And for these things he would have Bern Kells to thank.
Reaping was gone by; Huntress Moon grew pale, waxed again, and pulled her bow; the first gales of Wide Earth came howling in from the west. And just when it seemed he might not come after all, the Barony Covenanter blew into the village of Tree on one of those cold winds, astride his tall black horse and as thin as Tom Scrawny Death. His heavy black cloak flapped around him like a batwing. Beneath his wide hat (as black as his cloak), the pale lamp of his face turned ceaselessly from side to side, marking a new fence here, a cow or three added to a herd there. The villagers would grumble but pay, and if they couldn’t pay, their land would be taken in the name of Gilead. Perhaps even then, in those olden days, some were whispering it wasn’t fair, the taxes were too much, that Arthur Eld was long dead (if he had ever existed at all), and the Covenant had been paid a dozen times over, in blood as well as silver. Perhaps some of them were already waiting for a Good Man to appear, and make them strong enough to say No more, enough’s enough, the world has moved on.
Perhaps, but not that year, and not for many and many-a to come.
Late in the afternoon, while the swag-bellied clouds tumbled across the sky and the yellow cornstalks clattered in Nell’s garden-like teeth in a loose jaw, sai Covenanter nudged his tall black horse between gateposts Big Ross had set up himself (with Tim looking on and helping when asked). The horse paced slowly and solemnly up to the front steps. There it halted, nodding and blowing. Big Kells stood on the porch and still had to look up to see the visitor’s pallid face. Kells held his hat crushed to his breast. His thinning black hair (now showing the first streaks of gray, for he was nearing forty and would soon be old) flew around his head. Behind him in the doorway stood Nell and Tim. She had an arm around her boy’s shoulders and was clutching him tightly, as if afraid (maybe ’twas a mother’s intuition) that the Covenant Man might steal him away.
For a moment there was silence save for the flapping of the unwelcome visitor’s cloak, and the wind, which sang an eerie tune beneath the eaves. Then the Barony Covenanter bent forward, regarding Kells with wide dark eyes that did not seem to blink. His lips, Tim saw, were as red as a woman’s when she paints them with fresh madder. From somewhere inside his cloak he produced not a book of slates but a roll of real parchment paper, and pulled it down so ’twas long. He studied it, made it short again, and replaced it in whatever inner pocket it had come from. Then he returned his gaze to Big Kells, who flinched and looked at his feet.
“Kells, isn’t it?” He had a rough, husky voice that made Tim’s skin pucker into hard points of gooseflesh. He had seen the Covenant Man before, but only from a distance; his da’ had made shift to keep Tim away from the house when the barony’s tax-man came calling on his annual rounds. Now Tim understood why. He thought he would have bad dreams tonight.
“Kells, aye.” His step-poppa’s voice was shakily cheerful. He managed to raise his eyes again. “Welcome, sai. Long days and pleasant-”
“Yar, all that, all that,” the Covenant Man said with a dismissive wave of one hand. His dark eyes were now looking over Kells’s shoulder. “And… Ross, isn’t it? Now two instead of three, they tell me, Big Ross having fallen to unfortunate happenstance.” His voice was low, little more than a monotone. Like listening to a deaf man try to sing a lullabye, Tim thought.
“Just so,” Big Kells said. He swallowed hard enough for Tim to hear the gulping sound, then began to babble. “He n me were in the forest, ye ken, in one of our little stakes off the Ironwood Path-we have four or five, all marked proper wi’ our names, so they are, and I haven’t changed em, because in my mind he’s still my partner and always will be-and we got separated a bit. Then I heard a hissin. You know that sound when you hear it, there’s no sound on earth like the hiss of a bitch dragon drawrin in breath before she-”
“Hush,” the Covenant Man said. “When I want to hear a story, I like it to begin with ‘Once upon a bye.’”
Kells began to say something else-perhaps only to cry pardon-and thought better of it. The Covenant Man leaned an arm on the horn of his saddle and stared at him. “I understand you sold your house to Rupert Anderson, sai Kells.”
“Yar, and he cozened me, but I-”
The visitor overrode him. “The tax is nine knuckles of silver or one of rhodite, which I know you don’t have in these parts, but I’m bound to tell you, as it’s in the original Covenant. One knuck for the transaction, and eight for the house where you now sit your ass at sundown and no doubt hide your tallywhacker after moonrise.”
“Nine?” Big Kells gasped. “ Nine? That’s-”
“It’s what?” the Covenant Man said in his rough, crooning voice. “Be careful how you answer, Bern Kells, son of Mathias, grandson of Limping Peter. Be ever so careful, because, although your neck is thick, I believe it would stretch thin. Aye, so I do.”
Big Kells turned pale… although not as pale as the Barony Covenanter. “It’s very fair. That’s all I meant to say. I’ll get it.”
He went into the house and came back with a deerskin purse. It was Big Ross’s moneysack, the one over which Tim’s mother had been crying on a day early on in Full Earth. A day when life had seemed fairer, even though Big Ross was dead. Kells handed the sack to Nell and let her count the precious knuckles of silver into his cupped hands.
All during this, the visitor sat silent on his tall black horse, but when Big Kells made to come down the steps and hand him the tax-almost all they had, even with Tim’s little bit of wages added into the common pot-the Covenant Man shook his head.
“Keep your place. I’d have the boy bring it to me, for he’s fair, and in his countenance I see his father’s face. Aye, I see it very well.”
Tim took the double handful of knucks-so heavy! — from Big Kells, barely hearing the whisper in his ear: “Have a care and don’t drop em, ye gormless boy.”
Tim walked down the porch steps like a boy in a dream. He held up his cupped hands, and before he knew what was happening, the Covenant Man had seized him by the wrists and hauled him up onto his horse. Tim saw that bow and pommel were decorated with a cascade of silver runes: moons and stars and comets and cups pouring cold fire. At the same time, he realized his double handful of knucks was gone. The Covenant Man had taken them, although Tim couldn’t remember exactly when it had happened.
Nell screamed and ran forward.
“Catch her and hold her!” the Covenant Man thundered, so close by Tim’s ear that he was near deafened on that side.
Kells grabbed his wife by the shoulders and jerked her roughly backwards. She tripped and tumbled to the porch boards, long skirts flying up around her ankles.
“Mama!” Tim shouted. He tried to jump from the saddle, but the Covenant Man restrained him easily. He smelled of campfire meat and old cold sweat. “Sit easy, young Tim Ross, she’s not hurt a mite. See how spry she rises.” Then, to Nell-who had indeed regained her feet: “Be not fashed, sai, I’d only have a word with him. Would I harm a future taxpayer of the realm?”
“If you harm him, I’ll kill you, you devil,” said she.
Kells raised a fist to her. “Shut yer stupid mouth, woman!” Nell did not shrink from the fist. She had eyes only for Tim, sitting on the high black horse in front of the Covenant Man, whose arms were banded across her son’s chest.
The Covenant Man smiled down at the two on the porch, one with his fist still upraised to strike, the other with tears coursing down her cheeks. “Nell and Kells!” he proclaimed. “The happy couple!”
He kneed his mount in a circle and slow-walked it as far as the gate, his arms still firmly around Tim’s chest, his rank breath puffing against Tim’s cheek. At the gate he squeezed his knees again and the horse halted. In Tim’s ear-which was still ringing-he whispered: “How does thee like thy new steppa, young Tim? Speak the truth, but speak it low. This is our palaver, and they have no part in it.”