Garbat manifested himself as pleased, gave each of the boys who were off to Schlaizy Noithn a handmade Danderbat token—at which they showed considerable pleasure, intricate handmade things being the only things shifters ever bothered to carry—and then took himself away, soon followed by most of the others.
Leggy Bartiban did not go out with them. He had tears running down his cheeks openly now. “That’s a shifter secret, teacher, not letting the world know what shapes we can do. How do you know for sure I won’t tell all the shifter secrets when I’m gone away from you?”
“Ah, lad,” Handbright came to hug him, drawing him tight into the circle of her arms. “You’ll not remember. Truly. I have never lied to you, Leggy, and I’ll not lie now. It is sad for you to go, and sad for us to lose you, but you will not suffer it. We have contract with the good Forgetter, Methlees of Glen, who has been our Forgetter for more seasons than anyone remembers. You’ll go to her house, and the people from the school will be there, and she’ll take your hand, like this, and you’ll know the people, and remember them, and will forget us like a dream. And that’s the way of it, Leggy, the whole way of it. You’ll be a Tragamor child born, always friendly to the shifters, but not grieving over them a bit.”
“Do they need to forget me my mother?” The boy was crying openly now.
“Shush. What silliness. Of course they’ll not forget you your mother. You’ll remember her name and face and the sound of her voice, and you’ll welcome her happily to visit you at Festival. You’ll see her as often as you do now, and most of the other boys at school will be the same, except for those who came to the Schoolhouses as infants and do not know their mothers at all. Now go along. Go ask anyone if that isn’t so, and if anyone tells you otherwise, send them to me. Go on, now, and stop crying. I’ve got things to do.”
Then all had gone but Mavin, who sat in her seat and was still, watching the back of Handbright’s head until Handbright turned to see those keen eyes looking into her as though she had been a well of water. “Well, little sister, and you still here?”
“It was a lie, wasn’t it, Handbright, about his mother?” Her voice was not accusing.
Handbright started to deny it, then stopped, fixed by that birdlike gaze. “It was and it wasn’t, she-child. He will remember her name, and her face, and the sound of her voice. He’ll welcome her at Festival, if she chooses to visit him. But all the detail, the little memories, the places and times surrounding the two of them will be gone, so there’ll be little loving feeling left. Now that may build again, and I’ve seen it happen time after time.”
“And you’ve seen the other, too. Where no one cares, after.”
After a long weary silence, Handbright said, “Yes, I can’t deny it, Mavin. I’ve seen that, too. But he doesn’t see his mother now but once or twice a year, at Assembly time. So it’s not such a great loss.”
“So why can’t he stay here, with us. I like Leggy.”
“We all like him, child. But he’s not shifter. He has to learn how to use his own Talent or he’ll be a zip-bird with wings off, all life long, flopping in the dust and trying to fly. That’d be hateful, surely, and not something you’d wish for him?”
Mavin twirled hair around one finger, shook her head from side to side, thinking, then laid her hand upon Handbright’s own and made her fingers curl bonelessly around Handbright’s wrist. Handbright stiffened in acknowledgement, her face showing gladness mixed with something so like shame that Mavin did not understand it and drew her hand away.
“Lords, child! How long?”
Mavin shrugged. “A little while.”
“How marvelous. Wonderful.” Handbright’s voice did not rejoice; it was oddly flat and without enthusiasm. “I have to tell the Elders so we can plan your Talent party ...”
“No!” It came out firmly, a command, in a voice almost adult. “No, Handbright. I’m not ready for you to do that. It hasn’t been long enough yet ... to get used to the idea. Give me ... some time yet, please, sister. Don’t do me like Leggy, throwing me into something all unprepared for it.” She laughed, unsteadily, keeping her eyes pleading and saying not half of the things she was feeling.
“Well...” Handbright was acquiescent, doubtful, seeming of two minds. “You know the Elders like to know as soon as one of us shows Talent, Mavin. They’ve been worried about you. I’ve been worried about you. It isn’t a thing one can hide for very long. As your Talent gets stronger, any shifter will be able to tell.”
“Not hide. Not exactly. Just have time to get used to the ideas. A few days to think about it is all. It won’t make any difference to anyone.” And she saw the dull flush mounting on Handbright’s cheeks, taking this to mean that yes, it did make a difference, but not understanding just what that difference might be.
“All right. I won’t tell anyone yet. But everyone will have to know soon. You tell me when you’re ready, but it can’t be long, Mavin. Really. Not long.” She leaned forward to hug the younger girl, then turned away to the corridor as though more deeply troubled than Mavin could account for. Mavin remained a long time in the room thinking of what had happened there that day. The tears of Leggy, sent away to forget. The words of Janjiver, in answer to the question of the Elder, what is a shifter, to the world?
“A shifter to the rest of the world, Elder, is what a shifter says he is, and a shifter always says less than he is.”
“I, too,” she said to herself, “could be wise to follow the words of the catechism. I could say less than I am.”
She went out into the day, back to the alleys of the p’natti, fairly sure that though Handbright would be upset and worried for a time, she would say nothing about Mavin’s Talent until Mavin told her yes. And Mavin had begun to feel that perhaps she did not want to tell her yes. Not today. Not tomorrow. Perhaps, though she did not know why, not ever.
Chapter Two
Had it not been for the fact that Assembly time was only days away, Handbright would have worried more over Mavin, would have been more insistent that the Elders be told that Mavin had shown Talent, was indeed shifter, might now be admitted to full membership in the clan Danderbat and begin to relieve some of the endless demands made upon Handbright for the past half-dozen years. Though she was fond of Mavin—and of eight-year-old Mertyn, too, if it came to that—it did not occur to her that Mavin knew no more than Mertyn did about what would be expected of a new shifter girl by Gormier and Haribald, and by the others. Though Handbright had never told Mavin any of the facts of life of shifter girl existence, she assumed that Mavin had picked it up somewhere, perhaps as she herself had done, from another young she-person. In making the assumption, she forgot that there were no other shifter girls to have giggled with Mavin in the corners, that Handbright could have been the only source of this information unless one of the old crones had seen fit to enlighten the child, an unlikely possibility.
Indeed, if she had had time to think about it, she would have known that Mavin was as innocent as her little brother of any knowledge of what would happen when it became known she was shifter. Who could she have observed in that role except Handbright herself? Who else was there behind the p’natti to share responsibility or provide company? Had there been a dozen or so girls growing up together, as there should be in a clan the size of Danderbat, Handbright herself would have been far less weary and put upon for she would have been sought out by the old man things no more often than she could have found bearable. Part of the problem, of course, was that she had not conceived. If she had been pregnant, now, or had a child at the breast. ... Or better yet, if she had borne three or four, then she could have gone away, have left the keep and fled to Schlaizy Noithn or out into the world. Any such realization made her uncomfortable. It was easier simply not to think of it, so she did not consider Mavin’s ignorance, did not consider the matter at all except to think without thinking that with Mavin coming to a proper age, the demands on herself might be less. When Handbright had been a forty-season child there
had been others near in age. Throsset of Dowes. The twin daughters of old Gormier, Zabatine and Sambeline. At least three or four others. But the twins had soon had twin children, two sets of sons, had left them in the nursery and fled. And Throsset had simply gone, with a word to no one and no one knowing where. And all the others had had their children and gone into the world, one by one, so that for four years Handbright had been alone behind the p’natti—alone except for a few crones and homebound types who were too lazy to do else than linger in the keep, and the Danderbat granders who were there to keep watch. That was all except for peripatetic clan members who visited from time to time. Well, at least the last of the babies was now out of loincloths and into trowsies. And Mertyn was eight. And Mavin now would be available to help ... help. So she thought, in the back of her head, not taking time to worry it because Assembly was so near and there was so much to do. Of course more hands were assembled to do it, too, for the Danderbat were beginning to gather. The kitchens were getting hot from fires kept burning under the ovens. Foods were being brought by wagon from as far away as Zebit and Betand. All during the year shifters might eat grass in the fields or meat off the bone, but at Assembly time they wanted cookery and were even willing to hire to get it done. That was the true sign that Assembly was near, when the cooks arrived by wagon from Hawsport, all wide-eyed at being surrounded by shifters. Of course the kitchens were underground and there were guards on them from morn to night so they didn’t see what non-shifters shouldn’t see, but the gold they were paid was good gold and more of it than a pawnish chef might make in a season otherwise.
Mavin, aware that Handbright was distracted by all this flutter, decided it would be best to lose herself in the confusion. She knew a half-hundred places in the keep in which one might crouch or lie totally unobserved and watch what went on. Now with the Danderbat gathering from all the world, and sensing that it was a time of great change for herself whether she wished to change or no, she took to hiding herself, watching, staring, learning from a distance rather than being ever present and handy as old Gormier had noticed her being. But he was now so mightily enthralled by gossip from a hundred places in a hundred voices, so distracted by the clan members gathering in their beast-headed cloaks of fur, full of tall tales and babble, that he forgot about Mavin or any intentions he may have had toward her. Mavin, however, had merely exchanged ubiquity for invisibility, hiding herself in any available cubby to see what it was that went on as the Danderbat clansmen came home. As Gormier was a man of restless, lecherous energy, full of talk, a good one to watch if one wanted to learn things, she followed him about as she had done for years, peering down on him from odd corners above rafters or from rain spouts. It was thuswise she finally lost her stubborn naivete.
Gormier and Haribald were helping unload a wagon of vegetables which had been hauled all the way from Zebit up the River Haws and the windy trail to the top of the table mountain on which the keep sat, just east of the range of firehills which separated it from Schlaizy Noithn. As they were about this business, they heard a drumming noise and looked out through the p’natti to see a vast brown ball, leathery hard, with arms at either edge, cudgeling itself to make a thunder roar. They set up a hail which Mavin heard, hid as she was under the edge of the keep roof in a gutter, and the drum ceased pounding upon itself to make a trial run at the p’natti. It assaulted the launching ramps, rolling upward at increasing speed, propelling itself by hand pushes along its circumference, to take projectile form as it left the ramp, then a winged form which snagged the top of a slything pillar with a hooked talon only to change again into a fluid serpent which slythed down the pillar before launching upward once more in a flurry of bright veils which floated upon the sky, the veils forming a brilliant parachute against the blue. Even Mavin gasped, and the granders made drum chests for themselves, beating with their arms, an answering thunder of applause. So the falling parachute, making itself into a neat bundle as it dropped, became a shifter man on the ground before them, the parachute veils gathering in and disappearing into the general hard shape. Mavin recognized him then as Wurstery Wimpole, for he had won the tournament in a previous year and been much glorified then by the Danderbat.
“Damfine, Wurstery. Damfine. Like that parachute thingy, soft as down.” Gormier, pounding him on his hard shape back, shaking his hand in sudden pain as Wurstery made a shell back there to take the blows. “Haribald was just saying he hadn’t seen veils used so—or such a color!—in a dozen years. Amblevail Dassnt used to do some parachute thing, but his was pale stuff beside yours. You going to use that coming in during procession?”
“Oh, might, might. Have another trick or two I’ve been practicing. Might use them instead. Anyhow, that’s days away and there’s days between! I’ve been bringing myself eager cross country thinking of the drink and the cookery and the Danderbat girls.”
Gormier shook his head, sadly, Mavin peering down on him from the height and hearing him breathe. “No girls, Wustery. Not a one save Handbright, and she’s tired of it. Hardly worth the effort. She doesn’t make it enjoyable. I’ve been at her bed this past two, three years, and Haribald, too, seeing she’s of breeding age, but there’s no good of it at all.”
“You don’t mean it! Only one girl shifter behind the p’natti? Lords, lords, what are the Danderbat coming to. Last time I was here, there were a dozen—two dozen.”
“Naa. Last time you was here was four years—twelve seasons ago, and there weren’t all that many. Throsset was here then. And my daughters, but they were just weaning the twins, one set each. And there was a flock of visitors, of course, but right after Assembly they left. After that there wasn’t another girlchild behind the p’natti save Mavin, and she’s only now maybe coming of age or maybe not. Lately the Danderbats’ve borne nothing but boys. Who would have thought there could be too many boys! There’s talk among the Elders that the Danderbats may be done, Wurstery. Talk of that, or of bringing back the women who’ve gone out, whether they’re willing or no ...”
“So how come Handbright’s stayed so long? What is she, twenty-four or so?”
“She doesn’t bear. Never been pregnant once, so far as we know. One of these days, she’ll give up hope and take off for Schlaizy Noithn, I doubt not. She’s thought of it before, but we’ve discouraged her, Haribald and me.” Gormier gave his head a ponderous shake at the pity of it all. “So if you’re looking for female flesh, best ask a friend to shift for you, old Wurstery, or visit some other keep of some other clan, for there’s naught here for you save one old girl not worth the trouble and one new one not come to it yet.”
And it was in this wise that Mavin realized what Handbright’s flushed face had meant and why it was that Mavin’s being a shifter would make a difference. The truth of it came to her all at once, a complete picture, in vivid detail and coloring. She went inside to the privy and lost her lunch.
There was no time to steam over it then, for Wurstery had been only one of the latest batch of Danderbats who were flowing in from all directions, laughing and shouting in the Assembly rooms downstairs, drifting up and down to the cellars to see what the cooks were preparing and whether the wine was in proper supply, taking their chances on the lottery which told them off into food service crews day by day during Assembly. Mavin, no longer invisible, was hugged, kissed, hauled about by the shoulders, congratulated on her growth, questioned as to her Talent, and sent on a thousand errands. It was impossible to escape. There were eyes everywhere, Danderbats everywhere, both grown ones and childer ones, for some Danderbat shes chose to take their childer with them rather than leave them in the nurseries of the keep. And a good thing, too, thought Mavin exhaustedly as she counted their numbers and went for the twentieth time escorting a small one to the privy. It was only that night, long after darkness had come and the keep had fallen into an almost quiet that she went to find Handbright, waking her from an exhausted drowse.
“Mavin? What’s wrong? What do you want?”
“
Sister. I need to ask things.”
“Oh, Mavin, not now! I’ve been standing on my own feet since before dawn, and weariness has me by the throat. You’ve asked questions since you were born, and I can’t imagine what’s left to ask!” Handbright pulled a shawl around her shoulders and sat up in her narrow bed. This room at the top of the keep was her own, seldom visited, mostly undisturbed, and it was rare for anyone, Mavin included, to come there. Handbright herself usually slept near the nurseries, and she had sought this cubby now only because there were visitors aplenty to care for the children. Mavin, slightly ashamed but undeterred, drifted to the window of the room and looked out across the p’natti to the line of fire hills upon the western horizon. Beyond them was Schlaizy Noithn, the ground of freedom where her schoolmates had gone to try their Talent and learn their way. Of course, she ones could go there too, if they liked, after they had had a lot of childer, or when they knew they could not. This had never been important before. She had known that fact as well as she knew her own name, or the sight of Handbright’s face, or the feel of a fellow shifter through a changed hide, knowing this was shifter kin even though he looked or smelled nothing like himself. But it had never really meant anything to her until now.