A Gathering Of Stones dost-3

by Jo Clayton

  Still trembling, Carup pulled her arms down, lay peeping at Brann over the delicate halo of hair on her forearm.

  Brann lifted a hand in blessing. At first Carup cringed away, that was what her life had trained her to do, that was the only way she’d found to turn aside or lessen the pain about to be inflicted on her. Then she saw Brann’s smile, only a little smile, a quirking upward of the ends of her mouth, but it was approval, fondness even, and Camp began to unfold like a flower opening in the sun.

  “You have served me faithfully and well.” The words were solemn but the tone was gentle, friendly, and Camp relaxed yet more. “You have given more than service, child. You have shown generosity of spirit, expecting only a little kindness, a trifle of shelter from the world and those who would do you ill. Carup Kalan, I am a servant of One I may not name. I am at times given word to do this, or do that, to go here, to go there. Word has come to me that I am required elsewhere soon.” Brann kept her face a smiling mask as she spun her web of lies, but again she wasn’t liking herself much, especially when she saw the look on Camp’s face.

  The girl’s lips trembled, but she didn’t dare protest. Fear was flooding back into her, more than fear, a flat despair. Once again Fate was tearing her from her happiness, casting her aside like garbage.

  “I would take you with me, if that were permitted. It is not. But there is a thing I can do for you, a gift I can give you, Camp Kalan. I can send you home to your own people with the dowry of a queen.”

  Camp’s right thumb moved over and over the marks on the back of her left hand. She didn’t say anything for several breaths, then she bowed her head. “I thank you, Jantria.” Her voice was dull, lifeless.

  “Stand before me, Carup Kalan.”

  Carup glanced at the shining panther, then shrugged; there were far more terrible things waiting for her than that eldrich beast. She hitched herself to the edge of the cot and stood. She slept in a sleeveless shift of unbleached muslin. it had a meagerly embroidered neck with a faded ribbon threaded through the eyelets and tied in a limp bow at the front.

  “Remove your shift.”

  Moving like an automaton, Carup pulled the bow loose, spread the neck of the shift and let it fall about her feet. She didn’t try to cover herself, she was too deep in despair for shame to touch her. The spongy red-purple flesh ran the length of her body, more of it than Brann had expected to see. There were spatters on her right side, drops like spilled blood on her breast. A wide river of the wine flesh ran down her left side, slashed across her navel and flowed down her right thigh.

  “Straighten the blankets on the bed, then lie down on them.”

  Obedient as always, refusing to acknowledge anger or pain, Camp worked with the skilled neatness with which she did everything, even turning square corners as she made the bed.

  “Lie on your back,” Brann said when Camp was finished.

  All this while Jaril panther had been pacing around Brann, his crystal eyes reflecting the candle flame. Now he melted into a mist and the mist settled over Carup, seeping into her.

  Carup lay rigid, eyes squeezed shut.

  Brann leaned the candlepole against the chimney, went to kneel beside the bed. With Jaril guiding her, she began restructuring the blemishes, wiping away all trace of them. All that the night prowls of the Drinker of Souls had brought her, she poured into the girl. And more. When she was finished, Carup Kalan was a lamb without blemish, an unpierced pearl whose price was the price of queens.

  Shaky with exhaustion, perspiration dripping down her face and body, Brann got to her feet and went to the candlepole, removed the candle and set it on the box that served as a bedtable; the candle was thick enough to stand by itself. She looked down at the rigid, unhappy girl, shook her head and crossed to the bedroom. Jaril emerged as mist, solidified to black nonluminous panther and padded into the kitchen; a moment later he was a mistcrane powering into the, rain, heading for the doulahar and his obsession, cursing the damp, the cold and his unruly needs.

  Brann came back with the hand mirror she’d bought as a gift for Carup once the metamorphosis was complete. “Open your eyes, Carup Kalan, and behold my second gift.”

  For an instant the girl resisted, then she sighed and did as she was told. Brann bit at her lip. Where is your spirit, girl? You aren’t grass for everyone to step on. She said nothing. It wouldn’t help. Camp was what her culture made her.

  “Sit up,” Brann said. “Look at your hands, child.”

  Camp pushed up until she was sitting with her legs over the edge of the bed. She looked at her hands, gasped. She felt at her thigh, at her breasts, she touched her face.

  “Take your last gift, this mirror, and behold yourself, Camp Kalan.”

  Brann left the girl staring into the mirror and feeling at her face as if she were unable to believe what her eyes saw and needed the confirmation of her fingers. In her bedroom, Brann stripped off the robe and with some difficulty took on once more the aspect of the Jantria Bar Ana. She put on her ordinary clothes and sat on the bed for a while, gathering her strength.

  “Jantria?” The voice that came from the other room was hesitant, shaky from excitement and a lingering fear.

  “One moment, Camp.” Brann got to her feet, felt at her braid to make sure it was properly clasped so it wouldn’t unravel at the first movement of her head. I feel like I’m going to unravel, she thought. Hoo! If I can get that girl to sleep, there’s some dark left, maybe I can go find me a juicy murderer or two. No. A slave dealer. More appropriate, I’d say. Almost a pun. Spend on a slave, recoup on a slaver. Hah!

  She moved to the crate she used as a linen chest and dressing table, grunted as she lifted a small iron-bound box. Shoulders bent, she elbowed past the curtain.

  Carup was sitting on the bed. She’d put the shift on again, and pulled a quilt around her shoulders, but she blushed when Brann came in, then looked uncertain as she saw the old woman who’d bought her free. She stole a look in the mirror-it was on the box beside the candle; she’d put her sandal behind it to tilt it up so she could see herself when she glanced that way. She blushed again, stared down at her hands as they rested in her lap, fingers twined tightly together.

  Brann nodded at the candle and the mirror. “Push those aside, will you, Carup? So I can set this down. It’s heavy.”

  Hastily the girl tossed the mirror onto the bed, brushed the sandal off the box and pushed the candle back. “Is that enough?”

  “It should be.” The flimsy box creaked under the weight of the small chest. “This isn’t locked now, though you should keep it so later. Open it.”

  “Me?”

  “It’s your dowry, young Carup. Now, do what I tell you. Open the chest.”

  “Oh.” Carup turned back the lid. Inside, there were two doeskin bags and a small belt-purse. She loosened the drawstring on the larger bag, reached in and took out a handful of coins. Gold coins, thick, heavy, with a cold greasy feel to them. “Jorpashil jaraufs,” she whispered. “Sahanai the Siradar’s daughter wore hers at her wedding, threaded round her neck.”

  “One hundred,” Brann said. “I promised you a queen’s price, child.”

  “She only had ten.” Carup turned the broad coins over and over, rubbing her fingers across them, then she put them back in the bag and pulled the drawstrings until the opening was gone; neat-fingered as always, she wrapped the thongs into a smooth coil and tucked it between the side of the box and the bag. She opened the second bag. Silver this time. Takks.

  “Fifty,” Brann said. “Those are for you alone. A woman should always have her own money, Carup. It means she has a way out if she needs it. Pass what you don’t use to your daughters; tell them what I’ve just told you. It is a trust, Carup Kalan.”

  “I hear and I obey, Jantria Bar Ana.” She put the takks away and opened the purse. There was a pile of worn dugnas inside it.

  “One hundred dugnas, Carup, to buy clothing, hire a bodyguard and transport to get you home.”

&nb
sp; “I don’t want to go home.” The words came out in a rush. “My father will just take the dowry and give it to my brothers. He did that all the time with the money my mother brought in.”

  “Gods! Does nothing go right? I can’t leave you here.

  The vultures would be down on you before I was gone an hour.”

  “Take me with you, Jantria. I’ll serve you. You said I was good at serving you. The One Without a Name, I’ll serve that One too.”

  Brann sank onto the hearth, her back against the rough bricks of the fireplace; their heat seeped through her shirt and into her bones. Sleep flooded through her, waves and waves of sleep. Thinking was like shoveling mud. “Carup,, I can’t.” The lies were catching up with her, twisting around her like a fowler’s net. That last bit was true enough, though. She couldn’t keep the girl with her. A deeper truth was, she didn’t want to. Carup was reading that, though she wasn’t fully aware of it, and trying to fight against it, flailing out helplessly, futilely. Brann drew her fist across her mouth, let her eyes droop closed for a minute. Fine time for the girl to dredge up some independence. “Where I go, no one can come.” Make it convincing, Brann; she’s going to be stubborn. “Even if you tell him the dowry is the gift of a god?”

  “He wouldn’t listen to me. Even if he listened, he wouldn’t believe me.” Camp wrapped the quilt tighter about her body, pulled her legs up and tucked them under her. She was fighting now, at last she was fighting for what she wanted. “If I go home and he takes me back as his daughter, I belong to him. Listen,” she said. Her voice broke in the middle of the word. “This is how it went in my home, Jantria. My mother made shirts and sold them in the Pattan Haria Market; she had made herself a name for her broideries. Sometimes she got more from her shirts than he did off the land.” She cleared her throat; her hand crept from beneath the quilt and stroked the side of her face where the mark had been. When she spoke again, it was in a hoarse whisper; she was talking about family things, breaking one of the most rigid taboos of her culture. “He took her money whenever the tribes came to Lake Tabaga and my brothers wanted to go into Pattan Haria and get drunk with them. My mother spent her eyes and her fingers on those shirts, she took from sleep time to make them and he took her money for my brothers to waste. Didn’t matter what she said, what she wanted to do with the money; he owned her so he owned what she earned. If I go back, he’ll do the same to me.”

  Brann rubbed at her eyes as her plans fell in rubble about her. She’d been so sure she could send the girl home and let her family have the care of her. Double damn, Tungjii help! What do I do now? She sneezed. What I do now is sleep. She sighed and got to her feet. “I’m too tired to think, Carup. It’s late. Get some sleep. If you’re up before I am and you find people waiting for me, send them away, will you? Tell them I’m meditating; it will be the truth, child. Get some sleep yourself, you should be tired too.” She didn’t wait for a response but pushed past the curtain and fell on the bed, asleep as soon as her body was horizontal.

  10

  Brann rubbed her eyes and sipped at the near boiling tea that Carup had brought to her as soon as she heard her moving around. She yawned and tried to clear the clots out of her head.

  Hands clapped outside the curtain. Brann’s hand jerked and she nearly spilled tea down her front. She swore under her breath, brushed some drops off her trousers. “Yes, Carup, what is it?”

  “Subbau Kamin brought fresh bread this morning, she says her grandson is full of devils and laughter and her son is over the moon about the change, she blesses you and hopes you will accept this small gift. Piara Sansa came with her and brought sausages. Would you like me to bring you some of this? The bread smells wonderful.”

  “Yes, yes, but take some for yourself, hmm?”

  “I will, thank you, Jantria.”

  Brann finished her breakfast and stretched out on the bed, her fingers laced behind her head. She stared up at the ceiling, traced the cracks and played games with the stains, but found no answer anywhere. She was still tired, her energy badly depleted. And her head seemed to have shut down completely. She closed her eyes.

  The sounds of the Kuna trickled in, women gossiping as they did the wash at the aqueduct overflow across the alley, slap-slapping the clothing against the washboards, laughing, scolding their children, the children running in slap-and-kick games, screaming, laughing, bawling, creating a cacophony thick enough to slice like sausage. Dogs barking, howling, whining and growling in sudden fights that broke off as suddenly when someone threw a brick at them or tossed water over them. Several streets off, some men were fighting, she couldn’t tell how many, others were gathered around them yelling encouragement or curses, making wagers on the outcome. Voices everywhere, the Kuna was stiff with noise, wall to wall, every day, all day, late into the night. There were always people in the alleys, going and coming from the lodgings, thieves coming back from their nightwork, pimps with their strings of whores, gamblers inside and out, running their endless games. To say nothing of the people who couldn’t afford even the meager rents and were living on the street. And the caudhar’s baddicks sniffing out those pimps who didn’t pay their bribes, running down thieves suspected of dipping their fingers into high purses, pride having outmatched sense, or just looking out for healthy youths who’d make good quarry in the Isun chases. Though she despised these hunters of men, they smelled like rotten fish to her, she left them alone when they were working the alleys; if one was found dead, the whole quarter would pay.

  She pulled her mind back from that morass and tried to concentrate on her current problem. I can’t spend all this time on her. Yaril means a lot more than she does; I don’t even like her all that much. What in Forty Mortal Hells am I going to do with her? She sighed. Hmm. It’s been ten years since she left home, that’s a long time… I wonder how old her father was then… maybe he’s dead. Would that make a difference? Sounds to me like those brothers were spoiled rotten and might be worse than the old man. What did she say the family name was? Ah! Ash-Kalap. I need mother’s name, father’s name, eldest brother’s name. All right. Let’s get at it. She sat up, swung her legs over the edge of the bed and scowled at nothing. She moved her shoulders, opened and closed her hands, clenched and unclenched her toes, working the muscles of her arms and legs. “Carup,” she called. “Come in here. I need to talk to you.”

  11

  Two days later.

  Night. Late.

  The rain had stopped for a while, but the alleys were noisome sewers still.

  Brann was picking her way across the mud, thankful her days in the Kuna Coru had deadened her nose so she couldn’t smell the fumes rising from that muck. A large nighthawk swooped low and went climbing into the darkness.

  *Hunting.* Jaril’s mindvoice was filled with accusation and annoyance. *You know you shouldn’t go out when I’m not there for backup.*

  *Go home, Jay, and wait for me. I don’t intend to argue this up to my ankles in mud in the middle of a street.*

  Trailing disapproval like a tailplume, the hawk shot ahead.

  Brann shook her head. Like I’m his child. She frowned as she reached the hovel and sloshed around to the kitchen door. Jaril was sitting at the kitchen table, the wine jar at his elbow, along with two glasses. He’d lit the lamp.

  She kicked off her sandals, stepped out of her trousers and took the kettle from the sandbed. She touched it; there was still a little heat left. She poured the lukewarm water into a pan, put her feet in it and sighed with pleasure. “You can give me a glass, if you feel like it, Jay.”

  He was still temperish and glared at her. “You don’t deserve I should, going out like that, you could have been killed.” He splashed some wine in the glass and pushed it across to her. “You could have been KILLED. I can’t get Yaro without you.” Radiating misery, anger, fear, he gulped at his own wine. “I might as well go knock on the smiglar’s door and say here I am, eat me.”

  Brann swished her feet in the water, mud swirling
off them. “I was careful, Jay. But I needed to go.”

  “You needed to go.” Despair and disgust sharpened his voice. “You didn’t need anything, you got filled up the night before I left.”

  “All right, have it your way. I went because I wanted to. Does that satisfy you?”

  “Satisfy! Bramble, what’s got into you? It’s like you’re twelve, not two hundred plus.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. What’d you find out?”

  He shook his head at her. “Bramble… All right, all right, here it is. You had the right hunch. The father is dead. Stroke. Five years ago.” He relaxed as the wine was absorbed into his substance, his eyes dropped and his face softened. “The oldest brother took over the farm, he’s married, two wives, I counted five children. It’s a big house for that size farm, it’s got packed dirt walls, two stories, flat-tile roof. It’s built inside a ten-foot wall, packed earth with a canted the top. There’s a garden of sorts, the mother keeps it in order. She’s still alive, looks a hundred and two, but probably isn’t more than sixty, sixty-five. Tough old femme, like one of those ancient olive trees that just gets stronger as it gets older. One of her daughters is living with her in a two room… I suppose you’d call it an apartment, built into a corner of the wall. The other daughters are married to farmers in the area, mostly second wives. The younger brothers seem to ‘ve moved out; no sign of them at the farm or in town. After the father died, I expect the heir cut off supplies. It’s a small farm, it can’t really afford to support five grown men with a taste for beerbusts. I did some nosing about. Your Carup was exaggerating a trifle. Even if her father were still alive, she would have her mother’s protection, should her mother care to give it. Once a woman who’s had children makes it past fifty, all bets are off. She’s got whatever freedom she wants; the rules don’t apply to her any more. She can tell her old man to take a flying leap and get away with it. I expect that’s how she kept the daughter home. If she wanted to shelter Camp, no one could stop her. Your Camp knows all that and she knows how old her mother is. Do you think she just forgot to tell you? I don’t. You can shove her in a coach and send her home with a clear conscience.”