“I haven’t been here very long. What’s the Lot?”
“Settsimaksimin takes three kids each year from each Parika in Cheonea. The Lot’s to say which ones. Boys go to be trained for the army or for Servants of Amortis, girls go to the Yrons, those are the temples of Amortis, and the one that gets the gold lot goes to the high temple in Phras.”
“Hmm. Who’s Settsiwhatsisname and what gives him the right to take children from their families?”
Another startled look at him, a long gaze exchanged with her brother, a glance at the trees overhead. “We don’t want to talk about him,” Kori said, her voice a mutter he had to strain to hear. “He’s a sorceror and he owns Cheonea and he can hear if someone talks against him. Best leave things alone you don’t have to know.”
“Ah. I hear you. Sorceror? Mmf. Probably means some git stumbled on this world and used his tech to impress the hell out of the natives. “You’re heading for a city, how close is it?”
“Silagamatys. About three more days’ travel. It’s a sea port. Tres seven, so this is his first trip. He hasn’t seen the sea before.”
“You have?”
“Course I have. I’m thirteen going on fourteen. This is my last Lot; if I slide by this time, I won’t leave Owlyn Vale again, I’ll be betrothed and too busy weaving for the family that comes.” She sounded rather wistful, but resigned to the life fate and custom mapped out for her. “We’ve told you ‘bout us. AuntNurse says it’s impolite to pester wayfarers with questions. I think it’s impolite for them to not talk when they have to see we’re dying to know all about them.” She was tall and lanky, with a splatter of orange freckles across her nose; wisps of fine light-brown hair straggled from under a headcloth that swung precariously every time she moved her head; her eyes were huge in her thin face, a pale gray-green that shifted color with every thought that passed through her head. She grinned at him, opened those chatoyant eyes wide and waited for him to swallow the hook.
“Weeell,” he murmured, “I’m a traveling man from a long way off…”
Much later, rolled into the borrowed blanket beside one of the carts, Daniel Akamarino thought drowsily about what he’d learned. He was appalled but not surprised. This wasn’t the first tyrant who’d got the notion of building a power base in the minds of a nation’s children. Clever about how he managed it. If he’d tried taking children out of their homes, no matter how powerful he was, he would have faced a blistering resistance. By having the children brought to him, by arranging what seemed to be an impartial choice through the Lot, he saved himself a world of trouble, didn’t even have to send guards with the carttrains. Sorceror? Oh yeah. Seen that before, haven’t you… Vague speculation faded gradually into sleep.
Having got used to him by breakfast (he was an amiable guest, quick to offer his services to pull and haul, doing his tasks whistling a cheerful tune that made the work lighter for everyone), they let him ride one of the carts. Tre and Kori sat with him. The boy was silent, troubled about something, the trouble deepening as he got closer to the city. For a while Daniel thought it was having to face the Lot for the first time, but when he slipped a murmured question to Ire, the boy shook his head. He was nervous and unhappy, he clung to Daniel for reasons of his own, but he wouldn’t talk about what frightened him. Kori knew, but she was as silent about it as her brother. She sat on the other side of Daniel, sliding him murmured information about Silagamatys and its waterfront that she had no business knowing if it was like most other such areas he’d moved through in his travels. She laughed at his unexpressed but evident disapproval of her nocturnal wanderings. He liked the mischievous twinkle in her eyes, the dry quality to her humor, the subtle rebellion in the way she carried her body and changed his mind about how resigned she was to the future laid out for her. Thinking about it, he was rather sorry for her; from everything he’d seen so far, this world wasn’t all that different from other agricultural societies he’d dipped into. Men and women both had their lives laid out for them from the moment they were born, which was fine if they fit into those roles, but hell on the rebels and the too-intelligent, especially if these last were women. Kori had a sharp practical mind; she must have realized years ago that there were things she couldn’t admit to doing or knowing and continue to live at peace with her people. Talking with him was taking a chance; what she said and what it meant. slipping out after dark to wander through dangerous streets, that could destroy her. He suspected her actions had something to do with her brother’s fretting, but he didn’t have enough data to judge what she was getting at.
After a while, he fished inside his vest and brought out the recorder he carried everywhere; he blew it out, played a few notes, then settled into a dance tune his older sisters had liked. The other children in the cart crowded about him; when he finished that tune he had them sing their own songs for him, then played these back with ornamental flourishes that made them giggle. Tre joined him with a liquid lilting whistle, putting flourishes on Daniel’s flourishes, the girls clapped their hands, the boys sang and the afternoon passed more quickly than most. After that, even Sinan stopped resenting him.
He caught glimpses of farmhouses and outbuildings, a village or two, no walls or fortifications in sight (obviously, invasions were scarce around here). They passed over a number of canals busy with barges and small sail boats; there was a lot more traffic on the water than there was on the road. He didn’t blame them, this world hadn’t got around to inventing effective springs and riding these ruts (even sitting on layers of blankets and quilts) was rather like a bastinado of the buttocks.
Midafternoon two days later, the carttrain topped a hill and looked down on Silagamatys.
Daniel Akamarino was playing his flute again, but broke off in surprise when his cart swung round a clump of tall trees at the crest of that hill and he saw for the first time the immense walls of the city and the gleaming white Keep soaring into the clouds.
“HIS Citadel,” Kori murmured, her voice dropping into the special tone she used when she spoke of Settsimaksimin but didn’t want to name him.”AuntNurse said her father’s brother Elias, the one who married into the Ankitierin of Prosyn Vale, was down to the city just after HE kicked out crazy old King Noshios; she said Elias said HE cleared the ground and had that thing built in two days and a night. And then HE built the Grand Yron just two weeks later and that only took a day.” Third in the line of ten, the cart tilted forward down the long undulating slope toward the city’s SouthGate. “We’re going to the Yron Hostel, it’s built in back of the main temple. They won’t let you in there, it’s just for people doing the Lot. Actually, you’d better get off soon’s we’re through the Gate. You don’t want HIM getting interested in you.” The city was built on a cluster of low wooded hills looking out into a sheltered blue bay. The usual hovels and clutter of the poor and outcast snugged against the wall, but most of the ugliness was concealed by trees that Settsimaksimin had planted and protected from depredation by poor folk hunting fuel. When Daniel wondered about this, Kori said, “HE said don’t touch the trees. HE said put iron to these trees and I’ll hang you in a cage three days without food or water and don’t think you can escape my eyes. And he did it too. HE said get your wood from the East Side Reserve. HE said Family Xilogonts will run the Wood Reserve for you. HE said you can buy a desma of wood for a copper, if you don’t have the copper you can earn a desma by cutting ten desmas, if there is no wood to cut, you can earn a desma by working for Family Xilogonts for one halfday, planting seedlings and looking after young trees. If anyone in Family Xilogonts cheats you in any way, tell me and I will see it doesn’t happen again.’
“Hmm. I didn’t expect that kind of thinking in a place like this. What do I mean? Ah Kori, just chatter, talking to myself.” He looked around at the brilliant colors of the fall foliage, smiled. “Seems to work.”