by Emily
Now he was recording his impressions of Connecticut Yankee. There was simply nothing like Mark Twain in the entire panoply of League literature. The closest approach was probably the wry comedies of the Argonite playwright Caper Tallow. But even Tallow seemed a bit droll at the side of this Road-maker humorist.
Silas took extreme care with his commentary, because he knew many others would follow. And because he was first, his remarks would draw attention, either as an example of insight or ineptitude. He sensed that this single document would make his reputation, one way or the other, for posterity.
He'd been working, off and on, almost a month on the project and felt so good about the result that he was violating an old rule by showing his progress to some of the other masters. They were impressed, but in the way of such things, they gave all the credit to Mark Twain.
On the day that Silas finished his final draft, Chaka Milana rode up to his front door. He had just put his writing materials away and was getting ready to walk across the street for dinner. She smiled triumphantly at him as she climbed down from Piper. "I can't guarantee Haven," she said, "but I think it's possible to go where Endine went."
She led him to the Lost Hope, a nearby pub, where a tall, dark-skinned man with thick black hair and a clipped beard sat at a corner table. "Silas," she said, "I'd like you to meet Jon Shannon."
Silas extended his hand. Shannon put down his beer. "Pleased to meet you, Silas," he said.
Chaka pushed in against the wall and Silas sat down beside her. "Chaka tells me you've been doing some work for her."
Shannon nodded. "She wanted me to see if I could find the track of the Endine expedition."
A chill blew through Silas's soul. "I assume you succeeded or we wouldn't be sitting here."
He glanced at Chaka. "I found some markings up on Wilderness Road. You know where that is?"
Silas had never been on it, but he knew that it was about 140 miles north, that it led northeast from Argon, running roughly parallel to the Ohio. "Yes," he said.
"We know that's where they started. I followed it for a couple of days. To Ephraim's Bluff, which is pretty much on the edge of League territory. Just beyond Ephraim's Bluff there are several sets of marks."
"What kind of marks?"
"Tree cuts. Always three strokes. Piles of rocks. Three rocks with a fourth on top. They probably used some chalk too. There's some granite up there and I'd have chalked it if I were making a trail."
"But there's no chalk now?"
"How could there be after all these years?"
"How old are the marks are on the trees?"
"Can't tell. At least five or six years. Maybe ten. Damn, maybe twenty."
Silas looked at Chaka, and then swung his gaze back to Shannon. "That's it?"
Shannon frowned. "What more did you want?"
A waiter arrived and they ordered beer for Chaka and Silas, and dinner for everybody.
"Wilderness Road isn't really much of a road," said Shannon. "Nobody uses it except hunters and traders. And the military. Those people all know their territory pretty well, so it would have to be a special set of circumstances that anybody would need to leave guide marks." Silas could see the big man liked his beer. He finished it off and set the stein down gently. "I'd be willing to bet I was looking at Endine's jump-off point."
The pub was busy. It was dinner hour and the dining room was filled with laughter and the sizzle of steak and the aroma of cold brew. Candles flickered on the walls.
"I don't know you well, Jon," said Silas, "so I hope you won't take this personally." He looked at Chaka. "You hired him to take a look, right?"
"Yes," she said, puzzled.
"Was it a flat rate? Or did he get more money if he brought back a positive answer?"
Her features darkened. "He wouldn't lie. But yes, it was a flat rate."
Silas nodded. "Good. So what do you propose to do now?"
She looked surprised. "I'm going after it," she said.
"On the strength of a few marked trees."
"It's a chance. But it's a good chance." Her eyes blazed. "Listen, Silas, the truth about what happened to my brother is out there somewhere."
"I hate to put it this way, Chaka. But what does it matter? He's dead. And Karik's dead. What's the point?"
Across the room, someone cheered. They were celebrating a birthday.
"I think the truth is worth something, don't you?" She fixed him with her blue gaze. "Anyway, Haven might be at the end of the road."
Silas looked from her to the dark-skinned giant. "I'm sixty years old. I'm not really in condition for taking off on a wild chase. Especially not one that's already killed a substantial number of people."
Disappointment clouded her features. "Okay. I thought you'd be the first to want to go. There'll be others."
"I doubt it."
Shannon was studying the ceiling.
"How about you?" Silas asked him. "Are you going?"
"No," he said.
"Why not?"
"Because Haven doesn't mean anything to me. Because I don't believe it exists. Because you—" he was gazing at Chaka now, "—and anyone who goes with you, will most certainly fail, and possibly lose your lives."
Silas turned back to Chaka. "I think he makes sense."
Their meals arrived. The menu at the Lost Hope was fairly limited. It consisted of either beef or chicken, depending on the chef's mood, and the vegetable du jour, and bread. On this occasion, the chef's mood called for chicken, and the vegetable was cabbage.
"I think we all need to be reasonable," Silas said.
Chaka sat back with her arms folded, stared at Silas for a few moments, picked up a knife, and sliced a strip of meat from the breast. "Haven doesn't mean anything to Jon," she said. "What does it mean to you? Ten years from now you'll be seventy. You want to look back on this and know there was a chance you might have found the entire body of Mark Twain's work, and who knows what else, but you didn't bother? Because it was dangerous?"
Illyrian women caught in compromising situations lost their reputations, prospects, and often their incomes. (Men, as usual, operated on a somewhat different standard.) No decent person would associate openly with a woman who'd become entangled in scandal. She was no longer welcome at her place of employment; her customers disappeared; and she could expect to be turned out by her family.
The risks for unmarried women were intensified by a lack of reliable contraceptive devices. Various ointments and oils, if applied prior to sexual activity, were supposed to prevent conception. But it was hard to determine their efficacy. No one kept statistics, and everybody lied about sex. Chaka concluded, as did most women, that the potential consequences outweighed the game. And so virtue reigned in Illyria.
This state of affairs had, to a degree, evolved from a line of emperors and kings who believed that the stability of the city required a solid family tradition, which they had enforced with the power of the priesthood and a series of laws prohibiting divorce and confining sexual activity within the marriage bond. Violators were subject to a range of criminal penalties which, for a time under Aspik III and Mogan the Wise, included burning at the stake.
In the Republic, such laws were considered barbaric. Nevertheless, the moral code from which they had sprung was alive and well, and if offending women could no longer be deprived of their physical existence, they could lose virtually everything else.
Chaka was not a virgin, but she rarely strayed across the line, and had not done so at all within the recent past. Tonight, though, as she returned from her frustrating meeting with Silas Glote, she needed to talk with Raney, to be with him, to accept whatever comfort he might provide. For that reason, she had declined Jon Shannon's offer to escort her home. ("What will you do now?" Shannon had asked as she'd departed, and she'd replied that she would follow the trail, that she had friends, that there were plenty of people who would join her to look for Haven. And his lips had lightened and he'd warned
her to forget it. "But if you must go," he'd added, "take no strangers. Take nobody you wouldn't trust with your life. Because that's how it'll be.")
Raney lived alone in a small farmhouse outside Epton Village, about two miles northwest of the city. She left through the northern gate and rode out on the Cumbersak Trail. Travel was relatively safe within a few miles of Illyria. The roads were heavily patrolled now that the wars had stopped, and the old-time bandits who had once owned the highways after sundown were either dead or in hiding. Nonetheless, she always carried a gun when she traveled at night.
The moon was high and it was late when she rode through the hedges that surrounded Raney's wood frame house. His dog. Clip, barked at her approach, and Raney appeared in his doorway.
"Didn't expect to see you tonight," he said. "How'd the meeting go?"
She tossed him her reins and climbed down. "Could have been better."
"Glote wasn't impressed?"
"You could say that."
He looked at her. "I'm sorry."
She shrugged. "Not your fault." A cold wind was blowing in across the river.
They walked Piper toward the barn.
"What did he say?"
She told him. Raney nodded in the right places, and pulled the saddle off the roan. "To be honest," he said, "I thought it was a little thin, too."
It was hard to see his face in the dark. The air smelled of horses and barley and old wood.
"Of course it's a little thin," she snapped. "Don't you think I know that? It's a thread. But that's probably all we'll ever have. And maybe it's all we'll need."
Raney put some water out for Piper. "Let's go inside," he said.
They strolled across the hard ground, not saying anything. It was as if a wall had gone up between them. Raney wasn't wearing a jacket, so he should have been cold. But he took his time anyhow, walking with his hands pushed into his back pockets. When they got to the house, he filled the teapot with water, hung it on the bar, and swung the bar over the fire. Then he tossed on another log.
"Dolian is still trying to get his nephew appointed as an auditor," he said, trying to steer them to a new subject. He talked for a while, and Chaka half listened. The water boiled and he prepared the tea and served it in two large steaming vessels. "Imported from Argon," he said. He sat down beside her. "I'm glad you came."
Chaka decided to let hers cool. "I think Shannon might change his mind," she said.
Raney frowned. "Change his mind? About what?"
"When we're ready to go, I believe he'll come with us."
She listened to him breathe. "Chaka, if Silas doesn't think it's worthwhile, it's not worthwhile." He looked casually at her, as if his point were too obvious to dispute.
"I don't care what Silas thinks," she said harshly. "I want to know what happened to my brother."
She listened to him sigh. He tasted the tea, and commented that it was pretty good.
"Raney," she said, "I'm going to do this."
"I wish you wouldn't." He spoke softly, in the tone he used when he was trying to be authoritative. His eyes were round and tentative and worried.
"You haven't changed your mind about going, have you?"
"Chaka, I never agreed to go. I said I'd go if it seemed reasonable."
She could feel the heat rising into her cheeks. "That's not what I remember."
"Look," he said, "we can't just go running into the wilderness. We might not come back." He shook his head slowly and put one hand on her shoulder. It felt stiff and cold. A stranger's hand. "We've got a good life here." His voice softened. "Chaka, I'd like you to marry me—" His breathing had become irregular. "We have everything that we need to make us happy."
Maddeningly, tears rushed into her eyes. She knew how good life with him would be, building a family, whiling away the years and never again being alone.
His lips brushed hers and they clung to each other for a long moment. His heart beat against her and his hand caressed her cheek. She responded with a long wet kiss and then abruptly pushed away from him. "You'll never lose me, Raney, unless you want to. But I am going to do this."
He was getting that hurt puppy look. "Chaka, there's no way I can just pick up and leave for six months."
"You didn't mention that before."
"I didn't think it would come to this. If I leave the shop, they'll replace me in a minute. I've got a good career here. We'll need it to support us, and if I go on this thing I'd just be throwing everything away. It's different for you. You can come back and pick up where you left off."
She stared at him. "I suppose so," she said. She got up and pulled on her jacket.
"Where are you going?"
"Home. I need to think things out."
"Chaka, I don't want you to be angry about this. But I need you to be reasonable."
"I know," she said. "Tonight, everyone wants me to be reasonable."
She was on her feet and out onto the porch, not hearing what else he was saying. She got to Piper, threw the saddle on as Raney came through the barn door, drew the straps tight, pushed him away, and mounted.
"Chaka—"
"Later, Raney," she said. "We can talk about it later."
She rode past him, out into the night. The wind pulled at the trees, and there was a hint of rain. If you must go, take no strangers. Take nobody you wouldn't trust with your life.
7
If you must go, take no strangers. Take nobody you wouldn't trust with your life. During the next week, Chaka discovered how few persons fit Shannon's prescription. Those she had confidence in were all in Raney's camp: They saw it as their duty to dissuade her from the project. And they would under no circumstances support a second expedition. It's important, several of them told her, to learn from history. On the other hand, people she did not know arrived at her door and offered to join. Most seemed unstable or unreliable. A few wanted to be paid.
It's likely that the second expedition might never have happened had not Quait Esterhok conceived, almost simultaneously, two passions: one for Mark Twain, and the other for Chaka Milana.
The former led him, perhaps for the first time, to understand the nature of what had been lost with the Roadmaker collapse. Because the League cities had no printing press, they did not possess the novel as an art form. Contemporary writers limited themselves to practical manuals; to philosophical, religious, legal, and ethical tracts; and to histories.
It was not the literary form, however, which left so strong an impression on Quait. Rather, it was the voice, which seemed so energetic and full of life, so completely at odds with the formalized, stiff writing style of the Illyrians. It was, he told Silas, as if this Mark Twain were sitting right in the room. "What do we know about him?" he asked.
Silas outlined the limited knowledge they had: that he'd lived in a place called Hartford; that he'd been born in the Roadmaker year 1835 (no one knew when that was); that he
was conscious of the delays of government, as shown in "The Facts in the Case of the Great Beef Contract"; and that he'd been a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi, although the precise nature of his riverboat remained a mystery.
Yet, despite the paucity of facts, Quait felt that he knew Mark Twain almost as well as he knew Silas.
Quail's second passion developed out of the first. Stealing time with the book was not easy. Inevitably it was in the hands of the copiers or the scholars, or both. So Quait had got into the habit of coming by and watching the progress of the work, reading over shoulders, and planning where he would get the funds to buy one of the books when it had actually been published. He arrived one afternoon to find another enthusiast also trying to read while a visiting scholar made notes on chapter four. They were in a back room, where the book was kept secure from the general public.
The enthusiast was a striking young woman whose shoulder-length red hair told him immediately who she was. "I've heard a lot about you from Silas," he said.
Chaka nodded graciously.
"You're—?"
"Quait Esterhok." He drew up another chair and sat down beside her. "Chapter four describes the immoderate language used in and around Camelot."
She smiled. "Have you had a chance to read any of it?"
"In bits and pieces," Quait said. "I've never seen anything like it."
She nodded. "Yes. He's very contemporary. And traveling backward in time. That's a wild idea."
The scholar, who was pinched-looking with straw-colored hair, glanced up with obvious irritation. "Do you mind?" he asked.
"Sorry," said Chaka. An hourglass stood on the worktable Its sands had almost run out. "I've got to go anyway," she said.
"It's okay," said Quait. "I'll be quiet."
"No, I've overstayed my time." She waited a moment to finish what she'd been reading, and then she looked up at him Her eyes were blue and alive and they took him prisoner on the spot. "Silas says there'll be copies ready within another week."
"Good." Quait cast about for a way to prolong the interview. But his mind had gone numb.
'Nice to meet you, Quait." She rose, smiled, and walked off. He watched her stride to the desk, sign out, and leave the library.
"You've been keeping something from me, Silas."
"And what is that?" he asked. They'd met for dinner at the Lost Cause.
"I met Chaka Milana today." Quait rolled his eyes. "She looks pretty good."
Silas shook his head. "I don't think she's very happy with me right now."
"Why's that?"
The waiter brought wine and filled their glasses. "I didn't take her frontier scout very seriously."
"Oh." Quait frowned. "I got the impression the way you described it that you and she had agreed that the evidence was insufficient."
Silas looked uncomfortable. "Not quite," he said. "I guess that was my conclusion. She's determined to pursue this business. It's like ten years ago all over again. She's becoming obsessed. She behaves as if it's just a matter of going out into the woods for a few days. Anyway, she's been talking to people at the Imperium, and elsewhere, trying to put together an expedition."
