CHAPTER 15
Auntie Hurga was not home, which allowed Jallin only a small amount of relief. It meant he had most of the rest of the afternoon to think up some kind of excuse for why he was not wearing the clothes she bought for him with her employer’s money. This competed with the instructions Kir-Tuko tried to give him about different herbs and their various properties.
Kir-Tuko, however, was patient. Often, he repeated himself, or gave Jallin another chance to answer him. He would not allow Jallin to cut, dice, or organize any of the herbs. The most important job he gave to Jallin was to go and fetch a stalk of this, a branch of that, a seed pod, a few leaves, and bring them to him and hold them until he was ready to use them. Otherwise, Jallin moved boxes, filled pots, emptied pots, emptied boxes of their mysterious contents, and answered the gate once when a delivery arrived.
Unfortunately, despite Kir-Tuko’s best efforts to keep Jallin busy, whenever they were in the greenhouse, Jallin’s eyes were drawn to the bottle of blue liquid sitting on the counter where Kir-Tuko had exposed it earlier. No Baby.
Jallin had learned not to talk while Kir-Tuko worked on his medicines. The slave required absolute concentration sometimes. When Jallin could draw his eyes away from the blue bottle, the process of mixing was a fascinating thing to watch.
Kir-Tuko made strange little mountain ranges across the surface of the table now with various colored powders, letting them slip from his hand in a smooth flow like water over the surface of a rivulet in a stone, until he had a peculiar symbol like a coiled snake made out of a rainbow. Then, from a little pointed bottle, he poured a clear liquid over all the powders. He put the tip of his claw on one end of the rainbow serpent, and closed his eyes.
His lips quivered a little, and his whiskers flashed in the last light of day like little strings made of glass. His ears each seemed to search for different sounds at the same time, turning indifferent to each other.
A blinding spark, a tiny cloud hovering over the table as though threatening rain, and a flame which ran its way up the snake shape like a messenger running down a road. What used to be a pathway made of colors was a single uniform brown-purple sludge trail. Kir-Tuko let out air slowly and high into the air, as though his breath would somehow disturb the spell he’d just done.
Jallin waited. Kir-Tuko stepped backwards, covered the end of his nose with his hand, and simply breathed.
“What is that?” Jallin asked.
Kir-Tuko’s face suggested he had forgotten Jallin’s existence for a moment.
“It some stuff for….” He shook his head. Then, took a tool and scooped the mess he’d made into a bottle, all but a tiny, thumbnail-sized glob. He signaled for Jallin to approach and grabbed up his arm. He found a bruise growing on Jallin’s arm and smeared the glob of medicine across it like butter onto bread.
For a moment, Jallin half expected his arm to rot off, or change color, or erupt into flames like the stuff had done only moments before. It wasn’t even hot. In fact, a peculiar cooling sensation spread across the skin, like tiny fingers of ice were digging into him. But that was all. In a moment, the stuff was completely gone, and it took with it the bruising and redness. Another second or two, and nothing left of his injury. The rest of him seemed to ache all the more, wanting what his arm had received.
Jallin rubbed his arm, trying to find the bruise that had been there.
“So, what is that called, then?”
“It called Fight Free. It made for arena fighters, warriors, feofle who get injury. Like ju.”
His arm felt as though it had been replaced with someone else’s. It didn’t hurt, not even ached; Jallin wished Kir-Tuko had put it on his face or his ribs, where he’d taken the most of his beating.
“So, that was magic, right? You can use magic? You’re an actual mejen?”
Kir-Tuko’s eyes closed and he sighed. “Jes. I have magic.”
“Then why are you here? Why are you a slave? Aren’t all the mejens at the university?”
“Vhat ju think? Ju think I go to ooniversity? Ju think I that good, eh? I traited, but I slave. I don’t know about all that. I have good life here. I vas raised a slave, taught this stuff piecemeal. I don’t know much avout it, really. A few tricks. That’s all.”
Jallin’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t mean to narrow them.
Kir-Tuko put a cork in the bottle of Fight Free, and put the stuff on the table where it was made.
“Can I have some more of that?” Jallin asked.
“Ju get food, ju get shirt, ju get pants. Now, ju vant more?”
Jallin hung his head. Now, after everything else, he truly felt awful. He looked away from Kir-Tuko, his eyes instinctively drawn to the blue bottle. He thought to ask Kir-Tuko something else, but heard a noise outside.
“Jallin? Where are you?”
Jallin heard Eja coughing. Apparently, she’d gone with Auntie Hurga to work.
Kir-Tuko left the medicine he’d just made on the table, and didn’t bother to put away his tools. He led Jallin out of the greenhouse by the shoulder.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “ve deliver that stuff to vhere it goes. Ve talk more.”
They found Auntie Hurga holding her basket against her hip. Eja was behind her, coughing in her hand like she was collecting her own breaths.
Jallin tried to stand up and face her, but he was aware he was slumping a little. He met her eyes for a moment with his own, then looked at Eja.
“Where’s the master?” Auntie Hurga asked.
“Don’t know. Ju have vashing all done?”
“Yes,” the little woman said. She was staring at Jallin now, and Jallin could not find the strength to face her. What made her so fearsome now? He’d never been so worried about her before, but now, she seemed to grow a hundred times bigger in his mind. He thought she might lunge at him and rip him limb from limb if she got the notion. “Where’re the clothes you had on this morning?”
Here it was, Jallin thought.
“They, um….”
Auntie Hurga put the basket down and stomped her way through the mud towards him. Her hand came at him, and Jallin flinched. But she didn’t strike. Instead, she touched the sleeve of Kir-Tuko’s tunic.
“No boots? Where are your boots?”
“I took them off.”
Auntie Hurga’s hand came across his face so quickly, Jallin hardly knew he was hit. It only added to the aches already there in his face.
“Don’t lie to me. What happened to your boots?”
“I was robbed,” Jallin said. “I got attacked….”
“Attacked? By who? Where? Here?”
“I…”
“Ve vent the wrong vay to a client’s house,” Kir-Tuko said, pulling Jallin backwards away from Hurga. “Ve had to deliver some medicine, and I got a little lost.”
“That’s a lie. I know you better than that, Kir-Tuko. You don’t get lost. How do you get lost? You’ve lived in this city for nearly twenty years. How did you get lost?"
Kir-Tuko shrugged like some young person would shrug. “New client, uffer side of town, near the falace.”
“You go there all the time. Don’t lie for him. Don’t you do it. Now, tell me the truth.”
“And he was with you?”
“I thought he’d like to go, jes.”
“The thieves robbed…him?” Auntie Hurga’s bony finger aimed at Jallin’s chest like a knife. “What about the medicine? Where is it?”
“I give to client. It vas coming vack, vhen it happen.”
Kir-Tuko’s ear flicked like a horse’s. Auntie Hurga eyes looked up at it.
“So, you were coming back with money, and these thieves didn’t rob you?”
“I…hid it…from….”
“Get out of the way, slave,” Auntie Hurga said, and, though she was tiny compared to the old sho, pushed him aside like a broom leaned against a door. She came at Jallin now, who shrunk back and tried to cover himself with his arms.
She got him by the hair and pulled him away from Kir-Tuko. When he was off guard, the woman started hitting him. Her right hand landed blow after blow on top and on the side of his head, and then suddenly set one of his ears burning and ringing. Then, to punctuate her attacks, she kicked him.
“What happened? How did you lose your clothes? Where are they?”
“What’s it matter? They were work clothes.”
“You had new boots. Where are they?” She grabbed Jallin by the throat, but could only barely hold him. Her sharp fingernails scratched his neck as he pulled away. Now he fell and scrambled across the ground to get away from the wild woman. She picked up a mud clod from the ground and threw it at him, hit him in the unhealed arm and drew blood. “Those clothes cost the master money. Do you have any idea how much money it costs to clothe and feed you? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Jallin could barely hear over his sister coughing. He looked at her. She’d taken a few steps toward them both, but now she fell down again, coughing and gasping. It looked as though she would never breathe again. Jallin crawled to her and sat her up. She stopped coughing eventually.
“I asked you a question, boy. Where are the clothes I bought you? What did you do with them? Did you sell them or something? What have you done?”
“They were my clothes. I told you what happened. I lost them. I was robbed,” Jallin screeched back at her. “My…friends…some people I used to know…they found me and attacked me.”
“Friends? You don’t have any friends. You have me and this household and that’s all you have. How did these friends get to you? Were you outside today? Did you leave the house by yourself? Tell me the truth!”
“I did. You just don’t believe me. I’m sorry. I ran away. Kir-Tuko took me out with him, and I ran away from him, and I got robbed. That’s what happened. I was upset about...,” Jallin looked at Kir-Tuko, “something I saw.”
“You ran away? You went out alone in the city?”
“I know the city. I’ve been on my own since mother got sick, since before Eja got it.”
Auntie Hurga stooped to pick up another mud clod. Her hand went back and she aimed. Was it a clod or a rock? Did she intend to kill him?
“Stof! Hurga-Seduka, stof!” The master’s voice echoed through the garden, and everything fell silent. “Vhat-doer, ju? Vhat thees? Vhat goes on here?”
Who knew how long he and Shi-Feo had stood there watching?
“Boy-hurter, you not be, Hurga-Seduka. Fut down stone.”
Auntie Hurga dropped the clod to the ground. To show it was only a clod, she stomped on it and broke it apart with her feet. She gestured at the boy.
“He lost the clothes I bought him, Tho-Shiko. He ran away and got robbed and lost the boots I bought him.”
The master stepped closer.
“Voot-loser ju?” He said to Jallin. He offered his hand and Jallin took it. Then, he helped Eja up as well. “Jes?” he asked. “Voot-loser?”
“Yes…yes sir. But Kir-Tuko….” Again, he looked at Kir-Tuko, whose ears were back and his nose down. “I wanted to go and see the place where I used to live,” Jallin said.
“Vhy? Not haffy here?”
“I...just miss my mother. She died there, Tho-Shiko.”
He nodded.
“Kir-Tuko, tomorrow, ju and he get new voots and new clothes, jes? Heem-taker ju vy market on vay to delivery, and care-have thees time, jes? Jallin, no avay-running more, understand?”
Jallin nodded.
“Master, I have a question.” Jallin looked at Hurga as he said this. She was tame for now and tending to Eja.
“Jes?”
“Why do you make No Baby here?”
The ears flattened, the eyes narrowed. “No Vavy?”
“Inavé”
“Vhat-talker ju? Who told ju avout inavé?”
“I…read it. I read it on the bottle’s label…while helping Kir-Tuko move some things in the greenhouse. I liked the color of it. It’s a pretty potion, Tho-Shiko, but I…uh…wondered about its name. I asked why it was called inavé. I remember hearing that ‘ina’ meant baby and ‘vé’ means no. I’ve lived in this area for a long time, sir, and I remember knowing those words.”
Jallin could feel Kir-Tuko’s reaction nearby, even if he had not seen him flinch out of the corner of his eye. He only hoped Master Tho-Noshó, who dealt with humans and kinto-shah everyday didn’t notice.
Master Noshó turned his head slightly away, as though he smelled something bad from Jallin.
“It for slaves,” is all he said. Then, he turned back towards his house. Shi-Feo remained behind only long enough to invite them all to supper on the porch of the house.
No comments:
Post a Comment