They continued down the road, chatting freely. Paks continued to lead the black horse, since Mal was walking beside the cart. He pointed out different trees, but Paks quickly grew confused with it: colors and patterns of bark, and shapes of leaves, and the form of the tree meant little to her. She could tell a star-shaped leaf from a lance-shaped one, and both those from the ferny-looking compounds, but that was her limit. Mal teased her gently. In the meantime, they both watched the road for the signs of the caravan—the fresh wheel ruts and narrow mule hoofmarks. These they did not mention.
Paks wondered what would be left at the ambush site, since Sir Felis had sent a troop of his soldiers out to retrieve the bodies. Would she even notice it? As the sun neared its height, she began to worry that they’d missed it. But it was clear, when they came to it. Deeper tracks, round-hoofed, of ridden horses, and the mules’ tracks veering from side to side. Bloodstains on the fallen leaves, and on the rocks that edged the road. A few spent arrows, mostly broken. Mal pointed out the traces she missed, chatting the while about trees. In the end, Paks found the way the wagons had been taken. Freshly cut boughs, the leaves hardly withered, disguised the wagons’ track into the woods; the brigands had chosen a stony outcrop for the turn off the road. It led, or so Paks thought, the wrong direction—north—but Mal looked grim when he saw it.
“There’s a farm to the northwest,” he said. “Or was, until it burned. If they’re using it, they may be using the old farm lane to bring the wagons back, and cross this road farther along. As I remember, that other farm lane hits this road in about the same place.”
“Well, do we follow this?” asked Paks.
“No. Not with horses. We’d make a noise like an army in there, with a third of the leaves down as they are. If you’ll take my advice, we’ll go along the road and look for that other place, where the lane comes in.”
Paks could just see the lane coming in ahead when Mal stopped abruptly. “Ha,” he said loudly. “There’s the tree I come for.” She stared at him, surprised, and he winked. “You’d best go on up the road a ways,” he went on. “I want to drop it right here in the road. Tell you what. You take these two wheels along with you, eh? Go on—yes—right along up there, at least as far as that lane. This’un’ll fall long, I tell you.” Paks finally caught on, and wandered slowly up the road as he bade her. Behind her, the axe rang on the tree. She wondered if it really was a “limber pine” or whatever.
It was hard to roll the wheels along with one hand and lead the black horse with the other. Several times a wheel got loose, and she had to bend to pick it back up. When she got both wheels as far as the lane crossing, she dropped them with a grunt and wiped her hands on the fallen leaves. The black horse nudged her, and she scratched his chin idly. She could just see Mal bending to his work.
“How long will you be?” she called back to him. The rhythmic axe blows stopped, and he stood up.
“Eh?”
“How long will you be?” She made it loud and distinct. “I thought I’d ride on and find water for my horse.”
“Oh—say—a finger or two of sun. Not longer. There’s a spring up that lane—used to be a farm there, some years back. You could bring me some—my can’s back here; this fellow won’t fall till I drop him.”
Paks mounted and rode back, to another of Mal’s winks, and he handed her a tall can with a wire bail. “It’s good water, or used to be,” he said. “Look out for wild animals, though. I’ve heard of wolves using it.”
“I’ll be careful,” said Paks, and drew along the black horse’s neck the tracks she’d seen: wagons and teams both. Mal nodded and waved her away.
Paks made no attempt at silence as she rode along the lane that led south. She found a thread of water beside the lane, and then a cobble-walled springhouse. Beyond was a half-overgrown clearing with the ruins of a farmhouse and outbuildings. She didn’t look at it, but dipped the can in the spring, and let the black horse drink afterwards. It was not really thirsty, and wanted to sniff at fresh droppings a few feet away. Paks reined it around slowly, and rode back, glad of her helmet and mail shirt.
Mal had the tree down by the time she got back, and loudly directed her in placing the wheels under one end of it. He had trimmed the ends of the axle log into rough rounds, and once the wheels were in place split the ends and placed cross-wedges in them.
“Thing is,” he said, “the wheels have to turn on the axle, not with it—else it’d walk right off the end of the tree.” Paks hadn’t thought of that problem. Nor had she noticed the can of grease he’d brought to put on the axle. She did wonder how he’d gotten the large end of the tree into the cart. Surely he wasn’t that strong. She glanced overhead for something he might have slung a line from.
“Don’t look up,” he warned quietly. Paks froze. “If you want to know how I lifted that monster,” he said more loudly, “I used its own limbs for levers. Trimmed ’em after, that’s how I do it. Some men use lines, but then they have to have a taller tree nearby. Not always handy. By Gird, I’m thirsty!” He drained the can at one swallow.
The journey back was slower; Mal’s pony moved the tree at an easy footpace. The black horse fretted. Paks got off again and walked alongside. When they reached Eris’s, they picked up the apples; Mal told Paks what the current price was, and she left it wrapped in the cloth Eris had put over the baskets. From there into town they talked softly of what Paks had seen. Mal said he had spotted a watcher in the trees. They agreed it would be too dangerous to scout the game trail if the brigands were still so alert.
It was nearly dark when they passed the grange; Ambros and several other yeomen were talking in the barton gateway, and called greetings.
“You can come help me on the bridge,” Mal yelled back. “Paks here isn’t much of a teamster.”
“That’s not a team,” Paks retorted, sure by now that such joking was acceptable.
“I’d be glad to hitch your black up and let him do some work,” said Mal.
“I doubt that.” Ambros came up to them. “You weren’t there the first time she saddled him. He’d be impossible in harness. Come on Jori, give us a hand here.” Ambros and the other yeoman helped Mal get the wheels aligned on the bridge. Still talking, they followed along. Mal untied the log beside the Council Hall, and drove it off the back wheels. Then he let the weight drag it out of the Cart. His pony gave a heavy sigh as the log fell, and the men laughed.
“Come on to the inn,” said Mal. “I’ll buy a mug for you.”
They nodded and walked along; Jori and Ambros returned to some grange matter; Paks did not know what grange-set was, or what it had to do with a farm’s sale. She hardly listened, intent instead on figuring out just what Mal Argonist really was—not a simple forester, that was clear. She was beginning to wonder if anyone was actually a simple anything. Until Brewersbridge, she had not considered that an innkeeper might be a council member as well—that many people had more than one role, and considered them all important.
The common room was moderately busy, but quiet. News of the attack made solemn faces. Paks stabled the black horse, and went back in to find that the others expected her at their table. She shook her head at Mal’s offer of ale, and asked Hebbinford for supper instead.
“I eat before I drink,” she said in answer to Mal’s question. “I don’t have your—” She paused and looked at him with narrowed eyes, as the others laughed. “—capacity,” she said finally. Mal shook the table with his laughter.
“You didn’t start young enough,” he said. “When I was scarce knee high, my old dad had me down tankards at a time.”
“Of ale?” asked Ambros.
“No—ale costs too much. Water. But it’s the habit, Ambros, of an open throat. The feel of it sliding down—”