To look at the boy you would have said his songs were not all dead, one
of them rose and struggled to go the accustomed way, and it was a song
of boy’s love and wounded trust. He bit it back at last.
“Mancha was the only one good enough for her,” he choked. He was done
with the moss now, and was aiming small stones carefully at empty space.
“I would have wanted her to have the best.”
“At any rate she took what she wanted.”
He stood up, flushed and tormented.
“You’re just down on her because Herman is in love with her,” he said.
“What makes you think so?”
“I don’t know.” He scuffed the moss with his foot and added, “You can
always tell if you’re that way yourself. I don’t want to talk about it
any more,” walking away from me.
Presently he came back stiffly.
“You must come with me,” he said; “you can’t stay here. I was told to
look after you.”
“What time did Herman go?” I asked as we went down together.
“Just after Council. Mancha wanted to go, but they said his place was at
River Ward. If he had been there all this time the Far-Folk mightn’t
have got through. They let Herman do what he liked, because if it hadn’t
been for him they wouldn’t have found out about the stealing so soon.
And look here”—he showed me a spray of toyon berries—“I went and found
this after the trackers had gone. I felt around in the dark and found
it. It was the last thing she touched. It was only half broken off. She
hadn’t expected to go away; she was surprised and she left it half
broken off.” He put it up in his tunic again. “I don’t know why she went
away with Ravenutzi, but I know she never told him where the Treasure
was.”
He was so certain of that, I had no heart to trouble him with doubts. As
we came down the trail we saw the top of Windy Covers all alive, rippled
and streaked with motion.
“Some one is coming,” Lianth volunteered.
“It looked just like that this morning. How can you tell?”
“Oh, I can’t tell that. I knew how just before you asked me. The way I
know Zirriloë didn’t tell Ravenutzi about the King’s Desire; I just
know.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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