The Totem-Maker (part one hundred eight)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Ten

Crafter Becomes Maker

(part one hundred eight)

Then…

If a person who is kind, whose justice is sure-fixed as the quiet mountain we call Ami…

She, you believe in; her honor is to you a matter of faith; her gentleness in dealing with the least of others, is proof…

Ah well. If you are Darsale, you resent this proof. Still you know Noakale to be a lodestar…

And yet.

She is aloof, she seems unheeding, and will not champion you in your humiliation. More angering to a proud heart than a kinsman’s wife of temper, who can sometimes be won. The Prince would have Sente’s life if Darsale asked. He would rather not, keeping Sente for use, if his cousin held off; if the matter slept.

And if, one day, by showing sympathy, Noakale were to breathe life into that slumbering pride…

Did she know it?

Better than I.

I laughed, at the intricate irony I had discovered, and Darsale’s woman laughed too, nervous to seem agreeable to such as a Totem-Maker. When I had followed her through the hidden archway and up the stairs, and onto Lord Ei’s playing fields, I expected to be seated. I found the carpets for guests were not laid—nothing was made ready but the roasting pits and bridal pavilion.

Gates stood stoppered against the wind, gates through which bareback riders would charge at the drop of a flag.

Barked trunks were fixed in pits, and a performer practiced his acrobatics here, vaulting to alight on one foot, hoisting the pole to spring with it to the other trunk, keeping his balance by keeping in constant motion.

Watching him, I felt a bundle land at my feet.

“I know you can make a decent showing for yourself, unless…” The Peddler toed my bow and arrows. “This living inside the scholarly head has cost you your lessons. A poor man like myself must hunt to eat, and so be in practice…”

“Oh, I am not competing.”

“Of course you are. All guests join the games.”

“I am not a guest. I am a happenstance. They will let me bow out.”

“I don’t advise it. Not sporting.”

I can afford to be a disappointment, I wanted to say.

“Tell me about these games,” I said instead. “I have seen the races…Lord Ei is fond of them. Shall I guess that for the archery we have weighted targets, carrying downslope, and that the archer places inside the ring to win…to score the prize?”

“I’ll set one for you.”

112

Crafter Becomes Maker

The Totem-Maker (part one)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)