Nicola Griffith - Ammonite

Marghe took it and read the knots one by one.

To Marghe Amun, and to the viajera Thenike, greetings. Danner, headwoman of the Terrene, has refused trata aid to Cassil of Holme Valley and thereby places herself in peril at a time when she most needs support against those who would seek to harm her and the other Terrene. Holme Valley and Singing Pastures are threatened: by the tribes Echraidhe and Briogannon, united under one they name Uaithne, the Death Spirit. If you have any influence over Danner, use it. May your children come into a peaceful world. By the hand of T’orre Na, viajera.

“What…” She read them again, carefully, feeling the knots one by one with her fingertips. Sweet gods. How could Danner be so stupid? And the news about Uaithne… Oh gods, please let it not be true.

“What will you do, sister?”

“I don’t know.” She handed the cord to Thenike. “Does that say what I think it says?”

Thenike read the message out loud. It did.

“Why’s Danner doing this, and what does T’orre Na mean by ‘at a time when she most need support against those who would seek to harm her’?” She paced. “I think Danner’s in trouble.”

“She will be, if she disregards trata,” Leifin said.

Marghe ignored her and continued pacing. “I think something must have happened to make Company react at last.” What, exactly, was relatively unimportant.

What mattered was that Danner was in trouble, and about to make it ten times worse for herself if she refused Cassil’s request. And Uaithne… Why didn’t the others, Aoife or the Levarch, stop her? She wiped her forehead. Damn this heat.

She had thought that, maybe, Aoife would see reason before Uaithne’s madness swallowed them all. She had hoped that her words had made sense to the fierce, dark tribeswoman, that Aoife would do something to control her soestre. Instead, it seemed the violence within Uaithne had ignited into a flame that was now sweeping across the northern continent.

“I have to go back to Port Central.”

Thenike looked troubled. “The journey’s long, and not easy.”

“Some of this is my fault: I made the trata agreement in the first place. It’s my fault that I didn’t make the importance of it sufficiently clear to Danner.”

“Perhaps.”

Marghe did not listen. “And it may well be that Uaithne’s madness might not have… That my presence there, feeding into that stupid, stupid myth… Thenike, I have to go. I might be able to do something.” She did not know what, but she had to try. She felt involved.

Thenike put her arm around Marghe’s shoulders. “Perhaps we could talk later,” she said to Leifin.

“Of course.” Leifin stood up. “When you’ve recovered from this bad news.”

“Speak to Zabett about a room. We’ll find you later, talk about how things go with the family, about your trade goods.”

“Yes.” Leifin shouldered her bag, turned to go.

Marghe forced herself to speak. “Leifin?” Leifin turned back, surprised. “I’m glad to see you.” And she was. Unfathomable motives or not, Leifin was kin.

Leifin nodded, and strode away.

They went back into the kitchen. It was too warm inside, but Marghe felt safer, more secure, indoors. Scathac was nowhere to be seen. They took their water to the table and sipped for a while without saying anything.

“I have to go, Thenike. Even if the family expects me to remain at Ollfoss. I’m responsible for what I set in motion.”

“Responsible, too, to your kin.”

”I know. But I have to do this.”

“If you feel you must, then you must. I’ll come with you.”

Marghe reached for Thenike’s hand. They were quiet for a moment.

“So,” Thenike said eventually. “How will you go to them? As Marguerite Taishan, the one who should have ‘done something,’ or as the viajera Marghe Amun, offering advice and mediation on a trata matter?”

Choose, Thenike was saying: choose who you are and where your loyalties lie.

Marghe held the suke that bumped gently against her chest. “How will we get there?”

Thenike seemed to accept the change of mood. “Find out who has a ship going south and is willing to go through the Mouth of the Grave, to High Beaches or Pebble Fleet.”

A picture of the Ollfoss map appeared in Marghe’s head, clear and sharp. She could remember every detail. We remember .

Thenike had said, viajeras remember . Marghe wondered if she would ever grow tired of this new memory.

“Which would be best?”

”A ship to Pebble Fleet would have to travel around the Horn, which would add time to the journey, but then it’s a comparatively short distance overland to Port Central. If we ship to High Beaches, then we can go up the Glass River part of the way… About twenty days’ travel, either way.“

Twenty days. And they would have to wait for a ship. Say a month. What might Danner do in a month?

Thenike was down at the docks, asking after ships south. Marghe stepped out into the sunshine of late morning. There was no breeze and it was already hot. Leifin and two other women were in the fountain courtyard, laughing, talking, drinking wine. Leifin was showing the two women her carvings. She had not noticed Marghe.

The carvings were beautiful. A set of three bowls that fitted together, one inside the other, so perfectly that they appeared to be one bowl instead of three. The wood gleamed softly; Marghe recognized it as the same block Leifin had been carving that morning in the great room when they had discussed her petition to join the family.

Next were two hand mirrors, the reflecting surface made of olla. The carving was breathtaking: natural-looking flowers twined around the glass, turned into grasses around the handle. The two women handled the wood carefully, but wistfully; it seemed Leifin was out of luck. They shook their heads and handed the bowls and mirror back. Leifin did not seem dismayed but fished out a large white hip pouch with beautifully worked and braided thongs. She handed it to the nearest woman.

Marghe edged closer to listen. Leifin, with her back turned, would not see her.

“It’s very soft. What is it?”

The other woman took it, fingered it. Leifin studied her with that bird-of-prey gaze, one eye then the other, “The bag of a male goth I trapped.”

Maighe went still. The scrotal sac of a goth. She remembered Thenike’s song, the stones that had been raised so many years ago. Leifin had been there for Thenike’s song. She knew what she had done.

Leifin took back the pouch, tipped some small white bones into her palm. “Goth knucklebones. Those big ones there are its thumbs. Two on each hand. Looks like they’d be strong creatures, doesn’t it? Like they’d be fearsome to hunt. But they’re not. Just like big taars. Docile. But cunning.” She glanced up, saw Marghe, and said, in explanation, “I’d heard how white their fur is, I wanted it. I really wanted that fur.

You can do a lot with good fur. You’ve seen what I can do. So I said to myself, how can I get the animal without damaging its fur? A trap, that’s how. A pit. It took me three days to dig it—I’d judged by their tracks that they were big, so the pit had to be good and deep. Then I had to make it invisible. I used stuff from the forest floor so after a while I couldn’t even tell where the pit was myself. Then I hid and waited. You have to be very patient when you’re trapping. It’s like carving.” She gestured to the bowls sitting on the edge of the fountain. “I waited for days, more days than I can remember. I ran out of food after three.”

That helped to explain the weight loss.

“It was dark when it finally came along the trail. It was big, big as a tree, and its eyes glowed in the dark. I think if it hadn’t been for its eyes, I wouldn’t have known it was there. It moved quietly as the coming of spring, pulling barkweed off the trees with enormous hands and stuffing it right in its mouth like it was feast bread.” Leifin nodded to herself, remembering. “Yes, it was very quiet, but I was quieter.”