RIDING SOUTH OUT of Oakmere felt wrong to Ash. For one thing, he wasn’t comfortable on a horse, and the chafing from his last ride was already making itself felt. For another, it felt disloyal to send Martine off with the others, even though he couldn’t take her where he was going.
He had woken and gone through the process of leaving Oakmere with a fragile shell of normality carefully built around him. He pretended that nothing was wrong, but he knew that Martine wasn’t fooled. Maybe not Bramble, either. But what could he do about it? He couldn’t change who he was, no matter how many people he disappointed. Now, as he rode, it felt like there was an empty place on his belt, where the stones should have hung.
They had reached the beginning of the ascent to the Quiet Pass by the time he came back to himself.
“Um, south?” Flax asked hesitantly. “Just ‘south’?”
Flax had apparently been waiting for his attention to return. The lad, it was clear, was good at reading moods.
“I couldn’t tell her more. We’re going to the place that is not talked about,” Ash said, reluctant to say even that much. He shot Flax a glance and then looked more closely as he realized the words meant nothing to him.
“Where’d that be, then?” Flax asked.
“Your father must have taken you there?” Ash was astonished. Unless he had misunderstood, Flax had been on the Road all his life, and so had his parents until recently. But Flax shook his head.
Ash didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t his job to tell Flax about the Deep. It was his father’s. In fact, it was forbidden to speak of it.
“Your father was a Traveler?” He had to make sure, before he said anything.
Flax nodded. “Aye, he were.”
Flax was certainly talking like a Traveler, although back at Oakmere, he had chattered to Bramble as though he’d been born a blond. Ash shrugged that away. He spoke mostly like one of Acton’s people himself, after intensive training by Doronit. Lots of Travelers spoke with two voices. But he had to make sure Flax had the right to go to the Deep.
“And your grandfather? Your father’s father?”
“He died when Da were a baby. Da were brought up by his mam, Radagund the Horse Speller.”
Even Ash had heard of Radagund. Flax was very proud of his famous grandmother. But it explained why he didn’t know about the Deep. His grandfather had never taken his father there. But surely other Traveling men could have?
Delicately, he asked, “Was your grandam friendly with other Travelers?”
Flax shrugged. “I suppose. She worked mostly for Acton’s people, though. Travelers don’t have horses, much.”
So, here he had a young Traveling lad who hadn’t heard of the Deep. Well, there was no doubt he had a right to know, even if Ash wasn’t the perfect person to tell him. But there was the prohibition against speaking of the Deep outside. He had to respect that.
“Before I tell you where we’re going, you have to promise not to repeat anything I say. To anyone. Especially women. But not even to other male Travelers. If you do… you will die.”
“What, you’d kill me?”
Ash looked down at the ground, then straight into Flax’s eyes, mouth firm. “If I had to.”
Flax’s eyes widened, and then he grinned, as though it was an adventure.
“I promise.”
Ash wasn’t sure he trusted any promise from Flax, but he was sure that after the demons at the Deep had him, he would keep the secret.
“We are going to a place… a place where men go. Men of the old blood. Only men.”
Strongly interested, Flax leaned forward in his saddle to stare more directly at Ash. Cam increased her pace in response, but Flax pulled her back to a walk.
“What for?”
Ash hesitated. “That depends. It’s a craft thing. What they do depends on who they are… how they make a living. What do you do?”
“Me? Oh, I sing,” Flax said.
Ash felt like he’d been thumped simultaneously in the stomach and the head. Why hadn’t anyone said? Because Martine didn’t know and the others didn’t know it mattered.
“A singer?” he forced himself to ask, thinking, Please, gods, make him bad at it.
“Mmm,” Flax said. He launched into a cheery song about a summer’s day.
Up jumps the sun in the early, early morning
The early, early morning
The early dawn of day
Up wings the lark in the early light of dawning
The early light of dawning
When gold replaces gray.
Ash remembered his mother singing that song. He remembered learning it. Flax’s voice rose as clear and full as a nightingale’s. His tenor could have been designed to match with Ash’s mother’s soprano. Ash could hear his mother singing the words in his head, and they blended so perfectly with the beauty of Flax’s voice that it brought tears to his eyes.
Ash knew, sickeningly, what would happen at the Deep. His father, finally finding the son who would complete their music, who would enable them to perform all those songs that needed two strong, perfect voices as well as the flute and drum. All the descants, all the harmonies, all the counterpoints. They could even sing the sentimental duets that the inn crowds so loved, because Flax wasn’t their real son, so there was nothing unnatural about him and Swallow singing love songs together.
No doubt he would teach Flax all the songs.
“Come on, sing along,” Flax said cheerfully, and started the second chorus.
For a long moment, Ash battled red rage: the desire to smash Flax’s face, to leap upon him, drag him off the horse and slam his head against the road until there was no voice left to torment him. He shook with the desire, and the only thing that stopped him was the memory of promising Zel that he would look after Flax. Mud stopped in the middle of the road and shivered, too. Ash’s hands clenched on the reins. It wasn’t Flax’s fault, he told himself. But he had to find someone to be angry with. The shagging gods! he thought finally, seizing on the idea with relief. They don’t care who they hurt, what they do. They’re the ones who brought us here. It’s their fault.
With an effort, Ash took a breath and let it out, hearing Doronit’s voice in his head saying, “Control. A safeguarder must have control.” He took a second breath, a third, a fourth, and then felt calm enough to say, “I don’t sing.”
“Everybody sings!” Flax said, but his voice was uncertain as he looked at Ash’s face.
Ash shook his head. “Not me.”
Flax looked oddly at him, hesitating about whether to ask more questions. Ash felt both irritated and protective of him. The boy was his responsibility. He had promised Zel. Although she couldn’t have known what it would require of him, he would keep his word.
“It’s good that you’re a singer,” Ash said, with an enormous effort. “My father will be able to teach you what you need to know.”
Flax nodded and stayed, blessedly, silent. As they continued up the long slope that led to the mountain ridge, passing the occasional cart or rider, Ash wondered over the fact that most people would think that fighting Sully and his friend when they were trying to capture Bramble was hard. That was easy, so easy, compared to not hitting Flax. Compared to handing Flax over, safe, to his father, and saying, “I have found a singer for you.”
Which he must do. Because he had promised Zel. Then he wondered if Zel would thank him for that, if Flax found a way to Travel without her.