Children of God

Outwardly serene, he handed the baby back to Paquarin as the barge was poled to a halt, watching as huge braided tie lines were thrown over the pilings. He searched faces and tasted windborne scents among the carriers on the dock but found no kin to people he’d known as a boy, so he pressed past the Runa crowd declaring cargo and paying dock fees, and hired a Runao at random for the baggage, even though there was not much baggage and he did not have a great deal to spend on pride. He had been driven from Kirabai with almost nothing, but he’d built a trading company that generated money as the plains breed grass; he had known wealth and had thought sometimes, in the dark hours when sleep would not come, of returning home in luxury and triumph. Instead, he had surrendered all his assets to the state treasury when he took his place as Founder. Now he was arriving on a freight barge no better than the one he’d left on, with nothing to show for his striving but a nameless baby and six hundred bahli—all he had after selling his jewelry at the Inbrokar dock to hire Paquarin and buy her passage on the barge. So he had dressed in his best and hired a bearer, hoping to make a good first impression, and wished his claws were longer.

The child is worth the price, he thought, mercantile and unashamed. I can make money again.

The hostelry was visible from the docks, squatting astride an elongated hill that rose above the high-water mark of the river. Yesterday’s storm had been stronger here than upriver and, as Supaari led his little entourage through the main gate and beyond the central plaza, up a mesh of narrow walkways lined by the limestone houses of the VaKirabai Runa, they had to step over roof tiles and broken hlari branches. The radio tower had blown over and, in the grove near the bridge, several big marhlar had tumbled into the river, their roots pulled loose from the banks. But storm damage aside, the town of Kirabai itself seemed almost untouched by the years of his absence…

Of course, he was used to the rushing energy of Gayjur and the cramped intrigue of Inbrokar—it was natural that Kirabai seemed lethargic to him. Still, this was a bridgehead for the eastern rakar fields, a reasonably important trading center for inland harvesters. And there were the Runa weaving cooperatives, and the khaliat factories. There is a lot I can do here, Supaari thought, refusing to be discouraged.

The doorkeeper at the hostelry compound was new, but the gate itself was not, and Supaari noted with some dismay that it still needed the upper hinge repaired. "Find your master!" he cried to the Runa porter, smiling in anticipation of his parents’ surprise. "Tell him he has visitors from Inbrokar!"

Without a word, the Runao left them standing in the courtyard. A long silence ensued and when Paquarin looked at him inquiringly, Supaari dropped his tail in a gesture of ignorance. After a time, he called out a greeting and listened for voices, hoping to hear someone familiar. No one answered. Puzzled, Supaari began to look around. There was plenty of room for travelers’ equipage in the courtyard, but evidently no one was in residence. Normal for the season, of course. Most Jana’ata traveled in early Fra’an before the heat set in—

"I won’t have a bastard within my walls, so if that’s what you want, you can leave now."

He whirled, too startled by his mother’s voice to be wounded by her words.

"People send anonymous letters to Inbrokar about us, but my sons are useless," the old woman snarled, glaring at the baby, who was awake now and making small sounds as she rooted near Paquarin’s neck. "I told them, Take the case to the Prefect! But the Gran’jori lineage has poisoned that bait. May as well howl at the rain. There’s never any money for repairs. The Gran’jori want Kirabai and they’re welcome to it—this place is nothing but bones. I was born to better, I can tell you! The Prefect pretends to settle things, but it suits him to have us claw at one another’s guts. Don’t stand there, idiot! Feed that brat or I’ll have your ear," she snapped at Paquarin, as the baby began to keen. "The Prefect is supposed to investigate, but he believes what those scavengers upriver say, so where’s the meat in trying? Nothing but bones…. My brother could have done something with this place! I was born to better, you know. A decent man would have left me in my sire’s compound, but not your father!"

Speechless, Supaari followed his mother into the shade of the gallery along the riverward wall of the house, where the breeze was best. He asked her to sit, but she ignored him, sweeping from one end of the arcade to the other, veil askew, skirts gathering a cargo of dust and leaves and fallen hlari blossoms. Paquarin settled into a corner with the baby and got out the last of the pureed meat, methodically dipping a delicate finger into the paste and holding it to the child’s lips. Supaari took a place on the cushions near the cool stone of the wall and watched his mother, grayed and shrunken, as she paced and ranted.

At last, his father appeared, coming around the back of the pumphouse with a Runa do-all, whom he dismissed with a grunt. "Nobody writes letters about us, wife. And the Prefect has better things to do than persecute hostelers." Enrai sighed, hardly glancing at Supaari and ignoring the baby entirely. "Go on, get back into the house where you belong, y’shameless old bitch. And send that girl out with some meat. I’m famished."

He collapsed onto a cushion at some distance from Supaari and stared out at the river, gleaming like gold foil in the brazen light of three suns. It was quiet, now that the old woman had gone into the house. "Your brothers are out butchering," Enrai said after a time. "These new Runa are worthless. I don’t know how the Prefect expects us to train a whole new staff at once. The VaInbrokari rule, but they’re as bad as your mother, dreaming up conspiracy and plots and tailless monsters with tiny eyes." He half-turned toward the kitchen and shouted again for meat before muttering, "She was a lovely thing once. You brats ruined her."

Waiting to be fed, the hosteler passed the time as his wife had, with a flow of democratic rancor that took in the living and the dead, the near and the distant, the known and the unknown alike. When Supaari’s elder brothers appeared, they joined in with a complicated tale of feuds and rivalries, as intense as they were petty. In the midst of it all, an adolescent Runao appeared with a platter of meat, holding it at arm’s length, moving sideways so it remained downwind.

Only Supaari looked at her. A VaKashani villager, he realized, but couldn’t quite recall her family. He rose and took the platter from the girl, murmuring a greeting in Ruanja. She was about to speak when Enrai sneered, "If that’s what you’ve learned in the city, Supaari, you can leave it off here. We don’t coddle Runa in Kirabai." So she sank in an awkward curtsy, the movement still new to her, and hurried back into the kitchen.

Rigid, Supaari stood silently for a moment, then placed the platter on the low table as his brothers laughed. He returned to his place on the cushions, and it was a long while before his eldest brother noticed that Supaari had not eaten. "You can have a little of this," Laalraj said, waving the back of his hand toward the meal. But he added, "There’s nothing extra here. Look around you."

"When will you be leaving?" his brother Vijar asked, chewing.

"Tomorrow at second dawn," Supaari said, and went to see that Paquarin had been settled in with the kitchen help.

HE SPENT THE ENDLESS TIME BETWEEN FIRST AND SECOND SUNDOWN with his brothers and a few neighbors summoned by ru