“I don’t know. I do think, and I tell you I’m not alone in it, all this grief here and all those stars there can’t be for nothin’. If God is makin’ ready His next revelation, why not through chosen race, more wise and good than we can now imagine? And if that’s true, shouldn’t prophet come first, who prepares us to be saved?”
He shook himself, as if the freeze had pierced his unheated garb. “You’re our Firstlin’,” he said. “We must keep you free. Four hundred years can’t be for nothin’ either.”
Quite matter-of-factly, he continued: “Tinerans are passin’ through, reported near Arroyo. I figure you can hide among them.”
V
Each nomad Train, a clan as well as a caravan, wandered a huge but strictly defined territory. Windhome belonged in that of the Brotherband. Ivar had occasionally seen its camps, witnessed raffish performances, and noticed odd jobs being done for local folk before it moved on, afterward heard the usual half-amused, half-indignant accusations of minor thefts and clever swindles, gossip about seductions, whispers about occult talents exercised. When he dipped into the literature, he found mostly anecdotes, picturesque descriptions, romantic fiction, nothing in depth. The Aenean intellectual community took little serious interest in the undercultures on its own planet. Despite the centuries, Dido still posed too many enigmas which were more fascinating and professionally rewarding.
Ivar did know that Trains varied in their laws and customs. Hedin led him across a frontier which had no guards nor any existence in the registries at Nova Roma, identified solely by landmarks. Thereafter they were in Waybreak country, and he was still less sure of what to expect than he would have been at home. The yeoman took a room in the single inn which Arroyo boasted. “I’ll stay till you’re gone, in case of trouble,” he said. “But mainly, you’re on your own from here.” Roughly: “I wish ’twere otherwise. Fare always well, lad.”
Ivar walked through the village to the camp. Its people were packing for departure. Fifty or so brilliantly painted carriages, and gaudy garb on the owners, made their bustle and clamor into a land of rainbowed storm in an otherwise drab landscape. Arroyo stood on the eastern slope of the hills, where scrub grew sparse on dusty ground to feed some livestock. The soil became more dry and bare for every kilometer that it hunched on downward, until at the horizon began the Ironland desert.
Scuttling about in what looked like utter confusion, men, women, and children alike threw him glances and shouted remarks in their own language that he guessed were derisive. He felt awkward and wholly alone among them—this medium-sized, whip-slim race of the red-brown skins and straight blue-black hair. Their very vehicles hemmed him in alienness. Some were battered old trucks of city make; but fantastic designs swirled across them, pennons blew, amulets dangled, wind chimes rang. Most were wagons, drawn by four to eight stathas, and these were the living quarters. Stovepipes projected from their arched roofs and grimy curtains hung in their windows. Beneath paint, banners, and other accessories, their panels were elaborately carved; demon shapes leered, hex signs radiated, animals real and imaginary cavorted, male and female figures danced, hunted, worked, gambled, engendered, and performed acts more esoteric.
A man came by, carrying a bundle of knives and swords wrapped in a cloak. He bounded up into the stairless doorway of one wagon, gave his load to a person inside, sprang down again to confront Ivar. “Hey-ah, varsiteer,” he said amicably enough. “What’d you like? The show’s over.”
“I … I’m lookin’ for berth,” Ivar faltered. He wet his lips, which felt caked with dust. It was a hot day, 25 degrees Celsius or so. Virgil glared in a sky which seemed to lack its usual depth, and instead was burnished.
“No dung? What can a townsitter do worth his keep? We’re bound east, straight across the Dreary. Not exactly a Romeburg patio. We’d have to sweep you up after you crumbled.” The other rubbed his pointed chin. “Of course,” he added thoughtfully, “you might make pretty good nose powder for some girl.”
Yet his mockery was not unkind. Ivar gave him closer regard. He was young, probably little older than the Firstling. Caught by a beaded fillet, his hair fell to his shoulders in the common style, brass earrings showing through. Like most tineran men, he kept shaved off what would have been a puny growth of beard. Bones and luminous gray eyes stood forth in a narrow face. He was nearly always grinning, and whether or not he stood still, there was a sense of quivering mobility about him. His clothes—