Anyway, in the end Mum did bring Petrovy and the woman forward. Almost everyone else had gone by now, and no new arrivals were being admitted; it was almost lunchtime.
"I believe you know these two of old," said Mum. "I present Petrovy—and Lalo."
"Lalo!" I cried, connecting at last.
"Why yes." The lithe dusky woman executed a full turn—as if to show off a fine costume. Actually she was wearing a faded, stained scarlet blouse and baggy breeches tucked into fork-toed boots.
And then I made the full connexion and realized that she was indeed showing off her duds—her work clothes—as well as her new tougher leaner self inside them.
"You've become a junglejack! During the war, while the men were away—of course!"
"And after the war; and for a long while yet. I'm enjoying it. It's fun. I might possibly quit in ten years' time." She squeezed Pe- trovy's arm. He uttered a hrumph.
"We always did have a few women junglejacks," she added. "Now we have a lot more."
Hrumph again. Petrovy sounded resigned. "We lost a fair number of guildsmen in the fighting. Lalo here has become quite an organizer. She's on the Council. She's shot up to the top of the hoganny tree faster than a cowchuck ball."
"Amazing," I said. "And how about Kish?"
"Oh, he's happy enough looking after our kid." Kid, singular. Obviously the grandmotherly ambitions of Lalo's mum hadn't come to fruition quite so quickly. Even so, Kish seemed to be a loser either way—unless he truly didn't mind.
"Nothing wrong here," said Lalo, perhaps reading my look. "Me, I'm jungle bom and bred. Be cruel to send Kish up a tree. Remember how we joshed him about it? Kish and I discussed this, of course."
No doubt they did. Presumably, though, Kish didn't need to feel jealous of Petrovy into the bargain. By hanging on the older jun- glejack's arm Lalo was mainly emphasizing a professional relationship—rubbing and squeezing it home, no less. Presumably.
Just then Petrovy did detach himself from Lalo, gently but firmly. Turning to Mum he said, with a bob of his head, "Madam, I should be delighted if you would accept my hospitality in town. Here in Jangali we have a fine local watering-hole, by name—"
"The Jingle-Jangle," Mum nodded. "I've read of it."
"May I assure you that it isn't too rowdy during the day?"
Mum's eyes gleamed; and in that gleam I saw that she was determined to recapitulate my own adventures. "I'd be delighted," she said.
"Perhaps Lalo and Yaleen would prefer to mull over old times," suggested Petrovy.
"Whilst we mull something else! Ah, but you don't mull jun- glejack. I'm mixing my drinks!"
Petrovy grinned. "Mustn't do that."
"Oh I can't stop," breezed Lalo, "much as I'd like to. I have trees to shin up this afternoon. And as to booze, a shot of the black current will suit me fine for now."
This was duly provided. Whereupon Lalo departed, giving me a cheery smile—followed in short order by Mum, who had taken
Lalo's place on Petrovy's arm. Which left me to wonder: What is
Petrovy up to?
As soon as I got back on board I had an urgent word with Peli. "Peli dear, would you mind going to the Jingle-Jangle right away?"
"Just try to stop me!"
"Mum's gone off there with that 'jack I told you about: the one with the moustaches."
"The big-shot you hinted things to?"
"The same. His name's Petrovy. I want to know what his game is. Can you keep an eye on them both from a distance?"
"I'll wear my scarf. They won't spot me."
Peli didn't report back till nightfall, which was a good while after Mum herself had returned on board.
"Well?"
"That's exactly how they got on! Well indeed. Your mum and Petrovy spent two solid hours in the Jingle-Jangle. They didn't drink immoderately, but by the time they left they were into quite a tettytet, Oh they were brushing against each other every few minutes accidentally on purpose in the way of two people who have every intention of, well. . . ."
"I get the picture."
"So then Petrovy escorted your mum back to his own house. Leastways I'm assuming it was his, and not just borrowed for the occasion. To get there you head past the Jay-Jay Hall then turn right down Whittlers Alley, then—"
"I'm not planning a visit, Peli. What happened?"
"They stayed together around three hours. Then your mum left, on her own; and I hung around to see whether Petrovy would rush off anywhere. But he didn't; and that's why I'm back late. It wasn't the sort of place you could sneak up and peep into. It's the second storey up a jacktree, so I don't actually know what went on inside."
"But we assume they went to bed."
Peli scratched her head. "They must have done, I'd say. Your mum's hair was astray when she came out, and she had a certain look on her face. Cat and cream, cat and cream."
"You must have watched for ages."
"Oh, I've stood watch on a boat. It's no different on dry land, except you have to watch out for people spotting you. Bit tiresome, that's all."
"Hmm. I wonder how tired Mum's feeling?"
"She didn't look the least bit tired."
Next morning I arranged to have breakfast with Mum, just the two of us alone together.
"So what did you make of Petrovy?" I asked over a waffle. "He's a vigorous sparring partner. Er, in debate, I mean."
She looked me right in the eye. "Whereas your dad has always been so gentle, eh? That's what's nice about your father. But one man isn't all men, Yaleen. And of course I'm no-one's fool, either— so whenever my new friend ventured queries about a certain surprise which priestess Yaleen might have in store, I found more interesting business to occupy us. If he was keeping his ears open, I plugged them with my tongue. Figuratively, of course."
"Of course, Mum."
"Not that I have any inkling what this certain surprise might be! Nor how Petrovy has any inkling of it—though I must say he seemed sympathetic. To it; and to me. Thankfully, my inevitable reticence on this point," and here she chose her words very carefully, "did not put a strain on his courtesy. Had it done so, I should have felt rather disappointed in him. I might have suspected that he was paying court to the daughter through the mother. That would have been quite galling, don't you think?"
"I'm glad to hear you enjoyed yourself."
"Oh I did. I enjoyed being with him. Though since there was apparently a hidden motive, I think I shall not repeat the experience. That might prove boring."
Oh dear. Mum had had time to mull over the events of the previous afternoon and see those in a new light—one to which, despite her insistence, she had perhaps been blind at the time. And she blamed me. I had robbed her tryst with Petrovy of a certain precious spontaneity.
"Incidentally," she added, "I did notice your Peli lurking in the Jingle-Jangle. She isn't always enormously subtle."
Oh double dear. "Look on the bright side, Mum. If Petrovy hadn't wanted something—"
"Then he wouldn't have wanted me? Charming."
"No, what I mean is. ..." I trailed off. I was only putting my foot further in my mouth.
Mum patted my hand. "Never mind, Yaleen. A mature woman can set aside a smidgeon of subterfuge, from the meat of the affair."
"Oh. Good."
"How fascinating if I knew what your little surprise might be! I imagine Peli knows."
"Uh," I grunted, and concentrated on waffle.
I related all this to Peli to caution her. Thus it was with great glee that she in turn related to me, two nights later, how Petrovy had just happened to bump into her in town that day, and how he had whisked her off to the Jingle-Jangle. Obviously Petrovy hadn't spotted Peli spying on his courtship of Mum.
"So I says to myself," said Peli, "if your mum can enjoy herself, why shouldn't I? Not that I'd ever dream of putting her nose out of joint by letting on! Anyhow, I did bear in mind that I wasn't supposed to know the way to that house of his. Wouldn't have done if I'd charged hot-fo
ot ahead through every twist and turn, would it now?"
I giggled. Yet in fact—would you believe?—I was starting to experience a twinge of jealousy at these amusements in which I couldn't participate. Truth to tell, I was feeling a tad frustrated. Not that I could have imagined amusing myself with Petrovy, of all people! On the other hand, Peli with her bluff red face and her hair like a haystook, wasn't as, well, attractive as I'd once been. . . . (Unworthy thoughts! That's what a pang of jealousy does to people.)
"So when we got back to his house up the tree, we pleased ourselves; and I shan't go into that. But while I was feeling, um, relaxed he started hinting on about the little surprise. 'I don't want to tease you, Pet,' i said to him. He didn't seem to mind me calling him Pet. 'I'll tell you the truth,' said I. Seeing as your mum said he appeared to be sympathetic—"
"Hey, Mum might just have said that so that if Petrovy found out, he'd tell her; and she could tell Donnah!"
"Your mum said she wasn't going to see him again. But that's by the by. I'm no one's fool, either. What I told him was this: 'There's a surprise all right, Pet, but it'll have to stay hush for the moment. If the river guild hears about it . . . you follow?'
" ‘I'm not river guild,' says he.
" 'Ah, but you don't always know who you're talking to,' I said.
"He seemed a bit offended. 'Don't I just?'
" 'No,' I answered him. 'For instance you've been talking to Yaleen's mum—and she doesn't necessarily see eye to eye with Yaleen.’ That took the wind out of his sails, all right—as well as serving to caution him.
" 'You wily old fox,’ he calls me. But I gave him a cuddle to make up. 'Foxes are legends.’ I said, 'but there'll be real foxes somewhere else in the galaxy—and lots of other people, who are just as real as you and me. Be a shame to lose them all forever, now wouldn't it be? All those deaths would diminish us—and the river guild would be the one big fish forever after, monopolizing /fa-store and everything.'
" 'That's not on,' he says, 'not after all we've fought for. Though mind you, I do believe in the A'a-store.'
" 'But you don't want to pay too high a price for the privilege,' I put it bluntly.
"He frowns at me. 'Look, Peli, our different towns and guilds have always had a lot of independence. Happen we've had to rely on one particular guild to link us all up, but still the river guild couldn't rule us. That's what bothers us here in Jangali—aye, even while we're swilling back the black stuff for the sake of our souls, to keep us out of that Godmind's clutches after we're dead!' And he promises me that he'll hang on for our surprise. And he'll help if he humanly can—so long as it suits the junglejacks. 'Can't commit us, sight unseen!'
" 'Fair enough, Pet,' I told him. 'I'm sure you'll find it suits you. What's at stake is big.'
" 'And Yaleen isn't her own mistress?'
" 'No more than I'm yours,' said I.
" 'Oho,’ says he, 'we'll see about that!'
"So we did."
All in all—a whiff of jealousy aside—I judged that Peli had done rather adroitly; and enjoyed herself into the bargain. Though Pe- trovy's comment didn't amount to an absolute promise, it was a whole lot better than a poke in the eye. The 'jacks had all flooded back to their patch of forest, but they were a proud mob. Once military—twice militant?
It was at Port Barbra that things really happened.
The Worm's priestess was highly popular in that town. Umpteen spectators turned out to see the Crackerjill tie up. Such was the throng that several women and girls got pushed into the water and almost came to grief squeezed between our boat and the jetty. They either swam clear or were fished out in time, unstung, and fortunately no men had ventured as close to the riverside as those who got a ducking.
As I've said before, Port Barbra is a tawdry, muddy slum of a place where the locals pay little heed to the graces of life such as clean streets or elegant housing. They wrap themselves up in hoods, scarves, veils, kerchiefs; as well as in their own inwardness.
On the afternoon of our arrival the people of 'Barbra were definitely more forthcoming. They didn't actually cheer, but they did croon and sigh as if their voices were a wind in a great chimney.
Another sort of crowd also greeted us: a host of tiny midges. We on board were soon muffled up like the folk on shore, and were practising talking with our lips shut and squinting through halfclosed eyelids.
"The worst it's ever been!" Peli groused.
"Mmm," I agreed. "Glad I'm titchy now. Less of me to bother."
I observed that 'Barbrans didn't waste time and energy on slapping these pests or trying to waft them away from the areas of flesh left exposed. They just ignored this inconvenience—in the same style that they spumed the conveniences of life.
When the horde of welcomers at last dispersed, so too did the clouds of flies. Perhaps it was the people themselves who had attracted the pests, by congregating in such a mass. We weren't persecuted as badly again.
For me the next few days were busy, busy. A marquee had been erected near the quaymistress's shack—this was Port Barbra, remember, and the guild didn't wish to be ostentatiously at odds with local building codes. The entrance to the marquee was hung with curtains of muslin, to exclude unwelcome miniature visitors whom I, for one, had no wish to take to the Ka-store with us; should flies have Kas and fall into the waiting jugs of current and be drunk, so that you had to share your afterlife with a zizzing midge. No, I'm joking. Fly-curtains were standard fittings on 'Barbra doors and windows to keep winged pests out of homes. This much comfort the locals allowed themselves, otherwise they would have gone mad; and such curtains increased their privacy. Alas, out of respect for a visiting priestess the local contractors rather outdid themselves on muslin drapes. As a result the tent grew stuffy and headachy. The year was dipping towards its finale by this time, thus the weather wasn't as hot as it might otherwise have been. Even so, we were deep in the tropics. I had to ask Lana to fan me with a huge leaf; which must have made me look positively pampered to 'Barbra eyes. Or perhaps this enhanced my image as exotic emissary of the Worm?
Anyway, I was busy; and Peli was busy too. She visited the local newssheet printer and enquired about Peera-pa, saying that she had an important message to deliver. The printer-cwwz-editor fellow was reticent (weren't they all, hereabouts?), but he assured Peli that he would ask around.
Peli brought back with her a copy of his weekly product, Barbra's Bugle. For the most part the contents seemed to consist of aimless gossip—aimless, because most of the names were concealed by initials, though maybe everyone in Port Barbra knew who was referred to. Actual news from the rest of the river was condensed into short snippets, run together and crammed into a box. What a contrast with the sophisticated repartee and tidbits of wisdom to be found in the flourishing Ajelobo rags only forty leagues downstream! Nor was the printing any too choice.
"He ought to have called it Barbra's Bungle, " joked Peli.
The headline story, about my own impending arrival at such and such a time aboard the Crackerjill, struck me as distinctly odd. It read less like news than like editorial, practically instructing readers to present themselves for a dose of the current (if they hadn't already enrolled via the quaymistress). Half way through, the column turned into a downright homily upon the A^-store, which was described as “the place where time stops and the plant of life becomes the death-seed, with all contained within alive for ever and ever", or some such.
According to Stamno the 'Barbra newssheet was under the wing of cult sympathizers. So maybe this Bugle was written partly in code? Maybe what I took for aimless gossip really consisted of secret messages and parables with quite other meanings, crystal clear to those who were in the know. Scanning the Bugle I began to get an even ickier feeling about Port Barbra than I'd had on previous visits; and about my book being printed here in the guise of a newssheet. The place was creepy. The lives of the locals were a strange charade.
Then two mornings later a little girl delivered
a sealed envelope to Peli.
Inside was this message: The one you are interested in will meet you and your little riversister outside the Bugle office when dusk is night. Both of you; but no one else. The note was unsigned.
Peli got a chance to show me the note privately back on board just before lunch. It had been a hectic morning in the marquee and it looked like being an equally hectic afternoon. We might well have to extend our stay in Port Barbra from one to two weeks, thanks to popular demand; which was an improvement on extending our stay thanks to indifference, as at Guineamoy. Who would have thought so many people inhabited the environs—and were able to decode their local paper?
" ‘Little river sister' has to mean you, Yaleen."
"No doubt."
"So whoever sent this knows that you and me are as thick as thieves."
"Right. So we're getting somewhere. How do I sneak ashore?"
"Eh? You can't possibly risk—"
"I can. I'm fed up with temples and tents and cabins and guards. Don't you worry about Donnah."
"It's you I'm worried about, you chit."
"Well, I'm going. The question is how. Could you carry me ashore wrapped in a rug?"
"Don't be daft. What would I be carting rugs ashore for? At dusk?"
"Okay, it'll be dusk. Still possible to see, but not too sharply. You disembark ordinarily, Peli. Pile some rubbish near the marquee— there's always plenty lying around there Remember to take a bottle of oil with you. Soak the rubbish, stick a couple of tapers in and light 'em. Then you nip back along the quayside. Meanwhile I'll have crept along to the stem. Whoosh goes the bonfire. Immediate distraction! Guards and boatwomen rush to the bows. I'll jump. Just make sure you catch me."
Peli groaned, but didn't argue further.
Suddenly she grabbed hold of me, and with an almighty heave tossed me several spans in the air.
"Hey!"
And caught me.
"Checking your weight," she explained with a grin.
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