Skeen's Leap

by Clayton, Jo;

  They watched me still, not trusting my meekness, but I was free to go where I wanted as long as I stayed in the women’s quarters. They tested me, let me go outside, let me ride—as long as I kept a guard of three serfs with me. I continued to show listless and exhausted and finally they relaxed. Everyone relaxed. Yoncal patted my shoulder and told me I’d have a splendid time, Keesh’s stables were famous from Toe to Tip. Titur began teasing me about being a fine lady, wagered I’d be running the women’s quarters and making the other wives hop before the winter was out. My sisters fingered my wedding robes and were nearly slain with envy. Everyone acted like this was the finest event since lifefire was a rushlight.

  Except the Twins. Ucsi and Ishri were destined to be called Extra however well all their sisters married. They had followed Yoncal’s lead at first and treated me like he did. But they’d ridden as escort with the mums and me to too many Rudssas to have any illusions about how happy I was going to be. That was a sly move to see if the boys could attract dowered daughters in spite of their being twins. Apart they were beautiful boys, far prettier than me. Together they were a wonder to behold. But even that extraordinary beauty couldn’t overcome their bad luck in being twins. Single births ate enough of the Father’s substance and the taking of multiple wives generally meant far too many mouths around even though only one woman in three was fertile and only one woman in five could produce as many as three living children. Because twins were apt to produce more doubles they were always called as Extras and driven beyond the borders. They’d seen my misery and weren’t blinded by family needs; they’d held my head and helped the mums clean me up after that last Rudssa.

  On the day before the Asach’s escort came to fetch me, Ucsi came to my room. I was locked in, but he didn’t bother with the door; he came down the side of the house and in my window. I always had a window open at night if it wasn’t raining or snowing or freezing cold and this was a mesru-summer night, one of those in late autumn that are warm and pleasant breaks just before the snows when only the fallen leaves told you that summer was gone.

  I wasn’t asleep. My trunks were in my rooms, all packed and corded for transport. I was emptying out the smallest, the one I planned to keep in the caros with me. In place of the fripperies and cosmetics I was stowing my bow and all the shafts I’d managed to steal, male garb I’d taken from Yoncal’s winter gear, rope and knives and a frying pan, needles and thread, and everything I could think of I might need on the run. I was trying to fit it all in when Ucsi swung in and stood laughing at me.

  “I might have known,” he whispered. He hugged me and sighed with relief. “Ishri and me,” he said, keeping his voice low, “we’re due to be called Extra, he wants us out before winter comes. So we talked him into letting us represent the family at the Presentation of the Bride. Soon as that’s over, we told him, you can declare us Extra and we’ll be right on the coast. That way Keesh will have to pay our expenses, not you. He thought it was a good notion and found it hard to believe we’d managed to make that much sense. So we’re going with you. We’ll have our severance purses. He grumbled but came up with twenty gold each, so we’ve got that. I came to see if you were really so cowed as you looked and if you weren’t, to say you can come with us if you want. Might have known you’d have your own plans. You don’t have to go with us, but it’d be nice to be together a bit longer and we can take care of you, too.” He grinned at me. “Besides, you know what sort of cook Ishri is and I’m worse. You aren’t much, but you’re stads ahead of us.” I nearly swallowed my fist to keep the laughter in. I wanted to laugh and sing and shout my joy to the lifefire, but I got over that fast enough. Ucsi helped me finish packing, then we sat on the bed and planned until the dawn was red outside. He went out the window and climbed back up to Ishri who was curled up and sleeping, Ucsi told me later, calm as a mouse in his nest. I went to bed and tried to sleep. I didn’t expect to, but my body fooled me. It said enough was enough, and plunged me deep almost before my head touched the pillow.

  The escort arrived a little before noon with a huge ornate caros drawn by a matched team of biroun, black as the jet the Skirrik p2ize, their hooves and horns polished till they gleamed, the points on the horns filed so sharp they looked like they could split a thought. The Rossam bowed low and called me Lady. The Teybibi minced out and got creakily to her knees, long time since that one had bowed to anybody, knocked her head on the dirt by my toes and stayed there crouched like a great black toad until I said the words that let her labor to her feet. Honors. Hah! I didn’t need anyone to tell me just how little those honors meant. All this poshness, all this ritual were meant to show off his possessions and his rank. I was a part of those possessions now, or as good as, and took on the glow of their glory. The mums pulled the traveling biseh over my head, a kind of roomy sack with eyeholes, then all of them hugged me. I could feel them shaking, and hear from their breathing that they were crying. Well, they were the only family I had, so I hugged them back and whispered not to worry, I was all right, look how well he treats me already. They said nothing, knowing as well as I did how little all that meant. But they patted me and got me settled in the caros and produced the ritual howls of grief as the caros started moving.

  The caros was a closed one, so I started to pull off the biseh; the mums used to let me do that when we were going to the Rudssas because if I had to wear it all the way, I’d arrive half out of my mind, sweaty and crying. I hated being bound up, and the biseh made me feel like a netted chicken. With the gauze curtains tied down we could get light and air and no one could see in. The Teybibi, the Asach’s widowed elder sister sent to be my chaperone, screeched at me to stop that; she caught my hands and pulled them into my lap. She was strong as a bull kova. When I protested, she slapped me, the biseh muffling the blow only a little. She told me to shut my mouth and behave myself if I knew how. There was anger and jealousy in her voice and hard intent. She meant to break me into obedience before we reached the Asach’s hold. I’d never met anyone like her before, I knew that by the time the day was over. She was harder than stone, more vicious than a rabid kisbya. She hurt me whenever I displeased her and she was determined to be displeased. If I was silent, she said I was sullen and stupid; if I answered her no matter how mildly, she said I was insolent. And so it went. I said she hurt me, not that she beat me, because she didn’t beat me, just pinched and slapped and twisted until I was nearly driven wild by the pain she knew how to inflict without leaving signs of her actions. She didn’t even bruise me. I got a moment alone when I bathed and looked at my body because I couldn’t believe I could hurt so much with nothing to show it, only a few reddish spots that were already fading. The Teybibi would have forbid the bath if she could, but Ucsi and Ishri had ridden ahead and bespoke it for me along with a good meal and a pot of mulled wine. And she didn’t torment me after I was in bed. If she feared any living being, it was her brother so she wasn’t going to bring me to him limp with exhaustion. When I thought of that, I turned colder than an ice-storm wind and tried not to think of it again. If the Teybibi was afraid of him, what must he be like? What.…

  We were to be on the road five days, spending the last half of the last day in an Inn near Yezram freeport. This, so the next morning I could be brought in procession to my husband-soon, clad in fine raiment, riding a milk white biro mare with obsidian horns and hooves. Keesh’s boast that a man of his years was still vigorous enough to cover a girl younger than his youngest daughter. See her and envy me.

  We reached the Inn an hour before sundown on the fifth day. Ucsi went into Yezram while Ishri stayed behind to get their traps ready and keep the Teybibi off my back.

  Late that night I clunked her on the head, tied her up, and gagged her. I felt like cutting the viper’s throat, but miserable as they were, I still had family. Bad enough to run. Father could handle that, disown us, declare all of us exile and Extra. He was planning to do that anyway to the boys, no trouble to curse me and disown me, too. But blood meant more
blood. Blood without end. Much as I wanted to pay her back for five days of torment when I didn’t dare fight back because that could ruin the escape, as much as I wanted to shame and humiliate her and bleed the acid from her veins, I could not. So I bound her into a cocoon of quilts and stuffed a dirty stocking into her mouth. Then I packed my gear in a back-carry bundle, doubled the rope around a bedpost, and climbed out the window.

  Soon as I was down Ucsi reeled in the rope and Isrhi brought round three mounts, the rest of our gear roped behind their saddles. “Your escort is sound asleep and I do mean sound; you should hear the snoring.” He grinned at me. “Uyus in their beer.”

  We rode off at a smart trot, not hurrying, we didn’t want any snoop still about to get the idea we were running from anything. The wharves were a little over a stad off. We rode through that cool quiet night, the split hooves loud on the shells put down to lay the dust; I don’t know what the others were feeling, we never got to talk about it much, but I was scared and excited and.… You talked about that leap-into-the-dark feeling, you know what was in me.

  Ucsi had bargained with the owner of a small coast-leaper that was leaving with the tide for Atsila Vana. The wiry little Baiayar took the mounts as passage payment, quite aware who they belonged to; he got them on board with a speed and efficiency that started Ishri giggling, though he contrived to keep his amusement soundless. Less than an hour later we were on our way.

  I found out later that no one discovered the Teybibi until nearly noon when someone came from the Asach to see what was holding things up. The escort was still snoring; the Teybibi was stiff as a board and so furious it was a while before she could talk, then a while when she only sputtered her rage. It was the Rossam who saw that I was gone and slapped her into coherence. And it was the Rossam who sent men galloping into Yezram to hunt for me. They found no trace of the twins and me. Those who knew anything, knew better than to say it; those who knew nothing voiced their ignorance with loud indignation. They didn’t work too hard at it, too much time had passed. Keesh raged at the Teybibi and nearly had her strangled, but did not; he didn’t quite dare take on the name of kinslayer and the curse of kinblood. He sent her into the hills to live alone in a tiny hut. His wives and daughters must have cried blessing on me for that at least. He had the escort beaten and set to work as field hands for his meanest krav-serf. He was going to cry feud with my father, but let himself be talked into waiting and when he heard my father had named us Exile and Extra, he was pacified enough to drop his war-talk. And next year he got his bride from an older but poorer family. She was small and dainty and clever enough to seem docile and rumor reached me that she led him a dance of fools before she died in childbirth. A twisted smile. As for us, our plans went awry faster than we’d imagined. The shipmaster made a good living out of the Extras he enticed onto his ship; before the land dropped below the horizon Ucsi, Ishri, and I were in a drugged sleep. Like with those Extras before us, he got our gear, our severance purses, and he sold us to slavers in the freeport at Atsila Vana. I woke in the hold of a slave ship bound for Oruda. My brothers went somewhere else. I never saw them again. A sigh.

  “Ah well, a quick and effective lesson in the way of the world. That was twenty years ago, Skeen. As you see, I’ve come a long way from Boot and Backland, long in every sense of the word.

  A BRUSH WITH DEATH HERE, A BRUSH WITH DEATH THERE, IT’S GOOD FOR YOUR CIRCULATION.

  They moved south along the Tail through brisk weather that drove the ship at spanking speeds from port to port. The flying Min twice more brought back news of ambushes; once they burned out the hopeful pirates, once the band was too big and Maggí circled wide about them; it lost her some time, but she could well afford the delay. She was delighted with the Min. So were her sailors and the passengers whether deck or cabin. The Crew had part shares in her cargo besides bits and pieces of their own; while they were more than competent fighters, they saw no urgent need to prove their skills. Chulji preened for the crew and showed off his forms with pride and delight. He was very young after all. With thoughts about promoting an alliance between him and Timka that would give the little Min a place to settle with a reasonable degree of security (and take Timka off her hands), Skeen questioned Chulji about his age and discovered he was not quite fifteen, probably about half Timka’s age. Nothing there. Timka was born older than that. Promises, promises. Why don’t you keep your mouth shut, old woman, you’ll be gnawing on your kneebones soon if you don’t watch it.

  The ports were all different and all much the same, raucous, smelly, dangerous. Some were mostly Pallah, some mostly Balayar, some Chalarosh, some Funor. Aggitj Extras in all of them and a scatter of Nagamar hiding out from shaman curses and a lacing of Skirrik earning their jet. Even a few Skirrik mining jet up in the mountains of the long curving peninsula that was the base of the Tail.

  Latun. Pallah-run. One hour after they went ashore, a Ravvayad triad struck. A spear thrown low and hard. Pegwai’s staff caught it and sent it at a wall where it hit sideways and clattered to the ground. The Ravvayad melted into the tangle of streets so fast that Chulji lost them almost immediately, though he fluttered about for several minutes trying to catch sight of them again. Two hawks larger than he came darting down from the low clouds and went after him until they saw Timka in the street. They plunged at her, but Skeen darted both as soon as they were in range and they crashed onto the cobblestones; with a hiss of rage, Timka snatched Skeen’s bootknife, bent over them and with a complicated twisting cut, dispatched them. She stood back with a look of intense satisfaction as they melted into a sort of speckled gray jelly and oozed away into the cracks between the cobble. Skeen looked from the spear to the smear on the pavement. “Shit.”

  Pegwai laughed. “Yes” he said. To Timka, he said, “Are they working together?”

  “Yes. No. What do you expect me to say?” Timka looked at the knife, wiped it on her skirt and held it out to Skeen. “Once, it’s coincidence. If it happens again, you don’t need me to tell you what that means.”

  Tevel. Chalarosh council, large Balayar minority. The Company remained on board while Maggí and the rest went ashore to do their trading. Timka was nervous, water Min swimming about the ship kept her in a continual turmoil, a mixture of fear and fury that kept her pacing round and round the rail like a claustrophobic in a closet he can’t escape. Maggí came back on board in a foul mood. She’d refused to take any Chalarosh as deckers and the touchy Chala had turned nasty about things like permits and dock fees. She left an hour later, some of the passengers having to scramble to make the boat. The water Min followed a short distance, but dropped away when the Goum Kiskar reached open water. Timka emerged from her sour mood and went to the bow to let the wind blow over her and the sun warm her.

  Two nights later half a dozen fisheagles swooped at her as she stood at the rail watching dark water slide past. She was alone, the Company was below, the Crew was busy elsewhere, the deckers were wrapped in their blankets asleep. The eagles came out of the cloud scatter, riding the brisk wind, moving at speed, giving her almost no warning before they struck. A few months back they might have got her, but she’d learned a thing or two about self-defense since she’d been traveling with Skeen. An instant was all she needed. She flung herself to one side, rolled under the shrouds where the ropes would keep the eagles off her and shouted for help. Mister Houms the Mate snatched up one of the short javelins kept ready on the quarterdeck and skewered one of the eagles, had another javelin ready, but the attackers wheeled away while the one fallen to the deck was starting to melt. Timka cought hold of the javelin’s shaft, swung the dead Min up and shook him off the point into the ocean. “Thanks,” she said when Houms came to reclaim the weapon.