Ysian's rebuttal began quietly, but his stubborn responses soon had her yelling, interrupting the last of the birds’ dawn chorus in the branches overhead and scaring the leafeater lizards in the ditches. She was a mature woman, she screamed. She would make her own decisions right now. He would have died in Lemod without her help. He was utterly heartless and she hated him. She loved him more than life itself. The nuns of Ursula were notorious sadists. She would follow him to the corners of the world. She would sleep on his doorsteps forever, anywhere he went, and haunt him for the rest of his life, and she was going to kill herself before nightfall and him soon after.
There was more, but suddenly both she and D'ward collapsed in helpless, hysterical mirth. Dosh was shocked to realize that she had been putting on an act and it had fooled him completely. Admittedly she was on the far side of D'ward, so he had not been watching her, nor listening very closely either. Yet he felt peeved at being fooled. He felt like an outsider in the presence of lovers—which was exactly what he must be. Jealous, my lad? He had never really seen these two together except in very public settings. Observing them now—leaning on each other for support, gasping for breath, tears of laughter streaming over their cheeks—no one could ever doubt that they were hopelessly in love. Ysian knew. D'ward was apparently not ready to admit the obvious.
The nervous release did not last long. Soon he returned to his angry urgency, and the three of them resumed their progress. Abandoning the argument, D'ward turned to Dosh. “Where are you headed?"
"I want to stay with you."
"Why?"
Interesting question! Dosh debated several answers, and then decided to tell the truth, just for once. What was the truth, though? The silence dragged out for half a mile before he found it.
"I want to learn from you. You're different."
D'ward said, “Hmm?” The river was in sight in the distance, a line of trees twisting along the valley floor. “How does it feel?"
"How does what feel?"
"Telling the truth."
"Dangerous. Like being naked in a crowd."
Ysian laughed.
"Have you a trade you can take up?” D'ward said. “Or a skill of some kind?"
"I'm good at massage."
He winced, misunderstanding. “Where are you from? Where was your home?"
Dosh decided to push the experiment in veracity a little farther. “Never had one. My people were Tinkerfolk."
"What are Tinkerfolk?” Apparently the query was serious and he really did not know.
"They're nomads. Wanderers. They mostly live in tents or wagons, although every city has a tinkers’ hole somewhere. They do odd jobs, poach, steal. Most people think they're all liars, whores, thieves, and spies."
"What are they really?"
"Spies, thieves, whores, and liars."
The others both laughed at that, which felt good. The road led to a hamlet with a jetty. There were boats there, waiting for hire.
"Listen,” the Liberator said, serious again. “You can't come where I'm going. You've got the same problem Ysian has. I'm sorry, but I can't help either of you. I have a potent sort of charm that I can't control and I really can't explain to you, either. You saw how it worked on the army—I began with a spear and ended up as battlemaster. I had five thousand men all wanting me to scratch them behind the ears. Ysian thinks she's in love with me, and so do you. I like both of you, but I can't return the sort of love you want and I am promised to another woman, so I can't help her, either. I'm truly sorry, but that's the way things are. Viks'n, you're better at this local snarl than we are. See if you can hire a boat to take us to Tharg."
"How many?"
"Two."
"Three,” said Dosh.
Marg'rk Ferryman was not much more than a boy, built of sticks and string as if he had not eaten in several fortnights. His skiff was a smelly, leaky little hulk, and its sail bore innumerable patches. He toadied and groveled for passengers rich enough to pay him a whole silver mark for a half-day's work. He addressed each of them as “Warrior,” which was the correct honorific for Thargian freemen. Had he known Ysian was a woman, he would properly have called her “Mother.” That said a lot about Thargian values.
Propelled much more by the current than the forlorn breeze, his boat drifted out into Thargwater and headed southward. Marg'rk clutched the tiller with a bony hand, smiling obsequiously whenever anyone looked in his direction. Wide, swift, and smooth, the river oiled through a rich countryside. The banks were ornamented with fish traps and jetties, water mills and multicolored trees. High-horned kudus plodded along towpaths, hauling barges. Cargo boats crawled upstream under the muscle power of slaves. The hills beyond were figured with vineyards and orchards, or fields being plowed and sown. Here and there, grand aristocratic mansions graced the landscape.
Ysian sat amidships, being unusually quiet. Even cropped short so barbarically, her hair shone with red-gold highlights. She was brooding ominously. Dosh suspected the convent would have to survive without a new postulant, whatever D'ward might think.
The Liberator sat beside her, the mast between them, crouching to see under the edge of the sail. He scowled, fidgeted, and squirmed. He had not yet explained why he so urgently wanted to reach Tharg. Impatience was out of character for him.
Dosh sprawled in the bow with his feet in a stinking litter of nets and baskets, pots and bilge. After a while he removed his tunic and leaned back in his breechclout to soak up some spring sunshine. His two companions carefully avoided looking at him. Prudes! He had all the essentials covered. They wouldn't care about anyone else; they just knew he would accept any reasonable offer and were frightened to look in case they were caught window-shopping.
"Warrior D'ward?"
"Yes, Warrior Dosh?” D'ward had developed an intense interest in the reflections of windmills.
Dosh peered past Ysian at the boatman, who leered back nervously and mawkishly. That lout would not understand Joalian. “Are you going to Tharg to bring death to Death, as has been prophesied? And when you have that one stuffed and mounted, will you do Tion too, as a favor for me?"
"That's not why I'm going to Tharg.” D'ward straightened his long back, and the sail hid his face.
"You told me our former comrades-in-arms are now safe. You promised to say how."
D'ward sank back into a slouch, and his scowl became visible again. Why was he so edgy? “Prylis told me. The Thargians gave them safe conduct back to Nagvale."
"More miracles? The Thargians did? You're serious?"
"They sent emissaries, a couple of the ephors in person. That alone is unprecedented. Golbfish did the negotiating. He demanded the whole world and they gave it to him: food, hostages, formal oaths sealed with sacrifice. The Thargians will hold back the Lemodians to let the Nagians go by. They groveled, they implored. Anything he wanted."
That ought to be unbelievable or else hilariously funny, and yet D'ward was disconsolate. Obvious question: “Why?"
"Plague,” D'ward said, staring blankly at the left bank. “People are dying by the hundreds all over Thargland. They take ill in the night, and they rot for three days and then die. Funeral pyres bejewel the night and sully the sun by day—Prylis's words, not mine."
"Padlopan's the god of sickness, but—"
"This is Zath. The people think it's an epidemic, but Prylis says Zath's called in his reapers from all over the Vales, brought them here into Thargvale, and he's taught them a new form of sacrifice. A reaper death used to be quick. Now it's slow and even more horrible. And they're working overtime."
Zath was an aspect of Karzon, the patron deity. Why would a god destroy his own people? Dosh caught Ysian's eye; she looked away quickly. She was frightened about something.