Seventh Son

Chapter Nine—Taleswapper

There was once a time, Taleswapper well remembered, when he could climb a tree in these parts and look out over a hundred square miles of undisturbed forest. A time when oaks lived a century or more, with ever-thickening trunks making mountains out of wood. A time when leaves were so thick overhead that there were places where the forest ground was bare from lack of light.

That world of eternal dusk was slipping away now. There still were reaches of primeval wood, where Red men wandered more quietly than deer and Taleswapper felt himself to be in the cathedral of the most well-worshipped God. But such places were so rare that in this last year of wandering, Taleswapper had not journeyed a single day in which he could climb a tree and see no interruption in the forest roof. All the country between the Hio and the Wobbish was being settled, sparsely but evenly, and even now, from his perch atop a willow at the crest of a rise, Taleswapper could see three dozen cookfires sending pillars of smoke straight up into the cold autumn air. And in every direction, great swatches of forest had been cleared, the land plowed, crops planted, tended, harvested, so that where once great trees had shielded the earth from the sky's eye, now the stubbled soil was naked, waiting for winter to cover its shame.

Taleswapper remembered his vision of drunken Noah. He had engraved it for an edition of Genesis for Scottish rite Sunday schools. Noah, nude, his mouth lolling open, a cup half-spilled still dangling from his curled fingers; Ham, not far off, laughing derisively; and Japheth and Shem, walking backward to draw a robe over their father, so they would not see what their father had exposed in his stupefaction. With an electric excitement, Taleswapper realized that this, now, is what that prophetic moment foreshadowed. That he, Taleswapper, perched atop a tree, was seeing the naked land in its stupor, awaiting the modest covering of winter. It was prophecy fulfilled, a thing which one hoped for but could not expect in one's own life.

Or, then again, the story of drunken Noah might not be a figure of this moment at all. Why not the other way around? Why not cleared land as a figure for drunken Noah?

Taleswapper was in a foul mood by the time he reached the ground. He thought and thought, trying to open his mind to see visions, to be a good prophet. Yet every time he thought he had got something firm and tight, it shifted, it changed. He thought one thought too many, and the whole fabric came undone, and he was left as uncertain as ever before.

At the base of the tree he opened his pack. From it he took the Book of Tales that he had first made for Old Ben back in ‘85. Carefully he unbuckled the sealed portion, then closed his eyes and riffled the pages. He opened his eyes and found his fingers resting among the Proverbs of Hell. Of course, at a time like this. His finger touched two proverbs, both written by his own hand. One meant nothing, but the other seemed appropriate. "A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."

Yet the more he tried to study out the meaning of that proverb at this moment, the less connection he saw, except that it included mention of trees. So he tried the first proverb after all. "If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise."

Ah. This was speaking to him, after all. This was the voice of prophecy, recorded when he lived in Philadelphia, before he ever began his journey, on a night when the Book of Proverbs came alive for him and he saw as if in letters of flame the words that should have been included. That night he had stayed up until dawn's light killed the fires of the page. When Old Ben came thumping down the stairs to grouch his way in for breakfast, he stopped and sniffed the air. "Smoke," he said. "You haven't been trying to burn down the house, have you, Bill?"

"No sir," answered Taleswapper. "But I saw a vision of what God meant the Book of Proverbs to say, and wrote them down."

"You are obsessed with visions," said Old Ben. "The only true vision comes not from God but from the inmost recesses of the human mind. Write that down as a proverb, if you want. It's far too agnostic for me to use it in Poor Richard's Almanac."

"Look," said Taleswapper.

Old Ben looked, and saw the last flames as they died. "Well, now, if that's not the most remarkable trick to do with letters. And you told me you weren't a wizard."

"I'm not. God gave this to me."

"God or the devil? When you're surrounded by light, Bill, how do you know whether it's the glory of God or the flames of hell?"

"I don't know," said Taleswapper, growing confused. Being young then, not yet thirty, he was easily confused in the presence of the great man.

"Or perhaps you, wanting truth so badly, gave it to yourself." Old Ben tilted his head to examine the pages of Proverbs through the lower lenses of his bifocals. "The letters have been burned right in. Funny, isn't it, that I'm called a wizard, who am not, and you, who are, refuse to admit it."

"I'm a prophet. Or—want to be."

"If one of your prophecies comes true, Bill Blake, then I'll believe it, but not until."

In the years since then, Taleswapper had searched for the fulfilment of even one prophecy. Yet whenever he thought he had found such a fulfilment, he could hear Old Ben's voice in the back of his mind, providing an alternate explanation, scoffing at him for thinking that any connection between prophecy and reality could be true.

"Never true," Old Ben would say. "Useful_now, there's something. Your mind might make a connection that is useful. But true is another matter. True implies that you have found a connection that exists independent of your apprehension of it, that would exist whether you noticed it or not. And I must say that I have never seen such a connection in my life. There are times when I suspect that there are no such connections, that all links, bonds, ties, and similarities are creatures of thought and have no substance."

"Then why doesn't the ground dissolve beneath our feet?" asked Taleswapper.

"Because we have managed to persuade it not to let our bodies by. Perhaps it was Sir Isaac Newton. He was such a persuasive fellow. Even if human beings doubt him, the ground does not, and so it endures." Old Ben laughed. It was all a lark to him. He never could bring himself to believe even his own skepticism.

Now, sitting at the base of the tree, his eyes closed, Taleswapper connected again: The tale of Noah with Old Ben. Old Ben was Ham, who saw the naked truth, limp and shameful, and laughed at it, while all the loyal sons of church and university walked backward to cover it up again, so the silly truth would not be seen. Thus the world continued to think of the truth as firm and proud, never having seen it in a slack moment.

That is a true connection, thought Taleswapper. That is the meaning of the story. That is the fulfilment of the prophecy. The truth when we see it is ridiculous, and if we wish to worship it, we must never allow ourselves to see it.

In that moment of discovery, Taleswapper sprang to his feet. He must find someone at once, to tell of this great discovery while he still believed it. As his own proverb said "The cistern contains: the fountain overflows." If he did not speak his tale, it grew dank and musty, it shrank inside him, while with the telling the tale stayed fresh and virtuous.

Which way? The forest road, not three rods off, led toward a large white church with an oak-high steeple—he had seen it, not a mile away, while up the tree. It was the largest building Taleswapper had seen since he last visited in Philadelphia. Such a large building for people to gather in implied that folks in this part of the land felt they had plenty of room for newcomers. A good sign for an itinerant teller of tales, since he lived by the trust of strangers, who might take him in and feed him when he brought nothing with him to pay with, except his book, his memory, two strong arms, and sturdy legs that had carried him ten thousand miles and were good for at least five thousand more.

The road was rutted with wagon tracks, which meant it was often used, and in the low places it was firmed up with rails, making a good strong corduroy so that wagons wouldn't mire in rain-soaked soil. So this was on its way to being a town, was it? The large church might not mean openness at all—it might speak more of ambition. That's the danger of judging anything, thought Taleswapper: There are a hundred possible causes for every effect, and a hundred possible effects from every cause. He thought of writing down that thought, but decided against it. It had no traces on it save the prints of his own soul—neither the marks of heaven nor of hell. By this he knew that it hadn't been given to him. He had forced the thought himself. So it couldn't be prophecy, and couldn't be true.

The road ended in a commons not far from a river. Taleswapper knew that from the smell of rushing water—he had a good nose. Around the commons were scattered several buildings, but the largest of all was a whitewashed clapboard two-story building with a small sign that said "Weaver's."

Now when a house has a sign on it, Taleswapper knew, that generally means the owners want people to recognize the place though they've never been shown the way, which is the same as to say that the house is open to strangers. So Taleswapper went right up and knocked.

"Minute!" came a shout from inside. Taleswapper waited on the porch. Toward one end were several hanging baskets, with the long leaves of various herbs dangling. Taleswapper recognized many of them as being useful in various arts, such as healing, finding, sealing, and reminding. He also recognized that the baskets were arranged so that, seen from a spot near the base of the door, they would form a perfect hex. In fact, this was so pronounced an effect that Taleswapper squatted and finally lay prone on the porch to see it property. The colors daubed on the baskets at exactly the correct points proved that it was no accident. It was an exquisite hex of protection, oriented toward the doorway.

Taleswapper tried to think of why someone would put up such a powerful hex, and yet seek to conceal it. Why, Taleswapper was probably the only person around likely to feel the whiff of power from something as passive as a hex, and so be drawn to notice it. He was still lying there on the floor, puzzling about it, when the door opened and a man said, "Are you so tired, then, stranger?"

Taleswapper leapt to his feet. "Admiring your arrangement of herbs. Quite an aerial garden, sir."

"My wife's," said the man. "She fusses over them all the time. Has to have them just so."

Was the man a liar? No, Taleswapper decided. He wasn't trying to hide the fact that the baskets made a hex and the trailing leaves intertwined to bind them together. He simply didn't know. Someone—his wife, probably, if it was her garden—had set up a protection on his house, and the husband didn't have a clue.

"They look just right to me," said Taleswapper.

"I wondered how someone could arrive here, and me not hear the wagon nor the horse. But from the looks of you, I'd guess you came afoot."

"That I did, sir," said Taleswapper.

"And your pack doesn't look full enough to hold many articles to trade."

"I don't trade in things, sir," said Taleswappe

"What, then? What but things can be traded?

"Work, for one thing," said Taleswapper. "I work for food and shelter."

"You're an old man, to be a vagrant."

"I was born in fifty-seven, so I still have a good seventeen years until I've used up my three-score and ten. Besides, I have a few knacks."

At once the man seemed to shrink away. It wasn't in his body. It was his eyes that got more distant, as he said, "My wife and I do our own work here, seeing how our sons are right small yet. We've no need of help."

There was a woman behind him now, a girl still young enough that her face hadn't grown hard and weathered, though she was solemn. She held a baby in her arms. She spoke to her husband. "We have enough to spare another place for dinner tonight, Armor—"

At that the husband's face went firm and set. "My wife is more generous than I am, stranger. I'll tell you straight out. You spoke of having a few knacks, and in my experience that means you make some claim to hidden powers. I'll have no such workings in a Christian house."

Taleswapper looked hard at him, and then looked a bit softer at the wife. So that was the way of it here: she working such hexes and spells as she could hide from her husband, and he flat rejecting any sign of it. If her husband ever realized the truth, Taleswapper wondered what would happen to the wife. The man—Armor? --seemed not to be the murderous kind, but then, there was no telling what violence would flow in a man's veins when the flood of rage came undammed.

"I understand your caution, sir," said Taleswapper.

"I know you have protections on you," said Armor. "A lone man, afoot in the wild for all this way? The fact that your hair is still on your head says that you must have warded off the Reds."

Taleswapper grinned and swept his cap off his head, letting his bald crown show. "Is it a true warding, to blind them with the reflected glory of the sun?" he asked. "They'd get no bounty for my scalp."

"Truth to tell," said Armor, "the Reds in these parts are more peaceable than most. The one-eyed Prophet has built him a city on the other side of the Wobbish, where he teaches Reds not to drink likker."

"That's good advice for any man," said Taleswapper.

And he thought: A Red man who calls himself a prophet. "Before I leave this place I'll have to meet that man and have words with him."

"He won't talk to you," said Armor. "Not unless you can change the color of your skin. He hasn't spoke to a White man since he had his first vision a few years back."

"Will he kill me if I try?"

"Not likely. He teaches his people not to kill White men."

"That's also good advice," said Taleswapper.

"Good for White men, but it may not have the best result for Reds. There's folks like so-called Governor Harrison down in Carthage City who mean naught but harm for all Reds, peaceable or not." The truculence had not left Armor's face, but he was talking anyway, and from his heart, too. Taleswapper put a great deal of trust in the sort of man who spoke his mind to all men, even strangers, even enemies. "Anyway," Armor went on, "not all Reds are believers in the Prophet's peaceable words. Them as follow Ta-Kumsaw are stirring up trouble down by the Hio, and a lot of folks are moving north to the upper Wobbish country. So you won't lack for houses willing to take a beggar in—you can thank the Reds for that, too."

"I'm no beggar, sir," said Taleswapper. "As I told you, I'm willing to work."

"With knacks and hidden shiftiness, no doubt."

The man's hostility was the plain opposite of his wife's gentle welcoming air. "What is your knack, sir?" asked the wife. "From your speech you're an educated man. You'd not be a teacher, would you?"

"My knack is spoken with my name," he said. "Taleswapper. I have a knack for stories."

"For making them up? We call that lying, hereabouts." The more the wife tried to befriend Taleswapper, the colder her husband became.

"I have a knack for remembering stories. But I tell only those that I believe are true, sir. And I'm a hard man to convince. If you tell me your stories, I'll tell you mine, and we'll both be richer for the trade, since neither one of us loses what we started with."

"I've got no stories," said Armor, even though he had already told a tale of the Prophet and another of Ta-Kumsaw.

"That's sad news, and if it's so, then I've come to the wrong house indeed." Taleswapper could see that this truly wasn't the house for him. Even if Armor relented and let him in, he would be surrounded by suspicion, and Taleswapper couldn't live where people looked sharp at him all the time. "Good day to you."

But Armor wasn't letting him go so easily. He took Taleswapper's words as a challenge. "Why should it be sad? I live a quiet, ordinary life."

"No man's life is ordinary to himself," said Taleswapper, "and if he says it is, then that's a story of the kind that I never tell."

"You calling me a liar?" demanded Armor.

"I'm asking if you know a place where my knack might be welcome."

Taleswapper saw, though Armor didn't, how the wife did a calming with the fingers of her right hand, and held her husband's wrist with her left. It was smoothly done, and the husband must have become quite attuned to it, because he visibly relaxed as she stepped a bit forward to reply. "Friend," she said, "if you take the track behind that hill yonder, and follow it to the end, over two brooks, both with bridges, you'll reach the house of Alvin Miller, and I know he'll take you in."

"Ha," said Armor.

"Thank you," said Taleswapper. "But how can you know such a thing?"

"They'll take you in for as long as you want to stay, and never turn you away, as long as you show willingness to help out."

"Willing I always am, milady," said Taleswapper.

"Always willing?" said Armor. "Nobody's always willing. I thought you always spoke true."

"I always tell what I believe. Whether it's true, I'm no more sure than any man."

"Then how do you call me ‘sir,' when I'm no knight, and call her ‘milady,' when she's as common as myself?"

"Why, I don't believe in the King's knightings, that's why. He calls a man a knight because he owes him a favor, whether he's a true knight or not. And all his mistresses are called ‘ladies' for what they do between the royal sheets. That's how the words are used among the Cavaliers—lies half the time. But your wife, sir, acted like a true lady, gracious and hospitable. And you, sir, like a true knight, protecting your household against the dangers you most fear."

Armor laughed aloud. "You talk so sweet I bet you have to suck on salt for half an hour to get the taste of sugar out of your mouth."

"It's my knack," said Taleswapper. "But I have other ways to talk, and not sweetly, when the time is right. Good afternoon to you, and your wife, and your children, and your Christian house."

Taleswapper walked out onto the grass of the cornmons. The cows paid him no mind, because he did have a warding, though not of the sort that Armor would ever see. Taleswapper sat in the sunlight for a little while, to let his brain get warm and see if it could come up with a thought. But it didn't work. Almost never had a thought worth having, after noon. As the proverb said, "Think in the morning, Act in the noon, Eat in the evening, Sleep in the night." Too late for thinking now. Too early for eating.

He headed up the pathway to the church, which stood well back from the commons, atop a good-sized hill. If I were a true prophet, he thought, I'd know things now. I'd know whether I'd stay here for a day or a week or a month. I'd know whether Armor would be my friend, as I hope, or my enemy, as I fear. I'd know whether his wife would someday win herself free to use her powers in the open. I'd know whether I'd ever meet this Red Prophet face to face.

But that was nonsense, he knew. That was the sort of seeing that a torch would do—he'd seen them doing it before, more than a few of them, and it filled him with dread, because it wasn't good, he knew, for a man to know too much of the path of his own life ahead. No, for him the knack he wanted was prophecy, to see, not the small doings of men and women in their little corners of the world, but rather the great sweep of events as directed by God. Or by Satan—Taleswapper wasn't particular, since both of them had a good idea of what they planned to do in the world, and so either one was likely to know a few things about the future. Of course, it was likely to be more pleasant to hear from God. What traces of the devil he had touched so far in his life had all been painful, each in its own way.

The church door stood open, this being a warmish day for autumn, and Taleswapper buzzed right in along with the Ries. It was as fine a church inside as out—obviously Scottish rite, so it was plain—but all the more cheerful for that, a bright and airy place, with whited walls and glass-paned windows. Even the pews and pulpit were of light wood. The only thing dark in the whole place was the altar. So naturally his eye was drawn to it. And, because he had a knack for this sort of thing, he saw traces of a liquid touch upon the surface of it.

He walked slowly toward the altar. Toward it, because he had to know for sure; slowly, because this sort of thing ought not to be in a Christian church. Up close, though, there was no mistaking. It was the same trace he had seen on the face of the man in DeKane, who tortured his own children to death and blamed it on the Reds. The same trace he had seen lingering on the sword that beheaded George Washington. It was like a thin film of filthy water, invisible unless you looked at a certain angle, in a certain light. But to Taleswapper it was always visible now—he had an eye for it.

He reached out his hand and set his forefinger carefully on the clearest trace. It took all his strength just to hold it there for a moment, it burned so, setting his whole arm to trembling and aching, right to the shoulder.

"You're welcome in God's house," said a voice.

Taleswapper, sucking on his burnt finger, turned to face the speaker. He was robed as a Scottish Rite preacher—Presbyterian, they called them here in America.

"You didn't get a splinter, did you?" asked the preacher.

It would have been easier just to say Yes, I got a splinter. But Taleswapper only told stories he believed.

"Preacher," said Taleswapper, "the devil has set his hand upon this altar."

At once the preacher's lugubrious smile disappeared. "How do you know the devil's handprint?"

"It's a gift of God," said Taleswapper. "To see."

The preacher looked at him closely, unsure whether or not to believe. "Then can you also tell where angels have touched?"

"I could see traces, I think, if goodly spirits had intervened. I've seen such marks before."

The preacher paused, as if he wanted to ask a very important question but was afraid of the answer. Then he shuddered, the desire to learn plainly fled from him, and the preacher spoke now with contempt. "Nonsense. You can fool the common people, but I was educated in England, and I am not deluded by talk of hidden powers."

"Oh," said Taleswapper. "You're an educated man."

"And so are you, by your speech," said the preacher. "The south of England, I would say."

"The Lord Protector's Academy of Art," said Taleswapper. "I was trained as an engraver. Since you're Scottish rite, I daresay you've seen my work in your Sunday school book."

"I never notice such things," said the preacher. "Engravings are a waste of paper that could be given over to words of truth. Unless they illustrate matters that the artist's eye has actually seen, like anatornies. But what the artist conceives in his imagination has no better claim on my eyes than what I imagine for myself."

Taleswapper followed that notion to its root. "What if the artist were also a prophet?"

The preacher half-closed his eyes. "The day of prophets is over. Like that apostate heathen one-eyed drunken Red man, across the river, all who claim to be prophets now are charlatans. And I have no doubt that if God granted the gift of prophecy even to one artist, we would soon have a surplus of sketchers and daubers wishing to be taken for prophets, especially if it would bring them better pay."

Taleswapper answered mildly, but he did not let the preacher's implicit accusation stand. "A man who preaches the word of God for a salary ought not to criticize others who seek to earn a living by revealing the truth."

"I was ordained," said the preacher. "No one ordains artists. They ordain themselves."

Just as Taleswapper had expected. The preacher retreated to authority as soon as he feared his ideas could not stand on their own merit. Reasonable argument was impossible when authority became the arbiter; Taleswapper returned to the immediate matter. "The devil laid his fingers on this altar," said Taleswapper. "It burned my finger to touch the place."

"It never burned mine," said the preacher.

"I expect not," said Taleswapper. "You were ordained."

Taleswapper made no effort to hide the scorn in his voice, and it plainly irked the preacher, who lashed back. It did not bother Taleswapper when people got angry at him. It meant they were listening, and at least half believing him. "Tell me, then, if you have such keen eyes," said the preacher. "Tell me if a messenger from God has ever touched the altar."

Plainly the preacher regarded this question as a test. Taleswapper had no idea which answer the preacher thought was correct. It hardly mattered; Taleswapper would answer truthfully, no matter what. "No," he said.

It was the wrong answer. The preacher smirked. "Just like that? You can say that he has not?"

Taleswapper thought for a moment that the preacher might believe his own ordained hands had left the marks of God's will. He would lay that notion to rest at once. "Most preachers don't leave tracks of light on things they touch. Only a few are ever holy enough."

But it wasn't himself the preacher had in mind. "You've said enough now," said the preacher. "I know that you're a fraud. Get out of my church."

"I'm no fraud," said Taleswapper. "I may be mistaken, but I never lie."

"And I never believe a man who says he never lies."

"A man always assumes that others are as virtuous as himself," said Taleswapper.

The preacher's face flushed with anger. "Get out of here, or I'll throw you out."

"I'll go gladly," said Taleswapper. He walked briskly to the door. "I never hope to return to a church whose preacher is not surprised to learn that Satan has touched his altar."

"I wasn't surprised because I don't believe you."

"You believed me," said Taleswapper. "You also believe an angel has touched it. That's the story you think is true. But I tell you that no angel could touch it without leaving a trace that I could see. And I see but one trace there."

"Liar! You yourself are sent by the devil, trying to do your necromancy here in the house of God! Begone! Out! I conjure you to leave!"

"I thought churchmen like you didn't practice conjurings."

"Out!" The preacher screamed the last word, the veins standing out in his neck. Taleswapper put his hat back on and strode away. He heard the door slam closed behind him. He walked across a hilly meadow of dried-out autumn grass until he struck the track that led up toward the house that the woman had spoken of. Where she was sure they'd take him in.

Taleswapper wasn't so sure. He never made more than three visits in a place—if he hadn't found a house to take him in by the third try, it was best to move on. This time, the first stop had been unusually bad, and the second had gone even worse.

Yet his uneasiness wasn't just that things were going badly. Even if at this last place they fell on their faces and kissed his feet, Taleswapper felt peculiar about staying around here. Here was a town so Christian that the leading citizen wouldn't allow hidden powers in his house—yet the altar in the church had the devil's mark on it. Even worse was the pattern of deception. The hidden powers were being used right under Armor's nose, and by the person he loved and trusted most; while in the church, the preacher was convinced that God, not the devil, had claimed his altar. What could Taleswapper expect, in this place up the hill, but more madness, more deception? Twisted people entwined each other, Taleswapper knew that much from the evidence of his own past.

The woman was right—the brooks were bridged. Even this, though, wasn't a good sign. To bridge a river was a necessity; to bridge a broad stream, a kindness to travelers. But why did they build such elaborate bridges over brooks so narrow that even a man as old as Taleswapper could leap them without wetting a foot? The bridges were sturdy, anchored into the earth far to either side of the stream, and both had roofs, well thatched. People pay money to stay in inns that aren't as tight and dry as these bridges, thought Taleswapper.

Surely this meant that the people at the end of the track were at least as strange as those he had met so far. Surely he ought to turn away. Prudence demanded that he leave.

But prudence was not strong in Taleswapper's character. It was as Old Ben told him, years before. "You'll go into the mouth of hell someday, Bill, just to find out why the devil has such bad teeth." There was a reason for the bridges, and Taleswapper sensed that it would mean a story worth remembering in his book.

It was only a mile, after all. Just when it seemed the track was about to wander into impenetrable wood, it took a sharp northward turn and opened into as pretty a holding as Taleswapper had seen, even in the placid settled lands of New Orange and Pennsylvania. The house was large and fine, with shaped logs, to show that they meant it to last, and there were barns and sheds and pens and coops that made it almost a village in itself. A wisp of smoke rising a half mile on up the track told him that his guess wasn't all wrong. There was another household nearby, sharing the road, which meant it was probably kin. Married children, no doubt, and all farming together, for the better prosperity of all. That was a good thing, Taleswapper knew, when brothers could grow up liking each other well enough to plow each other's fields.

Taleswapper always headed for the house—best to announce himself at once, rather than skulking about and being taken for a robber. Yet this time, when he meant to walk toward the house, he felt himself become stupid all at once, unable to remember what it was he was about to do. It was a warding so powerful that he did not realize he had been pushed away until he was halfway down the hill toward a stone building beside a brook. He stopped abruptly, frightened, for no one had power enough, he thought, to back him off without him realizing what was happening. This place was as strange as the other two, and he wanted no part of it.

Yet as he tried to turn back the way he had come, the same thing happened again. He found himself going down the hill toward the stone-walled building.

Again he stopped, and this time muttered, "Whoever you are, and whatever you want, I'll go of my own free will or I'll not go at all."

All at once it was like a breeze behind him, pushing him toward the building. But he knew he could go back if he wanted. Against the breeze, yes, but he could do it. That eased his mind considerably. Whatever constraints had been placed upon him, they were not meant to enslave him. And that, he knew, was one of the marks of a goodly spell—not the hidden chains of a tormentor.

The path rounded to the left a bit, along the brook, and now he could see that the building was a mill, for it had a millrace and the frame of a tall wheel standing where the water would flow. But no water flowed in the race today, and as he came close enough to see through the large barn-size door, he discovered why. It wasn't just closed up for the winter. It had never been used as a mill. The gears were in place, but the great round millstone wasn't there. Just a foundation of rammed cobbles, level and ready and waiting.

Waiting a long time. This construction was at least five years old, from the vines and the mosses on the building. It had been a lot of work to build this millhouse, and yet it was being used as a common haybarn.

Just inside the large door, a wagon was rocking back and forth as two boys grappled together atop a half-load of hay. It was a friendly bout; the boys were obviously brothers, the one about twelve years old, the other perhaps nine, and the only reason the young one wasn't thrown off the wagon and out the door was because the older boy couldn't keep himself from laughing. They didn't notice Taleswapper, of course.

They also didn't notice the man standing at the edge of the loft, pitchfork in hand, looking down at them. Taleswapper thought at first that the man was watching in pride, like a father. Then he came close enough to see how he held the fork. Like a javelin, ready to cast. For a single moment, Taleswapper saw in his mind's eye just what would happen—the fork thrown, burying itself in the flesh of one of the boys, surely killing him, if not immediately, then soon enough, with gangrene or belly bleeding. It was murder that Taleswapper saw.

"No!" he shouted. He ran through the doorway, fetching up alongside the wagon, looking up at the man in the loft.

The man plunged the pitchfork into the hay beside him and heaved the hay over the edge onto the wagon, half-burying the two boys. "I brought you here to work, you two bearcubs, not to tie each other in knots." The man was smiling, teasing. He winked at Taleswapper. Just as if there hadn't been death in his eyes a moment before.

"Howdy, young feller," said the man.

"Not so young," said Taleswapper. He doffed his hat, letting his bare pate give away his age.

The boys dug themselves out of the hay. "What were you shouting at, Mister?" asked the younger one.

"I was afraid someone might come to harm," said Taleswapper.

"Oh, we wrassle like that all the time," said the older boy. "Put her there, friend. My name's Alvin, same as my pa." The boy's grin was contagious. Scared as he'd been, with so much dark dealing going on today, Taleswapper had no choice but to smile back and take the proffered hand. Alvin Junior had a handshake like a grown man, he was that strong. Taleswapper commented on it.

"Oh, he gave you his fish hand. When he gets to wringing and wrenching on you, he like to pops your palm like a razzleberry." The younger boy shook hands, too.

"I'm seven years old, and Al Junior, he's ten." Younger than they looked. They both had that nasty bitter body stench that young boys get when they've been playing hard. But Taleswapper never minded that. It was the father who puzzled him. Was it just a fancy in his own mind, that Taleswapper thought he meant to kill the boys? What man could take a murderous hand to boys as sweet and fine as these?

The man had left the pitchfork in the loft, clambered down the ladder, and now strode toward Taleswapper with his arms out as if to hug him. "Welcome here, stranger," said the man. "I'm Alvin Miller, and these are my two youngest sons, Alvin Junior and Calvin."

"Cally," corrected the younger boy.

"He doesn't like the way our names rhyme," said Alvin Junior. "Alvin and Calvin. See, they named him like me hoping he'd grow up to be as fine a specimen of manhood as I am. Too bad it ain't working."

Calvin gave him a shove of mock anger. "Near as I can tell, he was the first try, and when I came along they finally got it right!"

"Mostly we call thern Al and Cally," said the father.

"Mostly you call us ‘shutup' and ‘get over here,'" said Cally.

Al Junior gave him a whack on the shoulder and sent him sprawling in the dirt. Whereupon his father placed a boot on his backside and sent him head over heels out the door. All in fun. Nobody was hurt. How could I have thought there was murder going on here?

"You come with a message? A letter?" asked Alvin Miller. Now, that the boys were outside, yelling at each other across the meadow, the grown men could get a word in.

"Sorry," said Taleswapper. "Just a traveler. A young lady in town said I might find a place to sleep up here. In exchange for whatever good hard work you might have for my arms."

Alvin Miller grinned. "Let me see how much work those arms can do." He thrust out an arm, but it wasn't to shake hands. He gripped Taleswapper by the forearm and braced his right foot against Taleswapper's right foot. "Think you can throw me?" asked Alvin Miller.

"Just tell me before we start," said Taleswapper, "whether I'll get a better supper if I throw you, or if I don't throw you."

Alvin Miller leaned back his head and whooped like a Red. "What's your name, stranger?"

"Taleswapper."

"Well, Mr. Taleswapper, I hope you like the taste of dirt, cause that's what you'll eat before you eat anything else here!"

Taleswapper felt the grip on his forearm tighten. His own arms were strong, but not like this man's grip. Still, a game of throws wasn't all strength. It was also wit, and Taleswapper had a bit of that. He let himself slowly flinch under Alvin Miller's pressure, long before he had forced the man to use his full strength. Then, suddenly, he pulled with all his might in the direction Miller was pushing. Usually that was enough to topple the bigger man, using his own weight against him—but Alvin Miller was ready, pulled the other way, and flung Taleswapper so far that he landed right among the stones that formed the foundation for the missing millstone.

There had been no malice in it, though, just the love of the contest. No sooner was Taleswapper down than Miller was helping him up, asking him if anything was broken.

"I'm just glad your millstone wasn't in place yet," said Taleswapper, "or you'd be stuffing brains back into my head."

"What? You're in Wobbish country, man! There ain't no need for brains out here."

"Well, you threw me," said Taleswapper. "Does that mean you won't let me earn a bed and a meal?"

"Earn it? No sir. I won't allow such a thing." But the grin on his face denied the harshness of his words. "No, no, you can work if you like, because a man likes to feel that he pays his way in the world. But truth is I'd let you stay even if you had two legs broke and couldn't help a lick. We've got a bed all ready for you, just off the kitchen, and I'll bet a hog against a huckleberry that them boys already told Faith to set another bowl for supper."

"That's kind of you, sir."

"Not at all," said Alvin Miller. "You sure nothing got broke? You hit them stones awful hard."

"Then I imagine you ought to check to make sure none of those stones got split, sir."

Alvin laughed again, slapped him on the back, and led him up to the house.

Such a house it was. There couldn't be more screeching and shouting in hell. Miller tried to sort out all the children for him. The four older girls were his daughters, busy as could be at half a dozen jobs, each one carrying on separate arguments with each of her sisters, at the top of her voice, passing from quarrel to quarrel as her work took her from room to room. The screaming baby was a grandchild, as were the five toddlers playing Roundheads and Cavaliers on and under the dining table. The mother, Faith, seemed oblivious to it all as she labored in the kitchen. Occasionally she'd reach out to cuff a nearby child, but otherwise she didn't let them interrupt her work—or her steady stream of orders, rebukes, threats, and complaints.

"How do you keep your wits together, in all this?" Taleswapper asked her.

"Wits?" she asked him sharply. "Do you think anyone with wits would put up with this?"

Miller showed him to his room. That's what he called it, "your room, as long as you care to stay." It had a large bed and a feather pillow, and blankets, too, and half of one wall was the back of the chimney, so it was warm. Taleswapper hadn't been offered a bed like this in all his wandering. "Promise me that your name isn't really Procrustes," he said.

Miller didn't understand the allusion, but it didn't matter, he knew the look on Taleswapper's face. No doubt he'd seen it before. "We don't put our guests in the worst room, Taleswapper, we put them in the best. And no more talk about that."

"You have to let me work for you tomorrow, then."

"Oh, there's jobs to do, if you're good with your hands. And if you ain't ashamed of women's work, my wife could use a help or two. We'll see what happens." At that, Miller left the room and closed the door behind him.

The noise of the house was only partly dampened by the closed door, but it was a music that Taleswapper didn't mind hearing. It was only afternoon, but he couldn't help himself. He swung off his pack and pried off his boots and eased himself down on the mattress. It rustled like a straw tick, but there was a feather mattress on top of that, so it was deep and soft. And the straw was fresh, and dried herbs hung by the hearthstones to give it the smell of thyme and rosemary. Did I ever lie upon so soft a bed in Philadelphia? Or before that, in England? Not since I left my mother's womb, he thought.

There was nothing shy about the use of powers in this house; the hex was right in the open, painted above the door. But he recognized the pattern. It wasn't a peacemaker, designed to quell any violence in the soul that slept here. It wasn't a warning, and it wasn't a fending. Not a bit of it was designed to protect the house from the guest, or the guest from the house. It was for comfort, pure and simple. And it was perfectly, exquisitely drawn, exactly the right proportions. An exact hex wasn't easy to draw, being made of threes. Taleswapper couldn't remember seeing a more perfect one.

So it didn't surprise him, as he lay on the bed, to feel the muscles of his body unknotting, as if this bed and this room were undoing the weariness of twenty-five years of wandering. It occurred to him that when he died, he hoped the grave was as comfortable as this bed.

When Alvin Junior rocked him awake, the whole house smelled of sage and pepper and simmered beef. "You've just got time to use the privy, wash up, and come eat," said the boy.

"I must have fallen asleep," said Taleswapper.

"That's what I made that hex to do," said the boy. "Works good, don't it?" Then he charged out of the room.

Almost immediately Taleswapper heard one of the girls yelling the most alarming series of threats at the boy. The quarrel continued at top volume as Taleswapper went out to the privy, and when he came back inside, the yelling was still going on—though Taleswapper thought perhaps now it was a different sister yelling.

"I swear tonight in your sleep Al Junior I'll sew a skunk to the soles of your feet!" Al's answer was muffled by distance, but it caused another bout of screaming. Taleswapper had heard yelling before. Sometimes it was love and sometimes it was hate. When it was hate, he got out as quickly as he could. In this house, he could stay.

Hands and face washed, he was clean enough that Goody Faith allowed him to carry the loaves of bread to ihe table—"as long as you don't let the bread touch that gamy shirt of yours." Then Taleswapper took his place in line, bowl in hand, as the whole family trooped into the kitchen and emerged with the majority of a hog parceled out among them.

It was Faith, not Miller himself, who called on one of the girls to pray, and Taleswapper took note that Miller didn't so much as close his eyes, though all the children had bowed heads and clasped hands. It was as if prayer was a thing he tolerated, but didn't encourage. Without having to ask, Taleswapper knew that Alvin Miller and the preacher down in that fine white church did not get along at all. Taleswapper decided Miller might even appreciate a proverb from his book: "As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys."

The meal was not a time of chaos, to Taleswapper's surprise. Each child in turn reported what he did that day, and all listened, sometimes giving advice or praise. Finally, when the stew was gone and Taleswapper was dabbing at the last traces in his bowl with a sop of bread, Miller turned to him, just like he had to everyone else in the family.

"And your day, Taleswapper. Was it well spent?"

"I walked some miles before noon, and climbed a tree," said Taleswapper. "There I saw a steeple, which led me to a town. There a Christian man feared my hidden powers, though he saw none of them, and so did a preacher, though he said he didn't believe I had any. Still, I was looking for a meal and a bed, and a chance to work to earn them, and a woman said that the folks at the end of a particular wagon track would take me in."

"That would be our daughter Eleanor," said Faith.

"Yes," said Taleswapper. "I see now that she has her mother's eyes, which are always calm no matter what is happening."

"No, friend," said Faith. "It's just that these eyes have seen, such times that since then it hasn't been easy to alarm me."

"I hope before I leave to hear the story of such times," Taleswapper said.

Faith looked away as she put another slab of cheese on a grandchild's bread.

Taleswapper went right on with his account of the day, however, not wishing to show that she might have embarrassed him by not answering. "That wagon track was most peculiar," he said. "There were covered bridges over brooks that a child could wade in, and a man could step over. I hope to hear the story of those bridges before I go."

Again, no one would meet his gaze.

"And when I came out of the woods, I found a mill with no millstone, and two boys wrestling on a wagon, and a miller who gave me the worst throw of my life, and a family that took me in and gave me the best room in the house even though I was a stranger, and they didn't know me to be good or evil."

"Of course you're good," said Al Junior.

"Do you mind my asking. I've met many hospitable people in my time, and stayed in many a happy home, but not one happier than this, and no one quite so glad to see me."

All were still around the table. Finally, Faith raised her head and smiled at him. "I'm glad you found us to be happy," she said. "But we all remember other times as well, and perhaps our present happiness is sweeter, from the memory of grief."

"But why do you take in a man like me?"

Miller himself answered. "Because once we were strangers, and good folk took us in."

"I lived in Philadelphia for a time, and it strikes me to ask you, are you of the Society of Friends?"

Faith shook her head. "I'm Presbyterian. So are many of the children."

Taleswapper looked at Miller.

"I'm nothing," he said.

"A Christian isn't nothing," said Taleswapper.

"I'm no Christian, either."

"Ah," said Taleswapper. "A Deist, then, like Tom Jefferson." The children murmured at his mention of the great man's name.

"Taleswapper, I'm a father who loves his children, a husband who loves his wife, a farmer who pays his debts, and a miller without a millstone." Then the man stood up from the table and walked away. They heard a door close. He was gone away outside.

Taleswapper turned to Faith. "Oh, milady, I'm afraid you must regret my coming to your house.

"You ask a powerful lot of questions," she said.

"I told you my name, and my name is what I do. Whenever I sense that there's a story, one that matters, one that's true, I hunger for it. And if I hear it, and believe it, then I remember it forever, and tell it again wherever I go."

"That's how you earn your way?" asked one of the girls.

"I earn my way by helping mend wagons and dig ditches and spin thread and anything else that needs doing. But my life work is tales, and I swap them one for one. You may think right now that you don't want to tell me any of your stories, and that's fine with me, because I never took a story that wasn't willingly told. I'm no thief. But you see, I've already got a story—the things that happened to me today. The kindest people and the softest bed between the Mizzipy and the Alph."

"Where's the Alph? Is that a river?" asked Cally.

"What, you want a story?" asked Taleswapper.

Yes, clamored the children.

"But not about the river Alph," said Al Junior. "That's not a real place."

Taleswapper looked at him in genuine surprise. "How did you know? Have you read Lord Byron's collection of Coleridge's poetry?"

Al Junior looked around in bafflement.

"We don't get much bookstuff here," said Faith. "The preacher gives them Bible lessons, so they can learn to read."

"Then how did you know the river Alph isn't real?"

Al Junior scrunched his face, as if to say, Don't ask me questions when I don't even know the answer myself. "The story I want is about Jefferson. You said his name like you met him."

"Oh, I did. And Tom Paine, and Patrick Henry before they hanged him, and I saw the sword that cut off George Washington's head. I even saw King Robert the Second, before the French sank his ship back in naught one and took him to the bottom of the sea."

"Where he belonged," murmured Faith.

"If not deeper," said one of the older girls.

"I'll say amen to that. They say in Appalachee that he had so much blood on his hands that even his bones are stained brown with it, and even the most indiscriminate fish won't gnaw at them."

The children laughed.

"Even more than Tom Jefferson," said Al Junior, "I want a tale of the greatest American wizard. I bet you knew Ben Franklin."

Again, the child had startled him. How did he guess that of all tales, those about Ben Franklin were the ones he best loved to tell? "Know him? Oh, a little," said Taleswapper, knowing that the way he said it promised them all the stories they could hope for. "I lived with him only half a dozen years, and there were eight hours every night that I wasn't with him—so I can't say I know much."

Al Junior leaned over the table, his eyes bright and unblinking. "Was he truly a maker?"

"All those stories, each in its own time," said Taleswapper. "As long as your father and mother are willing to have me around, and as long as I believe I'm being useful, I'll stay and tell stories night and day."

"Starting with Ben Franklin," insisted Alvin Junior. "Did he really pull lightning out of the sky?"