“Sleep? You can sleep?”
“I haven’t slept in so long… Yes, I think I’ll sleep.”
His voice choked off in a whimper of pain, but he had said enough. I could see how Ayasseshas would give me a choice: I must nourish her crop of slugs, or she would pasture Misi instead. Misi was huge and would be capable of feeding many silkworms, but her skin was darker than mine. Only wetlanders made water silk.
And when I went mad, then Misi would be trussed and cropped anyway. Even knowing that, I would not be able to refuse the spinster. I would try…but yet I was a coward. I did not think I could endure as Quetti was doing. Oh, Misi! I must not fail you!
“And it’s that potion that does it, isn’t it?” I said bitterly. “She gives you that and you copulate insanely, and after that you can refuse her nothing?”
“We worship her,” Ing-aa said softly. “We will do even this to please her. I only wish I were white like you, wetlander. The worms I shall feed will make black silk, of very little value, so I must try to endure much and give her many crops. But I am strong. I will bear anything to make her happy. Double-cropping—anything! She is my queen, my love.”
“Your love!” How could these deluded fools serve such a monster? I could guess now that Misi had trapped me in the same way as Ayasseshas had ensnared her army. I had not realized earlier that my feelings for Misi had sprung from that diabolic potion. And yet, even knowing it, I loved her just as much. Love, it is said, is blind.
My companions’ mindless obedience to the spinster seemed like inexplicable insanity to me. My love for Misi was a holy, joyous, precious thing.
Spread out helpless in the fetid dark, I lay for a long time, sorrowing for Misi, listening to occasional stifled sobs from Quetti and the rising, falling chorus of agony from other huts.
Hrarrh had known, of course. Ants knew more of Vernier than most races did, and his original tribe might even have dwelt within a forest. This was the vengeance he had wanted. Eventually some trader would come, offering water silk. Hrarrh would buy it for his wife, so she could have a bright-dyed gown to cover her squat ugliness. Every time he saw it he would savor his memories of me.
Hrarrh knew how my screams sounded. He could imagine the rest.
He would have his revenge in full.
Yet it was not the thought of Hrarrh that troubled me most. The blackness that choked me then was worse than anything he had done to me, worse than anything I had known in the ants’ nest. There, in the spinster’s pen, in the darkest moment of my life, I was faced with the terrible knowledge that my entire life was a failure. I had failed the mother I had sworn to avenge, failed to follow through on my promise to become an angel, failed the seawoman I had married, failed to escape from the traders when that had been my intention, and now I had failed to protect Misi. I had betrayed the woman I loved. Yes, I knew her faults—but no woman is perfect, and men must follow where their hearts lead them. I had betrayed Misi to the spinster. I had been unworthy of my beloved, and that is a man’s ultimate failure.
I wept for Misi…only for Misi.
My chest had begun to itch.
—2—
MY DARLING MISI… At first I had been fooled by her habitual pretense of stupidity. Later, blinded by love, I had overestimated her cunning.
Silk raising goes on all the time. In nature, the silkworms are tiny parasites of a small burrowing animal called a ground pig. Something in human skin delays their cocoon stage and allows them to grow into the monsters I had seen on Quetti. The eggs can be picked up around any ground pig burrow. It is not difficult to tie up the human victim and seed him, so there is always a small supply of silk trickling into the trade routes.
But, as Quetti had told me, it is hard to restrain an unwilling subject so firmly that he cannot scrape the worms off. It is hard to feed him for long against his will. The key to successful silk production is the virgin’s web and voluntary pasturing. Male spinsters have been recorded, but they fare poorly, for any spinster is an unpopular neighbor, needing an army for both defense and recruitment. Female warriors are just not as effective as males.
Furthermore, black or dark brown silk is of low value, and lighter skin is rarely available in the forests. Ants are a passable feedstock, if their dark hair is kept shaved. They, and the wolffolk of the far north, yield a pale tan silk, but real profit comes only from pure water silk, and only wetlanders will produce that. Whenever these lighter shades appear or the overall supply of silk in the market increases, then the angels know that a spinster has arisen. It happens, so I was told in Heaven, once or twice in every cycle. All other tasks except the most urgent are then set aside as the angels move to track down this abomination.
When Black-white-red spoke to me at the angels’ roadblock, he knew immediately that I was not what I claimed to be. He knew that wetlander slaves, being very precious and yet not required to do physical labor, were usually crippled—a broken leg being more effective than shackles, and cheaper. A blue-eyed trader who could not walk did not fool Black at all. He knew also of the virgin’s web, although its use had never been recorded outside the high forests. Misi’s plot was unraveled right away.
So Misi and I had been allowed to proceed. The angels followed, letting the unwitting victim lead them to the spinster. To track a trader train is absurdly easy. To keep watch on one man within it and yet remain undetected calls for much skill and even more luck. Fortunately Misi, being unable to ride a horse and yet determined to view the transfer of wealth, had insisted on taking her train to the actual rendezvous. That was a breach of custom and a serious error. When the angels saw that one train had left the group, they could guess that the exchange was about to be made. When I was carried off in Shisisannis s canoe, they were watching.
They had even thought to bring a canoe of their own with them—small, light, and speedy. Paddlers, unlike rowers, face forward, and Shisisannis had failed to keep close watch behind him on his way upstream, while his men had all been too intent on playing tougher-than-you to look back at all. Thus the angels’ little scout craft had escaped detection. The rest of the force had followed more slowly, for sailboats do poorly on a winding river in a fitful wind, but they had all arrived at last near the spinster’s lair. By the time they had concealed their chariots and taken some well-earned rest, Shisisannis had departed again, and suddenly the game was easy.
I had been asleep. I awakened with a start of terror. Quetti was still there, tied down. He raised his head, his pale face just visible enough to show the two crop markings that crossed it. He had saved his eye, at the cost of a little skin from his fingers, and the silkworm had vanished into his hair. Ing-aa had gone, his eggs having hatched. Old Faithful gurgled and moaned on the fourth bed.
My chest itched maddeningly. I tried to work out where the tiny horrors had got to. Not far yet…none near my groin, anyway…
“What was that noise?” Quetti whispered. His throat was likely as sore as mine, for he had screamed a lot in his sleep.
I thought back to what had wakened me. Before I could speak, the same noise roared again, several times.
“Guns!” I yelled. “The angels have come!”
Quetti wailed and began struggling against his bonds, but the silk cord was unbreakable. There were more shots and voices shouting. “They’ll kill her!”
“I hope so! I hope so!”
More shots…more shouts…running feet slapping mud, some close to the hut. I began to call for help, as loudly as I was able. Quetti cursed and moaned.