Good. Good lad. Now, just trot back down along the stream, like, and go on your way.
Jahdo followed orders, running as fast he dared, never looking back until he was a good mile away. He climbed out of the gully and stood for a moment, shaking his head. Something odd had happened, down there by the water. Or had he fallen asleep and dreamt it? Hed seen something, someone Councilman Verrarc and a lady, and they were sneaking out behind her husbands back, and hed sworn to speak not a word of it. Fair enough, and hed certainly keep his promise, especially since he wasnt even sure if it were true or just a dream, or even a rumour. The city was full of rumours, after all. Maybe he hadnt seen a thing. He was sure, as he thought about it, that hed seen no one but Verrarc, sitting by a stream.
By the time hed filled the damp basket with herbs, hed forgotten the councilmans name, and by the time he was heading home, all he retained was a sense of fear, linked to the grassy bank of some stream or other. A snake, perhaps, had startled him; dimly he could remember a sound much like the hiss of a snake.
Although there were a scattering of villages farther west, Cerr Cawnen was the only town worthy of the name in that part of the world, the Rhiddaer (the Freeland), as it was known. In the midst of water meadows lay Loc Vaed, stretching in long green shallows out to blue deeper water and a rocky central island, the Citadel, where stood the fine homes of the best families and, at the very peak, the armoury of the citizen militia. The rest of the town crammed into the shallows: a jumble and welter of houses and shops all perched on pilings or crannogs, joined by little bridges to one another in the rough equivalent of city blocks, which in turn bristled with jetties and rickety stairs leading down to the stretches of open water between them, where leather coracles bobbed on ropes. Toward the edge of town, where the lake rippled over sandy reefs, big logs, sawn in half and sunk on end, studded the surface of the water and served as stepping-stones between the huts and islets. On the lake shore proper, where the ground was reasonably solid, stood a high timber-laced stone wall, ringing the entire lake round. Guards stood on constant duty at the gate and prowled the catwalk above, turning the entire town and lake both into an armed camp. The forty thousand folk of Cerr Cawnen had more than one enemy to fear.
It was late in the day by the time Jahdo trotted through the gates to the stretch of grass that ringed the shore, and he knew hed best hurry. Not only did the memory of his fear still trouble him, but he was worried about his elder sister, whod woken that morning doubled over with pain. Clutching his basket tight, he jumped his way across the shallows from log to log, then climbed some stairs up to a block of buildings, all roofed with living sod or vegetable gardens. Most of the stilt-houses had wide wooden decks round them, and he leapt or clambered from one to another, dodging dogs and goats and small children, ducking under wet laundry hung to dry, calling out a pleasant word here or there to a woman grinding grain in a quern or a man fishing from a window of his house. At the edge of the deeper water he climbed down and helped himself to a coracle tied to a piling. These little round boats were common property, used as needed, left for the next person wherever one landed them. With his basket settled between his knees, Jahdo rowed out to Citadel.
Normally, poor folk like him and his family never lived on the central island, but his clan had occupied two big rooms attached to the town granaries for over a hundred years, ever since the Town Council had chartered the lodgings to them on condition, of course, that they did work most diligently and with all care and patience both of man and weasel to keep down the swarms of rats in the granary. Everyone knew that rodents were dangerous enemies, spreading filth and fleas, befouling much more food than they outright ate. To earn their food, clothing, and other necessities, the Ratters, as their family came to be known, also took their ferrets round from house to house all over town. Wearing little muzzles to keep them from making kills, the ferrets chased the vermin out through holes in the walls, where the family caught the rats in wicker cages and drowned them and their fleas both in the lake not the most pleasant of jobs, but growing up with it made it tolerable.
The squat stone buildings of the public granaries clung to a cliff low down on the citadel island. Getting to the Ratters quarters required some of a ferrets agility: first you climbed up a wooden ladder, then squeezed yourself between two walls and inched along until you made a very sharp turn right into the doorway. When Jahdo came into the big square chamber that served as kitchen, common room, and bedchamber for his parents, he found white-haired Gwira, the herbwoman, brewing herb water in an iron kettle at the hearth. The spicy scent, tinged with resin, hung in the room and mingled with the musky stink of ferrets.
Wheres Mam, Gwira? Jahdo said.
Out with your Da and the weasels. Theyll be back well before dark, she told me. Dont know where Kiels gone to.
Dead-pale but smiling, his elder sister, lanky dark-haired Niffa, was sitting at the rickety plank table nearby and drinking from a wooden bowl. Although she glanced his way, her enormous dark eyes seemed focused on some wider, distant view. A dreamy child, people called her, and at root, very strange. Jahdo merely thought of her as irritating.
You be well?
I am, at that. Niffa blushed as red as the coals. I never were truly ill.
When Jahdo stared in puzzlement, Gwira laughed.
Your sister be a woman now, young Jahdo, and thats all you need to know about it. Its needful for us to set about finding her a husband soon.
Vague boyish rumours of blood and the phases of the moon made Jahdo blush as hard as his sister. He slung the basket onto the table and ran into the bedchamber. At one end of the narrow room lay the jumble of blankets and straw mattresses that he, his elder brother, and his sister slept upon, while at the other stood the maze of wooden pens, strewn with more of the same straw, where the ferrets lived. Since his parents were out hunting, only one ferret, a pregnant female, was at home and surprisingly enough awake in the daytime, scooting on her bottom across the straw as if shed just relieved herself. Jahdo leaned over her slab-sided pen, built high enough to keep the other ferrets out and away from her tangled ball of a nest, all heaped up straw and scraps of cloth. Tek-tek deigned to allow him to stroke her soft fur, then reached out her front paws in a long stretch, casually swiping her bottom across his fingers to mark him as hers.
Oh ych, Tek! Jahdo wiped his hand on his trousers, then remembered the pewter trinket in his pocket. Heres somewhat for your hoard.
When he dropped the disk in, she sniffed it, then hooked the thong with her fangs and, head held high to drag her prize, waddled back to her nest and tucked it safely away. Some ferrets were worse than magpies, stealing shiny things to wad up with rags and bits of old leather into a treasure-ball. They liked socks, too, and stole belt buckles if you didnt watch them, dragging them belt and all into their nests.
As promised, his parents came home not long after, bent under their burdens of caged ferrets and damp traps. Dark-haired Lael, going grey in his beard and moustaches, was a tall man, built like a blacksmith, or so everyone said, while blonde Dera was a mere wisp of a woman even now, after shed borne three healthy children and two that had died in infancy. Yet somehow, when she got in one of her rages, no one thought of her as slight or frail, and her blue eyes always snapped with some new passion or other.
Back, are you? Lael said with a nod at Jahdo. Help me with the weasels.
They carried the cages into the bedroom and opened them one at a time, grabbing each ferret and slipping off its tiny leather hood. As much as they hated the hoods, the ferrets always seemed to hate having them off even more, twisting round and grunting in your lap. For creatures that weighed no more than five pounds at the absolute most, they could be surprisingly strong. Jahdo got the first pair unhooded easily enough, but their biggest hob, Ambo, was always a battle, a frantic wiggle of pushing paws.
Now hold still! Jahdo snapped. I do know you do hate it, but theres naught I can do about it! Here, just let me get the knot undone. Its needful for you to wear them, you know. What if you ate a big meal and then fell asleep in the walls? Wed never get you back, and youd get eaten yourself by one of the dog packs or suchlike. Now hold still! There! Ye gods!
Free at last Ambo shook his sable length and chittered, pausing to rub himself on Jahdos arm, all affection now that his work day was over. He backed up for a running start, then leapt and pranced, jigging round Jahdos ankles. When the boy could finally catch him, he dumped Ambo into the common pen, where the ferret began rummaging round in the straw on some weaselly concern. Dera came in with clean water in a big pottery dish and a wooden bowl of scraps of jerky. She set them down inside the common pen, then laid down some fine chopped meat for Tek-tek.
Food for you later, she announced to Jahdo.
Is Gwira still here, Mam?
She is. Why? Dont you feel well?
Naught like that. I just did wonder.
Well, then, dont stand in the straw like a lump! Come out and see for yourself.
Jahdo followed her out to find his elder brother home, sitting at the far end of the big table and sharing a tankard of beer with Lael. The eldest of the three and almost a man, really, Kiel was a handsome boy, with yellow hair like their mothers, and almost as tall as their father, but slender, with unusually long and delicate fingers as well. At the nearer end of the table, the herbwoman stood, picking over the herbs Jahdo had brought back.
Be those herbs good? he asked.
Perfectly fine, indeed, Gwira said.
The herbwoman stayed to dinner that night, sitting down at the end of the table next to Dera and across from Niffa, where they could all gossip over their sauced pork and bread about possible husbands, while Lael mostly listened, voicing only the occasional concerned opinion about one suitor or another. Kiel and Jahdo pretended indifference, but at the same time, they said not one word to each other, either, lest they miss something. As the second oldest person in Cerr Cawnen, Gwira knew a good bit about most everyone.
Well now, with your pretty face, the old woman said at last, you might nock an arrow for high-flying game, young Niffa. Councilman Verrarcs been known to stop by here for a word or two on occasion.
He does come to see Mam, and Id not be marrying him if he were the last man left alive under the moon.
Although Niffa spoke quietly, cold steel rang in her voice.
I doubt me if hed marry a ratter, love, Dera broke in. So dont you worry.
Beautys bettered a lasss fortune before this. Gwira paused to hack a bit of gristle with her table dagger. Why do you hold him in disdain, lass?
Hes like reaching into a pond and touching a big old slimy newt. I hate him.
Dera and Lael both raised an eyebrow at this outburst. Niffa buried her nose in her cup of watered ale.
Well, there was that scandal, Gwira said. Him and that Raena woman, the chief speakers wife from over in Penli.
That near cost us the alliance, it did, Lael said. A lot of us might not vote for the young cub again, I tell you, after that botch.
Worse for her, it were, Gwira broke in. Her husband did put her aside, didnt he? Who knows what happened to the poor woman after that?
If the young cub did want her as much as all that, Lael growled, he might have married her decently when he had the chance.
I hear Raena did go back to her people in the north in shame. Dera turned thoughtful. But I dont know. It takes two to twist a rope, I always say, and there was somewhat about that woman I never did like. I doubt me if she were but an innocent little chick to Verros fox, like.
Um, well, mayhap. Gwira pursed her lips. Our Niffa might not be able to do better when it come to coin and calling, but theres no doubt about it, she can do much better when it come to character. Ill be putting some thought into this, over the next few days, like.
Think of Demet, Niffa mumbled. The weavers second son.
Everyone laughed, relaxing. Gwira nodded slowly.
Not a bad choice hed be. Good steady man, his father, and prosperous, too.
Jahdo laid his spoon down in his bowl. All this talk of Councilman Verrarc had made him feel sick to his stomach, and cold all over, as well. He should tell Gwira how he felt, he knew, should tell her about about what? There was some incident he wanted to tell her, just because she was old and wiser than anyone else in town. Something about some event out in the meadow. Hadnt something scary happened? Yet he couldnt quite remember what it was, and the moment passed beyond returning.
Yet, not two days later, the boy recovered a brief glimmering of the memory, though not enough to save him. Early on that particular morning, Dera sent Jahdo over to town to claim some eggs and meat that one of the townsfolk owed them.
Your Da be across, too, love, she said. See if you can find him when youre done.
Jahdo had rowed about halfway across the lake, his back turned to his destination, of course, when he saw the ceremonial barge pushing off from Citadel and heading his way. With a few quick strokes he moved off its course and rested at his oars while the squat barge slipped past, painted all silver and red, riding low in the water. In the middle stood a false mast to display the yellow and green banners of Cerr Cawnen, which hung lazily in the warm summer air. At the bow clustered a group of men in rich clothing, embroidered linen shirts belted over knee-length trousers, the common style in this part of the world, with short cloaks thrown back from their shoulders. Jewels and gold winked in the rising sun.
As the barge slid past, Jahdo saw Councilman Verrarc standing at the rail. His heart thudded once as the councilman looked his way. Since only some fifteen feet separated them, Jahdo could clearly see that Verrarc had noticed him, that the councilman frowned, too, and turned to keep him in view for a minute or two after the barge went past. Again Jahdo felt his mouth turn parched, and the sensation made him remember his meadow fear and the image of a woman, wrapped in black and hissing as she spoke. Yet all the boy knew was that in some obscure way Verrarcs image had sparked the memory. With a cold shudder he forced the recollection away and rowed on to town.
The family who owed them for the ratting, the Widow Suka and her son, had slaughtered a goat just the day before. Some hundred feet from the lakes edge, her house perched on a crannog piled up so many hundreds of years before that the construction had turned into a real island, with trees and topsoil of its own, a little garden, and a pen for goats, which, every day in summer, the widows son rowed over to the mainland for the grazing. While she nestled eggs safely in the straw in Jahdos basket and wrapped chunks of goat up in cabbage leaves, Jahdo strolled to the edge of the crannog and looked over to shore.