Drinker of Souls dost-1

by Jo Clayton

  He stopped by the food table, dipped a drinking bowl into the hot mulled wine and stepped back into the shadows to watch the dancers who followed him move onto the matting, their long sleeves fluttering, their gauze draperies hiding little of the lithe bodies beneath. Tari called Blackthorn and her dancers. Csermanoa wasn’t stinting his uncle. Taga smiled. Wasn’t for love, all this, Csoa the Sharp was underlining his position among the Hina merchant class; from the number of men sitting out there and the smiles painted onto their faces, he was nailing down his status with the same force he used to drive bargains.

  Tari’s flute player was a marvel, the sounds he got out of that pipe, and matched-the mood of the dance and the subtle rhythms of Tari’s body. Taga sipped at the wine, frowning thoughtfully at the way the music enhanced the appeal of the dancers. Though tradition decreed that flute music be reserved for female dancers, for the past year he’d been working with Tari’s Ladjinatuai, developing a mixture of tumbling and dance that used the flowing line of the flute music, but he hadn’t tried it in public yet. It was a daring move and required the right audience, probably one with a strong leavening of Temuengs. Much as he despised them, they weren’t so rigidly set on maintaining things the way they were. When he ventured to combine juggling and tumbling into a single presentation, he had Gerontai his master to support and defend him, but he remembered all too well how difficult it had been to win acceptance before the Tekora chanced to see him and approve. Taguiloa spent a good few days despising himself for being grateful for this recognition until his mentor-almost-father chided him out of it. We’re despised anyway by those who pay us for our skills, Gerontai said, don’t let them tell you how to see yourself. Look at the lap-dogs licking Temueng ass and running after you now that the Tekora says you’re remarkable. What does it matter that it takes a Temueng to see what you are? You know yourself, soul-son, you know you’re better than I ever was or could be. Your integrity lies in your art, not in what Hina say of you. The new things he wanted to do, though, would need a lot more than the Tekora’s approval. He was growing more and more impatient to get started but could only see one way to manage. Gather a troupe together and travel to Andurya Durat with a chance at performing before the emperor-which would give him the right to display the imperial sigil when he was working. That plan would cost an impossible sum in bribes and fees, to say nothing of general expenses. He’d need a patron and a lot of luck to have half a chance of pulling it off.

  He watched and listened a while longer, brooding over all the barriers he could see no way of surmounting, then set the bowl down and went into the sidecourt where Csermanoa had put up a paper pavilion for the players, a place to keep them away from his guests. He found Yarm in a corner with one of Tari’s maids, glanced at her to see if she was being coerced in any way, nodded to her and strolled into the alcove that served as washroom and dressingroom. After stripping the paint from his hands and face, he climbed out of his tumbling silks and pulled on a long dark robe, thrust his feet into the aged sandals he brought along when the performance would be long, complex and tiring. Knotting a narrow black sash about his waist, he walked back into the main room, stood looking around. Chinkoury the m’darjin magician and his boys in a small knot by the door, elongated blue-black figures, even the boys a head taller than Taguiloa. To one side and a little behind them a clutch of Felhiddin knife dancers, bending, stretching, testing gear, inspecting each other, chattering in their rapid guttural tongue, little brown men covered in intricate blue tattoos. He didn’t recognize them, must be new to Silili. Trust Csermanoa to get hold of something no one else had seen. Curled up in the far corner, snatching what sleep they could, six young women, more joyhouse girls than dancers, a step above ordinary joygirls, but far below the rank of courtesan, though most of them had hopes. The last to perform-in both their functions-they were expected to return to their house with more than their appearance fee, with longer-term attachments if they could manage it.

  He nodded to Chinkoury and passed out of the pavilion. He stood in shadow watching the dancers, silently applauding Tad for the gift she was wasting on those drunken coin-suckers. He watched the merchants for a moment with a contempt he usually had to hide; some were drinking and eating, a few frankly asleep, others wandering about, some watching the dancers, some with their heads together, a heavily conspiratorial air about them that suggested they either plotted new coups or told each other tales of coups past to magnify their shrewdness. Maybe one or two watched Blackthorn dancing with a pinch of appreciation and understanding of what they were seeing, the magic she was making there on the cork mats before the painted coffin. Taguiloa drew his sleeve across his face, amused and angry. I ought to know, he thought, by now I ought to know what to expect. He put anger away and watched Blackthorn end her dance, bow first to the coffin, her sleeves fluttering dangerously near the hordes of candles burning about the elaborate box, then to the audience, who woke enough to provide the expected applause, she was after all Blackthorn, the most celebrated dancer in three generations. As her maids came giggling into the audience, rattling their collecting bowls, dodging gropes, shaking heads at gross remarks but careful to smile and say nothing, Blackthorn sailed majestically into the darkness, her dancers drifting after her, the flute player weaving a slow simple tune that trailed into silence a moment after the last of the girls vanished.

  In the hush before Chinkoury was due to appear, Taguiloa heard a faint commotion from the direction of the main gate and succumbed to the curiosity that was his chief vice. He glanced quickly about, but the noisy clash of cymbals, the sprays of colored smoke and the!looming of the apprentices as they ushered their master onto the cork, all this had trapped the attention of most of the guests and servants; those still involved in conversations wouldn’t notice if old Csagalgasoa climbed out of his coffin and jigged on the lid. He slipped away and eeled into a dark corner of the public court, hidden behind a potted blackthorn that Tad had given to Csermanoa when he was one of her favored few, before she inherited her house and income from another of her lovers.

  Old Grum stopped talking and slammed the hatch shut, swung the bar and opened the wicket to let in the folk he’d been arguing with.

  A man and a woman. Not Hina. Two children, very fair. Not Hina.

  “You wait,” Grum said, “You wait here.” He jerked a third time at the bell rope then stumped off to his hutch and vanished inside.

  A broad man muscled like a hero, Panday by the look of him, not much taller than Taguiloa but wide enough to ‘ make two of him. Dark brown skin shining in the torchlight, yellow eyes, hawk’s eyes. Taguiloa grinned. Fitting, with a beak like that. Wide, rather thick-lipped mouth, good for grins or sneers. Raggedly cut black hair. Barbaric ear ornament the length of a man’s finger, a series of animal faces linked together. A shipmaster from his dress.

  The woman, tall and full of nervous energy. Attractive face for one not Hina, rather wide in the mouth with elegant cheekbones and an arrogant nose; eyebrows like swallow’s wings over large lustrous eyes. Green, he thought, though it was hard to be sure in the torchlight. A band of silk wound about her head, hiding her hair. White blouse with long loose sleeves, wide leather belt that laced in front, long loose black trousers stuffed carelessly in the tops of black boots. She wore no ornaments of any kind, had no visible weapons, but he smelled the danger that hovered round her like a powerful perfume.

  Dombro the Steward came into the court, hastened to the visitors. “Sam mang Shipmaster, you are early this year.”

  “And late this night, for which I beg your master’s pardon, but it is important I speak with him.”

  “So the Sao Csermanoa understood. He asks if you would wait in the spring garden pavilion, Shipmaster. He cannot leave his guests quite yet.”

  Taguiloa scowled at the Steward. Stiff-rumped worm. Players had to put up with a lot of sniping from him; he looked like he wanted to try his insolence on the Shipmaster but didn’t quite dare. Obviously the Panday was impo
rtant to Csermanoa. He watched the Shipmaster nod and follow the Steward, waited a while then slipped after him. He’d met many foreigners in this house. Csermanoa’s interests ranged widely; while it wasn’t according to Temueng law for a Hina to own shipping, he was a very silent partner to more than one Shipmaster, and Taga’s snooping had brought him the startling discovery that this highly respectable merchant was also a fence of considerable proportions; there was not a whisper of that in the market places around Silili and Taguiloa would have been mocked as moon-dreaming if he’d told anyone, but he was a miser with the secrets he nosed out, calling them up and fondling them when sleep eluded him.

  He ghosted through the dark paths, his senses alert; if this was something to do with the subterranean aspects of Csermanoa’s business, the merchant would be quick and drastic in the methods he used to keep his secrets to himself I should forget this and get back to the Watch, he told himself. He kept following them.

  The Steward unlocked and opened a gate in a wall, and left it open after ushering the Panday and his companions through. Taguiloa crept up to the gate after a few ragged breaths, still half-convinced he should get out of there.

  A few scrapes of feet against gravel, no talking. Dombro wouldn’t waste his breath on foreigners. Taga watched a moment more, then floated through, his feet as soundless as he could make them. He whipped into shrubbery on the far side of the gate, wishing he wore clothing more suitable for night-prowling. A moment later the Steward came back, a sour sneer on his face. He passed through the gate, slammed it shut and locked it. Trusting soul. Seshtrango send him boils on his butt.

  The pavilion was a free-standing six-sided structure large enough to contain more than one room. He circled round it till he found one window whose oiled paper was an arch of yellow light. He slid into the shaggy yews planted close to the wall, dropped into a crouch as a voice sounded above him, startling him with its nearness and clarity. At first he didn’t catch what was being said, then realized the woman was speaking Panay. Growing up wild in this polyglot port city had given him the rudiments of many tongues and he’d polished them as he grew older, because he admired his master’s command of many languages and because it was a necessity for satisfying his thirst for secrets.

  “You’re fussing about nothing, Sammo.” Her voice was husky but musical, deep enough to pass for a man’s. “I did all right in Tavisteen.”

  “Hunh.” An angry rasping sound rather like a lion’s cough. “You’re a baby, Bramble-all-thorns. Tavisteeners may think they’re the slipp’riest things under the Langareri bowl, but Silili Hina make them look like children who aren’t very bright. Hina say they’re the oldest folk and maybe its so; trying to get through their customs is like threading a maze without a pattern. And since the Temuengs took over here nothing they say or do means exactly what it seems to. It’s called survival, Bramble, Hina are very good at surviving.”

  “So am I, friend.”

  Another impatient sound from the Panday. Footsteps going away from the window, coming back, going away again. Pacing, Taguiloa thought, a baby? that woman? Wicker creaking, the whisper of silk. The woman sitting down. After a while the man joined her. “Csermanoa financed a good part of the Girl,” he said, “I’m clear of debt to him, the Girl’s all mine. It’s the other way now, he owes me. He’ll take care of you.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Baby, baby, you haven’t the least idea what the real world’s like.”

  A chuckle, warm and affectionate. “Hahl Maybe I didn’t last month, but I’ve learned a few things since.”

  “You’ve learned to tease, that’s for sure.”

  “Who says I’m teasing?”

  “Let it go, Brann. You know how I feel. Smooth your feathers and take any help that’s going. Think of your father and your brothers. If you’re killed before you get to them, what good is all you’ve done so far?”

  “You throw my own arguments at me. How can I fight that?” Silence for a while. “I’ll take a lot of killing.”

  “Lapalaulau swamp me, I wish you were a few years older.” There was an odd, strained note in the man’s voice.

  Taguiloa scowled. There was too much he didn’t know. He couldn’t catch the nuances, the feelings between the words. Crouched outside in the darkness, he could hear the strong currents of affection passing between them, such shared understanding they didn’t have to say any of those things he wanted to know. He flushed with envy. Not even Tani Blackthorn was that close. Gerontai had loved him but he was an old man when he took an angry street boy into his home and he was a man of solitude and distances. Taga’s parents, his brothers and sisters, he lost them in a shipwreck when he was five; he clung to a bit of debris and was pulled out of the sea by a fisherman, brought back to live with an overworked cousin who had eight children of her own and neither missed nor mourned him when he ran away.

  “What are you going to do?” The woman’s voice. “Unload my official cargo for what I can get. See if I can get hold of more Slya ware, maybe pick up other cargo.

  Go home awhile. Careen my ship. I didn’t use half your gold in Tavisteen. You sure you don’t want it back?”

  “Very sure. What I need, the children will provide.”

  “Yeah.” Sound of wicker shifting, scrape of boots on the tile floor. “What about your father, will he work for the emperor?”

  “How can he without Tincreal’s fire? He’s spent a lifetime putting her heart into his work; what he does is more than just shaping the bowls and things. Old Lardarse…” She giggled. “Like that name? A Temueng pimush should know the worth of his emperor… Where was I? Ah. I suppose he can have my folk beaten into making something, but it won’t be Slya ware. What a fool he is. If he’d left us alone, he’d have had the pick of what we made. Now that the mountain has taken her own back, he’ll have nothing. “

  Arth Slya gone, Taga thought. He closed his eyes and cursed the Temuengs, cursed the woman, cursed himself for somehow believing there’d always be a place free from the compromises he’d made all his life, a place where artist and artisan explored their various crafts without having to pander to blind and stupid men whose only virtue was the gold in their pockets. If he understood what she was saying, Arth Slya was either dead or maimed beyond recovery.

  The Panday cleared his throat. “Come home with me, Bramble. Wait till I get my ship clean of weed and rot. Well take you up the Palachunt to Durat, sooner and safer than the land route, wait for you, take you and your folk away once you break them free.”

  Silence again. More creaks from the wicker as she shifted about, more wool moving against silk. “I’m sorry you wouldn’t love me again, Sammo. I wanted you to, you know that.”

  “Bramble, how could I? Tupping a child. I’d kill another man for doing that.”

  “I should have kept my mouth shut that time in Tavisteen, just said no and left it at that.”

  “I wish you had.”

  “I’m growing older fast.”

  “Give me a couple more years, Bramble, then maybe I’ll believe it.”

  “Slya! you’re stubborn.”

  “We’re a pair.”

  “You’re right. I’m going to stick to my first plan, Sammo. I know how you feel about the Girl and I can read a map. A dozen places on that river where the Temuengs could drop rocks or fire on you and would if they thought they had a reason. You’d all be killed and if you weren’t, you’d lose the Girl. I won’t have that, Sammo. I won’t.”

  The shadows around Taguiloa suddenly vanished and hot golden light flickered about him. He bit back a yell and jumped to his feet, meaning to get out of there as fast as he could, hoping he wasn’t already identified. His feet wouldn’t move. He tried to turn his head. It wouldn’t move. Not his head. Not a hand. Not a finger.

  He stood frozen and afraid. As abruptly as it came, the light was gone, taking with it the greater part of his fear. Whatever else had happened, he wasn’t discovered. Inside the pavilion the man a
nd woman were still talking; there were no shouts of discovery outside it. Something very strange had happened. If he fled without careful thought, likely he’d run into trouble rather than away from it. He glanced around, saw only darkness and yews, dropped to the ground and began listening again to what was happening inside.

  “I don’t want to let you go.” The Panday was walking about, his words loud then muffled.

  “I don’t want to go.” Creak of wicker as she moved restlessly on the divan. “If it weren’t my father, my brothers, my kin, if it weren’t for Slya filling me, driving me, if…

  Ill Stupid word. I can’t change what is, Sammo.”

  “You don’t even know if they’re alive now, you don’t know what will happen to them before you can get to Durat.”

  “No.” A long silence filled with the small sounds of movement. “If they aren’t alive,” the woman said suddenly, fury, frustration, fear sharp in her voice. “If they aren’t alive, I will drink the life from Abanaskranjinga and spit it to the winds.”

  “Preemalau’s bouncy tits, Brann, don’t say that, don’t even think it.”