“Consequences?” Bartan gazed at Ennda in puzzlement until a look of exasperation made her meaning clear. “Oh! You don’t have to do anything. She keeps herself clean, attends to all the basics by herself and eats anything that is prepared for her. It’s just that nobody else seems to exist for her. She never speaks. She sits there on the bed all day, staring at the wall, and I don’t exist. Perhaps I deserve it. Perhaps it’s my punishment for bringing her to this place.”
“Now you’re being silly.” Ennda put her arms around him and he clung to her, immensely comforted by her aura of warmth, femininity and resilience.
“What have we here?” Harro Phoratere boomed jovially, entering the shady kitchen from the sunlight outside. “Is one woman not enough for you, young Bartan?”
“Harro!” Ennda rounded on her husband. “What kind of a thing is that to say?”
“I’m sorry, lad—I wasn’t thinking about your Sondy being…” Harro hesitated, the circular bite-scar glowing whitely against the pink of his cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologise,” Bartan said. “I appreciate your coming here—it’s more than generous.”
“Nonsense! It’s a welcome break for me as well. I intend to spend a very lazy aftday and—I give you fair warning—to consume a quantity of your wine.” Harro glanced anxiously at the group of empty demijohns in a corner. “You do have some left, I trust.”
“You’ll find ample supplies in the cellar, Harro. It’s the only solace left to me and I take care never to run short.”
“I hope you don’t drink too much,” Ennda said, showing some concern.
Bartan smiled at her. “Only enough to guarantee a night’s sleep. It’s too quiet here—much too quiet.”
Ennda nodded. “I’m sorry you have to bear your burden alone, Bartan, but it’s all we can do to manage our own section now that so many of our family have given up and moved north. Did you know that the Wilvers and the Obrigails have gone as well?”
“After all their work! How many families are left now?”
“Five, apart from us.”
Bartan shook his head dispiritedly. “If only the pople would wait and…”
“If you wait around here much longer it’ll be dark before you reach the tavern,” Ennda cut in, pushing him towards the front entrance. “Go off and enjoy yourself for a few hours. Go on— out\”
With a last glance at his wife, withdrawn to her inaccessible world, Bartan went outside and summoned his bluehorn with a whistle. Within a few minutes he had it saddled and was riding west to New Minnett. He was unable to shake off the feeling that he was doing something shameful, planning to spend half a day free of his crushing burden of work and responsibility, but the fierceness of his hunger for a spell in the undemanding company of amiable topers told him the excursion would be remedial.
The ride through pastoral scenery was refreshing in itself, and on reaching the township he was surprised by his reaction to the sight of unknown people, clusters of buildings in a variety of sizes and styles, and the lofty rigging of sea-going ships at anchor in the river. When he had seen New Minnett for the first time it had seemed a tiny and remote outpost of civilisation—now, after his lengthy incarceration on the farm, it was a veritable metropolis.
He rode straight to the open-fronted building used as a tavern and was gratified to find in it many of the local characters who had welcomed him and his airboat on that far-off first visit. Compared to the harrowing downward trend of life in the Basket, it was as though the townsfolk had been suspended in time, preserved, ready to spring to life at his behest. The reeve, Majin Karrodall, was present—wearing his smallsword—as was the plump Otler, still protesting his sobriety, and a dozen other remembered individuals whose obvious contentment with their lot was a reassurance that life in general was well worth the living.
Bartan happily drank the strong brown ale with them, finding room for pot after pot of it without wearying of the taste. He was appreciative of the way in which the men—including Otler, who was not known for his tact—made no reference to his people’s continuing evacuation of the Haunt. As though sympathising with the reasons for his visit they kept the talk on general subjects, much of the time discussing the latest news of the strange war that was being fought in the sky above the far side of the planet. The notion of a new breed of warriors who rode through the heavens on the backs of jet engines, without the support of balloons, seemed to have fired their imaginations. In particular, Bartan was struck by how often the name of Lord Toller Maraquine came up.
“Is it true that this Maraquine slew two kings at the time of the Migration?” he said.
“Of course it’s true!” Otler banged his alepot down on the long table. “Why do you think they call him the Kingslayer? I was there, my friend! Saw it with my own eyes!”
“Balderdash!” Karrodall shouted amid a general cry of derision.
“Well, perhaps I didn’t actually see what happened,” Otler conceded, “but I saw King Prad’s ship fall like a stone.” He turned his shoulder to the others and aimed his words at Bartan. “I was a young soldier at the time—Fourth Sorka Regiment —and I was in one of the very first ships to leave Ro-Atabri. I never thought I’d complete the journey, but that is another story.”
“One we’ve heard a thousand times,” another man said, nudging his neighbour.
Otler made an obscene gesture at him. “You see, Bartan, Prad’s ship got entangled with the one which Toller Maraquine was flying. Chakkell, who was then a prince, and Daseene and their three children were in Toller’s ship, and he saved their lives by pushing the two ships apart. It took the strength of ten men, but he did it single-handed, and Prad’s ship went down. I saw it plunge past me, and I’ll never forget the way Prad was standing there at the rail. Tall and straight he was, unafraid, and his one blind eye was shining like a star.
“His death meant that Prince Leddravohr became King, and three days later—after the landing—Leddravohr and Toller fought a duel which lasted six hours. It ended when Toller struck Leddravohr’s head off his shoulders with a single blow!”
“He must have been quite a man,” Bartan said drily, trying to separate fact from fiction.
“Strength of ten! And what do you mean by must have been quite a man? None of those striplings up there can keep pace with him to this day. Do you know that in the first battle against the Landers, after all his fire arrows had been expended, he started cutting their balloons into shreds with his white sword? The selfsame sword with which he overcame Karkarand— Karkarand, mark you!—with only one blow. I tell you, Bartan, we owe that man everything. If I were twenty years younger, and didn’t have this bad knee, I’d be up there with him at this very minute.”
Reeve Karrodall guffawed into his beer. “I thought you said they had no need of gasbags at the midpoint.”
“Very droll,” Otler muttered. “Very droll indeed.”
The following hours slipped by pleasantly and quickly for Bartan, and it was with some surprise that he noticed the sun’s rays slanting redly into the tavern at a shallow angle. “Gentlemen,” he said, getting to his feet, “I have stayed longer than it was my intention to do. I must leave you now.”
“Have but one more,” Karrodall said.
“I’m sorry, but I am obliged to leave. Friends are attending to the farm for me, and I have already done them a discourtesy.”
Karrodall stood and took Bartan’s hand. “I heard about your wife’s misfortune, and I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Would you not consider taking her away from that baneful place?”