The Totem-Maker (part one hundred seven)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Ten

Crafter Becomes Maker

(part one hundred seven)

“The emperor,” said one companion. “What does it mean, that token your Bani carried to the guard?”

“A business of his own, the priest’s.”

“Do we go to the guard ourselves, then?”

Together they sat, having reached a shelf of rock that overlooked their town. They saw past and future in the movements below, going in innocence…loved ones and loved homes. They could not speak their fears, each doubting, without words to express it, that the Emperor would not act against the Law. This was never flouted by those Kale Kale most in need of faith, the law that no blood be shed on Lotoq’s flanks. But the Emperor was a conqueror from afar.

“Why is it us they terrorize?”

“Here is truth,” Bani’s father said. “Where the tunnel leads, that we must learn.”

And did they learn? And did these events lead to their exile? Yet it was in exile the poor had grown wealthy.

“Please.”

A woman, one of Darsale’s, stopped my studies. “Please, I am to summon you. The games begin soon.”

“I am in the way, I suppose.”

My remark was too conversational for her comfort. Her hands rose to an uncertain flap; she wished at once to usher me onwards, and to bow to me in contrition.

“How does my Lord Sente?” I asked, pushing to my feet and collecting things.

“I will accept gossip,” I offered, a space later. “Drop your pebble into this well, its depths cannot be plumbed.”

Now I’d played the expected part, speaking in phrases of mystery, she turned, low-voiced. “It was no trouble to him. That the sister of his wife was found, that the lady Darsale was summoned, and must be away for months.”

“Tell me another thing. Was there a time he tried, or she? Had the match fallen cursed, or was it born so?”

“He lives with a woman at her own villa.”

I felt a touch of joy—Ami forfend—for Sente and Caleyna. Pity, yes, for Darsale. Her happiness could be no greater than Jute’s, the fine ambitions of her parents…

And here I left off, because I would have said a condemnation, to both daughters. But I must have Noakale’s marriage story to understand the northern daughter’s expectations. I was fond of Sente, because he had been fond of me. If rude, short speech and mockery were all he would grudge to Darsale, then his wife lived in high vexation. She envied Jute’s better luck, and this medicine was bitter, as Jute to the girl Darsale had been almost a figure of myth…

A byword for a Sad Fate. Among a people to whom all fates were deserved.

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Crafter Becomes Maker

The Totem-Maker (part one)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)