The Killing Moon

18

Sunandi awakened just after dawn to the sound of Etissero’s angry shouts. Rising from the bed where she’d cried herself to sleep, she pulled on a gown and went upstairs to find Etissero in full form, yelling in three trade-languages. She was unsurprised to see the cause of Etissero’s anger: the Gatherer’s young apprentice had arrived. The boy stood in front of the Gatherer now, radiating that peculiar combination of determination and protectiveness that Sunandi had noted the night before last.

The night before last. Had it really only been such a short time since she’d sent Lin to her death?

The Gatherer-child’s eyes shifted to her. Etissero followed his gaze and broke off in the middle of insulting their mothers in Soreni. Looking abashed, Etissero switched to halting Sua. “Please forgive, Speaker-Voice. I did not mean to wake.”

“It’s all right,” she replied in equally poor Bromarte, then focused on the Gatherers. Ehiru stood with eyes downcast, showing the shame to be expected of anyone who had violated guest-custom. He looked better than he had the day before, but still not quite well. The boy… when she looked at him he narrowed his eyes, searching her face. Gujaareen could read death, Etissero had said, so she gazed back and let him see her grief. He blinked in surprise, then grew solemn; after a moment he nodded to her in understanding. Yes, and Gatherers read death best of all.

“You’re coming with us, then?” she asked the boy.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Fine,” she said, and turned to Etissero. “Do you think Gehanu’s band can accommodate three instead of one?”

Etissero looked ready to protest, but he settled instead for folding his arms and throwing a resentful glare at the Gatherers. “Yes, yes, the number doesn’t matter. But look matters, and neither of these two will be able to pass as anything other than the murderers they are.”

“We do not—” the apprentice began, but the Gatherer put a hand on his shoulder and he subsided immediately.

“With the right clothing, we can blend in well enough,” Ehiru said. “Under what guise will we travel?”

“Part of a minstrel caravan.” Etissero smiled, daring them to look horrified.

Ehiru smiled as well. “Such caravans have many members. Guardians, those who perform, workers who care for the group’s animals and properties. Nijiri and I shall be the lattermost. I shall be Kisuati, he Gujaareen.”

“Kisuati speak Sua!”

“As do I, sir, ceremonially and the common speech,” Ehiru replied in that tongue. He spoke with no trace of a Gujaareen accent, Sunandi noted, though there was a touch of highcaste in his inflections.

“You’re a Kisuati who was once wealthy and respectable,” she said, and he nodded understanding. She turned to Etissero and switched back to Gujaareen so he could understand.

“Will you gift us with suitable clothes and traveling supplies? I won’t offend you by offering reimbursement, especially when you shall be family in my own house whenever you next visit Kisua.” And, of course, she would also steer as much lucrative sonha business his way as she could.

The gesture seemed to mollify Etissero. “Of course. I’ll have Saladronim find clothes for the boy; they’re almost of a size.”

He moved to pass her on the stair, but paused and touched her arm. “Are you certain of this, ’Nandi?” He glanced back at the Gatherers, not bothering to hide his dislike or lower his voice. “If that black one harms you, I’ll kill him.”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” she snapped, darting a glance at Ehiru. The older Gatherer turned away and went to the breezeway curtain, affording them what privacy he could. The apprentice, however, eyed them coldly for a moment before turning to follow his master.

“Guest-custom—”

“Does not apply once I leave your house, Etissero. And much as you love me, you told me yourself: I’m all but dead already. Unless I can convince these two that my apparent corruption is the scheme of even more corrupt people, with more corrupt purposes.” She smiled in resignation. “And even then they may kill me. They might even be right to do so.”

He stared at her for a moment. “You didn’t kill the scamp, Sunandi.”

“I sent Lin forth. I knew our enemies would stop at nothing to keep the secrets she carried. An army captain who did the same in wartime would accept responsibility for a subordinate’s death, would he not?”

“You’re no army captain and the girl wasn’t a soldier, and we’re not at war.”

“But we are, Etissero—or we may be, as soon as I tell the Protectors what’s going on in this city. Lin wasn’t even the first victim of that war.” She closed her eyes and touched her breast. If a Reaper had not been involved, she could have at least hoped that Lin would find Kinja, somewhere in the vastness of Ina-Karekh. Then they could have been father and daughter in death as they had not been able, in life. But Reapers left nothing in either world when they were done with a victim: no waking life, no soul to dream. She had not even hope for comfort.

Etissero took her hand. “If not for these”—he jerked his head at the Gatherers—“I would order you to stay here until your grief is spent, ’Nandi. You should be among friends at this time, not enemies.”

“The enemies are better. They’ll help me to remember why Lin died.” She smiled a smile she did not feel and gently disengaged her hand from his. “And I have endangered your family enough by remaining here.”

His face fell but he said nothing, for he knew she spoke the truth. She smiled, leaned close, and kissed him on the cheek. “Now hurry,” she said. “The caravan will surely leave before the afternoon rest hour.”

The market square of the Unbelievers’ District was crowded when they arrived, the air thick with dust and the smells of fried food and animal dung. Shoppers and traders hawking their wares mingled in a cheerfully chaotic mass that made the more orderly markets of Gujaareh seem funereal by comparison. Then too Sunandi saw less pleasant reminders that they were no longer in Hananja’s City: pickpockets roamed the crowd, a shopkeeper shouted insults at a recalcitrant customer, and dealers in shadier wares did brisk business on the fringes. Surreptitiously she tucked her wrist purse into her travel-robes.

She worried at first that the two Gujaareen, unused to the rough ways beyond their city’s walls, might not be so careful. Yet Ehiru had already tucked his purse out of sight, and as usual the boy had taken cues from his master. To a point: Ehiru moved through the crowd with such calm and ease that no one could mistake him for the pious monster he truly was, but Nijiri gaped openmouthed at everything around him. He looked exactly like a runaway servant-caste boy getting his first glimpse of life beyond Gujaareh’s walls, but she didn’t think it was an act.

She slowed as they came to an area where the crowds thinned to flow around a knot of camels, piles of packaged goods, and small animals in cages. A menagerie of folk—she noted Gujaareen, Kisuati, Bromarte, Kasutsen, Soreni, and what looked like a Jellevy dancer—swarmed around and over the caravan like ants, checking harnesses and loading the camels. Sunandi spied a tall, broad woman with the fierce features of a far-southerner standing at the epicenter of the chaos. Before Sunandi could call out, the woman turned and noticed her.

“Nefe!” she cried, opening her arms and beaming. “How long has it been, you brat? Come here and take your punishment.”

Sunandi smiled and went to the woman, who wrapped big arms around her in a mighty hug that picked her up several inches off the ground. She oofed but endured the hug, chuckling in spite of herself as the woman finally released her and gave her a narrow-eyed look, still gripping her by the shoulders. From the corner of her eye she could see the Gatherers staring.

“You need something again. Ah-che.” The woman made a face. “You never come around unless you do.”

“Because you haven’t run me off yet.” Sunandi gestured toward the two Gujaareen. “My companions and I need passage to Kisua. Quickly, and quietly.”

The woman glanced at the men and grunted in disinterest before turning her attention back to Sunandi. “You know I’ll take you, Nefe, but it won’t be a comfortable journey. We’re going the desert route, not the river way. Nothing along the river but poor villages that can’t afford to pay us. At least in Tesa we’ll make a profit.”

Sunandi grimaced. “I’d actually hoped to hear you say that. The desert route is faster.”

“You hate the high desert, you spoiled soft thing.”

“I won’t complain. Haste is more important than comfort this time.”

The woman’s smile faded; she examined Sunandi closely. “You’re in real trouble.”

“I am, ’Anu.”

Gehanu did not ask further, though she gave Sunandi’s shoulders a firm, reassuring squeeze. “Then we’ll get you there. Should take only seven days by the oasis road. Where’s that pale girl of yours? She complains more than you do.”

Sunandi lowered her eyes, and the woman caught her breath. “Moon’s Madlight. So that’s it. Then we need to go now, I’m thinking.”

She finally turned to the two Gujaareen. “I’m Gehanu. You?”

Sunandi saw the boy glance uncertainly at Ehiru; Ehiru bowed over one hand and the boy quickly imitated him. He spoke in Sua. “I am Eru, and this boy is Niri. We will work for our passage, mistress.”

Sunandi blinked in surprise. Ehiru had hunched his shoulders and raised the pitch of his voice, making it slightly nasal; he kept his eyes lowered in the manner of a humble lowcasteman. Together with his highcaste accent, it was perfect for the role they’d given him: a once-wealthy Kisuati, now disinherited and humbled for some youthful indiscretion. She could see Gehanu assessing and dismissing him all at once.

“Of course you will, che,” Gehanu snapped. “We all work here. What can you do, boy?”

Nijiri bowed deeper—a perfect Gujaareen servant-caste bow with a hand-inflection indicating that he was unclaimed and willing to accept a new master. When he straightened, he looked at Gehanu with an ingenuous blend of shy hope and fear that was completely at odds with his true manner. “I clean very well, mistress,” he said. “I can do anything else if you show me but once. Except… except cooking.” He looked so crestfallen by this that Sunandi almost laughed.

Gehanu did laugh—once and loudly, but it was clear the boy had charmed her. “We’ll make sure you get nowhere near the cookfire, then.” She glanced around at the caravanners and raised her voice in a thunderous shout. “Move yourselves, you lazy stones, we’re striking out before sun-zenith!” The caravanners ignored her with the air of long practice.

Ehiru nodded toward a group loading sacks into a wagon. “Shall I help, mistress?”

“If you think you can do it without cocking things up.” Gehanu jerked her head toward the wagon, and Ehiru nodded and went to join the loaders. She watched him go, a look of approval on her face. “You, boy; can you sing?”

Nijiri looked startled. “Sing, mistress?”

“Yes. Open your mouth, let sounds come out, occasionally with words.”

The boy’s complexion, almost as pale as a northerner’s, turned a startling pink. “Not well, mistress.”

“Dance?”

“Only prayer dances, mistress. Same as any Gujaareen.”

“It’s a start, and in the south you might actually be a novelty.” She glanced at Sunandi. “You’re a friend. Your pretty-speaking man isn’t, but taking on passengers isn’t something the others would question—if those passengers look like they can pay. Gujaareen servant-castes aren’t permitted to accumulate money. So our young friend here will be a dancer I’m considering for apprenticeship and permanent hire. Che?”

Nijiri looked startled. A sharp needle of cold threaded Sunandi’s spine. She hadn’t made such a stupid, amateur mistake in years. Kinja would have swatted her for it. Lin would have been shocked. It took only one minor inconsistency, any error of logic, to arouse suspicions. There were many among a minstrel band who would gladly earn extra money reporting suspicious strangers to gate guards or tradepost officials. She could have gotten them all killed.

Gehanu saw her horror and took her by the arm, leading her toward the camels and beckoning for Nijiri to follow. “Sowu-sowu, Nefe, don’t worry. I’ll take care of you like I always do. We’ll get you back home fast as skyrers, and then all will be well. Che?”

It was said that the gods favored fools because they were entertaining to watch. Privately thanking whichever god had found her amusing for the time being, Sunandi leaned gratefully against Gehanu. “Ah-che.”

The caravan line had already formed. Six unladen camels trailed at the rear to be sold along the journey. Gehanu ordered three of these saddled for Sunandi and her companions, and as the sun peaked overhead they set off along the dusty, heat-hazed road.