The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [160]
After an eightnight of riding, they left the mountains for a stand of low hills, curving away to the north of them just as Richt’s rough map had shown. The rocklands, however, still lay some distance away, or so Aethel told Kov. Directly ahead lay rolling country, grasslands, mostly, crisscrossed by the watershed streams for the Dwrvawr, as he unimaginatively named the central river: the Big Water.
“Now, mark this well,” Aethel said. “The rivers hereabout, they be dangerous. Some kind of monster does live in the water. Shallow streams be safe, mind, but any that run over four feet deep or so— go not down to the banks, even.”
“Monster?” Kov said. “What kind of monster?”
“I know not, exactly. Never have I seen one clearly, like, myself, though I did see some swimming when I were a good distance away. The local folk do warn us in no uncertain terms. Some furry thing, they do say, very fast and sleek, with huge fangs. It’ll pull you under and drown you, then eat you for supper without even the courtesy of spoon and salt.”
“I’ll be careful, then.” Kov was thinking of Garin, rolling his eyes at the thought of monsters. Beavers, perhaps? Coupled with superstition? Flood waves, brown with mud? Kov could think of a number of explanations, but he reminded himself to keep an open mind. He was here to learn, not to assume he knew.
The land had flattened out by the time they reached the Dwrvawr. The river lay in a grassy valley, no more than a dip in the land worn away by the placid water. Thick stands of purplish-green reeds grew along the banks, though the water ran fast out in the middle of its channel. A scatter of huge old willow trees grew along its banks. When Kov looked north, he saw what appeared to be fields of some sort of grain, growing tall but still green this time of year. Otherwise grass burgeoned, marred only by a dirt road that led up to the bridge, a ramshackle affair of rough-cut timbers held together with rope and wood pegs on top of wood pilings that slanted at various angles. It reminded Kov more of the skeleton of some long-dead animal than a proper bridge.
“We’re going to cross on that?” Kov said to Aethel.
“The only ford be a full day’s ride out of our way, and besides, there be those monsters, so cross it we will.” Aethel gave him a good-natured smile. “Fear not, Envoy! Never has it dumped us into the water yet.”
There’s always a first time for everything, Kov thought. Aloud he said, “Well and good, then.”
A few yards from each end of the bridge stood a small narrow building like a crate turned on end, made of wattle and daub and roofed in moldy-looking thatch. A tall man like Dougie would barely be able to stand upright in one of them, Kov figured, and only one of him would fit. He assumed that they existed only to provide shelter for the men who collected the bridge tolls. Sure enough, as the caravan drew closer, a short though stocky fellow stepped out of the booth and raised one arm in a signal to halt.
Aethel called out to his mules and men. In a dusty swirl the caravan halted while Aethel dismounted and strolled over to meet the toll taker. Richt signaled to Kov and his party to join the leader on the ground.
“We’ll have to lead the stock across a few at a time,” Richt said.
Clutching his rune-marked staff, Kov dismounted. The tollman wore not proper clothes, but a strange loose tabardlike garment, two long pieces of brown cloth sewn together at the sides up as far as his chest, then precariously fastened at the shoulders with ornamental pins in the shape of fish. Should he wish, he could have opened one pin then shrugged to send the garment to the ground. He had a narrow face that peered out of a thick white beard and a shock of white hair. For a moustache he had only white plumes at each corner of his upper lip.
Out here