A Bait of Dreams (37 page)

Shounach dropped his hand on her shoulder. “Quiet, Vixen.” He faced the tall woman. “Saone,” he said. “This heat is stupidity. You've questioned Deel about us enough to know we're not her enemies or yours. If you have any fondness or understanding of her, you must know how angry she'll be at this interference. Old hates are ruling you; forget them and think, Saone. We don't ask to enter your tents. Let Deel come here. The three of us will say what we have to say, then we'll leave you to your own concerns. More recalcitrance on your part must lead to assumptions that justify drastic action.”

“You threaten?”

“No. We state. We'll take Deel from you.”

“And if I call the Hands?”

Shounach shrugged, said nothing.

“You're either ignorant or a fool.”

“I could say the same of you if I were inclined to insult.”

“Wait here.” She turned and stalked toward the canvas wall, vanished through a narrow opening.

Gleia paced restlessly through the trees, turning to look again and again at the grassy playground where nothing was happening. Finally she came back and stood in front of Shounach. “Will they?”

“Trust Deel, Vixen. Wait and see.”

“Ashla's hells. Ah!”

A veiled figure hardly taller than a child came through the opening, followed by two more; together the three of them walked toward Shounach and Gleia, the strut of the center figure identification enough. The two Sayoneh kept Deel between them with such grim determination there seemed no point in asking them to go away, though there was much Gleia needed to say to Deel that was not for outside ears. She sniffed with disgust, rubbed her hands down her sides.

Shounach moved until he was standing behind her. He put his hand on her shoulder, the warmth of it comforting and steadying her. He kept silent, leaving the talking to her. She sighed. “Deel?”

“Uh-huh. You got away.”

“Juggler played his tricks soon as they left us alone.”

Deel chuckled. “Me, I threw up on Kan and went into the water.”

“I heard. Deel.…” Gleia scowled, ran her hand through her hair, wiped it across her brow. “Did you say anything about.…” She moved her hand in a brief arc to include the tents and with them the other Sayoneh who had trickled out after the three and hung back now close to the canvas wall, watching them and whispering together. “To them?”

Deel fingered the veil. “About you? Not their business. How'd you know about Kan and me?”

“We weren't going to leave you in that monster's hands. We went after him to get you away. And.… and there was that other thing.” She hesitated, then relaxed and smiled at the Dancer. “Deel, you don't need to hide behind that veil. Juggler played games on Kan's head and he's forgot you. Us too. Count on that.”

Deel pulled the veil off, bunched it and tossed it high into the air, ran to Gleia, hugged her, swung around her, hugged Shounach, then stepped back, breathing deeply, her wide mouth stretching into a glowing grin, relaxing, stretching again as if she couldn't help it. She looked from Shounach to Gleia, then sobered abruptly. “And the other thing? Did you find out what you needed to know about it?”

Gleia felt Shounach's fingers tighten on her shoulder. She put her hand over his. “A little. Enough to go on with.”

“Then you'll be leaving the Fair.”

“Soon.”

“Oh.” Again her eyes traveled from Gleia to Shounach to the Sayoneh and back around, her face wrinkled into a painful scowl.

“We're going to winter over at Ooakallin,” Shounach said. Gleia tilted her head back to look up at him, suddenly worried. She was so attuned to him that he was less and less able to hide his intentions from her. He was acting now, lying with ease and grace, and she was disturbed because she didn't know why he was doing this. “Why don't you winter with the Sayoneh,” he said. “Come spring you should know what you want. Meet us at the Ooakallin Horse Fair. Or send us word you're not coming.” Gleia kept her face still; she wasn't ready to challenge him, not in front of the Sayoneh.

Deel turned to the tall one, smiling broadly, her happiness shining all over her. She started to say a name, but the saone lifted a hand, stopping her. She nodded. “Saone,” she said carefully, “could I?”

After a lengthy silence the saone nodded, a brief twitch of her head. “Yes, little sister. Be welcome for the winter and for as long after as you wish. By the Motherheart of the Madar, I swear you will be free to stay or leave as you choose.”

Deel's grin glowed again. “Thank you, Sister.” She swung round. “Thanks, Juggler. The Ooakallin Horse Fair come spring. If I don't show … well, you know.”

Gleia laughed, relief untying a few knots in her stomach. “We're not leaving all that soon. We've got to work, Dancer. Takes money to suppy the trip and buy us shelter for the winter.”

Shounach reached into his bag and brought out a small box of dark polished wood, a red-brown wood very near the color of Deel's skin. “I saw these yesterday and thought of you, Dancer.”

Deel opened the box, exclaimed with pleasure when she saw the earrings. She took them out and held them up, the red sun shining through the lumps of amber until they seemed drops of molten butter. She laughed happily and hung them in her ears, then danced about, singing a song, clapping with it, moving her head about so the earrings swung and caught the suns' light, started her white robe swinging, catching the suns' colors and merging them into violet shadows that shifted and danced with her. The short saone laughed with delight and took up the clapping and the young sayoneh hanging back till now came swarming around, clapping, laughing, dancing their own dances to the song.

The tallow candle flickered and guttered, attacked by the drafts that wandered about the room. Gleia shook out the blankets she'd bought that afternoon while Shanouch was performing, spread them over the canvas and thought about Deel. Deel and the earrings. She didn't trust the Sayoneh no matter how many heart-oaths they swore. And she trusted Shounach even less. She watched him. He was pacing about the room, a scowl on his face; the next leg of the search was clear to both of them, but until the Sayoneh left the Fair, there was no way he could start on it. Waiting was rubbing at him, turning his temper sour.

Gleia settled herself on the canvas. “Nothing you do is what it seems,” she said suddenly, unwilling to cater to his black mood, not caring at the moment if she put him in a rage. “What are they, those earrings?”

He glared at her, his eyes a flat silver. He said nothing, scooped his bag up and stomped from the room, slamming the door so hard it bounced open again. After a while she got up and shut it.

She went back to the canvas and sat watching the candle burn lower, the stink of tallow strong in the room. She was awash with contradictory emotions, angry and oddly happy and frightened and more sure of herself, somehow, than she'd ever been. The room was growing colder as night settled down over the Inns and the winds grew stronger and blew storms at them, but she was cold for other reasons. He left because he couldn't trust his temper and was afraid he'd hurt me. He values me. He left because he didn't want to try justifying himself to me. Because he knew he couldn't and didn't plan to change what he was doing.

He's using Deel again. Using her without her knowledge or consent like that time before when he meant to dangle her as bait for Hankir Kan. No wonder he was happy to leave her with the Sayoneh. He's got a way of tracing her as long as she keeps the earrings with her. Setting her up to betray the women who saved her life, who shelter her still.

Gleia clasped her hands over her knees and stared at the dying flame. She had little regard for systems of morality. Most of them, from her experience of them, seemed merely ways for a few folk to run the lives of many. The Madarmen had drubbed the Madarchants into her, but they only put words into her head, not beliefs. She didn't like killing, but she'd done it before and would again without remorse as long as there was clear necessity. She stole with equally little remorse; most wealth, as far as she could see, was stolen in one way or another, only not so directly and honestly as she would do it. And she avoided promiscuity at first because she found sex painful and unpleasant, avoided it later because she'd gained a sense of her own worth. Shounach had taught her the pleasure of her body and his, but that was so bound up with who and what he was to her she didn't know if she could repeat that pleasure with anyone else. Everything else was vague and shifting and had little meaning to her; law and custom, manners and politics, none of these touched her life. But there were two very specific rules she'd followed longer than she could remember, even before she could speak enough to put them in words. Help those who are hurting and never ever harm a friend. In a sense they were the same. Help those who are hurting because their hurt hurts you; don't harm a friend, because you harm yourself that way.

Not easy rules. If she told Deel what she suspected, she would be hurting Shounach who was friend and more than friend. If she kept silent she hurt Deel and herself in the same way, made them partners to the betrayal of women already too often beaten and betrayed, women who had done only good to both of them. Nor was that the only knot for her to unravel. What this revolved about was a real evil. Ranga Eyes. Whatever else they were, whatever else they did, the Sayoneh were responsible for the soul-deaths of countless men, women and children who'd never heard of them, let alone done them any harm. The Sayoneh traded in this subtlest and most horrible of betrayals. However admirable their conduct otherwise, they undercut whatever worth they had by their remorseless pimping for death. And yet—and yet, they were targets of hatred, villification, persecution. Without the freedom the Eyes bought for them, how could they continue to exist? She wanted them to exist. How many times since her first memories had she been victimized simply because she was female and alone? How many times had she been furious because she'd been treated as prey not person? Among the many reasons she had for valuing her Fox, he was the first of her kind to rate who she was higher than what she was. She understood better than Deel that the Sayoneh were a refuge for women who could no longer endure the lives they were forced to live. In helping Shounach destroy the Eye-source, would she be destroying them?

She stared at the flame and tried to sort out the aspects of the problem, but finally knew she could not. There were not clear rights and wrongs here, but a weave so tangled she couldn't separate the threads. The Sayoneh refuge. Deel's self-respect. Her own self-respect. Shounach's need. His acts in servicing that need. Ranga Eyes. What they bought and what they did. She sighed and turned to the consideration of her choices.

She couldn't stop Shounach, only lose him. Might be close to losing him now. How much would he take from her? His brother's face or no, how strongly was he tied to her? Last night she would have sworn the bonds between them were forged of steel, this night she knew they still existed but they seemed weak as wet paper.

She wasn't about to tell the Sayoneh anything. She owed them nothing except what she owed any person—to refrain from causing them harm. But if she stayed with Shounach, she must harm them; there was no way of avoiding it. She had to live with that. She hated having to make the choice but she couldn't and wouldn't evade her responsibility. The Sayoneh would have to find another way to protect themselves.

There was one thing she must do. She had to tell Deel about the earrings. She had to let the Dancer decide what she wanted to do. She couldn't be Deel's conscience. Or Shounach's. When she told him what she'd done, he would rage, he would … she didn't know what he'd do. She was afraid, but she couldn't afford either fear or hesitation. She'd warned him once before that she'd do what she thought was right no matter what. She'd meant it then. She had to mean it now. If their relationship couldn't stand the strain, well, so be it. She gazed at the door as the candle guttered out. He won't be back tonight, she thought and was glad of that. Better not to say anything to him until she'd talked with Deel.

Zidras was tootling a bouncy tune on a tin-whistle while Shounach juggled a cabbage, two eggs and a tuber of some sort, using hands and feet in a comical skipping dance, teasing his audience with absurdities of fear and doubt and astonishment at the impossibilities he was accomplishing with an understated ease. The crowd was large and happy, laughing, a little drunk, enough to loosen them up, not enough to make them mean. She stayed a moment to watch. Even with Zidras sharing the take, they'd get a good pile of coin from this bunch. Reluctantly she moved on, winding through busy aisles toward the grove where the Sayoneh had their camp.

In the grassy glade where the young Sayoneh had played ball, Deel was teaching six of them to dance. She seemed so happy Gleia almost went away, miserable at the thought of disrupting that serenity; she felt as if she stood on quicksand, every way she moved promising disaster. The Dancer lived in presenttime, ignoring past and future whenever she could. She had a wintering place and folk to care for her, food and shelter and friends, so she was as joyous as any kitten playing games with its shadow. Not the worst way to live. Gleia watched the lesson, listened to the music, putting away for the moment the dreary task that had brought her there. She smelled dust and sweat and bruised leaves and liked the smell, and liked the vigor and honesty of the girls before her, liked their intense concentration on what they were doing.

Then a saone tripped and others fell with her in a tangle of arms and legs and flying robes.

Deel stood laughing at them, hands on hips, then she waded into the mess to sort them out and help them to their feet. When that was done she looked around, saw Gleia, waved to her. She sent the young Sayoneh scurrying off and came over to the trees, wiping at her face, scraping off dust and sweat.