The Braided World (16 page)

“Now we are equal,” Joon said. ‘Are we not?”

Anton tried to summon a response. Nothing came immediately to mind. There was nothing, in fact, on his mind but Joon standing naked.

“Equality,” Joon said, “is something that I have thought on. It is what you have so much of, in your distant home, is it not?” She descended the steps until the water came up to her thighs. “Where you have no slaves, no removing of tongues.”

“That is so,” Anton said, watching the water level move up her body trying to remember what Maypong had told him about male-female sexual relations. Not that he needed to know, he told himself. She was being friendly. It was only a bath, usually a quite communal event. But somehow, he doubted that anything communal was on her mind.

He summoned to mind: Dassa did not have … conventional sex. There was no penetration, for one thing. Not
usually. This was considered a degenerate practice. But Maypong described a great variety of other ways of achieving “sexual closeness.” Anton thought her lectures rather more detailed than the mission required, but Maypong could not be diverted from revealing the things she deemed it necessary he know in order to become civilized.

Joon dipped into the water, swimming to the middle of the expansive bath, keeping her head above water, not disturbing her hair. “Have you no high and low among humans, Captain?”

“We have rich and poor. But not a system to keep them so.” He watched her deft strokes against the water, her dark arms flashing like burnished fish.

She swam back to him and sat on the steps, submerged to her shoulders. “Relax with me here, Anton,” she said, noting his discomfort. “Soon enough, when my father returns, the palace will fill with soldiers. There is so little leisure to become friends.” She looked up at him, and the middle of her brow furrowed. “Unless you do not wish to become friends?”

“Lady I…”

Calmly, she waited, completely at ease, making him feel as if he was making something out of nothing, causing her concern for no reason.

He managed to say, “I don't know what you mean by
friends.
Friends do not bathe together.”

“Hmm. But enemies do?”

He didn't bother to answer. She would have her way, and perhaps it would be merely a chance to talk of rich and poor, slaves and freedom.

The water shimmered around her, distorting the image of her body in its depths, but not enough to cloak its beauty.

“Tell me of Erth, Captain. I know nothing except of the Olagong, which I will one day hold in my protection. But all around me are enemies, the Voi and others. My education is incomplete. Compared to yours.”

“What do you wish to know?”

“You have strange strengths and odd weakness. No slaves, but little pri.”

She thought the absence of slaves was a strength. Perhaps her generation had more liberal ideas, certainly more liberal than Vidori's. He wondered what kind of queen she would be, when her time came. He would have liked to be here to see.

“On Earth, in my father's compound,” Anton said, “we had no slaves, but my father left those people to starve who became stricken with illness… with lack of pri.”

“You did not approve.”

“No.” He glanced up. They were alone. Gitam had left.

Joon murmured, “It is difficult to go against one's own powerful father.” Her voice had a strange clarity here in this large pool.

“Yes, Lady.”

She turned to him, stretching her legs along the submerged step. “Sometimes it is necessary to have different opinions than one's powerful father.”

“Sometimes.” It was strange to have such a discussion in a bath. It was all strange. He had a fancy to unhook her hair. He wondered if it came undone as simply as her robe. There were combs and twists, all very complicated.

Joon lay stretched out upon the stair, her legs almost but not quite touching him. “Lately I have been thinking that it is time for the hoda to be brought higher. In human ways. For the sake of equality. Would you agree, Captain?”

“Yes.” She had finally asked a question he was sure about.

She smiled, keeping her lips together, but every expression was magnified on this woman of such calm demeanor. “Then we have a satisfying end to our conversation, yes?”

“If you say so, Lady.”

“No, you must say so, Anton.” She moved her legs aside, into the deeper water, gazing out into the middle, waiting for him.

What were they talking about? Anton had entirely lost track.

She kicked her feet under the water, causing ripples to course over Anton and her.

She was waiting for him. Waiting for him to say something, to do something. Her waiting was a powerful inducement. She left all the time in the world for him to say or do. He moved to her, as though commanded. He reached out, touching her face, turning her chin toward him.

“I say so,” Anton said.

She moved into his arms, kneeling on the steps. He felt her breasts against his chest. Her piled-up hair must come down. He reached into it, plucking out the pins and combs. Anton felt her hair come down, surrounding them in a canopy. One of her combs floated beside them like a fabulous miniature skiff.

Joon was trembling as he touched her, her head thrown back onto the lip of the basin, her throat exposed. He caressed her neck. She reached for him under the water, and his hands roamed over her skin, slick and warm. Maypong's voice nagged at him. What was he supposed to do and not do? He ran his hand down her arms, and she arched her back and neck, causing her hair to trail into the water.

When he paused, she took his hand and stroked her shoulders with it, teaching him the extraordinary ways of her body the skin that she kept so carefully covered, the body that hummed to his touch. And though he wasn't Dassa, she began to teach him the ways of his own skin.

She whispered, “Is it better to be cordial, Captain?”

“Yes,” he said, pushing her back against the stairs, where her hair spread like ink through the water, curling around his arms.

He floated above her. She encircled him with her long legs, pulling him toward her. This course of things was taboo. But her heels pressed into his back, pulling him down. She couldn't be making a mistake, so deliberate she was. He pushed away from her for a moment, but her grip
would not release him. And in truth, he hadn't tried very much to evade her.

His last thought before he entered her was:
Not her kind of sex.
But the heels in his back were insistent.

Mistress Aramee confronted Gilar, holding the offending discovery in her hand.

“Gilar, what is this that I have found?” Aramee stood beside a hot brazier, keeping her distance from the heat.

Beside Gilar, also kneeling, was Nuan, the chief hoda. Nuan poked at Gilar, commanding her to answer.

My hair, Aramee-rah.<

Aramee glanced at Nuan, inviting another sharp poke to Gilar's ribs.

“No, Gilar,” Aramee said, “this would not be your hair, thankfully.”

Gilar glanced up at the mistress. Aramee knew very well it was Gilar's hair. Why would Gilar keep anyone else's hair? She had only been one week in servitude, not enough time for her hair to dissolve under the cleansing broth, so Nuan had shaved it off. Gilar had scooped up a thick lock of hair and hid it. Not well, apparently.

“What is this that I have found, then, Gilar?”

Nuan turned to Gilar. You will say that it is the hair of a Dassa whom you no longer are.<

Not wanting a beating, Gilar signed, It is someone's hair. <

They had taken everything from her: her hair, her clothes, her mother, her tongue. Truly, she was no longer a proper Dassa. But Gilar knew that she could never be silent and submissive, like the unctuous Nuan, like the relentlessly cheerful Bahn. She had figured out that some hoda were above others.

Some hoda commanded air ships and went where they pleased. These were called humans.

That was where the terrible mistake had been made,
that they thought Gilar was the other kind of hoda. There were high hoda and low hoda. Gilar knew which kind she was.

Satisfied that Gilar had repented, Aramee turned to leave. As she did, she dropped the offending lump of hair onto the brazier, filling the hut with an acrid smoke.

Gilar watched the strands curl and turn incandescent on the coals, keeping their shape for a moment before collapsing of too much brightness.

If the mistress hoped to intimidate Gilar, she had failed. That was the thing about hair.

It could grow back.

The hoda filled their pails with excrement at the sludge pit, humming and vocalizing as they worked, making jarring, vulgar sounds. At their sides, Gilar shoveled the stinking loads into her pail.

Bahn signed to her, Fill the pail to the brim, Gilar, so we make better progress. <

Gilar looked at her, wondering how she could see buckets of excrement as progress. But she threw another dollop in her pail.

As they headed to the fields, Gilar hoped that—burdened by her pail—Bahn would shut up, but she managed to carry it in the crook of her arm and still harangue Gilar. She constantly chatted of the palace. Like most low hoda, she was dazzled by the nobles, always prating on about this noble or that one.

Gilar tuned out all this gossip of Dassa, who no longer held any interest for her. But when Bahn had news of the humans, Gilar paid attention.

Maypong had been appointed chancellor to the chief of the great air vessel. If Gilar were still of the palace, she would have seen this captain every day and talked of star barges with him, and they would have become friends, and
then Gilar would have gone to Erth with the humans when they left, when they had found what they came for.

They had come, they said, on a great air barge that traveled the skies between stars, and they had come for help, being without pri, to the world of pri. But no one in the Olagong, not even Oleel, knew how to give pri to those without it.

This morning Bahn was full of the story of the human Bailey, of the pri of many years, and how she had sung in front of hoda, without shame. Many of the hoda at Aramee's compound gossiped about this, saying the humans were like them, being born to bear and liking to sing. Kea, walking in front on the path, had been one of those who heard Bailey sing. Now she was carrying her pail of dung and humming a new song.

Gilar dumped her bucket in the planting trench, and turned to go.

Smooth out the sludge with the hoe,< Bahn signed. It will ripen better if the air circulates freely through it.<

Gilar set her bucket down and eyed Bahn, the low hoda. Why do you care how much air the dung gets?<

Bahn smiled. Oh Gilar, the air cures the sludge, making it—<

Gilar interrupted. But do you care for turds so much?<

Bahn raised her hands to reply, then dropped them, confused.

If you want to be my associate, learn to talk of something less vulgar. < Gilar picked up her bucket and turned in the direction of the sludge pit. Bahn grabbed onto her arm, jerking it, and then dropped her hand away quickly so as not to arouse Gilar.

Bahn was standing on the path eye to eye with her. She signed, Know, my sister, that I am assigned to your training. I would be tending the babes this morning, except that you must carry turds for a punishment. No one else wanted to train you, but I took pity on you.<

Gilar looked at her pail, stained with excrement. In an
awful, lucid moment she understood how she was perceived. They didn't regard her palace upbringing. They didn't think her fine or special. Even her own uldia no longer acknowledged her. She stood, bald-headed, on a path in the langva fields, carrying excrement. She looked just like Bahn. Just like all the slaves.

Turning from Bahn, Gilar walked swiftly back along the path. Tears gathered at her eyes; she blinked over and over to whip them away. How could she let Bahn's words cut her so? How could it matter what a low hoda thought?

Bahn was at her side, matching her stride, thankfully keeping quiet for once. Bahn didn't shame her by noticing her tears. But a hoda approaching from the opposite direction did notice. Meeting Gilar's eyes, she emitted a short bit of mewling song.

Turning to stare at the wretched hoda as the creature passed merrily along, Gilar thought she might hurl her pail at the woman.

Bahn urged Gilar off the path, into the undergrowth. Do not,< Bahn signed.

Do not what?<

Do not anything.<

Gilar sat on the ground, holding herself rigid, holding herself back from flying at the hoda, flying at all of them, ripping pails from their hands, pushing them into the muck of the fields.

Bahn's hands moved. That hoda said, “We cry with you, sister.
“<

Gilar signed, That hoda said nothing to me.<

She said, “We cry with you.
“<

Gilar looked back at the path. Hoda passed each other, nodding their greetings. Singing.

A long time passed as Gilar sat in the mud, with Bahn next to her. They watched the sun pierce the carmine trees and illumine the path now and then, as the wailing of the hoda stained the air in blotches.

Bahn hummed again. Then she interpreted. I just said, “It is a language.
“<

A language?<

Bahn hummed, then translated. That is how you say, “Yes.”<

Looking up at the path, Gilar began to see what no proper Dassa ever saw, that hoda were not so submissive as they seemed. That they had a secret language.

It was a vulgar language of tones. But it could be helpful to speak what the mistress could not understand.

Gilar signed to Bahn, How do you sing, “I am human” ?<

A tone came from Bahn.

And though Gilar had never in her life sung, never once, she opened her mouth and repeated Bahn's few notes.

Bahn regarded her with a sudden, close focus. That was perfect, Gilar. <

Gilar sang it again.

Perfect, < Bahn repeated. You have tonal wisdom, my

sister. <

But it was simple to copy Bahn, and the sound on her ears was not vulgar, but clear and sweet.

Teach me another word.<

Bahn did, and then another. In the shade of the carmine trees, Bahn opened the realm of hoda song, and Gilar fled there.