by Helen Bell
She charmed men in the audience as she sang, getting close enough so that with a little sleight of hand she could apparently produce some unexpected object from each – unless, of course, they had something suitably entertaining on them anyway. Most were transfixed until she had picked their pockets; some sought, always unsuccessfully, to keep her out of them. She got a huge cheer every time she whisked someone's three- day-old noserag out into public view, or tossed aside a stream of withered apple cores from a single pocket; the rest of the crowd teased her victims mercilessly. It was not all cruelty, though. One of the audience 'gave' her a single pink bloom, and at the end of the song he was rewarded with a kiss.
She and Cedas took their bow after the act was over. While helpers tidied the debris away from the circle, Jesral put a dark shawl over her bright skirt and took the ribbons from her hair, ready to deliver her short act. When she took up position again ready for her new introduction, she could not have looked more different.
Hidden in the shadows, Tamli and Eddir accompanied her with a sad, haunting guitar melody while Jesral poured out her heart in song. It was a tale of unrequited, betrayed love, a love that remained strong regardless. Jesral had a light subtle voice but her real skill lay in how she delivered the song. Seen by torchlight she was a small figure, standing straight-backed but so forlorn, her arms wrapped tightly about her as though to restrain the emotions she only dared to unleash in her voice. She sang of a love without hope yet without end. Snuffling could be heard from members of the audience in the quieter stretches of the song. Yet when it was over and the watchers erupted into applause, Jesral stepped forward all smiles for her curtsey, basking in their praise when only moments ago it had seemed her heart was breaking.
She caught Vel’s eye as he clapped, mouth half open in amazement and admiration; she held his look, just for a moment. Then she skipped backwards out of the circle of watchers as the musicians played her off with the theme from the first song.
A minute or two later she slid quietly on to the bench next to Vel. He started when he saw who it was. She had the shawl pinned so it was off her shoulders now, which gave her another look entirely: elegant and at her ease. She smiled lightly at Vel.
‘She’s good, isn’t she?’ Renia smudged away a tear with one finger. ‘I've seen her do that song four times now, and it still makes me want to cry my eyes out.’
‘Incredible,’ Vel murmured. He was openly staring at her. Jesral affected not to notice this as she shrugged off the praise.
‘I have the song to thank for that. My voice isn’t that good. They're just easy notes for me to hit,’ she averred.
‘You have a beautiful voice. Why did you never sing before?’ Vel asked, with undisguised admiration in his eyes. She looked wistful.
‘It wouldn't have worked so well anywhere else. It's a matter of mood. The atmosphere has to be right, you have to be in harmony, and not just musically, with the players who accompany you.’ She gestured to the musicians with a smile. ‘It's a combination of things, but mostly it’s the people you're with.’ She met his gaze then broke eye contact as if suddenly feeling shy. ‘Sometimes you're lucky. You can hit that moment and hold it. With the right people.’
Now Vel looked down. Going too fast, she told herself, and changed the mood between them. She leant forward conspiratorially.
‘Of course,’ she said, low-voiced, ‘you have ignored the real skill I showed.’ He looked at her – could hardly avoid doing so, when she was so close. She smiled wickedly.
‘Shall I get the knot out of this for you?’ She dangled a piece of leather lacing before his face, and he grabbed at his hair as he recognized it. She had untied it without him even noticing.
‘How did you do that?’ She was fiddling with the knot, trying to undo it.
‘Oh, blast, it won't come. I'll have to cut it.’ And she opened out the blade of his folding knife, which she had successfully purloined as well. He grabbed her wrist, took back knife and lace as she grinned at him.
‘You have criminal tendencies,’ he pointed out. The look wasn’t disapproving; his grip on her wrist lingered longer than it needed to. She knew she was playing him at the right pace now.
Beyond him, she saw Kerin and Renia with their heads close together. Renia looked anxious. Jesral could only partly hear what she said against the music of the next act.
‘... can't tell you here, in the middle of a crowd. We need to...’
Then the music rose and drowned out her voice. If Renia and Kerin were leaving, Jesral could get Vel alone. But she needed something from the wagon if she was going to get this right. She touched his sleeve.
‘I have something else of yours. I'll fetch it, if you wait here.’
Cedas watched her as she left, a hard expression on his face. Outwardly she ignored it; inwardly she celebrated. It was just what she had hoped for.
She was away no more than three minutes and in that time Kerin and Renia had gone for their talk as she’d expected. Only Vel had gone too.
Damn. Perhaps they had left together; if so, the most likely way they would go was back towards Naylan's wagon, set on the high ground beyond the rest of the Company’s pitches. She hared off in pursuit.
They were indeed together. Jesral nearly ran into them, till she heard Renia's voice. There was a quality to it that Jesral had not noticed before, so she held back and stayed in the shadow of a nearby wagon to listen.
Renia sounded angry. That was interesting; one of the players had said she had seemed to be arguing with Kerin the night all the fuss was kicked up about her act, but that had seemed about as likely as snow in July. Yet here was the evidence in front of Jesral’s eyes: and she’d thought the girl wouldn’t say boo to a goose.
‘…and nothing on our journey hurt you, until you gave away your protection,’ Renia was telling Kerin. Vel stood to one side of them with the air of a man planning to stay out of the argument.
‘So this is about the Eagle? You’re still fretting about that? How very foolish of me not to see. I was concerning myself with more logical worries, like us using rope to get into Karn. Do feel free to check the ropes until you’re sure of every inch of them. Did you think Vel and I wouldn’t? But that storm was pure coincidence, nothing to do with me giving you the Eagle. I won’t take it back.’
‘Kerin…’
‘No! There’s no point in prolonging this argument. We talked this out when I gave it to you, and I won’t change my mind now. Please, trust me, and leave things as they are.’
‘You can be so stubborn,’ Renia declared in exasperation.
‘As if you aren’t! The difference is, I'm giving the orders. And my order is: keep it. Now I’ll say goodnight. I’m off to bed after I’ve fetched water for the morning. I’m too tired to watch the rest of the show.’
Vel turned to his sister when Kerin had gone, his face thoughtful.
‘So you've had this out with him before. Do you really think it's a danger?’
‘I don't know. The Eagle, it's so... bound up with him and what I’ve seen coming. You'll think me silly, but I feel guilty for letting him give it to me.’
‘Not if you think it’s his protection. But he couldn't take it into Karn, Ren. I wouldn't want to risk going in with him if he had it on him. They’d have the nooses round our necks at once if they found that, and no mistake.’
‘I know, I know. You’re making sense, Vel. Kerin too. I've probably got it all wrong – but you make sure you check those ropes again, all the same.’
She received a rare display of affection from him then. Vel slid an arm around her shoulders and touched his forehead to hers.
‘You worry too much. You know, your predictions are too accurate. The ropes won’t be a problem. If you saw nooses, then nooses are what we need to avoid, and Kerin’s too clever to allow us to be gallows-bait. I must go now, Jez wanted to see me about something. Are you coming back to the show?’
‘No, I'll leave it. I’m tired too.’
If they said any more, Jesral did not hear them as she crept away. What they had already said had turned her cold with misery and fear. They were still keeping secrets from her.
Her fingers slid into her pocket and touched Vel’s pressed flower, still carefully wrapped in its cloth. She withdrew her hand again, before the urge to crush her most treasured possession overcame her.
oOo
Two days from Karn, one of the wheels on Atune's wagon started to work loose. It turned out to be the axle pin, repaired on some previous occasion and slipping in its socket after bouncing over the province’s poorly maintained roads for so many days. It was the kind of handiwork that Naylan excelled in, which was fortunate as it wasn’t the only Company wagon to suffer from the roads. Cedas paid for the first repair, ranted about the state of the roads and Karn’s thieving LandMaster fleecing his taxpayers for the full hour and a half it took Naylan to fix the second, and flatly refused to pay for any more after that, so the rest of the Company secretly arranged an extra supper in Atune’s wagon one night in return for Naylan’s work.
As he ate it he bantered with Atune. He had her measure at once.
‘You ever getting up again, old woman?’ he asked as Jesral helped her with her meal. Atune scowled and determinedly pulled herself a little further up in bed.
‘Soon as you get fit enough to give me a run for my money. Look at you, eating another supper when you've clearly had enough to feed a family for a week already! I don't know what your handsome lad wants with him, Jesral, but he’d better not need him to get through any small gaps,’ Atune warned.
‘You're not supposed to know about that. Shut up and eat your supper.’ Jesral's voice expressed neither amusement nor anger; her thoughts were far away.
‘’Tis locks, that's my business in this. These past days I've seen lock after lock after lock. Forgot how many I had in my stores – and forgot what little buggers to pick some of them are.’ He fell to his supper again.
‘So… picking locks, and fixing mighty wagons single-handed,’ Atune observed. ‘Cedas'll have you out on the circuit as escape artist and strong man if you don't watch it. He's tricksy, that one, knows how to steer you into a corner every time. You ask Jesral.’
‘Ummn?’ She had not fully registered what Atune had been saying.
‘She says Cedas is a sharp little piru,’ Naylan summarized Atune’s comments.
‘Well, we knew that already,’ Jesral replied, curt without intending rudeness. Naylan shrugged.
‘Well, I thank you for the extra supper, ladies. Now I shall try to avoid being trapped into show life by heading home. Jesral, we’re taking a night off from the preparations over at my wagon. An evening of gut-rot cider and cards. Room for another punter if you can afford the stakes.’
‘Not for me, thanks,’ was her reply. He gave up, thanked them for the meal again, and left.
Jesral washed the plates out on the back step, put them away; pottered around doing any number of small, unnecessary jobs. Atune pulled herself up into a sitting position again.
‘You threw most of your dinner away. Not like you to be off your food.’
‘Just didn't feel very hungry tonight,’ Jesral replied. The conversation lapsed again, until she seemed to run out of things to do and lay down on her bunk. She gazed thoughtfully at her reflection in the foxed mirror that lined the side of the compartment. She gave a little sigh, not meant to be heard, but Atune's ears were sharp.
‘You must be bored. You’ve seen so little of your friends these evenings past. Go on over. Even if you're tired, it'll perk you up a bit.’
‘I said before, not tonight.’
‘And said the same yesterday, and the day before that. When are you going… birch bark month? Girl, you’re not the Jesral I knew. What's been eating away at you these last few days?’
Jesral just lay and blinked, considering whether to tell her to mind her own business and go to Hell. From the mirror her own speckled reflection stared back at her; the dim wagon light accentuated the dark shadows under her eyes.
A catch in her breathing – she didn’t know herself if it was a sigh or a sob – and Jesral rolled over to look at Atune.
‘I'm in out of my depth Atune, and I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, girl – you, out of your depth? Didn't think there was a lake deep enough. Jumped in again rather than pushed, I suppose?’
‘Why do you always assume that?’ Jesral snapped, but calmed herself quickly. ‘Worst of all, why do you always have to be right?’
‘Does it bear repeating?’ Atune prompted her. ‘Something? Someone?’
‘It’s not something I can tell you about. It’s Ren’s secret.’ Jesral stared at the mirror again. ‘There’s a sort of unspoken promise between us.’
‘And promises should always be kept, however they’re made. Come here and sit by me,’ Atune ordered her. Jesral came and sprawled by the side of the bed, face buried against Atune's blanketed side. The old woman stroked Jesral’s hair as if she were two, not twenty. At every stroke it felt like she picked up the fear in the girl, cast it out and replaced it with calm. The process seemed to soothe Atune too; she spoke in a warm, clear voice free from the cracks of age.
‘You like her, I like her, and she’s an honest soul. If something was going to mean trouble for you, she'd tell you, wouldn't she? I’m guessing you started this escapade before you found out this secret of Renia’s, but I think you knew even then this wasn’t going to be an easy ride, and that didn’t stop you. Does knowing this new thing really change that? You're one of life's survivors. You can deal with anything that's thrown at you, my dear.’
Atune continued the stroking for some minutes, until Jesral chose to raise her head; she seemed solemn, but no longer scared or distracted by worry.
‘You always make such sense out of muddle for me. How I wish you hadn't been ill when I left last time! You would have made it all right, I know.’
‘Ah, that's time long past wishing; don't let wishes be your master. I'm old, Jesral, and the old fall ill a lot. You've got to start making sense of it for yourself, you know. You can do it. Don't be afraid to follow your instincts.’
‘Hmm. That's usually what gets me into trouble in the first place.’
oOo
As they travelled the land changed. Rolling farmland lay far behind them now and blue hills loomed higher ahead. The road and its surroundings became craggier still, until in the early evening two days later Kerin signalled to Cedas to stop. He was travelling, in rare contradiction of his own rule, on the Company's front wagon in order to call a halt at the most suitable place. No one else could do it: the Company had never included Karn on its circuit before.
They were on the brow of a hill with a wooded belt of land to their left. This wood followed the curve of the road around and halfway down the hill. There the road struck out over the valley, where it crossed a stone bridge spanning a river. The bridge looked old, probably pre-Catastrophe and obviously patched up, but Kerin knew it to be sound. As soon as it had crossed the bridge the road passed through the first of the walls that surrounded Karn, the one that protected the lower town. As it wound on it passed ever higher, meeting another road that came round the far side of the hill town; the two roads became one and snaked up through two more walls into the fortress itself. At the first of these walls the crowded huddle of town houses came to an abrupt end.
From here the fortress looked squat and harmless; an effect of the distance. Kerin knew that inside the town that double wall seemed to tower over everything, and from the river, which wound around the base of the cliff on the far side of the hill to make a virtual island of Karn, the sheer rock face and fort wall would look unassailable. It was a fortress intended to convey the might and authority of the Crown; yet it was almost certainly his prison.
Cedas stood up on the driver's seat for a moment, surveying the scene. He nodded curtly.
‘Yes, as I pictured it. Doesn't look much from here, does it?’
/>
‘We are about a mile away. I think that is close enough for tonight. If we stop here now, by the time camp is ready you and Vel will still have the last of the light in which to scout out the riverside. Do you see the fording point I was talking about, just before the river bends?’
‘Yes, I have it. We’ll make camp fast tonight. I want to do my checks and get back in time to develop my “malady” during supper. The more people see it, the better. We’ve kept this business close enough to us that they probably don’t suspect, and I'd trust most of the camp to say I'd been ill even if they thought otherwise, but no point in forcing a lie on them. They say your enemy offers a pretty sum for information, and money loosens tongues easier than most things...’
Cedas fell quiet as someone approached, but it was only Vel come to take a look. Cedas went off to organize the setting up of camp while Kerin pointed out the major landmarks of Karn to Vel.
His tutoring was interrupted halfway through when a series of sharp cracking sounds echoed across the valley. A pause, and then more of them were heard.
‘What's that?’ Vel asked.
‘Guns. The garrison must be practising.’
‘Guns? But I thought they were illegal?’
‘They are, for ordinary folk. But we have them for law enforcement and there’s the possibility of pitched battle with some of our neighbour countries to allow for. The military use other weapons too. Bows and lances; even siege engines – though they have not been actively used in Ilmaen in my lifetime. Karn was modelled on the forts of pre-Catastrophe times, when whole armies of men would fight to settle an issue. Barbarous times, when they thought strength alone mattered.’
