Karavans Read Online Free PDF

freedom, tried a question of her own. “When are we going home?”
    “We’re not!” Torvic snapped, transforming his own reprimand into one for his inferior. “Didn’t you hear Ellica? Didn’t you hear Mam?”
    “Oh, stop.” It amazed Audrun most days that she had birthed such headstrong children, since in her youth she had been praised for her kindness, sweetness, and grace. Now, queasy, hot, weary, and completely bereft of such things as kindness and grace, it meant nothing but extra effort to control her equally hot and weary children. “I haven’t the patience for this. Your da will be back soon; until then, be still. Be
quiet
,” she persisted, seeing the look in Torvic’s eye. It would last perhaps the count of ten fingers, she thought, before someone spoke again. And she couldn’t blame them. They had been on the road for days, either cramped in the wagon or walking alongside it. There had been no time for leisure, and no settlements offering other children to talk or play with. As difficult as it was for her to uproot her life, it was worse for the children. They had no voice in the matter.
    Upon approaching the tent settlement, Davyn had halted the wagon yards away from the outskirts, carefully not infringing upon it or the dusty, tree-cradled area where departing karavans gathered. Both settlement and karavan area were a matter of paces away, but the wagon nonetheless remained isolated, clearly part of neither tents nor karavans.
    Before Davyn went off to find a karavan-master, he and Audrun rolled up and tied the yellow-painted oilcloth sideflaps stretched over the curving roof-ribs so they might benefit from fresh air, but he made it plain they were all to remain inside the tall-wheeled, closely packed wagon containing what was left of their belongings. Not to set foot, Davyn warned, on the ground without his say-so.
    Immediately after his father’s departure, Torvic asked his mother what they were to do if they needed to pee, at which point Gillan reminded him that they, as males, needonly aim over the sideboards. This observation resulted in cries of disgust from Ellica and Megritte, and a reprimand from Audrun.
    Though she might have preferred that option herself, in place of the chipped crockery pot shoved under one of the narrow cots.
    Now they sat and fidgeted amid bedding, furniture, foodstuffs, pots hanging from roof-ribs, and clothing trunks, with such farming implements as they retained attached to the exterior sideboards, tailgate, or hanging beneath the floorboards of the huge, high-sided wagon. But what Davyn hadn’t considered in his attempt to keep them safe was that this settlement, with its floodplain of colored tents, offered such enticements for bored and curious children as Audrun had never seen.
    Megritte asked, in the smallest of her voices, “Where did Da
go?
”
    “To see the karavan-masters,” Gillan answered, “so he can find us room in one of the karavans.” He waved an arm in the direction of the nearby grove of broad-crowned, thick-trunked trees where wagons and livestock waited. “They’re over there; see them? Those are the karavans, meeting up with the karavan-masters.”
    “Horses,” Megritte observed, peering through dust at the mass of conveyances and beasts some distance away. “
We
don’t have horses. We only have fat old oxes.”
    “Ox
en
,” Torvic corrected. “Don’t you know anything?”
    But the “fat old oxes” were not so fat anymore. Their journey from the family’s home in the midst of the province to this place at its edge had worn the fat away. And it concerned Davyn, who knew they needed strong, healthy oxen to get them overmountain.
    “Can I go see Da?” Megritte asked.
    “No,” Ellica said sharply. “We’re all to wait here. Da said so.”
    Megritte voiced what her mother very well knew all of them wondered. “Why?”
    “Because,” Audrun said succinctly, intending to leave it there; then relented because she had detested