The Potter’s bridge stairs were so close, so easy in comparison to the long climb upward on spurs that she almost decided to get back to Nextdown that way, but something dissuaded her. Afterward, it was hard to remember what the reason had been, but she connected it to the return of the Bander family that night.
Nothing was the same after that. Slysaw was now the eldest Bridger on Nextdown, which meant he held Bridgers House. He wasn’t the most even-handed of holders, either, though Elders weren’t supposed to play favorites, and it wasn’t long before the remaining Beed cousins were moving up to Topbridge or down to Potter’s or Midwall. Finally, there had been only Beedie and Aunt Six left, and when old Slysaw told Aunt Six she had to move out of her old rooms because he meant to give them to a Bander cousin from Midwall, Aunt Six decided to leave. The two of them moved up to Topbridge next day, carrying what they could on their backs and leaving the rest for the Banders. “Ill-wished on them,” said Aunt Six. “Every table and chair ill-wished on them, and may those who sit there have the eternal trots.”
On Topbridge the Bridgers were more mixed; there were some Banders, true, but there were more Beeds and more Chafers and plenty of housing for them all. The Bridgers House was held by Greenfire Chafer – who was killed soon after, some said by a rogue flopper – and Beedie and Aunt Six were given rooms in the Bridgers House at the morning-light end of the bridge right away. Then Beedie got on with her schooling. Still, every now and then she would wake in the chasm night to the sound of floppers honking in the root mat, half dreaming about hiding on the rootwall, lumps of charcoal in her hands, looking up at the adze-cut end of the mainroot while hearing from below that phlegmy chuckle as Slysaw Bander came climbing up the stairs.
And now it was a Bander again, Slysaw’s son Byle, come to work on Topbridge, cutting the roots too short, putting his hands on Beedie every chance he got, and bragging as though he were a Firstbridger himself. Beedie wondered, not for the first time, if she and Aunt Six moved to Bottommost whether they might escape from Banders once and for all.
The bridgetown grew larger and louder as she climbed down toward it, chunk, chunk, chunk, the spurs biting into the bark. She felt lucky to have found a mainroot right where it was wanted, with good, clean length and no water-bellies. Sometimes, so she had heard, there were no suitable mainroots within a great distance of the existing bridge. Then it was necessary to build elsewhere, or haul a distant root closer with hooks and ropes, a procedure which took half a lifetime and was as deadly as it was dull. Well, it wouldn’t be necessary. As one of the youngest Bridgers, prospecting had been assigned to her, and she had found a good root. That one and the one Byle Bander had found would make up the first pair. After the haulers were started, she’d have to start looking for her half of the second pair. From what the Elders had said, this could be a four or five pair job. They wanted the expansion built wide, they said. Enough to absorb all the growth Topbridge might make for the next several lifetimes. Of course, to hear Aunt Six tell it, Elders were always like that, always planning more than other people could build. Since the Elders didn’t actually have to do the job, it was always easy to plan large.
She amused herself going over the steps it would take to make the cut on the morrow, how the Bridgers would ring the root with hatchets, then fit the loop saw into the groove, two of them braced against the root as they pulled alternately, cutting through the mainroot until the whole massive weight of it fell away into the chasm with roaring echoes which seemed to go on forever. It would be the first town root Beedie had helped cut, but she well remembered the sound from the time the root fell at Nextdown. What happened to the roots that fell, she wondered? Did they end up propped against the chasm wall? Or fallen over into the bottom river? Did they rot? Or dry? Did floppers build nests in them? No matter, really. They ended up far below Bottommost, and whatever might happen below Bottommost could not be reckoned with at all. Except, she reminded herself, for whatever this new worry was. Though whether that was coming up from below Bottommost was anyone’s guess.
After cutting the root, the Bridgers would bore hook holes in the end of it, set the great hardwood hooks in place, then run rope from the hooks back and forth through the tackle and across the chasm to the hooks set deep in the other root end there. After which everyone on Topbridge would spend a part of their days hauling at the windlass. Everyone, that is, but the Bridgers.
The Bridgers would be making a detailed chart of every side root on the mainroots, every bud, every ropey growth. Once the mainroot was hauled into its long supporting curve, the Bridgers would use many of the verticals hanging from it to support the base of the new bridge. There would have to be other verticals reaching all the way to the distant Bottom and its nourishing waters if the mainroot was to be kept alive and healthy. Still other side roots would be needed for the stairs which were planned to link Topbridge directly to Potter’s bridge, replacing the current link by way of Nextdown. Any side roots that didn’t fit the plan would have to be trimmed away as they budded; otherwise the mainroot would turn into an unmanageable tangle which could never be maintained properly.
“Hey, skinny girl,” came a call from below. She looked down to see Byle Bander leaning from the bridge rail, staring up at her with the half sneer he always wore. “Hey, Beedie, slow-girule. What are you doing, girl? Harvesting nodules?”
There were several slow-girules in the roots nearby, their hooked hands tight around the side roots, moving now and then to clip root nodules from the root with the sharp edges of their claws, like scissors. One just below her had a pouch almost full, and she whispered to it, “Nice giruley. Give us? Give us, hmmm?”
“Hnnn,” it growled at her, half in complaint. “Hnnno. Minnnne.”
“Ah, come on, giruley. Give us one little root mouse to tide us until supper time. One little juicy one. Hmmm?” She reached out to scratch the creature in the one place its own claws could not reach, the middle of its back. The whine turned into a purr, and the creature handed her a green, furry nodule. She leaned against her belt once more to peel it with her Bridger’s knife. Anything for delay’s sake. She didn’t want to descend with Byle there.
“The Harvesters’ caste will be fining you, Beedie,” Byle Bander called. “You know you’re not supposed to fool with the ’rulies.”
“I’m not fooling, I’m hungry,” she replied, her mouth half full of the juicy, crunchy root nodule. “I could have picked it myself.” If she had behaved in accordance with the rules, she would have picked it for herself. It was uncastely for a Bridger to receive food except from a Maintainer’s hands, though the rules did permit harvesting from the roots if one was kept past meal time. The rules did not allow Bridgers to invade Harvesters’ caste by taking food from the slow-girules, however, and Beedie flushed. Though it was something all the Bridgers did from time to time, it was precisely the kind of thing Byle Bander would make an issue of, or harass her about until she would be heartily sorry for having done it. He liked to couple his attempts at fondling with threats, and neither were welcome. His presence on the walkway below her made her uncomfortable. Still, delaying any longer wouldn’t help. She finished the nodule and wiped her hands on her trousers, moving on down the root to the edge of the bridge. Bander reached out a hand to her, which she ignored. He had the habit of pulling one off balance and then laughing, or, worse, grabbing parts of her she didn’t want grabbed.
As she stepped onto the bridge, she saw a group of Bridgers striding toward her at the same time she saw the expression of amused superiority on Byle Bander’s face. All of the Bridgers in the group were Banders, interesting in itself. What were they up to?
She waited little time for an answer. One of the Bridgers, a ruddy, fussy little man called Wetwedge, bustled up, peered at her as though he had never seen her before, then said, “You getting ready for the cut, girly?”
“That’s what I’ve been doing,” she replied, wondering what this was all about. Certainly it was no chance encounter
. It had the feeling of a delegation.
“Not today, girly. No. Big business, this. Got to have it checked at least twice, you know. Can’t cut until we check it twice.”
“I did,” she said, amazed at his open-faced stupidity. What did the man think? That she was witless?
“No, no. I mean you got to have it checked by someone else. Gotcher measuring cord?”
Something deep inside Beedie sat up and looked around with sharp eyes and a sharper nose. Something smelled. “My measuring cord is put away safe, yes.”
“Well, trot it out, girly, and we’ll check it. Old lady Slicksaw here will climb it down for you, down to your mark, just to check.”
“That’s not the way it’s done,” she said, somehow keeping her voice from shaking with anger. “If you want Slicksaw Bander to check my measure, go ahead with my blessing. But she’ll use her own cord and compare it to mine before witnesses from Bridgers House, and any difference will be checked by an impartial eye. That’s the way it’s done, Wetwedge Bander-Bridger, and I’m surprised you should suggest anything different.”
The man looked quickly from side to side, seeking support from one or another of them, but they shifted feet uncomfortably, not looking at him. He laughed, trying to put a good face on it. “Well then, takes more time that way, but it’s according to rule. So, take a day off, then, Beedie.”
She saw deceit on his face, an evil intention which she couldn’t read but one made clear in those shifty eyes, darting up and down like a flopper’s wings. Besides, he wasn’t enough elder to her to tell her to take a day off, and him not even from her own family. “My mark is sealed with my knot,” she announced loudly. “Slicksaw can’t mistake it.” Or alter it, she said to herself. One might mistake an accidental scarring for a hatchet mark, but one would not mistake any accidental tangle in the hair roots for an individual Bridger’s own knot, complicated as an alphabet, tied and then doused with paint to make it stand out. “It’s tied once at each side, top and bottom,” she said. Then, as they began to turn away, “Of course, I’m going to Bridgers House to see that they check Byle Bander’s measure as well. Otherwise it would be unfair, wouldn’t it, and not something the Elders would tolerate. Since you’re all Banders checking a Beed, I’ll ask the Bridgers House to send Chafers or Beed to check Bander. Fair’s fair, after all.”
She had the satisfaction of seeing Byle Bander’s face full of anger as she stalked away. Nor did she miss the hesitation among the other Banders, the glances, the stuttering lips as one or another of them tried to think of something to say. She did not look back, contenting herself with a call. “Good day to you, Bridgers.”
As she walked away to Bridgers House, she could hear their whispers behind her. Well, what had they thought? That she would let a clutter of Bander hangers-on presume to double-check her competence without having some Beed fellows check on Byle’s ability as well? Did they think if they called her girly, as they would some curvy Maintainer wench, wriggling her hips between the tables at dinner, that she would not hear what it was they were really saying? Not likely.
She went directly to Bridgers House. She wanted to talk to Rootweaver Beed, second eldest, a white-haired woman with young eyes whom Beedie admired for her good sense and friendly demeanor toward the younger Bridgers. The woman was curled up on a window seat, weaving carded hairroot fibers to make a new climbing belt.
“Checking you, are they?” Though Rootweaver was not young, she was straight and supple as a side root, and Beedie had seen her using spurs not four days before. Rootweaver considered the matter now, frowning a little. At last her face cleared and she said, “With all the troubles from below we have to worry us just now, leave it to the Banders to come up with something fretting. Well, it’s never a bad idea to check a measure, ’specially when it’s a mainroot in question. We’ll take it as though it were friendly meant and send a crew along to check the Bander whelp as well. Have a day off, Beedie. You might help your Aunt Six with the moving. She’s found a place she likes better than Bridgers House again.” The woman laughed, not least at Beedie’s expression of dismay.
Aunt Six had moved house at least two or three times a year since they had come to Topbridge, never able to settle into the same comfort she had known in the Bridgers House on Nextdown. She had moved into and out of Bridgers House on Topbridge seven times – this would make eight. Having Aunt Six behaving as usual made the day somehow merely annoying, an almost customary irritation taking the place of that extraordinary discomfort she had been feeling since she had been hailed by Byle Bander. If Aunt Six was moving house, it must be assumed the world was much as usual.
So she spent the afternoon with a cart, hauling Aunt Six’s bedding and pots and bits and pieces from the pleasant rooms in Bridgers House to some equally pleasant ones on the far edge of Topbridge, about mid-chasm, from which the latticed windows looked out toward Harvester’s bridge, a lumpy line against the bend of the chasm wall behind it. Beedie wondered what the view was like from Harvester’s. Since it was at the turn of the chasm, could the chasm end be seen from there? Was there a chasm end? Odd. She’d never wondered about that until this very minute.
“Beedie! What are you dreaming about, Bridger-girl? You’ll only have this one day to help me, so help me! I’ve got all the rugs yet to bring.”
“Aunt Six, do you think this place will suit you? Will you stay here for a while? Now that I’ve got my tools and titles, I’d like to get some things of my own for this room, but not if you’re just going to move us again.”
“Girl, you get your own things and make it your place, you can stay whether I go or not. For Boundless’s sake, Beedie. You’re a grown-up girl.” She compressed her lips into a thin and disapproving line and began to bustle, accomplishing little but giving a fine appearance of activity.
Beedie smiled to herself. The only time Aunt Six referred to Beedie as a grown-up girl was when there was moving to be done, or something else equally boring or heavy. Still, the new place did have that marvelous view of the chasm, being right at the edge this way. Shaking her head, she went to fetch the rugs.
Slicksaw Bander said she found no fault with Beedie’s measure. Rootweaver Beed was not so favorable about Byle’s. The Beeds found him marked short, as Beedie had feared, and told him so in front of half the Bridgers and a full dozen Maintainers with their ears flapping. Byle was so angry he turned white. Beedie tried not to look superior, failing miserably. Perhaps now he would keep himself to himself and pay attention to his own Bridger business rather than hers. It had a consequence she had not foreseen, however, when she was called to Bridgers House for conference.
“Byle’s root was marked short, Beedie,” said Rootweaver, the half-dozen assembled Bridger elders behind her nodding and frowning. They had summoned her without warning, always a slightly ominous occurrence, but this time there had been nothing discomforting in it for her. “Not merely a little short,” Rootweaver went on, “but far short. As though he had not measured at all, and certainly not twice – or got his cord tangled up on the climb, and that’s a child’s trick. So we’re going to go down there with him tomorrow, check his measuring technique and check his axe work, too. Short in one thing, short in all, isn’t that the saying? So. You can go ahead and start cutting a groove on the root you’ve measured, but we’ve no one to help you cut root. After we get young Byle straightened out, you’ll get your crew. Do what you can alone, and we’ll send the crew next day.”
“Byle’s in the classroom right now,” said one of the other Elders, indignantly. “Fulminating and fussing. We’re keeping him here tonight, doing a little review of technique, and he’s mad as a hooked flopper. Madder than he should be. You’d think he’d been planning a lovers’ meeting or something the way he’s carrying on. Demands to be let go home.”
“Bridgers House is home for all Bridgers,” said Rootweaver calmly. “Let him go get a change of clothing if he pleases, but I want him to stay here tonight. We’ll see if we can’t
talk some sense into him.”
All of this made Beedie quite uncomfortable, and she was glad Byle hadn’t seen her with the Elders. If he thought she had been privy to his embarrassment, he’d never have permitted her a peaceful day. Since she thought he didn’t know, she had a peaceful night. Come morning, though, she thought he had probably found out, for she was visited by a Harvester Elder with an annoying sniff and his pen ready to record her words.
“It’s been reported you’ve been interfering with the slow-girules, girl,” he pinch-mouthed at her, pulling his nose back as though she smelled.
“You may call me Bridger,” she said, holding her fury carefully in check. “And I have never interfered with a slow-girule in my life. I did take a nodule from one, yesterday, when I was delayed on the root and missed a meal.”
“Report is you interfered with it. Rassled it about. Maybe bothered it in its work.”
“I scratched its furry back, and it purred at me. So much for your ‘interference.’”
“You could have injured it.” The man was white around the mouth, wanting to storm and yell at her, but afraid to do so seeing her own anger and knowing what Bridger wrath meant.
“Nonsense,” snapped Aunt Six from behind her. “You can’t injure a slow-girule with an axe. Be done, Harvester. Beedie took a nodule from one of your beasties and she must pay a fine for it, for it’s against the rules. So impose your fine and be done. It’s no large thing, and you’d best remember it. The good will of Bridgers is given freely, but it’s taken freely, too, when there’s cause.”
The Harvester did not reply, merely threw the piece of paper at them and stalked away. “Parasites,” hissed Aunt Six, just loud enough that he could not fail to hear. “No skills of their own, so they must live by preventing others from using common sense. Sorry the day the Harvesters ever became a caste, Beedie. And sorry the day any Bridger takes one like that seriously.”
The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection Page 74
