The Totem-Maker (part nineteen)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Two

Jealousy

(part nineteen)

First came change.

As to turn a tile, and find the sun’s promise shadowed, so slightly, by the cat—whose tail may flick one way or another.

At Cime’s house we heard the clanging bell. Fire burned in one of Madla’s lofts, a tentmaker’s. This man employed three; they had fed a length of cloth over the balcony…

And being too few to manage so much, had let the cloth touch coals under a dyeing vat. Flames mounted at a roar, chaotic flight meshed and locked itself with her foreman’s courageous marshalling of buckets. Lom and I stumbled after, by the path of Madla’s swinging stick, carrying her books.

We were not wanted, but curious, excited…

We were.

Apprised by ears and eyes, Madla met her foreman as he pushed clear.

“Have them take all those things, any scrap the fire has so much as warmed…carry all to the street. The floors must be swept and sluiced with water. Atrus may climb my roof and tear away the tiles himself… No, of course not.” A tight smile; and one returned. “Tell Atrus I wait for him.”

Lom and I were forgotten. Madla chivvied her woman to the finding of scattered witnesses. Shouted orders brought dozens clambering with burnt cloths. We tangled in and out, the neighborhood circling, a hand or two reaching for the books—

One waved a fistful of scorched braid, a bronze coin between knuckles: “What does she ask?”

Now a horse appeared, forcing way, restive under the whip. At a jog in Madla’s wall Lom and I withdrew.

The rider was Mumas.

Through hubbub his arm flung side to side, and only his anger made itself heard. A bucket upended; someone backing, fleeing, skidded to a painful fall. My gaze was here when the whip licked my bare arm, and the voice came distinct, bellowing, “God’s bane! I won’t have you in my sight!”

I ducked into his path. In worse language he berated me, bent on riding me to the wall. Madla’s books were slipping; I did not like letting them go. I felt that Mumas would trample me, meant to, if I stooped. Lom edged to lay his own load down; he was back and reaching to steady my elbow.

Drumming his whip and kicking heels, Mumas cleared half-circles round his horse’s flanks. His frenzy drew notice, and from the animal’s orbit a wary quiet spread. By now its master might easily have charged onwards.

I say all this to paint the picture. It was much faster…Lom’s head was next to mine, his arm sheltering, then a flash and a blow that glanced my ear.

And blood that bathed, where that from my arm had trickled.

20

Jealousy

The Totem-Maker (part twenty)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)