Commitment Hour lop-2 Page 13

  Zephram sat — the wary way you sit on the edge of your seat when you don't know what's happening and some part of your mind wants the option of retreat. Steck walked back to her bed and knelt beside it, giving Zephram a twinge of sexual panic… or perhaps hope. But she was only crouching down to pull out something stored under the bed: a violin case.

  (When Zephram said that, it jolted me. Yes, Steck had played violin in the marsh; I'd thought, however, that the Neut had taken up music during Its time down south. If Steck had already been a violinist twenty years ago in Tober Cove…)

  Zephram watched as Steck carefully took out the instrument and tuned it — not sounding the notes with the bow or even pizzicato plucks, but with delicate rubs of her finger that barely set the strings vibrating. The sound would never carry outside the house, which was obviously the girl's intention; Zephram didn't know if Mistress Snow's Silence applied to violins as well as voices, but Steck clearly didn't want to be heard rippling the quiet.

  When she was happy with the tuning, Steck came back, pulled the rocking chair close to my father — close enough that their knees touched — then she settled down to play. She didn't tuck the instrument under her chin; instead, she held it like a guitar, resting it on the gentle roundness of her stomach. Steck let her eyes lock with Zephram's for a moment… then she bent her head and softly stroked the strings.

  The tune was "Lonely Hung the Clouds," a song I knew well myself. Wherever I played, you could count on the song being requested at least once a night… partly because the melody was dreamy and beautiful, partly because the sentiment struck a responsive chord in many listeners. The first half of each verse describes how the singer has "lived with empty hands" and held "many a conversation with cold bare walls"; the rest of each verse is a surprised and grateful confession that everything has changed — presumably because she has found someone to love, although that's never said explicitly.

  Lonely hung the clouds

  But now the light has come.

  Cappie sometimes sang the piece to me when she was a man… not that she was ever directly lonesome, but in her male years she brooded about the future possibility. I could imagine Zephram listening to the same tune in the stillness of Steck's cabin: each note brushed out of the strings so softly it barely had the strength to cross the small gap between Steck's body and his. Notes whispered in the still and magic dark. The entire world shrank to a man and woman, their knees touching in the firelight.

  I didn't need to hear any more of the story; I could guess how the rest unfolded. Nothing would happen that night — Steck was too pregnant, and Zephram too burdened by the memory of Anne to abandon himself immediately. In a few months, the child in Steck's belly would be born. In a few months, the wound in Zephram's heart would heal to the point where his pulse could race again. They would be lovers before spring… and remain together until summer solstice.

  When Steck Committed Neut.

  When she was exiled from the cove.

  When Zephram had no choice but to adopt Steck's newborn child.

  "I was the baby," I said. "Steck's baby, right? That's why you're telling me this?"

  "Of course," Zephram answered. "Of course."

  TEN

  An Assembly for Father Ash and Mother Dust

  "My mother is a Neut?" The words choked out of me.

  "Your mother was a woman," Zephram answered. "A troubled woman with a desperately caring heart. Not that anyone realized how vulnerable she was, except me and Leeta. Steck was too independent for Tober Cove to understand her. There was a reason she was living alone in one of those log cabins that are supposed to be for couples. I've always hoped she had an easier time down south."

  Zephram hadn't heard Steck spilling out resentment beside Leeta's campfire: "Driven down-peninsula to cities we don't understand, where we're despised as freaks. Shunned by friends, separated from my lover and child…" No, Steck hadn't had an easier time. Being a Neut and being so chip-on-the-shoulder "independent" had killed all chance of a welcome from strangers.

  "And when Steck left," I said, "she didn't take me with her?"

  "She tried," Zephram answered, "but there was a mob on her heels. They ripped you out of her arms, then drove her off. The Warriors Society harried her through the forest and mounted a guard to make sure she didn't come back. She tried once anyway and got speared in the stomach; the Warriors wouldn't say whether she was dead or not, which means she got away. If they'd actually killed her, they would have paraded her head through town. But that was the last anyone saw of Steck."

  "You never tried to find her?"

  Zephram shook his head. "I had to take care of you. It was Hakoore's ruling — yes, I'd be allowed to stay and yes, I could adopt you, but only if I swore never to remove you from the cove. You're a Tober, Fullin, and a child of Master Crow; Hakoore refused to expose your god-given blood to the 'materialistic contamination' of the South. The vicious old bastard made me choose between you and Steck… and I knew what Steck would want. Her own parents were dead. If I didn't take you, you'd go straight into the hands of the people who exiled her."

  "And no one ever told me the truth."

  "People thought it would be kinder not to. They were eager to be nice to you after the hysteria died down — after the evil Neut was gone and they began to think about what shits they had been. They twisted themselves double pampering you, so I'd tell them that what they'd done wasn't so bad." Zephram sighed. "I'm not a man who can hold a grudge, Fullin. Heaven knows I tried, for Steck's sake; but I couldn't stay angry with them, not as long as I should have. I let myself go along with the lie."

  He closed his eyes tight, fighting with something inside him. Guilt? Anger? In a moment he pushed the feeling down and spoke rapidly. "So. Steck was gone and the whole town decided to tell you your mother was a paragon of virtue — accidentally drowned and nothing more."

  A question popped into my head: "Does Cappie know about this?" It surprised me that I could care what she thought, but I did.

  "She shouldn't know," Zephram answered. "All the children were supposed to be told the same story — otherwise, they might spill the truth to you. It's possible her parents told her when she was old enough to keep a secret… but why would they? The town just wanted to forget."

  He pushed his chair away from the table, though he'd hardly touched his breakfast. Taking his plate, he began to stash the uneaten food in the ice chest. "I suppose," he said without looking at me, "Leeta decided to mention Steck to you because it's Commitment Day. She's always regretted that she couldn't protect her apprentice. Leeta brought up Steck's name, but didn't tell you the truth?"

  "No."

  "She must have lost her nerve — wanted to tell you the whole story before you Committed, then couldn't do it. That was always Leeta's problem: she thinks a Mocking Priestess should be defiance personified, but it just isn't in her." His voice was less accusing than his words; Zephram wanted to be outrage personified, but that wasn't in him.

  "Maybe after you've Committed," he said, "we'll go south together to see if we can find her. Steck was a good woman, Fullin, she really was. The rest of the town were intimidated by her — even before she Committed — but Steck was a good gentle woman."

  A good gentle woman who had tried to kill Cappie and me with a machete. Of course, before she attacked, she'd asked if either of us was named Fullin… and what would have happened if I'd answered truthfully? Would she have fallen on my neck with slobbery Neut kisses? Oh my baby, I've come backto see your Commitment!

  That had to be her reason for coming to the cove on Commitment Eve. She'd kept track of the years; she knew this was my time. I could imagine she had spent every second of her exile plotting how to return for this day. Attaching herself to a Spark Lord for protection. Persuading him to come to the cove to observe the Commitment ceremonies. Did Rashid even know why Steck had brought him here? Or had she manipulated him to the point that Rashid thought this was his own idea?

  Sud
denly, I felt an irresistible need to pick up Waggett and hold him close. My son. When I took him in my arms, he snuggled against my chest out of reflex, not needing me, just making himself comfortable because comfort was his due. Only a few minutes before I had resolved not to get carried away with cuddling, but I couldn't help myself. I wanted to protect him. I don't know if I wanted to protect him from Steck, returned to the cove like the corpse of a murder victim seeking revenge… or if I wanted to save him from what happened twenty years ago, when a child was ripped from its mother and both became lost.

  Trying not to hug him too fiercely, I nuzzled Waggett's sweet-smelling hair. He ignored me, as if his life would always be so full of kisses, there was no need to acknowledge every one.

  The Council Hall bells rang. Both Zephram and I looked toward the clock hanging above the fireplace: a silver-embossed treasure with black metal hands shaped into crow feathers. Zephram had commissioned the piece from a clockmaker down south, in honor of Master Crow. Hakoore pouted for a while when the clock arrived, saying it verged on blasphemy… but even Hakoore realized he was being childish.

  The hour was only seven o'clock, far too early for the usual Commitment Day festivities. Still, the bells kept ringing — calmly, not the fast clang-clang-clang used to warn of danger — so we had to conclude that the mayor was calling an impromptu town meeting.

  "What's going on?" Zephram asked. He didn't expect an answer, so I didn't invent one. The mayor's summons could only be something to do with Steck and Lord Rashid; why else would Teggeree disrupt the usual Commitment Day schedule?

  "You'd better go down to the hall and see what's happening," I said to Zephram. "I'll finish up here."

  He looked at me in surprise. "What needs finishing up?"

  "Cleaning… you know." I waved my hand vaguely.

  "You've never volunteered to clean anything in your life," he said. "Not unless you were trying to get out of something worse. Do you know something about this meeting?"

  "No."

  "And you aren't curious?"

  "Sure I am." I tried to think of anything I could say that wouldn't sound suspect. Truth is, Dad, my Neutmother is in town and I don't want to meet her. "It's just that…"

  My voice trailed off.

  Zephram rolled his eyes. "It's just that you want the house to yourself so you can search for the Commitment Day presents I bought you. Isn't that right?"

  I immediately put on a sheepish look, as if Zephram had hit the nail on the head. He laughed and gave me a playful swat. "You don't find out till noon, boy. Now let's go see what's up."

  Acknowledging defeat, I moved toward the door while hefting Waggett into a better carrying position… then I stopped. If I walked into the town square carrying the boy, Steck would see him. Steck had to know I had a child — all Tobers do by the time they reach Commitment Day. Did I want a Neut touching my boy? Could Steck have some demented plan to kidnap "her grandson"? Who knew what crazy ideas went through a Neut's head?

  "Here," I told Zephram, "why don't you carry Waggett for a while?"

  "That sounds more like you," he said. With a smile, Zephram took Waggett from me. The boy gave him a small hug — more recognition than I'd gotten. With a twitch of jealousy, I almost asked Zephram to give my child back… but it was better for Waggett if Steck didn't know he was mine.

  Half the town got to the meeting before Zephram and me: mostly men and children, the people who could pick up and go as soon as the bells rang. The women came in their own time, after pulling pies out of the oven or running the iron over a few more pleats. Several older ladies never showed up, either because they were still working on last-minute details or because they thought they were — Tober Cove had its share of people who made themselves busy, busy, busy, no matter how little they had to do.

  The interior of the Council Hall was big enough to hold the adult population of the village, but in good weather, meetings were held outside so that people weren't cramped together. Speakers stood up on the steps where they could be seen; the rest of the crowd filled the square, leaning against the hitching rails or sitting on the grass in the shade of what we called Little Oak. The tree had received its name almost two hundred years ago, back when there was a Big Oak too. Big Oak dropped in its time, getting sectioned into tabletops for half the homes of the village, and now Little Oak had a trunk so thick two men couldn't join their hands around it… but it was still called Little Oak and would keep that name until the centuries pulled it down.

  That tells you something about Tober Cove.

  Steck and Rashid weren't in sight. Mayor Teggeree stood at the top of the steps, smiling cheerfully at the crowd as he waited for latecomers to straggle in. Hakoore hunched beside him, glowering at the world, and Leeta leaned against the banister two steps lower down the stairs.

  Since Cappie wasn't with the priestess, I looked around the square until I spotted her in a huddle with her family. They had oh-so-casually arranged themselves in a protective circle around her, and although I could only see the top of her head, I knew she must have dressed in male clothing again. Otherwise, her sisters and brothers wouldn't make such an effort to shield her from the village's eyes.

  Why was she dressed like a man today? Last night it had just been the solstice dance, but now… did she want to shock people? Yes, I could believe that she did. I could believe she got out of bed, ran her fingers through her chopped-off hair, saw the male clothing scattered around the room and said, "Why not? Show the village I don't give a damn."

  Either that, or she was dressed that way because she thought I liked it. Moment by moment, you could never tell whether Cappie was going to be defiant or clingy.

  Heaving a sigh, I headed toward her. On the morning after the night before, a gentleman knows his duty: submitting himself to all that awkward "How are you?" "No, how are you?" that women need as confirmation that Something Indeed Took Place.

  Sometimes, it's a pain knowing how women think.

  Cappie's sister Olimbarg spotted me first. Olimbarg was fourteen and had a permanent crush on me. This year, the crush disguised itself as haughty annoyance, making her blurt out adolescent insults whenever I came into view. I put up with it because kids will be kids; and the insults didn't bother me as much as her behavior the previous year. Then, Olimbarg had been a thirteen-year-old boy while I was a nineteen-year-old girl. Picture a pubescent drool-monster getting underfoot every time Cappie and I wanted privacy.

  It didn't help that Olimbarg was one of those rare people whose female self was almost an exact twin of her male. Now that she had begun filling out with adolescence, there was a little more variation from year to year; but still, when I looked at her face, I sometimes had an uncomfortable jolt, thinking I had a male Olimbarg infatuated with Male-Me.

  "Here comes Fiddle-fingers!" Olimbarg called when she saw me. "Did the gods send you a duck, Fullin? Or did they decide you deserved a skunk?"

  "Happy solstice to you, too," I told her. I kept it civil, because Cappie's whole family had turned to look at me. Some smiled; some didn't. Her father, for example, wore the expression of a man with nerves as taut as bowstrings, skittish for fear someone would notice Cappie wearing his clothes. His name was Nunce, and he dreamed of becoming mayor when Teggeree stepped down. If you ask me, he hadn't a chipmunk's chance of getting elected — his strategy for winning public favor was an obsessive concern with appearances, and it made him compulsively dodgy. Nunce had never quite decided how a man with leadership potential should hold his hands. He seldom spoke to any member of his family except in sharp whispers, telling the children, "Stand straighter," or, "Stop that, people are watching."

  In another family, Nunce's constant fretting would have produced a pack of rebellious brats, going out of their way to make themselves embarrassments. Fortunately, Cappie's mother Jewel had a counterbalancing talent for making children civilized. She was a big blond woman, tall and wide, proud possessor of a cheerful no-nonsense approach to dealing with everyone
except her husband. Jewel fiercely believed Nunce was an important man, a thinker and philosopher. I can't tell you what his philosophy might have been — he never shared it with the village. Rumor suggested that Nunce was writing a book which would explain everything in the world so easily a child could understand it… but most Tobers believed the rumor had been started by Nunce and Jewel themselves. I'd visited their house almost daily since I was born, and had never seen anything that looked like a manuscript.

  "Happy solstice," Nunce said as he fidgeted to keep Cappie out of public view. "Did you have a pleasant vigil?"

  "A gripping one," I replied. "Just thought I'd check how Cappie was doing."

  "Fine," came a tentative answer from behind Nunce's back. "How are you doing?"

  "Fine. Just fine."

  I'd been trying for an ambiguous tone of voice — not post-love creamy, but not a hard-edged "Sorry, babe, the dew has dried" either… something cozy enough for Cappie's peace of mind, but detached enough for mine.

  Okay: it's a lot to expect from three words.

  Cappie stuck her head over her father's shoulder; she must have been standing on tiptoe. Her expression was balanced right on the divide between happiness and fury, ready to swoop down the slope in either direction if I gave her cause. "Your note said you went back to vigil."

  "Good thing I did," I replied. "Hakoore came to see me."

  "Leeta said he might."

  "Really?" I asked. "How would Leeta know?"

  "The Patriarch's Man discusses lots of things with the priestess."

  That surprised me. I couldn't imagine Hakoore discussing anything with anyone. "Did Leeta tell you why Hakoore wanted me?"

  Cappie nodded. "But you told him you couldn't, right? That you had other plans?"

  "I said no as clearly as I could," I assured her… which wasn't really what she was asking, but I hoped sounded like an answer anyway. Thank heavens women seldom resort to direct questions. "I refuse to be anyone's disciple."