“Climate,” Chris finally agreed. “It’s spread through the whole region, and no invaders could move that fast. There wouldn’t be that many of them, anyway. But I still think it was a change in religion, not just cultural impoverishment from the climatic change. Some weird superstition, maybe like the Ghost Dancing thing in the American Indians.”
“Wish I knew how it started,” said Ann. Now that he agreed it was climate, she found herself looking for something else. “A big storm, or bad year, or what?”
“A god came out of the sky and told them to put twigs in the graves instead of tools,” said Chris sarcastically. “It could have been anything. Primitives don’t think—they just react.”
“Whatever. We might as well cancel the rest of the series. It’s not worth it, spending all that money to find scraps of deerskin and twigs. We already have enough botanical samples; we need more artifacts. And since they’ve quit putting the graves in clusters, it’s getting damned hard to find one at all. We can come all the way up to Neolithic, and get a lot more for our money.”
Carver sat nearest the fire, an honor due his age and position in the tribe. He sang the Year Dance, and it was to him that the godtalker spoke of plans and seasons. His sons and daughters carried his seedclan here and there across the hunting grounds. And this night he had proclaimed the good news: the Ash Clan reported from all the campfires that the latecomer witches had departed from their graverobbing. In less than three lifetimes of men, they had come, and robbed, and departed, fooled by the wisdom of the godtalkers and those who loved their dead enough to send them bare into the afterworld. For three more lifetimes, the Ash decreed, they must leave grave gifts only in secret, outside the graves, but after that it would be safe to restore honor as it had always been. He thought, himself, that this was needless: if the dead were happy enough with their grave gifts in trees and roots and hollow stone, why not continue that way? It hadn’t hurt the trees any.
He wondered, in the sleepiness that often overtook him now in the long firelit evenings, what the latecomer witches had thought when their luck ran out and the graves held no treasure. Had they returned to making their own tools and tokens? Had they spent the gift of time-walking on better things? Had they finally learned that walking backwards was wrong, that the power of the dead could not be used well by the living? The Ash would not say, for the gods had not commanded that song.
Sweet Charity
Krystal Winterborn eyed her lumpish fellow members of the Ladies’ Aid & Armor Society, and sighed. There they were: the brave, the bold, the strong… the plain.
She was tired of being the butt of their jokes, just because she paid extra on her health-care plan for a complexion spell to keep her peach-blossom cheeks and pearly teeth. They laughed at her herbal shampoos, the protective grease she wore on summer maneuvers. They rolled their eyes at her fringed leather outfits, her spike-heeled dress boots.
Well, this year’s Charity Ball would show them. No more laughing, when she was Queen of the Ball, and raised many times more for the orphaned daughters of soldiers killed in the line of duty. She would never have to hear their condescending “Shut up, Krystal” again.
When the chair asked for volunteers, Krystal surprised everyone by signing up for Invitations.
Harald Redbeard had come to the city in the character of an honest merchant. Downriver, on the coast, everyone knew he was a Fish Islands pirate. The coast patrol had almost trapped him in Hunport, but instead of making a break for the sea, he’d come upriver with his crew, until things quieted down.
It was nigh on midwinter when he reached the kingdom known to its downstream neighbors as the Swordladies’ Domain. He grinned at that—most of the mountain kingdoms had a reputation for fierce warrior women. But the only warrior women he’d seen had been bouncers at Gully Blue’s tavern in Hunport. He’d tossed both of them into the harbor.
An icy wind blew from the mountains, and lowering clouds promised snow as the crew offloaded their cargo; Harald sent old Boris One-eye off to find them an inn. One-eye reported that he’d found rooms at the Green Cat, and he’d seen some warrior women.
“Like soldiers, they are, in uniform.”
“Not a problem,” Harald said. “If they’re part of the city guard, that’ll make it all the easier for us.”
“How?”
“City guards are city guards the world over,” Harald said, rubbing fingers and thumb.
That night in the Green Cat’s bar, Harald kept eyes and ears open. One particular corner table caught his interest. A cute perky blonde wearing fringed black leather and polished brass pouted at the louts around her, who were all clearly ready to do anything for another glance down her cleavage.
If that was an example of local women warriors, he and his men had nothing to worry about. She was too pretty, too smooth-skinned and full-lipped, to know what to do with the fancy little dagger at her belt, let alone a real sword. Her followers, big and muscular enough, wore fashions he’d seen only in the grittier port brothels, but no visible weapons.
When the blonde pushed back from the table, he saw that she actually had cute little muscles in her arms. She glanced over at him, and he grinned, raising his mug appreciatively. She stuck out her adorable lower lip; one of her followers turned to glower at him. Harald shrugged, unperturbed. He watched as she undulated across the room. Every part of her—many visible through the long black fringe—suggested unspeakable delights.
Harald turned back to his ale, as she flounced out the door, to find that the burly fellow with the bits of metal through his ears and nose was now beside him. “She’s beautiful,” Harald said. Under the table, his hand slid down to the hilt of his boot knife. “You can’t blame a man for looking.”
“S’long as you’re respectful,” the man said.
“Oh, I am,” Harald said. “But such beauty cannot be denied.”
The burly man grinned. “Since you appreciate her many qualities, perhaps you’d like to make her acquaintance a little closer?”
What was this? Was the woman a high-priced whore, and this her pimp? Did they think he’d been born under a rhubarb leaf, and still had the dew on his backside?
Harald brought the knife up in one smooth motion, and laid the tip in an appropriate place. To his surprise, the burly man neither flinched nor changed expression.
“No need for that,” he said. “I just wanted to invite you to the Ladies’ Aid & Armor Society Charity Ball. Being as it’s midwinter, and cruel dull for a stranger in town otherwise, with all the taverns closed for three days—I thought you might enjoy it.”
“The Ladies’ Aid & Armor Society? What’s that, a bunch of women in bronze bras and fringe playing with toy swords?”
The man laughed. “Not exactly. But they clean up nicer than usual, for the Charity Ball for the Orphans’ Fund. There’s this contest, for queen; everybody who goes can vote. Thing is, the other cats pack the place with their supporters, so although our Krystal is far and away the most beautiful, she never wins. This year, we’re changing that. All I want from you is a vote for her. We’ll pay the donation and everything.”
These upriver barbarians had strange customs. Collecting money to support girl orphans, when girl orphans properly managed could support him? Taverns closed three days? His crew would go crazy and start breaking open barrels on their own; he couldn’t afford that. This ball now—fancy dress, jewels, money—looked like fun and profit combined.