"It worked," said Jehan stubbornly.
"We don't have their ship," said the guard.
"We'll get it," Jehan said. "In the meantime, we have dinner."
"And two women," said one of the other pirates.
"What?" asked the guard. He was a stocky man with dark fur going silver over his shoulders. In Ahl's opinion, he looked sensible, not a trait she associated with
piracy.
"I'm a woman," said Ahl. "And so is she."
"This is turning into a perplexing mess," the guard said. "What are two women doing on a Taig ship, disguised as men? Taig women don't travel, and why would any woman disguise herself as a man? Surely you know how dangerous it is! We could have killed you by mistake."
"Can I speak?" asked Perig.
"If you want to," said the guard. "And have something useful to say."
"He's one for chattering," said Jehan in a warning tone.
"Let him chatter," said the guard. "I want information."
"These two women needed to get south in a hurry and went in disguise, because they couldn't find a women's ship."
"Are you related to them? You don't look similar."
Perig hesitated briefly, then tilted his head in assent. "The women in our lineage are tall and have an authority we men lack."
"Which lineage?" the guard asked.
"Tesati," said Perig.
"Not one I know."
"It's to the north," said Perig. "At the edge of the Great Central Plain. Or rather it was there. The Unraveling has destroyed much. Another family overwhelmed ours. The men are dead, except for us."
"Why are you alive?" asked Jehan.
"We weren't home when the end came. Cholkwa and I are actors and often travel."
"Actors!" said the guard, looking interested.
"When we did come home, we found --" Perig smiled briefly. "No home. Our male kin were dead. The family that killed them, the Chaitin, had gathered in our female relatives and the children. We should have killed ourselves. It would have been the decent thing to do. But we found these two hiding out, along with Leweli's baby. They didn't want to be Chaitin. There are women who hold this kind of grudge."
Everyone was listening intently, of course. It was a good story, told excellently. But now Ahl saw a look of confusion on the Taig cook's face, followed by a look of horror. The cook was remembering the night before, she thought. Perig and Cholkwa had made love on the beach. The Taig sailors had noticed and been undisturbed. Traveling companions often give each other this
kind of comfort, provided they are the same sex and not related. But if the two actors belonged to the same family, the act was incest. The cook opened his mouth, then closed it and glanced down, going back to work on his injured comrade.
A near thing! And not over. The cook might still decide to denounce the actors.
"Maybe we should have given our kinswomen to the Chaitin," Perig said. "They would have been safer; and there is always something offensive about the idea of women without a family. Such things happen to men. We know it! But women should live inside a double wall of matriarchs and soldiers.
"These ethical problems are never easy to untangle. In the end we decided to rely on the old rule, which says that men should not make decisions for women.
That power lies in the hands of their mothers and their female relatives; and they were not available, nor were they kin, since they had become Chaitin, while these two remained Tesati. They asked us to escort them south; and we agreed out of loyalty, which is not the foremost male virtue. That, of course, is
directness or honesty. But loyalty is one of the five."
"I told you he talked a lot," said Jehan.
"Are you really actors?" asked the guard.
"Why would I lie?" asked Perig.
"I've never seen a play," the guard said. Ahl heard longing in his voice.
"Well, then," Perig said. "Let the Taig cook fix our birds. You can feast tonight and see The Death of Eh Manhata."
"He's dead?" cried the guard. The other pirates made noises indicating surprise.
"What happened?" asked Jehan.
"He was betrayed by men he trusted, captured and --" Perig stopped. "The play will show you. Wait till tonight."
"It's all very well for you to talk about waiting," Leweli said. "But I have a child on board the Taig ship. I need to get back to her."
"We can't let you go," said Jehan.
"Why not?" asked the silver-backed guard.
"For one thing, the Taig might be willing to surrender their ship in order to get these two women back, especially if they have a baby on their hands."
"You are willing to hold women hostage?" asked Perig in a shocked tone.
Jehan frowned and raised his sword.
"Don't kill him," said the guard. "I want to see the play."
"For another," continued Jehan, "we can't let the women tell the Taig whatever they may have found out about us. What if they've realized how few of us there are? And how difficult it will be for us to take the ship?"
A look of pain crossed the guard's face. "Very well," he said. "Keep the women here."
The pirates untied the cook's feet, so he could work, helped by pirates. Soon a new fire was burning, and the cook was eviscerating birds. As for Ahl and her comrades, they settled in the sand close to the Taig prisoners. The guard settled with them, obviously anxious to talk. His name was Jehan, he said, the same as his cousin. Though he was Jehan Silverback, and his cousin was Long Jehan.
"Long?" said Perig. "He's no taller than you are."
"That isn't the way he's long," said Jehan Silverback, then looked embarrassed.
"It's hard for me to remember these two are women."
"This isn't a situation where it's easy to remember anything having to do with manners," said Perig. "Though I'm glad to know you're a self-respecting man. How did you end in this line of work?"
He came from an island, said Jehan Silverback. "Where exactly I won't tell you, in case we decide to let you live." It was one of two islands that lay remote from all other land. The guard's family lived on one island. Another lineage -- "our breeding partners" -- lived on the other. Both islands were steep and
stony, surrounded by rocks and shoals. Not much to look at, according to the guard, though his voice sounded affectionate to Ahl. "But the cliffs are full of nesting birds; and the waters next to shore are so full of shellfish that they are like stones on a beach; and there are plenty of fish."
The problem was the islands were treeless. The islanders lived in houses made of stone and sod. Their fuel was driftwood and the oil of marine animals.
Lacking timber, they could not build boats. Without boats, they would not be able to fish or reach their neighbors. "We might not starve, since we could still net birds and gather shellfish. But how could we breed without boats to carry men from one family to the other? We'd die out, unless we were reduced to
inbreeding." There was horror in the guard's voice as he said this. "We are pirates because we can't buy the ships we need. Nothing we have to sell is of sufficient value."
"Couldn't you cut timber on an island like this one?" asked Ahl.
"We gather wood for ordinary uses on this island," the guard said. "And we could make some kind of wretched little dinghy from the timber here. But a good ship requires large trees, metal tools and fittings, fabric for the sails, rope and w