A Bloom in the North Read online

  All I ended up saying, then, was, "Stay with me?"

  "Yes," it said. And smiled a little. "So long as you hold me. I have missed touch."

  "Don't eperu touch?" I asked, soft.

  "Not the way you touch me," it answered.

  I gathered it close enough to smell the honey-sunlight scent of its hair, to feel the cool smooth silk of its gown... cool, until my body warmed it. We lay together on the floor of the wagon and while it was not among the most comfortable beds we were to know together, Hesa and I, it remains bright in my memory, and special, because it was the first.

  I did sleep, and if my dreams echoed with the click of rikka claws and the low hum of wheels on Roika's stone roads, they never developed beyond that. I needed the healing too badly, and the wine kept me under. What woke me finally was the realization that I was colder than I had been, and when I opened my eyes I found Hesa had gone. Sitting up, I looked to the front of the wagon and saw the eperu leaning through the opening to the driver's bench; it had changed out of the festival gown and into the trousers and vest I was more accustomed to seeing it wear. From the dark gold tone of the canvas walls, it was late afternoon, so I had slept through the night and most of the day as well. I tried flexing my torso—the cuts ached badly but they didn't break. Someone, I saw, had changed the padding over them. I had slept through that too? I grimaced and stood, careful of my footing.

  Hesa glanced at me as I joined it, sitting on one of the crates stacked against the front wall of the caravan.

  "How soon?" I asked.

  "Tomorrow night," Hesa said.

  "Is that Pathen?" came a voice from the bench. And gods help me, it was in fact Darsi, whom I'd scourged in my thoughts so frequently for his fecklessness.

  "It is," Hesa said, and studied me. "How do you feel?"

  "I could hike," I said. "Especially if it meant the difference between living and dying." I smiled faintly. "I am hungry though. And thirsty. And in need of clothes. Did you really leave my tunic on the ground outside Laisira?"

  "No," Hesa said. "I had one of the eperu drop it in one of the fields. I thought that would explain your absence to your superiors without leading them back to Laisira before the fetes ended... since I'm sure they would have sought you out before then."

  I had not thought what my superior Suker would do when I didn't report for work tomorrow. Technically the Claws were supposed to have the holidays off but I was still being punished for failing to uncover Rapuñal's transgressions and Suker had been expecting me to put in extra time to demonstrate my zeal to the empire.

  Suker—he had not been a friend. We were all very careful about becoming too attached to other Claws, given the sort of work we did and the amount of oversight we had. But he had watched my back, and at times we'd found solace in mordant humor that would have been taken amiss by our superiors. I'd thought of him as kin and felt a pang imagining his reaction on receiving my bloodied uniform tunic.

  "That's probably for the best," I said at last.

  "Come," Hesa said, taking me by the elbow. "We'll find you something to wear. And then you should marshal your strength while you can."

  "Someone should spell Darsi," I said.

  "I did," it said. "While you were unconscious. He's fine."

  So I let it lead me back into the wagon while it opened a new crate and began sorting through its contents.

  "You brought clothes on your flight?" I said, puzzled.

  "We are not going to a het," Hesa said, distracted... considering the shirt it held up to judge perhaps whether it would fit me. I was broader through the shoulders than it or Darsi. "There is little established industry on the plains. Certainly no weavers. I brought enough to see us through a season. Hopefully by then things will have changed."

  "No industry," I said.

  "No," Hesa said. "They are proud of the community they've made while admitting it's only barely self-sustaining. Not unexpected when one considers it is a group made of refugees." It offered me a vest. "Try this. Your pants, I fear, you should keep, though I hate the thought of you dressed in anything the empire made."

  "Without the tunic they're inoffensive enough," I said. "If they bother you, have one of your emodo paint them with something. Flowers. Rays of sunlight."

  It glanced at me, amused. "Pretty lithreked wings?"

  I made a face. "Anything within reason."

  It laughed. "Gods willing, things will change and the weavers will have a proper place to work again."

  I tried the vest and handed it back when it proved too narrow through the back. "Hesa. You've met someone from this truedark kingdom?"

  "Both of us have," it said. "Darsi and I. Several people, while arranging for our escape." It offered me a new vest and then sat across from me while I pulled it on. "Their leader was an eperu, a former jarana to an anadi with whom it fell in love."

  I looked up at it sharply.

  "They tell me other things," Hesa said. "That this anadi had dreams of freedom, that she founded a House in het Narel that she used to save other anadi from the harness, that she and Roika were at odds... and all that, no doubt, is true. But to me, the deepest seed of this schism lies in that relationship." It sighed, resting its hands on its knees. "That is the crux of our struggle. How can we live together when nature drives us apart? Roika would have us resign ourselves to those differences and build a society that makes it easier for us to deal with the cruelties of our bodies. Thenet would have us turn our lives into a constant fight against our natures, exposing ourselves to pain and grief that we might acknowledge each other as people no matter the cost."

  I hesitated, fingers loose on the buttons. "You sound as if you approve of neither."

  "I don't," it said. "I don't think either will work. And I think both Roika and Thenet know it. But what is the middle way, Pathen?"

  I paused, studying it and disliking the resignation I saw in its body, though the eperu remained composed enough. "If you don't believe in either," I said at last, "why are we choosing Thenet?"

  "Because," Hesa said with a crooked smile, "Thenet at least will leave us alone to work on the answers. Roika can't afford to let anyone disagree with him when he has all of Ke Bakil to run."

  "You make it sound like some problem of House management," I said, wry.

  "It is, in a way," Hesa said. It stood and took over buttoning the vest from me, close enough that I could smell its hair. "A small House can listen to all its members and make changes based on their suggestions far more easily than a large one. Our problem—" It smoothed the fabric from the seams once it had finished fastening it. "—is that for the first time we are undertaking the management of our society as a whole and discovering that very little of it works and we are heading toward ruin." It frowned at my shoulders and tugged at the hem there. "This is too small for you also. If I'd known I would be dressing you—"

  I caught its hand and kissed the palm. "It's summer. I don't need a shirt."

  Hesa's ears flipped back at the touch and it shivered. I rested a hand on its back and said into one of those ears, "You have barely fled the Stone Moon, pefna Hesa, and you are already trying to manage Ke Bakil."

  It huffed a soft laugh against my chest. "I can't help myself. It's what I do."

  "And you are amazing at it," I said. "Perhaps we should tumble Roika from his seat and put you in his place. You'd have everything solved within a week."

  It snorted then. "Management alone does not run a House, Pathen, or the pefna would be the Head of Household. A House needs vision as well as support. Give me a vision and I can make it work. But I cannot see the path ahead of us. For that we will need imagination."

  "Or a miracle," I said, thinking of the problems that beset us, and from its sigh it agreed. It even allowed itself to lean against me, and that was both more precious than metal and more foreboding than knives.

  "Rest," it said.

  "Yes, pefna," I murmured, because I knew it would smile. And in truth when I settled back d
own again I was glad to, and slept again.

  I woke to Darsi stubbing his foot on a crate and hissing a curse beneath his breath. Sitting up, I squinted at him: night had fully fallen, and I wasn't sure what time it was. At the sight of me watching, he said, "Get out while you can and use the bushes. We're pausing for truedark. The rikka won't run through it."

  "Thanks," I said and rose. As I did, he added, "Pathen. You owe me an apology."

  "Pardon?" I said.

  "For putting me through hell," he said.

  I turned to him, wondering if he was serious, and from what little I could see of his expression he was. "You want me to apologize... for doing the work for which I was hired? Would you have preferred I not do the work and be punished for it?"

  "No!" he said. And then hissed again, sitting to rub his toes. "Yes. I don't know. At very least you didn't have to be so damned intimidating about it!"

  "This from the emodo who'd been chosen to seduce me?" I said.

  "Also not the easiest thing to manage with you looming over me all the time."

  "I couldn't help myself," I said. "You kept cringing."

  "Of course I did!" he hissed. "I was supposed to be seducing you!"

  All my amusement drained away... and so did my anger. For I had been angry at him, for his poor management of House Laisira, for being so meek, for failing to stand up to me and making himself prey before the empire. Staring at him now I truly understood in my bones that he'd been given the task of inviting attentions he hadn't welcomed to save his House, and he'd done his best. Not only done his best, but done exactly what he should have, for had I been the sort of emodo to enjoy compelling sexual favors from the powerless his fear would have been an aphrodisiac.

  "Did you think I would do it?" I asked him, quiet.

  "I didn't know," Darsi said with reluctance. I could see the gleam of light on one eye past his forelock as he peered up at me in the gloom of the wagon. "You were always hard for me to read. I kept trying, though."

  At last, I thought I had found something I could respect Darsi for. I wasn't sure I could have put myself forth as bait for the amorous attentions of a Jokkad who could have destroyed my House on a whim. That took a level of sacrifice I couldn't help admiring. I turned from him and headed for the back of the wagon.

  And then, as usual, he had to ruin it. "Pathen. This thing with Hesa... you know it's not a good idea."

  I looked over my shoulder at him and perhaps there was enough light on my face for him to know he'd made a mistake.

  "I hold Hesa in high esteem and always have," he hurried on. "You won't find a more exemplary Jokkad on Ke Bakil. But you and I both know that you're inviting heartbreak and censure."

  "If there's censure to be found, Darsi," I said, voice low, "it had better not be yours." And then I hopped off the back of the wagon. It wasn't until I reached the side of the road that I realized I'd threatened him; that I was perhaps too used to issuing threats. I was no longer the claw on the end of an empire's hand... what authority existed here was solely Laisira's, for I had run away with them. And yet I couldn't go back into that wagon and take it back. If Darsi wanted to make an issue of what I felt for Hesa, he had better not do it where I could reach him. The empire might no longer stand behind my threats but it had taught me how to fight.

  The thought of punching Darsi was compelling. Regrettably. I put it aside and went to take care of needful things.

  When I returned, the Jokka of House Laisira were already climbing back into their wagons. I leapt onto the back of mine but chose to sit on the edge instead of taking shelter inside it. As I waited, truedark fell. I had never contemplated what caravans did during truedark; I'd assumed they'd pulled to the side of the roads to wait it out, just as we were doing. Jokka do not travel during truedark. We love sight too much to risk ourselves in the uncanny hour where the darkness is too complete for our vision to work well.

  In one of the wagons near me, a lamp kindled, showing silhouettes against the canvas walls. I stared in that direction, startled.

  "Do you wonder that we might use a light?" Hesa said from the ground.

  "No," I said honestly. "I wonder that I never thought that we might."

  "Superstitions don't die quick deaths," Hesa said, pulling itself up alongside me. More silhouettes crowded into the lit wagon. "There's no reason not to use lamps during truedark except that we don't do anything during truedark and never have. So why would we need a lamp?"

  "Do all caravans do this, then?" I asked.

  "I don't know," Hesa said. "A few, certainly. Not all of us drive through the night, of course, but among those of us who do I've heard of a few who celebrate truedark, if they choose to stay awake for it."

  "Celebrate it," I murmured.

  "The darkness that veils the moon," Hesa said and moved on. "You had a fight with Darsi."

  I glanced at it but couldn't see its face. "You heard?"

  "I heard Darsi muttering to himself," Hesa said. "Much as he used to when you'd been frightening him over something or other. So I'm right?"

  "He saw fit to warn me over you," I said, flattening my ears.

  In that utter dark, its sigh was a visceral thing. I could almost feel the warmth of its throat in the air it released. "Yes, I imagine so."

  "As if it's any business of his," I growled.

  "Ah, but it is," Hesa said. "And no doubt he will only be the first to say something to us. If... in fact... we do anything."

  I began to speak and it said—as if it could see me—"Let me finish, please. It's truedark now and the time of confidences, and we're very likely the only people not in that wagon. So let me tell you of the eperu."

  I subsided and it sensed my quiet, for it exhaled.

  "You know I was born emodo," Hesa said. "I Turned eperu... it was either a late first Turning or an early second, no one was ever sure. But I was old enough to have had a few relationships. Very passionate... you know how adolescents are."

  "I remember," I murmured.

  "You do, I'm sure," it said and groped for my hand until it found it on my knee. "I'm guessing you're my age. Early third decade?"

  "Yes," I said, wishing I could see it and fascinated at how not being able to made its voice and its body-heat so intense.

  "When it was certain, my being eperu," Hesa continued. "I went to stay with them in the House. You're never really taught anything formally but you absorb a great deal from being among other eperu when you're one of them. That we live to serve the breeders. That their welfare is worth our lives. And there's pride there, that we're willing to make those sacrifices. That we're capable. And pride too that we're not part of their passions. That we stand outside the cycle of making children, of love, of things eperu name breeders' fancies. And that part is definitely clear: we don't love. We don't love one another, not that way; we call one another 'cousin' as if we are family, and we are kin but we say those things to hold ourselves apart from the possibility of passion."

  It was silent, though its thumb slowly stroked my fingers. As I waited for it to compose its thoughts I tried to hold in my mind the revelation that the eperu considered themselves so truly separate from the rest of us.

  "The eperu born eperu are the most obdurate, of course," Hesa continued at length. "And the least cognizant of what it is to be a breeder and to harbor feelings for other Jokka. It's not that they're incapable, it's just that they've been conditioned to detachment for so long that they don't even know how to try. Those of us born other sexes or who had brief stints as them between birth and Turning, we have a sense of it. And I think the kudelith-eperu distrust us a little for that." It lifted my hand and rested its nose against my knuckles, sighing. "The truth, Pathen, is that we can love. Of course we can. We can even feel passion and the body's answer to it. The sensation's not as strong for me as it was when I was emodo, but my body works much the way it used to. And my heart, definitely. But this is against what eperu teach one another."

  "But why?" I asked.
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  "For the same reason Roika separates the sexes," Hesa said against my fingers. "Because the eperu are too used to watching the breeders fail, Pathen. The minds of the anadi, the bodies of the emodo... if we loved you, the wisdom goes, we would go mad from grief."

  I cleared my throat and said, quiet, "I'm not planning to die anytime soon."

  I felt its smile against my fingers, but its voice was hesitant. "Was that an invitation?"

  "A promise," I said and turned my hand in its so I could cup its chin and draw it close enough to kiss. This time when we parted it was the one breathless and there was a taste in my mouth... bitter and bright. "Don't weep," I said, gathering it to me.

  "Are you sure?" it asked me, its hands on my arms trembling. "Are you sure about doing this? I can only ask so many times before you wear me down."

  "Hesa," I said. And laughed, quiet. "I'm sure. Never more so." I brushed my nose against its. "If you're willing."

  "Yes...!" it whispered.

  "Then show me how to please you," I said, and drew it down with me.

  While the Jokka of House Laisira whiled away the truedark hour in their one lit wagon, I let Hesa teach me how to make love to an eperu. In truth it was not so different from loving anyone else in any way except one: that it was Hesa, peerless, fierce and wonderful Hesa. Simply being itself was enough magic without it also having talent... which it did. I had had lovers before but I couldn't remember any of them being able to do with their bodies what Hesa could do with its fingers. Or mouth. And the sound it made beneath me when it at last found its pleasure...

  ...so quiet and so heartfelt...

  I had been waiting all my life to hear that sound, and never knew it.

  Afterward we cleaned each other and dressed again, and then it would have walked away had I not caught its wrist.

  "They'll be returning any time now," it said, low. "We should—"

  "—hide?" I said. "No, I don't think so." That I could see the look on its face meant that truedark had truly sped, but I was glad because I knew to continue. "Hesa. I won't touch you and then set you aside like a guilty secret. If I do this, and I plan to, I'll face the consequences of it."