“Boost?�
“Then, how will you get up on Sigmund? You look like you feel worse than I do.�
“I wouldn’t claim that distinction. Ki, I am sorry for the things that have come to pass.�
“Are you? I wish I could be. I wish I could feel anything about them.�
He caught her leg, threw her up on Sigurd’s back. She rode over to Sigmund, snagged him, and led the more docile animal back to stand on the snow beside the ice ridge. Vandien launched himself at the broad back, nearly overshot onto his face, then scrambled into position. They headed the horses around the curve of the mountain and back down the trail. The wind blew stinging ice crystals into their faces. Ki rode with her hands tucked under her thighs for warmth, letting Sigurd follow his nose.
They would have passed their supplies in the darkness but for the body of the Harpy. It stuck up, too large and angular a shape to be completely covered by the blowing snow. Ki reined in beside it, looking down without pity on the scarred features, the ruined body. For the first time, she realized how much damage the fire had done to him. Thick scar tissue stretched on his chest, and she saw that the fingers of his small forearms were curled permanently into fists.
“What kept him going?� she wondered to herself.
“Hate.� Vandien spoke from the darkness beside her. “What will keep you going now that he’s dead?�
Ki was silent for long moments. She listened to the silence of a night broken only by stirring wind, a shifting horse, Vandien’s breathing. What was left to her? She had no man or children to cherish; she had no Harpy to fear and hate; no wagon to shelter and preserve her grief in; no friends to return to. She felt peculiarly emptied. The debris of her life once more sifted through her hands. She raised her hand to a bulge that still nestled inside her shirt.
“I have my freight to deliver.�
Vandien laughed low and unpleasantly. “I wondered when it would dawn on you. It will be a surprised client that receives it! Need I recommend to you that you go armed?�
Ki gave him a peculiar look. “Armed?�
Vandien shook his head at her. “Still she trusts. Do you believe that it was fate that decided to give that Harpy another chance at you? Was it fate that sent you through this particular remote pass on a fool’s errand, with a handful of trinket gems as cargo?�
Ki’s eyes caught what little light there was. Vandien recoiled from that look. “Be careful how you speak of Rhesus!� she warned. “I have dealt with him for many years. I know him.�
“Perhaps. But I know gems,� Vandien returned coldly. “I have handled some in my time, enough to know fine from poor. And what you have in that pouch would do more credit to a tinker’s tray than to a lady’s wrist. Two are flawed, one is badly cut, and the other two of little value—not enough to be worth sending someone through this pass in a wagon.�
“He gave me a good advance against their delivery,� Ki replied stoutly.
“No doubt he could afford it if someone else was footing the bill. And would the advance seem so large if he never expected to have to pay the rest of it?�
A small doubt uncurled inside Ki. Swiftly she catalogued her dealings with Rhesus, finding a resentment here, a bitterness there. To her, their dealings had always seemed fair, the agreed-upon price had always been paid. Now she saw that, to Rhesus, that would mean that he had never made a shrewd bargain such as he liked to strike, that he had never been able to force from Ki more than he had paid for. Such a thought might rankle with a man like that. Ki’s shoulders slumped another notch. Was there any direction that treachery could not come from?
They ate salt meat in darkness, then huddled close and impersonal on the shagdeer cover, the cloaks thrown over them. Ki closed her eyes, feigning sleep. Vandien was not deceived.
“There is a fine wainwright in Firbanks.�
“I don’t go that way. I have freight to deliver in Diblun.�
Vandien sighed. “I feared you would insist. Ki, will you take the chance for that petty vengeance, and make it a frame-work for your life? And then what? After the merchant, will you find who bribed him and take another revenge? Take my advice. Don’t go to Diblun at all. Let it go, and be free of it. You owe him nothing, and the right person could sell those gems for you and get you something out of this mess.�
“I promised to deliver them. Regardless of how he has broken faith with me, I shall not break mine. And I do have questions for him. I doubt it was a Harpy, burnt and blue, that came to him and asked him to arrange my little journey. Harpies are lacking in such subtlety. To me, it smells like a Human.�
“To track down and be avenged on.� Ki did not reply. “And when that quest is settled?� Vandien left her no time to reply. “Ki, have you never considered living?�
She was quiet beside him. He knew she did not sleep. He gave it up. “My face throbs like this—beat… beat… beat… beat… beat…� Vandien counted out his pain. He began to reach a hand to his bandaged face, then stopped himself. “We have no more clean bandage material, do we?�
“I’ll see what I can find in the morning. Vandien, I have never chosen death.�
“Then you run remarkably close company with it, for entertainment, I suppose. Falling Harpies and bogged-down wagons put a certain edge on life. I have not been bored riding with you. But what of yourself? Shall you never take joy in anything again?�
“I don’t know.� They listened to the ponderous sounds of Sigmund folding his body down to the ground for the night. “Maybe. I don’t think I really want to. How could I?�
“I saw a child at a fair once who bought a little cake at one of the stalls. In the jostle of the crowd, all the sugar tumbled from its top. ‘It’s all ruined now!’ he cried, and dashed the little cake into the dirt to be trampled by the crowd.“
“A man and two children!� Ki’s voice trembled in outrage. “Not sugar on a damned sweetcake, Vandien!�
“So, by all means, dash the rest of your life into the dirt!� His anger matched her own.
“And what do you suggest?�
Ki had the last word. Vandien had no answer. They settled deeper into the coverings, huddling closer to one another. The wind did not scatter snow over them tonight. It seemed to have changed directions. There was only the cold night full of icy stars that pressed down on them, keeping their bodies curled for warmth. Ki closed her eyes.
“I could make you an offer,� Vandien ventured cautiously, almost as if he did not wish Ki to hear him. The night held its breath, listening. “I could offer to never give you anything that I didn’t give freely, with no thought of repayment, without even a thought of the giving.�
Ki was silent, sleeping perhaps. Or she had not heard him. Or she did not care to answer. Or she would not.
“And what would you ask in return, Vandien, you scrawny bit of road baggage?� he asked himself in a strained falsetto.
“Why, exactly the same from you, Ki,� he resumed in his normal voice.
Silence. The stars pressed down on the earth, and Sigurd slowly followed his teammate’s example. He placed his large body close to Sigmund’s, sharing warmth.
“Since you put it so attractively, Vandien,� the falsetto replied, “I’ll have to leap at the chance. Why don’t I travel with you to Thesus? We could horrify all your relatives, and they would probably give you twice as much money as usual to make yourself scarce.�
“Wonderful, Ki,� Vandien resumed. “I dreaded the thought of walking that far alone. We’ll leave
for Thesus first thing in the morning.�
“Go to sleep, fool,� Ki growled.
“Now, there’s a thing we both agree on,� Vandien mumbled.
Nine
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Salt meat and cold measured their days. The grays grew thin, Sigurd becoming more snappish, Sigmund more docile with privation. Ki rebandaged Vandien’s face at intervals with the remaining scraps of tunic. The slash was red across his olive skin, but it stayed closed and did not ooze or swell. The grain bags became empty too fast, but the team traveled much farther in one day than they would have pulling the wagon in two. By days, Vandien sat upon Sigmund’s wide back and wove stories for Ki on his story string. Sometimes she remembered to smile at the amusing parts, and sometimes he told them for the benefit of Sigmund’s flicking ears. At those times, Ki was busy weaving stories for herself. A dozen times she imagined her confrontation with Rhesus. She would deflate that pompous little man, and then he would admit to her who had hired him for his dirty little bit of deception. And Nils. For she was sure it had been Nils. From Nils she would demand her accounting, not only for this attempt on her own life, but also payment for Haftor’s. But there Ki’s thought soon eddied and swirled pointlessly. What could she demand of the old man as fit atonement? Was there anything she could take from him that would assuage that gnawing feeling of injustice within her? Another Ki would have been wolfish for his life. But that Ki would also have burned with a white-hot anger. The Ki that rode in front of Vandien only felt a sense of a task left incomplete. She felt a compulsion to tie up the loose ends, to put a final stamp on this series of injuries and revenges. To be done with it all.
The trail on this side of the mountains was more direct in its route. They came down through wooded country that let them kindle a fire, even though they had nothing to cook over it. Game seemed plentiful on this side, but Ki would allow Vandien no time to pursue it. She pushed on toward her goal relentlessly, counting still the days before her freight would be overdue.
There came a morning when Vandien glimpsed the rising smoke of a chimney far down their day’s path. He gave a whoop that startled both horses. Ki glared at him.
“An inn, a Human inn! It’s called Three Pheasants. Ah, tonight, Ki, we shall have a fire, and hot food, and cold beer, and beds under a roof. And what a tale I shall have to tell Micket, who runs the inn.�
Ki pulled in Sigurd slightly, to sit looking down the slope of the mountain over the tops of the snow-frosted trees. She could make out the clear white of an opening in the trees, a cleared path of ground surrounding the inn. The smoke from the inn’s chimney was a grayish haze against the pale blue sky. She nudged Sigurd on again. “We shall reach the inn after noon, but before nightfall,� she pointed out.
“With time to order up a hot tub of water and soak before we go to the common room to tell tales and eat fresh meat and drink. And these beasts will have the clean straw and fragrant hay they so richly deserve.�
Ki made a sour face at Vandien’s sybaritic tone. “I’m not in the habit of sleeping at inns, and the pass cost me more time than I had reckoned on. I have to keep on my way, Vandien.�
He heaved a sigh of resignation. “Well, at least we shall be able to take on some fresh supplies and get a kettle. Must we press on to Diblun so fast, Ki? I tell you, the man will not be glad to see you.�
“I must.� Ki accented the pronoun, glanced across at Vandien. “And you know, as I do, that our trails part soon. I will be going to Diblun. Your road to Firbanks would be in the opposite direction, if I am not mistaken. I have never been there.�
“I have no pressing business that commands me to be there by a certain day.� Vandien forced joviality into his voice. “We can settle your business first.�
“No.�
Vandien looped up his story string, put it into his pocket. Ki tried to see his face, but he turned it from her.
“You have never rebuked me,� Ki struggled, picking words. She felt the nails of her fingers digging into her palms. “You have never talked of what I owe you, never cast it up to me that your face… that there will be a scar always…“
He did not turn to her. “Part of my offer, remember? To never give you anything that I could not give freely.�
“Damn you!� Ki hissed. “Vandien, cannot you see it? It would be empty between us. I am not ready to take a man. Desire is dead in me. I cannot pretend. I would not.�
“I don’t recall offering myself to you in that capacity.� Vandien spoke quietly. “The offer was made as a friend. Nothing more.� He looked straight ahead as he rode. A rush of blood dyed Ki’s cheeks, and she was torn between anger and embarrassment.
“It was a natural assumption for me to make!� she blazed at him.
“Only if it was in your mind before I made my offer,� Vandien countered loftily.
The truth of his words silenced Ki. Damn the man! Must he always voice the words that brought her the most discomfort? His eyes were still fixed far down the trail. She was glad she did not have to meet his eyes. He raised a pale hand to his mouth to cover a cough. Ki stared fixedly between Sigurd’s ears until the noises of his choking fit could not be ignored. Then she turned stern eyes on him, to find that he was barely able to keep his seat and cover his laughter.
“Damn you!� she cried in fury, and swung at him so violently that she found herself sliding down Sigurd’s broad shoulder. Vandien’s hand under her arm, hoisting her back to her seat, was no comfort.
Ki jogged her heels against Sigurd, and he moved out ahead of Sigmund. Her back was arrow-straight as she rode on before Vandien. Her hood covered her still reddened ears.
“In case you have forgotten,� he called to her in a totally unrepentant voice, “my offer specified that I would never give you anything with any thought of repayment, or debt invoked. And that was what I asked of you in return. That you would never give me anything that you did not want to give.�
“Until you gave me a big belly, and I gave you a child, and we could each accuse the other of violating our agreement!� Ki did not look back as she spoke.
Vandien clucked his tongue. “Are you still thinking of me in that capacity? Don’t give it another thought, Ki. If I had the ability to do that to any woman, I would not be roaming the roads now. I would have inherited my parents’ lands, instead of them going to my cousin. And if I chose to roam, when I returned I would not be an embarrassment to my uncle.“
Ki shrank from the edged affability of his tone. She slowed Sigurd until his pace matched Sigmund’s and the two were abreast. She tried to meet Vandien’s eyes, but he kept them away from her face. The slender story string came out of his pocket as if by magic.
“And now,� he orated minstrel-style, “I shall tell to thee the tale of the son of the Vandet and Dienli.�
The string leaped and settled on his fingers, and he held it up for her, a sign on each of his hands. “Thus was he named, for Van the first son, and Dien also.� Ki’s unwilling eyes were drawn to the string, captured in its mesh.
“They were proud at the birth of their son,� Vandien went on, holding up the complicated star that, for his people, signified birth. “He was marked with the sign of the Hawk from his birth, and they judged it a sign of good fortune.� The string flipped and settled. But for his graven face and stony eyes, Ki could have believed that he was telling her stories with the string, showing her the remembrance keys as he went along, as he had now for days. “Vandet and Dienli celebrated their adulthood, their joining, and his birth for many days. But Dienli was to die when the child was too young to even remember the color of her eyes. (But
they tell me, Ki, they were as dark as my own.) And Vandet w,as to fall from his horse in a hunt before the boy was tall enough to pull back the string of a bow. The care of the boy passed to his uncle until the boy was old enough to prove himself a man.
“Now I digress to tell you the customs of my wondrous people: A boy becomes a man when he sires a child. A girl is a woman when she bears. And until a child is produced, the act of mating is the healthy play of normal children. No binding may occur until a child acknowledged by both is born. No child may inherit until he has supplied the next heir for the property. Now, as the lands to be inherited were large and the boy was the sole inheritor, there was much anxiety that the boy’s hands should be on the reins as soon as possible. An easy matter, to make a baby grow in a woman’s womb. But the boy’s uncle would take no chances. He would permit no young girls who might be too young to bear, or woman who had not proven her ability to reproduce. He selected instead for the boy suitable women, older women, widows whose men had died, women who had proved themselves fertile, some with children nearly as old as the boy. And he was put to them like an unproven bull put to a series of cows. At first it was done with dignity. The boy would first meet the woman, speak to her, know her a few days before it was demanded of him. He found it an awkward thing, to be bedded with women that reminded him of a mother he had never known and to know that the first to conceive by him would become his life’s partner. It made the boy’s task… difficult. As months passed, and women passed, the pace became more frantic, the uncle constantly reminding the boy of the shame he risked if his failures became known. The boy had a long string of names to pass on—it was a matter of honoring his forebears. The boy became unsure. The women the uncle could find became less tolerant, and more mocking. Until at last a woman went to the uncle and told him that she would waste no more time waiting to be studded by a young gelding.“
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