Griffin's Fate

Chapter Six - Part One

Four days later, the wayguard riding at the front held up his gloved fist. A motley caravan halted in a muddy track before a cottage made of stacked, jagged stones. The six carts in today's group fanned out politely along the road, as if someone else might come through in the next hour. Horses and oxen were unhitched to eat the tall grass. Children and cooking pots came out of the other wagons, but the two Arnabis kept to themselves at the back of the line.

Ken poked his head through the flap to find a pair of twins with sunburned cheeks hiding again by the back wheel. His Mum called the toddlers' attempts to sneak aboard precious and she snuck the girls treats. He wasn't so impressed. The girls squealed with delight at the brown boy's funny scowl, and raced barefoot back to their wagon brimming with melons and squash. Their father was a hefty, balding man. He bent low to scoop them up and kissed them to behave. He swirled his giggling squash blossoms around and set them down lightly in the cart. Ken felt himself envying them a little, and then crossing his arms and looking away. He caught his Mum watching the family furtively, with two more of his favorite caramels cupped in her palm. That morning he'd seen her checking her fabric stock in the trunk. Maybe for better tiny dresses than ones made of grain sacks.

"Did you ever want to have more children?" Ken asked gently. "Or another...someone?"

"Are you wanting brothers and sisters now?" his Mum retorted. "Afraid I'm going to leave you when we get to the end of the road?"

He simply waited until she rolled her eyes and got around to the answer. The sticky warm sweets tumbled back into their box.

"I've no further interest in Charlen men," she said, dusting off her hands. "As for the Arnabi ones, if they couldn't give me respect as surepa, they didn't deserve mine. But...more little ones would have been nice."

"So that's a yes. And if you'd found a gent, would we have stopped being surepa?"

She frowned and pushed their water bucket into his hands. She set her hands on her hips.

"If your beautiful head can wander that much, it can go top up our barrel."

Ken dropped into the knee-high grass and shielded his eyes. He squinted at this wild place between two villages. There was no shade to hide under, but they'd been moving since dawn and everywhere else was just a road.

An elderly woman with sun-wrinkled skin was digging potatoes in a soggy field beside him. She was the owner, empress, and magistrate of this slice of nowhere. Three fat black chickens scratched around her feet and she talked to them like people.

"I don't know why that young man looks shiny, Ekkie," the woman said sourly to one severe-looking hen. "You need to ask him."

Ken and the bird made eye contact. Ekkie glared at him with severe bronze-colored eyes. Then she strutted away, tail high. He must not have been worth the trouble.

Ken and the lady also regarded each other before both turning shy. Or coy, he wasn't sure which. The woman went to her cottage, which had dark windows that reminded him of eye sockets. She brushed her hand over braids of woven grass that decorated the doorframe as she vanished inside. He sighed, and used the empty bucket as a step to climb back in the tujini.

Ken resigned himself to his fate and plucked a burnt orange bundle from the top of an open crate. He pulled the garish tunic over his clothes and slipped on a forgery of a novice merchant's white sash. Its embroidery had been looking more and more convincing over the past week. His Mum was sitting backwards on the front bench, facing into their soft-walled home. She looked up from dabbing her sweaty face with a cloth.

"We are about to have another one," he said in Arnabi.

"Out here?" She began taming her windblown mane. "How soon?"