Moongather (24 page)

As the older women fluttered about the whimpering boy, his father stumbled to a stop in front of Serroi, stood gasping and passing a blue and white kerchief repeatedly over his round red face. Serroi ran her eyes quickly over him. A farmer probably, not rich, but prosperous enough to keep his family well-fed and healthy and support besides several hands and maids. Two of his children stood silent behind him, a boy and a girl, obviously in harmony with each other, twins perhaps, both watching Serroi and Dinafar with a cool, assessing intelligence. Serroi pushed her torn sleeve up to cover the bits of skin showing through the cut. “Thanks, lad.” The big man waved a broad hand at the noisy group around the boy. “My youngest. I owe you.”

Serroi shrugged, touched her hand to his, let it be swallowed up in the huge paw, pulled it away again. “A man has to live with himself, tarom.” She deepened her voice; her disguise was good but this man couldn't be a fool, not with the smell of prosperity that hovered about him.

He tucked the kerchief away and grinned amiably at her. “I nomen Tesc Gradin, Tartineh from the west of Cimpia plain. My wife Annie.” He waved a hand at the older woman. “Daughters Nilis and Sanani. Those brats.…” He grinned at the two standing with arms linked. “… Teras and Tuli, twins. The lad you scooped up is Dris. Spoiled brat.” He looked fondly at the boy who was reveling in the attention of his mother and sisters, then turned back to Serroi, examining her with kind, shrewd eyes. “You and your sister are over-young to be on your own. You run away?” Disapproval was strong in his voice. “Leaving your folks to worry?”

Serroi moved her hand gingerly. The whip-cut was drying, beginning to sting badly. “I nomen Jern, tarom. This my sister Dina.” She looked down at her hands, knowing that she was very bad at lying. Tayyan used to tease her about her compulsive honesty. If she'd thought, she'd have prepared a story. So many things she should have done. She reached up to touch her eye-spot, jerked her hand down again. Dinafar stirred beside her. Serroi reached out and caught her hand, hoping that the girl wouldn't yield to impulse. “No, tarom,” she said slowly. “Well, not exactly.” She flicked a glance at his frowning face, then looked down again. “Our father died, you see, when we were babies.” She licked her lips, hating this, wanting to say as little as she could. “Our mother married again two years ago.” She looked up again, feeling the strain in her stiff face muscles.

Tesc nodded his understanding. “And now there's a new family started with you much in the way.” The big man's eyes gleamed with satisfaction as he put his own interpretation on her words. “So the two of you ran away.”

“Yes.” Serroi stared down at the grass, letting the silence grow, startled and amused to see how real this was becoming to the landsman as he built a story for her out of his own imaginings, a story all the more convincing to him since it was his own.
I've learned a new thing
, she thought and was a little sad because she hated having to lie, especially to this kindly man. It eased her conscience, though, when she saw how much he was enjoying his fiction.

“Stout lad,” Tesc said. “Have you got a place to go? If not, you and your sister are welcome to stay with us and come back with me to my tar.” He looked sternly at Serroi. “You'll earn your keep, that be sure. But a little hard work never hurt a lad or a lass.” He frowned at his children who had come up behind him and knelt with the twins watching Serroi and Dinafar with avid interest.

Serroi glanced at Dina who was returning the stares with equal interest. She poked her back to alertness, then answered the tarom. “We thank you, tarom, but our uncle, our mother's brother, he lives in Oras. A fisherman with a tidy boat and no children.”

“Well, lad, I wish you luck. You'll share our supper with us and travel with us next day? I'll feel better about you that way. Good hot meals and safe sleeping will make the walking easier.” He nodded at the small shunca cropping patiently at nearby grass. The packbeast carried a load that looked bigger than he was. “We have tents and plenty of food.”

Serroi nodded, hiding her reluctance. “My turn to thank you, tarom.” Dinafar's hand closed hard on hers; she smiled at the girl, but shook her head, enjoining her to silence.

Annie clucked her disapproval when Serroi wouldn't let anyone but Dinafar touch her. Dina washed the wound, tied a clean rag Annic provided around it, then sewed up the bloody sleeve, working with sufficient skill to pacify the woman. When she was finished and Serroi had tried out still shaky legs, the party climbed back to the road and walked companionably along, separating into small groups as they did so. Tesc kept Serroi beside him, his words flowing in a gentle ceaseless stream as he talked about his land and his family. Shy at first, Dinafar began chattering with the twins; to Serroi's relief, from what she heard of that conversation, Dina was getting them to talk about their part of the Cimpia plain, asking questions and giving them little time to ask questions of her.

By the time night fell, Serroi was weary and sore, grunting responses almost at random to the tarom's monologue. Her arm felt tight and hot. She had no appetite but was terribly thirsty. Dinafar left off her chatting and came quietly to her side, helping her unobtrusively down the embankment as the family left the road to camp for the night.

Serroi forced herself to eat and drink, then stumbled apart with Dinafar. The girl touched her forehead with a rough cool hand. “You're burning up.” She jumped up, ran to the family fire and brought back a cup of cha. Kneeling beside Serroi, she said, “Drink some of this, then you have to tell me what to do.”

Serroi took a few sips then pushed the cup away.

“Meie,” Dinafar whispered, “you said you had medicine.”

Serroi blinked, then fumbled the tail of her shirt out of her trousers and began running her fingers along the weaponbelt she wore buckled under the loose shirt. After a moment she let her hand fall. Dinafar shook her. She gasped, but the pain did break through the fever haze. She fumbled at the belt and dragged out her small stock of herbs. “Pyrnroot,” she murmured. In the uncertain light from the fire and the first glow of the Gather, she looked through the herbs and took out a twist of parchment. She dropped two pinches of greyish powder into the lukewarm cha, then sat holding the cup a minute while the powder dissolved and released a pungent, sickly odor. She took a breath, let it out, then emptied the cup in several gulps. “Hah, that tastes bad.”

Dinafar glanced over her shoulder at the family. They were talking and laughing together around the fire. Once, when Dris started over to them, Tesc caught his shirt tail, spanked him lightly, and sat him by his mother, ignoring his outraged protest. “They're giving us privacy, Jern. If you keep your back to them, you can take off the shirt so I can fix the cut better.”

Serroi rubbed at her temple, using the hand on her uninjured side. She was beginning to feel a little better as the drug took hold, but her eyes drooped from her need to sleep. She moved around so her back was to the fire and let Dinafar pull off the bloody shirt. When it was finally off, she was sweating profusely, her arm was bleeding again, her lower lip bleeding too where she'd bitten into it as Dinafar eased the sleeve off her wounded arm. Dinafar bullied her into finding her store of antiseptic salve which she spread over the wound before she bandaged it again. She dug a clean shirt from Serroi's pack and handed it to her, then bustled around, spreading the ground sheets and the blankets while Serroi sat regaining her strength, still shaken and sick from her ordeal. After a while, she moved slowly, carefully, to tuck her medicines back into the belt.

Overhead the wind was rising and lightning beginning to flicker among the rolling clouds. No trees here and that meant no shelter from the storm. Tesc had invited them under his tent but she'd refused as politely as she could and he hadn't pressed her. She looked enviously at the dark bulk as the first drops came splattering down. Then she worked her feet under her and stumbled across to Dinafar.

Both ground sheets were spread out with the blankets folded between them, the packs resting at the head where they could be used to keep the top sheet clear of the sleeper's face. Serroi lowered herself to the grass and began tugging at her boot, but found her hands gently set aside. Dinafar pulled off her boots and helped her get herself tucked in the blankets. Serroi touched her hand. “I'm glad you were stubborn and insisted on coming, Dina.”

Dinafar smiled and pulled the groundsheet over the pack, tucking it in carefully. Then Serroi heard her footsteps moving around to the other side of the sheet. The girl sat down, pulled off her own boots, then crept under the groundsheet, wriggled about until she had her skirt straight and her body wrapped in her blankets. “Goodnight, meie,” she whispered, then lay still.

“Maiden bless, Dina.” Serroi listened for a moment to the rain pattering down on the treated material of the ground-sheet. The pyrnroot was killing the pain in her arm and making her sleepy.
Tomorrow
, she thought.
Tomorrow around sundown, we'll reach Oras
.

THE CHILD: 9

“Why?” Serroi whispered. She stared at the empty space where the Noris had been. “Why?” She ran past the feast spread out at her feet, turned helplessly around and around, arms out, pleading. “Noris, Ser Noris, don't leave me here.” Her voice trailed off as she realized that she was talking into air, that nothing listened. Her shoulders slumped. She wiped the sweat off her face. It was oppressively hot though the morning was young. She looked down at the food, then out at the desert stretching away on all sides. No other water or food anywhere. She flung her head up. “I don't know what you want, Ser Noris,” she cried. “Whatever it is I won't do it.” Pressing her lips together she glared around, then stared toward the west. “And I won't die out here either.”

Settling herself by the fine white cloth spread over the sand, she began eating, choosing only the most perishable of the dishes, a delicate custard, slivers of raw fish marinated in wine and herbs, a salad, the wine. She set aside the roast vinat, the raw fruit and cheese, the small pile of rolls. When she was finished, she threw away everything she couldn't use and tied the rest into a compact bundle. She wrinkled her nose at the crystal pitcher nested in a hollow in the sand. “If I had anything else I could put that water in … you're going to be hell to carry.”

She stood and slipped the brown overrobe the Nori had left her over her head, then held up the skirt and looked down at the soft slippers. “Won't last long.” She sighed. “No matter. Now. Find water.” She closed her eyes and began turning slowly, feeling the eye-spot begin to throb as she
desired
water. When the tug developed, she oscillated until she was certain of her direction, opened her eyes and found that she was facing southwest. Using her toe, she drew a direction line in the sand.

One arm thrust through the knotted corners of the cloth, carrying the crystal pitcher in the other hand, she set out.

The sun crept higher. Sweat was rolling down her face and body. She trembled under the hammerblows of the heat. The earth burned her. The air burned her when she breathed it in. After about an hour she began to feel dizzy; her face was flushed and hot but she'd stopped sweating. Her feet were blistered and the blisters were beginning to crack. She dipped her sleeve into the pitcher and rubbed the wet cloth across her face. It helped a little. Squinting, she peered ahead and saw a ragged line, like a sooty scar jagging across the pale sand. A promise of shade, if nothing else.

When she stood on the rim of the wash, she looked down and sighed. Dry wash. Like everything else here, dry. Where she was the wall had broken off, slanting steeply to the bottom of the crack, ending in a pile of rubble. A little farther down, though, she could see places where the wall had scooped out sections that held pools of shadow delicious to her aching eyes. She began working her way down the crumbling side of the wash, her fingers sprouting blisters to match those on her feet. She reached the bottom exhausted, shaking, her knees folding under her. Leaning against her arm she rested a moment with closed eyes, rested despite the heat of the earth through the sleeve, then she trudged down the stony bottom of the wash to the nearest pool of shade and collapsed in the welcome darkness; the air was no cooler but the shadow gave her an illusion of coolness and her eyes relief from the sun's assault.

Once again she dipped the end of her sleeve into the pitcher and bathed her face, pressing the damp cloth finally against her cracking lips until all the moisture was evaporated from it, then she settled back as far as she could into the hollow, intending to wait for nightfall. Travel under the beating of the sun depleted her too much. As she waited she fell into a heavy sleep, a sleep filled with nightmare and pain.

When she woke the moons were up, a scatter of slender crescents. Nijilic Thedom was rising, marking the beginning of a new passage.
A new passage into a new life. If I live
. Her head ached when she sat up and she was desperately thirsty. She held the pitcher up and frowned at the disappearing water in it, wishing she could think of a way to cover it. She drank deeply, drank until she could hold no more. The water seemed less likely to be lost if she had it in her body rather than in the open-mouthed pitcher. Wiggling her fingers into the bundle, she pulled out one of the fruits, ate it slowly, letting the juices trickle down her throat, flicking the seeds out into the moonlit stones on the wash's rugged bottom. Heavy with the water she'd taken into herself, she lay back in the hollow and dozed until Thedom was directly overhead, then she drank the last of the water and left the pitcher sitting on the sandy bottom of the hollow in the wash wall. With the bundle settled as comfortably as she could manage on her back, she started climbing.