Peter Dickinson - The Ropemaker

She spent the rest of the night wondering how she could persuade the others of the need to hurry. All she could think of to tell them was that she’d had bad dreams about what was happening in the Valley.

They didn’t agree.

That wasn’t enough. Alnor in particular was adamant.

“Not worth the risk,” he said. “The road gets more dangerous every day. We’ve had the luck to pick up a good convoy. The guards are honest, and this new magician knows her business. We’ll be home before winter with time to spare, and that’s all that matters. There’s nothing I can do before the first snow falls, and Meena won’t be sowing her barley until next spring. I’m sorry, Til. You’ll need to produce a stronger reason than just a vague feeling.”

“He’s right, Til,” said Meena. “So let’s enjoy the journey while we can, eh?”

She didn’t glance at Alnor as she spoke, but there were layers of meaning in her smile. She was quite open about her love for him, and her determination to make the most of it for the few weeks she had left to her in this young body. Even Alnor had mostly given up trying to pretend he didn’t feel the same.

And Tahl was relishing the journey for different reasons. He liked traveling in company, making friends, giving a helping hand here and there, asking questions all the time, so easily and unashamedly that people told him the answers, laughing as they did so. If a newcomer joined the convoy one morning, by nightfall he’d know all about them. At one point he even persuaded a glassblower to set up his kiln and show him how it was done, and thus became the proud owner of a small misshapen flask that he had blown himself.

And against these powerful arguments all Tilja had to offer was some dreams she hadn’t really dreamed, and a real, strong reason that she wasn’t allowed to tell them. She tried several times during the day’s march. Soon Alnor refused to listen, and in the end Meena lost her temper, and in a brief flare of the old anger that reduced Tilja to tears told her she was as tiresome as Calico and it was time to stop being a stupid baby wanting its own way and blubbering because she couldn’t have it.

From then on Tilja walked in silent unhappiness, vainly trying to think of some new reason the others might listen to. Tahl walked beside her, for once not chatting but keeping her company, seeming to understand that it was no use trying to cheer her up. In the end he broke the silence.

“You know something you can’t tell us, don’t you, Til?”

She shook her head, not looking at him, but knowing the intelligent, questioning glance that would have gone with the words.

“And there’s a good reason, of course,” he said, just as though she’d told him he was right. “Difficult for you.”

She couldn’t pretend any longer.

“Try not to think about it,” she muttered.

He laughed, and she knew why, and managed to laugh with him. Tahl, of all people, not thinking about something that was puzzling him.

“All right,” he said. “I’ve thought of something else just worth trying.”

The convoy halted well before nightfall and settled into a busy way station. It was still too soon for supper when the boys had finished their kick-fighting.

“Why don’t we go and see if the river’s got anything to tell us?” said Tahl. “There’s just a chance we might pick something up from the Valley, and set Til’s mind at rest.”

“With a hundred other rivers talking away?” said Alnor.

“Oh, go on,” said Meena. “You’re dying to, really. It’s ages since you had a good chat with one of your wet friends.”

Alnor grunted agreement and rose to his feet. They walked down to the river, a good half mile wide at this point, a great smooth expanse of water moving southward under the darkening sky. The first stars were out. One or two lights glimmered along the further shore. A little below the way station a sandspit ran out from the bank.

“That’ll do,” said Alnor. “You two wait here.”

So the two girls settled down at the edge of the water and watched the boys moving out along the sandspit and wading into the shallows where it ended until they were almost waist deep and needing to steady themselves against the press of the current. It was dusk, with the Herald rising bright in the east, and a few other stars faintly showing. The boys stood awhile with bowed heads, motionless dark shapes against the moving flood, then turned and came slowly back along the sandspit and up the bank, deep in serious talk.

“Well,” said Meena. “How are things back home, then?”

“The voice of our river was there indeed,” said Alnor, speaking as he’d used to when he’d been an old man. “It was loud, because the glacier is melting fast, and our river is in spate. There has been fighting beside it. It has carried the bodies of slain men.”

“That means the pass is open,” said Tahl.

The four of them stood in silence. The boys’ drenched clothes dripped steadily onto the ground.

16

Lord Kzuva’s Tower

From then on they traveled alone, making the best speed they could, but limited always by Calico’s needs and their own endurance. Nobody noticed them unless they chose to be noticed, though the further north they traveled the busier the great highway became. Every scrap of possible forage by the roadside was already grazed bare, but there were plenty of well-stocked forage stalls along the way, where they could buy enough for Calico to eat while they took their midday rest. Such was their apparent invisibility that they sometimes wondered whether they could simply have taken what they wanted, unobserved.

But they weren’t certain how far Faheel’s magic protected them from the other magical powers that were now loose in the Empire, especially at night, so for safety they continued to sleep at well-warded way stations, slipping wearily in in the dusk, and away again as the sun rose, unquestioned by anyone.

Opposite Talagh they left the river and turned northwest. Resting on the first foothills they looked back over the plain. There lay the great city, the wounded heart of the Empire. Even at such a distance they could see how it was changed, with the spindling towers from which the Watchers had controlled the great tide of magic now mere stubs, or fallen completely.

Tilja and the others had joined a group of travelers, resting under some shade trees. As they gazed out at this symbol of the enormous change, they were talking in hushed and apprehensive voices about what else might now happen, and swapping stories of the dangers and marvels they had seen.

As it turned out, little of that kind awaited the four on the road to the Pirrim Hills. Nor did the Ropemaker, though this was where Tilja had been expecting at last to meet him. He will choose a place you must pass, Faheel had said, and be waiting for you there. Not the Grand Trunk Road—that was far too thronged— but now that they had turned off toward home, and there were fewer people on the road . . . Indeed, the way stations became less and less busy as travelers reached the turnings to their own destinations. Still the Ropemaker was not among them.

The way station beside the last town before the hills was completely deserted, apart from one lame old man and the chickens he had started to rear in the empty booths.

“No point your going on,” he told Meena.

“You’re telling me there are robbers in the hills?” she asked.

“Nah. They’ll have gone south. Richer pickings for them there. But the Lord Kzuva—he’s Landholder up the other side of the hills—he’s shut off the whole of the North West Plain. He’s not letting anyone in, barring those as belong there or as got business with him. Doesn’t want a lot of strangers crowding in because they’ve heard things are quieter there.”