Deep Water (35 page)

The way down was treacherous, the ground covered with scree that shifted under their feet and the horses’ hooves. They slithered
down as much as walked, leading Cam and Mud, who picked their way delicately, lifting their hooves high and looking hard done
by.

Reaching the valley floor was almost an anticlimax. They found a small waterfall trickling over the rocks and flung themselves
down to rest while the horses drank. Ash’s legs were so rubbery, he almost looked forward to getting back on Mud.

They had descended into a wide valley, with the first shoots showing in the ploughed fields. This was grain country, the Far
North Domain; not an area Ash had been in much, but he knew it well enough to know that the valley held the Snake River — called
so because of its curving, curling path that snaked around the flat valley bottom so much that there were places where it
almost met itself. Villages were found in the center of the curves, protected on three sides by water, but vulnerable to flooding,
so their houses were built high on stone pilings, with chicken roosts and rabbit hutches underneath, and stone-built silos
were connected with the houses by causeways an arm’s length off the ground.

As Ash and Flax rode along the rutted track that passed for the main road, they passed farm after farm where wild-eyed cats
spat at them from barn doorways, and terriers yapped at their heels, while freckle-faced children peered at them from around
corners.

“They’re not called cats and dogs around here,” Ash said to Flax as Cam kicked out at a snapping brindled mutt. “They’re called
mousers and ratters. Their job is to keep the pests from the grain.”

“Do
I
look like a rat?” Flax demanded. Then he laughed. “Don’t answer that!”

The farmers and their wives were out in the fields planting the second spring sowing, hoeing vegetable rows, tending the few
new calves and lambs. There was not much pasture, here, where most land was given over to wheat and oats and maize.

The black stone altars were few and far between, but they found one in a grove of trees in a river bend and each sacrificed
a lock of hair for their salvation on the plateau. Ash prayed for Sully, the man he had killed, who would have quickened yesterday.
He hoped that Sully’s ghost would find rest even though his killer had not offered reparation.

Sully’s quickening set him wondering, as he had often wondered, about the dark after death, and the gate to rebirth. His father
had told him that those who earned it were reborn. Rebirth was bought with courage and compassion and perseverance, tolerance
and joy and generosity. There was a song… Ash stopped himself thinking about the song because any thought of his father
teaching him — and
not
teaching him — made his gut clench. Rebirth — think about rebirth. The gods said it was true, but they refused to tell how,
or when, any person would be reborn, or anything about someone’s last life. Live the body in the body, Elva had told him they
said, one morning when they’d been washing dishes together in the kitchen in Hidden Valley. No one knew for sure if the rebirths
were endless, or if somehow, sometime, you stopped. Some people said that if you were good enough, wise enough, kind enough,
you eventually became a local god. Elva had asked about that, she had said, and the gods just laughed, which could have meant
anything.

They stopped in a village to buy supplies, and Ash stood scowling while Flax bargained amiably with the market stall owner.
No doubt, he got a better price than Ash would have, and the man threw in a joke for good measure, about staying clear of
the black dog, the spirit that led you astray.

Flax laughed and lifted a hand in farewell. Ash realized that the resentment he felt was not just because fairer-haired people
were treated so differently. He also resented Flax’s ease with people, his self-assurance, his conviction that everyone would
like him, because everyone always had.

He pushed the emotion down. Why should he envy Flax? After all, from what he could gather, Flax’s parents had sent him out
on the Road when he was only twelve. At least
his
parents had waited until he was old enough to look after himself. Of course, Flax had Zel… Yes, he thought, he was definitely
better off than Flax, and smiled to himself. Poor Zel, worrying about her little chick, gone off exploring the world.

The people of Far North had mined their fields for stones and built their houses, their silos, and weirs across their slow-flowing
rivers to make races for the water mills which ground their grain. There was no need for ferries, or bridges, or fords. The
horses crossed with no more than wet ankles, and Ash and Flax didn’t have to pay tolls.

“I like this country!” Flax said, popping a strawberry into his mouth. The horses liked it too, and cantered happily on the
grass by the side of the track, so that they made good time.

Ash’s purse was empty.

They had to get some silver. Copper even, would do. “Guess it’s up to me, then,” Flax said cheerfully.

“I thought Zel told you to stay out of taverns?” Ash said. He raised his eyebrows to imply that Flax couldn’t do anything
that Zel forbade.

Flax made a face back at him, looking very young. “I don’t have to go to a tavern to make silver,” he said.

They had a choice of ways not long after. Either would lead them eventually to Gabriston, although the road that went by Cold
Hill, the next town, was longer. At the crossroads, Ash knew they ought to take the shorter way, but the other road called
to him strongly, with something like Sight but not exactly the same. The sensation worried him, but in the end he decided
on the longer way, reasoning that they were being led by the gods, and shouldn’t ignore Sight or anything like it if they
hoped to get through the journey unscathed.

In Cold Hill, which was barely larger than a village, they tied their horses next to a horse trough on the green, unsaddled
them and gave them nosebags. Flax made his way to the side of the green closest to the inn. They had ridden all day, and it
was evening, the night approaching in the slow, incremental way it did in the north, the sky lavender and lilac, the evening
air scented with a stand of lilies growing in the inn’s front garden. There were tables set out there, and most of the inn’s
patrons had chosen to bring their tankards out to sit in the mild air.

Flax stopped opposite the inn, put down a large square of umber cloth, and began to sing. He just stood there, unself-conscious,
relaxed, and let the warm notes rise gently over the drinkers’ heads.

He sang a popular, sentimental song, to get their attention. Ash had seen it done often enough. Get them listening, without
realizing it, and then bring out some louder or more startling song. He sighed. I should do my bit, he thought. There was
a bench not far away, set no doubt for the use of older people when the green was busy as a market square. He knelt down beside
it and began a gentle drumming on it with the flat of his hands, underscoring the rhythm of the song. Flax cast him a startled
glance and then grinned.

In the cool wilds of twilight, my lover comes to me,

Gold in the sunset, her hair like summer corn

Deep in the Forest, snug beneath a tree

My love and I lie warm until the morn . . .

They were listening. How could they not? Ash thought. He had half-wished that Flax would be bad, would have no strength to
his voice to buttress the sweetness Ash had already heard while they were riding. But no, his voice rose strong and clear
and wholly beautiful, and he sang without strain, without effort, letting the notes go fully, opening himself to the song
so that it was like the song sang him instead of the other way around. He had been well taught, somewhere, somehow. Ash felt
the labor with which he was drumming and flushed. It was a simple rhythm and in his head it was clear and easy, but once he
tried to reproduce it his hands faltered.

He concentrated. He could do this; he
had
done it, night after night, well enough so that the drinkers never noticed that he wasn’t a real musician. But what did they
know? If he made a mistake, Flax would certainly notice, and he couldn’t stand that.

He made it to the end of the song without an error and relaxed a little, rubbing his reddening hands and wishing he had a
drum. A few of the drinkers nodded to him and kept drinking, without so much as looking like throwing a coin. Ash didn’t worry.
This was the way it worked.

Flax looked at him and mouthed: “Death Pass?” Ash nodded. The ballad about Acton was a well-known and much-loved one and it
had a strong beat. You couldn’t do it without a drummer; there were sections where only the rhythm moved forward. He flexed
his fingers and used his full palm to make the starting drumbeats as loud as he could. The drinkers stopped and looked, and
Flax launched into the chorus straightaway. A good decision. They grinned and listened, and a couple, who’d clearly had the
most to drink, even sang along.

Bright flowed the blood of the dark-haired foe

Red flowed the swords of the conquering ones

Mighty the battles, mighty the deeds

Of Acton’s companions, the valiant men.

Ash wondered about Bramble. He kept his mind on the drumming, but the lower level of thought had to be busy with something,
and he didn’t want to think about Flax, about how perfectly he sang, about how he was exactly the son Ash’s parents had hoped
for. So he thought about Bramble instead, and wondered what was happening to her. They came to the first section where he
had to drum alone and he cast everything out of his thoughts except the rhythm, determined not to disgrace himself in front
of Flax. Flax came back in exactly on the beat, as precise as Swallow, and Ash increased the pace, as he was supposed to.
It felt as bad as drumming for his parents. Worse, because he had been in constant practice then. He hadn’t played this song
for more than three years. But the music was clear in his head. If nothing else, he knew the songs. Except the ones his father
hadn’t taught him.

That thought made his hands falter, although he corrected himself immediately. Flax didn’t appear to notice, but Ash was sure
he would have. His face burned red. But the drinkers hadn’t noticed. They were banging their tankards in time with his drumming,
so that he could ease off a little to protect his hands. When Flax sang the first words of the chorus again, the drinkers
joined in enthusiastically. They sang the last chorus three times and this time, when the song ended, coins came flying through
the air to them.

Then the innkeeper came out with a small beer each and invited them to move to the inn garden.

“I guess that’s not exactly
in
a tavern, is it?” Flax said, grinning.

Ash moved to a table, which was better for his back and gave more resonance, but still hurt his hands. Flax stood beside him,
and they performed another half-dozen songs; war songs and love songs and, at the end, when the innkeeper nodded to them to
finish up, a cradle song that everyone present had always known.

Close your eyes, close your eyes,

My own little sweetheart

You are tired, little boy

So sleep now, my joy . . .

Grown men wept the easy tears of the drunk as they remembered dead mothers, and young women grew sentimental, thinking of
the children they would have someday. The soft notes rose clear and gentle into the dark sky, floating away to join the stars.
This song needed no drumming. Flax sang alone, using the high part of his register so that it might well have been a woman
singing. Ash felt almost as if he could hear an accompaniment, some impossible instrument which could play high and low at
the same time, resonating behind and before each note. He wasn’t sure if the music was in his own mind or some quality of
echo from the inn walls. While it was beautiful, the last, soft song hardly ever produced coins. Still, it sometimes produced
other things, like a girl to spend the night with or a place in the inn stable.

As he finished, Flax remained standing there, waiting. Ash realized, with a flash of humor, that he was waiting for Zel to
come over and organize him. Instead, it was the innkeeper, bringing them ale.

“Bring your animals round to the stable,” she said, kindly enough, as she handed the mugs to Ash. “But no light in there.”

“Thank you, keeper,” Ash said. He resisted the temptation to tell Flax what to do. He wasn’t Flax’s big brother, and the boy
was old enough to work out for himself what should be done next.

But with the singing finished, Flax seemed a little dazed, so in the end Ash chivvied him over to the horses and got them,
their gear and Flax around to the stable and settled in. They sat with their backs to the stable wall and slowly drank their
ale. There was enough light coming from the inn’s windows for them to see each other and the horses. Cam and Mud shifted from
hoof to hoof and whoofed their breath out a couple of times, half-talking to each other and half-reassuring themselves that
this strange stable was
their
stable, at least for tonight.

It had to be said, although he’d rather have cut out his tongue. “You sing well.”

“Thanks,” Flax said.

Ash wanted to hit him. It was all so
easy
for him. He just stood there and sang, and everyone around him managed life so that he could. “Who taught you?”

“Mam, to start with, while I were a youngling. Then Zel organized it. Anytime we met up with other singers on the Road, she’d
bargain for me to have some lessons. Mostly people was free with their time. Travelers, that is. We never asked blondies.”

“Have you ever Traveled with anyone else?”

Flax laughed shortly. “Not Zel. Keeps herself to herself. I don’t mind. We do all right.”

Ash imagined Zel and his mother coming up against each other, and shivered. There’d either be coldness like the chill of hell,
or they’d take one look at each other, recognize a like spirit, and be unbreakable allies. Either way, the men in their families
would fall in with their wishes, as they always had. Except, of course, for the matter of the Deep. Swallow had never quite
approved. She didn’t like having to stay alone with the wives of the other musicians, camping out or taking over a cottage
for the days the men were away. Ash never asked what went on during those days, and she had not volunteered the information,
but he had gathered from some of the other women that a lot of praying went on, and a lot of partying, and his mother was
not fond of either. But she always met them with a heavy purse, because the parties included dice, and she had Death’s own
luck with the bones.