I did not like Shun. But she was mine. Mine as Revel had been, and never would be again. As FitzVigilant had been. They had died for me, trying to stop these strangers from taking me. Even if they hadn’t known it. And I knew, quite clearly, what the handsome man would do after he had hurt and humiliated Shun. He would kill her, and Shepherd Lin and his helper would throw her into the stable-fire.
Just as my father and I had burned the body of the messenger.
I moved. I ran, but I ran as a small person in wet and freezing socks, wearing a long, heavy fur robe. That is, I surged and trudged against a low wall of heavy wet snow. It was like trying to run in a sack. ‘Stop!’ I shouted. ‘Stop!’ And the roaring of the flames and the mutters and groans of the gathered folk of Withywoods and Shun’s desperate wordless cries swallowed my words.
But she heard me, the plump woman. She turned to me, but the fog-man was still looking at the huddled people and doing whatever magic he was doing to them. I was closer to the handsome man than I was to the plump woman and her followers. I ran at him, screaming wordlessly in a strange harmony with Shun’s cries. He was dragging at her clothes. He had ripped her embroidered Winterfest blouse to loose her bared breasts to the cold and falling snow and now he was tugging and tearing at her scarlet skirts, but he was trying to do it with one hand. His other hand was fending off the desperate blows and clawing efforts she was making at his face. I was not moving fast but I did not slow down as I thrust at him with the full force of my braced arms.
He grunted slightly, turned a snarling face toward me and clouted me with an outflung arm. I do not think he even used his full strength, for most of it was devoted to holding Shun on her back. He did not need his full strength. I flew backwards and landed in the deep snow. He had struck the air out of my lungs, but even so, I was more humiliated than hurt. Gasping and choking, I rolled and wallowed in the snow, finally managing to get to my hands and knees. I drew painful breath and shouted words that scarcely made sense to me, the most frightening words I could think of. ‘I will make myself dead if you hurt her!’
The rapist paid no attention to me, but I heard the outraged cries of the plump woman’s followers. She was shouting something in a language I didn’t know, and the pale-faced people suddenly swept in as a mob. Three seized me and set me on my feet, sweeping snow off me so anxiously that I felt like a carpet that was being beaten. I pushed them away from me and tottered toward Shun. I could not see what was happening to her, save that there was fighting there. I fought free of my rescuers, shouting, ‘Shun! Help Shun, not me! Shun!’
The knot of struggling people seemed to trample Shun and then the fight moved away. The pale folk were not faring well, except that there were so many of them and only one rapist. Time after time, I heard the solid smack of fist on flesh, and someone would cry out in pain. Then one of the plump woman’s minions would fall back, holding a bleeding nose or bending over and clutching a stomach. By sheer numbers they overcame him, flinging their bodies over him and holding him down in the snow. One cried out suddenly, ‘He bites! Beware!’ prompting a sudden reshuffling of the bodies on top of him.
All this took place as I wallowed forward, fell, rose and finally burst free of the deep snow onto the trampled ground. I flung myself to my knees beside Shun, sobbing, ‘Be alive! Please, be alive!’
She wasn’t. I felt nothing from her. Then, as I touched her cheek, her staring eyes blinked. She looked up at me without recognition and began to utter short, sharp shrieks as if she were a hen on a threatened nest. ‘Shun! Don’t be scared! You are safe now! I’ll protect you.’ Even as I made those promises, I heard how ridiculous they were. I tugged at her opened top and the torn lace, getting snow from my mittened hands onto her bare chest. She gasped and suddenly gripped the ripped edges of the fabric. She sat up, holding her collar closed. She looked down at the fabric in her hands and then said brokenly, ‘It was the finest quality. It was.’ She bowed her head. Sobs rose from her, terrible shaking sobs without tears.
‘It still is,’ I assured her. ‘You still are.’ I started to pat her comfortingly, then realized the mittens were still laden with snow. I tried to drag my hands free of them, but they were fastened to the sleeves of my fur robe.
Behind us, the plump woman was talking to the man on the ground. ‘You cannot have her. You heard the words of the shaysim. He values her life beyond his own. She must not be harmed lest he do harm to himself.’
I turned my head to look at them. The plump woman was nudging her charges and they were slowly getting off the man. The rapist responded with curses. I did not need to know the language to understand the depth of his anger. The pale folk were tumbling away from him, falling back and stumbling through the deeper snow as he came to his feet. Two were bleeding from their noses. He spat snow, cursed again, and then strode off into the darkness. I heard him address something angrily, the heavy stamping of a startled horse and then the sounds of a horse pushed abruptly into a gallop.
I had given up on the mittens. I crouched beside Shun. I wanted to talk to her but had no idea what to say. I would not lie again, and tell her that she was safe. None of us were safe. She huddled as deep into herself as she could, pulling her knees up to her chest and bowing her head over them.
‘Shaysim.’ The plump woman crouched in front of me. I would not look at her. ‘Shaysim,’ she said again and touched me. ‘She is important to you, this one? Have you seen her? Doing important things? Is she essential?’ She put her hand on Shun’s bent neck as if she were a dog, and Shun cowered away from the touch. ‘Is she one you must keep beside you?’
The words sank into me like FitzVigilant’s blood had sunken into the trampled snow. They made holes in me. The question was significant. It had to be answered and it had to be answered correctly. What did she want me to say? What could I say that would make her keep Shun alive?
I still did not look at her. ‘Shun is essential,’ I said. ‘She does important things.’ I flung an arm wide and shouted angrily, ‘They are all essential. They all do important things!’
‘That’s true.’ She spoke gently, as if I were a little child. It came to me that perhaps she thought I was much younger than I was. Could I use that? My mind tumbled strategies frantically as she continued to speak. ‘Everyone is significant. Everyone does important things. But some people are more significant than others. Some people do things that make changes. Big changes. Or they make tiny changes that can lead to big changes. If someone knows how to use them.’ She hunched even lower and then thrust her face below mine and looked up at me. ‘You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Shaysim? You’ve seen the paths and the people who are the crossroads. Haven’t you?’
I turned my face away. She reached out and took me by the chin to turn my face back to hers, but I put my gaze on her mouth. She could not force me to meet her eyes. ‘Shaysim.’ She made the name a gentle rebuke. ‘Look at me, now. Is this woman significant? Is she essential?’
I knew what she meant. I’d glimpsed it, when the beggar had touched me in the marketplace. There were people who precipitated changes. All people made changes, but some were a rock in the current, diverting the waters of time into a different channel.
I did not know if I lied or told the truth when I said, ‘She is essential. She is significant to me.’ Or if it was inspiration or deception that prompted me to add, ‘Without her, I die before I am ten.’
The plump woman gave a small gasp of dismay. ‘Take her up!’ she cried to her followers. ‘Treat her gently. She must be healed of every hurt, comforted of every wrong she has felt today. Be cautious, luriks. This one must live, at all costs. We must keep her out of Hogen’s hands, for thwarted as he is now, he will want her more than ever. He will be most determined. So we must be even more determined, and we must search the scrolls to know what we must do to hold him at bay. Kardef and Reppin, it will be your task tonight to confer with the memorizers and see if they can tease out any wisdom for us. For I fear nothing comes to mind.’
‘May I speak, Dwalia?’ A youngster in grey bowed deeply and held that posture.
‘Speak, Kardef.’