Tinder Stricken by Heidi C. Vlach

some soldier's bribe. Even if someone
came who didn't speak Grewian, Esha's obvious helplessness and fear
would be enough to explain.
    What if they weren't, though? The hopesong
changed key — and now Esha acted out tragedies behind her eyes,
where her saviour vanished back into the bushes because they spoke
Sherbese or Malkesh or something rarer than that, so that Esha's
Grewian pleadings didn't form sense.
    She was thinking nonsense; she knew that
while panic welled in her chest and tears crept warm tracks along
the outside of her aching head. And crying was not only useless, it
was a waste of what precious little water she had left in her.
    Focus, Esha growled at herself. She plucked
a leaf from her kudzu plant — wilted now — and chewed. There had to
be another way to escape this fate.
    Through the ragged pattern of her breathing,
a cadence formed in her memory.
     
    If we need to make a plea
     
    The memory echoed twice more before Esha
recognized it: this was a rhyme from her childhood. From the time
fogged over with powder snow, when she was a child learning the
broadest customs of Kanakisipt family diplomacy. She remembered
sitting on a stool made of snow leopard fur, petting it with
restless fingers while watching the tutor's approving face. And she
remembered letting new-learned melody out of her throat.
     
    If we need to make a plea
    Speak with grace and mindfulness
    With heaven's gifts we pave the way
    Each path a mesh of tasteful words
    Better spoken than the rest
     
    How it hurt to recall those words. Esha
hadn't liked the dry, endless lessons but she had liked songs, and
sang them with a full heart. She had potential, the tutor had said.
She had Kanakisipt talent, as ripe as Accord Plateau's summer
plums.
    Dangling, farm-bruised Esha wondered whether
that tutor had spoken truth to her. Whether he was flattering his
superiors' child, or whether Esha Kanakisipt had heavenly talent
and simply a lack of worthy flesh to put it in. It was a
meaningless distinction, she decided. Neither yes nor no would
light a fire she could warm herself over.
    But hanging there waiting, hoping, Esha kept
hearing the rhyme in her head. She gradually, stumblingly recalled
all the verses detailing the eighteen races of Tselaya Mountain,
their many languages and customs and oddities. Diplomats could
forge compromises with any of Tselaya's people; they considered
that a point of pride.
    Esha tightened her grip on her pouch and the
kudzu inside. She already had a little lungta gathered in her
mouth, from the one leaf she had eaten. If she saw someone in the
bushes, she surely could call to them.
    Dawn's light became morning. Esha turned in
the wind, spinning long and slow. She strained again toward her
feet, toward sweet relief but her strength was gone. Childhood
verses bound her memory tight and one verse in particular was
gaining strength:
     
    With lungta in our mouths and minds
    We move ideas, share what's known
    Then even beasts can hear our words
    But glory spills upon them
    Like the rain upon a stone
     
    Extending lungta to an animal was called
animism, they told her. It was disgraceful. No honourable person
could condone wasting heaven's herbs to speak with an unthinking
beast.
    Could she talk to a dog, the child Esha had
asked? There was a court dog she liked, a silky thoroughbred that
smiled open-mouthed when it saw her.
    No, the tutor snapped. She could not talk to
a dog.
    That wasn't what Esha had meant; she kept
her mouth locked shut for the rest of the lesson.
    It was a matter of honour, like everything
nobles did. Of course, nobles thought that because they didn't need
to bother themselves with the details of animal husbandry. Esha
felt shock the first time she saw a diplomat walking Yam Plateau's
streets with a phoenix perched on his shoulder like a mantled
demon. She had wondered how that man could live with himself,
sullied as he was. But that spring, he talked a wild phoenix out of
Janjuman's yam fields and then,