by Kate Elliott
“I shouldn’t talk about it but I had to tell someone! I’m so scared for them.”
“I think it’s glamorous,” said Treya. “On the run from the palace. Just like a tale.”
“It’s not funny, Trey.” Fo splashed water at her. “Leaf, if you stayed with us we could hide you from the palace.”
“That is Marshal Dannarah’s plan, if your clan agrees.”
Fo got a thoughtful look on her face. “Oh, I am sure Grandmama will think it a good idea.”
“Will I get to meet your grandmother this time?”
Treya grinned but Fo pinched her before she could say anything.
“Let’s see what happens” was all Fo would say.
Lifka helped Treya and some of the younger children set out the midday meal. But the family members who settled on cushions to eat did not include an elderly grandmother. The eldest people there were Hari and his reticent but not-at-all-meek wife, Naniko, who as Hari joked did the tidy accounts while he did the untidy negotiating.
Fo plopped down beside Lifka. “We’re going to Toskala!” she confided, bumping shoulders with Lifka just as Ailia had used to when they were plotting some escapade.
“Who is we? Treya, too?”
Fo’s gaze flicked to her father, Hari, who was chatting about crop yields to Tarnit in the cheerful tone of a man who can make anything interesting through the music of his voice. Watching two cheerful people talk cheerfully together made Lifka’s throat tighten.
She missed her family so much.
“I’ve said all I can.” Fo fingered a necklace of Hasibal’s Tears with its silver branch and blossoms. “I’ve been waiting all my life for this. Don’t you have something you’ve always dreamed of, Leaf? An adventure to embark on?”
Lifka touched the scar behind her ear. “I want my family to be safe, healthy, and together.”
Tarnit said to Hari, “This red-nut rice is so tasty. I’ve never seen it anywhere else. Where do you buy it?”
“It’s a variety from the Arash Peninsula, south of here. We happen to grow it ourselves.”
“Not here in Salya.”
“No, not in Salya. My mother bought up land southwest of here, on the lower reaches of the Suvash Hills.” Hari smiled wistfully. “It’s a favorite old family story having to do with how she and Captain Kellas met for the third time. I won’t bore you with it. I know you’re in a hurry to leave. We’ll keep Lifka safe here, and release her to no reeve except you or Marshal Dannarah.”
Tarnit rose, nodding around the family. “You have my thanks.”
Lifka walked her up to the loft. Fo and the others were already bustling about, for it seemed that “going to Toskala” was a far more complicated enterprise than Lifka would have imagined. Several of the children had already been sent with messages into town.
They took the path cut through a stand of jabi bushes to the clearing on the hillside where the eagles’ loft stood. Lifka would have grazed goats in this clearing but she supposed that would just be tempting eagles a bit too much. The tall grass went uncut, and stalks of crane-flower waved elongated white petals in the breeze.
“Do you think Prince Tavahosh will really try to track me down?” Lifka asked Tarnit.
“I do. He strikes me as the type who won’t let go until he’s gotten his way.”
“How can I be a reeve if he is the chief marshal?”
“Marshal Dannarah will find a way. Be patient.” Tarnit took her hand and turned to face her. “You’re about the same age as my younger son. He’s a smart, funny, clever, and hardworking lad, apprenticed to a roofer. Very responsible. Handsome, too, like his father. He’ll make a good husband, if you’re looking.”
Lifka laughed. “Not yet, but my thanks.”
Tarnit’s sunny smile made even a difficult parting seem brighter. “The truth is, I would take you to Sund and leave you with my family. But they’re ordinary villagers. If the prince found you, they’d have no way to protect you or themselves and he would destroy them.”
“The last thing I want is to bring down on others what was brought down on my family!”
“I know. That’s why you’re here.”
“Do you really think Plum Blossom Clan can protect me?”
“The marshal thinks they can. I don’t know what game Captain Kellas is playing, but he has the king’s ear, and that might be protection enough. I’m cursed curious to discover they eat the very same red-nut rice we found in the outlaw encampment in Elsharat. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but the marshal believes it is not. If you can find out more, do so.”
“Are you asking me to spy on the people who are sheltering me?”
Tarnit released her hand. “Lifka, you’re a reeve under the command of Marshal Dannarah. She sent you to shelter here but also to do your duty. As reeves we scout out anything and anyone who is disrupting the Hundred. Outlaws and criminals disrupt the Hundred. If Plum Blossom Clan is involved with such people, we need to know.”
“My clan is outlaw now.”
“That’s different—”
“Is it?” Lifka demanded. “If Prince Tavahosh can command they be arrested and killed on a whim, then isn’t he the problem, and not them? Why should I support the reeve halls if he commands them? It’s not just that I can’t obey him as chief marshal because he’ll have me arrested. It’s because I won’t.”
Tarnit sighed, fingered her bone whistle as if trying to decide how to reply, then glanced up at the loft where the eagles waited. It was early afternoon. A strong eagle could cover a long distance in what was left of the day, gliding on the high currents.
“I need to go, Lifka. We’ll discuss this later.”
As the older woman started walking up to the loft, Lifka grabbed her wrist. “I just … Take care, Tarnit. Be safe.”
“Here now, don’t cry, it’ll turn out all right.” Tarnit squeezed her in a friendly embrace.
But as Lifka walked alone back to the compound, she couldn’t shake a terrible feeling that it would not.
That evening Lifka helped carry in platters of food for the family’s supper, after which she coaxed the shy toddler onto her lap with baby games like “spider walking” and “where’s your nose?” Lifka could not imagine owning so much oil that you could squander it on eating after dark, but she knew better than to say so. They dug into a wholesome meal of rice, fish brushed with sesame oil and turmeric, bean curd glazed with tamarind sauce, and slip-fried bamboo shoots. The toddler was so accustomed to plenty of food that he refused everything except the rice with its pretty red speckles. Was Plum Blossom Clan involved with outlaws? But when she thought about how close her father had come to being sentenced to the work gangs, it seemed like it was the palace and the Beltak priests that caused the trouble. After what she had seen of conditions at the work site at River’s Bend, she could not blame people who wanted to escape the work gangs.
She’d have been bound to a grueling, cruel life if Papa hadn’t found her.
Probably she’d be dead by now.
The clan’s dogs weren’t allowed into the house, and in fact the Runt, having accepted the supremacy of the other dogs, had been happy to explore the garden, so she allowed him to join the dogs on guard about the compound for the night. She slept on a pallet in the girls’ chamber, the younger ones ecstatic to have a visitor sleep over. The furnishings were simple but everything of the highest quality. Lifka could not help but wonder what it would be like to build such a compound for her family, to know they were secure, well fed, maybe even have enough coin to dedicate Denas to the service of Sapanasu the Lantern as he had always wished. Ailia was having a baby. Alon wanted to get married, and now he could never court the young woman he’d had his eye on.
At dawn Fo nudged Lifka awake, whispering while the others slept. She was already dressed. “Heya! Leaf. Wake up. You want to come with me and my dad to the harbor? You said you’ve never seen a harbor up close before. Also, it’s a lovely day.”
Lifka was up and dresse
d before Fo finished speaking. Treya lay curled in a ball, one of her cousins rolled over against her back and another cousin sprawled off her mattress with a foot nudged up against the wall. They sneaked out, exchanging conspiratorial glances, and when they were safely on the front porch broke out in giggles.
“See, I knew you were the kind to want an adventure,” Fo whispered.
“What are we going to do at the harbor?” Lifka picked through a basket of sandals to fish out her own.
“There are two ships bound for Nessumara. We have to see how much it will cost us to displace their cargo with people.”
“How many people?”
“Two hundred.”
“Are two hundred people going to Toskala at your grandfather’s command?”
“Yes.” On her right forefinger Fo wore a thick iron ring with a wolf’s head. She twisted it around as she bit her lip. “There is one thing. You aren’t keen to see the Tandi. But one of the ships we’ll be negotiating with is a Tandi ship. If that bothers you, then don’t come.”
“I don’t know how I feel about it.” If she really was heiress to a fortune she could help her family, but as quickly as the thought occurred to her she shook it off as useless dreaming. “It’s hard for me to see how anyone could know for sure after so many years.”
“Most likely your family is dead anyway.”
Lifka looked up sharply from where she was seated on the steps tying on her sandals. “My family is alive. They are refugees in Weldur Forest.”
Fo pressed a hand to her lips. “I’m sorry,” she said through her fingers.
The door slid aside and Hari came out carrying the household’s youngest child in a sling. He resembled Marshal Dannarah a great deal, having a similar complexion and facial structure, but he reminded Lifka of her own papa in having a solicitous gaze and a kind smile.
“So pleasant to have a fresh face for company, Lifka.”
“Would you like me to carry the baby, ver?” Lifka asked.
“That would be so kind of you as long as it is understood I will take the baby back once I begin negotiating. Winsome babies are a fine bargaining tool to distract the unsuspecting.”
Like the infants in her own clan the little fellow was accustomed to being passed around to whichever hands were free. The comfort of holding a trusting child in her arms settled her anxious heart for the first time in days. To her surprise she savored the walk down to the harbor. As they descended Grand Avenue people called out greetings to her companions; it seemed everyone knew them. Shops lined the avenue, so many things for sale Lifka had never seen in River’s Bend that she kept halting to stare: heaps of spices that didn’t grow where she lived; wavy-bladed knives whose blades were etched with scenes from stories she did not recognize; every color of rice.
“I never got to go to the market in Toskala,” she said.
Fo nudged her with an elbow. “We’ll go shopping together in Toskala, I promise.”
“I can’t go back. Remember?”
“That’s right. I’m sorry.”
A youth pushing a wheelbarrow overloaded with bricks cut them off. Lifka skipped back to avoid a collision but couldn’t help watching the wheelbarrow wobble on a precariously fast roll as it turned onto a side street. The youth swerved around a man frozen in the middle of the side street whose gaze was fixed on her. In the Hundred she was tall, but he stood a head taller. He was as black as she was. A silvery inked design like the wing of a gull flared from the corner of his right eye, past his ear, and halfway around his shaved head. The intent way he examined her made her nervous. She looked around and spotted Fohiono talking to a woman who was showing off the bright-gold fabric of her taloos.
“Fo?”
Fo excused herself and returned. “What is it?”
“I saw…” The man was gone. The baby reached for Fo, and once Lifka’s arms were free she slipped her staff from its strap on her back, feeling better with a weapon to hand.
“Girls?” Hari beckoned from down the avenue, and they hurried after him.
As they entered the harbor district Lifka caught sight of the tall man. He kept his distance but never lost sight of them; nor did he make any effort to pretend he just happened to be moving in the same direction.
“That man is following us.”
“That’s odd,” said Fo, shifting the baby to her other hip. “See the gull? That marks him as a born-son of the Gull. They’re the only Tandi ship in the harbor right now.”
“The ones we’re going to see?”
“Yes.”
A shiver like a foretaste of calamity rushed through her flesh. “It was a bad idea for me to come along.”
“Do you want to go back to the house?” Fo asked with a look of concern.
Lifka rubbed a hand along the curve of her neck, sure his stare was fixed there. If she didn’t usually keep her hair pulled back he’d never have seen the scar. Her skin prickled as if an invisible feather traced its lines. “No. My papa would say it’s best to walk up and hit your fears over the head with an ax.”
“Come along, girls,” called Hari from the steps of a veranda that wrapped around an inn. He took the baby from Fo and climbed stairs that ascended to a second floor. A corridor divided the space into rooms on either side, which Fo explained were residences and offices for visiting merchants seeking an onshore venue to do business. A white-skinned woman with honey-colored hair coiled into a braid atop her head stood guard at a door. She smiled politely at Hari and made a creditable greeting in a strong accent as she slid open the door to allow him to enter.
Lifka balked on the threshold. Three Tandi merchants awaited them: two women and a man. The women’s hair was covered by scarves, one sky blue and one sun yellow. They wore wrapped tops that left their shoulders bare, and both had elegant wings inked up over their shoulders from the back but no design on their faces. They had a look of such self-assurance that admiration stirred like a whisper of infatuation in her heart.
The man wore a knee-length tunic, and his calves were bare. Instead of a shaved head he had his hair in multiple small braids worn tight against his head in a boxy pattern. He also had a design unfurled from his right eye, but his was a wing that looked more like a seven-rayed flame. An itch of memory crawled in her mind, like faces she couldn’t quite see through dense underbrush.
“You don’t have to go in,” whispered Fo from behind her.
“No, it’s all right.” To look at them excited her and yet it scared her, too. It was so hard to decide whether she had been wise to come or dreadfully wrong.
Footsteps tapped in the corridor, and the tall man who had been following them walked into the room. He exchanged a flurry of hand signs with the others, but the signs were nothing like the gestures of the Hundred so she couldn’t understand them. Hari and the women exchanged greetings in the way of acquaintances who have dealt with each other before. To her surprise Hari spoke to them in a language that teased at the edge of her understanding, then faded as if lost to light.
More quickly than she had expected the Tandi women opened their hands as with regret, switching to the Hundred-speech. “Your cargo we cannot carry, ver, because we have changed our plans and need to sail east to our homeland, not to Nessumara after all,” said the woman wearing the yellow scarf. “My apologies. When next we come to Salya I hope we can do business.”
Hari turned a hand palm up in the sign of acceptance. “We are always open to do business with you, verea. We have had a prosperous relationship these last ten years.”
“We have. Yet one question I have left.”
Lifka tensed as all four Tandi looked at her. The woman asked a question directly to her in the other language. Words fluttered up like moths to light, something about her name and her mother and her ship.
“I am Lifka of Five Roads Clan. Who are you that you speak to me as if you think you know me?”
“Who stole you from your people that you dress in this way and do not answer the greeting with your mot
her’s lineage and your guild ship? It seems you wear the mark of the Phoenix Lineage.”
Lifka tightened her grip on the staff. “I am not one of you. I am Lifka of Five Roads Clan. By my name you hear that I am dedicated to the Fire Mother as my most ancient ancestor, and you can see my Fire ancestry by the fire inks on my arm and leg. I served Kotaru the Thunderer for my temple year. It’s likely I was born in the Year of the Snake. My clan comes from River’s Bend.”
“You are no Hundred woman. Why do you claim so?”
“I am who I say I am!”
Hari’s kindly aspect changed as he got to his feet with a nod at Fo, who strode over to open the door. “Verea, please do not disturb this young woman with your words, however well meant they are. She is a reeve, bound to the service of the reeve halls. She was raised in the Hundred. I think she is not your responsibility nor anyone you can lay claim to. You may bring a case before the assizes in the usual way, if that is your desire. For now I will tell you this young person is a guest at our house and so we feel responsible for her.”
The yellow-scarf woman beckoned for the man with the seven-rayed wing inked on his face to step forward. The lines depicted a wing with far more sophistication and elegance than the crude scar cut into her back, and yet she could see how it might be said to resemble her scar more than the blade-like stylization of the gull’s wing on the others.
“Do you not recognize your own brother, Lifka Five Roads?”
Brother?
Broad cheekbones, stocky build, narrow chin, not even as tall as she was: She saw no resemblance. Nothing about him raised any shred of memory out of the abyss that was her past.
“He is not my brother. My brothers are Alon and Denas. You have no right to intrude on my life in this way.”
“This is really enough,” said Hari to the merchants. Without raising his voice he throttled whatever words the others might have spoken. “I am disappointed in this bitter accusation. You have disturbed the peace of a young person who came here with no ill intent and indeed in obvious ignorance that you would speak so sternly to her. Fohiono. Lifka. We are leaving.”
