Finders-Seekers

by Gayle Greeno

  “No. By me, please.” Khar’s mindspeech sounded weak but steady.

  “But you’re so hot and tired, love, and it’s warm out tonight. ”

  The ghatta persisted, “Please. Need to touch, I need yon close.”

  Doyce eased under the sheet and reached to turn down the lamp. Khar’s feet skimmed her back, each paw pad hot and harsh and dry. With a deep sigh of contentment, the ghatta fell instantly into a drugged sleep. It took. Doyce much longer. Folding an arm beneath her head, she prepared to wait for sleep or the morning, unsure of which might come first, but willing to wait and see. In truth, what else was there to do?

  The light rapping on the door melded with her dream, a part of it, no doubt, as was the voice calling, “Doyce, Doyce,” with a hint of exasperation. She pulled the pit-low over her head, groaned. The same tone Oriel used when he tried to rouse her to the fresh wonder of a new day.

  “Don’t care,” she muttered, muffled by the pillow. “Never met a sunrise I’ve liked. Let it wait.”

  “Doyce, come on! Wake up, the tray’s heavy.”

  Untangling herself from the covers, Doyce sighed and shook her head. So, she had slept. Funny that she should wake up like that in the middle of a dream, just as the dream voices called to her, so coaxing and cajoling. What had they planned to tell her? What would have happened next? The old terrors she knew inside and out; this new one with Oriel at its center had yet to run its course. Down at the foot of the bed Khar lay, sleepy golden eyes half-lidded but watching. She reached down to caress the ghatta and felt her cooler against her palm, her muscles relaxed, no longer tense and quivering as she’d been last night.

  “Better?” She rubbed the ghatta’s ears and tickled along the chin line.

  “Much. Still weak but better. Almost fine.” She rested her head in Doyce’s cupped hand, luxuriating in the touch of the searching fingers scraping along her chin. “Now get door?”

  The voice came again and the door handle rattled. “Doyce, I swear I’ll eat every bit of it myself if you don’t get up.” The clatter of crockery shifting on a tray.

  “Claire? Is that you? Sorry, sorry, I was deep asleep. Hold on, I’ll be right there.” Doyce tumbled out of bed, debated halfheartedly about pulling her clothes on, but decided shift and shorts sufficed ’til she’d washed and eaten. Thumbing back the iron latch, she opened the door a crack to find Claire balancing a breakfast tray and tapping her foot in annoyance, just as her father Myllard so often did. Steam from the tray curled airy tendrils around her heart-shaped face, and the morning sun from the stairwell window flooded in behind her, highlighting the few long strands of hair escaping from her kerchief, warming the yellow primrose design on collar and cuffs, turning the edge of her crisp white apron transparently gauzy where it extended beyond the outline of her body.

  “Good morrow. Lady bless your waking,” she recited, face bent downward toward the tray, still not looking Doyce in the eye.

  “And Lady bless you, too, Claire,” Doyce responded, pulling the door wide to shield her half-naked form and waving the girl inside. “Did I detect a note of irony in your voice, though?”

  Claire hesitated, then continued to arrange the tray’s contents on the table. A steaming bowl of porridge, a plate of fresh biscuits, butter, ruby jelly, cheese, a small pitcher of milk, and a double-handled cha pot with two matching mugs. Finally, a small, empty bowl. “What do you mean?” Still glancing downward, she concentrated on shifting things a fraction this way, a fraction that way. “About last night, I’m ...” Misery flooded her voice.

  Doyce realized that what she had taken to be banter was working on two different levels: her straightforward one about her notorious problems with waking, something that Claire and her family had chided her about time and again, and Claire’s fixation that everything said related in some way to their conversation—and her embarrassment-from the night before. “You know I’m a bear straight out of bed,” she mock-grumbled and gave the girl a quick hug. Oh, the power of the young to think that everything said and done pertained directly to them. The focus would change with years and experience. “Now, what’s this about breakfast? Are you joining me? Do you have time? And then we’ll discuss last night if you want, though it’s not necessary.”

  A quick, relieved smile danced across Claire’s face. “I’ve time. Eli’s given me a half-haliday until mid-afternoon.” She plumped down on the unmade bed and stroked Khar. “As to breakfast, more cha, yes. But nothing else. You know a good cook always samples as she goes along.” She motioned Doyce to the stool beside the crowded little table. “Now eat.”

  “A great cook doesn’t have to sample everything she cooks because she knows it’s perfect. Look at your mother.” Doyce poured cha and handed a mug over to Claire, poured one for herself. “If she sampled each and every one of her creations, she’d be a more than ample woman. Myllard would have to widen doors, reinforce floors.” She broke open a biscuit and buttered it, contemplated the ruby jelly and decided on self-control—wait to try it on the next biscuit.

  Getting into the spirit of the morning, Claire grinned and her eyes at last met Doyce’s. “Ah, but you said a ‘great’ cook and I said a ‘good’ cook. If I reach Mother’s greatness, I won’t have to sample. Besides, I’ll have Wyatt to do it—just as Papa does for Mother! Until then....”

  Doyce bit into her biscuit. “Well, if this is any indication, you’re well on your way there.” Pouring milk over the porridge, she began to eat in earnest. “A half-haliday, bless Eli. What are you going to do with it?”

  “Visit with you until you’re ready to leave. Then go to the open-air market and wander around a bit. Nothing much to buy and little enough to buy it with, since I’m saving every copper, but perhaps some fingering yarn for knitting.” She turned shell pink and stared down at her yet trim stomach, one hand cupped there protectively.

  “Perhaps we’ll join you, if we may? Khar’s still a bit unsteady and weak. Unexpectedly came into heat last night and we didn’t catch it as early as we should have. We’re not expected in Kissena until tomorrow afternoon, so I thought we’d travel in two stages, part late this afternoon, the rest on the morrow.”

  “Oh, poor Khar, poor baby,” Claire crooned and lavished more affection on the ghatta. Khar, with a keen sense of the dramatic, flopped from her sitting position into a limp mass on the bed, striving to look pitiful. “Oh, I nearly forgot. I brought a bowl for you so you could have some milk, Khar. That is, if your selfish Bondmate hasn’t used it all on her porridge!”

  Chastened, Doyce surrendered the bowl and the half-full pitcher of milk to Claire, who poured it out. “Don’t feed her on the bed, Claire, You both know better.”

  “But she’s so weak!”

  “She’s a little weak, but fast approaching the pink of health. Don’t spoil her, Claire, or she’ll be even more insufferable than she is.” With wounded dignity, Khar held her head high and jumped off the bed. With a critical eye Doyce appraised her movements, no major leg tremors, merely caution. “She’s mending fine, a little more rest and she’ll be perfect.”

  “About last night,” Claire sat down again, turning her cha mug pensively in her hands, then abruptly thrust it out for more cha. “I overreacted. It just seemed so horrible and unfair to use an old man like that.”

  Doyce said nothing. After a moment, Claire continued. “I don’t like that it has to be that way, that there are the poor and the hopeless and the helpless. That some sink so low that what the eumedicos offer seems a salvation of sorts. And what the eumedicos do, I suppose it’s necessary. Isn’t there a phrase, ‘No progress without pain’? If I were ill, or Wyatt, or Mother or Papa, I’d want to know that the eumedicos had tried every possible way to help. It’s just that it’s so....” She shrugged, still bewildered by the conflicting thoughts, trying to reconcile them yet leave her own self-respect intact.

  “I know. The greater good, the lesser evil, which is which? I know that any time I helped with the experiments, or
was experimented on myself,” Claire’s eyes went wide with shock and she pressed a hand to her mouth, “that the subject was treated with respect and honor. They never try to cause pain, though they sometimes do. And remember, most of us go on living our lives, never bothering to volunteer, nor ever thinking it might be necessary, just leaving the task to someone else.” Doyce buttered another biscuit, thick-spread the ruby jelly—cherry, she judged—on it and wished she hadn’t. The talk reminded her of last night and her jarring revelation about what had been done to Oriel; her stomach spasmed and she put down the biscuit.

  “Still, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have hurt you, been rude for anything. I haven’t upset you again, have I? You look so distant all of a sudden.”

  She pushed the thoughts aside for later. “No, I’m fine and you’re forgiven. Now, shall I get washed and dressed so we can head for market?”

  Claire bounced up, resilient and relieved. “Fine. I’ll check to see if your clothes are ready so you can get them packed.” She headed toward the door, then stopped. “Oh. If you aren’t going to eat that biscuit with the jelly, perhaps I will after all. I just seem so hungry these days.” She snatched it up at Doyce’s nod and, munching, went out. “I’ll meet you downstairs in a little while.”

  “Going to be a big, husky baby boy.” Khar checked her milk bowl to see if any more had materialized. She nosed under it and edged it along the floor toward Doyce and glanced an appeal, tongue-tip protruding, petal-pink as her nose.

  “That’s all, I’m afraid. And you never got your fish last night, poor thing.” Doyce poured the last drops of milk into the bowl. The dried remains of the fish sat in their saucer by the lamp. “How do you know it will be a boy?”

  “Just do. Can tell sometimes.” Her face radiated smug self-satisfaction, eyes half-closed.

  Doyce paused storklike, one leg in her pantaloons. “And will it look like Myllard?” she teased.

  Khar considered the question with grave deliberation. “A tittle. Plump and bald and pink.”

  “You are hopeless! A charlatan amongst ghatti!”

  Although double-burdened—Doyce, Claire, and Khar—Lokka managed a spritely pace, just as excited as everyone else by the color and bustle around her as they approached the Market Square. She arched her neck and essayed a prance until Doyce clucked disapproval, bringing her under check to avoid the dashing, shouting children ; stall owners hectoring each other as they arranged their wares, stepping back into the street, oblivious to riders and pedestrians alike while they admired their displays and disparaged a neighbor’s, then stepped back and made a careful adjustment or undetected misadjustment, if at all possible. Potential buyers, Claire and herself among them, already poured down the narrow streets toward the square. Some had journeyed far, dressed in their best clothes or their one workaday outfit, lightly powdered with travel dust; others only from the opposite side of town; but all sounded happy, expectant, and eager to buy, for the market convened but once an octant. Claire craned this way and that to peer beyond Doyce’s shoulders, one hand knotted so tightly in Doyce’s waist sash that she wondered if she would be bisected. Even Khar sat at attention, captivated by the bustling activity and sense of happy urgency. The jingling coins started their siren song of “buy, buy!”

  “Look, over there!” Claire waved enthusiastically until a large figure in a billowing wheat-colored robe cinched at the waist with a length of hemp stopped his sweeping of the steps of the local Bethel and waved back. “It’s Shepherd Harrap. I’ll ask if we can tie Lokka by the temple steps. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

  Doyce concentrated on navigating Lokka through the crowds and to the steps of the Bethel, the Lady Temple where almost all in the area came every Achtdag to honor and pray to the Lady, to recite the mysteries of the Eightfold Trusts, and feel themselves a part of the larger community of heaven and earth combined. Doyce seldom attended now, but the unexpected twinge told her she missed it, the sense of peace and quietude, the implicit faith in the rightness of whatever happened in the sight of the Lady. Yet how could the Lady have countenanced Oriel’s death? Or the fiery demise of Varon, Briony, and Vesey? Find the rightness in that and she’d consider believing once more.

  Although small compared to many others she’d seen, Doyce admired the Bethel’s architecture. Four white marbled steps, then a wide landing, then four more steps led up to the massive double doors of dark, well-oiled teak inlaid with the symbols of the Eightfold Trusts the Lady had bequeathed to her disciples and ultimately to her followers. The promise of perfect peace to each believer, both on earth and in the Afterward, was a goal to strive for, and the Lady never frowned on those who tried their best yet did not succeed. If not this day, perhaps the next; if not this life, perhaps another.

  Sheltered in an alcove above the door stood a statue of the Lady, her eight graceful arms outstretched in ever-welcome, carved with great love and only somewhat less expertise by a local carpenter. The Bethel itself was constructed of limestone aged to a creamy yellow-tan, while long, narrow windows, arched at top and bottom, ran along both sides of the building and were fitted with forest-green shutters folded snug as grasshopper wings over the windows to keep the coolness of the interior at bay from the rising heat of day.

  Shepherd Harrap dropped his twig broom on the top step and bounced down to greet them, leather sandals slapping against the marble. About fifty, Doyce estimated, with mild, dreamy blue eyes, guileless with the love of his Lady. His breadth of shoulders and chest and a hint of a paunch made him appear shorter than he was. And anything but soft, she discovered when corded, powerfully muscled arms plucked Claire from the saddle, setting her down without a jounce. Claire dropped an affectionate kiss on the tonsured spot on his head as he legged a mock bow.

  “Oh, Harrap, I’ve the morning free, thanks to Eli! And this is my friend Doyce,” she added as Doyce dismounted and reached out to clasp his hand.

  His grip held firm but with no intent to crush, as if he grasped a fragile hatchling. “And my Bondmate, the ghatta Khar’pern,” she said.

  “Ah, the little sleek one hasn’t felt well, has she?” The rich melody of his baritone voice thrilled Doyce, a voice which would make him the responder in the mystery chants. He scooped Khar from the pommel platform, the ghatta startled and ill at ease before she decided to settle against his chest. He deposited her on the first step with loving care and Khar licked her fur into place from the rumpling, basking in the attention she’d received.

  She regarded the man with revised interest; Khar wouldn’t have accepted a familiarity like that from many strangers. Also, a more perceptive remark than she’d anticipated from the Shepherd, a man she expected to be more beguiled by the inner mysteries and contemplation of the Lady than in tune with the mundane around him.

  As if blessed with eyes in the back of his head, he gave a guilty start as another Shepherd, this one wearing the golden pectorate as All-Shepherd of the Flock, the head of the Bethel, stood at the top of the steps, one arched, sandaled foot pointed like an accusation at the abandoned broom. Harrap hitched his robe up to his knees and dashed up the steps, reclaimed his broom, and began sweeping with vigor, dust surging around his ankles, his being turned inward as he chanted the perpetual cycle of prayers. The tonsured spot on his bent head glowed ruddy. The All-Shepherd returned inside and Harrap slowed the broom as he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “Just tie the mare over to the side, there, and I’ll keep watch over her.”

  “Thank you, Harrap.” Claire blew him an airy kiss.

  “Have we caused him trouble?” Doyce asked in concern.

  “Harrap’s so truly good that no one can be mad at him for long, no matter what. It’s just that sometimes he takes the unity of heaven and earth a little too literally for Shepherd Nichlaus’s taste. Nichlaus’d rather see him concentrate more on the glory of the Bethel and the Lady and not strive quite so much for oneness with the world around him.”

  “Everything to the greater glory of the Lad
y,” Doyce managed with weak piety as she took Claire’s arm and started toward the stalls packed along the other three sides of the square and lined across its middle, exuberant with gaudy banners and hand-lettered signs, impromptu displays. For some, the merchanters, this served as a full-time occupation, whether in permanent shop or temporary open stall; for others, it provided the opportunity to sell or barter an overabundance of some crop or handicraft.

  Baskets, large and small, utilitarian and decorative sweet grass; woven rush mats; leathercraft frivolous and everyday sturdy; curve-beaked, yellow-green songbirds atwitter; rakes and hoes: fresh meat pies with crescent-slitted, egg-glazed tops. They wandered in a happy daze, stopping here and there to exclaim at whatever struck their fancy. Doyce hesitated by a tray of obsidian pieces, carved into pocket-sized mirrors and slim belt knives. The raw power of their carved decorations stirred something within her. Not the usual market goods, not by a long shot.

  When she looked up from the ornaments to praise the seller for his skill, she caught her breath in wonderment. An Erakwan! In the midst of a Market Day fair! Eyes black as the obsidian trinkets caught her own. Rare for one of the elusive first peoples of Methuen to be seen at all, let alone to mingle with the descendants of outworlders, invaders, conquerors of their land, if not of their peoples. The Erakwa and the original spacers and their descendants had never warred, fought no pitched battles, no campaigns to determine supremacy. Instead, the Erakwa simply faded away, remained in seclusion in the deeply wooded mountains, slipping northward across the river into Marchmont during the summers and drifting southward to Canderis as winter approached. They too had suffered from the Plumbs the first settlers had placed, but the Erakwa had blamed no one, had demanded no retribution.