"I'll do all in my power to make him a decent man," Aven had said, loudly, when the cattlekeepers' council met tonight, "so that when he turns to rubbish next year, no man can say it was Aven's fault."
And while I rot this year, Hoom thought bitterly, no man says any fault to Aven, either.
A loud knock. Hoom got up, guiltily, as if his thoughts could be heard and he was going to be held to account. He turned the paper over, so the writing couldn't be read, and went to the door. No one was there. He wondered — who could be walking the halls tonight? And then the knock came again, louder, and Hoom realized that someone was knocking at the window. At a second–story window? No matter — someone was there, as a third knock testified. Hoom rushed to the window, opened it, and Wix tumbled into the room.
Surprise turned to dismay. Hoom quickly closed the window again, then rushed and closed the door. Returning to Wix, who was now lying on his back on the floor, flexing his arms, Hoom whispered, "What are you doing, coming here when I'm confined? Are you trying to get me killed?"
"You killed!" Wix whispered back, laughing silently. "And there I was hanging by my elbows, trying to butt my head against the window loud enough that you'd hear me! Were you asleep?"
Hoom shook his head. "I was writing. As Stipock said to do."
"Writing'll never do any damn good," Wix said.
"I think Stipock's right," Hoom said. "Why should the Wardens be the only ones to write the History? Then it's all written down the way they think it happened.
"Well, it's your grandfather," Wix said.
"Why did you come here? I've been beaten too much already!"
"I came because you'd've killed me if I hadn't. We finished the new boat today, and Stipock says we're to try it out tonight."
"Tonight? In the dark?"
"There's a moon. And Stipock says that the night wind is from the southwest and will help us fight the current. We're going to cross the river."
Hoom immediately began pulling trousers over his naked legs. "Cross the river, and doing it tonight!"
"Coming then?" Wix asked, laughing silently again.
"Think I'd miss it?"
"What about your father?" Wix's eyes taunted him.
"This one's worth another beating," Hoom said. "And maybe he won't know." Hoom opened the window and Wix climbed out, falling lightly on his feet in the soft earth below. Hoom paused a moment in the window, dreading another huge quarrel with his father, wondering if taking this jump was worth it. But the thought of taking the big boat out into the river — across the river — ended his inward debate, and he jumped, landing on all fours and rolling.
Wix scrambled back up the wall enough to close the window, so that discovery wouldn't be easy, while Hoom smoothed the dirt where they had landed. A few meters out from the house the dirt was covered by a thick mat of grass — no tracks there. And the dew was cold on their feet as they ran. A cow lowed as they sped through the pasture, almost three kilometers before they reached the forest's edge. There they rested, panting, out of breath, until their eyes got used to the denser darkness under the thick leaves. They followed a path known only to children's feet, a narrow winding that seemed deliberately to take the most dangerous descents, the steepest slopes, and it took almost a half hour for them to reach the edge of the river, in a little bay protected by a finger of rock that protruded into the river, blocking the current. There the boat lay rocking on the water; there a half–dozen shadowy people were busy at a half–dozen nameless, invisible tasks in the darkness.
"Who's that?" hissed a voice, and Wix answered, aloud, "Me, of course."
"Hurry, then, we're nearly done. Did you get Hoom?"
"I'm here," Hoom said, clambering down the slope after Wix. Closer, he could distinguish the features of the people there, and he immediately sought out Dilna, who smiled at him and let him help her with her task, which was folding and loading on the extra sail.
A few minutes later, Wix and Stipock pushed the boat out of the tiny cove and then were helped aboard as Hoom held the tiller. He had been tillerman on the last two boats, too, and as the boat hit the first currents (still not as strong as the main current a kilometer farther out — they had never tried to cross that before) he laughed with pleasure at how lightly and easily the boat responded to his touch.
Wix, in the meantime, with Dilna and Cirith, was putting up the sail, and the wind from the southwest caught it, pulling the boat forward, making it dance across the water.
There were four oars on the boat, just in case the sail didn't work, but Hoom laughed and said, "Won't be needing to row, now, will we?" and Wix laughed and said, "We could sleep our way across in this boat," and Stipock said, "Shut up and mind the tiller and the sail. The real current's still ahead."
When they reached the main stream, the bow of the boat yawed widely to the left, and for a moment there was a flurry of activity until the sail was turned to take the boat virtually into the current. Hoom plied the tiller vigorously, and kept the boat on course, and when they finally passed out of the main current and into the gentle eddies of the opposite side of the river, they gave a quiet cheer. Quiet, because Stipock had warned them that sound flew across water better than through forest.
Ahead loomed the highest hill of the opposite shore, and just to the west of it there was a beach. They unshipped the oars now, and pulled down the sail, rowing gently into the shore. This time everyone but Hoom jumped out of the boat into the water, pulling it ashore. Hoom got out then, patting the firm structure of the boat as he swung from the bow.
"Well," said Dilna, "it doesn't feel much different from the sand on the other side."
"What did you expect?" Stipock asked. "Gold?"
"What's gold?" Hoom asked, and Stipock shook his head and laughed. "Never mind. Let's climb that hill, and see how the world looks from this side of the water."
So they climbed up the hill, Wix pointedly taking the shorter, steeper way, and Hoom following him. At the top, they waited for the others to come. Stipock was smiling when he reached them, and as they stood together in the wind, he laughed and said, "It's not too many years off, my friends, when you'll be as glad as I am to find the path that's not so steep!"
"The hill's high enough," Hoom said, looking at how small their boat seemed down on the shore. The moon was full and high, and without trees around them, it seemed they could see forever.
"Well," said Stipock, after they had all had ample time to look around, "what do you see over there?" And he pointed toward the shore they had come from.
"I can see my house," Hoom said immediately, because his house crowned the bald hill of the Pasture. There were others near it, of course, but his grandfather's house, where he lived, was highest.
"There's a light in my father's house," Wix said, pointing to the many houses that skirted Linkeree's Bay, where Wix's father, Ross, still lived in the house that his father, Linkeree, had built.
"My family lives in the Main Town ," Dilna said. "I can't see it from here."
Stipock chuckled softly behind them. "And is that all you see?"
Cirith said, "What I mostly see is trees. The houses look pretty damn small when you compare them to the forest." Stipock patted her arm.
Hoom wondered what in the world he was supposed to see as he looked across the river. Sure enough, everything did look smaller from farther away, but everyone knew that. What did Stipock want them to see?