Red Country (25 page)

‘I said, where’s the herd?’ she bellowed in his face.

‘Er . . .’ Temple jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Might be a mile behind us!’

‘Storm was making ’em restless.’ Leef ’s eyes were narrowed against the wind, or possibly at Temple, it was hard to say which.

‘Buckhorm was worried they might scatter. He sent us to light some fires around the camp.’ Temple pointed out the crescent of nine or ten they had managed to set a flame to before
the rain came. ‘Maybe steer the herd away if they panic!’ Though their smouldering efforts did not look capable of diverting a herd of lambs. The wind was blowing up hard, ripping the
smoke from the fires and off across the plain, making the long grass thrash, dragging the dancing seed heads out in waves and spirals. ‘Where’s Sweet?’

‘No telling. We’ll have to work this one out ourselves.’ She dragged him up by his wet coat. ‘You’ll get no more fires lit in this! We need to get back to the
wagons!’

The three of them struggled through what was now lashing rain, stung and buffeted by gusts, Shy tugging her nervous horse by the bridle. A strange gloom had settled over the plain and they
scarcely saw the wagons until they stumbled upon them in a mass, folk tugging desperately at oxen, trying to hobble panicked horses and tether snapping livestock or wrestling with their own coats
or oilskins, turned into thrashing adversaries by the wind.

Ashjid stood in the midst, eyes bulging with fervour, sinewy arms stretched up to the pouring heavens, the Fellowship’s idiot kneeling at his feet, the whole like a sculpture of some
martyred Prophet. ‘There is no running from the sky!’ he was shrieking, finger outstretched. ‘There is no hiding from God! God is always watching!’

It seemed to Temple he was that most dangerous kind of priest – one who really believes. ‘Have you ever noticed that God is wonderful at watching,’ he called, ‘but quite
poor when it comes to helping out?’

‘We got bigger worries than that fool and his idiot,’ snapped Shy. ‘Got to get the wagons closed up – if the herd charges through here there’s no telling
what’ll happen!’

The rain was coming in sheets now, Temple was as wet as if he had been dunked in the bath. His first in several weeks, come to think of it. He saw Corlin, teeth gritted and her hair plastered to
her skull, struggling with ropes as she tried to get some snapping canvas lashed. Lamb was near her, heavy shoulder set to a wagon and straining as if he might move it on his own. He even was, a
little. Then a couple of bedraggled Suljuks jumped in beside him and between them got it rolling. Luline Buckhorm was lifting her children up into a wagon and Temple went to help them, scraping the
hair from his eyes.

‘Repent!’ shrieked Ashjid. ‘This is no storm, this is the wrath of God!’

Savian dragged him close by his torn robe. ‘This is a storm. Keep talking and I’ll show you the wrath of God!’ And he flung the old man on the ground.

‘We need to get . . .’ Shy’s mouth went on but the wind stole her words. She tugged at Temple and he staggered after, no more than a few steps but they might as well have been
miles. It was black as night, water coursing down his face, and he was shivering with cold and fear, hands helplessly dangling. He turned, bearings suddenly fled and panic gripping him.

Which way were the wagons? Where was Shy?

One of his fires still smouldered nearby, sparks showering out into the dark, and he tottered towards it. The wind came up like a door slamming on him and he pushed and struggled, grappling at
it like one drunkard with another. Then, suddenly, a sharper trickster than he, it came at him the other way and bowled him over, left him thrashing in the grass, Ashjid’s mad shrieking
echoing in his ears, calling on God to smite the unbeliever.

Seemed harsh. You can’t just choose to believe, can you?

He crawled on hands and knees, hardly daring to stand in case he was whisked into the sky and dashed down in some distant place, bones left to bleach on earth that had never known men’s
footsteps. A flash split the darkness, raindrops frozen streaks and the wagons edged with white, figures caught straining as if in some mad tableau then all sunk again in rain-lashed darkness.

A moment later thunder ripped and rattled, turning Temple’s knees to jelly and seeming to shake the very earth. But thunder should end and this only drummed louder and louder, the ground
trembling now for certain, and Temple realised it was not thunder but hooves. Hundreds of hooves battering the earth, the cattle driven mad by the storm, so many dozen tons of meat hurtling at him
where he knelt helpless. Another flash and he saw them, rendered devilish by the darkness, one heaving animal with hundreds of goring horns, a furious mass boiling across the plain towards him.

‘Oh God,’ he whispered, sure that, slippery as he was, death’s icy grip was on him at last. ‘Oh God.’

‘Come on, you fucking idiot!’

Someone tugged at him and another flash showed Shy’s face, hatless with hair flattened and her lips curled back, all dogged determination, and he had never been so glad to be insulted in
his life. He stumbled with her, the pair of them jerked and buffeted by the wind like corks in a flood, the rain become a scriptural downpour, like to the fabled flood with which God punished the
arrogance of old Sippot, the thunder of hooves merged with the thunder of the angry sky to make one terrifying din.

A double blink of lightning lit the back of a wagon, canvas awning madly jerking, and below it Leef’s face, wide-eyed, shouting encouragements drowned in the wind, one arm stretched
starkly out.

And suddenly that hand closed around Temple’s and he was dragged inside. Another flash showed him Luline Buckhorm and some of her children, huddled together amongst the sacks and barrels
along with two of the whores and one of Gentili’s cousins, all wet as swimmers. Shy slithered into the wagon beside him, Leef dragging her under the arms, while outside he could hear a
veritable river flowing around the wheels. Together they wrestled the flapping canvas down.

Temple fell back, in the pitch darkness, and someone sagged against him. He could hear their breath. It might have been Shy, or it might have been Leef, or it might have been Gentili’s
cousin, and he hardly cared which.

‘God’s teeth,’ he muttered, ‘but you get some weather out here.’

No one answered. Nothing to say, or too drained to say it, or perhaps they could not hear him for the hammering of the passing cattle and the hail battering the waxed canvas just above their
heads.

The path the herd had taken wasn’t hard to follow – a stretch of muddied, trampled earth veering around the camp and spreading out beyond as the cattle had
scattered, here or there the corpse of a dead cow huddled, all gleaming and glistening in the bright wet morning.

‘The good people of Crease may have to wait a little longer for the word of God,’ said Corlin.

‘Seems so.’ Shy had taken it at first for a heap of wet rags. But crouching beside it she’d seen a corner of black cloth flapping with some white embroidery, and recognised
Ashjid’s robe. She took off her hat. Felt like the respectful thing to do. ‘Ain’t much left of him.’

‘I suppose that’s what happens when a few hundred cattle trample a man.’

‘Remind me not to try it.’ Shy stood and jammed her hat back on. ‘Guess we’d best tell the others.’

It was all activity in the camp, folk putting right what the storm spoiled, gathering what the storm scattered. Some of the livestock might’ve wandered miles, Leef and a few others off
rounding them up. Lamb, Savian, Majud and Temple were busy mending a wagon that the wind had dragged over and into a ditch. Well, Lamb and Savian were doing the lifting while Majud was tending to
the axle with grip and hammer. Temple was holding the nails.

‘Everything all right?’ he asked as they walked up.

‘Ashjid’s dead,’ said Shy.

‘Dead?’ grunted Lamb, setting the wagon down and slapping his hands together.

‘Pretty sure,’ said Corlin. ‘The herd went over him.’

‘Told him to stay put,’ growled Savian. That man was all sentiment.

‘Who’s going to pray for us now?’ Majud even looked worried about it.

‘You need praying for?’ asked Shy. ‘Didn’t pick you for piety.’

The merchant stroked at his pointed chin. ‘Heaven is at the bottom of a full purse, but . . . I have become used to a morning prayer.’

‘And me,’ said Buckhorm, who’d drifted over to join the conversation with a couple of his several sons.

‘What do you know,’ muttered Temple. ‘He made some converts after all.’

‘Say, lawyer!’ Shy called at him. ‘Wasn’t priest among your past professions?’

Temple winced and leaned in to speak quietly. ‘Yes, but of all the many shameful episodes in my past, that is perhaps the one that shames me most.’

Shy shrugged. ‘There’s always a place for you behind the herd if that suits you better.’

Temple thought a moment, then turned to Majud. ‘I was given personal instruction over the course of several years by Kahdia, High Haddish of the Great Temple in Dagoska and world-renowned
orator and theologist.’

‘So . . .’ Buckhorm pushed his hat back with a long finger. ‘Cuh . . . can you say a prayer or can’t you?’

Temple sighed. ‘Yes. Yes, I can.’ He added in a mutter to Shy. ‘A prayer from an unbelieving preacher to an unbelieving congregation from a score of nations where they all
disbelieve in different things.’

Shy shrugged. ‘We’re in the Far Country now. Guess folk need something new to doubt.’ Then, to the rest, ‘He’ll say the best damn prayer you ever heard! His
name’s Temple, ain’t it? How religious can you get?’

Majud and Buckhorm traded sceptical glances. ‘If a Prophet can fall from the sky, I suppose one can wash from a river, too.’

‘Ain’t exactly raining . . . other options.’

‘It’s rained everything else,’ said Lamb, peering up at the heavens.

‘And what shall be my fee?’ asked Temple.

Majud frowned. ‘We did not pay Ashjid.’

‘Ashjid’s only care was for God. I have myself to consider also.’

‘Not to mention your debts,’ added Shy.

‘Not to mention those.’ Temple gave Majud an admonishing glance. ‘And, after all, your support for charity was clearly demonstrated when you refused to offer help to a drowning
man.’

‘I assure you I am as charitable as anyone, but I have the feelings of my partner Curnsbick to consider and Curnsbick has an eye on every bit.’

‘So you often tell us.’

‘And you were not drowning at the time, only wet.’

‘One can still be charitable to the wet.’

‘You weren’t,’ added Shy.

Majud shook his head. ‘You two would sell eyeglasses to a blind man.’

‘No less use than prayers to a villain,’ put in Temple, with a pious fluttering of his lashes.

The merchant rubbed at his bald scalp. ‘Very well. But I buy nothing without a sample. A prayer now, and if the words convince me I will pay a fair price this morning and every morning. I
will hope to write it off to sundry expenses.’

‘Sundry it is.’ Shy leaned close to Temple. ‘You wanted a break from riding drag, this could be a steady earner. Give it some belief, lawyer.’

‘All right,’ Temple muttered back. ‘But if I’m the new priest, I want the old one’s boots.’ He clambered up onto one of the wagons, makeshift congregation
shuffling into an awkward crescent. To Shy’s surprise it was nearly half the Fellowship. Nothing moves people to prayer like death, she guessed, and last night’s demonstration of
God’s wrath didn’t hurt attendance either. All the Suljuks were there. Lady Ingelstad tall and curious. Gentili with his ancient family. Buckhorm with his young one. Most of the whores
and their pimp, too, though Shy had a suspicion he was keeping an eye on his goods rather than moved by love of the Almighty.

There was a silence, punctuated only by the scraping of Hedges’ knife as he salvaged the dead cattle for meat, and the scraping of Savian’s shovel as he put the remains of the
Fellowship’s previous spiritual advisor to rest. Without his boots. Temple held one hand in the other and humbly turned his face towards the heavens. Deep and clear now, with no trace of last
night’s fury.

‘God—’

‘Close, but no!’ And at that moment old Dab Sweet came riding up, reins dangling between two fingers. ‘Morning, my brave companions!’

‘Where the hell have you been?’ called Majud.

‘Scouting. It’s what you pay me for, ain’t it?’

‘That and help in storms.’

‘I can’t hold your hand across every mile o’ the Far Country. We been out north,’ jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

‘Out north,’ echoed Crying Rock, who had somehow managed to ride into the encampment from the opposite direction in total silence.

‘Following some Ghost signs, trying to guide you clear of any nasty surprises.’

‘Ghost signs?’ asked Temple, looking a little sick.

Sweet held up a calming hand. ‘No need for anyone to shit their britches yet. This is the Far Country, there’s always Ghosts around. Question is which ones and how many. We was
worried those tracks might belong to some o’ Sangeed’s people.’

‘And?’ asked Corlin.

‘’Fore we could get a sight of ’em, that storm blew in. Best thing we could do was find a rock to shelter by and let it blow along.’

‘Hah huh,’ grunted Crying Rock, presumably in agreement.

‘You should have been here,’ grumbled Lord Ingelstad.

‘Even I can’t be everywhere, your Lordship. But keep complaining, by all means. Scorn is the scout’s portion. Everyone’s got a better way of doing things ’til
they’re called on to actually tell you what it might be. It was our surmise that among the whole Fellowship you’d enough stout hearts and level heads to see it through – not that
I’d count your Lordship with either party – and what do you know?’ Sweet stuck out his bottom lip and nodded around at the dripping camp and its bedraggled occupants. ‘Few
head of cattle lost but that was quite a storm last night. Could’ve been plenty worse.’

‘Shall I get down?’ asked Temple.

‘Not on my account. What you doing up there, anyhow?’

‘He was about to say the morning prayer,’ said Shy.