Polyphony

by Lee Benoit

  Adiún blushed. "I didn't want to make you uncomfortable."

  Matti knew it had never occurred to Adiún to do otherwise than reach inside Matti's clothes to bind the leg. "It has been a long time since anyone showed me respect."

  "How can you say that? You were respected by everyone in the troupe!"

  "As a cook, as an organizer of meals and movements. Not as a man."

  Just as he did with Devi, Adiún shut down in the face of Matti's anger.

  "How old are you, Adiún?" Matti knew it was unfair to change the subject yet again, but this was important to him.

  Adiún answered with scarcely a pause. "Nine plantings. I was born at the Lambing Moon."

  Matti nodded. His people, distant relations of Adiún's, reckoned the turning of the year in the same way. "Children among your people consecrate years to the land?"

  "Yes. Boys count every other spring planting as a gift to the spirits, and girls give every other harvest." Matti had learned this was not something every people did, and felt closer to Adiún, knowing they counted their ages similarly.

  "So do they, among mine. Eight seasons given to the land, eight counted for ourselves, and then we are made men or women. Is it so in your home?"

  "Yes. How old are you, Matti?" It was an important question among their people, and Adiún asked it with appropriate gravity.

  "I have my eight plantings plus two years since."

  "Then you are a man."

  Matti nodded, but slowly. "I had just had my final planting ceremony when I was stolen away. I was a man."

  "You are a man." Adiún insisted. "Matti, it is not something someone can cut away."

  "Most people do not understand that." They were sitting next to each other with their feet to the fire. Matti turned and Adiún opened his arms. Matti snuggled close and Adiún stroked his hair, winding the curls around his fingers. Matti drew his injured leg up and draped it over Adiún's thighs, snuggling closer still. He spoke into Adiún's neck. "There are things that will never be. I will never father a child."

  "There are many ways to be a parent, Matti." He told Matti about his own father, the mab rhi of his village, and about the story mother who had taught the craft to Devi. "It is the littlest part of a farmer's work to plant seeds," he finished, with a little laugh.

  Matti chuckled a little, too. "Or of a smith's to light a fire." He reached up and tugged loose Adiún's hair from its club at the back of his neck. He tunneled his fingers in and squeezed.

  Adiún let his head fall forward while Matti massaged his scalp. His hair slid forward, lit red in the low firelight. It covered both their faces. He continued stroking Matti's hair, murmuring endearments as he did so.

  "Such pretty curls. You should let it grow, you know. Down to your ass."

  Matti laughed softly and shook Adiún gently by the neck. "You, ma keneil, are shameless." And he tipped his face up to kiss. For long moments, their tongues curled around each other like fish in a net, and they fell asleep with their arms around each other, sharing breath.

  It was still dark when Kibi's sharp little puppy barks brought them awake.

  The moon had set, and there was not even the merest streak of dawn in the east. Matti could make out nothing, not even shadows until a denser darkness resolved itself before him. The darkness moved and resolved itself into two man-sized shapes moving to surround them. Kibi, chastened by his encounter with the wild pigs and unwilling to challenge new strangers, kept his place by Adiún's hip, but yipped and growled frantically.

  The poles on the travois rattled and Adiún stood slowly, pulling Matti up beside him. Their bows would be useless, so they didn't reach for them. Instead, both of them unsheathed their knives, dulled from the butchering, but still deadly enough. Adiún urged Matti around so he could cover his injured side. They advanced, Matti limping but quick. With an ululating shout, Adiún spun in between the two masses, further separating them. Matti kept his knife raised, but mainly used his fists and speed as he had been taught. Adiún felled one man with a heel to the sternum. The man went down with barely a grunt, and Matti kicked his head to knock him out.

  Matti whirled to attend to the other man, but saw he needn't have bothered. Adiún fought silently, but with a startling ferocity. His friend had been trained in fighting. The forms and postures Adiún used were nearly identical to his own, and Matti found Adiún's quicksilver strikes and turns were easy to predict. He moved closer to lend a hand. Adiún drove the man toward Matti, who braced himself for impact. The other man gargled a cry as Matti's sharp elbow broke his nose. With one more flying kick, Adiún laid out their opponent next to his cohort.

  Matti stood swaying.

  He reached out his hand and Adiún caught his arm. With Adiún's help, Matti limped back to their beech nest and settled there with the water skin. Kibi snuffled and licked at Matti's face and leg while Adiún tied the thieves' wrists and ankles with the last strips of his shirt.

  He saw to Matti's wound, which had opened again and was bleeding sluggishly. Matti saw to Adiún's hair, which needed plaiting into its queue and binding into its club. Adiún usually did this himself, but made no objection. Then, without saying anything, he donned his spare shirt, lashed Matti's pack and his own onto the travois, and raised the poles. He whistled for Kibi, who ignored him in favor of inspecting the unconscious men. Matti used the crutch to push himself up and clicked his tongue for the puppy, which came instantly. Adiún snorted.

  "He never comes then I call."

  Matti smirked.

  With no thought to breakfast, and with the dawn yet hours away, they started walking, casting a glance or two back at the pork thieves in the graying dawn light.

  Chapter 2

  Keoded

  The force of Devi's anger often took him by surprise since being liberated from slavery. As soon as Adiún set down the travois handles, Devi was on him, careless of what must be very sore shoulders. He squeezed hard, until he felt the heat of Adiún's skin taking the chill off his own, and then shoved, holding his love at arm's length. Adiún was back, they were together; the force of his gratitude frightened him, and he watched Adiún's face fall in a puzzled frown.

  "Calm waters, Devi," he said softly.

  Devi chuckled ruefully. The imprecations of their coastal fishing village made little sense here in the river delta, for all that water dominated the people's lives. "You never used to know what to say to settle me."

  Adiún laughed in turn, and Devi was delighted with the faint blush that tinged his cheeks, already ruddy from his efforts with his cargo. "I never used to want to calm you down, did I?" he said. "Rile you up, that was always more fun." His hand came up and caressed Devi's cheek in his rough-gentle way. "I learned much while I searched for you."

  Devi nodded. They both had.

  "I knew you might not be back last night, but waiting today, that was...difficult."

  Adiún smiled, a sad, fond tilting of lips and warming of eyes, and drew him over to the travois where Kibi lay panting.

  "It wasn't a hunting trip for the pleasure of it. It was purely...expedient." Devi understood. He was no hunter, but had sometimes accompanied Adiún back home.

  Adiún glanced between him and Matti and continued. "We had the boar to dress out," he began, spreading his hands, "and Matti and the puppy were hurt." Adiún sighed. "You were upset I was gone." He sounded almost hopeful.

  Devi suppressed a growl. "You used to take me with you when you hunted."

  "Next time you shall come with me." But Devi shook his head. Adiún was missing the point.

  "Just don't leave me behind." He knew his words were inadequate to express the wrench he'd felt at being separated from Adiún so soon after their reunion, no matter how necessary that separation had been. To show he wasn't angry, Devi reached for one of Adiún's hands and began massaging the joints, imagining they must be cramped if Adiún had pulled his burden all morning. The smile Adiún gave him then was worth any fretting he might have done, any sna
pping he'd endured from Sauda over his moping.

  Sauda squatted beside Matti, who leaned on his crutch and showed her the haul. "We'll have to salt or smoke it. It'll rot in this heat." For all it was autumn, the sun was high and warm.

  Matti nodded, and Devi noted that his and Sauda's shoulders were touching. The sight made him feel warm, almost happy, so he watched them some more while the talk turned to pork.

  While he half listened, decisions were made to smoke the pork since there was no money for salt, then sell it to travelers along the road to the city.

  The balance of the day was spent in building a fire large enough to accommodate all the meat, hauling water to fill all their pans and bowls to set in among the coals, and rigging their shelter over the fire to keep as much smoke in as possible.

  It was hard work, and Devi relished the feeling of being useful. He'd felt so useless for so long, and the last two days' waiting around had brought that home to him most painfully.

  They took turns sleeping and tending the meat, two at a time, in case any more like the men who'd attacked Adiún and Matti came along. Devi would have been hard pressed to say which pleased him more: sleeping beside his smoky, warm love, or working in company with him.

  In any event, they didn't have to figure out a way to get the meat to market.

  "Hallo at the camp!" A voice roused Devi in the early morning from where he lay curled beside Adiún. Sauda and Matti stood to attention beside the cooking tent, scowling at a lone man. Kibi stood beside them scowling and trying out his puppy growl.

  "Smelled your fire from the main road," he explained, shifting nervously from foot to foot. Devi smiled into Adiún's hair. Many people felt nervous upon first sight of Sauda.

  At the strange voice, Adiún rolled smoothly to his feet. Devi didn't think he was even awake yet.

  Devi struggled to a sitting position and watched his lover face the stranger.

  "If you're after our meat, you'll have a fight instead," Adiún said simply.

  The man had the look of the Alperai. That was the word Devi had learned from his Norvander procurers for his and Adiún's people.

  The man raised open hands in a gesture of surrender. "Peace, friend. I have come to trade, if you're willing." Devi noticed the man looked to Adiún, rather than to Matti or Sauda.

  Adiún cast quick glances at their companions, and at Devi, before giving a curt nod and turning back to the man.

  "I am Adiún, mab rhi, and I will trade with you."

  Though Devi was momentarily startled to hear his lover refer to himself as leader, his words put everyone but Sauda on familiar ground, and haggling began. After a few minutes, Adiún had secured some coin, some salt, and a blanket for a portion of the meat, and Devi had learned new information about the people streaming toward Keoded.

  The Norvanders had exploited several poor seasons' fishing and farming, and now controlled all three cities in the region. Alperai had the choice of accepting Norvander rule in exchange for new seed and supplies to tide them over to a new harvest. Many preferred to leave their homes and take their chances in the cities, where honest work could earn a man a living and dishonest work could make one rich.

  Devi watched as his companions exchanged a series of significant looks that ended with Adiún offering to sell to others the man trusted. The man departed with his share of the bargain, promising to send others to trade for meat.

  "Well bargained, Adiún!" Matti exclaimed, and Devi agreed, though he also twinged with regret that the easy affection that existed between his lover and his new friend was so elusive to him.

  For most of his life, he'd accepted it without question, and now it was an effort. His fault, Devi feared. His anger over his captivity, and his confusion upon reuniting with Adiún were enough to imbalance him, but the great cost his freedom had exacted from others, and the almost immediate disintegration of Gydha's troupe of performers, though Gydha's pardon and the other Norvanders' departure had had nothing directly to do with him, mired him in a guilt he'd failed to dissipate. He made an effort to be jolly.

  "We'll get rid of the meat faster this way, and be back in the city in no time," he said.

  By the time the sun was truly risen, small clots of travelers came and went, trading what they could. Matti charmed them, even bringing out and playing merry tunes on the prized hardan he'd cadged from Gydha when she and the other Norvanders of their troupe were pardoned for their mysterious crime and departed for home.

  "A story, Devi!" Matti called when one group decided to linger and eat some of their pork hot.

  Devi was startled. Of course Matti knew Devi had been story-son, almost fully trained. But he sounded proud of the fact, eager to listen. That, Devi hadn't expected.

  Something seized up in him. What if his time as a whore, his time as a slave, had dulled the stories, shattered their rhythm and siphoned away their strength? What if he was no longer a storyteller? That small spark of panic traveled up his spine, making him shake his head negatively. Matti looked puzzled, and, Devi thought, concerned, but he kept up his playing and patter. Devi looked away.

  Devi waited for the fearful feeling to subside before he raised his head again, only to find Adiún looking at him stricken -- no true story-father ever refused a sincere request -- and Sauda, too, a cool assessment in her bright, sloe eyes.

  Adiún kept back as much meat as they could reasonably consume themselves before it spoiled, and Matti saved all of the truffles to trade in the city where the price would be better. By the time the sun was high, they had a satisfying amount of coin, some new clothing, and sundry goods they could use or trade later.

  While Matti and Sauda broke camp, Devi and Adiún dampened the fire, pouring water and dumping dry earth over it.

  "A good morning's work," Adiún ventured.

  Devi nodded. "You were shrewd."

  "Learned it from Melle," Adiún said softly, his hand on Devi's arm.

  The sound of his sister's name cracked something in Devi, and he went unresisting into Adiún's arms. "In my heart, she's waiting at home on the coast," he whispered brokenly.

  "I wish she was," Adiún whispered back, fiercely.

  Melle had died bearing a child to Adiún's hearth, though none could know who fathered the child's spirit. Her loss, as much as Devi's leaving home last autumn and Adiún's search for him, made of the world a new, strange, and mostly unwelcoming place. Devi had grown up as part of "Adiún and Melle and Devi," as one leg of a solid, dependable stool. He'd kicked over that stool by leaving, and now another of its legs was gone forever.

  "Your Melle is with you," Sauda said matter-of-factly from where she stood beside the smoking tent. Adiún's expression was quizzical, as Devi imagined his own was. Sauda pursed her lips and stared back in her impassive way. "She is among your ancestors."

  The idea was foreign. "Our dead rejoin the sea of spirit," Adiún offered. Sauda shrugged and bent to finish folding the tent.

  Devi couldn't believe the two of them spoke of spirit matters so casually, as if the spirits of the dead were little different from the weather or what to eat for supper. The idea that Melle's essence might remain intact, not rejoin the swirling spirit sea waiting to be reconstituted as a new spirit, thrilled him. He wanted to ask Sauda more about these ancestor spirits of hers, but knew it would have to wait. There was much to do, and there were more pressing decisions to make than where his sister's spirit resided.

  Devi felt the press of Adiún's hand. Even rattled as he was, he felt a shiver, a puzzling mix of desire and... shyness, perhaps? Adiún was the most familiar person in the world to him, and the strangest, now. They'd each had experiences since the spring thaw that shaped them into different people than they'd been, and they were having a hard time navigating the unfamiliar waters. Sometimes, Devi saw nothing but his oldest friend and first lover when he looked at Adiún, and other times he saw the grimly determined fighter who'd engineered his rescue from the slave camp. It didn't hurt, exactly, this distance betw
een them, but it tugged insistently.

  He looked into Adiún's face, meeting the dark eyes, the feelings in his heart reflected there.

  After a too-brief moment, Adiún withdrew his hand and stepped away.

  Getting back into Keoded would take time, and once there, they'd have to find work. Without Gydha's mummer's badge, they couldn't perform legally. And even though he and Matti and Sauda had tokens proclaiming their freedom, Devi was well aware that the city was not a safe place for slaves, even former ones.

  He cinched his pack and looked around the camp. Matti sat on the ground near Kibi, injured leg sticking out awkwardly, laying out his magic cards. Sauda had stepped into the bushes nearby, and Adiún sat sharing out the goods they'd traded for so each could carry some.

  With nothing left to do, Devi approached Matti and watched the cards.

  "I finished the last one," Matti said as he dealt ten cards onto the ground.

  Devi didn't say anything. He didn't know Matti well, but Matti seemed to know him, and that made him feel awkward. Before leaving his village, Devi had never felt awkward, or angry, but now they were his default.

  "Two chalices, see?" Matti was saying.

  Devi peered at the last card in the array. Two golden vessels, indeed, surrounded by a circle of indistinct faces.

  "But it's different from Jürn's," Matti sounded bemused. "Jürn's two chalices card only had two figures on it."

  "So why did you make yours with more?" The words were out before Devi could consider them.

  He understood that, like him, the cards were meant to tell stories, and he wondered, and he was curious.

  Matti glanced up at him before slowly reaching his hand up to draw Devi down beside him. It was a childlike gesture that put Devi at ease.

  "I don't know," Matti said, staring at the cards. "I think it's to do with our future, though. That's what this position means."

  "Your cards tell the future?"

  Matti thought for a moment. "I think they tell what will be important in the future, not what will happen."