14Alric was catcalling a little distance away from the camp. Garrick still didn't know how he'd convinced the man to do it. Senta and Isabel were placidly stirring the pot over the fire while Dolf and Wolfgang chopped dried meats and vegetables to their direction. Ritter and Kay, as usual, were more of a hindrance than a help. Still, their proximity to water (and cold water at that) made everyone a great deal more even-tempered. Even, surprisingly enough, the normally irascible young Ritter.
"How long do you think he can keep that up?" the boy asked with more curiosity than rancor.
"Given past performances, all night, if he cares to," Isabel said dryly, a slight smile on her face. "You get used to it after a while. The potatoes, Dolf?"
The giant man poured a double handful of chopped potatoes into her skirt, which she clutched like a basket. "I don't think he'll keep it up once Senta begins singing. He doesn't seem to want to interrupt her, for whatever reason."
"Kaaiiiiiiii yi yi yi yi yi yi yi yi yi!"
"Thank the gods for that," Ritter muttered.
The giant man poured a double handful of chopped potatoes into her skirt, which she clutched like a basket. "I don't think he'll keep it up once Senta begins singing. He doesn't seem to want to interrupt her, for whatever reason."
"Kaaiiiiiiii yi yi yi yi yi yi yi yi yi!"
"Thank the gods for that," Ritter muttered.
"Shut your face..." Dolf, Isabel, and Wolf said absently, more from habit than anything else. Ritter subsided into grumbling, much to Kay's delight.
"How many more days till Westport?" the boy asked finally.
Garrick, who had the map spread out over the flattest patch of sand he could find, stared at it thoughtfully. "Not long," he said after a short silence. "We pass through the leading edge of the Waste tomorrow, and then stop through a couple of the smaller towns before we actually get there. All told, I'd say it should be another fortnight, most likely two before we reach Westport."
"Mello and...?"
"Bergstown." Garrick looked up at Ritter in surprise. "I didn't think you'd been paying attention."
"He wasn't," chortled Dolf as he finished pitching the vegetables into the stew. "He was paying attention to Isabel when she pointed out their route on the map. Sorry, my friend, but you don't have the... assets... that she does."
Isabel and Dolf exchanged a glance and a chuckle as Garrick sighed ruefully.
"And a good thing, too... if I did, there'd be a lot more people running from me than just the old bats with their terrified children."
"Oh, save me, save me!" Kay did a credible imitation of one of the old wives in the last town they had encountered, and those in the party who were paying attention broke up laughing. He flapped his hands as though flapping an apron and ran in a little circle around the fire. "Oh, save me from the wife-stealing, baby-eating traveling folk! Oh, laws, my poor beleaguered senses!"
"Isn't that a few more letters than most of those women have?" Ritter asked, jealous of the attention.
"Probably," Garrick said, stepping surreptitiously between them. "But that's also more letters than you have, young sir. Which means..."
Ritter groaned. "I know, I know. Time for the books again."
"Unless you want Alric teaching you..." Garrick said mildly, and Ritter groaned louder and fled to the wagons.
"I'm going, I'm going!" He pulled down his pack, which nearly fell on him from the weight of the books within, and pulled off the heavy leather flap. Inside were the books that were the most precious possessions the motley family owned. Histories and geography texts were scattered in with bestiaries, herbologies, and a couple of magical texts that Alric had procured from somewhere. He had never said where he had gotten them from, although it was one of the few things that Garrick had actually tried to ask about when the man had joined them. He had never gotten a straight answer, although he did get the impression that wherever Alric had gotten the books from, the memory still terrified him and might very well be the source of his madness.
"Ki yi yi yi yi yi yi yi yi yi yi!"
"Would someone shut him up?" Ritter finally yelled.
"Leave the man alone," Isabel snapped back, and Garrick sighed. Tempers were fraying already, and they hadn't even left the watering hole. He glanced over at Senta, who nodded. If anyone could keep Ritter from snapping and Alric from getting any louder than he already was...
Ritter sat down by Garrick with his books in his lap, grumbling. Garrick finished what he was doing and sat down next to the boy as Senta made sure that the dinner would continue without her. Everyone went back to doing their respective chores, except Alric, who continued to catcall a little distance from the camp. Perhaps he thought he was a coyote. Not that it mattered. Garrick spread open the book of geography and started quizzing Ritter on trade routes, the best ways to cross the waste, and the paths (there really wasn't any point in calling them roads) between the cities.
Alric stopped yelping the instant Senta began to sing; Garrick almost would have sworn that he had stopped singing before she opened her mouth. He slid closer to the camp, closer to Senta, watching her with an awed expression on his face. It always happened this way, every time Senta raised her voice in song Alric would stop whatever he was doing to stare at her in abject adoration. It was why they never asked her to sing while he was performing, and vice versa. Not that they could have gotten his attention while she sang if they had lit his feet on fire. Nothing short of being suddenly struck deaf would have drawn him away from her, and Garrick wasn't even sure that that would do it. She had a similar effect on the rest of the company, if not as acute.
Garrick turned back to Ritter's lessons, and managed to catch a look of wistful envy on Isabel's face. He sighed. Isabel had always suffered by comparison to Senta... which was ironic considering that Isabel's position was almost directly counter to Senta's. Isabel was the erotic dancer, the temptress of the group, who spent most of the time when they were in cities in as few clothes as possible. No one in the troupe had ever seen Senta anything less than fully clad. And yet Senta managed to capture and hold the attention of everyone around her as easily as breathing. Garrick pitied Isabel; he knew what it was like to be second, third, and fourth rate.
"Soups on..." Isabel murmured, looking away. One by one they all filed towards the giant pot and scooped out a bowlful of stew, the only exceptions being Alric and Senta. Wolf reached back into the wagon and pulled out a small sack with two loaves of bread; he broke off an entire half for himself and passed the rest around.
"Mmm..." Ritter eagerly put his books aside in favor of bread and stew. "Plants and roots. When are we going to get some real meat, and not this dried and salted..."
"Ritter..." Isabel flicked her spoon at him, spattering him with hot liquid.
"Ow!"
"Don't complain, Ritter," Garrick sighed. "We'll be at a town soon enough, and we can trade there for fresher meat." The polite words had undertones of 'shut up and eat, boy,' and so Ritter did.
"It doesn't mean anything. Boy's grumbles," Dolf said, making peace between the three. "Boys are always hungry at that age."
"I remember..." Isabel sighed. "The boys in my old borough were always stealing pies from mother's windows... small things as they were."
"The boys or the pies?" Garrick grinned.
"Both," she laughed, and the atmosphere in the camp eased a little. Senta finished singing and dished herself out a bowl of stew, and a bowl for Alric as well. It was Isabel, though, who took it to the madman. "Here... Alric, it's food. Eat..."
"Or wear it as a hat, if you like," Ritter muttered, grinning. Garrick threw the boy a reproving glance but even he couldn't keep the smile from his face.
"Don't encourage him, kid," Dolf rumbled, shaking his head.
"He understands us," Isabel retorted, making faces over her shoulder at them as she held the bowl for Alric to inspect. Alric inspected all of his food, as though he suspected an invisible poisoner might sneak up on him from somewhere. "It's not his fault he can't explain to us how he sees the world, or what he's thinking or feeling at any point."
Who would want to know how he sees the world?" Kay wondered aloud. "I mean... Just from what he says ... I don't think I'd want to know what he's thinking or seeing at any point. At all. Ever." He shuddered.
"Kay..." Dolf said reprovingly, but without any real force behind it. Most people in the company were of Kay's opinion. No one wanted to know what was locked in the madman's brain. No one wanted to know what could be that terrible.
"I know, I know. But ... who knows what he saw or what he did... to drive him mad like that... honestly, do you really want to know?"
"No."
It was a hoarse, ragged voice that cut across the fire and through the conversation like a dagger.
"No. You don't."
Everyone turned and stared at Alric.
The madman was sitting with his bowl on his knees, Isabel behind him with her hands up in a posture of helplessness. She sighed and went over to her own bowl as everyone stared at Alric, not wanting to break the spell that had somehow rendered him sane, if only for a short period of time.
"You okay?" Kay said nervously.
"No." He said it so bluntly, there was a lingering shadow there, the thought that maybe he wasn't lucid after all.
"So, just so I know, then..." Garrick looked sharply at Ritter. He'd never heard such a note of terror in the boy's voice, although Ritter's face was (for the most part) calm. "I'm not going to go crazy from reading your stupid books, am I? I mean, that's not why you're out there yipping at the dogs half the time, right?"
Alric laughed. It was a hollow, self-deprecating laugh without a hint of humor in it. It was a laugh that said he knew exactly what he was, and what others thought of him... and far from not caring, he cared very much about it, but there wasn't anything he could do. His mind, so ravaged from the things that he had seen or done, had fled and taken up near-permanent residence in some sort of fantasy world. He hated and loathed what he had become, that was the tragedy of his situation. "No, Ritter. You're not going to go crazy from reading my stupid books."
"Alric..." Garrick started to say something comforting, or at least soothing, but he didn't have the slightest idea how to continue.
"It's all right," Alric waved him off, bitter and exhausted. "I'm going to go to sleep." He set his bowl down beside the fire, waved off Isabel's outstretched, hesitant hands.
"Alric... do you want..."
"I'm fine," he said, harshly enough to make her draw back in startlement and hurt. Then he sighed, took her hands and gave them what was probably supposed to be a reassuring squeeze. "Thank you for the lovely meal."
He pulled his blankets down from the wagon, wrapped himself in them, and went promptly to sleep as far as anyone could tell. Isabel turned and looked at Garrick with sadness in her eyes; all he could do was shrug back at her helplessly. Ritter, subdued by the exchange, went back to his studies without a word. Everyone else slouched about their business in the camp, all conversation killed by the sudden lapse of lucidity from their magician.