Soldier’s Boy crossed my arms over my chest, only too aware of how the skin hung limp and empty on my forearms and breast. Even my fingers looked odd to me, their plumpness lost. I shared his sudden wave of mourning for all my hoarded magic lost. Olikea was right. I looked like a man without power, unhonored and thin. I would be mocked at the gathering of the kin-clans. Disappointment flooded me and it turned into anger. He pointed a finger at her. “Olikea,” he said into her tirade. I do not think he used any magic, but she was silenced as suddenly as if he had.
“If you wish me to quick-walk you back to the People tonight, go find food for me now. Otherwise, I will be too weak. If you do not wish to help feed me, that is fine. Beg passage of Jodoli. But those are your only two options. Choose, and do it quietly.”
She narrowed her eyes and their green made it a cat’s stare. “Perhaps I have choices you know nothing about, Jhernian!” She turned on her heel and strode off into the forest. I stared after her, wondering how I could ever have imagined that she felt love or even affection toward me. It had been a transaction. Sex and food given to me in the expectation that I would acquire status and power, and that she would share in those things.
Firada puffed breath out of her pursed lips, dismissing Olikea’s show disdainfully. “She has no other options. She will return, with sweet food and sweet words, to wriggle into your favor again. My little sister has always been thus. My father spoiled her after my mother was taken.”
Jodoli came and ponderously lowered his bulk beside me. Soldier’s Boy suppressed a wave of envy. Jodoli looked very fine, his skin smooth and oiled, his belly sleek and rounded as a gorged forest cat. His hair was glossy, sleeked back from his face and then braided into a fat tail. I looked away from him, unable to bear the sharp contrast with my saggy skin and protruding bones. “We must speak, Nevare, of Olikea’s accusations. I know you have been a divided man, unwilling to concede that the intruders must be killed or driven back. But now that they have cast you out, perhaps you will feel differently about them. Perhaps you will admit that they do not belong here.”
Soldier’s Boy rubbed my hands together, looking at my fingers. A divided man. Little did he know how accurately he spoke. “How do you know they cast me out?” he asked Jodoli.
“The magic whispered it to me. You would not come to the forest of your free will, so it had to turn your people against you. Now they have disowned you. When you say ‘my people’ today, to whom do you refer?”
It was not a question just for Soldier’s Boy, a Great Man of the Specks. It was for Nevare to answer as well. Soldier’s Boy spoke for both of us.
“I do not think I will say ‘my people’ for a very long time.”
CHAPTER SIX
CONFRONTATIONS
As Nevare, I did little the rest of that day. I retreated to the back of my mind and became an onlooker in my life. Soldier’s Boy ate the food that Likari brought him, drank deeply of clean water, and then slept. He woke to the wonderful aroma of hot food. Olikea brought it. A hastily woven net held leaf-wrapped packets the size of my fist and roasted tubers. The packets held chunks of fish cooked with a sour root. The leaves that held them were edible and added their own piquant touch of flavor. He ate the food and commented on it favorably. That was the only conversation between them. Neither apologized or explained where the situation now stood. It seemed far simpler a resolution than could ever have occurred between Gernians.
When Likari brought food, he ate that as well. I do not think that pleased Olikea but she didn’t talk about it. Instead, she took a wooden comb from her shoulder pouch and painstakingly combed out my hair. She spent far longer on the task than it deserved; I had never realized how good such a simple thing could feel. I do not think Firada approved of Soldier’s Boy’s easy acceptance of Olikea’s return. She announced that she was taking Jodoli down to the stream to wash him and to rest there. She stalked away and he stolidly followed her, a placid bullock of a man.
Olikea ignored their leaving. Likari had gone off to look for more mushrooms. She continued to work her comb through my hair. There wasn’t much of it. I had given up keeping it in a cavalla soldier’s short cut some time ago, but there was still not enough to plait or dress in any fashion. Still, it felt good, and the Great Man allowed her gentle touch and his full belly to lull him. He fell asleep.
Strange to say, I did not sleep. I remained awake and aware of all the sensations a man may feel with his eyes closed. I wondered if this was how it had been for my Speck self in the days when I had been so firmly in charge of my life—or thought I had been. In a way, it was pleasant. I felt that I had let go of the reins; surely no one could hold me responsible now for the chaos that my life had become. The early afternoon was warm, summer stealing one of autumn’s days, but here, deep in the shade of the forest, there was a pleasant chill that tickled the surface of my skin. If I lay very still, my body warmth lingered around me, but the slightest breeze stole it away. It did not much bother me. The moss I rested on was deep and my body had warmed it. I was comfortable. I was naked, I realized belatedly. Olikea must have taken my clothing when she rescued me. She had never approved of how much clothing I wore. Her discarding it struck me as foolish. Naked, others would more quickly see how wasted and thin I was. However strange my clothing might have seemed, at least it might have kept some of the disdain and mockery at bay. Among the Specks, few things were more pitied and despised than a skinny man. What kind of a fool could not provide for himself, or earn enough regard from his fellows to have them help him in a time of injury or sickness? I looked such a fool right now. Well, Soldier’s Boy was in command of the body now; he would have to deal with it. I let my mind drift to more pleasant thoughts.
I heard birdsong, the sound of the breeze in the needled trees, and the very light rattle of falling leaves whenever a gust of breeze was strong enough to dislodge them. I could hear them cascading down, ricocheting through the twigs and branches until they finally reached the forest floor. The Speck were right. Summer was over, autumn was strong, and winter would be on its heels. Real cold would descend, followed by the snows and harsh winds of winter. Last winter I’d had a snug little cabin to shelter me. This winter I would face that weather with not even the clothes on my back. A tide of dread started to rise in me, but again I turned it back with the simple demurral: it was not my problem. Specks seemed to have survived well through the ages. Whatever their tactic was, even if it was simply the stoic endurance of cold and privation, Soldier’s Boy would learn it and last the winter.
A bird sang again, loudly, a warning, and then I heard the crack of its wings as it took hasty flight. A moment later I heard something heavy settle into the branches overhead. A shower of broken twigs rattled against my face, followed by the slower fall of leaves. I looked up in annoyance. A huge croaker bird had settled in the tree above me. I grimaced in distaste. Fleshy orange-red wattles hung about his beak, reminding me both of dangling meat and cancerous growths. His feathers rattled when he shook them and it seemed as if I could smell the stench of carrion on them. His long black toes gripped the branch tightly as he leaned down to peer at me. His eyes were very bright.
“Nevare! You owe me a death.”
The croaked words shot ice down my spine. I arced as if I’d been hit by an arrow, and then peered up at the creature in the branches overhead. He was no longer a bird. He wasn’t a man, either. Orandula, the god of balances, teetered on the branch over my head. His long black feet gripped the branch with horny toenails. His nose was a carrion bird’s hooked beak, and the red wattles dangled from his throat now. His hair was a thicket of unruly feathers, and feathers cloaked his body and dangled from his arms. Unchanged were his piercing bird-bright eyes. He cocked his head and stared down at me. He smiled, his beak stretching horribly as he did so. As I stared, fixed with terror, his little black tongue came out of his mouth, dabbing at the edges of his beak, and then retreated again.