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"Never mind, it's probably nothing . . . unless you see Sir Throcken dancing in the starlight or looking north with his muzzle upraised, that is. There hasn't been a starkblast in these parts since I was a weebee, and that's many and many-a year a-gone. We've other things to talk about. Is it only what that beast did to your mother that troubles you so, or is there more?"
Tim sighed, not sure how to start.
"I see a coin around your neck that I believe I've seen around your father's. Perhaps that's where you'll begin. But there's one other thing we have to speak of first, and that's protecting your ma. I'd send you to Constable Howard's, no matter it's late, but his house is dark and shuttered. I saw that for myself on my way here. No surprise, either. Everyone knows that when the Covenant Man comes to Tree, Howard Tasley finds some reason to make himself scarce. I'm an old woman and you're but a child. What will we do if Bern Kells comes back to finish what he started?"
Tim, who no longer felt like a child, reached down to his belt. "My father's coin isn't all I found tonight." He pulled Big Ross's hand-ax and showed it to her. "This was also my da's, and if he dares to come back, I'll put it in his head, where it belongs."
The Widow Smack began to remonstrate, but saw a look in his eyes that made her change direction. "Tell me your tale," said she. "Leave out not a word."
When Tim had finished--minding the Widow's command to leave nothing out, he made sure to tell what his mother had said about the peculiar changelessness of the man with the silver basin--his old teacher sat quietly for a moment . . . although the night breeze caused her veil to flutter eerily and made her look as though she were nodding.
"She's right, you know," she said at last. "Yon chary man hasn't aged a day. And tax collecting's not his job. I think it's his hobby. He's a man with hobbies, aye. He has his little pastimes." She raised her fingers in front of her veil, appeared to study them, then returned them to her lap.
"You're not shaking," Tim ventured.
"No, not tonight, and that's a good thing if I'm to sit vigil at your mother's bedside. Which I mean to do. You, Tim, will make yourself a pallet behind the door. 'Twill be uncomfortable, but if your steppa comes back, and if you're to have a chance against him, you'll have to come at him from behind. Not much like Brave Bill in the stories, is it?"
Tim's hands rolled shut, the fingernails digging into his palms. "It's how the bastard did for my da', and all he deserves."
She took one of his hands in her own and soothed it open. "He'll probably not come back, anyway. Certainly not if he thinks he's done for her, and he may. There was so much blood."
"Bastard," Tim said in a low and choking voice.
"He's probably lying up drunk somewhere. Tomorrow you must go to Square Peter Cosington and Slow Ernie Marchly, for it's their patch where your da' now lies. Show them the coin you wear, and tell how you found it in Kells's trunk. They can round up a posse and search until Kells is found and locked up tight in the jailhouse. It won't take them long to run him down, I warrant, and when he comes back sober, he'll claim he has no idea of what he's done. He may even be telling the truth, for when it gets in some men, strong drink draws down a curtain."
"I'll go with them."
"Nay, it's no work for a boy. Bad enough you have to watch for him tonight with your da's hand-ax. Tonight you need to be a man. Tomorrow you can be a boy again, and a boy's place when his mother has been badly hurt is by her side."
"The Covenant Man said he might bide along the Ironwood Trail for another night or two. Maybe I should--"
The hand that had soothed moments before now grasped Tim's wrist where the flesh was thin, and hard enough to hurt. "Never think it! Hasn't he done damage enough?"
"What are you saying? That he made all this happen? It was Kells who killed my da', and it was Kells who beat my mama!"
"But 'twas the Covenant Man who gave you the key, and there's no telling what else he may have done. Or will do, if he gets the chance, for he leaves ruin and weeping in his wake, and has for time out of mind. Do you think people only fear him because he has the power to turn them out on the land if they can't pay the barony taxes? No, Tim, no."
"Do you know his name?"
"Nay, nor need to, for I know what he is--pestilence with a heartbeat. Once upon a bye, after he'd done a foul business here I'd not talk about to a boy, I determined to find out what I could. I wrote a letter to a great lady I knew long ago in Gilead--a woman of discretion as well as beauty, a rare combination--and paid good silver for a messenger to take it and bring a reply . . . which my correspondent in the great city begged me to burn. She said that when Gilead's Covenant Man is not at his hobby of collecting taxes--a job that comes down to licking the tears from the faces of poor working folk--he's an advisor to the palace lords who call themselves the Council of Eld. Although it's only themselves who claim they have any blood connection to the Eld. 'Tis said he's a great mage, and there may be at least some truth in that, for you've seen his magic at work."
"So I have," Tim said, thinking of the basin. And of the way sai Covenant Man seemed to grow taller when he was wroth.
"My correspondent said there are even some who claim he's Maerlyn, he who was court mage to Arthur Eld himself, for Maerlyn was said to be eternal, a creature who lives backward in time." From behind the veil came a snorting sound. "Just thinking of it makes my head hurt, for such an idea makes no earthly sense."
"But Maerlyn was a white magician, or so the stories do say."
"Those who claim the Covenant Man's Maerlyn in disguise say he was turned evil by the glam of the Wizard's Rainbow, for he was given the keeping of it in the days before the Elden Kingdom fell. Others say that, during his wanderings after the fall, he discovered certain artyfax of the Old People, became fascinated by them, and was blackened by them to the bottom of his soul. This happened in the Endless Forest, they say, where he still keeps in a magic house where time stands still."
"Doesn't seem too likely," Tim said . . . although he was fascinated by the idea of a magic house where clock hands never moved and sand never fell in the glass.
"Bullshit is what it is!" And, noting his shocked look: "Cry your pardon, but sometimes only vulgarity will serve. Even Maerlyn couldn't be two places at the same time, mooning around the Endless Forest at one end of the North'rd Barony and serving the lords and gunslingers of Gilead at the other. Nay, the tax man's no Maerlyn, but he is a magician--a black one. So said the lady I once taught, and so I believe. That's why you must never go near him again. Any good he offers to do you will be a lie."
Tim considered this, then asked: "Do you know what a sighe is, sai?"
"Of course. The sighe are the fairy-folk, who supposedly live in the deep woods. Did the dark man speak of them?"
"No, 'twas just some story Straw Willem told me one day at the sawmill."
Now why did I lie?
But deep in his heart, Tim knew.
Bern Kells didn't come back that night, which was for the best. Tim meant to stay on guard, but he was just a boy, and exhausted. I'll close my eyes for a few seconds, to rest them, was what he told himself when he lay down on the straw pallet he
made for himself behind the door, and it felt like no more than a few seconds, but when he opened them again, the cottage was filled with morning light. His father's ax lay on the floor beside him, where his relaxing hand had dropped it. He picked it up, put it back in his belt, and hurried into the bedroom to see his mother.
The Widow Smack was fast asleep in the Tavares rocker, which she had drawn up close to Nell's bed, her veil fluttering with her snores. Nell's eyes were wide open, and they turned toward the sound of Tim's steps. "Who comes?"
"Tim, Mama." He sat beside her on the bed. "Has your sight come back? Even a little?"
She tried to smile, but her swollen mouth could do little more than twitch. "Still dark, I'm afraid."
"It's all right." He raised the hand that wasn't splinted and kissed the back of it. "Probably still too early."
Their voices had roused the Widow. "He says true, Nell."
"Blind or not, next year we'll be turned out for sure, and then what?"
Nell turned her face to the wall and began to cry. Tim looked at the Widow, not sure what to do. She motioned for him to leave. "I'll give her something to calm her--'tis in my bag. You have men to see, Tim. Go at once, or they'll be off to the woods."
