The Warded Man

“No offense meant, ma’am,” Ragen said. “He was my friend as well. It’s just … it’s not many of us Messengers get to go with a roof above, a bed below, and a young wife at our side. The night usually gets us before that, you see?”

“I do,” Selia said. “Do you have a wife, Ragen?” she asked.

“Ay,” the Messenger said, “though to her pleasure and my pain, I see my mare more than my bride.” He laughed, confusing Arlen, who didn’t think having a wife not miss you was funny.

Selia didn’t seem to notice. “What if you couldn’t see her at all?” she asked. “What if all you had were letters once a year to connect you to her? How would you feel to hear your letters would be delayed half a year? There are some in this town with kin in the Free Cities. Left with one Messenger or another, some as much as two generations gone. Those people ent going to come home, Ragen. Letters are all we have of them, and they of us.”

“I am in full agreement with you, ma’am,” Ragen said, “but the decision is not mine to make. The duke …”

“But you will speak to the duke upon your return, yes?” Selia asked.

“I will,” he said.

“Shall I write the message down for you?” Selia asked.

Ragen smiled. “I think I can remember it, ma’am.”

“See that you do.”

Ragen bowed again, still lower. “Apologies, for coming to call on such a dark day,” he said, his eyes flicking to the funeral pyre.

“We cannot tell the rain when to come, nor the wind, nor the cold,” Selia said. “Not the corelings, either. So life must go on despite these things.”

“Life goes on,” Ragen agreed, “but if there’s anything I or my Jongleur can do to help; I’ve a strong back and I’ve treated coreling wounds many times.”

“Your Jongleur is helping already,” Selia said, nodding toward the young man as he sang and did his tricks, “distracting the young ones while their kin do their work. As for you, I’ve much to do over the next few days, if we’re to recover from this loss. I won’t have time to hand the mail and read to those who haven’t learned their letters.”

“I can read to those who can’t, ma’am,” Ragen said, “but I don’t know your town well enough to distribute.”

“No need,” Selia said, pulling Arlen forward. “Arlen here will take you to the general store in Town Square. Give the letters and packages to Rusco Hog when you deliver the salt. Most everyone will come running now that the salt’s in, and Rusco’s one of the few in town with letters and numbers. The old crook will complain and try to insist on payment, but you tell him that in time of trouble, the whole town must throw in. You tell him to give out the letters and read to those who can’t, or I’ll not lift a finger the next time the town wants to throw a rope around his neck.”

Ragen looked closely at Selia, perhaps trying to tell if she was joking, but her stony face gave no indication. He bowed again.

“Hurry along, then,” Selia said. “Lift your feet and you’ll both be back as everyone is readying to leave here for the night. If you and your Jongleur don’t want to pay Rusco for a room, any here will be glad to offer their homes.” She shooed the two of them away and turned back to scold those pausing their work to stare at the newcomers.

“Is she always so … forceful?” Ragen asked Arlen as they walked over to where the Jongleur was mumming for the youngest children. The rest had been pulled back to work.

Arlen snorted. “You should hear her talk to the graybeards. You’re lucky to get away with your skin after calling her ‘Barren.’”

“Graig said that’s what everyone called her,” Ragen said.

“They do,” Arlen agreed, “just not to her face, unless they’re looking to take a coreling by the horns. Everyone hops when Selia speaks.”

Ragen chuckled. “And her an old Daughter, at that,” he mused. “Where I come from, only Mothers expect everyone to jump at their command like that.”

“What difference does that make?” Arlen asked.

Ragen shrugged. “Don’t know, I suppose,” he conceded. “That’s just how things are in Miln. People make the world go, and Mothers make people, so they lead the dance.”

“It’s not like that here,” Arlen said.

“It never is, in the small towns,” Ragen said. “Not enough people to spare. But the Free Cities are different. Apart from Miln, none of the others give their women much voice at all.”

“That sounds just as dumb,” Arlen muttered.

“It is,” Ragen agreed.

The Messenger stopped, and handed Arlen the reins to his courser. “Wait here a minute,” he said, and headed over to the Jongleur. The two men moved aside to talk, and Arlen saw the Jongleur’s face change again, becoming angry, then petulant, and finally resigned as he tried to argue with Ragen, whose face remained stony throughout.

Never taking his glare off the Jongleur, the Messenger beckoned with a hand to Arlen, who brought the horse over to them.

“… don’t care how tired you are,” Ragen was saying, his voice a harsh whisper, “these people have grisly work to do, and if you need to dance and juggle all afternoon to keep their kids occupied while they do it, then you’d damn well better! Now put your face back on and get to it!” He grabbed the reins from Arlen and thrust them at the man.

Arlen got a good look at the young Jongleur’s face, full of indignation and fear, before the Jongleur took notice of him. The second he saw he was being watched, the man’s face rippled, and a moment later he was the bright, cheerful fellow who danced for children.

Ragen took Arlen to the cart and the two climbed on. Ragen snapped the reins, and they turned back up the dirt path that led to the main road.

“What were you arguing about?” Arlen asked as the cart bounced along.

The Messenger looked at him a moment, then shrugged. “It’s Keerin’s first time so far out of the city,” he said. “He was brave enough when there was a group of us and he had a covered wagon to sleep in, but when we left the rest of our caravan behind in Angiers, he didn’t do near as well. He’s got day-jitters from the corelings, and it’s made him poor company.”

“You can’t tell,” Arlen said, looking back at the cartwheeling man.

“Jongleurs have their mummers’ tricks,” Ragen said. “They can pretend so hard to be something they’re not that they actually convince themselves of it for a time. Keerin pretended to be brave. The guild tested him for travel and he passed, but you never really know how people will hold up after two weeks on the open road until they do it for real.”

“How do you stay out on the roads at night?” Arlen asked. “Da says drawing wards in the dirt’s asking for trouble.”

“Your da is right,” Ragen said. “Look in that compartment by your feet.”

Arlen did, and produced a large bag of soft leather. Inside was a knotted rope, strung with lacquered wooden plates bigger than his hand. His eyes widened when he saw wards carved and painted into the wood.

Immediately, Arlen knew what it was: a portable warding circle, large enough to surround the cart and more besides. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Arlen said.

“They’re not easy to make,” the Messenger said. “Most Messengers spend their whole apprenticeship mastering the art. No wind or rain is going to smudge those wards. But even then, they’re not the same as having warded walls and a door.

“Ever see a coreling face-to-face, boy?” he asked, turning and looking at Arlen hard. “Watched it take a swipe at you with nowhere to run and nothing to protect you except magic you can’t see?” He shook his head. “Maybe I’m being too hard on Keerin. He handled his test all right. Screamed a bit, but that’s to be expected. Night after night is another matter. Takes its toll on some men, always worried that a stray leaf will land on a ward, and then …” He hissed suddenly and swiped a clawed hand at Arlen, laughing when the boy jumped.

Arlen ran his thumb over each smooth, lacquered ward, feeling their strength. There was one of the little plates for every foot of rope, much as there would be in any warding. He counted more than forty of them. “Can’t wind demons fly into a circle this big?” he asked. “Da puts posts up to keep them from landing in the fields.”

The man looked over at him, a little surprised. “Your da’s probably wasting his time,” he said. “Wind demons are strong fliers, but they need running space or something to climb and leap from in order to take off. Not much of either in a cornfield, so they’d be reluctant to land, unless they saw something too tempting to resist, like some little boy sleeping in the field on a dare.” He looked at Arlen in that same way Jeph did, when warning Arlen that the corelings were serious business. As if he didn’t know.

“Wind demons also need to turn in wide arcs,” Ragen continued, “and most of them have a wingspan larger than that circle. It’s possible that one could get in, but I’ve never seen it happen. If it does, though …” He gestured to the long, thick spear he kept next to him.

“You can kill a coreling with a spear?” Arlen asked.

“Probably not,” Ragen replied, “but I’ve heard that you can stun them by pinning them against your wards.” He chuckled. “I hope I never have to find out.”

Arlen looked at him, wide-eyed.

Ragen looked back at him, his face suddenly serious. “Messaging’s dangerous work, boy,” he said.

Arlen stared at him a long time. “It would be worth it, to see the Free Cities,” he said at last. “Tell me true, what’s Fort Miln like?”

“It’s the richest and most beautiful city in the world,” Ragen replied, lifting his mail sleeve to reveal a tattoo on his forearm of a city nestled between two mountains. “The Duke’s Mines run rich with salt, metal, and coal. Its walls and rooftops are so well warded, it’s rare for the house wards to even be tested. When the sun shines on its walls, it puts the mountains themselves to shame.”

“Never seen a mountain,” Arlen said, marveling as he traced the tattoo with a finger. “My da says they’re just big hills.”

“You see that hill?” Ragen asked, pointing north of the road.

Arlen nodded. “Boggin’s Hill. You can see the whole Brook from up there.”

Ragen nodded. “You know what a ‘hundred’ means, Arlen?” he asked.

Arlen nodded again. “Ten pairs of hands.”

“Well, even a small mountain is bigger than a hundred of your Boggin’s Hills piled atop each other, and the mountains of Miln are not small.”

Arlen’s eyes widened as he tried to contemplate such a height. “They must touch the sky,” he said.

“Some are above it,” Ragen bragged. “Atop them, you can look down at the clouds.”

“I want to see that one day,” Arlen said.

“You could join the Messengers’ Guild, when you’re old enough,” Ragen said.

Arlen shook his head. “Da says the people that leave are deserters,” he said. “He spits when he says it.”

“Your da doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Ragen said. “Spitting doesn’t make things so. Without Messengers, even the Free Cities would crumble.”

“I thought the Free Cities were safe?” Arlen asked.

“Nowhere is safe, Arlen. Not truly. Miln has more people and can absorb the deaths more easily than a place like Tibbet’s Brook, but the corelings still take a toll each year.”

“How many people are in Miln?” Arlen asked. “We have nine hundreds in Tibbet’s Brook, and Sunny Pasture up the ways is supposed to be almost as big.”

“We have over thirty thousands in Miln,” Ragen said proudly.

Arlen looked at him, confused.

“A thousand is ten hundreds,” the Messenger supplied.

Arlen thought a moment, then shook his head. “There ent that many people in the world,” he said.

“There are and more,” Ragen said. “There’s a wide world out there, for those willing to brave the dark.”

Arlen didn’t answer, and they rode in silence for a time.

It took about an hour and a half for the trundling cart to reach Town Square. The center of the Brook, Town Square held a few dozen warded wooden houses for those whose trade did not have them working in the fields or rice paddies, fishing, or cutting wood. It was here one came to find the tailor and the baker, the farrier, the cooper, and the rest.

At the center lay the square where people would gather, and the biggest building in the Brook, the general store. It had a large open front room that housed tables and the bar, an even larger storeroom in back, and a cellar below, filled with most everything of value in the Brook.

The kitchen was run by Hog’s daughters, Dasy and Catrin. Two credits could buy a meal to leave you stuffed, but Silvy called old Hog a cheat, since two credits could buy enough raw grain for a week. Still, plenty of unmarried men paid the price, and not all for the food. Dasy was homely and Catrin fat, but Uncle Cholie said the men who married them would be set for life.

Everyone in the Brook brought Hog their goods, be it corn or meat or fur, pottery or cloth, furniture or tools. Hog took the items, counted them up, and gave the customers credits to buy other things at the store.

Things always seemed to cost a lot more than Hog paid for them, though. Arlen knew enough numbers to see that. There were some famous arguments when people came to sell, but Hog set the prices, and usually got his way. Just about everyone hated Hog, but they needed him all the same, and were more likely to brush his coat and open his doors than spit when he passed.

Everyone else in the Brook worked throughout the sun, and barely saw all their needs met, but Hog and his daughters always had fleshy cheeks, rounded bellies, and clean new clothes. Arlen had to wrap himself in a rug whenever his mother took his overalls to wash.

Ragen and Arlen tied off the mules in front of the store and went inside. The bar was empty. Usually the air inside the taproom was thick with bacon fat, but there was no smell of cooking from the kitchen today.

Arlen rushed ahead of the Messenger to the bar. Rusco had a small bronze bell there, brought with him when he came from the Free Cities. Arlen loved that bell. He slapped his hand down on it and grinned at the clear sound.

There was a thump in the back, and Rusco came through the curtains behind the bar. He was a big man, still strong and straight-backed at sixty, but a soft gut hung around his middle, and his iron-gray hair was creeping back from his lined forehead. He wore light trousers and leather shoes with a clean white cotton shirt, the sleeves rolled halfway up his thick forearms. His white apron was spotless, as always.

“Arlen Bales,” he said with a patient smile, seeing the boy. “Did you come just to play with the bell, or do you have some business?”

“The business is mine,” Ragen said, stepping forward. “You Rusco Hog?”

“Just Rusco will do,” the man said. “The townies slapped the ‘Hog’ on, though not to my face. Can’t stand to see a man prosper.”

“That’s twice,” Ragen mused.

“Say again?” Rusco said.