Mitchell Smith - Moonrise

"All who live once breeding is done." Nancy showed her teeth. "Not so very many. But Boston holds those, and keeps their names and numbers secret so no Guardsman or tribal chief knows if his loved one lives or not. Boston holds them – and frees them never."

"My mother," Richard said, "- sent me word of her promised self-killing by a Faculty Instructor who owed a favor. Else I would never have known it."

"Still, the tribes…"

"Our mothers," Nancy said, "- are their daughters, so both Persons and tribesmen are knotted to Boston town by loved one's lives."

"And the Persons' own children…?"

"Those," Richard said, "- Boston also takes for itself. Though many of us… many cannot have children at all."

Baj said, into silence, "But the woman who Walked-in-air – Patience."

"From her, Baj," Richard said, "- they hold her child."

"The fools hoped they'd made a God-baby at last," angry Nancy lisping the s's into th's, "- to push the turning earth closer to the sun, and bring Warm-times back again."

"That is… not possible."

"So I think." Richard nodded. "For a few New England Talents to manage through the air is one thing. But greater than that, they don't have in them."

"They have shit in them," Nancy said. "And Patience's baby is only a dreamer – though a great one, dreaming forward and back."

"So… Boston rules the East by holding hostages from both fathers and sons."

"See how a Once-prince knows the means." Nancy spat into shrubbery.

"… I'm sure," Baj said, "that my Second-father understood Boston's way. The Chancellor, and my brother also. But knowing those bonds – and breaking them – are two different things."

"But with the mothers dead," Richard said, "- who are also daughters dead – then the bonds are broken for Persons and the tribes."

Errol, restless, tried to tug away, but Richard kept hold of him, made soothing puh puh sounds as the boy settled.

"Which is why we travel so far north and east, Clever Fencer." Nancy seemed to smile at Baj, but wasn't smiling. "- We go to join Shrikes and the Guard, their peace made to march together against Boston. A great revenge for you as well, Sunriser."

Richard sighed as if he were very tired. "… While the Guard attacks the city's southern and easiest gate – an attack sure to fail, and only to draw all regiments of the town Constables there – Patience will lead us and a few others down the north gate, then across Boston to the Pens… There, in what time the Constables allow us, we are to break all loving bonds."

Baj took a breath."… Kill them? Kill the women?"

Silence, but for gentle winds through summer leaves. Silence… that most definite of answers.

After hours of descending – Baj with scrapes and bruises from a nasty fall – after those weary hours into late after-noon, hanging half the time from stunted tree to tree, they'd reached the first long level of young grasses, wild flowers in meadows stretching along the stream. Baj's legs had said, "Thank you," as he strode at last with no climbing up or down. He'd slid his bow off his shoulder, drew a broadhead from the quiver at his back in case of game here, on the valley's plain… But no game came grazing as they walked to the river named New. Only a red-shouldered hawk swung slow circles above, beyond any arrow's reach.

It was surprising how the sight and sound of the stream affected him – a fair-sized river, not simply tumbling mountain waterfalls – a river running in roaring rapids from short-summer's melt, roiling, glittering along. It struck Baj's heart… Memories of so much greater a river, of the Mississippi swollen by centuries of summers' melts from half-a-continent of ice, came to him so he stood dreaming.

The others stood beside him, though recollection of no great river could be running through their hearts. This lesser brawling stream, carving through green country – with, of course, more mountains to climb just beyond it – might it support some lesser Jesus, floating with its currents?… Baj, breathing deep of air with river-haze risen in it, felt sick with longing for great water's smell and currents, for the sway of the deck of a summer sailing-boat beneath his feet… the slide, speed, and rumble of ice-rigged ships before the River's wind.

For the first time since he'd fled before the king, he found a poem forming in his mind, as if a dam of clotted timbers had been shaken loose by rapids. But the better the poem might be – of loss and the River – the more painful to make and remember… Better pass in silence, than examine wounds with a burning-glass.

"How do we cross this?" he said.

"With great care." Richard untied the thick coil of braided-leather line from his pack. Shook the coil open. "No easier ford?"

"Likely, yes – but two or three days east, and deeper into the Robins' country."

"It was frozen," Nancy said, "- when we came south."

"This can be managed," Richard said, kept an end of his line, and knotted the other around Errol's waist. "It might be otter blood, not weasel, the boy swims so well – seems to mind only water falling."

"I see." But that thundering stream, though not toppling in a fall, appeared to Baj to be very difficult swimming.

Richard climbed down to a leaning birch… and tied the line's end off in a double knot while Errol, appearing eager, trotted away a distance upstream with the coil, loosing the length as he went. Then, reaching the line's other end, the boy suddenly galloped down the river's bank there, and dove into the roil of water… his knives still in his belt, and still wearing his moccasin-boots.

"Not good," Baj said.

Richard came back up the bank. "Watch…"

But there was nothing to watch, except once or twice a flash of slender black line looping through foaming white water… Then, almost halfway across, the river there divided by boulders fountaining up sheets of spray, Errol's head appeared – blond hair slicked dark and flat – was shaken so drops flew, then vanished again. This time, Baj could follow him, and saw here and there under shallow racing current the boy frog-kicking… frog-kicking, but very swiftly, then seeming to writhe along through and under the river, with the river, coming downstream with it at an angle toward the opposite bank, the braided line wavering in and out of sight behind him.

"Wonderful," Baj said, thinking that otter blood was possible there.

… Errol had almost reached the other side. His shadow lay in swift shallows like a weary char at breeding. He seemed to rest, then raised his head, shook water from his hair again, and crawled out onto the pebbles, apparently weary, no longer magically swift and sure.

"I cross next," Richard said, once the boy had tied his line-end to a tree almost directly across from them. "If the rope holds me, it will hold you two." Baj heard the big Person's belly rumble. Hungry, of course – as they all were. Though occasional birds were well enough, it was long past time for the promised deer.

… A crossing easier said than done – an ancient phrase, and one of the most useful. Baj and Nancy stood on a trembling bank of mud and stone, and watched Richard in the current.

His pack left behind, he still seemed to wear one, his back humped with muscle, his loose shirt soaked so drifts of dark hair – or fur – showed through as he fought the river in sheets of spray, going on all fours over stone through shallow furious rapids. Held beside him, the slender braided line whipped and looped over and under swift water.

The river's noise was surprising. There seemed to be shouting in it, a mob's raised voices. Only at Break-up had Baj heard the Mississippi speak – then, and in places where it struck Island's stone walls.