Jo Clayton - Drinker of Souls

“You’re fussing about nothing, Sammo.” Her voice was husky but musical, deep enough to pass for a man’s. “I did all right in Tavisteen.”

“Hunh.” An angry rasping sound rather like a lion’s cough. “You’re a baby, Bramble-all-thorns. Tavisteeners may think they’re the slipp’riest things under the Langareri bowl, but Silili Hina make them look like children who aren’t very bright. Hina say they’re the oldest folk and maybe its so; trying to get through their customs is like threading a maze without a pattern. And since the Temuengs took over here nothing they say or do means exactly what it seems to. It’s called survival, Bramble, Hina are very good at surviving.”

“So am I, friend.”

Another impatient sound from the Panday. Footsteps going away from the window, coming back, going away again. Pacing, Taguiloa thought, a baby? that woman? Wicker creaking, the whisper of silk. The woman sitting down. After a while the man joined her. “Csermanoa financed a good part of the Girl,” he said, “I’m clear of debt to him, the Girl’s all mine. It’s the other way now, he owes me. He’ll take care of you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Baby, baby, you haven’t the least idea what the real world’s like.”

A chuckle, warm and affectionate. “Hahl Maybe I didn’t last month, but I’ve learned a few things since.”

“You’ve learned to tease, that’s for sure.”

“Who says I’m teasing?”

“Let it go, Brann. You know how I feel. Smooth your feathers and take any help that’s going. Think of your father and your brothers. If you’re killed before you get to them, what good is all you’ve done so far?”

“You throw my own arguments at me. How can I fight that?” Silence for a while. “I’ll take a lot of killing.”

“Lapalaulau swamp me, I wish you were a few years older.” There was an odd, strained note in the man’s voice.

Taguiloa scowled. There was too much he didn’t know. He couldn’t catch the nuances, the feelings between the words. Crouched outside in the darkness, he could hear the strong currents of affection passing between them, such shared understanding they didn’t have to say any of those things he wanted to know. He flushed with envy. Not even Tani Blackthorn was that close. Gerontai had loved him but he was an old man when he took an angry street boy into his home and he was a man of solitude and distances. Taga’s parents, his brothers and sisters, he lost them in a shipwreck when he was five; he clung to a bit of debris and was pulled out of the sea by a fisherman, brought back to live with an overworked cousin who had eight children of her own and neither missed nor mourned him when he ran away.

“What are you going to do?” The woman’s voice. “Unload my official cargo for what I can get. See if I can get hold of more Slya ware, maybe pick up other cargo.

Go home awhile. Careen my ship. I didn’t use half your gold in Tavisteen. You sure you don’t want it back?”

“Very sure. What I need, the children will provide.”

“Yeah.” Sound of wicker shifting, scrape of boots on the tile floor. “What about your father, will he work for the emperor?”

“How can he without Tincreal’s fire? He’s spent a lifetime putting her heart into his work; what he does is more than just shaping the bowls and things. Old Lardarse…” She giggled. “Like that name? A Temueng pimush should know the worth of his emperor… Where was I? Ah. I suppose he can have my folk beaten into making something, but it won’t be Slya ware. What a fool he is. If he’d left us alone, he’d have had the pick of what we made. Now that the mountain has taken her own back, he’ll have nothing. “

Arth Slya gone, Taga thought. He closed his eyes and cursed the Temuengs, cursed the woman, cursed himself for somehow believing there’d always be a place free from the compromises he’d made all his life, a place where artist and artisan explored their various crafts without having to pander to blind and stupid men whose only virtue was the gold in their pockets. If he understood what she was saying, Arth Slya was either dead or maimed beyond recovery.

The Panday cleared his throat. “Come home with me, Bramble. Wait till I get my ship clean of weed and rot. Well take you up the Palachunt to Durat, sooner and safer than the land route, wait for you, take you and your folk away once you break them free.”

Silence again. More creaks from the wicker as she shifted about, more wool moving against silk. “I’m sorry you wouldn’t love me again, Sammo. I wanted you to, you know that.”

“Bramble, how could I? Tupping a child. I’d kill another man for doing that.”

“I should have kept my mouth shut that time in Tavisteen, just said no and left it at that.”

“I wish you had.”

“I’m growing older fast.”

“Give me a couple more years, Bramble, then maybe I’ll believe it.”

“Slya! you’re stubborn.”

“We’re a pair.”

“You’re right. I’m going to stick to my first plan, Sammo. I know how you feel about the Girl and I can read a map. A dozen places on that river where the Temuengs could drop rocks or fire on you and would if they thought they had a reason. You’d all be killed and if you weren’t, you’d lose the Girl. I won’t have that, Sammo. I won’t.”

The shadows around Taguiloa suddenly vanished and hot golden light flickered about him. He bit back a yell and jumped to his feet, meaning to get out of there as fast as he could, hoping he wasn’t already identified. His feet wouldn’t move. He tried to turn his head. It wouldn’t move. Not his head. Not a hand. Not a finger.

He stood frozen and afraid. As abruptly as it came, the light was gone, taking with it the greater part of his fear. Whatever else had happened, he wasn’t discovered. Inside the pavilion the man and woman were still talking; there were no shouts of discovery outside it. Something very strange had happened. If he fled without careful thought, likely he’d run into trouble rather than away from it. He glanced around, saw only darkness and yews, dropped to the ground and began listening again to what was happening inside.

“I don’t want to let you go.” The Panday was walking about, his words loud then muffled.

“I don’t want to go.” Creak of wicker as she moved restlessly on the divan. “If it weren’t my father, my brothers, my kin, if it weren’t for Slya filling me, driving me, if…

Ill Stupid word. I can’t change what is, Sammo.”

“You don’t even know if they’re alive now, you don’t know what will happen to them before you can get to Durat.”

“No.” A long silence filled with the small sounds of movement. “If they aren’t alive,” the woman said suddenly, fury, frustration, fear sharp in her voice. “If they aren’t alive, I will drink the life from Abanaskranjinga and spit it to the winds.”

“Preemalau’s bouncy tits, Brann, don’t say that, don’t even think it.”

“I won’t say it again, but I will do it. That’s another reason I don’t want you and the others anywhere about.”

“I believe you, don’t say more, what if someone is listening.” Sound of door opening, feet crossing the tiles, voice louder, window shutters slamming open. Taguiloa shrank farther into shadow, but the Panday saw nothing but the darkness of the yews and the moonlit grass beyond. He dragged the shutters to and went to stand behind the woman, so close to the window Taga could hear him breathing. “Where’s the boy?”

“Keeping watch.”

“Ah.” Feet on tiles, wicker protesting loudly as a heavy weight dropped onto the silk cushions. The Panday sitting beside the woman. “I could leave Jimm to take care of the Girl and go north with you.”