“We were well met, Piemur,” said Sharra. “With you to help, we can get twice as much, manage a larger raft with two to steer it, and return down the river to the ships in very good time. But not,” she grinned down at him, “until they’ve had time to barrel the numbweed. Here’s what we do now.”
She showed him, by a map she scratched in the dirt at their feet with her knife belt, and by pointing in the appropriate directions. The third large channel to their right was actually the river that led to the sea. That much the earlier exploration had determined. There was plenty of the valuable tuft grasses between the bluff and that safe, third channel. They would be able to half-swim, half-wade across the intervening channels, using the fire lizards to scare away the water snakes, which could wring the blood out of a person’s arm or leg. Piemur didn’t believe that water snakes could grow that big, but he had to credit her warning when she showed him the fine band of puncture marks on her left arm where a water snake had wound its coils and left the myriad points of its toe-teeth. Not a denizen of these parts, Sharra assured him blithely, and brushed aside his pity by saying that the marks would fade gradually. Then she suggested that, being taller, she’d better carry Stupid across the waters on her shoulders.
As they reached each grassy island, they cut the tufts from the grass for the therapeutic seeds that grew along each stem. The larger branches were laid aside and tied in bundles to be bound together for the raft. Sharra said that the branches absorbed water gradually, but the raft would float long enough to get them safely to the river’s mouth. The heart of the grass plant, just above the root ball, was its most important part. This was dried and pounded into a powder that was the best medicine known for reducing fever, especially firehead fever, about which Piemur had never heard. Sharra told him that it seemed to occur only in the south, and generally only during the first month of the spring season, now well past. Something, they thought, rolled up on the spring tides so that beaches were avoided during that month by everyone.
Piemur might have avoided both numbweed stench and water snake puncture, but he certainly worked as hard beside Sharra, as he had that one day in Nabol Hold, a day that seemed to belong to another boy entirely, not this one that was alternately soaked and dried to parchment as they harvested the precious fruits of the swamp grass.
The fourth day they made the raft, binding layer after layer of the grass stalks and then forcing them into a vaguely boatlike shape by tying the ends into stubby prows, leaving a central hollow for their precious cargo and Stupid.
Sharra had taught her fire lizards to hunt when they were in the wild, but she had also managed to train them to bring their catch to her. They returned that fourth evening with the strangest-looking creature Piemur had ever seen. Sharra identified it as a whersport. It was far too small to be like the watchwhers that Piemur knew as nocturnal hold guardians in the north, but it was bigger than fire lizards, which it also somewhat resembled. Fortunately it was almost dead when the delighted Meer and Talla deposited it on the ground by Sharra’s feet. She dispatched it with a deft prick of her knife and, grinning at Piemur for his horrified expression, proceeded to disembowel it, throwing the offal far out into the black waters, which ruffled briefly as the snakes took the offering.
“May look a sight, but roasted in its skin, a whersport is very good eating. So, we’ll stuff it with a bit of white tuber and some grass shoots, and we’ll have a meal fit for a Lord Holder.”
When she saw Piemur’s dubious expression as she completed her arrangements, she laughed.
“There’re a lot of strange beasties in this part of the south. As if all the animals you have up north got mixed up somehow. A whersport isn’t a fire lizard, and it isn’t a wher. For one thing it’s a daytime beast, and whers are nocturnal; sun blinds them. Then there’s far more varieties of snake here than in the north. Or so I’m told. Sometimes I’d like to go north, just to see all the differences, but then again,” and Sharra shrugged, her eyes wandering over the lush, deserted and strangely beautiful marshlands, “this is where I hold. I haven’t seen half enough of it yet to begin to appreciate all its complexity.” She pointed due south with her bloody knife blade. “There’re mountains down there that never lose their snow. Not that I’ve seen snow, on them or on the ground, though my brother has told me about it. I wouldn’t like to be as cold as he says it gets in the north when there is snow on the ground.”
“Oh, it’s not bad,” replied Piemur reassuringly and a trifle pleased to be able to talk on a subject he did know, “rather invigorating, in fact, cold is. Snows are fun, too. Then you don’t have to—” He caught himself. He’d been about to say “you didn’t have to report to all work sections at the Harper Hall.” “—do as much work.”
Sharra didn’t seem to notice his brief hesitation or that he had substituted another phrase. She gave him a grin.
“We don’t always work this hard in Southern, either, Piemur; but now it’s time to harvest numbweed and get the tuft seeds and bush hearts. If we didn’t have them…” and she shrugged to indicate a very unpleasant alternative. Then she made a trench in the red ashes of their fire, lined it with thick water plant leaves, which began to hiss and exude a steamy fragrance, deftly inserted the stuffed whersport, folded over the leaves, then carefully knifed the hot ashes in place, and sat back. “There. Dinner won’t be long, and there’s enough for all.”
Chapter 11
Once out of the grip of the Great Current, Sebell wrestled with the gaudy striped mainsail, untying it from the runners on the boom and folding it away neatly in its bag. Then he and Menolly bent the bright red southern sail to the boom and mast. Practice had made it a smooth operation, though the first time Menolly and he had changed the sail halfway to the Southern Continent, it had taken them hours, with him cursing at his ineptness and she patiently explaining the trick.
No sooner had they hauled the red sail up the mast than the wind, which had so favored their journey, dropped to a mere whisper.
With a sigh, Menolly surveyed the bright blue and cloudless sky and then laughed as she sank to the deck by the all but motionless tiller handle.
“Wouldn’t you just know?”
“All right, weather eye, breeze at sunset?”
“Possibly, usually does come up again, then,” she replied, squinting up to see what made Sebell so irritable.
“Sorry, Menolly,” he said, running his hand through wind-disheveled hair. He dropped to the deck beside her.
“You’re not worried about Piemur, are you? Something you’ve kept from me?”
“No, girl, I’ve kept nothing from you.” Her anxious query seemed at this moment more of an accusation to him than a plea for reassurance, and he had answered with more asperity than was customary for him. She was quiet, though he could sense her confusion at his manner; he was unable to explain it to himself. “I didn’t mean to snap, Menolly,” he said, realizing that she wouldn’t speak until he had. “I just don’t know what’s gotten into me. I honestly believe we’ll find Piemur in the south.”
“Maybe we ought to have taken someone else to help with the sailing—”
“No, no, it’s not that!” Again his tone was churlish. He bit his lips together, took a deep breath and carefully added, “You know I like sailing. Better, I like sailing with you alone!” That came out sounding more like himself, and he gave her a smile.