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As he considered this, he minded something the Widow Smack used to say in happier days, when he was just a schoolboy whose biggest concern was to finish his chores before his da’ came back from the woods: The only stupid question, my cullies, is the one you don’t ask.
Speaking slowly (and without much hope), Tim said: “I’m on a quest to find Maerlyn, who is a great magician. I was told he has a house in the Endless Forest, but the man who told me so was . . .” Was a bastard. Was a liar. Was a cruel trickster who passed the time cozening children. “. . . was untrustworthy,” he finished. “Have you of the Fagonard ever heard of this Maerlyn? He may wear a tall cap the color of the sun.”
He expected headshakes or incomprehension. Instead, the members of the tribe moved away from him and formed a tight, jabbering circle. This went on for at least ten minutes, and on several occasions the discussion grew quite warm. At last they returned to where Tim waited. Crooked hands with sore-raddled fingers pushed the erstwhile helmsman forward. This worthy was broad-shouldered and sturdily built. Had he not grown up in the waterlogged poison-bowl that was the Fagonard, he might have been considered handsome. His eyes were bright with intelligence. On his chest, above his right nipple, an enormous infected sore bulged and trembled.
He raised a finger in a way Tim recognized: it was the Widow Smack’s attend me gesture. Tim nodded and pointed the first two fingers of his right hand—the one not holding the gun—at his eyes, as the Widow had taught them.
Helmsman—the tribe’s best play-actor, Tim surmised—nodded back, then stroked the air below the straggly growth of intermixed stubble and weed on his chin.
Tim felt a stab of excitement. “A beard? Yes, he has a beard!”
Helmsman next stroked the air above his head, closing his fist as he did so, indicating not just a tall cap but a tall conical cap.
“That’s him!” Tim actually laughed.
Helmsman smiled, but Tim thought it a troubled smile. Several of the others jabbered and twittered. Helmsman motioned them quiet, then turned back to Tim. Before he could continue his dumbshow, however, the sore above his nipple burst open in a spray of pus and blood. From it crawled a spider the size of a robin’s egg. Helmsman grabbed it, crushed it, and tossed it aside. Then, as Tim watched with horrified fascination, he used one hand to push the wound wide. When the sides gaped like lips, he used his other hand to reach in and scoop out a slick mass of faintly throbbing eggs. He slatted these casually aside, ridding himself of them as a man might rid himself of a palmful of snot he has blown out of his nose on a cold morning. None of the others paid this any particular attention. They were waiting for the show to continue.
With his sore attended to, Helmsman dropped to his hands and knees and began to make a series of predatory lunges this way and that, growling as he did so. He stopped and looked up at Tim, who shook his head. He was also struggling with his stomach. These people had just saved his life, and he reckoned it would be very impolite to puke in front of them.
“I don’t understand that one, sai. Say sorry.”
Helmsman shrugged and got to his feet. The matted weeds growing from his chest were now beaded with blood. Again he made the beard and the tall conical cap. Again he dropped to the ground, snarling and making lunges. This time all the others joined him. The tribe briefly became a pack of dangerous animals, their laughter and obvious good cheer somewhat spoiling the illusion.
Tim once more shook his head, feeling quite stupid.
Helmsman did not look cheerful; he looked worried. He stood for a moment, hands on hips, thinking, then beckoned one of his fellow tribesmen forward. This one was tall, bald, and toothless. The two of them palavered at length. Then the tall man ran off, making great speed even though his legs were so severely bent that he rocked from side to side like a skiff in a swell. Helmsman beckoned two others forward and spoke to them. They also ran off.
Helmsman then dropped to his hands and knees and recommenced his fierce-animal imitation. When he was done, he looked up at Tim with an expression that was close to pleading.
“Is it a dog?” Tim ventured.
At this, the remaining tribesmen laughed heartily.
Helmsman got up and patted Tim on the shoulder with a six-fingered hand, as if to tell him not to take it to heart.
“Just tell me one thing,” Tim said. “Maerlyn . . . sai, is he real?”
Helmsman considered this, then flung his arms skyward in an exaggerated delah gesture. It was body language any Tree villager would have recognized: Who knows?
The two tribesmen who had run off together came back carrying a basket of woven reeds and a hemp shoulder strap to carry it with. They deposited it at Helmsman’s feet, turned to Tim, saluted him, then stood back, gri
The boy knew what the basket held even before Helmsman opened it. He could smell fresh-cooked meat and had to wipe his mouth on his sleeve to keep from drooling. The two men (or perhaps their women) had packed the Fagonard equivalent of a woodsman’s lunch. Sliced pork had been layered with rounds of some orange vegetable that looked like squash. These were wrapped in thin green leaves to make breadless popkins. There were also strawberries and blueberries, fruits long gone by for the season in Tree.
“Thankee-sai!” Tim tapped his throat three times. This made them all laugh and tap their own throats.
The tall tribesman returned. From one shoulder hung a waterskin. In his hand he carried a small purse of the finest, smoothest leather Tim had ever seen. The purse he gave to Helmsman. The waterskin he held out to the boy.
Tim wasn’t aware of how thirsty he was until he felt the skin’s weight and pressed his palms against its plump, gently yielding sides. He pulled the plug with his teeth, raised it on his elbow as did the men of his village, and drank deep. He expected it to be brackish (and perhaps buggy), but it was as cool and sweet as that which came from their own spring between the house and the barn.
The tribesmen laughed and applauded. Tim saw a sore on the shoulder of Tallman getting ready to give birth, and was relieved when Helmsman tapped him on the shoulder, wanting him to look at something.
It was the purse. There was some sort of metal seam ru
Inside was a brushed metal disc the size of a small plate. There was writing on the top side that Tim couldn’t read. Below the writing were three buttons. Helmsman pushed one of these, and a short stick emerged from the plate with a low whining sound. The tribesmen, who had gathered round in a loose semicircle, laughed and applauded some more. They were clearly having a wonderful time. Tim, with his thirst slaked and his feet on solid (semisolid, at least) ground, decided he was having a pretty good time himself.
“Is that from the Old People, sai?”
Helmsman nodded.
“Such things are held to be dangerous where I come from.”
Helmsman at first didn’t seem to understand this, and from their puzzled expressions, none of the other plant-fellas did, either. Then he laughed and made a sweeping gesture that took in everything: the sky, the water, the oozing land upon which they stood. As if to say everything was dangerous.
And in this place, Tim thought, everything probably is.
Helmsman poked Tim’s chest, then gave an apologetic little shrug: Sorry, but you must pay attention.
“All right,” Tim said. “I’m watching.” And forked two fingers at his eyes, which made them all chuckle and elbow each other, as if he had gotten off an especially good one.