Tayva swept the ground with her eyes as she stood by the cot. As carefully maintained and constructed as the building was, she still feared it would be raided, but as usual, there were no tracks other than her own. She opened the door and quickly stepped through to prevent any birds from exiting.
The pigeons nested in open racks and wicker cages. The birds were quiet. She could hear only soft cooing and the occasional movement. Usually, when she renewed the feed dispenser, a swirl of birds would envelop her, but now she radiated stillness. The birds looked at her without expectation. Tayva peered through the dappled light and saw that one of the pigeons had died in the night. She immediately took the small cage from its mounting and carried it to the entrance of the cot. There, by the door, stood a small barrel of feed and behind it a pottery vessel of herbal oil. A large crock of the oil rested behind the back wall of the dovecot, but she kept a smaller vessel inside for quick use. Gathering up the bottle and two basketlike cages, she returned to where the dead bird lay.
Tayva poured the herbal oil over the straw and hay on the floor of the cot and doused the hook from which the cage had hung. The oil was to control and cloak whatever disease might have killed the bird. Then with tender hands she gathered immediate members of its brood and gently transferred the torpid birds to the traveling cages. She could identify the family relationship among the birds with the same surety that, in decades past, she would have known the names and particulars of her own social circle. She passed the baskets and the dead bird out of the cot and took them behind the stone backing of the building. Kneeling by the large crock, she removed the cap and brought out the dead pigeon-a male in the prime of life when it died-and immersed it in the oil. She began to croon strange off-key melodies. Her care in rubbing the oil into all the feathers of the bird, and her odd reverence, would not have been out of place in the internment of a king.
After its oil bath, Tayva carried the avian corpse and the baskets of pigeons to the slough only a hundred feet away. An offshoot of the lake, the slough was an aberration in the surrounding country. A pustulant green in the surrounding pastels, it drew and fascinated the eye. Nothing disturbed its surface, and no insects flew over its stagnant waters. She arranged the cages around a patch of packed earth and placed the live birds near the water. The dead bird she lifted from the cage and carefully positioned it to form the tip of a triangle in relation to the live birds, the point facing away from the water. Tayva stooped and cupped a handful of water from the slough, then straightened with difficulty and poured it over the still bird. The water left a coating of decay on her hand, and only with conscious effort did she refrain from wiping it clean. Drawing a single deep breath, she knelt at the edge of the water with eyes closed. Her tension and breath eased out of her in a sustained exhalation until she slumped forward, totally empty. Suddenly Tayva's head snapped back and tremors rippled along her body. A grimace swept her visage, emotions unknown and incomprehensible trying to express themselves. Her hands jerked and pawed at her sides. The birds called in fear and tried to flee. When Tayva's hands finally grasped the baskets the birds attacked her fingers. Any pain she might have felt was swept away by something else as she lifted the birds over the still water and then plunged them through the surface. The cages submerged only halfway, slowed by strange wiry plants hidden in the water. A blast of stench came from the disturbed water that blinded Tayva and tears poured from her eyes. The birds beat the water with their wings and pecked at Tayva, the wickerwork, each other, and even the water. But their movements grew more feeble by the second, and Tayva kept pushing the baskets down. The pigeons were laboring and dying, pulled down one by one, as if some small animal was inside the basket with them. Tayva forced one cage beneath the surface completely and had to use both hands to push the other down. Only one bird was left. It attacked her fingers as she forced her hands below the roiled surface. She nearly fell in as more tremors shook her and then sat back on her heels hard. She shuddered and shook her head as though dislodging flies. Tayva heard the rustle of damp feathers behind her. The dead bird preened itself and looked at the small of her back with one dull eye. A great slow smile spread over her face, and she clasped her bleeding, scarred hands together and groaned with pleasure and remembrance of better days.
Tayva and Loria reclined on cushions piled along the walls. Though the room was in a basement, it had been carefully decorated to suggest freedom. The walls and ceilings were covered in swathes of cloth that gave the room the appearance of a great tent. A thick layer of sand covered what should have been a muddy floor, and good drainage kept it dry. Vents from a holocaust drove a continuous stream of hot air over everything. Despite the warmth, braziers sat in every corner burning great blocks of incense, throwing streamers of smoke through the air. Loria and Tayva took no notice of their surroundings. Their eyes were steady on the woman in the center of the room.
She was old and worn, her dress that of a household servant. Her eyes were wide and staring into oblivion. She stood upright, but her head moved in an irregular circle as she swayed.
"Come in, Uncle Brucius," Loria called. Tayva and Loria both wore flowing clothes that matched the cushions on which they reclined. The man pushing through the hanging cloth missed them initially because they blended so well with their habitat. He rubbed his arms vigorously when inside, as though scraping away webbing.
"This is ridiculous. Why have I been kept waiting? You should have greeted me the moment I arrived." His upper body was covered by goose bumps, and he masked his disquiet with offended dignity. "And why are we meeting down here? You should receive your guests properly." He turned to look for a seat, but no chairs were set for him, and he found the notion of reclining on the floor like his nieces distasteful. He elected to stand over them.
"May we ask why you are here today, Uncle?" Loria questioned, tilting her head only enough to keep him in the corner of her eye.
"You know very well why. I've come to talk some sense into you. I can't imagine why no one else in the family hasn't done so!" Brucius's arms waved and punched to lend emphasis to his diatribe. "Have this woman dismiss herself immediately!"
"You have always lacked imagination, Uncle," Loria, replied. "Surely you recognize old Tomaya. She has been a nurse to two generations of our family. She's practically family herself." Through all this Tomaya swayed and stared at nothing.
Brucius was livid that his orders should be refused and that he was considered related to a servant. He roughly grasped the old woman's shoulder and hurled her to the side. She fell like a tree and made no attempt to catch herself.
"I have helped keep this family great when other families and nations have fallen to advancing glaciers. You are an investment in the future, Loria, and I won't have you destroying your value in the company of this spinster! You will leave this house." He turned to Tayva. This girl was dark and cold in a land where those qualities were abundant, and she had enjoyed few suitors. "You will turn control of this house to me!" he began to storm, but the words crashed against something in his throat.
Tayva was a placid pool except for one hand that trembled with tension. Brucius felt that tension on his throat and was frozen. He could not even struggle to continue. Tayva held him with something much stronger than just her hand. He stared out of a body that was completely severed from him. He could hear Loria rising behind him, and she whispered in his ear.