Many Roads Home (5 page)

“Will you marry when you can? Everyone should be married. I like it a lot.”

“Uh…yes, I suppose so. I mean, my father wanted me to marry. To carry on the family name. I mean, business.”

“Funny reason to be married. I want to be married for sex and children.”

Under the cover of night, Yveni flushed hot. Hilario poked him. “You don’t want sex and children?”

“I’ve never thought about it,” Yveni lied. What he should have said was he didn’t want sex with a
wife
, a secret he’d only ever confessed to Serina and sworn her to never reveal to anyone.

“Hmmm, you’re strange. Are all your people like that? Cold?”

“I don’t know,” he said somewhat stiffly. “I don’t know all of them.”

Hilario laughed and poked him again. “True, true. Well, I think you need a wife. They’re nice and warm at night,” he said with a suggestive thrust of his hips that made Yveni want to bolt. “Men aren’t so soft.”

“Uh…no.”

“But they’ll do for warmth if there’s no wife.”

Yveni really didn’t want to continue with this line of conversation. “Good night, Hilario. I’m tired.”

“Good night, silent child. I hope your blisters sleep well too.”

Chapter Six

The seasons rolled on in their inevitable course, but Paole kept so busy with his practice that it shocked him to realise it was but a month to the snows, and that he needed to make haste back to the cabin and resupply if he wanted to get through the winter. The transfer of Mathias’s practice to him had been successful even beyond anything his former master could have wished for him. Not only had old clients and patients accepted him in Mathias’s place without a blink—hardly surprising since they were well used to seeing him, and Mathias had passed on much of the patient treatment to Paole’s hands over the past few years—but new ones had come also. Some poor, unable to pay, but others too, easily capable of doing so.

The reason escaped him until he asked one of the willing young men who’d come to his camp and his bed for a night’s companionship, why so many more people wanted his help.

“Master Mathias didn’t have your touch,” the boy told him, his breath warm across Paole’s chest, his fingers teasing the line between his navel and his pubic hair. “My mother says she believes you when you say she’ll be well. He was nice, but sometimes he said what wasn’t true, if he thought the patient wouldn’t want to hear it.”

“Healers have to lie sometimes,” Paole protested, defending Mathias’s reputation.

“Yes, but you lie more honestly.” The boy had laughed and kissed him then, so there was no more talking. But it gave Paole something to think about.

Mathias hadn’t had the Healing Sight, but he’d had a gentle way about him Paole admired. Perhaps he’d been too gentle for some. Paole didn’t know. He’d missed the old man this past year. Mathias had trained him as well as he’d been capable of, but Paole knew he’d been a bad student in many ways, and now had to stuff a good deal of reading into the gaps in his knowledge. He couldn’t always rely on the healers and herbalists on his route to help him either, since he competed with them to a certain extent. Twice he’d been tricked over a prescription, and only his vigilance had saved a patient from being given the wrong medicine entirely. So as he headed back to the cabin for the deep winter, the wagon was loaded with new books and notes for study during the silent season.

He arrived late at the cabin, and had only a week or two to lay in firewood and supplies, and ready the place for the snow. He’d left orders in Dadel for his stores—and something else.

When he called in at the smithy to collect it, he had the bad fortune to encounter Sheriff Rolf talking to the blacksmith, Jurgen. The sheriff turned and snarled. “Thought I told you to stay out of my village, boy.”

“Produce the magistrate’s order for that, Sheriff, and I’ll comply.”

“Learned to talk back to your betters while you’ve been away, have you?”

Jurgen slowly edged away, not wanting any part of this argument. Paole didn’t blame him. “No, just to you. Excuse me, I have business here.”

“Then you’ll have to wait your turn.”

Jurgen put his hand up. “Master Paole, the stone’s out back if you’d like to collect it.”

Paole looked past Rolf as if he didn’t exist. “Thank you, sir.”

Rolf yanked him around by his arm. Paole stood up to his full height, making sure the man appreciated the thirty-centimetre difference between them, and the twenty kilograms or more he had on the sheriff—all muscle too. Uemiriens didn’t run to fat the way Karvi tended to. “Excuse me, Sheriff, but I’m busy.”

Rolf didn’t flinch. “What stone are you talking about?”

“A stone for Master Mathias’s grave.”

“Think that gets you off the hook?”

Paole very deliberately detached Rolf’s hand from his arm. “I’m not on a hook. But you’re wasting my time when I don’t have it to spare. Good day.”

He walked behind the smithy and found the dark, neatly dressed stone where Jurgen said it would be. He crouched to read it. Strange to see Mathias’s full name and the date of death. It didn’t seem like anything to do with the man he’d known for so long.

“Are you happy with it, Master Paole?”

He stood and smiled at Jurgen. “Yes, sir. Very fine work. What do I owe you?”

“Nothing. Master Mathias saved my boy’s life when he was five years old. Now he’s a man with children of his own. Call it my gift to his memory.”

Paole bowed. “Thank you, sir.”

Jurgen waited until he’d loaded the stone into the cart. “We were all surprised when he came back with a Uemirien slave. We didn’t think he believed in that kind of thing. We thought…” He coughed. “Maybe he found the nights a bit lonely.”

“Master Mathias never laid a hand on me like that.” Paole’s cheeks heated up, his hands forming into fists against his will. “He was a good man.”

Jurgen backed off, hands raised submissively. “I meant no disrespect.”

“I understand. But you know what rumours are like.”

The man’s eyes darted to the shadows inside his workshop. “I do know. And I’ll tell you now, there’s only a few fools around here who think…what a certain person thinks.”

“I don’t care what fools think. I do care what people say about him.” He put his hand on the marker stone. “I want him remembered.”

“So long as there’s those of us with reason to be grateful for what he did, he will be. He must have thought highly of you, Master Paole. That’s good enough for me.”

Paole bowed again and said his goodbyes. As he collected his food and supplies, he pondered Sheriff Rolf’s continued bile and rumour mongering. It wouldn’t do more than cause a bit of ill will, but it chafed Paole that Mathias’s generosity could be used against him this way. Another reminder, if he needed one, that Karvis could never truly be his home, yet he had no other to go to.

Chapter Seven

The journey to the village of Lild took them five days. By the end of it, Yveni was considerably fitter, and the constant rub of Hilario’s gentle teasing had knocked away his embarrassment over a number of things. Just as well, he supposed. High-bred delicacy was inappropriate for “Gaelin” even if they were expected of His Grace, the Vicont Yveni. His feet had grown tougher, and so had his hide. Hilario wouldn’t give up if he discovered Yveni holding back over an issue, poking until he won an honest answer. Several times, Yveni had been tempted to punch the man for his damn insolence, but every time Hilario’s broad grin disarmed his anger and made Yveni realise that he lived in a different world now, with different rules. Here, Hilario was king and Yveni his humble student.

They arrived late morning in the village, a collection of tall barns and low cottages, surrounded by fields of vegetables and kardip paddocks that ran right up to the edge of the beach, where fishing boats lay moored. The residents of Lild came out from houses and stables to greet Hilario in friendly fashion, though he’d never met any of them before. His tribe was kin to some of them, and that was all that mattered.

The villagers regarded Yveni with a little more suspicion, until Hilario put his arm around him and said, “Gaelin is my spirit brother.”

Smiles broke out and Yveni was invited into the home of Jako, Hilario’s second cousin twice-removed—at least, Yveni thought that was the relationship. Half the village piled into Jako’s large white painted house to watch their headman hold court and interrogate the newcomers.

Jako was a big man with a sour face, married to a heavyset woman who sat next to him in their main room and stared at Hilario and Yveni as if committing them to memory for a report. Jako, puffing on a foul-smelling pipe, listened to Hilario’s request, and Yveni’s tale, before explaining that he was the main kardip breeder in the village, and the one who’d lead the cross-country drive. Every two years the clan divided the herd, taking half to the stock market in Grekil. It was a great annual meeting of the tribes, where spouses were found and goods traded. He thought Yveni could easily obtain a ride with a trading caravan to Horches, but he doubted a soft Tueler boy could walk so great a distance.

“No one rides on the way out, boy. We need the carts for trade goods and weak calves.”

“I can walk. And I’ll work hard for you too. Any job you want.”

Jako laughed. “Careful, boy. You don’t know what you’re promising.” He sucked in his weathered cheeks and pointed his pipe at Yveni. “This I can offer. We go in a month. You work hard, prove yourself, you can come. Otherwise…” He flicked his pipe in the direction of the sea. “You can go where you want. You’ll be no concern to us.”

“That’s fair.”

Hilario put his arm around Yveni’s shoulders and hugged him. “If you fail, you come back to us, eh, silent child? Always room for another.”

“No room for loafers anywhere.” Jako gave Hilario a significant look. “When did you say you were leaving?”

Hilario laughed. “Cousin, you’re not very friendly.”

“We’ll feed you and bed you and give you food and water to go on with, cousin. But it’s a busy time here, so stay and work, or run home to your tribe.”

“Home for me. I miss my wife, and I’m sure she misses me.” He rubbed his crotch suggestively.

“Huh. If you were a male kardip, I think I’d geld you to keep you in check. Today, tomorrow, you’re welcome. After that, like fish in the sun, you’ll begin to smell.”

Hilario grinned and agreed. Yveni grinned too. They reminded him of Gerd. And Gil. No one else in his life would dare be so blunt. He liked knowing exactly where he stood with people.

Hilario was allowed to wander the village making friends, but Yveni wasn’t given that luxury. Jako took him by the arm and hauled him over to the tall barns behind his house. Jako’s farmyard was the biggest in the village, from what Yveni had seen, and he guessed that many of the fields behind it belonged to him, as did the large herd of kardips squealing plaintively on the other side of a long wood rail fence.

“What do you know about kardips, Gaelin?”

Yveni ran through all the facts and figures he’d learned from his tutor about the economic importance of these animals, and decided none of them were appropriate to this situation. “Nothing, sir.”

Jako grunted. “Thought as much. Know how to shovel shit, boy?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jako whistled, and a young woman, forehead smeared with dirt, and wearing a long leather apron over the loose trousers and shirt that both sexes wore, came out from the barn. “Raina, this is our new stable boy. Boy, you do as she says or you’re out. Anyone catches you slacking, you’re out. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jako grunted and walked off, leaving Yveni to stare at Raina. She wrinkled her nose at him, clearly unimpressed. “Ever cleaned a stable before?”

“Yes, miss.” All those years of his childhood happily working with Gil whenever he could escape from his books would stand him in good stead, he hoped.

“Shovel, fork, broom, over there. Pile the shit in that cart. Well, get on with it!”

She turned and stalked back into the barn. She hadn’t even asked his name or what he was doing in the village. Huh.

Yveni quickly learned that looking after a handful of cosseted thoroughbred horses as a way of passing the time while he talked to his friend wasn’t any real preparation for dealing with the output from fifty sturdy kardips and their newborn calves. Someone had to have been doing it before—someone now off doing something more pleasant, he suspected. He only had to deal with a day’s worth, but he discovered that an adult kardip could produce several kilos of shit in a single massive bowel movement. He also learned that kardips had a fondness for these bowel movements just as he’d cleaned the stall thoroughly, and particularly enjoyed doing their best to drop their turds on
him
as he worked.

Raina ignored him, but not out of rudeness—or not completely. As he worked, Yveni observed her tending to several sickly calves, as well as helping a number of female kardips straining in labour. Even with so many animals to tend to, and having to rush between them all, she handled each straining mother, each querulous youngster, with gentle, reassuring hands.

She gave him a fierce scowl as she caught him staring. “You’re supposed to be working.”

“Catching my breath. You’re very good with them. You remind me of a friend.”

“Oh? Where’s this friend? Why aren’t you with him?”

Realising his mistake, Yveni had to lie. “Oh, long story,” he said airily. “I’m Gaelin.”

“Good for you. Get back to work, I don’t have time to chat.”

He bowed as gracefully as he would to a duces, and obeyed. He kept an eye on her when he could, fascinated by the contrast between her gruff demeanour and her care of the beasts. It made him homesick for Gil, Sofia and everyone else. Even the foetid stench of the manure reminded him of the stables in the castle and his beloved mare, Ande. What if that bastard Konsatin was riding her now? What if Konsatin had turned Gil and Sofia off? What if Yveni’s flight from danger had left his sisters and his friends in the middle of what he’d sought to escape?

“Oy, you. Bring me a bale of straw. Can you lift one or do I need a
man
to do that?”

Yveni wiped his eyes, pretending they were full of sweat. “I don’t know—would you say ‘please’ to a man?”

“Huh, not likely. I need the straw now. From the barn next door. If you’re waiting for your ‘please’ you can wait until the heavens fall.”

He thought about lecturing her about manners for all of half a second, and went off to fetch her straw. It wasn’t his place or his job to correct the yokels, especially when he was the one beholden.

He did his best to look utterly unconcerned by the weight of the bale. It was a lot harder to lift than he expected, but the feat left her unimpressed. She told him to spread the straw quickly on the floor of the stall. Her concentration was all for the female kardip labouring and wheezing with effort. Even to Yveni’s untrained eye, she looked in trouble.

“Will she die?”

“No. Shut up.” She went over to a bucket to wash her hands and arms thoroughly with soap. “More water. Pump out back. Hurry. Use that bucket.”

He rushed to obey, and when he returned, he found her up to her armpit in the kardip’s bottom, her face a mask of concentration. He couldn’t fathom what she was trying to do, but suddenly she grunted and pulled her arm out, the kardip squealed as she flopped down heavily on the ground, and from inside the beast slid a perfectly disgusting mess of blood and mucus, and a bag with a baby kardip inside. Raina put her hand over the calf, frowned, then scooped it up and ran.

He ran after her. “What are you doing?”

She’d only gone two stalls down where another baby kardip lay on straw. She set the weakly struggling newborn on the ground, picked up the other calf and rushed it back to the mother who’d just given birth. She set the calf right in the middle of the birth mess, then stepped back. The mother didn’t react at first, but the calf gave a pathetic little squeak that drew her attention. She turned, peered down at it and gave it a lick. The calf squeaked again, and struggled to its feet, while she kept licking it. When she was satisfied it was clean, she gave it access to her teats. As the calf began to suck, the mother gave a soft squeal as if happy with a job well done.

Raina left the stall, Yveni following her. She picked up the newborn calf, cleared away the birth sac, and took a knife from a hook on the wall. “It won’t survive,” she said to Yveni’s horrified look. “Take it out back and cut its throat. Then take it over to the house.”

“But—”

“I have the Healing Sight. I know it won’t live. Do what I said!”

She handed the wet little creature and the knife over to him, then turned away to wash her hands in yet another bucket of water.

Numb, Yveni carried the calf outside. It clearly struggled to breathe, so Raina was probably right, but it was so small and helpless. He’d killed before, but always animals he’d caught hunting. Not creatures lying trustingly on his arm.

He swallowed. This was a farm, and kardips were food. He still said a quick prayer to the spirits as he killed the calf as quickly and cleanly as he knew. The spurting blood made him want to be sick. This wasn’t like hunting deer in his father’s forests. There was no sport in this.

He carried the corpse over to the house, around the back to the kitchen or where he thought it would be. Jako’s wife glared suspiciously at him. “Um, Raina had me kill this. Said it wouldn’t live, and to bring it to you.”

“Oh good, it’ll do for supper tomorrow. Give it here, boy. You can wash up under the pump there. Don’t come into my house in that state.”

She took the kardip’s body and shut the door in his face. He had no choice but to go off and use the pump, glad to get the shit and the blood off himself, though there was little he could do for his shirt. Maybe he could ask for an overall or something.

“Ah, silent child, are they working you hard?”

Hilario held a bone in his hand, from which he tore strips of cooked meat with his strong white teeth. Yveni’s stomach turned. “Yes. I just killed…um, Hilario, what’s the Healing Sight?”

“Oh, that’s a powerful gift. Not common. Anyone with that knows what’s wrong with a sick person and if they’re going to die. Some say it’s a curse. Where did you hear of such a thing?”

“A woman here says she has it.”

“Probably has. I wanted to find you. I’m leaving tomorrow. People here aren’t so friendly, and I want to see my son. Will you be all right?”

“Of course.” Hilario had taught him a good deal about this land and how to survive, and though it would be hard to say goodbye to him, he had his destiny to follow and Yveni had his.

“Maybe we’ll meet again, if you sail in another ship and it sinks.”

Yveni shuddered. “No thanks. There have to be easier ways to meet up with friends.”

Hilario laughed. “True. Well, we’ll see each other for a little longer. You have to go back to work?”

“I think so.”

“Then I have to play and eat, to keep the balance. See you later, silent child.”

Cheeky beggar.
Yveni would miss him. All he did lately was say goodbye to people.

He returned to the barn, trying to remember where he’d left his shovel. He found Raina slumped tiredly on a straw bale in one of the stalls.