The Actors: A Hwarhath Historical Romance h-8 Read online

  The Actors: A Hwarhath Historical Romance

  ( Hwarhath - 8 )

  Eleanor Arnason

  THE ACTORS

  by ELEANOR ARNASON

  A Hwarhath Historical Romance

  THERE WERE TWO WOMEN who fell in love. At first this was no problem. Their families were allies and trading partners whose ships plied the narrow ocean between the coast of Sorg and the Great Southern Continent.

  The northern family was Sorg itself. Numerous, prosperous, clever and arrogant, these folk gave their name to an entire region.

  In recent centuries the coast of Sorg has been improved in many ways: land drained and turned to agriculture, canals dug to carry away excess water and for transportation. The coastal people still prefer boats to the railroad, which they claim is noisy, dirty and unnatural. "If the Goddess had meant us to ride

  on iron rails, she would not have given us so much water."

  Most of the year a steady wind blows off the ocean. Modem silent windmills stand everywhere, their metal blades flashing "like a flock of little suns" in the words of a famous poem. These power the country's many drainage pumps and the even more numerous air cooling machines, which make the climate of Sorg tolerable to foreigners as long as they remain indoors.

  In ancient times the coast was a place of brackish marshes, slow rivers, shallow bays and heat. The inhabitants would have been gray if they'd kept all their fur, as they do now, being influenced by air conditioning and the opinions of other cultures. In those days, however, both men and woman cropped their outer layers of hair, leaving only the soft white undercoat; and many decorated themselves by shaving certain areas down to the bare dark skin.

  Imagine a folk with snowy fur so short that it hides no detail of the bodies underneath. Dark lines zigzag or coil over their angular shoulders and long narrow backs. (The Sorg have always been a tall and bony people.) Often their faces are partially shaved as well, becoming patterned masks from which stare

  eyes as blue as the ocean. Savages, we'd call them now. In their time they were matriarchs, warriors, explorers and merchants.

  Their country was rich, providing them with fish, shellfish, birds of many kinds and luatin, which came into the coastal bays to breed. Though it is never easy to kill these massive animals, lust makes them less wary than usual; and many of the bays could be turned into traps. In the coastal marshes the wis plant

  bloomed, red as blood or fire. Its sap made (and makes) a famous scarlet dye.

  The southern family was Helwar. Their home was an island which lies off the northeast corner of the Great Southern Continent. A polar current runs up the continent's eastern coast and coils around the island, bringing cold water, cool air, rain, and fog. The rain nourished the Helwar forests; the icy current gave

  them fish; the cool air made their flocks grow long thick wool. The family wealth, such as it was, came from these four sources: fish, wool, lumber, and ships. At the time of this story the Helwar made the best ships in the world.

  It was the Helwar ships, seen in their own harbors and other places, which drew the Sorg south, traveling in wide wallowing barges better fit for rivers than the ocean. As rich as they were, they lacked the Helwar skill. To gain it, or at least the use of it, they offered an alliance.

  How could the Helwar refuse these towering white and black people? An agreement was made and confirmed with gifts, though the Sorg did not offer the one gift that makes an alliance unbreakable: their men as fathers for Helwar children. No

  bond is stronger than kinship. The offspring of such a mating would connect the two families as long as they and their descendants lived.

  The Helwar made hints, which the Sorg pretended not to understand. Growing desperate, for they really wanted this alliance, the Helwar matriarchs made an offer of their own. They would send the five best and most promising young men in their lineage north to father children among the Sorg. The Helwar's new allies hesitated and consulted among each other, while the Helwar waited anxiously; and some of the islanders began to mutter that this might not be such a good deal. Maybe they ought to find more willing trading partners. Finally the Sorg agreed, though in a way that seemed grudging and reluctant.

  "This is a beginning," said the Helwar matriarchs to each other. "Once they have our ships, they will understand the appeal of a stronger alliance."

  When the Sorg left, five Helwar men -- sturdy warriors -- traveled with them.

  The motion of the Sorg barges was terrible, they reported later. "No wonder these folk want our ships. And the heat of their homeland! We're surprised that we didn't shrivel up like fish in a smoke house. But the job is done. All five women are pregnant."

  Reassured, the Helwar built ships for their new allies: deep-hulled ocean flyers. When the ships were finished, sailors had to be trained; and this is how this story's heroine came to Helwar. She arrived in the southern autumn, along with other young folk, female and male. All had short hair. Many shaved. What a sight they must have been among the furry, fog-gray southerners!

  The Helwar divided them, assigning each gender to the proper kind of ship. Like most of the peoples of the narrow ocean, they had both male and female vessels. The former explored new regions and traded in areas known to be dangerous. The latter kept to established routes, doing business with allies.

  Sorg Ahl ended on the Foam Bird. The captain -- Helwar Ki -- was short, sturdy, and as gray as the winter ocean or the cloud-wrapped peaks of her island home.

  Now we have brought together the story's first pair of lovers, as gangling Ahl walks up the gangway of the Bird, carrying her journey bag over one shoulder. Ki looks down at her, admiring the foreign woman's grace and evident confidence, but despising the unfamiliar haircut.

  There are dark triangles below Ahl's eyes, both pointing down. A third triangle, this one pointing up, occupies most of her forehead. Rows of dark squares go down her arms. A final downward-pointing triangle rests between her upper pair of breasts, in no way concealed by her vest, which seems scanty to Ki.

  The ship had two private cabins. One was for the captain. Ki put the foreigner in the other one, safely away from the test of the crew. She was the only daughter of Sorg on board.

  At first, as might be expected, Ahl kept herself aloof, though she was a hard worker and eager to learn. Then one day Ki noticed Ahl had stopped shaving. She asked about this,

  "It's not easy to shave on board a ship," the northerner answered. "Especially in the weather we've been having; and I don't enjoy the feeling that ice-cold rain and spray produce when they beat against my bare skin. Finally --" She gave Ki a sideways glance. "I'm tired of looking like a foreigner."

  After that Ahl became more friendly. By midwinter she'd stopped cutting her fur. "You people look so comfortable," she told Ki and ran a hand along the other woman's arm, ruffling, then smoothing the winter-thick hair. Ki noticed she was falling in love, but kept quiet, having no idea how to court a person who came from so far away.

  In early spring they carried a cargo of pickled fish to a harbor on the eastern coast of the Great Southern Continent. The trip was stormy. By the time they reached land and tied up in protected water, all of them were exhausted. Nonetheless most of the crew went on shore. The lineage that held this part of the coast was connected to the Helwar by generations of interbreeding. They all had relatives in the houses that lined the harbor town's narrow, winding streets.

  Ki and Ahl stayed on board, Ahl because she was not kin to anyone in the town, Ki out of courtesy and affection. The storm had blown out to sea, and the sky in the east was black; but where their ship rested, the sun shone, and the clouds were mostly
white. Farther west, above low hills covered by a semitropical forest, the sky was clear. Hah! It was pleasant tolie on the Foam Bird's deck, sharing sunlight and a jug of halin. Ahl had unfastened her vest. Her four breasts were visible: rather flat, especially the lower pair, but with prominent nipples and large oval areolae so dark that they seemed black. Ki felt desire, stronger than before. Something about the day-- the stillness, the brightness, their fatigue, the jug of halin -- made it possible for her to speak. Voice

  halting, she confessed her love.

  Ahl listened courteously, head tilted, blue eyes half closed. When Ki finished, she said, "If that's so, why don't we have sex?"

  Ki could think of no reason.

  An awning had been raised in the middle of the ship and thick rugs laid under it, so crew members could sleep in open air. They went there and, in the dim light coming through the canvas, gave each other pleasure and release. When they were done, Ahl rolled onto her back and sighed. "It's been a long time."

  "Do you have a lover at home?" asked Ki.

  "I did, a woman whose family is closely tied to mine. Most likely, she has found someone else by now."

  Ki repeated that she was in love.

  Ahl raised herself on one elbow and looked at the little southerner. "More likely you find me interesting because I'm foreign."

  No, said Ki. It was the true emotion. To prove this she listed the qualities she loved: Ahl's hardworkingness, her courage, her even temper, her sense of justice. "There ought to be a fifth quality, but it doesn't come into my mind."

  "This sounds like respect to me," said Ahl.

  "Well, then, I love your thin body, your small breasts, your silver fur, your laugh and the place between your legs, which bas a taste faintly reminiscent of fish."

  Ki loved fish, especially when just pulled from the ocean and lightly cooked in the grill on deck, so this was not an insult.

  Ahl laughed. "Maybe you're in love. Let's continue and see what happens next."

  At first they tried to be secret. But it's difficult to keep anything hidden on a ship full of women. Soon Ki's cousins took her aside. "Stop this acting and sneaking back and forth between cabins. Everyone knows what's going on. Be open and honest!"

  The two women became acknowledged lovers, holding hands in public, kissing and using the personal form of "you" and "she." This continued until Ahl's training ended, and she was ready to go home.

  "I'm going to ask my mother to send me back here as soon as possible," she told Ki. "I don't know if I'm in love; it's not a word that comes easily to me; but I know I'll miss you and the Foam Bird."

  Ki could say nothing. All her words had become stuck together in a lump at the back of her mouth. Sorrow lay in her mind like a heavy stone.

  They parted, Ahl going up a gangway onto one of the ocean-flyers that Helwar had built for Sorg. The flyer spread its sails like great white wings and carried her away across the ocean. Little Ki went back to her own ship to grieve.

  THE TRIP NORTH was easy, except for the jokes that everyone made about Ahl's long fur. She ignored her relatives, remaining quiet and aloof.

  "Is anything wrong?" they asked finally.

  "I'm thinking."

  "Don't make yourself ill with ideas."

  At home it was the dry season. The marshes of Sorg baked under a cloudless sky, their vegetation turning yellow. The great house where Ahl's mother lived was surrounded by gardens, kept watered except in times of severe drought. Ahl carried her journey bag past brightly colored ornamental plants. She dropped the bag in the entrance room and went looking for her mother.

  The matron's favorite place was a porch at one end of the house. The walls were carved wood screens, pierced by many holes. White gauze curtains hung inside the screens, keeping out most bugs, but admitting whatever light and air came though the holes.

  This is how you should imagine the room: mostly shadow, but flecked with sunlight which has been slightly dimmed by its passage through gauze. In the middle is a large square table, where Ahl's mother does her accounts, arranging colored stones in rows. Now and then a gust of wind stirs the curtains. When

  this happens, the room's pattern of light and shadow flickers and shifts.

  "Well," the matron said, looking at her daughter. "You need a haircut."

  "It's cold in Helwar; I'm planning to return there."

  Her mother frowned, then moved a stone from one row to another.

  "I'm not certain the alliance will hold."

  "Why not?"

  "They are a small lineage and far away. Aside from their ships, they aren't

  important. Allies should be neighbors or lineages so powerful they can't be avoided. That's the rule. Everyone knows it." Ahl's mother lifted her head, giving her daughter another look. "None of the children fathered by Helwar is alive."

  "What happened?" Ahl asked sharply.

  "One woman was not pregnant, though she seemed to be; or possibly she miscarried almost at once. Another woman miscarried at midterm. Two women remained pregnant, but their children died at birth." Her mother's tone permitted no questions. Maybe the children had been deformed or too weak to survive. If so, the midwives would have killed them, rather than let them die slowly or live in pain.

  "There's one you haven't accounted for," Ahl said.

  "Your cousin Leweli." Her mother looked down again, pondering an arrangement of red and reddish-purple stones. "She went hunting in the marshes. Her boat was found later, floating upside-down. She was not found. She and the child she carried have gone to the same place."

  The land of death, Ahl thought. Leweli was dead. "You think this is a sign. The agreement with Helwar is unlucky."

  "Maybe. They are a long way off." Her mother paused, white-furred hand hovering over a red stone. "And not important."

  Ahl went to her room and unpacked, feeling grief for Leweli, who had been a distant cousin but a close friend, also for the other women who'd lost their children. Lastly, she grieved for herself and Ki.

  In time -- not her first day at home, nor the second -- it occurred to Ahl that Leweli's death was strange. Her cousin had been a fine hunter, not in the least bit careless. Yet she had gone into the marshes alone while pregnant and done something so stupid that it killed her and her child.

  Was this likely?

  No.

  She would go into the marshes and speak with a cousin who lived there. This woman, closer to Leweli than anyone, might know what had happened.

  The next morning Ahl saddled a tsin, riding past fields and orchards. The sky, as usual, was cloudless and brilliant. The road was dusty, even when it reached the marshes and wound among waterspears. The plants were in blossom, their tall stalks topped with bladelike/lowers as blue as the sky.

  The woman Ahl went to visit was named Merhit. A witch, she lived by herself in a thatched hut by one of the marsh's many slow-moving channels. This kind of behavior would not have been tolerated in any other kind of woman. But holy people make their own rules. If they want to live alone, they can.

  Ahl reached the hut at noon, dismounted and tied her animal in the shadow of a tree. The witch was sitting in an arbor made of driftwood branches overgrown with vines. For the most part the wood was hidden, but here and there a small piece showed, white as a bone among glossy leaves.

  "Well," said Merhit. "You are back."

  Ahl squatted, pushing her wide-brimmed hat off her head.

  "And you need a haircut," said the witch.

  "It was easier to get along with the Helwar if I looked like them. I've fallen in love with one of their daughters, though I don't imagine we have much of a future, if the alliance turns out badly."

  "It has turned out as planned," the witch said. "We have the ships we desired and no permanent entanglement in the south."

  Ahl considered this remark while looking at the channel's dark water dotted with red-orange flowers. These were not wis, as you might think, but a closely related plant, which had no commercial value, tho
ugh it was lovely. "What happened to Leweli?"

  "You know that five women mated with the men of Helwar. One had a mother who might be called weak. She didn't want her daughter to carry a child for most of a year, then lose it."

  "What do you mean?" asked Ahl.

  "It had been decided that none of the children would live beyond birth."

  "Why?"

  "The matriarchs of Sorg do not want this alliance. We are a proud family, also careful. The Helwar live far off and have nothing to recommend them except their skill in building ships. We have the ships now."

  "They won't last forever. What if we need more?"

  "That problem will be dealt with when it comes forward and can be seen. Our family is proud and careful, but does not always look into the distance."

  Ahl considered this information, squatting in dust and heat. No question about what the witch was saying: their relatives had decided to kill whatever children came from the Helwar interbreeding. A contemporary woman would be sick with horror or at least uncomfortable. What did Ahl, a woman of the middle distance in time, feel?

  Remember how many children died in the days before modem medicine. Those who were deformed or sickly died at once, of course, as they still do. It is a kindness we owe our kin. But many strong and healthy children died as well, due to illnesses which can now be prevented or cured. As a result, in many cultures,

  babies were called "guests" or "visitors" until they reached the end of their first or second year. Often they were not given a permanent name until it seemed likely they'd remain; and women tried to keep from loving these nameless children too much. If they had thought all the little ones they buried were true people, instead of beings who would turn into people in time and with luck, the women might have died of sorrow.

  Because of this, Ahl saw the situation differently than we do. The two children who were killed at birth might have died later. How did she know for certain they'd been healthy? The idea was disturbing, but it did not make her sick.