“Three days’ march,” Gar said, surprised.
The bandits relaxed, and Regan said, “Too far for us to worry about, then.”
“Worry about?” Gar frowned. “They wouldn’t be apt to set upon you. After all, you’re all outlaws together.”
“Not together, stranger,” a beefy man said. “A band gets big enough, it’s likely to run off the small bands around it—or kill them if they won’t run.”
Gar stared. “But why?”
“Keep ‘em out of the big band’s hunting grounds,” the man grunted, “keep ‘em from poaching.” He had the sound of one who knew from experience.
Gar was catching unpleasant echoes of medieval lords’ keeping the forests for their own private hunting reserves. “That’s wrong. The big bands are treating the small ones as they themselves were, and hated.”
“They think that gives them the right,” Regan explained, “so the small bands stay well clear of the big ones.”
“Water’s boiling,” the fire-maker reported.
Gar reached in his pack and pulled out a few spoonfuls of powder to sprinkle in the water. The bandits took wooden mugs from under their jackets and handed them over to be filled.
Gar poured and handed them back, then inhaled the steam from his own mug and said, “I would think that shared misery would draw all outlaws together, for company and protection.”
Regan shook her head. “Think, peddler. There isn’t a one of us who wasn’t kicked out of his clan for being untrustworthy. No one wanted to risk their lives depending on a man or woman who might decide it’s wrong to fire a gun in battle. How could any of us trust another outlaw, unless she’s part of our own band?”
“By respect,” Gar said.
Several of the outlaws gave snorts of laughter and Regan smiled. “You think any outlaw from a big band is going to respect some mangy, tattered loner who isn’t even a good enough shot to be welcomed by a large band?”
“Of course,” Gar said, “because she’s human.”
Now Regan snorted, too. “You don’t respect someone just for that, peddler.”
“You should,” Gar said, “because it’s a rare person indeed who doesn’t have some sort of talent—and the ones who are really that incompetent are too feeble to dare to talk back to their clansfolk, or to risk going to the woods alone. Just being an outlaw at all, in a clan world like this, means you have to have some talents worth respecting.”
“Or that you’re such a weakling that your own kin didn’t want to be lumbered with you!” Jase said hotly.
“How many of you have ever heard of someone being cast out for that?” Gar asked.
The outlaws frowned, exchanged glances, muttered to one another, but no one answered.
Gar nodded. “I thought not. Even a half-wit is put to work cleaning the barns—and doesn’t believe in himself enough to believe in his own ideas, if he comes up with any. If you keep an open mind about everyone you meet, if you’re careful not to condemn them without knowing anything about them, you’ll find you can respect them—and that respect is enough for the start of an alliance, at least. Then you take on small tasks together to find out how far you can trust one another—and if you find you can, you tackle bigger and bigger jobs together until you do trust one another.”
The outlaws exchanged frowns, uncertain, but Regan gave Gar a sardonic smile. “Sounds pretty, but you don’t for a moment think it could work, do you?”
“Aye,” said Jase, and turned to Kerlew. “What talent have you, single man?”
Kerlew flushed at the tone of insult, but before he could answer, Gar said, “Look at it this way, then. Think of a boy you knew when you were a lad, the one who could never catch a ball or shoot straight, the one who was always last to be chosen for a game.”
Most of the outlaws grunted, smiles tight with assurance of their own superiority.
“Sometimes those boys grow up to become…” Gar tried to think what this culture would call a wizard—“conjure men. Would you want him to have a score to settle with you if he did?”
The outlaws lost their smiles at that, but Regan gave him a skeptical and scornful look. “Conjure men? You don’t really believe in such, do you?”
But she spoke too easily, with too much mockery—all bravado. She was whistling in the dark, trying to assure herself that such things didn’t exist, and Gar could hear the undertone in her voice, the echo in her thoughts, the fear of the unknown. “You never know,” he said. “You never know.”
“Enough of such stuff.” Regan dashed the dregs of her tea into the fire, then stood and began kicking dirt onto the flames. “The day’s far enough gone already, and us with no game to show for it. Let’s head back to camp and find what meat we can on the way.” She looked down at Gar. “You can come along, peddler—both of you. We were too quick to jump you, so let us make it up a little, at least, with dinner and a bed for the night.”
Alarm stiffened Kerlew’s back. “I don’t know—it’s not on our way…”
“But if they’ve furs or amber to trade, it’s worth the trip.” Gar stood too, shouldering his pack. “I’ll be glad of your hospitality, Regan.” He turned back to Kerlew. “You don’t have to come along, Kerlew. You’re your own man, you know.”
“Oh, I know that right enough.” Kerlew stood, too. “But I’ve few enough friends left in the world, and I’m not about to desert a new one. Let’s go.”
The keeping room in the Cumbers’ great house was darkened and gloomy, only the fire and a few candles lit. The clansfolk sat around the walls on handmade straight chairs and the few pieces of padded furniture, anxious or, in some cases, already resigned to Grandma’s passing. The younger children were in bed, but a few of the older ones sat up with their parents, nodding with weariness but fighting sleep.
A woman whose auburn hair was streaked with silver came up to them, proffering a hand. “I’m Achalla Cumber. Will you come to my mother now?”
“Gladly,” said Alea. “Lead us, please.”
Achalla turned away, and Alea followed, slipping through the gloom with Moira, stepping as softly as they might, following the older woman through a doorway to the side of the fireplace. They came info a room lit only by a candle on a bedstand, illuminating the pale, wrinkled face of Emily Cumber. Her cheeks seemed sunken, her whole face drawn, the eyes staring feverbright, looking at the ceiling.
The clanswoman stepped up to her bedside, saying softly, “There’s a healer come to see you, Gram.”
The old woman’s eyes swiveled to Alea—or one of them did. The other tried, but barely moved. Alea sat down on the bed, taking the old woman’s hand. Shriveled and wrinkled, it felt more like a claw. Emily Cumber tried to speak to her, but all that came out was a sort of cawing.
Alea’s heart sank; she knew the signs of stroke when she saw them. Grandma wouldn’t die of this one episode, of course, but Alea felt certain there were other blood clots waiting to break free into her bloodstream and hit her brain. For a moment, Alea yearned for the new and wonderful medicines she’d read of in Herkimer’s databanks—blood thinners, sonic beams to destroy the clots, nerve regeneration serum—but knew she’d never have them.
Grandma gabbled at her again. Alea couldn’t understand the words, but she read the old woman’s thoughts: Don’t waste your time, child. My days are numbered, and there’s only hours left.
Alea passed her hands over the woman’s body and felt signs of sickness and decay there. Was it her imagination, or was this really a psi power she hadn’t known she had?
13
Alea’s mind raced, seeking words of comfort, racking through what she’d read of Celtic mythology. “You’ve lived a good life, haven’t you, ma’am?”