The Luck Of The Wheels Read online

  He sighed. 'Maybe not. What do you want to do? Take Willow and Goat back to Keddi, give the money back, and get away from Loveran and its Duke?'

  'And go where?' She squared her shoulders, took the quilt from him. 'No. We'll go on. There can't be many patrols, or there'd be no Tamshin at all. Maybe we won't meet any more. And if we do ... well, the Tamshin survive. We will, too.'

  'Maybe,' he said. He touched her, but she pulled away, too upset to share her fears. He sighed and let her go. Still cradling his ribs, he turned, to find Willow and Goat staring at them. The scrutiny suddenly annoyed him.

  'Can't you see there's work to do?' he demanded. 'Willow, go in the wagon and put together something we can eat. Goat, tidy up the camp. I'm going for the horses. The sooner we're on the road, the better.'

  Both young faces clouded with rebellion, but they grudgingly moved to their chores. Vandien ignored them as he got the grain sack and went after the team. Sigmund stopped cropping the grasses and lifted his great head as soon as Vandien appeared. Sigurd only swung his body so that his broad rump was toward him. Vandien wasn't fooled. He shook the grain sack once. Sigmund came eagerly, his muzzle nudging Vandien's shoulder, and Sigurd trailed reluctantly behind him.

  A new quarrel had already broken out at the wagon. Willow's face was pink, while Goat glowed with satisfaction. Ki stood between them, fists on hips. 'The wagon seat holds three people. Someone has to ride inside. That's all. You two work it out.'

  Vandien skirted the group, moving the horses into their traces. Ki turned her back on Willow as she indignantly exclaimed, 'But why should I have to ride inside the stuffy old wagon all day? Why can't we take turns, or Goat walk beside the wagon or something?'

  'My father paid for me to travel comfortably,' Goat was saying at the same time.

  Vandien parceled out grain to the team as Ki lifted the heavy harness into place. 'Maybe,' Vandien said softly, 'we could put them both into the wagon, and shut the door behind the seat so we didn't have to listen to them.'

  'Somehow I think we'd still hear them.' Ki tightened the last strap. 'But I know someone who'd better ride inside. You.'

  'Me?'

  'Yes. You look green. Does it hurt much?'

  'Enough to make me want to puke, but I know that would hurt even more.'

  Ki started to laugh, stopped abruptly. He knew what she was thinking. 'Not a damn thing we could do for them. The rousters' horses are twice as fast as Sigurd and Sigmund. And even if you could have warned them, where could they hide? Don't let it poison you.'

  Ki shook her head, not looking at him. He put his hand on her shoulder and leaned on her as they went to the wagon's door.

  Goat sat firmly on the wagon seat. Willow glowered up at him. Neither Vandien nor Ki said a word as they passed.

  'It's not fair!' Willow burst out suddenly, and then fell silent as she watched Vandien clamber slowly up the wagon step and inside. 'Is he going to ride in there?' she suddenly demanded.

  'Yes,' Ki admitted. 'So I suppose you can both ride up front with me. I'll sit in the middle so you don't have to look at one another.'

  'No. I'll keep Vandien company, I guess.'

  Willow's sudden capitulation startled Ki, but it was a relief, too. The idea of spending the day seated between two squabbling children hadn't been pleasant. But as she mounted the wagon, she considered that spending the day alone with Goat was not a happy alternative. He was already holding the reins.

  'I'm driving now, all right?' he said as she seated herself beside him.

  'No.' Ki tugged the reins from his grasp and kicked the brake off. She shook the reins and the greys stepped out. The wagon lurched from the turfy roadside back up onto the roadbed. After the shade by the spring, the sun was very bright. Ki squinted down the long, empty road.

  After a long stretch of boring prairie, Goat asked suddenly, Are you so mad you aren't going to talk to me all day?'

  Ki considered it. 'Perhaps.'

  'Because of the Tamshin?'

  'Yes.'

  A whimper came into Goat's voice. 'But I thought I was helping. It saved your life, you know that. Those Brurjans were about to make porridge of Vandien.'

  Ki felt no mercy for him. 'You know that, do you?' she asked sarcastically. 'You know so much of Brurjans, do you? I'd have said they were just about to ask us for a bribe.'

  'And you'd have been wrong!' Goat broke in suddenly. There was no whimper to his voice now, only a boy's wild anger. Allikata had decided it would be interesting to break Vandien up slowly, to see how much pain he could take. And one of the Humans, it was his turn to be first at the women, and he was wondering if you'd fight or weep.'

  There was a savage satisfaction in his voice that chilled Ki. Against her will she turned to meet his pale eyes, more yellow than brown. She did not like to admit her disgust was tinged with fear.

  'Believe your own wild stories if you like,' she began in a shaky voice.

  'I believe what I know, and I know more than you like. More than anyone likes, and so they hate me. Would you like to hate me more? Then I'll warn you that it isn't wise to leave Vandien and Willow alone in the wagon together. Not when she is wondering if he would protect her if the Brurjans came again, and he is wondering if he is as old as he feels. Young enough to worry over foolish things ... isn't that what you told him?'

  For an instant Ki was confused. Then a killing fury gripped her. So the boy had been awake last night, and listening to them. Blood suffused her face suddenly. And watching them, too? The team tossed their heads, baffled by the trembling that came down the reins to them. She would not strike him. She would force herself to remember that he was only a boy. But ...

  'If ever ...' Anger made her voice crack. 'If ever you spy upon us like that again, I shall ...'

  'Shall what?' Gotheris demanded spitefully. He stared at her. 'What can you do to me? You already hate me. Every time you think of me, you are filled with annoyance and irritation. But you'll keep your contract, you'll take me safely to Villena. No matter how horrid I am, you'll give me to my uncle. No matter how nice I am, either.'

  A different note entered the boy's voice on his final words. For a long time Ki drove in silence. There were more trees now, in scattered groves set back from the road. Perhaps the remains of failed farming efforts. When she trusted herself to speak, she said, 'I don't think I hate you, Gotheris. Much of what you do makes me angry, but ... what's that?'

  'That' was something in the distance, a scatter of objects beside and upon the road. They moved erratically. Ki settled back on the seat. 'Looks like someone's herd of swine loose in the road. Rolling in the dust.'

  'Close enough,' Gotheris observed heartlessly. 'Tamshin.'

  At his words Ki stood, to peer ahead, and then startled the team with a cry. She slapped the reins on the grey backs, and the horses broke into a ponderous trot and then a heavy canter. She drove them standing, swaying with their rhythm. The entry to the caravan slid open behind her. Willow peered out. 'What's the matter?' she demanded. Ki didn't answer. The road stretched ever longer before her, making it seem as though she would never arrive.

  When she did get there, she was too late. She pulled the team in to keep them from trampling the first of the bodies. From the way they lay, it was apparent the Tamshin had been moving when the rousters caught up with them. These were the stragglers, who had fallen as they fled, the first victims of the scarlet hooves and blades.

  Ki stood frozen, staring down at them. Too vivid were the memories they stirred, of other bodies on a dusty road, of a man and two children she had called hers. Behind her she heard Willow's rising pants, the beginning of hysteria. Beside her, Goat stirred restively and complained, 'I smell shit.'

  'Shut up.' Ki's voice was dispassionate. 'Willow. Close the door. And don't waken Vandien. He doesn't need this.'

  She booted the brake on, wrapped the reins about its handle. Slowly she dismounted and walked over to the first body. The bloodstains on the pale robe were already
turning brown in the heat of the sun. There was no need to check for signs of life. Flies buzzed angrily as she turned the body over. She refused to look into the face. With averted eyes, she lifted the shoulders and dragged the body from the road some little distance to the paltry shade of a dying oak. Beyond it was a scorched area where long ago a house might once have stood. She was too heartsick to be curious about it. Slowly she walked back to the road, went to the next body. A child. Unmindful of the blood and feces that fouled his little body, she picked him up and carried him to place him by the other. Goat watched her avidly from the wagon, silent but absorbed in her actions. She paid no attention to him.

  She had moved the wagon forward and started to lift the shoulders of a third corpse when the woman came to meet her. She was Tamshin, tall and willowy, but the grace was gone from her movements. Her face was bruised to blackness, and blood had clotted in her long hair. Her thick accent and swollen lips made her hard to understand.

  'Stop. Stop, please. Leave them. Leave us and go away.'

  Ki lifted her eyes to meet the woman's, but she turned her head aside, refusing the communion of grief.

  'I would help you,' Ki offered softly. 'With the dead and with the injured. I have food, water, and bandages.'

  A boy came up to stand beside the woman. His eyes were wide and empty. Ki glanced up the road, saw other survivors busy among the dead. They made not a sound.

  'No.' The woman spoke with difficulty, swayed and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. He stood steady beneath her weight. 'No. Go away. We are Tamshin, our dead are Tamshin. Go away.'

  'Please,' Ki said. 'There are so many ...'

  'You are ...' The woman searched for the word. 'Unclean. You must not touch our dead. Go away.'

  'I understand.' Ki backed slowly away and stood at the side of the road as the woman and boy bent over the body of an old man. With difficulty they dragged him from the road.

  'Your way is clear now,' the woman said. 'Go.'

  'May I leave you water?'

  'Unclean. Unclean! Go away!' The woman screamed the last words, and suddenly began to sob.

  Ki spun away from her and fled toward the wagon. As she reached it Vandien stepped out suddenly and caught her in his arms. He held her close. 'You should have called me,' he said into her hair.

  'I didn't want you to ... They don't want our help. We desecrate their dead. They want us to go.'

  'Then we'll go. It's the only thing we can do for them, Ki.'

  She nodded slowly. He followed her up onto the wagon's high seat, moved Goat over with a glance. He took up the reins and kicked off the brake. For once Ki said nothing about his driving. Only Goat dared to speak. Leaning forward to peer up into Ki's striken face, he said, 'You see how they are? Ungrateful. And filthy. You smell terrible.'

  'Shut up, Goat,' said Vandien.

  FIVE

  'Don't touch that.' Goat slowly drew his hand back from the whip in its socket. 'All you do is boss me around,' he complained.

  'Right.'

  It's like being shut in a box, thought Ki, while someone keeps hammering on the top. Goat's nagging and Vandien's sotto voice replies counterpointed the annoying chirring of the night insects. She moved closer to Vandien, and despite the muggy evening, took comfort in his warmth. He should have stopped for the night hours ago. Perhaps Vandien was trying to make up for the time lost this morning. Perhaps he dreaded the necessary conversation and expected squabbles. Soon they would have to; the big horses needed their rest. Sigurd tossed his head in annoyance, feeling for more slack in the reins.

  'You don't have to keep the reins so firm; they know what they're doing,' she chided Vandien.

  He roused at the first words she had spoken in hours. 'Feeling better?' he asked.

  'No. Just more numb. I hate what happened, but there's no way to undo it.'

  'Vandien?' Goat started in again.

  'No,' Vandien replied pleasantly.

  The boy turned his face from them, tightness in every muscle of his back. Something in the way he bowed his head touched Ki. She took pity on him. 'What is it, Goat?'

  He cleared his throat but his voice still choked. 'So what should I have done? I thought they would kill us all.'

  Vandien answered, his deep voice soft. 'Kept silent. Waited. I know it would have been hard. But it's better to hold back your top stakes until you know what your enemy is betting against it.'

  'If they had been going to kill us ... if you had known they were ... would you have told them about the Tamshin?'

  'I don't know.' Raw honesty from Vandien. 'It's hard to say what I'd do if faced with death, especially painful death. Even harder to say what I'd do if I knew I could keep my friends from death by betraying strangers. I'd like to say I'd go down fighting and take a few with me. But from what I know of Brurjans, I wouldn't have much of a chance.' He glanced past Ki to the boy, trying to see if his words were making any impact. 'It's sort of like trying to say what you wouldn't eat if you were starving. If you're hungry enough, rotten cabbage and dead rat aren't that bad.'

  Ki didn't ask how he knew.

  'But they were going to kill us,' Goat insisted.

  Vandien sighed. 'Let it go, Goat. It's done. But if there's a next time, keep silent and still. Look to Ki or me to see what you should do. No matter what you think. Or know.' The last words he added grudgingly. But they eased the tension, and a sort of peace settled over the gently rocking wagon. The cuddy door behind the seat slid open.

  'Aren't we ever going to stop?' Willow asked plaintively.

  Vandien didn't answer, but pulled the team off the road. There was nothing to recommend the spot, but there was nothing better in sight either. The grass desert stretched in all directions, gently swelling and ebbing, but never sharply enough to be a valley or a hill. The grazing lands of yesterday and the abandoned farms of this morning had given way to brushy patches of coarse grasses interspersed with sandy stretches. The horses would get sparse grazing tonight. They'd need more grain.

  The team halted and Goat leaped off, nimble as his namesake. Ki followed him, and then glanced back up at Vandien. He was moving as slowly as an arthritic old dog. A pang of guilt singed Ki. How could she have forgotten about his ribs?

  'Take it slow,' she cautioned him. 'I'll do the unharnessing and get camp set up. Then I want to take a look at your ribs.'

  'Any excuse to get my clothes off,' he muttered, but could not quite bring up a grin. Ki shook her head.

  The horses were glad to be rid of their harnesses, but not enthused with the scruffy grey-green grass she led them to. Both greedily sucked up the measure of water she poured into their drinking tub. After they had drunk she grained them and rubbed the sweat from the rough grey coats. There was a festering sore on Sigurd's neck. She got salve to treat it, noticing that Vandien was directing Goat and Willow in setting up a camp. He sent her a quick smile from where he leaned against a quilt folded over a wagon wheel. Goat knelt beside a smouldering fire while Willow poured water from the cask into the kettle.

  The sore on Sigurd's neck was a nasty thing that finally expelled the squirming grub of some parasitic fly. Ki washed it and then smeared salve over it. Sigurd, whiffling after the last of the spilled grain, paid no intention to her. Ki sighed and wiped her sticky hands down her tunic. Maybe tomorrow night they'd find a river where she could do a wash. Vandien would love that; he could use his bruised ribs as an excuse for her to pound out his laundry as well as her own.

  The little fire seemed very bright after working in the semi-darkness. She stood a moment, letting her eyes adjust. And then a moment longer, to adjust to something else.

  Willow knelt beside Vandien, dragging his shirt gently off over his head. She dropped it to the ground, said something softly. As Vandien held his arms up slightly, Willow moistened a rag in water and held it against his side. The bruise was purple where the horse had scored, fading to pinks and greens at the edges. Willow was smiling as she sponged his skin. Goat's words, which
she had earlier dismissed as juvenile vindictiveness, came suddenly to her mind.

  She strode into camp. The kettle was already on, the stew starting to bubble. All done neatly and well. Nothing to complain about, nothing to question. They had it all under control. She crouched by the water cask at the tail of the wagon, to run water into the basin to wash her face and hands. Goat came out of the wagon with a platter of travelling bread and cheese. Ki still hadn't thought of anything to say.

  Goat looked from her to Vandien and Willow. 'Food's ready,' he said loudly. 'We can eat as soon as you can get your hands off him, Willow.'

  Willow laughed. 'Don't you wish it were you, Goat?' she asked snidely, but as she looked past him she saw Ki. Their eyes met, and for a moment Willow looked scared. But Ki said nothing, and after that instant, Willow's face changed. She smiled, a little cat smile. 'Vandien will tell me when he's had enough,' she said. Ki wondered if she were speaking to Goat at all.

  'Enough,' said Vandien. 'It's not helping. I wish I could take just one deep breath.' He lifted his eyes to Ki, and there was nothing in them but weariness.

  'Did you use warm water or cool?' she asked him.

  'Cool,' he said briefly.

  Ki nodded to herself. 'After we eat, let's try warm, with some Cara buds crumbled into it.'

  Willow bristled. 'My mother always used cool water on things like that. To keep the swelling down.'

  'That makes sense,' Ki agreed smoothly. 'But sometimes warm will loosen a pain.' She met Willow's eyes, sensed a challenge in them. Ki didn't want to play. She turned away from the look, to take dishes from the chest and shake loose tea from them. Enough tea had lodged in a cup to brew tonight's pot; she'd have to buy more in Algona.

  'Vandien?' she asked over her shoulder. 'How far to Algona now, do you guess?'

  'Two days?' he hazarded.

  'More like three,' Willow corrected him. 'We haven't made very good time.'

  Ki said nothing, but dished the food and poured the tea. When she finally filled her own plate and turned around, Willow was ensconced beside Vandien. I would never sit that close to a man not mine, Ki thought. She watched the way Willow spoke to him over the food, tilting her head and smiling at his brief answers, speaking softly as if someone might overhear. She felt stubbornness rise in her. If Vandien did not object to it, she wouldn't. A small cold voice in her asked her if she were trusting Vandien's judgement or testing him. She didn't answer it, but took her plate and sat down by the fire. Goat gazed at her across the flames. There was a dab of soup on his chin.