“You had a pie, you lucky pig!” snapped Brid, but she gave in and let Olob pull the cart into a secluded grassy space under a cliff. A stream ran in a trickle of green mosses down the rock face. Moril came down from the cart, feeling shaky at the knees.
“If we’re going to camp this near the village,” said Kialan, emerging from hiding, “then we’d better set a watch tonight.”
“What for?” said Moril. “Nobody’s going to bother to come at night, not after three children. And if they come while we’re awake, we’ll hear them.”
“I’m going to watch, all the same,” said Kialan.
“No you’re not,” said Moril. “There’s no point.”
“Bossy, aren’t you, all of a sudden!” Brid snapped. Then she rounded on Kialan. “And if you make yourself ill staying awake every night, what are we supposed to do with you?”
Moril realized that Brid was angry because she was tired and miserable. So he said nothing and simply began to get Olob out of the shafts. Kialan must have realized it, too, because he said wearily, “Oh, all right. I give in,” and started collecting firewood.
Brid investigated the provisions Dagner had bought. “What am I supposed to do with all this flour?” she demanded. “And no eggs!”
It looked as if Dagner’s idea had been to stock the cart with enough food to last them until they reached the North. But as Brid said mournfully, his mind must have been on that message, for the only useful things he had bought were the bacon and a large cheese. Among the less useful things were lentils, candles, and a big bunch of rhubarb.
“Look at this!” said Brid, wagging the rhubarb about. “What was he thinking of?”
“Waste of money,” agreed Kialan. “Did he use all you earned?”
“Yes,” said Brid. “Every penny. And there’s not even any bread.”
They had a rather strange supper of fried bacon, cheese, and experimental pancakes made out of flour and water. Brid, after nibbling one, promptly put
them in the frying pan that held the bacon, and Kialan thought of melting cheese over them to improve the taste. This left them still so empty that they finished the meal with about a quart each of stewed rhubarb; luckily, Lenina had left some sugar in the cart.
Moril felt better after that. He got up, fetched the bucket, and carefully cleaned the cart. It was looking very dusty and uncared for, and to his mind, it had a furtive, illegal look. He thought about Dagner as he worked. He wondered what he had to eat in prison and how soon he would be tried and hanged. Or did the questioning by the justice count as a trial? Moril feared that it did. He wondered again what Dagner had said when they questioned him. Then he thought of Dagner trying to carry on Clennen’s work in Dagner’s way. It had not seemed wise. Dagner had been nervous and secretive, and he had made a fatal mistake. But on the other hand, Dagner was so unlike Clennen that it was probably the only thing he could do. Moril thought about himself going back to Clennen’s way and wondered if that was wise. He was not like Clennen either. But he did not know what he was like. He supposed that sooner or later he would have to find out, and then do things in the way best suited to what he found.
Brid and Kialan were washing the pans. Kialan was looking exhausted. Tears kept coming into Brid’s eyes, and she angrily wiped them away with the back of her greasy hand. And they were both pretending they were cheerful.
“Do you think if we mixed the cheese in with the flour, they’d taste better?” Brid said.
“What about rhubarb? Sort of fritters?” said Kialan.
“Ugh!” said Brid. “When I see Dagner, I’ll—” She wiped off another set of tears and said brightly, “He must have had his reasons, I suppose.”
Moril tipped away the dirty water, wondering if there could be three more unhappy people in Dalemark. Kialan must know he was a danger to himself and his companions. His landfall in Holand must have been horrible. And since then, Moril realized, Kialan’s life had been one long, tense escape, which was not over yet. As for himself and Brid, they had seen their family simply dwindle away, until it was down to their two selves. And Kialan had been fond of Dagner, too—fonder than he had realized.
Moril stopped himself in the midst of a snuffle of self-pity. No. Last year, as soon as they were safely in the North, Clennen had told them some of the other things that happened in the South. Whole families had been arrested. The older ones had been hanged, and children younger than Moril had been left with nothing in the world, and nobody dared help them for fear of being arrested, too. Clennen had told them how Henda had calmly doubled his taxes last year and turned those who could not pay out to starve, and how old Tholian had hunted an old man with dogs for not raising his hat to him fast enough. Moril knew there must be hundreds of people in the South even worse off than he was. They had a horse and cart, and Clennen had left them with a means of earning a living and a license to do it. If it came to the worst, they could go back to Markind. Moril did not like the idea. He tried to tell himself that they could not go back, because of Kialan. But he knew that was not it. Lenina would help Kialan. The reason for his not liking it, he was forced to admit, was that he was not at all clear whether they had deserted Lenina, or she them. And it made him uncomfortable.
“We’ll give more shows,” he said, putting Lenina out of his mind. He went to the cart to polish the instruments and stopped at the sight of the wine jar taking up so much room inside. “Do you know anything about this wine jar?” he called to Kialan.
“No—oh, you mean the papers?” Kialan said, coming over to the cart. “Dagner had a look in Markind, because he had to find the message for Neathdale. They’re down inside its basket.”
Moril scrambled up to look. Kialan took down the tailgate and told him where to put his hand down between bottle and basket. Brid hurried over and watched Moril fish about, feel paper, and pull it out. “What are these?”
“Messages that weren’t so important,” said Kialan. “Lucky they didn’t search the cart, wasn’t it?”
Brid and Moril held the papers into the sinking sun and spelled out, in Clennen’s writing: “For Mattrick. Someone in Neathdale—I think Halain—smells of lavender. Dirty washing through Pali and Fander in future.”
“Lavender!” said Brid. “Really, Father!”
The other notes said the same, and were marked to be delivered to places between Markind and Neathdale.
“Go and put those all on the fire,” Moril said, handing them to Kialan. “Now do you believe we can read?”
Kialan grinned and took the papers. While he was stuffing them under the embers and the air was filling with the strong smell of burning paper, Moril busily worked his hand on round the wine jar. Halfway round, he felt more papers. He pulled them out and unfolded them.