“Who is it askin’ after the Connellys?” a woman’s voice asked from behind the man. “Krilerneg O’Malley, will you move your ass so the rest of us can get out.”
“Is that you, Iva?” Bunny asked. As O’Malley did as he was bid, she saw that it was indeed Iva Connelly, or someone who looked very much like her, coming out into the daylight.
Unlike the unmannerly O’Malley, the woman cleared the doorway and came over to the horses, allowing a stream of men, women, and children to emerge behind her.
“What is it, Ma?” a boy asked. He was a tall boy, not dark like most of the people Bunny knew, but fair-haired and blue-eyed.
The woman looked puzzled herself, and for a moment Bunny was afraid she’d got the wrong person.
“Slainte, dama,” she said again. “I don’t know if you remember me or not, but I’m Buneka Rourke, the snocle driver from Kilcoole. This is my friend Diego Metaxos.”
“That’s not a Kilcoole name,” the boy said in a suspicious mutter.
“Never mind that, Krisuk,” the woman said. “You’ve had a long journey, Bunka. You must be tired and hungry.”
The people parted in front of another man now, this one dressed in skins and furs, all ornamented with beads the way Aisling did the latchkay blouses. More striking than his clothing, however, was his physical appearance. He was a very large man and very handsome, his hair worn in a black mane, with a trim black beard covering his chin and a heavy black mustache guarding his mouth.
“The others not only let him pass but actually shrank from him. He carried a staff with the skull of some small animala squirrel perhaps, although it looked more like … No, it couldn’t be a cat’s skull! Nobody would do anything so gruesome as to display the skull of a cat.
She did notice, however, that the marmalade cat, who had been there a moment before, had completely disappeared.
“Iva, my child, of course this lovely creature and her friend are tired and hungry. You must bring them to my house to eat and rest.” He turned to Bunny and gave her a smile that invited her to admire him, and extended his hand less to shake hers than to sign a blessing at her. “I am Satok, the shanachie. Welcome to my village.”
“Slainte, Satok,” Bunny said. “And thanks for the invitation. I just came bringing greetings to the Connellys from our healer, Clodagh Senungatuk, but she has spoken of you and I know she will be glad to hear that I met you.”
Iva Connelly spoke to the shanachie, and Bunny thought her manner unusually timorous for someone speaking to the town’s rememberer and chief singer and storyteller. “Bunka is an important woman in Kilcoole, shanachie. She is one of two people permitted to drive the company’s snocles. On her mother’s side she is descended from the Shongili scientists. Her uncle is Sean himself, and she was all but raised by Clodagh, the healer.”
The speech would normally have embarrassed Bunny, except that she had the oddest feeling that Iva was presenting her credentials, to show that Bunny was a person worthy of respect and under the protection of important and powerful people. Satok, apparently, took the speech as an advertisement for herher charms? He was looking at her in the way of men who were courting, except more boldly and without deference.
“Fine recommendations indeed,” he said, grasping her hand. “I am so honored that you have come to my village.”
“Weuhwe brought a song to the Connellys from their friends in Kilcoole,” Diego said rather sharply. “Come on, Bunny. Maybe we can visit the shanachie later, if there’s time. We’re on kind of a tight schedule. We’re being expected soon, elsewhere.”
Bunny, uneasy at the burning look she was getting from the shanachie, did not mind Diego intervening in her affairs this time. Iva Connelly shot them a relieved glance and one that was apologetic to the shanachie before she hustled them, the boy, and a passel of other relatives back to a house no bigger than Clodagh’s.
Iva, her husband Miuk, and their own children and grandchildren, including the blond-haired boy, all lived under this roof. It smelled musky, of closeness and constant occupation. Except for six beds and a table, the furnishings were few and the food stores did not appear to be many.