Unexpectedly, Karl joined them, looking pleased with himself but still keeping his purposes a mystery; and together they left the town by the south gate, where they found David waiting for them next to a clump of trees. Eventually the rest of their party appeared, along with an older woman, who must have been Peter’s niece, and two young people she introduced as her children, Doris and Stanax. Both were good looking in that dark-haired Forester way—especially Stanax; and John was notably attentive to both of them, prolonging a meaningless conversation when it was high time to resume their journey. Even Karl noticed John’s interest in his two cousins.
“That Doris has grown into an attractive woman,” Jon overheard him saying to John, once they were finally on the road. “She’s our kin, you know. She doesn’t dress like a Forester, but she counts as one.”
“I know,” John said.
“But the rule of living with your wife’s family wouldn’t apply if one of us married her,” Karl pointed out. “She could live with us at the Forest House. She might even bring her brother. There’d be no reason for him to stay behind in Hexam. Their mother could take care of herself, but if she wanted to stay with her children, there’d be room for her as well. In any case, Doris would make a good wife.”
“Are you thinking about marrying her?” John asked in a voice intended to be heard by more than Karl.
“What’s the talk of marrying someone?” Peter asked.
“Karl is interested in marrying Doris.”
“I didn’t say anything of the kind,” Karl insisted angrily.
“Yes, why should Karl get the pretty women?” Peter asked with a laugh. “You should be looking for a wife yourself, John. If I were your age, I wouldn’t let my brother beat me to a handsome woman like Doris. And there’s her brother Stanax as well. He’d make a good husband for Zoë—they were born within a week of one another, you know, and I’d call that auspicious. We could have a double wedding.”
Helen interrupted.
“My children will find husbands and wives when they decide to marry. And I suspect they have their own ideas about the right persons.”
Then she turned away, uncomfortable with the forcefulness of her reaction.
Jon saw that Zoë was looking at him.
“Yes, Doris is a pretty woman,” John told his grandfather. “And her brother Stanax is a handsome young man. When it comes to looks, I’d be hard pressed to choose between them. But everyone knows we come from a well-favored family.”
Despite Karl’s hostility, John was in unusually good spirits, and Jon suspected his mood had something to do with the two cousins—although Jon judged their good looks exaggerated. How could anyone who’d seen John consider Stanax handsome? He had a good face—that was true—but skinny arms and a fat ass. More like a pear than a man. And, standing beside Zoë, Doris looked plain. Still, John was unpredictable. For all Jon knew, he might consider Doris the most beautiful woman on earth. Or was it Stanax he’d made the detour to see? Hadn’t Karl said that John had trouble deciding whether he liked girls or boys?
“Well, what did you think of Hexam?” John asked, falling behind to walk beside Jon.
Jon tried to be noncommittal. “Fine. It was just fine.”
“It’s nothing like Bridgetown,” John observed. “And, of course, Bridgetown is only a small city—nothing like Kar.”
“I wonder what Kar is like.”
“So do I. I know about the high walls and the Emperor’s palace with its blue-roofed towers—Grandfather used to tell us about them when we were children and I’ve read descriptions in books—but you must have read them, too. Can you believe they have iron gates to prevent men from entering the city on the river? I’ve always wondered what they looked like. And I’ve also wondered what it would be like to live with so many other people around. I’ve heard you sometimes have to fight your way through the crowds to get from one place to another—but who’s to tell what the truth is?”
“Why don’t we go there?” Jon asked. “That’s the only way to discover what Kar is really like, and we both know the way.”
“Yes. All we’d have to do is turn around on this road and start walking in the other direction.”
“So why not? Not today, I mean, but someday.”
“Why not? I don’t know . . . but it would be difficult to get away. The family expects me to do things—especially now, with all that’s happening.”
But Jon didn’t want to lose this opportunity, so he kept talking about how great it would be for them to see Kar together. And John agreed—which made the journey almost a plan they’d agreed upon. Finally John was sounding like that man Jon had met at the foot of the White Wall. Yet when they camped for the night, John managed to sleep as far from Jon as possible.
They passed through Pex without stopping, except to declare their identities.
“This is new,” David said. “They’ve added onto the walls since last summer.”
“They have to be careful,” Karl observed.
But that was all the Foresters said on the subject.
Once beyond Pex, the road assumed a familiar look. Jon had never been this way before, but it resembled the stretch of road he’d visited with Zoë. And as they approached the Forest House, his heart leapt at the thought of seeing the place once more. For the first time in his life, Jon was enjoying the experience of coming home after a long absence.
▲
Despite John’s promise to decide on a course of action, he gave Jon and Zoë no sign of his thinking. The family resumed their Forest House routines, retracing the forest paths, preparing the earth for planting, hunting small game and collecting the yellow tubers that were a mainstay of their spring diet. David turned out to be an avid fisherman, coming home with strings of flat, blue-finned fish, which he cleaned and cooked for dinner. And Peter continued Jon’s lessons, now teaching him about the birds that inhabited the forest and the lowlands of the river valley.
“Of course the waders you only see near the river itself,” he explained. “I should have pointed them out when we came back from the Mountain House—but we’ll return to the river one of these days and I’ll show them to you. There’s a bird with yellow eyes called a peerlit that lays its speckled eggs among the gravel. It takes practice to make them out. We’ll go there when the peerlits are nesting. Spotting the eggs will be a good exercise for you.
“We also need to begin the basics of self-defense, but that’s best left my grandsons. Or Zoë—she could teach you, too—although the others have more experience. If you’re learning to fight, you need a challenging adversary. I can show you the basic moves, but I’m slow on my feet these days.”
▲
One morning Jon asked Peter about the Rand.
The question took him by surprise
“The Rand? I haven’t thought about them in years. I saw one once—at least I told myself I’d seen one. But, to tell the truth, I doubt it really happened,” he admitted. “David’s the one for that subject, not me.”
So later that day he asked David to tell him about the Rand.
“Come fishing with me tomorrow,” David said. “I’ll tell you all I know about them and teach you how to fish at the same time.”
So the next morning they set out together, following the stream to where it passed through three deep pools surrounded by blocks of gray stone. David showed Jon how to bait the hook and where to drop his line, and while they waited for the fish to bite he told him about the Rand.
“If I’ve seen them more than anyone else in the family, it’s probably because I’m the one who sits still the longest. It’s funny. Unlike you and John, I don’t have the patience it takes to read a book, but I can sit for hours waiting for a fish to bite. You must have seen them when we first reached this pool, but now they’ve disappeared. They picked up our shadows and hid. But if we stay put they’ll forget us. Fish aren’t much when it comes to memory. Also, we can’t talk very loud. They ignore soft voices, but if they hear anything lo
ud, they make themselves scarce.”
The more you knew David, the more interesting he became. Still, Jon wished it had been John who was giving him the lesson.
“One day, while fishing in this very pond,” David told him, still speaking softly, “I was sitting exactly where you are this morning, and a Rand appeared next to that big tanbuck tree. You know the trees with the heart-shaped leaves? Grandfather must have taught you that.”
“He did.”
“One minute there was nothing; then all at once a figure materialized beside the tree. He gave me a start, but I could tell he was as startled as I was. So I kept still—like with the fish—and after a time I smiled at him in a friendly way and he smiled back.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No, he simply smiled, and then he turned and disappeared into the forest. It was a matter of seconds, although it seemed longer—the two of us gazing at one another that way.”
“What did he look like?”
“They’re smaller than we are, and they have a darker skin than we do—a kind of creamy brownish color, like honey. The only thing he wore was a carved stone on a cord around his neck. He was carrying a short, thin spear—he’d probably come here to fish like me—and he’d slung a woven bag over his shoulder to carry the fish home in. I’ll never forget the way he smiled. It was as if we knew one another completely. But I shouldn’t leave out his eyes—a blue-green color filled with light—the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen; and I was sure he was trying to say something to me with them, but of course I couldn’t receive the message.
“I’ve seen them other times as well, but never so close. Usually it’s a figure in the distance, passing between the trees.”
“What did the others say when you reported seeing a Rand so close?”
“John and Zoë asked me to tell them the story over and over again, but Karl said I must have been dreaming. He maintains that the Rand are a myth people use to explain things they don’t understand. When something goes missing, they used to say ‘the Rand took it’—or at least that’s what my uncle told me years ago. But nobody in our family uses that expression any more. As for the Rand themselves, Karl says that if they lived in the forest we’d catch sight of them more often. But of course he’s never seen one.”
“What do you think they are?”
“Nobody knows. From what people say, they’ve always been here. They probably think of us as intruders, although they never harm anyone. But I have a theory. I think they’re like us—creatures who keep watch over the forest. Maybe they even have an Emperor they report back to. ‘How are the Foresters doing?’ he asks, and they tell him that the Foresters are still doing fine. Who knows?”
▲
“Did David tell you what you wanted to know about the Rand?” Peter asked Jon a few days later.
“He told me no one knows very much about them.”
“Yes, that’s the truth, and there are some who maintain they don’t even exist.”
“I believe they exist. I saw one once.”
Peter blinked.
“Really? When was that?”
“When I first came here—on the trail from the lookout—I saw someone in the forest. Not very clearly, I’ll admit, and whoever it was disappeared at once, but I was sure that it was a human being; and, when I told Zoë, she said it must have been a Rand.”
“Then you’re a lucky boy,” Peter told him. “Imagine that! Your first day in our forest and you saw a Rand.”
Peter rubbed his chin in a way he had when he was thinking.
“Does that mean something?” Jon asked him.
“I don’t know. But perhaps one of these days the two of us should go farther afield together. We could go into the mountains—you might like that better than another trip to the river. It was stupid of me not to show you the birds when we passed that way. I guess I was in a hurry to get home.”
“I’d like to do that very much,” Jon told him. In fact, what he really wanted was to go there with John. But that wasn’t likely. Not that John ever treated him without kindness. But the door shut with a snap every time Jon got too close. And, since John avoided being alone with him, there was never an occasion for private talk.
Besides, John was frequently away from the Forest House. He and his brothers were watching the road carefully, and recently John and David had encountered more fugitives. This time it was two brothers. The Chosen had ordered them to enlist in their army, but they’d run away. In retaliation, the Chosen had accused their parents of sheltering criminals and, when they refused to say where their sons had fled, executed them in the public square.
“Cowards,” Karl had called them when he heard the story. “What kind of men would let that happen to their own mother and father?”
“Their parents’ fate wasn’t their fault,” John said. “They hadn’t told their parents where they were going because they didn’t want to implicate them. They had no idea what was going to happen. And it’s hardly fair to call them men. One was a boy of thirteen, and the other only two years older.”
“But how did they get here?” Zoë asked.
“They heard a rumor that it’s safe in the South. And they were able to find work here and there—enough to keep them from starving—although several farmers took advantage of them, taking their work but refusing to pay the wage they’d agreed to. But now the two are on their way to Bent Lake. If I hadn’t told them to go in that direction, they’d have ended up in the territory of the Brotherhood.
“And it’s thanks to you, Jon, that we know about the village that takes in strangers. Someday I’d like to go there to see that place. It’s funny, Bent Lake is little more than a day’s journey from this house, but none of us have ever visited it.”
“It’s not in our quadrant,” Karl pointed out.
“We go to lots of places that aren’t in our quadrant.”
▲
Helping those two boys made sense, Jon thought. But having spent a year with the Foresters he’d begun to question the purpose of their lives. They took themselves seriously, to be sure, but they did little more than spend their days walking around in the woods. One or two of them would decide to go off in a direction they hadn’t taken in a while. They’d be away for a few days, and then return and describe what they’d seen, congratulating themselves on their service to the Emperor. It was like playing a children’s game—over and over again. And he was certain that Zoë and John had similar misgivings. Even so, Jon was still hoping to join John on one of his treks—although he’d been given little reason to expect an invitation.
Then, out of the blue, John surprised him by suggesting that he and Zoë come with him on a patrol.
“Not down to the road, but into the mountains. There are things I want to check out.”
It wasn’t the chance to be alone with John that Jon had been hoping for, but it would be better than nothing. However Zoë turned down the invitation.
“I can’t do it,” she told John. “I’ve already agreed to go with David to the junction between the River Road and the highway from Gort.”
John looked surprised. “Why is he taking you there?”
“Because I asked him to.”
“You should be careful. This time of year the Brotherhood use that highway. It’s their route to Bent Lake.”
“Of course I’ll be careful. You don’t have to tell me that. And I think I can take care of myself as well as any other member of the family.”
John reacted to Zoë’s refusal by giving up the idea of a trek into the mountains.
“Well, you and Jon can come with me another time,” he said. “I’ll put off the journey. It wasn’t important.”
“I don’t see why you have to put it off, John. It’s not as if you haven’t made other trips without my company,” Zoë told him.
“Yes, why not go now as you’d planned and take Jon with you?” Helen chimed in from across the room. Jon hadn’t realized that she was listening to the conversat
ion. “Peter will miss his company, but Jon’s been cooling his heels at the Forest House for too many weeks. He needs to stretch his muscles.”
Jon looked around at them. Given Helen’s emphatic tone, how could John refuse her request? But why was she making such a point of this? And then Zoë spoke up again.
“Yes, John. Mother is right. You and Jon should make the trip without me.”
John had a bewildered look.
“Well, then Jon can come with me, if that’s what everyone wants.”
“I don’t mind staying at home,” Jon said. “I still have a lot to learn from Peter, and David’s begun to give me lessons in self-defense.”
“You forget that David’s going with me,” Zoë said.
“Mother and Zoë are right,” John said. “You should come with me. You’re my little brother, aren’t you? And brothers should do things together once in a while.”
So the trek with John was settled—but why had Helen and Zoë been so determined to make it happen?
Chapter Nine
Setting out, John was unusually excited, almost out of control, talking nonsense about the trip. He promised they’d see porcupines with foot-long quills and a yellow bird that carried her young on her back—and insisted those were the least of the remarkable creatures they’d encounter. Then—abruptly—he grew silent, answering questions with muttered words and volunteering nothing on his own. The barrier had closed once more, but now Jon was determined to penetrate it.
The Flight from Kar (The Emperor's Library Page 14
