The very air around him seemed to vibrate with frustrated power. I couldn’t see his face against the light from the open doorway, but I could be sure it was set in an expression of granite leadership. Then suddenly he swung around and strode off, and I found I’d been holding my breath. I heard him calling to his men, and presently the hunting team filed by in their traditional formation. Stance marched with his usual bounce, but his ceremonial spear looked oddly forlorn, as though drivets had been nibbling at the tassels. His head huntsman Quorn came next, chin up and looking almost as indomitable as Stance. The rest followed in single file. A straggle of pack lox brought up the rear. Once out of sight of the village, the senior huntsmen would clamber on the backs of the animals and take it easy until game was in view.
I dressed and followed at a safe distance, and by mid-morning I was back at my stardreaming pool.
I worked my way carefully around the perimeter, looking for clues to the identity of the person who had laid the trap for me. I don’t know what I expected to find, because the palpaters would have drawn anything unusual beneath the carpet of their thick fronds, hoping it was edible or at least decomposable. And sure enough, I found nothing of interest. I climbed a nearby tree to get a wider field of vision. Seated comfortably on a high bough I could see the Totney track and, in the distance, the hunting team shambling east. North, the moors rose against the sky, sweeping, treeless, green and brown. South I could catch a glimpse of the sea.
And then I caught a glimpse of something else.
They weren’t visible from ground level; the palpaters covered them. But from this height I could make out two sets of tracks heading south; faint parallel depressions. They must have been made some time ago, immediately after the thaw when the ground was still soggy.
They were very distinctive tracks.
A motorcart had come from the direction of the sea, visited my stardreaming pool, and headed back again.
All my Cuff suspicions resurfaced. Why would the Noss motorcart have visited my pool? I thought I knew the answer to that. It had brought an ice-devil. How, I couldn’t imagine; but it had been accomplished somehow. Cuff couldn’t have brought it in a bucket; it was too big. Could he have pumped it from its home into the motorcart’s big water tank? No, it would have solidified the pool as soon as he dropped the hose into the water. I climbed down from my perch and set off south, following the tracks in search of further evidence. Soon the palpaters gave way to spreadweed, but now that I knew where to look I could make the tracks out quite clearly.
I reached Butcher Bay in the early afternoon. The bay is named after an ancient occasion when a pod of zumes —big aquatic mammals — had been forced to the surface by an unusually dense grume and, fleeing from the savage grume-riders, had beached themselves. It had done them no good at all. The men from Noss had moved in and killed the lot, gutted them, carved them into manageable chunks and stretched these on racks to dry in the sun. There had been feasting all winter.
A shallow declivity runs down to the bay. During the drench it is filled with a roaring torrent, but at this time of year it is dry except for five separate pools stepping down to the sea. Hereabouts the motorcart tracks became lost in rocky ground with small areas of popweed growing in the cracks. I approached the first pool; it was smaller than the others; about three paces across. I picked up a small stone and threw it in.
Nothing happened. A light breeze ruffled the surface.
I threw a stone into the second pool.
Instantly the surface frosted over. An ice-devil lay brooding in residence. I tossed stones into the other three pools with the same result. So: four pools had ice-devils, one didn’t. I returned to the first pool. The palpaters stopped short of the rocky edge of the pool. I noticed curious scratches in the rock surface, but decided they’d been made by boulders carried down by the drenchwater.
Time was passing and I had to get back. I was fairly sure the ice-devil had been brought from this first pool, but I couldn’t think how.
It was late afternoon before I arrived back at my stardreaming pool. I made a quick final investigation around the perimeter, lifting the clumps of palpaters where they straggled over the edge.
And there I found it: a heavy woven rope trailing in the water and leading away from the pool under the palpaters. I tugged it clear of the plants; it was at least twenty paces long.
And then I realized how the ice-devil had been brought here.
It was so simple. Cuff — or whoever — had simply backed the motorcart up to the pool at Butcher Bay, tied one end of the rope to the tow post and thrown the other end into the water. The ice-devil had immediately solidified the pool. Then Cuff had started up the motorcart and dragged the whole pool away, the ice-devil with it. He’d driven up to my pool, pushed the solidified pool in, thus displacing most of the ordinary water already there. Then he’d driven away confident that the trap had been well laid. He couldn’t take the rope, because that would have meant waiting until the ice-devil liquefied the pool again, and he’d have been anxious to get back.
Very neat.
I was about to set off back to Yam in some triumph when the low sun and slanting shadows revealed something that sent an eerie shiver up my spine.
There were more motorcart tracks. Two more sets.
And they headed to and from the direction of Yam… .
What did it mean?
Well, it meant that the Yam motorcart had visited my pool. Two motorcarts visiting the pool? Or it could mean — and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t dismiss this possibility — it could mean that only one motorcart was involved. It could have come from Yam, turned south to Butcher Bay, dragged the ice-devil back, dumped it into my pool and returned home. To Yam. That would account for all the tracks.
It made a horrible kind of sense.
I arrived back at my cottage as darkness fell, lit the fire and sat before it, trying to find a solution to this mystery in the leaping flames.
When I’d got back to Yam following Dad’s death, I’d found the news had preceded me. A Noss fisherman had apparently told the hunting team. Now, fishermen rarely travel far from the sea, so this meant the team must have been questing around the hills near Noss.
When game is in sight, the members of a hunting team split up and try to encircle the animals. The hunt ranges over a large area in this fashion, men running this way and that, out of sight of one another, linked only by yells and whistles. It can become an undisciplined rabble, and much time is wasted searching for lost huntsmen.
It would be easy for a member of the hunt to disappear for as much as half a day before people began to wonder where he was. As regards the hunt in question, any member could have slipped into Noss, killed Dad, switched the distil to neutralize me as well, and rejoined the hunt without his absence being noticed. He’d even have time, later, to switch the grume rider for Dad’s body and deal a blow to my credibility.
The obvious candidate was Stance.
But could a man murder his own brother? He’d need a very good reason. And Dad had been very useful to Stance, and tactful about it too, always keeping in the background. It was unlikely that Stance had been overcome with a mad fit of jealousy because Dad was the better man. Impossible, in fact. Could he have suspected Dad of mounting a coup against him? No. One of the strengths of Yam was dear old Dad’s unswerving loyalty to his brother.
So I would question the men on their return from the current hunt.
Now, as to the motorcart.
The hauling of the ice-devil must have been done while I was confined and sulking in my cottage, probably soon after my return from Noss. But nobody could have used the motorcart without being noticed. The fire had to be lit and the pressure raised. It all took time, to say nothing of the noise the machine made as it rattled out of the yard and through the village. So someone must have come up with a pretext for using the vehicle; and people would remember the occasion. After all, the motorcart w
asn’t used very often. It would be easy enough to find out who was driving…
I went to sleep in hopeful mood. I had plenty of questions to ask on the morrow.
The following morning I examined the motorcart as it lay cold and idle in its shed.
The tow post projected up from the rear of the cargo platform. The metal was shiny from recent use but offered no other clues. The rest of the machine was clean apart from the wheels which bore traces of crushed palpaters — but then, they always did. There was nothing left on the footplate to identify any recent drivers.
I made my way to the village barn. Spring was there with two other women, listing the meager stores.
“I thought you’d gone hunting,” she said, rosy face concerned.
“I had other things to do.”
“I do hope you haven’t quarreled with your uncle Stance. He was so set on you joining the hunt.”
I had a sudden vision of the huntsmen scattered as usual over the rolling hills, myself among them, and Stance suddenly looming up with his spear at the ready and a murderous expression on his square face, and nobody else near. Was that why he’d been so set on me joining the hunt?
“Stance was a little miffed but he’ll get over it. By the way, can you remember if anyone’s used the motorcart since Dad’s death?”
“Used the motorcart?” She looked surprised. “Of course they have. It’s been in use almost every day; we’ve been cultivating new land.”
I was obviously out of touch. “New land?”
“To compensate for the poor germination since the drench. We’ve been planting late crops.”
“How does the motorcart come into this?”
“It was Silly May’s idea. She’s a bright girl, that one. We hitched plows to the motorcart instead of using lox. Much quicker. I wonder we’ve never done it before.”
“Who drove the motorcart?”
“Oh, most of us had a try. It was easy enough. In fact your uncle Stance was the most difficult part of it. He seemed to think the motorcart was his personal possession, but Wand quoted ancestral memories that proved it had always been community property. Your uncle had no answer to that,” she said with obvious satisfaction, “so we fired it up and drove it off, and to Rax with him. We felt he’d have accepted the idea sooner if anyone other than Silly May had suggested it.”
“I wish I’d been there.” A thought occurred to me. I’d been confined to my cottage for a long time, but I hadn’t been totally deaf to what was happening outside. “I didn’t hear it coming and going each day.”
“Oh, we didn’t bring it back to the yard every night. That was another battle we had with your uncle. We kept it in the fields with the fire alight, so we could start work straight away each morning. He kept whining on about the need to clean the firebars and descale the tubes and shovel the soot from the smokebox and Phu knows what else, and in the end Wand told him to shut up and go hunting, if he couldn’t think of anything constructive to say. But he hung around for days, predicting disaster. I wish your Dad had been there. He’d have straightened him out.” There was a world of regret in her blue eyes. “Bruno knew how to handle your uncle Stance.”
“I know.” I was thinking. A determined man — or for that matter, I now realized, a determined woman — could have driven the motorcart from the fields to Butcher Bay and back, at night by raxlight, secure in the warmth of the cab, and nobody would have been any the wiser. “Did anyone ever use the motorcart at night?”
“Why would they want to do that?”
“I just wondered.”
She didn’t answer. She probably thought my question stupid. She was staring down into a sack of grain, eyes clouded.
“I do so miss your Dad,” she said eventually.
I was in the presence of something I didn’t want to understand. Embarrassed by her weirdness and hoping the other women hadn’t heard, I slunk away. I’d gotten nowhere.
But things improved greatly a couple of days later.
I heard the puffing of a motorcart late in the afternoon while I was frying myself a meager portion of loat. My first thought, as I hurried to the window, was that the hunt had been so successful that Stance had returned for the motorcart, to pick up his dead prey. But I was delightfully wrong. It was the Noss motorcart that trundled through the village, Lonessa at the tiller.
And my heart gave a huge thump, because standing beside her was Charm.
Charm looked prettier than ever, wearing a short dress of albino fur with a wide-brimmed hat of scarlet straw to shade her from Phu’s excesses. She saw me standing at the window as the motorcart rolled on toward the women’s village.
And she waved to me, smiling.
My heart gave another thump, preliminary to pounding painfully. I was having difficulty breathing, too. I was in deep physical trouble. It would be a pity if I died before I had a chance to talk to her, now that it seemed I was forgiven. Suddenly it was a beautiful afternoon and the banter of a nearby group of men sounded like song.
What was wrong with me? She was only a girl, and a flounder to boot.
Both Stance and Trigger were away hunting, so I reasoned that I was in charge of the men’s village, though others may have disputed it. It was therefore quite natural for me to don one of Dad’s more impressive robes and stroll up the road to find out what this was all about. It was a great pity that Dad’s best robe — his negotiating robe — had been lost during the tragic incident at Noss. From time to time I’d pictured Cuff wearing it in the privacy of his cottage, gloating over it.
I found Charm in the barn with Lonessa, who was arguing with Wand.
“It’s not your problem,” Wand was saying, her dried-up face set in stubborn lines.
“It will be our problem if you come begging for food again this year,” said Lonessa.
“We thank you for your help last freeze,” said Wand woodenly, “and we’ve taken steps to make sure there are no shortages this year.”
“We need to know your position, exactly. I’m going to have to inspect your fields.”
“What!”
“If you have no objection.”
“No objection? Of course I object! Our fields are entirely our own affair!”
“I could see how your crops are doing quite easily, just by riding by. I thought you’d rather to show me around. I’d hoped you wouldn’t cause difficulty over this, Wand.” She smiled faintly. “It’s not the dragon lady talking now. I’m here as friendly neighbor.”
“You have no rights in Yam, Lonessa!”
Now the Noss womanchief’s voice rose. “I came here on a peaceful visit. I’ve been facing criticism back home over the help we gave you last freeze, and I have to make sure our loan can be repaid. I need to see for myself!”
I judged it time to enter the argument. “That seems reasonable enough to me, Wand.”
“Reasonable!” she screeched. “Don’t you see, Hardy? She’s putting herself in a position of authority over Yam!”
“No; we put her in that position ourselves, last freeze when we borrowed the fish. There’s no point in arguing about it. We’re in their debt and that’s the end of it. Go on now, show her round. There’s no harm done.”
Cords stood out in her ancient neck as she glared at me. Her mouth opened. I braced myself for the usual stuff: What in the name of Rax do you know about anything, you young fool? Then, amazingly, she relaxed and nodded.
“I suppose you’re right. Hard times make a woman over-sensitive. I’ve been facing a lot of criticism too. Come on, Lonessa. We have a lot to see before dark.”
Chattering fulsomely the way quarrelers do after making peace, they left. In fact they were so wrapped up in each other that Lonessa forgot Charm. We stood looking at each other. Charm was smiling.
“Well done Hardy.”
“I could have said exactly the same thing when Dad was alive, and they’d have told me to shut up.”
“And now all th
at’s behind you.”
“Would you like to see my cottage? I’ve got something for you there.”
“For me?” She regarded me, and I got the feeling she was suddenly nervous. “Why for me?”
“You’ll see.”
She was very quiet as we walked through the village under the curious eyes of the men. I stared around defiantly; after all, wasn’t it perfectly natural for the Yam manchief’s nephew to accompany the Noss womanchief’s daughter? I opened my door and ushered Charm in, glared around the village for the last time and closed the door firmly behind the two of us.
I took Charm’s crystal from its hiding place behind a loose rock in the wall, and handed it to her.
“Oh, Hardy! Thank you so much!” And impulsively she threw her arms around me and hugged me tightly. She must have felt my heart pounding against her breasts. “Where did you find it?”
“In a pool just off the Totney road.”
She let me go and stepped back, and with the loss of physical contact an invisible wall of constraint rose between us. “In a pool? What was it doing there?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you.”
Since Dad’s death I’d thrown our two piles of fur bedding into one heap, so we sat side by side on this. It was a comfortable arrangement. I related events since I’d last seen her, and she listened, eyes round, until it became too dark to see each other.
“What do you think?” I asked when I’d finished.
She hesitated. “I think you should be very careful. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Oh?” This was encouraging. “Why not?”
“Well… . I wouldn’t want anything to happen to anybody, would I?” I couldn’t see her expression but she was shifting about uneasily on the furs. “I’m not the kind of person that enjoys rotten things happening to people,” she said, too quickly, I hoped.
“You mean you like me?” It was much easier to be brave in the dark, without those warm brown eyes laying my soul bare.
“Well… yes.”
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