Blackheart Man, page 10
Was that word a greeting? Oh, he remembered now; it was the man’s name. But why he didn’t make himself known to Yaaya first, and she obviously the elder amongst the three Chynchin visitors to the ship? “Siani Yaaya is on the council,” Veycosi told him, gesturing towards her.
Gunderson furrowed his brow. “What say you? Can’t make out you people’s rough speech.”
Yaaya tilted her head towards him. “Maas’ Veycosi, what he saying? Man a-chat like somebody sew him lips together with twine.”
Samra stepped forwards. “You needs must greet the siani,” she told Gunderson, indicating Yaaya. “She is an elder on our council. She is here to welcome your’n, and we have with us aught to refresh the crew.”
Gunderson raised a brow at her Mirmeki speech, which had its origins in his language, but only the form of it spoken by the people they conscripted from the nations they’d conquered to form a disposable army as a bulwark to protect Ymisen soldiers. He stared pointedly at her tattooed knuckles. Ymisen Mirmeki were forced to be tattooed thus. Their Chynchin descendants did so as a matter of pride. But to give him credit, he immediately bowed deeply towards Yaaya. “Dama,” he said, “please excuse my manners. I am not schooled in your ways, nor my ear to your speech. Do sit.”
Samra translated for Yaaya and Veycosi, and somehow the four of them managed to get through the simple formalities of introducing themselves without causing enough offense amongst them to bring their two nations to war then and there.
The grey man came up from belowdecks; the Chynchin turncoat who acted as advisor. Gunderson looked relieved. “Hie thyself here, Androu,” he said. Veycosi was beginning to understand him little better. “Come tell me what these people want.”
Samra pursed her lips. Veycosi could understand her irritation. She’d been translating well enough. This Androu person wasn’t needed.
But Androu came and stood by Gunderson’s right hand. “Give you good walk,” he said, looking good at each of the three visitors in turn.
Yaaya exclaimed, “And to you, young man! Samra, you have them?”
“Yes, siani.” Samra motioned to Veycosi to give her the parcel he had been lugging for her. She put it on the table, then untied the string and unwrapped the brown paper to reveal a fancy silver dish, big enough to comfortably hold a goose, covered with an equally fancy silver lid. No wonder it had been so heavy!
Samra took the lid off. The dish was piled high with—
“Sweetmeats,” Yaaya said to Gunderson with a self-satisfied smile. “Of tamarind and sugar. For your men.”
The grey man narrowed his eyes. Gunderson glanced his way, then said, “Oh, that’s very lovely, I’m sure, but you must understand, dear lady, we cannot—we dare not…”
They feared poison, then. “They not going to harm you,” Veycosi told them. “Regard.” He leaned forwards, snatched up one of the tamarind balls, and put it to his lips.
Suppose it actually was poison? Before he bit down, Veycosi glanced at Yaaya. She looked a mite surprised at his action, but not alarmed. Samra looked amused. So Veycosi sucked on the tamarind ball. Tart tamarind paste, not too much sugar, a little hot pepper; just the right blend of flavours. And someone had put fresh mint into them, too. The tamarind ball began to melt pleasingly from the warmth of his mouth.
Yaaya also helped herself to one of the tamarind balls. The grey man relaxed somewhat. Yaaya gestured to Gunderson that he should try one. He picked up a tamarind ball and sniffed at it. He took a small bite. Made a startled face at the taste. Worked it around in his mouth. He took another bite, then popped the whole thing into his mouth. He reached for another.
Grey Androu said, “Thank you, siani.”
“Oh. Yes,” mumbled Gunderson with a full mouth. “Very nice.”
Yaaya preened as Samra translated. “Of course, nice,” she replied. “After I made them myself, just like one of my das used to.”
The grey man leaned in and took one. He ate it slowly, his eyes closed. He even smiled a little. Gunderson called another man over to try the confection. Tall and lean, this one, with a peaked hat. Gunderson called him captain, as though men could be such. Perhaps he could; these people did everything strangely. Before long, everyone above decks was eating tamarind balls, even the soldiers. Yaaya said, directly to Androu, “You know to tell them not to eat too much, yes? Lest they get the belly-runnings.”
He grinned, as though the thought sweeted him. “I know, siani.” Yet he didn’t warn them.
With Samra and Androu’s help, Yaaya and Gunderson commenced to jawing about this and that: he kept running his mouth about how fine the weather was here (as though that were unusual); how strange it was that the cullybrees never alighted anywhere; and whether people in Chynchin ever wished for cooler weather.
Veycosi had no direct part to play here. Bored, he wandered away from them. Presently, he came to the side of the ship. He leaned out to see what he might see. Nothing. Sea lapping at the ship’s flank, cullybrees overhead. Same old Chynchin.
He turned his back on the sea, and, still leaning, took out his crooking. The piece was now large enough to be unwieldy, so he tailor-sat on the boards, laid it across his knees, and began working more loops into it. It was still cloud-shaped, which was to say, no shape at all. But it had developed a lacy overlay; a tracery of hollow tubes clambering and branching this way and that. Veycosi had used the thinnest yarns for the tubes that he could find; some darning thread from Da Woorari’s mending box, a kind of bark colour.
“Ah!” came a voice from close by. Veycosi looked up. Walking towards him was the oddly convivial person who’d been among the party being marched from the ship the day prior; the one of whom the sailors were wary. Ee was watching at Veycosi’s crooking and clapping ir hands in glee. Ee grinned and pointed at it. In ir ungendered voice, ee burbled forth a spate of Ymisen speech, too quickly for Veycosi to follow.
Veycosi held the piece up. “You like this?” he asked ir.
Ee nodded. With the eagerness of a child, ee came and squatted at Veycosi’s side. Ee pulled something out of the side hip of ir britches. It was a piece of string. Ee held it up to show Veycosi, as though it were a treasure. Was ee addled, then?
Then ee proceeded to knot and pull swiftly at the string. In a trice ee held it up again, only this time, there was a shape loosely woven into it. The person said a word that sounded familiar, and suddenly, the picture dangling in the net between ir fingers became obvious.
“Is a ship!” Veycosi exclaimed.
Ee nodded. “Ship,” ee repeated, a little more closely to the Chynchin way of saying it.
Ee moved ir fingers in a kind of way, and the ship seemed to dance along its strings. What a marvel. Veycosi laughed out loud.
Ee shook the string out and gabbled a phrase. Ee worked ir fingers through the string and held it up again. Ee said a word.
“Cup?” responded Veycosi.
Ee gave a quick, satisfied nod. “Yes, cup!”
Ir skin was so pale, like steamed bao bread. Ee made yet another design, then held up the new pattern. It was beautiful. Lines and struts and joists supporting the whole. Veycosi smiled. “Bridge.”
A voice spoke softly into his ear. “Some of the sailors call that one ‘Hell’s Ladder.’ ”
Veycosi whipped his head around. It was Androu, the grey man. Over by where Yaaya was, she sat chatting with the Gunderson man, who’d apparently decided Samra would serve well enough as interpreter.
With Androu bending this close, Veycosi could see how beautiful he was, despite how hard he worked to make himself unremarkable. Veycosi’s breath caught a little in his throat at the strong lineaments of Androu’s face.
Androu indicated the other person’s string sculpture. “Ser,” he said, “may I?”
The person nodded and let go one end of the string. Ir beautiful bridge unknotted into just a simple loop of dirty twine. Ee held it out to Androu, who commenced to looping it.
Veycosi asked, “Ir name is Ser?”
Androu smiled. “No, mestre.” Androu held the string up. It was now in the shape of a skull.
“I’m not—”
“Is an honorific reserved for the highest in the land. You been playing cat’s cradle with the late heir to the throne of Ymisen.” With a dip of his chin, he passed the thread back to the other person.
“Late?” squeaked Veycosi.
Androu’s smile grew more merry, even a mite spiteful. “ ‘Late’ meaning ‘no longer,’ not ‘passed on.’ The affairs of Ymisen are in a mickle of a set-to of late. Some of we who are loyal to the throne have spirited Ser away to safety until things in Ymisen be settled down.”
The late heir to the throne of Ymisen looked from Veycosi to Androu, pink-cheeked, smiling faintly, and waiting for Androu to translate what he’d just said.
Oho. Here was the heart of the onion, squatting beside Veycosi on a ship’s deck, playing pickens’ games. Behind the layers of threat and pomp was the spider at the centre of the web. The thing now would be to make friendly with the heir. Veycosi smiled at ir. “Ser,” he said in his best Mirmeki, “wouldst take a tour of the city with me?”
Ee grinned back. “One would rather visit the Colloquium,” ee replied.
Veycosi was beginning to comprehend Ymisen speech. But one what? He looked to Androu to clarify. Androu said, “Ee means irself. Sith once the throne passes to ir, ee is to be the heart of the whole of Ymisen, you understand.”
Veycosi didn’t understand a rass, but they could at least discuss the Colloquium. The heir clearly knew what the gold ribbon woven into Veycosi’s hair meant. Perhaps ee was a fellow seeker of knowledge? Veycosi said, “I can take you there. What subject interests you, ser?”
“One has heard that the Colloquium possesses Ad-Din’s Zij?”
“Certes.” The book was definitely in the Colloquium’s archives.
“The translation, surely?”
The heir was approaching the limit of Veycosi’s ability to understand ir. “No, ser. The original.”
Ee literally began to tremble. “But it was lost!”
“And we found it, and so many more. You are an astronomer, then?”
The word “astronomer” the heir apparently understood. Ee nodded, ir eyes wide and pleading. “Yes. More so than an heir to any throne. It was why one came here.”
This was the person really in charge. And ee was fascinated by the Colloquium. If Veycosi could use that fascination to sway this one to sympathy for Chynchin, they might manage without any bloodshed. Veycosi could save his standing yet! He clasped the heir’s over-warm hand in both of his and treated ir to his most winning gaze. “Ser, we don’t have kings nor heirs at the Colloquium. All are equal in the search for truth. So what name I should call you by, then?”
Androu made an offended sound, but Veycosi didn’t business with him. For ir part, the heir looked delighted. “Hight Tierce,” ee said.
If Androu went any more pop-eyed, his eyeballs would just drop out right here so. He touched Tierce gently on the shoulder. “Ser,” he murmured, “I know these people. They’re crafty.”
The wretch! “You should know,” Veycosi said. “Since you’re one of us.”
Tierce looked uncomprehendingly from one of them to the other.
“Ser Tierce,” Veycosi continued, “I would be honoured to take you to the Colloquium of Fellows of Chynchin.”
Androu said to Tierce, “You can’t just go with one of them into their midst! You can’t risk it!”
Tierce shook Androu’s hand off ir shoulder. “Yes, one can,” ee said to Veycosi. “Right this instant.”
Oh, this was fine sport. “Maas’ Androu,” Veycosi said, preparing himself to trot out the dwindling remainder of his Mirmeki, “shall’t accompany us? Certain sure the heir would be safe with your doughty self along to protect ir?” Veycosi found himself hoping that Androu would say yes. There could be something so pretty about a sullen face.
Tierce all but did a jig. “Yes! There’s the solution! Come with us, Androu! And two of my guards, if such seems goodly to you.”
Veycosi thought about how things stood at the moment between him and the Colloquium. He’d best ask them permission first before bringing the Ymisen heir to visit. “Not today, begging your pardon. I have to arrange your passage first.”
Tierce pouted and Androu looked relieved. Right then, Yaaya called for Veycosi to depart with herself and Samra, so Veycosi took his leave of Tierce, promising to return right soon to escort ir to the Colloquium. He would tell Gombey what he had discovered, so that Gombey could inform the council. In the meantime, Veycosi needs must continue his dreary assigned task of collecting stories. Perhaps that Samra could help him. She seemed to have a quick mind. And Kaïra, eager as she always was to be tripping on the hems of Veycosi’s robes.
As the carriage took Veycosi, Yaaya, and Samra back to their homes, it occurred to Veycosi: Suppose he found out how the three witches had achieved their trick of vanquishing the Ymisen squadron two centaines before? Then, even if the Colloquium denied Tierce’s request to be allowed to visit, Veycosi would know the means to protect Chynchin. Surely that would regain him enough status to be allowed back into the ranks of postulant? Heart churning with excitement, he turned to Samra. “Maidell, will’t aid me in assembling the stories of Chynchin the council has bade me collect? When you not busy with Siani Yaaya, of course.”
Samra looked to Yaaya for permission. At Yaaya’s nod, she said, “What would you have me do, sirrah?”
Yaaya answered before he could. “He want you to be his scribe while he go around collecting tales, as Macu charged him to do.”
Veycosi didn’t trouble himself to contradict her. Samra could do that for him as well as aid him with conducting experiments based on the information he gleaned from oft-retold, poorly remembered, oft-embellished fragments of Chynchin history. He was silent the rest of the trip home, plotting non-magical ways to drown a troop of soldiers in a river of piche.
Chapter 3
KAÏRA AND VEYCOSI CALLED out, “Samra!” same time. The makeshift winch wasn’t too steady, and Veycosi’s hands had slipped on the rope holding the iron bucket full of boiling rubber tree sap.
Samra leapt out of the way as the bucket above them clanged down where she had just been. It rolled around in a circle on the flagstones outside Yaaya’s empty apartment, spilling whitish sap as it went. Veycosi grimaced. Whether it hardened or no, he would have a rass of a time cleaning it up.
Samra snatched up a wooden rule of his that was lying on the ground. She used it to hook the bucket through its sap-fouled handle and pick it up. “What happened?” she asked Kaïra and Veycosi as they reached her. She peered into the metal bucket they’d been heating in the outdoor fireplace of Yaaya’s compong.
“You all right?” Veycosi asked. “It didn’t catch you anywhere?”
“Sound as a drum, sirrah. Dinna fret.”
“Cosi let go the rope,” chirped Kaïra.
“Your behind. It slipped from me.” They had been trying to work out how much heat to apply to the rubber tree sap. Too little, and it wouldn’t set at all. Too much, and it would set permanently. They needed the exact temperature that would set it just enough that it could be liquified again. If rubber tree sap worked that way.
Samra asked, “Did you get this notion from one of the tales you’ve collected?”
Veycosi sighed irritably. “No. Is just conjecture.” He looked inside the bucket. The gods-damned sap was still runny as a raw egg. “Even if we get the temperature right,” he said, “we still would have to calculate how to dye it black, and how to make enough to pave a road long enough to hold seven rows of camels.”
Samra looked doubtful. “The dye should be easy. I’m sure any dyer could manage it. But you really think that is what the witches did, poured a trench full of semi-hardened black rubber sap in order to make it look like a road?”
“I don’t know! If I could travel to Calliope Island, I could find out from the rubber plantations there how to work the sap.”
“So is that you going to do, then?” asked Kaïra excitedly. “I could come with you?”
Veycosi kissed his teeth irritably. “I been banned from travelling, you recall. Too besides, you know you not allowed to leave Chynchin until after Mamapiche.”
Kaïra’s face fell. “I know.”
“Why you pestering me with the question, then?”
Samra asked him, “When they going to lift the ban on you?”
“After I create a book of collected tales of Chynchin.”
“So why you not doing that? Instead of…” She pointed at the white ooze of rubber scattered in the dust.
“I could cobble together some book of fanciful tales as a project intended to punish me with busywork, or I could find a way that might save us from Ymisen. Which you think the council would rather see?”
“Mayhap you’re right,” replied Samra. “But you’re casting about in the dark. Even if it was tree sap they used, we still don’t know whether they could get it to liquefy again on a sudden.”
“Let me think of one thing at a time, nuh?” Veycosi rubbed the soul case at his neck.
Kaïra said, “Maybe the council would let me go to Calliope if I had you to watch over me!”
“Picken, you don’t have anything better to do than bother out my soul case? We can’t leave, I say!” All day Kaïra had been wearing Veycosi’s patience thin; what this, what you going to do with that, how the conversion to Mamacona happened, whether it would hurt, whether she would still be herself when she came out from the piche. “You don’t see is serious work we doing here?” Veycosi asked her. Couldn’t she see how important this was to him? “Like you want me to send the Blackheart Man for you, or what?”
Kaïra scowled. “I’m too old to believe scare-baby tales,” she muttered sullenly. “Little more time, I going to be Mamapiche, and then you won’t be able to speak harsh to me.”
