The Wise Man's Fear

I tried to think of a way to calm the situation, but before I could do anything I heard Krin’s voice lash out from behind me. “Seth, you get away from him!”

Seth paused, his hands half raised against me. “Now . . .”

Krin was already stepping toward him. The knot of women loosened to release her, but stayed close. “He saved us, Seth,” she shouted furiously. “You stupid shit-eater, he saved us. Where the hell were all of you? Why didn’t you come get us?”

He backed away from me as anger and shame fought their way across his face. Anger won. “We came,” he shouted back. “After we found out what happened we went after ’em. They shot out Bil’s horse from under him, and he got his leg crushed. Jim got his arm stabbed, and old Cupper still ain’t waked up from the thumping they give him. They almost killed us.”

I looked again and saw anger on the men’s faces. Saw the real reason for it. The helplessness they had felt, unable to defend their town from the false troupe’s rough handling. Their failure to reclaim the daughters of their friends and neighbors had shamed them.

“Well it wasn’t good enough!” Krin shouted back hotly, her eyes burning. “He came and got us because he’s a real man. Not like the rest of you who left us to die!”

The anger leapt out of a young man to my left, a farm boy, about seventeen. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t been running around like some Ruh whore!”

I broke his arm before I quite realized what I was doing. He screamed as he fell to the ground.

I pulled him to his feet by the scruff of his neck. “What’s your name?” I snarled into his face.

“My arm!” He gasped, his eyes showing me their whites.

I shook him like a rag doll. “Name!”

“Jason,” he blurted. “God’s mother, my arm . . .”

I took his chin in my free hand and turned his face toward Krin and Ell. “Jason,” I hissed quietly in his ear. “I want you to look at those girls. And I want you to think about the hell they’ve been through in these past days, tied hand and foot in the back of a wagon. And I want you to ask yourself what’s worse. A broken arm, or getting kidnapped by a stranger and raped four times a night?”

Then I turned his face toward me and spoke so quiet that even an inch away it was hardly a whisper. “After you’ve thought of that, I want you to pray to God to forgive you for what you just said. And if you mean it, Tehlu grant your arm heal straight and true.” His eyes were terrified and wet. “After that, if you ever think an unkind thought about either of them, your arm will ache like there’s hot iron in the bone. And if you ever say an unkind word, it will go to fever and slow rot and they’ll have to cut it off to save your life.” I tightened my grip on him, watching his eyes widen. “And if you ever do anything to either of them, I’ll know. I will come here, and kill you, and leave your body hanging in a tree.”

There were tears on his face now, although whether from shame or fear or pain I couldn’t guess. “Now you tell her you’re sorry for what you said.” I let go of him after making sure he had his feet under him and pointed him in the direction of Krin and Ell. The women stood around them like a protective cocoon.

He clutched his arm weakly. “I shouldn’ta said that, Ellie,” he sobbed, sounding more wretched and repentant than I would have thought possible, broken arm or no. “It was a demon talkin’ out of me. I swear though, I been sick worryin’. We all been. And we did try to come get you, but they was a lot of them and they jumped us on the road, then we had to bring Bil home or he would’ve died from his leg.”

Something tickled my memory about the boy’s name. Jason? I suddenly suspected I had just broken Ell’s boyfriend’s arm. Somehow I couldn’t feel bad for it just now. Best thing for him, really.

Looking around I saw the anger bleed out of the faces of the men around me, as if I’d used up the whole town’s supply in a sudden, furious flash. Instead they watched Jason, looking slightly embarrassed, as if the boy were apologizing for the lot of them.

Then I saw a big, healthy-looking man running down the street followed by a dozen other townsfolk. From the look on his face I guessed it was Ell’s father, the mayor. He forced his way into the knot of women, gathered his daughter up in his arms, and swung her around.

You find two types of mayor in small towns like this. The first type are balding, older men of considerable girth who are good with money and tend to wring their hands a great deal when anything unexpected happens. The second type are tall, broad-shouldered men whose families have grown slowly prosperous because they had worked like angry bastards behind a plow for twenty generations. Ell’s father was the second sort.

He walked over to me, keeping one arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “I understand I have you to thank for bringing our girls back.” He reached out to shake my hand and I saw his arm was bandaged. His grip was solid in spite of it. He smiled the widest smile I’d seen since I left Simmon at the University.

“How’s the arm?” I asked, not realizing how it would sound. His smile faded a little, and I was quick to add, “I’ve had some training as a physicker. And I know that those sort of things can be tricky to deal with when you’re away from home.” When you’re living in a country that thinks mercury is medicine, I thought to myself.

His smile came back, and he flexed his fingers. “It’s stiff, but that’s all. Just a little meat. They caught us by surprise. I got my hands on one of them, but he stuck me and got away. How did you end up getting the girls away from those godless Ruh bastards?” He spat.

“They weren’t Edema Ruh,” I said, my voice sounding more strained than I would have liked. “They weren’t even real troupers.”

His smile began to fade again. “What do you mean?”

“They weren’t Edema Ruh. We don’t do the things they did.”

“Listen,” the mayor said plainly, his temper starting to rise a bit. “I know damn well what they do and don’t do. They came in all sweet and nice, played a little music, made a penny or two. Then they started to make trouble around town. When we told them to leave they took my girl.” He almost breathed fire as he said the last words.

“We?” I heard someone say faintly behind me. “Jim, he said we.”

Seth scowled around the side of the mayor to get a look at me again. “I told you he looked like one,” he said triumphantly. “I know ’em. You can always tell by them eyes.”

“Hold on,” the mayor said with slow incredulity. “Are you telling me you’re one of them?” His expression grew dangerous.

Before I could explain myself. Ell had grabbed his arm. “Oh, don’t make him mad, Daddy,” she said quickly, holding onto his good arm as if to pull him away from me. “Don’t say anything to get him angry. He’s not with them. He brought me back, he saved me.”

The mayor seemed somewhat mollified by this, but his congeniality was gone. “Explain yourself,” he said grimly.

I sighed inside, realizing what a mess I’d made of this. “They weren’t troupers, and they certainly weren’t Edema Ruh. They were bandits who killed some of my family and stole their wagons. They were only pretending to be performers.”

“Why would anyone pretend to be Ruh?” the mayor asked, as if the thought were incomprehensible.

“So they could do what they did,” I snapped. “You let them into your town and they abused that trust. That’s something no Edema Ruh would ever do.”

“You never did answer my question,” he said. “How did you get the girls away?”

“I took care of things,” I said simply.

“He killed them,” Krin said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “He killed them all.”

I could feel everyone looking at me. Half of them were thinking, All of them? He killed seven men? The other half were thinking, There were two women with them, did he kill them too?

“Well, then.” The mayor looked down at me for a long moment. “Good,” he said as if he had just made up his mind. “That’s good. The world’s a better place for it.”

I felt everyone relax slightly. “These are their horses.” I pointed to the two horses that had been carrying our baggage. “They belong to the girls now. About forty miles east you’ll find the wagons. Krin can show you where they’re hidden. They belong to the girls too.”

“They’ll fetch a good price off in Temsford,” the mayor mused.