John looked up and down what he could see of the street. “I’m sure you’ll find out everything at service today. I really don’t have the time to get into it right now and we shouldn’t be lingering outside.”
Beth called out from the parlor, “John, come in and do the boys for us, won’t you?”
Davies smiled. “Do you have the time for that?” John sighed and nodded. He wouldn’t refuse a request for hospital. Davies motioned for them to enter. “Alright, go on. I’ll switch beasts with you while you’re at it.” John started in.
Daniel wouldn’t budge. “I’m not going in his house!”
John paused. “Daniel…”
Davies smirked. “It’s fine, John. He can come around with me!” He ruffled Daniel’s hair playfully.
Daniel ducked away, batting at Davies’ hand. “No I won’t!”
John said, “Daniel, please…”
Davies laughed. “How about you go around to make the trade then, Breahg? We’ll put you to work while your uncle puts the whammy on us.”
Daniel’s eyes and mouth popped open in his scowl. Fergus told him about that!? How come Fergus had to go and tell him about that? Fwah! Then the scowl fell away and Breahg’s fables leapt out of Daniel’s imagination to challenge reality. He didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before - Uncle John’s a wizard! He’s been puttin’ the whammy on everyone the whole time…
Davies took out a ring of keys and twirled them on his finger. “What do you think, old man? Can we trust him?”
John frowned then - at everything that had happened, that was happening and that would happen. “Oh, just do as he says, son. I’ll only be a minute in here.” He went inside, expecting them to still be arguing when he returned.
Davies said, “You do know what a cow looks like don’t you?”
Daniel’s teeth grated.
Davies tossed over the keys. “She’s the noisy one in the barn around the way. Just leave your old nag in there and bring her out.”
Daniel snatched the keys out of the air and stomped off with Ares. “Stupid milkman. Can we trust him? Do you know what a cow looks like? Calls you an old nag. We ought to fix him!” He wrenched keys in the lock until one of them worked. Then he threw open the gate and ran his eyes over the buckets, bottles and breakables inside, searching for a suitable way to wreak his vengeance. The complacent cow therein watched and chewed.
Daniel yanked Ares in after him. “I bet if I strung up one of his clangitty, clang… clang milk buckets on your bridle you’d wreck his whole place! Wouldn’t you? How’d you think he’d like that?!”
The stallion’s nostrils flared and he snorted. The boy’s ranting was agitating him. The cow stopped chewing and backed up. Fortunately, Daniel knew better than to spook a horse in close quarters and saw he was doing just that. He calmed himself, shushed and cooed, and Ares calmed with him. Daniel gave him an apple and stroked his powerful neck. “You’d just hurt yourself worse than Davies’ dumb old barn anyhow.”
When he returned with the cow, he shoved the keys back into Davies’ hand.
“Ouch! Careful, boy, my palm’s not a padlock. Say, you don’t look very happy! Is something the matter?” Davies had a baiting grin.
“Fwah! Michael’s horse is worth twice your old milker!”
“Fwah yourself, fisheyes. Michael’s horse will be pulling my dung cart tomorrow. Ha ha! Yes!”
John came to the door with one hand unsheathed. “Alright Davies, your turn…” He paused at the sight of his grandson’s quivering rage. “I think you’d better let the boy alone.”
Davies said, “It’s alright. We were just discussing poor Ares and his short, miserable future of hauling my manure. I suppose when his back finally breaks, he’ll be good for nothing but Fergus’ table.” He clucked his tongue at the shame of it all. Then he let a little bit of a laugh slip out of the back of his nose.
Daniel exploded. He wound up all of his strength and weight and threw his fist like a rock at the milkman’s head. Davies didn’t see it coming. The blow caught him hard in the nose with a crushing pop. It tied his face into a leaking knot.
Davies brought his hands up to the pain and moaned. His nose was broken, bent sideways by Daniel’s fury. “Aaah! Gaaah! You little savage! Why’d you do that?”
Shocked, John made a hasty decision. He came up from behind, covered Davies’ mouth, flashed him with riin and lowered him to the ground. If he’d been fast enough, Davies might not remember any of it.
John stood up straight and stiff, looking around like a criminal for witnesses. It was dark enough that he didn’t have to worry about the neighbors, and Beth was still asleep on the parlor’s couch, but… her five fine sons had seen everything. They’d gathered in the milk shop’s doorway, gaping like a silent choir.
Daniel spat on their father.
John shooed him away. “That’s enough, Daniel!” It was an embarrassing end to John’s life in Antioch but nothing could be done about it. He dragged Davies in out of the street and made the rest of his stops in more of a hurry.
***
Miles away, the sunrise behind them, Daniel sat frowning and with folded arms between a brace of fat pannier bags on the cow’s back. John led them from his pinto, also packed for travel.
Daniel said, “I don’t see what’s so special about her,” talking about John’s horse.
John’s shoulders rocked with his filly’s motion. “Well, she’s my horse. That’s as special as she needs to be.”
“You didn’t even give her a name.”
“I haven’t thought of one yet. Maybe you could name her?”
Daniel’s frown and arms tucked in tighter. “We should’ve brought Ares instead, if Michael doesn’t want him anymore.”
“Oh, it’s not that Michael doesn’t want him. He loves that horse. It’s just that we need the cow and Ares was all we had left to trade. At least Michael will get to see him this way.”
“Davies wants to ruin him!”
“I told you, he isn’t going to harm that animal. He was only trying to upset you…” And he sure got what he was asking for! John looked away, controlling an urge to laugh, not wanting to encourage that sort of behavior in his grandson. “Davies knows livestock and keeps them well.”
Daniel thought about that and saddened. “All of ours must’ve starved to death in their pens.”
“No, I don’t think so. The pigs had dug out on their own by the time I went back. And I opened a few gates.”
“You went back?”
“I did, on my way to Meroe.”
“Why?”
John paused. “I went back to bury them.”
“Oh...”
“I buried all of them on that hill by the pond.”
“That’s where Ma is, and Grandpa Isaac.”
“Much of our family’s on that hill.”
Daniel noticed then that John had said he’d buried all of them not both of them. “Did somebody else die out there on the farm, Uncle John?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes. I don’t know who it was, but I think your father cut his head off with a shovel.” Daniel made a frog face. John went on without realizing what an unsettling thing that was to say. “Must have been the one that brought the plague there.”
“You buried some bauran up on the hill? With Becca and Pa? Why’d you do that!? He’s the one that killed them!”
John turned in his saddle to look back at Daniel. “He didn’t mean to do it, son. He might have been a good man before all of this happened. It seemed like the right thing to do.”
Daniel struggled with that in silence for a hundred yards of the cow’s pace while her stamping and complaining about her swollen udder became more noticeable. She needed to be milked. John looked at her and then turned around to look back. Satisfied no one was following them, he said, “Let’s go ahead and see to this one. I have a lot to tell you and I don’t want to do it while she’s bawling at us.”
They stopped and tied their animals to one of the
sturdy thorn bushes that were beginning to dot the countryside. Then they set down a pail and milked the cow together, to her relief. Daniel kept peering at John from the other side of the udder, waiting for him to talk. Steam drifted up from the pail in the morning’s chill.
John rubbed the back of his head, scratched his beard and kicked at the ground. Then he came out with it. “Horace was my son.”
Daniel’s mouth fell open.
John told the hard version, trying to be honest. “When I met your grandmother, I’d already been sixteen years in the church, earning my trust. I’d have been thrown out if our relationship came to light, so we kept it a secret. When she told me she was carrying my child, I was distraught. I confided in my brother, Isaac. He offered to marry her and to claim the baby as his own, for my sake.” The regret was plain on his face.
“What’d you say to that?”
John thought it was quite obvious what he’d said to that and had to look twice at Daniel before answering. “I brought her to the farm to meet Isaac and… she accepted. It’s hard for an unwed mother, especially in Breahg. I took my vows and they raised my son.”
“Fwah… and Pa never knew?”
“Oh no, he did. That’s what we fought about eighteen years ago. That’s when he found out.”
“How come he never told me?”
“I don’t believe he ever told anyone. I think he might have been protecting me.”
“Huh?”
“Had Abraham found out… Well, the penalty for what I’ve done is serious. I think your father kept my secret with that in mind.”
“How come you’re telling me?”
“I don’t want to keep the same secret from you. Things might have been different had I been honest.”
Daniel thought about the story. Then he said, “Do you wish you hadn’t done it, Uncle John?”
John sighed. He didn’t expect Daniel to start calling him “Grandpa” right there on the spot, but Uncle John was a significant name to bear. It was the only one his son had ever called him. “I’ve often wondered what life would have been like if I’d stayed home and raised a family instead, if I’d have been happy on the farm or a good father. Isaac was happy. I visited them often. I think your grandmother fell in love with him.”
“No, I mean, do you wish you hadn’t done it with Grandma?”
John grimaced. “Fwah, Daniel, that’s coarse...” But, it wasn’t a good time for a lecture on social graces. “No, I’m glad to be here with you now. And really, I’ve never regretted your father. I had no reason to. He kept me from nothing that I wanted. My only regrets now are the things I wanted. Those change over the years, you see. Eventually, I became jealous of my good brother and sorry I’d chosen the church.”
Daniel thought some more and nodded. “I guess we’d be dead if you didn’t.” He drank raw milk out of the bucket. John was surprised by Daniel’s response, having expected outrage or disappointment. Daniel said, “What are we gonna do with all the extra milk, Uncle John? We’ll get three or four buckets a day.”
“Oh, spill it out when we move on, I suppose.”
“Did we bring some vinegar? Fergus showed me how to make a cheese.”
John laughed. “Cheese? I don’t think we’re packed for making cheese!” He drank some of the raw milk himself and wiped his mouth. That’s that then. His secret was out. John stood up and looked around. “We need to get moving. Listen, Daniel, I can’t go the whole way without sleep this time. I’ll be staying up at night. You’ll have to stand watch during the day to let me rest.”
Daniel’s expression took on some frog.
John said, “There’s nothing to worry about. There’s no safer place in the world than with me. If you see anything, just wake me up.” He motioned at the milk. “Have you had enough?”
“Yes, sir.”
John poured out the bucket. “It’s time to go then. There are no roads from here to Golgotha. I’m hoping we can cover twenty miles a day.”
They plodded mostly west and slightly south over browner and browner hills stubbled with those dense, thorny bushes. John had stories about the Circle, devils and heroics. Daniel had stories about growing up on the farm with Rebecca and Horace. Each was fond of the other’s.
That evening they tethered their animals on a windless hillside. There wasn’t room enough between the brambles to lie down and Daniel wondered how they were going to sleep. Before the boy could ask, the old man stooped, shoved his armored hands into a stout shrub and ripped it up with its roots out of the earth and rocks. He tossed it aside like a weed and pulled another.
Daniel gaped. “You’re strong as a donkey, Uncle John!”
John laughed and continued chucking shrubs away from a broadening patch of ground. Daniel flattened it out. Then he gathered dry branches and leaves into a pile in the clearing’s center and went to work with his tinderbox. John stopped him.
“Watch this, son.” He struck one of Captain’s matches on his gauntlet. The boy stood transfixed on the hissing, spitting, little stick’s ignition. John enjoyed Daniel’s reaction. “It’s a sailor trick! They call it a lucifer.” It lit the tinder easily.
“I didn’t know sailors could do stuff like that!”
“Oh, they’re full of surprises. Do you want to do some? I’ve got a whole box.”
“Yes, sir!” Daniel sat and struck match after match, each brimstone flash more fascinating than the last. When the flames neared his fingers, he’d toss it into the campfire and draw another. “Where does the fire come from? How do they work?”
John unloaded the animals, hoisting a hundred pounds at a time. “I don’t know. Captain called it chemistry.”
“Wizardry…” The matches snapped, sparked and smoked.
The surrounding bushes started to glow on the fire’s side against the dusk and made twisted, black talons in the darkening shadows. John’s gauntlets hung from his belt as he rummaged through their grounded baggage. He took out a skin of cider, a jar of pickled apples, a package of venison jerky and an acolyte’s tabard.
John said, “Daniel, I want to talk about why we had to leave.”
Daniel turned and saw John inspecting the blank garment, holding it up from where it would fold over the shoulders. It was a brilliant, white strip in the firelight against the night-blue sky. Daniel’s match singed his fingers and broke his stare.
John folded the cloth over his arm and brought it over with the food. “We’re going to start a new church. I’m going to teach you everything I know.”
Daniel pointed at the tabard. “That’s for me?”
“Oh, yes, I thought you might like it.” John tossed it into the boy’s lap.
Daniel held it up, his face wide open. “I’m going to be in the church?” Then he narrowed. “What about that old rascal Abraham? What’s he gonna try?”
“Don’t worry about Abraham. We’re never going to see him again.” John opened the jar and the package on the ground between them, drank from the cider skin and passed it to Daniel. “Every time we stop for the night, we’ll practice a little, after dinner.” John smiled and popped a pickled apple into his mouth. His smile cinched up like a drawstring pouch. Tart!
Daniel was mesmerized by the tabard. The taste of spicy, chewy meat and sour apple slices stayed under his racing imagination. He put food into his mouth automatically.
John said, “I want you to know that I’m not going to lie to you.”
Daniel descended from a fantasy. “What?”
“I want you to know you can trust me.”
“I trust you, Uncle John!”
Uncle… John shook his head. He questioned the decision he’d made to tell Daniel the truth. Is he too young for such things? Was it the right thing to do? Does it matter? Regardless of the answers to those questions, John would never have to worry about Daniel finding out on his own. “Ok, put that thing on. Let’s get started.”
Daniel stood and pulled his head through the collar. The garment swung loose from
his front and back like long lily petals.
John smiled at him. “Good! But we can’t have it waving around like that.”
Daniel was wearing brown-and-whites with suspenders. He looked around, trying to figure out how to tie the tabard to his waist. John went to the packs again. He came back, unrolling a thick leather belt that had a sturdy, steel buckle in one heavy, riveted end.
John handed it over. “This should work. It’s made to hold a sword.”
Daniel held it, appreciating the weight and craftsmanship. Jacob had punched neat and even pairs of prong-holes near forty inches, fit for John. When Daniel wrapped it on and tightened it to twenty five inches, he found some rougher holes John had stabbed through the leather with a nail. A pair of them fit well and he tucked the extra length downward through the inside.
John nodded. “Mmm, now you look like an acolyte. Here, lie down.” Daniel lay back on his blanket, curious about what sort of exercises he’d have to do to get strong enough to rip thorn bushes out of the ground. Even his massive father couldn’t have done that. John knelt next to him and said, “All you have to do is try to stay awake, son. If you feel you’ve fallen asleep, try your best to wake up, ok?”
That sounded easy enough. “Yes, sir.”
“We’ll have to wait a few more minutes, though, now that I think about it.”
“Why?”
“Otherwise you won’t remember what I just told you to do!” John laughed but Daniel had to think about it.
When John placed his hand on Daniel’s forehead, the boy suddenly felt he’d fallen asleep. He opened his eyes. The sun was rising and John was kneeling next to the campfire, having made breakfast.
Daniel sat up. “What happened?”
“Oh! You’re awake.” John’s joints cracked in a stretch. “Did you dream?”
Daniel pointed at himself, at the blanket and at John. “I was just... I just… you JUST… Did I fail?”
John tried to reassure him while yawning. “Oh, no, no, no. No one gets it right away. You have to get used to it. Don’t worry, we’ll try again tonight. You’ll get closer each time.” He brought over a warm, cast-iron skillet filled with crusty bacon and potatoes. Then he went to his own blanket and fell down. “I’m so tired! Milk the cow for something to do. Keep an eye out. Wake me up at noon...”
John was asleep before the confused and discouraged boy could say, “Yes, sir.” Daniel had gone from one instant to the next without so much as a dream. John’s bestial snoring began and the cow called for attention. She was noisy. Daniel frowned, ate and then went to get a pail.