Hart's Hope

10

The Grocer's Song

How Orem Scanthips found his way downriver to Inwit, where he would earn his name and his poem, but no place.

His Fathers Water

"How far are you going?" Orem asked cheerfully. The grocer only eyed him skeptically for a moment, then turned to study the current, using the long pole to keep the raft to the center of the river. Orem knew from the talk of travelers in Banningside that the currents of Banning were dangerous enough, but where the river was slower the dangers were worse, for there were pirates whenever Palicrovol's army was far away, and foragers whenever it was close, and both used about the same strategy for about the same purpose, with the difference that Palicrovol's men didn't kill half so often.

"The King's in Banningside," Orem offered. If the grocer heard, he gave no sign; indeed, he was so silent and surly-looking that Orem wondered that such an unfriendly man would have taken him aboard at all.

Night came quickly from behind the eastern trees, and when the last of the light was going, the grocer slowly poled the raft nearer the shore, though not closer than a hundred yards from the bank. Then he took the three heavy anchor stones in their strong cloth bags and dropped them overboard at the rear of the raft. The current quickly drew them from the stones until the taut lines held them.

Orem watched silently as the grocer crawled into the tent and pulled out a large clay pan. In it the grocer built a fire of sticks and coal. On it he placed a brass bowl, where he made a carrot and onion soup with river water. Orem, was not sure whether he would be invited to share, and felt uneasy about asking. After all, if his host chose silence, it was not his place to insist on speech.

So he opened his bag and took out two sausages.

The grocer eyed them briefly. Orem held out one of them, thin and white and stiff within its casing. The grocer took his knife and reached it out. Orem thrust the sausage onto the point. The grocer grunted—a sound, at least!—and Orem watched him slice the meat so thin that it seemed he would cut the one sausage forever. When the grocer made no effort to reach for the second sausage, Orem put it back in his bag. There would be meat in the soup, then, and Orem had done his part to make the meal. He would stay aboard this ship as long as he wanted now, for it is the custom of the high river country that whoever makes a meal of shared food may not refuse each other's company.

They ate together in silence, spearing the lumps of carrot and meat with their knives and taking turns drinking the broth from the brass bowl. The meal over, the grocer rinsed the bowl in the river, then dipped his hand to bring water to his mouth.

Orem held out his flask. "From my father's spring."

The grocer looked at him sternly and, at last, spoke: "Then you saves it, boy." "Is there no water where we're going?"

God's water."

"To drink?"

"To pour into your father's spring. What, is God forgotten on your father's farm?"

Dobbick had often wanted to tell him the rites of the Great and Little temples of Inwit, but Orem

had never said the simple vow. Still, it wouldn't do to have the man think his family unbelievers. "We pray the five prayers and the two songs."

"You saves the water. For your life."

They sat in silence as the wind came up, brightening the coals in the clay firedish. So we are going to Inwit, Orem thought. It was, after all, the likely place for the grocer to be headed; indeed, most downriver traffic was going there, for all waters led to the Queen's city. "I'm going to Inwit, too," said Orem.

"Good thing," said the grocer.

"Why?"

"Because that's the way the river runs."

"What's it like there? At Inwit?"

"That depends, doesn't it?" the grocer answered.

"On what?"

"Oh which gate you goes through."

Orem was puzzled. He knew gates—Banningside had a stockade, and there were the walls of

the House of God. "But don't all the gates lead to the same city?" The grocer shrugged, then chuckled. "They does and they doesn't. Now, I wonder which gate

you'll go through."

"The one that's closest, I expect."

The grocer laughed aloud. "I expect not, boy. No, indeed. There's gates and gates, don't you see. The South Gate, now, that's the Queen's own gate, and only the parades and the army and ambassadors uses that gate. And then there's God's Gate, but if you goes through there, you gets only a pilgrim's pass, and if they catches you out of Between Temples, they brands your nose with an O and throws you out, and you never gets in again."

"I'm not a pilgrim. Which gate do you use?" "I'm a grocer. Swine Gate, up Butcher's Road. I get a grocer's pass, but it's all I want. It lets me go to the Great Market and the Little Market, to Bloody Town and the Taverns. Aye, the Taverns, and that's worth the whole trip alone."

"But they doesn't have Whore Street, does they?" The grocer grinned. "No, there's no place else in the world has Whore Street. For two coppers there's ladies'll do you leaning up against the wall, they ups their skirts and in three minutes you fills them to the eyes. And if you've got five coppers there's ladies'll take you into the rooms and you gets fifteen minutes, time to do twice if you're lively, which I am." The grocer winked. "You're a virgin, aren't you, boy?"

Orem looked away. His mother and father never talked that way, and his brothers were swine. Yet this grocer seemed well-meaning enough, though Orem found himself thinking that the trip had been more pleasant before the grocer started talking. "I won't be for long," said Orem, "once I'm at Inwit."

The grocer laughed aloud, and darted a hand under Orem's long skirt to tweak his thigh perilously near his crotch. "That's the balls, boy! That's the balls!" It was a pinch that Orem remembered too well, and it was with a bit of loathing that he heard the grocer regale him with tales of his sexual exploits on Whore Street. Apparently Orem had passed some kind of test, and the grocer regarded him as a friend of sorts, one who would be interested in all he had to say. Orem was relieved when at last the grocer yawned and suddenly stood up, stripped off all his clothing, bundled it into a pillow, and pushed it ahead of him as he crawled into the tent.

Orem caught a glimpse of the inside of the tent as the grocer crawled through, and there wasn't room for him. The grocer took no further notice of him, so Orem curled up on the deck, nestled against the leeward side of the grocer's load. It was chilly, especially where Orem's shirt was still damp from the swim a few hours before, but it could have been worse.

The Corthy Price

In the morning, the silence reigned again. This time, however, Orem did nothing to interrupt it. He helped in the work of the raft, bringing the grocer water to drink as he manned the pole, and from time to time dipping the oar into the water to help when the work became hard in swift currents or shallow sandy water. Orem shared his own small bread for nooning, which the grocer wordlessly took. But this time when night fell, the grocer beckoned for Orem to cast the anchor stones with him, and the talk began at once when the meal was done. The grocer got merrier and merrier, though he touched no beer, and he told Orem more and more about Inwit.

"There's Asses Gate, but you're no merchant. And Back Gate is only for them as lives in High Farms, which you doesn't and never could, those families being older than the Queen's own tribe, and near as magical, they says. No, boy, for you there's only Piss Gate and the Hole. For Piss Gate you gets a three-days' pauper's pass, and if you doesn't find work in those three days, you have to leave again, or they cuts off your ears. Second time they catches you on an old pass, or without one, and you gets a choice. They sells you as a slave or cuts off your balls, and there isn't as many free eunuchs as there is horny slaves, I can tell you!" Three days. In three days he'd find plenty of work.

The grocer suddenly got quiet. "It's the Hole, boy, not just any hole. That's closed, and there isn't passes. Not from the Guard. But there's ways through the Hole, and ways to get around in the city from there, but I don't know them. No, I'm a Godsman, I am, and the ways through the Hole are all magical, them as isn't criminal. No, you takes your chances with Piss Gate and a three days' pass, and when you doesn't find work, you goes home. No good comes from the Hole. It's magical black and God hates it."

Magical. There it is, thought Orem. They say Queen Beauty is a witch, and magic flies in Inwit, even though the priests do their best to put it down and the laws are all against it. Maybe I'll see magic, thought Orem, though he knew that God wouldn't truck with wizards, and there were seven foreign devils to take your soul if a man should do the purchased spells. The clean spells of the Sweet Sisters, the magics the women did on the farms, they were different, of course. But the magics of the Hole would not be that sort, Orem was sure. And he found himself drawn to the idea of passing through the Hole, to find the city that he wanted to see.

"I don't like the look of your face," the grocer said. "You're not thinking witchy thoughts, are you?"

Orem shook his head, at once ashamed of having so betrayed Halfpriest Dobbick in his heart. "I'm on my way to find a place for myself, and make a name. And earn my poem, if I can."

The grocer relaxed. "There's poems to be had in Inwit. I met a man there whose poem was as long as his arm—I mean it true, he had it needled right into his skin, and a fine poem it was." Suddenly the grocer was shy. "I have a poem, given me by three singers in High Bans. It's no Inwit poem, but it's mine."

Suddenly the mood of the night became solemn. Orem knelt on the hard logs of the raft, and reached out his open hands. "Will you tell me your poem?"

"I'm not much for singing," said the grocer. But he put his left hand in Orem's hands, and his right hand on Orem's head. He sang:

Glasin Grocer, wanders widely,

Rides the river, drifting down,

Turns to north, town of Corth,

Feeds the frightened Holy Hound.

"You," said Orem, in awe.

Glasin Grocer nodded shyly. "Here on my shoulder," he said, baring himself so Orem could see the scars. "I was lucky. It was the Hound's first day, and he took little enough before he went back to the Kennel."

"Weren't you afraid?"

"Peed my winders," Glasin said, chuckling. Orem laughed a little, too. But he thought of how it must be, the huge black Hound coming out of the wood without a sound, and fixing you with the eyes that froze you to your place. And then to kneel and pray as the Hound came and set his teeth in you, and took as much flesh as he wanted, and you hadn't the power to run or the breath to scream.

"I heard about that year. They said the Hound took an angel."

Glasin laughed and slapped his thigh. "An angel! I never!"

Whenever Glasin laughed, his breath took the odor of his rotting teeth in foul gusts to Orem's nose, and Orem would have turned away but for the failure of respect. And Glasin was worth it now—only one bite from the Holy Hound, and a good crop, too. "You were the Corthy Price," Orem said, shaking his head.

Glasin punched Orem in the shoulder. "An angel. They doesn't."

"Oh, they do," said Orem, and Glasin sang his song again. He sang it many times on the way down the river, the two weeks as Banning turned into Burring, and they passed the great castles of Runs, Gronskeep, Holy Bend, Sturks, and Pry. The souther they got the more the river was crowded with other rafts and other barges and boats, and the fouler the river got from sewer streams of the towns along the way. But the odors and noises and arguments with other boatmen were no damper to the excitement of knowing that Inwit was hourly nearer. The only thing that marred Orem's days was Glasin himself. There were many times, in fact, that Orem wished devoutly that he and Glasin had not become friends, and he missed the old silence dreadfully. Glasin had a small enough life, after all, to be contained all in only a few nights' talk, and Orem had to force himself not to say, But your whole song is because by chance the Holy Hound found you, and you were clean. Being clean is just a list of the things you've never done. An empty sort of life, and Orem thought, I will have a poem so long and fine that I will never have to sing it myself, but others will sing it to me because they know the words by heart.

One morning Glasin began to talk even as he first poled the raft back out into the current. "I bet you thinks I can't hold my tongue," he said, "but you sees how I keep my counsel. Did I tell that today would be Inwit day, and landfall at Farmer's Port? If I'd said a thing, why, you never would have slept a wink, and today you needs your rest, I said to me, today you needs your sleep. But you looks there, and sees Ainn Woods, and that low hill ahead, that's Ainn Point, and Ainn Creek is just beyond." It wasn't on Glasin's raft alone that the excitement was high. "Clake Bay!" cried a woman on a nearby boat. "Boat Island!" a man shouted.

And then they fully rounded the bend and there, on the lefthand side of the river, there was Inwit, a high stone wall bright with banners, and below it the docks of Farmer's Port, and rising high behind it the great walls of King's Town—no, Queen's Town then—and the gaunt Old Castle highest of all. Glasin named all the places until he nearly missed his turning, and only made one of the last slips of Farmer's Port.