West of January (32 page)

I looked like a trader—unusually large for a male, but a trader nonetheless.

Spinster? “Where?” I asked, playing for time.

Black’s expression grew even more lugubrious. “If we knew that we wouldn’t be here, now would we?”

“I suppose not.”

The conversation lagged for a while. The hippos continued to browse their noisy way through the trees, and Black continued to study me. I stared back down at him with all the confidence I could feign. I had promised Misi I would get her safely past the angels, and I was going to do everything in my power to keep my promise.

“You have seen no slaving, then?” Black asked suddenly.

I shook my head, attempting to display disapproval.

“Wetlanders in particular, of course.” He watched my reaction very carefully.

“No blonds here, sir. Nor in the other trains.”

“You will not mind opening your wagon for me, though, trader?”

Misi had warned me that he would ask, and we had agreed that this was the tricky part, for I could still barely walk.

“I would not mind, sir”—I waved at the trees crowding in around us—“but we can’t open the doors in this.”

“There is a clearing.” Black pointed ahead and to the left.

I frowned, as if not wanting to divert from my road, but in truth we should have to veer very little to reach the clearing and to refuse would only prolong the ordeal. I shrugged and turned to Misi, yelling at her and pointing. She played stupid for a while, but the clearing was a large one, and we could not keep up the pretense for long enough to slip by it. Eventually she nodded and began turning the team toward the gap.

Black was still sauntering beside me. His manner reeked of suspicion.

“Tell me, sir,” I inquired jocularly, “whatever will you do if you open my wagon and a wetlander jumps out at you?”

He frowned. I had to wait awhile for his answer, but he could not hold a silence as long as Misi could. “Save him, of course.”

I wanted to ask what would happen if the wetlander did not want to be saved, but I dared not reveal more ignorance. Then we were out of the trees and the wagon doors could be opened.

“Pula!” I shouted. “Show the angel what we carry.”

Black’s eyebrows rose. “You will not do me the courtesy of taking me yourself, Nob Bil?”

“My regrets, angel. My knee… Walking is painful for me.”

Evidently he was suspicious of my knee story, but Pula jumped from a side window and led him back to look at the stock Had I been able to accompany him, he might well have asked questions about Misi’s trade goods that I should have been unable to answer. Pula was at least genuine and would know about them, if he could get a response from her. The goods were becoming depleted. We had been living off them for some time.

Then Black returned. We were almost across the clearing, heading toward more timber.

“Well, I found no slaves, trader.”

“I hardly expected you to, sir.”

He indulged himself in more staring. I became even tenser. Obviously he could tell that something was wrong. Would he let us go?

“You will forgive this inconvenience, though?” he said. “As an honest trader, you must be revolted by the inhuman practice of slaving.”

“Absolutely. I deplore it.” I was being truthful there.

“And slaving itself is nothing compared to the barbarous obscenities of a spinster.”

I shrugged noncommitally. “If one believes all the tales.”

“Oh, they are true! It would be disgusting enough to treat even a dumb animal as a spinster treats her victims. To use human beings so is beyond all understanding.”

I remembered Hrarrh’s dark hints and shivered. But I had promised Misi that I would save her from the angels. She had professed a great fear of what the angels might do if they discovered I was a wetlander. Even though I was no longer a slave, she had said, and even if I were to tell them so myself, they would guess that I had been one originally. Then they would be hard on her, perhaps even burning her goods and wagons. I loved Misi. I trusted her, and here was my chance to show her she could trust me. Given a chance for rescue, I was staying with her by choice. I was proving that I loved her.

“Oh, I agree,” I said.

The angel nodded reluctantly. “Then good fortune, trader.”

“And good hunting, angel.”

We had made it! As soon as the angel was out of sight, I threw my arms around Misi and kissed her.

─♦─

Wary of treachery, I intended to retain my trader disguise until we were well past the angel roadblock, but as soon as I felt we were reasonably safe, I turned to Misi with determination.

“Now you know you can trust me!” I said. “So I want to know why!
Why
do traders buy wetlanders?”

She had three techniques she used to avoid answering my questions. Sometimes she played the moron again, although that was hardly credible now. Sometimes she wept, and that always reduced me to tears myself, for I was tortured by the memories of having manhandled her in my drugged frenzy and I could not bear the thought of making her surfer any more. Her third evasion, always the most effective, was merely to join me on the bed. That never failed.

This time I was not on the bed. Misi smiled and patted my shoulder. “Because wetlanders are great lovers.”

“That’s not the reason!”

“Yes it is—I’ll show you!”

She picked me up and carried me inside.

In my long life I had known many women, far more than my fair share, but none could ever rouse me faster or more frequently than Misi with her enormous hands and her great soft body. In none did I ever find greater joy.

As I was to refuse to admit long afterward to Cherub Beef in Cloud Nine, Misi was very hot stuff.

More important, though—I loved her.

─♦─

Now we were facing unknown country. I could barely walk and we had no horses. I could neither scout nor hunt, the two main duties of a trader male. Once the caravan behind us was also safely past the roadblock, Misi doubled back to meet it.

The negotiating session was very long, and I was not present. At one point she brought three or four of the men to meet Pula, who was driving, and I began to guess what sorts of things were being discussed. They also wanted to talk to me, for they could not believe that we had managed to smuggle a wetlander by the angels. My hair was still dark with dye, but the paleness of my legs convinced them. They all laughed as I described the conversation with Black-white-red. They congratulated me on being a fine trader, and Misi beamed proudly at me.

Eventually a deal was struck, and we joined the caravan. We even acquired a new man, a youngster named Mot Han. He was just reaching adulthood, and his father had contributed some wealth to set him up on his own. Horses and hippos were included, and a second wagon. It must have been a very complicated agreement.

The new wagon was hooked up to Misi’s, and Mot and Pula set up home in it, for Pula was also a party to the deal, and a very willing one. In almost the only remark she ever volunteered to me, she admitted that Mot was a much more interesting cab partner than old Lon Kiv had been. She expressed great surprise at this discovery, almost excitement. I sometimes think that maybe Pula really was no smarter than she seemed.

Mot was a pleasant enough kid, so small and fresh-faced that I had trouble believing his mustache was real. As for his beard, I had seen better on old cheese. He in turn tended to avoid me, and he had an annoying habit of not meeting my eye when we did talk. Nevertheless, the little guy was a wily hunter and a superb cook. Our fare improved greatly.

Part of a community once more, we continued to wend our way east and south. We forded rivers, gradually penetrating deeper into the great jungle. As their forage became denser, the hippos’ progress became slower. I was too ignorant to realize that traders normally shunned such terrain.

I could stagger around stiff-legged, and Mot taught me to ride a horse and also to cook, after a fashion. I regained my old skill with a bow and tried hunting. My hair grew in, and many cuttings made me a blond once more. Being a trader was even more enjoyable than being a seaman, because Misi was there.

The men scouted our path, and of course, they went trading. They must have made inquiries about the spinster, although I did not know that then. They gathered information and they passed the word. It was the lure of the spinster that was pulling our path so far into the heavy jungle. Misi could have obtained such cooperation only by contributing some portion of me to the whole caravan. She would have been able to afford it, for a wetlander delivered to the right quarters represents the most valuable cargo a trader ever sees.

I had no inkling of any of that. When I was sold, I was asleep, dreaming of my love. I awoke to find the cab full of stocky, dark brown men armed with spears.

—9—
THE SPINSTER

T
HE NEWCOMERS WERE NOT AS DARK AS THE ANGEL HAD BEEN
, and their black hair was straight, not woolly. They wore only brief pagnes of spotted fur, but bright green and yellow bands of tattoos writhed all over their faces and chests and around their limbs. They were thick and broad, and their rain-wet skins shone like polished walnut. The blades of their spears were even shinier.

They stripped me, for my clothes had not been included in the purchase. They clucked approvingly at my paleness and disapprovingly at my wasted legs. They made me stand to show I could. They enveloped me in a burnoose of heavy brown stuff that seemed absurdly big, hem trailing on the floor, sleeves covering my hands. The hood pulled right over my head to fasten in front, with only a tiny gap for me to see through. I was too bewildered to believe all this was happening.

Then they lifted me down to the ground. Misi was standing nearby, towering over a group of the male traders and more of the short brown men, like a duck training ducklings to swim. They were all examining a pile of dark-colored bales in much the same way the newcomers had examined me.

“Misi!” I shouted and started waddling toward her in the absurd straight-legged gait that later led the cherubim to call me “Roo.” The traders glanced at me and then turned away. Except for one. Little Mot Han was staring fixedly, his face strained and pallid, as if he were about to throw up.

I reached Misi and fell against her, my knees screaming pains of protest at my haste. I clutched her, but she did not return my embrace. “Misi, what’s happening?” I knew what was happening.

“Dear Knobil!” Misi said. “I want you to go with these men.” She bent her head a little, to plant a kiss on my wet forehead.

“Why? Misi, I can’t bear to be parted—”

“To please me, Knobil? To make me happy?”

And to make her rich. I glanced bitterly at the heap of wealth. Misi was a trader, and wealth her dream of heaven. I must not judge her by others’ standards.

“You go now, Knobil. I want you to go now. Please. You were a great lover, Knobil.” She went back to counting.

One of the men gripped my arm to urge me away, then two of them scooped me up to carry me. My feet dropped and I howled in agony. All I could think of then was to scream that my legs must be kept straight. When I managed to make that clear, four of them hoisted me shoulder-high and bore me off like a corpse. So I did not get another glimpse of Misi.

She had sold me. Yet I cannot hate her for it. Even now I love her and cannot think badly of her. We must all follow our own paths in this world, and Misi was a trader. I’m sure she really was sorry, for I saw a tear in her eye.

I don’t think it was rain.

─♦─

My pallbearers did not carry me far. Beyond a stand of great trees lay a wide river, and there we came to three canoes drawn up on the bank in the steamy jungle gloom. I was dropped into one, not gently, and before I could even free my hands from my sleeves to make an attempt at scrambling out again, the craft had been launched and was underway, surging over the dark oily waters. A line of six kneeling men labored before me. Six rain-slicked backs rippled; six paddles flashed.

I unfastened my hood, and a spear shaft thwacked my ribs so hard they rang like a drum. I yelped and looked around.

A seventh man sat at my back. “Stay covered!” He was bigger than the others, with a broad, strong face. Without all the green and yellow tattoos he might have been quite handsome, but his expression was unfriendly. He looked young enough that he might not have realized how hard he had hit me. He also looked capable of hitting much harder.

I fumbled to close my hood, even as I was asking, “Why?”

He bared big white teeth in what he probably thought was an approving smile. “Wetlanders must stay out of the sun.”

Even if the sun had been shining through the drizzle, most of the river would have been shaded by the great timber that walled its banks. “Why?” I demanded again. “Who says so?”

“Ayasseshas.”

“Who is Ayasseshas?”

A curious dreaminess danced in the darkness of his eyes. “She is our queen. Our goddess. She is Ayasseshas.”

“A spinster?”

“Of course.” He produced a rope and leaned forward to tie one end around my waist. “Ayasseshas expects us to deliver you, wetlander. Every one of us would die for her. You will not escape.”

I did not know what might live in those gloomy waters, and we were a long way from the banks. I could swim, of course, but not as fast as a canoe traveled and probably not while wearing a tent. The sort of escape he was talking about was suicide.

And suddenly suicide seemed like a very good idea. The thought of losing Misi was unbearable, and the notion that she had betrayed me unthinkable. Had my guard not tied that noose on me and fastened the other end to a thwart behind him where I could not reach, then likely I would have tried to kill myself. Hrarrh had warned me once that a trader would sell his grandsons, but I still would not believe that Misi had sold me. Despite the evidence, my mind rejected the possibility. There had been some horrible misunderstanding. Or it was a trick? Was she planning to rescue me…? I slumped over in a heap of misery and stayed like that for a long time.