Lloyd Biggle Jr. - The World Menders

A sudden awareness of hunger and thirst reminded Farrari that he had not regained the fine edge of his ol conditioning. The durrl’s well was enticingly in sight and hopelessly out of reach. He shrugged off his discomfort and continued to watch.

After the men left again, the women began to spread laundry on drying racks, and Farrari reflected that at some stage in its development every civilization discovered cleanliness. Whether its obeisance was strict or casual, frequent or infrequent, the rites had to be performed by someone. In a majority of civilizations, the principal task of the female was keeping the male clean.

Through much of the morning the children played a quiet game, gravely sitting together in twos and interchanging partners in some complicated pattern, but the changes were performed at a sedate walk, and the talk was too subdued to reach him. He heard no laughter. Finally they took that game or another out of sight behind the buildings.

This was indeed the high holy day of the immaculate god, and as soon as the clothing dried it was taken down and replaced. The uninterrupted outpouring of smoke proclaimed the continuous heating of water. Another column of smoke occupied his attention for a short time, but he soon identified the small building as a smokehouse.

He grew bored, his discomfort increased, and long before dusk he was cursing himself for his stupidity. So distressed was he that when the women racked their final offering of wet clothing in the fading light he at first paid no attention. Then he perceived, dimly, a long row of the cloaks worn by the durrl’s assistants.

“It wouldn’t be healthy for an ol to be caught riding a gril,” he mused, “but why do I have to be an ol?” The hood that protected the wearer from the sun might—almost—hide his low ol forehead.

The day’s work ended, and the two assistants with the creaking wagon load of stiles were the last to appear. As the sound of their talk faded toward the dwellings Farrari crept out and followed them. He drank deeply at the well, sniffed his way into the smokehouse and ate with relish several long shreds of smoked meat, returned to the well, and then cautiously approached the laundry racks.

He found a cloak without difficulty, but he had to search for some time to locate a lower garment, and he quickly abandoned the notion of identifying undergarments in the dark. He folded up one of the lengths of cloth that constituted a woman’s robe. Back at the smokehouse he ripped a piece from it and was using it to make up a package of meat when he thought about boots. Whoever heard of a barefoot durrl’s assistant on a grit? Or anywhere else?

Common sense told him to forget it. He was rested, he had meat to eat, and he knew how to travel safely as an ol. He knew nothing at all about traveling as a durrl’s assistant, he had no plans, he still was uncertain as to where he was going—but he could not resist the alluring opportunity to get there quickly. He dressed himself in the stolen clothing and cautiously circled one of the smaller dwellings.

Again he peeped through a window slit at a touching domestic scene, but this time he was interested only in the master’s feet. Having established that a durrl’s assistant did not wear his riding boots in the house, he continued his search. In an attached shed he happened onto boots, three pair of them, and their pungent odor was reason enough for not wearing them inside. All three pair were several measures too small for him.

He felt both chagrin and alarm. He did not recall that his feet were noticeably larger than those of either rascz or olz. Was it possible that all this time the olz had been referring to him behind his back as big feet?

He moved to the next dwelling, found the shed, found four pair of boots. These were large enough, and he took the pair that seemed, in the dark, to be the most worn, and,, therefore, less likely to be missed. He put on the boots, helped himself to a harness from the peg on an outbuilding where he had seen a durrl assistant hang it, and went to see what might be involved in catching a gril at night.

Five of them came to meet him. He was an eternity in getting the harness strapped into place, and when he finally led his gril away the other followed. He left the gate open so, that it would look as though they had strayed accidentally and headed toward the nearest lane with a procession of grilz.

When he reached it he shooed the other grilz away and mounted. His gril stood motionless, waiting. Cautiously—Farrari well remembered the recklessly dashing grilz of the kru’s couriers—he shook the harness lead, bounced up and down, gently, prodded its sides with his boots, tentatively slapped its flanks. It remained motionless. He spoke certain Rasczian words that had to do with forward motion. Then he recited all the Rasczian profanity he could remember. He pulled the gril’s ears individually and collectively. He dug his heels into its ribs and slapped it smartly. It remained motionless.

Becoming angry, he jerked sharply at its harness, whereupon the gril moved forward. He quickly determined that it could either see ol smell the zrilm, for it kept to the center of the lane and moved at a steady walk. Eventually Farrari would have to learn how to make it go faster, but he would prefer to do this in daylight and in a wider lane.

As the night passed he became more confident. Shortly after dawn he came upon an ol village, but the olz had left for the fields. He watered the gril, and then he drank himself and munched smoked meat while the gril grazed. In daylight he quickly learned to manage it, but by midday the animal had him seriously worried. It would not eat. It grazed when it could, but desultorily, as though seeking something edible and not finding it. He could not bring himself to rob the scant ol stocks of grain, which meant that his movements were to be more limited than he had supposed, and more risky. Each night he would have to rob a durrl.

He rode during the hours when the rascz were unlikely to be about, raided a durrl’s headquarters when he happened upon one, and learned to carry a reserve of grain in strange, tubular grain sacks that were to be found in every durrl’s storage buildings. He also learned that a tall zrilm hedge would harbor both his gril and himself. The olz he saw averted their eyes until he had passed, and he had the good fortune not to encounter a rasc.

After riding south for three days he decided to turn west and cross the valley. The gril was plodding through the darkness, with Farrari half asleep on its back, when suddenly its hooves clicked sharply on stone. Farrari halted, dismounted, and found that he’d discovered a road. He turned the gril south, and at dawn he was moving along a straight, masterfully engineered highway built of the same kind of massive stone blocks he’d seen near Scorv. It was in much better condition than the road near the capital, probably because it had less traffic.

And he had been plodding through all the overgrown back lanes in the valley when he could have been racing along this thoroughfare! If he’d had any place to go, his dimwittedness could have had serious consequences, because he should have known that there’d be a highway. The pass at the head of the hilngol was the most vulnerable leading into Scorvif and the military post there the most important. The rascz were expert military tacticians, and this road certainly had not been built for the convenience of durrlz bringing grain to market.