Seventh Son

“They look just right to me,” said Taleswapper.

“I wondered how someone could arrive here, and me not hear the wagon nor the horse. But from the looks of you, I'd guess you came afoot.”

“That I did, sir,” said Taleswapper.

“And your pack doesn't look full enough to hold many articles to trade.”

“I don't trade in things, sir,” said Taleswappe

"What, then? What but things can be traded?

“Work, for one thing,” said Taleswapper. “I work for food and shelter.”

“You're an old man, to be a vagrant.”

“I was born in fifty-seven, so I still have a good seventeen years until I've used up my three-score and ten. Besides, I have a few knacks.”

At once the man seemed to shrink away. It wasn't in his body. It was his eyes that got more distant, as he said, “My wife and I do our own work here, seeing how our sons are right small yet. We've no need of help.”

There was a woman behind him now, a girl still young enough that her face hadn't grown hard and weathered, though she was solemn. She held a baby in her arms. She spoke to her husband. “We have enough to spare another place for di

At that the husband's face went firm and set. “My wife is more generous than I am, stranger. I'll tell you straight out. You spoke of having a few knacks, and in my experience that means you make some claim to hidden powers. I'll have no such workings in a Christian house.”

Taleswapper looked hard at him, and then looked a bit softer at the wife. So that was the way of it here: she working such hexes and spells as she could hide from her husband, and he flat rejecting any sign of it. If her husband ever realized the truth, Taleswapper wondered what would happen to the wife. The man– Armor? –seemed not to be the murderous kind, but then, there was no telling what violence would flow in a man's veins when the flood of rage came undammed.

“I understand your caution, sir,” said Taleswapper.

“I know you have protections on you,” said Armor. “A lone man, afoot in the wild for all this way? The fact that your hair is still on your head says that you must have warded off the Reds.”

Taleswapper gri

“Truth to tell,” said Armor, “the Reds in these parts are more peaceable than most. The one-eyed Prophet has built him a city on the other side of the Wobbish, where he teaches Reds not to drink likker.”

“That's good advice for any man,” said Taleswapper.

And he thought: A Red man who calls himself a prophet. “Before I leave this place I'll have to meet that man and have words with him.”

“He won't talk to you,” said Armor. “Not unless you can change the color of your skin. He hasn't spoke to a White man since he had his first vision a few years back.”

“Will he kill me if I try?”

“Not likely. He teaches his people not to kill White men.”

“That's also good advice,” said Taleswapper.

“Good for White men, but it may not have the best result for Reds. There's folks like so-called Governor Harrison down in Carthage City who mean naught but harm for all Reds, peaceable or not.” The truculence had not left Armor's face, but he was talking anyway, and from his heart, too. Taleswapper put a great deal of trust in the sort of man who spoke his mind to all men, even strangers, even enemies. “Anyway,” Armor went on, “not all Reds are believers in the Prophet's peaceable words. Them as follow Ta-Kumsaw are stirring up trouble down by the Hio, and a lot of folks are moving north to the upper Wobbish country. So you won't lack for houses willing to take a beggar in– you can thank the Reds for that, too.”

“I'm no beggar, sir,” said Taleswapper. “As I told you, I'm willing to work.”

“With knacks and hidden shiftiness, no doubt.”

The man's hostility was the plain opposite of his wife's gentle welcoming air. “What is your knack, sir?” asked the wife. “From your speech you're an educated man. You'd not be a teacher, would you?”

“My knack is spoken with my name,” he said. “Taleswapper. I have a knack for stories.”

“For making them up? We call that lying, hereabouts.” The more the wife tried to befriend Taleswapper, the colder her husband became.

“I have a knack for remembering stories. But I tell only those that I believe are true, sir. And I'm a hard man to convince. If you tell me your stories, I'll tell you mine, and we'll both be richer for the trade, since neither one of us loses what we started with.”

“I've got no stories,” said Armor, even though he had already told a tale of the Prophet and another of Ta-Kumsaw.

“That's sad news, and if it's so, then I've come to the wrong house indeed.” Taleswapper could see that this truly wasn't the house for him. Even if Armor relented and let him in, he would be surrounded by suspicion, and Taleswapper couldn't live where people looked sharp at him all the time. “Good day to you.”

But Armor wasn't letting him go so easily. He took Taleswapper's words as a challenge. “Why should it be sad? I live a quiet, ordinary life.”

“No man's life is ordinary to himself,” said Taleswapper, “and if he says it is, then that's a story of the kind that I never tell.”

“You calling me a liar?” demanded Armor.

“I'm asking if you know a place where my knack might be welcome.”

Taleswapper saw, though Armor didn't, how the wife did a calming with the fingers of her right hand, and held her husband's wrist with her left. It was smoothly done, and the husband must have become quite attuned to it, because he visibly relaxed as she stepped a bit forward to reply. “Friend,” she said, “if you take the track behind that hill yonder, and follow it to the end, over two brooks, both with bridges, you'll reach the house of Alvin Miller, and I know he'll take you in.”

“Ha,” said Armor.

“Thank you,” said Taleswapper. “But how can you know such a thing?”

“They'll take you in for as long as you want to stay, and never turn you away, as long as you show willingness to help out.”

“Willing I always am, milady,” said Taleswapper.

“Always willing?” said Armor. “Nobody's always willing. I thought you always spoke true.”

“I always tell what I believe. Whether it's true, I'm no more sure than any man.”

“Then how do you call me 'sir,' when I'm no knight, and call her 'milady,' when she's as common as myself?”

“Why, I don't believe in the King's knightings, that's why. He calls a man a knight because he owes him a favor, whether he's a true knight or not. And all his mistresses are called 'ladies' for what they do between the royal sheets. That's how the words are used among the Cavaliers– lies half the time. But your wife, sir, acted like a true lady, gracious and hospitable. And you, sir, like a true knight, protecting your household against the dangers you most fear.”

Armor laughed aloud. “You talk so sweet I bet you have to suck on salt for half an hour to get the taste of sugar out of your mouth.”

“It's my knack,” said Taleswapper. “But I have other ways to talk, and not sweetly, when the time is right. Good afternoon to you, and your wife, and your children, and your Christian house.”

Taleswapper walked out onto the grass of the cornmons. The cows paid him no mind, because he did have a warding, though not of the sort that Armor would ever see. Taleswapper sat in the sunlight for a little while, to let his brain get warm and see if it could come up with a thought. But it didn't work. Almost never had a thought worth having, after noon. As the proverb said, “Think in the morning, Act in the noon, Eat in the evening, Sleep in the night.” Too late for thinking now. Too early for eating.

He headed up the pathway to the church, which stood well back from the commons, atop a good-sized hill. If I were a true prophet, he thought, I'd know things now. I'd know whether I'd stay here for a day or a week or a month. I'd know whether Armor would be my friend, as I hope, or my enemy, as I fear. I'd know whether his wife would someday win herself free to use her powers in the open. I'd know whether I'd ever meet this Red Prophet face to face.