Fern understood instantly that the pig now asleep at her feet was like that sow—brokenhearted and near to dying.
As she looked at him, however, an image formed in her mind. It was unfamiliar because she was a creature of instinct and did not think in images.
Rueweed.
Rueweed and pigsbane.
Also carrots.
Rueweed was poison to both pigs and cattle, as everyone knew. And pigsbane was presumed to be poison, for the simple reason that pigs refused to eat it—and pigs were known to be clever in such matters. Nevertheless Fern did not hesitate. The images which had come into her head were like the voiceless promptings that told her when one of the pigs of the village was in need of her. She did not question them any more than she questioned why this pig had come to her—or where he had come from.
She had seen Meglan, one of the farmwives, working in her carrot patch yesterday. Perhaps there would be carrots in Meglan’s refuse-tip today. And Fern knew where to find rueweed and pigsbane.
Hurrying because a pig had come to her for his life, she clutched the scraps which served as her cloak around her and ran from her hovel.
Along the one street which passed over the hills and became Sarendel-on-Gentle’s link to the other villages of the Rift, past both alehouses, into a little lane which separated thatch-roofed shacks from more prosperous homes of timber and dressed stone, she made her way in a scurry of haste. An observer who did not know her would have thought she looked furtive. However, the villagers were accustomed to her crouching gait and her habitual way of keeping to the walls and hedges as if she feared to be accosted by someone who might expect her to speak, and so she passed as unremarked as a wraith among the dwellings to Meglan’s home on the outskirts of the village.
Apparently unaware of Meglan spading her vegetables outside the house, Fern went directly to the refuse-tip beyond the fence and began rooting in her human fashion among the farmwife’s compost.
Meglan paused to watch. She was a kindly woman, and Fern’s haste suggested extreme hunger. When she saw how Fern pounced on the remaining peels and tassels of yesterday’s stew, the farmwife unthinkingly pulled up a fresh handful of carrots, strode to the fence, and offered the carrots over the rails to Fern.
Too urgent to be gracious, Fern snatched the carrots, snuffled a piggy thanks, and scuttled away toward the hills as fast as her scrawny, unfed limbs could carry her.
Pigsbane. Rueweed. Meglan’s generosity had already fallen into Fern’s vague past, in one sense vividly remembered, in another quite forgotten. In her present haste she could not have formed any conception of how she had come by so much largesse as a handful of fresh carrots. Her head held nothing except rueweed and pigsbane and the need for speed.
It did not occur to her to fret over the fact that centuries of habitation had cleared all such plants away around the village for at least a mile in any direction. She did not fret over facts. They simply existed, unalterable. Yet she was afraid, and her fear pushed her faster than her strength could properly carry her. A pig had come to her, heartbroken and dying. She did not understand time, but she understood that when the pig’s broken heart became cold death it would be a fact, as unalterable as the location of pigsbane and rueweed on the distant hillsides. Therefore she was afraid, and so she ran and stumbled and fell and ran again faster than she could endure.
Scarcely an hour had passed when she returned to her hovel, clutching the fruits of her scavenging in the scraps of her clothes. Sweat left streaks in the grime of her cheeks, and her eyes were glazed with exhaustion; she could have collapsed and slept and perhaps died without a moment’s pause. Nevertheless she was still full of fear. And when she looked at the pig sprawled limp and hardly breathing in the dirt of her hovel, new images entered her mind.
She had no fire for heat, no mortar and pestle for grinding; she made do with what she had. First she tore the pigsbane to scraps. Scrubbing one stone over another, she reduced the scraps to flakes and shreds. Then she set them to soak in a bowl of water.
Shaking with tiredness and fear, she broke open the leaves of rueweed and rubbed their pungent odor—the tang of poison—under the pig’s snout.
With a snort and a wince, the pig pulled his head back and blinked open his eyes. One of his eyes was unquestionably blind, but the other flashed its slice of silver at her.
At once, Fern set her bowl of soaking pigsbane in front of him. In relief rather than surprise—how could she be surprised, when all facts were the same to her?—she watched him drink.
When he had emptied the bowl, she gave him the carrots.
That was all she could do. If she had understood time, she would have known that she herself had eaten nothing for at least a day and a half. Her fear and strength were used up. Curling herself against the pig’s back to keep him warm, she sank into sleep.
She did not think of death. Her heart was not broken.
Sleep was a familiar place for her, full of colors which might have been emotions and the affectionate snuffling of sows suckling their young. But after a time the colors and sounds became more images, and these were not familiar.
She saw the silver cut of the pig’s eye rising like a new moon over the night of her mind.
She saw herself. How she knew it was herself was unclear, since her only knowledge of her appearance came from reflections in the moving waters of the Gentle, yet she did know it. And she knew also that it was herself beaten and weary, nearly cold with extinction.
Although the image was of herself, however, it did not disturb her. She gazed at it the same way that she gazed at all the world, as a fact about which there were no questions.
A crimson hue which might have been vexation or despair washed the image away, and another took its place.
In this image, she rose from her hovel and went to the nearest alehouse. There she scratched at the rear door until the aleman opened it. Then she dropped to her knees and made supplicating gestures toward her belly and mouth.
This image did disturb her. It came to her clad in the yellow of lament. She was Fern. She accepted gifts, but she did not ask for anything which was not hers. The image of pleading sent tears across the trails of sweat on her sleeping cheeks.
Nevertheless the thin sliver of argent in her mind and in the pig’s eye bound her to him. He had come to her, adopted her: she was already his. When she awoke, she pulled her scraps of clothing about her and crept weeping along the street to Jessup’s alehouse, where she scratched at the door behind the building until he answered. Filled with yellow and tears, she fell to her knees and begged for food with the only words she knew—the movements of her hands.
From his doorway Jessup peered at her and frowned. He was not known for Meglan’s unthinking generosity. Stern and plain in all his dealings, he had used his father’s alehouse to make himself wealthy—as such things were measured in Sarendel—and he liked his wealth. He made good ale and expected to be paid for it. Farmers and weavers, potters and laborers, men and women who wished to drink their ale today and settle their scores tomorrow were strictly required to take their custom to Yoel’s alehouse, not Jessup’s. In some other village, in some other part of Andovale, Jessup would have closed his door in Fern’s face and thought no more about it.
But here, in Sarendel-on-Gentle, beggary was unknown. Jessup had not learned to refuse an appeal as naked as hers. Fern herself was wellknown, however: both her destitution and her honesty were as familiar as the village itself. On this occasion, her plight was as plain as emaciation and grime, tears and rags could make it. And finally, at Jessup’s back door there were no witnesses. No one would see what he did and think that he had become less strict.
With a black scowl, he retreated to his kitchen and brought out a jug of broth, a slab of bread, and an earthen flask of ale, which he thrust into Fern’s unsteady hands.
Snuffling grief instead of tha
nks, she returned to her hovel.
She did not want to eat the bread or drink the broth and ale. She felt that a violation had taken place. She had been hurt in some way for which she had no words and no understanding. She took nothing which was not granted to her. But as soon as she reentered her dwelling the brindled pig fixed his eyes upon her. He could scarcely lift his head; he clearly had no strength to stand. His exhaustion was as profound as hers, and as fatal. The danger that he would starve had been only briefly postponed. And the scabs and splotches which marked his hide were plain signs of illness rather than injury. Yet he fixed his eyes upon her—the one blind, the other flawed with silver—and she found that she could not refuse to eat. Did she not love pigs? And had he not come to her in his last need?
Held by his gaze, she chewed the bread and drank the broth. With a pig’s cleverness she knew that the ale was too strong for her, so she did not touch it. Instead she poured it out in a bowl and set it under his snout so that he could have it.
When he had consumed it all, he drew a shuddering breath which she interpreted as pleasure. And that in turn pleased her more than any amount of food or drink for herself.
Together they slept again.
So Fern became a beggar—and so her pig’s life was saved. Each time she slept, the images came to her: more scratching at doors, more supplication. And each time she awoke she acted on them with less sorrow. The loss of her honesty had become a fact, unalterable. Instead of grieving, she used the strength of new sustenance to scavenge for her pig. She was able to roam more widely, root more deeply. She found grains and vegetables for him, as well as herbs from which she concocted healing poultices and balms. Steadily, if slowly, he drew vitality from her care and began to mend.
After several nights, the images stopped. They were no longer needed. In their place, her head was filled with the soothing cerulean and emerald which she had always gained from the affection of pigs, and occasionally she heard sounds—silent except within her head—which might have been, My thanks. She felt the gratitude in them; but the sounds themselves meant nothing to her, so at last she concluded that they were the pig’s name, and she took to calling him “Mythanks.” That was the first word she had ever spoken, the only word she knew. She hugged him morning and night, and caressed him whenever the mood came upon her, and whispered fondly in his ears, “Mythanks, Mythanks,” and her regret for the woman she had once been became vague with the uncertainty of all time.
When perhaps a fortnight had passed, Mythanks was well enough to join her in her scavenging. Although he was still weak, he trotted briskly at her side, scenting the air and scanning the vistas like a creature which had come to a new world. Uncharacteristically for a pig, he sniffed and snorted at every grass and herb and shrub they encountered as though he were teaching himself to know them for the first time. He surveyed the hillsides as though he were measuring distances and possibilities. He shied away from passing herd-dogs and farmers as though they might be his enemies, despite the fact that no one in Sarendel-on-Gentle would harm a pig—until the time came to slaughter the porkers and the aging sows. And when the herd-dogs and farmers were gone, he rubbed his bristled back against Fern’s legs with a pig’s desire for reassurance.
Because he was not yet fully hale, he could not roam far; and so the day’s scavenging found him less food than he wanted. This worried Fern. She thought she saw a look of discouragement—or was it calculation?—in Mythanks’ strange eyes. However she petted and coddled him, he did not nuzzle her fondly, or fill her head with the hues of gratitude. He had adopted her. He was her responsibility, and her care of him was inadequate. When a tear or two of remorse caught and spread on her muddy cheeks, he ignored them.
But the next day he went with her while she begged.
Prompted by her instinct to creep from place to place, calling as little attention to herself as possible, she had taken her unwonted supplications to a different villager each day. After the gift of carrots, she had not dared return to Meglan. Certainly she had not approached Jessup again. Rather she had been to Yoel’s alehouse, then to widower Horrik’s tannery, then to Salla and Veil among the farmwives, then to Karay the weaver and Limm the potter; and so to a new benefactor on every occasion.
On this occasion, however, Mythanks had his own ideas. Directly, as though he had lived in Sarendel all his life and knew it well, he led Fern back to Jessup’s alehouse.
Wordlessly alarmed, she could not put her hand to the door at the rear of the alehouse. Jessup’s sternness frightened her. If she had not been so near to starvation on that first day, she would not have dared go there at all. She could only watch and wince as Mythanks lifted a foreleg and scratched at the door with his hoof.
When Jessup opened the door and saw her, he did not take the sight kindly.
“You!” he snapped. “Begone! Do not think you can take advantage of me a second time. All the village is talking about your beggary. You have acquired a pig, and now you beg. Did you beg him as well, or have you fallen as low as theft? I would not have fed you so much as once, but I believed that you were honest. I will not make that mistake again.”
Fern understood none of his words, but his tone was plain. It hurt her like a blow. Cringing, she tried to shrink down into herself as she turned away.
Mythanks snorted once, softly, and fixed Jessup with his eyes, the one blind, the other flawed by silver.
Jessup made a noise in his throat which frightened Fern more than shouts and abuse. To her ears, it was the strangling gurgle of death.
As if he were stunned, Jessup moved backward into the alehouse and out of sight. Then he returned, carrying a bushel of barley and a large basket overflowing with bread and sausages. These he set at Mythanks’ feet without a word. Backward again, he reentered the alehouse and closed the door.
Mythanks sniffed the barley, looked over at Fern where she crouched in alarm, and snorted a pig’s laughter.
Fern was astonished. She had never seen so much food. “Mythanks,” she murmured because she had no words with which to express her surprise. “Mythanks, Mythanks.”
At once his laughter became vexation. New sounds formed in her mind. My name is not Mythanks, you daft woman. It is Titus. Titus! Do you hear me? TITUS!
“Ti-tus.” Staring at him, she tried the word in her mouth. “Ti-tus. Titus.” In her amazement, she failed to notice that she had understood him.
Blue pleasure and green satisfaction came into her head as she said his name. That, he replied, is a distinct improvement. But her instant of comprehension had passed, and she had no idea what the sounds meant.
“Titus.”
Hardly aware of what she did, she set the basket of bread and sausages on his back, steadied it with one hand, then propped the bushel of barley on her hip and returned to her hovel.
That day they feasted and slept. And the next morning Titus nudged her awake with his snout. When she met his blind and piercing gaze, she heard more sounds in the silence of her mind.
It is time we began. Bread and sausages will feed your body, but they will do nothing to nourish your intelligence. I must have intelligence. Also you are filthy—and filth wards away help. There are many lessons that a pig could teach you. Today we will make a start.
This meant nothing to Fern. The sounds came from him—she accepted that as a fact—but they communicated less than the grunts of pigs. Nevertheless she hugged him happily because he seemed so brisk and whole. Yesterday’s fear and surprise were forgotten. She was simply glad that Titus had come to her, and that she had been able to help him, and that she knew his name.
Never mind, he said while he nuzzled her neck. Perhaps you will understand me in time. For the present, you are willing. I will make that suffice.
Again he fixed her with the argent sliver of his good eye, and now in images she saw herself leaving her hovel and walking to a secluded bank of the Gentle,
where she removed her shreds of clothing, immersed herself in the water, and scrubbed herself with sand until her skin became a color which she had never before seen in her own reflection.
It is a risk, he said as she rose to obey the image. Change attracts attention, and attention is dangerous. But I need help. We must begin somewhere. Cleanliness will do much to improve your place in this misbegotten pigsty of a village.
“Titus,” she answered, dumbly pleased. “Titus.”
Snuffling encouragement, he accompanied her down to the Gentle.
The image he had placed in her mind amazed her entirely, but her compliance did not. She had accepted her obedience to him as a fact. And she was not afflicted with modesty. Her impulse to cower, to avoid notice, grew from other fears than bodily shame. So it was not a hard thing for her to do as Titus directed. Hidden by the overarching boughs of a thirsty willow at the river’s edge, she set aside her scraps and entered the water.
Here the Gentle was cool but not cold, and it had worn a fine sandy bottom for itself off the hard edges of time. Under Titus’ watchful eye, Fern splashed and bubbled and rubbed until the color of her skin and the feel of her hair were transformed. As she did so, she was filled with a light blue pleasure as quiet and steady as the water. And the blue deepened to azure—she did not know or ask why—when the pig said to her like a promise, Someday you will ask me what loveliness is, and I will tell you.
Next he gave her an image in which she scrubbed her clothes as she had cleaned herself. Washing them did not make them whole, but it did give them a gentler touch on the unfamiliar tingle of her skin.
Reave the Just and Other Tales Page 26