West of January (9 page)

“No sir.” I had thought I was the only one in the world. Yet an ancient memory stirred…an angel with golden hair…

“Probably your real father was an angel. A herdmaster won’t let any other males near his women. Only angel sperm can cuckold a herdman. I’m surprised he kept you when he saw what had happened.”

I had never even considered that possibility, for I knew nothing about inheritance and precious little about sex.

The angel cursed under his breath. “But if he did, I suppose I can do no less. Get in.” He pointed.

Astonished, I never thought to question or disobey. He did not help me to rise, and he frowned impatiently at my snail progress. With every twitch of my right knee a red flame, I lurched over to the back of the chariot, trying not to sob with the agony, dreading that one little cry might reveal to the angel what a contemptible wastrel I really was. I scrambled up as quickly as I could. He stood and scowled, and he made no move at all to assist me.

“I’m out of my mind,” he muttered. “Brainless, ignorant, murderous little herdbrat!” He clambered heavily up behind me. “But spunky—crazy like an angel…”

—3—
VIOLET-INDIGO-RED

I
SUSPECT THAT WHAT
I
DID NEXT SAVED MY LIFE
: I went to sleep.

An angel chariot is an incredibly versatile vehicle, able to go anywhere, but the price of that versatility is clutter. Even when neatly packed, the interior is a tight jam of spare sails and wheels and axles, of tools and supplies, of skis and yokes and horse collars and harnesses and ropes. Usually there are chests at the rear for medicines and weapons and personal effects. At one side of the mast is a winch for emergencies, and on the other a slung seat, of elastic weave to absorb some of the bumps and vibration.

An angel takes his name from the color code of his chariot; my new guardian angel’s name was Violet-indigo-red. Even after he mentioned that, much later, I never called him anything but “Sir.” Other angels would have addressed him as “Violet” or “Violet-indigo,” and he might have refused to acknowledge his original name, the one he was given at birth. He bore his colors on his sleeve, and they flew also at the masthead.

Violet’s chariot was not neatly packed. It was a midden pit, a jumbled confusion of wood carvings, sets of antlers, fur robes, and other souvenirs lying amid the normal equipment. I had little experience with material possessions, but I recognized that there were more of them here than my whole family owned, and I also sensed the shabbiness, a worn-out, spent look that somehow suited my fat and balding host.

“You go there!” he ordered, pointing to a heap of cloth and fur near the front. “And if you’re going to throw up, be sure you do it over the side.”

I clambered painfully forward and sat there where I had been told.

The angel unrolled his mainsail and raised the foresail. They both billowed satisfactorily, but nothing else happened. I guessed then why angels always stopped their chariots on hilltops, but this slope was too gentle and the wind too light. I know now that he would have tried to find a spot where the wind eddied off the valley wall. But if he did so then, the wind was not enough.

He cursed continuously to himself, trying various settings of the boom and the foresail. He hauled on ropes, and the back wheels swiveled obediently. He tried jumping up and down, his efforts rocking the whole chariot. His cursing grew louder. Then he took hold of one of the front wheels, whose upper edges protruded above the sides. He heaved, and that did it. Reluctantly the chariot began to roll down the slope, and then the wind could keep it moving—wind and a great deal of skill.

Soon we were bouncing and veering along in surges and hesitations, past the muddy shambles that had once been a water hole and a stand of trees. The axles squeaked. The load rattled and jostled. Chariot wheels are made of cross-laminated boards from the rubber trees that grow in Dusk, and they will absorb some of the buffeting, but not all. Violet’s concern about the steadiness of my stomach was understandable, but I proved to be immune to motion sickness—an inheritance, I suppose, from my true father.

I did not then appreciate the fact, but Violet was a superb charioteer. Much later, when I tried to do the same job myself, I came to understand the feat that his expertise had made seem so easy. To travel by wind power over rough country is the greatest test of an angel’s skills. We were close to the doldrums of High Summer. The sun was in the west of January, and we could have been no more than halfway across February. The sickly, fitful breezes would have totally immobilized nine out of ten drivers, and Violet was traveling away from the sun and hence upwind. That required an instinct for wind bordering on the uncanny, plus a fine ability to estimate slope and an eagle eye to avoid the boulders and gullies that infest the grasslands. I took it all for granted. I was much more impressed by what he had done to the tyrant.

Sitting on the angel’s bedding, with my throbbing legs stretched straight out, I could just see over the side. But I was physically and emotionally spent, so I lay down and turned my face away from the sun. I was accustomed to sleeping whenever I wanted, on the hard ground, in the midst of a noisy camp. Despite the noise, the shaking, and the strangeness of my new surroundings, I was too exhausted to stay awake. Youth is wonderful.

─♦─

When I awoke, we were stationary, parked on the crest of a hill. The angel was standing up, holding a long tube to his eye, pointed at the horizon. Then he lowered it and saw me watching him.

“If you need to pee, do it over the side, herdbrat. Downwind!”

“Yes sir.” Did he think I was not tent-trained?

I sat down again in silence. Somehow he had driven his chariot back to high ground, but the country looked the same in all directions. Where was Anubyl now? How was I ever going to find him? I puzzled over that, and I fantasized how wonderful it would be to have one of the angels’ guns to kill Anubyl with.

Violet now hung a small board on the mast beside him, spread something on his face, and then scraped it off again with a knife, all the while studying the board closely—a procedure I found most curious.

Finally he wiped his face with the familiar filthy cloth. “There’s a herd ahead,” he said, “going south.”

Woollies smear one another’s dung, so it is not difficult to tell which way a herd has been moving. I did not know about telescopes.

“So I’m going visiting. More leathery burnt meat. More broiling my brains in the sun. Another stupid herdmaster who won’t listen to reason. Another bony, stinking woman.”

“Yes sir.”

“If the herdmaster sees you, you’re dead.”

I glanced around at the dry landscape. There was a very small tangle of shrubbery at the bottom of the hill. It looked quite withered, unlikely to contain any water. My right knee was as big as my head, and the left one little better. “Shall I get out, sir?”

He was tempted, regarding me with his usual sourness, but I had slept in his chariot. I suppose that had seemed like a great display of trust, and to turn me out there to die would have felt like a betrayal of that trust. I can only guess, but I think that it was my act of sleeping that saved me then. He must have known that my sleep had been brought on by exhaustion, not trust, but emotions are not always controlled by knowledge.

He growled. “No. Are you hungry?”

“Yes sir.” I was always hungry.

“Then eat now. Drink. Then keep down while we’re in their camp. No one will know you’re here.”

“Thank you, sir!” Soon I was gulping down handfuls of delicious smoked woollie. The angel watched me in nauseated disbelief.

─♦─

The chariot came to a halt again. Children were shouting in the distance. I had vacated the pile of furs and was now stretched out at a lower level on a much less comfortable collection of spars and oars and other hard things. The angel lowered his sails.

“Remember: Keep down!” he warned. He began moving toward the rear, and now I heard and felt the sound of hooves approaching.

Then the angel paused, turned back to rummage among the loose junk near his seat, and straightened up with one of the tyrant’s claws in his hand. Scraps of bloodstained fur clung to one end of it. He sent me a cryptic and disagreeable smile, and then resumed making his way to the back. As he climbed out, a deeply masculine voice hailed him. I shivered nervously and tried to wriggle lower in my bone-breaking wooden nest.

─♦─

I assume that Violet was feasted and that he tried to explain to the herd-master about the catastrophe building in the grasslands. He would have had to accept the hospitality of a tent and the woman who came with it. I soon decided that I could safely move back to the more comfortable bedding if I lay flat there. I arranged a sunscreen and then slept some more. I ate again, having decided that my angel would not grudge a few more strips of woollie flesh. I had the sense not to drink, but long before Violet at last returned, I was frantic to relieve myself, a deprivation I had never before experienced.

I heard voices. Violet came into my view as he clambered to the little platform at the back of the chariot. Someone handed up a bundle, which he tossed in. Then he was passed a bow and quiver, and he placed those more carefully. Farewells were spoken.

Sails went up, the brake came off, and the chariot began to pick up speed down the slope. The bouncing was torture. It was impossible to speak over the squealing of the axles and the rattling, but I put an expression of agony on my face and pointed at my groin. The angel scowled angrily—having just made a good start, he would now have to again find another leeward slope to stop on. He probably did so as soon as he could, but it seemed a long torment to me.

“I traded your claw,” he announced as I gratefully raised my pagne over the side.

“Sir?”

“I was going to let you have one of the tyrant claws. I traded it for this bow instead. The herdmaster is very puzzled as to why I should want one, but he dared not ask. And he is very cocky about the claw.”

A bow was a wonderful gift. I thanked him sincerely. He looked even more disgusted than ever.

More bouncing…

As I was now well rested, I sat up and watched the country go by, enjoying the experience, savoring the sensation of being an angel. This marvelous chariot was faster than a horse, I concluded, and it did not tire. An angel was not bound to a herd; he could go anywhere. Had I had a chariot like this, I could soon track down my enemy, Anubyl. I probably assumed that two or three tries with that bow would make me an expert archer.

Then, unexpectedly, Violet spilled wind from the sails and the chariot rolled to a halt at the top of a long slope. I saw what he had seen—open water.

It was only a small puddle in the middle of a wide dry flat, but there were trees around the edges and no woollies in sight. I turned to look at him. He was snarling in silence.

For a healthy man to survive alone was a challenge; for a cripple, an impossibility. How could I even learn archery if I could not retrieve my arrows? Memory of terrible loneliness crept back, and my dreams scattered in the wind. Yet somehow I knew that pleading with this surly old man would be worse than useless, and I suppose I had pride.

“Do you want me to get out, sir?” I asked.

“I don’t owe you anything, do I?”

“No sir.”

“Then…goodbye and good luck, herdbrat!”

I struggled to my feet and began to make my stiff-legged way to the back, clutching the mast or anything else handy to keep my balance. Getting down to the ground was torture, for my left knee hurt badly and even to put weight on my other leg sent spasms of agony through my whole body. Sweat seemed to explode from my skin. But I made it and he passed down the bow, the quiver full of arrows, and then the other bundle.

“That’s more of your filthy burnt woollie.”

“Thank you, sir. You have been very kind.” I meant that. Yet, as he had said earlier, it might have been a greater kindness to have let the tyrant eat me than to abandon me here in the grasslands as he was doing now, even with a bow.

“Can you walk?”

I loaded myself up with the new gear and tried. The answer, in truth, was no, but I managed a couple of limps and said, “Yes sir.”

“Wait!”

He pouted at me, hesitating. “Come here.” He fumbled in a pocket and brought out a leather packet. As I retraced my two lurching steps, he opened this and took out a small triangle. “I’ll give you one of these,” he said, “just in case.”

He poked at it briefly with a short stick that had also come from his pocket and then dropped it to my hand. The rough side was marked by more of the black squiggles, the smooth side dyed in three colors—a violet strip along the edge, a dark blue triangle, a smaller red one…the colors of his chariot.

“Keep it in the dark,” he said, “or the dyes will fade away. Then it’s useless. They’re not supposed to outlive you. You know what it is?”

I shook my head.

“It’s an angel token. Take it to Heaven and they’ll let you in.” He laughed. “Or you can show it to another angel if you need help. It’s a mark of approval. I liked the way you tried to draw off the tyrant, herdbrat. Angels give these out, sometimes.”

“I already have one, sir.”

I laid down my burdens and fumbled in my pouch. By the time I had produced the triangle my mother had given me, Violet had clambered down and was regarding me with a very angry expression. It grew even more furious when he saw what I had.

“So I was right? Green-two-blue?” He inspected the rough side. “West of January, Wednesday? Of course! Well, well… Tell me.”

So I told him.

He shook his head. His pink jowls quivered when he did that. “You have a strange effect on angels, herdbrat.”

“Sir?”

“It’s against the rules to give you a ride in my chariot—although that one gets broken often enough. It’s much more against the rules to go back to a woman. Did you know that?”