Storm Bride (2 page)

Chapter 2

Saotse

T
he Power Chaoare spoke in
the wind that rustled the tops of the trees, and Saotse listened but comprehended nothing. A flight of starlings answered the wind, voices chattering on the gusts that carried them away, while a crow complained from the shelter of the gently creaking pine. The whispers moved across the tops of the trees as the Power passed by, away from the city, up toward the mountains, out of Saotse’s hearing. Saotse felt the air still in Chaoare’s wake like a fire growing cold in the night. She cocked her head to the west, listening for the ripple of Chaoare’s return, but heard nothing.

She didn’t call out. She had worn her voice hoarse with entreaties to the Powers in the last fifty years. She had soaked her shirt with tears. She had never been answered.

Her toes tickled the tips of the grass then found the hard-packed clay of the path. She walked quickly, sweeping a pinecone and a flat stone from her path with quick swipes of her walking stick, until she came to the place where the clay under her feet turned into smooth stones tumbling toward the sound of water. The smell of saltwater grew strong with the warm, murky stench of the swampy shoreline and bruised kelp, and the damselflies buzzed over the lapping of waves on the stone.

Saotse stepped quickly, her feet finding the shape of every stone in turn, until the muttering of women’s voices rose above the rhythm of the waves. The whisper and crackle of reeds being cut wove into their words, and the slurp of mud over bare feet provided the cadence of conversation. Saotse felt the slab of the quartz cleft that meant the path would soon end, and her steps slowed. The stone paving underfoot gave way to clay, then to mud, and Saotse emerged through a curtain of reeds to where the women worked in ankle-deep water.

“Get yourself to the shore,” Oire was saying, perhaps four strides away. “Any woman as round as you should be lying in a hammock—”

“Lying in a hammock in the lodge!” Uya shouted, from a pace farther to the right. “Eating honey cakes and getting fat! Hiding from the sun! Sucking the fat off the fish skins! If you tell me this one more time—”

“Because I’m your mother, and this is how—”

“Oh, to hear Nei tell it, you were twice as incorrigible as me when you bore your first.”

“So you want me to call Nei here? If you won’t listen to your mother, maybe you’ll listen to your Eldest.”

“Bah.” Three footsteps splashed through the muddy shallows, and Uya’s hand touched Saotse’s forearm. “Saotse, sister, why are you here?”

Saotse clutched Uya’s hand: soft, smooth, nimble. Youthful. Her own fingers were skinny and knobby and ached with age. For a moment her voice escaped her, then she said, “Rada sent me, but I got lost. I’m sorry. I heard something. There was a wind…”

“Oh!” Saotse could hear Uya’s smile. “Did Chaoare pass by?”

Uya was so happy, so blithe and cheerful in her exploitation of Saotse’s curse, that Saotse could almost bring herself to forgive her. Almost. If she weren’t also a model of youth, perhaps. “Yes. She passed by.”

“A good omen, then, for the baby.” Uya laughed and squeezed Saotse’s hand. “Chaoare, bless my child! Oh, Saotse, can you tell me what Oarsa says, too?”

Even hearing Uya ask the question, Saotse could not keep herself from opening up a little, just enough to hear the voices of the shore Powers, the grandchildren of Oarsa, who rose from the waters and hummed in the currents that reached to the depths of the sea, sublime and incomprehensible—but no. Oarsa had fallen silent decades ago, and all her cries had not roused him. But all Saotse said was, “No. But Rada wants you back at the lodge.”

“Where you belong!” Oire added. “Not out pretending to gather reeds like a girl.”

“Yes, mother,” Uya said. “Shall I lead you back to the lodge, Saotse?”

I can get back by myself, just as I came by myself
. If it had been Oire or her insufferable sisters or any of the thoughtless men, Saotse would have voiced the thought. But alas, it was Uya, still young and beautiful Uya, and as bitter as Saotse was, she still felt the duty to spare her little sister from her hatred. It was not Uya’s fault that Saotse dwelt among the long-lived slow people. It was not Uya who had called Saotse from the piny fjord where the mountains met the sea, had her carried on the backs of whales, and then abandoned her. She could still spare some patience for Uya.

So she let the young woman take her hand and lead her back through the reeds to where the path turned to clay and then smooth stone. They took the right fork where the cleft stone was, up a brief incline that made Uya huff and clutch at Saotse’s hand. She muttered something about having to walk these terrible paths with her enormous belly blocking the view of her feet. Then she asked, “Did Rada say what he wanted?”

“No.”

Uya made a groan of annoyance. Saotse guessed that Rada was simply inventing excuses to see Uya and the child once more before the caravans left. If Uya had any sense, she would have listened to her mother’s advice and stayed in the lodge, if not for the sake of the baby, for the sake of her anxious husband. Saotse had neither husband nor child, and she could understand as much.

Then the sound of many voices reached them, mingled with the murmuring of cedars, the nickering of horses, and the creak of harnesses. Saotse clasped Uya’s hand tighter. The area in front of the lodge had become a warren of crates, bales, and wagons that crowded under the lodge’s eaves, as happened every spring when the first caravan prepared to leave. Uya touched Saotse’s elbow and guided her among the half-packed wagons, nudging her to the side when she almost knocked her ankle against a wheel. The mess was an annoyance, but Saotse endured it in expectation of the day when the caravans would return and the barter with merchants would begin. Nei needed her for the barter, depending on her keen ear to know when the other traders had truly reached their final price. Until then, she was at the mercy of the caravan’s chaos.

Men’s voices volleyed orders out of the lodge and back and forth across the yard. A pair of boys sprinted past them, singing caravan songs. Uya scolded them with an inarticulate yowl then tugged Saotse across the threshold into the lodge. The packed dirt of the courtyard gave way to foot-worn wood and a closed, warm, and musty smell. Saotse shivered in relief.

“Uya!” Rada shouted as soon as they crossed the threshold.

Uya dropped Saotse’s hand. From here Saotse could find her own way to the wooden bench that sat near the door, so long as none of the men had moved it. Two cautious paces from the open doorway, she found the bench and let herself slide onto its planks.

“—Morning,” Rada said.

Uya gasped. “So soon?”

“The scouts came back an hour ago. The high roads are clear of snow, all the way to Azatsi’s Fingers. Asa’s already got half of the carts loaded—he wanted to leave a week ago—and even if the Guza outposts weren’t manned, he figures that they’ll be ready by the time we get there.”

The Guza outposts were unmanned? That had never happened before. A tremor of worry passed through Saotse’s stomach.

“But why?” Uya pressed. “By the time you get back—”

“I know. I’ll see the child then. It’ll be barely born. I won’t have missed much.”

Uya sighed. “Well, if you must. But I have something for you.”

Her footsteps receded behind the curtain setting off the women’s alcove, and there was a creak of leather hinges as she opened one of the chests. The floorboards groaned as Rada shifted his weight from one side to another. His affection for Uya was genuine, though Saotse judged that Uya’s reluctance for him to leave was mostly feigned. Uya had never seemed to care that much for Rada, though it had been a profitable match for both families. She seemed primarily glad for the rank that her pregnancy afforded her among the aunts.

Uya returned a moment later. Rada let out a little shout of surprise as she approached him.

“I made this,” she said. “Carved it myself from bone and set the abalone in its mouth. Do you like it?”

“Of—of course,” he stammered.

Saotse’s attention was broken by the sound of soft steps crossing the lodge toward her. Not Uya or Rada. Nei. The bench creaked as the Eldest lowered herself onto the end next to Saotse, and her hand clutched Saotse’s.

“The gift is a carved orca,” Nei whispered. “Very fine. Did you know she was making it?”

“I had heard her working on it,” Saotse said. “For Rada, though? I’m a little surprised.”

Nei chuckled.

Uya had begun whining again. “I’m sick of being pregnant, and I’m sick of eating honey cake all day. And when you’re gone, who will distract my mother long enough for me to be able to go down to the bay?”

Rada laughed. “You seem to do pretty well at it without me. And once the baby comes, you won’t be able to leave the lodge for a while anyway, so you might as well get used to it.”

“Oh, don’t remind me. You make me feel as old and useless as Saotse.”

Saotse stiffened. She turned to Uya, hoping the girl would notice how she had stung Saotse. But no, Uya continued talking, her girlish voice rattling all the corners of the lodge. In a bluster of frustration, Saotse rose from the bench and stumbled out the door alone.

She got four strides from the lodge before her shins struck a basket and she tumbled to the ground.
Curse the filthy caravan and its goods. I can’t even find my way out for air.
She rose to her feet, beat the dust from her skirt, then began to feel her way through the haphazard stacks of gourds and sacks.

A soft, gentle hand grabbed hers as she groped for the edge of a line of baskets. “Let me show you,” Nei said.

The urge to throw off Nei’s hand was nearly irresistible. Saotse’s fingers tightened over the Eldest’s for a moment, then she sighed and let the old woman lead her. A handful of steps out, her dusty feet felt the cool prickles of the bluejoint grass. Their strides swished through the grasses until Nei stopped and tugged at Saotse’s hand for her to sit.

“Here?” Saotse asked. “In the grass, like girls?”

“Sit.” Nei’s voice was firm but playful.

Saotse sat.

“You
are
a girl to us, or nearly so,” Nei said. “It will do you good to remember that.”

Saotse laughed. Hollowly. Bitterly. She held up her hand with its narrow, knobby fingers, creaking with arthritis, and its creased and flabby knuckles. “Do these look like a girl’s hands to you?”

“No. No, they do not.” Nei sighed. “It’s unnatural for a swift person to live with us slow people. And you are the one who pays the price for it.”

The burl of resentment twisted inside Saotse’s chest. “Is that why you brought me here? To shame me for growing old?”

“Not at all. I was hoping to offer you solace. You are close to Uya in age—a mere sixty-five years, a youth—but in body you have passed me up. I was hoping that since you cannot relate to Uya as a young woman, you might relate to me as an old one.”

Saotse broke a supple stalk of grass in her hand and worried at the stem. “I thought you were an old woman when I first met you. I guessed you were sixty or seventy.”

Nei laughed. “I
was
an old woman. Two hundred and eighty! I had already passed the age of childbearing.”

“But decades have passed, and you’ve gotten scarcely older. You told me yourself you might live another fifty years. In fifty years, I’ll certainly be dead. I’ll probably be dead in fifteen.”

“This is why I was trying to comfort you.”

“You’re not the one who vexed me.”

“No, but I’m the one who can understand you. I have grown old as well. I, too, count the years until I will be likely dead. But forgive Uya. She’s still a young woman, with her first child, barely married a decade.”

“A decade.” A cool wind picked up briefly, coming down from the mountains. Saotse listened for Chaoare’s voice and heard nothing.

“Why did you choose to stay with us?” Nei asked.

“I’ve answered this before.”

“I know that Oarsa called you across the sea and summoned the whales to carry you. But when he fell silent—”

“How do you know that?” Saotse had few secrets, but that, at least, she did not speak openly of.

“You forget that I am an old woman, Eldest of the
enna
, and that I watch all my younger charges.”

“Does everyone know?” If everyone in the
enna
knew she had been abandoned by Oarsa, she might die of shame immediately. The measure of privilege or pity she got as one chosen by the Powers was the only comfort she had.

But Nei said, “No. They’ve gotten used to having you around. And even those of us who hear the spirits only faintly can perceive that you are gifted.”

“It’s not as though I can bring them good omens or command the Powers with my voice. Just today Uya asked me if Chaoare had passed by with a blessing for her child, and I can’t even tell her if the answer is yes or no. Oarsa is gone. I feel the other Powers, but they don’t speak to me. And they aren’t mine. I had to learn their names from you because they aren’t the Powers that we knew in my home, except for Oarsa. And he has vanished.”

“Nonetheless,” Nei said, “we want you here. You are immensely useful to us during negotiations. I adopted you as my granddaughter and have not regretted it for even a single day. No one considers you a burden.”

“Good, because I have nowhere else to go.” Her chance to return home had long since passed. When first she had tried to return with the swift traders, the superstitious sailors had refused to take a woman aboard. And now, even if she found a ship to take her, she feared her aching bones would not survive the journey.

Nei groaned, and the swish of grasses signaled that she had risen. “I seem to have failed at my goal of comforting you. Let me offer you this, at least: Uya won’t vex you while Rada is gone. I’ll ensure that she is kept busy, and any careless word that she speaks to your hurt, I’ll repair. I can promise you that.”

She helped Saotse regain her feet and guided her back to the lodge. But when Saotse’s foot struck the bare ground near the lodge, she stopped. Something was wrong.