Jo Clayton - Shadowkill

It was time to go. No more lingering or dithering. Leave or live under Mingas’ rule.

Whistling under her breath, she strolled from the room.

Matja Allina walked beside the black horse her daughter rode. She walked with head high, her hand on her daughter’s knee, signifying to all who watched her approval of this thing.

P’murr waited for them on the ferry landing. He stood beside Matja Allina watching Ingva nervously following the instructions of the ferryman as she led the two Blacks onto the ferry.

“I told you to go with her. You should have gone,” Allina said.

“No. My fealty is with the Arring Pirs, not with his daughters.”

“Pirs is dead.”

“His son isn’t.”

“I see. Then you’d better move your things into the House and sleep each night in the nursery.”

It was irony in her mouth but not in his ears; he bowed. “I will do so at once.”

Startled, she watched him walk off; she hadn’t realized how much he disliked her. He blames me for Pirs’ death, she thought. I’m the reason he wasn’t with Pirs and couldn’t save him or die for him.

The sound of the winch motor changed. She closed her eyes a moment, then turned slowly and watched Ingva lead the horses up the far bank of the river.

She watched her daughter mount one of the Blacks and ride off leading the other.

Ingva neither turned nor waved.

Matja Allina stood silent on the landing until the Brush had swallowed Ingva, then she turned and walked back to the House. Her head was high, her eyes blind with the tears she wouldn’t shed.

Matja Allina’s face was drawn, weary beyond description. She waved the two women to chairs across the table from her and began talking without bothering with any of the usual courtesies. “Pirs was determined to keep you here the full year of the bargain.” She curled her hand under the weight of her baby, not so much holding him as taking comfort from him. “He thought we’d need you even more while Paji was getting through these first months, the hard months. Things…” she swallowed, “things have changed.” She eased forward, careful not to wake the baby. “I want you to have these.” She lifted the rolled-up documents from the table, held them out. “The papers Pirs signed on Paji’s Nameday.”

Shadith leaned over, took both scrolls, looked down at them. The names were written on the outside. She handed Tinoopa her papers and sat holding her own.

Allina flattened her hands on the table. “Kizra Shaman, you’ve been working up to leaving us.”

Shadith gaped at her.

Allina shook her head, “My dear, you have forgotten how small a place this is. Everything is known. You might as well have shouted it from the roof.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.” Matja Allina touched her tongue to her lips. She started to speak, changed her mind. For several minutes there was no sound in the room but the whine of the wind outside and their own breathing. “Mingas…” she said finally.

Shadith nodded. “You told Ingva,” she said. “Stupid, malicious, a weak man, a bad man.” She thought a minute. “And ugly.”

“Yes. Utilas has been the heir, Pirs… was the… the beautiful one… the one everyone liked…” Allina closed her eyes, pressed her lips together. She shook off the weakness, went on, “Rintirry was the baby, spoiled, you saw him. Mingas was the accident. He was a son so he was adopted into the family, but the Artwa never bothered to marry his mother. I remember her… she was still alive when I married Pirs… “ A long shuddering sigh. “Now he’s got his chance. I know he’s talked Angakirs into appointing him Paji’s guardian. Otherwise it would be Utilas coming with the… with the body.”

“When he finds out you let Ingva go…” Tinoopa tapped the papers on the curve of her knee. “What can he do to you?”

“Whatever he wants. Oh, not legally, but who’s to see out here? And he has his guards with him, like the pair he brought with him to the Nameday.”

“Thugs.”

“Yes.”

“What about Yla?”

“As soon as I can, I’ll send her to fostering. He can’t stop that. She’s too young for marrying. While they’re still children, girls are the mother’s responsibility.”

“Will he marry you?”

“Not during my year of mourning. Not marriage.”

Shadith stirred. “Look, Matja, you don’t have to take this. You should get out of here. With Yla and Paji. You could come with me, or go to the Brush.”

Allina tapped her fingers on the table top, a curiously restrained expression of the passion Shadith felt seething in her. She shook her head. “No. This House, the land, they’re Paji’s birthright. I will not let that viper steal them from him.”

“A pillow over Paji’s face, that’s all it would take to clear title, isn’t that right?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You want us to guard him? If you can’t stop Mingas, how could we?”

“You couldn’t, Kizra Shaman.” She twisted her fingers together, stared past Shadith at the wall. “I will. I will do anything I have to.”

“Oh.”

Allina shivered, flattened her hands again. “I’m still the Matja here. Until tomorrow night. I can give the two of you what I choose to give. Kizra Shaman has chosen her way, what is yours, chapa Tinoopa?”

“I’ll wait here, thank you. I’m too old and fat. And citybred besides. I know from jits, not horses. Fall off and kill myself two kays out.” She looked thoughtfully at Matja Allina. “You want to be very careful or you’ll bring down the roof on you and the children.”

“What?”

“Something happens to Mingas, hmm, the Artwa doesn’t like you, thinks you’re uppity. I’ve run into that myself. Way things are here… how old’s Utilas’ son, or is he the next heir?”

“You have it. The oldest inherits unless he’s totally unfit and Rulas isn’t. He’s… a lot like Pirs. Reelyn is the second son; he’s a little younger than Rintirry was. I don’t know much about him… which is… good.”

“Right. Then Utilas won’t be wholly hostile to… um… say Fate for giving young… what was it?… Reelyn a break. That’s a plus. What’s he think of Mingas?”

“Detests him.”

“Another plus.” Tinoopa frowned at the roll of papers. She made a circle of thumb and forefinger, began sliding the roll back and forth through the round. She looked up. “Mind some blunt speaking?”

Matja Allina smiled wearily. “I haven’t so far, have I?”

“Do you want more children?”

Allina touched her fingers to her lips. A sudden wave of grief and pain and loss rolled out of her, filling the room like fog. Tinoopa didn’t see it, but Shadith was almost drowning in it. “No,” Allina whispered. “Pirs is dead. I’m an old, old woman. No.”

“Right. I got to talking with a circle of Brushie heal-women. During the Shearing, it was. You’ve some interesting herbs on this world, hmm, when you’re feeling more like talking business, I know a drug prospector who’d be interested, we could work out connections with the Pharmaceuticals, improve your credit line. We started out, the healwomen and me, talking about contraceptives and abortifacients. Subject of rape came up. Told me sometimes tumaks come looking for Brushie girls, drunk enough they’ll jump anything with a hole in it and it’s safer to meddle with Brushies, no blood feuds or private wars brewed up that way. If the Brushie girl’s family catches him, well, they find themselves a s’met colony, bury him up to his neck next to a mound, and smear his face with sugar syrup.” She smiled. Not a nice smile. “My youngest daughter, I lost her to a diaper salesman. That’s not what you think, he sells children to pedophiles. I never found him. I ever do, I’ll bring him back here. Well, that’s beside the point. Sometimes, the tumak gets away. Keeps getting away. Comes back time after time. The healwomen go round the Mirps and choose someone, a woman, maybe even a girl, someone who doesn’t want children and is willing to take a chance on being killed. They prepare her, stake her out for the Sekerak, that’s what they call him, though I suppose you know that. Sooner or later he takes the bait, does the deed. Before the month is out, he’s dead. The girl’s sick for a while, the ointment dries her up inside and the antidote turns her eyes yellow, but they say she doesn’t mind and afterward she’s fine. Sterile, but fine.”