They drank together, marvelling at the old man’s capacity, leaning across their small fire to hear the stories told by the smaller people. Doh-ti, the tallest of them, stood no higher than Thewson’s knee, but he could out-talk the warrior, twenty words for one. Barstable Gumsuch could out-talk them all.
Barstable Gumsuch had been born near Bywayle, a townlet in the Aresfales, to a stolidly unimaginative family who refused for many months to believe what had happened to them. The people of Aresfale did not hold with the number nonsense current in Anisfale, so Barstable’s oddness was not laid to his birth order in the family. None suffered on his account, and at last his parents had to admit that Barstable was a very tiny person who would likely never get much bigger. Full grown he stood as tall as his father’s boots and weighed no more than the large housecat with whom he was at some pains to live in friendship as it had the unmistakable advantage in natural weaponry. He was fortunate that the family considered him more a being of wonderment than an occasion for shame, but it was still an unenviable life to be so small. Life in the Fales was synonymous with sheep. No sheep, no life at all, no mutton, no wool, no milk, no cheese. Barstable was not large enough to spin the heavy yarn of the Fales in any quantity, not strong enough to milk or to shear, not massive enough to herd, not so quick or clamorous as the dogs, not really very useful. Or so, at least, he told them.
He became an amusement, a little being which did not eat all that much, who could be set on a table at weddings and feasts to make little speeches and sing little songs. More out of boredom than anything else, he learned to read through the kindness of a local oracle who had not much else to do. He grew to like long words and flowery language, which set him apart still further from the society of the shepherds.
When he was seventeen, he left the Fales, leaving no message behind. They would have thought it likely he had been eaten by a fox or taken by an owl, and they might have mourned a little. Actually, he had stowed away in the back of a peddler’s wagon, not disclosing himself until the peddler was far along the trail toward Seathe and the River Lazentien. He offered his services to the peddler, very sensibly, in gathering crowds around the wagon, and the peddler accepted the offer. It worked to their mutual advantage for many years.
Barstable found a little wife in Jowr and lived with her happily for some decades. They were not blessed with children of their own, but now and again they took up a littling like themselves, raised it and settled it in some part of the known world. In Pau-bee, during one winter of exceptional cold and fevers, his wife had died. Barstable lost heart for moving then. Instead, he stayed in Pau-bee, just upriver from Yenner-po-tau, among the fragile people of the Nils, feeling as at home in that place as he had ever felt. In Pau-bee, he found Po-Bee, and in Yenner-po-tau he found Doh-ti, and also Hanna-lil, and later he found Mum-lil in the hamlet of Lau-Bom. They called him Gaffer Gumsuch, and the five of them lived mostly together in a house cut to their size, doing work of delicacy and great craftsmanship. They became weavers of repute, and Bar-stable almost forgot the language of the Fales to become one of the people of Po-Bau, until the Gahlians came.
‘And now we are here,’ he concluded. ‘With Mum-lil expecting a child, living in a bear’s house, wondering what is to become of the world.’
By common consent the larger people did not talk of moving on that afternoon. Instead, they sat about, talking with what Thewson insisted on calling the unuzh-li. Jasmine asked to see where they had been living.
It was a dry, sandy cavern beneath the kneed-up roots of the tree, fringed above with fine, hairy rootlets and lighted by tunnels which angled sunwards. Jasmine could get in without difficulty, but she had to crouch against the wall while she peered with curiosity at the finely woven rugs which covered the floor, at the loom which made a quiet clacketa-clacketa under Hanna-lil’s hands.
‘This is a rabbity burrow, Gaffer.’
‘It’s dry,’ he said. ‘Dry and reasonable for warmth. We got the loom in piece by piece, and we don’t complain.’
‘We could take the loom,’ she said. ‘Pack it on one of the horses. If you’d come with us.’
‘Likely we’re settled here.’
Jasmine fell into an old accent. ‘Come winter wind howl, old’un, thy bones will cry cold.’
‘Not going to be warmer where you’re going.’
‘No warmer, na, but safer. What do if Gahlians come lookin’?’
‘’Sa problem,’ he admitted, sucking at his teeth. ‘Wouldn’t like being cut about by the Gahlians. Wouldn’t like to think of Mum-lil bein’ cut about.’
Jasmine straightened herself. ‘Thewson is very strong. The men with us are woodswise. Chances are that we will get on north and find what we are looking for without any trouble. With us, you would all have a good chance.’
‘Likely.’ Gaffer poured himself a cup of steaming tea. The other small people watched and waited. Jasmine could not tell what they were thinking. In the loom the fabric grew inch by inch, a fine, natural wool with a shifting pattern of pale green.
‘Could I learn to do that?’ she asked. ‘I would like to
