Ho! she thought as they mounted the crest of a hill and glimpsed distantly the cadaverous ovoids of the Palace celebrated in song but never seen, mine enemy who will be my lover! Skillfully she lifted her feet to the Ivieth’s shoulders and rose in perfect balance with her arms outstretched. The Ivieth reached a hand to steady her. She kicked it aside. Slowly she doubled over, and made a half twist, and then a head stand, her hair buried in his, her feet toed to the zenith, so that she might view a Palace turned upside down.
The cell she was assigned in the Liethe hive at Kaiel-hontokae had been built within the buhrstone walls of an old whisky cellar. There was floor for a sleeping mat and upright space for simple wooden furniture — but no tapestries, no luxuries at all. She woke early, prayed, and, to clear away the mood-residue of dreams, assumed the mental attitude of White Mind while placing her body successively in the Three Positions.
Then, unhurriedly, to work. She allocated a sun-height of time to her memory drills, today a review of two songs and the mnemonic key to her genetic file.
A face sneaked into her room, giggled and retreated. Humility leapt up, barefooted, still bare-breasted, and peered down the hallway. “Hey!”
The face reappeared, cloaked in hair robe and also with bare feet. A face with bare feet. Her face with bare feet. She giggled. Humility’s clone sister smiled in reply. “The se-Tufi Who Cocks Her Ear,” said the woman, cocking her ear in formal introduction.
“The se-Tufi Who Walks in Humility,” came the formal response coupled with the flat hand and the drop of the eyelid gesture that was universally associated with humility. The Liethe of the same genetic line used these quick signals to recognize each other.
“Would you like to break fast? Come.”
The kitchen was austere, but there were bins of flour and potatoes and ample jars of ground bees and spices. “I’d like pancakes and honey.”
They began to mix the batter and gossip as if they had always known each other. “Have you heard the fame of Aesoe? You’re my replacement. I’m pregnant by him. This time it is a girl.” She meant: this time it did not have to be aborted. “The old crone is sending me to hivehome to have the baby. I’ve never travelled so far. I was born in Oiena. You’ve travelled.” Cocked Ear would already have exchanged data with other se-Tufi sisters about Humility and have it accessible in her genetic performance files even though they had never met. “What’s it like to walk so far? I get to cross the Njarae by ship!”
“I saw the moon last night!” Humility was rapturous.
“Is that all that happens when you travel! I’m afraid of rape. Were you ever raped?”
Humility slid out of her chair and, before she had turned around, began a forward thrust that took her into the air as a rotating ball which uncoiled, feet first, to hit the far wall with a devastating thump. She fell back into a cartwheel and landed gracefully where she had begun, on her feet. “You should see the look of surprise on a man’s face when you smack him in the chest that way!” She went back to the pancakes.
“Where did you learn such ferocity?”
Humility only smiled. The training had been part of her assassin’s course. “Ugh. Travelling is mostly getting out and pushing your own wagon when the Ivieth die on you. That was the most interesting day of my last trip. I’ve never been to an Ivieth funeral before. You’re lucky you get to sail across the Njarae. I’ve read so many poems about the Njarae that I get hoiela wings fluttering in my brain just thinking about it. Imagine the ocean at night with Scowlmoon in the sky and the sails out and one of those munchy Mnankrei with his smelly arm around you on deck, tucking you under his armpit. I swoon.”
Cocked Ear curled her nose.
Humility was instantly aware of the hostility. She was surprised. The Liethe had been Mnankrei allies for centuries. It was widely believed among the Liethe that the Mnankrei would rule all of Geta come the Union. Liethe who had served Mnankrei lovers were proud of it. Humility had once strangled a wandering priest who carried messages against the Mnankrei. “The Mnankrei have kalothi,” she said.
“The Mnankrei are evil!”
“Beetle piss.” Humility took a mouthful of pancake. “You’ve been living in Kaiel-hontokae too long. It’s time you were moving on.”
“The Kaiel have a magic ear in the Palace that can listen to the Mnankrei talking right now! What those sailors are doing frightens me.”
“Who’s telling you about magic ears?”
“Aesoe!”
“The Kaiel are vowed enemies of our Mnankrei! Do you believe everything a fat old priest tells you? They love pulling off a girl’s legs and eating them right up to your brains!”
Cocked Ear smiled a little laugh that made the beads of scars down her cheek part like a curtain. “I know he does. He laughs afterwards too. He had this poor Kaiel woman over the other day and while she was piling the furniture up against her door, he was coming through the window! Thank our God for Mind Control. I had to go into White Mind to keep a bland face. Aesoe is such an adorable baby. I worry that he’s going to have a heart attack.”
Humility was choking on her pancake, wide-eyed. “You’re in love with him!”
“I am not!”
“It’s just that he’s a good bum kisser?” Humility teased.
“I’ll miss him,” Cocked Ear admitted. “I hope his daughter grows into the greatest line the Liethe have ever known! He adores us. He really does!”
“Recksh,” she gurgled. “And I have to sleep with this man?”
“All the time knowing that he thinks you are me while you’re cooing at him!” the sister retaliated.
“God’s Streak, this is going to take some getting used to.”
“Our old crone is only going to give you three high days to assemble your act.”
Humility’s eyes widened. “So soon?”
“She’s going to work you down to soup stock!”
“Don’t we ever wear out?” The hive mother, Humility knew, was of the same se-Tufi line as they were. She was the notorious se-Tufi Who Finds Pebbles.
“No, we don’t wear out, we just get bitchier.”
Humility thought about that. The hive mother had lived five of Humility’s lives. That was a lot of bitchiness. “Why the hurry?”
“The se-Tufi Who Sings at Night has been filling out Aesoe’s threesome this week but she is to be sent south. That leaves only four of you for three roles. I’ll be here for a while as a back-up, but not for long.”
“What kind of a kalothi-zero is this Aesoe? His ego is so big he needs three mistresses and for ten thousand sunrises he never notices that they are playing a shell game with him and he never even notices that they aren’t aging? This is the man who overlords the Kaiel? This is the man who has delusions of grandeur that cover the whole land? The Mnankrei will skin him alive!”
“He likes to sleep with his head pillowed on your breasts. And he snores.” Cocked Ear was enjoying herself.
“I’m going to love this! Women have killed men for less!”
“And when he calls you Honeybee, your reflex action is to snuggle up and suck at his ear lobe.”
Another woman entered the kitchen, taller than a se-Tufi, fuller of hip and more sultry of face, wearing a signature of eight nodules on her forehead. The jawline was almost familiar. She made the sign of the berry, hurriedly, and headed for the pancake batter, but when Humility returned the sign of humility, she stopped and broke into a smile.