Water Logic (31 page)

“Once I thought I understood everything,” said Damon. He made a soldier’s gesture of helplessness. “Now—nothing. Nothing at all.”

They stayed the night at Hundred Farm. (“A hundred what?” asked Damon, and couldn’t believe that no one remembered anymore.) There the farmers treated them with minimal courtesy. Even when Seth directly chided them, it made no difference. Damon made several light remarks that earned only blank stares. Seth reported the doings in Watfield, and not even when she stressed the importance of Karis’s declaration making the Sainnites into Shaftali did they become friendly. “We heard that from another traveler,” said one without enthusiasm. Another made a caustic remark that it was not a surprising declaration from a half-Sainnite.

Seth was so consternated that she could not trust herself to make a reasonable reply. But Damon said, “You have many travelers here? We see only ourselves.”

No one responded to him, as though they had agreed to pretend he did not even exist. Then, one of the older children spoke, for like Seth he seemed to find that silence inexplicable and unbearable. “So far there’s been just one. He taught me how to carve.”

“Will you show me?” said Damon.

For a man who had never had contact with children, he was managing well. Despite the ill-disguised objections of the boy’s parents, Damon and he soon went into a nearby parlor. The boy launched an enthusiastic explanation of how he had carved a stick into a bird.

Seth said to the remaining people, “Do you know that Basdowners’ decency is renowned all over Shaftal?”

The Hundred Farm people applied themselves to their stew as though they had not eaten for weeks.

“When I visited you last, on my way to Watfield, you all said you wanted peace. Therefore I’m on the Peace Committee, and I’ve brought Damon to Basdown to see whether a Sainnite soldier can be comfortable on a Shaftali farm. He’s here because of you.”

One of the people at the table had been Seth’s brother. They had grown up together at High Meadow, and it was possible they might share a parent, though no one paid attention to such things here. He muttered at his soup plate, “Well, we were wrong. And so are you.”

“How do you know?” Seth looked around the table. “How am I to speak for Basdown, if Basdown won’t speak to me?”

A few of the farmers brought themselves to talk. They said things Seth had heard many times already, unarguable facts and arguable judgments. Seth’s experience as a councilor, tiresome though it could be, proved itself useful. She restrained her impulse to disagree, and merely asked questions and listened. She began to hear a name, Jareth, that didn’t belong to anyone in Basdown.

She and Damon slept in the cow barn that night. She didn’t want to leave Damon alone, and the farmers didn’t want him in their guest room. They made their beds in a hayrick where it still smelled like last summer. “I guess the assassin has another kind of poison,” Seth said, as they lay in the soft darkness. The cows were left in the field at night, now it was spring, watched over by cow dogs. Seth and Damon were the barn’s only occupants.

“They don’t know he’s an assassin,” said he.

“Well, I’ll tell them as soon as I can. I hope that makes them reconsider what they’re thinking.”

Hay rustled under Damon. He yawned noisily. “They should just think what you tell them to think.”

“What? They’re not soldiers!”

“They are stupid as soldiers.”

Now Seth wanted to disagree. But she lay thinking, and Damon’s breathing told her he had fallen asleep. The boy had mentioned to Damon that the wood carver, Jareth the assassin, had guested at Hundred Farm for ten days, the longest any stranger could reasonably stay anywhere, and then moved on to another farm farther to the south. He was behaving more like a suitor than a traveler, remaining in each household long enough to demonstrate his personality and skills. He was in no hurry to leave Basdown’s comforts, and it was not difficult to imagine why, as he had camped in the Barrens through the end of winter and most of the mud season.

She wanted him away from Basdown. She wanted to cull him out, like an unhealthy cow from the herd. Just find him, Emil had said. But Emil had not thought about the damage one man could do.

And why could he do that damage, Seth wondered? In ten days this Jareth had managed to change opinions that Seth would have assumed were unchangeable, as they were built on a foundation of ideals: hospitality, respecting boundaries. “A farm is a farm,” Basdowners often said. They would say it about people who expressed odd ideas, or did things in a peculiar manner, or fell in love with an unlikely person. It surely had been said often about her.

The journey to High Meadow the next day proceeded slowly, for Seth and Damon stopped at several of the farms that abutted the road. They did not find the assassin, but Seth could easily tell which households Jareth had guested in. They had to cease looking for him finally, because Seth had become so furious she feared she might rush up and hit him. She would ask Mama where he was, for Mama was so gregarious she could hardly bring herself to stay at High Meadow for more than three days at a stretch. Only Seth, whose fame as a cow doctor had kept her moving from farm to farm, had been less likely than Mama to be found at home.

High Meadow Farm bordered the highway near the southern edge of Basdown, and Seth’s family had done a lot of business with the Sainnites who managed the children’s garrison located in the wilderness further south. Seth and Damon had scarcely come abreast of the farm boundary when she heard the High Meadow dogs signaling each other, and soon a half dozen had gathered, a panting, grinning, enthusiastic escort that kept pace with the travelers but did not set one foot into the road. Damon seemed nervous, so Seth taught him how to determine that they were friendly.

“The cow dogs of Basdown are famous,” she told him.

“Because they look funny?”

“They are funny. They even play jokes on farmers and each other. But they’re more famous for what they won’t do. They will not cross any farm boundary, they observe a strict daily schedule, and they berate anyone who does something they disapprove of. It’s impossible to move cow dogs from one farm to another, even as puppies. If they’re prevented from returning to their home farm, they become melancholy and die.”

“Like Threeflowers,” said Damon.

“And don’t tell Basdowners that their dogs look funny.”

“But their legs are too short.”

“So the cows will kick over their heads.”

“They have no tails.”

“So the cows can’t step on them.”

“Their ears are huge.”

“So they can hear everything that happens on the farmstead.”

“They are so hairy!”

“So they are impervious to wet and cold.”

“They are perfect dogs?”

“Exactly. Now, this is important: cow dogs believe there are only two creatures in the world: dogs and cows. And you don’t want to be a cow, believe me.”

“No!” said Damon earnestly.

“So learn to be a dog. Here’s the track to the farmstead—I’ll take your arm so the dogs can see that you’re with me.” She tucked her hand in Damon’s elbow, and as they stepped off the highway they were surrounded by milling dogs whose noses Seth had to kiss in proper order before she and Damon could go one step further. Soon Damon, laughing breathlessly, had a young dog pulling on his shirt sleeve to try to convince him to wrestle.

“Councilor Seth, this dog is eating my shirt.”

As Seth turned to help Damon, she noticed a figure hurrying toward them down the track. “Oh, there’s Mama!”

“Is that Seth?” Mama cried, when she was close enough to see. “Well, no wonder the dogs are so excited.”

They embraced, and Mama kept talking. “We never expected to see you so soon. Is something wrong? We have heard about the terrible attack, and how the G’deon’s wife got drowned.”

“I’m fine, Mama. I’m just home for a visit.”

The young dog, apparently having determined that Damon didn’t know how to play, was now demonstrating and encouraging him with sharp barks. Damon knew how to take orders; he was already mastering the elementary chase and retreat.

“This is Damon, a Watfield Sainnite who’s here to learn how farmers live.”

Mama examined Damon with an expression Seth couldn’t interpret. The soldier left off his playing and came over to make a formal greeting, with his eyes still crinkled with delight. “Your dogs are perfect!” he declared.

“We could not farm without them,” said Mama. “Well, come to the house. You must be ready for a sit-down.”

Soon they were settled on the porch with the other stay-at-homes, sipping tea and eating cheese biscuits. Two babies crowded Seth’s lap; children asked Damon awkward questions; the old dogs whose job it was to herd the toddlers away from the fire and the stairs, or to show ancient Sarmon the way home when he got confused, all lay yawning in the sunshine. “You can sleep in your old room,” said one of the elders to Seth. “But Damon will have to share with someone.”

“He can’t have the room in the attic?” That room, though crammed with boxes and chests of stored goods, had a spare bed for visitors.

“Another visitor’s using it, a man named Jareth who seems to be looking for a family.”

“Oh,” Seth managed to say. “Damon will share my room, then.”

The setting sun painted the rolling hills of High Meadow in vivid splashes of color and shadow. On the far side of the farmstead the heavy-uddered cows trod the path to the barn in stately indifference, while their calves bounded madly up and down the dignified procession. The dogs self-importantly guarded the rear, uttering occasional instructional barks to the lightsome calves. The milkers also had begun to parade down the cobbled paths from the dairy and the main house to the barn, shadowed by cats, who wanted their evening dish of milk.

The laborers were walking down the path to Seth’s right in twos and threes, with their hoes on their shoulders, raggedly singing a question-and-answer
song:

What will you do when the water flows

When the earth falls apart and the cold wind blows?

I’ll stay by the hearth when the water flows

When the earth falls apart and the cold wind blows.

For I’m no fool and I’ll never leave home.

Beyond them, beyond the southern edge of the farmstead, a distant patch of water glimmered, marking a low wetland where people sometimes went to gather rushes or try their luck at fishing. There were no more cow farms in that direction, nor any farms at all, as far south as Seth had ever traveled—just wilderness.

“By the land! Is that Seth?” someone cried.

She waved to the laborers. Among the familiar, dirt-stained, wind-furrowed faces she saw a young man with a bounce in his step and a guileless smile on his face. Seth gave him a nod, as she would greet any stranger, and looked away to answer someone’s query about why she had returned so soon. “I missed the cows,” she said.

“You didn’t!”

They were upon her now, jostling each other as they kissed and embraced her. Their hands were rough; their hats and headcloths sweatstained. They smelled of honest work in the warm sunshine.

“This is Jareth,” someone said.

Seth forced herself to clasp the young man’s hand. “Greetings. I’m Seth.”

“Seth is the Basdown Councilor!” someone said importantly. “She has been at the big meeting in Watfield!”

“You must have stories to tell,” said the young man.

“Why have you come home so soon?” asked Liralin, Seth’s favorite niece.

Seth gladly turned away to greet her. “Well, what are you doing here? Aren’t you married?”

Lira gestured as if waving flies from her face. “I didn’t like that farm after all. They couldn’t cook!” She tucked her hand into Seth’s elbow. “They had some strange ideas about cheese. And no one wanted to sleep with me.”

“You scared them, probably.”

“Oh, I guess.”

Even at High Meadow people found Lira difficult and irritating. She was a knowledgeable cheese-maker, but so inflexible that no one wanted to work with her. Seth had taken over the job of planning her future when Lira’s mother died of a fever three winters ago, but this was the second time a marriage Seth arranged had failed. Seth said, “Maybe you’ll spend your entire life at High Meadow, like I did.”

“What a horrible possibility,” said Lira.

In the company of these people Seth returned to the main house, with the assassin behind her and the skin of her back crawling in anticipation of a deadly pinprick. Damon stood alone on the porch. In his canvas breeches and travel-stained longshirt he looked like any other farmer.

“Who’s that?” asked Lira.

“My travel companion, Damon.”

“He hurt his back, did he?”

“No, all soldiers stand that way.”

“Oh, you’ve taken up with another Sainnite? How am I to keep up with you?”

“I like him, but he’s not my lover.”

Lira continued to tease her and could hear Jareth’s voice behind them, but not what he was saying. Silence followed. “You’ve brought a Sainnite to guest with us, Seth?” one of the young men asked.

Seth gritted her teeth, for after her day’s visits even that tone of voice could make her angry. “There’s a law against it?” she said over her shoulder.

“There should be,” said someone, possibly Jareth.

“Maybe we should return to how we used to be, turning away and even killing every stranger.”

No one answered, and Lira gave Seth’s arm a tug. “Now, Seth, it’s my job to be the most disagreeable person in Basdown.”

“I’m not sure of that any more.”

“You’re crabby with hunger, I guess. Of course the food will hardly be worth eating.”

“Come visit me in Watfield sometime. I know the perfect husband for you, except that he’s married to his kitchen already.”

On the porch, Seth left Lira and went to Damon to tell him which of the people was Jareth. “Shall I kill him?” asked Damon.

“You’re not serious!”

“No, no,” Damon said. “No, no, no.”

“It would not make you more popular, not at all.”

Damon shrugged. “It will not make me less.”

He had remained so cheerful all day that Seth had begun to think he was impervious to hostility. But now she felt a fresh fury. “What is wrong with these people!”

“What’s wrong with you?” someone said.

She turned around, and it was Jareth. She grabbed Damon’s arm, but the soldier seemed entirely relaxed. “Greetings! I am Damon,” he said.