"Thank you, Eldest."
"I'll have the food brought to your home before dark."
"Not too much," Besh said. "I'll have only the one carry sack." He grinned. "And after all, I'm an old man."
Pyav grinned in return. "I'll try to keep that in mind." He released Besh's hand. " 'Til we meet again, Besh."
"Be well, Eldest. May the gods smile on you and your family and keep our village safe."
He turned away and started toward his home, wondering if this would be the last time he made this walk.
Cam was playing out front when he came within sight of the house. It was early still for Mihas and Annze to be back from their lessons.
"Grandfather!" the boy cried out, running to him. Besh found himself blinking back tears. Somehow he'd managed to convince himself that he wasn't needed, but what about his own needs? Perhaps it wasn't Elica who was going to kill him; perhaps it was the simple act of walking away from this house and this family.
"Where have you been, Grandfather?" the boy asked, as Besh lifted him into his arms. "Were you at Lici's house again?"
"I was," he said, making himself smile. "And then I went to speak with the eldest."
"Father helped me make a fishing stick. Do you wanna see?" "Yes, of course."
The boy smiled. "Maybe you can take me fishing later."
His eyes stung. "We'll have to see about that, all right?"
"All right."
He put the boy down and followed him to where the fishing pole rested in the grass. It was a simple pole, much like those Besh himself had made for Elica when she was a girl, and for Mihas when he was
Cam 's age.
"That's a fine fishing pole," he said.
"It's a fishing stick," Cam said, looking up at him.
"What's the difference?"
"Everybody has fishing poles. Mine's a fishing stick. That's what I call it."
Besh laughed.
Elica came out of the house and glanced in their direction. "I see you've found the fishing stick," she said, walking to the woodpile and gathering kindling for the cooking fire.
"Yes, I have." He looked down at Cam, who was holding the pole, pretending to fish. "I need to speak with your mother," he said, tousling the boy's dark hair. It was as soft as corn silk and as black as raven feathers. Will I ever touch this head again?
Cam nodded without even looking up. "All right."
Besh joined Elica by the woodpile and began gathering branches, all the while ignoring his daughter, who was staring at him.
"So?" she said at last. "You have something to say to me?"
"Inside," he said, turning away, climbing the stairs, and stepping into the house.
Elica was just behind him. "Is it the pestilence?" she asked, upon closing the door behind her. The house was dark with the door shut, and her eyes shone with the faint gleam from the single window opposite the hearth. "Everyone's talking about it in the marketplace. It is, isn't it?"
"No," Besh said. "It's not the pestilence. It's Lici."
She scowled at him. "Not this again."
"Listen to me. When Lici was a young girl the pestilence ravaged her village, killing her family and nearly everyone else she knew. She managed to survive and she went for help. She wound up finding an Y'Qatt village, and they refused to help her."
"Father, I don't-"
"Keep quiet and listen!" he said sharply.
She glared at him, but held her tongue.
"This talk of the pestilence in the north isn't groundless-there is something. It began not long after Lici left here, and as far as we can tell, the disease has only struck at Y'Qatt villages, all of them close to Sentaya, the village in which she was born."
She sat down slowly, staring at him still, an appalled look on her fine features. "You think she's doing this?"
"I think it's possible."
"But how?"
"Magic," Sirj said, emerging from the back room.
"What do you know about it?" Elica asked.
Her husband shook his head. Dark hair fell in his eyes and he brushed it away. "Not a lot. When I was a child my grandmother used to speak to us of dark conjurings. I think she did it to scare us, because she thought it was fun, for us as well as for her. She refused to actually do any of the magic she described, but she said she'd seen some of it done right here in Kirayde. At the time she refused to tell us who it was that did it. But later-when I was older-she told me it was Lici."
"What kind of conjurings?" Besh asked.
Sirj shrugged. "This comes from my grandmother, you understand. But she said that Lici had a dispute with a friend of hers and put a spell on the friend's dog. That night it was ill, and by the next morning it was dead."
"A dog?" Elica demanded. "You think killing a dog and killing off a village are the same thing?"
"Of course they're not," Besh said before Sirj could answer. "But they're not as far apart as you might think."
"You're serious about this," she said.
"Serious enough to have made a blood oath to the eldest." Her eyes narrowed. "What kind of blood oath?"
Besh held her gaze. "There's only one kind."
"What is it you swore to do?" She appeared to be trembling, though she sounded more angry than frightened. Then, that was her way, just as it had been her mother's.
"I swore that I'd find Lici, and keep her from doing any more harm." Elica closed her eyes. "Oh, Father."
"Do you even know where she is?" Sirj asked.
"We know where she's been. That's a start at least."
"Pyav will let you do this?" his daughter asked, eyeing him again, looking as if she'd half a mind to find the eldest and thrash him. "It was a blood oath, Elica," Besh said. "He had no choice." "Why would you do this, Father? What is it about that woman that moves you so?"
He probably could have explained it again. Certainly Elica had asked him this plenty of times, as had the eldest. But in truth, Besh was no longer certain. Did he do this for his family, for his friends, for the entire village? Did he do it for Sylpa, or perhaps for Lici herself-not the twisted old woman, but the sad, scared little girl he'd read about these past few days? Or was it more complicated than that?
Offering that oath had been foolish, impetuous. It had been the act of a far younger man. He'd told Pyav that this wasn't the sad attempt of an old man to make himself a hero, but now he wasn't so certain. A part of him hungered to see the world one last time, to wage a battle against something or someone more formidable than the grasses invading his garden.
Could it be that this had nothing to do with Sylpa or Lici or Elica? Probably it was a question that should have frightened him, made him question the oath he'd sworn, perhaps even the soundness of his mind. Instead, it made him want to laugh. He was tired of being wise old Besh, who sat in council with the other elders and tended to his goldroot. He wanted more from these last years of his life, even if it meant an early, violent end.
He couldn't tell his daughter all of this, of course. She'd never understand. She'd simply think him a fool, and in a way she'd be right.
So he gave her another answer, one that also was true. "I do this because if I don't, no one else will. And I believe it must be done."
"And you go alone?" Sirj asked.
"There's no one else to go," Besh told him. "Others have children to care for or trades that would keep them from leaving. Pyav offered to come with me, but this village needs its eldest."
"And you're not needed?" Elica said. "Is that it?"
Besh started to say something clever, but then stopped himself, seeing that there were tears on her cheeks. He crossed to where she sat and knelt before her, taking her hands in his. "I'm not needed as you are, or as Pyav is. This isn't to say that I'm not loved. I know better. But as it is
I haven't many years left. If something should happen to me, the rest of you will be fine."
She didn't rail at him, nor did she argue the point. She merely stared into his eyes, and, after several moments, nodded once. He could see how scared she was, but he sensed as well that she was trying to mask her fear, for his sake, as well as for her own. It was as much as she could do just then.