by Shannah Jay
A voice suddenly roared, 'Hoy! Ivo! Wake up, you great lump of nothing!'
Soo's smile broadened. In this mood, Giff wasn’t kind. In fact, he'd been distinctly irritable all morning, not enjoying taking second place in the line of wagons.
Ivo stood up in the driving space to stare backwards. 'Yes, Pa?' He realised the other wagons had pulled up and that he’d just let his own deleff go plodding on. 'Oh, sorry, Pa. I didn't realise it was so late. Are we stopping for a nooning now?'
'You didn't realise! Didn't realise! Don't you notice anything that's going on around you? If your stomach doesn't tell you it's time for a meal, surely you can see the sun in the sky. How many times have I told you that a trader must be alert every moment of the day and night. Every - single - moment. How else can we make a profit in times like this?'
Ivo sighed and clicked to the two deleff pulling his wagon. 'Stop, now, please!' he called. They continued walking, so he clicked again. Normally, the deleff didn't even need telling. One of Giff's deleff was deleffal of the whole group, and when Sh'arish did something the other deleff automatically followed suit.
When his own pair still didn't stop, Ivo rolled his eyes at Soo and jumped down. He walked round to the deleff's heads, easily keeping pace with their slow steady tread. 'We need to stop now, my friends.'
The two huge creatures shook their heads, blew spice-tree scented breath at him and continued walking.
He exchanged a startled glance with Soo. This pair of deleff had come out of the forest soon after Ivo and Soo had started pretending to be married. The deleff had walked alongside the wagon Ivo was riding in. When the family stopped for the night, the two great creatures had made it plain they were with Ivo and would communicate only with him.
Giff's eyes had gleamed as he watched this and later he had said to his wife Nyris, 'It was meant to be.'
'What was, dear?'
'Ivo and Soo. Meant to be. Why else would the deleff turn up like that? We'll have to get those two a wagon of their own as soon as possible.'
She looked at him doubtfully. 'I don't think - '
'No. You don't think. You never have. So don't start trying to do it now. Leave the thinking to me.' Giff looked with satisfaction at the three wagons in which his older sons were riding, nodded happily at the fine wagon he and his wife owned, and then repeated, 'Meant to be. Soo will be our daughter-in-law yet, you mark my words. It's about time Ivo settled down, got his own family and wagon, and she's the first woman I've seen him take a real interest in. Strange, that, she's such a scrawny little thing, but there you are. There's no accounting for taste.'
Nyris shook her head with unaccustomed firmness. 'I don't think those two will make a match of it, dear.
Ivo's much too young for Soo. She'd never stay with him permanently.'
'She might have no choice if that husband of hers doesn't turn up.'
'But - '
'I mean, what's she going to do with the rest of her life? She couldn't manage on her own. Her settlement must have been a long way away from the Twelve Claims. She still has no idea how to - '
'Giff - '
'Those of the Serpent would soon snap her up for sacrifice if we weren't protecting her, you know. I wouldn't give her an hour on her own in a town with a shrine.'
Nyris grabbed Giff's sleeve and tugged.
He tried to unclench her fingers. 'Let go! You'll spoil the material.' The only thing he shared with Those of the Serpent was their love of fine clothes and bright materials.
She shook the sleeve hard. 'I won't let go till you've listened to me, Giff Bel-Nathryn. Really listened.'
'I'm listening, aren't I?'
She didn’t let go. 'Soo and Ivo were not meant to be a couple.' She gave the sleeve another shake for emphasis. 'They won't stay together and they won't grow to love one another. Well, Ivo might be infatuated with Soo for a while, but that'll soon pass. So you're not to meddle! You hear me?'
'Now, look here, Nyris - '
She let go and folded her arms, sure now that she had his full attention. 'If you do try to meddle between the two of them, in any way, I'll get off this wagon and walk away from you. I mean it, Giff.'
He gaped at her. Only once before in their life together had she threatened to do that, the worst thing one member of a trading couple could threaten the other with. And when she'd carried out her threat, that time long ago, the deleff had walked away with her, so that Giff had had to spend several days cajoling her and them back to his wagon. 'But why?' His eyes were still resting on Soo and Ivo, and his tone was aggrieved, that of a man denied justice in an unfair world.
'Because they don't suit, not in that way. They're friends, and that's all they'll ever be. So you leave them alone.'
'But a pair of deleff have just walked out of the forest for them.'
'So we'll get another wagon and they'll ride it together for a time. I didn't say we wouldn't do that. We'd have had to get a wagon for Ivo soon, anyway. I could tell he'd soon be getting his deleff. You can always sense it, somehow. And finding a wagon is the only thing we'll do for the two of them. Remember that, Giff Bel-Nathryn.'
He growled something in his throat.
'Giff!'
'Oh, very well, Nyris. But I still think you're wrong.'
'Well, time will show that, won't it?'
Now, Nyris nodded sadly when Ivo's voice floated back to his parents, sharp with anxiety, 'Pa! Pa!' It had come, she thought. She was about to lose her youngest son.
Giff stood up. 'Yes, Ivo.' Beneath his breath he muttered, 'Stupid boy, why hasn't he turned them round?'
'Pa, the deleff won't stop.'
'What?' Ivo jumped down from his wagon and ran along the track to join his son, agile for all his bulk. He clicked to the deleff and put his hand on their walk-in harness, only to have his hand shaken off violently.
When he tried again, he was knocked to one side by a nudge of the great head. The deleff didn't even falter in their trampling forward.
Giff stood there fulminating for a minute, then yelled towards the wagon, which had moved further away again, 'I'd better go back and start our lot moving on. I'm surprised the deleff have separated. These two must have something in mind. You know what deleff are like. Go their own sweet way when they get a notion in their brains about something. Never mind whether it's convenient to us or not.'
He hurried back to the campsite. 'Pack up, everyone. Those two deleff of Ivo's won't stop. We'll have to carry on travelling for the moment.' There were occasionally disadvantages to having independent draught beasts.
But Giff's deleff refused to re-enter their harness, as did those of his three eldest sons. He stared at his wife, for once lost for words.
'What'll we do, Pa?' his eldest son asked.
Nyris took it upon herself to reply. 'We can't do anything.'
'But - '
She started unloading her cooking utensils. 'If the deleff have decided to part company, there's nothing we can do about it - unless you want to lose the new wagon and trading stock, Giff?'
'No. Of course I don't. But the boy - '
'Ivo isn't a boy, Giff. He's a man. And he knows our circuits as well as you do. He'll be able to find us again. Decide quickly where we're going to spend the winter and send one of the other lads forward to tell Ivo. You've done enough running around.'
But Giff, after standing staring at her, grabbed something from his wagon and went ahead himself, puffing and panting and grumbling aloud until he caught up with Ivo and Soo.
Ivo greeted his father with relief. 'Are the others coming, Pa?'
'No. Our deleff won't move on.'
Ivo could only gape at him.
'Don't sit there staring at me like a milk nerid stuck in a bog! Here!' Giff thrust a purse up at his son. 'You'll need some capital if you're going trading on your own. And don't waste it. Keep some in your boot heels, like I've shown you, so you'll never be without money, whatever happens. You can't be too careful nowadays.'
> Ivo was still gaping at him.
'And always drive a hard bargain, but not too hard. Remember, you want the customers to come to you again. And keep your eyes open for herbs as you travel. You can pick up a nice bit of extra coin if you bother to collect herbs and fruit.'
Soo leaned forward. 'Thank you, Giff.' She was surprised at how right this all felt.
'What for?'
'For everything. And for lending me your son now.'
'We didn't have much choice, did we?' He puffed along beside them for a few paces more, giving Ivo some unnecessary advice about trading methods, then he stopped and watched as the wagon pulled away. 'We'll be wintering in Jan-Halani. Look after yourselves, both of you!' he yelled, and turned back abruptly.
Only when the wagon was out of sight behind some trees, did he stop and reach one meaty hand up to wipe away the tears. 'The lad's too young,' he muttered to himself. 'And too soft.' He raised his eyes. 'Brother, watch over our Ivo, please. He's his mother's favourite, for all she'd deny it. And he's a good lad. None better.'
Then he trudged back to rejoin his family and make their lives a misery for the rest of the day with his grumpiness.
Soo and Ivo rode on in silence for a while, then Ivo pulled out a small basket which they used for gathering herbs. He tipped the purse's contents out into it and whistled as he counted the coins. 'Generous. Pa isn't usually so generous.'
'Your father's a softie underneath all that huffing and puffing - well, he is with his family, anyway.'
Ivo grinned. 'He'd deny that absolutely.'
'Of course. But he is, isn't he?'
'Yes. And he's a good father, as well. He's taught me everything I know.' Ivo put most of the money away, but handed some coins to Soo. 'You'd better put these in your belt pouch and sew a few into your petticoat hem when we stop. You might need them sometime. If - if we should chance to get separated, you'll need some coins of your own.'
'Thank you, Ivo. I'll pay you back one day, I promise.'
'You more than earn your way. There's nothing to pay back.'
Soo had proved clever with delicate gold wire embroidery. Her designs were like nothing ever seen on Sunrise, which gave them considerable novelty value. People would have been surprised to learn that she was designing com-circuitry. Every now and then, she would pack a piece away and refuse to sell it. No one argued. Her work was her own, after all. Everyone in a trading family made things as they travelled along, as well as collecting anything with value, like herbs and nuts, or buying produce and craft goods from farmers to sell on later.
Soo and Ivo sat watching the deleff in silence for a while as the great wagon rolled along, then, when the deleff took an abrupt right turn at a fork, Soo asked softly, 'Where do you think they're taking us now?'
Ivo shook his head. 'I don't know. But if we go on in this direction, we'll get to the coast. It's not too far away.'
'We'll just have to wait and see, then.'
'Yes. You can't change a deleff's mind once it's decided to do something.'
* * *
Two days later they arrived at the coast, and the deleff paused on a huge headland that jutted out into the sea, as if to give their human passengers a chance to look round.
Soo breathed in deeply. 'The air tastes different here.'
Ivo threw his head back and sucked in great lungsful. 'I love the sea air. If I had my way, I'd get a small trading circuit of my own near the coast and stay near the sea all the time. Though I'd stay away from Fenlanik. I always feel more energetic by the sea.'
'Why don't you do that, then?'
He grimaced. 'Pa would have a fit. Our family has always traded on the larger circuits, not the small local ones, even in these troubled times. He's very proud of that.'
'Giff didn't have a fit when the deleff decided you should part company. He even gave you some money.
You could choose your own path, start building up your contacts in this region now.' She paused, then added,
'If the deleff allow us to stay here, that is. I wonder where they're taking us.'
Ivo shrugged and stared at her, but he didn't say anything. He was sure the deleff had brought them here for Soo's sake.
The first village the deleff led them into didn't have a shrine, which pleased Ivo. 'I always sleep better away from those places,' he told Soo as he studied their surroundings Folk rushed out of their houses to greet the traders, calling out their needs and asking for news of the world outside Fen-Halani. In the end, the Village Elder, a tough-looking older woman with greying hair and a weather-beaten face, had to roar for silence. When she had it, she turned back to the newcomers. 'Welcome to Dashnik!' she boomed as Ivo jumped down. 'I'm Lannith.' She clasped his hand in both hers, in the Fenlanin way. 'We haven't had a trader round here for a couple of years, so you're very welcome.'
'What happened to the other one?' Ivo asked, stiffening. 'Wasn't this Benzor's route?'
Lannith hesitated. 'Well, I don't want to put you off staying, but they killed him in Ro-Malani and then his deleff ran away. The deleff took the wagon with them, too, with all his family in it and flapped their wings when the Servants of the Shrine tried to pull Benzor's wife off the wagon. No one's seen his family since.'
Ivo sighed. 'Poor Benzor. He didn't deserve that. He was a good man.'
'As honest as a trader ever gets,' she agreed solemnly. 'It was such a waste! He told the stupid sods in Ro-Malani that he couldn't make sacrifice, told them he'd lose his deleff if he even tried, but they had to go and prove it, didn't they? They dragged him into the shrine and killed him into the bargain when he wouldn't co-operate. They're whip-happy in Ro-Malani. And it's folk like us in the outlying villages who suffer for it. We haven't seen a trader since.'
'May our Brother give Benzor better luck in his next life.' Ivo bowed his head for a moment.
Lannith gave a wary glance around, but didn’t contradict him.
He sat thinking hard. 'So it might be dangerous for us to start up a trade circuit round here?'
'Well, it might - but then again, it might not. Folk weren't best pleased to lose their traders, and it's caused a lot of ill will, I can tell you. We can send word to Ro-Malani that we'll be very angry indeed if they interfere with our new trader. I can get the Elders from the other villages to do the same thing. It might help.' She beamed at him. 'But your deleff look like they want to stay here, at least for the moment, so we can trade with you today, whatever happens later. Come and have a meal at my house tonight and we'll talk some more.'
'All right.' Ivo turned round. The deleff had pulled the wagon to one corner of the small green in the centre of the village and had walked out of the harness to graze on some shiverleaf shrubs planted there on purpose to feed visiting deleff. Soo was standing next to the wagon, looking uncertain what to do. 'You don't appear to be too fond of the Serpent in this village,' Ivo said casually, making no attempt to unload, though people were standing around waiting.
Lannith was instantly wary. 'What makes you say that?'
'There's no shrine here, not even one of the small one-roomers.'
She grabbed his arm and shook it slightly. 'Shhh!' But she winked at him as she spoke. 'We fisherfolk have our own way of serving the Serpent,' she said aloud.
Ivo grinned at that and so did a few of the bystanders. Fisherfolk were wily creatures. They had to be, because the places where they lived were rarely the sort of terrain that made people rich. He’d often wondered what drew people to the stark coastal lands. The same thing as drew him, he supposed, fascination with the sea in all its moods. 'Well, if the deleff have decided to stay here for a while, we'd better do some trading, hadn't we?' he asked, glee starting to bubble up inside him.
He beckoned Soo across to join them and performed the introductions.
Lannith studied her through narrowed eyes. 'Have you been ill, dear? Your skin looks downright yellow.
You should see a herbwoman about that.'
Soo was getting used to this sort
of comment. 'I've always been very sallow, but I - er - I lost a child recently.' It had taken her a while to get used to telling lies and she often stumbled over the words. 'It's taking me longer than I'd expected to recover. I'm all right now, though, really I am.'
The older woman patted her shoulder. 'That's always sad, losing a child. Your first? Yes, I thought so. You don't look as if you've been wed for long. Still, a fine upstanding fellow like your husband here will soon get you with child again.' She dug one elbow into Ivo's side. 'Won't you, big boy?'
He nodded, trying to maintain the fiction that he and Soo were man and wife, but he couldn’t help flushing and that made Lannith roar with laughter. 'Very recently wed,' Lannith chortled.
Neither of them bothered to contradict her.
Trading was brisk, both in goods sold by Ivo and in goods bought by him. He purchased quite a lot of small household implements, delicately carved in the local wood. 'The villages on the coast each have their own speciality,' he murmured to Soo, during a break for food. 'These are particularly fine carvings.'
Lannith must have overheard him. She was a typical Elder, noticing everything. It was strange, he thought, how the Sisters knew which people would make good Elders, when they held the Choosings.
'We've got a good system going here,' she told Ivo. 'We all work together in this village. Some of us do the coarse shaping of pieces, and then my husband Arpith puts the finishing touches to them. He lost a leg in an accident, so he doesn't go to sea any more, but he can still keep a woman happy.' She guffawed as Ivo blushed again.
Then someone called urgently for Lannith and she hurried away.
'She's a real character, that one.' Soo was smiling as she helped Ivo re-pack the wagon.
'She says they need a trader on the coast here.' He didn't look her in the eyes as he spoke. 'They really do.
We could both stay here, if you wanted. A trader needs a wife.'
There was silence for a moment, then Soo laid one hand on his arm. 'I won't stop you from making a place for yourself here, Ivo, but I have a husband and I still intend to search for him. Until I find him. Or until I die in the attempt.'