The Doyennes' Circle

The gates opened to a wide courtyard paved in bricks the same color as the wall, large enough to entertain the thousand people who lived in Dagono. It was shaded by an awning of loosely woven palm fronds, held up at intervals by thin pillars, each support plastered and painted, some in the gradient colors of sunrise, others in gem tones, while a few bore entire scenes scrolling up their narrow heights. A light wind made the leaf-filtered sunlight dance in the vast space.

People came down from the wall and headed off to wherever they had to be that day. They gawked at the Nexus party as they passed. There were many children, who held hands as they ran off. Most of the adults barely registered their presence or pretended they did not exist at all. Here in the garden, where temperatures were several degrees cooler than the desert, many dispensed with the typical robe and opted instead for lengths of cloth of simple homespun stuff cheaply dyed, wrapped and draped in myriad ways. Men and women alike favored a skirt-like arrangement, of which there were many inventive kinds. The method varied by age, presented gender, beast trait, and personal preference. Some men chose not to cover their torsos at all. People who embarked on especially dirty jobs donned ponchos made from woven palm fronds, quick to make and easily composted.

Taylor was so occupied he didn't notice they had been approached.

"I am J'anan, honored guests. Welcome to Dagono village." J'anan was a young woman, maybe in her late teens, with dark hair and startling blue eyes. The only hint of a beast trait was her slightly elongated ears and the slight tufts of fur at their tips. Her wrap was made of sturdy-looking material dyed a faint blue that left her shoulders and almost all of one leg bare, tied at the hip. Plant debris lingered at her knees. Taylor saw traces of dirt under her fingernails and hands that looked strong from frequent work. She smelled of clean earth and sun.

"I am Anisca. Thank you for allowing this visit." Anisca and J'anan touched the fingertips of their right hands together, the Calique greeting between women. She went on to introduce everyone including Taylor, and that left him feeling anxious. He was used to being in the front of these kinds of things, and when he wasn't he was used to trusting the person in charge, which he didn't.

"Come this way. The circle will gather later today. Until then we've prepared a place for you to rest." She led them through the plaza to emerge from under the awning, and they got their first close-up view of the settlement's garden.

Garden was too small a word for it: Dagono's interior was practically a jungle. Palms of date and coconut comprised the upper canopy and sheltered smaller plants below. Shorter trees and tall green shrubs grew in the next layer down, most of them of types Taylor didn't recognize. The summer sun was so intense the double shade was not enough to starve the lowest layer of vegetation in the garden, where herbs and tubers grew. Narrow trails of packed white stone ran through the garden, but even these spaces were put to use by weaving arbors over them, climbed by several types of vines. Taylor spied potatoes, squash, and plants he didn't recognize. And all of that was just the garden's edge.

People moved through the garden, unseen among its abundance, picking and pruning and cutting and pulling, causing all kinds of noise that echoed through the jungle with their hacking, harvesting, digging, piling up, and carting away. It was a huge undertaking, taking the day's sustenance for a thousand people. A riot of birds complained about the work, sometimes taking flight in small flocks to flash across the air above them in bright greens and blues, only to return minutes later as the workers passed.

They progressed along the edge of the settlement, past narrow two-story homes arranged around the perimeter, their large windows and doors open to the garden's scented breezes. The cooking fires were communal to blocks of homes, worked exclusively by men and whichever children had been detailed to help them for the day. A stew simmered in coconut milk and rich spices was spooned over a cooked grain Taylor didn't know, and handed out as fast as people arrived to eat. The morning meal was quickly eaten and the diners returned to work. Cooking in large batches was an efficient use of fuel, a limited resource.

Compared to a traditional village, the Calique garden was inside-out. Instead of a town with farms on its outskirts and forest beyond, Dagono built its houses around their forest. Almost everything they needed had to come from there, fiber, food, and fuel. It was no wonder every date was counted.

At last they arrived at another courtyard on the south side of Dagono, smaller than the grand plaza but still impressive. Young boys came from the forest with baskets on their heads laden with many kinds of goods. These were laid down in sections organized by product, while a trio of women with abacuses kept the count. Taylor, Anisca, and Riculta detoured without asking their guide's leave, to explore the harvest. They counted twenty-five different products that day: mounds of coconuts, piles of sticky dates, fruits they had never seen, a few types of starchy tubers, berries, tiny nuts, herbs, shaved bark to use as a spice, several kinds of peppers, and more.

A song came up out of the forest, a working song of simple rhymes and beats, sung in harmony. Taylor strained to catch the words but missed them under the noise of the daily harvest.

"Come," said J'anan before their eyes had had their fill, "this way." She entered a building by the gathering place, with a grand facade involving stacked arches to three stories. They passed through a cool lobby tiled in bright patterns of green and yellow and blue, then up stairs to a large room, round and domed. The space was bare except for cushions and abacuses stacked neatly by the doors. Small high windows let in enough light to reflect off the silver-gilt walls.

"This is where the circle convenes when the harvest and the count are finished. Come." She led them to a side room, and up more stairs to another room, this time with a balcony. Taylor rushed to the balcony in awe. From there, he could see the true extent of Garden Dagono: a rough oval a kilometer long, pointed east to west, balanced on the gathering courtyard below them. From this height, he could notice things that had escaped him on the ground, like the wide avenues fanning out from the gathering area, segmenting the forest.

"How is your garden segmented?" He pointed at a wedge of trees, clearly younger than their neighbors. "You're doing some kind of rotation, right?"

The woman smiled at him, amused. "The coconut tree fruits when it is twenty, and declines after sixty. We harvest them for wood when they get old, and replace them with new growth. A gardener will plant their first trees when they are young. They will plant the tree's nuts into nursery pots about the time they have their own children, and grow them into seedlings. The first trees will be cut down when the gardener approaches old age, and new seedlings will be planted in their place."

Taylor looked downward to the courtyard below them, joined by Riculta. "All the trees near the gathering area are smaller. None of them are palms."

"Of course. The zones in the south are shadowed by the wall, especially in winter."

"I heard singing, earlier. Is all your knowledge passed down by song, or is any of it written down?"

"Is this why you came, Phillip the Younger, to learn about gardening?"

"I came," he said, turning into her intense gaze, "to kill your monster." His blood stopped in his veins when he saw those eyes, too close to his own. She had snuck up on him for no reason he could tell. There was a faint floral smell about her in addition to earth and sun, but nothing he could recognize as dangerous. He decided he was nervous because she was pretty, and a little too close.

"I have a general interest in cultural survival," he added, pointing at Anisca in hopes of distracting the woman, "we both do. How does a culture carry on for centuries, through trial and calamity? How do they pass on what is essential to future generations?" She was still looking at him. Did she think he was lying? Was he saying something foolish?

"Have I crossed some cultural taboo here? Because you're looking at me a little too intently."

"You're a weird sort of man, aren't you?"

Anisca laughed. "You've noticed already? I honestly don't know what to make of him sometimes." Four children entered the room with trays of food and drink and set them down on a low table surrounded by colorful cushions. The mat on the floor was thickly woven plant fiber, soft to the touch.

Two of Taylor's bulwark stayed by the door while the rest of their party followed J'anan's lead and sat around the food. They mostly ate without utensils, so it was important they thoroughly wash their hands before a meal. It was acceptable to examine food before eating it, provided one held it by a stem or shell, but whoever touched an edible surface owned the whole piece. There was no meat in evidence, but there were boiled eggs the size of walnuts. Drinks were dispensed from glazed pitchers. One held mixed fruit juice and coconut water, while the other was warm appalon milk. The milk was more of an acquired taste, fatty and tasting of chlorophyll and appalon.

J'anan laughed at the face Milo made when he tried it. "Outsiders don't like it the first time. Don't worry though, you'll learn to love it. Everyone does if they stick around."

At the end of the meal, J'anan rose to leave and was instantly surrounded by a pack of young boys and girls to do her bidding. She had them clear away the food, bring sleeping mats and pillows for the guests, refresh the washing basins, sweep the floors, and other such chores.

"I must return to my regular work. I'll get you when it's time to meet the circle. Until then, I'll leave some children here to fetch things, if you should need them."

"Thank you," said Anisca for the group.

"When do you think they'll call for us?" Taylor asked. The question didn't sound impertinent, not to his ears, but J'anan looked perturbed.

"Phillip doesn't ask from impatience," Anisca explained while looking at him askance, "he wants to know how much time he has to spend on personal pursuits."

The two women shared a knowing smile. Men often liked to claim the hobbies they pursued were useful skills in thin disguise.

"The hour past mid-day, at the earliest. The hour before sundown at the latest."

After J'anan had left the room Anisca turned on him with a hushed voice. "Doin't alienate them before we even get started."

"It was a simple question. It's not like I had planned to charge down there and interrupt them."

"I know that you're accustomed to ruling everyone else's time, but today you're living on the doyenne's clock and by her patience. You'll have to trust me."

"Because we've had such great affinity before today?" In the months that he had known her Anisca had interfered in his businesses, threatened him with violence by her guards, had hitched a ride into his exile, and nearly killed a student. She had some skills with people and, when she had to (twice with him so far), could make a fine apologetic monologue. Kasryn had taken up the work of running the school with Mika, but what had Anisca done so far except bring him a talented farmer?

She reached out with her hand and grasped his shoulder. "If you have put your trust in Kasryn, trust the person she has sent you. Please."

It was the please that did it, the word a princess could not say. She knew that it would get to him, damn her measured smiles!

Taylor was building a box under the curious eyes of two children J'anan had left behind. He had the boy and girl test-fit the pieces for him without glue, to ensure they assembled properly before he stuck them together permanently. It would be a smooth rectangle when it was finished, without handles or obvious hinges, finished in four different colors. To open the box one had to grasp opposing edges and squeeze gently. The top would spring open to reveal a compartment inside, and two lower drawers would slide out of the lower front. It was one of his cleverer designs. It didn't hide what it was, but the internal mechanism would be inscrutable when it was finished. He had hardened the bits subject to wearing down, but he could honestly say the entire thing was made from wood.

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The children, being in on the project, got a good look at the internal mechanism. The moving parts were powered by tiny leaf springs made of laminated wood. Taylor had hardened the springs and latches with the arts to make them more durable than brass. The girl-child kept talking about all the jewelry and bangles she could keep in a box like that, while the boy said it should be big enough to hold a weapon and whetstones.

"They've paused. They'll be ready for us soon," whispered Anisca, "you should put that away." She had spent the last two hours near the doorway, listening in on the muted sounds of the circle meeting below. All morning, the sounds of urgent discussions had drifted towards them, punctuated by the rattling of abacuses.

"Back to your posts, little ones," said Alice, brushing them away, "Don't let your doyennes find you dawdling. Otavio, put that one down will you?" The children obeyed her without complaint.

Alice and Otavio had taken to the children, and the children had returned their favor. They didn't mind Otavio's craggy face and climbed on him like monkeys. Alice was gorgeous, so of course everyone loved her. Few people would guess how deadly she was in a grapple.

Taylor cleaned the table he was using as a workspace and let Milo check his appearance. Anisca allowed Mila to do the same for her, even though the cousins were far cries from royal servants. They knew more about fighting, scripture, accounting, and tea than they did valet service, but the party had to make do. Taylor used the spiritual arts to iron out the creases and ensure everyone was as clean as possible.

"Come," J'anan told them, "they are waiting. You may bring two guards."

When they reached the round room it was crowded. In addition to the doyenne of Dagono, there was one from Pashtuk (whose refugees were camped on the eastern outskirts) and another from Bitter Spring, their neighbor to the north. Each doyenne was old enough to be a grandmother and had several tabla women with them. Taken all together, there were more than fifty women in the room. A few children had been drafted to fan the gathering with palms in such a way that stale air was pushed out towards the desert-facing windows and pulled new air from the garden.

The women were arranged in rings, the oldest and the most important in the center, with two additional rings of progressively younger women in the outward rings. Amidst all this, two cushions sat on one edge of the inner ring, with just enough space behind them to accommodate Taylor's two chosen guards. Anisca had suggested the Tabuas, but Taylor wished he hadn't brought the large married pair with him. Space was at a premium.

Anisca and Taylor sat on the cushions, and Anisca spoke. "Greetings, Wise Uzan. I am Anisca and this is Brother Phillip the Younger, of Nexus. Thank you for inviting us at a time when extra work burdens your circle."

"Of course, of course," said one of the women in the inner circle. "I'm Doyenne Uzan of Dagono. This is Doyenne Yalda of Pashtuk, and Doyenne Azhand of Bitter Spring. The rest are tablas you may get to know in time, should you be allowed to stay."

As Taylor looked around him, he saw many women wearing body paint, the uttar written of by Clintus Odemira. The colorful substance was daubed in spots and lines to form patterns that flowed over their bodies. He couldn't detect any pattern in who chose to wear the uttar over those who didn't, but the designs they chose varied by garden. Vines and birds for Pashtuk, stylized herds of appalons for Dagono, palms and flying insects for Bitter Spring. Were the uttar themes normally so segregated by garden, or did they wear the signature designs because the gardens were mixing? He lost himself in speculation while the women continued their greetings and small talk, an art which eluded him and tried his patience.

"We call the monster Darkmaw," Uzan said, which got Taylor's attention. "Why do you smile, young Phillip? Does our tragedy amuse you?"

"Not at all, Wise Uzan, but Darkmaw is an excellent name for a cursed monster. They travel in a cloak of night and leave no living creature in their wake. I appreciate how apt the name is. A terrible name for a terrifying creature."

"And how do you propose to kill our aptly-named Darkmaw, when so many others have tried and failed? Not to mention the many calique hunters and our people who have been lost to it? What is your plan, Brother Phillip?"

"My plan is to question survivors and gather all the information I can about the monster. Then we will observe its behavior, search for weaknesses, probe it without engaging directly. Only then will we make a plan to kill Darkmaw."

Yalda, the oldest of the doyennes, openly doubted him. "Young hunters are always too cocky. And disciples are an arrogant lot! What makes you think you can survive this endeavor?"

"There are many reasons we can succeed where Enclave failed. Nexus disciples are more skilled at art than Enclave's. We have better armor and weapons. We have experience with dark monsters. I have killed three myself, and several more of us killed cursed monsters during an outbreak in Lavradio. And, we have this." Taylor removed a wooden cylinder from his harness and twisted the ends, to expose the light within. Waves of silver-blue light poured from the small lantern to illuminate the gathered women. The slowly coruscating light inspired awe in any who saw it for the first time.

"This is a fragment of sun. It counters cursed darkness." He held the lantern up as if admiring it. "I offered some to Enclave but their disciples refused them. I don't share their beloved 'heritage', so they can't accept my contributions." Taylor closed the lantern before any of the fragment's other properties could trigger accidentally.

"If you're so superior to Enclave, why are you here?" One of the unnamed tablas waved at Taylor and Anisca as if she could shoo them out of the garden. "Go out and kill the thing already. Bring us its head and we'll reward you, but don't take up our valuable time with boasts and lies! Why do you smile, you rude pup?"

"Because you are so obviously trying to goad me into doing something rash. Save your breath, honored tabla." He tossed a rueful glance at Anisca. "You need to know my levers if you want to push me around." A low laughter of appreciation rose from the circle. Doyennes often moved their mauls by indirect means, and a good maul understood when he was being moved, but moved anyway.

The nameless crone yielded to Doyenne Uzan. "And what would we owe the hero who kills Darkmaw? You will be disappointed if you want coin: the merchants took their silver with them when they left. In normal times we would offer spices and jacquard, but our gardens are pushed beyond their limits. Sand Castle, Satoma, Saluja, Pashtuk, are all in ruins. There are no riches for you to carry away from here."

"Nexus will not ask for what the Calique cannot give," said Anisca.

"But she will ask for something, no doubt," interjected the sour tabla. "She plans to save us, and then run off with all that is dear to our people. We will be worse off than before, and wish for the days we were in thrall to Darkmaw!" Anisca waited out the woman's vitriol with patience. To her, this was only a negotiating tactic.

"That will do, Kataneh," said Uzan. "What do the disciples of Nexus demand, as payment for killing Darkmaw?"

"Nexus doesn't need wealth or goods. We need good neighbors."

A ripple of apprehension flowed through the circle. Perhaps Kateneh was correct, and they were asking too much.

"Consider what it will mean to have disciples living in the desert. We will defend it as our own home, which strengthens the Calique. You will have easier access to healing when you need it. Situations like your current crisis could be aided, too."

"How many souls are in your Nexus?"

"One hundred and ten." There were many shaking heads and idle rattling of abacus beads. It was enough to throw their calculations. It was too much for a garden that already had too little.

"They want us to feed them, of course," said sour Kataneh. "Where are you hiding this hungry horde of yours?"

Anisca smiled at the jab, endearing and contemptuous in equal measure. "Hiding? Would you rather we rolled our full caravan here, a force of armed bulwarks and disciples as if to make demands? We left them to come talk to you."

Uzan's hands shook. "And if we tell you to leave, that we will have no traffic with heretics? What will you do then?"

"Then we will live apart, at Red Tower. You know it by a different name, Lobat's Tears."

"I like this solution," cackled Kataneh, "they will die of thirst and cease to bother us."

"Enough, Kataneh!" Uzan raised her hand to silence her. "The fact remains there is not enough food for everyone. Our discussions this morning were about how many should be sent to the desert, to make room for those who can live. Which one hundred and ten Calique will you send into the wild, to create room for your people?"

"We have supplies for now, and will grow our own food in time," replied Anisca, "so there's no need to send your men away. We've come to ask you to release the hunters from their silence so we can learn from them. That is the only price for killing Darkmaw. We also want the opportunity to learn from your gardeners and take some seedlings with us when we leave. For this, we offer a healer's labor while we're here."

"There are eight of you," observed Yalda, who led the Pashtuk refugees. "Which eight of my people will starve to feed you?"

Taylor nearly jumped at the bait and shouted, none at all! But Ma'Tocha had advised him to ask questions. Kasryn had warned him not to speak out of turn. Ansica had said please. Taylor shifted his hands, in a signal prearranged, telling Anisca he wanted to speak.

"The disciple has a question. May he speak?"

"Yes, let's hear what the young man has to say."

"Thank you, Wise Uzan. Perhaps there is an opportunity here. Disciples can triple plant growth and therefore harvests. Wouldn't that give you enough food to feed all the refugees, or is there a factor that I'm missing?"

"In the short term, it would. But, it would exhaust our soil and inflict long-term damage." Uzan gave a short stream of encoded instructions to her circle, and the abacus beads began to rattle. They began to the left of the guests, in the innermost circle, and progressed rapidly outward and around. As each woman completed her computation, the ones near her would pick up her answers and begin computations of her own. Taylor realized they were working a progression, computing food yields from one week to the next. Soon the whole room was clacking and rattling, a sound which died down as the women immediately to the guests' right completed the last figures. The tablas held up their computers for all to see, and the doyennes looked through the answers to confirm what they already knew. Yields began strong for a time and then decreased rapidly.

"When is that point?" said Taylor, pointing at the moment the yields took an obvious turn for the worse. He couldn't work their abacus, but it was trivial to read the magnitude of numbers they presented.

Uzan followed his finger. "One season. We cannot renew the soil quickly enough to feed the plants. The garden must itself be fed."

Anisca nodded in understanding: Lavradio had faced similar problems and used Nexus students to boost yields. "Disciples have prayers to restore the health of the soil."

"We are aware." Uzan gave another series of instructions. A rush-rush noise filled the room as all the women cleared their abacuses in unison. Then they began the new computation. Again the rattling of beads built to a crescendo, and subsided as they held up their answers. The turning point had moved clockwise along the circle. Fertility prayers prolonged the garden's productivity but did not solve an underlying problem.

"Almost three seasons, yet not nearly enough," Doyenne Uzan concluded. "To restore the ruined gardens will require years of work. We only delay the inevitable cruelties by attempting it. Your vaunted fertility prayer is incomplete. It can only take the place of decayed green matter like leaves and fruit. It lacks the qualities of brown matter such as wood and husks."

"Compost," said Anisca, with a trace of excitement. "You're saying the real sticking point is compost. Is there a prayer to speed compost, Brother Phillip?"

"No Anisca, there is not," he said while attempting to constrain his grin, "but there could be. I can make one. Can you tell us, Wise Uzan, how much faster composting would have to be, to sustain the garden enough to feed everyone?"

Another set of coded instructions, rush-rush, another computation. This time, separate sections of the circle performed the same computation simultaneously, to check each other's answers. It seemed to take longer, but when the boards were held up all the answers were the same.

"Almost double, Brother Phillip," said Uzan. "She gave another instruction, a very short one this time, and the rush-rush of clearing abacuses was followed by a careful picking through of multiple problems. Each tabla worked different calculations, across two or three abacuses. It was a noticeably slower process than any of the previous solutions.

"They work a full accounting," explained Uzan, "water, soil, food, fuel, medicine, clothes, appalons, mischus, birth and death." She and the other doyennes looked around themselves carefully, noting the contents of each board as they were held in the air. "It is not without problems," she said, "but they are problems we can bear. If you provide this new prayer and disciples to speed the plants, then we can feed everyone."

Dagono Garden didn't care the disciples were heretics. Aside from a small healer presence in Sand Castle, Enclave had never shown real interest in Calique, and Calique showed little interest in Enclave in return. What they were proposing now would mean a small but permanent presence of disciples in residence at each participating garden, a significant change. If Nexus could help them feed their people, then it was a relationship worth exploring.

Taylor let Anisca haggle with Uzan. The two skilled negotiators feinted with suggestions and implications, then imprecations. They searched for weakness and took advantage, only to learn they had taken what the other always meant to give. Then, they complained of each other's wickedness. He hated that kind of bargaining. His way was to loudly state his basic needs, demand the other party's needs, and walk away if they couldn't both be satisfied. The game these women played seemed unnecessary to him, yet they relished their combat.

The deal took shape almost exactly as Taylor could have achieved using his own methods. Taylor would write the crucial prayer. Nexus would be given a dwelling inside the settlement large enough to house a cadre and a small clinic, to be filled by a rotating staff to keep the compost heaps and garden producing at an accelerated rate. Nexus was welcome to trade goods with Dagono on market days, but only by barter. Coins were an outsider habit, hardly ever used within or between gardens. Nexus could inhabit Red Tower but agreed to cap their population at three hundred. In return, the gardens represented by the circle promised not to interfere with Nexus.

The day declined as the women argued, and most of the circle departed except the three doyennes and one helper each. Records were made on slats of wood, the letters burned into the surface by a wedge of metal heated over a tiny brazier. The doyennes added their marks, a brand each one carried on her person. When it was Nexus's time to sign Taylor did the honors using the arts: he shaped a perfect quad-diamond mark inside a seven-pointed star into the wood, as clean and smooth as if it had been carved and sanded by a master.

The contract was good for three years, but Taylor believed the current crises would be solved in less than one. By this time next year, they'd have all new problems to contend with.

Later, as soon as they were alone, Anisca would confess, "Living with disciples might be too much for them. I'm not sure the doyennes intend to honor this agreement."

"Neither am I," said Taylor, "but for now it gives us access to a garden."

"And gardeners," agreed Anisca. "I hope you get everything you need from the hunters here."