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."
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 glow
ering 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.