Deep Water

by Pamela Freeman

  He smiled at her, but was clearly preparing to ignore her advice. His eyes sparkled with pleasure at the thought of the risks he was about to take. Bramble couldn’t help but understand that. She had felt the same often enough herself, before a chase.

  The women helped them into heavy winter clothing: shaggy sheepskin coats and leggings, felt hats with earflaps and long neck pieces to wrap around their throats, gloves. They took a pack with candles, tinderbox, dried apple, water, bread and another coat for the girl when they found her.

  “She won’t need boots,” Baluch said dreamily. “We’ll have to carry her back.”

  They went out into the sharp wind. It was almost full night, the sky a scudding mass of clouds flickering across a sickle moon. There was a thin layer of snow across the ground. Acton led until they were in the lee of the last outbuilding. Already Baluch’s nose was red and sore. His ears were aching. The buffeting of the wind, which would merely have been uncomfortable to Bramble, was painful to him because of the insistent whuff and whine. It was as though his ears were more sensitive to the noise than to the cold. His inner music died under the clamor.

  “Well?” Acton asked. “Which way?”

  Baluch stilled, his head down. Bramble noted that the toes of his boots were scuffed like a little boy’s, and was filled with a sudden maternal affection for him. This was, of course, the Baluch who had founded Baluchston. The one who had struck a deal with the Lake for a town and a ferry. The first ferryman. She had never quite understood why the Lake had made that agreement, but from inside Baluch’s mind it made some sense. This boy would understand the Lake. So why was he best friends with Acton the warlord?

  Bramble could feel the presence of the gods around Baluch, but the pressure on her own mind was light. All their attention was concentrated on him.

  Then Baluch’s head came up, and he pointed. “Up the northern flank,” he said. “Over the sheep stream, beyond Barleyvale, and farther up.”

  Acton nodded. “You follow me,” he said, “until we’re there.”

  Baluch bit his lip as though not liking the instruction, but followed closely in Acton’s footsteps. Bramble realized that Acton was taking the force of the wind, sheltering Baluch and making it easier for him. That made sense. Baluch was smaller, slighter — more likely to founder in the wind and cold. He was the one who could take them to the girl. It was a good tactical decision. Or perhaps it was simply a boy sheltering his best friend from a harsh wind. She didn’t know which. The fact that she couldn’t tell from Acton’s manner annoyed her. What was to decide? He was Acton, warlord and murderer. So he had a friend. Even the worst of men may have friends.

  But not, part of her mind suggested, friends like Baluch.

  There was no room for further thought in the next two hours. The buffeting of the wind and cold took thought away, even though Bramble withdrew her senses as far as she could from Baluch’s. She had wandered winter forests, been caught out in a snowstorm or two, but the temperate south had nothing like this, not even in the dead of winter. There was nothing in this harsh land to protect them except the occasional ridge or clump of rocks. They crossed thin, half-frozen streams, careful to keep their boots dry, and started on a steep upward slope.

  The footing was treacherous: loose scree that shifted and tripped them time and again. Without the gloves, Baluch’s hands would have been slashed and scored. Acton fell less often. From time to time he would put a hand back to help Baluch over a rough patch, or to pull him to his feet after a fall.

  They had wrapped their scarves over their faces, leaving only their eyes visible, but even so Bramble could see that Acton was enjoying himself. At first it made her cross. She was not enjoying having to endure Baluch’s struggle through wind and freezing cold, climbing a shagging mountain in the middle of the night. Then she thought, but I might, if I were really doing it. Not enjoy the physical discomfort, but the wildness of it, the sense of being on the edge of things, the knife’s edge between joy and despair, success and failure. I might enjoy that.

  They came to a sharp defile between two ridges, where they were protected from the wind. It felt almost warm by comparison and they pulled back their wraps so they could talk. Despite the shelter, they had to shout over the sound of the wind wuthering outside the defile.

  “How far now?” Acton asked.

  Baluch considered, again looking at his boots as the gods concentrated upon him.

  “We have to climb the next ridge and then go around the rocks to the cave. Not far, but hard.”

  “How in the name of Swith the Strong did she get up here anyway?”

  Baluch shrugged. “You know what Friede’s like. It was a nice day this morning. She probably wanted to explore.”

  Acton shook his head, with some admiration. “More like a boy than a girl!”

  Baluch grinned. “Asa’s son should know how strong women can be.”

  Acton made a face but underneath it was pride for his mother. “Strong enough to tan our hides if we don’t bring Friede back safe.”

  Baluch nodded, serious again. They wrapped themselves and started off, reluctantly leaving the shelter of the defile to climb the ridge before them.

  “You go first, here,” Acton said. Baluch looked quickly at him, as though surprised, but went willingly enough up the uneven slope.

  The ridge was so steep that they had to go on all fours, grabbing at harsh rocks that cut through their gloves, and sending stones skittering down the slope beneath them. It was soon clear that Acton had the worst of it, as he had to avoid the rocks that slid from beneath Baluch’s boots. The way broadened at one point so they could climb side-by-side and when it narrowed again, Baluch motioned for Acton to go first. Acton shook his head. Baluch pushed him, gesturing, Go on! Acton studied him for a moment, then shrugged and began to climb. They couldn’t talk; the wind made speech impossible. It felt as though the wind wanted to pluck them off the ridge and cast them down onto the rocks below. Perhaps it did. Perhaps the howling was wind spirits, not just air streaming through gaps in the rocks.

  Bramble forced her mind away from that disquieting thought and wasn’t sure if it were hers or Baluch’s. His breath was coming faster as they climbed and his legs ached and burned, but only from the knees up. Below that he was numb with cold. The clouds finally covered the moon when they were halfway up and the rest of the ascent was in the pitch dark, fumbling for handholds and footholds, grasping unseen outcrops, not knowing how securely they were anchored in what was now more cliff than ridge.

  Baluch’s attention narrowed to the feel of his hands, the rock beneath his feet. Occasionally he flinched as a rock dislodged by Acton’s feet bounced past him. One stone the size of a fist thudded into his shoulder and made him lose his grip. His heart beat wildly as he lunged for another handhold, scrabbling until he was grasping the rock face securely. Bramble felt him begin to quiver deep inside, but he dragged in a great, gulping breath, the cold needling his lungs, and began to climb again, ignoring the quivering and the beating heart. Not long after, they reached a ledge and Acton squatted with his back to the cliff. Baluch joined him, both of them taking long breaths. Acton was tired, too.

  Then Baluch stood and pointed, not up, but along the ledge. He edged toward a large whitish boulder which blocked it. Bramble was puzzled, at first, that she could see it. The night had been so dark before. Where was the light coming from? Then she realized that it was snowing and what she saw was the snow on the top of the rock, reflecting what little light there was. It had been snowing for a while, it seemed by the amount of snow on ledge and rock, but Baluch had been so concentrated on the next handhold, the next step, that he hadn’t noticed, and so she hadn’t noticed either.

  There was a gap between the boulder and the rock face, and they edged between it, Acton having more trouble than Baluch. Beyond, the rock face the ledge curved around and ended in a cave mouth, darker by far than the surrounding rock. It was quieter in the lee of the boulder. Baluch went up t
o the cave mouth and unwrapped the neck piece from his mouth. It was stiff with snow and ice. He cleared his throat.

  “Friede?” he called. “Friede?”

  “Shhh!” a whisper came furiously from the dark cave. “Shhh! You’ll wake her!”

  Scrabbling noises were followed by a head appearing from the cave. Bramble could barely see, even though Baluch was standing close. It could have been any age child, boy or girl, from the voice and the hat, but Acton had that expression on his face that Bramble had seen so often from others when she herself had been young; the one that meant “this girl doesn’t act as she should.” Despite the fact that Friede was responsible for them having to make that horrible climb, she found herself liking her.

  “Wake who?” Baluch said.

  “Shh! The bear.”

  Both boys took an involuntary step backward and Friede made a reproving noise. “It’s all right, she’s in the winter sleep. But she’ll wake up if you make too much noise.”

  “You’re in trouble,” Acton said. “What’s worse, you got Baluch in trouble.”

  Friede emerged fully from the cave and stood awkwardly on the ledge. Astonished, Bramble saw that she was lame, with a crutch under her left arm. She was small; perhaps seven or eight.

  “How did you get up here in the first place?” Baluch asked, exasperated.

  “I fell from up there,” Friede said, gesturing toward the top of the cliff. “It’s not a bad walk if you take the long way around. And then I couldn’t get down. Obviously.” She seemed irritated rather than scared or upset, and Bramble adjusted her estimate of Friede’s age upward, but she wasn’t sure how far.

  “So you just found a bear’s cave?” Acton said. Bramble couldn’t make out his face but his voice was amused.

  “It was warm,” Friede said dismissively.

  “It may have to be warm,” Acton said. “We’ll have to stay in it tonight, all of us.”

  Immediately, Bramble felt the pressure of the gods grow greater around Baluch, and he shook his head.

  “No, we have to go now, before the snow gets too deep. This blizzard is setting in for a long visit. Days, maybe weeks. We won’t get home if we don’t make a move right now.”

  Friede stared at him curiously.

  Acton grinned. “The gods are leading him, girl. They must like you.”

  Friede took in a long breath. “The gods talk to you?” Her voice was full of wonderment and she looked at Baluch with a simple admiration which was clearly unusual in her.

  “Sometimes,” Baluch mumbled, head down.

  “So,” Acton recalled them back to business, “we’d better go up rather than down.”

  “I can’t climb up,” Friede reminded him impatiently, back to her usual self.

  “You can’t climb down, either,” Acton said. “If we have to carry you all the way home, I’d rather do it down a nice soft slope instead of the way we came, through the rocks.”

  “But to get to the slope . . .”

  “Come on,” Acton said, cheerful as though they were off for a picnic. “Climb aboard.”

  “Get her past the boulder first,” Baluch advised. “The climb isn’t as steep further down the ledge.”

  “Fine. Let’s go.”

  They went back past the boulder, Acton leading, Friede edging along cautiously, Baluch behind ready to catch her if necessary. Once they were through, Baluch got the extra coat out of Acton’s pack and helped Friede put it on. She sighed as she felt the warmth envelop her.

  The ledge went back for another forty paces before it petered out, and the cliff was definitely at a less worrying slope at that end. Still, over the next half-hour Bramble wished that she could just withdraw from Baluch’s mind altogether. She didn’t understand why she had to live through this part of Acton’s life.

  Friede climbed on Acton’s back without a word, as though she were used to this particular indignity. Baluch had to find their way up the ridge, and clear any loose rock or pebbles from their path. Acton stayed well back so that Friede wouldn’t be hit by the debris, but followed Baluch’s path faithfully. Baluch’s hands were bleeding inside his gloves and only the warmth of the blood kept them from freezing, but Bramble knew that as soon as the blood stopped flowing it would freeze and cause frostbite. Baluch knew it too. He kept muttering, “Spare gloves, I should have known we’d need spare gloves,” all the way up. Bramble could feel the burn and tremble of his legs and arms, the deep exhaustion which he kept back purely by will. She could only imagine how hard Acton was finding it with Friede on his back.

  The climb didn’t end suddenly, but slowly. The ridge folded back in a series of small summits, so that it seemed Baluch had reached the top several times before he actually did. Each time his heart leapt as the ground leveled out, and each time he set his mouth and kept going as he realized that the top was still above him. Finally he took three steps on level ground; four steps; five, and collapsed in gratitude. A moment later, Acton and Friede collapsed next to him.

  They sat shoulder to shoulder, breathing hard.

  “Well,” Acton said. “At least that warmed me up.”

  Baluch choked with laughter and punched him on the arm. Friede stood, hoisting herself on her crutch.

  “We’d better go,” she said.

  They were standing, Bramble saw, at the top of the ridge. On the other side, the ground sloped gently away, in a long hill that seemed endless in the darkness. She had no sense of direction without her own body to orient her, but Baluch seemed confident that they could find their way home.

  “It’s further, but at least we won’t get lost,” he said.

  The snow was not so deep on the summit of the ridge, but as they moved down the long slope it lay thicker, and further down it had already shifted into drifts. On the upland, Friede had struggled with the crutch. Here, she had no chance. She fell three times before she would admit she couldn’t cope.

  “Told you we’d have to carry her,” Baluch said. He presented his back to Friede and she climbed on with much less resignation than she had shown at the cliff face. She was slight, but any extra weight at all was a burden in these conditions. Baluch set his teeth and struggled on, with Acton going ahead to break the snow where it lay thickly, using Friede’s crutch as a shovel where he could. The snow was falling more thickly now, the wind not as strong but still cutting.

  Their exhaustion had moved past the point of physical pain. Bramble could feel that Baluch’s arms and legs were protesting at each movement, but he seemed unaware of it, and unaware, too, of the music coursing through his mind, horns and fifes playing marching music, a steady, insistent beat. He and Acton both had settled into an unthinking, deliberate plodding that was like sleepwalking. Bramble worried that they would become lost through sheer inattention, but Acton seemed to be heading toward a particular goal. Often they had to skirt boulders or cracks in the rock, but always he would turn back to the same direction, like a sunflower turns toward sunlight.

  The snow fell even more heavily, so they paused to tie themselves together with Friede’s neck piece. She hid her face in Baluch’s back and he could feel her breath, warm in the middle but cold on the edges, on the back of his neck. He couldn’t feel his hands anymore, although Bramble knew they still supported Friede’s legs.

  After an interval that seemed to go on forever, they stopped to swap positions, with Acton taking Friede and Baluch going forward to tramp down the snow. Although Friede had been heavy, this was the more difficult task, requiring sheer dogged strength. Baluch couldn’t sustain it as long as Acton, and they swapped twice more before, finally, they saw lights in the distance through the falling snow.

  The snow was lying chest-deep and it needed both of them working together to force a way. But the sight of home filled them with energy and Baluch’s steps were lighter even as he struggled through drifts.

  They came back to exactly where they had started from, the back entrance to the hall. Acton banged on the door with a fist and Asa o
pened immediately, calling out loudly.

  “Marte, she’s here, she’s here, they’ve brought her back!”

  The woman who had been rocking by the fire, her face red and blotchy with crying, pulled Friede from Baluch’s back, sinking down to the floor and stroking her hair, laughing and crying and shaking her. Baluch’s legs shook. His face burned in the sudden warmth. His father, Elric, rushed over to support him. Baluch gladly grabbed on to his arm and tried to smile.

  Acton unwrapped his face and shook himself free of snow, as energetic as if he had never left the room. He threw his hat and gloves onto a bench and hugged his mother with one arm.

  “I need something warm to drink!” he declared. “It’s as cold as the hells out there.”

  Asa laughed. Baluch was watching his father, whose eyes rested on Asa with appreciation, but without longing. He’s given up trying to win her, then, Bramble thought, and wondered if his empty sleeve was to blame for Asa’s lack of interest.

  “I should beat you for this,” Elric said, returning his attention to Baluch, but it was clear from his smile that he didn’t intend to.

  Other people crowded around them, exclaiming and shouting to others in the hall. Baluch felt overwhelmed by the noise. He tried to fumble his gloves off, but they were stuck to his hands by blood.

  Acton noticed. He reached out and stopped Baluch. “You’ll have to soak them off in warm water,” he said gently. Elric took Baluch by the arm to lead him into the hall. As they turned toward the door, the chieftain appeared in it, rubbing his eyes.

  “What in all the hells is going on?”

  Silence fell, except for Friede’s mother’s quiet scolding. The chieftain looked at them for a long moment. Friede looked up and met his gaze.

  “You are in trouble,” he said. “I’ll deal with you tomorrow.” She nodded and yawned, which sent her mother and several of the other women into a scurry, saying, “Let’s get her to bed, she’s exhausted, tomorrow’s soon enough to worry about tomorrow . . .” They took her out into the hall, leaving the chieftain staring at Acton and Baluch. Mostly, Bramble noted, at Acton. Elric tensed as though getting ready to resist any attempt to punish his son.