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Swindapa sat on the soft bed and bounced experimentally. It creaked and the four posts at the corners swayed a little, fluttering the fringe of the canopy all around. She looked around the room, awed. The floor was planks of wood, smoothly fitted together like the wood on Eagle's deck. The walls were smooth too, showing no sign of the potlike baked clay lumps-bi-ri-ks, she told herself-on the outer walls. Patterns of blue and green flowers covered them, so lovely she wanted to kick off her shoes and run dancing barefoot through the spring meadows they showed. There were fitted wooden windows, with panes of the clear icelike glass, and folding shutters. One wall held a hearth, with faint traces of ash and a metal rack for holding wood.
Strange. Where is the smoke-mark? Smoke was useful- it kept vermin out of your thatch as it soaked through, and dried the straw. A hearth like this should leave a broad band of smoke up the wall and on the roof, but that was smooth and white, looking like the gypsum plaster used to coat some Star-Moon-Sun workings. She went over and knelt, looking up. There was a tu
It smelled like flowers. Swindapa followed her nose. Yes, a bowl of dried petals on the wooden shelf over the hearth. That was homelike; bunches of dried herbs and flowers hung around any Earth Folk dwelling. There were flowers on the rug that warmed the floor, too, somehow drawn in cloth.
A big wooden box on short legs stood by the bed. It had real metal fastenings on it, polished bronze. I wonder if this might be like the thing in the wall on the ship? She tugged on one brass handle, and a sliding box within the larger box came out, filled with things of fine cloth. She pulled one out. It was an Eagle Folk loincloth, the type made from two triangles of cloth and an odd stretchy belt that clung and stayed up by itself. You could put one of the little pads inside it to catch your Mourning blood, too, when your womb wept with Moon Woman. Another wonderful thing of the Eagle People.
"Surely even Tartessos has nothing this fine," she murmured to herself, looking around the room. "Not even Egypt."
It was getting dark, and she remembered something the captain had showed her. This place didn't have the ship-magic that made a little star glow when you touched the wall. The lamp screwed to the wall was almost as delightful. You took off the tall glass bulb-carefully, carefully, the clear stuff was as fragile as a snowflake-and lit a match. That was a pleasure in itself, when you thought of how long and uncertain using a fire drill was; no wonder the Eagle People didn't have to keep a fire going all the time for folk to take splinters from. Then you touched the flame to the flat strip of thick cloth that ran down into the cup of oil below. She put the chimney back on the lamp and turned the brass knob. Warm yellow light filled the room. A fire in the hearth would have been good too, even though the night was warm, but the lantern was pleasant.
She yawned, full and sleepy, remembering to cover her mouth in the way the Eagle People considered polite. A whole bed that size to myself. She'd gotten used to lying so far off the ground, and no longer worried about rolling off the edge in her sleep, but she'd never expected to have so much space to herself. That's good, though. Outside your kin, it was extremely bad ma
Her teeth ground together in rage. Another thing the Iraiina had stolen from her. She forced herself to relax again. Vengeance was coming. Moon Woman had taken her out of the world to find it; or brought this place into the world, perhaps. She couldn't quite understand what the Eagle People had tried to explain about that yet, but she would.
She padded down the corridor to the washing place, and did the Eagle People ritual of tooth-scrubbing. Many of them seemed to have trouble with their teeth, so chewing a cedar twig wasn't enough for them. Although the captain's are beautiful, shining like pure salt.
Perhaps the Powers which gave the Eagle People so much sent them that trouble to balance things.
"It is fun to have more room," Doreen said.
Ian laughed as he came back to the big four-poster bed with two glasses of sherry. He'd had to turn over all the provisions he'd accumulated on that panic-stricken morning right after the Event, but the Council's regulations had let everyone keep his booze. The island was out of bottled beer, although the local microbrewery was ready to start malting the barley they'd brought back. God knew what it would taste like with the supply of hops so limited, but it ought to be drinkable. That was all you could say about Nantucket's own wine, though. The real surprise was that grapes would grow here at all, probably because the island sat in the middle of the Gulf Stream!
He checked half a step, then climbed back into the bed.
"Pe
Ian propped pillows up against the headboard and leaned back into them. "I was just thinking that when things settle down, it might be an idea to look into a wine-importing business," he said. "That Tartessian wine wasn't half bad- it reminded me of sherry, which is why I thought of it just now-and with a few hints, they could probably do even better."
Doreen tweaked his chest hairs. "It reminded me of Manischewitz," she said.
"Oh, not that bad-well, actually, that was my first thought too."
"You're just looking for an excuse to go do historical research in the first person personal," she said.
"I wouldn't mind seeing a few things," he admitted. Isketerol had let fall a few hints about Egypt that made his scholar's mind drool; and the thought of seeing Agamemnon's Greece… God! To get there with a camera! "But there's still the matter of making a living."
He glanced down. "Making a living for us?" he said tentatively.
Did I really say that? he thought. Yup.
Doreen gri
"Thank you, Ian," she said. After a long moment. "Yes."
They clinked the glasses gently together. "Strange," Ian said. "I've only done that once before, and the results weren't all that great."
Doreen knocked her knuckles against one of the posts of the bed. "Avert the omen. I've never said yes before… haven't been asked all that often, either."
"I can't think why," he said sincerely. "Smart, agreeable, good-looking."
She laughed ruefully. "Zaftig," she corrected. "A lot better looking on this enforced diet and exercise program God's sent us on."
She had lost a good twenty pounds, in the right places, although she'd never be the ballerina she'd once wanted to be. He ran a hand down her back to her hip. "I've got no objections at all," he said. "When?"
"Well, Chief Cofflin's getting married… after that?"
He nodded. That would be a town-wide blowout; they could have a quiet ceremony with only a few friends. Odd. I actually have more friends here than in California. A thought struck him. "Should we apply for a house of our own?"
"Why bother?" Doreen said. "There's nobody else in this building. We could convert the other rooms to office and library space, and there's a nice living room and solarium downstairs."
"No kitchen, though," Ian pointed out. The place was part of the John Cofflin, with three suites on each of its upper two floors. Each held a bedroom, bathroom-largely inoperable now-and sitting room, of variable sizes.