Artemis Awakening (11 page)

Griffin didn’t know what to say. He knew Bruin was correct but, right now, in this garden, the spring chill moderated by the sunlight, warm food inside him, he thought he couldn’t ask for anything better than to stay here, to sleep in the tiny room under the eaves, to eat good food. Perhaps he could help Bruin with the students.

Fingers wrapped around his mug, Bruin studied him. Something in his sleepy smile made Griffin think the other man knew precisely what Griffin was thinking.

“You could rest here,” Bruin said slowly. “Many of the villagers will be astonished and overjoyed to have one of the seegnur among us again. In time, word would spread. Pilgrims would flock barefoot across the miles for the merest glimpse of you. Prosperity would come to Shepherd’s Call. Indeed, you could earn your keep without raising a finger. Still, I had thought you wanted more. I thought you traveled the void to see Artemis. Surely by that you didn’t mean one small village.”

Griffin frowned, not at Bruin, but at himself.

“I suppose,” he muttered, “these last few days have been too much. I was hoping to rest, to sort it out in my head.”

“I don’t mean to throw you out this minute.” Bruin chuckled. Spring is not a bad time for travel, if one is prepared for rain and mud. I had thought to send you with Adara to Spirit Bay where my own teacher lives. He has devoted a long life to studying the seegnur. Like you, he is a historian, not merely a loremaster.”

Griffin had begun to understand the distinction between these two terms. “Historian” meant much what it did on his own world: one who studied the past and sought to learn more about it. A loremaster was different. Although some loremasters were content with memorization of preserved texts, treatises, laws, and moral guidelines, many were interested in the things of the past, viewing them as building blocks for the future.

Then there were the factotums. These seemed to be the more active branch of the profession. Originally, factotum had been trained as escorts and guides for the seegnur. When Griffin had expressed surprise that the profession of factotum had survived the slaughter of the seegnur, Adara had explained that factotum continued to be trained as a sign that the people of Artemis remained faithful to the purpose for which they had been created and were ready to serve the seegnur, should they ever return.

“This teacher of yours does sound like an interesting person,” Griffin admitted. “You said something about my reaching the stars again. Do you really think he could help me?”

Bruin shrugged. “That I cannot say but, if anyone knows, I believe it would be the Old One Who Is Young. Adara is checking whether the routes to Spirit Bay have reopened. Most of our trade comes in from the river, but some comes overland.”

Bruin heaved himself onto his feet and began gathering up the plates. As if by magic, Honeychild, the bear, appeared. Bruin held the plates for her and she licked away every trace of egg and crumb of bread.

“Better than wasting clean water to rinse them,” Bruin said. “Saves hauling. Will you pull a bucket from the well and bring it into the kitchen? We’ll need to heat more water after getting these clean.”

Griffin was glad he had paid attention when Bruin had hauled up the cider. That had been on a rope hanging loose into the water, but he’d noticed a crank with a rope wound around it. The mechanism was nicely maintained and worked smoothly. Nonetheless he sloshed water on his soft shoes when he carried the bucket in. It was exquisitely cold.

Seeing the work that went into washing up, Griffin understood why he hadn’t been offered a chance to bathe. Even so, he was acutely aware how oily and gritty his hair felt. He wondered if he’d be out of line to ask what the custom was. Were there public baths here? A single bath night? He’d read about these in stories, the entire family bathing in sequence in one tub. It had sounded disgusting, but if that would be his only option, he’d take it and be glad.

Griffin decided to wait to ask about baths. However, now that he’d eaten, another need couldn’t wait. By the time he’d used the outhouse—clean and odorless as it proved to be—he had acquired an entirely new appreciation for indoor plumbing. He wondered if Spirit Bay might be a town or even a city. He wondered if any amenities had survived.

He scratched his head and wondered again about the possibility of getting a good, hot bath.

*   *   *

Adara returned home to find Bruin and Griffin putting the final touches on an elaborate midday meal. On the trail, she ate her main meal when settled into camp for the night, but at home the midday meal was the largest. This was no exception. She caught Griffin looking with a certain amount of awe at the array of food spread on the table beneath the cherry trees.

“You don’t need to eat it all now,” Adara said with a laugh. “What cold meats we leave will be put by for supper. Have you had a good morning?”

Griffin nodded. “I’ve been following Bruin about, ostensibly helping, but really, I’m sure, getting in the way.”

“Nonsense,” Bruin rumbled. “Griffin was a great help getting out all the blankets and hanging them to air. Between us we’ve nearly gotten the long dormitory set up. By myself it would have taken the entire day.”

“I’ve learned a bit about this school of Bruin’s, too,” Griffin said. “I’d wondered why hunters would train in the spring. I’d always understood that to be when the animals were left to their own devices—raising newborns, getting fattened up, things like that.”

“They are,” Adara said, “but…”

Griffin spoke in unison with her, “… It takes the spring and much of the summer to teach those young idiots what they’ll need come autumn.”

They laughed all three together, Bruin as loudly as either of them at the repetition of this favorite bit of wisdom.

“Griffin’s arrival has been noticed,” Adara said, picking up a chicken leg, “but since everyone who spoke to me seemed to assume that Griffin was simply one of your students arrived a bit early, I didn’t see need to say otherwise. Still, we’re going to need to introduce him before our neighbors think we have something to hide.”

Bruin nodded. “Since we’re ahead on setting up the dorms, I thought an afternoon’s stroll about the town wouldn’t be amiss. How did your queries go?”

Adara frowned. “Seems the river is running fast this year. There’s talk about sending a caravan overland to Blue Meadow to pick up supplies. As usual, it’s unlikely any of the boats will think it profitable to risk coming up here until the snowmelt abates.”

“Shepherd’s Call often must go seeking after supplies come spring,” Bruin explained to Griffin. “We don’t have a lot to offer beyond wool, goat cheese, furs, and the like. Later in the year, when the river is sleepier, there will be less risk for the riverboats and so more return on the investment. That’s when we see the traders.”

“I’d hoped,” Adara said, “to take
Foam Dancer
at least part of the way, but given how the river is running … We may do better on the road.”

She glanced at Griffin. She could tell from his expression that Bruin had raised the question of the journey to Spirit Bay. Griffin looked resigned rather than eager but, sitting here in the cherry blossom–scented spring warmth, she could understand why.

“We’re not going to leave come morning,” she assured him, “but I’d like to join the caravan to Blue Meadow if we can. There’s always more banditry in the spring. I’d prefer we travel in company.”

Griffin Dane had been spreading sweet butter on a flat cake. Now he put down the treat untasted.

“Bandits? Here? On Artemis?”

Adara didn’t want to laugh at him, but she heard the mockery that crept into her voice.

“You don’t think the world has remained unchanged in the hundreds of years since the seegnur took their leave?” she asked. “Oh, we have bandits and more.”

“But the village…” Griffin protested. “When you left me on the bluff, I had a good view of Shepherd’s Call. There are no walls, no defenses. I thought that you lived in peace.”

“No walls,” Adara said and felt very proud, “as such, but certainly we have defenses. Bruin the Hunter and teacher of hunters makes his home in Shepherd’s Call.”

“And for some years now,” Bruin added approvingly, “so has Adara the Huntress. It would be a foolhardy bandit gang to prey upon this town. Even if they killed me and Adara—and Honeychild and Sand Shadow as well—there are many I have taught who would feel duty-bound to avenge their old master. Why do you think the local shepherds do not protest such large predators living in the midst of their flocks and herds? They know we keep worse away.”

Griffin picked up his flat cake and took a bite. Wiping crumbs from his lips, he answered. “I see. Superficially, much is the same as the worlds I have known, but those pieces come together differently. Bandits then. I can see why we’d want to join a larger group. What other dangers might we need to watch for?”

Adara glanced at Bruin, waiting for his nod of permission before speaking. “Here in Shepherd’s Call, the adapted are welcome. Bruin has been a good example, as has Helena the Equestrian. However, this has not been the case everywhere. I don’t know all the world’s lore, but apparently there is reason for the fear.”

Griffin looked a little sad but not at all surprised. “Those who are different—markedly, unavoidably, different—will always find themselves ostracized.”

“And sometimes,” Bruin said around a mouthful of the meat and cheese he’d piled onto a chunk of bread, “those doing the ostracizing have good reason. The lore tells how, even before the slaughter of the seegnur and death of machines, many of the adapted chose to believe themselves superior to the common run of humanity.

“When the seegnur were no longer present to govern, there were those among the adapted who thought they’d been offered an opportunity to dominate in their place. Even before, our peoples had been divided roughly between the professions and the support. The adapted always were trained into a profession and, so I have been told, this led to resentment even then. But the rules and regulations of the seegnur kept order.”

“So did the world fall into war and chaos then?” Griffin asked. “When I orbited the planet, I looked for signs, but at this tech level they are not easy to spot. I thought all seemed pastoral, even peaceful. I saw no evidence of great industry. There were a few larger population centers—mostly by bodies of water as would be expected—but nothing that made me think Artemis had departed from her heritage.”

Adara found herself somewhat lost by much of what Griffin said. It seemed to her that Shepherd’s Call was very industrious. Most people worked in some fashion from dawn until dusk. Even the small children had lessons to learn and tasks assigned according to their size and ability. A boy set to watch the sheep might also carry a spindle and wind wool. Idleness was not prized here, nor in Ridgewood where she had been born.

But Bruin apparently understood.

“If by industry, you mean great manufactories, yes, you are correct. Such have never evolved here. Indeed, I think the tale you told us last night about those nanobots released as a forerunner to invasion may be the reason. Gears turn, but efforts to power, say, a millwheel by other means than water—although in some places I have heard they use wind or animals—have not worked. We craft on a human scale, assisted, certainly by tools, but the machines of which the lore holds memory—machines that worked out of sight so that the seegnur might have light without smoke, clean clothing within a span of minutes, food served hot for the asking, those have never been rediscovered.”

Griffin looked grim. “I see. My shuttle’s wreck is but a part of a larger wreck—a wreck of an entire people, condemned to savagery.”

He swallowed the last of his flat cake, then burst out laughing, seeing in their stunned expressions the ludicrousness of that last statement.

“Forgive me, friends. I don’t mean to speak poorly of your world. My mother always said I lived as much in the world of my ideas as in the one whose air I breathed. My brothers were less kind. They said I’d fall on the floor and bruise my butt because I went to sit in a chair I expected to be there.”

He rapped his knuckles against the table, stroked the use-polished wood of the chair in which he sat. “I’m here. Although Artemis is proving different in ways I did not anticipate, ‘savage’ it is not.”

Adara asked softly, “Your brothers, do you miss them? They do not sound as if they were always kind to you.”

“I…” Griffin paused, considering. “We’re all grown men. It has been many years since we lived under one roof or even met all at once but, now that I need to accept that I might never see them again, yes, I do miss them.”

Adara nodded. “Then we’ll do our best to make sure that if you don’t see them again, it’s by choice, not chance.”

After the meal had been cleared away, Griffin himself taking a rag and going out to scrub the table clean, Griffin said, “Shall we go into the village? It’s time this stranger met more of the people of Shepherd’s Call.”

*   *   *

Griffin felt acutely self-conscious when they walked out of Bruin’s front gate and turned toward the green that was the heart of Shepherd’s Call. The road was wide enough that Adara walked to his left, while Bruin shambled along to the right. Sand Shadow paced ahead, as if this was some parade in her honor. Behind, making little snuffling noises, Honeychild followed in a slow, sleepy amble.

They passed several houses along the way, chickens in the doorways scattering in the manner of domestic fowl everywhere, their clucking chorus not greatly intensified by the presence of bear and puma. Birds took wing, but again, not with undue panic. The larger animals—dogs, goats, occasionally a cow or horse—seemed more aware of the potential threat offered by the predators but, while eyes were rolled or the occasional snort or growl reached the ear, most accepted the odd procession as a matter of routine.

The people they passed offered friendly waves or called greetings as they went about their chores. Without pausing, Bruin and Adara replied in kind. Griffin had thought these neighbors might come forth and make excuses to chat, but the little procession continued on unimpeded. When they rounded a bend and could see the village green clearly, Griffin noticed that several of those who had greeted them were already present. A few leaned hoes or shovels against the trees, dusting their palms clean against their trouser legs or skirts.