Step easy, Stepchild
Watch where you walkin
It’s wolfdays, Stepchild
Bourghies in your garden
Humming along with the tune her fingers were elaborating, she considered the second section.
Stoop swiftly, Gyrfalcon
Your Eyases are shriekin
It’s catdays, Gyrfalcon
Pussy on the pantiles
Kizra stopped singing and whistled softly along with the arranga. Yla was leaning against the Jili’s knee, tearstreaks drying on her face. She was good at whistling and proud of it; she tapped her fingers a moment to catch the rhythm, then whistled with Kizra, the sound flowing like water from her, flute song melting into the more abrupt arranga tones.
Step easy, Stepchild
Wasps are in your willows
It’s rage days, Stepchild
Stingers pricking wild
Go grimly, Grimalkin
Your kittens cry for dinner
It’s hunger days, Grimalkin
Famine in the straw
Ingva couldn’t whistle, but there was a tradition of nonsense syllables in the Irrkuy women’s culture; she caught up the rhythm and blended her voice with Yla’s whistle. “Ba ba vay ba lay la vah,” she sang…
The song went on and on, blending the Stepchild’s story with the beasts around her/him, some verses translating more successfully than others, some more surreal, some more pedestrian, but it did the job the Matja wanted, took their minds off the danger stewing below them.
MEMORY:
The air shook and the brightening day turned suddenly dark as a vast blanket of sleds filled the sky over them, flying low enough to brush the fronds of the lower trees.
Cutter beams slashed through the foliage, churned the mud, boiled the water around them, bracketing them, missing them again and again. She was splattered by mud thrown up by the bombs, metal fragments went whining through the sides of both boats; one ripped across her arm, another clipped a tuft of hair above her ear.
2
The door to the bedroom opened and Arring Pirs came through it into the sitting room. He stopped beside the couch where Matja Allina was sitting. “He’s settled in,” he said, touched Allina’s head, fingers sliding gently over her smoothed hair. “He called Utilas and told him. Ut won’t be coming.”
Allina caught his hand, held it against her face. “At least there’s that. I don’t think I could bear it, watching Utilas and Rintirry stalking around each other like a pair of randy tomcats.”
“Randy,” he said. He dropped to the couch beside her. “Yes. Rintirry. His blood’s up. You know what that means. You’ve warned our women to stay inside and bar their doors?”
“And if he kicks the door in? What are they supposed to do then?” Matja Allina’s control was slipping. “What could WE do? Slap his wrist and say Bad Boy?” There was rage in her voice. “He doesn’t care whom he uses. You know that. Even our daughters aren’t safe. And the Artwa would support him. You know that. Do something, Pirs. I don’t care what it means, I won’t have ANY of our people…” Her mouth worked. “Used. I won’t.”
“And if the Artwa calls the mortgage?”
“Let him try. He can’t afford an inside Kirtaa to add to his other wars. And if he’s foolish enough to go ahead with it, I’d rather go into the Brush. I swear it, Pirs. I will go into the Brush before I turn my head and sacrifice a baby to Rintirry’s lust.”
He took her hand, kissed her fingers one by one. “Yes, sweet warrior, mi-Matjali, yes.” He set her hand down. “I put P’murr on guard at his door with orders to make sure he stays where he belongs. He’ll enjoy doing it, mi-killi. He’s tired,” the laugh lines deepened about his blue eyes, “he lost the tip to his ear and has a butt-burn from a pellet out of a tumak’s rifle. He’s quite annoyed at Rintirry.” He bent, touched Ingva’s cheek and ruffled Yla’s hair. “You sleep in your Mama’s bed this night, lirrilirris.”
“Mama?”
“She will be in with me, Ingvalli. You and Yla and the Jili will be all alone.” He straightened. “Jili Arluja, take them in now, please.”
He watched them out, then turned to Polyapo. “Ulyinik, you are welcome to a pallet here as long as this situation lasts, but if you prefer to return to your own quarters, I think you will be safe enough.”
Polyapo got slowly to her feet. She bowed perfunctorily and left without a word.
Pirs waited until Aghilo was back from barring the door after the titular Housekeeper, then turned with grave formality to Tinoopa and Kizra. Kizra could feel his unease with them; he was a better man than his father, but he was also a product of his culture; what was in his bones and blood fought the pale overgrowth from his mind. He was honest enough to realize this and recognize the roots of his distaste for them, but he still felt it-and showed it in his dealings with them.
MEMORY:
Shadith felt her power come on her, nothing but the intensity of the belief before and behind her. Kikun squeezed down that force and funneled it into her.
The feedback built and built until the air clanged like metal.
She began to shape… digging deep within herself… laying hold on the power offered her… crafting out of memory and instinct… out of the people’s belief… she SHAPED the THREE and sent THEM dancing over the crowd… made them sing with the voice of the throng…
“It would be best,” he said looking past Tinoopa at the wall, then forcing himself to look directly at her, “if you would spend the night here. Things being as they are, you would probably be safe enough in your rooms, but…” he shrugged, then turned his eyes on Kizra. “I owe you my life, child.” There was a shade more warmth in his voice; he touched the bandage on his head, then the one on his arm. “It was close there for a while. Without the warning and the weapons, I might easily be resting in some l’borrgha’s belly. I thank you.”
Kizra bowed her head, said nothing.
“Yes,” he said. He closed his eyes a moment, then stirred himself and finished what he’d determined to say.
“And you, chapa Tinoopa, you have made the Matja’s life infinitely more pleasant even in the short time you have been here. I have said nothing before now. For this lack I ask your favor.” He turned abruptly, took the hands the Matja held out to him, and pulled her to her feet.
At the bedroom door, he looked over his shoulder. “Aghilo, if the chapai decide to stay here, take care of them, please. We know how surely we may rely on you.”
3
A redheaded woman came riding through the Cicipi Gate, sitting in an arslibre howda mounted on the arching back of an immense and ugly warbot like the worse possible cross between a spider and a lobster.
Two more paced alongside and a third followed behind. They shot gouts of steam through spiracles along their sides, opening a path for themselves through the surging throng of pilgrims, walked with ominous sinuous agility through the steam clouds.
“Eh, Shadow, Dea ex machina reporting for duty.”
“Eh, Aleytys.” Shadith closed her eyes, opened them again as she remembered. “You better machinate some more or this world is going to go BOOM.”
Aghilo went out without waiting to ask if they meant to stay.
“Backwater worlds,” Tinoopa said. She stood, stretched, looked around the room. “It’s the floor for us, dust headaches and an aching back. Ah, well. Could be worse. You could easy have been the goat, Kiz. Hung out for that oogaluk to gnaw on.”