Sheri Tepper - Awakeners 1 - Northshore

by Northshore(Lit)

  "The shore-fish believe, they pay because they believe," Noteen was fond of saying. "Who are you to question their belief?"

  Which was another way of telling Medoor not to bite the hand that offered her hard metal coin. Coin that would buy food, wine, woven pamet cloth. Coin to send to the Noor kindred on the steppes-some for the near-kin of each Melancholic; some for the coffers of the Queen. Thinking of Queen Fibji, Medoor made a reverent gesture and saw the leader's glance change to one of understanding approval. He thought he understood how she felt, but he did not, not at all. Medoor Babji had more reason than most to care about Queen Fibji. It was Queen Fibji's need for coin that made any of them willing to serve a term as Melancholies, despite the precarious life of the Noor steppe dwellers and the relative luxury the Melancholies knew. But Medoor's feelings for the Queen were of a different kind and intensity. And private, she reminded herself. Very private.

  "I don't know why the Queen needs all that coin," Riv Lymeen had said once during a fireside argument with Medoor. "I've been at Queen Fibji's encampment, and even her big audience tent isn't that wonderful. My uncle Jiraz has one almost that big."

  The leader had intervened in that argument, too, saving Lymeen from a pounding. "None of your business why she needs it, Lymeen. It's for some great plan of her own, for all us Noor; for us here on Northshore getting coin out of shore-fish pockets and for them on the steppes, fighting off the Jondarites. She's planning for all of us, woman, so we don't question what she needs it for. She needs it, and that's enough."

  These reflections fled as the leader raised his signal bells and struck them with a flexible hammer, blindingly fast, the shrill tunes cutting through all the babble of the marketplace. "Assembly," succeeded rapidly by "Stores," "Wagoneers," and then "Return to camp."

  Medoor had been on stores detail for one Viranel, with some days of the duty yet to run. She coiled her fish skin whip into its case, slinging it over her shoulder as she looked around for the others. Riv Lymeen, very white teeth in an almost black face and a voice like a whip stroke; Fez Dooraz, plump and wobbly with sad brown eyes; and old white-headed Zyneem Porabji, who could add up in his head faster than the merchants could on their beads. The three of them were already together at the head of Market Street, waiting for her.

  "Come on, Babji," Lymeen called, her fuzzy head wagging disapproval and her lips curled to show her fangs. "Step it up, Medoor. All the camp will go hungry waiting on you."

  Which was unfair, for Lymeen often scamped her whips late in the afternoon. "Match coin!" Medoor growled at her, pleased to see the other turn away without accepting the challenge. Whatever Riv might say about Medoor being distractible and absentminded, she couldn't say Medoor was lazy-something Riv Lymeen had often heard said of herself. The amount of coin each Melancholic gained was an accurate measure of the amount of effort each Melancholic expended. "Match coin" was a way of ending argument on the matter.

  "Leader says to see can we get song-fish," remarked old Porabji. "Fillets or whole. Some to eat tonight and some to dry and smoke for the trip. I'll see to that. You, Babji, go along to the wine merchants. Lymeen, you to Grain Alley, and Dooraz will see to the greens. If there's fresh puncon fruit, call me. They'll want the price of a copper bracelet for it, but maybe I can talk them down. Remember, we're buying for tonight plus two days. We're westering tomorrow. Three or four more towns, Taj Noteen says, and then back to the steppes.

  Three or four more towns. Then the long walk northward, through the dry, white-podded pamet fields on the arid heights I and the wet grainfieids along the little streams, blue with tasseled bloom. Many days with no markets, no one allowed to sell them food, and fliers hanging high, black dots on the pale sky, to see they ate nothing from the fields. Many days living on what they pulled in the carts. Then the line of watchtowers, marking the edge of Northshore, and beyond that the steppes. There would be roasted jarb root. Medoor would never understand why anyone would dry jarb root skins and smoke them as the Mendicants did-visions or no visions-when one could bury them in the coals in their skins and eat them, sweet and satisfying as nothing else edible could ever be. And there would be stewed grains from the traveler fields, small grain patches that were harvested, weeded, fertilized, and replanted by any Noor who traveled by. Every Noor carried seed grain in a pouch, and every Noor learned to control his or her bladder, too, so as not to waste fertilizer on empty sand.

  Medoor longed for the steppes, that great sea of grass dotted with the gray-green rosettes of jarb plants and interrupted by occasional thorn trees with their tart, crimson fruit. The rivers of the steppes were full of silvery cheevle tiny toothsome fish, perfectly safe to eat and equally full of shiggles plump, ground-running birds that could not be eaten at all unless one cooked them with grain but when cooked with grain tasted of heaven. Medoor told herself she would trade all the wines and sweetmeats of Northshore for the food of the steppes.

  She hurried toward the wine merchants' stalls, as though by speeding this part of their necessary preparation she could speed their departure. She was heartily sick of Northshore; tired of the babble and bellow of its people, the muddy taste of its food, and the stink of its workers, glad as she had never been glad before of her dark skin, which prevented the Tears of Viranel from invading her body, dead or alive. Tears wouldn't work on black folk. Something about the light not getting through. It didn't matter why they wouldn't work. The fact was enough to be thankful for.

  "Thanks be to the Jabr dur Noor," she murmured to herself in the ritual prayer of the Noors. "Thanks be that I am black." Thus assured of the attention of the All-Seeing, she lifted a merchant's purse as he pressed through the market throng, slipping it into her trouser leg. At the wine merchant's she bargained well. Between what she bought out of the merchant's purse and what she slipped into her wide pockets without paying for, the price would be acceptable, even to Porabji. There was fresh puncon for sale, but Medoor did not bother running to the old man with word of it. When they returned to camp, she simply emptied her capacious trouser legs, placing russet fruit after russet fruit onto the meal wagon tailgate, grinning as she did so until Porabji, who had begun by scowling at her, had to grin in return.

  "You'll be caught one of these days, girl," he said, shaking his head. "You'll be caught and brought up before the Tower charged with theft."

  "What'll they do, let the fliers eat me?" She grinned. Criminals were dosed with Tears and given to the fliers for food, at least white ones were, or so it was rumored.

  Porabji shook his head. "They'll burn you, girl. That's what they do to us Noors. If the fliers can't eat someone, they'll bum him and scatter his ashes on the River."

  Medoor sobered somewhat, if only for a time. She had witnessed a burning once. It was not an end that appealed to her. She promised herself for the hundredth time to be more careful. Still, stealing was the one thing she did really well, and it was hard to give up one's only talent. She went toward the campfire in a mood of mixed self-congratulation and caution. One more night among the stinking heathen of this town, then three towns more, then home, to the tents of... well. Home. That was enough.

  When the Moor had been fed, Medoor was free to amuse herself until roll call. There was never any question where she would go or what she would do with her free time. She had had only one passion since she had first seen the River. Boats. Boats spoke to Medoor. Their planks oozed with mysterious travel, far destinations. Their crews had been all-the-way-around. They had seen everything, been everywhere. Sometimes the owners would let her come aboard. More than once she'd gone aboard at some lecher's invitation and had to show her knife and whip to get off again, but no owner was going to bring the curse of the Melancholies down 'on himself. He might hint a little, or make an outright proposition, but he wouldn't try rape. At least, Medoor thought with some satisfaction, none had yet. It had been the danger her mother had most feared for a Moor daughter, here among the heathen. Medoor had had to promise utmost prudence before she h
ad obtained permission to join the Melancholies.

  For some days now, there had been one particular boat at the Chantry docks that interested Medoor, and it was certain the troubled man who was owner of the Gift of Potipur wouldn't bother her. Though he seemed to like to talk to her, he hadn't once looked at her with that particular expression men sometimes got. It was almost as though he didn't know she was a woman at all, and this was part of the fascination. Most boatmen were garrulous sorts, full of tales and exaggerations, but the crew of the Gift was of a different kind. Quiet. Almost secretive. Not fearful, she thought, but with a kind of separation about them, as though they knew something the rest of the world didn't. Thrasne himself had a habit of standing on the deck, staring southward over the River at one particular spot, as though there should be something there he could see.

  "Thrasne owner," she called, making her way up the plank.

  "Medoor Babji," came the call in return. He was below, where she often found him, supervising the repair of the ship's planks stove in by some great floating tree on the wide River. She poked her head down, attracted by the strange' smell from below. Most of the crew was there, caulking the new planks with frag sap. The hot pungency of the caulk took her breath away, and she wondered how they could bear to work in the close heat of the hold. She went back to the deck, pausing for a time to admire the great winged figure that poised at the bow of the vessel, a giant flame-bird, perhaps, or a winged angel. Tired of this, she leaned against the rail, watching the water. There, after a time, Thrasne joined her.

  "Another day or two," he said, wiping his hands on a scrap of waste. "We'll be done with it."

  "How can you breathe down there?"

  "Oh, after an hour or two, you get drunk with it. When everyone starts giggling and stumbling, then's time to call a halt for the day. They'll be coming up soon." He nodded at her, a friendly expression. "Medoor Babji," he mused. "What does your name mean? It must mean something."

  "It does mean something," she retorted. "As much as yours does."

  "Thrasne?" He thought about this for a moment. "It was my grandfather's name. It was the name of the place he came from, inland, where they had a farm. So, what does your name mean?"

  "The Moor have a secret language of naming. We usually don't share our secret names with Northshoremen."

  "Oh."

  He said it flatly, accepting rejection, and she immediately sought to make amends.

  "I just meant it wasn't customary. All our names are two words, and the two words put together have another meaning. Like in our home tribe, there's a man named Jikool Pesit. Jikool means 'stones,' and Pesit means 'nighttime,' 'dark.' Stones in the dark are something you fall over, so that name would mean 'Stumbler' in Northshore language."

  He turned an interested face, so she went on. "I have a good friend whose name is Temin Suteed. Temin means 'a key,' and Suteed is 'golden'-ah, like sunlight. If you lock up gold with a key, that means 'treasure,' so that's her name. Treasure...

  "My grandfather's name was M'noor Jeroomly. M'noor is from the same word as our tribal name. Noor. Noor means 'a speaking people.' And m'noor means 'spoken.' Jeroomly means 'promising,' so the two together mean 'oath,' and that was his name."

  "How about Taj Noteen?" asked Thrasne, who had met the troupe leader.

  She laughed. "In Northshore he would be called Strutter."

  Thrasne shook his head, not understanding.

  "It comes from the words for cock and feather, that is, plume, and the plumed birds always strut, you know."

  "But you won't tell me what your name means?"

  She flushed. "Perhaps someday." Actually, Medoor Babji still had her baby name, and it meant something like "dearest little one." She did not want Thrasne to know that. Yet.

  He let it go, staring out across the River, upon his face that expression of concern and yearning that had so interested Medoor.

  "What's out there?" she asked, taking the plunge. "You're always looking out there."

  "There!" He was startled, stuttered a reply. "Oh, someone-someone from the crew, is all. Someone we had to leave on an island when we came in for repairs. We're to pick... her up when we're solid again, and it's been longer than we planned. We thought it would be before festival."

  "Oh." She didn't comment further. With some men she might have teased, but not with Thrasne. Whatever bothered him, it was no light thing. And whoever he had left behind, it had been no common crew member. "Well, we may see you down River, then. Our leader says we'll visit three more towns before turning north."

  "Possibly." He wasn't interested. She could tell. His lack of interest was irritating enough to gamble on. "Thrasne?"

  "Hmm?"

  "Who is she, really?"

  His silence made her think she had overstepped, but after a time he turned toward her, not looking at her, heaving one hip onto the rail so he could sit half facing her.

  "Did you ever dream of anyone, Medoor Babji?"

  She had climbed onto the rail and teetered there now, trying to make sense of his question. "Of anyone? I guess so. Mostly people I know, I suppose."

  "Did you ever dream of someone you didn't know? Over and over again?"

  She shook her head. This conversation was not going as she had thought it might. Nonetheless, it was interesting. "No, Thrasne owner. I never have."

  "I used to. When I was only a boy. A woman. Always the same woman. I called her Suspirra. A dream woman. The most beautiful woman in the world. I made a little carving of her. I still have it." He was silent again, then, and she thought he had talked all he would. Just as she was about to get down from the rail and bid him a polite farewell, he began again.

  "When I was near grown, I found a woman's body in the River. It had been blighted. You know what that is?"

  She nodded. She had never seen it, but she had a general idea.

  "It was the woman I'd dreamed of. Line for line. Every feature. Face. Eyes. Feet. Everything. I brought her out of the River and kept her, Medoor Babji. Kept her for many years. And then one day I met the daughter of that woman. Found her, I guess you'd say. Truly, her daughter. The daughter she had borne long ago, before she had drowned. And the daughter was alive and the same, line for line. And she came onto the Gift of Potipur. It was before Conjunction, winter, when I found her. And that was more than a year, now."

  "And it was that woman you had to leave on the island?"

  "That woman, yes."

  "Why? Is someone after her?"

  He looked her in the eyes for the first time. "Can I trust you not to go talking about this business, Babji? It could be my life. And hers."

  "Laughers?" She held, her breath. This was the stuff of nightmare and romance. Laughers and dream women.

  Seeing his discomfort, she changed the subject. "It's nice you found your dream woman, Thrasne. Things like that don't often happen."

  "I don't know what's happened," he said in a kind of quiet sadness. "Her body lives on the Gift. But her spirit-it isn't here yet, Babji. So, I'm patient about it."

  He went on then, for some time, talking. He told her everything he knew of Pamra Don, everything he had ever thought, even some of the things he had hoped, though he did not realize that. Far off along the shore she heard the sound of "Moor count" shrilling over the water.

  "I must go, Thrasne owner," she whispered, interrupting him. "My leader will whip me with my own whip if I am not in place very soon." Though he would not if he knew who she was, she thought. Still, it was important he not know.

  "Ah," he said, his unfocused gaze coming to rest on her and gradually clearing to reveal the girl perched there before him, dark smooth skin gleaming like the surface of the River. Her hair fell in a heavy fringe all the way to her knees, twisty strands of fifty or so hairs, each of which hung together, never tangling, like lengths of shiny black twine beneath a beaded headband, all gold and blue in the evening light. The scales of her fish skin vest gleamed also, laced tight over the long, full-sleeved shirt s
he wore tucked into pamet trousers died blue with mulluk shell. Her dark hand rested upon the rail, inches from his own, and he took it, turned it over to examine the pink brown of her palm, scarred and calloused from the whip. Her eyes were dark, and her pink lips parted in complaint.

  "Come now, owner. I must go."

  "Go, Babji. 1 didn't mean to keep you. It's just I had not really seen you until now."

  She ran down the plank and along the shore, wondering at the expression on his face. A kindly, surprised alertness, like a child finding something interesting and unexpected. Well. What to make of that. Nothing. Nothing at all.