The scar-faced man could sit up. The trolls had almost smothered him, and he wheezed for air. His arm leaked blood. Chad sliced his shirttail, made a bandage to stanch the bleeding. Still holding Greensleeves tight, Gull helped Chad get Kem on his feet.
Still groggy, Kem croaked in Gull's face, "Don't expect me to thank you."
Gull thought of many replies, picked the most insulting. "You're welcome."
Days later, Gull still mulled aloud. "Damned funny the way that badger showed up all of a sudden."
Rocking beside him on the wagon seat, Lily shrugged. "It was just a big animal. The trolls were bigger than goblins, maybe things grow larger in that swamp."
"But this badger-oh, it was big!-was clean! It even had yellow sand stuck to its fur, not mud! No leeches, and we were covered with 'em! It must have-"
"You told Chad the island rose to higher ground. It just came out of its burrow after trolls. What's so strange?"
"But it-" Gull paused to shout his mules around a rockslide.
They'd left the swamp behind. Along its southern edge, Towser had located his black lotuses. He spent the morning touching them and sketching in his grimoire, while the entourage swatted bugs.
The track grew firmer as they approached the hills, and they'd found a pass in an old riverbed. They had to circumvent large rocks, or lever them aside, but they made good time. The hills at either hand were grassy, with pockets of hardwood trees that sheltered mule deer and goats and stunted bison that made the horses snort in fright. From the crest of each hill they saw more hills, but then they ended abruptly. White birds wheeled there, and Towser said they approached the ocean.
The white birds, he told his freighter, were sea gulls-his namesake. Gull was eager then. He'd never seen the sea or a sea gull.
Someone else was eager, too. For the first time ever, Greensleeves took interest in her surroundings. A hundred times a day she stuck her head between Gull and Lily to peek at the countryside. Then she'd clamber over the cookware and cook and cook's boy to look out the back. She'd climb out, run 'round the wagon, pick up a rock or stalk of grass, show it to her brother, point to the distant deer and bison, chatter, climb back aboard, peek past his shoulder again.
"What's she looking at?" asked Lily.
"It beats me," Gull shrugged. "She's got her eye on something. Maybe those deer with the big ears, maybe something we can't see."
Greensleeves shoved a bunch of wildflowers into Lily's hand. Tiny buds formed a cloud of white. Baby's breath, Gull knew from his mother's garden. He told Greensleeves the name and saw her brow knit.
"She looks like she's thinking," Lily murmured.
"So does a mule just before he kicks," said Gull. But he had to agree. Greensleeves acted strange, even for someone "blessed with the second sight."
The next day, they crested a rise and saw the ocean.
Gull hauled on the reins in shock. It was so blue, and wide, and vast! Islands dotted the horizon and, to the south, formed a long yellow line. Ships, the first he'd ever seen, ghosted across the water like great wooden swans.
Lily laughed. "It's deep, too. Over your head."
"Don't tease," Gull chided. "It's just so much to look at!"
Again the dancing girl laughed, and adjusted the hood of her jacket, dug from a chest in her wagon, for a stiff breeze with a tang of salt blew in their faces. "I'm sorry. I'm just used to it. I was born in a seaport. My mother was a whore, like me."
"Stop," said Gull, and took her hand.
Greensleeves popped between them. She burbled like a badger as she stared at the blue. Lily laughed at her astonishment, told her, "Sea. Seeeeea."
"Seeeea!" said the simpleton.
Gull jumped so he almost fell off the wagon seat. "What did you say?"
"Saaaay!" said his sister.
Gull's mouth gaped, and Lily laughed at both of them. Flustered, the woodcutter snarled, "Stop it! This is serious! She's never repeated anything before!"
"Never? Really?" Now Lily was flustered. Greensleeves studied the two of them like a patient dog awaiting orders.
Orders came, but from the wagon two back. Knoton, the clerk shrilled, "What's keeping us? Get moving! Tow-ser's wait-ing!"
Slumping back on the seat, Gull flapped the reins, plucked at the brake to slow the wagon as it rolled downhill. A track ran along the cliff's edge: the first road they'd struck since leaving White Ridge.
Greensleeves bobbed with the jouncing wagon, staring. Sea breeze spun her hair into a brown halo. She cooed, "Seeeea!"
After passing fields freshly plowed and seeded, a fortress farmhouse, scrubby ridges, then more farms and more fields, they struck the town of a few hundred houses. Again, Gull was awed. "So many people in one place!"
Lily laughed. "And this just a small town. You should see a real city. It's walled, yet 'twould take you a full day to walk across it. Or two days." Gull found that impossible to imagine. Yet despite her teasing, he was glad to see her laugh so easily.
Towser ordered the wagons halted at the first ale bar, for they had run out of beer weeks ago. From his own pouch the wizard produced coin to buy a round. Dusty and weary and jangly-legged from the long haul, his entourage quaffed greedily. Towser had them all topped off, then raised his foaming jack for a toast.
"To you, my proud followers! I respect your hard work and diligence that got us here safely! Know you there will be ale aplenty, and fresh food, and days to wander at your will with fat purses!"
United for the first time, the party cheered and drank. When they'd fathomed the cask, Towser gave final orders. They were to set up camp outside town, secure firewood, post a guard, and then the rest could depart for sightseeing. Muzzily, they complied as the sun set.
Before he knew it, Gull had money in a purse, a black dagger on his belt, Greensleeves on one arm, Lily on the other, and Stiggur trailing behind like a puppy. Together, the four marched into town. Lily had promised them a good time, though Gull had no idea what that entailed. He was happy just to stare at the sights.
Over the next few days, they explored the town. Gull couldn't believe the diversity, the industry, the color. He loved everything. The streets were wide and fairly clean, though pigs and chickens and dogs ran hither and thither. The buildings were one or two stories, covered with salt-streaked shingles and clapboards, with painted doors and icons dotting the walls. The shops bore painted signs. The ale bars were crammed with sailors and pirates and farmers and artisans. The docks were heaped with goods unloaded from long graceful galleys and boxy cogs. Workshops lay open, so they watched horses being shod, ships being straked, fish being gutted, candles being dipped, cloth being dyed.
Lily bought them foods they'd never tasted. Fresh ocean fish and potatoes fried in olive oil. Lamb roasted with onions. Honeyed squash. Beaver tails baked in beer. She bought Greensleeves and Stiggur huge chunks of rock crystal that proved to be cane sugar dipped on string. She saw Gull try beers from all over, brewed from barley and hops, but also pumpkins, potatoes, mushrooms, even birch bark.
With a purse full of money and some place to spend it, Gull had a seamstress cobble up a new dress for his sister, pale green with darker sleeves, as his mother had sewn long ago, though with a quilted bodice, as the weather was cooler by the sea. He bought Lily a white shawl embroidered with bright flowers along the edges, and she squealed with delight. But for himself, he could think of nothing to buy save a plain gray sweater.
Every afternoon, all four stripped and waded in the ocean, diving and surfing and blubbering and splashing each other like children.
One day, Gull tried to befriend his namesakes, offering scraps, tidbits of bread, but the birds flew off every time, never letting him get within petting distance. When he asked why, Lily told him, "They're scavengers, Gull. They live by their wits and are wary. They eat what they can, sometimes fighting with dogs and cats and other birds. And they're not really welcome anywhere, though the sailors refuse to kill any seabird. It brings bad luck."