Wild Magic

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“Desantro,” Penhari called out when she heard the sound of sweeping. “Come here, I need you.”

Desantro came slowly into the room, her hair tied in a kerchief, a torn dustrobe over her dress. “Chambermassal says I hav’ta get the dust up t’day, heshal.”

“You can go back to that in a moment. I want you to cut my hair.”

Desantro blinked, backed up a step. “I’d make a mess, heshal.”

“I don’t care, as long as it’s a short mess. Think of it as pruning.”

That startled a bark of laughter out of Desantro. “You want me to fetch the pruning shears, heshal?”

“I don’t believe we need go that far to validate a metaphor. The scissors in my sewing box should be adequate.”

Penhari sat sideways on the garden longchair, scowling at the grass. Famtoche had even driven the bees from the garden; without them it’d turned sour for her, but Desantro wouldn’t do the cutting inside.

Desantro drew the comb down through the thick, oily gray hair. “We really should wash it_, first, I think.”

“Just cut. Till it’s even with my earlobes.”

“Haihai, and what if I cut them off?”

“You can sew them back on.”

“Saa! That’d be a thing.” She cut carefully and slowly, her face brooding as she worked, flicking the shears so the long, long strands of hair fell around Penhari, onto the chair or onto the grass.

When she was finished, she gathered every strand, took the mass of gray to the nearest flowerbed and used a spoon from the lunch tray to dig a hole and bury it.

Penhari shook her head, relishing how light and cool it felt, how naked. She blinked at Desantro. “Why are you doing that?”

Desantro stood, used the toe of her worn sandal to press the earth down about the bush. “Y’ want to be careful with things that come off you,” she said. “‘F you have enemies, they can use ’em ‘gainst you. Witches,” she said. “They tell me there be witches here, though I havna seen any myself.”

“Witches, hush. What they mean is Abeyhamal’s followers. It’s an excuse for a burning. There’s no magic in the Land, except in idiots’ heads.”

“I dunno, heshal. No one talks to me ‘bout that kind of thing.” Desantro set her hands on her hips, tilted her head. “Better ‘an I thought. You look younger even.”

Penhari burst out laughing. “Vema vema, Desantro, one favor deserves another. Pour yourself some lemonade and sit a moment.”

Desantro hesitated.

Penhari waved impatiently at the pitcher. “I’m still someone, woman.”

When Desantro had settled to the grass, muttering she’d be more comfortable with ground under her, Penhari pulled her legs up and lay back in the chair. “Tell me about your home, Desa, what it was like, how you lived.”

Desantro sipped at the lemonade, set the glass down beside her. “Long time gone,” she said. “I don’t think about those days much. Better not.” She pulled a blade of grass free, nibbled at the greenish-white stem. “The mountains in Whenapoyr, they’d make those…” she flipped a hand at the Jinocaburs whose pale blue tips they could just see above the garden walls, “look like gnat bites. ’Twas cold in the winter, snow higher than the roofs. Always some’un died from the cold, old ’uns mostly or babes born too soon in the year. It c’d get so quiet you heard y’ hair growing. The trees, ah the trees… ‘ She pulled another blade of grass, a longer one, stretched it vertically between thumbs pressed together and blew, producing a harsh, plaintive sound.

Penhari rubbed her back cautiously against the chair; the healing wounds were getting itchy. “What happened? How’d you come to be here?”

“Hmm. The usual way. Whenapoyr is next to Hraney and Hennermen were always raiding us. Still are, I s’pose. They came with the thaw, killed them they din’t want, most a my folks. Had a brother ‘n a younger sister, took them an’ me, dumped us in a boat, sold us, I don’t know where that market is, somewhere up north. Speculator bought me, sold me in Pili’s Sok. An’t seen m’ sister an’ brother since.” -

“Would you like to go back some day?”

Desantro’s head came up and her eyes went blank. “Oh no, heshal. I am content.”

Penhari sighed. “You don’t think I’m going to run to the Chambermassal, do you? And tell him get out the whip, I’ve got an uppity slave plotting escape?”

Desantro pulled another blade of grass and began splitting it into hairline strips. “Never trust a Mal,” she muttered.

“What?”

“The first Fadogur I learned.”

“I don’t understand.” Penhari pushed up and stared at Desantro. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ll be angry.” Penhari had to strain to hear the murmured words. “Then what’s your word worth?”

“What I say it is. Have you ever heard else?”

Desantro rubbed green off her fingers. After a minute she shrugged. “Maulapam keep promises they make to other castes if they wanna and forget ’em if they don’t. Mostly they forget. Their word don’t count ‘less it’s Mal to Mal. Slaves and Wascra know ‘t. Naostam.”

“I see.” Penhari grimaced. “No. I’m not angry. I believe you, Desantro. I have to, I don’t know enough to dispute with you. Vema, then, I go first. I’m leaving this house as soon as I can manage it. Not just leaving, running away. I need you if you’ll come. Is there anything… anyone… you’d miss?”

Desantro cupped one hand in the other, rubbed the sides of her thumbs together; for a long ‘moment she stared at Penhari, then she looked past her at the blue peaks sketched against the blue-white sky, her hands falling apart to rest on her thighs. “Nayo, nothing,” she said slowly. “I’ve forty years, heshal. I’ve birthed six children, all of ’em taken from me soon’s they were weaned, two boys fostered at Camuctarr, four girls with Naostam families. I don’t know where any of them are now, anyway they wouldna know me from the dog. Sometimes slave women are let keep their kids, but never if they belong to Maulapam like me. ‘S a good thing a slave’s kids aren’t slaves, too. Fadogur is better nor some places I c’d ‘^ye been took to, but it’s hard losing a babe from the breast.”

. Frowning slightly, Penhari watched the woman’s eyes go soft and wistful, suddenly alienated from her by more than caste. Her own son had been born in terrible, tearing pain, had cost her the ability to have more children-which she did not at all regret. She’d loathed Faharmoy from the first day of morning sickness almost as much as she loathed the husband her father and brother had forced on her, almost as much she loathed them both, her^e father and her brother.

Desantro’s face went hard. “Why?” she said. “Give me a reason I should risk the strangler’s cord for you.”

“Consider this. What happens if I’m gone and you’re here?”

“What happens if I go tell Chambermassal what you’re getting up to?”

“Vema. You’ve matched me there. Consider this, then. Do you want to grow old here in the Falmatarr? You’ve seen what it’s like; I tried to change things for my women, but that’s finished now. I can’t free you, a woman can’t do that, not even me, but I can bribe a shipmaster to smuggle you out of the Land, give you money to live on until you can get back to your homeland or make other arrangements.”

“And if we get caught?”

“You’ll be whipped to death or whatever strikes the fancy of my husband and my brother. I’ll be beaten also, but no doubt I’ll live through it.”

“Ah. Don’t take this wrong, heshal, but I want to see the coin before I do the deed.”

“Vema. Agreed. You do get out of the Falmatarr, don’t you?”

“You don’t know?”

Penhari watched a single butterfly flit from bloom to bloom. “For years,” she said slowly, “I have refrained from… mmm… curiosity. It has been my best defense. I I… don’t intend to explain that. Assume I know nothing about what happens outside these rooms. You won’t miss truth by much.”

Desantro scratched at her nose. “Verna. Le’s see. There’s a Chumavayal festa every couple months. The Primakass he makes the rule, slaves get out like the rest, everybody has to follow it.”

“Even the. Maulapam?” Penhari smiled at her. “Even the Maulapam.” Desantro slanted a glance at

Penhari, her mouth twitched into a quick grin. “So you get out. And?”

Desantro wriggled around until she was squatting on her heels, hunched forward, knees out, with her forearms resting on her thighs. “We s’posed to do the worship thing, but all y’ got to do is sho y’ face then scat for the dancing and all that.” She twisted her mouth into a half-pout, then clicked her tongue against her teeth. “The Gates are left open till moonset, which means we can get outside the walls and have some real fun. Most everybody go down beach, dig clams and hunt the shallows for chitz an’ buagosh an’ whatever else we c’n net, an’ we dump them in pots and boil ’em, an’ there’s homebrew an’ you name it for drinking an’ bhagg for smoking an’ what’s y’ pleasure, an’ there’s, fires an’ someone’s got erhu or gitter or horns or somp’n, starts playing when they feels like it, an’ maybe one or two starts dancing and then there’s more dancing…” She jumped to her feet, started stamping and clapping her hands; after a few breaths she began singing in her home tongue, then dancing to her own singing. She had a strong contralto voice, rough but not unpleasant. Sweat glistened on her face and arms, her body moved with a powerful vigor.

Penhari watched with enjoyment and anger-anger at the constraints of her caste and at herself for her years of complacent acquiescence. Weren’t for Famtoche and his flagellum, I’d be a mole all my life, blind and burrowing. She laughed aloud as Desantro whipped the kerchief off her head and wiped at her face without missing a beat of her swaying, stamping dance or a syllable of her song.

“Corrupting the slaves, too, dear sister?” Famtoche Banddah lounged in the doorwindow, one arm hanging, the other curled about his belt. His black eyes were empty as the windows, his smile a grimace.

Desantro’s face went blank and she dropped to her stomach, stretched out flat on the grass, her hands in front of her, palms pressed together.

Penhari turned slowly, swinging her feet off the longchair, pushing herself up so she was standing between Famtoche and the slave. “What do you want, brother?”

“When I hear my sister is ill, how can. I stay away?”

“Easily, dear brother. What do you want?”

He tapped his fingers against the leather of the belt; his eyes softened and he smiled so sweetly she knew he was remembering and as the silence stretched on, knew he was making sure she understood the images he was seeing.

She kept her face impassive. She’d had years of practice.

He straightened up. “Word came to me you tried to leave your suite last night. Don’t.” He stepped back into the room; over his shoulder, he said, “Or we’ll have another lesson.”