Later, after a meal of baked fish, fried tubers and a hot, pungent drink cooked up in kettles that produced a mild euphoria in Tuli, Rane took out her flute and began playing. They were in one of the longhouses seated before a smoking fire, all the Bakuur crowded in around them to listen to the music. After a short while Ildas leapt off Tuli’s lap and went to dance on the fire, weaving in and out of threads of smoke, dancing joy on threads of air. Tuli watched dreamily, the drink working in her, opening her out until she felt one with the one the Bakuur had become, men, women and children alike. One. Breathing together, swaying together with the dance of the fireborn, with the music of Rane’s flute. A while after that a slender woman neither young nor old, with bracelets, anklets and necklace of elaborately carved wooden beads came up out of the Bakuur meld to dance her counterpoint to the fire and the fireborn, twisting and swaying without moving her feet, curving flowing movements of arms, hands, body, that painted on the air the things the music was saying to her and her people. Tuli felt warm and alive and welcomed as a part of a whole far greater than the mere sum of its units. Gradually she relaxed until she drifted into a sleep, a deep sleep filled with bright flitting dreams that left her with a sense of joyful acceptance though she remembered none of them when she woke sometime after midnight.
Her boots were off, blankets were tucked about her. The longhouse was empty except for three ancient Bakuur, two men and one woman, sitting with. Rane beside the dying fire, talking in low voices. She heard a little of it, snatches of tales about the state of feeling in Oras. They spoke in concrete terms, no abstract summaries like those Hal and Gesda and some of the angry taroms had given Kane: Toma Hlasa cursed a guard and was dragged off; the jofem Katyan complained of the taxes, eyes darting about to see she was unheard, and bought only two uncsets of charcoal where once she’d have bought ten; a hungry-looking man whom they didn’t know tried to steal from them and almost killed Chio’ni before Per’no and Das’ka drove him off. As far as they could see, there was no unity anywhere, man against man, each bent on preserving his own life and possessions, no zo’hava’ta…
Tuli blinked. They were speaking in the rippling murmuring Bakuur tongue, something she only realized when she came up hard against that word zo’hava’ta that on its surface meant life-tie, but that carried on its back wide-ranging implications that permeated all of Bakuur life, the bond that tied mother to child, tied all Bakuur to the trees they burned for their living, bound friend and enemy against all that was non-Bakuur, bound present generations to the dead and to the as-yet unborn, that affected everything every Bakru did from the first breath he drew until he was returned as ash to the breast of the Mother. Ildas, she thought, he danced the words into me. She reached down to the warm spot curled against her side and stroked her hand along the curve of his back, smiled at the coo vibrating in her head, then settled to listen carefully to what was being said, mindful of the resolution she’d made at the Center when she knew she might have to take word back without Rane.
An hour before dawn the Bakuur hustled about harnessing eseks in teams of four to a pair of wattle-sided carts. Rane handed Tuli a large, coarsely woven sack. “Get into this, Moth,” she said. “We’re going into Oras as sacks of charcoal.”
Tuli looked at Rane and giggled. The ex-meie raised an eyebrow but said nothing. She climbed into one of the carts and began easing her long body into a sack.
Tuli hopped into the other cart, stepped into her sack and pulled it up around her, then crouched in one corner while the Bakuur piled bags of charcoal around her. They were light enough that they didn’t overburden her, but drifts of char-dust came filtering through her sack, getting into eves, nose, mouth, every crevice of her body. Even after both carts were loaded, the Bakuur seemed to take forever to get started, each of those going with the carts taking elaborate leave over and over with every other Bakru not going on the expedition to Oras. Finally though, the carts creaked forward and passed from the palisade into the snow under the trees. The eseks labored and brayed their discontent; a Bakru walked beside each of the leaders singing to him, clucking to him, urging him on. Other Bakuur followed behind and put their shoulders to the wheels and the backs of the carts whenever they threatened to get stuck, all of them laughing and talking in that murmurous language that sounded much like a summer wind among the leaves. The three-toed feet of the eseks crunched down through the crust, the carts lurched and complained, the beautifully carved wheels squealed and groaned, the trees around them creaked to the light wind and above Tuli the charcoal sticks chunked together, rattled dully and showered more dust on her. And through it all the Bakuur went on their leisurely way, in no hurry at all, content to proceed as circumstances allowed.
It was still dark out when they left the trees and started up the rolling hills to the high plateau where Oras sat. The road wound up and up, curving back on itself when the slope was too steep, straightening out now and then, almost flat, only to pitch upward after the eseks managed to catch their breath. The extra weight of Rane and Tuli made things more difficult for the shaggy little beasts, but the Bakuur coped with more laughter, a lot of shoving and joking; the tough little eseks dug their claws in and the carts lumbered on. By the time they reached the flat again, Tuli felt a lightening in the dark, saw bits of red-tinted light coming through the coarse weave of her sack.
The Bakuur circled wide about the army encampment. Tuli could hear noises from the herds of riding and draft stock, and sentries calling to one another, but it was all very distant and placid and she couldn’t get excited by any of it. She was sneaking into a city that was the heart of the enemy’s territory and what she mainly felt was discomfort. The commonplace presence of the Bakuur wove such a protection about her, she almost fell asleep.
The sounds from the army dropped behind, the cart tilted up, then the wheels hummed smoothly over the resilient pavement of the Highroad. She waited for the challenge of the guards at the gate, but the carts went on without a pause, the sound of the wheels changing as they moved from the Highroad onto the rougher cobbles of the city street. The gates were already open. If there were guards, they were so accustomed to the coming and going of the charcoal sellers that they didn’t bother challenging them. The carts wound on and on until she was so tense she felt like exploding, when were they going to get out? how? where? what was going on? Not that she was afraid or anything like that, she just wanted to get out of that damn sack. Only the soothing coo of Ildas in her head kept her crouched in her corner.
The cart turned and turned again, winding deeper and deeper into the back streets of Oras, then shuddered to a stop. Tuli lay still forcing herself to wait, forcing herself to trust the Bakuur and let them release her when they were ready.
She heard the backgates being taken off, felt the sacks of charcoal being swiftly unloaded. When she pushed the sack down, small hands fluttered about her, helped her up, urged her out of the cart. They were in the deep shadow at the far end of a blind alley, the carts and the shadow hiding them from anyone passing the alley’s mouth. While she worked her arms and legs, did a few deep bends, following Rane’s example, the Bakuur were piling the sacks back in the carts, working swiftly but taking moments to grin broadly at Tuli and Rane, savoring their part in this tricking of Floarin and her guards. Before Tuli managed to get all the kinks out of her limbs, the Bakuur were clucking the eseks into motion, heading out of the alley.
“Where they going?” she whispered.
“Market. Middle of the city. Rane’s voice was harsh, abrupt.