by Clayton, Jo;
Serroi frowned down at her toes, resisting the urging of his hand. All the small rebellions of the long journey came together in her at the sight of that dimly lit wormhole. Knowing she would be punished, having rebelled and been punished for it countless times before, struggling against the torments her older brothers and sisters inflicted on her, rejecting their instinctive attempts to break her spirit and turn her to something less even than the animals they at least tended with some care, she snatched her hand from the Noris, scowled up at him. “My name is Serroi.”
THE WOMAN: III
Serroi gasped out of her troubled sleep and sat up. “Maiden bless,” she groaned, clutching at her throbbing head. When the pain steadied to a dull ache, she flung the quilt aside and drew her knees up, sitting in the cool darkness of the pre-dawn morning, struggling to come to terms with the forces contending within her.
No more running. She pressed her fingers against her eyes, feeling the familiar wall of resistance rising in front of her. No more. Feet won’t go no more. She pulled her hands down and smiled at her toes, wriggled them, then sighed, her brief flash of humor subsiding. Staring at the crumpled quilts beyond her feet she saw in her mind the Valley of the Biserica, her Golden Valley, the place of peace she sought for and fought for and suffered for. Fifteen years. After fifteen years he should be cleaned from my blood. I was surprised, that has to be it. I didn’t have time to prepare for the fight.
With a groan and a yawn she stretched her torso up as far as she could, then bent forward until her forehead touched knees still trying to shake. When she straightened, she stripped the case off the small hard pillow and rubbed it over her sweaty body, the coarse fabric scratching at her skin, stirring her blood. After she finished, she sat quietly, elbows on her knees, hands cupped over her eyes. I have to go back. I have to find Tayyan if she’s still alive. I have to warn Domnor Hern about his number two’s plotting against him, the lovely Lybor. Wonder if he’ll believe me. He has to know what she’s like—but if he does, why the hell did he marry her? Or Floarin, for that matter. Tall and beautiful and gloriously blonde. Why do I bother asking? Both of them near a head taller than him. What’s he trying to prove? Doesn’t he know how ridiculous he looks beside either of them, little fat man prancing along beside golden goddesses? She scowled. Though I’ve seen a look in his eyes sometimes—he’s laughing at himself or us or the whole damn world. I don’t know. She stopped a moment. I should have known I couldn’t just run off. All that wine and I still had nightmares. I suppose I’ll have to face my Noris someday if I’m ever to win free of him. She grimaced; she wasn’t ready to face the great nightmare in her life, perhaps she never would be—though she didn’t care for that thought.
The darkness was greying with the dawn; she stretched out again and lay scratching at her stomach and staring up at massive rafter beams as their outlines slowly sharpened, wondering just how she was going to get back into Oras. The Plaz-guards would be on the watch for her and the Norid.… She grimaced again then forced herself to remember him. He wasn’t much, only a Norid, a street-Nor, capable of a few cheap tricks, selling false gold and charming quartz to fool jewelers. Not like … no, I won’t think of him. She winced away from the face that had haunted her for the past fifteen years. Calling up demons. That’s what he promised Morescad. Him? He wouldn’t dare try it unless he had backing. Backing Morescad and Lybor couldn’t know about or they wouldn’t have gone near him. She frowned as she recalled more details of the scene in the secret room. Lybor’s nurse. She had the circled flame embroidered on her sleeve. The Sons of the Flame. Are they involved in this? Connected with the Nearga-nor. Can’t be. They rant against the Norim almost as virulently as they do against the Maiden. She chewed on her lip. This is all speculation. I need more information. Still, Yael-mri should know what we saw. Another reason for getting back into Oras. Coperic’s birds. But how … how … how … if they’re looking for me, if the Nearga-nor goes after me? Or Ser Noris. She whispered his name into the grey morning. “Ser Noris. Why am I alive?” Tears flooded her eyes. “Why did you let me live?” This was a question she’d asked a hundred times before and as before she got no answer. Rubbing impatiently at her eyes, she rolled over and slid off the bed.
Her feet made soft slipping sounds over the pole floor as she walked back and forth, back and forth, hearing the noises of the stirring family on the sleeping platform on the other side of the flimsy wall. The wide low bed behind her was the Intii’s own. He’d moved his woman and himself out to join the immediate family who slept on pallets rolled out on a wide platform jutting out over the single large room of the great hall. Other dependents slept below, anywhere they could find space to spread their bedding. Though she was grateful enough for the privacy she suspected it wasn’t so much a matter of courtesy as it was a protecting of the people from the corrupting presence of an outsider. She stretched again, did a few quick bends and twists, then started dressing.
The sky was reddening in the east when she stepped into the street but the village was still dark and quiet, though most of the halls had lines of yellow light around doors and shutters. As she moved slowly along past the big square buildings built of white chalk and red sandstone, she caught glimpses of fisher vassals milking the varcam and feeding other stock, of the sheds and pens and corrals tucked in between the halls and the wall. She heard a grunt just behind her and wheeled to see a posser amble past her, cross the street and lean into a housewall, rasping its stiff bristles against the soft white stone. More of the squat shadows loomed up beside her and crunched past. Apparently the fishers turned their posserim loose to forage outside the walls where they rooted among the grasses for tubers and dug small rodents out of their nests.
She moved slowly toward the open gate; after last night’s violence the peace and the simplicity of the dawn was almost disconcerting. Even the sky with its faded stars and the rags of last night’s storm was tranquil. Then she saw the dark heads thrusting out the tower windows, turned toward the mountains. Life was going on as usual, but the Intii was taking no chances on a sneak attack.
Torches lit the dark forms of men working about the boats, turning them upright, sliding them into the water, stepping the masts. When they spoke, which they did seldom, their voices echoed hollowly over the water. Their shadows jerked and wavered over the grass and mud.
Serroi leaned against a massive gatepost sunk halfway into a groove in the chalk wall while more posserim trotted past her. She watched the busy men getting ready to ride the retreating tide out to sea and felt a restlessness that had little to do with her nervous apprehension about returning to Oras. She fidgeted a while longer then followed the posserim along the wall, walking out onto the grassland. The sun was showing layer on layer of transparent color as it came from behind the jagged peaks of the Earth’s Teeth. The forests carpeting the lower hills began to emerge from the smoky shadow still clinging to the earth.
“You’ll be crossing the mountains?”
The voice behind her startled her; she wheeled. The Intii had left the laboring men and come up so quietly behind her she hadn’t heard a whisper of sound. She looked into the wrinkled mask. “Yes.” The word trailed out as she tried to read him and determine how much she should say. It seemed safer to lie; no matter how little contact the scattered fisher villages had with outsiders and each other, accidents still happened. A hundred eyes—a thousand—might be looking for her, searching every shadow for her traces. In an odd way I’m safest going back to the city. That’s the last place they’d look for me. “I’ll be taking the Highroad south to the Biserica,” she said.
The Intii looked from the village walls to the dark smudges on the grass where the dead raiders lay still unburied. “The Kapperim will be waiting for you.” He pointed at the trees. “You won’t see them. One or two at a time, they’ll be waiting for you. Never forget an injury, those animals.” His mouth stretched into a slight smile as he reached out and touched the tip of the bowstave. “Do you ever
miss with this, little meie?”
“Not often.” She watched the boats moving into the middle of the tappata. The men left behind were walking silently back toward the waking village. On the bank she could see at least half the boats still perched high above the water. “You expect the Kapperim to come back?”
He jabbed a long bony thumb at the sprawled bodies. “That bunch, they won’t be back but others’re sure to come behind them. Already had half a dozen raids hit us.” He tugged at a beard plait. “I tell you this, meie, I bear you no ill will, but better you go quick, you hear? My woman is fixing up the things you asked for. No need you going back in there.” He nodded at the village. “Fetch your macai.” He grinned suddenly and as suddenly sobered. “Lots of them to choose from.” Without more words he turned and strode off toward the gate.
A macai bonked mournfully, then strolled past her chewing at a succulent louffa, the long slim leaves dangling from the mouth jerking rhythmically and gradually shortening. Chuckling now and then, Serroi moved through the grazing macai, looking them over with an eye trained by Tayyan until she found one that pleased her.
She edged cautiously toward it, using her eye-spot to send out waves of reassurance. It watched her warily but didn’t move off, only shied a little when she rested her hand on its skinny neck. She scratched at the slick warty hide, then rested her forehead against the macai’s shoulder, the sharp dusty smell of the beast triggering memory.…
A long skinny blonde with scraped knees, a tear in her sleeve, a small bandage on her nose, Tayyan strolled into the stable, looking the macain over, her inspection accompanied by an assortment of sniffs, mostly scornful. Serroi was stroking the neck of a new hatched macai, pleased by skin striped a brilliant amber and umber and softer than new spring grass. Tayyan knelt beside her, hard blue eyes softening. She held out her scruffy hand for the colt to sniff, then settled herself beside Serroi. After a moment she edged her hand close enough to touch the quivering nose, stroked it gently until the little macai honked its treble pleasure. More moments passed in companionable silence, then Serroi and Tayyan began talking.
Tayyan’s father was mad about macai racing and shared that obsession with his daughter. She rode almost before she could walk, refused to sit meekly with the women and learn the maidenly arts her aunts struggled to teach her, escaped to the stables at every opportunity where she was treated more like a son than a daughter. But all this ended on the day they brought her father home belly down over a macai’s back, his neck broken.
Her oldest uncle moved in, a rigid man, dull and lumpish, jealous of his popular older brother, seeing slights in nearly every word. He shut her in the women’s rooms, demanded that she learn a woman’s tricks, had her beaten, beat her himself, when she defied him or sneaked away to the stables when life became too much for her. When she reached her twelfth year, her uncle betrothed her to a friend of his, thinking to rid himself of her. And so he did, though not the way he intended. She crept out one night, saddled a macai and took off for the Biserica.
Serroi sighed, rubbed the back of her hand across her nose. Humming a ragged tune, she stroked her fingers along the macai’s neck, then scratched at the folds of skin under its jaw. The beast nudged her, then butted its head against her shoulder, honking plaintively, begging for more scratching. With a shaky laugh, she complied. Then she pushed away, sighing, and swung up into the saddle.
The macai hopped about a little, but calmed immediately as she kept a firm hand on the reins and sent him toward the village. With every step she was more pleased than before with her choice. A smooth rolling gate. The saddle and halter well-crafted. Made to the measure of the small-hipped Kapperim, the saddle with its high front ledge and trapezoidal back fit her well enough. The stirrups were a little long, but that could be easily fixed. Saddlebags, lumpy now with the dead raider’s possessions, big enough to hold her own supplies. Ten days, she thought. Only ten days to Moongather. Ten days to get across the mountains and back to Oras.
By the village wall, she slipped from the macai’s back, stripped off the saddle and used the pad to scrub his skin clean of all sweat.
She was pulling at the saddle’s belly band when she heard slow steps behind her. “Set the things down by me,” she called, then grunted and jabbed her knee into the macai’s side. The beast whooshed and honked, then sucked in its stomach. She pulled the strap taut and tucked it home. When she turned, she saw a girl crouching beside a heap of gear, a ragged girl with a sullen stubborn face, big hands spread out over the waterskin on the top of the heap, fierce determination in her scowl. Her skin was several shades darker than most fishers’, though her eyes were a greenish-brown, much like the Intii’s. Her hair was long and dirty, very dark, almost black. Mixed blood, Serroi thought with a touch of sympathy. She could remember all too well how closed societies treated those among them who were different. “What is it?” Serroi asked quietly, not wanting to frighten her more than she was already, a fear that was glazing those green eyes.
The girl’s tongue traveled over dry lips. She rose slowly to her feet. About twelve, still flat-chested as a boy, she was nearly a head taller than Serroi. “The Intii sent these things and says it would be best to hurry.” She stumbled over the words, her voice hoarse and uncertain.
“Yes. I know.” Serroi took the saddlebags and shook out the Kappra’s rubbish, not bothering to see what was there. She took the bundles of food and the utensils provided by the Intii’s wife and stuffed them hastily into the bags, slapped the bags over the macai’s back, then reached for the blanket roll that the girl was holding out to her, her hands shaking badly. “Take me with you, meie,” she said rapidly. She let go of the bundle, pressed fisted hands against her chest. “I want to go to the Biserica, meie. Please?”
Serroi stared at her. Her first impulse was to refuse; she was in enough trouble without this added complication. Maiden bless, can’t I be excused this? I’d never get out of the village with her. And what do I do with her once we’re over the mountains, send her south alone? “I’m riding into a lot of trouble, child,” she said. “I can’t take you with me. You could be killed or worse.”
“Killed?” The word was low and intense. “Worse?” She shook the coarse hair out of her eyes. “Nothing could be worse than staying here. You have to take me, you have to.”
Serroi turned her back on her, started tying saddle thongs around the blanketroll. Over her shoulder she said, “You don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“I don’t care, meie.” She bent and picked up the waterskin, moving a little awkwardly, her thin body coltish, uncertain as a young macai. “Listen. My mother was raped by a Kappra and left for dead. Kappra!” She stretched her mouth into a snarl, then shook her head impatiently. “Better if she’d died. Or me. I eat the scraps after the posser and the oadats. Each time the Kapperim raid, the fishers who are killed—their families take it out on me. Meie, I’m a woman almost and there’s no one here to protect me, not even the Intii, though my mother was his own sister. I used my knee on a man this morning, I got away, but he’ll be waiting for me tonight. I don’t want to be the village whore, meie. Take me with you.”
Serroi took the waterskin from her and tied it slowly in place. “They won’t let you go.”
“I know. But I’m supposed to watch the posser and keep them out of the trees, what I thought—I’ll go away now and meet you out there, behind the knob where the Kapperin were.”
“You’ve thought this out very carefully.”
“Meie, I had to.” She glanced nervously around. “Please, I should go now, I’ve been here too long.”
“Wait a moment. There’s something I must do first.” She tapped the macai on the rump, sent it a few steps in a tight half-circle. “Start going through that junk.” She pointed to the pile of Kappran leavings on the ground. “At least you’ll look busy. There are some questions you must answer. It’s ritual. Do you understand?”
“Yes, meie.” The girl dropped on her
knees and fumbled with the bits and pieces, touching them with a determined attempt to conquer her revulsion.
“You ask to be one of the company of the Biserica?”
“I ask it, meie.” Her hands staled, began moving again.
“The way is long.” The required words came smoothly enough to Serroi though she felt little joy in speaking them. “We promise nothing.”
“I have learned to endure, meie.”
“What do you bring us?”
“Only my hands and my heart, meie. I’ll do anything, I don’t care what. To get away from here, to be someone, not an animal, I’ll do anything.”
Serroi took a deep breath. “If you join the company of meie, you must abandon the hope of children.”
“Better than being raped by whoever takes the notion. I want to rule my own life, meie.” Her body was taut as a bowstring with passion. “I want to be … I don’t know … I want to mean something.”
“Then let it be.” As the girl gathered herself, Serroi added hastily, “Don’t move yet, not for a minute. What’s your name, girl?”
