Northshore by Sheri S. Tepper Read Free Book Online

Tower, far enough away not to be questioned by the Awakeners but close enough to see her if she came. When she did, he knew her at once.
    ‘Pamra,’ he called, not certain it was allowed to speak toher, but needing to do something more than merely look and go away.
    She turned to him, that expression he so well remembered intensified, if anything, into a stubborn, blind naiveté, a face that said, ‘I will do what I will do!’
    ‘Do I know you?’ she asked, a little haughtily, as all the Awakeners were.
    ‘I knew your mother,’ he said.
    ‘She went in the River,’ Her voice was forbidding. Cold. ‘She was a coward, a heretic.’
    ‘That’s very harsh,’ he said, shocked at her tone.
    ‘No more than she deserves. Did you have something to say to me?’
    ‘Nothing,’ he said. What could he say to her? ‘Nothing.’ He turned away, confused, not liking her and yet not wanting to leave. ‘You look like her,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Exactly like her. And she loved you.’ There, he thought. Let her make what she will of that.
    He went back to the boat downcast and miserable to write a new sign for Suspirra. ‘PAMRA IS WELL.’ She was well. So beautiful it put his heart into his throat, half longing and half anger at her, at what she’d done. About sixteen or seventeen now, and the perfect copy of the drowned woman except that Pamra was slim where this woman had a rounded figure, gently swelling.
    ‘How could she?’ he whispered.
    ‘She believes,’ Suspirra said. ‘Truly believes. Not in my love, for I abandoned her. Not in her father’s love, for he left her, too, in his way. But in the love of Potipur, for she
must
believe in love – of some kind.’
    Sickened, Thrasne could not believe in the love of Potipur. It was with a kind of guilty relief he put Baristown behind him.

4

    Haranjus Pandel, Superior of the Tower of Thou-ne, saw fit to visit the home of the widow Flot.
    ‘There’s this law, Widow Flot. You know it, and I know it.’ He said this in his usual manner, as one might who is dreadfully bored with the necessity but feels it wise to go through the motions.
    Widow Flot, unawed, shook her head at him. ‘If you’re talking of Peasimy, have a little sense, Superior.’
    ‘He’s thirty years old.’
    ‘He’s thirty in years. He’s four or five in his head, and as far as his wee private parts go, he’s not got enough to bring a blush to a maiden’s cheek. I’ll swear that part of him hasn’t grown since he was born.’ She flushed a little saying it, but it had to be said. Gods, hadn’t she said it to her friends, many a time, and hadn’t they breathed it around? Sure Haranjus knew it, just as he knew every other blessed thing that went on in Thou-ne.
    ‘Still, there’s the law.’ It didn’t come out with the force Pandel would have wished. He had suddenly remembered several other things about Peasimy that he had known at one time but had conveniently forgotten until that moment.
    The widow Flot was no more awed by the law than she was by his presence. ‘The law says no celibacy, no boy-boying, that’s what the law say, Haranjus Pandel. The law says there must be wedding and bedding and enough children born to keep our numbers strong. That’s what the law says. And Superior or no, don’t come all over haughty with me, Haranjus. I knew your ma, and I’ve known about yousince you were no bigger than Peasimy’s cock. Peasimy’s not celibate, no more than any infant is. And Peasimy’s no boy lover, neither. Peasimy’s an infant, a neuter, no more sex to him than to a blade of grass. So what’s this about the law? You got some ugly, godforsaken maiden you’ve got to get matched up, is that it?’
    Haranjus had the grace to blush. He had, as a matter of fact, the daughter of the Merchants’ Guild Hetman to get mated, somehow. She with the face like a song-fish and the body like a tub. No matter, face nor figure, so long as she was able to produce. With the