The Totem-Maker (part seventy-one)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Eight

Use for Use

(part seventy-one)

But when I came to my door I saw a horse was tethered outside, another of the traders’. My visitor sat on my rug, busy at a practical task…knitting, an art I had never tried. He had brought a dog into my house, that for wanting to growl me from my own threshold, quietened when the man clucked. My guest beckoned me in.

On such occasions, I chose to speak, presuming all that accompanies words—expressions and gestures, friendly cadences—communicates better than silence. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to take the toll. I was loading my sledge with firewood. I see you’ve started a fire.”

I bent to the hearth.

I patted the dog’s head.

The trader gave me nods, smiles, syllables of agreement. I excused myself to fetch my pony, finding the trader’s arrows had landed him two hares. They hung by the feet in my stable.

I scurried, at a thought, indoors again.

The thought was unworthy of my new friend’s kindliness. My purpose I had neither concealed, rushing up short before the table. The Seeds shone in their places; the trader’s eye, holding mine a moment, twinkled. The tone of his words was just as I’d have used, if chiding: “I have all I need, thank you.”

I murmured, bowing out again for Cuerpha: “They are dangerous. They put ideas in one’s head.”

The trader came through the damp passage between rock face and stable wall, leading his horse. Snow that fell blew clear of this gusty place or never entered. He pegged up his tackle, laid aside the bundles and bags slung across his horse’s flanks. And ahead of the Tollkeeper, who stood staring, he went inside, one particular bundle on his shoulder.

When I had my pony stalled and blanketed, I joined him on a burst of wind, strong enough to slam the door at my heels. Sunlight flashed through the shutters on and off…lead-gold, dying fingers of it piercing a bank of cloud.

His remark I read by tone. “The storm is back.”

I hadn’t thought of this: this shy-making conundrum of days, perhaps, spent with a lodger. I unhooked the skin rolled above the shutter, to cover the rear window; my guest, learning his task at once, unhooked the one at front.

75

Use for Use

The Totem-Maker (part seventy-two)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)