Northshore (20 page)

Medoor had been on stores detail for one Viranel, with some days of the duty yet to run. She coiled her fishskin whip into its case, slinging it over her shoulder as she looked around for the others. Riv Lymeen, very white teeth in an almost black face and a voice like a whip stroke; Fez Dooraz, plump and wobbly with sad brown eyes; and old white-headed Zyneem Porabji, who could add up in his head faster than the merchants could on their beads. The three of them were already together at the head of Market Street, waiting for her.

‘Come on, Babji,’ Lymeen called, her fuzzy head wagging disapproval and her lips curled to show her fangs. ‘Step it up, Medoor. All the camp will go hungry waiting on you.’

Which was unfair, for Lymeen often scamped her whips late in the afternoon. ‘Match coin!’ Medoor growled at her, pleased to see the other turn away without accepting the challenge. Whatever Riv might say about Medoor being distractible and absentminded, she couldn’t say Medoor was lazy – something Riv Lymeen had often heard said of herself. The amount of coin each Melancholic gained was an accurate measure of the amount of effort each Melancholic expended. ‘Match coin’ was a way of ending argument on the matter.

‘Leader says to see can we get song-fish,’ remarked old Porabji. ‘Fillets or whole. Some to eat tonight and some to dry and smoke for the trip. I’ll see to that. You, Babji, go along to the wine merchants. Lymeen, you to Grain Alley, and Dooraz will see to the greens. If there’s fresh puncon fruit, call me. They’ll want the price of a copper bracelet for it, but maybe I can talk them down. Remember, we’re buying for tonight plus two days. We’re westering tomorrow. Three or four more towns, Taj Noteen says, and then back to the steppes.

Three or four more towns. Then the long walk northward, through the dry, white-podded pamet fields on the arid heights and the wet grainfields along the little streams, blue with tasseled bloom. Many days with no markets, no
one allowed to sell them food, and fliers hanging high, black dots on the pale sky, to see they ate nothing from the fields. Many days living on what they pulled in the carts. Then the line of watchtowers, marking the edge of Northshore, and beyond that the steppes. There would be roasted jarb root. Medoor would never understand why anyone would dry jarb root skins and smoke them as the Mendicants did – visions or no visions – when one could bury them in the coals in their skins and eat them, sweet and satisfying as nothing else edible could ever be. And there would be stewed grains from the traveler fields, small grain patches that were harvested, weeded, fertilized, and replanted by any Noor who traveled by. Every Noor carried seed grain in a pouch, and every Noor learned to control his or her bladder, too, so as not to waste fertilizer on empty sand.

Medoor longed for the steppes, that great sea of grass dotted with the gray-green rosettes of jarb plants and interrupted by occasional thorn trees with their tart, crimson fruit. The rivers of the steppes were full of silvery cheevle – tiny toothsome fish, perfectly safe to eat – and equally full of shiggles – plump, ground-running birds that could not be eaten at all unless one cooked them with grain but when cooked with grain tasted of heaven. Medoor told herself she would trade all the wines and sweetmeats of Northshore for the food of the steppes.

She hurried toward the wine merchants’ stalls, as though by speeding this part of their necessary preparation she could speed their departure. She was heartily sick of Northshore; tired of the babble and bellow of its people, the muddy taste of its food, and the stink of its workers, glad as she had never been glad before of her dark skin, which prevented the Tears of Viranel from invading her body, dead or alive. Tears wouldn’t work on black folk. Something about the light not getting through. It didn’t matter why they wouldn’t work. The fact was enough to be thankful for.

‘Thanks be to the Jabr dur Noor,’ she murmured to herself in the ritual prayer of the Noors. ‘Thanks be that I
am black.’ Thus assured of the attention of the All-Seeing, she lifted a merchant’s purse as he pressed through the market throng, slipping it into her trouser leg. At the wine merchant’s she bargained well. Between what she bought out of the merchant’s purse and what she slipped into her wide pockets without paying for, the price would be acceptable, even to Porabji. There was fresh puncon for sale, but Medoor did not bother running to the old man with word of it. When they returned to camp, she simply emptied her capacious trouser legs, placing russet fruit after russet fruit onto the meal wagon tailgate, grinning as she did so until Porabji, who had begun by scowling at her, had to grin in return.

‘You’ll be caught one of these days, girl,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You’ll be caught and brought up before the Tower charged with theft.’

‘What’ll they do, let the fliers eat me?’ She grinned. Criminals were dosed with Tears and given to the fliers for food, at least white ones were, or so it was rumored.

Porabji shook his head. ‘They’ll burn you, girl. That’s what they do to us Noors. If the fliers can’t eat someone, they’ll burn him and scatter his ashes on the River.’

Medoor sobered somewhat, if only for a time. She had witnessed a burning once. It was not an end that appealed to her. She promised herself for the hundredth time to be more careful. Still, stealing was the one thing she did really well, and it was hard to give up one’s only talent. She went toward the campfire in a mood of mixed self-congratulation and caution. One more night among the stinking heathen of this town, then three towns more, then home, to the tents of … well. Home. That was enough.

When the Noor had been fed, Medoor was free to amuse herself until roll call. There was never any question where she would go or what she would do with her free time. She had had only one passion since she had first seen the River. Boats. Boats spoke to Medoor. Their planks oozed with mysterious travel, far destinations. Their crews had been all-the-way-around. They had seen everything, been every –
where. Sometimes the owners would let her come aboard. More than once she’d gone aboard at some lecher’s invitation and had to show her knife and whip to get off again, but no owner was going to bring the curse of the Melancholics down on himself. He might hint a little, or make an outright proposition, but he wouldn’t try rape. At least, Medoor thought with some satisfaction, none had yet. It had been the danger her mother had most feared for a Noor daughter, here among the heathen. Medoor had had to promise utmost prudence before she had obtained permission to join the Melancholics.

For some days now, there had been one particular boat at the Chantry docks that interested Medoor, and it was certain the troubled man who was owner of the
Gift of Potipur
wouldn’t bother her. Though he seemed to like to talk to her, he hadn’t once looked at her with that particular expression men sometimes got. It was almost as though he didn’t know she was a woman at all, and this was part of the fascination. Most boatmen were garrulous sorts, full of tales and exaggerations, but the crew of the
Gift
was of a different kind. Quiet. Almost secretive. Not fearful, she thought, but with a kind of separation about them, as though they knew something the rest of the world didn’t. Thrasne himelf had a habit of standing on the deck, staring southward over the River at one particular spot, as though there should be something there he could see.

‘Thrasne owner,’ she called, making her way up the plank.

‘Medoor Babji,’ came the call in return. He was below, where she often found him, supervising the repair of the ship’s planks stove in by some great floating tree on the wide River. She poked her head down, attracted by the strange smell from below. Most of the crew was there, caulking the new planks with frag sap. The hot pungency of the caulk took her breath away, and she wondered how they could bear to work in the close heat of the hold. She went back to the deck, pausing for a time to admire the great winged figure that poised at the bow of the vessel, a giant flame-
bird, perhaps, or a winged angel. Tired of this, she leaned against the rail, watching the water. There, after a time, Thrasne joined her.

‘ Another day or two,’ he said, wiping his hands on a scrap of waste. ‘We’ll be done with it.’

‘ How can you breathe down there?’

‘Oh, after an hour or two, you get drunk with it. When everyone starts giggling and stumbling, then’s time to call a halt for the day. They’ll be coming up soon.’ He nodded at her, a friendly expression. ‘Medoor Babji,’ he mused. ‘What does your name mean? It must mean something.’

‘It does mean something,’ she retorted. ‘As much as yours does.’

‘Thrasne?’ He thought about this for a moment. ‘It was my grandfather’s name. It was the name of the place he came from, inland, where they had a farm. So, what does your name mean?’

‘The Noor have a secret language of naming. We usually don’t share our secret names with Northshoremen.’

‘Oh.’

He said it flatly, accepting rejection, and she immediately sought to make amends.

‘I just meant it wasn’t customary. All our names are two words, and the two words put together have another meaning. Like in our home tribe, there’s a man named Jikool Pesit. Jikool means “stones,”, and Pesit means “nighttime,” “dark.” Stones in the dark are something you fall over, so that name would mean “Stumbler” in the Northshore language.’

He turned an interested face, so she went on. ‘I have a good friend whose name is Temin Suteed. Temin means “a key,” and Suteed is “golden” – ah, like sunlight. If you lock up gold with a key, that means “treasure,” so that’s her name. Treasure…

‘My grandfather’s name was M’noor Jeroomly. M’noor is from the same word as our tribal name. Noor. Noor means “a speaking people.” And m’noor means “ spoken.” Jeroomly means “promising,” so the two together mean ‘ ‘oath,” and that was his name.’

‘How about Taj Noteen?’ asked Thrasne, who had met the troupe leader.

She laughed. ‘In Northshore he would be called Strutter.’

Thrasne shook his head, not understanding.

‘It comes from the words for cock and feather, that is, plume, and the plumed birds always strut, you know.’

‘But you won’t tell me what your name means.’

She flushed. ‘Perhaps someday.’ Actually, Medoor Babji still had her baby name, and it meant something like ‘dearest little one.’ She did not want Thrasne to know that. Yet.

He let it go, staring out across the River, upon his face that expression of concern and yearning that had so interested Medoor.

‘What’s out there?’ she asked, taking the plunge. ‘You’re always looking out there.’

‘There!’ He was startled, stuttered a reply. ‘Oh, someone – someone from the crew, is all. Someone we had to leave on an island when we came in for repairs. We’re to pick … her up when we’re solid again, and it’s been longer than we planned. We thought it would be before festival.’

‘Oh.’ She didn’t comment further. With some men she might have teased, but not with Thrasne. Whatever bothered him, it was no light thing. And whoever he had left behind, it had been no common crew member. ‘Well, we may see you down River, then. Our leader says we’ll visit three more towns before turning north.’

‘Possibly.’ He wasn’t interested. She could tell. His lack of interest was irritating enough to gamble on. ‘Thrasne?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Who is she, really?’

His silence made her think she had overstepped, but after a time he turned toward her, not looking at her, heaving one hip onto the rail so he could sit half facing her.

‘Did you ever dream of anyone, Medoor Babji?’

She had climbed onto the rail and teetered there now, trying to make sense of his question. ‘Of anyone? I guess so. Mostly people I know, I suppose.’

‘Did you ever dream of someone you didn’t know? Over and over again?’

She shook her head. This conversation was not going as she had thought it might. Nonetheless, it was interesting. ‘No, Thrasne owner. I never have.’

‘I used to. When I was only a boy. A woman. Always the same woman. I called her Suspirra. A dream woman. The most beautiful woman in the world. I made a little carving of her. I still have it.’ He was silent again, then, and she thought he had talked all he would. Just as she was about to get down from the rail and bid him a polite farewell, he began again.

‘When I was near grown, I found a woman’s body in the River. It had been blighted. You know what that is?’

She nodded. She had never seen it, but she had a general idea.

‘It was the woman I’d dreamed of. Line for line. Every feature. Face. Eyes. Feet. Everything. I brought her out of the River and kept her, Medoor Babji. Kept her for many years. And then one day I met the daughter of that woman. Found her, I guess you’d say. Truly, her daughter. The daughter she had borne long ago, before she had drowned. And the daughter was alive and the same, line for line. And she came onto the
Gift of Potipur.
It was before Conjunction, winter, when I found her. And that was more than a year, now.’

‘And it was that woman you had to leave on the island?’

‘That woman, yes.’

‘Why? Is someone after her?’

He looked her in the eyes for the first time. ‘Can I trust you not to go talking about this business, Babji? It could be my life. And hers.’

‘Laughers?’ She held her breath. This was the stuff of nightmare and romance. Laughers and dream woman.

Seeing his discomfort, she changed the subject. ‘It’s nice you found your dream woman, Thrasne. Things like that don’t often happen.’

‘I don’t know what’s happened,’ he said in a kind of quiet
sadness. ‘Her body lives on the
Gift.
But her spirit – it isn’t here yet, Babji. So, I’m patient about it.’

He went on then, for some time, talking. He told her everything he knew of Pamra Don, everything he had ever thought, even some of the things he had hoped, though he did not realize that. Far off along the shore she heard the sound of ‘Noor count’ shrilling over the water.

‘I must go, Thrasne owner,’ she whispered, interrupting him. ‘My leader will whip me with my own whip if I am not in place very soon.’ Though he would not if he knew who she was, she thought. Still, it was important he not know.