A month passed. I wove Leode’s shirt steadily and tired too quickly to do much dancing, and Wille Illinla caught me stealing plums.
Without bothering to look at my face he snatched my hand away and instructed I steal a whole basket to make a profit instead of taking just enough to fill my stomach. I began laughing. His face turned white, purple and red.
“First you consort with humans,” he said, “then you disappear, and now you show up in a gale of laughs. Least I wasn’t the one nicking like a crippled sparrow.”
“Have your nicks graduated to new heights?”
“To be honest,” he said, still shaken up, “I ain’t nicking much.”
“Because of Sal? Are you polishing shoes and giving the proceeds to the poor?”
“Something like that, being as I’m the poorest.” Then he said, “Where ye been? Abducted by roving folk and dancing all over Eastern Estralony, was you? Did you dance up to another dimension where the people laugh at poor boys tryin to give advice to young rogues? While you was up there did the emperor crown you as his queen, so now you feel you got to bring them awful foreign habits here?”
“A vein’s like to pop in your forehead.” I took a bite of my plum.
“Ain’t going to tell me?”
He was wearing a shirt I hadn’t seen before, brown and clean. “What’s this shiny thing?” I gave it a tug.
“Georrch!”
“What?”
“Nothin.” He kept his back well away from my hands.
I moved behind him and saw the dark bleeding through the cloth. I reached up to press it––it was wet. “Have you just been flogged?”
“It didn’t hurt, until you poked around with your fishhooks.”
“Have you even bothered to clean it?”
“I didn’t want Sal to see,” he said stupidly.
I stole a soapy rag from a window-washer, pushed him into a recess, and took off his stained shirt.
His back was a cobweb of welts. Every time I touched them he tensed in pain. My hands trembled until I couldn’t steady them, and I dropped the bloody rag on the stone. “What did you do, Wille?”
“Stole a handful of fruit from that boy you was after,” he said, inching away from me. “I spat grape pips at two soldiers. You saw them, probably––fat ones at the corner didn’t look like they was having much fun. So I gave them a bit of fun, but they ain’t accustomed to it, I guess. Foreigners. Yellow, nasty and big, and more and more’re come up from Omben-beyond-the-Sea. I’ve been told the humans are horrible in Omben-beyond-the-Sea.”
“They did it?” I said. “The maggots.”
“Sort of. One of them got me by the neck and I grabbed his wallet––don’t tell Sal––and I tucked it up me sleeve. But he still had a-hold of me neck so I belted him in the gob, and the three of us got in a pretty knot, until this other human walks by and tells them they’ve no business knocking around a Noreme, as Noremes ain’t subject to Ombenelvan humans. Now I says to this misinformed booby that Noremes ain’t subject to any humans. And I called him an imposter and a whoreson and a gooch, and he got unreasonably angry. Two more soldiers came and the owl tied me up and wished me well. Didn’t stick around to watch. The bigger owl was happy to take charge.”
I grew uneasy. “What’d he look like, Wille?”
“Round and fat with a pasty face and a nasty grin. Won’t be grinning when he finds his wallet missing, though.”
“No––the one you called a gooch.”
“He had great big golden eyes.”
“Helpful, that.”
“Tall. Young. Big hands and feet.”
“And?” My stomach sank.
“Skinny face, brown hair, charming smile.” I began walking away. “Where’re you going? Don’t leave the rest of these for Sal!”
***
I didn’t expect to accomplish much, but I was eager for an argument. Eager enough to climb the wall that very evening and have a talk with Andrei’s horse.
After I gathered loose bricks from the path to stand on, I stuck my head through the stall window and clicked my tongue. Sandal looked at me with a brown eye.
“Is your master cruel?”
What master? the horse said, and farted. I rolled my eyes and went to look for Trid
I knew where his room was. I’d seen him climb through his window and slither down the roof––and where there was Trid there was usually Andrei.
I climbed up a lattice and over a steep roof, then stepped onto a string line where the mouths of copper serpents poured rainwater from a gutter. I shimmied up between the gutter and the wall, and pulled myself over a cornice.
I walked toward Trid’s casement, flung wide to the cool night air.
His desk was pushed up against the sill, and he was sitting at it, putting together a set of tiny bones that looked like the skeleton of a bat. He looked up, scattered the bones with his forearm, and swore. “Works that well, does it?” He pointed to my leg.
“Where’s Andrei?” I didn’t move to climb through.
“Why? You’re well shut of him.” Trid picked bones off the rug. “He’s grown cross since the Ombenelva showed up, and the mere thought of you two squabbling gives me a headache.”
“Go get him.”
“I’m not moving.” But he turned his back to me and shrieked Andrei’s name a few times.
Andrei poked his head round the door. He was wearing a nightshirt, and his hair was mussed. “Is someone murdering you?”
“She wants a lovers’ spat. Not in here, though––I’m working.”
Andrei saw me and tugged his shirt down. Then he climbed out the window and bumped his head on the lintel, and I started right off: “Wille’s got thirty scores on his back because he called you an imposter?”
“I can hear you,” called Trid.
Andrei picked a route down to the ledge with the copper serpents.
“That tall Gireldine?” he said, looking over his shoulder. “Called me more than that. A whoreson, and other things too coarse for your feminine ears, and you want to know what he made with his fingers? Why’ve you turned my tunic inside-out?”
“You left.” I sat on the ledge a good five feet away from him. “Like you were shamed, or something.” I took a breath and said quickly, “You’re not that bad, you’re not so cruel as you’d like people to believe.”
He stared at me as though I were about to run him over with a cart.
“What’s the act for?” I said.
“What act?”
“Why d’ye act so cruel?” I looked at the ground, which was a very long way down, and grabbed hold of a copper serpent.
“I don’t know. Self preservation?”
“What d’ye mean?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded frustrated. “Right, here’s what I think––” He scratched both sides of his head, and his hair stuck up everywhere. “Humans have to repress their feelings.” He spoke like it was a lesson he’d memorized. “You let them out they’re likely to kill you. Kindness, compassion, empathy: Good as poison.”
“God and the Lady.”
“People are nasty,” he said. “And they don’t change. You’ve got to be cruel to live past childhood.”
“Deep wisdom,” I said. “Did yer nurse tell you that, or’d you pull it from her breast with the milk?”
“You’re disgusting.”
“Nobody’s here to be nasty,” I said, and then remembered something our old nurse had told us. “Humans are supposed to make doors.”
“Doors? Why Doors?”
“That’s what you’re supposed to know. Simargh say mores, Elde build shores, humans make doors.”
“A nursery rhyme?”
I slid back and put both hands on the serpent, and he eyed them and said, “Do you think I’m going to push you off the roof?”
I shrugged. “You enjoy watchin it, don’t you? All them floggings?”
“Yes, very nice, a flogging.”
“Is it?” I was growing warm, and I let go the serpent to roll up my sleeves. “D’you get a rush when the skin gets so ripe with blood it can’t hold no more, and the stuff spills down the back in red ribbons, when the bone shines through––”
“Shut up.” He stared at my arms.
“Or you’ll have a poor girl trussed up and whipped?”
“Who did that?”
I’d forgotten about the welts crisscrossed up and down my arms. I rolled my sleeves back down. “You’re supposed to be repressing that feeling.”
The concern left his face. “Duly noted.”
“Your argument’s a goner.”
“How, exactly?”
“It’s broken its knees, Andrei. Your argument’s a sour, sick old man.”
“My argument’s made my life as uncomplicated as humanly possible.”
I laughed. “Got it down to a couple rules?”
“One. With no one to stop me I’ll do as I please.” He grabbed the gutter above his head and swung himself to his feet. He walked along the edge and disappeared around a corner.
“He forgot the other half,” I said quietly to the serpent. “Folk’ll react however they please to whatever he does. And if people don’t change, how the hell did I change from the King’s daughter to this?”
The stars glinted around a thumbnail moon. I made to leave and checked myself. I walked up the roof to talk to Trid, thinking he would leave me less sick to my stomach.
The slates were still warm under my feet. But a chill went through me when I saw Trid sitting on his windowsill, feet on the slate, eyes staring at the copper trough of a gutter. I knew at once. He’d heard me. My voice had sounded up through the gutter.
“You were the old King’s daughter?” he said. “I heard he had a bunch of sons.”
I dropped to my knees and fled. My legs tangled, and suddenly I could find no grip with my hands, and I started rolling; and Trid sprang up, ran in a crouch, and leapt over my body just as it was about to slide over the cornice.
He blew the air from my lungs, bruising my elbows. “Were you wanting to fall to your death?” he said, and I struggled, pummeling and scratching at him. He pulled me away from the edge. “What’ve you been doing to your hands?” He pinned them down. “I don’t know if you’re crazy or telling the truth, Aloren, but I suppose it would explain the tapestry, wouldn’t it?” I freed a hand and slapped him over the mouth. “And if it were false you wouldn’t be clawing like this.”
“This in’t good,” I said. “Let go. This in’t good.” He released me, and watched as I crawled three feet from him and sat down again.
“You needn’t act so frightened,” he said, and I put another foot between us. “I won’t repeat what I heard, if you don’t want me to.”
“Yes you will.” I pressed my palms against my eyeballs. “How could you keep something like that to yourself, and watch the dancing, or the––”
“I won’t. You can trust me. When have I ever lied to you?”
I kneaded my feet and snorted. “You were just eavesdropping.”
“By accident. Look where my desk is. And why should I tell? No one would believe me.”
“A human couldn’t do that. A human would”––I rocked and choked back sobs––“try to pull as much misery, as much torture, out of a situation, because he don’t hold with something as dangerous as goodness.”
“Gracious gods.” Trid sat back on his hands. “Why do you hate us so much?”
I stopped rocking. “Three guesses.”
“We’re not all like Andrei. Have you never met a decent human? And it’s not completely his fault. He’s in a trouble spot.”
“What?” I said hysterically. “What’s he got to be troubled about?”
“I’m not allowed to tell you,” he said. I stopped to think. Trid kept his friendships guarded. I failed to remember any ugly or alarming things coming from Trid’s mouth, and my heart slowed.
“Swear on your silence?” I slid farther from him and rose to my knees.
“Yes.” But he frowned, remaining seated. “I haven’t much to go on, anyway. And you won’t tell me more, will you?” He looked down at the slates, and then up, scowling a little. “I don’t like this,” he said, “and you’re right. I won’t be able to watch the dancing. This hurts my stomach enough right here. Listen––and clean the pride out of your ears––can’t I have someone take you in? You’re a very small girl, and even if you weren’t––whoever you said you were, I should like to think you’re fed regularly and warm in the winter.”
I began to cry. “No, don’t, Aly.” He climbed to his feet, and I followed suit, backing away. “Don’t make me feel worse,” said Trid miserably. “I could help you, if you’d stop refusing it.”
Ashamed of my tears, I scrambled over the slates, keeping in the shadows.