Karavans by Jennifer Roberson Read Free Book Online Page B

her brother’s arms, declared, “He’s a demon.”
    Brodhi’s brows rose. “Oh, now he’s a demon? First he’s moonsick, now he’s a demon? And I am Hecari?” He looked down his nose at all of them. “Such judges of others as this should be trusted to know the truth?”
    The small one stared piercingly at him. “You’re
mean.
”
    “Megritte!” The oldest boy turned a shoulder even as the elder sister stepped between them, as if to defend her kin.
    Brodhi said, laughing, “That much at least is true,” and went on his way.
    The whims and entertainments of human children were beyond his comprehension. This clutch was new in town; likely one of the resident children had set them on him. It was one of their favorite tricks.
    Unfair, he thought in passing, to use the innocence of the youngest in such tiresome games as this.
    AUDRUN, HER SPINE set against the sideboards and hands flattened on the wood, could smell the stink of the stranger, could mark the yellowing of broken teeth bared between blackened lips. His eyes were brown, the whites veined with blood. Grime compacted in the seams of his face.
    “
You
have a wagon,” he blurted hoarsely. “Oh, Mother of Moons … will you take me there?”
    He didn’t sound moonsick. Just weary. Audrun, now thather children were safe among the tents, dropped one hand to shield a belly not yet showing much of the unborn infant. Stiffly, she moved along the wagon, hitching now and again on implements roped to the sideboards, to the rump of the nearest ox, who was patently unconcerned with filthy, stinking strangers. She eased her way farther until she felt the yoke.
    The man followed, wavering on his feet. Ill, or drunk, or moonsick. Perhaps all three. “Will you take me there?”
    Nervously she asked, “Take you where?”
    Such a radiance of hope and longing she had never seen in a face. In that moment she was not afraid of him, but stunned.
    “
Home
,” he rasped.
    Now she stood at the ox’s head. They could not afford to lose the wagon, did not dare let this man somehow take from them all they had left in the world. Her children were safe. Now she must guard the wagon. “I don’t know where your home is.”
    His outstretched hands trembled. “Alisanos.”
    Audrun recoiled so hard she fetched up against the ox. She was vaguely aware of the warm bovine breath issuing from broad, moist nostrils, the butt of a heavy head as it pushed against her spine.
    “Alisanos,” the man repeated. “Please … will you take me home?”
    No one in the world
wished to go to Alisanos. Unworthy folk were sent there by the gods to be punished, but no one willingly went into the deepwood. Only—
    Then she saw the hands he extended, and the breath left her lungs in a rush.
    “Home,” he whispered, as Audrun’s concentration split into tripart strands of frenzied thought.
    She gripped the amulet around her neck and prayed every prayer, made every petition she had ever prayed and made to the gods, relying on them now; saw in her mind’s eye where the wagon was in relation to the nearest of the tents; realized she and her husband would have to consultdiviners as soon as was humanly possible, paying exorbitant fees, lest the taint of the stranger’s madness stain them forever and make
them
unworthy to cross the river into a safe and happy afterlife.
    The three portions of her mind braided themselves abruptly into a tight plait of certainty. The gods would protect her and her children against the condemned soul. They
were
worthy.
    Emboldened by faith, Audrun tangled nimble, unwavering fingers in a series of warding signs. “Go away.”
    The man, weeping, turned from her. Audrun watched as he made his staggering way back into the tent-city. Where she had sent her children.
    Time to fetch them back. But Audrun waited until the stranger was lost to sight amid the tents. Then she gathered up her skirts and ran, avoiding his path as she made her own.
    HEZRIAH THE BONEDEALER, bent over