Reave the Just and Other Tales (32 page)

Held by his gaze, she chewed the bread and drank the broth. With a pig’s cleverness she knew that the ale was too strong for her, so she did not touch it. Instead she poured it out in a bowl and set it under his snout so that he could have it.

When he had consumed it all, he drew a shuddering breath which she interpreted as pleasure. And that in turn pleased her more than any amount of food or drink for herself.

Together they slept again.

So Fern became a beggar—and so her pig’s life was saved. Each time she slept, the images came to her: more scratching at doors, more supplication. And each time she awoke she acted on them with less sorrow. The loss of her honesty had become a fact, unalterable. Instead of grieving, she used the strength of new sustenance to scavenge for her pig. She was able to roam more widely, root more deeply. She found grains and vegetables for him, as well as herbs from which she concocted healing poultices and balms. Steadily, if slowly, he drew vitality from her care and began to mend.

After several nights, the images stopped. They were no longer needed. In their place, her head was filled with the soothing cerulean and emerald which she had always gained from the affection of pigs, and occasionally she heard sounds—silent except within her head—which might have been,
My thanks.
She felt the gratitude in them; but the sounds themselves meant nothing to her, so at last she concluded that they were the pig’s name, and she took to calling him “Mythanks.” That was the first word she had ever spoken, the only word she knew. She hugged him morning and night, and caressed him whenever the mood came upon her, and whispered fondly in his ears, “Mythanks, Mythanks,” and her regret for the woman she had once been became vague with the uncertainty of all time.

When perhaps a fortnight had passed, Mythanks was well enough to join her in her scavenging. Although he was still weak, he trotted briskly at her side, scenting the air and scanning the vistas like a creature which had come to a new world. Uncharacteristically for a pig, he sniffed and snorted at every grass and herb and shrub they encountered as though he were teaching himself to know them for the first time. He surveyed the hillsides as though he were measuring distances and possibilities. He shied away from passing herd-dogs and farmers as though they might be his enemies, despite the fact that no one in Sarendel-on-Gentle would harm a pig—until the time came to slaughter the porkers and the aging sows. And when the herd-dogs and farmers were gone, he rubbed his bristled back against Fern’s legs with a pig’s desire for reassurance.

Because he was not yet fully hale, he could not roam far; and so the day’s scavenging found him less food than he wanted. This worried Fern. She thought she saw a look of discouragement—or was it calculation?—in Mythanks’ strange eyes. However she petted and coddled him, he did not nuzzle her fondly, or fill her head with the hues of gratitude. He had adopted her. He was her responsibility, and her care of him was inadequate. When a tear or two of remorse caught and spread on her muddy cheeks, he ignored them.

But the next day he went with her while she begged.

Prompted by her instinct to creep from place to place, calling as little attention to herself as possible, she had taken her unwonted supplications to a different villager each day. After the gift of carrots, she had not dared return to Meglan. Certainly she had not approached Jessup again. Rather she had been to Yoel’s alehouse, then to widower Horrik’s tannery, then to Salla and Veil among the farmwives, then to Karay the weaver and Limm the potter; and so to a new benefactor on every occasion.

On this occasion, however, Mythanks had his own ideas. Directly, as though he had lived in Sarendel all his life and knew it well, he led Fern back to Jessup’s alehouse.

Wordlessly alarmed, she could not put her hand to the door at the rear of the alehouse. Jessup’s sternness frightened her. If she had not been so near to starvation on that first day, she would not have dared go there at all. She could only watch and wince as Mythanks lifted a foreleg and scratched at the door with his hoof.

When Jessup opened the door and saw her, he did not take the sight kindly.

“You!” he snapped. “Begone! Do not think you can take advantage of me a second time. All the village is talking about your beggary. You have acquired a pig, and now you beg. Did you beg him as well, or have you fallen as low as theft? I would not have fed you so much as once, but I believed that you were honest. I will not make that mistake again.”

Fern understood none of his words, but his tone was plain. It hurt her like a blow. Cringing, she tried to shrink down into herself as she turned away.

Mythanks snorted once, softly, and fixed Jessup with his eyes, the one blind, the other flawed by silver.

Jessup made a noise in his throat which frightened Fern more than shouts and abuse. To her ears, it was the strangling gurgle of death.

As if he were stunned, Jessup moved backward into the alehouse and out of sight. Then he returned, carrying a bushel of barley and a large basket overflowing with bread and sausages. These he set at Mythanks’ feet without a word. Backward again, he reentered the alehouse and closed the door.

Mythanks sniffed the barley, looked over at Fern where she crouched in alarm, and snorted a pig’s laughter.

Fern was astonished. She had never seen so much food. “Mythanks,” she murmured because she had no words with which to express her surprise. “Mythanks, Mythanks.”

At once his laughter became vexation. New sounds formed in her mind.
My name is not Mythanks, you daft woman. It is Titus. Titus! Do you hear me? TITUS!

“Ti-tus.” Staring at him, she tried the word in her mouth. “Ti-tus. Titus.” In her amazement, she failed to notice that she had understood him.

Blue pleasure and green satisfaction came into her head as she said his name.
That,
he replied,
is a distinct improvement
. But her instant of comprehension had passed, and she had no idea what the sounds meant.

“Titus.”

Hardly aware of what she did, she set the basket of bread and sausages on his back, steadied it with one hand, then propped the bushel of barley on her hip and returned to her hovel.

That day they feasted and slept. And the next morning Titus nudged her awake with his snout. When she met his blind and piercing gaze, she heard more sounds in the silence of her mind.

It is time we began. Bread and sausages will feed your body, but they will do nothing to nourish your intelligence. I
must
have intelligence. Also you are filthy—and filth wards away help. There are many lessons that a pig could teach you. Today we will make a start.

This meant nothing to Fern. The sounds came from him—she accepted that as a fact—but they communicated less than the grunts of pigs. Nevertheless she hugged him happily because he seemed so brisk and whole. Yesterday’s fear and surprise were forgotten. She was simply glad that Titus had come to her, and that she had been able to help him, and that she knew his name.

Never mind,
he said while he nuzzled her neck.
Perhaps you will understand me in time. For the present, you are willing. I will make that suffice.

Again he fixed her with the argent sliver of his good eye, and now in images she saw herself leaving her hovel and walking to a secluded bank of the Gentle, where she removed her shreds of clothing, immersed herself in the water, and scrubbed herself with sand until her skin became a color which she had never before seen in her own reflection.

It is a risk,
he said as she rose to obey the image.
Change attracts attention, and attention is dangerous. But I need help. We must begin somewhere. Cleanliness will do much to improve your place in this misbegotten pigsty of a village.

“Titus,” she answered, dumbly pleased. “Titus.”

Snuffling encouragement, he accompanied her down to the Gentle.

The image he had placed in her mind amazed her entirely, but her compliance did not. She had accepted her obedience to him as a fact. And she was not afflicted with modesty. Her impulse to cower, to avoid notice, grew from other fears than bodily shame. So it was not a hard thing for her to do as Titus directed. Hidden by the overarching boughs of a thirsty willow at the river’s edge, she set aside her scraps and entered the water.

Here the Gentle was cool but not cold, and it had worn a fine sandy bottom for itself off the hard edges of time. Under Titus’ watchful eye, Fern splashed and bubbled and rubbed until the color of her skin and the feel of her hair were transformed. As she did so, she was filled with a light blue pleasure as quiet and steady as the water. And the blue deepened to azure—she did not know or ask why—when the pig said to her like a promise,
Someday you will ask me what loveliness is, and I will tell you.

Next he gave her an image in which she scrubbed her clothes as she had cleaned herself. Washing them did not make them whole, but it did give them a gentler touch on the unfamiliar tingle of her skin.

At last she rose from the water as if on this day she had been made new.

As she dressed, two of Yoel’s small sons scampered past the willow, looking to avoid the chores which Nell alewife, their mother, had in mind for them. They may have seen Fern or they may not; in either case, their attention was elsewhere. Nevertheless she crouched instinctively against the bole of the willow, so that whatever the boys saw would be as unobtrusive as possible.

At once the pleasure in her head changed to the hue of vexation. Perhaps all the colors of her mind were no longer hers, but now belonged to Titus.

Blast you,
he muttered,
you have too far to go. And I am helpless.

Almost as if he wished to punish her for her timidity, he urged her to scavenge all day for wood. And the next day he pushed her to accost one of Yoel’s small sons while the boys played truant from Nell’s chores. Fern herself did nothing except to put out her hand to pause the boy as he ran, and that was enough to make her heart beat in her throat. Titus did the rest. After he had gazed at the boy for a moment or two with his silver-marred eye, he turned away. Snorting in satisfaction, he led Fern back to their hovel.

Because she loved his satisfaction, she hugged and caressed him and fed him barley-mash. When Yoel’s small son and two of his brothers arrived at her storeshed a short time later carrying a firepot full of flame, her ability to grasp that they might have been doing the pig’s bidding had already faded. She understood them only because the farmwives sometimes sent her a firepot as an act of kindness, knowing that she had no other flame to keep her alive if the night turned bitter across the Gentle’s Rift.

Before she lost her honesty, she had been able to accept gifts. But now kindness dismayed her. She cowered away from the children as though they frightened her.

The youngest boy set the firepot in the dirt beside Fern’s woodpile. Staring at her, he asked, “Is she sick, then?”

“You’re daft,” the middle brother snorted with the contempt of his greater age. “That ain’t sick, that’s clean.”

“Cor!” breathed the oldest. “Who’d have thought she looked like that?” Then he flushed and ducked his head.

While Fern tried to sink out of sight against the wall, Titus stepped in front of her. Standing proudly in the center of the space as if the hovel were a mansion and his, he fixed his eyes on each of the boys until they all nodded in turn. Then he dismissed them with a grunt and a jerk of his head.

“Titus,” Fern murmured because she had no other name for her dismay. “Titus.”

He looked at her. As if her distress were a question, he said,
Yes, they would be easier
—
for a time. But then they would begin to fear me, and then I would be lost. However, I seriously doubt that any of these clods and clowns is capable of fearing you. And the children even less than the adults. So I will ask only children for help
—
and only for you. The rest must be kept between the two of us.

Seeing that she was not comforted, he nuzzled at her until she came away from the wall to scratch his ears. Then he added,
I will take it as a personal triumph if you are ever able to say
yes
to me of your own accord.

Yes, Fern thought to herself. Yes. It was a strange sound. If it had been the name of a pig, she would have understood it. As matters stood, however, the sound could only trouble her with hints of significance; it could not reach her.

Never mind,
he told her again.
For today we have gained enough. When those whelps return, we will cast our net wider.

She heard sadness in his voice, and so she hugged him with all her strength, seeking to reassure him.

You or no one,
Titus whispered to her embrace.
You must suffice. I have no other hope.

The boys did not return until evening. While Fern and Titus warmed themselves beside her unaccustomed fire—which she built and tended and kept small according to the images he placed in her mind—hands tugged at the burlap curtain that served as her door, and children entered her hovel. During the day the three had become five, and two of them were girls. They came to her carrying small sacks and tight bundles of herbs.

Here her acceptance of facts failed her. Herbs? For her and Titus? Children did not do such things. Her vague experience of time did not contain those actions. Typically children ignored her; on occasion they teased and tormented her; sometimes they were as kind as a warm breeze. But they did not bring her gifts of witch hazel and thyme, rueweed and coriander, sloewort, and marjoram, and vert. And Titus had not prepared her with images. Whatever she knew and needed in order to live seemed to totter when Yoel’s familiar sons and daughters offered her herbs.

In order to grasp what had happened, to accommodate it so that it could be borne, she had to make a leap across time; for her, a profound leap. She had to connect the fact that Titus had looked into Yoel’s sons’ eyes at some point in the imprecise past with the fact that these children had come here now with herbs. This was a leap greater than understanding that a sow broached in farrow must be helped to release her piglets. It was a leap greater than knowing that the farmwife who offered her a cloak after she had eased the birth pangs of the farmwife’s sow did so in thanks. Those events were self-contained, each within its own sequence. But
this
—