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Authors: Sheri S. Tepper

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BOOK: The Family Tree
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“And you think she’s responsible for poisoning Jared? We can sure find out, Momma Gerber. That’s a police job, and if you suspect her…”

Momma Gerber shook her head slowly, mouth pinched. “No. The words just popped out of my mouth before I thought. It was all a tempest in a teapot, even back then, what? Almost thirty years ago! A couple of days after he went off with her, Jared came back and told me the girl had run away from him. He didn’t seem too broken up. Her mother went off looking for her, and I haven’t seen either one of them since. It’s just when I saw Jared there, so pale…the words just popped out.”

“I’m not really following this,” Dora said. “Who exactly are we talking about?”

The older woman looked momentarily confused. “I’m talking about the mother of the girl Jared married.”

“Wasn’t she Mrs. Dionne?”

“She and her girl were some kind of cousins who came to town that summer to visit the Dionnes. And all the boys in the neighborhood, including Jared, started trailing after the girl like dogs after a bitch in heat! And the Dionne boys told Jared to stay away from her, and I guess that made Jared mad, so he took her off and married her. Anyhow, the whole thing, fire and all, was over in a few weeks. That’s water over the dam, long gone, but I wanted to apologize.”

Dora wasn’t ready to discuss the fact she was leaving Jared, so she contented herself with saying, “Thanks, Momma Gerber. I do appreciate your clarifying that.”

She had the day free. Jared was out of intensive care. She dithered for a while until Polly asked her why she was so antsy.

“I’m going to go tell Jared I’m leaving.”

“While he’s in the hospital?”

She’d been thinking about it. Somehow she didn’t like the idea of telling him later, after he was home, after they were alone in the house. “Yes,” she blurted. “While he’s there.”

Polly asked, “You want me to come with you?”

Dora almost said yes, then decided against it. It wasn’t Polly’s problem.

Jared was alone in the room, propped up, staring at the wall. His eyes swiveled toward her when she came in, then went back to the wall, as though he were watching the denouement of some compelling television drama. She pulled the straight chair away from the wall and sat on it, waiting. Eventually he would get tired of ignoring her. If he didn’t, she could always start making annoying sounds in her throat.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked at last, letting his eyes swivel in her direction once more.

“At your place, Jared. And at work.”

“You haven’t been here.”

“Your mother’s been here. And I’ve called, every day, to see how you’re doing.”

“I don’t like the food.”

“Hospital food is usually pretty bad,” she admitted. “Do you need anything from your place?”

He made a face without saying anything.

“I came today to tell you something,” she began. He showed no interest. “I’m getting a divorce.”

His eyes swiveled again. His head actually turned. “What do you mean, divorce? You can’t do that. I’ve given you no reason.”

“Well, Jared, people don’t need specific reasons these days. It’s enough if you just aren’t happy, and you know, I’m not.”

“Well, if you’re not happy, that’s your own fault,” he challenged her. “It’s got nothing to do with me.”

She blinked slowly, turtlelike, pulling her psychological shell around her ears. Oil, not nitro, she reminded herself. “Well, you’re probably right, Jared. My happiness has nothing to do with you. And that being the case,
we ought not to be married. The fact is I want a home of my own, but your home is so much yours, I don’t feel like I belong there.”

No response.

“You don’t really have room for some other person in your life, Jared. All you need is a cook-housekeeper, and I’m sure your momma can hire one for you. So, I’m going to be moved out when you come home.”

He stared at her, or right through her, such a cold stare it set up an icy shiver inside. “But I’m used to you. You serve a purpose! I won’t allow it.”

Words left her. Who or what did the man think he was? More important, who did he think she was?

“I’m sorry you feel that way, but I really feel it’s best, for both of us.” Bland, meaningless, nothing words.

He didn’t say anything more, just turned back to his private vision on the blank wall, leaving her with a shiver in her gut that stayed with her all the way home. Polly took one look at her face and said she’d help her pack. They spent the evening and all the next day packing everything that belonged to Dora, searching out every little thing, going through every drawer, every shelf, even though almost everything she owned was in the bedroom she’d used. The way Dora felt, just gathering up her things wasn’t enough! She cleaned every room in the house from ceiling to carpet; she scrubbed the bathroom; she changed the sheets on the bed and put the used ones through the washer. She emptied the lint trap in the drier and took the garbage out, then she vacuumed everything three times and threw out the vacuum bag.

“What are we doing this for?” Polly asked. “You think he’ll conduct an inspection?”

Dora laughed, a little hysterically. “I don’t want anything of me left here, Pol. Does that sound crazy?”

“No hair? No toenail clippings?” Polly laughed. “You think he’s going to make a little doll and stick pins in it?”

Dora sobered up. “Let’s just not leave any evidence I was ever here. Right? No skin flakes. No glass with my lipstick or fingerprints. No…no nothing.”

“You
do
think he’ll put a hex on you!” Polly started to laugh, but stopped when she saw the look on Dora’s face. “What, Dory?”

Dora shrugged. “Let’s pretend it’s symbolic, like a way of erasing the past.”

Her expression said, don’t ask; Polly didn’t. They polished everything as they left each room, leaving the keys on the kitchen counter and going out by the kitchen door. As they were driving away, Dora remembered her secret key, the one she’d hidden in the trellis as a spare. Jared didn’t know about it. Jared wouldn’t approve. People who were properly organized didn’t need spare keys.

Never mind. Let it stay there.

They took a motel housekeeping unit where they could spend the night, and where Dora could stay until she found a place of her own. All that night she turned and half wakened and turned again, trying to get comfortable. Thoughts of Jared were like cracker crumbs in her bed, itchy and annoying. At last, along toward dawn, she fell asleep, only to be wakened a couple of hours later to take Polly to the airport.

2
Opalears Tells a Tale

“T
he sultan wants you,” said the eunuch.

I looked around to see who the eunuch meant. In the pool across the courtyard a clutch of concubines was playing a desultory game of ball. Half a dozen wives reclined on their royal divans in the high, screened balconies along the wall. A slave gang was scrubbing the tiled floor under the drowsy eyes of a slave-mistress, but I, myself, was the only person near the eunuch.

“Me?” I faltered, hearing the word come out as a squeak.

“Opalears, daughter of Halfnose.” The eunuch didn’t actually yawn from boredom, but he very nearly did, keeping his lips barely closed, so the longer teeth at the corners of his mouth showed, very white and sharp.

“Now?” I said, squeaking again.

“Now.” He turned and slunk away, leaving me tottering behind him, not sure what to do next.

He looked over his shoulder. “Come on, girl. Don’t dither.”

“But, I’m not…not…” I gestured hopelessly at my untidy self, halfway between fixing snacks in the kitchens and sorting linens in the laundry.

“He doesn’t want you for that!” His furry eyebrows went up in astonishment as he grinned fiercely. “Why would he?”

Which was a good question. Here in the Palace of Delights lived seventeen young wives of Sultan Tummyfat, all of them beautiful and voluptuous and politically useful. Here were also over two hundred young concubines, mostly nice looking, mostly politically useful, mostly selected to gain the support of this faction or that. Elsewhere, in the Autumn Garden, Sultan Tummyfat housed an unknown number of retired wives and concubines, his own or his father’s or uncle’s, and between the Autumn Garden and Palace of Delights, he had hundreds of female slaves, each attractive enough of her type, none of them heretics or members of an opposition family, and not particularly distinguishable one from another. I myself was a slave called Opalears, and I was among the youngest and least distinguishable. I was surprised that the eunuch even knew who I was.

Which, it seemed, he wasn’t all that sure of himself.

“You’re the storyteller, right?” the eunuch asked, looking me up and down as though tallying points against a description. So high, so thin, such and such color hair.

“I tell stories,” I murmured. “But lots of us do.” And what else was there to do, shut up the way we all were?

“You’re the one they like, though. Sultana Eyebright. Sultana Ivory-arms. Sultana Winetongue. They say you tell good ones.” He slitted his eyes at me, then turned and went on.

“Very kind of them,” I murmured, trying to keep up with him. He was the one named Soaz. “Very kind.”

“Got stories from your father, I suppose,” he said, leaping four or five steps at a time up the long flight of marble stairs while I scrambled to keep up. “I remember
old Halfnose. He was a good storyteller, and a good quartermaster. Better than the idiot we’ve got now.”

I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. I felt the tears start and couldn’t stop them.

“Oh, mustard and growr,” said the eunuch, turning with a horrid scowl that made me cry all the harder. “I shouldn’t have mentioned him, should I. Stop here. We can’t go up with you sniffling.”

I wiped my face on my sleeves, sniveling, “I was there,” which brought on another blubber.

“At the execution? Yes, I suppose you were. Typical. The regent could be a cruel old bastard. Some of us tried to tell him Halfnose wouldn’t steal anything, but he wouldn’t listen. After the execution, then he listened. He always used to calm down after an execution. That’s when he took you in, was it?”

I was wiping my face with my wadded up veil, trying to soak up the tears. “I don’t think he had much to do with it. I think it was Bluethumb.”

“Well, whoever. You’ve had a home, at least.” He wiped at my cheeks with the backs of his hands, gave me a close looking over and then continued the climb. “That’s something.”

I suppose it was something. A ten-year-old commoner orphan has small chance of survival out on the streets, except through degradation, so palace slavery had its good points. It wasn’t like being a mine slave or a field slave or a brickyard kiln slave or a sex slave in the brothels. I always had plenty to eat, good quality clothing to wear, even some amusements. And no one fooled with me. Add to that the fact the regent had died shortly after I came to the Palace of Delights, and my life wasn’t all bad. When they burned the horrible beastly creature, I was there, watching, relishing the smell, for when father died, I’d made an oath to avenge him, though I’d probably have been caught at it because I had no idea how to kill anyone. Since then, of course, I’d become well versed in killing. Half the harim occupied itself either putting curses on the other half, or warding off
the curses that were put in return. The wives and concubines were secretive with one another, but they’d say anything in our hearing, as though slaves weren’t even people. I’d learned all about poisons, which many of the concubines preferred, and hired assassins, which only the sultanas had sufficient treasure to procure. Every female in the harim was constantly jockeying for position, if not for herself, then for her children or friends.

“Put your veil down,” said the eunuch, as we turned a corner and went through the tall, fretted door that marked the beginning of the salamlek, strictly male territory.

None of us harim dwellers veiled ourselves, usually, not unless Sultan Tummyfat brought kinsmen in, but we all wore the veil, nonetheless, usually folded back over the tops of our heads. Mine was all wrinkled from crying in it, and it took some doing to get it straightened out and pull the two embroidered ribbons apart, one straight across my nose with a fall of filmy stuff below, the other high across my forehead, its fringe falling across my eyes. When it was in position, it fell to my waist, hiding my arms to the wrists.

“What does the sultan want with me?” I asked as we came to a halt outside another door.

“Let him tell you,” he said. “Turn around.”

I turned, feeling him tug at the veil, smoothing it out behind, brushing the fringe forward, combing it with his armored fingers until it fell evenly, tapping me on the lower backbone so I stood up straight.

“Now,” he said. “You follow me with your head bowed. Watch my legs so you don’t bump into me. When I stop, you stop. If the sultan asks you a question, answer it clearly, briefly, keep your head slightly bowed. Understand?”

I was suddenly conscious that my mouth was dry. If the sultan asked me a question, I wasn’t sure I could answer him at all!

The eunuch opened the door, went through, then turned to close it again, which was confusing because I
had to make a little circle in order to stay behind him. Someone laughed, and I felt my cheeks burning. I must have looked silly, like a baby guz following its mother. Soaz muttered under his breath as we crossed the huge room, carpet on carpet on carpet, like walking on mattresses. He prowled, I stumbled after. When he stopped, he put his hand on my shoulder to stop me mindlessly putting myself behind him again when he stepped to the side.

“I have brought the slave as the lord commanded.”

“What is its name.”

“Its palace name is Opalears, Lord.”

“Show me its face.”

Soaz lifted my veil, then put a calloused fingerpad under my chin and lifted my face. I closed my eyes.

“Open your silly eyes,” muttered Soaz. “He won’t eat you.”

I felt them pop open, like pea pods. There were two males seated on the divan, young and old. I had seen Lord Tummyfat before, when he came to the harim, a round person, smoothish in the face, without much hair. He had never looked at me before, however, and the look was disconcerting.

“You’re the storyteller?” he asked.

“I tell stories,” I gasped. “Sometimes.”

“You cook, also.”

“Yes, I do….”

“How did we get her?” Lord Tummyfat asked the eunuch.

“Her father was Halfnose Nazir, who was falsely accused of theft by the regent and executed; her mother was a suicide; her brother fled; this one was left alone. Seems to have been enslaved as an act of mercy,” said Soaz.

“Ah.” Long pause. “I often think of Nazir. A good servant. She doesn’t look like much.”

“No, Sultan. She is very skinny. Like a stick.”

“How old is she?”

“How old are you, girl?” asked Soaz.

“Middle of my third age, sir.” The first being babyhood, then childhood, then adolescence, all of which were well understood. There was some controversy about when the fourth age, that of reason, started, and I didn’t worry myself about it. I hadn’t found life reasonable yet, and something told me I might never.

Soaz nodded heavily. “The family was originally from Estafan, Lord. There are many ponjic people there, and as the Lord knows, ponji are bony, like posts, as well as being slow growers who seldom reach full size until the end of their third age.”

“Then she’s still almost a child!”

“As Great Sultan says.”

“Look at me, child.”

I looked up, seeing his head cocked, his nostrils wide, his eyes actually interested, his mouth pursed, ready to make words. “My son has been ill,” said Sultan Tummyfat. “My son, Prince Keen Nose.”

I managed to make a tiny nod. The harim had talked of little else for days. Keen Nose was a favored son, Sultana Winetongue’s child. The harim thought he had been poisoned. Sultana Winetongue had rivals for the king’s affection, and her son was naturally the rival of every other woman’s son. Actually, there were a dozen sultanas’ sons competing for the king’s favor, not to speak of the constant ferment among the concubines, who bet on this one or that one, as though it were a race.

Sultan Tummyfat continued. “My son will journey to the Hospice of St. Weel, to be cured. Someone must go with him, to attend to him, to amuse him. Obviously, we cannot risk any of our own…palace people. He has heard of you from his mother. He has asked for you.”

“As…as the lord w-w-wills,” I stammered. Didn’t he know there were monsters out there, and strange trees that grabbed people in their viny hands and smothered them in leaves? Hadn’t he heard how people got turned into
things
at the Hospice of St. Weel?

“Why is she shaking?” the sultan asked, slightly annoyed.

Soaz murmured, “I suppose she’s frightened, Lord. The harim enjoys frightening the young ones with tales of afrits and jinni and the trees that walk, as well as the terrors of the strangers at the hospice.”

The sultan nodded, caressing his chin with the back of his wrist, as though stroking a beard. “It is well known that all females are as gullible as the guz.”

“Not all,” purred the eunuch.

The sultan quirked his lips and replied, “Your people excepted, of course, Soaz. You pheledian folk—though orthodox in belief—are notoriously cynical.” He smiled in my direction, saying loftily, “The strangers are not ogres, girl. They are merely a different sort of people, not even as strange as the onchiki or the armakfatidi, and you’ve worked with the armakfatidi. The trees are our dear friends, as the teachings of Korè make clear. Besides, there will be an armed escort and servants. You’ll get to see something of the countryside.”

Unable to speak, I bowed.

“This is my son,” the sultan said.

I turned to meet the eyes of the pale youth half reclining beside his father. He too was smooth faced, though he had two lines at the corners of his mouth, as though he gritted his teeth rather a lot. And he was thin. Perhaps he was in pain. He smiled, then laughed. It was the same laugh that had greeted my entry, a kind of malicious snorting. I felt myself turning red.

“Thank you, my Lord Father,” said the young one. “She will do very well.”

It was an indifferent voice. Neither kind nor unkind. Did he plan to laugh at me all the way to the hospice?

Tummyfat stroked his son’s head, keeping his eyes on me. “Soaz, have her outfitted properly. Prepare a conveyance, if necessary, or an umminha, if she can ride. Can you ride, girl?”

In the harim it was thought unfeminine, but it didn’t occur to me to lie. “Yes, Lord. There were umminhi on my grandfather’s farm. I had a filly of my own.” She had been a lovely caramel color, with a silvery mane.
She had been very beautiful and very stupid and her name had been Honey. I wondered, as I did from time to time, what had happened to grandfather and the farm. I hadn’t seen him since the summer before father died.

The sultan nodded. “Well, then. Good. Take her back, Soaz. See that she’s ready by dawn tomorrow.”

We went back, me stumbling over my own feet, totally at a loss; Soaz making rumbling noises in his throat, preoccupied about something. He opened the courtyard door and shooed me through it, shutting it behind me to go off on business of his own.

One of the personal servants was waiting, a squarely built, dark-haired person everyone called Frowsea. “Sultana Winetongue wants you,” she said, without preamble, taking me by one wrist. “Come, quickly.”

She hauled me up a dim half flight of marble stairs and down the elaborately tiled corridor behind the royal balconies, stopping outside the curtained arch of the largest one. Though the curtains were heavy, a good smell leaked out, roasted veeble and onions and raisins and spice, making my mouth water. The curtain was lifted from inside, and I was dragged in.

“There, there you are,” said the sultana, fastening her black-rimmed, long-lashed eyes on me, a hungry look, as though she might like to eat me. Her limbs were beautifully round and plump, and she was dressed in a low-cut shazmi that showed her smoothly ample breasts. “Have you seen my son?”

“I saw Prince Keen Nose,” I said. “With his father.”

“How is he? Did he look well?”

I thought of lying and decided against it. Doubtless the sultana had spies among the servants outside, and if I lied, the sultana would learn of it.

“He looked very thin, Uplifted One. As from a wasting disease. He was in good spirits, however. He laughed, several times.”

“At you, no doubt,” said the servant. “Don’t they feed you, girl? What a draggletail.”

I hid my annoyance at this, for whatever one might
say about me, it was unfair to say I dragged my behind!

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