"Carolyn Ives Gilman - The Honeycrafters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilman Carolyn Ives)

Magwin shook her head. "She's clever, damn her."
For Magwin's group, the journey started out badly. Lacking many strong young workers, Magwin had to transfer the hard work onto older shoulders. Grandfathers who had happily retired to campwork were again pressed into carrying hive-litters and scouting. To free up young mothers with children, Magwin organized a child-wagon and persuaded some grandmothers to take on its wailing load.
As the journeypieces passed the grumbling grew. Everyone was working harder, yet the vats of honey in the mixing tents were not as full as they should have been. Long after the motherhold should have passed east into the gentle plains of Morning, they were still seeking out rare stands of flowers in the rough, unmapped country on the edge of Dawn.
The cold began to get into Dubich's bones. It took them fifteen long whiles trudging through torrents of rain to reach their fourth stop, and at the end people set up the tents wherever they fell, in a bedraggled line. After supervising the erection of the mixing tent, Dubich came home to find his and Magwin's tent no more than a heap of soggy canvas on the ground. Silently cursing, he wrestled the sopping cloth over the poles, then went inside to start a fire. Another supper of pea soup was ahead, for there were no farms from which to buy better fare in this country.
Magwin arrived soon after. "Damned stubborn artist," she said, and Dubich knew she had been speaking to Yannas. "There was an easier route, you know. But she had to have the sweet-memory with the blue veins, even though no one but she can tell it from the regular kind."
"Close that tent flap," Dubich said irritably.
Magwin took off her dripping cloak and hung it up, though everything was equally wet. "The scouts say this river we're camped on leads down to a nice, fertile prairie," she said glumly. "Lots of marsh-crowns and meadowcup there. Birds, game. Sunshine."
Dubich said nothing. That was how their quarrels always started, with him silent and icy. It drove her into a rage.
This time she didn't rise to it. "What are people saying, Dubich?" she asked wearily.
"What do you suppose? They're cold and tired and angry, and they're blaming Yannas' formula."
Magwin was silent a while, then came to a decision. "We're going to leave this country. I have more to consider than just her formula."
Suddenly afraid he had persuaded her, Dubich said, "The formula is your life, Magwin."
"I know. But I'm still holdmother."
The way down the river valley proved to be a steep, rocky trail. The wagons could barely get through. Magwin walked back and forth along the slow-moving line in the driving rain, joking to encourage people. From his seat in the vat-wagon Dubich wondered how she managed to hide how low her own spirits were.
Ahead, the trail plunged into a torn shred of mist. As the hive litters passed a slippery patch, one exhausted litterbearer stumbled. The heavy ceramic cylinder teetered, hit the ground, then fell. It toppled slowly, end over end down the steep slope.
While Dubich still watched, frozen in horror, a streak of gray rain-gear appeared from nowhere, flying down the slope. It was Yannas. Dubich jumped from the wagon and clambered after. When he arrived a small crowd of people had gathered. He saw with a sickened heart that the hive was cracked open, irreparable. The hivekeeper was kneeling beside it; confused bees circled dizzily. When Yannas looked up at Magwin, her face was streaming wet, and Dubich did not think it was just the rain.
"We will have to sacrifice the mother bee," she said in a tight voice. "We have no spare hives."
Magwin looked grim. Mother bees were scarce enough without losing healthy ones. "Do what you have to," she said.
"Get away, all of you," Yannas said fiercely. "Leave me alone."
Magwin motioned them away. From a distance they watched as Yannas located the mother of the broken hive. For a moment she bowed her head over the large, helpless insect, then smashed her with a rock.
It took a long while to coax the swarm into another hive. Many of the bees would not leave their old home, where their mother's eggs lay in their broken combs. There was nothing to do but leave them to perish.
It was a silent camp that night. They had lost a hive. Such a thing had not happened in ten journeys. Only a slovenly, ill-kept motherhold could be so careless. Shame slunk from tent to tent, and people began talking of the ill luck that followed them.


As they traveled east, pausing often to let the bees feed, the sun gradually rose higher in the sky, and the broad, level plains spread before them. Morning was a pleasant, settled land where they came across farms, villages, and even slowly moving cities--since as Ping turned everything on its face turned with it. Everyone welcomed them--especially the children, who saw only the confectionary wagon--but also the bakers, cooks, and canners, who haggled for the special blends. Everyone needed honey. There were sometimes rumors of plants or trees with sap sweet enough to make sugar; but most people laughed at the thought of anything replacing honey.
But this journey they could not loiter long in Morning. Yannas' formula called for few of its rich, sanguine honeys.
They passed quickly through the time of primweed and aspen groves, then skirted the fertile wineberry bogs. They were making for the Straits of Carriwell, the narrow bridge between the seas that lay across their path to the Summerland. The motherholds often met there and celebrated the mid-journey Festival of Flowers together. Everyone was looking forward to it.
As they neared their final Morning camp, Yannas traveled ahead to locate sites for her hives along the Windroot River. The Dawnlands had left a glacial chill inside her. She had come away to warm her mind--not in the sun, but in the sight of the maturing land. She halted at the edge of a marsh, letting the healing breeze wash over her. Nearby a pair of whoorowits was courting. The male erupted from the reeds, a flash of iridescent green scales. The female met him in midair and they pirouetted together, synchronized as jugglers, the biology of youth in rushing flight. Yannas smiled at the sight. Her face felt cracked, like a statue trying to smile.
She waded in knee-deep among a flaming stand of marsh-crowns, pinching off spent blooms to help the new buds grow. They were skinny-stalked flowers, awkward adolescents, brash and still a bit vulnerable, like the rest of this land. As she reached out for another bloom, she stopped--for a bee was already working this stand. There was no way to tell, but somehow she felt it was one of her bees--or had been.
When she looked, the hive was there, sheltered under the gentle bluff. It was a Ghar hive; Renata was here. For a moment she hesitated, for it was bad form to inspect another motherhold's hive; but her desire to be sure her bees were not being mistreated overcame her manners.
The bees seemed active, shuttling in and out of the hive entrance with their burdens of pollen and nectar. But as she watched, it occurred to Yannas they were almost too active. A pungent smell hung about the hive. Suspicious, she took her stout pry-knife and cracked open the hive cover. As she lifted it, the smell enveloped her.
"Get back!" a male voice ordered.
Yannas looked up to see Hudin, Zabra's son, standing bare-chested on the lip of the bluff several yards away. He had a bow and arrow, drawn and pointed at Yannas.
"Put that thing down!" Yannas ordered angrily. "Didn't your mother teach you anything?"
Instead of obeying, he gave a loud whistle. Two figures appeared nearby, then came dashing through the grass toward them.
"Get away from that hive," Hudin ordered, gesturing with his bow. His voice was tough and arrogant. Yannas lowered the hive cover and moved away. He came up and took her stick and knife. As the other two arrived he said, "I caught a spy."
"Stop this playacting," Yannas said. "You make me laugh."
He gave her a rough shove. "Move."
Guarded by the three young men, Yannas walked north.
They came upon Renata's camp where the river broadened into a placid lake, dammed by its own delta. The camp was compact, laid out with discipline; Yannas could not help but think of the straggling collection Magwin Ghar's camps had become. Hudin left them to run on ahead.
"So Magwin Ghar has finally caught up," Renata said as she strode toward them across the camp circle. Her hair was swept back and her sleeves rolled up. She walked side by side with Hudin, hips almost touching, with a bravura that reminded Yannas of the whoorowits.
"We've been on the lookout for you," Renata said. "You took your time in the Dawnlands. The Festival of Flowers is over; the other motherholds have gone on."
"We were following a plan," Yannas said sourly.
"While you froze your bees, we have been enjoying ourselves," Renata said airily. "We have learned a lot, and tried out many new ideas."
"Like drugging your bees?" Yannas accused.
Renata glanced at Hudin. He said, "We caught her snooping in one of our hives."
There was a pause. "It's a distillation of meadowmatch," Renata said at last. "We put it in a tray at the bottom of the hive and it stimulates the bees. We get a third more honey in the same time."
"Did no one tell you about the harm to your bees?"
"There was some old wives' tale. But we tried it, and our bees don't seem harmed." She paused. "Will they be?"
She was pumping for information. Yannas felt outrage; they had experimented on their bees without even knowing the risks.