The girls led Cashel in a gently weaving path. At first he thought it was high spirits and one girl or another tugging him more firmly than the girls on the other side. A shepherd learns to note small changes in the land, because sheep do. After a little while, Cashel realized that the girls were taking him by a path that led through the least amount of vegetation.
The Helpers themselves seemed not to trouble even the thickest foliage. Twenty-second walked through a stand of virgin’s bower, but the white starry flowers were scarcely waving when the old man reached the outcrop beyond.
Cashel glanced back at Tilphosa. He’d have told her what he’d just figured out, but that might embarrass the Helpers. He decided to watch his own feet as much as he could and whisper to Tilphosa when they were sitting down.
They reached the village again. Quite a number of the tribefolk—a double handful, it looked like—were already at work in the central courtyard and carrying food from the drying racks. Others appeared from the forest, bearing handfuls of fresh fruit and nuts.
The Helpers didn’t seem to make baskets any more than they wore clothing. Cashel thought about squirrels again; but they weren’t, they were people who were just smaller than the folks in the borough.
The Helpers were too nice to be squirrels. From what Cashel’d seen so far, they were also too nice to be most of the people he’d met thus far in his lifetime. Except for the way they’d ignored Fourteenth after Cashel freed him, and there might be more going on there than an outsider could see.
The girls released Cashel at the passage between the huts. Twenty-second outstretched his hand as a guide without quite touching Cashel and led him into the courtyard.
“Ah, where should we sit?” Cashel asked, checking over his shoulder to make sure Tilphosa was with him.
“Anywhere you please, lord and lady,” Twenty-second said with a sweep of his arm. “Wherever you are is the place of honor. Will you have juice or water to refresh you before the meal?”
“Ah, I guess water,” Cashel said. He gestured Tilphosa to sit—on bare dirt, but they’d slept on nothing better the night before.
She sat, murmuring, “Water for me as well, thank you,” to the older woman who’d entered behind her.
More Helpers were bustling into the courtyard, some carrying food and drink while others merely seated themselves in the open area. Cashel remained standing for a moment, his back to a hut, and he watched. Things didn’t seem right; meaning that they didn’t seem like anyplace he’d been before, not that there was anything wrong exactly about it.
The Helpers wouldn’t hurt a fly, he thought. And indeed, maybe they wouldn’t; but Cashel hadn’t seen any flies or mice or any other animals around since he got up this morning.
Twenty-second took a container from a younger member of the tribe. Instead of offering it directly to Cashel, he pointedly drank from it himself and only then held it out.
Cashel felt his skin go hot; he hadn’t realized his suspicions were so obvious to his hosts. He took the cup in his left hand and drank—
Cautiously at first: he might be embarrassed at his suspicions, but he was still suspicious. There was nothing but water in the cup, cool but really too flat to do more than cut the dust.
The container was kind of interesting, though. It wasn’t pottery, just sun-dried clay. Sap or gum coated the inside to seal it the way Reise tarred the leathern jacks he used for crowds during the Sheep Fair. Unlike tar, this coating didn’t flavor the drink. It was soft enough to dent with a thumbnail, but it rose back to a smooth surface afterward.
Tilphosa was being served from a similar cup—and again, the old woman beside her drank first. Tilphosa looked up at Cashel, her blank expression hiding surprise. Cashel squatted beside her, propping his staff against the hut where he could reach it easily if he had to.
The Helpers knelt rather than sitting—like Tilphosa—or squatting. Twenty-second dropped into place on Cashel’s other side. Immediately a younger Helper offered the apparent chief several red apples that dwarfed his outspread small hands.
“An apple, lord?” Twenty-second said, taking a delicate bite out of one and holding it out to Cashel.
“Thanks, but I’ll have a whole one,” Cashel said, taking an apple directly from the servitor. It was pleasantly tart, tasting something like the green-ripening fruit that peddlers occasionally packed into Barca’s Hamlet from orchards in the south of the island.
Cashel ate the apple down to the core and paused, wondering what to do. At home he’d have tossed it onto a midden or, if he were with the sheep, seen if he could get it into the sea. A servant plucked the core from his fingers before he was aware of her presence and disappeared with it.
The meal continued, fruits alternating with nuts. Many of the dishes were new to Cashel, but they were mostly good and often excellent. Twenty-second used a sharp stone to bore through the shell of a head-sized nut, drank from the opening, and then gave it to Cashel. The milky contents had flavor that the plain water lacked; Cashel drank the nut empty and was pleased to have more when the old man opened another.
Cashel hadn’t expected this food to really fill him, but the nuts surprised him by doing a pretty good job of replacing the bread and cheese he was used to. A servant used a rock to break open the big nut after Cashel had drained it; the meat inside was solid and crunchy, with the same pleasant flavor as the milk.
And the food—not dishes, except the tumblers for water and the juices Cashel now drank cheerfully—kept coming. Each one was different; and each time Twenty-second politely insisted on taking a bite or a sip before the remainder was offered to Cashel.
The older female beside Tilphosa—her name was Seventeenth, if Cashel had heard right—tasted the girl’s food also. It wasn’t necessary anymore, but Cashel decided it was better just to ignore the business than to make a fuss that probably wouldn’t change anything. For all their small size and friendliness, the Helpers were about as stubborn as the nanny goat Squinty Offot used to lead his sheep.
“Lord Cashel?” Twenty-second asked, as Cashel lowered a tumbler of sparkling red juice that he hadn’t been able to drain. “Would you and the great lady care to bathe now that you’ve eaten? You’ve been travelling far, I can see.”
Cashel was glad that his suntan hid the blush that would’ve returned to his face. “I can see…” the old man had said, but he’d probably meant, “smell.” Ordinarily back home Cashel had ended his workday by scrubbing off, at least in any weather that didn’t mean he had to break ice in the millpond first. He hadn’t been able to do that since—well, since he’d dragged Tilphosa out of the surf.
“Down at the creek, you mean?” Cashel said. Down by that tree, was what he was thinking. It’d be a chance to see how things were going with Fourteenth, not that it was exactly his business….
“Oh, no, we have a bath hut here,” the old man said. He pointed to the hut on the left side of the passage into the courtyard. It was bigger than the others, but not enough bigger to remark on.
“If you’d like?” Twenty-second said. “Or perhaps your great lady would prefer to be bathed first? There isn’t room enough for both of you together, I’m afraid. You’re so much…so different from us Helpers.”
Cashel rubbed his eyes as he thought. Sunlight and a full stomach were making him sleepy. It sure would be nice….
“Tilphosa?” he said. “They’re offering us baths in the hut there. Would you like…?”
“Steam baths?” Tilphosa said, frowning. “But that can’t be, can it?”
She pursed her lips. “Why don’t you go ahead, Cashel?” she said after consideration. “Then I’ll decide.”
“Right,” said Cashel, rising with a studied control that concealed how full and stiff he was feeling. He had a flash of dizziness before the blood caught up to his brain, but it was gone as quickly as it came. “Master Twenty-second, I’d be pleased to accept.”