Luck of the Wheels

‘Eager.’ Ki said the word flatly. She looked at Goat. ‘You knew that?’

The boy shrugged carelessly. ‘Everyone knows that.’

‘And you still put them after the Tamshin.’ There was disbelief in her voice.

‘They’re only Tamshin!’ he protested hotly, while Willow cut in with, ‘You’d rather they had me?’

‘I’d rather they had no one. I’d rather I’d never heard of your Duke of Loveran.’ She turned away and picked up the battered kettle. She examined it to see if it would still hold water. For a moment Vandien watched her, then took Willow’s shoulders and gently pushed her aside from him to walk over to the trampled quilts. Cautiously he bent down, his hand against his sore ribs. He picked up a quilt and shook it.

‘It’s mendable,’ he said, and began to fold it up.

‘Most things are,’ Ki agreed. ‘But not all.’

He knew what she meant. ‘They’re young, both of them. It’s easy to forget that.’

‘Especially when they nearly kill you because of it. Vandien, I am full of an evil feeling. A foreboding.’

He nodded slowly. ‘This Duke of Loveran … This doesn’t seem a good place for folk like us, does it?’

‘My mother was a full-blooded Romni, even if Aethan wasn’t. It shows in my face. The next patrol won’t be so easily fooled.’

He sighed. ‘Maybe not. What do you want to do? Take Willow and Goat back to Keddi, give the money back, and get away from Loveran and its Duke?’

‘And go where?’ She squared her shoulders, took the quilt from him. ‘No. We’ll go on. There can’t be many patrols, or there’d be no Tamshin at all. Maybe we won’t meet any more. And if we do … well, the Tamshin survive. We will, too.’

‘Maybe,’ he said. He touched her, but she pulled away, too upset to share her fears. He sighed and let her go. Still cradling his ribs, he turned, to find Willow and Goat staring at them. The scrutiny suddenly annoyed him.

‘Can’t you see there’s work to do?’ he demanded. ‘Willow, go in the wagon and put together something we can eat. Goat, tidy up the camp. I’m going for the horses. The sooner we’re on the road, the better.’

Both young faces clouded with rebellion, but they grudgingly moved to their chores. Vandien ignored them as he got the grain sack and went after the team. Sigmund stopped cropping the grasses and lifted his great head as soon as Vandien appeared. Sigurd only swung his body so that his broad rump was toward him. Vandien wasn’t fooled. He shook the grain sack once. Sigmund came eagerly, his muzzle nudging Vandien’s shoulder, and Sigurd trailed reluctantly behind him.

A new quarrel had already broken out at the wagon. Willow’s face was pink, while Goat glowed with satisfaction. Ki stood between them, fists on hips. ‘The wagon seat holds three people. Someone has to ride inside. That’s all. You two work it out.’

Vandien skirted the group, moving the horses into their traces. Ki turned her back on Willow as she indignantly exclaimed, ‘But why should I have to ride inside the stuffy old wagon all day? Why can’t we take turns, or Goat walk beside the wagon or something?’

‘My father paid for me to travel comfortably,’ Goat was saying at the same time.

Vandien parceled out grain to the team as Ki lifted the heavy harness into place. ‘Maybe,’ Vandien said softly, ‘we could put them both into the wagon, and shut the door behind the seat so we didn’t have to listen to them.’

‘Somehow I think we’d still hear them.’ Ki tightened the last strap. ‘But I know someone who’d better ride inside. You.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. You look green. Does it hurt much?’

‘Enough to make me want to puke, but I know that would hurt even more.’

Ki started to laugh, stopped abruptly. He knew what she was thinking. ‘Not a damn thing we could do for them. The rousters’ horses are twice as fast as Sigurd and Sigmund. And even if you could have warned them, where could they hide? Don’t let it poison you.’

Ki shook her head, not looking at him. He put his hand on her shoulder and leaned on her as they went to the wagon’s door.

Goat sat firmly on the wagon seat. Willow glowered up at him. Neither Vandien nor Ki said a word as they passed.

‘It’s not fair!’ Willow burst out suddenly, and then fell silent as she watched Vandien clamber slowly up the wagon step and inside. ‘Is he going to ride in there?’ she suddenly demanded.

‘Yes,’ Ki admitted. ‘So I suppose you can both ride up front with me. I’ll sit in the middle so you don’t have to look at one another.’

‘No. I’ll keep Vandien company, I guess.’

Willow’s sudden capitulation startled Ki, but it was a relief, too. The idea of spending the day seated between two squabbling children hadn’t been pleasant. But as she mounted the wagon, she considered that spending the day alone with Goat was not a happy alternative. He was already holding the reins.

‘I’m driving now, all right?’ he said as she seated herself beside him.

‘No.’ Ki tugged the reins from his grasp and kicked the brake off. She shook the reins and the greys stepped out. The wagon lurched from the turfy roadside back up onto the roadbed. After the shade by the spring, the sun was very bright. Ki squinted down the long, empty road.

After a long stretch of boring prairie, Goat asked suddenly, ‘Are you so mad you aren’t going to talk to me all day?’

Ki considered it. ‘Perhaps.’

‘Because of the Tamshin?’

‘Yes.’

A whimper came into Goat’s voice. ‘But I thought I was helping. It saved your life, you know that. Those Brurjans were about to make porridge of Vandien.’

Ki felt no mercy for him. ‘You know that, do you?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘You know so much of Brurjans, do you? I’d have said they were just about to ask us for a bribe.’

‘And you’d have been wrong!’ Goat broke in suddenly. There was no whimper to his voice now, only a boy’s wild anger. ‘Allikata had decided it would be interesting to break Vandien up slowly, to see how much pain he could take. And one of the Humans, it was his turn to be first at the women, and he was wondering if you’d fight or weep.’

There was a savage satisfaction in his voice that chilled Ki. Against her will she turned to meet his pale eyes, more yellow than brown. She did not like to admit her disgust was tinged with fear.

‘Believe your own wild stories if you like,’ she began in a shaky voice.

‘I believe what I know, and I know more than you like. More than anyone likes, and so they hate me. Would you like to hate me more? Then I’ll warn you that it isn’t wise to leave Vandien and Willow alone in the wagon together. Not when she is wondering if he would protect her if the Brurjans came again, and he is wondering if he is as old as he feels. Young enough to worry over foolish things … isn’t that what you told him?’

For an instant Ki was confused. Then a killing fury gripped her. So the boy had been awake last night, and listening to them. Blood suffused her face suddenly. And watching them, too? The team tossed their heads, baffled by the trembling that came down the reins to them. She would not strike him. She would force herself to remember that he was only a boy. But …

‘If ever …’ Anger made her voice crack. ‘If ever you spy upon us like that again, I shall …’

‘Shall what?’ Gotheris demanded spitefully. He stared at her. ‘What can you do to me? You already hate me. Every time you think of me, you are filled with annoyance and irritation. But you’ll keep your contract, you’ll take me safely to Villena. No matter how horrid I am, you’ll give me to my uncle. No matter how nice I am, either.’

A different note entered the boy’s voice on his final words. For a long time Ki drove in silence. There were more trees now, in scattered groves set back from the road. Perhaps the remains of failed farming efforts. When she trusted herself to speak, she said, ‘I don’t think I hate you, Gotheris. Much of what you do makes me angry, but … what’s that?’

‘That’ was something in the distance, a scatter of objects beside and upon the road. They moved erratically. Ki settled back on the seat. ‘Looks like someone’s herd of swine loose in the road. Rolling in the dust.’

‘Close enough,’ Gotheris observed heartlessly. ‘Tamshin.’

At his words Ki stood, to peer ahead, and then startled the team with a cry. She slapped the reins on the grey backs, and the horses broke into a ponderous trot and then a heavy canter. She drove them standing, swaying with their rhythm. The entry to the caravan slid open behind her. Willow peered out. ‘What’s the matter?’ she demanded. Ki didn’t answer. The road stretched ever longer before her, making it seem as though she would never arrive.