Like Calla, Deleon considered this for a moment, and then stood in the empty room and laughed. He had always liked best the plays about the cold places.
Liavek, year 3319
Paint the Meadows with Delight
By Pamela Dean
It was going to be spring in Liavek; the month of Rain was dissipating on a high wind. People became restless, or hopeful, or lunatical, as their natures dictated; and in the temples of those religions that regarded the turn of the seasons, the priests began their preparations. Three thousand miles away in Acrivain, two feet of solid snow held the countryside prisoner; and the priests of its one mad god counted—those who could count—the days until the equinox; and shrugged; and rolled the dice again.
Jehane Benedicti, who had left Acrivain for Liavek when she was six, was contemplating going back again. In pursuit of this course, she took her obligatory escort, made him put on a cape, flung a shawl over her own head, and set off to visit the best scholar and wizard of her acquaintance.
It was spring on the Street of Trees. The new needles of the cypresses poked their yellow points out along every thin green twig, and the strong bright shoots of crocus and tulip and arianis stood up everywhere, already showing slips of purple and gold and red. It had been a mild winter, even for Liavek, but surely this was more than natural. Jehane wondered what Wizard’s Row looked like. She fortified the escort, who was Tichenese and only ten, with a handful of dates, and left him sitting on a knee of the western cypress. Cinnamon looked rueful but resigned, and had stuffed three dates into his mouth before she turned to go on.
Granny Carry’s azaleas had come out madly in enormous shiny leaves, and those that flowered before the leaves were even open were covered with blazing-pink clusters of long flowers. Jehane inhaled their faint pale scent and considered the consequences of impatience. Then she shrugged and marched up the walk to the little neat house, and hit its door as hard as she could. Two brown cats leaped out of the whitegrass on her right and took up stations under the door handle.
Jehane got down on her knees and spoke to them, and received a crack on the forehead from the opening door.
“What an auspicious beginning,” said the dry, strong voice over her head. Jehane suddenly remembered that she had not been here for almost a year; not, in fact, since Nissy brought the black kitten home. She stood up, putting a hand to her forehead half in pain and half in greeting.
She was two hands taller than Granny, but it never helped in the least.
“You’re getting lines around your eyes,” said the old woman, who was not only wrinkled herself, but quite brown as well, and had been used to laugh at Isobel for worrying about her appearance. “Don’t you go near that loom,” she added. The two cats padded over the lintel and across the floor in the manner of a Tichenese procession, lacking only the bells. Jehane grinned.
“And that’s not how you’re getting them,” said Granny, standing aside. “You’d better come and tell me how.”
Sharing a long red cushion with an orange cat, with a cup of extremely strong tea growing cold between her clutching hands, Jehane arranged her family in chronological order, and told her. “Marigand’s baby died last spring,” she said, “and she’s as thin as a birch tree and never smiles.”
“Marigand?” said Granny. “I’d expect her to be carrying another one by now; she’s the only one of the lot of you with no imagination.”
“Isobel hates everybody,” said Jehane. Isobel, originally blessed with a sardonic wit and a heart like an overripe mango, never opened her mouth now except to say something hurtful. “And Livia pesters Mama and Father day and night to be allowed to go about freely like a Liavekan. She must be in love with someone unsuitable; I know the signs. And she’s braver than I was when I was her age.” And sillier. “She’s bound to do something stupid at any moment.”
Granny frowned at this analysis and said, “That child hasn’t the courage.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Jehane. “But she asks Mama every day at dinner, in exactly the same words. And smiles. And Gillo, the only one of the boys I thought had any sense, just sold his winery and took up with a group of sailors. Givanni is going to start going about with them, too; he always does what Gillo does.”
“That won’t hurt Givanni,” said the old woman, pushing an inquisitive kitten away from her teacup. “But I thought Gillo got seasick?”
“He does.” Jehane rubbed the orange cat behind the ears. “And then there’s Nissy.”
“Nerissa has always been the odd one.”
“This is more than odd. You know Floradazul—her cat—died last spring? Well, she sat up in the attic for three days; and then she went out and found the ugliest kitten in Liavek and named it Floradazul, and she acts exactly as if it were Floradazul.”
“Nothing crazy in that,” said Granny. “I gave her Floradazul, and she was a spanking-new cat.”
Granny had always been a little strange on the subject of cats. Jehane said, “Nissy wears green all the time and she’s gone all day.”
“What does your mother have to say about that?”
“Nothing,” said Jehane, “and she doesn’t say anything to Livia about going on and on when she’s been told ‘No’ once, or anything to Isobel for scolding like a tavern-keeper, or anything to Gillo for wasting all the money Father gave him for the winery.”
“That,” said Granny, “is very odd indeed. And your father?”
Their father went to political meetings every Luckday, as he had done for twenty years; but now he drank just enough beer to make him gloomy, and came home to read poetry until dawn.
“Poetry,” said Granny, actually staring. “Giliam Benedicti reading poetry?” She put her empty cup down on the floor, and the orange cat jumped out of Jehane’s lap, tipped the cup on its side, and lapped at the dregs. “Well,” said Granny, “no doubt it’ll do him good.”
“It won’t do us any good,” said Jehane, divining after a moment that Granny meant her father, not the cat. “The money is running out.” Since the rest of the exiles had gone back to Acrivain, no more money had come out of it for the Benedictis—not the income from their land, managed by one of the few revolutionaries who had not been caught or betrayed, and not the money for fomenting in Liavek any event that might be detrimental to the rulers of Acrivain. “I’m afraid,” said Jehane, “that we have all been living on Livia’s dowry this year, and we’re probably about to start on mine.”
“Just as well,” said Granny.
“Yes,” said Jehane, grimly. “There’s nobody here we could marry.”
“That wasn’t precisely what I meant. What about—”
“So that,” said Jehane, daring to interrupt her because the last thing she wanted was a lecture on the merits of marrying Liavekans, “is why I have lines around my eyes. And I think it’s Acrilat.”
“Nonsense,” said Granny, absently, as if it might be Acrilat but that was not the point. “It’s the natural perversity of the Benedictis, exacerbated by the time of year and long dwelling in an uncongenial culture. What do you mean to do about it?”
Jehane stared at her. Granny had greeted her with a variety of peculiar remarks over the years, but she had never sounded like one of Father’s history books. “Well,” she said, “I think we should go back to Acrivain.”
“You could shoot yourselves here, and save the passage money,” said Granny.
She seemed to be waiting intently for Jehane’s answer, as if hoping Jehane might be angry; but Jehane was amused.
“I don’t think I can engineer a revolution in Acrivain,” she said, “but Father could, if somebody would make him. Mama used to try. But what I have to do is to find Deleon.”
Granny stood up, scattering three tortoiseshell kittens and with them the kindliness and cheer of her expression. “When did you lose him?” she said.
Jehane closed her mouth and met, with some effort, the clear black eyes of the old woman. “Mama didn’t tell you,” she sa
id. A consciousness of ruin and betrayal was demanding her attention. She went on looking at Granny. “Eight years ago,” she said. “He ran away on his twelfth birthday.”
“The thirteenth of Flowers,” said Granny. “Did anybody look for him? Did she call the City Guard?”
“No, of course not,” said Jehane. “We looked for him, all the families.”
“Of course.” Granny sat down, and the kittens, none of whom had yet learned any dignity, bounced up into her lap again. “Maybe it is Acrilat,” she said. “I don’t think that even the proverbial foolishness of the Benedictis could quite account for this. Young woman, you came to see me in Flowers of 1310 and talked to me at some length about a young man you wished to marry. You didn’t say a word about your brother.”
They looked at one another. Granny must know perfectly well who had told Jehane not to discuss the matter. “Could you find out if it’s Acrilat?” said Jehane. “And can you read this?” She untied the cloth purse from her belt and tugged Nissy’s diary out of it. “It might help. It’s Nissy’s diary, and it’s got Leyo’s name in it.” She paged through it, looking for the first occurrence, and only slowly became aware of the quality of the silence.
• • •
“Camel-loving sons of jackals,” said Jehane, with great force. It didn’t help. Cinnamon had been teaching her to swear; but Cinnamon was Tichenese, and the Tichenese got angry slowly and deliberately. Jehane wanted something explosive to say when she was furious, not a beautiful string of elaborate and poetic insults. She turned what she had just said over in her mind, working out the logical consequences of it, and suddenly giggled. Angry people were always funny.
Except for Granny. She had not been funny in the least. Jehane dug her hands into the pockets of her skirt in just the way she had been taught not to, and clenched them fiercely over the linen. Once you thought about it, Granny was, of course, right. You didn’t keep the sudden disappearance of your little brother from somebody who over the years had taken such a kindly interest in your family; you didn’t read your sister’s diary; you certainly didn’t take your sister’s diary to somebody else to read; you did not, in short, pry or tattle or bribe or manipulate as you had been doing these twenty years, since you were six, since you came to Liavek.
You didn’t, that is, if you lived with normal or reasonable people. But Jehane did not. That was her defense, which Granny knew perfectly well already. But Jehane was accustomed not to consider this central fact, and she refused to say it to Granny. Because that was another thing you did not do. They were her family, and it was Acrilat, abandoned and furious, that had twisted them all until they were afraid to speak the truth to one another.
She should have realized that long ago. There was no provision in law or history for worshipping Acrilat across three thousand miles of ocean in a foreign city. Being accustomed to better treatment, It no doubt felt insulted; and being mad, It would fail to consider that they had been helpless in the matter. Jehane doubted that, in the fear and confusion of their abrupt flight, anybody had thought to ask a priest for advice. The priests were all crazy anyway, so one’s chances of getting a coherent answer to such a practical question were remote.
Jehane did not want to go home. She trudged grimly along the Street of Trees, Cinnamon trailing her in a sticky silence. As she came out of the shade of the last cypress and walked into the Two-Copper Bazaar, the sunlight faded.
“It’s going to rain,” said Cinnamon.
“We’d better get a foot-cab,” said Jehane, and stopped. The money was running out. “You won’t melt,” she said to Cinnamon. She needed a wizard. Father needed a wizard. Maybe that was the whole problem. A wizard could deal with Acrilat; a wizard could conquer the distance between Liavek and Acrivain; a wizard could even, perhaps, impress enough Liavekans to make an army. And a wizard could find Deleon. Granny wouldn’t help, not now; but Jehane had heard of somebody who would do anything if you paid him enough. She would find out if she had enough. She shook out her crumpled skirt.
Cinnamon was looking wary. He said, “Where are we going, Mistress?”
“To Wizard’s Row,” said Jehane. She caught the gleam in his eye, and added, “You are going to stay outside.”
“In the rain?”
“Maybe they’ll have awnings,” said Jehane, heartlessly, and quickened her pace.
It was winter on Wizard’s Row. A small rain fell slanting along the thin western wind and made new runnels in the mud. All the houses were thick and solid, sandstone or fieldstone or marble, and they were all barred and shuttered and closed tight; except for Number 17. It was solid enough, a square two-story house of yellow brick with leaded-glass windows and its number on an enameled sign by the doorway arch. But the door was ajar. From inside Jehane heard a woman sing, not quite on key.
When daisies pied and violets blue
And ladysmocks all silver-white
And cuckoobuds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight
The cuckoo then, on every tree
Mocks married men, for thus sings he.
A man’s voice joined and overrode hers. “Tu-who, Tu-whit, tu-who, a merry note.”
The song broke up in laughter. Jehane stood and looked very carefully at the sign. Number 17. Maybe this was not Wizard’s Row, but something harmless to occupy the gap left when Wizard’s Row, as was its reputed habit, was elsewhere. Well, she could ask.
“You stand under this tree,” she said to Cinnamon. He looked stricken, which was a thing he did very well. It was a very large yew tree, with a circle of dry dust around it four feet in radius. But it was chilly here, much more so than it had been outside Granny’s house. Jehane pulled off her shawl and popped it over Cinnamon’s head. “And don’t get it muddy.”
She went up the walk and tapped on the doorframe.
A tiny and exquisite woman came down a long hall lined with doors. She was such a form as Hrothvek jewelers make, her skin like copper and her hair like brass and her eyes as green as emeralds. She wore a stark white tunic and a smile like sunrise. Jehane closed her mouth and smiled back.
“Nerissa,” said the woman, on a note of pleased inquiry. Then her gaze sharpened, and she looked a great deal more like a piece of jewelry.
“I’m her sister,” said Jehane, too astonished to say more.
“You’d better come in,” said the woman. She did not sound at all like someone who had just been singing.
Jehane followed her down the long hall and out another door into a covered walk that opened on a courtyard. Grouped along the wall were a brazier of charcoal, two hammock-chairs, and a little bamboo table with a tray of tea on it. In the nearer chair lay a brown-haired man in a red robe. He sat up as they came close, and the brass bracelets he wore caught orange sparks from the brazier.
“Gogo?” he said.
“This is Mistress Benedicti,” said the brass woman, placidly. “Mistress, The Magician.”
The Magician contrived to bow without standing up. Jehane could not blame him overmuch; he had a silver kitten asleep in his lap. In the empty chair a round ginger cat was just settling itself in the warmth Gogo had presumably left. The third cat, a long brown one with blue eyes, had established itself under the brazier and tucked all its feet in so that it resembled a loaf of almost-burned bread.
“Which Benedicti are you?” said The Magician.
You could not like someone just because he kept cats. In any case, the brown one was far too thin, without being so dark that you could put its boniness down to age. Jehane said, “Jehane, my lord. How do you know my sister?”
“I suggest,” said The Magician, in a mild voice that raised the hair on Jehane’s neck, “that you ask her.”
Wizards were all alike, it seemed. It was easy for them to talk about fair dealing.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Jehane. “I’m looking for my brother. If that’s what Nissy wanted you to do, my lord, I don’t want to spend the money twice.”
The Magician opened his mouth, and the silver kitten sprang out of his lap. The ginger cat shot off its chair and disappeared into the dripping shrubbery. The brown cat unfolded itself and made a long noise suggestive of an unoiled gate. Jehane turned around to see what had prompted all this.
Nissy’s black cat, no longer the ugliest in Liavek but still very gangly and peculiar-looking, was sitting on the flagstones, her spiky fur flattened with rain. The kitten danced up to her with the happy confidence of the young, and tapped her head with a paw. Nissy’s cat took no notice.
“It’s all right, Shin,” said Gogo. “Disorder, do you want your silly ears chewed flat to your skull?”
The brown cat turned its back on them. The kitten fell over and looked expectant. The fat ginger cat stayed in the shrubbery.
“I’m sorry,” said Jehane. “I didn’t know she’d followed me. I can take her outside and give her to Cinnamon.”
“Why don’t you let me bring Cinnamon in?” said Gogo. “It’s raining.”
The Magician said, “I don’t—”
“I’ll take him to the kitchen and feed him,” said Gogo.
“He likes snails,” said Jehane.
Gogo grinned, and scooped up Nissy’s cat, who let her do it. You couldn’t like everybody a cat liked, either. The issue was not liking anyway, but trust.
“Gogo,” said The Magician. “I will never—”
“No,” said Gogo, serenely, “I don’t suppose you will.”
“Will you sit down?” said The Magician, in resigned tones.
Jehane had black cat hair on her skirt already, so she sat gingerly on the abandoned hammock.
“If you’re looking for a runaway,” said The Magician, “I suggest you inquire at the House of Responsible Life. They keep track of such things—and they don’t charge.”
“He disappeared eight years ago,” said Jehane, dubiously.
The Magician raised his eyebrows. Don’t you dare say anything, thought Jehane, with unaccustomed ferocity.
Points of Departure Page 15
