“You haven’t changed your mind about going, have you?”
“Chaka, I never agreed to go. I said I’d go if it seemed reasonable.”
She could feel the heat rising into her cheeks. “That’s not what I remember.”
“Look,” he said, “we can’t just go running into the wilderness. We might not come back.” He shook his head slowly and put one hand on her shoulder. It felt stiff and cold. A stranger’s hand. “We’ve got a good life here.” His voice softened. “Chaka, I’d like you to marry me—” His breathing had become irregular. “We have everything that we need to make us happy.”
Maddeningly, tears rushed into her eyes. She knew how good life with him would be, building a family, whiling away the years and never again being alone.
His lips brushed hers and they clung to each other for a long moment. His heart beat against her and his hand caressed her cheek. She responded with a long wet kiss and then abruptly pushed away from him. “You’ll never lose me, Raney, unless you want to. But I am going to do this.”
He was getting that hurt puppy look. “Chaka, there’s no way I can just pick up and leave for six months.”
“You didn’t mention that before.”
“I didn’t think it would come to this. If I leave the shop, they’ll replace me in a minute. I’ve got a good career here. We’ll need it to support us, and if I go on this thing I’d just be throwing everything away. It’s different for you. You can come back and pick up where you left off.”
She stared at him. “I suppose so,” she said. She got up and pulled on her jacket.
“Where are you going?”
“Home. I need to think things out.”
“Chaka, I don’t want you to be angry about this. But I need you to be reasonable.”
“I know,” she said. “Tonight, everyone wants me to be reasonable.”
She was on her feet and out onto the porch, not hearing what else he was saying. She got to Piper, threw the saddle on as Raney came through the barn door, drew the straps tight, pushed him away, and mounted.
“Chaka—”
“Later, Raney,” she said. “We can talk about it later.”
She rode past him, out into the night. The wind pulled at the trees, and there was a hint of rain. If you must go, take no strangers. Take nobody you wouldn’t trust with your life.
7
If you must go, take no strangers. Take nobody you wouldn’t trust with your life. During the next week, Chaka discovered how few persons fit Shannon’s prescription. Those she had confidence in were all in Raney’s camp: They saw it as their duty to dissuade her from the project. And they would under no circumstances support a second expedition. It’s important, several of them told her, to learn from history. On the other hand, people she did not know arrived at her door and offered to join. Most seemed unstable or unreliable. A few wanted to be paid.
It’s likely that the second expedition might never have happened had not Quait Esterhok conceived, almost simultaneously, two passions: one for Mark Twain, and the other for Chaka Milana.
The former led him, perhaps for the first time, to understand the nature of what had been lost with the Roadmaker collapse. Because the League cities had no printing press, they did not possess the novel as an art form. Contemporary writers limited themselves to practical manuals; to philosophical, religious, legal, and ethical tracts; and to histories.
It was not the literary form, however, which left so strong an impression on Quait. Rather, it was the voice, which seemed so energetic and full of life, so completely at odds with the formalized, stiff writing style of the Illyrians. It was, he told Silas, as if this Mark Twain were sitting right in the room. “What do we know about him?” he asked.
Silas outlined the limited knowledge they had: that he’d lived in a place called Hartford; that he’d been born in the Roadmaker year 1835 (no one knew when that was); that he was conscious of the delays of government, as shown in “The Facts in the Case of the Great Beef Contract”; and that he’d been a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi, although the precise nature of his riverboat remained a mystery.
Yet, despite the paucity of facts, Quait felt that he knew Mark Twain almost as well as he knew Silas.
Quait’s second passion developed out of the first. Stealing time with the book was not easy. Inevitably it was in the hands of the copiers or the scholars, or both. So Quait had got into the habit of coming by and watching the progress of the work, reading over shoulders, and planning where he would get the funds to buy one of the books when it had actually been published. He arrived one afternoon to find another enthusiast also trying to read while a visiting scholar made notes on chapter four. They were in a back room, where the book was kept secure from the general public.
The enthusiast was a striking young woman whose shoulder-length red hair told him immediately who she was. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Silas,” he said.
Chaka nodded graciously. “You’re—?”
“Quait Esterhok.” He drew up another chair and sat down beside her. “Chapter four describes the immoderate language used in and around Camelot.”
She smiled. “Have you had a chance to read any of it?”
“In bits and pieces,” Quait said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
She nodded. “Yes. He’s very contemporary. And traveling backward in time. That’s a wild idea.”
The scholar, who was pinched-looking with straw-colored hair, glanced up with obvious irritation. “Do you mind?” he asked.
“Sorry,” said Chaka. An hourglass stood on the worktable Its sands had almost run out. “I’ve got to go anyway,” she said.
“It’s okay,” said Quait. “I’ll be quiet.”
“No, I’ve overstayed my time.” She waited a moment to finish what she’d been reading, and then she looked up at him Her eyes were blue and alive and they took him prisoner on the spot. “Silas says there’ll be copies ready within another week.”
“Good.” Quait cast about for a way to prolong the interview. But his mind had gone numb.
“Nice to meet you, Quait.” She rose, smiled, and walked off. He watched her stride to the desk, sign out, and leave the library.
“You’ve been keeping something from me, Silas.”
“And what is that?” he asked. They’d met for dinner at the Lost Cause.
“I met Chaka Milana today.” Quait rolled his eyes. “She looks pretty good.”
Silas shook his head. “I don’t think she’s very happy with me right now.”
“Why’s that?”
The waiter brought wine and filled their glasses. “I didn’t take her frontier scout very seriously.”
“Oh.” Quait frowned. “I got the impression the way you described it that you and she had agreed that the evidence was insufficient.”
Silas looked uncomfortable. “Not quite,” he said. “I guess that was my conclusion. She’s determined to pursue this business. It’s like ten years ago all over again. She’s becoming obsessed. She behaves as if it’s just a matter of going out into the woods for a few days. Anyway, she’s been talking to people at the Imperium, and elsewhere, trying to put together an expedition.”
“Is she having any luck?”
“I hope not. Look, Quait, nobody would like to find that place more than I do. Her woodsman found some marks on trees, but they could be anything. What’s going to happen is, she’ll put together a mission, it’ll get a few miles outside the borders, and they’ll run out of signs. Then they’ll come back, and anybody with a professional reputation to lose will very surely lose it. I can’t afford to get mixed up in that.”
“I didn’t say anything,” said Quait.
“Well, you were looking at me as if you disapproved. Even what’s-his-name. Shannon, admitted he couldn’t
