"Well," asked Wix, "how is it?"
"Ugly as hell," Hoom said. "I love every inch of it." And then, before he could thank them and cry, they whooped and hollered their way out of the house and back to the boat.
It was getting dark, but there were plenty of blankets over him, and the stars were shining. Breakfast was in a bag on the floor beside him, and Hoom listened to the distant sounds of the boat being launched again.
As the sound grew softer, he listened to the breeze in the branches above him. Leaves were drifting lazily down; soon all the leaves would have turned colors and dropped, and the snow would come. Hoom felt a stab of loneliness — but he quickly forgot it in the satisfaction of being out of Heaven City . A leaf landed on his face, and he waited a moment before he brushed it away. Was this what it was like for Linkeree, in the old story, when he left Heaven City and built his own home in the forest? This feeling of not being one of a city, but of being an intruder among the trees?
He heard footsteps in the grass and leaves outside his door. He froze, afraid of who it might be.
The ship was gone — had someone stayed behind? And why?
Dilna stood in the doorway.
"Dilna," Hoom said, sighing in relief.
"Hi," she said.
"I thought you went back with the others."
"I decided not to," she said. "Comfortable?"
Hoom nodded. "It's a good house."
"You promised me I could move in when the house was done," Dilna said.
Hoom laughed. "As soon as you want to," he said.
"Noyock promised me that he'd cross the river and marry us tomorrow. If you want to."
"I want to."
"Can I come in?"
"Of course, come in. I didn't know you were waiting for an invitation."
Dilna came in, her face lit only by starlight, and knelt beside him. "Do you always sleep with your clothes on?" she asked.
"No," he said, laughing at the idea. "But with a lumberyard tied around my leg, I've found it a little hard to get around."
"I'll help you," she said, and Hoom was surprised that he felt no embarrassment as she gently, carefully undressed him, moving his leg without hurting him, touching him so casually he felt no shame. Then she turned her back and undressed, also. "I didn't bring any more blankets. Any room to spare under yours?" she asked.
"I can't — I can't do anything," he said. "My leg — I can't —"
"Nobody expects you to," she said, touching his forehead softly. "There's plenty of time for that." She lay down beside him and pulled the blankets up to cover them both. Then she snuggled close to him. Her body was cold with the chilliness outside the blankets. She put her arm across his chest, stroked his cheek. "Do you mind?" she asked.
"No," he said.
"Better get used to it," she said. "Because I plan to sleep here for a good long time."
12
BILLIN'S VOICE sounded muffled in the heavy, smoky room, though he was shouting. Dilna sighed as she heard the same words again. "That damned History is our enemy! Every time something comes for a vote, Noyock pulls out the History and says, ‘That isn't the way Jason did it! That isn't the way Kapock did it!' Well, I say, who the hell cares how they did it?"
Dilna carved savagely at the block of wood in her lap, as if it were Billin's head. It was stupid, this meeting every night in the tavern. Everyone in Stipock's Bay already agreed — they had to separate themselves from Heaven City . The laws had no relation to reality anymore — things were different here. But Billin didn't help anything with his fury, that so infected the others.
Even Stipock, she noticed, was watching Billin intently. But she more than half–suspected that Stipock was analyzing more than he was listening. Surely Stipock wasn't moved or impressed by Billin's talk! But Dilna wondered just the same. Could Billin possibly be doing just what Stipock wanted?
"The History is just paper! Only paper, and that's all! It can burn! And if that's the barrier that keeps us from making our own laws here, then I say, Burn it!"
Oh, clever, Dilna thought. The whole point is to win our independence, as Stipock had so often said, without losing our interdependence. If those on the other side of the river come to hate us, she silently asked, where would we get our copper, our tin, our brass? Paper? Ink? Flour? None of the tiny streams on this side of the river had enough force to turn a mill. But if Billin had his way, we'd rush over right now, burn the History, and then somehow persuade them to amicably let us be independent, while trade continued.
The chair next to hers scraped along the floor, and she looked up to see Stipock sitting down next to her.
"The aging philosopher comes to chat?" she asked.
"Aging," Stipock said. "It's worry, not years."
Billin's voice reached a climax. "Does it matter how the vote goes? As long as we own the boats, we decide what laws get enforced on this side of the river!" Some beery cheers arose from the audience.
"The man's an ass," Dilna said. "Even if you were the one who first pointed out that whoever owns the boats makes the laws on this side of the river."
"Billin gets a little too angry," Stipock said.
"As the great Stipock has always said," Billin shouted, "a man who rejects a government is no longer truly governed by it!"
"Is that what the great Stipock has always said?" Dilna asked, smiling.
"I wish to hell no one would ever quote me." He looked at the wood she was working on. "What are you carving?"
"A canehead for a rich old codger from Wienway. One of Wien's sons, in fact, who thinks a bit of bronze will buy anything."
"Won't it?" Stipock asked. She laughed. "Almost anything."
Stipock sat in silence, surveying the room. "Hoom isn't back yet?"
"You know how it is — once you start visiting with relatives —"
"Hoom and his father, under the same roof tonight. Will the house burn down, do you think?"
"Good chance," Dilna said, but she didn't laugh.
"And Wix is with him?"
"I assume so," she said. Suddenly she felt her knife hand gripped by Stipock's powerful fingers.
"Dilna. Hoom knows."
She gasped, before she could control herself. Damn, she thought, trying to cover the reaction. Damn, now whatever he suspects is confirmed.
"Hoom knows what?" she said, doing a bad job of acting innocent.
"I said Hoom knows. And no one else matters. I'm just warning you, Dilna. Hoom loves you too much to do anything about it. Unless you leave him. If you leave him, you'll have to kill him."
"What are you talking about? I have no intention of leaving Hoom. What an idea."
"Good thing," Stipock said, releasing her wrist.
"Damn you," Dilna said.
"You're an idiot," Stipock said. "No one on this side of the river is half of Hoom's quality as a man."
"And what do you know," she said bitterly, "about quality in a man?"
"Enough," he said, and he got up and left, as Dilna tried to force her trembling hands to carve true. She couldn't, and she, too, walked out of the public house.
She went down the dusty road toward the house that she and Hoom had shared since their marriage. It was much more elaborate now — prosperity had helped it grow — but the original cabin was still there, a back room now.