by Jean Johnson
Men and beasts both might be able to outrun the flames of a grass fire, but their worldly goods would vanish in a carelessly sparked blaze. Family Tiger wasn’t the largest of the tribes by sheer numbers, but it was one of the wealthiest. The thought of losing everything, of being impoverished and losing rank and status, was not something the warlord cared to contemplate for long. He was a multerai , one of the best in Clan Cat, and everyone in Family Tiger expected Kodan to be a great leader.
Which means contemplating how to increase our wealth, he reminded himself firmly, keeping the book closed. I do need to read more of this book . . . and the others she has, none of which I know. New books are always a treat. But . . . not tonight. Tomorrow night, maybe, and her mother’s book first. Somewhere in the words this Ellet spoke, in the words the scribe faithfully wrote down, might be the key to unveiling this mystery.
Who or what were the men of this Family Mongrel? Why did they form in the first place? Where did they roam, if Zantha is all the way over to the southwest of the Plains and we’re in the southeast, nearly a month’s journey away by wagon? What happened to them after Ellet fled through the grass fire? And, most important, why have the rest of us never heard about them?
More to the point, Kodan acknowledged, looking at the door to the bedchamber half of the house, what else can I do to reassure this Tava Ell Var that the real Shifterai are nothing like the monsters her mother describes? She is one of us by birthright, and she needs to become one of us. But I don’t dare let it be known that she’s a shapeshifter herself. Not before she understands us; not before she replaces this warped image she has of the Plains with the truth. Not if she’s to have any chance of assimilating that truth and joining our culture of her own free will.
Not just for her own sake, but for the sake of our people. If she doesn’t have the time to learn and to think about what she learns, she’ll react badly to the fame she’ll garner as a female shifter. Plus there’s that whole . . . well, I couldn’t rightfully call it shyness, he acknowledged ruefully, the corner of his mouth quirking up, but she is uncomfortable about the ways of men and women. The moment my fellow shifters realize she can change her shape, they’ll overwhelm her with their attentions . . . and if this book is what she thinks of our courtship practices, she’ll only resist all the harder.
His father snorted and shifted in his sleep, stretching out one furry, tan-and-black-striped leg. A twist of his fuzzy, feline-shaped head tucked it more comfortably in place, using his foreleg as a pillow. It made Kodan think of a similar habit he had seen in his younger brother at night, disdaining a feather-stuffed pillow for his own bicep.
Kenyen teased me about wanting to court her . . . She’s spirited, and not unattractive, Kodan acknowledged. I definitely find her fascinating, though I’m not sure how much of it has to do with her for herself, or simply my curiosity about when she first realized she could shift her shape, or even how she managed her first successful shift, to have rolled through those different shapes so easily during that battle the other day. We encourage one another and offer all manner of suggestions and exercises to our young shapeshifters, but then, we know from past experience what to look for and how to make it work. I don’t know how she managed on her own, here in another country . . .
I think I will use the excuse of courting her to get to know her better, Kodan decided, still staring at the door. I do need to gain her trust, to convince her of the true Shifterai way, and to prepare her for the mass of men who will want to court her, once her powers are known.
He tried not to think of why so many Shifterai men would want to court her. Of how the rare shapeshifting woman was considered the most attractive kind of all, mutable, changing, strong-willed, fascinating . . . He certainly didn’t think of how rare it was for him to show interest in any particular woman; multerai were encouraged to take their time picking the right woman to be their wife, because multerai automatically had a seat on the Shifter Council, and it was encouraged for them to wed the sort of strong, intelligent, thoughtful woman that was often asked to join the Sister Council.
A foreign-raised woman was not the sort usually considered as prime material for the Sister Council, he knew. Outlanders didn’t always adapt to the ways of the Shifterai. Which means I’ll have to do my best to instruct Tava in the subtle, instinctive ways of my people, so that she’ll be an asset rather than a burden, at least until I can get her to the priesthood for training in our ways . . . which brings me back to winning her trust, even in the face of the ugly facts written down in this book.
A book whose facts were very ugly, based on the little he had managed to skim through so far. Deciding to pack it into his own saddlebags, Kodan shed his clothes and shifted into the shape of a small reed-cat, the wild equivalent of a housecat. Quietly, he made the short leap from the floor to the bench, and then to the tabletop. Curling up on the book cover, he tucked his head next to his feet and closed his eyes, determined to sleep.
Lumber for lumber would probably be a good trade, he thought as his body gradually relaxed. They burned some of our wood, so we take away some of theirs. The City is always willing to pay well for good, long, straight timber, whether it’s to maintain the various buildings, to split into geome staves, or to turn into useful objects by various craftsmen . . .
It felt strange to wake up well after dawn to the sound of strange voices and unfamiliar footsteps in the front room. At first the noises from the other half of the house confused her; Tava knew she had to rise and milk the goats, though she wasn’t quite sure what time it was. The sight of the sheet draped over the window at the head of her bed equally befuddled her, until the events of the night came back. Cheeks flushing, heart racing, she struggled with the turmoils of yesterday.
Some of her doubts from last night remained. It was more about caution than fear or skepticism, though she felt those emotions, too. Regardless, Tava knew she couldn’t lie in bed all day. I’m not a little girl anymore, hiding under the bedcovers when a storm rolls through. I have to make my way in the world. And . . . it’s hard to believe, given all that I thought I knew, but I owe these shapechangers a debt of gratitude. Without them, I’d be fighting the Alders to salvage even a scrap of my own things.
Of course, to keep those things, I’ll have to go with them onto the Plains. It was an ironic thought. Kept in the village as a servant, or dragged onto the Plains as a . . . a . . . What will they expect of me? Tava wondered, rising and changing out of her nightdress.
She grimaced at the sight of the gown laid out for her, her second-best with its full skirts, bell sleeves, and carefully stitched zigzags of blue and green on a field of brown, meant to be worn to River festivals. Not what she would have chosen to wear on a journey, but her clothes chest wasn’t even in the room anymore.
What will they expect me to do on the Plains? Cook for them? Clean? I know they live in tents since Mother’s book described them as nomads, so what am I supposed to do, sweep the grass? Not that there would be grass as a floor for long, she knew. It was now mid-harvest season, still warm during the days, but increasingly cold at night. Mother’s book said they lived in caves in the winter, and it was always bitterly cold, with the men going around covered in so much fur that they looked like man-headed beasts.
I’m not sure I’d care to live in a cramped tent like my father and I used, traveling from village to village, nor would I care for a life spent herding animals all day . . . but I think I’d like living in a cave even less. The only caves she knew of were the muddy, undercut kind found on the steeper banks of the Morning River, and some narrow, boulder-tumbled niches on the foothills flanking the western edge of the Valley. Neither appealed to her. Not to mention, these outlanders seem to know how to read; if they know how to read, they might know how to write, and where would be the need for a scribe’s services then? What do they expect me to do, living for a year among them?
She missed her father. The voices of the men talking in the front room were the wrong vo
ices. They talked too quickly, laughed too boldly, trod too firmly on the floorboards of her home. Lacing her boots in place, she knew she couldn’t dawdle any longer. Crossing to the door, she lifted the latch and pulled the heavy panel open.
She recognized the warlord’s brother, and vaguely remembered his name from yesterday. Kenyen, that was it. The father was Siinar, and Kenyen looked a bit more like him than his older brother did, with darker brown eyes and a narrower face. With him was the youngest of the warband, the one who stuttered. Both men were seated at the table.
They broke off their conversation as soon as the stutterer spotted her and ceased talking. He fumbled his way off the bench and started toward her, then backtracked and snatched up a small clutch of wildflowers. Swallowing at least three times, he licked his lips, opened his mouth, closed it, started all over again, then finally managed to speak.
“F-F-For y-y-you. Pr-Pr . . . Lovely f-flowers for a l-l-l—”
A hand whapped him on the back of his head. Not hard, though the youth did flinch from the blow. “You’re not supposed to court her until she’s been through her initiation days—don’t mind Torei,” Kenyen added to Tava, giving her a charming smile. “He’s still young.”
“You’re n-n-not that old, yours-s-self!” the younger shifter argued.
“But I’m less impetuous and more mindful of the rules,” Kenyen pointed out.
The front door opened, and one of the older men leaned into the cottage. “Quit arguing and serve her the last of breakfast. Kodan wants us on our way within the hour.”
Manolo; that was his name. Tava tried to memorize it, and the name of the stuttering youth, since it seemed she would be going with them to the Plains. At least for a while, providing they didn’t try to harm her. She hadn’t been jesting yesterday on the path; she would hit back, if anyone tried to hurt her. She would hit them hard enough to buy the time she needed for an escape at the very least.
But they didn’t hurt her. Torei hurried toward the kitchen area, which Tava abruptly realized had been stripped bare of everything but a kettle, a bowl, a spoon, a pitcher, a cup, and a cloth-draped plate. Even the iron poker used to stir the fire under the soapstone cooking shelf that spanned the hearth was gone, though a stick with a charred end rested against the hearthstones.
There were no wooden barrels stuffed with salted or smoked meats, no strings strung across the ceiling between the rafters, nor sign of the herbs that had been drying upon them, no crates holding the bags of grain she took to the mill for grinding into flour. Not even a rag to wipe the counter had been left, nor a broom to sweep the floor, and only a few sticks of kindling remained in the wood box built next to the hearth.
Kenyen touched her elbow, making Tava start, but he merely smiled and gestured toward the chair he had been occupying. The table normally had two chairs and two longish benches, the chairs at the short ends, the benches along the sides. Varamon had sometimes entertained the other Alders of the village and had attempted to teach some of the ways of reading and writing to the other children, though most of them hadn’t the patience or the aptitude for such learning. But one of the chairs and one of the benches were no longer there, nor was her father’s book chest, his writing table, the tanning frame for the parchment, the pulping tub and costly silk screens for making paper—anything that had stood on the scribal half of the front room was now gone, just as almost everything was gone from the kitchen half.
The cottage looked rather bare and forlorn without any of those things. Tava glanced at the stout log angled in the corner, cut with steps that led up to the trapdoor of the attic. The hinged planks had been left open, making her wonder if there was even so much as a single dried pea left up there, if everything downstairs was so bare. She had culled and dried those peas herself, along with beans and other foods, and waited only for the rains of autumn to finish softening the ground so that she could dig out the late-harvest roots still waiting in the garden.
Torei laid a bowl of porridge thickened with eggs in front of her, a cup of goat’s milk poured from the pitcher, and the covered plate, which held raw, scrubbed carrots arranged around slices of an odd flatbread covered in melted cheese. The porridge and the plate were both warm from sitting on the cooking shelf, but the milk was cold enough to let her know it had been at least an hour since the nannies had been milked, if not longer.
While she ate, both Kenyen and Torei had vanished into the back room. They came out a short while later carrying her mattress between them, stuffed with duck feathers and thus bulky and awkward, but they didn’t seem to have much trouble navigating it over to the far end of the table. They came back for the straw-stuffed tick and carried that out the front door, then returned for the feather mattress. Then reentered the house for her pillows and bedding, including the linen sheets that had been draped over the shutters. Tava thought she saw a corner of her nightdress, tucked into the stack of blankets and sheets, but the young shifter moved quickly on his journey outside, barely even taking a moment to give her a shy smile.
He’s not supposed to court me yet? Tava wondered. Not until I’ve been through my “initiation” days? Mother’s captors didn’t even wait to drag her onto the Plains before they forced themselves on her. How different are these people, if they have such clearly defined rules about when a young man could start paying court to a woman?
Kenyen came back, only to pick up the pitcher and drink straight from the lip. He caught her staring at him and quickly lowered the container, grinning unrepentantly. “What? It has to be washed, and if it’s to be washed, it has to be emptied first, right?”
Bemused, she watched the warlord’s younger brother drink the milk to the last drop, before picking up the porridge kettle as well, carrying both outside. The emptiness of the house reminded her that he would no doubt come back for the spoon, bowl, cup, and plate. Kenyen and Torei both came back as she finished; seeing that she was done, Kenyen took the dishes from her and carried them outside. Torei had brought in a pair of buckets and began carefully pouring water over the fire, gradually dousing the embers and flames. Reminding her of last night’s events.
Drawn by her curiosity, Tava exited as well. She wanted to see how much damage the fire had done. Instead, she found herself stopping at the top of the porch steps.
The grassy field in front of the house was filled with wagons, carts, and horses. There were the three wagons the Shifterai had come with, the trader-wagon, her own cart and horse, plus the wagons they had bartered out of the Alders yesterday . . . and four more wains hitched with horses she recognized from the village, all of them packed with baskets, cages, bags, and arches made from willow withes on the topmost layers, and lumber down below. A handful of the shapeshifters was stretching lengths of cloth for covering over the arches, securing their contents against possible rain, using sturdy, oiled tarp-cloth on the uppermost sections where the rain would strike heaviest, and more colorful, less durable blankets and sheets down the sides.
It looked like a cross between a harvest-faire and a caravan had sprung up in her yard overnight. Slowly descending the steps, she glanced off to the side, toward her vegetable garden. Two dog-sized, striped, gray-furred shapes were digging in the dirt with zeal, followed by a third figure, that of a man who stooped and scooped things into the loose-woven basket balanced on his hip. It wasn’t until he carried it back to the nearest cart that she saw it was filled with roots.
That means those overgrown badgers in my garden are actually a pair of Shifterai . . . no doubt using the most efficient form they have available for digging in the dry-packed ground. But where did these wagons come from? There aren’t that many wagons to spare in the village! That was the point of yesterday’s negotiations, after all.
The angle of the sun shining down through the drifting clouds told her she had slept quite late. And quite solidly, to not have heard the noise of all these wagons being assembled and loaded or the things in the house being removed. Tava wanted to ask questions about all t
hese things, but wasn’t sure how these Shifterai men would take her inquisitiveness. The men of the village put up with it to a point, but only to a point; even Tava’s own father had displayed some annoyance at too many questions over the years, though he had been more patient about answering her curiosity than most Mornai men would have been.
“Ex-xcuse m-me,” Torei muttered, detouring around her to hurry down the steps, buckets in hand.
Tava followed, descending slowly to the ground. A glance over her shoulder showed the space under the stilt-raised house had also been gleaned for worldly goods, though not much had been taken. Like most Mornai houses, the place underneath was more used for tossing broken objects in need of repair than for storing anything valuable, in case a flood came along. The River didn’t reach this high very often, but it wasn’t unknown.
This, however, was confusing. Too mysterious. Unable to stand the pressure of her curiosity regarding the extra wains, Tava hurried toward the shifter Manolo as soon as she spotted him. Torei might have done, if it weren’t for his stutter. It would make answering her many questions awkward, even difficult for the tongue-twisted youth. Thankfully, the older shapeshifter gave her his attention politely when she approached, with no sign of impatience at being interrupted while loading wicker cages onto one of the wagons, cages filled with the quietly quacking, bobbing bodies of her ducks.
“Yes?” he asked, settling the cage in his hands on top of the bartered planks of lumber.
“Erm, these wagons . . . where did the extra ones come from?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t too demanding a question. The men of the village hated it when women said things that sounded like demands.
