The Prophet stomped angrily down a kariam, heading for the Outer Ring Road and Jiko Sagrada.
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With Ailiki trotting beside her, brushing against her now and then, Faan limped away from the Sok Circle, battered and exhausted, cursing under her breath Abeyhamal and all her works. Tbars slipped unheeded down her face.
All those women dead, burnt, heads crushed, bodies slashed and broken. Those Cheoshim boys clawed into bloody shreds. All because these cursed gods were playing their nauseating games and using people as game pieces, breaking them, discarding them. It was so wasteful, so useless…
“Fa!” Reyna waved the other Salagaum on toward the Sok and came running across the kariam. “Honey… “
Faan tried to smile, wiped at her streaky face. “Grads,” she said. “Slaughter.”
“Diyo. God business.” His mouth twisted. “We kept a lookout, honey. In case you needed us. Some still alive?”
“I don’t know. It’s a mess.”
Reyna put his arm around her, hugged her lightly. “There’s a place we’ve been staying the past few days. Come along, honey, I’ll make you some tea or something, at least you can wash your face.”
Faan trudged in silence for several minutes, glancing now and then at Reyna. He looked a lot older, gaunt and graying, his hair cut shorter, shoulder length now instead of halfway down his back, but his eyes were clear and he moved with the easy looseness of good health. “Past few days?” she said.
The sudden smile that lit his face made her feel warm and happy, brought back days she’d thought were gone forever. “We keep a step or two ahead of the Shinda
Prefecture. It’s a game of Hummer Stools, we move and they pounce two seats back.” He made a face, reached over and took her hand. “Nobody wants the Salagaum these days. It’s good to see you, Fa. I swear you’ve grown two inches on me.”
She, squeezed the hand. “I’ve missed you, Mamay.” He chuckled. “I know, hon. Even the shouting matches, hmm?”
“Diyo, Mamay, I was an idiot! I wish… I tried to talk HER into letting you come across the River.”
“Down here.” He tugged her into a wynd, began weaving between tenements at the inner edge of the Edge. “Don’t mind it, Fa. There’s too much that needs doing over here.”
“You could get killed.”
“So could you, hon.”
“Gods!”
“Diyo.”
“In here, honey.” He opened a shaky stick gate at the back of a three-story tenement, took her across the sun-baked stretch of earth that had once been a garden, unlocked the kitchen door, and led her inside.
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A slender Salagaum with the spiky coarse hair of the Cheoshim, Twarra came with quick light steps into the kitchen, snapped fingers in a greeting to Faan who was sitting at a wobbly table sipping tea from a mug. He shook his head when Reyna raised an eyebrow. “We had to give grace to half a dozen women,” he said. “Couldn’t move them, they’d fall apart in our hands. Anyone could crawl was gone. Rest were dead. The STRIKER band, well, looked like animals had got at them. Nasty.”
Reyna emptied the pot into a mug, handed it to Twarra, then hitched a hip on the wash ledge. “Any trouble?”
IWarra gulped at the strong tea, shook his head. When his mouth was clear, he said, “Nayo, Rey. If there’s anyone watching, he didn’t stick nose out. Dawa took t’others to pick up handcarts and they went on to stash. Figured it’d be safer to haul sacks now, STRIKER band and Shinda guards not so apt to be nosing about.”
Reyna and Dawa, Thammir and Furrah pushed the handcarts onto the Approach. Dawa and the others settled down to guard them while Reyna took Faan aside to talk to her.
“Mamay, I…” She broke off, lunged against him as she’d done so many times before, wrapping her arms around him and holding tight while she sobbed and shuddered, her anguish brealdng suddenly through the weary numbness that had held until now.
He said nothing, just held her close, smoothing a shaking hand down and down her tangled hair until the sobbing faded and she lay against him limp with release, then he sighed, took the end of his sleeve and wiped her face. “How many times…” he murmured.
She managed a watery smile. “Count the times I’ve made an idiot of myself.”
“Honey, tell the Bitch God to go jump. Nothing’s worth this.”
She caught hold of his hands, but moved away from him, stood holding them and shaking her head. “Stubborn as a waterpig, aren’t you.”
“Diyo. You should know by now, Mamay.”
“I’ll keep watching, honey.”
“Don’t.”
“Where do you think you learned that stubbornness, Tchi ‘ kee? “
“Ah, well.” She pulled loose. “T’wi’ll have someone for the carts fast as she can manage. Be careful, Mamay.”
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When she reached the middle of the Bridge, Faan waved to Reyna and the Salagaum, then started trotting for the Low City. She was exhausted, but she didn’t want to keep the Salagaum in the open any longer than she had to.
Chapter 20. Fiddling The Escape
Desantro squatted beside the longchair, scratched at her nose. “First on, where we going?”
“I thought down the River to Bairroa Pili.” Penhari swept a hand along her body. “You see what you’ve got to work with, Desa. I’m neither young enough nor insane enough to try crossing the mountains.”
Desantro’s mouth twisted into something half a smile and half a grimace. “Jumps to mind, that. We need time to get far ‘nough so they can’t just put thumb out and squash us.”
“Do you know anything about boats?”
“Not many boats on skislope.” Desantro pulled a blade of grass loose, looked at the withered stem and tossed it away. “So we buy us a sailor afore we start.” She tilted her head, looked sideways at Penhari. “Need coin for him. Not gold, nayo, nayo, gold gets ’em greedy, just the shine a it. Silver, what I want. Maybe thirty, fifty, somp’n like that.”
“Vema. I can arrange that.”
“Be tricky, slaves an’t s’posed to have anything to do with boat.”
“But you can do it?”
Desantro lifted a sturdy, callused hand, spread fingers and thumb, rocked them back and forth as if to say, so so ask me no question I tell you no lie.
“‘When?”
“Thought about that. Wounded Moon’s full five days on, there’s a Festa day before, ‘s when ‘prentice smiths, all kinds, they get raised to journeyman, being they ready for ‘t. One a them Festas we get off on, Primakass order, like I said. I tell Chambermassal I bring cold food in the morning, you c’n take care a youself, he’ll like that. He’ll be liking it so much he won’t be smelling anything spooked. A good thing ’cause I c’n get hold a more food than other days, gonna be a help ’cause we’ll need somp’n to eat going downRiver, can’t be stopping, anyway, an’t much out there these days, what I hear.” She jumped to her feet, began pacing back and forth, excitement spilling over, brushing against Penhari, infecting her. “Soon’s it be dark, we get you out city, over to boat. Take off. Be morning afore anyone notice I’m not back, later an that when they find out you gone.” She slapped her handi against her side. “C’n do ‘t, vema, vema, we can do it!”
Penhari swung her feet off the longchair and watched Desantro go rushing out. A quarter century’s caution washed away. How easily she forgets. Trusts me. Or is she simply playing me as I’ve been trying to manipulate her? She got to her feet and began moving about the garden, nipping away dead blooms, dying leaves, casting the detritus on the grass behind her. Time to consider her resources.
There were the jewels Wenyarum kept giving her. At the moment there was no way to turn these into coin; no jeweler would buy so much as a silver ring from a slave, so she couldn’t send a piece out with Desantro. The jewelry would be useful, but only after she got away from here.
She straightened, frowned at the withered brown flowerhead she was holding. If I can keep the things from being stolen. Desantro’s tales of the street and countryside were lesson enough about the difficulties travelers faced, men and women alike. I’ll have to sew hiding places in my skirts and tunics, put in padding to keep the shapes hidden. She rubbed plant juices from her fingers, glanced at the sun. Not now Tonight. I don’t want anyone walking in on me while I’m doing-it. Not even Desantro. Particularly not Desantro. I may be ignorant, but I’m not foolish. She made a face at the flowerhead, tossed it aside. Not all the time, anyway.