The Stone of Farewell (58 page)

“Be looking yourself,” Binabik said grumpily, but his eyes were fixed warily on the stranger. “It is no troll.” The figure beside the road was very small, wearing a thin hooded cloak. Bare, bluish skin showed where the breeches-legs failed to meet the top of his boots.

“It's a little boy.” After amending his earlier identification, Simon steered Homefinder toward the edge of the road. His two companions followed. “He must be freezing to death!”

As they rode toward him, the child looked up, snow flecking his dark brows and lashes. He stared at the approaching trio, then turned and began to run.

“Stop,” Simon called, “we won't hurt you!”

“Halad, kunde!”
Sludig shouted. The retreating form stopped and turned, staring. Sludig rode a few ells closer, then climbed down from his horse and walked forward slowly.
“Vjer sommen marroven, künde
,
”
he said, extending a hand. The boy stared at him suspiciously, but made no further move toward flight. The child seemed to be no more than seven or eight years old and thin as the handle of a butter churn, judging by the bits of him showing. His hands were full of acorns.

“I'm cold,” the boy said in fair Westerling.

Sludig looked surprised, but smiled and nodded. “Come on, then, lad.” He gently took the acorns and poured them into his cloak pocket, then gathered up the unresisting child in his strong arms. “It's all right, then. We'll help you.” The Rimmersman placed the dark-haired stranger on the front of his saddle, wrapping his cloak around him so that the boy's head seemed to grow from Sludig's now-broad belly. “Can we find a place to make camp now, troll?” he growled.

Binabik nodded. “Of course.”

He urged Qantaqa ahead. The boy watched the wolf with wide but unworried eyes as Simon and Sludig spurred after. Snow was rapidly filling in the hollow where the boy had stood.

As they rode on through the empty town, Sludig brought out his skin of kangkang and let the newcomer have a short drink. The boy coughed, but otherwise seemed unsurprised by the bitter Qanuc liquor. Simon decided he might be older than first appearance made him seem: there was a precision to his movements that made him seem less like a child. Some of his apparent youth, Simon guessed, might be due to his large eyes and slender frame.

“What's your name, lad?” Sludig asked at last.

The boy looked him over calmly. “Vren,” he said at last, the word fluidly and oddly accented. He tugged at the drinking skin, but Sludig shook his head and put it back in his saddle bag.

“‘Friend'?” Simon asked, puzzled.

“‘Vren,' I am thinking he said,” Binabik replied. “It is a Hyrkaman name, and I am thinking he might be a Hyrka.”

“Look at that black hair,” Sludig said. “The color of his skin, too. He is a Hyrka, or I am no Rimmersman. But what is he doing alone in the snow?”

The Hyrkas, Simon knew, were a footloose people accounted good with horses and skilled in games at which other people lost money. He had seen many at the great market in Erchester. “Do the Hyrkas live out here, in the White Waste?”

Sludig frowned. “I've never heard of such—but I have seen many things of late I would have have believed in Elvritshalla. I thought they lived mainly in the cities and on the grasslands with the Thrithings-folk.”

Binabik reached up and patted the boy with a small hand. “So have I been taught, although there are some who also are living beyond the Waste, in the empty steppe-lands to the east.”

After they had ridden farther, Sludig dismounted again to search for signs of habitation. He returned, shaking his head, and went to Vren. The child's brown eyes gazed unflinchingly back at him. “Where do you live?” the Rimmersman asked.

“With Skodi,” was the reply.

“Is that near?” Binabik asked. The boy shrugged. “Where are your parents?” The gesture was repeated.

The troll turned to his companions. “Perhaps Skodi is the name of his mother. Or it might be a name of some other town name near to Grinsaby-village. It is also being possible he has strayed from a caravan of wagons—although these roads, I have sureness, are not much used at the best of times. How could he survive long in fearful winter days like these... ?” He shrugged, a movement oddly similar to the child's.

“Will he stay with us?” Simon asked. Sludig made an exasperated noise but said nothing. Simon turned on the Rimmersman angrily. “We can't leave him here to die!”

Binabik waved a placating finger. “No, do not fear that we would. In any case, I suspect that there must be more people than Vren who are living here.”

Sludig stood up. “The troll is right: there must be folk here. Anyway, the idea of taking a child with us is foolish.”

“That is what some were saying of Simon,” Binabik responded quietly. “But I am having agreement with your first statement. Let us find his home.”

“He can ride with me for a while,” Simon said. The Rimmersman made a wry face, but handed over the unresisting child. Simon wrapped the boy in his cloak as Sludig had done.

“Sleep now, Vren,” he whispered. The wind moaned through the ruined houses. “You're with friends, now. We'll take you home.”

The boy stared back at him, solemn as a petty cleric at a public ceremony. A small hand snaked out from beneath the jacket to pat Homefinder's back. With Vren's slender form resting against his chest, Simon took his reins in one hand so he could drape an arm around the boy's midsection. He felt very old and very responsible.

Will I ever be a father?
he wondered as they tramped on through the gathering dark.
Have sons?
He thought about it for a moment.
Daughters?

All the people he knew, it seemed, had lost their fathers—Binabik's in a snowslide, Prince Josua's to old age. Jeremias the chandler's boy, Simon remembered, had lost his to the chest-fever; Princess Miriamele's sire might as well be dead. He thought about his own father, drowned before he was born. Were fathers just that way, like cats and dogs, making children and then going away?

“Sludig!” he called, “do you have a father?”

The Rimmersman turned, an irritated expression on his face. “What do you mean by that, boy?”

“I mean is he alive?”

“For all I know,” the Rimmersman snorted. “And little I care, either. The old devil could be in Hell and it would not bother me.” He turned back to the snow-shrouded road.

I
will not be a father like that,
Simon decided, clutching the child a little closer. Vren moved uneasily beneath Simon's cloak.
I'll stay with my son. We'll have a home, and I won't go away.

But who would be the mother? A series of confusing images, random as snowflakes, flurried before his mind's eye: Miriamele distant on her tower balcony at the Hayholt, the maid Hepzibah, cross old Rachel, and angry-eyed Lady Vorzheva. And where would his home be? He looked around at the vast whiteness of the Waste and the approaching shadow of Aldheorte. How could anyone hope to stay in one place in this mad world? To promise that to a child would be a lie. Home? He would be lucky to find a place to get out of the wind for a night.

His unhappy laugh set Vren to squirming; Simon pulled the cloak tighter around them both.

 

As they approached the eastern outskirts of Grinsaby they still had not seen a living soul. Neither had there been any evidence of recent habitation. They had questioned Vren closely, but had been unable to elicit any information other than the name “Skodi.”

“Is Skodi your father?” Simon asked.

“It is a woman's name,” Sludig offered. “A Rimmerswoman's name.”

Simon tried again. “Is Skodi your mother?”

The boy shook his head. “I live with Skodi,” he said, his words so clear despite the accent that Simon wondered again if the boy was not older than they had guessed.

There were still a few desolate settlements perched among the low hills along the White Way, but they were appearing more and more infrequently. Night had come on, filling the spaces between trees with inky shadows. The company had ridden too long—and too far past eating-time by Simon's reckoning. Darkness now made their search impractical. Binabik was just setting a pitchy pine limb alight to use as a torch when Simon saw a gleam of light through the forest, some distance from the road.

“Look there!” he cried. “I think it's a fire!” The distant white-blanketed trees seemed to glow redly.

“Skodi's house! Skodi's house!” the boy said, bouncing so that Simon had to restrain him. “She'll be happy!”

The company sat for a moment, eyeing the flickering light.

“We go carefully,” Sludig said, flexing the fingers that clutched his Qanuc spear. “It is a damned odd place to live. We have no assurance these folks will be friendly.”

Simon felt a sudden inner chill at Sludig's words. If only Thorn were reliable enough for him to carry at his side! He felt his bone knife in its scabbard and was reassured.

“I will ride ahead,” Binabik said. “I am smaller and Qantaqa is more quiet. We will go to have a look.” He murmured a word; the wolf slid off the road through the long shadows, her tail waving like a puff of smoke.

A few minutes passed. Simon and Sludig rode slowly along the snowy downs, not talking. Staring at the warm light that shimmered in the treetops, Simon had fallen into a sort of shallow dream when he was startled by the troll's abrupt reappearance. Qantaqa grinned hugely, her red tongue hanging from her mouth.

“It is an old abbey, I am thinking,” Binabik said, his face almost hidden in the darkness of his hood. “There is a bonfire in the dooryard and several people who are around it, but they look to be children. I was seeing no horses, no sign of anyone waiting to ambush.”

They rode quietly forward to the crest of a low hill. The fire burned before them at the bottom of a tree-lined clearing, surrounded by small, dancing silhouettes. Behind them loomed the red-tinted stone walls and cracked mortar of the abbey. It was an old building that had suffered beneath the weather's rough handling: the long roof had collapsed in several places, the holes gaping at the stars like mouths. Many of the surrounding trees also seemed to have pushed their limbs right through the small windows, as though trying to escape the cold.

As they sat looking, Vren slithered free beneath Simon's arm and hopped down from the saddle, tumbling into the show. He stood, shaking like a dog, then pelted down the hill toward the bonfire. Some of the small shapes turned at his approach with glad cries. Vren stood among them for a moment, waving his arms excitedly, then pushed through the abbey's front door and disappeared into the warm glow.

When long moments had passed and no one came back out again, Simon looked inquiringly at Binabik and Sludig.

“It is certainly seeming to be his home,” Binabik said.

“Should we go on our way?” Simon asked, hoping they would say no. Sludig looked him over, then grunted in exasperation.

“It would be foolish to pass the chance of a warm night,” the Rimmersman said grudgingly. “And we are ready to make camp. But no word of who we are or what we do. We are soldiers run away from the garrison at Skoggey, should any ask.”

Binabik smiled. “I approve of your logic, although I am doubting I can be mistaken for a Rimmserman warrior. Let us go and see Vren's home.”

They cantered down into the dell. The small figures, perhaps half a dozen in all, had resumed their dancing game, but as Simon and the others approached they paused and fell silent. They were only raggedly-dressed children, as Binabik had suggested.

All eyes now turned to the new arrivals. Simon felt himself subjected to a thorough scrutiny. The children seemed to range in age from three or four up to Vren's age or a little older, and seemed to be of no one type. There was a little girl who shared Vren's black hair and dark eyes, but also two or three others so fair they could be nothing but Rimmersgarders. All wore expressions of wide-eyed caution. As Simon and his friends dismounted, heads turned almost in unison to watch. No one spoke.

“Hello,” Simon said. The boy nearest him stared sullenly, his face lapped in firelight. “Is your mother here?” The boy continued to stare.

“The child we brought went inside,” Sludig said. “That is undoubtedly where the grown folk are.” He hefted his spear thoughtfully and a half-dozen pairs of eyes warily followed his movement. The Rimmersman took the spear with him toward the abbey door which Vren had swung shut behind him, then propped it against the pitted mortar of the wall.

He gave his silent audience a meaningful look. “No one may touch this,” he said. “Understood?
Gjal es, kunden!”
He patted his scabbarded sword, then lifted a fist and thumped on the door. Simon looked back at Thorn, a hide-wrapped bundle on one of the packhorses. He wondered whether he should bring it with him, but decided that would draw more attention than was best. Still, it rankled. So many sacrifices to get the black sword, just to leave it strapped to the saddle like an old broomstick.

“Binabik,” he said quietly, pointing at the concealed sword. “Do you think... ?”

The troll shook his head. “Little need for concern, I am certain,” the troll whispered. “In any case, even if these children were to steal it, I am guessing they would have a difficult time carrying it away.”

The heavy door swung slowly open. Little Vren stood in the doorway.

“Come in, you men. Skodi says come in.”

Binabik dismounted. Qantaqa sniffed the air for a moment, then bounded away in the direction they had come. The children by the fire watched her departure raptly.