by Claudia King
It was not exhaustion that finally brought Caspian and Fern's pace to a halt, but the sight of what awaited them on the other side of the forest. They were barely half a day into the plains when they crossed a worn earthen path ripe with the scent of Sun People. In their exhausted haste neither of them had thought to stand up on two legs that day. When Caspian did, he realised he would not be able to take the shape of his wolf again. Obscured up to the navel by the long grass, a man wearing a straw shade over his head was walking toward them. He spotted Caspian immediately, freezing in his tracks. The man had a long pole over one shoulder with something glinting at the end, and he shifted his posture so that the tool fell into his hands like a spear.
Thinking quickly, Caspian put a smile on his lips and raised a hand high in greeting.
“Hello!” he called in the tongue of the Sun People, wishing he knew how the travellers in this land greeted one another. The man seemed to relax slightly, but he kept his pole in both hands as he stepped closer.
Realising what was happening, Fern reverted from the shape of her wolf, tussled her hair, then stood up beside Caspian. At the sight of a dishevelled woman emerging from the grass alongside a breathless man the approaching figure smiled and swung the pole back over his shoulder.
“Greetings to you,” he called back, returning the wave. The way he spoke was heavier than any of the Sun People Caspian had met before, though his words were still understandable. Caspian hastily composed himself, trying to give his voice the same inflections Netya always used when she spoke in her native tongue. He needed to try and sound like he belonged here.
“It's good you found us. We have been wandering lost for a few days now without seeing a single friendly face.”
The man squinted at them as he came closer, clearly surprised by Caspian's manner of speaking. “How'd you get yourself lost?” He glanced at Fern. “Running away from somewhere?”
Did young lovers often run away from their villages in the Sun People's lands? Caspian decided it would be best to go along with whatever the man assumed.
“I think we may be, yes. We came from the forest, a long ways to the north and west. We've not seen these lands before.” As Caspian looked past the man he saw trails of smoke in the distance and several dark shapes that almost resembled houses, though they were far too large for that.
“You don't look much like forest folk,” the man observed. “Too dark in the skin, aren't you? Which farm did you come from?”
“Our village is a long way to the west,” Fern said.
“Alright, keep it to yourselves then, but you be careful about that. Only wild folk hide who they are, and no one wants them around. Where were you wandering to, before you got lost in the grass down there?” He raised a sceptical eyebrow at them. Caspian was beginning to have a little difficulty following the man's way of speaking. Though he used the Sun People's words, his odd way of putting them together combined with his heavy voice made him sound distinctly different from the forest people Caspian had learned the tongue from.
“We were following the river. We hoped it might lead us to...” Caspian trailed off, gesturing into the distance.
“The heartlands, hm? Hoping for a meal from the Dawn King's table and a house built from his own bricks?” The man chuckled. “You and all the other folk who wander that way. All most of them get is sore feet. You're better off on your farmstead, the both of you.”
Caspian recognised the word for farm as something the North People had told him about. They'd spoken it a few times in relation to the way they grew plants and turned the earth to make it fresh for the new seasons, but he was not sure what this man meant by it, nor what the word farmstead meant. He seemed to be using it the same way he might have spoken of a home, or a village.
“Can you tell us where yours is?” Caspian asked.
“Farmstead?” The man turned and pointed toward one of the dark shapes in the distance. “There. Beron's house. He's the father of my wife. You might get yourselves a meal if you pass by, but don't expect more than that. It's hard out here by the forest. You never know who might come wandering out of those trees.” He gave them another half-suspicious look.
“Thank you.” Caspian smiled. “We will stop to rest there. Are you going the same way?”
The man shook his head. “I'm out checking the snares. It's the only good thing about the forest. You get a lot of wild meat in these parts, and no need to trade the herdsmen for it.”
Relieved to be heading in the opposite direction, Caspian and Fern said farewell to the man and parted ways. They didn't dare take the shapes of their wolves while he was still within eyeshot, and when Caspian glanced over his shoulder he was unnerved to see the distant figure staring back at them. He'd seemed suspicious, but no more suspicious than one of the Moon People would have been if they'd come across a strange pair of wolves travelling through their territory. In fact, he'd been far friendlier than most of Caspian and Fern's kind. Even the pole he carried had looked more like a tool than a weapon, though the thin metal blades set into the crosspiece at the end could probably have inflicted a nasty wound all the same. It was probably used for cutting down plants, Caspian reflected.
“What do we do?” Fern murmured. “He's still watching us.”
“Keep on walking. He'll be gone eventually.”
“What if there are more Sun People? He wouldn't walk alone if he didn't feel safe. There must be others nearby.”
“So long as we stay on two legs they'll have no reason to think we're any different from them,” Caspian said. “But you're right. We should be careful about where we change shape.”
“We'll have no chance of keeping up with the canoes like this.”
“That may not matter soon anyway.” Caspian grimaced as he looked downriver. Reaching for the ties of his carrying bundle, he unfastened it and drew out the rolled map. “If they mean to stop anywhere, it will in these lands.” Unfurling the leather, he began to study the lines burned into the right-hand side of it. The area that would have described much of their journey so far was blank, but there was a distinctive band of forest bordering the cluster of house symbols that surely represented what the man had called the heartlands. Many thick lines crossed over that part, and Caspian suspected one of them was their river. If only he had known what all the symbols meant, he might have been able to read the map's story more clearly.
“Like a bird,” Fern murmured, pointing to the sky. “Looking down on the land.” She pointed at the map. “That man said he came from a house. Do you think it was one of these house pictures on the leather?”
“One of the big ones, perhaps.”
“If we find one and look for the others we might be able to tell where we are. That was how I always used Sister Meadow's painting to find new places.”
Caspian nodded. “That's a good idea. Then we might find a way to get ahead of this river while staying clear of the Sun People.”
“When you spoke with that man you were pretending we came from the North People's lands, weren't you?”
“Yes. I think we would be wise to do the same with any other Sun People we meet. We know how the North People live, and our way of speaking sounds like them too.”
“Yet we don't look like them,” Fern pointed out. It was true. The Sun People from the forest were usually pale and darker of hair like Netya was, yet Caspian and Fern wore the sun-bronzed skin of plains folk.
“We will just have to hope nothing else about us is too strange,” he said.
Fern gestured to the dark silhouette the man had indicated. It was beginning to resemble a house now, though it was bigger than any Caspian had ever seen.
“Should we go there? The closer we get the easier it will be to see where we are on the map.”
“I'd rather avoid it. We'll do what we can. It depends how many Sun People are nearby.”
Yet as they walked on Caspian's hopes of passing by unnoticed began to dwindle. Before they were out of sight of the first man anothe
r figure hove into view up ahead, this one perched on a rock with a fishing line trailing into the river. They gave him enough distance to avoid a second conversation, but he still stared at them as they passed by. Next they saw a family carrying sacks along another path on the opposite side of the river, then a group of figures cutting plants with long-handled tools like the one the first man had carried.
As they started to approach the great house the path curved and led them around a dry stone wall like the one Netya's people had built to protect their livestock. This one had no wolf skulls adorning it, much to Caspian's relief, but it was reinforced with clay in places, and old brambles curled in threatening spirals over the top. Caspian suspected the land on the opposite side of the wall was the house master's personal territory, so they kept their distance until the path turned and led through an opening between the stones. Hesitant to go any farther, Caspian stopped and unfastened his bundle again. As he worked the leather ties loose he noticed that a ditch blocked the open gap in the wall, perhaps half a man's height in depth, with flat-topped stakes hammered into the bottom to provide stepping stones across. For a moment Caspian was confused, before realising that it must be meant to deter animals. Subtly ingenious, like so many of the Sun People's ideas.
On the opposite side he saw great stretches of freshly-cut plants surrounding the house, and the smell of sweet berries drifted over to him on the breeze. Ignoring his hunger, he stepped behind the wall with Fern and turned his attention to the map. The pair of them began scrutinising every inch of the leather, finding each house picture that was adjacent to one of the thick river lines and comparing it to their present surroundings. It seemed obvious that they were in the western part of the Sun People's lands, but they did not manage to determine their exact location before the sound of footsteps crunching over dry grass interrupted them.
Caspian tucked the map back into his bundle hastily, wondering whether they should take the shapes of their wolves and flee. Fern looked to him expectantly, but after a moment's consideration he shook his head. They could still see Sun People out on the plains cutting plants, and the footsteps on the other side of the wall were approaching quickly.
Voicing a loud yawn to casually announce his presence, Caspian stepped out in front of the ditch and looked over to the other side. An older man, weathered but still wiry, tilted up the straw shade on his head and glared at him. He carried a long wooden club in one hand, and two younger men stood a ways behind him with farming poles.
“Seen you walking around my walls,” the man said with a provocative jerk of his chin. “Who are you? You're not any of mine.”
“We are travellers,” Caspian replied, then recounted the same vague story he had told before.
“Your names,” the man said impatiently. “What do they call you both?”
Caspian hesitated for a moment, then told him.
“That it? Nothing else to your names? No La-Ra-Da you like to put on the end of them?”
“No, we are just Caspian and Fern.”
The man relaxed his grip on the club. “Alright then. Simple folk from the forest you are. They call me Beron, and this is my farmstead. Come on over.” He motioned for them to cross the ditch with such insistence that Caspian almost felt his feet moving instinctively, but Fern stopped him.
“We are travelling on down the river,” she said. “We've no need of a place to rest.”
Beron scoffed at that. “Oh, you just waited by my path all that time to catch your breath, did you? Toss that pride aside, girl. I know a weary traveller when I see one. The pair of you look like you've barely slept in days, and you won't reach any of the other farms before nightfall.” The corners of his mouth turned downward with a hint of suspicion. “Where are your supplies anyway? You got food? A blanket?”
Fern shook her head. “We travel light.”
Beron shook his head incredulously. “Forest folk... Well that's settled, you're coming in. I don't know how things are in the woods, but you're fools to sleep out here with nothing but the skin on your backs.”
“We saw plenty of other people on our way here,” Caspian said. “Your plains seem safe enough.”
“Aye, under the sun they are. At night you have beasts coming out from the forest, and wild men looking to steal what you've got.” He lowered his voice. “My father even saw one of the moon demons in his time.”
“The Moon People?”
“Aye. Shaggy as moss it was, with red eyes like fire coals. As big as a house and as loud as thunder, with jaws that could pop a man's skull like an egg. Still feel like sleeping without four walls around you?”
One of the young men rolled his eyes. It was clear that Beron was exaggerating the danger, but despite his gruff attitude Caspian sensed there was compassion in the man. He had the air of an alpha about him, one who showed a hard face to the world while taking good care of his own brood. He was the kind of man who'd invite travellers in with dire threats rather than kind words and open arms.
Caspian was torn. An invitation into a house of Sun People was dangerous, and they would lose precious time following the canoes, yet Beron also seemed to be a man of pride. Would they be making an enemy of him if they refused? Caspian was desperately weary after the days of travel, and he knew Fern was flagging too. A night of sleep on comfortable furs and a full belly in the morning would let them run hard and fast again. But what if Liliac had Netya? What if she was slipping farther and farther away each moment he stood here?
He ran his tongue over dry lips. “Did you see those canoes going downriver? I heard they came from the lands of the Moon People.”
“I did. All my children came out to watch. Had to be there to make sure none of them got the idea to join one of those fool pilgrimages themselves. It's madness, doing what those men do, yet folk call them heroes for it.”
“Where do you think they are going?”
“Where they all go, back to the temple village. They'll get some high priest to bless them, call their names to the people, feast for a day or three, then head back to their villages with more riches than half of them know what to do with.”
“And what becomes of the people they bring back with them?”
Beron gave him a strange look. “People? Well, if there's travellers following along they'll be stopping at the temple too. I think I saw some river folk with them, though they're always headed down that way. That where you're going?”
Caspian nodded, relieved to finally have a destination in mind, but still anxious about what might happen to the captives once they arrived there. “Yes. How long will it take for the canoes to reach this temple village?”
“Canoes? Just two or three days most often. They move like the wind down that river. On foot you'll be taking a lot longer.”
Caspian's heart sank. He couldn't imagine them overtaking Liliac now, not with so many Sun People around and so few days left. If they could have travelled at night in the shapes of their wolves it might have been possible, but that invited great risk and would tire them out even faster. Their best chance, he conceded, would be to blend in with the Sun People and then try to find Adel and the others after they had arrived at the temple village.
“Well?” Beron barked, a note of finality in his voice. “You coming over or what?”
Caspian looked at Fern. She seemed to have come to a similar conclusion, or perhaps she was just too exhausted to argue.
“Yes, thank you,” Caspian said, taking Fern's hand as they picked their way carefully over the flat mushroom-shaped ends of the stakes buried in the ditch.
Beron grunted his approval and waved for them to follow, making his way down the path toward his house. Whether they found welcome beneath his great thatched roof or not, they were guests of the Sun People now.
—12—
Beron's House
To Caspian's immense relief the coming and going of travellers seemed to be a common occurrence on Beron's farmstead. Families like the one they had seen carrying sacks on the
other side of the river sat alongside the path leading up to the great house, and each of them spared some word of thanks to Beron as he passed by. The grizzled patron acknowledged them all with either a grunt or a nod. Some of them regarded the two newcomers with interest, but now that they were within the walls of the farmstead they seemed like much less of an oddity to the Sun People.
“Are you a friend to all these travellers?” Caspian asked. He was not often one to make idle talk, but if they wanted to blend in with these Sun People they were going to have to learn more about them.
“A friend? Not much of one. They're all families of my sons and daughters who left home. Ungrateful swine.” Once again his words were harsh, but they seemed to come from a place of affection. He did not truly resent providing for his wayward offspring. In fact, Caspian suspected he secretly enjoyed seeing his farmstead full of travellers.
“How many children do you have?” Fern asked. “I see a lot of people here.”
“Three dozen? Four? My wives could tell you. It's good help in the fields, even if half of them run off to find husbands and wives in the villages.”
“Three dozen?!” Fern gasped the words under her breath. They all knew the tales of the Sun People's virility, but the number was staggering. A whole pack's worth of children from a single father.
“Is that why you asked if there was any more to our names?” Caspian said. “I've heard your people sometimes use two names because there are so many of you. Plains folk, I mean,” he added quickly.
Beron shook his head. “Not my kin. That's the likes of Radeen-Na and his butchers.” He spat out the name with a contemptuous curl of his lips.