A Gathering Of Stones dost-3

by Jo Clayton

  “Ay-yah.” Carup looked briefly surprised. “The AshKalap have a farmhold close to a village called Pattan Haria on the west shore of Tabaga.” She gulped at the tea. It was too hot; she shuddered as her mouth burned, but seemed to welcome the pain. When the bowl was empty, she set it down and stared into it; her face twisted with… something. There was tragedy in what birth had done to her. The mark distorted and denied all her expressions. Nothing came out right. Suffering was grotesque, a laugh was uglier than a snarl. “My father sold me when I was eight,” she whispered. Trembling fingers stroked the mark on her face, then she jerked them down and began crumbling a cake into sticky fragments. “He said no one would want to marry me or even take me in to warm his bed. I was too ugly. He said he’d never make back the cost of my food and clothes, so he might as well get what he could out of me. He said they had perverts in the city that might find me…” She took the bowl Brann had refilled and gulped at the steaming tea. “Might find me…” She sobbed. Her hand shook, but she took care to set the bowl down gently. It didn’t break. No tea spilled. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, child, don’t. Say what you want to say.” Brann took one of Carup’s hands and held it between hers. As she’d spoken to many of the women visiting her, keeping up the role of holywoman, Jantria, she spoke to Carup: “Hearing what comes to me is the task the Gods have set me. Say what you must and know that I will hear it.” She waited, feeling the tension in Carup, the need to talk and the fear of casting herself into deeper trouble. It was hard for Brann to understand the girl. Her own life was complicated and often dangerous; for the most part, though, she’d managed to control events rather than endure them. Time after time, one god or another had meddled with her, driving her this way and that; even so she was able to finesse a degree of freedom. She could see that Camp was different, that the options she had were much more limited; she could even see reasons why this was so, but that was the mind’s eyes, not the heart’s.

  A bad taste in her mouth because she was going to use this unfortunate girl as unconscionably as the girl’s beast of a father had, she leaned closer and smiled at Carty and prepared to entice from her everything she knew about the courtesan and her doulahar. “Were you brought right away to Dil Jorpashil?”

  Carup sighed and freed her hand so she could sip at the cooling tea. “Ay-yah, the Agent brought us straight here.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I was afraid… what my father said… but it didn’t happen. The Chuttar Palami Kumindri’s agent bought me for a maid.” Carup sighed with weariness and managed at the same time to project a touch of pride. “You must have heard of her. The Chuttar Palami Kumindri is the premiere courtesan in all Dil Jorpashil.” Her mouth turned down. “The Housemaster treats me like a dog. I work hard, I’m up before the sun every day, be never says word one to me, he pretends he doesn’t even see me.”

  “Then you’re still a part of the Chuttar’s household?”

  “Ay-yah.” Carup sighed again; her eyelids drooped. The emotional storm had passed and she wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep. A group of merchants came bustling past their table, kicking into her. She cringed automatically, tugged her chair farther under the table, made herself as small as she could.

  Brann pressed her lips together, angry at the merchants because they were arrogant and thoughtless, angry at the girl because she hadn’t spirit enough to resent them, at herself because she couldn’t do anything about either. Her voice deliberately mild, she said. “How long has it been?”

  “Ten… years…” Carup blinked, straightened. The color drained from her face, leaving the red-purple stain more glaring than ever. Her eyes were fixed past Brann’s shoulder.

  Brann twisted around. The stocky woman, Elissy, Carup called her, was standing under the scalloped edge of the canvas, looking angrily about. Braun saw her and she saw Carup at the same moment. She came charging across to the table. Brann stood, held up a hand, palm out. “Gods’ peace be on you, Elissy friend.”

  “I’m no friend of yours, beggar. Carup, get over here. By Sarimbara’s Horns, what do you think you’re doing, lazing about like this?” She turned her scowl on Brann. “Who you? What you think you doing with this girl?”

  “I am the Jantria Bar Ana.” Brann suppressed a smile as she saw the consternation on the woman’s face, the sudden shift of expression. The past two weeks had apparently given her a formidable reputation.

  She nodded gravely at Elissy, shifted her gaze to Carup. I need more, she thought, a lot more than I’ve got. Ten years that girl has been in that house. She’s not stupid, poor thing, might be better for her if she was. Get to it, woman… She set her hand on Carup’s shoulder, turned the girl to face her. “Carup Kalan,” she said, lowering her voice to its deepest register, speaking with a deliberate formality. “Would you care to serve me? My household is small, but you will not go hungry. You will clean my rooms and yours, you will do the laundry, you will buy food for our meals and do such cooking as you are trained for. In return, I will buy you out of your present place and register you at the Addala as a freewoman. I will provide a room and a bed, food and clothing and I will pay you five dugna a week.”

  Camp’s face twisted into a gargoyle grimace as she struggled to decide; she had security, she knew where she would sleep, where her meals would come from, that she would be safe on the streets from pressgangs, pimps, muggers and assaults and she had a shadow share in the prestige of the Chuttar Prime, but she also knew that she’d be thrown out like refuse if she got sick or hurt too badly to work any more. Or when she was too old to work, though too-old was a long time off, at eighteen you’re immortal. She hated her life, that was obvious, but she was afraid of venturing from its comfortable certainties, that too was obvious. Brann as holywoman/healer had prestige also, was presumably trustworthy, Carup being gullible enough to accept communal judgment about what was holy and what wasn’t, but the Jantria was a stranger. From another land, another people. That was suspect, frightening. Brann was poor; Carup had a slave’s ingrained contempt for the poor. Brann had treated her with kindness and acceptance, had stood between her and the rabid dog and had beaten it off, a powerful omen for the superstitious, and like most slaves Carup was deeply superstitious. Brann offered her manumission and a degree of control over her life. That was attractive in theory but terrifying in actuality.

  With a suddenly acquired dignity that made Brann as suddenly ashamed of how she was using the girl, Carup said, “Sarimbara’s Blessing, Jantria Bar Ana, I will serve you.”

  “So be it, child. Go with your companion now. Wait and trust me. I’ll send for you when the thing is done.”

  7

  Two days later.

  The Housemaster tugged at heroic mustaches that hung from the corner of his tight mouth down past his chin to tickle his collar. He scowled at the Basith, a go-between Brann hired to handle the exchange because she didn’t want to go anywhere near the doulahar. “Why this object?” He jerked a thumb at Carup who was kneeling at his feet, but didn’t look at her. She offended his eyes and he’d let her know that every day of her life since she’d walked through the service portal.

  The Basith was a typical Jana Mix. He had black hair like the coarse baka wool the nomad tribes wove into tent cloth, a tangle of watchspring curls about a widening bald spot; he had a nub of a beard on the point of a long chin; he wore a Phrasi merchant’s ring in his left ear and a Gallinasi coup-stud in his right ear, one of the prized ruby studs. His eyes were dark amber, long and narrow, set at a tilt above prominent cheekbones, clever eyes for a clever man. He was the son of a courtesan and an unusually rebellious Dhanik who took the boy into his sar despite the screeches of his proper wives and saw that he got a lawyer’s education. A week ago the Basith’s wife had ventured timidly into the Kuna Corti to see the holywoman about an ulcer on her leg; she came back with the ulcer closed over, with the cancer that caused it cleaned out of her and with a proper appreciation of Brann’s w
orth. Which was why he was here now. He masked his distaste for the man in front of him, for that unfortunate creature crouching at the Housemaster’s feet, and prepared to do what he was hired for. “The holywoman is but following the instruction of her god. This is the slave she wants. This is the slave she shall have. Place a price on her, if you please, Callam. Then we will see.”

  Half an hour later the Basith handed over one takk and five dugnas and received a bill of sale. He left the doulahar with the bill and Carup Kalan, took both to the Addala, did the paperwork and paid the manumission fee while the Tikkasermer stapled the bronze finnan into the girl’s left ear, signifying she was a freewoman. He delivered Carup and the documents to Brann, smiled with genuine pleasure as she thanked him and paid his fee. Then he went home to collect the gratitude of his wife.

  8

  Brann went back to being the Jantria, listening to women from the quarter and beyond, farther and farther beyond these days as her reputation spread, there were even a few wives from the lesser lsun, healing their bodies and doing her best to prop up their souls. It was draining, but she accepted it as the appropriate payment for the use she was making of the girl and for her bi-nightly prowls. Drinker of Souls was walking the streets of Dil Jorpashil. She came back sated and destroyed, swearing to herself she’d never go out again. But when the hunger was on her, she went.

  Carup bloomed. She cooked, cleaned, sewed, she used a part of her meager pay to buy a chair for Brann, recaned the back and the seat, burnished the ancient wood until it glowed. She moved about the tiny house singing cheerful dirges, polishing the place until it gleamed. And she talked. Night after night, she consumed pots of tea and talked. And Brann listened. She nudged the girl now and then in a direction that would give her the data she needed about the workings of the doulahar; she didn’t have to nudge hard or often. No one had listened to Carup Kalan since she was weaned or showed her in any way that they valued her. Not even her mother.

  Jaril was restless and irritable during this time, as fidgety as a dog with fleas. He went back again and again to the doulahar like a tongue to a sore tooth. He couldn’t keep away from it.

  ##

  “The Chuttar left during the afternoon,” he told Brann, “in her fanciest litter, the ebony one with the silver mountings. She went up the hill to the Isullata sar. She’s still there, very entertaining she must be.”

  ##

  “She stayed home tonight,” he told Brann another morning, “two Adals and a sorceror came by. They were there about two hours, then the Adals left. The sorceror was still there when I came away.”

  ##

  “She went to the Market; she bought two slaves, a live bullock, some bolts of cloth. I don’t know why she went herself, maybe she was bored or something.”

  ##

  And so it went. He watched the Chuttar Palami Kumindri day and night; overflying the doulahar far enough up to escape notice, staying over it twenty minutes at most with two to three hours between visits. He was cautious, but he could not keep away.

  Days passed.

  Brann acquired charts and lists and schematics of each floor, timetables, locations of all forbidden areas, everything she needed for a fair notion where the Chuttar might be hiding Yaril, everything she needed to get into the doulahar with a chance of getting out again, but she still had no plan for handling the smiglar. And no plan for Carup’s future. She had to have both before she could act.

  Sambar Day.

  She went as usual to the shrine and sat among the penitents and petitioners, surrounded by the slip-slap, click-clack of prayer beads rotating through work-worn fingers, the insect hum of the old women who came there because they had nowhere else to go, the rattle of drums and the chants of the celebrants as they did their best to sing Sarimbara deeper asleep.

  Wreathed in incense drifting copiously from swinging censers as the celebrants made their hourly procession about the praiseroom, she cursed Maksim a while, but halfheartedly. Then she began to worry about him. Something must have gone wrong for him. That Jastouk? Little creep, he’d sell his mother for the gold in her teeth. That girl in Silili? What was her name? Kori something. Speculation was futile. And she had neither time nor attention to waste on him right now. Carup. She called up an image of Carup. If you ignored that mark and looked at her bone structure, her nose, mouth, eyes, she was almost beautiful. She was slim with wide hips and full breasts, the sort of budy men in this culture valued above all others. She kept herself covered, but Brann was certain the red-purple flesh was spattered the length of her body, neck to heel. Strip that away, though, and maybe her family would take her back. I wonder if I could do that? Well, Jaril and I. I can’t leave her here on her own, free or not. I might as well strangle her myself, it’d come to the same thing. I can’t do like Maks did with his Kori and put her in school somewhere. No Talent. No interest either. She’s bred to be some man’s wife. Dowry? That I can do. The skin, the skin, can I do ANYTHING about that mark? Jaril and I, we’ve done harder things. Yes. take the curse off her face. Can’t take it off her heart, can I. Takes more than magic to erase eighteen years of cringing.

  A lanky boy with a shaved head came in, awkward and diffident, all bone and gristle, carrying a dakadaka under his arm, gray dust ground into the skin of his feet and knees, smeared over the rear folds of his bunchy white dhoti. He went shuffling to the raised area where Sarimbara’s icon was and dropped clumsily to the planks. He wriggled around, adding more stonedust to his person and his clothing, got his legs wrapped around the dakadaka and began tapping at its twin heads, drawing a whispery rattle from the taut snake-skins. Several older celebrants straggled in, men with shaved heads and orange dhotis; they sat in a ragged arc behind the boy and began a droning chant, a weary winding sleepsong for the god whose attention they feared more than his neglect. The visitors to the shrine, mostly women, added their wordless hums to the chant, filling the praiseroom with a sound like dry leaves blowing.

  Brann hummed with the others, taking a break from the dilemmas that plagued her. She passed her prayer beads through her fingers, slip, slap, rattle-tattle, dark brown seeds fingerpolished to a mottled sheen, round and round, a soft, syncopated underplay to the drum, the song, the hum.

  The day passed slowly, but it did pass, taking with it her hesitations and uncertainties. She went home to her hovel determined to peel off her problems one by one, Carup Kalan scheduled first to go.

  9

  Three days later.

  Morning, about two hours before dawn.

  Raining outside, little wind, water coming down in near vertical lines, the sort of rain that seems like it will never

  100 JO t-layllfil end, as if the rest of life will be gray and chill and damp, the sort of rain that makes a pleasure palace of the most wretched of shelters as long as there’s a bit of fire to chase away the damp.

  Brann pushed aside the curtain that closed off her bedroom doorway, edged around it into the cramped livingroom where Camp was sleeping. Her hair hung loose, a waving mass of white, fine as spidersilk; she wore her own face, young, unlined, her eyes green as new leaves, her mouth a delicate curve, soft and vulnerable. She wore a black velvet robe embroidered with gold and silver and rubies. Jaril stole it for her from the wardrobe of an Isu whose taste in decoration was so bad it was almost a Talent. He grinned as he held it up for Brann to inspect; when she said finally, I suppose bad taste is better than no taste, he had a fit of giggles that she shushed quickly, afraid he’d wake Carup. In her left hand she held a heavy wooden candlepole taller than she was and covered with tarnished silver-gilt that she’d been afraid to clean because the gilding was so thin it came off if you looked at it hard. There was a fat white candle impaled on the spike, but she hadn’t lit it yet. The only light in the livingroom came from the fireplace where faint red glows from last night’s fire seeped through the smother of gray ash.

  Jaril brushed past her, black panther with crystal eyes, moving with an eerie silence. He padded a
cross to Camp, sniffed at her, came padding back. *She’s ripe, Bramble. Her eyes are moving, she’s starting to dream.

  She nodded, brought the candle pole down until the wick was beside his head. “Light me, Jay,” she whispered.

  He spat a spark at the wick, smirked as she swung the pole hastily upright when the twist began burning. *Handy to have round, am’t I, huh?*

  “Sometimes, but don’t let it go to your head.” She inspected him. “Maybe you should turn yourself white. You disappear into the murk like that.”

  His mouth dropping into a feral cat grin, he purred at her. His eyes began to glow silver-white, the tips of his coathairs went translucent and shone with a clear white light. He was still a black cat, but one outlined in moonfire.

  “Impressive,” she murmured and grinned back at him. “All right, let’s do it.”

  The candle made an aura round her shining hair, dropped dramatic shadows into the hollows of her face and touched with fire the rings on the hand that held the pole. “Carup,” she called. “Carup Kalan. Wake up. Camp. Carup Kalan.”

  The girl woke, startled, then afraid, scrambling back under the covers until she was pressed against the wall; she pulled her knees up, threw her arms across her face and whimpered.

  “Have no fear,” Brann said. Her voice was deep and caressing, the words had a smile in them. “I am she who was the Jantria, Carup Kalan. Look at me, child. I mean you no harm.”