic as I felt.

  “Hurry, Tomaken,” she whispered. “Get inside.”

  Her hands were shaking, but still she closed the door gently to avoid waking the child curled up on our bed. And she was a child now, no longer an infant. One who didn’t know better would think she was a girl of four or five years. Her hair was glossy, long and black, just like her namesake’s. Astrith had tied it back with red ribbons, as was custom for girls of that age. The tips of the ribbons were frayed and wet; Katla was chewing one in her sleep. She was wrapped in one of my wife’s old shifts, which was too big by far. Her pa
le shoulders and long, sinewy legs were exposed but Katla didn’t seem to mind the cold. A soft rumble, like purring, escaped her throat as she exhaled.

  “Get rid of it,” Astrith snapped. “We can’t care for it, Tomaken. I can’t.”

  I looked at my wife, my mouth pressed firmly shut.

  “Get rid of it,” she repeated.

  I breathed out slowly. Closed my eyes. A plan started to form in my mind.

  Four days to reach the Pasha’s markets. Four days to send a bird ahead, to organize an audience with my lord. Four days for the girl to grow.

  I opened my eyes again, and nodded.

  No bride would ever be as pure as my Katla. She had never been stained with moon blood; she had hardly yet learned to speak. This last trait alone will increase her value, I thought.

  My sturdy horse seemed delighted to be free of the wagon’s halter. He sped us across hills, his footing sure and steadfast as wooded knolls grew into stony mountains. I gave him free rein, adjusting his course only when his exuberance threatened to lead us away from the Pasha’s territory. The horse’s unshod hooves were swift; we reached Yangjugol, the valley curving around the cliff-top palace, by the time Katla had stretched into a beautiful girl of twelve. I had hoped she would’ve reached sixteen after four days’ time; that her hips and breasts would have become more pronounced. Softer and more enticingly full.

  But my horse was too fleet — we’d arrived along with the third sunrise, carried on gusts of wintry mountain air — and Katla’s growth spurts were erratic and slowing. Still, I had no doubt she would appeal to my lord. The transaction would be brief; she would be purchased instantly. I would be back on my horse before the ache of three days’ riding had had a chance to leave my legs.

  As we rode through the valley, I realized a few dozen merchants must’ve had the same idea as me: reach Yangjugol early enough to prise the fattest coins from our Pasha’s tight grasp, make a profit before the chill settled in too securely, leave before the autumn markets began in earnest. All the men, regardless of clan or age, stopped their work as we passed and openly stared at Katla, sitting in the saddle before me. In their place, I too would have stared.

  Several stalls had already been erected in the shadow of Zhureem Ordon. The palace’s blood-red rooftops and peaked gables were barely visible from the mountain’s base, hidden as they were behind a high impenetrable wall. A road switch backed up the mountain face, ending in a closed bronze gate; it would take us more than a few hours’ hard walking to reach it.

  I tethered my horse by the snow leopards’ enclosure, which stood taller than the height of two men and, as far as I could see, ran the length of the mountain. These great felines were the Pasha’s pride, his favorite possessions; and like all treasures, kept under lock and key. I had no fondness for leopards. Their crystal blue eyes were too knowing, like they’d seen my misdeeds and were only keeping silent to torment me. I slapped Katla’s hand when she looked ready to reach through the cage’s evenly spaced bars. She blinked, but did not cry out as a normal child would. Her hand fell limply to her side.

  “She’s a frigid little thing isn’t she, Tomaken?”

  “Bitter words spoil beauty,” I replied, watching Setseh and the Pasha’s two other wives approach. “You should bite your tongue before it curdles.”

  Setseh’s hair was streaked with gray, pulled back from her lined face in a loose horse-tail. As first wife, she had earned the silk scarves draped over her burgundy woolens, and poking out of the basket she carried. She had also earned her sharp tongue. Yarmaa and Dzhol walked two paces behind her; the twins had tinted their hair since I saw them last, it was now the hue of dried henna. The color didn’t become them. The wives’ skirts flapped in the valley’s katabatic winds, unhindered by buckles or pride. Their soft cotton shirts gaped unrestrained, the effect too familiar to be tempting. They knew men lusted not for women they had already enjoyed, but for those who were yet unexplored. Even so, they regularly came down to Yangjugol, and strutted around the merchants as if they were still girls of eighteen.

  “And how will you be using your tongue today, Tomaken?” Setseh asked. She bent down and placed the basket near the snow leopards’ enclosure. “As warrior? Pauper? Supplicant?” She took strips of dried ox-meat out of the basket, slipped them through the bars as she spoke.

  I stepped away from the cage as the leopards wrestled over these morsels, their saliva flying in gobbets, their breath rank.

  “I approach our lord as a father,” I said. “And as a merchant.”

  Setseh hissed as Katla snatched a strip of meat out of the basket and began nibbling on it. She slapped the girl’s face and hands until they were red. Katla dropped the tidbit, but continued to lick the salt from her fingers.

  “Are you an imbecile, girl? Stealing from the Pasha’s pride?” Yarmaa and Dzhol snorted as Katla’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Get this creature out of my sight!”

  I gathered Katla into my arms, more to steady myself than to comfort her. She didn’t seem disturbed in the least by Setseh’s anger. But the first wife’s disdain reassured me. The wives always turned vicious when the Pasha was ready to add to their number: Setseh had been unbearable when Yarmaa arrived; and the pair of them were fit to be tied when Dzhol followed her sister to Zhureem Ordon. Looking now at the flush in their weathered faces, I couldn’t help but think it was my Katla’s icy skin that infuriated them. So translucent, so bruisable, so different from their own brash coloring. Their hides had been worn tough with use, like well-ridden stallions. My Katla wasn’t yet broken in. She would be the Pasha’s youngest wife yet. The most tender. The most disconcerting.

  “One condition,” I said, “and my little daughter will be yours.”

  The Pasha stood proudly in the fortress’ reception hall. A silk vest stretched over his thick robes, a mink hat topped his gray head. He stroked the wealthy expanse of his belly with jewel-encrusted fingers and stared out the window, surveying the lands his father had conquered. I was forced to speak to his back.

  “You may buy her now,” I informed him, “but you may not enjoy her until she has had her first bloods.” It was perhaps an arbitrary rule, but necessary. Prohibition makes all purchases more enticing, and I wanted to be sure the Pasha would bite. It would do none of us any good, seeing her ravished and left unbought. I could not take her home again.

  I bowed my head as I spoke, wrapped Katla in my finest embroidered cloak, fastened its toggles tight beneath her chin. My hand lingered there, enjoying her warmth after our cold trek up the mountain, until her unflinching green gaze made me shiver. The Pasha turned at that moment and caught the gesture. He stood with one eyebrow raised.

  Let him think I yearn for her, I thought. That this restriction springs from lust instead of fear. He can think what he likes. Just so long as he believes my act, and takes her. This creature will not be Tomaken’s heir.

  “Let me inspect the girl more closely,” he said.

  Never had a prospective bride approached the Pasha with such a sinuous gait. She hadn’t done it intentionally, of that I am sure; but if he hadn’t been interested before, my lord certainly was now. He appraised my Katla — by all accounts a chieftain’s daughter, a warrior’s daughter — as he would the treasures we men had won for him in the wars. Like porcelain or rice, leather saddlebags, or snow leopard tails like the three dangling limply on his banner above the hall’s great fireplace. But my Katla was more precious to him than cinnamon, than jade, than ivory.

  Good girl, I thought. I was forced to look out the window, beyond the Pasha’s bulk. The price I got would be lower if my lord saw me smile.

  The forest was a dark smudge at the edge of my vision, sketched beyond the vast valley aproning out before us. Its dense foliage and closely packed trees harbored my clan, kept them hidden in the empire’s margins. I yearned to be back with them, for this deal
to be done. The clan could use the profit Katla’s body would gain for us. And Astrith and I could use some peace.

  My lord wanted to keep Katla out of any other man’s reach, to balance her firmly on the tip of his tower. I knew this the moment his eyes widened at the sight of her. His coffers were full; his bed empty. He had no use for haggard wives.

  So he agreed to my condition.

  Snow fell, carried dusk in its wake, as I placed the heavy purse in my saddlebag. The horse was restless, eager to be on the road and away from the mountain’s chill climate. I planned to ride through the night, taking rest only when I couldn’t avoid it. The summer snows wouldn’t last, but their arrival was a harbinger of worse times to come. I was anxious to be on my way; to be back in Astrith’s stifling caravan, with her arms and legs wrapped around me. Perhaps there was time yet, to earn a child. To replace Katla. To forget her.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Setseh’s voice was shrill. Her hand was gripped tightly around the neck of Katla’s cloak. She dragged the girl behind her, toward me.

  “You do us no favors, Tomaken. Leaving such trash behind.”

  She pushed the girl in the back, knocked her to the ground at my feet. “Take her. Or else let the Meito take you.”

  I bent to help Katla stand; took a pinch of earth between my fingertips and scattered it to the winds to counteract the first wife’s curse. “I wouldn’t let your husband hear such profanity,” I said, brushing Katla off. “You of all people should know what the Meito do to those who curse the Pasha’s wife.”

  Yarmaa and Dzhol looked at each other, then at Setseh. As one, the three women approached my Katla, began fussing with her hair, straightening her cloak, smoothing the thin shift she wore beneath it.