The Windsingers (28 page)

'I could get used to having that one around,' Ki said to no one in a very soft voice.

'I already asked. Not a chance. Janie feels she will shirk a family responsibility if Sasha grows up free and happy and unshackled to the past.'

'Um.' Ki sank down on a cushion, the quilt pillowed in her lap. Vandien sat across the fire from her, eating. One hand held his bowl and one his spoon, while he balanced his bread expertly on one knee. Her brow creased as she tried to remember how he had looked the first time she had fed him at her fire. Skinnier, certainly. And more ragged than she had ever seen him since. His hair had been shaggily unkempt, brushing his shoulders. His face had bristled with whiskers. She knew those details, but could not bring that image to mind. For all she had seen then were his eyes, unsettlingly dark, and hungry. 'Tea?' she asked him now, and his dark eyes rose briefly to meet hers as he nodded. His eyes were still bottomless, she thought, but now she understood their hunger. Vandien devoured life, and was ever filled with it but never satiated. The tea streamed into the mug from the earthenware pot, as golden as the firelight and spiced to sweetness. The mug warmed the chill away and the fragrance filled her with memories of spring. She handed the mug to Vandien and refilled her own. 'How long until high tide?' she asked to fill the silence.

'Not until dawn. But it will be high enough for us before that. Damn, Ki, I've learned more about tides and moon pull since I came here than I ever cared to know. I'll be glad to leave the coast and forget it. Tides never flow when you need them. It will be high enough for us soon. Too soon for me to lie down and sleep, but too long for me to just sit here idly, for then I'd fall asleep and miss it.'

'There's the team to bring back,' Ki suggested. 'And harness to put on them. Pots and dishes to wash and pack. And the cuddy to be straightened up for the road. Because as soon as we have that team up, we're going. I'm sick of the water and salt. Every bit of metal on the wagon is going green.'

'As to leaving right away, fine. As for the rest of it, some day I shall learn not to tell you when I have idle time.'

'If I ever have idle time, I'll tell you about it,' Ki offered. She fetched her harness from the wagon. With a rag and some oil she began to supple the leather and polish the sea tarnish from the metal. Vandien watched her, a wry smile twisting his lips. Then he rose to gather the dishes and spoons.

When Ki could see the flames of the fire moving in the harness buckle, she gave a nod of satisfaction and returned it to its peg. Vandien had resumed his seat by the fire. He stared into the flames, rubbing a slow finger up and down his scar. Ki watched him unsmiling until he became aware of her gaze and looked up. His hand dropped to his knees. When he smiled, it was his old grin. A cloud had lifted and Vandien had returned. Ki felt a flood of relief she could not help from showing.

'It was silly, wasn't it?' Vandien concluded. 'Now that I have finally thought it through and let go of the notion, I feel at peace. Strange, isn't it? Until Srolan offered to lift my scar, I had never thought of it. As soon as she offered it, I wanted so badly for it to be possible that I willed it to be true. I was willing to make a fool of myself, and drag you into it, for the sake of a smooth face. Now when I come back to my senses and see what a fool I have been, I cannot believe the things I did. It's like waking up sober and remembering all the witty words of the night before. They don't even make sense.' Vandien shook his head deprecatingly at the fire. Accepting the scar as part of my face may be the only gain from this.'

'Accept and grow, my father used to say,' Ki agreed.

'Accept and die, say the fishermen.' Janie stepped into the circle of firelight. Ki and Vandien both started. The shushing waves had covered her footsteps on the soft sand and pebble of the beach. 'Where's Sasha?' Ki asked, and the militant set of Janie's face relaxed as she warmed her hands.

'Asleep.' Her face was soft with affection. 'Nothing would do, except that she must heap up her bed with every blanket and cushion in the house. With her doll and a cup and two wooden spoons, she has gone to sleep in her Romni wagon. No doubt she'll have a pleasanter night than we will.'

'We?' Vandien ventured.

'I've brought my dory back. Rainlady is pulled up on the beach. I gave some thoughts to the stones standing in the temple and the snaggled walls. That rope will hangup somewhere. But if Ki can manage the team on shore, I can manage the dory while Vandien tries to unsnag the line. I've brought him a hook-pole.'

'We're grateful for your help.'

'I'm grateful for the afternoon that was given to Sasha. She chattered of nothing else. She has never been treated so, as an honored guest and indulged as a child. Because of who she is, she doesn't receive the toleration usually given to children. Her curiosity is deemed nosiness, and any lapse in manners is malicious, not naughty. So, for her to speak so brightly of her afternoon with Ki...' Janie faltered for words. 'I could wish I were a child again, and could have the old aches smoothed away with such an afternoon.' She finished awkwardly. Her voice flinched as if she expected laughter. But Vandien was slicing a chunk of fruit into the steaming mug of tea that Ki had poured. Janie sank onto the fat cushion Vandien indicated and took the warm mug.

They spoke little after that, of unimportant things only. Janie sipped at her tea. Her eyes lost some of their wariness. She took off her wool cap and shook out her pale hair, bringing Vandien to remark, 'With your hair loose on your shoulders and your eyes full of flames, you look like you belong by a Romni fire.'

'An evening like this makes me think well of it,' Janie replied with no trace of her usual sharpness. All was silence but for fire sounds, and the waves creeping up the beach. The sea breathed hoarsely as the waves rushed in, giving a pebble-rattling snore as the water retreated. Janie suddenly cleared her throat.

'The tide is high enough,' she announced in a businesslike voice, and began tucking her hair back under her cap. The moment was gone. Ki went for the team while Vandien meekly followed Janie to where her dory floated nearly free on the rising tide.

She turned to stare at the dark heaving blanket of sea. Her eyes could not pierce the night. The voices of Vandien and Janie reached her like the thin anxious cries of seabirds. At least there was no Windsinger singing this night. For that she was grateful.

'Pull!' Vandien's call whispered across the water.

'Get up!' Ki told the team. The trailing rope slowly went tight as the greys moved up the sands. Ki glanced back and saw the taut line rising up out of the waves, to hang dripping. She listened anxiously for Vandien's call for her to halt. It didn't come. The greys plodded on, the rope singing higher with every step they took. Ki felt a hitch in their pulling, and suddenly the rope was just tight, not strained as it had been. At the same instant, a wave of dizziness swept over Ki.

She stumbled over nothing. The sand shifted slightly under her feet. Her team swayed suddenly before her with snorts of disquiet. A vibration rattled the sand and pebbles; a rising of sound from the sea itself speckled the dark surface of the water with its throbbing. Again she lost her footing and staggered to regain it.

The silence was like a giant drawing breath. Then again there came the subsonic thrumming that mottled the surface of the water as if the waves were being pelted with hail. The greys snorted and tossed their heads, snatching more rein through Ki's startled hands. They stepped up their pace in spite of her efforts to hold them in. 'Vandien? Janie?' she called. She heard a murmur of voices from the village, welling up questioningly. The vibration stilled for an instant; Ki felt steadier upon her legs. She drew a breath to call to Vandien again, but his yell came first.

'The Bell!' His Human voice was blasphemy after that inhuman knelling. As if in confirmation, the deep throbbing voice spoke again, simmering through the sand and waves to pulse in the night air. The sound chilled Ki. But the silence that followed it was even more daunting.

Ki's eyes flickered from the team to the rope to the sea and back to her team. They would load those skeel tonight and be on their way, even if she had to drive up that cliff in the darkness. Her mind traced again the convoluted path that had brought Vandien here. She winced as she thought of her own involuntary part in it. Damn Dresh and all of his wizardly ilk! He had tossed Vandien into this foul mess with no more thought than if he were discarding the outer leaves of a cabbage. But time and distance would heal all things; had not they done so before?

'Whoa! Hold up!' Vandien's voice came stronger to her. Ki pulled in her team and waited. Her flesh was warm but she shivered. The Windsingers' bell, no legend, but a rare event. Ki wondered what trick of the tide had made it ring. She could hear Vandien and Janie discussing something in muffled voices. She heard faint splashing and felt the rope vibrate with small tuggings. 'Pull!' came Vandien's command. Ki started her team. She felt the difference instantly. They no longer towed something through the water. What they dragged now was scraping bottom, for the rope throbbed and hopped beside her as the team pulled.

The team left the peak of the beach behind them and began to trudge through the sedgy grasses of a salt marsh flat. The mud smelled foul and the big hooves made plopping noises in the wet ground. Ki considered moving the team back to take a fresh bite on the rope, but decided instead to pull on, keeping the line tight. Skeel had a reputation for making the most of a slack line.

'Hold! We've got them!'

Ki gave a sigh of relief, but the tension in her didn't ease. The tolling of that sunken bell had chilled her soul. The Windsingers had reached down and tapped her, reminding her they knew her name. She turned her team and headed them back to the beach. Time enough to coil up the rope later. Just what in hell would she do with so much rope? Sell it in the next town?

From ahead, Ki heard wild yells. She halted the team and stood in the darkness, straining all her senses. Had it been Vandien's voice? And now, that voice, it must be Janie? Her fear changed to puzzlement as she heard a wave of mingled laughter. She started the team again, scowling as she followed their plodding steps. What in hell was so funny? She could understand Vandien's relief at recovering his team, but this sounded like hilarity.

'Ki!' Vandien bounded up right under the noses of the horses. Sigurd stamped, and then snapped at Vandien while Sigmund looked disapprovingly down on him. His clothes streamed water. Drops were flung from his outstretched arms. He seized her in a soggy hug, jouncing her about excitedly; it was all she could do to hold the team steady. 'The skeel have got the chest, the Windsingers' chest! Janie saw it! When we hauled them up on the beach, they were all tangled up in one big knot, big as a foundered cow. Tails wrapped here, snouts buried there, legs tangled about until it might be three animals or six! We stared at them wondering how to pry them apart. Then Janie saw it. There's a corner, just a corner, poking out from the middle of them. It must have been beside them when they decided to mate. It's trapped among their bodies, held by legs and tails and snouts! But it's the box and no mistake. Just as Janie said it would be. We can see the edge of the belt that binds it shut. It shines like gold, with no trace of tarnish, and each strand of it looks as fine as baby's hair, but to the touch is cold hard metal. Come on! Come!'

He pranced and danced about her, finally seizing her arm and dragging at her. 'I can't leave my team here,' she protested, but Vandien boldly grabbed Sigmund's reins below the bit and dragged the big horse into a trot. Ki hurried along beside them, sharing her team's baffled amazement.

'We'll hitch up the team and load the skeel on the wagon,' he decided as they ran. 'We'll take that tangle of skeel into the village and by the Moon! We'll roll it right into the inn! Let Janie have her triumph, and for me there will be coins and a new face!' He laughed wildly, breathlessly. His dark eyes caught and flashed the starlight at Ki as he let his thoughts race. 'These fine beasts of yours shall have all the grain they can stuff down! When we return the skeel to Bitters, there's a stall in the marketplace that had a cloak just the color of your eyes that we must have! Yes, and a rapier and scabbard for I am determined that you shall have your own, if only to keep my own skills sharp! And we shall eat... oh, everything, except fish! And presents for Sasha! We must find things for Sasha, bright and foolish robes, and a dozen tinkling bracelets and...'

Ki listened as Vandien spent his coins a dozen times over, in ways ever more extravagant. She smiled to hear him, but could not find belief in herself. It was too good a thing to have happened. She did not trust it yet.

But there was the corner of the chest, protruding from the tangle of skeel. Ki stared at it, not daring to touch the cold black metal. The skeel themselves were a sight. The long whiplike tails twined about the outside of them, binding them together like a climbing vine. Their eyes were lidded in ecstasy. Legs wrapped over legs, and snouts tucked neatly in. The wad of animals was as close to an orb as their squat bodies would allow. Most surprising of all was the rosy glow that suffused their formerly dull and mottled skin.

The greys grudgingly submitted to being harnessed to the wagon. Ki coiled up the ridiculous lengths of rope while Vandien and Janie, with much laughter, rolled the ball of skeel to the back of Ki's wagon. Loading them demanded a group effort. More than once the wad of skeel slipped from their grasp to thump again on the ground. It disturbed them not at all. By the time the bundle of beasts bumped over the edge and into the wagon, Ki was as weak with laughter and silliness as the other two.

They broke camp quickly, loading gear anywhere. Vandien kicked the fire apart and scooped sand over it. The night was broken only by the lantern on the wagon seat. There was a moment when all voices were stilled and the waves spoke. To Ki they whispered secrets and warnings. She felt her light mood slipping away, but 'To the inn!' roared Vandien and the greys moved to his command. Ki peered ahead, trying to guide them around large chunks of driftwood and stone.

'Finally. Finally.' Janie whispered softly on the seat beside her. 'They will have to see that I am right. The chest will say it all, prove it all. Things will change.'

'I've an idea,' Ki ventured, not knowing what inspired her. 'Let's not go to the inn. Let's pick up Sasha and keep on going. We'll return the skeel, and sell the chest for whatever it brings in Bitters. Then let's look ahead, not back, and go.'

'Are you mad?' Vandien asked incredulously. 'Why under the Moon do that? There is gold coin to be had for this, even if you have no thought for my face.'

'Shall I slip away in the night, let them after make mock of my name? Shall I let them think I have slunk away in shame?'

'It was only an idea,' Ki mollified them. She fell silent, wishing they'd agreed. With every step the team took them closer to the tavern, to the confrontation Janie lusted for and the payment Vandien believed in. But peering ahead, Ki saw only the blackness that outlined the yellow windows of the village. Just as darkness swallowed the town, melancholy swallowed Ki.

The inn sign swung in the sea breeze like a hangman's noose. The hubbub inside the tavern leaked out. Ki decided that the tolling of the bell had roused the village and driven the folk from their beds to the inn for companionship and drink.

'Announce us, Ki!' Vandien laughed as he jumped lightly from the wagon. 'Janie and I will roll it in.'

Ki set her wheel brake. Janie and Vandien giggled insanely as Ki heard their thumping efforts to roll out the skeel. Envy twinged as she knotted her team's reins to a hitching post. The euphoria eluded her. With a grunt and a thump, the wad of skeel hit the ground. Vandien and Janie wrestled them along, bundling them up the boardwalk. Ki pulled the heavy door open.

Light and sound spilled into the street.

'Stand clear!' Ki called out in a commanding voice. All within the tavern fell silent. Eyes turned toward the door.

'You're letting in the night wind!' Helti protested, and then gaped in amazement as the ball of skeel wedged in his doorway. Vandien put his shoulder to it, and with a shout they were through, the skeel rolling a half turn before they halted. Fisherfolk were rising, to gape at the tangle.

'What in hell is that?' demanded a voice, and others echoed him.

'Are they doing what I think they're doing?' Berni asked in mild amusement.

'Not on my clean tavern floor!' Helti roared in outrage. 'Get them out of here! Damn inlander's trick; nothing but barnyard humor! I don't want my place stunk up with musk and rut! Get them out of here, teamster. Now!'

'Be silent!' Srolan's voice carried and ruled. Her dark eyes went from Vandien's grinning face to Janie's shining one. Slowly her back straightened. When she threw back her head and shook her hair loose, her laughter rang out like bells. 'Don't you see?' she asked her folk. 'You heard the bell and ran here for courage. Can't you see why it rang? Look?' She circled the ball of skeel. Her hand trembled over the protruding corner of the chest. 'The Windsingers' chest! They've brought it up to us!'

'It is just as my grandfather said it would be!' Srolan fell back as Janie advanced to place a proud hand on the chest. Her eyes were not shy as they swept over them all to linger on Collie by the fire.

Ki braced herself. The silence in the tavern brooded like the hills before a thunderstorm. Some cast their eyes down to their mugs. Helti stood drying his hands over and over on the sack tied below his belly. The man that had traded rude remarks with Ki on Temple Ebb night stared stonily at the skeel. The hood he wore threw his features into shadow, but Ki bristled under his scrutiny. 'Temple Ebb has come and gone,' he said in a guttural voice. He raised his mug and drank, dismissing them.

'That's so,' said Helti stoutly.

'You bet that's so!' One old fisherman rose slowly. He moved to warm himself at the fire, awarding the skeel less than a glance. 'Janie, what do you want to bestirring up this kind of trouble for?'

Janie's mouth sagged open. Her eyes went round, not comprehending. Her brows knit as she struggled to find words. But Ki understood. The village didn't want to change, didn't want to lose its festival in success, to pay gold to a stranger, least of all to admit the truth to Janie's story. They wouldn't. It was that simple. It did not matter what evidence they gave the village. They wouldn't accept it.

The greybeard by the fire looked up from warming his hands. 'Teamster, you knew the agreement. Gold was to be paid for that chest, if 'twas brought up during Temple Ebb. To have done it on that night, in that storm, well, that would have made it a mighty feat, worthy of gold and honors. What you've given us here is no hero's task, but only a good bit of salvage work, such as any of us might do. A hard job, and no belittling it, but not a wonder. You can't expect us to part with gold for that.'

Ki swallowed as she saw Vandien's eyes go cold. Only a small portion of her noticed the outrage on Srolan's face.

'Cowardly misers!' Srolan lashed out at them. 'Beasts and fools, all of you! It's the chest he has! The chest! And you will turn him away, as if he were selling rags in the street! Have you no memories, no pride? Would it choke you to admit that Janie's grandfather spoke truth? Was a one of you even there? All the village council can think of is the coin they must part with to be honorable men! You shame me! I wish there were other folk I could call my own! I will not be judged with you. Vandien! Know this! My part of the bargain shall be kept!'