Orson Card - Pathfinder

“I’ll get it,” said Rigg. “It’s in my pack.”

“No, send the other boy,” said Loaf. “I don’t want you to let these jewels out of your sight.”

Umbo glared at Loaf and then at Rigg. “You might have told me ,” he said.

“I shared all my coin with you,” said Rigg, “and my food and all. But these couldn’t be spent anywhere we’ve been or anywhere we’re going. What was to tell?”

Umbo turned his back and went for the pack. He was back in only a few steps and thrust the pack into Rigg’s arms.

Rigg set the pack on a stool and pulled out the letter. He laid it on the bar.

Loaf squinted over it. Leaky reached out and snatched it away. “For saints’ sake, Loaf, we all know you read as fast as a toadstool turns into a tree.” She scanned the document, moving her lips a little and humming a note now and then. “It’s an obvious fake,” she said.

Loaf stood up straight and looked down his nose at Rigg.

But Rigg knew the letter was genuine, and if it wasn’t, Leaky would have no way of knowing. “If it’s a fake, I didn’t fake it,” Rigg said. “The woman I got it from said my father wrote it. He never showed it to me while he was alive, but it looks like his handwriting.” Rigg looked at Leaky. “Have you ever seen his handwriting?”

“I don’t have to,” said Leaky. “It’s signed by the Wandering Saint. That’s like having it signed, ‘The Ring.’”

“That would be a really stupid thing to do, but he didn’t do it,” said Rigg. “Read that signature again.”

She scowled and read it again, moving her lips even more pronouncedly. “Ah,” she said. “‘Wandering Man’ instead of ‘Wandering Saint.’ But it’s still not even a name.”

“It’s one of the names his father went by,” said Umbo.

“What’s his real name, then?”

“All his names were real,” said Umbo. “He answered to them.”

They looked at Rigg, who said, “I never called him anything but ‘Father.’”

“Why do you think you can judge this paper?” asked Umbo. “It isn’t written to you. It’s written to a banker in Aressa Sessamo. So we’ll take it to him . Give it back.”

It was bold of Umbo to demand “back” something that he had never held. But Leaky put it in his hand all the same. Umbo scanned it, reading quickly—for the village schoolteacher in Fall Ford did his job—and then passed it on to Rigg.

“So your father made up names for himself and signed them on legal documents,” said Leaky. “You already know what I think of people who use false names.”

“Doesn’t matter what you think of this boy’s dead father,” said Loaf curtly, earning a glare from his wife. “I believe the boy and the letter, and whether the father came by the money honestly or not, the son surely did.”

“What are you going to do, then?” Leaky demanded. “Adopt him? He certainly lied to us .”

“I never said a word to you that wasn’t true,” said Rigg.

“You said those coins were all your money!”

“Do those jewels look like money to you?” said Umbo.

“Why did you take my clothes in the first place?” asked Rigg. “I’m the one whose belongings were taken by stealth in the night.”

Flustered, Leaky said, “I was going to wash them.”

“They don’t look any cleaner to me,” said Rigg.

“Because I picked up your trousers and I could feel something in the waistband.”

“And you had to rip open the seam and take it out?”

“My wife’s no thief,” said Loaf, glowering.

“I know she’s not,” said Rigg. “But she’s been spitting out accusations and suspicions, and I wanted her to see that those can go both ways. I have more cause of complaint here than she does—but I’m not complaining, and it’s time she stopped being suspicious of me for giving far less grounds.”

“The boy’s a lawyer,” said Loaf to his wife.

“Honest men don’t need lawyers,” she said huffily.

“Honest men are the ones who need them most,” murmured her husband, and when she made as if to argue with him, without even looking at her he raised his hand as if to smack her backhand across the face. He didn’t hit her and obviously never meant to, but she rolled her eyes and fell silent. So it seemed that a hand raised for a smack was the downriver equivalent of putting a finger to your lips.

“If you give me back my clothes,” said Rigg, “I can sew these jewels back into the waistband and we can leave.”

“No,” said Loaf. “In Aressa Sessamo, that letter will do you good. Here it does none, and you need to turn one of those jewels into money.”

“I thought we had a lot of money,” said Rigg. “Too much of it.”

“I said you had enough money that rivermen would kill you for it,” said Loaf. “But prices get a lot higher the farther down the river you go. You’ll be out of money long before you get to Aressa Sessamo, no matter how carefully you eke it out.”

“Is there a bank in this town?”

“Not yet,” said Loaf. “But I can accompany you downriver to the first city that has one. It’s a place where I’m known well enough, and I can vouch for you. I can also keep you safe along the way.”

“Why would you do that for us?” asked Rigg.

“For money, you dunderheaded boy. I’m an honest man but not a rich one. We’ll get to the bank—the banker’s name is Cooper—and when he gives you the money, he’ll give a fee to me. And don’t fear I’ll cheat you—we’ll let the banker set the price. Fair value for my protecting you and leading you there.”

“The banker is your friend, not ours,” said Umbo.

“But you’re the one with the jewels,” said Loaf. “So that’ll make him your friend, not mine.” Then he pointed at Rigg. “Or rather, his friend, not either of ourn.”

“What kind of banker is named ‘Cooper’?” asked Umbo. “Are the coopers around there all named ‘Banks’?”

“The city where he lives has a law that family names are passed along father to son, husband to wife, regardless of whether the name itself still fits. He once had a distant ancestor who was a cooper, that’s all it means.”

“It’s a very dull way of naming people,” said Leaky.

Loaf turned to Rigg again. “I’ll make money from taking you, but it’s money fairly earned, since without me you’re so likely to be dead before you get out of Leaky’s Landing.”

“Is that the name of this tavern?” asked Rigg, wondering why it wasn’t named for Loaf, since at least his name suggested something edible, while Leaky’s name seemed a recommendation against staying there on a rainy night.

“It’s the name of the whole town,” said Leaky.

“They named it for you?” asked Umbo.

“Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t,” said Leaky.

“This termite-supper town?” said Loaf. “They called it sixteen different things till we got here and told them that they had to settle on a name or we wouldn’t build the tavern here. I suggested they name it for me, and so they named it for her just to prove that they don’t have to do what they’re told, even though it was the best advice they’ve ever had. Population’s tripled in the fifteen years since they named it.”

“What does having a name matter?” asked Umbo.

Loaf rolled his eyes. “I can hear the land speculator saying, ‘Come and buy land here and build a house in a town so saint-forsaken that we don’t even know its name!’ or a traveler saying, ‘Let’s stop for the night at that inn in that town, you know the one, the town with no name?’”

“They get the point,” said Leaky.

Rigg wanted to know what the plan was. “So are we leaving for . . . the town with the banker named Cooper—”