A Man of His Word

by The Complete Series 01-04 (epub)

  He was led to a group planted around one of the fires, which was shooting flashes of light between their legs. The circle opened to admit him and he looked around the humped, anonymous figures, most holding hands out toward the blaze. A cauldron bubbled there, and steamed. Shivering and blinking, Rap recognized the tall Foronod at the far side and waited to hear why he was needed.

  “Rap?” The factor was staring at him. They all were. “Could you follow the trail in this? On a horse?”

  Rap turned and looked out into the night—nothing! Nothing at all. The snow had turned the night black, not white. He’d seen guiding done in other years—men with lanterns leading a wagon—but tonight a lantern would show nothing but endless snow rushing past. The air was solid with it, streaming insanely southward. Without a lantern there was nothing to be seen at all. Nothing!

  Scared now, he turned back to face Foronod. “On foot, maybe.”

  Foronod shook his head. “Too late. Tide’s coming.”

  So that was it? Rap wanted to be a driver, or a man-at-arms. They wanted a sorcerer, a seer. A freak. A damnable freak! He’d pulled that fool stunt with the wagon, and now they thought he could work miracles. Once could be denied. Twice would be proof. And what they were asking him to do was much more than driving through water. In this weather a man would barely see the ground from horseback. His mother, they thought, had been a seer, so he must be. He opened his mouth to say “Why me?” and what he said was “Why?”

  The factor’s head jerked and the pale blur of his face inside his hood seemed to stiffen. “Answer the question!”

  Rap hesitated. He couldn’t answer the question. “I …why?”

  “Boy!”

  “I’m sorry, sir … I need to know. I don’t know why. I mean I don’t know why ‘why’ …” Rap stuttered into unhappy silence.

  “We need a guide.”

  And again Rap’s mouth demanded “Why?” before he could stop it. He did not know why why was important, but it felt as if it should be.

  The menacing silence was broken when a snow-dappled man standing next the factor said, “Tell him! If you’re going to trust him, then trust him!”

  Rap did not know the voice and what little he could see of the face was unfamiliar. Foronod glanced at the intruder. “What do you know about it? Who the Evil are you, anyway?”

  “I’m from the south,” the voice said. It was a gentleman’s voice. “A visitor. But I’ve met seers before. You must give him your trust or he can’t help you.”

  Foronod shrugged grumpily and looked back at Rap. “All right. I’m scared that this is the big one. It may not be—it’s very early. But we have three loads of beef we absolutely must get across.”

  Despite the bone-cracking chill of the wind, Rap’s head was still so clogged with sleep and weariness that it seemed to be running on one foot. The big one was the storm that closed the causeway for the winter, and it would blow for days. Slabs of sea ice and snowdrifts caked by frozen spray plugged the road—men and animals could cross afterward, but not wagons. He knew what three loads of salted beef meant, or he could guess. It would buy much time in the spring if the town was starving. Any risk was worth taking if this was the big one.

  If it was not, then losing a wagon would cripple the supply train. That might be almost as bad—they needed every one. He might even lose all three if he trapped them in the path of the tide, and that would be catastrophe for Krasnegar. Foronod must be frantic if he was willing to take the gamble and trust the town to a boy—to a seer.

  Trust him? Rap started to shiver.

  A harder gust struck and the men staggered and leaned into it. Snow hissed in the fire and steamed.

  Rap turned again and looked at the night. A lantern would be little help in this, hard enough even for the drivers to follow, useless to see where a horse was going. They were asking him if he could ride across with his eyes shut. He tried to remember that strange feeling when he’d brought the wagon through the water. There had been something there, something unusual, unwholesome. He did not want to admit he was a freak, but there had been something. Foronod must be desperate.

  Trust yourself! Rap squared his shoulders. “I’ll try.”

  “You and two to flank you?”

  He hesitated and then nodded.

  “Jua,” the factor said. “And … Binik. Go—”

  “No,” Rap said. That did not feel right. “I want Lin. And …” He did not know why he wanted Lin, except that Lin had survived this sort of madness before, so he would not argue. And one other? He surprised himself as much as he surprised everyone else. He pointed at the stranger. “Him!”

  Foronod growled and demanded, “Why him?”

  The stranger said quietly, “Trust him!”

  “You ever been across the causeway, master?”

  “No.” The stranger sounded insanely unruffled. “That may be why he wants me. My ideas won’t interfere with his.”

  Rap wondered if he merely wanted someone who believed in seers. He did not think he believed—not in himself as a seer. But there had been something.

  Foronod shrugged. “Go ahead. It’s your neck, stranger. You’ve got an hour at the most, lad.”

  “Lin’s sleeping where I was,” Rap said to the man who had brought him. “Bring him to the horses.” To Foronod: “Sir, I’ll need lanterns.” Then he nodded at the stranger. “Come and get a horse.”

  He blundered off into the dark without waiting for any replies. He had never given orders to grown men before. Trust yourself! If you don’t, who will?

  The stranger’s hand settled on Rap’s shoulder. The darkness was that thick.

  The best thing Rap could do now was walk into an offal pit and break his leg. Then they would know, wouldn’t they? This was a test: find the corral. If he could not find that, then he could not find the causeway. He tried to remember where all the piles of hay and peat were, but he had not come this way when he arrived. He put a hand up to shield his eyes from the snow, but he could still see nothing.

  He stopped.

  Obstacle?

  “What’s wrong?” the stranger asked at his ear.

  Rap reached out his right hand and touched hay. He shivered and changed direction. “This way.” It worked at arm’s length, then. Or had he just felt the wind eddying around the stack?

  He found the corral, but he could have been following the smell, or the noise. He leaned over the rail and he could barely make out the big shapes steaming and champing in the murk. “Mustard? Dancer! Walrus!”

  “How about Swimmer and Diver?” the stranger said with a laugh.

  “Sir, please don’t talk to me.” Why not? What was Rap doing? His head was starting to throb. Mustard edged through the other horses toward him. Walrus, he knew, was cowering over on the far side. But he did not know how he knew that.

  By the time Lin and others arrived with lanterns, Rap had extracted the three unhappy horses. They were all old, all likely destined to follow the cattle into the abattoir with their stringy old meat reserved for emergency supplies, but they were calm and solid. Docility was what he needed, not fire.

  Then everything happened very quickly and he found himself at the head of the procession, holding on his shoulder a stick with a lantern swinging on it. Lin and the stranger sat their mounts on either side of him, also holding lanterns. Another flickered and winked on the lead wagon close behind them. What the lights showed mostly was racing snow.

  Foronod was looking up at him, his face an ivory mask of anxiety almost as white as the snow-crusted fur that framed it. “Ready. The Gods be with you, lad.”

  Rap did not answer, because he did not know what to say, nor trust himself to say it. He raised and lowered his light as a signal, then held it out in front. He urged Mustard forward. The horse was shivering, but more with fear than cold, so Rap stroked his neck and muttered consolation … How had he known that? He gritted his teeth in anger at this unwelcome power, these uncanny abilities that seemed to be spro
uting in his mind, as uninvited as the hairs that grew now on his body.

  His lantern showed little more than a cloud of streaking white and a tiny vague patch of ground around his horse. The snow was coating the shingle, even deadening the sound of the hooves and the rumble of the wagons. He had no qualms over this first stretch—he could hear the waves off to his right, so all he need do was keep the snow coming from that direction, also, caking ever deeper on that side of his horse and his parka. This way he was leading the wagons along the beach and there was no danger.

  Eventually he must make a turn, No sooner had he started to think about that than he felt urgency—now! So soon? He wavered in his mind and the urgency grew. He turned Mustard slightly, edging Walrus and the stranger over until they were facing into the wind. The muffled wagon noise followed them. The shingle rose, then sank again, and the snow lay thicker. Another slight ridge, then blackness—water.

  “You two wait here!” he said, yelling against the storm. Then he forced a reluctant and ill-named Mustard forward, into the water. There were no waves, so it was the lagoon, but had he blundered into the deep part? The sound of the wagons had stopped behind him and all he could hear was waves, somewhere. A few creepy minutes of splashing ended and he saw the vague lightness of snow again below his horse’s feet. So far, so good. He began to breathe more easily. He had found the ford.

  He turned around and through the black fog he could just barely detect the lights he had left behind. He waved his lantern up and down, and they began advancing to meet him. Mustard was a little happier standing with the wind on his tail, but he was shivering violently.

  Now Rap must find the end of the causeway. He left the others to follow at the wagons’ creaking pace and pushed forward alone into the blizzard. Snow covered his face and dribbled down his neck. His headache was getting worse. It was hard to keep Mustard moving. The lights were growing faint behind him … he must not lose his followers. More important, though, he must find that causeway before the wagons rumbled down to the water’s edge in the wrong place. Turning them would be bad enough; backing them up if they got between rocks might be close to impossible. He strained his memory to recall the exact direction and adjusted it for the way he thought the wind was coming … and he was too far to the right. How did he know that? He hesitated, then trusted his instinct and not his memory.

  In a few moments Mustard’s hoof struck rock. That was it! He’d done it again.

  He was a seer and his flesh crawled at the thought. He cringed.

  Why me?

  Now things ought to be simple for a while, and he became aware that his body was knotted with the strain, running sweat inside his shirt.

  Lin and the stranger reached their places on either side of him and they could follow the edges of the made road—the snow had not buried it yet. He kept position between them. The wagons followed the three bright blurs.

  Seer. One who sees. But he did not see, he just knew. He gained knowledge without using his senses—hateful! Then he remembered the minstrel’s strange belief that the horses had not been able to hear him that day. Could he speak without using his voice, at least to horses? He tried a silent word of comfort to Mustard and thought he felt it received. Imagination? Hateful! Detestable! Freak! He had not tried calling the mares away from Firedragon since that day with the minstrel and now he knew why—he had been afraid of what he might learn about himself.

  They had crossed Tallow Rocks already. Waves were splashing against the side of the road, sending up salt spray. There was no snow on the ground anymore, and the lanterns’ faint glow was an uncertain reflection. Black ice—the deadliest stuff to try to walk a horse on, or drive a wagon. It was Lin and the stranger who were bearing the load now. Rap half expected one or other of them to vanish without warning, plunging off the edge into darkness and quick, cold death.

  Walrus started to panic and slither. Stop that! Rap thought, and Walrus stopped. Coincidence.

  They crawled along, and the waves were throwing water over the road, running off in glinting black sheets. Better than ice. This was the main causeway and the tide would be over it now. Not so deep as last time, but much rougher. This was important … think of famine.

  “Lin!” he snapped. “Watch where you’re going!” They were coming into the turn.

  “I can’t see, Rap.” It was a boy’s sob. Lin’s voice had changed back under the strain.

  “I can’t, either,” the stranger said calmly.

  Rap muttered a silent prayer to any God who might be listening. He was all knotted up again now. This was it. “Close in a bit and follow me, then.”

  He advanced alone, feeling by some means he did not understand that the others were near behind. He forced old Mustard down the center of the wave-swept causeway. It must be the exact center, else either Lin or the stranger would slide off. They must be sweating with the strain of staying out to the sides, resisting the temptation to creep in directly behind Rap himself, but the wagon drivers had to know where the road was, how much was safe.

  The center! Stay in the center. He did not try to think what the causeway would look like underwater this time. It would be utterly black down there. He groped somehow for its weight, its mass, its hard solid edges in the cold water surging around it.

  Stay in the center!

  He heard and felt the first team beginning to panic and he sent reassuring thoughts back to them; realized that he had been doing the same to Mustard and Walrus and Dancer for some time. His head was bursting, as if someone had pushed fingers down inside and was trying to pull it apart. This was important! There might be famine in the spring—babies dying, children starving. The water was not deep. The waves were rolling up over the causeway and pouring off again. It would be easy to see the edges if there was light, but all he had to look at was flying snow, a bright cloud around his lantern, and he could not even see the spray splashed up by his horse’s feet.

  The waves grew deeper.

  The second bend … He shouted a warning to his companions, knew that they were safely far from those deadly edges, checked the wagon also behind him without looking round, kept talking to the horses in his mind.

  He opened his eyes and wondered how long he’d had them shut.

  Shallower …

  Then the waves were not flowing all the way across. He was coming up on Big Island. Big Damp and Little Damp were still ahead, but the worst was over.

  The rest was a blur.

  He stood on the dock road, clutching reins and weeping. Lin and the stranger were beside him, he knew, in a mob of shivering, trembling horses and shouting people … and some idiot was holding up a lantern and Rap wished to all the Gods that they’d take the damn thing away. Men were running down from the town, coming to help, asking questions, disbelieving the answers. There were tears pouring down his face and he was shaking with sobs. Shameful, but he could not stop. He was shivering more violently than the horses and he could hear himself weeping—having some sort of stupid fit, but the drivers were coming to him and pumping his free hand and thumping his back and he wanted them to stop and go away. He would not listen to what they were saying.

  Someone took Mustard’s reins from him. An arm was laid over his shoulders and at last that damned lantern was taken away and there was darkness.

  “Let’s get the man to bed!” a voice said angrily. “He’s beat, can’t you see?”

  Not a man, sir, just a weak, sniveling boy.

  Then came blessed relief, as that so-comforting arm was holding him, leading him away from the crowd and the voices and the faces, taking him away. Vaguely he knew that it was the stranger, the man from the Impire, and that stranger had done a fair job himself that night.

  “Thank you, sir,” Rap mumbled.

  “You don’t need to call me ‘sir,’ “the voice said.

  “I don’t know your name.”

  “My name is Andor,” said the stranger, “but after what I’ve seen tonight, Master Rap, I’d be very proud
if you would just call me ‘friend.’”

  Clear call:

  I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

  Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied.

  Masefield, Sea Fever

  FOUR

  Thousand friends

  1

  The king’s face was pinched and straw-tinted, his beard visibly grayer than it had been only a few months before. The wrists protruding from the sleeves of his heavy blue robe were as slender as a boy’s. He was restless, unable to settle, shifting from window to hearth and back, clutching his right side and keeping his jaw clenched much of the time.

  Rap sat very straight on the extreme edge of a thickly padded leather chair and felt more uncomfortable than he could have believed possible. He was the owner of the largest and most obvious pair of hands in the Powers’ creation and he did not know what to do with them. He was wearing his best, which was in truth but this better, for he possessed only two doublets and they were both too small for him. His boots were clean, after he had worked a whole hour on them, but he was sure that his Majesty would smell horse. He had shaved and scrubbed and he had plastered his shaggy brown hair down with egg white, which was what he thought his mother had used on it sometimes; but he still probably stank of the dogs who had shared his tent for the last month. Thinking of the dogs gave him an unbearable desire to scratch.

  The sky was blue beyond the windows. The wagons were rolling again and the storm had faded with the tide.

  When the king had thanked him—for that was why he had been summoned—Rap had mentioned the sunshine. His efforts had all been in vain, unnecessary. His Majesty had said that it did not matter, that it was the attempt that counted. Krasnegar should be just as grateful to him as if he had indeed staved off a famine.