The Care and Feeding of Griffins (13 page)

21.  Letters

D
ear Mom and Dad and Rhiannon,

Well, I
’m not alone any more.  I met my first native this morning and apparently, he likes me so much that he’s determined that I should meet the rest of his tribe one person at a time.  There’s always two or three people just sort of hanging around at the edges of my camp, each of them just for a few hours.  Watching me carry water.  Watching me braid grass.  Watching me feed Aisling.  Heck, watching me sleep, eat, do laundry, and use the bushes (ask me how pleased I am about this).  They don’t seem to care if I know that they’re there, but they’re sure not here to keep me company.  I’ve been talking at them for hours, and they talk back every now and then (so far, everyone I’ve met speaks English, which is more surprising than it even sounds), but they aren’t what you call forthcoming.  Oh, and I’m officially the shortest person here, not counting Aisling.  You wouldn’t think that it would matter, but it does.  Having to look up into all these watchful faces is a lot harder than just looking across at them.

So what to tell you about my neighbors?  Well, I managed to wrangle an introduction of sorts out of the one I met first by waiting until he
’d left and then asking someone else.  I don’t think it even occurred to the fella to lie.  So now I know that my new neighbor is called Tonka, as in ‘truck’ and boy, does he live up to it!  Apparently, he’s the chief of the tribe, so I can honestly say I’ve met a celebrity.  The people of the tribe call themselves Farasai, or horsemen.  Isn’t that useful to know? 

Chief is kind of an honorary
‘protector’ role that bounces from guy to guy, as near as I can tell.  The horsemen answer my questions when I ask them, but they’re pretty close-mouthed and it’s hard to get a straight answer out of them.  And it’s hard to think that anyone could depose Tonka, if that’s really the way things work out here.  Hang on, let me ask…Okay, they say (grudgingly) that no one deposes anybody.  The chief is picked by the tribe’s ‘mother’, who in this case appears to be named Ven.  Whoever marries Ven just magically becomes chief.  I betcha her husband never forgets her birthday. 

You know, the weirdest thing about Tonka is the fact that right now, he considers me to be his biggest threat.  Little old me.  Soaking wet and starving in a tent.  (I
’m not really starving, Mom.)  I’d try to look more non-threatening and all for him, but come on!  How much more non-threatening could I be
?

Dear Mom and Dad and Rhiannon,

Please send gardening gloves.

Sorry, I should have started out with the usual ‘Hi, I’m fine, hope you’re well’, but please, if you love me, send gardening gloves.

More visits from the neighborhood unwelcome wagon.  It
’s been three days and Tonka and his crew have been dropping by every few hours, in shifts, day and night, so someone’s always lurking around watching me.  Today it suddenly occurred to me that this is called being under surveillance.  It’s subtle.  They’re not really trying to be scary, I don’t think, just extremely visible.  And they’re polite about it, sort of.  They answer my questions if I ask them often enough.

Did I mention the spears?  Yeah, there
’s spears.  Big ones, with big shiny blades on them.  They’re called runkas.  I know because the other day, while I was beating my laundry against a rock under the wary and watchful eyes of my overseers, I asked the nearest horseman to tell me what they were called.  He also informed me that each runka gets a knot in its braid for each life it takes in battle.  Here is a picture of Tonka and his highly-braided runka.  I apologize for the blurriness, he twitched.  You’ll notice this is a head and shoulders shot only.  That is because the dude wears no clothes.  None of the Farasai wear clothes.  This has been an adjustment.

Still no sign of my mail-runner for the past several days.  I kind of wonder if she
’s deliberately avoiding me now that the horsemen are here.  And if that’s the case, that’s kind of honking me off.  Not that I have a lot of time for writing letters at the moment (as you can probably tell by the sheer quantity of letters that I have not written you), but I would like to send them once I do write.  And I’d like to receive some, especially since one of them might contain gardening gloves.  (Please send gardening gloves)

Dear Mom and Dad and Rhiannon,

Well, I’m just going to keep writing, even though my mail-runner hasn’t been by in more than a week.  I’m not lonely.  I almost wish I could say that I was.  The Farasai won’t leave me alone.

They
’re really not scary, Mom.  I can feel you worrying from here (even though I haven’t even mailed these, yet.  That’s some powerful worry you’ve got there, Mom.  Work on that) but you know, they’re not being aggressive or hostile or anything, just very, very visible.  With visible spears.

Never mind.  The big news here is Aisling, who has turned into a real traveling man.  Up until now, I
’ve pretty much been carrying him everywhere, but now his tolerance for that seems to come and go.  He wants to get down and walk by himself, which, of course, is very slow and awkward, and if I’m trying to do something else at the time, it turns into an issue of, ‘Do I make Aisling happy?’ or ‘Do I get to have a fire tonight?’  And I’m really nervous about making Aisling unhappy because, you see, there are all these Farasai with spears staring at me all the time.

Moving on to the second subject that I can feel you worrying about, Mom.  Food.  One of the biggest issues on my mind has been what I
’m going to eat until next year when I can get a proper garden going.  But fortunately, the plains out here are predominantly formed from this great grain.  I’m enclosing some for you to see.  I just pull the seeds off and rub them between my hands real good to take the hairy hulls off and then give them a puff to blow the chaff away and dump the seeds in a pot.  Four hours of this and presto—big pot of grain for boiling.  It’s not bad.  No worse than those wheatberries Dad used to feed us when he went on that health-Nazi kick when we were kids.  Except that there’s no sugar for ‘em.  Plus, I’m out of hot chocolate and I’ve been using the same tea bag for two days now.  And much as I’d like to ask for more, the packaging doesn’t burn well and there’s no garbage pick-up, so don’t.  There’s plenty of birds out here, and once in a while, I get one.  I can actually see my aim improving.  There’s also critters to chew on, but I’m not that brave, yet.  And there’s fish, but I don’t know.  My book’s instructions on how to make a hook are just impossible for me at the moment and I can’t make my own fishing line anyway.  Heck, I still can’t make a decent b

Taryn stopped writing and stared thoughtfully into space.  “A basket,” she murmured.

The horsewoman who was standing next to her, and
shamelessly reading over her shoulder, shifted her runka and looked around at Taryn’s extremely pathetic stack of woven grass failures.  Her tail flicked.

“
Relax,” Taryn said, putting her letters and pen away in her backpack pocket.  “I’m not asking you to fix one for me.”

The horsewoman backed up as Taryn got to her feet, then followed and watched closely as Taryn went to pick through her mats and clumsy bowls.  Taryn could feel that stare burning on her as she gathered all of them up, as well as a bundle of grass she
’d pulled from her garden, and dumped them next to the tent flaps.  (The potatoes stared at her accusingly from their greening place at the side of her tent.  Stupid damn things.  Maybe tomorrow she’d finish pulling and plant them.)  Next, she got one of her many coils of grass-fiber cord and tossed that over to join her mats.  Then she scooped up Aisling, and went briskly to her copse to cut a few dozen thin branches with her Leatherman multitool, green and whippy ones, to bring back with her.

She plopped down in the mouth of her tent, returned a peeping Aisling to his blanket, and pulled a disastrous effort at a mat onto her lap.  She started bending switches into a vaguely conical shape, one that was open at the narrow end but rounded where it was wider.  Her cord, the one thing she
’d discovered that she could make well and therefore had seven thousand miles of it piled around, wrapped the switches in place.  She started binding the mats and baskets onto the frame, trying to cover as wide an area as possible.

“
What are you doing?”

It was the first question she
’d been asked, the first words any Farasai had volunteered in all this time, and Taryn stopped what she was doing to stare around at her.  She was in the habit of chatting with her guards, but usually getting any kind of response from them was like pulling teeth.  But this horsewoman had put her runka into her back strap and was leaning over, her hands braced on her furry foreknees, watching with open interest.

“
Well,” Taryn said.  “I might just be wasting my time, but hopefully, I’m making a trap.”  She started wrapping grass stems to fill the little gaps left by the mats.

“
What beast do you expect to hold with only grass?” the horsewoman asked, puzzled.

“
Fish.”

Silence.  The horsewoman looked dubious.

“Have you ever noticed that the fish hang out in the grassy part of the riverbank?” Taryn asked.

“
Aye.”

“
And they only dash off if they see someone coming.  Well, I’m going to make them a grassy riverbank.”  She held up her finished basket—a giant, organic light bulb-shaped thing with a narrow, open mouth—and then tied some cord to it for an anchor line.  “With any luck, they’ll swim on in, and when I come along, they won’t be able to dash away.  I’ll lift them out, the water will drain, and I’ll be left with a basket full of fish.”

“
Aye.”  The horsewoman straightened up, looking very faintly impressed.  “I follow.”  She turned around and clopped out of camp.

Taryn didn
’t watch her go, assuming that it was the changing of the guard and soon another horseman would step up to take her place.  She quickly became absorbed in making minor adjustments to her fish-basket, losing track of time, and came back to herself only after a bundle of whippy switches and grape vines landed at her side.

Taryn looked up with no small amount of surprise and the horsewoman drew her runka again.  She backed up, set the butt of her spear on the ground, and leaned on it, watching Taryn without expression.

“Thanks,” Taryn said.

The horsewoman
’s tail flicked.

Taryn put her basket down and got up.  The horsewoman straightened, looking wary as Taryn came towards her.  Her hand on the haft of her spear flexed, raising it slightly.

“I’m Taryn,” Taryn said, and extended her hand.  “Nice to meet you.”

The horsewoman didn
’t move at all, except to look at Taryn’s empty hand.  After several long seconds, the Farasai backed away.

Taryn lowered her hand again, her heart sinking at the same speed.  For a seco
nd there, she’d really hoped…

“
It’s nice to meet you anyway,” Taryn said.  “Thanks for your help.”  She returned to her tent and sat, adjusted Aisling, and started making a new basket.

“
Ahm,” the horsewoman said.

Taryn looked at her. 
“Excuse me?”

The Farasai was frowning.  Deeply. 
“I am called Ahm,” she said.  She looked away, her ears pointing forward, and then she sheathed her spear and marched across camp and into the tall grass.  She did not look back.

Another horseman was coming, a big black stallion with his spear drawn and suspicion heavy in his eyes.  He stopped just out of her camp and set the butt of his runka into the ground, staring at her.

Taryn offered him a smile.  He did not respond.

She bent her head with a sigh and got back to work.

22.  Ahm and Chieftain

T
onka waited at the borders of his kraal.  He was never easy until he saw his guards return and Ahm, though the greatest of his hunters, was too near to her foaling to allow him a quiet mind when it was her turn at guard.  So he was there to see Ahm coming back across the plains.  She was walking, her head high, her gait unhurried.

Tonka stepped out a little ways to meet her, but she did not slow or even glance his way.  She ignored his
greeting and in a tight voice, said, “I shall not do this any more.”

Tonka turned around, catching at her arm as she passed. 
“What happened?” he asked, his mind racing with warning and possibility.  Had there been pains?  Early foaling was as good as a spear for the young, and often proved the same for the mare, but at second glance, Ahm did not look as though she suffered hurt. 

Which meant something the human had done had caused this mood, and that was a far greater threat. 
“Is thee injured?” he pressed anxiously, his own runka drawn almost without his noticing.  “What did she do?”

Ahm pulled her arm from his grip and turned at last to face him.  Anger was a broad stamp across her normally-tranquil features.  And it was for him, he saw with a start.  Her anger was all for him.

“Thee was my mother’s elder son before thee ever was my chieftain,” she said.  “And so I have followed thee without question or regret all the days of my life.  But now I tell thee plainly, I will not menace that human one more day!”  She spun, tail snapping out to strike at Tonka’s side, and then she was running from him.

Menace?  Ahm was the leader of his hunters.  He had sent her to hold watch over many, many human invaders.  She had never refused a watch and she had never spoken of it as menace.

Frowning, Tonka went after her, galloping to overtake her before she reached her lodge.

Incredibly, she sped up. 
“I have said what I will say to you!” she called back crossly.

Tonka
’s voice rolled out of him like thunder, silencing the mid-day activity of the busy kraal.  “Stand thee
down
, kinswoman, and answer to thy chief!”

Ahm stopped, as did every Farasai in the commons.  They drew no eye, but
interest lay heavily on them and they both knew it.  Ahm turned, her body stiff, her ears flat, and her gaze averted.

“
You will tell me what the human has done this day to bring you to this state,” Tonka said.

Ahm voiced
bitterness poorly disguised as laughter.  She looked at him with snapping eyes.  “Let me think, chieftain.  Aye, she has pulled grass for grain to eat and given her griffin the last of her meat.  She has failed to hunt three sun-necks and failed to club a fish.  She has pulled more grass with her bandaged hands for the tubers she means to plant.  She has written a message to her family to tell them not to fear for her because she thinks we are not hostile.  She has urinated twice.  She has made a basket for the trapping of fish.  What has she done?  She sits, she eats, she voids, she sleeps.  Today, my chief, and every day!  And she says nothing to me that is in anger, nay, not even though I follow her and oversee her making urine!  She greets me!  She offers grain to me from her damned little meal!  She extends her arm to me!”

“
You think there is no reason why she should wish to feed you?  To touch you?”

“
This is no wizard!” Ahm said with a dismissive stamp.

“
You cannot know that,” he countered.  “Seldom do they announce themselves until they move to strike.”

“
She is
starving
!” Ahm shouted, and the silence of the kraal fell again, harder this time.  “A wizard would never starve!  She is starving to feed her griffin and she will die of it soon enough without this constant bullying of her.”

“
You—” Tonka began, astonished, but he got no further before the next explosion of his lead hunter.

“
I will not be the hounding of her, by the
gods
, I will not!  So you order me back to oversee her, chieftain, you
order
me and see what happens!”

She stopped there, her swollen sides heaving and her ears flat to her skull, seething as she stared him down.  Tonka held her gaze, unmoving, unflinching.  He watched her steady, watched her remember who she spoke to.  A flush crawled through her cheeks; she dropped her eyes.

“Did I send thee to kill the human?” he asked calmly.

Ahm
’s jaw ticced.  She shook her head.

“
I asked thee to hold watch.  Our lord gave command to have eyes on her camp day and night, and thine are among those I prize highest.  I would have heard what report thee would issue were you to speak it rather than to shout.  I am not in the practice of performing murders.”

“
Nay,” Ahm whispered.  “I know thee is not.”

“
But tell me,” Tonka said, moving in very close.  “Tell me, of all the humans in all the history of this world, tell me how many have come here seeking peaceful settlement.”

Ahm looked up fiercely. 
“One,” she said, her voice quietly scored with intense emotion.  “This one.”

He hadn
’t meant the question to be answered and this answer, as well as the speed and conviction of its delivery, irked him.  “Will you risk the life you carry for this belief?” he asked bluntly.

“
Aye.”  Still no hesitation.

Tonka could feel his leg wanting to stamp. 
“Well, I am not so ready,” he said.  “I must be sure.”

“
Then be sure,” she told him.  “Speak to her.”

Tonka recoiled.

“Aye,” said Ahm, setting her chin.  “Directly to her.  See her after this turn of hell you’ve set on her and hear her try to be polite when she receives thee.  Look her in her open eyes and tell her why thee is doing this.  Tell that starving foal that thee thinks her an evil wizard.  And if thee can speak to her and return to me yet convinced of her malevolence, then I will believe thee and make whatever apology thee demands.  But not now.  Now—”  She shook out her short hair and cut her empty hands through the air.  “Now I am done.”

She turned around and this time, Tonka let her go.  He told himself she was heavy and her mood unstable for it.  But he knew he would have thought her stable enough if she
’d come to tell him the human should die.

Speak to her?  As audience?  As equals?

Oh, humans were quick enough to use words if they were uncertain of their weapons, but Farasai knew better than to believe in what they might say.  Humans were masters of deception.  They lied in every thought.  Tonka would not be surprised if this one were starving herself deliberately to take them off their guard.

And that was how he would trap her, Tonka thought grimly.  Oh aye, he would speak with her.  He would barter of her with foods and just see what she asked in return.  And when she asked to see his
kraal, aye, just to see how fields were tilled and game preserved, he would know her for the vanguard of conquerors that she was.

And he would kill her.  And that, at last, would be an end to it.