The Hadra

by Diana Rivers

  “What are you saying, not paid me? I thought Wanderers were supposed to be honest men.”

  “Wanderers are very honest men. You may trust them above all others. But they do not pay for love. Among Wanderers, love is freely given.”

  “Then their women must all be fools. Why would they give away a thing when someone would pay them for it?”

  “They live by a different code, Katchia. They live by the Cerroi.”

  “And I say again, they are fools.”

  “No, it is just that they live by a different code. They do not buy love and they do not force it. There is no such thing as rape among them. It would go against the Cerroi to take someone’s body against her will. They could not imagine doing such a thing. Where love is never forced or stolen it can more easily be freely given, so when a Wanderer man sees a woman turning on her charms for him, he will likely assume she is making a free choice, not bargaining in coins. And yes, in truth, if you are going to do a trade in men, a Hadra camp with a Hadra lover may not be the best place to carry on your business. But none of that matters enough for me to call you from the fire. It is for Kazouri’s sake I wanted to speak with you.”

  “What has she to do with any of this?”

  “She is my friend and I see her hurting. She loves you from her heart. She loves you for yourself, Katchia, not like someone who pays money for the night and only wants your body.”

  “Love! What is this love?” she asked, with a sudden blaze of anger. “It seems like a very dangerous game to me. The other I know well enough how to play. I know how much to charge, what to give, and what to hold back. But this game of love…No one has ever loved me for myself before, not even my mother. She would have sold me to the soldiers as a serving-girl and whatever else they needed. Certainly not my father. He claimed he had father’s rights and kept me home for his own use till I was old enough to fight him off. Then he turned me out into the streets. No love there, of that you may be sure. Certainly no man who ever put his hands on me has said he loved me for myself. Even if he did, it is not likely I would have believed him.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it.

  The terrible cutting bitterness in her voice had a familiar sound. It could have been my own voice a year back or Rishka’s or even Maireth’s. Perhaps she was not so different from us, after all. She was shaking her head. When she went on, she spoke in a more thoughtful tone. “Respect, that I can understand. I had a good head for numbers, and as a bright child, I also learned some of reading and writing letters while running errands in the market. Later, I got respect from the Zarn’s men when they saw I had the mind for this sort of thing and could be useful to them. But love? I know nothing of this love. It frightens me. It asks me to put down my armor, to open all the doors. I see only danger there. Where are the boundaries? Where is the safety? You are Kazouri’s friend, you speak for her, but who will speak for me? Who will speak for Katchaira the whore? I must defend and protect myself; no one else will. I have learned that much in this life, if I have learned nothing else.”

  “Katchia, Kazouri would protect you with her life if necessary.”

  Suddenly, inexplicably, Katchia was crying. She was choking and sobbing, her shoulders shaking and then her whole body. As angry as I had been just moments before, my heart went out to her. I stood awkward and constrained. I wanted to hold her or at least put out a hand for comfort, but I was afraid. With all her talk of Puntyar, how would she take such a gesture? Before I could make a move, she stopped as suddenly as she had started. A strange expression crossed her face, a look of suspicion and craftiness. “What is this love you speak of so reverently? Love this—love that? So much fuss about a word. It is really all a very simple bargain. Kazouri loves my body. In return I have a place among you, some safety and security. Nothing so complicated in that.”

  I groaned. “Oh, Katchia, you do not begin to understand.”

  “Really? Well, why not try to explain it to me then?”

  I took a deep breath, trying to think how to even begin. Before I had a chance, she leaned forward, eyes glittering with malice, teeth showing in a cutting smile. “All this talk of love turns my stomach, but I can see it really just comes down to money, after all. You had Kazouri chase away my Wanderer just when it might have turned promising, while anyone can see how you keep that captain all to yourself and will not let other women near him. Even raggedy as he is, with his fine clothes, he is likely worth more than other Wanderers. Are you going to tell me you make no profitable bargain there?”

  At those words, heat rushed up into my face. “Katchia!” I shouted, so loud that women by the fire turned to look at us. I whirled at her in a rage, my hands balled into fists. Never in my life had I hit anyone. From the time I was very little, I knew I could not do so, but at that moment my hands itched to strike flesh. I had to actually clasp one hand with the other to control them. Probably nothing would have pleased Katchia more than to see me strike myself in an effort to strike at her.

  As it was, she was nodding her head, grinning widely. “Aha, so the Hadra get angry just like ordinary mortals.” With that, she burst out laughing, very pleased to have gotten to me in that way. She had played me like a fish on a line, and I had bitten hard. Other women were watching. Kazouri was on her feet, about to come over. I saw that more anger on my part would just fuel Katchia’s pleasure and perhaps lead to troublesome conflict among the rest of us. Taking a deep breath, I went down inside myself as Alyeeta had taught me, trying to find a calm center, a place beyond the anger.

  When I turned back, I looked straight into her eyes and said quietly, “I can see that words between us serve no purpose, or perhaps only serve the wrong one. Better to teach me a new game of cards than to play at words.”

  Katchia looked back intently, eyes full of challenge, trying to stare me down. Suddenly she shrugged and drew a pack of cards from her sleeve. “Well, why not. It serves to pass the time. I will teach you the game Two Zarns and a Maid. You must watch closely and pay sharp attention. It is a fast-moving game with many swift changes. Come by a lamp so we can see.”

  We played three hands, and by the end I was just beginning to understand the strategy. She was right about the swift changes: all went by in a rush. After the third hand, my brain was tired of trying to learn and Katchia was tired of trying to teach me. With a nod and few words, we went our separate ways, myself to talk to Lorren and Katchia back to the fire.

  I found Lorren sitting at the edge of a bluff that overlooked the vast, dark sea. Pell and Jhemar had just been talking with him. I had passed them on their way to the fire circle. “See if you can cheer him up,” Jhemar had said to me with concern. “He is very melancholy tonight. There are heavy things preying on his mind.”

  Lorren mostly kept apart from the Hadra. Though he had begun to make friends with a few of us, still he no doubt felt the wariness or hostility of the others, the unkind way they shunned him. When he beckoned me to sit by him, I could sense the sadness of his mood, but it seemed that something far heavier than petty Hadra meanness was troubling him. Not wanting to intrude, I made sure to keep a shield between our minds and waited. We sat next to each other for a while, with Lorren brooding in silence as I watched the lovely shifting light reflecting in the water.

  The moon was almost half-full. Clouds scudded across her face so that the reflection of her light on the sea shifted constantly, appearing and disappearing, gleaming suddenly and then darkening in the restless water. The soft, warm sea breeze smelled of salt and felt like a caress on my bare arms. It seemed too fine a night for so much trouble. When Lorren finally spoke, his words were so sudden in the silence that they startled me. “Hereschell told me not to go, but what could I have done? How could I have imagined going against everything I had ever known on the word of one man, one man who was a deaf-mute Wanderer-beggar? Against everything, everything I had ever been taught: my class, my father, my city, my people, my Zarn. Everything! Do you understand, Tazzil? In our little secret talks
, Hereschell argued, begged, and pleaded. He even cried, but I said I had to go or I would lose everything in my life. And now, in the end, it has all come to the same thing, but between here and there lie many terrible things, many deaths on my head. If I had known then what I do now…Ah, but that is every fool’s refrain after committing some great wrong. The villages we went through on our way to Mishghall…The things that were done under my command because that is what men are taught to do…If I could undo it now, no matter what the cost…”

  Horrors from his mind filled my own. I recoiled and shielded hard. With great effort I shut out his thoughts. For just that moment, I truly understood what Jhemar felt in being subjected to the turmoil of other minds. I could think of no way to comfort him for what he had done. He went on, his voice ragged with pain, “I am trying in some small way to make amends, though I know that is not really possible. Most of these women hate me. How can I blame them? It is their right. I understand. Yet I am very glad that I am now a Wanderer, that I do not have to live my life among the Hadra.”

  I laughed suddenly. “Goddess forbid! That would not make either side very happy.” A sudden wave of foreboding went through me. “The Zarn spent so much time in chasing us, when in truth we wanted nothing that was his. I had hoped we could slip away and disappear at this far edge of the world. Now I suppose it will be worse than ever. He will need revenge for Mishghall and for the black toads as well.”

  “Yes and no. In spite of what I told Pell, the Zarn’s desire to be rid of you has little to do with Mishghall. All the Zarns need you gone because your very existence challenges theirs. Absolute power cannot exist in the face of any other power. How can one be a Zarn and rule by unquestioned force when people exist anywhere who cannot be ruled by force? The very fact that there are Hadra in the world throws the power of the Zarns into question. Already things have shifted. Because of you, the surface has cracked beyond repair; the old rules cannot hold. Something new has come into being, a new way, a new time. You do not have to be many or raise an army or march on their cities to frighten them. You have only to exist, nothing more. The very rumor of such creatures is enough to strike fear in their hearts, keep them awake at night, and make them thirst for vengeance.”

  Alyeeta had said much the same thing to me. I remembered Olna saying once, “Those who cannot be controlled are a great threat to those who must control.” I shook my head. “How strange…” I said with wonder, looking down in the moonlight at my hands, my arms, my feet, my very ordinary and familiar self that I had lived with all my life. “How strange is the turning of fate…” I spread my fingers wide and wiggled my toes in the dirt. “How strange that someone I have never seen and am not likely to meet, should find me such a danger. How strange that because my mother and father came together at exactly that moment and no other, I am a threat to Zarns. What do I know of the stars? I am only Tazmirrel, the little Witch-healer from Nemanthi. How can I have such power in the world?” I held my hands up to the moonlight and spread my fingers wide, watching the shafts of moonlight come down between them. “How strange…” I said again, and suddenly a great rush of power moved through me. Without any thought, I said in a voice that did not sound at all like my own, “No matter what the Zarns think or decide or do, we will build our Hadra city.”

  Lorren stood up suddenly. “Well, then we must get some sleep. If we rise early and keep to a good pace, we will be there tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow! So soon! Now that the magic “time between” was about to end, I was full of both eagerness and fear. Long after my talk with Lorren, I lay in my bedroll trying for sleep while the moon shifted overhead. Suddenly I thought how, in a way, Katchia was right. Lorren and I had indeed made a profitable bargain, though it had nothing to do with coins passing between us or with the touch and needs of bodies. I wanted the key to understanding his knowledge. In trade, he wanted the key to understanding my being; a fair enough exchange as such things go in the world.

  Chapter Twelve

  In the warm, red-orange glow of sunset, we stood at the very top of the highest of the three hills. An outcrop of bare rock crowned the summit and allowed us a view in all directions.

  It was only Lorren and myself. At his insistence, and over many objections from the rest of the Hadra, we had come here alone. He had brought me by a little wooded path barely wide enough for one horse, a way that kept this view secret from my eyes. The path had ended right at the base of the rock. From there, Lorren had led me up the rest of the way on foot with my eyes shut, making me promise not to look until he gave the signal. It was not an easy promise to keep, considering the steepness and roughness of the way. Finally, I could feel flat rock underfoot. As he steadied me in place, he shouted, “Now!” in a voice so full of excitement it made me shiver.

  I had opened my eyes and gasped in amazement. There it was in front of me, the very place I had seen so many times in my dreams and visions, wonderfully familiar and yet totally new and unexpected. I turned and turned and turned so I could see it all: the great sweeping curve of the bay; the hills and valleys, partly tree-covered and partly carpeted with fields of green and gold; the river flashing blue and silver below us; the vastness of the ocean, stretching across the horizon and gleaming like burnished copper with the last rays of the setting sun. I kept drinking it in with my eyes as I turned, struck dumb with wonder, silent for so long that Lorren finally asked, “Well, Tazzil, what do you think?” In truth, I had forgotten his existence at that moment.

  “Oh, Lorren, it is even more beautiful than I imagined. My visions are like pale ghosts compared to this. This is the place. This is truly the place of my dreams. It must be ours! We must have it! I can see a Hadra city rising on these hills, with our boats in the harbor and our gardens and orchards spreading below us.”

  “It is not yours quite yet. I was very sure you would like this place, but I needed you to see it first. I needed you to tell me yourself. Now we must set about securing it for you.” Under his pleasure there was anxiety, a kind of sadness in his voice that made me turn away from that glorious scene to peer into his face.

  “Secure it for us? What is the problem here? What have you not said?” I felt the heat of anger rising in my blood at the very thought that someone might take away this treasure, snatch it out of my hands, that it might not be ours after all. “What do you mean, Lorren? Is there more trouble here than you have told us? What is it you are hiding?”

  * * *

  Before reaching our final destination, we had ridden hard all day, stopping no more than absolutely necessary. No matter how inviting the ocean looked for a midday swim or how the groves of trees called to us for an afternoon nap after eating in their shade, we had resisted and pushed on. Lorren and I had set a hard, driving pace. There were many muttered complaints, but no outright rebellion. Even so, it was late afternoon before we reached the formation of standing stones and Lorren raised his hand for a halt.

  “No farther, this is close enough. Beyond this point, Tazzil comes alone with me. If she says it is the place, then we must make our bargains with the Koormir. If not, they may have it back and fight to the death over it, if that is what they feel compelled to do.”

  There was a storm of protest at this. Pell and Rishka each insisted that she be allowed to come with me for my protection, even if no one else could. Kazouri insisted that she should be the one because of her great size, and Alyeeta countered she was best able to guard me with the strength of her spells. She even drew Lorren aside, to speak with him in private or perhaps to threaten him, considering the look on her face.

  To all this, Lorren shook his head, saying firmly, “Only Tazzil, no one else. If she says yes, then all of you, and many more, may come. If she says no, then that is an end to it, and you must look elsewhere for a new home.” Hayika and Katchia tried to shout him down, talking loudly of trust and traps. Many others joined them. I thought I would never be able to make myself heard over their noise.

  Finally, remembering Pell
in the march, I stood up on Dancer’s back so I could be seen. Then I clapped my hands for silence and shouted, “Stop all this! That is enough! I will go with Lorren this evening and be back with an answer by midday tomorrow. Wait for me here, and have a little trust in this man you have followed for days. Have a little trust in me, as well.” Then I slipped back down on Dancer’s back and turned to Lorren. “Not another word of argument with them, it is futile. Just ride hard and I will follow.” With no more words, Lorren spun around and took off at a gallop, with me riding hard after him. Soon we were racing around the bend and down the road. From behind us I heard Alyeeta shouting, “Man, you had better remember my words. I meant every one of them.”

  When the road widened, I rode up alongside him. “What did Alyeeta say to you?”

  “She threatened my life and my manhood and anything else that I value if you do not come back safely. Oh, yes, she also said she would track me to the ends of the earth if I tried to escape her. She has quite a way with words, that one. Is she as bad as she sounds?”

  “Worse,” I said with a laugh. “Much worse, so your intentions had better be pure.” Then I turned serious. “Lorren, I trust you and I do not trust you. What are you hiding? What has happened in that place? What is this talk of fighting? I sense much trouble there.”

  “Trust me for a little while longer, Tazzil. Please! Only wait until you see it. Then I will tell you everything. Do not try to pry it from my mind.”

  I had little choice, since he would not answer and I was too pulled by curiosity not to follow. All I could read in his head was trouble, but none of it came clear.

  * * *

  Looking around me now at that wondrous view, I felt consumed with a fever of desire. I knew this was the place for us, the place of my dreams. I wanted it in a way I had never wanted anything in my life before. I felt ready to tear apart anyone who would block my way. When I could pull my eyes away from that sight, I turned to Lorren and said fiercely, “In some strange way, I can even understand why men might want to kill each other to possess this land. Myself, I almost wish I could fight for it with my own hands.”