Nicola Griffith - Ammonite

“The trata must be witnessed by a viajera.” A journeywoman teller of news, Marghe translated, though obviously with some ritual function. “We expect T’orre Na soon.” Cassil’s face rounded with pleasure, and perhaps a little worry, “She comes to lead the pattern singing for Rhedan’s deepsearch. I’m Rhedan’s choose-mother.”

Marghe mentally compared this with Eagan’s notes: the ritual name-choosing by pubescent girls, and the concept of different mother roles within a kith. But what was pattern singing, and why did it give Cassil cause for concern? “Congratulations,” she said cautiously. Perhaps she could observe the ceremony. But her time was limited, and there would be equally interesting ceremonies on Tehuantepec. “How soon do you expect the journeywoman?”

Cassil shrugged. “Not before the women of Singing Pastures drive their herds down. She’s a few days down the windpath, with Jink and Oriyest’s flock, and that one of your kith, Day.”

Marghe did not know what she meant. “Who?”

“Your kith who is called Day, the one adopted by Jink and Oriyest. The one Jink saved when the burn went.” She looked at Marghe curiously. “You don’t know the story? It’s a good one. T’orre Na could sing it for you.”

A woman called Day, her kith. A Company woman… It made sense now. This was why Lu Wai and Letitia had not wanted her to meet Jink and Oriyest. Day would be there. Day, a Mirror who had gone AWOL. One of the many missing, presumed dead. How many of the others were alive?

She would have to talk to Lu Wai about this. Later.

“I can’t wait for T’orre Na. Perhaps one of my adopted kith can witness for me.”

It would take several days to get the relay up and working. Lu Wai could be her proxy.

It was another two hundred miles north to Singing Pastures. While Letitia and Ude worked on the relay, Marghe rode north with Lu Wai on the sled. She watched the Mirror’s gloved hands gentle on the stick, her indecipherable face beneath the quilted cap, and wondered what would drive a Mirror to go native.

To go native . She rolled the phrase around her mouth. It tasted of scorn. And fear. Why did the idea make her so afraid? And how many, how many Mirrors and technicians were out there, living in these strange cultures? They could tell her so much.

“How many people know about Day?” she demanded when they stopped to eat and relieve themselves.

“Officer Day is listed as missing, presumed dead,” Lu Wai said calmly, and carried on peeling a goura. She cut the fruit and held out half. Juice ran over her wrist. “Want some?”

“I want to know what happened to Day. Have you seen her since she… since she left? And are there others?”

Lu Wai put down the fruit. “I haven’t seen her, no, but Letitia saw her last year, and she leaves messages now and then. Usually written ones, but sometimes message stones, or a knotted string. She does that as a joke, I think. She knows we can’t read them.”

Marghe thought she sounded wistful. “Would you like to go, too?”

Lu Wai thought about that, then shook her head. “I think she gets lonely.”

Perhaps she was lonelier before, Marghe thought, among a people who did not understand her.

“Tell Danner,” she said suddenly. “Tell her about Day. She needs to know.” She thought of the Kurst , of the vaccine ticking away like a bomb in her pocket. ”And if there are any others, find them, talk to them. You won’t be betraying them. Persuade Danner to offer them amnesty, even let them go back to where they’ve been all this time. Just get them to talk to you. You’re going to need what they know.”

And the connections they’ve forged.

At least she had been able to set trata in motion, for Danner, for Lu Wai and Letitia.

For all of us.

She wondered what this woman Day was like, and where she had found so much courage.

SINGING PASTURES HOWLED. Splits in the chalky rock bounding the easternmost pasture funneled icy gusts into a river of air and sleet. Marghe sat with her back pressed against a rock wall, huddled so tight between the herders, Holle and Shill, that she looked like the midsection of some strange fur-clad mammal.

In front of them, tethered nose to tail, three horses formed a living windbreak.

Their winter coats were growing in and their manes were stiff and black. They were oddly proportioned to Marghe’s eyes: thick necks and barrel bodies, like brown zebra. She wondered what their gene map would look like.

The saddle on the middle mount, Marghe’s, was unadorned leather, as were the reins; the stirrup irons were unpolished wood, and the bit a four-inch sausage of poor-quality brown olla. The mare herself, Pella, was fit enough but old and beginning to lose muscle. Holle and Shill’s mounts were hard-legged, their leather work finely tooled and polished, stained rich reds and purples, and stitched with green and gold thread. Marghe supposed the herders had very little else to occupy their time once the taar herds were corralled for the winter.

The noise made conversation impossible. She huddled down a little further in her furs that smelled of horses and women and cold air, and wished the wind would drop. Holle and Shill had seen by now that she could ride well enough to be trusted with one of their horses, and she was eager to get back to the cave, hand over the metal as trade, and prepare to leave. Every hour was precious. The sky was heavy, the color of wet ash.

The lead horse lifted its head and whickered. Shill listened hard, then tapped Holle on the shoulder. They stood, leaning into the wind, and began untethering the animals. Marghe stayed where she was, pulling her muscles tighter against the expected fist of wind when the horses moved. Holle squatted in front of her.

“We must…” The words were lost in the wind but Marghe understood her gesture. They wanted her to mount up. Shill was already mounted, holding the reins of the other horses. Marghe gritted her teeth and swung herself up.

The hot stale smell of animal filled the gully. Pella stiffened beneath her. Shill leaned half out of her saddle and grabbed Pella’s headstall, pulling hard to make the mare high-step backward.

A river of four-legged flesh thundered by, eyes rolling and neck tendons straining.

Here and there mounted women flicked whips, but it seemed to Marghe that the taars ran from something more frightening than the crack of plaited leather.

When the strangers were passing, Shill released the headstall and leaned to shout in her ear. “We follow!” She pointed to make sure Marghe understood.

Marghe thumped her heels into Pella’s ribs and clung on as they jounced down the twisting trail. It had been a long time since she had done any prolonged riding.

Her thigh muscles trembled and the wind whipping under her hood made her ears ache with cold, but the two women ahead of her lashed their horses into a headlong gallop and she knew she could not have slowed Pella if she had wanted to. She wondered what they were running from, then stopped wondering to concentrate on staying in the saddle.

The slope steepened and Pella skidded on loose shale, nearly sending them both facefirst. Marghe remembered Janet Eagan’s warning: Do you have any idea how many different ways a person could get herself killed? For all I know, Winnie could have fallen off her horse and broken her neck the second day out . The ride became a nightmare.

Then, miraculously, the wind died; they were in a high-walled side cut. With an effort that made her hiss, she swung out of the saddle. Her boot dislodged a pebble, sending it clattering on bare rock. The cut was sharp with the smell of limegrass. It made her eyes sting.