The Ropemaker

by Peter Dickinson

  “Like mine is with trees, far as I can make out,” said Meena, “and Alnor’s is with water and rivers and such.”

  “Our river only, perhaps,” said Alnor. “I do not know.”

  “That may well be the case,” said Lananeth. “When I travel beyond the boundaries of this estate I feel my powers diminish. I could do nothing in Talagh, if I were fool enough to risk trying.”

  “Perhaps in our case that is just as well,” said Alnor. “We shall not need to be so much on our guard all the time, though I was hoping that we would be able to use the river to travel further.”

  “No,” said Lananeth. “All across the North West Plain, right to the Pirrim Hills, it is barred with reed beds. Tomorrow I will set you on your way by road. You have three days to reach Songisu, where you will have to join a convoy, as there are bandits in the hills. There will not be another convoy for nine days, and every day you delay is danger for my husband. So now we must get on. I have much more to tell you, and it’s already late. These are the clothes you will wear. . . .”

  To her shame, Tilja was already asleep before Lananeth left. She dreamed not of the dangers of the coming journey, nor of the lost comforts of home, but of a shore where she stood, and an island far out at sea (never before in dreams, and never with her waking eyes, had she seen the sea) and a voice in her head telling her that everything depended on her reaching that island. It must have been sunset in her dream because the whole sky above the island was filled with a glowing cloud that seemed, when she wasn’t looking at it directly, to be forming itself into a great fiery shape, but as soon as she turned to see became shapeless again. Only as she woke did she realize that the shape had been that of a unicorn.

  7

  The Pirrim Hills

  Four evenings after leaving Ellion’s house they reached Songisu. The way station was an enclosed square with a pillared arcade running round three sides, divided into separate booths for the travelers. It was larger than the ones they’d stopped at before, but everything else was the same. Lananeth had warned them what would happen. The clerk took their money—four drin for the fee, two for the bribe and one for the unofficial bribe—and stamped their way-leaves, and then demanded a surcharge before he’d hand them back. Alnor answered with a blast of barely controlled anger and a threat to report him to Steward Ellion, and he shrugged and gave in.

  Tilja rubbed Calico down while the other three settled into one of the booths, then joined Tahl to go and haggle for food and fodder at the stalls. All this already seemed easy and familiar.

  Waiting for Tahl to finish bargaining, she fiddled with her hair. From the first day of their journey, she had had trouble with it. Ma had always cut it just above shoulder length and tied it in two bunches at the back, but Lananeth said she was too old to wear it like that in the Empire, and she must braid it, secure it with a little beaded tie, and then coil it up at the back of her head and fasten it in place with a pin, with the blue pinhead at the center and the two blue beads below to show that she came from a fourteenth-grade household. Her scarf then went over the top of her head, once round under her chin and over the top again, with the ends hanging down in front of her shoulders. There were two small blue beads and a larger one on the tassels each side. All these beads meant that way-travelers from lower grades could see that they must be careful not to jostle her as they passed.

  Unfortunately girls in the Empire wore their hair longer than Tilja’s. She could just about braid it, but there was almost nothing to coil, especially as she couldn’t see what she was doing, so someone else had to do that and pin it in place, and even then it started to come undone almost as soon as she moved. By the time each day ended her neck was stiff with trying to hold her head as still as possible so that she didn’t have to stop every half mile and ask Tahl to coil her up yet again. He did this neatly and without fuss, teasing only a little, but it was a nuisance and made her feel a fool.

  Worse, it made her sure that she was giving them all away. Sooner or later some nosy stranger was going to ask about her hair. Tahl had already come up with a story about it getting full of tar and needing to be cut short, but Tilja was certain that as she stammered with the lie the stranger would notice everything else that was wrong about her, her curious accent, and how she kept getting tangled in the ends of her scarf, and didn’t look comfortable in her long skirt, and didn’t seem to know stuff that even small children knew. The other three looked fine to her. Tahl wore his little blue-beaded hat at a jaunty tilt, and laughed, and smiled, and was interested in everything; Alnor’s own natural dignity suited his grander uniform; and Meena would have looked like Meena whatever she was wearing. No, Tilja was the one who was going to let them down.

  In fact there was far more danger from one of the other three. For instance, yesterday morning they had passed an area of sparse scrub, with goats grazing for what they could find, and then suddenly they were walking between small fields full of young crops, beautifully clean and tidy, with little one-room huts scattered about, and every now and then a water-filled ditch running as straight as a ruled line on either side of the road as far as the eye could see.

  They had come to a bridge over a fair-sized stream. Here Alnor, who had been striding steadily along beside Calico with his left hand on the saddle flap for guidance, halted abruptly. Calico plodded sullenly on until Tilja dragged her to an equally sullen standstill. Tahl took Alnor’s hand and led him to the bridge rail, where they stood side by side, leaning on the rail, as if they were gazing into the distance. There wasn’t anything special about the place that Tilja could see, only the slow-moving stream, wriggling away between the fields, and every so often someone working an endless rope that dipped below the surface and drew bucket after bucket up the steep bank and tipped them into the ditch at the top. That was how the ditches were filled, she realized, and that was why the fields ended as suddenly they did, because it was as far as the water could be made to flow. Without those hoists, and the hundreds of peasants toiling at them all day long, this great, rich area would have been as barren as the parched plain beyond it.

  How long, Tilja wondered, since those ditches had first been cut and the land made fertile? Centuries, she guessed. Again, just as she had in the little warded room in Ellion’s house, she felt the size and weight and age of the Empire. All those generations of toilers coming out of their shabby huts morning after morning to spend their days turning the selfsame water hoists, the ropes and buckets wearing out and being replaced, the men and women growing old and dying, never having left these fields, and their children taking up the toil to live the selfsame dismal, empty lives. Standing there, she could feel the Empire around her, above her, below her, before her in time and after, a vast, vague oppression, like a fever dream as huge as the universe.

  Alnor woke her from her trance by turning suddenly away from the rail. Tahl led him back to Calico’s side.

  “What was that about?” asked Tilja as she took the bridle and dragged Calico into an unwilling walk.

  “Just listening to what the stream had to say. It was just local gossip, but you remember Alnor said it might be only our river he could listen to or do anything with? It isn’t. And I could hear it too. Alnor says it’s always easier with two of you, but even so I’m only just beginning to understand ours. Ours giggles and chatters. This one just mutters. But I could hear every word, and it seemed to get clearer and clearer.”

  “That was you two pulling the magic in, just listening to it,” said Meena. “Not that I could hear what the water was saying, but I could feel the power starting to get sucked in round us, just like one of those dust devils Lananeth was telling us about. And if I could, so could anyone else who’s got the gift. Strikes me we’re going to need to watch our step pretty well all the time, if we can make something happen like that without us even meaning to.”

  Alnor grunted agreement. Tilja stared around as she walked on. She had, of course, felt nothing, but she didn’t doubt what the others were
saying. And Meena was right. Yes, now she remembered that just before Alnor had turned away from the rail, she’d been gazing at a woman in one of the fields a couple of hundred yards away, who’d straightened from her hoeing and stared toward the strangers on the bridge. In the daze of her trance Tilja had sensed that the movement meant something. Perhaps that woman too had felt what Meena had felt, an ingathering of magic, starting to swirl into a shape, like a dust devil.

  While they were eating, a man came round the booths, stopping at all the occupied ones in turn. He was burly, with a short, square beard, and wore a strange, square hat with a heavy brim. He carried a sort of pike in his hand and had a long knife stuck into his belt—the first real weapons Tilja had ever seen.

  “Going south?” he asked when he reached their booth. “To Goloroth?”

  “We go to Talagh,” said Alnor.

  “Good,” said the man. “I am Zovan. I lead the convoy. Your place is seventh in the line. The fee is one forin for the token, plus four for the bribe, plus two.”

  This was, amazingly, the correct amount. Tahl counted out the coins and Zovan gave him a wooden token.

  “Be ready,” he said. “We leave at sunrise, and those that aren’t there get left. We won’t be going that fast—there’s some on their way to Goloroth—but we don’t stop if you fall behind. We don’t like losing folk but once you’re off the convoy it’s not our lookout if you find yourselves dumped at the roadside with empty pockets, and the kids taken off to be sold. Got it?”

  “We have it,” said Alnor, confidently. The man nodded and moved on.

  In the gray dawn light they found their place, about a third of the way from the front of the convoy. Zovan came round collecting the tokens. Eight or nine other men, armed as he was, were scattered along the line. Right at the back came a group of several elderly people and an equal number of children, paired off, old and young. Calico was the only horse in the convoy.

  The way station lay between the small town of Songisu and the foot of the Pirrim Hills. Sunrise flung its gold light along their upper slopes, leaving deep-shadowed folds between the spurs. The frontier of light seemed to race toward the plain as the world tilted into day. Zovan shouted. A guard clattered his wooden paddles together. The gates of the way station were heaved open and the convoy filed out toward the hills.

  As Zovan had promised they went at an easy pace, and slower yet as the road began to climb. Alnor, born to mountains, strode effortlessly up, but Calico was stupid and balky, trying to stop and browse at every clump of wizened stalks beside the way. Tilja was weary with dragging and driving when at midmorning Zovan called a halt to let the old people at the back catch up.

  “That’s the worst of the climbing,” he told them, “but from now on you’ve got to stay together. And if you do fall behind, don’t give up. Keep going. We’ll be stopping a couple more times, so you’ve a good chance of catching us up, but not if you sit down by the road waiting for someone to come and help. It’s a long way to Goloroth, remember, and you’ve only just started. Those of you that are going south’ll get a day’s rest the other side of the hills. And now’s the time to say good-bye to the North West Plain, any of you that won’t be coming back. This is the last you’ll see of it.”

  Tilja rose and looked north. As they’d wound up the hillside the distances had seemed to spread and spread behind them, and now from this height she felt that she ought to be able to see as far as could be seen before the curve of the world hid all that lay beyond. But no. Where were the mountains, that even from the southern fringe of the Valley at Woodbourne seemed to tower above it? Gone, gone beyond sight, and the Valley itself and the forest. You wouldn’t have known they were there.

  But they are, she told herself. And I’m not saying good-bye to them. I’m going home.

  The fog came down without warning. At one moment they were under clear skies on an almost level track that had been winding for several miles along the bottom of a valley, wooded with ancient pines. Next, they rounded a corner and could see nothing beyond a soft pale wall of cloud and the shadowy loom of the next few trees. The line jostled to a halt as the cloud rolled over them. Tilja could no longer see the head of the column nor, looking back, the tail of it. Zovan’s call echoed through the murk.

  “Happens up here, this time of year. Nothing to worry about. Close up and keep up. All here? March.”

  The guards repeated the orders down the line. The pines and the fog swallowed their voices.

  They plodded along through the dankness, Tilja leading Calico with her eyes on the back of the man in front of her. She could barely see the next person along the line. The track was well kept and she wasn’t watching her footsteps, so she was utterly unprepared when Calico’s bridle was wrenched from her grasp and something massive rammed into her shoulder and sent her sprawling forward and sideways. She broke her fall on her elbow and scrambled up.

  Everyone seemed to be shouting. Calico was lying on her side with her hoofs flailing as she struggled to rise, but a piece of loose rope that must have been lying on the path had somehow wrapped itself round her legs and brought her down, and now it was refusing to let go. Meena was lying on top of Alnor on the bank beside the path. Alnor’s right foot was trapped under Calico’s saddle. Tahl was trying to snatch at the rope. The rest of the convoy was beginning to edge round on the other side of the road, desperate not to get left behind.

  Tilja had once seen Ma deal with Tiddykin when she’d caught her foreleg in some loose brushwood and fallen and panicked as she’d tried to kick herself free. Tilja yelled at Tahl to wait, grabbed the bridle, turned and sat heavily down on Calico’s head, hissing as loudly as she could between tongue and teeth, and calling her by her name. Calico heaved once more, then gave up as Tilja clung on. Tahl darted in and unwrapped the tangling rope.

  Still gripping the bridle, Tilja rose and let Calico scramble to her feet, where she stood snorting and shuddering while Tilja hissed and murmured to her and Tahl ran round to help Meena and Alnor. Meena had rolled herself over and was sitting up, feeling her hips and legs. Alnor was lying on his back, retching for air.

  “Meena, are you all right?” Tilja called anxiously.

  “Won’t know till I stand up,” she answered. “Shook myself up a bit, but the old boy broke my fall. Winded him good and proper, by the look of him.”

  Tahl was kneeling beside Alnor, trying to lift him by the shoulders. Alnor was making feeble motions with his hands to say he wanted to be left where he was. The tail of the convoy, pairs of old and young going to Goloroth, hurried past. Some of them didn’t even look, but one old man caught Tilja’s eye and shrugged apologetically, telling her he’d have liked to stay and help if he could. The guard at the tail of the line stopped.

  “Rough luck,” he said. “How’s the old fellow? Think he can walk?”

  Alnor grunted and somehow rolled himself up onto one elbow and felt for his left ankle with his other hand.

  “I’ll do,” he croaked. “Just winded. Could have been worse. You go on. We’ll catch up. We can move faster than you’ve been going.”

  “Right you are,” said the guard. “There’ll be a rest point two, three miles along, but Zovan won’t want to hang around there, not with this muck slowing us down. Never seen it this bad.”

  “One moment, young man,” said Meena. “You can help me back up onto this stupid beast before you go. Gently now. My hip’s bad enough, best of times, and Lord knows what else I’ve done to myself.”

  Good-humoredly the guard hoisted her up to the saddle and strode off into the murk. Tahl found Alnor’s cap and put it back on his head. They waited another few minutes while he finished getting his breath back, sat up and felt himself over more thoroughly. Tahl picked up the frayed bit of rope that had caused the accident, stared at it for a moment, frowning, and tossed it into the trees. Alnor rose groggily to his feet and stood, testing his weight on one leg and then the other. With his hand on Tahl’s shoulder he took a few limping st
eps.

  “You all right?” said Meena, for once not trying to hide her concern. “I daresay this animal’s up to the two of us. Time she earned her keep.”

  “I’ll do if it gets no worse,” he answered. “We must move now, or we won’t come up with them.”

  So they started along the path, Tahl and Alnor in front and Tilja leading Calico by the bridle. It felt strange, after the companionable shuffle and chat of the convoy, to be moving through this silent, closed world, the only sounds their own footfalls and the drip of the fog from the branches. Before long Tilja saw that Alnor was limping more heavily, and leaning his weight on Tahl’s shoulder at each step, but he still strode fiercely on. His halt was so sudden that she almost allowed Calico to blunder into his back.

  There was a man in the path ahead of them, standing straddle legged, blocking the way. He had a cudgel over his shoulder and a long knife stuck into his belt. Then movements either side of the path and five more men, also with cudgels and knives, came out of the trees.

  Tilja’s heart slammed once, then hammered. Her stomach and limbs filled with the chill of the fog. She half heard Meena muttering fiercely above her. The men closed silently in.

  “My grandfather’s blind,” said Tahl, urgently. “He’s hurt his—”