by Doris Egan
"I haven't heard of it either," he said quietly.
We rolled to a stop at the knot of people. Ran opened his door and leaned out. "What's wrong?" he yelled, over a strong sea wind. "What happened?"
"Get out of the car," said one of the men.
Ran hesitated. Then he jumped down, slamming his door.
"Both of you," said the man.
I found myself pausing as well. I looked at Ran, he nodded, and I didn't have any better ideas. So I got out.
"We repossess this car in the name of Cormallon," said the man, and he motioned to the others. Two of them climbed in and started throwing out our belongings.
"Hey!" I said. None of this made any sense. Wasn't Ran Cormallon entitled to use Cormallon property? Certainly more entitled than minor-branch provincials! Who did they think they were?
Ran just looked blank. He scanned the faces there and called, "Kara! What's going on?"
Karn hung back, looking embarrassed. Someone said, "Karn doesn't have to talk to you, he's disgraced himself enough by accepting you before."
"Have the decency to leave him alone!" called a woman.
Ran looked at Karn for a moment, then turned and climbed up on the front of the landcar. "I demand an explanation," he said.
"Demand? Who are you to demand anything from respectable people?" cried the woman who had spoken before.
"Cheat!"
"Thief!"
"No-name!"
He looked angry at that. "I'm the first in this house and family, and you'd better have a very, very good explanation, because right now I'm wondering how much Cormallon will lose by cutting out a few fishermen."
"First in nothing!" said the woman.
"I'll tell him," said Karn suddenly.
"You don't have to—"
"No," said Karn, "I'll tell him." He came to the front. "We know about you. We know about your cheating the treasury—"
"What?"
"—about your private bank account—"
"There is no private bank account!"
"—against all the customs and laws of the family."
The woman said, "Taking money away from all of us who earn it!''
That met with muttered agreement from everybody.
Ran said, "Listen to me. I don't know where you got this idea, but it's a lie. Why should I have a private bank account? I can take money out of the treasury any time I want."
"We got the idea," said Karn, "from our message-taker, who got it straight from the message-taker at Cor-mallon main estate."
Ran went pale at that.
"I have to get back there," he said to me. "Now."
"Not in our car," said a man.
Ran said, "I don't want your kanz car. Freighters call in every morning—"
"None that will take you as a passenger—not unless you've got enough gold in your bags. Cormallon won't pay for it.''
"If he has gold in his bags, we should take it out. It's ours by right."
Karn said, "Enough—"
Ran was picking up our bags, throwing mine to me. "I don't know what's going on, but I have a right to be heard at Cormallon. I can't believe anything could happen without my being there—"
"Unless the evidence were overwhelming," said Karn. "And they say it was. Do you think Cormallon owes you something? Do you think we have to go through needless forms, like the Imperial Courts? When something is clear enough to see in the dark, we don't need to file a report on it to take action. Action's been taken. The disowning ritual's been read—by your own brother and sister— and only a fool would say that could happen without cause."
Ran had been growing paler and paler as Karn spoke. When he said, "disowning ritual," Ran looked as though he'd been punched in the stomach.
"You come here," said the woman who'd done the talking earlier, "in your fine clothes. You disgrace us by reciting the wedding service. You take our property off to who knows where—"
"Enough," said Karn again. His voice was weary.
"In the company of a notorious foreign assassin," went on the woman.
"What?" I said. I glanced at Ran, who still looked sick.
"Poisoner," she said, and spat at my feet. I had the feeling she would have liked to spit higher up.
"I don't-"
"Brin almost died, " she said. "He might still."
Brin? It came to me suddenly. The young medical student who sat next to me at the wedding feast. But that was impossible. Poisoning isn't that uncommon on Ivory, but practically everything at the feast had been passed around in communal bowls. It was probably because of poisoning that shared dishes were such a tradition. Why blame me… then I remembered the little delicacy dish of bird's heads. Little individual plates. I remembered his taking one and popping it into his mouth…
He'd taken a couple of others from my plate, too, when he saw I wasn't going to touch them.
I looked around at the faces of the Issin folk. Someone was probably trying to kill me again, and there was nothing I could say to these people. They were all closed up against me.
"Leave," said Karn very quietly.
It seemed like a good idea. I strapped on my pack and grabbed Ran by the hand and pulled him away. We went toward the north. It was warmer that way.
* * *
It was all rather depressing. First Pina, now this Brin. I'd liked him at the feast; he was nice about being seated next to the eccentric foreigner. And then there was Ran. Ran hadn't said a word since we walked out of Issin. I'd never seen him like this, with all the fight taken out of him. It was frightening. Particularly since we were a long way from anyplace I knew how to get to, and minus his endless store of gold coins.
If we just went north, we should end up on the same parallel as the capital, eventually. Maybe in months or years.
We'd tramped a couple of hours when I heard a faint whine behind us. It was the damned landcar. Two Issin men, vaguely familiar, got out and approached. I wondered if killing us without witnesses would save Issin paperwork. "Ran, maybe we should run?" I said. Ran paid no attention. Of course, I'd always been the lousiest runner in my Healthful Sports class on Pyrene, and sometimes when you run it gives people ideas they didn't originally have…
"Theodora of Pyrene?" said the taller man.
"Yes," I said, only because there was no point in denying it.
"We're here," he said, as though he didn't like the words, "to give you a safe ride back to Issin and provide you with passage money for the next northbound ship. When you're in the capital, a Cormallon representative will meet you. I'm to tell you specifically that your services have not been terminated. Cormallon still wants to employ you. Legally it does still employ you. All measures will be taken for your safety and comfort."
Well! I looked at Ran, who continued unhelpful. So I considered every aspect I could possibly think of for about ten seconds. But what did this really change?
"I'm sorry," I said. "My employment wasn't from Cormallon proper, but from Ran Cormallon in particular. So I'm ethically bound to stay with him. Thanks anyway…"
He shook his head. "We were told you're a house member, a family employee—"
"Thank you for all your trouble," I said as firmly as I could. "But I'm afraid I have the best understanding of the circumstances of my employment. Safe trip back to Issin."
It must have come out as strongly as I meant it. He shrugged to the other man and they both climbed into the landcar, turned it awkwardly about, and drove away.
I watched them go unhappily. Maybe it was a mistake, but between an unknown reception in the capital and sticking with Ran, I chose Ran. Besides, he was acting pretty strangely—I wasn't sure he could make it without help.
"Well," I said. And started walking again.
He matched his strides to mine. He said the first words he'd come up with since Karn said "disownment." And they didn't sound like a compliment to my intelligence.
"Crazy foreigner," he said.
Chapter Nine
Crazy foreigner I may have been, but I know a long walk when I see one. The next few months were an entirely new way of life, and if I made them seem as long in the telling as they were to live through I would have to go on for volumes. The routine was monotonous enough, yet soon the routine was all I thought about, all I anticipated, all I dreamed about. The walk through the southern woods all morning, the rest at noon; then walking till late afternoon, then the stop at the closest village. We kept near the coast, where most of the towns and villages are. Nor did we actually sleep in the villages, that would be asking for trouble—we just showed up at the town hall steps at sunrise, pretending we'd spent the night. Then the hall servants would give out the " indigent's breakfast," and we got our one meal of the day.
It's a custom of the southern towns to discourage vagrants. Anyone who chooses can appear on the town hall steps and get a free meal… provided they leave town immediately after. If the village is small enough, the breakfast is whatever was left over from the communal supper the night before. I preferred that; there was usually rice and fish and eggs in the bowl then. When it was a larger town, the hall cook would make up the breakfasts himself, generally tired vegetables and undercooked rice. Seagrass was a big favorite of the town hall cooks. I hate seagrass.
I say "we"—but I was mentally alone in this journey. Ran may as well have been a ghost. It scared me. I'd always had the impression of massive energy in Ran, of a mind with clear purpose, sharp and ready for anything. He'd always been so sure of himself—annoying, but you could forgive it since he was generally right. Now it was as if he weren't there at all. I had to make all the decisions—where to stop, what village to head for, when to rest. I didn't even know where I was going. He was supposed to be the expert, I was the barbarian outlander.
I just didn't understand how a thing like this could throw him so hard. He'd been disowned. I'd walked out on a creche-family on Pyrene and lost an academic family on Athena, and it didn't mean anything to me. I hadn't even liked the former. Did the simple fact of shared genes make such a difference? It was eerie. It was as if the engine for all that energy and purpose had been Cormal-lon, and now he had no motive power.
That was Worry Number One. Worry Number Two was the cold. Winter was coming; already the wind was blowing in off the sea and we had to stay well inland, among the trees. The lining of my coat was nothing but tattered strips. I didn't know how we would sleep when it snowed, nor did I feel that one meal would keep us warm and moving through the day. I told Ran everything I was thinking about. (I usually did, during the noon rest stop, and as usual he said absolutely nothing.)
Teshin Village was on a peninsula that extended into a good-sized bay. There were some hills just to the north, and the ocean was about eight kilometers to the east. The village wasn't too big, which was good; I'd picked up some bad feelings about towns because of the lousy breakfasts they served. So one bright morning when the water birds were making an enormous racket, Ran and I walked across the muddy flats by the bay and into Teshin.
And here at last was our one piece of luck: it was the day before a holiday. Tomorrow was Imperial Guardian Venrat's Birthday—which no doubt meant as little to the people of Teshin as it did to myself, but it did mean a day of no work, feasting, and drinking. Which made the day before the feast a day of a great deal of work, planning, and preparation. The village hall was in chaos.
I was rebuffed and insulted by several busy people (a barbarian outlander learns to expect these things) before someone pointed me to Hall Manager Peradon. He was an elderly, stocky man seated at a chipped wooden table in the back of the hall. There was a line of people waiting to talk to him, so I just joined the line. From what I overheard the sole function of these people was to explain to the Hall Manager why what he had ordered had not been done. By the time I reached him I felt quite sympathetic to the old man.
Still, I hadn't expected to be seized on like a long-lost friend.
"My child," he said to me, "I have just the place for you. Five bakras for the day, and all you can eat."
"I was really looking for something long-term," I said.
"Long-term! This is long-term. As long as you like. And if you decide you don't like it, we'll try to move you into something else." As he spoke a little boy with a blue cap was tugging on his arm. "I know, Piece-of-My-Heart," he said to the boy. "Don't joggle me. Tell your mother we have just the person." He looked up at me. "Sign your name here in my book, right next to '5 bakras'—we like to keep everything honest and on record here."
"My feelings exactly," I said, and signed "Coral Pas-suran."
He turned his book around and peered down at it. "That's a good, sensible name for a barbarian," he said.
"Thank you," I said.
"Just go with little Seth here to the kitchens—tell the Kitchen Chief you're taking Dana's place."
"Thank you," I said again.
Seth led me off to the back of the hall. "Hold on a minute," I said to him. I stepped up onto a bench and peered over the heads in the hall. There was Ran—still waiting by the door. Well, he wasn't going anywhere.
"Mother's in a hurry," said Seth, looking up at me distrustfully.
"Fine," I said. I climbed down.
The kitchens seemed to have even more people in them than the hall itself. Seth led me to a woman in a white apron, a sensible middle-aged woman who reminded me a little of Herel. "Here she is," said Seth.
"Here who is?" said the woman, frowning at me.
"I'm taking Dana's place," I explained.
"Ah!" she said at once, and the frown was replaced by relief. "About time Peradon found someone. The food has to go in the hot-pots now. Come over here… now, I'm Berta, the Kitchen Chief for the hall. We have three meals a day in the hall, but not like tomorrow, believe me. We're making Cream Hermit Soup, Wine-Steep Runner Stew, good dishes that they don't see too often here, but that'll keep in the pots. I'm sure you're familiar with them."
"Well, not very familiar."
"No matter. And the cakes and pies we'll get to later. This is the ledge where we keep the pots… the servers will bring them over here to you.''
"And I put the food in the pots."
"No, no—Penda and I will do that ourselves, it has to be done right or it won't keep properly." She paused. "You don't know how to do it, do you?"
"No, I'm afraid not."
"Well, then. Stick to your job, stranger, that's all we ask." She raised her voice and yelled at a young man over by a table. "No, no, the soup first! The stew can wait! Bring the soup!" She sighed. "You have no idea what it's like," she said to me. "Oh, if you get tired, we can bring over a chair for you."
Just then the first shipment of soup arrived. "Penda!" she yelled, making me wince. A girl in her teens rushed over and they opened the first hot-pot. Berta ladled out a bit of the soup and handed it to me. "Here," she said.
I tasted it. It was a little gamy, but I suppose you have to expect that from groundhermit. "Very nice," I said.
"Thank you," said Berta. "Into the pot, now. Careful, sweetheart." They tilted the huge bowl just far enough, and when the pot was full they pulled down the hinged top and adjusted the metal braces that kept it airtight. "Mark it 'one,' " she said. She raised her voice and turned her face toward a woman seated across the kitchen, on a high platform against the wall. "We're marking it 'one,' " she yelled. The woman waved back.
"Who's that?" I asked.
"The observer, of course." They filled another pot. "We should really put stew in this one," she said to her helper. "It's too big to waste on soup." She filled her lungs and yelled "Stew!" to the world at large, and soon enough someone brought over a bowl of stew. She ladled around in it, sniffing. "Let's get some nice vegetables on it for you," she said. Then she handed me the ladle and I tried the stew.
It was delicious, and I said so. Berta said, "My own recipe. Bet you can't tell there's seagrass in there."
"I couldn't. I usually don't like seagrass."
"
Sensible child. Hold the pot, will you? Gently now."
A few bowls later Berta set down her pot and put her hands on her hips. "Are you making fun of me?" she said.
I was taken by surprise. "Who, me?"
"You—tymon—is this your sense of humor, stranger? Why do you keep telling me about the dishes? Are you passing judgment on my cooking?"
"I, uh, no, of course not. But you gave it to me to taste—"
"Of course I gave it to you to taste! You're taking Dana's place!"
A voice called, "Is there a problem?" It was the woman on the platform against the wall. She was standing up now, looking over at Berta and me.
Berta said, "Now we'll have the observer staring at us the rest of the day!"
"Look, I'm sorry," I began. Then I stopped. All right, I can be stupid sometimes—but remember, I'd been on the edge of exhaustion for days. Here I was, in a communal kitchen among the population of the most suspicious, paranoid planet I'd ever heard of—why would they want somebody to taste the food, now? And pay hard Ivoran money to someone to observe the kitchen workers and see that the pots stayed locked and nobody did any-thing they shouldn't? I said, slowly, "Do you get much food poisoning here?"
"You are trying to insult me!"
"No, please, believe me. It's just that I'm a stranger. Peradon didn't say what my job was, that's all. It's not a problem, really. I don't think. Do you get much food poisoning here?"
The girl helping Berta said, "She's just nervous, is all. Well, really, how can we criticize? None of us volunteered to take Dana's place."
Berta said, mollified, "I suppose that's so. I'll overlook it, stranger," she said to me.
"Thank you," I said. After a pause I asked, "What happened to Dana?"
"She's not feeling well," said the helper.
"Oh?" I said.
"But don't worry. She'll be up and around in a few weeks."
"I see."
"Next pot," said Berta, "and try to look casual. I can't stand having the observer watch over my shoulder."
I sought out Ran several hours later. He hadn't moved from the hall door. "Five bakras," I said, jingling the contents of my pocket. He did not appear impressed. In fact, he didn't appear totally conscious.
