Watson, Ian - Black Current 03 (12 page)

 
          
"Hey, Mum might just have said
that so that if Petrovy found out, he'd tell her; and she could tell Donnah!"

 
          
"Your mum said she wasn't going
to see him again. But that's by the by. I'm no one's fool, either. What I told
him was this: 'There's a surprise all right, Pet, but it'll have to stay hush
for the moment. If the river guild hears about it . . . you follow?'

 
          
"
‘I'm
not river guild,' says he.

 
          
" 'Ah
,
but you don't always know who you're talking to,' I said.

 
          
"He seemed a bit offended
. '
Don't I just?'

 
          
" 'No
,'
I answered him. 'For instance you've been talking to Yaleen's mum—and
she
doesn't necessarily see eye to eye
with Yaleen.’ That took the wind out of his sails, all right—as well as serving
to caution him.

 
          
" 'You
wily old fox,’ he calls me. But I gave him a cuddle to make up. 'Foxes are
legends.’ I said, 'but there'll be real foxes somewhere else in the galaxy—and
lots of other people, who are just as real as you and me. Be a shame to lose
them all forever, now wouldn't it be? All those deaths would diminish us—and
the river guild would be the one big fish forever after, monopolizing /fa-store
and everything.'

 
          
" 'That's
not on,' he says, 'not after all we've fought for. Though mind you, I do
believe in the A'a-store.'

 
          
" 'But
you don't want to pay
too
high a
price for the privilege,' I put it bluntly.

 
          
"He frowns at me
. '
Look, Peli, our different towns and guilds have always
had a lot of independence. Happen we've had to rely on one particular guild to
link us all up, but still the river guild couldn't rule us. That's what bothers
us here in Jangali—aye, even while we're swilling back the black stuff for the
sake of our souls, to keep us out of that Godmind's clutches after we're dead!'
And he promises me that he'll hang on for our surprise. And he'll help if he
humanly can—so long as it suits the junglejacks.
'Can't
commit us, sight unseen!'

 
          
" 'Fair
enough, Pet,' I told him. 'I'm sure you'll find it suits you. What's at stake
is
big.'

 
          
" 'And
Yaleen isn't her own mistress?'

 
          
" 'No
more than I'm yours,' said I.

 
          
" 'Oho
,’
says he, 'we'll see about that!'

 
          
"So we did."

 
          
All in all—a whiff of jealousy
aside—I judged that Peli had done rather adroitly; and enjoyed
herself
into the bargain. Though Pe- trovy's comment didn't
amount to an absolute promise, it was a whole lot better than a poke in the
eye. The 'jacks had all flooded back to their patch of forest, but they were a
proud mob.
Once military—twice militant?

 
          
It was at Port Barbra that things
really happened.

 
          
The Worm's priestess was highly
popular in that town. Umpteen spectators turned out to see the
Crackerjill
tie up. Such was the throng
that several women and girls got pushed into the water and almost came to grief
squeezed between our boat and the jetty. They either swam clear or were fished
out in time, unstung, and fortunately no men had ventured as close to the
riverside as those who got a ducking.

 
          
As I've said before, Port Barbra is a
tawdry, muddy slum of a place where the locals pay little heed to the graces of
life such as clean streets or elegant housing. They wrap themselves up in
hoods, scarves, veils, kerchiefs; as well as in their own inwardness.

 
          
On the afternoon of
our arrival the people of 'Barbra were definitely more forthcoming.
They didn't actually cheer, but they did croon and sigh as if their voices were
a wind in a great chimney.

 
          
Another sort of crowd also greeted
us: a host of tiny midges. We on board were soon muffled up like the folk on
shore, and were practising talking with our lips shut and squinting through
halfclosed eyelids.

 
          
"The worst it's ever been!"
Peli groused.

 
          
"Mmm," I agreed. "Glad
I'm titchy now.
Less of me to bother."

 
          
I observed that 'Barbrans didn't
waste time and energy on slapping these pests or trying to waft them away from
the areas of flesh left exposed. They just ignored this inconvenience—in the
same style that they
spumed
the conveniences of life.

 
          
When the horde of welcomers at last
dispersed, so too did the clouds of flies. Perhaps it was the people themselves
who had attracted the pests, by congregating in such a mass. We weren't
persecuted as badly again.

 
          
For me the next few days were busy,
busy. A marquee had been erected near the quaymistress's shack—this was Port
Barbra, remember, and the guild didn't wish to be ostentatiously at odds with
local building codes. The entrance to the marquee was hung with curtains of
muslin, to exclude unwelcome miniature visitors whom I, for one, had no wish to
take to the Ka-store with us; should flies have
Kas
and fall into the waiting jugs of current and be drunk, so that
you had to share your afterlife with a zizzing midge. No, I'm joking.
Fly-curtains were standard fittings on 'Barbra doors and windows to keep winged
pests out of homes. This much comfort the locals allowed
themselves
,
otherwise they would have gone mad; and such curtains increased their privacy.
Alas, out of respect for a visiting priestess the local contractors rather
outdid themselves on muslin drapes. As a result the tent grew stuffy and
headachy. The year was dipping towards its finale by this time, thus the
weather wasn't as hot as it might otherwise have been. Even so, we were deep in
the tropics. I had to ask Lana to fan me with a huge leaf; which must have made
me look positively pampered to 'Barbra eyes. Or perhaps this enhanced my image
as exotic emissary of the Worm?

 
          
Anyway, I was busy; and Peli was busy
too. She visited the local newssheet printer and enquired about Peera-pa,
saying that she had an important message to deliver. The printer-cwwz-editor
fellow was reticent (weren't they all, hereabouts?), but he assured Peli that
he would ask around.

 
          
Peli brought back with her a copy of
his weekly product,
Barbra's Bugle.
For the most part the contents seemed to consist of aimless gossip—aimless,
because most of the names were concealed by initials, though maybe everyone in
Port Barbra knew who was referred to. Actual news from the rest of the river
was condensed into short snippets, run together and crammed into a box. What a
contrast with the sophisticated repartee and tidbits of wisdom to be found in
the flourishing Ajelobo rags only forty leagues downstream! Nor was the
printing any too choice.

 
          
"He ought to have called it
Barbra's Bungle
, "
joked Peli.

 
          
The headline story, about my own
impending arrival at such and such a time aboard the
Crackerjill,
struck me as distinctly odd. It read less like news
than like editorial, practically instructing readers to present themselves for
a dose of the current (if they hadn't already enrolled via the quaymistress).
Half way through, the column turned into a downright homily upon the A^-store,
which was described as
“the place where
time stops and the plant of life becomes the death-seed, with all contained
within alive for ever and ever",
or some such.

 
          
According to Stamno
the 'Barbra newssheet was under the wing of cult sympathizers.
So maybe
this
Bugle
was written partly in
code? Maybe what I took for aimless gossip really consisted of secret messages
and parables with quite other meanings, crystal clear to those who were in the
know. Scanning the
Bugle
I began to
get an even ickier feeling about Port Barbra than I'd had on previous visits;
and about my book being printed here in the guise of a newssheet. The place was
creepy. The lives of the locals were a strange charade.

 
          
Then two mornings later a little girl
delivered a sealed envelope to Peli.

 
          
Inside
was this message: The one you are interested in will meet you and your little
riversister outside the Bugle office when dusk is night.
Both
of you; but no one else.
The note was unsigned.

 
          
Peli got a chance to show me the note
privately back on board just before lunch. It had been a hectic morning in the
marquee and it looked like being an equally hectic afternoon. We might well
have to extend our stay in Port Barbra from one to two weeks, thanks to popular
demand; which was an improvement on extending our stay thanks to indifference,
as at Guineamoy. Who would have thought so many people inhabited the
environs—and
were
able to decode their local paper?

 
          
" ‘Little
river sister' has to mean you, Yaleen."

 
          
"No
doubt."

 
          
"So whoever sent this knows that
you and
me
are as thick as thieves."

 
          
"Right.
So we're getting somewhere. How do I sneak ashore?"

 
          
"Eh? You can't possibly
risk—"

 
          
"I can. I'm fed up with temples
and tents and cabins and guards. Don't you worry about
Donnah.
"

 
          
"It's you I'm worried about, you
chit."

 
          
"Well, I'm
going.
The question is how. Could you carry me ashore wrapped in a
rug?"

 
          
"Don't be daft. What would I be
carting rugs ashore for?
At dusk?"

 
          
"Okay, it'll be dusk.
Still possible to see, but not too sharply.
You disembark
ordinarily, Peli. Pile some rubbish near the marquee— there's always plenty
lying around there Remember to take a bottle of oil with you. Soak the rubbish,
stick a couple of tapers in and light 'em. Then you nip back along the
quayside. Meanwhile I'll have crept along to the stem.
Whoosh
goes the bonfire. Immediate distraction! Guards and
boatwomen rush to the bows. I'll jump. Just make sure you catch me."

 
          
Peli groaned, but didn't argue
further.

 
          
Suddenly she grabbed hold of me, and
with an almighty heave tossed me several spans in the air.

 
          
"Hey!"

 
          
And caught me.

 
          
"Checking your weight," she
explained with a grin.

 
          
I suppose that also explained the
groan. One of anticipation: weight-lifter style.

 
          
Dusk found me crouched behind a coil
of rope astern, having second thoughts about this escapade. The drop from
afterdeck rail to jetty looked a
long
way down.

 
          
But then flames flared beside the
marquee. A voice cried, "Fire!"

 
          
Figures rushed towards the bows. And
the figure of Peli loomed below. I scrambled. I threw myself.

 
          
"Oof." Peli staggered back
with me clutched tight, but she didn't fall over. Still clutching me, she
trotted off through shadows, only setting me down—crushed breathless—when we
gained the wooden walkway of Treegold Mall (which might better have been named
Muck
Street
). Gazing back, we saw flames writhing high.

 
          
"Some bonfire," I gasped.

 
          
"Um, maybe I piled stuff too
close to the canvas. Good cover there, though."

 
          
"Looks like you've torched the
whole tent."

 
          
The leaping flames soon died and the
orange glow faded. Well, any idiot could quench a blaze with a whole river on
tap. We went on our way through the darkling dirty thoroughfares.