She pulled her mind back from that morass and tried to concentrate on her current problem. I can’t spend all this time on her. Yaril means a lot more than she does; I don’t even like her all that much. What in Forty Mortal Hells am I going to do with her? She sighed. Hmm. It’s been ten years since she left home, that’s a long time… I wonder how old her father was then… maybe he’s dead. Would that make a difference? Sounds to me like those brothers were spoiled rotten and might be worse than the old man. What did she say the family name was? Ah! Ash-Kalap. I need mother’s name, father’s name, eldest brother’s name. All right. Let’s get at it. She sat up, swung her legs over the edge of the bed and scowled at nothing. She moved her shoulders, opened and closed her hands, clenched and unclenched her toes, working the muscles of her arms and legs. “Carup,” she called. “Come in here. I need to talk to you.”
Two days later.
Night. Late.
The rain had stopped for a while, but the alleys were noisome sewers still.
Brann was picking her way across the mud, thankful her days in the Kuna Coru had deadened her nose so she couldn’t smell the fumes rising from that muck. A large nighthawk swooped low and went climbing into the darkness.
*Hunting.* Jaril’s mindvoice was filled with accusation and annoyance. *You know you shouldn’t go out when I’m not there for backup.*
*Go home, Jay, and wait for me. I don’t intend to argue this up to my ankles in mud in the middle of a street.*
Trailing disapproval like a tailplume, the hawk shot ahead.
Brann shook her head. Like I’m his child. She frowned as she reached the hovel and sloshed around to the kitchen door. Jaril was sitting at the kitchen table, the wine jar at his elbow, along with two glasses. He’d lit the lamp.
She kicked off her sandals, stepped out of her trousers and took the kettle from the sandbed. She touched it; there was still a little heat left. She poured the lukewarm water into a pan, put her feet in it and sighed with pleasure. “You can give me a glass, if you feel like it, Jay.”
He was still temperish and glared at her. “You don’t deserve I should, going out like that, you could have been killed.” He splashed some wine in the glass and pushed it across to her. “You could have been KILLED. I can’t get Yaro without you.” Radiating misery, anger, fear, he gulped at his own wine. “I might as well go knock on the smiglar’s door and say here I am, eat me.”
Brann swished her feet in the water, mud swirling off them. “I was careful, Jay. But I needed to go.”
“You needed to go.” Despair and disgust sharpened his voice. “You didn’t need anything, you got filled up the night before I left.”
“All right, have it your way. I went because I wanted to. Does that satisfy you?”
“Satisfy! Bramble, what’s got into you? It’s like you’re twelve, not two hundred plus.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. What’d you find out?”
He shook his head at her. “Bramble… All right, all right, here it is. You had the right hunch. The father is dead. Stroke. Five years ago.” He relaxed as the wine was absorbed into his substance, his eyes dropped and his face softened. “The oldest brother took over the farm, he’s married, two wives, I counted five children. It’s a big house for that size farm, it’s got packed dirt walls, two stories, flat-tile roof. It’s built inside a ten-foot wall, packed earth with a canted the top. There’s a garden of sorts, the mother keeps it in order. She’s still alive, looks a hundred and two, but probably isn’t more than sixty, sixty-five. Tough old femme, like one of those ancient olive trees that just gets stronger as it gets older. One of her daughters is living with her in a two room… I suppose you’d call it an apartment, built into a corner of the wall. The other daughters are married to farmers in the area, mostly second wives. The younger brothers seem to ‘ve moved out; no sign of them at the farm or in town. After the father died, I expect the heir cut off supplies. It’s a small farm, it can’t really afford to support five grown men with a taste for beerbusts. I did some nosing about. Your Carup was exaggerating a trifle. Even if her father were still alive, she would have her mother’s protection, should her mother care to give it. Once a woman who’s had children makes it past fifty, all bets are off. She’s got whatever freedom she wants; the rules don’t apply to her any more. She can tell her old man to take a flying leap and get away with it. I expect that’s how she kept the daughter home. If she wanted to shelter Camp, no one could stop her. Your Camp knows all that and she knows how old her mother is. Do you think she just forgot to tell you? I don’t. You can shove her in a coach and send her home with a clear conscience.”
Brann took a towel from the table, set her foot on her knee and began wiping it dry. “That is… marvelous, Jay. One incubus off my shoulders.” She yawned. “Ahh, I’m tired.”
“Get rid of her, we can’t waste more time on her. Bramble, Yaril keeps… trying to wake, I can feel it. She’s wearing herself out. I can’t really touch her, it’s like seeing her in a dream. A nightmare. I can’t talk to her, let her know we’re here. She won’t rest. She’s wasting herself. I’m afraid she thinks I was caught too. I said a year. I think we’ve got less than half that.”
“Slya Bless.” She traded feet, rubbed hard at her sole, scouring off dead skin and the last of the mud stains. “I used to think Camp was so passive she wouldn’t try to get away if there was an open door in front of her, I used to think she’d stand there crying and let herself get eaten.” She laughed, an unhappy sound. “I wouldn’t mind having a little of that passivity now; I get the feeling she’s set her teeth and she’s not going to be pried off. Never mind, I’ll manage somehow.” She looked at the filthy towel. “I don’t know how I’m going to explain this. Hmp, I won’t try. There’s something I thought about last night, nearly forgot it when you came ramping at me. This is a trap, right?”
“Right. So?”
“The Chuttar’s been going about her business as if she doesn’t give a counterfeit kaut whether we show up or not. Why? What does it mean? Maybe she knows all about us and is just waiting for us to make the first move. Why she’d do that, I don’t know, I haven’t the least notion why any of this is happening. What about it, Jay? Am I right? Are they just sitting there? Have you seen any sign of agitation? Well?”
“1 hear you, Bramble. I think… a memory search… let me…” He looked at the inch of wine left in the glass, pushed it away, pushed his chair back and stood. Abruptly he shifted form and was a sphere of glimmering gold light that rose and floated over the table.
Brann watched as he drifted with the wandering drafts. She emptied her own glass, looked at the jar and decided she’d had enough for the moment. She glanced at Jarilsphere again, then picked up her trousers and inspected the mud drying on the folds and the ends of the drawstrings that tied about the ankles. She reached for the towel and started to scrub at the scummy cloth.
The lightsphere quivered, came drifting back. Jaril changed again and dropped into his chair. “Memory says the smiglar aren’t concerned about anything. They haven’t upgraded security, I mean there are no new guards human or otherwise. And they don’t leave the place except for the Chuttar and all she does is visit her clients. No one’s out looking us, at least no one connected with that doulahar.”
Brann brushed mud off a fold of cloth. “I haven’t seen any unusual interest in us. A couple baddicks hang around, but that’s just the caudhar making sure we don’t short him on his rakeoff.” She held up the trousers, scowled at the stench from the muck that impregnated the cloth. “Tchah!” She threw the trousers to the floor, dropped the towel on them. “Jay…”
“Yaro is in there.”
“You said it was like a dream.”
“Yaro is in there.”
“All right, you’re the one that knows. How do we neuter them? Can we?”