Page 18 of Into the West

“I should think most of them would have gotten quite clever about spotting trouble and avoiding it,” he said after a moment. “Given the courtiers, I’d be more surprised to discover that some of them weren’t abusing helpless creatures than that some of them were.”

“I think the part I like best about your speech was telling people that we were not some kind of conquering army,” she continued. “Hopefully that will make them all think twice before antagonizing anyone.”

“We’d be stupid to act like a conquering army,” he pointed out. “Oh, I suppose if we find ourselves going through lands with a population like this one, we could take over a village, maybe two—which would leave us surrounded by enemies who know the land better than we do and can take the time to pick us off a few at a time at very little risk to themselves. All they’d have to do would be to concentrate on the few fighters we have, and after that, it’d be us that would be in danger. But it’s the right thing to do anyway. We’re not the Empire, and we’re not conquerors. Our passage has to be light on the land, and we need to find a vacant place and make it ours.”

“It would be nice if someone invited us to stay,” she sighed wistfully.

“It would be nice, and we’ll certainly do that if it happens, but I am not counting on it. It’s probably wise if we assume people we encounter are going to be hostile when they see this many people on their river. Nevertheless, we are not going to take anything that is not offered freely, and we are not going to places where we are not invited.” He forced himself to relax; after all, Isla was not in disagreement with him, though he was sure she wished, and strongly, that he’d made the decision to remain here.

“I think we need to add one thing more,” she said thoughtfully. “I think we need to look for ways to help those we encounter, even if they are hostile or wary. Kindness is never wasted, and it might come back to us.”

“And this is why I married you, wise woman,” he said, and then cocked an ear toward the rear of the barge. “Is that silence I hear?”

“I believe it is,” she responded, her lips against his neck.

In the barge Delia would share with Alberdina and the former Imperial officer, there was no space for sitting and eating, just lots of storage, the kitchen in the first room, the chamber-pot closet and a basin and ewer, and four beds in the rear. There were much smaller windows in the rear than in the usual living-barges, little round things with hinges that allowed them to be opened to let in air and clamped down tight to keep the cold out. The glass was particularly thick and bubbly; it was hard to see through it. And the beds were stacked, one atop the other, in a frame with a rope ladder attached to reach the top ones. There was little space between the beds, nor between the top one and the roof, but at least each bed had two of those round windows. The lower bunk on the right already had blankets, pillows, and a fur sleeping sack in it; she guessed that one would be Alberdina’s. The other three had just the sleeping sacks.

Delia considered grabbing the other bottom bed, but—At least I know Alberdina, and I don’t fancy sleeping above or below anyone I don’t know. This was silly, and in her heart she knew it, but nevertheless she threw her blankets and pillow up onto that top bed, pulled open the little cupboards that were everywhere a cupboard could be until she found empty ones, and stored her clothing and personal items in a couple. It appeared that the bottom-bed sleepers were expected to use the cupboards beneath their beds, and the top-bed sleepers were expected to use the cupboards built into the rear of the barge in such a way that they covered parts of the beds.

In fact it’s . . . not so bad, she thought after some reflection. It would give the illusion of privacy if you put your pillow behind that cupboard. And one of the windows was right there, so you could have wind on your face in summer. In fact, if I can figure out how to rig a curtain, I’ll have actual privacy.

With her belongings put away, she went looking for someone to tell her what to do.

The first person she found as she poked her head out of the door to the barge was Jonaton. It normally wasn’t hard to spot Jonaton; he didn’t wear mere robes, he wore Robes of Splendor—silk, velvet, wool plush, embroidered, beaded, and so flamboyant that a male firebird might have thought them “a bit too much.” Today, however, it was only his lantern jaw and tousled, mousy-brown hair that let her pick him out from the clot of mages bent over a crude table, gesturing at something. Today, he looked like—well, everyone else. Baggy brown wool breeches it would be easy to layer more things under, tough leather boots to the knee, a knitted woolen tunic that was a little lighter in color than the breeches, and a long scarf wrapped around his neck knitted out of bits and scraps of yarn of every color, though mostly white, black, gray, and brown.

As she closed the door to the barge behind her, he straightened, looking satisfied, and turned away from the group, who continued their animated conversation. She waved at him, and he spotted her, and came strolling insouciantly over to the barge.

“Jonaton, I hardly recognized you,” she teased. He raised an elegantly groomed eyebrow.

“I wear what’s needed for the job,” he said. “I just wear it better than anyone else here. So, petal, I understand you are coming with us?”

“The Baron and Sai seemed to think it was a good idea, so I said yes,” she admitted. Obviously, she didn’t want to let it slip that the main reason she was coming was so that she didn’t have to mind the three boys.

“It’s not a bad idea,” he agreed, pulling on his chin. “But you need to remember, once we are on the other side of the Gate, there’s no changing your mind and wanting to go back.”

She glowered at him. “When have I ever acted like that?”

He shrugged. “Alberdina can use the help. And I can think of a lot of ways that your Gift would be useful.” Just then a flock of wild ducks came into view, flying from the marsh to the lake. They had to be wild, because all the domestic ducks had one wing with the flight feathers clipped to keep them from joining the wild ones. This didn’t stop the wild ones from trying to join them, and bully them away from their rations of grain. Jonaton narrowed his eyes, grabbed her shoulders, and pointed at the ducks. “Quick! Pull one down!”

Startled, she didn’t think, she just did it.

The duck vanished from the sky. It reappeared with a strangled quack at her feet. Jonaton pounced on it before it could recover and snapped its neck. Then, with the duck under one arm and his free hand on her elbow, he hauled her along to another group—she recognized Hakkon, Ivar, and Sai, but didn’t know the woman or the two young men with her.

“Look at this!” he crowed as soon as he was within earshot, holding the limp duck aloft by its neck.

Everyone turned to look. “It’s a duck,” said Sai. “Not that it’s not welcome to go in the stew, but it’s a duck.”

“It’s a duck that Delia pulled out of the sky!” Jonaton corrected.

Well, that got everyone’s interest, and she suddenly found herself the focus of all eyes.

“That . . . is going to be incredibly useful,” Hakkon mused. “Incredibly useful. Hunting without wasting arrows? I have—” He stopped himself before he said anything more. “Incredibly useful.”

I wonder if he was going to say he changed his mind about having me on the trip? Well, it didn’t matter what he had thought before. It was clear he was quite happy about her being among the scouts now. “I can probably get fish too if I can see them,” she pointed out, feeling rather more enthusiastic because of the way the rest of them were reacting. She felt a little sorry for the poor duck, but moons out here making the most of every bit of food that came to hand had made her a lot less sentimental and very much less squeamish about such things.

And it wasn’t as if it hadn’t been a quick death.

Sai pulled himself up. “You are now our designated hunter and fisher,” he declared. “We’ll have you ride the barge so you can see fish, if there are any.”