Moonrise

by Mitchell Smith

  ... The women — Errol trailing behind — came back late and merry, Boston-Patience flying low and badly, Nancy running beneath her, bounding along, leaping once to catch the hem of the long blue coat, so Patience almost fell, then recovered, swatting gently down at the girl with her sheathed scimitar.

  "My nose," Patience said, landing in camp with a stumble, so she almost went to her knees. "Difficult to breathe through. — But I'm clean!" And she was, though her clothes and coat still hung drying on her.

  Nancy's damp homespun still clung as well, and Baj noticed — couldn't help it — the print-through of two rows of small nipples down her chest.

  She saw him see.

  "Handy," Nancy said, through breeze sounds and bee sounds in their glade. "Handy," looking at him golden-eyed, "— if I have pups."

  It was a relief for Baj to turn away to the Boston-woman, whose eyes were dark as dug anthracite. "Lady, shall I try to do what our festival wrestlers do?"

  "That depends on which of their doings." Patience sat, legs crossed. Her bare feet were almost small as a child's.

  "The nose," Baj said.

  "Ah — well, I suppose you can't do worse to it...."

  "Take a breath." Baj went to kneel before her.

  Patience took her breath — her broken nose whistling slightly, like a flute. Baj reached out and pinched it hard, felt a little bone or cartilage shift under his fingers . .. then yanked it straight to a soft click.

  "Christ!" A curse, or prayer, Baj had only heard a few times before. Patience rocked back and forth — almost put her hand up to nurse the nose, then kept it away. "Felt better breaking!" Drops of blood ran down to her mouth.

  "Then they use two flat little strips of wood," Baj said, "one along each side to keep the nose straight. Those little strips are tied together at the ends, and both held firm in place with string looped tight around the man's head."

  "And must appear charming," Patience said, honking like a goose.

  "I can do that," Richard said, and got up to go fashion it.

  "If," Patience sniffed at blood-drops, "if I don't come out of this beautiful, Prince, you will need to run faster than from Robins."

  "I think," Baj said, ignoring the 'Prince,' "— you will look even more elegant, once the little wood pieces are off. 'Spints,' is what they call them."

  "I'm still bleeding." Patience gave Baj a hard look, and spit bright red off her upper lip.

  "That will soon stop," Baj said. "... At least, it did with the wrestlers." He received another look, so was relieved when Richard came back with two short little splinters of thin-whittled alder, and a length of sewing sinew — moved Baj aside, and sat before Patience to set them.

  "We're told those are 'spints,' Richard."

  "Really? Bone-holds, we called them in the Guard. Hold still, dear..."

  * * *

  Supper that night — and, after argument, with a small fire hidden deep in a cleared pit — was the last scraps of venison, and a bird: a grouse, taken by Errol with a thrown stick.

  "We'll need more food than this," Patience said, though she'd been given the largest small share, and was finishing it fast. "We can't go tottering on our way. I can't Walk-in-air on nothing.... Though now, thanks to our Richard —" she stuck out a small foot, demonstrated her new moccasin-boot, "— thanks to him, I go nicely on the ground."

  "Last of my leather," Richard said. "So all be careful of rocks and sharp edges."

  "I'll take the bow out ahead, tommorow," Baj said. "I'll find something."

  "Watch out for boar." Richard grinned at the Boston-woman. "We had... an adventure, with a boar."

  Errol made his tongue-clicking sound, perhaps recalling the taste of wild pig.

  "Whatever," Patience said. "Get us something more than this." She finished a little drumstick and chewed the bones.... Bent over the fire's changeable yellow light, she appeared to Baj the very type of Warm-time witch he'd seen drawn in a copybook — perhaps originally meant for children; perhaps not. Her small face, once elegant and fine, now puffed, bruised, and beaten, bracketed with spint-sticks and sinew string as with some half-helmet, ceremonial for a sacrifice.

  "You'll look much better soon," he said, then thought perhaps he shouldn't have.

  Patience glanced at him — then slantwise at Nancy, sitting silent beside her. "Still young, isn't he?... Baj-boy," she said, "never mention possible future improvement in a woman's looks, Person or all human-blood. They will not thank you for the reminder that presently, they look ugly."

  "You don't look ugly. You look... interesting."

  Richard made an Um-mm sound.

  "Boy," Patience said, "leave the subject."

  "I will. Yes."

  "Thank you." She smiled. "And I also thank you for the wrestlers' cure. An attempt, at least."

  Baj nodded, but said no more. Paid attention to the fire's modest flames.

  "Still Robins," Richard said, "further along the mountains."

  "Yes." Patience nodded. "At least another nest of them... then Pass I-Seven, wide as the Gap-Cumberland. Farmers there."

  "Farmers," Richard said, "though too far north, too near the Wall for best growing."

  "Farmers to be avoided," Patience said, "is what they are. And well-avoided, since they're insane, with children raised to be insane, and they murder those few who are not."

  Richard nodded. "Even the Guard stays clear of those. — Or

  did, when I served in it, for fear madness might be catching."

  "What madness?" Baj said.

  Patience made a face that looked even odder with her spinted nose. "The madness... of longing."

  "We'll travel that pass at night," Richard said. "And the lady, Walking-in-air."

  A distant chorus commenced .. . WT miles away.

  "Wolves." Baj had heard them closer on the Map-Ohio river-bank, as the royal boat — the small one, Rapid — had skated hissing past by moonlight.

  "True wolves," Nancy said, and Richard listened to the high-pitched wailing rise and fall, then nodded.

  "We used to hunt them," Baj said, "— on horseback over snow when Lord Winter came down."

  "And caught them?" Patience said.

  "The dogs caught them, sometimes — often were sorry they had. Some archers on snow-foots could trail and kill wolves, if the drifts were deep enough.... And a snow-tiger came to the river, once, though I didn't see him. Said to have bred in Map-Oklahoma."

  "They came," Patience said, "— as your First-father's father came. Over the bridge of land from Map-Siberia."

  "I believe that's so," Baj said. "It's what we were taught."

  "I've heard of those tigers." Nancy'd spoken rarely through the evening. "Still lesser creatures than the great white bears that come down from the Wall."

  "You insult my some-part daddy," Richard said, smiling the smile Baj had grown used to, "— who apparently was only a grizzled."

  "I have never known," Patience said, "— what portions were placed and Talent-shifted in my mother's womb to make me."

  "I know mine," Nancy said, then was quiet, looking into the fire.

  "Well," Richard dug into his great pack. "I, and all my portions, are going to wreck our Baj at chess!"

  ... From then, through the game — a rare triumph for Baj — and till time to sleep, only the little fire spoke.

  * * *

  The next days traveling the mountains north — mountains running above the long valley Map-Shenandoah — they called "turkey time," since wild turkey-birds fed strutting under oaks growing in groves down the steep valleys. Errol took some with thrown sticks, and Baj took many with his bow — requiring an occasional tedious search to recover a stray arrow.... They had wild mushrooms to eat — cautious of death-angels — and dug roots, berries, and rabbits. But turkey was the main.

  "Is there nothing else, no red meat, living in these hills?" Claiming it a reminder of the penalty for pride and inattention, Patience had walked the ground with them most of that day,
climbed as they'd climbed, and clambered with them through tangled underbrush.... Now, she sat cross-legged in their clearing amid a stand of balsam fir, complaining while yet another big bird leaned on its peeled stick, smoking, skin popping in the heat of another cautious-laid pit fire. "— No red meat, and of course no salt."

  "These foolish fires." Richard shook his head.

  "Listen, Goodness," Patience said, "some of us have guts too elegant for raw bird. And anyone close enough to see the buried little fires we set, is close enough for any — but Baj — to have scented already."

  "No salt," Nancy said, "— but we still have berries."

  "Won't have them much longer." Richard poked the roasting bird with a finger. "Traveling north out of summer. Colder nights, already."

  "Berries," Patience said, "— are poor fuel for rising in the air." It seemed to Baj that she was becoming again the self he'd seen sailing to kill Master MacAffee. Though her nose-spints were still tied in place, her left arm now was only slung. She moved with ease and no wincing, and her small face, that had been drawn, was rounded, relaxed as if she'd lost a year or two of age.

  "I hope," she said, having noticed his attention, "— that I'm not about to receive another princely compliment."

  "Wouldn't venture it," Baj said.

  "Well," Patience leaned forward, sniffed at the roasting bird. "Well, I am feeling better."

  "Time before supper," Nancy said, stood up and went off into the trees with her hatchet.

  "Time for what?"

  "I suppose," Baj said, "for lessons again."

  In a while, Nancy came back with two strong green stick-swords cut and whittled. One gently curved, the other straight.

  "Good boy," Patience said. "You've done what I asked for her."

  "Get up," Nancy said, staring at Baj through firelight. "Get up and fight." It was the first she'd spoken to him in a while.

  Baj stood, and stepped aside for room.

  "Poor light for fencing," Patience said, "— but all the better."

  A distance from the fire, Errol, always interested in fighting, sat up to see.

  "They're good at points," Richard said.

  "At 'points', dear one," Patience said, "there is no good or bad, but only strike and not be stricken. I thought all old soldiers knew that."

  The fire's glow was in Baj's eyes; he looked aside to spare his seeing, and Nancy tossed his stick-sword to him.

  Baj expected an attack, but didn't get it. Instead, the girl watched and waited, cautious and cold as a stranger, so they stood with their whittled branches, still as ice-people carved for a funeral.

  "Well," Patience said, "— fight, or fuck!" And to Richard, "See how coarse I've grown in exile? I would never have said such a thing on the Common."

  "It's the company you keep," Richard said, and they laughed (soprano and bass) as Nancy — now looking furious — bounded at Baj as if to kill him.

  He could have hit her once... then another time. But only gave room and backed away over high grass, shadowed by firelight and cooler light as the moon rose over the mountains.

  When the girl paused, panting, eyes gold as Kingdom coins, Patience, at the fire, set her scimitar aside and stood. "Well, girl," she said, "you've learned something. But never lose calm when you fight!".

  She walked over to Nancy, and took the stick-sword from her. "Stand away, now, and watch how it should be done... and done weak-handed at that."

  And saying so — not quite finished talking — she was at Baj in an odd strutting striding attack, much like a fighting rooster's for posture... then sudden flurries of speed, in which her slung left arm seemed little impediment.

  She came at him, white hair shining in moonlight, dark eyes shadowed darker, and struck short snapping blows at odd angles, and quickly — pecking, is what it seemed — delivered so unevenly in succession that they were difficult to parry. She had a... a style of striking then hooking his reposte away, using her branch-blade's scimitar curve.

  It was very elegant, very determined attacking, and Baj found himself fencing as he'd fought only once before, when the Achieving King had come to the salle to teach him his lesson.

  The fir branches whipped and thrust and whickered together in swift counters, and Baj felt the cool exhilaration of accomplished great effort — felt that for several moments back and forth across the moonlit grass, came close twice to hitting her, and was considering drawing a pretend left-hand dagger when Patience stepped a little strangely, kicked him in the right knee — and as he staggered, hacked him hard to the side of his neck. Then there was a delicate little motion, barely a thrust at all, that would have picked his left eye out if she'd wished, and her splintered branch had been sharp steel.

  Lame, Baj still recovered and stood on guard, though he would have been a dead man. Beyond the fire's light, Errol clicked his tongue.

  "Well, my Baj," Patience smiled, "you're almost as good as you thought you were. Though... a little too attentive to your greenwood sword. After all, it's only an instrument of your will. Your will directs it, not your wrist. And, of course, fighting includes kicks and other things."

  Baj saluted her with his branch, standing a little awkwardly, since his knee hurt. "Thank you for the reminding lesson, Lady. And all the more, weak-handed."

  Patience tossed her branch aside. "Oh, well-enough with something so light, fencing a few passes.... But you are dangerously good, fighting straight-bladed — those nasty thrusts and lunges — and even better, I suppose, with your familiar steel in your hand." She reached across to nurse her left shoulder. "When you're less concerned with artful parries, Baj, and recall your fighting dagger and that moccasin-boots are useful kickers, you'll be an unlucky young man for almost anyone to cross. I don't doubt you'd have a fair chance of killing me, then."

  "He did tell me those sorts of things," Nancy said. "He tried to teach me all of them."

  "I'm sure he has," Patience said, "though was slow to remember a few himself, when he faced me. .. . And poorly you've learned, Nancy. I've seen women cleaning fish with more skill than you show, girl, and much more sensible temper." She started toward the fire, then turned back. "What stands across from you when you fight, is life or death — and no person at all to be loved or hated. Learn that, or bite the dirt with your guts spilled out."

  .... Later, when Baj and Nancy both slept — Errol as usual curled against Baj's back — the moon had risen to its cloudy height, and a cold wind sighed from the north, mentioning distant thunder. Richard and Patience, wrapped in cloak and coat by the fire-pit's ashes, conversed quietly about Boston-town, which Richard had seen only once, years before — allowed the visit as aide to a colonel of the Guard. They recalled its gates, its many-streets and passageways .. . and the so-slow changes in its buildings, its cathedrals and courtyards, as the weight of their ice deformed them — to then be re-carved, rounded or angled, and new wall-blocks with altered key-blocks added, so each generation discovered a slightly different gleaming Boston, sculpted as their city.

  They discussed that — and the Guard's Wolf-General, Sylvia, who'd once been Richard's commander, before his transfer and desertion.... Then, tired of talking, they sat silent beneath a cloud-streaked jewelry of stars glittering the cold night across, and kept to their own thoughts until Patience said, "They're both still so young. Too young to suffer what must be done."

  "Sad," Richard said, "— but true." A phrase legacy from Warm-times, and almost always appropriate.

  CHAPTER 15

  Dawn greeted with a rumbling crash and roar.

  Baj sat up from his blanket's folds, was struck with the first of hard slanting rain, and drenched.

  They all stood from coat, cloaks, or blankets, and trotted with their possibles and packs to the poor shelter of the evergreens, which whipped and bowed to the storm's wet winds, stroking them with soaking branches.

  Errol, burrowing at Baj's side, was making shrill piping noises — shriller when lightning cracked past overhead, and
another great door of thunder slammed shut.

  Richard, fur-tufts sopped and drooping, ducked as lightning flared all a brilliant white — and thunder came smashing after it. Baj saw, in an echo of the eye, Nancy crouched wincing at her pack, teeth bared in fear as lightning came sizzling near, flashed down past the camp and cracked among the trees.... He saw that, and as the glare faded, noticed Patience standing back, white hair plastered as the rain came down, watching him.

  As though, in that moment, he'd seen his Second-mother looking through those black eyes, Baj, keeping Errol with him, went to the girl as wind came whistling... knelt beside and put his arm and a fold of cloak around her. She turned as if to bite him .. . but didn't, and the three of them huddled close.

  The storm grew more savage, striking near them with bolts that blazed into the mountain, thunder peals that shook it. Then sweeps and sweeps of blowing rain... that as dawn lightened slightly to morning, could be seen marching as a shouting army in dark rank on rank across the mountains.

  Nancy, fine red rooster-comb of hair soaked black, trembled at Baj's side. "Too loud," she said.... The wind brought the white smell of water with it, and the smell of stone and grass from the mountain balds. Brought also an odd hint of burning — perhaps from fires the lightning set, too fierce for the rain to drown.... The storm slowly eased to gusts and spattering dashes, the thunder gone trundling south, then eased again to puddled calm under cool and watery light. They all stood, shook water from drenched clothes, and Patience, stripping rain from her white hair, said, "Lord Winter wakes in the north, and clears his throat."

  Dripping in the chill of damp breezes, they shouldered wet packs, and Baj his bow and quiver, the arrow-fletching too wet for use. Errol, recovered, scuttled away ahead, and Patience and Baj drew steel as they went, to whip the weapons through drying air, flicking wet from shining blades. Nancy watched, unsheathed her own, and the three of them squelched over soaked summer grass and rain-slick rock, duelling the wind while Richard marched behind, not troubling to swing raindrops from his ax.