She brought the lump up to her eyes, squinting. Brought it even closer, so close that her thumb touched the bridge of her nose and her eyes crossed. Then she grunted, satisfied, and jammed the lump into the pipe. This she lit, puffing, before returning to studying the south, an arm tucked under the one holding the pipe. Passers-by noted her attention and stopped to look as well. But, seeing nothing but the dusty hills of the Dwelling Plain, they shook their heads at the woman’s craziness and moved on.
‘Almost,’ the woman muttered aloud as if conversing with someone. She blew twin plumes of smoke from her nostrils. ‘Almost.’
Barathol was in the back, building a crib. Little Chaur, he’d noticed, was now as long as the basket he currently slept in. It was late afternoon and the work was going slowly; he kept forgetting where he was in the process — which piece to cut and how long to make it. He was, frankly, dead on his feet. His hands were clumsy crude gloves, his thoughts glacial.
Glancing up he noticed Scillara at the back door, watching, arms crossed over her broad chest. ‘Asleep then?’ he said.
‘Aye. A feed and a nap — practising being a regular man, he is.’
‘Our needs are simple.’
‘Bar …’ she began slowly.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m … sorry. I was — I am — angry that you took that work. I’m scared that …’
He set down his handsaw. ‘Yes?’
She raised her eyes to the darkening sky as if not believing what she was about to confess. ‘I’m scared. Scared that I’m going to lose you.’
He sat back, resting his hands on his thighs, and gave her a crooked smile. ‘You’ll never lose me so long as you have Chaur, yes?’
‘I’m sorry, Bar. All I see is a lump of need that looks at me with hungry eyes. I don’t like that look, Bar.’
‘In time then, Scil. As he grows you’ll see more and more of you and me in him.’
She was looking to the north, picking at the cracked wood of the jamb. ‘I don’t know. It’s you I chose — not him. Maybe … maybe we should go. Leave tonight while we can.’
‘There’s work for me here. Enough for us to get by on.’
‘And this other work? When will it finish?’
‘Soon. Very soon. They’re almost done now.’
She watched him carefully, as if studying him. ‘What’ve they got you doing up there anyway?’
‘Nothing important, Scil. Nothing important.’
Grisp Falaunt was lord of one row of turnips. That and a shack that really wasn’t a shack being as it was more of a lean-to of broken lumber and canvas cobbled from the remains of what once was a shack. But from the shade of his wholly-owned domicile he could look south to the shimmering images of orchards, fields and groves covering the hills of the Dwelling Plain. All that had almost been — and rightfully ought to have been — his. For in the absence of all other claims was he not the lord and master of all the vast plain? Who could dispute that? Why, none, o’ course.
Again he reached down next to his chair, where his hand encountered nothing, and he growled and adjusted the cactus spine held between his teeth from one side to the other. Damned trespassing devil-dogs. Broke his fine cabin and burst the heart of his last loyal friend, fine Scamper, buried now among the turnips.
Ought to fence his property. That’s what he ought to do. Then them fancy nobles in Darujhistan would come a callin’. Why, then-
Grisp leaned forward, the front legs of his chair thumping in the dust. What in the name o’ dried-up Burn was that? More trespassers?
A file of men had emerged from a gulch, or draw, or gully, or whatever it was you called a damned depression out there on the plain. A great cloud of dust was following them. In fact, they was running like the very devil-dogs was after them.
And they was headed right for him.
Or not. Maybe not quite right for him. More like … His slit gaze shifted aslant to his last remaining row of turnips. The spine clamped between his lips stood straight up. Oh no.
Hood’s bones! They was headed for his turnip plantation!
Chair thrown aside numb bare feet tangling with staked rope ties of canvas roof much cursing and flailing to stand bony chest thrown out athwart limp brown leaves defiant!
The jogging twin files of men and women — masked, for all sakes! — parted to either side, their sandalled feet trampling the row into flattened dirt and bruised turnip flesh.
Upraised fists fell. Screwed-up features twisted into puzzlement, then despair.
Grisp landed on the tattered rear of his trousers while the yellow ochre dust of the Dwelling Plain blew about him. There, between his feet, brown leaves intact, lay his last undamaged turnip.
‘Fair enough,’ he croaked, waving the dust from his face. ‘This time, Scamper m’boy. This time I mean it. Time for action. Time for pullin’ up stakes and movin’ on. Fer …’ He eyed the limp bug-gnawed specimen before him and slumped even further into the dry dirt. ‘Aw, t’Hood with it.’
*
Not long after that, the guards of Cutter Road Gate, newly reconstructed, let go of the robes of the dealer in rare woods from the plains of Lamatath as the alarm from the watchtower sent up its strident warning. Both peered down the length of Cutter Lake Road over the heads of the crowd of farmers and petty traders held up behind the tottering wagon of the dealer in rare woods.
The elder guard noticed that the wagon was blocking the gate. ‘Get moving, you damned fool!’ he bellowed at the man. The other guard, staring south, mouthed something like ‘Ghak!’
Ghak? the elder wondered, then an arm slammed him backwards into the wall of the gatehouse and he slid down the gritty stones, dazed and breathless, while a file of men and women jogged by, hands resting near the grips of sheathed swords as they passed without so much as a glance down.
After the last of the file had gone the man pulled himself up, wincing and gasping and rubbing his chest. Masks, he wondered? Why in Beru’s name were they wearin’ masks? He and his partner shared helpless stricken looks across the wagon. The dealer leaned to one side to spit a stream of thick brown fluid across the dusty road.
‘You all are in big trouble now,’ he commented with great satisfaction, and flicked the reins.
On a street in the Gadrobi district a boy coming into adolescence ran up to a heavyset woman standing in the entranceway to the open hall of a school of swordsmanship. ‘Masked men!’ he cried excitedly, his eyes shining. ‘Masked men running through the streets!’
‘What’s that?’ the woman answered sharply.
‘Some say Seguleh!’ He waved her out. ‘Come.’
‘Inside,’ she demanded.
‘But …’
‘Harllo …’
His shoulders slumped and he brushed in past her. ‘Yes, Mother.’
The woman slowly closed the door on people running past, on yells sounding from the distance. Inside, she lowered a heavy bar across the door then pulled a crossbow from where it hung on the wall. She flexed its band, testing it, and nodded.
Sulty handed out the plates of hot goat skewers on couscous then paused, tilting her head — marching feet, double-time. Been a long time since she’d heard that sound. Her gaze caught Scurve at the bar and he shrugged; evidently he knew nothing of it.
Moments later a man ducked inside, breathless, red-faced. ‘Seguleh!’ he shouted. ‘On the Way!’
As one the patrons surged to their feet to charge the door.
‘You ain’t paid!’ Jess bellowed. Then the two women were left alone in the room amid fallen chairs and steaming food. Sulty blew hair from her face. Jess motioned the others outside. ‘Might as well have a look.’
They joined the crowd eyeing the distant Second Tier Way. But there was nothing to see. Whoever, or whatever, had passed, and only the witnesses remained. The patrons gathered round those who claimed to have seen. The women rubbed their aching chapped hands in their aprons, shrugged, and went back inside.