“And your grandfather? Your father’s father?”
“He died when Da were a baby. Da were brought up by his mam, Radagund the Horse Speller.”
Even Ash had heard of Radagund. Flax was very proud of his famous grandmother. But it explained why he didn’t know about the Deep. His grandfather had never taken his father there. But surely other Traveling men could have?
Delicately, he asked, “Was your grandam friendly with other Travelers?”
Flax shrugged. “I suppose. She worked mostly for Acton’s people, though. Travelers don’t have horses, much.”
So, here he had a young Traveling lad who hadn’t heard of the Deep. Well, there was no doubt he had a right to know, even if Ash wasn’t the perfect person to tell him. But there was the prohibition against speaking of the Deep outside. He had to respect that.
“Before I tell you where we’re going, you have to promise not to repeat anything I say. To anyone. Especially women. But not even to other male Travelers. If you do… you will die.”
“What, you’d kill me?”
Ash looked down at the ground, then straight into Flax’s eyes, mouth firm. “If I had to.”
Flax’s eyes widened, and then he grinned, as though it was an adventure.
“I promise.”
Ash wasn’t sure he trusted any promise from Flax, but he was sure that after the demons at the Deep had him, he would keep the secret.
“We are going to a place… a place where men go. Men of the old blood. Only men.”
Strongly interested, Flax leaned forward in his saddle to stare more directly at Ash. Cam increased her pace in response, but Flax pulled her back to a walk.
“What for?”
Ash hesitated. “That depends. It’s a craft thing. What they do depends on who they are… how they make a living. What do you do?”
“Me? Oh, I sing,” Flax said.
Ash felt like he’d been thumped simultaneously in the stomach and the head. Why hadn’t anyone said? Because Martine didn’t know and the others didn’t know it mattered.
“A singer?” he forced himself to ask, thinking, Please, gods, make him bad at it.
“Mmm,” Flax said. He launched into a cheery song about a summer’s day.
Up jumps the sun in the early, early morning
The early, early morning
The early dawn of day
Up wings the lark in the early light of dawning
The early light of dawning
When gold replaces gray.
Ash remembered his mother singing that song. He remembered learning it. Flax’s voice rose as clear and full as a nightingale’s. His tenor could have been designed to match with Ash’s mother’s soprano. Ash could hear his mother singing the words in his head, and they blended so perfectly with the beauty of Flax’s voice that it brought tears to his eyes.
Ash knew, sickeningly, what would happen at the Deep. His father, finally finding the son who would complete their music, who would enable them to perform all those songs that needed two strong, perfect voices as well as the flute and drum. All the descants, all the harmonies, all the counterpoints. They could even sing the sentimental duets that the inn crowds so loved, because Flax wasn’t their real son, so there was nothing unnatural about him and Swallow singing love songs together.
No doubt he would teach Flax all the songs.
“Come on, sing along,” Flax said cheerfully, and started the second chorus.
For a long moment, Ash battled red rage: the desire to smash Flax’s face, to leap upon him, drag him off the horse and slam his head against the road until there was no voice left to torment him. He shook with the desire, and the only thing that stopped him was the memory of promising Zel that he would look after Flax. Mud stopped in the middle of the road and shivered, too. Ash’s hands clenched on the reins. It wasn’t Flax’s fault, he told himself. But he had to find someone to be angry with. The shagging gods! he thought finally, seizing on the idea with relief. They don’t care who they hurt, what they do. They’re the ones who brought us here. It’s their fault.
With an effort, Ash took a breath and let it out, hearing Doronit’s voice in his head saying, “Control. A safeguarder must have control.” He took a second breath, a third, a fourth, and then felt calm enough to say, “I don’t sing.”
“Everybody sings!” Flax said, but his voice was uncertain as he looked at Ash’s face.
Ash shook his head. “Not me.”
Flax looked oddly at him, hesitating about whether to ask more questions. Ash felt both irritated and protective of him. The boy was his responsibility. He had promised Zel. Although she couldn’t have known what it would require of him, he would keep his word.
“It’s good that you’re a singer,” Ash said, with an enormous effort. “My father will be able to teach you what you need to know.”
Flax nodded and stayed, blessedly, silent. As they continued up the long slope that led to the mountain ridge, passing the occasional cart or rider, Ash wondered over the fact that most people would think that fighting Sully and his friend when they were trying to capture Bramble was hard. That was easy, so easy, compared to not hitting Flax. Compared to handing Flax over, safe, to his father, and saying, “I have found a singer for you.”
Which he must do. Because he had promised Zel. Then he wondered if Zel would thank him for that, if Flax found a way to Travel without her.
Flax’s Story
THAT NIGHT TWO years back it all changed, we were down the road apiece before I spoke up. “Sure you don’t want to go on back?” I asked her.
Zel shook her head. “Never no more,” she said, so quiet-like I could hardly hear. “Never no more in that place.”
Well, we’d been Traveling together long enough for me to know when to keep my mouth tight closed, so I just hoisted the pack higher on my back and fell in step beside her.
It were a fine night, at least, and no suffering to be walking the roads under the new moon. I wished I could sing, but there were still three months to go then till my year was up. They say if a boy sings within a year of his voice breaking, it’s gone for good. I wouldn’t risk it, not for nothing. It’s hard enough being without a voice for a whole twelvemonth — I couldn’t keep me in my right mind if I lost my music for good and all. So we just walked.
After a few leagues, Zel stirred herself. “There’s a good stopping place near the stream in the withy hollow,” she said. “We’ll lie there.”
It were always Zel who decided where we stopped, where we went. When I were littler, I used to stravage her about it, but I know better now. ’Tisn’t a thing in the world can push Zel from the path she’s chosen. Earthquake wouldn’t do it, nor death, neither, I reckon. Truth to tell, it were just being the little brer what made me tickle her about it anyway. I didn’t know enough to make any choices. Now, I know more than she did then, and that’s enough to know she chooses better’n me, most times.
Maybe not this time, though.
Maybe this time she were turning her back on a good thing, and maybe it were for me.
See, there were this man in the last town, in Gardea, and he were head over ears taken with Zel. Hanging around the tavern every night, digging in his purse for silver, clapping hard after we finished juggling and tumbling. Oh, he were smitten, hovering like a honey wasp over fallen fruit. Aegir, his name was. A cobbler.
Well, she’s never one to turn a good-looking man away, not our Zel. So she went off with him one night, two, then three, but always came back before morning, grinning like a cat.
On the fourth night she came raging in, kicked the straw into a heap and threw herself down onto it loud enough that I knew she wanted to talk. We didn’t have a lantern — not many tavern keepers let us have a lantern in the stable, for fear of fire — but my eyes were dark-ready, and I could see she was fuming.
“He wants to marry me!” she said, fierce and low, like it were an insult, like our own parents wasn’t good and married before they had
us.
“I said to him, ‘You don’t know me,’ and he laughs. He laughs and says, ‘Sure I know you, lass, inside and out.’ Thinks he’s so clever!”
“So what’d you say?”
“I didn’t say. I just got on up and walked right out of there.”
She settled down to sleep as though she’d finished even thinking about it, but I couldn’t. I could see that cobbler, not understanding, lying bewildered in the dark somewhere.
Next night he were there, waiting for her after the act. But she pushed on past him like he were thin air, and we grabbed our packs and took the road, with him following like a duckling after its mam, shaking his head and trying to get her to speak with him. Zel kept her mouth tied up and her eyes down until he dropped back, still bewildered.
Myself, I think if he hadn’t said he knew her, she mighta stayed. She don’t like being known, our Zel. She don’t like strangers knowing her business, she don’t like family, even, knowing what she’s thinking. Much less a cobbler from a tavern. She mighta stayed a bit, if he hadn’t said that.
Not for long, ’cause she’s a Traveler; or maybe she thinks she has to be one, because of me. There were no room in that cobbler’s life for a brer who can’t earn his keep ’cept by juggling in the taverns.
She knows I couldn’t live in a town year round. It were hard enough the winter before, living with Mam and Da because I caught a killing fever, and couldn’t take the road. I couldn’t survive a spring indoors. But I think she were walking so hard away from that place ’cause some part of her wanted to stay, wanted that cobbler and that nice featherbed instead of straw in the stable with me. I thought, maybe some day that part’ll be stronger than the part that wants to take the Road with me.
When we got to the stream near the withy hollow, there was Travelers already there. But it were near moonset, and we was tired, so Zel just went on down and said the Travelers’ greeting, “Fire and water.”
There was three of them, a mam and two brers, twin men fully grown. They had a fire going well, and they was roasting turnips and hedgehogs.
They nodded at Zel, and then at me. “Fire and water and a roof in the rain,” the mam said, very polite. “Share our fire.” Which were nice of her, for, say what you will, there are Travelers on the Road I wouldn’t sleep easy near, let alone opening the fire circle to.
Zel looked sideways at her and at me, but we sat down and spread out our food: waybread and dried apples and ewe’s cheese. We all shared and ate merrily enough, then Zel got out her little balls and juggled a time or two, for thanks.
They were tinkers, they told us. The mam was Aldith, and the twins were Ber and Eldwin. They were like as the two wings of the one bird, both dark-haired and dark-eyed, but the one, Eldwin, was a tad more heavyset and looked after Ber, passing him food like Zel did for me. The mam, too, fussed over him some, though he seemed hearty enough, and laughed a lot.
We sat, staring at the fire, like you do after a long day and a hard walk. It were peaceful, for a time. Then a cold shiver passed right through me and I looked up. It were quiet, suddenly. The mam and Eldwin was watching Ber, holding their breaths.
Ber shook his head, his eyes gone blank and wide in the firelight. I felt behind me for a heavy bit of wood, for I’ve seen men’s eyes go like that in a baresark fury, but he didn’t move. The fire dipped down to embers, like something was eating the light.
Eldwin said, “Oh, protect us from demons.” The mam just moaned a little and rocked to and fro. Zel was tense beside me, ready to run or fight. Then Ber spoke.
“This fire circle,” he said, “is closed to murderers.” His voice were quiet and pleasant, like you’d say ’morning to a friend. Like he didn’t know what he were saying. “There is a murderer here,” he said. Next to me, Zel had her hand on her boot knife, easing it out of the sheath.
“A kin murderer,” Ber said, or maybe it wasn’t Ber, ’cause he were foaming a bit at the corners of his mouth, and the mam were rocking hard and stuffing her shawl in her mouth to stop herself from screaming.
“Why didst thou kill thy mam?” Ber asked Zel. She’d let go the knife and were staring at him like he were the entrance to the cold hells itself. I had no breath in my body, and my heart pounding were like a wind in my ears.
“Why didst thou kill thy mam?” the thing inside Ber asked again, its eyes fixed on Zel. She were sweating and shivering, both, as she resisted that voice.
“Why didst thou kill thy mam?” it asked, and no living being coulda denied it an answer.
“She was going to kill Flax!” Zel shouted suddenly. “She had the pillow over his face, smothering the life out of him. It was her or him.” She quieted. “Her or me,” she said. “Her or both of us.”
“This fire circle,” it whispered, “is closed to murderers.”
Then it left Ber, as swift as it came, and the warmth came back to the night air and the fire sprang up high again. Ber closed his eyes and fell sideways. Eldwin leapt to catch him. They laid him down on the grass and poured water into his mouth and patted his cheeks until he stirred.
The mam looked at Zel and me, sitting frozen in our places.
“Wind at your back,” she said. The Travelers’ farewell. So we took our packs and we walked out of the hollow and onto the cold road without another word.
We walked along in silence.
“It were true, Flax,” she said finally. “It were her or us.”
“Because of me,” I said. “Because you wouldn’t leave me.”
“She were mad on silver, you know that. Having us both to stay all winter, it were too much for her. Eating them out of house and home, she said we was.”
“Because I were sick,” I said. “If I’da been well we coulda taken the Road.”
“That’s so.”
There’s nothing on Earth or under it can sway Zel once she’s made a choice. She made up her mind a long, long time ago that I were hers to look after, hers to guard. This were no different.
But I’m not the little brer I were. Already I’m taller than her.
Walking down that road, all I could think on was, sometime or other, my choice and Zel’s choice would go different ways.
And what then?
Bramble
BRAMBLE BECAME AWARE of a light. A candle floating in a small dish of water. Darkness around it, and everything blurred. She tried to look at the candle, but her eyes wouldn’t obey her. They looked up, instead, to the horse that was standing quietly before her. Bramble assessed it automatically, the part of her mind that Gorham had trained noting its points: a short, stocky bay mare, a pony, really, but with heavy bones and a thick coat, bred for endurance in a cold climate. Her hands, of their own volition, rose to fasten the strap of the bag attached to the front of the saddle, but her eyes remained fixed on the saddle, as though she could do this job without thinking about it. As she could, normally.
It was a strange saddle, with a high pommel that formed two horns at the front and a matching pair of horns at the back. The stitching was large and it had a single girth plus a breastband and a breech strap which went around the rump. This saddle was clearly designed so the rider would find it hard to fall off. It was well-made and solid and would be reassuring to the rider. But Bramble knew there was no saddle like it anywhere in the Domains.
The saddlebag attached, her eyes dropped to her hands. A man’s hands. Abruptly she was aware of her private parts. Oh, gods, that felt so… wrong.
She never allowed herself to be afraid, but now she was, even while she recognized that what she was seeing and feeling was the result of the spell. She was inside someone — maybe one of her ancestors? Seeing what he saw. The pony moved with a slight jingling of bridle. I’m hearing what he heard, she thought. She could smell, too, the familiar scents of a stable with another odor underlying it. The tallow candle, maybe, made from an unfamiliar animal.
Not only sight and smell and hearing, but everything else, too. Bramble realized that “her” heart w
as beating fast. The man was excited, or anxious, or happy. She didn’t know which. Couldn’t guess. Couldn’t, thank the gods, hear his thoughts. All she could do was observe.
She tried hard to make him drop his gaze to the floor. But no matter how much she concentrated, her will had no effect.
Like a familiar embrace grown suddenly too tight, she felt the presence of the gods. Were they warning her to make no changes, to leave everything as it was? She stopped trying to control the man, and the pressure eased immediately.
Instead, she felt the gods’ attention turn to the doorway, which opened to let a woman enter. She was bundled up, with a baby in a sling across her chest, and Bramble couldn’t see her face within the hood made by her shawl.
The woman came forward into the small circle of light, skirting the horse casually, with a hand on its rump. It flicked its ears at her and whoofed a great breath out in a friendly fashion. She moved toward where the man stood.
“Gris,” she said, putting back her shawl. She was very young and beautiful in that corn golden way of Acton’s people, eyes like a summer sky and cheeks as pale as milk. Bramble had always disliked girls like that — they were often stupid and flighty, too obsessed with their own good looks to notice anyone else. But this girl was staring at the man with great concentration. Oddly, it felt like she was staring into Bramble’s eyes, yet couldn’t see her.
“Asa,” he replied. Bramble felt sick to her stomach. It was a horrible thing, to feel one’s lips move and words come out without any control. She remembered for a moment the Traveler boy in the inn in Sandalwood, who had been taken over by a demon. Had it been like this for him? She tried to pull back from the man’s body, to reduce her awareness of him to what he saw, just what he saw. She was a little successful. The feel of rough cloth against his back receded. The sense of his genitals faded a little. At least he wasn’t attracted to the woman. As soon as she had come in his heart had slowed, and her beauty made no impression on him at all. Asa, Bramble thought. That was the name of Acton’s mother. She was reliving the past.
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