Chapter 107:
The next day after they took Sukren, two Chenta soldiers came for Rajani. They didn’t explain anything, but Rajani wasn’t going to risk being difficult. Yes, the greenhouse they’d transferred the Cursed to was a dead one, with no soil on its floor or water in its walls, but still, the Cursed were alive and together, and Rajani desperately didn’t want that to change. She therefore followed quietly, even meekly, as the soldiers walked her along black-smeared paths through fields of purple stalks. Overhead, the crisscrossing branches of the bio-dome soared. Here and there the sun shined through the gaps above, but it was mostly cloudy, mostly gray, the heart of rainsoon season.
It wasn’t until sunset that they arrived at the castle. Rajani might have been impressed by the sight except she was much too thirsty. So what if the overbelters lived in a towering pillar of gold? So what if they had come up with the idea of transforming a giant vadda tree into a home? They knew nothing of compassion, and even less of respect. Everything Rajani had agonized against in the Cursed urb, the overbelters embraced and even called good. If that wasn’t the definition of evil, Rajani didn’t know what was.
The soldiers she was with even tried to stop her when she lunged for a fountain rising up in the middle of what was the widest and highest internal space she’d ever seen – even bigger than a greenhouse. Lapping up the water as fast as she could, Rajani drank and drank until one of the soldiers grabbed her by the arm and physically dragged her away from the fountain. A blindfold for her eyes and cuffs around her wrists came next; Rajani spent the rest of the journey through the castle without sight.
She did fall asleep at some point, on what felt like a moving floor, although Rajani couldn’t remember from school whether or not overbelters had things like moving floors. Or maybe the floor wasn’t moving. Maybe she was just dreaming. It was certainly starting to feel like a dream, albeit a terrible one. Waking up to the sound of dings, then falling asleep again, then waking up and feeling the floor moving beneath her, then falling asleep once more, then finally being pulled to her feet, and hustled to another moving floor… Hunt and Gather, Rajani was still so thirsty, and now she needed to relieve herself on top of that, and yet this nightmare wouldn’t end!
When her blindfold and cuffs were finally removed, and she saw Sukren standing at the base of a dais that led up to a door, immense relief rushed through her. Immediately Rajani called out his name. “Sukren!” Then remembering he had told her he wouldn’t necessarily recognize her voice, and empathizing with him given her last several hours, she added, “It’s Rajani.”
“Rajani,” he replied.
“Are you all right?” she asked him.
“Are you?” he asked in response.
Rajani glanced at the Chenta soldiers who had brought her there. They were standing back by an open-air balcony down a little and on the other side of the hallway, watching her and Sukren. Above their heads electric lights fizzed and spat. On either side of them were paint-splashed etches; the designs were geometric and unending, traveling up and down the walls and even the floor for as far as Rajani could see. Feeling dizzy, she turned back to face Sukren. As usual, she was speaking in Xhom, and Sukren in his corrupted Xhom. She didn’t know if the guards could understand them or not. It was probably better to assume that they could.
“Why am I here?” she asked Sukren.
“Lady Nari released me from her patronage. She told me to join the Cursed – if the Cursed will have me.”
Rajani was taken aback. “Why would she do that?”
“She has to punish me somehow.”
“Punish – joining the Cursed is her idea of punishment?”
“I think allowing me to join the Cursed is her idea of mercy,” Sukren replied. “Releasing me from her patronage is the punishment.”
“I guess,” Rajani replied. The thought of Lady Nari using the Cursed as a dumping ground made her uneasy. If all those she released to the Cursed were like Sukren, it wouldn’t be a problem, but Rajani doubted there was another man like him in the entire bio-dome.
“Gerath must have sent a telegraph to Lady Nari that I told him to keep the Cursed together,” Sukren continued. “The fact that she asked to see you means she’s actually considering letting it happen. But she’ll need a reason to do so. I think she’ll ask you to come up with one.”
Rajani’s brow furrowed. “Why me?”
“She told me to pick someone.”
Rajani grimaced, then felt bad when she remembered Sukren couldn’t see her facial expressions. It made her feel like she was taking advantage of his blindness. At the same time, Rajani didn’t know how to communicate a grimace verbally. “I don’t know about this,” she finally said. “I’m not like you. People listen to you. But me, every time I try to convince someone of something, they end up wanting to outcast me. I’m beginning to think I can only talk with people who already agree with me.”
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“Lady Nari isn’t like other people. She’ll give you a chance to convince her.”
Before Rajani could object again, the door at the top of the dais opened. A woman poked her head out of the doorway and gestured them forward.
Feeling tense and anxious, and wishing there was a toilet she could go to first, Rajani told Sukren, “I think we’re supposed to go up now.”
“Don’t worry,” Sukren replied. “I’ll be right next to you. Can I take your arm?”
Rajani nodded, then said, “Yes.” She took his hand and placed it on her elbow. Together they walked up through the doorway into a chamber the shape of a semicircle, with a short meal bench made of wood at the apex. Sitting at the meal bench was a woman. Behind her, along the curve of the wall, were several wall-length clear bioplastic panes which framed the blackness of darkwake outside. “My name is Lady Nari,” the woman said in fluent Xhom. “What’s yours?”
“I am Rajani of the Jinkari Table,” Rajani replied. She felt a little overwhelmed by all the things inside the room. Sleeping mats but upraised, more meal benches of different shapes and sizes… why were there so many of them?
“Tell me, Rajani of the Jinkari Table, why should I keep descendants of mutineers inside my borders?”
The overbelters’ odd taste in decoration disappeared from Rajani’s mind as resentment flooded through her. “You don’t have to keep us,” she couldn’t help but snap. “We’d be happy to return to our urb.”
Rajani felt Sukren tug on her arm, sharply. Lady Nari’s face was impassive. “You misunderstand,” she said to Rajani. “The reason your people are here at all is because they were a useful means by which to transport the Promised Daughter. I have no further plans for them. Your choice is not between returning home and finding a way to contribute. It’s between contributing and dying.”
Rajani almost clenched her fists. It was like getting slapped in the face, this reminder that she – and all the Cursed with her – were no longer free, no longer their own. Feeling helpless, and hating it, she replied, “We can work for you. In a greenhouse.”
“I have plenty of serfs who have far more experience at greenhouse labor.”
Rajani swallowed. Think, think, she told herself. What do the Cursed have that they could offer? Hunting – no. Religious rituals – no. Rule of law – no. Loyalty to one’s Table –
“We can offer you loyalty,” Rajani said quickly. “Absolute loyalty. You – you will be our lead hunter. We will be your Table.”
“And as my Table, you’ll do as I say?”
“More than that,” Rajani said, pressing in. “A lead hunter is the head of the Table. As you decide, so we act. As you think, so we move.”
She could see Lady Nari was considering her words. At first Rajani thought she should let Lady Nari come to a decision, but then anxiety rushed through her. She couldn’t sell her people into slavery without getting more for them than their lives in return!
“The lead hunter’s relationship with her Table is reciprocal, though,” Rajani said. “It’s not just about obedience.”
Lady Nari observed her. “And what would you want from me?”
“You would provide for us and protect us. That – that means we don’t get neglected in water and food rations. It means – it also means our people are off limits. You enforce that. You punish the Chenta who try to assault us.”
“Anything else?”
Rajani’s words came out in a jumble. “We get to worship our own gods.”
“You ask for a lot.”
“I offer you a lot. We will submit to you utterly. We will be your body.”
Lady Nari’s gaze moved from her to Sukren. “This relationship she speaks of, between a Table and a lead hunter. Is it true what she says? A Table will always be loyal?”
“As far as I could tell, yes,” Sukren replied. “Rajani was a lead hunter herself. I saw even an adult mother in her Table obey her.”
“Very well,” Lady Nari said. “Rajani of the Jinkari Table, I accept your terms. I will be your lead hunter. The Cursed will be my Table. You will be fed, and neither your women nor your men will be touched. In exchange, what I desire, the Cursed will implement. And you, Rajani, I appoint you as liaison between the Free Serfs and the Cursed. You will work with the Free Serfs to arrange for your people to be fed and given water, and you will pass on my orders and see that they are followed. Moreover, you will be responsible for justifying my authority to the Cursed.”
A hollowness was growing inside Rajani. “You want me to be a lodge mother,” she whispered.
“What?” Lady Nari said.
“A lodge mother. She does what you described. She arranges the food for her Table and governs it under the authority of the lead hunter.”
“Yes, then. You’ll be the lodge mother of the Cursed.”
“And our gods?” Rajani said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “We worship our own gods?”
“For now.”