The Ropemaker Read online

  It was strange for Tilja, making friends with a girl her own age who was also her grandmother, an old woman with a bad hip and a dodgy temper. But Meena didn’t seem to find it anything like as strange when Tilja asked her about it.

  “Mostly I don’t think about it,” she said. “I suppose it’s like remembering a dream, except it doesn’t go shifting around the way dreams do.”

  She paused for a moment, thinking.

  “There, now,” she went on. “I can remember what it’s like, my hip hurting, and I can remember what Faheel told us, and going back a bit I can remember things like speaking my mind to your da about buying that stupid great horse . . .”

  Another pause.

  “. . . but mostly, like I say, I shut it away. No. It shuts itself away, more like. It’s a different room from the one I’m in, and the door’s closed. I can get up and go through, but the door’s the sort that shuts itself soon as you let go. And, anyway, I like this room.”

  She laughed. Her laugh hadn’t changed at all, but Tilja heard it a lot more often now. And she could be sharp as ever still, mostly just teasing, but also speaking her mind with vigor when anything annoyed her. It was all part of the sheer gusto with which she lived, so brimfull of the pleasure of the moment that the surplus spilled over. That made the change easy for Tilja. Anybody would have wanted to be Meena’s friend.

  Tahl had a much harder time with Alnor. Though they looked so like, they were very different. Tahl was outgoing, interested in everything, always ready to talk to passersby. Alnor was withdrawn, touchy, stiff with strangers on first meeting, as if they were somehow a challenge to him. He spoke to them in much the same formal manner that he had used as an old man, but less naturally, as if this was a style he had not long ago chosen for himself and was still getting used to.

  On their second morning they were walking in pairs, Meena and Alnor leading the way, and Tahl and Tilja not quite in earshot behind. Meena was chatting away, with Alnor laughing as he answered. Tahl, on the other hand, had been unusually silent so far. Now Tilja heard him sigh.

  “What’s up?” she said.

  He shook his head and sighed again.

  “I want my grandfather back,” he muttered.

  “Oh, no! This is wonderful! It’s thrilling!”

  “For them. Have you heard him talking to me? As if I were some kind of henchman. I’m not anyone’s henchman.”

  “Why can’t you just be friends? That’s how I feel about Meena—as if she were my elder sister. I’ve never had an elder sister before. I’ve always been eldest. I’m really enjoying it.”

  “I’m not. And I wouldn’t if he were my elder brother. He’d be like this anyway. It’s all right in a grandfather—and anyway he needed me then. He doesn’t now. Besides, just look at the two of them! Next thing, they’ll be falling in love! They’ve started already!”

  “That will be fun for them. Meena will really enjoy it.”

  “They’re our grandparents, Til!”

  Tilja laughed, but watching the pair ahead of them for a minute or two, she could tell he was right.

  A day and a half north of Goloroth they came to Ramram, the small city lying along the other side of the river, with its immense fortress built long ago to defend the Empire against raiders from the south who had never come. The famous fair on the bridge was in full swing.

  “Let’s just have a look,” said Meena.

  “There’s nothing we need,” said Alnor.

  “Who said anything about need?” said Meena. “When d’you think I’m going to get another chance to come to Ramram? With money to spend? Right, Tilja?”

  (Alnor had put himself in charge of Faheel’s purse, and taken a gold coin out of it each day since they had landed. When Tilja touched one of these it remained a gold coin, so they knew that the magic was not in it, but in the purse.)

  Ramram, thought Tilja. Calico . . .

  “I’ll never hear the last of it if I don’t bring something home for Anja,” she said.

  Meena frowned, puzzled for a moment, until she went into her other memory-room and found the name.

  “Nor you won’t,” she said. “Come on, Alnor. I’ll buy you a belt buckle or something.”

  “We’ll be quicker if we go two and two,” said Alnor when they stood at the entrance to the bridge. He squinted for a moment at the sun. “We’ll meet back here when the shadow of that column reaches the drinking trough. Don’t lose sight of each other.”

  Tilja smelled the familiar reek of sun-dried dung before she saw the horse fair, lying along the near bank of the river, invisible from the road, but she didn’t drag Tahl off at once to the horse lines. What she’d said about Anja was true, and this was the best chance she’d get to find something for her. The bridge was as busy and crowded as the streets of Talagh, but felt very different. Though hugely larger and richer than the stalls at a Gathering in the Valley, it had the same kind of feel, friendly and businesslike. Tahl bought himself a hunting knife and Tilja found a mother-of-pearl hair comb for Anja and a plainer, tortoiseshell one for Ma. Satisfied, she started back.

  “We don’t have to go yet,” said Tahl. “There’s lots more . . .”

  “I want to go and look for Calico. The man said he was coming here.”

  “Why on earth? You could get a much better—”

  “Calico belongs at Woodbourne. Like your dog you told me about at Northbeck. She was useless, but you kept her there till she died.”

  “Oh, all right.”

  “Course I’ve still got her,” said the horse dealer. “I’m a man of my word, I am. Besides, d’you think anyone would have bought her off me? You sure it’s her you want? I’ve a sweet little pony, now, five years if he’s a day. Purebred Harst Mountain, and they’re tough as they come, but good tempered with it. Had a kick from one of the others a couple of days back, so he’s going a bit lame in his off fore—”

  “Spavined, you mean,” said Tahl, unable to resist a haggle.

  “Shut up,” said Tilja. “Look, I’m sure he’s lovely, but I just want Calico back. I’ll pay you the full seven days, if you like.”

  “Well, if you’re sure, though I reckoned I’d be giving her away at the end. She’s along this way. . . . And while you’re here, young lady, there’s something I may as well ask you. You were trying to get into Goloroth that night, right? I’d’ve said you couldn’t’ve made it, but seeing you’re here . . . well, did you?”

  Tilja nodded. The man lowered his voice.

  “There was something happened inside the city that night, big enough to make ’em close the gates all next day. Some of the racket you could’ve heard back here in Ramram. And now there’s all this loose magic blowing around. Devil of a time I had of it, bringing my beasts up north, though every one of them’s got an amulet in its mane. And now you’ve got into the city and out again. . . . So what’s up, supposing you know?”

  Tilja hesitated. To tell anyone anything about what they’d done might be dangerous. To refuse to tell might be just as bad. She glanced at Tahl.

  “Yes,” he said easily. “We sneaked in with the slave children. We found our grandparents in one of the big barns. Somebody’d brought something magical in—”

  “But it’s warded to hell, the city!”

  “Yes, I know. But they managed it somehow. And a couple of magicians came to get it for themselves and fought over it and there was an explosion and lots of screaming and running about, so we managed to get out. That’s all I know. I’ve no idea what it was all about. You haven’t heard anything else, have you? Nothing from Talagh, for instance? I’d have thought they’d send somebody down to sort things out.”

  “If they did, it’s not the sort of stuff folk like us get to hear about. Nor anything else. Better off that way, like as not.”

  He shrugged and spread his hands, accepting the appalling whims of the Empire.

  “What about Calico?” said Tilja.

  “Well, young lady, seeing you’re set on it, we�
��ll call it six days and leave it at that. Here she is, then. Looks pleased to see you, too.”

  “That’ll make a change,” said Tilja, but for a moment it seemed almost true. As the dealer led her out of the line Calico sidled up to Tilja like any normal horse greeting its owner, but as soon as Tilja reached to pat her she flattened her ears and turned away. Forgiveness was no part of her scheme of things.

  Meena laughed when she saw Calico, but Alnor was furious. He couldn’t complain of the waste of money, when a single gold coin from Faheel’s purse would have bought them at least two decent horses. And Calico could carry their packs, and Tilja would deal with her moods. But in his own mind he was in command, and buying Calico back was something he hadn’t had a say in. So both he and Calico sulked all afternoon.

  Next morning Tilja was walking with Tahl when he said, “This fellow who’s supposed to find us somewhere, and make it snow properly in the Valley again and so on—did Faheel say anything else to you about that?”

  Tilja shook her head. She’d been expecting the question and had decided that was the best she could do—not quite lying because she might have meant only that she couldn’t answer, which was true.

  Tahl looked at her with his bright-eyed stare, making her very uncomfortable. He started to say something, changed his mind and began again.

  “It sounded as if he’d forgotten about it, but he’d thought of everything else. Tiny things. That purse . . . and he must have asked you why we’d all come to his island in the first place. Didn’t he?”

  “Well, yes, but . . . I told him we’d come from the Valley, because he wanted to know about Axtrig, but then I said he’d better wait for Meena and Alnor to wake up, because they were the ones who wanted to talk to him.”

  “You mean he knew what Meena wanted before she told him, but he’d just forgotten about it? He didn’t forget anything else, though. He remembered about the way-leaves, for instance.”

  “He was very tired by the end.”

  Again the look of doubt.

  “I suppose so,” Tahl said discontentedly. Tilja walked on with shame in her heart and a chill in the pit of her stomach—shame for her half-truths told to someone who trusted her, and the chill of dread about what else Tahl’s bright and restless intelligence might tease out. Oh, she thought, let the Ropemaker come and claim the ring soon, soon, so that this can be over!

  15

  The Road North

  It was curious how slowly the news seeped through of what had happened at Talagh. The Emperor was dead and the power of the Watchers broken, but the body of that strange great beast, the Empire, still twitched with a kind of life, like a headless chicken running round the yard at Woodbourne. In the evenings at the way stations Tilja heard people talking in anxious voices about the amount of loose magic gusting around, and complaining in guarded tones about the Watchers falling down on their job. It was clear that something had gone wrong with the system that had always ruled their lives, but no one knew what. It was nine days before any other signs came through.

  Then there was a flurry of grander travelers on the road, horsemen at a rapid canter carrying the message staff of their Landholder with a bell at its top clanging to clear a path; and once or twice the Landholder himself with only half a dozen outriders for retinue because he too was in a hurry. All this could only mean that something important was happening high in the upper reaches of the Empire.

  The news, when it seeped down to the lowest levels, where those who made the journey to Goloroth and back had their existence, was still only rumors. Some said the Watchers had killed the Emperor and were fighting among themselves, others that he had dismissed them and they were revolting against him, others yet that one of his regiments had mutinied and killed him—a regiment of women, according to one version.

  “Women soldiers!” Tilja heard a man saying. “It’ll be a long time before anyone tries that again!”

  “Let’s hope he’s right,” said Tahl later. “There’s going to be a new Emperor one day. We don’t want him getting the same idea.”

  Despite these upheavals, for a while nothing much seemed to change for the ordinary travelers. The same laws ruled their lives that had always ruled them. The same bribes had to be paid. And so far Tilja and the others had had no trouble. They had no fees to pay, they were just children going north from Goloroth, like tens of thousands of children before them. Meena was the first to notice the oddity.

  The Grand Trunk Road was as busy as ever, with travelers of all kinds moving at different speeds. With their strong young legs and their longing to be home the four of them went faster than most, and kept going later, so they often passed others who had already settled down by the road to rest out the worst of the heat. Tahl, typically, insisted on greeting these as they went by, though the conversation seldom got further than an agreement that it was hot.

  They were walking along, four abreast for once, when another such group came in sight, two women and a man. One of the women had peeled an orange and was passing the segments to the other two, who were gazing blankly at the road.

  “Just keep an eye on their faces when Tahl says hello to them,” Meena whispered. “Don’t stare. You don’t want them to notice.”

  “Hello,” said Tahl as they came up. “Hot, isn’t it?”

  The man started slightly. The woman with the orange looked up. The other one’s eyes widened and her mouth half opened. The expressions lasted only a moment, then the women smiled emptily and the man said, “You can say that again,” and reached for another segment of orange.

  “See,” said Meena, as soon as they were out of earshot. “It’s like they’d never seen us coming. There we were, out in the middle of the road, no one else in sight, and they hadn’t so much as noticed us till Tahl said something to them. You remember the story, how Dirna and Reyel never had any trouble after they’d talked to Asarta and she’d sent them off to look for Faheel, because she’d worked it so that people didn’t seem to notice they were there? Old Faheel’s done the same for us now.”

  “He can’t have done it for Til,” said Tahl. “Magic just runs off her.”

  “Her being with us does it, maybe,” said Meena. “It mightn’t work supposing you were alone, though, Til. . . . You may as well be a bit careful about that.”

  She was right, as they found out a few days later. By now they had seen definite signs of the system’s breaking down. At one way station the women who were doling out the free meals for those going the Common Way insisted on being paid. They said they needed the money, because their official allowance hadn’t come through. At another somebody caught one of the guards stealing from his baggage, and when he complained to the warden he was laughed at. And next day, where the road crossed a tributary of the Great River, there had been armed men on the bridge demanding a toll from all travelers, but by the time Tilja and the others reached the place enough furious people had gathered to overpower them and throw them into the river.

  It was almost dark by the time they reached their way station that evening. As usual Tilja went and bought fodder for Calico while the other three fetched supper from the food stalls. She was on her way back when she sensed that someone was following her and looked round.

  “Hold it right there,” said a man’s voice.

  She dropped the bag of fodder and started to run but he grabbed her by the shoulder. Her shout was stifled by a gritty hand.

  “You got some money,” he growled. “Don’t try and pretend not. Just seen you buying stuff. Get it out and drop it on the ground and you’ll not get hurt.”

  She tried to jerk herself free. His other hand grabbed her wrist and wrenched it up behind her back, twisting to cause more pain, and again as she bit at his palm.

  “Let go,” said Alnor’s voice.

  “You keep out of this, sonny.”

  “Let go.”

  “If that’s how you want it . . .”

  She was flung violently aside, and fell. As she picked herself u
p she saw the man, with Alnor facing him and Tahl and Meena a little behind, all silhouetted against the line of lights on the far side of the courtyard. The man was squat, with a bulging belly. He didn’t look like a fighter, but he had a knife in his hand. Alnor walked toward him, slightly up on his toes, like a dancer.

  The man gestured with the knife to stop him. Alnor moved as if meaning to dodge the thrust but instantly twisted the other way, swinging his body to the left while his right leg slashed up and caught the man cleanly on the wrist.

  The man shouted with pain and let go of the knife. It looped upward and fell. Almost before it hit the ground Alnor had twisted again, on his right foot this time, with his left foot scything round to strike the man in the back of the knee, toppling him to the ground, where he lay groaning. Alnor turned away.

  “Are you all right?” he asked Tilja. “Did he hurt you?”

  “My shoulder’s sore,” she said shakily. “I . . . I think I’m all right. Thank you. . . . I had some fodder.”

  “I’ve got it,” said Tahl. He sounded much more excited than Alnor, who had now turned back to the man.

  “Keep away,” he said, prodding him in the neck with his toe. “That’s what I’ll break next time.”

  “Meena noticed him following you,” explained Tahl as they went back together.

  “Can you do that?”

  “Kick-fight? My da died before he could teach me. And by then Alnor . . .”

  “Oh yes. You told me at the Gathering.”

  “Well, now’s your chance,” said Meena. “Alnor, why don’t you teach him kick-fighting? He ought to know how. And seeing how things are going, it might come in handy if he could do it too.”

  Alnor frowned. His face went blank for a moment, just as Meena’s did whenever she went into her other memory-room, something he did very seldom, as if hating to be reminded of the helplessness his blindness had cursed him with. He nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “We’ll do that from now on. And from now on, Tilja, you’d better keep close to us all the time.”