The Ropemaker (30 page)

Meena ate her last grape kneeling by the water, watching her rippled image, then rose to her feet and took Tilja’s hands and drew her to her and hugged her, cheek to cheek, laughing with pleasure. It was such a natural gesture that Tilja hugged her back, laughing too. Then she stiffened and pushed away and stared at her.

“What’s up?” said Meena.

“You didn’t feel anything? No, nor did I, but I was afraid of undoing the magic, like I did with Silena’s dog. You can’t be that kind of magical.”

“I’m not magical at all, thank you very much. He may have used magic to get me here, but I’m me. Guess what day it is?”

“What
day
it is?”

“It’s my fourteenth birthday,” crowed Meena, laughing at Tilja’s bewilderment. “Look.”

She held out her left arm and showed Tilja an angry blistered patch on the inside of the wrist.

“I got that just yesterday,” she said. “Helping Ma with the baking for my birthday tea.”

They picked up their packs again and climbed the hill. The stream ran out of a boggy plateau that stretched away north. On its further side, two or three miles away, they could see a group of low buildings, and knew at once what they were, having seen so many on their way south.

“Where there’s a way station there’s got to be a road,” said Tahl. “This must be a side road, from another part of the Empire. Problem is, which way’s Goloroth? We’ve got to get there to reach the Grand Trunk Road.”

“The other problem is, all four of us are young now,” said Alnor. “We’re supposed to be coming away.”

“You and Meena could dress up old and hobble along,” suggested Tahl, teasing.

“Don’t be stupid,” snapped Alnor. “We’ll travel at night. It can’t be that far.”

“Isn’t that a couple of kids?” said Meena. “Look. There. And they’re going that way. So the other way must be to Goloroth.”

There was a three-quarter moon, clear enough to show some distance along the empty road. Nobody in the Empire traveled by night, because who knew what other creatures might be about?

“I think we should be all right,” said Tilja. “If anything like that comes, you’ll just have to hold on to me, and then it can’t touch you.”

She felt completely confident about this. She had held Faheel’s ring in her hand and blanked out its magic. She didn’t believe that all the Watchers together could match that power. Along with that confidence came a feeling—more than a feeling, almost a certainty—that what she had seen and done in the last few days had given her strengths that she had not had on the journey south. As much as Meena and Alnor, though in very different ways, she had changed.

Despite that, none of them was quite ready for what happened almost as soon as they had set foot on the road. They were walking abreast through the silvery dark. Nothing stirred. There was barely a breath of wind, only a delicious waft of smells, dewy and earthy, drawn out by the night-cooled air. Tilja’s head was full of the knowledge that they were now going home, back to Woodbourne. She wanted to sing.

She felt nothing, but Tahl was flung against her as if he’d been buffeted from the other side. She staggered and almost fell, but caught herself and grabbed his wrist as he fought with something she couldn’t see. He steadied. On her other side Meena and Alnor were sprawled in the road. Meena had her arms braced in front of her chest as if she was trying to push something away from her neck. Alnor was on his face, bucking to rise, but pinned down.

Tilja bent and thrust her wrist into Meena’s grasp.

“Hold on to me,” she yelled, kneeling and reaching across to touch the back of Alnor’s hand where it scrabbled at the dust.

They rose gasping. The night was as peaceful and still as it had been only seconds before.

“Loose magic,” muttered Alnor.

“Bad as outside Goloroth,” said Meena.

“This had
things
in it,” said Tahl. “No wonder people don’t like moving around in the dark.”

“The power of the Watchers is broken,” said Alnor. “It will be worse now.”

“And you didn’t feel anything?” said Tahl.

“No,” said Tilja. “Not even that funny numb feeling I get. Wild magic must be different. It looks as if we’re going to have to hold hands all the way.”

They adjusted their positions and walked on, tensely at first, but then more easily when nothing frightening happened, though all except Tilja could feel gusts of loose magic swirling around them with, as Tahl had said,
things
in it. The road wound down the hill they had climbed and ran for a while almost directly beside the marsh. Along the way two more roads joined it from the north, and as dawn was breaking it crossed the Great River on a bridge and joined the Grand Trunk Road. With sighs of relief they turned north.

It was strange for Tilja, making friends with a girl her own age who was also her grandmother, an old woman with a bad hip and a dodgy temper. But Meena didn’t seem to find it anything like as strange when Tilja asked her about it.

“Mostly I don’t think about it,” she said. “I suppose it’s like remembering a dream, except it doesn’t go shifting around the way dreams do.”

She paused for a moment, thinking.

“There, now,” she went on. “I can remember what it’s like, my hip hurting, and I can remember what Faheel told us, and going back a bit I can remember things like speaking my mind to your da about buying that stupid great horse . . .”

Another pause.

“. . . but mostly, like I say, I shut it away. No. It shuts itself away, more like. It’s a different room from the one I’m in, and the door’s closed. I can get up and go through, but the door’s the sort that shuts itself soon as you let go. And, anyway, I
like
this room.”

She laughed. Her laugh hadn’t changed at all, but Tilja heard it a lot more often now. And she could be sharp as ever still, mostly just teasing, but also speaking her mind with vigor when anything annoyed her. It was all part of the sheer gusto with which she lived, so brimfull of the pleasure of the moment that the surplus spilled over. That made the change easy for Tilja. Anybody would have wanted to be Meena’s friend.

Tahl had a much harder time with Alnor. Though they looked so like, they were very different. Tahl was outgoing, interested in everything, always ready to talk to passersby. Alnor was withdrawn, touchy, stiff with strangers on first meeting, as if they were somehow a challenge to him. He spoke to them in much the same formal manner that he had used as an old man, but less naturally, as if this was a style he had not long ago chosen for himself and was still getting used to.

On their second morning they were walking in pairs, Meena and Alnor leading the way, and Tahl and Tilja not quite in earshot behind. Meena was chatting away, with Alnor laughing as he answered. Tahl, on the other hand, had been unusually silent so far. Now Tilja heard him sigh.

“What’s up?” she said.

He shook his head and sighed again.

“I want my grandfather back,” he muttered.

“Oh, no! This is wonderful! It’s thrilling!”

“For
them.
Have you heard him talking to me? As if I were some kind of
henchman
. I’m not anyone’s henchman.”

“Why can’t you just be friends? That’s how I feel about Meena—as if she were my elder sister. I’ve never had an elder sister before. I’ve always been eldest. I’m really enjoying it.”

“I’m not. And I wouldn’t if he
were
my elder brother. He’d be like this anyway. It’s all right in a grandfather—and anyway he needed me then. He doesn’t now. Besides, just look at the two of them! Next thing, they’ll be falling in love! They’ve started already!”

“That will be fun for them. Meena will really enjoy it.”

“They’re our
grandparents,
Til!”

Tilja laughed, but watching the pair ahead of them for a minute or two, she could tell he was right.

A day and a half north of Goloroth they came to Ramram, the small city lying along the other side of the river, with its immense fortress built long ago to defend the Empire against raiders from the south who had never come. The famous fair on the bridge was in full swing.

“Let’s just have a look,” said Meena.

“There’s nothing we need,” said Alnor.

“Who said anything about need?” said Meena. “When d’you think I’m going to get another chance to come to Ramram? With money to spend? Right, Tilja?”

(Alnor had put himself in charge of Faheel’s purse, and taken a gold coin out of it each day since they had landed. When Tilja touched one of these it remained a gold coin, so they knew that the magic was not in it, but in the purse.)

Ramram, thought Tilja. Calico . . .

“I’ll never hear the last of it if I don’t bring something home for Anja,” she said.

Meena frowned, puzzled for a moment, until she went into her other memory-room and found the name.

“Nor you won’t,” she said. “Come on, Alnor. I’ll buy you a belt buckle or something.”

“We’ll be quicker if we go two and two,” said Alnor when they stood at the entrance to the bridge. He squinted for a moment at the sun. “We’ll meet back here when the shadow of that column reaches the drinking trough. Don’t lose sight of each other.”

Tilja smelled the familiar reek of sun-dried dung before she saw the horse fair, lying along the near bank of the river, invisible from the road, but she didn’t drag Tahl off at once to the horse lines. What she’d said about Anja was true, and this was the best chance she’d get to find something for her. The bridge was as busy and crowded as the streets of Talagh, but felt very different. Though hugely larger and richer than the stalls at a Gathering in the Valley, it had the same kind of feel, friendly and businesslike. Tahl bought himself a hunting knife and Tilja found a mother-of-pearl hair comb for Anja and a plainer, tortoiseshell one for Ma. Satisfied, she started back.

“We don’t have to go yet,” said Tahl. “There’s lots more . . .”

“I want to go and look for Calico. The man said he was coming here.”

“Why on earth? You could get a much better—”

“Calico belongs at Woodbourne. Like your dog you told me about at Northbeck. She was useless, but you kept her there till she died.”

“Oh, all right.”

“Course I’ve still got her,” said the horse dealer. “I’m a man of my word, I am. Besides, d’you think anyone would have bought her off me? You sure it’s her you want? I’ve a sweet little pony, now, five years if he’s a day. Purebred Harst Mountain, and they’re tough as they come, but good tempered with it. Had a kick from one of the others a couple of days back, so he’s going a bit lame in his off fore—”

“Spavined, you mean,” said Tahl, unable to resist a haggle.

“Shut up,” said Tilja. “Look, I’m sure he’s lovely, but I just want Calico back. I’ll pay you the full seven days, if you like.”

“Well, if you’re sure, though I reckoned I’d be giving her away at the end. She’s along this way. . . . And while you’re here, young lady, there’s something I may as well ask you. You were trying to get into Goloroth that night, right? I’d’ve said you couldn’t’ve made it, but seeing you’re here . . . well, did you?”

Tilja nodded. The man lowered his voice.

“There was something happened inside the city that night, big enough to make ’em close the gates all next day. Some of the racket you could’ve heard back here in Ramram. And now there’s all this loose magic blowing around. Devil of a time I had of it, bringing my beasts up north, though every one of them’s got an amulet in its mane. And now you’ve got into the city and out again. . . . So what’s up, supposing you know?”

Tilja hesitated. To tell anyone anything about what they’d done might be dangerous. To refuse to tell might be just as bad. She glanced at Tahl.

“Yes,” he said easily. “We sneaked in with the slave children. We found our grandparents in one of the big barns. Somebody’d brought something magical in—”

“But it’s warded to hell, the city!”

“Yes, I know. But they managed it somehow. And a couple of magicians came to get it for themselves and fought over it and there was an explosion and lots of screaming and running about, so we managed to get out. That’s all I know. I’ve no idea what it was all about. You haven’t heard anything else, have you? Nothing from Talagh, for instance? I’d have thought they’d send somebody down to sort things out.”

“If they did, it’s not the sort of stuff folk like us get to hear about. Nor anything else. Better off that way, like as not.”

He shrugged and spread his hands, accepting the appalling whims of the Empire.

“What about Calico?” said Tilja.

“Well, young lady, seeing you’re set on it, we’ll call it six days and leave it at that. Here she is, then. Looks pleased to see you, too.”

“That’ll make a change,” said Tilja, but for a moment it seemed almost true. As the dealer led her out of the line Calico sidled up to Tilja like any normal horse greeting its owner, but as soon as Tilja reached to pat her she flattened her ears and turned away. Forgiveness was no part of her scheme of things.

Meena laughed when she saw Calico, but Alnor was furious. He couldn’t complain of the waste of money, when a single gold coin from Faheel’s purse would have bought them at least two decent horses. And Calico could carry their packs, and Tilja would deal with her moods. But in his own mind he was in command, and buying Calico back was something he hadn’t had a say in. So both he and Calico sulked all afternoon.

Next morning Tilja was walking with Tahl when he said, “This fellow who’s supposed to find us somewhere, and make it snow properly in the Valley again and so on—did Faheel say anything else to you about that?”

Tilja shook her head. She’d been expecting the question and had decided that was the best she could do—not quite lying because she might have meant only that she couldn’t answer, which was true.

Tahl looked at her with his bright-eyed stare, making her very uncomfortable. He started to say something, changed his mind and began again.

“It sounded as if he’d forgotten about it, but he’d thought of everything else. Tiny things. That purse . . . and he must have asked you why we’d all come to his island in the first place. Didn’t he?”