Up Jim River

XVII. WHERE HEARTS ARE

Praisegod Barebones looks up from the inventory that he is reconciling to see the scarred man enter the Bar of Jehovah and blink in the dimness. He raises his hand in salute.

“You came back,” he says.

The scarred man grunts. “I could not bear our separation any longer.”

“You were too wicked even for the paynim beyond our protected skies,” the Bartender guesses.

“I saw wickedness even you might blanch to hear, brother Barebones.”

“I am the Bartender. I hear so many confessions you might be surprised what I blanch to hear.”

The scarred man sketches the ghost of a smile. “A bowl of uiscebeatha.”

“I would hardly blanch at that, friend Fudir. My uisce sales suffered horribly in your absence.”

The scarred man says nothing, and returns to his former niche in the wall. He wonders if anyone had sat here during his absence. He wonders if anyone knows he has returned.

The Bar is never empty, it is never at rest; but at midafternoon it approaches a pause. The sun casts a nimbus of white light through the front windows, giving those at the tables in the barroom an imprecision of outline, a faerie appearance. It reminds him of how the sun had dawned inside A. K. Prabhakaran.

Praisegod brings the bowl himself and sets it down. “You still owe a tab,” he points out.

The scarred man pulls a chit from his blouse and shows it to him. It is a marvelous imitation of a Kennel chit. The Bartender has never seen a finer copy. But it does not glow when handled, as genuine chits do.

“Ah,” mumbles the scarred man. “I had forgotten. The account is closed.” He rummages in his scrip and pulls out Gladiola Bills.

“Friend,” says Praisegod, placing himself discretely between the money and curious eyes, “far be it from me to lecture the sons of this world on prudence, but don’t flash a wad like that in here.”

The scarred man presses a wad upon him.

“I almost hate to accept these,” Praisegod says of the Bills. “Your tab was your immortality. It bid fair to outlive you. If I close it out…Well,” he continues after a bleak glance from his customer, “what happened to that harper you left with? Some of our patrons have asked after her.”

“She has gone home to spend time with her mother.”

“Has she now? Will you go visit her there?”

“She asked me to. Her mother was less certain.”

The scarred man sits in the niche and drinks. He misses his inner voices. He knows that Inner Child is watching the door, is watching the barroom, is watching each of the other patrons. He knows the Pedant is mulling over lessons learned on this most recent scramble. But their voices are no longer those of strangers. They speak with his own voice, for they are now fully him as well as fully themselves.

Don’t worry, Donovan. We’re still here when you need us.

The scarred man smiles a little at that, and takes another drink.

I hear ye claimed to be my husband, Donovan buigh, Bridget ban had said on the way back to Gatmander.

It was one of those shipboard romances, he had answered. You may have forgotten.

I remember it too well, Donovan buigh. And I remember the aftermath.

Donovan had nodded toward Méarana, who had been playing her harp for the crew. You could have treated her better, despite all that.

Are ye the doting father now? I don’t recall seeing ye much around Clanthompson Hall.

She doesn’t recall seeing you there much, either.

It had been a long, silent transit back to Gatmander after that and, for Méarana, a bewildering one. She kept trying to build a bridge between them, to fulfill some fantasy that she had long entertained. But there is no bridge to span an ocean.

Greystroke and Little Hugh had been waiting on Gatmander, and Bridget ban and her daughter had passage back to High Tara.

Sorry, Donovan, Greystroke had lied, but there’s no more room in my ship. He had approved Donovan’s Kennel chit for passage back to Jehovah and for a generous consultation fee for protecting the harper. But he had sensed that there might still be a possibility for him and had moved quickly to seize it.

Don’t feel too badly, Fudir, Little Hugh had told him. You can’t lose what you never had.

Perhaps not, the scarred man tells his uisce. But in a peculiar sense, he had had it for a time, in the mind of Lucia Thompson, and that had been enough to make it real, for a dream strong enough may leak from one mind to another.

The sun has dimmed and the windows in the front of the Bar have darkened. The shutters have been closed against the creeping night. Into the bar steps Bikhram. There is no particular moment when one may say, “He has come,” but there is a moment when one realizes, “He is here.” It is the sort of skill that serves well a man whose profession is to enter places and to leave with sundry of its contents.

He represents the Committee of Seven, and sits himself at the table, positioning himself so that he, too, does not show his back to the room. A glass of masaala paal appears before him, spiced with clove and saffron. Bikhram tastes it and sprinkles some badaam powder into it from an envelope he carries in his blouse.

The scarred man watches him and, after a time, passes him a red envelope. “These are seeds,” he says, “of the True Coriander, found only on the Wild World of Enjrun, and brought there by the Terrans of the Treasure Fleet itself. Perhaps they will germinate in the soil of the Corner; perhaps they will not.”

“You are a man of many humors, Fudir. Wild Worlds! The Treasure Fleet! Perhaps your grandmother’s ancient recipe, passed on in secret?”

“Mock if you wish, Bikhram. It is not much of a such, but it is the coriander. Why not a fairy-tale origin for a fairy-tale spice?”

“Harimanan saw you earlier today. He said you sat down as if you had never left. But you have not yet come into the Corner.”

“Everything that happens in the city is seen and heard in the Corner. I have only to wait and the Corner will come to me. What word do the Seven send?”

“Six of the Seven, at least. Denzel is in the wind. The Proctors wish to speak to him, but he does not wish to speak to them.”

“He is a man of few words.”

“One of those words concerns a shipment arriving in three days from Valency. Hizzoner, who governs wisely the Terran Corner of Valency, has noted several containers of drifting jewels, the sort from which moistened fingers may pull sweet music, are to be loaded and transshipped through Jehovah to Die Bold.”

“Die Bold,” says the scarred man.

“Yes, and Hizzoner says that among so many cartons, one or two may hardly be missed. Perhaps drizzle jewels, which precipitate in our own Arrat Mountains, cheap as glass here in the Tarako Sarai, but dearer on Die Bold and Friesing’s World, may insinuate themselves in their place.”

“Hardly to the loss of the Die Bolders,” says the scarred man, “but much to the gain of the Corner. What is required?”

“Not so much of a such. The jewels must walk with the gods, a few trifling documents must alter their appearance. A few records, hard and soft, must quiet the uneasiness that would otherwise disturb the peace of mind of others.”

“It is something to think on,” the scarred man tells him.

He thinks on it after Bikhram has gone. He is a man of some wealth now. The gratitude of the Kennel has been considerable, and once the parking stone jewelry becomes a regular item, the consortium on Dancing Vrouw will make him wealthier still.

He had stopped on High Tara on his way back, where he had tried to see Bridget ban, but had succeeded only in seeing Zorba de la Susa.

The Old Hound told him that Bridget ban and Méarana had already left for Dangchao Waypoint. But he had gifted him with a considerable fee, plus a bounty for the death of the one called Billy Chins. Donovan had accepted the fee, but for reasons he himself did not entirely understand, had declined the bounty. Zorba had told him that, the mission being accomplished, he no longer held his life as collateral against its failure. By then, it no longer seemed to matter to Donovan.

“You have but one more task in front of you,” the aged man had said; but he would not say what it was. “If you need instruction on it, it is not the task for you.” He had added only that failure this time would be its own punishment.

In three days, the Terrans of the Corner would highjack several containers of fabulous drifting jewels from Valency and substitute drizzle jewels from Jehovah, altering the invoices to suit. It was the sort of scramble that had once occupied his time. But he now sees very little point in it. It is not his newfound wealth that has changed him, although he does foresee a future highjacking in which he might divert the income from his parking stone imports from his own pocket into…his own pocket. There is an irony to that prospect that pleases him. If one is to steal, it is best to steal from those who deserve it.

On his left, seated at his table, sits a young girl in a chiton. She says nothing, but looks at him with head cocked and manages to shrug without moving a muscle.

In the end, the scarred man sighs and rises from his seat. Praisegod watches him go with sad bassett eyes.

Outside, the scarred man turns his footsteps to the Jehovah Spaceport and enters the Terminal building, where he finds the kiosk for the Hadley Lines. There, he notes that Jezebel Hadley will depart High Jehovah Orbit in two days, inbound to the Old Planets with stops at Die Bold, Old ‘Saken, and Abyalon, but with a flyby drop-off at Dangchao Waypoint and other byworlds. The ship’s name brings a smile to his face. An omen! He books a third-class ticket—he still has his pride—and arranges with the concierge to pick up his luggage from the Bar.

“Dangchao,” the concierge says. “Looking to simplify your life, eh?”

“Complicate it, I think. Maybe, I’ll herd Nolan’s Beasts.”

The concierge laughs at the mental image of the old, hook-chinned man astride a pony in the Out-in-back whirling a bola above his head while he chases after a maverick. But the scarred man does not laugh, and there is something in the not-laughing of the scarred man that smothers the laughter of others.

When he leaves the Terminal and turns onto Greaseline Street a shadow detaches itself from other shadows and falls into step beind him. How quickly wealth whispers its presence! But before he can act he feels against his spine the now familiar shape of a dazer muzzle.

“Watch out for the backflash on the umbra,” he says aloud.

“Soo, Doonoovan, my friend,” whispers a voice twenty years from his past. “It has been loong years between oos.”

He turns, and it is Ravn Olafsdottr: still slim, ebony-black, blond-haired. Her dazer’s aperture seems much wider than when seen from more benign angles.

“There is a struggle in the Lion’s Mouth,” she says in unaccented Confederal Manjrin. “The names that were never forgotten have been remembered. Your duty is to come with me.”

She plucks the Dangchao ticket from his hand and flicks it to the ground. “Coome along Doonoovan. Dooty is a bitch, is she noot?”