“Ettin Taiin,” said the carpenter. “I didn’t know he was in town.”
“Who?” asked Haik, putting the tli mask in a box.
“The lame man.”
She looked around and saw a short fellow limping toward the stage. His fur was grey, turning silver over the shoulders and on the face. One eye was missing; he didn’t bother to wear a patch over the empty socket.
“He is the foremost war captain among the Ettin,” the carpenter said. “And they are the most dangerous lineage in this part of the world. Dapple calls his mother “great-aunt.” If you find him scary, as I do, then you ought to meet the old lady.”
There was no way for him to reach Dapple, surrounded by admirers. He greeted the carpenter and the costume maker by name, without glancing at them directly. Good manners, thought Haik.
“Is Cholkwa with you?” asked the costume maker.
“South, among the savages of the Cold Ocean Coast. I sent men with him for protection, in case the savages didn’t like his comedies. May I ask about your companion, or is that rude?”
“We can hardly object to rudeness, after the play we’ve done,” said the carpenter.
“I laughed so hard I thought I would lose control of my bladder,” said the one-eyed man.
The costume maker said, “This is Tulwar Haik the potter. She’s Dapple’s new lover.”
The man lifted his head, apparently in surprise. Haik got a glimpse of his sunken eye socket and the remaining eye, which blazed blue as a noon sky. His pupil had expanded in the dim light and lay across the eye like an iron bar. “The Potter of Strange Animals,” he said.
“Yes,” said Haik, surprised to be known in this distant place.
“The world is full of coincidences!” the soldier told her. “And this one is pleasant! I bought one of your pots for my mother last year. She can barely see these days, but she likes the texture of it. She especially likes to feel the animals you have used for handles. Birds with clawed hands! What an idea! How can they possibly fly?”
“I don’t think they did—or do,” said Haik.
“These birds exist?” asked the soldier.
Haik paused, considering. “I have found their remains.”
“You don’t say. The world is full of two things, then: coincidence and strangeness. Considering the Goddess, this can’t be called surprising.” He glanced toward Dapple. Most of the admirers had gone. “Excuse me. I want to give her news of Cholkwa. They just missed each other. His ship left two days ago; and I was planning to ride home, having stayed with him till the last ikun. But then I heard that Dapple had arrived.”
He limped away.
“He and Cholkwa are lovers,” said the carpenter. “Though the true love of Cholkwa’s life is the actor Perig. Perig’s old now and in poor health. He lives on Helwar Island with Dapple’s kin, who are my kin also, while Cholkwa still travels. Male actors are as promiscuous as women.”
Haik finished putting away the masks. The pesha mask was new, she realized. The blue paint was still tacky, and the shape of the head had been changed, using cloth and glue.
“We keep blank masks,” said the carpenter. “Then, when Dapple has a sudden idea, we can add new animals.”
“This is something I can do,” Haik said. “Shape the masks and paint them.” She glanced up at the carpenter and the costume maker. “Unless the work belongs to you.”
“We all do many things,” said the costume maker. “If you stay with us you’ll find yourself on stage.”
When everything was packed up, they went back to the inn, sat in the common room and drank halin. The Ettin captain, who came with them, had an immense capacity. He left from time to time to urinate, but never got noticeably drunk. The idea of coincidence was stuck in his mind, and he talked about how it worked in war, sometimes to his benefit, sometimes against him.
There was the time he went to attack the Gwa and met their warband on the way, coming to attack Ettin. “We both picked the same exact route. So there we were in a mountain pass, staring at each other with mouths open. Then we fought.” He spilled halin on the table and drew the disposition of troops. “A bad situation for both of us! Neither had an advantage, and neither had a good way to retreat. I knew I had to win and did, though I lost an eye and a brother; and enough Gwa soldiers escaped, so we could not surprise them at home. A nasty experience, caused by coincidence. Doubtless the Goddess does this to us so we won’t take our plans too seriously; a good captain must always be ready to throw his ideas away.”
When he finally left, walking steadily except for his limp, Dapple said, “I have sworn to myself, I will put him in a play some day. That is what a hero is really like. I’ll have to make up a new story, of course. His life has not been tragic. He’s never had to make difficult choices, and everything he’s wanted—fame, the affection of his relatives, the love of Cholkwa—has come into his hands.”
Well, thought Haik, she was certainly learning new things. The man had not seemed like a hero to her.
The next evening, they did the play a second time. The warehouse was packed, and Ettin Taiin was in the audience again. Haik watched him as he watched the play, his expression intent. Now and then, he laughed, showing white teeth. One was missing, an upper stabber. Doubtless it had been lost in battle, like his eye and his leg’s agility. Haik’s male relatives fought nothing except the forest predators, which were not especially dangerous. When men died in the forest, it was usually from small creatures that had a poisonous bite or sting; or they died from accidents. Old people told stories about pirates, but none had attacked the northeast coast in more than a generation. The Tulwar feared water and storms.
Now, Haik thought, she was in the south. War was continuous here; and lineages vanished from existence, the men killed, the women and children adopted. A family that lacked soldiers like Ettin Taiin would not survive.
This idea led nowhere, except to the thought that the world was full of violence, and this was hardly a new thought. In front of her, Dapple tripped over the sul’s long dragging penis and tumbled into a somersault, which ended with her upright once again, the penis wound around her neck. The audience hooted its approval. The world was full of violence and sex, Haik thought.
Once again the captain joined them at the inn. This time he drank less and asked questions, first of the actors, then of Haik. Where exactly was her family? What did they produce besides pots?
“Are you planning to invade us?” she asked.
He looked shocked. “I am a soldier, not a bandit, young lady! I only fight with people I know. The purpose of war is to expand the size of one’s family and increase the amount of land held by one’s kin. That should always be done along existing borders. You push out and push out, gathering the land and the women and children immediately beyond your borders, making sure the land is always contiguous and protected—if possible—by natural barriers. Any other strategy leaves you with a territory that is not defensible.”
“He’s not planning to invade you,” Dapple said in summary. “Your land is too far away.”
“Exactly,” the captain said. “Bandits and pirates use different tactics, since they want valuable objects rather than land and people. We’ve had both in the south and dealt with them.”
“How?” asked Haik.
“The obvious way is to find where they came from, go there and kill all the men. The problem is, you have to do something with the bandit women and children. They can’t be left to starve. But obviously no family wants members with bad traits.”
“What do you do?”
“Adopt them but spread them among many houses, and never let any of them breed. Often, the children turn out well; and after a generation, the traits—bad or good—are gone. This, as you can imagine, is a lot of work, which is a reason to kill enough men so the bandits will think twice about returning to Ettin, but leave enough alive so the women and children are provided for.”