Karavans (46 page)

“If you behave as a child, you shall be treated as a child,” Brodhi declared, seeing the reaction. “And if you wish to challenge me here and now, be certain I shall win. You haven’t the strength to defeat me.” Once again he clasped a hand around Rhuan’s elbow, intentionally tweaking a nerve so that Rhuan hissed in discomfort. “We are going away from here for the night. But before you sleep, I will Hear you. In every detail. I insist upon it.”

“What, so you can tell Ferize? She’s hardly my advocate.”

“She’s hardly
mine
, most of the time,” Brodhi countered dryly. “Would you rather have me fetch Darmuth?”

Rhuan considered the last time he and Darmuth had spoken. “We’re not on good terms at the moment.”

“Neither are Ferize and I. So, that leaves me. Not your choice, perhaps, but in this world I
am
a trained courier; I know how to carry messages exactly as they have been given to me. But if you like, I will spill blood for the oath.”

Rhuan winced, feeling at his throat. “I think there’s been more than enough blood spilled tonight.”

Brodhi’s gaze was steady. “We
will
do this. It is a part of the journey, as you well know, and weighs a great deal in the final outcome. You have made it abundantly clear to me and to our sires what you want, so I suggest you fulfill all the oaths you made if you expect to have your wish granted.”

Another time, Rhuan would have challenged Brodhi. Another time, he would have freed himself of Brodhi’s grip and walked away, secure in his own strength to do so. But not tonight. Not after a death that had bled him nearly dry.

“All right,” he said, “but let go.”

Brodhi’s grip remained firm on Rhuan’s elbow. He waited.

Rhuan sighed.
“Dioscuri to dioscuri.”
It was pledge enough. Brodhi released him.

Rhuan swore in the tongue of the humans, but he accompanied his kinsman away from the settlement.

T
HE OXEN, WHO had preferred traveling with the karavan and objected to being turned away, were slow and recalcitrant. Davyn told everyone to walk in hopes the lighter wagon might improve the animals’ attitudes, but it made no difference. And nothing he did hastened them, either. The best distance the family made by dusk was a day or two away from the turnoff that would take them to Atalanda more swiftly. Come morning the oxen should have forgotten what it was like to be in a karavan, and they could make better time.

Davyn was walking a handful of long paces ahead of the wagon. “Here,” he called to Gillan, who was guiding the oxen. “We’ll pull off …not too far. Head for the trees.” There was a modest grove of trees not far off the track, and Gillan waved a hand to indicate his understanding.

His family was scattered on either side of the road, avoiding the dust raised by oxen and wagon, though they had left off face scarves now that they were no longer at the end of a long karavan. Torvic and Megritte were, as usual, challenging one another to games and dares made up on the spot—he tried to remember when he had such energy, and failed—while Ellica walked near her mother. His daughter had at some point undone her hair, so that it hung down her back like a fall of rippled pale silk. She was
growing into the promise of a prettiness, not obvious, not astounding, but evident in her complexion, the curve of cheekbones, the long eyelids, the under defined browbone, and the well-molded shapes of her jaw and nose. She was tall, taller than her mother, with a body just beginning to lose the angles of girlhood, to soften and mature into womanhood.

She did not, Davyn thought, resemble her mother as much as in childhood. She had his coloring, with nearly white-blond hair, blue eyes, and extremely fair skin, though his skin was much weathered now. Audrun’s hair was the color of a dun horse, though the sun had bleached streaks of gold into it, and her eyes were brown. After four births and a fifth child on the way, she lacked the bloom of youth her elder daughter claimed, but retained a refinement in the features of her lean, tanned face. Audrun was gold and bronze; Ellica, rose and white.

It was well they were going to Atalanda, Davyn thought; there were few available young men in Sancorra because of the war. Ellica would have a much better, and much safer, opportunity to find a husband in Atalanda.

And that made him smile as he headed toward the grove. Audrun had been Ellica’s age when they married. Often it felt like yesterday, and it seemed impossible that their own oldest girl might well be marrying and starting her own family within a year or two.

Davyn nodded, content with the life he and Audrun had made. He gave thanks to the gods, to the Mother of Moons, and asked them to grant the same health to the unborn one, a baby who would never see the face of war, of loss, of tragedy. A baby who would never see a Hecari, but only hear about the painted, brutal warriors who had overrun Sancorra as they had overrun two other provinces, a flood tide of killers. Atalanda lay on the far side of Alisanos; Davyn believed not even the Hecari would attempt the deepwood.

Not far from the grove Gillan halted the oxen. With Gillan’s aid, Davyn chocked the wagon wheels and unhitched the oxen, directing his son to lead them off for forage
in the lush prairie grass. They would be hobbled against wandering too far, but with plenty of succulent grass at hand Davyn doubted they would take more than two or three steps even left free.

Already Audrun had sent the two youngest, with Ellica’s help, to round up rocks suitable for building a fire ring even as she began to gather the makings for stew. Meatless stew; it had been a week or more since they had eaten fresh meat, and Davyn resolved that tomorrow would be a halfday on the road so that he and Gillan could set snares and hope for a hare or two. Cooked and packed in salt, the meat would last them a day or three; more, if they were lucky with their snares.

They carried a store of kindling and firewood at all times, and though they had the makings to start a fire, they also carried a small cloth-wrapped iron coal pot. It was Gillan’s task to keep the coals inside alive, to monitor how many hardwood chips were needed to preserve the coals. With this pot and dried kindling they need not worry about the challenges of starting a cookfire in wet weather; beneath a wide section of oilcloth stretched out from the wagon and attached with cloth torn into strips to poles planted upright in the earth, they could cook even in rain, huddling together under the cloth.

But the skies, though darkening at dusk, were clear, with the first exuberantly bright stars starting to appear. Days before, Grandmother Moon had turned her face away, giving way to the Orphan Sky, the time when the elderly often died, crossing the river to a land where there was no darkness, no cessation of light. It was a time when diviners experienced better custom, when people handled their necklets of charms and prayed for a return to light, to the Maiden Moon’s mercies, a sliver that slowly, as the Maiden gained confidence, bloomed into the full round face of gravid motherhood. The Orphan Sky had passed. Maiden Moon rose now, easing toward the welcome light of the Mother.

Davyn’s necklet of charms had fallen inside his tunic. Pausing to give thanks skyward, he pulled the thong out
and felt the individual charms, distinct in shape, with callused fingers. Pewter, brass, carved wood, even two costly glass beads, both a streaky red. And lumpy knots scattered along the length of leather, tied into the thong by the moonmother who had spoken ritual chants over the necklets asking the gods to look kindly on the wearer, to bring him to worthiness before he crossed the river.

He heard high-pitched voices and saw his two youngest sharing the load of an oilcloth bucket. It sagged between them as they came down the freshly cut wagon ruts, briefly scraping up soil as they carried it toward their mother. They were mired in an argument over who had found the largest rock and were negligent in their care for the bucket, dragging it in the dirt time and time again.

Not far behind them was Ellica with another oilcloth bucket. She caught his eyes, mouth twisted as she set down her load beside the place Audrun had selected for the fire ring. “I don’t recall Gillan and I arguing this much.”

Davyn shook his head in negation. “More.” Grinning at her immediate protest, he rescued the bucket from the ministrations of his two youngest and carried it to Audrun, already busily spading up thickly-rooted grass in preparation for the cookfire. The routine of preparing dinner was well-known, and there was little more to do save oversee Torvic and Megritte so that they didn’t neglect their responsibilities.

Gillan came back from the oxen. “No stream that I could find, so I’ve watered them from the barrel. They’re eating well.”

Davyn nodded. “Good. Perhaps this slower pace will put flesh back on them.” He noted Gillan’s faded blue tunic for the first time. “Isn’t that mine?”

Gillan nodded, somewhat shamefacedly.

“I gave it to him,” Audrun said from where she supervised construction of the fire ring with Torvic’s and Megritte’s haphazard building skills. “Your son has outgrown his own in the shoulders; the seams need to be let out. Ellica can begin that task tomorrow.” She glanced up,
offering a private smile for him. “I think he’ll be taller than you once he’s grown.”

“Can’t he let out his own seams?” Ellica asked acerbically.

Her older brother stared at her, startled. “That’s woman’s work!”

“I’ll trade,” she offered. “I’ll tend the oxen tomorrow morning, and you can let out the seams of your tunics.”

Audrun raised her voice slightly. “I don’t think you want to see what will become of the tunics if your brother lets out the seams.” She paused a beat. “Or your father, for that matter. Not with their big hands.”

Davyn and Gillan, simultaneously, looked at their hands. Davyn nodded ruefully; they were broad, calloused hands, fingers scarred from years of work. He dared not take up Audrun’s precious silver needle, or it would be lost certain-sure.

Broad hands, broad shoulders; Davyn smiled as it dawned on Gillan that he was being accorded a man’s place, not a boy’s. At the farmstead, it had been easy to see Gillan merely as a boy as the years passed by. But this journey had made a man of him even as it guided Ellica across the threshhold of womanhood.

“Well done,” Audrun said of the fire ring. “Hands?” Torvic and Megritte displayed their palms and fingers. Their mother nodded, gesturing to the water barrel on the back of the wagon. “Wash up. And
try
not to get them dirty again before we eat!”

They would, Davyn knew. He grinned to see Audrun quickly change out several rocks to strengthen the lopsided affair Torvic and Megritte had built. Then he surveyed the heavens critically. “Tomorrow, then. Not enough light left.” He glanced at Gillan. “Snares. First thing tomorrow morning. We’ll delay our start until after midday and hope for fat hares.”

“
I
could set out snares,” Ellica announced.

“Man’s work,” Gillan said briskly.

Davyn, smiling to himself, turned back to the wagon to dig out the snares even as Ellica protested that she was as
capable as any
man
at doing such work. He supposed it was true, but there were other tasks Ellica was needed for. She had been young enough at Megritte’s birth that there was little she could do then to assist her mother, but this time, in this pregnancy, Audrun could rely on Ellica for real help.

He grinned, climbing up into the wagon. Ellica might complain about being relegated to woman’s work, but she would undoubtedly sing a different tune when it was her turn to bear her own children. That was the sort of work no man could do.

RHUAN STILL FELT shaky from the attack and subsequent death as he walked with Brodhi away from the courier tent and into the trees. And he discovered it was difficult to maintain anger when he wasn’t fully recovered from dying. Flickers of it rose now and again, but they faded quickly, quenched by sheer physical exhaustion and the need for sleep. By morning he would be fine, but in the meantime he felt feeble as a man ready, in the parlance of humans, to cross the river.

That thought kindled a twitch of droll amusement. He
had
crossed the river. Several times.

“Here.” Brodhi stopped walking. “This will do.” The night had been loud with the song of locusts. Now the sound abated. A flutter of wings against leaves spoke of birds departing the Shoia’s unwanted presence. But after a moment the nightsingers began again, locusts come above ground after months entombed to shed their skins, live a handful of days, and die.

Rhuan watched his kinsman indicate the place he meant, the foot of a wide-bolled tree with lower branches so heavy with leaves they curved over in a leafy arc, forming a very private pocket between trunk and limbs. Brodhi pulled branches back and ducked through, motioning Rhuan to join him. As he did, grasping springing limbs just as Brodhi released them, he saw his kinsman place a palm
against the tree, quietly asking permission to conduct a ritual at its very feet.

After a moment Brodhi nodded, murmured his thanks, and began preparations for the Hearing, unrolling and spreading oilcloth as a shield against moisture, then two blankets atop it. Brodhi settled down on one side of the blankets with legs crossed and began to pull items from his beaded bag, setting them out in a precise line. A sharp gesture commanded Rhuan to sit down as well, placing himself in identical position across the blanket from Brodhi. It was more difficult to comply than he expected, with trembling limbs that wanted merely to sprawl any which way.