He shared the coupelet with Haliday, Malemayn, and a dark, lively woman who was introduced as Lyliwane. She was well named: even with her hair piled into festival braids, she was still a hand’s width shorter than Malemayn’s shoulder. Warreven, who was no better than average height, felt suddenly tall and gangling next to her. Both she and Malemayn were elegant in holiday finery; Haliday wore off-world clothes as usual, 3er only concession to the occasion a bright embroidered sbaal wrapped man-style around 3er hair. The driver took them wide around the Harbor Market, and swung down the main street of Startown—uncrowded, for once; most of the off-worlders were either home, or already at the Glassmarket—heading for the row of former warehouses that had been converted to housing along the southern edge of the district.
Folhare was waiting in the opening of what had been the loading bay, tall and elegant in a tight bodice and a tiered skirt, the traditional clothes and the profusion of cheap dower jewels—ear-rings, necklaces, a dozen glass bracelets—incongruous coupled with her close-cut hair. An old woman sat at the other side of the open bay, dividing her attention between the street and the cone of silk and the netting hook in her lap. Children were playing somewhere back in the shadows, their voices clear and distinct as Malemayn opened the coupelet’s door, but the sunlit forebay was empty except for the old woman. Folhare gathered her skirts around her and stepped carefully down the stairs to the street. Warreven, leaning past Haliday to greet her, saw the old woman frowning, her hands for once still on the hook.
“Who’s she?” he asked.
Folhare lifted her skirts to mid-thigh, freeing her legs to climb into the coupelet’s crowded compartment. “A sort-of cousin, or maybe an aunt. Her name’s Sawil, she wants to be mother to us all.”
“And she doesn’t approve of Stiller?” Warreven asked, and edged over to make room for her.
“She doesn’t approve of me,” Folhare answered. “Celebrating Stiller’s baanket is about the least of my sins.”
There was no need for introductions: Bonemarche’s active Modernists were still a small enough group that most people who were involved in politics had met all the others at one point or another. Warreven leaned back against the padded seat as the driver kicked the coupelet into motion, and Malemayn touched his shoulder.
“Want some?” He held out a bright green paper cone filled with a mix of poppinberries and creeping stars and the hot red seeds of the vinegar tree.
“Thanks,” Warreven said, and took a handful of the roasted berries, crunching them one by one to release the drop of painfully sweet dew concentrated at the center. Folhare waved away the cone, but Lyliwane took a larger helping, began eating them in order, berries first, then the seeds, and finally the creeping stars.
“As if we’re not going to get enough at the baanket,” Haliday said, but 3e, too, took a few of the berries.
As they got closer to the Glassmarket, the streets became more crowded, and normal traffic, shays and three-ups and draisines, vanished, leaving only jiggs and the occasional coupelet to compete with the pedestrians. Nearly everyone was heading in toward the marketplace; Warreven saw a single shay, marked with the glyph of one of the lesser pharmaceuticals, stranded at a corner, trapped by the pressure of bodies and the steady movement. The driver, an indigene, leaned forward to rest both arms on the steering bar, obviously prepared to wait it out. His passenger’s face was in shadow, almost invisible, but a hand tapped impatiently against the shay’s body. Their own coupelet slowed, gears grating, and Malemayn winced.
“Maybe we should walk from here.”
“Whatever.” Warreven looked at the others, and Haliday shrugged. Lyliwane extended one tiny foot to reveal high-soled summer clogs.
“Believe it or not, I can walk in these.”
“Let’s,” Malemayn said, and hit the intercom button without waiting for an answer. “You can let us out here, the traffic’s getting too bad. After that—enjoy the baanket, we won’t be needing you to get home.”
“Thank you, mir. At your pleasure, miri.” The driver’s voice crackled back through the tinny intercom, and a moment later, the coupelet ground to a halt. He didn’t bother pulling to the side of the road; there were no other vehicles to worry about, and the crowd flowed past it like water around a rock. Malemayn popped the side door, levering himself out into the crowd, and turned with forgetful courtesy to offer his hand to Haliday. Ȝe ignored him, but both Folhare and Lyliwane accepted the help in struggling out of the low compartment. Warreven followed them, slamming the door behind him. The taste of the creeping stars was strong on his tongue, bitter and sweet, like burned sugars. The afterimage was there, too, a faint haze of color around the stores’ lights, and he watched his feet for a minute, until he was sure he’d adjusted to its effects.
They left the coupelet behind them quickly, walking with the flow of the crowd toward the Glassmarket’s open hexagonal plaza. Six blocks away, Warreven could hear the beat of the drums and the shrill two-toned call of flat-whistles; as they got closer, it was all he could do to keep from dancing with them. Ahead of him, a woman—no, he thought, a fem—in tunic and trousers broke into a quick skipping step, and the men with her laughed and applauded. She bowed, too deeply, and her shaal slipped, so that she had to snatch it up from the dust, and nearly overbalanced in the process. One of the men caught her, still laughing, and as she spun in his arms, Warreven saw her eyes white and staring, and the mark of Genevoe on her face. She was already flying, high on hungry-jack or sundew, the Trickster’s own drugs, and Warreven glanced curiously at Folhare, wondering if this was part of the planned presance.
Folhare saw the look and leaned close, her words all but drowned in the genial noise of the people around them. “No, she’s not, and I don’t thank you for thinking it. Ours is to be done stone sober, or—certain people—will know why.”
Easier said than done, Warreven thought, but they had reached the edge of the Glassmarket, and he caught his breath in startled delight. Even expecting it, even having seen it before, the sight of the Glassmarket filled with Stillers—all his kin, in some way, all somehow family—was enough to make him momentarily glad of his allegiance, and for an instant he could almost look forward to his time as seraaliste. Normally, the sunken floor of the market was filled with vendee, market folk who had held their spots for generations. Some still sold glass, though not as many as before, and on a clear day the center of the market glittered like flame, sunlight sparking from finished goods and the rods and spheres of raw glass sold to other craftsmen. The Madansa, the spirit of the markets, painted on the wall of the warehouses overlooking the marketplace carried spheres of glass in each hand and wore a glass crown on her braided hair. There had been a field of glass under her feet, but sun and hands, touching the images for luck, had worn away the paint.
The character of the market had changed, anyway. The lesser vendee—the majority, now—sold fabrics, clothes, and quilted coverlets to a mix of indigenes and off-worlders. A few, the upstarts who held spaces along the perimeter, sold off-world goods, but most of that trade was confined to the Harbor Market and the Souk. Tonight, however, and for the next two days, the stalls and carts had been hauled away, and the plaza was filled with people instead. Their silks glowed under the massive lights, haloed and refracted by the creeping star’s effects; the same light glittered from glass and shell jewelry, and gleamed from the ribbons that tied the wreaths of flowers. Beyond the crowd stood the platform where the Important Men and Women, clan officers and heads-of-mesnie, would stand for the announcements, and below them, mostly hidden by the mass of people, were the tables of the baanket itself. The cooks and tenders—there would easily be a hundred of them, probably more—were invisible, too, but the smell of the food proved their presence. The weigh platform, where bulk goods were sold under the eyes of city and clan officials, had been covered over by a temporary staging, and the first of the bands was playing, their music lost except for the drumbeat and the occasional shrilling of the whistles.