Lamai clan mothers had their hands in shipping and high finance, as well as management of the city-state. Of the seventeen major, and ninety minor, matriarchies in Port Sanger, Lamatia was among the most prominent.
You wouldn't imagine it, walking the market districts. There were some russet-haired Lamias about, proud and uniformly buxom in their finely woven kilts, striding ahead of hulking lugars in livery, laden with packages. Still, among the bustling stalls and warehouses, members of the patrician caste seemed as scarce as summer folk, or even the occasional man.
There were plenty of stocky, pale-skinned Ortyns in sight, especially wherever goods were being loaded or unloaded. Identical except in the scars of individual happenstance, the pug-nosed Ortyns seldom spoke. Among themselves words seemed unnecessary. Few of that clan became savants, to be sure, but their physical strength and skill as teamsters -- handling the temperamental sash horses -- made them formidable in their niche. "Why keep and feed lugars," went a local saying, "when you can hire Ortyns to move it for you."
A gang of those stocky clones had Musician's Way snarled, their dray obstructing traffic as six identical women wrestled with a block and tackle slung from the rafter of an upper story workshop. Like many buildings in this part of town, this one leaned over the street, each floor jutting a little farther on corbelled supports. In some neighborhoods, edifices met above the narrow road, forming arches that blocked the sky.
A crowd had gathered, entranced by the creaking load high above -- an upright harp-spinet, constructed of fine wood inlay by the Pasarg clan of musical craftswomen for export to one of the faraway cities of the west. Perhaps it would ride the Grim Bird along with Maia and Leie... if the workers got it safely to ground first. A gaggle of the sallow-faced, long-fingered Pasargs had gathered below, trilling nervously whenever the sash-horses stamped, setting the cargo swaying overhead. If it crashed, a season's profits might be ruined.
To other onlookers, the tense moment highlighted a drab autumn morning. Hawkers converged, selling roasted nuts and scent-sticks to the gathering crowd. Slender money rods were swapped in bundles or broken to make change.
"Winter's comin', so get yerself a'ready!" shouted an ovop seller with her basket of bitter contraceptive herbs. "Men are finally coolin' off, but can you trust yerself with glory frost due?"
Other tradeswomen carried reed cages containing live birds and Stratoin hiss lizards, some of them trained to warble popular tunes. One young Charnoss clone tried to steer a herd of gangly llamas past the high wheels of the jiggling wagon, and got tangled with a political worker wearing a sandwich board advertising the virtues of a candidate in the upcoming council elections.
Leie bought a candied tart and joined those gasping and cheering as the delicately carved spinet narrowly escaped clipping a nearby wall. But Maia found it more interesting to watch the Ortyn team on the back of the wagon, working together to free the jammed winch. It was a rare electrical device, operating on battery power. She had never seen Ortyns use one before, and thought it likely they had mishandled it in some way. None of the clans in Port Sanger specialized in the repair of such things, so it came as no surprise when, without a word or any other apparent sign, the Ortyns gave up trying to make it work. One member of the team grabbed the release catch while the others, as in a choreographed dance, turned and raised callused hands to seize the rope. There were no cries or shouts of cadence; each Ortyn seemed to know her sisters' state of readiness as the latch let go. Muscles bunched across broad backs. Smoothly, the cargo settled downward, kissing the wagon bed with deceptive gentleness. There were cheers and a few disappointed boos as money sticks changed hands, settling wagers. Maia and her twin hoisted their duffels once more, Leie finishing her tart while Maia turned pensive.
The Ortyns almost read each others' minds. How are Leie and I supposed to fake something like that?
When they were younger, she and her sister sometimes used to finish each other's sentences, or knew when and where the other was in pain. But at best it had been a tentative link, nothing like the bond among clones, whose mothers, aunts and grandparents shared both genes and common upbringing, stretching back generations. Moreover, the twins had lately seemed to diverge, rather than coalesce. Of the two, Maia felt her sister had more of the hard practicality needed to succeed in this world.
"Ortyns an' Jorusses an' Kroebers an' bleedin' Sloskies..." Leie muttered. "I'm so sick of this rutty place. I'd kiss a dragon on the mouth, if that's what it took not to have to look at the same faces till I julp."
Maia, too, felt an urge to move on. Yet she wondered, how did a stranger get to know who was whom in a foreign town? Here, one learned about each caste almost from birth. Such as the willowy, kink-haired Sheldons, dark-skinned women a full head taller than the blocky Ortyns. Their usual niche was trapping fur-beasts in the tundra marshes, but Sheldons in their mid-thirties often also wore badges of Port Sanger's corps of Guards, overseeing the city's defense.
Long-fingered Poeskies were likewise well-suited to their tasks -- deftly harvesting fragile stain glands from cracked stellar snails. They were so good at the dye trade, cadet branches had set up in other towns along the Parthenia Sea, wherever fisherfolk caught the funnel-shaped shells.
Near cousins to that clan, Groeskies, used their clever hands as premier mechanics. They were a young matriarchy, a summer-stock offshoot that had taken root but a few generations ago. Though still numbering but two score, the pudgy, nimble "Grossies" were already a clan to be reckoned with. Every one of them was clone-descended from a single, half-Poeskie summerling who had seized a niche by luck and talent, thereby winning a posterity. It was a dream all var-kids shared -- to dig in, prosper, and establish a new line. Once in a thousand times, it happened.
Passing a Groeskie workshop, the twins looked on as ball bearings were slipped into axles by robust, contented redheads, each an inheritor of that clever forbear who won a place in Port Sanger's tough social pyramid. Maia felt Leie nudge her elbow. Her sister grinned. "Don't forget, we've got an edge."
Maia nodded. "Yeah." Under her breath, she added -- "I hope."
Below the market district, under the sign of a rearing tricorn, stood a shop selling sweets imported from faraway Vorthos. Chocolate was one vice the twins knew they must warn their daughter heirs about, if ever they had any. The shopkeeper, a doe-eyed Mizora, stood hopefully, though she knew they weren't buyers. The Mizora were in decline, reduced to selling once-rich holdings in order to host sailors in the style of their foremothers. They still coifed their hair in a style suited to a great clan, though most were now small merchants, and less good at it than upstart Usisi or Oeshi. The Mizora shopkeeper sadly watched Maia and Leie turn away, continuing their stroll down a street of smaller clanholds.
Many establishments bore emblems and badges featuring extinct beasts such as firedrakes and tricorns -- Stratoin creatures that long ago had failed to adapt to the coming of Earth life. Lysos and the Founders had urged preservation of native forms, yet even now, centuries later, tele screens occasionally broadcast melancholy ceremonies from the Great Temple in far-off Caria City, enrolling another species on the list to be formally mourned each Farsun Day.
Maia wondered if guilt caused so many clans to choose as symbols native beasts that were no more. Or is it a way of saying -- "See? We continue. We wear emblems of the defeated past, and thrive."
In a few generations, Mizora might be as common as tricorns.
Lysos never promised an end to change, only to slow it down to a bearable pace.
Rounding a corner, the twins nearly plowed into a tall Sheldon, hurrying downhill from the upper class neighborhood. Her guard uniform was damp, open at the collar. "Excuse me," the dark skinned officer muttered, dodging by the two sisters. A few paces onward, however, she suddenly stopped, whirling to peer at them.
"There you are. I almost didn't recognize you!"
"Bright mornin', Cap'n Jounine." Leie greeted with a mocking half-salute. "You were looking for us?"
Jounine's keen Sheldon features were softened by years of town life. The captain wiped her brow with a satin kerchief. "I was late catching you at Lamatia clanhold. Do you know you missed your leave-taking ceremony? Of course you know. Was that on purpose?"
Maia and Leie shared brief smiles. No slipping anything by Captain Jounine.
"Never mind." The Sheldon waved a hand. "I just wanted to ask if you'd reconsidered --"
"Signing up for the Guard?" Leie interrupted. "You've got to be --"
"I'm sure we're flattered by the offer, Captain," Maia cut in. "But we have tickets --"
"You'll not find anything out there," Jounine waved toward the sea, "that's more secure and steady --"
"-- and boring --" Leie muttered.
"-- than a contract with the city of your birth. It's a smart move, I tell you!"
Maia knew the arguments. Steady meals and a bed, plus slow advancement in hopes of saving enough for one child. A winter child -- on a soldier's salary? Mother Claire's derision about "founding a micro-clan of one" seemed apropos. Some smart moves were little more than nicely padded traps.
"A myriad of thanks for the offer," Leie said, with wasted sarcasm. "If we're ever desperate enough to come back to this frigid --"
"Yes, thanks," Maia interrupted, taking her sister's arm. "And Lysos keep you, Captain."
"Well... at least stay away from the Pallas Isles, you two! There are reports of reavers..."
As soon as they turned a corner, Maia and Leie dropped their duffels and broke out laughing. Sheldons were an impressive clan in most ways, but they took things so seriously! Maia felt sure she would miss them.
"It's odd though," she said after a minute, when they resumed walking. "Jounine really did look more anxious than usual."
"Hmph. Not our problem if she can't meet recruitment quotas. Let her buy lugars."
"You know lugars can't fight people."
"Then hire summer stock down at the docks. Plenty of riff-raff vars always hanging around. Dumb idea expanding the Guard anyway. Bunch of parasites, just like priestesses."
"Mm," Maia commented. "I guess." But the look in the soldier's eye had been like that of the Mizora sweets-merchant. There had been disappointment. A touch of bewilderment.
And more than a little fear.
A month ago there had been wardens at the Getta Gate, separating Port Sanger proper from the harbor.
Maia recalled how the care-mothers used to take Lamatia's crèche kids from the high precincts down steep, cobbled streets to ceremonies at the Civic Temple, passing near the getta gate along the way. Early one summer, she had bolted from the tidy queue of varlings, running toward the high barrier, hoping to glimpse the great freighters in drydock. Her dash had ended with a sound spanking. Afterward, between sobs, she distantly heard one matron explain that the wharves weren't safe for kids that time of year. There were "rutting men" down there.
Later, when the aurorae were replaced in northern skies by autumn's placid constellations, those same gates were flung back for children to scamper through at will, running along the docks where bearded males unloaded mysterious cargoes, or played spellbinding games with clockwork disks. Maia recalled wondering at the time -- were these men different from the "rutting" kind? It must be so. Always ready with a smile or story, these seemed as gentle and harmless as the furry lugars they somewhat resembled.
Harmless as a man, when stars glitter clear. So went a nursery rhyme, which finished,
But wary be you, woman, when Wengel Star is near.
Traversing the gate for the last time, Maia and Leie passed through a variegated throng. Unlike the uphill precincts, here males made up a substantial minority, contributing a rich mix of scents to the air, from the aromas of spice and exotic cargoes to their own piquant musk. It was the ideal and provocative locale for a Perkinite agitator to have set up shop, addressing the crowd from an upturned shipping crate as two clone-mates pushed handbills at passersby. Maia did not recognize the face-type, so the trio of gaunt-cheeked women had to be missionaries, recently arrived.
"Sisters!" the speaker cried out. "You of lesser clans and houses! Together you outnumber the combined might of the Seventeen who control Port Sanger. If you join forces. If you join with us, you could break the lock great houses have on the town assembly, and yes, on the region, and even in Caria City itself! Together we can smash the conspiracy of silence and force a long overdue revelation of the truth --"
"What truth?" demanded an onlooker.
The Perkinite glanced to where a young sailor lounged against the fence with several of his colleagues, amused by the discomfiture his question provoked. True to her ideology, the agitator tried to ignore a mere male. So, for fun, Leie chimed in. "Yeah! What truth is that, Perkie?"
Several onlookers laughed at Leie's jibe, and Maia could not hide a smile. Perkinites took themselves and their cause so seriously, and hated the diminutive of their name. The speaker glared at Leie, but then caught sight of Maia standing by her side. To the twins' delight, she instantly drew the wrong conclusion and held out her hands to them, earnestly, imploringly.
"The truth that small clans like yours and mine are routinely shoved aside, not just here but everywhere, especially in Caria City, where the great houses are even now selling our very planet to the Outsiders and their masculinist Phylum..."
Maia's ears perked at mention of the alien ship. Alas, it soon grew clear that the speaker wasn't offering news, only a tirade. The harangue quickly sank into platitudes and clichés Maia and her sister had heard countless times over the years. About the flood of cheap var labor ruining so many smaller clans. About laxity enforcing the Codes of Lysos and the regulation of "dangerous males." Such hackneyed accusations joined this year's fashionable paranoid theme -- playing to popular unease that the space-visitors might be precursors to an invasion worse even than the long-ago horror of the Enemy.
There had been brief pleasure in being mistaken for a "clan," just because Maia and Leie looked alike, but that quickly faded. Autumn meant elections were coming, and fringe groups kept trying to chivvy a minority seat or two in the face of en masse bloc-voting by holds like Lamatia. Perkinism appealed to small matriarchies who felt obstructed by established lines. The movement got little support from vars, who had no power and even less inclination to vote.
As for men, they had no illusions should Perkinism take hold in a big way on Stratos. If that ever seemed close to happening again, Maia might witness something unique in her lifetime, the sight of males lining up at polling booths, exercising a right enshrined in law, but practiced about as often as glory frost fell in summer.
Leie was chuckling over a political tract the Perkinites were handing out. Maia nudged her sister. "Come on. There are better things to do with our last morning in town."
Continue reading sample 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, or purchase Glory Season.
The Real Culture War
