Papa Djawara insists on giving the girl the privacy of the house, so he and N’Doch bed down on the cooking porch. N’Doch doesn’t really mind, though he feels he has to grump a little bit so she sees it’s not his idea to cater to her. But there are enough mats and cushions to soften the hard slab and the faint coolness of the concrete is actually a relief. And it’s a novel and nostalgic pleasure to be able to sleep outside and not really worry too much about having his throat slit in the night. He figures the dogs will kick up a ruckus if anyone comes around. He’d have a dog in town, if it wasn’t so hard to keep one fed. He sleeps well into the morning and is waked only by the racket of Djawara among his pots, eagerly preparing the midday meal. He’s surrounded by silvery piles of fish.
“They’re perfect!” he croons, scaling and gutting and laying out the fillets to dry. “They brought them this morning! Isn’t it wonderful? Fish for a month! I’ve never seen such fish!”
“Baraga’s,” says N’Doch sourly. “Just hope he hasn’t got each one tagged with a tracer.”
The prospect of fresh fish cheb has made Djawara mellow. “Now, that is paranoid.”
“He’d do it. He’s really touchy about holding on to what belongs to him.” N’Doch scratches, looks around. “So where’s the girl?”
“The Lady Erde is inside, looking at books.”
“The Lady Erde?” N’Doch mimics mincingly.
“Your companion is a baron’s daughter, did you know that?”
“Yeah, so she told me. Rich girl. But hey, that was back in 900 whatever, and she didn’t bring any of it with her.” Except of course, one big red stone set in silver. How come his dragon didn’t come with a jewel? “She’s no better’n me now.”
Djawara smiles. “Of course not. But if you bear in mind that she’s grown up being treated as if she was, you might understand her better.”
“I don’t need to understand her. Long as she doesn’t mess with me, we’ll get along fine.”
“I see.” Djawara lays several thick white fillets in his rush steamer and fits it on top of his biggest pot. He carries it carefully out to the cook fire.
“What’s she want with books, anyway?” N’Doch calls after him from the shade of the porch.
Bending over the steamer, Djawara shakes his head. “Are you always this truculent?”
“No, I . . . c’mon, Papa, I just woke up.”
“No wonder your mama didn’t mind when you left home.”
N’Doch blinks at him. “I haven’t left home.”
“Well, that’ll be news to your mama.”
That slows him down a little. “Yeah? Well, I guess it’s true I haven’t been around much.” But he’s always thought at least she missed him. Certainly he’s liked knowing she was there if he needed someone to take care of him.
He’d like to discuss this further, but the girl comes out of the house with a stack of open books in her arms, and N’Doch doesn’t see that his family problems are any of her business. She greets him politely and sets the books down on the edge of the concrete, then takes the top one out to Djawara at the cook fire and starts questioning him about it. N’Doch sees all the books are open to pictures.
“So, what’s she wanna know?”
“Everything.”
N’Doch laughs. “Guess we’ll be here a while after all.”
Djawara studies the page she’s held up and answers her in detail. She nods thoughtfully and goes back for another book. Djawara says, “She’s trying to find her footing in an unfamiliar world, my boy. Seems she’s not had much help from your direction.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m doing the best I can.”
“I’m sure you are.”
Stung, N’Doch turns away into the house. Already, he’s searching instinctively in his head for the dragon. He’s pretty sure she’ll be glad to see him, even if no one else is.
* * *
Waking early, Erde had found herself surrounded by the mage’s extensive library. She studied the books from her pallet on one of the cushioned benches. They were not at all like the books she knew and she longed to touch them. But one did not just go fingering a mage’s books, it wasn’t wise, so she kept her distance until she heard Djawara puttering about outside. Then she went out to greet him respectfully and ask if one of his magical tomes might contain a searching spell to help them locate the Summoner.
The old man laughed gently. “There’s no magic in these books, daughter. Only the magic of knowledge.” He led her back inside, then picked out a fat one and handed it to her.
Erde received the shiny, colorful object in reverent hands. The bindings were hard and smooth but worn, she could see, with serious and important usage. It did not seem to be made of leather, but it did have a pretty design of leaves embossed in fading gold on the top cover. She glanced at Djawara and when he nodded permission, opened the book carefully. Bright illuminations greeted her, exotic fruits and flowers and trees, full of fine realistic detail without a trace of brushwork. Turning page after page, she sighed in wonder and admiration.
“That’s a natural history of the region,” he explained. “It describes the local plant life.”
Erde nodded. His herbarium, then. Every mage must have an herbarium.
He pulled down another, larger volume. “This one’s an atlas. Maps of the world.” He flipped through the pages. “Ah, yes, here we go.” He took the plant book from her and laid the big atlas in her lap. “This is modern Germany.”
At first, the page in front of her was just a maze of colored blocks and lines. She couldn’t even recognize it as a map. Then he traced out the long sinuous snaking of the Rhine and asked her to name a few familiar places. The first one they located was Köthen.
The dragon calls him to come join her, she’s under the trees, but N’Doch won’t go into that place after her. It’s just too weird. She says it’s too hot and dry in the yard for her, so each stays where they are and N’Doch sits down in the less mysterious shade of the lemon tree and sings his songs to her until Djawara calls him for the midday meal.
When they’re seated once more around the communal bowl, with the dragons listening in from the trees to translate and N’Doch’s mouth is watering so from the sweet smell of steamed fresh fish in tomato sauce that he can hardly concentrate, Djawara announces that he knows someone in the City who might be able to help them.
It’s news to N’Doch that his old uncool grandpapa knows anyone in the City at all.
“It’s been many years since we were in touch, but we were good friends then and she was a gifted woman of great promise.”
“Good friends, eh, Papa Dja?” N’Doch grins at him, trying for a moment of male bonding.
Djawara smiles. “Not that kind of friends, my boy. Her interests lie elsewhere. At least, they did at the time.”
N’Doch nods. He knows what that usually means, but he wonders if the girl does. He wonders if they had women who love women back in 913. He hopes so, ’cause if not, he’s not sure he wants to be the one to explain it to her. Like, what if she’s that way herself and doesn’t know it? He wouldn’t want to get caught making any kind of value judgment. Not that he minds it himself or anything. Chacun à son goût. He just considers it a waste of good women.
“What is her Gift, Master Djawara?” asks the girl earnestly, and once again N’Doch finds himself wishing she’d lighten up for just one damn moment. He’s seen her smile, but he’s never heard her laugh like she really meant it.
“She speaks with the spirits and with the wandering shades of the ancestors.”
Now, this is the Djawara N’Doch remembers. Spooks and spirits and omens and what all.
“Is she a saint?” asks the girl. N’Doch rolls his eyes.
“No, Lady Erde. She is a human woman.”
“All the saints were human, Master Djawara, when they lived. But then they were touched by God.” Her thin face sobers even further, but N’Doch thinks she looks hopeful. “Is she a witch?”
Djawara chuckles. “I’m not sure what she might be calling herself these days. Then, she was my father’s brother’s wife’s sister, and didn’t call herself anything except her name, which is Lealé.”
“If it’s been so long, how do we find her, Papa Dja?”
The old man looks momentarily bemused. “As it happens, I know where she lives . . . I think.” He gets up, crosses to one of the bookshelves and takes down a slim green book. From it, he extracts a postcard. He hands it to N’Doch.
N’Doch reads it, crinkles his brow, then reads it aloud. “‘D.—When the Time comes . . . you see she’s put a capital ‘t’ . . . ‘this is the place: 913 Rue de l’Eau. Kisses—L.’” He looks up at his grandfather. “Sure this is her?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Water Street? 913?” He looks at the postmark. “When did you get this?”
“A week ago.”
“After how many years?”
“Mmm . . . nearly eleven.”
N’Doch lets out a low whistle and cocks an eyebrow at the girl. “Things are getting weirder and weirder.”
“Or,” says Djawara, “things are exactly as they should be.”