by Gayle Greeno
“Should we say something for him? He was a Seeker.” Khar kept pace with her, amber eyes troubled.
“I don’t know, Khar, I don’t know. Maybe later if it seems right. Now come on. Where’s Saam?”
“Back already. And he doesn’t like what you have in your pocket.”
“Well, he’s just going to have to dislike it for now because we don’t have time to discuss it.” She scooped up Lokka’s reins and savagely jammed her toe into the stirrup. “Mayhap there’s someone who’d cherish it and his memory.”
“He won’t ride if you carry that.”
Vaulting up, Doyce slapped the pommel platform to bring Khar to her, then reached into her pocket. “Jenret!” she called. “Catch! Don’t lose it! It’s Cal’s Lady’s Medal.” The silver disk arched through the air like a comet, its leather thong trailing behind. Jenret snatched at the glow of silver and nodded before he turned and galloped away. She wished she’d had time to examine it, but it certainly was nothing more than a Lady’s Medallion, an older version of the one that Vesey had worn and the remains of which she carried in her pocket.
As soon as Doyce felt Saam land on the back platform, they followed after Jenret, just as the heavens split asunder and emptied themselves on riders, ghatti, and horses alike. And on one corpse, receiving its first bath in years.
They pounded along, not sparing themselves or the horses as the road churned itself into a river of mud and brown, swirling water. No hope of spying a pothole or a projecting root or stone until they hit it. But Deutscher loomed around the bend, Duetscher and its strange ferry, a dangerous but effective route across the tumbling, roiling river sounds she heard booming ahead, its steady grumblings and mutterings dulled and muted by the pounding rain.
If their foes had already crossed on the ferry, they’d have no hope of catching them; the ferry couldn’t function in this storm. If they still waited to cross, they had a chance. She understood Jenret’s urgency better now. Headstrong he might be, but he wouldn’t swerve from danger, known or unknown. Pressed tight to Lokka’s neck, her body screened Khar from some of the pounding rain, and she spared a thought of pity for Saam, claws sunk into the rear platform, completely exposed. Still, there was no choice, and she urged Lokka faster, trying to pull alongside Jenret to avoid the water and clods of mud flung back by Ophar’s plunging strides.
Jenret must have harbored the same worries about their options, their chance for success or failure as they swept into town and down the slickly treacherous trail that now funneled water like a chute toward the riverbank. With a shout of dismay he pulled Ophar up and shielded his eyes against the rain. “Halfway out!” he screamed as the rain battered his words to crash and die against the water. Hands cupped around her eyes, she squinted hard, straining to make out a slightly darker speck on the water, something foreign to the wild, dissonant partnership of river and rain, possessed of the same elemental force yet still at odds. The darker patch tumbled and bobbed as if on a leash, casting up a white flume of water like a lashing tail as it heaved and struggled against the river’s monumental pull.
As if on command, a flash of lightning cleaved the sky, a blue-white tracer illuminating looming shapes and shadows, bobbing specks of whiteness—faces aboard the ferry—the sodden gray bulk of cargo, three horses, and the tented shape of the canvas shelter at the ferry’s center.
She had inspected the ferry once before, snugged tight against the lee of the bank while it loaded, but had never watched it in operation. And ferry was a misnomer for it as far as she was concerned, about as safe as sticking candles on a shingle and floating it off down the rapids. Faced with the all-consuming, constant fury of the river, the townspeople of Deutscher had been wise not to try to tame or conquer it. The best they could hope for was a sickeningly swift ride which might or might not buck them off before they reached the opposite bank. She knew why gambling held no appeal in Duetscher: why bet on cards, dice, or the swiftness of horses when a river crossing offered the ultimate high stakes: life or drowning?
The ferry was primitive, no more than a flat log raft with both ends warped into identical rounded prows to glance off rocks. On each side of the raft two massive iron rings were pinned deep into the logs, and from these stretched heavy rope cables joined to an even larger iron ring welded to a frame enclosing a set of pulleys that ran on wrist-thick twisted cables across the river. Three or four times higher than a man could reach, the cables were attached to a pulley system set in pylons on either side of the river. The Duetscher-side pylon had a windlass set at its base.
Traveling from west to east, from Deutscher to the other side, the raft shot on a diagonal across the river, the current carrying it to the landing point downstream. The cables kept the raft from being swept away, but the current carried it along. For the return journey from the far bank back to Deutscher, the windlass provided back-breaking labor as men struggled to turn the giant cranks to precariously winch the raft upriver against the current, working from low to high point so that the raft never broached, but instead angled its deliberate way back home.
Despite the fact that the ferry was halfway across, the dock stood deserted, no ferry-tender in sight. A tiny hut the size of an ice-fishing shanty perched on the bank just above the dock, but Doyce couldn’t tell if it was occupied or not, the dim shadow of a shuttered window isolating it from the pounding rain. With a shout of dismay, Jenret jumped onto the planks and dashed toward the crank, threw his full weight against it, trying to turn it over and halt the raft’s downstream run.
“Help me winch it back!” he shouted into the pounding rain, as if his command would be heard and obeyed, but by whom she didn’t know. Without waiting for a response, he eased the stopper bar free and began to pull against the force of the current and the plunging weight of the raft. His muscles bulged, fighting not to yield the slack the raft needed to run with the current.
Knowing her weight on the crank would mean little or nothing, she sluiced the rain from her eyes and cast around for what she needed. Rope—a mooring place had to have coils of rope scattered all around. Where, damn it? Khar sped past her, looking like the most sodden, miserable beast she’d ever seen, but she had no time to sympathize.
“Over here, on the barrel!” Khar leaped to the top of the piling to elude the swirling water threatening her footing.
Damnation! Why wasn’t there anyone to help? Giving a shout in the direction of the hut, she splashed on, squinting against the driving rain and acutely aware of the dragging wetness of the sheepskin tabard plastered against her body. Jenret’s must be hampering him as well. If she could reach him with the rope and have him secure the crank, then all she had to do was make sure the other end was knotted to Lokka’s or Ophar’s saddle horn. That should hold the raft, freeze it in midstream until they could summon help to winch it back to shore.
The rain-sodden rope refused to bend into knots, but she fumbled with cold, moisture-slick fingers and finally clove-hitched it to Ophar’s saddle horn; it would have to hold, no time to try to better it. She spared breath for another shout, yelled at the top of her lungs and swore that the rain washed her words away. Then she ran, falling, running again, uncoiling the rope from her shoulder as she descended toward the dock and Jenret.
A blade of light stabbed at her eyes, caught her attention as two shapeless figures came tumbling out of the hut, bellowing shouts of dismay and warning. Distracted, Jenret half-turned, lost his concentration at the crank.
She heard as much as saw the darker shape of Jenret being bodily lifted and flung backward, his fight with the winch handle lost as it tossed him up and across the rain-wet planks. Freed from restraint, the handle spun round and round with a thwap, thwap, thwap, and the unleashed raft shot forward to its haven on the other side. No way to halt it now.
Dropping the useless rope she ran to Jenret’s side as he struggled to rise, balanced groggily on hands and knees, head bowed low. He collapsed and slumped face forward into the swirling rainwater, a
nkle-deep as it sluiced along the planking, rushing too fast to drain between the cracks. The winch handle must have slammed him in the ribs or in the face when it broke free, enough to knock the wind or the sense out of him and let him drown. Grabbing for his head, her hand hit something furry and warm, heat radiating through soaked fur.
“Me,” the miserable voice identified itself, “Rawn. Hurry, he’s heavy!” Rawn, the color of darkness and the driving rain, crouched under Jenret’s head, supporting his unconscious Bondmate, holding his mouth and nose above the rushing water with his body.
Deciding drowning presented a more immediate concern than any injuries, she grabbed him by the collar and shoulder and heaved him onto his back. The uncertain flicker of a lantern highlighted a bloody, puffed nose and a rapidly closing, swollen eye. The ferrymaster brought the lantern nearer, rain sizzling against tightly-sealed glass sides.
“Got‘em there, too,” he noted, swinging the light for emphasis. “Thought he’d missed with his face. I c’d ’ear the thud when‘e took’em in the ribs. Handle musta flipped up fra there.” The ferrymaster and his son stood bulky and stolid in oiled slickers, watching as if this presented the most interesting entertainment they’d seen in recent days. “ ’E can’t, can’t nobody stop the ferry when she’s shooting like that, not wid the extra flow.”
“Well, give me a hand getting him inside somewhere dry—and be careful,” Doyce grunted, still struggling to hold Jenret’s head and shoulders clear of the water.
“Oh. Ah. Inn, Bosquet,” he commented to his son, and the two reached strong hands under Jenret’s arms and hauled him upright, none too gently from the moan that creased his lips.
Eyes still pinched shut, feet moving automatically, Jenret muttered, “Got to stop them. Must stop them!” He struggled to pull free, nearly fell.
“Oh. Ah, boy. Not stoppin’ nothin’ on the river ta-night. No way ta reel nothin’ in as you done see’d.”
Wishing sourly that the ferrymaster had imparted that shining bit of wisdom before and not after Jenret’s losing battle, Doyce floundered in their wake. The damp, dispirited procession wound its way up the bank and waded against the current of water swirling down the street, dodging floating branches and human debris, a tin bucket, bouncing and bobbing, stove kindling.
“Wet as the river but nearn’t so rocky,” the ferrymaster murmured in what she took to be consolation as she gathered up the horses and followed, trailed by three equally wet ghatti. Khar and Saam sprang clear of the water with each step, as if hoping that dry ground would magically appear where they landed; Rawn waded along, paddling once when he lost his footing, stoic in the water.
Pushing through the inn’s door, a denlike dimness engulfed her, the pent-in blue haze and reek of tobacco smoke, the tallow scent of wind-extinguished candles, rancid grease, and the warm, yeasty smell of fresh and stale beer. Woodsmoke wreathed the fireplace as the gusting wind wrestled it back down the chimney. Eyes stinging, Doyce peered around the room as she motioned for the men to bring Jenret all the way inside. He coughed once, sputtered a faint curse that turned into a groan that made her grimace in sympathy; coughing with broken or bruised ribs gave exquisite pain.
The inn—she wasn’t sure if it deserved to be called that—made her heart sink. Shaggy unfinished logs, bark stripped clear in spots by idle hands, formed the walls, a few cured skins pegged along the outer sides. From the rank smell she suspected something still inhabited some of the skins. As candles sputtered to life against the sulfur-blue flare of lucifers, she made out split log benches and tables with random tree trunk sections serving as crude but solid stools. If rustic implied a sort of country, homespun charm, this inn made wilderness living a homey proposition. The few inhabitants appeared to be trappers or woodsmen by their garb, but the innkeeper, despite his towering height and coarse woolens, had two things in common with his brethren everywhere: his white, ale-stained apron and the harried ability to thread his way through jostling crowds without spilling a drop of ale.
“You given up ferrying for fishing, Lester?” he boomed out, and the men at the tables laughed and elbowed each other, then went back to the more serious business of drinking.
“Aye. If’n on‘y they don’ make’e throw’em back fer bein’ undersize.” The ferryman threw his head back and brayed with laughter, pleased with his own witticism.
“You got horses outside?” the innkeeper asked Doyce as he shifted Jenret’s weight from the ferrymen’s grip and propelled him toward the fire.
“Two horses outside and three very wet ghatti inside by the door. Have you beds for the night?”
“A Seeker and a Seeker-lady in one swoop!” An eruption of widemouthed “haws” and coughs left her face spattered with moisture, part tobacco juice, part saliva. It was better outside. “Looks like you netted well, Lester. Near as well as we done already.” With barely a glance over his shoulder, he spat, let loose a bellow toward the back of the room. “Selig, it’s not a fit night for man nor beast, so git yourself out there, you won’t notice it! Git those horses sheltered and dried and fed.”
Shadows at the far end of the room seemed to ripple, swim through the smoke and murk, as two figures detached themselves from the darkness and rushed forward, one of them tripping over a log-end stool and sending it flying from his path. The bulk and movement looked all too familiar, and she blinked in dismay. It couldn’t be.
Jenret managed a weak bark of laughter. “Company!” And Doyce nodded in grim agreement as Harrap and Mahafny made their way to them. Parm’s high trill invited the other ghatti beside the fire where he toasted himself on the slate hearth.
“Harrap, what happened to you?” she blurted before she could stop herself. The weak wash of candlelight couldn’t hide the fact that Harrap was now attired in strikingly, violently purple pantaloons, his robe kirtled up around his paunch, and a green jacket with red cuffs and facings straining across his massive chest. She pressed her hand against her lips, swallowed hard to submerge the laughter bubbling to escape.
Jenret couldn’t do it. “Did you rob a marching band?” he inquired between whoops and pain-racked coughs.
Harrap turned his leg this way and that, admiring the swirl and rustle of the fabric. “There’s not much choice in my size ready-made.” The blush on his guileless face matched the jacket’s trim.
“Nor was the man who yielded them up terribly pleased to do so, even with adequate recompense,” came Mahafny’s dry comment. “He mentioned several times about it being very cold without them.” Mahafny, too, was dressed far differently than Doyce had ever seen her, her white lab coat absent, replaced by a new outfit of supple, well-tanned doeskin with a plaid, heavy cotton shirt beneath the loose-cut tunic top.
“Ask him about the coat!” Parm’s thought tickled and teased the air with the equivalent of a ghatt chuckle.
“Do we want to?” Doyce whispered to Jenret, now standing on his own but with the wall supporting his back. He threw out his hands in mock surrender.
“Well, yes ... the coat, you see,” Harrap rushed the words out. “A bit flashy some might say, but then ... it’s warm. Buttons tight around the neck, once I ease the buttons over. And it fits quite well, don’t you think?” He pirouetted back and forth, arms out, so they could admire it. After years of plain, utilitarian wheat-colored robes and hemp belts, Harrap peacocked in his newfound finery.
Mahafny prompted, “Yes, but tell them how you obtained it.”
“Oh, yes ... well ... a small game of chance with one of the Monitor’s messengers on leave. A fine, friendly little game.”
“And when Harrap caught the man cheating, he sat on him until he gave up the coat!” Parm burst in, plainly delighted with his new Bondmate.
Jenret strove for a chiding tone but failed. “You, a Shepherd of Our Lady, robbing a man of his pantaloons, gambling for a fancy coat. Neither the Shepherds nor the Seekers will welcome you after this!”
Drawing himself up straight, Harrap radiated a sense of
seriousness and determination, nothing ridiculous about him. “Sometimes things are necessary, wrong as they may seem. The greater need decreed that we should come after you and help so that you wouldn’t face these trials alone.” He jerked bushy eyebrows in Mahafny’s direction and continued in a stage whisper, “Ask her about how we got here!”
The comment left Mahafny unruffled. “A little horse trading seemed in order. I’m sure the stabler will find my gray and the two-wheeler a generous trade for the two mounts I selected. Finding one capable of carrying Harrap for any distance was no easy task.”
Jenret slid down the wall, legs jackknifing beneath him. Doyce heard him land with a thump and turned, conscience-stricken, reaching to stroke back the wet hair. “No,” he said in answer to her unspoken question, leaning his head away from her touch. “Just wet and sore and more weary than I thought. And so discouraged. We were that close!” he exploded, fist slamming the floor.
“What happened? Are you hurt?” Mahafny knelt and thumbed back one eyelid, then the other. “Harrap, get my kit—and some more light.” With firm but light fingers she explored the mass of bruises puffing Jenret’s cheekbone and eye, letting her sensitive, trained touch confirm what her eyes couldn’t see.
“Lost a battle with a winch handle.” Jenret sucked in his breath but held steady under Mahafny’s touch. “We almost caught up with them—two of them crossed on the ferry, the ghatt, too, I think. The third’s dead—back aways off the road.”
Harrap pressed closer, face pale. “Your doing?”
Raising his palm in a pacific gesture, Jenret shook his head. “No. Before we arrived. He was wounded from the fight.”
