Dapple: a hwarhath historical romance

ELEANOR ARNASON

Critically acclaimed author Eleanor Arnason published her first novel, The Sword Smith,  in 1978, and followed it with novels such as Daughter of the Bear King  and To the Resurrection Station.  In 1991, she published her best-known novel, one of the strongest novels of the ‘90s, A Woman of the Iron People,  a complex and substantial novel which won the prestigious James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award. Her short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & science Fiction, Amazing, Orbit, Xanadu,  and elsewhere. Her most recent novel is Ring of Swords,  set in the same evocative fictional universe as is the bulk of her short fiction, including the story that follows.

In this story she takes us to a distant planet inhabited by the alien hwarhath,  and along with a brave and determined young girl who defies her family and sets off on a perilous adventure that takes her into uncharted territory of several sorts—into wild, lawless country inhabited by bandits and remorseless killers, and, perhaps even more dangerously, into a new social territory as well, as she assumes roles Forbidden to Women since time immemorial.. .

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T

here was a girl named Helwar Ahl. Her family lived on an island north and east of the Second Continent, which was known in those days as the Great Southern Continent. (Now, of course, we know that an even larger expanse of land lies farther south, touching the pole. In Ahl’s time, however, no one knew about this land except its inhabitants.)

            A polar current ran up the continent’s east coast and curled around Helwar Island, so its climate was cool and rainy. Thick forests covered the mountains. The Helwar built ships from the wood. They were famous shipwrights, prosperous enough to have a good-sized harbor town.

            Ahl grew up in this town. Her home was the kind of great house typical of the region: a series of two-story buildings linked together. The outer walls were mostly blank. Inside were courtyards, balconies, and large windows provided with the modem wonder, glass. Granted, the panes were small and flawed. But some ingenious artificer had found a way to fit many panes together, using strips of lead. Now the women of the house had light, even in the coldest weather.

As a child, Ahl played with her cousins in the courtyards and common rooms, all of them naked except for their fog-grey fur. Later, in a kilt, she ran in the town streets and visited the harbor. Her favorite uncle was a fisherman, who went out in morning darkness, before most people woke. In the late afternoon, he returned. If he’d been lucky, he tied up and cleaned his catch, while Ahl sat watching on the dock.

“I want to be a fisherman,” she said one day.

“You can’t, darling. Fishing is men’s work.”

“Why?”

He was busy gutting fish. He stopped for a moment, frowning, a bloody knife still in his hand. “Look at this situation! Do you want to stand like me, knee deep in dead fish? It’s hard, nasty work and can be dangerous. The things that women do well — negotiation, for example, and the forming of alliances — are no use at all, when dealing with fish. What’s needed here,” he waved the knife, “is violence. Also, it helps if you can piss off the side of a boat.”

For a while after that Ahl worked at aiming her urine. She could do it, if she spread her legs and tilted her pelvis in just the right fashion. But would she be able to manage on a pitching boat? Or in a wind? In addition, there was the problem of violence. Did she really want to be a killer of many small animals?

One of the courtyards in her house had a basin, which held ornamental fish. Ahl caught one and cut off its head. A senior female cousin caught her before she was finished, though the fish was past help.

“What are you doing?” the matron asked.

Ahl explained.

“These are fish to feed, not fish to eat,” her cousin said and demonstrated this by throwing a graincake into the basin.

Fish surged to the surface in a swirl of red fins, green backs, and blue-green tails. A moment later, the cake was gone. The fish returned to their usual behavior: a slow swimming back and forth.

“It’s hardly fair to kill something this tame —in your own house, too. Guests should be treated with respect. In addition, these fish have an uninteresting flavor and are full of tiny bones. If you ate one, it would be like eating a cloth full of needles.”

Ahl lost interest in fishing after that. Her uncle was right about killing. It was a nasty activity. All that quickness and grace, gone in a moment. The bright colors faded. She was left with nothing except a feeling of disgust.

Maybe she’d be a weaver, like her mother, Leweli. Or the captain of a far-traveling ocean-trader, like her aunt Ki. Then she could bring treasures home: transparent glass, soft and durable lead.

When she was ten, she saw her first play. She knew the actors, of course. They were old friends of her family and came to Helwar often, usually staying in Ahl’s house. The older one —Perig—was quiet and friendly, always courteous to the household children, but not a favorite with them. The favorite was Cholkwa, who juggled and pulled candy out of ears. He knew lots of funny stories, mostly about animals such as the  tli, a famous troublemaker and trickster. According to the house’s adults, he was a comedian, who performed in plays too rude for children to see. Perig acted in hero plays, though it was hard to imagine him as a hero. The two men were lovers, but didn’t usually work together. This was due to the difference in their styles and to their habit of quarreling. They had, the women of Ahl’s house said, a difficult relationship.

This time they came together, and Perig brought his company. They put on a play in the main square, both of them acting, though Cholkwa almost never did dark work.

The play was about two lovers—both of them warriors—whose families quarreled. How could they turn against one another? How could they refuse their relatives’ pleas for help? Each was the best warrior in his family. Though she hadn’t seen a play before, Ahl knew how this was going to end. The two men met in battle. It was more like a dance than anything else, both of them splendidly costumed and moving with slow reluctant, grace. Finally, after several speeches, Perig tricked Cholkwa into striking. The blow was fatal. Perig went down in a gold and scarlet heap. Casting his sword away, Cholkwa knelt beside him. A minor player in drab armor crept up and killed Cholkwa as he mourned.

Ahl was transfixed, though also puzzled. “Wasn’t there any way out?” she asked the actors later, when they were back in her house, drinking  halin and listening to her family’s compliments.

“In a comedy, yes,” said Cholkwa. “Which is why I do bright plays. But Perig likes plays that end with everyone dead, and always over some ethical problem that’s hardly ever encountered in real life.”