Luck of the Wheels

by Megan Lindholm

  ‘Wherever you wish,’ Ki replied politely. She would not rise to the girl’s avoidance of the word ‘sleep’.

  ‘Where’s Goat going to sleep?’ she demanded next.

  Ki sighed. ‘I hadn’t thought about it. By the fire, I suppose.’

  ‘Then I’ll sleep in the wagon.’

  ‘Vandien and I usually sleep in the wagon,’ Ki pointed out. She could feel her control slip and wondered with a sudden anger just where the hell Vandien was. Let him come back and manage his wonderfully charming young girl.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Willow said smoothly.

  ‘Did you ever consider that I might?’ Ki asked, dropping all pretense of civility.

  ‘No. I didn’t. You couldn’t possibly expect me to sleep near Goat, even if he weren’t … what he is. Among my people that isn’t done,’ she added primly.

  Ki closed her eyes for an instant, got a grip on her rising anger. ‘I see.’ She gave a sigh, tried to breathe her irritation away. ‘Then why don’t you sleep in the wagon, and Vandien and I will sleep outside? That should keep everyone’s propriety intact.’

  ‘Near Goat? You’re going to sleep near Goat?’ The distaste in the girl’s voice was not feigned. For whatever reason she disliked Goat, it was not a pretense.

  ‘Vandien will protect my virtue,’ Ki assured her with heavy sarcasm, but the girl considered her words gravely. Her eyes were wide as she met Ki’s gaze.

  ‘I do not think even he could protect you from one such as Goat. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather sleep in the wagon also?’

  ‘Quite sure,’ Ki assured her. Willow’s eyes darted to a rustling in the thicket that presaged Vandien and Goat’s return.

  ‘I’m going to bed now. Good night. And take care!’

  The last she whispered as she turned and fled to the shelter of the wagon.

  When Goat and Vandien appeared, their arms were laden with dead branches for firewood. Ki nodded her approval. Already the night was cool, denying the heat of the day. ‘Where’s Willow?’ Goat demanded of her.

  ‘Gone to bed,’ Ki told him smoothly. ‘As we all should, if we are to get an early start tomorrow.’

  ‘Where?’ he repeated.

  ‘Where what?’ she asked, feigning puzzlement.

  ‘Where is Willow sleeping?’ Goat demanded. Vandien winced at the boy’s unconcealed interest.

  ‘In the wagon.’ Ki kept her voice unconcerned. ‘Where the night insects will not bother her.’

  ‘We’re all going to sleep in the wagon?’ Goat asked eagerly. Without waiting for an answer, he started toward the steps.

  ‘No, it would be far too crowded and stuffy. Ki and I will sleep under the wagon, and you can sleep by the fire.’

  ‘But …’ Goat began, and then caught Vandien’s look. Ki could not imagine what he had said to the boy, but Goat suddenly closed his lips. He kept his words in check, but not the sulky look that claimed his face. Snatching up a good portion of the scattered quilts and blankets, he began to make up a bed by the fire.

  Vandien refused to acknowledge his pique. ‘Good night, Goat,’ he told the boy affably. He gathered the remaining quilts and cushions and made up their bed beneath the wagon while Ki belatedly washed the road dust from her face and smoothed her tangled hair. He was already settled when she came to join him.

  ‘Why under the wagon instead of next to the fire?’ she demanded as she crawled in beside him. She knew the answer, and he knew it, but he spoke anyway. His voice was sleepy. ‘Feeling of shelter, keeps the rain off. And makes it harder for anyone to attack while we’re sleeping.’

  ‘Like sleeping in a coffin,’ Ki grumbled. She dragged off her boots, blouse and trousers so that she was clad in loose cotton drawers and chemise. Shivering, she burrowed into the quilts and settled against Vandien. He was warm. She curled her body around his, her belly to his back. She could smell his hair and the warm skin of his neck.

  ‘These children,’ he said softly, ‘make me feel old.’

  ‘Um,’ Ki agreed. She kissed the nape of his neck experimentally.

  He sighed. ‘Very old. Ki, did you hear me earlier? Dictating, chastising, directing, warning. I sounded just like my uncle when I was a child.’

  ‘Your guardian?’ she asked. With the tip of one finger, she wrote her name on the warm skin of his back.

  ‘Yes. He was always directing me, never letting me do anything on my own. Not even choose which women I’d bed.’ Vandien’s voice trailed off as his mind went back to those painful times, to his futile efforts to sire an heir for his line. He moved slightly apart from Ki, and she, knowing his old pain, let him. He wouldn’t want to be touched just now. Damn. Well, that’s how it was, then. She closed her eyes, sought sleep. ‘I’d hate to think I had grown to be just like him,’ Vandien said suddenly. ‘Ki, did you hear what Willow said earlier? That she didn’t think any one as old as I am could understand why she’d run away to her lover? Do I look that old to you? Old enough to be her father?’

  ‘Depends on how young you started,’ Ki replied sleepily. Then, ‘Sorry. Not to me, Vandien. Only to someone as young as Willow.’

  He rolled onto his back and stared up at the bottom of the wagon. ‘How old do I look to you?’ he asked quietly.

  The weariness of the day had suddenly found Ki. ‘I don’t know,’ she sighed. She opened her eyes a slit, stared at him. He was serious. Traces of lines at the corners of his mouth. A few hints of grey in the dark curls, mostly from old scars. Weathered skin that was more the work of sun and wind than years. She thought, as she had the first time she saw him, that it was not a bad way for a man to look. She’d rather die than tell him that. ‘Old enough to be smarter than you act most of the time. Young enough to worry about foolish things.’

  ‘Mph.’ He rolled to face her, dragging her covers away. ‘That’s not a very satisfactory answer.’

  She tugged at the covers, opened her eyes. His face was inches from her own, his hand on the curve of her waist. ‘Not a satisfactory answer?’

  He shook his head, the curve of his smile beneath his moustache barely visible in the dwindling light from the fire.

  ‘Then let me put it another way.’ She seized the curls at the nape of his neck and pulled his face to hers.

  FOUR

  In the coolness before dawn, Ki’s strangely vivid dreams broke and dragged against her like cobwebs. Gently she drew away from Vandien and pulled on her clothes. The camp was silent; Gotheris slumbered deeply by the dead ashes of the fire, his arms flung wide in sleep. Ki took the kettle and water bucket and headed for the spring. She considered waking Vandien to share the quiet with her but decided against it. She needed this solitude; the rest of the day would offer her little enough.

  On her way back to camp she passed Vandien. His hair was tousled, his eyes vague with sleep. He greeted her silently and moved on toward the spring. In camp, she found a few embers buried in the ash and coaxed them into blossom. She set the dripping kettle atop the small fire and mounted the wagon step.

  The door was jammed. She tugged at it futilely several times before she realized that Willow had latched it. Suddenly irritated that anyone could lock her out of her own wagon, she pounded on the door. There was no response. ‘Willow!’ she shouted. ‘Unlock this door!’ Goat rolled over and opened his eyes.

  There was a muffled reply, but Ki fumed on the step for several moments longer before a yawning Willow slid the door open. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked sleepily.

  ‘Why didn’t you open the door?’ Ki demanded, pushing in past her. ‘And why was it locked at all?’

  ‘I wasn’t dressed.’ Willow sat down on the tousled bedding. ‘And you know why I locked it. Because he’s out there.’

  Ki glared at the girl, who sulked back at her. The silence was thick as Ki shrugged into a fresh tunic. Ki gathered up travelling bread and cheese from the food bins. Willow was still pouting on the bed when Ki left the wagon. The door slammed and latched behind her. Almost she tu
rned back; but she set her teeth and let it pass. Foolish, to make a fuss over a latched door. But she hated its assumption, that the wagon space was Willow’s, and Ki could be locked out of it. Forget it. Ki made a conscious effort to loosen the muscles in her shoulders and set her irritation aside.

  She set the bread and cheese on a wooden platter from the dish-chest, and had just found the tea when an arm fell across her shoulders. ‘I’m hungry!’ Gotheris announced in her ear. The sack of tea leaped from her hand as she startled.

  ‘You spilled it all over!’ he exclaimed, pushing forward to gaze at the wrinkled balls of leaves and herbs littered across the jumbled dishes.

  Ki’s hands were fists at her sides. She spoke each word separately. ‘Don’t creep up behind me and grab me like that.’

  ‘I didn’t!’ Goat protested. ‘I only …’

  A thudding of many hooves interrupted him. Ki held up a hand for silence while her eyes grew wide. Stepping around the tail of the wagon, she stared up the long flat road. Her heart leaped painfully, then began to hammer in her chest so that she could hear nothing else. Rousters.

  There were six – no, seven – Brurjans, and two stout, ugly Humans, all mounted on great black horses with scarlet hooves. She gripped the corner of her wagon, watching them come, knowing there was no place to flee to, no place to hide. Childhood memories flooded her mind, of wagons set ablaze in the dark night, of Romni women fleeing with their children caught up in their arms, of men struck down by flying hooves as they stood, not in hopes of defending their lives, but only to buy their families time to escape. Rousters, come by nightfall or in the bright day, to put the Romni trash on the road again, to steal their bits of things and drive them away.

  The Brurjans rode high and catlike on their peculiar saddles. Their huge jaws were wide with their hissing laughter, and their myriad pointed teeth flashed in the new sun that stroked their glossy hides. Their quilled crests were high. They did not pull up as they approached the camp, but rode full tilt into it, great hooves tramping Goat’s bedding and the small fire, and sending the hissing kettle flying. Vandien emerged from the trees, a strangely small figure before the tall horses with their massive riders. The riders milled through the camp. Ki could not speak. Goat was plastered up against the wagon, his eyes wide, his mouth hanging open. The world tilted around Ki. One of the Humans rode close to her, sneered down at her disdainfully. Let Willow remain silent within the wagon, she begged the Moon. Her beauty was too fresh for one such as that to resist bruising.

  One of the Brurjans snarled something, and the sea of rousters and horses was suddenly still. All eyes went to him, a great black-pelted creature with deep-set black eyes. His battle harness was scarlet and black leather, broken by threads of silver. A red cloak spilled down his furred back. His black-nailed hands gripped his mount’s reins lightly. His horse had wicked eyes, and its ears were tilted back toward its master, waiting for a command to lash out with hooves or teeth.

  Like a stray cat strolling insolently into a strange butcher shop came Vandien. He slipped between two great horses fully as large as plow beasts, unmindful of their restive scarlet hooves. Ki wondered what magic kept him safe as he moved boldly through the rousters to confront their leader. He took up his stance, arms crossed on his chest, slightly to the left of the horse’s head. He looked up, raising his chin as he struck eyes with the Brurjan. His brow was unlined as he said, ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Is it?’ the Brurjan asked with callous humor. His Common was thickly accented.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Vandien asked calmly. Ki winced. Three Vandiens rolled together might make up the bulk of one of the Brurjans. His rapier, she realized belatedly, was in its sheath on a hook in the wagon. The Brurjan stared down at him.

  ‘You Romni?’ one of the Human rousters suddenly demanded.

  For a second Vandien didn’t move. His gaze remained locked with the leader’s. He didn’t even turn to the Human as he asked contemptuously, ‘Do I look Romni?’ Vandien paused, then asked the leader coldly, ‘Did you want something of us?’

  The Human broke in. ‘They aren’t the ones we want, but it don’t mean we shouldn’t shake them down. Woman there looks Romni, Allikata. I’ve seen her kind before, up North. Duke doesn’t want Romni coming into his holdings.’

  The leader’s eyes flickered briefly to his man. Then he stared at Ki as he asked Vandien, ‘Papers?’

  ‘Ki. Fetch the papers.’ Vandien didn’t look at her, didn’t move from where he stood.

  Ki turned to the wagon, stepped up on the step and tugged at the door. It jarred against the latch. A trickle of icy sweat ran down Ki’s ribs. If Willow would unlatch it, she could step in, grab the papers, and step out without the rousters even knowing Willow existed. But if she didn’t open the door … Ki rattled the door against the lock softly, hoping the girl would unlatch it. There was no sound from within the wagon.

  ‘While you’re here, can you tell us if the road is good as far as Villena? We’re taking our boy to visit kin there. We’d heard rumors of thieves, but then someone said the Duke’s roadguard had cleared them out. That would be you, wouldn’t it?’

  Vandien was speaking more rapidly than he usually did, trying to keep their attention away from Ki. It wasn’t working. Ki could feel the silence as the rousters stared at her.

  ‘Fine tack,’ Vandien observed. ‘Good leather like that’s hard to come by.’ Reaching up, he took a sudden grip on the bridle of Allikata’s horse. Ki gasped, knowing as well as he did what would happen. The battle-horse screamed angrily, struck out with front hooves and teeth. All eyes jerked to Vandien as the great beast lifted him clear of the ground and with a shake flung him aside. He landed, rolling, near another horse, which immediately struck out at him. She knew why he had done it, and didn’t waste his dare. Ki turned her back on him, and with a muscle-ripping wrench tore the door open.

  She pushed past the dangling hook and snatched up a roll of papers from a shelf. Of Willow the only sign was a slipper peeping out from beneath an untidy heap of bedclothes. Someone cursed loudly in Brurjan, and a Human laughed sadistically. Ki leaped from the wagon, the papers held aloft. ‘Here they are!’ she called loudly, and strode between the dancing horses of the two nearest rousters.

  Vandien got up slowly, one arm wrapping his ribs. As Ki approached he slowly folded his arms across his chest. She didn’t look at him, but walked straight up to Allikata and thrust the papers up at him. He unrolled them carelessly, glanced at them, and tossed them back. ‘It says two travelling. There’s three of you.’

  Ki opened her mouth, but Goat answered, his voice cracking with excitment. ‘Maybe. But there must be twenty-five of those filthy Tamshin in the caravan that passed us yesterday. They’re who you’re supposed to be after. For those horses! I bet those horses were stolen! I knew that big roan stallion was too fine a beast to belong to Tamshin!’

  ‘The white mares!’ A Brurjan suddenly demanded gutturally. ‘They still had the white mares?’

  ‘Yes!’ Goat answered happily. ‘They passed us just before dusk. They couldn’t be far away; maybe at a place with more water, and trees for shade.’ Goat’s face had taken on a dreamy expression, as if he could see the place he was describing. The faces of the patrol lit up evilly. Vandien looked ill.

  ‘No, Goat, you’re mistaken. The Tamshin passed us before noon, moving north and fast. They are long gone by now. The wine merchants passed us just before nightfall.’

  Ki’s voice rang clear, but no one turned to it. Allikata only laughed, a short fierce sound. His tongue was red behind his white teeth.

  ‘If we hurry, they’ll just be rousing from sleep,’ a Human added appreciatively. Allikata gave a shout, and the horses wheeled suddenly and left the camp at a gallop. One rider’s boot caught Ki’s shoulder as he passed, shoving her nearly into the path of another horse. Then they were gone, the thunder of their hooves fading, and only the trampled camp to show that they had been there at all.

  She
scrabbled to her feet. In two steps she was beside Vandien. ‘That was stupid,’ she said tersely.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he gasped. He let his arms hang at his sides and she tugged his shirt free of his belt, to lift it carefully. He flinched as her fingers gently prodded. ‘Bruised,’ she said in a tight voice. ‘Maybe cracked, but not broken.’

  ‘Same ones,’ he said, trying to make his voice light, but she could hear the effort it took for him to speak. ‘And that was a Brurjan, too. You remember that tavern in Silva?’

  ‘Where I had to pay for the hole in the wall?’ Ki asked.

  ‘Yes. Guess I just don’t make a good impression with Brurjans.’

  ‘No. You should stick to walls. You made a hell of an impression on that one.’

  He made a vague effort to tuck in his shirt, then gave it up with a twisted smile. Ki touched his face, and when he lifted his eyes to hers, she kissed him softly. He caught her hand.

  ‘That’s twice,’ he said, his voice still breathy with pain. ‘Twice in two days that you’ve kissed me. I remember a time when if you kissed me twice in a month, it was remarkable.’

  Ki shook her head at him silently, finding no words for her thoughts.

  ‘What about me?’ Goat demanded suddenly. ‘Isn’t anyone going to thank me? If I hadn’t sent them after those Tamshin, they’d have wrecked this place. And probably killed Vandien and raped you and Willow.’

  Ki rounded on him. ‘And what do you think they’ll do to the Tamshin? What you did was cold and disgusting.’ She choked into silence, unable to speak her anger.

  Vandien’s eyes were hard and black as he stared at the boy. ‘We were handling it fine, until you stepped in. If there’s ever a next time, you remember that Ki and I handle things, while you keep silent and unobtrusive. Understand me, boy?’

  There was a whip’s edge to his final question. Goat both flinched and bristled. ‘Oh, yes,’ he spat bitterly. ‘I’ll remember. I’ll keep silent and unobtrusive while they kick the snot out of you, I will, and with pleasure, and when they …’