The most potent demonstration of this came late one afternoon a few days after he had come to River City. An early dusk was settling on the camp, and some of the females were chopping a haunch of wild pig in preparation for cooking; a few of the males were chipping flint to make scrapers or ax blades. Everyone was busy, working away quietly, when all of a sudden one of the males dropped his flint stone and stood up. Instantly he was joined by the three females. Not a word was spoken-not even a grunt-but all four disappeared into the wood. Those who remained behind also stopped working and began preparing a bed of fresh reeds and rushes by the fire ring.
Intrigued, Kit watched as they heaped the reeds high and covered them with skins; they then built up the fire-clearly in anticipation of something that was about to take place. And only a few minutes later, the group that had gone into the wood returned carrying one of the younger males-scratched and bleeding and obviously injured. They laid him on the reed bed and nursed him through the night.
All this took place without so much as a single syllable breathed aloud. The more he thought about it, the more convinced Kit became that at the moment of the young one’s injury, they all knew that he was in trouble and had gone to rescue him. They just knew.
Yet, as extraordinary as that was, the thing that impressed Kit most was how very gentle they were with each other. In those first days with them, he did not witness any angry or aggressive behaviour. Indeed, they seemed to tolerate one another very well, if not to enjoy being together. The older ones definitely doted on the younger-at least in camp, for the smallest of the clan were not allowed to wander very far into the surrounding woods unless an adult was in tow.
There was still much to learn about them, of course, but Kit was content to allow that learning to take place naturally. In the meantime, he tried to be a good guest and not bother his hosts or make a nuisance of his presence. Nevertheless, the clan appeared as fascinated by him as he was by them. For their part, they missed nothing he did, following his every move-from the way he washed his hands and face, to brushing his teeth with chewed hazel twigs, and taking off his shoes to sleep-which drew great excitement the first time he performed any of these activities.
The younger members of the clan tried to imitate him, the older ones merely watched from a polite distance. The thing that produced the greatest amusement for the clan was Kit’s attempt to wash his clothes.
One morning, awakening to the fact that his shirt and trousers were filthy and that he had not had a proper wash for more days than he cared to think about, Kit decided that the time had come to take the plunge-literally. He took himself to the river and found what he imagined to be a secluded spot where the stream ran deep and slow, and then waded out. He dove in, swam around a bit, bobbing up and down to thoroughly soak his garments, and then waded back to the bank and disrobed.
All this splashing about drew a crowd, of course, and he was soon the object of intense observation. For although they understood that his clothing, while different from their own, served the same function, the younger ones reacted with the same mixture of fascination and disgust he might have felt upon seeing a businessman shedding his skin like a snake. They jabbered excitedly at the first glimpse of the extreme white hairlessness of his skin-at least that was what Kit assumed they were remarking on, and not on his inconsequential and wholly unimpressive physique.
Despite his initial qualms, he found he did not mind being naked in front of the clan-any more than a farmer might baulk at being caught naked in front of barnyard cattle. Not that he thought of them as cattle, but the sense of species separation was so great that once he had wriggled out of his sopping shirt and trousers and was slapping them against the smooth, flat river stones, he simply did not care anymore.
In any event, the exercise proved mildly successful; after drying on a sun-facing bush, his garments did seem fresher, if not cleaner. But, lying in the sun on the riverbank, he felt the chill that was never far from the air even on the warmest days, and knew that he was enjoying the last gasp of a splendid autumn. The days were already drawing in, the nights growing steadily cooler. Often now the morning air held a frosty note, and days were overcast. He wondered what the River City Clan did for the winter-where did they go? He did not think they would stay camped by the river, and he was right.
CHAPTER 31
Why, oh why, can’t everyone just once do what they’re told, for heaven’s sake? Wilhelmina tapped her foot and gazed darkly down the empty trackway. No Kit. He should be here. Her instructions were simple, specific, and clear: Stay put. Do not wander off. Wait for rescue.
Was that too much to ask?
Okay, Giles getting himself wounded had thrown a kink into the plan. That had taken a deal of sorting out, admittedly-not to mention putting her carefully maintained cover at risk-and had delayed things considerably. But that was no excuse for Kit to go wandering off when she had told him not to move a muscle.
But could Kit manage even that much? Could he, heck!
She decided to give it another fifteen minutes, and if Kit didn’t show up, she would have to abandon her present time location and try another. This particular ley leading into the valley was completely reliable. In all her experiments, learning the ropes of ley travel, practicing her technique, mapping the destination, and basically just trying to get her head around the incredible facility to simply pop out of one world into another… in all those early training trials she had come to believe that the one she called the Big Valley ley was fairly uncomplicated. Its time window seemed to be limited, and there were not a lot of branches or forks, or whatever they were, leading off to other places in other universes-just a simple, straightforward thoroughfare. In motorway terms, she thought of it as the M4.
So, if Kit had made it to the ley ahead of the chase, why the devil was he not here waiting for her?
The only explanation was that Kit had left the trail and gone off somewhere into the valley. Searching for him there would be a chore, and one she was not prepared at the moment to undertake. She glanced down at the smooth-tooled object filling her palm-the new ley lamp Rosenkreuz had made for her. Although roughly the same size and shape as before, it boasted a few improvements, most of which she looked forward to trying. The chief difference in the new model was a second row of little lights, which, she was told, glowed from yellow to red in the presence of the searched-for traveller. The young alchemist had offered to explain the mechanics of its operation, but with everything going on, there had been neither time nor inclination.
In any event, she had been able to get Giles bandaged, medicated, and tucked away without Burleigh tumbling to the fact that she was in cahoots with the two fugitives. Lady Fayth, a willing accomplice, had helped-unwittingly, true, but necessarily. If Haven had known the full extent of Wilhelmina’s involvement she might not have been such a keen collaborator. If things had fallen out differently, Mina would have been forced to join Kit and Giles on the run. But the young lady had kept her head and, when it mattered, backed Wilhelmina’s risky play to the hilt.
Now Mina cast yet another longing look down the trail and, with an exasperated sigh and a roll of her big brown eyes, trudged down the trail and into the valley. When she reached the bottom she paused and then shouted for Kit. She listened, then repeated the call. Satisfied that if he had been within the sound of her voice he would have answered, she moved on-eventually coming to the little half-abandoned village.