Treason

I was angry at her, even though I was eating her food. "How can you of Nkumai expect to deal with the world, if you refuse to allow emissaries to see your king?"

She reached out her hand and gently stroked my cheek, to which no beard had come. "We don't refuse you anything, little Lark," she said, and smiled. "Don't he impatient. We Nkumai do things our own way."

I pulled away from her hand, deciding that it was time I let someone see me in a rage. "You all tell me that bribery is forbidden, and yet I've bribed my way through a dozen interviews. You all tell me that you all share everything, and no one has to buy or sell, and yet I've seen purchases and sales just like bartering peddlers. And then you tell me that you don't refuse me anything, but I've met with nothing but impediments."

I stood and walked from her angrily.

She didn't say anything for a while, and I couldn't turn and say more, or I'd lose something, lose the moment of impact. It was an impasse, until she began to sing in a little-girl voice, a voice nothing like the one she used for her real songs:

Robber bird hunts for berries, But only catches bees. She says, "I know how to eat and sleep, But what do I do with these?"

"One follows them," I said, my back still turned, "until one flnds their honey." Then I faced her, and said, "But what are the bees, Mwabao Mawa? Whom do I follow, and where is the honey?"

She didn't answer, just got up and walked out of the room-- but not toward the front room where I had often been. Instead she went into one of the forbidden back rooms, and because she didn't say anything else, I followed.

I found myself-- after a short run along a branch not even a meter thick-- in a brightly curtained room filled with wooden boxes. She had one open, and was rummaging through it.

"Here," she said, finding what she was looking for. "Read this." She handed me a book.

I read it that night. It was a history of Nkumai, and it was the strangest history I had ever read. It was not long, and there were no stories of war in it, were no records of invasions or conquests. Instead it was a list of Singers and their life stories-- of Woodcarvers and Treedancers, of Teachers and Housemakers. It was, in fact, a record of names and their explanations. How Woodcarver Who Taught the Tree to Color Its Wood got his name. How Seeker Who Saw the Cold Sea and Brought It Home in a Bucket earned his. And as I read the brief stories, I began to understand the Nkumai. A peaceful people who were sincere in their belief in equality, despite their tendency to despise those with little to offer. A people who were utterly at one with their world of tall trees and flitting birds.

And as I read. in the light of a thick candle, I began to sense contradictions. What could such a people possibly have developed to sell to the Ambassador? And what caused them to come down from the trees and go to war, using their iron to conquer Drew and Allison, and perhaps more by now?

As I thought these things, I began to think of other contradictions. This was the capital of Nkumai, and yet no one seemed aware or even interested in the fact that a war had just been won. There were no slaves from Allison or Drew making their way carefully among the trees. There was no sudden wealth from the tribute and taxes. There wasn't even any pride in the accomplishment, though no one denied it when I mentioned their victories.

"You're still reading?" Mwabao Mawa whispered in the darkness.

"No," I said. "Thinking."

"Ah," she answered. "Of what?"

"Of your strange, strange nation, Mwabao."

"I find it comfortable." She was amused; her voice hinted at a smile.

"You've conquered an empire larger than most other nations, and yet your people aren't military, aren't even violent."

She chuckled. "Not violent. That's true enough. You're violent, though. Teacher tells me that you killed two would-be rapists on a country road in Allison."

I was startled. So they had been tracing my travels. It made me uneasy. How far would they go? I should have said I was from Stanley, at the other end of the world from Nkumai-- but only Bird had women for rulers. Then I remembered that a tall black Nkumai could no more get through Robles or Jones to make inquiries in Bird than I could jump from Mwabao's house and land ru

"Yes," I admitted. "In Bird women are trained to kill in secret ways, or men would soon have power over us. But Mwabao, why have the Nkumai gone to war?"

It was her turn to be silent for a moment, and then she said simply, "I don't know. No one asked me. I wouldn't have gone."

"Where did they find the soldiers, then?"

"From the poor, of course. They have nothing to offer that anyone wants. But I suppose the war has allowed them to give the only thing they have. Their lives. And their strength. War is easy, after all. Even a fool can be a soldier."

I remembered the strutting, too-brave men of Nkumai. Armed with iron and quick to abuse the cowering populace of Allison. Of course. The worst of Nkumai, those used to being despised by all, at last in a position of power over others. No wonder they abused it.

"But that isn't what you want to know," said Mwabao Mawa.

"Oh?"

"You came here for something else."

"What?" I asked, feeling that sickening fear that children feel when they are just about to be found in hide-and-go-find.

"You came here to find out where we get our iron."

The sentence hung there in the air. If I said yes, I could imagine her crying out in the darkness of night, and a thousand voices hearing her, and my being cast off the platform into the darkness that led to the ground . But if I denied it, then would I be missing a chance, perhaps the only chance to learn what I wanted to know? If Mwabao was indeed a rebel, as I had suspected, she might be willing to tell me the truth. But if she was working for the king (her lover?) she might be leading me on to trap me.

Be ambiguous, my father always taught me.

"Everyone knows where you get the iron," I said easily. "From your Ambassador, from the Watchers, just like everyone else."

She laughed. "Clever, my girl. But you have a ring of iron, and you thought it had great value" --did she know everything I had said and done these two weeks?-- "and if your people are getting iron, in however small a quantity, you must be eager to find out what we're selling to the Ambassador."

"I've asked no one any questions about such matters."

She chuckled. "Of course not. That's why you're still here."

"Of course I'm curious about many things. But I'm here to see the king."

"The king, the king, the king, there you go like everyone else, always chasing after lies and empty dreams. Iron. You want to know what we do to get iron. Why, so you can stop us? Or so you can do it yourselves, and get as much iron as we?"

"Neither, Mwabao Mawa, and perhaps we shouldn't speak of such things," I said, though I was sure she would go on, was eager to go on.

"But that's where it's all so silly," she said, and I heard a mischievous little girl in her voice. "They take all these precautions, keep you imprisoned either with me or with Teacher all day, every day, and yet it's so impossible for you anyway, either to stop us or to duplicate what we do."

"If it's impossible, why do you worry?"

She laughed-- giggled, this time, like a child-- and said, "Just in case. Just in case, Lady Lark." She stood up suddenly, though she had already undressed for bed, and strode out of the room, back toward the room with the chests of books and other things. She was after other things. I followed her, and arrived just in time to catch a black robe she threw at me.

"I'll leave the room so you can dress," she said.

When I got back to the sleeping room, she was waiting-- impatiently, walking up and down, humming softly to herself. When I came in, she came to me, and put her hands on my cheeks. Something warm and sticky was on them, and she giggled when she looked at me.