"Have it your way. I still think I could be an asset. Let me travel with you for, say, a couple of days: after that, if I don't prove my worth, we'll say farewell. Fair enough?"
"And if I don't agree?"
"I'd follow you anyway. And you wouldn't like any disruption to your plans, would you?"
That sounded like a veiled threat. Welcome me into the bosom of your little family, otherwise I'll throw firecrackers at the bear, interrupt your mind-reading sessions and tell everyone you're a girl. . . .
If I'd had more time to think, had considered how Ky-Lin could perhaps have come up with a better solution, I probably wouldn't have caved in so easily. As it was I was too tired to argue.
"Two days, then. We're off at dawn. Walking—until of course your grandiose schemes come to pass," I added nastily.
He had never been one to recognize sarcasm. Instead he beamed, giving me a glimpse of the handsome lad he had become, in spite of the rags.
"Thanks. I sort of thought you might see it my way eventually. We'll make a great team, you and I, Summer. You want to get ahead in the world, make some money, then I'm your man. You're really quite an attractive girl in your own fashion and if you let your hair grow and—"
"Have you eaten?" I was furious at his condescension. "Here you are!" I flung a couple of coins in his direction. "Don't disturb us when you come back. I'm sorry there isn't another blanket, but you could always go outside to the woodpile and curl up with Bear!"
But as it happened he did wake us, and that long before dawn.
I heard someone stumbling around, knocking over a stool, treading on my foot, groaning. It must have been around four in the morning, and I reckoned he must have spent most of his money on rice wine and was too drunk to keep quiet. Sitting up, I unwrapped myself and lit one of the oil lamps.
"Can't you keep quiet?" I hissed. "Some of us are—why, whatever's the matter? Are you sick?"
Even by the scanty light I could see his face had a greenish cast, and he was swaying from side to side, wringing his hands.
He shook his head, less in negation than in what seemed an effort to clear it of some awful memory.
"No, no, it's nothing like that. . . ." Even his voice was different: he sounded like a child afraid of the dark.
"Then, what? Here, sit down before you fall down. I've got some water—"
He waved it away. "No thanks. It's just that . . . I've never seen . . . Oh, Summer, it was terrible! You wouldn't believe—" and to my complete consternation he broke down and wept noisily. "We must get away, now!"
All animosity forgotten, I went over and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Tell me. Take your time, but I want to know. . . ."
I held my lantern high over the form of the sleeping bear, curled into a ball like any domestic cat, paws over his nose and snoring a little.
"Wake up, Bear," I said. "Time to go."
He opened his small black eyes, blinked, yawned and stretched. "Why go in dark? Wait till sun."
"No, Bear; we move now. Village not safe anymore. There are—there are men who seek to hurt you. Come, quick: we are ready."
"You say go, we go." He lumbered to his feet and had a good scratch, his loose skin moving up and down as if it were an extra coat. "Why men want to hurt Bear? Bear not do wrong. . . ."
No, Bear, I thought: you wouldn't think it wrong. To you it was the law by which you had been taught to live.
Dickon had told me how a man had come stumbling into the eating house where he had been sitting, yelling and shouting, pointing down the street towards the thatched hut where the bear owner had been imprisoned overnight. The clientele had all streamed out and followed the man to a terrible sight. The flimsy thatch on the low roof had been torn away, and inside lay the prisoner, the skin flayed from his back, his throat chewed open.
No, Bear, I said to myself again, you didn't do wrong. But I watched with a squeeze of horror in my heart as the animal completed his toilet by licking the last of the dried blood from his claws.
We made the best speed we could that day and the next, but to my great relief no one seemed to have followed us. There was no reason why they should, of course; they would assume that the bear had killed his master and then fled into the wilderness. All the same, I didn't want anyone to see the animal until I had changed his appearance a little. To that end he had a thorough wash and brush and, at Ky-Lin's suggestion, I used some wood dye to darken his mask and paint a broad stripe down his back, like a badger's. In truth though, washing and brushing and good food made more alteration than anything else: after a few days I doubt anyone—even his old master—would have recognized him.
The thought of what he had done still gave me shivers, but once again it was Ky-Lin, the creature who could not even bend a blade of grass, who understood better than I.
"He is a child," he said. "In his last incarnation he was probably a neglected baby never taught right from wrong and died before he learnt. The Great-One-Who-Understands-All would not blame him. He has a chance now to learn from us that we all owe each other something and that includes living together in a social harmony. He was just removing something that had hurt him—like you humans think nothing of swatting a wasp."
I managed a weak smile. "Wasps don't sting you," I said. "They wouldn't dare!"
He fluffed out his plumed tail. "The colors put them off," he said, perfectly serious. "Besides," he added: "Like your Son-of-God, we are taught to turn the other cheek. One good thing has come out of this."
"What?"
"The bear's owner has been sent away before he can compound his crimes. Perhaps the Great One will bring him back as a bear, so that next time he will have learnt and will be redeemed to a higher plane."
I didn't feel I was competent to enter into a religious discussion with Ky-Lin; all I was grateful for was that Bear was gentle and sweet-tempered with us, and willingly cooperated in perfecting our act.
Tug did his acrobatics first, then Bear ambled in, wearing a soft red collar I had made for him, decorated with little bells. Tug coaxed a weird tune or two out of the pipe I had bought for him, the bear danced and when he had finished dropped to all fours. Tug climbed on his back with a shivering, eyes-tight-shut-all-the-time Growch in his arms. Bear rose to his hind legs as Tug climbed up his back and, having perfect balance, the boy stood on the bear's shoulders, holding Growch aloft as Bear slowly clapped his paws together. Needless to say, the only one who needed persuasion, bribes and petting, was Growch.
"S'not dignified," he said, "for the star performer, the talkin' dog, to be 'ung up in the air like so much washin'. 'Sides, makes me all dizzy!"
"But just listen to the applause," I said slyly. "How many of your kind do you know that could be as brave? And just look at all the fine meals we're having, and all because of you. . . ."
After that he didn't grumble as much, but he still kept his eyes tightly shut.
I kept Ky-Lin a secret from Dickon still, and although the latter now took over the job of selecting trinkets from the audience for me, dressed in a multicolored costume I had sewn from scraps of colored silks and cottons I had bargained for, he was still mystified at my "guesses," as he called them.
For the most part Ky-Lin lived either in the lining of my jacket or in the hood of my cloak, though if we had a room to ourselves at night, he would come out and prance around like a tiny pony, all fluffed up and full of energy. Separate rooms were becoming an increasing problem, though, as we neared the city. At most, with the increasing traffic, we were making only a few miles a day, and accommodation in the villages we rested at was becoming difficult to find, bespoke by those who came first. Sometimes we were lucky, sometimes not.
On one of the luckier occasions we were only twenty miles short of the city: we tried the houses on the edges of the village first and, just as it started to rain—a rain that would last for two, soaking days—we found a widow woman willing to rent us her house.
Through Ky-Lin I learned that her daughter-in-law was expecting her first and had taken to her bed, so the woman was going to keep house for her son till the baby appeared. It was less costly to hire than I thought, and I asked Ky-Lin (who had done the bargaining in my voice) just why.
"I told her that on the third day from now she would be nursing a fine, healthy grandson on her knee."
"Wasn't that chancing it a bit? Supposing it arrives tomorrow and it's a girl?"
"It won't and it won't be."
I opened my mouth and shut it again. By now I was learning not to question Ky-Lin: he was always right.
We spent a restful night. The house, if you could call it that, had a largish room, partitioned off by a screen to make a living and sleeping area. Outside was a woodshed, where Bear was comfortable enough. I lit the small brazier and cooked a meal I had sent Dickon out for: ubiquitous rice, beans, and some vegetables. Out of respect for Ky-Lin I kept our consumption of meat to a minimum (except for Growch). Him I kept content with a huge ham bone I had been saving, and Bear was perfectly happy with beans and some pancakes I made.
In the morning it was still raining, so I decided to do some sewing. I thought that my cloak, warm and comfortable as it was, needed tarting up a little for our performances, so had sketched a design of a blue dragon I had seen on a broken-down temple, bought a piece of sky-blue silk and now settled down to cut it out.
Suddenly I felt a cold breath touch my cheek, as though sleet had been chucked in my face. At the same time my ring stabbed like a pinprick and my stomach throbbed in sympathy. I had a vision of great mountains, like those that marched alongside our daily travels, but these were much nearer, rearing up until they filled the sky, the snow glittering on their sides, their tops clouded by the spinning of wind-driven flakes like a permanent veil. I saw a blue dragon, I saw a black dragon—
"Whassa matter?" said Growch. "Look like you seen a ghost. . . . Hey, you all right? That ol' stummick again? Too many of those black beans; been fartin' meself all mornin'."
"Nothing to do with the beans," I said, by now doubled over in pain, "I'll be better in a moment. . . ."
But I wasn't. It was worse by the minute, like I used to get with my monthly show, only sharper.
Ky-Lin whispered urgently in my ear. "Send Dickon out for a drink. Tell him you have woman's trouble and wish to be alone for a while. He'll go if you give him some coin: the rain's eased off a bit."
I gave him enough to get drunk twice over, and dragged myself off to my pallet in the partitioned part of the room. I heard Ky-Lin speak to Tug, and a moment later the boy had brought in both the little oil lamp and our own stronger lantern.
"Lie down," said Ky-Lin. "Take your clothes off and lie under the blanket—"
"Tug?"
"He has known all along you were a girl. You washed him once in a river, so he says, and you all got so wet your outline was unmistakable. He's never questioned it: I need him now to help me. Don't worry: it means nothing to him at his age."
"It hurts," I whimpered like a child.
"Not for long," and he spoke to Tug, and a moment or two later one of the opium pills I had kept in my pouch, just in case, was pushed into my mouth, followed by a draught of cool water.
I undressed with difficulty and lay on my back, as instructed by Ky-Lin. Then I was told to rub my ring in a circular movement round my navel, and whether it was the pill or that, or both, the pain diminished and I felt sleepy and relaxed. I began to fantasize. I saw again the cottage where I was born, the forest and river where I played as a child; I could taste the honey cakes my mother gave me, remembered the little church where the mural of the Last Judgment faded gently on either side of the altar. A knight rode by, a handsome knight; a white horse gambolled in surf no whiter than she; I heard a tortoise rustle away into the undergrowth and the clap of a pigeon's wings; I was flying, and then suddenly the dream changed. A castle whose stones were stained with the sins before committed, a thin, wheedling voice: "Tell me a story. . . ."
"Gently, gently," said a voice in my ear. "Nearly over . . ."
I dreamt again. A dog was barking, his voice ringing through woodland; I flew once more, then crashed to the ground, bruised and breathless; waves dragged at my clothes, I was so cold, so cold—
No, it was only my stomach that was cold, numbing the pain. . . .
"Rest, rest, lie still. Remember the Place of Stones and what happened there a year ago today?"
Yes, yes, of course I remembered! I was looking for a pig, a large pig, who had disappeared. It was All Hallows' Eve, exactly a year since I had left home, and the air about crackled with mystery and magic. And then I had found my pig, my dearest pig, and had kissed him and suddenly there was a stranger in his place, a dark stranger—but no! it was a dragon, a black dragon with claws that could rend me in twain—
"Just a minute more . . ."
And the dragon was the stranger, no stranger, again. And he had enfolded me in his arms. He had kissed me, lain with me, and a hot flood of feeling had filled me like an empty skin waiting to be filled and the pain had been so exquisite that I had cried out—
"Aaahhh . . ."
But when I opened my eyes he was a dragon again and had flown away into the east, his shadow passing across the moon, and I was alone. . . .
A warm tongue caressed my cheek and my nose was filled with the smell of warm, hacky breath. "Better, Summer dear?"
But I wasn't Summer: I was Talitha.
He
had called me Talitha, and he was . . . he was Jasper, Master of Many Treasures.
"Wake up!" barked Growch.
"All over," said Ky-Lin. "No more pain."
I tried to sit up, but there was a sort of stitchy feeling in my stomach. Tug's hands raised my head, propped something behind it and fed me some welcome, warming broth. Then I was lying down again, a blanket tucked under my chin.