Redwing

by Holly Bennett

  EIGHT

  Despite their late night, the boys had the mules harnessed and ready to go well before midmorning. It had been decided over dinner that they would travel together for a while.

  “So you have plans?” Aydin had asked in his direct way. “Besides wandering around piss-pot towns in a caravan, I mean?”

  “Of course I do.” Rowan’s voice was a little too vehement, mainly because, until very recently, he hadn’t had any plans. He had not been able to think in terms of a future extending beyond the next couple of days. Not that it had taken much thinking—it was obvious what he should do.

  “I need to get to Clifton, on the south coast, by the beginning of the Month of Rains. That’s…” Rowan squinted across the smoky inn, trying in vain to figure it out. “Well, I’m not sure exactly when that is. I’ve kind of lost track of time lately. But it’s coming up soon.”

  Aydin raised his eyebrows in mock dismay. “Weeks of snow, and now we are in for rains?”

  “I heard,” said Rowan casually, “that half the Tarzine lands are desert, good for nothing but goats.”

  “And I heard,” countered Aydin, “that the Backender old ones all have moss growing out their ears from the constant damp.”

  Prosper and the Tarzine Lands did have very different climates. The sprawling island they shared was defined by the looming cones of three large volcanoes that had burst out of the high mountain backbone of the island. Though they had not erupted in living memory, the land surrounding them was a dead black sea of hardened lava, a harsh no-man’s-land that no one—neither Tarzine nor Prosperian—cared to cross. The prevailing winds swept across Prosper and foundered on the mountains, bringing rain and a rich silt of lava ash that made the country green and sometimes sodden. The land on the other side was warmer and drier, less fertile overall but able to grow some crops—grapes, for example—that couldn’t survive Prosper’s winter storms.

  “And so, why this Clifton place? You have family there?” Just for a second, Rowan thought, Aydin looked wistful. The impression was fleeting, but it gave him a jolt. Even when Aydin had told his terrible story, Rowan had never really thought how frightening his friend’s flight must have been, how lonely to be traveling a strange land with no word of his family. For all his haughty self-assurance, Aydin was adrift, just like Rowan.

  Rowan shook his head. He could go to his Uncle Ward and Aunt Cardinal—he would have to go at some point, at least to pass on the news of what had happened—but he couldn’t see himself staying at their rural home up in sheep country for long. He was almost sixteen, too old to depend on others for his livelihood, and certainly not about to trade in his music to work in his uncle’s business, even if it were offered. That big room full of clacking looms and the storefront piled to the rafters with bolts of cloth was the last place he’d want to spend his days.

  He shook his head again, this time to dispel that unwelcome vision. “No, Clifton is…well, it’s like the center of all music.” Aydin snorted, and Rowan corrected himself. “I mean all Prosperian music. The guildhall is there, and many of the best instrument makers, master teachers in every instrument…But mainly, every spring there is a great gathering of musicians. Musicians looking for hire, ensembles that need extra players, stewards whose lords are wanting music for a special occasion or house players for the year. You can sign up to play on the official showcase program, but there is also work everywhere. Many people come just to listen, so every inn and pub has music night and day. Even the street players do well.”

  Aydin was listening intently. “So you will go and find work, new people to play with?”

  “I hope so, yes.” Said bald like that, it made Rowan’s stomach roil. He’d often played with different people for a few tunes or an evening, but to actually join up with strangers, live with them, travel with them—well, plenty of players did just that. He would just have to get used to it.

  “It’s a big place, this Clifton?” Aydin waved his hand back and forth. “Bigger than this, I mean?”

  “Much bigger,” Rowan assured him. “It pretty much doubles its population in the spring, but even through the year it’s a good-sized town.”

  “And it’s a harbor town, I suppose, being on the coast?”

  “Uh-uh.” Rowan shook his head, his mouth too full to speak. Piss-pot town or no, Burl’s roast lamb was the best meal he’d had, well…since. He took his time swallowing, then shot Aydin a look. “Names mean something around here, remember? It’s a cliff town. No harbor—just a sheer rock wall into the sea.”

  Aydin nodded thoughtfully. “It will suit me, I think, this Cliff-town.”

  THEY TRAVELED SOUTH into full spring. Rowan knew the weather was more or less the same all over Prosper, but it really seemed they were leaving the last of winter behind their wheels.

  Within days, the nights were warm enough that they abandoned the smoky stove for open-air campfires and, when they weren’t working, sat and watched the flames for hours. They talked (at Aydin’s prodding) or played (at Rowan’s urging) or simply sat, each wrapped in the private, drifting thoughts that fire always seemed to summon.

  “Your sister likes our music, I think,” Aydin remarked one night.

  “Why? Is she here now?” Rowan tried to peer into the darkness beyond the fire without looking like he was trying to see her.

  Aydin rolled his eyes. “Of course she is here. She is always here. When she disappears, I will tell you.”

  “So why do you think—?”

  Aydin gestured at the air. Rowan squinted fiercely at the empty space, willing Ettie to appear.

  “She is very clear by the fire here. But when we play, she becomes…brighter. Like a light was kindled inside her.”

  Rowan’s throat tightened, and the tears welled up treacherously. Just when he thought he was getting used to the idea, could think of Ettie with a semblance of composure, something like this would undo him. It was as apt a description of Ettie’s smile as he could wish for. She was—had been—an ordinary-looking girl, not destined for any great beauty, but when she smiled, she was transformed. Like a light was kindled inside her. It was a minute before he trusted himself to reply.

  “She used to love to watch us play.”

  Aydin nodded. “And what did she play?”

  “Ettie? Nothing.” But not for lack of trying. That was a not-so-good family memory: Cashel’s growing frustration with Ettie’s lack of ability and her growing despair. “She had…” A tin ear. Wooden fingers. “She just didn’t have the gift, I guess.”

  Cashel had given her a high whistle for her seventh birthday—a compact instrument just right for small hands, and a good counterpoint to their mother’s lower wood flute. And she had been so excited to learn…except she hadn’t. Couldn’t. Cashel and Hazel both taught her, and she practiced as diligently as Rowan ever had. Yet month after month, her whistle was shrill and off-key, her fingering slow, her rhythm jerky.

  Gently, Hazel suggested Ettie try the fiddle. Maybe she just wasn’t a mouth player.

  Things were even worse with the fiddle. It set Cashel’s teeth on edge to hear his own instrument tortured day after day, and his usual kindness became strained. By the time Ettie was nine and had been training for two years, the whole family began to dread her lessons. Cashel’s corrections became more and more impatient, his (blatantly untrue) accusations that she was “simply not trying” more frequent, and the whole ordeal, more often than not, ended with Ettie sobbing on her bed.

  Rowan had happened to overhear the conversation that finally put an end to it.

  “I don’t know what to do about her,” his father was confessing, his voice distressed. “I can’t be bullying her week after week like this. But Rowan at this age was already—”

  “Leave her be, Cashel.” Hazel had reached out her hand and laid it on her husband’s wiry forearm. “You tried, she tried. She’s not a musician. Let her get on with her life now.”

  “And what will that be, without the music?
”

  Hazel smiled, teasing now. “Why, I imagine she’ll marry some nice young man, raise his babies and work by his side. She wouldn’t be the first.”

  Cashel glowered and shook his head. “And if he dies, or his business fails? She has nothing.”

  “Now, love.” Rowan’s mother was serious again, her voice earnest. “Your sister had very bad luck, no one denies it. But most young women are not left widows with two small babies and a world of debt. On the other hand,” she admitted, “a market skill is a good thing to have. We might see about apprenticing her with my brother when she’s older. But meanwhile, I need my baby for a few years yet!”

  Aydin was Ettie’s opposite, Rowan mused. The Tarzine was undeniably musical. He was also lazy, uninterested in expanding his repertoire despite Rowan’s warnings that the basic pieces they played now would be of little interest to the Clifton crowd. Finally, when his languid shrug failed to silence Rowan’s nagging, he said tersely, “Music is your job, not mine. I have other ideas.”

  NINE

  The four men had been knocking on rooming-house doors and questioning Shiphaven’s innkeepers for two days, and they were heartily sick of it-that much, they agreed upon. Even Jago would have to admit they had earned the mugs of ale lined up in front of them.

  In the dockside area of the busy trading port, rough-looking men were common. But people instinctively gave these men a wide berth, and not because of their Tarzine clothes and accents. The knives hanging from their belts or strapped across their chests had something to do with it. But even without their weapons, they were unmistakeably dangerous. At the ale room where they drank now, the publican quietly refilled their empty mugs, hoping that if he didn’t keep them waiting or make them come up to the taps to fetch the ale themselves like the other customers, there would be less chance of trouble.

  One of the men, younger than the others, took a long swallow, belched and set his mug down loudly. “I say we call it quits,” he argued. “We’ve looked at every bleeding lodging in the lower town. He’s not here. And if he was, he’s long since flown the coop. More likely he never stepped on board a ship.”

  “Be my guest.” Voka had served Jago for years and knew exactly what happened to those who delivered half-efforts. “Tell you what, Jax, you go on back to the ship and tell the boss that you got tired of looking. I’m sure you’ll get a handsome reward.” Ragnar, another veteran, lithe as a cat and studded with gold, sniggered into his beer.

  “Be more pleasant to pull out your own teeth,” he advised.

  “Fine.” Jax bent his head and spiraled his fingers elegantly from his brow in a sarcastic, elaborate salute. “What do you suggest then? We’ve been everywhere.”

  Ragnar shook his head. “Not nearly everywhere. We’ve checked the docks, where the sailors and workingmen stay. But now I’m thinking—he’s a rich boy, yeah? Used to the gen-teel life. So maybe he’ll get out of lower town, head for a nicer neighborhood where he feels safer. What’s a few more coins to him?” He looked round the table at his mates. Tyhr, never a man for words, nodded his head in agreement. Voka followed suit. But none of them were exactly thrilled at the prospect of another long day questioning landlords.

  “HOLD ON TO YOUR WATER—I’m coming!” The Widow Broadbeam was as ample as her name, and it had been years since she had run down the two flights of stairs in her lodging house. She wasn’t about to start now, especially for anyone rude enough to pound nonstop on her front door.

  The minute she laid eyes on the men—her fleeting impressions began with large, menacing…progressed to tattooed, bejeweled (Gods above, was that a nose ring on the one?)… and finally registered armed—she knew they were trouble. “Sorry lads, full up,” she said firmly and closed the door.

  Or tried to close the door. Fast as a snake strike, the nearest man—the big one with the tattooed, shaven head and copper skin—had his shoulder through the jamb.

  “Now, now, mistress, not so fast. We are just wanting nice talk.” The voice was heavily accented but understandable enough. With one smooth movement, he thrust the door open and sent Missus Broadbeam staggering backward. Then all four came barging in, closing the door firmly behind them.

  She was afraid now. She was alone in the house, the roomers out about their business, and these Tarzine men meant no good.

  “There’s nought here to steal,” she gabbled. “Only the few coins in my strongbox, which you’re welcome to.”

  “Peace, mistress.” The bald man again. He must be the leader, or maybe the only one who could speak Prosperian. “We have no need for Backender coins! I say we are here for talk.”

  Missus Broadbeam eyed them cautiously. For all their rough air, they were well, if gaudily, dressed, and their gold rings looked real enough. “Talk about what?” she ventured.

  “We look for young man. He is brother of Jax, here”—he gestured to a slim man with hawklike features, who gave her a predatory grin—“but is lost. Perhaps you have seen him?”

  She was already shaking her head in denial. She knew who they were talking about all right—that nice boy Samik. May the gods preserve him from men such as this! “I haven’t seen nobody like that,” she proclaimed.

  The bald man smiled patiently, but his eyes were suddenly sharp. “But I have not told how he looks: tall, thin, with long hair, nearly white. Very pretty hair. You remember his hair?”

  She shook her head again, and suddenly he was beside her, his arm hard as a tree trunk across her chest, his knife pressing under her jaw. She gave out a squawk of terror. She hadn’t even seen him move, he was that fast. “Please don’t hurt me! Please! I haven’t seen him, that’s all.”

  “I think you did, mistress.” His voice was very quiet, the menace thick. “I think you need help with memory.” He nodded to his men, and her tidy entry room erupted in a frenzy of destruction. She cried out as one man pulled out his knife and ripped her prized tapestry into ribbons, and again as her lovely stained glass window shattered with a tinkling crash.

  The men stopped abruptly, and Missus Broadbeam felt the knife press into her skin. She was trembling now, moaning with fear, and the foreign voice bored into her head. “Now. Next I use knife to help memory. This boy, you have seen?”

  She was too scared to stay silent. These men, they would ruin her house, leave her impoverished, hurt her, maybe kill her. And Samik must be away safe by now.

  “He was here,” she cried. “He was here, but he’s gone.”

  “Good.” The knife eased away from her throat, just a bit. “Gone where, and when?”

  “Weeks now,” she exaggerated. “He just stayed a few days and then left. He didn’t say where.”

  “Is shame.” The knife pressed against her again, and Missus Broadbeam cried out as the sharp blade nicked at her skin. “Is not so much help. You must do better.”

  “He didn’t say where,” she cried. “Just—inland.”

  “So he goes on main road—your Western Carriageway?” The man’s voice sharpened with interest, and she thought, for one fleeting, brave moment, that she would agree and send them that way. But in that moment of hesitation, the knife pressed hard again and fear opened her mouth. “Not that way,” she sobbed. “He wanted to go through the backcountry.”

  The men conferred in their Tarzine gabble, but the knife stayed firmly in place. “Please,” she begged. “That’s all I know. I swear it, that’s everything.” She screwed her eyes shut, waiting for the next threat or cut. May the gods forgive me if I’ve done harm to that boy. But surely all she had told them was harmless—Samik could be anywhere by now.

  The men seemed to have come to a conclusion. With one catlike motion, the bald man released her, sheathed his knife and joined his men as they trooped out the door. He turned back at the threshold and smiled in false apology. “One thousand thanks for your kind help. We regret your window.”

  BACK IN THE ALE ROOM, Ragnar bent over the map.

  “You can’t be serious,” Jax protested. “W
e can’t search the whole Backend interior!”

  “We won’t have to—look at this.” Ragnar traced the roads with his finger. “Besides the Western Carriageway, there are three roads out of Shiphaven. Two are basically coast roads. Only one heads inland.”

  He cocked his head, considering. “Like I said before, our young buck’s not used to living rough. He won’t be wanting to sleep in a ditch, I’ll warrant. So we’re looking for a town within a day’s journey, say about…here.” The finger tapped the map, and they all peered at the spot.

  “Greenway,” Ragnar announced. “I’d wager we’ll pick up his trail in Greenway. There, or the next town down the road.” He looked around the table. “We need horses. I’ll go report back to Jago. You lot, find us something decent to ride. Just buy them, clean and aboveboard. Meet me at the docks.”

  IN THE DEEP SILENCE OF PREDAWN, Samik sat up in bed. The cold air on his shoulders was like a slap in the face, but at least it brought him fully awake. The dream was vivid in his memory as though it were painted onto the inky blackness in the caravan. There was no action, just the single image: a dark night, a vast sky studded with stars, and the dim outline of two figures. Though he couldn’t make out their features, he knew the slighter figure was Rowan. Of the other figure, the one who held Rowan close in a pinion grip, Samik could see only two things: the glint of his sword, and the faint reflection of light—starlight? torchlight?—off his bald head.

  Was it a true dream, or just the meaningless weavings of his own sleeping mind? He couldn’t tell. Samik shook his head, trying to clear it. The clarity, the realism, felt true. But it was easy to see how his own worry could have shaped it—here he was in a strange land, fearful of pursuit, traveling lonely roads with a stranger. It wasn’t much of a leap from there to imagining Rowan in danger. The dream could even be his own conscience talking, warning him not to mix Rowan up in his troubles. Or it could be a true vision of the future, or a possible future. Dreams, even true dreams, were often more confusing than helpful.