His Fathers Water

"How far are you going?" Orem asked cheerfully. The grocer only eyed him skeptically for a moment, then turned to study the current, using the long pole to keep the raft to the center of the river.

Orem knew from the talk of travelers in Banningside that the currents of Banning were dangerous enough, but where the river was slower the dangers were worse, for there were pirates whenever Palicrovol's army was far away, and foragers whenever it was close, and both used about the same strategy for about the same purpose, with the difference that Palicrovol's men didn't kill half so often.

"The King's in Banningside," Orem offered. If the grocer heard, he gave no sign; indeed, he was so silent and surly-looking that Orem wondered that such an unfriendly man would have taken him aboard at all.

Night came quickly from behind the eastern trees, and when the last of the light was going, the grocer slowly poled the raft nearer the shore, though not closer than a hundred yards from the bank.

Then he took the three heavy anchor stones in their strong cloth bags and dropped them overboard at the rear of the raft. The current quickly drew them from the stones until the taut lines held them.

Orem watched silently as the grocer crawled into the tent and pulled out a large clay pan. In it the grocer built a fire of sticks and coal. On it he placed a brass bowl, where he made a carrot and onion soup with river water. Orem, was not sure whether he would be invited to share, and felt uneasy about asking. After all, if his host chose silence, it was not his place to insist on speech.

So he opened his bag and took out two sausages.

The grocer eyed them briefly. Orem held out one of them, thin and white and stiff within its casing. The grocer took his knife and reached it out. Orem thrust the sausage onto the point. The grocer grunted—a sound, at least!—and Orem watched him slice the meat so thin that it seemed he would cut the one sausage forever. When the grocer made no effort to reach for the second sausage, Orem put it back in his bag. There would be meat in the soup, then, and Orem had done his part to make the meal. He would stay aboard this ship as long as he wanted now, for it is the custom of the high river country that whoever makes a meal of shared food may not refuse each other's company.

They ate together in silence, spearing the lumps of carrot and meat with their knives and taking turns drinking the broth from the brass bowl. The meal over, the grocer rinsed the bowl in the river, then dipped his hand to bring water to his mouth.

Orem held out his flask. "From my father's spring."

The grocer looked at him sternly and, at last, spoke: "Then you saves it, boy."

"Is there no water where we're going?"

"When you gets to the Little Temple, you must pour in the water from your home and take out God's water."

"To drink?"

"To pour into your father's spring. What, is God forgotten on your father's farm?"

Dobbick had often wanted to tell him the rites of the Great and Little temples of Inwit, but Orem had never said the simple vow. Still, it wouldn't do to have the man think his family unbelievers. "We pray the five prayers and the two songs."

"You saves the water. For your life."

They sat in silence as the wind came up, brightening the coals in the clay firedish. So we are going to Inwit, Orem thought. It was, after all, the likely place for the grocer to be headed; indeed, most downriver traffic was going there, for all waters led to the Queen's city. "I'm going to Inwit, too,"

said Orem.

"Good thing," said the grocer.

"Why?"

"Because that's the way the river runs."

"What's it like there? At Inwit?"

"That depends, doesn't it?" the grocer answered.

"On what?"

"Oh which gate you goes through."

Orem was puzzled. He knew gates—Banningside had a stockade, and there were the walls of the House of God. "But don't all the gates lead to the same city?"

The grocer shrugged, then chuckled. "They does and they doesn't. Now, I wonder which gate you'll go through."

"The one that's closest, I expect."

The grocer laughed aloud. "I expect not, boy. No, indeed. There's gates and gates, don't you see. The South Gate, now, that's the Queen's own gate, and only the parades and the army and ambassadors uses that gate. And then there's God's Gate, but if you goes through there, you gets only a pilgrim's pass, and if they catches you out of Between Temples, they brands your nose with an O

and throws you out, and you never gets in again."

"I'm not a pilgrim. Which gate do you use?"

"I'm a grocer. Swine Gate, up Butcher's Road. I get a grocer's pass, but it's all I want. It lets me go to the Great Market and the Little Market, to Bloody Town and the Taverns. Aye, the Taverns, and that's worth the whole trip alone."

"There's taverns in Banningside," Orem said.

"But they doesn't have Whore Street, does they?" The grocer grinned. "No, there's no place else in the world has Whore Street. For two coppers there's ladies'll do you leaning up against the wall, they ups their skirts and in three minutes you fills them to the eyes. And if you've got five coppers there's ladies'll take you into the rooms and you gets fifteen minutes, time to do twice if you're lively, which I am." The grocer winked. "You're a virgin, aren't you, boy?"

Orem looked away. His mother and father never talked that way, and his brothers were swine.

Yet this grocer seemed well-meaning enough, though Orem found himself thinking that the trip had been more pleasant before the grocer started talking. "I won't be for long," said Orem, "once I'm at Inwit."

The grocer laughed aloud, and darted a hand under Orem's long skirt to tweak his thigh perilously near his crotch. "That's the balls, boy! That's the balls!" It was a pinch that Orem remembered too well, and it was with a bit of loathing that he heard the grocer regale him with tales of his sexual exploits on Whore Street. Apparently Orem had passed some kind of test, and the grocer regarded him as a friend of sorts, one who would be interested in all he had to say. Orem was relieved when at last the grocer yawned and suddenly stood up, stripped off all his clothing, bundled it into a pillow, and pushed it ahead of him as he crawled into the tent.

Orem caught a glimpse of the inside of the tent as the grocer crawled through, and there wasn't room for him. The grocer took no further notice of him, so Orem curled up on the deck, nestled against the leeward side of the grocer's load. It was chilly, especially where Orem's shirt was still damp from the swim a few hours before, but it could have been worse.