The White Rose

Fifteen The Barrowland

Case heard Corbie was back at last. He ran to the old man’s home. Corbie greeted him with a hug. “How you been, lad?”

“We thought you were gone for good.” Corbie had been away eight months.

“I tried to get back. There’s damned near no roads anymore.”

“I know. The Colonel asked the Taken to fly supplies in.”

“I heard. The military government in Oar got off their butts when that hit. Sent a whole regiment to start a new road. It’s about a third of the way built. I came up on part of it.”

Case donned his serious face. “Was it really your daughter?”

“No,” Corbie said. On departing he had announced that he was off to meet a woman who might be his daughter. He claimed to have given over his savings to a man who would find his children and bring them to Oar.

“You sound disappointed.”

He was. His researches had not worked out well. Too many records were missing.

“What sort of winter was it, Case?”

“Bad.”

“It was bad down there, too. I worried for you all.”

“We had trouble with the tribes. That was the worst part. You can always stay inside and throw another log on. But you can’t eat if thieves steal your stores.”

“I thought it might come to that.”

“We watched your house. They broke in some of the empty places.”

“Thank you.” Corbie’s eyes narrowed. His home had been violated? How thoroughly? A careful searcher might have found enough to hang him. He glanced out a window. “Looks like rain.”

“It always looks like rain. When it don’t look like snow. It got twelve feet deep last winter. People are worried. What’s happened to the weather?”

“Old folks say it goes this way, after the Great Comet. The winters turn bad for a few years. Down in Oar it never got that cold. Plenty of snow, though.”

“Wasn’t that cold here. Just snowed so much you couldn’t get out. I like to went crazy. The whole Barrowland looked like a frozen lake. You could hardly tell where the Great Barrow was.”

“Uhm? I have to unpack yet. If you don’t mind? Let everyone know I’m back. I’m near broke. I’ll need work.”

“Will do, Corbie.”

Corbie watched from a window as Case ambled back to the Guard compound, taking an elevated walkway built since his departure. The mud below explained it. That and Colonel Sweet’s penchant for keeping his men occupied. Once Case vanished he went to the second floor.

Nothing had been disturbed. Good. He peeped out a window, toward the Barrowland.

How it had changed in just a few years. A few more and you would not be able to find it.

He grunted, stared the harder. Then he retrieved the silken map from its hiding place, studied it, then the Barrowland again. After a time he fished sweat-stained papers from inside his shirt, where he had carried them since stealing them from the university in Oar. He spread them over the map.

Late that afternoon he rose, donned a cloak, gathered the cane he now carried, and went out. He limped through the water and mud and drizzle till he reached a point overlooking the Great Tragic River.

It was in flood, as always. Its bed had continued to shift. After a time he cursed, smote an old oak with his cane, and turned back.

The day had gone grey with the hour. It would be dark before he got home.

“Damned complications,” he muttered. “I never counted on this. What the hell am I going to do?”

Take the high risk. The one chance he wished most to avoid, though its possible necessity was his real reason for having wintered in Oar.

For the first time in years he wondered if the game were worth the candle.

Whatever his course, it would be dark before he got home.