Dave Duncan - West of January

Part of my blindness certainly sprang from pride. Ever since Jat had explained the traders’ customs to me, I had been trying my wiles on Misi, the skills I had developed so highly in the seafolk’s grove. Whenever the two of us were alone, I expressed my desire by word and eye and hand. Misi’s reaction was one of complete incomprehension, leaving me baffled. I peevishly concluded that she could understand nothing more subtle than an outright business offer, and I had no trade goods. To admit that there was a mind inside that big head would be to admit that it had outsmarted me.

And when Misi began removing my splints for short periods, my suspicions became hard to ignore. I did not want to exercise my knees, for even the smallest bend produced fearful agony. Misi insisted, standing over me, threatening to use force. Cursing and screaming by turns, I would obey—but only because I believed her threats. And when I was incapable of bearing more, she would gently tie the planks to my legs again and wipe my streaming brow.

But she only did this when we were alone. When Jat asked how I was progressing, she told him straight lies. I was surprised, but I did not contradict her. So perhaps I had guessed.

In the end it was the shirt that convinced me. Ever since I had known her, Misi had been working on that shirt. Now bright thread hid every scrap of the underlying silk. It was obviously a man’s garment and, I assumed, intended for Jat. But traders gave nothing away, in spite of Jat’s tales of freeing slaves to bring good luck.

Taking advantage of some smooth terrain, I had been sleeping. I awoke to the sound of voices. For a moment I thought they were discussing me. When I opened my eyes, however, I saw Jat wearing the new shirt. Another lay discarded at my side, beside his leather coat. He was preening mightily, admiring as much of himself as he could contort into the little mirror. If one’s taste ran to such ostentation, then that shirt was the treasure of a lifetime. Even I could see that it was a masterpiece.

The dealing had started. Misi was sitting on one of the chests, set outside on the step, and had now turned around to plant her big feet flat inside the cab. Her meaty hands rested on her knees, and her eyes had shrunk back into sinister caverns of fat.

“Not one more twenty-seventh!” Jat said over his shoulder. “Pick something else, anything else but—oh, hi Knobil. Anything else at all.”

Misi’s pout became a glare.

“Fourteen sacks of phosphate?” Jat suggested, earning a loud snort. “Well, how about the dapple foal? Kan wants it. Nine-eighteenths of the copper pots?”

She seemed to like none of his ideas. She shrugged hugely. “The rest of the bronze pelts?”

Jat’s attention went to his fingers. “Nineteen thirty-thirds of my twenty-two thirtieths?”

“The molasses and your share of the oats?”

“Thirteen twenty-fourths of the wool and the bag of agates?”

“All the wool and two-thirds of the agates?”

“The bleach, the sickles, and the glass beads?”

They kept this up for some time, while I listened in amazement. I had seen Jat bargaining with Lon and even with some of the other men—it was their favorite occupation. But I never heard it done faster, with less hesitation, or with more authority. Offer and counteroffer went leaping around the cab like a herd of roos; speed was part of the technique. Misi apparently knew the details and values of Jat’s holding as well as he did.

Usually such session ended with an agreement, a handshake, and a repeat of the terms before a witness and in sunshine. But not this one. “Leave it, then,” Misi growled, and she swung around once more to attend to the team.

Angrily Jat pulled off the overpriced garment, threw it down, and flounced off like a sulky child. He was still fastening buttons as he cantered away.

Stunned, I stretched out to catch hold of the discarded shirt. I lifted it and had begun to fold it when I saw that Misi had twisted around to glare her grotesque face in my direction.

“Work those knees more, Knobil!”

“Yes, Misi,” I said humbly. “I will.”

If she had fooled me for so long, which one of us was the smarter?

I BARELY HAD TIME TO ADJUST TO MY NEW VISION OF MISI WHEN, with no warning at all, there was trouble.

Our train happened to be in the lead. The men had been up ahead on a scouting or hunting expedition. Now they came cantering back with bows strung, with horses steaming and prancing. They were all good horsemen, those trader males, but they were shouting a lot and I could see that some of their mounts were giving trouble, as if anxiety was infectious. When Jat scrambled onto the platform, I saw that his eyes and nostrils were dilated as if he were spooked himself. Then he turned to Misi and began to whisper urgently in her ear.

The country was patchy woodland, rolling in large hills and ridges under dismal low clouds. The rain had stopped, but the air was still full of the feel of it. Odd movements of wind stirred gusts of mist amid the copses, and the twisted white tree trunks hovered like flocks of ghosts on the edges of reality.

Often, as now, I huddled in a blanket for warmth. The sun, when visible, had fallen halfway down the sky, lower than I had ever seen it, and shadows stretched eerily out to the east. I sorely missed the constant cloudless blue of the grasslands.

For several sleeps we had been skirting a large river to the south of us. Jat had spoken of deep jungle beyond it. To the north bare spines of rock rose faintly, higher than anything I had seen since we had left the Andes. Long ago burned off by High Summer, those would now be incapable of growing anything, even when watered. So this might be a natural pass, a narrowing of the borderlands, an obvious place to ambush traders. There was danger—I could smell it.

I could stand on my feet now, but only briefly and not without pain. Walking was still beyond my powers, and I was happier wearing my splints. Whatever lurked ahead of us, I could not flee it at any speed greater than the snail crawl of the hippos, for I could not even sit astride a horse yet.

Of course trader women never rode and would never abandon their wagons. The men, I suspected, might. If the danger was some predatory animals—or men—then I could expect to take part in a collective defense. I had not shot an arrow since I joined the seafolk, but even a sitting man can use a bow.

Or I might be the danger. Jat straightened up and looked back at me again. He smiled automatically, but for once his jauntiness failed him, and his smile was obviously as utterly false as I had always suspected it to be. He jumped down and hurried over to the other men, who had dismounted and were walking their horses, arguing fiercely.

So the trouble did concern me. I laid away my sewing, untied my splints, and began some leg exercises. Misi was keeping her eyes on the team and had not looked around.

Angels?

Slave trading was a forbidden violence. If there was an angel waiting up ahead, then the traders had only three choices—turn back, kill the angel, or dispose of the evidence. I was helpless. Dreams of jumping out the window and running for the woods must remain only dreams.

Jat and the other men were standing in a group just ahead, holding their horses’ reins and still arguing. Lon Kiv cantered up and dismounted also.

Puffing and bedraggled from sleep, Pula scrambled onto the platform to relive Misi, who clambered down, painfully awkward, and plodded forward to join the discussion. The talkers stopped to form a circle in a sheltered spot, the train drawing slowly away from them.

All the trader men had gathered, with only the one woman?

That confirmed my guess: Knobil was the problem. I wondered if I dared hang my head out the window to watch, and I decided that I would be wiser to pretend to be unconcerned. That was not easy.