by Gayle Greeno
“Have you heard, did you feel it ... ?” Parcellus stifled a sneeze as he waved exclamations across the tabletop, nearly toppling his ale. Rolf moved to steady it, starting to speak at the same time, but Per’la beat him to it.
“Hush!” Her plumed tail gave one snap, the same hint of exasperation in her voice. “Tired, give them a chance, a few sips. Let them go wash and eat.” Strangely enough, Per‘la had not administered the reprimand on the intimate or personal mode. Doyce ignored her momentary uneasiness; Parcellus and Per’la always relished an audience, or managed to create one, whether they craved it or not.
Expression serious, Parcellus literally sat on his hands, as if by controlling them he could curb his tongue. “But, but, it’s important that they....”
“And so they shall, but a few moments more or less won’t change it,” Chak’s deep mindvoice rumbled.
“Mmph. He’s right, Parse. Ease off. Now,” Rolf commanded, letting go of Parcellus’s stein. “How was the last circuit, Doyce? The usual, more or less? Lucky you for the mountains this time of year. I had the coast trip that swings down through that ooze of a marshland that the S.G.’s office and the Transitors swear is solid land—maybe it was the last time they bothered to go out and ride it. Well, talk about unseasonably hot and rainy, plus a trick tide that forced a shoal of skipperfish in and stranded them on the mud flats. Chak didn’t uncrinkle his nose from the smell of dead fish for three days, did you, old gent?” Chak’s nose wrinkled in agreement, and Doyce smiled in sympathy as she scratched the gray ears.
Myllard brought a bowl of fresh water for Khar, and the ghatta drank, beads of water springing up and clinging to her white whiskers. “Thanks for bringing over the ale, Rolf. Couldn’t get here before. Not that it’s that busy, but there were some stories needed to be quashed. It’s getting out of hand.” A glance of shared concern bordering on fear passed between them, then Myllard grabbed Rolf’s shoulder, massaged it ruminatively, and bustled back toward the bar where two traders from the outlands and a drover huddled deep in conversation, heads together, with an occasional sidelong glance at the Seekers in the far corner. No need to pay attention to that; covert looks in a crowded ale house were a part of life. Someone was always curious.
She drank down half her ale in greedy gulps, then slid off the bench. “Let me go get some of the dust and grime rearranged,” she apologized. “Khar, want to come? A quick brush and polish, anyway, or do you want to stay?”
Khar examined her white paws, impeccable as always. “Do my ears?” The ghatta had an inordinate liking for having her ears tickled with a hairbrush. “And your hair looks like last year’s bird’s nest.” The final comment was transmitted on the intimate mode so that the others wouldn’t hear. Doyce ran a hand over the tangles and pulled a face in agreement.
Back a little later, the worst of the day’s dust slapped from clothes, hands and face glowing from soap and water, and her unruly curls dampened, forced to wave in nearly the same direction, Doyce reentered the taproom. From across the way she saw Rolf let go of Parcellus’s shoulder, while Per’la jumped into his lap. Parse shook his head emphatically and sneezed three times, face reddening as he strove to contain them. “I finished your ale, Doyce, so this one’s on me,” he called, voice strained and nervous, wiping his nose with the clean, capacious white handkerchief Rolf tossed at him. “Except you’ll have to bring it over yourself.”
Rolf made a disgusted face, jutting his goatee in Parse’s direction and pushed himself up, braced against the table. “Never mind, love, I’m closer than you. No sense you threading your way through to us and then beyond to the counter. I’ll get them. Now behave!” He directed the last comment toward his table-mate.
As if seeking inspiration anywhere he could, Parcellus rolled watering, pink-rimmed eyes at the ceiling, at the bird‘s-eye mapled wall behind her shoulder, everywhere except at Doyce as she sat down. “Twins’ll be in later this evening.” His voice reverberated so brittlely-bright she thought it might crack. She also had the distinct impression that he relaxed after that statement, as if Per’la had withdrawn her claws from his thigh. But Per’la, too, seemed intent on letting her peridot eyes wander, and Doyce suppressed her mindthought to the ghatta. What had gotten into Parse tonight? He tended to be as volatile as his allergies, but something was bursting to escape him. Perhaps it had something to do with the Ambwasali twins: Parse adored a good gossip and the twins made up some of his favorite material.
“Didn’t think I’d see the twins this time around. Aren’t they already on another circuit, or just about due to head out?” Parse raised the nearly empty stein, her stein, come to think of it, to his face and muttered something unintelligible into its depths.
She knew the twins, knew them fairly well, as far as that went, which meant she didn’t really know them at all. She’d spent time with them when Oriel was present, and a bit when he wasn’t, but she could never fathom their differentness. Their looks unconventional by Canderisian standards, Bard and Byrta would have stood out in any crowd without their twinship—that was an added fillip to their foreignness. Oriel had told her the tale of how their grandparents had come from the Sunderlies, so far distant and fragilely joined to Princept by a narrow chain of islands that most knew nothing of it other than that it was broiling hot and its people dark-skinned and wild. Dark-skinned was true enough, but the wildness had no doubt grown out of travelers’ embroidering, the embellishing and redecorating of a tale told so often that something new had to be tacked on each time for freshness.
She half-turned away from ’Parse, leaned against the table, and heard Oriel’s voice in her head, telling the tale. Not the best of tale-tellers, what with his interruptions and asides, but he more than made up for it with his eagerness. “Now you see, Bard’s and Byrta’s grandfather and his three wives trekked north to settle in the meadowlands just south of Gaernett and provided enough gold—strangely wrought, some say ...” and his voice dropped in a stage whisper, storm-blue eyes under dark, straight brows quickly surveying the room, his broad hands describing delicate shapes of gold, adorning her with imaginary bracelets, armbands, and pectorals. He’d mimed a crown, tweaked at a reddish curl, and she’d slapped his hand away, laughing.
He’d pushed his hair back with both hands, picked up where he’d left off. “Enough gold to buy a herd of cattle. Not dairy cows, but beef cattle.” His finger wagged under her nose to make sure she caught his emphasis. “And the grandfather ranged the countryside on other secretive trips, returning each time with a new bull or cow to breed into his herd. Some of the twins’ aunts and uncles, the children of their grandfather and his three wives, intermarried, but the twins’ father chose a woman from the town, as blonde and lithe as he was dark and lithe, but each equally silent, though the humor lines radiated from their eyes. The townspeople preferred not to mingle with them, so it was good they were used to silence. You know how standoffish those farmers can be, Doyce, just south and southwest of Gaernett. Good farmers, all, but they wouldn’t trade you a spare word ’til they’ve tasted your coin.” She’d nodded, just to keep him going, not that there was any way to stop him when he was in a tale-telling mood.
“Now, when the twins were born, boy and girl, the girl scarcely ahead of the boy, they were equally lithe but golden, the color of maple sugar, and with smoky blue-gray eyes the tint of burning autumn leaves.” Oriel had savored the sentence, gratified by his choice of words. “They spoke seldom, except to each other, and with each other words weren’t often necessary. They both ‘Printed the same day with two ghatten as like to each other in their way as the twins were in theirs. M’wa and P‘wa were black, each with an identical white ruff, a white forehead star and four white feet.” He stopped, interjecting in his normal voice, “Now remember, Doyce, you can always tell them apart because M’wa’s left front leg has a high white stocking, not a boot, and P’wa’s right front leg has the high white stocking. Have you got that? It pleases them so when somebody takes the time
to remember who’s who.” She had concentrated, nodded.
She nodded to herself now; she’d better remember Oriel’s story or she’d err when the twins and their Bonds arrived. Oriel never could understand that many, herself included, felt uneasy with the two pairs of twins in their proximity. The four seemed to be but one pair, as if the two Seekers and the two ghatti were each mirror images of one another. To speak with Bard and M‘wa alone was to sense a lack, and the same was true when one spoke to Byrta and P’wa. Rumor held that their mindspeech echoed stronger, capable of penetrating greater distances when all four rode near than when the pairs were far apart. At least one concession to this closeness had already been made: when Byrta and P‘wa started their circuit, the other pair followed the same circuit a day or two behind them or journeyed a circuit that paralleled the other’s, so that although physically separated by some leagues, they remained close enough to be together in their minds.
Yet why did she feel so conspicuously excluded when the two pairs of twins came together? It wasn’t rudeness, but a sustaining fullness and unity that did not require outsiders—that, and the disconcerting habit they had of speaking for each other. Direct any question to Bard, and Byrta might answer, or at least finish his thought for him, or vice versa. Whenever she spoke to either twin she always struggled to keep them both in her line of sight, never able to anticipate from which direction the response would come. It felt impolite to be looking the other way. Oriel laughed at her for that, teased her that she was his little bird, trying to watch two worms at once and ending up with neither. Just because he never had any problems telling who was whom.
If Parcellus planned to go on a tear about the twins tonight, teasing at them again, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it. Then she smiled despite herself. Unless, of course, they decided to retaliate as they had once before when, with no word spoken aloud, they rose as one, grabbed Parse by shoulders and knees, lugged him out the door and deposited him in the water trough. Per‘la had followed, three paces behind the struggling trio and three paces ahead of P’wa and M’wa, her expression rippling with embarrassment and barely suppressed glee. “Oh my, oh dear,” Doyce remembered her mindspeaking to no one in particular. “I told him, I warned him. . . .”
Doyce and Per’la shared a fragment of memory, and even Khar’s whiskers rippled in a recollecting smile. The ghatta had been so silent, so brooding since last night, but Doyce thrust the thought aside as hastily as she pushed the empty stein away from her on the table. Rolf returned with the fresh steins just as Myllard wended his way through the crowd, a plate of stew in one hand, a breadboard topped with a crusty loaf and a half-moon of cheese balancing precariously on his arm. His other hand gripped a shallow bowl of stew that he tried to extend to her without losing control of everything else. She half-rose from behind the table and clamped one hand on the bowl, the other lifting the breadboard from his sweat-slicked forearm. “Oh, Myllard!” She breathed deeply, inhaling the aroma, the steam rising fast and hot enough to feather a curl from her forehead. “Smells wonderful!”
He set the bowl on the floor in front of Khar, the ghatta transfixed as well by the smell. “By the Lady, enjoy and prosper!” And he darted off, waving his hand in sketchy salute and mopping his face with his apron. “Made with Fala’s own two hands and served up by myself,” the words floating in his wake. “Perfect on all counts!”
Whatever Khar’s worries and fears, they didn’t seem to affect her appetite, Doyce noticed as the ghatta fished a delicate paw into the stew, hooking a piece of meat onto the rim to cool. That was good. Khar looked up, expression hidden by the steam, and flashed the half-smile that Doyce knew so well. “Wouldn’t hurt his feelings. Or insult his stew.”
“And maybe even enjoy it a little?” Mindspeech was a blessing with a full mouth.
“Maybe.”
“Or then, perhaps Per‘la or Chak would be interested in seconds?” Chak rumbled polite denials, but Per’la looked eager until she remembered herself. Whatever Parse’s many flaws, he had probably broadcast a polite reminder on the intimate mode.
Without another glance in either direction, the two set to work, if work it could be called to properly savor and enjoy such a feast.
The worst of her hunger dulled, Doyce wiped her mouth with a napkin, using the moment to survey her surroundings. The ghatta had done so as well, eyes alert and inquiring as she watched the goings-on. Parcellus engrossed himself again in his finger-puzzle-toy, still unable to figure out its twistings and turnings, though any eight-year-old could have unlocked it in the blink of an eye. Rolf, with Chak comfortably draped across his feet, perched sideways on the bench, back to her as he retold the story of the reverse tide and the dead skipperfish to a local shopkeep and his elder son. Others played penny-darts, argued over weather and crops, did the hundred-and-one minor rituals of tavern drinking and telling, talk as warm and comforting as the food and ale.
She detected their presence before she saw them; the twins’ entrance cut through the warmth and buzz as efficiently as a eumedico’s scalpel through flesh. She pivoted around to greet them. Most eyes studiously gazed anywhere except at the doorway where the two Seekers and two Bondmates stood, surveying the company. Then better manners on both sides reasserted themselves: the twins smiled, or formed what passed for a trenchant smile with them, nodded, made brief hellos; the townspeople gave polite yet distant greetings and dove back into their conversations with relief, even if they could no longer remember the subject. Doyce concentrated on Oriel’s instructions for identifying the ghatti, the long white stockings. So that meant M‘wa on the left, P’wa on the right. The ghatti glided into the room, their lean black tails whipping the air with question marks, Bard and Byrta following.
“Greetings. Mindwalk.” “If ye will,” Bard started and Byrta finished the salutation. Doyce waved a piece of corn bread in their direction, her mouth full. “Have you” “told her about” “the trouble?” One question, split between them, addressed to both Rolf, now turned back on the bench, and Parcellus, finger-puzzle dropped and forgotten on the table. Per’la lifted a nervous paw, nudged it away from his elbow, and sat back. stretching her neck.
“Good evening, Byrta. Good evening, Bard.” she spoke to each in turn, looking first one, then the other straight in the eye, praying that the other wouldn’t initiate a conversation at that moment. “M‘wa, P’wa, greetings, ghatti friends.” The two black and white ghatti exchanged a glance, then the one on the right, the one with the long white stocking on the right foreleg, got up and moved to the left of its sib. “Oh, by the Lady, I missed again! I’m sorry, P‘wa, M’wa. Now what’s the trouble you mentioned? Has something happened?”
Treating the twins as one and the ghatti as one did save wear and tear on the nerves, Doyce reflected as she waited for their answer, except for the faintest, fleetingest look of sadness on all their faces, as if now and again the bonds of blood, love, and mindspeech bound them just a little too intimately; as if they wondered, and hated themselves for wondering, what it was to be part of but one pair, a Seeker Bond pair with two distinctly separate and unique partners, not the singular synthesis of Bard/Byrta/M‘wa/P’wa.
Cut me and the other bleeds, she thought irrelevantly as she waited for them to continue, but Khar had leaped up beside her on the bench, muscles quivering, eyes narrowing and widening. She tried—and failed—to suppress a yawn of nervousness, turning her head to lick her flank and regain her composure.
“No, we’ve told them nothing yet,” Rolf commented. “They’d ridden long and hungry. Nothing would have changed by telling them first. Besides, it was agreed that we were to wait for you. That was the official decision, let me remind you.”
Parcellus nodded, voice surprisingly firm. “Bad news always keeps. So will this until they’ve finished eating. You’re early.” He rubbed at his nose with his handkerchief.
Byrta touched her brother’s arm. “Aye, they’re right. III news always keeps. T‘would keep even if th
ere were no telling, though we must. T’isn’t wise, though, to let this simmer any longer. Sheer luck they didn’t hear the gossip on the way in.”
Doyce stiffened; Byrta had finished five complete sentences without sharing a single word with her twin. She reached a restraining hand toward Khar to stop the ghatta from licking at herself again.
M‘wa looked up at the bench. “We all have separate voices. Even, sometimes, separate thoughts ... if ever you chose to hear.” A hint of bitterness tinged his tone. “But tonight we have agreed. The sorrow is so great that one voice, one from each of us in each pair, will speak, so you will hear us as individuals and concentrate on our words.” He trembled, and P’wa leaned against him, lending him strength and encouragement. Then she pulled away, separate.
Byrta examined her hands, fingers clenched tightly in the edges of her tabard, then glanced at the rest of the tavern from the comers of her eyes, checking that others drank, talked, laughed, ignored them. She freed her fingers, then clasped her hands behind her as if on report. “They already know.” She thrust her chin in the direction of Rolf, Parcellus, and the ghatti. “Myllard, too. Others in town know bits and pieces, but not the whole story. But after much debate, the Seeker General agreed that it was our story to tell, for we were the ones who found them.” A tear poised in the comer of her eye, and she dashed it away, impatient at the tiny drop of water’s power to interrupt. “Time enough for that later.” Her voice husked with tension, and she struggled to bring it under control.
