The Old Man was working in his garden again. She called a greeting but got no reply. She hadn’t really expected one, so she kept on walking. The clouds were blowing out to sea and the sun broke through more and more as she went down the mountainside. The boat was where she left it. She slipped the knots, settled herself on a thwart and began rowing across to Utar-Selt.
7
Korimenei held a shirt up and inspected critically but rather absently its collection of patches and the numerous threadbare places. Behind her the door opened.
“That might do for a dustrag.” Firtina Somak lounged against the door jamb, her arms crossed over the plump breasts she found more an irritation than an asset. “Unless you plan an involuntary strip some windy day.”
Kori threw the shirt on the bed. “It’s not all that much worse than the rest of my stuff.”
“Tell me, hunh, me who’s had to look at them all this time.” Firtina laughed. “You only have to wear them.” She came into the sleeping cell and plopped herself on the hard narrow bed, twitched a shirt from the pile and snapped it open. “T’k t’k, you can’t wear this in public, Kri, people will throw coppers at you thinking you’re a beggargirl.” She folded the garment into a neat rectangle, sat scratching absently at a forearm. “The Shahntien passed you then.”
“Mmh.” Korimenei pushed the mound of clothing aside and sat on the bed next to her friend. Firtina was intensely curious about everyone; she never talked about what she learned and she wasn’t pushy about it or malicious, but you could feel her feeling at you. “She said anything to you yet? About your test, I mean.”
“She said sometime in the spring. If I work on voice control I’ll be a Witch of Witches which is nice to know, but there’s that damn IF. She says I go so flat sometimes it’s a misery and she’d be shamed to claim me as one of hers.” She narrowed her eyes, glanced slyly at Ailiki who was sleeping on the window sill, body coiled into a pool of sunlight, gray fur shimmering like tarnished silver. “I never thought you’d go for a witch.”
“Haven’t.” Korimenei could feel Firtina wanting to ask about that and the mahsar, but her friend managed to swallow her curiosity, for the moment, anyway. Relenting a little, Kori said, ‘She’s not a Familiar, she’s Something Else.”
Firtina waited a moment to see if Korimenei was going to add to that, then grinned at her, shook her head. “Clam. You for home?”
“Not for a while, I think.” Korimenei spoke slowly; she hadn’t told anyone about her brother, not even Frit.who was her best friend; she didn’t want to lie to Frit, but she couldn’t tell her the whole truth, so she pinched off a little of it and produced that. “My um sponsor sent some money, I’m going to spend it poking around here and there before I settle to something. You going home?”
“Have to, I think. The Salash Gazagt…”
“Huh?”
Firtina scratched at her thigh. “I thought you knew the Nye Gsany.”
“To read, not to speak.” Korimenei left the bed and crossed to the window where she stood smoothing her fingers along Ailiki’s spine. Over her shoulder she said, “And only the Nye of the Vanner Rukks. I don’t know the hisseryclunk you talk, village girl.”
“Hunk! talk about tin ears. Nye is Nye. I think you’re digging at me, li’l Kri. Should I apologize for calling your clothes rags?”
“Idiot.”
“All right, all right, here it is, the. Salash Gazagt, he’s the oldest male, the head of my family. When you come to visit me, I’ll introduce you. If I know the two of you, it’ll be dislike at first sight, but I’ll do it.”
“Am. I going to visit you?”
“Aren’t you?”
“All right. So what’s your Salash Gazagt on about?”
“He’s getting impatient, old bull; he wants me home before 1 wither into uselessness.”
“Haah?” Kari swung round, hitched a hip on the windowsill and began chewing at a hangnail. “Wat th’ hay, Frit?
Tink and Keiso and RayRay and I’m not going to waste breath naming the rest of your tongue-hanging court, the way they pant after you, you’re not exactly declining into decrepitude.”
“Them.” Firtina wrinkled her nose. “They don’t count. Thing is, if I’d stayed home like my sisters, I’d be wedded and bedded and by now hauling around a suckling and a weanling or two.” She slapped at her breasts. “My doom,” she said. “My folk have a thing about virginity, they tend to marry off a girl as soon as her shape starts showing. Just to make sure.”
“Hunh! Just like my lot.”
“Hmm. Sounds to me like you’re not going home. Or maybe just a visit to show ‘em what they’ll be missing?”
“You got it.” Korimenei plucked at the ancient white blouse she was wearing. “I never paid much attention to clothes.”
“You finally noticed?” Firtina giggled, flicked another sly glance at Kori. “If three nights fasting will do that for you, it gives me hope. Maybe my Ordeal fixes my ear.”
“Nothing wrong with your ear, you just don’t keep your mind on what you’re doing.” Korimenei was briefly amused at this delicate hint for confidences, but the Passage Test wasn’t something you talked about, it was too intimate a thing, more intimate than sex or family secrets. “I’m no good at line and cut and yelling at shopkeepers. Come help me spend my money.”
“Why not.” Firtina slid off the bed, held up a hand. “Let me get this straight. You really are going to spend REAL coin on NEW clothes?”
“Mmh-hmm.” Korimenei took an ancient vest off its peg, shoved her arms through the armholes and smoothed the leather over her hips. She scooped up Ailiki and tucked her into one of the sagging thigh pockets. “Something easy but dignified.”
“Oh oh oh.” Firtina giggled_ “Dignified. Dignified…” She repeated the word twice more; each time she put a different spin on it, snuffling little laughs up her too-short nose as she walked from the cell. She stopped a few steps down the hall and waited for Korimenei. “Seriously,” she said, “you have any idea what you want?”
Korimenei pulled the door shut, put her personal seal on it and followed Firtina out of the Senior Cott onto the maze-walk around the Dorms. “More or less the same thing I always wear,” she said. “Better material, newer, that’s all.” The autumn afternoon was warm and sunny; all evidence of the brief storm three nights ago was cleared away, the stones underfoot were dry and powdery, as were the bright-colored leaves scattered on the granite paving by first year students who spent most of their days cleaning and sweeping, cutting grass and pulling weeds. Somewhere among the clipped yew hedges two girls giggled and chatted while they worked in a flowerbed, having lost much of their first awe of the place and at the moment at least some of their grim determination to succeed here. Two teachers came walking past, M’darjin drummers exchanging grave gutturals and spacious gestures. A squad of second-years paced along a nearby path, breathing in time with their coach, a student, like Korimenei and Firtina, nearing the end of his studytime. Kori stretched and sighed, lifting her head to look beyond the walls. The school was near the top of Selt’s single mountain; at her left hand the gilded Temple roofs rose above the treetops, but everywhere else what she saw over the wall was the deep bright blue of the sky.
“You’ll need some skirts too,” Firtina said thoughtfully. “Boots, riding gear, a cloak, hmmm…”
“Skirts, gah. No.”
“Don’t be stupid, Kri. You know well enough there are places where a woman gets stoned if she’s not in skirts. It’s better to be tactful than dead. Besides, a skirt can feel nice fluttering about your ankles, make you feel elegant and graceful.”
“Gah.”
“Don’t bother then. go home and wear your trousers chasing after cows.”
“Double gah.”
“It’s a cold cruel world out there that the Shahntien’s going to boot you into. By the by, when’s the parturition due?”
“Two, three days, depends on when I can get passage out.”
They passed through a narrow arch in a thin, inner wall, into nto the rectangular formal garden at the front of the school and strolled toward the main gate. Short-stemmed asters were masses of pink and purple, yellow and vermilion; white tuokeries foamed around them. Manicured to an exquisite polish, oaks and cedars and plum trees grew alone or in carefully balanced groups of three. Patches of lawn like rough velvet changed color as a chancy wind blew blades of grass about. The paving stones in the curved walks were cut and placed so the veining in the marble flowed in a subtle endless dance of line and stipple. There was a foun-