"Deer," he said, lifted his head and sniffed the air.
Nancy, beside Baj, snuffled. "Old smell," she said.
"Old today — not old from tomorrow." Richard pointed across the meadow. "They bed down there."
"Not anymore."
Richard sighed. "May I say something without a no from you?"
"I won't argue with you," Nancy said. "It's like arguing with a stump."
"I could take my bow across," Baj said. "... Wait for them to come in the evening."
"No deer," Nancy said. "Other things come through."
Richard didn't seem to hear. "Yes, do it. There's a creek running there." He glanced down at Nancy. "I smell it."
"Creek, yes. Deer, no."
Richard paid no attention to that. "The buck will come in, leading. If he's young — take him. If he's an old antler, try for a follower."
"Okay." One of the most useful Warm-time words of agreement.... And it was odd, but Baj now found Richard more human than before — men together beneath birches, planning a hunt, ignoring a woman's carping. "— Okay." He took his bow off his shoulder, knelt to brace and string it, then stooped for a wisp of weed, and tossed it for the wind. "You two stay here — and keep Errol on this side."
Richard grunted agreement, then swung his heavy, furred pack off, set his great ax against a tree, and lay down with the same odd rocking motion he used to stand up.
As Baj selected three broadheads from his quiver, Nancy — leaning against a narrow birch with her hand on the hilt of her scimitar, stood staring yellow-eyed, as if at a festival fool lacking only the little bells in a little hat.
* * *
Baj crossed the meadow in sinking sunlight, his bow in his hand, pleased with walking on the flat after so much climbing of ups and downs. It seemed to be a beaver-dam fill, growing only summer weeds and the first blue stars, with another wildflower — yellow — he didn't know the name of. No saplings had rooted in the open yet.
At the meadow's other side, a steep bank fell away to a rivulet bog with skunk cabbage starting here and there among dwarf willows... a stand of alder. Mottled shadows moved across the green as an early breeze of evening began to blow. Tiny insects — gnat flies — danced in the air, almost invisible.
Baj crossed the little run... found fairly firm ground past it where a greening tangle of berry vine grew along the bog's edge. He settled there, unbuckled his sword-belt, set it out of his way, and sat with his back to a young alder's trunk. It would be a clear shot, from there, at any deer come to drink — though a long shot if it came downstream, where the willows thickened.
Baj selected an arrow, set it to his bowstring. The fine broad-head's steel had been engraved with the outline of a miniature scorpion, the sigil of the royal armory.... Old Howell Voss had fought under that banner. If the Boston-woman, Patience, had been telling the truth, then soon — as king — he would be choosing his own, and new banners would unfurl over the Great Rule from the Mississippi to the Ocean Pacific.... Though now, no business of Baj's. No business of his at all.
He sat, the alder trunk still day-warm at his back, closed his eyes, and tried to imagine a Warm-time summer — a twelve-week summer — and that after a warm spring, with a warm fall still to come! Lady Weather's daughter lying smiling, sighing, her long soft legs spread for their pleasure.... No wonder, as ancient Lord Peter had said, there was no way of knowing such lucky people completely, no matter how many ancient books were found, copied, and read.
Baj sat straighter, watching past budding bramble as shadows grew slowly longer, the last brightness of the day began to fade.... A summer so long there was no hurry, when flowers, when all plants, from onion and cabbage to far-southern corn stretched themselves leisurely up toward the sun in months of warm, warm green.
In that climate, any fool might have written poetry without the word ice appearing ever. Though it was true that his own River-epic had used the various transparencies of ice to some effect. Perhaps to too much effect.... What was not written was also poetry, of a silent kind, the mute sister to what was written and spoken. The unseen reverse, as of a silver coin. And if that were true, then all men — all Made-men also, of course — spoke a sort of silent poetry to themselves quite often, even if unmetered and inelegant.
Movement.... Movement down in the willows? Baj rose to one knee and began — only began — to draw the string back a little. No gloves; he felt the beginning bite at his draw-fingers. Movement... but no deer, only early evening breezes through willow branches.
He relaxed, and relaxed the bow — having a vision of himself triumphant, striding into camp with a gutted buck across his shoulders. Letting it slide to the grass as simply the casual getting-of-meat by a formidable hunter. — Which imagined playlet made it sadly likely he'd occasionally acted the theatrical jackass at Island.
... More comfortable to consider the poetry of silence, the poetry of speech. A thing was what it was called, after all, and often silently — as he called himself an archer, in carrying a bow and intending to feed those three Persons. Call them his friends, since he had no others in a situation so startling, so bizarre (there was a wonderful WT word) that no poet or romancer could have suggested it.
Baj shifted against the alder's slender trunk — shifted slowly so as not to startle any observant animal. Nothing moved along the boggy run but occasional warblers flighting, and interlaced branches swinging barely budded in the mountain breeze.
Recollection came with that breeze. Of wind at his last archery. When? Not hunting — it hadn't been a hunting occasion.... It was a memory of river wind across the north-lawn butts at Island. Prince Bajazet and his friends: Martin Clay, Ernie Parker, Pat DeVane, and Pedro Darry — Commander of Island's Guard and middle-aged Master of the Revels. Wonderful swordsman, too, though desperately bad with a bow. Pat DeVane had been their wizard there, though he hadn't shot well that morning. Too much wind — gusty wind, hard to judge.
That memory came to Baj, but not quite freshly, as if those friends' voices, the strumming bowstrings and hissing arrows, sounded only for Prince Bajazet, who no longer lived at Island, or anywhere....
The evening slowly darkened. Bird-flights less frequent, bird-song softer as shadows became shade everywhere.
A bare shrub shook down the way. Then shook again.
Baj, alert, drew his bow a little just as a beast — no deer — shoved through foliage and out into the patch of bog.
A wild pig, then two more came grunting, bristle-fur dark and thick as bears'. A sow and her shoats — shoats grown at least a year. It was the skunk cabbage they came for, the sow already rooting at one, her trotters sunk deep in wet ground.
Baj rose slowly to his feet for the nicest shooting, slowly drew full, and held his shot to be sure of the nearest shoat, the arrow's fletching touching his cheek.
He was easing his fingers for the release, when berry vines exploded to his left and a razorback boar came at him black as night, squealing, champing yellow tusks so foam ran along its great head.
Baj spun that way, released the arrow — then ran.
He ran, as the boar turned to come after him, in a sort of leaping way, as if he might in a moment learn to fly — sail the air as Boston-talents did — and leave the beast behind. He ran kicking through scrub and splashing past skunk cabbage, the sow and shoats standing still, staring as he went past with squealing death coming after.
While his legs thrashed in desperate running, while he fumbled to set a second arrow to his bow, Baj's mind was oddly calm and clear. If he tears me — if he tears me, I'll die. No physicians, no old Portia-doctor here...
His second arrow, as if helpful, seemed to nock itself to the string — and Baj half-turned as he ran, drew and shot and struck the boar in its shoulder as it came bounding. Then, no more squeals. Only speed and purpose.
Baj angled hard away, knew it was no use, hesitated as the boar came to him, shaking its head, foam flying — then dove up into the air and over the animal, d
ove high as if into a summer swimming pond as the boar reared and struck at him. Baj hit the ground, rolled to his feet, and ran back the way he'd come, back toward his sword and dagger as the boar spun and was after him, still silent.
Galloping, imagining the figure he made fleeing an angry pig, Baj began to laugh with what breath he could spare. Pursued again.... He saw his weapons by the narrow alder, and knew he wouldn't reach them.
Something came down just behind him like a falling tree, very dark and swift. There was a heavy smacking sound. Baj looked back, still in a stumbling run, and saw the boar thrashing in the damp... bright blood spouting, spattering where its head had been.
Richard hulked beside, puffing a little from effort, swinging his double-bitted ax to clear blood running at its edge. "She was right," he said. "No deer."
Baj stood bent over to catch his breath. He felt his heartbeats in his throat. "Thank you... very much."
"Come to call you in — getting dark. Heard him squealing." Richard picked a handful of weeds and wiped his ax-blade clean. "I do have a question. Why were you laughing?"
"... Why not?" Baj said, and the Person smiled his toothy smile.
* * *
There had never been better meat.
Baj had truly never tasted better, though Island's cooks were as near the arts of Warm-time "chefs" as it was possible to be. He supposed it was the sum of circumstances: the fine rich roast itself after hungry days — with danger past, with a snapping fire warming against the night's chill mountain air, and good and interesting company.
To be alive and untorn was pleasure enough; to have searched in near darkness and found his valuable vagrant arrow, and now to chew the hot pork — running fat clear and fine — of what had tried to kill him, made for pleasures additional.
In eating, his companions' odd blood was shown. The boy, Errol, ate alone — had taken his portion, steaming guts and lights mainly, and gone into the dark with it. Big Richard and Small Nancy ate alike, with swift and serious ripping bites — white teeth, dark meat — as if the portion needed further killing. Then followed slightly awkward chewing, as if gulping would be their natural thing.
Baj supposed he ate not much differently, being so hungry, so pleased.
... He woke chilled under his blanket into a damp dawn — stretched, yawned, and rolled out ready for cold pork and mountain climbing. Both hams, already roasted, had been propped over the banked fire through the night, for deeper smoking. Charred dark, they would last for long traveling.... The rest of the meat would be gone in two or three days, with only tiny wild spring onions found to cut its thick sweet-saltiness. The head had been buried in the ashes, slow cooking, and as the others roused, Richard — yawning, still sleepy — dug into the fire's gray bed to the last still-red coals, lifted the boar's head free, its curled tusks cracked by heat, then split the heavy skull with a stroke of his ax, and served brains out steaming on widths of bark. .. . Baj let those go by, and took a chop. Brains — and testicles, and the palms of the hands — had been the ceremonial delicacies of cannibal Middle Kingdom, and only two or three generations before.
The three of them — Errol gobbling off to the side, behind a spruce — sat wreathed in the fire's last wisps of smoke, and ate seriously, for strength as much as satisfaction.
... By sun-overhead — the old WT noon — they were up and over the round peak of the next mountain north, and though Richard still led with Nancy, Baj kept close behind them even in the steepest places — where they occasionally went on all fours.
Then they were onto long ridges, misty with low cloud and stretching away north and east, so no end of them could be seen. Only wind-bent spruce grew along these crests, seemed to grow from gray stone weathered bald and broken. Eagles — dark eagles, not the bright-headed fishing ones that tree-nested along Kingdom River — swung just above or just beneath them as they traveled. Errol threw stones to strike the birds, but they paid him no mind... drifted with the wind along the heights, hardly flapping their wings.
From these high ridges, Baj saw for the first time that the earth was truly round. Slowly turning in one place he found the horizon very slightly curved — difficult to make out amid distant misty mountains, but certain just the same. So, the copybooks' casual claim was proved again as Gulf and Ocean sailors proved it, watching departing ships seem to slowly sink into the sea, so that finally only their raven's nests and banners could be seen... then not even those.
... As the day grew old, the wind grew young, and blew hard enough to be leaned into — a danger, with damp rock to climb along, and vacant air often close on either side. His first time so high, those long, long falls through sunstruck fog to stone slopes so far below — and, in places, to distant forest browns and greens still farther down — kept Baj's attention on his boots, so he marked every step to make sure of it, and fell behind.
"Keep up!" Nancy, looking back, waved him on.
"I am fucking keeping up. But I'm not going to fall, either!"
She stared at him for a moment — that yellow-eyed stare — then went on along the ridge after Richard, and soon out of sight among sloping, broad, bare shelves of granite.
"Jesus-damned things..." It seemed unfair the two — Errol also — had animals' endurance and fine footing. Baj thought of taking his boots off, but then his wool stockings would be worn to holes within a quarter-mile over this country.
The girl, so kind and careful when he'd been hurt, now was an annoyance, always with something to say about what he might do better. Keep up. And if he hurried and fell off these heights — what then? Fox's tears for his memory?
Baj went a little faster, but carefully.
* * *
"Don't tell him."
"Don't tell him what?" Richard stood idly swinging his ax, surveying the green peaks to the east as they waited for Baj-who-was-a-prince. "— We'll be in Map-Kentucky by dark, tomorrow."
"Just don't tell him."
Richard turned to stare at her. "And what makes you suppose, Little One, that I would — or that the boy would care?"
"I know what men think, humans or Persons."
"You know what some think."
"All, Richard."
They heard Baj's boots on the ridge's rock.
"Mmm. And did you notice the eagle that was not an eagle?"
"No, I didn't."
"It flew miles east of us, just the same."
Baj tramped up to them. "I'm here," he said to Nancy. "— Satisfied?"
CHAPTER 8
As Richard had seen her — so Patience had seen him and his companions as she sailed past, then on for hours more over country steep enough to take them days of travel. She'd seen the tiny three of them (the Weasel-boy certainly roaming near) filing along the top of the ridge. A dangerous way to go, outlined for anyone to see from miles away, and likely not what Captain Richard would have done if the crest cliffs had allowed him passage a little lower.
Still dangerous going, through Thrush country soon becoming Robin country. The Robins took heads.
Dangerous for her, too, to walk so tired through the air. And so high. The Patience Nearly-Lodge Riley who, at seventeen, had thought her way so easily over the ice from Boston, and down from the Wall — Walking-in-air all the lowlands south, crossing the Gulf Entire, and then into the Sierra Occidental — had ended fresh as a summer flower.
The flower was withered weaker now, as flowers failed with Lord Winter's first breath.
If there were such Great Spirits of climate and the rest — and people who were not fools believed it — if there were, then why was the gift of youth-forever, forever withheld? Why were interesting men and women — and interesting Persons, Boston made — why all left doomed to rot, and know it?.. .Violent passing, of course, quite another thing. Poor MacAffee; he'd fenced his four taught strokes, his five taught guards... really helpless as a child against invention. Still, a pleasure to have felt fine steel, so keen, strike and catch and draw a man's life out with it. The l
ook on his face... on all their faces before...
Wind, harder wind came buffeting through the mountain pass. Difficult... difficult to Walk-in-air against, it took such concentration. Patience welcomed forest in her mind, and sank a little lower toward it, her coat ruffling, flapping about her. A short-summer wind, at least, and not cruelly cold.
She welcomed forest more warmly, welcomed what ground, what stone lay beneath the trees, so she sailed lower, beneath the worst of the gusts... low enough to kick at the tallest spruce-tops with her boots as she went past.
Perhaps her weariness allowed Maxwell to come dreaming in. A dream of baby odors of pee, stains of his wet-nurses' breast milk, and a cloth tit of southern cane sugar — so she felt him resting warm against her breast, crooning, nudging to suckle. Patience caught the hem of his dream like a sliding border of silk, and wished herself into it, her left breast's nipple into his wet, soft, baby mouth — urgent, then painfully sweet as he worked his hungry mouth to take dream milk from her. Her breast ached, both breasts ached with the pleasure of it. Soon. Soon, my baby. My darling boy...
She seemed to bend to him, sharing a vision — Maxwell no longer suckling strongly, restless, disinterested — as they viewed, from some drifting vantage, a great wind-humming space she recognized as Island's Bronze Gate... the river surging past, its currents swirling in the stone harbor. There were colors, banners, welcoming music as two people — a man and woman — stepped down a ship's gangway hand-in-hand. Both older... so it took a moment to recognize them....
The dream spun back to its beginning, Maxwell tugging gently, nudging, as he lightly suckled like a lover, so the sweetness of it ran like honey to her groin.
No such unlooked-for pleasure, without price. Blind with longing, so deep in her son's dream, Patience struck a tree-top; a limber spruce-branch whipped across her face — and shocked from concentration, she fell through the air, awkward and clutching, until a greater branch snagged her, and wrenched her left arm from its shoulder socket.
Moonrise Page 11