The Trochiabite Boy Chapter 6

"What is that?" Eja said, peering into her bowl of porridge Aunty Hurga prepared her.  On the top of it was some kind of bluish-purplish...something.  Jallin couldn't tell her.

"That's your medicine, Eja.  Hurry and eat up.  We have work to do."

"But what is it?" Jallin asked this time.

"It's...medicine.  I don't know exactly.  It's something Kir-Tuko made for me last night.  He says it'll cure her."

"I feel good now," Eja said.  Jallin tried to dip into her bowl, but Aunty Hurga slapped his hand.

"It's not for you, Jallin."  Jallin pulled back from her as though he were stung.  "Now, Eja, I'm in charge of you, I'm your aunt, and you have to listen to me.  Eat, girl, or I'll give you some stripes."

Eja's lip quivered.  She'd never been threatened with so many spankings before, not even when her mother was well.  She held herself together and dabbled in the porridge with her spoon.

"Shouldn't I have some of the medicine, too?" Jallin asked.  I was living with them both.  I might come down with it, too.

"No.  Not until you start coughing.  Eat up, Jallin.  You've got work to do, too."  

"I'm not allowed to do anything, so what am I supposed to do?"

"You're going to help Kir-Tuko with gardening and whatever else he needs you to do.  And you better do what he says, exactly what he says, too.  Don't pester him, just do what he says.  And whatever he makes you do, you don't talk about it, got that?"

"Is Master Nosho doing something bad?"

"No, but it's not everyone's business either.  He does business with Counselor Dursus, too, and that's not everyone's business, is it?"

Eja looked at Jallin, then shook her head.  Jallin ate slowly.  Despite everything, he was not eager to get started working.  The porridge became tasteless.

*   *   *

Kir-Tuko lived, or at least slept, in a tool shed attached to the back of the greenhouse.  When Jallin first met him, he was inside the greenhouse.  His nose was covered with some kind of thin silk veil while he mixed the contents of bottles into a bowl.  Jallin tried to greet him, but the old sho, what male kinto-shah were called, held up his hand and gestured for him to stay back.  At least, that's what Jallin thought he meant.  

"You no vant breathing thees stuff," he said.  "Vait moment."  He picked up a morter and ground whatever it was in the bowl.  His ears went back as he did it.  This gave Jallin a chance to really look at him.  

Whatever it was he mixed must not have been dangerous on the skin.  He wore no shirt, and ragged pants that only came down the first joint in his leg.  Likely, even in the chilly early spring, he was hot working in here.  Jallin figured he was much, much older than the master of the house, maybe twice the master's age, though Jallin really didn't know how to tell how old kinto-shah were.  Gray and white was all through his fur and though he was very strong, some places seemed to just not fit right.  He had all kinds of scars and places where the fur looked like it wouldn't grow back.  

Now Jallin looked around the greenhouse.  Except for the surface where Kir-Tuko worked, every table was cluttered with potted plants.  Most of them Jallin didn't recognize at all.  Towards the back of the greenhouse, Jallin saw other plants growing out of hanging baskets.  Did some of them move?  There wasn't any wind in here?    

On one table, and on shelves in front of Kir-Tuko, Jallin saw all manner of jars and bottles.  Who knew what was in this place and what Kir-Tuko could make with it all?  

Kir-Tuko picked up a long-handle spoon and began ladling out the compound he'd made in the bowl into a jar.  He took his time and didn't seem to move too much of the strange powder at a time.  Jallin wondered how long he would have to stand here waiting on him.  Eventually, right about the time sweat was trailing down the side of Jallin's face, Kir-Tuko sealed the bottle of whatever it was he had made, lit a match and dropped it into the bowl.  

The burst of flame left Jallin's vision completely filled with purple spots.   

"Oh, sorry," Kir-Tuko said.  "You okay?  Did ju look at it?  Ju not blind?"

"No."  Jallin blinked his eyes.  "But what was that stuff?"

"Don't vurry.  I'm not going to tell ju everything I know."  Kir-Tuko came over and looked Jallin up and down like he was some new plant.  "Ju not a big keed, eh?"

"No, I guess not.  So what?"

"Ju not a slave?"

"No, I'm not a slave."

"I'm a slave," Kir-Tuko declared.  "Anyvay, vat am I supposed to do vith ju?"

"I don't know.  I'm supposed to work for you."

His ears went back again, and his eyes narrowed.  Ah vell," he said.  He turned back to his work table.  Then, he looked over his shoulder.  "Vat ju know?"

"About what?"

"About anything?  Vat you know?"

Jallin had really never been asked this before, by anybody.  How could he say what he knew?  He knew how to steal and sometimes which vendors in the market place would hand out things.  He knew a few places to hide, which beggars or homeless people to stay away from.  He knew some magic devices in the city, some of the listening and watching devices.  He knew the names and faces of some of the putrights, and the narg guards, and a few of the gincha snipers.  He couldn't tell Kir-Tuko any of those things, so he shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know what I know," Jallin said.  "I guess not much."

"Then, how can you help me?" Kir-Tuko asked.

"I don't know.  I know my way around the city some, at least down here.  I know a few people."

The old sho put a hand to the whisp of fur under his chin.  His left-side lip raised a little.

"I can learn things," Jallin said.  "I'll do what you tell me."

"That is a start."

"You speak better Sarkoshian than the master," Jallin pointed out.  He didn't know what it was important to say, but he noticed it.

"I don't speak kinto-shah that vell.  I am a slave from vay back, and I grow up here in Sarkoshia.  I speak it, just not vell, not the high nose tongue, not like the master speak it.  I speak only a little."

"I don't speak any of it," Jallin said.

"Vell, can you read it?  Can you read anything?"

"No, not really.  Do you?"

"I know a little.  I know enough to mix things."  He kept studying Jallin carefully.  "Ve see how good you vurk.  Let's go into the garden."

Kir-Tuko explained what was, and what was not, planted in the garden.  He gave Jallin a tour over everything, pointing at various rows of vegetables or herbs and telling their names, but Jallin missed many of these because by the time he looked at what Kir-Tuko showed him, Kir-Tuko was already pointing out something else.

"What are these little column things?" Jallin asked Kir-Tuko, pointing at one of them.  The wind still passed by his legs, just like it had the previous night.  Jallin walked close to each one they passed, and they all had wind going by them every so often, and every one turned the wind in a different direction.  Some of them, the wind actually bent around them or bent away from them.  This was another reason Jallin didn't hear everything said.  He wished he hadn't asked; now he felt stupid.

"They make vind go.  They are vind columns.  Ve use them to move air, make pollen go around.  Understand?"

Jallin shook his head.  Kir-Tuko explained about pollen, how plant flowers made pollen and used it to reproduce themselves.  "The vind columns are very expensive.  But ve need them.  Mages make.  Very useful."

And now, Kir-Tuko explained, it was time to work.  He summoned Jallin over to a row of...Jallin didn't remember.  He pointed to various sprigs growing between the planted sprouts.  "Veeds.  Ve don't vant," he said.  He pinched one of these unwanted plants and yanked it up, roots and all.  Jallin knew what weeds were.

"Now you," Kir-Tuko said.  And thus, Jallin learned he could do something.  He could pull weeds.

*  *  *  

It did not take long for Jallin to want to do something else.  Kir-Tuko had disappeared back into the greenhouse.  Jallin was alone.  He heard Eja coughing her brains out in their hut where they had slept.  He periodically spotted Aunty Hurga going in and out of one of the rooms of the house, either armed with a broom, a pot, or a box.  

Despite the wind columns, and despite the fact it was spring, the sun managed to beat down on Jallin's back.  The dirt ground its way into his knees and the palms of his hands.  Many of the intruding weeds had thorns on them, or natural irritants in their juices.  If nothing else, most of them stunk.  Jallin himself noticed, for the first time, how much he stunk, too.  

The master did not make an appearance.  Whether or not he was even in the compound, Jallin couldn't say.  Maybe he was recovering from whatever it was he had done the previous night.  Shi-Feo was also not to be seen.  

Jallin stopped when the sun was practically sitting on his head, and no shadows stayed anywhere in the garden.  He wiped his face with his tunic, leaving dirty smudges all over it.  Not even now, in this place, could he keep an article of clothing clean.  He couldn't say why this bothered him so much.  He'd never before known cleanliness anyway, had he?  

The tiny wind blowing along the ground, around the various wind columns, felt good on his skin and he luxuriated in it for a while.  Then, he heard something coming up behind him.  

He got back to work.  

"Stop vurking now.  Do you know lunch?"  

"Lunch?" Jallin asked.  He stood up and faced Kir-Tuko.  

"Come, ve have a little bread, and maybe some cider.  Good?"  

"Very good," Jallin said.  

Kir-Tuko gestured for Jallin to go with him to the tool shed at the back of the greenhouse.  Despite tools lining the walls like family swords or flagpoles, the shed was well-kept.  In the middle of it was a large box turned open-side-down.  Jallin saw a lantern hanging from the ceiling.  Jallin sat on one of two little stools set beside the box.  

On the 'table' was a sack and a flask.  Kir-Tuko opened the bag and took out a large loaf of stone bread.  He broke it and put some on one side of the table and some on the other.  Jallin's portion was bigger.  

"Ju vurked so hard, ju didn't see Shi-Feo come home, did ju?"  

Jallin admitted he had not.  He picked up his bread, but Kir-Tuko's ears vent back on his head.  Jallin immediately put it down.  

"First, ve give thanks."  

Jallin narrowed his eyes at the kinto-shah.  Give thanks?  For what?  To whom?  

"Thank you," Jallin said to Kir-Tuko.  

"Not to me."  

"Shi-Feo then.  The master?"  

"No, to the gods," Kir-Tuko pointed to the ceiling of the shed.  

"Oh," Jallin said.  Maybe he was supposed to thank Trochaya.  "Do I have to say it out loud?"  

"No."  

Kir-Tuko closed his eyes for a moment.  He looked like he might sneeze or as if he were in pain.  Then, he picked up his piece of bread and nibbled it.  Jallin took this as a sign he could eat, too, and so he picked up his piece.  The bread was very tasty.  

For a while, they ate in silence.  Jallin finished his piece of bread much quicker than Kir-Tuko, who seemed to savor his.  Without a word, Kir-Tuko pinched off a bit more of the soft interior of the loaf and put it in front of Jallin.  

He felt like he should make some kind of conversation.  But he didn't know how to do it with a kinto-shah.  What was good conversation?  What was bad?  There had been times when Jallin's mother had told him to not talk about things in front of visitors, but they were all humans.  He was told not to beg for money, too, and not to talk about their father being pressed or leaving them, whichever it was.  

"Have you always worked for Tho-Shiko?" Jallin asked.  He didn't dare ask about when or why or for how long Kir-Tuko was a slave.  He knew that would be rude enough.  

"I have been here...five years.  Tho-Nosho-Shiko bought me from some traveling cooks."

"Traveling cooks?"  

"Master cooks, they vent around and visited various places and cooked at festivals and things, sometimes they vould go to royal palaces and teach people how to cook.  Like a traveling musician, or traveling artist.  These specialize in cooking local delicacies, culture food, such as that.  Vun of them, he vas magic maker.  Could cook such that vatever he cook, it taste better than anything.  I learn to cook things from him.  Tho-Shiko, he teach me to cook, too, but cook potions, medicines, things like that.  I not magic.  Tho-Shiko, he has magic, a little.  I make some medicine, and he make some medicine even better."  

"Tho-Shiko is magic?  He's an aethren?"  

"Jes.  He aethren.  He is chemyst."  

"You both make potions?"  

"Jes.  That is business here.  Ve make potions.  Medicines.  That thing I making ven you came in?  Powerful stuff.  Truth powder.  Make you talk too much.  Ve make it for putrights."  

This was something else Jallin knew.  Putrights, sometimes called motivators or interrogators, often carried nefarious potions and powders, many of them designed to make people tell the truth, in some way or another.  Sometimes, they merely dropped a very potent acid on someone's head and told them if they did not confess, it would burn through and eat out their brains.  Most people confessed before finding out if this was true or not, and the putright used some kind of antidote.  They almost never killed anyone they interrogated, first of all because they knew, as did anyone, once they had a contact they had a contact, and secondly because the fear the interrogated put out among his peers helped them later when they needed more information.  Putrights, Jallin thought, were monstrous and mean; he knew to look for their red and black attire and to stay away from them at all costs.  They liked to snatch up street urchins because they knew not many people would care or come to their aid.  

"Um, did Master...Tho-Shiko...do that to you?" Jallin said, pointing at one of Kir-Tuko's many scars on his chest.  

"Vat?" 

"Those scars and things."  

"No.  Tho-Shiko?  No.  I get these...vell...from all over."  He proceeded to tell a brief story for each scar.  Some were from fights he'd had with other slaves.  Some were from accidents dealing with making potions.  A few here and there were from a master he'd had a long time ago who beat him.  

"What happened to Shi-Feo?  Was she beaten?"  

"Jes."  

"By Tho-Shiko?"  

"No," Kir-Tuko said, almost angrily.  "By master before.  Tho-Shiko offer to buy her from previous master, but previous master did not vant to sell her.  He mistreat Shi-Feo.  He beat her up.  He try to keep Tho-Shiko from vanting her and scarred her face like that vith a knife.  He said if Tho-Shiko did not stop trying to buy her, he vould do vorse to her.  Somehow, he died later that year.  No vun knows how or vhy.  He vasn't murdered.  Shi-Feo vas auctioned as part of his estate, and Tho-Shiko bought her.  He paid much money for her.  She valuable.  She play tiajo, and she knows many stories.  She reads three different languages, too."

"Did she kill her master?" Jallin asked.  "Because he scarred her like that?"  

"No." Kir-Tuko said.

"Did Tho-Shiko?" 

"No.  He just died.  Kri-Thu-Yenoro came for him.  Carved his soul out of him.  Took him to live forever in judgment.  It is crime against the gods to hurt a slave for no reason, to hurt anyvun for no reason."  

Jallin got the impression he shouldn't ask anything further about this.  Still, he couldn't help thinking the original master's death was somehow...convenient.             

"You worship the kinto-shah gods, then?" he asked.  This seemed a good thing to talk about.  At least then he wouldn't be talking about anyone they knew.  

"Jes.  I vorship them.  Vell, I vorship the vuns I know.  I am kinto-shah, so I vorship the gods they vorship."  

"Why?" 

"Vhy not."  

"Well, what do you know about them?"  

He didn't know much.  He knew about the death god, Kri-Thu-Yenoro, who had his knife.  He knew about Kri-Vu-Roshi, who was the lover of all souls and who stood up to the powerful and angry Kri-Nao-Kundroa to save the rebellious souls of mortals.  Other than that, he didn't know much, except that he was a kinto-shah and so he should worship kinto-shah gods.  It sounded about the same as praying to Trochaya to Jallin, something people did because they didn't know what to do about death and the afterlife.  Did people have to worship something?  Did he?

They finished the bread, and Jallin was told that later, they would all meet and eat together on the porch that night.  In the meantime, Jallin should continue working against the weeds in the beds.  Kir-Tuko gave him a tool from the shed, this time.  

"Now you know vat is veed and vat is not, and now you know how to find veeds, you can use this to dig them up."  

Jallin was happy to be able to stand and pull at the weeds with a tool this time, rather than crawl on his hands and knees.  By the time the sun was nearly touching the compound walls, he had several little piles of weeds to mark his progress.  When Aunty Hurga began setting up a cooking pot on the porch, he was nearly finished with the entire garden.  

Eja, for all Aunty Hurga's talk, did not do much work that day at all.  Every time she came out of the hut, she went into another coughing fit.  She only seemed to come outside to complain about her stomach hurting her.  Jallin wondered if the medicine was working on her at all, or was it only making her even more sick?