by Jo Clayton
Then someone was beside her. Rane. Someone beside Rane, a long thin shadow.
And the beast under her was moving, Rane’s macai moving beside her.
And there was a grating sounds—not too loud but she could hear it over the roar of the wind.
And they were out of the wind, going down a long slant into darkness—but the snow was gone and the air was warmer. As she woke out of the numbness, she began to shiver without letup.
The darkness lightened as they turned one way.
Lightened more as they turned another.
They stopped.
A stable of sorts, straw on the floor, water and grain, a fire off in the distance filling a long narrow room with warmth and a cheerful crackling.
She felt the warmth but she couldn’t stop shivering.
Hands pulled at her.
She was standing rubber-kneed on the stone floor, hands holding her.
A MAN’S VOICE: Hot cha, I think.
RANE: Any chance of a hot bath?
MAN: Depends on how many people do you want to alert you’re here?
RANE: No one would be best. Other than you, Hal. I suspect everyone now, old friend, everyone I don’t know as well as I know you.
MAN: (chuckling) Eh-Rane, you sure you know me well enough?
RANE: Fool.
All the while they talked they were helping Tuli stumble closer to the fire. They eased her down on a pile of old quilts and cushions and Rane knelt beside her, rubbing her frozen hands.
RANE: Is it too much to ask for the cha you offered?
MAN: Hold your barbs, scorpion. Have it here in a breath and a half.
Heat. Hands stripped soggy clothes off her. Hands rubbed a coarse towel hard over her. She protested. It hurt. Rane laughed, dropped the towel over her head. “Do it yourself then, Moth.”
They were at one end of a windowless room with roughly dressed stone walls. The loudest noise was the crackling of the fire; Tuli caught not the slightest hint of the storm outside. At the other end of the long room one of the macain had his nose dipped into a trough, sucking up water. The other was munching at a heap of corn. Both made low cooing sounds full of contentment.
A contentment Tuli shared. When her short hair was as dry as she could get it, she dropped the towel and pulled the quilt up over her shoulders. She stretched out in front of the fire on the pile of cushions, soaking up the heat until she wanted to purr.
Later. Dressed in boy’s clothing, long in the leg and tight about the buttocks, she sipped at the steaming spiced cha and struggled to keep her eyes open as Rane talked with the man she called Hal.
RANE: How are the Followers taking this weather change? Asking questions of the Agli? Blaming us? Angry? Confused? What?
HAL: Hard to say. Most of them are dupes. Agli doesn’t tell them anything, keeps them happy with a tilun now and then and promises of a better life. We have to sit through interminable sermons on the virtues of submission and the evils of pride. Soäreh’s will. I wonder how many times I’ve heard that over the past few days. I want to spit in their faces. Very disconcerting for a placid soul like myself. That’s about all I’ve got for you, gossip from the rats in my own walls. I’ve stayed away from Sadnaji since the heat broke. Followers there’ve turned nasty, bite off any head that pokes out. I’m exceedingly fond of my head.
RANE: We came through Sadnaji a few days ago. Looked dead.
HAL: Might as well be. None of the fête-days being kept, no one laughing. We’ve all forgotten how to laugh.
RANE: Braddon’s Inn was shut down, torch out. I never thought they’d go that far. What happened? Where were all his friends? Is he all right?
HAL: Friends. (He shakes his head.) Those of us nearby keep our mouths shut and don’t look him in the eye. He’s alive, doing well as could be expected. (He goes silent a moment, the lines suddenly deeper in his long ugly face, a gentle face, mournful as a droop-eared chinihound.) His son’s in the mountains somewhere, I expect you’ve got a better idea about that than I do. Somewhere’s close as I can get (a sigh). Shut Braddon down, put him in the House of Repentance. For a while it looked like the Agli was going to burn him out, but he backed off, Sadnaji was tinder dry. The little meie, she managed to burn a good bit of hedge (sigh). Had to spend a tenday setting posts and planting hedge sets. Which will probably freeze if this keeps up.
RANE: Little meie? What happened?
HAL: It was just after the sky went bad. The little meie showed up at Braddon’s, you know who I mean, Serroi, a man with her. Braddon says he tried to hold her there but she got suspicious and tunked him on the head. He won’t say else to anyone. He says he didn’t know the man with her, never saw him before. Whispers say it was Hern (shrug). She tangled with a norit staying there, turned the attack back on him somehow, she and the man both got away, traded their worked-out macain for a fresh pair, took the norit’s mounts which steamed him some to hear tell. He went after them, wouldn’t wait for anyone, anything. Agli rounded him up a mob, took three guards from the Decsel in the Center, sent them all after her. What happened to the norit, Maiden knows, but there’s a man-sized charred spot in my pasture grass. Guards came chasing her through the gap in my poor abused hedge. First one through was an airhead carrying a torch. Soon’s he was on the grass his macai went crazy, threw him and tromped on him. He let go the damn torch and it landed in my hedge. Agli’s mob, they had to stop being a mob and fight the fire or Sadnaji could have gone up too. The two guards left followed the meie and her friend, got back a couple days later, hungry and tired, scratched up and scratching—idiots didn’t know enough to stay away from ripe puff-balls—feeling mad and mean. Lost the meie in the foothills past the ford.
RANE: Yael-mri thinks she’s the one turned the weather for us (laugh). For such a little thing, her efforts they do multiply. I’d like to be around when she tells the tale of the past few months. Well, enough of that. To business. Guards. How many here now?
HAL: Three decsettin. One in town, the others quartered on the tars. I’ve got one here, Decsel sleeping in the house, his men in the tie-village. And a resident norit (he holds up a hand). No worry. He’s a smoke eater who hates the cold. I looked in on him an hour ago. Room stinks of the weed and he’s lost in his private heaven.
RANE: Sleykynin?
HAL: They’ve been trickling into the mijloc by twos and threes, see some of them almost every day. A few large bands of young ones, just hatched from their houses (smile). Was a break in the trickle shortly after the little meie went through here. Coincidence?
RANE: (laughing) I wouldn’t bet on it. Do they stay around Sadnaji or move on?
HAL: Three or four are quartered on the Agli, been there for a while. Those coming through lately keep on without stopping. Going north.
RANE: Anything else?
HAL: Got a vague report of Kapperim busy in the hills east of Sankoy. Before the snow started. I went on a ride to check my hedges, make the circuit like a good tarom.
RANE: Hal! You?
HAL: Uh-huh, Anders was trying to convert me, following me around preaching at me. Eh-Rane, he’s such a block. You suppose Marilli played me false? (he grins) No, probably not. She was too proud a woman to tarnish her perfection that way. I suppose he’s a throwback to Grandfather Lammah who had just two ideas in his head. If it was game, chase and kill it, if it was female … (he catches Tuli watching and does not finish the sentence). Where was I? Ah. Anders. Had to get away from him before I strangled him. Not a thing you want to do to your son and heir. So I rode the hedges. Smuggled a book out with me, Dancer’s Rise writ by Mad Shar the poet, you should know it, Biserica’s got a copy, that and a skin of a nice little wine. Point of all this—I was sitting in the shade near the east end of the tar. Half-asleep. Maybe a little drunk. A pair of shurin came out of the shadows and squatted beside me. Said to pass this on: Army massing in Sankoy, waiting to join the one Floarin’s bringing down from Oras. And the Kapperim tribes are getting thick in the hills, mig
ht be going to start raiding the outcast Havens, might be joining up with Floarin too, when the time comes. That was a tenday ago. I was thinking maybe I’d have to carry the news myself if somebody didn’t come by. Not a good idea sending message fliers, too many traxim about.
RANE: So Yael-mri said. Tuli and I, we’re going looking the long way round Cimpia Plain, see what’s happening firsthand.
HAL: You’re taking the child?
RANE: Peace, Hal. Tuli stopped being a child awhile ago. (she stares at the fire, runs her hands through hair like short sun-bleached straw). There are no noncombatants in this war, my philosopher friend.
HAL: Why is this happening? (He looks from Rane to Tuli, back at Rane, then stares into the fire as she does). What have we done to bring this death and desolation of the spirit?
RANE: (Smiling at him, reaching over to put her hand on his.) Ah, my friend, I have missed this, sitting with you in front of a fire and solving the problems of the world. Seriously, why does it have anything to do with us? Perhaps it’s five hundred years of stagnation. All things die sometime, now it’s our time. From our death something new will be born.
HAL: The Maiden? Rane. (Shakes his head.)
RANE: We dance at the Maidenfetes, but when they’re done the Keeper dowses the festfire. We’re tired, happy, flown on wine and hard cider, ready to find our beds, so we forget what the dowsing means. Eh-Hal, all that makes lovely symbols for scholars to play with while the rest of us mundane souls go our ways looking for what comfort we can find in life. I’ve been thinking for several years now that the mijloc was ripe for trouble. Forget about symbols. Think about this. Too many ties for the land to support. Too many tar-sons and tar-daughters. Oldest son gets the tar, but what do his brothers do? Hang around, get drunk, make trouble with the ties, the other taroms, do some hunting. If he’s got any intelligence and ambition, then he’s got a chance. Go into the Guards, get an appointment as a court scholar, get himself apprenticed to a merchant if he’s got that kind of interest and ability. Some just drift away, losing themselves in the world outside the mijloc. You didn’t have to worry about that, Hal, only one living son and two daughters, one married, one with us at the Biserica. But what about your grandsons and granddaughters? How many children does Anders already have? His wife is young and healthy. How many more children will she have? How will he provide for them? If he’s lucky his extra sons will find their own ways, Guards, merchants, scholars, artisans, even maybe a player in the bunch. What about his daughters? Some will marry. The others? Let me tell you, the valley is bursting with girls. We’ve been taking care of excess daughters for generations but there’s a limit to the numbers we can support. There are other limits. Some girls just aren’t happy with us. Many of the girls that come to us don’t stay more than a few years. Some go home, find husbands, or work for their keep in the homes of their married sisters. Some drift into the cities; the best of them find work, the others walk the streets. Think about it, Hal. All the discarded children. Thieves, vagabonds, drunks, bullies, prostitutes, landless laborers, drifters of all kinds, a drain on the resources of the mijloc, a constant source of discontent. Think about the bad harvests this year and last, the Gather and Scatter storms. People getting hungrier and hungrier, watching the taroms and the rich merchants and resenting them, the taroms and merchants growing frightened, hiring bravos to protect them. The Heslin peace falling apart. Well, all that’s irrelevant now, Hal. The mijloc is going to be chewed up so thoroughly there’ll be no going back to the old ways. Change. There’s no stopping it and no knowing what direction it will take.
HAL(sighing): And no room in it for peaceful souls like me. Back to the bad old days before Andellate Heslin knocked the belligerence out of the warlords. Every man’s hand raised against his neighbor and the landless left to starve. Eh-Rane, if the Nor do me in, I’d almost thank them.
RANE: Back to business, old philosopher. Practical things have their charm. How are the ordinary folk feeling? Not the converted, the others.
HAL: All this happened so fast, most folk were stunned; it came on them boom-boom, they didn’t have time to react or work themselves up to resisting. They’re beginning to stir now, just need a leader. With Anders putting on the black so fast, it took a while before the ties would talk to me, but I’ve picked up a few things. Example: Our folk grumbled when the Gorduufest was cancelled, then they got together and made a little Gorduufest out in the orchard. I was rather afraid I’d scare them off, but I joined them anyway with a jug of hard cider to liven the night for us. Another example: Some of the tie-wives are starting to seethe at the way they’re being treated. They work damn hard. Used to be they had a say in what happened to their families. The Agli and his more rabid Followers, they resent and fear women for tempting them from what they see as higher things, and the women are beginning to resent back hard. (He chuckles, then shakes his head.) Though there’s little they can do about it. If they open their mouths to protest even the most outrageous nonsense, even if it’s to protect their children, they’re hauled off to the House of Repentance to be schooled in submission. Repeat the offense and they’re publicly flogged. (His brows come together, he stares down at his hands, sighs.) There are a lot of floggings these days, my friend. Fools. The Followers, I mean. They don’t see that they’re not beating sin out but rebellion in. What else? Ah. Yes. Folk are angry about the defiling of the Maiden Shrines and the treatment of the Keepers. The Keeper in Sadnaji was quite old, she taught most of us our letters and the chants, delivered a good many of the babies the past fifty years. She disappeared after the Guards led her out of the Shrine and took her to the House of Repentance. One rumor is the Agli had her whipped to death. Other rumors say worse. It doesn’t sit well in the bellies of our folk, even some of the Followers. Um. Floarin’s levies are making trouble for her; she’s taken half the men off the tars to fight in that army of hers. A lot of the men don’t want to go, but what can they do? The tithing is another thing. She’s starting to dip into the seed grain. Lot of folk going to starve that shouldn’t need to.
RANE: Any resistance organized?
HAL: Getting there. Tesc Gradin has sent some young ties down from the mountains to sound things out, his son too, good lad from what I’ve heard. There was some resentment of his attacks on the tithe wagons, but he’s defused this by sending young Teras Gradin around with some of the grain he took and promising more. Rumor says he’s defied the more conservative outcast taroms and brought ties into the governing council of that Haven. When they heard that, my ties got a fire under their skins. There’s a lot of talk about after the war, how things are going to be different. I only get snippets of that, they won’t talk much around me, well, can you blame them? And there’s Hern. (The words are a question, there is a hint of a twinkle in Hal’s faded brown eyes.) A clever man, they say. There’s almost as much talk about Hern as there is about Tesc. Though I might just be hearing more of that. There’s a large reservoir of good will for the Heslins. I’ve heard men say he’s a lazy layabout too keen on women, almost fond talk as if they admire his weaknesses as much as his strengths; it’s as if he belongs to them. They tell stories about his skill with a sword and what a fox he is at settling disputes. Funny, a lot of stories I haven’t heard for years are surfacing again. How he got the truth out of twisty Jagger; the time he settled that marriage business at Cantintar; how he led a decset of guards after that rogue band that was burning tars, backed them into a corner and whipped them though they had five times his fighters. (He chuckles.) First time I heard the story, there were only a dozen raiders. Now there’s fifty. By the time Hern returns (he raises a brow, his smiling eyes fix on Rane’s face) he’ll find a space waiting for him no man could possibly fill.
RANE: What about you, Hal? Any danger?
HAL: (shrugging) They’ve tolerated me so far because they see me as an amiable nothing. They’ve taken the tar from me, did you know? Anders is tarom now, good little Follower that he is.
RANE:
Does anyone suspect you’re sending information to the Biserica?
HAL: (chuckling) Oh no, my long friend. Sweet Hal lam, he’s a harmless fool. Let him potter about grinning at people, he’s entertaining now and then, cools things down sometimes. They burned my books, did you know? Took them all out and put them on a pile. Even the Keeper’s Praises, illuminated by Hanara Pan herself. Anders carried them out with his own hands and put them on the fire. (He broods at the fire, his anger so intense it was palpable; Tuli felt it powerfully.) Barbarians. They’re all barbarians. (His voice is very soft, very even, the words are flat, floating like leaves in the crackling silence.)
RANE: Hal, you don’t have to stay here. This storm will close the pass to wagons, but a man on snowshoes could get through if he had a reason to.
HAL: Oh, I think I must stay. There are still ways I can help my ties. Anders is too thick to notice when he’s being led about by the nose. (He ran a trembling hand through his silverwhite hair.) If by chance I do survive this nonsense, I’d like to live in your guesthouse and work in the Biserica Library. You might mention that to Yael-mri when you see her next.
RANE: (putting her hand over his) I will, be sure of that. Hal?
HAL: What is it, my friend?
RANE: Could you dig into your stores, get us some winter clothing? Blankets (she makes a rueful little sound, bites on her lower lip) and food; meant to get that from you anyway, grain for our macain, they’ll find little enough to eat, groundsheets, a tent, a firestriker, we’ll be sleeping out until we hit Sel-ma-Carth. It’s a lot to ask.
HAL: A lot, but not too much. It’s late. Anders and his soulmate will be sleeping the sleep of the self-justified. The attics will be dusty but deserted. Come with me. (He nods at Tulie.) The youngling should stay here. You know the bolt holes if we run into trouble. By the way, I’ve never gotten round to telling Anders about the little secrets in the walls so you needn’t fear he’ll be poking around down here. If it’s still snowing tomorrow you’d better stay. That won’t be a problem. (He gets to his feet, stretches, pats a yawn.)
