Дэйв Дункан - Magic Casement

She blinked. The rain must be getting in her eyes, even although Ula was standing behind her holding a leather umbrella.

Aunt Kade was being impossible, chatting with everyone, taking ages.

The captain badly needed a bath, but she was glad when he interrupted all those interminable polite farewells to announce that they were going to miss the tide if they did not go soon.

His ship was even dirtier than he was. And it was so tiny! Inos tried to hold her gown off the grubby deck and tried to hold her breath in that revolting—

“What is that stink?” she demanded in horror. A month of this?

“Bilge!” Aunt Kade positively chuckled. “Try not to get your gown dirty, dear.”

“Dirty?” Inos protested. “We’ll all be pig litter in five minutes.”

“That’s why we brought old clothes for the voyage, dear.”

Then she was being helped—none too gently—down a ladder and into a black and vile hold. The cabin… These were her quarters? A closet! She pulled off the hat and she still could barely stand upright. “This is my cabin?” she wailed at her aunt. “I have to live for weeks in this?”

“Our cabin, dear. And we have two trunks coming, remember. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

Then her father was there, also, and those could not be raindrops in her eyes now and she must not upset him by weeping.

“Safe voyage, my darling.” His voice was gruff.

She tried to smile. “This is exciting.”

He nodded. “It will seem strange, but Kade will take good care of you. I hope old Krasnegar does not seem too horribly small and bleak when you return.”

She swallowed a lump in her throat and it was still there. She had things she wanted to ask him, things she should have asked long since and had not wanted to, and now there was no time.

“Father?” Then she blurted it out. “You truly don’t want me to marry Angilki, do you?”

They were so cramped in that odious little cabin that he hardly had to move in order to put his arms around her and hug her tight. “No, of course not! I’ve told you—it might cause all kinds of trouble with Nordland if you did.”

Relief! The Gods were not as cruel as she had feared.

“But keep your eyes open,” he said.

“For what?” she asked, and the ermine collar was tickling her nose.

He laughed softly. “For some handsome young man of good family. Preferably a younger son, and certainly one with some brains and tact. One who pleases you. One who would be willing to live in this wild, far-off country at your side and help you keep Krasnegar out of the clutches of Nordland and Impire both.”

She looked up and the laugh was not in his eyes. Even in the bad light she could see the yellow. He looked ill!

“Your Majesty!” the captain said urgently from outside the door.

“Tides do not wait for kings, my darling.” Then he was gone.

She was horribly aware of Aunt Kade standing there and she wanted to be alone.

“We can go back up on deck and wave, if you want,” Aunt Kade said quietly.

“There was so much I wanted to say!” Inos was very much afraid she was about to weep. “And I couldn’t say it because there was no time. All those formalities!”

“That’s why we have them, dear.” Kade patted Inos’s arm. “They keep us behaving like royalty.”

Southward lay the hills. On the hills were the herds, and therefore the herders.

Herding was lonely work and usually dull. The cattle and the horses were the first to return to the land in the spring, as soon as the winter hills began to molt into brown. Rack-boned and staggering, they were driven across the causeway and then by gentle stages up to the higher slopes to join as many of the sheep as had survived. There they prospered mightily. They grew fat and sleek and produced young—and also began to develop independence of mind. In particular, they took to hankering after the hayfields and crops. Much of the herdsmen’s time was spent in keeping the livestock away from the farming. Cattle especially were stubborn creatures that could not see why they must graze the scanty grass of the uplands when the valley bottoms were more lush. Undiscouraged, ever hopeful and bovinely stupid, they would spend all day circling around, looking for a new approach. A few stout fences would have made life simpler for the herders, but in Krasnegar the cost of lumber made fences unthinkable. So there were no fences and the dreary contest continued, day after day, year in and year out.

Not long after his return, Rap was ambling the high hills upon a gray gelding named Bluebottle while three large, tangle-haired dogs bounded along at his side. He was wearing beige leather trousers that he had purchased in the spring. Their many patched patches bespoke a long history of previous owners, but they were very comfortable, and he regretted that his ankles were already growing out of them. He carried a shirt tucked in his belt on one side and a lunch poke on the other. Earlier there had been rain to give the world a clean, fresh smell, but now the sun smiled from a cloudless sky, the wind played lazily in the grasses, and a curlew wailed its mournful cry.

Dull! Almost he could have hoped for a wolf or two coming after a lamb or a calf or a long-legged foal, but wolves normally found easier pickings in the summer among the coneys and mice. And even wolves were not very exciting—the dogs took care of them, upon request.

That day Rap was minding the horses. They were not quite so idiotic as the cattle, but their leader was a stallion named Firedragon who had a driving ambition to keep his herd as large as possible. He objected mightily to having its members conscripted and driven off to take their turns at wagon duty. He was willing to forget about the hay crops in the name of freedom, dreaming of some promised land to the south, beyond the reach of men, to which he was determined to lead his people. These tendencies, also, it was Rap’s job to discourage, with the enthusiastic but muddled assistance of his dogs.

The morning had been spent, therefore, in maneuvers, with Firedragon seeking a breakout to the south and Rap persistently cutting him off. At noon the game was postponed for some serious grazing and rolling, and Rap was then able to start thinking about lunch. His viewpoint looked down upon the highway, and it was then he observed a solitary traveler in obvious trouble. Having confirmed that Firedragon had temporarily suspended his planned migration—being presently more interested in one of the mares—Rap pointed Bluebottle down the hill and went off to assist. On the way he donned his shirt to be respectable for human company.

The highway was a barely visible track through the hills, here following a winding valley marked at long intervals by the graves of some who had tried to follow the trail in winter, but otherwise barren of any other sign of mankind. Plodding upon it was the traveler. Some way ahead of him, a saddled horse methodically cropped the grass. Every few minutes it would wander a few steps and return to eating, but those few steps were deceptively effective. The gap between quarry and pursuer was growing no narrower. It certainly never would, unless the horse was unlucky enough to catch its reins in a bush. There were very few bushes.

The wayfarer noted Rap’s approach and stopped to wait for him, undoubtedly with relief. He flinched as the dogs bounded up, but once they had sniffed him thoroughly and decided that he was not a wolf in minstrel’s clothing, they wandered off to inspect the scents upon the road.

Jalon was garbed in the same brown cloak and oversize doublet he had worn when Rap challenged him at the palace gate, and the same baggy hose.

“You are a welcome sight, young man!”