But he’d never had an oil lamp in his cell, of course, and he lay on a cot, not on the bare floor. He started to sit up, but his vision swam and he leaned back.
“I won’t say you’ve been ill-used. You were a slave, and that goes without saying.”
Cephas did not recognize the smooth voice, and could not guess what the sounds that accompanied it meant-the clink of metal on stone or ceramic; the pouring of water.
“But I must say, the extraordinary lengths Azad went to to deny you your heritage are cruel, even by the degenerate standards of your homeland.”
A figure walked into his field of vision. Grinta the Pike’s descriptions of the world’s peoples were short on any details that didn’t concern fighting, but he remembered that crow-headed men were called kenkus. He even remembered what Grinta said the best tactic to use against them was.
To run.
“You’ve spent enough time with Tobin that you’ll have learned my name, and that of our concern-and a good deal else, I imagine. But to see to the formalities, I am Corvus Nightfeather, and you are resting on my bed, in my wagon, in the fellowship of the road that we call Nightfeather’s Circus of Wonders. Welcome, Cephas.”
Nothing in Cephas’s experience taught him how to respond to that word, “welcome.” But he’d heard it in stories, and he knew generally what it meant. He knew that it sometimes concealed unseen dangers. But the response was the same even then. “A thousand blessings on this house,” he said.
The kenku solved the mystery of the earlier sounds by extending an ebony, three-fingered hand holding a steaming mug. He laughed as he did so.
“Excellent. Mattias said the slavers kept up the tradition of reading from the Founding Stories. It’s good that you listened. Yes, that’s very good.”
Cephas accepted the cup-it was warm to the touch-and sniffed its contents. The color and scent of whatever brew it contained were unlike anything he’d ever had on Jazeerijah.
“It’s a tincture of dried leaves in hot water,” said Corvus. “And you’ve already had that much of it and more, so don’t worry that we’re trying to poison you. You probably notice that you feel a bit calmer than you should under such strange circumstances-we gave it to you to settle you down when you fell into your reverie outside.”
“The music …” said Cephas, realizing that he could still hear the steady beat but that it was distant, muted.
“Music, yes, that’s what you said it sounded like. That you actually hear the earth. That’s the heritage I mentioned a moment ago, Cephas. That’s one of the things the Calishites were keeping from you-besides your freedom, I mean.”
“ ‘Heritage,’ ” said Cephas. “Is that the same as ‘lineage’? As in the story about the fisherman and the stern woman of the sea?”
Corvus laughed again. “ ‘Stern woman,’ ” he said, and Cephas heard his own voice in the repetition, a perfect rendering. “I’d forgotten old Kamar’s puritan streak. Unusual in despots, really, at least in his day. But yes, in the version of the tale he had his scribes include in the book Azad read from, Umberlee is called the stern woman. I hope you won’t be too scandalized if you ever make it to a seaport and hear her own priests call her the Bitch Queen.”
Cephas risked a sip from the cup. The tincture was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. He was too distracted by the sensation to respond to Corvus.
“Heritage, lineage,” Corvus continued. “Yes, they are close to the same thing. But lineage speaks to direct ancestry, as in your story, when Umberlee reveals to Kassam that he is the son of the pasha. Heritage is more general-it has to do with the gifts all men are given by the circumstances of their birth. Tobin’s great strength, for example, is his heritage as a goliath. Part of my heritage”-Cephas looked up from the cup, because the voice he heard was that of the gigantic clown-“is my talent for imitating voices.” The liquid tones Corvus used earlier in the conversation returned. “The music you hear from the ground, the way you can interact with the earth. Along with the golden bands on your skin, that’s part of your heritage as a genasi. An earthsouled genasi, in particular.”
Cephas absorbed this, recalling that the kenku used that word for him in welcome, and recalling something else, besides.
“She was lying, though,” Cephas said.
Corvus cocked his head again, in the other direction. “Who was lying, Cephas?”
“The stern woman, your Umberlee Bitch Queen. She told Kassam the Fisherman that he was Pasha Mujen’s son, but it was a trick. When he went to the court to claim his inheritance, the pasha’s vizar whipped him all the way back to the docks, and the blood from his wounds turned the waters of the bay red. That’s what the stern woman wanted-Kassam’s blood for her scheme to drive the fish away from the pasha’s waters.”
“I’m sure you’ve found that real life does not always follow the way of the stories,” Corvus said. Shouts sounded from outside the wagon. “The twins have returned,” he said. “Let’s see if Tobin and the roustabouts have fixed you a place by the campfire yet.”
By “a place,” Corvus meant a wooden platform that, while clearly assembled with some haste, looked much like the boardwalks and low tables to which the Calishites confined him. Unlike those on Jazeerijah, this one was piled high with pillows and cushions. And while many of the men and women gathered around the bonfire were armed, they all greeted Cephas with broad smiles and calls of “Well met!” and “Welcome!”
Cephas was about to step down from the back of Corvus’s wagon when Tobin appeared at his side. “Here now, Cephas,” said the goliath. “Let’s not have you falling again. Corvus says you must be careful of the ground until you learn to sing back to it.” With that, Tobin picked Cephas up, took two long strides across the camp, and dropped him among the pillows on the fireside platform.
The phrase “a bit calmer than usual” did not begin to describe Cephas’s ease of mind after drinking the tincture. He had not even flinched when Tobin hoisted him over his shoulder. Through the pleasant haze he thought, Drink nothing else the kenku offers.
Most of the people in the firelight were humans, with a few in the number who might have benefitted from some of Grinta’s kin in their “heritage.” One by one, they approached as Tobin introduced them. Cephas was too used to avoiding even the appearance of friendship with anyone other than Grinta to do more than nod in response. He hoped that the few names he’d managed to learn already would serve him for at least a little while longer.
Two such came into his hearing. “And here are Shan and Cynda, whom you met in the canyon, yes?” said Tobin. “But they are more than just adventurers, see? They are aerialists.”
Cephas remembered Tobin’s talk of the twins and their wire. “Your fighting technique,” he said to the women, “it uses garrotes?”
The sister with the shorter hair-Shan? — gave him a confused look and walked over to join Corvus in the shadows at one end of his wagon. The other-yes, Cephas felt sure the one with long hair and a ready grin was Cynda, so the other must be Shan-poked Tobin in the ribs and slapped her knee, miming laughter. Both women were travel stained and weary, but Cynda insisted, by means of a quick series of hand motions that the others of the circus clearly understood, on demonstrating for Cephas’s benefit what an aerialist was.
Someone brought a thin beam of wood, the size and shape of two quarterstaffs joined end to end, and gave it to Tobin. “Usually we stretch a wire between two poles, and it is much higher,” Tobin explained. “Cynda just wants to show you that she’s even better at acrobatics than she is at swordplay. Circus performers”-Tobin shrugged-“love unsophisticated audiences.”
Cephas made no reply. If he had anything to say, it would have been lost in the cheer the others raised, anyway.