“Because you promised them. And because if you don’t, this trickster and I will break both your arms for you.”
The Kubalese accepted the coin with a look of hatred and flicked it carelessly into the air so it lit among the bucks’ feet; at once the children were on it, surging and scrambling—a big boy screamed his success and disappeared, running.
Zephy couldn’t see all that happened, the crowd was too thick, people too tall in front of her. She pushed and stretched, saw Kearb-Mattus raise his fist, saw Thorn’s red thatch, saw the white-haired man move quickly through the crowd, heard the voices raised in anger. Beside her Meatha was pale as milk, staring; but Zephy paid her little attention, until Meatha shook her arm and breathed, “Anchorstar. It’s Anchorstar! It’s the man I saw—on the wagon . . .”
Zephy turned. She stared at Meatha, uncomprehending. Then she understood what Meatha was saying. But Meatha must be mistaken: This was not the way Meatha’s vision had been. Where was the bright wagon, the horses? Then Meatha’s urgency was forgotten as Thorn’s voice rose in anger. Zephy pushed through the crowd frantically, trying to see, trying to understand what was taking place.
When the crowd dispersed at last, wandering off, she was little the wiser about what had happened, except that Thorn and the tall white-haired man had stood facing the Kubalese together. She turned shy and uncomfortable then and pulled Meatha away. She didn’t want to talk to Thorn; she didn’t know what to say to him.
Meatha seemed glad enough to go. Had she been wrong, then, about the tall man? They made their way to the other side of the square and occupied themselves among the wonders of leather and tin and weavings; and neither spoke for a long time. The colors of the wagons were like fire; indigo and saffron and crimson spilled upon the day. There was a display of sugar spinning and a wagon of glinting pearls and sprika shells from the Bay of Pelli. And an old woman wizened as a dried fig laid out wonderful needlework with her brown, trembling hands. There were ginger pies filled with clotted cream, to eat in the shade of a Sangurian wagon, and all the time Zephy was silent and preoccupied. Wanting to be with Thorn but too shy and making herself miserable.
Then it was noon suddenly, the sun overhead. Mama would be furious, serving up the meal without her. She fled through the crowded streets guiltily, tripped over a clutter of bright brooms, and burst in through the sculler to meet her mother’s hot, angry frown.
NINE
The kitchen was unbearably hot. Mawzee cakes and side meat were sizzling on the great black stove. Mama flipped half a dozen cakes onto the platter before she looked at Zephy. Her face was flushed from the heat. She pushed back a wisp of hair with that quick, angry motion Zephy dreaded. “The honeyrot, Zephy. Pour it out. Where have you been! Put some charp fruit in a basket and cut the bread.”
Zephy fled gladly to the sculler, grabbed up a basket, filled it with charp fruit, and laid six loaves on top. She hurried through the kitchen with her attention fully on the basket and pushed through the door into the long-room.
The clatter of voices and plates hit her like a blow. The two chamber girls were hurrying between the crowded tables with steaming platters, Sulka’s pale hair fallen around her shoulders, and Thara having trouble getting her bulk through the narrow aisles between the backs of the seated men, her platter held high. Zephy dropped her basket on the serving table and began to cut the bread, then stopped to pour out honeyrot as the men around her clambered for drink. The noise, trapped under the low rafters, churned so the voices came in scraps of shouting that seemed to explode around her. She loaded a tray with bread and brimming mugs and started down between the aisles. The food and drink were grabbed away by great hands with seldom a thank you or a notice of whether anyone carried the tray or whether it walked by itself. There were four Kubalese sitting with Kearb-Mattus. Where had they come from? How could they show their faces after sacking Urobb! Kearb-Mattus’s voice drowned out his neighbors. She watched them with hatred, listening in spite of herself.
“—of Fire Scourge, it should be a sight, all the pomp and fuss. You’ve never seen such a—” She lost some of it in the ruckus, then, “Five days of praying on their knees and wouldn’t you know—” She held her breath, straining to listen, her fury growing. “—on the last night!” Kearb-Mattus shouted, and the men laughed fit to kill. Zephy turned away, toward the serving table.
The Trashsinger and the Vendor were sitting on a bench out of the way, their backs to the wall, making themselves a part of the hubbub of market day; remembering, she thought, when they, too, were shouting young men strong in their bodies and boisterous in their ways. She smiled down at them and handed them honeyrot and bread.
And when she turned to look back at the room, Elij Cooth had joined the Kubalese. He sat among them laughing. She stared at him, her anger rising anew. Elij was as much a traitor as his father if he could pander to the Kubalese so. What was the pact that Kubal and Cloffi were supposed to have made, anyway? Did the Landmaster believe the Kubalese would honor any pact? She stacked dirty plates onto her tray, pressing through between the crowded rows. Elij was leaning over the table, reaching for bread. Zephy gave him a look of hatred as she passed—and suddenly she was jerked back and pulled around so she lost her balance and fell, groping, across Elij’s lap.
She kicked at him and struggled; the tray fell, the dishes clattering. Elij’s grip was like steel. He was drunk, drunk and pawing her. She twisted, kicked again; there was laughter all around her—then Elij had his hand under her tunic. She snatched up the tray and jammed it into his stomach, felt his grip loosen, then was on her feet, shoving the greasy tray in his face.
She stood in the sculler seething with rage, hating Elij Cooth, hating everything; hating a system where a girl could be pawed and everyone laughed. Hating, most of all, her own weakness for not being able to fight back.
At last, her rage hard and cold inside her, she straightened her tunic and went back into the kitchen.
Mama had left the pans soaking. Zephy began to scrub them, her anger driving her so she broke a nail at the quick and swore like a man. Thara came to help her, then Sulka with another load. They glanced at her and grinned, but she didn’t acknowledge their looks. Her anger was so great it kept even those two silent, and at last she escaped toward the square.
The sun was warm on the empty streets. Burgdeeth seemed utterly deserted; only the myriad smells—tannery, baking, tammi drying, outhouses—would tell you anyone lived there. The cobbles glinted in the sunlight, and ahead of her the colors in the square were as brilliant as Zandourian silk. She came around a wagon into the square—and stopped.
Coming down the street she had heard no sound from the square. Now she could only stand staring at the people who were crowded there utterly silent: the square overflowed with wagons and animals, and with people still as death, everyone staring in one direction.
They were watching a bright wagon, and Anchorstar, she thought wildly, her mind exploding with the word; for the man of Meatha’s vision stood tall in the open back.
She drew closer and could see flowers and birds painted on the sides of the wagon, and the words, JUGGLER AND MASTER OF TRICKS. The two Carriolinian horses were just as Meatha had described them: butternut, all butternut, not a stroke of white.
The back of the closed wagon had been opened out like a stage, and there above the crowd, the tall imposing man held the throng silent by his still presence, his hands raised. The sunlight slashed across his satin cloak so it shone with every shade of red; the gravity of his face seemed to hold the crowd in awe. . . .