“We want them to be nice enough not to kill us immediately.”
They were walking again, and soon arrived at the shop Olivenko had been looking for. “Not that I’ve ever bought anything here,” he said. “But the clothes are nice-even if they weren’t made for anyone in particular. We don’t have time for tailoring.”
They explained to the shopkeeper what they wanted. “Good, practical traveling clothes for all of us.”
The shopkeeper looked them up and down, especially taking note of the difference between Loaf and Umbo on one hand, and Rigg and Param on the other.
“We don’t want to be conspicuous when traveling,” said Rigg. “These two went to an extreme, I think.” He indicated Umbo and Loaf.
“And you haven’t even started trying yet,” said the shopkeeper.
“We don’t want to look so poor that innkeepers won’t trust us to pay, or so rich that robbers are tempted.”
The shopkeeper gave a sharp bark of a laugh. “With two soldiers like these with you, it would take a bold band to make a try for you.”
“We aren’t going to look like soldiers,” said Olivenko.
The shopkeeper looked him and Loaf up and down again. “Good luck with that. I don’t have any magical clothing that will make you look wan and sophisticated.”
“What about making me look tall?” asked Umbo.
“Now, that I can do-if you don’t mind walking in very tall shoes.”
It took an hour, but they emerged with reasonably well-fitting and comfortable clothes. They still looked like money-but not like really big money. A trading family, perhaps.
“So who are we?” asked Olivenko, when they were on the street again. “I’m too young to pass for anybody’s father. And you, sir, are frankly too old.”
“We did well enough before,” said Loaf.
“Loaf is Param’s and my father,” said Rigg. “And Umbo is your cousin from upriver, who was sent to Aressa Sessamo to get an education under your supervision.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll fool everybody with that,” said Umbo.
“I didn’t say you actually got one,” said Rigg, smiling. But the smile didn’t work. Umbo was a little surly and Param was getting shyer. Maybe they were uncomfortable in their new clothes. Or maybe they were just frightened about what lay ahead.
“Look,” said Rigg. “I know what I’m asking of all of you. Only two of us are in any serious danger. But we can’t get to safety-if that’s what it is-without the rest of you. Especially you, Umbo.”
“Am I complaining?” asked Umbo.
“I’m just thinking that maybe you’d rather-”
“Stop apologizing for being alive,” said Umbo. “Don’t you know who your friends are? Don’t you know what friendship is?”
“You didn’t seem very happy.”
“I’m not happy,” said Umbo. “I don’t know this guy, but I know he works for the city guard, and here we are trusting him with our lives.”
“He’s late showing up for duty-by tomorrow he’s a deserter,” said Rigg.
“Unless he’s on assignment right now,” said Umbo.
“You came to me,” said Olivenko stiffly.
“My father trusted him-my real father.”
“And look where that got him,” said Umbo. “Could he be deader?”
Rigg watched Olivenko as he calmed himself. Rigg decided not to intervene, but rather to let Olivenko handle this himself. “You don’t know me,” said Olivenko, “but I loved his father and grieved for him when he died, more than anybody.”
“Not more than me,” said Param softly.
“But nobody saw you grieving,” said Olivenko. “So how could I know? All I can say is, with the passage of time, you’ll see who I am, and I’ll see who you are. I trust you now because Rigg trusts you. I’m betting my life and career, my whole future on you. And Rigg is asking you to make the same bet on me. Has Rigg shown bad judgment before?”
“Yes, I have,” said Rigg. “I trusted my mother.”
“No you didn’t,” said Param.
“Well, no, never completely. But I wanted to believe in her.”
“Is it that way with this Olivenko?” asked Loaf. “Do you want to believe in him?”
“No,” said Rigg. “It never occurred to me that one of my guards might be somebody-a person, somebody I could talk with. But he became my friend during my time in the library. He never tried to ingratiate himself with me.”
“That only means he’s really good at it,” said Umbo.
“You’re way too young to be so cynical,” said Loaf.
“When we get across the Wall,” said Rigg, “I’m going to need you all. We’re going to need each other. But I don’t give much for our chances if you’re not able to work together.”
They all looked at each other, at the ground, at each other again.
“Let’s get out of the city,” said Param. “We have plenty of time to work things out among us on the road.”
They took a city carriage to the outskirts of town, where they paid off the driver and then bought a good traveling coach and four horses. “The purse isn’t infinite,” Loaf grumbled, but Rigg saw that there was plenty of money left. They also bought some supplies-food, tents, water bags, tools, a few weapons, nothing unusual for travelers setting out into rough country. One of the outfitters warned them that if they were going to a place where the roads weren’t maintained by the government, they’d want to have spare wheels and axles with them. “And a fifth horse tied behind,” he said. “Without good roads, even the best-made coach isn’t going to hold up forever, and you may have to leave the coach at some point. You’ll want five horses then.”
“Next you’ll try to sell us saddles.”
“It’s your buttocks and thighs that’ll do the riding,” said the man with crude amusement. “It’s not so much the saddles as the stirrups that you’ll be wanting, if the horse decides to trot-and that’s the favorite gait of a good carriage horse.”
Rigg wasn’t sure what he was talking about-he had done precious little riding in his life. And that was only being perched atop an old nag when he was a little boy. “I wish we could ride the river,” said Rigg.
“River doesn’t go where we’re going,” said Loaf.
And then both of them realized that they had probably said too much in front of a stranger. In a day or two, General Citizen’s men would no doubt be questioning this man, and now he knew that they weren’t going home.
Worse yet, the man saw them exchange glances, indicating that they wished they hadn’t spoken-so that the words would be cemented in the fellow’s mind. The only way they could make it worse would be to ask him not to tell anyone. That would almost surely send him scurrying to the nearest city guards as soon as they were gone.
But maybe they could give him another reason for that glance. “What we’re wondering,” said Rigg, “is whether you have a map. We’re going into country we don’t know.”
“I don’t keep maps in stock,” said the man. “People mostly knows where they’re going from here. Traders get their own maps and lore from each other. Other folks is just going home-they knows the road and they knows their turning.”
“Well, I guess we’ll just have to ask in the roadhouses.”
“If they know. Remember that roadhouse keepers don’t travel, so they don’t know anything but their town,” said the outfitter, “and if you start asking the travelers you meet in such places, you never know which ones will send you down a blind road where only your valuables will come back out again.”
“This is a bad idea,” said Loaf.
“Then don’t come,” said Rigg. He knew that Loaf now understood his ploy, so the act could proceed with confidence. “You’re the one who said the Wall was the only test of a man’s strength, so if you want to back out…”
