Meer said. ‘That’s the point of my journey here, wasn’t it now? Besides, the child and I will be safer on our own. I know a trick or two about smelling my way to safety when I have to. If need be, the lad and I can always hide in wild places, but hiding a whole pack of armed men in the forest is beyond me.’
‘Hiding?’ Lael stepped forward. ‘From what? Now wait just a moment, good bard. I had no idea –’
‘Da!’ Niffa snapped. ‘It’s needful that you let him go.’
‘Come now, my good sir,’ Meer said. ‘The lore teaches that one of the fifty-two fixed things is this: when women lay down the law, men must do as we’re told.’
Lael turned to him, utterly baffled by this statement, a gesture, of course, lost on the bard.
‘He does agree,’ Niffa broke in. ‘Jahdo, come home now. We’ve got to get your gear ready.’
Lael started to protest, then merely threw his hands in the air to reproach the gods and followed the two children as they hurried across the by-then empty plaza. When Jahdo looked back, he saw Demet running after as well. Standing where they’d left them, Verrarc and the Gel da’Thae conferred, heads together, while the rest of the Town Council hovered anxiously nearby.
The family spent a miserable evening round the central hearth, where two candle lanterns stood, sending long shadows flickering on the walls. No one wanted a fire on such a muggy night. For a long time Dera and Lael paced back and forth, squabbling and cursing each other and the Town Council both while the family merely listened. Niffa and Demet sat on a wooden bench; Kiel leaned in the doorway and glowered; Jahdo scrunched into a corner with a ferret cradled in the crook of his arm for comfort. All at once he realized that his father was speaking to him.
‘Why? Why did you say you wanted to go?’
Jahdo opened his mouth to answer only to find that he had no words. Although he tried his best to remember what had made him speak, the entire episode by the council fire had blurred in his mind into something much like a half-remembered dream.
‘The adventure of the thing, maybe?’ Lael said, softening his voice. ‘Lad, lad, you can tell me.’ He crouched down to Jahdo’s level. ‘What be wrong? Second thoughts?’
Jahdo nodded. Lael let out his breath in a puff.
‘Too late now, lad, to get out of it. You should have thought of this then. Ye gods, it’s not like we can spare you here. There be a passle of work, this time of year.’
‘Lael?’ Demet broke in. ‘If my sergeant does release me, I’ll come take Jahdo’s place.’
Niffa gave him a brilliant smile that made him blush. Lael pretended not to notice.
‘Now that be decent of you, lad,’ he said. ‘I’ll speak to him myself. It’s been many a long year since I served my turn in the militia, and I wouldn’t mind having someone good with a sword round the place.’
‘Why, Da?’ Jahdo found his tongue at last.
‘Don’t know.’ Lael hesitated, suddenly uneasy. ‘It’s just that somewhat be wrong. I can feel it, like.’
‘Everything be wrong.’ Dera began to weep. ‘Jahdo, Jahdo! Naught will ever be right again.’
Jahdo clutched Ambo so tight that the ferret whipped his head round and nipped his wrist, then slithered free and dashed for the other room. Jahdo stood up.
‘Mam, don’t be crying! Please! It’s needful that I do this.’ He felt as if he were struggling to open a locked door, shoving and pushing and banging against some huge expanse of solid oak, but he simply could not voice the truth, that he’d never wanted to agree.
‘You could at least tell your mother why,’ Lael snapped.
The entire family was staring at him, waiting for him to speak.
‘I can’t. I don’t know why. I can’t say it.’
Lael sighed and threw his hands into the air.
‘To think that a son of mine!’ he snapped. ‘Ye gods!’
‘Da!’ Niffa came to Jahdo’s rescue. ‘Leave it be. There’s no help for it now, anyway, no matter what the reason.’
Dera wiped her eyes on a bit of rag and nodded agreement.
‘And I’ll say one thing for that Gel da’Thae bard,’ she snarled. ‘He’s got some respect for a mother’s heart, not like our Verro. Here I’ve known him since he was a tiny lad, a pitiful little thing with that rotten father of his, and me the only woman in this town who’d stand up to old Renno, at that, and tell him to keep his belt off his lad’s back. To think he’d treat one of mine this way now that he’s made his way in the world!’
Jahdo tried to speak so hard that he began to tremble, but words would not come. Dimly he remembered that Verrarc had somehow or other spared his life, but he could not tell his mother, could not find one word.
‘Now here, the lad be exhausted,’ Demet said. ‘Lael, a dropped plate’s past mending, isn’t it? Might as well let Jahdo get his sleep. He’ll need it.’
Jahdo decided that as prospective brothers-in-law went, Demet had a lot to recommend him. Before his parents could start in on him again, he retreated to the bedchamber.
Although Jahdo was sure that he’d never fall asleep, suddenly it was dawn. Wrapped in their blankets, Kiel and Niffa were sleeping nearby; the ferrets lay tumbled in pairs and threes in their straw. Jahdo got up, considered waking everyone, then decided that he could never bear to say goodbye. The night before, he’d gathered into a sack his few pieces of extra clothing, along with his winter cloak and the bone-handled knife his grandfather had given him, and put the lot by the front door. He dressed, pulled on his heaviest pair of boots, and slipped out of the chamber, tiptoeing past his parents’ bed. At the door he stopped, looking out into the grey light brightening on the passageway outside. If he turned round for a last look at home, he would cry. He grabbed his sack and hurried out.
He slithered down the passageway, climbed down the ladder, bolted into the wider street, and nearly collided with Councilman Verrarc. In the rising light Verrarc looked ill – that was the only word Jahdo had for it, anyway. His skin was dead-pale, and his eyes seemed huge, sunk in the puffy shadow of dark circles. Behind him stood two guards, armed, wearing chain mail shirts under the loose red tabards that marked them as servants of the Council of Five. Even though his family knew their families, Jahdo saw them as jailors.
‘There he is,’ Verrarc sang out, and he was making some attempt at a smile. ‘Jahdo, the council does send its official thanks. Do you realize what that means? By taking up this burden of the treaty bond, you do work for everybody – the town, the council, your family – everybody. Why, lad, you be a hero!’
The two guards nodded their solemn agreement. Jahdo merely shrugged. He knew that if he tried to say one word, tears would pour and shame him. And yet, when they reached the main jetty and discovered the entire council assembled to hail the rat boy, Jahdo found himself caught by the moment. Admi himself stepped forward to take his hand and lead him onto the barge, where the town banners snapped and rustled as the mists blew away. The councilmen bowed, the oarsmen saluted, the militia all watched him with awe. Jahdo’s heart began to pound
