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CHAPTER 17

      THE LITTLE company parted on the road to Canal Port. Hearth went into the town with Ember, while Ware and Steel headed south with Zex, Hasty, and the Ezzeman.

      During this part of the journey, Ware moved like a man in a dream. Although his feet were carrying him across a wasteland of rocks, his mind was following Hearth through Canal Port's busy marketplace. He saw the food stall where she stopped to renew their supplies. He heard her ask the way to the docks.

      "Ouch!" Rubbing his bruised shin, he glanced with mild surprise at the boulders and thorny brush around him.

      Where were his companions? He located Steel threading her way among an outcropping of huge stones, well ahead of him. Neither Hasty nor Zex was anywhere in sight. Itok had stopped a hundred yards or more behind him.

      Ware went back to investigate. The painted cart was stranded halfway down a rocky incline, and the pony could not budge it. Giving a wide berth to the little animal's vicious hind legs, he crawled under the wagon and discovered that one of the wheels was jammed between two rocks.

      After levering the wheel free, with Itok's help he dragged the cart to level ground. Here, at the old man's urging, the pony leaned grudgingly into the harness. Wheels turned with a scraping sound, and the cart lurched on. "This is a terrible place," Itok murmured.

      Ware's mind went back to Hearth.

      She had reached the dock, where a single barge was tied up at the pilings. A solitary man was on it, coiling rope. "Can you sell me a passage?" she asked him.

      "You got a pass?" the man asked gruffly. Although he kept his head averted, Hearth could see that he was disfigured by a hideous scar that ran at an angle across his face. One eye was blind, and his right shoulder was hunched and distorted. He was a veteran, she guessed, wounded in one of the Usurper's many wars.

      She kept her voice even and pleasant. "A pass? No, can you tell me where to get one?"

      Still looking away, he answered, "Soldiers sell 'em — yonder, at the warehouse." He turned to face her full on and added defiantly, "And you better know that I'm the bargeman. So if you still want to go, knowing that, pay me a copper and hurry along for your pass. I cast off before dark, and there won't be nobody else along for days."

      Hearth met his look without flinching. She took out a copper coin and handed it to him. "Here's your fee. We'll be back as soon as I get the passes."

      Seeing that she didn't shrink from his grotesque looks, the man relaxed a bit and added, "The one on duty ain't a bad sort. If you take your time with him, you can maybe get your passes for a copper, but it'll go quicker if you give him two."

      "Ware. You're walking in your sleep," Steel's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Let's have something to eat."

      Itok had already taken down the jug of water that hung from the side of the cart. He took a drink and passed it to Hasty. Ware laid out their remaining food on a large rock — half a loaf of very stale bread, some rinds of cheese, and a packet of dried fruit they'd bought at a farm two days before. He carved up the cheese with his knife, offering a knot of it to Steel, one to the boy, and one to Itok. "How much farther to the river?" he asked.

      Munching, Steel sat down on a rock beside him. She looked happy, undaunted by the wilderness around them. "Not far. Look — I'll draw you a map." As Ware leaned forward to see, he was acutely aware of the curve of her arm and shoulder, the delicate sheen of moisture on her skin, and the way her shining hair clung to her temples and curled at the nape of her neck.

      With a stick, Steel made a curving line in the sand at

      their feet. "See, here's the river." Then, drawing an X halfway down the line, "And there's Canal Port to the north of us. We're somewhere down here — on high ground well above the level of the water."

      She pointed. "To the south, there, just where the river bends, we'll come down into the lowlands. Right at that point there's a long arm of rock that juts out into the water. It makes a narrow channel, and the barge has to pass close to the shore. If we're out on that spit of land, and if Hearth and Ember are on the barge, we can board it there."

      Ware was seeing what her mind saw, looking down from a great height at a glittering ribbon of brightness below him. "Beautiful . . ." he murmured.

      Just then, Zex came trotting up. "Ah, food — I'm starving." Stuffing the remaining bread and cheese into his mouth, he told them he had climbed a tall boulder and seen that the arid highlands extended another half-day's travel. Beyond it were fields and the glint of water.

      "So stop dawdling," he urged, "I want to get down to the water and fish. I'm sick of eating dry stuff."

      With these words, he took a handful of fruit and was off again. The others followed more slowly, climbing over stones and around boulders. Walking along beside the cart, Ware returned his thoughts to Hearth.

      She was now at the door of a warehouse building. He caught fragments of speech: "When we get into that building, you are to say nothing, and do nothing." Hearth said. "Just stand there. Hear me?"

      Ember, reading her lips, gave a grin. "Yes, I 'ear you."

      When she opened the door, a smell of rot and mildew greeted them. The place was dark as a cave, lit only by a small window at one end. A man in soldier's uniform was seated under the window, cleaning his nails with a small knife.

      Hearth approached him. "The bargeman told me to come here for a pass."

      The soldier leaned back indolently in his chair. "I'm not giving them out today."

      "Oh, but I have to . . . ." and then, with words ready on her lips, Hearth hesitated.

      Ware halted in the middle of a patch of brush, looking into her mind. What had interrupted her? Her story had been ready — a relative who needed her, a veteran, wounded in action, for whom she was going to keep house. But now that the moment was on her, he saw that she did not want to lie. Something about that dark room, perhaps the deathly smell of it, gave her the feeling that someone was listening to everything she said.

      It was not Ware's presence that she sensed. No, it was something else, someone who could find her if she lied.

      "My — my nephew is going into the king's service," she said, stumbling over the words, searching for a way to speak the truth without betraying herself. "And I — need to go south to meet him."

      The soldier yawned and closed his eyes. "Try walking."

      "It's too dangerous. Too far," Hearth said slowly. "And the bargeman said we had time to get a pass before he pushes off."

      "Oh, he did, did he. Well, I'm the one who decides that, and when I say it's too late, then it is," the soldier said in a dismissive tone.

      "But I —" Hearth began desperately. Then she stopped and began again: "I can pay for the passage."

      Very deliberately, she took out two coins and laid them on the table near him. They clinked pleasantly.

      At the sound, the soldier opened his eyes. The coins glinted in the light from the window. He looked at them, then sighed and pushed the money away. "Listen, old woman, ordinarily I'd take the copper and let you go, but they don't want us selling any more passes to civilians. They want to save all the places for soldiers."

      "I'm not keeping any soldiers from going downriver," Hearth said patiently. She took the leather pocket from her belt, and, opening the drawstring, she emptied its contents on the table: a small comb; a faded kerchief; a needle wound round with a twist of thread; and a third coin. She handed it to him, saying gently, "Young man, let me go and join my nephew. He's like a son to me. Think back — when you first went away from home. wasn't there an old woman somewhere who would have liked to be with you for a few more days?"

      The soldier looked at Hearth, and he looked at the coins. "Going alone, are you?"

      "No, this boy is with me."

      He got up and walked around the table to get a better look at Ember, who stood a little behind Hearth in the dimness. He frowned. "This is no boy. He's a grown man. How come he's not in service?"

      "The Pressers won't take him," Hearth answered. "He had a sickness when he was little, and it left him deaf."

      "Deaf is he? Hmm, got to think about that." The man's little eyes slid from Hearth to Ember and back again. Then he strolled away into the darkness at the other side of the room.

      A moment later, without warning, and so suddenly that Hearth started involuntarily, he bounced out behind Ember and bellowed, "HEY, DUMMY!"

      Lucky it was not Ware standing there; he would have jumped. But Ember never even noticed.

      The soldier went back and picked up the three coins. He weighed them in his hand. "Well, I'm not supposed to do it, but seeing as how there aren't any troops traveling just now . . ." He leaned over and fished a clay token from a box under the table. "Give this to the bargeman."

      Hearth took it gratefully and began backing toward the door with Ember close beside her.

      "Don't tell anybody what you paid, now. I let you off easy," he called after them.

      Then they were out in the clean air again.

      As they headed back toward the docks, Ember looked at her curiously, "Thought you were going to say about a wounded veteran. Why'd you change your mind?"

      Hearth gave him a sideways glance. "I thought the truth was better." He nodded thoughtfully and said no more.

      The bargeman was dozing in the sun. When Hearth approached, he opened his one good eye and said, "Took your coppers, did he?"

      "Yes, here's the pass."

      "Thought he would." The bargeman pocketed it and closed his eye again.

      Hearth sat down near him on the rough logs, and after a little, she said quietly, "Do you ever take people without a pass?"

      "Not me."

      She looked out over the water. "People who live along the river — do they ever get on along the way?"

      He gave her a curious look, "What would they want to do that for?"

      "I just wondered if, say, someone was walking downriver. Mmm, someone who could pay. And he hailed you from the bank, you might stop and take him aboard."

      He shook his head. "Be worth my skin."

      "Ah," she murmured, looking at his scarred face and damaged shoulder, "I wouldn't want you to suffer harm."

      It had been Hearth's plan to pay whatever was necessary for passage and then to bribe the bargeman to stop for the others, using the remaining coins from her little hoard. (Zex had been in favor of overpowering the man — but then he and Hasty were always in favor of overpowering everybody.) But now, for a second time, she was reluctant put her plan into effect.

      So, to give herself time to think, she asked, "How long have you been piloting barges?"

      "Can't really call it piloting. An' it's not exactly a barge," he answered, "See — us watermen only go down the river, not up. I and the men like me live up north, where there's lots of timber. We cut down a bunch of trees, bind the logs together, and float 'em down to Kingsport to sell for wood. Then we hike north again with money in our pockets. It's hard work, but it keeps us."

      He turned sharply to face her. "Listen, Sis, got something on your mind. Why don't you just come out with it?"

      She thought it over, wondering if she could trust him. "I have friends," she said slowly. "And they need to travel down the river."

      "Why don't they buy passage like you did," he suggested.

      "They can't. They're . . . well, for one thing, one of them is my nephew, and he's not — "

      The man raised his hands. "Stop right there. Don't tell me."

      Hearth spoke swiftly, "Oh, but they haven't done anything wrong — "

      Sharply: "I don't care what they done." Then, seeing her expression, he added more gently. "Just — hold on, Sis. Let me think."

      After a little pause, his scarred face split into a wide grin. "Say . . . I can sell my logs anywhere, can't I? Even here, so long as I get my price. So let me ask you — how'd you like to buy a raft?"

      On their dusty path, far to the south Ware never heard Hearth's answer, because at that moment something struck him and sent him to his knees. As he crouched, fighting nausea, he saw Itok fall. Then Steel, who was ahead of them, gave an agonized cry and sank down in the dust.

      Ware hauled himself up and stumbled to where Steel lay, unmoving. There was blood on her mouth where she'd bitten her lip.

      He fell on his knees beside her and hugged her to him, as if to give her shelters. There was no help for them anywhere, he thought. Zex and Hasty were not in sight, and Itok was leaning against the cart. gasping and looking ill.

      "He broke right through me," the Ezzeman whispered, "Came like a thrown knife."

      But Ware's concern was all for Steel. "Help me here," he said urgently. "Get her some water."

      As he reached for the water, the old man muttered, "I can't take another blow like that. And she can't either. I just hope this King of hers can stand up to it."

      "You hope?" Ware repeated, startled. It had never occurred to him to doubt Steel's assertions.

      And yet, the Usurper had taken the kingdom years ago. Ware thought about that for a moment. And in all this years, Hawk had never taken back his land.

      "Yes, my boy," the Ezzeman nodded grimly, reading his thought. "It's good to have powerful friends . . . unless they have enemies who are more powerful still."

      Steel's eyes opened, as clear as water. "King Hawk won't fail us."

      Itok got stiffly to his feet. "I certainly hope not."

      Later, when Steel and Itok were able to walk, they moved on. But they stopped often to rest, and she no longer went darting ahead.

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