Even below decks, I could not entirely seclude myself. Once the initial storm had passed, Brannun marched into my cabin, his arms laden with tally sticks and documents which he dropped upon my plank-rimmed bed. “See what you make of these cargo accounts,” he ordered. “Your master would not want you to idle away the time when you have such an opportunity to enlarge your store of trading knowledge.”
I should have liked to have told him that I kept a steward to attend to such menial work, but in order to preserve my imposture, I strove to bring some order out of the poorly inscribed chaos. When Brannun blustered back in some hours later, I pointed out to him that his tally sticks proclaimed his cargo short four bales of woven goods when compared with his nearly unreadable loading lists.
“You Dales traders,” Brannun declared, “always fretting over exact tallies.” He rattled my teeth with another buffet to my shoulder, and bellowed, “Come dine with me in my cabin! We can discuss the proper forms for keeping accounts.”
It was during that meal that I nearly betrayed myself. While we were eating some moderately acceptable fish stew, I saw a large rat poke its head from behind a timber rib arching along the wall. Quite by habit, before I even thought, my hand drew and threw my belt knife, impaling the wretched beast.
Brannun drew a sharp breath, and eyed me narrowly. “Where did you learn to throw a knife like that, young apprentice?” he growled.
I cursed my muscles for acting on their own without my conscious direction. As abjectly as I could, I proffered my woeful supposed past experience. “For some years, I was kept as a slave in a castle in Alizon,” I explained. “It was miserably overrun by vermin. They kept no such fine beasts as your cats, so we slaves were forced to dispose of any rat we saw in that fashion. I crave your pardon for drawing my blade without your permission.”
Brannun guffawed, and struck me such a clout across the narrow table that he nearly jolted me from the seating bench, which like the table, was secured to the deck with wooden pins. “Permission?” he roared. “I would I could toss a knife that swift and sure. I required some years to master my throwing ax—until I saw your toss just now, I rather fancied my speed. You must show my lads how you do it! I can see that your earlier practice had refined your skill so that you react to sudden motion glimpsed from the corner of the eye. Pray take care that you do not skewer our ship’s cat, or one of the smaller hands. We shall be obliged to address you as Kasyar-of-the-Fast-Knife!”
After that near calamity, I attempted to guard my movements as well as my tongue. Such constant wariness, together with the long hours of confinement in my cabin, wore upon my temper. Curiously, one source of restful ease was the ship’s cat, whose acquaintance I made the morning following the rat incident.
I had gone on deck to stretch my legs when Brannun bustled past; the man was always on his way somewhere aloft or below, forward or astern. Spying me, he stopped, and exclaimed, “Yonder comes our cat—Sea Foam, we call her—a prime ratter. Give her a few weeks, and you’ll have far fewer moving targets aboard to tempt your knife.”
I turned to see a large, cream-colored cat regarding me with bright amber eyes. Not knowing exactly how one customarily approached such beasts, I knelt and extended my hand for it to sniff, as I would have done to a strange hound. It cocked its head at me, then stepped nimbly across the slanting deck to rub against my boots.
“She likes the lad!” Brannun boomed approvingly. “Sea Foam’s always been a keen judge of character—doubtless recognizes a fellow master ratter.”
For the remainder of the voyage, Sea Foam often visited me in my cabin, sometimes curling up on my bed, sometimes even sitting in my lap and purring like a real hound—a most singular animal.
In addition to four more severe storms, we encountered some adverse winds that slowed our progress, but as the Moon of the Dire Wolf neared its close, the bleak horizon bar of bare water was replaced by the welcome uneven bulk of solid land. We had spent thirty-four days at sea, by my best judgment, for during the worst of the storms, it had been difficult to determine when day ended and night began.
I had formed a hearty respect for Captain Brannun and his crew—and an equally hearty conviction that I preferred land travel to sea voyaging. The thought of motionless land or even a runaway horse beneath me had become increasingly attractive. I was ready to present my lamantine wood-questing tale to the traders of Vennesport.
29
Kasarian—account of his journey across the Dales from Vennesport to the ruins beyond Ferndale (26th Day, Moon of the Dire Wolf—24th Day, Moon of Chordosh)
It took three days for me to deliver all of Mereth’s remaining letters: two to kinsmen and two others to traders of her acquaintance. Initially, each of the recipients looked somewhat askance at me, but after reading her letters, they whole-heartedly extended themselves to organize the mounts and supplies I would need for my trip to the lands bordering the ill-reputed Waste. Each of the Dalesmen also inquired anxiously about Mereth. Only one of the traders was of her advanced age; the other three were a generation or more younger than she. They seemed to view her as an honored elder, and appeared genuinely concerned about how she had been received after her long journey across the sea. I assured them that she had been graciously welcomed at Lormt, where her extensive knowledge of kinship lists was highly praised. I did not mention her injuries. It was better that they thought her happily absorbed in scholarly pursuits . . . which she was, after a fashion.
As Mereth had cleverly foreseen, both the ostensible trade goal of my quest, and more especially the area I proposed to search actively discouraged any serious offers by the Dales-folk to accompany me. One of Mereth’s kinsmen, a whelp of her dam’s Line, made a halfhearted suggestion that he could try to engage a guide for me, but I asserted that Mereth’s personally-drawn maps were more than adequate to direct me to the vicinity where my master’s special map could be consulted. I hinted that my master preferred my mission to be solitary, and in a flash of inspiration, I confided that because of my unfortunate circumstances of birth in Alizon, I thought it advisable to avoid populated areas as much as possible. Once he had heard my explanation, her kinsman, looking both abashed and relieved, pressed upon me two hampers filled with all manner of gear to equip me for every calamity likely to befall an isolated rider. He urged me to exchange my riding and pack horses for mountain ponies once I reached Paltendale, and gave me a letter to request assistance from a wool trader of his acquaintance there. I attempted to pay him with some of my unmarked silver bars, but he obstinately refused to accept them, saying that Mereth’s letter clearly commanded what he called “family courtesy” to be extended to me. Since I was supposed to understand such Dales arrangements, I had to nod knowingly, but I expressed my gratitude for the consideration.
On the Twenty-sixth Day of the Moon of the Dire Wolf, I set out on the road leading from Vennesport to Trevamper. Mereth had drawn for me a Dales map I could show openly, marked with bold lines linking the populated areas, but she had written a private advisory commentary for me to commit to memory so that I could choose less-traveled paths as I forged steadily northwestward.
The Moon of the Dire Wolf fast gave way to the Moon of Chordosh as I toiled, often cursing the variable weather. A day might dawn cold and fair, but in the space of an hour, clouds could form and sweep down from the mountain ridges, pelting me with sleet, snow, or rain—sometimes it seemed that all three discomforts jostled for a turn at assailing the horses and me.