by Jo Clayton
She sucked in a long breath. “You’re as hardheaded as Duran. All right, listen. You remember the time you and Trihan caught uncle Cynoc in your dammar trap? Remember what he made you do, bury the offal from the killing ground all that summer?” She made a sharp, impatient gesture. “Either you believe me or you don’t. Did they tell you why they’re letting some, of you out?”
He shrugged. “Said they don’t want their Hina waiting on us, we’re supposed to do for ourselves, they give us a credeen to show and keep track of what we buy. And just send out those with close kin here. They said they’d skin Duran first then Da if I run. Same with the others. First few days we had guards breathing down our necks, but they left us looser after that. I haven’t noticed anyone following us. Be easy enough to do.” He looked around the room. “This was clever, Bramble.” He grinned. “All right, I do believe you, though it’s not easy when I look at you. What have you got in mind? Breaking out won’t be that hard, but where do we go after we’re out?”
“The shipmaster who took me off Croaldhu and brought me to Silili, he’s here now, he’s going to take you down the Palachunt and back to the north end of our island. Where the smugglers come in. You know. Best not to wait, get it done fast, less chance of something disastrous happening. You get the others ready to move sometime the next five days. The children know where to find you, they can get in and out without anyone noticing them. How is Da? The children told me he’s been beaten.”
“Yeah, he wouldn’t work and he won’t take any kind of orders. He’s getting better, but not easier. Mum’s safe, alive, you’re surer’
“Uh-huh. Last time Jaril saw her, she was setting up her loom.” Brann smiled. “You know Mum; house half burned down around her, everything in a mess but as long as the roof is tight over the looms and she’s got the yarn she needs, the rest doesn’t matter.”
“I’ll tell Da that, might make him, bend a little if he has to. He can get about, if that what worries you.
“Do they ever check on you at night? Say after sundown and before dawn.”
“No. At least they haven’t up to now. They change the guards a little after sundown about the seventh hour, leave them on all night, change again about an hour after dawn. I’ve heard them grousing about the long dull duty they’re pulling.”
“Then the sooner we can get you out, the longer it’ll be before anyone notices you’re gone. Barring some ill chance.”
“Can’t leave too soon or…” He broke off as a large brown bird came swooping through the window, blurred and landed beside Brann as a slim blond child, blurred again into the Hina child who’d brought him here.
“Nose has decided he wants to be sure what you’re doing up here. He’s negotiating with the old woman now right now and in a breath or two he’ll be up peeping through the voyeur holes.” She darted to the bed and pulled the covers about, talking rapidly as she worked. “You, Cathar, get your shirt off, muss your hair, see if you can look however you look when you’ve had your ashes hauled. Brann, get that Hina face back on fast. And take those pins out of your hair. Look like you’ve been mauled about a bit, huh?” She scowled from one to the other, then marched to the table, caught up the bell, stomped to the door, leaned out and rang for the house maid. “She’ll bring tea, you should’ve rung before.”
Brann closed her eyes, sat back in the chair and concentrated. Her face and body rippled and flowed, the face and hands changing to those of a middle-aged Hina matron. She opened dark brown eyes, saw Cathar staring at her uncertainly. “I can answer any question you ask me, brother. In spite of what’s been done to me, I am Brann. You were courting Lionnis, I forgot to tell you, she’s one of the living too, remember the time Mouse and I spied on you?”
Yaril swung the door wide as the maid brought in a heavy tray with tea and cakes; she set the tray on the table, bowed, smiled at the silver bit Brann tossed to her. Yaril shut the door after her, came back to the table. “Eyes,” she murmured, “in the wall now.” She squatted by Brann’s feet, her eyes closed, a mask of indifference on her pointed face.
Cathar pulled his shirt over his head and began doing up the laces, making quite a production of it, a twinkle in his gray-green eyes. He was beginning to have fun with this business, the realization born in him that there was hope, there was a good chance he and the others would get back to the Valley, home to the slopes of Tincreal. That hope was bouncing in his walk and gleaming in his grin.
His spirits were winding up to an explosion which she hoped he would put off until he got back in the compound. She watched him scoop up the gold coin she set on the table, toss it up and catch it, grinning, then strut out of the room, watched him and wanted to run after him and hug him until he squealed. Impossible. Damn the Temuengs for making it impossible. She poured out a bowl of tea and sat staring out the window, sipping at the hot liquid, fighting an urge to cry, overwhelmed by the love she felt for her brother, realizing how lonely she’d been the past months. Even with Sammang and the crew, even with Taguiloa and Harra, even with the intimate association with the children, she felt alone; nothing could replace the feel of her folk around her, where she breathed in warmth and affection, where the space she took up was one she’d grown for herself, where she moved suspended in certainty. Not so long ago she’d been fretting about that closeness, feeling suffocated by it, now she was beginning to understand the dimensions of her loss. But she didn’t have time to brood over it. She emptied the bowl in a pair of gulps, patted her mouth delicately with the napkin from the tray, swung to face Yaril. “He was a good one, girl,” she said, making herself sound mincingly precise. “Go find me another such boy.” She reached into a box and took out another gold coin. “Hurry child, I grow… needy again.”
Silent and expressionless, Yaril took the coin and went out. Brann filled the tea bowl and sat staring out the window, sipping at the cooling liquid. Now that the room was silent and empty she thought she could hear tiny scraping sounds the spy made as he fidgeted behind the peepholes, could feel his eyes watching her.
The silence stretched out and out. The noise-in-the-wall sounds grew louder and more frequent. Then the sounds moved along the wall, very small noises that might almost be mistaken for shifts and creaks of the old house. Even when they were gone she sat without moving or changing the expression on her face, sat sipping at the tea as if she had all the time in the world. Yaril came back through the window again, a gold shimmer mixed with the gray light from outside. She flashed through the walls and came back to stand beside Brann. “He’s gone.”
“Think we convinced him?”
“Enough so he won’t probe further, not now anyway. Or he’d be outside waiting to follow you But just in case he left a friend behind, you better keep that form awhile.”
Brann grimaced.
Yaril patted her hand. “Poor baby Bramlet.”
“‘Jahr’ Brann striped off the robe, tossed it onto the bed, pulled on her tunic and trousers. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t like this place.”
THAT DAY PASSED and the night and in the late afternoon when the shadows would have been long and dark if the heavily overcast sky had let enough light trickle through, the troupe rolled out of the West Gate, their planning done, two plot lines converging, everyone nervous and wondering if the whole thing was going to come apart on them and sink them beyond recovery, on their way to Maratullik’s meslak, escorted by the slave who’d fetched Taguiloa before, this time on a lanky white mule of contrary temper whose notion of speedy travel was a slightly faster walk than usual. A pair of silent guards rode ahead of them, another pair rode behind.
Yaril was an owl circling over them, Jaril rode with Negomas on top the wagon, both boys quiet, Negomas because he was nervous and rather intimidated by the guards and the great houses white and silent and eerie in the pearly gray light, Jaril because he wanted to avoid drawing notice to himself.
Brann rode beside the bay cob, looking out over the ruffled gray water, the stubby docks wi
th their pleasure boats covered with taut canvas to keep out the rain. The street was empty, even of slaves, as the threatened rain began to mist down and the wind to blow erratically, dropping and gusting, dropping and gusting, throwing sprays of rain into her face.
The wagon rolled on and on, rumbling over the pebbled marble, the sound echoing dully from the walls, the slow clop-clip of the ironshod hooves extra loud in each drop of the wind. Taguiloa drove and Linjijan rode beside him, his flute tucked carefully away to keep it out of the rain. Linjijan stretched out on the seat, practicing his fingering along his ribs, wholly unconcerned about what was happening around him. He was restful to be with right now; Taguiloa felt the calm radiating out from him and was grateful for it as his own pulses steadied, his breathing slowed, the tightness worked out of his muscles. He couldn’t keep his dreams from taking his mind-if they made a good enough showing, if they managed to interest the Hand, they were set. Set for the court performance, the chance he’d worked so long to get. He tried not to think of Brann and her plans for this night, expelled from his mind any thought of the changechildren and what they would be doing while he danced.
Up ahead, the slave kicked the mule into a faster gait as the rain started coming down harder.
BRANN DANCED with fire, a soaring, swaying shimmering column of braided blue red gold, Jaril flowing bright, the drums heavy and sensuous in the shadows behind her, the daroud deep and sonorous, singing with and against the song of the drums. The Hand sitting in shadow watched without any sign he was responding to the music or the dance, but the adolescent Temueng males filling the benches on either side of him were stamping and whistling. Both things bothered her, the meslarlings’ raucous callow behavior and the Hand’s silence, draining the energy she needed for the dance. She owed the troupe her best, so she reached deep and deep within and drove herself to increase the power and sensuality of the dance. Negomas and Harm seemed to sense her difficulty and threw themselves into the music, making the great room throb and the Hand move in spite of himself, leaning forward, letting himself respond. And then it was over and Brann was bowing, then running into the shadows behind the screens set up to serve the players.
Taguiloa touched her shoulder. “Never better,” he whispered.
She smiled nervously. “It’s a bad crowd,” she murmured. “Stupid and arrogant.”
He nodded, touched the chime that warned Linjijan and the others to begin the music. He caught up his clubs, began his breathing exercises, listened to the music, eyes shut, running through the moves in his mind. The dance was paradoxically easier on the high rail at the inns because he didn’t have to work so hard for the clown effect.
Everything forgotten but his body and the music, he caught the cue and went wheeling out with a calculated awkwardness where he seemed always on the verge of winding himself into impossible knots and losing control of the clubs and knocking himself on the head.
AS TACUILOA FLUNG himself and the clubs about, Jaril was a shadow-colored ferret darting through the lamplit halls until he reached the outside, then a mistcrane powering up through the rain to join Yaril who was circling through the clouds waiting for him, a mistcrane herself now that the rain had turned heavy. They cut through the clouds to the far end of the lake and circled around the great shapeless pile of the Palace to the slave compound at the back.
“Guard changed yet?”
“Should have, but we better check.”
They landed on the roof of the tower, blurred and oozed through the tiles into the rafters where they hung as mottled serpents lost among the shifting shadows from the smelly oil lamp sitting in the center of a worn table. The room was empty for a few breaths, then the guards came in, stomped about shaking off the wet, using their sodden cloaks to mop faces arms and legs, then a blanket off the cot in the corner, grumbling all the time about having to nursemaid a clutch of mudheads like that, not even able to have a little fun with the women, stuck out here the rest of this stinkin night to sit and shiver in case one of those know-nothing shits tried to run.
Yaril lifted her serpent head, looked at Jaril, nodded. She blurred into a beast rather like a winged marmoset with poison fangs, then moved silently along the rafters until she was in position above one of the guards. When she heard the click from Jaril that told her he was ready, she dropped on silent wings, gliding onto her target’s shoulder and back, sinking her fangs into his neck, shoving off before he could close his hands on her, fluttering up in a steep narrow spiral as he collapsed, twitched a little, went still, his mouth open, a trace of foam on his lips. Jaril struck a second later than she did, his guard fell over hers, dead before he hit the floor.
They blurred into light smears, oozed through the roof and flew down to the gate. With a little maneuvering, they swung the bar out of its hooks, but left the gate shut for the moment so the gap wouldn’t be noticed. They filtered through the planks, then were small blond children running unwet through the rain to the living quarters.
TAGUILOA KICKED the club into the air, then hopped about holding his foot with one hand while he kept that club circling in long loops with the other, a grimace of exaggerated anguish on his face. Throwing the club higher than before, he danced back and back while the club soared, hopped closer and closer to the club abandoned on the floor, the music rising to a screech. He bumped his heel into the floorclub, wheeled into a series of vigorous back flips, landed flat on his back and caught the descending club a second before it mashed his head, waved it in triumph then let his arm fall with a loud thump that cut the music off as if with a knife. He lay there a moment, then got to his feet with a quick curl of his body, bowed and ran off the padded part of the floor into the protection of the screens.
The Hand chuckled throughout the performance, apparently deciding he approved of these players. There was more stomping from the youths, a few whistles. Taguiloa went out, bowed again, then retreated behind the screens. Negomas and. Linjijan began playing a lazy tune while Harra came behind the screen to collect her wrist hoops and finger bells. She nodded to Branco, then Taguiloa, flicked her fingers against his cheek, wriggled her shoulders, clinked her hells once to let Linjijan know she was ready, stood waiting until the music changed.
JARIL GRINNED UP at Cathar. ‘This is it. Time to go.”
“Right.” He looked over his shoulder. “Duran, go get the others,” Back to Jaril. “The guards?”
“Dead. Gate’s open. Downpour out, so there’s nobody much about. We have to get to the lake, but that shouldn’t be a problem; Yaril and me, we can take care of just about anything that pops up. All you and the rest need to do is follow us.”
“Good enough. Duran’s going to be handling one boat with me. Farra and Fann will take the other. Boats are ready?”
“Well, we wouldn’t be here now, if they weren’t.”
“Didn’t mean to insult you, just nerves.”
“Yeah. Get a good hold of ‘em, it’s a long hairy walk to the lake.”
With Uncle Idadro gagged and supported by Camm and Theras, Duran and Reanna giving their shoulders to Callim, the Arth Slyans followed Jaril out of the compound. Cathar closed the gates and put the bar in place with Garrag’s help, then joined with him to act as rear guard. Garrag was a woodcarver who’d puttered about in the workshop without doing much, telling himself he was doing it to fool the Censor who was in each day to check on them, but he was a man who couldn’t stand idleness, he had, to do something with his hands, even if it was only whittling. He’d found a short length of seasoned oak in the supply bin and shaped it into a long lethal cudgel. Though the chisels and other tools were counted and taken away every night, the Censor and his minions didn’t bother with the wood. He carried that cudgel now and walked grim-faced beside Cathar, short-sighted eyes straining through the gray sheets of rain.
They moved through the rain along a twisting service path toward the main gate, the only way out of the Palace grounds. Yaril flew ahead, scouting for them, Jaril walked point, leading t
hem through the maze of paths and shrubbery, past the stables of the dapples, past the echelons of slave quarters, into the gardens before the gate, deserted gardens with gardener and guard alike inside out of the miserable weather; even the hunting cats loosed at night were snugged away out of the wet. They came close to one of these lairs where a malouch lay dozing. Cathar and Gan-ag spun around to face the charge of the large black beast, but light streaked between them and the malouch, wound in a firesnake about the beast, sent him in a spinning tumbling yowling struggle to rid himself of the length of burn searing his hide.
He went whining off into the darkness and the light streak was once more a blue gray mistcrane flying precariously through the rainy gusts, predator eyes searching the foliage for other dangers.
HARRA STOOD POSED, listening to the whistles and applause and shouted suggestions, trying to ignore most of it. Spoiled young brats, many of them the prime sons of the meslars and magistrates here in Audurya Durat. She broke her pose, bowed and ran into the relative quiet behind the screens. “Louts,” she muttered.
Taguiloa dropped a hand on her shoulder. “They like you and want you back.”
“Hah. They’d like anything in skirts, especially if she took them off.-She grimaced, pasted a smile on her face, stepped into the light, bowed, retreated again. “You’re going to have a job getting them back, Taga; they haven’t the sense to know what they’re seeing. Godalau grant the Meslar has and does.” She stripped off the gold hoops and the finger hells, laid them on the table, stood rubbing her hands together.
Taguiloa listened to the whistles and shouts that showed little sign of tapering off, knowing all too well what he’d have to face. It was a gamble sending Harra out to dance before this herd of spoiled youth, but he needed the rest time after the comic dance. He moved away to the food table the Hand had set up for them, poured some water and drank a few sips, just enough to wet his mouth, watched as Harra drank more greedily then dipped her fingers in the water and sprinkled it across her face. Outside, Linjijan was playing a lyrical invention of his own with Negomas delicately fingering his drums to produce a soft singing accompaniment, their skill almost drowned by the noise of the watchers. Harra sighed, took up her daroud, frowned. “You want me to stay here so that won’t go on even more?”
