The Wanderer
The caravan took a road leading away from Jitan and stopped at a town close to the Trader’s Market. Lord Tokian rented a warehouse in town and stored his precious barrels of cargo. The warehouse was locked, and he possessed the only key. “It should be safe enough in there for one night,” Lord Tokian said.
Lord Tokian passed Gozu the key, along with a heap of copper coins. “The extra I’m giving you now is insurance. We can’t afford any mistakes here.”
Gozu accepted the key and the money with a reassuring nod. “We won’t, Lord Tokian.”
The men who usually took care of the horses and the camp’s cooking and chores were given a night off. Lord Tokian gave them a bit of money to spend in town. Gozu distributed the copper coins he’d received equally among the other caravan guards.
“You can drink tonight if you like, lads,” Gozu said. “But don’t get in trouble.”
The men laughed as they pocketed their money.
“We’re going to go into town to dispel any bad luck the caravan’s got,” Gozu said to Jiguro. “Would you care to join us?”
Jiguro nodded. “I’ve got friends in town, but you’ve shared a bit extra with all of us, so I’ll accompany you.”
Gozu smiled. “I’m glad the area is familiar. There are always bandits along the road this time of year, and the fighting can get fierce. Most of the men in the caravan have traveled this route before, but just because we know it, that doesn’t mean it’s safe. We’ve all got to keep our eyes open.”
Gozu glanced over at Balsa, then placed five copper coins in her palm. “You’re off-duty tonight,” he said. “They’ll be bringing a feast into the camp, so eat up and get some sleep. The road gets a lot more dangerous after we leave this town.”
Balsa clutched at the coins in her palm and looked up at Jiguro. He nodded.
The caravan guards dispersed to have dinner and go drinking in town. Sumal hung back to discuss something with the caravan drivers and the men who packed the wagons. Jiguro and Gozu walked together along the road. Lord Tokian hailed them, and they stopped.
“I’ve heard that Sumal has debts,” Lord Tokian said. “Is that true?”
“I don’t know,” Gozu said. “Who did you hear that from?”
“It’s a rumor among the packhorse drivers,” Lord Tokian said. “I heard that he borrowed money from one of them. I just gave everyone a bit of money, so it seems like the debt was more than the extra money would cover.”
“I doubt that,” Gozu said. “I’ve borrowed a little money here and there before, but if we make it through this job safely, we’ll all have more than enough to pay back even a very large debt. I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Lord Tokian. Sumal knows better than to use the money we need to pray for good luck on frivolous things.”
Tokian frowned back at Sumal, who didn’t seem to notice him. “I’ll trust your judgment,” he said after a pause. He started walking back toward the camp.
Gozu offered Jiguro a pained smile. “Sumal is a good person, but he does seem to get into more than his fair share of trouble.” He made a hand gesture as if he were about to roll dice. “Sumal has no obvious vices, and no family. He doesn’t drink. From the outside, his life appears quite dull.
“But it’s true that he’s been borrowing money. He asked me for some, but I refused. I thought he probably needed it to buy medicine. He’s been sick since last year, but he’s much paler and thinner this year. I worry about him, but I don’t want bad rumors getting around. You’ve seen how Lord Tokian is.”
Balsa was following Jiguro and Gozu, listening to their conversation. She felt like she should say or do something, but she wasn’t sure what. The other caravan guards kept talking about doing something to ward off bad luck, but Balsa had no idea what they were talking about. It seemed to be caravan guard jargon.
She would learn later that Gozu and the other guards sought out the local bandits in taverns and used part of their extra wages to bribe them so that they wouldn’t attack the caravan. This was a good deal for both the caravan and the bandits. No one needed to risk their lives unnecessarily. It was harder to find food at this time of year, so it was a lean time for bandits. Not every caravan did what Gozu and the other guards did, but enough of them did that this road had been gradually getting safer to travel during the winter months.
There were many benefits to employing the same guards year after year: they all knew the favorite haunts of the bandit leaders in this town, and many of them were on friendly terms. The guards’ time in town was mostly spent meeting with the bandit leaders, paying for their drinks, and negotiating a price to let the caravan pass in peace.
Balsa did know that Jiguro often spent nights in town at taverns talking to people, but she’d never accompanied him on these excursions before.
I want to see what they’re doing. Why is it secret?
She’d gotten used to living in a Rotan tavern, since they’d spent so many months there. She understood what the waiters and waitresses did and how the taverns made money. She also knew that the kitchens were hotbeds of gossip. The people there would know before anyone else if there were any other Kanbalese warriors in town, or any strangers to the area. They were valuable sources of information about potential enemies from Kanbal.
Balsa flipped one of her copper coins on her thumb, caught it, then dashed after Jiguro.
Balsa didn’t want Jiguro to know she was watching him. She kept as far back as she could in the growing darkness so that he wouldn’t see her easily when he turned around. Jiguro and Gozu entered a tavern through the back door. She watched them with a growing sense of excitement.
Most Rotan taverns had two back doors: one for the people who delivered food and other goods, and one for the waiters and waitresses that was close to a well or a river so that they could do their washing and clean dishes. The latter door was usually connected to the kitchen to make it easier to pass soiled clothes, dishes, or very young children who’d gotten into something they shouldn’t out the door.
A few children were washing dishes outside. Balsa approached them casually and smiled. She asked to help, and they let her. She was waiting to catch sight of a waitress so that she could ask a few questions. She found a likely-looking woman who stopped to check on the children and got down on her knees, saying that she and her father were being pursued by bad men and that she was looking for any information that she could. She brought a copper coin out of her sleeve.
The woman smiled kindly at her. She said that she hadn’t heard any rumors of bad men nearby, but that she would ask her friends and come back. Balsa watched her go. She’d seen waitresses collecting information before. They made it look effortless, asking questions as they cleaned tables or set up others. Talking was a good way to pass the time, since their jobs involved a lot of routine tasks. Balsa would have been very bored as a waitress if she hadn’t been allowed to talk to people.
A man came out of the tavern to smoke a pipe of kazal, a sweet herb. Cooking smells wafted outside from the kitchen. The air belching forth from inside was hot and stale. Balsa took a peek inside and noticed all the smoke dancing on the ceiling. The tavern didn’t seem to have enough chimneys. She noticed firewood burning in hearths along one wall. She didn’t envy the waitresses here the task of clearing out the chimneys of the cooking fires one bit.
She remembered a waitress telling her that there was no good way to clean a fireplace, so most of the time, they weren’t cleaned. Taverns were filthy, anyway: people smoke and drank there every day, and cleaning the tables and floors was overwhelming enough. All the smoke inside used to make Balsa choke before she got used to it.
Remembering her old friends at the Rotan tavern made Balsa recall that terrible burning pain in her throat, too. She might never see them again. She wanted to cry, but she blamed that on the sense memory of the pain in her throat and not on homesickness.
“Oi! Is that massal?” a man called out. Massal was pulled pork mixed with eggs; the entire dish was deep-fried before serving. “If it is, bring some of that our way!”
The man was talking to Balsa, and his voice startled her back into awareness. She went over to the man’s table, though that was a bit difficult. The tavern had been expanded frequently over the years and there were support beams and pillars in odd places to shore up the roof. Balsa signaled for a waitress to bring out massal for the table, then started looking for Jiguro.
That, too, was difficult. The pillars and scaffolding obstructed her vision, so that she couldn’t see the entire tavern at once. Eventually, she found the table where Jiguro and Gozu were sitting. She crouched down, out of sight, and crept closer.
Jiguro and Gozu sat in the very center of the tavern, behind one of the largest support beams. The table was a large one, and Jiguro and Gozu weren’t the only men sitting at it, though they were the only men Balsa recognized. They were leaning across the table, discussing something very seriously in hushed voices.
Balsa put her back against the large support beam and tried her best to hear what they were saying. She picked up on their tone without much trouble, but she could only hear a word here and there: not enough to determine what the conversation was about. For whatever reason, Jiguro was being extremely cautious.
One of the men sitting close to Jiguro nodded. “Yes, that’s fine,” he said at a normal volume.
What’s fine? Keep talking! I want to know what you’re doing!
Balsa didn’t like the look of the man who’d spoken. Jiguro passed him money under the table. From this, Balsa guessed that Jiguro and Gozu were offering bribes, and that this man must be the leader of some bandit faction or other. But she couldn’t see how much money Jiguro had paid the man, and that irked her.
Even when I spy on him I don’t find out anything…
The evil-looking man raised his hand. “Bring us some tagu!” Tagu was honeyed liquor. “The best you’ve got!”
By bad luck, there were no waiters or waitresses near the table. Balsa stayed behind the pillar, not moving a muscle. Jiguro looked around for a server and locked eyes with her. His expression made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
“You there, girl,” Jiguro said. “We’d like tagu, too. Make it quick.”
Balsa nodded shallowly. “Right away, sirs!” She ran toward the tavern’s kitchen.
Gozu recognized her voice and frowned a little, but she was gone before he or Jiguro could pull her aside and ask her anything. Balsa found a waitress and told her that the table in the middle wanted a round of expensive tagu. Then she went outside and knelt down, fingers curling in the dirt, waiting for Jiguro and Gozu to come out.
The man that Jiguro and Gozu were negotiating with came out first, accompanied by an entourage. They seemed to be in high spirits. Some mounted up and others walked down the street, scattering lightly like leaves. Balsa heard Gozu’s voice coming from inside the tavern and sat very still.
Gozu came out of the tavern through the front door. He caught sight of Balsa and stared, though she couldn’t quite tell if he was angry or simply surprised. “You defied my orders,” he said. “That makes you unfit to be a caravan guard. Return the money I gave you before. You don’t deserve it.”
“Yes, sir,” Balsa said softly. She hung her head.
Gozu smiled sadly. “I’ll leave the rest to you,” he said to Jiguro. “I’m going back to camp to get some sleep. I think I drank a little too much.”
Gozu said that, but Balsa thought that he was perfectly steady on his feet as he walked away. Jiguro waited for him to get something of a head start, then followed him. Balsa stuck to his side, not saying anything. She was waiting for her punishment. She would apologize as much as she had to, but she didn’t think any amount of apologies would be sufficient.
Light glimmered faintly in the town’s windows, illuminating their way. The lights of the tavern grew more and more distant until Balsa couldn’t see them anymore.
“Which of those men do you think was the leader?” Jiguro asked.
Balsa looked up at Jiguro, surprised by the question. “Wasn’t it the one you were talking to? He looked mean.”
Jiguro shook his head. “No. That was the leader’s lieutenant. The leader is an unassuming middle-aged man. He didn’t say a word while we were negotiating.”
Balsa blinked. She didn’t remember seeing a man like that, though she must have if he was sitting at the table.
“You would have figured it out if you’d watched the lieutenant’s eyes,” Jiguro said. “Before any important decision, he glanced toward the actual leader for approval."
Balsa looked down. She’d been so focused on hearing the conversation that she hadn’t even noticed anyone’s body language. She was relieved that she was simply getting a lecture, and that Gozu and Jiguro didn’t seem angry. Jiguro didn’t try to prevent Balsa taking more guard shifts, and Gozu allowed her to take shifts after she paid back the five copper coins that he’d given her. She could still be a real caravan guard someday, as long as she didn’t make too many mistakes.
Jiguro and Balsa walked along the road under the stars. Jiguro pointed up. “Do you know the name of that star?” he asked.
Balsa squinted at the stars, but she couldn’t tell what Jiguro was pointing at. “Which one?”
“The red star near the Great Bird’s beak, right there.”
The autumn sky wasn’t clear: wisps of cloud drifted across it. Balsa had no trouble identifying the Great Bird—it was a constellation that always appeared clearly in this season. She remembered seeing it for the first time in Kanbal, when she was very young. She searched along the constellation’s edges and identified the red star that Jiguro was pointing at.
“I don’t know that one,” Balsa said.
Jiguro didn’t say anything at first. He hmmed, then said, “That’s a star called the Fruit of Illness. The beak gets closer to it during the autumn. Karuna was always happy when he saw that—it looked to him like a bird trying to spit out a bitter berry.”
Jiguro rarely said her father’s name. He never talked about him much. Balsa’s eyes fixed on Jiguro, waiting for him to say more.
Jiguro smiled a little at her. “It’s called the Fruit of Illness because people tend to get colds and the flu starting in autumn. He made the most money then. Before he worked in the royal palace, he treated colds to supplement his income. He was always happy to see more patients.”
Jiguro snapped his mouth shut. He stayed quiet as Balsa walked beside him back to the caravan’s camp. It was so silent that it seemed like the world had frozen still around them.
No comments:
Post a Comment