Even leaving aside warnings from delusive old women, Rap had no intention of damaging any part of the young goblin, but he could not resist taking a little revenge for the days of taunting. “Little Chicken has told me many good ideas.”
High Raven seemed pleased. He nodded. “How do you work?”
Seeing Rap hesitate, the chief explained—some performers liked to hang the victims by the hands, which made the show easier for the audience to see. Others preferred to stake him out on the floor, where he was more accessible, or over trestles. The choice was Rap’s, for this was to be his show.
Rap pursed his lips, as if considering the matter. Then he appealed to the victim. “Which do you think best?”
The irony did not escape Little Chicken; his eyes narrowed briefly. “On floor!” he said emphatically. “Last longer.”
Now Rap’s conscience rebelled. This teasing was a torture in itself. “I do not wish to do this thing.”
Father and son reacted with shock.
“It is duty!” Little Chicken shouted, looking quite horrified. “I will tell you things to do! Many things, much pain!”
“Silence, trash!” High Raven turned to Rap. “Who will you have do this, then?” Perhaps he was hoping to be appointed substitute torturer as well as substitute bridegroom, to be avenged on this son who had so shamed him and his house.
Rap was sweating now, and not only from the heat of the roaring furnace behind him. He suspected that if he said the wrong thing he might yet find himself staked out and providing the entertainment. Much worse was the realization that Little Chicken’s fate might be unavoidable, in which case the kindest course would be for Rap to undertake the job and give him a quick death in a clumsy amateur’s mistake. Could he bring himself to do that?
“What happens,” he asked, “if I do not say another to do this?”
Little Chicken howled and hurled himself forward to embrace Rap’s feet. “No!” he shouted. “I will make good show! I will die very slow! Long pain! Much agony!”
Unbelievable! Rap stared down at him, speechless. What alternative could possibly be worse than what he was asking for?
High Raven had colored in fury and he glared up at Rap. “You bring shame upon the clan! You disappoint our guests!”
“It is not the way of my people!” Rap protested, glaring back. He had long ago discovered that sometimes the only way to handle old Honinin was to use that glare – stubborn. It did not work on High Raven, though.
“We are your people! The Raven Clan!”
“Also I have another people.”
The chief was almost foaming with rage. “Insult! Renegade! You will leave this house. Go! Take trash with you!”
Rap thought of the arctic night waiting outside and the flimsy buckskins he had been given. He wondered if he would be allowed to take even those, or would just be driven out as he was.
“I am your guest! I wore good furs. You send a guest away, keep his furs?” He knew what had happened to those furs.
So did High Raven, but he did not know that Rap knew. He scowled and glanced around. “Furs will be found. You will go tomorrow.” He looked down at the groveling Little Chicken, who was wailing and rubbing his face in the dirt. “And take trash.”
The audience was muttering with disapproval and disappointment, but it sounded as if Rap would be allowed to depart safely, and also that he had just acquired a companion—a companion who would have every incentive to break his neck at the first opportunity.
But Little Chicken was harder to convince than his father. He rose to his knees and raised clasped hands in a last desperate appeal to Rap. “Flat Nose! Do not leave me in shame! I make good show! Never cry out! Long, long pain!”
His distress seemed so real and so intense that for a moment Rap hesitated. He had certainly played foul in the testing, cheating Little Chicken out of what should have been an easy victory. Was it fair now to cheat him out of the lingering death he dearly wanted? Little Chicken, it seemed, would not be able to live with himself… but Rap had to live with himself, also, and he had been the winner. He shook his head.
The burly goblin threw back his head and wailed a long, long howl of lament. Then he clambered to his feet and slunk away, doubled over with shame, hiding his nakedness now with his hands.
From the look in High Raven’s eye, Rap was no longer welcome in the place of honor. He was about to leave when he saw his gifts still lying on the platform. Thinking he might persuade Little Chicken to accept them, he gathered them up quickly, then walked away. The crowd parted to let him through, glaring contemptuously.
High Raven raised his arms to the company. “Raven Totem does not disappoint guests! More food! More beer! Cheep-Cheep, Fledgling Down—come forward.”
Rap’s knees quivered in a sudden surge of horror—he had just condemned one of the younger boys to take Little Chicken’s place on the butcher block. He thought that Little Chicken deserved it more, but then he remembered that it was only his arrival and betrayal by Darad that had prevented either Cheep-Cheep or Fledgling Down being there anyway, so really nothing had changed. Not his fault.
He reached the back of the crowd and stopped, baffled. Some of the spectators were still turning to send angry glares in his direction. He had no friends in that place, but now he was probably not eligible to sleep in the boys' house, so he would have to stay. Then a hand fell on his shoulder like a falling tree. He was spun around to face Little Chicken.
He had found a loincloth, but his face was still filthy with the dirt from the floor, streaked by tears. It also wore an expression of urgency. “You come!” He moved toward the door.
Rap dug in his toes and tried to resist the pull. Go out into the night with Little Chicken? Instant suicide!
The young goblin seemed puzzled by Rap’s reluctance, then he guessed the reason. He smiled bitterly. “Flat Nose frightened of trash?”
Rap squared his shoulders and went. Little Chicken did not saunter this time. He dashed through the unbearable dark cold. Rap ran at his heels, bare feet rapidly going numb in the snow. They arrived at the boys' house and plunged in.
It was empty and dark, the fire shrunk to embers. Little Chicken scooped up an icy rug and draped it around the quivering Rap, who dropped his bundle of gifts to huddle the fur tight about him. His companion set to work at the hearth, blowing and poking and stirring life into it. Soon he had flames leaping again. Then he looked up to study Rap—who was shivering mightily inside his robe. Little Chicken squatted in nothing but a leather apron, yet apparently at ease in the freezing temperature.
“Not go tomorrow. Go now!”
“Why?” Rap’s mind screamed at the thought.
“Dark Wing, Raven Claw. My brothers follow us.”
They would want revenge? But a man who had so recently begged for death should not be suddenly eager to escape it. Rap was suspicious still.
“I need my furs,” he said.
Little Chicken scowled. “Furs bad! Buckskins better. I show you.”
“You stand the cold better than I do.” That remark was not enormously tactful, and the goblin heaved a sigh of regret.
“Yes. But I look after you now.”
“Why should I trust you?”
Little Chicken jumped up and stamped his bare foot furiously. “I look after you!” he shouted. Apparently Rap had discovered yet another way to humiliate him. He was dark-faced and breathing hard, and his big fists had clenched until the bones showed white. Rap kept a puzzled silence.
Little Chicken grunted. “I am your trash—slave. My duty to look after you. Where we go?”
“South. Across the mountains.”
Little Chicken nodded as if that were two doors down the street and not weeks away. “I take you. We go now.”