chu ma vay yal chu ma vay yal
The minute they were out of sight Pemmie dashed from a kariam and ran to Utsapisha. Heavily cloaked, with the hood drawn up over his head, Reyna followed more sedately.
“Zazi…” Pemmie dug frantically into a sac hanging at her belt. “Zazi, say something.”
“Hunh!” The grunt was feeble, the voice shaky, but Utsapisha didn’t let that stop her. “Tol’ you t’ go home.”
“Went for Reyna ‘stead.” The girl began sawing at the rope around Utsapisha’s waist. “Hold still, will you? Don’t want to cut you.”
“Hush your fuss, Pish.” Reyna pushed a knife under the ropes tieing the old woman’s wrists to the ring; he worked quickly, glancing from the shadow of the hood at the watching merchants. “We all know you’re one mean old firemouth.”
“Cess to you, tal.” Utsapisha grunted as her arms fell. She leaned against the post, shaking with relief, pain, weariness-and a fury that churned so hard in her she had to shut her throat against vomiting.
Reyna took her hand, placed it on his arm. “Let’s go, Pish. Who knows when he finds someone else to haul off. Lean on Pemmie and me, there’s a shop near here I’ve got a key to. Just a few steps, and we’ll look at your back. Don’t want you getting sick on us, huh?”
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“What’s that… unh!… that girl a yours doin, Rey?” Tears leaked from under her wrinkled horny lids as Reyna cleaned the cuts as gently as he could.
“What she can. What she has to. Like us all. Thi keeps her busy.” He dropped the washcloth on the table and began smoothing on salve from a small ceramic jar. “That should feel better. One of Tai’s specials.”
“Mmp. Heard she was… ahhh… jee-gah!… across here yesterday. Fooling… ahhhh… round that jeezing snake.”
“Can’t talk about that, Pish. Let’s get that shirt off you a minute so I can wind you up like a top, eh Zazi? That’s good. Round and round, Pemmie, not too tight, that’s it. Pish, tell you what. Guomann went across the Bridge a couple weeks ago and isn’t coming back any time soon, so there won’t be anybody to bother you. There’s a cot upstairs you can stretch out on and I’ve got a bottle of water in my bag here. Be safer after dark. Everywhere you go these days those potzheads are infesting the place.”
The room at the head of the stairs was hot and airless, with hardly enough space for the three of them and the hard narrow cot. Reyna and Pemmie eased Utsapisha onto the cot, got her turned on her side with her feet drawn up, her sandals pulled off. She wouldn’t lie on her stomach, said she had too much gut for that.
Reyna pushed sweat-damped gray hair off her face. “Rest now. You don’t have to prove how tough you are, old woman. Just rest.”
He started to straighten, but Utsapisha caught at his wrist. She didn’t say anything, but her eyes slid toward Pemmie standing at the foot of the cot, then lifted with a silent plea to Reyna’s face.
He tapped her hand, turned to the girl. “Pemmie, do a favor, hmm?”
“Vema, Rey. What?”
“There’s a broom in the closet by the washstand in the Idtchen. Go clean up down there so it isn’t obvious there was somebody in here. You know, spread the dust around, get rid of blood drops, that sort of thing. Vema?”
“Vema.” She caught hold of Utsapisha’s great toe, shook her foot. “Behave y’sef, Zazi.” She went out.
When the door shut, Utsapisha tugged her hand loose, sighed. “You a clever one, Rey,” she said hoarsely. “Always were, ‘f I remember right.”
“So what’s this about, Pish?”
“Look, only reason I never went across Bridge, I din’t want t’ live off m’ kin. S’port m’sef on the lane. Over there, who knows? Trouble is, there’s them that stayed with me. Can’t ha’ that any more. Got t’ get out. You tell ‘m, Rey. Tell ‘m I say cross Bridge b’fore mornin. I’ll be coming soon’s I get m’ feet under me. There’s a time for•pride and a time f’ usin y’ head and this’s head time. Dunno what else I c’n say, ‘cept Ahsan, Ahsan, Abey’s Blessing on you, Rey.”
Reyna patted her shoulder. “I’ll take care of it, Pish, I’ll take care of it all. Don’t you worry.”
Reyna stayed a while with Utsapisha, listened to the old woman’s breathing grow slower and steadier as the heat and closeness of the room mixed with the herbs in the salve to send her deeply asleep.
Reyna smiled down at her, shook her head. “Zazi zazou, you are a one,” he murmured. He closed his eyes. We all do what we can, he thought. Faany my Honeychild, why… ah gods, I loathe you all…
After a last look at the old woman, he went downstairs to check on her granddaughter.
Chapter 16. Death Dance
Late in the afternoon, some three months after the Prophet returned to Bairroa Pili, Faan was kneeling on the damp dark earth under the Sequbas in a Grove on the east side of the Low City; with the Wild Magic drifting about her,• bubbling, frothing, gently popping, she was using a pointed stick to dig a shallow furrow, reaching into the basket beside her for the eye sections she’d cut from ganda roots.
The claws closed on her brain again.
AGAIN. Every day, day on day on day, Abeyhamal seized her and danced her through the high city, drawing the women from the tenements and the towers, seducing more and more of them across the Wood Bridge into the city.
Faan jerked, dropped the stick in the furrow. Her eyes blurred and vanished behind a faceted darkness. She opened her mouth wide, poured out a deep pulsating hum. The Wild Magic flowed up and swirled about her head like shining silver bees.
She danced out of the Grove and along the lanes and wynds of the Low City, into the kariams and out again, and as she danced, girls came from the houses and the groves, from the rooftops and the gardens and danced after her, mouths wide, eyes dark, staring into dream, seeing with their feet and bodies.
Swaying and humming, silver-bubble bees swarming about them, the Honey Dancers followed the Honey-child across the Wood Bridge into the High City.
She saw Reyna standing by the Bridge watching her, angry and helpless. If she could have spoken, she’d have told him, Mamay, we’re all helpless, I did what I had to, don’t hurt for me. It doesn’t do any good, it only grieves you. I wish… ah, wishes don’t count, do they? Go away from here, Mamay. Stay safe, don’t waste what I’ve done. Mamay, don’t hurt for me.
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Faharmoy gestured at the door. “Take it down.”
A Cheoshim ran up the steps and swung an ax at the center panel.
Before he could get in a second chop, the door burst open and a wrinkled little Fundarim jigged from foot to foot in a panic, shrieking, “Nayo. Nay. What are you doing? Nayo. Nay. You want to come in, come. I’m not stopping you.”
Faharmoy snapped thumb against finger and the Cheoshim went back to his place. “You have bees in your house,” the Prophet shouted at the • little man.
“I have chenz trees,” the Fundarim said, voice shrill and quavery. “Come in, heshim Prophet, see for yourself, see that it’s the truth. I make my duty to Chumavayal every week. I am loyal. But I can’t get chenza fruits without bees to pollinate the blossoms. Come see my garden, Prophet. I give a full tithe of the fruit to the Camuctarr. Ask them. Ask the Manasso Receiver, he’ll tell you.”
“You are a silversmith, not a farmer. Why do you do what belongs to the Naostam?”
“I only have two trees and I don’t sell the fruit. It is my pleasure and harms no one. Certainly not the Naostam.”
“Contumacious! Take him.” Faharmoy stepped aside as two Cheoshim ran up the stairs. To the others, he said, “Cut down the trees and bum the hive.”
Faharmoy watched the band march the Fundarim toward the Sok Circle and the flogging post. “Excuses,” he cried to the silent houses, the empty kariam. “It’s always excuses. Why can’t they just say I have done wrong in your sight, Iron Father, I repent and throw myself upon your infinite mercy? Is there SO LITTLE virtue left in the. Land?”