The child picked uneasily at the hem of her shirt, this small movement obviously substituting for some other, much more expressive gesture she could not allow herself to make. “She wants me to do something for her. And I’ve tried, I really have. But I got so scared. I couldn’t get there, I couldn’t do it. So . . . I prayed for Ushiloma to send somebody to go with me.”
He stared at his boots, finding himself faced with a not unusual problem: deciding what was appropriate. Was this request for assistance something that was “meant,” that is, a fate-laden task put in his way by someone or something other than this surprising female because it or they intended for him to do something about it or her? Did he, in fact, believe in such things? Did he believe in it or them? Or was this merely an accidental meeting that provided an opportunity to do something helpful or, conversely, totally unhelpful because of this . . . person’s bad judgment, or his own? Or was it one of those dreadful nodules in space-time in which interference of any kind would do more harm than good? Or vice versa?
“Tidewise . . . ,” neighed Blue, sotto voce.
Abasio avoided the questions. “What does she want you to do?”
“Go into the woods after dark and fetch something, and it’s not long until dark . . .”
He thought about this for some time. “How many times has the Woman Upstairs asked you to do this?”
“Twice,” Xulai confessed, staring at her boots. “Yesterday and the day before, but the shadows stopped me. They’re full of writhey things that curl like snakes. And last night there was something huge that crunched as it came at me! I got partway, I really tried, but I was so scared I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t move!”
“Has she ever suggested you take someone with you?”
There was a lengthy silence. “She never really said not to . . .”
“She probably never said to tie bells to your feet and beat a drum on the way there, either, did she?”
Xulai felt her eyes filling. “No.”
“Have you done other things for her?”
“Oh, yes, many things.”
“Did she ever ask you to do anything that hurt you?”
She shook her head, seeming reluctant to do so.
Abasio took a deep breath. “Then, scared or not, if she’s your friend you have to trust her. She needs you to do this thing and she needs you to do it by yourself.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she started to climb back into the tree.
“Bastard,” said the horse, quite audibly.
“What I will do,” said Abasio to the girl’s back, “is provide some help . . .”
She stopped moving.
“I’ll give you two things. I’ll give you some good advice and some assistance. Now listen to me. No, come back down here on the wall and really listen, don’t just pretend you’re listening while you’re planning to fall apart! There. Now breathe. Again. No, not hu-uh-hu-uh-hu-uh, like a panting puppy dog! Breathe, deeply, and listen! When you set out to do this thing tonight, you will have to think. Haven’t people talked to you about thinking, using your head?”
She shivered, her face suddenly fierce with anger. “No! They tell me not to! I am not supposed to think! I am supposed to do what they tell me to do and not worry about it. Worrying about things might . . . it might get me into trouble.”
“Aaah,” said Blue very softly. “That would explain things.”
Abasio glared at the back of Blue’s ears, which twitched. “Well, for the time being, forget any advice that includes not thinking. Instead of concentrating on how scared you are, you will have to move up into your brain and think. The answer to being frightened is often right there in your head, when and where you need it, if you merely look for it. Stop shaking! There. See? You can stop when you think about it! Now, I do not mean you should merely take a quick glance around and then have a fit of hysterics! I mean look for the solution with everything you’ve got, eyes, nose, ears, everything!
“As for the other thing, I will be there to keep an eye on you to be sure nothing happens to you. You may trust me to do this. I won’t be holding your hand; I will be nearby, but you have to do the task alone because that’s what the lady asked you to do. Right?”
“Right,” she barely managed to say as she turned.
“Just a moment. I need to know where you set out from. And when.”
She gestured with a trembling hand toward the castle wall above the trees. “I go out through the kitchen garden and the poppleberry orchard through the little stoop gate in the back wall. I go as soon as it is really dark.” She trudged away, pausing to look back in case he’d changed his mind, but he was just sitting there on the wall, staring at his boots. They weren’t ordinary boots, being very long and made of red leather. Nothing about the man was ordinary. Though he wasn’t really tall, not so tall as her guard, the Great Bear of Zol, the wagon man seemed taller and his shoulders were exceptionally broad for so slender a person. His hair was dark, rather curly, with just a few silver hairs above his ears where a stray lock fell at each side, curling under the lobes at the corners of his jaw, which was square and determined looking, beneath a mouth that was just the opposite, what she thought of as a listening mouth, the lips not pinched, but always just a tiny bit open, as though expecting to hear something. Add the alert brown eyes that seemed to be looking at the world very carefully, and he reminded her more of the Duke of Wold’s hunting dog than of any other person. Even his strange wagon was extraordinary, festooned with odd things, sacks of dried
