telling her how to put Brownie into a trot. He was soft-voiced and easygoing with both the horse and the child. When he put out his hand to show her how to hold the rein, she pulled away from him in fear, and after that he never came very close to her, treating her with an innate tact. It was hard to distrust him. But I strode on weighed down with suspicion and worry. If it was so far to the Sensaly that this man thought it the end of the world, and if with Melle I could not walk more than ten miles a day, how long would it take us to get there? I felt that as we crept across these open plains we were exposed, visible to anybody looking for us.
Our companion’s guidance so far was true: having crossed the low range of hills we saw a good-sized river a couple of miles farther on, flowing northeast. We stopped just over the crest of the hills and sat down under a stand of great beeches to share our food, while Brownie had a bait of oats from a nose bag. Melle called our companion Cow-boy-di, which made him grin; he called her Sonny. She sat beside me, but talked to him. They talked at great length about horses and cattle. I noticed that she kept asking him questions, as children will do, out of real curiosity no doubt, but also it meant she didn’t have to answer any questions about herself or me. She was canny.
We could see a boat or barge now and then on the river, and our companion said, “There you are. Go on along to town and get yourselves onto a boat and that’ll take you far as you want, eh?”
“Where’s town?” Melle asked.
“On down along there,” he said, waving vaguely at the river where it disappeared in a long bend among low hills. “I guess I better not go on with you. I don’t think any of our cattle got any farther than this. But you go on down to town and get yourselves onto a boat and that’ll take you as far as you want. Eh?”
I thought it strange that he said it again exactly the same way, as if he’d memorised it, as if he’d been taught how to lead us into a trap.
“That’s a good idea,” Melle said. “Isn’t it, Avvi?”
“Could be,” I said.
She had a quite emotional parting from the horse, patting and petting it and embracing its long, mild head, and she and the cowboy said goodbye affectionately though without touching. She watched him ride off over the crest of the hills, and sighed as we started down. “They were beautiful,” she said.
I felt ashamed of myself, but still couldn’t relax from my wariness.
“Will we find the town and get on a boat?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
I found I couldn’t express my reasons. We must go on, we must escape the man who was following us, but no way of travel seemed safe to me.
“Or we could get horses, like he said. Only, are horses very expensive?”
“I think they are. And you have to know how to ride them.” “I do now. Sort of.” “I don’t,” I said shortly.
We walked on; it was easy going, downhill, and Melle flitted right along. At the bottom of the hill a dim footpath led off towards the river, and we followed that.
“So it would be better to get on a boat,” Melle said. “Wouldn’t it?”
I felt my sense of responsibility for her like a stone on my back, weighing me down. If it was just myself I’d run, I’d hide, I’d be gone, long gone…. I was angry with her for holding me back, slowing my steps, arguing with me about how to go. “I don’t know,” I said.
We went on, I always aware of shortening my pace to hers. We were now on a cart track, coming nearer the river, and saw the roofs of a small town ahead to the right, and soon the wharves, and boats tied up.
I’d asked the Lord Luck to give this child the blessing he’d given me. Was I to distrust him, too? Only a fool acts as if he knows better than Luck. I’d always been a fool, but not that kind.
“We’ll see when we get there,” I said, after a half mile of silence.
“We can pay for it. Can’t we?”
I nodded.
So when we came through apple orchards into town we went straight down to the riverfront and looked about. No boats were tied up and nobody was on the dock. There was a small inn just up the street, its door standing open, and I looked in. A dwarf, a man no taller than Melle, with a big head and a handsome, scowling face, looked round the bar.” What’ll you have, Marshy?” he said.
I all but turned and ran.
“What’s that with you? A pup? No, by Sampa, a kid. Both of you kids. What d’you want then, milk?”
“Yes,” I said, and Melle said, “Yes, please.”
He fetched two cups of milk and we sat at a small table to drink it. He stood by the bar and looked us over. His gaze made me very uneasy, but Melle didn’t seem to mind it, and gazed right back at him without her usual shyness.
“Is there a black cat?” she asked.
“Why would there be?”
“It said on the sign over the door. The picture.”
“Ah. No. That’s the house. Sign of the Black Cat. Blessing of Ennu, it is. Where are you bound, then? On your own, are you?” “Downriver,” I said.
“You’re off a boat, then.” He looked out the open door to see if any boat had docked.
“No. Walking. Thought we might go by water if there’s a boat would take us.”
“Nothing in now. Pedri’s barge will be in tomorrow. “Going downstream?”
“Clear to the Sally,” the man said; so it seemed they called the Sensa-ly in this country.
He refilled Melle’s cup, then stumped to the bar and came back with two full mugs of cider. He set one down in front of me and raised the other in salute.
I drank with him. Melle raised her cup of milk too.
“Stay tonight if you like,” he said. Melle looked at me bright-eyed. It was coming on to evening. I did my best to forget my fears and take what Luck gave us. I nodded.
“Anything to pay with?” he asked.
I took a couple of bronzes from my pocket.
“Because if you hadn’t, I’d eat the kid, see,” the dwarf said in a matter-of-fact tone, and lunged with a hideous, gaping, threatening face at Melle. She shrank back against me with a great gasp, but then she laughed— sooner than I could smile at his joke. He drew back, grinning. “I was scared,” she said to him. He looked pleased. I could feel her heart beating, shaking her small body.
“Put it away,” he said to me. “We’ll settle up when you go.”
He sent us upstairs to a little room at the front of the house; it looked out through low windows over the river and was clean enough, though full of beds, five of them crammed in it side by side. He cooked us a good supper, which we ate along with a couple of longshoremen who ate there every night. They didn’t talk, and the host said little. Melle and I walked along the wharves for a while after supper to see the evening light on the water, and then went up to bed. At first I couldn’t get to sleep, my mind racing and racing among fruitless thoughts and fears. At last I dropped into sleep, but never very deeply—and then I sat up, blindly reaching for my knife, which I’d set on the floor beside my cot. Steps on the staircase, stopping and starting. The door creaked.
A man came into the room. I could just make out his bulk in the faint starlight from the windows. I sat still, holding my breath and my knife.
The big dark shape blundered past my bed, felt its way over to the end bed, and sat down. I heard shoes thump on the floor. The man lay down, thrashed about a bit, muttered a curse, and lay still. Pretty soon he began to snore. I thought it was a ruse. He wanted us to think he was asleep. But he kept it up, deep and long, till daybreak.
When Melle woke and found a strange man in the room she was very frightened. She could not wait to get out.
Our host gave her warm milk for breakfast, and me warm cider, along with good bread and fresh peaches. I was too restless and uneasy to want to wait for the barge. I told him we’d be going on foot. He said, “If you want to walk, walk, but if you want to float, she’ll be along in an hour or two.” And Melle nodded; so I obeyed.
The barge came into the wharf in the middle of the morning, a long, heavy craft with a kind of house amidships that made me think of Am-meda’s boat in the Marshes; the decks were piled with crates, hay bales, several cages of chickens, all kinds of goods and parcels. While unloading and loading went on I asked the master if we could take passage, and we settled soon enough on a silver piece for fare all the way to the Sensaly, sleeping on
