Текст книги "Ammonite"

Автор книги: Nicola Griffith

Соавторы: Nicola Griffith,Nicola Griffith
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

“… and we might have been back a day early if we hadn’t had to take the time to witness the pattern singing. And the agreement.”

This, then, was what they wanted to talk about. Or at least part of it. She gestured for them to continue.

“The storm we ran into,” Letitia said, “it destroyed Marghe’s–Representative Taishan’s–rations. She had to bargain with the natives for more food to take with her. They gave us some, too, though that wasn’t strictly necessary. The bargain she made was something called trata.”

The term was unfamiliar. “Go on.”

“As I understand it, Marghe told them that we”–Letitia made an all‑inclusive gesture–“are all part of one social unit, a family. A family for which she is empowered to speak. She offered them the everlasting favor of her family in return for food and clothes.”

Danner found that she had been holding her breath. She let it out. “That doesn’t sound so bad.” She looked at Lu Wai. “Or is it?”

Letitia shrugged. “We’re not sure. I think what she offered is an alliance of some kind.”

“An alliance.” Danner steepled her fingers, looked at the ceiling. The last thing she needed: worry over a group of people who might look to her in situations she knew nothing about. In her peripheral vision she saw Lu Wai sit up straighter and realized she had shifted back into commanding officer mode.“And you, Sergeant, you witnessed it, not Marghe?”

“Yes, ma’am. My orders were to offer any reasonable assistance to the representative, to obey her instructions as long as they did not conflict with our task. As this seemed to be the only way for Representative Taishan to continue her mission, and as she requested that we undertake the witnessing so that she could be on her way, in my judgment it was appropriate to comply.”

Danner nodded; she had done the right thing. “How formal do you judge the agreement?”

“It was witnessed in the presence of a viajera, ma’am.”

Not a spur‑of‑the‑moment thing, then. “Marghe left a report?”

“Yes, ma’am.” She gestured at Dogias, who pulled a chip from her belt and set it on the table.

Danner picked it up. Such a tiny thing. ‘ “I need to take a look at this. Go get some rest. If I have further questions, I’ll call you later.”

At the door, Lu Wai half turned, hesitating.

“Yes?” It came out sharper than Danner intended.

“Nothing, ma’am. Sorry.” They left.

Now what had that been about? Perhaps she should not have been so sharp. Well, done was done. If it was important, Lu Wai would get around to telling her. She dismissed the matter from her mind.

Two hours later, she levered herself up from her chair and paced, trying to think. Trata. She could still hear Marghe’s voice: “Trata is a serious matter. For a complete reference, see Eagan’s field notes, file K17‑9a I think, but I can give you the essential idea. The most important thing is that, to the women of Holme Valley, we are no longer strangers. This means that if something terrible happened, for example the microwave relay failed, or we ran out of food, Holme Valley would be bound to help us. Of course, it also means we have to help them, but the major point is we are no longer alone on this planet. We have allies. The alliance cannot be dissolved until there’s been some trading–that’s a loose definition, see Eagan’s notes for more detail–by both parties. What will probably interest you most is this: we are now involved in this world. We have a stake in the culture. Because of that, we will be considered when and if the journey women make any changes that could affect us. Danner, do you understand this? It’s important. We’ve become part of the social network, here, like… oh, part of the cultural food chain. We’re linked with these people. From now on, what they do–all of them, any of them, because the trata network is woven right through these communities, linking each with another–will affect us, so they’ll consider us and our needs before they do anything. They won’t consult us, no, but they’ll be careful not to incur our outright wrath. It was a risk, but it seemed a good one: we have a base here of sorts, if we need it.”

Part of the cultural food chain. Damn that woman. She paced harder. Her bootheels made no sound on the restful, absorbent tile, which irritated her further. They already had a base. Did Marghe think Port Central wasn’t good enough? Obviously. Part of the cultural food chain… Didn’t that damned woman realize Company personnel were not supposed to get involved at all with the indigenous population?

Of course she knew. It was her job to know.

Danner dropped into the chair Dogias had been sitting on just two hours ago. What was Marghe saying to her? She played back the last sentence. “We have a base here of sorts, if we need it.”

Why would they need it? If the vaccine did not work. But the vaccine would work.

But do you want it to?

She shoved Dogias’s question aside, began to pace again. The vaccine had to work. It was their only chance.

She stopped, stood very still.

Their only chance? What did she mean by that? The vaccine might be the last chance for Company to profitably exploit Jeep, of course, but it was not herlast chance, or that of her staff. If the vaccine did not work, Company would lift them off. Marghe, and Sara Hiam on the Estrade, were civilians… bound to lose faith now and again. But Company would not abandon them.

Thinking of Sara Hiam reminded her that she should let Estradeknow that the relay at Holme Valley was up and running. No doubt the doctor would have more to say about Company, and the Kurst, which she referred to openly as “that engine of death,” but it would be good to talk to someone who did not have to call her ma’am.

What time would it be now up on the Estrade? Late. But not too late.

After a moment, a woman Danner recognized as Nyo filled her screen. She smiled at her. “Hello, Nyo.”

Nyo did not smile back. “Good evening, Commander.”

Maybe the woman was just having a bad day. “I’d like to speak to Dr. Hiam.”

The screen blanked, then flared again. Sara Hiam’s face was set and unwelcoming. “Yes?”

Danner wondered what was wrong. “It’s me,” she said.

“I can see that.”

“Is anything wrong?”

“You tell me.” Her voice was flat, hostile.

There was no excuse for this kind of rudeness. Muscles along Danner’s jaw bunched. “I didn’t call to spar with you, Doctor. If there is some problem up there, I’m unaware of it. Perhaps you could apprise me of the situation.”

“No.” Sara Hiam’s face was taut with anger. “You should tell uswhat the hell the situation is, Commander; you should explain to uswhat all this crap with codes is about.”

“Codes? I don’t understand.”

“You should.”

“Obviously. But the fact remains that I don’t.” She was’too tired, too confused to stay angry. She rubbed her face. “Look, Sara, I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m sorry you’re angry, but unless you tell me what you think I’ve done wrong, we can’t clear up this misunderstanding.” She hesitated. “I thought we had each other’s trust.”

“That’s what I thought, that’s why I’m so angry. So you explain why you’re sending tight, coded messages up to the Kurstand not telling me or anybody else what the hell is going on.”

“Coded messages? From Port Central?” It did not make sense. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Danner frowned. “I didn’t send any messages.”

“Somebody did.”

“What did they say?”

“They were coded, remember?”

“Did you record them?”

Sara Hiam shook her head. “It was pure chance Sigrid caught them, and we weren’t set up to record.”

“I don’t understand.” What was going on? “Messages, you said. There was more than one?”

Sara tilted her head. “You really don’t know anything about it, do you?” Danner shook her head. Hiam was suddenly businesslike. “Sigrid said they were multibursts. Or something. Apparently it’s something the military does: send several communiques in one compressed burst.”

Military. “And they went to the Kurst?”

“That’s right. From Port Central.”

“When?”

“Eight days ago.”

Eight days, eight days. Nothing unusual had happened then. Someone was sending messages in code, military code, from Port Central to the Kurst, and she knew nothing about it. Her head began to thump. “I assume that this is the first time you’ve intercepted this kind of communication.”

“Yes.”

“Why now?” Danner muttered half to herself.

“It might have been going on for some time,” Hiam offered. “Sigrid was trying some new frequencies for the satellite, ones we haven’t used before. For all we know, the spy could have been sending information up for months. Or years.”

“Spy?” The thumping in Danner’s head became a hot ache.

“Why else would someone send transmissions without your knowledge?”

There was no other reason. None at all. Danner felt as though someone was pushing a hand inside her stomach and squeezing.

“Who would want to spy on Port Central–on me?”

“Company,” Hiam said gently.

“Company?” Banner was bewildered. “But I’m Company.”

“Perhaps they don’t think you’re Company enough.”

She tried to think, and her confusion slowly heated to anger.

Hiam was right. It had to be Company spying on her. Company going behind her back after seven years of faithful service. But it still did not make sense: if the people on Kurstwanted to know something, why not just ask her? She would tell them. She had nothing to hide. Nothing. She had always been loyal, aboveboard. Always. Only now they seemed to think she was not, that she could not be trusted, that she needed to be watched. Who, who the hell, was doing this?

“Can Sigrid find that frequency again?” She was breathing hard.

“I’ll check with her. Hold for a moment.” Hiam paused, finger poised above a key. “You might like this,”–she smiled wryly–“or you might not. It’s one of Nyo’s.” The hold screen was a cartoon: a knight in medieval armor balanced on the hull of the Kurst, aiming a catapult at the planet below. In other circumstances, it might have been funny.

The cartoon flicked out and Hiam’s face reappeared. “Sigrid says yes. Apparently she’s already monitoring it, just in case.”

Banner’s anger was mounting, but she kept her voice steady. “Please convey my gratitude and ask her to continue to do so. When our spy uses that frequency again, I want it recorded.” The code could come later. First, catch whoever it was. Then find out why. “Another thing. Tell her that finding the originating locus of this signal takes priority over its information content.”

“What if there isn’t a next time?”

“There will be,” Danner said grimly. That damn spy would want frequent reassurance from the powers above. She would need it. The muscles in her face felt tight.

“I wouldn’t like to be in her shoes when you catch her,” Hiam said dryly.

“No,” Danner said, and wished Sara was beside her, at Port Central, instead of up there.

After they said good‑bye, Danner sat very still, trying hard to grasp the slippery idea that someone in Company did not trust her. Her. Now she knew how Marghe must have felt to have her judgment questioned. Who was the person who smiled, and said, “Yes, ma’am,” and then went running behind her back? She wanted to tear out of her office and destroy something, anything; shout, line everyone up against a wall and force the truth out of the spy with the sheer power of her rage.

Wait until you’ve calmed down, she told herself. Do some work, then figure out what you’re going to do. She took a couple of deep breaths, turned on her screen of lists, and tried to concentrate. No good. She was just too angry.

She strode to the door, opened it. “Vincio? I’m leaving. Unless a situation occurs which Deputy Teng can’t handle, I’m unavailable for the next three hours.”

She wished the office had the kind of door she could slam on the way out.

She marched across the grass toward her mod, then abruptly changed direction. She would take the long way back, around the perimeter. Walk some of this off.

It was cool, getting toward winter. Her uniform began to heat up, getting hot around the small of her back first and making her sweat. She switched it off. This time she wanted to get warm on her own.

How had Marghe dealt with the challenge to her judgment?

The sky was gray, full of hard rain. The wind in her face felt damp and cold. She shivered, walked faster. It would be even colder up north, where Marghe might be stuck in a snowdrift, or sneezing miserably inside her tent. Or maybe she had already reached Ollfoss and was snugged up in a log cabin with a cheery fire and some smiling woman bringing her soup.

Some smiling woman bringing Marghe soup.

Danner reached the perimeter fence and stopped. It was the first time she had really, deep down, thought of the indigenous population of Jeep as women. Not aliens, or natives, or beings to be taken into consideration from a humanitarian point of view, but women like her, like Marghe, like Teng or Vincio or Letitia Dogias. Like us. Women who lit fires against the cold and made soup for their loved ones.

She remembered, long ago, her meeting with the journeywoman T’orre Na. The journeywoman had held out her hand. Look at this hand, she had said. And Danner had. This hand can birth children. This hand can make music. This hand could kill you. And Danner had been shamed into risking her career, shamed into taking the part of T’orre Na and the herders Jink and Oriyest against Company.

Against Company… Was it this that Company held against her now? One act of humanity?

And then she understood why it was only now that she was able to acknowledge the humanity of Jeep’s natives: because it was only now that she understood that Company, the ones with the power, held her, a Mirror commander, in as little regard as they held the inhabitants of this world. It was only now that she understood, for the first time, that despite her title, her uniform, and the two stars on her shoulder, she was as helpless as any native herder or farmer or sailor.

She touched her fingers to the slick ceramic‑sheathed chain‑link of the perimeter fence. It did not seem like four years since she had ordered it turned off to save power. Time seemed to be a very slippery commodity, like these links, greasy with moisture.

She stared out at the endless grass. Marghe was somewhere out there, Marghe and the vaccine. But do you want it to work? Dogias had asked. Did she? If the vaccine did not work, then this would be all she would have for the rest of her days. Grass and wind, and month after month of wearing her uniform, until it came to mean nothing, and no one listened to her anymore.

Her hands hurt. She loosened her grip on the fence. That would not happen. This was not one of those legendary lost outposts turning to dust, with tales of which new recruits frightened each other on lonely, predawn guard duty. She shook her hands at her sides until the white marks faded. If the vaccine did not work, then Company would close down the operation. She and her personnel would be transferred to some orbital hospital facility. There might be a few tests, yes, but after suitable decontamination and quarantine, and no doubt tedious debriefing, they would be sent home on well‑deserved furlough, then reassigned.

Would they? That was not what Sara Hiam thought, nor what Marghe seemed to believe.

Danner did not know what to think. Until an hour ago, she had believed that Company trusted her, that it looked after its own. But that was what Marghe had thought about SEC. And she had been wrong.

Clouds scudded overhead. She tipped her head up to watch. They looked like the giant sea skates she had seen easing past above her the time she had gone diving off the Great Barrier Reef.

A cold, fat raindrop splashed on her forehead at the hairline. Another hit her hand. On impulse, she lifted her wet knuckle to her mouth and sucked. The rain was sweet, unspoiled. She remembered a day when she was eleven, standing scrape‑kneed with her friends on a heap of used car tires, tasting polluted rain and trying to guess what the different chemicals were. Afterward, they took some home and tested it to see who had identified the most. There were far more than any of them had thought.

The rain was coming down steadily. If Sara Hiam was right, if Marghe was right, she might never see Earth again, might never get to taste rain eaten up and spat out, partially clean, by tailored bacteria. She walked slowly along the fence. The grass was getting high here, hard to walk through. She should order it cut. It could provide cover for hostiles.

Hostiles. Sometimes she felt like a bit player in one of those old, bad movies about the American West. Only, in this movie, some of her cavalry soldiers were spies, and the good ones left the fort, went into a reservation, and were never heard from again. Perhaps, as in the old movies, they died.

“Stop this,” she said out loud. Her voice sounded small and lonely against the hissing of the rain. She leaned her forehead against the chain‑link. Maybe she was lonely, maybe there were spies, but she was not small and she was not helpless. She would find these spies, and she would not let Company use her up and leave her for dead like a broken‑winded horse.

Except for the piles of printouts awaiting her attention, the neat chip racks, and the framed hardcopy of her promotion fixed to the wall above the computer, Danner’s mod was as bare as the day she had first come to Jeep. She stripped off her uniform and showered. Halfway through drying herself, she threw the towel on the floor next to the discarded and crumpled uniform.

She did not want anything next to her skin that reminded her of Company.

She sat naked in front of her screen. What was Company, really? A profit‑making organization. Whatever the situation, they would make their decisions based on the accounts. Very well.

She pulled up lists of plant and equipment, compared their costs to transportation costs; tried to figure in months of full pay for personnel who did nothing but sit around in decontamination, and added to that the cost of such a facility; weighed all that against Company’s control of public opinion through the media. The answer was clear.

If the vaccine did not work, Company would find it more expedient, more cost‑effective, to simply abandon her, her staff, and Port Central. No one would find out: Company controlled the media.

She wondered why she had never understood this before, then realized she had, deep down; just like Marghe, just like Sara Hiam, just like all those Jeep personnel, Mirror and civilian, who were busy decorating their mods, making their own clothes, and weaving beautiful tapestries. Adapting to the realities and necessities of their new home, as she had been: worrying over supplies of suture reels and hypodermic needles, pushing, always pushing to get more communication relays up. Yes, she had known all along.

A new thought struck her. She tapped at the keys for several minutes, then sighed in relief. No. It would cost too much to sterilize the planet as a precaution against the virus. All Company needed to do was destroy Estrade, and that was that, planet sealed. The only question was whether or not they would take off Sara Hiam and the rest of the orbital crew first. They were uncontaminated, but they knew too much. She set that problem aside for later.

Supposing the vaccine did not work, and Company really did abandon them all. How would they survive? How would they replenish their food, their clothes, their medicines? The microwave relay satellite would not remain in orbit forever; they would need to find new ways to heat and light their homes. They might even need to build new homes, closer to suitable agricultural sites. And what would they use to make plows, and barrels, and sacks and bottles and plates and shoes and beds and combs?

She stared at the screen, then blanked it. This was not something she could fix in a few hours. This was more, far more, than an exercise in resupply. Marghe was right. To survive here, they needed to be part of the cultural food chain.

First, she needed information on Company and its plans. Information. The only person likely to know more than she did was the spy–or spies. Find them first, proceed from there. After all, the vaccine might still work.

To catch a spy, or a rabbit, or a thief, one needed a trap. To set a trap, she would need assistance. Who could she trust?

The transmissions had been sent eight days ago, from here, Port Central. Eight days ago Letitia Dogias and Lu Wai had been at Holme Valley. They could not have sent them. They might still have had something to do with it, but she dismissed that; she had to trust somebody, sometime. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Dogias was a communications technician, so she would be able to think of ways to track the signal. Both she and Lu Wai often left Port Central for weeks at a time, so any necessary absence would not attract suspicion. Perfect.

She dressed rapidly, returned to the screen.

“Vincio?”

“Ma’am?”

“Please inform Sergeant Lu Wai and Technician Letitia Dogias to meet me here, my mod, in two hours.”

“Yes, ma’am. Are you available to take calls now?”

“Not for two hours. In an emergency, I’ll be at the fencing hall with Private Kahn.”

Ana Kahn was a championship fencer, good enough to give her a workout that should drain the last of the anger from her body. She could not afford anger. For what lay ahead, she needed a clear, focused mind.

Outside, the rain had stopped. Danner strode briskly, leaving bootprints in the wet grass.

Chapter Six

THE WINTER CAMP of the Echraidhe huddled under a fast‑moving winter sky: fifty or more tents surrounding three animal pens and a thin, ice‑rimed spring that ran fifteen yards before disappearing back into the ground beneath the snow. Blue‑gray smoke, sharp with the smell of animal dung, trickled from several of the low black tents. One of the tents was much larger than the others. As they rode closer, Marghe could see the roofs sagging with snow. Winding from tent to tent, to stream and corral, paths had been worn through the snow to the mossy grass beneath. In places there was no moss, and Pella’s hooves rang on the iron‑hard ground. A windswirl blew snow up off the ground into Marghe’s face.

Two of the pens were empty. A third held a handful of horses standing nose to tail at the far end near a trough that was beginning to scum over with ice. Their breath steamed. The wooden uprights and cross‑planks looked dark and old but were fixed together with rope–a temporary structure, like everything else.

Behind an outlying tent, two children played a game with polished bones. Their heads were bare, hair matted and tangled, and one had some kind of rash on her face. Vitamin deficiency, Marghe thought. The ragtag collection of furs, leather, and felt they wore hid their shape and made it difficult to judge their age. When they saw the riders, one hooted with glee, scrambled up, and trotted alongside the Levarch’s stirrup; the other paused to pick up the bits of bone with a chapped hand before running off into the center of the camp, calling out their arrival. People began pushing aside tent flaps, blinking up at the riders. Greetings screeched through the cold air like the cries of hungry birds. Marghe found the sharp vowels and harsh consonants difficult.

The riders slowed to a walk. Their horses were soon surrounded by old women with brown eyes, smiling through their wrinkles; women holding babies and touching passing saddle leather and fur‑clad thighs; girls calling up to the riders, grinning.

Many women pointed at her big horse, and children darted out of the crowd to touch her boots. After the silence of the plains, Marghe felt bewildered by the bright eyes and flashing red mouths. I am an anthropologist, she told herself, not a prize of war, and steadfastly returned their curiosity.

Every few feet, a rider reined in by a tent and was surrounded by a knot of family and friends who almost dragged her off her horse and inside. The further they went through the camp, the smaller their group became, until by the time they reached the big tent, the Levarch’s, Marghe, Aoife, Uaithne, and the Levarch herself were the only ones still mounted. Marghe followed Aoife’s lead and reined in Pella to let the Levarch and Uaithne approach the tent alone.

Six women–one very old, two adolescent–pushed through the flap to greet them. One of the young ones tied up the flap and the other took the reins from the Levarch and Uaithne when they dismounted. Marghe noticed that the girl smiled at the Levarch, but seemed afraid of Uaithne. That difference was mirrored in the greetings of the others: the old woman barely nodded at Uaithne, but her face split into splinters and cracks of welcome when she turned to the Levarch. Uaithne was not ignored, but Marghe could see how formally she was greeted. When she ducked inside the tent, none followed her. The Levarch was still outside, her arm around a woman her own age, grinning and clasping the outstretched hands of others. Marghe wondered why these women, especially the Levarch, shared a tent with someone they did not like.

Aoife sat her horse patiently. Marghe wondered how many times the tribeswoman had watched this ritual, and if anyone was waiting for her at her own tent.

Eventually the Levarch disentangled herself from her family.

Her boots crunched in the snow as she walked back to where they sat.

“Aoife, take the stranger woman to your yurti. I’ll argue you an extra taar from the herds to take the strain.”

Aoife bowed her head. “I will teach her, feed her, replace worn clothes.”

Marghe, alert to nuances, heard the ritual acceptance in the tribeswoman’s response. She had just been disposed of in some way, become Aoife’s responsibility.

“Levarch…”she began, but Aoife was already wheeling them both into a canter.

“Never address the Levarch unless she questions you.”

Marghe could not think of a suitable reply.

Aoife’s tent was set a little apart from the others and close by one of the empty pens. The tribeswoman gestured for her to dismount, then followed suit. No one pushed back the tent flap and smiled.

Aoife took off her gloves, began to unfasten the girths. She looked at Marghe. Marghe pulled off her own gloves, stuck them through her belt, and began to untie her pack. It looked like most of her teaching was going to be by mime show. When she lifted the pack free, Aoife nodded at the tent. “In the yurti,” she said.

Like the others, this tent was low, made of black felt supported by two wooden poles along its long axis. Two other poles, smaller, set side by side’about six feet apart, supported an awning with its own entrance‑flap; this was shoulder height, and laced closed.

Her hands were cold and the flap’s leather thongs were stiff with ice, and the fact that Aoife was watching made her feel clumsy and incapable, but Marghe managed to untie them. She pushed her head through uncertainly and found herself in a tented antechamber with one white wool wall of the inner tent before her and black felt on the other three sides. She had to stoop to get inside, and when the flap fell back into place it was dim. She could make out pots and sacks and other things stacked neatly along the walls. She wondered what they held; the air was acrid with some kind of chemical that made her nose run. There was nothing to wipe her nose on, so she sniffed. The felt and wool absorbed the sound and made the walls seem too close to her face for her to breathe. She dumped her pack down by the far wall and pushed back out into the hard cold.

Aoife had the saddle off her own horse and was loosening her pack. Marghe carefully rolled the flap up and tied it back out of the way with the thongs, as she had seen the young woman do at the Levarch’s tent. Aoife nodded curtly and turned her attention back to her horse.

Marghe was surprised and angry at Aoife’s lack of acknowledgment of her initiative. She jerked hard enough at Pella’s girth for the mare to whicker in protest. Why was she so eager for Aoife’s approval? Because she was scared; because she already understood that this was no longer an exercise in anthropology and that she was no longer studying in the field, she wasthe field; because now this woman controlled her life.

They took their mounts to the corral by wrapping fingers deep into the manes and tugging the animals in the right direction. Marghe’s arms were still shaking.

The corral was now almost full of horses standing patiently while children looked at their feet, felt their legs, and curried muddy snow from their coats. One group of girls sat on the fence and watched, calling out to one of the grooms now and again, and three or four very young children dashed about, getting in everyone’s way. One ran by Aoife and Marghe, shrieking, her nose plugged with thick green snot. The air was wreathed with the mist of talk and hard work.

A young woman, about fourteen, saw them coming in and clambered down from the fence to meet them. Aoife relinquished her horse without a word, but Marghe found it hard to let go of Pella.

“Look after her,” Marghe said to the thin‑faced girl. The girl frowned at her accent. “She feels the cold more than your horses.”

“She’ll be warm enough with all the others,” the girl said. She looked Pella up and down, mouth pursed. “Her coat’ll thicken up soon enough, and she looks a good size for foals. Bit old, though.” She wrapped the thin fingers of her right hand around a tuft of Pella’s mane, took a handful of the other horse’s mane in her left, and led them into the corral. There she released Pella with a slap on the rump and tended to Aoife’s mount first. Pella trotted into the herd as if she had never belonged anywhere else. The only way Marghe could pick her out at this distance was that the mare was a little longer in the leg, less shaggy in the coat. She wondered if she would be assimilated as easily into the Echraidhe.

Marghe expected the inside of the tent to be dark and oppressive. She was surprised. The light allowed in through the rolled‑up entrance flap, already filtered through cloud and reflected back from snow, was further thinned and clarified by the white wool. The result was light like skimmed milk seeping into dark spaces and wetting to a glisten the deep colors of the tapestries that hung on the interior walls. It was a large tent, perhaps sixteen feet long inside, and every wall was covered in weaving of bold, geometric designs. The effect was warm and rich, with twilight purples and hot reds layered like sunsets over thick golds and greens. To Marghe, it was like cutting open the gray exterior of a geode to discover the jeweled crystal inside. She wondered if Aoife’s seamless exterior concealed any such surprises.