Drum and Dance

Koda had traveled the steppes long enough to predict what welcome a town would grant him. As the donkeys hauled his wagon over a hill crest, he pushed back his burnoose and assessed the settlement below. Roofs of brushwood and clay were just visible over the encircling mud-brick wall, everything dusted with creamy petals blown from tall acacia trees. Stout date palms flanked the southern wall, pasture the northern. The distance-muted hum of a marketplace boded well.

But the shouts of folk driving their goats toward pasture were sharp and mean. The town's gates were open but a smidgen and guarded by three men whose black sashes and burnooses marked them as fighters of high regard. There were also their curved swords to consider. Already the warriors had noticed Koda and his ornately canopied wagon. Their steady regard made his nerves itch.

"What's there?" Seesha called from the wagon's confines.

Koda scowled and scratched his graying beard. "Naught but a place we'd be paid best to pass by, girl."

"I'll decide that, you grumpy old goat."

"Neither old nor goat," he countered. "Grumpy I confess, naming you the cause."

The flaps behind the wagon bench parted, and Seesha peered out. A mere sliver of black hair showed between her smooth brow and head scarf, but her face was bared to the world. When Koda clicked his tongue, she grimaced, but lifted a veil to cover nose and mouth.

Koda dabbed his sweaty temples as a fourth warrior joined the three at the gate. "Quickly, Seesha. I prefer my blood remain within my skin."

"A little look is all I need."

Then she closed her eyes as she drew a long, slow breath. The next breath was sharp and quick, and when she opened her eyes, only thin circles of sienna brown ringed her pupils.

"We must perform here," she murmured.

"No."

"We will profit."

"And if they'll not grant us entry?"

"Has such happened once since I joined you?"

Koda grunted rather than say nay. "Joined, says she. Commands my life, more like."

"You're ruled by naught but your purse and your drums, which is why you listen to me." She smiled before ducking back into the wagon. "I'll be dressed by the time we reach the gates."

"You showed your face, and you're not even dressed?"

"Don't you ever tire of being proper?"

"No!"

She chuckled. "Perchance that's the reason you're a grump."

Koda rolled his shoulders to ease the tension, then tapped the reins. The donkeys trudged willingly toward town, no doubt anticipating cool water and clean lodging. Koda's expectations were equally mundane, simply because he chose them to be so.

Three months of performing with Seesha had planted two certainties in his life. When the performance ended, his basket would be heavy with coin. And before they left the next morn, someone was likely to have met with trouble. Seesha thought the coincidence beneath consideration, and Koala would of course agree were it not for the casual superstition most folk shared: if two events occurred together, one must have caused the other. So he and Seesha traveled, and traveled far. Only twice in his life had he been so near the western desert.

True to her word, Seesha whispered her readiness as they neared town, but a warrior raised a stiff hand to order a halt before the wagon was within a stone's throw of the gates. Ruts veered off into the dry grass, indication of how many visitors had failed to pass these men. Koda affected his most affable smile--one that had served him well for more years than Seesha had been alive, he'd have her know--and bowed his head.

"Your business," the man demanded.

"Drums and dancing, good sir, no more and no less."

He cocked an eyebrow. "If you be the dancer, good elder, pray move on to more desperate towns."

Koda kept his grin untouched by their guffaws. "I drum. My daughter dances."

"Daughter, eh? One you sired, or bought for the purpose?"

"Good sir, have a care!" he said with the proper touch of indignation. "Gods forbid her mother's soul hear such infamy."

He snorted. "Let's see this … 'daughter.'"

Koda called for Seesha, tense despite her confidence. No one ever believed the lie when he spoke it, but once Seesha came into their presence …

First her hand--palm up, fingers slightly curled in invitation--slid between the canopy flaps. Then she turned her wrist precisely that same way as she had at every town, and waited for Koda to clasp her fingers. Slowly, slowly, she let him draw her from seclusion.

Her head scarf and veil of silver-shot blue hid her face, yet intensified the allure of her eyes. Layers of filmy turquoise silk draped from head to wrists and ankles, clung to legs and arms, reminiscent of distant seas lapping against sifting shores. Tiny bells strung low around her hips chimed--exquisite wine trickling into empty goblets. The warriors stared with veneration that never once slid into vulgarity.

"I am his daughter," she said, and even Koda almost believed her.

The warrior recovered his wits with admirable dispatch and gave a firm nod. "Be welcome to Mengásan, please. We shall receive your performance with cheer."

"Thank you, good sir," Koda said and motioned for Seesha to sit beside him. Displaying her like goods for sale jittered his nerves. He waited until the wagon had rolled through the gates to grumble, "You'll see me slain one day, girl. Why no man has yet offered me coin for your virtue--"

"Because most men are decent," she murmured, gaze properly downcast. "Once reminded, most men behave accordingly."

Koda turned his scowl into a smile when he noticed the curious glances from future patrons on the streets. "And the women?" he mumbled.

She slid him a mischievous glance. "We are not so different, Father Trust to it."

By nightfall, Mengásan's marketplace had been transformed into a theater. Braces of torches ringed the square, arranged to cast light and shadow as Koda wished. The canopied wagon, draped with great lengths of black cloth, would be Seesha's backdrop. Flats were pulled from beneath the wagon and laid atop the raised well to serve as Seesha's stage. Koda ran his hands over their flawless black finish. He'd balked at the expense, but Seesha had insisted, and now he was glad for it. When she danced in blue silks, she was the silver moon against the night sky. When she wore white, she was the stars. Or so he had been told.

Men gathered in the square, lounging on mats and cushions, drinking and eating and chatting. The few women in the crowd sat isolated among the men, faces and eyes obscured by heavy veils. Koda noted the locked bracelets on their wrists, the absence of women without such tokens of ownership, and sucked his teeth. Mengásan was proving too strict for his tastes. Despite the incense he'd cast in braziers near the stage, the smell of burnt flesh still greased the air. A blessing it was that custom had required Seesha to remain in the wagon all day. Tomorrow he would demand they head eastward.

When he felt certain the crowd had reached its height, Koda made his obligatory pray-patience-we'll-soon-begin oration. A smattering of impatient cheers chased him to the wagon to fetch his drums. He could already feel the smooth embossed face of silver coin between his fingers.

But when he stepped inside the lamp-lit wagon, his fingertips went numb. Seesha sat on the narrow floor between their bunks, huddled within a coarse brown dressing robe, knees drawn to her chin. The kohl she'd used to outline her eyes made them look unnaturally wide. Tears had drawn black streaks down her cheeks.

"Seesha? Child, are you ill?"

"The smell," she whispered. "Once you know what it is, you can never forget."

Koda crouched in front of her, trying to seem uninterested in the restless crowd. "A funeral pyre is all."

"I heard screams. Horrible screams."

"His widow," he mumbled, hoping that would suffice.

She wiped her eyes, smearing kohl across her cheeks. "Are the stories of the West true? Did the widow die today?"

"She did so. Willingly."

"Had she not, would they have forced her onto the pyre? Alive?"

"Seesha …"

"Please, Koda." Her hands gripped his arm with surprising strength. "I cannot dance unless I know the truth."

Koda lifted his gaze, felt her ragged breath against his face. Never before had he glimpsed fragility dwelling beneath her poise. "Yes, Seesha. It is the common custom here."

A squint of anger replaced the fear in her eyes as she pushed to her feet. Her heavy robe snapped the air when she made a sharp spin. Then she stopped, arms crossed, hands cupping her elbows. The bells around her wrists jangled with harsh finality.

"Then I will dance."

Koda pushed to his feet, wary of her changeable mood. She reminded him of a cobra set to strike the moment her charmer's attention wandered. "You're certain?"

"Most."

"Your clothes and … cosmetics …"

The intensity of her glare dimmed in a blink, and she broke her pose to glance at the mirror propped on a shelf. With a breathy laugh, she took up a cloth and cleaned her cheeks.

"But a moment, and I'll have them fixed. A moment more, I'll be dressed. Go caress your drums awhile."

"The veil, Seesha. Do not forget."

"That would be an unwise oversight here, yes?"

"Yes." Then he put on his most stern expression and announced, "We head east tomorrow, whether you like it or nay."

She stared at her reflection. "That … might be best."

He held his breath, waiting for the "however." When none came, he set about pulling his drums from beneath the bunks. The largest was Thunder; the smallest was Child. The three of middle size, from which he could coax any medley depending upon where he struck the hide, were Battle, Love, and Dream. With Thunder on his back, Love and Battle clasped to his chest, Dream and Child tucked under his arm, he headed from the wagon.

"Koda," Seesha called before he made his escape. She had relined one eye in thick black and held the kohi brush beneath the other. "What happens if there is no body?"

"No body?"

"Surely a wife wouldn't be deemed a widow if there were no proof of her husband's death."

A few calls from the crowd snagged his attention. Too much longer and hostility would taint the night. "Can we discuss custom later?"

She pressed her lips together, then smiled at him in the mirror. "Worry not of the crowd. I'll dance long for them tonight."

He bustled to the stool beside the stage and sat, his turmoil silenced by the audience's presence and the ritual of arranging his drums. He snugged Love between his thighs, brought her to life by thrumming thumb and little finger on opposite sides of the rim. The smaller Child he placed in front of her, made him giggle with a flick of four fingers. Battle and Dream rose outside the embrace of his knees, one on either side of Child. Both received a soft rap with the heel of his leathery hands to rouse their fickle penchants--Battle's changeless intensity and unpredictable volume, Dream's steady power and intemperate tone. Then he set Thunder in place, where Child separated him from Love. He slid his fingers along Thunder's thick rim, not yet ready to call forth the deepest resonance.

Koda drank from the crowd's intrigue, let it saturate his senses as he shushed his hands over the hides. He timed the shushes to slide between snippets of conversation, adding tender taps as voices diminished, seeking the rhythm unique to this gathering. Seesha alone understood his enigmatic quest, professed she did much the same when she danced, and their earnings attested to how well their instincts harmonized.

He had it now--the heartbeat that pulsed in unison with his listeners--and began slipping into the trance that had made his life worth living since he first touched a drum. Thrice more he called the rhythm from the hides, imprinting it in his hands and Seesha's ears, and stopped.

Silence. Success.

He stretched his arms above Thunder, then brought down his fists with a monsoon's strength. Seesha spun from darkness like a writhing blaze, her brass finger cymbals chattering. The pose she struck--made deadly by the blood-red veil pulled tight across her nose and mouth--was more like a swordsman than a dancer. Never before had he seen her perform in red.

In the expectant hush, Seesha tapped out Koda's rhythm with the heel and ball of one bare foot, the rest of her so still that not a single bell of her costume sounded. Koda struck Thunder again, Seesha began to dance, and the trance engulfed him. He saw nothing but his hands and the drums, heard nothing but the harmony of Seesha's dance, knew nothing but the life they created together.

Though Seesha often rehearsed in his presence, he'd only once watched her perform. That evening had convinced him that her talent could render the gods breathless. The tilt of her head had reminded him of his departed wife; the stretch of her arms betokened the mother he wished he had known. The turn of her knee told of journeys that ended in homecoming; the curl of her hands bestowed riches beyond imagining. When Seesha had sought him out to propose they work together, her entreaty had been needless. He would have begged her.

But he couldn't watch her dance while he drummed, for the drums demanded all. So he layered memories of that first performance atop the present. In his mind's eye, Seesha became a sinuous flame against a sea of obsidian. His sole link to her was the bright tink of her finger cymbals, signaling when she wished to vary the pace.

This night she demanded speed, urging him faster and faster until he attacked the drums with rage. Just as quickly she begged him to slow until the rhythm became a series of disconnected beats interspersed with the trickle of her bells. Then rage again, pushing his hands into a blur that neglected Love and Child, forcing impulsive Battle to clash with volatile Dream, demanding Thunder embrace the mortal world.

At long, long last, her cymbals clanged a double cadence of threes. Koda pulled reluctantly from his trance and transitioned into the standard meter with which they always ended. He lifted his head as he drummed the final beats, in time to see Seesha slide to the stage floor, one leg folded back and the other forward. Hands overhead, she rang the cymbals a last time, then lowered her head to her knee. Her arms made a graceful arc behind her back before settling at her sides. The silks rippled a moment longer--then all was at rest.

No applause, no cheers, no pleas for one more twirl. Silent, the crowd stared at Seesha as her back rose and fell with panting breaths. Koda's hand shook when he wiped sweat from his face. Only then did he notice the ache spreading from wrists to shoulders to back, the painful tingling of his palms. Drumbeats echoed in his ears. How long had he drummed this night? How long had she danced?

Cautious sound returned to the square--reverent whispers to augment the spell rather than fracture it. Koda lumbered to his feet and brushed his fingers over Seesha's head scarf. Heat pulsed through the silk.

"Rest," she whispered. "I need rest."

He stayed with her as the clink of metal began. Man after man granted approval by dropping coins in the discreet basket near the stage. Each gave Koda a nod of respect and Seesha a glance of longing. Usually Koda smiled and truckled in gratitude. Tonight he did nothing. A touch of the gods yet lingered in the air, held captive by Seesha's immobile form.

One man stood apart from the rest, staring at Seesha from beneath lowered brows, ignoring the woman behind him. Koda rested his hand on Seesha's shoulder as fingers of fear tickled his gut. When the man stalked into the darkness, his woman shuffling behind, Koda released the breath he'd held. Perchance he and Seesha would leave tonight.

"Worry not about Bolo, drum master."

Koda turned to the speaker--the warrior who had granted them entry to Mengásan. He'd pushed back his burnoose to reveal a face aged by sun and wind rather than years.

"A spiteful man, Bolo," the man continued. "No doubt scheming ways to stem your daughter."

Koda snorted. "And you tell me to worry not?"

"I'll not see it happen, drummer." He touched a single finger to the hem of Seesha's scarf. "No guest of Mengásan comes to harm while I watch."

The warrior departed, not noticing Seesha flinch. But Koda saw it and stroked her head. Gone was the flame, the fighter. She was a fallen butterfly, too exhausted to flutter her wings.

Koda remained with her until the square emptied of all but the promised protection--a pair of warriors who leaned against shadowed doorways. When he roused Seesha, she merely slitted her eyelids before falling limp into his embrace. He gathered her in his sore arms and carried her into the wagon.

"Koda," she mumbled when he lay her on the bunk. "We're not so different."

"Sleep, Seesha. You're safe."

She let out a tremulous breath and didn't stir when he settled a blanket over her silk-clad body. He drew the curtains closed around her bunk, as was proper, then fetched his drums. By the time he had them cleaned and stored, he felt every bit the old goat Seesha teased him of being. The warriors took pity on him when he struggled with the flats, offering their help with kind deference. Koda bowed to their strength and let them quietly prop the flats against the wagon lest they waken Seesha by sliding them underneath. No sooner had a tarp been settled over them than quick footsteps slapped toward the square.

"Fear not, drummer," a warrior said. "He's alone."

But Koda did fear. He and Seesha had woven a zephyr of mystique this night, and if a man such as Bolo were denied what he desired, he'd ensure all men were denied the treasure. Adoration could too easily become sacrilege.

"Go home, Bolo," the warrior said. "There's naught here that's yours."

Bolo entered the moonlit square, squinting at the armed men, at the wagon, and at Koda pressed against the flats. He adjusted the pack slung over his shoulder and jutted his chin. "Have I lost the right to stroll the streets?"

"Not so long as it's home you're strolling to."

"I've a journey to take." He scratched his chin with the back of his hand. "One I should have taken long since."

"And you must leave tonight?" The warrior tossed a wink to his fellow when Bolo nodded. "Then I'll see you out the gates without delay, good Bolo."

Bolo gave a stiff shrug. "Suits me fine."

One warrior remained behind as the other strode at Bolo's back. Bolo cast glances over his shoulder until a turn in the street took him out of sight. Koda couldn't tell if the looks were for the warrior or for him.

"No loss there," the warrior mumbled. "I'll lay bets his wife be weeping with relief to have him gone awhile."

Koda thought of Seesha, and of the superstitions of others. "Is it not strange he'd want to leave now?"

The man grimaced. "Bolo has always been strange. Years he's spent claiming he glimpsed treasure in a cavern east of here. Only mutters it when he's drunk, so we figure he saw it in the same state. Probably had a cup too many tonight and reasons now to find his fortune." He chuckled and hooked his thumbs in his sash. "Either or neither, you're safe enough tonight. No one will open the gates for Bolo before dawn."

Koda bid the man fair night and hauled his aching bones into the wagon. He collapsed on his bunk and drew the curtains, but exhaustion did not take his thoughts. He remembered the murderer who'd been discovered after Koda and Seesha's first performance together. Then there had been the mother who gave up her children, along with a confession she'd been beating them. Then the man who'd cast himself from the rooftop for reasons no one knew.

But Seesha knew.

Koda shivered. He had no reason to believe such a thing. And even if she'd known, what could the woman possibly do about it, shut up in the wagon for all but the time she danced?

What if there is no body?

Koda stared wide-eyed at the flimsy curtains separating him from Seesha. He swallowed hard, then drew the barrier back just enough to see the curtains of her bunk. "Seesha?"

"H'm?"

That she answered so quickly, as if she'd been waiting, chilled him. "What do you do, Seesha?"

"That's a silly question, old goat."

"One deserving an answer," he whispered.

There was a long silence, then she lifted the curtain's edge. The veil had fallen from her face, revealing full lips curved into a faint smile. "I dance, Koda."

"And?"

"Must there be more than that?"

"Is my music nothing but the drum?"

Her smile faded as she studied him. "We do not perform, you and I. We create. Longings and desires, hatreds and fears--what our watchers dare not admit. They peer at those unlived lives, shudder and sigh, and are content to escape them with applause. But sometimes …" She lowered her gaze. "Sometimes they deserve to be locked in with their terrors, given no respite from memory, and left to find whatever escape they can."

Suicide, confession … or a fleeing in the middle of the night. Koda held his breath.

"It is not always," she continued, "an honorable deed. But there is power in every creation, and I shall not let it go to waste."

"Bolo," he said on a breath. "The man has left Mengásan."

She grimaced. "He was too bitter and hateful already. He had to be bribed instead."

Dreamed-of treasures in an unknown cave.

Koda waited. She offered nothing more. But he couldn't look away. "Why did you choose me?"

The smile returned, gentle and kind. "Because you're a better man than you know, drum master, and because you never watch while you drum." She let the curtain fall back in place. "I'm tired, Koda. Tonight's dance was … complicated."

He held the curtain until his sore hand trembled. As the fabric rustled into place, he tucked his arms against his chest and tried not to consider the musings at the rim of his thoughts. When sleep finally took him, he dreamed of Seesha dancing on a cliff while enemies from his past jumped over the edge and shrieked all the way down to the rocks.

Seesha sat on the wagon bench as Koda put the donkeys in their traces. She wore no silks this morning, but loose layers of dull, brown linen. Her head scarf was wrapped low across her brow, the veil tucked high beneath her eyes. Even her bearing bore little resemblance to the apparition that had graced Mengásan last night. Koda was glad for it. The comments he overheard were of costumes and drums--not of a dancer and her enchantment--and how darkness made the homely more appealing.

"East," Seesha whispered as he settled on the bench beside her.

"Yes, daughter. East."

As the wagon left town, Koda managed a jaunty farewell for the warriors but didn't make his usual promise to return in good time. Mengásan was too strict for his liking, too revealing of things he didn't wish to know. He wanted to shake its dust from his sandals and leave his absurd suspicions in the dirt. Seesha was a remarkable dancer. He was her adept drummer. No more. No less.

In silence they rolled along the dusty road. Seesha's gaze was never still, searching the rocky grasslands and ridges. When he spoke his intention to stop for a meal, his voice more gruff than he intended, she shook her head.

"Not yet," she said. "We must not stop so soon."

"I want away from here as much as you," he snapped, "but not so much as to kill the donkeys with my haste."

Her hand clenched the bench between them. "If you find no reason for haste by nightfall, you may beat me for insolence."

"Beat you?" The notion shocked Koda from his seat and back down with a thump. "I've never raised a finger at you!"

"Why so indignant? Is it not the custom?"

"Not mine."

She looked away. "It was Bolo's."

"And just how would you know that?"

"Do you never wonder what the veil hides?"

Koda paused. Before he could answer, she spoke again.

"Oftimes, nothing but a face. But sometimes there is sadness. Fear. Anger. And when it finds me--" She sighed deeply, her deft fingers loosing the veil from her face. She looked at him with all the boldness and bravery of a man. "You asked me what I do, Koda. I feel. I feel their fears, no matter what I do, and they come to me. I hear their troubles and I make them real inside me. And then I dance to make it end."

Koda felt his lips working to form words, then pressed them together to stop their flapping. "You spoke with no one in Mengásan."

Her lashes fluttered, and tears slipped from her eyes. "You think so, because we're invisible unless we tempt you or anger you."

Scowling, he looked away from her naked face. Foolish talk would get them both killed. "Go inside. Don't speak to me."

Seesha sighed again, shorter than before, and replaced her veil. He tensed to think she'd choose now to challenge him, but after a final survey of the landscape, she climbed over the bench and ducked between the flaps. Koda wriggled his shoulders to rid himself of the tension. He hadn't noticed the lingering ache from last night's drumming until now.

The donkeys strained to pull the wagon uphill, and Koda resolved to rest them at the summit. But as they crested the hill, he spotted a trio of buzzards alongside the road below and urged the donkeys onward. Stopping at the bottom, he stared at the horizon rather than the buzzards' prize.

"Stay there," he said over his shoulder when Seesha called out. Then he climbed from the wagon, refusing to admit he knew what he'd find.

The buzzards hissed and squawked as he neared the corpse. They'd already feasted on the face. The only way Koda recognized Bolo was by the pack still clutched in one beak-torn hand. From the way the limbs were bent, in places where there were no joints, Koda guessed the man had lost his footing at the crest and tumbled unchecked all the way to the bottom.

What if there is no body?

Koda planted his fists on his hips and looked westward, past the wagon. Mengásan had long since slipped below the horizon. No doubt it would be days before anyone wondered about Bolo, days more before anyone mustered enough concern to search. By then the corpse would be bones on the way to bleaching. But there was a risk that someone would put a name to the bones, and a widow would be linked to that name.…

Seesha whispered his name when he opened the back of the wagon and stepped inside. He didn't answer, didn't even look at her. Instead, he pawed through the gear stored above the bunks until he found the spade. His muscles had forgotten the strain of drumming.

The earth was not easy to break but at last gave way to Koda's resolve. The buzzards threatened and complained but leaped from the corpse when Koda swung the spade at them. He rolled Bolo into the hole, made swift work of covering him, then smoothed and scattered the dirt and rocks. It wouldn't take long for the dark earth to dry into obscurity.

"Koda"

Seesha's voice was soft and firm, longing and distant. He didn't open his eyes until he'd turned, until he knew she'd be the first thing he saw. Silent, he reached for her veil and tugged it loose, casting the end over her shoulder. Her cheek was smooth against his callused palm. The touch reminded him of Dream--the drum changeable in tone but faithful in strength, the drum that gave the smoothest resonance when he ceased to force the cadence.

"Tell me," he said softly. "Where must we go from here?"

She turned away from his touch and lifted her face to the wind. "East. For now."

He nodded his agreement, then put the shovel away. When Seesha hesitated, he clicked his tongue and led her to the wagon bench. With an enigma seated beside him, where she belonged, Koda tapped the reins. East was indeed the best course. True, the coins there would be more copper than silver, unless … "Do you sing as well as you dance, girl?"

She smiled. "Only for my enemies."

"Ah. Never mind."

When she laughed, the timbre was Child.

By Blair MacGregor, Cicada, Nov/Dec2006