For the first and only time since I have known him, my Man Who Laughs could do nothing but splutter, briefly but totally speechless with outrage. I patted his leg. “There,” I said. “We are not the children you knew, and we were never fools. And we know something anyway about dealing with wizards. Tell us where Arshadin lives.”
He sulked. There is no other word for it. He folded his arms and sank back against the pillows, staring somewhere past us. Once again, Lal and I began speaking at the same time. Lal concerned herself with assuring him that we would track down Arshadin with his help or without it, but that it would be a good thing to find him before he found us. I had a number of things to say about stubborn, arrogant, ungrateful old men, and I said them all. Neither approach made the slightest difference, as both of us could have predicted. He simply closed his eyes.
Then Lukassa spoke. Since we came into the room, she had done nothing but make over him, uttering no sounds—once she stopped weeping—distinguishable from the sigh of blankets or the soothing murmur of soup. Even I had almost forgotten she was there, and I was usually very much aware of Lukassa, silent or not. Now she said quite clearly, in that south-country baby-bird voice of hers, “White teeth—white, white teeth. The white teeth of the river.”
From Lal’s expression I knew that, like me, she thought Lukassa must mean the river from which Lal had raised her drowned body. The Man Who Laughs tried out a soft snore, but no one was deceived. Lal said, “That was long ago, Lukassa. There is no river where we are now.”
“In the mountains,” Lukassa said. Her voice was stronger, as fiercely insistent as it had been in the cold, empty tower. “In the mountains he gives the river fine presents to make it sing. The dharises nest on his windows, and the great sheknath fish along the banks below, and the river sings hungry, hungry, please more, please.” She was breathing hard and roughly, as though she had been running.
When we looked back at the Man Who Laughs, his eyes were wide open, still drained pale but bright enough for all of that. I said, “There are things she knows.”
“Obviously,” he said, forcing a yawn. “As I know that outside this door, one of the boys who helped me up the stairs is lying hurt. Not the one who brought the food, my dear Lal”—for she was already across the room—“the other one. Bring him in and see to him, and then we will perhaps talk a bit more about Arshadin. Perhaps.”
ROSSETH
It was well before dawn when they came for their horses, but I was ready and waiting outside the stable, rehearsing once more the logical reasons why they should take me with them wherever they were going. I was certain that Nyateneri would refuse, no matter how well I pleaded, but I did think that I might have some chance with Lal.
As it happened, Lal never let me get my first speech out of my mouth: she took one look at me, perched up between two weeks’ worth of stolen food and several really quite sharp gardening tools on the warm swayback of Tunzi, Karsh’s old horse-of-all-work, and said, “No, Rosseth.” I will always bless her for not laughing, nor even looking startled; but her tone was quietly final, and somehow left no opening for much but spluttering and arm-waving. It was Nyateneri who said mildly, “You did name him our faithful squire, after all. A temporary appointment only?”
I saw the warmth flood from Lal’s throat all the way to her forehead, but she ignored Nyateneri altogether, saying to me, “Rosseth, unpack that poor animal and go back to bed. I have already told you that you cannot come with us. You must stay home.”
“I but obey your orders,” I answered. “Where you are, I am home.” Bold words, but barely audible, as I recall. Lal neither smiled nor frowned to hear them. She said, “Look at me, Rosseth. No, look straight at me, and at Nyateneri, too. Rosseth.”
I did look directly into her eyes, which was effort enough, but it was more than I could manage to meet Nyateneri’s calm glance. It shames me still, a little, to remember how ashamed I was, not of what had happened between us, but of my worshipful dreams of the woman I had taken him to be. I was sixteen, and chuckling little assassins were easier to face than confusion, in that time.
Lal said, “I will tell you where we are bound, and why you cannot come with us. We are on our way up into the mountains to seek out a wizard named Arshadin, who plagues our master with terrible hauntings and visions. When we have explained to him that this is an uncivil way to behave, we will return. In the meanwhile—”
“I can help you,” I broke in on her. “You will need someone to find water in the mountains, to search for paths where the horses can go, to carry packs when the beasts must be rested.” Each argument sounded weaker than the one before, but I plunged ahead anyway. “Someone to make your camp and keep it clean—someone who will wait forever where you tell him to wait. I know how to do these things. I have done them all my life.”
“Yes,” Lal said gently. “But we need you to do them at the inn. Listen to me, Rosseth,” for I had immediately started to protest again. “At this moment, Arshadin is hunting for our master. He is sitting in silence, closing his eyes and hunting for him, do you understand me? Our hope, if we cannot reason with him, is not to fight him— for he is a far greater wizard than we are warriors—but perhaps to divert him, to make him hunt us for a bit, while our master regains his own strength.” She paused, and then added, with a very small smile, “We do not yet know how we will do this.”
“Oh, we certainly do not,” Nyateneri mimicked her. “It took all our wit merely to persuade our master to let us go with his blessing—there was none left over for anything like a plan of action. Find mountain, find river, find wizard, do something.” He sighed and shook his head in mock despair. “It lacks a certain precision.”
Lal ignored him, taking my wrists in her hands. She said, “We need you to guard him while we are gone. It will help us greatly to know that he is safe and warm and not alone.” She would have said more, but I interrupted her, pulling my hands away.
“A nursemaid,” I said. “Be honest with me—I have that much claim on you. A nursemaid to a sick old man, that is all you need.” I am telling you what I said.
Nyateneri’s horse pushed past Lal’s, and Nyateneri gripped me between shoulder and neck with the same hand that had caressed me just there, after I had saved his life and my nose was bleeding. I stood up in my stirrups, prying at his fingers. He said very softly, “Boy. There is a world you do not know. In that world there are wizards and mages who could spread you and me on their morning toast before their eyes were quite open, and truly never realize that we weren’t last year’s ice-flower preserve. And among those vast beings, there is not one who would not cast aside every preoccupation, every pride, every loyalty, on the slightest chance of being allowed to sit by that sick old man’s bed. Think carefully about this, Rosseth, as you change his linen.”
Lal made him let go of my shoulder. I think he was so angry that he had forgotten he was holding me. But I was angry, too—I could not believe the rage that took me over then. As I have said, in those days a show of anger was the greatest luxury I dared imagine allowing myself, and at sixteen, the actual emotion seemed already as rare and unnatural in me as the display. I tried to keep from shaking with it as I answered Nyateneri. I said, “There is Lukassa, who refuses to let your master out of her sight. There is Tikat, who is never so far from Lukassa that he could not hear her call him, if she ever would. There is Marinesha, who knows more about sickness than all three of us put together. What can I do for the old man that they cannot?“