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Forty-Seven

Having nothing to protect him from the nighttime chill, Tirros Hanorissio slept by day in the shade of cliff or rock, and hiked, often staggered, the beach at night. He ate dead fish he found, and several times over the days and nights lay ill from it for hours, waiting fruitlessly to die. His senses were dulled by hunger and hopelessness, and by the defeat of whatever psychotic compulsions drove him.

At no time did he cease feeling sorry for himself, somehow wronged by others. But the emotion had no force, and he felt too defeated to plan revenge or even dream of it. He was incapable of planning anything, or of looking ahead at all except for the vague unexamined impulse to get out of Hrumma north to Djez Gorrbul. His progress was slow, partly from hunger and partly from self-pity, resting by day and traveling almost solely by night. He also rested much at night, sleeping readily if restlessly, to wake shaking with cold. He swam inlets and even the Firth of Theed, to avoid towns and fishing hamlets.

An uncounted number of nights later he reached the Great North Firth, fifty miles long, and far too wide to swim across. Yet hiking round it seemed dangerous too. There was a sizeable town at its head, he knew, and fishing hamlets on its flanks, and in his mind, every man was watching for him.

He slumped down on the beach and peered across the firth, the opposite headland beyond sight in the dawn. North from it, he'd heard, the shore in places rose sheer from the ocean, even at low tide, waves booming on spalled cliffs, slashing and foaming among basaltic fangs. It occurred to him to leave the shore and travel overland, but that seemed more dangerous than the sea. It even occurred to him to try swimming across the firth; drowning would be better than starvation or capture.

Instead though, and by daylight now, he began to follow the shore along the firth, till on a tiny side inlet he came to a hut. In front of it, an old man sat mending a fishtrap. There was also a kienna, gray-muzzled and fat, but she merely raised her head and hissed, ceasing even that when the old man spoke sharply to her.

The old fisherman assumed that Tirros was some mariner lost, and meanwhile Tirros's wits began to function. He'd fallen overboard from a coasting sloop, he said, several nights back. The old man fed him, lightly enough that he didn't get sick, then loaned him soap and razor and a small mirror, and left to tend his fishtraps, saying he'd be back in a couple of hours and row him up the firth to a village.

When the old man returned, the "castaway sailor" met him at the door with a cutlass that had been hanging on a wall, and cut him down. The kienna was already murdered. Then Tirros left, wearing clean tunic and trousers—the shoes were too tight—with the old man's small cache of coins, the loaf and a half of bread he'd found, a head of cheese, and a large sausage too strongly spiced to spoil quickly, all stuffed into a sack. And a blanket in an oilskin bag. The cutlass rode on one hip and a fishknife on the other.

By now Tirros was functioning well enough that he'd also thought to fill the old man's waterskin and take a half-full wine crock. Then he untied the rowboat and started rowing across the firth. Away from the firth's south wall was a southerly breeze brisk enough that Tirros stepped the little mast, no more than eight feet tall, and spread the small sail.

He continued to travel mainly by night, occasionally visiting the mouth of some stream to refill his waterbag, hiding out on some small island or isolated beach through the day. If the wind was adverse—rarely was it lacking—he holed up till it blew right again, for he did not care to row.

Little by little he moved northward toward the Gulf of Storms, across which lay Djez Gorrbul. He'd have to coast his long slow way around the gulf, of course, but he could do that.

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Framed