The Highwayman

20

When All the World Turned Upside Down Garibond watched as the woman he believed to be Callen Duwornay, who had stubbornly called herself Ada Wehelin, and her young daughter walked away from his house on the lake. "A good deed repaid," the man repeated, for that is what the woman had said when he had once more, upon their parting, thanked her and her daughter for their help in the town.

Garibond hadn't recognized the woman at first-Callen Duwornay was someone long out of his thoughts-and the truth of her identity hadn't even registered to him during their walk out to his house or during the short visit of the woman and her daughter. It wasn't until she was leaving, actually walking away, when she had uttered those words, "A good deed repaid." Even then, for a few moments, Garibond hadn't made the connection.

But watching her now, though her back was to him, the man understood the truth, beyond any doubt. That was her, Callen. Garibond was glad to learn that she was still alive, that she had gotten through her ordeal and had even managed, apparently, to remain in Pryd Holding-in Gorham's Hill, on the far western edge of the town proper, she had told him. Somehow seeing her alive bolstered Garibond's spirits, even beyond his simple sympathy and empathy toward her. Somehow, the fact that she had gone on, had even given birth to a beautiful daughter, made the sacrifices of SenWi and now poor Bransen, somewhat more tolerable.

All along, Garibond had known that SenWi had done right that day in healing the young woman, and never had she wavered on that matter, never had she expressed the slightest bit of regret. Seeing Callen and Cadalye reinforced the concept.

"Sh-sh-sh-she'sss-my frien…my frien…my friend," Bransen said to him, making his way over to join him at the window.

"What a beautiful little friend you've got there, Bransen," Garibond replied, and he draped his arm about the boy and pulled him close, in part to steady him but more because he just felt that he needed a hug.

"I-I-I'm going to m-m-marry…marry her."

Garibond's smile nearly took in his ears, and he squeezed Bransen up close to his side and continued to watch the departing pair. He knew that such a thing could never be, of course, but he simply said, "She'll be a fine wife to you." Why would he deprive Bransen of his dreams, after all? What else could the poor boy possibly have?

When he looked at Bransen then, his thought was only reinforced, for rarely had Garibond seen Bransen smile so widely. And Bransen didn't look back at him, didn't even seem to feel the weight of Garibond's gaze. No, he kept staring out the window at Cadalye, and he kept smiling.

Sometime later, when the mother and daughter were long out of sight, Garibond remarked, "Well, I must get myself cleaned up and get some dinner to cooking." He gave Bransen another hug, then moved off and went about starting a fire and heating some water for stew. As he stood there stirring the pot, Garibond wondered about the boy's smile. Glad he was to see it, after their humiliation in the town. How horrible that had been!

But more horrible for him than for Bransen, Garibond understood, if for no other reason than the fact that the poor boy was quite used to such humiliation. He second-guessed himself for all those occasions he had allowed Bransen to journey into the town on an errand. True, Bransen was always eaget to go, and often begging to go, but had there been a single occasion in the last two or three years when the boy had gone to Pryd Town and had returned without mud on his clothing or blood somewhere? Given the experience today, Garibond realized more fully that many of those falls were far from accidental.

He thought of Dynard and SenWi as he stood there cooking, remembering his old friends. He watched the swirl of the stew, the thick liquid rolling back over to flatten the wake caused by the passing spoon, and that motion invited him to look more deeply into himself and his life. Garibond the hermit, he supposed, and he thought back to all the disappointments that had led him to this place. It hadn't been a sudden decision for him to move out here and settle in the abandoned shell of a cottage on the small rocky island. It had been a gradual drifting away from the disappointments he always seemed to find when around other people. He remembered when his sister had been killed by powries and how the soldiers of Laird Pryd, coming in just moments too late, had been more concerned with celebrating their victory than in worrying about Garibond's grief. While he had knelt there over his sister's body, the soldiers had cheered and danced, arguing over who could claim credit for which powrie killed.

"Aye, and what a wonderful life it's been," Garibond muttered over the stew.

The moment of self-pity passed quickly, as it always did with Garibond, and he turned his thoughts to the good things he had known, to Dynard again and SenWi, who had touched him deeply in so short a time. And of course, to Bransen, that awkward and fragile little boy. Garibond chuckled as he considered how frustrated other people always seemed to get when Bransen tried to speak, turning a simple statement into a long ordeal. Garibond didn't think of things that way with Bransen; to him, the boy's stuttering only lengthened the moment of revelation, like having a hooked fish put up a good and long fight or watching a refreshing spring storm roll in from far away.

He looked up from the stew to Bransen, then, and found that the boy had again taken out the Book of Jhest, and was now gently moving his hands across the pages. Bransen was always at that book, it seemed, ever since Garibond had shown it to him and had spent many days with him trying to explain the lettering. For some reason Garibond didn't understand, Bransen seemed to take a kind of solace in just looking at the flowery text. At first, the man had worried that the clumsy child would damage the book, but it had quickly become apparent to Garibond that Bransen was taking more care with the tome than anyone else ever could.

So he let the boy play with the book as often as he wished, and he never concerned himself with the well-being of one of the most important artifacts he had to tie him to SenWi and particularly Dynard.

The two sat down to dinner a little later, the room full of the rich aroma of the fish stew and wood smoke. Several candles provided the light, for clouds had thickened outside, hastening the onset of dusk.

"Good lettering in that book," Garibond remarked between bites. "You like looking at it."

Bransen's face twisted into a crooked smile.

"Does it take you away from all of this?" the man asked. "Can you forget what happened in the town when you focus on the letters in the book? Bah, what fools are those soldiers."

Bransen's smile twisted even more, finally settling into a perplexed expression, or the closest thing the boy could approximate. He started to respond several times, and Garibond caught on that more than his inability to quickly verbalize his thoughts was holding him back. Finally, Bransen brought one hand over the table, fingers outstretched and palm down.

"This iiiiis…take," he said. His arm shook from the effort as he forced the palm to turn upward without any wild flailing.

Garibond tilted his head curiously.

"Nnnnnnnth. Nnnnnnnth…th-this iiiis…re-re-re-receeeeive."

"Of course," Garibond said quietly, and he took Bransen's hand and slowly guided it off the table. He could see that Bransen was growing quite excited, and knew that type of emotion usually foreshadowed some wild movement from the damaged boy. Garibond had little trouble in imagining bowls of his fresh stew flying about the room.

But then, even as he brought the arm over the table side, it hit him, and he froze in place, staring wide-eyed at the boy. "What did you say?"

Bransen's face twisted as he tried to form the words, and he started to turn his hand over again, though Garibond still held it.

Garibond did it for him and brought the arm back up over the table. "This is take?" he asked, not willing to wait through the stuttered explanation.

Bransen nodded.

Garibond turned the hand over. "Receive?"

The boy's smile answered it all.

Garibond leaped up from the table so quickly that his chair skidded out behind him. He scooped up a candle as he went to the book, and bent low to study its open pages.

And there it was, on the very page Bransen had left open, one of the Jhesta Tu explanations of the differences of posture, the connotations of movement and position. Those acting in anger or superiority, the text explained, often reached for something from another with their palms down-the inference being that they took what they wanted without regard. Like the soldiers on the road, pushing Bransen and Garibond away, like the prince himself, kicking the boy without regard.

Those who lived a receptive life, an open existence in which they hoped to, and expected to, learn from others, must reach out with their palms up, inviting compliance and sharing.

But how had Bransen figured that out? Garibond had never read him this specific page!

The man turned to regard the boy. "Are you reading this?"

The twisted smile, the awkward nod.

"Reading?" Garibond asked with a gasp.

Bransen gulped for air, as if he was setting his jaw muscles so that he could try to answer. He did start to stutter something out, but it was irrelevant to Garibond, who had been thrown into complete confusion. How could an idiot read? How could Bransen, a boy who could hardly master the simple movement of putting one foot in front of the other, begin to decipher the intricacies of Dynard's flowing script?

He shook his head in denial, then gathered up the book and moved over to the table. He surprised and frightened Bransen as he swept the bowls from in front of him, caring not at all that they crashed about the floor. He placed the book down and flipped the pages, coming to one of the early lessons the Jhesta Tu placed upon their beginning students. A student would be bound by the ankles to a heavy weight, then dropped into a pool that was just deep enough to keep the student, fully extended, under water. As with most of the lessons and pages in the book, Garibond possessed only a rudimentary understanding. From what he gathered, the Jhesta Tu wanted to see if their students could free themselves without help.

The ending note of wisdom on this page-every page had one-went, "In the peace and solitude of the water, do we see ourselves."

"Re-re-reflec…reflecti…ti…tion."

"Yes," said Garibond. "Reflection. Like when you look into the lake with me. You see what you look like."

Bransen began shaking his head. "Nnnnnnno. No," he said, and he poked a finger at the text. "Innnn wa-wa-water…" The boy gave a great sigh and closed his eyes. He seemed deep in thought for a moment, looking inside himself, and then, in the clearest statement Garibond had ever heard him utter, he said, "In water we see ourselves."

So shocked was Garibond by the clarity of the words, that it took him a long moment to realize that Bransen was poking at the book, bidding him to look.

He read the indicated passage, and in light of what Bransen had just said, something dawned on him. The purpose of the Jhesta Tu test of water was to measure the inner calm of a student. All the students had been shown how to extricate themselves from the binding weights; at issue was whether or not they could do it under the extreme pressure of being underwater. This test was of a person's inner strength, his calm under duress. Garibond had always seen that, somewhat, of course, but the revelation here was not what was on the page in the Book of Jhest, but rather, the reasoning power of Bransen!

That, and the fact that the boy could read! How could that be possible?

Garibond looked at him, and wanted to say something, wanted to pour out all of his amazement and joy. Never before had he looked at Bransen in quite this way, and he wanted nothing more than to shout with happiness.

But he couldn't. He felt the lump welling in his throat and he could force no words past it. He reached out and tousled Bransen's hair, and managed to motion toward the boy's bed.

Then he gently closed the book and blew out the candle and waited for Bransen to settle onto his bed, which was really just a cot piled with dry hay, before blowing out the other candles in the room.

Garibond didn't go straight to his own bed. He went to the window and stared up at the sky, which was caught in the last moments of twilight. In a patch where some of the clouds had cleared, he could see the first twinkling stars, framed by the rolling dark edges of the overcast.

It was a long, long time before Garibond managed to get to bed, and the room was beginning to brighten in predawn glow before he finally managed to fall asleep. Garibond heard the knocking, but it didn't register in his mind, as if it were coming from far away, perhaps, or as if it were part of another world.

Even the loud crash that followed merely made him blink once and roll over.

But when he heard Bransen cry out, "Nnnnnnnno!" his eye popped open and he rolled quickly out of bed to his feet.

He took in the scene immediately: there was Prince Prydae and his companion, the warrior of note named Bannagran. Bannagran held Bransen by the shoulders, his great strength keeping the poor boy almost completely still.

"When your laird comes knocking, you would do well to open the door for him," Bannagran said to Garibond.

"I-I was asleep," the man stammered. "My liege, is there a problem?"

"No problem," Bannagran answered. "We came for the boy and now we have him." The large man wheeled about, jerking poor Bransen so forcefully that his legs swung out wide.

Garibond, dressed only in his flimsy nightshirt, rushed to the door before them. "What are you doing?" he cried. "You cannot take my boy!"

"Cannot?" Prydae said, holding a hand up to silence Bannagran.

"But, my liege-"

"Exactly," Prydae interrupted. "Your liege. Your laird."

"But why would you wish to take him? He is just a child. He has never harmed anyone. Please, my liege, I beg of you to leave him alone. Mercy, my liege. Sweet mercy."

"Oh, shut up, you babbling fool," said Bannagran. "And get out of the way before I throw you through the door. The Prince of Pryd is in need of your son, and so your son will come to his service."

"What can he do? He is just a child, and infirm-"

"Not infirm for our needs, I pray," said Bannagran. He wrapped one arm around Bransen's chest and leaned back, holding the boy easily from the floor, then reached his other arm around and down the front to the boy's crotch and gave a squeeze that brought a squeal from poor Bransen.

"Yes, he is secure."

Garibond's eyes widened with horror, and he charged forward-or started to, for before he got a single step, Prydae had his sword out, its tip against Garibond's chest.

"I will forgive you that," Prydae said, "just once."

"Ah, I see that you have secured our sacrifice," came a voice behind Garibond, from the open doorway, and he turned around to see Bernivvigar standing there.

"S-sacrifice?" Garibond stammered, and then he steeled himself and straightened his shoulder. "You old beast! Begone from my home!"

"The boy will not be killed," Prydae assured Garibond, and there was something in the prince's voice, some bit of remorse perhaps, that made Garibond look back over his shoulder.

"He is needed," Prydae went on. "Take pride that this crippled creature will restore the line of Pryd."

Garibond's expression was one of pure incredulity. "What will you do to him? He's just a boy."

"The Ancient Ones oft accept such sacrifices," Bernivvigar said.

"You just said…" Garibond protested to Prydae.

"That he will not be killed," Prydae repeated.

"His life is not the sacrifice," Bernivvigar said, and there was obvious amusement in his tone. "This wretched little creature will restore to the new Laird of Pryd that which the powries took away."

Garibond's eyes widened, and he inadvertently dropped his gaze to Prydae's groin.

"If you utter a word of this, I promise that I will cut your face off," Prydae warned. "That for all of your life you will suffer the screams of revulsion, of children and women, and even men, who cannot withstand the horror of your ugliness. And if you utter a word of this, you will watch your wretched little boy die slowly and painfully."

Garibond hardly heard the words, his thoughts careening as he came to understand exactly what the old Samhaist had in mind. "You c-cannot," he stammered. "He is just a boy."

"The line of Pryd must continue," Prydae said.

Garibond's eyes darted all around, like a cornered animal. All the revelations of the previous day, all the wonderful realizations that there was actually some measure of intelligence within the stuttering Bransen, played in his mind, demanding an end to this sudden and unexpected tragedy. "Take me instead."

"Do not be a fool," Bannagran answered. "The boy is damaged and infirm."

"You should beg us to kill him when we are done removing his genitals," Bernivvigar said smugly. "He will have no need for his own virility, obviously. He should have been killed at birth-you know this to be true! So be satisfied that perhaps the little wretch will do some good with his miserable existence."

Bransen made a little mewling sound.

It was more than Garibond could take, and he wheeled around, fist flying, and connected squarely on the old Samhaist's jaw, sending him back hard against the doorjamb. As he started forward, Garibond heard Bransen cry out, and he turned about just in time to see Bannagran wading in.

The big man hit Garibond with a thunderous jab that straightened him and dazed him so that he could not even react to the wide-arcing left hook that caught him on the side of the face and sent him flying away to the floor.

Again he heard a voice, Bernivvigar's voice, as if it were far, far away, much like what he had heard before he had fully awakened that morning.

"Perhaps the older man would be better," Bernivvigar was saying. "How old is this boy?"

"Nine? Ten?" Bannagran answered.

"Not yet a man."

"Does that matter?" asked Prydae.

"It would be better if he had already reached manhood and was able to sire a child on his own," said Bernivvigar.

Garibond managed to turn to regard the Samhaist, standing in the doorway, leaning on the jamb, rubbing his jaw, and shooting Garibond the most hateful look Prydae had ever seen in all his life.

"Accept his offer and spare the boy," Bernivvigar advised.

A moment later, Bannagran's strong hand hoisted Garibond up to his feet, and the warrior began dragging him out. He managed to look back to the side, where poor Bransen was still trying to stand up after being shoved aside by Bannagran.

"Do not think your crippled son has fully escaped me," Bernivvigar muttered to Garibond as Bannagran hauled him past. Poor Bransen spent all the day at the eastern window of the small house. He was still there when the sun disappeared behind the western horizon.

What will I do? How will I eat?

He wanted to rush out and run to the town to rescue Garibond-all the day, that had been his most pressing thought. But he couldn't rush and he couldn't run. He couldn't do anything. He couldn't even light a candle so that he didn't have to sit there helplessly in the darkness.

He wanted to stay awake, to stay alert, to be ready to do…whatever he could possibly do to help his beloved father. But eventually, Bransen's head dipped down to the windowsill.

His sleep was fitful, and he heard the approach of horses. He looked up, but they were already to the side of the window's view, splashing up the submerged walk to the front door of the cottage.

Bransen turned and tried to rise, but fell back repeatedly and was still sitting when the horses thundered away and the cottage door was pushed open.

In came Garibond, and he held up his hand to keep Bransen back. "Go to bed, boy," he said, and Bransen could tell that his every word was filled with agony.

Bransen started for his bed, while Garibond moved to the table and struck flint to metal to light a candle. Only then did Bransen see how bent over and haggard Garibond seemed; and when the man turned, candle in hand, Bransen nearly swooned, for the front of Garibond's nightshirt was drenched with blood, waist to knees.

"It is all right," the older man said. "You just go to bed."

Bransen fell onto his bed and immediately buried his face. He wanted all the world to just go away.