The Seeker (12 page)

“We’ll manage canny between us,” Matthew was saying, still in that barely audible voice. “I’d be pleased, though, if ye’d teach me how to shield so well, fer I can’t believe that shield of yours is any accident,” he added humbly. I looked into his bright, intelligent face, and it was as if some wall in me crumbled.

“I will teach you,” was all I said, but with those words it was as if I peeled off a layer of skin. Matthew beamed, seeming
to understand the momentousness of sharing for the first time, and I thought of Jes and wished he could know what I had discovered.

“And Dameon?” Matthew asked anxiously, breaking into mindspeak.

I turned slightly to watch Dameon’s graceful progress behind us and sent out a gentle probe. He flinched and stumbled, and I withdrew hurriedly.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, but he shook his head.

“I was just surprised. It’s stronger than when Matthew does it,” he said, and smiled. “I can feel your curiosity,” he laughed. “It’s almost as bad as his. I call my own ability empathy.”

“He does that all th’ time,” Matthew reassured me aloud. “He picks up th’ weirdest things. No words, though, an’ he’s deaf as a doorpost to other things.”

“Quiet back there!” Ariel shouted, effectively silencing the entire group. I hoped Matthew would be careful, and to my relief, he said nothing more and dropped back to walk with Dameon. He sent a silent promise that we would meet again soon, when it was safe.

Busy with my thoughts, I cannoned into one of the twins, who had stopped in front of me. We had reached the end of the maze.

Ariel led us out and told us to wait by the maze gate until Rushton came to collect us. Matthew and Dameon made no move to join me, so I took their cue and stayed where I was. The sun had risen quite high now, and though the grass was still dew-soaked and the shadows long, the air smelled delicious with the mingled farm smells.

I glanced back at Matthew and, seeing his sober expression, I had an unaccountable desire to make a face at him. I was amazed at the warmth of my feelings, but as the farm
overseer approached from the direction of the sheds, I felt a moment of apprehension. Though this time he paid no particular attention to me, there was an aura of power about him, and I was reminded of something Maruman had once said about wild animals—that even the most gentle was not quite safe. That was how Rushton struck me—as if one might run a great risk in simply knowing him. Yet when he began assigning tasks, his apparent boredom reassured me.

Dameon, Matthew, and others were sent over to a large building that he called the drying shed. Cameo and the twins were sent across to the orchards. Then only two of us remained. The other girl was to feed the pigs, Rushton said, and I was to clean out the stables. He gave me an expressionless look with his bold green eyes and told me to wait inside until he returned.

A large dog lay against a wall just inside the stables. He opened his eyes as I entered and watched me sit on a bale of hay.

“Greetings,” I thought on impulse.

His eyes widened, and he looked around before deciding I was the only one there. “Did you speak, funaga?” he asked with mild surprise.

I nodded. “I am Elspeth,” I sent. “May I know your name?”

“I am called Sharna,” he sent. “What manner of funaga are you?”

“I am a funaga like other funagas,” I replied formally.

“I have heard your name before,” he sent unexpectedly. “A cat spoke it.”

“Maruman!” I projected a picture with the name, but Sharna was unresponsive.

“I did not see this mad cat who seeks a funaga. I heard it from a beast who heard it from another.”

“Do you know where the cat was seen?” I asked excitedly.

“Who knows where a cat goes?” he sent philosophically. “The story was only told to me as a curiosity. Whoever heard of a cat looking for a funaga? I thought it a riddle.”

Rushton entered the stable then. He looked about sharply as if sensing something had been going on, then he tersely told me to follow him.

If he had shown an interest in me the day before, today he seemed at pains to assure me of his total lack of interest. “The stables have to be cleaned every second day,” he said in a bored voice as we entered one of the pens. A rich loamy smell rushed out to greet me. I watched as the overseer demonstrated how to catch hold of the horse’s halter and lead it out. The horses were to be released into the yard leading off the stables, he explained, their halters removed and hung on a hook. Once a horse had been led out, Rushton gave me a broom, a rake, and a pan, taking up a long-handled fork himself.

“You have to lift the manure out in clumps and drop it in the pan, along with the dirtiest hay.” Deftly he slid the prongs of the fork under some manure and threw it neatly into the pan. “When you’ve done all that, rake the rest of the hay to one side, then fork in some fresh stuff.” He forked hay from a nearby pile onto the floor with economical movements. It looked easy.

“You lay the old hay over the new; if you don’t, the horse will eat it.” He handed the fork to me. “There are twelve stables in this lot, so you’d better get on with it. Come and get me at the drying shed if you have any trouble getting the horses out.” I nodded, and briefly those inscrutable eyes searched mine, then he turned on his heel and left.

I turned and surveyed the stables.

“You would do well to mindspeak to them first,” Sharna commented from his corner. Taking his advice, I approached the nearest box and greeted its occupant, a dappled mare with a large, comfortable rear. She flicked her tail and turned to face me.

“Who are you?” she asked with evident amusement. “I have spoken to many odd creatures in my time but never a funaga. I suppose you are behind this.” She directed the latter thought to Sharna, who had ambled over to stand beside me. The mare leaned her long nose close to my face and snorted rudely. “I suppose you want to put me out? Well, I’m not having that thing on my head. Just open the door and I’ll walk out.”

I did as she asked, hoping Rushton would not come back and catch me disobeying his instructions. Sharna muttered about the mare’s bossiness, but I ignored him and concentrated on copying Rushton’s movements as I mucked out the box.

Except for a big, nasty black horse whom Sharna said had been badly mistreated by a previous master, the rest of the horses proved cooperative on the condition I did not use their halters. I had finished and was leaning on a post watching the horses graze when Rushton returned.

“You have been uncommonly swift,” he said suspiciously. The smile fell from my face as I realized I had been stupid.

“Too quick to believe, even if Enoch did recommend you,” he added.

And as I looked into his hard face, I was afraid.

PART II
H
EART OF THE
D
ARKNESS

12

“W
ELL
?”
RUSHTON INQUIRED
grimly.

“I … my father kept horses,” I lied, hoping he did not know how young I had been orphaned.

“And you did not think to mention it during my instruction?” he asked. There was a speculative gleam in his eyes as I shrugged awkwardly. “All right. There are packages of food for midmeal out by the maze gate. Go and eat, and I’ll find something else for you to do in the afternoon,” he said.

I left as fast as I could to escape those curious, watchful eyes.

The packages lay on a piece of cloth on the ground next to a large bucket of milk covered with a piece of gauze. I scooped up a mug of milk but avoided the squashy packages I recognized from my days in the kitchen as bread and dripping. Propping myself against a rain barrel in the sun, I again berated myself for my foolishness in working so quickly. I could have been with Sharna and the horses all day, but instead Rushton was sure to give me some horrible job now that he thought I had wasted his time.

I turned my thoughts to Maruman and wondered if he had been in the mountains. I doubted it. He could not have crossed the tainted ground on foot, and I did not think Enoch’s carriage had returned since my arrival, because I had noticed no new faces at meals.

I was so deep in thought that I did not see Matthew and Dameon approach, and I jumped as their shadows fell across my lap. They sat beside me, and I felt as though everything had changed in a matter of hours. Only yesterday this casual intrusion would have annoyed me, but I found I did not resent the company of this odd pair.

Nevertheless, I felt bound to point out to them that we made ourselves vulnerable by showing friendship openly. “I’m not saying I don’t want your company, but maybe it’s not a good idea to be so obvious,” I ventured, looking around doubtfully at Misfits sitting nearby.

Matthew shrugged. “Elspeth, yer thinkin’ like an orphan. We are Misfits now. What more could they do?”

Burn us
, I thought, but did not say it, for that seemed unlikely now. And he was right. I
had
been thinking like an orphan. The two boys unwrapped their lunches. Dameon rewrapped his with a grimace, but Matthew ate his with a bored expression.

“Have ye come across old Larkin yet?” Matthew asked presently. I shrugged, saying I hadn’t seen anyone but Rushton. “Nivver mind,” Matthew laughed. “Yer bound to see him soon. Ye’ll know when ye do. He’s not th’ sort ye could easily forget.”

“Who is he, a guardian?” I asked curiously.

“There are only three permanent guardians up here,” Dameon explained. “The others come and go. They don’t last long, though.” I thought of Guardian Myrna’s treatment of the hapless Hester and did not wonder.

“Strictly speakin’, Larkin is a Misfit, but he’s much older than the rest of us,” Matthew said. “Do you notice how there are no older Misfits? They send them to th’ Councilfarms. But Larkin has been here forever, and probably the Councilfarms
dinna want someone as old as him. But he’s a queer fey old codger. An’ rude as they come—I’m not even sure I like him exactly. But if ye can get him talkin’, he has some interesting ideas.”

“I don’t suppose half of it is true,” Dameon said with a grin.

But Matthew refused to be drawn. “I daresay he does make a lot of it up. But he knows a lot, too. An’ some of th’ things he says about th’ Beforetime make a lot more sense than the rubbish the Herders put about. There’s no harm in hearin’ ideas … unless ye happen to be blind in more ways than one,” he added with an oblique glance at Dameon. I thought it a rather tactless jibe, but Dameon only laughed.

“So where is he, then?” I asked crossly, somehow envious of their casual friendship.

“Well, he’s nowt a man to blow th’ whistle an’ bang th’ drum. In fact, I sometimes think he’d like to be invisible. But he works on th’ farms, so ye’ll meet him soon enough, doubtless,” Matthew said.

I thought of something else. “Tell me, the overseer—is he a Misfit?”

“Nobody really seems to know,” Matthew said. “I asked Larkin once, an’ he told me to mind my business.”

Dameon nodded. “He might work for pay, like the temporary guardians. But I don’t know. Whenever I’m near him, I sense a ferocious purpose and drive, though to what I do not know.”