our packhorses. Master Juwain was of a mind to help the five villagers wounded in the battle, and Tarmond most especially. But these hard people of Gladwater preferred to tend to their own,
'I could heal them quickly,' Master Juwain said to me in a low voice as he took me aside. '
As we made ready to go down through the ravaged village to the river, Tarmond spoke a few low words to Berkuar. Then he told us, 'The woods beyond the Tir are thick, with only a few paths through them. And thirty miles from here, you'll come to another river, the Iskand. Berkuar is willing to show you the way through the woods and a ford across the Iskand. if you're willing to let him.'
The rest of us were more than willing to accept this woodsman as our guide, but Kane scowled at Berkuar, and took me by the arm as he pulled me away from the others. And he snarled at me: 'Trust this dirty stranger to lead us true? No, I say! What if Berkuar was in league with the Crucifiers? These Acadians are quick to betray their own, eh? What if their attack was staged solely to lure us to the rescue?'
I looked at Kane as if he might have been maddened by bad drink. 'Does that seem likely, or even possible? That Berkuar tricked the Crucifiers, as well as us? And why should Berkuar have thought that we would help the villagers?'
I looked over at Berkuar, standing like a bear next to Tarmond. He seemed almost as suspicious of us as Kane was of him.
'I don't know!' Kane snarled. 'So, he is
I told him that if Berkuar was our enemy and had wanted to trap us, he had only to lead Harwell and the mercenaries against us in the wild land across the river. And then I clapped him on the shoulder and added, 'You've grown too suspicious, my friend. I think you've let the evil of these woods get to you.'
Then I walked back over to the others and said to Berkuar, 'We've taken counsel and would be honored if you would guide us.'
I bowed to him, but he seemed to have no knowledge of this gesture — or indeed, of manners of any sort. He spat again on the ground and said, 'Let's be off then. There's no time to lose.'
We said goodbye to Tarmond and the other villagers, then turned to follow Berkuar around the longhouse. We passed through the band of trees, where four archers lay with their throats slit open like gaping red mouths. The short walk through Gladwater's streets revealed other grisly sights. The dead were everywhere, in front of neat, wooden houses and blocking our way down the streets. We could not step carefully enough to avoid them. My boots, I saw were soon stained a reddish-brown from tramping through the bloodied mud.
We found Gorson's boats tied to a dock jutting out into the river. The flatboat he had used for ferrying was a huge construction, more like a raft with low rails than a true boat. It was hard getting the horses aboard it, especially Altaru, for he had experience at being floated on top of water, and he hated being so shipped. As I pulled him on board, he drove his hoof into the boat's deck with such force that it seemed he might stave it to splinters. But the boat was sturdy enough to bear up even in a raging river. After we urged on the other horses and ourselves as well, we cast off and let the current take us out into the Tir. Kane and I, with Maram and Berkuar, pushed the boat cross-current with the aid of long poles that we stuck down into the river. It seemed a clumsy means of navigation, but it sufficed to take us across to the other bank.
As promised, the forest here was thicker than in the part of Acadu that we had so far crossed. Few people, it seemed, lived nearby to burn out the undergrowth, which grew in low walls of bracken, buttonbush and other shrubs. It would have been difficult to force our way through such a tangle. We were fortunate, I thought, to have a guide who led us onto a path through the woods running almost due west.
We did not travel very far that day, for it was growing late, and we were all weary. We set to making camp in a clearing where there was a stream and good grass for the horses. Berkuar seemed amused at Kane's insistence that we fortify our camp with the usual fence of deadwood and logs. He did not say why. He was not a talkative man or a particularly friendly one. But he joined in the work at day's end willingly enough, gathering wood for our fire and then helping Liljana prepare our dinner. This was an enormous ham that one of the villagers had given us. As Liljana turned it on a spit, fat dripped down into the fire and popped and crackled. The sweet-salt smell of roasting meat made my mouth water.
After dinner, when Kane was apportioning hours for the night's watches, Berkuar brought out a bag of reddish-brown nuts and offered one to Maram, who would stand the first watch. When Maram asked what they were, Berkuar replied, 'We call them barbark nuts. You hold them in your mouth, beneath the tongue, and they give you wakefulness as well as strength.'
So saying, Berkuar loosed a stream of red spittle at the fire where it caused the flames to smoke and writhe as it hissed away into vapor.
Maram looked doubtfully at the hard, shiny nut in Berkuar's dirt-stained hand. 'Does it, ah, gladden the spirit as well? Like brandy?'
'It does — but without the stupor. And it makes a man as strong in the loins as a bull.'
'Give me one, then!' Maram said, snatching the nut from Berkuar's hand. He opened his mouth and made ready to pop it inside.
'Hold!' Master Juwain said. He sat across the fire between Liljana and Estrella. 'Remember your vow!'
'My vow was to forsake brandy and beer.'
'In spirit, it was to forsake all intoxicants. And what do we know about these barbark nuts, anyway? I've never heard of such before.'
Berkuar's teeth shone red as he grimaced at Master Juwain. Another man might have patiently described the classification of the barbark nut with other botanicals, and its harvesting and preparation — or explained that its use among the Acadians had a long and honored history. But that was not Berkuar's way. He reached into his leather bag and cast a handful of nuts down into the dirt. He said, 'Chew them or not, as you wish.'
Then he picked up a waterskin and stalked off down to the stream.
'A strange man,' Master Juwain said, coming over to examine the nuts. 'I hope this barbark, whatever it is, hasn't addled his wits.'
At dawn, however, Berkuar greeted the morning with a mighty stretch and clear blue eyes. He helped us break camp with a rude good cheer. He moved with a sort of animal grace and power that reminded me of Kane. He seemed to have little liking or care for Maram or me, or indeed, any other human being. His passion, I sensed, was for flower and leaf, for the rabbits that darted across our path and the deer browsing on bracken — and even the squirrels scurrying along the branches above us. His wide nostrils quivered in the breeze as if he were breathing in all the scents of the forest and much else as well. He padded along almost soundlessly in his soft leather boots. He was a quiet man, as far as conversation with others was concerned, but often as noisy as a chittering bird. Indeed, he liked to talk to his winged friends, as he called them, trilling out notes with his thick tongue or imitating their calls. His whistles, as songlike as those of any songbird, were a marvel to hear. While passing through some oaks, he let loose a succession of shureet-shuroos indistinguishable from the voices of the scarlet tanagers that sang back to him. I had a strange sense that he was communicating to them secrets that neither I nor my companions were meant to hear.
While we were resting in another clearing later in the morning, Maram tried to make conversation with him. He moved over to me and rested his hand on my shoulder as he said to Berkuar, 'Mirustral, too, can talk to animals. He's always had a way with them.'
This indeed piqued Berkuar's curiosity. He wiped his greasy fingers in his beard, then pointed toward a robin that was standing nearby on the forest floor. 'What does yon bird say to you, then?'
I let the morning breeze wash over me. I saw a dragonfly near some goldthread and a fritillary fluttering all orange and glorious in a patch of dandelions. From somewhere deeper in the trees, a bobcat screeched out in anger. Once, I remembered, when I was a boy running free in the forests of Mesh, I had loved the wild so much that it seemed I had a covenant with these animals, indeed, with all life. Why, I had wondered, did it seem that man was too often evil and nature good? Who could look out into the woods on a perfect spring day and fail to be astonished at the beauty of the world and the way that all things seemed to beat with one heart and share a secret fire?
I finally I told Berkuar, 'The robin is hungry, as robins always are. Especially in the spring. She is listening for
