Ascendant (4 page)

"You saw
the old stone wall under all that brush, as we got here?" Bodric observed.
"This must have been someone's farm. A long time ago, looks like."

"Why
would anyone abandon a good farm like this?" Koren asked, puzzled. The
plum, apple and peach trees were terribly overgrown, what must at one time have
been a wheat or corn field was a meadow full of bushes and sapling trees, but
when Koren had kicked over a rock, he had seen rick black soil.

Bodric shook
his head. "Could be anything. Sickness, accident, no children to take over
working the land, taxes. Or the owner wanted too much rent. I wonder if our
Baron owns this land." Bodric said with a grimace. "A spot of bad
luck, that's all it takes, to knock a family off their land." Intent on
picking plums, and talking halfway to himself, Bodric wasn't paying attention
to what he'd said to his son.

Koren's ears burned
with shame. A spot of bad luck, like having a jinx for a son.
“
I
’
m sorry I caused problems
for you and mother.
”

"Oh."
Bodric realized what he'd said, and that he couldn't take back, or explain away
his words. "I didn't mean - it's not your fault, Koren. Don't worry on
it."

"Am I a
jinx?" Koren asked, knowing his father would tell him the plain truth
whether he wanted to or not. Bodric was that way.

"Koren, I
don't rightly know." Bodric said after a pause. "Strange things seem
to happen when you're around, that's the truth, I can't deny it." When the
mill's waterwheel broke because it
stopped
for no reason, Bodric had
been as frightened as the miller. "If you're a jinx sometimes, well,
you've been good luck, too, good luck for us, for sure. And you nursed old
mister Redding
’
s
cow back to health, when he'd given up on it, right? Don't know what you did,
but that old cow was back up, and giving milk in a fortnight."

Koren nodded.
He had helped out when old mister Redding needed an extra hand on his farm, and
when Redding's only cow had fallen down in her stall, glassy-eyed and moaning,
Koren had convinced the man to let him try saving the animal. The poor old cow
had lain on her side, muscles twitching, burning up with fever, and taking
neither food nor water. Koren had stayed there for two days and nights,
stroking the animal, and the twitching stopped, and the moaning went away, and
when he spooned sugared water into the cow's mouth, it licked it up. If Koren
left the cow's side, it moaned in pain, so he stayed right there, keeping a
hand touching its hide, and draping an arm over the cow when he caught a few
minutes of sleep. Mister Redding had been so grateful, he had given that cow's
next calf to Koren.

Koren had
always been especially good with animals. The Bladewell's chickens laid more
and bigger eggs, their cows gave more milk, their sheep's wool was thick and
grew quickly. Jealous neighbors grumbled that the soil under the Bladewell's
farm was very rich, so of course their crops and animals were healthy and
productive. Bodric's back, which ached from the hard labor of picking stones
out of the soil, and spreading manure as fertilizer, would deny the soil there
was anything special before he bought the land. "You weren't around when
that hailstorm wiped out a whole field of the Pritchert's wheat, that weren't
no jinx. Nor the flood that knocked supports from under the bridge, nor the
forest fire a couple years back that sent sparks onto the roof of the Golden
Trout and almost burnt the place to the ground. I didn't hear old sour face
Pricella Pettifogger mention that, when she came to complain about you, now did
she?" Bodric said with a wink.

Koren couldn't
help a quick grin.

"Don't
you worry on what people think about you, Koren. If you're a jinx, well, there
must be a lot of jinxes around, seeing as how so many bad things happen. You
hold your head up, and don't get to feeling bad about yourself. It don't do any
good to be sitting around moping about how bad you got it in life, there's
always somebody got it worse." Bodric held a perfectly ripe plum up to his
nose and inhaled the sweet scent. "Let's get these back to your mother,
she'll be well pleased."

A couple days
later, in the afternoon, the family stopped outside of a village. Koren would
wait in the woods, while his parents went into the town to buy supplies, and
get directions. Koren was ashamed to see his own parents considered that their
son was a jinx, they wanted to keep him away from any possible trouble by
keeping him out of towns along the way.
“
It
’
s not that we think you
’
re going to jinx anything,
Koren,
”
his
father said while he avoided looking his son in the eye,
“
but, well, you see, we can
’
t afford to have any
incidents, while we
’
re
on the road.
”
They would be back before dark, they assured Koren, he was to stay in the woods
and out of sight. And out of trouble.

Koren watched
from the woods as the wagon rolled out of sight down the road, then he kept
himself busy picking an entire hat full of wild berries. His mother would be
pleased to have fresh berries when she returned. Having stripped the raspberry
bushes of ripe fruit, he began looking for wild roots, the way his father
taught him. He found and dug up a fair-sized pile of wild carrots when he
noticed it was growing dark, and his parents hadn
’
t returned. Koren carefully crept back to the
road, and watched for his parents, until the light faded in the western sky,
and stars began to twinkle. When it grew so dark he could barely see his hand
in front of his face, he made his way back to the clearing where he had left
his pack, and soon got a fire going. When his parents returned, they would see
his fire from the road.

The stars
winked out one by one as the sky filled with clouds, and rain began to fall.
Koren rigged up a tarp to sit under, and tended to the fire as big heavy
raindrops popped and hissed when they fell onto the fire. He sat up long into
the night, jumping at every sound in the forest around him. Finally, he could
not keep his eyes open, and he fell asleep under the tarp. In the morning, the
fire was cold, and there was still no sign of his parents. Mindful of his
parents
’
warning to keep off the road, Koren walked in the woods parallel to the road,
until he came over the crest of a small hill, and could see the town stretched
out in the valley below. It looked much like Crebb
’
s Ford; a few buildings
clustered together along a road near a river, surrounded by farm fields. Koren
noticed that some of the buildings had brightly-colored flags, and Koren
realized with a start that the next day was the Midsummer
’
s Day celebration. There
was no sign of his parent
’
s
wagon. The rain had stopped and the sun came out, which lifted Koren
’
s dark spirits. After
sitting on a log and pondering what to do for a full hour, Koren stashed his
pack behind a tree, and made his way across a field into the town. Pushing
aside a tangle of pricker bushes, he stepped out onto the road.

The keeper of
the town
’
s inn
wiped his flour-covered hands on his apron, and stepped out the side door of
the inn, to where he had several pies cooling on a window ledge. Anticipating a
crowd in town for the Midsummer
’
s
Day festival, he had baked twice as many pies as usual, and carefully selected
the fruit to put into each pie. The innkeeper was, then, outraged to see one of
his pies was missing! Missing! Gone! Stolen! And he knew who had stolen his
precious sweets, there was a trouble-making group of boys around the village,
boys who had not enough chores to keep them busy around their farms. With a
bellow of rage, the innkeeper flung open the gate of the inn
’
s yard, and charged out
into the road. The first person he saw was a boy with dark curly hair, standing
in the road with his back to the inn.

Koren spun
around in alarm when the innkeeper shouted at him.
“
You there, boy! Don
’
t you run away from me!
”
The innkeeper shouted,
and of course what Koren did was run, run fast as he could. The innkeeper
shouted for people to stop the boy, Koren ducked when a man tried to grab him,
ducked again, rolled on the ground, scurried to his feet, and plunged through
the pricker bushes and off the road. He pelted his way across the field, and
had gone only a few strides, when he stumbled into a brush-choked ditch he hadn
’
t seen, stumbled and fell
into the muddy bottom of the ditch. Men crashed through the bushes, cursing as
thorns tore at their skin and clothing.

Koren lay
still in the ditch, hidden under bushes. He could see men
’
s boots at the edge of the
ditch, and he recognized the innkeeper
’
s
voice.
“
Where
did that boy get to?
”

“
I can
’
t see him.
”
Another man said.
“
This is far enough for me.
Look, I
’
ve
ruined this shirt, my wife won
’
t
be pleased.
”

”
We have to catch that boy!
”
The innkeeper said.
“
We have to nip this in the
bud, I tell you. If we let that sort into our town-
“

“
Yes, yes,
”
said another man
impatiently.
“
Nip
it in the bud, that
’
s
what you always say. Well, we
’
ve
chased him away.
”

The men
grumbled as they carefully made their way back through the bushes, until only
the innkeeper
’
s
boots were visible.
“
I
’
ll thrash you if I ever
catch you, boy!
”
The innkeeper shouted as he shook his fist at the field.
“
Decent folk don
’
t want your kind around.
You stay out of our town, you hear me? Nothing but trouble, you are! Nobody
wants you around.
”
Huffing and puffing from shouting, the innkeeper stood still for a long minute,
before crashing through the bushes back onto the road.

Koren lay
still, barely breathing, in the ditch, until he was sure the men had gone.
Slowly, he crawled through the mud along the bottom of the ditch, climbing out
of the ditch only when he reached the edge of the field. Keeping low in the
woods, he made his way back up to retrieve his pack, and sat on the log again
to decide what to do next.

His hands were
shaking with shock. He had never been to, whatever this village was called.
Only been out of Crebbs Ford a dozen times in his life, and never so far. Yet,
somehow, even here, in this village, several long days' journey from Crebb
’
s Ford, people knew about
the awful jinx Koren Bladewell! Knew that Koren Bladewell was trouble, a jinx,
and wanted to keep him out of their town. They chased him out of town, before
he could even say hello. Had the Baron sent word, around Crickdon county, to
warn people about Koren, perhaps all of Winterthur province was on the lookout
for Koren the Jinx. There would be no place he could go. No town that would not
have heard of him by the time he got there, or would hear about him shortly
after he arrived. The boy who causes trouble. Good riddance to him.

Koren sat on
the log until the sun was directly above him, and sliding down toward the
western horizon. He still needed to find his parents. Perhaps he should go back
to where they left him? Yes, that was the best idea. He climbed down the hill
and cautiously walked out onto the road, the town was around a curve, unseen
behind him. Koren trudged miserably down the road, past several farms. No one
noticed the lonely boy passing by, until he came upon another boy, around his
age, sitting on a stump, eating what looked like a blueberry pie. Koren
’
s stomach grumbled with
hunger, he hadn
’
t
had anything to eat since noon the day before.
“
Hey,
”
said the boy,
“
what
cha doin?
”

“
Nothing.
”
Koren said defensively.
“
That looks like a good
pie.
”

“
It is, and it
’
s mine.
”
The boy hugged the
half-eaten, stolen pie to his chest.
“
My
ma made it for me.
”
He lied as he ate another mouthful of stolen pie, the blueberry juice running
down his chin.
“
I
’
m Roddy. You
’
re not from around here,
are you?
”