Karavans

by Jennifer Roberson

  Rhuan pushed the newly braided sidelocks out of his face and leaned over the edge of the high cot. There she was on the floorboards of her own wagon, which chastened him; it couldn’t be terribly comfortable. But Ilona had taken the host’s part by leaving the bed to him while she slept below in a tumble of bedclothes, cushion, and sleeping mat.

  He opened his mouth to speak her name, then thought better of it. Best to let her sleep as long as she could on the day of departure. He had robbed her of bed; he would not rob her of rest.

  Rhuan folded the blanket aside, collected his boots, and with great care avoided stepping on Ilona as he made his way to the wagon door. He caught a glimpse of tangled dark ringlets beneath a fold of blanket, smooth olive feet, a string of brass bell-shaped charms around each ankle. Despite the bells, she slept quietly without movement or noise.

  Smiling, Rhuan sketched a quick morning blessing over her, then carefully unlatched the door and climbed down the folding steps. He paused to close the door quietly, setting the latch, then turned to pull on his boots and nearly ran headlong into Darmuth. Who was, Rhuan discovered, wearing a peculiarly amused expression.

  Rhuan scowled, a boot hanging from either hand. “What?”

  The gemstone in Darmuth’s tooth glinted as he smiled. “Reading a hand must not be difficult when the entire body is present.”

  “She read no part of me,” Rhuan retorted, bending to don boots.

  Darmuth’s smile didn’t waver. “None?”

  Rhuan gestured sharply for Darmuth to move on, lest the conversation outside the wagon awaken Ilona. “None. Nor ever will.” No matter how much he might wish her to. He walked with purpose away from the wagon. “And it was Brodhi and Ferize who brought me here after the ritual, so blame them that I ended up in Ilona’s wagon.”

  Darmuth’s tone altered. “It happened again, didn’t it? Only worse this time. That’s why I smell kevi on you.”

  “You smell kevi on me because Brodhi shoved it down my throat. In his zeal to help me—amazing enough in itself—he nearly choked me to death. Which, I suppose, may have been his intent.” Rhuan briefly eyed the brightening eastern horizon, estimating true sunrise. “We’d best go see what Jorda wants us to do.”

  “Wait.” Darmuth’s hand on Rhuan’s upper arm stopped him. “This vow you swore about not bedding the hand-reader—”

  “—remains in place,” Rhuan finished. “I do occasionally keep such vows.”

  “You have just spent the night in her wagon,” Darmuth said. “And, knowing your history—and that of your sire!—I am disinclined to assume vows may not be broken no matter how sincere the maker when he swore them.”

  Rhuan glared. “Leave my father out of this. As for me, my vow holds. And it was not my idea to spend the night in her wagon. Blame Brodhi for that.”

  Darmuth said delicately, “It is not beyond Brodhi’s rather diabolical sense of humor to intentionally put you in position to break that vow.”

  The sun passed beyond the blade of the horizon. Around them the day awoke, and with it the karavan: a multiplicity of roosters, riding in wicker crates with various harems of hens, crowed the sun into the sky.

  “Of course it’s not,” Rhuan declared, “though I’m not certain he has a sense of humor. And he may well have done just that. But I know him, Darmuth. Brodhi may believe me incapable of keeping a vow, but that doesn’t mean it’s so. No matter how he tests me.” Behind him at the nearest wagon a particularly noisy rooster roused belatedly to join the morning chorus. Rhuan winced; the sound pierced his skull, which felt markedly fragile after the experience of the night before, and set it to aching. “Are you coming?”

  Darmuth smiled. “Jorda will think you drank yourself into a stupor.”

  “Not if no one tells him I did,” Rhuan declared, thinking of Brodhi’s falsehood. “Such as you.”

  “I won’t have to. Your eyes are bloodshot, and along with smelling like ritual oil and kevi, there’s the faintest wisp of baneflower. Likely he’ll think you got drunk and spent the night with a woman or three or four. Certainly such behavior is not unknown to you…or unknown of you. You have something of a reputation.” Darmuth paused. “And you did spend the night with a woman.”

  Rhuan turned on his heel, his strides long and pronounced as he headed toward Jorda’s wagon. Darmuth, unfortunately, was very likely correct in his summing up of Jorda’s reaction. That was the problem with reputations, he reflected glumly: accurate or not, people tended to believe the worst. If they weren’t telling tales of his various conquests, they swapped stories about killings and discussed the likelihood that the latest victim was dead by his hand.

  “Not fair,” Rhuan muttered.

  Darmuth, laughing softly, followed.

  DAVYN, TEA MUG clutched in one hand, checked the fit of the yokes across the oxen’s shoulders. “Good, good,” he murmured, testing rope loops and knots, then nodded across at Gillan on the other side of the tawny beasts. “As soon as the women are out, pull and stow the wheel chocks. We’ve no time to waste.”

  There was much to be done, but he and Gillan had risen at dawn and finished packing up what could not be stowed until just before departure. The narrow sideboard shelves were swollen with small kegs of nonperishables such as flour, beans, and salted meat, roped to one another as well as to the wagon. Rough sacks of herbs and dried fruits and vegetables dangled from hooks. The thick plank drop-gate next to the back door of the wagon, suspended by lengths of oiled rope, held the big iron-rimmed water barrel.

  The entire karavan encampment was in motion. Dust beaten by hooves, boots, and bare feet drifted into the air above the stand of trees, mingling with threads of cookfire smoke. Children shrieked and shouted, dogs barked, mules brayed, families and friends called directions to one another amid the din.

  His wife, Davyn saw, had come out of the wagon and was covering the cookfire coals with dirt. She carried the kettle in one hand and her mug in the other; a familiar lift of the kettle asked without words if he wanted his tea warmed. Davyn joined her, extending his mug.

  “Nearly ready?” he asked, but shut his mouth on the observation that she looked tired.

  “Once Ellica is over this latest fit of the sulks, yes.” Audrun sighed. “I’m afraid I wasn’t terribly sympathetic just now, but I do wish she could understand that this is difficult for everyone.”

  “She will come to, eventually.” Davyn kissed her briefly on the top of her head, then took kettle and mug. “I’ll tend these.” Grinning, Davyn poured out the remains of the tea from mugs and kettle, then banged them against the sideboards. “Ellica? May I come in?”

  A startled, muffled refusal and flurry of activity resulted a moment later in the appearance of his eldest daughter.

  “Ah.” Davyn set mugs and kettle into Ellica’s hands. “Rinse these quickly, then pack them, please. We are about to move out.”

  Fair hair hadn’t yet been tied back, tumbling over her shoulders. Ellica’s face was flushed from tears hastily scrubbed away, but more threatened. She wouldn’t meet his eyes as she took the kettle and mugs.

  “Ellica.” He spoke quietly, privately. “Your mother is very tired and needs your help. I need your help.” What he kept to himself was that he knew Audrun was also very worried about something. “May we depend on you?”

  Her eyes flickered up to his. He saw a brief tightening of her mouth, a faint creasing of her brow, and then her face smoothed. She nodded.

  “Good.” He dropped a big hand to her shoulder. “Thank you.”

  Gillan came around the back of the wagon. “Everything’s ready.”

  Davyn squeezed Ellica’s shoulder, felt a slight lessening of tension beneath his fingers, then turned to other duties.

  THE MUTED CHIME of her ankle bells roused Ilona from the shallow pre-waking doze. Her body reminded her she had slept upon floorboards despite the mitigation of mat and cushions; that recollection brought her fully awake. She pushed herself upright, looked for Rhuan, and di
scovered her bed was empty.

  Ilona felt a flicker of regret, then banished it sharply. She lay down again and attempted a stretch to release the slight stiffness in her bones. With Rhuan gone, she had only herself to tend as well as the wagon. And they were to depart as soon as the karavan was ready … Ilona abruptly ended the stretch and got up, untangling the folds of the split skirt and tunic she had slept in.

  A few quick gulps of cold tea served to quiet her thirst, then she set about changing into baggy traveling trews and the knee-length tunic she’d wear belted over them. After that came a hasty washing of her face, a check of tousled hair she would have to tend once they were on the road, and the tugging on of soft doeskin boots. Though Janqeril would bring her team and hitch them, it was her task to make certain the wagon was ready to go.

  Ilona opened the back door, discovered Rhuan had neatly folded the steps away for her, and spent extra moments unfolding them. It was that or jump down, and though she was more than capable of it, she didn’t relish the idea of clambering up and down repeatedly as she finished the loading.

  A glance at the sky told her she was getting a late start. Ilona grimaced reflexively as she climbed down the steps, then heard the snorting of her team as Janqeril brought them.

  From the other side of the wagon came Rhuan’s voice. “Do you need help?”

  He was already mounted, she discovered, and despite arriving at her wagon in near collapse but a handful of hours before, appeared no worse for the wear. His hair was pulled neatly back into its customary braids, ornaments glinting, and he had changed into fresh leathers. Even his smile of greeting was completely normal.

  Ilona opened her mouth to suggest he might make her bed since he was the one who had mussed it, but realized before she spoke that such words might not be correctly interpreted by passers-by. Instead she said, “No.”

  Dimples deepened in his cheeks. “I’ll stop in again on my way back.”

  It was his duty, when not actively scouting ahead, to mind that Jorda’s people be kept on schedule prior to departure. From the front of the karavan to the rear, then back again. Darmuth did it as well, as did Jorda, helping wherever necessary. Ilona nodded and watched him ride on to the next wagon.

  She touched her face. Yes, it was warm. Which meant that yes, she had blushed.

  Ilona swore and turned her attention back to her own tasks.

  Chapter 16

  BRODHI, DRESSED FOR the day, relieved himself behind a tree, then turned back to the bed he and Ferize had made of blankets and cloaks. She stood in the midst of tumbled fabric, slender body naked. This morning her hair was red, a vivid, shining red dusted with gold, and her slanted eyes, beneath equally slanted brows, were so pale a green as to verge on translucent. The fine white flesh, dappled by leaf-born shadow, hazed bronze and green and gold in curves and contours as she greeted the morning.

  She was, as always, beautiful. But to him, in any form, she would be so. Smiling, he leaned against the thick-boled tree and watched her reacquaint herself with human form, legs spread, arms upstretched above her head, flesh sliding over bone and muscle like water over stone. Her head tipped back, spilling hair down her spine, and he saw the tracery of scale pattern at the hollow of her throat.

  Musingly, he said, “What do you suppose a human would think, were he to see you now?”

  “Now?” Her head leveled. “Like this?” “Like this.”

  She lowered her arms, but inspected the inside of her left wrist. “He would undoubtedly call me a demon,” she answered, brushing a thumb across the scale pattern staining her wrist. “And so he would be correct.”

  “And damned?”

  “Oh, undoubtedly. He would be whisked away to Alisanos immediately, I am sure.” A hand touched the top of her right breast. “What about you? Am I ugly to you in human form?”

  “Human form?” His grin was lazy. “Well, some might call it so. Close enough, I suppose. But the pattern is upon you, and your pupils are slitted rather than round.”

  “Drat.” Within an instant the scale pattern was banished and pupils rounded. “Better?”

  “That depends,” he replied gravely, “on your intent. In human form or no, I believe any of them would still view you as something—other. Something more in all ways. The women would detest you at first sight, and the men…the men, I suspect, would very likely lose the power of speech.”

  “Acceptable.” Ferize bent and caught up the black tunic she had worn the night before. “I rather like this power over men.”

  Brodhi smiled. “I would expect nothing else of you. Why should your nature be any different here? Only the form changes.”

  But her mind had gone elsewhere as she dressed. “Rhuan is to depart today?” “With the karavan, yes.”

  She pulled the black tunic over her head. “Then we should bid him farewell.”

  Brodhi blinked. “Why?”

  Ferize worked her arms through the sleeves, tugged fabric into place, then reached for the skirt. “Is it not what humans do, give farewell to their kin?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Then recall that you are a human among humans, and bid your kinsman a proper farewell.”

  Brodhi observed her a moment, assessing the undertone in her voice that spoke of concern. “I’m Shoia,” he reminded her. “Shoia are not entirely human.”

  “But answerable,” she said, pupils slitting again briefly, “to that which has power over us all.”

  So they were. So he was.

  Suppressing the sudden knot of tension pricking his belly, Brodhi shrugged elegantly. “Then we shall go and bid a proper farewell to my kinsman. Who will undoubtedly be stunned to receive it.”

  WITH THE MASTER and his guides sorting out the conglomeration of wagons and teams that had made up the encampment, the karavan slowly worked its way into a serpentlike line. At the back, Audrun could see nothing of the leading wagons, or even anything of the middle, the belly of the serpent. There were still many wagons before them that had not yet gotten into line. Dust clouded the air. It was difficult to believe the rains were but a week or two away.

  She heard a man calling out and looked for him, found him on horseback gesturing for a wagon with a red-dyed oilcloth canopy to fall into place. It was the guide, the one who had aided her with the karavan-master. Rhuan, he had said, before drawing his map of the route in the dirt. Once the wagon was on its way, he turned the horse and rode back toward their own.

  Morning sunlight glinted off the beads and rings woven into his braids. He rode a fine dun horse, bridle ornamented with bead-weighted thongs. If nothing else, Audrun reflected, the guide was a man who believed wholeheartedly in the luxury of personal adornment. The coin-rings in his hair were enough to buy their wagon ten times over—and undoubtedly twenty teams of horses.

  He reined in near the oxen, looking at Davyn on the high wagon seat. “We do not expect to make many miles today; it does take time for the pace to sort itself out. So even if your oxen are slow, it will not be a burden.” His glance took in Audrun and the four children, as if he had intended the last for her specifically. Then he nodded and swung his horse around, heading back up the line.

  “’Ware toes!” Davyn called.

  Audrun made certain the two youngest were out of the way as he set the oxen to moving. Collar bells clanked and the wagon creaked into motion, iron-rimmed wheels turning. She had elected to walk with her children rather than to ride, and now they set out alongside the wagon, chicks following the hen.

  All of them wore the cloths Ellica had torn into squares the evening before, shielding noses and mouths against the gritty dust. She did not doubt Torvic and Megritte would shed theirs as soon as possible, but for now they were masked. And, she noted, pretending to be something other than human children tasked with walking as many miles a day as possible, with respites in the wagon when necessary. Pale-lashed eyes shone above the face cloths, and giggling was slightly muffled as they ran ahead of her.

  How fa
r? she wondered. How far to the turning they would make onto the road that skirted so close to the deepwood? Would they reach it in a week? A ten-day? So much depended on such things as the weather, over which even the diviners had no control; and on the people of the karavan themselves. It was the master’s duty and that of his guides to make certain all was kept in order, to sort out which teams pulled better, which did not, which drivers had better control over their animals, and which did not. Davyn she did not doubt, and Gillan had his father’s skill with livestock, but the charge made by the karavan-master was true: oxen were slow.

  Ahead, the end of the line, which for them came in the guise of a high wooden wagon crowned with crimson oilcloth. The Sisters. Four of them. Women of loose morals. But Audrun had meant what she said when she told the master it was acceptable, such closeness. They had no latitude to request different placement, when they would travel more slowly and thus cause more effort.

  More than acceptable. Necessary.

  Audrun drew in a breath through the weave of the cloth mask. They traveled now in such safety as was available within a karavan, instead of risking the road alone as they had done for so many miles coming to the settlement.

  She set one hand against her belly. For you, she said silently to the child within. Be well. Be safe. Be free of such threat as Hecari offer.

  ILONA WAS GRATEFUL her blush had long faded when Rhuan rode up from the rear of the karavan, as promised. She sat perched atop the high bench seat, booted feet set against the slanted footboard. Her legs were slightly spread to brace against road ruts and dips, but split skirts or baggy trews lent her modesty upon the road. She had stolen a few moments to twist wayward curls into a long rope of hair, then wound it against her head. Slender glyph-carved wooden rods held the thick coil in place.

  She bestowed upon him a smile as he fell in beside her team. “How fare the Sisters and our farmsteaders?”