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in the worm s flesh and began grinding inward. And Persilli threw herself onto
the worm and rode his neck and drove the skinning knife into the hard black
eye and ground it round and round and deeper and deeper and the dog Kaermelka
held on though the worm battered him against tree and ground and the girl
Persilli held on though the worm battered her against tree and ground, and the
dog Kaermelka ground his teeth deeper and deeper into the worm s neck and the
girl Persilli ground the knife deeper and deeper into the worm s eye and
finally the worm lay down and died.
 Takti-Persilli cut the skin from him and Kaermelka gorged himself on the
flesh of him.
 In the worm s nest Takti-Persilli found the skulls of all the girls who d
gone before her and she sighed over them.  With a little courage and a little
thought, she said to the skulls,  you would not have come to this case. I
sigh for you, but not for the men who sent you.
 She walked back to the camp singing, the wormskin roll on her shoulder and
the dog Kaermelka prancing by her side, his belly bulging but his spirits
high, knowing as all good hunting dogs seem to know that the day was good and
he d done a great thing. She marched into the camp and she dropped the
wormskin roll by the headman s tent and she stood waiting.
 And the headman came out and looked at what lay at his feet and looked at the
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blood smeared over Persilli, blood from head to toes, but none of it hers, and
he looked at the dog Kaermelka grinning beside her and he bowed his head in
honor of her courage and her skill.
 And the clan sought to honor her; they named her son to her father, and all
the other clans paid her great honor. She wed no man, but cared for her father
until he died and she lived to a great age herself, honored by her clan and by
all the hiiri that lived. This is a womansong passed from mother to daughter
so it will not be forgotten.
Linfyar clapped his hands, caught up in the cadences of the story and the
triumph of the girl in the story. Shadith chuckled and Wakille looked amused
and rather too knowing.
Shadith glanced at Juli who had come in closer to the fire during the last two
stories.  I ve got a story too, Shadith said.  A long time ago before any of
you were born, on a world a long long way from here, a poor young man left his
father s farm to seek his fortune. Handsome he was like all such poor young
men in stories like these, charming, of course, and not quite as smart as he
thought he was. He walked along the road, red dust floating as high as his
knees, whistling and enjoying the bright spring day, expecting the road to
turn gold under his feet and the pebbles turn to diamonds. They didn t, of
course, but the weather continued fine and the farm wives along the way
continued kind, so he had a roof over his head each night even if only a barn,
and sufficient food to keep his belly off his backbone and his eyes bright
enough to fascinate the wives and daughters who helped him on his way.
 But fortune proved more elusive than he expected. Spring passed and he was
still on the road. There were holes in his boots and holes rubbed into his
dreams.
 One day toward the end of summer he was walking beside a river that wound
through a series of small hilly valleys. The mornings were growing chill
though the days kept hot and golden still. He d come a long way since morning,
across one unfriendly valley and into another no less unwelcoming. The folk up
here were clannish and hostile to strangers especially one whose height and
golden beauty that still survived in spite of all his troubles made them feel
squat and dark and mean. If women and girls looked wistfully after him they
didn t let their menfolk catch them at it and they offered him not even the
coldest charity, not at all the bounty that he d found in the lowlands. He was
tired and hot and his feet hurt. The riverbank was grassy here, with a gentle
slope down to water flowing round a wide lazy bend, slow enough on the inner
curve to breed patches of cattails and water lilies, cool and green in the
shadow cast by ancient huge river oaks. He sat on the grass beside a clump of
cattails and pulled off his boots, wiggled a finger through one of the larger
holes, laughed, shook his head, set the boot down, rolled up his trousers and
let his feet slide into the water. A smile born of pleasure more intense than
any he could remember at that moment anyway spread over his hot tired face. He
stretched out on the grass, used his hat as a fan for a moment, decided he
didn t need to do that because there was a nice little breeze following the
water, dropped it over his eyes, and let the sounds of river and wind, the hum
of bugs and heat, carry him into a deep drowse that was not quite sleep. He
wasn t quite as stupid as some like to think big handsome blonds must be.
There was a cold hungry night ahead if he didn t stir himself to find some
sort of shelter. But right now he didn t want to move, he was feeling too good
to move.
 Something started tickling his feet. It would brush past, then something like
fingers would move up and down from heel to toes and back. The first time he
thought it was grasses or maybe a fish. The second time his eyes popped open
and he sat up. The third time, he jerked his feet from the water and stared
down into eyes greener than the leaves dipping low overhead, set in a lovely
pale face framed in fine wet green-gold hair. The watermaid s lush mouth
pouted slightly, then widened into a teasing smile. He stared and stared into
the green eyes, reading wonders in them he could not quite put into words even
as he was watching them; he looked and looked and could not get enough of
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looking, seeing in the fathomless eyes the fulfillment of all the desires that
drove him from his father s farm. He bent closer and closer, teetered on the
verge of tumbling into the water, tumbling into the reaching arms of the
watermaid.
 Behind him, up on the road, there came the creaking of wheels, the steady
clop of hooves, the tinkle of a smallish bell, a wagon and team passing to the
north where he wanted to go. He was distracted, swung round, swung back only
to see a green and white flash as the maid darted away and was lost in the
depths of the river. For just a moment he thought of leaping after her, but at
that same moment, a girl started singing, a husky attractive voice, a familiar
childhood song. He shook his head, snatched up hat and boots and ran up the
slope.
 It was a vintner and his daughter making the rounds of the small mountain
vineyards. I could go on and on about how the vintner offered him work and the
vintner s daughter fell in love with him and wanted to marry him, about how he [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]