The Luck of Brin's Five

by Wilder, Cherry;

  We kept up a good pace once we had reached the slippery surface of the road. The weather had been holding so well for the past day that I began to believe, as I did every year at that time, that we had turned the corner; the numbered days on Brin’s skein were reaching towards the spring. The Harper put a hand over his shoulder and struck a note or two to help with his singing. Then Diver began to sing, in a sweet voice, quite different from his usual growl, and the Harper tried to learn this foreign melody. It was the “Song of the Cheerful Walker,” and Roy was just beginning to fit words to it, as he did later with many of Diver’s songs. This is not so easy as it sounds, for though the notes of our two sorts of music are similar, the beat of our two sorts of speech is very different.

  So we three went singing down the mountainside until there was a strange cry and the Harper drew us up short.

  It came again.

  “Hold!”

  We came round a bend, and the road ahead was blocked by a great clump of snow. It had come from an overhanging cliff and landed squarely on the palanquin. There was no sign of the vassals transporting the ship—they had gone blithely ahead leaving their noble travelling companion who knows how far behind.

  We rushed up and began digging with our bare hands. The Harper called out respectfully to reassure the entombed grandee. I began dragging out one of the bearers; Diver tried for another. Through a round hole, like a window in the snow, a penetrating voice . . . two voices . . . a whole pouchful of grandees besought our aid. It is strange that the more civilized our people become the louder they talk.

  “Easy!” said the Harper. “The roof of the litter is just holding.”

  He managed to clear a space at the narrow end of the palanquin: he slashed the fine hanging with his knife and gently tamped down the snow to make a way out. Out they came, the pair of them: two tall personages, not much shaken by their ordeal. Their finery made me gape . . . I had never seen such furs and jewels and leather work. I knew the fine silk-woven wool of their cloaks had brought some weavers a year’s food.

  The taller one wore a black travelling wig and snow-goggles trimmed with brilliants.

  “Thank you, brave weavers, a thousand times . . . Come along Tewl . . . where are those blistering wretches in the convoy . . . Rilpo Rilproyan Galtroy!” This was accompanied by a flourishing bow.

  The Harper bowed too. “Roy Brinroyan, called Turugan, the Harper.” Tewl was willowy, aristocratic, with hair blonded at the crown and curled up at the edges. I noticed the pallor of their skins, the movement of their long hands, like birds.

  “Don’t stare!” said Harper Roy. He helped drag my bearer clear; a sturdy vassal with a broken neck. Stone dead.

  The Harper said to the grandees, “This bearer has taken flight, highnesses.”

  I stood dismayed in the presence of death, but Rilpo and Tewl knelt down in the snow examining the bearer tenderly. Hands fluttered, they talked aloud with no self-consciousness. Meanwhile Diver gave a muffled cry; his bearer was alive and unharmed.

  Diver and the Harper drew out the limp form, feeling for broken bones but finding none. The bearer was short and sturdy with that breadth of shoulder that vassals get in their heavy work.

  “Omor,” said the Harper, “an empty one.”

  “Is it?” I had never seen one.

  “Omor?” whispered Diver. The Harper and I were at a loss to explain but we tried; an empty one is a female who deliberately bears no children. There are none in the mountains; they are usually vassals of the grandees in the capital or mineworkers in Tsagul, the Fire-Town. They have a reputation for being very strong, and this seemed to prove it.

  “How is poor Tsammet?” inquired Tewl, striding round the heap of snow.

  “Living . . .” said Roy.

  To prove his point, the drenched omor took another heaving breath and sat up cursing. The name was a fiery one . . . with the hateful fire-sound of Ts . . . and Tsammet had a blistering tongue.

  “Sorry Highness . . .” she growled, “couldn’t duck that one.”

  “Glad you’re alive, child,” remarked Tewl. “Thank these mountain folk who were passing. Your stablemate Gwey was not so lucky.”

  We helped Tsammet up, cursing sadly for the loss of the other bearer.

  “Thanks, gentle friends . . .” she murmured. “Where’s the flaming convoy?” She caught the Harper’s eye. “Get my lieges out of this trouble. It’ll be worth your while.”

  “We’ll help,” said the Harper.

  “What’s wrong with your big sib here?” she said, peering at Diver. “Don’t it talk?”

  “Not much,” I said. “Poor thing has a thread loose but quite gentle.”

  “Help me . . .” Tsammet tried to walk, but an ankle buckled. “Flaming hot blistering sprain . . .”

  We helped Tsammet around the snow drift and all huddled there, grandees, two vassals, one dead, weavers and Diver, our newcomer, out of the rising wind. Rilpo, I saw, had folded the dead one’s arms and laid a red mourning skein on the cold forehead.

  “Highness . . .” said Harper Roy, “is there a convoy ahead?”

  “A long way ahead by now,” said Rilpo. “Any suggestions? Fit us a tune to this perilous situation, Harper.”

  “The child will run on down,” said the Harper, who had already worked things out to suit our own perilous situation. “Dorn can meet the convoy and send back strength to dig out the litter and bring down your lost bearer.”

  “So far so good,” said Rilpo. “I don’t fancy a long wait in the cold.”

  “By no means,” said Roy cheerfully; “but one of your highnesses must take turns with the other at riding on my back. My sib, poor stupid Diver here, will carry Tsammet, your wounded dependent.”

  “Fine! Fine!”

  Tewl clapped long hands. “Anything we need from the litter, Rilpo?”

  “No!” cried the Harper. “Pray you . . . keep away from the thing . . . it may collapse at any moment.”

  “Ah well . . .” Tewl was dissuaded.

  “You’re an idiot,” said Rilpo fondly.

  Diver drew me aside before the mounting up, and I did my best to explain the plan. One thing bothered him. Were Rilpo and Tewl male or female? I shook my head; frankly I had no idea. “Who cares? They’re grandees.” I looked again, as Rilpo helped Tewl mount on Harper Roy’s back, and indeed it was hard to tell. No question here of a vented robe or a hidden child. Grandees were notorious for having more or less mating life than mountain folk . . . Their adults were not called to the mating tents in the spring only. I solved the problem by asking Tsammet.

  The omor flared up, aiming a blow at my head. “Cheeky brat! Tewl is the Galtroy’s female partner. They have a pair-family, city style. She has carried him two fine children, what more do you want!”

  Diver took some of this in, grinning. He knelt down, and I helped Tsammet onto his back. She weighed heavily, but he was equal to it. As I went scudding off on my errand, I heard her say to him slowly, as if speaking to a child, “We’ve got a strange thing in the net, up ahead . . .”

  Then I was alone, running on down in the wind, with only the plaited-rope soles of my boots to keep me from slithering off into the valley. I ran and ran until I thought I must be nearly down the mountain, but there was no sign of the convoy. Then I paused, and over the side of the pass I saw the ship in the net far below, almost on the outskirts of Cullin. But the lack of the palanquin had been noticed; four vassals were toiling towards me up the next curve in the road.

  I hailed them, still out of breath, told the tale and handed over Rilpo’s message skein. They were all hefty and stern, with three knots on their tunics; any one of them could have been a bravo who seized me, back in the glebe. Their manners improved when they read the skein, and they went on, cursing, to dig out the litter. I sat idle on the roadside, watching the roofs and tents of Cullin and the cloud shadows moving over the Great Plain. The river Troon, behind its broad groves, flashed gray as metal in the wintery light. Pres
ently there came a sound of singing, and there they were: Rilpo riding now on Harper Roy, Tsammet grinning from Diver’s back and Tewl, striding along, strumming Roy’s precious harp and singing an old mountain air, “Sweet Bird of the Snow.”

  So we all went on down. I walked beside Tewl and looked my fill at a grandee. There was a gaiety, a brightness about Tewl and Rilpo that was all of a piece with their finery. I could almost understand serving such persons, being a loyal vassal like Tsammet. I had an impulse to trust them, to ask Diver to trust them and tell his story and show them his magic and reveal his knowledge of the air ship. But I kept these dangerous thoughts to myself, and we came at last, in the darkness before the rising of the second sun, to the riverbank outside the town.

  The Troon rises on the west face of Hingstull and passes through great falls and caverns, so that it is a sizeable river when it curls round the mountain’s base and is joined by the Stone Brook. Then, beyond the joining place, it curves through the town and on into the Great Plain. We saw the convoy with the air ship in its net, drawn up on the Troon bank where the two waters meet. There was a paddle barge ready and a smaller passenger boat. As we made our way to the riverbank, the vassals in charge of the convoy were preparing to load the ship on the barge.

  Diver was able to set down Tsammet at the landing stage, and all of us pressed closer to watch the loading. No sooner was the air ship laid on the barge than it was covered with vast sheets of canvas and bound with ropes into a great bundle of ordinary merchandise.

  “Secrecy,” whispered Harper Roy. “Tiath Gargan will not have it borne through Cullin.” Diver was restless and tense, but he made no move.

  Rilpo Galtroy, who had been speaking to the vassals, drew us all aside. “Friends . . .” he said, “I must charge you all—explain it to your quiet sib if you can—never speak of what you have seen here.”

  “You mean that vessel?” asked Harper Roy. “Where does it come from, Highness?”

  Rilpo and Tewl became still and silent. “You read those crests,” said Tewl. “The Great Elder has expressed a particular need for silence.”

  “I will say this,” put in Rilpo carefully. “It is believed that a foreign race has flown from the void and made a nest in the islands.”

  “But we charge you most solemnly. . . .” Tewl’s eyes were luminous in the dusk. “Say nothing even to your nearest kin. Do not betray our trust.”

  “Believe me, Highnesses,” murmured Harper Roy, “I speak for us all and say we will not breathe one word out of place in this matter.”

  “Highness . . .” I plucked Tewl gently by the mantle.

  “Is it not possible that a foreign race might be our friends? They may resemble us in form? They may pass among us and join with us, like Moruians indeed?”

  “I pray it may be so, dear child,” said Tewl. Her voice was sweet and brittle. She took from her finger a little ring of silver, made like a rope, with a blue brilliant on the knot, and slipped it onto my finger. I blushed and kissed her cool hand.

  Rilpo smiled. “Come, you have saved our lives and served us immensely. We can’t repay that kind of service. I have had my eye on this poor fellow Diver, your sib. He is very strong, though simple in the head. I think Tsammet likes him. Let us pay you a consideration for his first year’s wages and let him be our Luck and come with us to Rintoul.”

  “Oh yes . . .” cried Tewl. “Sweet Rilpo . . . you have such kind ideas. Let Diver be our Luck. We had a dear Luck, a dwarf, but she died, poor creature.”

  “Highness,” said Harper Roy, “we would not disoblige you for the world, but in truth and according to bond we cannot part with Diver. He is our Luck, signed and sealed.”

  “Too bad,” said Rilpo. “What Family? Brin’s Five? Well, so be it. I am sure he is most valuable.”

  He reached into the furry sleeves of his tunic and produced, carelessly, a handful of pure silver credits and gave them to me, filling my cupped hands. It was politeness—giving the child a present rather than tipping the adult. So they parted from us and joined the vassals of Tiath Pentroy. The giant paddle wheel, turned by ten heavers in the bow, began to churn the dark water, and the barge with its shrouded cargo moved slowly from shore. Tsammet had been helped aboard the smaller travelling boat, and now the grandees joined her.

  The two vessels moved on down river, and we were left on the shore, wrapped in our cloaks. Diver bared his face; we laughed together, rather shakily.

  “Danger!” said Harper Roy. Diver understood.

  “It is not over yet . . .” he said. In the light of Esder, the Far Sun, newly risen and moving towards its fullness, a detachment of Pentroy vassals were marching on ahead of us into Cullin.

  “We must seek guidance,” said Harper Roy. “Beeth Ulgan will help us.”

  It was a cold evening, and I was sorry we could not visit any of our usual haunts. There were blood kin and glebe neighbors wintering in their warm tents on the slopes above the town and on the edge of the fairground, down over the river. We went looking for a meal in the broad, swept streets of Cullin, between the fixed houses. The tall house of the Town Five hung in curving folds of plaster and bent beams on a mound beyond the circle. The only other buildings of any size were the wool and food store by the main wharf and “Vanuyu” or the House of the Four Winds. This is a hunting lodge built by some Pentroy ages ago on the river, before the weavers bought out the land and gained the title for a free town.

  Vanuyu is a beautiful house—for years the only fixed house I believed could be beautiful—and it is built partly of brick, with curtain walls of plaster to either wing. It is inhabited by some of our town grandees or climbing weavers—the Wharf Steward and the Fair Caller and their fives. We showed these wonders to Diver by the bright light of Esder, and I was impressed, as always, by the lights used in the town . . . candles, oil lamps, rush-lights, for the townees are far less chary of fire than mountain folk. But it was still cold; we pulled into one food shop by the wharf and found it full of Pentroy vassals guzzling bowls of hot tipsy-mash. We moved on to another, near the open circle, where we smuggled Diver into a dark corner, back of the steaming cook pots, and Harper doled me out a credit to buy our supper.

  We ate delicious, hot tipsy-mash and venison stew with flour dumplings, real town food, in glazed earthenware dishes that had been hardened in fire. The spoons had metal bowls, but the handles were safe wooden ones, to cheer up superstitious country visitors.

  “How do you like our town?” we asked Diver.

  “Good!” he said, “A town.”

  We were pleased.

  “Like the towns in your land?” asked the Harper, slyly.

  “Like the towns in my land . . . long ago.”

  “Never fear,” I said, “wait until you see Rintoul.”

  “Ah, Rintoul . . .” sighed the Harper. “The Golden Net of the World!”

  “My ship goes to Rintoul.”

  “Diver . . .” I was bold now, with the warmth of the shop and the tipsy-mash rising into my head. “Are there others . . . your Family . . . in the islands?”

  “Yes . . . but not Family.” Diver tried to explain. “Friends, workers . . . helpers.”

  “How many?” asked Harper Roy.

  “Three and myself. They will think me dead,” said Diver solemnly.

  “Females and males?” I thought of the strange shape of the female creatures in his drawings. “Will you make a Family?”

  “Two males, two females,” he replied sadly. “We came as scholars. To see what lived, what could breathe . . . on Torin.”

  Then a drunken townee from the front of the cook-shop saw Roy’s harp and called for a song. He moved away cheerfully, leaving us in shadow, and began to sing, sweetly as ever, a whole string of his mountain melodies. I sat in the gloom, at Diver’s side, growing warm and sleepy. The shop was no more than half-full with townees and some travelling Families; suddenly there was some sort of commotion by the round doorway that looked out on the circle. The Harper finish
ed abruptly; customers were making a move. I stiffened, thinking of Pentroy vassals, then I heard the jingle of shell-bracelets and the thud of dancing feet. “Twirlers!” I whispered to Diver.

  The shop emptied quickly; even the cook downed ladles and ran out. I gulped down my food and tumbled out into the dark street after Roy and Diver. A blue flame shot up in the center of the grassy circle—Twirlers’ Fire. It is a cool, harmless flame, so they say, but it was flame enough to send a thrill through the crowd. The Leader stood in the midst of the circle, beside the flax-bound stake hissing with blue fire. A tall figure, brown and twisted like a burned tree, painted with clay and naked except for a long cloak of blue rag-bunches. Around the circle there danced ten, fifteen others, thumping the ground rhythmically with their heels, between leaping and prancing. The shell-bracelets on their wrists clashed and jingled and caught the light of the fire. Their blue rags were spattered with mud; they were sweating, and the dark streaks on their skin might already have been blood. The twirlers’ shell-bracelets are sharp and they cut their flesh as they dance, until the blood runs down.

  Every so often one dancer would advance into the circle and twirl on the spot, slowly at first, then faster and faster, unbearably fast, until there was a thin blurring column of blue and brown.

  “Trouble!” whispered Roy, as we stood in the shadows. “Time we went to the Ulgan’s house.” The twirlers had drawn a crowd, even in winter. One or two of the Watch, employed by the Town Five, were lounging about with their staves, not expecting trouble. But the Pentroy vassals could be seen too, pushing their way through the quiet, hooded, clustering crowd. None came our way, and we did not make a move.

  One by one the twirlers dropped to the grass like wounded birds, and the Leader, who had twirled and gestured close to the burning stake, began to cry out.