The Family Tree

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Then, when Bluethumb found I could sew—Mother had also taught me how to sew—they put me with the chattery seamstresses, hemming veils and learning embroidery, then, when some of the concubines heard me telling stories to the stitchers, they brought me into the harim itself as a fetcher and carrier, mender of mantles and cooker of snacks. The concubines were plump and lazy (as the sultan preferred), while I was stringy and active. Also, I knew how to read Tavorian, which most Tavorians did not. Though there were few books in the harim, songs and love poems and such sappy stuff, Bluethumb had a brother working in the salamlek, on the other side of the great metal gate, and he brought books from the sultan’s library, books I wrapped in clean linen and read secretly and returned timely so no one even knew they were gone. I read everything! Even the great history of Tavor, the Almost Three Years of Bedtimes, where all our customs and costumes are set out, just as they have always been.

  Everything I read or heard was grist for the story mill, tales and facts to be reworked and twisted and made to fit into the kind of romances the harim enjoyed: deathless love between male and female, one of each, unlikely though that was. And adventure stories, where the princess dressed up as a boy and traveled far away. And stories about lands where females ruled, and all the males were conquered and locked up in cages. Once after I told that kind of tale, the harim decided to act it out—theatricals being one of their chief amusements—and at Sultana Winetongue’s bidding even a few of the eunuchs helped, playing the parts of the terrible males who got locked up forever.

  I had just turned ten when I came. I was well past my fifteenth birthday when I was summoned by the sultan. Almost six years. There was little evidence of it when it came to pack. Anything I’d gained in the last six years was in my head, mystery and marvel and adventure from all those years of reading. My actual belongings made no larger a bundle than when I came.

  The morning of departure came, sooner than I had thought possible early in the night when I’d lain sleepless, wondering how it would all happen, too excited and fearful to believe I would ever sleep. Still, sleep I had, and the birds nestled in the fretwork were just beginning their drowsy comments on the day when my eyes popped open like squeezed pea pods and I staggered to my feet trying dazedly to remember why I was getting up at all. The memory came quickly enough when I tripped over the bundle I’d packed the night before—after the other slaves in the room were asleep, as they still were.

  The bundle made only a light burden for one hand. I pushed open the door with the other, shutting it softly behind me. Then was only a quick stop at the midden, a scuttle down a long corridor, past the kitchens, down a short side hall, up a full flight to the courtyard level, down another corridor, and there was the courtyard itself, with the pool and the fountain and some bent old person I had never seen before going from flowerpot to flowerpot with a watering bucket and ladle. Frowsea was waiting at the foot of the private stairs, and on the sultana’s balcony a set of clothes was laid out: full trousers and flowing shirt of white cotton, leather boots, a much-pocketed sleeveless vest of thick blue cotton, embroidered all down the front, a brightly striped woven belt, and a full-length cotton coat vertically striped red and blue and black. In addition I was given a white muslin head scarf with black-braided, gold-mounted cord and a plain black woolen mantle, which could be fastened on the shoulder with a golden pin, the head of a kanna, baying.

  The sultana was nowhere in evidence. It was Frowsea who instructed me: “You and I are ponjic, girl. So far as the sultan’s folk are concerned, our tribe is a lesser people. Except for one or two of the animal handlers, you’ll be the only free ponja traveling in a largely scuinic-pheledian troop. Be careful to behave suitably, with modesty. So long as you have on trousers, shirt and headdress, you’re decently dressed. Never take off the shirt or the trousers, not unless you’re in a room by yourself or are readying for sleep. Only slaves and lesser servants expose their bodies. Free males cover themselves, no matter what tribe they are from. Well, unless they’re with a suitable female….”

  “The prince knows who I am….”

  “The others may not. And travelers meet up with other travelers. If you’re going as a ponjic boy, sort of a companion for the prince, try to act like a boy. What did you bring with you?”

  I opened my bundle to display the few small books and several treasures, including my father’s last gift, the ebony treasure box with the hidden drawer under the false bottom. The box held sewing implements, and, in the hidden drawer, the gems the sultana had given me. Aside from these there was only my underwear, stockings and the pair of sandals I had on. Frowsea quickly added all the clothing that had been tried on the day before.

  “That’s all,” said Frowsea, as she tightened the pack with great vigor. “Plus this letter, from the sultana to her son.”

  “Can’t she write to him anytime?”

  “Of course. Or see him, when he’s well enough to come here. But she hasn’t wanted him to come here, for fear someone here may be doing him harm. She hasn’t wanted to send letters for fear the letter carrier might be part of the conspiracy. She feels he will be safer without any touch of the harim.”

  It seemed overly careful to me, though, to hear the females talk, it was perfectly possible to put a curse on a letter, or to kill with a glance. Curses were very powerful, if one had skill at it. Of course, some people could lay curses every day in the month and not raise a pimple.

  I was given no time to consider the matter. Once I was dressed and the pack was strapped up, Soaz appeared like a jinni out of nothing, picked up the pack and told me to come along. We went down another way, rather than through the courtyard, and old Bluethumb was waiting by the last gate.

  “Well, now,” she said, taking me by the shoulders and looking me up and down. “Don’t you look like a proper adventurer. All you need is a scimitar.”

  I shuddered. I’d only seen a scimitar used once, by the executioner who cut off Father’s head, and I had no wish whatsoever to use one myself. Bluethumb was busy hugging me, however, and did not notice the shudder.

  “You’ll keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you,” Soaz growled at the old one.

  “Don’t be so puffed up, Soaz! I’ve kept it shut about more than this, I’ll have you know. Besides, better there’s someone to say she saw the girl go off to her brother. That way there’ll be no talk. No one’s interested in her brother, after all.”

  Soaz grunted, rather like a poked guz, and unlocked the final gate, not the one made of great wooden planks with iron studs all over it and hinges forged in the shape of curly spears, but the little one set in at the side, only big enough for one person. He cracked it just wide enough for us to edge through, as though he was afraid some harim air might escape, then shut and locked it behind us.

  We stood in a sunlit and paved courtyard with passages leading outward, toward the smell of blossoms, toward the smell of cooking, toward the smell of stables and the challenging mutter of umminhi. Soaz went in the umminhic direction, and I trotted along behind, through the unlocked gate and into a cobbled yard that smelled like a stable, like grandfather’s farm when I’d been there as a child, outside the city, a day’s ride to the east. One thing about umminhi, they stank. If they couldn’t run like the wind, nobody would keep umminhi, for no one would put up with the stench.

  The prince was already mounted amid a troop of silent attendants and guards. A dozen smaller pack animals stood in a vacant-eyed chain, managed by two kapric handlers. Another handler held the reins of two tall riding umminhi, stallion and gelding, saddled, but without riders. These were racing creatures, taller than any I had ever seen, much less ridden upon, their glossy hides set off by their silver collars and green breeder’s tags. The breeding of umminhi, so my father had told me, was a monopoly, and no animal could be bought or sold without the proper tags.

  Without a word, Soaz tossed me high into the gelding’s saddle, gave my pack to one of the handlers, and went up th
e slanting ladder to his own saddle, quick and agile despite his bulk. On the farm, I had ridden astride, holding on to the umminha’s mane, but she had been a mare, smaller and better natured. Here I settled myself into the cushions of the comfortable scuinic style box-saddle and leaned against the padded arms and back. I lowered the saddle bar into place, took the blinker reins into my hands and placed them as the others had them, tightly through the center notch of the bar. In this position, the spring-mounted blinkers were open, allowing the umminha to see in any direction.

  I hoped my mount was well disposed toward its rider. Sometimes umminhi were not at all well disposed. Stallions were said to attack riders, female riders particularly. Breeding mares were too heavy to make good riding animals, though some persons used older females for pack animals. Even the old ones could carry quite large burdens. Sometimes, however, a steed took an outright dislike to one person or one kind of person, and then there was war between them. So I had been told.

  This umminha seemed inclined to ignore me, as did the assembled people. No one looked at me. No one said anything to me. The prince let his eyes slide across me with only a hint of a nod, then gave a signal to one of the older persons, evidently the way-master, who leaned forward and spoke to his umminha. The steed thought it over for a moment—if umminhi can be said to think—blinking its eyes and working its jaws methodically before ambling toward the long barrel-vaulted masonry tunnel that led to the gate. Its shod feet thudded on the hollow planking, like an ominous drum that fell silent when they emerged from the gate. None of the palace windows looked outward, so this emergence marked the first time in almost six years that I had seen the city. From this roadway, high on the side of palace hill, I could look down on a thousand red-tiled rooftops, smell the hazy smoke of several thousand cook fires, see gardens green with trees, the whole protected by high walls with pheledic guards walking upon them five abreast, calling out the hours. This was lovely Tavor, gem of the orchard lands.

  It was a Tavor seen as a blur, for at a signal from the way-master the umminhi ran, faster than I had known any creature could run, the walls spinning by, the streets like whirling shadows, the people mere smears of color, the soft thuds of umminhi feet making one continuous sound, like rushing water, and themselves arrowing toward the city walls, aimed at the dark gullet of the city gate, where they plunged into shadow and were spat out again, onto the sunlit road and away.

  There, after a moment, everything slowed down. I looked up to see the prince riding beside me and regarding me with an amused expression. “You can unclench your jaw,” he said.

  I tried, finding it somewhat difficult. “They went so fast!”

  “A bit of diversion,” he remarked. “So no one could see who exactly we were, or where exactly we’d come from, or where exactly we were going. Though everyone knew we came from the court—only the nobles can afford to buy or maintain umminhi like this—they don’t know who exactly we may be. The banner isn’t the royal banner. Father hopes most of them will think it’s some minor official, escorted by troops.”

  “You don’t want anyone to know you’re gone?”

  “Some think it wisest.”

  “Sultan Tummyfat?”

  He looked loftily amused. “We don’t call him that out here. That’s a palace name. A pet name. Like your own, or mine. Out here I am not Keen Nose. I’m the Prince Sahir. And you are my companion, Nassif.”

  “Nassif?” I asked, wonderingly.

  “Don’t be stupid, girl. Your father and mother did not call you Opalears.”

  It was true. They had not. “They called me Nassifeh. How did you know?”

  “It was in the records.”

  “It was Bluethumb who first called me Opalears.”

  “A palace habit. A leisurely, female-ish habit. Inside the palace, we all have soft, affectionate names, regardless of our tribe, even people like your father who live outside but work within. It lends a kind of informality that erases our separate tribes and castes, making relationships seem less rigorous and more familial. But we do not permit it out here, where convention reigns.”

  “What is your father called, out here?”

  “The sultan. That is quite enough. There are those who say ‘His Effulgence’ or ‘His Mightiness,’ but such is unnecessary. When you speak to me, you say, my prince. When you speak of me, you say, the Prince Sahir. Unless you are talking to strangers, in which case you will call me simply Sahir, who is a not very important someone with the fruit-marketing bureau.

  “When I speak to you, I say Nassif, remembering to leave off the little girl eh at the end. When I speak of you, I say, my faithful Nassif.”

  “And will I be faithful?” I asked, wonderingly.

  “One hopes,” he sneered. “One always hopes.” He rode from my side to the head of the column and stayed there, ignoring me. Soaz dropped into the place he had vacated.

  “Are we going outside Tavor?” I asked him.

  “Of course.” He looked surprised at the question. “We would have to, wouldn’t we?”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Then you don’t know much about Tavor.”

  “Almost nothing,” I admitted. “My father never told me very much about the world. We always talked of other things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, we talked about animals. I love animals. I used to love the farm, because there were so many. And we talked about people, too. People he had met in his work. But we never really talked about the world. I never have figured out all the different tribes and the places that they came from.”

  “I will remedy the lack,” he said, proceeding to do so at some length.

  “Long ago, before the great Farsaki War of Conquest (of which it is now generally conceded there will be no end until the world is conquered), and before the prophets of Korè were so widespread among us, guiding us to righteousness, the tribes lived mostly in isolation, one from the other. Some were forest people, dwelling in the tree lands north and west of Sworp, like the armakfatidi and the scuini and my own people, the pheledas. Some lived in the jungles south of Isfoin, like the sitidian people and your own ancestors. Some lived on the prairies, like the kannic and kapriel people, and some near the water, like the kasturi, the onchiki and the Onchik-Dau. Among these people, some were settled town folk and some were people living in family groups and some, like the scuinic people of Tavor, roamed as nomads over a mixed grass and woodland in the far west, among scattered tribes of kapriel folk. Unfortunately, this wide stretch of country lay in the road of the ersuniel raiders of Farsak.

  “Though the scuinic tribes cherish many traditions involving fierce personal combat among males, the race as a whole is not bellicose, and it was soon overrun. At that time the Farsakian raiders were cannibalistic, as ersuniel tribes sometimes are, or were, so the scuinic people of Tavor thought it prudent to flee.

  “Moving swiftly, mostly by night, the Tavorians traveled eastward, up toward the glacial ice of the Sharbak Mountains. Here, there were no Farsaki to pursue and they could take time to provision themselves by collecting fruits and nutritious root vegetables in the fertile passes of the high range. They then made a more leisurely way down into the desert provinces, past the western and southern side of what is now the Four Realms, which edge upon the marshes of Palmia. Here they rested for some years around the kasturic marsh-town of Durbos, where they sought advice from travelers. Following the suggestions of several nomadic peoples, they then swung to the east, surmounted the Big Stonies, crossed the valley of Wycos by the almost hidden fords of River Roq, then traveled over the Little Stonies, coming in time to this wide plain, this land well watered by the tributaries of the Scurry, this land grown up in wild fruit trees, root vegetables, and fields of grain. At that time, it was virtually uninhabited. Farsak was nowhere near, and here at the southern end of the great plain, the survivors made their homes.”

  “And built Tavor?” I offered.

  Soaz shook his head. “The scuini
c tribes have always been nomadic people. They are not skilled builders. They lived in this valley, moving occasionally south toward Isfoin, for several generations. By that time the various tribes had multiplied; their people had spread out; they began to encounter one another at the edges of their territories; they began to trade and mix and establish multitribal communities which expanded into city-states and then into the nations we know today.

  “It was then that people began to wander down the Scurry and build settlements along the flow. After another few generations enough of them had accumulated to erect our city of New Tavor. It was named, as the people were, after a revered sultan, one of the Six Revered Ancestors of Tummyfat, from ages long gone.”

  My father had often remarked that scuinic people did not labor. They considered it beneath them, except for earthworks, which they did very well. “What people built the city?”

  Soaz nodded judiciously. “Oh, people who filtered in over the years: pheledic herdsmen following their flocks, kasturic people who followed the Scurry up from the lower plains, ponjic and sitidian farmers seeking land, armakfatidian merchants and peddlers who came over this pass or down that river from Palmia or Isfoin or even from far Estafan, where your family once lived.”

  “I never heard my father mention Estafan,” I said. “I never heard of it until you spoke of it.”

  “There’s no particular reason your father would have referred to it at all,” said Soaz. “It was your great-great-grandparents who came from there. They were welcome, for a sensible country needs the talents of a varied people in order to get all the things done that must be done. Your family’s history is in the archives. Your father’s and mother’s sides both came from Estafan, which is a strange, weird country where the ponji walk upside down.”

  “Where is it?” I wanted to know.

  “West of here. Over the Sharbak Range, near Sworp and Finial, on the shores of the Crawling Sea. Near our own line of travel, in fact.”