Robin Hobb - Renegade's Magic

Amzil looked at me. I nodded slowly. Tiber approached our small fire carefully, like a stray cat moving into unfamiliar territory. He smiled at me, nodded to the children, and then hunkered down to accept the cup of tea that Amzil gingerly offered him. He seemed disinclined to speak immediately but I could not stand the suspense. I asked him directly, “What brings you out this way?”

He smiled. “Well, you know, Nevare. I’m a scout. I’m scouting.”

“For what?” I knew scouts had various duties, usually defined by whom the commander was. Buel Hitch had been sent on errands to fetch smoked fish, but also to keep a watch on how many Specks were in the area and to watch for signs of highwaymen working the road. Most often, scouts kept in touch with the indigenous populations and acted as liaison with them. Buel had spoken to me of such duties. It was likely that when he’d died, Tiber had inherited them.

“Well, you’d mentioned you’d been attacked and robbed, so I thought I would ride this stretch of road and see what I could see. I’m pleased to tell you I’ve found no signs of robbers or thieves. Whoever attacked you must be long gone. But that’s not my only errand.”

He blew on his hot mug of tea. I waited. “Gettys is in a bit of a stir. The commander is in the infirmary. The doctor says he probably had some sort of a seizure. His mind hasn’t been clear since then. No one was surprised. He’s seemed a bit erratic the last few months. Poor fellow’s on bed rest now, and Captain Gorling has stepped up to command.” He took a sip of tea and nodded to himself. “I like him. He’s not as excitable as Thayer, except when his wife gets to him. He leads the men instead of driving them. The men seem relieved. The very same night the Captain fell ill, we had a bit of a fire in the old jail. Burned through some beams, and the whole building collapsed into the cells below.” He glanced at me and away, glanced up at the croaker bird and then came back to me.

“But how about you?” he asked sociably. “I thought you were going to stay around Gettys for a while. I even dropped by Lieutenant Kester’s house, same night we had all that excitement. I thought I’d visit and see if you might want to hear about being a scout for the regiment. We’re short on scouts right now. In fact, there’s only one. Me. We lost one of our best scouts last summer in the plague.” He paused and looked at me carefully over the rim of his cup as he drank more tea. I said nothing.

“Fellow name of Buel Hitch,” Tiber went on. “He was before your time at the Academy. You wouldn’t have known him there. He was ‘invited to leave’ when I was just a first year, for pretty much the same reasons I was invited to go be a scout, somewhere else. The man couldn’t tolerate bullies. Hitch wasn’t meant to be a standard-issue officer, but he was a man’s man when things got tough. Knew who his friends were. He saved me from a couple of bad mistakes when I first got to Gettys. And stories! The fellow could tell stories all day, craziest tales you ever heard, mostly about the Specks and their magic. He’d make them seem real. Too bad he’s gone now. I think you’d have liked him. I know he’d have liked you.”

The children had fallen silent. Dia and Kara both crept closer to their mother. Amzil put her arms around them. Sem was in the wagon, unobtrusively looking for something. When he stood up, my sling dangled from his hand and he was breathing carefully through his open mouth.

I was still and silent, the mouse frozen by the watchful cat’s stare. Tiber drank off the last of his tea and set the mug down with a regretful sigh. “Well, folks, I have to be on my way. Thanks for a pleasant pause, but I’ve got a job to do. You watch out for those highwaymen, Burvelle. Oh, and I should warn you. When I left town, there was a rumor about some escaped criminal. Said to be dangerous. I’m supposed to be looking for her right now.”

“Really?” I managed to say.

“Really.” He stood up slowly. “So far, not a sign of her. But you be careful.” He lifted his arms over his head, stretched, and then said, “Oh, pardon me, ma’am. Sometimes a scout just gets used to doing things his own way so much that he forgets how people expect him to behave. But that’s what Hitch said he liked best about this duty. Making his own decisions.” He swung his gaze slowly to Sem. “You a good shot with that thing? There’s a place, just down the hill from here, where it opens out into a little meadow. Bet you could get a nice summer rabbit there. But use a smaller rock than the one you’ve got there. That’s big enough to knock a man cold.” He smiled at the boy in a friendly way, and Sem returned him a sickly grin. I thought to myself that Buel had taught Tiber well. Tiber gave the boy a slow wink and then turned to me. “Well, you take care, Nevare. Nice little family you got here.”

“Thank you,” I said reflexively.

“Good evening, ma’am,” he said to Amzil, and doffed his hat briefly, a courtesy that surprised her. He turned and walked away as softly as he had come. Uphill of us, I heard his horse give a soft nicker. Just before he vanished into the surrounding brush, he turned back. “Funny thing, Nevare!” he called back. “I still can’t stand a bully.” Then he turned and walked away.

We stared after him for a time in silence. Sem hopped down off the wagon and came toward me, sling in one hand, stone in the other. “I thought—” he began quietly.

“I know. I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Oh, thank the good god you didn’t,” Amzil said fervently.

In the bush, the croaker bird suddenly rattled all its pinions. I stared at him. He cawed raucously and then cocked his head at me. “I think that balances nicely,” he said. In a smirking voice he added, “And it was interesting to be the good god for a change. Farewell, Nevare.” He lifted his wings wide, launched awkwardly, caught himself, and then ponderously flapped his way to a higher altitude. He circled overhead once and then flew east.

“Save your stone, Sem,” Amzil advised her son. “That’s a carrion bird. We don’t eat them.”

“He was out of my range anyway. What an ugly bird.”

I’d been the only one to hear his words.

That was the last time a god ever spoke to me. And I haven’t felt the touch of the magic since then. But being freed of the unnatural didn’t mean that life became suddenly easy for us. In fact, the next month was very hard. The weather stayed mild, but food was short and the journey uncomfortable. When we went through Dead Town, it was late in the evening. Not a light showed anywhere. Amzil was very quiet for a time. Dia didn’t seem to recognize the place. As we went past the collapse of their old cabin, Kara asked quietly, “Is this where we’re going?”

“No,” Amzil replied. “Anywhere but here.”

And we did not stop.

I lost count of how many ways I found to keep the cart from falling apart. As time went by and we left Gettys farther and farther behind, we began to stop earlier in the evening. Sem and I hunted meat for the pot or caught fish in the river when we came to it. We did not eat well, but we didn’t starve. I told Amzil my tale, in bits, as we sat by the fire in the evenings after the children were asleep. Much of it was not easy for her to hear. But she listened and she accepted it as truth. Then she told me her own tale and it was enlightening to me to hear of the young seamstress who had married the daring and handsome thief. She’d never liked her husband’s trade, but he was what his father had been before him, just as the good god decreed. And they had been happy there, in their own way, in Old Thares before the city guard caught him one night. And I felt a bit ashamed that it was hard for me to hear of her happy times. But I listened and accepted that that was who she had been.