White Time

  Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come to my house?’ I said in the same hushed, excited tone, just to watch his blank confusion. Then I rescued him. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be there at sunset.’ Sourly I enjoyed the relief on his face before I let the crowd sweep me away from him.

  I had fully expected not to be admitted to Lar’s house, so I felt shaky and strange to be barefoot inside, moving down a polished red-rock hall between windows full of darkening garden, following a door-servant all dolled into glistering armour, his Ord hair sleekened to a red-gold cap. He was quite a spectacle in himself; I would have liked some time to examine him.

  But greater wonders called me. The hall gave onto a bedroom, bright as a c1oth-merchant’s stall with hangings and rugs. Lar was there, arranged on a dais among plump embroidered cushions, his wealth flowing out from his head in rivers of shining gold.

  ‘Ah, Rill!’ His voice was charmed and charming; then it flattened out – ‘Very well’ – as he dismissed the doorman. As soon as we were alone his face sagged. But even in front of humble old me he could not help himself preening, little tossings of the head, little strokings of the hair. The hours he must spend tending all that wealth! Not to mention carting it around with him, like potatoes, like animal feed.

  ‘You’ll do it, then,’ he said, as if he’d never had any doubt of it.

  ‘For a price.’

  His mouth turned into a righteous little purse. ‘My mother said you would be greedy. She said to tell you to remember that this could bring more money later, from others.’

  ‘Well, you can tell your mother I’m doing this just the once, and only because family happenings drive me to it.’

  ‘Really?’ Lar gave me an eager, expectant look, but I was not going to widen his eyes any further with tales of rebels and jails. He sighed. ‘How much, then?’

  I reached for the number that had kept me awake last night, a number I could not quite believe, a rumour-number, a fantastical number. ‘A round thousand,’ I said.

  His face went pale. ‘We are not High Leet, you know.’

  ‘But I will make you High. As you said, I am the best.’

  Footsteps sounded outside, and someone came into the room behind me. I stood motionless, staring at the far wall-hanging – a flower maze, typically overwrought.

  ‘She wants a thousand,’ Lar said to the newcomer.

  There was a short silence, then the rustle of robes as Lar’s mother walked slowly around me, at a good distance – so as not to contaminate herself, no doubt.

  She turned to face me. ‘It’s Rill, is it?’

  I was supposed to bow; instead, I looked her in the eye. ‘Yes.’

  That nettled her. ‘I have not seen your work, nor heard of it, though Lar tells me others think well of you.’

  Normally I would not speak unless she questioned me. But, ‘Every lap-beast in this part of the Keys has something of my work in it. Your own tamsin, Therial, is all mine. And your older son’s beast.’

  ‘Mink?’ Lar sat forward excitedly. ‘You augmented her?’ he asked, in spite of his mother’s signal to be silent.

  ‘Finest watering. Very difficult on an opal tamsin.’

  ‘But she’s gorgeous!—’

  ‘Lar, be quiet.’

  He flounced back against his satiny cushions.

  ‘My son has no gifts but his looks,’ said his mother. She herself was beautiful enough, although she had the kind of eye-rims that will not take a tattoo. Several attempts had been made, but instead of forming clear, dark lines the ink had spread into smudgy shadows. ‘Fortunately, there is a fashion for trophy husbands among High Leet, particularly among older women who have nothing left to prove. He is pretty enough, but he has no advantages other than the one you will give him. You understand what hangs on this?’

  ‘All your family’s fortunes, ma’am.’

  She lifted a heavily jewelled index finger at me. ‘And yours too. Remember that.’

  ‘I am certain I will lose neither.’

  She scrutinized me for a long moment. ‘What else will you need?’

  ‘A three-day pass, two for the work, one for the setting, the day before the weighing.’

  ‘The day before?’ said Lar doubtfully. ‘Don’t you need to leave time for me to heal?’

  ‘Only if I’m going to botch the job, which I’m not.’

  Lar’s mother took a jar of live-water out of her belt-purse and went to the dais. ‘Hold still.’ She took her time choosing three good strands of her son’s wealth. Lar winced as she plucked them from his scalp. She wound them around her fingers and slipped the golden loop into the jar. No fuss, no haggling. I could hardly believe my luck.

  The way home took me through the Vines district. I was so full-headed, reliving my appointment at Lar’s house, that I hardly noticed how dark it was, how the streetlamps were choked with creepers, how few traders and how many night-people were abroad in the narrow streets.

  In a lane lined with rag-trade houses, a hooded figure rose from the shadow of a doorway and stood in my path. ‘Miss, miss,’ it said and held out its hand – a young, strong hand, at which I stared suspiciously.

  Other hands seized me from behind. And the shoulders are too broad, I thought, as a gag-cloth choked off my cry. And there was something faked in his voice. But it was laughably too late by then.

  They forced me through the doorway into a long, dark hall smelling of cheap dye and ant mould. They pushed me to the end of it, up some flimsy stairs and into a small room, lit brightly with pressure lamps, their bases filthy but their glass invisibly clean.

  A handsome Ord faced us over a table piled with maps, his red hair flaring to his broad, bare shoulders. The ‘beggar’ cut the braid of my belt-purse and took it to him, and murmured in his ear. The man emptied the purse onto the table, straight away picked up the live-water jar and shot me an amused glance. He waved the murmurer away, and made a sign to the others. They took off my gag, but left my hands bound behind me.

  ‘You must be Rill, sister of our man Chirrup.’ He stood and came around the table, his gaze on the jar in his hand.

  ‘And you are the rebel Rustle,’ I said, surprised and trying not to show it. I’d always imagined some mean little skulking thug, not this tall, bright-eyed strongman. Chirrup should’ve warned me, I thought, unfairly.

  ‘How is your brother, then?’ said Rustle, without the trace of sarcasm I would’ve used.

  ‘Well enough.’

  He turned the jar in his long, scarred fingers. ‘I would say – well, it could be anything between fifty-five and eighty gilden they have set on him, hm? To drive you to this?’

  I said nothing.

  He put down the jar and pushed his hands into his pockets. His trousers were the old combat style, worn by a lot of Ords for manual labour – or for rebel show. Rustle’s were almost rags; I could imagine Chirrup drooling at the sight of them. ‘You have to be cool-headed in this business. Your brother is not, although he tries hard, I’ll grant you. We had a big job lined up for when he’d proven his mettle, but then glory-day came along, and he couldn’t contain himself.’ Rustle’s smile was growing in warmth. His skin was thickly freckled; on his cheeks the freckles had joined together in patches of oddly Leet-looking colour, but he had green Ord eyes. He could have been brother to my brother. A brother with more than half a brain; wouldn’t that have been interesting? ‘How do you feel about losing your parents to the colonists, Miss Rill?’ ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I hardly remember them – and Chirrup was a babe in arms. It happened to lots of people. And what’s the point? No one can get them back.’

  Someone spat on the floor behind me. ‘Fatalist.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Rustle. ‘However. Chirrup is no use to us under the Wall, is he?’

  ‘Pay his way out, then, and save me the work.’

  Rustle gave a little laugh, then came close to me and smiled down into my eyes. ‘But all my sources tell me you enjoy working,’ he said softly. I kept my f
ace stubborn and did not drop my gaze modestly as I was tempted to do. ‘That you are devoted. Not to mention highly skilled.’

  He looked down on me a moment longer, then turned away – I was relieved and disappointed both. He went to the desk and idly picked up the jar again. ‘I hope Lar’s mother is paying you well. I wouldn’t ask under a thousand if I were you.’ He glanced sidelong at me. I kept my face as blank as I could. This was no guesswork he was doing; the man had had me followed! I didn’t know rebels could keep such a close eye on things.

  He laughed again. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Good, because we can’t pay you anything. I’d love to – as I said, it’s a big job we wanted Chirrup to do for us. I’d love to be able to toss gilden around like bronze-coin, a head-price here, a gift there; I’d love to be able to buy my way to victory the way Lar’s mother can. But that’s our whole point, isn’t it? Lar’s mother has the money, and rebel Rustle doesn’t. I can’t reach into my purse for help; I must reach into my brain. I can’t buy you, and I don’t have time to talk you around. All I can do is remind you – your guild has laws against the augmenting of noble wealth. Do I need to say any more?’

  I sighed. ‘No.’

  ‘Hm. You’re smarter than your brother. But you probably know that.’

  ‘Flatterer. What must I do?’

  He sat behind the desk again. All pretence and charm dropped away from his face, and his voice. Instantly I liked him better, until I heard what he was saying. ‘You’ll ask for a Key, an extra day’s pass, and a set of robes for the weighing-day ceremony. You want to see your work for what it is, tell them, for what it wins. Otherwise, you say, the deal is off. I will hold this wealth as surety.’

  ‘No.’ I stepped forward. Someone jerked me back. Lar’s looped hairs gleamed at me, turning in the liquid. ‘Why should I go to a weighing?’

  ‘You’ll take something in for me, into the weigh-hall.’

  ‘I won’t throw flour or paint! I won’t get arrested! It’d kill my grandmother—’

  ‘There’ll be no throwing anything.’ He watched me calm down – my hard breathing was the only sound in the room. ‘Tell Lar tomorrow. Be firm; insist that this is part of your fee. Tomorrow night you may have your jar back, the night after if the boy needs to check with his mother. Don’t worry, you’ll get what you ask; the mother is desperate.’ He looked past me. ‘Let her go.’

  They untied my hands. I glanced behind me: three ruffians, one a gap-toothed girl, all in some kind of leather-wear, all with that pretentious rebel hair. They stood aside from the door, and the girl mock-obsequiously bowed and waved me towards it.

  I took a last uncertain look at Rustle, at his bright, level stare. Then I left, trying not to scuttle, keeping as straight a back as I could.

  ‘What kind of torture is this?’ cried Purl, drumming her fists on the kitchen table. ‘Why keep us all waiting? Don’t they want their money? How am I to find it without knowing how much to find?’

  ‘It will probably be twenty gilden, like last time,’ I said, stirring the grains of my supper in the warming thin-milk. ‘Possibly less – flour-throwing is a lesser deed than writing slogans.’

  ‘Oh, it will be more. He has shown himself a rebel; they will want forty at least. I should start hunting for that forty.’

  ‘I tell you, Grandmother, wait. Don’t go finding lawless ways to money you might not even need.’

  ‘Not need? Fool girl, is he such a grand rebel that they will not set a head-price? You know nothing of these things, with your face in books and tamsin-fur all day.’

  I nodded and stirred. I was more tired than I had ever been in my life. Which was why I misjudged the tone of my next remark.

  ‘You’re right – what would I know?’ Something of all the many things I did know slipped out among the words.

  Purl was up from the table and at me. She grabbed my chin, her claws in my cheeks, and roughly pulled my face around to read it. ‘They’ve set it, haven’t they? Don’t lie to me. How much? How much!’

  ‘They haven’t,’ I said feebly. Her heart was frighteningly visible in her face, full of fear and rage.

  She slapped me. The spoon flipped out of the grain-pan and trailed a spiral of milk through the air. I didn’t hear the clatter of its landing under Purl’s screaming. ‘How much, cruel girl? Tell me or I will kill you with these very hands!’

  ‘Uh … hundred,’ I said, holding my cheek. Well, I couldn’t keep pretending, could I? Not for all the weeks it would take me to do this work for Lar. And a hundred she would despair of ever finding, whereas she might still make a fool of herself trying for sixty.

  She fell back from me, fell silent. Her face was so grey and dread-full, I thought she would die of it. She turned from me; she shrank into herself; she all but crawled away upstairs.

  Shaking, I bent to pick up the spoon. My face stung, and my jaw felt bruised where she’d grabbed me. With a cloth I slowly wiped the thin-milk off the spoon, and off the floor all the way back to the stove. I hated her, I hated them all, Lar and his greedy mother, Rustle and his ruffians, stupid Chirrup and whatever stupid Leet-servant had arrested him. Let the deal be off; why should I lift a finger for any of them? I would tell Lar I’d had an attack of conscience; Rustle could keep the jar – or hand it in, for all I cared. What could he prove, after all? And the mother could find some other augmenter, some greedy second best; and me, I would go back to tamsin-prettying. Let Chirrup rot, let Rustle flatter someone else, let Purl—

  I started to stir again.

  Purl, greying and shrinking and shuffling away …

  A hateful scene played itself out behind my eyes: Chirrup coming home last time. I was behind him, the empty money-sack in my hand. I saw Purl rise and fly across the room to him; I saw her face. I’d brought her the light of her life.

  A little sobbing breath came out of me. I wiped my eyes and nose on my sleeve, banged a bowl down on the table and poured in the not-quite-cooked slop. I turned off the hissing stove, flung myself down and began to eat.

  ‘So, are you in love with her?’ I suppressed a yawn and leaned on Lar’s balcony railing.

  Light was sinking out of the sky, pink fading to mauve and then to blue. The lightless Vines gaped below; along the far promenade the path-lamps buzzed. I wished I was walking there, listening to sea-sounds. A nubile Leet is a seriously dull companion, interested only in hairstyles and marriage prospects.

  Lar made an impatient sound. ‘I’ve just got to get matched, that’s all. This summer, or my mother will desert me. And the girl’s wealthy. Everyone wants her.’

  ‘What if you don’t get matched with her?’ Ha! Hadn’t he heard his mother? His best chance was with some old scandal-mongress with a lot of money to throw at a pretty-boy But who could blame him for fantasizing?

  ‘Oh, someone lesser will do. That girl of Heddering’s is all right. Felice is all right. Either of those.’

  ‘And if they fall through?’

  He put his hands to his face. ‘Oh, then we’re getting pretty desperate. Oath, maybe? Jenna’s cousin? At least!’ Now he looked worried.

  ‘You aim pretty high,’ I said.

  ‘If I can just up my wealth a bit …’

  ‘It already looks a little upped, to me.’

  ‘Beast-hair. Dead padding.’

  ‘Good boy.’

  He looked at me. ‘Sometimes I think you Ords have it pretty good.’

  Oh, don’t start. ‘Well, there’s no existence quite as meaningful as one spent augmenting lap-pets, I tell you. Eat your heart out, pretty man.’

  ‘But it doesn’t matter with whom you match. You can just decide, two of you together. You don’t have this awful event, where you get held up in public and gawped at by jealous everyone.’

  ‘Ah no, we are just held down, daily, while everyone looks away.’ This was Chirrup-talk, just to be annoying. But the bitterness in my voice was truly felt, I realized – Lar’s stupidity in the midst of this dolled house was doing somethi
ng to me.

  He sent me an uneasy glance and fiddled with one of the many bows of his snood. ‘Yes, well … that’s not exactly my doing—’

  I recognized his mother’s quick footsteps in the corridor – no servant ever walked that fast.

  ‘Here,’ she said, coming straight to me as if I were the only person in the room. She thrust the cloth-wrapped parcel of robes at me. ‘I have slipped the pass and Key in the pocket. If you are stopped and searched, you are on your way to Patter’s laundry to have these cleaned, on errand for me. Feign surprise that the things are there and offer to return them to me at once. Do you understand?’

  ‘Of course.’ I was full of confidence. Rustle had returned me my jar a week ago and I had already grown a good swag of wealth. The more nervous Lar and his mother grew, the more serene I felt.

  ‘Very well. Get home and hide it, then. I will send Lar to you on the day, as we arranged.’

  And she hustled me out of the room, not giving me a chance to make farewells to Lar, as if he no more required them than any other piece of fancy furniture in the room.

  Every day at breakfast Purl was grey-faced and silent, punishing me for Chirrup’s foolishness.

  ‘I’ll go and see him again this afternoon, if you want,’ I said.

  She made a noise in her throat and kept staring up at the window.

  ‘I can take him any message you like. Or clambroth, if you make it. He loves that.’

  She tore a piece of bread from the chunk on her plate, and chewed it hard, her eyes filling. The tears spilled and fell to the table. She chewed on, her gaze fixed on the window, her face angry, even with the tears running down it.

  ‘You’ll carry a bouquet and a gift,’ said Rustle. ‘Are you going augmented yourself?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’ll wear a taped snood with earlocks sewn in. I’ve already made it.’ I’d made it just so he would give me that look, the appraising, set-back-on-his-heels one. Pleasure and disgust at myself surged equally strong in me.

  ‘And the wealth increases, does it?’