Chapter Three #2
“No, thank you,” I said politely, but spat out more river water with my words, which rather spoiled the effect.
“All under control, is it?” he inquired, quirking an eyebrow.
“She owes me money!” the ferryman shouted.
“I do not,” I shouted back. “I paid you fairly! You can’t change the price midway across!”
“Ah, I see,” said the man on the bank. He addressed his next remarks to the ferryman.
“And I suppose the cargo you carry back and forth is entirely above board and for personal use. Let’s see …
two, three barrels there. I wonder what could be in them?
Shame if someone mistook you for a purveyor of stolen goods. ”
“Lies!” the ferryman yelled back, but his voice cracked on the word.
“Help my new friend out of her predicament, and I don’t see why you shouldn’t go on your way undisturbed.”
The ferryman scowled, then flung my pack out over the water towards me before starting to turn his boat around and row back to the dock.
I grasped for the pack, but Baldbeak was faster, swooping to catch it in his powerful claws and carrying it safely to the bank.
The ferryman rowed back to his shack, his curses swallowed by the brisk wind.
I swam until the water shallowed enough for me to stand, then made my way over the silty riverbed.
The fine, swirling sand I kicked up with every step turned the clear amber water opaque and milky, and a gaggle of nearby geese crowded near to watch me, honking to one another as if gossiping about the foolishness of humans.
This did nothing to put me in a better mood.
I scrambled up the bank, dripping and furious.
The ferryman had reached the opposite bank by now and was staring back at us balefully. The stranger raised his hand to him in mocking salute.
“I didn’t need your help,” I snapped at him, taking my pack from Baldbeak.
He raised a brow. “Of course not. You were making such excellent progress.” His eyes flicked to the pack in my arms, then back to my face. A faint smile tugged at his mouth.
I bristled, clutching the straps tight. “Who are you?”
“You’ll freeze in those wet clothes,” he said. His voice was mild, but it carried no suggestion of choice. He shrugged off his own pack, rummaged, and drew out a folded bundle that turned out to be a long linen shirt, worn soft with use. He held it out to me. “Just until yours are dry.”
I blinked at the offering. “I don’t need—”
“You do,” he cut through my protest. “It’s just a shirt. And it’s long enough to cover”—he gestured vaguely—“everything.”
My cheeks flamed. I snatched it from his hands. “Turn around.”
He gave the faintest bow, then obeyed without argument, his coat lifting and settling as he turned his back. He stood very still, hands clasped loosely behind him, looking out towards the forest as though it were suddenly the most fascinating thing in the world.
I hesitated, clutching the shirt to my chest—then peeled my sodden dress over my head, making sure to remove the handkerchief containing Mother’s hair, which I put in my pack for now.
The cold air needled my skin, raising gooseflesh, as I wriggled awkwardly into the shirt, which indeed hung almost to my knees.
Immediately I was warmed. I hugged myself to savor the sensation, breathing in faint traces of woodsmoke from the cloth, and something clean and sharp—the man’s scent.
It wasn’t unpleasant. That realization made me want to tear it back off again.
I tied my wet clothes to the outside of my pack, where they could flap in the breeze and hopefully dry a little.
“I’m dressed,” I said.
The man turned. His eyes swept over me, lingering for what felt a fraction too long before he gave me a crooked smile.
I had deliberately kept my gaze averted from him as I dressed, but now I noticed for the first time his coat, which was a colorful patchwork of many fabrics, almost clownish.
And then I noticed Baldbeak fly over to sit on his shoulder, seeming quite at ease.
“Baldbeak!” I cried, affronted.
Sorry, he said, not sounding sorry at all.
“Nice bird,” the man commented, scratching Baldbeak’s head. The raven closed his eyes in pleasure. “Baldbeak? I suppose I can see where that came from.”
His short beard and mustache were extremely neatly trimmed close to his jawline and upper lip, with the kind of precision that required much careful examination in a mirror, and his eyes were hazel, the shifting brown-green of river water. It was a clever face. Not a trustworthy face, but clever.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Just a traveler passing through,” he said, which was no manner of answer. “And what is your name?”
“Netta,” I said, still glaring at Baldbeak.
“I am Patrick, and this is Fane,” he said, reaching to pat his horse. She had a sweet face and large, liquid eyes fringed by long lashes. She swung her nose towards me, perhaps hoping for a treat, and I backed away.
“You don’t like horses?” he inquired.
“I don’t know much about them. We haven’t had a horse for a long time.”
His hazel eyes flickered over me, clearly making their own judgements.
I bristled. He was hardly the picture of respectability himself, in his gaudy patched coat.
As always, I found myself distracted by clothing—the fabric had been fine once, I could see, with some nice stitching at the cuffs and lapels, but it had been mended shamefully poorly.
Perhaps by his own hand? A badger wearing mittens would have done it better.
There was a large rip in one shoulder seam.
“Why are you wearing that?” I said. “It’s …”
“Blindingly ugly? Yes,” he said. He swept a theatrical bow. “I’m a traveling magician. I have to look the part.”
“A magician? Like a mage?”
“No, no,” he said. “It’s all for show.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Watch.” He snapped his fingers, and a glass sphere appeared in one hand. Another snap, and it was gone, and then two appeared, and a third, and he juggled them for a moment before they disappeared again.
I squinted at him.
“People usually applaud,” he said.
“It’s trickery,” I said.
“Well, yes. That’s the point.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Why?”
“For entertainment. Like music, or a story well told.”
“I see,” I said, though I didn’t really. It seemed strange to me to ape power with tricks when the real thing existed.
“You disapprove of my profession,” Patrick said in a melancholy tone, but I could see the hint of a smile in his eyes.
“I don’t disapprove,” I lied. “But I don’t have time for this. It will be dark soon, and I need to keep moving.”
I refrained from telling him what Mother had thought of such frivolous magic use—he had helped me, after all.
Instead, I shrugged on my pack and adjusted the straps, making it as comfortable as I could for the long journey ahead, and started walking with long strides towards the path that led into the woods.
Patrick fell into step beside me, leading Fane by her bridle, one little sphere appearing again to gleam in his free hand.
To my annoyance, Baldbeak still rode on the magician’s shoulder, his eyes half lidded with satisfaction.
“Baldbeak!”
I clicked my tongue, calling him back. He flapped over, somehow managing to look like he was dragging his feet in midair.
The man has food in his packs, he told me. Cheese and sausage.
“We’ll eat later,” I muttered.
“Eat?” said Patrick, showing an uncomfortably acute sense of hearing. “I don’t have much, but I will gladly share it with you.”
Sausage! repeated Baldbeak, and nipped me on the ear.
“Didn’t you fill up on eyeballs?” I whispered to him, but sighed and stopped. “All right. Thank you,” I said to Patrick.
Patrick opened one of Fane’s saddlebags, pulling out a packet of hard cheese and a loaf of bread. Baldbeak flapped over and landed on the horse’s flank, pulling at the flap on the bag in an attempt to get inside.
“Ah, your friend smells the meat,” said Patrick, reaching in to pull out a chain of links wrapped in paper.
“Don’t give it to him. He’s fine.”
“Honestly, the scent of it has been rather turning my stomach,” he said. “He’s welcome to it.”
Patrick tossed the packet to the grass, where Baldbeak set happily to work, then sat with his back against a tree, lounging as if he were in a comfortable chair and seeming quite at his ease.
I lowered myself beside him and started to eat.
I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. I tore off pieces of the bread with my teeth and gulped it down.
“Thank you for helping me,” I said at last, grudgingly.
“You are very welcome.”
“I was wondering one thing, though—how did you know he had stolen goods on board?”
“I was meant to be buying them.” He grinned. “No matter.”
“What?”
“I was supposed to meet him later today and take them off his hands … But it was a trifling deal, one I don’t mind discarding. And he hardly seems the sort of fellow with whom I want to do business.”
“So you’re a criminal?”
He shrugged. “That’s an ugly word.”
“Is it an accurate one?”
He smiled, but did not answer. “So,” he said conversationally. “Where are you off to?”
I paused in my chewing and stared at him. “I don’t mean to be rude, but …”
“But it’s none of my business? Fair enough. I am a desperate character. And you mean to travel alone?”
I thought I saw where this was going. Mother had told me all about Men and had nothing good to say. They were almost on a level with petty magicians in her estimation. “I suppose you’re going to offer me a ride,” I said with heavy sarcasm.
“Hardly. I am deeply untrustworthy.”
This startled a laugh from me.
“But I may be able to point you in the right direction,” he said. He crossed his arms behind his head, again exposing that rip in the shoulder seam of his coat.
“And where are you going? You are far from anywhere out here,” I said. “Unless you plan to put on a magic show for the geese.”
“It is rather in the middle of nowhere,” he admitted. “Lucky for you and your raven, though.”
“And no more stolen goods to pick up.”
“Most unfortunate.”