by Diana Rivers
I forced myself to take the first taste and soon was holding out my bowl for more. “What is it?” I asked, thinking this was something Pell might find useful.
“Korshi,” he told me. “The Wanderer’s trail food. It is made of fruit and crushed tarmar, cooked long together till it forms a thick mush, then poured into big pans to cool, harden, and dry in the sun. After that it is cut into blocks such as the one I used tonight. Korshi is the best food for the road, easy to make, light to carry, long lasting and, most important, good to the taste.” He looked at my outstretched bowl that waited for yet another helping. “Did I not say it tastes better than it looks?”
It surprised me how comfortable I felt, sitting by a fire with this stranger, the very thing I had most feared. The wolf had come to lie between us, and we each had a hand in her ruff. “Tell me your story, Hereschell. Since the wolves did not eat you, someone else must have carried you off.”
“It is not the wolves who eat abandoned babies, but the birds-of-death. As to my story, if you really wish to hear it, it was one of the Wanderers, a woman named Liera, who found me, but she was no more my mother than many others. Those who had milk nursed me and others carried me about strapped to their backs. When I grew old enough to move about on my own, I went from mischief to mischief, curling up at night like a puppy to sleep in whatever warm spot I found, sure I would be fed and cared for. The Wanderers taught me as best they could whenever I stayed still long enough to learn. I was loved and cuffed by whoever was about, cuffed gently but often for I did not listen well. They moved constantly and I went with them, carried on some strong back. That was the only life I knew. Then, when I was about four years of age this happened.” He raised his shirt to show me a long, puckered red scar that ran from his chest under his arm and halfway down his back.
I gasped, barely able to stifle a cry. “The Wanderers did that to you?” I asked with horror, having already seen far too much burning.
“Oh no!” he said quickly. “No! Never! The Wanderers may be rough and careless at times with the children they gather, but they are never cruel. It would go against ‘The Code,’ the Cerroi, the Great Wheel of Fate. No, I did it to myself while rushing about. Running where I had been told to walk, just what I had been scolded for so often, I stumbled into the fire and fell across a smoldering log.
“This was not my first accident, only one of many, but it was by far the worst, and beyond Wanderer skill to mend. Besides, they were moving on again and could not be so burdened. They did what they could for me, then took me to an old Witch in the Crom Hills for healing, trading her a supply of yima for that service.
“That Witch was a good healer, skilled and patient with my burns, but she had scant patience for a small boy’s wildness. She grumbled and scolded constantly, though I had already been much tamed by my accident. Still, she never beat me, though many times she threatened to, especially when I forgot what she told me before she even finished speaking, or when I lost or broke something of value to her, something I was not even supposed to lay my hands upon.
“She taught me as best she could some of her healing skills and knowledge, hoping, I suppose, to make an apprentice of me. It was there at her fire that I first met Alyeeta, and even then she was not young. What an impression she made on that small boy so long ago.
“By the time Korbin came through with his knife sharpening business, the Witch had wearied of me or decided I was hopeless. She traded me off easily enough for a wolf cub. Korbin had a litter of them from a wolf bitch who had died in a hunter’s trap. The Witch said the pup was less wild and more tameable and altogether more useful than I was, but Korbin was well pleased with the trade. He had long wanted a child for help and for company. I seemed strong and sturdy enough for his hard life. So, on a nod and a handshake I became apprentice to a sharpener instead of a healer. I had no regrets in the matter, then or ever.
“Korbin became mother and father and teacher to me, the first human, I think, to whom I gave my love and trust. He trained me to keep his fire and cook and help with his knife sharpening. For the first time ever in my life I did my best to listen and be good. Together we went up and down the coast, stopping at Koormir settlements to ply his trade. Of the wolf litter, we traded them all but one. That one became my companion and teacher in the woods and the passion of my young life.
“We lived so for a few years, going south in the winter to Wanderer’s Gatherings and north in the summer for work, sleeping mostly under the stars when the weather allowed. I had the wolf for blanket and pillow while we lay by our fire with Korbin telling me stories of his life and all he had seen. For that time I was quite content with my lot and thought I had fallen on great good fortune.
“Then, one fall, Korbin grew very ill with something neither of us could cure. A terrible deep cough shook his body and racked him with pain. We met with a band of Wanderers who said they would take him south with them for the winter and care for him and cure him. They told me I was welcome to come as well, but not the wolf. They were afraid for their little children. None of our arguments could change their minds. I had to make a hard choice. With the heedlessness of youth I chose for the wolf, thinking I would meet with Korbin again in the spring.
“I waited for him in our appointed place long after the time we had set. It was the Wanderers who came at last to meet me, not Korbin. He had died that winter. I was grief stricken and in some way blamed the Wanderers for his death and for my absence from his side as well. In truth, what choice would I have made had I known I was never to see him again? Would I have left the wolf?
“For a while after that I had no wish for human company. I gave away my tools and with them my trade and went away with the wolf, far from the lives of people. She taught me how to live: how to watch and listen, how to smell what travels on the wind, how to walk soft and silent in the woods, how to move swiftly. Every few years she mated and had cubs, but in the end she always came back to me with them. When she grew old she left me one from the litter. She and the others vanished in the night. That one is Soneeshi, the gray shadow that follows me now.” She looked up at him at that moment as if she understood his words.
When he leaned forward to put on the pot for tea, I thought suddenly of Alyeeta. “Tell me Hereschell, how old is she really?”
“Soneeshi?” he asked.
“No, Alyeeta,” I said impatiently, thinking I was at last to have an answer to this mystery.
He laughed and shook his head. “Alyeeta—do you think because I shared a bed with her for a short while when I was a young man that I shared all her secrets as well? You should know better than that. Alyeeta takes what she wants and gives what she wants. She does not answer to anyone.”
Rebuffed, I said sharply, “You are a man of intelligence. Does it not bother you to play dumb? When I first met you, you seemed so...so...”
“Witless,” he said with a grin. “How easily we are fooled into seeing what we want to see. How afraid we are to look further. The shambling fool, the vacant village idiot, witless, helpless, harmless.” He slouched forward, let his head fall sideways, mouth open, jaw slack, eyes staring past me into nothing. Then with a laugh he straightened again and stared right at me, through me, in fact. At that moment I felt as if a wolf in man’s shape looked into my eyes.
“But why wish to appear less than you are?” I insisted.
He shrugged as if it was of no account. “For much the same reasons Alyeeta sometimes chooses to appear as a mindless old hag. The good opinion of others does not concern me much, but my safety and the ease of passing among them does. Also, as a single man, wandering alone, I could be seen as a threat and a challenge. Ordinary men are like bristling dogs on their doorsteps, protecting what they think is theirs against all comers, even when there is no real danger. Believe me, Tazzi, I could use my wits to make them respectful and afraid, for I have some tricks and a little power at my command, or I could use my sham of witlessness to make me seem harmless. The second is easier. It
takes far less effort and less energy to maintain. If it fails, I can always fall back on the first.
“They are all familiar with Hereschell. As a known fool, I can go where I choose. They think me no threat to their safety, and so are less threat to mine. The Kourmairi villagers are to me like cattle whose fields I must cross. Do I care what the bull thinks of the quality of my mind, as long as he does not block my way with his horns or think to charge at me? Besides, I give them a chance to feel superior. They are able to pity me, and that makes them generous, thinking no doubt, ‘My lot may be hard, but at least I am not like that poor creature.’ Often they feed me and house me out of that guilt and pity.”
“Would it not be better to be a knife sharpener than to live off the crumbs of pity?”
He laughed, “Ah yes, to have honest and honorable work. Well, to tell you the truth, the pay is about the same. Besides, I have no more wish to be bound by work than by place. But have no fear. Your precious Kourmairi are not coin-out-of-pocket for my sake. They save their hardest brute work for me since I am mindless, and they think of their food as charity. I always do more than I am paid for and am left in peace with my own thoughts. If I wish to use my wits or be my true self, I go to a Wanderer’s fire circle or to a Gather. There I can sing my songs and tell my tales, speak my dreams, match wits with the best of them, and so be known and remembered for who I truly am. For the rest, humans are no more to me than cows or pigs, save that they are far more dangerous.”
His words were such a mix of mockery, bitterness, and longing that I grieved for him. “And have you never wished for a home, a fixed abode, somewhere that is yours?” I asked.
“Never. The earth is my home; the sky is my roof. I can make a nest anywhere. If I stay too long in one place, something in my spirit begins to wither and die. Then I wake one morning to find my feet on the road no matter what I leave behind. Those with fixed homes do not grieve for me. Why should I grieve for them?” He stood up abruptly. “Enough! For a man of silence I have filled this night with words. It is time to sleep. Morning comes all too soon.” With that he took the pots from the fire and began kicking dirt over the embers. We were suddenly swallowed by darkness. But I had heard my story and so slept content, curled up by the wolf with my head on her flank.
As we set out next morning, Hereschell signaled me to ride up next to him. “You ride as if blindfolded, dumb to the way, yet you are no city girl. Do you know nothing of the trail?”
“I knew the woods around my village, knew them well in daylight or darkness and at any season of the year, but that is gone now, gone forever, and all this is strange and new to me.” I had not meant to let my grief leak through in that way. The words sprang from my mouth before I could stop them.
He looked at me with concern, but his voice was stern. “No matter what you have lost back there, you have chosen to live. But that is not a choice you make only once. It is a choice you need to honor and make again each day. To survive you must learn to find your way wherever the fates have thrown you. Otherwise you make a choice to die, though death may not collect you right away.”
For the rest of the ride he taught me to see: to observe the shape and form and texture of the land that rose and fell under our horse’s hooves, the type of trees and vegetation, the shape of the rocks, the slant of the light, and, most important, how to find the subtle markings where the paths crossed or turned, markings I had never noticed before. He did not say, but I knew they must be Wanderer’s markings and was touched that he was sharing them with me. By the end of that morning’s ride I knew more than from all my rides with Pell. Hereschell had opened the book of the roads for me as Alyeeta had opened the book of words.
When we finally rode into camp, Pell was standing before her shelter, arms crossed, anger blazing from her eyes. “Why have you brought a man to this place?” she called out to me in a voice full of rage.
“Alyeeta sent him to guide me back with a message,” I answered quickly.
“Then you are a miserable, useless fool that you cannot find you own way. I knew I should not trust that Witch. She could have come herself or left her message home. I need no man here. You have shown him our secret paths and ways and now we are no longer safe. What does Alyeeta know of our lives? What does she care?”
I was about to protest when Hereschell himself spoke in a voice hard with contempt. “Alyeeta knows better than you who to trust and who not to. She has played this game for many more years than you have lived and kept herself alive through the Witch-kills. You think yourselves so secret and so special. Let me tell you, young woman, none of the paths we came here by are unknown or new to me. Most of the ways you go by are Wanderer’s paths. There are few places in Yarmald or in Garmishair either that Wanderers have not been before you. You flatter yourselves with your cleverness, yet you leave your traces everywhere. It would not take a wolf s sharp nose to track you down. A simple farm boy could find you if he kept his wits about him.”
I saw Pell struggling for words. “Enough! Enough of that,” she shouted back at him when she could speak. “I need no man riding into my dooryard to teach me how to live. I have seen enough ugly death already at the hands of men.” She was shaking with rage.
At that moment Maireth rushed out of the shelter and stopped short in surprise. “I know this man. He worked on my father’s farm, but I always thought him a mute and simple as well.”
“You saw what you wanted to see,” Hereschell said coldly.
“No,” Maireth answered sharply. “I saw what you wanted us to see, and that is different.”
Hereschell turned to me and said in a voice full of bitterness, “You see why I said it was easier to pass for dumb and witless than to deal with the Ganjarin as equals?” He turned his horse, clearly meaning to leave.
“Wait Hereschell, wait. Listen to me, Pell, he knows things that are useful, things we need to know. He can help us.” Now I was shouting too, desperate to make her hear.
Pell whirled on me, about to answer, when Jhemar rode in and swung off her horse with a shout of greeting. “Hereschell, friend-of-the-road, what are you doing here? I did not think to see you till this fall’s Gathering, and surely not to see you in this place.” As she rushed up to him, he leaned down from his horse and their hands met in a complex and elaborate dance of greeting. Then she stepped back to look at him and slapped him on the leg. “How goes it, Brother? You look just the same. What brings you here among us? Surely you are not leaving just as I arrive. I would consider that a great insult and a greater loss, especially since I hear you to be favoring us with speech this day.”
Hereschell’s face was tight with anger. Looking straight at Pell, he said with hurt dignity, “Yes, and it has been a grave error, as your captain can explain to you.” Again I was amazed at the pride and presence of this man who looked like the most ragged of beggars.
Jhemar looked at Pell in bewilderment. Pell looked back and forth from Jhemar to Hereschell, the struggle in her heart written plain on her face. Suddenly her face went calm and clear. She stepped forward and said quite formally, “Please forgive my ignorance and my rudeness. You are welcome in my home.” With that she made a slight bow and held out her hand. Hereschell sat his horse, hesitating, searching Pell’s face as if for signs, not riding off, but not reaching out either. Pell did not draw back her hand in pride. She waited quietly, hand outstretched. There was a kind of stillness all around her. In all the time I was to know Pell, I doubt if she did anything that I admired more than the way she stood there that day, proudly and humbly, holding out her hand, waiting to see if her apology would be accepted.
At last I saw Hereschell’s face soften. He held out his hand to meet hers, a simple hand clasp this time, but filled with meaning. “Well,” he said with a slight edge of mockery, “there have probably been gentler meetings, but this is the one we had. I hope your welcome is as generous as your rudeness. It may be worth staying for.”
Pell laughed suddenly, her usual humor restor
ed. “We promise to do our best here, myself most of all.”
At that, Hereschell swung off his horse at last. Pell reached to take the reins, saying gravely, “Please make yourself easy here. Let me see to food and water for your horse.”
Hereschell answered with equal gravity, “I leave my friend in your capable hands.”
When I finally slid down from Marshlegs’s back, my shaky knees would hardly hold me upright. Only then did I notice the many new curious faces that peered from the shelter or from between the trees, watching this scene. Among them I noticed Renaise’s sister Thalyisi, her cousins Arnella and Ethrin, and her friend Tzaneel. In that mass of strangers they almost looked to me like friends. Later I learned that Renaise’s ride home had gathered at least ten or twelve new ones, among them Josleen and Megyair, Pell’s friends from Ashire. Those two and several others had met Pell at the crossroads a few nights after Renaise’s return.
The greatest surprise of my homecoming was to see Maireth walk out to greet me without the aid of a stick. She still limped slightly, her hands were bandaged, and there was a blaze of puckered red across her face and neck, but altogether she looked far better than I would have expected. It seemed as if Alyeeta’s salves and Arnella’s healing had worked some sort of miracle after all.
That night Renaise and her sister Thalyisi made us such a feast that I was sure there had been another raid on the market. The shelter was crowded now with new women. There was no room at the overloaded table for everyone to draw up a mat or rock, so most simply sat themselves in a circle on the dirt floor. No one took their plates outside. Curiosity was too strong a glue, and Hereschell was certainly an oddity among them. Much to my discomfort, many of them stared at him quite openly.