"I'm all right." Never had he told such a lie.
"I felt quite sure of who the culprit was--as you do, I reckon--but any remaining doubts were put to rest at Gitty's Saloon, my first stop in Tree. The local boozer's always good for a dozen knucks come tax time, if not more. There I found out that Bern Kells had slipped the rope with his dead partner's widow."
"Because of you," Tim said in a monotone that didn't sound like his own voice at all. "Because of your gods-damned taxes."
The Covenant Man laid a hand on his breast and spoke in wounded tones. "You wrong me! 'Twasn't taxes that kept Big Kells burning in his bed all these years, aye, even when he still had a woman next to him to quench his torch."
He went on, but the stuff he called nen was wearing off, and Tim lost the sense of the words. Suddenly he was no longer cold but hot, burning up, and his stomach was a churning bag. He staggered toward the remains of the campfire, fell on his knees, and vomited his supper into the hole the Covenant Man had been digging with his bootheel.
"There!" the man in the black cloak said in a tone of hearty self-congratulation. "I thought that might come in handy."
"You'll want to go and see your mother now," said the Covenant Man when Tim had finished puking and was sitting beside the dying campfire with his head down and his hair hanging in his eyes. "Good son that you are. But I have something you may want. One more minute. It'll make no difference to Nell Kells; she is as she is."
"Don't call her so!" Tim spat.
"How can I not? Is she not wed? Marry in haste, repent at leisure, the old folken say." The Covenant Man squatted once more in front of his heaped gunna, his cloak billowing around him like the wings of an awful bird. "They also say what's slipped cannot be unslipped, and they say true. An amusing concept called divorce exists on some levels of the Tower, but not in our charming little corner of Mid-World. Now let me see . . . it's here somewhere . . ."
"I don't understand why Square Peter and Slow Ernie didn't find him," Tim said dully. He felt deflated, empty. Some emotion still pulsed deep in his heart, but he didn't know what it was. "This is their plot . . . their stake . . . and they've been back cutting ever since Cosington was well enough to work again."
"Aye, they cut the iron, but not here. They've plenty of other stubs. They've left this one fallow for a bit. Does thee not know why?"
Tim supposed he did. Square Peter and Slow Ernie were good and kindly, but not the bravest men ever to log the iron, which was why they didn't go much deeper into the forest than this. "They've been waiting for the pooky to move on, I wot."
"It's a wise child," the Covenant Man said approvingly. "He wots well. And how does thee think thy steppa felt, knowing yon treeworm might move on at any time, and those two come back? Come back and find his crime, unless he screws up enough gut to come himself and move the body deeper into the woods?"
The new emotion in Tim's heart was pulsing more strongly now. He was glad. Anything was better than the helpless terror he felt for his mother. "I hope he feels bad. I hope he can't sleep." And then, with dawning understanding: "It's why he went back to the drink."
"A wise child indeed, wise beyond his-- Ah! Here it is!"
The Covenant Man turned toward Tim, who was now untying Bitsy and preparing to mount up. He approached the boy, holding something beneath his cloak. "He did it on impulse, sure, and afterward he must have been in a panic. Why else would he concoct such a ridiculous story? The other woodsmen doubt it, of that you may be sure. He built a fire and leaned into it as far as he dared and for as long as he could take it, scorching his clothes and blistering his skin. I know, because I built my fire on the bones of his. But first he threw his dead pard's gunna across yon stream, as far into the woods as his strength would allow. Did it with your da's blood not yet dry on his hands, I warrant. I waded across and found it. Most of it's useless mickle, but I saved thee one thing. It was rusty, but my pumice stone and honing bar have cleaned it up very well."
From beneath his cloak he produced Big Ross's hand-ax. Its freshly sharpened edge glittered. Tim, now astride Bitsy, took it, brought it to his lips, and kissed the cold steel. Then he shoved the handle into his belt, blade turned out from his body, just as Big Ross had taught him, once upon a bye.
"I see you wear a rhodite double around your neck. Was it your da's?"
Mounted, Tim was almost eye-to-eye with the Covenant Man. "It was in that murdering bastard's trunk."
"You have his coin; now you have his ax, as well. Where will you put it, I wonder, if ka offers you the chance?"
"In his head." The emotion--pure rage--had broken free of his heart like a bird with its wings on fire. "Back or front, either will do me fine."
"Admirable! I like a boy with a plan! Go with all the gods you know, and the Man Jesus for good measure." Then, having wound the boy to his fullest stop, he turned to build up his fire. "I may bide along the Iron for another night or two. I find Tree strangely interesting this Wide Earth. Watch for the green sighe, my boy! She glows, so she does!"
Tim made no reply, but the Covenant Man felt sure he had heard.
Once they were wound to the fullest stop, they always did.
The Widow Smack must have been watching from the window, for Tim had just led a footsore Bitsy up to the porch (in spite of his growing anxiety he had walked the last half-mile to spare her) when she came rushing out.
"Thank gods, thank gods. Your mother was three quarters to believing you were dead. Come in. Hurry. Let her hear and touch you."
The import of these words didn't strike Tim fully until later. He tied Bitsy beside Sunshine and hurried up the steps. "How did you know to come to her, sai?"
The Widow turned her face to him (which, given her veil, was hardly a face at all). "Has thee gone soft in the head, Timothy? You rode past my house, pushing that mule for all she was worth. I couldn't think why you'd be out so late, and headed in the direction of the forest, so I came here to ask your mother. But come, come. And keep a cheery voice, if you love her."
The Widow led him across the living room, where two 'seners burned low. In his mother's room another 'sener burned on the bed table, and by its light he saw Nell lying in bed with much of her face wrapped in bandages and another--this one badly bloodstained--around her neck like a collar.
At the sound of their footsteps, she sat up with a wild look upon her face. "If it's Kells, stay away! You've done enough!"
"It's Tim, Mama."
She turned toward him and held out her arms. "Tim! To me, to me!"
He knelt beside the bed, and the part of her face not covered by bandages he covered with kisses, crying as he did so. She was still wearing her nightgown, but now the neck and bosom were stiff with rusty blood. Tim had seen his steppa fetch her a terrible lick with the ceramic jug, and then commence with his fists. How many blows had he seen? He didn't know. And how many had fallen on his hapless mother after the vision in the silver basin had disappeared? Enough so he knew she was very fortunate to be alive, but one of those blows--likely the one dealt with the ceramic jug--had struck his mother blind.
"'Twas a concussive blow," the Widow Smack said. She sat in Nell's bedroom rocker; Tim sat on the bed, holding his mother's left hand. Two fingers of the right were broken. The Widow, who must have been very busy since her fortuitous arrival, had splinted them with pieces of kindling and flannel strips torn from another of Nell's nightgowns. "I've seen it before. There's swelling to the brain. When it goes down, her sight may return."
"May," Tim said bleakly.
"There will be water if God wills it, Timothy."
Our water is poisoned now, Tim thought, and it was none of any god's doing. He opened his mouth to say just that, but the Widow shook her head. "She's asleep. I gave her an herb drink--not strong, I didn't dare give her strong after he cuffed her so around the head--but it's taken hold. I wasn't sure 'twould."
Tim looked down at his mother's face--terribly pale, with freckles of blood still drying on the litt
le exposed skin the Widow's bandagements had left--and then back up at his teacher. "She'll wake again, won't she?"
The Widow repeated, "There will be water if God wills it." Then the ghost-mouth beneath the veil lifted in what might have been a smile. "In this case, I think there will be. She's strong, your ma."
"Can I talk to you, sai? For if I don't talk to someone, I'll explode."
"Of course. Come out on the porch. I'll stay here tonight, by your leave. Will you have me? And will you stable Sunshine, if so?"
"Aye," Tim said. In his relief, he actually managed a smile. "And say thankya."
The air was even warmer. Sitting in the rocker that had been Big Ross's favorite roost on summer nights, the Widow said, "It feels like starkblast weather. Call me crazy--you wouldn't be the first--but so it does."
"What's that, sai?"