The Returning (28 page)

It was, but Pin sniffled over it.

“Was I ever this difficult with it?” Mam spoke to the room. Most of the women went
aye, aye
, meaning Pin was the most difficult maid any of them had ever dealt with. Old Mam Mattow smiled.

“Growing up, now that is difficult.”

Mam's anger softened.

“All done?” asked Mam Mattow.

Pin nodded.

Outside, the cold pinched her cheeks with freezing fingers. The fire in the middle of the yard was huge, and so hot that no one stood closer than a handful of paces to it. They all spread out farther when the women gathered on the steps of the shrine. Pin had her bloody cloth in her right hand, the lock of her own black hair in her left. She walked through the crowd and cast both handfuls on the fire. It was done. The villagers whooped and cheered, then jammed around the tables to eat.

It was done and it was strange, because she did feel different. Pin felt she should behave like a woman, like a grown-up. She sat and watched the other children playing, aching again, bored, miserable.

Nariet came up and clasped Pin's hands. “Now we're both there!”

“Aye.”

Nariet was pulling on her hands,
come
. They walked around to the side of the shrine, and under the shrieks of the little ones at play Nariet said, “I'm betrothed.”

Pin dropped her hands. “You do what?”

“Aye.”

“And to who?”

“Caldo Sanderlin. The ceremony is on the solstice and then I go there, to live with them until we wed.”

“When will you?”

“Don't know.”

Pin thought a moment. “Er. Will you work in the store?”

“Don't know that either.”

“Are you happy about it?”

“I . . . don't know.”

It would be different when Nariet moved homes. “Caldo . . . he is none so bad.”

“Aye.”

Farrow came up, bouncing around them on his toes. “Who will you kiss, Pin Attling? You do have to kiss someone.” He swung mock punches at her.

Pin folded her arms. “It'll not be you, Pig-face.” She thought suddenly of a game for grown-ups. “Whoever can walk farthest along the wall can kiss me.”

The shrine wall was immensely high, and narrow. Snow drifted thick against its southern face—the wall game was never played in summer, only in winter when the drifts saved you from injury, or death. The top was milky with ice. The trick was to walk lightly, fast but not too fast.

All about them, the children went quiet, then noisy as they called to each other to come-and-watch-Pin-kiss-the-boys. The big girls came over, then the big boys.

Nariet held out her clenched, gloved fists. The boys must choose which held the stone. If they lost, then they walked the wall. The draw would be made again and again until all the boys had done it. Caldo was the only boy in the village Pin's age—most were older, so it was Acton Mansto, Samlin Pacenot, and Farrow Gorlance who lined up. There were Uplander boys, but they only watched, and kept themselves at a distance.

Caldo fell after one step.

Nariet leaned over. “He did that apurpose.” Betrothed as he now was, it was right he did not win. Acton ran the length of it, slipping at the last to land on his feet in the drift. That made Pin feel shy with him, and she kept her eyes turned from him. Samlin fooled about, showing off, and nearly came to grief on the wall's far side. Then Farrow climbed up. Pin watched, right thumb held in her left hand for luck. For Farrow to fall, that was what she wanted. Fall on his head and die.

He made it halfway and fell off into the drift, to jeers from all of them watching.

Acton Mansto is going to kiss me
, thought Pin. She watched Farrow heave himself out of the drift, watched him lumber over. She was not at all ready for him when he grabbed her and slapped a wet tonguey kiss on her cheek. Uproar. Pin wiped her face with snow. “You didn't ought to have kissed me. You do know the rules and you do always break them.”

“Ooh,” said Farrow. “Aah.”

“My brother will come back and he'll sort you out.”

“Oh aye, when he's done licking Uplander arses. Likes Uplanders better than his family, doesn't he?”

The Uplander children drew closer together.

Pin punched Farrow in his podgy stomach, as hard as she could. He staggered back, holding his gut, then marched down on her,
stomp, stomp
and—
snatch!
—picked her up and slapped her right across the face.

Pin screeched. “My brother does not lick anyone's arse.”

“You Uplander-loving Attlings—
Ow
.” Farrow dropped her rather suddenly. Acton Mansto had grabbed him and spun him around and—
whap!
—hit him square on the nose. Farrow's nose bled like the new-year pig, all over his chin and front.

“You all right, Pin?”

She nodded. Now she wanted to cry. “My brother does not—”

“Nay,” said Acton. “Nay. Come here.” He turned her head. “Look at that. You do need to put some snow on it.”

Pin held the snow to her stinging eye.

“Not what a grown lady would do, Miss Pin.”

Pin was sure Acton was laughing at her, but it was different from how Farrow laughed at her, or even Hughar. He turned her a little more, so that they both had their shoulders to the watching children. “Your brother did behave very kind toward me. I don't ever forget that.”

“I don't want to kiss anyone yet,” said Pin.

“I'll save it for when you do.”

That was the end of Pin's coming-of-age day. Da lugged her up in his arms, young woman though she was, and so did she ride home.

“
Whop
,” she said. “He did just tap Farrow right in the snout.”

That made Da laugh. “You do spend too much time with those brothers of yours.”

“Bed for you, my maid,” said Mam when they arrived home, same as she always did.

“
N
URSEMAID!” CAM SAID. Shouted.

“Personal Guard.” Gyaar poured tea for him.

“It is a position of great distinction.” Cam knotted his sleeve. “But I cannot.”

Gyaar tapped his cup, and Cam poured for him. “Cannot?”

“I come from there.”

“That is why you have been chosen for this role.”

Cam remembered Fat Fenister's face at the undoing of the betrothal that had tied Cam to Graceful: not gloating, but scheming, looking into the years ahead and seeing perhaps this very marriage, Lord to farmer's daughter. “I'm not of Fenister's class. Put her under one of your own and you'll do better.”

“I thought you were one of mine.”

“Nursemaid!” Cam swore in his own language.

Gyaar lolled laughing in his seat. “You'll need to teach me something more polite or I may find conversing with her awkward.”

Cam was silenced. After a moment he bowed. “I am honored at the appointment.” To protest or jest was acceptable, but still the proper ways must be held to, or the protest became an insult.

Gyaar clasped his shoulder. “Thank you, my friend. It is only for a short time, until she feels herself to be at home here.”

Cam shook his shoulder free. Clear as if she stood next to him, Mam's voice sounded in his ears:
A look on you to sour the milk
. Cam hushed it into silence.

 

CAM WAYLAID A passing servant. “Have you seen Diido?”

No, the servant had not.

He strode across the wide spread of the lawn, ignoring the paths, but Diido was not in the garden, by the pond, or in the pavilion. Cam thought of the nursery enclosure, and ground his teeth.

Tseri waddled to the gate of the nursery and leaned on it. “Lord Downlander.”

Cam lifted his head and looked down his nose at him. “Old Man, I'm looking for Diido.”

“She at the pond?”

“If she was, would I be asking you where she is?”

“Ya, ya. Got your women's time, have you? Ha, ha.”

Cam stalked off.

Urasu sat by the brazier in his office eating oranges. “Mmf. Have one, delicious.”

Cam sat on the table and mounded the orange peel, spread it flat with his hand. “Have you seen Diido?”

“Diido?” He spat pips into his palm. “Why would I see her? Have you been to the—”

“Pond? Bah.” Cam reached across him and caught up a piece of fruit.

“The women's quarters, I was going to say.”

Cam ate a solitary meal in his room, watching the day die. With the setting of the sun a light breeze picked up; going to the window, he leaned into it, tightening the ties of his shirt at the touch of the cool air on his skin. The garden was speckled with light, little stone lanterns, each flame pushing the dark back. Cam stepped outside, headed again to the pond; circled it; mounted the bridge. The water snatched little bits of light from the lanterns and threw them out again,
wink
,
wink
.

Something bit his cheek.

Diido's voice came to him from out of the dark. “Yah!” She flicked some more gravel at him.

Grinning, Cam crested the bridge's high arch, and came down it to her side of the pond. “Where have you been? I looked for you all the day.”

“With My Lady Graceful.”

“You went to see her?”

“See! Hah. I am maid-in-waiting to My Lady now. Here.” Diido grabbed his arm and pulled him into a pool of lamplight. She spun a slow circle and watched the skirts of her robe float with the movement. Her jacket had come loose at the neck; Cam saw the hollows of her collarbones, her skin smooth and dusky. Then he realized: a robe, a women's robe. And when he thought about it, her hair was different, all piled up and . . . and elegant, as was the robe.

“Tseri,” said Diido, “is getting a new Koi-boi.” She turned again in a circle. “Cloth as fine as any Ay or Manui would wear.” For a moment, her expression was bleak.

“So the poor fish must live unsung?”

“Tseri has a nephew's son, or is it his niece's son?”

“But I thought . . .” Cam shook his head. “I thought you were fixed on the fish, staying with them.”

“Dull-witted tonight, you! I'm going to find me some better company.” She curtsied.

“I didn't know you knew how to do that.” Cam smiled, but Diido didn't see.

“The Lady Graceful taught me.”

“Oh for the sake of the great gods! All I hear is
Lady Graceful
.”

Diido held her webbed fingers to the lamplight. “She's like me. She knows about being different.”

“Huh.” Cam touched the cuff of his hanging sleeve. When he looked up, Diido was gone.

 

IN THE WOMEN'S quarters no one wore shoes. A great white chamber, benches spilling cushions all around its perimeter, formed a waiting room. Cam sat in the doorway and hauled off his boots. His stockings left damp marks on the floor, while a very junior maid-in-waiting trotted at his side, embroidered slippers
ssh-sshing
as if her footsteps breathed.

“If you please, sir.” The child pointed to a bench, then dashed through the latticed screen that marked the entrance to the women's quarters. Cam sat, fought the cushions a moment, and stood again.

Graceful Fenister—Cam stopped the thought.
Lady Graceful Ryuu
came out through the screen. The Uplander robes she wore only just overlapped at the front, she was so much rounder than most Uplander women. She kept tucking the edges in.

“Cam Attling.” Coming over, she offered both her hands to him, her smile warm as sunlight. “I am so happy to have a familiar face about me.”

It was different, seeing her here, wife to Gyaar. She was different. Cam bowed, keeping his arm at his side. “My lady,” he said, in Uplander.

She went a deep and unattractive red, and flinched a little, then she tried again. “It is so strange, seeing you here. It is like a circle, what with us once having been betrothed, and now—”

“He does not know.”

“Not know?”

Nursemaid
, Cam told himself, and turned away.

The ladies were gathering in the waiting room, all ready to go outside.

“Come,” said the most senior of them, in Graceful's place, and without waiting for her mistress she led the way outside. After some hesitation—the ladies looking to Graceful for direction, and receiving nothing but a downbent gaze—the rest followed. Graceful trailed last.

“It is good to be outdoors.” Graceful lifted her face to the sun. “Ii-yo,” she said to one of the ladies. “Please ask for our tea to be brought to us here. It is so pleasant outside after being cooped up all the winter long.”