Commitment Hour (17 page)

“You rattled him,” I said. “If you cared about him, you shouldn’t have given him such a shock.”

“Things are simple for you, aren’t they, Fullin?”

“No. Things are just complicated for everyone else.”

Steck sighed. “I hoped you’d grow up like Zephram. Instead, you grew up like me. I’ve never believed in heredity before, and I don’t like it.”

She stood up, smoothing her dress and overshirt selfconsciously; it must have been a long time since she’d worn such aggressively feminine clothing. I found myself peering at that V neckline again, and forced my gaze away. Next thing I knew, I might be staring at her crotch.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Sure, Steck.”

“Call me Maria—Rashid thinks it would be better if I use a Southern name today. Heaven forbid that my presence ever remind the town of ugly deeds twenty years ago.”

“So you don’t want me to call you Mother?”

She looked at me pensively. “If you ever call me Mother,” she said at last, “I’ll know you truly hate me.”

“Then let’s go, M—” But I couldn’t finish the word. “Maria,” I substituted.

Steck gave a tiny smile. “Show me where Rashid is. We have a full morning ahead.”

TWELVE

A Kiss for Dorr

I had no chance to watch the look on Steck’s face when she saw Bonnakkut’s body—the path through the trees was too narrow for us to walk side by side, so I was obliged to take the lead, with my back to the Neut.

Approaching from this direction, we could see the murder scene from twenty paces off. Not that we could see the corpse itself: Rashid knelt on the ground in front of it, conducting an examination of the wounds. As we drew closer, I saw he had snipped off Bonnakkut’s bloody shirt to provide a clear view of the belly injuries. Rashid’s nose was only a finger away from the body as he peered through a magnifying glass at the slashes.

“Not a beetle after all,” Steck said behind me.

I turned. She wore a guarded expression, very contained. It could be the look of a person who was clamping down on real shock; it could also be the look of someone who’d been preparing for this since committing the murder.

“Do we know who did this?” she asked.

“No.”

“Definitely a surprise attack,” Rashid said without looking up. “No defense wounds.”

“What’s a defense wound?” I asked.

Steck answered. “Cuts on the hands or arms from trying to block the blade. You see them in almost every knife attack…unless the victim was dead before he knew what was happening.”

“You two have seen a lot of murders?”

“Enough. When someone important like a Governor or Elemarch gets killed, it’s best if a Spark conducts the investigation. More impartial.”

“And that’s what they do down south—kill Governors and Elemarchs?”

“If ‘down south’ means Feliss,” Steck said, “the answer is no. Feliss is a bourgeois little province that’s too self-satisfied to indulge in assassination. But there’s more to the world than Feliss.”

“I know that.” Theoretically, I was supposed to have memorized all the provinces and their capitals—Tober Cove had a good Elemarchy School that taught such things. But even if I’d never gone to the trouble of learning the list myself, I’d heard Cappie recite it enough times when her father demanded. Two hundred and fifty-six provinces; Earth was a big planet.

“The stabs in the belly were likely made after death,” Rashid announced suddenly. He straightened up and brushed hair out of his eyes. “The throat slash came first: one slice, that was it. Hard to be a hundred percent sure without any real equipment, but that’s my guess.”

“Sounds like a crime of passion,” Steck said. “The victim’s dead on the ground, but the killer still wants to stick him a few more times.”

“Either that,” Rashid agreed, “or someone wants us to jump to that conclusion.” He turned to me. “Do people read OldTech mysteries in this town?”

“People read all kinds of things,” I answered. “We have a library.”

“With almost fifty books,” Steck added disdainfully.

“Hundreds of books,” I retorted. “The cove has come a long way since you lived here.”

“So much outside information,” she marveled. “It must drive Hakoore wild.”

I didn’t answer…but I couldn’t help remembering what the old snake said about prosperity corrupting our people.

And now we had a murder.

Voices sounded a short distance in front of us. Moments later Cappie appeared, leading our Doctor Gorallin. Gorallin was a steely woman: steel gray hair and steel gray eyes, with a spine as rigid as metal and fingers of unforgiving iron when she was probing your body for hernias, lumps, and other offenses to propriety. She had been brought up in Tober Cove, but educated at a real medical college down south, one that had worked hard for four centuries to preserve everything the OldTechs knew about the human body. The cost of Gorallin’s training had come out of town taxes, as she never ceased to remind us. “Your grandparents sacrificed their hard-earned silver so I could tell if your cervix is healthy, and by damn if I’ll let them down because you play shy!”

Yes, there were some things I
did
remember clearly from my female years.

The instant Gorallin saw the corpse, she roared, “Which one of you did this?”

“Person or persons unknown,” Rashid answered.

“I found him,” I volunteered. “Then Cappie came along and I went to get the Knowledge-Lord.”

“Hmph.” She tromped up to Bonnakkut and gave him a healthy nudge with her moccasin. When he didn’t respond, she announced, “He’s meat. That’s my official medical opinion.”

Lord Rashid cleared his throat. “We were hoping for more in the way of forensic analysis.”

“You think I wasted time with forensics when I was in school?” Gorallin snorted and gave the rest of us a “Who is this fool?” look. “Tober Cove didn’t pay me to waste time learning things I’d never need. I took pediatrics! Obstetrics! Those were my electives. Around here, we care about kids, not carcasses.”

“So you can’t say anything about the cuts…”

“Cuts are made by sharp things,” the doctor snapped. “Like the girl’s spear. Your Bozzle’s machete.” She gave me a half-second lookover. “The boy’s not carrying anything, but he could grab a kitchen knife at his father’s place, not thirty seconds away.”

Rashid raised his eyes briefly to heaven. “I really think we should move on from the idea that any of us is the killer.”

“Why?” Gorallin replied. “You’re the only ones here.”

“In our experience,” Steck said tightly, “murderers often run away from the scene of the crime.”

“In my experience, they don’t,” Gorallin growled. “I’ve lived here fifty-five years, less the time I spent south learning my trade. Seen three murders, and every one, the killer was right with the body. Wife who hit her husband too hard and was crying with him in her arms, pleading for him to take her in death-marriage. Husband who caught his wife in bed with her best friend, chop-chop-chop, murder-murder-suicide. And a drunk who knifed his brother…hell, I found him trying to sew up the chest wound to make it all better. Had a spool of the cord he used to mend fishnets. Not bad stitching, given how soused he was—the man could have been a surgeon. Or a devil-be-damned forensic pathologist.”

With that she wheeled about and strode down the trail toward the center of town. Rashid took a step after her then restrained himself. “It must be an experience,” he said, “when she tells you to turn your head and cough.”

“Oh, yeah,” answered Cappie, Steck, and I in unison.

Ten useless minutes later, Rashid said, “There’s nothing more I can learn from the body. What’s the custom now? Notify the next of kin?”

“He’s male,” Cappie answered. “The Patriarch’s Man takes custody of the corpse. But someone should tell Bonnakkut’s mother and…”

She didn’t finish her sentence. Bonnakkut had a six-year-old daughter named Ivis. Till the end of her life, maybe the feasting and celebration of Commitment ceremonies would remind Ivis of the day her daddy died.

“Speaking to next of kin is priestess work,” Steck said. Her voice had suddenly fallen soft. “If a mother has to hear bad news, it should come from someone who can comfort her.”

“You’re right.” Cappie gave Steck a keen look, and I could understand why. It was easy to forget that Steck had been a hair away from becoming priestess herself—that Leeta had chosen Steck as someone with the brain and heart to prop up the women of the cove. Things may have soured inside my mother, but bits were still intact. I caught a glimpse of Rashid, and he was looking at Steck too: smiling fondly, the way men do.

It occurred to me, he might have been glad for an excuse to dress Steck as pure woman.

“Do you want to take care of that, Steck?” Rashid asked. “You and Cappie?”

For a moment Steck paused; then she shook her head. “The mother will want to see faces she knows. Not strangers.”

“I’ll get Leeta,” Cappie said. She gave Steck a little smile, but the Neut only responded with a nod. I realized it was hard for Steck, turning down a chance to do priestess work after so many years.

My mother is sad
, I thought;
my mother is a sad woman.
I couldn’t help remembering how Zephram had visited her during the Silence of Mistress Snow. Out of all the doors in the village, Steck’s was the last one for someone to enter.

Cappie went to pick up Leeta. Together they would break the news to Bonnakkut’s mother, Kenna.

As for me, I got conscripted to escort Rashid to Hakoore’s, while Steck stayed with the body. I expected Steck to protest, but she didn’t. She seemed subdued, possibly thinking how she had lost the chance to become comforter to the women of our village…possibly thinking something completely different. I couldn’t read my mother’s mind.

It was only a minute later, as I was leading Rashid up the trail, that it occurred to me Steck might be happy for a chance alone with the body…if she’d had anything to do with the murder. She could check to make sure she hadn’t left behind any clues.

“You know she’s my mother,” I said to Rashid.

“Who?”

“Steck. Maria. Whatever you want to call her. She’s my mother.”

“You’re joking.”

“She’s from Tober Cove. She has to be
someone’s
mother.”

Rashid stopped walking. “I never thought of that. You all have children, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“No exceptions?”

“Some girls turn out to have medical problems. But Steck wasn’t one of them.”

“And you’re her…” He didn’t say the word. “Is that why she wanted to kill you last night?”

“It was why she went to the marsh to find me—she knew it was my year to be there. The knife fight was just an impromptu thing.”

“Because you tried to kill her first.”

I shrugged. “Cappie overreacted.”

“For a quiet little village,” Rashid said, “Tober Cove has a wicked taste for blood.”

“We’re fine when Steck’s not around.”

“Don’t speak ill of your mother.” He paused. “She’s really your mother?”

“Steck didn’t tell you?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

I’d never met anyone as important as Rashid, but I’d heard plenty of stories: official ones taught in school, as well as campfire talk at sunset. Bozzles weren’t supposed to keep secrets from their masters. There should be a lake full of trust between Bozzle and master, with no one quietly peeing when the water’s over your waist. Too much of that starts killing the fish.

Cappie once told me I should stay away from metaphors.

“I just wanted you to know,” I told Rashid, “Steck had an ulterior motive getting you to come here.”

“To watch her child Commit,” Rashid answered after a pause. “That’s no crime, Fullin. It’s an important day in your life, isn’t it?”

“The most important.”

“What kind of mother would she be if she didn’t want to see you? Perfectly understandable…perfectly natural.” His voice was getting stronger, more definite. “This shows quite a positive side to Steck’s character.”

“You’re making excuses for her,” I said. “Is she your lover?”

Rashid coughed. “Where I come from, boys don’t ask that about their mothers.”

“Where I come from, they do. Do you love her?”

“You tell me,” he answered. “How do
you
feel about her? One minute you’re screaming,
‘Kill the Neut,’
and the next I can see you thinking she’s not so bad.”

“One minute she acts hateful, and the next she lets on she might be a human being.”

“That’s Steck,” Rashid admitted. He started walking again, the plastic soles of his boots clicking when they touched any pimples of limestone poking up through the soil.

I fell in behind him. “My father still loves her,” I said. “At least I think he does. Or maybe it just pains him she’s lonely.”

Rashid murmured, “Sometimes that kind of pain passes for love.”

I couldn’t argue with him. My mother seemed to have the same effect on a lot of people.

The village streets had come alive with children and parents. Breakfast was finished, and everyone wanted to squeeze in some playtime before the gods arrived at noon. The most popular game had to be Catch: Catch with bright rubber balls bought down-peninsula, or floppy homemade pouches stuffed with dried corn kernels. Mothers threw easy lobs straight to their children’s hands, while fathers made the kids run, work for their successes. But all the parents were watching with keen bright eyes—trying to memorize how their boys and girls used their bodies, because it was all about to change.

I’ve already mentioned how my female half felt awkward in my male body the night before. The same thing happened every year at the solstice switchover…except that it was more confusing when you were only five or six. Your hands were bigger or smaller, your eyes weren’t the same height above the ground, and it always looked like your feet weren’t the right distance away. It was worse come puberty: the presence or absence of breasts, the difference in how your weight sat around your hips, and of course, the variations in sheer muscular strength and stamina—not that your male half always had the physical advantage. Female-Me went into a growth spurt at thirteen, and Male-Me didn’t catch up until sixteen. My two halves had a full head difference during those years, and that meant embarrassing clumsiness for weeks after each transition. Parents found that kind of awkwardness amusing and endearing…which is why they made a point of testing their kids’ coordination just before changeover and would repeat the same games when the children came home again.

The kids checked themselves out just as thoroughly after each change. You just couldn’t help staring at yourself. A whole year had passed since you had occupied your other self, and even if the body had just been sleeping in Birds Home, it had still been growing—changing—while your eyes and brain had been living elsewhere.

You heard a different voice echoing in your head.

So you marveled at your arms: they had hair or they didn’t, and all the moles and freckles you’d been used to were now replaced by a different set, ones you vaguely remembered from a year ago but which seemed darker or bigger…more noticeable anyway, and you thought all the other kids would gawk at these strange marks on your skin.

And my oh my, your skin…especially once you hit puberty. You couldn’t help touching your skin. It was skin exactly like the skin you lusted after just days before. I don’t know why my skin had such an effect on me. Of course, there were also the overtly sexual body parts, and yes, a lot of teenagers (including yours truly) held solitary Orgasm Derbies every day for a week after each gender swap; but for me, having different skin was always the most arousing change. Male in a male body, I might find myself remembering how my female half had longed to stroke a boy’s chest or thighs, to feel muscles close beneath the skin, the hard warmth…and female in a female body, I still recalled the pure lust that boiled in my brother self at the sight of a mere bare shoulder…