The Luck Of The Wheels (9 page)

'It's not fair!' Willow burst out suddenly, and then fell silent as she watched Vandien clamber slowly up the wagon step and inside. 'Is he going to ride in there?' she suddenly demanded.

'Yes,' Ki admitted. 'So I suppose you can both ride up front with me. I'll sit in the middle so you don't have to look at one another.'

'No. I'll keep Vandien company, I guess.'

Willow's sudden capitulation startled Ki, but it was a relief, too. The idea of spending the day seated between two squabbling children hadn't been pleasant. But as she mounted the wagon, she considered that spending the day alone with Goat was not a happy alternative. He was already holding the reins.

'I'm driving now, all right?' he said as she seated herself beside him.

'No.' Ki tugged the reins from his grasp and kicked the brake off. She shook the reins and the greys stepped out. The wagon lurched from the turfy roadside back up onto the roadbed. After the shade by the spring, the sun was very bright. Ki squinted down the long, empty road.

After a long stretch of boring prairie, Goat asked suddenly, Are you so mad you aren't going to talk to me all day?'

Ki considered it. 'Perhaps.'

'Because of the Tamshin?'

'Yes.'

A whimper came into Goat's voice. 'But I thought I was helping. It saved your life, you know that. Those Brurjans were about to make porridge of Vandien.'

Ki felt no mercy for him. 'You know that, do you?' she asked sarcastically. 'You know so much of Brurjans, do you? I'd have said they were just about to ask us for a bribe.'

'And you'd have been wrong!' Goat broke in suddenly. There was no whimper to his voice now, only a boy's wild anger. Allikata had decided it would be interesting to break Vandien up slowly, to see how much pain he could take. And one of the Humans, it was his turn to be first at the women, and he was wondering if you'd fight or weep.'

There was a savage satisfaction in his voice that chilled Ki. Against her will she turned to meet his pale eyes, more yellow than brown. She did not like to admit her disgust was tinged with fear.

'Believe your own wild stories if you like,' she began in a shaky voice.

'I believe what I know, and I know more than you like. More than anyone likes, and so they hate me. Would you like to hate me more? Then I'll warn you that it isn't wise to leave Vandien and Willow alone in the wagon together. Not when she is wondering if he would protect her if the Brurjans came again, and he is wondering if he is as old as he feels. Young enough to worry over foolish things ... isn't that what you told him?'

For an instant Ki was confused. Then a killing fury gripped her. So the boy had been awake last night, and listening to them. Blood suffused her face suddenly. And watching them, too? The team tossed their heads, baffled by the trembling that came down the reins to them. She would not strike him. She would force herself to remember that he was only a boy. But ...

'If ever ...' Anger made her voice crack. 'If ever you spy upon us like that again, I shall ...'

'Shall what?' Gotheris demanded spitefully. He stared at her. 'What can you do to me? You already hate me. Every time you think of me, you are filled with annoyance and irritation. But you'll keep your contract, you'll take me safely to Villena. No matter how horrid I am, you'll give me to my uncle. No matter how nice I am, either.'

A different note entered the boy's voice on his final words. For a long time Ki drove in silence. There were more trees now, in scattered groves set back from the road. Perhaps the remains of failed farming efforts. When she trusted herself to speak, she said, 'I don't think I hate you, Gotheris. Much of what you do makes me angry, but ... what's that?'

'That' was something in the distance, a scatter of objects beside and upon the road. They moved erratically. Ki settled back on the seat. 'Looks like someone's herd of swine loose in the road. Rolling in the dust.'

'Close enough,' Gotheris observed heartlessly. 'Tamshin.'

At his words Ki stood, to peer ahead, and then startled the team with a cry. She slapped the reins on the grey backs, and the horses broke into a ponderous trot and then a heavy canter. She drove them standing, swaying with their rhythm. The entry to the caravan slid open behind her. Willow peered out. 'What's the matter?' she demanded. Ki didn't answer. The road stretched ever longer before her, making it seem as though she would never arrive.

When she did get there, she was too late. She pulled the team in to keep them from trampling the first of the bodies. From the way they lay, it was apparent the Tamshin had been moving when the rousters caught up with them. These were the stragglers, who had fallen as they fled, the first victims of the scarlet hooves and blades.

Ki stood frozen, staring down at them. Too vivid were the memories they stirred, of other bodies on a dusty road, of a man and two children she had called hers. Behind her she heard Willow's rising pants, the beginning of hysteria. Beside her, Goat stirred restively and complained, 'I smell shit.'

'Shut up.' Ki's voice was dispassionate. 'Willow. Close the door. And don't waken Vandien. He doesn't need this.'

She booted the brake on, wrapped the reins about its handle. Slowly she dismounted and walked over to the first body. The bloodstains on the pale robe were already turning brown in the heat of the sun. There was no need to check for signs of life. Flies buzzed angrily as she turned the body over. She refused to look into the face. With averted eyes, she lifted the shoulders and dragged the body from the road some little distance to the paltry shade of a dying oak. Beyond it was a scorched area where long ago a house might once have stood. She was too heartsick to be curious about it. Slowly she walked back to the road, went to the next body. A child. Unmindful of the blood and feces that fouled his little body, she picked him up and carried him to place him by the other. Goat watched her avidly from the wagon, silent but absorbed in her actions. She paid no attention to him.

She had moved the wagon forward and started to lift the shoulders of a third corpse when the woman came to meet her. She was Tamshin, tall and willowy, but the grace was gone from her movements. Her face was bruised to blackness, and blood had clotted in her long hair. Her thick accent and swollen lips made her hard to understand.

'Stop. Stop, please. Leave them. Leave us and go away.'

Ki lifted her eyes to meet the woman's, but she turned her head aside, refusing the communion of grief.

'I would help you,' Ki offered softly. 'With the dead and with the injured. I have food, water, and bandages.'

A boy came up to stand beside the woman. His eyes were wide and empty. Ki glanced up the road, saw other survivors busy among the dead. They made not a sound.

'No.' The woman spoke with difficulty, swayed and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. He stood steady beneath her weight. 'No. Go away. We are Tamshin, our dead are Tamshin. Go away.'

'Please,' Ki said. 'There are so many ...'

'You are ...' The woman searched for the word. 'Unclean. You must not touch our dead. Go away.'

'I understand.' Ki backed slowly away and stood at the side of the road as the woman and boy bent over the body of an old man. With difficulty they dragged him from the road.

'Your way is clear now,' the woman said. 'Go.'

'May I leave you water?'

'Unclean. Unclean! Go away!' The woman screamed the last words, and suddenly began to sob.

Ki spun away from her and fled toward the wagon. As she reached it Vandien stepped out suddenly and caught her in his arms. He held her close. 'You should have called me,' he said into her hair.

'I didn't want you to ... They don't want our help. We desecrate their dead. They want us to go.'

'Then we'll go. It's the only thing we can do for them, Ki.'

She nodded slowly. He followed her up onto the wagon's high seat, moved Goat over with a glance. He took up the reins and kicked off the brake. For once Ki said nothing about his driving. Only Goat dared to speak. Leaning forward to peer up into Ki's striken face, he said, 'You see how they are? Ungrateful. And filthy. You smell terrible.'

'Shut up, Goat,' said Vandien.

FIVE

'D
on't touch that.' Goat slowly drew his hand back from the whip in its socket. 'All you do is boss me around,' he complained.

'Right.'

It's like being shut in a box, thought Ki, while someone keeps hammering on the top. Goat's nagging and Vandien's sotto voice replies counterpointed the annoying chirring of the night insects. She moved closer to Vandien, and despite the muggy evening, took comfort in his warmth. He should have stopped for the night hours ago. Perhaps Vandien was trying to make up for the time lost this morning. Perhaps he dreaded the necessary conversation and expected squabbles. Soon they would have to; the big horses needed their rest. Sigurd tossed his head in annoyance, feeling for more slack in the reins.

'You don't have to keep the reins so firm; they know what they're doing,' she chided Vandien.

He roused at the first words she had spoken in hours. 'Feeling better?' he asked.

'No. Just more numb. I hate what happened, but there's no way to undo it.'

'Vandien?' Goat started in again.

'No,' Vandien replied pleasantly.

The boy turned his face from them, tightness in every muscle of his back. Something in the way he bowed his head touched Ki. She took pity on him. 'What is it, Goat?'

He cleared his throat but his voice still choked. 'So what should I have done? I thought they would kill us all.'

Vandien answered, his deep voice soft. 'Kept silent. Waited. I know it would have been hard. But it's better to hold back your top stakes until you know what your enemy is betting against it.'

'If they had been going to kill us ... if you had known they were ... would you have told them about the Tamshin?'

'I don't know.' Raw honesty from Vandien. 'It's hard to say what I'd do if faced with death, especially painful death. Even harder to say what I'd do if I knew I could keep my friends from death by betraying strangers. I'd like to say I'd go down fighting and take a few with me. But from what I know of Brurjans, I wouldn't have much of a chance.' He glanced past Ki to the boy, trying to see if his words were making any impact. 'It's sort of like trying to say what you wouldn't eat if you were starving. If you're hungry enough, rotten cabbage and dead rat aren't that bad.'

Ki didn't ask how he knew.

'But they were going to kill us,' Goat insisted.

Vandien sighed. 'Let it go, Goat. It's done. But if there's a next time, keep silent and still. Look to Ki or me to see what you should do. No matter what you think. Or know.' The last words he added grudgingly. But they eased the tension, and a sort of peace settled over the gently rocking wagon. The cuddy door behind the seat slid open.

'Aren't we ever going to stop?' Willow asked plaintively.

Vandien didn't answer, but pulled the team off the road. There was nothing to recommend the spot, but there was nothing better in sight either. The grass desert stretched in all directions, gently swelling and ebbing, but never sharply enough to be a valley or a hill. The grazing lands of yesterday and the abandoned farms of this morning had given way to brushy patches of coarse grasses interspersed with sandy stretches. The horses would get sparse grazing tonight. They'd need more grain.

The team halted and Goat leaped off, nimble as his namesake. Ki followed him, and then glanced back up at Vandien. He was moving as slowly as an arthritic old dog. A pang of guilt singed Ki. How could she have forgotten about his ribs?

'Take it slow,' she cautioned him. 'I'll do the unharnessing and get camp set up. Then I want to take a look at your ribs.'

'Any excuse to get my clothes off,' he muttered, but could not quite bring up a grin. Ki shook her head.

The horses were glad to be rid of their harnesses, but not enthused with the scruffy grey-green grass she led them to. Both greedily sucked up the measure of water she poured into their drinking tub. After they had drunk she grained them and rubbed the sweat from the rough grey coats. There was a festering sore on Sigurd's neck. She got salve to treat it, noticing that Vandien was directing Goat and Willow in setting up a camp. He sent her a quick smile from where he leaned against a quilt folded over a wagon wheel. Goat knelt beside a smouldering fire while Willow poured water from the cask into the kettle.

The sore on Sigurd's neck was a nasty thing that finally expelled the squirming grub of some parasitic fly. Ki washed it and then smeared salve over it. Sigurd, whiffling after the last of the spilled grain, paid no intention to her. Ki sighed and wiped her sticky hands down her tunic. Maybe tomorrow night they'd find a river where she could do a wash. Vandien would love that; he could use his bruised ribs as an excuse for her to pound out his laundry as well as her own.

The little fire seemed very bright after working in the semi-darkness. She stood a moment, letting her eyes adjust. And then a moment longer, to adjust to something else.

Willow knelt beside Vandien, dragging his shirt gently off over his head. She dropped it to the ground, said something softly. As Vandien held his arms up slightly, Willow moistened a rag in water and held it against his side. The bruise was purple where the horse had scored, fading to pinks and greens at the edges. Willow was smiling as she sponged his skin. Goat's words, which she had earlier dismissed as juvenile vindictiveness, came suddenly to her mind.

She strode into camp. The kettle was already on, the stew starting to bubble. All done neatly and well. Nothing to complain about, nothing to question. They had it all under control. She crouched by the water cask at the tail of the wagon, to run water into the basin to wash her face and hands. Goat came out of the wagon with a platter of travelling bread and cheese. Ki still hadn't thought of anything to say.

Goat looked from her to Vandien and Willow. 'Food's ready,' he said loudly. 'We can eat as soon as you can get your hands off him, Willow.'