Stonefather

The laborer looked at him, shrugged, and took up his end. Together they carried it onto the raft, which seemed to Runnel to be as big as his whole village. Runnel stayed with the job for half an hour, working as hard as any of the adult men. But when it was done, everybody else got on the raft and pushed off, leaving him behind. He wanted to cry out to them that all he wanted was to cross the stupid river, what would that cost them? But he knew that they knew what he wanted, and they had chosen to take his labor and pay him nothing, and there was nothing he could do about it. Begging wouldn’t change their minds — it would only invite their scorn. Besides, the men he had helped were hirelings themselves — they were not the men who could have rewarded him with passage. Runnel had been a fool.

He was very, very hungry now — and thirsty, too. The water of the river didn’t look terribly clean, despite having just come out of the canyon. From the look of it, all the waste of the city was dumped into the Mitherlough above and got carried down in the torrent. So he would need water to replace what he had sweated out.

Back home, if you needed a drink, you knelt by a brook or runnel somewhere and drank your fill. It was all clean — there was no village upstream of them. And they left it clean — it was a matter of piety not to dishonor Yeggut by polluting the streams that flowed near them. But they had heard from travelers that the sewers of the great cities flowed right out into the water, as if the god were nothing to them. Now, having heard what the hunter in the sacred wood said of the god, Runnel believed the tale.

That meant he needed to find water from upstream of this town. It would mean leaving again, and it occurred to him that once he set foot on the Uhetter Road he would probably let it carry him all the way back to Farzibeck.

He took a different street away from the dock, and almost immediately found himself at a public fountain, with water gushing from the mouths of three stone fish into three pools into which women were dipping jars and pails to carry back to houses and shops.

Grateful for the bounty, Runnel dropped to his knees beside one of the pools and splashed water up into his face.

Almost immediately, he was once again seized by the shoulder, and once again he was hurled down, though this time he sprawled, not on dirt and leaves, but on the hard cobblestones of the street. A large woman loomed over him, her jar standing on the ground beside her.

“What do you mean, putting your filthy hands right in the water! And then washing the dust from your own face right back into it for the rest of us to drink!”

“I’m sorry,” said Runnel. “But don’t you dip your jar in? And isn’t it standing on the ground right now, getting filthy?”

“But it’s my jar,” she said, “and I only set it down to drag your filthy head out of the fountain.”

“I didn’t put my head in,” said Runnel.

“Might as well have! Now get away before I call the guard on you!”

“I’m thirsty,” said Runnel. “Where else can I get water?”

“Back in your hometown!” she roared. “Or pee into your hand and drink that! Then she picked up her jar, made a great show of brushing off the bottom of it, and dipped it into the fountain, her huge buttocks pointed directly at Runnel.

The stones had bruised him about as well as Father ever did. Runnel knew how to move carefully and slowly until he knew exactly where it hurt most, so he’d know how to get up with the minimum of pain.

“Are you all right?” asked a young woman.

“You mean apart from being thirsty, hungry, embarrassed, and bruised?”

“All right, then, be proud,” she retorted, and carried her jar to the fountain.

“What did I say?” asked Runnel. “You asked how I was, and I’m thirsty, hungry, embarrassed, and bruised. It was an honest answer.”

“And still you have that proud look about you,” she said, after a mere glance. “I see you think you’re better than anyone.”

“I know that I’m not,” said Runnel. “And if there’s a proud look on my face, Yeggut put it there, not me.” For the first time, Runnel wondered if there was something wrong with his face, and that was why his father hated him.

The girl’s jar was full. She rocked it up so it stood in the fountain, then turned and faced him, her hands on her hips. She was a girl who worked hard, for her bare arms were muscled and her face was brown. But she was also clean, and so was her clothing. He had never seen a girl in clothes so clean. She must wear it no more than a week without washing.

“You’re not mocking me?” asked the girl.

“Why would I mock you?” said Runnel. “You were kindly to me, asking how I was, which makes you the best person I’ve met so far in this place.”

“You say fair enough words,” she said, “but your face and your voice and your manner still look disdainful. The god was unkind to you. That face should have belonged to a lord or a mage — then no one would mind the proud look.”