George Martin - Rogues

Rike clenched his teeth, unable to continue.

Bast reached out and took hold of the boy’s shoulder. He was stiff and rigid as a plank of wood, but Bast gathered him in and put his arms around his shoulders. Gently, because he had seen the boy’s back. They stood there for a long moment, Rike stiff and tight as a bowstring, trembling like a sail tight against the wind.

“Rike,” Bast said softly. “You’re a good boy. Do you know that?”

The boy bent then, sagged against Bast and seemed like he would break himself apart with sobbing. His face was pressed into Bast’s stomach and he said something, but it was muffled and disjointed. Bast made a soft crooning sound of the sort you’d use to calm a horse or soothe a hive of restless bees.

The storm passed, and Rike stepped quickly away and scrubbed at his face roughly with his sleeve. The sky was just starting to tinge red with sunset.

“Right,” Bast said. “It’s time. We’ll make it for your mother. You’ll have to give it to her. River stone works best if it’s given as a gift.”

Rike nodded, not looking up. “What if she won’t wear it?” he asked quietly.

Bast blinked, confused. “She’ll wear it because you gave it to her,” he said.

“What if she doesn’t?” he asked.

Bast opened his mouth, then hesitated and closed it again. He looked up and saw the first of twilight’s stars emerge. He looked down at the boy. He sighed. He wasn’t good at this.

So much was so easy. Glamour was second nature. It was just making folk see what they wanted to see. Fooling folk was simple as singing. Tricking folk and telling lies, it was like breathing.

But this? Convincing someone of the truth that they were too twisted to see? How could you even begin?

It was baffling. These creatures. They were fraught and frayed in their desire. A snake would never poison itself, but these folk made an art of it. They wrapped themselves in fears and wept at being blind. It was infuriating. It was enough to break a heart.

So Bast took the easy way. “It’s part of the magic,” he lied. “When you give it to her, you have to tell her that you made it for her because you love her.”

The boy looked uncomfortable, as if he were trying to swallow a stone.

“It’s essential for the magic,” Bast said firmly. “And then, if you want to make the magic stronger, you need to tell her every day. Once in the morning and once at night.”

The boy nodded, a determined look on his face. “Okay. I can do that.”

“Right then,” Bast said. “Sit down here. Prick your finger.”

Rike did just that. He jabbed his stubby finger and let a bead of blood well up then fall onto the stone.

“Good,” Bast said, sitting down across from the boy. “Now give me the needle.”

Rike handed over the needle. “But you said it just needed—”

“Don’t tell me what I said,” Bast groused. “Hold the stone flat so that the hole faces up.”

Rike did.

“Hold it steady,” Bast said, and pricked his own finger. A slow bead of blood grew. “Don’t move.”

Rike braced the stone with his other hand.

Bast turned his finger, and the drop of blood hung in the air for a moment before falling straight through the hole to strike the greystone underneath.

There was no sound. No stirring in the air. No distant thunder. If anything, it seemed there was a half second of perfect brick-heavy silence in the air. But it was probably nothing more than a brief pause in the wind.

“Is that it?” Rike asked after a moment, clearly expecting something more.

“Yup,” Bast said, licking the blood from his finger with a red, red tongue. Then he worked his mouth a little and spat out the wax he had been chewing. He rolled it between his fingers and handed it to the boy. “Rub this into the stone, then take it to the top of the highest hill you can find. Stay there until the last of the sunset fades, and then give to her tonight.”

Rike’s eyes darted around the horizon, looking for a good hill. Then he leapt from the stone and sprinted off.

Bast was halfway back to the Waystone Inn when he realized he had no idea where his carrots were.

When Bast came in the back door, he could smell bread and beer and simmering stew. Looking around the kitchen he saw crumbs on the breadboard and the lid was off the kettle. Dinner had already been served.

Stepping softly, he peered through the door into the common room. The usual folk sat hunched at the bar, there was Old Cob and Graham, scraping their bowls. The smith’s prentice was running bread along the inside of his bowl, then stuffing it into his mouth a piece at time. Jake spread butter on the last slice of bread, and Shep knocked his empty mug politely against the bar, the hollow sound a question in itself.

Bast bustled through the doorway with a fresh bowl of stew for the smith’s prentice as the innkeeper poured Shep more beer. Collecting the empty bowl, Bast disappeared back into the kitchen, then he came back with another loaf of bread half-sliced and steaming.

“Guess what I caught wind of today?” Old Cob said with the grin of a man who knew he had the freshest news at the table.

“What’s that?” The boy asked around half a mouthful of stew.

Cob reached out and took the heel of the bread, a right he claimed as the oldest person there, despite the fact that he wasn’t actually the oldest, and the fact that nobody else much cared for the heel. Bast suspected he took it because he was proud he still had so many teeth left.

Cob grinned. “Guess,” he said to the boy, then slowly slathered his bread with butter and took a big bite.

“I reckon it’s something about Jessom Williams,” Jake said blithely.

Old Cob glared at him, his mouth full of bread and butter.

“What I heard,” Jake drawled slowly, smiling as Old Cob tried furiously chew his mouth clear, “was that Jessom was out running his traplines and he got jumped by a cougar. Then while he was legging it away, he lost track of hisself and went right over Littlecliff. Busted himself up something fierce.”

Old Cob finally managed to swallow. “You’re thick as a post, Jacob Walker. That ain’t what happened at all. He fell off Littlecliff, but there weren’t a cougar. Cougar ain’t going to attack a full-grown man.”

“It will if he’s all smelling of blood,” Jake insisted. “Which Jessom was, on account of the fact that he was baggin’ up all his game.”

There was a muttering of agreement at this, which obviously irritated Old Cob. “It weren’t a cougar,” he insisted. “He was drunk off his feet. That’s what I heard. Stumbling-lost drunk. That’s the only sense of it. ’Cause Littlecliff ent nowhere near his trapline. Unless you think a cougar chased him for almost a mile …”

Old Cob sat back in his chair then, smug as a judge. Everyone knew Jessom was a bit of a drinker. And while Littlecliff wasn’t really a mile from the Williams’s land, it was too far to be chased by a cougar.

Jake glared venomously at Old Cob, but before he could say anything Graham chimed in. “I heard it was drink too. A couple kids found him while they were playing by the falls. They thought he was dead, and ran to fetch the constable. But he was just head-struck and drunk as a lord. There was all manner of broken glass too. He was cut him up some.”

Old Cob threw his hands up in the air. “Well ain’t that wonderful!” he said, scowling back and forth between Graham and Jake. “Any other parts of my story you’d like to tell afore I’m finished?”

Graham looked taken aback. “I thought you were—”

“I wasn’t finished,” Cob said, as if talking to a simpleton. “I was reelin’ it out slow. I swear. What you folk don’t know about tellin’ stories would fit into a book.”