The Day of Their Return df-4

by Poul Anderson

  It surged in Ivar: My folk! My joy!

  And Fraina came by, scarcely clad, nestled against a middle-aged local whose own garb bespoke wealth. He looked dazed with desire.

  Ivar stopped. Beside him, abruptly, Erannath stood on hands to free his wings.

  “What goes?” Ivar cried through the racket. Like a blow to the belly, he knew. More often than not, whenever they could, nomad women did this thing.

  But not Fraina! We’re in love!

  She rippled as she walked. Light sheened off blue-black hair, red skin, tilted wide eyes, teeth between half-parted lips. A musk of femaleness surfed outward from her.

  “Let go my girl!” Ivar screamed.

  He knocked a man over in his plunge. Others voiced anger as he thrust by. His knife came forth. riven by strength and skill, that heavy blade could take off a human hand at the wrist, or go through a rib to the heart.

  The villager saw. A large person, used to command, he held firm. Though unarmed, he crouched in a stance remembered from his military training days.

  “Get away, clinkerbrain,” Fraina ordered Ivar.

  “No, you slut!” He struck her aside. She recovered too fast to fall. Whirling, he knew in bare time that he really shouldn’t kill this yokel, that she’d enticed him and—Ivar’s empty hand made a fist. He smote at the mouth. The riverdweller blocked the blow, a shock of flesh and bone, and bawled:

  “Help! Peacemen!” That was the alarm word. Small towns kept no regular police; but volunteers drilled and patrolled together, and heeded each other’s summons.

  Fraina’s fingernails raked blood from Ivar’s cheek. “You starting a riot?” she shrilled. A Haisun call followed.

  Rivermen tried to push close. Men of the Train tried to deflect them, disperse them. Oaths and shouts lifted. Scuffles broke loose.

  Mikkal of Redtop slithered through the mob, bounded toward the fight. His belt was full of daggers. “ll-krozny ya?” he barked.

  Fraina pointed at Ivar, who was backing her escort against a wagon. “Vakhabo!” And in loud Anglic: “Kill me that dog! He hit me—your sister!”

  Mikkal’s arm moved. A blade glittered past Ivar’s ear, to thunk into a panel and shiver. “Stop where you’re at,” the tineran said. “Drop your slash. Or you’re dead.”

  Ivar turned from an enemy who no longer mattered. Grief ripped through him. “But you’re my friend,” he pleaded.

  The villager struck him on the neck, kicked him when he had tumbled. Fraina warbled glee, leaped to take the fellow’s elbow, crooned of his prowess. Mikkal tossed knife after knife aloft, made a wheel of them, belled when he had the crowd’s attention: “Peace! Peace! We don’t want this stranger. We cast him out. You care to jail him? Fine, go ahead. Let’s the rest of us get on with our fun.”

  Ivar sat up. He barely noticed the aches where he had been hit, Fraina, Waybreak were lost to him. He could no more understand why than he could have understood it if he had suddenly had a heart attack.

  But a wanderer’s aliveness remained. He saw booted legs close in, and knew the watch was about to haul him off. It jagged across his awareness that then the Imperials might well see a report on him.

  His weapon lay on the ground. He snatched it and sprang erect. A war-whoop tore his throat. “Out of my way!” he yelled after, and started into the ring of men. If need be, he’d cut a road through.

  Wings cannonaded, made gusts of air, eclipsed the lamps. Erannath was aloft.

  Six meters of span roofed the throng in quills and racket. What light came through shone burnished on those feathers, those talons. Unarmed though he was, humans ducked away from scything claws, lurched from buffeting wingbones. “Hither!” Erannath whistled. “To me, Rolf Mariner! Raiharo!”

  Ivar sprang through the lane opened for him, out past tents and demon-covered wagons, into night. The aquiline shape glided low above, black athwart the Milky Way. “Head south,” hissed in darkness. “Keep near the riverbank.” The Ythrian swung by, returned for a second pass. “I will fly elsewhere, in their view, draw off pursuit, soon shake it and join you.” On the third swoop: “Later I will go to the ship which has left, and arrange passage for us. Fair winds follow you.” He banked and was gone.

  Ivar’s body settled into a lope over the fields. The rest of him knew only: Fraina. Waybreak. Forever gone? Then what’s to live for?

  Nevertheless he fled.

  XI

  After a boat, guided by Erannath, brought him aboard the Jade Gate, Ivar fell into a bunk and a twisting, nightmare-haunted sleep. He was almost glad when a gongcrash roused him a few hours later.

  He was alone in a cabin meant for four, cramped but pleasant. Hardwood deck, white-painted overhead, bulkheads lacquered in red and black, were surgically clean. Light came dimly through a brass-framed window to pick out a dresser and washbowl. Foot-thuds and voices made a cheerful clamor beneath the toning of the bronze. He didn’t know that rapid, musical language.

  I suppose I ought to go see whatever this is, he thought, somewhere in the sorrow of what he had lost. It took his entire will to put clothes on and step out the door.

  Crewfolk were bouncing everywhere around. A young man noticed him, beamed, and said, “Ahoa to you, welcome passenger,” in the singsong River dialect of Anglic.

  “What’s happenin’?” Ivar asked mechanically.

  “We say good morning to the sun. Watch, but please to stand quiet where you are.”

  He obeyed. The pre-dawn chill lashed some alertness into him and he observed his surroundings with a faint growth of interest.

  Heaven was still full of stars, but eastward turning wan. The shores, a kilometer from either side of the vessel, were low blue shadows, while the water gleamed as if burnished, except where mist went eddying. High overhead, the wings of a vulch at hover caught the first daylight. As gong and crew fell silent, an utter hush returned, not really broken by the faint pulse of engines.

  The craft was more than 50 meters in length and 20 in the beam, her timber sides high even at the waist, then at the blunt bow rising sharply in two tiers, three at the rounded stern. Two sizable deckhouses bracketed the amidships section, their roofs fancifully curved at the ends. Fore and aft of them, kingposts supported cargo booms, as well as windmills to help charge the capacitors which powered the vessel. Between reared a mast which could be set with three square sails. Ivar glimpsed Erannath on the topmost yard. He must have spent the night there, for lack of the frame which would suit him better than a bunk.

  An outsize red-and-gold flag drooped from an after staff. At the prow the gigantic image of a Fortune Guardian scowled at dangers ahead. In his left hand he bore a sword against them, in his right a lotus flower.

  There posed an old man in robe and tasseled cap, beside him a woman similarly clad though bareheaded, near them a band who wielded gong, flutes, pipas, and drum. The crew, on their knees save for what small children were held by their mothers, occupied the decks beneath.

  As light strengthened, the stillness seemed to deepen yet further, and frost on brightwork glittered like the stars.

  Then Virgil stood out of the east. Radiance shivered across waters. The ancient raised his arms and cried a brief chant, the people responded, music rollicked, everybody cheered, the ship’s business resumed.

  Ivar stretched numbed hands toward the warmth that began to flow out of indigo air. Vapors steamed away and he saw the cultivated lands roll green, a flock of beasts, an early horseman or a roadborne vehicle, turned into toys by distance. Closer were the brood of Jade Gate. A stubby tug drew a freight-laden barge, two trawlers spread their nets, and in several kayaks, each accompanied by an osel, herders kept a pod of river pigs moving along.

  For those not on watch, the first order of the day was evidently to get cleaned up. Some went below, some peeled off their clothes and dived overboard, to frisk about till they were ready to climb back on a Jacob’s ladder. Merriment loudened. It was not like tineran glee. Such japes as he heard in Anglic were gen
tle rather than stinging, laughter was more a deep clucking than a shrill peal. Whoever passed near Ivar stopped to make a slight bow and bid him welcome aboard.

  They’re civilized without bein’ rigid, strong without bein’ cruel, happy without bein’ foolish, shrewd without bein’ crooked, respectful of learnin’ and law, useful in their work, he knew dully; but they are not wild red wanderers.

  Handsome enough, of course. They averaged a bit taller than tinerans, shorter than nords, the build stocky, skin tawny, hair deep black where age had not bleached it. Heads were round, faces broad and high of cheekbones, eyes brown and slightly oblique, lips full, noses tending to flatness though beaks did occur. Only old men let beards grow, and both sexes banged their hair across the brows and bobbed it off just under the ears. Alike too was working garb, blue tunics and bell-bottomed trousers. Already now, before the frost was off, many went barefoot; and the nudity of the swimmers showed a fondness for elaborate tattoos.

  He knew more about them than he had about the nomads. It was still not much. This was his first time aboard a craft of theirs, aside from once when one which plied as far north as Nova Roma held open house. Otherwise his experience was confined to casual reading and a documentary program recorded almost a century ago.

  Nevertheless the Kuang Shih had bonds to the ruling culture of Aeneas, in a way that the tinerans did not. They furnished the principal transportation for goods, and for humans who weren’t in a hurry, along the entire lower Flone—as well as fish, flesh, and fiber taken from the river, and incidental handicrafts, exchanged for the products and energy recharges of industrial culture.

  If they held themselves aloof when ashore, it was not due to hostility. They were amply courteous in business dealings, downright cordial to passengers. It was simply that their way of life satisfied them, and had little in common with that of rooted people. The most conservative Landfolk maintained less far-reaching and deep-going blood ties—every ship and its attendants an extended family, strictly exogamous and, without making a fuss about it, moral—not to speak of faith, tradition, law, custom, arts, skills, hopes, fears altogether different.

  I dreamed Waybreak might take me in, and instead it cast me out. Jade Gate—is that her name?—will no doubt treat me kindly till we part, but I’d never imagine bein’ taken into her.

  No matter. O Fraina!

  “Sir—”

  The girl who shyly addressed him brought back the dancer, hurtfully, by her very unlikeness. Besides her race, she was younger, he guessed eight or nine, demurely garbed so that he couldn’t be sure how much her slight figure had begun to fill out. (Not that he cared.) Her features were more delicate than usual, and she bowed lower to him.

  “Your pardon, please, welcome passenger,” she said in a thin voice. “Do you care for breakfast?”

  She offered him a bowl of cereals, greens, and bits of meat cooked together, a cup of tea, a napkin, and eating utensils such as he was used to. He grew aware that crewfolk were in line at the galley entrance. A signal must have called them without his noticing through the darkness that muffled him. Most found places on deck to hunker and eat in convivial groups.

  “Why, why, thank you,” Ivar said. He wasn’t hungry, but supposed he could get the food down. It smelled spicy.

  “We have one dining saloon below, with table and benches, if you wish,” the girl told him.

  “No!” The idea of being needlessly enclosed, after desert heavens and then nights outdoors in valley summer with Fraina, sickened him.

  “Pardon, pardon.” She drew back a step. He realized he had yelled.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m in bad way. Didn’t mean to sound angry. Right here will be fine.” She smiled and set her burden down on the planks, near a bulwark against which he could rest, “Uh, my name is Iv—Rolf Mariner.”

  “This person is Jao, fourth daughter to Captain Riho Mea. She bade me to see to your comfort. Can I help you in any wise, Sir Mariner?” The child dipped her head above bridged fingertips.

  “I … well, I don’t know.” Who can help me, ever again?

  “Perhaps if I stay near you one while, show you over our ship later? You may think of something then.”

  Her cleanliness reminded him of his grime and sour sweat-smell, unkempt hair and stubbly chin. “I, uh, I should have washed before breakfast.”

  “Eat, and I will lead you to the bath, and bring what else you need to your cabin. You are our only guest this trip.” Her glance swept aloft and came aglow. “Ai, the beautiful flyer from the stars. How could I forget? Can you summon him while I fetch his food?”

  “He eats only meat, you know. Or, no, I reckon you wouldn’t. Anyhow, I’ll bet he’s already caught piece of wild game. He sees us, and he’ll come down when he wants to.”

  “If you say it, sir. May I bring my bowl, or would you rather be undisturbed?”

  “Whatever you want,” Ivar grunted. “I’m afraid I’m poor company this mornin’.”

  “Perhaps you should sleep further? My mother the captain will not press you. But she said that sometime this day she must see you and your friend, alone.”

  Passengers had quarters to themselves if and when a vessel was operating below capacity in that regard. Crew did not. Children were raised communally from birth … physically speaking. The ties between them and their parents were strong, far stronger than among tinerans, although their ultimate family was the ship as a whole. Married couples were assigned cubicles, sufficient for sleeping and a few personal possessions. Certain soundproofed cabins were available for study, meditation, or similar purposes. Aside from this, privacy of the body did not exist, save for chaplain and captain.

  The latter had two chambers near the bridge. The larger was living room, office, and whatever else she deemed necessary.

  Her husband greeted her visitors at the door, then politely excused himself. He was her third, Jao had remarked to Ivar. Born on the Celestial Peace, when quite a young girl Mea had been wedded by the usual prearrangement to a man of the Red Bird Banner. He drowned when a skiff capsized; the Flone had many treacheries. She used her inheritance in shrewd trading, garnering wealth until the second officer of the Jade Gate met her at a fleet festival and persuaded her to move in with him. He was a widower, considerably older than she; it was a marriage of convenience. But most were, among the Kuang Shih. Theirs functioned well for a number of years, efficiently combining their talents and credit accounts, incidentally producing Jao’s youngest sister. At last an artery in his brain betrayed him, and rather than linger useless he requested the Gentle Cup. Soon afterward, the captain died also, and the officers elected Riho Mea his successor. Lately she had invited Haleku Uan of the Yellow Dragon to marry her. He was about Ivar’s age.

  Jao must have read distaste on the Firstling’s countenance, for she had said quietly: “They are happy together. He is merely one carpenter, nor can she raise him higher, nor can he inherit from her except in lung-proportion to children of hers that are his too; and she is past childbearing and he knew it.”

  He thought at the time that she was defending her mother, or even her stepfather. As days passed, he came to believe she had spoken unspectacular truth. The Riverfolk had their own concept of individuality.

  To start with, what did riches mean? Those who were not content to draw their regular wage, but drove personal bargains with the Ti Shih, the Shorefolk, could obtain no more than minor luxuries for themselves; a ship had room for nothing else. Beyond that, they could simply make contributions to the floating community. That won rewards of prestige. But anybody could get the same by outstanding service or, to a lesser extent, unusual prowess or talent.

  Prestige might bring promotion. However, authority gave small chance for self-aggrandizement either, in a society which followed the same peaceful round through century after century.

  Why, then, did the people of the land think of Riverfolk as hustlers, honest but clever, courteous but ambitious? Ivar decided that these were the
personality types who dealt with the people of the land. The rest kept pretty much to themselves. And yet, that latter majority had abundant ways to express itself.

  These ideas came to him later. They did have their genesis the evening he first entered the cabin of Captain Riho.

  Sunbeams struck level, amber-hued, through the starboard windows of the main room. They sheened off a crystal on a shelf, glowed off a scroll of trees and calligraphy above. The chamber was so austerely furnished as to feel spacious. In one corner, half-hidden by a carved screen, stood a desk and a minimum of data and communications equipment. In another stood a well-filled bookcase. Near the middle of the reed matting which covered the deck was a padded, ring-shaped bench, with a low table at the center and a couple of detachable back rests for the benefit of visiting Ti Shih.

  The skipper came forward, and Ivar began changing his mind about her and her man. She was of medium height, plump yet extraordinarily light on her feet. Years had scarcely touched the snubnosed, dark-ivory face, apart from crinkles around the eyes and scattered white in the hair. Her mouth showed capacity for a huge grin. She wore the common blue tunic and trousers, zori on bare feet, fireburst tattoo on the arm which slid from its sleeve as she offered her hand. The palm was warm and callused.

  “Ahoa, welcome passengers.” Her voice verged on hoarseness. “Will you not honor me by taking seats and refreshment?” She bowed them toward the bench, and from the inner room fetched a trayful of tea, cakes, and slices of raw ichthyoid flesh. The ship lurched in a crosscurrent off a newly formed sandbar, and she came near dropping her load. She rapped out a phrase. Catching Erannath’s alert look, she translated it for him. Ivar was a little shocked. He had thought soldiers knew how to curse.