The Tropic of Serpents: A Memoir by Lady Trent (A Natural History of Dragons) (11 page)

She looked up as I entered and smiled, showing only a little surprise. “I have not seen you before. You must be one of the new guests, those who came to study dragons.”

“Isabella Camherst,” I said. “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me.”

The woman rose, laying her book aside, and touched her heart in respect. “Galinke n Oforiro Dara. I’m glad you came. It’s pleasant to have time to read, but after a day or two I find myself eager for company.”

“We’re allowed to have things with us, then?” I said, gesturing at her book. “I was afraid they would burn my notes if I brought them here.”

Galinke laughed. “No, no. We would go out of our minds if we couldn’t have distraction! But why would you work, when you could relax?”

I joined her under the tree and discovered that, to Yembe women, and those of other Erigan peoples who engaged in similar practices, seclusion was not an exile, but more in the nature of a holiday. The other three weeks out of the month, they were obligated to work at various tasks—not the backbreaking labor of the peasant in the field, certainly, but weaving, child rearing, and other duties suitable to highborn women. When their impurity sent them to the
agban,
they could enjoy complete leisure. (They could also enjoy a respite from their husbands, which for some of them was even more valuable.)

Galinke herself was not married. “For now,” she said with a sigh. “My brother would make a match for me, but he has to wait, in case it ends up being necessary for me to wed the mansa.”

“The
mansa?
” I repeated, sure I had misunderstood the Yembe sentence. That was the title given to the Talu leader.

She nodded. “He has one wife from each of his subject peoples—as our ancestors had to do, when Bayembe was young. Even now, my brother has a Mebenye wife and a Sagao one, to keep the different peoples happy.”

Had she been Scirling, I never would have blundered in such fashion. We trace descent through the paternal line, and pass on family names in the same manner; the Satalu do likewise, as do societies in many parts of the world. But the Yembe and the other peoples of their country are matrilineal: individuals belong to their mother’s lineage, not their father’s, and inheritance therefore passes from a man to his sister’s son.

Galinke’s lineage name was Oforiro Dara, which is to say she came from the Oforiro branch of the Dara line, as her mother had before her. Her mother, clearly, had been a lesser wife of the man who wed the mother of the current oba of Bayembe—whose lineage was Rumeme Gbori—and Galinke herself was the oba’s half sister.

(I say “clearly” as if understanding came to me in an elegant flash. It didn’t; I sat openmouthed for a solid minute while my brain struggled to bend itself around a system of kinship and inheritance utterly foreign to my way of thinking.)

“But—” I said, still working through the implications. “If you wed the mansa, would that not mean your children would have a claim on Bayembe?” The feud between Talu and Bayembe was an old one, as old and as bitter as that between Thiessin and Eiverheim, and it had only grown worse in recent decades. Anthiopean influence to the north had encouraged several Erigan kingdoms to band together against them, though their Union had swiftly transformed into something much more like an empire, with the others in a client-state role to the mansa of Talu.

Over time the Union had begun to intimidate their neighbours into joining them: a less violent approach to conquest than the Ikwunde used, but still not very appealing. Getting a claim on the rule of Bayembe would be exactly the sort of tactic the mansa might use, and I did not think the oba would be so foolish as to allow it.

“How could he have a claim?” Galinke asked, politely baffled at the wrongheadedness of my question. “I’m not Rumeme Gbori. Only our sister Nsami’s sons can inherit.”

Nsami, presumably, being the oba’s full sister. Give me dragons any day; I understand their ways far better than those of my fellow human beings. We make our world much too complicated.

“I thought your brother detested the mansa,” I said, then winced. “Forgive me. This is turning into gossip, and I have no business talking of such things.”

Galinke waved my apology away. “What else does anyone in this place talk about, other than politics? You are right. But a wise ruler must be prepared to do what is necessary for the well-being of his people. Even if that means giving his sister to a man he detests.”

Or inviting foreign soldiers to come defend his land—but I kept a better leash on my tongue this time, and did not say it. Still, the entire point of Bayembe’s alliance with Scirland was to make sure this land would not have to give in to Talu pressure, just to defend themselves against the Ikwunde. If the oba was keeping Galinke in reserve, it suggested that he was less than entirely confident in our aid … or less than entirely pleased with it.

Galinke seemed matter-of-fact about the possibility of marrying the enemy, which is more than I could have managed in her place. I said as much to her, and she shrugged, looking philosophical. “Such trades are common. Not with the Satalu, perhaps, but others, to join one lineage to another. I have always known my marriage would be arranged.”

I squelched the urge to tell her I had helped Natalie flee Scirland, that she might avoid any marriage at all. “I hope the good efforts of our soldiers can at least spare you
that
particular fate,” I said. “I have heard rumours that the Ikwunde are moving their forces toward the rivers, which means we may have a chance to prove our use quite soon.”

The words were as much a test as conversation, and I think Galinke knew it. Her full mouth curved in a hint of a smile. “The Ikwunde can never stay still for long,” she said. “No sooner do they digest one meal than they go in search of another.”

So she, unlike Faj Rawango, was permitted to discuss politics with me. I pressed the advantage. “You are fortunate to have Mouleen defending most of your southern border. I am told that anyone who tries to venture beyond the edge of the swamp is never seen again. Is that why the oba restricts travel there? To protect his people from the Moulish?”

Galinke laughed. “Few people wish to go there in the first place, except for hunters, sometimes. But my brother must keep a close eye on his borders in these troubled times, until we can build better defenses for them.”

The only defense we had built thus far was Point Miriam. Were we planning another, or more than one, for points along the border? I had no chance to ask her; a servant entered then with food, and in the course of dealing with that, Galinke turned the conversation so deftly that I did not even notice until hours later.

I came to know her rather well over the four days we were in the
agban
together, and liked what I saw. Although we never returned to the specific matter of the Ikwunde, I learned a great deal about Bayembe politics from our conversations. This I absorbed more out of duty than anything else, for while Galinke seemed to view such things as a puzzle, an engaging challenge for her intellect, I could not bring myself to enjoy them in the same way. I had not been raised to such a life, and was grateful indeed for my freedom.

In retrospect, I wonder about those conversations. Galinke had not been forbidden to discuss politics; had she been
instructed
to do so? Certainly my time with her changed my view of the alliance between Scirland and Bayembe, which until that point had largely been shaped by the news-sheets of Falchester. Those sheets spoke glowingly of economic opportunity, and disapprovingly of the rapacious behaviour of Bayembe’s neighbours, from which we were nobly protecting them.

This was not inaccurate, but it lacked nuance. From Galinke, I began to understand the unequal nature of the “alliance”—which is why I scar it with quotation marks—and the extent to which that economic opportunity favored Scirland. She spoke obliquely, of course; at no point did she tell me outright that her half brother resented the dependent condition of Bayembe, which he had inherited from his predecessor, the last oba of the previous royal lineage (and a less than competent ruler). Nor did she spill details of our government’s plans, though I think she knew them. She did not even say that the aggressive movements of the Ikwunde and the Talu Union were driven by a desire to build strength against Anthiopean influence; that, I think, is something she did not think of consciously, as both nations were the enemy to her, and she was uninclined to view their behaviour in a tolerant light. Galinke merely talked, in the delicate and subtle manner of a well-trained courtier, and the ship of my thinking heeled slowly over to a new course.

Despite all the trouble that came of it, I thank her for that work, whether it was carried out on her brother’s orders or not. Had she not laid those foundations in my mind, I might have failed to grasp the significance of later hints, and the course of history might have been very different.

*   *   *

After Galinke departed, I had two days in which I shared the
agban
with three women I did not know, with whom I made polite but uninteresting conversation, and otherwise devoted myself to my work. The leisure time might have been pleasant if I had been tremendously busy prior to my seclusion, but by the time Natalie arrived on my final day, I was more than ready to get back to my affairs.

“Mr. Wilker was less than pleased to hear where you’d gone,” she said with a wry smile. “And even less pleased when he realized this would be a regular occurrence.”

She had arrived at lunchtime, and joined me for the plain but nourishing food that in Bayembe was considered suitable for impure women: eggs and fufu (a doughy mass made from yams). “I imagine Mr. Wilker was unhappy to be discussing the subject at all,” I said; he was unmarried, and so had never yet been forced by domestic necessity to consider that aspect of women’s lives. “I’ll see him straightaway tomorrow. What has happened, while I languished in here?”

“In terms of work, very little. I have met more of the palace ladies, and Mr. Wilker has spent much of his time at Point Miriam, talking to the Royal Engineers stationed here. They’ve been surveying the countryside, which may be of use in helping us chase dragons—though of course that is not why they’re doing it. They are planning a railway, and a dam in the west, too, if the Ikwunde can be pushed back. Did you know that someone has developed a turbine which can use water to generate power? Like a waterwheel, but far more efficient.”

I laughed. “
Which
one of you has been speaking to the engineers?”

Natalie ducked her head in sheepish acknowledgment. “I have more to converse about with them than with the palace ladies.”

Given that the Royal Engineers are the unit responsible for building and/or destroying anything the army needs or wishes removed, I doubted they were accustomed to young women quizzing them on their work. “What of M. Velloin?” I asked. “Is he still in Atuyem?”

“Yes, though he intends to go out hunting soon.”

This was precisely what I wanted to hear. The next morning I presented myself to the old priestess who oversaw the
agban
; she purified me by means of prayer and rolling an unbroken egg down my arms and legs and back, and then I was on my way. (No, I do not know the significance of the egg, except that it is a symbol of fertility, and therefore considered to be good luck.)

Mr. Wilker was not in the palace. I sought him down in the lower town, where some kind of festival was under way, with a boisterous parade wending through the narrow streets. Many of the people I attempted to question were drunk; I could discern only that the festival was religious in nature, as evidenced by the finely carved masks worn by the dancers at the heart of the parade. After days of quiet in the
agban,
the noise and movement were jarring; I was on the point of abandoning my search when I finally saw a handful of Scirling soldiers at the side of the road, and Mr. Wilker among them.

“There you are,” he said when I arrived. “It’s going to be damned inconvenient, Mrs. Camherst—pardon my language—if you and Miss Oscott must be locked away like this.”

“I will see if anything can be done,” I said. “In the meantime—is there any chance we could join M. Velloin’s hunting party?”

“If we can persuade him to wait until Miss Oscott is free, then yes. Or if we are willing to leave her behind.”

I was not willing to leave Natalie, but Velloin agreed to postpone his departure, and so we made plans to join him, combining our research with his hunt for trophies. Credit where credit is due; Mr. Wilker was right in suggesting it. Indeed, without M. Velloin to assist, we might have had more difficulty in beginning our work.

EIGHT

Into the bush—Okweme and his interest in me—The watering hole—My first savannah snake—Hunting tactics—We study the carcass—Chemicals and plaster—An awkward conversation—An even more awkward interruption—Rumours

We made quite a cavalcade as we headed out into the grasslands the following week. In addition to the usual necessities of food, water, tents, and so on, plus the guns and ammunition for the hunters, our scientific expedition, which had attached itself to M. Velloin’s group like a barnacle, carried a great deal of equipment. There were no fewer than four pack mules devoted to our notebooks, scalpels, measuring devices, plaster, tubs, and so on, along with a tent to do all the work in—not to mention, of course, the chemicals for preserving bone, which was our true purpose in coming.

It was by then the first week of Gelis—a fact which I consistently forgot, despite my assiduous care in recording the date in my journal every day. It did not feel like Gelis. The Days of Light were drawing near; the weather, my instincts insisted, should have been settling into the kind of damp, aching cold that made one glad even for a candle’s flame. Instead it was as hot as a Scirling summer day, with not a cloud in the sky. Bayembe was firmly in the grip of its long dry season; the intermittent wind kicked up veils of dust from the hard ground, and the stiff grasses rattled as our horses and mules moved through them.