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WHEN HE CAME TO A CROSSROADS, Burn stopped under a spreading she-oak to rest his legs for a while.
The road he came to was away from the major highways but was well enough travelled, showing the marks of wheels and the feet of beasts and men.
He pondered his options while chewing on an oatcake. He knew there were villages to either side, full of fishers and the occasional farmer, but he had not heard anything to recommend either direction over the other.
When he reached the end of the oatcake before he reached inspiration, he pulled out a coin.
The distant rumble of cartwheels reached his left ear.
He smiled and put the coin back into his pouch but he did not stand until the cart was drawing level.
“Ho, goodman! Can you tell me where this road may take me?”
The carter, apparently alone between a single stolid horse and his loaded vehicle, stared at him. “Clayman.”
Burn saw no point in denying it and he had long since decided to ignore the local mispronunciation of his people—a pronunciation mocking in some mouths, merely ignorant in others—so he simply responded with: “Aye.”
Outside major cities, the hair and skin that marked him as Claewian were more often greeted with curiosity or surprise than distrust, and it seemed that would be the case here.
“You coming from Kiak, not Somol?” the carter asked.
“Aye.” Burn had not heard of Somol, but he had left Kiak that morning.
“Long way to walk, you hitch a lift?”
“I walk. I was awake early, so I left.”
The carter grunted, then spat to the side, away from Burn, and made a version of the local sign to ward off evil. “Go to Embel,” he said, pointing back over his shoulder with his chin. “Somol has the scarlet fever. Word came in the night.”
Burn stared at the man for a dozen heartbeats, then at the cart. There were sacks and barrels. Clean supplies for an unclean town. “We should get moving, then. You know the treatments? It can be cured if caught early, managed if not. I can help.”
The man stared back at him. “You would help, Clayman?”
These people helped each other without question but were surprised when a travelling Claewian offered his hand so readily. “I had the scarlet fever when I was young, and been immune since. Is that why you’re heading to Somol? What’s your name, goodman?”
“Carac,” the man said, still unsettled. Then he shrugged with one shoulder. “I have had the fever, aye, and I bring clean water and food, and what herbs we had, although we didn’t have much to give.” He gestured with his chin to the board next to him. “Hop up, Clayman. What name do you carry?”
“Burn.” Burn stowed his staff and bag among the barrels and sacks in the cart—too many to allow for a passenger there—before pulling himself up to the flat board that did the carter for a seat. “Water is safe if boiled, food if cooked well enough.”
Carac gave Burn a look with one eye as he urged his horse on.
“You know much about the scarlet fever, then?”
“My village was sore hit but I recovered early enough to help do for those who could not,” Burn said. “I was there in Vutlupt two years ago when they had an outbreak so severe all clothes were burned by order of the mayor, but I did not get sick and we saved many.”
Carac favoured Burn with both eyes, that time, both wide. “We heard about Vutlupt, even here. You would go back into that?”
“Why not? I trust I may not get sick, and I can help those who suffer. What else should a man do?”
“Are you some sort of travelling monk?” Carac asked him. “You don’t look like a holy man.”
“Not exactly a monk, although I may say I’m on a pilgrimage of sorts.” Burn pulled out the chain around his neck, from which hung a coin with a hole drilled crudely through it.
“What’s that, then? Token of your god?”
Burn ignored the genially mocking tone in Carac’s voice. Odrilians were not alone in viewing any religion other than their own with contempt. Burn did not take it personally. Religion was no longer what anchored his life.
“It’s a token. It was my father’s, but neither he nor my brothers have use for it now. I’m looking for his brothers, or their kin.”
The humour disappeared instantly from Carac’s face. “Sorry I am to hear it,” he muttered. He swallowed. “It was not the fever, was it?”
“It was.”
Carac gave him another oblique look. “Won’t nobody blame you for turning away right now, Clayman Burn, I remember what you said about boiling water and I’ll pass on the word with gratitude.”
“I’d blame me if one man died I might have helped.”
Carac had no answer to that. “You travel looking for your father’s kin?” he asked.
“I do.”
“No horse, no boat? You could spend a score of years and not be half done! There must be half a score of Claymen in every city and one in every other village, there never was a people so for travelling.”
“We have feet for roaming,” Burn said. “And I have spent a score of years already and found only rumour, but there are still more cities and villages to search. I have time.”
“You might have the stubbornness of a mule.” Carac sounded almost more admiring than mocking. Burn reflected that such a trait might be admired in this land. He had not yet spent much time in this corner of Odril and knew yet little of their ways.
“I have tryst, not stubbornness,” Burn said with a smile, holding up his coin again and turning it to read the runes on the reverse.
Carac’s brows furrowed. “Tryst?”
“Trust,” Burn said. “It’s my family motto. ‘Hold tryst’.”
“You come from high-born family, then?” Carac said. There was judgement there, and no trace of deference.
“No, Carac, I come from Claew, where we are all born the same: bawling and bloody. We are a restive people so we keep our bonds tight and carry tokens to remind us of our kin. In the wilds, you may be far from your own people, so anyone you meet is your family and you give a hand where needed, but we do not forget where we came from.”
Carac grunted, a sound that was almost a grudging admission of respect.
“What’s it mean, then, ‘hold trust’?”
“To me, it means to expect good fortune, not ill,” Burn said. “To keep my eyes forward and my heart up. This is Somol?”
The road had curved to come out of the forest and fall away down towards a shore Burn could faintly hear and faintly smell but not yet see. Ahead of them, a wooden barricade had been hastily assembled.
“Aye, this be Somol,” Carac growled.
A man ran towards them, waving his arms. “Unclean! Fever! Unclean!” he shouted. He had a deep voice, a good voice for carrying.
Carac opened his lungs and matched the man. “Two men who survived the fever afore, and water and food and herbs in the cart!”
“Then come in and welcome to you!”
The man stopped his running and waited for them to approach. “Oh, it’s you, Carac. That tinker reached Embel, then?”
“Aye, Wade, and never happier to do so. This Clayman says he knows some about the fever.”
“Sure? Then welcome to the pair of you, and may God come with you.”
Wade and his companion hauled aside the barricade. The road headed down, winding a little to manage the slope, to a cluster of houses in a bay.
“Good fortune, eh?” Carac said as he urged his horse down the slope. “Where would you look for good fortune here, Clayman Burn?”
Burn glanced back at the cart and its load of supplies a small village might not easily have afforded to send.
“Let’s start with this cart, Odrilian Carac,” he said. “And the men riding in it. Nothing says we can’t bring it with us.”
Carac snorted. “I hope you’re right, Clayman Burn.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: J. Hepburn is a Queensland-based writer of speculative things with an interest in everything from fantasy to far-future sci-fi via steampunk and urban fantasy. He likes to explore human relationships and thinks sex and romance are more interesting than violence. Find him at http://www.jhepburnauthor.com/ or https://twitter.com/JHPeregrine/
