The Ten Thousand(11)

By the time he had turned back to the woods the figure was visible. A man walking towards the road with his arms held out from his sides, and in one fist a single-headed spear. The man thrust this point-first into the ground for lack of a sauroter, and then came on with both palms open in the universal gesture. I mean no harm. Gasca’s breathing steadied. He strode forward. Others from the company were blinking their way out of their bedrolls, throwing aside furs and trying to make sense of the morning. One of the younger children was crying hopelessly, blue with cold.

Gasca stood between the approaching figure and the waking camp, and planted the sauroter of his own spear in the roadside. He wished now he had clapped on his father’s helm.

“What’s your business? State it quickly. I have good men at my back,” he said loudly, hoping those good men were out of their blankets. He scanned the treeline, but nothing else moved there. For the moment, at least, this fellow was alone. But that meant nothing. He might have twenty comrades stowed back in the trees, waiting to see the company’s headcount.

The man was tall, as tall as Gasca, though nothing like as broad. In fact he had a gaunt, hungry look. His chiton was worn and stained, ripped open at the neck in the grief-mark, and he had a blanket slung bagwise about his torso. There was a knife at his waist, hanging from a string. A scar marred the middle of his lower lip.

“I mean no harm. I hoped to share your fire,” the man said.

The two merchants and the young husbands joined Gasca at the roadside, wielding clubs and knives. “Shall we kill him?” one of the husbands asked eagerly.

“He’s not robbed us yet. Let him speak,” Gasca said.

He was young, this fellow. Now that they all had a chance to see him up close they realised that he was not much more than an overgrown boy. Until one looked in his eyes. He stared at Gasca, and in his hooded gaze there was utter indifference.

I could kill him right here and now, Gasca thought, and he would not raise so much as a finger.

“What’s your name?” he asked, more gently than he had meant to.

“Rictus.”

“Of what city?”

The thin man hesitated. “I was of Isca,” he said at last, “When Isca still stood.” His eyes hardened. “I seek only to travel with you to Machran. I have no ill intent. And I am alone.” He raised his hands, empty.

“Come on to the fire,” Gasca said. “If we can raise a flame.”

“Isca?” one of the merchants said. “What happened to Isca?”

The man named Rictus turned his head. He had eyes like grey shards of iron, cold as the sea. “Isca is no more.”

“Really? Gods above. Come, boy—come sit and tell us more.”

The strangeness had been broken. A threatening shape walking out of the woods had become a tired young man, who spoke civilly. They gathered around him, glad perhaps of some new story; news that was not shopworn, but fresh and raw. Gasca drew away, still watching this gaunt apparition. The man Rictus did not move. Something flickered in his eyes; pain. He was regretting this already, Gasca realised. He spoke again. “Let me go back for my spear.”

They tensed. He looked at Gasca.

“Go get it,” Gasca said, and shrugged.

Some humanity in the eyes at last. The man nodded, and went back the way he had come.

“You think he’s not a ruse, a roadsman?” one of the young husbands asked.

Gasca was about to answer, but it was the fat merchant who spoke first.

“Look in his face—he tells the truth. I’ve seen eyes like that before.” The merchant’s face tightened. For a second it was possible to see the soldier he might have been in younger days.

“We’ve nothing to fear from this lad. He’s already made his gift to the goddess.”

They got the fire going again, digging out of its black carcass a single red mote of living heat. This they conjured into a blaze, and with the addition of copper cauldrons they had boiling water soon after, and set the barley to swell in it. The campsite regained some of its usual cheer, though the newcomer, Rictus, had an armspan of cold air between himself and the rest. This was remedied when one of the urchins edged close, and finally sat defiantly within the crook of his arm. Rictus appeared startled, then pleased, then grim as a blacksmith’s washbowl. By his posture, one might think he had a spear-staff for a spine. And he was so cold that the warmth of the child next to him finally set him to shivering, with ground teeth.

The fatter of the merchants, the one Gasca now knew to be a true man, threw the wineskin to Rictus.

“Drink, for the gods, for all of us. Have a drink, lad. Pour a libation if you will. Ease that look in your eyes.”