Ursula K Le Guin

by Powers (2007) (lit)

Then they all had tales about Barna's city, how the slaves kept houses full of beautiful women, how they had so much stolen gold there that

  they used it for roofing, and when the soldiers burned the city molten gold ran in streams in the gutters. Everybody knew about Barna, the giant with flaming red hair, taller than any other man, who'd planned to attack Asion, make himself king of Bendile, and put the slaves to rule their fallen masters. There was some discussion of the fact that you never could trust a slave no matter how loyal he seemed, and several examples of slavish treachery were given.

  "Well, here's a tale for you," said one of the guests of the inn, a wool buyer from eastern Bendile. "About a disloyal slave and a loyal one too. I just heard this one.

  There was a slave boy from the Marshes who'd been the pride of his masters in the city of Etra. He could tell any tale or sing any song, no matter what, he knew them all. He was worth a hundred gold pieces to his masters. He defiled a daughter of the house and ran away, stealing a bag of gold with him. They sent out slave takers after him, but none found him, and some said he'd drowned. But the son of the house had a loyal slave who swore he'd find the boy and bring him back to Etra to take his punishment for shaming the house of his masters. So he got on the track, and after a while he heard word of a young runaway in Bar-na's city who was famous for his speaking and singing. Barna himself, having been a learned slave, set a great value on this boy. But before the soldiers came, the boy gave Barna the slip too, and vanished again. The slave is still hunting for him. I talked to a man who knows him, he calls him 'Three Eyebrows.' He's been to the Marshes, and to Casicar, and Pi-ram, and says he'll hunt the runaway down if it takes him the rest of his life. Now there's a slave loyal to his masters, I say!"

  The others expressed modified approval. I tried to imitate their judicious nods, while the heart in me was cold as a lump of ice. My pose of being a scholar, which I hoped would save me from suspicion, now looked likely to bring it upon me. If only the man hadn't said the runaway was from the Marshes! My looks, the color of my skin, always

  drew some notice, anywhere outside the Marshes, And sure enough, a townsman eyed me over his beer and said, "You look to be from that side of the country. Do you know anything about this famous slave, then?"

  I couldn't speak. I shook my head with as much indifference as I could pretend. More stories of escapes and slave takers followed. I sat through them, drank my cider, and told myself that I must not panic, that nobody had questioned my story, that having the child with me would avert suspicion. Tomorrow we'd set off again. It had been a mistake to stay anywhere for any length of time. But then, Melle could never have gone on if we hadn't rested here. It would be all right. We would come to the second river in only a few days, and cross it, and be free.

  I spoke with Ameno that night, asking if she knew of any carters going north that might give us a lift. She told me where to go. Early in the morning I routed sleepy Melle out, Ameno sent us off with a packet of food and took the silver piece I offered her. "Luck be with you, go with Ennu," she said, and gave Melle a long, grave embrace. We went off through the foggy dawn to a yard on the far edge of town where carters met to make up their loads and sometimes find passengers, and there we found a ride as far as a place called Tertudi, which the carter said was halfway to the river. I had no clear map of this part of Bendile in my mind, and had to rely on what people told me, knowing only that the river was north of us, and Mesun across it and well to the east.

  It took our carter's slow horses all day to get to Tertudi, a small, poor town with no inn, I didn't want to stay there and be noticed, I hoped to break any connection with the inn at Rami, to leave no traceable path behind us. We spoke to no one in Tertudi, but simply walked away from it for a couple of miles into the hay-fields that surrounded it, and made ourselves a camp by a little stream for the night. Crickets sang all about us in the warm evening, near and far. Melle ate with a

  good appetite and said she wasn't tired. She wanted me to tell her a story she knew. That was her request: "Tell me a story I know." I told her the beginning of the Chamhan, She listened, intent, never moving, till at last she began to blink and yawn. She fell asleep curled up in her poncho, holding the little cat figure at the base of her throat,

  I lay listening to the crickets and looking out for the first stars. I slipped into sleep peacefully, but woke in the dark. There was a man in the hayfield, standing watching us. I knew him, I knew his face, the scar that split his eyebrow. I tried to get up but I was paralyzed as I had been paralyzed by Dorod's drugs, I could not move and my heart pounded and pounded. . .It was deep night, the stars blazing. Most of the crickets had fallen silent but one still trilled nearby. No one was there. But I could not sleep again.

  It grieved me that blind hate and rancor should be my last link to Arcamand. I could think now of the people of that house with gratitude for what they had given me — kindness, security, learning, love. I could never think that Sotur or Yaven had or would have betrayed my love. I was able to see, in part at least, why the Mother and Father had betrayed my trust. The master lives in the same trap as the slave, and may find it even harder to see beyond it. But Torm and his slave-double Ho-by never wanted to look beyond it; they valued nothing but power, the most brutal control of other people. My escape, if he heard of it, would have rankled Torm bitterly. As for Hoby always seething with envious hatred, the knowledge that I was going about as a free man would goad him to rageful, vengeful pursuit. I had no doubt that he was on my trail. And I was deeply afraid of him. By myself I was no match for him, and now I had my little, helpless hostage with me. She would awaken all his cruelty. I knew that cruelty.

  I roused Melle well before dawn and we set off. All I knew to do was walk, walk on, get away.

  We walked all day through rolling, open country; we passed a couple of villages at a distance, and avoided the few farms with their barking dogs. Mostly it was grazing land, cattle scattered out across the grasslands. We met up with a cowboy who waited for us and walked his horse along with us to talk. Melle was afraid of him, shrinking away from him, and I was none too glad of his company. But he had no curiosity about where we came from or where we were going. He was lonesome and wanted somebody to talk to. He got off his horse and rambled along with us, talking all the way about his horse and his cattle and his masters and whatever came into his head. Melle gradually seemed to feel easier. When he offered her a ride she shrank away again, but she was much attracted by the friendly little horse, and finally she let me put her up in the saddle.

  Our new friend had told us he was out to round up some of his master's cattle which had strayed from the main herd, but he seemed to be in no great hurry about it, and went on with us for miles, Melle sitting in the saddle, looking increasingly blissful, while he led the horse. When I asked about the river, we talked at cross-purposes for quite a while, he insisting that it was to the east, not the north; finally he said, "Oh you're talking of the Sally River! I only know the name of it. It's a long, long way, it's the edge of the world! Our Ambare flows to it, I guess, but I don't know how far. You'll be walking a long time. Better get horses!"

  "If we go east, we'll come to your river?"

  "Yes, but it's a good long ways too." He gave us complicated directions involving drovers' paths and cart roads, and then ended up saying, "Of course if you just cut across those hills ahead of us you'll be at the Ambare in no time."

  "Well, maybe we'll head that way," I said, and he said, "I might as well go that way too. Those cattle might be over there."

  That made me suspicious of him. So fear taints the mind. I walked along wondering if he had been watching for us, if he was leading us to a trap, and how to get rid of him, and at the same time certain that he was simply a lonely man happy to have company and pleased to please a child. As I grew silent he talked with Melle, who timidly asked him questions about the horse and its gear. Soon he was giving her a riding lesson, letting her hold the rein, telling her how to put Brown
ie into a trot. He was soft-voiced and easygoing with both the horse and the child. When he put out his hand to show her how to hold the rein, she pulled away from him in fear, and after that he never came very close to her, treating her with an innate tact. It was hard to distrust him. But I strode on weighed down with suspicion and worry. If it was so far to the Sensaly that this man thought it the end of the world, and if with Melle I could not walk more than ten miles a day, how long would it take us to get there? I felt that as we crept across these open plains we were exposed, visible to anybody looking for us.

  Our companion's guidance so far was true: having crossed the low range of hills we saw a good-sized river a couple of miles farther on, flowing northeast. We stopped just over the crest of the hills and sat down under a stand of great beeches to share our food, while Brownie had a bait of oats from a nose bag. Melle called our companion Cow-boy-di, which made him grin; he called her Sonny. She sat beside me, but talked to him. They talked at great length about horses and cattle. I noticed that she kept asking him questions, as children will do, out of real curiosity no doubt, but also it meant she didn't have to answer any questions about herself or me. She was canny.

  We could see a boat or barge now and then on the river, and our companion said, "There you are. Go on along to town and get yourselves onto a boat and that'll take you far as you want, eh?"

  "Where's town?" Melle asked.

  "On down along there," he said, waving vaguely at the river where it disappeared in a long bend among low hills. "I guess I better not go on with you. I don't think any of our cattle got any farther than this. But you go on down to town and get yourselves onto a boat and that'll take you as far as you want. Eh?"

  I thought it strange that he said it again exactly the same way, as if he'd memorised it, as if he'd been taught how to lead us into a trap.

  "That's a good idea," Melle said. "Isn't it, Avvi?"

  "Could be," I said.

  She had a quite emotional parting from the horse, patting and petting it and embracing its long, mild head, and she and the cowboy said goodbye affectionately though without touching. She watched him ride off over the crest of the hills, and sighed as we started down. "They were beautiful," she said.

  I felt ashamed of myself, but still couldn't relax from my wariness.

  "Will we find the town and get on a boat?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Why not?"

  I found I couldn't express my reasons. We must go on, we must escape the man who was following us, but no way of travel seemed safe to me.

  "Or we could get horses, like he said. Only, are horses very expensive?"

  "I think they are. And you have to know how to ride them." "I do now. Sort of." "I don't," I said shortly.

  We walked on; it was easy going, downhill, and Melle flitted right along. At the bottom of the hill a dim footpath led off towards the river, and we followed that.

  "So it would be better to get on a boat," Melle said. "Wouldn't it?"

  I felt my sense of responsibility for her like a stone on my back, weighing me down. If it was just myself I'd run, I'd hide, I'd be gone, long gone. . .. I was angry with her for holding me back, slowing my steps, arguing with me about how to go. "I don't know," I said.

  We went on, I always aware of shortening my pace to hers. We were now on a cart track, coming nearer the river, and saw the roofs of a small town ahead to the right, and soon the wharves, and boats tied up.

  I'd asked the Lord Luck to give this child the blessing he'd given me. Was I to distrust him, too? Only a fool acts as if he knows better than Luck. I'd always been a fool, but not that kind.

  "We'll see when we get there," I said, after a half mile of silence.

  "We can pay for it. Can't we?"

  I nodded.

  So when we came through apple orchards into town we went straight down to the riverfront and looked about. No boats were tied up and nobody was on the dock. There was a small inn just up the street, its door standing open, and I looked in. A dwarf, a man no taller than Melle, with a big head and a handsome, scowling face, looked round the bar." What'll you have, Marshy?" he said.

  I all but turned and ran.

  "What's that with you? A pup? No, by Sampa, a kid. Both of you kids. What d'you want then, milk?"

  "Yes," I said, and Melle said, "Yes, please."

  He fetched two cups of milk and we sat at a small table to drink it. He stood by the bar and looked us over. His gaze made me very uneasy, but Melle didn't seem to mind it, and gazed right back at him without her usual shyness.

  "Is there a black cat?" she asked.

  "Why would there be?"

  "It said on the sign over the door. The picture."

  "Ah. No. That's the house. Sign of the Black Cat. Blessing of Ennu, it is. Where are you bound, then? On your own, are you?" "Downriver," I said.

  "You're off a boat, then." He looked out the open door to see if any boat had docked.

  "No. Walking. Thought we might go by water if there's a boat would take us."

  "Nothing in now. Pedri's barge will be in tomorrow. "Going downstream?"

  "Clear to the Sally," the man said; so it seemed they called the Sensa-ly in this country.

  He refilled Melle's cup, then stumped to the bar and came back with two full mugs of cider. He set one down in front of me and raised the other in salute.

  I drank with him. Melle raised her cup of milk too.

  "Stay tonight if you like," he said. Melle looked at me bright-eyed. It was coming on to evening. I did my best to forget my fears and take what Luck gave us. I nodded.

  "Anything to pay with?" he asked.

  I took a couple of bronzes from my pocket.

  "Because if you hadn't, I'd eat the kid, see," the dwarf said in a matter-of-fact tone, and lunged with a hideous, gaping, threatening face at Melle. She shrank back against me with a great gasp, but then she laughed— sooner than I could smile at his joke. He drew back, grinning. "I was scared," she said to him. He looked pleased. I could feel her heart beating, shaking her small body._

  "Put it away," he said to me. "We'll settle up when you go."

  He sent us upstairs to a little room at the front of the house; it looked out through low windows over the river and was clean enough, though full of beds, five of them crammed in it side by side. He cooked us a good supper, which we ate along with a couple of longshoremen

  who ate there every night. They didn't talk, and the host said little. Melle and I walked along the wharves for a while after supper to see the evening light on the water, and then went up to bed. At first I couldn't get to sleep, my mind racing and racing among fruitless thoughts and fears. At last I dropped into sleep, but never very deeply— and then I sat up, blindly reaching for my knife, which I'd set on the floor beside my cot. Steps on the staircase, stopping and starting. The door creaked.

  A man came into the room. I could just make out his bulk in the faint starlight from the windows. I sat still, holding my breath and my knife.

  The big dark shape blundered past my bed, felt its way over to the end bed, and sat down. I heard shoes thump on the floor. The man lay down, thrashed about a bit, muttered a curse, and lay still. Pretty soon he began to snore. I thought it was a ruse. He wanted us to think he was asleep. But he kept it up, deep and long, till daybreak.

  When Melle woke and found a strange man in the room she was very frightened. She could not wait to get out.

  Our host gave her warm milk for breakfast, and me warm cider, along with good bread and fresh peaches. I was too restless and uneasy to want to wait for the barge. I told him we'd be going on foot. He said, "If you want to walk, walk, but if you want to float, she'll be along in an hour or two." And Melle nodded; so I obeyed.

  The barge came into the wharf in the middle of the morning, a long, heavy craft with a kind of house amidships that made me think of Am-meda's boat in the Marshes; the decks were piled with crates, hay bales, several cages of chickens, all kinds of goods and pa
rcels. While unloading and loading went on I asked the master if we could take passage, and we settled soon enough on a silver piece for fare all the way to the Sensaly, sleeping on deck. I went back to the Black Cat to settle our bill there. "A bronze," the dwarf said.

  "Two beds, food and drink," I protested, putting down four bronzes.

  He pushed two back to me. "I don't often get a guest my own size," he said, unsmiling.

  So we left that town, went aboard Pedri's barge, and set off down the river Ambare at about noon. The sun was bright, the bustle of the docks cheerful, and Melle was excited to be onboard a ship, though she kept at a distance from the master and his assistant, and always very close to me. I felt relieved to be on the water. I said in my mind the prayer to the Lord of the Springs and Rivers I'd learned from my uncle in Ferusi, I stood with Melle watching the longshoreman free the rope and the master haul it in while the gap of roiling water slowly widened between the boat and the dock. Just as the barge began to turn to take the current, a man came down the street and out onto the docks. It was Hoby.

  We were in plain sight standing against the wall of the boathouse. I dropped down to sit on the deck, hiding my face in my arms. "What's wrong?" Melle asked, squatting down beside me.

  I dared a glance over my forearm. Hoby stood on the dock looking after the barge. I could not tell if he had seen me.

  "Beaky, what's wrong?" the child whispered.

  I finally answered, "Bad luck."

  The town passed out of view behind us around the bend of the river. We drifted easily downstream in the hot sunlight. As we stood at the rail of the barge I told Melle that I'd seen a man I knew, who might know me.

  "From Barna's house?" she asked, still whispering.

  I shook my head. "From longer ago. When I was a slave in the city."

  "Is he bad?" she asked, and I said, "Yes."

  I didn't think he'd seen me, but that was small reassurance; he had only to ask people on the dock, or the host of the Black Cat, if they'd seen a young man, dark skin, big nose, looks like a Marshman.