by Jo Clayton
On the bank she slid from the saddle and dropped down on a convenient rock. “Get your boots off, Hern.” She suited action to words and began tugging at her own. “We’re going to be walking in water for a while.” She slipped the second boot from her foot. “We can’t count on them staying stupid.”
After she tucked the boots into a saddlebag, she led her macai into the creek and started wading along, the water pushing strongly against her, rising halfway up her thighs. It was cold as the ice it ran from, the ice caves high in the Vachhorns ahead. She kept glancing up the hills, feeling too exposed on her right with only scattered clumps of broom to conceal her and Hern from a lucky blunder of the searchers on the slopes. When she reached a section where trees grew on both banks, she breathed a sigh of relief though this was no unmixed blessing since the increased darkness made footing doubly treacherous. She smiled a little when she heard Hern floundering behind her, cursing under his breath as stones on the bottom turned under his feet or barked his toes.
The trees thinned again as the stream began to curve back to the south. Serroi and Hern had to climb as well as force their weary legs against the strengthened current pouring down an increasingly difficult slope. Moonlight silvered the bow waves curling round Serroi’s legs and turned the trees and broom along the bank into stark patterns of dark and light. When she looked back she could see the clouds of soil the macai’s claws stirred up slipping rapidly away, carried farther than she could make out before it settled back to the bottom. Now and then she heard a distant shout from the guards still stubbornly combing the brush. She was glad they hadn’t thought to go back yet because anyone with half an eye could see there was something troubling the water upstream, even they couldn’t miss that. And now and then she had a momentary vision of wading around a bend to come face to face with a scratched, dirty, irritable guard. When the voices finally dropped behind, she began to relax—and become more aware of her multiple discomforts. She looked over her shoulder at Hern, chewed on her lip. He was putting his feet down with great care, his face frozen into an absentminded mask. She wasn’t feeling too brisk herself, her legs had nearly lost all sensation and her back ached. She let the macai walk past until she could hang onto the stirrups, glad of the support though her fingers started cramping.
For the next half mile she progressed one step at a time—forcing a leg against the current, feeling out a fairly stable foothold, bringing up the other leg, repeating that over and over. Serroi began searching the creek banks, sighed with relief when the tumbled stone and thick brush on the banks drew back and a gentle grassy slope slid down to a flatter stretch of water. She sent the macai up the bank letting it carry most of her weight until she was standing in the cool thick grass. As the beast began cropping eagerly at the grass, she dropped to her knees, stretched, rubbed at her eyes, yawned, swung her legs out in front of her and rubbed cautiously at her feet.
Hern settled beside her, sat wiggling his toes, scowling dubiously at them. With a soft disgusted sound he lay back, and looked over at Serroi. “Lost?”
“No.”
“What about them?”
“Lost? I doubt it.”
“Did we lose them?”
“Maiden knows. I think so. Unless they set trackers on us.”
“Think they will?”
“They were your guards. You’re a better judge than me.” She got wearily to her feet and walked toward the macai, crooning at them so they’d let her approach. She took her boots from her saddlebag, hesitated, then untied the bundle of Beyl’s clothes; the leather of her skirt was clammy and miserable against her skin, she could feel the shake of cold as well as weariness in her legs. Silently she blessed old Braddon for his gift. She swept the cloak along with the bundle and after another moment’s thought, she circled round to Hern’s mount and took down his boots.
She dropped the boots by his side and settled to the grass again. With a sigh of pleasure she began drying her feet and legs with the cloak. His eyes were closed. He looked half asleep. Yesterday, she thought, yesterday I’d have told him the track I wanted to take is just a little way upslope. I’d have said, but for your folly we could have been miles closer to the Greybones Gate. I’d have thrown that in his face with pleasure and spite. Smiling, she shook her head. She tilted onto hands and knees. Dragging the cloak with her, she crawled to Hern’s feet, began patting them dry, going gently over the stone bruises and abrasions.
Startled, he sat up. “What?” When he saw what she was doing, he flushed and reached for the cloak, embarrassed at having her perform a service for him he’d thought nothing about a thousand times before when it was one of his wives or concubines attending him. She smiled, appreciating the subtle change in his perceptions, let him have the cloak and started undoing the bundle.
Some minutes later she said, “There’s a track a few hundred yards upstream. Cuts through a small meadow. Be a good place to camp, plenty of fodder for them.” She nodded at the macain as she unrolled a shirt and trousers and snapped out the wrinkles. “I could use some rest. So could they.”
“A track.” His voice was dry. He didn’t say anything else but he didn’t have to. She was glad she hadn’t let her bitterness show, blinked when she realized that she wasn’t really angry with him any more or even with herself. As he was pulling on his boots, she got to her feet. Taking shirt, trousers and her own boots with her, she retreated behind a bush and stripped off the wet leathers, the sleeveless tunic and divided skirt. The homespun wool of the boy’s clothing felt soft and warm against her skin and once again she blessed her friend and spent a moment hoping he’d escaped the threatened burning. He’ll survive, she thought, knowing as she did so that it was more wish than real possibility. There’s a core of toughness in him, in all of them, those mijlockers. Ser Noris will find them harder to swallow than he thinks. She laughed aloud at this, knowing her own foolishness—still, there was a thread of hope she couldn’t deny no matter how absurd it seemed. She slung her weaponbelt about her waist again and marched into the small clearing. “Hern, the macain are beat. We’ll have to walk.”
“Walk.” Hern stretched, groaned, looked down at his small feet in their finely crafted riding boots. “Walk.”
She chuckled, called the macain to her with eyespot outreach and soft clucks of tongue against palate. Knotting the reins into a ring on the ledge, she stroked the macain with her outreach and implanted a command to follow. Over her shoulder she said, “Next time forget vanity and settle for comfort.”
He snorted and came after her, walking with great care, bending his feet as little as possible, shortening his already short stride. He raised his brows as he watched the macain pacing placidly along behind Serroi, then stretched his stride as movement eased some of the soreness in his muscles. He caught up with Serroi and together they walked along the bank of the creek in a silence more comfortable than any words they’d shared as yet.
“Floarin must be mad,” she said suddenly.
“Power mad.”
“She’s a fool if she thinks she’ll keep any power once the Nor close their fists on the mijloc.”
The wind was beginning to rise, stirring the leaves over their heads. Night prowlers rustled through the grass and brush growing around the scattered trees. Serroi nodded, tucked her thumbs behind her belt. “You’re right about that. The Nor don’t work well with women, that’s why they tried first for you, Dom.” She glanced at him. “Floarin says she’s pregnant.”
“None of mine if she is.” He grunted. “I haven’t gone near her for years.” Dappled moonlight played over his form, leaf shadows flickered over his face. He was scowling, his lips compressed into a thin line, the anger that’d been simmering in him the past year boiling up close to the surface. Glancing at him now and then, she moved along beside him prudently silent until he started walking more painfully, then began to limp.
“Blisters?” Serroi touched his arm. “You’d be better with bare feet.”
Dislike glinti
ng in pale eyes, he pulled away. “Don’t try mothering me, meie. You aren’t equipped.”
“Cripple yourself then.” She walked on, frowning at the ground in front of her. Sorehead, she thought. She grinned. Sorefoot. Still grinning she swung around, walked backward, unable to resist the wordless crow even though she knew she was exacerbating his irritation.
He smiled. His pale eyes glittered. Ignoring the pain in his feet, he limped faster. He reached out. His fingers stroked along the curve of her neck where it rose from the opening in her tunic. He drew fingertips over the smooth flesh, slipped his hand around her neck to rest warm and disturbing under the blowing ends of her curly mop. She felt a moment’s panic, started to pull away but he was too strong, he pulled her closer until her slight body was hard against him. Slowly, sensuously, he moved his lips along the curve of her cheek, brushed them lightly across her mouth, kissed her very thoroughly, his hands moving over her, until she was limp, holding onto his arms to keep herself from falling on her knees. With a triumphant smile he stepped away from her.
She stared at him, trembling, rubbing shaking hands along thin arms. He couldn’t beat me, she thought. I’m too small, it wouldn’t do any good. For his pride’s sake. So he uses his.… She swung around and walked away from him. After a few strides, she looked back. “Dom, don’t be a fool. Take the boots off before your feet start bleeding.” She managed a small smile. “If you bleed all over them, you’ll just ruin the leather.”
With a bark of laughter Hern dropped onto a root and started tugging at a boot heel. “Make a habit of being right and you’ll turn into a worse irritant than puff-ball dust.”
A habit of being right. She winced.
He rose, his bare feet pale and absurdly small against the dark grass. A look of pleasure on his face, he stood wiggling his toes, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
Serroi shook her head, started on. He came up beside her, swinging the boots with a jauntiness that sent laughter bubbling through her though this time she was careful not to show it. Amazing how sore feet could ruin a man’s disposition; that wasn’t all, she knew it well enough, she was beginning to realize how galling he’d found her all-too-obvious contempt and how ill-founded that contempt actually was.
“Beyl can’t be the only boy running for the hills,” Hern said. “The mijloc will fight.” He made an impatient brushing gesture. “Eventually.”
“Except for a few bands of half-starved outlaws that they let your guards run down, they haven’t had to fight for a long time now.” She spoke absently, her eyes tracking the course of the creek, trying to see how far they had to walk.
“Not since Heslin united the Plains.”
United. Serroi smiled at the roots she was climbing over. Conquered is more like. “The mijloc’s isolation helps,” she said mildly. “No close neighbors to covet what you have.”
“And we rode them with light reins, we sons of Heslin. They like us well enough.”
At least that’s true, she thought. Most of the time. Not so much at tithing. She glanced at the rotund figure strolling beside her. You Heslins have been too damn lazy to worry about taking more power. “They’ll like you a lot better when they’ve tasted a few years of Floarin’s rule.”
“Years.” Hern spat, kicked at a root forgetting that he wasn’t wearing his boots, swore fervently, limped on, a grim look on his face.
The trees opened out into a small round meadow. The stream danced through its middle and a muddy line of stones marked the track that cut the halves of the grassy circle into quarters. Along the track moonflowers glowed like white lace, shoulder high off the ground, swaying gently on their thick hairy stems, gifting the wind with their cool, hardly sweet perfume. The meadow soil was thick, black and soggy under the matting of grass roots. Serroi kept to the stream bank until she reached the track then stepped from stone to stone till she came to the trees on the eastern side of the clearing. Hern took a bit longer to follow, the stones hard on his bruised feet. He was careless once or twice and sank ankle-deep in the muck—which didn’t improve his temper. Cursing under his breath, he followed Serroi to a level stretch of drier earth under the trees, sank onto the springy air roots of a solitary spikul and began scraping at the mud on his feet with a handful of the meadow’s coarse grass.
Serroi ignored him, thinking that was the best way to maintain their somewhat precarious accord. She stripped the gear off the macain, wiped them down with wisps of grass and sent them ambling out into the meadow to graze on the succulent pasturage.
“You aren’t going to hobble them?”
“No need.” She didn’t look at him, busied herself with draping saddles over a low limb on a gnarled brellim and spreading the pads to dry. “They won’t go far. Too tired.” She squatted by her blanket roll, undid the straps and began loosening the ground sheet wrapped around her blankets “Not going to rain, I think.”
“Hot for this time of year.”
She set the groundsheet aside and began clearing small rocks and twigs off of a section of earth. “I noticed.” She rose stiffly, tossed a small rock aside. “You want to hunt for firewood or fix supper?”
“Kind of you.”
“What?”
“To offer a choice.”
“Don’t be tiresome, Dom. Which?”
“Firewood.” He padded over to the pile of gear and bent down, grunting with the effort, to catch up the small ax. “How much you want?”
“Enough to last till morning.” She frowned at the sky. “Not long now.”
He nodded and moved with stiff painful strides into the darkness under the trees.
Serroi stretched, yawned. She was sleepier than she was hungry, but she knew she should eat since she’d need all the strength she could find on this quest. She caught up the waterskin and the kettle, taking them to the stream, thinking pleasant thoughts of a steaming hot cup of cha.
When Hern came back with an armload of wood, she was kneeling beside a small circle of stone, fitting the last stone in place, at her elbow a pile of fresh herbs and knobby tubers, dried meat and everything else she needed for supper, all of it waiting for the fire. He dumped the wood beside her, tossed the ax down without watching where he threw it. It banged off a stray stone and bumped out into the meadow’s tangled grasses while Hern rubbed at his hands and scowled at broken skin on his palms.
Serroi sighed with exaggerated patience. “Dom.”
“What now?”
“We’ve got one ax between us. You want to gnaw the next batch of firewood down to size with your teeth?” She lifted one of the smaller limbs, broke it over her thigh, inspected the pieces, broke one of them again, then began fitting them into the space between the stones.
He made a face at her back, stepped reluctantly into the mud and began weaving through the grass hunting for the ax.
Hern poked through the shell fragments in his palm, searching vainly for any more nutmeats. He brushed the shell away and eyed the pot. “Any stew left?”
Serroi glanced into the pot, shook her head. “Trail rations, Dom.” She lifted the kettle from the dying fire and poured the last of the hot water over the already soggy leaves in the bottom of her mug. “You’re too fat anyway, short rations will be good for you.” She took a sip of the weak cha, sighed and held out the mug. “Want this?”
“Better than nothing.” Sipping at the hot pale liquid, he watched her rinse out the stew pot and scrub the interior clean, dumping the used water onto the grass. She broke a few dry twigs from one of the branches, blew on them until she had a small but briskly crackling fire, then added more twigs and some larger branches. She sat back on her heels, yawned, her eyelids drooping, her shoulders sagging.
Hern spat out a cha leaf, picked another off his lip, drank again from the mug, watching with weary amusement as she rose, brushed herself off and moved to the groundsheet. She pulled her boots off, wiggled her toes, sighed with relief, met his eyes and smiled at him. Unbuckling the heavy weapon-belt, she
laid it out flat on the blankets beside her. “Come here, Dom, and let me work on your feet.” She laughed at the expression on his face. “Don’t be a baby, I’m not going to hurt you.”
He got to his feet. “I don’t see why you weren’t strangled at birth.”
Her face went still. “I nearly was, Dom. Not strangled, but given to the fire when my grandfather saw this.” She touched the eyespot on her brow, spread out her hands to remind him of the odd color of her skin.
“Damn.” He eased himself stiffly down beside her. “I didn’t mean it.”
“I know. Never mind.” She worked one of the belt pockets open, brought out a small pot of salve. Holding it, she looked around, wrinkled her nose. “Hang on a minute, I need water.” She fetched the waterskin and knelt at his feet. With gentle hands that still managed to hurt when she touched the broken blisters, she washed his feet clean of heavy dark dust and the stains from the meadow muck, then spread the salve on the abrasions and the blisters, worked it patiently into the stone bruises on his soles. He flinched and fisted his hands at first, then sighed with pleasure as the soothing balm eased the pain from his sores and the heat of it penetrated his bruises. He lay back and closed his eyes, was almost asleep when she finished. She sat on her heels gazing at him with something close to affection. After a moment she rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hands, crawled up on the groundsheet and shook him awake. “You want to take first watch or second, Dom?”
They rode undisturbed along the track for the next three days, the quietness and solitude of the mountain slopes easing the tension from both of them so that by the time they reached the Greybones Gate late on the third day, the bad beginning was almost forgotten.
A hot leaching wind with a dry musty smell like the dust of dead fungus blew against them from the Gate, a tall narrow crack between fluted cliffs of dead stone, wind-carved into elaborate convolutions, singing an eerie, ear-piercing melody. As they sat on sidling nervous macain, blinking away dust-generated tears, somewhere in the Gate before them there was a sharp crack, the clatter of stone against stone, an over-stressed section of cliff breaking away. Cupping a hand over nose and chin though that wasn’t much help, she blinked furiously, felt herself beginning to float. She lost touch with arms and legs, swayed in the saddle, had to grab the ledge with both hands. She turned to Hern, started to speak but her words were lost in the singing of the wind. She caught his eyes (glazed and wandering like her own, slitted in a slack face) jerked her head toward the track, back along the way they’d come. He nodded and followed her away from the Gate.
