Shadowmarch

brought you here?”

“To admire the turn of my calf?”

“Wretched old fool. Tell us a tale. Perhaps…” Pondering, or pretending to, the paramount wife put a ringer to her red, red lips. Even Qinnitan could not help staring at her like a lovesick boy. “Perhaps the story of the Foolish Hen.”

“Very well, Great Queen.” The old man bowed Now that he was closer, Qinnitan could see that his white whiskers were stained yellow around his mouth. “Here is the tale, although it is a rather simple one, without any good jokes but the last one:

“Once there was a very foolish hen, who preened and preened herself, certain that she was the most beautiful of her kind in all creation,” he began.

“The other hens grew weary of her posturing and began to talk behind her back, but the foolish hen paid no attention at all. ‘Jealous, that is all they are,’ she told herself. ‘Who cares what they think? They are of no importance compared to the man who feeds us. That is someone whose opinion matters, and who will recognize my quality.’ So she set out to gain the attention of the man who came every day to spread corn on the ground.

“Every time he arrived, she would push her way out from the midst of the other hens and strut back and forth before the man, head held high, breast shoved forward. When he looked away, she would call to him—’Ga-gaw! Ga-gaw!’—until he looked her way again. But still he treated her no differently from any of the others. The foolish hen became very angry and resolved to do whatever it took to be noticed.”

Qinnitan was feeling a chill again. Was there a point to this story? Was Arimone suggesting that the younger wife had gone out of her way somehow to attract attention? The autarch’s? Or someone else’s? It was all too difficult to understand, but the penalties would be no less mortal because the crimes weren’t altogether clear. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to be back in the Temple of the Hive, surrounded by the sweet hum of the sacred bees.

“The foolish hen could not sleep for trying to imagine a way to get the man’s attention. Her lovely voice had not moved him. Perhaps he needed to see that she valued him more than the others did, but how could she do that? She resolved to eat more of the corn he dropped than anyone else, and so she followed him from the first moment he arrived until he went away again, pecking at the other hens to drive them away and eating as much corn as she could,, manage. The other hens despised her as she grew fatter and sleeker, but still the ‘* * * * *man did not speak to her, did not single her out in any way. She decided she would fly to him and show him that she alone was worthy of his attention. It was not easy, because by now she was quite plump, but by practicing every day she at last managed to stay aloft long enough to flutter a good distance.

“One day, after the man finished spreading the corn and began to walk back to the house, the hen flew after him. It was harder than she thought it would be and she did not catch up to him until he had already gone through the door. She hurried after and flew inside, but it was dark and she could not see, so she began to call out —’Ga-gaw! Ga-gaw!’ —to let him know she had arrived.

“The man came to her and picked her up. Her heart was full of joy.

“ ‘I have tried to ignore you, you fat thing,’ he said, ‘because I was going to save you for the Feast of the Rising at the end of the rainy season, but here you are in my kitchen, shouting at the top of your lungs. Clearly it is the great god’s will that I eat you now! And so speaking, he wrung her neck and set a fire in the oven…”

Qinnitan stood suddenly and the old man Hasuris fell silent. He looked a little shamefaced, as if he had somehow guessed the story might upset her, which didn’t seem possible. “I… I don’t feel very well,” she said. She was dizzy and sick to her stomach.

Arimone looked at her with wide eyes. “My poor little sister? Can I get you something?”

“No, I… I think I had better go home I’m v—very s—s—sorry.” She put her hand over her mouth—she had a sudden, powerful urge to vomit all over the first wife’s beautiful striped cushions.

“Oh, no, must you really? Perhaps it would be better for you to have a little more mint tea. Surely that would settle your stomach.” Arimone picked up Qinnitan’s cup and held it out to her, gaze doe-innocent. “Go ahead, little sister. Drink some more. It is made to my special recipe and it cures nearly all ills.”

Filled with horror, Qinnitan shook her head and stumbled out without even bowing. She heard the slaves laughing and whispering behind her.

29. The Shining Man

FIVE WHITE WALLS:

Here is the shape with its tail

In its mouth

Here is the inside turned outside, the outside in

—from The Bonefall Oracles

“Listen carefully,” Chert said when he had put some distance between himself and the temple of the Metamoric Brothers. He raised his hand to his shoulder to let Beetledown climb onto his palm, then held him so that he could see the man’s tiny face. “If your nose is telling you the truth and this is the way Flint went, I think I know where he’s going.”

“If my nose?” The Rooftopper’s features screwed up in indignation. “Wasn’t bred for it like the Grand and Worthy, me, but leaving un out, there be not a better sniffiter in all of the Southmarch heights.

“I believe you.” Chert took a deep, shaky breath. “It’s just that where he’s headed.” His knees felt weak and he had to sit down, which he did carefully the Rooftopper was still standing on his hand. For the first time that Chert Blue Quartz could remember, he wished he were outside, under the sky, instead of beneath the unimaginable weight of stone that had been the top of his world almost all his life, and had always held that place in his thoughts. “Where he’s headed is a very strange place. A sacred place. Sometimes it can be a dangerous place.”

“Cats? Snakes?” The Rooftopper’s eyes were wide. Despite his growing fear, Chert almost smiled. “No, nothing like that. Well, there might be animals down there, but that’s the least of my worries.” “Because th’art a giant.”

Now Chert did smile: being called a giant was something that would probably never happen to him again. “Fair enough. But what I need to tell you is that I have a decision to make. It’s not an easy one.”

The little man looked at him now with keen interest, just like Cinnabar or one of the other Guild leaders being presented with a tricky but possibly lucrative bargain. The Rooftoppers were not just like people, they were people, Chert knew that now; they were just as complicated and lively as the Funderlings or anyone else. So why were they so small? Where did they come from? Had they been punished by the gods, or was there something even stranger in their origins?

Thoughts of the gods and their fabled propensity for vengeance were, at this moment, more compelling than usual.

“Here is my problem,” he told Beetledown. “I told you before that places like the temple… that some of my people might frown on you being there. We are uncomfortable with outsiders seeing the things that are most important to us.”

“Understood,” said the little man.

“Well, I think Flint has gone deeper still into… into what we call the Mysteries. And I know that many of my people will be upset if I bring an outsider there. It was one reason I haven’t even taken Flint anywhere near the place, even though he is my foundling son.”

“Then time has come for me to go back to my own home.” Beetledown sounded quite cheerful about it, and Chert wasn’t surprised: the little man had become less comfortable the longer and deeper their journey became. In fact, he seemed positively to glow with satisfaction at the thought that his travels below ground were about to end,