Zypheria's Call (A Tanyth Fairport Adventure) (13 page)

After Foxrun, Tanyth started each day on foot. She abandoned the sling, preferring the freedom of movement that the unfettered arm gave her. She kept the splinter she’d picked up in Ravenwood tucked inside the cast and used it regularly.

“You could ride, you know?” Frank said on the third day after the attack.

“I need to get my walkin’ muscles back in shape,” she said, smiling up at him. “You could get down and walk with me. Do ya good.”

Occasionally Frank did just that but as they got closer to Kleesport, traffic on the Pike became too heavy for Frank to spend much time at the head of the team walking with Tanyth.

Tanyth felt herself losing her connection with him as every day passed, with each mile closer to the city and the port. Part of her wanted to drag her feet, to savor what she’d found even as she looked forward to the new adventure.

After a week on the road, the thought of a solid bed, a meal that didn’t include game, and a roof that didn’t leak as much as the bed of the wagon did had her grumbling as she walked. “Gettin’ soft, ole woman.”

Her broken arm had not yet healed. Every so often, she’d forget the cast and clunk her hipbone with it, or pull too hard with the freed fingers. The resulting pain told her that it wasn’t quite time to take off the cast.

As they made camp one night, Frank said, “Two more days. We’ll be in Kleesport day after tomorrow. Probably be at the gates by mid day.”

Rebecca grinned, her face alight from excitement and the glow of the fire. “It’ll be good to see the old place again,” she said. “My auntie will be surprised to see me.”

Frank grinned. “I thought you didn’t get along with your auntie.”

She shook her head. “I don’t get along with my mother. She thought I was throwin’ my life away goin’ along with William and Amber. Wouldn’t s’prise me if she’d had a funeral already.”

Tanyth cocked her head. “Funeral?”

“Yes, mum. ’Cause she thought I’d go out there and die at the hands of some bandit or in the slatherin’ jaws of some fearsome beast.”

Tanyth laughed at the younger woman’s characterization. “She didn’t talk like that did she?”

“Yes’m, she surely did.” Rebecca shook her head. She held up a bit of rabbit meat and tore the flesh away from the spit with her teeth. She had to pant air through her open mouth because it was so hot. “She’d pitch a fit if she saw me like this,” she said when she could chew and swallow again.

“You mean eatin’ rabbits you killed yourself?” Frank asked, his eyes bright with mischief.

Rebecca shook her head. “Wearin’ pants and shootin’ a bow. Hunkered down around a fire and eatin’ with my fingers.”

“Well, it’s not very ladylike,” Frank said.

Rebecca made a rude noise and they all laughed.

After the meal, while they sipped their tea and the ruddy glow of sunset faded to black, Rebecca asked, “So, what’re ya goin’ ta do in Kleesport?” She looked back and forth between Frank and Tanyth.

Frank took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’ll take the lorry wagon around to the yards and leave it to be unloaded. They’ll take care of the horses and such for me on the first night. While that’s goin’ on, I’ll have to do a bit of shoppin’ for William. He’s given me a list of stuff we need. I usually stay in town for three or four days takin’ care of village business.” He shrugged. “Then I’ll harness up and head back down the Pike.”

“And you, mum?” Rebecca asked. “Given it any thought?”

“Well, we’ve got to find passage to North Haven. Prob’ly restock travelin’ supplies in the city. Don’t know how long it’ll take.”

Frank grunted. “Hard to say how long. If the Zypheria hasn’t blown the ice out yet, could be a while.”

Tanyth started to say something but Frank held up a hand and gave her a gentle smile. “I don’t think it’s happened yet,” he said.

“Why d’ya say that?” Rebecca asked.

Frank jerked his chin at the empty road. “Not enough traffic. When the ice opens up the passage north, there’ll be a lot more people wantin’ to take custom. That’s a good market up there. Lotta folks be anxious to make money off it.” He sipped his tea before continuing. “Once the ice is out and the ships are sailing again? There’ll be a lot more wagons, some goin’ north with trade goods and more goin’ south.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just sail south?” Rebecca asked.

Frank nodded. “Some will. Bulk goods like lumber, ore. Some’ll go south around the cape to the factors down in Port Darby. Some will load up wagons and head down the pike for the inland markets south of Ravenwood.”

Rebecca grinned. “And a lot of ’em will stop at the new inn.”

“Yep.” Frank’s grin shone white in the glow of the fire. “The town’s gonna grow so fast you won’t recognize it by this time next year. You sure you don’t wanna ride back with me?” Frank directed his question to Rebecca, but Tanyth felt the tug of it in her chest.

“Gotta go where Mother Fairport goes now, Frank,” Rebecca said with a cheerful grin, either unaware or unmindful of the real intent of the question.

Frank’s grin faded and he buried his muzzle in his mug, draining it out before upending it on a flat rock beside the fire. “Yep. S’pose ya do,” he said. “I better go check the team.”

Rebecca watched him go before turning to Tanyth. “He wasn’t askin’ me, was he, mum?”

Tanyth sighed. “Yeah, he was, but he was also askin’ me, indirectly.”

Rebecca fiddled with a bit of stick, flecking the dried bark from it before tossing the naked wood onto the coals. “You’re not goin’ mad, mum.”

Tanyth watched the stick smolder and then catch fire, the small flare throwing the younger woman’s face into contrast against the darkness of the trees behind her. “Somethin’s happenin’. I need to find out what I can.”

“And you think Mother Pinecrest can tell you?”

“She’s the only chance I got right now.”

Rebecca glanced in the direction of the horses. “He loves you.”

Tanyth nodded.

“You’re gonna walk away from that? From him?”

“Some things can’t be helped. Things...happen. You get old, you get sick. Sometimes you get sick and die. Sometimes it’s worse when you don’t.”

“Don’t what, mum? Don’t get sick?” Rebecca cocked her head.

“Don’t die.” Tanyth tried to smile, but couldn’t bring it up as far as her eyes. It felt hollow and wrong pasted on her mouth so she let it go and gazed into the fire instead.

After a few moments, Rebecca asked, “Is that what you’re afraid of, mum? Getting...sick?”

Tanyth felt her eyebrows flex in time with her lifting shoulders. “Somethin’ like that.” She drew in a deep, slow breath and let it out gently through her nose. “Some of my teachers, they just kinda drifted off. They weren’t quite all there all the time.” Tanyth glanced at the young woman, saw her eyes gleaming in the firelight. “Happens to old people sometimes. They get so they don’t know who they are. Where they are.”

Rebecca nodded. “My great grandpa. I’ve seen it.”

They sat without speaking for a time. Rebecca found bits of leaf and twig to toss on the coals. The smoke from them curled around the campsite on the fading evening breeze. It tickled Tanyth’s nose, mingling with the scent of horse and human, adding to the moist smell of springtime.

“If that’s what you think’s happenin’, mum, why don’t you stay with...?” Rebecca nodded her head toward Frank.

Tanyth bit down on a flash of anger. It wasn’t the girl’s fault so she took a couple of breaths before speaking. “I started somethin’ and I aim to finish. Gertie Pinecrest is the last link in a long, long chain, my dear.” She glanced over to see if Rebecca was listening. “I mean to finish that chain before...” She paused, trying to think. “Before I can’t any more.”

Rebecca nodded. “I see that, mum.” She sighed and glanced over to see Frank dusting off his hands and heading back to the campfire. “I can’t say I understand, but I’ll take your word for it.”

Tanyth smiled, feeling the sadness in it but unable to stop. “You could go back with Frank,” she said. “Back to your place in Ravenwood.”

Rebecca seemed to consider it and then gave her head a little shake. A half smile crept around the corner of her mouth. “Guess we both got things ta do.”

“What things?” Frank asked stepping up to the fire and hunkerin’ down.

Rebecca grinned at him. “I got a bed roll to spread out. You two, well, you’ll find something, I’m sure.” She gave Tanyth a cheeky wink before pulling her bedroll out of the wagon and ostentatiously spreading it out on the ground well away from them.

Frank snickered a little, puffs of laughter hissing out of his nose. He settled down beside Tanyth. Close enough to touch, but not touching. “She seemed to think we’ve got things ta do.”

Tanyth leaned into him, letting her head rest against his shoulder, using his solid strength. “She’s a good woman.”

She saw Frank’s head nod and felt the muscles in his shoulder flex with the movement. “I didn’t know better, I’d say she looks up to a certain old fool,” he said.

“Who you callin’ an old fool, old fool?” Tanyth said, giving him a playful slap.

He pulled back and looked down at her. “Me, o’course. Who you think?”

Tanyth smiled and hugged his arm. “That’s all right then.”

“You thought I meant you, didn’t ya.”

She nodded. “Well, yeah.” She thought about it for a time, just savoring the moment, smelling the horse scent on him, feeling the strength of his arm in the homespun shirt under her fingers. “She prob’ly does.”

“She prob’ly does what?” Frank asked.

“She prob’ly looks up to ya.”

He gave a little chuckle in his chest that Tanyth could feel as well as hear. “Everybody’s favorite uncle, I am.” His voice carried a note that seemed out of character.

Tanyth hugged his arm tighter, nuzzling against his shoulder. “Not mine.”

He reached over and laid one calloused paw over hers where it gripped his bicep. “No. Not yours.”

Tanyth thought he might say something else but he didn’t, simply sat staring into the fire, holding her hand, and thinking his own thoughts without sharing them. After a time, he patted her hand and shifted his weight.

Tanyth released her grip and caught herself in a yawn.

“Must be time to call it a night,” Frank said with a grin. “I’m borin’ ya to sleep.”

She shook her head. “Been a long trip and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t lookin’ forward to a proper bed at the end of it.”

A sly grin spread across Frank’s face and his eyebrows waggled suggestively. “Now that you mention it,” he said and let the statement go unfinished.

Tanyth laughed as she clambered up from the ground. She gave his butt a fond pat before heading for the wagon and her own bedroll. His quiet promise made her wish the trip were a little closer to done.

Or that Rebecca slept more soundly.

That thought made her giggle and she spread her bedroll out so that it touched Frank’s. Spring or not, night got cold and the man generated enough heat to warm two sets of old bones.

The moon showed her the shallow creek once more. The dark shadow along the streambed had disappeared. A ridge of pebbles lay in its place, a gently curving line of tiny stones, each resting firmly on the next, each settled in the stream’s sandy bottom. This time there were no pebbles clicking together to disturb her slumbers, only the gentle laughing of the water as it bubbled over the pile of stones, a new ripple in the surface to catch the glimmers of fading moonlight.

Chapter Eleven:
Kleesport

The heavy wagon rumbled to a halt beside the road, Frank’s foot on the brake and his tanned hands holding firm on the reins. A farmer with a cart full of caged chickens steered around the large lorry wagon with a curious glance at the trio on the seat.

“Trouble?” he called.

“Nope. Just settin’ a bit,” Frank answered with a nod. “Thanks, though.”

The farmer waved a hand in salute and headed down the shallow slope toward the city.

Tanyth stood and stretched, hands at the small of her back as she bowed backwards and tried not to stare at the sprawl that waited ahead.

“Somethin’, ain’t it?” Frank asked after a few moments.

“That it is, but what exactly?” Tanyth gave him a grin.

Frank’s quiet laugh drew her eyes to him. “That’s a good question,” he said. “Lotta people. Lotta business happenin’ there.”