"Saved him?" I cried in her face. "You've destroyed him! He's a potter without a hand! You might as well kill him, and be done. Let him go to the Ka-store. That's the only place where he can be a potter now—the potter of his memories!"
"With good care, he'll be well." Her face twisted. "He'd better be. I have questions to ask—him, and Savant Stamno. I shan't bother you with such questions, my priestess. You have much to occupy your mind, with the Crackerjill due to sail." She was controlling herself only with difficulty. She was trembling. She was scared. Of Chanoose's reaction to the news of this obscene mutilation? Or of her rage at why it had occurred?
"I'm not sailing anywhere, you stupid sow! You pissing stinger!"
"Tam will be most courteously looked after. I swear by The Book! I do realize what he means to you, Yaleen. We may even be able to fit him with some sort of spatula on the end of his wrist."
"A spatula? Why not just nail a shovel-head on him!"
"Reports of his progress will be flashed to you faithfully. Mela will be punished. She'll be kicked out of the temple. Right out of the guild! I promise you she'll never sail again. But you must sail, Yaleen —for everybody's sake."
To my astonishment I saw that she was weeping. She put an arm around my shoulder and hugged me tenderly. Her salt tears were on my cheeks. I was so surprised that I didn't spit or hiss or bite her.
I felt my own eyes watering, and a moment later I was sobbing— just like the kid I looked to be. Peli wasn't there to comfort me. But I knew that I couldn't have surrendered to Peli in the way that I now surrendered to Donnah—because Peli was my comrade. Nor with my mum could I have broken down. Yet with Donnah suddenly it was possible. Why so? Was it because I had betrayed Donnah; and now found myself comforting her just as much as she was comforting me?
"I'm still not going," I sniffled into her red hair.
"If you don't want to, little one," she murmured, "your boat can wait. We can wait. The whole world can wait."
Which, of course, meant that I would have to sail as planned. No world can wait. Neither ours, nor all the others.
"Yaleen!" It was Dad's voice.
"Donnah," I whispered, "I only did what I did for the best, without malice." Gently I detached myself from her embrace; gently she let me do so.
"Of course you did," she murmured back. Sad? Scared? I no longer knew.
"Yaleen." Dad strode across the hall, skirting the blood-puddles and the machete. "I just heard about Tam. It's terrible. Awful. The poor lad! I promise I'll care for him. I shan't let him despair. I'll help him be whole again—in spirit at least."
"Thanks, Dad. But I am sailing tomorrow. You needn't worry on that score."
His look showed that I had wounded him. But he merely said, "Look after your mother for me, will you? Whilst I'm looking after Tam?"
"If I can, Dad. If I can. It isn't always easy to look after people— when they have the wind in their sails."
"Don't I know it," I heard Donnah say softly.
We were all being very delicate and tender with each other. We were all hurt equally, and we had enough strength to wallow in our hurt. Unlike Tam, whose wound was the worst. The most unendurable.
* * *
Tam's condition was stable by the evening. He wasn't going to die. He wasn't going to lose the rest of his arm to gangrene. The tourniquets had been removed.
Stamno had vanished. Nobody could find him—and no one had seen him go out that morning. So presumably he hadn't been lurking along Pemba Avenue waiting for his agent to acquire the last pitcher from the arcade. He must have heard the commotion—and somehow decamped, over the yard wall, though I would have thought that impossible, and him not much of an athlete to look at. Clearly the threat to his quest had driven him to some desperate exertion.
Or had he contrived to slip out earlier on? Had he been intending to decamp in any case—contrary to what he had told me—just as soon as he laid hands on the last sheets? I didn't know.
I certainly didn't volunteer any information about Stamno, to a most displeased Chanoose. I didn't breathe a word about the type- makers of Guineamoy, or the Seekers of Truth, or the Port Barbra cult women.
Chanoose walked off with my own original copy of The Book of the Stars. Actually, I presented this to her before she could confiscate it. The book had ruined Tam; I didn't want it any more. Not that particular manuscript. And the copy, wherever it was, was only missing a few last pages of no great moment; in retrospect, of very little moment indeed.
The next morning I bade an awkward farewell to Tam. He lay in his room looking ashen—and so alone, though my father sat by him.
He did bring himself to say, "I always had too many bones, Yaleen. Always, didn't I?" I didn't know whether he spoke bravely, or dementedly. Nor did I want to decide. I kissed him on the brow and fled upstairs—whence I was conveyed ceremonially to the quayside, perched in my seat strapped to poles.
We boarded: guards and Peli and Mum and me. Donnah too—my travelling major-domo now. Donnah looked mightily relieved to be sailing forth again. Yet until we actually cast off, she often glanced ashore as though Chanoose might decide at this last and cruellest moment to replace her.
It was bright and breezy that Rhoday mom, though the sun would blaze hard by noon. Out on the waters the air smelled hopeful and healthy. Presently I spied the first of Tam's dikes. At that distance from shore I could barely make it out: just a thin line fringing the river, with a rude hut nearby for the watchman to occupy.
I imagined water being allowed to seep back to cover the exposed clay during the long weeks to come.
I hurried to find Donnah. I told her to send a signal back to Chanoose insisting that both dikes should be kept drained even if Tam looked like never crafting another pot in his life. Even if Tam demanded that they flood the beds of clay. Even if he quit Pecawar to walk home.
But nobody else should ever use that clay.
Part Two
A Chef At The Palace Of Enchantment
When we arrived in Guineamoy the town seemed even dirtier and smellier than last time I'd visited the place. The war had stimulated industry and with the coming of peace the host of manufacturers pursued the old avenue of profit with renewed vigour and capital, meanwhile searching out new ones too, for their rejigged workshops to supply.
Fresh advances in forging and metallurgy had occurred. New chemicals had been cooked up, and mixed in novel combinations (original object: combustion, explosions). Gases were being extracted from coals and other sorts of rock. Experiments were afoot.
More especially experiments were in the air—that was where you could sniff them. And spy them, too. Guineamoy was the home of the balloon which had graced our grand regatta. During our stay another hot-air balloon was undergoing trials. This specimen had wooden "fans" jutting from its passenger basket. Powered by compressed air, these fans swished round to steer the balloon—slowly, by and large—against the breeze. Yet this method of steering couldn't have been too reliable. One day I saw the balloon drifting through the smoky sky without fans turning, heading towards the river. All of a sudden the flicker of fire and shimmer of air above the basket disappeared and the balloon was dropping fast. Before the craft could crash into the ground, the flame leapt briefly alive to buoy it up—and a rope with an anchor on the end was tossed out, its hooks snagging on a roof below.
However, the kind of industry I was interested in was typefounding. Whilst I was presiding over what had come to be called "communion" with the Worm—the solemn drinking of swigs of the black current—Peli was busy in town doing a spot of investigating. (I suppose I was in town too. But only just. Since men couldn't board the Crackerjill, a pavilion had been erected for me on the quayside; just as at Gangee and Gate of the South.)
I'd tried without success to deter Peli from aping a Port Barbra accent—the quiet murmur, the softly hooded consonants—as subterfuge. If she got excited she couldn't keep this up; and besides it was Stamno who had commissioned the
new type fount, not some woman of 'Barbra. (Or so, at least, Stamno had told us.) But Peli liked the idea of disguising herself. She went equipped with a long scarf to wind round her head as a 'Barbra-style hood and mouth- mask while she was prowling the streets of Guineamoy. I'm sure this must have made her stick out like a sore thumb. It was high summer by the time we arrived. The heat wasn't so fierce or the air as humid as in the deep south, but the atmosphere was still pretty stifling. The sun was hazed with an overcast of smoke which pressed the hot exhalations of smelters back down to earth to add to the season's natural warmth.
True, a few of the locals had taken to wearing thin muslin masks to keep the smuts out of their nostrils; and coifs or snoods, besides, to protect their hair. Yet these eccentrics were strictly a minority. Judging by glances directed askance at such, not everybody in Guineamoy admired this new fashion. Proper Guineamoy folk should obviously suck the dirty air in with relish. They should stick a finger up their snouts and lick the grime. Undeterred, Peli sallied forth with six spans of wool to wrap about her countenance.
Wool was also wrapped around the whereabouts of the metal- smith with whom Stamno claimed he had struck his secret deal. I had no special reason to think that Stamno had been lying, but in view of our savant's disappearance it seemed as wise to check up; and for a whole week Peli drew a blank.
She slipped into my cabin on the evening of that day when I saw the balloon make its emergency descent. She was muffled up to the gills.
"Peli, you nitwit! Do you want the whole boat to see you sneaking round like that?"
A chuckle issued from the scarf as she unwound it. She was grinning mischievously. "Never fear: I just bundled up right outside the door. Figured a dramatic entry might be in order. Because ... I found out!"
"You did?"
"Absolutely. Today I went over to Ferramy Ward. That's out towards the lake of filth. Town's expanding that way apace, Worm knows why, though I reckon some bright sparks must have found a way to use the liquid spoils. I spotted big barges with bucket chains tethered to buoys on the lake; not that I got right up to it, seeing as Ferramy Ward's already enough of a jungle of workshops and whatnots—
"Yes, yes, but what happened?"
"Well, I used diligent guile. I didn't make myself conspicuous by asking leading questions. I found the fellow by a process of elimination. His name's Harrup, and his little factory was thumping away like a heart in love, stamping out this and that in hot metals, with balls of steam puffing out of the ventilators as if it was breathing. . . .
"Anyway, I made out I was from 'Barbra, taking passage home aboard this Crackerjill of ours. That's just in case Harrup turns up here for his slug of darkness and spots me on board and wonders. I pretended Stamno was acting as our agent—us being the 'Barbra mob—and how we were concerned in case he'd run off with our funds, seeing as we hadn't heard from him since. This was to winkle out whether Harrup has heard from him lately; and he hasn't. So anyhow, Harrup protested that he'd already consigned the new fount of type to 'Barbra a fortnight ago. This was a bit of an awkward moment, since it turns out that Stamno only paid Harrup half of the price in advance, and now Harrup wanted the rest—from me. But I said we'd only pay up when delivery was confirmed. Do you know how Stamno paid?"
"Cash?"
"No, diamonds. Lots of little sparklers from Tambimatu. Well, they don't really sparkle much, that sort, but it seems they've a use for them here on the tips of drills. So as diamonds go, they're poor specimens. But they aren't exactly cheap. Nor was the job."
"So it's all true. That's a relief. Now we just have to hope that Stamno got the copy off safely."
"He'd have been wise to walk to Gangee or Verrino first. The guild could have been searching all cargoes ex Pecawar."
"I'm sure he'd have thought of that. But listen, Peli: you say he paid in Tambimatu diamonds. How did he get them?"
"From the cult women? He said they batten on rich patrons."
"Yes, but wealth in 'Barbra means costly woods."
"He could hardly carry a couple of cords of rubyvein around with him."
"Hmm, and I doubt you need diamonds to drill holes in ivorybone. So why and whence the sparklers? I think there must be cultists, or at least Seekers for Truth, in Tambimatu too."
"That figures. I prised a name out of Harrup, without him suspecting as I didn't know it. It's the name of the woman he sent the fount to in 'Barbra. She's called Peera-pa."
"So?"
"So it's a Tambimatu name. When I was hunting round Tambimatu town for that bangle of mine—the coiled one, remember?—I noticed a name just like hers painted up over a lapidary's. Peerasto; that was it. Odd name; stuck in me mind."
"It could equally be a 'Barbra name."
"So it could. But there's an obvious connexion. Funny things fester in deep-south jungles, Yaleen, and spread like sprintweed."
Just then we heard a cursory knock on the door, and before either of us could react Donnah strode in She held a letter in her hand.
"For you, Yaleen. Compliments of the quaymistress. It's from your father. There's one for your mother too."
Ah, the post had caught up with us. Hitherto I'd had to rely on signals from Chanoose, attesting to Tam's well-being; whether true or false.
Donnah waited. So did I, till she went. Then I tore the letter open.
Dad confirmed that Tam was okay in body, and reasonably so in spirit too. He had declined Chanoose's fatuous offer to fix a wooden spatula on his stump, so that he could shape clay. One night Tam had wept in Dad's arms; though I wasn't ever to let Tam know that I knew this. The tears seemed to have flushed the poison from his soul. On the very next day he had gone to the dikes, with Dad accompanying him. As I read this letter I realized that Tam was fast becoming the son whom Dad had lost in Capsi. Together they brought back tubs of clay on a cart.
Tam, the one-handed potter, set to work again. However, he was no longer working with his kick-wheel. Instead—slowly and patiently, often cursing humorously—he was modelling porcelain hands. Hands reaching up. Hands holding fleuradieu blooms. Hitherto all of Tam's hands had proved to be abortions. Yet he insisted that he was going to craft the perfect porcelain hand, one which would blush like flesh and seem to come alive at night by lamplight.
Dad thought this was a healthy, creative response. I wasn't so sure, though I tried to believe it.
I mustn't have succeeded. That night I dreamed of the noon when Tam had arrived in Pecawar. In the dream I was waiting to meet him fresh off the Merry Mandolin. But when he strode down the gangplank towards me (minus any bags) the hand which he held out in greeting was a porcelain one, fused to his wrist of flesh and bone. The moment I clasped his hand, it cracked into a dozen pieces which fell tinkling to the flagstones of the quay.
We tarried four full weeks in Guineamoy. The reason was that in Guineamoy people seemed generally less eager to partake of the current and gain their ticket to the .Kfl-store than had been the case in Gangee or Gate of the South. A fair number did, to be sure. But the majority ignored us. And that would be their folly.
The Guineamoy quaymistress ascribed this reluctance to the prevailing ethic of practical utility, self-help, faith in tangible things. For instance, most metal equipment used on boats—such as anchors, rope-rings, winches, pumps—was manufactured in Guineamoy. Now in reality Guineamoy depended upon the river for its exports, but local wisdom held it that all river business hinged on Guineamoy skills. Thus men of Guineamoy weren't going to drink from the "oil-pipe" of the current (as some local wits described it) any more than they would consider lapping bilge water.
This worried the river guild, on account of all the skills which would be lost if most smiths had their minds fried; which is why we lingered till visitors fell off to a mere dribble. Then we cried quits.
We stopped over at Spanglestream a single week; likewise at the Bayou. In both places our reception was everything we'd hoped for.
So, not long after, we were tying up at the
massive natural stone quays of Jangali.
Of our stay in Jangali, the outstanding feature which I must mention is the conduct of my mum; and of that acid old acquaintance whom hitherto I have called "Moustache"—but who naturally had a name of his own, to wit Petrovy.
The catalyst between Mum and Petrovy ("catalyst" being a term I had picked up in Guineamoy) was none other than dusky Lalo. You may recall Lalo—and her fiance Kish—as the two who took passage home to Jangali aboard the Spry Goose, and who raised the alarm while I was rescuing the drugged Marcialla from her perch. Then a year later I had found myself pitying Kish because Lalo's mum was so thoroughly overbearing.
On our second morning in Jangali Lalo turned up in our reception marquee on the quayside. She was hanging on the arm of Moustache (whom I shall call Petrovy from now on), and at first 1 must admit I didn't recognize her, though I noticed Petrovy soon enough.
I was doing the honours, while Lana kept me supplied with constant refills of the current and Mum established some order among the throng of applicants.
A throng it was!—and Petrovy, with that young woman on his arm, didn't press forward right away but hung back for ages observing me. As the crowd thinned, Mum tried to usher them forward. Instead of heeding Mum's urgings, the young woman began chatting to her. Petrovy joined in, grumpily at first—so it looked to me— but soon with an increasing show of chivalry.
Now, that young woman was slim, wiry, taut and muscular. / would have expected Lalo to flesh out in the period which had elapsed since last I saw her. She'd become a mother. She had settled down, and under the aegis of a stoutly complacent parent who wished her to have at least three children in quick succession. I also recalled Lalo's crack about how the fungus drug didn't make sex any more thrilling. At the time she had spoken chirpily and innocently enough, but I remember suspecting a certain—shall we say?—undertone to her remark. If that note had become dominant, I shouldn't have been surprised if Lalo's initial interest in exciting Kish might not have gone to seed; along with the tone of her body.
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