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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.”
Tim didn’t want to turn, didn’t want the Covenant Man’s pallid face any closer than it already was, but he had a secret that had been poisoning
him. So he did turn, and in the tax-man’s ear he whispered, “When he’s in drink, he beats my ma.”
“Does he, now? Ah, well, does that surprise me? For did not his da’ beat his own ma? And what we learn as children sets as a habit, so it does.”
A gloved hand threw one wing of the heavy black cloak over them like a blanket, and Tim felt the other gloved hand slither something small and
hard into his pants pocket. “A gift for you, young Tim. It’s a key. Does thee know what makes it special?”
Tim shook his head.
“’Tis a magic key. It will open anything, but only a single time. After that, ’tis as useless as dirt, so be careful how you use it!” He laughed as if this
were the funniest joke he’d ever heard. His breath made Tim’s stomach churn.
“I . . .” He swallowed. “I have nothing to open. There’s no locks in Tree, ’cept at the redeye and the jail.”
“Oh, I think thee knows of another. Does thee not?”
Tim looked into the Covenant Man’s blackly merry eyes and said nothing. That worthy nodded, however, as if he had.
“What are you telling my son?” Nell screamed from the porch. “Pour not poison in his ears, devil!”
“Pay her no mind, young Tim, she’ll know soon enough. She’ll know much but see little.” He snickered. His teeth were very large and very white.
“A riddle for you! Can you solve it? No? Never mind, the answer will come in time.”
“Sometimes he opens it,” Tim said, speaking in the slow voice of one who talks in his sleep. “He takes out his honing bar. For the blade of his ax.
But then he locks it again. At night he sits on it to smoke, like it was a chair.”
The Covenant Man didn’t ask what it was. “And does he touch it each time he passes by, young Tim? As a man would touch a favorite old dog?”
He did, of course, but Tim didn’t say so. He didn’t need to say so. He felt there wasn’t a secret he could keep from the mind ticking away behind
that long white face. Not one.
He’s playing with me, Tim thought. I’m just a bit of amusement on a dreary day in a dreary town he’ll soon leave behind. But he breaks his toys.
You only have to look at his smile to know that.
“I’ll camp a wheel or two down the Ironwood Trail the next night or two,” the Covenant Man said in his rusty, tuneless voice. “It’s been a long ride,
and I’m weary of all the quack I have to listen to. There are vurts and wervels and snakes in the forest, but they don’t quack.”
You’re never weary, Tim thought. Not you.
“Come and see me if you care to.” No snicker this time; this time he tittered like a naughty girl. “And if you dare to, of course. But come at night,
for this jilly’s son likes to sleep in the day when he gets the chance. Or stay here if you’re timid. It’s naught to me. Hup!”
This was to the horse, which paced slowly back to the porch steps, where Nell stood wringing her hands and Big Kells stood glowering beside
her. The Covenant Man’s thin strong fingers closed over Tim’s wrists again—like handcuffs—and lifted him. A moment later he was on the ground,
staring up at the white face and smiling red lips. The key burned in the depths of his pocket. From above the house came a peal of thunder, and it
began to rain.
“The Barony thanks you,” the Covenant Man said, touching one gloved finger to the side of his wide-brimmed hat. Then he wheeled his black
horse around and was gone into the rain. The last thing Tim saw was passing odd: when the heavy black cloak belled out, he spied a large metal
object tied to the top of the Covenant Man’s gunna. It looked like a washbasin.
Big Kells came striding down the steps, seized Tim by the shoulders, and commenced shaking him. Rain matted Kells’s thinning hair to the
sides of his face and streamed from his beard. Black when he had slipped into the silk rope with Nell, that beard was now heavily streaked with
gray.
“What did he tell’ee? Was it about me? What lies did’ee speak? Tell!”
Tim could tell him nothing. His head snapped back and forth hard enough to make his teeth clack together.
Nell rushed down the steps. “Stop it! Let him alone! You promised you’d never—”
“Get out of what don’t concern you, woman,” he said, and struck her with the side of his fist. Tim’s mama fell into the mud, where the teeming rain
was now filling the tracks left by the Covenant Man’s horse.
“You bastard!” Tim screamed. “You can’t hit my mama, you can’t ever!”
He felt no immediate pain when Kells dealt him a similar sidehand blow, but white light sheared across his vision. When it lifted, he found himself
lying in the mud next to his mother. He was dazed, his ears were ringing, and still the key burned in his pocket like a live coal.
“Nis take both of you,” Kells said, and strode away into the rain. Beyond the gate he turned right, in the direction of Tree’s little length of high
street. Headed for Gitty’s, Tim had no doubt. He had stayed away from drink all of that Wide Earth—as far as Tim knew, anyway—but he would not
stay away from it this night. Tim saw from his mother’s sorrowful face—wet with rain, her hair hanging limp against her reddening muck-splattered
cheek—that she knew it, too.
Tim put his arm around her waist, she put hers about his shoulders. They made their way slowly up the steps and into the house.
She didn’t so much sit in her chair at the kitchen table as collapse into it. Tim poured water from the jug into the basin, wetted a cloth, and put it
gently on the side of her face, which had begun to swell. She held it there for a bit, then extended it wordlessly to him. To please her, he took it and
put it on his own face. It was cool and good against the throbbing heat.
“This is a pretty business, wouldn’t you say?” she asked, with an attempt at brightness. “Woman beaten, boy slugged, new husband off t’boozer.”
Tim had no idea what to say to this, so said nothing.
Nell lowered her head to the heel of her hand and stared at the table. “I’ve made such a mess of things. I was frightened and at my wits’ end, but
that’s no excuse. We would have been better on the land, I think.”
Turned off the place? Away from the plot? Wasn’t it enough that his da’s ax and lucky coin were gone? She was right about one thing, though; it
was a mess.
But I have a key, Tim thought, and his fingers stole down to his pants to feel the shape of it.
“Where has he gone?” Nell asked, and Tim knew it wasn’t Bern Kells she was speaking of.
A wheel or two down the Ironwood. Where he’ll wait for me.
“I don’t know, Mama.” So far as he could remember, it was the first time he had ever lied to her.
“But we know where Bern’s gone, don’t we?” She laughed, then winced because it hurt her face. “He promised Milly Redhouse he was done with