Nikha took his arm. 'We've stayed in Settlement from time to time. Lardis Lidesci was always a friend, in the old days and in the new. I'm not a man to incur debts, but where they exist I always try to square them. You are tired, Nathan Kiklu. You look fit to drop. As well sleep here among friends as alone along the river, and when you've rested eat with us. That way, in some future time, my debt will have transferred to you. It's from small debts such as these that friendships are forged.'
Nathan felt his weariness dragging on his bones and remembered now that he'd been about to sleep. Also, his back was a mass of blue bruises, whose aching was such that it might soon immobilize him entirely unless he rested first. 'I'm tired, it's true,' he said. 'But I don't wish to inconvenience you.'
'No such thing,' the other replied. This is where we make camp, eat and sleep. You've come across us at the right time. Our lives may be short but Sunside's days are long. At least while the sun is in the sky we may sleep safely. As for your search: the river is wide and its banks overgrown, with miles of forest on both sides. I understand your need, but I can't say I'm envious of the task you've set yourself. A rest can't hurt… and then a little food, to fuel you on your way?'
In this way Nathan found his mind made up for him. 'I'm in your debt,' he said.
Leading him into the camp past a small caravan, Nikha said: 'My wagon. I shared it with my young sister, and cared for her until she was a woman. Then, when Eleni found herself a man in Twin Fords, or when he found her, we made them a tent of skins. This time passing through Twin Fords she would have been married; this very day, in fact! But last night, in the middle of a small celebration… well, you know what happened. All of that became as nothing. Now for a while she'll put up her tent and sit in it, and mourn this man she never got to know.' His voice hardened. 'But she'll forget about him soon enough, and the tent won't go to waste. Maybe it's just as well.'
Nathan glanced at him, perhaps a little sharply. Nikha saw his frown and raised a defensive eyebrow. 'If she'd known him well, then she would mourn him that much harder. And what if there had been children?'
'That seems a hard point of view,' Nathan was frank.
'Because I can remember hard times,' Nikha answered. 'And harder still to come, I fear.' He paused a while to fondle the ear of a beast of burden, a shad, one of a pair hitched to the thill of his vehicle. Shaggy as a hugely overgrown goat and of a like intelligence — but less boisterous, wider in the shoulder and sturdier in the legs — the creature and its companion waited uncomplainingly for someone to unhitch them and put them to graze. Turning its head, it offered up a grateful bleat and allowed Nikha to scratch behind its ear.
And: 'Aye,' he finally continued, as if he talked to himself or to the shad, 'even the smallest comforts will be hard come by from now on, I fancy. For men and beasts alike…'
Meanwhile, Nathan had looked the camp over and noted its size and composition. There were two caravans and a flat, covered cart, half a dozen shads and two calves, and a few goats tethered at the back of the vehicles. Dangling outside the caravans, festooning their sides, were all the tools and utensils necessary to Traveller life, each item muffled now to prevent unwanted jangling and clattering. And under the trees at the rim of the clearing, three good-sized tents stood cool in the shade. Finally, the camp had its own wolves, a dog and a bitch. Capable hunters, they would see to themselves and provide early warning of intruders — which explained how Nikha Sintana had been so quick off the mark and waiting on Nathan's arrival.
According to Lardis Lidesci's campn're stories, there had been hundreds of groups such as this one upon a time. Scarcely larger than a few family units — able to melt away like ghosts into the forests, or hide in small caves during Wamphyri raids — they had made harder targets than the larger, more prominent Traveller tribes.
Several of Nikha Sintana's earlier statements had more than suggested his solitary nature, which the size of his party might appear to confirm; but to Nathan it seemed more likely that he simply adhered to this old tenet, that small is synonymous with secure.
Of people, the group was made up of thirteen in alclass="underline" four men, including Nikha, three women, and five children whose ages ranged from a small infant to the youth in his early teens who had gone fishing. The thirteenth… was Eleni Sintana, that sister of whom Nikha had spoken.
Nathan had caught only the briefest glimpse of Eleni in the moment he broke through the undergrowth on to the track, but in that same moment he had seen something in her eyes which had seemed to strike a resonant chord within himself… perhaps it had been her eyes, so much like Misha's. In any case, he'd been aware of her presence ever since but was careful not to look at her directly. Travellers are often fiercely protective where their women are concerned, and they don't care for forwardness in strangers. He was aware of her now to one side of the camp's central area, where she used an axe to break up dead, fallen branches into firewood.
This is Eleni,' Nikha confirmed, leading him across the clearing, 'my sister. She cuts firewood to occupy her mind.'
She looked up as they approached — looked at Nathan and smiled, however wanly — and he saw now that it was her eyes. They took him by surprise, for he'd thought that only Misha's eyes could be so warm, black and caring. Obviously he'd been wrong; or perhaps it was just that Misha had been so much on his mind lately, that…
This is Nathan Kiklu,' Nikha said, breaking into his thoughts, and possibly into hers, too. 'A man of Settlement, from Lardis Lidesci's people. He could use a wash, a place to sleep, a blanket to keep him warm. Until our meal is prepared. Will you see to it, little sister?'
She nodded and straightened up. And now that they'd been introduced, Nathan allowed himself to look at her.
Maybe twenty or twenty-one years old, she was typically Szgany. All lithe and sinuous, with movements as smooth as oil, her hair was shiny black, her skin tanned to a glow, her mouth generous and sensuous at one and the same time. And there was something wild as the woods about her — even more so than her brother — so that if Nathan didn't know better he might think there was room for only one mood in her: she should be vivacious and live life to the full, joyously, with a husky laugh that teased, taunted but never quite seduced. Because when finally Eleni did love, then her man would get all that she could give.
Mainly nai've, Nathan was wont to make judgements such as this at first sight. And sometimes he was right. Eleni shouJd be that way; perhaps she would have been and could be again, one day. But for now… she was small and sad and lonely.
As Nikha walked away, back towards his caravan and animals, Nathan began: 'Your brother has told me — ' and paused. '- I mean, I just want you to know that we're two of a kind. For just as you have lost your man, so I have lost my girl.'
She nodded seriously, and answered: 'I know how much you have lost, for it's in your eyes. I knew from the first moment I saw you. Ah, but I saw much more than that in those strange blue eyes of yours, Nathan! They are filled with all sorts of things, and you're not much given to hiding them.'
He was surprised, not quite sure of her meaning. Perhaps he looked at her too openly. He turned his eyes aside at once. 'Have I… been forward? If I've seemed so, then — '
'No, no, not that,' she cut him short. 'And if you were, what of it? Gypsies are forward. If a person is liked no one complains, and if he is not liked we say that he is forward. No, but you have been the sad one for a long, long time, and now is the worst time of all.'
He shook his head, frowned, fingered his chin. 'But… how can you know?' And now her smile was warmer.
'Oh, I read palms,' she said, tossing her ringlets back out of her eyes. 'Like my mother before me. Except, why it's easier far to read faces! And as I said, your face — especially those eyes of yours — tells a long, sad story.' She reached out and touched his brow. 'Such lines, and so very deep, in a face so young…' She shook her head, wonderingly. But before he could question her further: