The Luck Of The Wheels (13 page)

'But... but he came into my dreams. I felt him. And then - look, he bit me! Here, look!' She tugged up her draggled skirts to show a neat circle of red dents in her lower thigh. 'He bit me!' she repeated, disgust evident in her voice.

'It might have been more difficult for him if you hadn't been sitting on his chest,' Ki observed. 'I've never understood the logic of one person attacking another, and then being offended when the other person fights back.'

'But...' Willow stammered in her outrage. 'But he's a boy, and I'm a woman. He should have more respect!'

'Yes,' Ki agreed smoothly. 'As should you. More respect for yourself than to get into a squabble in the first place.'

'Yes!' Goat's voice sounded in vehement agreement. He had come up on the opposite side of the wagon and was clambering up onto the seat. 'We should leave you right here, you simpering sow! Let you walk to Tekum and your precious Kellich!' He moaned the name abandonedly. 'Leave you for the Brurjans to find. I wonder how Kellich would like you after a herd of Brurjans had been through you ... or how well you'd like him? Maybe you'd like their hairiness even more than his!'

Vandien stood slowly. He placed his boot carefully in the center of Goat's chest and pushed. The boy flew backward, landing on his rump in the road with a thud that made the dust billow. He was too astonished to make a sound.

'Works well,' Vandien observed to Ki. 'I see why you used it before. Perhaps they need another little trot before they're going to give us any peace.'

'No!' Willow clutched desperately at the wagon. 'Please!' she added in a different tone as she looked up at Ki's set face. 'I... I won't fight with him anymore ... if he doesn't start it first!'

Ki swung her gaze to Goat. He was still sitting in the road. Slowly he got to his feet, rubbing his buttocks. 'I'll leave her alone,' he grudgingly promised. Willow was already clambering in the side door of the wagon. As Goat climbed up on the seat, he muttered, 'Not that I ever did anything in the first place. I was just sitting here when she jumped me

'Liar!' Willow hissed from within the cuddy. 'You came nosing into my dreams ...'

'Shut up!' Vandien bellowed, in a voice so unlike his normal tones that Sigurd jerked sideways in the harness while Ki recoiled from the blast by her ear. She stared at him in amazement. 'Now,' he went on hoarsely, 'I don't want either of you to say a word to each other for the rest of the day. Or
about
each other,' he added as Goat's mouth opened to speak.

Goat closed his mouth. An instant later he opened it to complain, 'But that will be boring!'

Ki started the team and Goat settled with a lurch into his seat. 'Peaceful is the word you're looking for,' she informed him. 'Boring is walking behind the wagon in the horses' dust.'

He fell silent, but his yellow eyes brimmed with reproachful tears. The wagon trundled on, the silence it bore getting thicker and stiffer with every step the horses took. Ki was aware of Willow's muffled sobs within the cuddy, could picture her leaned up against the plank walls listening to be sure no ill was spoken of her. Ki stole a glance at Vandien, saw his dark eyes mirror her own discomfort. Puppies, she thought. One going to be married, one going to be apprenticed, but no more than puppies after all. She couldn't stand it.

'Vandien,' she ventured into the choking silence. 'How did that story end?'

'What?' he asked in confusion.

'"The Pot of Jam and The Bird of Life." You started telling it to me at the inn that night, and never finished it.'

A slight smile touched his lips as he recalled what had interrupted the telling. 'I don't remember where I left off

'Nor do I.' Ki wouldn't look at him. 'Just begin again at the beginning.'

'Very well.' Vandien nodded, suddenly seeing her intent. Reaching to his throat, he lifted a loop of worn green string from around his neck. He settled it onto his fingers, preparing to weave the story-symbols of his people as he spoke. 'It's almost worn out,' he said softly.

Ki glanced away from the road to look at the fine string. 'Guess you'll have to make another trip home for a new one,' she suggested cautiously. On his infrequent trips to visit his family, he always returned with a new story-string. Yet of all the stories he told Ki, very few were about his people or what he did on his visits home.

Vandien was silent, settling the fine twine around his fingers. His hands moved, tossing and looping the thread into the familiar symbols for his name. He looked at the twin webs he had made, one on each hand, joined between. He sighed suddenly. 'No,' he decided abruptly. 'I think I'd better just find something else to use. It's hard to find the right kind of string, though. It has to be tough, but flexible, and a little bit stretchy. It can't be too thick ...'

'What about the jam pot and the bird of life?' Goat interrupted suddenly.

Vandien freed a hand from the string, smoothed his moustache over his smile. Ki knew the boy's attention pleased him. 'Better than coins, almost,' Vandien had once told her, 'is when you're telling the story, and no one even sneezes.'

'"The Pot of Jam and The Bird of Life."' Vandien announced the story formally. The string lifted, looped, and fell over his fingers into an elaborate star, the beginning of a story. 'Once there was a rich farmer, with many acres of fine crops growing in black soil by a brown river. While he was alive and healthy, all his family lived very richly, but one day the farmer sensed that his time was coming for dying. So he called before him all his sons and daughters, and they were as many as there are purple-and-white turnips in a good garden, for this farmer had plowed and sown energetically for all his years.'

Behind them, the cuddy door slid open a crack. Willow, very pink about her mismatched eyes, peered out.

'I wanted to see the pictures,' she excused herself hoarsely.

'Of course.' Vandien slid the door open further, turned sideways and wedged his back against the jamb so that his hands were visible to Willow as well as Goat. 'Well, as each son or daughter came before the old man, he gave generously to each one, according to the child's interest. To one son who had tended the pigs in rain and cold, he gave a herd of fat swine. To a daughter who had pruned and tied the grapes even in the heat of the sun, he gave a hillside vineyard. To the daughter who cooked fat fish for his table, he gave the fish-trap in the river. And on and on, until all was given away, and the old farmer thought he could die in peace. But just as he lay down on his fat feather-bed and prepared to let out his last breath, his youngest daughter came to him. He had forgotten all about her, for all day she had been where she always spent her days out in the forest, harvesting what she had not sown, reaping what she had not planted. A basket of wild berries was on her arm, and her lips were red with the juice of those she had eaten. The old farmer looked at her. He did not love her as well as he loved his other children, for he could not understand one who did not plant the seed and tend it. But he could see that she was still his true daughter, and because of that he owed her some pittance to keep her alive. Her eyes, green as moss under old oaks, were reddened where she had been weeping, and her hair, smooth and brown as autumn acorns, was wild on her shoulders where she had clawed it in her grief at his dying. "Daughter," he said, "little have I left to give you."

'"Father," she said, "little that matters to me, and I will tell you that I would gladly give up whatever you gift me with, if it would buy you but one more day of life."'

'Then her father felt shamed, for in truth all he had for the girl was a little pot of jam. And that was of no use to anyone, for the jam was sour and full of pits, while the pot had such a long and narrow neck that no spoon would fit down it, even if the jam had been fit to eat. This, you see, was why he still had it to give, for no one else had ever wanted it.'

Ki stole a glance at the group. Goat had curled forward, his elbows on his knees, and for once his face was empty of any slyness or malice. He was a boy listening to a story, and Willow might have been his sister. Her red hair was loose upon her shoulders, and she twined it soothingly around one index finger as she listened, her odd eyes watching the play of the string on Vandien's fingers. A smile even touched her lips as Vandien drew the loop of string out in a long, long neck to show how foolishly the little pot had been turned.

Ki let the reins go slack in her fingers, trusting the greys to follow their noses down the monotonous road. As Vandien spoke, she watched, not his fingers, but his face, the dark of his eyes that sparked with his enjoyment of the tale, his features that mirrored each character in turn. She wondered, again, what had brought him into her life, and what made him stay.

Then her interest was caught in the story, and she forgot to wonder as the horses drew them, step by steady step, closer to Algona.

SEVEN

T
he rising sun cast a pink glow over wagon, sleepers and browsing horses. Ki lay still a moment longer, savoring the peace. Vandien lay beside her, burrowed deep in their blankets. Only his dark curling hair and the back of his neck was visible. Sleepily she took a curl between her fingers, drew it out and watched it spring back. He mumbled something, but did not move.

Last night had been more peaceful than any since the trip began. Vandien had filled Willow and Goat with tales all the afternoon, stories made more fascinating by Vandien's skills as a teller. There had been only one brief squabble, when Willow had asked to be taught to make symbols on the string, and Goat had quickly insisted that he be included. With unusual patience, Vandien had suggested they take turns, and changed their jealousy over his attention into a sort of competition. Willow had even grudgingly conceded that Goat was the quicker to learn the finger twists. Her brusque compliment had won her a look of such worship that Ki wondered how she could be blind to the boy's feelings. When it was time to make camp that evening, Goat had been willing and helpful, responding to Willow's snubs and criticisms as if they were helpful suggestions.

After they had eaten, the story-string had come out again, and Vandien spun out the long tale of the tailor's twelve sons. By the time the twelfth son had completed his dozen tasks and won the admiration of the Huntswoman of the Green Woods, the moon was high and the night blossomed to full blackness.

All had been ready to sleep; even Willow was nodding. But when Goat wished them all sweet dreams, Willow snarled, As one who does not sleep at night, I expect no dreams at all, Goat. None!' She had slammed the cuddy door behind her, then opened it a moment later to expel a fall of blankets and quilts. Vandien had stared in astonishment, but when he had opened his mouth to speak, Ki touched his arm. 'Ignore it,' she suggested. 'Let's just go to sleep. Algona is just down the rise from here, and Tekum but a few days beyond it.'

'Thank the Moon for that,' Vandien muttered. He took a wad of blankets from her arms and settled into them, sinking into sleep so rapidly that Ki realized how much pain his ribs were actually giving him. When she took blankets to Goat, she found him sitting by the fire, his eyes already closed. She shook him gently by the shoulder, and he roused slowly.

'Algona is not far from here,' he whispered. A peculiar smile touched his lips. 'Not even as far as Keddi was from my father's house. We will be there before noon tomorrow. It is full of people and their lives, brimming with their stories. Like a cup waiting to be drunk.'

Ki smiled, taking pleasure in the boy's sleepy imaginings. Vandien's tales often had that effect on children. She had seen the street children in a market continue to sit, dreamy-eyed, in a circle around Vandien long after his story was finished. Goat had glimpsed the wideness of the world in Vandien's stories today. She pushed his bedding into his hands, and he curled into it like a sleepy pup. As she arranged herself carefully down Vandien's back, she reflected that the man and his stories might do more toward growing the boy up than he could ever imagine.

Ki had risen, washed, and put the kettle on before the rest began to stir. Willow looked bedraggled and grouchy after her sleepless night, but Ki and Vandien scarcely noticed her. Both exchanged silent glances over Goat, who folded his blankets and stacked them beside the wagon before offering to fetch and harness the horses.

'Go ahead. Watch out for Sigurd, though. He doesn't think he's off to a proper start in the morning unless he's stepped on your foot or nipped you,' Vandien warned him.

'Oh, he won't bother me. I'll have them harnessed before you can gather up the dishes.' He ran off in happy anticipation.

Ki stared after him. Then Vandien gave her a grin of vaguely paternal pride. 'Boy's coming around,' he observed, and stiffly rose to load the blankets into the wagon while Ki gathered dishes. Willow sat by the fire, dragging a comb through her hair and occasionally sipping at a mug of cooling tea.

The great horses came to harness docilely. They stood quietly in their places, enduring Goat's fumbling efforts with the harness and buckles until Ki came to help him. Then, indeed, they were ready to go, and Goat was the first to scramble up onto the seat. Willow entered the cuddy, but opened the door that led onto the seat so that she was included in the group. 'Are you still in that much pain?' she asked curiously as Vandien slowly mounted the wagon.

He didn't answer, but sat breathing quietly as Ki climbed up behind him. She took up the reins and the horses left the small meadow where they had spent the night. The greys stepped out briskly as if they, too, had spent a peaceful night and were eager for the road. Their ears were up and pricked forward as they started down the road into Algona.

The town was in a slight depression in the wide plain, perhaps for the sake of water. They were passing outlying farms now, fields that had already been harvested and looked strangely shaven with their stubble still standing. Algona spread out before them. Ki considered it in the morning's pale light. Most of the buildings were mud brick, and the streets were laid out in concentric circles around a more impressive stone building. People and animals moved soundlessly in the distant streets. She watched them dreamily as Vandien began telling one of the ornate T'cherian fables that were his favorites. Ki found them obscure.