TWO

On the afternoon of the following day, Jeremy was fighting a heavy wheelbarrow down a steep path, moving in the general direction of the village on one of his many trips from the vineyard on the upper hillside, a lean and shabby figure, almost staggering down the well-worn path on unshod feet, his face shaded by a mass of red hair, stringy arms strained taut supporting the wheelbarrow's handles. Several times on the descent the weight of the load caused him to stumble slightly, on the verge of losing control, as he guided the mass of the crude conveyance piled with freshly picked grapes, bunches with here and there a few leaves. Purple skins with green highlights, clustered thickly on their stems, ripe and bursting with the weight of their own juice, bound for the vats in which the juice would be crushed out of them, they made a staggering load. Jeremy's skin and clothing alike were stained in patches with the royal purple of their juice.

These were truly exotic grapes that people grew in the Raisin-makers' village. Only a comparative few, mostly those on Humbert's vines, were pressed for wine, because the real strong point of the local crop was that they made superb raisins. Jeremy had liked the homemade raisins, for the first four months or so, but for the past two months had been heartily sick of them.

Soon the village wine vats would be full and future barrow loads of grapes would have to go to the other side of the village, where they would be spread out on boards and dried into more raisins. Then Jeremy would be kept busy for weeks to come, continuously turning the grapes in the sun and guarding them vigilantly against insects. At least he might be granted a break from the wheelbarrow.

An alternative possibility was that when he had finished the job of hauling grapes he would be assigned to the job of bringing down to the river's edge some tons of rocks, of a convenient size to be used as the foundation for a new dock.

Long hours of toil since sunrise had already wiped away all thought of last night's dreams and needs. He was muttering and grumbling to himself in smoldering anger—an eternity of nothing but more work seemed to stretch out before the weary youth—when he heard a voice calling, from the direction of the patch of woods at his right side:

"Help me."

The whisper was so soft, almost inaudible, that for the space of several heartbeats Jeremy was unsure that he had heard anything at all. But the strangeness of the call had brought him to a halt. Memories of dreams very briefly flickered through his mind.

Then the faint call was repeated. The words were as real as heat and work and aching muscles, and they had nothing at all to do with dreams.

In the course of a day, other workers came and went along the path at intervals, but at the moment Jeremy had it all to himself. From where he stood right now, no other human being was visible, except for two or three in the far distance. No one was in the field that lay to his left, richly green with late summer crops, or nearby on his right, where the land was too uneven for practical tilling and had been allowed to remain in woods. Ahead, the fringe of the village, visible among shade trees, was also for the moment empty of people.

The boy pushed back his mass of red hair—he had decided to let it grow as long as possible, since it seemed to put off and offend the natives of this village—and looked a little deeper into the woods. His gaze was drawn to the spot where a growing bush and the pile of vine cuttings beside it made a kind of hiding place. In the next moment Jeremy let out a soft breath of wonder at the sight of the dark eyes of a young woman. She was lying motionless on her side on the ground, head slightly raised, gazing back at him.

The two upright supports of the wheeled barrow hit the barren earth of the pathway with a thud. Letting his load sit where it was, Jeremy stepped three paces off the path and went down on one knee in the tall weeds beside the woman—or girl. Despite her weakened, worn appearance, he thought she was only a little older than he.

She was curled up on the ground, motionless as a frightened rabbit, lying on her right side, her right arm mostly concealed beneath her body, her knees drawn up. The attitude in which she lay told him that she must be injured. Dark eyes moved, in a begrimed and anguished face. His first look told him little about the woman's clothing save that it was dark and concealed most of her body. Dark boots and trousers and a loose blouse or jacket mottled gray and brown. At some time, perhaps many days ago, some kind of camouflage paint had been smeared on the exposed portions of her skin, so it was hard to tell its natural color.

Casting a quick look around, he made sure that they were still unobserved. Then he ducked around a bush and crouched down right beside the stranger.

The stranger's dark eyes glistened at him, with an intensity that tried to probe his very soul. Her next words came almost as softly as before, with pauses for breath between them. "Don't. . . betray . .. me."

"I won't." He gave his soft-voiced answer immediately, in great sincerity, and without thought of what the consequences might be. Even before he had any idea of how he might betray her if he wanted to. Some part of him had been ready to respond to the appeal, as if he had somehow known all along that it was coming.

"I see you . . . passing ... up and down the path."

"That's my work. I work here, for my uncle."

In the same weak voice she said: "They are hunting me. They are going to kill me." After a longer pause, while Jeremy could feel the hair on the back of his neck trying to stand up, the woman added, as if to herself in afterthought: "They've killed me already."

"Who is ... ? But you're hurt." Jeremy had suddenly taken notice of the bloodstains, dried dark on dark clothing.

She shook her head; all explanations could wait. The dry-lipped whisper went on: "Water. Bring me some water. Please."

He grabbed up the gourd bottle, hanging on one side of the barrow, and handed it over.

At first she was unable even to sit up, and he had to hoist the stranger's slender torso with an arm around her shoulders, which were bony and solid, though not big. Even with his help, she made the move only with some difficulty. Her face was begrimed and stained with dried blood, on top of everything else.

When the gourd had been completely drained in a few rapid swallows, he handed her a rich cluster of grapes; she hadn't asked for food, but her appearance suggested that she could use some. She looked to be in need of nourishment as well as water. She attacked the grapes ravenously, swallowing seeds and all, the juice staining her lips purple, and reached for more when Jeremy held them out.

Her hair was a darkish blond, once cut short, now raggedly regrown long enough to tangle.

The boy's heart turned over in him at the appeal. It was hard to be sure with her face painted and in her wounded condition, but he guessed that the woman hiding at the edge of the brush pile had perhaps four or five more years than his fifteen.

"That's good," she murmured, eyes closed, savoring the aftertaste of the water. "Very good."

"What can I do?"

The water and grapes had not strengthened her voice any. Still she could utter no more than a few words with a single breath. "Help me get... down the river . .. before ... they find me."

"Oh." He looked around, feeling his mind a blank whirl. But he felt no doubt of what he ought to do. "First I better move you farther from the path. Someone'll see you here."

She nodded but winced and came near crying out when he tugged at her awkwardly, accidentally putting his hand on a place where she had been hurt. Blood had soaked through her garments and dried, on her back and on the seat of her pants. But he did succeed in shifting her, for the few necessary yards, to a spot surrounded by taller bushes, where she would be completely out of sight as long as she lay still.

"Lay me down again. Oh gods, what pain! Put me down."

Hastily he did. As gently as he could.

"Did anyone ... hear me?"

Jeremy looked around cautiously, back toward the path, up the path and down. "No. There's no one."

Suddenly he was feeling more fully alive than he had for months and months, ever since moving into Uncle Humbert's house. He wiped sweat from his face with the sleeve of his homespun shirt. No one else from the village had seen the mysterious stranger yet, or there would already be a noisy uproar. And he accepted without thinking about it that it was important that no one in the village must learn of her presence.

It never occurred to Jeremy to wonder who the people hunting her might be. The only thing in the world that mattered was the bond that had already sprung into existence between himself and this other human who had come here from some enormous distance. He could not yet have defined the nature of this tie, but it was very strong and sharply separated the pair of them from everyone else he had encountered since moving to this village.

The boy crouched over her reclining form, staring, wondering. He had not yet grasped any of the details of what had happened, but already he understood that his whole life had just been drastically changed.

The young woman's eyes were almost closed again. "Thank you for saving my life."

Jeremy could find no response. He hadn't done anything, yet, to earn those words. But he would. He only grunted, feeling like the village idiot, his face turning red beneath its thousand freckles.

The woman, her mind obviously absorbed in bigger problems, took no notice of his embarrassment. With a faint crackle of dried twigs, she slightly raised her head, squinting and sniffing. "I smell woodsmoke in the wind, sometimes. And something rotten."

"That's the clam meats. Some of the people fish for clams. To get the shells."

She shook her head. "I hear people. I see ... Actually, I can't see much of anything from here." She squinted again, turning her head a little to the right.

"Yes. How long have you been here, lying in the woods?"

"I don't know. Hours. Maybe days. It was starting to get daylight. And I couldn't walk anymore. I was afraid ... to try to crawl to the water. Afraid someone would see me. Is this a Honeymakers' village?"

"No. Nothing like that." He wasn't sure that he had understood the question or heard it right. "We keep no bees."

"Gods help me, then." She paused. "Is there a shrine in your village? What god?"

"Not really mine. But yes, there's a small shrine." Every village Jeremy had ever seen had some kind of shrine, though most of them had been long neglected. "Dionysus and Priapus, both. One god for wine and one for vineyards."

"I see. Not much good. Apollo help me. Bees might do some good. Do you have cattle?"

"Cattle? No." Bees? What good could they do? And cattle? With a chill it came to him that this person, with whom he was suddenly so intimately connected, might be delirious.

"Where am I, then?"

He told her the formal name of the village, archaic words meaning the town of raisinmakers, giving it the pronunciation he had learned from his aunt and uncle. But he could see in the stranger's face that the words meant nothing to her.

"But the river," she persisted stubbornly. "We're right beside a river here. You said freshwater clams."

"That's right."

"Is it the Aeron? I couldn't see it. I had to come across country."

"Yes, the Aeron."

At last the young woman had heard an answer from which she could derive a little comfort. Jeremy thought her body relaxed slightly.

"There are boats here, then," she said. "People beside a river have boats."

"Yes, ma'am. Some of them do a lot of fishing. There must be a dozen boats."

"Then there must be some way ... I could get a boat."

"I can get one for you," the boy promised instantly. Stealing a boat of course would be the only way to obtain one, and an hour ago it would not have occurred to Jeremy to steal anything. His parents had taught him that thievery was simply wrong, not something that honorable people did.

But when he learned that, he had been living in a different world.

The young woman turned uneasily. Her movement, the expression on her face, showed that something was really hurting her. "Water. Please, I need more water." She had quickly finished off the few mouthfuls Jeremy had left in the bottle. "Is there any other food?"

He gave her some more grapes from his barrow and tore off a chunk of bread from his lunchtime supply and handed it over. And then he almost ran, delivering his barrow load, going by way of the well to get more water, that he might get back to the stranger more quickly. He had promised her fervently that he would soon be back.

During the remainder of the day, Jeremy went on about his usual work, shoving the empty barrow rattling uphill, wrestling it down again with a full load, and feeling that everyone was watching him. Despite this, he managed to bring more water to the fugitive and this time some real food, a piece of corn bread and scraps of fried fish. In fact, everyone in the village was intent on their own affairs and paid him no attention at all. Ordinary river water was the easiest to get, and most of the people in the village drank it all the time.

In the evening, the first time Jeremy had seen his aunt and uncle since early morning, Aunt Lynn commented that he was moody. But then, he was considered to be moody most of the time anyway, and neither of the old people said any more about it.

Not until next morning, when he was making his first visit of the day to the stranger in her hiding place, did she ask him, between bites of fish and corn bread: "What's your name?"

"Jeremy. Jeremy Redthorn."

The ghost of a smile came and went on her pallid lips. "Redthorn suits you."

Meaning his hair, of course. He nodded.

After he had brought her food the first time, she told him, "If you must call me something, call me Sal."

"Sal. I like that name."

And she smiled in a way that made him certain that the name she had told him was not her own.

"When can I get you a boat?"

"I better wait. Until I get a little stronger—just a little. And I can move. Can you spare a minute just to stay and talk?"

He nodded. If Uncle Humbert thought that Jeremy was slacking on the job he would yell at him but was unlikely to try to impose any penalty. Generally Jeremy worked hard for most of his waking hours—because working was about the only way to keep from thinking about other things, topics that continually plagued him. Such as dead parents, live girls who sometimes could be seen with no clothes on, and a life that had no future, only an endless path down which he walked, pushing a loaded barrow.

Sal in her soft voice asked: "You live with your parents, Jeremy? Brothers? Sisters?"

Jeremy tossed his mass of red hair in a quick negative motion. "Nothing like that." His voice was harsh, and suddenly it broke deep. "My father and mother are dead. I live with my aunt and uncle."

Looking up at him, she thought that his face was not attractive in any conventional way, running to odd angles and high bones prominent in cheeks too young to sprout a beard. Greenish eyes peered through a tight-curled mass of reddish hair. Face and wiry neck and exposed arms were largely a mass of freckles. Jeremy's arms and legs tended to be long and would one day be powerful. His hands and feet had already got most of their growing done; his shoulders were sloping and still narrow. Today his right knee was starting to show through a hole in trousers that, though Aunt Lynn had made them only a couple of months ago, were already beginning to be too short.

Sometimes when Jeremy saw the woman again she seemed a little stronger, her speech a little easier. And then again he would come back and find her weaker than ever before.

What if she should die? What in all the hells was he ever going to do then?

Once she reached up her small, hard hand and clutched at one of his. "Jeremy. I don't want to make any trouble for you. But there's something I must do. Something more important than anything else—than anything. More than what happens to you. Or to me either. So you must help me to get downstream. You must."

He listened carefully, trying to learn what the important thing was—whatever it was, he was going to do it. "I can try. Yes, I can help you. Anything! How far down do you want to go?"

"All the way. Hundreds of miles from here. All the way to the sea."

Yes. And in that moment he understood suddenly, with a sense of vast relief, that he would get her a boat and, when she left, he was going with her.

"You haven't told anyone else? About me?"

"No! Never fear; I won't." Jeremy feared to trust anyone else in the village with the knowledge of his discovery. Certainly he knew better than to trust his aunt or uncle in any matter like this.

"Who is your mayor—or do you have a mayor?"

He shook his head. "This place is too small for that."

"How many houses?"

"About a dozen." Then he added an earnest caution: "The people here hate strangers. They'd keep no secret for you. This place is not like my old home—my real home."

"What was that like?"

Jeremy shook his head. He could find no words to begin to describe the differences between his home village, the place where he'd spent his first fourteen years, and this. There everyone had known him and his parents had been alive.

Marvellously, Sal seemed to get the idea anyway. "Yes. There's a great world out there, isn't there?"

He nodded. At least he could hope there was. He was inarticulately grateful for her understanding.

For the past half a year he'd been an orphan, feeling much alienated. Uncle Humbert was not basically unkind, but such daring as he possessed, and Aunt Lynn's as well, had been stretched to the limits by taking in a refugee. Both of them sometimes looked at Jeremy in a way that seemed to indicate that they regretted their decision. Apparently it just wasn't done, in the Raisinmakers' village.

The truth was that Uncle Humbert, with no children of his own, had been unable to refuse the prospect of cheap labor that the boy provided. He could do a man's work now, at only a fraction of the expense of a hired man.

No, Jeremy had no illusions about what would happen to Sal—or to himself, but never mind that—if he appealed to his uncle and his aunt for help. He and Sal would both be in deep trouble, he'd bet on that, though he could not make out what the exact shape of the trouble would be. Nor could the boy think of a single soul in the village who might be sympathetic enough to take the slightest risk on behalf of an injured stranger.

Vaguely the image of Myra crossed Jeremy's mind. This time her image appeared fully clothed, and there was nothing vivid about it. In fact, her form was insubstantial. Because Jeremy had no time, no inclination, to think of Myra now. The village girl meant no more than anyone else who lived here, and suddenly none of them meant anything at all.