Текст книги "Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance"

Автор книги: Eleanor Arnason

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From this point on, the story will call her Dapple. It’s the name she picked for herself and the one by which she was known for the rest of her life. Think of her not as Helwar Ahl, the runaway girl, but Dapple the actor, whose lineage did not especially matter, since actors live on the road, in the uncertain regions that lie between family holdings and the obligations of kinship.

All day they traveled inland, through steep hills covered with forest. Many of the trees were new to her. Riding in the cart, the pudgy man —his name was Manif—told her about the company. They did mostly comedies, though Manif preferred hero plays. “These people in the south are the rudest collection of louts you can imagine. They like nothing, unless it’s full of erect penises and imitations of intercourse; and men and women watch these things together! Shocking!

“They even like plays about  breeding, though I prefer—of course—to give them decent comedies about men having sex with men or women having sex with women. But if they insist on heterosexuality, well, we have to eat.”

This sounded bad to Dapple, but she was determined to learn. Maybe there was more to comedy than she had realized.

They made camp by the side of the road. Manif slept in the cart, along with another actor: a man of twenty-five or so, not bad looking. The rest of them pitched a tent. Dapple got an outside place, better for privacy, but also wetter. The rain kept falling. In the cart, Manif and his companion made noise.

“Into the  halin, I notice,” said one of Dapple’s companions.

“And one another,” a second man added.

The third man said, “D’you think he’ll go after Dapple here?”

It was possible, thought Dapple, that she’d done something stupid. Cholkwa had warned her about the south.

“He won’t if Dapple finds himself a lover quickly,” said the first man.

This might have been a joke, rather than an offer. Dapple couldn’t tell. She curled up, her back to the others, hoping that no one would touch her. In time, she went to sleep.

The next day was clear, though the ground remained wet. They ate breakfast, then struck the tent and continued inland. The change in weather made Dapple more cheerful. Maybe the men would make no advances. If they did, she’d find a way to fend them off. They might be shabby and half as good as Perig and Cholkwa, but they didn’t seem to be monsters or savages; and this wasn’t the far north, where a war had gone on for generations, unraveling everything. People on this continent understood right behavior.

As she thought this, one of the  tsina screamed and reared. An arrow was stuck in its throat.

“Bandits!” cried Manif and shook the reins, crying, “Go, go,” to the animals.

But the shot animal stumbled, unable to continue; and the second  tsin began to lunge, trying to break free of the harness and its comrade. The actors pulled swords. Dapple dove into the edge-of-forest brush. Behind her was shouting. She scrambled up a hill, her heart beating like a hammer striking an anvil, though more quickly. Up and up, hoping the bandits would not follow. At last she stopped. Her heart felt as if it might break her chest; her lungs hurt; all her breath was gone. Below her on the road was screaming. Not the tsin any longer, she thought. This sound was men.

When she was able to breathe, she went on, climbing more slowly now. The screaming stopped. Had the bandits noticed her? Had they counted the company? Four of them had been walking, while Manif and his lover rode. But the lover had been lying in back, under the awning, apparently exhausted by his efforts of the night before. If the bandits had been watching, they might have seen only five people.

No way to tell. She continued up the hill, finally reaching a limestone bluff. There was a crack. She squeezed her way in, finding a narrow cave. There she stopped a second time, leaning against the wet rock, trying to control her breath. Somehow she’d managed to keep her bag. She dropped it at her feet and pulled her knife.

For the rest of the day, she waited, then through the night, dozing from time to time, waking suddenly. No one came. In the morning, she went down the hill, stopping often to listen. There was nothing to hear except wind in the foliage and small animals making their usual noises.

The road was empty, though there were ruts to show that a cart had passed by. Dapple saw no evidence that a fight had ever taken place. For a moment she stood with her mouth open, wondering. Had it been a dream? The attack and her flight from it? Or had the actors managed to drive off the bandits, then gone on, condemning her as a coward? Across the road, a bird took flight. Large and heavy, it was mottled black and white and green. Not a breed native to Helwar, but she knew it from her travels in the south. It ate everything, plant and animal, but had a special liking for carrion.

Dapple crossed the road. On the far side, beyond the bushes, was a hollow. Something lay there, covered by branches and handfuls of leaves. She moved one of the branches. Underneath was the shot  tsin, dead as a stone; and underneath the  tsin were the actors. She couldn’t see them entirely, but parts protruded: a hand, a leg to the knee. One face – Manif s – stared up at her, fur matted with dark blood, one eye already gone.

Shaking, she replaced the branch, then sat down before she fell. For a while, she did nothing except rock, her arms around her knees, silent because she feared to mourn out loud.

Finally, she got up and uncovered the grave. There was no way for her to move the  tsin’s huge body, but she climbed down next to it, touching the actors, making sure they were all dead. Everything she touched was lifeless. There was nothing in the grave except the corpses. The bandits had taken everything else: the cart, the surviving  tsin and the company’s belongings. There was no way to bury the actors properly. If she tried, she would be leaving evidence of her existence.

She climbed back out of the grave. Where should she go? Back to the harbor town? But the bandits had obviously been waiting along the road, and they might have gone back to waiting. If so, they were likely to be where they’d been before: somewhere to the east.

If they intended to set ambush farther west, surely they would have done a better job of covering the bodies. Birds had found them already. By tomorrow, this spot would be full of noisy, filthy eaters-of-carrion.

It’s possible she wasn’t thinking clearly in reasoning this out. Nonetheless, she decided to go west. According to Manif, there was a town less than a day’s journey away: solid, fortified, and fond of acting. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Dapple went on.

The road wound through a series of narrow valleys. After she had gone a short distance, she saw the cart ahead of her, motionless in the middle of the road. She glanced back, planning to run. Two men stood there, both holding swords. Goddess! Ahl glanced at the forest next to her. As she did so, a man stepped out of the blue-green shadow. He also held a sword.

“I should have gone east,” said Dapple.

“Some of our cousins went in that direction. Most likely, you would have met them.”

Was this the moment to reveal she was a woman? “Are you going to kill me?”

“That depends on what you do,” the man said. “But I’d prefer not to.”

The other bandits came close. There were four of them, all dressed in worn, stained clothing.

“He’s handsome,” said the youngest fellow, who had a bandage wrapped around one arm. “Worth keeping.”

“For what purpose?” asked Dapple, feeling uneasy.

“We’ll tell you later,” said the man from the forest.

After that, they took her bag and knife, then tied her hands in front of her. The man with the injured arm took the rope’s other end. “Come along, dear one. We have a long way to go before nightfall.”

He led her off the road, onto a narrow path. Animals had made it, most likely. A second man followed. The others stayed behind.

The rest of the day they traveled through steep forest. Now and then, the path crossed a stream or went along a limestone outcropping. Dapple grew tired and increasingly afraid. She tried to reassure herself by thinking that men rarely killed women and that rape —of women by men, at least—was an almost unknown perversion.

But women rarely traveled alone. Obviously they came to little harm, if they stayed at home or traveled in large companies; and this was the south, the region where civilization ended; and these men were killers, as she had seen. Who could say what they might do?

For example, they might kill her before learning she was a woman. Was this the moment to tell them? She continued to hesitate, feeling ashamed by the idea of abandoning her disguise. She had wanted to be different. She had planned to fool other people by using her intelligence and skill. Now, at the first set-back, she was ready to give up.

What a finish to her ambitions! She might die in this miserable forest—like a hero in a play, though with less dignity.

Worst of all, she needed to urinate. She knew from Perig and Cholkwa that all actors drank only in moderation before they went on stage. But she hadn’t thought that she’d be acting this afternoon. Her bladder was full and beginning to hurt.

Finally, she confessed her need.

“Go right ahead,” one of her captors said, stopping by a tree.

“I’m modest and can’t empty my bladder in front of other men.”

“We won’t watch,” said the second bandit in a lying tone.

“Let me go behind those bushes and do it. You’ll be able to see my head and shoulders. I won’t be able to escape.”

The bandits agreed, clearly thinking that she was some kind of fool. But who can explain the behavior of foreigners?

Dapple went behind the bushes. Now her childhood practice came in useful; unlike most women, she could urinate while standing up and not make a mess. From situations like these we learn to value every skill, unless it’s clearly pernicious. Who can predict the future and say, this-and-such ability will never be of use? She rejoined the bandits, feeling an irrational satisfaction.

At nightfall, they came to a little stony valley far back in the hills. A stream ran out of it. They waded in through cold water. At the valley’s end was a tall narrow cave. Firelight shone out. “Home at last!” said the bandit who held Dapple’s rope.

They entered. The cave widened at once. Looking around, Dapple saw a large stone room. A fire burned in the middle. Around it sat women in ragged tunics. A few children chased each other, making shrill noises like the cries of birds. At the back of the cave were more openings, two or maybe three, leading farther in.

“What have you brought?” asked one of the women, lifting her head. The fur on the woman’s face was white with age, and the lenses of her eyes were cloudy.

“A fine young man to impregnate your daughters,” said the man holding the rope.

The old woman rose and came forward. Her body was solid, and she moved firmly, though with a cane. Bending close, she peered at Dapple, then felt an arm. “Good muscle. How old is he?”

“Tell her,” the man said.

“Eighteen.”

“Men are active at that age, no question, but I prefer someone older. Who knows anything about a lad of eighteen? He hasn’t shown the world his nature. His traits may be good or bad.”

“This is true, mother,” said the man with the rope. “But we have to take what we get. This one is alive and healthy. Most likely, he can do what we need done.”

Dapple thought of mentioning that she could not impregnate a female, but decided to wait.

“Come over to the fire,” the old woman said. “Sit down and talk with me. I like to know who’s fathering the children in our family.”

Dapple obeyed. The man went with them. Soon she was on the stone floor, a bowl of beer next to her. In her hand was a piece of greasy meat, a gift from the old woman. Around her sat the rest of the family: thin women with badly combed fur. Most likely they had bugs. One held a baby. The rest of the children were older, ranging from a girl of four or five to a boy at the edge of adulthood. The boy was remarkably clean for a member of this family, and he had a slim gracefulness that seemed completely out of place. The other children continued to run and scream, but he sat quietly among his female relatives, watching Dapple with eyes as yellow as resin.

The man, Dapple’s captor, sat in back of her, out of sight, though when she moved her bound hands, she could feel him holding the rope.

There had been five families in these hills, the old woman said. None of them large or rich, but they survived, doing one thing or another.

Five lineages of robbers, thought Dapple.

“We all interbred, till we were close kin, but we remained separate families, so we could continue to interbreed and find lovers. The rest of the families in this region never liked us and would have nothing to do with us. We had no one except each other.”

Definitely robbers.

In the end, the large and powerful families in the region combined against the five. One by one, they were destroyed. It was done in the usual way: the men were killed, the women and children adopted.

“But our neighbors, the powerful ones, never allowed any of the people they adopted to breed. They would not let women and children starve, but neither would they let traits like ours continue. We were poisoned and poisonous, they said.

“Imagine what it was like for those women and children! It’s one thing for a woman to lose her family name and all her male relatives. That can be endured. But to know that nothing will continue, that her children will die without children! Some of the women fled into the hills and died alone. Some were found by us. We took them in, of course, and bred them when we could. But where could we find fathers? The men who should have impregnated our daughters – and the women we adopted —were dead.

“We are the last of the five families: more women than men, all of us poor and thin, with no one to father the next generation, except travelers like you.

“But we refuse to give up! We won’t let rich and arrogant folk make us vanish from the world!”

Dapple thought while drinking her beer. “Why did your men kill the rest of our acting company? There were five more —all male, of course, and older than I am.”

The bandit matriarch peered past Dapple. “Six men? And you brought only  one?”

“They fought,” said the man behind Dapple, his voice reluctant. “We became angry.”

The matriarch hissed, a noise full of rage.

“One other is still alive,” the man added. “My brothers will bring him along later.”

“You wanted to rape him,” said the matriarch. “What good do you think he’ll be, after you finish? Selfish, selfish boys! Your greed will destroy us!”

Obviously, she had miscounted, when she climbed into the actors’ grave. Who was still alive? Not Manif. She’d seen him clearly. Maybe his lover, who was young and handsome.

“Don’t blame  me,” said the man sullenly. “I’m not raping anyone. I’m here with this lad, and I haven’t touched him. As for the other man, he’ll still be usable. No one wants to make you angry.”

The matriarch scratched her nose. “I’ll deal with that problem when your brothers and male cousins return. In the meantime, tie up this man. I need to decide who should mate with him.”

“Why should I do this?” asked Dapple. “There is no breeding contract between your family and mine. No decent man has sex with a woman, unless it’s been arranged by his relatives and hers.”

“We will kill you, if you don’t!” said the man behind Dapple.

“What will you do if I agree to do this very improper thing?”

The people around the fire looked uneasy.

“One thing at a time,” said the matriarch. “First, you have to make one of our women pregnant. Later, we’ll decide what to do with you.”

Dapple was led into another cave, this one small and empty except for a pallet on the floor and an iron ring set in the wall. Her captor tied her rope to the ring and left her. She sat down. Firelight came from the main cave, enough to light her prison. She tried to loosen the knots that held her. No luck. A cold draft blew down on her. At first, she thought it was fear. Glancing up, she saw a hole that led to starlight. Too far for her to reach, even if she could manage to free herself, and most likely too small to climb through. Only a few stars were visible. One was yellow and very bright: the Eye of Uson. It made her think of Manif s one eye. How was she going to escape this situation? The hole seemed unreachable, and the only other route was past the main cavern, full of bandits; and she was tired, far too tired to think. Dapple lay down and went to sleep.

She woke to feel a hand shaking her. Another hand was over her mouth.

“Don’t make any noise,” a voice whispered.

She moved her head in a gesture of agreement. The hand over her mouth lifted. Cautiously, she sat up.

The fire in the main cave still burned, though more dimly. Blinking, she made out a slim figure. She touched an arm. The fur felt smooth and clean. “You are the boy.”

“A man now. Fifteen this spring. Are you really an actor?”

“Yes.”

“My father was one. They told me about him: a handsome man, who told jokes and juggled anything: fruit, stones, knives, though they never let him have sharp knives. After he made my mother pregnant, they kept him to impregnate another woman and because they enjoyed his company. But instead of doing as they planned, he escaped. They say, they’ll never trust another foreigner—or keep a man alive so long that he knows his way through the caves. His name was Cholkwa. Have you ever heard of him?”

Dapple laughed quietly.

“What does  that mean?” asked the boy.

“I’ve known him all my life. He stays at my family’s house when he’s on Helwar Island. Though he has never mentioned meeting your kin, at least when I was around.”

“Maybe we weren’t important to him,” the boy said in a sad tone.

Most likely, Cholkwa kept silent out of shame. His own family was far to the north, across the Narrow Ocean, and she’d never heard him speak about any of them. Maybe he had no relatives left. There’d been war in the north for generations now. Sometimes it flared up; at other times it died to embers, but it never entirely ended; and many lineages had been destroyed.

He was a decent man, in spite of his lack of kin. How could he admit to breeding without a contract arranged by the senior women in his family? How could he admit to leaving a child who was related to him —granted, not closely, but a relative nonetheless – in a place like this?

“Will your relatives kill me?” Dapple asked.

“Once you have made one of my cousins pregnant, yes.”

“Why are you here with me?”

“I wanted to know about my father.” The boy paused. “I wanted to know what lies beyond these hills.”

“What good will it do for you to know?”

There was silence for a while. “When I was growing up, my mother told me about Cholkwa, his stories and jokes and tricks. There are cities beyond the hills, he told her, and boats as big as our cave that sail on the ocean. The boats go from city to city, and there are places —halls and open spaces —where people go to see acting. In those places, Cholkwa is famous. Crowds of people come to see him perform the way he did for my family in this cave. Are these stories true?”

“Yes,” said Dapple. “Everywhere he goes, people are charmed by him and take pleasure in his skill. No actor is more famous.” She paused, trying to think of what to say next. The Goddess had given this boy to her; she must find a way to turn him into an ally. “He has no kin on this side of the ocean. Most likely, he would enjoy meeting you.”

“Fathers don’t care about their children, and we shouldn’t care about them. Dead or alive, they do nothing for us.”

“This isn’t true,” said Dapple with quiet anger. “Obviously, it makes sense for a child to stay with her mother and be raised by maternal kin. A man can’t nurse a baby, after all; and few mothers could bear to be separated from a small child. But the connection is still there. Most men pay some attention to their children, especially their sons. If something happens to the maternal lineage or to the relationship between a woman and her family, the paternal lineage will often step in. My mother is from Sorg, but she quarreled with her kin and fled to my father’s family, the Helwar. They adopted her and me. Such things occur.”

“Nothing has happened to my family,” the boy said. “And my mother never quarreled with them, though she wasn’t happy living here. I know that.”

“Your family is not fit to raise children,” said Dapple. “You seem to have turned out surprisingly well, but if you stay with them, they’ll make you a criminal, and then you’ll be trapped here. Do you really want to spend your life among thieves and people who breed without a contract? If you leave now and seek out Cholkwa, it may be possible for you to have a decent life.”

The boy was silent for a moment, then exhaled and stood. “I have to go. They might wake.”

A moment later, she was alone. She lay for a while, wondering if the boy would help her or if there was another way to escape. When she went back to sleep, she dreamt of Cholkwa. He was on a stage, dressed in bright red armor. His eyes were yellow and shone like stars. Instead of acting, he stood in a relaxed pose, holding a wooden sword loosely. “All of this is illusion and lies,” he told her, gesturing at the stage. “But there’s truth behind the illusion. If you are going to act, you need to know what’s true and what’s a lie. You need to know which lies have truth in back of them.”

Waking, she saw a beam of sunlight shining through the hole in her ceiling. For a moment, the dream’s message seemed clear and important. As she sat up, it began to fade and blur, though she kept the image of Cholkwa in his crimson armor.

One of the bandit males came and untied her. Together they went out, and she relieved herself behind bushes.

“I’ve never known anyone so modest,” the bandit said. “How are you going to get a woman pregnant, if you can’t bare yourself in front of a man?”

A good question, Dapple thought. Her disguise couldn’t last much longer. Maybe she ought to end it. It didn’t seem likely that the boy would help her; people didn’t turn against their kin, even kin like these; and as long as the bandits thought she was a man, they might do anything. No rules protect a man who falls into the hands of enemies. She might be dead, or badly injured, before they realized she wasn’t male. But something, a sense of foreboding, made her reluctant to reveal her true nature.

“We have sex in the dark,” she told the bandit.

“That can be managed,” he replied. “Though it seems ridiculous.”

Dapple spent the rest of the day inside, alone at first, in a corner of the cave. The other bandits did not return, and the matriarch looked increasingly grim. Her kin sent their children outside to play. The men were gone as well. Those who remained—a handful of shabby women—worked quietly, giving the matriarch anxious glances. Clearly this was someone who could control her family! A pity that the family consisted of criminals.

At last, the old woman gestured. “Come here, man. I want to know you better.”

Dapple settled by the fire, which still burned, even in the middle of a bright day. This wasn’t surprising. The cave was full of shadows, and the air around them was cool and damp.

Instead of asking questions, the woman grumbled. It was hard work holding together a lineage, especially when all the neighboring families were hostile, and she got little help. Her female relatives were slovenly. “My eyes may be failing, but I can still smell. This place stinks like a midden heap!” Her male kin were selfish and stupid. “Five men! And they have brought me  one, with another promised, though I’ll believe in him when he appears!”

All alone, she labored to continue her line of descent, though only one descendant seemed really promising, the boy who’d been fathered by an actor. “A fine lad. Maybe there’s something potent about the semen of actors. I hope so.”

Evening came. The missing bandits did not appear. Finally the old woman looked at Dapple. “It seems our hopes rest in your hands —or if not in your hands, then in another part of your body. Is there a woman you prefer?”

Dapple glanced around. Figures lurked in the shadows, trying to avoid the matriarch’s glance. Hard to see, but she knew what was there. “No.”

“I’ll pick one, then.”

“There is something you ought to know,” Dapple said.

The old woman frowned at her.

“I can’t impregnate a woman.”

“Many men find the idea of sex with women distasteful,” the matriarch said. “But they manage the task. Surely your life is worth some effort. I promise you, you’ll die if you don’t try.”

“I’m a woman,” said Dapple. “This costume is a disguise.”

“Ridiculous,” the matriarch said. “Decent women don’t wear men’s clothing or travel with actors.”

“I didn’t say I was a decent woman. I said I was female and unable to father children. Don’t you think —since I can’t help you —you ought to let me go?”

“No matter what you are, we can’t let you go,” said the matriarch. “You might lead people to this cave.” Then she ordered her kin to examine Dapple.

Three shabby women moved in. Standing, Dapple pulled off her tunic and underpants.

“No question about it,” one of the women said. “She is female.”

“What wretched luck!” cried the matriarch. “What have I done to deserve this kind of aggravation? And what’s wrong with you, young woman, running around in a tunic and tricking people? Have you no sense of right behavior?”

There were more insults and recriminations, mostly from the old woman, though the others muttered agreement. What inhospitable and unmannerly folk! Dapple could hardly have fallen into a worse situation, though they weren’t likely to kill her, now that they knew she was a woman.

At last, the matriarch waved a hand. “Tie her up for the night. I need to think.”

Once again, Dapple found herself in the little side cave, tied to an iron ring. As on the previous night, stars shone through the hole in the ceiling, and firelight came down the corridor from the main cave, along with angry voices. Her captors were arguing. At this distance she couldn’t make out words, but there was no mistaking the tone.

This time she made a serious effort to untie the rope that held her. But her hands had been fastened together, and her fingers couldn’t reach the knot. Gnawing proved useless. The rope was too thick and strong. Exhausted, she began to doze. She woke to a touch, as on the night before.

“Is it you again?” she asked in a whisper.

“My grandmother has chosen me to impregnate you,” said the boy, sounding miserable.

“What do you mean?”

“If you can’t father children on our women, then we’ll father children on  you and adopt the children, as you were adopted by your father’s family. That plan will do as well as the first one, Grandmother says. The others say she’s favoring me, but I don’t want to do this.”

“Breed without a contract? What man would? What are you going to do?”

“Have sex with you, though I’ve never had sex with anyone. But Grandmother has explained how it’s done.”

“You have reached a moment of decision,” said Dapple. “If you make the wrong choice now, your life will lead to ruin, like the life of a protagonist in a hero play.”

“What does that mean?”

“If you have sex with me against my will, and without a contract arranged by my female relatives, you will be a criminal forever. But if you set me free, I will lead you to your father.”

“I have a knife,” said the boy uncertainly. “I could cut you free, but there’s no way out except through the main cave.”

Dapple lifted her head, indicating the hole in the ceiling.

The boy gazed up at the stars. “Do you think you could get through?”

“I’d be willing to try, if there’s no other way. But how do we reach it?”

“Standing on my shoulders won’t do. It’s too far up. But I could go outside and lower a rope. Can you climb one?”

“I’ve worked as a sailor,” said Dapple. “Of course I can.”

“I could tell them I need to urinate. I know where there’s a rope. It could be done. But if they catch us – “

“If you stay here and do this thing, you will be a thief. Your children will be thieves. You’ll never see the cities beyond these hills or the ships as big as caves.”

The boy hesitated, then pulled his knife and cut Dapple free. “Wait here,” he said fiercely, and left.

She rubbed her hands and wrists, then stood and stretched. Hah! How stiff she was!

Voices rose in the main cave, mocking the boy, then dropped back to a murmur. She began to watch the hole.

After a while, a dark shape hid the stars. A rope dropped toward her. Dapple grasped it and tugged. It held. She took off her tunic and tied it to the bottom of the rope, then began her climb, going hand over hand up the rope. Cold air blew past her, ruffling the fur on her arms and shoulders. It smelled of damp soil and forest. Freedom, thought Dapple. A moment or two later, she reached the hole. Hah! It was narrow! As bad as she had feared!

“Can you make it?” the boy whispered.

“I have to,” Dapple said and continued to climb.

Her head was no problem, but her shoulders were too wide. Rough stone scraped against them. She kept on, trying to force her body through the opening. All at once, she realized that she was stuck, like a piece of wax used to seal the narrow neck of a jar. Dapple groaned with frustration.

“Be quiet,” whispered the boy and began to pull, leaning far back, all his weight on the rope. For a moment, she remained wedged in the hole. Then her shoulders were through, though some of her fur remained behind. Her elbows dug into dirt. She pushed up. The boy continued to pull, and Dapple popped into freedom. She stretched out on the damp ground, face down, smelling dirt, the forest, and the night wind.

“You have no clothing on!” the boy exclaimed.

“I took my tunic off,” said Dapple. “I knew the fit would be tight.”

“You can’t travel like this!”

She pulled the rope out of the hole, retrieving her tunic and putting it on.