The Luck of Brin's Five

by Wilder, Cherry;

  “Dorn . . .” He smiled at me. “And is this Gordo Beethan?”

  “Scribe, scribe,” gasped Gordo. “I have a word for you that wins all!”

  He leaned far over and gave Vel Ragan the word; and I saw that it was a good one, for the scribe’s face lit up.

  “What say you, Speaker?” called the Herald. “Will you dispute still or let the Hundred vote on the justice of the claim?”

  “I will dispute,” said Vel Ragan. “Scott Gale can partake of our customs, and he has indeed done so and the threads of hospitality apply to all. I say he formed a true bond and intended to keep it.”

  “Not so!” said Tiath. “Come now, Scott Gale . . . you have travelled with these folk and been their friend, but you are Man. Answer truthfully, did it ever occur to you to stay with Brin’s Five longer than this journey from the north?”

  “Truly, Highness, it has occurred to me,” said Diver. “I am alone, as a Man, on Torin. The chances of finding my fellow creatures are less with every day. I must tell you I am under rule from my world to live out my life, if need be, in a new place. Brin’s Five are my Family . . . the only one I have. If I cannot partake of your customs, I am lost.”

  “The more reason for Secret Hand! A protective custody. A Moruian cannot form a bond with a foreigner.”

  “Yet it has been done before and even more closely,” said Vel Ragan, “unless the ancient mysteries of the clans are to be worth nothing . . .”

  “What do you mean?” asked Tiath.

  “The clans formed bonds with creatures of another race,” said Vel Ragan. “Your own ancestor, Highness, is Eenath the Spirit-Warrior!”

  There was a gentle stir through the Pavilion; Tiath Pentroy stood still, gaping at the scribe; he began to speak, then thought better of it.

  “Would you deny Eenath?” demanded Blind Marl, slyly.

  Then Orn Margan Dohtroy lumbered slowly, almost reluctantly, to his feet. “I believe the scribe has made out his case,” he said, “and these folk, from the mountains, have shown us plainly how strangers and foreigners should be treated upon Torin. The Man comes in peace, I hope, and can live amongst us. In legend lies always a grain of truth: Clan Dohtroy numbers Vuruno the Spirit-Warrior in its line. I hope that I will not dishonor my ancestor by the pursuit of a stranger and the imprisonment of young Witnesses. I know, better than most of you, that Moruians are hard to govern and that great leaders resort to the secret exercise of power, in exasperation, to have their will. I believe Brin’s Five should have their Luck again; I will not vote for Secret Hand.”

  “A vote!” said Guno Deg, “by the turning of the cloaks. If this bond be a true one—”

  “Then our Luck must be returned!” said Brin.

  “I am conspired against!” said Tiath Gargan.

  “A vote is called,” said the Herald, “and the speaking must stop!”

  The trumpeters made a wild, long call, and there was a rustling as the Hundred began to turn their cloaks, slowly at first, then more and more, until whole rows had gone from white to blue. I did not know what the colors signified, but I could see it upon the faces of Tiath Pentroy and the scribe Vel Ragan. The numbers were called and stood at sixty votes for a true bond, forty against and not all of them from Pentroy and Galtroy.

  Guno Deg, who had called for the vote, stood up and addressed Diver. “Give us assurance that you will live here in peace, Garl Brinroyan, and you may go with Brin’s Five.”

  “I give that assurance gladly,” he said. “And I leave my engines, so-called, with the Great Elder.”

  A last call was blown, and the Pavilion was full of noise as the grandees filed out.

  Diver vaulted lightly over the low rail and came to help down Gordo Beethan and myself, onto the pavement. I ran into Brin’s arms. We stood all together in the Corr Pavilion and watched the Five Elders departing. Tiath Pentroy had been standing by his throne, but now he kept his eyes fixed on Vel Ragan and came slowly to the rail.

  “Take care,” he said in a terrible soft voice, “there is a special fire for those who say too much.”

  “Fire does not frighten me, Highness,” said the scribe, “Since I stood in the path of an assassin . . .” He turned his head, and the Great Elder stared in silence at the scars on his face.

  “Stand beside a leader who is less . . . headstrong,” said Tiath slowly, “and do not go hunting shadows.”

  So the name Tsorl-U-Tsorl hung between these two and was not spoken; Tiath Pentroy turned and strode out of the Pavilion.

  We came out of the hall into the long porch where grandees and their vassals and servants were milling about in great numbers. A surprising number of those waiting had to do with Brin’s Five. There stood Ablo, with his head bandaged, holding Tomar by one hand and Narneen by the other; I went and greeted them and hugged Ablo around the waist.

  “Oh Ablo . . . I thought you were dead!”

  “So did I, Dorn Brinroyan, so did I. But it turns out I am not, and I have been given a nickname, a thing I never had before. . . . I am Ablo Binigan!”

  This was a name that suited him very well, for it meant Ablo the Fixer, the Helper, the one who picks up dropped stitches.

  I saw that Onnar was there, waiting for Vel Ragan; a Wentroy house servant brought a luck skein from Guno Deg. The Wentroy pilot came up and shook Diver by the hands and presented several grandees of other clans, who spoke curiously to him and asked more impertinent questions. He answered them all with good humor.

  I felt a dig in the ribs and spun round to see an omor in crimson livery. “Not so cold here, mountain child!”

  “Burn me,” said the Harper, at my elbow, “it is Tsammet!”

  “The same,” she grinned. “You had us fooled, Harper, with this fine devil of yours!”

  “I hope your lieges have no trouble on our account,” I said.

  “Winds forbid!” said Tsammet. “It will blow over. Do you not know that Tewl is the Pentroy’s near kin?

  Ah, but to think that I have ridden on the devil’s back! I could hire out as a Luck myself on the strength of it.” She winked at the crowd of servants and porters and swaggered up to Diver who recognized her at once.

  “Tsammet!”

  Then she shook his hands proudly and went back to her fellows.

  Brin and Mamor gathered us up then, and we went through the thinning ranks of the crowd to the canal steps where a pay-boat was waiting, among the boats of the grandees. As Old Gwin went down the broad steps she faltered and almost fell; the Harper caught her in his arms.

  “All right?” he asked.

  “I am tired,” she said impatiently. “Let me into the boat.” Then we all went aboard, with Vel Ragan and Onnar, and the rower took us swiftly through the crowded waterway.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To the delta,” said Mamor. He spoke up to the rower. “Be sure you are not followed. Remember your charge.”

  “I will, excellence!”

  We sat there in silence under the awning as the pay-boat twisted and turned through the sunlit canal. All the fountains were playing that day, but I felt that my Family were anxious to leave the city. I saw Gordo Beethan sitting astern, gaping at the sights of Rintoul just as he was about to leave. High up to the west, among the skyhouses, I could see golden globules that caught the light.

  Diver sat in our midst talking to Brin and Vel Ragan about his captivity.

  “Diver, have you given the stun-gun to the Great Elder?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said, “and it should be very useful if he wants to swat insects.”

  “What have you been up to?” said Mamor. “Have you broken the setting lever?”

  “It is fused into the light setting,” said Diver.

  “Diver,” said Narneen, “now that Tiath Gargan has your shaving-engine, will you shave with a knife?”

  “Winds forbid!” said Old Gwin, leaning against Brin’s shoulder. “Don’t lay metal to your face, young Luck. Let that devilish black f
ace hair grow to your knees if it will.”

  “If you say so, dear Gwin,” said Diver, “for I have nothing to hide now.”

  So from this time Diver went about as a Man, black-bearded, and when the bleach grew out, black-haired. It made him look not so much more foreign but simply older, as if he had aged with the adventurous life we had been leading. I saw in my mind, and I still see, two Divers, the pale young shaven Luck we rescued from the Warm Lake and the black-bearded man who led us on to even stranger adventures.

  We came through the streams of the delta, far beyond the city, to an ancient backwater. There were thriving bird farms with rows of cages, netted trees and egg houses on all sides; but the place to which we came was disused and overgrown. We went ashore at a crumbling jetty and saw a large fixed house, its thatched roof newly patched, and the remains of a glebe fence. I stepped onto rough grass and turned back to help Gordo. Narneen took us by the hand.

  “Come,” she said. “Come and see!” She smiled at Gordo, and I knew they could speak to each other in their minds, both being Witnesses. We wandered off, while the rest were coming ashore, past cage rows, old and overgrown, and flowering vines, and came to a promontory overlooking the main stream of the Troon. There, on a circle of rough-clipped grass stood a little tree, filled with our spinners; a chair and a lace frame told me that Old Gwin must sit here. Further off, there were four brown basket hives for honeybees and a row of old stones half buried in the grass; beside these stones sat a Moruian in a farmer’s tunic and leggings.

  “Are you rescued then, Dorn Brinroyan?” said Fer Utovangan.

  “So is Diver!” I blurted out. “We are free and clear.” We clasped hands and were immensely pleased to see each other. Gordo Beethan stared curiously as we sat on the grass.

  “I cannot believe what Narneen tells me,” he said. “This is your bird farm, as the Harper sings? You are Antho!”

  “I was once,” smiled Fer. He pointed sadly to the stones, and we recognized them for what they were . . . memorial stones for that family he had lost, drowned in the river more than twenty springs ago.

  I wondered then what was legend and what was truth, and it was a long time before I found the full answer. But sitting there, with Fer, in that quiet place, before we went back to the house and the great talk going on there, I saw that the legend was not a lie. The winds had taken Antho, the poor distracted bird farmer; Fer was a different person, whose destiny was to design engines.

  “Will Brin’s Five live here?” I asked.

  “If they will do me so much honor,” said Fer.

  “But surely it could not be a bird farm again?”

  “I would prefer it to be used for bees and flowers,” he said.

  “Tell me,” I asked, “how have you come to help us? I had thought the Maker of Engines would be displeased with Diver.”

  “Do not think of Nantgeeb bearing a grudge,” said Fer, laughing. “When Narneen and Onnar sent out their prayers, there was no thought in the Eastern Retreat but to rescue and help our friends.”

  In the fixed house, which was old and spacious and comfortable, we all lived in an enforced calm. The talk, the endless talk, went on; quietly in corners or in a ring at night, under the rack of candlecones hanging from the ceiling. Diver and Ablo went out with Fer every morning and inspected their pet, the Tomarvan, which had a launching catapult in the glebe. Diver took several flights and was glad to have his bird back again.

  Old Gwin was tired. When she woke, she was taken out every morning to her place under the spinners’ tree, and she would sit, by the hour, too weary to work at her lace. I took my turn to sit with her, and I understood why she had picked this place, for it was the only spot where one could look to the north, up the river.

  I was with Vel Ragan there one morning, and Old Gwin said to the scribe, “There is something that I think you know, young scribe.”

  “What is that, good Mother?”

  “The Harper had it from our good Diviner, the Ulgan of Cullin,” she said. “One of our kin was well-known in the Fire-Town. I have my ideas about this. Will you say the name?”

  Vel Ragan looked a little unwilling. “You speak your thought, Gwin,” he said.

  “It is Arn Tarroyan,” she said. “Roneen’s eldest pouch-child. He was a well-grown outclip, and he went to Cullin fair and we saw him no more. But there was a recruiting call for the Fire-Town at that fair. . . .”

  “Right,” said Vel Ragan. “Arn was my good friend and the friend of my liege, the Deputy. His name was Arn Lorgan, the Bridgemaker, a proud name.”

  “Well, I can tell he is dead,” sighed Gwin, “but I am glad to have heard the story.”

  I felt a prickle of fear, like a cold wind on the back of my neck, for I knew it was a harbinger of death to hear that one younger had died. But Old Gwin sat calmly looking to the north up the gray river and made no averting sign.

  It was not two days more, another sweet morning, summer on the delta; I sat in the cook-room of the fixed house playing hold-stone with Narneen and Gordo. All was quiet, with Ablo stirring the cooking pots; Diver had Tomar out by the Tomarvan; the Harper and Mamor were repairing more of the roof. Brin was by the river, sitting with Gwin. Suddenly Narneen lifted her head, then Gordo. They both jumped up from the mat with the same look of fear and rushed from the house, and I rushed after them. I followed down the grassy track to the promontory, and as we came in sight of the spinners’ tree, we stopped, all three. We saw Brin rise up slowly from beside the chair where Old Gwin lay.

  “Gwin has flown to the north,” she said. “Do not be afraid.”

  So Old Gwin died, looking towards Hingstull, and was buried on that promontory and a stone raised to her, beside the stones of Antho’s family. We did not speak of it, but from this time we were a Five no more; we could have taken another ancient, according to the old threads, but we had come too far. We were not bush weavers or mountain folk any longer.

  Vel Ragan and Onnar came and went to the city, bringing us news and continuing their search for Tsorl-U-Tsorl. Diver had helped them in this, for he had spoken to his Pentroy jailers in those dark floors below the Sea Flower Room. He learned that a group of prisoners under Secret Hand had been brought in, and one had had a stormy interview with Tiath Gargan himself and had struck at the Great Elder and cried for justice. There had been talk, the jailers said, of fire-metal-magic; and the Great Elder’s rage was terrible, because he thought he had been betrayed. This violent prisoner had been sent to Itsik; Vel Ragan planned to visit this foul place to continue the search.

  I was not there when the plan for the ship was first raised, but Diver spoke to me by the Tomarvan the same day. “Would you sail the Great Ocean Sea?” he asked. “Or was the keel boat enough for you?”

  I took it in at once. “To the islands? I will go! Will Brin let me? Which ones of us?”

  “Steady,” he said, “it would be a hazardous journey.”

  “Would Mamor be captain?”

  “Of course. But he would take a sailing guide, for he has not been far on the ocean. I think Brin would let you go along.”

  “Did Vel Ragan find us this ship?”

  “He helped to find it,” said Diver, “and the reason for my going. Guno Deg sends word that I should make myself scarce. Tiath Gargan does not give up easily.”

  X

  The time to start a voyage on the Great Ocean Sea is in the first light of Esto, when the waters are turned to gold. The air was warm, at the third wharf in Rintoul, but I thought of that other wharf in Cullin, where I had waited with Diver in the cold. Gordo Beethan, who came to us that day, had already sailed off again; he was being borne away in a bird-boat up the Troon . . . back to Cullin, back to the Ulgan, back to our own country, where the mountains reared into the sky. We had seen him go as bravely as we could; I did not weep for the north because of the new excitement behind my eyes. I was for the Great Ocean Sea, for the waves, for the sea birds and giant fish and the sea-sunners. I was for the fire isl
ands, where Diver’s people might still be waiting.

  Now, at Rintoul wharf, the ship looked clumsy as a fixed house ill-made. It was a pot-bellied ship with a green sail, and it was called Beldan or Green Wheel; Mamor stood on the high bridge, by the chart tent, and next to him the sailing guide. Ablo Binigan was fussing about on the deck with our gear, getting in the way of the fifteen sailors in the crew. I settled beside the rail in the waist of the ship and watched the sail warden, a tall omor, setting in order the thick new yellow ropes. The ship smelled of salt and dried sunner meat and rope, both old and new. It was not a new ship; it had sailed back and forth to Tsagul and eastward to the Salthaven; it had sailed among the islands and returned with a hold full of tree-flax and rare woods . . . the official reason for our voyage this time. The Green Wheel had been further than the islands, to the blue ice, far to the south, and to the north, where the ice is green. As it rode at anchor, its timbers creaked, its rigging sang, as if it were talking to the ocean, eager to set sail again. The ocean, which I expected to talk back pretty loudly once we had set sail, was calm in the light of Esder, flat and silken beyond the harbor mouth.

  Diver was the last of our party to come aboard; he stood on the wharf with Brin and the Harper, Narneen and Tomar. I looked at them all through the rail and tried to fix them in my mind; the sailors set up a chant, and the shadow of the green sail fell across my face. I turned my head and saw it unfurled; a wide-open eye was worked in colored cord upon the sail, as a charm for seafarers. There was a regular thump, beating a new rhythm for the chant, as the anchor was raised by its capstan and the metal-bound rope, thick as a tree branch, slithered into its locker in wet coils.

  Diver swung lightly up the narrow gangplank and came to stand by me. I stood up; and by the time I had done so, there was already a widening trough of water between the ship and the wharf. Brin stood on the wharf, all the others were there, and I was being moved away from them. Yet I had borne much worse than this; I swallowed hard and waved both hands, but I could hardly hear their voices raised or the Harper’s song of farewell. We waved and waited, until the blue thread that Mamor had thrown to Narneen from the high bridge drew taut and snapped.