Anne Bishop - Sebastian

“You really going up to Wizard City to talk to a wizard?” William asked.

“I am.”

“Hoo-whee! Don’t know as I’d want to do that. They’s not like regular folks. Don’t matter that they’s the Justice Makers. Got that magic in them that makes them different. Wouldn’t want to be jawing with the likes of them.”

Sebastian looked sideways at William. “Have you ever seen a wizard?”

“Seen ’em, sure. They prowl the marketplaces in the city from time to time just like everybody else. But never talked to one—and hope I never do.”

Something—a change in inflection, a shift in the way William held himself—made Sebastian look at the man more closely.

“Why do you do that?” he asked, curious.

“Do what?”

“Talk like that. You’re not a hayseed.”

“What makes you think I’m not?” William sounded indignant.

Sebastian smiled, but it wasn’t a friendly smile. “You try too hard. The hayseeds I’ve run across always give themselves away, but they try to talk better than they do at home. You roll in the words like a…” He couldn’t think of anything to compare it to that wouldn’t be an insult.

“Like a pig in muck,” William said.

Sebastian tipped his head. “All right.” He paused, then added, “You may be a farmer, but you’re not a hayseed.”

William was silent for the first time since he’d picked up Sebastian. Finally he said, “Are you going to rob me?”

“I’m not a thief,” Sebastian snapped. “Besides, robbing you after you gave me a ride”— Wouldn’t be a kindness —“would be wrong.” He studied the farmer in the dusky light. The clothes were sufficiently worn-out to be a practical choice if a man was going to spend a day traveling along muddy or dusty roads—or they could have been the best clothes the man owned. As soon as he’d heard William speak, he’d assumed the latter. And any would-be thief, after listening to William for a minute, would figure there was nothing easy to steal and either endure the chatter for the length of the journey or escape at the first crossroads that offered an excuse to leave.

All in all, it provided a camouflage against potential predators that didn’t change the resonance of the man’s nature, like a rabbit whose fur changed from brown to white to better match the land when summer turned to winter.

Sebastian looked over his shoulder at the baskets of fruits and vegetables that filled the back of the wagon. “Isn’t there a market closer to your home? You said it’s a day’s journey to the city.”

William nodded. “And today it was a long day’s journey. I usually reach the city well before sunset. Guess those delays were meant for a reason.” He shrugged. “I sell half of what I harvest at the market in my town. The other half I bring up to the city.”

“Why?”

“It’s a kindness.” William hesitated. “Someone told me that what you give to the world comes back to you. I guess there’s truth in that.”

Sebastian looked away. The waning daylight was enough to travel by, but not enough, he hoped, for the farmer to see his face clearly.

He remembered Glorianna, with those clear green eyes focused on him, telling him the same thing. What you give comes back to you, Sebastian. It’s not tit for tat—life isn’t that simple—but what you give always comes back to you.

His heart ached. He missed his cousins. Especially Glorianna. There was a bond between them, something more than he felt with Nadia or Lee. Nothing…carnal. Never that, despite his nature. But her words had always sunk deep into his heart, had been the reason he’d learned to consider human needs as well as his own when he hunted as an incubus. Hearing her words coming from a stranger…

No matter what landscapes she might be walking now, no matter what she might be doing as a rogue Landscaper, Glorianna Belladonna wouldn’t bring terrifying death into a landscape. Guardians and Guides, the world held enough of its own terrors without unleashing more.

“It’s like this,” William said. “A few years ago, things were bad. The farm is good land, and I worked hard, but I could never make things what they could be. Crops were poor, and I couldn’t get a decent price at the market. I turned to drink, and I turned mean. Stone-hearted, I guess you could say. Blamed my neighbors, blamed the merchants, blamed the land. Blamed everyone and felt sorry for myself.

“So one day I packed the wagon and came up to Wizard City. The merchants laughed at the country farmer, and the price offered for what I had in the wagon…Might as well throw it in the street as take what they were offering.

“It was close to sunset, and I was on my way home, since I couldn’t afford to spend the night in the city. I picked up this girl walking along the road. Was going to drive by, but she lifted a hand and asked if she could have a ride to the next bridge. Said it would be a kindness.”

William shook his head. “Don’t know why I stopped. I wasn’t feeling kindly toward anyone. But I gave her a ride. She asked about the produce in the wagon, and I spoke my mind, poured it out like I was draining a festering wound.

“When I was done, she said, ‘There are people in the city who could use the food in this wagon. The poor in the outer circle. The children who are outcast for one reason or another, who feed on despair and never know the sweet taste of hope. A stone heart can only harvest stones. What you give to the world will come back to you.’”

“And I said, ‘Who says so?’ and she said, ‘I do.’”

“‘And who are you?’ And she said—”

“Belladonna,” Sebastian whispered.

William nodded. “Didn’t know what that name meant. Not then. But after I let her off near the next bridge—almost the same place where I met up with you, as a matter of fact—I turned the wagon back to the city. Went to a poor section in the outer circle and sold off my produce for pennies.

“Some of the youngsters couldn’t even scrape up a penny between them for a handful of fruit and a few vegetables.”

Sebastian swallowed hard. There had been times when he’d been one of those children—running wild in the streets, as cunning and dangerous as animals. Then Nadia would arrive and take him back to her home for a few weeks or months—until Koltak showed up and the cycle started again. The children in Aurora, Nadia’s home village, knew what he was, and their name-calling and taunts revealed a nature more vicious and cruel than any creature he’d met in the Den, but being with Nadia meant being with Lee and Glorianna. Their love and acceptance couldn’t erase the cruelty, but without that tempering, he would have become the kind of incubus that was feared—the kind that thought of humans as nothing more than prey.

“So I told them they could have the food in exchange for doing a kindness for someone else,” William continued.

When the farmer didn’t say anything more, Sebastian prodded. “What happened?”

“Things changed,” William said quietly. “Not all at once. It doesn’t happen that way. But I brought up a wagon of produce each week once the land started to ripen and sold it in that section of the city. And things started to change. The children who paid for the food I gave them by doing a kindness for someone else helped old shopkeepers by sweeping the sidewalk or cleaning the shops. Some began to learn the merchant trade and were given cots in the back rooms and food as pay.

“Things changed for me, too. The land became richer. What I brought to the home market got a better price, and I began to prosper. One day at the market, I met a fine woman who wasn’t too proud to be a country farmer’s wife. We’ve got two children now, and that’s a wonder to me.” He paused and cleared his throat, as if emotions and memories had choked him for a moment.