The Totem-Maker (part fifteen)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Two

Jealousy

(part fifteen)

The wine in this country had for many years now a foul undertaste. Well, that was the soil itself; the changeable airs between the mountain and the sea. Sweeter could be found in the north. But being a month’s journey, there could be no waiting for the midwinter fairs…

“My poor Darsale. Ah! She will grow used to it. Are you familiar at all with our sort of food, Sente?”

They were the palest man and woman I had ever seen. They had spots to their skin, a russet pattern dotting their arms, and for the bareness of these, were more clothed, too, than anyone I’d seen—under and over garments, bonnets on their heads, shoes above the ankle. They made me pity all the more this daughter.

To be such as that, and to come alone, and to have been supplanted beforehand by another…

I was struck by the porter’s manner. He entered, knowing something, that in his private thoughts gave entertainment. He was bold enough, with this smile in his voice, to ask if the supplicant should not be summoned after the dinner was ended?

“I believe he wants the Prince…expected him here, I can’t say why. But he is Lord Cime’s man.”

A clap of hands, and a lesser servant drew the curtain. Mumas with a face of sums jotted, lists completed, edged in. Lifted, to spot the northern pair, the face showed a growing surprise.

Cime’s being there astonished him.

Sente, to shame the parents of Darsale, downed wine devil-may-care. He leaned, fell a little, tapped his friend’s arm with a cup. “I give you leave. Interrogate your…what do I want to call…”

“Mumas,” Cime said. “Have you been to my house? Is there a message?”

He must think of Pytta, and the child she bore…he frowned; Mumas frowned back.

Sente said: “Have him wait at the foot of the steps.”

It was the only place one might. The northerners had their servants, waiting women and armed esquires, a small rebuking crowd on the right. Sente had his own, casual in retort, on the left. Lom and I, by the pride of Sente’s retainers, sat on the highest rank, almost a joke (but played very soberly).

Mumas began to speak; some fresh illumination intervened, choking his words.

At last: “My Lord Cime, no. If I were asked to carry a message, I would dispatch it by my own servant, and he would give it to the porter. At this hour, I had not thought of ceremony… My Lord Sente, you have my apology. I will return to my own house.”

16

Jealousy

The Totem-Maker (part sixteen)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)