WARP world (3 page)

“I am
interested
,” she said, quietly, between gritted teeth, “in getting you to shore in one piece, without any unnecessary displays that might attract the attention of your wife.”

Uval scowled and retreated a few steps. Ama passed him his cup of grint and tucked the blade back in its hiding spot. She watched him fumble his way back to his snoring wife, with a lack of grace typical of those who lived off the water.

No doubt he would be filing a complaint with the local authorities before departing the Banks, but what was that to her? They were already taking away her living and her freedom, how else could one lecherous Damiar possibly hurt her?

“Watch your step now. Hope you enjoyed the tour–tell your friends to ask for the
Naida
, everyone on the Banks knows me.” Ama might as well have been talking to herself.

On the dock, she watched an elderly Welf struggle to pick up a large bag. His legs shook beneath the weight and he teetered momentarily before dropping to one knee. Somehow, he managed to hold onto the load, but his leg was gashed open from the rough wood.

“Lazy klutz,” one of the Damiar Lords spat out, poking at the servant’s midsection with his walking stick, “get up or you’ll be swimming to Alisir.” The Damiar turned on his heels and strode away, pushing through the cluster of servants who were following their masters and mistresses.

Ama offered the old man her hand but he refused, righting himself with a series of low grunts before rejoining his fellow Welf.

Slaves
. Ama shook her head, as she watched the servants trudging up the ramp.

She was ready to finish folding the skins before hurrying to her father’s house but then she saw Lord Uval turn from his wife and walk purposefully toward her. What now?

He held out his gloved hand, “Lady Uval insists we tip you for the lovely journey and charming banter.”

Coin was coin and now, with the term of her boat license reduced, she couldn’t afford to be fussy about its source. Ama held out her hand, ready to deliver the most sincere thanks she could muster but Uval flipped the coin into the air and it landed in the water, sinking into the dark green.

“And
I
insist you remember your place, Kenda whore.”

Fists clenched, she forced herself to turn away. By morning, he and the rest of his party would be sailing for Alisir, on to one of their many seasonal homes. It was best to let him go. Besides, it was one thing to brawl with her fellow mariners in the Port House, quite another to attack a Damiar Lord. The former earned her a set of scraped knuckles and a warning from the authorities–the latter could see her swinging from a rope.

From outside her father’s cottage, Ama heard her brother’s voices competing for attention. These family meetings, supposedly to decide important personal and business matters concerning the various members of the Kalder clan, more often than not ended as an excuse to drink too much praffa wine and boast of some recent misadventure.

She used to look forward to them.

Now she paused, her hand on the door, hearing Geras’s voice above the rest, speaking her name. Nen’s death, not another lecture from the oldest of her five brothers, not tonight. A too-familiar feeling gripped her insides.

“Cruise went late,” she announced, as she pushed open the door. The room fell silent.

“We thought you might be hiding from us,” Geras chided.

“Tadpole never hides. She’s a fighter!” Thuy said, leapt out of his chair and ran across the room to tackle his younger, smaller sister.

The two tumbled to the floor, knocking aside the low table where their father’s pipe and tins of leaf rested.

“You see, this is what I’m talking about, Fa,” Geras said, his voice sharp. “We treat her as a man and wonder why she’s turned out as she has, why she’s always in trouble.”

“Now, now,” the elder Kalder said, both hands in the air in a placating gesture, “your sister may not behave like other women but she knows her duty to her family.”

“Does she really?” Geras continued, his voice reaching the far side of the room, as Ama pulled herself away from Thuy. “Does she care how people talk about the wild Kalder girl, drinking and fighting and charging money for tours on that sad excuse for a lumber pile she calls a boat?”

“Does her gresher-brained brother know that the last person who insulted the
Naida
lost two of his teeth for it?” Ama asked, elbowed Thuy in the stomach and ran to the table to steal his seat.

“My apologies, sister. Are you quite finished your wrestling match?”

“Yes I am.” Ama sat and poured herself a cup of wine, as she kicked Geras under the table. “Apology accepted. Aren’t you supposed to be on your way to the land of cloud sniffers to hawk your wine?”

“I leave for T’ueve tomorrow.”

“Give my regards to Stevan,” Ama said, her face a parody of good cheer.

Geras gave her one of his trademark nods that meant he wouldn’t expect any less from someone as uncultured as his sister. Visits to the domain of the gods were only considered for few very circumstances–blessings for births and marriage, prayers for the newly dead. It had been almost a year since anyone at the table had even set eyes on Stevan, and that had been at a Sky Ceremony, from a distance.

“And tell Brin he still owes me four coin for that game of Yoth he lost,” Ama added.

“Your wagers with our cousin are your business.” Geras turned to Odrell, “Gambling, another of her many virtues.”

A weighty and uncomfortable silence stretched across the table.

Mirit, the smallest of the mighty Kalder brothers, looked at Ama with his eyebrows drawn closely together, “I’m sorry the Judicia reduced the term of your license.”

Ama looked to her father but he shook his head, “I didn’t tell them, Tadpole. You know how news spreads on the docks.”

“Son of a whore!” She banged her cup on the table. “It’s hard enough to attract passengers without this news to scare them off.”

“Language, Ama!”

“It’s not fair!” How could they all sit there so calmly? How many times had she heard Fa or one of her siblings complain about the authorities poking their nose into Kenda business? Some change had taken place over the last five months; their family meetings had grown progressively more conservative and, for the first time in her life, Ama felt as if she were standing outside her family.

“Stevan is very nearly a Shasir’threa; no Kenda has ever reached that level of ascension,” her father cautioned.

“Hey, maybe there’s some way we could change Geras into a Damiar,” Ama said. “He has the right attitude.”

“This is serious, Ama. It’s very important how people see Stevan’s family and that includes how we earn our living.”

“So? Geras gets to sell his wine, Afon and Mirit can crew the cargo ships, and Thuy still works the charting runs. All of you can make your living how you want but I can’t. Why is that?” Ama asked, looking each of her brothers in the eye, daring them to challenge her.

Geras was the first to answer, pointing an accusing finger at her, “Because, like it or not, you are a woman and an unmarried one at that. Kenda women do not earn their living as boat captains, especially not alone, out on the river with strange men.”

“Oh please, you make it sound as if I’m doing something dirty.”

“You might as well be from what they say about you,” Geras snapped back.

She opened her mouth and stopped. From the way her brothers and her father lowered their eyes, she could tell Geras spoke the truth. She nodded, slowly, imagining the wagging tongues around the Banks. “I see.”

“It’s all dung, Tadpole. Don’t let stupid rumors bother you,” Thuy said, looking at Geras.

“No, it
should
bother her,” Geras countered, his voice escalating in volume as he spoke. “It should bother you,” he said, leaning across the table toward his sister, “that I have to listen to people talk about my sister as if she were a Welf whore.”

“Geras, enough!” Odrell bellowed at his son. “Enough, all of you.” He paused as his offspring settled–all but Ama and his eldest, who glared at each other. “Ama,” he placed his hand on his daughter’s shoulder, “we have always looked after each other, looked out for each other. If you are…wild, the fault is mine, I know it.”

“Fa, that’s not—”

“Let me finish, daughter. Your brother Stevan has spent his life studying the ways of the Shasir; his ascension will be an important moment for our family, for our people and an important step toward equality. Some things are bigger than you, bigger than all of us here. You must understand that. I know it won’t be easy but you must behave as a respectable Kenda woman.”

Odrell rose. The same shoulders that had carried his daughter easily as a child now sagged slightly with the weight of mere words. “I am telling you, as your father, that you must abide by the decision of Judicia Corrus. Furthermore, when your license expires, if you do not choose to accept any of the offers of marriage put before you, then you will sell the
Naida
, return to this house and live under my roof as an obedient daughter. No more running to the rivers to paddle and swim, no more nights at the Port House, no more fighting, no more cursing. You will dress properly, you will attend the sky services, you will cook and associate with the other women, as you are meant to.” When he sat, the air of the room swarmed with unspoken thoughts.

“And if I don’t?” she asked, staring at her hands, both gripping the cup of wine.

Thuy cleared his throat and shifted uneasily in his chair.

“Then,” her father said, with a sigh, “you will be cast out. You will be dead to your brothers and me.”

At this, she raised her head, eyes wide in disbelief. Looking from one face to the other, she knew they had decided this long before her arrival. No threat but this could have persuaded her to obey her family’s wishes, and they knew it.

“Well, I see you’ve all figured out my future for me. How convenient.”

“You know it’s for the best,” Geras said, leaning back in his chair.

Ama looked to Thuy, who was busy examining the grain of the wooden table. “Even you, Thuy? Would you shun me?”

“The choice is not mine,” he grumbled.

“Don’t be angry, Ama. Fa’s right; this is bigger than us. Stevan has been chosen by the gods,” Afon finally spoke up, his lips struggling to smile.

“Angry? Why should I be angry? I should thank you all for helping a stupid, wild girl learn her place.”

“When you stop acting like a child, we’ll stop treating you as one!” Geras said, jabbing his finger in Ama’s direction once more.

She kicked out her chair and stood, face burning, “What do you know of it, Geras? What do any of you know of it? No one threatens to take away
your
freedom!”

“Gods beneath the waves! Your brother would offer a bridge between our people and the Shasir and all you can think of is your own petty desires,” Geras said, standing as well.

“Why must our people bow to those spooks?” she asked, pointing her finger toward the sky.

“Ama! Watch your tongue. That’s blasphemy,” Odrell said, his voice sharp.

She lowered her voice but it lost none of its fire. Ama leaned in and looked at each of the men before her as she spoke, “Blasphemy? We still pray to Nen, we still speak our own language in whispers, we keep our ways in secret and teach our children the war songs. Fa taught every one of us here to use the seft–a forbidden weapon. We are all blasphemers and may we always be. Our family has a proud history of opposing the Shasir and their Damiar puppets but now we throw that away because having Stevan among their numbers makes us respectable? If this is what the Kalders are to become then you may as well shun me. I want no part of it.”

“If I didn’t know you were speaking from anger, I would order you out of this house,” Odrell said.

“Fa, we should listen to Ama’s words,” Thuy said.

“Words spoken by the girl who earns her coin from Damiar. High talk of rebellion but only when it suits her. Selfish. Just like mother,” Geras said, shaking his head.

Ama swept her cup of wine off the table and hurled it at the wall behind Geras’s head. “Take that back!”