A Bloom in the North Read online

  "You honor us, ke anadi," I said. "And House Asara."

  "Thank you, ke emodo, ke eperu," she answered, somber. But her eyes welled with her happiness. "I'll leave you to your rest."

  After she'd left I slumped onto my side, heart racing. Hesa lowered itself beside me and threaded its arm over my ribcage, hand spread on my breastbone. I felt its cheek against the back of my shoulder.

  "What just happened?" I whispered.

  "An anadi chose the welfare of the species over her own life," Hesa said softly, "because of what you have created here."

  "No," I murmured. "It's not that simple."

  "Yes, it is," Hesa said. "And... no, it's not."

  I looked over my shoulder at it, disgruntled, and it chuckled softly at my expression. "This won't solve the Jokka's problems," it said. "Kuli is an exceptional anadi, and I don't think every anadi will make her choice if they are made to feel loved and respected. But I think there are anadi who would. That's assuming, of course, that every House will choose to treat their anadi as people. Many of them will only remember the heartbreak of watching their female members dwindle and shy from opening their arms to them."

  "So why haven't we?" I asked, voice low. "What makes Asara different?"

  "You do," Hesa said. "You treat the eperu like the emodo. You treat the anadi like the emodo. You care about all of us, Pathen. And a House acts like its Head. You're brave, just and kind... so we follow."

  I grimaced. "Gods, Hesa. You make me sound like some paragon."

  Its fingers tickled my heart lightly and I squirmed. "You have your weaknesses. Red-headed eperu among them."

  "One red-headed eperu, anyway," I said. "Whose red hair I still miss."

  Hesa nipped the back of my neck and I could hear the grin in its voice. "The day will come."

  I turned, rolling it onto its back and holding myself over it. "You say everyone follows my steps, ke eperu... but I say to you the House takes its models from the principals of its House, not just the Head."

  "And what House has had principals since the Stone Moon?" Hesa asked, gaze serious. "The empire came and made the pefna, the jarana, the kaña all irrelevant. Emodo had power. Everyone else was a convenient tool."

  I leaned down and licked its lips until it let me kiss it. When it was shivering under me, I murmured in its ear, "I'll accept responsibility for the House's generosity of spirit only if you share it with me, ke eperu."

  "Done," it answered, and pulled me down to it.

  The news of Kuli's choice spread like fire in a dry field. When I returned home from my errands in the het—Transactions again, in preparation for the last group of eperu waiting to join the House—I could taste the excitement in the halls. Where there were people working, I heard them talking about it: that Kuli wanted a baby. A baby! I paused in the door to Abadil's shop and heard the emodo teasing the prospective fathers about their luck. That alone... that the emodo she'd decided to lie with were considered fortunate... what a change Kuli had managed in a single day.

  From there I strolled outside. The eperu left behind from the warehouse project to tend the fields were filled with the same enthusiasm, but of a different sort: they were talking amongst themselves about which of them had the most experience with anadi, with pregnancies, with children. Where there were eperu borrowed from the empire, they were asking whether the visitors had wisdom to share on the matter. They were, I realized, trying to elect a jarana for the House. I wondered when Hesa would show up in my office with the eperu they'd decided was best suited to the task and guessed it would only be a few days, if that.

  Kuli was in her garden-to-be with the other two anadi. They were deep in some conference that I did not want to interrupt, but I could hear the whispers, fervent and excited. Her two companions seemed uncertain, but her happiness was infectious. They couldn't help but react to it, relax into it. Would they give her advice, I wondered? Would they help when her time came? These two wouldn't be here to see the end of her pregnancy, and I wondered how the anadi who would take their place would react.

  I prayed Kuli would have an easy time of it. For all our sakes. I didn't want to think what would happen to House Asara if the first anadi they embraced lost herself in labor.

  When I returned to the House I went to the common room for tea. There I found Darsi bent over a floorplan of the estate, talking with an emodo and an eperu about choosing a good room for a nursery because, above all, there would be no using the caverns for anything but storing food.

  I poured my cup and took it outside, and in the hall I stopped and closed my eyes. I don't know how long I stood there, but I at some point drew in a breath and went to my office to do my own work.

  Perhaps it was our joy that distracted us. Two days later I was having my predawn tea with Darsi when an eperu skidded into the hall and ran to my door. "Ke emodo! The fields have been destroyed!"

  Darsi and I both stood. "What?" I said.

  "Come, quickly, please!" it said, and the two of us hurried after it.

  That is how I came to stand outside our property at the foot of our fields in the chill dark before dawn, looking at the utter ruin of the crops. Nearly all of them had been... shorn? Trampled? Destroyed, certainly, for they'd been crushed and scattered. They'd only been a month from harvest.

  "Void," Darsi whispered, pulling my robe more closely around himself. "What happened?"

  I swept the fields with a glance, found a knot of eperu bent over several fallen. I went there immediately and crouched alongside the first. Not dead, I saw—thank the Void, for it tamped my wrath to something manageable—but shivering from exposure and rubbing chafed wrists. When it saw me, it cringed and said in a hoarse rasp, "Ke emodo, we tried—"

  "Of course you did," I said, setting a hand on its arm. "Tell me what happened."

  "There were too many of them," the eperu said. "At least twenty, more. We never saw their faces. They blew out the firebowls first and then overwhelmed us... and then... this. They did this."

  We left only a handful of eperu to watch the fields at night, to chase away pests and keep an eye out for fire. Few people employed formal guards anymore, save for prestige; the empire's Claws enforced the law and prevented crime. But those Claws patrolled the streets, not the fields held in common for the het. One did not target crops when the Jokka were still recovering from past famines.

  "I'm sorry, ke emodo," the eperu said. "We have failed you, the House, the het."

  There was raw skin around its mouth where it had been gagged. I wonder how long it had screamed to have frayed the flesh so badly, to have such a ruin of a voice left over.

  "You have not failed us," I said. "Blame for this will fall entirely on those who committed the crime... as it should. And we will find them and punish them."

  It drooped in its fellow's arms. To it, I said, "Take them inside, have them tended, get something warm in them."

  "Yes, ke emodo."

  I found Hesa surveying the destruction, crouched beside one of the crushed stalks.

  "Is any of it salvageable?" I asked.

  It dusted its hands free of soil and rose. "We might be able to get something out of the northeastern edge, if we're careful. They did their work well."

  I had forgotten what Hesa's anger sounded like. It sang dangerous harmony with my own.

  Behind us, Darsi said, "But who would do this? What's the point of it? I don't understand. All they've done is cut into the het's food store. Who'd want to do that?"

  "We need to find out if anyone else's fields were targeted," Hesa said to me.

  Hearing something in its voice, I said, "But...?"

  "But I don't think they were," Hesa said. "I think you'll find the only House that has suffered this crime is Asara." It looked at me, eyes flashing in the brittle light just staining the horizon. "This was a message, Pathen. They left our eperu alive instead of killing them so we'd know that someone came in force expressly to destroy our harvest."

  "But why?" Darsi rep
eated.

  "To trouble our relationship with the Minister?" I murmured, frowning.

  "Or to use up our money," Hesa said. "We'll have to pay the difference now in taxes."

  "Then someone who thought we could be ruined by running us out of money might have made the attempt," I said.

  "Pathen," Hesa said, voice sharp, "they're right. Unless you're hiding funds I don't know about... we won't have enough to cover the cost."

  Darsi paled. "You're not serious."

  "Even with the warehouse contract?" I said to Hesa.

  "We're spending money to fulfill that contract right now," Hesa said. "It won't start earning us money until the first caravans come back."

  "Abadil will be ready to sell in a few weeks," Darsi said. "He wants to build up inventory before we take it to the marketplace..." He stopped short and said, "Do they know about the paper?"

  The thought of someone forcing their way into the House and destroying all Abadil's infrastructure was enough to blind me with rage. Before I could answer, Hesa said, "We'll put guards on it. But we'll have to take eperu away from the warehouse project to do it, which will delay the completion of the contract."

  "We need the last of our people," I said.

  "But what will you hire them with?" Hesa said. "Shell?"

  "I'll have to go to Thesenet," I said. "When would the empire normally be collecting the tax on unused fields?"

  "At harvest," Hesa said. "That's a month from now."

  "Two weeks before the Leaf Gathering," Darsi murmured. "I wonder if someone was hoping that we'd go bankrupt, lose our status, and no longer be able to attend."

  "They will be hoping that until the day the Void culls their souls," I said. "We're not falling if I have to beg Thesenet for an extension. And I won't have to." Hesa's expression prompted me to take its arm in a hand. I bent toward it and said, "Hesa, trust me."

  "Pathen..."

  "Didn't you say money wasn't power?" I said. "You were right. Trust me."

  "It's not power but it can ruin you," it said.

  "Hesa," Darsi said, surprising me by touching its other shoulder. It looked at him, startled. He said, "He's right. We'll find a way."

  Hesa closed its eyes and let its head droop. "All right," it said heavily. "All right." It looked up at me, eyes glowing. "But promise me, Pathen. Promise me we'll find these people."

  "Oh, we will," I said. I looked at the ruin of the field. "For assaulting our people... and for stealing food from the mouths of others just to hurt us... we will. In fact..." I frowned. "Do we have guards on the warehouse site?"

  Hesa looked up at me, ears slicked to its mane. "No. There are no goods being kept there right now. There's nothing to guard but the unfinished building and the three wagons we've bought toward the initial caravan."

  "But if they destroy those, and the building..." Darsi trailed off.

  Hesa drew in a breath, shaking.

  I lifted a hand. "Set a watch on it but make sure the watchers are concealed. Our enemy may have a spy to tell them we are launching the paper project, but even if they do their more likely target is the least defensible, and the one that will put us in bigger trouble with the empire. They'll move for the warehouse next."

  "We're going to be very short on eperu," Hesa said, low.

  "We can put emodo to work guarding the paper," Darsi said. "Maybe they can take turns sleeping in the project room."

  "Emodo sleep too deeply," Hesa said.

  "Then they can take turns keeping a watch," I said. "The entire empire is overseen by emodo enforcers."

  "Who failed to catch our assailants before they could bankrupt us!" Hesa exclaimed.

  "Yes," I murmured. "I'll have to discuss that with Thesenet also."

  Darsi said, "It can be done. And they'll be eager to do it. It's their project, Hesa. They care about it." He smiled a little. "Or if you're still not convinced, we can have the anadi check on them to make sure they're still awake. They wander at night. I'm sure Kuli and the others would be proud to be asked to contribute."

  "That's not a bad idea," I said.

  "You want to put anadi to work helping emodo to guard the House?" Hesa said, struggling for composure.

  "It's their House too," I said gently.

  "And we are shorthanded," Darsi said. "We'll all pull together. Once the wagon's free of the mud you can go back to coddling the breeders."

  Hesa covered its face with its hands. To Darsi, I said, "Will you contact Thesenet for me, please? We'll have to begin a formal investigation."

  "Yes, Pathen," he said, and took his leave.

  I stood facing my pefna, whose arms I very much wanted to clasp in my own. But even that minor gesture would have been too demonstrative for the parts we played in public, and we were in the middle of an open field with the empire either about to be summoned or already on its way. So I lowered my voice and let it hear my conviction in it. "Hesa. Setasha. We will make this right."

  It let its hands fall from its face and drew in a long breath. Then squared its shoulders. "You're right," it said. "I'll go arrange for the warehouse's spies. I'll send the eperu who were attacked... it will comfort them to have something constructive to do."

  "Good," I said. "I'll be here with the minister if you need me."

  It glanced once at the field, then said, "All right, Pathen." And went to its duties, leaving me to survey the wreckage of House Asara's contribution to the food stores of het Narel. I crouched and ran my fingers through the rumpled soil, feeling the fibrous stalks of the grain where they'd been trampled into the earth. Here and there I found scattered seeds. It felt gritty, like the oily ash of the truedark settlement's remains. I tasted that ash in my mouth and knew it as an anger so deep I couldn't separate it from the rest of me. Had Suker said I resented the empire for its injustice? He'd been right. But he had not gone far enough. I hated all injustice. I hated waste. I hated fear and grief. All the things that made the Jokka their prey... those things I swore to hunt to ground.

  I would catch the people responsible for this crime. It was only a matter of time.

  By mid-morning Thesenet's Claws were searching my fields for evidence as I stood with the minister at the border.

  "This is monstrous," he said. "Absolutely monstrous."

  "Yes," I said. "I presume we're the only ones who suffered the attack."

  "We've heard of no others," Thesenet said, tail twitching in sharp, angry flicks. "They came at night when the Claws were sure to be gone. Did they know that they're only here to oversee the eperu still aiding House Asara with the harvest?"

  "I don't know," I said.

  "I should have left some here to watch," Thesenet growled.

  "You didn't know someone would do this," I said. And added, "Though if you wished to lend me a few of those Claws I would put them to good use."

  Thesenet glanced at me, brows rising. "Oh?"

  "Guarding the warehouse and the paper operation," I said. "It seems clear someone wants to see House Asara fail. Which it will, Minister, if you do not offer us an extension on our taxes at harvest's end. We don't have the money to compensate the Stone Moon for the entirety of our crop offering."

  Thesenet's ears flattened. "Was that their game then?"

  "That's our guess," I said.

  "Someone put their jealousy at your House's success over the welfare of the Jokka of het Narel," Thesenet said, lips peeling back from his teeth.

  "Over the Jokka of Ke Bakil," I said. "Since famine anywhere in the empire is mitigated by the common store."

  Thesenet was silent, standing alongside me. The cold morning wind pulled at our clothes, whispered unfettered over the now naked fields where the silhouettes of emodo in the empire's uniforms picked through the detritus, backlit by the rising eastern sun. We savored our shared anger and it made us kin.

  "You'll have your Claws," Thesenet said.

  "They'll say you are showing favor to us," I said.

  "Let them," Thesenet said. "They wish
to come between House Asara and the Stone Moon ministry in het Narel? Let us show them how their efforts have brought us closer instead."

  What a poor, poor decision our enemy had made to target us. I said after a moment, "The emodo you send. Ask for volunteers."

  "Yes," Thesenet said. "That would be best."

  As I expected, the Claws found nothing despite spending the afternoon seeking evidence. There had been little consistency in the destruction: the stalks had been scythed, or knifed, or trampled or crushed; the breaks were at different heights; and the ground was too firm in most places to hold a print, or where it could the prints were confused by what looked like wrappings. Thesenet left as angry as any member of House Asara, promising tax extensions and volunteer Claws to guard us. We agreed that publicly House Asara was to have suffered a terrible natural disaster... let our enemies be confused as to whether the empire was helping us or if we were lying to it.

  Given the magnitude of the disaster, we had come out of it well. Thesenet hadn't needed to be guided toward any of the decisions we'd needed him to make in order to preserve the House's future, and by late afternoon we'd received aid in the form of eight Claws. I kept four of them to safeguard the estate and sent the others to Hesa at the warehouse site. That the Jokka of the House seemed to feel no dread in response to the sight of these additions didn't occur to me as odd until much later, when I found myself in my antechamber after an exhausting day, eating supper four hours late. Our House, full of dissidents, rebels and perverts, had gladly embraced the empire's enforcers. And one had only to look into the eyes of the Claws to see their zeal on our behalf.

  Truly, the webs of trust we were weaving had grown convoluted.

  Hesa dragged itself in the door and to a chair, and as I watched poured itself a cup of warmed wine from my jar. "For once," it said, voice ragged with weariness, "no one will be looking askance at me for being here. They all think I have been too late working, and thus very late with my report to you. Which... is actually true." It drank, and finished, "Darsi is busy with Kuli."