Nineteen
We set out the next morning.
There were many hangovers, but mine not among them. I had learned much about cooking, and had had my first taste of gypsy wine, and found it to be bitter; Miklos, who had administered it, and who was very drunk himself, had merely laughed and said, “Don’t worry, king, someday it will taste as sweet as sugar to you.” This morning, the way he groaned theatrically and held his head, I wondered if perhaps Miklos had filled himself with too much sugar. His hangover did not prevent him from giving me my first lesson in swordsmanship, though, after which he pronounced my skills, “Merely rotten.” He then went off to nurse his head once more.
But once it was time to leave, these gypsies were all business. The wagons were packed with care and speed, and our caravan had more the look of a military campaign than a ragtag march. Scouts were sent out far ahead, and signaled from every hill ahead of us and to either side. Others, I knew, trailed in our wake.
It was a rougher country than it had looked. Though this land had reminded me of my own, it proved to be less tamed. The hills were steeper than their appearance, more rutted with red rocks and boulders, and what had appeared as oases of verdant green from the distance proved to be tangles of growth. Some of the plants were strange to me, a cross between cactus and fruit tree. When I stretched out from my seat on one of the wagons to pluck one of these strange, yellowish melons Radion slapped my hand down and shook his head.
“The skin of the fruit is poisonous to the skin of the paw,” he explained, and turned over his own left paw after transferring the reins to his right. There at the bottom of the palm was an ugly mass of scar tissue, welted and dark pink.
“My father was not fast enough to slap my own hand,” he said with a grunt.
At the end of the first day we made camp between two of these oases, in a valley protected on all sides by easily guarded hills. The mountains had looked no closer at the end of this day than they had at the beginning. But there seemed to be little tension in the camp. When I asked Miklos about this he said, “We travel through a land that no one wants.”
The next few days were the same as the first, and still the mountains drew no nearer. But the river expanded from a distant blue ribbon to a looming presence, and on the fourth day the plants became heartier, less dessert-like, and the ground showed the unmistakable richness of flood plains.
In camp that night, after another lesson with the sword, Miklos stood by me, his hands on his hips like a storybook giant, and surveyed the horizon.
“Tomorrow we will cross the river, and then things will change.”
“How?”
He smiled, but it was a grim one.
“Because then we will be in a place that someone wants.”
He left me there, imagining I could hear the rushing water and realizing that, yes, the mountains were now, indeed closer.
But our river crossing was delayed the next day.
We reached a small settlement at midday, stopping at its perimeter. Radion surveyed it through a spy scope, an instrument whose appearance much excited me. I made plans to ask him to borrow it this coming night, to study the sky with.
He was waiting for something, I could tell. Then he suddenly grunted and said, “Our scout has signaled. It is safe to continue.”
We drew into the river town, little more than a dusty street bordered with shacks and poor man’s tents. It seemed deserted. The main street ended at what once had been a dock on the river, but which was now a blasted pile of timbers.
“They’ve taken the boats, too,” Miklos reported to Radion, who nodded.
“I expected this. But there was always hope.”
Miklos laughed curtly. “Hope is for fools, brother.”
“Then we are all fools in the end. What shall we do?”
“Let us wait for Vilmos and Takrok to return from upriver. Then we will know what we must do.”
Radion nodded. “Very well. But I doubt the Drost bridge will be intact.”
“If they destroyed this baby dock, I’m sure you’re right. But it is better to know.”
Radion gave orders, and we stayed where we were.
“May I look around?” I asked.
Radion eyed me. “Why? This was just a river town. Two years ago it didn’t exist. The people are gone or dead, driven away or killed by the F’rar.”
“I’m just curious. I’ve never been in a river town.”
He regarded me with a steady eye for a moment, and then shrugged. “But don’t go far, my King.”
I started with the nearest shack, which proved to be empty and devoid of character. There were a few sticks of furniture which were now, literally, sticks; they had been savagely broken and left in piles. In the coal stove I found what looked like a feline finger bone, which chilled me.
The other shacks and tents were much the same, the tents being poorer versions of the shacks. One structure, the largest, had obviously been a saloon – there was a long bar, a rough hewn table, actually, and shelves behind it, empty now. There was broken glass everywhere.
As I was leaving I heard a sound.
I backed out of the sunlight into the center of the saloon and stood stock still.
Nothing.
Then –
The faintest sound of movement, a creak, somewhere close by.
Beneath me.
I stepped back, and studied the floor.
This spot was clear of glass and debris, and there were the merest of outlines, in dust, of a square cut into the floor.
I heard what sounded like a cough.
I turned to shout for Radion, but he was there, standing behind me. He put his finger to his lips, and drew out his knife, a long, curling blade with a nasty tip like a sharp talon.
He motioned me aside and crouched in front of the square, putting the tip of the blade into the cut and prying it up.
He kicked the square of floor away as it became free.
“Get out or die,” he said.
I peeked into the hole but was pushed back by Radion as he motioned the blade toward the hole.
“I am not F’rar,” he hissed, “but I will kill you if you don’t come out.”
There was movement in the hole, and Radion stepped carefully back as something scurried all of a sudden out of the hole and tried to scamper out the door.
Radion grabbed it by the scruff and the neck and held it up.
“Anyone else in that hole?” he asked to a dirty feline little more than a kit.
I expected a squeak, but the young fellow, dressed in a simple smock and with almost pure white fur, said in a surprisingly strong voice, “No. I am the only one they didn’t kill.”
“You won’t try to run?”
“I promise.”
“Very well.”
Radion slowly lowered the fellow and then let him go.
He immediately bolted like a rabbit for the door, where he was met by Miklos, who scooped him up, and held him like a trophy.
“A little fish!” he laughed.
Radion was grim. “I already know his story. The entire town was driven away or killed, and he hid alone.” He turned his attention to the white-furred fellow, who was twisting and growling in Miklos’ grip.
“How long ago were the F’rar here?”
“Weeks!” the young cat shouted. “Weeks! They killed my sister and mother! They killed them all!” He went limp, sobbing.
Miklos had lost his good humor.
“If I set you down, will you run? Because if you run, we will catch you.”
“You’re gypsies!” the little one sobbed. “Kill me and eat me now! Get it over with!”
Miklos put him down, and the young cat pushed himself from all fours onto his feet and ran out the door.
“Let him go,” Radion said, wearily.
“Where did he get such an idea?” Miklos said, spreading his hands. “That we are cannibals?”
Radion laughed shortly. “Probably from me. We spread such t
ales through this area so that we would be left alone.”
Miklos shook his head. “Shall I trap him?”
“No. If he wants to come with us he will show up on his own. Otherwise we will leave him be.”
At Radion’s insistence I gave up my explorations, and returned to the others. Miklos searched the rest of the buildings, but found nothing.
At dinnertime, after my cooking lesson with Tyron, I saw the little one, at the edge of our camp.
The two scouts had not returned from upriver, so it was decided that we would stay the night. The cook fires were smaller, less conspicuous, now, but the stew that was prepared was just as delicious, and the aroma wafted out over the camp.
Near the first building I had explored the young cat’s face appeared, like a ghostly apparition, looking our way. I had just taken my meal and stood with my steaming bowl when I saw him. He looked sad and lonely and hungry.
I walked a few feet toward him and his head disappeared.
When I stood still it appeared again.
I called, “Are you hungry?”
Again he was gone.
I walked halfway to the building and set the bowl down in the street.
“It’s there if you want it!” I shouted. I added, “And it’s not cat!”
I went back to camp and then turned around to look. The bowl was still there, untouched.
I drew another meal for myself, and returned to my original spot, a good thirty feet away from the bowl. I sat on the ground, ate, and waited. I felt like a fisherman, patiently letting his bait do the work.
“It’s delicious!” I called out, but there was no response, and the face had not reappeared.
Phobos overhead caught my eye, and I studied its silent, grim passage for a few moments, and remembered Radion’s spy glass.
When I looked back, the bowl was gone.
Some fisherman I was! I’d lost the bait and the catch.
I knew it was useless to look for him, and that Radion would not allow me to leave the camp, so I returned with my own empty bowl and asked him for use of his glass to study the night sky.
He gave it up readily, shrugging at my enthusiasm for astronomy. “Who has time for such foolishness?” he said. “The stars are to guide you at night, not to dream over.”
He handed over the instrument and I hurried back to my spot.
The bowl was back, and when I retrieved it, it was empty.
I looked to the corner of the building, and there was faint movement in the shadows.
“You can come out if you like – I’m not a gypsy myself but I can tell you they’re not cannibals.”
He stepped out into the faint light of Phobos, but did not take a step toward me.
“Would you like more to eat?”
“Yes. I’m very hungry.”
“When was the last time you had a proper meal?”
There was momentary silence. “Three weeks. Before the F’rar marched through.”
I filled his bowl and returned.
Again there was no one there, but this time I just marched forward, put the bowl down, and went back to my spot. As I studied the sky with Radion’s instrument, a very poor one for nighttime use, I discovered, though I did discern a few craters on Phobos’ surface, I heard shuffling in the darkness but ignored it.
When I put down the instrument the little fellow was standing there with his empty bowl regarding me with curiosity. There was still ten feet between us.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Studying the stars. Would you like to look?”
He shook his head, and I proceeded to ignore him, training the glass on Earth, which grew from a tiny blue dot to a slightly larger one – I did see, to my delight, that there were patches of brown and white mixed in with the blue tint.
There was a tug on my sleeve.
“I want to look.”
I looked down and there he was, nearly white as an albino, and dusty from head to foot.
“When was the last time you bathed?”
His solemn eyes softened for a moment with amusement. “The last time anyone told me to.”
“Well, if you want to look through this glass, I’m telling you to. You smell, and your appearance is not appropriate in the presence of someone like me.”
“Let me look through the glass first,” he bargained.
“You promise to bathe?”
He considered it, putting his paws behind his back, and then nodded. “I promise.”
“You’re not crossing your fingers?”
He became suddenly flustered, and drew his crossed fingers out, uncrossing them. “I promise,” he said solemnly.
“Very well.”
I showed him Phobos, which he found impressive, and then Earth, which he did not. “So small!” he said.
“Yes, but did you know that it’s actually a planet in space, just like Mars, and that it’s bigger than Mars?”
He took his eye from the spy scope, and looked at me as if I were mad.
“It’s true,” I continued. “And the blueness is all water, we think.”
Eagerly, he looked through the glass again.
“I see the water!” he said. “And the brown patches?”
“Most likely deserts and mountains.”
“And the white?”
“Ice caps, like our own.”
“Mars has ice caps?”
I tried to get the instrument away from him, but he was swinging it wildly this way and that now, trying to find more planets, no doubt.
I gently removed it from his grasp. “Give it to me before you break it. Do you mean to tell me you didn’t know that your own planet has ice caps?”
He shook his head.
“Didn’t they teach you anything in school?”
“I never went to school,” he said.
“That’s shameful. It’s time for your bath.”
He drew back, and I could tell he was thinking of running away again so I began to walk away from him.
In a moment he was beside me. “Can we look at Earth again after my bath?”
“Certainly,” I answered.
“How did you know I had my fingers crossed?”
I looked down at him.
“Because I used to be your age,” I said, and for the first time he smiled.
He hadn’t been taught geography, and he obviously had not been taught to bathe, either.
Soap was a foreign concept to him. He showed me a little safe pool naturally formed by a land cut in the river, and when I handed him soap he looked at it and frowned.
“What’s this?”
I showed him, washing my own paws in the water. “It makes you clean.”
He shrugged, and took the soap, for the next thirty minutes I waited patiently while he learned to bathe himself. When I handed him a towel he again frowned, but quickly caught on.
“What did you used to do?” I asked with a short laugh. “Shake yourself dry?”
“Something like that, in the sun” he answered, and I walked away to find him some clean clothing, admonishing him to wash his own in the river while I was gone.
When I returned I thought he was gone. The soap and towel were neatly laid out on the bank, along with his cleaned clothes. It occurred to me that I didn’t even know his name to call him.
But his head appeared as if by magic, just to my left, behind a low, wide rock.
“Another of your hiding places?” I asked, in jest.
“Yes,” he answered seriously, and after I handed him his new tunic and he emerged dressed in the overlarge garment I saw that there was indeed a hollow which had been carved out behind the rock, and that once entrenched he would be nearly invisible.
“How many hiding places do you have?”
“Hundreds,” he answered, without smiling.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I needed them.”
And then he would say no more, but pestered me to show him more of the sky.
Needless to say, when we mobilized to move the next day the little fellow, whose name was Darwin, was with us. The two scouts, Vilmos and Takrok, had returned during the night, and their report was not good. The bridge upriver had been destroyed, and there was no hope of crossing there. Also, they reported, there was now a F’rar outpost on the far side of the river, which regularly patrolled the banks, and that it was the vanguard of a larger army.
“Then we must travel down river, and take our chances,” Miklos reasoned.
Radion shook his head. “I don’t like it. We’re likely to meet Baldies, at best.”
Darwin had been standing close by me during this conversation, listening to it carefully. He seemed to have lost all of his fear of gypsies, and had even allowed Miklos to scoop him up, swing him high into the air and catch him, shouting, “Up with you, little fish! Down with you then! Ha!”
Radion and his brother went back and forth about strategy and possible crossing points, where the river was most narrow (but likely guarded by either F’rar or pirates) or wider (but certainly without boat or bridge).
Darwin suddenly spoke up, his voice sure and strong. “I know a way across.”
The two gypsy leaders stopped their discussion and turned to him.
“And how is that, little fish?” asked Miklos, kindly. “Do you mean for us to swim across?”
“Better than that. There’s a tunnel under the river, about a mile from here. The F’rar don’t know about it, so it hasn’t been blocked.” He pointed at Miklos. “You might have trouble getting through, though.”
“That still leaves the problem of the wagons and horses,” Radion said.
“There is a hidden pontoon boat on the other side. I know where it is,” Darwin said, matter-of-factly. “The F’rar are stupid, and missed many things.”
“They missed you, mountains be praised!” Miklos shouted, and scooped the little man up again, tossing him into the air and making him laugh.
Darwin was right. After a preliminary trip, made only by Radion, Darwin and myself, during which the boy and the gypsy king negotiated the tunnel while I waited for them to emerge on the other side, which they did, the entire camp prepared. It was early afternoon by the time we moved, and mid-afternoon by the time the crossing began.
Sebastian of Mars Page 11