“Enough,� said Ki quietly. Vandien turned a cool, empty eye on her above his smiling mouth.
“Do not interrupt the story, Ki. Did you like the last sign I showed you? It means gelding. Like the horse you bestride. Now, attend while I finish.
“Word spread, of course. To keep as much of the name intact as possible it was necessary that the boy’s cousin inherit. He had produced a fine, fat baby a year before by a sweet and wild little girl in a nearby village. It seemed to give neither of them any problem.) The inconvenient boy left quietly, and when he infrequently returns, he is given enough money to let him disappear again. One does not encourage family disgraces to hang about the doorstep. And so the story has a happy ending.�
Vandien snapped the string flat between his hands. It snaked back into his pocket.
“Vandien, I am sorry…�
“That I am a gelding? But I am not, of course. It was only a surfeit of overripe sweets. I tell you the story just to show you that I would not ask of you anything you would not give willingly. I would not ask such an act of anyone.�
“Enough, man!� Ki snapped. Then she went on more gently. “To say I am sorry is not enough. It is the greatest cruelty I have ever heard done to a child. But my pity…“
“Keep your pity. That isn’t what I asked for.�
“I will not take anyone into my life. I have no room for it. I will not offer that which I cannot deliver. The tasks I have before me are for me alone. I have no life to share.�
“Choose life, Ki. Choose it one more time.�
The inn yard came into view. A light snow lay on the frozen ground. Wheel tracks and hoof marks scarred the open yard, and a very young stable boy swung on a gate. It was a battered, homey place, more welcoming than the Dene inn had been. The stable boy stared at them as they pulled in their huge mounts. Ki slid down Sigurd’s shoulder. Vandien attempted a dignified dismount, only to have to drop the last part of it.
“Shall we go in?�
“No. I have unfinished business to attend to.� She stepped forward, embracing Vandien quickly, awkwardly. She stepped back to Sigurd quickly. “You will be able to reach your home?� Her words seemed to care more than her voice.
Vandien stared at her. He did not offer her a leg up, but forced her to clutch Sigurd’s mane and scramble up him in a most undignified manner.
“Of course.� Vandien dropped his words softly in the snow. “There are folk enough hereabouts that know my name, if not my face anymore. I shall be fine.�
“I am glad of that. Fare well.� She did not look back. Vandien stood in the frozen inn yard, watching after her. Sigmund trailed obediently behind Sigurd without need of a lead rope. A small smile came to Vandien’s lips. He knew Ki better than she knew herself. Any moment now, she would rein the horses in, would pause, and then would turn back for him. He would be waiting. A knowing smile flickered over his face. He hastily wiped it away. The grays were growing smaller in the distance. Ki’s words had had a fine ring to them, but he knew what was in her heart. Ki sat straight and ridiculously small on the immense beast. The stubby tails of the grays, docked for their pulling, switched as they walked.
Vandien watched the empty trail, waiting for them to come back from around the bend. The cold began to nibble at him. He pulled his hood up tighter, thrust his hands deep into the cloak pockets. He drew one hand out slowly in disbelief. He looked at the three silver minteds on his palm and remembered the awkwardness of Ki’s hug. He turned eyes of pain and anger to the empty road. He raised his hand high to dash the coins into the snow. But instead, his fist sank slowly in defeat. He tossed the coins instead to the amazed stable boy. His shoulders slumped as he wandered to the door of the inn. Unfinished business, indeed.
Rhesus’s man stared at the unkempt woman on the door’s threshold. Two gaunt, gray horses wandered free in the street before the door. The woman’s cloak was rent as badly as any street beggar’s. Her long brown hair was a tangled mass that straggled out on both sides of her neck beneath her hood. Her face was pinched and drawn. Her green eyes burned.
“He did not bid me to watch for anyone coming to deliver merchandise,� the man told her suspiciously. Slowly the tall wooden door began to swing on its greased hinges. “Wait here. Let me ask him if he expects you.�
“Exactly what I wish to ask him myself,� Ki objected. The man recoiled from contact with her dusty clothes as she squirmed past him under his arm. She prowled up the tiled hall like a hunting cat, peering in first one narrow doorway and then another. She gave the waiting man a glare. She had no patience left for civilized behavior. She had not paused since she left the inn, but had forced the grays on, making them subsist on what small pasturage they could find in the snow-sprinkled meadows. She had blotted out thinking by constant action. She had not even taken time to make herself clean. She had pushed on to this confrontation, and would not be cheated of it.
“Rhesus!� she bellowed. Her voice echoed strangely. The man behind her scurried away down a side corridor, as if he did not wish to be present when his master found a madwoman loose in the house. Ki padded down the hallway. She heard a sudden rustle of clothing and a woman’s voice raised in a whisper of alarm. She stepped to the doorway of that room, but Rhesus himself suddenly filled it. His pudgy hands danced nervously up the front of his loosened shirt. His fat spider body jounced upon his skinny legs.
“Ki!�
All the answers rattled across his graying face. It sagged flabbier as she smiled at it. From inside her shirt she drew the small leather pouch, tumbled the gems out onto her hand. Her eyes did not leave his face as she held them out for his inspection. “All there, Rhesus. And no doubt fully as lovely and priceless as when I left Vermintown with them.�
“No doubt,� he agreed nervously. But he reached no anxious hand to seize them. Ki shifted her hand, let the stones tumble about in her palm.
“I shall not bore you with the perils I encountered on my way here. You know I have never raised my price because I found a road more difficult than I had bargained it to be. That is the business of a teamster—to know the roads well enough to strike the bargain beforehand. And it is the merchant’s business to know what he can afford to pay for such a job.�
“Of course, of course.� He glanced back nervously at the room he had just left, then stepped forward suddenly to indicate another door. Ki watched him quickly gather up the reins of control, saw his face tighten as he convinced himself that she suspected nothing. Already he was regaining his aplomb, taking control of the situation. “Would you care for food, Ki, a little wine perhaps? I have ripe fruit from…�
“No,� Ki cut in. “Money, and a little talk. That would satisfy me best, Rhesus.�
He nodded quickly, his nervousness baring itself again in the tremble of his jowls. He trotted a few steps down the hall toward the doorway he had indicated before. Ki did not budge. She did not care if it troubled him to have her so near his nest. She casually held up one of the gems between a thumb and finger, looked at it critically. “I know very little of gems, Rhesus. Of that I am sure you are aware. Where would a person of my background find the opportunity to become a judge of such things? But I have an eye for beauty. Look at it, Rhesus. Blue as the sky. No, bluer than that—blue as a diving Harpy. How shall we value a gem such as this? Worth a woman’s life, or shall we say a man’s blood?�
Rhesus saw it all sliding away from him. His thin legs were trembling under his bulk, threatening to collapse. His pale face went green, in contrast to his gaudy clothing. Ki met his eyes calmly, her face as untroubled as a spring day, her mouth smiling sweetly. She watched his plump face ripple with emotion. But he woul
d retain his bluff to the last coin.
“This way, Ki. Let us settle our accounts.� There was a tremble to his trot as he hurried her down the hallway. He led her into a plain room that understated the wealth of the house. The floor was tiled a deep, rich brown. Tapestries of feasts and huntings draped the walls. No window admitted natural light or spying glances. A tall cupboard stood in one corner, its shining dark wood matching the table in the center of the room. The table was littered with scrolls and counters, while several slender brushes rested in an upright stand beside pots of variously colored inks. There was a single, ornately carved chair at the table and a bare, low bench set a distance before it. Ki had played this scene before with Rhesus. Always he sat in the tall chair, protected by the table, and played with counters and talked of increasing expenses, while Ki sat silent on the low bench before him, her legs stretched uncomfortably in front of her until her silence extracted from him the previously agreed-upon price.
But today, when Rhesus let her precede him as guest, Ki crossed the room with a sure stride, pulled out the chair, and sat in it. She watched the last hopeful doubt drip away from Rhesus’s face. His body caved in on the low bench. Sweat broke out in tiny, shining beads on his upper lip.
“I am, as you say, a merchant,� he began.
“I did not know you trafficked in blood,� Ki interrupted his apologetic tones. “Or my prices would have been higher. But seeing that you do, we shall make our settlement now. First, the remainder of what you owe me for these ‘priceless gems.’ �
Ki boldly took up a stack of counters, measured out what was due her in a stack on the table. “That is correct, is it not?�
Rhesus scarcely glanced at the pile. “It appears to be,� he mumbled.
“Certainly it does. But appearances can be deceiving, Rhesus. Let us consider a philosophical question. Goods can be paid for with money. But how shall blood be bought?�
The plump jowls trembled a moment, became suddenly firmer. Rhesus drew himself up straight on the low bench. Watching, Ki was reminded of a toad puffing himself up to croak. But she would have trusted a toad’s yellow eyes more than the round, piggish eyes that fixed on her now.
“Do you threaten me, Ki? With what? Kill me by your own hand, and you shall not escape the justice of this town. They value me here, for the trade I generate. Shall you bring charges against me? Who listens to a wandering Romni? What evidence do you have? You have not been killed. I see no mark of wounds upon you.“ He folded his fat hands on his knees and met her eyes as if he had made a point.
“An interesting philosophy.� Ki slid down deeper in her chair. Her dust-stained boots rose to rest on the corner of the shining table. She gave a slight kick to get more comfortable, and Rhesus flinched as her heels scored the wood’s luster. “Surely if you are dead, Rhesus, it will make small difference to you if I am punished for your murder or not. But it might inconvenience you in a small way if a certain Romni driver and his family stopped smuggling perfume jewels into Coritro for you. Although they are illegal there, I have heard they still bring you a good price. It might be an even larger problem for you if all the Romni stopped doing carting for you. But I am not threatening you, Rhesus. I am only showing you that I know how to threaten you. I do not want your blood. I do not consider it of equal value to the blood that was shed. Nor do I want your money, other than what you owe me for the delivery.�
Ki watched with narrow eyes as the plump little man shifted about on the bench. His fat fingers were squeezed by narrow rings, making them look like sausages. The sausages met and tangled together. His little round eyes rolled about the room, looking everywhere but into Ki’s. Ki continued to stare at him silently. His mouth worked in and out.
“So what do you want of me? Here, I will pay you your money for the delivery, and then you will go.�
He rose and bustled across the room to the cabinet. He fished in his pocket for a small key and unlocked one of the drawers. Ki heard the chink of coin and the shutting of the drawer. He hurried back, to stack before her the silver minteds he owed. No more and no less. Ki nodded and scooped them toward her. She let the gems fall from her hand onto the table with a rattle like gravel.
“And now you will go,� he said. His eyes glistened as he watched Ki leisurely transfer the stacks of minteds from the table into her own personal pouch. His lower lip jutted out plump and wet as he considered the scatter of trinket gems he was receiving for it.
“You needn’t look so bitter,� Ki said softly. “I doubt that you are taking a loss.�
“That’s my business,� Rhesus snapped.
“Exactly. The business of a merchant who trafficks in blood. I have no experience of how such a fee is set. Tell me, Rhesus, how much was my life bought for? And by whom?“
He moved briskly to the bench before the table, sitting as alertly as a begging dog. A pink slug of tongue wet his lips. “Is that what you would have from me, Ki? It will cost you.� He settled himself with a wiggle of satisfaction at finally taking control.
Ki could not find the anger she needed to deal with him. Only a weary disgust filled her. She let him rant on.
“You might like to know, Ki, that at no time was your life, or death, mentioned. I accepted a… a fee, shall we call it? Only to see that you took your wagon through a certain pass. No time limit was set upon me, only my word that at some time I would see that you passed that way. And that was all. How was I to know it would be dangerous to you? So, be not angry with me. We may still do business together, you and I.� He paused to nibble speculatively at his thumb nail. “I think, to be just, that my price for the information will be equal to the minteds that I just…�
Ki did not wait to hear. She felt no anger as she slowly lowered her worn boots from the table. She felt nothing as she swept to the floor the pens, the counters, and a flurry of scrolls. Rhesus screamed high, but Ki’s eyes were cold as she upset the table upon the tiled floor, with a crash that sent splinters of polished wood flying. The carved chair rose lightly in her weathered hands, to arc across the room and cave in the front of the shining cabinet. Rhesus fled from the room, squeaking. Ki followed him with her panther’s stride. He fled without grace or logic, looking back fearfully as he huffed up the hall. Silent and relentless came Ki. She heard a girl’s voice raised in a question as Rhesus darted into the room Ki had first seen him emerge from.
It was a room of whites and yellows, of creamy floors and soft white rugs, of tapestries of flowered fields. A huge divan dominated the center of it, surrounded by flligreed tables bearing an overwhelming assortment of sweetmeats and fruits. A girl started up from the divan as they entered, Rhesus quivering and staggering as he fled. She gasped at the sight of his pursuer, Ki, ragged, dusty, and wooden-faced.
Ki halted at the sight of her. It was not her extreme youth that shocked Ki, though the image of that child in Rhesus’s embrace was a blasphemy against beauty. Nor did the girl’s nudity and carefully erotic body paintings surprise Ki—it was the necklace of circling silver Harpies that adorned the slender throat, and the azure and cobalt Harpies that swung from each pink ear. Ki stopped.
“From her forge and anvil come the best metal workings the family has ever seen.� Haftor had said that. He had been right. Once a person had beheld the work of Mama’s hands, ever she would know it. Ki did not realize that she had advanced on the girl until she felt the cold silver of the necklace in her hands. The girl fled, her bare feet pattering across the cream floor, her white neck marred by the burn of metal rudely jerked from it.
Ki could not focus her mind on Rhesus’s shrill cries as he frantically jerked on a summoning bell’s rope. She tried to remember Mama’s face. It would not come to her. She could find only Haftor, battling h
is madness, his eyes intense with a vengeance he would never satisfy. Haftor had learned to hate too well. Would Ki school Marna to it also? Ki flung the Harpy necklace from her violently. It rattled and slid across the floor to wrap around Rhesus’s foot. He ceased his yammering long enough to stoop and seize his treasure.
“Give her this,� Ki said suddenly into the jolt of silence. “Tell her she succeeded. Tell her it came from my body. Tell her to be at peace, for it is all over.�
Ki groped in her belt pouch, and the silver hair-comb came readily to her hand. She drew her fist back to fling it at him, but found she could not do it. She strode across to where Rhesus cowered to press it into his wet hands. A twinge of regret at parting with it surprised Ki. She froze the emotion. She spun on her heel and strode out the door, to pass between two bewildered serving men as they hastened to answer Rhesus’s summons. She let herself out.
Ten
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Firbanks was a dusty, cold little town huddled between two forested mountains. It possessed a single inn, run by a Human and a Tcheria in partnership. To Ki’s regret, the Tcheria managed the food area. There were no tables and benches, only squat-legged trays full of sand raked smooth. Tcheria preferred it so. Guests were expected to crouch on straw mats beside the trays while they ate. Ki found the trays too tall if she sat on the floor, and too uncomfortable to hunker beside. She had brought one of her blankets up from the wainwright’s and, in defiance of local custom, folded it for a cushion. A young Tcheria of the third gender had raked her sand table smooth and brought her hot food and a yellow wine. Ki’s nose told her that the bread was freshly baked. She picked more cautiously at the grayish hunks of meat and green sprouts that swam in her bowl of greasy broth. She frowned at the thought of the two copper dru that had paid for it.
The wainwright had demanded nearly all the money she had as an advance before he would begin work on the wagon. She and her team were making a small wage, pulling logs down from the mountainside. It would be enough to pay for the wagon’s completion. Ki stifled the impatience that rose in her at the thought of the days of work and waiting before her. She had, she reminded herself, no fixed goal. No matter how often the idea came to her, she would not push on to Thesus. Bad enough that she had stopped at the Inn of the Three Pheasants to ask after a man with a bandaged face. Micket, the innkeeper, had been surprised at her queries. She had not enjoyed the speculative look in his eyes. And worse, that she had sought out in Firbanks a wainwright that recognized Vandien’s name. To go any further would be to admit to more than concern for his safe journey. She sipped the yellow wine, frowning at its curious flavor.
Harpy's Flight Page 24
