“But we’ll have to confirm what the abbot says,” he said grimly.
She clung to Abasio, feeling that if she let go of him she would fall into some kind of abyss. “Bear was my teacher, Abasio. He was almost what I thought a father would have been. He’s been with me since I was a little child. How could he!”
“Hush,” he said. “We’re moving too quickly . . .”
She remembered, all at once. “My . . . my mother said that. She said one may neither accuse nor exonerate until one knows for sure. It was one of her fumitos, her sayings.”
He managed a grin. “Very wise. There is another possibility. This could be Bear’s attempt to play his own game against the duchess.”
She shivered, feeling something cold and hard form inside her, like a rod of iron extending from her legs up into her brain, as though she had swallowed a poker without knowing it. She had known Bear for a very long time. She had never known him to be dishonorable. Cynical, but there was much in life to be cynical about. “How do we find out? We must know which it is!”
“First, you must forget what you have just heard and seen—”
“I can’t. Not possibly.”
“Not forget, but behave as though you are not aware. Then, you must leave it to me to find out what his intentions really are. This all seems terribly sudden, terribly unexpected. Almost as though . . . something, someone, is pushing him.”
“Oh, when he was talking to Precious Wind, he said his betrothed is calling to him! And he won’t talk to you. Bear is terribly proud. He doesn’t talk to people about personal things.”
“No, and trying to get him to talk would destroy my reputation as a wandering news carrier, a vendor of what’s happening elsewhere, a general odd-body who dyes napkins and is otherwise ignorant of everything important.” He hugged her to him, trying desperately to ignore the fact that she felt frighteningly like another young woman he had held this closely, this desperately. His reverie was abruptly broken by a squirming something between the two of them. He drew back just as an unexpected creature erupted from Xulai’s cloak pocket.
“I may be indeterminate,” said the fisher, “but I’m certainly not incorporeal. If this man is close enough to you to hug you like that, then he should certainly be close enough to know about me.”
Xulai managed to suppress hysterical laughter. She whispered, “Abasio, this is Fisher. He was bequeathed to me by my mother. That is, she’s the likeliest one to have done it, though neither he nor I can say for sure. He is a kind of advance warning system, or a guide if I’m lost, or anything else that’s helpful.”
“And it really is helpful,” said Fisher, with some satisfaction, “to know to whom one can safely go if the person I am protecting has to be rescued from a dungeon or saved from being killed. Obviously, that will not include the man Bear. Not now.”
“No,” agreed Abasio, seeming totally unsurprised that he was being addressed by a member of the weasel family. But then, he had come from a country that had had a good many talking animals, creatures left over from the Big Kill, when men had played with genetics as a child plays with blocks. “No, for the time being, at least, I’m your safest bet. I’ll work the other end of the conspiracy. Either this is really a trap to catch Xulai or Bear is laying a trap for the duchess. Whichever, the duchess doesn’t know me at all. I’m a stranger, and strangers, particularly when drunken or sleepy, can overhear all kinds of things.”
“Abasio, remember what Nettie said! The duchess was at Benjobz Inn when Nettie and the Farrier brothers were there, spying. They stayed out of sight, but you were there at the same time, making royal fripperies for Benjobz. She might have seen you, and Jenger may have been there, too.”
He cast his mind back to his visit at Benjobz Inn. Though he thought he had not been seen by the duchess, certainly she might have seen his wagon. And mentioning the duchess raised the interesting question of how she had managed to get to the inn at the same time they did without having been seen on the road. The winding road onto the heights allowed one to see people two days behind on the road, but they had not seen her. This would imply another route. What possible other route? Up was up; it could not be turned over to run downhill, and he had never heard anyone mention any other route up or down than by the falls, which was invariably fatal!
He took a deep breath, trying to clear his mind. “First things first. I won’t let the wrong person recognize me. You go about your business as though you know nothing. Tomorrow I’ll check out the disposition of troops. The men I’m housed with know a lot about who is where and what’s going on. If the troop business was a lie and Bear lied to Precious Wind about it, that’s a bad thing. Then we’ll have you ask the abbot about the security of the houses and see what he says. If he backs up the lie, that will be a worse thing. Then we know . . . Well, we know we have to get out of here. The two of us can travel more quietly than a whole wagon train of equipment and people.” And maybe he’d have to leave his own wagon and equipment behind, he thought. His wagon was beloved. He and Ollie had traveled in it. However, it was uniquely identifiable.
“And what if the troop business is not a lie?” she asked.
“If it’s not a lie, then you may have a chance at some schooling after all.”
She took a deep breath. “The schooling is secondary! It was to be a way of passing time. My father made me promise to get to Tingawa. He said even if I was so old I had to walk with a cane, it was imperative that I get there. He said it was the most important thing I had to do with my life, even if I did nothing else.”
He stared at her. “Ah. So there is a little wheel inside the big wheel, or t’other way round. You’re saying that your physical arrival in Tingawa is the primary thing, no matter what else we do?”
“Yes. We have to do that, and as soon as possible.”
Fisher stuck his head out of her pocket. “Her understanding is correct. Those are my instructions, also.”
Abasio sighed deeply. “Even so, sudden moves are often mistaken. Innocent or guilty, it would be good if Bear went away before we do.” He laughed harshly. “It would also be very good if what’s-his-name, Jenger, got himself killed before we leave. And it would be simply marvelous to have more information. So, while we’re finding things out, talk about the new house with people at the school. Someone may know why they have all these houses vacant, all at once.”
She nodded, wiping her face on her sleeve. “There’s one more thing, Abasio. There’s a big crate under the wain. It’s supposed to be court clothes the princess left for me. Actually, it is court clothes, but there’s something else in there. The princess told me about it years ago. If I leave, I have to take it with me.”
“What is it?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s small; it’s in a blue wrapper. Precious Wind said it’s some kind of helper for a traveler, and it sounds like we’re going to be traveling.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Fisher. “I’ll get it.”
“Weasels don’t chew their way through wood!” said Xulai.
“Rabbits do. So do beavers. I think I can manage whatever type of teeth may be necessary. A small package wrapped in blue. I don’t suppose you know where in the package it is?”
“One corner of the crate bottom has a red mark on it. It’s in that corner.”
“You’ll be safe enough while you’re at school, so I’ll get it then. I’ll bring it to Abasio. He can hide it in his wagon.”
She cried hopelessly. “I hate all this.”
Abasio reached for her again, more carefully. “So do I, love, so do I.”
The word he used pierced her. At Woldsgard, only Oldwife had used that word to her. Not Precious Wind or Bear. Not her . . . her father or mother. For long moments she stood in his arms, simply stood there, momentarily but perfectly at peace. At last she stepped away.
“Do you call many people ‘love’?” she whispered.
“One other, once,” he said, smiling at her. ??
?You don’t mind, do you? I promise not to ravish you or embarrass you in front of other people.”
“Who was she?”
Abasio sighed. “I . . . it’s hard for me to talk about her. Some people, including yourself, Xulai, whoever you are, aren’t really describable. It is possible for me to introduce you to her. She left me all her memories and a great deal more in that magic helmet I told you about. Next time we have a little time, all right?”
It was growing dark, so they ran to the abbey walls to find Brother Derris waiting for them. “You must have measured every room twice,” he said. “People were getting worried about you!”
“My fault,” said Xulai offhandedly. “We were talking about some of the places Abasio has traveled, and the time just got away from us.”
“You watch that storytelling,” said Brother Derris in a serious tone. “You’ll make a bunch of us want to go off and become news-travelers, and the abbot’ll have a fit!”
So, laughing, they returned to the wagon, where Xulai said she could find her own way to her rooms and Brother Derris departed. She accepted a cup of tea, petted Blue and told him what a fine horse he was, then went to her rooms, where she was surprised to find Bear with the women, all of them turning to stare at her.
Precious Wind said, “Bear had us quite concerned about your being late, so he spoke to your guide, Brother Derris. He said you’d gone out to see the house.”
From somewhere in her belly, Xulai felt a strengthening fountain rise, warm, calming, flowing into her head, out her arms into her fingertips. “Oh, yes,” she cried gaily. “We did start to. But then we decided to see the swimming place that Bear told us about, so we started to go there. Before we got there, we met a dog, one of the sheepdogs, and Abasio sat down to pet the dog, so I sat down, too, and the other dog came over and lay down beside me, then Abasio started telling a story about a dog he’d met in his travels, and the next thing we knew, it was almost dark. So we ran all the way out to the house, because I’d promised he could see it, then we ran all the way back. Brother Derris met us. He said he worried about us—no, he said people worried about us; was that you, Bear? Just because it was getting dark?”
Bear’s face, which had been stony, perhaps a little fearful, relaxed a little. “Well, it was late.”
“But surely you knew we were all right,” Xulai said pointedly. “You were the one who told us it was perfectly safe, Bear! We’re going to be living right there, and it was nice to get a feel for the place.”
Precious Wind shook her head. “You did say it was perfectly safe, Bear. She’s right. There’s no point in being upset about it. If we’re going to live here for a time, we have to get accustomed to the place.”
“Right,” said Bear with an unconvincing smile. “I’m sorry to have upset you all, but I am not accustomed yet to thinking of Xulai as a . . . grown woman.”
“Who perhaps should not be gallivanting around with a grown man we don’t know very well,” said Oldwife pointedly.
Xulai went to hug her. “Then you must get to know him better, Oldwife, because I like him very much.”
That night, Xulai dreamed. The dream began as the other dream had begun, herself a tiny tree in a tiny, constricting pot. The roots sought a crack; the pot broke; the roots reached for fertile ground and the tree grew. She felt herself growing. From the bottom of her trunk, four great branches reached out and up, each with twigs innumerable sprouting in all directions, leaves flourishing. Then, deep in the taproot, she felt something. It was newness without a name. It had no scent, flavor, or feel, no dimension or shape; it made no sound. It was like a demand that moved upward through the tree, the root first, then split and ran first along the fronts of two branches, then across the back. It paused, then ran across the tops of the other two branches, then returned along their bottoms before going upward into that part of the trunk that grew above the branches to the very top, permeating the tree until it was part of the tree, existing in every way the tree existed, inseparable, indefinable as any particular thing and yet new: an arrival.
In her dream, she wondered at it, wondered where she might find it, like locating taste on her tongue or smell in her nose. Perhaps she could feel it the way she could feel movement in her own body. If she moved a finger she knew it . . . and yet, if the movement was effortless, how did she know the finger had moved? She would not know. If the movement was unconscious and without effort, as when she turned over in her sleep, she would not know she had moved. She would know that her body moved only if and when she did it intentionally or it was done to her while she was conscious enough to be aware of it.
So this new thing, this permeation, might do things without her knowing it? Or it might do things that she would recognize only if she had intended them to happen?
“It’s yours,” a voice whispered. Perhaps it was Fisher’s voice. Perhaps it was someone else’s. “No one else can use it. No one else will do anything with it. Only you, when you need to.”
There were several tavern-like places at the abbey where the men and women of various kinds and professions could get together to drink beer or ale or mead or cider and tell stories and hear what news was to be heard. Abasio had found out where all of them were and which people were likely to go to which ones. That night he went to the Warrior’s Helm, where the troops quartered nearby were said to congregate along with other people of the heartier and more physical professions. Horsemen went there. Stone layers went there. Abasio bought himself a pitcher of beer and sat at a corner table, where he soon attracted three or four other thirsty people willing to talk about what they were up to or planning. He heard about the new irrigation system for the vegetable gardens that lay just outside the south walls of the abbey and the several dams and holding ponds that would have to be built or had already been built. He heard about the disaster at the old iron mine, where three men had been trapped and rescued only after some hours of frantic labor.
“Oh, where’s that?” asked Abasio.
He heard about the improved armor that the smiths had devised for the troops who had ridden off to Netherfields, or ended up there, for some evidently had thought they were headed to Woldsgard, but Prince Orez was already at Woldsgard, so that hadn’t been necessary.
“Oh, is that so?” said Abasio.
“Bird-loft keeper says so,” said his informant. “He hears about the messages that come through, hangs around a little, you know, while people are reading ’em. Don’t think he’s supposed to, but he always has, and he keeps us up on the news.”
“That’s the way of it most places,” said Abasio.
“That’s him over there,” said the talkative one. “The old fellow with one arm. Used to be one of us.”
“And ‘us’ would be . . . ?”
“The boys and me, we’re armor. The old fellow there was a fine soldier, they tell me. Of course, he was younger then.”
When the talkative one left, Abasio worked his way over to the corner where the bird-loft man was sitting. He introduced himself, offered to buy a drink, and told the man he’d heard about him.
“Abasio’s my name. I’m a traveler. Justinian, Duke of Wold, mentioned you, but I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name . . .”
The old man laughed. “They call me Winger. Acshurly it’s Whinger, Solomon Whinger, but Winger stuck, ’cause of the birds, you know. They called me Solo Winger ’cause I only had one wing left.”
Abasio laughed enthusiastically. “Well, the duke spoke highly of you. He showed me his bird lofts when I was there. Wonderful man, beautiful lofts, too. I asked him how many birds he had; he said he supposed he had a thousand or so.”
“Woun’t doubt it,” said the bird man appreciatively as Abasio filled their two mugs. “He gets word from all the Orez sons ’n’ the prince ’n’ the places south, ’n’ the abbey here,’n’ mor’er less everwhere.”
“It’s a long list.” Abasio nodded. “I saw all the signs on the wall that tell where the birds come from. That’s a l
ot of different places.” He had not only seen the list but copied most of it while the duke was busy taking messages from this one and sending messages by that one. “They fly great distances, don’t they? I don’t suppose it would make sense to have them fly anywhere nearby.”
“No sense atall,” said the birdman, wiping foam from his upper lip. “ ’Fa man c’n ride it in an hour or so, no point sendin’ a bird. ’Less it’s just backup, makin’ sure the word gets where’ts goin’.”
“Your troops use them, though, I suppose. Justinian said he used his whenever his troops were away from the gard.”
“Oh, if they’re some distance, yep. If they’re close, they’re gonna be in and out fer meals any old how, no point sendin’ birds.”
“Is that so? I assumed they’d have field kitchens, you know: ‘Like it or not, that’s what we’ve got, all’s in the pot and at least it’s hot.’ That was what we said about it.”
“Nah, no field cookin’ ’less they’re more’n a hour’s ride away. ’Fthey’re close they’re in ’ere fer breakfas’, grab a pack lunch t’eat when they can, back fer dinner in shifs, then out t’ do whatever needs doin’ if anythin’ needs doin’ at night. No armor’s bin movin’ round at night since those pillagers stole stuff when we were buildin’ the watchtower on the south end.”
“Only the one watchtower?”
“No more needed. Forest east’s got wulfs and lions more’n trees. An’ they say it’s full o’ were-critters and witch-wings. There’s trip wires ’n’ threads movin’ mirrors t’flash sunlight ’f they get stepped on. No vis’tors or pillagers comin’ that way. Y’go up belfry you’ll see the road north far down t’ward Benjobz, ’n’ there’s ’n old watchtower in t’forest that’d see any army moving.
“On the west, there’s a strippa forest, but where’t slopes there’s milesa wicked country, break-leg rocks and scrub, no good nowhere. They used to be mines, ’n’ the place is fulla holes and shafs, half of ’em hid by downfalls ’n’ brush. No army gets through there ’thout losin’ half itself and makin’ a racket, and that’s ’fit’s dry. ’Fit’s wet, stay out! South, though, sighta the road’s cut off the way the mount’ns lie, all stacked like a decka cards, so they built a watchtower out there, oh, lessee, it’d be fifteen years ago. From there y’c’n see a full day’s travel south. Anybody comin’, half a dozen birds go out t’ armor ’n’ they head whatever way the message says.”