The Luck of Brin's Five

by Wilder, Cherry;

  “Our birds have flown.

  Our sweet singers have been hauled from the hold.

  We plied our trade honestly and gave shelter to travellers,

  But now our good keel is dishonored.

  Mother North Wind accept all we can give,

  Ourselves compacted in death.

  Mother North Wind bring deepest ruin

  Upon the hand that strangles the Spirit Warriors.

  Spirit of Eenath, his own kin,

  Be stern upon the Elder Tiath.

  First finders, remember your charge.

  Be blessed if you be not accursed.

  Itho, Lanar, Meedo.

  Bird Carriers out of Cullin.”

  She read the message aloud several times until even Diver understood, with our prompting. Harper Roy went out and told it to Mamor.

  “I have put too many in danger,” said Diver. “The twirlers were speaking about my ship. . . .”

  “Not you . . .” Old Gwin flashed her favorite finger sign before her eyes like bone scissors. “Not you, young Luck. There’s only one hand at work here and a bloody one. Strangler Tiath has dishonored these poor old bird runners.”

  “Dragged the twirlers off their boat!” said Brin. “That means he may not be far away. I could wish we were all safe at Whiterock Fold.”

  “Does this mean Tiath Gargan killed all the twirlers?” I asked.

  “Who knows?” Mamor had come to warm up and talk. “They’re hardy outcasts. Perhaps some escaped.”

  “What is the first finder’s charge?” asked Diver. No one liked to tell him.

  Brin sighed. “Dorn,” she said, “you were very brave, but the charge may never be complete.” I agreed.

  “The first finders are charged, according to the old threads, to deliver any curse or blessing in a death-pact skein,” she explained.

  “To blazes with that!” said Mamor. “The child has done more than enough. Don’t put ideas in his head.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I hope I never get within offering distance of Tiath Gargan.”

  The full darkness was slipping away, and I was suddenly bone weary, as if I had climbed Hingstull. I fumbled my way into the sleeping bag and fell deeply asleep before Old Gwin had finished brewing me a herb drink. I dreamed that a brown bird, a night-caller, sat on our tent by day, and I knew, in my dream, that it was Odd-Eye, our old Luck. I told him all was well with us and the new Luck he had found for us was the best in all the world. Then the dream dissolved; I woke once, and the barge was still not under way. Narneen, half in the sleeping bag, was peering through a slit in the deck tent, and I joined her. Outside in the silvery light of the far sun I saw figures moving on the west bank; Mamor and Diver and the Harper were digging in the sand, laying the dead to rest. I slept again and did not dream; by the time I woke, we were far downstream. The bird-boat had been towed out of the channel and moored in a marshy inlet, among the mud-trees.

  The broad stream stretched before us; it was the third day, and I felt as if I had spent all my life on the river. Yet I was troubled, and so were the rest; I could not get the image of the death-bound ancients out of my mind. The looms clacked slowly in the tent; Narneen had fits of weeping; Mamor cursed invisible shoals. Diver sat amidships with the Harper, trying to master the knots of the woven symbols with a practice skein. The fine weather that had echoed our happiness turned round now that we were downcast. It was gray and chill at midday; we passed one or two small craft travelling upstream.

  In the distance, on the west bank, there was a break in the thick groves of willow and mud-trees: a larger town, Wellin, the last place we must pass before Whiterock Fold. Idly, at the rail, I lobbed a fish spine at an odd blue piece of flotsam, then felt my skin dimple with cold as I realized what it was. I shouted, and Mamor held down the sweep. I crossed the deck to stand with Diver and the Harper as the body of the dead twirler was borne slowly past.

  “Great Wind!” breathed Roy. “There was some sense in that death-skein.”

  Diver brought out his glass; it looked like a light-tube, but he could draw it out to twice the length. It had a lens inside to make distant things look closer; Mamor said that such things were made in Rintoul and the Fire-Town to guide sailors on the Great Ocean Sea. Diver scanned the stream ahead and the landing stage at Wellin, his face darkening. He handed the glass to the Harper, who took one look and went to Mamor.

  “What is it?” I tugged Diver by the sleeve. His blue eyes rested on me.

  “A black barge,” he said, “moored at this place ahead. Some grandee. . . .”

  Already I knew which one. “Pentroy?”

  “There are three knots on the sail.”

  Mamor altered course to the east bank and presently, when we saw a little wicker crossing-boat approaching, he sent us all into the tent. We heard him hail the solitary rower.

  “What doings in Wellin, friend?” We were huddled together, beside Brin, at the loom; the voice came thinly over the water.

  “. . . assize . . .”

  “Great Wind save us!” Mamor was shocked, or pretended to be. “Thought I saw a drowned spirit warrior?”

  The voice of the passerby became urgent, telling some long tale; then as the coracle was rowed closer, we caught a few words.

  “. . . no friend to the twirlers . . . the river or the rope . . .” There was a cackling laugh. We heard Mamor wish the rower a surly good day and felt the vibration as he began heaving on his capstan to turn the paddle wheel.

  We could guess the story Mamor had to tell. “Tiath Pentroy lies at Wellin wharf. He held assize there yesterday. The Town Five went along with him, threw in some local troublemakers—a thief, a bush weaver who killed a cook-shop servant in a brawl. Ten persons hanged, most of them twirlers that the Elder had chained on the deck of his barge.”

  “Where did he capture them?” asked Brin.

  “On the river itself . . . the twirlers made good speed to Fanne and Nedlor, so I gather, and danced in these hamlets.”

  I seemed to hear the thud of bare feet on packed earth and the jingle of shell bracelets . . . with a new message. Beeth Ulgan’s words had told of “a true spirit warrior, bringing peace and honor.”

  “The Strangler caught up with them at Nedlor,” said Mamor, “as he bore downriver on that black palace moored up ahead. His vassals went to watch the twirlers dance. . . .”

  “He seized them in Nedlor village?” asked Old Gwin.

  “Not he! The Great Elder is cunning as a honey-stealer. His dark craft lay off Nedlor, and when the vassals brought back word to him, he decided to put down the twirlers. Or so I read this fellow’s skein . . . his family have to do with a bean plot in Nedlor. The twirlers set sail in the bird-boat after their dance, and Tiath pounced. The villagers saw it by Esder light, just about the rising of the Great Sun. The grand barge grappled the bird boat, vassals dragged off the twirlers . . . some were drowned, some put in chains. I reckon that some escaped too . . . maybe the villagers got them to safety . . . this bean-grower knew more than he was telling.”

  “Cunning is the word for the Great Elder,” said Harper Roy. “Twirlers have no fight in them once the dance is done.”

  “But the old persons on the bird boat . . . who witnessed his crime and were carrying the twirlers . . .” Diver was puzzled. “Why did he let them go free?”

  “Tsk! No crime, young Luck!” chuckled old Gwin. “When will you learn? Tiath Pentroy commits no crimes. He is first of all a judge, who may hold assize at request, in any place on these his lands. He works by the old threads. He had no quarrel with the bird carriers . . . they are bound by custom to carry passengers.”

  “He arrested the twirlers. . . .” put in Mamor. “They were brought up at Wellin assize for ‘poisoning the river.’”

  “Old stuff . . .” sighed Gwin. She rocked her body to and fro, chanting under her breath for the departed twirlers.

  “A false charge!” said Diver.

  “Of course,” said Brin.
“It’s an old slander against the twirlers. Town Fives and shepherds use it to move them on. They carry herbs for their ecstasy . . .”

  “The bird carriers were so old and helpless,” I said, “that the Elder gave no thought to them or their poor honor.”

  “U tsagara neri fogoban,” said the Harper. “Can you make anything of that old skein row, Diver?”

  “I know fire and ‘goes on burning,’” said Diver.

  “One fire-seed, one spark, goes on burning,” said Brin. “We are peaceful people, here in the north, but very stubborn. A seed of injustice, of dishonor, settles behind our eyes and may drive us to death in order to put it right. So it was with the bird carriers . . .”

  The boat scraped against a tree, and Mamor, who had propped the sweep, ran out to steer clear. We came out of the tent fearfully into the gray noon light. The smooth surface of the Troon was choppy with wind-waves, and the trees lashed about over our heads. It was decided that we would lie over all day, where we were, a mile or so short of Wellin, and on the opposite bank. Come the last light we would make haste downstream and slip through the deep channel by the wharf. We had to pass close to the Elder’s barge because the river narrowed at this point—there were snags and sandbanks to the east.

  I thought the darkness would never come; my insides were knotted like an ill-threaded loom. I sat apart on the deck, clutching the long, loose message skein woven by the three bird-carriers. Presently Diver came and sat beside me.

  “Those names . . .” he said, “let me see if I can read them.” He felt his way through the final grouping of the knots, consulting the learning skein that Roy had twirled up for him.

  “Itho . . . La-bar?”

  “Lanar,” I said. “Itho is right. Then Lanar and Meedo.”

  “Poor old women.” He used the word from his own tongue, and I wondered if there was much difference between women and female Moruians. I am still not sure of the answer; when first I saw a “woman,” I only knew that she was of Diver’s race. She was wrapped up in her clothes, sexless and strange as a female grandee.

  Diver went on to tell me a strange tale, a spirit legend from his own world. It seems there were three ancient spirits who were said to rule over the lives of humans and control their destiny. They sat in a cave, and two spun the thread of life while the third sat by, ready to snip it off. I labored over the names as he did over the woven symbols: “Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.”

  “When I saw the ancients,” said Diver sadly, “they put me in mind of that tale.”

  “I wish it would get dark.”

  “What are you thinking?” Diver caught my eye: he saw too much. Thought-blind maybe, but quick in his understanding. “You are thinking of the first finder’s charge . . .”

  “We will pass so close!” I whispered, half-fearful that Mamor or Brin might hear me. “Diver . . . couldn’t we?. . .”

  “Maybe.” His blue eyes were hard. I trusted him then against the might of Tiath Gargan.

  “Give me the skein.”

  “I should be the one to throw it.”

  “No!” He was firm. “Leave it to me. This Great Elder is too dangerous. We’ll do it from a safe distance.”

  “Don’t tell!”

  “I must,” he said. “Only wait until dark.”

  So I thought my plan—one for hurling the skein aboard the Elder’s barge as we slipped through the channel—was quite lost. I trusted Diver, but he was, after all, a grownup. I expected a bit of chiding from the Five.

  We reefed the sail but did not stow the mast . . . Mamor planned to use all speed. When the Great Sun was down, we swung back into the current in the wake of a small gray fishing boat. Their riding flare bobbed ahead of us; there came a soft hail.

  “Na-hoo the barge . . .”

  “Na-hoo the fisher . . .” boomed Mamor softly. “Are you bound for Wellin?”

  “Beyond,” came the faint answer, “fishing the reach by Whiterock. You going to Wellin Wharf?”

  “Not this time . . . too crowded.”

  The fishers laughed. “Too many ropemakers at Wellin . . .”

  We went on as swiftly as the current would take us; the lights of Wellin shone out over the river. We saw the fisher slip into the shadow of the grain store then out again, past the great, lighted shape of the Elder’s barge, and swiftly on again into the darkness beyond. No one hailed from the wharf or the barge; Wellin lay like the dead. I thought of the trees of Wellin hung with dead twirlers; the hand of the Great Elder lay heavily over the place.

  Then we were in the channel; with Mamor working the paddlewheel as fast as he dared, to keep up our speed, and Harper Roy acting tillergrip. I crawled out of the tent and went on crawling right to the rail. Little eddies of sound came out of the night; we were in the shadow of the grain store. I lifted my head and saw white water churning at our bow. I realized that voices and music were coming from the black barge.

  We were abreast of it now, and still had a scrap of shadow to cover us. I saw that Diver was lying on the deck with his light stick shaded, looking at some magical engine. I looked right onto the deck of the Elder’s barge; I could not look away. We passed in a few heartbeats, but the scene caught and held me and has lived in my memory from that time.

  The barge was enormous, with a tent the size of a fixed house, all draped in fine, black hangings, of outdoor weight, with swags and pelmets woven and reworked in green and gold. There were vassals and their officers drinking and gaming round a huge red mat at the bow. At the stern was a lofty platform and steps, thickly carpeted. The Elder’s people were in attendance, so many that it could be called a court, and dressed so fine they could all have been grandees. I looked for Rilpo Galtroy and Tewl, but did not see them.

  The courtiers sprawled on the steps or clustered beside tub gardens and a flowered trellis. Some were wrapped in fur-trimmed cloaks, but others wore light robes; their bare backs and legs made me shiver. The colors were bright and rich: flame, purple, blue green. The musicians played on a harp, a box-harp and a matched set of pouch pipes. In the open space before the scrolled wicker throne, a dwarf was dancing.

  In the great scrolled chair there was a silent figure. He was past middle age but not yet an ancient. His dress was very plain: a black tunic, leather boots like his own vassals. A single yellow jewel the size of a fist was strung round his chest crosswise, on a thong; a fur-lined cloak of black and gray flowed over the chair back. His face had the pallor of a grandee, and the features were strongly marked. I could see the deep grooves cut in the firm, pale skin of the Elder’s shaven cheeks and the fine carving of his lips. He filled me with fear and loathing. His nose had a high bridge and his eye sockets were so long that they appeared to join into a single slit, under the jutting line of a single dark brow. It is the look we call yadorn or three-eyed.

  The Great Elder sat in his chair, still and brooding, with his hands lightly clenched upon the wings. I was convinced that I saw him now, once for all, as he was. He was fixed in my mind forever as cold, watchful, cruel, immensely powerful . . . silent among the jangling throng of courtiers, who went in continual fear of his presence. Then we were past the black barge, churning our way into darkness, with Mamor and Diver heaving up the sail.

  Brin stood on deck, and I clung to her. “Yadorn,” I whispered. “Did you see him?”

  “I saw.”

  A soft wind thrust at the sail. My eyes were accustomed to the night again, and the great barge at Wellin wharf was, by now, a glow of light astern. I saw that all of us were on deck, even Old Gwin, muttering a continuous chant and Narneen with her teeth chattering. We had all come out and were standing close together, under the stars, in some sort of defiance.

  Mamor said: “Far enough?”

  “Fine,” said Diver. He was working with a lightstick on the deck of the barge. “What do you think, Brin?” he asked.

  “Worth the risk!” growled Mamor. “That three-eyed devil!”

  “Do it!” said Brin. “Dorn? Where
is the death-pact skein?”

  “Diver has it.” I was still mystified.

  Harper Roy, at the tiller, sent a breathy whisper. “Where’s your star-gun, Diver?”

  Diver drew out the skein, and I saw him wind it round a pointed tube, fitted to the firing end of his weapon . . . he called it a stun-gun. Then he went aft and balanced on the rail, aiming high into the air. There was a light thump, a pulse beat or so, and suddenly the air far behind us was filled with green fire. A green star, brighter than any light I had ever seen, brighter than Esto, the Great Sun itself, blossomed in the dark air above, directly over the black barge. We heard the shrieks and cries of the Elder’s people. We saw, or hoped we saw, the death pact skein falling down like smoke, carrying the ancients’ curse to the very lap of Tiath Gargan.

  We sailed on into the reach and saw that this part of the river was dotted with fishing boats. Diver kept a close watch astern, but there was no pursuit. How could there be? No one on the river besides ourselves had the least idea of how this green star came about. Even Old Gwin, who saw Diver fire the flare, but was ignorant of our plan, had difficulty in grasping the notion. The Great Elder and his armed vassals knew about missiles—arrows, spears and catapults that hurled stones. They knew more than the old threads allowed about fire—flaming arrows and the terrible firestone clingers that assassins hurl from a metal cup. But Diver’s stun-gun and the flare rocket were far beyond their knowledge.

  They saw what we all saw and what was seen and wondered at by all the people of the river: a green star fell from heaven over the Great Elder’s barge. We heard it from the fishing boats, minutes after the flare, and we heard it again, exaggerated, at Whiterock and all the way to Otolor. Tiath Pentroy had drawn down the wrath of Eenath, his immortal ancestor, for killing her spirit-warriors.

  So we sailed on unharmed and came in at dawn to tie up at Whiterock Fold. An ancient shepherd came down to greet the blue barge, expecting Beeth Ulgan or her factors. We were escorted to her fixed house near the landing; our time on the river was over.

  V

  There are plenty of jokes about rough bush weavers moving into a fixed house, and I dare say we could have been the models for them all, at Whiterock. If it wasn’t the cold, the cooking hearth, the earth closet or the cupboard locks, then we were complaining about the stuffiness and the way the walls did not give. We adapted pretty quickly, and the Ulgan’s small white house became dear and familiar to us. But there were nights, as spring approached, when we couldn’t stand it another moment and slept in our bags on the lawn or on the flat roof, under the stars.