Blackheart Man, page 3
“To rass,” muttered Veycosi. “Too much phosphorus, I think.” Still, he wagered the south side was getting good and plenty fresh water now. He stood, smiling, and raised his arms. “You see, allyou?” he called to those nearby him. “That’s all we needed to do. Two-three little flasks of a certain powder, and the reservoir fix up good-good.”
With a bang, the cistern atop a nearby spectacles shop blew its lid. Veycosi’s neck-back goose-bumped as he watched the big clay plate that was the cistern lid wing a glittery flurry of hazel green-brown in the air. A cullybree! Was it injured?
There were voices screaming and shouting, people running out of the spectacles shop. A suspicious brown ooze sludged about their ankles. The alarmed voices came to Veycosi as though there were stout walls between them and him. The explosion had closed up his ears. He looked around frantically. Had a small, sacred bird body fallen to the ground?
Whipping edge over edge, the cistern lid sailed down to break itself over the spine of a donkey tied nearby. Veycosi threw his arm over his face to protect himself from flying clay shards. The donkey grunted and dropped to its knees. Water from the cistern cascaded down over the roof of the shop and crashed into the street. Pieces of something wet and fleshy smacked Veycosi in the face and stuck against his cheek. He put his hand to his face to brush it clear, and felt small, sharpish scales. He pulled his hand away, shuddering as he shook off the thing that had stuck to it. The piece fell into the folds of the scarf around his neck. Frantically, Veycosi clawed it away until it fell to the wet dirt at his feet. A lengthwise half of a fish, neatly filleted. Just a fish. Not a sacred cullybree. Despite the comess around him, Veycosi felt he could breathe again.
All along the high street, cisterns and shit-holes were leaking, some of them erupting. People got lazy during dry season, didn’t take care to close cisterns properly or keep their pipe filters clean. Then the first day of rainy season would come, and of course there were overflows just like this, though belike less explosive.
Veycosi had brought a taste of rainy season to Carenage Town, is all. Wasn’t as though the world’s waters had risen up to swallow the earth. Everything would be all right. It was only a fish the cistern lid had killed.
A siani over there was struggling with two damp, bawling pickens, trying to hustle them out of the muck. Veycosi took a step forwards to help her. His sandaled foot landed on a small something that rolled and gave beneath his sole.
Veycosi lifted his foot and looked down. A fat frog writhed in the mud at his feet, one leg trailing, broken either by the cistern lid or his heedless foot. Its mouth opened and closed soundlessly.
The siani with the pickens was closer now. “I heard you just now,” she said, her voice angry. “You say is you cause this?”
She wasn’t the only one who had heard. Other people were looking at him, their faces screwed up in suspicion. Someone tugged on a guard’s sleeve and pointed in Veycosi’s direction. The guard tucked her tanned bull-cod cudgel under her arm and started running his way. She called out, “Mestre? A word?”
Damn and blast. For the second time that day, a weary Veycosi took to his heels, pushing through the crowd as he went. Behind him, he could hear people calling for him to stop.
* * *
As they neared the inlet, the sailors began to mutter nervously at the sight of all the toothy, snouted caimans sunning themselves out of the water. But Androu knew the beasts were lazy to attack anything less small and helpless than a squawking hen. As a boy, he’d played dares with his bannas to see how many crocs sunning on the riverbank they could punch on the snout before running away again.
The timing of their arrival was well. It was late in the morning, but a few of the fisherfolk’s boats were on the water. They would witness Ymisen’s triumphant arrival. Two or three had already spotted them. Some had slowed and turned about to watch their progress. He could imagine the astonishment on the faces of the women in their boats, and of the one or two men some of them had with them as crew. He wished there had been more fisherwomen. As well to begin with them, out of all those in Chynchin who had ever stood in his way. He wished he could take the helm of this grand ship. That would show the fisher-bitches that a man of Chynchin could steer the seas as well as any woman. He was good for more than a hand on deck to pull at the sails and bail out the bilge.
He could smell the sullen river water now, and threaded through it, the sulphur stench of the nearby lake of piche. He hadn’t realised it afore this, but his nose had missed that pungent assault.
The ship leapt forwards on a swelling wave. Androu closed his eyes, the better to take in the scents of home. He smiled. He was coming back to the land that had exiled him. He was going to bring his homeland to its knees and make it beg; see if he wouldn’t.
A bang came from the top of the hill. The sailors flinched and ran to man the cannon, even as the captain was ordering them to. What, was the game up already? If Chynchin captured their lead ship with their regent in it, the rest of the fleet would never gain the advantage.
A liquid flash of silver on top of the hill caught Androu’s eye. The reservoir. What was happening up there? Androu practically snatched the spyglass from the captain’s hand. He could see nothing wrong. He trained the spyglass on Carenage Town at the foot of the hill. Wet streets, and all that running about. He muttered to himself, “Is what a-gwan?”
He shrugged and handed the spyglass back to the captain. They would soon be docked. Then they’d see what was what.
* * *
Veycosi could hear the guards yelling for him as they gave chase. They were coming up fast. Panicked, he looked around. He was in Surgeon’s Row. It backed onto the river. He’d be able to mongoose himself out that way.
The closest establishment had the symbol for “tooth” in its window. He yanked the door open and threw himself inside. He blundered through a waiting room. A few faces turned startled gazes’pon him; the rest were too busy nursing sore jaws. Some poor soul must have been having a tooth pulled right that minute; the screams hid the commotion of his blundering through the building, though that wouldn’t help him if the guards had seen which way he’d gone.
The back doors of Surgeon’s Row’s establishments let out right onto the river. Easier for getting rid of offal. This toothdoctor’s door was no different. In fact, it was so close to the bank that as Veycosi pushed through the door, he nearly fell into the water. There was scarcely enough room for him to stand on the narrow lip of riverbank. One more step, and he’d have taken a six-foot plunge into the river below. The water was low, and brown, churned up from the caimans massed in it, deadly twin tails waving lazily to and fro, hoping for scraps from the surgeons’ doings. Usually they slept the days away and hunted in the cool of night. The surgeons must be busy today.
Veycosi flattened himself against the outside wall as his stones tried to climb back up inside his body. His sweaty hand closed tighter on his fish-gut-soaked scarf. It made a squelching sound. The meat smell issuing forth from it was potent, sweetish.
Every caiman floating in the water turned to fix its eyes upon him. They fanned out, their noseholes open wide, he the focus of their gaze.
No, not him.
The scarf. They could smell the fish that had tangled in it.
His hands shaking, he unwrapped the scarf from around his neck. The scent came on stronger, making him retch. The caimans grew more eager. They began to urge forwards. Could they climb a six-foot sheer drop? With those powerful claws, he didn’t doubt it. They had no care for their fellows. They could easily clamber upon each other until some of them were able to reach the riverbank.
Someone from inside the toothdoctor’s was yelling for the guards.
Veycosi cried out and thrust the scarf from him, towards the river. The caimans raised their heads en masse, the farthest ones out attempting to get over the others to get closer to the scarf as it arced out over the water and went flapping down to be snapped up by the nearest caiman. That beast was immediately swamped by the others. Then it was all snapping jaws and caiman blood and writhing and tearing.
He could hear the guards entering the toothdoctor’s place. They clattered out the back door, yelping and warning each other as they were faced with the toothy frenzy not far below them. While they were distracted, Veycosi swallowed his gorge and edged along the wall until he found himself in the side yard of the building. He ran out onto the street and doubled back the way he’d come. A few more twists and turns of streets, and he was in the market, sweaty and gasping for air. He looked back. The guards weren’t following. He’d lost them. Perhaps. They would know these streets as well as he, if not better. But it would be easier to lose himself here.
He was tired, and too disoriented to mark exactly where he was. He took what felt like a score of turns and got even more turned around. He ducked behind a dried-meat tent to catch his bearings.
The market, being a put-up-and-take-down affair, didn’t have much running water, only a few standpipes. The flooding was less here. Unaware of the comess Veycosi had caused in Carenage Town, the market continued about its daily business of trading in tokens of merit. Free agents were standing or sitting or pacing up and down outside each stall, calling out the wares of the people whose offerings they were endorsing. Like that man over there, whose thin nose, pale eyes, and flowing yellow hair marked him as Deserter-kind. He wore the boiled leather vest of a pitch worker, with the characteristic smears of tar on the left side. He called out to passersby: “Look, Mam; look over here! This siani have nice otaheites, fresh as any strumpet, sweet as the milk from Mama-ji’s nipples. And the juice from them, Mama! Lawdamassy! Come, Papi, come get you some, nuh? I wouldn’t lie to you! Not to someone so fine. The first taste I ever get of this siani’s otaheite apples, I convert to her skills one time. Had to come here to the market to confess it. Confess how I never like no otaheites before this. Come, picken; come try one, nuh? She grow them herself on her own plot. Raise up every sapling with a kiss come sunup and a caress come sundown. She even self wake up fore-day morning to come out in the fresh dark air to sing blessings to them. Take her seven years to raise the trees-them, till them was standing tall and straight, pointing to the sky. Yes, picken; take some home. Here, don’t fill your robe; take a string bag. Made by that gentleman over there. I know his wares, too. Soft, strong string with knots that hold true. Tender enough to carry five egg without breaking a one. Strong enough to carry a picken-baby in a shoulder sling. Yes, picken; take. But only what you need, mind!”
The siani’s otaheite apples, piled in neat pyramids of pear-shaped fruit on her table, did look tasty; ruby-red, fat, and healthy. The trade book beside her was thick as a plank with her week’s endorsements. Veycosi was parched from all the running. To bite into one of the otaheites, expose the tender white flesh, feel the sweet juice running down his throat… He started towards the fruit stand to join the people helping themselves, tasting, then reaching for her trade book to sign their approval.
All on a sudden, hunger and thirst washed over Veycosi. The noise of the market crashed in his ears:
“Goodman, is who make these alpagats? A-you? But how you going to come to the market flogging your own wares? Where your agent? Where your endorsements? Who going trust your goods if no one will speak for you?”
“Fish, fish, fresh fish! I’m speaking out today for the Siani Kolumbai, the wise Siani Kolumbai, the skillful Siani Kolumbai, the fisherwoman Kolumbai. I am a mathematician of the Distinguished Colloquium of Fellows. My family’s youngest picken-girl had sickened with the flux. Our wife was in despair. My co-husband fed the child fish tea made from Siani Kolumbai’s fresh snapper, and she was well again by the next day. And the taste of that restorative snapper brew, my gentle friends! The richness, the umami! These were fish that had lived happy. Fish that leapt eager into Siani Kolumbai’s nets with tender purpose, so their souls would fly straight to Mama-ji’s loving arms. Fish, fresh fish!”
The racket had Veycosi bassourdie. He turned and turned in circles, unable to choose a way forwards. He froze as three guards strode briskly into the area. They looked around, scrutinizing everyone.
Something tugged at his hip. He whirled. A round, mischievous face was peeking from behind the snapper stall. Kaïra. Thandiwe’s girl child, and his stepdaughter-to-be. “Picken!” Veycosi hissed. “Why you mixing yourself up into my troubles? Get away from here!”
Instead, Kaïra put finger to lips for silence and waved for Veycosi to follow her quietly. The guards hadn’t noticed them yet. So he went where Kaïra was leading. It was the quickest way to get the girl away from this mess.
Veycosi thought he knew the market inside out. Hadn’t he spent so many days of his youth running around inside here with his bannas? But Kaïra took him by routes he had never spied in all his born days. They zigzagged through a storage tent piled high with sacks of cornmeal. A young man stacking the sacks greeted Kaïra with a whispering of her name. Grinning, the lad let them out through a tent flap hidden behind one of the piles. Crouched low, they crab-walked into a small paddock filled with indifferent sheep. A woman with biceps like hams winked at Kaïra, then pretended not to see the two of them as she threw a fleece over each of their shoulders and let the sheep out to run free. Veycosi and Kaïra, scrambling on all fours, ran with the flock until they came to a narrow back alley where a circle of pickens egged on two of their number who were deep in a marbles tournament. To the cheers of the crowded pickens they threw off the fleeces and their oily stench; a younggirl handed Veycosi a roast chicken leg as they passed through that place. He ate it so fast he scarcely chewed. The spicy flesh was ecstasy. Thence they slid beneath the belly of a camel drawing a cart stacked high with corn. At one point, Kaïra pulled him to the ground beside the feet of a marketeer just as the guards were tromping that way. The marketeer winked down at the two of them, picked up the hems of the three layered kirtles ee was wearing—calico beige, brick brown, and dirt brown—and threw the fabric over both their backs. Over the beat of Veycosi’s heart, he heard the retreating steps of the guards. When they crawled out from under ir kirtles, the marketeer gave them each a sugar candy and clapped Veycosi on the back. “Your young mistress looks after you well,” ee said to Veycosi. Veycosi didn’t bother to explain that he was the one looking after Kaïra by keeping her safe.
By this roundabout way, Kaïra brought them near the fisheries, which Thandiwe managed. A cart rattled by, piled high with delicately curlicued bamboo cages, each one with a large batti mamzelle perched on a twig inside, its four rainbow-prism wings thrumming, a live jewel.
The guards were nowhere to be seen. “Cosi!” exclaimed Kaïra finally, rushing to embrace Veycosi, nearly toppling him in her enthusiasm.
Laughing, Veycosi recovered his balance and returned the embrace. “Ai, picken, I swear you could tire a body out just by being joyous to see them.” Kaïra’s bird-boned body stiffened. The jest had hit too close to home. People were always telling Kaïra to slow down, take time, stop being so much.
Veycosi took the child by the shoulders and leaned down closer to look into the unsure young face. “Never you mind. I’m only making mock. The truth is, you just saved me from a little piece of bother. That was well done. Thank you.”
Kaïra’s expression brightened at the praise. She could never stay down-at-mouth for long. “The guards won’t find you now, Cosi. Is what you do this time?” Kaïra grinned at him, doubtless expecting wondrous tales of mischief.
“I tell you later. Where Thandy-dey?” Veycosi draped a companionable arm across Kaïra’s shoulders, and the two of them continued walking.
People in the market looked twice when they spotted Kaïra. Some of them pointed and whispered to one another. She ignored it. She was used to it. She jigged with glee as she accompanied Veycosi. “You hear the news?” she piped up, already moving to a new subject. “A ship! A whole ship full of Deserters!”
“Don’t call them that,” Veycosi told her. “Is not mannerly.”
Kaïra grinned. “You call them that. When none of them around to hear you.”
“Just because I do it doesn’t make it well.”
Kaïra pouted. “They tried to blow up the reservoir!” she said.
They? “They who? And who said so?”
“Nobody. Everybody. Mousa tell me he hear Saviat’s mother’s uncle talking with a guard who tell him so. One set of pink people come out of the big ship, and the portmaster call the guards to escort them! They have to talk to Cacique Macu!” No one knew he was the one responsible, then. Maybe there was a way out of this brangle after all. Veycosi felt a smile return to his lips. By the time the truth came out, he would be far gone, sailing the ocean.
They resumed their walk through the market. Veycosi noticed Kaïra rubbing her lower belly and grimacing. “Bellyache?”
She nodded. “I think I ate too much fufu at dinner last night.” Then she asked, “Cosi, what would happen if you set lamp oil on fire and toss it into water?”
Veycosi chuckled. “Mamapiche Festival coming, nah true?”
“Yes, and me and—” She stopped. “But I mustn’t tell you.”
“Best not. You know the Blackheart Man will come for tattletale pickens,” he teased.
Kaïra rolled her eyes. “I not a picken anymore,” she said.
Kaïra and her young bannas were probably planning a Mamapiche float. They wouldn’t thank her if she let their secrets slip to an adult. Even if Kaïra was about to bypass them all in status come Mamapiche.
“Kaïra! Over here!” A hearty old man was hailing Kaïra from a small open-air table surrounded by stone benches. He was playing Trade Winds with his bannas. They’d stopped in the middle of their game and were looking at Kaïra, their visages open and expectant as though someone were about to tell them a joke.
Kaïra frowned and stayed where she was. The man called out, “You japing in the market today? Some pre-Mamapiche jests for us?”
