A Gathering Of Stones

2

Twenty days later a tall gaunt holywoman came striding along the Silk Road, a gnarled staff in one hand, the other swinging loosely at her side. She wore an ancient tattered overrobe and gathered trousers of coarse homespun; her sandals were worn, mended with cord. Her lank gray hair was loosely braided into a single plait that hung down her back, its ragged end bobbing against her buttocks in time with each step. Straggles of gray hair fluttered about a weatherbeaten face. Her mouth was a flat line bracketed by deep furrows curving down from the nostrils of a long bony nose. A big black dog with a blanket-wrapped bundle strapped to his back paced beside her.

She stopped at the edge of the rivermoat, sniffed at the thick green mat of jeppu plants and the hoard of leaf hoppers that started a frantic piping when she climbed up the levee and stood looking down at them. “So how do we get in?”

The dog looked up at her, then he turned south and trotted away along the levee path. The woman stumped after him.

There was a ferrylanding near the place where the moat branched away from the river, a gong on a gallows at one side. A rag-padded stave hung beside it; the leather loop tied through a hole in one end was hooked over a corroded nail on the gallowpost. A narrow lane was cut through the mat of jeppu, baring a strip of water wide enough to let the flatboat pass. The ferry was across the river, the ferryman nowhere in sight. Brann shaded her eyes with one hand, peered along the river. She could see other landings opposite other gates. At every crossing the ferries were snugged up on the city side. She shrugged, lifted the stave off its nail and beat a tattoo on the gong.

Nothing happened.

She looked at the stave, shrugged again and hung it where she’d found it. “I suppose he’ll come when he feels like it.” The black dog yawned, sank-onto his stomach. Tongue lolling, head on his forelegs he was a picture of patience.

Brann laughed and dropped beside him. She arranged her legs in the lotus cross and prepared to wait.

Across the river a stumpy figure came from a shed and stood on the bank, hands on hips, staring at her. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, spat into the mat of jeppu; his lack of enthusiasm was louder than a shout. He glanced up at the barbican behind him when a guard leaned from an arrowslit and bawled a garbled comment in the sarosj that Brann was only beginning to understand. He spat again, slapped his right hand on his left forearm, then turned his back on the guard. Impatiently he thrust his hands through his thick curly hair, shouted something incomprehensible at the but and stalked onto the ferry; he stood at he shoreside end, his hands back on his blocky hips, watching as two boys ran from the hut, cast off the mooring lines of a longboat and rowed across the moat.

The boy at the forward oars inspected her with a lively curiosity in his black eyes, but he asked no questions. “To cross, a takk,” he said.

“Don’t be absurd. Three dugnas is more than enough for that leaky tub.”

He smiled, a smile sweet as honey and as guileless. “Our father will beat us, baiar. Forty dugnas.”

“He should beat you for your impudence, pisra. Five dugnas and only because you have the smile of an angel, though doubtless the soul of an imp.”

“See my sweat, baiar. Consider how far it is. And you have that no doubt dangerous beast with you. Thirty dugnas for the two of you.”

“There’s not enough sweat on you and your brother both to tempt a gnat. Seven.”

“Twenty for you, five for the dog.”

“Ten for me, two for the dog.”

“Done. Pay me now, baiar.” He held up his hand, the palm horny with long labor at the oars.

“Why not. Make room for the dog, hmm?” After Jarilhound jumped into the boat and was standing with legs braced, Brann got to her feet, thrust two fingers in her belt pouch and fetched out twelve dugnas, counted them coin by coin into the boy’s hand. When the count was done, she eased herself stiffly into the longboat and settled on a thwart with Jaril-hound sitting up between her knees. The boys started rowing.

On the other side, she followed Jaril onto the landing and stalked off, paying no attention to the ferryman or his sons, ignoring the guard who yelled at her but was too late to catch her as she passed through the gate and into Dil Jorpashil.