Skeen's Leap (38 page)

On the day before the Asach's escort came to fetch me, Ucsi came to my room. I was locked in, but he didn't bother with the door; he came down the side of the house and in my window. I always had a window open at night if it wasn't raining or snowing or freezing cold and this was a mesru-summer night, one of those in late autumn that are warm and pleasant breaks just before the snows when only the fallen leaves told you that summer was gone.

I wasn't asleep. My trunks were in my rooms, all packed and corded for transport. I was emptying out the smallest, the one I planned to keep in the caros with me. In place of the fripperies and cosmetics I was stowing my bow and all the shafts I'd managed to steal, male garb I'd taken from Yoncal's winter gear, rope and knives and a frying pan, needles and thread, and everything I could think of I might need on the run. I was trying to fit it all in when Ucsi swung in and stood laughing at me.

“I might have known,” he whispered. He hugged me and sighed with relief. “Ishri and me,” he said, keeping his voice low, “we're due to be called Extra, he wants us out before winter comes. So we talked him into letting us represent the family at the Presentation of the Bride. Soon as that's over, we told him, you can declare us Extra and we'll be right on the coast. That way Keesh will have to pay our expenses, not you. He thought it was a good notion and found it hard to believe we'd managed to make that much sense. So we're going with you. We'll have our severance purses. He grumbled but came up with twenty gold each, so we've got that. I came to see if you were really so cowed as you looked and if you weren't, to say you can come with us if you want. Might have known you'd have your own plans. You don't have to go with us, but it'd be nice to be together a bit longer and we can take care of you, too.” He grinned at me. “Besides, you know what sort of cook Ishri is and I'm worse. You aren't much, but you're stads ahead of us.” I nearly swallowed my fist to keep the laughter in. I wanted to laugh and sing and shout my joy to the lifefire, but I got over that fast enough. Ucsi helped me finish packing, then we sat on the bed and planned until the dawn was red outside. He went out the window and climbed back up to Ishri who was curled up and sleeping, Ucsi told me later, calm as a mouse in his nest. I went to bed and tried to sleep. I didn't expect to, but my body fooled me. It said enough was enough, and plunged me deep almost before my head touched the pillow.

The escort arrived a little before noon with a huge ornate caros drawn by a matched team of biroun, black as the jet the Skirrik p2ize, their hooves and horns polished till they gleamed, the points on the horns filed so sharp they looked like they could split a thought. The Rossam bowed low and called me Lady. The Teybibi minced out and got creakily to her knees, long time since that one had bowed to anybody, knocked her head on the dirt by my toes and stayed there crouched like a great black toad until I said the words that let her labor to her feet. Honors. Hah! I didn't need anyone to tell me just how little those honors meant. All this poshness, all this ritual were meant to show off his possessions and his rank. I was a part of those possessions now, or as good as, and took on the glow of their glory. The mums pulled the traveling biseh over my head, a kind of roomy sack with eyeholes, then all of them hugged me. I could feel them shaking, and hear from their breathing that they were crying. Well, they were the only family I had, so I hugged them back and whispered not to worry, I was all right, look how well he treats me already. They said nothing, knowing as well as I did how little all that meant. But they patted me and got me settled in the caros and produced the ritual howls of grief as the caros started moving.

The caros was a closed one, so I started to pull off the biseh; the mums used to let me do that when we were going to the Rudssas because if I had to wear it all the way, I'd arrive half out of my mind, sweaty and crying. I hated being bound up, and the biseh made me feel like a netted chicken. With the gauze curtains tied down we could get light and air and no one could see in. The Teybibi, the Asach's widowed elder sister sent to be my chaperone, screeched at me to stop that; she caught my hands and pulled them into my lap. She was strong as a bull kova. When I protested, she slapped me, the biseh muffling the blow only a little. She told me to shut my mouth and behave myself if I knew how. There was anger and jealousy in her voice and hard intent. She meant to break me into obedience before we reached the Asach's hold. I'd never met anyone like her before, I knew that by the time the day was over. She was harder than stone, more vicious than a rabid kisbya. She hurt me whenever I displeased her and she was determined to be displeased. If I was silent, she said I was sullen and stupid; if I answered her no matter how mildly, she said I was insolent. And so it went. I said she hurt me, not that she beat me, because she didn't beat me, just pinched and slapped and twisted until I was nearly driven wild by the pain she knew how to inflict without leaving signs of her actions. She didn't even bruise me. I got a moment alone when I bathed and looked at my body because I couldn't believe I could hurt so much with nothing to show it, only a few reddish spots that were already fading. The Teybibi would have forbid the bath if she could, but Ucsi and Ishri had ridden ahead and bespoke it for me along with a good meal and a pot of mulled wine. And she didn't torment me after I was in bed. If she feared any living being, it was her brother so she wasn't going to bring me to him limp with exhaustion. When I thought of that, I turned colder than an ice-storm wind and tried not to think of it again. If the Teybibi was afraid of him, what must he be like? What.…

We were to be on the road five days, spending the last half of the last day in an Inn near Yezram freeport. This, so the next morning I could be brought in procession to my husband-soon, clad in fine raiment, riding a milk white biro mare with obsidian horns and hooves. Keesh's boast that a man of his years was still vigorous enough to cover a girl younger than his youngest daughter. See her and envy me.

We reached the Inn an hour before sundown on the fifth day. Ucsi went into Yezram while Ishri stayed behind to get their traps ready and keep the Teybibi off my back.

Late that night I clunked her on the head, tied her up, and gagged her. I felt like cutting the viper's throat, but miserable as they were, I still had family. Bad enough to run. Father could handle that, disown us, declare all of us exile and Extra. He was planning to do that anyway to the boys, no trouble to curse me and disown me, too. But blood meant more blood. Blood without end. Much as I wanted to pay her back for five days of torment when I didn't dare fight back because that could ruin the escape, as much as I wanted to shame and humiliate her and bleed the acid from her veins, I could not. So I bound her into a cocoon of quilts and stuffed a dirty stocking into her mouth. Then I packed my gear in a back-carry bundle, doubled the rope around a bedpost, and climbed out the window.

Soon as I was down Ucsi reeled in the rope and Isrhi brought round three mounts, the rest of our gear roped behind their saddles. “Your escort is sound asleep and I do mean sound; you should hear the snoring.” He grinned at me. “Uyus in their beer.”

We rode off at a smart trot, not hurrying, we didn't want any snoop still about to get the idea we were running from anything. The wharves were a little over a stad off. We rode through that cool quiet night, the split hooves loud on the shells put down to lay the dust; I don't know what the others were feeling, we never got to talk about it much, but I was scared and excited and.… You talked about that leap-into-the-dark feeling, you know what was in me.

Ucsi had bargained with the owner of a small coast-leaper that was leaving with the tide for Atsila Vana. The wiry little Baiayar took the mounts as passage payment, quite aware who they belonged to; he got them on board with a speed and efficiency that started Ishri giggling, though he contrived to keep his amusement soundless. Less than an hour later we were on our way.

I found out later that no one discovered the Teybibi until nearly noon when someone came from the Asach to see what was holding things up. The escort was still snoring; the Teybibi was stiff as a board and so furious it was a while before she could talk, then a while when she only sputtered her rage. It was the Rossam who saw that I was gone and slapped her into coherence. And it was the Rossam who sent men galloping into Yezram to hunt for me. They found no trace of the twins and me. Those who knew anything, knew better than to say it; those who knew nothing voiced their ignorance with loud indignation. They didn't work too hard at it, too much time had passed. Keesh raged at the Teybibi and nearly had her strangled, but did not; he didn't quite dare take on the name of kinslayer and the curse of kinblood. He sent her into the hills to live alone in a tiny hut. His wives and daughters must have cried blessing on me for that at least. He had the escort beaten and set to work as field hands for his meanest krav-serf. He was going to cry feud with my father, but let himself be talked into waiting and when he heard my father had named us Exile and Extra, he was pacified enough to drop his war-talk. And next year he got his bride from an older but poorer family. She was small and dainty and clever enough to seem docile and rumor reached me that she led him a dance of fools before she died in childbirth. A twisted smile. As for us, our plans went awry faster than we'd imagined. The shipmaster made a good living out of the Extras he enticed onto his ship; before the land dropped below the horizon Ucsi, Ishri, and I were in a drugged sleep. Like with those Extras before us, he got our gear, our severance purses, and he sold us to slavers in the freeport at Atsila Vana. I woke in the hold of a slave ship bound for Oruda. My brothers went somewhere else. I never saw them again. A sigh.