by Gayle Greeno
Tearing across the garden, the huge dog in his wake, trailed by a furiously bounding terrier, Parm dashed for the gourd trellis. Except for the few snakelike vines woven through, the space between each post appeared vacant, empty, but Parm cursed himself. He’d seen the wire fencing when they’d passed by it by. Throw himself at that and he’d come out in nice neat cubes on the other side. Minced ghatti. Gak! “Duck! Dive!” Barnaby yelped, and with no other choice before him, Parm did. The wire scraped his back but he slithered under. Wonder dog, wondrous Barnaby, percipient terrier terror! Barnaby had seen that the fencing didn’t touch the ground, bare room enough for a terrified ghatt to squeeze under!
Convinced that if the ghatt could go through, that he could as well, the black dog never checked his stride, sure another surge would let him snap at Parm’s neck. With a “ka-wang!” and a “sprong!” the dog flew backward, the staples in the fence posts groaning at the impact. Barnaby took his time to neatly trot around the end of the fencing and join Parm.
They both leaped the stone wall without turning to look back, but Parm immediately stopped on the other side. “Now tell me everything. What’s Hylan up to? What do I do to get Harrap off this drug?”
“No hurt Hylan? Help Hylan?” The terrier rolled on its back, presenting its vulnerable belly and throat to Parm. “Hylan not same since burning bush flaming, naming ... ”
“Burning bush?” Parm echoed his words.
“Witch-switch hazel,” the dog looked uncomfortable. “Witch-switch hazel naming, her taming what it names.”
Parm’s head began to ache again. Bushes that spoke, what next? Vegetation didn’t speak. “I must find Harrap, check on him. Explain to me on the way.”
Tadj moved stiffly, back stinging, throbbing. His shirt clung to the long, oozing slashes, impossible to remove if he didn’t strip it off before the blood dried. Damn Hylan for importuning him, insisting they scourge each other with those long, limber switches! But tonight, tonight, he’d had no choice but to agree. She craved proof of her worthiness to gird herself for the ceremonies tomorrow—no, today. The sun would be rising soon. A sleepless night but not a switchless one. The thought was almost enough to make him crack a smile, but he didn’t. This was serious, deadly serious, and he’d do whatever it took to have Hylan primed for the ceremony. Soon, soon, the King of Marchmont, the King of Resonants, would be dead! And Baz would applaud the part Tadj had played in accomplishing that feat. He tossed the well-worn switches on top of the goat cart, stretched, wished he hadn’t.
Hylan, looking the same as always except for a blissful smile, peered under the cart. It was then that Tadj abruptly recognized the sawing, rasping undercurrent that punctuated his thoughts, Harrap’s stertorous breathing. Hylan shook the Shepherd’s shoulder, “Harrap, Harrap? Are you all right?” She shook harder, pushed at him, and a ripple coursed through his body, his flesh jiggling with her efforts, not from his response to her. “Harrap?” A genuine tenderness and distress enveloped that one tremulous word.
The next thing Tadj knew she’d sunk her fingers into the front of his heavy brocade overvest, practically lifting him off the ground. “Did you give him any at supper?” Her face pressed close to his, her matte gray eyes pebble hard, smile long gone.
“Yes, of course.” He hated it, the vest’s pull under his arms, dragging against the long, cross-hatched slashes on his back. Hated, most of all, the sensation of losing control and he didn’t know how or why. “You were busy speaking with—”
“I’d already given him some, he was too eager to wait any longer for supper.” She let go as if the feel of him sullied her, and Tadj unruffled himself, pulled the overvest down, wincing, wondering why the ground had fallen out from under him.
“Oh.” He wasn’t sure what else to say and she appeared to be ignoring him, all her energy and effort concentrated on Harrap, hand on his brow.
Abstracted, she tried to explain, “The doses have to be smaller now, they have a cumulative effect on the system.” The dangerous flat look in her eyes had abated slightly. “You wouldn’t have known, but you should have asked before—”
The dawning broke rapidly, both in the sky and in Tadj’s mind. “Oh, Blessed Lady, what about the ceremony?” he gasped as the full magnitude of his innocent act sank in. They needed Harrap, more accurately, Hylan needed and wanted him for the ceremony tonight. Fouled up, he’d fouled up, one little, unthinking act and he’d jeopardized everything he and Baz—not to mention Hylan—had worked so hard to achieve. She should scourge him for that, just as the sailors had beaten him for admiring their beauty. Not a creator but a destroyer, destroying the rigorously pure, simple beauty of the plan!
“He’s cold as death,” Hylan rubbed Harrap’s hand between her own.
How could they recover from his foolish slip, a minor error with such major consequences? What could he do to make it right? “Let’s take him to my tent, strip him, rub him down, pile blankets over him. Will it help, will sleeping it off help?” He’d wrap Harrap in his arms, warm his body with his own if it would help. Would Hylan go ahead with the ceremony if Harrap weren’t a part of it?
Hylan rubbed her lower lip across her teeth, dubious. “He’s going to be impossible to move. He’s a mountain of a man, Tadj. Even between us, I doubt we can manage. He’s dead weight.”
He closed his ears to the word “dead,” frantically unlacing the canvas from the top of the cart, exposing the precious saplings. Hylan winced at their vulnerable slimness, so like her switches but not yet as strong. She’d plant one here at Ruysdael, protect them. “If we roll him onto the canvas, we can drag him there,” he assured her, wished for assurance himself. He’d drag a chain of anvils behind him if it would make things right. If the loss of Harrap made her doubt herself, he was doomed.
They worked, desperate not to disturb the sleeping faithful camped around them, finally reached Tadj’s tidy little tent. Breath coming in gasps, Tadj decided it would have been easier to move Harrap just enough and then dismantle the tent, pitch it over him. Next time he’d know. Not that there’d ever be a next time, never again. Hylan was busy stripping off Harrap’s robe, rubbing him down. “See that his robe’s washed, Tadj. It’s filthy.”
He nodded humbly, bundled it under his arm, nose crinkling at the smell, not just sweat and dirt but somehow the scent of Hylan’s seasoning had permeated it as well. “I’ll find someone.” Easy enough to do, any of the faithful would be honored by even such a menial task as this. “Does that mean you think he’ll recover for the ceremony?” If she didn’t have her sacrifice, he wasn’t sure what would happen.
“The Lady will provide.” Her voice was clear and confident. Her response thrilled him, showed that all his work, his delicate insinuations about invoking the Lady’s name in the ceremony hadn’t been in vain. “The Lady will provide, I always have and I always will. Only I can shoulder the burden.”
He froze, tried to decipher what she meant. It sounded askew. Had she taken to heart Harrap’s drugged belief that she, Hylan, exemplified the Lady here in the world? He slowly exhaled, breath hissing between his teeth, inhaled. Did it matter? If not Harrap, then, most likely she’d provide her own sacrificial lambs. Just so long as it wasn’t him!
“Have you seen Barnaby?” Her shift to the prosaic startled him, made him realize the terrier was nowhere around, nor the ghatt. He started to mention it but was cut off. “He’ll be back. He always runs and hides when I get out the switches.”
The summer in Roermond proved a godsend for Matty and Kharm, the community’s quiet toleration of his difference a marvel, and the growing rapport with Jaak and Tah’m something sorely desired after so long a solitude. Yet with the harvest gathered, wanderlust compelled Matty to move on, try another town. Though he hated to admit it, he feared wearing out his welcome, that somehow one day the scales would drop from Roermonder eyes and they’d see him and Kharm for what they truly were.
“But they already see us for what we are, and they don’t min
d.” As far as Kharm was concerned, facts were the first cousins of truth.
Indecisive, he stood admiring the valley that held Roermond and felt as if he relinquished a second home. “This isn’t the real world here, it can’t be. If it were, it would have seduced me long ago.” What drove him onward like this? Restless, yearning both to be on his way and to stay, Kharm’s swaying tail alerted him to her own inner questions. “Do you really want to go?” Any excuse and he’d seize it.
“Wherever you go I’ll follow, unless you’d like me to lead the way?” Then why was the ghatta starting back down the path? Was she leading him back to Roermond? “Company. Whatever you’re seeking, we’ll find it together.” And with that, that black imp of a ghatten, Tah’m, popped up the path, bounding almost like a rolapin. Kharm still outweighed him, although he’d grown nearly as large as she. With a chirrup of glee, he piled on top of her, wrestling her to the ground with mock growls and nips to the neck and throat.
“Come on, come on!” a voice boomed around the curve of the trail. “Stop brooding like a lover who’s lost his lass. Start looking and you’ll find one even more fair.” Basket pack on his back, Jaak toiled into view. “Besides, I don’t see why you and Kharm should be so selfish about sharing adventures. Roermond’s in my heart, but no reason I can’t experience other places before I formally declare my love. Which direction shall we head?”
Matty slapped his shoulder, unable to say anything. A compatriot, a companion, almost a brother. Come to think of it, a rather absurd looking brother, the basket pack tumpline creasing his forehead, making his thin hair stick up in clumps, his neck muscles bulging. Like Matty, he exuded a slight lanolin scent, courtesy of his new sheepskin poncho. But the greatest surprise, the most dramatic change was that Jaak now sported earrings, a gold ball on a post in his right ear and a hoop in his left. “How handsome,” a fleeting envy flooded Kharm. “Look how they contrast with his black fur.”
“Huh?” He swiveled toward Tah’m, high spirits momentarily quelled, coat dusty from Kharm’s drubbing. The ghatt sported earrings as well. “Didn’t it hurt, Jaak? Didn’t Tah’m mind? And why?”
Backing against a boulder so he could rest his pack, Jaak eased a thumb under the tumpline. “Struck me as a good idea. Traveling like this, strangers have no idea that Tah’m and Kharm are allied with us, that they belong with us. If they see a larchcat, of course they’ll think it’s a wild beast, possibly try to kill it. Figured if they saw earrings on an animal, they’d think twice. The matching pairs show we belong to each other.” Tah’m generated deep, rumbling purrs of agreement. If he grew to match his purr, he’d be a very large ghatt.
“Oh, yes, big and clever and handsome.” A certain proprietary tone to Kharm’s mindspeech, and Matty wondered just how the ghatta viewed Tah’m. Ghatten he might now be, but not ghatten forever. “I don’t suppose we could have earrings, too?” she wheedled, broadening her ’speech to include Jaak.
He spoke aloud for Jaak’s benefit. “Kharm, Jaak’s a friend, but it’s not polite to root in his mind without permission. Isn’t it enough that Tah’m’s gamboling around in there?” Kharm looked only slightly abashed and Jaak more than a little amused. “Well? I wouldn’t enter another’s house without knocking, even a good friend’s house. Everyone deserves a certain amount of privacy until you’re sure you’re wanted. If Jaak wants to ask you into his mind, he will.”
“Jaak doesn’t mind, do you?”
Jaak’s twinkling eyes gave the lie to the solemn expression he’d pasted on his face with such care. “Well, sometimes it does get a little crowded with both you and Tah’m inside together,” he allowed, “but then, I’ve enaugh brothers and sisters that I’m used to it.” An almost imperceptible headshake from Matty reminded Jaak that discipline wasn’t one of his strongest suits.
“How about if ...” Matty paused for effect, appeared to consider, “... if Jaak invites you to ‘speak? If we settle on a phrase that we always use so you know you’re welcome? And the same applies to me inviting Tah’m.” A staccato handclap denoted inspiration. “How about ... ‘Mindwalk if ye will’? Moments of privacy are as important as sharing.”
“Except for Jaak I don’t talk to other humans! I already promised because you said it upsets them. Not unless it’s an emergency. Sometimes I prowl inside their minds, but I never ’speak them.” Wavering between self-righteousness and sullenness, Kharm dipped her head for a peremptory lick at her chest to indicate submission without actually saying so. Gold earrings dancing, Tah’m nosed her, fretful at her discomfort.
“Mindwalk if ye will,” Jaak squatted and scratched her ears.
Pushing her head into his hand she rubbed against his thumb, nibbled on a finger. “Can you convince Matty we need earrings?”
“Better than that. I brought a set for you both.” Pinching a velvet-petaled ear he warned, “But it does hurt. Ask Tah’m.”
Chin high, Tah’m swiveled his ears to indicate disdain. “Bee sting. I am Tah’m, bravest of ghatts. I’ll lick the pain away.”
Rising, Jaak dusted the knees of his pantaloons. “Well, that’s settled, Matty. Assuming you trust me with the piercing at some point along the way?”
“Some point?” Matty fingered his own earlobes, suppressed a shudder. “Ouch!” The thought of a needle piercing through his flesh left him faint and dizzy.
“Coward, are you?” Jack mocked, already starting up the trail, the ghatti bounding ahead, assuming the lead, their dust plumes sifting down at him. “But where are we going?” he implored the receding backs. “I hadn’t decided yet myself.”
“Hadn’t you?” Jaak swung around, the basket’s weight swinging him even further. “I saw how you looked any time Manuel Vandersma’s name was mentioned in passing. You never asked any questions, but your ears practically flapped. That’s why we have to pin them down. He’s in Alkmaar, so, of course, that’s where we’re going.”
Matty hurried, paired his stride with Jaak’s. “I don’t understand what he’s doing there. Whatever it is, though, everyone utters his name with a certain respect.” How to admit that respect and Manuel Vandersma seldom went hand-in-hand. Did he want to find the father he knew, the passive, indecisive wastrel? Or this alien new person his father had become? Known or unknown? Which to choose. “We don’t have to go there,” he emphasized. “No reason he should know me, probably’ll barely remember me.”
Jaak puffed along, neck muscles straining as Tah’m dove off a boulder and landed in the basket pack, a surprise delivery of nearly ten extra kilos. “Did it ever occur to you that word travels in all directions? That if you’ve recently heard about him he may have heard about you?”
With a noncommittal grunt, Matty continued. And so they traveled together, winding up and down the increasingly steep trails tracing the foothills of the Tetonords, the mountains majestically rearing purple at their backs as they swung southwest.
By the seventh day Matty found himself almost unable to speak, racked with apprehension the closer they came to Alkmaar. Odd, at last he had mates, Jaak and Tah’m, who accepted him and Kharm for what they were, and he couldn’t exchange a word with them, explain what bothered him. Or tell Kharm for that matter. Instead he studied the rise and fall of his feet, thoughts pinwheeling and crashing. He didn’t need a father; he had Granther, and a better father he’d been to Matty than his own. That was the truth, plain and simple.
As they spied the village of Alkmaar poking out of the mountainside like a mushroom, Kharm finally interrupted his churning thoughts. “Must I wait for you to say ‘Mindwalk if ye will’? I’m lonely.” She planted herself in his path, an immovable fur-covered stone. “If you step around and don’t speak, I’ll scratch.”
“Sorry, beloved. ” He ordered his tired feet to halt, forced himself to see her—was struck anew, overwhelmed, admiring the exquisite stripes, the green eyes with a hint of gold today, devouring him with their fierce devotion. His alone, no one else’s. “I’ve had thinking to do. Didn’t mean
to exclude you. Guess I assumed you followed along inside, even if you didn’t ’speak much. ”
“You didn’t leave me any room to ’speak. Besides, you untangle truths pretty well yourself.” A lightning paw cast a pebble at him, Tah’m chasing after it as if it were alive. “You’re slow—but thorough. There’s something you should know. Your father, Manuel, is up there, waiting. I don’t know how he knows, but he does, I can feel it. He’s happy you’re coming.”
His throat hurt when he swallowed, but the pain in his chest marginally eased. “I guess I am, too. ” Turning, he discovered Jaak and Tah’m had paused behind him, patient. “Jaak, would you mind if I went up alone?”
“Not alone! With me!” Kharm protested.
“I think of us as one, ” he reassured before calling back, “You could camp here for the night, join us in the morning.”
Jaak laughed, shrugged out of his pack. The tumpline had creased his brow—not to mention leaving an untanned white strip. “Another forlorn night without an ale? Surely I’ll perish.” He caught up with Matty, hefted the backpack off his friend’s shoulders. “You’ll range ahead faster without it. Besides, you’ve got the cheese. Scoot along, then, both of you. Happy reunion.”
Moments later, unencumbered, relieved at the loss of one burden—physical, if not mental—he and Kharm negotiated the steep trail leading to Alkmaar. Mineshaft openings dotted the landscape, and terraced, level spots grew greenly vigorous, marching up the slant of a wide valley where sheep and goats grazed, distant specks below him.