Orphan shook her head. “I’ve never seen one.”
“My husband bought a screen. For me, he said. So I wouldn’t be lonely when he’s away. Him that’s as close with his com as a bee with its honey, he bought me a screen, and the batteries to run it, and a generator thing that runs from the windmill to keep the batteries full of whatever they’re full of, if you can believe that! Now I can sit in my kitchen and watch people killing each other all day so I won’t be lonely.” She laughed again, bitterly, tears at the corners of her eyes. “And perhaps that’s how he meant it all along! If I see enough of it, I’ll reconcile myself to solitude! Time you were going on. Don’t forget. Farmwife Suttle, at Wise Rocks Farm.”
“Farmwife Suttle,” repeated Orphan, obediently.
“Tell her Farmwife Chyne sends word that she is expecting a child in thirty days’ time and would be glad of help. For which, my thanks. And I’d take it as a kindness if you didn’t mention having been here to anyone else.”
Orphan nodded that she’d do her best, then bowed politely before starting on her way once more. She could cover a good bit of territory by nightfall if she kept moving. Also, she had discovered that moving kept her from thinking much about a certain person, and she did not want to think about him.
She walked for an hour on one of the parallel ruts that extended from the farm-gate down the valley, stepping aside once to allow a heavily laden wagon to come up past her.
“You there, girl!” the driver shouted.
She stood quiet, waiting.
“Where you from?”
“Just walking,” she said.
“You stop anywheres along here? You been talkin’ to anybody?” The voice was both frightened and threatening.
Orphan took a deep breath. “Nobody, mister. Didn’t see anybody around.”
“Well, keep it that way. Don’t stop anywhere.”
“Bastard,” said the guardian-angel in her ear. “Don’t stop anywhere.”
Orphan answered neither man nor angel. She merely lowered her head and trudged away, feeling eyes on the back of her head, listening to the sound of creaking wheels slowly diminish behind her. By the wind’s knees, but these were a strange bunch.
When she approached the next farm, identifiable by the sound of animals lowing, dogs barking, the lessening of weeds in the ruts she was following, and a slender pillar of smoke rising over the next hill, she moved to her left, into the trees, and stayed hidden among them until she passed the gate leading to a cluster of gray buildings. She saw no one. No one saw her.
Once well past, she took to the ruts again, seeing no one at all at the next three farms, two of which were invisible from the road. From the top of the last hill, a wearyingly long one, she saw the five pillars of red stone standing above the tops of the trees like gnarly people gossiping with their heads together. These were undoubtedly the Wise Rocks, as well described by her informant of the morning. Here she would find Farmwife Suttle.
She first found a child who was making its androgynous and curious way down a brook, turning over the stones as it went.
“Is this the Wise Rocks Farm?”
“Mostly,” said the child. “What isn’t somebody else’s farm. What sort of creature is that?”
Orphan took the angel onto her finger. “It’s a guardian-angel.”
“What’s it for?”
“It’s to keep me out of trouble.”
“I’ve never seen one like that before.”
“Nobody has,” said Orphan. “This is the only one. I’ve had it since I was a small child.” She furrowed her brow, thinking. “Is Farmwife Suttle near about?”
“My ma. Near enough, I should think. Near enough to find me right away if I do something she thinks I oughtn’t.” The child turned a thoughtful face on Orphan, as though trying to decide what naughtiness to commit in order to summon her mother.
“Don’t do any such thing on my account,” said Orphan. “I’d just as soon look for her.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what you were talking about,” said the child darkly. “You might come upon the Widow Upton first, and she’s a pain. Or Silly Sim, him the gangers knocked all the sense out of. Or my dad, and you wouldn’t wish that on your worst old cow, her that the Knackers are coming for.”
“Why is that?” asked Orphan, curious despite herself.
“He’s mad at the world, Ma says. It won’t he down and accommodate itself to his uses, so he’s mad at it. Since it does no good to beat at the world, he beats at other folk, me for instance, or anybody wandering by. Like you.”
“But not your ma?”
The child snorted. “She’d never stand for that. And he’s not here often, so we’ve little to worry over.”
“Well, I really should find your ma. I’ve got a message for her.”
“And you shouldn’t go saying things like that, either People claiming to be carrying messages might be Up To No Good.” The child climbed out of the stream bed and dried her feet on the grass. “If you and your angel sit over there under that tree, I’ll find her for you. Take cover if anybody else comes by.” The child glowered at her threateningly “And don’t come galloping out until you see me!”
The child trudged off down the lane without a backward glance, leaving Orphan to look after her with her mouth open. Such a very verbal young person! And so very opinionated. Orphan could not recall having such definite opinions at that age, or at any age.
The indicated tree spread a patch of dense shade at its base, and Orphan sat there, prudently hidden behind the trunk from casual passersby. The guardian-angel whistled and nibbled her ear. The angel’s feathers smelled sweet, like a mild spice. The smell always came as a surprise, and while Orphan was inhaling, the angel flew off into the trees, all in a flutter of green and blue wing feathers with raggedy red tail plumes fluttering behind. It had been doing that more and more lately, Orphan thought, falling into a doze.
“Whsst” was the next thing she heard, a piercing whistle not unlike a bird’s whistle.
“Here’s my ma!”
Orphan stuck her head around the tree trunk to watch the woman approach, a stout figure with braids of dark red hair wound into a tight helmet around her head.
“Seelie says you have a message,” she said when she had looked Orphan over from head to foot.
Orphan repeated her message from Farmwife Chyne.
“Ah Well.”
“I’d say she’s very lonely,” said Orphan, forgetting to be laconic “And she was very big.” She gestured how big, which was big enough.
“The message alone would earn you supper,” said the Farmwife, looking both glad and sorry at the same time. “She’ll need help, but Farmer Chyne’s so foolishly afraid of outsiders.… Have you other news from up the valley?”
“A little way back I saw two people high up on the mountain.”
“Hunters,” the woman grunted “After goats Or maybe deer. There’s more deer up there all the time.”
“I got passed by a man in a wagon, but he told me to keep moving.”
“Farmer Chyne. He could have stopped here and told me she was having a baby, but he wouldn’t. Oh, no. He’ll do it on his own or leave it undone, no matter who dies of it.” She sighed “Ah, well, I shouldn’t say that. He lost his first wife and children to outsiders, strangers, citymen. They thought he had money hid, so they tortured the children to make the wife tell, then killed her for not telling what she couldn’t. He’s been leery of strangers since.”
“How’d you get to know her at all?” Orphan asked “Seems like you people aren’t very neighborly.”
“She’s another who had family slaughtered before her eyes,” snapped the Farmwife. “After that, she lived here with me for ten years. Dear to me as my own sister, she became, and I wish she’d stayed. But she was longing for children of her own. When Farmer Chyne made her the offer, she took it, the more fool she. She’d be better off among the Sisters to Trees.” The woman shook her head
sadly before going on:
“I’ll offer you supper, girl. I’ll maybe offer you more than that, if you can keep your own counsel. You came from an archetypal village, didn’t you? What were you? Virgin? Half of a Young Lovers? Princess?”
“Orphan,” she admitted.
The woman snorted. “Orphan! You look no more like an Orphan than I do like a banty hen. You’re too old and too pretty!”
“Which may be one reason I was supplanted,” said Orphan, depressed by the subject.
The guardian-angel cried from among the trees and came fluttering to take its place on Orphan’s shoulder.
The Farmwife snorted. “So there’s the other one of you. Two draggletailed refugees! Well, I can’t go calling you Orphan. So far as the people here are concerned, you’re my oldest sister’s husband’s youngest sister’s middle girl. Kind of a round-about cousin.”
“What’s my name?” whispered Orphan, aware that something meaningful was taking place. A name—exactly what Oracle had said she needed.
“Olly Longaster,” answered Seelie promptly. “All Ma’s kin are Longasters, even by marriage.”
“Not a very pretty name,” said Orphan, doubtfully, wishing she’d spent more time choosing a label for herself.
“All the better for that,” said the Farmwife. “My family didn’t go in much for pretty names. A pretty name would have a suspicious sound. You’re Olly, now. Olly—say it over to yourself and answer to nothing else! You were sent here to help me by your pa, Leesnegger Longaster, one of the Longasters of Longville. You were dropped off a freight wagon near Whitherby village, and you walked from there.”
She took the new Olly by the arm, murmuring as she did so, “See, Olly, there’s Widow Upton with her son, Sim, come to meet us.”
The stout iron-haired woman who came bustling toward them was followed by a shambling figure carrying a rake over one shoulder.
“Silly Sim,” Seelie hissed. “Be careful what you say.”
“Hush, Seelie,” her mother muttered. “Olly has quite enough to think about.”
“Who’s this, who’s this?” the widow cried.
“Stranger,” her son replied. “A stranger, a danger. Whack, whack. Beat my back.”
“Hush, Sim,” Farmwife Suttle said. “This is no stranger, this is my kinswoman, Olly Longaster, come to spend a time in the country with her cousins.”
“Cousins by the dozens,” the guardian-angel piped, flying to the silly’s shoulder and pecking with its long, sharp beak.
“Ouch-grouch, stranger-danger,” Sim sang. “Word-bird.”
“Hush, son,” his mother directed. “Well, my dear. I’m the Widow Upton, and this is my son, Simile. Dear Of genee didn’t say a word about your coming—”
The Farmwife interrupted, “Because her coming is a surprise. But your aunt Ori is glad to see you anyhow, dear girl. Come along, now. I know you and your pet must be weary. Seelie, run ahead and put fresh water in the spare room.”
“Far-star,” Sim sang as he leaned toward the former Orphan, peering at her through faded eyes in which a strange, liquid glow pulsed. “Sorrow-borrow.”
“Hush, Sim,” his mother said again. “Forgive him, Olly Sometimes he doesn’t make much sense.”
She, who had seen that same glow in the eyes of Oracle, merely nodded Here was another one telling strange truths about somebody or other, but evidently no one realized it. So long as everyone told him to hush, she ought to be safe enough.
CHAPTER 5
When the Purples returned from visiting the Oracle, they were edgy, partly because Young Chief had been unusually petulant and unpredictable, but mostly because they had not known how to behave among the unknown dangers of the countryside. They had seen a manticore and two trolls, though at a distance, and had been much troubled at the sightings. Danger in the city was ubiquitous, death was likely on any given day; but IDDIs and stray gunshots were familiar while monsters were not. Abasio could not reassure them without betraying more familiarity with the area than he chose to. Besides, he himself was dismayed at the sightings. In all his years at the farm he had not seen so many in such a short time.
Add to this general unease the specific irritations felt by Abasio and the Young Chief: The Young Chief had been promised a son (so Sybbis said), but since he didn’t know what to do about the prophecy, he remained touchy and wrathful about everything. Abasio had been promised nothing. He was merely under a spell.
He tried various mental contortions to deal with the girl in the village, telling himself she wasn’t all that much, that he’d soon forget her, that she was, after all, merely a woman. None of it worked. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. He couldn’t minimize her, forget her, or categorize her. She was unlike any woman he’d ever known. She was certainly unlike the girl he’d been given when he first came to Fantis, who’d later miscarried and been traded off. And though he’d learned a good deal about sexual enjoyments from the farmers’ daughters he’d dallied with occasionally while visiting the countryside and from the songhouse singer with whom he’d had a brief, careful, and thank God, inconsequential liaison, the girl in the archetypal village was totally unlike any of them.
Of course, he had never thought of himself as being in love with any of them. It was not a word he often thought of, or a phrase he ever used. Gangers did not speak of love, though the word appeared frequently in the books he read. Ma and Grandpa had said they loved one thing and another. Grandpa had loved his wife, so he had often said, loved her and grieved over her leaving him. Ma had loved him, Abasio, so she had told him time and again as she begged him to stay in the country and be safe. Abasio had loved them both, he now thought, though he did not recall if he had told them so.
Why did he think he loved this girl? She was a dozen years younger than Abasio! He’d held her when she was a toddler. She’d kissed him then and put her arms around his neck, a mere baby. Orphan Which meant she had no one. No one at all. Except, perhaps, himself.
So, well, maybe he did love her. Maybe that was what love was, this tumbled, troubled, pit-of-the-stomach feeling, this ache in the groin, this habit of sighs, this suddenness of dreams that he woke from trembling, unable to remember what they’d been about. Except one, which was of someone and himself on Big Blue, walking slowly into darkness with her arms tight around him. He wondered about all this as he shaved in the morning, as he ran one errand or another; thought it as he went about the daily routine of living, seeing the world around him through love’s eyes. What would she think of this, he wondered, as he traveled through the filthy streets. Though she’d had ashes on her face, she’d seemed immaculate to him, living with only cleanly woods around her, with pure water to bathe in and to drink. What would she think of this place, of the way he lived?
What did he think of it?
And that question stopped him in his tracks, stunned and gaping as he realized he didn’t think of it much. It was, that was all. Not really chosen. Not really believed in. Just a way of going along, day after day, not making any decisions at all. A way of life he’d fallen into and never cared enough about to change. He wore the crest. He bore the tattoos. He had memorized the Book of the Purples, gibberish though it was. He could recite the names of the Chiefs and the reason the Purples gave for not having gone to the stars when other men went. Not necessary, they said, for every Purple was a star, a sun, with woman-planets revolving about him, his worlds to make fertile, to raise a crop of tots from. Over the centuries Purples would become more numerous. Eventually, they would fill the world. So said the Book, and so parroted Abasio when necessary.
What was his current life to him? It was merely easier than going home and admitting he’d been wrong to leave in the first place. It was merely easier than seeking the adventure he had left home to find. So he thought soberly, not liking the thought at all.
He was not allowed to continue these uncomfortable meditations uninterrupted. Soniff sought him out, told him the Young Chief continued to be in a miserable
mood and that Abasio had better find something to amuse him. Abasio complied, snorting to himself. Young Chief, indeed. Kerf was thirty, at least, and if it weren’t for his daddy, he wouldn’t have lived this long. Old Chief Purple might’ve bought himself a place in the Edge, but it was still his men who kept Kerf strutting and crowing. It was still Old Chief’s men who sent Abasio running through the District, looking for something to amuse his sulky son.
Sybbis ought to be sufficient amusement for any man Sybbis, with her undulating form drifting out the door on the way to the baths. Sybbis, with her already-legendary tantrums in the women’s quarters, screaming the House down almost daily. Sybbis, spending hours and hours at perfumers and the clothiers, as though it mattered what she smelled like, what she wore Sybbis, spending her afternoons in the conk section at the arena, eating popcorn and drinking beer. Wasn’t she sufficient amusement?
Abasio gave her credit for being sly. So long as Kerf thought she might bear a son, he wouldn’t do to Sybbis what he’d done to Elrick-Ann. Poor Elrick-Ann, slowly healing in the women’s quarters. One thing Abasio was sure of: When Elrick-Ann was well enough, he intended to get her out of Purple House. If he could do nothing else for her, he would see to that. Thinking about love had decided the matter; it was needful to say something or do something about people one cared for, and he cared for Elrick-Ann. She was the nearest thing he had to family, and toward her he would not be merely a ganger, not merely a Purple, careless and heedless of the disposable people around him, all destined for an early and messy death.
He set these thoughts aside as he set out on his assigned errand. One could not afford to be absentminded in Fantis. One had to be especially alert in the District, where the streets were lined with woman brothels, boy brothels, eunuch brothels, smugglers’ stores, drug boutiques, weapons stores, battery-shops and odds-shops, some of them owned by gangers, some by Edgers.
The Battle Shop was the biggest store in the area, always with a display of new weapons in the window. It was said in Fantis that four out of five kills were done with Sudden’s weapons or in the arena that Sudden managed. Sometimes, however, Sudden Stop had other things than weapons. Sometimes he had toys, playthings, gadgets. Among the array, Abasio had occasionally found amusements for Kerf Today, however, the only thing that caught Abasio’s attention was the way Sudden was looking at him, a kind of measuring stare, strangely disquieting. As soon as he could, Abasio eased himself out of the shop and away. When Sudden got interested in people, they often didn’t last long.
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