Umbo was above grumbling when he didn’t like the duties that Rigg’s ambition imposed on him. Good soldiers grumbled all the time-but they followed the plans laid out for them all the same.
But when Rigg was taken captive, and Loaf and Umbo fled the boat and went back upriver, Loaf began what might have been the happiest time of his life. Oh, he felt bad that Rigg was arrested and when he thought about what might be happening to him, he worried. But mostly he just lived day to day with Umbo, like a soldier on the march, teaching the boy what he needed to learn, watching as Umbo struggled to do things that Loaf couldn’t imagine doing. Umbo was consumed with his need to learn how to save his friend by traveling backward in time, but since Loaf knew that it was beyond him, he was free to watch, to encourage, to protect, and, as near as Loaf could understand the feeling, to love him the way a father might love a son.
Back home in Leaky’s Landing, his old duties descended on him, but he bore them lightly, knowing that he would have to leave again, as soon as Umbo figured things out. Leaky noticed it, too, saying to him one time, “It’s like you’re not even here, you lazy man.” Little did she know how the rocking chair called to him even in the best of times, and how gladly he’d slip off into dreams-even into dreams of Leaky herself, so much easier to abide than the demanding woman that he loved but who wearied him out with all the chores that she imposed.
She did impose them, even when he thought of them himself and didn’t wait to be asked. He always did them because of her, even if she didn’t know it.
Hurry up, Umbo, he wanted to say. Let’s get back on the river, drift down to O, then on to Aressa Sessamo or the edges of the wallfold, wherever Rigg decides that you must go. I’ll help you do your work for your friend.
So Loaf was happy on the late afternoon when Umbo came to him in a vision-a waking vision, suddenly standing in front of him where Loaf stood chopping wood behind the inn-and said, “Stop chopping now and go inside so you can keep Leaky from having to kill a mad drunk. And if it happens in the next five minutes, then I’ll be ready to go back to O.”
Loaf took the ax over his shoulder, walked into the inn, and sure enough, there was a riverman who must have drunk a jug of something stronger than ale before he arrived, and now was threatening Leaky with his heavy staff if she didn’t serve him “the real drink and not that lily-water that rich men dip their fingers in.” The man slammed the staff onto the counter with all his strength-and no one had more strength with a quarterstaff than a poleman.
Leaky was going for the throwing knife she used to protect herself against men too strong to allow them to come within reach of her. Loaf well knew that the riverman was ten seconds away from lying dead on the floor with a knife in his eye. So without even thinking, Loaf brought down the ax onto the quarterstaff where it lay, careful not to use so much force that he’d damage the oaken counter, but plenty to break the staff in two.
Horrified at this outrage to his drunken dignity, let alone the damage to his staff, the riverman roared and turned to face Loaf, brandishing the nub of his staff with the broken end ready to jab into the innkeeper’s face. Loaf kicked him in the knee with his heavy boot, again being careful only to bruise the joint, not ruin him by breaking it, for such an injury would be slow to heal and the riverman would run out of money long before he was able to get back on a boat and work again. His offense was being an angry drunk; no doubt he was affable enough when the drink wasn’t in him.
The riverman lay on the floor yowling with pain. Loaf looked around for the man’s compatriots, and they soon came forward to drag the man out of the inn. “You didn’t need to kick him so hard,” one of them said to Loaf. “He meant no harm.”
“I saved his life,” said Loaf, “and the knee’s not broke.”
“Spraint though, most like,” said the sullen man.
“Keep your friend drinking ale and he’ll come to no grief. The strong spirits are too much for him, and you know it.”
“He wouldn’t’ve hurt nobody.”
“My wife had no way of knowing that,” said Loaf, “even if it were true, which it isn’t, because I think this man has killed before.”
“Only by accident,” said the man.
He said this just as he was maneuvering his friend through the door, and suddenly there was a thunk and Leaky’s throwing knife quivered in the doorjamb not three inches from his head. The man jumped away from the knife, which meant knocking down the drunk and the man trying to hold him up on the other side. They lay in a jumble on the floor, like eels, and all the other men in the river house laughed as if it were the funniest thing they’d ever seen, which, apart from a drowning landlubber, it probably was.
The noise brought Umbo in from the kitchen, where he’d been washing glasses and bowls. “Why didn’t you call for me?” he asked Leaky.
“If I’d needed to throw something as big as you, I’d have called sure enough,” said Leaky. “There’s not a thing you could have done.”
The drunk and his friends were up and out the door now, and Loaf roared with laughter as Leaky planted her foot in the drunk’s rear and sent him, and his friends, sprawling in the damp dirt outside.
With the door closed, and the rest of the guests turned back to their food and drink, Loaf pulled Leaky’s knife out of the doorframe and gathered Leaky and Umbo behind the bar. “There was something Umbo could do,” said Loaf. “And he did it. Why do you think I came in here? He warned me that you were about to kill a mad drunk, my love, and sent me inside with my ax in hand.”
Umbo grinned. “Did I? Or… will I?”
“I don’t know how long you waited to go back in time to give the warning, my lad, but you told me that if it happened within five minutes, you were ready to go back to O.”
“Well, I hope you didn’t decide to give that message for another month, because there’s too much work to do around here for me to have you gone right now,” said Leaky.
“We don’t have to wait for him to send the message,” said Loaf. “He already sent it.”
“That’s the craziest thing you ever said. He doesn’t remember sending it, do you, boy?”
Umbo laughed in delight.
“Are you laughing at me?” asked Leaky.
“He’s laughing because it makes no sense and that’s half the fun,” said Loaf. “You killed that man, and then felt so bad about it-you know you always do, being no soldier-that Umbo went back to warn me so he could stop you. But now you didn’t kill him, so there’s no reason for us to wait a moment longer.”
“But he hasn’t given the warning!” insisted Leaky.
“There’s no longer a warning to give,” said Loaf. “The man’s not killed after all.”
“But if you don’t send the warning…” Leaky began.
“My warning changed things,” said Umbo. “When you killed the man, then there was a warning to give. I gave it, things changed, and now there’s no warning needed.”
“But you didn’t do it! Not yet!”
“He already did it,” said Loaf. “Just now.”
Leaky looked like she was ready to scream with frustration.
“Lass, it makes no sense to me, either, but that’s just the way it works,” said Loaf. “He warns me in the past, which changes things so the warning is no longer needed. The thing is done.”
“Then why do you have to go back to O to steal a jewel that Umbo already stole?”
“Because I don’t have the jewel yet,” said Umbo, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’ve still got to steal it in order to have it.”
Leaky lowered her head and shook it like a wet dog. “I hate you both, you drive me mad.” Then she headed back into the kitchen.
“So when do we leave?” asked Umbo.
“If we leave right now,” said Loaf, “we have to pack our own food, and everything a day old. If we wait till tomorrow, she’ll bake again.”
“It’s nearly dark anyway,” said Umbo.
From the kitchen they could hear Leaky’s voice. “This is my warning from the future! There’ll be no bread for you tomorrow or any other day!”
“Tonight it is,” said Loaf.
It took only a few minutes before Loaf had arranged passage for them on a raft of logs heading down to a lumber mill upstream of O. Then they both packed-knapsacks only for each of them, since they were going to
