Mitchell Smith - Moonrise

It was a wearying way to go – that oddly became almost exhilarating as the early-summer sun rose each morning to half-circle over, so Baj kept up in a sort of daily dream where effort became effortlessness… It helped of course, that they were not pursued; there wasn't the exhaustion of fear. And helped as well that his sore ribs grew less sore each day's hiking. The girl's bite was almost healed.

But into this dreaming, one after-noon when hard going had became easier going, came visitors almost real – so Baj heard them very clearly, sensed them watching as he labored through budding green, the always sloping country… Once, Baj passed King Sam Monroe – saw him clearly, standing in shadow under a bending willow where a pollen-dusted rivulet ran.

Stocky and strong, his cropped hair gone almost gray, the hilt of his long-sword jutting behind his right shoulder, the king spared only a preoccupied smile as Baj struggled by, splashing shallow water while he followed massive Richard, who smelled like untanned fur… The king was seen more clearly than any other, though Queen Rachel sang an idle song – heard down a corridor, perhaps, or from her solar window while she and Old Lord Peter copied copies, and read them to each other.

Later, going to all fours – as his companions had already – to climb a slope of weathered stone with only hand-holds here and there, cracks to jam his fingers in, Baj heard Ralph-sergeant's hobnailed boots come clopping, then the knock at his door. "Your brother," Ralph-sergeant said, "- is fishing at Silver Gate (though why in the rain, I couldn't tell you) and wishes you to come and bring him luck."

And that was something that had been said, years before – and being true, drove the dream away. Prince Bajazet went with the dream, perhaps to join the others, perhaps to fish at the jetty with Newton, on a rainy day. Going, he closed his chambers' door behind him…

As the sunny shadows shifted, Big Richard and Small Nancy led on, changing place every now and then – and, Baj noticed, going easily to all fours on the steepest slopes and rises. They halted for nothing… sometimes sucked water from their leather pouches as they went.

Baj labored along just behind – but kept up… kept up, while the boy, Errol, seemed to weave past and circle them all like a summer snake… disappearing, reappearing. He dropped back from time to time, apparently to scout behind them – then came wending forward to take a long lead, also apparently to scout. The boy's restless comings and goings, all the while Baj and the others were traveling fast, were unsettling in a way, reassuring in another. They were not pursued.

The Daughter's short summer had come upon the hills; they were dappled, as the Mississippi's banks and coastal woods had begun to be, with the warm weeks' hurried dark greens and light greens that rested the eyes, though the trees' blossoms, the thickets' blooms still waited. So, though there was no easy going, there was beautiful going.

"What are you looking at, looking around all the time?" Nancy had glanced over her shoulder, apparently an annoyed vixen, though with no brushy tail, no big ears to twitch. "- And what are you smiling at now?"

"It's a pretty day," Baj said, slightly breathless, since they were almost-running up a considerable slope with laurel saplings always in the way. "- And why I was smiling, is my business." The saplings did make hand-holds.

"You are slowing us," the Made-girl said, and had lisped the us, though not the slowing.

"I am not."

As if she were angry with him, though Baj couldn't recall being impolite – and she'd been kind to him before – the girl immediately went faster. She whisked up the rise to leave all of them behind, her dark leather pack bobbing, the sheathed scimitar snug at her waist… and disappeared over an outcrop of weather-splintered stone.

Baj climbed faster, though it cost him, and managed to catch Richard and labor along beside him. The big Person, his double-ax strapped to his heavy, furred pack, seemed to flow over the stone… flow between the slender young trees where it seemed he was too large to go. He apparently was trying to whistle as he traveled along – his lips, black as a dog's, were pursed – though, perhaps because the mouth was odd, only breathy near notes came out.

At the ridge, Baj was greatly relieved when Richard stopped to look out over rolling hilltops, the deepening valleys to the north and east. Shrugging his shoulders to settle his pack, quiver, and strung bow, Baj tried to take deep breaths quietly. A breeze, almost warm, drifted with new-summer odors across the ridge. Little insects, mayflies, ghosted with it, translucent wings glinting in the sun.

Errol came sidling up behind them. A small strangled cony was tucked dangling at his belt.

"When it becomes later," Richard said – and though no whistler, pronounced book-English as well as Baj had ever heard, and in a fine deep voice. "- When it becomes later, we'll find water in one of those hollows. As we do, so will animals."

"Yes…?"

"You have a bow. Then get us fresh meat to travel on. Horse meat's gone."

"All right," Baj said, "- I can do that," and hoped he'd be able to. He was fair with the bow, a little better than fair, but so much of his hunting had been on horseback, and behind hounds… It seemed the comfort of company brought responsibility with it.

The boy, Errol, made a cricking sound with tongue – and as if that had been a signal, Richard was off again in a hulking bound down the wooded reverse. Baj galloped after him through whipping branches – running full out to keep from falling on his face and rolling down the mountain.

In the hollow below, Nancy was nowhere in sight, and Baj – exhilaration fading as he scrambled to keep the Persons' pace – began to yearn for the end of this day, as he'd yearned for the ends of the previous two.

But the after-noon seemed to stretch and stretch, as if the sun had slowed its run to match his weariness. There was only trotting through dark leaf mold and tangling vine, then climbing outcrops of rock to haul himself up through brush and saplings – bruised ribs still troubling him a little – then, over a crest, skidding down through more undergrowth, more saplings. His pack, sword and dagger, the quiver and bow all began to seem unfair, unnecessary, only foolish burdens.

… When it appeared there would come no evening, no night, but only day eternal, with sweat running into his eyes, and bleeding fingers – where the fuck were his gloves? He'd left them at the lodge more than a Warm-time week ago… When effort seemed forever, unless he called to beg Richard for a halt, then at last the first of sunset's long shadows came sliding across the slopes, promising him twilight at last, and rest.

Deep into the next hollow, Nancy stepped from such a shadow, startling Baj so he shied away and put his hand to his sword-hilt like a festival fool. In woods and under woods, by softening light, her sharp face seemed suited and less strange. "Water," she said, "- and winter-broken branches for a fire."

"Meat?" Richard.

"No animals, no sign now – though coyotes have come through."

"Shit," Richard said, a perfect use of the copybook word. "We were spoiled, coming south as the deer and all animals were coming south with Lord Winter at their backs."

"A thrown hatchet," Nancy said, "- would find a deer."

Richard sighed. "Not in summer season. Unstring your bow, Who-was-a-prince, and let it rest."

… The bow, its limbs eased, soon leaned against a maple tree. The same tree where Baj also sat resting, his limbs eased in evening air.

The boy, Errol, lay dozing beside him, while the cony, skinned – and looking very small, a blistered lump – rode a slender peeled branch over a little fire of fallen hardwood, chosen for thorough burning and little smoke.