by Jenny Ealey
Tarkyn laughed, “I think the mountain air must be good for your brains. You are a fine pair of thinkers.”
“Thank you, my lord,” said Bean, smiling. “We do have a lot of time to practise, you know. I think that helps.”
Tarkyn glanced at Danton. “Enough, I think,” he murmured quietly.
Without a word, Danton extinguished his shield.
“And you were saying about my friends?” continued Tarkyn pleasantly.
This time the look that passed between Bean and String was quite blatant. After some hesitation, Bean said, “I like your clothes. They’re good for camouflage, aren’t they?”
“Yes, they are,” replied Tarkyn steadily, his eyes never leaving Bean’s face.
“Do you know,” said String conversationally, “I have never been able to find a shop that sells clothes exactly like that.”
Danton smiled patronisingly, “But then, you have never been to Tormadell, have you?”
Bean raised his eyebrows, “You know, String, that’s a very good point. I bet there are shops everywhere in Tormadell selling clothes like that. I understand muted brown tones are all the rage at court.”
“No, actually they are not,” replied Danton without missing a beat. “These are more for your country wear.”
Bean smiled at String, “You have to give it to him; he’s good.”
Tarkyn smiled appreciatively, “Yes, he is, isn’t he?”
Bean and String’s attention returned to the rabbits for a few minutes. They pushed each rabbit towards its own end of the long stick. Bean then cut the long stick in half while String held the two cool ends. Once he had lowered the hotter ends onto the plate and they were sure String had a firm grip, Bean wrapped a rather grubby rag around the other hotter end of one stick to hold it and then cut the stick in half again, leaving half a rabbit on each section. He handed the skewered meat over to Tarkyn and Danton before repeating the process with the other rabbit.
Once they were settled with their food, Tarkyn said, “You know, I would be very careful, if I were you, about jumping to any conclusions. Sometimes it can be quite unhealthy to know or see too much.”
Bean and String glanced at each other. With a mouth full of rabbit, Bean mumbled to his friend, “We should have shut up. We go all these years without breathing a word. Bloody curiosity. That’s the trouble.”
“And why has curiosity not led to you into a discussion with other sorcerers before now?” asked Tarkyn.
“You know, Your Highness,” replied Bean, pausing to spit a piece of bone into the fire, “I think my answer to that might require me to jump to one of those conclusions you were talking about. So if you don’t mind, I won’t answer.”
“Personally,” said Danton, entering the conversation for the first time in a long while, “I think this has gone too far already to be allowed to drop.”
“And how do you propose to resolve it without placing these two gentlemen in danger?”
Danton shrugged, “They are already in danger. It is more whether we can bring them through safely without compromising ourselves.”
Bean and String looked at each other and rolled their eyes, “Oh shit!” exclaimed Bean.
“I agree,” said String fervently.
“My friend Danton is right, I’m afraid.” Tarkyn leant forward and tossed the remains of his rabbit on the fire. He sighed, “In all conscience, I cannot let you walk out of here until I know what you know.”
“Blast it! Blast it! Blast it!” exclaimed String, suddenly working himself up into frenzy. “We’re stuffed now. We should never have come in here. He’s going to kill us. They always do. Why were we so stupid? Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!”
Bean thumped his friend on the back, “Stop it! Calm down. We’re not dead yet. We’ve thought our way out of tight corners before. Just settle down.” Bean rolled his eyes at the prince. “Sorry about this. He’s a bit of a panic merchant at times.”
“String, look at me,” Tarkyn’s voice was firm and sure, and cut across the tall man’s panic. “I have no wish to kill you nor to see you die.” He gave a slight smile, “That would be poor thanks for such a tasty lunch. But I very much fear it is already out of my hands.”
String stared at the prince and gulped, “If they know we know, we’re dead. We’ve seen it before, you know.”
“Who are they that you fear?” asked Tarkyn.
Bean narrowed his eyes, “If you don’t know, I’m not about to tell you.” He hesitated, and added as an afterthought, “begging your pardon, my lord.”
Tarkyn glanced at his liegeman, “Danton, we seem to be at an impasse.”
“Tricky. We are under oath, and these men are in fear of their lives.”
Bean’s eyes narrowed. “How can you be under oath? Why have they not killed you?”
“Who?” asked Danton.
“Oh, the bloody woodfolk of course. You know who we’re talking about.” The stockier trapper hunched his grubby furs around himself, “I can’t be bothered with all these shenanigans. You obviously know about them and for some reason, are immune. We, of course, are not.” He glanced at his companion who was gobbling at him and said impatiently, “Oh stop it, String. These men aren’t woodfolk themselves. With any luck, they won’t feel the necessity to kill us.”
Tarkyn grimaced, “You are not quite right in your conjecture there. You are right about Danton but I’m afraid I am, in fact, woodfolk.”
Bean stared at him in astonishment, “Well, shave my head and call me boulder! That’s amazing. I’ve never seen any woodfolk before who didn’t have light brown hair and green eyes.” He nudged String and added quietly, “I think now might be a good time to panic, if you’re going to. We are well and truly stuffed.”
Chapter 38
Tarkyn couldn’t help smiling, “Bean, why don’t you come straight out with it and tell us what you know. Then we’ll work out what to do about it.”
Bean glanced at his friend then took a deep breath and turned resolutely to the prince. “We’ve been up in these mountains on and off for the last forty years. What we don’t know about these mountains isn’t worth knowing. They’re good, these woodfolk. They’re fast and vigilant and they have some trick of blending in that is beyond the ability of wizards and sorcerers. It’s not that we’re quicker or cleverer than they are. It’s just that we have been around so long that sooner or later they were going to be caught out by us.” He paused, “String, stop looking like a scared rabbit. Get the billy out and make us some tea.” He gave a wry smile, “After all, it might be our last cup.”
Tarkyn frowned a little, “If you are so certain we are going to kill you, why are you not planning to try to escape?”
“How do you know we’re not?”
The prince shrugged, “You don’t feel strung up in the way a person does before action. You’re worried, String more so than you, but you’re not tensed up, waiting your chance.”
Bean shook his head, “You’re right. I’m not planning any heroics. We’ve been around a long time. We’ve been in worse situations than this and come through. Besides, your mates are all around us outside. If we rushed out of here, we’d be dead before we made the cover of the first tree.”
String steadfastly concentrated on untying a battered old tin can from the side of his pack. When he had it free, he carried it to the mouth of the cave and held it out in the rain to fill it. Tarkyn thought this was likely to keep him occupied for quite some time.
“Did you see them?” asked Tarkyn.
String nodded unhappily from the doorway, “More or less. We just saw a blur of movement but we knew what it was. Most people wouldn’t have even noticed.”
Tarkyn considered. “Perhaps we should invite them back in, since you know they are here anyway. What do you think?”
A look passed between String and Bean. Then Bean shrugged. “Yeah. Why not? Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. If we’re going to die for knowing about them anyway, at least we could meet
them. I have always wanted to but …. Well, too dangerous, as you know.”
String nodded. He seemed to have calmed down completely and be resigned to his fate. “Yeah. Actually, that would be pretty exciting. Takes a bit to get us excited these days but that would be really something.”
“I will need your oath that you will not try to harm them.”
“Huh, that’s rich,” snorted Bean, “It’s not us who’s the threat. It’s them,”
“Nevertheless….”
Bean sighed, “Yeah, fine.”
String also nodded from the doorway. “It would be a bit pointless to attack them, anyway. It would just make our deaths even more certain.”
“Very well. Just a minute.” Tarkyn sent an image of the woodfolk arriving in the cave and sitting with the four sorcerers.
A moment later, three damp woodfolk appeared, brushing themselves down and glaring balefully at the two interlopers.
“Would have been good if you had reached this point sooner. Then we could have been in here next to the fire,” scowled Rainstorm. “It’s bloody miserable out there.”
“Never mind,” rumbled Thunder Storm, “We’ve brought better provisions this time and Waterstone and Autumn Leaves will be here in a minute with some extra wood. Your little one is with them.”
“And what about Lapping Water and Summer Rain?” asked Tarkyn.
“No,” replied Rainstorm, “they’ve headed off to join the others in a bigger cave further up the mountain. North Wind, too.”
Tree Wind stared at the trappers, “So, Your Highness, what makes you think we might want to sit around and chat with outsiders rather than kill them off?”
“And how did they come to know we were here?” asked Thunder Storm. “I am assuming you two did not tell them.”
Tarkyn raised his eyebrows, “Good of you to assume that.”
Rainstorm chortled, “There it is again. That expression.”
“Oh stop it, Rainstorm.” Tarkyn relaxed, “I am not being disdainful. Well, not quite. Thunder Storm is trying to wind me up, though.” He turned to the trappers who were looking on with great interest. “Let me introduce you to String over there in the doorway collecting water for our tea…at least he was. He seems to have forgotten what he is doing…” String immediately raised his arm so that the billy was once more catching water. “and Bean.”
Bean nodded his head, “It is a pleasure to meet you after all this time. I know the cost may be high, but it is still a pleasure.”
“You’re a calm sort of a character then, if you know the cost,” observed Rainstorm, whose voice had a tendency to blend in to the noise outside if he walked too close to the mouth of the cave. “I am Rainstorm.”
Bean shrugged, “I only put energy into things I can change. In this case, my only hope lies in gaining your friendship.”
“Well, there is no hope of that,” declared Tree Wind flatly. “We don’t mix with outsiders. My name is Tree Wind.”
“And yet,” replied Bean mildly, “I see at least one outsider here who obviously knows you.”
“Exceptional circumstances,” she replied shortly.
String, who seemed to have completely recovered his equilibrium, said casually, “If you don’t mind me saying, there is something quite exceptional about His Highness being woodfolk as well. He obviously wasn’t born woodfolk and I am guessing he can’t do your disappearing act or he would have, as you did, when we arrived.”
Thunder Storm’s eyes narrowed, “Did you see us leave?”
String shrugged, “More or less. Probably less than more, actually. But we still knew what we had seen.”
Thunder Storm nodded shortly as he digested this, “I gather you have known of us for quite some time.”
“Yeah, a little while,” said Bean laconically, “What would you say, String? Maybe twenty, twenty-five years?”
The three woodfolk stared at them.
“So who else have you told over that time?” demanded Tree Wind.
Bean shrugged, “No one. We knew what the penalty was for having seen you. We’ve seen people killed.”
“So why now do you finally admit to knowing about us?”
Bean considered her for a moment, gauging her intelligence and her mood. Finally, he smiled and said, “I will tell you the one thing you don’t know and you work out the rest.”
As Tree Wind frowned, Tarkyn put in, “They love riddles.”
A slow smile dawned on her face, “Go on.”
Bean glanced over at Tarkyn, “His Highness said he wasn’t used to having strangers around his firesite.”
“And they are dressed as we are and you saw us leave,” Rainstorm butted in enthusiastically. “So you knew they knew.”
Bean nodded, “Exactly.”
“Precisely,” agreed String. He peered down into his billy, “This is still only quarter full. We’d never have said anything otherwise but curiosity got the better of us, I’m afraid. Haven’t told a soul for twenty-three years…. It’s twenty-three years, Bean … And now look at us. Up to our necks in it.”
Thunder Storm held out a water flask, “Here. I can’t stand the torture of watching you collect water so slowly. I am Thunder Storm.”
String grinned, “Thanks. I don’t normally travel around with an empty water flask but it started raining when we were at the stream, so we just made a dash for it.” He looked at the flask in his hand. “Nice. Well made. Deer hide. Did you make it?”
Thunder Storm shook his head, “No. The forestals made it. They’re good at craft work…with the possible exception of young Rainstorm here.”
Rainstorm scowled, “You’ve been listening to Falling Branch too much. Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“You people are refreshingly normal,” observed Bean dryly, as String took his filled billy over to the fire and settled it in the flames between two burning branches.
Rainstorm frowned, “I don’t see how you can be refreshing and normal all at once.”
“If you’re expecting something complicated and unusual, then the norm becomes exotic,” explained String over his shoulder.
“Whoa. You two have been out on your own for too long, with too much time to think.” Rainstorm laughed, “Anyway, of course we’re normal. I would say your lifestyle is a lot weirder than ours.”
“Of course you would,” replied Bean. “You’re used to yours.”
Just then, Waterstone and Autumn Leaves arrived bearing armfuls of wood. Midnight was right behind them sopping wet but happily dragging another large bough. He walked into the cave and shook himself. Then he spotted the trappers and did a double take. Just as Tarkyn was ruing the fact that he hadn’t thought to warn the unruly little boy, Midnight astonished them all by breaking into a beaming smile, dashing over to Bean and throwing his arms around his neck. Bean wrapped his arms around him and gave him a big hug.
“Hallo Midnight. How are you keeping? I haven’t seen you for ages.”
Midnight leant back and smiled at the trapper, knowing he had spoken but only able to guess what he was saying. He pointed to Tarkyn and himself and then wrapped his hands around each other in his sign for friendship.
Bean raised his thumb and smiled, “I’m glad you have a friend, Midnight. You’re a great kid.”
Everyone had stopped what they were doing and were staring at Bean and Midnight. Bean ignored them and pointed to String. “Go on. Say hallo to String. He misses you too, you know.”
Midnight looked around at String and gave him a wave. When String beckoned him, Midnight jumped up and went over to hug him, not quite as effusively as he had hugged Bean but warmly nevertheless. String bent over and swung the little boy up into his arms. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small, carved, wooden animal of indeterminate species. He held it out to Midnight and nodded encouragingly. The little boy accepted the gift and gave him a shy smile. String patted him on the head and let him down.
Midnight ran over to Tarkyn and held out his litt
le wooden animal. The prince smiled and sent a query about the trappers. A short silence ensued while Midnight showed him images of Bean and String walking through the mountains and sitting around a fire with his mother and him.
Bean, who was watching them intently, exclaimed, “You’re talking to him! I can’t hear you but you are, aren’t you?”
Tarkyn smiled and nodded, “More or less. We’re sharing images, not words.”
“That’s great. Poor little bugger. He’s been so lonely since his mother left him with the mountainfolk.”
Tree Wind frowned, “And what was his mother doing, keeping company with you? She has broken our bond of silence.” She did not sound very pleased.
Bean put up his hand hastily. “No, she didn’t. We knew about you woodfolk for what...?”
“Fifteen years,” supplied String.
“…fifteen years before we met Hail.”
Suddenly Thunder Storm loomed over Bean, “You’re not the person who’s been beating him, are you?” he rumbled threateningly.
“He’s hardly going to admit to it if he is, with you standing over him like that,” Rainstorm pointed out.
Thunder Storm glared at Rainstorm but remained where he was.
Bean ignored the woodman and asked his friend, “String, is that tea ready yet? A man could die of thirst waiting.” When String filled a cup and headed towards him, he hissed, “Not me first. Give His Highness a cup of tea first. Then worry about the rest of us.”
“Oh yes, good point.” He swung around and gave the steaming cup of tea to Tarkyn instead. “Sorry about that, Your Highness. Not too good at these social niceties.”
Rainstorm chortled, “Welcome to the club. The only person around here who has any idea of what to do, or any wish to do it, is Danton…. Besides Tarkyn, of course.”
“Interesting, isn’t it, Bean?” said String, handing his friend a cup of tea.
“Very. We’ll have to think about this.” Bean sipped his tea before finally meeting Thunder Storm’s eyes. “And no, I did not beat young Midnight. Neither did String. His mother did often enough, though.”