The Painted Man. Peter Brett V.

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      A strange sense of longing pulled at Arlen as he watched Tibbet’s Brook recede into the distance from the back of the cart. For the first time, he was going to be more than a day’s journey from home. He was going to see another town! A week ago, an adventure like that was his greatest dream. But now all he dreamed was that things could go back to the way they were.

      Back when the farm was safe.

      Back when his mother was well.

      Back when he didn’t know his father was a coward.

      Coline had promised to send one of her boys up to the farm to let Norine know they would likely be gone a week or more, and to help tend the animals and check the wards while they were away. The neighbours would throw in, but Norine’s loss was too raw for her to face the nights alone.

      The Herb Gatherer had also given them a crude map, carefully rolled and slipped into a protective hide tube. Paper was a rarity in the Brook, and not given away lightly. Arlen was fascinated by the map, and studied it for hours, even though he couldn’t read the few words labelling the places. Neither Arlen nor his father had letters.

      The map marked the way to Sunny Pasture, and what lay along the road, but the distances were vague. There were farms marked along the way where they could beg succour, but there was no way to tell how far apart they were.

      His mother slept fitfully, sodden with sweat. Sometimes she spoke or cried out, but her words made little sense. Arlen dabbed her with a wet cloth and made her drink the sharp tea as the Herb Gatherer had instructed him, but it seemed to do little good.

      Late in the afternoon, they approached the house of Harl Tanner, a farmer who lived on the outskirts of the Brook. Harl’s farm was only a couple of hours past the Cluster by the Woods, but by the time Arlen and his father had gotten underway, it was mid-afternoon.

      Arlen remembered seeing Harl and his three daughters at the summer solstice festival each year, though they had been absent since the corelings had taken Harl’s wife, two summers past. Harl had become a recluse, and his daughters with him. Even the tragedy in the Cluster had not brought them out.

      Three-quarters of the Tanner fields were blackened and scorched; only those closest to the house were warded and sown. A gaunt milking cow chewed cud in the muddy yard, and ribs showed clearly on the goat tied up by the chicken coop.

      The Tanners’ home was a single storey of piled stones, held together with packed mud and clay. The larger stones were painted with faded wards. Arlen thought them clumsy, but they had lasted thus far, it seemed. The roof was uneven, with short, squat wardposts poking up through the rotting thatch. One side of the house connected to the small barn, its windows boarded and its door half off the hinges. Across the yard was the big barn, looking even worse. The wards might hold, but it looked ready to collapse on its own.

      â€˜I’ve never seen Harl’s place before,’ Jeph said.

      â€˜Me neither,’ Arlen lied. Few people apart from Messengers had reason to head up the road past the Cluster by the Woods, and those who lived up that way were sources of great speculation in Town Square. Arlen had sneaked off to see Crazy Man Tanner’s farm more than once. It was the farthest he had ever been from home. Getting back before dusk had meant hours of running as fast as he could.

      One time, a few months before, he almost didn’t make it. He had been trying to catch a glimpse of Harl’s eldest daughter, Ilain. The other boys said she had the biggest bubbies in the Brook, and he wanted to see for himself. He waited one day, and saw her come running out of the house, crying. She was beautiful in her sadness, and Arlen had wanted to go comfort her, even though she was eight summers older than him. He hadn’t been so bold, but he’d watched her longer than was wise, and almost paid a heavy price for it when the sun began to set.

      A mangy dog began barking as they approached the farm, and a young girl came out onto the porch, watching them with sad eyes.

      â€˜We might have to succour here,’ Jeph said.

      â€˜It’s still hours till dark,’ Arlen said, shaking his head. ‘If we don’t catch Ragen by then, the map says there’s another farm up by where the road forks to the Free Cities.’

      Jeph peered over Arlen’s shoulder at the map. ‘That’s a long way,’ he said.

      â€˜Mam can’t wait,’ Arlen said. ‘We won’t make it all the way today, but every hour is an hour closer to her cure.’

      Jeph looked back at Silvy, bathed in sweat, then up at the sun, and nodded. They waved at the girl on the porch, but did not stop.

      They covered a great distance in the next few hours, but found no sign of the Messenger or another farm. Jeph looked up at the orange sky.

      â€˜It will be full dark in less than two hours,’ he said. ‘We have to turn back. If we hurry, we can make it back to Harl’s in time.’

      â€˜The farm could be right around that next bend,’ Arlen argued. ‘We’ll find it.’

      â€˜We don’t know that,’ Jeph said, spitting over the side of the cart. ‘The map ent clear. We turn back while we still can, and no arguing.’

      Arlen’s eyes widened in disbelief. ‘We’ll lose half a day that way, not to mention the night. Mam might die in that time!’ he cried.

      Jeph looked back at his wife, sweating in her bundled blankets, breathing in short fits. Sadly, he looked around at the lengthening shadows, and suppressed a shiver. ‘If we’re caught out after dark,’ he replied quietly, ‘we’ll all die.’

      Arlen was shaking his head before his father finished, refusing to accept it. ‘We could …’ he floundered. ‘We could draw wards in the soil,’ he said at last. ‘All around the cart.’

      â€˜And if a breeze comes along and mars them?’ his father asked. ‘What then?’

      â€˜The farm could be just over the next hill!’ Arlen insisted.

      â€˜Or it could be twenty more miles down the road,’ his father shot back, ‘or burned down a year ago. Who knows what’s happened since that map was drawn?’