Thirteen Orphans (25 page)
Pearl had hoped her father was impressed. When a few days later his martial associate, the Horse, had come to visit, Pearl had brought in the tea, then lurked outside the door, hoping to hear something said about her performance.
The Horse had begun promisingly. “Pearl is shaping up into a fine woman. I quizzed her a little, while your son was running to bring you from your studio, and she seems to know her lessons perfectly.”
“The girl is attentive.”
“Perhaps you are reconciled to having her inherit the Tiger’s place?”
“A female Tiger is an abomination. Never has one held the post. I thought the ritual Dragon sent might release the power and pass it to one of my sons, or to any of a dozen promising young men I have found. It remains firmly rooted in that chit.”
Pearl had felt tears well in her eyes. She remembered the ritual. She had thought it was meant to make her stronger, not to strip her abilities from her.
“I firmly believe,” Thundering Heaven went on, “that this perversity is a direct result of some curse laid by our enemies.”
“Other heirs apparent have not matched the traditional genders,” Horse protested. “That has not mattered.”
“They are not Tigers,” her father said. “Gender matters for Tigers. We are the essence of yang. A yang female is a perversion. Since all of Dragon’s wisdom cannot break this curse, nor Rat’s cleverness, I have applied myself to teaching the girl what I can. My path is one filled with danger. I may die before she bears my proper heir. Therefore, she must be prepared to pass on the lore. Still, it irks me … .”
Pearl slunk away before she could hear any more, and from that day forth she never hoped again for her father’s favor or blessing. However, she leapt upon even the least teaching he offered her, learning it, hoarding it, but not to pass it on. The Tiger’s lore was hers. She would never pass it on—at least not to someone of her father’s choosing.
Foster’s image floated unbidden into her mind.
Never.
Breaks, as Brenda had learned the hard way, were as important to her doing a good job with her new lessons as the time she spent memorizing lists or working in polymer clay. Even so, determined to keep up with Riprap—and even with Nissa, who’d started out behind but was rapidly catching up—Brenda often tried to combine the two.
Although they had been told never to go out in groups smaller than two, Pearl had made an exception for the Rosicrucian Museum and its grounds next door.
“You can go there alone,” she’d said. “I’ve arranged for memberships. You’ll be safe both in the buildings and in the gardens.”
None of them—not even Riprap, who loved asking questions—asked why. Brenda thought that this was because no one wanted to risk a repeal of this little bit of freedom.
So with freedom uppermost in her mind, when Des told them they could have a half-hour break while the latest batch of tiles baked, Brenda headed to the museum gardens. As she grabbed a bunch of grapes and a bottle of water from the fridge, Brenda heard Nissa calling for Lani, saying it was time to call “Aunt Nancy and the cousins,” and Riprap thumping down the steps to the basement where he’d set up a makeshift weight room.
That man works too hard …
Brenda thought with an affectionate grin, and trotted down the front steps of Pearl’s house, along the sidewalk and up the stairs that would take her into the museum grounds.
Brenda thought with an affectionate grin, and trotted down the front steps of Pearl’s house, along the sidewalk and up the stairs that would take her into the museum grounds.
The gardens were not precisely crowded, but there were several groups out enjoying the mid-June weather, the brilliance of the roses, and, above all, the neo-Egyptian architecture. Most seemed so busy taking pictures of their friends in front of this sphinx or that obelisk that Brenda felt almost invisible. Probably that was why she noticed the strange motion from one edge of the garden.
It was a man’s hand, moving back and forth over the top of the neatly trimmed flowering hedge. At first, Brenda thought the man was picking flowers from the hedge, but the gesture was too swooping, too feathery, as if the hand was writing in the air.
Brenda moved a few steps closer, intrigued and curious. She caught a glimpse of a not overly tall, powerfully built, round-faced Asian man, dressed in khaki trousers and a tan sports shirt, moving briskly down the sidewalk away from the museum grounds.
Brenda considered following him, but Des and Pearl had been adamant about their not going anywhere alone. In any case, what would she do? Accuse him of picking the flowers? The man was out of sight almost before Brenda finished shaping her thoughts.
“Too late,” she murmured to herself, and realized she felt relieved. She was tempted to dismiss the entire thing, but a sense of responsibility made her confide in Des.
“Had you seen that man before?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. He could have been one of those people I saw in Santa Fe, but then again …” She shrugged.
Des nodded. “Better not to jump to conclusions. In any case, even if the man you saw was one of our enemies, he couldn’t have harmed you there. The Rosicrucian Gardens are well protected.”
“I thought they must be,” Brenda said, “since we’re allowed to go there alone.”
“So relax,” Des said. “But not too much. We’re going to do fake combats. Test how fast you can get bracelets off and into action.”
“Good,” Brenda said. “I could use some exercise.”
That evening, edgy despite herself, Brenda tried to distract herself with a mystery novel. Instead, she found herself peeking over the edge, her attention drawn to where Lani and Foster were playing a strange version of Go Fish. The little girl chattered almost constantly, but her version of English was quite difficult to understand. Foster’s English consisted mostly of nouns, occasional verbs, and very few modifiers. Despite this, the pair were managing to communicate.
Lani held up a card that depicted three blue fish along with a large number three. Foster made a great show of carefully inspecting his hand. Then, with feigned reluctance, he handed over a matching card. In this version of the game, you needed four of a kind to make a set, and when Lani triumphantly set down three cards, Foster shook his head and counted off “One, two, three … No four. Go fish!”
“Aw!!!”
But Lani picked up her hand and drew another card.
The game went on until Foster went out with a quartet of Two Green Fish. Nissa, who had been watching from the doorway, now stepped forward.
“Time for your bath, then to bed, Lani.”
Lani knew better than to argue. Nissa was a gentle mother, on the whole, but certain events—bed and nap times among them—were not negotiable.
“The schedule is as much for my sanity as for her health,” Nissa had admitted. “I need to know that after about seven-thirty, my evening is my own, even if all I do with it is stare at the tube.”
When mother and daughter left, Brenda was suddenly very aware that she was alone with Foster. Des and Riprap had gone to run errands. Then they were going to some sports event. Pearl was sequestered in her office, researching the spell that would let them release the memories trapped in the dragon crystals.
Foster was making himself very busy tidying up the cards, but Brenda sensed that he, too, was aware that they were alone. Over the days that they had shared a house, this had not happened very often. Lani made an excellent, if unintentional, chaperone. Foster was not welcome at the daily lessons that occupied so much of Brenda’s day, nor at the practice sessions that were “lab” to Des’s “lecture.”
The rest of the time, either Nissa or Riprap was around, but now, for at least the next half hour …
Brenda put her book down, and motioned to the deck of cards in Foster’s hand.
“Want to play?”
Foster looked at the cards and grinned, a spontaneous expression that not only welcomed her overture, but showed he was fully aware of how ridiculous it was for two adults to play this game.
They ripped through a few hands of Go Fish in very little time. Foster proved to have a good memory, and after he poached from Brenda’s hand a couple of times, Brenda found herself taking care not to ask for a card unless she was almost ready to complete a set.
She wanted to teach him a more complex game, but wasn’t sure that the different suits on a standard set of cards would be as obvious as these brightly colored fish. Then there were the face cards. Brenda was trying to figure out how to explain that kings outranked queens, but that they didn’t outrank the almost identical jacks, and that the non-face-card ace outranked everything else, when a wonderful, if somewhat terrifying inspiration hit her.
What about teaching Foster mah-jong? He might even already know the game. Des had explained that although the primary knowledge that had created Foster’s homeland had occurred in something like 213 B.C., there was ample evidence that other information had leaked through since.
Mah-jong shouldn’t be particularly magical for Foster. That association belonged to the Thirteen Orphans alone, their private mnemonic. For millions of people around the world—this world at least—mah-jong was just a game. Why should it be anything different for Foster?
Brenda held up her hand in the gesture that had come to mean “wait a second” or “hold on.” Foster paused in the middle of shuffling the deck of Go Fish cards and looked at her quizzically.
“I have an idea,” Brenda said, although she knew he wouldn’t understand.
She was very conscious of Foster watching her as she unfolded herself from where she’d been sitting across from him on the floor. His gaze followed her as she crossed to a cabinet in which she’d noticed that some board games were stored, among them a completely modern, utterly unremarkable mah-jong set.
“Do you know this game?” she asked, bringing the plastic case over and opening it to show the tiles.
Foster looked momentarily puzzled; then his gaze brightened.
“Yes.
Ma que. Ma jiang.
” The names were Chinese, but Brenda could hear the familiar echo of the English name, especially in the latter term.
Ma que. Ma jiang.
” The names were Chinese, but Brenda could hear the familiar echo of the English name, especially in the latter term.
“Come on,” she said, and gestured to the table set to one end of the room. After all, the tiles couldn’t be scattered on the rug as the cards could.
Suddenly, Brenda felt shy. What if Foster didn’t want to play? Why was she giving him orders? Why was she assuming he’d want to play?
But Foster was on his feet, pausing only to stow the Go Fish cards in the basket that held Lani’s toys. When they were sitting across from each other at the table, Brenda felt the language gap more than ever. Did they even know the same rules?
She took three matching tiles from the case and set them in a line. “Pung.” Then, quickly, before Foster could wonder, she added a fourth. “Kong.”
Three in sequence—one, two and three of bamboo: “Chow.”
Foster was nodding now, obviously comparing his own knowledge with her words. He took fourteen tiles from the box and laid them out. They made four sets of three—four pungs—and a pair.
“Mah-jong,” he said, and his pronunciation was fairly close to her own.
Brenda grinned. They could do this! She took out more tiles and constructed another hand that would also qualify for mah-jong, although not as highly scoring since this one included runs or chows, not sets.
Within about ten minutes, she and Foster had worked out their basic rules, establishing that both of them knew that kongs gave bonus points, and that a concealed set scored higher than the same set unconcealed. Winds and dragons, the two honors suits, were familiar to Foster—far more so than the European kings, queens, and jacks would have been.
Foster’s
Sesame Street
English worked surprisingly well for this. He had a grasp of “big,” “bigger,” “biggest,” and related these back to scoring points. Other elements of the game were harder to get across, and by the time Brenda took various tiles and used them to mark out one of the simplest limit hands, All Pair, Foster fully understood why she waved her hand over it and said, “No. Not now.”
Sesame Street
English worked surprisingly well for this. He had a grasp of “big,” “bigger,” “biggest,” and related these back to scoring points. Other elements of the game were harder to get across, and by the time Brenda took various tiles and used them to mark out one of the simplest limit hands, All Pair, Foster fully understood why she waved her hand over it and said, “No. Not now.”
“Too much,” he agreed. This was one of Lani’s favorite phrases, usually used to explain why she wouldn’t finish a meal. In this case, it adapted very well.
They turned the tiles over, and began the rhythmic shuffling that guaranteed that the playing pieces would be well and completely mixed. The plastic tiles clattered against each other in a fashion that was like but unlike the traditional bone and bamboo.
Nissa came in at that point, wearing a different T-shirt. Apparently, bathing Lani had been an active event.
“Mah-jong!” she said, and her inflection held in it all of Brenda’s own rationalization for why this game couldn’t be dangerous, not in and of itself. “But how are you going to play it with only two people?”
Foster clearly didn’t understand most of this, but he caught the word “two.” His eyes widened and then he began to laugh.
“One fish,” he said, pointing to himself. Then, pointing to Brenda: “Two fish.” He indicated Nissa last: “Three fish?”
Nissa laughed and pulled out a chair.
“Three
people,
” she said in her best “mom correcting child” voice, but the grin on her face kept this from being a true reprimand.
people,
” she said in her best “mom correcting child” voice, but the grin on her face kept this from being a true reprimand.
“People,” Foster agreed. “Mah-jong. Four, biggest. Three big.”
“Poor guy needs more than children’s television comparatives,” she said to Brenda.
Brenda nodded agreement, feeling a twinge of embarrassment that in her eagerness to find a game Foster might know, she’d forgotten that mah-jong really needed at least three players. Nissa didn’t tease her though.
“My mom taught my sisters and I to play ages ago,” she said. “We haven’t played much lately—too many kids running around—but I love this game.”
Brenda admitted to herself that there was another reason that her cheeks felt hot and her heart was thumping along uncomfortably. She’d been momentarily angry when Nissa came butting in. She’d wanted to be alone with Foster, although in this household that would be pretty much impossible.
Brenda wondered what Foster thought of Nissa. Nissa was pretty in her way, all fair and fluffy, but she was a mom … . Did that make her more or less appealing? Did it make her seem old and settled, or interesting and experienced?
None of them—not even Foster—seemed to know how old he was, but Brenda had thought of him as about her age, maybe a little older. That would make him Nissa’s age. Brenda felt a surge of competitiveness. She’d seen Foster first, there in the parking garage in Denver.
When he’d been stealing her dad’s memory.
Brenda felt suddenly cold, wondering what madness had made her seek to befriend this strange man. They drew tiles for who would have what chair, then shuffled the tiles and built the wall. Brenda was east, so it was up to her to roll for the first break in the wall.
Brenda rolled and counted, and the wall was Foster’s. He held out his hand for the dice, and she dropped them into his hand, noticing the calluses. They must be from where he held his sword, and even the week and a half that had passed hadn’t been enough for them to grow softer in the least. Did he practice up there, in the privacy of his room, going through the motions without a sword?
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