Across the Face of the World (4 page)

The farmer waited until the boy was in the shadow of the barn, then stepped out, thrusting a stick before him.

'Mahnum's boy, eh?' the old man bellowed. 'I thought Mahnum's boy was at least fifteen by now. How old are you, boy?'

'Sixteen, sir,' Leith stammered.

'Come now, boy, you're not yet twelve if I'm any judge. I'll have a word or two to say to that fool of a Haufuth if he's sent me the wrong boy. You are Mahnum's boy?'

'Y-yes, sir.'

The old man laughed uproariously, wagging the stick in all direc¬tions. 'A cripple and a runt.

He got what he deserved, taking up with the fancy woman from the city. A cripple and a runt!

Well now, runt, do you know what you'll be doing for me this week?'

'No, sir.'

The old farmer was close to him now, pointing his willow cane at Leith's chest. Leith could see the lines etched into the sharp¬ness of his face, surrounding clear and lively eyes. Eyes full of malice.

'It's in my barn,' he chuckled. 'I want you inside my barn.'

By now Leith was too angry to be frightened. A twelve'year-old runt? He took a deep breath and strode past the farmer.

The old man smiled. Fear and anger would make good taskmas¬ters.

Morning gave way to afternoon, and the afternoon dragged on. The air in the barn was thick with animal smells, and as Leith worked at undoing rotted stitching on a canvas awning, the sound of horses in their stalls came to his ears. The noises seemed to be coming from the rear of the dimly lit building. Horses were the main measure of wealth in the north of Firanes.

There were a few horses in Loulea, and the council even kept an elderly mare for the children to ride, but Leith had never heard of any of the farmers owning more than one. Leith wondered how such an insignificant old man came to have horses in his barn. Perhaps they were stolen! He could hear them moving about in their stalls, eating their feed and occasionally nickering softly to each other. After listening for a while he decided that there were four of them. Four! A fortune. However he had come by them, the old farmer was a wealthy man by North March standards.

It became harder and harder for Leith to see what he was doing. At first the youth imagined that it was the onset of evening and he would soon be allowed to go home, but after a while he heard the wind rise and then rain began to drum on the wooden roof high above. The weather was closing in. It was definitely getting colder. With the gloom and the chill he was having difficulty in undoing the stitching; his fingers wouldn't work and his eyes began to swim.

Time seemed suspended. Leith was having trouble with a particularly stubborn piece of stitching and his frustrations boiled near the surface. He was cold and he had a headache and he just couldn't get this thing undone, and he didn't want to be here at all. Grinding his teeth together didn't seem to help any.

A sudden powerful gust of wind shook the barn and snuffed out the torch by which he was working, leaving the building in semi-darkness. Leith shouted out in fright and jumped to his feet, and there was the old farmer at the door, lamp in hand.

'Better get inside the house, boy,' he said quietly in between gusts, then set the lamp down on a rough wooden table and extin¬guished it. 'The weather's coming in from the sea at present, but the Icewind is out there just waiting for a chance to blow. Leave the awning there for now and come inside. No telling when the lskelwen might come to try its strength against this old barn.' He clapped himself on the shoulders, folding his arms across his chest, gnarled hands on threadbare cotton.

lskelwen, Leith thought. The Icewind. It had been a long time since he had heard words in the old language from anyone but his mother. No one bothered with the old tongue any more.

Outside the rain leaned in from the southwest, driven before a persistent sea breeze. Leith could taste the salt in the air, and even though he knew the sea was more than two leagues distant he imagined he could hear the booming of huge white breakers on pale sands. It was getting quite dark. He wondered how he was going to find his way home.

'Quickly, now!' he heard the farmer call from somewhere in front of him, and he scurried through the rain towards the patch of yellow light.

Inside he found hot tea waiting for him. He drank it with relief, warming his numbed hands on the mug and his insides with its contents. He thought he heard someone coughing in another room and looked questioningly at the farmer, who returned his word¬less inquiry with a flinty stare. After a moment the old man got up and left the room, leaving Leith alone with his thoughts.

As soon as some warmth had returned to his body and he could once again think straight, Leith put his mug down and looked around the room with frank curiosity. Not the sort of house a man who owned four horses might be expected to live in! It seemed large enough -

there was a hall leading to what were obviously separate bedrooms - but it was untidy, run-down, a little ragged around the edges. Pale whitewash, yellowing slightly and peeling in the cobwebbed corners, lent a shabby, neglected feel to the room. It was obviously some sort of sitting room, not often used; musty-smelling, cluttered with fragile ornaments placed carelessly on sharp-edged tables, it was not the sort of room a person lived in.

Leith's musings were interrupted by the old farmer returning with another mug, seemingly empty.

'Better get you home, boy. Sounds like the weather's easing off a little, but we won't have much time before it comes down again, and from the north this time. Ready?'

Leith nodded, though he wasn't sure what was meant. Was the old man going to walk home with him? He followed the farmer outside. It was noticeably lighter and the rain sifted straight down, swirled about only occasionally by the wind. Through the barn they went, pausing for a moment to relight the torch. Another torch at the far end of the barn illuminated the stalls, and in the flickering light the farmer busied himself finding saddle and bridle. The horses began to stamp and chafe, seemingly realising that their master wished to ride. Leith felt warm breath on the back of his neck, then a nuzzling from behind. He turned around to see a long face towering above him. With surprise and pleasure, he caressed the horse's head.

The old man led out a bay mare from the hindmost stall, patting ber muzzle and whispering to her all the while. Outside in the late afternoon calmness the farmer mounted easily, pulled the boy up behind him and set the mare off at a brisk walk. Leith was going to arrive home in style.

The excited youth travelled in an unreal world high above the rurf. The horse trotted much faster than Leith could run, and for a long time he watched the ground moving backwards underneath him. Glancing to the left, he noticed that dusk was spreading from the north with alarming rapidity. Onto the Westway they rode, turning athwart the breeze that grew stronger moment by moment.

A mile or so east to the village, thought Leith. Maybe five minutes more before we arrive home.

'Tell me, boy,' the old man shouted over his shoulder, 'why do they call it the Westway when it only goes east?' and he laughed as he drew his hood over his face. Peering out from behind the thin, hunched figure, Leith felt the cutting wind and saw the inky blackness to his right before he heard the howling in the air.

'Head down, boy!' the farmer grated, pushing him back roughly. 'The Icewind is here.'

They arrived at the village in the face of the Iskeluien storm. Here and there a chink of light showed through shuttered windows. The wind whipped down empty streets, snatching at dead leaves and piling them against bolted doors, howling its displeasure at being shut out of warm rooms. Up the muddy road came a horse hard ridden, with two figures crouching low on its back. The larger figure reined in the sweat-lathered mare in front of a small house at the end of the lane, dismounted and helped the smaller figure to the ground. While the man led the horse round to the lee of the building and tended it, the boy banged a few times on the door.

Soon it swung open and the sudden light swallowed the two figures. The wind gathered, then sprang down the lane a fraction too late, succeeding only in slamming the door shut behind them.

Inside, cloaks came off and cold hands and feet were stretched out close to the crackling fire.

The man and the boy leaned towards the flames, for the moment oblivious to the others in the room.

'Get them something hot, please,' Indrett said to Hal. As the cripple limped away, his mother walked slowly towards the fire. She waited for the warmth to do its work.

'You're not going home tonight,' she said firmly to the old man.

'No, girl, I'm not. I'll just be off to the Haufuth's house for the night, and in the morning ...'

'Oh no, you're not. You'll stay right here in this room near the fire. If this is a real Deep White, then you might never make it to the other end of the lane.'

He turned on her with a scowl. 'So you're giving me advice, are you now? I suppose you learned snowcraft in the streets of Rammr, did you? You wouldn't have known what snow was until you came here, girl. I've survived nights in the open, rounded up my herd in a blizzard...' The old man spluttered to a stop.

Indrett put on her most contrite expression. 'You're right, and I'm sorry. I don't have your experience. But I would worry if you left now, I wouldn't sleep,' she said artlessly. 'Here, I'll get Leith to bring the spare mattress in for you,' and she sent her son scur¬rying off before the bewildered, badly outmanoeuvred farmer could raise any objection.

It was still dark when the old man woke. For a moment he could not pinpoint what had caused him to awaken so suddenly; but, being a landsman, he knew something was amiss. Then he heard it: the shuddering moan of the wind, a soft, unsettling sound from far off, profoundly disturbing to the old man. He had not heard this particular sound for maybe twenty years or more, not since the night he lost his old barn, the barn built by the Haufuth's grandfather. In a moment he was up and dressed, searching for his cloak. Another moment and he was peering outside.

A light snow filtered down in a calm air. It lay undisturbed, inches thick on the ground. But behind the calm came the sound of approaching violence, a low moaning that set the farmer's teeth on edge.

After venturing outside to make sure his horse was adequately sheltered, he closed the door softly and sat heavily on a wooden chair, lines of concern etched on his expressive face. If he were at home, he would have secured the outbuildings of Stibbourne Farm, bolted all the doors and shutters of his house, moved all the furniture over to the walls, and sat the storm out. Well, as long as Tinei kept herself safe, he wouldn't worry about his buildings. Please, Most High, don't let that headstrong woman go outside to try to secure the farm! There was no chance of his making it home before the wind hit. But what should he do here? His hands fidgeted as he thought. The girl Indrett has probably never seen a real lskelwen storm before.

Will she know what to do? That fool Mahnum! Plenty of girls in the village to choose from! It was just as well that Modahl hadn't lived to see it. His only son marrying a southerner!

He laughed. After all these years, he found himself thinking like a northerner far too often.

He took a deep breath and stood up, grimacing as the ominous sound seemed to mix itself up somewhere in his vitals. He had to do something. Just then the boy Leith came through from the bedroom, rubbing the sleep from heavy eyes. 'What's the noise? Sounds a bit like tomcats...' He faltered to a stop at the sight of the farmer's worried frown.

'A real storm! Not the sort of wind you villagers call an Icewind, boy - this is a full-blown hkelwen howler. Haven't seen one for years. This sort doesn't bring snow, it just picks it up from the ground where it lies and hurls it at you. Is your mother awake?'

Leith shook his head. 'Don't think so,' he mumbled sleepily.

The farmer grunted. 'Wake her. We need to get this place ready.'

As they began moving furniture, first Indrett and then Hal came into the room. The farmer explained what they were doing, and soon Leith was busy bolting the storm shutters while the others cleared the room of anything that the wind might be able to throw about should it manage to break into the cabin. The farmer instructed them to extinguish the fire, and set Hal to work damping the embers in the grate. A single candle flickered in the middle of the bare floor. As they laboured the dreadful noise drew closer, and the people in the cabin had to shout to each other in order to be heard. It developed into a shrieking wail; the sound someone might make, Leith imagined, were they being slowly torn limb from limb. Now the roar was overhead, but still no wind.

'Where's the wind?' Leith shouted to the old man. Strangely, the farmer's red-rimmed eyes were lit up with something that looked like excitement.

'Comes with a big cloud,' returned the farmer. Leith could barely hear him. 'Like a breaking wave - sucks air up into it - wind drives the cloud ahead—' but Leith lost the rest. For a moment the shrieking tailed off, then a rumbling, rasping noise like the stam¬peding of a thousand hills beat at them and the wind struck. Leith thought he could see the northern wall of the cabin beginning to bend. Suddenly a sharp banging noise came from behind them.

The farmer shouted something at Leith, waving wildly in the direc¬tion of the bedroom. Leith nodded and ran off. He could feel air rushing past him as he ran. A shutter had come loose in the bedroom. As he went to close it, the wind slammed it shut in front of him, nearly taking off his hand. He struggled to push the rusty old bolt properly closed, hammering it home finally using Hal's staff.

The people in the room settled in to a tense wait. Conversation was all but impossible as the wind howled about them and the timber of the cabin protested with groaning and, more ominously, cracking noises. It was as though some giant had snatched up the cabin and was shaking it with a series of random jerks calculated ro catch those inside off guard. Leith wondered how the other families in the village were coping with this monster wind. He wished it was light outside so he could see the storm; what stories he could tell the others! For a moment he began to think about Stella in her cabin at the northern end of the village, at the edge of the forest. Her gossipy, shrewish mother, her dour father, her brother the drunkard.