“But it has walls,” said Umbo.
“And a door that doesn’t close.”
“It doesn’t have to close,” said Umbo, “with the saint’s protection.”
“So what happens if robbers come and decide to kill everyone and take what they have? This withering saint appears and stands in the doorway and withers at them?”
“Wandering Saint,” said Umbo, looking pained.
“I know, I was joking,” said Rigg.
“You shouldn’t joke about sacred things,” said Umbo.
“What’s happened to you?” asked Rigg.
“I need to make mud-is that what you call it? That’s what’s about to happen to me.”
Umbo went off for a while and then came back and said, “You have any food?”
“You didn’t bring any?” asked Rigg, assuming that he hadn’t.
“Just this sausage,” said Umbo. “My sister hid it in my hat-she rushed after me and gave me my hat. I think Father hit her for the hat-for giving me anything at all. But he might have killed her for the sausage. Well, not killed, but you know.”
“Share the sausage. Here’s what Nox gave me. Halves on everything.”
“I know the traveler rules,” said Umbo.
“This is your half.”
Umbo looked from half to half.
“It was even when I divided it,” said Rigg.
“It’s still even as far as I can tell. Haven’t you eaten?”
“I’ve eaten as much as I want. I want this food to last.”
“What good is it to make the food last? So the animals who find your starved corpse will have something delicious to eat and leave your flesh alone?”
“I had what I need,” said Rigg. “We often go for a few days on short rations, just for practice. You get so you kind of like the feeling of being hungry.”
“That is the sickest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Umbo.
And then, once again, Umbo was caught up in sobs. Only for a moment-just four great heaves of his chest, a brief storm of tears. “By the Wandering Saint,” said Umbo. “I just think of Kyokay and there it is.” He made some pretense at laughing. “It’s going to be really embarrassing if I ever do this in front of somebody.”
“What am I? A stump?” asked Rigg.
“I meant somebody who wouldn’t understand. Somebody who wasn’t there.”
By that system of thought, Umbo could mourn for his brother all he wanted, but Rigg had better not shed tears for Father, since nobody else was there. But Rigg wasn’t in the mood for a quarrel. They had a long way to walk today, and Umbo wasn’t used to walking, and the last thing they needed was to be snippy with each other from the start.
“Eat,” said Rigg. “Or smear the food into your hair, or whatever you intend to do, but let’s get it done. The sun’s up now, so we’ve already lost a half hour of traveling at least, and there’ll be other people on the road before long.”
“Oh, are we avoiding them?” asked Umbo.
“I am,” said Rigg. “If they come from Fall Ford, anyway. Looking for me. Or you, for that matter. And strangers coming the other way-what are they going to think of boys traveling without adults with them? We have to be ready to dodge into the woods whenever anybody’s coming. I don’t want a lot of conversations with strangers out here.”
“A lot of travelers come through Fall Ford,” said Umbo. “They never harm anybody.”
“In Fall Ford they’re outnumbered. They might act very differently when they outnumber us.”
“What are you scared of?”
“Well, let’s see. Death first-that’s a big one. And pain. And having somebody take away what pathetic few things I own.” He didn’t see any reason for Umbo to know about the jewels and the letter of credit. Travelers’ law of sharing didn’t extend to money or trade goods or other valuables.
“I’ve never even thought about that until…”
Rigg thought Umbo was going to cry again, but he didn’t after all.
“Well, Umbo,” said Rigg, “you’ve spent your whole life in a village. It’s a lot safer there, unless somebody accuses you of murder and they work up a mob to come and kill you.”
Umbo looked away-ashamed? angry?-so Rigg dropped the subject. Not a good topic for humor yet. Father would have understood that joking about the worst things is how you get them tame and under control.
“Look,” said Rigg. “I’ve spent my life traveling. But in the wild, not on populated roads. Father and I always stepped out of the road when we were carrying pelts on our backs, because we don’t have the agility to fight or even to run away, unless we drop the pelts, and then they can be stolen. So it’s a habit, for safety. And I figured I don’t know what kind of danger we’re going to face on this road, but it can’t hurt to stick to the same habit. If you want to travel with me, you’re going to need to comply with that. All right?”
“You can hide, I’ll stay in the road.”
“That’s what I said,” Rigg said, letting himself sound a little annoyed. “If you stay in the road, and something bad happens to you, then if we’re traveling together I’m honor bound to defend you. And the whole point of my leaving the road is to avoid having to defend anybody. So if you don’t want to leave the road whenever I say, and hide as long as I say, then we aren’t traveling together. We’re each on our own. Is that how you want it?”
“Sure, no,” said Umbo quickly. “I wasn’t trying to cause trouble. I just ache all over and the idea of constantly getting off the road and hiding in the woods just doesn’t sound very good to me. Besides, you move like a senoose, so quiet you could surprise a snake. I crash around like a drunken cow.”
“I’ve never seen a drunken cow,” said Rigg.
“Then you’ve never laughed,” said Umbo. “Of course, if somebody catches you giving ale to a cow, they’ll turn you into shoe leather.”
“So you’re done eating? We can go?”
“Yes,” said Umbo. He picked up his few possessions and headed, not down the path toward the road, but straight toward the shrine entrance.
“Where are you going?”
“We’re not going to set out on a journey without paying our respects to the Wandering Saint, are we? I thought that’s why you picked this place to stay last night-for the sanctuary and for the blessing.”
It wasn’t worth arguing. Rigg followed Umbo inside.
A smoke hole had been left in the middle of the roof, and it allowed in enough daylight that now Rigg could see that the walls were painted. Not just decorations, like the ones the women wove into their cloth in Fall Ford, but actual figures of people. He couldn’t see all that clearly, but well enough to see that the same man-or at least a manlike thing with the same clothing-kept showing up in every wall section.
“It’s the life of the Wandering Saint,” said Umbo. “Since you seem never to have seen it or even heard of him before.”
Rigg walked around, beholding the legends of the W.S., for Rigg was already thinking of him that way. He always made initials and acronyms out of phrases that he thought were getting too repetitive. “Personal mud” had long since become “p.m.” in his mind.
Here the W.S. brought two lost children back to their joyful mother. On the next panel, he fought off a bear that was about to devour a poor family’s milk ewe. All sorts of brave and good deeds.
When we were growing up, thought Rigg, we called these Hero Stories and that’s what we acted out when we played. Kyokay always wanted to be the bear or the ruffian or the enemy troop, he never wanted to be the one that got rescued, even though he was the smallest. The gods didn’t even come into it.
But he didn’t want to talk about it with Umbo. It was too disturbing that their memories had grown so different.
“Come on,” said Rigg. “What is it we have to do before we can leave?”
“Just this,” said Umbo. “Look at the stories and remember the Wandering Saint.”
“Then I’m done.”
“Except that you started with the second panel,” said Umbo. “You missed the whole beginning, which is when
