The Bird of the River (11 page)

"What did he want?"

"I think he wanted to be sure I'll be at the party tomorrow night," said Eliss. "And he offered to share his pinkweed with me."

"But you told him 'No thank you,' didn't you?"

"Of course I did." Eliss felt her smile fading away. "What did you think I'd say? And where's your Mr. Moss?"

"He's sitting up talking with Mr. Nightvine, but he told me I had to go home because you'd be worried if I didn't."

"Well, he was right! You're only ten! I'm supposed to look after you!"

"I'm safe with
my people
," said Alder. "I've never felt so safe in my life. They're all like me! Did you know Mama could have found my father any time?"

"I know now," said Eliss. "But I don't think Mama ever knew."

"She was probably too--"

"Don't! Don't you say that!" Eliss clenched her fists. "She never did that back then! She didn't even start drinking until you were three! If Uncle Steelplate hadn't--" Her voice choked off in her throat. Abashed, Alder shrugged and shuffled his feet. After a moment he sat down.

"It's just that it would have been a lot easier if I could have grown up with the Yendri. Don't you think? It would have been easier for you too. If it had been just you and Mama, you wouldn't have been thrown out of all those places we tried to live. A-and I'd know who my father was."

"But you and I would be strangers," said Eliss. Alder studied the deck and finally shrugged again.

"It was wonderful today" he said in a faraway voice. "Everybody talking to Yendri just as though they were people too. There's one old man, Mr. Yellow Broom, and he makes musical instruments-- pipes and harps and even a fiddle. And the musicians from our boat were buying things from him. And they were telling each other how great he is, that he's just a master craftsman. Everybody up this end of the river knows about Mr. Yellow Broom, they said. And I got to meet him. He said I had good manners, considering I'd been raised by--by other people."

"Mama taught us good manners," said Eliss.

"The Yendri are
good
," said Alder. "They aren't sneaky, or poisoners, or, or anything. Do you know what I found out? They--we-- used to live in this valley far away a long time ago, and then some bad people came--but it wasn't the Children of the Sun--and conquered them, but Mr. Moss said then this holy man came, a
real
holy man who could do all this magic to help them. And then there was this other holy man who got turned into this bird? And he flew into the spirit world and brought back this magic child who made all the bad people let them escape? And it was only a little girl, and she was only a baby at the time!"

He was speaking rapidly, almost as if to himself, eyes wide.

"We have legends too," said Eliss.

"But these aren't just legends," said Alder. "They're
real
."

"Well, so are ours."

"If you say so," murmured Alder, not meeting her eyes.

EARLY NEXT MORNING HE WENT ashore again with Mr. Moss. Eliss, to show that she didn't care, threw herself into helping with the preparations for the Summer Party, and actually forgot about

Alder for a while. As the men moved the trimmed snags down into the hold, the women drew up buckets of water and sluiced down the broad expanse of the deck. The children--and Eliss--moved across with push brooms, scrubbing the bare planks until they were clean and smooth. Then a crate was brought up from belowdecks and opened, revealing dozens of blown glass oil lanterns, in all shapes and colors.

"Where's the blue fish?" fretted Tulu as Mr. Riveter dug through the box.

"There's mine!" Wolkin reached in and pulled out an amber demon-head. The other children crowded around, picking out green stars or fat red birds or purple seashells. The topmen strung lines out along the rail and hung up the lamps. As they were so engaged, the happy air was disturbed by Mr. Pitspike storming up the companion-way from below.

"Stone!" he roared, and glared around. "Where's the wretched boy? There's coal needs to be fetched up, and the baking ovens to be lit!"

To Eliss's mortification, everyone turned and stared at her. "I don't know where he is," she said. "The last time I saw him was yesterday. He changed his clothes in my tent."

"He went ashore," said Mr. Riveter, turning to Mr. Pitspike. "I saw him hiring a boatman to take him over to Prayna, across the lake. That was yesterday afternoon. He isn't back yet?"

"No, the slacker," said Mr. Pitspike. "So he's gone over to visit some of his lah-di-dah friends in their palaces, has he? When I only gave him the afternoon off? So much the worse for him!
Triple
potscrub duty when he gets back." Rubbing his hands together, he went into the deckhouse. Somehow the coal was fetched and the ovens were lit, and good smells came wafting from the galley as people baked goods for the party. Wolkin and Tulu stationed themselves on the roof above the galley skylight, watching avidly as the sweets were prepared.

Eliss carried the folded-up tent and her bundles below to the Riveters' cabin, where she had been invited to spend the night. She found herself wondering where Krelan was, and when he'd be back. She blushed, annoyed, when she realized what she was doing. She went back up on deck and looked across at Prayna-of-the-Agatines, with its palaces, its beautiful white walls and red roofs.

Places like that are as far away as the Moon, for people like me
, thought Eliss.
And, really, they're pretty, but who'd want to live there? Always fighting to keep your place. Always looking over your shoulder to see who's coming after you with a dagger.
She thought about the dead boy tangled in the snag, and shuddered.

THE MUSICIANS DID NOT STIR until long after noon, when Salpin and a few of the others, red-eyed and shaky, came creeping out to beg strong hot tea in the galley. Krelan had still not returned and so Mr. Pitspike was in an even fouler mood, but some of the women had pity and made tea for them.

So they were all alive and tuning up on the aft deck when the guest musicians began to arrive from the other barges and the shore. There was a tattooed fiddler, a black-whiskered man with a hurdy-gurdy, and a stout man with a bass fiddle that he wheeled ahead of him on a little cart. There were four bright-haired girls with fiddles and flutes, and a pair of brothers with their boxhorns slung across their shoulders in velvet bags. And Yendri came too bearing drums and pipes, and one great harp that had to be carried by two young men while the old harpist followed, carrying his cushion under his arm. Eliss tried not to stare, since obviously everyone else was well accustomed to the Yendri visiting here.

Wolkin popped up at her elbow, chewing something. "See that old greenie with the harp? He's famous. His name is Yellow Broom. He talked to me, once."

"You shouldn't call them greenies," said Eliss automatically.

"I KNOW. BUT THESE ARE
our
greenies. We see them all the time," said Wolkin.

"What did he say to you?"

"He told me to stop touching his harp," Wolkin replied proudly. "Did you see it up close? It's beautiful. Lots of curly carving and musselshell pictures on it."

"I haven't been close enough," said Eliss. "Why is it all right for them to sell us things and ... come to our parties up here, when nobody would think of it downriver and along the coast?"

"I don't know," said Wolkin. "That's just the way it is. So, is Alder going to go live with them now? I wish I could."

"No, he isn't!" Eliss was startled at how angry the question made her. "He's just learning things about his--about his father's people, that's all. It's good for him."

Wolkin took a step back, startled too. He reached out and took her hand. "Don't be sad," he said. "You want to come have some cake? They're putting the food out now."

THE SUNLIGHT GLOWED IN THE WEST a while, making the lake a broad sheet of untroubled fire. As the glow faded, the lake reflected the first star, and then many stars, and finally the slow moon when it came shining over the eastern mountains. One by one, the colored lamps were lit aboard the
Bird of the River
. People milled about, helping themselves to food and greeting guests from the other barges. Plates of food and pitchers of beer were sent up to the musicians.

Finishing a long drink of beer, the tattooed fiddler took up his instrument, set it in the crook of his neck, and took a few experimental swipes with his bow. Satisfied that his fiddle was in good order, he began to play one of the wandering, circular dance tunes Eliss heard every day from the masthead. The bass fiddler set down the dish from which he had been eating plumcake, and began to plunk out an accompaniment. One of the boxhorns took up the melody line. Salpin joined him on the concertina. The old Yendri with the harp seated himself and moved his fingers over its strings, adding notes like a soft-voiced singer.

As though they had been waiting for him to go first, the other Yendri joined in, with drone-pipe and drums. People on the deck stopped talking, and began to sway with the music. Then the bright-haired girls joined in with their fiddles and flutes and it was as though smoldering coals had burst into flame: the music soared, couples reached for each other and swung out on the dance floor, moving round and round in the lamplight. The moon rose higher. Moonflies began to wake up in the trees, tiny winking lights like white stars among the oak leaves.

Eliss, swaying where she sat, looked up in surprise as Alder sat down next to her.

"Where's your Mr. Moss?" she asked, raising her voice over the music. Alder pointed to the rail, where Mr. Moss stood watching the musicians with evident enjoyment.

"He says I'm leaving you all by yourself too much," said Alder glumly. "He says you're my family too."

"Well,
thank
you, Mr. Moss," said Eliss, but the music and the night were so beautiful she didn't want to waste time being angry.

"You got here!" Wolkin sat down on the other side of Eliss and leaned around her to peer at Alder. "Has he been teaching you stuff?"

"All kinds of stuff," said Alder, grinning. "There
are
defense moves."

"Thank you, gods!" Wolkin threw up his arms. "You have to show me tomorrow!"

"And that's not all. Some of them fight, only Mr. Moss doesn't because he's a disciple of the Mother, but there are these men who ..."

Eliss ignored them and watched the dancers. It was a slow dance, romantic. Mr. and Mrs. Riveter circled by, his hands on her hips, her hands on his shoulders. There too went Mr. and Mrs. Crucible, and Mr. and Mrs. Nailsmith, and some of the polemen and their wives-- Eliss still hadn't learned all their names--and then, as Eliss watched, a Yendri man walked up to Pentra Smith where she idled at the table, and touched her shoulder. She turned, smiling, and they embraced. She led him out on the dance floor.

Eliss was too surprised to make a sound. Alder, however, grunted in astonishment. He pointed. "They're
dancing!
" Wolkin, who was busily eating from a dish of jelly, looked up briefly.

"Oh! Them. They're sweethearts or something. See, she does what she likes because she's the cartographer? And that's really important? So nobody says anything? And anyway they see each other twice every run. So everybody's used to it. And he's a nice gr-- Yendri. And
anyway
they
have
to dance together because, well, do you see any Yendri ladies here? You don't. And the reason that is, is because their ladies go around with their--" Wolkin looked around to see where his parents were. He lowered his voice. "With their
boobies bare
. So they can't come around any of our men. Because our men would go crazy if they saw them."

"That's what Mr. Moss said too," said Alder, eyes wide. "Only he said it different."

"They couldn't help themselves." Wolkin nodded solemnly. "No man could. That's what I heard. And they have to protect their women."

Eliss, staring at the graceful couple, thought only:
All those years we were hounded from one place to another, all those people who spat on Mama for what she'd done... and up here no one even cares. How unfair
.

In time the slow music wound to its close. More beer was handed up to the musicians, and some of them lit pipes filled with pinkweed and passed them around. People milled about, ate and drank, and then a men's dance tune was struck up, quick-paced. The men formed lines, shuffled and stamped, flexed their muscles and strutted. Women catcalled from the sidelines. The drums thundered, the bass fiddle boomed, the whistles shrilled a raucous melody. Someone passed the men barge-poles and they struck the deck with them in unison, paired off in mock battles, wove in and out in figures, marched like a phalanx of spearmen.

Next a women's dance was played, sinuous fiddles with a throbbing bass line. The divers lined up and went through the movements of the Diver's Round, scarcely moving their feet. Their shoulders, their hips, their arms and graceful hands wove and described circles in the warm air. It was bawdy and at the same time delicate as water ferns, lewd and tender all together. On either side of Eliss, Alder and Wolkin fell silent, staring.

There were some songs after that, tunes everyone knew and could follow in the chorus. Salpin stood and demonstrated that he had a rich voice, as well as one that carried.

"Little girl among the nets, mending your fathers nets,
By the wall where the sea pinks bloom You have caught me in your nets, my heart among the nets By the wall where the sea pinks bloom.

"But your father watches you, so sharp he watches you By the wall where the sea pinks bloom That I cannot speak to you, I cannot come to you By the wall where the sea pinks bloom.

"Little lizard, go to her father, tell him his boat is on fire Little gull, fly to him, tell him his house is on fire Little crab, crawl to him, tell him the tavern's on fire Little girl, have pity on me! My heart is on fire By the wall where the sea pinks bloom."

There was laughter and applause afterward. Salpin smiled and held up his hands.