The leagueman didn’t again mention their travels or the impending arrival of his superior the next day. Instead, he limited himself to idle banter, allowing Tahn and Sutter to enjoy the meal, and taking his leave without a further word when he was done. After supper, Tahn found he could ball his fists and raise his arms with more vigor. As night descended, Gehone left a lantern burning for them, the flame just barely taking the chill off the air and lending warmer tones to the room.
Looking at the hammer scar on his hand, Tahn spoke. “He never went through our things.”
“What?” Sutter asked with a preoccupied voice.
“As far as I know, Gehone hasn’t gone through our clothes.” Tahn looked up at Sutter.
“Maybe that should worry us,” Sutter answered.
Tahn shook his head. “He’s helped us. Green goop, remember?”
“Yeah … And if that thing was a Walker like he said, then he’ll be wondering how we got rid of it. All my hells, Tahn, that thing was Quietgiven. How did we get rid of it? It had its godsdamned fist in my chest.”
Tahn sat quietly, thinking of an empty bow and an aimless pull over a vast canyon. He clenched his fists and pounded the mattress. What do the images mean?
Sutter waited for his anger to dissipate. Through the hiss of the lantern his friend said, “I’ve been thinking about the Bar’dyn, Tahn, when we were separated from the others. They said things, something about lies. Do you remember?”
Tahn nodded.
“And I was just thinking,” Sutter continued, “Gehone doesn’t speak like a member of the League, and offers to help us.… I don’t know what the hell to think.”
Tahn had no answers to Sutter’s observations. He was missing home quite a lot.
* * *
Shivering, Tahn awoke to the sight of moonlight pooling on the floor. Chills raced across his skin. He could feel his legs, his whole body. He could feel the wind.
He turned to see the window stood open. Then quickly checked the rest of the room.
“Sutter,” he whispered. The sound of his own voice fell flat. No response. He couldn’t tell if his friend was in bed, or if the coverlet and sheets had been rolled back in the semblance of a body. Tahn propped himself on one elbow. “Sutter, this is no time for games.”
No answer.
Tahn scooted back. His arms were still weak, but he was happy to have their use. He sat upright and squinted intently across the room. The bed lay empty. Then outside he heard the crunching of stones beneath boot soles. A shiver passed down his spine and prickled the hair on his legs. It might be Sutter, but something warned him that it wasn’t.
Where’s my bow?
Still watching the window, Tahn swung his legs out of bed. He’d started to stand when he realized that he wore no bedclothes. His body cast a thin shadow against the rear wall. He forced himself up, only to collapse on weak legs at the side of his bed. He shot a glance at the window, hoping his fall had been soft, and listening for the stranger’s approach.
Silence.
Tahn looked around, searching for his weapon, and spied Sutter beneath his bed, as naked as Tahn. Nails was shivering, wide-eyed and searching.
Over the hard, cold wood, Tahn crawled to retrieve his cloak. Forgetting his bow, he then scuttled toward Sutter, who pushed deeper under his bed as Tahn approached.
“It’s me,” Tahn said. No recognition touched Sutter’s eyes. Nails clutched at his chest, his eyes darting toward the window and back at Tahn. The grit on the floor scraped Tahn’s knees and palms, but he lay on his belly and crawled under the bed. Sutter drew up to the wall, his eyes darting to and fro like a ferret’s. “Put this on,” Tahn said, proffering the cloak. Sutter didn’t seem to hear.
A roll of bootheel and toe over hard soil came again. It was more distant this time, but perhaps only because he was now under the bed. He scooted up close to Sutter, and covered him with his cloak. His friend remained skittish, as if he expected Tahn to produce a blade and open his throat.
“What is it?”
Sutter just looked about, his eyes rolling wildly.
Tahn grasped his friend by the arms and shook him. “Tell me.” Sutter came to himself as though he’d been asleep. He stared at Tahn, perplexed, then past him to the moonlight falling in a long rectangle from the window.
“I saw it,” he said. Tahn was about to question him further when the sound of bootheels came again. The air grew colder.
Tahn listened for several moments, looking back to his friend and wondering if Nails had seen the owner of the boots they heard. His skin prickled, the cold getting into his bones. But nothing moved for a long while.
He took Sutter by the hand and led him out from beneath the bed. He cautiously looked around the room, then rose to his knees. Together they stood, and Tahn had started helping Sutter into bed when Nails again collapsed to the floor, pulling Tahn down with him.
Sutter gasped and pointed at the window. Tahn instantly looked up, but saw nothing there.
“What?” Tahn asked, the sound of it louder than he’d intended.
“Don’t you see it?” Sutter cried. “All hells, Tahn, don’t let her take me.” Sutter began to crawl away, the cloak slipping from his shoulders. He stood, his bare skin full of chill bumps. He held his hands up to ward off nothing more than the pale light of the moon that poured through the window. His mouth opened in a silent scream.
Tahn’s attention was pulled back fast to the open window, when it began to hum as though the ground shook with the flight of a herd of swift horses. A thin mist floated over the sill, into the room, and onto the floor. Tahn scrabbled back, bumping into Sutter’s legs, but still he could see no one. The freezing mist licked at Tahn’s toes as it roiled across the floorboards. He tried to stand, but weak legs sent him to the floor again. In an instant, Sutter snapped out of his fear. He swung around, took up the lantern from the table, and hurled it toward the window. With a loud crash, the upper pane blew outward. A spray of shards littered the sill, the broken glass clattering on the hard ground outside. A rush of wind twisted in the fractured portal as Gehone, clad only in a nightshirt, threw open the door and stepped into the room. Across his chest he carried a large war hammer, his hands in well-worn grips along its haft. He spared a look at Tahn and Sutter before stepping over them toward the window, where small shards of glass whipped in the air like cottonseed in a summer funnel wind.
With a flick of his wrists, he spun the hammer in a practiced movement and reared one arm with the weapon. The muscles in his legs bulged, his thick waist ready to accept a blow. Gehone waited, a cat ready to strike, but the mist evaporated. The wind whistled out into the eaves and was gone.
As soon as it had left completely, Sutter lunged for his sword and clutched it to his chest. Tahn picked up his cloak and wrapped himself. Gehone advanced cautiously toward the window and studied the wreckage. When he turned, he looked blankly at Sutter. “Put on some clothes, and gather your things. I’ll put you both upstairs.”
Tahn shuddered in the lingering cold. Gehone came close. “You need help?”
Tahn nodded. One bulky arm grabbed him around the waist. “I’ll let this pass tonight, lads. But on the morrow, I’ll need more answers from you. Nothing sounds so suspicious as the truth, and I’d better know the whole of it, or close to, when my commander comes to call. Hear me?”
Again Tahn only nodded. Still naked, Sutter had picked up his belongings, and with his eyes fastened on the broken glass, waited at the door to be ushered to a new room.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Revelations in Parchment
We need to start considering the messages of written works. People find their own meaning.
—Area of consideration put forth by the leader of the League’s Political Jurshah
In the predawn light, Wendra lay still, listening to birdsong high in the trees and the deep melodic imitations the Ta’Opin made of them while he packed his bedroll and hitched his team. The smell of dew and coffee
hung in the air, the latter a gift from Seanbea as he prepared to depart. For the time being, Jastail left her alone, saddling the horses and continuing his charade of friendship with Penit. He hadn’t been able to tie her or the boy up the last evening, so he’d had Penit sleep next to him—the threat subtle but clear. Wendra tried to ignore it all, focusing on birdsong. But the melodies of last night’s fire lingered, a refrain of the saddest sort.
When she could stand the inner songs no more, she rose. Seanbea sat at the fire, hunkered close to the flame, sipping a mug of coffee.
“Have a cup, Anais,” he invited. “My beans are fresh from Su’Winde. I ground them myself this morning.” He poured her a cup from a pot, and returned it to its rock beside the fire. “Is there a better smell when day is young?” He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “There are advantages on the highways.”
Wendra wanted to plead for help. Seanbea was sitting close. She could whisper their trouble, ask him to intervene. Just when she thought she might do so, Jastail and Penit joined them.
“A fine day. Good fortune to our separate enterprises, Seanbea. Hardly a worry on a day such as this.”
“Right you are,” the Ta’Opin answered, lifting the pot of coffee to offer a second cup. Jastail amiably declined. “I’m hitched and loaded. I’ll be off when my cup is empty. Is there any message I can carry for you?”
Wendra hoped the offer would raise concern in Jastail’s face. The highwayman didn’t blink. “How good a man you are. Thank you, but we’re fine. Is there more we can do for you?”
“There is.”
This time Jastail’s expression faltered a moment. Wendra could see her captor mentally working the positions of each of them at the fire. How the physical exchange would develop if he were forced to draw. She knew he’d cut the Ta’Opin’s throat in an instant if what the man said next jeopardized whatever business he meant to conduct with her and Penit.
She and the Ta’Opin locked eyes. To her right, Wendra heard the soft squeal of a tightened palm over a leather hilt.
“I’ve something for you,” Seanbea said. He reached into his coat, and Jastail began to move. Seanbea produced a rolled parchment. He ignored Jastail’s movement and passed Wendra the sheet with both hands. “It’s your song, Anais. The one you made last night in harmony to mine.” He smiled paternally. “I’ve rarely heard instant song so beautifully made. The lines of your music played on in my head and demanded to be written down. Keep this. The notation is for only a single voice, but when you have such a gift of music, you share it.” Wendra took it from his hands. “Study it. And when you get to Recityv, show it to the Maesteri. They’ll recognize it for what it is.”
With light, thin strokes the Ta’Opin had marked a series of vertical marks, interrupted by small circles with varying numbers of tails like ship rudders. She rose from her seat and put one arm around the Ta’Opin’s neck, squeezing until she thought she might be suffocating the man. “Thank you.”
Penit came over to look at it as Wendra sat beside Seanbea and took his hand. Jastail seemed more at ease, and he dropped his hand from his sword. “How foolish of me,” he said. “You do my fire honor. You have my gratitude as well.” He bowed, but not so deeply that he lost his vantage on all three. “We should be going,” he said.
“And I,” Seanbea added. “Safe haven to you at your … uncle’s, did you say?”
“Safe haven to you,” Jastail responded.
Penit helped the Ta’Opin gather his last few things from around the fire. Seanbea ruffled Penit’s hair and squeezed Wendra’s hand. He said to her, “I hope one day to hear you sing again,” then mounted his wagon and drove to the road, where he turned north, raising a streamer of dust.
“Wait,” Penit called after the Ta’Opin. He turned to Jastail and held up a coffee cup. “He forgot this.”
“Never mind that,” Jastail said.
“It’s bad luck not to return it,” Penit insisted. “Everyone on the road knows it.”
Jastail’s smile frayed at the edges, but only slightly. The highwayman maintained his good humor. “Go on then, but hurry.”
Penit ran and caught up to Seanbea, spoke a brief moment, and returned the cup. Then he rushed back. In moments, dirt had been kicked over the fire, and Jastail led them back to the road.
For half a day they rode, Penit tirelessly asking the highwayman questions. The two becoming pals. Wendra stayed behind them, and fought back the sounds that struggled to escape her lips. Angry music. Snatches of song she worried to make, after what had happened in the cave beneath the High Plains of Sedagin. But she did wonder what these sounds would look like in Seanbea’s beautiful script.
Shortly after meridian, the highwayman turned them west off the road. No trail. But Jastail seemed to know his way.
Night had just come full when they emerged from a thin grove of aspen into a flat hollow at the base of three mountains. In the center of a clearing, a small log cabin sat low and virtually hidden by several holly bushes. A large moon shimmered on a narrow stream that wound through the flat and near one side of the cabin. In the dark, the smell of wild honeysuckle and high-mountain lilac hung heavy in the air.
Jastail surveyed the basin before going ahead, his sharp eyes searching the dark. He appeared more skittish than she’d ever seen him. The furtive look on his face pleased her. But what might make a highwayman jumpy?
Jastail left the horses saddled while he checked the cabin. A moment later he reemerged into the moonlight. “Come,” he said.
Penit slid from his horse and went inside. Wendra climbed down with stiff legs and wrapped her reins in a nearby shrub, then did the same with Penit’s. Jastail skulked like a shadow to her side. He rolled a tobacco leaf into a small wrapper, and lit it with a sulfur stick. He puffed his tobacco stem alight, and stood drawing deeply of the sweet leaf.
“We’re almost done, you and I.” He spoke like a merchant describing a business arrangement.
Wendra smelled the smoke on the air, and watched it, silver and dreamlike in the moonlight. She remembered Balatin striking alight his pipe, the gentle soap-and-tobacco smell of his beard and sleeves as he pulled her to his chest and rocked back in the shadows of their porch. Years ago this night, this moon, and this smoke would have meant something entirely different.
She took out her music parchment from her pocket, and followed the graceful strokes as she remembered her melody. Snatches of song cooled her heart.
“Nothing to say,” Jastail mocked, and drew near. His face a finger’s breadth from her own. The smell of sweet-leaf soft as a lover’s kiss between them. “Dear me, what can this mean?” He puffed again on his tobacco. “I gave the boy a bed. Tomorrow will bring revelations for which he’ll need his strength. You should sleep, too.”
Wendra said nothing.
No anger, no regret, no fear, no expectation showed in Jastail’s hollowed cheeks or slash of a mouth. He stared at her, his eyes focused and unmoving. He recited from memory:
Some lift prying eyes to discover the motive hands.
Some toil daylight hours to rest and dream their days a different end.
Still others make brash sounds,
And many tormented supplication say on bended knees.
Youth scrapes and hides and practices for its own time to stare the wall.
I these things observe and name them wounds,
And by so doing create my inmost salve,
With which to rise and watch it all again.
He held her gaze a moment more. Then he tossed his tobacco into a bulrush and unsaddled the horses. But his words leapt to spontaneous melody inside her. They felt like song that mustn’t be sung. Until something subtle shifted inside her. And the poet’s words became her own. The song they inspired became her own.
* * *
Light fell through the windows, streaming through the ungainly branches of holly bushes growing beside them. Wendra lay in a fetal position, Penit curled up against her chest. The soft intake
of his breath against the blanket made her smile with regret.
His smooth brow and downy cheeks glowed just a finger’s breadth from her own, his face a portrait of unconditional trust. The memory of sleeping this way with her father, especially in the months after her mother had died, stole over her. His broad chest and strong arms had made her feel safe. Back then, she’d woken first, but lain still so the spell of morning could linger.
This morning, she watched the sun strengthen in the sky, wondering.
In another part of the cabin, she heard Jastail up and moving.
Penit moaned softly, like a response to some fanciful childhood dream. He squirmed and settled again, even closer. Wendra fought the urge to hug him. He might wake if she did. In her softest voice, she began to hum, the sound so delicate that Penit’s breathing could be heard to keep time. She found phrases from her song box in her mind and wove them into variations as bright and promising as the light from the window.
He opened his eyes and turned to look at her. “We never had such a good voice on the wagons.”
Wendra smiled. Then settled him with a more serious look. “I know you’re playing a part, but be careful around Jastail.”
“I know,” Penit said, a much too grown-up look on his face. “I’ve known men like him my whole life. They’re the ones that take coins out of the hat on the wagon wheel. Or like to beat on players for sport.”
The bedroom door opened with a thick, heavy crack against the wall. Jastail came in, untied them, and said simply, “Let’s go.” Wendra and Penit shared a knowing look. Then he leapt from the bed and pulled on his boots.
“Will we make it to Recityv today?” Penit asked, following Jastail and resuming his ruse.
“Not today, lad.” Jastail put an arm around the boy and the two walked into the hall toward the kitchen.
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