So I’m to do most of the work again, as usual. Until recently, it had been Saoirse’s mam who’d handled negotiations with the Mainlanders, coming across from the archipelago with Angus and Liam. But of late, she’d been sending Saoirse in her stead. “It’s time you started learning some of what a Banríon must do,” she’d said when Saoirse had objected. “And I’m getting too old for being out on the sea in the weather.”
“Mam said that they’d settled on two pounds for the wool and the bolts should have been ready two cycles ago,” Saoirse told Angus, and he nodded.
“Everything’s well tidy, then. Five pounds should cover all, if not more. Otherwise, enjoy yerself and be back before twelfth bell and cycle’s end.”
“And if I don’t see the two of yeh then, I’ll suppose I should be looking for yeh at Murphy’s Alehouse behind a stack of pints,” Saoirse said, then added, “Unless one or both of yeh get lucky and decides we need to stay another cycle. Because of the weather.”
Angus and Liam grinned at that. They headed off up the street; Saoirse looked at the butcher’s establishment, Hearns’ Fine Meats, next door to Fitzpatrick’s, then shrugged. “That can feckin’ wait a bit,” she muttered to herself and set off down the quay toward the Terran’s flitter.
There was no sign of any Terran anywhere around the flitter; an elderly man from Clan Stuart she encountered near the vehicle simply looked at her blandly and shrugged when she asked. “Aye, I saw the woman when she arrived, but I don’t know where she is now,” he said before turning away entirely, obviously not willing to talk more.
The Terran wasn’t in Plunkett’s either, not that Saoirse stayed that long to check all the alcoves with several blurry-faced Mainlanders staring at her over their pints. Outside, she gave a sigh, then decided she might as well walk up Cairn Hill Lane to High Street, where the weavers of Clan Bancroft had their shop.
The Bancroft Woolery had a fine view of the harbor, with Dulcia Head and the Pale Woman sitting just beyond. The town, with its few streets and lanes wandering the hillside, was laid out before her. Putting her glasses on again, Saoirse could see the Terran’s flitter as well as her Uncle Angus’ currach moored at the quay. Some of the town’s fishing vessels were just now heading out, their sides draped with nets, though they rarely fished around the archipelago or on the open sea beyond the islands—which meant that their nets were rarely full. They preferred to stay close to the mainland’s coast where they could duck into a cove or river mouth or behind a headland if the weather deteriorated, as it often did. Ever since the Great Fishing War, mainland boats stayed well away from the archipelago, as if the thought of encountering an arracht terrified them.
Saoirse shook her head at their cowardice and stupidity. “ ’Twas the sheepers taught the Mainlanders everything they know about fishing” was a well-known saying within the archipelago, usually followed by “an’ no sheeper ain’t ever caught a feckin’ fish” and laughter.
The bell over the door chimed as Saoirse entered the workshop’s small customer area, hung with samples of Clan Bancroft’s handiwork. She inhaled the scent of drying sheeper wool and heard the percussive clacking of the big floor looms working in the room beyond. A young woman about Saoirse’s age emerged from the curtained doorway to the production facility. The smile she wore vanished as she saw Saoirse in her bluefin-stained clothing. “What is it yeh want?” she asked. Her nose wrinkled as if the lingering bluefin odor bothered her.
“Clan Mullin has an order with yeh. I’m here to pick up.”
“Clan Mullin, eh? Let me check.” As the woman slid the curtain aside, Saoirse heard her call into the darkness beyond—“Auntie Aoife, there’s some stinking Inisher here . . .”—before the curtain closed behind her and the voices became too muffled to understand. Minutes passed, then finally an older woman came out, the front of her dress dotted with scraps of clinging wool and carrying three thick bolts of off-white cloth in her arms. She set the cloth on the counter, folded her arms in front of her, and looked Saoirse up and down without a smile.
“That’ll be three pounds,” she said.
“The Banríon said yeh’d agreed on two pounds.”
“Yeh wouldn’t be calling me a liar now, girl, would yeh?” The woman’s eyebrows lifted high on her forehead. “The Banríon was obviously mistaken when she told you that.”
So yer saying that me mam was the liar? Saoirse bit her lip against the rebuttal, saying nothing in response; she’d been with her mother, watching her during her own haggling sessions with the Mainlanders. “The thing none of them can stand is silence,” her mam had told her often enough. “Just stare at them and wait.”
She did that now. The woman—Auntie Aoife, she assumed—was shaking her head, shifting her weight from foot to foot as if waiting for Saoirse’s objection and counteroffer. When the silence dragged on, the woman finally huffed in exasperation. “Two pounds and fifty,” Aoife said finally. “Since the Banríon seems to have forgotten what we agreed on.”
“Two pounds,” Saoirse responded, “since the Banríon’s memory is quite excellent, as I know very well.” Saoirse took out two one-pound coins from the purse tied to her belt and placed them on the counter next to the bolts. “Or you can keep your cloth and hope you can sell it to someone else. I hear that Clan Rhydderch over in Plocton has lovely woolen cloth from their sheepers this year, and cheaper.”
Aoife gave another huff; Saoirse just looked at her for several breaths, then reached out toward the coins on the counter. “Yeh always have to be willing to walk away” was another piece of advice her mam had given her. Just as she was about to take back the coins, Aoife scowled and put her own hand over the money. “Two pounds, then, and be glad that I’m willing to take a loss. Tell the Banríon that next time we negotiate a price, she’ll need to open her purse a little wider, and we’ll put the price in writing, so we don’t have to worry about memory loss.”
Saoirse suppressed the grin that threatened and bowed her head toward the woman. “I’ll be certain to let her know, and I’ll tell her of yer generosity.”
Yeh taught me well, Mam, she thought as she walked out with the cloth.
* * *
The bolts of cloth heavy in her arms, Saoirse strode back down to the quay, hoping to reach the boat so that she could wrap the bolts in oilcloth before the rain returned. As she passed the flitter—which she realized now was a flying vehicle of some sort—still parked by Plunkett’s, she saw a strangely dressed woman emerge from the pub and approach her. The woman wore a form-fitted uniform of some material Saoirse had never seen, with a wide, thick belt around her waist and the insignia of a stylized starship above her heart. The woman’s hair was glossy black and cropped short, her skin an odd color a few shades lighter than most of the clans but touched with a hue that Saoirse couldn’t quite identify, and her eyes were of a shape that Saoirse had never glimpsed in any children of the Twenty-Eight. She was also impossibly skinny, as if she would break in half if struck hard in the stomach—Saoirse wondered if all Terrans were like her. The woman’s feet, she noticed, never quite made contact with the stones of the quay, as if there was a sliver of solidified air always between the soles of her boots and the surface. The light didn’t seem to touch her in the same way that it touched everything and everyone else. Saoirse guessed her to be 450 to 550 years old, though she wasn’t sure how reliable that guess might be.
But the woman had to be the Terran. For all Saoirse knew, she could be over a thousand.
Saoirse stopped, her arms still clutching the bolts of cloth to her chest. The Terran had halted as well. Saoirse thought she saw the woman touch her thumb to a finger of the same hand; a blue light gleamed between them briefly.
“Excuse me,” the woman said aloud. “You’re Inish, aren’t you?” Her voice was also strange, higher pitched than Saoirse expected, and with an odd lilting, heavy, and unrecognizable accent. A hand waved toward her, palm u
p, as if in invitation.
“Aye, I’m Inish and yer Terran,” Saoirse answered.
“Yes. My name’s Dr. Ichiko Aguilar—but please, just call me Ichiko.” Saoirse could see the Terran waiting for her to respond with her own name. She said nothing, just hugged the bolts of cloth tighter. “I’d love to sit down and talk with you for a bit if you have the time,” the Terran finally continued. “I’ve heard so much about the Inish and the archipelago, and I want to know more.”
“Yeh’ve heard most of it from Mainlanders, did yeh?” A nod. “I doubt many of them who talked to yeh ever came out to Great Inish or really know us a’tall,” Saoirse continued. “So what yeh heard was likely gossip, speculation, and lies. No more’n that.”
“Then I’d love for you to tell me some of the truth. If you’re willing.”
Now it was the Terran who waited, silently, as Saoirse pondered the offer. Saoirse shrugged, adjusting the bolts in her arms.
“Aye. Yeh can walk with me and talk, if yeh like,” she said to Ichiko.
The Fragrance Of Garlands And The Smoke Of Incense
MAY I ASK YOUR NAME?” Ichiko said to the Inish woman as she followed her along the quay. She tapped her thumb against her ring finger.
The Inisher glanced back. Ichiko found it difficult to assess her age: mid-to late 20s in ship-time, perhaps? Like most of the locals, she was stocky and short, her physique shaped by Canis Lupus’ higher gravity. The hair that peeked from underneath her woolen hat was straw-colored, and her eyes—though hidden behind two round circles of glass in a wire frame—were the same startling pale blue as Luciano’s, she realized. No one aboard ship wore glasses; myopia and other eyesight issues could all be fixed with a quick automated surgery, but that was an option no Lupusian had.
“My name’s Saoirse, of Clan Mullin.”
“Saoirse. That’s a lovely-sounding name,” Ichiko answered, hoping her slight pause had gone unnoticed.
“Thanks, I guess.”
Saoirse stopped at a small boat tied up on the quay. Ichiko stared at the vessel, shivering at the thought of being out on the sea in such a small and fragile-looking craft with the weather and high waves she’d witnessed here. “You came all the way from the archipelago in this?” she asked.
Saoirse laughed as she easily stepped down into the boat and opened a compartment built into the stern. “Well, I could hardly have walked, could I?” Saoirse pulled out a folded oilskin from the rear compartment, wrapped the bolts of woolen cloth she was carrying in it, then placed the bundle inside, closing the compartment door again.
Saoirse pulled herself back up on the quay, removing her glasses and cleaning them before putting them back on. “Yeh’ve never been in a boat?”
“Not for a long time, back on Earth,” Ichiko answered. “When I was a child, we lived for a time in a little village on the coast of Japan, and my father would take us out around the bay sometimes. Back then, we owned a boat easily the size of my flitter with a big, powerful inboard engine.”
“Engines fail when arms don’t,” Saoirse said vaguely. “Yeh knew who your father was? He helped to raise yeh?”
“Things are different here than they are on Earth,” Ichiko answered. “On Earth, yes, people generally know who their father is; if for some reason they don’t, a simple DNA test can identify them. And we don’t have the large extended family settlements you have with everyone cooperating to raise the children. My mother and father are married—do you know that custom?” Saoirse nodded. “Mom is Japanese, Dad is French. They’re still married, as far as I know,” Ichiko continued, smiling at Saoirse. “But your way of doing things makes more sense here than ours would, I’d think.”
“Mebbe. Is it true that yer here to look at allowing people to go back to Earth if they want?”
Ichiko could hear the eagerness in Saoirse’s voice.
“Aye, there were a few Inish who went up,” Saoirse answered. “Aulie from Clan Craig and Elspeth from Clan Mullin, who’s me Aunt Lileas’ daughter. But they were both returned to Dulcia ten cycles ago for some reason without any explanation. And right now yeh Terrans won’t even breathe our air,” Saoirse said, looking significantly at the belt around Ichiko’s waist.
“ ’Tis a shame.” Saoirse inhaled deeply, letting her breath out again with a sigh. “I can smell the brine of the sea, the odor of the bluefins we brought in with us, some lovely bread that’s baking over near the market that’s making me stomach growl with wanting it, and in the wind there’s a hint of the storm that’s coming in. What do yeh smell, Ichiko? The inside of a sealed can?”
“I smell mostly nothing,” Ichiko admitted.
“What does Earth smell like?”
Ichiko had to laugh at the question. “Earth’s a huge place. I can’t give you a quick or simple answer to that. Every place is different.”
“Then what does Japan smell like?”
Ichiko had to smile at the memories that brought back to her; she saw Saoirse smile tentatively in response. “Japan’s a pretty big place, too. But the village where I grew up was on a bay looking out at the Pacific Ocean. I can remember the smell of the sea there, and I imagine it’s probably much the same here: briny but somehow clean and pleasant. I don’t remember anyone baking bread, but rice steaming can still make my own stomach tell me that it wants some. And there was the smell of dashi—that’s a soup stock for miso and other dishes—wafting from the houses. My mother would often have dashi simmering on the stove, and its fragrance was delightful. There was a soy sauce brewery in the town, and often you could smell and almost taste the soy. And incense sticks burning for the lost loved ones in the house shrines . . .” Ichiko smiled again. “You miss so much if you can’t smell. I’m sure I’m missing a lot here as a result.”
“Japan sounds wonderful. I’d like to go there someday.”
Saoirse laughed again, and Ichiko found herself chuckling with her. It was begi
nning to rain once more, and Saoirse took off her glasses and put them in a pocket. A bell began ringing from across the harbor, up on the spine of Dulcia Head where the Pale Woman stood. Both Ichiko and Saoirse stood there counting the peals. “Low Tenth,” Saoirse said when the last one had sounded. “I still have an errand or two to get to before we leave.” Her head tilted as she looked at Ichiko. “If yeh want to come along, we might talk some more—and yeh might see how things are done here.”
* * *
As they walked further down the quay toward Market Street, Ichiko watched one of the local Dulcia fishing boats draped with nets heading out to sea, its primitive motor chugging asthmatically and puffs of dark gray smoke emerging from the chimney stack near the forward cabin. “The locals—” she began, but Saoirse interrupted.
“Yeh mean the Mainlanders. I’m also ‘local’ to this world.”
“The Mainlanders, then—they use motors in their boats, and I’ve seen some mechanized vehicles on the farms outside town as well, mixed in with the work animals you have like the capall. I understand that you don’t do the same out in the archipelago.”
“What works here doesn’t necessarily work there,” the woman answered. “That’s all.”
“Why not?”
Saoirse simply shrugged. “It’s just not done.” She pointed to a sign: Hearns’ Fine Meats. “I have to go there.”
Ichiko wanted to follow up on that comment, but she walked behind Saoirse into the shop, gawking at the carcasses split open and dangling from iron hooks behind the counter, with trays of various filets, cuts, and sausages on display under glass, all unidentifiable to her. An insect whined past Ichiko’s ear; she noticed many of its relatives snared on coils of sticky paper hung around the shop. Are those pishmires?
Amid the Crowd of Stars Page 4
