“Nobody,” whispers Latibor in an exhausted voice. “We’d only been in Houmfon a short time. When we heard Old Man Daddy was dying, we decided we’d better get out, but before we left, we told our neighbors we were going upriver, to the Viel Gorge.”
“Somebody looking for you in Houmfon?”
“Probably not at all,” says Cafferty. “Certainly not yet. They’d have no reason to. We’re just folk.”
They aren’t just Derbeck folk! Though human enough, they’re too big to be Murrey; too wide-mouthed and high-nosed to be Houm; too sandy-skinned to be High Houm. They are, in fact, distinctive, and Ghatoun doesn’t believe for a minute there won’t be somebody looking for them. Still….
“You believers in Chimi-ahm?” asks the headman very softly, so softly not even his own folks hear him. “You dabbo-dam?”
“No,” whisper the strangers. “We aren’t believers. We’ve never been taken.”
Could be, as many places as they’ve been, they’re immune to being taken by the hungry ones, Zhulia the Whore, and Chibbi the Dancer and Lord Balal and all the minor manifestations.
“Well then, stay awhile,” the headman says. “Rest.” They both smile gratefully, tremulously, and do rest while the headman speaks to the sentries, doubling their number, putting them twice as far out as usual. So the strangers say nobody’s looking for them. So they say nobody’s missed them. So. Maybe they believe it. That doesn’t mean Ghatoun has to. He’d be within good sense simply to kill them off and send their bodies down the river. Still, wasn’t it that kind of thing what he’d left Houmfon to escape, long ago, not wanting it for him, or for his wife-mate, or his children, or his people. Wasn’t it that kind of thing what he hated most?
Jory and Asner had arrived on the Bright Winged Dove, a two-masted river-yat with a crew of eighteen including the captain, and this ship now took the others aboard. Danivon’s troupe now totaled seven, if one included the old folks as part of the show. Danivon, though temporarily elated at Jory’s arrival, was beginning to think of his expedition as notably ridiculous: seven people, two of them so old they could barely stagger, two of them mated like the halves of a scissors, only three able-bodied persons, and one of those a fool woman who attracted him as no other woman ever had, yet acted like some female Thrasian in purdah. All of them off on a mission to find out what these putative dragons might be, and if that wasn’t a sideshow right enough, and well within the meaning of the term!
“Where do we go first?” asked Nela, excited despite having decided to disapprove of the entire undertaking and everyone in it. If withholding her approval was the only thing she could do, it was at least something. She would not, she had told Bertran stubbornly and at some length, condone.
“We stop at Salt Maresh,” said Curvis, referring to his pocket file. “Too many children have been sent down from Choire, and we’re to Attend the Situation there on our way upstream.”
“Won’t that tell everyone on Panubi we’re Enforcers and not showmen?” asked Fringe.
“According to the captain, the Dove is the only ship plying the Fohm at this season,” Danivon replied. “So there’s no one to carry word upstream ahead of us. Besides, stopping at Choire will give us a chance to hear the music. I haven’t been to Choire in years, but I remember the music.”
Fringe asked no more questions. Since the revelations in Shallow, she had been much aware of a recurrent disapproval in Nela’s manner. Fringe was trying to set aside their burgeoning friendship as she had set aside other relationships over the years. Nela, however, refused to be set aside. Despite her occasional coolness, she broke out every now and then with a giggle or a sidelong glance or a whisper to Fringe, as though she’d forgotten to be angry, and when she forgot, Fringe forgot too.
So, they sat near one another beside the rail, watching the delta pass by: the reeds, the gardens, men setting their nets for birds, fishermen checking their lines, gaver hunters sharpening their spears as they dried gaver hides over their smoky fires, women on the stamped-clay threshing floors forking shiny showers of dried grain into the air to let the wind blow away the chaff. Everywhere the color and smell of lilies, everywhere spicy blossoms hanging from the rich muddy banks. Everywhere the little round gossle boats, skimming the waters, like water bugs, darting. Everywhere the plash and murmur of folk. Fringe had seen much apprehension in this place, but not a single weapon. She had heard voices shaking with fear but not raised in anger. To one reared in Enarae, this equanimity was unbelievable.
“Don’t they ever fight?” she asked Jory and Asner, who had just come up on deck.
“Not the folk of Shallow, no,” replied Jory, while Asner nodded agreement. “They are of calm temperament and cheerful disposition. They work, not hard, but steadily; they make proper occasions to rejoice.”
“With all this peace and tranquillity, I’d think they would have overpopulated their province by now,” Fringe opined.
Jory shook her head. “Their custom dictates that each woman is entitled to keep two living children under a certain age. If she has more than that, they are given to the Fohm.”
Fringe turned from the peaceful scene with a sense that something had shifted inside her. “To the river? Drowned?”
“They are put into a reed basket and sent downstream.”
“Into the ocean? To drown?”
“Except for the few picked up and adopted by Curward sailors, more likely they are eaten by large gavers, many of which throng the delta and middle reaches of the Fohm. A quick death, and sure.”
“But … but …” Fringe wanted to say, “That’s dreadful. That’s terrible.” She said nothing. It was not dreadful, not terrible. It was only diverse, her indoctrination told her. Diversity. Holy diversity. She shut down her momentary disapproval and
