FOREST MAGE
BOOK TWO OF
THE SOLDIER SON TRILOGY
ROBIN HOBB

FOREST MAGE. Copyright © 2006 by Robin Hobb.

ISBN-13: 978-0-06-075763-2
ISBN-10: 0-06-075763-9


CHAPTER ONE

FOREST DREAMS
There is a fragrance in the forest. It does not come from a single flower or
leaf. It is not the rich aroma of dark crumbly earth or the sweetness of
fruit that has passed from merely ripe to mellow and rich. The scent I
recalled was a combination of all these things, and of sunlight touching
and awakening their essences and of a very slight wind that blended them
perfectly. She smelled like that.
We lay together in a bower. Above us, the distant top of the canopy
swayed gently, and the beaming rays of sunlight danced over our bodies in
time with them. Vines and creepers that draped from the stretching
branches above our heads formed the sheltering walls of our forest
pavilion. Deep moss cushioned my bare back, and her soft arm was my
pillow. The vines curtained our trysting place with their foliage and large,
pale green flowers. The sepals pushed past the fleshy lips of the blossoms
and were heavy with yellow pollen. Large butterflies with wings of deep
orange traced with black were investigating the flowers. One insect left a
drooping blossom, alighted on my lover’s shoulder, and walked over her
soft dappled flesh. I watched it unfurl a coiled black tongue to taste the
perspiration that dewed the forest woman’s skin, and envied it. I lay in
indescribable comfort, content beyond passion. I lifted a lazy hand to
impede the butterfly’s progress. Fearlessly, it stepped onto my fingers. I
raised it to be an ornament in my lover’s thick and tousled hair. She
opened her eyes at my touch. She had hazel eyes, green mingling with soft
brown. She smiled. I leaned up on my elbow and kissed her. Her ample
breasts pressed against me, startling in their softness.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, tilting back from the kiss. “I’m so sorry I had to
kill you.”
Her eyes were sad but still fond. “I know,” she replied. There was no
rancor in her voice. “Be at peace with it, soldier’s boy. All will come true as
it was meant to be. You belong to the magic now, and whatever it must
have you do, you will do.”
“But I killed you. I loved you and I killed you.”
She smiled gently. “Such as we do not die as others do.” “Do you yet live
then?” I asked her. I pulled my body back from hers and looked down
between us at the mound of her belly. It gave the lie to her words. My
cavalla saber had slashed her wide open. Her entrails spilled from that
gash and rested on the moss between us. They were pink and liverish-gray,
coiling like fat worms. They had piled up against my bare legs, warm and
slick. Her blood smeared my genitals. I tried to scream and could not. I
struggled to push away from her, but we had grown fast together.
“Nevare!”
I woke with a shudder and sat up in my bunk, panting silently through my
open mouth. A tall pale wraith stood over me. I gave a muted yelp before I
recognized Trist. “You were whimpering in your sleep,” Trist told me. I
compulsively brushed at my thighs, and then lifted my hands close to my
face. In the dim moonlight through the window, they were clean of blood.
“It was only a dream,” Trist assured me.
“Sorry,” I muttered, ashamed. “Sorry I was noisy.”
“It’s not like you’re the only one to have nightmares.” The thin cadet sat
down on the foot of my bed. Once he had been whiplash-lean and limber.
Now he was skeletal and moved like a stiff old man. He coughed twice and
then caught his breath. “Know what I dream?” He didn’t wait for my
reply. “I dream I died of Speck plague. Because I did, you know. I was one
of the ones who died, and then revived. But I dream that instead of
holding my body in the infirmary, Dr. Amicas let them put me out with
the corpses. In my dream, they toss me in the pit grave, and they throw
the quicklime down on me. I dream I wake up down there, under all those
bodies that stink of piss and vomit, with the lime burning into me. I try to
climb out, but they just keep throwing more bodies down on top of me.
I’m clawing and pushing my way past them, trying to get out of the pit
through all that rotting flesh and bones. And then I realize that the body
I’m climbing over is Nate. He’s all dead and decaying, but he opens his
eyes and he asks, ‘Why me, Trist? Why me and not you?’” Trist gave a
sudden shudder and huddled his shoulders.
“They’re only dreams, Trist,” I whispered. All around us, the other
first-years who had survived the plague slumbered on. Someone coughed
in his sleep. Someone else muttered, yipped like a puppy, and then grew
still. Trist was right. Few of us slept well anymore. “They’re only bad
dreams. It’s all over. The plague passed us by. We survived.”
“Easy for you to say. You recovered. You’re fit and hearty.” He stood up.
His nightshirt hung on his lanky frame. In the dim dormitory, his eyes
were dark holes. “Maybe I survived, but the plague didn’t pass me by. I’ll
live with what it did to me to the end of my days. You think I’ll ever lead a
charge, Nevare? I can barely manage to keep standing through morning
assembly. I’m done as a soldier. Done before I started. I’ll never live the life
I expected to lead.” Trist stood up. He shuffled away from my bed and
back to his. He was breathing noisily by the time he sat down on his bunk.
Slowly I lay back down. I heard Trist cough again, wheeze, and then lie
down. It was no comfort to me that he, too, was tormented with
nightmares. I thought of Tree Woman and shuddered again. She is dead, I
assured myself. She can no longer reach into my life. I killed her. I killed
her and I took back into myself the part of my spirit that she’d stolen and
seduced. She can’t control me anymore. It was only a dream. I took a
deeper, steadying breath, turned my pillow to the cool side, and burrowed
into it. I dared not close my eyes lest I fall back into that nightmare. I
deliberately focused my mind on the present, and pushed my night terror
away from me.
All around me in the darkness, my fellow survivors slept. Bringham
House’s dormitory was a long open room, with a large window at each
end. Two neat rows of bunks lined the long walls. There were forty beds,
but only thirty-one were full. Colonel Rebin, the King’s Cavalla Academy
commander, had combined the sons of old nobles with the sons of battle
lords, and recalled the cadets who had been culled earlier in the year, but
even that measure had not completely replenished our depleted ranks. The
colonel might have declared us equals, but I suspected that only time and
familiarity would erase the social gulf between the sons of established
noble families and those of us whose fathers could claim a title only
because the king had elevated them in recognition of their wartime
service.
Rebin mingled us out of necessity. The Speck plague that had roared
through the academy had devastated us. Our class of first-years had been
halved. The second- and third-years had taken almost as heavy a loss.
Instructors as well as students had perished in that unnatural onslaught.
Colonel Rebin was doing the best he could to reorganize the academy and
put it back on a regular schedule, but we were still licking our wounds.
Speck plague had culled a full generation of future officers. Gernia’s
military would feel that loss keenly in the years to come. And that had
been what the Specks intended when they used their magic to send their
disease against us.
Morale at the academy was subdued as we staggered forward into the new
year. It wasn’t just the number of deaths the plague had visited on us,
though that was bad enough. The plague had come among us and
slaughtered us at will, an enemy that all of our training could not prevail
against. Strong, brave young men who had hoped to distinguish
themselves on battlefields had instead died in their beds, soiled with vomit
and urine and whimpering feebly for their mothers. It is never good to
remind soldiers of their own mortality. We had believed ourselves young
heroes, full of energy, courage, and lust for life. The plague had revealed to
us that we were mortals, and just as vulnerable as the weakest babe in
arms.
The first time Colonel Rebin had assembled us on the parade ground in
our old formations, he had ordered us all “at ease” and then commanded
us to look around us and see how many of our fellows had fallen. He then
gave a speech, telling us that the plague was the first battle we had passed
through, and that just as the plague had not discriminated between old
nobility and new nobility, neither would a blade or a bullet. As he formed
us up into our new condensed companies, I pondered his words. I doubted
that he truly realized that the Speck plague had not been a random
contagion but a true strike against us, as telling as any military attack.
The Specks had sent “Dust Dancers” from the far eastern frontiers of
Gernia all the way to our capitol city, for the precise purpose of sowing
their disease among our nobility and our future military leaders. They had
succeeded in thinning our ranks. If not for me, their success would have
been complete. Sometimes I took pride in that.
At other times, I recalled that if not for me, they never would have been
able to attack us as they had.
I had tried, without success, to shrug off the guilt I felt. I’d been the
unwilling and unwitting partner of the Specks and Tree Woman. It was
not my fault, I told myself, that I’d fallen into her power. Years ago, my
father had entrusted me to a Plainsman warrior for training. Dewara had
nearly killed me with his “instruction.” And toward the end of my time
with him, he’d decided to “make me Kidona” by inducting me into the
magic of his people. Foolishly, I’d allowed him to drug me and take me
into the supernatural world of his people. He’d told me I could win honor
and glory by doing battle with the ancient enemy of his people. But what
confronted me at the end of a series of trials had been a fat old woman
sitting in the shade of a huge tree. I was my father’s soldier son, trained in
the chivalry of the cavalla. I could not draw sword against an old woman.
Due to that misplaced gallantry, I had fallen to her. She had “stolen” me
from Dewara and made me her pawn. A part of me had remained with her
in that spirit world. While I had grown and gone off to the academy and
begun my education to be an officer in my king’s cavalla, he had become
her acolyte. Tree Woman had made that part of me into a Speck in all
things but having speckled skin. Through him, she spied on my people,
and hatched her terrible plan to destroy us with the Speck plague.
Masquerading as captive dancers, her emissaries came to Old Thares as
part of the Dark Evening carnival and unleashed their disease upon us.
My Speck self had seized control of me. I’d signaled the Dust Dancers to let
them know they had reached their goal. The carnivalgoers who
surrounded them thought they had come to witness an exhibition of
primitive dance. Instead, they’d breathed in the disease with the flung
dust. When my fellow cadets and I left the carnival, we were infected. And
the disease had spread throughout all of Old Thares.
In my bed in the darkened dormitory, I rolled over and thumped my pillow
back into shape. Stop thinking about how I betrayed my own people, I
begged myself. Think instead of how I saved them.
And I had. In a terrible encounter born of my Speck plague fever, I had
finally been able to cross back into her world and challenge her. Not only
had I won back the piece of my soul she had stolen, but I had also slain
her, slashing her belly wide open with the cold iron of my cavalla saber. I
severed her connection to our world. Her reign over me was finished. I
attributed my complete recovery from the Speck plague to my reclaiming
the piece of my spirit she had stolen. I had regained my health and
vitality, and even put on flesh. In a word, I had become whole again.
In the days and nights that followed my return to the academy and the
resumption of a military routine, I discovered that as I reintegrated that
other, foreign self, I absorbed his memories as well. His recollections of the
Tree Woman and her world were the source of my beautiful dreams of
walking in untouched forest in the company of an amazing woman. I felt
as if the twin halves of my being had parted, followed differing roads, and
now had converged once more into a single self. The very fact that I
accepted this was so, and tried to absorb those alien emotions and
opinions, was a fair indicator that my other self was having a substantial
impact on who I was becoming. The old Nevare, the self I knew so well,
would have rejected such a melding as blasphemous and impossible. I
had killed the Tree Woman, and I did not regret doing it. She had
extinguished lives for the sake of the “magic” she could draw from their
foundering souls. My best friend, Spink, and my Cousin Epiny had been
among her intended victims. I had killed Tree Woman to save them. I
knew that I had also saved myself, and dozens of others. By daylight, I did
not think of my deed at all, or if I did, I took satisfaction in knowing that I
had triumphed and saved my friends. Yet my night thoughts were a
different matter. When I hovered between wakefulness and sleep, a
terrible sorrow and guilt would fill me. I mourned the creature I had slain,
and missed her with a sorrow that hollowed me. My Speck self had been
her lover and regretted that I’d slain her. But that was he, not me. In my
dreams, he might briefly rule my thoughts. But by day, I was still Nevare
Burvelle, my father’s son and a future officer in the king’s cavalla. I had
prevailed. I would continue to prevail. And I would do all I could, every day
of my life, to make up for the traitorous deeds of my other self.
I sighed. I knew I would not sleep again that night. I tried to salve my
conscience. The plague we had endured together had strengthened us in
some ways. It had united us as cadets. There had been little opposition to
Colonel Rebin’s insistence on ending the segregation of old nobles’ and
new nobles’ sons. In the last few weeks I’d come to know better the “old
noble” first-years and found that, generally speaking, they were little
different from my old patrol. The vicious rivalry that had separated us for
the first part of the year had foundered and died. Now that we were truly
one academy and could socialize freely, I wondered what had made me
loathe them so. They were perhaps more sophisticated and polished than
their frontier brethren, but at the end of the day they were first-years just
like us, groaning under the same demerits and duty. Colonel Rebin had
taken care to mix us well in our new patrols. Nonetheless, my closest
friends were still the four surviving members of my old patrol.
Rory had stepped up to fill the position of best friend to me when Spink’s
broken health had forced him to withdraw from the academy. His
devil-may-care attitude and frontier roughness were, I felt, a good
counterweight to stiffness and rules. Whenever I lapsed into moodiness or
became too pensive, Rory would rowdy me past it. He was the least
changed of my old patrol mates. Trist was no longer the tall, handsome
cadet he’d been. His brush with death had stolen his physical confidence.
When he laughed now, it always had a bitter edge. Kort missed Nate
acutely. He bowed under his grief, and though he had recovered his
health, he was so somber and dull without his friend that he seemed to be
living but half a life. Fat Gord was still as heavy as ever, but he seemed
more content with his lot and also more dignified. When it looked as if the
plague would doom everyone, Gord’s parents and his fiancée’s parents had
allowed their offspring to wed early and taste what little of life they might
be allowed. Fortune had smiled on them, and they had come through the
plague unscathed. Although Gord was still teased by all and despised by
some for his fat, his new status as a married man agreed with him. He
seemed to possess an inner contentment and sense of worth that childish
taunts could not disturb. He spent every day of his liberty with his wife,
and she sometimes came to visit him during the week. Cilima was a quiet
little thing with huge black eyes and tumbling black curls. She was
completely infatuated with “my dear Gordy,” as she always called him, and
he was devoted to her. His marriage separated him from the rest of us; he
now seemed much older than his fellow first-years. He went after his
studies with a savage determination. I had always known that he was good
at math and engineering. He now revealed that in fact he was brilliant,
and had till now merely been marking time. He no longer concealed his
keen mind. I knew that Colonel Rebin had summoned him once to discuss
his future. He had taken Gord out of the first-year math course and given
him texts to study independently. We were still friends, but without Spink
and his need for tutoring, we did not spend much time together. Our only
long conversations seemed to occur when one or the other of us would
receive a letter from Spink. He wrote to both of us, more or less regularly.
Spink himself had survived the plague, but his military career had not. His
handwriting wavered more than it had before his illness, and his letters
were not long. He did not whine or bitterly protest his fate, but the brevity
of his missives spoke to me of dashed hopes. He had constant pain in his
joints now, and headaches if he read or wrote for too long. Dr. Amicas had
given Spink a medical discharge from the academy. Spink had married
my Cousin Epiny, who had nursed him through his illness.
Together, they had set out for his brother’s holdings at distant Bitter
Springs. The sedate life of a dutiful younger son was a far cry from Spink’s
previous dreams of military glory and swift advancement through the
ranks. Epiny’s letters to me were naively revealing. Her inked words
prattled as verbosely as her tongue did. I knew the names of the flowers,
trees, and plants she had encountered on her way to Bitter Springs, every
day’s weather, and each tiny event on her tedious journey there. Epiny had
traded my uncle’s wealth and sophisticated home in Old Thares for the life
of a frontier wife. She had once told me she thought she could be a good
soldier’s wife, but it looked as if her final vocation would be caretaker for
her invalid husband. Spink would have no career of his own. They would
live on his brother’s estate, and at his brother’s sufferance. Fond as his
elder brother was of Spink, it would still be difficult for him to stretch his
paltry resources to care for his soldier brother and his wife.
In the darkness, I shifted in my bunk. Trist was right, I decided. None of
us would have the lives we’d expected. I muttered a prayer to the good god
for all of us, and closed my eyes to get what sleep I could before dawn
commanded us to rise.
I was weary when I rose the next morning with my fellows. Rory tried to
jolly me into conversation at breakfast, but my answers were brief, and no
one else at our table took up his banter. Our first class of the day was
Engineering and Drafting. I’d enjoyed the course when Captain Maw
instructed it, despite his prejudice against new noble sons like me. But the
plague had carried Maw off, and a third-year cadet had been pressed into
duty as our temporary instructor. Cadet Sergeant Vredo seemed to think
that discipline was more important than information, and frequently
issued demerits to cadets who dared to ask questions. Captain Maw’s
untidy room full of maps and models had been gutted. Rows of desks and
interminable lectures had replaced our experimentation. I kept my head
down, did my work, and learned little that was new to me. In contrast,
Cadet Lieutenant Bailey was doing rather well instructing Military
History, for he plainly loved his topic and had read widely beyond his
course materials. His lecture that day was one that engaged me. He spoke
about the impact of Gernian civilization on the Plainspeople. In my
father’s lifetime, Landsing, our traditional enemy, had finally dealt Gernia
a sound defeat. Gernia had had to surrender our territory along the
western seacoast. King Troven had had no choice but to turn his eyes to
the east and the unclaimed territories there. Nomadic folk had long
roamed the wide prairies and high plateaus of the interior lands, but they
were primitive folk with no central government, no king, and few
permanent settlements. When Gernia had begun to expand east, they had
fought us, but their arrows and spears were no match for our modern
weaponry. We had defeated them. There was no question in anyone’s
mind that it was for their own good.
“Since Gernia took charge of the Plainsmen and their lands, they have
begun to put down roots, to build real towns rather than their seasonal
settlements, to pen their cattle and grow food rather than forage for it.
The swift horses of great stamina that sustained the largely nomadic
peoples have been replaced with sturdy oxen and plow horses. For the first
time, their children are experiencing the benefits of schooling and written
language. Knowledge of the good god is being imparted to them, replacing
the fickle magic they once relied on.” Lofert waved a hand and then spoke
before the instructor could acknowledge him. “But what about them, uh,
Preservationists, sir? I heard my father telling one of his friends that
they’d like to give all our land back to the Plainsfolk and let them go back
to living like wild animals.”
“Wait to be acknowledged before you ask a question, Cadet. And your
comment wasn’t phrased as a question. But I’ll answer it. There are people
who feel that we have made radical changes to the lifestyles of the
Plainsmen too swiftly for them to adapt to them. In some instances, they
are probably correct. In many others, they are, in my opinion, ignorant of
the reality of what they suggest. But what we have to ask ourselves is,
would it be better for them if we delayed offering them the benefits of
civilization? Or would we simply be neglecting our duty to them?
“Remember that the Plainspeople used to rely on their primitive magic
and spells for survival. They can no longer do that. And having taken their
magic from them, is it not our duty to replace it with modern tools for
living? Iron, the backbone of our modernizing world, is anathema to their
magic. The iron plows we gave them to till the land negate the “finding
magic” of their foragers. Flint and steel have become a requirement, for
their mages can no longer call forth flame from wood. The Plainsmen are
settled now and can draw water from wells. The water mages who used to
lead the people to drinking places along their long migratory routes are no
longer needed. The few wind wizards who remain are solitary creatures,
seldom glimpsed. Reports of their flying rugs and their little boats that
moved of themselves across calm water are already scoffed at as tales. I
have no doubt that in another generation, they’ll be the stuff of legend.”
Cadet Lieutenant Bailey’s words saddened me. My mind wandered briefly.
I recalled my own brief glimpse of a wind wizard on the river during my
journey to Old Thares. He had held his small sail wide to catch the wind
he had summoned. His little craft had moved swiftly against the current.
The sight had been both moving and mystical to me. Yet I also recalled
with wrenching regret how it had ended. Some drunken fools on our
riverboat had shot his sail full of holes. The iron shot they had used had
disrupted the wizard’s spell as well. He’d been flung off his little vessel into
the river. I believed he had drowned there, victim of the young noblemen’s
jest.
“Lead can kill a man, but it takes cold iron to defeat magic.” My
instructor’s words jolted me from my daydream.
“That our superior civilization replaces the primitive order of the
Plainsmen is a part of the natural order,” he lectured. “And lest you feel
too superior, be mindful that we Gernians have been victims of advanced
technology ourselves. When Landsing made their discovery that allowed
their cannon and long guns to shoot farther and more accurately than
ours, they were able to defeat us and take from us our seacoast provinces.
Much as we resent that, it was natural that once they had achieved a
military technology that was superior to our own, they would take what
they wished from us. Keep that in mind, cadets. We are entering an age of
technology.
“The same principle applies to our conquest of the Plains. Shooting lead
bullets at Plains warriors, we were able to maintain our borders by force
of arms, but we could not expand them. It was only when some
forward-thinking man realized that iron shot would destroy their magic as
well as cause injury that we were able to push back their boundaries and
impose our will on them. The disadvantages of iron shot, that it cannot be
as easily reclaimed and remanufactured in the field as lead ball can, were
offset by the military advantage it gave us in defeating their warriors. The
Plainsmen had relied on their magic to turn aside our shot, to scare our
horses, and generally to confound our troops. Our advance into their
lands, gentlemen, is as inevitable as a rising tide, just as was our defeat by
the Landsingers. And, just like us, the Plainsmen will either be swept away
before new technology, or they will learn to live with it.”
“Then you think it is our right, sir, to just run over them?” Lofert asked in
his earnest way.
“Raise your hand and wait to be acknowledged before you speak, Cadet.
You’ve been warned before. Three demerits. Yes. I think it is our right. The
good god has given us the means to defeat the Plainsmen, and to prosper
where once only goatherds or wild beasts dwelt. We will bring civilization
to the Midlands, to the benefit of all.”
I caught myself wondering how much the fallen from both sides had
benefited. Then I shook my head angrily, and resolutely set aside such
cynical musings. I was a cadet in the King’s Cavalla Academy. Like any
second son of a nobleman, I was my father’s soldier son, and I would follow
in his footsteps. I had not been born to question the ways of the world. If
the good god had wanted me to ponder fate or question the morality of
our eastward expansion, he would have made me a third son, born to be a
priest.
At the end of the lecture, I blew on my notes to dry them, closed up my
books, and joined the rest of my patrol to march in formation back to the
dormitory. Spring was trying to gain a hold on the academy grounds and
not completely succeeding. There was a sharp nip of chill in the wind, yet
it was pleasant to be out in the fresh air again. I tried to push aside my
somber musings on the fate of the Plainsmen. It was, as our instructor had
said, the natural order of things. Who was I to dispute it? I followed my
friends up the stairs to our dormitory, and shelved my textbooks from my
morning classes. The day’s mail awaited me on my bunk. There was a fat
envelope from Epiny. The other cadets left me sitting on my bunk. As they
hurried off to the noon meal, I opened her letter.
Her letter opened with her usual queries about my health and schooling. I
quickly skimmed past that part. She had arrived safely in Bitter Springs.
Epiny’s first letter about reaching her new home was determinedly
optimistic, but I sensed the gap between her expectations and the reality
she now confronted. I sat on my bunk and read it with sympathy and
bemusement.
      The women of the household work as hard as the men, right
alongside the servants. Truly, the saying that “Men but work from sun to
sun, woman’s work is never done!” is true of Lady Kester’s household. In
the hours after dinner, when the light is dim and you might think some
rest was due us, one of us will read or make music for the others, allowing
our minds to drift a bit, but our ever-busy hands go on with such
mundane tasks as shelling dried peas or using a drop-spindle to make
thread of wool (I am proud to say I have become quite good at this chore!)
or unraveling old sweaters and blankets so that the yarn can be reused to
make useful items. Lady Kester wastes nothing, not a scrap of fabric nor a
minute of time.
        Spink and I have our own dear little cottage, built of stone, as that is
what we have an abundance of here. It used to be the milk house, and had
fallen into disrepair after the last two milk cows died. When Lady Kester
knew we were coming, she decided that we would relish a little privacy of
our own, and so she had her daughters do their best to clean and tighten it
up for us before we arrived. The inside of it was freshly whitewashed, and
Spink’s sister Gera has given us the quilt that she had sewn for her own
hope chest. There is only the one room, of course, but it is ample for the
little furniture we have. The bedstead fills one corner, and our table with
our own two chairs is right by the window that looks out over the open
hillside. Spink tells me that once the late frosts have passed, we shall have
a vista of wild flowers there. Even so, it is quite rustic and quaint, but as
soon as Spink’s health has improved, he says he will put in a new floor and
fix the chimney so that it draws better, and use a spoke shave to persuade
the door to shut tightly in the jamb. Summer approaches and with it
warmer weather, which I shall be grateful to see. I trust that by the time
the rains and frosts return, we shall have made our little home as cozy as a
bird’s nest in a hollow tree. For now, when the cold wind creeps round the
door or the mosquitoes keen in my ear at night, I ask myself, “Am I not as
hearty as the little ground squirrels that scamper about during the day
and have no better than a hole to shelter in at night? Surely I can take a
lesson from them and find as much satisfaction in my simple life.” And so
I make myself content.
“Yer cousin wants to be a ground squirrel?” Rory asked me. I turned to
find him reading over my shoulder. I glared at him. He grinned,
unabashed. “That’s rude, Rory, and you know it.”
“Sorry!” His grin grew wolfish. “I wouldn’t have read it, but I thought it
was from your girl and might have some intrestin’ bits in it.” He dodged
my counterfeit swipe at him and then with false pomposity warned me,
“Better not hit me, Cadet! Remember, I outrank you for now. Besides, I’m
a messenger. Dr. Amicas sent word that you were to come and see him. He
also said that if you don’t think his request to visit him weekly is
sufficient, he could make it a direct order.”
“Oh.” My heart sank. I didn’t want to go see the academy physician
anymore, but neither did I want to annoy the irascible old man. I was
aware still of the debt that I owed him. I folded up Epiny’s letter and rose
with a sigh. Dr. Amicas had been a friend to me, in his own brusque way.
And he’d definitely behaved heroically through the plague, going without
rest to care for the dozens of cadets who fell to the disease. Without him, I
would not have survived. I knew that the plague fascinated him, and that
he had a personal ambition to discover its method of transmission, as well
as document which techniques saved lives and which were worthless, and
was writing a scholarly paper summing up all his observations of the
recent outbreak. He had told me that monitoring my amazing recovery
from such a severe case of plague was a part of his research, but I was
dismally tired of it. Every week he poked and prodded and measured me.
The way he spoke to me made me feel that I had not recovered at all but
was merely going through an extended phase of recuperation. I wished he
would stop reminding me of my experience. I wanted to put the plague
behind me and stop thinking of myself as an invalid.
“Right now?” I asked Rory.
“Right now, Cadet,” he confirmed. He spoke as a friend, but the new stripe
on his sleeve still meant that I’d best go immediately. “I’ll miss the noon
meal,” I objected.
“Wouldn’t hurt you to miss a meal or two,” he said meaningfully. I
scowled at his jab, but he only grinned. I nodded and set out for the
infirmary.
In the last few balmy days, some misguided trees had flowered. They wore
their white and pink blossoms bravely despite the day’s chill. The
groundskeepers had been at work: all the fallen branches from the winter
storms had been tidied away and the greens manicured to velvet.
I had to pass one very large flower bed where precisely spaced ranks of
bulb flowers had pushed up their green spikes of leaves; soon there would
be regiments of tulips in bloom. I looked away from them; I knew what lay
beneath those stalwart rows. They covered the pit grave that had received
so many of my comrades. A single gravestone stood grayly in the middle of
the garden. It said only, OUR HONORED DEAD. The academy had been
quarantined when the plague broke out. Even when it had spread through
the city beyond our walls, Dr. Amicas had maintained our isolation. Our
dead had been carried out of the infirmaries and dormitories and set
down first in rows, and then, as their numbers increased, in stacks. I had
been among the ill. I had not witnessed the mounting toll, nor seen the
rats that scuttled and the carrion birds that flocked, despite the icy cold,
to the feast. Dr. Amicas had been the one to order reluctantly that a great
pit be dug and the bodies be tumbled in, along with layers of quicklime
and earth.
Nate was down there, I knew. I tried not to think of his flesh rotting from
his bones, or about the bodies tangled and clumped together in the
obscene impartiality of such a grave. Nate had deserved better. They had
all deserved better. I’d heard one of the new cadets refer to the grave site
as “the memorial to the Battle of Pukenshit.” I’d wanted to hit him. I
turned up my collar against a wind that still bit with winter’s teeth and
hurried past the groomed gardens through the late afternoon light.
At the door of the infirmary I hesitated, and then gritted my teeth and
stepped inside. The bare corridor smelled of lye soap and ammonia, but in
my mind the miasma of sickness still clung to this place. Many of my
friends and acquaintances had died in this building only a couple of
months ago. I wondered that Dr. Amicas could stand to keep his offices
here. Had it been left to me, I would have burned the infirmary down to
scorched earth and rebuilt somewhere else.
When I tapped on the door of his private office, the doctor peremptorily
ordered me to come in. Clouds of drifting pipe smoke veiled the room and
flavored the air. “Cadet Burvelle, reporting as ordered, sir,” I announced
myself. He pushed his chair back from his cluttered desk and rose, taking
his spectacles off as he did so. He looked me up and down, and I felt the
measure of his glance. “You weren’t ordered, Cadet, and you know it. But
the importance of my research is such that if you don’t choose to
cooperate, I will give you such orders. Instead of coming at your
convenience, you’ll come at mine, and then enjoy the pleasure of making
up missed class time. Are we clear?” His words were harsher than his
tone. He meant them, but he spoke almost as if we were peers. “I’ll
cooperate, sir.” I was unbuttoning my uniform jacket as I spoke. One of
the buttons, loosened on its thread, broke free and went flying across the
office. He lifted a brow at that.
“Still gaining flesh, I see.”
“I always put on weight right before I get taller.” I spoke a bit defensively.
This was the third time he had brought up my weight gain. I thought it
unkind of him. “Surely that must be better than me being thin as a rail,
like Trist.”
“Cadet Wissom’s reaction to having survived the plague is the norm. Yours
is different. ‘Better’ remains to be seen,” he replied ponderously. “Any
other changes that you’ve noticed? How’s your wind?”
“It’s fine. I had to march off six demerits yesterday, and I finished up at
the same time as the other fellows.”
“Hm.” He had drawn closer as I spoke. As if I were a thing rather than a
person, he inspected my body, looking in my ears, eyes, and nose, and then
listening to my heart and breathing. He made me run in place for a good
five minutes, and then listened to my heart and lungs again. He jotted
down voluminous notes, weighed me, took my height, and then quizzed
me on all I’d eaten since yesterday. As I’d had only what the mess allotted
to me, that question was quickly answered.
“But you’ve still gained weight, even though you haven’t increased your
food intake?” he asked me, as if questioning my honesty.
“I’m out of spending money,” I told him. “I’m eating as I’ve eaten since I
arrived here. The extra flesh is only because I’m about to go through
another growth spurt.”
“I see. You know that, do you?”
I didn’t answer that. I knew it was rhetorical. He stooped to retrieve my
button and handed it back to me. “Best sew that on good and tight,
Cadet.” He put his notes on me into a folder and then sat down at his desk
with a sigh. “You’re going home in a couple of weeks, aren’t you? For your
sister’s wedding?”
“For my brother’s wedding, sir. Yes, I am. I’ll leave as soon as my tickets
arrive. My father wrote to Colonel Rebin to ask that I be released for the
occasion. The colonel told me that ordinarily he would strongly disapprove
of a cadet taking a month off from studies to attend a wedding, but that
given the condition of our classes at present, he thinks I can make up the
work.” The doctor was nodding to my words. He pursed his mouth,
seemed on the verge of saying something, hesitated, and then said, “I
think it’s for the best that you do go home for a time. Traveling by ship?”
“Part of the way. Then I’ll do the rest by horseback. I’ll go more swiftly by
road than on a vessel fighting the spring floods. I’ve my own horse in the
academy stables. Sirlofty didn’t get much exercise over the winter. This
journey will put both of us back into condition.”
He smiled wearily as he settled into his desk chair. “Well. Let’s pray that it
does. You can go, Nevare. But check back with me next week, if you’re still
here. Don’t make me remind you.”
“Yes, sir.” I dared a question. “How is your research progressing?”
“Slowly.” He scowled. “I am at odds with my fellow physicians. Most of
them persist in looking for a cure. I tell them, we must find out what
triggers the disease and prevent that. Once the plague has struck, people
begin to die quickly. Preventing its spread will save more lives than trying
to cure it once it has a foothold in the population.” He sighed, and I knew
his memories haunted him. He cleared his throat and went on, “I looked
into what you suggested about dust. I simply cannot see it being the cause
of the disease.” He seemed to forget that I was merely a cadet and, leaning
back in his chair, spoke to me as if I were a colleague. “You know that I
believe the onset of the plague and the swiftness of its spread mean that
sexual contact cannot be the sole method of contracting it. I still believe
that the most virulent cases stem from sexual contact…” He paused,
offering me yet another opportunity to admit I’d had carnal knowledge of
a Speck. I remained silent. I hadn’t, at least not physically. If cavalla
soldiers could contract venereal disease from what we dreamed, none of us
would live to graduate from the academy.
He finally continued, “Your theory that something in the dust that the
Specks fling during their Dust Dance could be a trigger appealed to me.
Unfortunately, while I did my best to gather data from the sickened cadets
before they became too ill to respond, the disease took many of them
before they could be questioned. So we shall never know exactly how many
of them may have witnessed a Dust Dance and breathed in dust. However,
there are several flaws in your theory. The first is that at least one cadet,
Corporal Rory Hart, witnessed the Dust Dance and had absolutely no
symptoms of plague. He’s an unusual fellow; he also admitted to, er, more
than casual contact with the Specks themselves, with no ill effect. But even
if we set Rory aside as an individual with exceptionally robust health,
there are still other problems with your theory. One is that the Specks
would be exposing themselves to the illness every time they danced the
dance. You have told me you believed that the Speck deliberately sowed
this illness among us. Would they do it at risk to themselves? I think not.
And before you interrupt—” he held up a warning hand as I took breath to
speak, “—keep in mind that this is not the first outbreak of Speck plague
that I’ve witnessed. As you might be pleased to know, the other outbreak I
witnessed was close to the Barrier Mountains, and yes, the Specks had
performed a Dust Dance before the outbreak. But many of their own
children were among those stricken that summer. I can scarcely believe
that even primitive people would deliberately infect their own children
with a deadly disease simply to exact revenge on us. Of course, I suppose
it’s possible that the dust does spread the disease, but the Specks are
unaware of it. Simple, natural peoples like the Specks are often unaware
that all diseases have a cause and hence are preventable.”
“Maybe they face the disease willingly. Maybe they think that the disease
is more like a, uh, like a magical culling. That the children who survive it
are meant to go on, and that those who die go on to a different life.”
Dr. Amicas sighed deeply. “Nevare, Nevare. I am a doctor. We cannot go
about imagining wild things to try to make a pet theory make sense. We
have to fit the theory to the facts, not manufacture facts to support the
theory.” I took a breath to speak, and then once more decided to give it
up. I had only dreamed that the dust caused the disease. I had dreamed
that it was so and my “Speck self” believed it. But perhaps in my dreams
my Speck half believed a superstition, rather than knowing the real truth.
I gave my head a slight shake. My circling thoughts reminded me of a dog
chasing its own tail. “May I be dismissed, sir?”
“Certainly. And thank you for coming.” He was tamping more tobacco into
his pipe as I departed. “Nevare!” His call stopped me at the door.
“Sir?”
He pointed the stem of his pipe at me. “Are you still troubled by
nightmares?” I fervently wished I’d never told him of that issue.
“Only sometimes, sir,” I hedged. “Other than that, I sleep well.”
“Good. That’s good. I’ll see you next week, then.”
“Yes, sir.” I left hastily before he could call me back. The spring afternoon
had faded and evening was coming on. Birds were settling in the trees for
the night, and lights were beginning to show in the dormitories. The wind
had turned colder. I hurried on my way. The shadow of one of the majestic
oaks that graced the campus stretched across my path. I walked into it,
and in that instant felt a shiver up my spine, as if someone had strolled
over my grave. I blinked, and for a moment a remnant of my other self
looked out through my eyes at the precisely groomed landscape, and found
it very strange indeed. The straight paths and careful greens suddenly
looked stripped and barren to me, the few remaining trees a sad remnant
of a forest that had been. The landscape was devoid of the randomness of
natural life. In true freedom, life sprawled. This vista was as lifeless and as
unlovely as a glass-eyed animal stuffed for a display case. I was suddenly
acutely homesick for the forest. In the weeks following my recovery, I had
dreamed of the Tree Woman, and in my dreams I was my other self, and
she was beautiful. We strolled in the dappling light that fell through the
leafy shade of her immense trees. We scrambled over fallen logs and
pushed our way through curtains of vines. Fallen leaves and forest detritus
were thick and soft beneath our bare feet. In the stray beams of sunlight
that touched us, we both had speckled skin. She walked with the
ponderous grace of a heavy woman long accustomed to managing her
weight. She did not seem awkward, but majestic in her studied progress.
Just as an antlered deer turns his head to maneuver a narrow path, so did
she sidle past a network of spiderwebs that barred our way. The untidy,
unmastered, lovely sprawl of the forest put her in context. Here, she was as
large, lush, and beautiful as the luxuriant life that surrounded us.
In my first vision of her, when the Plainsman Dewara had told me she was
my enemy, I had perceived her as very old and repulsively fat. But in the
dreams I’d had following my recovery from the Speck plague, she seemed
ageless, and the pillowed roundness of her flesh was abundant and
inviting. I had told Dr. Amicas about the occasional vivid nightmares I
had. I had not mentioned to him that my erotic dreams of the forest
goddess far outnumbered the horrid ones. I always awoke from those
dreams flushed with arousal that quickly became shame. It was not just
that I lustfully dreamed of a Speck woman, and one of voluptuous
fleshiness, but that I knew that some part of me had consorted with her, in
passion and even love. I felt guilt for that bestial coupling, even if it had
occurred in a dream world and was without my consent. It was treasonous
as well as unnatural to mate outside my race. She had made me her lover
and tried to turn me against my own people. A dark and twisted magic
had been used to convert me to her uses. The threads of it still clung to my
thoughts, and that was what pulled my soul down to those dark places
where I still desired her flesh.
In my dreams of her, she often cautioned me that the magic now owned
me. “It will use you as it sees fit. Do not resist it. Put nothing you care
about between you and the magic’s calling, for like a flood, it will sweep
away all that opposes it. Ride with it, my love, or it will destroy you. You
will learn to use it, but not for yourself. When you use the magic to achieve
the ends of the magic, then its power will be at your command. But at all
other times,” and here she had smiled at me and run a soft hand down my
cheek, “we are the tools of the power.” In that dream, I caught her hand
and kissed the palm of it, and then nodded my head and accepted both
her wisdom and my fate. I wanted to flow with the magic that coursed
through me. It was only natural. What else could I possibly want to do
with my life? The magic coursed through me, as essential to me as my
blood. Does a man oppose the beating of his own heart? Of course I would
do what it willed.
Then I would wake and, like plunging into a cold river, my reality would
drench me and shock me into awareness of my true self. Occasionally, as
had happened when I passed through the shade of the oak, the stranger
inside me could still take control of my mind and show me his warped
view of my world. Then, in a blink of my eyes, a truer perspective would
prevail, and the illusion would fade back to nothingness.
And occasionally there were moments when I felt that perhaps both views
of the world were equally true and equally false. At such times, I felt torn
as to who I truly was. I tried to tell myself that my conflicting emotions
were no different from how my father felt about some of his vanquished
Plainsmen foes. He had fought them, killed them, or defeated them, yet he
still respected them, and in some ways regretted his role in ending their
unbound existence. At least I had finally accepted that the magic was real.
I had stopped trying to deny to myself that something arcane and strange
had happened to me. I’d reached my dormitory. I took the steps two at a
time. Bringham House had its own small library and study area on the
second floor. Most of my fellows were gathered there, heads bent over
their books. I ascended the last flight of stairs, and allowed myself to pause
and breathe. Rory was just coming out of our bunkroom. He grinned at
me as I stood panting. “Good to see you sweating a bit, Nevare. Better
drop a few pounds or you’ll have to borrow Gord’s old shirts.”
“Funny,” I gasped, and straightened. I was puffing, but having him needle
me about it didn’t improve my temper at all.
He pointed a finger at my belly. “You popped a button there already, my
friend!”
“That happened at the doctor’s office, when he was poking and prodding
at me.”
“Course it did!” he exclaimed with false enthusiasm. “But you’d better sew
it on tonight all the same, or you’ll be marching demerits off tomorrow.”
“I know, I know.”
“Can I borrow your drafting notes?”

“I’ll get them for you.”

Rory grinned his wide froggy smile. “Actually, I already have them. They’re
what I came upstairs to get. See you in the study room. Oh! I found a
letter for you mixed in with mine. I’ve left it on your bunk.”

“Don’t smear my notes!” I warned him as he clattered off down the stairs.
Shaking my head, I went into our dormitory room. I took off my jacket
and tossed it on my bunk. I picked up the envelope. I didn’t recognize the
handwriting, then smiled as the mystery came clear. The return address
was a letter writer’s shop in Burvelle’s Landing, but the name on it was
Sergeant Erib Duril. I opened it quickly, wondering what he could be
writing to me about. Or rather, having someone else write to me about.
Most reading and all writing were outside the old cavalla man’s field of
expertise. Sergeant Duril had come to my father when his soldiering days
were over, seeking a home for his declining years. He’d become my tutor,
my mentor, and toward the end of our years together, my friend. From
him, I’d learned all my basic cavalla and horsemanship skills, and a great
deal about being a man. I read the curiously formal letter through twice.
Obviously, the letter writer had chosen to put the old soldier’s words in
more elegant form than Duril himself would have chosen. It did not sound
at all like him as he sympathized with my illness and expressed fond
wishes that I would recover well. Only the sentiment at the end, graciously
phrased as it was, sounded like advice my old mentor would have given
me:
Even after you have recovered from this dread epidemic, I fear that you
will find yourself changed. I have witnessed, with my own eyes and often,
what this devastating plague can do to a young man’s physique. The body
that you so carefully sculpted for years under my tutelage may dwindle
and serve you less well than it has in the past. Nonetheless, I counsel you
that it is the soul of a military man that makes him what he is, and I have
faith that your soul will remain true to the calling of the good god.
I glanced back at the date on the envelope, and saw that the letter had
taken its time to reach me. I wondered if Duril had held it for some days,
debating as to whether or not to send it, or if the letter writer had simply
overlooked the missive and not sent it on its way. Well, soon enough I’d see
Sergeant Duril. I smiled to myself, touched that he’d taken the time and
spent the coins to send me this. I folded the paper carefully and tucked it
away among my books. I picked up my jacket again. From the chest at the
foot of my bed, I took my sewing kit. Best to get it done now, and then
study. As I looked for the place where the button had popped off, I
discovered they all were straining, and two others were on the point of
giving way.
Scowling, I cut the buttons off both my shirt and my jacket. I was
absolutely certain that my newly gained bulk would vanish in the next
month or two as I grew taller, but there was no sense in failing an
inspection in the meantime. As I refastened the buttons with careful
stitches, I moved each one over to allow myself a bit of breathing space.
When I put my shirt and jacket back on, I found them much more
comfortable, even though it still strained at my shoulders. Well, that
couldn’t be helped. Fixing that was beyond my limited tailoring skills. I
frowned to myself; I didn’t want my clothing to fit me poorly at my
brother’s wedding. Carsina, my fiancée, would be there, and she had
particularly asked me to wear my academy uniform for the occasion. Her
dress would be a matching green. I smiled to myself; girls gave great
thought to the silliest things. Well, doubtless my mother could make any
needed alterations to my uniform, if the journey home did not lean me
down as I expected it to. After a moment’s hesitation, I cut the buttons off
my trouser waistband and moved them over as well. Much eased, I took
my books and headed down to the study room to join my fellows.
The scene in Bringham House library was much different from our old
study room in Carneston Hall. There were no long trestle tables and hard
benches, but round tables with chairs and ample lighting. There were
several cushioned chairs set round the fireplace for quiet conversation. I
found a spot at a table next to Gord, set down my books, and took a seat.
He glanced up, preoccupied, and then smiled. “A messenger came for you
while you were gone. He gave me this for you.” “This” was a thick brown
envelope, from my uncle’s address. I opened it eagerly. As I had
anticipated, it contained a receipt for my shipboard passage as far as
Sorton, and a voucher written against my father’s bank in Old Thares for
funds for my journey. The note from my uncle said that my father had
requested he make my arrangements for me, and that he hoped to see me
again before I left for the wedding.
It was strange. Until I held the envelope in my hand, I had been content,
even satisfied to stay at the academy. Now an encompassing wave of
homesickness swept over me. I suddenly missed my whole family acutely.
My heart clenched as I thought of my little sister Yaril and her constant
questions, and my mother and the special plum tarts she made for me
each spring. I missed all of them, my father, and Rosse, my older brother,
even my older sister Elisi and her endless good advice.
But foremost in my thoughts was Carsina. Her little letters to me had
grown increasingly fond and flirtatious. I longed to see her, and had
already imagined several different ways in which I might steal some time
alone with her. For a short time after Epiny’s wedding to Spink, I had
entertained doubts about Carsina and myself. My parents had chosen my
fiancée. On several occasions, I’d had reason to doubt that my father
always knew what was best for me. Could they truly select a woman I could
live with, peacefully if not happily, the rest of my life? Or had she been
chosen more for the political alliance with a neighboring new noble, with
the expectation that her placid nature would give me no problems? I
suddenly resolved that before I returned to the academy I would know her
for myself. We would talk, and not just niceties about the weather and if
she enjoyed dinner. I would discover for myself how she truly felt about
being a soldier’s bride, and if she had other ambitions for her life. Epiny, I
thought with grim humor, had ruined women for me. Prior to meeting my
eccentric and modern cousin, I had never paused to wonder what
thoughts went through my sisters’ heads when my father was not around
to supervise them. Having experienced Epiny’s sharp intelligence and acid
tongue, I would no longer automatically relegate women to a passive and
docile role. It was not that I hoped Carsina secretly concealed an intellect
as piercing as Epiny’s. In truth, I did not. But I suspected there must be
more to my shy little flower than I had so far discovered. And if there was,
I was resolved to know it before we were wed and promised to one another
to the end of our days.
“You’re a long time quiet. Bad news?” Gord asked me solemnly.
I grinned at him. “On the contrary, brother. Good news, great news! I’m
starting for home tomorrow, to see my brother’s wedding.”

CHAPTER TWO

HOMEWARD BOUND
My departure from the academy was neither as swift nor as simple as I
had hoped. When I went by the commander’s office to inform him that I
had my ticket and was ready to leave, he charged me to be sure I had
informed each of my instructors and taken down notes of what
assignments I should complete before my return. I had not reckoned on
that, but had hoped for freedom from my books for a time. It took me the
best part of a day to gather them up, for I dared not interrupt any classes.
Then my packing was more complicated than I had planned, for I had to
take my books, and yet still travel light enough that all my provisions
would fit in Sirlofty’s saddle panniers.
It was some months since the tall gelding had had to carry anything
besides me, and he seemed a bit sulky when I loaded the panniers on him
as well. In truth, I was as little pleased as he was. I was proud of my sharp
uniform and fine horse; it seemed a shame to ride him through Old
Thares laden as if he were a mule and I some rustic farmer taking a load
of potatoes to market. I tried to stifle my annoyance at it, for I knew that
half of it was vanity. I tightened my saddle cinch, signed the ancient “hold
fast” charm over the buckle, and mounted my horse.
My ticket told me that my jank would sail the following evening. There
was no real need of haste, yet I wanted to be well aboard and settled before
the lines were cast off. I went first to my uncle’s home to bid him farewell,
and also to see if he had any messages for my father. He came down
immediately to meet me, and invited me up to his den. He did all he could
to make me feel welcome, and yet there was still some stiffness between
us. He looked older than he had when first I met him, and I suspected that
his wife, Daraleen, had not warmed toward him since Epiny’s wild act of
defiance. Epiny had left their home in the midst of the plague to hurry to
Spink’s side and tend him. It was a scandalous thing for a woman of her
age and position to have done, and it completely destroyed all prospects of
her marriage to a son of the older noble houses. Epiny herself had been
well aware of that, of course. She had deliberately ruined herself, so that
her mother would have no option but to accept Spink and his family’s bid
for her hand. The prospect of a marriage connection with a new noble
family, one with no established estates but only raw holdings on the edge
of the borderlands, had filled Daraleen with both chagrin and horror.
Epiny’s tactic had been ruthless, one that put her fate into her own hands,
but also severed the bond between mother and daughter. I had heard
Epiny’s artless little sister Purissa say that she was now her mother’s best
daughter and jewel for the future. I was certain she was only repeating
words she’d heard from her mother’s lips.
So when my uncle invited me to sit while he rang for a servant to bring up
a light repast for us, I remained standing and said that I needed to be sure
of being on time for my boat’s departure. A sour smile wrinkled his
mouth. “Nevare. Do you forget that I purchased that ticket at your
father’s behest? You have plenty of time to make your boat’s sailing. The
only thing you have to worry about is stopping at the bank to cash your
check and get some traveling funds. Please. Sit down.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, and sat.
He rang for a servant, spoke to him briefly, and then took his own seat
with a sigh. He looked at me and shook his head. “You act as if we are
angry with each other. Or as if I should be angry with you.”
I looked down before his gaze. “You’d have every right to be, sir. I’m the
one who brought Spink here. If I hadn’t introduced him to Epiny, none of
this would ever have happened.”
He gave a brief snort of laughter. “No. Doubtless something else, equally
awkward, would have happened instead. Nevare, you forget that Epiny is
my daughter. I’ve known her all her life, and even if I didn’t quite realize
all she was capable of, I nevertheless knew that she had an inquiring mind,
an indomitable spirit, and the will to carry out any plan she conceived.
Her mother might hold you accountable, but then, Epiny’s mother is fond
of holding people accountable for things beyond their control. I try not to
do that.” He sounded tired and sad, and despite my guilt, or perhaps
because of it, my heart went out to him. He had treated me well, almost as
if I were his own son. Despite my father’s elevation to noble status, he and
his elder brother had remained close. I knew that was not true of many
families, where old noble heir sons regarded their “battle lord” younger
brothers as rivals. Spink’s “old noble” relatives had no contact with him,
and had turned a blind eye to the needs of his widowed mother. Certainly
a great deal of my aunt’s distaste for me was that she perceived my father
as an upstart, a new noble who should have remained a simple military
officer. Many of the old nobility felt that King Troven had elevated his
battle lords as a political tactic, so that he might seed the Council of Lords
with recently elevated aristocrats who had a higher degree of loyalty to
him and greater sympathy for his drive to expand Gernia to the east by
military conquest. Possibly they were right. I settled back in my chair and
tried to smile at my uncle. “I still feel responsible,” I said quietly.
“Yes, well, you are the sort of man who would. Let it go, Nevare. If I recall
correctly, you did not first invite Spink to my home. Epiny did, when she
saw him standing beside you at the academy that day we came to pick you
up. Who knows? Perhaps that was the instant in which she decided to
marry him. I would not put it beyond her. And now, since we are
discussing her and Spinrek, would you tell me if you’ve heard anything
from your friend? I long to know how my wayward daughter fares.”
“She has not written to you?” I asked, shocked.
“Not a word,” he said sadly. “I thought we had parted on, well, if not on
good terms, at least with the understanding that I still loved her, even if I
could not agree with all her decisions. But since the day she departed from
my doorstep, I’ve heard nothing, from her or Spinrek.” His voice was
steady and calm as he spoke, but the hollowness he felt came through all
the same. I felt an instant spurt of anger toward Epiny. Why was she
treating her father so coldly?
“I have received letters not just from Spink, but also from Epiny. I will be
happy to share them with you, sir. I have them with me, among my books
and other papers in Sirlofty’s pack.”
Hope lit in his eyes, but he said, “Nevare, I couldn’t ask you to betray any
confidences Epiny has made to you. If you would just tell me that she is
well…”
“Nonsense!” Then I remembered to whom I spoke. “Uncle Sefert, Epiny
has written me pages and pages, a veritable journal since the day she left
your door. I have read nothing there that I’d hesitate to tell you, so why
should you not read her words for yourself? Let me fetch them. It will only
take a moment.” I saw him hesitate, but he could not resist, and at his nod
I hastened down the stairs. I took the packet of letters from Sirlofty’s
panniers and hurried back up with them. By then, a tempting luncheon
had been set out for us in the den. I ate most of it in near silence, for my
uncle could not resist his impulse to begin immediately on Epiny’s letters.
It was like watching a plant revived by a rainfall after a drought to watch
him first smile and then chuckle over her descriptions of her adventures.
As he carefully folded the last page of the most recent missive, he looked
up at me. “I think she is finding life as a frontier wife rather different from
what she supposed it to be.”
“I cannot imagine a greater change in living conditions than leaving your
family home here in Old Thares for a poor cottage in Bitter Springs.”
He replied with grim satisfaction in his voice, “And yet she does not
complain. She does not threaten to run back home to me, nor does she
whimper that she deserves better. She accepts the future that she made
for herself. I am proud of her for that. Her life, indeed, is not what I would
have chosen for her. I would never have believed that my flighty, childish
daughter would have the strength to confront such things. And yet she
has, and she flourishes.”
I myself thought that “flourish” was far too strong a word to apply to what
Epiny was doing, but I held my tongue. Uncle Sefert loved his unruly
daughter. If he took pride in her ability to deal with harsh conditions, I
would not take that from him.
I was willing to leave Epiny’s letters with him, but he insisted I take them
back. Privately, I resolved to rebuke her for making her father suffer so;
what had he done to deserve such treatment? He’d given her far more
freedom than most girls of her age enjoyed, and she’d used it to arrange a
marriage to her own liking. Even after she had publicly disgraced herself
by fleeing his house and going to Spink’s sickbed, my uncle had not
disowned her, but had given her a modest wedding and a nice sendoff.
What more did she expect of the man? As I bade my uncle farewell, he
gave me a letter to my father and some small gifts for my mother and
sisters, and I managed to find room for them in my panniers. I made a
brief stop at my father’s banker in Old Thares to change my check into
banknotes, and then went immediately down to the docks. My ship was
already loading, and I was glad I had arrived with some time to spare, for
Sirlofty received the last decent box stall onboard the vessel. My own
cabin, though very small, was comfortable and I was glad to settle into it.
My upriver passage on the jankship was not nearly as exciting as our flight
downriver had been the previous fall. The current was against us, and
though it was not yet in full spring flood, it was still formidable. The vessel
used not only oarsmen, but also a method of propulsion called cordelling,
in which a small boat rowed upstream with a line threaded through a
bridle and made fast to the mast. Once the small boat had tied the free
end of the line to a fixed object such as a large tree, the line was reeled in
on a capstan on the jankship. While we were reeling in the first line, a
second towline was already being set in place, and in this way, we moved
upriver between six and fifteen miles a day. An upstream journey on one
of the big passenger janks was more stately than swift, and more like
spending time at an elegant resort than simple travel.
Perhaps my father had intended that part of the journey to be a treat for
me, and an opportunity to mingle socially. Instead, I chafed and wondered
if I would not have made better time on Sirlofty’s back. Although the
jankship offered all sorts of amusements and edification, from games of
chance to poetry readings, I did not enjoy it as I had the first time I’d
taken ship with my father. The people onboard the vessel seemed less
congenial than the passengers my father and I had met on our previous
journey. The young ladies were especially haughty, their superciliousness
bordering on plain rudeness. Once, thinking only to be a gentleman, I bent
down to retrieve a pen that had fallen from one young lady’s table by her
deck chair. As I did so, one of my ill-sewn buttons popped from my jacket
and went rolling off across the deck. She and her friend burst out laughing
at me, the one pointing rudely at my rolling button while the other all but
stuffed her handkerchief in her mouth to try to conceal her merriment.
She did not even thank me for the pen that I handed back to her, but
continued to giggle and indeed to snort as I left her side and went in
pursuit of my wayward button. Once I had reclaimed it, I turned back to
them, thinking that they might wish to be more social, but as I
approached them they hastily rose, gathered all their items, and swept
away in a flurry of skirts and fans. Later that day, I heard giggling behind
me. A female voice said, “Never have I seen so rotund a cadet!” and a male
voice replied, “Hush! Can’t you tell he’s with child! Don’t mock a future
mother!” I turned and looked up to find the two ladies and a couple of
young men standing on an upper deck and looking down at me. They
immediately looked away, but one fellow was unable to control the great
“haw” of laughter that burst from him. I felt the blood rush to my face, for
I was both infuriated and embarrassed that my weight was a cause of so
much amusement.
I went immediately back to my stateroom, and attempted to survey myself
in the tiny mirror there. It was inadequate to the task, as I could only see
about one eighth of myself at a time. I decided that they had been amused
by how tight my uniform jacket had become on me. Truly, it had grown
snug, and every time I donned it after that, I feared that I cut a comical
figure in it. It quite spoiled the rest of the voyage for me, for whenever I
attended one of the musical events or cultural lectures, I felt sure that the
ladies were somewhere in the audience, staring at me. I did catch
glimpses of them, from time to time, often with the same young
gentlemen. They all seemed comfortable staring at me while avoiding my
company. My annoyance with them grew daily, as did my
self-consciousness.
Matters came to a head one evening when I was descending the stairs
from one deck to the next. The stairs were spiraled to save space, and
quite tightly engineered. My height as well as my new weight made them a
bit tricky for me. I had discovered that as long as I kept my elbows in and
trusted my feet to find their footing without attempting to look down, I
could navigate them smoothly. Even for a slender passenger, the stairs did
not allow users to pass one another. Thus, as I descended, a small group of
my fellows were waiting at the bottom of the steps for me to clear the way
for them. They did not trouble to lower their voices. “Beware below!” one
fellow declared loudly as I trod the risers. I recognized his voice as the
same one that had declared me pregnant. My blood began to boil.
I heard a woman’s shrill and nervous giggle, followed by another male
voice adding, “Ye gads, what is it? It’s blocking the sun! Does it wedge? No
sir, it does not! Stand clear, stand clear.” I recognized that he was
imitating the stentorian tones of the sailor who took the depth readings
with a lead line and shouted them back to the captain.
“Barry! Stop it!” A girl hissed at him, but the suppressed merriment in her
voice was encouragement, not condemnation.
“Oh, the suspense! Will he make it or will he run aground?” the young
man queried enthusiastically.
I emerged at that point from the stairwell. My cheeks were red but not
with exertion. There I encountered the familiar foursome, in evening
dress. One girl, still giggling, rushed past me and up the steps, her little
slippers tapping hastily up the stairs and the skirts of her yellow gown
brushing the sides of the stair as she went. Her tall male companion
moved to follow her. I stepped in front of him. “Were you mocking me?” I
asked him in a level, amiable voice. I cannot say where my control came
from, for inside, I was seething. Anger bubbled through my blood.
“Let me pass!” he said angrily, with no effort at replying. When I did not
answer him or move, he attempted to push by me. I stood firm, and for
once my extra weight was on my side.
“It was just a bit of a joke, man. Don’t be so serious. Allow us passage,
please.” This came from the other fellow, a slight young man with
foppishly curled hair. The girl with him had retreated behind him, one
little gloved arm set on his shoulder, as if I were some sort of
unpredictable animal that might attack them.
“Get out of my way,” the first one said again. He spoke the words through
gritted teeth, furious now.
I kept my voice level with an effort. “Sir, I do not enjoy your mockery of
me. The next time I receive an ill glance from you or hear you ridicule me,
I shall demand satisfaction of you.”
He snorted disparagingly. “A threat! From you!” He ran his eyes over me
insultingly. His sneering smile dismissed me.
The blood was pounding in my ears. Yet, strangely, I suddenly felt that I
was in full control of this encounter. I cannot explain how pleasing that
sensation was; it was rather like holding an excellent hand of cards when
everyone else at the table assumes you are bluffing. I smiled at him. “You’d
be wise to be thankful for this warning from me. The opportunity will not
come again.” I’d never felt so dangerous in my life.
He seemed to sense how I dismissed his bluster. His face flushed an ugly
scarlet. “Make way!” he demanded through gritted teeth.
“Of course,” I acceded. I not only stepped back, but also offered him my
hand as if to assist him. “Be careful!” I warned him. “The stairs are steeper
than they appear. Watch your footing. It would be a shame if you
stumbled.”
“Do not speak to me!” he all but shouted. He tried to cuff my hand out of
the way. Instead, I caught his elbow, gripped it firmly, and assisted him
up the first step. I felt the iron of my strength as I did so; I think he did,
too. “Let go!” he snarled at me.
“So glad to help you,” I replied sweetly as I released him. I stepped back
two steps, and then gestured to his companions that they should follow
him. The girl rushed past me and up the steps, with her companion a
stride behind her. He shot me a look of alarm as he passed, as if he
thought I might suddenly attack him. I was walking away when I heard a
shout above me, and then a man’s roar of pain. One of them must have
slipped in his panic. The woman mewed sympathetically at whichever
man had fallen. I could not make out his words, for they were choked with
pain. I chuckled as I walked away. I was to dine at the captain’s table that
evening, and I suddenly found that I anticipated the meal with a heartier
than usual appetite.
The next morning, as I enjoyed a good breakfast, I overhead gossip at our
table that a young man had slipped and fallen on the stairs. “A very bad
break,” an old woman with a flowered fan exclaimed to the lady beside
her. “The bone poked right out of his flesh! Can you imagine! Just from a
missed step on the stair!” I felt unreasonably guilty when I heard the
extent of the young man’s injuries, then decided that he had brought them
on himself. Doubtless he’d missed a riser; if he hadn’t mocked me, he
would not have felt obliged to use such haste in fleeing from me.
When next I caught sight of their small party in the late afternoon, the
young man I had “assisted” on the stairs was absent. When one of the
women saw me, I saw her give a gasp of dismay and immediately turn and
walk off in the other direction. Her friend and their remaining male
companion followed her just as hastily. For the rest of the voyage they
assiduously avoided me, and I overheard no more remarks or giggling. Yet
it was not the relief that I had hoped it would be. Instead, a tiny niggle of
guilt remained with me, as if my bad wishes for the fellow had caused his
fall. I did not enjoy the women being fearful of me any more than I had
enjoyed their derision. Both things seemed to make me someone other
than who I truly was.
I was almost relieved when our jank reached the docks at Sorton and I
disembarked. Sirlofty was restive after his days belowdecks, and
displeased at once more having to wear his panniers. As I led him down
the ramp to the street, I was glad to be on solid land again and dependent
on no one but myself. I wended my way deeper into the crowded streets
and out of sight of the jankship. Along with my ticket and traveling
money, there had been a letter from my father that precisely detailed how
my journey should proceed. He had measured my journey against his
cavalla maps, and had decided where I should stay every night and how
much distance I must cover each day in order to arrive in time for Rosse’s
wedding. His meticulous itinerary directed me to spend the night in
Sorton, but I abruptly decided that I would push on and perhaps gain
some time. That was a poor decision, for when night fell, I was still on the
road, hours short of the small town my father had decreed was my next
stop. In this settled country of farms and smallholdings, I could not simply
camp beside the road as I would have in the Midlands. Instead, when the
night became too dark for traveling, I begged a night’s lodging at a
farmhouse. The farmer seemed a kindly man, and would not hear of me
sleeping in the barn near Sirlofty, but offered me space on the kitchen
floor near the fire.
I offered to pay for a meal as well, so he rousted out a kitchen girl. I
expected to get the cold leavings of whatever they’d had earlier, but she
chatted to me merrily as she heated up a nice slice of mutton in some
broth. She warmed some tubers with it, and set it out for me with bread
and butter and a large mug of buttermilk. When I thanked her, she said,
“It’s a pleasure to cook for a man who obviously enjoys his food. It shows a
man has a hearty appetite for all of life’s pleasures.”
I did not take her words as a criticism, for she herself was a buxom girl
with very generous hips. “A good meal and a pleasant companion can stir
any man’s appetite,” I told her. She dimpled a smile at me, seeming to
take that as flirtation. Boldly, she sat down at the table while I ate, and
told me I was very wise to have stopped there for the night, for there had
been rumors of highwaymen of late. It seemed plain to me that she had
gone far beyond her master’s orders, and after I watched her clear up my
dishes, I offered her a small silver piece with my thanks for her kindness.
She smilingly brought me two blankets and swept the area in front of the
hearth before she made up my bed for me.
I was startled into full wakefulness about an hour after I had drowsed off
when I felt someone lift the corner of my blanket and slide in beside me. I
am shamed to say that I thought first of my purse with my traveling
money in it, and I gripped it with my hand beneath my shirt. She paid no
mind to that but nudged up against me, sweet as a kitten seeking warmth.
I was quickly aware that she wore only a very thin nightdress.
“What is it?” I demanded of her, rather stupidly.
She giggled softly. “Why, sir, I don’t know. Let me feel it and see if I can
tell you!” And with no more than that, she slipped her hand down between
us, and when she found that she had already roused me, gripped me
firmly. I was no more prudish than any young man of my years. If I had
been chaste before, it had been more from lack of opportunity than any
inclination to virtue. I’ll admit that I gave a passing thought to disease, for
the academy had lectured us more than once on the danger of coupling
with cheap street whores. But I very swiftly and easily persuaded myself
that this girl in such an outlying farmstead had probably not known many
men and thus had little chance of disease.
There followed a night I have never forgotten and seldom regretted. I was
fumbling at first, but then that “other self” seemed to awaken inside me,
and I discovered that he was not only experienced but skillful at bed
games. I knew when to tease with a tickling touch, and when my mouth
should be hard and demanding. She shivered under me, and the small
moans that escaped her were music to me. I did experience some
awkwardness, for although the rounded contours of her body seemed like
familiar territory to me, I was not accustomed to dealing with the bulk of
my own belly. Ruefully, I had to admit to myself that my weight gain was
more than a trifling matter, but I refused to let it become an obstacle for
us. Toward dawn, we parted with many kisses. I fell into the sleep of
exhaustion, and morning came much too early for me. If I had been able
to think of any excuse, I would have fabricated a reason to spend another
night. As it was, the same kitchen maid offered me a huge breakfast and a
very fond farewell. I did not wish to embarrass her by treating her as if she
were an ordinary whore, but I did slip some money under my plate where
she would find it when she cleared away the dishes. I bade the farmer and
his wife farewell, and thanked then earnestly for their kind hospitality. The
farmer repeated the kitchen maid’s warning about highwaymen. I
promised him I’d be wary and saddled up Sirlofty and went on my way
with an entirely different opinion of myself than I’d had the day before. As
I made the “hold fast” sign over my cinch buckle, I suddenly felt myself an
adventurous traveler experiencing life on my own for the first time. It was
exhilarating, and a welcome change from the self-consciousness I’d felt on
the jankship. The day passed quickly. I paid small attention to the road or
scenery, but instead pondered every moment of the night before. I confess
that I derived as much pleasure from imagining telling Rory and the
fellows about my dallying with the farm maid as I did from recalling it. In
early afternoon, I reached the town that my father had listed as the next
stop on my itinerary. Despite the hours of daylight left, I decided I would
overnight there, not only because I’d had two warnings of highwaymen but
also because I’d had no sleep the night before. I found a likely inn and
bought myself a meal, then retired to my small room and slept until early
evening. I occupied myself for a time with updating my journal, but when
that was completed, I still felt restless. I longed for an adventure such as
I’d had the night before.
I went downstairs, hoping for some company, music, and lively
conversation. Instead I found only a few fellows swilling cheap ale and a
grumpy innkeeper who obviously wished his customers would either spend
more money or take themselves elsewhere. I was half hoping that some girl
of easy virtue would be wiping the tables, as there always was in poor
Caleb’s lurid papers, but there was not a female anywhere in sight. When I
went out for a stroll about the little town, I found the streets deserted. I
told myself it was probably just as well, and returned to my inn. After
three beers, I went back to my bed, and fell asleep. My next few days of
traveling passed without incident. My father had very accurately judged
the distance Sirlofty could cover in a day. One night I took lodging at a
hostelry with several obvious whores ensconced in the taproom. I plucked
up my courage to approach the youngest, a slight woman with a halo of
yellow curls around her face. She was wearing a pink gown trimmed with
plumes all around its low collar. Thinking to be clever, I opened my
conversation by asking her if the feathers tickled.
She looked me up and down, and then said bluntly, “Two silver bits. Your
room.” I was taken aback. In all the stories I’d heard from Trist or read in
Caleb’s magazines, whores were flirtatious and flattering. I had expected
at least some conversation. “Right now?” I asked stupidly, and she
immediately stood up. There was little I could do then but lead the way
up to my room. She demanded my silver in advance, tucking it down the
front of her dress. I was unbuttoning my trousers when she took me firmly
by the upper arms and backed me toward the bed, pushing me onto my
back. I was not averse to this, even when she said, “Don’t think I plan on
being on the bottom side of you. A heavy bloke like you could break a girl’s
ribs!”
With that, she bundled her skirts up around her hips to reveal her
nakedness and straddled me as if I were a horse and very quickly finished
me. Afterward, she lifted herself from my body, and shook her skirts out as
she stood by the bed. I sat up on the bed with my trousers around my
ankles. She walked to the door. “Where are you going?” I asked in
confusion.
She gave me a puzzled look. “Back to work. Unless you’ve another two
silvers to spend?”
I hesitated, and she took it as a “no.” Sneering slightly, she said, “I thought
not. Fat men are usually tightfisted with their money.” Without another
word, she let herself out. I stared after her in shock, numbed and insulted
by her words. As I fell back onto my bed, I suddenly realized I’d just
learned the difference between a very friendly kitchen maid and a real
whore. Remorse and trepidation closed in on me, and I decided I could use
a good washing. Before I fell asleep that night, I resolved to stay away from
common prostitutes. Sternly I reminded myself that I was as good as
engaged, and had a duty to keep my body free of disease for Carsina’s
sake. Nonetheless, I was glad to have finally gained some experience in
that essential area.
The farther east I traveled each day, the less settled the land became. On
the last leg of my journey, I entered the true Midlands, and followed the
King’s Road as it somewhat paralleled the river. The quality of the new
high road varied greatly from stretch to stretch. There were supposed to
be way stations at regular intervals, to offer clean water, a resting place,
and food to the king’s messengers. Some of these were small hamlets, but
most were meager places of doubtful shelter with little to offer an ordinary
traveler. The worst was little more than a hut swayed to one side with a
roof that threatened to collapse at any moment. I learned to be sure my
water bags were full and that I had provisions for a noon meal before I
departed from my lodging each morning. Once I passed a long coffle of
prisoners and guards headed east. Rather than being flogged or losing a
hand for their crimes, these men would become forced labor pushing the
King’s Road ever closer to the Barrier Mountains. After a term of work,
they’d be given land and an opportunity to begin life anew. Thus, in one
stroke, the king offered the felons a second chance, advanced his road
building, and peopled the new settlements of the east. Nonetheless, the
shackled men I passed did not look as if they were anticipating a new life,
while the wives and children riding behind the coffle in mule-drawn
wagons looked even more dismal. Dust coated their faces and clothing,
and several babies were wailing as Sirlofty and I cantered past them. I will
never forget one small boy who sat near the tail of the wagon, his little
head jogging miserably with every jolt of the wheels. I thought to myself at
the sight of his dull eyes, “That child is near death.” Then I shuddered,
wondered how I could even imagine I knew such a thing, and rode past
them.
My cavalla cadet uniform, I am sorry to say, suffered from constant wear.
The buttons strained on my chest and the seams at the shoulders and
thighs threatened to give way. Finally I bundled it up as best I could and
packed it away in my crowded panniers. After that, I wore my ordinary
clothes, which were actually much looser and more comfortable for such a
journey. I had to admit that I’d put on flesh, and more than I thought I
had. I was hungry as I rode, for such exercise consumes a man, and yet I
was grateful for the short rations I was on. Surely I’d be my lean and fit
self again by the time I reached home.

CHAPTER THREE

SPINDLE DANCE
T he deeper I went into the Midlands, the more familiar the land became
to me. I knew the prairies and plateaus, the green smell of the river in the
morning, and the cry of the sage hens. I knew the name of every plant and
bird. Even the dust tasted familiar in my mouth. Sirlofty seemed to sense
that we were nearing home, for he went more eagerly.
One midmorning, I reined in Sirlofty and considered an unexpected
choice. A crudely lettered sign on a raw plank leaned against a pile of
stacked stone by the side of the road. “SPINDLE DANCE” was spelled out
on the coarse slab. The roughly drawn characters were the work of a hand
that copied shapes rather than wrote letters. A rough cart track led away
from the well-traveled river road. It crested a slight rise; its hidden
destination was beyond that horizon. I debated with myself. It was a
diversion from my father’s carefully planned itinerary, and I did not know
how long a detour it might prove. Yet I recalled a promise from my father
to show me someday the monuments of the Plainspeople. The Dancing
Spindle was one of them. I suddenly felt it was owed to me. I set the rein
against Sirlofty’s neck and we turned aside from the road. The trail was
not badly rutted, but enough traffic had passed this way that it was easy
to follow. When I reached the top of the ridge, I found myself looking down
into a pleasant little vale. Trees at the bottom indicated a watercourse.
The cart track sidled down to the trees and then vanished into them.
Smelling water, Sirlofty quickened his pace and I allowed him his head.
When we reached the brook, I allowed him to water freely, and knelt to
quench my own thirst. Refreshed, I remounted and rode on. The cart track
followed the brook for a short way and then crossed it. I resolutely pushed
aside worry over how much time I was wasting. An inexplicable
excitement was building in me; I felt compelled to follow the trail.
We followed the track as it climbed up out of the valley, over a rocky ridge
and onto a rather barren plateau. A short distance away, the plateau gave
way abruptly to a substantial canyon, as if some angry god had riven the
earth here with an immense ax. The trail plunged down sharply to the
distant floor. I reined in Sirlofty and sat looking down at a strange and
marvelous sight. The cracked earth of the canyon walls displayed seams of
colored stone, sparkling white and deep orange and red, and even a dusky
blue. A roofless city, the walls worn to knee-high ridges and tumbled
rubble, floored the canyon. I wondered what war or long-ago disaster had
brought the city down. Dominating the canyon and dwarfing the city at its
base was the Dancing Spindle of the Plainsmen. No tale could have
prepared me for the sight. The immense pillar leaned at a sharp,
impossible angle. I shivered at the sight. The Spindle was named for the
woman’s spinning tool, and in truth it resembled a rounded rod with
tapered ends, but of such a size that it beggared comparison. It had been
chiseled out of red stone striated with bands of white. One end towered
high above the canyon floor while the other was set in a deep depression in
the earth, as if it drilled a bed for itself in the stony ground. The spiraling
white stripes on the pillar and a heat shimmer rising between me and it
created a convincing illusion that the Spindle was truly spinning The
monument cast a long, black shadow over the ground at its base. The lone
building that had survived whatever had slain the rest of the city was a
tower edged with winding steps that spiraled up to almost reach the lower
side of the tilted spindle’s topmost tip. For the life of me, I could not see
why the Spindle had not toppled ages ago. I sat on my horse grinning and
enjoying the deception of my eyes. At any moment I expected the spinning
Spindle to waver in its gyration and fall to the earth, spent.
But it did not. As I started down the steep wagon track that led to the
canyon floor, I was surprised at how well the illusion held. I was so intent
in staring at it that I almost didn’t notice the ramshackle hut built in the
spindle’s shadow. It hunched on the edge of the depression that cradled
the tip of the spindle. The surrounding ruins were of stone and clay, but
the dilapidated cottage was more recently built of slabs of rough wood,
gone silver with weathering. It looked abandoned. I was startled when a
man emerged from the open door, wiping his mouth on a napkin as if my
arrival had interrupted his meal. As I rode closer, he turned and tossed
the cloth to a Plainswoman who had followed him out to stare at me. She
caught it deftly, and at a sign from her master, the servant returned to the
hut’s dubious shelter. But the man came toward me, waving a large hand
in an overly friendly way. When I was still a good way off, he bellowed at
me, “So you’ve come to see the Spindle?” It seemed a ridiculous question.
Why else would anyone have followed the track here? I didn’t respond, for
I did not feel like shouting a reply to him. Instead, I rode steadily forward.
He was not deterred. “It’s a wonder of primitive design. For only one
hector, sir, I will show it to you and tell you its amazing history! From far
and wide, from near and far, hundreds have come to behold its wonder.
And today you shall join the ranks of those who can say, ‘I myself have
seen the Dancing Spindle and climbed the steps of the Spindle’s Tower.’”
He sounded like a barker outside a carnival tent. Sirlofty regarded him
with suspicion. When I pulled in my horse, the man stood grinning up at
me. His clothes, though clean, were shabby. His loose trousers were
patched at the knees, and scuffed sandals were on his large dusty feet. He
wore his shirt outside his trousers, belted with a brightly woven sash. His
features and language were Gernian, but his garments, stance, and jewelry
were those of a Plainsman. A half-breed, then. I felt both pity and disgust
for him, but by far the largest measure of what I felt was annoyance. The
sheer size and unlikeliness of the Spindle moved me to awe. It was
majestic and unique, and I could not deny the soaring of spirit that it
woke in me. I wanted to contemplate it in peace without his jabbering to
distract me.
I thought the man a fool when he reached for Sirlofty’s headstall to hold
my horse while I dismounted. Didn’t he recognize a cavalla steed when he
saw one? Sirlofty, long schooled against such a tactic, reared and wheeled
in one smooth motion. As he came down, he plunged half a dozen steps
forward to be clear of the “enemy.” I pulled him in quickly before he could
launch a savage kick at the man. Dismounting, I dropped his reins and he
stood in obedient stillness. I looked back at the half-breed, expecting him
to be shaken by the experience. Instead, he was grinning obsequiously. He
shrugged his shoulders and lifted his hands in an exaggerated gesture of
astonishment. “Ah, such a mount, such a proud creature! I am full of envy
at your fortune in possessing him.” “Thank you,” I replied stiffly. The man
made me uneasy, and I wished to be away from him. His Gernian features
contrasted with his Plainsman mannerisms. His choice of words and
vocabulary were those of an educated man, the guttural notes of a Plains
accent almost completely suppressed, and yet he stood before me in his
worn sandals, his clothes little better than rags, while his Plains wife
peered out at both of us from the shadowed doorway of their hovel. The
contrast made me uncomfortable. He drew closer to me, and launched
into a rehearsed monologue.
“No doubt you have heard of the fabled Dancing Spindle, the most
enigmatic of the five great monuments of the Midlands! And at last you
have come to behold for yourself this marvel of ancient stonework. How,
you must wonder, did the forerunners of the Plainspeople, with their
simple tools, create such a wonder? How does it balance and never fall?
How does it create an illusion of motion when seen from a distance? And
what, I am sure you ask yourself, did such an amazing creation signify to
those who wrought it?
“Well, you are not alone in asking these questions, sir! Learned scholars
and philosophers and engineers have all, in their turns, ruminated upon
these mysteries. From as far as Skay and Burry they have come, and I who
share the heritage of both the Plains and Gernia have been pleased to
assist them, just as I will gladly enlighten you, for the modest sum of one
hector!” His glib pitch reminded of the singsong cant of the freak show
barkers on Dark Evening in Old Thares. The memory of that evening and
all that followed flooded through me. I pushed aside his pleading palm
with the back of my hand and stepped away from him. He flinched at my
touch, although I was not rough. “I’ve come to see a rock formation that
was doubtless mostly carved by the forces of nature, and only embellished
by your people. I do not need to pay you to see what is right before my
eyes! Please stay out of my way.” For an instant, his eyes narrowed and I
thought he would snarl at me. Then his eyes widened, and to my surprise,
he mimed another of his elaborate shrugs. He gestured toward the
towering stone, making a small bow as he did so. “Do as you will, sir,” he
said. Then he bowed again and backed away from me. I stared after him,
puzzled, for I had detected no sarcasm or rudeness in his words. But as he
turned away from me, I lifted my eyes and perceived the real reason for his
sudden loss of interest. Creaking down the steep trail was a team and
wagon. The open wagon had been decked out as if for a holiday outing. A
sunshade of bright yellow was suspended over its passengers. A banner
painted on the side of the wagon proclaimed, “SEE THE WONDROUS
SPINDLE!” Within, a dozen passengers of all ages sat on cushioned
benches, the ladies holding parasols against the spring sunshine. As my
erstwhile guide hastened toward them, I saw my error. I had stumbled
into his commercial endeavor unawares. Now that his true prey had
arrived, he was forsaking me for a richer prize. That was as well with me. I
turned my back on the tourists’ arrival and set my attention on the
Spindle. It was taller than the tallest building I’d ever seen, and far more
massive. My eyes traveled to the towering tip, and then down the rod. It
appeared to dwindle to a single sharp point touching the ground. I walked
to the edge of the depression that cupped it and looked down. The sides of
the bowl sloped steeply down, and the narrow point of the Spindle was lost
in deep shadow, like a giant pen plunged into an inkwell. The whole
structure leaned at a sharp angle, not touching the sides of the well,
apparently supported by a small joining hidden within the well. That ran
counter to my engineer’s instincts. How could such a small anchorage of
rock support that weight? Even at this closer perspective, it still
maintained its illusion of motion.
For a time I stood there, my neck craned, staring down at the Spindle’s tip
in the deeply shadowed bowl. What had seemed when viewed from a
distance a fine point in proportion to the gargantuan spindle was in fact a
substantial girth of stone. Where it disappeared from sight in the depths
of the hole it had seemingly drilled in the earth, the cylinder’s girth was
still as wide as a watchtower’s base. It must have been still. If it hadn’t
been still, the grinding of the stone tip against the depths would have been
deafening, as if a giant mortar and pestle were at work. But my gullible
eyes still insisted that the Spindle spun. I shook my head to clear it of the
optical illusion and tried to focus my mind on the real puzzle: What kept it
in place? Given its mass and how it leaned, why hadn’t it fallen ages ago?
I had been certain that a closer view would reveal the trick of it. But now,
standing as close to the base as I could get without tumbling into its well, I
was as puzzled as ever. A lone tower edged with winding steps spiraled up
to almost reach the lower side of the tilted spindle’s topmost tip. I resolved
that I would hike to the standing tower and climb the stairs. It looked as if
the tower came so close to the Spindle’s tip that I could actually put my
hands on it, to prove to myself that it could not be rotating. All thoughts of
keeping this side trip to a brief detour had vanished from my mind. I
would satisfy my curiosity at all costs. I lifted my eyes to pick out the best
route over the broken land and immediately saw a faint footpath across
the stony earth. Obviously, I was not the first gawker to have such an
ambition. Confident that Sirlofty could mind himself, I left him standing
and followed the track. When my path led me directly beneath the spindle
and through its shadow, I went with trepidation. At the heart of the
shadow, the day seemed to dim. I could swear I felt a distant chill wind,
manufactured of the Spindle’s turning, brush my cheek. I felt in my chest
rather than heard the deep rumbling of the Spindle’s eternal motion. The
ghost wind seemed to slide a hand across the top of my head, stirring an
uncomfortable memory of how the Tree Woman had caressed me. I was
glad to step out of that shadow and away from those strange fancies, even
though the day now seemed brighter and the sun too hot on my skull. My
path was not straight, but wandered through the broken walls and sunken
roads of the fallen city that intersected my route. The stubs of the walls
gave witness to the half-breed guide’s claim that the Spindle was a
manmade wonder, for some were built of the same reddish stone as the
spindle and still bore odd patterns, an alteration of checkering and spirals,
at once foreign and familiar. I walked more slowly, and began to see the
suggestions of sly faces eroding from leaning slabs of wall. Hollow mouths
fanged with now dulled teeth, carved hands reduced by time to blunt
paws, and voluptuous women whittled by the wind to become sexless boys
teased my eyes.
I climbed up on one corner of wall and looked around me from that
vantage point. I could almost make sense of at the tumbled walls and
collapsed roofs. I jumped down and once more began to thread my way
though…what? A temple town? A village? A graveyard of ancient tombs?
Whatever it was, it had fallen, leaving the spindle and its tower to lord it
over the time-gnawed remains. How could a folk with tools of stone, bone,
and bronze have shaped such a vast creation? I even considered giving the
guide a hector on my return, to see if he had a believable answer to the
question.
When I reached the base of the tower, I discovered two things. The first
was that it was in much poorer condition than it had seemed from the
distance. The second was that it was not a proper building at all. It
consisted only of a spiraling stair that wound up and around a solid inner
core. I could not enter the tower at all; I could only ascend to its peak by
the outer stair. A crude barrier of ropes and poles had been thrown up in
front of the tower’s first step, as it to warn people off. I paid no heed to it.
The lips of the stairs were rounded. The center of each step dipped, tribute
to the passage of both feet and years. The walls of the stair’s core had once
been tiled with mosaics. Glimpses of them remained: an eye and a pair of
leering lips, a paw with claws outstretched, the fat-cheeked face of a little
child with eyes closed in bliss. Round and round I climbed, ever
ascending. I felt a giddy familiarity yet could recall no similar experience
in my life. Here, in the mosaic, the head of a red and black croaker bird
gaped its beak open wide. There a tree, arms reaching up to the sun with
its face turned to its rays. I had passed it by a dozen steps before it came
to me that a tree should have neither arms nor a face. There was graffiti,
too, the ever-present proclamation that someone had been here, or that
someone loved someone forever. Some of it was old but most of it was
fresh. I expected to grow weary with the climb. The day was warm, the
sun determined, and I was carrying more flesh than I’d ever had in my life.
Yet there was something exhilarating about being up so high with nothing
between me and a sheer drop to the rocky ground below the spire. With
every step I took, the music of the spinning Spindle grew louder; I could
feel the vibration in my bones. I felt the wind of its passage on my face.
There was even a peculiar scent that I knew was generated by the stone’s
movement, a warm smell, delicious, like singed spices. I stopped watching
the stairs and looked up to the Spindle. I could see the striated stone core.
It, perhaps, was still. But there was a hazy layer of air or mist that
surrounded the Spindle, and it spun. I cannot explain the fascination and
delight that this woke in me. The top of the tower culminated in a
platform the size of a small room. A low stone wall edged it, but on one
side a crack had corrupted it and the stone had eroded away to an uneven
mound only about the height of my knee. I walked to the center of the
platform and then stood, looking straight up at the tip of the Spindle
above me. I am a tall man, but its stony heart was still out of my reach. It
puzzled me. Why had they built this spire, to bring someone so close to the
wondrous monument and still have it be out of reach? It made no sense.
The wind of the spinning stuff’s passage was warm on my face and
redolent with spice.
I took a moment and stared out at the view. The ruined city was cupped in
the canyon. The sightseers had disembarked from the wagon and stood in
a respectful mob around the half-breed. I knew he was speaking to them,
but not a sound reached my ears save the soft hum of the turning Spindle.
I gazed up at it. I suddenly knew I had come here for a reason. I reached a
slow hand up over my head.
Suddenly, a voice spoke nearby.
“Don’t touch it.”
I jumped and looked to see who had spoken. It was the Plainswoman from
the guide’s hut, or someone very like her. She must have followed me up
the steps. I scowled. I wanted no company. My hand still wavered above
my head. “Why not?” I asked her.
She came a step closer to me, cocked her head slightly, and looked at me
as if she had thought I was someone she knew. She smiled as she said
jestingly, “The old people say it’s dangerous to touch the Spindle. You’ll be
caught in the twine and carried—” My fingers brushed the spinning stuff.
It was mist, said my fingers; but then the gritty stone surface swept
against my hand. I was snatched out of my skin and borne aloft.
I have watched women spinning. I had seen the hanks of wool caught and
drawn out into a fine thread on a spinning wheel. That was what
happened to me. I did not keep my man’s shape. Instead, something was
pulled out of me, some spirit or essence, and was drawn as fine as yarn
and wrapped around the immense Spindle. It twisted me as it pulled me
into a taut line. Thin as string I was, and I spiraled around it like thread.
My awareness was immersed in the magic of the Spindle. And in that
immersion, I awoke to my other self. He knew the purpose of the Spindle.
It pulled the widely scattered threads of magic out of the world and
gathered them into yarn. The spindle concentrated the magic. And he
knew the spire’s purpose. It gave access to the gathered magic. From
here, a Plainsman of power, a stone mage, would work wonders. This
spinning spindle was the heart of Plains magic. I’d found it. This was the
well that not only the Kidona but all the Plainspeople drew from. The
suppressed other self inside me suddenly surged to the fore. I felt him seize
the magic and glory in the richness of it. Some he took into himself, but
there was only so much this body could hold. As for the rest, well, now that
he knew the source, no Plainsman would ever unleash this magic against
the Specks of the mountains again. I’d see to that. All their harvested
magic was at the tips of my fingers. I laughed aloud, triumphant. I would
destroy—
I strained, striving to grip what I could not see. It was too strong. I was
abruptly flung back into my body with a jolt as shocking as if I’d been
flung to my back on paving stones.
“…to the edges of complete power. It is not a journey for the unprepared.”
The Plainswoman finished her sentence. She was smiling, sharing a silly
old superstition with me.
I swayed and then folded onto my knees. I saved some of my dignity by
collapsing back onto my heels rather than falling on my face. My hands, I
saw, rested on faded patterns carved into the stone. She frowned at me
and then asked, more in alarm than concern, “Are you ill?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied. I took a deep steadying breath and became
aware of a voice lecturing. It was coming closer. I was dizzy and I did not
want to turn my head, but I did. The guide advanced slowly up the steps.
He had donned a straw hat that gave him a comical dignity. Behind him
came a gaggle of sightseers, the hardy ones who had made the climb. One
woman held her parasol overhead. Two others fanned themselves against
the day’s warmth. There were only two men in the party, and they seemed
to be escorting the young ladies rather than here by their own inclination.
A dozen boys and girls traipsed along behind the adults. The girls were
trying to imitate the ladies but the lads were exhibiting the universal signs
of bored boys, nudging one another, scuffling to be first onto the platform,
and parodying the guide’s posture and remarks behind his back.
“I beg of you all to be most careful and to stay well away from the edge.
The wall is not sound. And to answer your question, Miss, the spire has
four hundred and thirty-two steps. Now, please lift your eyes to the
Spindle itself. Here you will experience the clearest view of it. You can now
see that the illusion of motion is created by the use of the striated rock. At
this distance, of course, the illusion ceases and one can see that the
spindle is fixed in place.” Without standing up, I turned my eyes to the
spindle again. “It spins,” I said quietly, and heard, aghast, the distance in
my own voice. “For me, it spins.” Despite my effort to clear my voice, I
sounded like Epiny when she spoke through her medium’s trance. That
other self inside me struggled for ascendance. I suppressed him with
difficulty.
“You are not well, sir.” The Plainswoman stated this with emphasis. I
sensed that she spoke to inform the others of my situation. “You should
leave here.” I stared at her. I had expected her to urge me to rest or offer
me water.
Instead, her gray gaze was narrow with distrust. I closed my eyes for a
moment. “I don’t know if I can,” I said. I had been about to do something,
something of vast importance. I could not get my bearings. My pulse beat
in my ears. I staggered to my feet and then blinked at the scene around
me. Only a moment had seemed to pass for me, but the tourists were not
as I had last glimpsed them. The guide had concluded his lecture and was
pointing out over the valley, answering questions for an earnest young
man. The other sightseers likewise stood beside him looking out across the
wide vista. Two of the women had opened sketchbooks. The parasol
woman was working from an easel her male companion had carried for
her, her watercolor already sketched and half-painted. He stood behind
her shoulder, admiring her skill. An older woman had gathered the girls
around her and was repeating the key points of their tour. One dutiful boy
held a sheet of paper against a block of stone as a stout older woman made
a charcoal rubbing of the bas-relief etched there. The guide turned away
from his party and started toward me.
The Plainswoman had remained beside me. “What’s happening to me?” I
asked her. She knit her brows and shrugged at me. She stood by me,
almost as if I were in her custody.
The guide approached me with a sanctimonious smile. “Well? And have
you satisfied your curiosity, sir? I am sure you must be very impressed
with the winds that managed to sculpt these wondrous carvings.” His
sarcasm was justified. Possibly that was why it angered me. “I’m leaving,”
I announced. I heaved myself to my feet. I was turning away when I felt a
sudden wave of queasiness. The earth seemed to rock under my feet. “Is it
an earthquake?” I asked frantically, although I suspected that the unrest
was within my own body. I lifted my hands to my temples and stared
bleakly at the guide and the Plainswoman. They regarded me with alarm.
A terrible whine like an ungreased axle shrieked through my ears. I turned
my head in search of the source of it. To my horror, three of the boys had
gathered at the center of the platform. Two acted as support to hold a
third aloft. Thus lifted, the middle boy could reach the stone of the
spindle. He had taken out a sheath knife and set the blade to the stone. As
I watched, he tried to scratch a line into the ancient monument. The self
that the Tree Woman had tutored stabbed me with fear. There was
danger, vast danger, in suddenly loosing that magic. “Stop!” I shouted the
warning. Against all common sense, I expected to see the young fool
snatched up and away by the momentum of the spindle. “Don’t do that!
Stop that immediately!” The iron was tearing the magic free of the spindle
in wild, flapping sheets. It could go anywhere, do anything. I was deafened
and dizzied by its buffeting, but the others apparently felt nothing. The
boy stopped, glared at me, and said scornfully, “You’re not my father.
Mind your own business.”
The moment he had lifted his knife from the stone, the screeching had
stopped. Now, as he deliberately set his blade to the monument, it began
again. As he bore down on the iron blade, the sound soared in volume and
pitch. I clapped my hands over my ears against the harsh shriek. A ghostly
smoke rose from the point at which blade met stone. He seemed oblivious
to all of it. “Stop!” I roared at him. “You don’t know what you’re doing,
you idiot!” Now every member of the touring party had turned to stare at
me. For myself, I did not know how they could be immune to the shrieking
of the spindle as the cold iron bore into it. Wave after wave of vertigo
washed through me. The humming of the Spindle, a constant that had
been so uniform I had scarcely been aware of it, now warbled as the
blade’s contact slowed its turning. “Make him stop!” I shouted at them.
“Can’t you see what he’s doing? Can’t you sense what he’s destroying?” My
hidden self warned me of magic unraveling around me. I felt the tattered
threads of it score my skin as it dispersed into the empty air. It felt like
tiny swift cuts with a razor-sharp knife. It threatened me; it threatened to
strip from me all the magic I had so painstakingly stored away. “Stop
him, or I shall!” I made the threat, but the wavering of the magic
unbalanced me. It wasn’t just the air; it was the reality around me that
seemed uneven and fickle. I didn’t think I had the strength to swat a fly.
Nonetheless, I moved to stop the boy.
I must have looked like a madman as I lurched and staggered toward the
young fool who was whetting his blade on ancient magic. The women had
lifted their hands, covering their mouths in horror. The two boys
supporting the vandal staggered back, one dropping the leg he had
supported. One young man stepped forward as if he would protect the boy
from me. Only one matron, the one making the rubbing, added her voice
to my protest. “Stop that, you young hooligan! I brought you here to teach
you about primitive culture, not to have you ruin it! Stop defacing these
ancient works! Your father will hear of this!” She dropped her charcoal
and advanced on the lad. Behind her, her assistant rolled his eyes wearily.
With a surly snarl, the boy flung the knife down so hard it bounced. “I
wasn’t doing anything! Just making my initials to show I’d been here, that
was all! What a fuss about a stupid striped rock! What’s it going to do,
make it fall down?” He turned to glare at me. “Are you happy, fat man?
You’ve got your way! I never even asked to come on this stupid outing to
look at a stupid rock!”
“Jard? Where are your manners?” the matron snapped. “Regardless of the
man’s mental condition, he is your elder. You should speak to him with
respect. And I have warned you before about your endless carving on
things. It’s disrespectful. If you cannot behave any better than that, and if
Ret and Breg have nothing better to do than assist you in being a fool,
then I think it is high time we all left! Boys and girls. Gather your things
and follow me. This has not been the outing that I had expected it to be.
Perhaps all of you prefer to sit in the classroom and study from a book
rather than see the real world. I shall remember that the next time I think
of taking you out.”
There was a chorus of whines and dismayed denial from her students, but
she was adamant. The guide shot me a vicious look. Plainly I had ruined
his trade for the day. The other tourists were folding sketchbooks and
taking down the easel. I caught sideways, uneasy looks from them. They
seemed to think I was mad, and the guide apparently shared their
opinion. I did not care. The boy stooped to snatch up his knife, and then
made a rude hand gesture at me before he followed the others to the top of
the winding stair. As before, the guide went with them, offering them
many warnings about going carefully and staying close to the inner edge of
the steps. After a time, I became aware that I was alone on the top of the
tower, except for the Plainswoman. I felt as if I were caught between
dreaming and wakefulness. What had just happened?
“The Spindle does turn,” I said to her. I wanted her to agree with me. Her
lip curled in disgust. “You are a madman,” she told me. “A fat and stupid
madman. You have driven away our customers. Do you think we get tour
wagons every day? Once a month, perhaps, they come. And you have
spoiled their pleasure with your shouting and your threats. What do you
think they will tell their friends? No one will want to come and see the
Spindle. You will destroy our livelihood. Go away. Take your madness
elsewhere.”
“But…don’t you feel it? The Spindle turns. Lift your hands. You’ll feel the
wind of it. Can’t you hear it? Can’t you smell the magic of it?” She
narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously. She gave a quick, sideways glance at
the spindle and then looked back at me. “Do I look like a foolish savage?”
she asked me bitterly. “Do you think because I am a Plainswoman that I
am stupid? The Spindle does not turn. It never turned. From a distance, it
tricks the eye.
But always, it has been still. Still and dead.”
“No. It turns.” I wanted someone to confirm what I had experienced. “It
turns for me, and when I lifted my hands, it happened, as you warned me
it might. It lifted me up and—” Anger flared in her face and she lifted a
hand as if she would slap me. “NO! It did not. It has never turned for me,
and it could not turn for you, Gernian! It was a legend. That was all. Those
who say they see it turning are fools, and those who claim to have been
lifted by it are liars! Liars! Go away! Get out of here! How dare you say it
turns for you! It never turned for me and I am of the Plains! Liar! Liar!”
I had never seen a woman become so hysterical. Her hands were clenched
in fists and spittle flew from her lips as she shrieked at me. “I’m going!” I
promised her. “I’m leaving now.”
The clamber down the circling steps seemed endless. My calves screamed
with cramps. Twice I nearly fell, and the second time, I bloodied the heels
of my hands when I caught myself on the wall. I felt sick and dizzied. I felt
angry, too. I was not crazy, and I resented how I had been treated. I did
not know if I should blame the blindness of the other people or the foreign
magic that had polluted me and taken me for its own. What was real?
What was illusion? For the moment, the battle for control that I’d had
with my other self had subsided. There was no comfort in that. When I’d
previously confronted him, I’d been able to set him apart from me, to
comprehend him as “other” to myself. There was no such separation now.
He permeated my being, and I recognized him as comprising the harder
parts of my soldier self. Had Tree Woman deliberately chosen those parts
when she had seized a lock of my hair and jerked a core out of my
awareness? I stole a cautious peek at that part of my self, as if I were
peeking at an adder in a box. I was both fascinated and repelled by what I
glimpsed. There were the bits of myself that I’d lacked in my first year at
the academy. He was the one who had enabled me to take my petty
vengeance on the new noble sons. He had fierce pride and recklessness and
daring. He was also ruthless and single-minded in what he would do for
his people. The frightening part of that was that it was not to Gernia that
he pledged his loyalty, but to the Specks. I’d been imagining that I’d
reintegrated him into myself. Now I wondered if the flow were not the
other way; was he absorbing my knowledge and memories for his own
ends? He’d had a goal up there near the Spindle, one that I still didn’t
grasp.
I suddenly decided it was time to leave.
The guide seemed to have calmed his customers on the way down. As I
followed the path back through the ancient city, I saw that the teacher and
her charges had dispersed throughout the ruins. The easel woman was
hard at work again. One of the women with a sketchbook was drawing the
other as she sat picturesquely beside a tumbled wall. I passed them all,
enduring their glances as I did so. Something nagged at me, some task
had been left undone, but I recognized that concern as belonging to my
other self. Nevare only wanted to be away from that place.
As I drew near to the base of the spindle and the shabby little shack there,
I saw the guide again. He leaned in the shade against the wall of his
pathetic house and watched me come. I could see him trying to decide if
he would say anything to me or would let me pass unchallenged. His
furtive glances told me that he both despised and feared me as a madman.
I heard voices. As I passed the edge of the bowl in which the Spindle
rested or spun, I glanced over the rim. The boys were there. This time, his
two companions gripped his legs while Jard lay, belly down, in the
slanting cup of the bowl. His knife was busy again. Large letters
proclaimed that Jard had been there. Ret’s name was in the process of
being added. All three were so intent that they didn’t see me staring at
them. I looked at the guide and our eyes met across the distance. His face
paled with fear. I smiled.
“If my illustrious ancestors had carved this, I’d protect it from young
vandals,” I advised the half-breed sarcastically.
He narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to respond. But before he
could, one of the boys holding Jard’s legs yelped, “It’s that crazy fat man!
Get out of there, Jard!” At the same moment, he helpfully let go of Jard’s
leg as he sprang away and fled, intent on saving himself from my supposed
insanity. Jard, supported now only by Breg’s grip on his other leg, gave a
wild yell as he suddenly slid deeper into the bowl. He flailed his arms
wildly, seeking a grip on the smooth surface and finding nothing. Breg,
surprised by Ret’s desertion, was himself tugged to his knees at the edge of
the bowl. “I can’t hold him!” he wailed. I heard a tearing sound and saw
the fabric of Jard’s trousers starting to give way.
In two steps, I reached the rim of the Spindle’s bowl. I flung myself to my
knees and reached to grab Jard by the knees. He screamed and kicked at
me, evidently thinking I intended to tear him from Breg’s grip and let him
plunge headfirst into the Spindle’s well. I didn’t. I hauled him back to the
lip of the bowl. He jabbed his knife at me, still struggling against his
rescue. My blood seethed with anger at his insolence. I seized his wrist and
slammed it flat against the stone of the bowl. His knife flew free. An
instant later, I had dragged him back over the edge and to safety. I
released him and tried to stand up. Magic was singing triumphantly
through my blood. Something was happening, something vast and not of
my volition, but of my doing all the same. The forest mage within me
laughed wildly, victoriously, and then slid back into the leafy shadows of
my subconscious. I could not discern what his victory was, and then I did.
Even as the other tourists were running toward me, and Jard fled sobbing
to his teacher, I watched his knife sliding down the bowl toward the
unseen depths at the center. As the bowl became steeper, the knife slid
faster across the polished stone. When it entered the darkness of the
center, I felt my heart stand still.
The half-breed had seized my hand and was pumping it while stuttering
out his thanks and apologizing for misjudging me. The fool. I heard Ret
shouting to the rapidly gathering tourists that, “No, it’s all right, he didn’t
try to hurt Jard, he saved him! Jard nearly fell headfirst into that hole.
The man pulled him out.” Jard was sobbing like a small boy as he clung to
his teacher. I alone seemed to hear the terrible grinding noise at the edge
of the world. The blade of the knife had wedged beneath the Spindle’s tip.
I knew that tip existed, deep inside the well the magic had drilled for all
those years. The vast momentum of magic met the iron knife and wedged
against it. The Spindle ground to a halt. I felt the moving magic foul and
tangle, thwarted by a small iron blade. I sank down and pressed my brow
to the edge of the stone bowl. It was like the death of the wind wizard all
over again, but this time I could not claim innocence for myself. What had
I done? What had the forest magic done through me? “Best leave him
alone!” I heard the guide say. “I think the man just wants to be left alone.”
Then all sound halted around me. Like the harsh kiss of a sandstorm, the
harnessed magic of the Plainsmen suddenly burst free and scattered. For a
blink of my lifetime, I swear the world went black and still. Raw power
abraded my senses and engulfed me. I struggled to stand, to lift my arms
to defend myself from it.
When time started up again, I seemed again to have fallen behind the rest
of the world. The guide had rounded up his tourists and was herding them
back toward their wagon. Several of them glanced back at me and shook
their heads, speaking quickly to one another. The knife boy was already
sitting on a wagon seat. Ret said something to Breg and they both hooted
with laughter. Jard’s brush with death was already a joking matter for
them. They had no idea of what had just happened.
The flash of anger I felt subsided before I even felt its heat. Surely the sun
had moved in the sky? I gave my head a small shake and let my clenched
fists fall to my sides. My arms ached. My nails had left deep red
indentations in my palms. I had no idea how long I had stood there. I did
know what my Speck self had done. The Dancing Spindle no longer
danced. The magic of the Plainspeople was broken. I found Sirlofty. It was
all I could do to clamber onto his back. I held onto the horn of the saddle
as I kicked him into a lope and fled that place. The driver of the wagon
shouted at me angrily as I passed his team on the steep trail. I paid him
no mind.
By the time I reached the road again, I had almost recovered. The farther I
went from the Spindle, the clearer my head became. The forest mage
inside me ceased his chortling and grew still.
Evening fell, and I pushed Sirlofty on, journeying through the dusk to
make up the time wasted in my foolish detour. I wished I’d never left the
road. I tried to stuff what I’d discovered back into the darkness, but it
rode with me now. I shifted in my saddle and felt it slip under me. Gently I
reined Sirlofty in; I dismounted as if I were as fragile as an eggshell. With
a feeling of ineffable sadness, I tightened the cinch on my saddle.
It was the first time in my life that I’d ever had to do that. Night was deep
by the time I reached the town. I found an inn that would admit me.
Before I fell asleep, as had become my habit, I wrote carefully of the day’s
events. Then I scowled at the words. Did I really want these wild thoughts
in the first volume of my soldier son journal? Only the teaching that it was
my duty to record what I observed each day comforted me. In the days
that followed, I did not again diverge from my father’s itinerary for me. I
fixed my mind on my carefully planned life, on my brother’s wedding, my
reunion with Carsina, my education at the academy, my service, and my
eventual marriage. My father had mapped out my future as precisely as he
had mapped out my journey home. I had no time for illusions, no time to
question where my reality ended and someone else’s began. I refused to
think about the magic of the plains and a keep fast charm that no longer
seemed to work. Everyone knew that the magic of the Plainsfolk was
fading. There was no reason to blame myself for its demise. With the
destruction of the Spindle, that other self in me seemed to subside. I dared
to hope that it was the last I would sense of him. I practiced believing that
until I was able to think and live as if I were certain it was so.
Although the Midlands are often referred to as flat, they rise and fall with
subtle grace. Thus it was that the trees and walls of my father’s home were
concealed from me until I rode up a slight rise in a gentle bend of the road
and suddenly perceived my home. My father’s manor was set on a gentle
rise overlooking the road. I gazed up at it and thought that it looked
smaller and more rustic than when I had last seen it. Now that I knew
what the estates and manors of the west looked like, I could see that my
father’s house was a pale imitation of their grandeur. I could also see how
clearly our home was modeled upon my uncle’s house. They had made
improvements since I’d left for the academy. River gravel had been hauled
up to surface the drive, and young oak trees, each little more than a shovel
handle high, now edged it. Someday they would be tall and grand, and this
would be a fine carriageway to our home. But for now, they looked spindly
and forlorn, exposed to prairie dust and wind. Each had a damp circle of
soil around its base. I wondered how many years they’d have to be watered
daily before their roots reached deep enough to sustain them. This
copying of our ancestral home suddenly seemed both sentimental and a
bit silly to me.
But nonetheless, it was home. I’d arrived. For an instant, I had the foolish
thought that I could pass it by and keep traveling east, on and on, all the
way to the mountains. I imagined tall trees and inviting shade and birds
calling in the shadowy thickets. Then Sirlofty took it on himself to turn
from the main road and break into a canter. We were home! We woke
dust all up the long driveway from the King’s Road to my father’s front
door. There I pulled him in with a flourish, as our family’s dogs swirled
around us in a barking, wagging pack and one of the stablehands came
out to see what had roused them. I didn’t know the man, and so I was not
offended when he asked, “Are you lost, sir?”
“No, I’m Nevare Burvelle, a son of the house, just returned from the
Cavalla Academy. Please take Sirlofty for me and see that he is well
treated. We’ve come a long way, he and I.”
The man gaped at me, but I ignored that and handed him my reins. “Oh,
and send the contents of his panniers up to my room, if you would,” I
added, as I climbed the front steps. I let myself in, calling out, “Mother!
Father! It’s Nevare, I’m home. Rosse, Elisi, Yaril? Is anyone home?”
My mother was the first to come out of her sewing room. She stared at
me, her eyes growing round, and then, embroidery in hand, she hurried
down the hall. She embraced me, saying, “Oh, Nevare, it’s so good to see
you. But the dust on you! I’ll have a bath drawn for you immediately. Oh,
son, I’m so glad you are home and safe again!”
“And I am glad beyond words to be here again, Mother!” The others had
arrived by then. Father and Rosse looked startled, even when I turned and
strode toward them, smiling. Rosse shook my hand but my father held
back from me, demanding, “What have you done to yourself? You look like
a wandering peddler! Why aren’t you wearing your uniform?”
“It needs a bit of mending, I’m afraid. I hope Mother can have it ready in
time for Rosse’s wedding. Elisi, Yaril? Am I a stranger now? Aren’t you
going to say hello even?”
“Hello, Nevare. Welcome home.” Elisi spoke stiffly, and looked past me as
if I’d done something rude and she wasn’t sure how to deal with it.
“You’re so fat!” Yaril exclaimed, tactless as she had ever been. “What have
you been eating at that place? Your face is round as the full moon! And
you’re so dirty! I thought you’d ride up all glorious in your uniform. I
didn’t even recognize you at first.”
I chuckled weakly, and waited for my father to rebuke her. Instead, he
muttered, “Out of the mouths of babes.” Then, speaking more strongly, he
said, “I’m sure you’ve had a long trip, Nevare. You’re a few hours earlier
than I expected you, but I think you’ll find your room is waiting, with
wash water. After you’ve cleaned yourself and changed, please come and
see me in my study.”
I made a final effort. “I’m so glad to see you, Father. It’s good to be home.”
“I’m sure it is, Nevare. Well. I’ll see you again in a few minutes.” There was
restraint in his voice, and the edge of command. Plainly he wished me to
obey him immediately. And I did. The habit of not questioning his
authority and commands was still strong in me, but as I washed the dust
from my face and hands, I experienced something I hadn’t felt before
about my father. Resentment. It wasn’t just for the way he ordered me
about, but for his obvious displeasure with me. I had only just arrived
home. Could not he have suppressed whatever it was that annoyed him
long enough to shake my hand and welcome me back? Must I immediately
fall completely under his domination again? I thought of his rigid
itinerary for my journey home, and suddenly saw it not as a helpful aid,
but as oppression. Did he or did he not trust me to make my own way in
the world? My anger gave way to a greater frustration as I tried to find
some clothing that would still fit me. When I had left for the academy, I
had emptied my room. My mother, ever thoughtful of such things, had
hung two of Rosse’s old shirts and a pair of his trousers in my closet, for
my use until my traveling clothes could be washed and pressed. When I
put them on, I looked ridiculous. The trousers were too short on me as well
as far too tight. I had to let my stomach bulge out over the top of them.
Both shirts strained on me. I took them off and vindictively threw them on
the floor before putting my travel-stained clothes back on. But a glance in
my mirror showed me that they were ill-fitting and dirty to boot. The
seams in the seat of the trousers looked ready to part. The shirt was
already slightly torn at both shoulders, and barely met over my middle.
Well, I decided, if I must look silly, I would at least be clean. I retrieved
Rosse’s clothes, put them on, wiped the worst of the dust off my boots, and
descended the stairs. The house was silent. My mother and sisters seemed
to have vanished completely. I did not even hear their voices in a different
room. I tapped at the closed door to my father’s study and then walked in.
My father was standing with his back to the room, staring out the
window. My brother Rosse was there also. He glanced at me and then
away, plainly uncomfortable. My father held his silence.
I broke the silence at last. “Father, you wished me to come to your study?”
He did not turn around. He did not immediately reply. When he did
speak, he seemed to be addressing the trees outside the window. “Your
brother’s wedding is scarcely four days away,” he said heavily. “How can
you possibly think to undo in four days what sloth and gluttony have
accomplished in six months? Did you give a thought to anyone beside
yourself when you were allowing your gut to become the size of a
washbasin? Do you wish to humiliate your entire family by appearing at a
festive occasion in such a state? I am humiliated to think that you have
presented yourself thus to the academy, to my brother, and to everyone
who knew your name on your journey home. In the good god’s name,
Nevare, whatever were you thinking when you allowed yourself to descend
to such a state? I sent you off to the academy a fit and able young man,
physically suited to be an officer and a soldier. And look what comes back
to me less than a year later!”
His words rattled against me like flung stones. He gave me no opportunity
to reply. When he finally turned to face me, I could see that his quiet
stance had been a deception. His face was red and the veins stood out in
his temples. I dared a glance at my brother. His face was white and he was
very still, like a small animal that hopes not to draw the predator’s
attention to himself. I stood in the focus of my father’s anger with
absolutely no idea of how to defend myself. I felt guilty and ashamed of my
body, but I honestly could not recall that I had overeaten since I had
begun my journey, nor had my pace been what I would call slothful. I
spoke the truth. “I have no explanation, sir. I don’t know why I’ve gained
so much weight.”
The anger in his eyes sharpened. “You don’t? Well, perhaps a three-day
fast will refresh an elementary truth for you. If you eat too much, you get
fat, Nevare. If you lie about like a slug, you get fat. If you don’t overeat
and if you exercise your muscles, you remain trim and soldierly.” He took
a breath, obviously to master himself. When he spoke again, his tone was
calmer. “Nevare, you disappoint me. It is not just that you have let
yourself go; worse is that you try to shrug off the responsibility for it. I
must remind myself of your youth. Perhaps the fault is mine; perhaps I
should have delayed your entry into the academy until you were more
mature, more capable of regulating yourself. Well.” He sighed, clenched
his jaw for a moment and then went on. “That cannot be mended now. But
the mess you’ve made of yourself is something I can remedy. We cannot
undo it in four days, but we can put a dent in it. Look at me, son, when I
speak to you.”
I had been avoiding his gaze. Now I brought my eyes back to meet his
squarely, trying to mask my anger. If he saw it, he ignored it. “It won’t be
pleasant, Nevare. Do it willingly, and prove to me that you are still the son
I trained and sent off with such high hopes. I ask only two things of you:
Restrict your food and demand performance from your body.” He paused
and seemed to be weighing his options. Then he nodded to himself.
“Sergeant Duril has been supervising a crew clearing stones from the land
for a new pasture. Go and join them, right now, and I don’t mean to
supervise. Start working off that gut. Confine your appetite to water for
the rest of this day. Tomorrow, eat as sparingly as you can. We’ll do what
we can to trim some of that off you before your brother’s wedding day.”
He turned his attention to my brother. “Rosse. Go out to the stables with
him, and find him a mule. I won’t have one of the good horses broken
down by lugging him over broken terrain. Take him out to the new alfalfa
field.”
I spoke up. “I think I could find a mule for myself.”
“Just do what you are told, Nevare. Trust me. I know what is best for you.”
He sighed heavily, and then with the first hint of kindness I heard from
him, he said, “Put yourself in my hands, son. I know what I’m doing.” And
that was my welcome home.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE FAST
Rosse and I rode silently out to the work site. Several times I glanced at
my brother, but he was always staring ahead, his face expressionless. I
supposed he was as disappointed in me as my father was. We said a
perfunctory good-bye, he rode off leading my mule, and I joined my work
crew. I didn’t recognize any of the four men, and we didn’t bother with
introductions. I simply joined them at the task.
The future pasture was on a sunny hillside by a creek. Coarse prairie grass
and buckbrush grew there now. The ground was littered with stones, some
loose on top of the earth and others nudging up out of the soil. The larger
ones had to be moved before a team and plow could break the thin sod. I’d
watched our men do this sort of work before, though I’d never bent my
back to it myself. It should have been well within my ability, but academy
life had softened me. My first hour of prying rocks from their beds and
lifting them into a wagon first raised and then broke blisters on my hands.
The work was both tedious and demanding. We used iron bars to prise
the larger stones from the hard earth. Then each had to be lifted,
sometimes by two men, and loaded onto a buckboard wagon. When the
wagon was full we followed it as the team hauled the stone to the edge of
the field. There we unloaded it in a neat line of rock. It became a rough
stone wall to mark the edge of the sown pasture. The other men talked and
laughed among themselves. They were not rude; they just ignored me.
Doubtless they had decided I wouldn’t last long and that there was little
point in getting to know me. Sergeant Duril was supervising the work.
The first time he rode by to check on our crew, I don’t think he recognized
me. I was glad to escape his notice. The second time he rode up to ask how
many wagonloads of stone we’d hauled since he last spoke to us, he stared
at me and then visibly startled. “You. Come here,” he commanded me
roughly. He didn’t dismount, but rode his horse a short distance while I
walked beside him. When we were out of earshot of the work crew, he
pulled in and looked down at me. “Nevare?” he asked, as if he could not
believe his eyes.
“Yes. It’s me.” My voice came out flat and defensive.
“What in the good god’s name have you done to yourself?”
“I’ve got fat,” I said bluntly. I was already tired of explaining it. Or rather,
I was tired of not being able to explain it. No one seemed able to believe
that it had simply happened and that I had not brought it on myself by
sloth and greed. I was beginning to wonder about that myself. How had
this befallen me?
“So I see. But not in a way I’ve ever seen a lad put on weight! A little gut
from too much beer, that I’ve seen on many a trooper. But you’re fat all
over! Your face, your arms, even the calves of your legs!” I hadn’t stopped
to consider that. I wanted to look down at my body, to see if it was truly
so, but suddenly felt too ashamed. I looked away from him, across the flat
plain that soon would be a pasture. I tried to think of something to say,
but the only words that came were, “My father has sent me out here to
work. He says hard work and short rations will trim me down before
Rosse’s wedding.”
His silence seemed long. Then he said, “Well, a man can only do so much
in a few days, but the intention is what matters. You’re stubborn, Nevare.
I would never have imagined that you’d let yourself go like this, but I know
that if you’re determined to get back to what you were, you’ll do it.” I
couldn’t think of any response to that, and after a short time, he said,
“Well, I have to finish my round of the crews. Your da says that a year
from now, this will all be alfalfa and clover. We’ll see.” Then he tapped his
horse and rode off. I walked back to the work crew. They had been
loitering, watching us talk. I went back to levering up stones and loading
them on the wagon. They didn’t ask any questions, and I didn’t volunteer
anything.
We worked the rest of the day, until Duril rode past again and gave the
sign for quitting time. We still had to unload the rock we had on the
wagon at the fence line. Then we all rode on the wagon back to my father’s
manor house. The other men went off to the help’s quarters. I entered the
back door of the house and went up to my room.
I blessed my mother when I arrived there. She had left out wash water and
towels, and some of my old clothes, along with an old pair of Plains
sandals. I could see that she had hastily let out the seams of the trousers
and shirt as far as they could go. I washed. When I dressed, I found that
my old clothes were still snug on me, but they were bearable and far more
presentable than Rosse’s castoffs had been.
I had come in late and the rest of the family was already at dinner. I was
in no hurry to join them. Instead, I crept into my sister Yaril’s room. My
father had always said that vanity was too costly a vice for any soldier to
afford. In my own room, I had a mirror large enough for shaving, and that
was all. My sisters, on the other hand, were expected to be continually
aware of their appearances. They each had full-length mirrors in their
bedrooms. When I stood in front of Yaril’s, I had a shock.
Duril was right. The weight I had put on was distributed all over me, like
thick frosting on a cake. No wonder others had been reacting to me so
strangely. No part of me had escaped. As I stared at my face, I was certain
that instead of losing weight on my journey home, I’d added to it. This was
not the face I’d seen in my shaving mirror at the academy. My cheeks were
round and jowly, and my chin was padded. My eyes looked smaller, as if
they were set closer together. My neck looked shorter.
The rest of my body was even more distressing. My shoulders and back
were rounded with fat, to say nothing of my chest and belly. My gut was
more than a paunch; it was starting to hang. My thighs were heavy. Even
my calves and ankles looked swollen. I lifted a fat hand to cover my mouth
and felt cowardly tears start in my eyes. What had I done to myself, and
how? I could not grasp the changes the mirror showed me. Since I’d left
Old Thares, I’d ridden each day and my meals had been ordinary ones.
How could this be happening? Prior to looking in the mirror, I had
planned to go down and join my family at the dinner table, if only for talk.
Now I did not. I hated what I had become and heartily endorsed my
father’s plan. I went to the kitchen, intending to get a mug of water. A
kitchenmaid and a cook stared at me, surprised, and then looked aside.
Neither spoke to me, and I ignored them. The sight of a bucket of fresh
milk temporarily overwhelmed my resolve to fast, and I took a mug of that
instead. I drank it down thirstily, and yearned for more. Instead, I
contented myself with plain water. I drank mug after mug of it, trying to
assuage the feeling of emptiness in my belly. It felt as if the liquid splashed
into a void. At last I could drink no more, and yet felt no fuller. I left the
kitchen and went upstairs to my room.
There, I sat on the edge of the bed. There was little else for me to do. I had
emptied my room before I left for the academy. I had my schoolbooks and
my journal from my panniers, but little else. Doggedly I sat down and
made a complete entry in my journal. Afterward I sat with no refuge from
my nagging hunger or my dismal evaluation of myself.
I could not recall that I had changed any habit that would lead to this
result. I had eaten the same rations allotted to any man at the academy
mess, and done the same marching. How had I swollen up to this toadish
size? Belatedly, it occurred to me that I’d never seen Gord eat more than
what was portioned to us at the mess, and yet his bulk had persisted. I had
to wonder if mine would do the same. In sudden fear, I resolved it would
not. I had three days before Rosse’s wedding, three days before Carsina
and her family would arrive to be guests. I had three days to do something
about my appearance before I was disgraced before all our friends. I firmly
resolved that not a morsel of food would pass my lips for those days, and
yet oh, how I ached with hunger. I rose abruptly, determined to go for a
brisk walk to distract myself. Standing up quickly woke every aching
muscle in my back and legs. I gritted my teeth and left the room.
I didn’t wish to face anyone. I stood silently in the hallway for a few
moments, confirming that my father and Rosse were in his study. My
father was talking, his words indistinguishable but his disapproval plain.
Obviously Rosse was hearing a lecture on all the ways I had failed the
family. I strode quickly past the door of the music room. I heard Elisi’s
harp and recalled that often my mother and sisters gathered there to play
music or read poetry after dinner. I opened the front door quietly and
slipped out into the Widevale night. My father had created an oasis of
trees around his house. It was an island of illusion, a way to pretend that
we did not live far from civilization on the endless sweep of prairie. Over
one hundred carefully nurtured trees cut the wind and screened a nearly
flat vista. My father had even had water piped up from the river to form a
little pond and fountain for my sisters’ pleasure in their private garden.
The soft splashing drew me toward their bower. I followed a graveled
pathway through an arched gateway. The latticework I had helped to erect
years ago was now completely cloaked in vines. Small night lamps with
glass chimneys hung from the branches of a golden willow, illuminating
their silver reflections in the pond’s surface. I sat down on the edge of the
stone-banked pool and peered into the dark water to see if the ornamental
fish had survived.
“Planning to eat one?”
I turned in shock. I had never heard my sister Yaril sound so sarcastic and
cruel. We had always been close as children. She had not only been my
faithful correspondent while I was at school, but she had also managed to
smuggle Carsina’s letters to me, so that we might carry on a private
correspondence away from our parents’ supervision. She was sitting on a
wrought-iron bench under a graceful trellis of pampered honeysuckle. Her
dove-gray dress had blended her into the shadows when first I approached
the pond. Now she leaned out into the light, and anger hardened her face.
“How could you do this to us? I am going to be so humiliated at Rosse’s
wedding. And poor Carsina! This is certainly not what she was
anticipating! The last two weeks, she has been so excited and happy. She
even chose her dress color to go well with your uniform. And you come
home looking like this!”
“It’s not my fault!” I retorted.
“Oh? Then who has been stuffing food down your throat, I’d like to
know?”
“It’s…I think it has something to do with the Speck plague.” The words
jumped out of my mouth as quickly as the idea had suddenly come into
my mind. On the surface, it seemed a silly thing to say. Everyone knew
that Speck plague was a wasting disease. But the moment I said it aloud,
odd bits of memories suddenly fell into an accusing pattern. A long-ago
conversation I’d overhead between Rosse and my father combined with
the dour words of the Fat Man in the carnival freak show tent in Old
Thares. He’d claimed he’d once been a cavalla soldier until the plague had
ruined him. Even Dr. Amicas’s fascination with my weight gain now took
on a darker significance.
But those seemed trivial clues compared to words recalled from a dream.
Tree Woman had encouraged my Speck self to gorge himself on the
magical essence of dying people. I suddenly recalled how I had seen myself
in that dream; I’d been full-bellied and heavy-legged. Tree Woman herself
was an immense woman. In my dreams, my arms could not encompass
the rich curves of her body. I felt a disturbing flash of arousal at that
memory and thrust it from me, but not before I heard like a whisper in my
ear, “Eat and grow fat with their magic.” I stood absolutely still, my every
sense straining, but all that came to my ears was the gentle splashing of
the water and the shivering of the leaves in the evening wind. They were
followed by my sister’s snort of disdain.
“Do you think I’m a fool, Nevare? I may have had to stay here and be
tutored by some silly old woman from Old Thares while you were sent off
to the grand city to learn at your fine school, but I’m not stupid. I’ve seen
men who have had Speck plague! And one and all, they have been thin as
rails. That is what the Speck plague does to a man. Not fatten him like a
hog raised for bacon.”
“I know what I know,” I said coldly. It was a brotherly remark, one that I’d
often used to end our childhood arguments. But Yaril was no longer the
innocent little golden-haired sister I’d left behind almost a year ago. She
would no longer be cowed by a simple assertion of superior knowledge.
She merely sniffed and replied, “And I know what I know! And that is that
you are as fat as a hog and you’re going to humiliate all of us at Rosse’s
wedding. What will Remwar’s family think of me, having such a brother?
Will they fear that I, too, will inflate like a bladder? I was hoping that this
wedding might be a chance for me to make a good impression on his
parents, so that his offer for my hand might become formal. But they
won’t even see me. I’ll be eclipsed behind you!”
“I didn’t choose this, Yaril. You might stop for one moment to think of my
feelings.” All the resentment I felt at my father’s harsh treatment of me
was blossoming into fury at Yaril’s childish concern for her dignity.
“You’re such a selfish little girl. Every letter you sent me, you begged me
for gifts. And fool that I am, I sent them. And now that I’ve returned home
after nearly dying in the filthy city, you disdain me because of my physical
appearance. A fine welcome I’ve received from any of you! The only one
who has shown one jot of sympathy for my situation is Mother!”
“And why shouldn’t she?” Yaril flashed back at me. “You were always her
favorite! And now that you’ve ruined yourself for being a soldier, she can
keep you here with her always! Carsina won’t have you, fat as a hog, and
when she looks around, she and her family will take Remwar away from
me! He was her father’s first choice for her anyway. You’ve ruined it for
everyone, Nevare, you selfish pig!”
Before I could even reply to that, she played a woman’s trump card. She
burst into tears and then ran off into the darkness, sobbing into her
hands. “Yaril!” I called after her. “Come back here! Yaril, come back!” But
she did not, and I was left standing alone by the stupid fish pond that I’d
helped to build. At the time it had seemed like an enchanting concept.
Now I saw it for the folly it was. The fish pond and fountain were
completely at odds with the land that surrounded us. To build something
that could not be sustained save by daily effort was a vanity and a waste
and an insult to the beauty of the true nature that surrounded us. What
had seemed a shady retreat from the harsh plains that surrounded our
home now seemed foolish self-indulgence. I sank down onto Yaril’s bench
and considered the words she had flung at me. She’d been angry and
she’d used her best ammunition to wound me. But how much of it was
true? Would Carsina ask her father to break his agreement with my
father? I tried to worry about it, but a wave of hunger washed through
me, leaving me feeling both nauseous and hollow. I rocked forward over
my belly and embraced it as if it were an ally instead of my enemy.
I was in that undignified posture when I heard a light footstep on the
pathway.
I straightened up and prepared for battle, but it wasn’t Yaril returning.
Instead it was my mother, holding a lantern to guide her steps as she
came softly down the walk.
“There you are,” she said when she saw me. “Why didn’t you come down to
dinner?”
Her tone was gentle.

“I thought it better to stay away.” I tried to make my voice jovial. “As you
can see, perhaps I’ve had too many dinners of late.”

“Well. I won’t deny that your appearance surprised me. But I did miss you.
I’ve scarcely had a chance to speak to you. And…” She hesitated a moment
and then went on delicately, “I do need you to return to the house and
come to my sewing room with me.”
I stood, grateful for an ally. “Are you going to let out my cadet uniform to
fit me?”
She smiled but shook her head. “Nevare, that is simply impossible. There
isn’t enough fabric to let out, and even if I could, it would show badly. No,
my son. But I have several folds of a very nice blue fabric, and if I put the
seamstresses to work on it tonight, we should have something presentable
by the wedding.”
My heart sank at the thought that I was hopelessly too large for my
uniform, but I squared my shoulders to bear the truth. Presentable. My
mother would help me, and I would not look ridiculous at my brother’s
wedding. “Seamstresses?” I asked, keeping my voice light. “When did we
become so prosperous as to employ seamstresses?”
“Since your brother decided to wed. The decision has little to do with
prosperity and more to do with necessity. I sent for two from the west two
months ago. I was fortunate that I did, for between making new curtains
and hangings and bedclothes for your brother’s chambers and ensuring
that the entire family would have wedding clothes as well as ball gowns for
your sisters, well! It would be impossible for your sisters and me to do
that much sewing in such a short time and still have time for all the other
preparations.” She led the way, holding her little lantern up to guide us. I
watched my mother’s trim figure as she stepped lightly along and I
suddenly felt monstrous and misshapen, like some great beast hulking
after her. The house was quiet as we went down the hall to her sewing
room. I imagined that my father and Rosse had settled down to quieter
talk and that Elisi had gone off to bed. I thought of mentioning that I’d
spoken with Yaril and she’d run off in tears, but my old habit of protecting
my little sister was still strong. My mother would scold her for being
outside at this hour on her own. Annoyed as I was at Yaril, I still had no
desire to get her in trouble. I let it go.
I had a very uncomfortable session in the sewing room as my mother
measured me and jotted down her notes. She frowned as she did so, and I
knew that she tried not to be shocked. As she was measuring my waist, my
stomach rumbled loudly, and she actually jumped back from me. Then she
laughed nervously and went back to her task. When she was finished, she
said worriedly, “I hope I have enough blue fabric.”
A pang of hunger cramped me. When it passed, I said, “Carsina was
particularly hoping that I would wear my uniform to the wedding.” “And
how would you know that?” my mother asked with a sly smile. Then she
quietly added, “Don’t even hope for that, Nevare. In truth, I think we shall
have to have a new uniform made for you when you go back. I don’t know
how you managed to wear the one you brought home.”
“It fit me when I left the academy. Well, it was tight, but I could still put it
on. Mother, I truly don’t understand what is happening to me. I’ve
traveled hard and eaten no more than I ordinarily would, but even since I
left the academy, I’ve put on flesh.”
“It’s that starchy food they feed you at that school. I’ve heard about places
like that, trying to save money by feeding the students cheap food. It’s
probably all potatoes and bread and—”
“It’s not the food, Mother!” I cut in almost roughly. “I’ve only gained this
weight since I recovered from the plague. I think that somehow the two
are connected.”
She stopped speaking abruptly, and I felt I had been rude to her, though I
had not intended to. She rebuked me gently for lying. “Nevare, every
young man that I’ve ever seen who has recovered from the plague has been
thin as a rack of bones. I don’t think we can blame this on your illness. I do
think that a long convalescence such as you had, with many hours in bed
with little to do save eat and read, could change a man. I said as much to
your father, and asked him not to be so harsh with you. I cannot promise
you that he will heed me, but I did ask.”
I wanted to shout that she wasn’t listening to me. With difficulty, I
restrained myself and said only, “Thank you for being my advocate.” “I
always have been, you know,” she said quietly. “Now when you finish your
work tomorrow, take care to wash well and then come here for a fitting.
The ladies will be here to help me then.”
I took a deep breath. My anger was gone, consumed in a dark tide of
dejection. “I shall take care to be clean and inoffensive,” I told her. “Good
night, Mother.”
She reached up to kiss me on the cheek. “Don’t despair, son. You have
confronted what is wrong, accepted it, and now you can change it. From
this day forth, things can only improve.”
“Yes, Mother,” I replied dutifully, and left her there. My stomach was
clenching so desperately with hunger pangs that I felt nauseous. I did not
go up to my room, but went to the kitchens instead. I worked the hand
pump at the sink until cooler water came, and then drank as much as I
could bear. If anything, it made me more miserable.
I went up to my room and tried to sleep until just before dawn. I was
standing with the rest of the crew when the wagon came for us, and went
out for another day’s work. The catalogue of my misery: blisters, hunger,
aches, nausea, and, roiling beneath it all, a sense of bewilderment and
outrage at the injustice of life.
By the second half of the day, I was staggering. When the rest of the work
crew broke out their simple packets of meat and bread for their noon
meal, I had to walk away from them. My sense of smell had become acute,
and my stomach bellowed its emptiness at me. I wanted to wrestle the
food away from them and devour it. Even after they had consumed it all
and I came back for my share of the water, it was difficult to be courteous.
I could smell the food on their breaths when we huffed and strained to lift
the larger rocks, and it tormented me. When we finally received the signal
to quit, my legs were like jelly. I did not do my fair share at the final
unloading of the wagon. I saw the other men exchange glances over it and
felt ashamed. I staggered back to the wagon and barely managed to climb
aboard.
When the wagon dropped us off, the other men strode toward the town. I
tottered up the drive and into the back door of the house. I had to pass the
kitchen. The air was thick with wonderful smells; the cook had begun to
prepare the special cakes and breads for the wedding. I hurried away from
that torture. My father had not told me to fast entirely. I could, I knew,
have a small meal. But that thought seemed a weakness and a betrayal of
my determination to change. Fasting wouldn’t kill me, and I would return
to my normal self that much sooner. The steps to my room seemed long
and steep, and once there all I wanted to do was curl up around my
miserable belly. Instead, I stepped into the low tub that had been left for
me and washed myself standing. I stank. Now that I was heavier, I
sweated more and the sweat lingered in every fold of my flesh. Left too
long, the perspiration made a scald mark on my skin, painful to touch.
Rosse’s old clothes, freshly washed and newly let out, awaited me. They felt
tight and awkward against my damp skin. My cadet haircut had begun to
grow out. I toweled it dry and then, mindful of embarrassing my mother,
I shaved before I went down to her sewing room.
My mother awaited me with the two seamstresses. The last time I’d been
measured for clothing, the tailor had done it and I had been fit and trim.
It was inexpressibly humiliating to undress to my small clothes and then
have three women hold pieces of fabric against me, pinning the parts
together around me. One seamstress glanced at my belly and rolled her
eyes in disdain at the other seamstress. I went hot with a blush. They
pinned my new clothing around me, stood back, consulted like hens
clucking in a barnyard, and again surrounded me, moving pins and
having me turn and lift my arms and raise my knees. The fabric was a very
somber dark blue, nothing at all like the brave green of my cadet uniform.
By the time I retired behind a screen to get dressed again, I felt that
nothing worse could happen to me.
I climbed up the endless stairs to my room. With grim determination, I
decided to avoid the dinner table entirely. I did not think I could
withstand the wonderful aromas of cooked food. I went to bed.
In my dream, I was my other self, and I was ravenously hungry. I recalled
with sorrow all of the magic that had been wasted at the Dancing Spindle.
I was proud that I had halted the Spindle’s dance and ended the
Plainsmen’s magic, but I regretted that I had not been able to absorb
more of it into myself. It was a bizarre dream, filled with the elation of
triumph underpinned with a grating hunger for foods that would properly
nourish my magic. I woke at dawn still feeling both hungry and vaguely
triumphant. The first I could understand; the later made me feel ashamed.
I shook the cobwebs from my head and faced my day. That day was a
repeat of the previous one, only more miserable. I felt dull and weak. I was
late to meet the wagon, and it took a great effort for me to lever myself up
into the back of it. Terrible hunger cramps wracked me. My head
pounded. I crossed my arms on my stomach and slumped over them.
When we reached the field and the wagon stopped, I jumped down with
the others, only to have my legs fold under me. The rest of the crew
laughed, and I forced myself to join in. I staggered upright and took my
levering bar from the back of the wagon. It felt twice as heavy as it had the
day before, but I set to work. I tried to jab it into the hard soil at the edge
of an embedded stone, but it only skipped across the surface. I wanted to
shout with frustration. I felt no strength in my arms. I used my weight
instead, and spent a miserable morning. After a time, I got my second
wind. The nagging of my hunger receded slightly. My muscles warmed up,
and I devoted myself to doing my share of the work. I still walked apart
from the men when they took out their noon packets of food. My sense of
smell had become a special torment. My nose told me all that my mouth
was forbidden to taste, and my saliva ran until I thought I would drown in
it.
I tried to remind myself that this was not the first time I had fasted, or
even the longest time. Certainly in my days with Dewara, I had eaten very
sparsely and still retained a leathery energy in my body. I was at a loss to
explain why I now suffered so acutely when I had previously been able to
discipline myself and endure. I came to a reluctant conclusion. I had lost
self-discipline at the academy. From there, I had to make the next logical
assumption: that I had brought this on myself. It was foolish for me to go
on insisting that since I had only eaten what had been placed before me, I
had no culpability for what I had become. It did not matter that my fellow
cadets had not gained weight as I had. Obviously what was enough for
them had been too much for me. Why had I stubbornly resisted seeing
that? Hadn’t the doctor attempted to point that out to me when he so
carefully asked me what I’d been eating and how much? Why hadn’t I
taken alarm then, and cut down on my food?
My father was right.
I had only myself to blame.
Strangely, with the guilt came an odd relief. I’d finally found a cause for
what had befallen me, and it was myself. Suddenly, I felt I had control
again. Before, when I’d been unable to admit I’d been doing anything
wrong, the fat had seemed like a curse, something that had befallen me,
an effect with no cause. I thought of how I’d wanted to blame it on the
plague and shook my head at myself. If that were so, then every cadet who
recovered from the plague should have been affected as I had. I took a
deep breath and felt the strength of my resolution surge within me. I’d
finish out my fast today.
Tomorrow, I’d rise and go to my brother’s wedding. I’d face the
humiliation that I’d brought upon myself, and I would practice great
self-discipline in what I ate, not just on that festive day, but on every day
that followed. When I returned to the academy, I intended to go back as a
thinner man. And I promised myself that by high summer, I’d be moving
the buttons on my uniform back to their proper positions.
With determination strong in me, I returned to the afternoon’s work and
drove myself relentlessly. I raised and broke new blisters on my hands, and
didn’t care. I rejoiced at how my back and shoulders ached as I punished
my recalcitrant body with hard work and deprivation. I thrust my hunger
pangs out of my mind and toiled on. Toward the end of the day’s work, my
legs literally shook with fatigue, but I felt proud of myself. I was in charge.
I was changing myself.
That was my attitude when I returned home, washed, and went down for a
final fitting. The seamstresses were both tired and frenetic as they rushed
me into my new suit. They had brought a mirror into the room, for my
sisters were likewise having the final touches put on their clothes. What it
showed me rattled me. I did not look any thinner than I had when I
arrived home. The weight made me look older, and the sombre blue made
me look middle-aged and staid. I glanced at my mother, but she was
preoccupied with picking stitches out of something pink. There was no
reassurance for me there. I could not focus on the seamstresses as they
pinched and tugged at the fabric, poked in pins and marked lines with
bits of chalk. I stared at my own face, round as a full moon, and my stout
body beneath it. I did not recognize the miserable man who stared back at
me. Then they all but snatched the clothes off me and chased me from the
room, ordering me to return in two hours, for Elisi was waiting her turn. I
gathered from their talk that a neckline had gone wrong and would
require many tiny stitches to alter. As they turned me out of the room,
Elisi rushed in. I trudged up to my room. Only an hour ago, I had felt I’d
recovered control. Now I had to confront that the wedding was tomorrow,
and Carsina was not going to find a dashing and handsome young cadet
waiting to escort her. No. She’d find me. Fat me. I thought of Gord’s girl,
and how she seemed to adore him despite his fat. Then I thought of
Carsina and didn’t even dare to hope for the same response. Gord, I
suspected, had always been fat. Cilima had probably never seen him any
other way. But Carsina had seen me fit and lean. I hated how I appeared
now; how could she not also hate it?
I was light-headed with hunger. All the fasting, all the toiling of the past
three days had done nothing. It was so unfair. I tried not to think about all
the rich and wonderful things that were simmering in the kitchen or
stored in the pantry right now. The wedding day would be at the bride’s
home. We’d arise early and ride there in the carriage for the ceremony.
But the festivities that followed, with dancing and eating and singing,
were to be held here at Widevale Hall, and the food and drink necessary to
such an occasion now awaited the guests. At the thought of it, my stomach
growled loudly. I had to swallow. I rolled over on my bed and stared at the
wall. At the appointed hour, I roused myself again and went back for the
final fitting. I wished I hadn’t. In the hallway, Elisi rushed past me in
tears, calling over her shoulder, “Then I shall look like a cow! That’s all
that can be said, I shall look like a cow!” As she passed me, she snarled, “I
hope you’re satisfied, Nevare! But for you and your stupid belly, there
would be plenty of time to reset the neckline of my dress!” Confused and
alarmed, I entered the sewing room. My mother was sobbing into her
handkerchief as she stood in the corner of the room by the window. The
seamstresses, both of them red-cheeked, were endeavoring not to notice.
Their heads were bent over their tasks and their needles winked in the
lamplight as they diligently sewed. I sensed that I walked into the
aftermath of a storm. “Mother? Are you all right?” I asked her gently.
She wiped her eyes hastily. “Oh, weddings! My own was just such a
disaster as this one is, right until the moment when it all went perfectly.
I’m sure we will all be fine, Nevare. Try on your suit.”
“Elisi seemed quite upset. And she seemed to blame it on me.”
“Oh. Well.” My mother sniffed and then hastily wiped her nose and eyes
again. “Well, we had assumed you would wear your uniform, so we did
not allow time to sew clothing for you. So there has been less time to work
on Elisi’s dress, and the pattern for the neckline was quite difficult. That
new fashion, with the standing ruffle, has gone all wrong. Still, even
without the ruffle, it looks nice. She is just upset. There will be a young
man at the wedding, Derwith Toller. He is a guest of the Poronte family.
We don’t know the Tollers well, but his family has made an offer for Elisi,
and of course she wishes to look lovely when she meets him.”
I continued to nod as she unwound a long and convoluted tale about a
young man who might be a good match for Elisi and the difficulties of the
standing ruffle when the lace was wider than what had been ordered and
too soft to stand well. I fear it all seemed vapidly trivial to me, but I had
the sense not to say so. Privately I thought that if this young man were
going to make a marriage proposal based on how well the lace stood up on
Elisi’s neckline, then he wasn’t much of a catch, but I forbore from saying
it.
At last my mother’s tongue ran down, but strange to say, she seemed
relieved to have rattled off her woes to me. I think her telling moved the
seamstresses, for one suddenly stood up and said, “Let me have one more
try with that lace. If we back it with a piece of the dress goods and use a
goodly amount of starch, it might be a pretty effect and make that dratted
ruffle stand.” I tried to get away with carrying my suit off to my room, but
had no luck. I had to try it on yet again, and although I thought I looked
dreary and dull in the mirror, the three women pronounced it a
“respectable fit for such short notice” and sent me on my way with it.

CHAPTER FIVE

ROSSE’S WEDDING
W e were all roused when the sky was barely gray. The girls ate in their
rooms from trays lest a breakfast mishap soil their traveling dresses. I
joined my father and brothers at the table. It was the first time I’d seen
Vanze since I’d returned. My priest brother had journeyed home for the
ceremony, only arriving last night. My father and Vanze were serving
themselves from the sideboard when I entered the room. Vanze had shot
up while he was at seminary. Despite being the youngest, he was now the
tallest of us.
“You’ve grown!” I exclaimed in surprise.
When he turned to greet me, his shock was evident. “And so have you, but
not taller!” he blurted out, and both my elder brother and my father
laughed aloud. After a painful moment, I joined in.
“But not for long,” I promised him. “I’ve been fasting for the last three
days. I’ve resolved to take this off as quickly as I put it on.” My father
shook his head dolefully. “I doubt it, Nevare. I hate to say it, but you don’t
look a bit thinner to me. I fear it will take more than three days of fasting.
Have a bite now, to get you through the start of the day. Can’t have you
fainting at your brother’s wedding!” Again they all laughed at me. His
remarks stung me, for all that they were true. Nevertheless, his tone was
affable, for the occasion had sweetened his mood. I swallowed the hurt,
resolving not to say or do anything that might reawaken his displeasure
with me. I found eggs, meat, bread, fruit, and milk set up on the
sideboard. The sight and smell of the food dizzied me. My discipline might
have failed me if my father had not been frowning over every morsel I put
on my plate. I felt as furtive as a wild animal stealing food. I put a piece of
toast on my plate, glanced at my father, and added two small sausages. I
took up the spoon for the scrambled eggs. A small frown creased his brow.
I took a tiny serving. I decided I would risk his wrath by adding one other
item.
It was an agonizing decision. I finally settled on a serving of apple
compote. The aroma of the warm, sugary fruit almost made me swoon. I
filled a mug with hot black coffee and took my feast to the table. I wanted
to fill my mouth with huge bites of food. I wanted to feel the substance of
chewing and swallowing a mouthful of eggs and spicy sausage heaped on
crisp buttered toast. Instead, I forced myself to divide my meal into small
bites and eat it very slowly. I filled my coffee mug twice, hoping the hot
liquid would help satisfy my hunger. Yet when my plate was scraped clean
of the last crumb, my body still clamored for more. I took a deep breath
and pushed my chair back from the table. I would not starve, I told myself
severely. This discipline of tiny meals would not last forever, only until I
had regained my previous state. Besides, there would be a feast following
the wedding today, and I must partake of that to avoid giving offense to
the bride’s family. Such thoughts were consolation. I glanced up to find
Rosse and Vanze pointedly not looking at me. My father was regarding me
with distaste. “If you are finished, Nevare, perhaps we can depart for your
brother’s wedding?”
They had been waiting for me while I stretched out my meal. A flush of
shame rose to my face. “Yes. I’m finished.” I followed them from the room,
full of loathing for myself and anger at them.
The carriage awaited us, festooned with wedding garlands. My mother
and sisters were already inside. Blankets draped them to keep the dust
away from their carefully arranged dresses. There were seven of us in the
family, and at any time that would have meant a crowded ride. Today,
with the voluminous gowns the women wore and my voluminous body, it
was a hopeless fit. Before I could volunteer, my father said, “Nevare, you
will ride with the coachman.” It was humiliating to climb up to my seat
while they watched. The seams of my new trousers strained, and I could
only hope that the stitches would hold. The driver, dressed all in bright
blue for the occasion, looked directly forward, as if by gazing at me he
might share my shame. My father and brothers managed to fit themselves
into the carriage, the door was closed, and we were away at last. It was a
morning’s ride to the Poronte estate. For most of the journey, we followed
the road along the river, but for the last hour and a half the carriage jolted
and bumped along a lesser road that wound its way into the heart of the
Poronte lands. Lord Poronte had built his manor on an immense upthrust
of stone. It commanded a wide view of all the plains and reminded me
more of a citadel than a gentleman’s home. Rumor said that he was still in
debt to the stonemasons who had come from Cartem to erect the thick
rock walls of his mansion. Lord Poronte had taken the motto “Stone
Endures,” and it was etched into a stone arch that framed the entry to his
grounds.
When I look back at my brother’s wedding day, my memory shies like a
badly trained horse. I felt that every person who greeted me betrayed a jolt
of shock at my appearance. At first sight of me, Lord Poronte pursed his
lips as if he were trying to restrain a lively goldfish in his mouth. His lady
actually lifted a hand to smother a giggle and then quickly excused herself,
saying that she must assist the bride in her final preparations. I both felt
and saw my family’s embarrassment.
A servant led us upstairs, while others followed with the ladies’ luggage. A
suite of rooms had been set aside for my family to freshen ourselves after
our journey and where the girls and my mother could change from their
traveling dresses into their wedding clothes. We men more quickly put
ourselves to rights. My father and brothers were eager to descend and
join the festive gathering. I followed with trepidation.
The Poronte ballroom was not as large as ours, but it was still a gracious
room, and at that moment it bustled with guests. The fashion that year
was for very full skirts, with layers of fabrics in different tints of the chosen
color. From the landing at the top of the stairs, it reminded me of a
garden, with the women as lovely blossoms of every hue. A few months
ago, I’d have been eager to descend those stairs and find my Carsina
among the bouquet. Now I dreaded the moment when she would see me.
Reluctantly, I descended the steps. My father and brothers made
themselves convivial among the guests. I did not attempt to follow them or
to stand near them as they hailed old friends and renewed acquaintances.
I did not blame them for disassociating themselves from me. Everyone I
greeted reacted uncomfortably to my body’s change. Some smiled stiffly
and kept their eyes firmly on my face. Others frankly stared and seemed
hard put to find anything intelligent to say. Kase Remwar gave a hoot of
mirth and jovially asked me if the cavalla had been feeding my horse as
well as it had me. Mockery countenanced as a shared jest was most
common among the males of my acquaintance. I forced myself to smile
and even to laugh along with them at first. At last, I retreated to
concealment.
I sought a quiet eddy in the room. Several large ornamental trellises had
been draped with floral garlands to frame the family altar where the
couple would make their vows. A few chairs had been placed behind the
angle of the alcove. I quickly claimed one. No one approached me, let
alone sought to converse with me. This was very different from the
triumphant homecoming I had imagined. I had dared to imagine Carsina
at my side as I cheerfully told my friends about my studies and life in Old
Thares. From my vantage I could quietly observe the gathering. My father
was obviously pleased with the day; he was affable and magnanimous. He
and Lord Poronte, arms linked, moved through the gathering, greeting the
guests. They were a powerful duo, and their alliance through the marriage
would make them even more formidable in the Midlands. They paraded as
if they were the happy couple rather than their offspring. Rosse was as
nervous as any bridegroom, and endured the jibes and jests of his male
friends. They had cornered him near the garden entrance, and from the
roars of laughter that burst intermittently from the group, I guessed the
crude nature of the banter. Vanze, my priest brother, was a fish out of
water. His time at the seminary had accustomed him to a more
sophisticated company than prevailed at this frontier manor. He carried
his book of Holy Writ with him, for he would assist at the oath-giving of
the pair, clutching it like a drowning man holds to a piece of wood. He
spoke little and smiled much. I imagined he was already counting the days
until he could return to the genteel atmosphere of his school. He had lived
so long at his monastery that I suspected it was more of a home to him
than our family abode was.
I didn’t blame him. I strongly wished I were back at the academy. I found
myself studying people’s bodies as I never had before. I had always
accepted that with age, men and women became stouter. I had never
thought less of a woman whose heavy bosom and rounded belly spoke of
years of childbearing. Men of a certain age became portly and dignified.
Now I found myself speculating on who was larger than I was and who was
smaller. My girth would not have been shocking in a man in his
mid-thirties, I decided. It was the coating of fat on a young man that
made me so offensive to their eyes A few of the younger men carried
substantial bellies, but they did not sport fat on their arms and legs as I
did. It made me look indolent and lazy. It was a false impression, for under
my fat, I was as muscular as I’d ever been. I watched the staircase that led
to the upper storeys of the house with dread. I longed to behold Carsina,
but feared what I would see in her face as she confronted my change.
Despite my trepidation, when she appeared at the top of the stairs, I
lunged to my feet like a dog that has been promised a walk. She was a
vision. Her dress, as she had promised me, was a delicate pale green, with
an overskirt of a richer green with trim of darker green that was the exact
shade of my academy uniform. It was both modest and provocative, for
the high collar of white lace emphasized the delicacy of her pale throat. A
small yellow rose was pinned in her upswept hair. My sister Yaril was
beside her. A simple change of clothing had transformed her from girl to
woman. She wore a gown of rich turquoise, and her golden hair was
netted up in an elaborate concoction of gold wire and turquoise ribbons.
The cut of the dress revealed her tiny waist and the gentle swell of her hips
and bosom. Despite my recent irritation with her, I felt proud of her
beauty. Each of the girls wore a bracelet of silver bells for the wedding
ceremony. Kase Remwar appeared as if by magic at the bottom of the
stair. He looked up at my sister and Carsina like a dog contemplating
unguarded meat. Yaril had set her heart on him, but as of yet, neither of
my parents had mentioned any formal engagement. Indignation flashed in
me that he dared look at my sister in such a way. I took two steps and
halted, a coward. A year ago, my mere physical presence would have
reminded him to respect our family, with no threats verbalized. Now, if I
bobbed up beside her, I feared that I would look pompous and silly rather
than properly protective of my sister’s honor. I halted where the trellised
flowers still screened me.
I should have known that my sister would have warned Carsina that I was
not the dapper trooper that she had seen off to school in the fall. The girls
halted strategically midway down the stair. Surely my sister was aware
that Kase’s eyes devoured her. I felt she immodestly gave him the
opportunity to stare. As for Carsina, her eyes roved over the gathered folk,
looking for me. My sister leaned toward her and said something. The sneer
of it twisted her pretty mouth. I guessed the nature of her remark, that I
would not be hard to spot among the crowd. Carsina’s smile was
uncertain. She hoped that my sister was teasing her, and feared she was
not.
Hope congealed in me, replaced by harsh determination. I’d face it and get
it over with. I stepped out of my concealment and made my way through
the guests to the base of the stair. The moment Carsina saw me, her eyes
widened in disbelief and horror. She clutched at my sister’s arm and said
something. Yaril shook her head in disgust and sympathy. Carsina actually
retreated a step before she mastered herself. As she and Yaril descended
the stairs, Carsina’s face was set in a stubbornly bland expression, but
there was despair in her eyes. As I drew closer, I could almost feel the
anger that boiled off her. I bowed to her gravely. “Carsina. Yaril. You both
look lovely.” “Thank you, Nevare.” Carsina’s voice was cool and correct.
“More than lovely, I think.” Kase circled behind me to stand next to Yaril.
“As beauteous as blossoms. I declare, a man would be hard-pressed to say
which of you were more gorgeous.” He included them both in his smile.
“May I offer to escort you to the altar alcove? The ceremony is soon to
begin.” Carsina turned to him with a wide smile. A shadow of discontent
passed over Yaril’s face. She shot me a look of pure fury, then hastily
claimed Kase’s right arm. Carsina promptly stepped past me to take his
left. Kase laughed with delight, and Carsina tipped her face to smile up at
him. Yaril smiled grimly. “I shall be the envy of every man in the room for
the next few minutes,” Kase proclaimed.
“That you shall,” I said quietly, but my hope that I would win some sort of
response from Carsina was a vain one. They swept off toward the altar.
Most of the people in the room were moving in that direction. I followed
disconsolately. When I realized I was scowling, I deliberately straightened
my spine and put a pleasant expression on my face. Today, I reminded
myself, was my brother’s wedding day. I would not let my personal
disappointment spoil it for anyone. I refused to follow the threesome or
attempt to join them. Instead, I took a place sufficiently near my older
sister Elisi to be recognized as her brother, yet not so close as to
embarrass her. She did not look at me. A young man and an older couple
whom I judged to be his parents stood not far from her. I wondered if he
were the prospective suitor my mother had mentioned. We all gathered
before the good god’s altar. Silence descended over the assembly. Vanze
and a priest I did not know entered the room. The priest carried a lamp,
the god’s light, and Vanze carried a large, empty silver basin, the symbol
of an end to blood sacrifice. Once, I knew, a wedding would have required
Rosse to preside over the slaughter of a bull, a goat, and a cat. Both he and
the bride would have had to endure a ritual flogging of three lashes, to
symbolize their willingness to suffer for each other. The enlightenment of
the good god had changed all that. The old gods had demanded that blood
or pain be the coin that paid for any oath. I was grateful such days were
gone forever. Rosse and my parents went to the altar to accept Cecile’s
pledge. She made a grand entrance, descending the staircase to the
ringing of silver bells. Her gown was blue and green, with elaborate sleeves
that nearly reached the floor and an embroidered blue train that trailed
several steps behind her. Every single woman in the room wore a bracelet
of tiny bells, and they raised them over their heads and shook them
merrily as the bride descended. Her parents followed her down the stairs.
Between them they bore a large basket. As they passed through the crowd,
people surged forward to toss in jingling handfuls of coins to wish the
young couple wealth in their lives. Among our class, it was merely a
charming tradition. Among the lower classes, such an offering might
furnish the couple with a goat or a few chickens and truly become a
foundation for later wealth.
Rosse and Cecile had chosen a simple ritual for their ceremony. The day
was beginning to warm, and I’m sure I was not the only guest who was
grateful that we would not be required to stand in witness for too long.
Their fathers exchanged pledges of friendship and loyalty first, and then
their mothers exchanged vows to comfort, help, and refrain from gossip. I
stood stoically through them. But when Cecile and Rosse made their
pledges of loyalty, trust, and mutual faithfulness, my throat constricted
and tears pricked my eyes. I do not know if I wanted to weep because
Carsina had betrayed our fledgling love or for my scratched pride. This
moment with Carsina should have been mine, I thought fiercely. It should
have been a memory that we would cherish through our years together.
Instead, I would have to remember always that she had forsaken me at
this moment. I set my teeth and forced my lips into a rubbery smile, and
when I wiped a tear from my eye, I told myself that everyone who observed
it would think it was a tear of joy at my brother’s good fortune. Rosse and
Cecile shared the tiny cake of bitter herbs followed by the more generous
honey cake that represented the bad and the good times that they would
share. Then they turned from the altar and lifted their joined hands. The
gathered witnesses erupted with cries of joy and congratulations and the
musicians on the dais awoke their instruments. As lively and celebratory
music filled the ballroom, the guests cleared the floor and formed a circle
for Cecile and Rosse. My brother had never been a graceful dancer, so he
must have practiced quite a bit to perform as well as he did. Not once did
he step on Cecile’s trailing blue train. At the end of the dance, he swept
her up in his arms and spun around and around as he held her, making
her sleeves and train fly out around them, much to the delight of the
onlookers. A single misstep would have sent bride and groom tumbling to
the floor, but he managed to set his giddy bride squarely on her feet.
Flushed and laughing, they bowed to their audience. Then came the most
important part of the ceremony, not just for Rosse and Cecile but for both
families as well. My father and Lord Poronte broke the seals on the
congratulatory scrolls that had come from King Troven. As all the
gathered folk expected, the scrolls contained a substantial land grant to
each family to “celebrate the joyous union of two of my most loyal noble
families, and with fond wishes that both your houses will continue to
flourish.” The land allotted to the Burvelle holdings increased our holdings
by a third. The satisfaction on my father’s face shone. I could almost see
him totting up how much additional acreage the king would gift him as
each of his other four children married. I suddenly realized that this was
how King Troven encouraged alliances between the new noble houses, thus
keeping their loyalty safely in his pocket. “Please join us in dancing and
feasting!” Cecile invited her guests, and to a loud burst of applause, all did
just that. The doors to the adjacent dining room were opened wide, to
reveal long tables. I was not near the doors, yet I was abruptly aware of the
savory aromas of the fresh breads and roasted meats and sweet fruit tarts.
A wedding in our part of the country was an all-day celebration. When one
traveled long distances for such an event, the host endeavored to make it
memorable. The talk and dancing and eating would continue all day at the
Porontes’ home. Servants would be kept busy constantly replenishing the
tables. Many of the guests would spend the night with the Porontes, and
then join us at our home tomorrow for a second day of socializing and
feasting. At one time, I had anticipated a merry occasion, and had
planned several opportunities to be alone with Carsina. I had even
imagined stealing a kiss or two. Now I dreaded several days of torment.
My stomach growled at me urgently. I listened to it in horror, as if a
monster had taken up residence in my flesh and demanded sustenance. I
tried to tell myself that I was too saddened to be hungry, but my belly
asserted otherwise. The sight of Kase Remwar leading Carsina to the
dance floor only reinforced the emptiness I felt. I was famished, I
discovered, and trembling with hunger. Never before had my sense of
smell seemed so keen. From where I stood, I could tell that the prairie fowl
had been roasted with sage and onion, and that the lamb had been
prepared Plainsman-fashion, rubbed with wild celery root and cooked in a
pot with a tight lid. I thought it the limit of my self-control that I walked
around the edge of the dance floor rather than elbowing my way through
the dancers to reach the food.
Halfway around the room, I encountered my father talking to Carsina’s
father. Lord Grenalter was laughing at something my father had just said.
They both seemed very jovial and convivial. I’d intended to slip past them
unacknowledged. But as Grenalter drew breath from laughing, our eyes
met. Courtesy forced me to greet him. I stopped, bowed to him, and then,
as I advanced, he said, quite loudly, “Good god’s breath, Burvelle! Is that
Nevare?” “I’m afraid so,” my father said levelly. His look told me I was a
fool for having called attention to myself. He forced a grin to his face. “I
think the academy doctor went too far in putting flesh back on him after
the plague. He’ll soon have it off, if I have anything so say about it.”
And what could I do, save grin shamefacedly and agree? “Very soon, sir,” I
assured him. And then, lying through my teeth, I added, “The doctor told
me that a temporary weight gain like this is not unknown among plague
survivors. He told me that I should be grateful to have gone this way,
rather than lost flesh and stamina.”
“Well…I’m sure the doctor would know what he is talking about. Still. It is
a startling change, Nevare, as I’m sure you know.” Lord Grenalter seemed
determined to make me admit that the transformation was horrifying.
“Yes, sir, it is that. Thankfully, as I’ve said, it is temporary.”
“Well. I suppose we should thank the good god for your health, and never
mind the rest for now.”
“Yes, sir. I do that every morning when I awaken alive. It’s not a thing a
man takes for granted, once he has experienced the plague.”
“Was it very bad, then, in the city?”
And I was pathetically grateful to horrify the poor man with a lurid telling
of just how bad it had been. When I spoke of the dead stacked like
cordwood on the snowy grounds, I realized that even my father was
listening to me. So I deliberately told, with genuine sorrow, of my fellows
whose health had broken so badly that they would never soldier at all, let
alone continue a career at the academy. I finished with, “And so, of course,
ungainly as I find myself at present, you can understand why I am grateful
to have come through the experience with my future intact. And with
Colonel Rebin in charge of the academy once more, I anticipate
continuing my studies with more pleasure than ever.”
“A remarkable tale! And did they ever find what wayward son of a dog
brought plague to Old Thares?” Carsina’s father was completely in thrall
to my tale now. I shook my head.
“It is suspected that it came to the city with some Specks who were being
displayed at a Dark Evening carnival.”
“What?” Horrified, he turned to my father. “Had you heard of Specks
being allowed to travel to the west?”
“It was inevitable that someone would try to smuggle some to the city
eventually,” my father said with great resignation. “The greatest folly was
that one of them was a female. From correspondence I’ve had with
authorities at the academy, she was the likely source of the plague.”
“No!” Carsina’s father was aghast. He turned to me, and suddenly a new
light kindled in his eyes, as if he had suddenly worked an equation and
was appalled at the answer. His eyes appraised me warily. How had I
contracted the dread disease? The question was in his gaze if not on his
lips, and I answered it directly.
“There are other ways of transmission beside sexual contact,” I hastily
insisted. “I’ve been working with Dr. Amicas at the academy, simply
because of the unique aspects of my case. Some of my fellows, I will admit,
fell to the plague after having congress with a Speck whore. I, sir, was not
one of them. Nor, for example, was the young son of the former Academy
commander. And of course, my own girl-cousin Epiny was also a victim of
the plague.”
“And did she die?” I suddenly realized that the circle of my audience had
grown. This query came from another listener, a middle-aged woman
unwisely dressed in a virulent pink gown.
“No, ma’am, I’m happy to say she did not. Her case was very mild and she
recovered with no side effects. Unfortunately, that was not true for the
young new noble cadet she married. Cadet Kester was forced to withdraw
from the academy. He is determined that he will recover his health
sufficiently to return, but many feel that his military career is over.”
Several of my listeners now spoke at once.
“I served with Kester! It must be his son. That’s a damnable shame! Who
else fell to the plague, from the new noble ranks?”
“What saved your cousin from the plague? What herbs did she take? My
Dorota is with her husband at Gettys. She and her two little ones. They
haven’t had it in the household yet, but she fears it’s just a matter of
time!” There was great worry in that matron’s voice as she pushed closer
to me. But the voice I heard most clearly was that of Carsina’s father.
Grenalter said slowly to my father, “Epiny Burvelle—that would be your
brother’s elder daughter. She married a new noble soldier son who’ll have
no career? Surely you told me that your brother planned to marry her to
an old noble heir son?” My father attempted a tolerant laugh. That was
when I knew I’d said too much.
“Well, you know young people today, Grenalter, especially the city-bred
ones. They have small respect for the plans of their parents. And in a time
of plague, permissions are given that ordinarily would be refused. Just as
soldiers facing battle will sometimes commit acts that they would
otherwise recognize as foolhardy.”
“Foolhardy. Indeed. I’ve witnessed a few acts like that,” Grenalter
conceded heavily. I could tell he was distracted, and I could almost see
him totting up and subtracting the advantages and disadvantages of his
marital agreement with our family as if he were an accountant. Suddenly
Epiny’s words about being sold as a bride to the highest bidder didn’t
seem so melodramatic. Obviously, my weight gain was a debit to the
transaction, but an even larger one was that the branch of the Burvelle
family in Old Thares had not sold off their daughter to an old nobility
family. Did connections and marriages actually carry that much political
and social weight, I wondered, and then instantly knew that they did.
“Well?” demanded the woman anxiously, and my mind leapt back to her
question.
“Lots of water and rest were the chief treatment, I’m afraid. I wish I could
tell you something more specific. Dr. Amicas is making the prevention of
the plague his specific area of study. He’s a very dedicated man. If anyone
can come up with solid recommendation to protect families from
transmission, it will be him.”
“And which other new nobles perished?” the other man demanded. I
recognized him but could not call up his name. He was not a new noble,
but was a very successful ranker who had followed Grenalter into
retirement much as my father’s men had congregated around him. I
suddenly realized that men like him would be pinning their hopes on the
rise of the new noble class. Old nobles and heir sons would have little
respect for a ranker like him. The new nobles who had directly
commanded him recognized his worth. And if they came to power, that
recognition might extend to his own soldier sons.
So I recited reluctantly the names of those new noble sons who had died
from the plague, and those whose health had been badly compromised.
When I mentioned that Trist Wissom had lost his health, I was surprised
at the collective sigh of sympathy. And I was shocked when I recounted the
names of those who had recovered well, and people exchanged glad
glances when they heard that Rory and Gord were unscathed. They did not
know my fellow cadets, but they knew or had known of their fathers. There
was a sense of connection there. The old nobles were right to fear our rise
to influence. The real power lay not in the new nobles and their sons who
would follow wherever the king led, but in the ranks of the military who
felt loyalty and alliance to the new nobles.
“Damn shame what’s happened to our academy. Damn shame!” This from
the ever-excitable Lord Blair, a little bald man who always bounced on his
toes when he spoke. “We needed those young officers, what with the
rumors of trouble on the border near Rely. Looks like we might start up
with Landsing all over again! You’d be sorry to miss out on that, wouldn’t
you, Cadet? Fast promotions wherever the fighting’s thick, as I’m sure you
know.” I was at a loss. I hadn’t heard we were skirmishing with Landsing
again.
“Gettys is where the real opportunity is!” This from a man I didn’t
recognize. “The King’s Road has been at a standstill for damn near two
years. Farleyton went out there to replace Brede’s regiment, but from what
I hear, they’ve not done well. Same problems Brede had. Disease,
desertion, and dereliction of duty! The king won’t stand for it anymore. I
hear he’s sending Cayton’s horse and Doril’s foot to reinforce them. I feel
sorry for Farleyton. They were a top-notch regiment not too many years
ago. Some say that Gettys will just do that to a regiment. Disease breaks
down the morale and destroys the chain of command. Haren’s got the
command now. A good enough man for a second, but I’m not sure he’s up
to ramrodding an operation like the King’s Road.”
“Colonel Haren’s a good officer!” someone else broke in sharply. “Careful
what you say about him, man. I served beside him at the Battle of Dell.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen! Now is not the time for war stories.” My father
quickly broke in on the lively conversation. “Nevare, I am sure we are all
grateful for the information you have shared with us, but let us not forget
that we are here to celebrate a wedding! Surely some of you would rather
be on the dance floor than listening to tales of disease and death? Or is
there so little hardship in our life that we are drawn to such stories?”
He gained a general laugh with that gently bitter question. It was, indeed,
part of our common lot that life was harder here on the edges of
civilization. “Let us celebrate life while we can!” one of the men suggested.
“Death and disease will always be waiting for us.” And with that dark
toast, my audience began to fragment. Some moved toward the musicians
and dancing, others toward the tables of food. Grenalter himself left rather
hastily. I surreptitiously tracked his flight and saw him join his wife and
Carsina at a refreshment table. I saw him send Carsina off to join a group
of other young women, and then take his wife’s arm and escort her to a
quieter corner. I suspected I knew the topic of conversation. Without
intending it, I sought for Kase Remwar, and found him dancing with my
sister. She looked blissful. Remwar, an heir son, had been the Grenalters’
first choice as a match for Carsina. Had I just gossiped away my marriage
arrangement? And if I had, had I dashed Yaril’s dreams as well? I felt
queasy.
My father was not consoling. “You should talk less and listen more,
Nevare. I will say no more on that topic now, but suggest that for the rest
of the day, you become a very good nodder and listener. Keep your tongue
from wagging. Why you saw fit to share such here information that you
had not previously divulged to me, I shall never know. For the rest of this
day, if you must speak, speak only of your brother’s happiness and good
fortune. If you must speak of gloom, deplore the dry weather we’ve had!”
With that admonition, he left my side, striding away as if I’d insulted him.
Perhaps by his lights, I had. He never liked to be second to know anything.
I seethed. It was his own fault. If he had given me a chance to talk to him
since my return, he would have known all my news and could have advised
me what not to repeat. He had treated me unjustly, but worse, I had
foolishly blathered out my tidings without considering if it was wise to do
so. I already regretted my lie about what Dr. Amicas had said. I felt sure it
was true, but I wished I had not quoted the doctor to give greater
authority to my belief. The lie shamed me. That bleakness of spirit
suddenly quenched my hunger. I abruptly felt that selecting the food and
taking it to a table and making small talk with my fellow guests would
require more energy that I could summon. I glanced back at the dance
floor. The musicians still played, and Carsina was dancing with a young
man I didn’t recognize. He was short, freckled, and didn’t dance well, but
he wasn’t fat. I stood rooted, watching them and trying not to watch them.
I saw her laugh at something he said. A perverse part of me dared me to
stay in the room and ask her for the next dance. Her certain refusal would
end my hope and put me out of my misery.
I loitered there, at the edge of the crowd, building my courage,
denouncing it as foolhardy, rebuilding it, deciding that she was promised
to me and it was my right to speak to her, losing my courage again…never
had a dance lasted so long, it seemed. When it ended and her partner
bowed over her hand and then stepped away from her, it was all I could do
to make myself walk in her direction. She saw me coming. She fled.
And, fool that I was, I hastened after her, cutting through the crowd to
close off her retreat. When she realized she could not escape me, she
slowed. I closed the remaining distance between us. “Carsina. I’ve been
hoping to have a dance with you. And a chance to speak to you, and
explain what has befallen me.” It was my misfortune that the musicians
suddenly struck up a lively tune rather than the stately waltz I had hoped
for. Carsina saved herself and me by saying stiffly, “I am weary of dancing
at present. Perhaps later.”
“But perhaps we could talk now. Shall we walk in the garden?”
“I fear it would not be proper, for we should be unchaperoned.”
My smile at her comment was bitter. “That did not stop us the last time.”
She looked away from me and gave a vexed sigh. “That was last time,
Nevare. Obviously, much has changed.”
Stung, I replied, “What has not changed is that we are promised to one
another. Surely you owe me at least the opportunity to tell you what I’ve
been through—”
“I owe you nothing, sir!” she flared at me. Her companion from the last
dance suddenly reappeared, carrying two glasses of wine. His eyes
widened with disapproval that I had forced a lady to give me such a stern
response. I warned him off with a glare. “The lady and I are having a
conversation.” He was a head shorter than me, but probably thought my
weight made me soft. “It did not sound like a conversation to me. It
sounded as if she wished you to leave her alone.”

“We are promised to one another. I have the right to—”
“Not formally!” Carsina cut in quickly. “And I do wish you to leave me
alone.”
“You see, sir, the lady has wearied of your company. Be a gentleman, and
allow her to withdraw.” He stepped bravely between us. He was all long
neck and freckled nose. I could have snapped him like a twig. I looked over
his head at Carsina.
“Perhaps she should be a lady and do me the courtesy of hearing me out,”
I said levelly.
“Do you insinuate I am not a lady?” Carsina flared at me. “Nevare
Burvelle, you insult me. I shall tell my father of this!”
Anger sang in my blood and rang in my ears. I seethed with fury. Words
burst from me, coming from whence I knew not. “And you have ignored
me, fled from me, and thus insulted me thrice today, and this shall be the
last time. There will come a time before you die, Carsina, when you will
crawl on your knees and beg pardon for how you have treated me this
day.”
Her mouth fell open at my harsh words. She looked, in her astonishment,
both childish and common. All the prettiness fled from her face as anger
flooded it. I’d said too much, spoken too rashly. I could not have done a
more awkward, awful thing at my brother’s wedding.
Carsina’s face went scarlet. In horror, I saw tears flood her eyes. Her
freckled dance partner glared up at me. “Now, see here, sir, I insist—”
“Insist to yourself, then,” I said to him, and strode away. But a fat man is
hard-pressed to stride with dignity. I tried in vain to compose my face as I
departed the scene. Not that many people, I told myself, had noticed our
spat. Neither of us had shouted. I glanced back, but Carsina was gone. I
felt a moment of relief, until I saw her hurrying up the stairs, both hands
lifted to cover her face. Several women turned to watch her go. My own
sister was following her. I cursed myself and wondered where that blaze of
temper and my ugly words had come from.
I should have chosen to keep my misery and my pathetic hope, I told
myself savagely. I left the ballroom for the terrace, and from there
descended stone steps to the garden. It was hotter there, not cooler. Many
of the flowering bushes had gone yellow with drought; the young trees
were spindly and offered no shade. My collar choked me and my jacket
was too warm. How could I have been so stupid? Why had I forced such a
confrontation? I should have let her snub me. The next time I saw her, I’d
be a thinner man, and there would have been no harm done. She’d have
rebuked herself for avoiding me. Now what I had said to her must always
stand between us. Uneasily, I wondered if she had fled to her mother. She
was already with my sister. I wondered which would be worse for me. A
thick hedge and the sound of a fountain beyond it promised me a shadier
retreat. The garden was poorly planned, for I had to walk some distance
and follow a turning in the hedge before I found a very small gate. It was
closed but not locked. I entered the second garden.
Here, no expense had been spared. I wondered that guests were not
thronging it.
A paved walkway led me in a meandering spiral toward the heart of the
garden.
The beds of flowers were lush, despite the heat and dryness of the last
week.
Bees hummed among the fairy rosebushes and battled the tall lavender for
nectar. The fragrance of flowers and the aromas of herbs were heavy in
the still air. I passed an ornamental fish pond. Spatterdock opened the fat
petals of its yellow blossoms there, and fish transformed from shadow to
gleams as they moved in and out of their shelter. Beyond was a dovecote,
styled as a quaint little cottage, full of the preening, cooing creatures. The
birds were sunning themselves in the fly pen attached to their shelter. I
stood there for some time, letting the restful sound soothe me. Then I
followed the winding footpath toward the decorative fountain at the
center of the garden and the musical splashing of its waters.
I never reached the fountain. A sudden reek hit my nostrils, a stench so
bad that I nearly gagged. I turned my head at the same time I lifted my
hand to cover my nose and mouth. I could not believe what met my eyes.
The altar was white marble, but the top of it was spattered with gore and
bird droppings. A brass pole arched over the altar. Suspended from the
arch was something that might have been a lovely chandelier, save that
the arms of it ended in hooks, not lamps, and a dead dove was impaled on
each hook. In the center of the altar, a bird had been split open and its
entrails spread for reading. Bloody fingerprints smeared the white
feathers. A black-and-white croaker bird was perched on top of the brass
arch, a streamer of dove gut hanging from his beak. Flies and wasps
buzzed heavily around the dead birds. They were grotesque. One white
dove was more red than white now, its entrails hanging from its pecked
anus. As I stared, dumbfounded, a slow drip of blood dropped to spatter
on the altar.
This had been done today.
That chilling thought was followed by another. The altar and the hook
chandelier were permanent fixtures. Poronte and his family worshipped
the old gods on a regular basis. This was a marriage offering. In all
likelihood, my brother’s bride and her mother and sisters had sacrificed
these birds to celebrate Cecile’s wedding day.
I had not thought my horror could deepen. But as I stared, transfixed, the
unthinkable happened. One bird abruptly twitched on its hook. Its wings
shuddered spasmodically, causing the carousel of dead birds to turn
slightly. It unlidded a dull eye at me while its small beak opened and
closed soundlessly. I could not stand it.
I had to stand on tiptoe to reach him, and my stretch strained the
shoulders of my jacket perilously. I made a grab at him, caught him by the
wing, and pulled the gruesome merry-go-round toward me. When I could
get both hands on him, I lifted his body from the hook. I’d intended to end
his misery by wringing his neck. Before I could, his body gave a final
shudder and was still. I stepped back from the altar and looked at my
pathetic trophy. The anger I had felt at Carsina suddenly transmuted to
fury at the unfairness of it all. Why had this little creature had to die as
sacrifice to celebrate a wedding day? Why was his tiny life so insignificant
to them? It was the only life he could ever know. “You should not have
died.” My blood pounded through me, thick with rage. “They were wicked
to kill you! What sort of a family has my brother joined to us?” The bird’s
eyes opened. I was so shocked I nearly dropped it. It gave its head a shake,
and then opened its wings. I did drop it then, releasing it to a fall that it
changed into a frantic launch. One of its wings brushed my face at it took
flight. In an instant, it was gone. Small downy neck feathers clung to my
fingertips. I shook my hands, and they ghosted away to float eerily in the
still air. I was not sure what had happened. I looked again at the gory
carousel of dead birds and at the smear of blood on my hand. Repulsed, I
wiped my hand clean on my dark trousers. How had the bird survived?
I stared too long. In the branches of a nearby bush, a croaker bird
suddenly cawed loudly. It lifted its black-and-white wings and opened its
red beak wide at me. It had orange wattles on its bare neck; they were
fleshy and wobbled cancerously at me as it cawed.
I retreated a step, but he still challenged me with three loud caws. The
cries were immediately echoed by a couple of his fellows perched in nearby
trees. As they raised the alarm, I turned and hastily walked away. My
thoughts were in turmoil. It was one thing to hear tales of what the
worship of the old gods had demanded; it was another thing to see a
carrion tree set up for their delight. Did Rosse know of his wife’s beliefs?
Did my father? My mother?
I breathed through my mouth as I walked swiftly away from that place.
When I reached the lavender beds and the drowsing bumblebees mining
them, I stopped. I took deep calming breaths of their fragrance. I was
sweating. I’d glimpsed something dark and it filled me with a sudden
foreboding. “Sir. This is a private garden for the family’s meditation and
repose. The wedding festivities do not extend to this area.”
The woman was dressed as a gardener, in rough brown tunic and
pantaloons and sandals. A broad-brimmed straw hat shaded her face. She
carried a little basket on one arm with a trowel in it.
I wondered if she was in charge of burying the birds. No. From what I
knew of those rites, they had to remain as an offering until the elements
and the scavengers had reduced them to bones. I met her direct look and
tried to read her eyes. She smiled at me politely.
“I’ve lost my way, I’m afraid.”
She pointed. “Follow the pathway to the gate. Please latch it behind you,
sir.” She knew. She knew I wasn’t lost and she knew about the sacrifice
and she guessed that I had seen it. Her eyes moved over me. Her gaze
disdained me. “Thank you. I’ll be glad to find my way back.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
We were so polite. She made my skin crawl. I walked away from her,
trying not to hurry. When I reached the gate, I glanced back. She had
quietly followed me down the path to make sure that I left. I lifted my
hand and flapped it at her foolishly, as if waving good-bye. She hastily
turned away from me. I left the garden, closing the gate firmly behind me.
My first childish impulse was to run to my father and tell him all I’d seen.
If Rosse and Cecile had not already said their vows, I might have done so.
But they were already joined, and my mother and father had given oaths
equally binding to Cecile’s parents. It was too late to stop them from
joining our good name with the heathen Poronte family. I made my slow
way back through the first garden and to the terrace. As I went, I decided
that I would wait until I could privately pass my knowledge to my father.
As the head of our family, he would decide what to do about it. Would it
be sufficient grounds for him to contact the High Temple in Old Thares
and have the marriage voided? Cecile and the other Poronte family
members had called the good god to witness their pledges. Did the
sacrifice in the garden mean they did not feel bound by their oaths before
the good god? Had they smiled at my parents and mouthed words empty
of intent? On the terrace, people were resting and talking, the women
fanning themselves against the rising heat of the day. I kept my smile in
place and avoided making eye contact with anyone. No one spoke to me as
I passed. The musicians were still playing in the ballroom. Dancers still
spun to their notes. I told myself there was no sense on dwelling on the
ugliness I’d witnessed. I’d set it out of my mind until I could consign it to
my father’s judgment. The spinning dancers made a lovely picture, and I
was almost calm when Carsina, apparently fully recovered from our scene,
swept by me, once more in the arms of Kase Remwar. I turned and moved
on to the dining room. There, the hubbub of conversation was nearly as
loud as the music in the ballroom. Servants bustled around the room,
setting out fresh platters of food, refilling glasses, serving people, clearing
away dirty plates, and putting out fresh settings. The smells of food
assaulted me. My stomach rolled over inside me and my hunger became a
sharp ache that reached all the way up the back of my throat. I stood still
for a moment, swallowing saliva. My conservative breakfast that morning
had not assuaged the insult done to my body by my days of fasting. I felt
that I could have cleared one of the laden tables by myself. Guests were
helping themselves and chatting with others as they meandered among
the tables, taking a serving of fruit there, a sweet from that platter, and a
pastry from another. I knew I could not trust myself. I found an empty
chair at a clean setting without anyone near me. It seemed to take decades
before a servant noticed me. “May I bring you anything, sir, or would you
care to make your own selection?”
I swallowed and had to take a breath. I ached with emptiness. “Could you
bring me a small portion of meat, a roll of bread, and perhaps a glass of
wine?” He startled as if I’d flung cold water at him. “And that is all, sir?”
he asked me solicitously. “Or shall I select other foods for you and bring
them to you?” His eyes roved over my bulk as if disputing my request.
“Just meat and bread and a glass of wine. That will be fine for me,” I
assured him.
“Well. If you are certain? Only meat, bread, and wine?”
“I am. Thank you.”
He hurried off, and I saw him summon an underling. The servant gestured
at me as he passed on my request to the man. The new servant met my
glance and his eyes widened. He grinned, bowed obsequiously, and
hurried off. I realized my hands were clenched at the edge of the table and
folded them in my lap. Food. I was trembling with need for it. The
intensity of my awareness of the smells and of my urgency frightened me.
For the first time, I wondered if this was an unnatural appetite. Despite
my fast, my clothing had become tighter. How could I not eat and become
fatter? A frightening suspicion came to me. Magic. Was this the lingering
effects of Tree Woman’s intrusion on my life? I recalled my vision of my
“other self” in her world. He had been heavy of belly and thick-legged.
When I took him back into me, had I taken those attributes into my body
as well? It could not be. I didn’t believe in magic. I didn’t believe in magic
desperately, in the same way that a badly wounded soldier did not believe
in amputation. Take it away, take it away, I prayed to the good god. If this
be magic, put it out of my life and save me from it.
The Dancing Spindle had moved for me. I had ridden it and I had
witnessed it stopping. Did I not believe that had happened? I thought of
my cinch that had not stayed tight on Sirlofty. But the modern rational
man in me wondered if I deceived myself. Could not my saddle’s cinch
loosening be a result of my greater weight? If the halting of the Spindle
meant that all Plains magic was failing, would not it affect every cavalla
man’s cinch?
I thought that I could ask Sergeant Duril about his recent cinch
experiences. Then I sighed, thinking that right now I didn’t have the
courage to seek him out for anything. I’d disappointed him, and in some
ways, disappointing my old teacher was a more personal failure than
disappointing my father. And where was that food? The hunger boiled up
in me again, driving all other thoughts from my mind.
Yet it was not food that came to my table next, but my father and mother.
I had not noticed them enter the room, and yet there they were. My father
took the chair next to me, and my mother seated herself just beyond him.
A glance at their faces reassured me that, as yet, they had heard no gossip
about my confrontation with Carsina. A servant followed them, carrying
their prepared plates. As he set the food before them and the aroma of the
rich foods floated toward me, I nearly swooned.
My father leaned over to hiss at me, “Don’t take it to extremes, Nevare.
You should eat at least something, to show your enjoyment of what was
prepared for the wedding. To sit here at a wedding feast with nothing in
front of you makes it seem you don’t approve of the joining. It’s an insult
to our host. And may the good god save us, here he comes with his lady.”
It could not have been worse timing. Lord and Lady Poronte had not
entered the room to dine, but were merely strolling among their guests,
greeting them and accepting congratulations and compliments on the
gathering. They approached us, smiling, and there I sat, literally the
starving man at the feast. I wanted to vanish.
Lady Poronte reached us, smiled at us, and then looked puzzled at the
empty place before me. As if she were talking to a child, she wheedled in
dismay, “Could not you find anything to tempt your appetite, Nevare? Is
there something I could ask our cook to prepare for you?”
“Oh, no, but many thanks, Lady Poronte. Everything looked and smelled so
wonderful, I did not trust myself to make a choice. I’m sure the serving
man will be here directly.”
Then came the final blow to my dignity and to my father’s pride. The
serving man arrived with my food. He carried a filled platter on each arm.
Not two plates, but two platters, and each were laden to overflowing. Meat
of every kind was heaped on one, slices of ham, half a smoked chicken,
slices of beef cut so thin that they folded into ripples, tender lamb cutlets,
each mounded with a spoonful of quivering mint jelly, and a spicy pâté
ensconced on a special round of bread. On the other platter was the
extreme opposite of my request for a simple roll of bread. There were two
croissants, a scone, two muffins, rye bread in dark rounds nestled against
its paler wheaten cousin, and dumplings in a ladling of rich brown gravy.
Grinning as if he had accomplished some marvelous feat, the serving man
placed both platters before me. He bowed, well pleased with himself.
“Never fear, sir. I know how to properly serve a man like yourself. As you
requested, only meat and only bread. I shall return immediately with your
wine, sir.” He turned with a flourish and left me surrounded by food. I
stared at the wealth of bread and meat before me. I knew my father was
aghast at my wanton display of gluttony. My shocked hostess was striving
to look pleased. Worse, I knew that I could consume every bite of it with
relish and pleasure. My mouth was running with so much saliva that I had
to swallow before I could speak. “This is far too much food. I asked for a
small portion of meat and bread.”
But the serving man had already hastened away. I could not stop looking
at the food, and I knew that no one at the table believed me. “But it is a
wedding!” Lady Poronte ventured at last. “And surely if there is a time to
celebrate in plenty, it is at a wedding.”
She meant well. She probably intended to put me at my ease over
possessing such an undisciplined appetite and displaying such wanton
greed at her table. But it put me in a very strange social situation. If I only
sampled a tiny portion of the food now, would it appear that I had
disdained her hospitality, or found her cook lacking in talent? I did not
know what to do.
“It all looks absolutely wonderful to me, especially after the very plain food
they serve us at the academy,” I ventured. I did not pick up my fork. I
wished they would all vanish. I could not eat with them watching me. Yet I
also knew I could not refuse to eat, either.
As if he could read my thoughts, my father said in a chill voice, “Please,
Nevare, don’t let us inhibit you. Enjoy the wedding feast.”
“Please do,” my host echoed. I glanced at him but could not read his face.
“Your serving staff is far too generous,” I ventured again. “He has brought
me much more than I requested.” Then, fearing that I would sound
ungracious, I added, “But I am sure he meant well.” I picked up my knife
and fork. I glanced at my parents. My mother was attempting to smile as
if nothing were amiss or unusual. She cut a tiny bite from her portion of
meat and ate it. I speared one of the dumplings swimming in gravy. I put
it in my mouth. Ambrosia. The inner dumpling was fine-grained and
tender, the outer layer softened with the savory broth. I could taste finely
chopped celery, mellowed onion, and a careful measure of bay leaf
simmered with the thick meatiness of the gravy. Never before had I been
so aware of the sensations of eating. It wasn’t just the aroma or flavor. It
was the sweet briny ham versus the way the spicy pâté contrasted with the
tender bread beneath it. The croissant had been made with butter, and
the layers of the light pastry were as delicate as snowflakes on my tongue.
The chicken had been grain-fed and well bled before it had been carefully
roasted in a smoky fire to both flavor it and preserve the moistness of the
flesh. The rye bread was delightfully chewy. I washed it down with wine,
and a servant brought me more. I ate.
I ate as I had never eaten before. I lost awareness of the people beside me
and of the festivity that swirled around me. I gave no thought to what my
father might be thinking or my mother feeling. I did not worry that
Carsina might chance by and be aghast at my appetite. I simply ate, and
the intense pleasure of that exquisite meal after my long fast has never left
me. I was a man caught up in a profoundly carnal pleasure. I felt a deep
satisfaction at replenishing my reserves, and I gave no thought to anything
else. I cannot even say how long it took me to consume both platters, or if
there was any conversation around me. At some point, Lord and Lady
Poronte passed some pleasantry with my parents and then drifted away to
socialize with their other guests. I scarcely noticed. I was a soul consumed
with the simple and absolute pleasure of eating. Only when both platters
were empty did I glide back into awareness of my surroundings. My father
sat in stony silence. My mother was smiling and making vapid small talk
in a hopeless effort to preserve the image of a couple having a
conversation. My belly now strained against my belt. Embarrassment
battled with a strong urge to rise and seek out the sweets table. Despite
what I had consumed, I was still aware of the scent of warm vanilla sugar
hanging in the air, and the fragrance of tart strawberries packed into
sweet little pastries. “Are you quite finished, Nevare?” My father asked
the question so softly that someone else might have thought him a kind
man.
“I don’t know what came over me,” I said contritely.
“It’s called gluttony,” he callously replied. He had excellent control over his
features. As he spoke so quietly to me, his eyes roved around the room. He
nodded to someone he saw there. He smiled as he said, “I have never been
so ashamed of you. Do you hate your brother? Do you seek to humiliate
me? What motivates you, Nevare? Do you think to avoid you military
duty? You will not. One way or another, I’ll see you do you serve your
fate.” He turned his head, waved at another acquaintance. “I warn you. If
you will not maintain your body and your dignity and earn a commission
at the academy and win a noble lady as your wife, why, then, you can go as
a common foot soldier. But go you shall, boy. Go you shall.”
Only my mother and I could hear the venom in his questions. Her eyes
were very wide and her face pale. I suddenly realized that she feared my
father, and that right now her fear was extreme. He flicked a glance at her.
“Excuse yourself, my lady, and flee this scene if it distresses you. I give you
permission.” With an apologetic look to me, she did. Her eyes were
anxious, but she put a bright smile on her face, rose, and gave us a tiny
wave of farewell as if she regretted having to leave us for a time. Then she
fled across the room and out of the hall.
I glued a smile on my lips and cursed my own creeping fear of him. “I
spoke the truth to you, Father. I told the servant to bring me a small
serving of meat and bread. Once that quantity had arrived and Lady
Poronte had witnessed it, what was I to do? Waste the abundance they
shared with us? Claim the food did not suit me and turn it away? The
servant placed me in a bad position. I made the best of it that I could. Tell
me. What should I have done?”
“If you had served yourself a simple meal, instead of waiting to be
attended like an old noble’s heir son, none of this would have happened.”
“And if I had been born with prescience, that is precisely what I would
have done,” I retorted tightly. Where, I wondered in the shocked silence
that followed my words, had that retort come from?
Astonishment that I would stand up to him jolted my father’s smile off his
face. I was tempted to believe that I had seen a brief flash of respect in his
eyes before he narrowed them at me. He took a short sharp breath as if to
speak, and then snorted it out in disdain. “This is not the place nor the
time, but I promise you, I will have a reckoning with you over this. For the
rest of the day, say little and eat nothing. That isn’t a request, Nevare. It’s
an order. Do you understand me?”
I thought of a dozen things I could say. But that was after I had given him
a tight nod, and he had pushed his chair back and left me. The two large
empty platters on the table rebuked me. There was a swallow of wine left
in my glass. I reflected bitterly that he had said nothing about drinking
and drank it down. By the time evening arrived and I again mounted to
the top of the carriage for the journey home, I was more sodden with
brandy than a well-soaked fruitcake. But that, of course, was civilized and
acceptable behavior for a soldier son. No one ever rebuked me for that.

CHAPTER SIX

A DAY OF LETTERS
I did my best to be invisible during the following days of festivities at my
home. It was not easy. I had to be present at the dinners, and with a house
full of guests, it was difficult to avoid socializing completely. Most
unpleasant of all for me was that the Grenalters had been invited to stay
with us. Carsina and my sister Yaril snubbed me at every opportunity. If
by chance I entered a room they were in, they would immediately sweep
disdainfully from it. It maddened me with frustration, the more so in that
never once did they enter a room and allow me the chance to vacate it as
soon as I saw them. I told myself it was juvenile to long for the chance to
show Carsina just how uninterested I was in her, but in my heart I burned
to hurt her pride as she had injured mine. I contented myself with making
savagely accurate accounts of all my interactions with her in my soldier
son journal.
Rosse and Cecile had departed on their wedding trip. They intended to
travel downriver to Old Thares, where my uncle would host a reception for
them. Cecile had two aunts and three uncles in the capitol, so Rosse would
be exhibited and inspected for several weeks before they returned home to
settle into the rooms prepared for the new couple. I pitied them, having to
begin a new life under my father’s roof. My father, I was sure, would grant
them little privacy and even less autonomy.
My father and I were at war now. He was courteous to me while
houseguests were present, but once they all had departed, he made his
displeasure clear. That evening, just as the house should have been
peaceful, he verbally flogged me with all my shortcomings as a son, never
giving me an opportunity to reply. After a time, from some depth I didn’t
know I possessed, I found an icy calm and refused to give him any
response. When he angrily dismissed me, I went directly to my room and
to bed and spent most of that night staring up at the darkened ceiling and
seething. He sought to bring me to heel like a whipped puppy. He cared
for nothing I might say in my defense. Fine. Then he would hear absolutely
nothing from me.
After that, our conflict was conducted in silence. I avoided my father’s
company. When my mother sought conversation with me I spoke about
the academy, my teachers and friends, and my uncle’s family. Of my
weight gain and my war with my father, I did not speak. When I was not
with her, I rediscovered my boyhood haunts along the river. I went fishing.
I counted the days until this “holiday” would be over and I could return to
the academy. My cold conflict with my father made him irritable with the
entire family. Elisi retreated to her music and books. Yaril often appeared
with her eyes red from weeping. My father had chastised her severely for
her “shameless flirtation’ with Kase Remwar. Plainly, there had been no
marriage offer between the families. As an uncommitted first son, Kase
had danced, dined, and chatted with any number of eligible young
maidens at Rosse’s wedding. I suspected it was simply his nature, but
Yaril blamed me. I could have taken vengeance on her by telling my father
that I’d seen her kiss Remwar before I’d even departed for the academy.
But even in my anger and hurt, I knew that the consequences that would
fall on her would be far heavier than her foolishness merited. And keeping
that secret from my father was one more bit of damage I dealt him. He
thought he knew so much about his household and how to run the lives of
his children? He knew us not at all.
Vanze busied himself with visiting friends in the area before departing for
the seminary. I found a quiet moment to bid him farewell privately, and
told him that I wished him every success. We’d already spent so much of
our lives apart that I had little else to say to my younger brother. We were
strangers joined only by our bloodlines.
My mother had hoped I would spend at least another week at home, but
by the third day after the wedding guests departed, I was eager to leave.
She had found the leftover fabric from my original uniforms, and with
great effort had managed to put eases into my trousers and jacket.
Cleaned and brushed, my uniform looked nearly as good as it ever had.
She carefully wrapped it up in heavy paper and tied it with string,
cautioning me not to wear it on my journey back, but to keep it clean, so
that I’d have clothing that fitted me on my first day back at my classes.
Her concern touched me. As I took the package from her, I was bracing
myself to tell her that I planned to leave the next morning when one of my
father’s men came up from the Landing with a larger than usual bundle of
mail for him. My mother sorted through it as she always did. I watched
her, waiting to have a quiet moment to speak with her.
“Here’s something from the academy for your father. Probably another
invitation to lecture. Oh. Here are two, no, three notes for you. Someone
has scratched out the academy address and sent them on to you here
instead of holding them for you. How peculiar. These will be invitations
for Rosse and Cecile to visit when they return from their trip. Oh, and
here’s one for Yaril from Carsina. They’ve become quite the
correspondents in the last few months.” I scarcely heard her words after
she handed me my envelopes. The first one was in a dove-gray envelope, a
very heavy paper, but the return address was what shocked me. Caulder
Stiet was writing to me from Newton. So he had gone to live with his
scholar uncle after all. His proud father had wanted nothing to do with his
soldier son after the plague had wasted him away to a shadow and broken
his spirit. The boy had been a nuisance and a pest to all the new noble
first-years at the academy, and to me in particular. Still, I despised
Colonel Stiet for what he had done. He’d literally given his son to his
younger brother, to raise as a scholar instead of a soldier. Immoral. I
shook my head and looked at my other two letters.
One was from Epiny and the other from Spink. It seemed odd that each
would write to me. Usually Epiny penned me a lengthy epistle and Spink
just added a postscript. I studied the envelopes. All three had been sent to
my academy address, but forwarded to me at home. I scowled at that.
What was Rory thinking to send my mail trailing after me? I’d be back
soon. Curiosity made me open the letter from Caulder first. His
penmanship had not improved. His very short and polite note said that his
uncle studied rocks and was very interested in the one I had given Caulder.
Would I be so kind as to send them a detailed map that showed where I
had found it? He would be ever indebted to me if I could, and remained,
my friend, Caulder Stiet. I scowled over it and wondered what sort of
mischief or game this was. Although we had parted on decent terms, I did
not trust the little weasel and had little inclination to do him this favor. I
would have set it aside, but it contained a second note from his uncle,
carefully penned onto very expensive paper, noting that geology and the
study of minerals was his area of scholarship, and my rock was quite an
interesting mix. He would greatly appreciate my time and effort to comply
with Caulder’s request. I set it aside with a growl of irritation. I owed
Caulder nothing and his uncle even less. The only reason I did not discard
it was that I knew Caulder’s father and my Aunt Daraleen were friends.
Any rudeness I committed might find its way back to my Uncle Sefert’s
doorstep. And I did owe debts of courtesy to him. I would reply to this.
Later. Next I opened the letter from Spink. The first few lines made my
breath catch. The Speck plague has come to Bitter Springs. Epiny has
become very ill and I fear for her life.
The pages fluttered from my hand to the floor. Heart hammering, I
snatched up the envelope from Epiny and opened it immediately. There
was her familiar handwriting, perhaps a bit more scrawling than usual,
and the first line read, I do hope that Spink’s letter did not overly alarm
you. The spring water treatment proved nothing less than amazing.
Heart still pounding, I gathered up the scattered pages of Spink’s letter
and took all of my mail into the parlor. I opened the curtains to let in more
light, and sat down on a cushioned chair. I spread out my mail on a low
table and pieced together the puzzle. Spink’s letter had arrived at the
Academy days before Epiny’s had, but they had been sent on together.
Relieved of the worst of my fears, I sat down to read the missives in order.
Spink’s letter was wrenching, and not even Epiny’s letter that proved her
survival could eliminate all his bad news. He had no idea how the plague
had come to their little settlement at Bitter Springs. No one had reported
seeing any Specks, or even any ill persons. He himself had continued to
make a slow but steady recovery from the illness, despite occasional bouts
of night fever and sweats. He had thought he had left the dread disease far
behind in Old Thares. A small group of Plainsmen who lived near Bitter
Springs had succumbed to it first. It had devastated their little settlement,
swiftly reducing it from seventeen families to seven. Before anyone had
realized they were dealing with Speck plague, it had spread. Two of
Spink’s sisters had caught it. Epiny had insisted on nursing them, saying
that as she survived the plague once, she was probably immune to it. She
had been wrong. When Spink had mailed his letter to me, both his sisters
and Epiny were severely ill and not expected to recover. His mother was
struggling to care for them with Spink’s help, but he feared that she would
exhaust herself and also fall to the sickness. He strove to nurse Epiny just
as faithfully as she had cared for him in his time of sickness. It is a
terrible irony that the disease that helped bring us together may now part
us forever. It was so hard to write to her father and warn him of her
decline. I tell you truthfully, Nevare, that if she dies, the better part of me
will die with her. I do not think I will have the courage to go on. In a last
effort to save them, we will resort to practices that my mother deems
“little better than superstition.” I will take her and my sisters to Bitter
Springs and their supposedly healing waters. Pray for us.
So his letter ended.
I set his heartbroken letter aside and eagerly took up Epiny’s missive. It
was written in her usual rambling style, very frustrating to someone who
simply wanted to know how everyone fared there. Nevertheless, I forced
myself to read it slowly and carefully.
My dear cousin Nevare,
       I do hope that Spink’s letter did not overly alarm you. The spring
water treatment proved nothing less than amazing. Having had the plague
before, albeit in a much milder form, I was perhaps more aware than
anyone else of how severely it had stricken me this time. My cousin, I did
not expect to survive! I do not even remember the wagon journey to the
springs, nor even the first time they immersed me. I am told that Spink
carried me bodily into the water, and putting his hand over my nose and
mouth, pinched them firmly shut, and then carried me under with him,
where we remained for as long as he could hold his breath. When we
emerged, he gave a similar treatment to each of his sisters. Others from
the family settlement had journeyed with us and were similarly treated.
Then they set up a camp for us, unfolding cots under the wide blue sky
and making of the meadow near the springs an open-air infirmary. On the
first evening I awoke there, I already felt a lessening in my disease.
Nonetheless, I was quite willful and difficult, and poor Spink was obliged
to hold me down and force me to drink a large quantity of the spring
water. Oh, it tasted foul and smelled worse! My fever was not entirely
abated, and I called him names and scratched his poor dear face for his
troubles with me. Then I fell again into a sleep, but it was a deeper, truer
sleep, and when I awoke, feeling ever so much better, the first thing I
demanded to know was who had scratched him so, that I could take
revenge on her! I was so abashed to be told I had done it! We remained
encamped by the springs for almost a week, and every day we forced
ourselves to drink that noxious water, and most of our food was cooked
with it. When I realized how much I was recovering, and how swiftly, I
demanded that Spink join me in this water cure. Nevare, you cannot
imagine the change it has wrought in him! I will not say he is his old self,
but he has begun to eat more heartily, to walk with more confidence, and
most important to me, the light is back in his eyes and he laughs often.
Already he speaks of returning to the academy and his studies and career.
Oh, if only that dream can come true for him!
And now I must tell you—
“What is the meaning of this?” My father’s roar of fury and anguish tore
my attention from Epiny’s letter. Loose pages in my hand, I looked up to
find him glaring from the parlor door. He bore down on me like a cavalla
charge. In one hand he held the large envelope from the academy. In the
other were several sheets of paper. He shook them at me. His face was red,
the veins standing out on his temples, and I would not have been surprised
to see froth fly from his jaws, so wroth was he. “Explain this!” he roared
again. “Account for this, you young scoundrel!”
“If you would let me see what it is, perhaps I could,” I said to him. I did
not mean to sound impertinent, but of course I did.
In fury, my father lifted his hand as to cuff me. I forced myself to stand up
tall, meet his eyes and await his blow. Instead, with a snarl of frustration,
he thrust a letter at me. I managed to catch it before it fluttered to the
floor between us. It was on academy letterhead, but it was not from
Colonel Rebin. Instead, I recognized Dr. Amicas’s handwriting. In a bold
hand at the top, centred on the line, he had written Honorable Medical
Discharge. I gaped at it. “What did you do? All the years I educated you,
with the finest teachers I could procure! All the years of trying to instill
values and honor into you! Why, Nevare? Why? Where did I fail with
you?”
It was difficult to read while he ranted at me. My eyes skittered over the
page, and phrases leapt out at me: A post-recovery condition…unlikely to
respond to any treatment…may worsen with time…impossible to carry out
the normal duties of a cavalla officer…dismissed from King’s Cavalla
Academy…unlikely to be able to serve in a satisfactory manner in any
branch of the military at any level… And at the bottom, the signature I
knew so well, damning me to a useless life living on my brother’s charity
beneath the weight of my father’s contempt. I slowly sank back into my
seat, the page still clutched in my hands. There was a humming in my
ears, and stupidly I thought of the Spindle and its endless dance. My
mouth felt dry and I could not form any words. My father had no such
problem. He continued castigating me for my irresponsible,
self-indulgent, foolish, selfish, senseless ways. I finally found a breath and
remembered how to move my mouth.
“I don’t know what this is about, Father. Truly, I don’t.”
“It’s about the end of your career, you fool. It’s about no future for you,
and shame for your family. A medical discharge for being too fat! That’s
what it’s about! Damn you, boy. Damn you. You couldn’t even fail with
dignity. To lose your career because you couldn’t refrain from stuffing food
in your mouth. What have you done to us? What will my old comrades
think of me, sending them such a soldier son?”
His voice ran down. His hands, still clutching additional papers, were
shaking. He felt this as his personal failure. His shame. His dignity. The
honor of his family. Never had he considered how this might feel to me.
My father had gone to stand by the window. He read through his handful
of papers with his back to me, the writing tilted toward the light. I heard
him give a small grunt, as if he’d been struck. A moment later, I heard the
gasp of an indrawn breath. He turned to look at me, the papers still held
out before him. “Filth,” he said with great feeling. “Of all the disgusting
behaviors I might fear a son of mine might indulge in, this! This!”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said again, stupidly. I
wondered why the doctor hadn’t spoken to me before I left. I knew a wild
moment of hope in which I wondered if it were all a mistake, if this
discharge had been written when I was still terribly ill. A glance at the
date on the paper ended that dream. The good doctor had signed it several
days after I’d left the academy. “I don’t understand,” I said, more to myself
than my father. “Don’t you? It’s here in black and white. Read it for
yourself.” He left the window and as he angrily strode from the room, he
hurled the papers at me. It was not a satisfactory gesture. Not one even
reached me. They fluttered out around him and settled on the floor. When
he slammed the door behind him, that brief gust of wind stirred them
again. I bent over to pick them up, grunting as I did so. My belly got in the
way, and the waistband of my pants seemed too tight. I scowled as I
painstakingly gathered up what proved to be my transcript and all my
records, including my medical file.
I took them to the table and sorted them. Strange. All these papers were
about me, and yet I’d never seen most of them before. Here was a
secretary’s copy of the accusing letter that Colonel Stiet had sent to my
father over the incident with Cadet Lieutenant Tiber. Here was,
surprisingly, a letter of commendation from Captain Maw, saying that I
had shown extraordinary ability as an independent thinker in his
engineering and drafting class, and suggesting that I might best serve the
King’s Cavalla as a scout on the frontier. Was that what had so upset my
father? I sorted more paper. There were tallies of my test scores for my
various classes. My grades were all exemplary. Surely they had been up to
his expectations, not that I’d ever expected him to acknowledge it. The
medical file on me was thick. I had not realized that Dr. Amicas had kept
such complete records. There was a log of my illness. It began with great
detail, but by the fourth day, when cadets were dropping like flies with the
plague, the entries were abbreviated to “Fever continues. Tried giving him
mint in his water to cool his systems.” Toward the end of the file, I found
notes on my recovery, and then more notes that tracked my increasing
weight and girth. He’d graphed it. The continuing climb of the line was
undeniable. Had that angered my father? He now knew that I had lied
when I said the doctor had expected my weight gain to be temporary.
Looking at the evidence, I felt a sudden sinking of heart. The line did not
falter. It had risen every day since my fever had subsided. Was that what
the doctor expected it to do? How long would it continue? How long could
such a trend continue? Toward the bottom of the stack, I found what had
damned me in my father’s eyes. This document was not in the doctor’s
handwriting. My name was marked on the top of the sheet, and a date.
Below it was a set of questions, questions that rang oddly familiar in my
mind. An aide’s notes below each one recorded my answer. Did you go to
Dark Evening in Old Thares?
Yes.
Did you eat or drink there?
Yes.
What did you eat? What did you drink?
Potatoes, chestnuts, meat skewer. Cadet denies drinking anything.
Did you encounter any Specks there?
Yes.
Cadet specifically mentions a female Speck. “Beautiful.”
Did you have any contact with any Speck that evening?
Cadet evasive.
Did your contact include sexual congress?
Cadet denied. Continued questioning. Cadet evasive. Cadet eventually
admitted sexual contact.
I stared at the damning words. But I had not. I did not. I hadn’t had
sexual contact with a Speck on Dark Evening, and I certainly hadn’t
confessed that I had to the aide. I remembered him now, vaguely, as a
dark shape silhouetted against a window that was too bright with light. I
remembered him badgering me for an answer when my mouth was dry
and sticky and my head pounded with pain. “Yes or no, Cadet. Answer yes
or no. Did you have sexual contact with a Speck?” I had told him
something to make him go away. I didn’t remember what. But I’d never
had sexual contact with a Speck. At least, not in real life. Only in my fever
dreams had I lain with Tree Woman. And that had been only a dream.
Hadn’t it?
I shook my head at myself. It was becoming more and more difficult for
me to draw a firm line between my real life and the strange experiences
that had befallen me ever since the Kidona Dewara had exposed me to
Plains magic. In her medium’s trance, Epiny had confirmed that I had
indeed been split into two persons, and one of me had sojourned in
another world. I had been willing to accept that. I’d been able to accept it
because I thought it was over. I’d recovered the lost part of my self and
made it mine again. I had believed that my Speck self would merge with
my real self, and the contradictions would cease troubling me.
Yet time after time, that strange other self intruded into my life, in ways
that were becoming more and more destructive to me. I recognized him
when I’d lain beside the farm girl, and he’d triumphed at Dancing Spindle.
That Nevare, I felt, that “Soldier’s Boy” had been the one to spout anger so
drastically at Carsina. I’d known him by the anger pulsing in my blood.
He’d had the courage to free the dove from the sacrificial hook. I’d felt him
again whenever I’d found words to confront my father in the days since
the wedding. He wasn’t a wise influence on me. But he could rally my
courage and foolhardiness and suddenly push me to assert myself. He
relished confrontation in a way I did not. I shook my head. In that, he was
a truer son to my father than this Nevare was. Yet I had to admit there
had been times when I’d valued his insight. He had been with me the first
time I glimpsed a true forest on my river journey to Old Thares, and it had
been his anger I’d felt over the slain birds at Rosse’s wedding. In quieter
moments, his vision of the natural world replaced mine. I would see a tree
sway or hear the call of a bird, and for the passing instant of his influence,
those things would mesh with my being in a way my father’s son would
not understand. I no longer denied the existence of my Speck self, but I
did all I could to prevent him controlling my day-to-day existence. But
this change to my body was something I could not ignore nor exclude from
my daily reality. As part of my “real” life, it made no sense. The rigors of
my journey home and my fast should have made me lose weight. Instead,
I’d grown fatter. Had I caught the plague because I’d dreamed of congress
with a Speck woman? Was my fat a consequence of the plague? If so, then
I could no longer deny that the magic permeated every part of my life now.
For a dizzying instant, I perceived that the magic was completely in
control of my life now. I snatched my thoughts back from that precipice.
It was too terrifying to consider. Why had this befallen me? As logically as
a mathematical proof, I perceived the beginning of these changes in me,
the place where my path had diverged from the future I had been
promised and into this nightmarish present. I knew when my life had
been snatched out of my control. An instant later, I knew whom to blame
for it.
My father.
At that thought, I felt the milling guilt in me stop just as the Dancing
Spindle had ground to a halt. That single thought, that pinning of blame,
made all events since my experience with Dewara fall into a new order. “It
wasn’t my fault,” I said quietly, and the words were like cool balm on a
burning wound. I looked at the door to the parlor. It was closed, my father
no longer there. Childishly, I still addressed him. “It was never my fault.
You did it. You put me on this path, Father.”
My satisfaction in finding someone to blame was very short-lived. Blaming
him solved nothing. Dejected, I leaned back in my chair. It didn’t matter
who had put me in this situation. Here I was. I looked down at my
ungainly body. I filled the chair. The waistband of my trousers dug into
me. With a grunt and a sigh, I shoved at it, easing it down under my belly.
I’d seen fat old soldiers hang their beer guts out over their trouser tops
this way. Now I understood why. It was more comfortable.
I sat up in my chair and gathered my papers together. When I tried to fit
them all back into the envelope I discovered another letter among them. I
tugged it out.
This last enclosure was addressed to me in the doctor’s hand. I threw it on
the floor in childish pique. What worse thing could he send to me than
what he already had?
But after a few moments of looking at it there, I bent down laboriously,
picked it up, and opened it.
“Dear Nevare,” he had written. Not Cadet Nevare. Simply Nevare. I
clenched my teeth for a moment and then read on.
With great regret, I have done what was necessary. Please remember that
your discharge from the Academy is an honorable one, without stigma.
Nonetheless, I imagine you hate me at this moment. Or perhaps, in the
weeks since I have seen you, you have finally come to accept that
something is terribly wrong with your body, and that it is a crippling flaw
that you will have to learn to manage. It is, unfortunately, a flaw that
renders you completely unfit for the military. You were able to accept that
those of your fellows whose health was broken by the plague had to give up
their hopes of being active cavalla officers. I now ask you to see your own
affliction in the same light. You are just as physically unfit for duty as
Spinrek Kester.
You may feel that your life is over at this moment, or no longer worth
living. I pray to the good god that you will have the strength to see that
there are other worthwhile paths that you can tread. I have seen that you
have a bright mind. The exercise of that intelligence does not always
demand a fit body to support it. Turn your thoughts to how you can still
lead a useful life, and focus your will toward it.
It has not been easy for me to reach this decision. I hope you appreciate
that I delayed it as long as I possibly could, hoping against hope that I was
wrong. My research and reading have led me to discover at least three
other cases, which, although poorly documented, indicate that your
reaction to the plague is a rare but not unique phenomenon.
Although I am sure you are little inclined to do so at this time, I urge you
to remain in contact with me. You have the opportunity to turn your
misfortune into a benefit for the medical profession. If you will continue to
chart weekly your increases in weight and girth, while keeping a record of
your consumption of food, and if you will send me that information every
two months, it would be of great benefit to my study of the plague and its
manifestations after the disease stage has passed. In this, you could serve
your king and the military, for I am certain that every bit of information
we gather about this pestilence will eventually become the ammunition we
use to defeat it.
In the good god’s light,
Dr. Jakib Amicas
I folded his letter carefully, though my strongest impulse was to rip it to
pieces. The gall of the man, to dash my hopes and then suggest that I pass
my idle time in helping him to further his ambitions by graphing and
charting my misfortune! I moved very slowly as I put all the documents
and letters back in meticulous order and slid them back in the envelope.
When it was done, I looked at it. A coffin for my dreams.
I could not finish reading Epiny’s letter. I tried, but it was all prattle about
her new life with Spink. She liked taking care of the chickens and
gathering the eggs warm from the nests. Good. I was glad for her. At least
someone was still contemplating a future, even if it was one that involved
chickens. I gathered my papers, left the parlor, and slowly climbed the
stairs to my room. In the days that followed, I moved like a ghost in my
old home. I had entered an endless tunnel of black despair. This
day-to-day existence of meaningless tasks was my future. I had nothing
beyond this to anticipate. I hid from my father, and my sisters
scrupulously aided me in avoiding them. Once, when I encountered Yaril
in the hallway, an expression of disgust contorted her face and anger filled
her eyes. Never before had she looked so much like my father. I stared at
her, horrified. She made a great show of holding her skirts away from me
as she hurried past me and into the music room. She closed the door
loudly. I considered cornering her and demanding to know when she had
become such a foul little chit. Growing up, I had indulged her, and often
shielded her from my father’s wrath. Her betrayal stung me as no other. I
took two strides after her. “Nevare.”
My mother’s soft voice came from behind me. Surprised, I spun around.
“Let her go, Nevare,” my mother suggested softly.
Irrationally, I turned my anger on her. “She behaves as if my weight is a
personal insult to her, with no thought of how it affects my life or what I’ve
lost as a consequence of what has befallen me. Does she think I did this
deliberately? Do you think I want to look like this?” My voice had risen to
a shout.

Nevertheless, my mother answered me softly. “No, Nevare. I don’t think
you do.” Her gray eyes met mine steadily. She stood before me, small and
arrow-straight, just as she stood when confronting my father. At that
thought, my anger trickled out of me like liquid from a punctured water
skin. I felt worse than emptied. Impotent. Humiliated by my show of
temper. I hung my head and shame washed through me.
I think my mother knew it.
“Come, Nevare. Let us find a quiet place and talk for a bit.”
I nodded heavily and followed her.
We avoided the music room, and the parlor where Elisi sat reading poetry.
Instead, she led me down the hall to a small prayer room adjacent to the
women’s portion of our household chapel. I remembered the room well,
though I had not entered it since I was a child and in my mother’s daily
care. The room had not changed. A half-circle of stone bench faced the
meditation wall. At one end of the bench a small, well-tended brazier
burned smokelessly. At the other end, a stone bowl held a pool of placid
water. A mural of the good god’s blessings covered the meditation wall,
with niches in the art where offerings of incense could be set. Two alcoves
already held glowing bars of incense. A dark green mint-scented bar
burned low in a niche painted like a harvest basket, an offering for good
crops. A fat black wedge released the scent of anise into the air as it
glimmered, nearly spent, in the niche for good health that hovered over a
cherubic child’s head.
With housewifely efficiency, my mother removed the anise incense with a
pair of black tongs reserved for that task. She carried it to the small
worship pool; it hissed as she dunked it in, and she stood a moment in
reverent silence as the remains of the anise brick settled to the bottom.
She took a clean white cloth from a stack of carefully folded linens and
carefully wiped the alcove clean. “Choose the next offering, Nevare,” she
invited me over her shoulder. She smiled as she said those words, and I
almost smiled back. As a child, I had always vied with my sisters for the
privilege of choosing. I had forgotten how important that had once been to
me.
There was a special cabinet with one hundred small drawers, each holding
a different scent of incense. I stood before the intricately carved front,
considering all my choices, and then asked, “Why are you sacrificing for
health? Who is ill?”
She looked surprised. “Why—I burn it for you, of course. That you may
recover from what you have—what has befallen you.”
I stared at her, torn between being touched by her concern and being
annoyed that she thought her prayers and silly scented offerings could
help me. An instant later I recognized that I did think her incense
sacrifices were silly. They were playacting, religion by rote, an offering
that cost us so little as to be insignificant. How, I suddenly wanted to
know, did burning a brick of leaves and oil benefit the good god? What
sort of a foolish merchant god did we worship, that he dispensed blessings
in exchange for smoke? I felt suddenly that my life teetered on an eroded
foundation. I did not even know when I had stopped having confidence in
such things. I only knew it was gone. The protection of the good god had
once stood between all darkness and me. I had thought it a fortress wall; it
had been a lace curtain.
The elaborately carved, gilded, and lacquered cabinet before me had once
seemed a gleaming casket of mystery. “It’s just furniture,” I said aloud. “A
chest of drawers full of incense blocks. Mother, nothing in here is going to
save me. I don’t know what will. If I did, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it. I’d
even be willing to offer blood sacrifice to the old gods if I thought it would
work. Cecile Poronte’s family does.” It was the first time I’d mentioned
that to anyone. In the days since the wedding, I’d felt no inclination to
share any conversation at all with my father.
My mother paled at my words. Then she carefully corrected me. “Cecile is
a Burvelle now, Nevare. Cecile Burvelle.” She stepped past me and opened
the sage drawer of the cabinet. Sage for wisdom. She took out a fist-sized
greenish brick of incense and carried it to the worship brazier. With
gilded tongs, she held it to the slumbering coals, stooping to blow through
pursed lips to wake their ashed red to glowing scarlet. A slender tendril of
smoke rose to scent the room, and one corner of the sage brick caught the
charcoal’s red kiss. She did not look at me as she bore the sage incense to
the alcove for health and tucked it safely inside.
She stood for a moment in silent prayer. Habit urged me to join her there
and I suddenly wished I could. But my soul felt dry and bereft of faith. No
words of praise or entreaty welled in me, only hopelessness. When my
mother turned aside from the mural, I said, “You knew the Porontes
worship the old gods, didn’t you? Does Father know?”
She shook her head impatiently. I don’t know if she was answering my
question or dismissing it. “Cecile is a Burvelle now,” she insisted. “It no
longer matters what she did in the past. She will worship the good god
alongside us every Sixday, and her children will be raised to do the same.”
“Did you see the dead birds?” I asked her abruptly. “Did you see that
ghastly little carousel in their garden?”
She pursed her lips as she came to take a seat on the bench. She patted a
space beside her and I sat down reluctantly. She spoke softly. “They
invited me to witness it. Cecile’s mother sent an invitation to your sisters
and me. The words were cloaked but I understood what it was about. We
arrived too late. Deliberately.” She paused for a moment and then advised
me sincerely, “Nevare, let this go. I don’t think that they truly worship the
old gods. It is more a tradition, a form to be observed, rather than any
true belief. The women of their family have always made such offerings.
Cecile made the Bride’s Gift to Orandula, the old god of balances. The
slain birds are a gift to the carrion bird incarnation of Orandula. His own
creatures are killed and then offered back to him to feed his own. It’s a
balance. The hope is that the woman offering the sacrifice will not lose any
children to stillbirth or cradle death.”
“Does trading dead birds for live children make any sense to you?” I
demanded. And then, rudely, I added, “Do you really find any sense in
burning a block of leaves to make the good god give us what we ask?”
She looked at me strangely. “That’s an odd question to be troubling a
soldier son, Nevare. But perhaps it is because you were born to be a
soldier that you ask it. You are applying the logic of man to a god. The
good god is not bound by our human logic or measurements, son. On the
contrary, we are bound by his. We are not gods, to know what pleases a
god. We were given the Holy Writ so that we might worship the good god
as will please him, rather than offering him things that might please a
man. I, for one, am very grateful. Imagine a god who dealt as men do:
what would he demand of a bride in exchange for future children? What
might such a god ask of you as recompense to restore your lost beauty?
Would you want to pay it?”
She was trying to make me think, but her last words stung me. “Beauty?
Lost beauty? This is not a matter of vanity, Mother! I am trapped in this
bulky body and nothing I do seems to change it. I cannot put on my boots
or get out of bed without being bound by it. How can you assume you can
even imagine what it is like for me to be a prisoner in my own flesh?”
She looked at me silently for a few moments. Than a small smile passed
her lips. “You were too small to remember my pregnancies with Vanze
and Yaril. Perhaps you cannot even remember what I looked like before
my last two children were born.” She lifted her arms as if inviting me to
consider it. I glanced at her and away. Time and childbearing had
thickened her body, but she was my mother. She was supposed to look
that way. I could, vaguely, recall a younger, slender mother who had
chased me laughing through the freshly planted garden in our early years
at Widevale. And I did recall her last pregnancy with Yaril. I most recalled
how she had lumbered through the rooms of the house on her painfully
swollen feet. “But that’s not the same thing at all,” I retorted. “The
changes then and now, those are natural changes. What has befallen me is
completely unnatural. I feel as if I am trapped in some Dark Evening
costume that I cannot shed. You are so caught up in looking at my body
that all of you, Father, Yaril, and even you, cannot perceive that within I
am still Nevare! The only thing that has changed is my body. But I am
treated as if I am these walls of fat rather than the person trapped behind
them.”
My mother allowed a small silence to settle between us before she
observed, “You seem very angry at us, Nevare.”
“Well, of course I am! Who would not be, in these circumstances?” Again
she made that quiet space before suggesting in a reasonable voice,
“Perhaps you should direct that anger against your real enemy, to add
greater strength to your will to change yourself.”
“My will?” My anger surged again. “Mother, it has nothing to do with my
will. My discipline has not failed. I work from dawn to dusk. I eat less than
I did as a child. And still, I continue to grow heavier. Did not Father speak
to you about Dr. Amicas’s letter? The doctor thinks that this unnatural
weight gain is a result of the plague. If it is, what can I do about it? If I
had survived a pox, no one would fault me for a scarred face. If the Speck
plague had left me trembling and thin, people would offer me sympathy.
This is exactly the same, yet I am despised for it.” It was horribly
depressing to know that not even my mother understood what I was going
through. I had hoped that my father would have explained my fat as a
medical condition to my family and to Carsina’s parents. But he had told
no one. No wonder Yaril had no sympathy for me. If my mother, my oldest
and staunchest ally, deserted me, I would be completely alone in facing my
fate.
She pulled out the last block of support, speaking to me as if I were seven
and caught in an obvious falsehood.
“Nevare. I watched you eat at Rosse’s wedding. How can you say that you
eat less than you did as a child? You devoured enough food to sustain a
man for a week.”
“But—” I felt as if she had knocked the breath from my lungs. Her calm
eyes so gently pierced me as she met my gaze.
“I don’t know what happened to you at the academy, my son. But you
cannot hide from it behind a wall of fat. I know nothing of the doctor’s
letter to your father. But I do know that what I have seen of how you eat
now would cause this change in any man.”
“You can’t believe I eat like that at every meal!”
She kept her calm. “Do not shout at me, Nevare. I am still your mother.
And why else would you hide from your family at every meal if not because
your gluttony shamed you? As it should. That shame is a positive sign. But
instead of concealing your weakness, you must control it, my dear.” I rose
abruptly. I towered over her, and for the first time in my life, I saw alarm
cross my mother’s face as she looked up at me. She knew that I could have
crushed her.
I spoke carefully, biting off each word. “I am not a glutton, Mother. I did
nothing to deserve this fate. It’s a medical condition. You wrong me to
think so poorly of me. I am insulted.”
With what dignity I could muster, I turned and walked away from her.
“Nevare.”
It had been years since I had heard her speak my name in that tone. It was
to my anger as iron was to magic. Despite my inclination, I turned back to
her. Her eyes were bright with both tears and anger.
“A moment ago, you said that nothing in this room could save you. You
are wrong. You are my son, and I will save you. Whatever it is that has
caused such a change in you, I will oppose it. I will not back down, I will
not flee, and I will not give up on you. I am your mother, and for as long as
we both live, that is so. Believe in me, son. I believe in you. And I will not
let you ruin your life. No matter how often you turn away from me, I will
still be here. I will not fail you. Believe that, son.”
I looked at her. She held herself straight as a sword, and despite the tears
that now tracked down her cheeks, her strength radiated from her. I
wanted to believe that she could save me. So often when I was small, she
had swept in and stood between my father’s wrath and me. So often she
had been the steadying influence, the true compass for me. There was only
one answer I could give her. “I will try, Mother.” I turned and left her
there, with her incense and her smoke and her good god.
As I left the room, I knew I was as alone as I had ever been. Regardless of
my mother’s good intentions, my battle to regain my life would be a
solitary one. She was my mother and she was strong, but the magic was
like an infection in my blood. Oppose it however she might, she could not
cure me. The magic had taken me, and I would have to battle it alone. I
sought my room. I found no solace there. The neglected letters still rested
on the desk. I longed to sit down at my desk and immerse myself in them,
but I had no heart to answer them just now. My bed complained as I lay
down on it. I stared around at the bare walls and simple furnishings and
the single window. It had always been a severe room, a place of minimal
comfort, a room that would train a boy to embrace a soldier’s life. Now it
was a bare cell. In this room, I would live out the rest of my days. Every
night I would lie down here alone to sleep. Every morning, I would rise to
do my father’s bidding, and when he was gone, I would have to accept
Rosse’s authority over me. What else was there for me? For a flashing
moment, I thought of running away. I had a childish image of myself
galloping away on Sirlofty, going east toward the end of the King’s Road
and the mountains beyond. The thought lifted me, and for an instant, I
actually considered rising from my bed and leaving that night. My heart
raced at the wild plan. Then I came to my senses and marveled at my
foolish impulse. No. I was not going to give up my dream just yet. As long
as I had my mother’s belief to sustain me, I would stay here. I would resist
the magic and try to reclaim my life. I closed my eyes to that thought and,
without intending to, drifted off into a deep sleep.
I did not dream. The awareness that flowed through me was as unlike
dreaming as waking is to sleeping. Magic worked in me, like yeast working
in bread dough. I felt it quicken and grow, swelling in my veins. It
gathered strength from my body, roiling through my flesh, drawing on the
resources it had gathered against this necessity. With growing
trepidation, I recognized that I had felt this sensation before. The magic
had moved in me before, and it had acted. What had it done, without my
knowledge or consent? I recalled the young man on the jankship, and how
he had fallen after my angry words with him. That was one time, but there
had been others.
The massed magic did something.
The languages I knew did not have words to express it. Could my flesh
shout out a word, voicelessly, soundlessly? Could the magic, a thing that
resided elsewhere than the physical world, speak a command through me,
so that somewhere, something it desired happened? That was what it felt
like. Dimly I sensed that something had begun. The first event that would
trigger a chain reaction of responses had occurred. Finished, the magic
pooled to stillness in me. Weariness washed through my body. I sank into
an exhausted sleep. When I awoke, the sun had gone down. I’d slept the
rest of the day away. I got up quietly and crept down the stairs. At the
bottom, I paused to listen. I heard my father’s strident voice in his study.
Rosse was gone; I wondered whom he was lecturing. After a moment, I
heard my mother’s soft response. Ah. I walked quickly past that door, and
past the music room where Elisi drew a melancholy melody from her harp.
The young fellow at Rosse’s wedding had made no offer for her. Was that
my fault? The house was a pool of unhappiness and I was the source of it. I
reached the door and strode out into the night. I wandered through the
dark familiar garden and sat down on a bench. I tried to grasp that my
future was gone. I could think of nowhere to go tonight and nothing to do.
The ferry stopped at night, so I couldn’t cross the river to Burvelle’s
Landing. I’d long ago read most of the books in our family library. I had no
projects. I had no friends to visit. This was a foretaste of the rest of my life.
I could do manual labor on the holdings and then wander aimlessly about
at night. I’d be a shadow in my old home, a useless extra son and nothing
more. I gave myself a shake to rid my head of melancholy foolishness. I
hitched up my trousers, left the garden, and walked over to the
menservants’ quarters. My father had built them as a structure separate
from the house, and my mother still complained that it looked more like a
military barracks than servants’ quarters. She was right, and I was sure
that it was deliberately so. One door led into a long open bunkroom for
seasonal workers. At the other end of the structure, there were private
apartments for married servants and rooms for our permanent help. I
went to Sergeant Duril’s door. Strange to say, in all the years he’d taught
me, I’d only rapped on it half a dozen times. For a moment I hesitated
before it. For all I knew of the man who had taught me, there was much I
didn’t know. I wondered if he was even awake or if he was off at the
Landing. At last I damned myself for a foolish coward, and knocked firmly
on the door.
Silence from within. Then I heard the scrape of a chair and footsteps. The
door opened to me, spilling lamplight into the night. Duril’s eyebrows shot
up at the sight of me. “Nevare, is it? What brings you here?”
He was in his undershirt and trousers, with no boots on. I’d caught him
getting ready for bed. I realized that I’d grown taller than Sergeant Duril. I
was so accustomed to him in his boots or on horseback. He had no hat on;
the substantial bald spot on his pate surprised me. I tried not to stare at it
while he tried not to stare at my stomach. I groped for something to say
other than that I was horribly lonely and would never be able to go back to
the academy. “Has your saddle cinch been coming loose lately?” I asked
him. He squinted at me for a second, and then I saw his jaw loosen, as if
he’d just realized something. “Come in, Nevare,” he invited me, and stood
back from the door.
His room revealed him. There was a potbellied stove in one corner of the
room, but no fire at this time of year. A disassembled long gun dominated
the table in the room. He had shelves, but instead of books they held the
clutter of his life. Interesting rocks were mixed with cheap medical
remedies for backache and sore feet, a good-luck carving of a frog jostled
up against a large seashell and a stuffed owl, and a wadded shirt awaited
mending next to a spool of thread. Through an open door, I glimpsed his
neatly made-up bed in the next room. A bare room for a bare life, I
thought to myself, and then grimaced as I realized that his room had more
character than mine did. I imagined myself as Sergeant Duril years from
now, no wife or children of my own, teaching a soldier son not mine, a
solitary man.
The two of us filled the small room, and I felt more uncomfortable with my
bulk than ever. “Sit down,” he invited me, drawing out one of his chairs. I
placed myself carefully on it, testing my weight against it. He pulled out
the other chair and sat down. With no awkwardness at all, he launched
into talk. “My cinch has come loose three times in the last month. And
yesterday, when I was helping the crew jerk some big rocks out, a line I
knew I’d tied and made the ‘hold fast’ sign over came loose. Now, I can’t
remember that ever happening to me before. I’m getting old, and thought
maybe I wasn’t making the sign or maybe I was making it sloppy. Not a
big thing to worry about, I told myself. But you seem to think it is. Why?
Has your cinch been coming loose lately?”
I nodded. “Ever since the Dancing Spindle stopped dancing. I think the
Plains magic is failing, Sergeant. But I also think that,” and here I
stopped, to slap my chest and then gestured at my belly, “that somehow
this is a result of it.” He knit his brow. “You’re fat because of magic.” He
enunciated the words as if to be sure that he hadn’t mistaken what I’d
said.
Stated baldly, it sounded worse than silly. It sounded like a child’s feeble
excuse, a cry of “look what you made me do!” when a stack of blocks
toppled. I looked down at the edge of his table and wished I hadn’t come
and asked my foolish question. “Never mind,” I said quickly, and stood to
go. “Sit down.” He didn’t speak the words as a command, but they were
stronger than an invitation. His gaze met my eyes squarely. “Any
explanation might be better than none, which is what I’ve got right now.
And I’d like to know what you mean when you say the Spindle stopped
dancing.”
Slowly I took my seat again. That story was as good a place to begin as
any.
“Have you ever seen the Dancing Spindle?”
He shrugged as he took his seat across the table from me. He picked up a
rag and started cleaning gun parts. “Twice. It’s impressive, isn’t it?”
“Did you think it moved when you saw it?”
“Oh, yes. Well, no, I mean, I didn’t believe it was moving when I saw it, but
it sure looked like it was, from a distance.”
“I got up close to it and it still seemed to me like it was moving. And then
some idiot with a knife and a desire to carve his initials on something
stopped it.”
I expected him to snort in disbelief, or laugh. Instead he nodded. “Iron.
Cold iron could stop it. But what’s that got to do with my cinch coming
undone?”
“I don’t know, exactly. It seemed to me that…well, I guessed that maybe if
iron stopped the Spindle, the Plains magic might all go away, too.” He
took a little breath of dismay. After a moment, he wet his lips and then
asked me carefully, “Nevare. What do you know?”
I sat for a time and didn’t say anything. Then I said, “It started with
Dewara.”
He nodded to himself. “I’m not surprised. Go on.” And so, for the first
time, I told someone the whole tale of how I’d been captured by the Plains
magic, and how it had affected me at the academy, and the plague, and
how I thought I had freed myself, and then how the Spindle had swept me
up and showed me the power it held before a boy’s mischief and an other
self I could not control had stopped the Spindle’s dancing.
Duril was a good listener. He didn’t ask questions, but he grunted in the
right places and looked properly impressed when I told him about Epiny’s
séance. Most important to me, as I told my story, he never once looked as
if he thought I was lying.
He only stopped me once in my telling, and that was when I spoke of the
Dust Dance at the Dark Evening carnival. “Your hand lifted and gave the
signal? You were the one who told them to start?”
I hung my head in shame, but I didn’t lie. “Yes. I did. Or the Speck part of
me did. It’s hard to explain.”
“Oh, Nevare. To be used against your own folk like that. This is bad, boy,
much worse than I’d feared. If you’ve got the right of it at all, it has to be
stopped. Or you could be the downfall of us all.”
To hear him speak the true magnitude of what I’d done froze me. I sat,
staring through him, to a horrible future in which everyone knew I’d
betrayed Gernia. Wittingly or unwittingly didn’t matter when one
contemplated that sort of treachery.
Duril leaned forward and jabbed me lightly with his finger. “Finish the
story, Nevare. Then we’ll think what we can do.”
When I had finished the whole telling, he nodded sagely and leaned back
in his chair. “Actually, I’ve heard about those Speck wizards, the big fat
ones. They call them Great Men. Or Great Women, I guess, though I never
heard of a female one. Fellow that spent most of his soldiering days out at
Gettys told me. He claimed he’d seen one, and to hear him tell it, the man
was the size of a horse, and proud as could be of it. That soldier told me
that a Great Man is supposed to be all filled up with magic, and that’s why
he’s so big.” I thought that over. “The Fat Man in the freak show claimed
he got so fat because he’d had Speck plague. And the doctor at the
academy, Dr. Amicas, said that putting on weight like this is a very rare
side effect from the plague, but not completely unknown. So how could
that have anything to do with magic?” Sergeant Duril shrugged. “What is
magic anyway? Do you understand it? I don’t. I know I’ve seen a few
things that I can’t explain in any way that makes sense or can be proved.
And maybe that’s why I say that they were magic. Look at the ‘keep fast’
charm. I don’t know how it works or why it should work. All I know is that
for a lot of years, it worked and it worked well. And lately it doesn’t seem
to work as well. So, maybe that magic is broken now. Maybe. Or maybe
I’m not as strong as I used to be when I tighten a cinch, or maybe my
cinch strap is getting old and worn. You could explain it away a thousand
ways, Nevare. Or maybe you can just say, ‘it was magic and it doesn’t work
anymore.’ Or maybe you could go to someone who believes in magic and
thinks he knows how it works and ask him.”
That last seemed a real proposal from him. “Who?” I asked him.
He crossed his arms on the table. “It all started with Dewara, didn’t it?”
“Ah, well.” I leaned back in his chair; it creaked a warning at me. I sat up
straight. “It’s useless to try and find him. My father tried for months, right
after he sent me home in shreds. Either none of his people knew where he
was, or they weren’t telling. My father offered rewards and made threats.
No one told him anything.”
“Maybe I know a different way of asking,” Duril suggested. “Sometimes
coin isn’t the best way to buy something. Sometimes you have to offer
more.”
“Such as what?” I demanded, but he shook his head and grinned, enjoying
that he knew more than I did. Looking back on it, I suspect the old soldier
had enjoyed being my teacher. Supervising men clearing a field of rocks
was no task for an old trooper like him. “Let me try a few things, Nevare.
I’ll let you know if I have any success.”
I nodded, refusing to hope. “Thanks for listening to me, Sergeant Duril. I
don’t think anyone else would have believed me.”
“Well, sometimes it’s flattering to have someone want to tell you
something. And you know, Nevare, I haven’t said I believed a word of any
of this. You have to admit it’s pretty far-fetched.”
“But—”
“And I haven’t said I disbelieve any of it, either.” He shook his head,
smiling at my confusion. “Nevare, I’ll tell you something. There’s more
than one way to look at the world. That’s what I was getting at, about the
magic. To us, it’s magic. Maybe to someone else, it’s as natural as rain
falling from clouds. And maybe to them, some of what we do is magic
because it doesn’t make reasonable sense in their world. Do you get what
I’m trying to tell you?” “Not really. But I’m trying.” I attempted a smile.
“I’m ready to try anything.
My only other idea was to run away east on Sirlofty. To the mountains.”
He snorted a laugh. “Run away to the mountains. And then what? Don’t be
a fool, Nevare. You stay here and you keep on trying. And let me try a few
things, too. Meanwhile, I suggest you do things your da’s way. Get out and
move. Show him you’re still Nevare, if you can. Don’t make him angrier
than he already is. In his own way, he’s a fair man. Try it his way, and if it
doesn’t work, maybe he’ll concede it’s not your fault.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“You know I am.”
I looked at him and nodded slowly. A spark had come back into his eyes.
Purpose burned there. Perhaps I had done as much for him by coming to
him as he had done for me by simply listening.
I thanked him, and there we left it for that night.

CHAPTER SEVEN
DEWARA
I knew when my father decided to inform everyone of my utter failure.
When I descended the stairs the next morning and went to the kitchen for
a quick bite of food, the servants already knew of my disgrace. Previously
they had treated me with a puzzled deference. I was a son of the
household, and if I chose to eat in the kitchen instead of with my family, it
was my own business. Now I sensed my diminished status, as if they had
been given permission to disdain me. I felt like a stray dog that had crept
in and was hoping to snare a few bites of stolen food. No one offered to
serve my meal to me; I was reduced to helping myself to whatever was
there and ready, and all the while stepping back and out of the way of
servants who suddenly found me invisible.
The gossip of the servants revealed that my brother and his new bride
would be returning that evening. There would be a welcoming dinner
tonight, and perhaps guests on the morrow. No one had bothered to tell
me any of this. The exclusion from the family news was as sharp as a knife
cut.
I left the house as soon as I could, taking a fishing pole from the shed and
going down to the river. I baited for the big river carp, some the size of a
hog, and each time I caught one, I battled it to the river’s edge and then
cut it free. I wasn’t after fish that day, but after something I could
physically challenge and defeat. After a time, even that ceased to occupy
me. The heat of the sun beat down on me and I started to get hungry. I
went back to my father’s manor.
I tried to go in quietly. I’m sure my father was laying in wait for me. The
moment I was through the entry, he appeared in the door of his study.
“Nevare. A word with you,” he said sternly.
I knew he expected me to follow him into the study. My Speck obstinacy
surfaced.
I stood where I was. “Yes, Father. What do you want of me?” He tightened
his lips and anger flared in his eyes “Very well, Nevare. It can as well be
said here. Your mother shared with me the wild tale you told her.” He
shook his head. “Was that the best excuse you could manufacture?
Mocking our god because you ruined your future? Now that you have
destroyed all your prospects and cannot return to the academy, you think
that we must support you for the rest of your days. I warn you, I will not
shelter and feed a lazy leech. In the doctor’s opinion, you are incapable of
soldiering for the king in your present condition. But I intend to change
your condition, while wringing some worthwhile work out of you, and
eventually I intend to send you off to enlist as a foot soldier. You will never
be an officer, but I will not support you in thwarting the good god’s plan
for you.”
I held up my hand, palm toward him. I met his gaze in a forthright
manner. “Simply tell me what tasks you want me to do. Spare me a
lecture I’ve already heard from you.”
His surprise only lasted for a moment. Then he gave me his list of dirty
tasks. All involved heavy labor and most had something to do with dirt,
excrement, or blood. A manor is like a farm, and tasks of those sort
abounded, but always before, he had assigned them to hirelings. Now he
chose them for me, and I was well aware it wasn’t because he thought I
could do them well but because he found them distasteful and therefore
assumed that I would. I lost most of the remaining respect I had for him
then. All the education he had poured into me, and in a fit of pique, he
would waste it. I did not let my thoughts show. I nodded to him gravely
and promised to begin my work. It involved a shovel and a lot of manure
and a farm wagon. Actually, it was fine with me, and in accord with what
Sergeant Duril had suggested, that was how I spent my afternoon. When I
judged I’d put in a fair day’s work, I left my task and walked down to a
shoal water of the river. Thick brush guarded the riverbank, but there was
a deer trail through it. The slower water in the shallows was sun-warmed.
I stripped and waded out and washed away the sweat and grime of my
work. I’d often swum here as a boy, but now it felt strange to stand naked
under the sun, even in such an isolated place. I was ashamed of my body
and afraid I’d be seen, I realized. The increased weight I carried brought
more problems than simply ill-fitting clothes. My feet ached just from
carrying my weight. I sweated more and smelled stronger after a day’s
labor. My clothing often chafed me. Nevertheless, after I’d sloshed water
over myself, it was restful to lie in the shallows and feel the contrast
between the warm sun on my skin and the cooler water flowing past me.
When I finally came out, I sat on a large rock and let the sun dry me before
dressing again. I’d regained a small measure of peace. I stole an evening
meal from the kitchen, much to the annoyance of the cooking staff. They
were overtaxed that night, serving an elaborate meal to my family and the
new daughter of the house. I wondered how my father would react if I
walked into the room in my rough, ill-fitting clothes and took a seat at the
table. There was probably no place set for me there. I ate a modest meal
sitting in a corner of the kitchen, and left.
That became the pattern of my days. I arose, chose a task from my father’s
list, and worked all day at it. He intended such work to humiliate me, but I
found it strangely satisfying. By my labor, I would either prove to my
father that my fat was a magical result of the plague, or I would regain my
former condition and perhaps be able to reclaim my place at the academy.
I pushed myself each day, deliberately striving to tax my body even beyond
the chores my father had given me. When frustration or humiliation
gnawed at me, I shoved them resolutely aside. This, I told myself, was
exactly what I needed to be doing. I ate frugally and worked my body
steadily. And it responded, though not as I had hoped. Beneath the fat, my
arms and legs bulked with new muscle. I gained stamina. I could lift more
weight than I’d ever been able to lift in my life. It was not easy. My heavy
body was unwieldy for a man accustomed to being lithe and limber. I had
to plan how I moved, and likewise plan my tasks. Strange to say, that, too,
was satisfying. I applied what I’d learned in my engineering. When my
father set me to building a stone wall to enclose a hog sty, I went at it as if
I were establishing a fortification, laying it out to grade, leveling the first
run of stone, making it wide at the base and less so at the top. I would
have felt more satisfaction if it had won approval from anyone besides
myself and the croaker bird that watched me all day. My father seldom
bothered to view what I accomplished every day. He had written me off as
a bad investment, like the peach trees that had gone to leaf curl and
insects. Rosse made no effort to see me, and I responded in kind. I became
invisible to my family. I still gave my mother “good day” if I saw her in
passing. I did not bother speaking to my sisters, and they were likewise
silent to me. I resolved that it did not bother me.
A simple life of arising, working, and going to bed held its own sort of
peace. The physical labor of each day was not nearly as demanding as my
studies at the academy. I wondered if other men lived this way, rising,
working, eating, and sleeping with barely a thought beyond doing the
same thing the next day. I’ll confess that I felt a strange attraction to such
a simple life. When a week had passed by and I’d heard nothing from
Sergeant Duril, I sought him out one afternoon. When he opened his door
to my knock, the first words he said were, “You didn’t tell me you’d been
kicked out of the academy for being fat!” I couldn’t tell if he was outraged
on my behalf or angry with me for holding back information.
I spoke evenly, without anger. “That’s because it isn’t true.”
He stared at me, waiting.

“Dr. Amicas gave me a medical discharge from the academy. I wasn’t
kicked out. He felt I couldn’t serve as a cavalla officer as I am. If I manage
to regain my old shape, I’ll be able to continue my studies.” I wasn’t sure of
that, but I had to hold onto the hope or sink into despair.

Duril stood back from his door and motioned me in. His apartments were
stuffy after the sunny day, even with the door left ajar. I took a seat at his
table. Slowly he sat down across from me and admitted, “I took a lot of
pride in your being at the academy. It meant a lot to me to think of you
being there and being one of them, and knowing just as much as any of
them fancy city boys, thanks to what I’d taught you.”
That took me by surprise. I’d never paused to consider that my success
might mean a personal triumph to Sergeant Duril. “I’m sorry,” I said
quietly. “I was doing well until this befell me. And once I’ve straightened it
out and returned to the academy, I’ll do you proud. I promise.”
As if his first admission had opened a door, he suddenly added, “You never
wrote to me. I had sort of hoped for a letter from you.”
That surprised me even more. “I thought you couldn’t read!” I said, and
then flinched at how blunt my words were.
“I could have had someone read it to me,” he retorted testily. After a pause
he added, “I sent you a letter. When I heard you’d been sick and nearly
died.”
“I know. It reached me right before I came home. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said stiffly. He looked away from me as he added,
“I’m not an educated man, Nevare. I’m not even, as you well know, a
proper soldier son, born to the career. What I know about soldiering, I
taught myself or learned the hard way. And I did my best to pass it on to
you. I wanted you to be an officer that, well, understood what it was to
really be a soldier. Not the kind of man who sits in his tent and orders
men to go out and do what he couldn’t or wouldn’t do himself. Someone
who knew what it was like to have to go a couple of days with no water for
yourself or your horse, someone who knew about the salt and sweat of
soldiering for himself. So you could be a good officer.”
And here was another man I’d failed. My heart sank, but I tried not to let
it show. “You didn’t waste your time, Sergeant Duril. I’ve no intention of
giving up my career. Even if I have to enlist as a common soldier and rise
as a ranker, I’m determined to do it.” As I said those words, I was a bit
surprised to find how deeply I meant them.
He cocked his head at me. “Well. I guess I can’t ask more of you than that,
Nevare.” He smiled suddenly, pleased with himself. “And I think you can’t
ask more of me than what I have for you. Fancy an evening ride?”
“I’m not averse to it,” I replied. “Where are we going?”
His smiled broadened. “You’ll see.” He went back into his apartments, and
then emerged with a fat set of saddlebags slung over his shoulder. I
wanted to ask what was in them, but I knew he was enjoying making his
revelations as we went along. I held my tongue.
It had been some days since I’d ridden Sirlofty. Ever a willing mount, he
reached for the bit, eager to go. Duril had the use of a clay-colored gelding.
As we stood together in the paddock, saddling our mounts, we both
glanced at each other. Then, as one, we made the “keep fast” sign over the
cinches. I feared it would soon be an empty ritual, with no more true
power than the acorns that some troopers carried for luck in finding shade
at the day’s end. We mounted, he took the lead, and I followed.
We struck the river road and traveled east for a short way before Duril
turned his horse away from the river to follow a dusty, rutted trail. We
topped a small rise, and in the distance I saw the Bejawi village. An
upthrust of stone granted it some respite from the endless sweep of the
prairie winds. Brush grew in the shelter of the stone barrier, and even a
few trees. My father had chosen the location for it and laid out the original
village for them. My father’s men had built the dozen houses that stood in
two neat rows. At least twice that number of traditional Bejawi tents
surrounded the houses. “Is that where we’re going? The Bejawi village?”
Duril gave a nod, silently watching me.
“Why?”
“Talk to some Kidona there.”
“In the Bejawi village? What are they doing there? Kidona and Bejawi are
traditional enemies. And the Kidona don’t have villages. The only reason
the Bejawi live here is that my father built it for them and they had
nowhere else to go.”
“And wasn’t that a rousing success?” Duril asked with quiet sarcasm. I
knew what he meant, but I was still a bit shocked to hear him say
something even mildly negative about my father.
In the era before the Gernian expansion the Plainspeople had been
nomads.
Different tribes followed different livelihoods. Some herded sheep or goats.
Others followed the migrations of the herd deer that roamed the plains
and plateaus, supplementing that meat with the seasonal gardens they
planted in one season and harvested in another. Some of them built
temporary mud huts along the river, little caring that they did not last
long. The Plainspeople had few towns or what we Gernians would
recognize as one. They built a few monuments, such as the Dancing
Spindle. They kept rendezvous points where they came together each year
to trade and negotiate marriages and truces, but for the most part they
wandered. To a Gernian eye, it meant that the plains remained an empty
place, unclaimed and scarcely used by the migratory folk who
criss-crossed it in patterns that were generations old. Such land was ripe
for settling, awaiting development of its full potential. The Plainsmen, I
suspected, saw it differently.
Our “tame” Bejawi, as my father referred to them, were an experiment
that had largely failed. He went into it with good intentions. When he set
out to save them, the Bejawi had been reduced to mostly women, children,
and old men. The Bejawi had been herders; killing their herds and a
generation of their men had been the fastest way to subdue them.
Deprived of their livelihood, the Bejawi were reduced to being thieves and
beggars. My father took them in. Not all of them were willing to surrender
their old ways in exchange for what he offered. My father bribed them
with his promise that he would not let them starve. He had a village built
for them, two rows of simple sturdy cottages. He gave them two teams of
oxen, a plow, and seed for a crop.
Within two weeks, they had eaten the oxen and most of the seed grain. He
then gave them goats, with far better success. Perhaps the goats reminded
them of the woolly antelope they had once tended. Those creatures were
extinct now, slaughtered during our running battles with the Bejawi. The
boys took the goats to pasture each day and brought them back. The
animals yielded meat, hides, and milk. When last I had discussed them
with my father, he admitted that he still had to supplement their food
supplies, but that some of the women were learning to make a cheese that
he hoped they would be able to market. But in other areas, his success was
more tarnished. A people who had no traditions of living in a settled
village, they were used to moving on when a piece of land became tired of
them.
The “village” stank. The smell of it hung on the still summer air. The tidy
little cottages my father had erected with such pride were now derelict
shacks. The Bejawi had no concept of how to maintain them. After several
seasons of hard use had ruined the cottages, they had returned to their
tents and set up a secondary settlement around the row of cottages. Offal
and garbage, a problem that nomads left behind for the elements and
scavengers to deal with, were heaped between the moldering cottages or
piled into noxious waste pits. The children played in the garbage-strewn
street, tangle-haired moppets with scabby faces and dirty hands. Few of
the young men stayed once they became adults. Too many of the girls went
to Franner’s Bend to work as whores as soon as they were developed
enough to pass themselves off as women. They returned to the village with
their half-blood offspring when their brief blossoming of beauty had been
eroded by the hard life of a post whore. The village my father had built
never developed beyond houses to live in. There was no store, no school,
nothing that offered the people anything beyond eating and sleeping
indoors. It was a place where people waited, but did not know what they
were waiting for. Yet the Bejawi were not a foolish people, nor were they
stupid. They were not even a dirty people when they followed their own
ways. They had been dealt a hard blow by fate, and had not, as yet,
discovered how to recover. I wondered if they ever would, or if they would
vanish, leaving only a legend of what they had once been. Once they had
been a proud folk, renowned for their beauty and handiwork.
I had read accounts of them written by Darsio, a merchant trader who
had bartered with the Plainspeople in the old days before the Gernian
expansion. His writing always made me wish I had been alive then. The
descriptions of the Bejawi men in their flowing white robes mounted on
their swift horses leading their people, while the women, the children, and
the elderly followed, some shepherding the animals and others on the sand
sleds pulled by their sturdier draft animals, were the stuff of epic poetry.
The women manufactured beads from a certain petrified tree stone, and
this jewelry had been the trade good that Darsio had sought from them.
They made delicate ornaments from bird bone and feathers, charmed to
bring good luck to the owner. Every woman of marriageable age wore a
veritable cloak of beads and ornaments and bells. Some of the cloaks,
Darsio wrote, were passed down for generations. The children, he wrote,
were exceptionally beautiful, open-faced and bold, easily laughing, the
treasure of their people. The Bejawi flocks were a peculiar heavy-bodied
antelope, prized for the thick undercoat they grew for the winter and shed
in spring. This lightweight, warm wool was the basis of Bejawi textiles at
the time of Darsio’s writings. The first time I had visited the Bejawi village
with my father, that romantic image was what I had expected to see. I had
come away disappointed and oddly shamed. I had no wish to visit the
village again, but my curiosity was piqued by Sergeant Duril’s assertion
that Kidona were there. I knew the Bejawi hated the Kidona with a
loathing that went back generations. Every creature has a predator that
preys on it. The Bejawi had the Kidona. The Kidona did not herd or
harvest or hunt. They raided. They had always been raiders, descending on
trading caravans or summer villages, or they stole, creeping up on herds,
flocks, and tents to take whatever they needed. By their tradition, it was
their right to do so. They traveled constantly on their potbellied
striped-legged taldi, creatures that had little of a horse’s beauty, but even
less of a horse’s weaknesses.
Dewara had been Kidona. I touched the double ridges on my ear, the
healed scars from the notches he’d cut there when I’d disobeyed him. The
man had starved and brutalized me, and then, in a turnabout that still
baffled me, he had befriended me and attempted to induct me into his
people’s culture and religion. He’d drugged me into a shamanic trance,
and in that trance I had first encountered Tree Woman. That spirit
journey had changed my life and warped my concept of reality. All of it
had been my father’s doing. He hadn’t really wanted me to be Dewara’s
student so much as he’d hoped Dewara’s harsh treatment of me would
finally force me to make my own decisions and stand on my own two feet.
Well, I supposed it had, but not in the way my father had hoped, nor in
any way that had brought me confidence or satisfaction in my life. I had
come to a deep understanding of Kidona ways before Dewara and I had
parted. Theirs was a strange morality, in which the clever thief was held in
high esteem, and the clumsy one could claim no protection from anyone’s
vengeance. Dewara paid great respect to any man who could beat him,
and disdained any fellow he could dominate. Prosperity was the equivalent
of the blessing of his strange gods, and thus the opinion of a wealthy man
was not to be disputed, while a poor man, no matter how experienced or
kindly, was seen as a fool, unloved by the gods. Despite their skewed
beliefs, or perhaps because of them, the Kidona were a tough, resourceful,
and savagely efficient people. Even though Dewara had damaged my life, I
grudgingly admired him, in the same way that one might admire any
exceptionally competent predator, without any element of fondness or
trust.
Sergeant Duril hadn’t answered my most important question. I asked it
again.
“Why are Kidona in the Bejawi village?”
Sergeant Duril cleared his throat. “I suppose your father didn’t write to
you about it. It was an ugly incident, while you were away at school. Not
too long after you’d left, farms around here began to lose stock. At first we
thought it was wolves returning to this territory. Then someone pointed
out that wolves leave carcasses, and we hadn’t found any. The Bejawi were
blamed at first, because of some trouble awhile back, but there was no
sign of them having more meat than they should.
“Well, when the dust settled, it turned out that Kidona were up to their old
tricks. A band of them camping mostly out of sight of settled places had
been raiding flocks and herds and gardens. They got bold and took a dozen
yearlings from a herd that belonged to the garrison at Franner’s Bend. The
commander there didn’t take kindly to it and sent some of the fellows out
to track down the raiders and teach them a lesson.” Sergeant Duril’s tone
was light, but his face was grim. “The soldiers at Franner’s Bend…well, you
know how it is; you’ve seen the place. Those troopers never see any real
action. It’s a soft post. And in a way that makes the recruits antsy for it,
and when they do have a reason to crack down on something, they get
carried away, as if they have to prove they’re as tough as real soldiers out
on the border. Well, they got carried away with the Kidona raiding party
they tracked down. Killed them all, and that was just about every male
that wasn’t still sucking on a titty. Well, that stirred up trouble with the
other Kidona groups that were in the area. Especially when it come out
that the group our troopers had slaughtered hadn’t stolen the cows
themselves. They’d traded for them with the thieves. So we had troopers
slaughtering ‘innocent’ Kidonas, and the other Kidona in the area on the
verge of an uprising.”
“Why didn’t they just buy them off? The Kidona feel no shame about
taking blood money.”
He nodded. “That’s what we did. But that left the women and tykes from
the dead raiders to provide for. You know the Kidona. Practical and hard
as stone. The survivors had nothing left in the way of resources. No taldi,
no sheep, tents burned. The other groups of Kidona saw them as a
liability. They didn’t want to take them in, but they didn’t want to see
them starve, either. So this was the compromise. Your father said the
Franner’s Bend commander could settle them here, as long as he supplied
shelters, food, and a pair of taldi for them to get started with again.” He
shook his head. “Putting Kidona in a village. That’s like putting your foot
in a hat.”
I could easily distinguish the cottages and tents of the Bejawi from the
shelters of the Kidona newcomers. There was not one village but two,
forced into proximity. A line had literally been drawn, a row of stones and
trash set as a boundary between the Bejawi area and the four military
tents given to the Kidona survivors. As we approached, a Bejawi youth
came to his feet. He appeared to be about fourteen and wore what looked
like a dirty nightshirt and a drooping hat felted from goat hair. His pale
eyes fixed on us accusingly as we approached. He leaned on a stave,
watching us silently, no sign of welcome on his face. When Duril reined his
horse toward the Kidona area, the young man sat back down and
pointedly ignored us.
“Have they always kept a sentry like that?” I asked Duril. “Doubt it. I
think he’s there to keep an eye on the Kidona, not us. But I could be
wrong. I don’t come here unless I have to. It’s depressing.” It was. We rode
past the wall of garbage that fenced the Kidona from the Bejawi
settlement. The insult was obvious. Equally obvious was the misery of the
Kidona tent village. The thin wailing of children was as pervasive as the
ripe smell of the rubbish. The tents were pitched with military precision,
so the troopers had at least set up the shelters for the widows and
orphans. There were two cook fires, one burning and one a nest of banked
coals. Sticks had been wedged against boulders to form a sort of drying
rack, and two blankets festooned the ramshackle invention. About ten
women, all middle-aged, sat on makeshift benches in front of the tent. One
sat and rocked from side to side, droning a song under her breath. Three
of them were employed in tearing old rags into long strips that one of
them was braiding. I surmised they were making rag rugs to soften the
tent floor. The others sat, empty-handed and still. Several taldi, one a
pregnant mare, grazed on whatever they could find at the edge of the
campsite. A scatter of children idled in the area around the cook fires.
Two were toddlers who sat bawling near a granny’s feet. She did not
appear to be paying any attention to their cries. Three girls of seven or
eight years of age were playing a game with pebbles and lines drawn in the
dirt. Their faces were dirty, and their braids looked like fuzzy blond ropes.
A single boy of thirteen sat by himself and glared at us as we approached.
I wondered how he had survived and what would become of him in this
settlement of old women and children. When we dismounted, all activity
ceased. Duril took his saddlebags from his horse’s back and slung them
over his shoulder. “Follow me and be quiet,” Sergeant Duril instructed me.
“Don’t look at anyone.” I did as he told me. They stared at my body and a
slow flush crept up my cheeks, but I didn’t make eye contact with any of
them. Duril walked up to the granny and her howling charges. He spoke
Jindobe, the trade language of the plains. “I bring you fat meat.” He
lowered the saddlebags to the ground and opened them. He took out a side
of bacon wrapped in cheesecloth and offered it to her. Her mouth
twitched, carrying her chin with it. Then she lifted her old blue eyes to his
and said, “I have nothing to cut it with.”
He didn’t pause. He unhooked his belt and slid both knife and sheath from
it. He offered them to her. She stared long at the proffered gift, as if
weighing what she lost by taking it against what she gained. The boy had
drawn closer and was watching the exchange intently. He said something
in rapid Kidona. In response, she made a quick flipping gesture with her
hand, as if throwing something aside. His face set in an expression of
anger, but he made not a sound as she took the knife and sheath from the
sergeant. Turning, she handed it immediately to the woman next to her.
“Cut meat to cook for the children,” she said. Then she stood up, grunting
with the effort. She stepped over the small children, who had never ceased
their wailing, turned, and went into the tent behind her. We followed. It
was a gray canvas barracks tent, long and wide, with side walls. It was dim
and stuffy inside the tent. To one side, there was a row of army blankets
arranged as pallets. On the other side, there were several casks of
hardtack, a tub of dried corn, and a wooden crate of withered and
sprouted potatoes. Neatly arranged beside these donations were the
remnants of their former lives. Tin and copper cooking pots were stacked
beside a row of baked clay jars and plates next to folded bedding with the
characteristic Kidona stripes. They had cut a flap in the side wall of the
tent. She unpegged the sewn strips that had fastened it shut, and sat down
beside the small rectangle of light and fresh air it admitted. After a
moment, Sergeant Duril sat down facing her and I took my place beside
him. “Did you bring it?” she asked him. I thought the bacon had been his
bribe, but evidently that had only been for show. He reached into his shirt
and took out his wallet. He opened it, and took out something I recognized
from my childhood. I’d only seen it once before, but it was not a thing to
forget. He held out the darkened and shriveled ear on his palm. Without
hesitation, she took it.
She held it to the light, and then brought it close to her eyes, examining it
closely. I was surprised when she sniffed it, but tried not to show my
disgust. I knew the tale. In a moment of youthful rage, Sergeant Duril had
taken the ear as a trophy from the body of a warrior he’d killed. In the
same fracas, he’d gained the scar that had severed part of his own ear.
He’d once told me that he was ashamed of cutting off the dead warrior’s
ear, and would have undone the deed if he could. But he couldn’t return it
to the body for decent burial, and he’d felt it would be wrong to discard it.
Perhaps he’d finally found a way to be rid of it. She held it in her hand,
looking down at it with a contemplative air. Then she nodded decisively.
She rose and went to the tent door. She shouted something, a name, I
guessed, and when the boy came, she spoke to him rapidly. He argued
back, and she slapped him. That seemed to settle his disagreement. He
looked past her at us.
“I’ll take you now,” he said in Jindobe. And that was all he said. By the
time we were mounted, he was on a taldi stallion and riding out of the
camp. We had to hurry the horses to catch up with him. He didn’t look
back to see if we followed him, and never spoke another word to us.
Instead he rode inland, away from the camp and toward the broken lands
where the plains gave way to the plateaus. He kneed his taldi into a gallop.
If he followed a trail or path, I could not see it, but he never hesitated as
he led us on. As the shadows grew longer, I began to question the wisdom
of what we were doing. “Where are we going?” I finally asked Sergeant
Duril.
“To see Dewara,” he said curtly.
It hit me like one of Duril’s ambush rocks when I was a boy. “We can’t be.
My father did everything he could to find Dewara after he dragged me
home. There was no sign of him, and the Kidona said they didn’t know
where he went or what became of him.”
Sergeant Duril shrugged. “They lied. Back then, Dewara was something of
a hero for what he’d done to your father’s son. But petty glory is faded, and
Dewara has fallen on hard times. That woman back there believed me
when I said I’d give her brother’s ear back to her if she’d give us Dewara.”
I rode for a time in shocked silence. Then, “How did you know it was her
brother’s ear?”
“I don’t. But it could have been. I left it up to her to decide.” We followed
the boy into a narrow, steep-sided canyon. It was a perfect site for an
ambush, and I rode with a chilly spot on my back. The boy’s taldi still had
a good lead on us. He started up a narrow path across a rock face and I
had to rein Sirlofty back to follow Duril’s horse up the treacherous way. I
was becoming more and more dubious of our mission. If the boy was
leading us to another Kidona encampment, I didn’t like the odds. But
Sergeant Duril appeared calm, if watchful. I tried to emulate him.
There was another switchback in the trail, very tight for our horses, and
then the ground suddenly leveled out. We had reached a long, narrow
ledge that jutted out from the rock face. As soon as Duril and I were out of
the way, the boy turned his taldi and silently started back down the path.
Before us was a patched tent set up with a neat stack of firewood beside it.
A blackened kettle hung from a tripod over a small smokeless fire. I
smelled simmering rabbit. Dewara stood looking at us with no trace of
surprise on his face. He had seen us coming. No one could approach this
aerie without his being aware of it. He was a changed man from the
tough warrior I’d known. His clothing was worn and rumpled; dust stood
in the ridges of the fabric. His dingy long-sleeved robe reached just past
his hips and was belted with a plain strip of leather. The brown trousers
he wore beneath it were faded to white at the knees and frayed at the
cuffs. His swanneck hung at his hip, but the hair sheath looked dirty and
frayed. The man himself had aged, and not well. Four years had passed
since I had last seen him, but to look at him, it had been twenty. His gray
eyes, once so keen, had begun to cloud with cataract. He had a stoop in his
back. He had allowed his hair to grow, and it hung in a thin
yellowish-white fringe to his shoulders. He licked his lips, giving us a brief
glimpse of his filed teeth. No fear showed in his face as he greeted me.
“Well. Soldier’s son. You come back to me. You want a new notch in your
ear, maybe?” His bravado did not fool me. Even his voice had aged, and
the bitterness in it surprised me. Sergeant Duril had not dismounted, and
he did not speak. I sensed he deferred to me, but I didn’t know what to say
or do. The old Kidona warrior looked shriveled and small. I remembered
belatedly that when I first met him, he had been shorter than I, and I had
grown since then. But that was my “real-life” memory of him. In the far
more vivid dream memory, he had been much taller than I, and had the
head of a hawk and feathered arms. I struggled to reconcile those
memories with the withered man who stood squinting up at me. I think
that puzzle kept me from feeling any one emotion clearly.
I dismounted and walked up to him. Behind me, I heard Sergeant Duril do
the same. He stood behind my shoulder when I halted, allowing me this
battle. Dewara had to look up at me. Good. I stared down at him and
spoke sternly. “I want to know what you did to me, Dewara. Tell me now,
without riddles or mockery. What happened to me that night when you
said you would make me Kidona?” My Jindobe had come back to me
without hesitation. I felt as if I had leapfrogged back through the years to
confront the man who had abused, befriended, and then nearly killed me.
He grinned, his pointed teeth shiny with saliva. “Oh, look at you, fat man.
So brave now. So big. Still knowing nothing. Still wishing you were
Kidona. Eh?” I towered over him, dwarfing him in girth as well as height.
Still he did not fear me. I summoned all my disdain. “If you are Kidona,
then I do not wish to be Kidona.” I drew on all my knowledge of his people
to make my insults sting. “Look at you. You are poor! I see no women
here, no taldi, no smoke rack of meat. The gods despise you.”
I saw my words hit him like flung stones. Shame tried to stir in me, that I
would attack someone in his situation, but I held it down. He was not
beaten. If I wanted to wring answers from him, I must first dominate him.
From some depth of courage in his soul, he summoned a grin and
retorted, “Yet I am still Kidona. And you, you are still her plaything. Look
at you, all swollen up with her magic like a sore toe full of pus. The fat old
woman claimed you, and made you her puppet.”
His words jabbed me and I retorted without thinking, “Her puppet? Her
plaything? I think not. I did what you could not do. I crossed the bridge,
and with the iron magic of my people, I laid her belly open. I defeated her,
old man. What you could not do, even using me as your tool, I did alone.” I
struck a pose I remembered from our days together. I threw out my chest
and lifted my head high, the same posture he had held whenever he
wished to express how far above me he was. “I have always been stronger
than you, Dewara. Even when I lay unconscious before you, you still dared
not kill me.”
I watched him, trying to gauge his weakness in this battle of exchanged
brags. To the west of us, the sun was dying in a welter of reds and purples.
It was hard to read his features in the fading light. Perhaps a shadow of
doubt brushed Dewara’s eyes, but he brazened it out. “I could have killed
you if I wished,” he said disdainfully. “It would have been like crushing a
hatchling in the nest. I thought of it. You were useless to me. You claim to
have killed her? Well, where is your proof? You brag like a child. When I
sent you against her, you fell like a child. I witnessed that! The weakness of
your people made you fail, not my Kidona magic. You were not strong of
heart; you did not have the will to do what you should have done. If you
had not spoken to the guardian, if you had rushed forward and killed her
as I commanded, then all of our lives would be better now. But no! You are
so wise, soldier’s boy, you think you know more than a Kidona warrior.
You look, you think, Oh, just an old woman, so you talk, talk, talk, and all
the while her wormy white roots sink into you. Look at you now, like a fat
grub from under a rotting log. You will never be a warrior. And you will
ever belong to her. She will puff you up full with her magic, and when you
are full, you will do whatever her magic makes you do. Or maybe you have
already done it. Has the magic turned you against your own people?” He
laughed triumphantly and pointed a crooked finger at me. “Look at you! I
didn’t need to kill you. Better to leave you alive. Think. Is there a better
revenge on your father? Fat one! You belong to the Dappled People now.
You’ll never be a soldier. Your father put iron in me to kill my magic. But I
had enough magic left in me to give his son to my other enemy. I had
enough magic to make my enemies become the enemies of each other.
Long after I am dead, you will fight and kill one another. The corpses you
make will pile up at my feet in whatever afterlife I am banished to.”
I cannot describe how his words affected me. I had expected him to
profess ignorance of everything I said. I hadn’t wanted him to admit that
somehow we had shared that dream, and that he recalled as clearly as I
did what the Tree Woman had done to me. He had just confirmed my
worst fears. A terrible cold welled up inside me. I crossed my arms on my
chest and held myself tightly, afraid I would start shivering. The last walls
inside me were breaking; it felt as if cold blood were leaking inside my gut.
I gritted my teeth to keep them from chattering. My heart thundered in
my chest. Then, out of that turmoil, a terrible black calm emerged in me. I
spoke in a soft voice I scarcely recognized.
“You still lost, Kidona. You lost to her and you lost to me. I went to your
Dancing Spindle. I am the one who put the iron in the Spindle’s path. I am
the one who destroyed the Plains magic. You can no longer draw on its
strength. I made you an old man. It is done, Kidona. Done forever. You
cling to shreds and threads, but the fabric is gone. And I come here
tonight to tell you, I am the one who tore it from your people and left you
cold and shivering in the dark. I, Soldier’s Boy of the People. Look at me,
Dewara. Look at the end of your magic and your folk.”
There paraded across his face such a progression of emotions that they
were almost laughable. He did not comprehend what I said, and then
suddenly he did. Disbelief dawned on his face, and then I saw him admit
the truth of what I’d told him. I’d killed his magic, and the knowledge of
that was killing him. His face turned a terrible color and he made a
strangling noise. I never even saw him draw his swanneck. Foolish me, I
had never thought it would come to blows. Aged he might be, but fury
renewed his strength and speed. The curved blade swept through the air
toward me, the bronze catching the red of the firelight and the sunset, as
if it were already bloodied. I skipped back, feeling the wind of its passage
in front of my face. As I drew my own sword, Dewara, his face purpling
with effort, leapt forward. All the weight of his hatred was behind the
sharpened blade. I had scarcely cleared my own sword of its scabbard
before the tip of his swanneck sank into my belly. I felt the sharp bite of it,
felt the ripping of my shirt as the fabric gave way to the metal and then,
oddly, nothing. I grunted and my sword fell from my hands as I clutched
at my gut as he pulled his weapon free of me. I stood there, my hands
clutched over my wound, feeling blood seep out through my shirt and
between my fingers. Shock stilled me. What a stupid way to die, I thought
as he swept his blade back for the strike that would behead me. His lips
were pulled back from his pointed teeth and his eyes bulged out of his
head. I thought how disgusted my father would be with his soldier son for
dying in such an ignominious fashion. The explosion behind me jolted me
with a shock of light and sound. The impact of multiple balls striking
Dewara’s chest stopped him in midlunge. For an instant, he hung
suspended, caught between his momentum and the stopping power of the
lead. Then he fell like a puppet with his strings cut, his swanneck
bouncing free of his nerveless hand as he struck the earth. I knew he was
dead before his body even fell to the ground.
There was a moment that seemed to last as long as a whole day. The
sulfurous stench of black powder hung in the air. The magnitude of so
many things happening at once paralyzed me. I stood, clutching my belly,
knowing that a gut wound could fester and kill me as surely as being
beheaded. I could not comprehend my injury, any more than I could grasp
that Dewara sprawled dead at my feet. I’d never seen a man shot to death.
Instantaneous death was shocking enough, but Dewara had been more
than just a man to me. He’d figured in my most horrendous nightmares.
He’d nearly killed me, but he had also taught me and shared food and
water with me. He had been an important figure in my life, and when he
died, a significant part of my experiences died with him. Of all that we
had experienced together, I alone remained to recall it. And I might die.
My own blood sang in my ears.
As if from the distance, I heard Sergeant Duril say, “Well, I didn’t think
much of this at first, but now I’m glad I bought it. The shopkeeper called it
a pepperpot. Guess I peppered him, didn’t I?”
He stepped past me to crouch over Dewara’s body. Then he stood up with
a grunt and came toward me. “He’s dead. Are you all right, Nevare? He
didn’t get you, did he?”
Duril still held a small, multiple-barreled gun in his hand. I’d heard of
them, but I’d never seen one before. They were good only at short range,
but fired several balls at once, making it more likely that even without a
chance to aim, you’d hit your target somewhere. My father had spoken of
them as a coward’s weapon, something that a high-priced whore or a table
gambler might carry concealed in a sleeve. I was surprised that Sergeant
Duril would carry such a weapon. Surprised, and very glad.
“I’m not sure,” I said. There wasn’t much pain. But I’d heard that the
shock of a wound could keep a man from feeling pain at first. I turned
away from Duril and staggered a few steps toward the fire, fumbling at the
front of my shirt as I went. It seemed a private thing; I wanted to be alone
when I discovered how bad it was. I managed to unbutton my shirt and
pull it open just as he caught up with me.
“Good god, help us!” he muttered, and it was a prayer the way he said it.
Before I could stop him, he leaned forward to probe the injury with his
fingers. “Oh, thank all that’s holy. It’s just a jab, Nevare. You’re hardly
hurt at all. A flesh wound. And there was a lot of flesh there to wound,
begging your pardon. Oh, thank the good god! What would I have said to
your da before he killed me?” His knees seemed to give out on him and he
sank down to sit beside Dewara’s fire. I turned a bit away from him,
strangely embarrassed that I was not hurt more severely. I wiped my
bloodied hands on my shirt and then gritted my teeth as I prodded at the
cut on my belly. The sergeant was right. It was scarcely bleeding now. I felt
humiliated that such a minor injury could have stopped me in my tracks
and made me drop my own sword. A fine soldier son I was! The first time I
actually faced an enemy in combat, the old man had disarmed me with a
minor poke in the gut. The thought of my own proud sword lying in the
dust shamed me. I went to retrieve it.
The light was going rapidly. I found my blade by touch, sheathed it, and
then stooped to pick up Dewara’s swanneck. For one boyish instant, I
thought of keeping it as a trophy. In the next, I felt repulsed by such a
vainglorious thought. I hadn’t even killed the man who’d wielded it. I
shifted it in the firelight, and watched as it illuminated the gleaming
bronze blade. Then I went queasy at what I saw. A full four fingers of the
blade’s tip was bloodied. It had gone that deep. With my free hand, I
groped at my injury. No. There was almost no pain.
It made no sense.
I carried the swanneck back to the fire where I could look at it more
clearly. Sergeant Duril was recovering from his fright at my injury. He
stood up as I approached the fire. “Leave that!” he ordered me harshly.
“Leave everything, just as it is. We need to get down that trail before it
gets any darker.” He walked away from me. I stood alone in the firelight
and stared at my blood on the blade. I lied to myself, pretending that
perhaps it had run there. I knew it hadn’t. The swanneck had pierced me,
had gone right into my gut. And my flesh had simply closed itself when he
pulled it free. The blade fell from my hand and landed in the flames. I
turned and walked away from it. I didn’t look at Dewara’s body as I
passed. When Duril announced, “We’re leading the horses down the trail,
at least as far as the switchback,” I didn’t argue with him. Instead, I
followed him just as trustingly as I had always followed him when I was a
boy.
I didn’t dwell on what we left behind us. I doubted that either the boy or
the old woman would admit to anyone that they had betrayed Dewara’s
hiding place. Even if they did, even if we were connected to his death, he
had attacked me, and Duril had saved my life. It felt strange to leave him
lying where he had fallen, but it would have felt even more wrong to take
his body and bury it elsewhere.
Darkness filled the narrow canyon like water fills a bucket. “Can you
ride?”
Sergeant Duril asked me gruffly.
“I’ll be fine. It wasn’t much more than a scratch.” I hesitated, and then
asked him, “Are you going to report this to my father?”

“I’m not going to report this to anyone. Neither are you.”
“Yes sir,” I said, relieved to have that decision taken from me so firmly.
We mounted our horses and he led the way back toward home. We rode
without speaking through the deeply shadowed canyon. When we emerged
onto the plain, we came back out of night into evening. The last light of
the setting sun still washed red across the flatlands. Duril stirred his
mount to a faster pace and I pushed Sirlofty up alongside him. He didn’t
turn to look at me when he spoke.
“Well. You got what you were after?”
“I did and I didn’t. Dewara’s dead. I wasn’t after that, not really. But I
don’t think he would have let it end any other way, once he knew what I’d
done. But I don’t think I solved anything tonight. I’m still fat. According to
Dewara, I’m still in Tree Woman’s power.” I shook my head wildly. “And it
all sounds like a strange old tale told by a fireside. How can I believe
anything so bizarre?” He didn’t say anything. I kept my eyes straight
ahead as I pondered everything that had happened. “He knew,” I said at
last. “Dewara knew what had happened in my dream. And he couldn’t
possibly know that unless he was there. And to him, it was just as real as
our visit today. According to what he believed, the Tree Woman somehow
enslaved me with her magic and doomed me to be, to be—this!” I could
scarcely contain my disgust. “If I believe him, I’m doomed to be this for
the rest of my life, and perhaps worse things will befall me. Maybe I will go
on to betray all of Gernia!”
“Easy, boy. Don’t give yourself too much importance,” Duril warned me, a
sour touch of humor in his voice. It jabbed me.
“But if I don’t believe him, if I say magic doesn’t exist or has no power over
me, well, then, none of it makes sense. Then there’s no reason for me being
fat, and that makes it even harder for me to know what I’m going to do
about it. How do I manage it, Sergeant? What do I do? Believe Dewara’s
truth, and give up because the magic will use me as it wills, or believe in
my father’s world, where I don’t know why I got fat and nothing I do seems
to change it?”
“Hold up a minute,” he suggested. He reined his horse in and I pulled
Sirlofty to a halt beside him. He dismounted and tightened his cinch.
“Came loose coming down that trail,” he observed. Then he looked up at
me, squinting his eyes against the fading sunset. “Never used to do that,
Nevare. The ‘keep fast’ charm held it tight. And now it doesn’t. That’s
proof enough for me. The Plains magic is fading. Will you think me a fool
if I say I’m sorry to see it go?”
“I’ll never think you a fool, Sergeant Duril. But are you saying that you
believe in magic? You believe I went somewhere with Dewara and that
Tree Woman stole part of my soul, and that I took it back and killed her?
And you believe that my being fat is not my fault but the magic affecting
me?” Duril mounted his horse again. He didn’t say anything as he kicked
him to a trot. I started Sirlofty after him, and in a few moments we were
cantering. Before full night fell, we were back on the river road. We went
more slowly in the dark, and finally he answered me.
“Nevare, I don’t know how to tell you what to believe. On the Sixday, I
worship the good god, same as you. But every time I saddled my horse for
the past thirty years, I’ve made the ‘keep fast’ sign over my cinch. I’ve seen
a wind wizard, and I’ve seen gunpowder send a bullet on its way. I don’t
really understand how either one worked. I guess what I believe in is
whatever works best for me at that time. I think most men are like that.”
“What am I going to do, Sergeant?” I didn’t expect him to have an answer.
I was shocked when he did. His voice was grim.
“We both have to pray to the good god that you can find a way to turn the
magic against itself, I suppose.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
JUDGMENT
It was past full dark before Sergeant Duril and I reached home. We put
our own horses up and said a subdued good night outside the stable.
“Clean up that gash before you go to bed,” he warned me, and I promised I
would. A gash. I knew Dewara had thrust his swanneck into me. It still
hurt, but less than my arse and back hurt from the long ride. I went in
through the servants’ entrance and stopped at the kitchen.
A single lamp was burning there, the wick turned low. The usually bustling
room was deserted and quiet. The kneading table was wiped clean of flour
and the food all stored away in crocks or covered with clean cloths. The
room was still uncomfortably warm from the day’s cooking. The week’s
baking of bread was set out in fragrant round-topped loaves on the
counter. The smell was heavenly. It was my father’s pride that our home
had water piped right into it. A large elevated cistern was regularly
replenished from the river, and the gravity flow system supplied all our
drinking and bathing water. The thick stone walls of the cistern kept the
water cool even in summer. I drank three tall mugs of it, one after another,
and then slowly drank a fourth. I damped a kitchen cloth and wiped the
sweat and dust from my face and the back of my neck. It had been a very
long day.
I wet the cloth well and gingerly opened my shirt. I had bled. I turned the
wick for better light. Blood soaked the front of my shirt. The waistband of
my trousers was stiff with it. Cautiously, I washed the blood from my gut,
wiping it carefully away until a fine seam as long as my forefinger showed
on my belly. I gritted my teeth against expected pain and prodded at it.
It didn’t hurt. I couldn’t even make it bleed. The blade of the swanneck
had sunk into me, but this wound was no deeper than a bad cat scratch.
Had I imagined it? No. There was too much blood. I traced the puckered
seam with my finger. The scratch closed up behind my touch like magic.
Like magic. A wave of vertigo washed over me. I held on to the edge of the
sink until it passed. Then, very carefully, I rinsed my blood out of the cloth
and watched the dark water trickle down the drain. I wrung the water out
and hung the rag to dry. My wound had healed. Like magic. Because it
was magic. Magic inside me. I suddenly thought of Dewara’s purpling face
and bared teeth. Had Duril’s lead shot killed the old man? Or had he been
dying even as he attacked me? I recalled again the thundering of my heart
and the seething of my blood. I poked at the idea that I had killed Dewara
with magic. I didn’t much like it. I took a deep and steadying breath.
The evening’s ride and the weight of the revelations I had received had left
me ravenous. I took a loaf of the still-warm bread and a small crock of
butter to the table. I filled a mug with the cheap ale that my father kept
for the servants. Then I pulled out a chair and sat down with a sigh. For a
short time, I just sat in the dim stillness, trying to come to grips with what
I had learned.
There was nothing new in what Dewara had told me. His words confirmed
the fears that had grown in me for the last four years. I had not previously
seen the truth because it was not a Gernian truth. To someone like my
father, the things I had experienced were simply not real. If I tried to
explain them to him, he would think me a liar or a madman. What had I
gained tonight? What had Dewara’s death bought me? Duril had
overheard what Dewara had said. Duril believed me. At least I had that.
I sliced off the crusty heel of the loaf, spread it with butter, and took a
bite. The simple, familiar food was comfort to me in a time when my
world seemed to be distorted beyond recognition. I chewed slowly. I
swallowed and took a deep draught of the ale. The mug made a small,
comfortable thunk as I set it back on the table in the dimly lit kitchen.
Magic was the province of the uncivilized world. It was the feeble and
untrustworthy weapon of folk too primitive to create the technology to
master the natural world with engineering and science. Magic, I had
always believed, was suitable for trickery or small conveniences, but
useless on a large scale. The little spells and charms I’d known about were
handy but scarcely necessary. The “keep fast” charm was an example: it
could save a man from having to stop and tighten his cinch. That was not
to be confused with a true invention or real technology. Something as
simple as a pulley or as sophisticated as a system of pipes that fed water
into our house were genuine human innovation. Those were the things
that lifted mankind from the squalor and sweat of daily toil. Thoughtfully,
I cut another slice from the loaf and buttered it slowly. Over and over, I’d
seen technology defeat magic. Iron could destroy magic just by its
presence. Iron pellets killed the wind wizard. Dewara blamed the weakness
in his magic on having been shot by my father with an iron bullet. I’d
witnessed a small steel blade bringing the Dancing Spindle to a sudden
halt. So how could magic do this to me?
I touched iron every day of my life. Magic should have no power over me. I
was a Gernian, a follower of the good god, and a damn good engineer.
Magic was for ignorant tent-dwelling nomads. I picked up the bread knife
and studied the blade. Then I set it, flat-sided, against my arm. I felt
nothing. No burn, no freezing cold, no antipathy to the metal at all.
Disgusted with myself for even trying the experiment, I put the blade to its
proper use, carving off another slice of bread. My ale mug was empty. I
refilled it. For the first time in my life, I wanted to sit down and talk with
a priest. Most of them, I knew, dismissed magic entirely. It was not one of
the gifts the good god extended to his followers, and therefore not the
province of just men. They didn’t deny it existed. It just wasn’t allotted to
me. I knew that from the Holy Writ. But what about what was happening
to me? I didn’t desire it, so how could magic reach out and take hold of me
this way?
In the next instant, I admitted to myself that perhaps I had desired it.
What else had I intended that long-ago night when I had followed Dewara
over the cliff? He had made me want to be Kidona, enough that I had been
blindly willing to risk my life. Had that been an offense to the good god?
Had that been when I had literally fallen into the powers of magic?
Unbidden, the image of the sacrificed birds came to my mind. The old
gods had been willing to grant magic to those willing to make such
offerings, or so the old tales said. I shivered, and the warm and friendly
kitchen suddenly seemed darker and more ominous. As a child, I’d been
taught that followers of the good god were immune to the horrors and
brutality of the old gods. Had I lost that protection when I stepped over
the cliff’s edge? An image of a croaker bird came to my mind, wings
extended and neck shot out as it cawed at me. I’d interfered with the
sacrifice to Orandula, the old god of balances. He controlled death and life,
fortune and misfortune. Had I offended him? Was I vulnerable to him
now? Superstition stood all the hair up on my arms, and I nearly leapt out
of my skin when a harsh voice spoke suddenly behind me.
“What are you doing?”
I jumped guiltily and turned. “Just having a quick bite to eat, sir. I came
in late and didn’t want to wake anyone.”
My father crossed the kitchen with quick strides. I suddenly saw myself as
he must see me: a fat boor, hunched over food in the dark, gobbling it
down out of sight of others. The half loaf of bread, the greasy knife, the
plundered crock of butter, and the ale mug all spoke of furtive gluttony.
“You pig. You lying pig. You avoid your family and refuse to eat with us so
you can do what? Creep down here in the dark and stuff yourself with
food?”
“I didn’t eat that much, sir.” I came to my feet. I stepped in front of the
crumb-strewn table like a guilty child concealing a broken vase. “I ate only
a few slices of bread and butter. Sergeant Duril and I went out for a ride
and were out much longer than we intended. I came in hungry.”
“You’re supposed to be hungry, you fat idiot! That’s the purpose of the
work I gave you, to whittle the fat from your lazy back. I can’t believe what
I’m seeing, Nevare! I can’t understand when or why your changed into
this…greedy, gluttonous liar! Oh, you had me fooled these last few days.
You made such a show of staying away from the family table. I’ve talked to
the cooks. They say you eat only one plate of food and then leave. I
thought, ‘Well, the boy is trying, he’s recovered some of his self-discipline
and he’s saving us having to watch him eat. He’s working hard and eating
little and soon enough he’ll put himself right.’ I could not understand why
the weight was not falling away from you, but I thought perhaps I was
being impatient. I was even, may the good god help me, thinking of using
my influence to get you back into the academy once you’d shown you had
the backbone to change yourself. But what do I find tonight? The truth!
You put on a show for us, with your hard work and small meals, but in the
dark of night, you creep down here and stuff yourself! Why? Didn’t you
think I’d work it out eventually? Do you think I’m a fool, Nevare?”
I was standing at attention now. I reined in my anger. “No, sir. Never,
sir.”
“Then what, Nevare? What? Have you heard the reports of fresh
skirmishes with the Landsingers and renewed clashes with some of the
Plainsmen? They’re blaming us for the damn Speck plague and rising up.
In times like these, a good officer can make his career. But you seem to be
running away from all your opportunities! Are you a coward? Are you too
afraid to serve your king as a soldier? You’re not lazy; I’ve had reports, you
do your work each day. What? What is it?” His bafflement was driving
him to rage. “Why do you want to bring shame on us all this way?” My
father advanced on me, his eyes never leaving mine as he came on. He
reminded me of a stiff-legged circling dog, selecting his position before he
attacked. My thoughts ran in tiny circles. He was my father. He was being
unjust. Most of this was his fault, not mine. I was transfixed by a question
I could not answer: if he struck me, did I accept it, or did I strike back?
Perhaps he saw that uncertainty in my eyes, or sensed that I held fury in
check. Whatever the reason, he stopped where he was. I heard his teeth
grind, and then he spoke. “Discipline should come from within a man. You
should have learned it by now. But as you have not, I will impose it upon
you, as if you were a spoiled child. You will go to your room tonight,
Nevare, and you will stay there. You will not leave it again until I give you
permission to do so. I will regulate what you eat. Before the good god, I
vow I will take that fat off of you.”
“We can try that,” I agreed, my voice flat. “But I don’t think it will work,
Father.”
He snorted in disdain. “It will work. You’ve never seen a prisoner kept on
bread and water for two months. You’d be amazed how fast a man can
dwindle away.”
“Probably I would, Father. And if this fat were because I’d been greedy or
slothful, such a cure would probably work. But it isn’t.” The truth was all I
had to offer him. With no forethought, I went on, “I’ve explained this to
Mother. I know she told you. I know you believe I lied to her. I didn’t. I’ve
put on this weight because of a curse from a Speck wizard-woman. Or a
goddess. I don’t know exactly what she was. But she is the one who has
done this to me, by claiming me for her magic. And she was able to claim
me because you put me in harm’s way when you fostered me out to
Dewara the Kidona for training when I was fifteen. He ‘trained’ me, all
right. He starved and abused me, and eventually he convinced me that the
only way to be a true warrior was to become as Kidona as he was.” My
voice rang with accusation. My father stared at me, his mouth slightly
ajar.
“I was drugged with something he put on our campfire one night. The
smoke was sweet and very thick. And when he told me to follow him, I did.
I jumped off a cliff after him, and I found myself in a different world. We
traveled in that world for days, perhaps weeks. We reached a dangerous
bridge and he commanded me to do battle with its guardian. And that
was where I encountered the Tree Woman. But I could not bring myself to
fight a woman; I underestimated the sort of enemy she could be. And so I
fell to her, and came under her control. And this, this body that looks so
fat, this is what she did to me. Inside this body, I’m the same person I’ve
always been, with the same dreams and ambitions. I’ve never stopped
wanting to be a soldier. I’m trying to undo what happened to me.
Tonight, I went to a Kidona encampment, to try to find a way to break free
of her magic. But there isn’t, or at least that’s what—”
“Silence!” My father roared the word. His face had grown starker and
whiter with every detail of my story. I had thought it filled him with
horror for what he had unwittingly done to me. For an instant, his mouth
trembled, and then he demanded, “Are you mad? Is that what ails you?
Insanity? What is all this talk of magic and Dewara? You are going to
blame your gluttony on something that happened years ago, and make it
my fault? Nevare! Look at yourself! Look at your belly, look at the mess
you’ve left on that table, and then tell me you haven’t done this to yourself!
Magic! What idiocy! Or have you somehow gulled yourself into believing it
has power over you and thus it does? I’ve heard of such things, men
convinced they were under a curse and dying from it because they believed
in it. Is that your problem, Nevare? Truly, you think magic did this to
you?” He laded the word with scorn.
I took a deep breath and clenched my hands, but my voice still shook.
“Magic is real, Father. We’ve both seen it; we’ve both used it! The ‘keep
fast’ charm over our saddle cinches, and the wind wizard flying his boat
upstream despite the river’s current, and—”
“Nevare! Shut up! ‘Keep fast’ is just a soldier’s superstition, one of the
sillier bits of our traditions. You’ve believed it, all these days, even when
you are a man grown? And that wind wizard was a Plainsman, so, yes, he
could work his pathetic little magic. In the end, it couldn’t save him, could
it? Because what we have, our technology and our faith in the good god, is
much stronger. Son. Listen to me. Magic didn’t make you fat. It has no
power over you. You listen to me and do as I say, and I’ll prove it to you.”
His voice had gone gentler, ever since he had said the word “son.” I so
wanted to simply agree with him, to put him back in charge of my life and
let there be some sort of peace between us, even if it was a peace born of
deception. I couldn’t do it. Was I finally finding what he had once sent me
out with Dewara to seek, the courage to make my own decisions when I
knew my commander was less informed than I was?
“I’ll do as you say, Father. I’ll confine myself to my room and subsist on
whatever you judge is right for me. If that is what it takes to prove to you
that I am correct and you are wrong, I will do it. But in the end, I think we
will both have to admit that when you entrusted me to Dewara, you began
the chain of events that did this to me. If anyone bears the fault for what I
have become, Father, it is you, not me.”
He slapped me. He didn’t hit me with his fist. I think if he had, I would
have struck him back. He slapped me as if I were an upstart child, and I
knew I was not that, and so I let him. I felt it as a small triumph when he
shakily told me, “Yes. We will prove which one of us is right. Go to your
room and stay there, Nevare, until I myself come to your door. And that is
an order.” I went, but not in obedience. I went with defiance, determined
to let him regulate me as he wished and so prove to him that I was correct.
I went to my room and shut the door firmly behind me. I seethed as I
stripped off my bloodied clothes. I should have shown them to him, I
thought furiously, and then realized that the dried blood on the dark
fabrics could have been nearly any dark liquid. I lifted the side of my belly
and pulled hard at where the wound had been, halfway hoping that it
would suddenly open and gush blood that I could present to him as
evidence of the night’s adventures. It didn’t. There wasn’t even a mark
there. I prodded it with my fingers and woke only a vague pain inside me.
My body told me that nothing had happened tonight. I thought of getting
up and going to Duril, but suspected that if I stirred out of my room, my
wakeful father would descend, accusing me of more deceptions. The only
thing that would possibly convince my father was allowing him to control
my life and seeing that not even he could take the fat from me. I was not
resigned to it. I was eager for it, in the way a warlike man is hungry for a
confrontation. I lay down to sleep on my bed. As I closed my eyes, I told
myself that only the outside of my body had changed, that within I was
still Nevare, and if my father could not see that, then he was both blind
and stupid. But before I drifted off to sleep, I finally admitted that I had
changed. My body had healed itself tonight of a potentially fatal wound.
The fat and the shape of my body were an external change, but internally,
I had changed also. The Nevare he had sent away to the academy would
never have stood up to him as I had tonight. It was ironic that my father
had finally got what he wanted out of me. He was not enjoying it very
much.
And so began our battle of wills. The next morning, I awoke early, as I
always did, and dressed and sat down on my bed wondering what the day
would bring. Several hours later, my father entered my room, a very burly
man at his heels. He didn’t address me, but spoke to the servant. “He’s to
chop wood all day. He can have three water breaks. No food. At the end of
the day, you’re to bring him back up here. That’s all.”
The man knit his brows. “That’s all I’m supposed to do? Watch him and
make sure he chops wood and only drinks three times and doesn’t eat
anything?” My father spoke in a flat voice. “If you don’t think that will tax
your abilities too much, Narl.”
The servant scowled. “I can do that. Just seems like you’d want me to do
more.”

“No. That’s all.” My father turned on his heel and left the room.

I pulled on my boots and stood up. “Let’s go chop wood,” I suggested. The
man scowled so that his forehead stood up on ridges. “You want to go? I
don’t have to force you or nothing?”

“I assure you, I’m as eager to do this as my father is. Let’s go.”

“He’s your father?”

I gave up trying to converse with Narl. “I’m going downstairs and outside
to chop wood now,” I told him. I started out the door and he followed me
like an obedient dog.
I chopped wood all that day. No one spoke to me or paid me much
attention. Once, Sergeant Duril wandered casually by and then walked
away again. I suspected he had some thought or news he wanted to share
with me, but I wouldn’t acknowledge him in front of my guard. Blisters
came up and broke on my hands and were torn away. Knowing that I
could only ask for water three times, I schooled myself to wait until my
body demanded it. Then I drank deeply. Evidently my father had not given
the man any limit for how much water I could have. It must have been
boring duty for Narl. He sat on a section of log and watched me. He wore a
floppy brimmed hat, and as the shade of the woodshed moved, he scooted
his log section along to stay within it. Most of our wood was either skinny
pole wood that I could chop with almost one blow or long heavy logs of
spond wood salvaged from the river.
At the end of the day, Narl escorted me back to my room. As I entered, I
noticed that a large, new hasp had been fitted to the outside of my door.
So I was to be locked in at night, to prevent any midnight kitchen visits.
Thank you, Father. My room was stuffy when I entered it. The window
was shut, and a quick glance showed me that it, too, had been fastened
closed from outside. My father wasn’t taking any chances, not even that I
would risk a drop from my upstairs window to the gardens below. I could
vividly imagine what that would do to my knees and ankles.
My guard shut the door behind me, and I sat down on my bed. I waited to
hear the hasp secured in some way, but all I heard was the guard’s
departing footfalls. The maid had refilled my water ewer. I noticed with
distaste that a chamber pot had been added to my room. The wash water
was welcome, though I would have preferred a bath or even a dip in the
river shallows. I did not wait long until I heard a different step on the
stair. There was a tap on my door, and when I opened it, my father himself
entered with a covered tray. He didn’t look at me. I think even he was
somewhat embarrassed by what he was doing to me. “This is your food,”
he announced, as if I could have mistaken it for something else. I could
smell meat, and instantly my mouth began to water. My hunger, which I
could somewhat ignore in the absence of food, became an obsession the
moment I could smell or see anything edible. I was glad that he set the
tray down without uncovering it. I feared that if he had shown me what he
carried, I could not have focused on his words.
He spoke stiffly. “I hope you realize that I’m doing this for your own good,
Nevare. Trust me, and I promise you that by the end of the week, those
clothes will be hanging on you. I will prove to you that your fat is a result
of your greed, not some ‘magic spell.’”
“Sir,” I said, confirming that I’d heard his words but offering no comment
on what I thought of them. He decided that was rude, and left my room.
He shut the door smartly and this time I did hear him fasten the hasp
shut. Fine. I wasted no time in sitting down to my meal.
In a way, he was fair. I suppose he could have fed me bread and water.
Instead, there was a meager portion of everything that my family was
enjoying downstairs, even half a glass of wine. The cloth that had covered
the tray became my napkin. I did not allow myself a morsel until I had
divided every food on my plate into meticulously carved small bites. Then I
began, eating each bite as if it were my last and trying to savor the taste in
an attempt to make the small quantity satisfying. I had cut the meat so
fine that I had reduced it to tiny bundles of fibers. I ground them between
my back teeth and let them linger in my mouth until the flavor faded. I ate
the peas individually, squeezing the tender insides out of their tiny jackets
and savoring the difference in texture. I chewed the bread endlessly,
delighted to discover that each tiny square somehow became sweet when
it lingered on my tongue.
My father, perhaps from some sense of fairness, had even provided me
with a tiny portion of a sweet pudding with three tart cherries in it. This I
ate in bits that scarcely covered the tips of the fork’s tines. Had I ever
before been so aware of the sharp contrast between sweet and sour, ever
mapped so clearly what portions of my tongue responded to each? My
deprivation became an exercise in sensory exploration.
And when the last trace of stickiness had been scraped from the dish, I
savored the half glass of wine. I wet my lips with it and then ran my
tongue over them. I breathed the taste and then, drop by drop, consumed
the rest of the glass. A meal I would have devoured in a few minutes at the
academy lasted more than an hour in the privacy of my room.
Do not mistake me. I was not satisfied. Hunger opened its maw and
roared within me, demanding more. If there had been anything remotely
edible in my room, I would have eaten it. I longed for bulk, for large
mouthfuls of food that I could masticate and swallow in huge gulps. If I
had allowed myself to dwell on my hunger, I would have gone mad.
Instead, I reminded myself that I had gone for days on far less in the time
when I had traveled with Dewara. I was deprived but not starving. I set
each dish back on the tray and covered it with my napkin. I took out my
neglected schoolbooks.
I set myself a lesson from each text and doggedly completed it. I read and
took notes from Gernia’s military history. I studied a chapter of math,
working each exercise and diligently checking my answers. I translated
several pages of Varnian from Bellock’s Warfare.
And when I was finished, I took out my soldier’s journal and made a
complete and unvarnished entry about the entire day. Afterward, I put out
my lamp and went to bed in my stuffy little room.
The next morning I was awake and dressed when my guard unlocked my
door. That day I worked on whitewashing several outbuildings. The work
was not heavy, but it was constant. My shoulders ached and my raw hands
could scarcely close around the brush. Nevertheless, I set my teeth and
toiled on. I saw my mother once. She came out and stood silently at a
distance, watching my toil. When she saw she had caught my eye, she
lifted her hand, as if she pleaded with me to understand there was nothing
she could do. I nodded to her and turned away. I did not wish her to
interfere. This was between my father and me. My guard allowed me to
bathe that day before returning me to my cell. My room was stuffier than
ever, for all the smells of my occupation of it were trapped inside it. My
evening was a repetition of the previous one. My father himself brought
me a small meal that I savored obsessively, and I set myself another night
of lessons. If, against all my expectations, my father’s plan worked and I
managed to return to the academy, I did not intend to be behind my
classmates. My hopes were torn. I desperately wanted to return to my old
life. But I was equally obsessed with finally proving to my father that he
was wrong and I was right. I tried to tell myself that either outcome would
have its reward, but I found I longed for the former rather than the latter.
I don’t recall how many days I passed with that routine. Every Sixday, I
had a small reprieve. My father released me to attend his prayers with my
elder brother, and then returned me to my solitude for an afternoon of
meditation. But every other day followed the pattern of the first. I rose, I
worked all day, I returned to my confinement and my meal and my
lessons. My father shifted me from task to task. I gained muscle in my
arms, so that my shirt strained more than ever at my shoulders. If my belt
notch was any indication, I lost no girth. My guard was a man of few
words, and I had even less to say to him. There were few events of any
note during those days of my life. One evening I asked my father for more
paper and ink. I think he was shocked to discover that I was continuing
my education. He brought me paper and ink, and, as a reward I think, a
letter that had come from Epiny and Spink.
It was a welcome distraction. In her letter, my cousin told me that she and
Spink were both recovered well from their most recent bout with the
plague. Spink in particular showed marked improvement from when they
had last seen me. He was much more like his old self, full of energy and
ideas. Unfortunately, she wrote, it made him restless and more prone to
being dissatisfied with living as a dependent on his brother’s goodwill. He
had too many ideas about how the family holding could be improved, and
how tasks should be done. He and his older brother often quarreled, which
made everyone miserable. Epiny wished there was some way Spink could
return to the academy, but the expense was presently too great, especially
since she would also need to be housed in the city while Spink was at
school.
She thanked me belatedly for sharing her letters to me with her father.
After a dearth of communication for several months, they were now
corresponding regularly. Without stating it plainly, she implied that
perhaps her mother had somehow blocked earlier letters between them.
Lady Burvelle seemed to have lost all interest in Epiny and was focusing
her efforts on grooming Purissa to be a consort fit for the very young
prince. Epiny thought it disgraceful and heartless. But she also believed
that her father was now far less disappointed in her than she had feared. I
sensed a great relief in her penned words. I wrote her a long reply in
which I told her all that had befallen me, including my meeting with
Dewara. Then, as I decided it was extremely likely my father would read
all my mail before he posted it, I tore that letter up. The next one was very
circumspect. I said only that my return to the academy was delayed due to
some health difficulties that I hoped to resolve soon. I filled up the rest of
two pages with generalities about life at home and best wishes for her and
Spink.
Having started writing letters, I decided I would also answer the missive
from Caulder and his uncle. I tried to describe the area in which I’d
“found” the stone that Caulder had stolen from me. I recalled only too well
how I’d come by that rock. It had dug its way into my flesh when Dewara
had dragged me home. I even made a rough sketch that didn’t merit being
dignified with the name “map” and sent it with my letter. With that final,
grudging courtesy, I resolved that I was now finished with Caulder and all
his kin forever. My days continued to be full of menial and backbreaking
tasks, which didn’t bother me. It left my mind free to ponder other things.
I thought through, from beginning to end, my “love affair” with Carsina. I
thought of how abruptly it had begun: I’d become infatuated with her the
night my father told me that she was going to be given to me. And since
the day when I had seen her at Rosse’s wedding and she had so completely
disdained me, I could think of her only with anger.
I am human. I had my boyish revenge fantasies about her. I would regain
my formerly trim body, and then I would disdain her. I would do some
magnificent and heroic act for her family, perhaps saving her mother from
certain death when she was attacked by a prairie cat, and then when her
father offered me anything that I could desire as a reward for my heroism,
I would coldly ask only that he release me from my promise to marry his
heartless and shallow daughter. I played such scenarios over and over in
my mind, until I was forced to admit that they would not have given me
such pleasure if I were not still fixed on possessing Carsina. It was not, I
realized one day between shovels of manure, that I loved her. It was simply
that she had been part of the perfect future I’d envisioned for myself. In
that golden fancy, I completed the academy, gained a good post as a young
lieutenant, moved up in rank quickly, and then claimed the young woman
of good family who had been promised to me. Any modification to that
future somehow lessened it. I could no more imagine substituting another
woman for Carsina than I could imagine following a different profession
than soldiering. And anytime I imagined that Carsina’s father might
cancel his understanding with my father and bestow Carsina on Remwar
instead, my blood seethed. I could not tolerate the idea that they might
speak of me with laughter, or that Carsina might thank Remwar for
rescuing her from the dismal fate of being my wife. The blow to my pride
had quenched any love or affection I might have had for Carsina, but it
had only sharpened my sense of possession of her. Sometimes I wondered
what my Cousin Epiny would have said to me about such an attitude.
It bothered me that my mother and siblings never sought me out at all. I
supposed that my father had forbidden the contact lest they be moved to
bring me food. I don’t know how many days I was into my ordeal when my
guard asked me, “So your Pa is trying to make you lose some weight,
right?”
“So it seems,” I grunted. Narl was watching me load rocks onto a wagon,
to be hauled off to build a stone wall.
“You don’t look any thinner since you started.”
I heaved a particularly large rock onto the wagon. I caught my breath. My
mouth was dry, but I didn’t want to use up one of my precious water
breaks yet. “Yes,” I agreed. I walked back to the pile to pick up another
rock.
“So, you can tell me. Where and when do you get the food?”
“My father gives me one meal a day.” I wondered if my father had directed
him to ask me that question. Did he set a spy upon me now? I squatted
down and maneuvered another rock up onto its side and then into my
arms. I grunted as I stood up, crab-walked with it to the back of the
wagon, and heaved it in. “That’s a load,” I gasped.
“Reckon it is. Follow ’long, now.” In his wisdom, the guard had decided
that I would benefit more from staggering along behind the wagon than
riding on it to our unloading site. I hadn’t argued. Perhaps some part of
me now hated my body as much as my father did, and desired to punish it
as severely as possible. “Then why aren’t you getting skinny?”
He stood with one leg up on the wagon, ready to mount to the seat. On a
whim, I told him the truth. “I’m under a curse. It’s magic. I’m doomed to
be fat forever.”
“Huh,” he said. And that was all. Narl didn’t talk to me much more that
day, but almost every day after that, he ventured some conversational
gambit. I learned that he was an orphan and abandoned and had no idea
whose son he was or what he was supposed to be. So he’d come east,
looking for a life, and found Burvelle’s Landing and a job with my father.
He’d been a pig tender before my father chose him for this task. He
chuckled as he said it, and I suppose to him there was some humor in it.
He had a girl across the river. She was a shopkeeper’s daughter, and he
hoped that when he got enough money, her father would let him marry
her. Her father had no sons, so maybe any sons they had could be
shopkeepers and have a real place in the world. He envied sons who knew
what they were born to be.
He was good for bits and pieces of news from time to time. From him, I
learned that the Kidona had simply vanished from the Bejawi village. One
day they’d been there; the next time someone had visited the village to
deliver supplies, they were gone. They hadn’t even taken the tents or
supplies that the troops at Franner’s Bend had given them. Ungrateful
savages. He told me, too, that the reinforcements for the fort at Gettys
were due to pass the Landing any day now. For a moment my heart leapt
as I recalled how I’d used to sit Sirlofty on the hill overlooking the road
and watch the passing of the regiments on their way to assignments in the
wild east. The rows of horse, the marching men, the wagons decked out
with their regimental colors were as much pomp and heraldry as our part
of the world ever witnessed. But I wouldn’t even get to see Cayton’s Horse
and Doril’s Foot as they passed, let alone have dinner with the officers if
they paused at the Landing. It was likely my father would do all he could
to keep me out of their sight.
And from Narl, I learned that there was sickness in Franner’s Bend. Some
poor families, half-breeds most likely, had come down with it first. Rumor
was that they’d recently arrived at Franner’s Bend. Dirty folk, was what
he’d heard. And they’d brought a sickness to Franner’s Bend, and rumor
had it that those who caught it were dropping like flies from it. Fever, he
told me, and vomiting. Diarrhea, too. That’s what came of living dirty like
that. A chill went up my spine. “Does my father know about it? That
there’s disease in Franner’s Bend?”
My guard shrugged. Narl hadn’t supposed that my father took an interest
in such things.
That night, when I was returned to my room, I paced it until my father
arrived at my door with dinner. When he finally opened the lock and came
in, I greeted him with, “Speck plague is spreading through Franner’s
Bend. I fear Burvelle Landing will be next.”
“What?” He set my dinner tray down with an angry clack. He never
received bad news graciously.
Tersely, I told him what I knew.
He shook his head at me. “That could be any of a dozen maladies, Nevare.
When did you become such a nervous Nellie? Those people could have
drunk bad water, or eaten spoiled meat. You’d do better to be focusing on
what we’re trying to accomplish here instead of imagining death and
disaster on your doorstep. Speck plague. How would Speck plague come
here?”
Then he added, coldly, “Stand straight. I want to look at you.” I made no
verbal response. I stood as if at attention while he walked a slow circle
around me. When he came back to face me, the color in his face was
higher. “You haven’t lost a pound that I can see. You’ve corrupted your
guard, haven’t you? He’s bringing you food. That’s the only possibility.
What are you bribing him with, Nevare? Promises of money to be given to
him later? Or do you have resources that I don’t know about?”
Rage roared up in me, stronger than the hunger that still clawed at my
inner ribs. “I’ve done no such thing! I’ve held myself exactly to our
bargain. I’ve worked each day as you commanded me, and eaten only what
you’ve brought to me with your own hands, Father. It’s as I’ve tried to tell
you; my weight has nothing to do with greed or lack of self-discipline. It’s
magic. What will it take to convince you of that? Or is it impossible for
you to ever admit that not only are you wrong, but that your actions are
responsible for how I look?”
His face contorted with rage. “You superstitious ignoramus!” He snatched
up my food tray so hastily that the wine glass fell over. I smelled the sharp
scent of the spilled wine. Against my will, my hands flew out to clutch at
the tray and keep him from dumping the precious food. With a roar of
fury, he snatched it away from me. It tipped and he deliberately swung the
tray to dash the contents against the wall. I stared in horror at the
splattered food and broken crockery. A large piece of the wine glass had
stuck in the thick gravy of the meat pie. As I stared, its weight pulled it
free and it fell to the floor with the rest of the mess. I turned my aghast
gaze on my father.
His face twitched. For a moment, he struggled for control and then he
released his temper. “There’s your dinner, Nevare! Enjoy it! It’s the last
morsel of food you’ll see for a time.” He drew in a sharp breath through his
nose. “I thought I could trust you to adhere to our agreement! Will I never
learn? You haven’t a scrap of honor left, have you? You’ll lie, you’ll cheat,
and you’ll steal in whatever way you must in some idiotic effort to prove
your ridiculous claims! And why? Because you are so desperate to make
your failure my fault! Because you can’t accept responsibility for your own
mistakes. You always have wanted someone else to be in charge of you and
I fear you always will! You will never lead, Nevare, because you cannot
command yourself!
“But I will show you what it is a true officer does, and that is, he does what
must be done to keep his troops prepared. There will be no more trust
between us. You will stay here in this room, and I will supervise your fast.
You will see that no magic is at work here, only your own sloth and greed.”
He’d run out of breath. I remained standing and staring at him. May the
good god help me as I recall that it was all I could do not to fling myself on
my knees and snatch at the spilled food that was seeping across the floor.
As if he knew the true focus of my attention, he pointed at it and snarled,
“And clean that up!”
He turned on his heel and left me, shutting the door sharply. I heard him
snap the lock into place. And the moment I knew it was latched and he
could not surprise me, I dropped down to right the remainder of the glass
that still cradled a mouthful of wine. The plate had not broken and part of
my meal had sheltered beneath it. I cut my finger on the broken wine glass
as I snatched up the spoon and carefully scooped as much of the meat pie
as I could back onto the plate. Luckily, the flaky crust had kept most of its
shape. I was able to gently slip my hand under it and lever it back onto the
plate. The crusty seed roll was not damaged at all. The dish that had held
my small serving of fruit compote had broken. I studied it, weighing the
dangers of eating broken glass against the fragrance and flavor of the lush
pieces of plump fruit gleaming with spiced syrup. Trembling with
self-restraint, for the tantalizing aromas of the spilled food were all around
me now, I forced myself to very carefully inspect each piece of fruit before
I salvaged it. I placed my rescued meal back onto the tray and took it to
my desk. The sight of the spilled and ruined food on the floor was almost
more than I could stand. I draped the soiled napkin over it, and then
hurried to my broken meal. When, an hour later, I had finished the last
tiny morsel of bread, I sighed and set myself to the task of cleaning up the
spilled mess.
It was only as I knelt like a penitent before the glass-strewn remnants of
what should have been my meal that I forced myself to admit that my
increased weight was not the only way the magic had changed me. Once I
would have been too proud to salvage a meal that had fallen on the floor.
Now the importance of food went far beyond its ability to nourish me.
Even the pleasure I felt in the sensation of eating was secondary to
another, deeper change in me. I built my new body to house my magic.
The moment I framed the thought, I felt the rightness of it. Yes, I was fat.
But I was strong now, stronger than I had ever been. And over the days of
forced privation and heavy labor, I had noticed changes in myself. My
body produced very little waste now. The despised chamber pot had gone
largely unused. I noticed a stillness to my body that seemed new to me, in
that when I sat still and studied, I felt my body sink into a greater state of
rest. It reminded me of being suspended in water, or of awareness
hovering in that nether place between sleep and wakefulness. I suspected
that my internal workings had become terribly, terribly efficient, and that
whenever I was not using my arm or my leg, it went into a suspension
beyond simple rest.
I used what was left of the wash water in my basin to wet the napkin and
clean my floor. I put the wet napkin and dishes and broken crockery on
the tray and set it aside.
It took every bit of self-discipline I had to follow my routine that evening. I
studied the lessons I’d set for myself, and faithfully entered the whole
incident into my journal. I did not write there the questions that swarmed
through my brain. How far would my father go in his quest to prove
himself right? Would he let me die of starvation? I did not think so, but I
was no longer certain.
CHAPTER NINE
PLAGUE
I came to awareness the next morning when the early summer sunlight
reached through the window and touched my skin. It was simple comfort,
one blessing that never changed. I closed my eyes and steeped my soul in
it. I arose at my usual time. As always, I washed and dressed and made up
my bed.
Then I sat down on the edge of it to await what the day might bring. Is
there anything so tedious as waiting? I tried to occupy my mind, first with
my history book, and then by placing my chair near the window and
watching the activities in the courtyard below.
At first, there was little to distract me. I saw a man ride in, a messenger
from the town council in Burvelle’s Landing by the armband he wore. He
hurried up the steps, but his horse was not led away.
A short time later, my father and brother emerged with the messenger.
My father was still putting on his coat. Two more horses were brought and
they all rode away at a gallop. That effectively dashed my hopes of seeing
my father that morning. I sat for a time longer, wondering if my keeper
would come for me, even though the hour for that was some time past. But
no one came. After a time, suspense gave way to boredom. Hunger, my
ever-present companion, tormented me. The intensity of the pangs always
seemed greatest when I had nothing else to occupy my mind. I lay on my
bed and tried to read the next chapter in Bellock’s Warfare. The Varnian
tangled in my mind, Bellock’s prose seeming stilted and pompous, and
after a time I lowered my book to my chest and closed my eyes.
I tried to think my situation through. Was there an alternative to this
futile pissing match? I was virtually my father’s prisoner. I could break
down the door now, while he was gone, and then I could run away. Not
only did the cowardice of that act repell me, but also the thought that it
would confirm my father’s poor opinion of me and dash even my tiny hope
of returning to the academy and the future that I had always expected.
I took a deep breath, and as I sighed it out, I felt a sharp resolution form
in me. Keen and hard as a sword’s edge it was. I would persevere. I would
not be the one to blink first. I slowly sighed out the air in my lungs,
relaxing as I did so, and sank into a stillness deeper than sleep. I would
escape hunger there. For a time, I hovered in a place that was quiet, dark,
and empty. For a time, I waited, feeling a slow peace seep into me. I felt
that other me, quiescent for weeks, stir in me again. He was unalarmed by
all that had befallen me. He accepted the changes, the thickening flesh
that enfolded me, not placidly but with a lucid joy. As I took in another
slow breath, I felt him unfold himself like a shadow filling my body. He
stretched out into my arms and settled into my legs. He mourned my
empty belly but joined me in my resolve. We would wait.
I felt a shiver of unease at his contentment, and then I accepted him as a
passive part of myself. What harm could he do me? I sighed and again
sank into his stillness. I dreamed of a forest, peaceful under the summer
sunlight. When next I became aware of myself, the sun had moved past
my window. It was not dark by any means, but the golden square of
sunlight that had soaked me had moved. I opened my eyes, blinking
slowly. No one had come to my room. My nose told me there was no food
to be had, only water. I rose and drank all that was left in my pitcher.
Then, moved by an impulse I did not understand, I pushed my bed across
the room into the slowly moving rectangle of sunlight from my window. I
took off my shirt and lay down again, basking in the warm light on my
skin. I breathed out again and once more sank my consciousness to the
dim and comfortable place where my other self reigned. He took me in
and sheltered me with dreams of deep-reaching roots questing for water. I
dreamed of flowers turning toward the sun and of leaves absorbing light,
their stoma shut tight to conserve moisture. The forest waited for me. It
called me to become one with it. My breathing became an occasional
wind that barely stirred the reaching leaves.
My heartbeat was a distant, random drumbeat.
I awoke to darkness and the rattling of the hasp that secured my door. I
sat up immediately, swinging my feet to the floor, and then felt a sudden
wave of vertigo. Before it could pass, a kitchen servant entered bearing a
tray. He lifted the branch of candles he bore, scowling round my dark
room. He set down his candles and his tray on my desk. “Your dinner, sir.”
The simple words could barely contain the contempt he filled them with.
“Thank you. Where is my father?”
He stooped, full of disapproval, to lift the tray of soiled and broken dishes
that I had left by the door on the floor. He was a tall fellow, pale as a
mushroom, an unmuscled house servant. He sniffed loudly as if the smell
of the stale food scraps disgusted him.
“Lord Burvelle has a guest this evening. He directed me to deliver this tray
to you.” He turned away, dismissing me as beneath his notice. I stepped
between him and the door. He recoiled from me as if I were a threatening
bear. At least my bulk was good for something, if only intimidating
servants. “Who is my father’s guest?” I asked him.
“Well, I scarcely think—”
“Who is my father’s guest?” I repeated, taking a step closer to him. He
backed away, now holding the tray of broken dishes as if it were a shield.
“Dr. Reynolds from the Landing has come to call today,” he said hastily.
The mention of the doctor and my recall of the messenger I had glimpsed
early in the day mingled and awoke an urgent fear in me. “Is there
sickness in the Landing? Is that why the doctor is here?”
“Why, I’m sure I don’t know! It’s hardly my business to question why Lord
Burvelle has a guest at his table.”
“What did they talk about?”
“I do not eavesdrop on my betters!” He seemed incensed that I had even
suggested such a thing and poked the tray toward me as it he were trying
to intimidate a dog. “Out of my way. I have my work to do.”
I stared at him, slowly realizing that he spoke to me as if I were nobody, an
underling, a beggar. Not as if I were a son of the household. Would a time
come when everyone treated me with such disregard?
“Say, ‘please, sir,’” I instructed him softly.
He glared at me and then I think that something in my face persuaded
him that was an error. He licked his narrow lips nervously and then fled
back to formality. He spoke stiffly. “If you would please to step out of my
way, sir, I’ll be about my proper work.”
I nodded to him. “You may go.” I stepped aside. He hurried to the door
and scuttled through it like a fleeing rat. An instant later, he slammed it
behind him and I heard him clack the lock shut on the hasp. “Tell my
father I need to speak with him tonight!” I shouted through the door. The
only response I received was the sound of his footsteps retreating. I ground
my teeth, almost certain that my message would not be delivered. Was I
imagining a danger? It could all be coincidence, my guard mentioning
sickness in Franner’s Bend, the messenger this morning, the visit from the
Landing’s only doctor. I tried to dismiss my worry, but could not.
But before my frustration could become anger, I was distracted from it.
My nose had picked up a scent, and like a dog on a trail, I followed it to
the tray on my desk. I lifted the napkin that covered my plate.
Bread. A single rounded loaf, a cross scored in the top of it, the size of my
two fists put together. And next to it, a carafe of water. For a moment, I
felt dismayed, but then my senses seized on what was there rather than on
what I lacked. The loaf was a golden-topped mound. When I lifted it, I felt
the slight grease on the bottom of it where it had kissed the hot pan. I
broke it in my hands and tore it apart. The top was crusty, the inside
slightly stretchy and tender. I smelled the summer wheat.
I filled my mouth with a bite. The flavor overwhelmed any other thought I
might have framed. I tasted every element of the bread, the grain that had
grown tall in our Widevale sunshine, the hint of salt, the yeast that had
leavened it, the richness of the butter that had gentled the crust. I savored
it all and it filled my senses. I ate without haste, taking bite after bite, only
pausing to drink the cool, clear water. I felt the food enter my body—I
swear I could feel it becoming part of me.
Plain bread and cold water. My father had threatened me with this as a
hardship, but while I consumed my loaf and the flagon of water that
accompanied it, I felt I truly had all that any man could need. When I
drank the last of my water and set my mug down, I felt a wave of
contentment come over me. I tidied away my tray and set out my journal
and my schoolbooks, resolved to follow my now too-familiar routine. My
father, I decided, would or would not come to me, as he was inclined.
There was nothing I could do about it. It was harder than usual to keep
my mind on my work. Doggedly, I forced myself to complete the lessons I’d
set. Despite my day’s rest, sleepiness kept creeping up on me. Only the
strictest self-discipline kept me to my routine. I followed my book work
with an honest entry in my journal, confiding to that page my fear that
disease might be threatening Widevale. When I closed my journal, I gave
in to sleepiness and immediately went to my bed. I knelt and more by rote
than by faith said my evening prayers. I prayed for Burvelle’s Landing
rather than myself, no longer certain that I believed in the strength and
power of the good god so much as hoped that he existed and would hear
my pleas for mercy. As I pulled up my blanket and closed my eyes, I
wondered what I truly believed now. I thought of the Poronte family and
their ghastly chandelier of dead and dying birds. Could their older gods
have protected me from this fate? At what price would such protection
come? Despite these thoughts, sleep reached up and pulled me swiftly
under its waves. I did not dream.
When light first crept in my window, I came to awareness of it. I did not
bother to dress. If anyone came to my door, that would be soon enough to
rise. Instead, I got up only long enough to push my bed across the room to
where the first rays of light illuminated it. Then I lay down again and once
more plunged into something that was not sleep. I could feel how my body
now conserved all things—water, food, and even the energy I used to
breathe or move. I was like a mighty tree, standing silent and bare of leaf,
life seemingly suspended until spring might come again.
That day, I arose only at intervals to move my bed to keep it always
centred under the light. When the light finally faded from the sky and
darkness poured into my room, the same servant once more tapped at my
door, opened it, and brought me my loaf and water. “What tidings from
the Landing?” I demanded of him as I sat up on my bed.
“Sickness,” he said brusquely. Before I could rise, he was out the door,
shutting it firmly behind him. For a moment, dread paralyzed me. Were
my worst fears coming to pass? Or, as my father had said, was it merely
some lesser illness that would pass like a summer squall? I rose, I ate, and
I returned to my bed. I slept again.
The next day was identical, save for one thing. The evening passed with no
servant and no food. The hour for it passed, and then another. At last, I
swallowed my dignity and pounded on my door and shouted. After some
time had passed, I heard a maidservant’s voice outside my door. “Sir,
please! People are trying to take their rest.”
“I’ve had no food or water today! Bring me something, and I’ll be quiet.”
Silence. Then, “I’ll try to find someone who has the key, sir. Your father
was away all the day and gave no orders about you. And your mother is ill,
so I cannot ask her. I’ll go tap on your father’s study door, to see what he
says. Be patient, please, and quiet. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you. My mother is ill?”
There was no reply. I shouted “Miss!” but got no response. I sat down and
waited as the night deepened. She did not return. I tried to imagine what
might be happening in the rest of the house. If my mother were ill and
resting in the other wing, the majority of the servants would be tending to
her and her needs. I wondered where Rosse was, and Elisi and Yaril. Were
they also ill? Worry for my mother replaced my concern about food and
water. My hunger became a still emptiness inside me. With no other
recourse, I returned to my bed and slept again. That deeper stillness
reached up and claimed me. Another day passed slowly. No one came to
my door. I moved my bed to keep the sunlight on it. Several times, I
pounded on the door and shouted, but no one came. I felt a curious lack of
energy. It was hard to rouse myself, and harder still to force myself to take
action. Rest seemed my wisest course. On my fourth day without
sustenance of any kind, I roused myself. A dull alarm motivated me; would
my father truly allow me to starve to death? I shouted through the door. I
did not hear even a footstep. I lay down and pressed my ear to the floor by
the door. I heard faint voices from somewhere in the house. I put my
mouth to the crack under the door. “Mother? Rosse? Anyone?” There was
no response. I pounded on my floor, first with my fists and then with my
chair. Nothing. Three times I slammed my still considerable bulk against
the door. It did not give. Even that minor activity after days without food
exhausted me. I drank what had been my washing water and slept again.
On the fifth day, I tried first my fists and shoulder against the door, and
then broke my chair against it. It did not budge. It was made from a good
slab of spond wood, the heraldic symbol of the Burvelles of the East, and it
proved true to what it symbolized. It was hard and impervious to my
blows and shouts. With a leg from my shattered chair, I broke a pane out
of my window. I shouted again, but no one stirred in the courtyard below.
It was a clear summer day out there; the lack of activity made the hair
stand up on the back of my neck. What had become of everyone?
My mind conjured up all sorts of possibilities. My father was sick and no
one had thought to check on me. Or my family had left on a visit and
abandoned me to the servants, who had forgotten me. A darker thought
kept pressing against my mind: every soul in the household was dead of
the plague. It was terrifyingly possible. I thought of breaking out the
remaining panes of glass and the framework of my window and jumping
out, but it was a sheer drop to the paving stones below. If it did not kill me
outright, I suspected I would die a lingering death from broken legs or
back. I was trapped, like a rat in a box. I wondered how long it would take
me to die.
The morning breeze through my broken window carried a bit of moisture.
I opened my shirt to it and felt my skin take it in. I sat down and in a
wavering hand made what I feared would be among the final entries in my
soldier’s journal. Then I lay back down on my bed and closed my eyes to
my fate. At least two more days passed. Time lost much of its meaning for
me. My Speck self had merged more deeply with my being than ever
before, and I paid more attention to the cycling of daylight to dusk than I
did to the passing hours. The pangs of hunger had become such a
constant that it seemed a normal state. I ignored them. My skin seemed
thicker when I touched it, more like the rind of a tough fruit than the skin
of a man. There was little moisture in my mouth and less in my nose and
eyes. It was easier not to open them. I became slowly aware of the sound of
someone rattling the lock on my door. Had I heard my name called? Was
that what had roused me? By the time I rallied my consciousness enough
to turn my head, whoever had been in the hall had gone away. I thought of
shouting, but my throat and mouth were too dry. I could scarcely pry my
sticky lips apart. My body forbade me wasting energy on an effort that
might prove futile.
A time passed. Then I heard slow footfalls that stopped outside my door.
Something scraped on wood, and then there was a creak followed by the
sounds of wood rending. I heard the hasp and lock fall to the floor outside
my door. I stared at the door passively. It seemed a miracle when it
opened inward. Framed in the entry was a thin and haggard Sergeant
Duril. He held a pry bar in one hand. “Nevare?” he asked me hoarsely. “Is
it possible you are still alive?” Ponderously, I raised myself up in my bed.
Duril’s eyes widened. I mouthed the word “water,” feeling my lips crack as
I did so. He nodded his understanding. “Let’s go to the kitchen,” he
suggested. I rose and followed him stiffly, walking like a wooden man. As I
stalked through the hall behind him, I began to smell the stench of illness.
A terrible premonition welled up in me. Neither of us spoke. Duril
tottered along as if at the end of his stamina. I forced my knees to
remember how to bend. My feet felt stiff as roots and even my hips worked
grudgingly. When we reached the kitchen, I went directly to the sink,
scarcely noting the untidy clutter that littered the tables. Dirty cups and
plates filled the washing tubs. I ignored them and drank directly from the
spigot, stooping and turning my head to suck in the cool water as it
flowed. When I could drink no more, I filled my hands with water and
splashed it over my face. I ducked my head under it and let it run over my
neck and through my hair. I scrubbed my hands together in the water
and rubbed it over my forearms. Dry skin sloughed off in the water as if I
were a snake shedding an old skin. I cupped my hands and rubbed water
into my eyes, only now realizing how crusted my eyelids had been. When I
had finally had enough moisture, I shut off the spigot and turned to
Sergeant Duril.
“It was the plague, wasn’t it?”
He nodded, staring at me in amazement. “I never saw a man drink like
that. But then, I never expected you to be alive. Been sick as a dog myself,
Nevare, or I’d have come for you sooner. When I dragged myself up to the
main house to check on your da, I asked about you right away. He just
stared at me. I’m afraid grief has turned his mind, lad.”
“Where is he?” I rummaged through the pantry as we spoke. Anything
fresh had been consumed or gone bad. The bread cupboard was empty.
For the first time in my life, the big baking ovens were cold. Only the stale
smells of cooking lingered in the air. I desperately wanted and needed
food. Ever since my father had built this house, the kitchen had been full
of food. There had always been bread, always been a simmering stockpot
on the back of the stove, its steamy aroma mingling with the smells of hot
coffee and sizzling meat. Quiet had replaced the chatter of the kitchen
staff, the crisp chopping of their knives against the block, the rhythmic
thudding of busy hands pushing and turning pale bread dough.
I did not know where anything was. Always, the food had been prepared
for me and brought to the table, or I had discovered it cooling on the racks
and shelves there. I opened drawers and cupboards randomly, finding
cutlery and mixing bowls and folded towels. A terrible frustration began to
build in me. Where was the food?
I found the barrels of flour, meal, and cut oats. They infuriated me, for I
could not eat them as they were, and I did not have the time to cook. My
body demanded sustenance now. At last I found some turnips in one of the
root bins. They had withered, but I was not fussy. I bit into the purple and
white root. As I bit into the tough vegetable, Duril spoke.
“I found your da sitting outside your brother’s door. Rosse is dead, Nevare.
So is your mother and your elder sister.”
I stood before him, chewing, hearing his words, and sensations tore at me.
In my heart, the sudden gulf of grief that opened was beyond anything I’d
ever felt. I’d lost comrades when the plague swept through the academy,
and teachers I had respected. Those deaths had shocked and hurt me. But
the news that my mother, Rosse, and Elisi were all vanished from my life,
seemingly in one instant, paralyzed my mind. I had expected to share the
rest of my life with them. When I was old and unfit to serve my king any
longer, I had expected to return to Rosse’s estate and make my home with
him. I had anticipated helping him raise his own soldier son, as well as
seeing Elisi become a mother and wife. Gone was my own gentle mother,
always a force in my life, always my advocate with my father. Gone, all
gone.
Yet the food I chewed flooded my mouth with keen pleasure. The
starchiness of the core became a mild sweetness in contrast to the peppery
skin. There were two textures—the fibrous skin and the crisper inner
vegetable. The sensation of swallowing a bulky mouthful of food after my
long deprivation was an ecstasy in itself. The taking in of food, I suddenly
knew, was not only my consumption of life but a victory of the
continuation of life. I had once more survived, and my physical body
rejoiced in that even as tears filled my eyes at my loss. Duril was staring
at me. “Aren’t you going to go to him?” he asked me at last. I shook my
head slowly. My voice creaked when I spoke. “Give me some time,
Sergeant. I’ve been days with no food or water. Let me eat and regain
some strength before I have to face him.”
A shadow of disapproval passed across his face, but he did not argue with
me. Instead he waited as I ate all the turnips. I offered him some, but he
shook his head wordlessly. When the turnips were gone, I found a crock of
raisins and sat down to devour them one sticky, chewy handful after
another. They tasted wonderful. Yet the more food filled me, the keener
became my awareness of my loss.
That sensation of duality flooded me again. There was the Speck me who
gloried in survival, and there was Nevare who had just lost most of his
world. I looked up at Duril. “Please tell me all you know. I’ve been isolated
for days. No food or water, no news.”
“So I see,” he said gravely. “It’s soon told, for all that has happened. The
sickness came from Franner’s Bend. So I think, anyway. It happened so
fast. Your da and brother went to investigate when Doc Reynolds first sent
them a message about a dying family. It alarmed your da enough that he
and Rosse came back here to plan the quarantine. But by the next
morning, it was too late.” He shook his head. “It spread through the
Landing like a wildfire. Somehow it jumped the river. Your brother Rosse
came down with it the next day. Your mother caught it nursing him. By
then, anyone who could still move was running away from it. I done the
best I could, Nevare. I turned out the stock to graze and put the stable
beasts out in the fields. It was the most I could do for them. I got sick right
after your mother did, so I don’t know too much else until today. I finally
decided I was going to live and crawled out of bed and staggered up here. I
saw four covered corpses in the yard outside—I don’t know whose, or even
how long they’ve been there. Stink is something terrible. Most everyone
seems to be gone; at least, I hope they are, and not dead in their beds or
something. I haven’t gone room to room—I came to find you first. Had no
idea your da had locked you up like that, lad. It’s a miracle you survived. A
miracle. What did you eat or drink up there?”
“Nothing.”
He looked at me skeptically.
“Nothing. I’ve had nothing to eat or drink for days!” I shook my head at
his doubts and gave it up. “I’ve no time to convince you of it, Duril. But it’s
true. Whatever magic Dewara exposed me to is strong. I slept a lot. And
deeply, like a bear hibernating, I suppose. And I still feel hungry enough to
eat a horse. But—”

“But you haven’t got any thinner. Your skin’s strange, though. Dusky.
Dusky as a dead man’s.”

“I know.” I hadn’t, but I’d suspected it. I rubbed at my forearm. It felt odd
to my touch, thick and rubbery. I shook my head, pushing the strangeness
away. “I have to go to my father, Duril. Then I have to do what you
said—go room to room and see what I find.”
I still cringe when I recall my father’s first words on seeing me. He was
sitting on a straight-backed chair outside Rosse’s door. He turned his
head at the sound of my footsteps.
“You,” he said. “Still alive. Still fat as a hog. And my son Rosse dead. Why?
Why would the good god spare you and take Rosse? Why would he serve
me so?” I had no answer for him then or now. He looked terrible, thin,
haggard, and unkempt. I set his words aside.
“Have you had the sickness?” I asked him stiffly. He slowly shook his head.
“What should I do now, Father?”
He bit his lower lip. Then as he stood, his mouth worked suddenly, his
lower lip trembling like a frightened baby’s. “They’re all dead! All of
them!” He suddenly wailed. He staggered forward a few steps, but it was
Duril he sought for comfort, not me. The old sergeant caught him and held
him as he sobbed. I stood alone, excluded even from his grief.
“Yaril?” I asked him when he took a breath and seemed to be easing. “I
don’t know!” He cried out the words as if I had inflicted a fresh wound on
him. “When Elisi sickened, I feared I would lose all my children. I sent
Yaril and Cecile away. I told them to ride to Poronte’s holdings. I sent my
little girl away, all but alone. There were no servants left who would come
to the bell. I had to send them off alone. The good god alone knows what
has become of her. All sorts of folk are on the road. I pray she reached
there safely, I pray the Porontes took them in.” He burst into open sobs,
and then, to my horror, he sank slowly to the floor and collapsed there.
When I first tried to raise him up, he slapped at me feebly as if he could
not abide my loathsome touch. I exchanged glances with Duril, and gave
my father time to keen and moan. When he had exhausted his hoarded
strength, I again stooped to take him up. I had to go down awkwardly on
one knee, and my own belly was a barrier to picking him up. I was
surprised to find myself strong enough to lift him easily.
Duril followed me as I carried him to the parlor. I put him on a cushioned
settee there, and told the sergeant, “Go to the kitchen. Get the cook fire
started and put on a big pot of porridge. My father needs food, as do you,
and simple food will do him best at first, if my own experience of the
plague is any guide.”
“What are you going to do?” Duril asked me. My father had closed his eyes
and sunk into stillness. I think Duril already knew the answer. “I have to
go to my mother’s chamber. And Elisi’s.”
Duril looked guiltily relieved. We parted there.
The rest of that day comes back to me sometimes in my nightmares. That
house had always been my home, a refuge to me. The large pleasant
rooms, decorated to my mother’s tastes, had always seemed an oasis of
calm and respite from the larger world. Now it was filled with death.
My family had been dead for days. Rosse was stiff in his bed, and I
suspected he had been the last to die. My father had tried to tend him. A
heap of soiled linens was at the foot of his bed. A clean blanket had been
tucked around his body, and a napkin covered his face. My elder brother
who had always gone before me in life had also gone before me into death.
My father’s heir son was dead. I refused to consider the full magnitude of
that loss. I left his room quietly. Someone, probably Elisi, had sewn a
hasty shroud for my mother. I had thought to bid her farewell with a last
kiss, but the smell was so thick in the stuffy room that I could barely force
myself to enter. Fat flies were bumping and buzzing against the window
glass. I resolved to leave her covered and keep my last memory of her
strong beauty intact. I thought of how I had nodded to her and then
turned away, as if she were already a ghost. I regretted it as I regret few
things in my life. I left her swaddled body without touching it and went on
to Elisi’s bedchamber.
She and I had never been close. When I was born, I was not only the new
baby in the family, but a son and a soldier son. I had displaced her in
many ways, and that had always colored our relationship. Now she was
gone, and that gap would never be mended. The last time I had been in
her room, it had been a little girl’s room, with dolls on shelves next to
expensive picture books with tinted illustrations. The years had changed
it. Some of Elisi’s own watercolors of wildflowers were framed on the walls.
The dolls were long gone. The fresh flowers had rotted in their graceful
vases, and Elisi herself was a contorted corpse on the bed. A lovely
comforter embroidered with birds was rucked all around her as if she had
struggled free of it. She lay on her side, mouth gaping horribly, her
clawlike hands reaching toward an empty pitcher on her nightstand. The
fragments of a broken cup crunched under my feet. I left her room, unable
at that moment to deal with her horrid death.
I forced myself to check every other bedchamber in the house. In the newly
redone servants’ wing, I found two more bodies, and one thin, frail
maidservant. “They all ran off,” she told me in a shaky voice. “The master
ordered them to stay, but they crept away in the dark. I stayed, and I did
my best, sir. I helped Mistress Elisi tend her mother to the end. We were
sewing her shroud when the fever come over me. Mistress Elisi told me to
get to bed, she’d finish it herself and then come to me. She said to just
take care of myself. So I did. And she never came.”
“It’s all right,” I said dully. “You couldn’t have saved her. You did all you
could, and the family is grateful to you. You will be rewarded for your
faithfulness. Go to the kitchen. Sergeant Duril is cooking food there. Eat
something, and then do whatever you can to restore the household.” I
hesitated and then added, “Care for Lord Burvelle as best you can. He is
overcome by grief.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” She seemed pathetically relieved that I had not
condemned her as she shuffled off to the task I had given her. The rest of
the bedchambers showed the signs of hasty departure. I wondered if those
who had fled had saved their lives or only spread the plague further. My
father himself had laid out our mansion and estate. He had forgotten
nothing in plotting out a home that he intended would serve the family for
generations. Thus there was even a stone-walled cemetery with an
adjacent chapel with shade trees, and beds of flowers. Niches in the stone
wall held symbols of the good god: the pomegranate tree, the ever-pouring
pitcher, and the ring of keys. I had seen them so often that I no longer
noticed them. The walled cemetery was a very pleasant place, really, as
carefully maintained as my mother’s garden. There, my father had once
told me, “All of our bones will someday rest.” He had never expected that
day to come so soon, nor that his children would die before him. For most
of my life, there had been only five graves in it, simply marked with stone,
markers for the retainers who had followed my father, serving him first as
soldiers and later as servants, and finally dying in his employ. All the rest
of that day, I dug graves. Nine graves. Four for the poor souls who’d been
left in the courtyard. Two for the bodies I’d found in the servants’
quarters. Three for my family.
It was not easy work. I was surprised I could do it, given the privation I
had endured. The top layer of soil was cultivated turf, but only a few
inches below it I struck the rocky soil that was more characteristic of our
lands. I set aside my spade and took up a pickax to break through that
layer, and eventually into the claylike soil beneath it. It was a relief to
focus my mind on this simple task. I made the sides of each grave straight,
and threw the soil where it could not slide back onto me. The holes were
wider, perhaps, than another digger would have made; I had to
accommodate my own girth. My arms and back were stiff at first, but
soon warmed to my work. My body complained far less than I had
expected. It was good to be out in the fresh air and sunlight again. After a
time, I stripped off my shirt and worked more freely, though not without
some worry that someone might see me.
The hard physical labor kept my thoughts at bay. I toiled like the
muddy-boots engineer I had once planned to be. I aligned my graves
precisely, leaving uniform walking spaces between them. When my mind
began to work again, I walked the edges of my grief, pushing away the full
realization of what had befallen me. I did not think of my dead, but
wondered where the servants had fled to and if they would return, or if
they had carried their own deaths with them and perished alongside the
road. From there, I had to wonder how Burvelle’s Landing had fared. That
small community on the other side of the road was my father’s pride and
joy. He had laid out the streets and persuaded an innkeeper and a smith
and a mercantile owner to come there long before anyone else had seen
potential for a settlement there. His men operated the ferry to it, and the
little town council reported directly to my father for his final say on all
their decisions. The existence of that town and our comfortable life in the
manor house were tightly linked. I wondered if the streets of Burvelle’s
Landing were still and quiet, if the dead lay rotting in their homes. I shied
away from that image, but then found myself thinking about our landed
neighbors and how they had fared. Some lived in relative isolation. I
hoped that our folk fleeing the plague had not visited it upon them. Then,
like a willful horse on a lunge line, I came round at last to wondering if
Cecile and Yaril had safely reached the Poronte manor, and if they had
escaped the plague or borne it thither.
I had been so angered with and distanced from my little sister. Now, when
I thought of her, I could only recall how wide and trusting her eyes had
always seemed when she was a child. I discovered an odd thing. I had only
been able to be so angry with her because I had believed that one day we
would apologize to one another and resume our close relationship. It had
felt safe to be furious with her, because in my deepest soul, I had been
utterly confident that she still loved me, as I did her. Now I wondered with
a terrible lurch of sorrow if she had gone to her death neither forgiving me
nor knowing that I would forgive her. And with that last terrible thought
in my mind, I flung the final shovel full of earth out of the ninth grave.
Alone, I carried the bodies of the servants, one by one, to their resting
places, setting them beside the holes where they would lie. I put my shirt
on over my dirty body, and went quietly to the kitchens. The wonderful
smell of simmering porridge and baking bread filled the air. I found
Sergeant Duril and the maidservant there, talking quietly. Her name, I
discovered, was Nita. Nita had set out salt and molasses on the table
alongside a slab of butter from a cold cellar I’d been unaware existed. She
had put several loaves of bread to bake in the reawakened ovens. She told
me that they had given my father food and several very strong drinks
before steering him into a clean bed in one of the guest rooms. They’d left
him there, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.
At my request, they went out to the four bodies I’d moved, to look on them
a last time and to tell me what their names had been. The moment they
left the kitchen, I could restrain myself no longer. I dished myself an
immense tureen of porridge. I put several hunks of butter to melt in it,
and then poured molasses over the top of it. I sat down and devoured it in
huge spoonfuls. It was hot to the point of scalding, but that did not
discourage me. I stirred it to cool it, melting the glorious yellow butter
into the oaty porridge and mingling the rich brown threads of molasses in
swirls. As fast as it cooled, I ate it, savoring the subtle flavors and the
sensation of swallowing large bites of nourishing food. I served myself
another bowlful from the pot, scraping it clean. I was generous with both
butter and molasses. I devoured it. They’d left a pot of tea on the table. I
poured myself a cup, sweetened it to soupiness with more of the molasses,
and drank it down. I could feel life and strength resurging in me with the
consumption of the sweet stuff. I poured another cup, draining the pot. I
put more water in the kettle and set it to boil again. The smell of the
baking bread almost made me wild. I was startled when Duril and Nita
came back. In glorying in the food, I’d almost forgotten them and my
grisly task. I hastily drained off the last of my cup of tea. Duril was looking
at me in a sort of frozen dismay. I suddenly realized how I must appear,
my face and shirt smudged with dirt and sweat, my nails and hands filthy,
and supporting it all, my immense body. The sticky tureen was still on the
table before me, the ewer of molasses almost empty beside it. I bowed my
shoulders reflexively, trying to seem smaller. “I have their names, if you
want to write them down,” Duril said heavily. “Yes. Thank you. I do. We
will have to have stones carved for them later, but for now, well, it is best
that I put them in the earth.” Duril nodded solemnly. I went to my father’s
study for paper and a pencil. When I returned, Nita was washing up the
porridge pot. “I’ll go with you,” Duril announced, and followed me out of
the kitchen.
He said little, but I could feel his disapproval hovering over me. When we
reached the bodies, he listed their names for me and I wrote them down
carefully, along with whatever he knew about each of them. Then, as if I
were planting tulip bulbs, I set one man and three women into the earth.
Duril helped me as much as he could, but his strength was gone, and I fear
we were not as gentle with those mortal remains as we would have been in
better times. When they were in their graves, we returned to the house,
and one at a time, I carried out the two dead servants I had discovered in
their rooms. Their soiled bedding became their shrouds. Flies had found
the one, and the hatching maggots worked in his nostrils and at the
corners of his mouth. Even hardened old Sergeant Duril turned aside from
that sight, and I repressed a gag as I covered the dead man with his
bedding and wrapped it firmly around him. As I carried him out of the
house, I wondered if we would ever get the stench of death out of the
place.
Duril had known them both. I noted down their names and set them each
in a grave. Then we covered them, with me doing the lion’s share of the
work, and Duril manning a shovel more for the sake of his self-respect
than for any real help he could give me. The long summer day had found
dusk before we were through. We stood by the six mounds of pale soil, and
Duril, who had buried many a comrade, offered a simple soldier’s prayer
to the good god. When we were finished, he looked askance at me.
“Tomorrow is soon enough,” I said quietly. “They’ve lain in their rooms
this long. One more day will not hurt. And perhaps by tomorrow my father
will be recovered enough to help me give them a more formal burial.” I
sighed. “I’m going down to the river to wash.”
He nodded, and I left him there.
But the next morning, my father was little better than he had been. He
made no response when I tried to speak to him. Unshaven, his hair wild,
dressed in his nightshirt, he would not even sit up in his bed. Several
times I told him that I had to bury Mother, Rosse, and Elisi, that it was
not fitting to leave them dead in their beds. He did not even turn his eyes
to look at me, and at last I despaired of his help, and took on the mournful
task myself. Duril helped me, but still it was a sad and messy duty. I found
rope in the stable, and at least we were able to lower them into their
graves with a bit more dignity. I wished for fine caskets or even simple
boxes, but the stench and the rot persuaded me that it was best to act
quickly instead. The trees surrounding our little graveyard were full of
hopeful croaker birds before I was through. They sat watching me, jaunty
in their black-and-white feathers, the wattles around their greedy beaks
red as blood. I knew that the smell of carrion had attracted them. They
were only animals, and they did not care whether it was beast flesh or
human that they scented. Even so, I could not look at them without
recalling the Porontes’ wedding sacrifice to Orandula, the old god of
balances. I wondered grimly what all these deaths balanced, and if it
pleased him. I put my family in the earth, and covered them, and said the
prayers that I could summon to my mind. They were the childish prayers
of comfort that my mother had taught me when I was just a boy. Sergeant
Duril came out to stand beside me and witness that feeble ceremony.
Afterward, I took my shovel and pickax back to the toolshed and hung
them on the wall before I went to wash the grave dirt from my hands.
And that was how my old life ended forever.

CHAPTER TEN
FLIGHT
My father’s recovery was agonizingly slow. In the first week that followed
the burials, he was almost completely unresponsive to me. I went daily to
his bedside, to speak to him and report what was going on, but he looked
away from me. After several experiences of moving to try to meet his gaze
and having him simply turn his head away, I gave up. I stood at the foot of
his bed each morning and each evening and gave him a report of all I’d
done, as well as presenting the problems that awaited me on the morrow.
Each time, I stood quietly when I finished speaking and waited for a
response. Silence was always his reply. I tried to take it in stride and keep
on functioning. The terrible tragedy that had befallen our family had
ended, I felt, our battle of wills. There were more immediate things to
worry about than why I was fat or if I would ever be a soldier.
Nita fared better with my father than I did. She took his meals to him,
persuaded him to shave and bathe, and eventually moved him back into
his own chambers. In retrospect, I believe he was suffering not just from
his grief but also from a mild form of the plague. In later years, I would
come to find that most people seldom fell victim to severe bouts of the
plague twice, but that some sufferers would catch a milder form and then
endure recurrent bouts in the years that followed.
Whatever the cause, my father was incapacitated for a month, and despite
my own burden of grief, the tasks of running the estate fell upon me. What
a whirlwind of work that time was. Everything demanded my attention at
once, and I had few resources at first to apply to them. The servants had
not fled far. Some had gone to neighboring landowners, who had either
taken them in or afforded them refuge in rudimentary shelters on the
outskirts of their holdings. Others had been living rough. They trickled
back, shamefaced, a few each day, until we had about three-quarters of
our former staff. What had become of the rest of them, death or simply
that they had abandoned us, I was never to know. I wrote to Dr. Amicas
about my experience, for I knew he was still gathering all information he
could on the disease. I speculated that the people scattering had perhaps
cut down on the spread of the disease, but also that the swifter deaths we
had experienced were due to the sick being left without caretakers. I could
not tell if that had led to a lower percentage of deaths, and added that I
did not suggest it as a routine response to the disease, as it seemed likely
to me that if the servants had had other towns to flee to the chance of
spreading the plague to large population centers would have been much
greater. It was not just people that I had to care for. At the same time,
there were cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens to be thought of. Most of our
livestock had done well enough foraging, thanks to Sergeant Duril’s
foresight in turning them loose, but some of our crops had suffered from
their attentions. Every creature had to be gathered up and restored to its
proper pen or paddock. Yaril was foremost in my thoughts in those
harried days. I longed to ride to Lord Poronte’s manor myself to see what
had become of Cecile and my dear little sister, but I dared not leave my
father. In the end, I dispatched Sergeant Duril as soon as he could ride. He
took a messenger bird with him, and before the day was out, it returned
with a green band on its leg to let me know my sister was alive.
The worst news came from beyond Franner’s Bend. Cayton’s Horse and
Doril’s Foot were dead to a man. Two days past the Bend, they had begun
to sicken. The officers had ordered a halt and set up an encampment. It
became their graveyard. Franner’s Bend had been too deep in its own
troubles to lend them any aid, and other travelers fled when they saw the
yellow banners that warned of sickness in the camp. By the time anyone
came to their aid, there was no one left to save. The commander had died
at his field desk, a neat tally of his men’s death in his soldier son journal
under his elbow. They’d managed to bury some of their dead; the rest of
the bodies were burned in a funeral pyre. “If Gettys was hoping for more
manpower this summer, well, they’ll have to do without it,” Duril observed
grimly. “It looks like the King’s Road won’t be pushed forward much this
year.” I pitied them, but my heart was more beset with my own problems.
True to my worries, the Landing had been devastated by the plague. As
soon as I could, I ventured a visit there, and found a state of chaos. Many
had died, and the town council had let the rabble take it over. There had
been looting, and violence against the people suspected of bringing the
plague to town. Entire families had perished, and in that dire situation,
even good men had resorted to pilfering food, blankets, and valuables from
the houses of the dead. I was at first at a loss as to what to do to restore
order.
Sergeant Duril, who had become my de facto adviser, shrugged and
suggested, “In hard times, folks are comforted by what they’re used to.
Doesn’t matter if it’s porridge for breakfast or the same prayer each night.
More than half that town was soldiers at one time or another. Put them
back under military command until they remember how to run their own
lives.”
I decided he was right. I told him to choose his men. That afternoon, we
crossed to the Landing with Duril at my side and his men behind him. We
rode our horses into the center of town. There, in as commanding a
manner as I could muster, I called what was left of the town council to
order in front of me in the street. In no uncertain terms, I told them my
father had empowered Duril to select a dozen men he judged trustworthy
to represent order. I told them that under my father’s authority, he would
be using that patrol to impose martial law on the town, setting a curfew,
boarding up unoccupied houses, commandeering and rationing supplies,
and pressing a number of the more troublesome young men into service as
gravediggers. Duril supplied the muscle; I kept the records, for I promised
them that when the dust settled, people who cooperated would be
reimbursed for whatever necessary supplies were seized. Despite my
ungainly body, I did my best to strike a martial posture and suggest an
authority that was mostly imaginary. I was a presence. I implied that
Duril would report to me, and I would report to my father. This was true.
What they didn’t know was that my father continued to stare at the wall
silently while I made my reports. It worked. It took only ten days of such
tactics before the townspeople recovered their sense of lawfulness, and
proved ready to resume running their own affairs. I let the surviving
members of the town council know that they could report to me, and that
if necessary, I would have Sergeant Duril and his patrol enforce whatever
rules they thought needed for the town’s recovery. I took a great deal of
satisfaction from that. I knew that the idea had been Duril’s and that he
had supplied most of the discipline at the lowest level. But I had
conducted myself as an officer and a gentleman, and it had worked. I was
proud of myself, and imagined that when my father came back to himself,
he would share that pride and sense of accomplishment.
That was but one of the tasks that busied me from morning to night, and
every day there were dozens of others that scarcely seem worth
mentioning, but demanded my immediate attention and a solution. I had
thought I knew a great deal about the running of the manor. Only when
the cistern went dry did I recall that keeping it full required several men, a
wagon, a team of horses, and water casks filled from the river to replenish
it on a weekly basis. Dozens of young fruit trees in the orchard had gone
unwatered during the plague, but I swiftly restored boys to that task, and
was able to save more than half of what my father had planted that year.
Fences the cattle had broken down had to be mended.
To me fell the grim task of notifying friends and family of our losses. I
wrote to my uncle, to Epiny and Spink, and to other relatives, and sent
messages also to neighboring farms and holdings. I wrote to the head of
Vanze’s order, telling him what had befallen our family and enclosing a
personal letter to Vanze. I received in response a starchy response that
Vanze was in meditation and isolation for a month, and that the news
would be given to him when he returned. I sighed for my little brother,
and then the other demands on my time claimed me. A brief letter from
Dr. Amicas arrived, offering his condolences and suggesting strongly that I
have any bedding and hangings in plague chambers burned, for fear that
they might hold contagion. After I had carried out his order, I looked at
my mother’s stripped room and my heart misgave me. The smell of death
lingered elsewhere in the house, so I ordered a thorough cleaning of every
room.
Although most of our servants and hired folk had wandered back to us,
certain key people had disappeared, and it fell to me to decide who would
take on those tasks. Some of our people had suffered through the plague,
and though they were recovering, they were scarcely ready to take up the
full burdens of their usual chores. Impulsively, I moved Nita up to be the
head of our housekeeping, and quickly discovered that although she was
loyal and intelligent, it did not make her adept at making everything
function smoothly. But I did not know how to demote her without
insulting her, nor who I could put in her place if I did. So we limped along
under her haphazard supervision.
I found my father’s ledger books and his keys and did the best that I could
to keep records up to date and to spend only what we needed. It was not
easy, and I often wondered how he, a soldier, had so effortlessly managed
all this business of being a noble. I had never imagined that it required so
much accounting, let alone such a plethora of managing people. Daily I
prayed to the good god that my father would recover and take these
burdens from my shoulders. Two weeks after I had buried my dead, I
decided that the household was close enough to normalcy that I would
fetch my sister Yaril home from the Poronte manor. I ordered up the
carriage, and made the same trip that only a few months ago had taken us
to my brother’s wedding. Now I went to visit his widow. I wore my best
clothing, the suit that my mother had made for me for Rosse’s wedding. It
was now uncomfortably tight on me.
The plague had passed the Poronte estates by. It was strange to see an
aspect of normality when I arrived. Men were working in the fields, cattle
grazed peacefully, and the liveried servant who opened the door smiled a
gracious welcome. Even so, when I entered the chambers that had been so
full of flowers and music at my last visit, I found them decked for
mourning. Cecile’s parents came to meet me in their parlor. I formally
thanked Lord and Lady Poronte for taking in my sister. They replied
awkwardly that it was the least they could do for Yaril at such a dreadful
time.
I had expected to bring both Cecile and Yaril home with me. But Cecile’s
mother begged me to allow her daughter to stay until the greatest
blackness of her grief had passed. She said that the shock of passing from
the joys of being newly wed to the horrors of disease and widowhood had
been too much for Cecile’s gentle spirit. She had been bedridden for days
after she arrived there, and even now only rose for a few hours each day.
She needed time, her mother said, time to recover and find her way into
her sad new life. I wondered uneasily if they intended to let Cecile return
at all. It was Cecile’s duty to return to her husband’s home and take up the
management of it, but I did not have the heart to demand that. Instead I
said that when my father was better, they could all take counsel together
to decide what was best.
I was disappointed that Yaril had not come to greet me, but Cecile’s
mother told me they had asked her to wait in the garden until “things
were settled.” With the matter of Cecile decided, they released me to find
her. When I saw Yaril walking alone on the sandy path between the
meticulously tended herb knots, my heart went out to her. She looked so
small and so young in her deep blue mourning dress. “Yaril?” I said softly,
prepared to discover that she was still disgusted with me.
At my voice, she whirled about. There were dark circles under her eyes
and she had lost flesh, but even so her face lit up and she ran toward me. I
wanted to catch her up and whirl her about as I used to do when she was
much younger. Instead she crashed into me and then clung to the front of
my shirt with both hands, rather like a little squirrel trying to climb the
trunk of a massive tree. I hugged her awkwardly, and for a moment we
didn’t speak at all. I stroked her hair and patted her back, and after a
moment, she lifted a tearstained face to me. “Elisi didn’t die, did she?
That was a mistake, wasn’t it?” “Oh, Yaril,” I said, and that was all I
needed to say. She put her face against my chest again, her fists tightened
on my shirt, and her shoulders heaved. After an endless time, she said,
“We’re all alone now, Nevare. Just you and me.”
“We still have father,” I pointed out to her. “And Vanze.”
Her voice was full of bitterness. “Vanze belongs to the priests now. Our
family gave him away. I never had Father. You did, for a time, while you
were a good little soldier boy. But now you are worthless to him. You have
even less value than I do. No, Nevare. We are alone. And I’m sorry for how
I treated you. I’m sorry. It just seemed that Carsina and Remwar would
not like me if I sided with you. And so I abandoned you, my own brother.
And then, at home, if anyone said one good thing about you, Father
became furious. He and Mother fought so much about that…she’s gone.
They’ll never fight about anything again.” I wanted to tell her that
somehow we would find a way through the difficulties we now faced. I
knew that someday we would again have a life that seemed normal and
routine, even boring. Boredom sounded so attractive to me now. I tried to
imagine a day when a dozen problems didn’t confront me and sorrow did
not weight my every breath. I could not conceive of it.
“Come,” I finally said with a sigh. “Let’s go home.” I took her small hand in
mine and led her to say our farewells to the Porontes. Our lives did
resume. Young as she was, Yaril still knew more about the internal
workings of the household than I did, and proved to be effective at
undertaking dire reforms when needed. She removed Nita as head of
housekeeping by deftly putting her in sole charge of my father’s well-being,
and replaced her with a woman who had been a maid with the family for
years and knew what was required to run the household. I suspected that
she also took the private opportunity to reward those servants who had
befriended her over the years and rebuke those who had treated her as
insignificant within the family. I let her do as she saw fit. I was only too
happy to allow Yaril to assume responsibility for the household, for not
only did she make things run more smoothly, but also it kept her from
dwelling on all we had lost.
Yaril grasped that a return to schedules would be best for us. She
immediately reinstated regular meal served at the table, and assumed the
role of leading Sixday worship for the women. I followed her example
guiltily; I had not even considered assuming that responsibility, and our
worship had become a very slipshod observation of the forms. I realized
how important it was for us to offer thanks to the good god for our
survival when I heard the women and men of our household let loose the
tears they had restrained until then. Ceremony and form, I reminded
myself, gave shape and meaning to our lives. I resolved never to forget that
again.
As for the meals, Yaril’s insistence on a return to normality there was a
delight to me. It seemed like years since I’d had the pleasure of sitting
down to a carefully planned meal in which the flavors and textures
complemented each other. My deprivation had schooled me to a far more
sophisticated appreciation of food than I’d ever had before. Having
realized that even foods as simple as bread and water could be enjoyed,
well-prepared food now nearly paralyzed me with delight. A sauce could
send shivers up my spine. A contrast in flavors in a simple salad could
plunge me into a sudden, rapt reverie. Unless I concentrated on keeping
pace with Yaril, a meal could take me three times as long to consume as it
did her. Sometimes I would look up from my soup to find her regarding
me with a mixture of amusement and worry. At such moments, I felt
ashamed of letting my senses carry me into a world of my own. Yaril and I
were in this predicament together, and it was up to us to create an
ongoing life for ourselves.
There were times when it felt like an elaborate pretense. Each evening, I
escorted her into dinner. I would seat Yaril at the table and then move to
my accustomed place. Around us, the empty chairs gaped at us. I felt as if
we had returned to our days of tea parties in the garden, when Yaril and
Elisi had always pretended to be great ladies and welcomed me solemnly
to their gatherings. Could this really be all that was left of my family? After
dinner, when we would seek refuge in the music room, Elisi’s harp stood
silent and watching us. In the parlor, my mother’s chair was empty. There
seemed no room where the absent did not outnumber the living people.
Then, one evening, Yaril instituted a change. I was shocked when our soup
was a cream one, a type my father had always despised. Yaril eliminated
the fish course, something she had always dreaded. When we rose from
our meal, she announced calmly that we would be having our coffee in the
garden. When I followed her there, I noted with approval that she had had
a net pavilion erected to frustrate the mosquitoes that the little glass
lamps would attract. Within the pavilion was a table with only two chairs.
A flower arrangement and a deck of cards and a pot of markers were
already set out for us. As I stared, a servant brought the coffee service out
to us on a small side table. Yaril smiled at my astonishment. “Shall we
play?” she asked me.
And for the first time since the plague had passed us, we shared a
pastime, and made wagers and even laughed a bit.
And so the days passed, one after another. I controlled the estate and Yaril
ran the household. I realized how completely Yaril had stepped into my
mother’s position when she informed me one night over dinner that she
had sent for a seamstress and that tomorrow I was to be measured for new
clothing. I didn’t know what to say for a moment. I blushed hot. Every
garment I had was stretched and strained at the seams. It was not a trivial
matter for me; in some places I was chafed raw, and yet it had happened
so gradually that I had not taken any steps to correct it.
She shook her head at my humiliation. “Nevare, you have no idea how
uncomfortable you look. Just looking at how your clothing binds you
distresses me. You can’t walk around looking like that in front of the hired
men, let alone when company comes. We have to do something about it.
That’s all there is to it.”
I looked at my plate in front of me. I had just eaten a large meal, but not
outrageously large. Still, stupidly, I said, “I’ve been putting it off. New
clothing, I mean. I keep hoping I’ll regain my shape and be able to fit into
my old garments again.” And the words that I had intended as an excuse
were, I suddenly recognized, the absolute truth. I was still waiting for
something that would restore me to the way I had been. A miracle was
required, and I suddenly knew I was not going to get one.
“I am glad that you intend that,” my sister said quietly. “And if you would
try harder to do so, I’d be ever so proud of you. Not that I think you, well,
not that I think you eat like a pig. I see you each day, Nevare. You work
hard. And I don’t see you eating gluttonously. Well…that is, your meals are
generous, but Mother always said that you boys would eat more than we
women did, and even more so when you were working. But, of course, you
should strive to regain your physique. But in the meantime,” she went on
very seriously, “you must look presentable. So. Please come to the sewing
room tomorrow at ten o’clock.” And that was that.
My new suits were all in the deep blues and blacks of mourning, but that
was only fitting. It was such a relief to put on a shirt that didn’t strain at
the collar and would reach around my belly to button. Of my own volition,
I sent for the cobbler from the Landing, and had myself fitted for new
shoes and a pair of boots. Having clothing that fit made me look much
better. The fabric straining across my ample flesh had made me look
fatter. I did not enjoy the work of running the manor, but there was
satisfaction in doing it well. I sketched out the plans for new ferry landings
and entrusted them to men capable of following them. I worked hard, ate
well, and slept deeply at night. There was meaning in my life once more,
and the companionship of my sister. For a time, I was content, and did
not think beyond having the hay cut and stacked, and deciding how many
pigs should be slaughtered for the winter’s bacon.
When the ferry landings were completed, I made a trip across, to be sure
they functioned as I had intended. I was well pleased, for my design had
eliminated the muddy track that had once led down to the boats and my
new floating dock facilitated the loading and unloading of the vessels.
Once on the town side, I decided to visit the council. I found the Landing
running smoothly and beginning to recover its prosperity and hope for the
future. The keenest pleasure of that evening came when the council
members thanked me for my intervention and commended Sergeant Duril
for doing an excellent job in a difficult situation. The old sergeant, who
often accompanied me on my rounds, blushed like a boy. The impromptu
meeting turned into a meal together at the largest inn in Burvelle Landing,
simply called the Landing Inn. The meal stretched into an evening of
drinking, at which a number of townsfolk and several of Duril’s patrol
joined us as the night progressed.
We drank too much, of course. For me it was the first time to unleash my
restraint and talk, as a man among men, about all that had befallen both
manor and town. As the hours trickled by, both jackets and tongues were
loosened. It was not the first time I had ever been drunk, but it certainly
became the drunkest I had ever been. Perhaps the company of relative
strangers was what made it so easy. The talk wandered from the plague
and the aftermath to talk of beautiful women, and drinking, and easy
women, and my academy experience and gambling and fickle women and
true women. My rotundity was the object of not only curiosity but also
jesting, some of it pointed but most of it good-natured. I had had enough
to drink that none of it seemed too important. To the ones who seemed
intent on needling me, I responded with what seemed at the time acid wit
and endless good nature. Everyone laughed with me. For that night my
fate did not seem so hard. It almost seemed that I received double credit
for having stepped in and restored order to the town, for not only had I
done it while being young but I’d done it while being fat. We drank until
long past midnight, and I only set down my mug when Sergeant Duril was
tipsily insisting that we had to return to the manor for the night. Arms
about each other, we left the last tavern, and grandly commandeered the
ferry for an unscheduled crossing to our side of the river. We had a long
walk home from the ferry landing, and by the time we reached the manor,
I felt nearly sober. Such was not the case for Duril, and I actually put the
good sergeant into his bed before retiring to my own. He awoke the next
morning with a terrible hangover, but to my amazement, I slept well, and
when I rose I seemed none the worse for wear. After that, at least once a
week I would go into town to speak with the council and to have a few
beers at one of the taverns afterward. It was very pleasant to socialize, and
though I didn’t patronize the tavern whores, it was flattering to be the
subject of their flirtatious attentions. I might have been more tempted to
indulge myself except that Sergeant Duril inevitably accompanied me, and
the habit of behaving myself in his presence was still strong. At the
manor, things were much quieter. Yaril refused all invitations sent to us.
Looking back on it, I realize now that we isolated ourselves, retreating into
a world we could control. Eventually, there was a letter from Vanze, but
his grief seemed almost abstract, as he saw it through the focus of religion
and philosophy. Yaril was angry and hurt when she read it, but I think I
understood his reaction. He’d been born to be a priest, and a priest’s
business was to find the good god’s will and wisdom in everything. If he
could apply it to what had befallen our family and take comfort from it,
then I would not begrudge it to him.
The most annoying piece of correspondence I received was an arrogant
note from Caulder Stiet’s uncle, addressed to my father, blithely informing
us that he and Caulder would be visiting us in the spring. He was
confident that we would be glad to welcome them as houseguests and
looked forward to studying the geology of Widevale. As he did not think
their blooded saddle horses would be appropriate for cross-country
terrain, he would be obliged to borrow some rougher mounts for their
expedition. The man’s assumptions grated on me, and I fired off a letter
that mentioned our family losses and implied that plague was rampant in
our area. I suggested he should find another location for his holiday. My
missive was courteous, but barely so.
My father received letters from my Uncle Sefert. I longed to read them,
but they were addressed only to my father and I had them taken directly
up to him. If he replied, I never saw the outgoing posts.
There was another long letter from Spink and Epiny, written in her hand.
Her condolences on my losses were heartfelt. The rest of her note was full
of news, incredibly good news that filled me with jealousy and frustration.
My uncle had decided that Spink deserved a second chance at his career
as a soldier son. Epiny did not write that her father was trying to buy a
better life for her, but I was certain that was the case. My uncle had been
impressed with the devotion Spink had shown in nursing Epiny through
her illness and so he had purchased a commission for Spink. It was not an
excellent one; it was with the Farleyton regiment, currently stationed on
the border at Gettys. Spink and Epiny would travel there by wagon, and
once there, Spink would become Second Lieutenant Kester. They had been
warned that he would most likely be assigned to Supply, but Epiny was
already certain that his commander would immediately recognize Spink’s
potential and soon transfer him to interesting tasks. Her letter was one
long dither about packing, what to take, what to leave, how she must learn
to behave as an officer’s wife, how overjoyed Spink was, and yet he felt
humbly indebted to her father, and her worry that in his drive to impress
his superiors Spink might jeopardize his recovered health. She confided to
me that she was convinced now of the healing properties of Bitter Springs,
and had spent a good portion of their savings on blue glass bottles and
stoppers, for she intended to take a gross of dosages of spring water with
her. The folk of Gettys suffered much from the plague and she was most
anxious to see if the bottled water could relieve or perhaps prevent the
disease. She went on for pages on what she hoped their quarters would be
like and whether there would be other young wives to socialize with, and
perhaps families so that when the good god finally blessed her with
pregnancy she would be around women experienced in births and babies.
I tried to smile over her pages, but all I could think was that Spink had
been given a second chance, one that I would have given my eyeteeth for.
For the very first time, it occurred to me that I could take money from my
father’s account and do the same for myself. The dishonorable temptation
lasted only for one sharp moment, and yet envy would nag at me for days
afterward. Spink’s part of the letter was more restrained than Epiny’s.
Farleyton had once been a crack regiment, renowned for their valor in
numerous campaigns. Since they’d been posted to Gettys, their star had
dimmed substantially. Rumor said that numerous desertions and
dereliction of duty had tarnished the regiment’s reputation. Still, he was
glad to accept his commission there. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” he wrote
me. “I always dreamed that I’d join a regiment where I could rise swiftly.
Farleyton’s Horse may well be it. Wish me luck and say a prayer for me.”
I did both, and tried to do them without an envious heart. Every evening,
Yaril had a place set for my father at the dinner table, always in the hope
(or dread) that he might deign to join us. As the harvest progressed, my
father improved but still kept to his room. When I tapped at his door each
day and then entered, I usually found him sitting in a chair by the
window, staring out over his lands. He still refused to look at me, and I
still persisted in giving him my daily reports. Once he had confined me to
my room to try to break me; now he confined himself to his room, but I
felt his intention was the same. I felt that his grief over his losses had been
consumed by his anger at his fate.
He did not treat Yaril so coldly. Her lot was harder. When she first
returned to Widevale, she had gone to see him, and he had burst into tears
at the sight of her, safe and healthy. But his tears of joy at receiving the
daughter who was left to him soon turned to tears of anguish over all he
had lost. She sat with him daily, and daily he would recount his misery
and despair. All he had striven for his entire life had been snatched away
from him. She would emerge from her sessions with him pale and drained.
Sometimes, she told me, he would rant against fate; at other times, he
bade her pray with him, that the good god might show him a path
through his misfortune.
My father’s life had come to a dead end. His heir was gone, his soldier son
a failure, his wife dead, his elder daughter gone. His game board had been
swept clean of all powerful pieces, leaving him only pawns to manipulate.
He agonized over who would inherit his estate, and endlessly dreaded a
lonely dotage. He considered petitioning the king to allow him to move
Vanze up from priest son to heir. But he was too much of a traditionalist
to relish that idea. The next day would find him declaring that he would
look among my cousins for a likely heir, a young man he could bring to
Widevale and raise as a fit heir. In between such ranting, he would
fashion various fates for Yaril. His only daughter was precious to him now,
he told her, for whoever wed her would be his sole ally. He would find an
heir son for her, perhaps even an old noble’s son. Then the next night he
would tearfully say she was all he had left, and that he could never allow
her to wed for she must look after him in his failing years. One evening
after a late game of cards she confided to me that she was weary to death
of those discussions. I shrugged my shoulders. “Well, in all rightness,
Cecile still has a duty to our family. She should come back here, and take
the burden of running the household off your shoulders.”
Yaril looked at me as if I were mad. “You aren’t serious?”
“She is Rosse’s widow. We made a bride-gift to her family. She is a
Burvelle now.”
“Well, she can just be a Burvelle in her mother’s house! Prissy, primpy
Cecile in charge of my life and our home? Afraid-of-her-shadow Cecile,
always wanting to chop off some poor bird’s head so her scary old gods
won’t do something awful to her? It was bad enough when Mother was
alive to keep her in check. But to have her put over me, in my own home?
No. No, Nevare. Leave her where she is, and good riddance.”
I’d had no idea that Yaril had felt such animosity toward Cecile. I’m afraid
it amused me. I grinned as I said, “So. I see now why Carsina was chosen
for me; she was someone you are already friends with. Less potential for
fireworks in the family.”
I had meant it as a jest, but it was the first time Carsina’s name had been
mentioned between us. Yaril narrowed her eyes at me. “That bitch!” she
said with great feeling.
I was shocked. “Carsina? I thought you were friends.”
She scowled. “As did I. I thought keeping her friendship was the most
important thing in the world, more important than my brother, even. I
turned my back on you, to commiserate with her about how you had
embarrassed her at Rosse’s wedding. I supported her in insisting that your
marriage agreement be dissolved. I was so shallow, Nevare. But she
served me as I deserved. No sooner was her family free of their
commitment to you than she set her sights on Remwar! She knew how I
felt about him! She knew that he had promised me that he’d ask his father
to talk to our father as soon as he could get him into a good mood! But the
last I heard, he was finding every excuse to visit her family as often as he
could.”
My mind had snagged on her earlier words. I scarcely noticed what she
said about Remwar. “Our marriage agreement is dissolved? How long ago
did that happen?”
She looked at me with sudden pity. “Didn’t Father speak to you about it?
He told the family at dinner one night, soon after Rosse’s wedding. He was
stiff with fury, but said he could not blame them. He’d said you’d eaten
yourself out of a career and a marriage…Oh, Nevare, I’m sorry. I didn’t
mean to speak of it that way. I just wish that, well, that you’d never let
yourself go this way. Why did you do it? The cavalla was what you wanted
more than anything else.”
“I didn’t do it.” I looked at her. We sat in the netted darkness of our
pavilion. The oil lamp on the table made a small orb of light around us. A
light breeze carried the scent of the night-blooming flowers in the garden
and the greener smell of the pond. It suddenly seemed that we two were
alone in the whole wide world, and perhaps we were. I began talking, and
found myself telling my little sister the entire tale. She listened in rapt
wonder, her eyes wide, and when I reached the moment where I stepped
off the cliff’s edge at Dewara’s urging, she shivered and reached across the
table to take my hand. By the time I finished the account, she had moved
to sit close beside me as if I were telling ghost stories. She heard of my
dual days at the academy, about Epiny’s séance and her concerns for me,
and of Dark Evening and the Specks’ Dust Dance. I told her of my final
battle with Tree Woman, and how the Spindle had stopped dancing and
even how I had found Dewara and how he had died.
She listened with rapt attention. In the silence that followed, as frogs and
crickets creaked and peeped, she took a breath. “Are you making this up,
Nevare?” she asked me. “Are you teasing me?”
“Yaril, I swear I am not,” I said with great feeling. “As I have said, so it has
been. The changes in my body are not my fault, and I do not believe there
is anything I can do to change myself back, unless I resort to seeking out a
magic user. And so far, that has availed me little.”
Her reaction completely surprised me. “I must meet our Cousin Epiny!
She sounds amazing. May I write to her?”
“I’m sure she’d be delighted to hear from you,” I said weakly. “I’ll give you
her address tonight.”
Yaril seemed much more entranced with Epiny’s role and adventurous
spirit than with what had befallen me. Yet it comforted me that she had
completely become my ally again. I think that Yaril and I could have gone
on like that indefinitely. I could have immersed myself in the running of
the estate and forgotten my military ambitions. Yaril was both competent
and content in her position. We had not forgotten our sorrows and loss,
but we were healing, we two. But one night, without warning, my father
descended to join us at dinner. He came alone, pushing open the heavy
wooden door to the dining room and clinging to it as he tottered in. For all
the weakness that showed in his bearing, he had still prepared for this
moment. He was immaculately dressed and shaved, with his hair carefully
combed. Strange that it was only when he entered the dining room,
properly attired for the evening meal, that I suddenly saw that the plague
had aged him. He was thinner than he had been and his hair had gone
grayer. As he approached the table, Yaril and I were as guiltily silent as
children caught in mischief. He dragged out his chair at the head of the
table, scraping it across the polished floor with obvious effort, and then
seated himself at the place that Yaril had always had set for him.
Yaril was the first to recover. She took up the small bell beside her plate.
“Father! I’m so glad to see you well enough to join us. Shall I ring for soup
for you?”
He had been staring at me in a flat, ominous way. Now he turned his gaze
on her. “That is what one usually does when one comes to table. One eats.
Yes, dear daughter, by all means, send for some soup for the old, useless
man.” Yaril’s mouth hung open. The color drained from her face. Then she
took an audible breath and rang her bell. When the servant came in, she
said calmly, “My father has come down to dinner. Please find him a soup
to begin with; he will not enjoy the cream one.”
The man bobbed a bow to her. “I have a beef stock simmering.”

“That would be fine. Thank you.”

My father was silent through this interchange, and held his peace until the
door had swung shut behind the serving man. Then he glared at us. “Well.
Isn’t this a pretty picture? Playing lord and lady of the manor, are we?”

I kept my cowardly mouth shut. Yaril didn’t. Color came back to her face
as two spots of pink on her cheeks. “We have done our best to go on,
Father, yes. Does that offend you? We thought that you would be pleased
that we had kept the estate operating and the household functioning
during your convalescence.”

“While the cat’s away, the mice will play,” he replied heavily. As if he had
said something of great import, he nodded around the table, surveying us
and then each of the empty chairs in turn. Then he pierced me with a
stare. “I know more than you think I do, Nevare, you great fat slug. Do you
think I’ve lain idle in my bed up there, day after day, while you trotted
about playing the great man, giving orders, writing notes on my money,
and changing things without my permission? No. I have not! I’ve been out
and about, in the wee hours of the dawn when sleep runs away from an old
man such as I. A few of the servants retain their loyalty to me. They’ve told
me all your mischief. I’ve seen your fancy ferry docks. And I’ve marked
how you put your mother and my heir and your older sister in the ground,
right next to the common servants! I’ve seen your little party tent in the
garden. I know what you’ve been up to, and I see the path that you’re
trying to lead Yaril down.
“The city corrupted you. I sent them an honest soldier son, well schooled
and ready to serve the king. And what do they send back to me? A swine,
bursting out of his uniform, corrupt to the spine! I had the bad conduct
reports from Colonel Stiet. He saw you as a coward and a sneak. Fool that
I was, I was outraged that he could suggest such a thing.” He shook his
head. “Colonel Stiet was right. The city tempted you and you fell. Stuffing
your body with food. Fornicating with savages. Eschewing the role that the
good god had given you. And why? I could not fathom why. I had raised
you well. I had believed that you’d set your heart on the same lofty goals I
had for you. But now I know. I’ve had plenty of time to puzzle it out, lying
in my bed and staring at the wall. The corruption runs deep, doesn’t it,
Nevare? Corruption, greed, and jealousy. “You saw those desperate nobles
flaunt the will of the good god. When their heirs died, they raised their
soldier sons to that position. You became jealous of Rosse, jealous of your
brother and his place. You wanted to be the heir! So you made yourself
unfit to soldier, came home, and waited, hoping for just such a disaster as
befell us. And now you think you will dump his body in the ground and
rise up to take his place. Don’t you? Don’t you?” His diatribe took my
breath away. I looked at Yaril to see what she thought. Her face was white
with shock. Another mistake.
“See how deep the corruption runs! Your father asks you a question, and
instead of replying honestly, you secretly confer with each other. How long
have you plotted against me, Nevare? For months? Or for years? How deep
have you pulled Yaril into your schemes?”
“He’s mad,” I said softly. I honestly believed that he was. Yaril’s eyes
widened and she shook her head, a wordless warning. I should have bowed
my head and apologized to my father. Instead, I met his eyes. They were
fairly bulging from his head with outrage.
“I loved Rosse, Father. I have never plotted against you. I have never
wanted any future save the one that the good god decreed, to be your
soldier son. All I have done since Rosse’s death, I have done as a
placeholder, a steward of estates that will never belong to me. Is that not
the duty of a soldier son, Father, as you taught it to me? That in times of
disaster, he comes home from serving the king to protect his father’s or
his brother’s holdings? I have made no claim of ownership or authority.
All that I ordered, I did in your name. If you review the ledgers and speak
to your overseers, you will find that I have run the estate exactly according
to the example you set me.” A servant, silent as a ghost, flowed into the
room, set a bowl of steaming soup before my father, and drifted out again.
The silence held until the door swung shut behind him. Then I spoke again
before my father could. “As for the graves of Mother and Rosse and
Elisi…yes. It is as you say. If you had given me other orders, I would have
done differently, according to your will. I did seek you out, I did speak to
you, but you did not reply. And so I buried them simply. I did not think to
separate them from the humble folk who had served them so well in life.
That I buried them quickly was not lack of respect but necessity. Their
bodies were…Father, I had to bury them immediately. By the time Duril
freed me from my locked room, they were…well, you were there. You
know.” I glanced at Yaril, imploring her silence. I had kept from her that
her mother’s body had lain unburied for days, decomposing into her
bedding. She did not need to hear that Elisi had died reaching for water,
unattended by family or servant. It was hard enough for me to know those
things. I would not inflict them on my sister. I looked at him evenly,
waiting for him to admit that what I said was true.
He stared flatly back at me. “I was ill. You didn’t say a word to me about
the graves. I trusted you, Nevare. I trusted you to do what was right.”
“I did my best, Father! The servants had fled. Those who remained were
weak or still sick. I did my best to step up and take command of the
situation.”
“You wrapped them in blankets and tumbled them into their graves. You
didn’t even trouble with coffins. You gave your mother’s body to the
worms, as if she were some pauper found in the gutter. You held no
prayers, you made no offerings. They don’t even have stones to mark them!
“You shoved them in the earth to be forgotten. And then you and your
sister proceeded to enjoy yourselves, to take for yourselves what had
belonged to your betters.”
I glanced at Yaril. I had heard her gasp for breath several times as my
father painted his ugly images into her mind. She was shaking. Anger
flooded me at what he was doing to her. “Trusted me? Trusted me? You
left me locked in my room to starve! I went days without food or water,
and no one gave a thought to me. If Sergeant Duril hadn’t come looking
for my body, I’d be dead, too. Would that have pleased you?”
He looked back at me, his eyes as flat as a fish’s. Then he turned to Yaril
and said, “He’s lying. He’s obviously lying. Does he look to you as if he has
been starved? He’s trying to turn you against me, Yaril. He wants you to
agree with him, to say I’m mad. Then he could petition the king to take
control of the estate. And then he’d find a way to have himself declared
heir.”
Yaril had bunched her napkin up in her hands. With both hands, she held
it up before her mouth. She was shaking as if we’d doused her with cold
water. I could barely understand her words. “Stop this. Stop!” She
sounded as if she couldn’t catch her breath. “I don’t know anything. I don’t
want anything except for this to stop. Stop fighting!” She leapt up from
her chair, took two steps toward the door, and then collapsed, weeping, on
the floor. I was shocked. She had seemed so strong, so recovered of late. I
had not guessed how close she was to breaking. She tried to rise as I stood
up. When she could not stand, she tried futilely to escape by crawling
toward the door.
I hurried to her. Awkwardly, I went down on one knee and then, with an
effort, raised us both. She trembled in my grasp, and sobs shook her with
each breath she took. Her eyes were closed. Her hands still gripped her
napkin convulsively. My arm around her shoulders held her upright. I
spoke flatly. “I am taking my sister to her room. She is overcome. You have
judged me wrongly, Father, and judged Yaril even more unjustly. We have
been nothing but loyal and devoted to our family throughout the hardship.
We are all you have left. Why do you want to turn us against each other?”
We were nearly at the dining room door when he let fly his last volley of
barbed words.
“I know why you want her good favor, Nevare. I know why you coddle the
sister you earlier ignored. You know that the man she marries may very
well be your last refuge when you are old and need a shelter for your fat
and doddering years. You know you won’t find it with me, don’t you?
Because I disown you. I know everything you’ve done, every disgraceful
deed: posturing about my Landing, pretending to be a proper soldier,
giving orders, and swaggering about. Do you think I haven’t heard of your
drunken carousing in my Landing? I know how you shamed my name
there, drinking with peasants and whores! You ruined my dreams for you!
You are nothing to me. Nothing! Nothing!”
At his words, Yaril broke free from my grasp. She fled from the room. I
turned to face him. I drew myself up tall and straight and met his gaze.
“As you command me, sir,” I said coldly. Deliberately, I saluted him. It
threw him into frenzy. “You great sack of blubber! How dare you salute
me! You’ll never be a soldier. You’ll never be anything. You’re nothing!
Nothing! I take back my name from you! I take back from you your right
to say you’re my son.”
His words should have horrified me and frozen me with terror. Instead I
was flooded with a sensation that was now becoming too familiar. The
magic roiled in my blood and rejoiced as it spoke. “Take it all back and
welcome to it, old man. It has been years since I belonged to you. Take
care of yourself. I won’t be around to do that anymore. I’ve a destiny to
fulfill, and it isn’t here.” I cannot explain the sense of destiny I felt when I
said those words. I felt power shimmer all around me. No task was beyond
my ability to do. There was no anger in my voice. I stated my thoughts
calmly, and when I looked at the gaunt old man at the head of the table, he
was suddenly no longer my father. He was thin and querulous and entirely
bereft of authority over me. All this time, I’d thought I’d needed him. But
the opposite was true. He’d needed me to fulfill his dreams, and when I
had grown fat, I’d taken that from him. I didn’t need him. I had a life of
my own, and it called to me.
As I turned to leave the room, he lifted his soup bowl and banged it on the
table at me, like a thwarted child. “Get out of my house! Get out! Get out!”
He was still shouting those words, over and over, when I let the door close
behind me. Yaril was standing frozen outside the dining room, her hands
knotted into fists and curled against her chest. She looked as if she could
not breathe. “Come with me,” I said, and when she did not move, I
stooped and lifted her bodily. She whimpered like a baby and curled up in
my arms. It was awkward to carry her because of my own bulk, but at
least I did not lack for strength. Her weight was nothing to me as I bore
her up the stairs and to her room. I managed to get the door open, and
only bumped her head lightly on the door frame as I carried her in. I set
her down on her bed. She curled into a tighter ball there, and sobbed
harder than ever.
I looked around the room. I pulled her dainty white-painted chair out
from her secretary, and then knew it would never hold my weight.
Gingerly, I sat down on the foot of her bed. It creaked in response. “Yaril.
Yaril? Listen to me. You and I know what is true. We have done nothing
shameful. We have both done the best we could, while that hateful old
man huddled in his bed and did nothing. He has no right to rebuke us.
None at all.”
She only sobbed harder. I didn’t know what to do. Just an hour ago, she
had been a strong young woman defying disaster with spirit and courage.
Had that all been a show for me? It horrified me that my father could so
quickly reduce her to a shambles. It was a double horror that he would do
so. I recalled my earlier skepticism when my Cousin Epiny had told me
that a woman’s life was very different from my own, that in many ways she
was a valuable asset to be bartered off to the highest bidder. I had scoffed
at her, but tonight, witnessing the horrible power my father had over
Yaril, I had a glimmer of understanding. I sighed and helplessly patted my
sister’s shoulder until she had sobbed herself out.
Eventually, she quieted. My belly betrayed me by growling softly. For an
instant I thought of the lovely dinner we had abandoned: prairie fowl with
an onion stuffing was to have been the main course. Vindictively, I hoped
my father would choke on it. My belly growled again, more loudly, and to
my surprise, Yaril gave a stifled laugh. Her shoulder muscles relaxed, she
gave a great sigh, and sat up on the bed next to me. “He’s a vile man.” She
spoke the accusation hopelessly. “He’s our father,” I said reflexively. I
wondered if he was that to me anymore.
Probably not.
“He’s our father,” she said, accepting the correction. “And he’s a vile man
and still I love him, and long to have his regard and approval. Can you
understand that, Nevare?”
“I can. Because I feel much the same way about him.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Not like I have.” She pushed her hair back from her
wet face. I offered her my handkerchief. She took it and matter-of-factly
dried her face. As she gave it back to me, she shook her head wearily. “I’ve
always been the ‘extra’ daughter, Nevare. Always striving for any crumb of
approval I could win from him. When he turned on you, I joined him.
Some part of me even felt glad that you had finally done something
disgraceful and fallen out of his favor. Because your failure gave me a
better chance with Father. There. Now you know what a coward and a
weakling I am.”
A year ago, her words would have shocked me. Now I understood them. “I
always took his favor for granted,” I admitted. “Not that I didn’t work
hard to be exactly what he expected me to be. I did. And I worried, often,
that he was secretly disappointed in me. But for all that, I still always
believed he loved me. I never thought that he would—” And to my horror,
my throat closed up on my words. Yaril’s distress had distracted me. Now
the impact of my father disowning me hit me like a musket ball. I wanted
to run back down the stairs, fall on my knees before him, and implore him
to change his mind.
Yaril looked at me as if she heard my thoughts. “He’ll never change his
mind. He’s too proud. He’ll stand by what he’s said, even when he knows
it’s stupid and wrong. He’s broken it all, for all of us. What are we going to
do, Nevare? Whatever are we going to do?”
The words came to me slowly and fell from my lips like stones. “I’ll have to
leave. There is nothing else I can do.” I swallowed past a sudden lump in
my throat. Other words came out before I even thought to say them. “I
should have left a long time ago, and then none of this would have
happened. When I first found out I was dismissed from the academy, I
should have run away east. To the forest, where I belong.”
“What?” Yaril demanded, distraught.
“I meant the frontier. Where I could make a new life for myself.” But that
wasn’t what I had meant at all. Like a shadow unfurling, for a moment my
Speck self had seized my tongue and spoken to her. I could not imagine a
worse time for him to assert his presence. A fresh wave of misery washed
over me as I tried to comprehend the full disaster of my father turning me
out. Yaril made it worse. “I have to go with you, Nevare. No matter where
you go. You can’t leave me here. You can’t. I’ll die.”
“Don’t say that! You know I can’t take you with me. I don’t even know
where I’m going or what I’m going to do. I can’t take you into a situation
like that.” As I said the words, I knew what I had to do. I must obey the
good god’s will. I had to enlist as a soldier. Franner’s Bend was the closest
military post. I could start there, and build a new life. I instantly rejected
that idea. I would go as far away from my father as I could and build a
new life where if I failed or disgraced myself, only I would bear the shame.
“If you leave me, I’ll die, Nevare. Or I’ll go mad. Don’t go off and leave me
alone with that crazy, vile man.”
The first thought that came to me was that she had to stay, because
otherwise our father would be left all alone. Despite all, I thought that too
cruel to consider. “He isn’t himself,” I said instead. “Grief has turned his
mind. In time, he may recover. And when he does, he will need you.”
“Perhaps after he has driven me as mad as he is? Nevare, try to imagine
what my life will be here. I will have no one to turn to. No one.” I sought
my mind for something to offer her, some shelter or friendship that could
sustain her. Carsina came to mind, and then I remembered their
falling-out over Remwar. Our family had other friends and neighbors.
True, ever since the plague, there had been little socializing. The news we
had received from other households was sparse and often somber. But
once the rains of fall and the snows of winter were past and the roads were
good again, surely people would resume their old patterns of visits and
invitations. In the meantime…well, at least she would be safe. I said as
much.
“Safe. Safe to be belittled and ordered about every day. Safe to be married
off to some man Father chooses, who will belittle and order me about in
his home. You have a peculiar idea of safe, Nevare. The safest I’ve ever
been has been since you brought me home from the Porontes and put me
in charge of the household. Nevare, other than my grief, these have been
the best days of my life. Oh, I know how shallow that sounds!” she cried
out before I could reply to her strange remark. “But please, try to
understand. For once I felt like I could relax and be myself. I could request
meals of food that I enjoyed, and move the furniture as suited me and not
be required each evening to give an accounting of what I had
accomplished each day. And as a result, I actually did things that I
thought needed doing, without fearing that they would not be approved.
My life became more than matching buttons on my frock or learning a
new piece of music.”
I didn’t know what to say to her. Words came out of my mouth. “This is a
journey I must make. Whatever I need to make this journey will be
provided to me.” I felt my blood roil in me as I spoke. I shook it off. This
was between my sister and me. It had nothing to do with the Tree
Woman’s curse. I tried to think of some way to comfort Yaril. I said the
worst possible thing I could have said. “I’ll send for you. When I’ve made a
place for myself, I’ll send for you. I promise.”
“Will it be long?” she instantly demanded, and then, in the next breath, “I
won’t be able to stand it here alone. What if he marries me off before you
send for me? Then I’ll be trapped forever. Where are you going? How are
you going to manage on your own? Where are we going to live?”
My heart sank. “I don’t know. I don’t have answers to any of your
questions. But I promise that I’ll send for you as soon as I have any sort of
a situation. And if you are unhappy with where you are, no matter where
you are, you’ll still come to me. I promise. Keep in touch with Epiny. I’ll be
able to find you through her, when the time comes. I’ll send for you, Yaril.”
Yaril followed me to my room. She looked around it, at the bare walls, the
simple desk, and my scant possessions. Her eyes lingered on the broken
hasp that dangled still from my ripped door. “He did keep you here and
starve you,” she said quietly.
“Yes. He did.” And our admission of that suddenly made it easier for me to
leave.
I had little to pack. The only clothes that still fit me were the ones Yaril
had had made for me. I took my cadet cloak, for I knew the autumn rains
and winds were not far away. I packed a basic medical kit of bandages,
healing salts, and salve, and a fine needle and silk thread for stitching
wounds. I hoped I’d never have to use it. I took my beautiful soldier son
journal because I could not bear to leave it. It was hard to leave my
schoolbooks behind and admit that a fine education was no longer part of
my future.
I did not sleep that night. At dawn, I rose. I washed myself, shaved, and
combed my hair. I dressed in the clothing that fitted me best, and made
sure my boots were well blacked. When I went to get my sword and pistol,
I discovered my father’s final blow against me. They were gone. I stood a
moment, staring at the empty spot on the wall where they were usually
racked with the other weapons of the household. Very briefly, I considered
taking Rosse’s weapons. Then I hardened myself against such a base
temptation. I would give my father no excuse to label me thief as well as
failure. He was driving me out of the family unarmed. Very well.
I walked quietly down the hallway and entered my mother’s room. I had
intended to make a sort of final farewell. The stripped bed and bare
windows made the room skeletal and cold. Little remained of the woman
who had raised me. There were a few pots of her cosmetics at her dressing
station, and her heavy silver-backed brush with its matching comb beside
it. I walked to her dressing table, thinking to find a few strands of her hair
to take with me. Instead, I caught my reflection in her mirror. I froze,
staring at a man I didn’t recognize.
I’d been carrying my mental image of who I’d always been. I’d been
remembering that I had a sculpted face, high cheekbones, and short blond
hair. I remembered a tall man who stood erect, with delineated muscles in
his arms and chest. When I thought of myself, despite knowing I’d gotten
fat, I still pictured myself that way. That man was gone.
My cheekbones and jaw were lost in the softness of my rounded face. I’d
begun a double chin. I stood as straight as I could and vainly attempted to
suck in my gut. It availed me nothing. My belly was a bulging sack. My
shoulders were rounded with fat, my neck lost in them. My arms looked
shorter, pushed away from my sides. My longer hair looked lank and
greasy. I had dressed in my best, hoping to look like a cavalla trooper as I
rode away. Instead, I finally saw myself as others did. I was fatter than
ever. The extra flesh was like a badly fitting garment that I’d slung on over
my real body. I could grab handfuls of flesh on my ribs, on my thighs, and
even on my chest. The features of my face were sinking in doughy flesh. I
turned from that nightmare image and walked sharply from my mother’s
room, closing the door firmly behind me. I was not surprised to find Yaril
waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. I managed a smile for her. She
had packed food for me, a generous packet. I thanked her and hugged her
one last time. She leaned against my belly to reach me for a kiss on my
cheek. I felt my body as a wall around me that held my loved ones at a
distance. Fort Nevare.
“Don’t you forget your promise!” she hissed fiercely in my ear. “Don’t
abandon me here, thinking that I’ll be safe. Send for me as soon as you are
settled anywhere, no matter how rough. I’ll come.”
I bade her farewell at the door, and turned away from the house where I
had grown up.
In the stables, I saddled Sirlofty and loaded my possessions into my saddle
panniers. When I led him out of the stables, Sergeant Duril was waiting to
say good-bye. The old soldier looked grim and tired. He already knew that
I’d been disowned. Very little of what happened in any noble family
remained private for long. I shook his hand.
He wished me well. “Write to me,” he said, his voice going husky. “I know,
I can’t read, but if you write to me, I’ll find someone who can read it to
me. Let me know what happens to you, lad. Don’t leave me wondering.” I
promised him I would. I mounted, levering my weight up onto my saddle
with difficulty. Sirlofty shifted under me as if startled by the load. My
buttocks settled onto my saddle in a new and disconcerting way. I took a
breath. I hadn’t ridden in quite a while, but I’d soon be back in condition.
The next few days would be uncomfortable, but I’d survive. As I rode away,
I glanced back at the windows of my former home. Yaril was framed in
hers, watching me ride away. She lifted her hand in farewell. I waved in
response.
There was a twitch of the curtains in my father’s room. That was all. When
I reached the end of the drive and looked back a final time, I saw a croaker
bird lift from the chimney pot. He circled my old home once, and then flew
off ahead of me. He seemed an ill omen to follow, but follow I did.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FRANNER’S BEND
It was midmorning before I felt I had truly left my home behind. I knew
the lands around my father’s holding so well and he made such extensive
use of them for running cattle and sheep that they felt as if they, too,
belonged to him. I rode in a daze, my mind occupied with my own inner
turmoil. My father had disowned me. I was free. Those two thoughts
seesawed in my mind. Free to wander, to give a different name when
people asked me. No one would rebuke me if I abandoned the destiny the
good god had set upon me and became something other than a soldier. I
was also free to starve, to fall victim to robbers, to suffer the misfortunes
that befell those who challenged the good god’s will. Free to struggle to
find a place for myself in a world that largely disdained or ignored me
because of my size.
The day was warm, but I already saw the early signs of the season’s
change. The tall grasses were turning gold and nodded, their heads heavy
with seed. The cooler nights meant that more moisture condensed on the
ground, and I could see the green fronds unfurling at the base of the
winter-growing prairie fern. The tiny purplish flowers of the
ground-hugging birdbrush on the gentle hills were giving way to the little
black berries that birds and rabbits so loved. The land would give forth
one final burst of generosity to all the life that teemed over it before it
subsided into the cold hostility of winter. I had not ridden Sirlofty for any
great distance since I’d returned from my useless visit to Dewara. He was
restive and willful, and I soon felt all the aches of a man who has been out
of a saddle for too long. I gritted my teeth, knowing it would pass in the
next few days. Until then, it simply had to be endured. My greater weight
amplified every twinge and ache, and by midafternoon my lower back
throbbed with every step my mount took. Sirlofty had become lazy as well.
His pace was not what it should have been. Toward noon, I noticed a
slight hitch in his stride.
I began to watch anxiously for the silhouette of the Franner’s Bend
stockade wall against the horizon. I had not made good time, I realized. I
kicked Sirlofty up into a trot, but he soon lapsed back into a walk, and I let
him. When he trotted, my body shook all around me as if I were encased
in a pudding.
It was a horrid feeling.
My world had changed. I remembered the long ride to Franner’s Bend as a
journey through wild lands, with nowhere to stop for refreshment, and no
scenery other than the natural vegetation on the rolling plains. That was
no longer so. The Midlands were becoming settled. There was sporadic
traffic on the King’s Road that paralleled the river, wagons and people on
horseback and families traveling on foot or with donkeys heaped high with
possessions. There was habitation, too. I passed several cotton fields,
fringed with cottages for the workers. Just beyond them, I came to a long,
low building immediately alongside the road. The outside of it was freshly
plastered and painted a pale blue that was a shocking contrast to the sere
land around it. The new signboard that swung from its post proclaimed it
was The Last Bale, and it offered beer, food, and rooms for travelers. I
marvelled at the thought of a real inn along this road. Farther along my
way, a Plainsman herder in a conical hat and his two dogs shepherded a
flock of flat-tailed sheep past me. I passed a little landing on the river with
a cluster of buildings around it, the seed of an as-yet-nameless town. Just
past it, a boy on a donkey watched over a grazing flock of goats. He
watched me pass as if I were the intruder.
I had always thought of my family as living on the edge of the wild lands.
Clearly, that was no longer so. Civilization had crept up and flowed around
to encompass us. The land was becoming settled. I didn’t like it. I had
taken pride in growing up on the far reaches of the civilized world, tough
and schooled in survival in a land that offered no refuge to the weak. All
that was changing now.
I reached the outskirts of Franner’s Bend as the sun was venturing toward
the horizon. The Bend had changed even more than the countryside. When
I’d visited it as a boy, the old fort had crouched in the bend of the river
amid a hodgepodge of huts and a rudimentary market. Now ranks of
baked-brick houses clustered on either side of the road as I approached
the fort. The mud swallows that yearly invaded our barns and plastered
their homes into the eaves were more competent builders. The roofs were
roughly thatched with broom from the surrounding prairie.
Handcarts and foot traffic meandered along the road and down the alleys.
Busy people still stopped and stared at me. One small boy shouted into the
open door of a house, “Come see the fat man on a horse!” and a gaggle of
children rushed to the threshold to watch me pass. The boy trotted along
behind me for some way, gawking at me in amazement. I tried to ignore
him. I’d have skirted this warren if I could, but the King’s Road went right
through the mongrel settlement. The road passed a roughly paved square
centered on a well and bustling with commerce. The buildings that
fronted it were painted ochre and white and yellow-brown, with roofs of
baked tile. In an open-fronted building, workers were lifting long swathes
of fabric from dyeing vats. Men were unloading sacks of grain from a
heavy wagon and carrying them into the warehouse like a trail of ants. I
dismounted to allow Sirlofty to water at the animal trough by the well.
Almost immediately, I drew attention. Two women who had been filling
their water jugs homes giggled and stared at me, whispering like girls.
One gangly old man from the grain warehouse was even ruder.
“How many?” he shouted at me as he approached. I suspected he shouted
because he himself was deaf.
“How many what?” I asked him as Sirlofty lifted his muzzle from the
water.
“How many stone, my man? How many stone do you weigh?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” I replied stiffly. I tugged at Sirlofty’s bridle,
intending to lead him away. But the old man seized my sleeve. “Come to
my warehouse. I’ve a grain scale there. Come on. This way. This way.”
I tugged my arm free of him. “Leave me alone.”
He laughed loudly, pleased at my reaction. Workers gawked at us. “Look at
him!” he invited them loudly. “Don’t you think he ought to come to my
grain scales for a weigh?” One woman grinned and nodded widely.
Another looked away, embarrassed for me, while two young men laughed
heartlessly. I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks. As I set my foot in
Sirlofty’s stirrup, it felt higher than it had that morning, and every aching
muscle in my body screamed at the prospect of remounting.
One of the young men guffawed. “Look! His horse doesn’t even want to
stand for being mounted by him.”
And it was true. The ever-mannered and deeply trained Sirlofty shifted
away from me. He was clearly favoring one leg now.
“Ye’re goina lame him!” the other young man warned me in a sneering,
city accent I recognized from Old Thares. “Pity the poor beast. You should
carry him for a ways, gutbag.”
His warning was a true one. The only reason that Sirlofty would behave in
such a way was if he were in pain. I stubbornly mounted him anyway. I
rode away from the well and the square, ignoring the catcalls that followed
me. As soon as I was out of sight, I dismounted and led my horse. He was
not limping yet, but he was moving gingerly. My horse, my fine cavalla
steed, could no longer bear my weight for a full day’s ride. If I rode him
again tomorrow, he’d be lame before the day was out. And then what
would I do? What was I going to do now? I was scarcely a day’s ride from
my father’s estate and already into problems. The hopelessness of my
situation suddenly crashed in on me. I was pretending that all would be
well, that I could provide for myself away from my father’s largesse. Yet in
reality, I’d never done that.
What were my options? Enlist in the military? I no longer had a horse that
could bear me, one of the requirements to join the cavalla as an enlisted
man. No foot regiment would consider me. I’d always thought that, if need
be, I could live as the Plainsmen once had, taking what they needed from
the land. In the last day, I’d discovered what the Plainsmen already knew:
the open wild lands were vanishing. I doubted a cotton farmer would
appreciate me camping in his field, and I knew that wild game retreated
from areas where people kept cattle and sheep. It suddenly seemed that
there was no place left in the world for me. I recalled Yaril’s wailed words
from the night before: “What are we going to do?” The answer seemed
more elusive now than it had then. The growing town had all but
obscured the stockade of the old fort. The cannons were still outside the
gate but could not have been fired. Flimsy market stalls selling warm grain
beer and pepperpot soups and bread were set up all around them. I had to
look twice to see the sentries. Two stood to each side of the open gates.
The rubbish heaped up around the gates proved that they had been closed
for months. Two of the sentries were talking and laughing together as a
stream of people wandered past them into the fort. The other two were
bartering with a half-breed woman over a tray of sweet-blossom pastries. I
stood watching them for a time, wondering why I had even come to the
gates of the fort. Habit, I supposed. My father and I had always stopped to
pay our respects to the commander of the keep whenever we passed this
way.
I led Sirlofty away from the gates, down a side street, ignoring the stares
we attracted.
“You stole him, right? Want to sell him? I can get you the best price, I
know all the horse dealers.” A ragamuffin girl hurried up to trot alongside
me. Her hair hung in two tattered braids down her back, and her dress
was made from dyed sacking. Her feet were bare. It took me a moment to
understand she’d insulted me.
“I didn’t steal him. I am not a horse thief. This is my horse. Go away.”
“No, he’s not. Don’t take me for a fool. That’s a cavalla horse. Anybody
could tell that. And you aren’t a soldier, that’s plain. That tack, that’s
cavalla tack. Good panniers. I know a man who will buy it all from you,
and give you the best price. Come on. I’ll help you sell him. Keep him too
long, someone will track you down, and you know what happens to horse
thieves in this town!” She rolled her brown eyes expressively as she hoisted
tight an imaginary noose around her neck.
“Go away. No. Wait.” She’d spun aside from me, but halted at my call.
“You know so much, missy. Where’s a cheap inn?”
“Cheap? You want cheap? I can show you cheap, but first it will cost you.
Not much, not much at all, and what you pay me will be far less than what
you’ll save by letting me show you the cheapest inn I know.” She instantly
shifted her tactic, grinning up at me. One of her front teeth was missing.
She was younger than I had thought.
I did not have much money. My father had not given me any since I
reached home, and though tempted, I had not taken any cash when I
departed. So my funds were limited to what I’d had left from the money
he’d sent me to travel from Old Thares to home. I had seven hectors,
fifteen talleys, and six pewters. I took two pewt from my pocket and
rattled them in my hand. She looked interested. “It can’t be some dump
with moldy hay for my horse and a fleabag for me to sleep in. It has to be
decent.”
She feigned astonishment. “I thought you said cheap.”
“Cheap but decent.”
She rolled her eyes as if I were asking for the moon, and then held out her
hand. I put one coin into her palm. She cocked her head at me and
frowned. “The other if I like the place you show me.”
She sighed theatrically. “Follow me,” she said in an exasperated voice. She
led me around a corner and down a side street toward the river. As we
passed through a narrow alley, she asked without malice, “How did you
get to be so fat?”
“It’s a curse,” I said.
“Oh.” She nodded sagely. “My mother gets that, too. But when she gets fat,
she has a baby.”
“I’m not going to have a baby.” I discovered it was possible to feel offended
and amused at the same time.
“I know that. I’m not stupid. Here. This is the place.” She’d stopped
outside a large house that fronted onto the river. The fenced yard and
several outbuildings within its enclosure looked maintained but not well
tended. “This isn’t an inn.”
“I know that, too. That’s why it will be cheaper and not have fleas. Guff!
I’ve brought you a paying guest!”
She sang it out before I could say anything. In response, an old man stuck
his head out the window. “Who’s there?”
“Farvi. And I’ve brought you a man who needs a bed for himself and a stall
for his horse tonight. He wants cheap with no fleas. I thought of you
immediately.”
“Did you? Well, aren’t I lucky?” He looked at me skeptically for a moment,
and then his glance fell on Sirlofty. “I’ll be right out.” He popped out the
door seconds later. He reached eagerly for Sirlofty’s reins.
“I’ll put him in back where he won’t be seen. Isn’t he a fine one!”
“Leave off, sir! He’s battle-trained.” Sirlofty had instantly reacted to a
stranger trying to seize his headstall. I put a hand on my horse to calm
him, and then said coldly, “I’ve no need to hide what is mine. All I’m need
is a place to sleep for the night, and a stall for my horse.” The man looked
at me, glanced back at the child, and then looked at me again. “Very well.
But the only place I can put him is around the back. I’ve a paddock there.
Shall I take him there?”
“I’ll bring him.” I was already feeling dubious about the man. But he led
and I followed to a shed and small paddock behind his home. Two milk
goats were the only occupants; there was plenty of room for Sirlofty. It was
relatively clean, and the hay looked decent. I nodded my approval and put
my horse up. The man fetched a bucket of clean water for him and I gave
him a good feed of hay. While he was eating, I went down on one knee to
check his hooves and legs. His left foreleg was warmer than the others but
not badly swollen. I grunted my dismay, and hauled myself to my feet.
“Are you going to stay here?” the girl asked pointedly, holding out her
palm.
I flipped her other pewter into the air. She snatched it and was gone.

“Precocious little wench,” I observed to the man.

He shrugged. “Most convicts’ get are. Or they don’t survive.”

“Her father’s in prison?”

“He was. Then he came out here, working off his sentence on the King’s
Road. When his stint was done, he got his land allotment. And like a lot of
the convicts, he had no idea what to do with it. They send thieves and
rapists out here from Old Thares and say, ‘Here you go, be a farmer.’ They
don’t know how to milk a goat or plant a seed in the ground. Farvi’s father
wasn’t a bad fellow, but stealing was the only way he knew to make a
living. So someone killed him. Franner’s Bend is full of men like him, and
their half-wild children. Farvi’s a smart little girl, but when she’s old
enough to turn to picking pockets or whoring, she will. There isn’t much
else for girls like her. Now. You wanted a room?”
The bluntness of his words took my breath away. I just nodded. I followed
him through the yard where a young woman gaped at me, and then
quickly resumed sweeping the flagstones. My host showed me to the back
door of his house, and then to a very small room, not much bigger than
the cot it held. I nodded it would do. “How much?” I asked warily.
“Six talleys.”
At the look on my face, he added, “And I’ll throw in your horse’s food and a
meal tonight and breakfast tomorrow for you.” He cleared his throat. “Not
large meals, mind, but enough to keep you going.”
It was still more than I wanted to pay, but I nodded sourly. “I’m going out
to walk about town a bit. Franner’s Bend has changed a lot since I was last
here.”
“Oh, I’ll wager that’s true. It’s changed since the beginning of summer,
and not just from the plague sweeping through here. Keep your hand on
your purse, that’s my advice. Half the whores in this town will rob you
blind. The other half have friends who will kill you and strip your body of
everything you’ve got.” I wondered if he’d known I’d had a stray thought
about that possibility. I shook my head at both of us. “Where would I find
the horse dealers in town?” The man squinted his eyes at me. “You want to
sell that horse, I’ll give you a fair price for him. Like I said before, you
won’t get far with him. It’s too obvious that he’s not yours.”
“But he is.” I spoke each word deliberately. “And I’m not interested in
selling him. I want to buy a horse for my journey. A large sturdy one.
Where would I look?” I knew what I had to do and was already steeling
myself for the task. “Big horses? Down near the Rivergate. There’s usually
a good selection there, because of the canal boats. Look for a man named
Jirry and tell him Guff sent you.”
“And he’ll give me a better bargain.”
Guff grinned. “No. But he’ll know that he owes me a favor if you do buy an
animal from him. And he’s a competitive trader. He isn’t the cheapest
down there, but that’s because he doesn’t deal in worked-out animals. Try
him, at least.”
I promised I would and set out on foot for the Rivergate. Franner’s Bend
had become a sprawling warren of little mud-brick houses. The huts and
cottages contrasted sharply with one another. Some were plain and others
had been slapped with a lime whitewash. Miniuscule gardens grew
vegetables and a few flowers. Dogs and children ran loose in the streets. A
few people looked prosperous, but a far greater proportion of the residents
were ragged and scrawny folk. The streets wound and wandered and
abruptly ended or became so narrow that a single horseman could barely
pass. In a few places, folk had dug shallow wells. With no planning for
rainwater runoff or for foul water, I suspected that this was a miserable,
fetid place during the rainy season. I thought of what I’d learned in the
academy about engineering a sanitary, defendable fortification and
wondered why the commander of Franner’s Bend had allowed this slum to
develop around the fort. If the Plainspeople did rise up against us, only a
fraction of these folk could take refuge behind the stockade walls. I
stepped over a shallow, foul ditch and then found that my path would
follow it down to the river. The reek from it was obscene and the objects in
it were very recognizable. I walked as far to one side of it as I could,
subduing my gag reflex. The passersby seemed immune to the stench.
My path led me through a section of Franner’s Bend that seemed
populated mostly by Plainspeople or half-breeds. The difference, oddly
enough, was that the bricks of their houses were better formed, and their
mud-plastered outer walls were decorated with images of deer, flowers,
and fish. One structure with open sides sheltered several large ovens and
brick cook stoves surrounding a large central table. In this community
kitchen, people kneaded bread, stirred pots, and talked. The smells that
wafted out reminded me of my childhood visits to the marketplace outside
Franner’s Bend. My stomach rumbled lovingly. I hastened my steps,
detouring down an alley that I thought would lead to the riverbank. That
was a mistake. I ducked under twine strung between the cottages that
supported fillets of fish or twists of meat or laundry hanging to dry. Milk
goats hobbled with string pulled forage down from dried bundles tied to
the cottage eaves.
Gernians obviously did not belong in this part of the Bend. Plainswomen,
their hair bundled into bright scarves, sat on benches outside their huts,
smoking long pipes as they worked their odd one-handed looms. As I
passed, one stopped, nudged the woman next to her, and then turned to
call something in her own language through the open window behind her.
In an instant, two men crowded one another in the narrow door frame and
stared at me as I passed. I kept my eyes straight ahead and strode on. One
called out something to me, but I ignored it. I turned a corner at random
to escape their lingering gazes and finally emerged onto a wider road
paralleling the river. Rivergate was merely the gate in the stockade wall
that was closest to the docks. Beyond a district of warehouses and
wharves, I found the stockyard. Corrals full of dray horses belonged to one
of the canal boat companies. Past them, some horse traders had staked
out their wares along the riverbank, their asking prices chalked onto their
horses’ haunches. As Guff had warned me, I saw plenty of worn-out nags.
Pulling laden barges against the river’s current was heavy work for a
beast. The freight companies worked their animals to the last shred of
strength. Some of the poor creatures on display had obviously been
treated with drugs to make them look livelier. Others were
unapologetically labeled as meat animals. After several queries, I found
Jirry. To give Guff credit, his animals were in better condition than most
I’d seen, but they were also priced accordingly. Jirry was not what I’d
expected, either. He was a large man, yet not so when he stood next to me.
His loose white shirt was soiled at the cuffs and collar, and he wore an
ornately embroidered purple vest that only emphasized the swell of his
belly. He wore the waistband of his trousers under his gut. His blond hair
was almost to his shoulders, and elaborately curled. Looking at him was
like looking at a mockery of myself. I didn’t want to do business with him,
but he had the best stock. Jirry appraised my purse while I looked over his
horses. When I asked him if any of them had ever been ridden, he nodded
sagely to himself. He had a booming voice that made my business known
to everyone in the street. “I thought you might be looking for a mount.
Well, that narrows it down fast, doesn’t it, my friend? Men like us, we need
more than a pony! Let me show you the two I’d recommend. Clove there,
he’s carried a man before. And Sassy I bought from a farmer. She knows
how to do just about anything you could ask of a horse. Gentle as a kitten,
too.”
His idea of a gentle kitten and mine were at odds. I narrowly missed
having the dull imprints of Sassy’s teeth in my forearm. I do not think she
was placid so much as disinclined to move any part of her body to please
anyone else. I settled on Clove. The dark brown horse was larger and
heavier than Sirlofty, probably a cross between a draft horse and a riding
horse. He was too small to be harnessed with other dray animals, and too
heavy to keep up with a good saddle horse. But for me, he might be
perfect. I inspected him as carefully as I knew how. I was horribly aware of
how little cash I had and that I’d never bought a horse before. Always my
father and brother had done the inspection, the selection, and the
decision-making. I had no idea what the customs were, or even how much
such an animal should cost. I did know Clove was sound, and better suited
to my present weight than Sirlofty was. “Does he come with any tack?” I
asked him.
“I’ll toss in the halter he’s wearing. That’s about it.”
“How much do you want for him?”
“Ten hectors.”
My jaw dropped. I shrugged. “Sorry to have wasted your time.” Good
horses were a lot more expensive than I’d thought, but the plugs up the
street looked like they’d die in the next fortnight.
A dire thought came to me. Perhaps I’d have to stay in Franner’s Bend and
take whatever work I could find. Perhaps this was my journey’s end. I
clenched my jaw, shocked at how my whole soul revolted at the idea. I
didn’t want to stay anyplace where I might be recognized as Nevare
Burvelle. I had to go on, I had to go east to the new life I would build. But I
couldn’t without a horse. My blood bubbled with frustration, and
something more. I spoke my thought aloud. “I cannot pay that much. But I
must have this horse to go on. Can’t you make me a better price?”
The man’s jaw dropped at my bold words. He literally goggled at me, as if
I’d hit him with a club rather than baldly stated my need. Plainly I’d
insulted him by speaking the truth. Before he could rant at me, I turned
away. “Hey!”
I turned back to Jirry’s shout. He looked upset. I braced myself for a
tirade, but he looked more confused than angry. “I thought we were
striking a bargain here. Don’t walk away from me.”
I lifted my hands and let them fall. “You’re asking far more than I can
pay.”
“So. What would you pay for him?” He had his fists on his hips, leaning
toward me as if I’d already insulted him. “What’s he worth to you?” I
spoke carefully. “I won’t presume to tell you the value of your stock. You’ve
named your price, sir. Frankly, I don’t have it. Even if I did, I couldn’t
afford to spend that much on a horse without tack. I’ve a long way to go.”
He got that addled look again, and then said reluctantly. “I might have a
Plains saddle that would fit him.”
“It’s still more than I can afford. I’m sorry.” I turned again. The man
actually stepped in front of me. His face was reddened. “Make me an offer,
before you walk away,” he growled.
It offended me to the roots of my soul. I’d been raised as the son of a
nobleman. I was not a traveling tinker, to stand in the street and haggle
price. A flush of shame spread up my cheeks. Was this what I had come
to? Nevertheless, I steeled myself and revealed the extent of my finances.
“The most I could give for any horse right now is five hectors.”
“Oh! You’re robbing me! You can’t imagine I’d sell that animal for half
what he’s worth!” The volume of his outraged shout turned heads toward
us. I spoke stiffly. “Of course I don’t expect you to sell him for half your
asking price. But five hectors is the most I can offer. Good day.” Before I
could turn away, he’d seized the sleeve of my shirt.
“Surely you’ve got something else you could throw in to sweeten the pot?
Come on, man, in the spirit of the trade, at least offer me something, to
salve my pride if nothing else.”
Mentally, I squirmed. I thought through my paltry possessions. Was there
anything I was willing to part with? I had so little. I could feel him
watching me. “I have nothing else,” I said at last. “I’m sure he’s worth
more than five hectors, but that’s the best I can do.”
“May the good god witness that you are robbing me!” he shouted. We’d
acquired an audience. I was sure they stared at the fat man. I resented
Jirry making me into a spectacle.
“Have done, sir,” I said with what dignity I could muster. “I must go.”
“Give me the money, then, for I’ve a family to feed! And when people ask
you where you got such a fine beast, be sure to tell them you stole him
from poor Jirry!”
I took the coins carefully from my pouch, striving that he should not see
how many more I actually had. I felt shamed at having driven his price
down so far. I felt worse when he dragged out a very worn but serviceable
Plains saddle. It was a rudimentary thing, a cross between a real saddle
and the dab of padding used by the nomads. The tree was not a good fit
for Clove’s back, but it would have to do for now. Jirry helpfully offered a
small cask as a mounting block. It gave way under me when I attempted
it. I thanked him stiffly and led my new purchase away from the grinning
bystanders. I glanced back as I left, still puzzled at how easy it had been to
bargain the man down. Jirry was looking after me incredulously. I saw
him glance down at the coins in his hand and then back at me as if he, too
wondered at the deal.
Out of sight of my circle of gawkers, I climbed a low stone wall to get on
top of my new horse. Clove seemed startled to find that such a load could
be a living thing. I kicked him several times before he understood I wanted
him to move. Then he went forward at his own pace, turning his head
from side to side at every distraction, and once craning his head back at
me as if he couldn’t quite believe I was riding him. I suspected that he
hadn’t truly been ridden but perhaps had tolerated people sitting on his
back. I rebuked myself for not trying to ride him before buying him, for I
now saw that a rein against his neck meant little to him. I literally had to
pull his head in the direction I meant him to go.
By the time we reached Guff’s house, Clove was reacting reasonably well to
my kicks and knee presses. He was not anyone’s ideal mount, but he was
not stupid and seemed like a willing beast. My dismount was more of a
slide from his back. It was not graceful, and I was disgruntled to hear
someone muffle a laugh. I turned, but Guff’s daughter was already
retreating into the house. Red-faced, I led Clove to the water trough and
then put him in with Sirlofty. Then I stood looking at the two animals in
the paddock. Sirlofty was tall and rangy, straight-legged, and black as coal
from his nose to the tip of his tail. He wasn’t young, but he had many good
years left in him. He lifted his head and looked over at me, his small ears
flicking forward as if asking why my attention was so intent. There was no
doubting the intelligence in his eyes, or the years of schooling that my
father had put into him. The horse had taught me almost everything I
knew about riding like a cavalla man. He was the best and most valuable
possession I’d ever owned.
Next to him, Clove was a clod. He was big. Everywhere. His head was big,
his neck was thick, and his haunches were wide and round. His hooves
looked the size of dinner plates next to Sirlofty’s trim feet. At some time,
his tail had been bobbed, badly. The hair that dangled from the shortened
stub looked stringy. He was a clownish-looking horse, a fit mount for a fat
man like me. My horse came over to me, to sniff my chest and then push
his head against me. I finally voiced the decision that I had already made.
“I can’t keep you, Sirlofty. If I do, I’ll ruin you. You’ll end up lamed in the
middle of nowhere. You deserve better than that.”
With many regrets, I separated my panniers from my saddle. It was a
cavalla saddle, a relic of a lost dream, and my father’s spond tree crest was
embossed into the leather. I didn’t want to carry that forward into my new
life. I kept the bridle. It was well made and I thought could adapt it to my
new mount. I set the saddle onto Sirlofty’s back. As I made the “keep fast”
sign over the cinch, tears gathered in my eyes and then spilled down my
cheeks. I wiped them away with the back of my hand. Useless, senseless
things. Evening was deepening into night. It seemed a fit time for my last
hours with Sirlofty. I led him through the wandering streets of Franner’s
Bend. The cool night was moister than the day had been, enriching the
smells of that rancid city. Sirlofty’s sore leg had stiffened, and he now
walked with a marked hitch to his gait. I didn’t hurry him. As we walked, I
told myself that he was only a horse, and that a cavalla man changed
mounts any number of times in his career. The best I could offer Sirlofty
was constant travel on an injured leg and short rations. Besides, I looked
ridiculous on him. Better to part with him while he had some value, before
I had ruined him. Clove would serve me well enough. When I got to
wherever I was going, then I could see about getting a better mount, if my
life demanded it. That wasn’t likely. If I managed to enlist, it would
probably be as a foot soldier, not cavalla. Likely I’d be relegated to cooking
or totting up numbers or some similar task.
Outside the gates of the fortifications, I stopped for a moment. I dried my
face of the tears that had run unashamedly as we walked together in the
darkness. Then, like a boy, I leaned against my horse’s shoulder and tried
to hug him good-bye. Sirlofty put up with it.
I held to my purpose. I led Sirlofty through the gates. Even this late in the
evening, the so-called sentries allowed us to pass unchallenged. I went
directly to the commander’s headquarters. I was fortunate to arrive before
the commander had left. I passed myself off as a servant, and lied to his
adjutant to see him. I told him that Nevare Burvelle’s horse had come up
lame, and he’d had to find a fresh one to continue his travels. I said that
both Nevare and his father, Lord Burvelle, would be indebted to the
commander if he would have the regimental veterinarian look at the
animal, and then arrange for him to be taken back to Widevale as soon as
he could make the journey without further injury. As I had expected, the
man was happy to oblige. “Anything for Lord Burvelle,” he assured me,
and I bowed gravely and said that when I caught up with my master, I’d
be sure to let Nevare know that his mount was in capable hands and
would be awaiting him when he returned home.
On the way back to my rented room, I stopped at a tavern, got drunk, and
paid a yellow-haired whore three times her usual rate to bed her. If I had
thought to make myself feel better, I failed. I spent money I could ill afford
to discover that intercourse had become a challenge. When the jut of a
man’s belly exceeds the length of his member, coupling with a woman
requires imaginative positioning and a cooperative partner. The whore
was barely that, and only did what she must to earn her coins.
“You see,” she said righteously as I stepped away from the edge of the bed
where I had knelt, “why I had to charge you more. That wasn’t easy for me.
You fair disjointed my hips!” She lay as I had left her on the edge of the
bed, skirts dragged up to her waist and her legs spraddled wide to
accommodate me. I recall thinking that it was the least alluring posture
that I could have imagined a woman assuming.
“I’m finished,” I told her abruptly.
“That’s obvious,” she drawled sarcastically.
I dressed and left.
My knees were sore as I walked back to my rented room. Pleasure was a
word that didn’t apply to what I’d done. The physical release I had
experienced was inextricably mixed with the humiliation she had dealt
me. Rather than taking comfort in the woman, I had completely proven to
myself how much my life had changed in a few short months.

CHAPTER TWELVE
THE KING’S ROAD
“The good god never intended for people to live here.” The woman’s words
were to stay long in my mind. Her house was one of six inhabited
structures in a ramshackle settlement near the second rise of the foothills
before the mountains. There was little there save misery. Stumps dotted
the sloping fields behind the town. The constant wind, heavy with wet
chill, warned of winter. Dead Town was a “road town,” a temporary
settlement thrown together to house the penal workers and their families
as the King’s Road was pushed ever eastward.
Once I had believed in King Troven’s dream of a wide road that led across
the plains, over the mountains, and to the sea beyond, a road that would
restore Gernia’s power as a seagoing and trading nation. The farther east I
went, the harder it was to sustain that vision.
Calling the structure she lived in a “house” was charity on my part. It was
built of large stones and roughly skinned logs. The badly warped logs were
smaller in diameter than anything I would have used for a structure. The
gaps between the corkscrewed logs were chinked with wadded reeds and
moss, with plastered mud over it. I judged the coming rains of winter
would soon melt that chinking away. She had three small children, but if
she had a husband, he was not to be seen.
My food had run out and I’d stopped to see what I could buy. The
inhabitants of two other houses had already turned me away. They had
little enough for themselves and no use for my coins. The irony was that
I’d discovered, too late, that I was not as poor as I’d thought. When I
repacked my panniers as I left Franner’s Bend, I discovered a little yellow
purse tucked in among my shirts. When Yaril had slipped it in, I didn’t
know. It contained fifteen hectors, a very substantial sum coming from a
young woman. I resolved to use it well, and to pay it back to her when we
were reunited. The extra money could not restore my battered self-respect,
but it did shore up my sagging confidence. I invested some of my windfall
in a battered draft saddle with a tree that fit Clove’s back and a seat that
didn’t insult my own. After several fruitless efforts, I admitted that
Sirlofty’s bridle and bit would never adjust to Clove. I traded them away
for a bridle that fit my plug horse, some straps to adapt my cavalla
panniers, and a couple of heavy blankets in case I had to sleep outside. In
the market, I stocked my panniers with hard bread, smoked meat, raisins,
tea, and charily, a Plains food of meat and fruit ground together into a
sort of sausage bound with sweetened suet. I bought tools for rough travel:
a small hatchet, sulfur matches dipped in wax, and some strips of leather
to make a sling. I wanted a firearm, but that was beyond the reach of my
coins. The sword I bought was not well balanced and the blade was pitted
from poor care. It was better than nothing. When I rode away from
Franner’s Bend, I felt I was as well supplied for the road as a man of my
means could be. In return, the road offered me next to nothing. Water
was not a problem while my trail followed the river. Heat, flies, and
boredom were my chief irritations by day, cold and mosquitoes by night.
Clove ambled along. For my first day’s travel from Franner’s Bend, the
road was good. I passed several small villages huddled on the riverbank.
They seemed prosperous, feeding off both the river and the road trade.
They were older than the explosive growth of town around Franner’s Bend,
but in some ways they still exuded the rough, raw aspect of a frontier
settlement. All the buildings were constructed from river offerings: stone
rounded by the passage of water, mortar speckled with the tiny pebbles
one always found in the river sand, and an occasional embellishment of
wood. There was little real timber on the plains or plateaus, but rafts of
immense spond logs from the wilderness passed by on the river. Spond
timber was far too dear for these townspeople to afford; the wooden parts
of their houses came from river driftwood largesse or salvage from broken
log rafts. Despite their humble roots, these settlements were growing into
organized towns. The road between the towns was better maintained, as
were the way stations for the king’s couriers. Between the towns, fields had
been cleared and the discarded stones used for rough fences. The brush
that had sprouted among those stones had grown into hedgerows. Most of
the outbuildings were still of mud brick, but the farmhouses were of
worked stone. Gernian settlers were making their tenuous grip on the land
more certain. Those households would stay. On the evening of the second
night, I came to a well-maintained farm with a signboard that showed a
dangling cup and a handful of feathers, the old symbols for board and
lodging. I stopped there for the night, and discovered that it meant a cold
meal and a blanket spread over straw in the barn. Still, I’d slept in worse
places, and I rose the next day better rested than if I’d slept by the side of
the road.
The draft horse was not a bad mount, for what he was. Clove was
big-boned and ponderous. I put him through his paces on our third day of
travel. By then, he was answering the bridle and my heels, though not
sharply. He didn’t seem to mind being ridden, but he was not my partner
in it as Sirlofty had been. He made no effort to stay under me. His trot
rattled my teeth. His canter was actually rather smooth, once I finally
persuaded him to that pace, but he could not sustain it for long, and I had
no fixed destination or schedule. I followed the road, hoping that one of
the fortifications along the way would take in a stray recruit.
My body was more at fault than my horse’s for the discomforts of that
journey.
As an engineer, I could see that I was like an overburdened suspension
bridge. Too much flesh was heaped around my bones and dependent on
my muscles. My body no longer worked as it had been designed to do.
Flexibility had been lost. Strength had been gained in my major muscles,
but my back complained constantly. Clove’s bone-shaking trot was also a
fat-wobbling quake for me. My cheeks shook, my belly jounced, and the
flesh along my arms and legs jostled in syncopation to his hooves. At the
end of each day’s ride, my ass hurt more than it had the day before. My
expectation that I would soon toughen up and regain my ability to ride a
full day without soreness was a vain hope. There was simply too much of
me pressing my buttocks against the saddle, with the predictable
consequences of developing sores. I tried to be grateful that they were on
my flesh rather than my horse’s, but that was grim comfort. I steeled my
will and went on, wondering how long my determination would last.
Three days past Franner’s Bend, I passed the site where Cayton’s Horse
and Doril’s Foot had met their end. Someone had put up a wooden sign.
The crude letters read “SITE OF THE SPECK PLAGUE BATTLE.” If it was
meant to be humor, it left me cold. Beyond it, row upon row of shallow
depressions in the earth showed where the ground had sunk on the hastily
buried bodies. Beyond them, a large ominous scorch mark on the earth
was gradually giving way to encroaching grasses. I fancied that a smell of
death lingered there; Clove and I hastened past it.
The first time the sun began to set with no shelter of any sort in sight, I
turned Clove from the road and followed a tiny trickle of a stream up a
gentle hill and into the brush. The faint trail I followed and a blackened
ring of fire stones at the end showed I was not the first traveler to camp
here. Hopeful, I lifted my eyes and soon found the sign that Sergeant Duril
had taught me to look for so many years ago. Carved into a tree trunk was
the outline of two crossed sabres. Wedged into a crotch of branches well
above it was a bundle of dry firewood. Farther out on the branch dangled
the bag that would hold kindling and emergency food. The courtesy
among scouts and cavalla troopers was to take what one needed from such
caches and replace it with whatever one could spare. The smoked fish I
could smell was far more appetizing than the travel bread in my pack.
Hunger was a constant companion that rode heavily in the pit of my belly.
It hurt, but less than my saddle sores. I could, by an act of will and
intellect, ignore it. Despite its pangs, I knew I was not starving, and for the
most part, I pitted my will against the magic’s outrageous demands for
food with determination. I knew that my rations were sufficient to my
needs, and by that logic I could ignore my hunger pangs until I saw or
smelled food. Then my appetite awoke, a ravening bear roused out of
hibernation and commanding all my attention.
The smell of the savory smoked fish overpowered me. To scent it was to
taste it, smoke, salt, and oil rich flesh upon my tongue. I had to have it. My
body demanded it.
I was too fat to climb the tree. I broke branches and scraped my knees and
belly trying. I threw stones at the food, trying to knock it free. I stood and
shook the tree like a bear, hoping to make it fall. I even tried, futilely, the
edge of my small firewood hatchet against the tree’s thick trunk. In short,
I exhausted myself trying to get at a bit of smoked fish. It was full dark
before I came to my senses. It was like waking from a dream. I suddenly
decided that the food in my pannier would have to suffice. With a startling
abruptness, my obsession with the fish departed. I used some of the
branches I’d broken to start a small fire.
I made a very rudimentary camp beside my little fire, ate cold food with
hot tea, and rolled myself in a blanket to sleep. The ground was hard and I
was cold. Toward dawn, the mosquitoes came out and discovered me.
Even pulling my blanket up over my head did not discourage them, and I
rose earlier than I was inclined to and traveled on my way. My only act of
virtue was to cut the broken branches into firewood and leave them at the
base of the supply tree. As I traveled on, towns became less frequent and
houses more scattered. Traffic dwindled. Every day, two couriers would
ride past me, one headed east and one headed west, usually at a canter or
a gallop. They carried the king’s dispatches and, if there was room in their
pouches, high-ranking officers’ letters home. They did not acknowledge
me at all as they passed. Some credited Gernia’s expansion to the king’s
dedication to regular communication with even his most distant forts.
Daily reports were sent on their way to Old Thares. Some of the courier
stations rented space for profit-making messenger services as well. They
were becoming more popular as Gernia’s boundary and far-flung
population expanded, but they were still an expensive service, patronized
only by the wealthy. I did not see their riders as often.
One windy morning, I passed a place where a spring freshet had washed
the road out. It had been repaired, but badly, with a stream still trickling
through a wide dip in the road. I could see the remains of the stone
culvert; the mortar had failed, I judged, and I suspected that next spring
would see the road cut through when the waters ran high again.
It was not a real challenge for Clove and I, but the deep muddy wagon
wheel ruts testified that it was an unpleasant passage for any wheeled
vehicle. I saw few other travelers that day, and began to understand why
some of the king’s nobles in the west mocked this project and called it the
King’s Road to Nowhere. Early in the day, I passed a relay station for the
king’s couriers. As there were no towns nearby, a small contingent of
soldiers were stationed there to protect and maintain the station. There
was little there except a stable for the post horses, a small storehouse, and
a barracks. The buildings were set up in a defensible square with a
stockade wall closing the gaps. The tall gates stood open, and coarse
grasses grew along the bottoms of them. Months had passed since they’d
last been closed. The surly soldier on watch eyed me unenthusiastically.
Not an exciting post, I surmised. I wondered if being stationed here was
regarded as punishment.
I rode Clove in and dismounted. As I let him water from the horse trough
alongside their well, I looked around. The barracks and mess were painted
in Gernia’s standard green and white. I estimated their strength at about
a dozen men. There was a watchtower at one corner of the fortification; a
uniformed soldier ostensibly kept watch there for approaching
messengers. A couple of men leaned in the open door of the barracks,
smoking. Only one courier was currently in residence, lounging on a
tipped-back chair on the long porch that ran across the front barracks.
The young, skinny rider seemed very full of himself, openly rolling his eyes
at my girth and making faces and gestures when he thought I wouldn’t see
him. I took some satisfaction in seeing that the men who kept up the
station seemed to regard him as a jackanapes. When I mounted the steps
to the barracks’ porch, an older man in shirtsleeves came out to meet me.
“Do you need something?” he asked me brusquely.
“News of the road ahead would be welcome. And I thought I’d report that
there’s a culvert washed out, about an hour’s ride back.” Military
regulations stated that the courier stations were to aid travelers, monitor
the road, and report conditions to the proper authority. I considered it my
duty, still, to apprise them of the road’s condition.
The man scowled at me. It had been at least three days since he’d shaved.
The only clean spot on his cheek was an old knife scar. Even without his
jacket and stripes, I could tell he was in charge here. “I’ve been reporting
that for two months. They keep saying they’ll send a road crew, but the
plague hit everybody hard. They don’t have the men to spare. Nothing
happens.”
“And the road east of here?” I pressed him.
“It’s no better. It was built fast with unskilled men, and the need for
maintenance was underestimated. It’s passable for a man on horseback,
and there are only a few places that would give a wagon serious trouble.
But once the rains start again, that story will change quickly.” He spoke as
if it were my fault.
Intending it more as a pleasantry than as a true query, I asked where their
command was, and if their regiment had any openings for recruits. The
old veteran looked me up and down and gave a contemptuous snort. “No.
We’ve plenty of our own youngsters to sign up when we need more men.
No need for outsiders.” I took that rebuff in stride.
“Well. Any chance I can replenish my supplies here? Any food you could
sell me?”
The courier had been listening in on our exchange. He interrupted
mockingly with “You need to buy food? It doesn’t look to me as if you’ve
been going without! Or are you fattening up before you hibernate for the
winter?”
It was a feeble jest, but the other man laughed at it. I forced myself to
smile. “I’ve a way to travel. I’d buy whatever you could spare—flour, grain,
travel bread, bacon?” I could smell stew simmering and longed to beg for a
hot bowl. As always, any aroma of food roused a ravenous hunger in me.
“We’ve nothing to spare,” the sergeant decided abruptly. “This is a way
station for couriers, not an inn. The supply wagons haven’t been as regular
as they should. I’m saving what I’ve got for my own men here.”
“Of course. But could I at least buy some oats for my horse?” Clove was not
the forager that Sirlofty was. The constant travel and sparse grazing were
starting to show on him. Because my father was responsible for the king’s
courier station closest to Widevale, I knew they were required to keep well
stocked with feed for the horses.
The men exchanged glances with each other. Then the sergeant spoke
again. “No. I’ve told you. We’ve nothing to spare. Best you be on your
way.”
“I see,” I said, though I didn’t. Plainly he was lying. I could not discern
why, but I suspected it was simply because I was fat. I think he perceived
me as self-indulgent and felt justified, even righteous, in denying me food.
I looked at the circle of faces around me. Every one of them evinced some
level of satisfaction in my disappointment. They put me in mind of how
Trist had rejected Gord from the first moment he’d met the fat cadet.
Gord hadn’t had to say or do anything. Just being fat had made Trist
despise him and seek to thwart him at every opportunity.
I needed supplies. My horse needed something more than grass. My
experience with Jirry flashed back through my mind. On some level, I’d
already accepted that the magic that had so cursed me could also work in
my favor. I tried it. “I really need fresh supplies to continue on my
journey.” It was my first effort to bend the magic to my will. I pushed
insistence through my words and deliberately sought to bend their wills to
mine.
A few of the idle men got the same poleaxed look that Jirry had worn. But
the old sergeant was made of sterner stuff. His eyes widened, and then, as
if he sensed what I was trying to do, his face reddened with anger. “I said
no!” he barked. He came to his feet and pointed commandingly at my
mount. I’d failed. I turned away from him, trying to keep my dignity. But
anger at their self-satisfaction seethed through me. I mounted Clove and
then looked back at them. My own anger suddenly rose to meet the
sergeant’s, as if they were two swords clashing.
“As you have seen to the needs of the stranger, so may your own wants be
met in your time of need.” It was a verse from the Holy Writ, and I’d heard
it most often used as a formal thanks at dinner parties. I’d never said it
with such vehemence, nor had I ever moved my hand in such a strong
gesture of dismissal as I said it. I had deliberately sought the magic’s
intervention, but now as I felt it rattle through my blood like pebbles
tumbled in a torrent, I feared it. The gesture meant something, and the
words I had uttered in a mockery of thanks now bristled like a curse. I saw
one man startle, as if I’d dashed him with cold water, and the rider’s chair
tipped over under him, dumping him to the porch with a crash. The
sergeant was transfixed for a moment, and then he charged at me with an
angry shout. I kicked Clove hard, and for once he surged immediately into
a canter that carried us away from their stronghold and back out onto the
road.
I leaned forward on my big horse and urged him to run until his sides
were heaving and sweat runneled the sides of his neck. When I pulled him
in and let him walk, the courier’s station was lost behind us. No riders
swarmed out to pursue me, as I had half-feared they might. I knotted my
fists and shivered suddenly. I’d done magic. I had felt the power surge
through me and pass out of me. But exactly what I had done, I did not
know. I passed a patch of brush by the riverbank, and a flock of
black-and-white croaker birds flew up screaming, angry that I had
frightened them off whatever carrion they had found. They seemed an ill
omen, a sign from an elder god that he would take my blackened soul if
the good god would no longer have me. I rode grimly on. My meals for the
next few days consisted of whatever game I could bring down with my
sling. It wasn’t much. In the short time between stopping for the night and
falling asleep, I hunted what I could, and if I got a rabbit or a bird every
other day, I thought myself fortunate. I still had a good supply of tea,
sugar, salt, and oil, but a man cannot make a meal from those things
alone. The lean meat of hares did not satisfy me, and if my clothes hung a
bit looser on me for a few days, I attributed it to my diet.
For several long days, the scenery did not change. It seemed as if Clove and
I followed an endless circular path, with the river always to the right of us,
wide and gray between its brushy, gravelly banks, and to the left of us, the
gentle rise of the rolling prairie. The hills were ahead of us. Their flanks
were gray-green or purplish with gorse, and in the higher regions, clumps
of buckbrush and nettleme grew. Regularly spaced towns and real inns
were left far behind me.
The next courier station I passed was larger and better fortified. They sold
me oats and journey bread, but other than that, they seemed as unfriendly
as the last station had been. A full troop of foot soldiers was stationed
there, with a score of cavalla. A small village of former penal laborers
flanked the station, and were engaged in making more formidable the wall
and ditch defenses that surrounded both station and village. If any
engineering had been applied to the enterprise, it was well concealed from
my eyes.
I gathered my courage and then asked for a meeting with the commander,
and was shown into the offices of a very young captain. When I told him I
was a second son and interested in becoming a soldier, he looked
incredulous. I’ll give him credit for attempting to be tactful. He leaned
back in his chair, looked at me, and then said in measured tones, “Sir,
despite your birth order, I do not think the life of a military man in our
region would suit you. Here, we endeavor to recruit our men at an early
age, the better to shape them to the lives they will lead. Perhaps you would
fare better in the west.”
“I am still short of my twentieth birthday, sir. And I know I do not look fit
or able, yet if you will try me, I’m sure you’ll find me more capable than
you might think.” Those words consumed all of my humility. My cheeks
burned with shame.
“I see. Well. You look older than your years.” He cleared his throat. “Our
resources here are limited, and right now our supplies must stretch to
support the road workers the king has lent us for the fortification of this
place. Much as I would like to take your oath and find you a place where
you could serve both your king and the good god, I must turn you away. I
do think you would fare better applying to one of the regiments in the
west. In the more settled areas, a man may still serve his king and obey the
will of the good god in less strenuous ways than the borderlands demand
of a soldier.” I heard the finality in his words. I knew he was attempting to
let me leave with my pride and dignity intact. It was more than most folks
had done for me on my journey. So I thanked him, and Clove and I went
on. But as always, we rode toward the east and the mountains.
I came to a decision point when we reached the fork where the Mendes
River joins the Tefa. I rode north for half a day, following both the road
and the river. When I came to a new town with the ambitious name of
Kingsbridge, I crossed the Mendes on the town’s namesake, and then
halted, considering my options. If I followed the Mendy trail north, I’d
have several options for enlistment. There was Mendy itself, a substantial
bastion and one of our earliest strongholds on the plains. In its earliest
incarnations, before we had come to open strife with them, Mendy had
been a place for Gernian merchants to enjoy commerce with the
Plainspeople. Traditionally, the Third, Seventh, and Eighth Regiment of
foot called Mendy home, as well as Hoskin’s Horse. There was opportunity
for me there.
My most sensible choice would have been to follow the river to Trade Post,
or cross it and try to enlist at Lakegard or Laston. North offered me more
opportunities. And yet, when Clove tossed his head and tugged at his bit
in annoyance at standing so long, I did not follow the Mendy Trail. Gettys
was the only Gernian outpost in our new direction. With the loss of
Cayton’s Horse and Doril’s Foot, Gettys would be severely undermanned.
Their misfortune might be to my benefit.
I did not allow myself to think that Gettys was in the foothills before the
Barrier Mountains, the home territory of the Specks. As each day passed,
the land slowly changed. Trees began to appear, as scattered thickets and
then as a solid forest that covered the hillsides. The quality of the road
declined as it climbed higher into the foothills. The Tefa River was to my
left now, and half the size it would be when it passed my old home in
Widevale. I became resigned to sleeping outside each night and
supplementing my rations with wild plants and whatever small game I
could hunt as I traveled. The road was an anomaly here, a man-made
thing that ran through a land that didn’t seem to recognize humanity’s
reign. My journey seemed endless. At intervals I would see derelict wagons
and other broken and abandoned equipment at the side of the road, the
detritus of the road’s continuing growth. Several times I passed large
cleared areas, where rags of canvas and other garbage spoke of a large
encampment of men, probably for the penal crews building the road. The
few other travelers I encountered were brusque, hurrying past me as if I
were a threat. I encountered a train of supply wagons, returning empty
from the farthermost road construction camp. The dust they raised was
swept away by the endless wind. The quiet that flowed back after their
passage seemed final. Winter and the snows it would bring had slowed all
trade by road or water to a trickle.
I could scarcely believe my eyes when I topped a rise one afternoon and
saw a small town in the distance. The land had been cleared around the
settlement; it crouched on a steep hillside dotted with stumps. My heart
lifted at the thought of an inn, an opportunity to resupply, to eat a hot
meal, to sleep under a roof. But the closer we came, the more my hopes
sagged. Chimney smoke rose in only a few places. The first structure I
passed might once have been a house. It had slipped to one side and then
collapsed. Beyond it there was a rail-fenced area. A double row of
depressions in the earth were the only indications that it was a graveyard.
I rode on, passing other empty houses. The houses, both fallen and
standing, had been built of logs rather than plank. The town was
abandoned, or nearly so. When I finally sighted a house with a trickle of
smoke rising from its chimney, I halted and dismounted. I approached the
door cautiously, knocked, and then stood back from it. Some moments
passed, then a very old man opened the door slowly. Before I could offer
any greeting or even ask to buy food and a night’s lodging, a woman’s
voice shrieked from inside. “Close it! Close that door, you old fool! Why do
you think I barred it? He’s here to murder us and rob us. Shut the door!”
“I’ve money to pay for a meal!” I shouted hastily, but the old man only
looked at me with pale, rheumy eyes and then obediently but gently shut
the door in my face. “I can pay!” I shouted at the closed door. There was
no response. I shook my head in frustration and walked on, leading Clove.
I passed five shells of houses and then stopped outside a fenced area where
a man was digging potatoes. His cottage looked well-tended, as did the
little garden that surrounded him. At sight of me, he stopped his digging.
He switched his grip on the shovel, holding it as if it were a pike. “Good
day, sir,” I offered him.
“Keep on your way,” he advised me gruffly.
“I’d like to buy a meal and a night’s lodging from you. I can pay. I can
show you the coin.”
He shook his head. “I’ve no use for coins. What would I do with them?
Make soup?” He looked at me more sharply, and then, perhaps deciding a
fat man was not much of a threat, asked shrewdly, “Got anything to
barter?” I shook my head slowly. I had nothing I could afford to part with,
nothing I could give up that would not leave me in worse need. “Well,
we’ve nothing to spare for beggars. Be on your way.” I opened my mouth
to say that I had not begged. I could feel my resentment rising in me. I
thought of the soldiers and how the magic had boiled with my anger. No. I
would not do that again. I would not loose that which I did not
understand. I turned away from him and led Clove on. I was hungry, cold,
and weary. Thick clouds had been gathering all day and were starting to
darken, promising rain by nightfall. If it had been otherwise, I think I
would have mounted up and ridden off. The rising wind tugged at my
cloak. If all I could buy myself was a dry night’s sleep, I was resolved to
have it. At the next cottage with chimney smoke rising from its stack, I
gathered up my courage and knocked at a rough wooden door.
It was slow to open. I stood still before it, smiling, for I suspected that
someone was peering out at me through one of the numerous chinks in the
wall. The small woman who finally opened the door held a large pistol in
both her hands. I stepped back. The muzzle of it pointed squarely at my
midsection. She could not possibly miss me at this range. I lifted my
hands to show they were empty. “I’d just like to buy a night’s lodging and
food, ma’am,” I said with great respect.
A small towheaded boy suddenly shoved his head out past his mother’s
skirts.
“Who’s that?” he demanded. And then, almost with admiration, “He’s
really fat!” “Hush, Sem. Get back inside.” She looked at me speculatively. I
could almost see her decide that I wasn’t much of a threat. She was small
but stocky. She had to use both hands to steady the pistol. She lowered the
heavy gun, but now the barrel menaced my legs. “I don’t have much to
spare.”
“I’d be content with anything hot, and a dry place to spend the night,” I
said humbly. “I can pay.”
She laughed in a sour way. “And where would I spend it? I’ve got no use
for money. Can’t eat it. Can’t burn it.” Her blue eyes were hard. I didn’t
doubt the truth of her words. She looked as worn as her clothing. Her dark
hair was knotted back in a no-nonsense way that spoke only of
practicality, not attractiveness or even neatness. The skin of her hands was
rough. The boy’s eyes looked too large in his thin face.
I could think of nothing else to offer. “Please,” I begged. She tightened her
mouth and narrowed her eyes. It made her look like a thoughtful cat. I
stood humbly before her, hoping. Two more children peeped out around
the door frame. One was an older girl of about five, the other a
curly-headed toddler. The woman shooed them back, then looked me up
and down skeptically. “Can you work?” she asked me coldly.
“That I can,” I promised her. “What do you need done?” Her smile was
tight. “What don’t I need done? Winter’s coming. Look at this place! I’ll be
lucky if it stands through the first storm.” She sighed and then said, “You
can put your horse in that house over there. We use it for a shed. The roof
doesn’t leak much.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
She almost winced. “I’m not ma’am. I’m not that old. I’m Amzil.” I spent
the rest of the afternoon and early evening chopping wood. She had an old
ax with a splintery handle. I put an edge on it with a stone. She had been
turning the adjacent buildings into firewood, but the ax was big for her
and the house timbers too heavy. She’d been limited by the size of log she
could chop through. “The little ones burn up too fast. I can’t build a fire
that lasts the night,” she told me.
I worked steadily in the chill wind. I selected a small house that was
mostly collapsed, and worked at turning it into firewood, cutting the
timbers into chunks and then splitting them. One at a time, her scattered
neighbors made excuses to drop by. I felt their eyes on me, but as none of
them spoke to me, I ignored them and labored on. Their attempts at
conversation with Amzil were brief. I heard one man say to her, “I only
come to see if he had something to trade. It’s nothing to do with you at all,
woman!” I sensed no community there, only a sour rivalry for the
diminishing resources of the failed settlement. The old woman did not
come to Amzil’s door but grimly eyed me from a distance, scowling as I
pulled logs free and then chopped them into firewood. I had been aware
of Amzil’s children spying on me all day. The muffled giggles of the older
two had betrayed them as they hid around the corner of her house and
took turns peeking at me. Only the smallest child, a tiny girl, was honest in
her complete curiosity. She stood squarely in the open doorway to gawk at
me. I had not thought I remembered much of Yaril’s babyhood. But
looking at the child, I found I did. Yaril had stood like that, her babyish
tummy thrust out before her. Yaril had turned her head and smiled shyly
like that. When I stopped to wipe sweat from my neck, I smiled back at
her. She squeaked and darted out of sight around the door. A moment
later, she emerged again. I waved at her, winning a high-pitched giggle. As
the sun was setting, the first threatened drops of rain came pelting down.
Amzil emerged suddenly from her house, scooping the baby up in passing.
She called out stiffly to me, “The food is ready.” It was the first time I’d
been inside her home. There wasn’t much to it. It was a single room, with
log walls and a dirt floor. The hearth was rock plastered together with
river clay. Their bed was a shelf across one side of the room. Other than
the door, there was a single window with a crude wooden shutter. No
glass. The only freestanding furniture was a bench by the hearth. The only
table was a shelf in the corner with a washbasin on top of it and a water
pitcher beside it. Clothing hung from pegs in the wall. Sacks on hooks and
a few rough shelves held the food stores. There wasn’t much.
I ate standing. The children sat on the floor, and Amzil sat on the bench.
She ladled thin soup from a kettle hung over the fire. She served me first,
the thin broth off the top and a single scoop of vegetables from the depths
of the pot. She served herself the same, and then measured out a scoop for
each child that left the ladle scraping the bottom of the kettle. The
children got most of the bits of food; I didn’t complain. She had a single
mound of hearth bread. She broke it into five equal pieces and handed me
one. We ate. I savored the first spoonful of the warm broth. I tasted
potatoes, cabbage, onion, and little else. As I had schooled myself to do, I
ate slowly and enjoyed what I had. The bread was coarse, but good, for the
flavor of the badly ground grain was stronger than if it had been made
from fine flour. The texture was a good contrast to the thin soup. I saved
the last bit of bread to wipe the final trace of soup from my bowl. Empty. I
sighed and looked up to find Amzil regarding me curiously.
“Is something wrong?” I asked her. I was not unaware that her pistol
rested on the bench beside her hip.
Her brow furrowed. “You’re smiling.”

I gave a small shrug. “Good food.”

She scowled at me as if I were mocking her. “It wasn’t good soup before I
added enough water to stretch it for five.” Little spots of anger danced in
her brown eyes.
“Any food is better than none. And any food tastes good after a time of
privation.”
“Privation?”

“Hard times,” I clarified.

Her eyes narrowed again. “You don’t look like you’ve ever known
‘privation.’”

“You’d be surprised,” I said gently.

“Maybe. Here, we’ve eaten the same thing for so long, I don’t even taste it
anymore.” She rose abruptly, picking up the pistol as she did so.
“Children, stack your bowls. You, you can sleep in the shed with your
horse. The roof doesn’t leak much.” It was a clear request that I now leave
her house. I cast my thoughts desperately for an excuse to stay a bit
longer in the light and warmth of the small home. “I’ve no real food to
share. But I still have tea left in my panniers.”

“Tea?” Her eyes were distant. “I haven’t tasted tea since…well, since we left
Old Thares to follow Rig’s coffle.”
“I’ll get it,” I offered instantly. I rose, moving my bulk carefully through the
flimsy furnishings of the small room and out the rattly door into the chill
night.
I’d left Clove picketed in an alley to get whatever graze he could on the
coarse grass and weeds there. Now I moved him into what had once been
someone’s home. He barely fit through the door, but he seemed grateful
to be out of the wind and rain. I’d stowed my panniers and tack there
earlier. Now, considering the desperate poverty of Amzil’s neighbors, I
decided to take my panniers with me into the house.
I set them on the floor in the middle of her room, and knelt down beside
them. Her children crowded close as I opened them and rummaged
inside. Amzil stood back but looked no less curious. I found the block of
black tea. As I opened its wrapper, Amzil caught her breath as if I were
unveiling treasure. She had already put a kettle of water to heat, and it
seemed a year before the water bubbled to a boil. She had no teapot, so we
used my own small kettle to brew the tea. The children huddled around it
as if they were worshipping it as Amzil poured the boiling water over the
shriveled leaves. The delightful aroma of brewing tea blossomed with the
steam. “The leaves are unrolling!” her son, Sem, exclaimed in wonder. We
waited in silent anticipation for the tea to brew. Then Amzil ladled out
bowls for each of us. I lowered myself carefully to the dirt floor, to join the
children in their half-circle around the fire. I cupped the bowl in my
hands, feeling the warmth of the liquid though the rough pottery. Even
the baby, Dia, had a small bowl of tea. She sampled it, scowled at its dark
taste, and then watched the rest of us sipping. She sipped again, pursing
pink baby lips over its bitterness. I smiled at her solemn expression as she
imitated us. The child wore a simple robe, obviously sewn from the
remnants of an adult’s garment. It was well made, but the rough cloth
looked more suited to a man’s trousers than a little girl’s robe. Amzil
cleared her throat. I looked away from her baby to find Amzil frowning at
me warily.
“So. You came here from Old Thares,” I said, when the silence began to
feel awkward.
“That we did.” She didn’t sound inclined to talk.
“You’re a long way from home, then. It must be very different for you
here.” I prodded her with words, trying to start a conversation. She turned
the tactic against me.
“Have you ever been to Old Thares?”

“I have. I went to school there for a season.” I would not mention the
academy.
I had no desire to tell the long tale of why I was no longer there.
“School. Ah. Never been myself. And if you were in a school, you never saw
my city.” She was adamant.

“I didn’t?” I asked cautiously.
“Do you know the part of town down by the river docks? Some folk call it
the Rats’ Nests?”
I shook my head, inviting her to go on.
“Well, that’s where I come from. I lived all my life there, until I come here.
My father was a ragpicker. My mother sewed. She could take old rags my
father gathered, wash and press them, and turn them into the best things
you ever saw. She taught me. A lot of folks throw away stuff that just
needs a good washing and a bit of mending to be fine again. Some will
throw out a whole shirt for a stain down the sleeve, as if you couldn’t make
something nice out of the part that was good. Rich people waste a lot of
things.” She said it self-righteously, as if challenging me to disagree. I said
nothing.
She sipped from her tea, then admitted, “My husband was a thief.” Her
mouth twisted on the word. “He was a thief like his father and grandfather
before him. He used to laugh and say that it was the good god’s will that
he follow in his father’s footsteps. When our boy was born, he even talked
about how he would teach him to cut purses when he was older. But then
Rig was caught and the choice was put to him—lose his hand or come east
to work on the King’s Road.” She sighed. “It’s my fault we’re here. I talked
him into coming east. They made it sound so good. Hard work for my
husband for two years, but then our own home in the town that they’d
build along the King’s Road. They made it sound so good. We’d have own
little house and garden in town, and land of our own outside of town. They
told us any man could learn to hunt and that made meat free, and with
what we’d grow in our garden, we’d never be short of food again. And they
said the King’s Road would flow golden with travelers and trade, right past
our door. I imagined that we would have a wonderful new life.” She
pursed her lips and stared into the fire. For a moment, caught in that old
dream, she looked much younger, and with a jolt I realized she probably
wasn’t much older than I was. Her musing look changed to a scowl. “It’s
getting late,” she warned me without looking at me.
It wasn’t just that I feared she would send me away from the fireside. I
truly wanted to hear the rest of her tale. I steeled myself to the loss and
then said, “I’ve a tiny bit of sugar left in my panniers. Shall we have one
last cup of sweet tea to end the night?”
“Sugar!” the elder girl said in wonder. The other two children looked
puzzled. Thus I bought myself a longer stay by the fire. Amzil pulled her
chair closer to the hearth and told out her sad tale: the long miserable
journey east, camping each night by the road, the callousness of the
guards who forced them on each day, the primitive conditions in the
camps. I’d seen the shackled lines of prisoners moved past our home in
Widevale. Summer after summer, the coffles of convict workers and their
military guards had passed my home. I’d always suspected it was a
miserable journey, but Amzil’s tale of hardship made it real. As she spoke,
her elder daughter’s face grew grave, obviously reliving those memories
with her mother.
“We traveled to the end of the road. There was just a work camp here,
with other men working off their crimes. There was no town with little
houses and gardens for us! Just canvas stretched over boards and rough
huts and dirt and work. Tents to sleep in, ditches to piss in, and the river
for hauling water. Some new life! But they told us we were ‘home’ now,
that it was up to us to make it into a town. They gave each household
some canvas and some basic food and tools, and my husband and I put up
what shelter we could. And the next morning, they put the men to work on
the King’s Road, and left the families to cope as best we could.”
By day, the men left their families to go to work on the road. By night, they
returned, too tired to do anything more than sleep. “Or curse,” Amzil said
wearily. “My husband often cursed the liars who’d brought us here.
Toward the end, Rig cursed me, too, for believing their lies and wanting to
come. It was all my fault, he said. He said that even with one hand, he
could have provided better for us in Old Thares.
“While they were building this stretch of road, it wasn’t too bad. It was
noisy and dusty, of course. Heavy wagons and big horses everywhere. They
dug and scraped and leveled and measured the land over and over. It
seemed silly to me, the way they dug down into the earth to set down big
stones, and then filled up between them with smaller stuff. And the
amount of time they spent tamping it down! Why the road couldn’t just be
a wide path, I don’t know. But they built it up in what everyone started
calling an agger, with a lot of gravel, and all sorts of men with measuring
sticks, always worrying about leveling things and making drains. I never
knew what all went into a road before then.” Amzil’s dark hair had pulled
free of the string she used to tie it back. It was feathering around her face,
blending her features with the shadows behind her. “But at least there
were lots of folks here then. There was a big kitchen set up to feed
everyone, and we could all go there for a meal once a day. The food was
plain and not very good, but as you said, any food is better than none. And
there were more people here, families as well as the other workers and the
guards. There were other women to talk to while I did the wash at the
river, and other women to help me when my baby came. The women who
were already here when we arrived had learned a bit of how to manage,
and they taught us. But most of us didn’t know a thing about how to live
outside a city. We tried. Most of the houses you see around here, women
built. And some fell down faster than we put them up, but we had each
other to help.” She shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment.
“Then it all went bad at once.”
Without asking her I added the last of the hot water to the uncoiled tea
leaves in the bottom of the pot. It made a final pale tea. I divided what
remained of my sugar equally among the five bowls and carefully dippered
the weak tea over it. The children watched me as if I were stirring molten
gold. “What happened?” I asked as I put Amzil’s cup into her hands. “Rig
had an accident. A heavy stone fell off a wagon and crushed his foot. He
couldn’t work anymore. So even though his time wasn’t up, they let him
stay at home here with us all day. I was glad to have him here at first. I
thought he could help me a bit, could mind the children while I tried to
make things better for us. But he didn’t know how to do anything around
a house and his foot wouldn’t heal. It only got more painful, and he had a
fever that came and went. The pain made him mean, and not just with
me.” She glanced at her elder daughter and old anger flashed in her eyes.
She shook her head. “I didn’t know what to do for him. And he hated me
by then anyway.” Her eyes went past me to the fire and all feeling emptied
out of them.
“Two days before he died, the guards said it was time to move camp. The
prisoners who had worked off their time and their families could stay here
and build a new life, they said. A lot of them decided to move on with the
work crew anyway. But those who stayed got a shovel, an ax, a saw, and
six bags of different kinds of seed. And they gave us what they said was
two months of flour, oil, and oats. But it didn’t last our family more than
twenty days.” She shook her head again.
“I did my best. I dug holes and planted those seeds. But maybe it was the
wrong time or maybe the seed was bad or maybe I did something wrong.
Not many plants came up, and a lot of the ones that grew got eaten by
rabbits or just died off. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know how to
grow vegetables. Before too long, people just started to leave. Nothing here
to hold them, I guess. Some of them lasted the first winter. Others didn’t,
and we buried them. When spring came, pretty much everyone who could
got up and left, heading back west, trying to get back to a place where they
knew how to live. Some of us couldn’t go. Kara might be able to walk a full
day, but Sem and Dia are too small to walk that far, and I couldn’t carry
them both. I knew that if I started walking, at least one of them would die
on the way. But maybe that would have been better than staying here.
Here we are, winter’s closing in again, and we have even less this time
than we had last year.”
A long silence fell and then she said, “I fear we’re going to die here. And
my biggest dread is that I’ll die before my children do. And there will be
no one left to protect them from whatever comes next.”
I had never heard such black despair. Worse was to see in the children’s
eyes that they fully understood what their mother said. My heart spoke.
“I’ll stay a day or two, if you want. I can at least help you make this place
tight for the winter.”
She looked at me flatly and then asked with acid sweetness, “And what will
you want from me in exchange?” Her eyes traveled over me disdainfully. I
knew what she thought I would ask of her, and that it disgusted her. I also
read in her eyes that if that were what I demanded, she’d give it to me, for
the sake of her children. She made me feel like a monster.
I spoke slowly. “I’d like to sleep in here, near the fire instead of out in the
shed. And I’d like a day or two of rest and grazing for my horse, and some
time out of the saddle. That’s all.”
“Is it?” She was skeptical. Her mouth pinched again, bringing out the cat
in her again. “If that’s all, I’ll say yes to that, then.”
“That’s all,” I said quietly, and she nodded sharply to the deal we had
struck. She and her children slept in the only bed, across the room from
the fire. She put herself between me and her children, and her pistol
between her and me. I slept on the floor by the fire.
The next day, I built a wood crib for the firewood, so I could stack it so it
would stay dry. It was crudely built from salvaged wood and nails, but it
worked. I put a roof over it to keep the snow off the firewood. Amzil and
Kara stacked the wood between the supports as I showed them while the
other children played nearby. I found good thick logs and cut them into
stout chunks. “These will burn a long time, once you’ve got a bed of coals
going,” I told her. “Save them for the worst nights, when the snow is deep
and the cold hard. Until then, use up the small stuff, and whatever else you
can forage for yourself.” “I’ve had one winter here. I think I know how to
manage,” Amzil said stiffly. “Probably better than I do,” I conceded
grumpily. I’d worked all morning. My shirt was stuck to me with sweat
despite a chill wind blowing off the rain-soaked hills. Hunger gnawed at
my guts. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I rolled my shoulders and stretched. I
leaned the ax up against my chopping block. “Where are you going?”
Amzil demanded suspiciously.
“Hunting,” I decided abruptly.
“With what?” she asked. “For what?”
“With a sling, for whatever I can get,” I replied. “Rabbits, birds, small
game.” She shook her head and folded her lips, obviously thinking I was
wasting time when I could be cutting more wood. But the morning’s work
had already convinced me that I’d need a more substantial meal than
watery soup. I’d begun thinking of food, against my will, and had suddenly
become aware of the birds calling to one another.
“Can you do that?” she asked me suddenly. “Kill birds with a sling?”
“We’ll see,” I said. “I used to be able to.”
I was fatter than I’d been as a boy, and out of my territory. Dawn and dusk
were the best times to hunt, and this was neither. I tried the woods first,
where tree trunks that spoiled my swing and tiny branches that deflected
my missiles frustrated me. From there, I moved to the logged-off hillside
behind the town, and there I did better, braining a rabbit that foolishly
stood up on its hind legs to see what I was.
It wasn’t much of a hunter’s bag, but Amzil seemed delighted with it. She
and the children gathered round me as I gutted and skinned it and cut it
up for the pot. While she took it inside to start it cooking, I scraped the
skin and stretched it as tightly as I could before tacking it, skin side up, on
a board to dry. “You’ll need to keep this out of the weather,” I told her.
“Once it’s dried, it will be hard and stiff. You’ll have to work it, rolling it
slowly until it softens up again. But it will give you a rabbitskin with the
fur on. Four or five of these sewn together would make a blanket for the
little one.” I’d kept back the sinew from the rabbit’s hind legs. I showed it
to her. “This makes the best snares. There was a lot of rabbit sign out
there. If you set two or three snares each evening, you’d have a fair chance
of having some meat in your diet on a regular basis.”
She shook her head. “They’re too smart. I’ve seen rabbits out there, at
dawn and in the evening. But I’ve never been able to catch one, and the
traps I’ve made don’t hold them.”
“What kind of traps?”
“I dug holes for them to fall into. I caught a couple of babies like that in
the spring. But the others soon learned to go around them.” My amused
smile offended her. I quickly wiped it from my face. She knows nothing of
rabbits, or of hunting, I thought to myself. Her skills from her life in the
city were useless here. That wasn’t her fault, and I shouldn’t look down on
her for trying. At the same time, I could not help feeling a bit superior.
“We’ll make the snare lines very fine, so they’re almost invisible. And I’ll
show you how to know where the rabbit will lift its head as it comes down
the trail and out of the brush. That’s the best place to hang a snare, to
make sure you get a quick, clean kill.”
“The young ones I caught were alive. I wanted to try to cage them and
breed them, like people do pigeons and doves in the city. But…” She
glanced at the children. “Sometimes meat today is more important than
saving for a tomorrow.” I found myself nodding. She was right. With the
right kind of trap, live rabbits would provide her with a ready source of
meat. “I might be able to come up with a pit trap that would work, then,”
I offered.
“We’ll set some of both,” she decided firmly.
I was feeling rather satisfied with myself as I followed her and the children
into the little house. The rabbit was simmering with onion and potato in a
pot near the edge of the fire. The aroma of the cooking meat assaulted my
senses. I almost lost myself in it. Then I saw my panniers open on the floor.
All my possessions were stacked around them. I could not keep the chill
from my voice as I asked her, “Did you find what you were looking for?”
She met my gaze, and her cheeks went a bit pink. But she did not look
guilty. Instead, her chin came up. “Yes. Your washing and mending. That
seemed a fair trade to me for the work you’ve done with the wood and the
hunting. And when I found you had salt in there, I took some for cooking
the meat. As you were going to be eating it alongside us, I thought nothing
of it. Do you find fault with it?”
I didn’t like it. Everything I had in the world was in those panniers,
including my journal and what money I had. A sneaking part of me
resolved that at my earliest opportunity, I’d make certain it was still there.
She was meeting my eyes in a very direct way. I took a breath. She’d
meant well and she was honest about it. Traveling can make a person
suspicious. “It took me aback, yes.”
“It was something I was willing to do for you.” From the emphasis she put
on the words, she made it clear that there were other things she’d be
unwilling to do for me. “My mother was a good seamstress and she taught
me well. She sewed for some of the best families in Old Thares. She knew
how to make clothing fit a…portly man. And I learned it at her knee. I can
make your garments more comfortable on you. So you can chop wood
without straining the seams.”
Why was it so hard to say, “Thank you. I’d welcome that”? I suppose it was
because I wished she could see me as something other than a fat stranger
who wanted to lie with her. I had to admit that in many ways, it was a fair
appraisal of me. It wasn’t that I was infatuated with her or wished her to
like me. She was pretty enough, in a weary way, and she was a woman,
and the first woman other than my sister I’d spent any appreciable time
with in weeks. That was all, I told myself. It was simple proximity and
honest lust. A man didn’t have to be ashamed of that, as long as he didn’t
force himself on a woman. It was just the way a man was made.
That evening was both more comfortable and less easy. The food was more
substantial, and once again we had tea to finish with, even if there was no
sugar. But she had told me her story the night before, and I had no wish to
tell her mine, so talk was scarce. Firelight was the only light in the room.
We sought our beds early. I lay on the floor, rolled in my blanket. I tried
not to think of her, soft and warm and only a few steps away. For all my
harsh training to be a soldier, I thought to myself, this family lived in
harder circumstances than anything I’d ever experienced. There were no
evening pastimes for the children, no storybooks or music, no toys save
what they had invented for themselves. Amzil had little education; I
doubted she could read. Whatever culture she had absorbed growing up in
the grand city of Old Thares would be denied to her children, growing up
in poverty in this wilderness. It was grim to speculate on their future, not
just during the harshness of the coming winter but for all the years after
that.
I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t shut down my thoughts. She’d as much as
admitted that she’d whored for passing travelers last winter to get food for
herself and the children. With such an example before them, what would
Kara and little Dia expect of life? What sort of a man would Sem grow to
be, watching his mother sell herself to support him? It was tawdry and
disgusting. Yet when she looked at her children, her gaze was familiar, for
it was the same way my mother had always looked at us. In the last year,
I’d had my eyes opened to my mother’s place in our world, and had come
to realize that in many ways she had sacrificed her own interests to ours.
The seeds of thought that Epiny had sown in my mind were growing in
uncomfortable ways. My mother had always been my mother and my
father’s wife. I don’t think I’d ever stopped to wonder who else she might
have wanted to be, outside of those roles. Now I’d glimpsed, several times,
how she had had to bow her head to my father’s decisions for her children,
and witnessed more clearly how she had battled him for a say in our lives.
She’d never expected to be a nobleman’s wife; she’d been married off to
the soldier son of a good family, with no higher expectation than that he
would advance in his career as an officer. When she’d left her father’s
house, she would have believed that eventually, when my father retired
from the military, she would return to Old Thares, to live at the Burvelle
mansion there, to visit her childhood friends, to go to the theater and
enjoy the cultural and social events of her home city. Instead, my father’s
elevated status had meant that she lived far from the capital city and that
her social friendships were limited to women similarly uplifted. She had
traveled to visit her family in the city perhaps once every five years, and
only after we children had become mostly self-sufficient. Until then, she
had not left us for a single day. Was that what it meant to be a mother?
I shifted uncomfortably on the packed earth floor. The cold from it seeped
up through my blankets and made me ache. I tried to fall asleep, but my
eyes kept opening, to stare around the dismal little room. I didn’t want to
think about my mother and how life had trapped her in a similar way to
how life had trapped Amzil. That led to wondering how deep of a trap I
had fallen into myself. Here I lay, the son of a nobleman, a soldier son
destined to be an officer, and I’d begged shelter and food from an ignorant
seamstress, the widow of a thief. And I’d been grateful for what I’d
received.
Clove had had a couple of days’ rest and some grazing. The days were
getting cold and the nights even colder. It was stupid to linger here. The
sooner I reached my journey’s end at Gettys, the sooner I would know
what awaited me there. There was a danger to waiting too long. If the
commander there didn’t accept me for enlistment, I’d probably have to
winter there, and then ride out in spring to try my luck at other citadels
and forts. There was no guarantee that any regiment would have me. My
thoughts spiraled into darker speculation. If no regiment would have me,
what then? What if I had to face being a soldier son who could not be a
soldier, a noble’s son who had been disowned? A brother who had not kept
his word to send for his sister? A fat man who begged shelter and food of
strangers? A man who looked at a woman with interest, only to have her
turn away in disgust?
I didn’t much like any of my possible new identities. I made an abrupt
decision.
I would leave at first light tomorrow.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BUEL HITCH
I stayed with Amzil nearly a month. I think that almost every night I made
a resolution to leave in the morning. But every morning brought some
small task that I thought I could do before I left. And somehow each of
those tasks led to others. It was always the task of the day that I stayed for;
I never allowed myself to think how pleasant it was to have the company of
this woman, how enjoyable I found it to be the one who could provide. My
father had rubbed my nose in my failures for so long that even I was
astonished at how much I could do for this orphaned and destitute family.
It felt good. It began with keeping my promise to show her how to snare
rabbits. I convinced myself that I had to stay an extra day to be sure that
the snares were working and that she knew how to reset them. I spent the
afternoon of that day cutting more wood and mending the roof of the shed
that Clove had been using as a stable. Midway through that task, the man
who had turned me away from his door only a few days before came to ask
if he could barter with us for a few days of Clove’s labor. The man had
devised a sort of plow and hoped that with the use of Clove’s strength, he
could plow a much larger garden area for the next spring. I pointed out to
him that it was the wrong season for plowing. He retorted that he was not
stupid, but that breaking the soil now might make it easier for him to
plant a larger area next spring.
Fabricating a harness for Clove proved to be the trickiest part of the
project. Yet by evening’s end, and with a lot of sweat, Merkus and I had
managed to break the sod on a quarter-acre of land. It was rocky soil,
threaded through with old roots. A good part of our toil went to chopping
side roots so that Clove could jerk old stumps free of the earth. Merkus
traded us a sack of potatoes and half a day of his labor the next day.
So I had little choice but to decide to stay for another day. Our evening
repast seemed very rich, for in a surge of optimism, Amzil had used the
meat from two rabbits and five whole potatoes to make the meal. We had
caught a total of three rabbits, so I showed her how to hang the extra
meat in the chimney to smoke it and preserve it. The three rabbitskins
joined the first one to dry. The extra food seemed to give the children
more energy. They were not as willing to go to bed that night, so we sat up
for some time by the fire. Amzil surprised me by telling the children
several stories to pass the time. Then, after she had settled them into bed,
we sat up a short time longer talking about what projects were most
crucial for the coming winter.
When Merkus arrived the next morning to work off his debt, he and I
tightened the roof and door of Amzil’s house before moving on to make the
roof of the shed sound. Long before noon, I had earned his grudging
respect. Over the next few days, Clove’s great strength made short work of
tugging down several ramshackle structures so that we could reduce them
to usable timbers. Once I had stockpiled the lumber that I thought I could
use for Amzil’s dwelling and the adjacent shed, I put Merkus in our debt
once more by using Clove to haul a number of heavy timbers down to
where he wished to use them.
All this activity roused the curiosity of the other scattered dwellers. The
old man and his nagging wife came to the door of their hut to watch Clove
pass. I discovered there was one other family in the otherwise deserted
town, a man and a woman of middle years with two half-grown children
and a baby. They watched us from afar, but did not speak to us that day.
Amzil and I checked the snares together that evening. We had only caught
one rabbit, but she still seemed very pleased with it. Under my guidance,
she moved the snares to fresh locations on some of the many rabbit trails
throughout the stump field.
“If the game becomes scarce here, then you can always set snares along
the river, especially in the wintertime.” I told her. “Watch for the paths
where animals go to water. Set them there.”
“The river freezes along its bank in winter,” she told me.

“There will still be tracks to it. You’ll see.”

Kara had tagged along with us, and to my surprise Amzil had the child set
the final snare. She seemed very young to me to be doing such a task.
Nonetheless, I held my tongue, suspecting that in this, Amzil probably
knew best. Small as she was, the sooner Kara stepped up to help provide
for her family, the better they would do.
The cottage became a snugger place as each day passed. We mixed grass,
moss, and mud, and chinked the gaps between the logs. With our salvaged
wood, we put a floor in the cabin. I hunted each morning with my sling.
My best day was when a lucky shot brought down a goose that I’d startled
off the river. It was fat. Grease had never tasted so good to me. Amzil
caught every drop of it before it could drip into the fire and saved it to
flavor the lean rabbit that made up most of our meals.
Our days began to have a pattern. Each morning I hunted. I brought my
kills home to Amzil, and she cooked them. In the afternoons, I did
whatever I thought best to improve her cottage. It was rough, crude work
for the most part, but even so, it made a difference. A slab of wood and
three stick legs made a stool. I longed for an awl, but managed to bore and
whittle the leg holes with my knife. I made a low table so that the children
could sit on the floor in front of the fire and have their meals more
comfortably. Every day, Amzil set aside a part of my catch to either smoke
or dry as jerked meat. It pleased me to watch her little larder grow full. I
built her another shelf.
Three times in that period, I saw travelers pass. The couriers who served
the king passed every day, but other than them there was little traffic on
the road this time of year. Once it was a train of wagons pulled by oxen,
heading toward Gettys. The men driving them were hard-eyed, and both
the first and the last wagon had guards perched on the wagon seats, long
guns slung across their knees. Plainly they wanted nothing to do with
anyone. We stared at one another, but no one called out a greeting.
Another day, it was a man riding a horse and leading two mules laden
with furs. He was headed west on the road. He nodded to my “Good day”
but kept on his way. And the other traveler I saw was a tinker with a
wagon pulled by a mismatched team. The wagon was painted with
pictures of his wares, but the bright panels were thick with dust and the
tall yellow wheels of his wagon were crusted with mud. I was on the edge
of the stump field. I waved my arms at him, hoping he’d stop. I wanted to
see what tools he had for sale. He waved back at me, but then stirred up
his team to a trot, plainly disinclined to pause. I shouted after him, but he
was gone, leaving only dust hanging over the road in his wake.
Often the children would come out to watch me at my tasks. I began to
teach them the nursery rhymes I knew, the counting songs and memory
games. They liked the one about the farmer calling his five goats. Kara
wanted to learn how my sling worked. I made her a smaller one, and set
her targets. She became a fair shot, but Amzil seemed reluctant to let me
take her out to hunt. I could not decide if she did not trust me alone with
the child or did not think it a proper task for her.
I cut firewood every day. It became a wall between Amzil’s cottage and the
hut where the old man lived. At night, our fire was more generous and it
filled the small space with both warmth and light. One night I took it upon
myself to be the storyteller, and it flattered me that Amzil listened as
attentively as her three small children. I told them two tales that my
mother had told me when I was a boy, and then I found myself telling a
story that I did not remember hearing, yet I knew I was not making up. It
was the tale of a young man who sought to avoid doing a task that his
mother had given him, and of all the misfortunes that befell him as a
result of his attempt to ignore his duty. The ending was, in a way, quite
comical, for when the boy finally surrendered and went to do his task, he
found that his mother had already done it. The children seemed to enjoy
the story, but after Amzil had put them to bed she said to me, “That was a
rather strange story.” Her tone made it clear that she did not quite
approve of it.
“It’s a story that the Speck tell to their children,” I said, and then
wondered how I had come by such knowledge. “I think it’s to teach them
that some tasks are so important, they cannot be ignored. Someone will do
them.” Amzil raised her eyebrows me. “And your telling it makes it all the
stranger,” she said with even greater disapproval. A short time later, she
sought her bed with the children, and I rolled myself in my blankets to
sleep before the fire. That night I dreamed of the Tree Woman’s forest. I
walked alone down paths where once we had walked as a couple. It was
autumn in the forest and the leaves on the deciduous trees were turning. I
had never seen such a spectacle. In the area of the plains where I had
grown up, there were groves of trees along the river or following the
streambeds. In autumn, their leaves turned a soggy brown and hung on
the branches until the frost and falls of snow took them down. Never
before had I experienced walking in a forest where the leaves had gone
yellow and gold and scarlet. When I lifted my eyes, the brilliance of their
color against the bright blue autumn sky was shocking. The leaves had
already begun to forsake the trees; there were drifts of them across the
path, and as I waded through them they rustled around my feet. There
was an incredible smell in the air, a rich odor of decomposing leaves and
fresh rain and the promise of a sharp frost in the night to come. I felt
alive, and in the strange clarity of that dream I felt that this life was larger
and brighter and sharper-edged than in my waking world. I was going
somewhere. I could not have said where, and yet I was hurrying to get
there, eager to arrive. I went down a hillside through a forest of
white-trunked birches with golden leaves fluttering in the autumn breeze.
At the bottom, I came to a swampy place where high-bush cranberries
dandled their translucent scarlet fruit below palm-sized leaves that had
gone red with the frost. Willows grew there, and their long narrow leaves
had gone a different shade of red. I cupped a scant handful of the fruit and
tasted it. The berries burst in my mouth with the sweet of summer ending
and the sharp tang of winter yet to come. I chewed the seeds as I walked
on, deeper into her world. Her world it was. I came to her at last, supine
on the earth. My sword had bitten deep into her trunk, and she had fallen,
just as a tree would have crashed to earth if most of the trunk had been
severed. The stump of her body stood and her torso had fallen beside it,
but that torso was still connected to the stump by a thick bend of bark. By
that, she lived. She was somehow a great tree and she was an immense
woman, with all the attributes of both. She had stretched her length out
on the forest floor when she fell, a glorious statue toppled from its
pedestal. Her torso and head melded with the fallen portion of the tree.
The mass of her hair ranged from glossy curls around her face to flowing
tresses that merged with the rough bark of the trunk beyond her head.
Like a nursery log, a sapling was sprouting from her, a slender tree
growing up from between her breasts. The felling of her tree had created a
clearing in the forest canopy. Light spilled from above to warm the earth.
A host of plant life had sprung up around her. I knelt beside her, knees
cushioned by moss and leaves. I took her hand. “So I didn’t kill you. You
didn’t die,” I said with gladness.
She smiled up at me. “I told you. Such as I do not die in that way. We go
on.” Cautiously, I set a hand to the smooth bark of the slender sapling.
“This is you?” I asked her.
She put her hand over mine, closing my fingers around the growing trunk.
“It is me.”
Wonder caught me. Life pulsed in the sapling. Skin to bark, I could feel
her magic at work as she transferred her power into the new life springing
up from her bosom. Even in that place, a shiver of awe ran over me. She
had shifted her gaze to speak to me. Now she looked up at the infinite blue
sky above us. Her long hair coiled and looped around her head like a
corona. “Soldier’s Boy, you know you have a task. It was given to you by
the magic. I know what the task is. You are to save us. But only you know
how you are to accomplish that. That was why the magic was given to you.
Not so that you might amuse yourself, but because you are the one who
would know what you must do to accomplish your task. With power comes
responsibility. You understand this.” Her voice was gentle but her words
were absolute.
“Of course I do,” I said readily, though until that moment, I do not think
that I had.
“You must come to where the destruction is. See it for yourself. Then tell
me how you will defeat it. It is my weakness that I hunger to know these
things. When I walked in the world that you now tread, I was a curious
woman. Even here, even now, that curiosity remains. I know the magic, I
trust the magic, and still I want to know. Will not you tell me?”
“When I know for myself what it is that I must do to defeat the end of our
world, then I will tell you. I promise you that.”
She relaxed more deeply into her mossy couch. Ferns had sprouted around
her where she had fallen. The fallen leaves of autumn had drifted around
her supine form, cushioning her curves with their gold. I cannot describe
how glorious she was. When I looked on her, I saw her as a Speck would.
She was not fleshy, but lush; her rounded belly, her voluptuous breasts, the
softness of her face all spoke of a time of plenty, of fruition and harvest. “I
hold you to your promise, Soldier’s Boy. Do not tarry. There are others,
less patient than I, who think that a swifter solution must be reached. I
have told them of you, in dreams and visions. Nonetheless, they will soon
take steps of their own to rid our lands of the invaders. They say that the
dance has failed. They say it is time to use the intruders’ own ways against
them.”
A deep foreboding rose in me, tainting my dream. I smelled smoke, and
the fallen leaves suddenly became sodden and black and rotting. I sank
into them. All around me, the forest became a cemetery of snaggled
stumps and bare, oozing earth. The tree woman sagged into a rotting
corpse. Her lips, mottled with mold, tore as she spoke her last words to
me. “The magic was not given to you to use for yourself. Be wary of that
temptation. Tarry no longer, but come to us. Our need is great.”
And then she was gone, flesh and bones sinking into a swamp of rot that
was not the healthy compost of a living forest but the stink of too many
dead things left heaped in a pile. I tried to get away, but my feet and legs
sank into the muck. I struggled wildly, wallowing deeper. It reached my
thighs, and with infinite loathing I felt it close around my loins and lap
against my belly. I tried to open my eyes, knowing that I dreamed, but no
matter how I contorted my face, I could not waken myself. I gave a sudden
wild cry of absolute despair. I think my own shout awakened me. It was
small comfort at first, for I was sprawled in mud and leaves and
surrounded by ghostly stumps. Rain was falling all around me. I was wet,
cold, and completely disoriented. How had I got here? The moon glided
briefly from the shelter of the clouds and granted me a gray wash of light.
I staggered to my feet and wrapped my arms around myself, shivering. I
was barefoot, and my clothes were coated with mud and dead leaves. My
hair, long grown out of a soldier’s cut, dangled wet on my brow and
dripped into my eyes. When I pushed it back from my face, I smeared my
forehead with muck from my wet, gritty hands. I cursed myself for an idiot
for making it worse. I stumbled back through the storm and the
treacherous stump field to Amzil’s door. It was closed tight, with the latch
string pulled inside; I wondered if I’d shut it behind me when I went sleep
walking, or if Amzil had wakened to a draft and closed it.
I wanted to pound on it and gain swift admission to the dry fireside. The
thought of waking not only Amzil but also her children dissuaded me.
Reluctantly, I sought the shed. I was glad we’d tightened up the roof. It
was dry inside, and Clove’s huge body radiated warmth into the small
space. In the darkness, I found the saddle blanket and made a rough bed
for myself until dawn. Then I rose, cold and stiff. I took Clove out and
hobbled him in deep grass near the river’s edge so he could graze. I went
for a walk along the riverbank until I was sure that Amzil would be awake.
Then I returned to her cottage. “You’re up early,” she observed softly. The
children were still sleeping. “Fish are jumping after mosquitoes in the
shallows of the river. If we had fishing tackle, you could have a nice
breakfast on mornings like this.”
She smiled sourly. “If I had fishing tackle. If I had a net. If I had seed, or a
loom, or yarn, or fabric. There are so many ways I could better our lot, if I
had even the most basic tools to begin. But I don’t, and I’ve nothing to
trade or sell, and even if I had something to trade, it would take me days
to walk to a marketplace, and I’d have to take the children with me. I’ve
had months to think my situation through, over and over. There’s no
reason for a town to be here. There’s nothing to make people come here.
It’s just a place to pass by on your way to somewhere else. I have no way to
acquire even the most basic things I’d need to make a life here. Perhaps if
my husband had lived, we could have managed, for one of us could make
the long trip to Gettys while the other stayed here with the children. But I
cannot take them so far alone. Sometimes I think that was what the king
intended. He took all the poor folk who broke the laws to live, and sent us
out here to die.”
Her words nudged my dormant loyalty to the king. “I don’t think that was
his intent. I believe he truly thought you could make a new beginning here.
He spoke of the road becoming a great river of trade between west and
east, and of towns springing up along it and becoming centers of
commerce. When more people begin to travel the road, there will be trade
opportunities. Even as it is now, any sort of an inn here would be welcome
by travelers, I’m sure.” “An inn.” She looked at me with tried patience.
“That’s an old idea. There was an inn here, for a very short time. You’ll
find the burned timbers at the east end of town.”
“What happened to it?”
She sighed with exasperation. “It was burned down by angry patrons who
claimed they had been robbed while they slept.”
“Were they?”
She shrugged one shoulder and looked almost guilty. “I don’t know.
Perhaps. Probably.” She poked at the fire angrily, stirring the coals to
flame as she added a small piece of wood. “Do you forget who we are here?
Do you forget why the king chased us out of Old Thares? When you make a
town of pickpockets, thieves, murderers, and rapists, what do you think
will happen? What happens when a family of thieves opens an inn?”
That silenced me for a time. I had not stopped to think about what it
would be like to settle in a town where the entire population consisted of
criminals and their families. Unwillingly I asked, “Your neighbors. Were
they…?” “Of course. Why do you think I live apart from them? That old
man Reeves? He was sent from the city for raping young girls. His wife will
tell you they all tempted him, if you let her speak to you for more than five
minutes. He strangled the last one; that was how they caught him.
Merkus, who you plowed for? He murdered a man in a tavern fight. Teme
and Roya, up the hill with their youngsters? They were both in the jail. He
stole from the old woman he worked for, and Roya helped him sell her furs
and jewelry.”
“But you are not a criminal. And travelers do pass this way. Merchants,
new recruits for Gettys, the soldiers, and the prisoner workers they escort.
Even if there is not yet much traffic, there are enough people going by for
you to make something from their passage.”
She glanced at me. “Pretend, for a moment, that you are a woman alone
with three small children. Some travelers might be glad of a clean bed and
a warm room, even if I have no food to sell them. Some would pay for it,
with coin or barter. But others would simply take whatever they wanted
from me and be on their way. If I was lucky. Don’t you see that I’d be
tempting danger by opening my door to strangers? When the soldiers and
the long prisoner trains pass, do you know what we do? We run down to
the river and hide there until they have gone by. The soldiers who guard
the prisoners know that this was a town made for criminals. They don’t
trust anyone who lives here, and they don’t respect the lives of anyone who
lives here.”
“You have a gun,” I pointed out.
She hesitated, opened her mouth to speak, closed it, and then said
abruptly, “And they have many guns, and far more ammunition than I do.
How do you imagine they would treat us if I killed one of them trying to
defend what we have from them? Would any of my children survive? I
doubt I would, and I don’t like to think what their suffering would be after
I’d died.” I had no reply to the grim picture she painted. She seemed to
take angry satisfaction in my silence. She mixed two handfuls of coarse
meal into a pot of cold water and set it over the wakened fire. Breakfast
would be the same thin porridge she had cooked every morning since I
arrived. I’d been intending to tell her that I’d be leaving that day.
Suddenly, it seemed that I couldn’t just yet, that there had to be
something I could do for them before I went. I went out to check the
snares.
We had one rabbit. But one of the other snares looked odd to me. A
moment of considering it proved all Amzil’s suspicions of her neighbors’
were correct. The thrashed ground around the snare showed me that a
rabbit had been caught there. Someone had come, taken it, and
awkwardly reset the snare. Anger flamed through me. I wondered who
would stoop so low as to steal from a woman and three small children. The
answer came to me: anyone who was hungry enough. I moved the snare,
and took our catch back to Amzil’s cottage.
As I skinned it, my mind was spinning with thoughts. There was so much I
could do if I stayed here. I could teach her to use a sling. That would work
on birds as well as rabbits. I could make a fish spear and show her how to
use that. I was far from the wide plains where I had grown up, and I did
not know as many of the plants here as I would have at home. But there
were still some I knew. The roots of the cattails along the river; did she
know she could dig them and grind them into a sort of meal? And the
cottage next to her shed was not in terrible shape; I could patch the roof of
it and tighten the walls. It would not be an inn, but it would be shelter she
could rent to travelers in need, without bringing them under her own roof.
I suddenly understood my friend Spink’s restlessness when he watched his
elder brother run the family holdings and suspected that he could make a
better job of it. I looked at Amzil and her children and her situation, and
knew that with time and the strength of my hands, I could better things
for all of them. I wanted to do that, in the same way that one wants to
right a crooked picture on a wall, or smooth the upturned corner of a rug.
To me, the tasks were relatively simple, and the benefits to Amzil and her
children might be the difference between starvation and well, not
prosperity, but at least less want. For the first time in my life, I felt I
might be free of the fate that the good god had decreed for me. I felt sinful
even to consider that idea, and yet there it was. If, through no fault of my
own, I could not find a place for myself in military service, then what was I
to do? Become a beggar on the streets? Or make a place for myself
somewhere, a place where I could be useful to others and take some
satisfaction in my own achievements? The children were awake. Kara
came out and squealed gleefully at the sight of the skinned rabbit. I gave it
to her to take to her mother. Little Sem stood under my elbow and nearly
got nicked by my knife as I scraped the hide clean and then added it to the
other skins. He followed me as I walked past the shed to the next cottage.
It was as poorly built as Amzil’s, and had a decided lean to it. I walked all
the way around it, the little boy at my heels. There was another cottage
built just off the corner of the first one; it would be fairly simple to build a
room to connect them into one, larger structure. The idea of an inn had
taken hold in my mind, and it now seemed the inevitable answer to
Amzil’s situation. It was easy to dismiss her naysaying. She was a woman
alone, and thus it had all appeared impossible to her. But if I stayed on, I
could show her how it could be done. And with a man in charge, other
men would be less prone to attempt to take advantage of her. I could do it.
I could become her protector.
I pushed away the thought that tried to creep to the forefront of my mind:
that once she had seen that I could both provide and protect, she might
look on me with a more favorable glance.
I looked at the cottages with an engineer’s eye, and shook my head. They
were pathetic. Yet they could be made to serve, at least for now. With
timbers and logs from the nearby abandoned huts, I could shore them up
to make them last the winter. Surely winter travelers on this road would
welcome any sort of a shelter for the night. And the room I would build to
connect them would be level and strong, the heart of a new structure that
would eventually rise in place of the old. Sem was at my heels as I entered
the second cottage. I was pleased to find it had a very functional-looking
fireplace and chimney. Like Amzil’s home, the floor was of earth. A table
with two broken legs leaned against a bed frame full of rotting straw and
bugs. The table was beyond repair, but the bedframe was salvageable. I
checked the inside walls of the cabin, testing the wood with my knife.
Some rot, but not much. This structure was in much better condition than
the first cottage, and I immediately decided I would begin my renovation
here. “Sem! Sem, where are you?” There was a frantic note to Amzil’s cry.
“He’s here with me! We’re coming!” I called back to her, and Sem piped
up, “We’re coming!” in such an obvious imitation of me that I had to
laugh. As we made our way through the weedy space between the huts, a
very familiar smell suddenly rose to my nostrils. Looking down, I found
that I was standing on the crushed remains of a small cabbage. I blinked,
and recognized the top of a carrot, and there the rounded purple shoulders
of a turnip pushing up from the weedy earth. We were standing in the
remains of a badly choked vegetable garden. It looked as if the seeds had
been randomly thrown on the soil and had sprouted haphazardly. I found
another cabbage, not much bigger than my fist but sound. I gave it to Sem
to carry, and pulled up both the turnip and the carrot. The carrot was a
long, dark-orange root, gone woody in its second year of growth, and root
maggots had left a trail on the turnip, but for all that, the good parts could
be cut off and stewed down. I felt I had discovered treasure rather than
some old and wormy vegetables.
I looked up from my knees to find an angry-looking Amzil bearing down
on us.
“What are you doing out here with my son?” she demanded. “Seeing how
sound this building is. Watch where you step! There’s a vegetable garden
gone wild here.”
“You have no right…what?”
“We’re standing in a grown-over vegetable patch. I stepped on one
cabbage before I realized it. But Sem has another, and I found a carrot
and a turnip, too.” Her eyes darted from her son holding the cabbage to
me and back again. Conflicting emotions flashed across her face. “This is
wonderful—but never again take my boy out of my sight without my
permission.”
The vehemence in her voice shocked me, and I realized that however
comfortable I had become here, she still regarded me as a stranger. And
dangerous. “Sem followed me,” I said quietly. I knew it was unreasonable
to feel hurt or angry, yet in truth, I felt both.
“I’m…I’m sure he did. But I don’t like any of my children to wander out of
my sight. There are many dangers here in the wild country.” It sounded
like an excuse, not an apology.
“And you think I’m one of those dangers.” I spoke flatly.

“You might be,” she replied frankly.

“I’m not. Not to you or to your children. I thought I’d been helping you.”

“You have. You did.” She looked down at the small boy. He was frowning
as he tried to follow our conversation, looking back and forth between us.
“Sem, go home. There’s porridge on the table for you. Eat it up.” The
mention of food was enough to send the boy flying. He scampered off, still
clutching the cabbage in his arms. When he was out of earshot, she looked
back at me. Her expression was not unfriendly, but neither was it kindly.
She spoke bluntly. “You have helped us. And in return, I’ve sewn your
clothes for you, and allowed you to share our roof and fire, and whatever
food we had. And I admit that it’s thanks to you that we’ve had more food
in the last few weeks than we’ve had for some time. But—well, but I don’t
wish to be in your debt. I don’t want you to start thinking that because
you’ve done things for us, we owe you something. Well, I mean, I know
that I do, but I won’t…that is—”

“I don’t think you’re a whore, Amzil. I won’t try to buy you with coin or
food. Nor would I do any harm to any of your children. You seem to think
me some sort of a monster, capable of anything!” Then the hurt did break
into my voice, despite my best efforts. She looked startled. I felt
embarrassed. I looked away from her. I tried desperately to think of
something to say that would change the topic. I cleared my throat.
“Someone stole from us last night. They took a rabbit from one of our
snares. They reset it, but poorly. I could tell what had been done.”

“I’m not surprised.” She spoke quickly, as if glad to talk of something new.
“It was bound to happen.” Then anger flared again in her voice. “But what
can I do? If I stay up all night to watch the snares in the stump field, the
rabbits won’t come. And I’ll be too tired to take care of the children by
day. It’s hopeless.”
“Have you ever thought of trying to form an alliance with some of your
neighbors?”
She gave me an incredulous glance. She began to walk back to her cottage
and I followed her. “I told you what they are. Murderers, thieves, and
rapists. I don’t trust them.”
“But your husband was a thief.” I tried to speak the words gently, but they
still sounded like an accusation. “Oh, look there,” I added before she could
reply. “Lettuce.”
“It doesn’t look like lettuce. It’s tall with little leaves.”
“It’s gone to seed.” I went down heavily on one knee in the sodden weeds. I
broke the top off the plant and lifted it carefully, my hand cupped under
the seed head. “You can save these and plant them next spring. Or you can
dig up the ground and plant them now. The plants here either wintered
over or reseeded themselves, so it didn’t get cold enough here to kill them
completely. Actually, if you plant some now, you might get an early crop in
spring. And then plant the rest of the seed after that, for more lettuce
later. But always leave a few plants in the garden to go to seed, so you’ll
have seed for the next season.”
“Oh,” she said faintly. She stopped walking and looked back at the
overgrown garden. “I feel so stupid. It makes sense now.”
“What?”
“That they gave us seed, and told us it should be enough to last us. I had
nothing to plant this spring. I was lucky enough to find some onions and
potatoes growing where I’d planted them last year. I thought I’d just
missed them when I harvested them.”
“It was a cruel thing they did, putting you out here without teaching you
first how to grow a garden or catch a rabbit.”
“They did give us some chickens. For a short time, we had eggs. Then
someone stole them and ate them, I suppose. That happened soon after we
first arrived, when more people lived here.” She gave me a very
uncomfortable glance. “Thank you. What’s your name?”
I realized she’d never asked me and I hadn’t told her. “Nevare Bur—” I
stopped short. My father no longer claimed me. Did I wish to claim his
name?
“Nevare Burr. Thank you, Nevare.”
She said my name, and for a moment I felt an odd thrill, similar to the
first time that Carsina had touched my hand. She was walking in front of
me and could not see my cynical smile. Of course, Nevare. Fall in love with
the first woman you befriend, simply because she is willing to say your
name. Ignore how she looks at you; ignore how frightened she was just a
few moments ago when she thought you had lured her child away. I forced
myself to confront how desperately lonely I’d become. I was so alone. As
alone, I reminded myself, as Yaril. I did not need to fall to a wild schoolboy
infatuation with Amzil. I had my sister and her affection to sustain me.
Instead of thinking how I could change Amzil’s life if she allowed me to, I
knew I should focus my efforts on creating a life for myself, one that would
eventually allow me to send for Yaril.
Amzil hurried ahead of me; I walked more slowly. I stopped. I turned to
look back at the two cottages that had, for a few moments, been in my
imagination an inn. Yet, why not here? I asked myself. Why should I not
build the inn, just as I had imagined it, but for myself and eventually for
Yaril? And if my efforts here produced benefits for Amzil and her children
as well, that would simply be an additional good. “I could stay here and
build a life for myself,” I said softly.
At my words, lightning flashed through me. I remembered my dream, all
in that instant. In the next moment, I stood trembling in full daylight,
possessed of a knowledge I did not want. I could not stay here. I couldn’t
build an inn or make a place for Yaril. I was supposed to go on, to the land
of the Specks. If I did not, evil would befall me. No. Not just me. Evil
would befall any who held me back from that quest.
The corollary to that axiom fell into place for me. Misfortune had befallen
my home and family in Widevale because they had sought to keep me
there. The plague had come to Widevale, and scoured me of my family
because I had defied the magic. The magic had cut me free of my old life. I
shook my head. It could not be true. It was a stupid uncivilized
superstition, something an ignorant man or a savage might believe.
My gut cramped with guilt and pain.
I bent over, clasping my great wobbly belly in my hands, sickened with the
knowledge that filled me as much as by the emptiness of the hunger that
suddenly assailed me. It was not a hunger for simple sustenance. I needed
to eat to feed the magic that dwelt in me. It demanded food, and it
demanded that I continue on my way to Gettys, to the territory of the
Specks.
“You. You! Help me! In the name of the king. Help me.” The voice was
faint, both from distance and weakness in the man who called. I looked
around me, and then lifted my eyes to look up the hillside, past the stump
field to where the uncut trees began. A man stood there, leaning heavily on
a tough little horse beside him. He was bearded and without a hat,
dressed in rough, ragged clothing. His head wobbled on his shoulders.
When he saw me looking at him, he took two steps toward me, and then
collapsed. He rolled a short way and then lay still.
I ran toward him. For a very short way. Then I stopped, caught my breath,
and hurried on as best I could, through the crooked lanes between the
ramshackle houses and across the stump field and then up the steep rise
of the hill. In all that time, the man did not move. When I reached him
and knelt beside him, I saw he was a larger man than I’d thought. He’d
finished his tumble flat on his back. His eyes were closed. His clothing
was not ragged from long use, but hung in tatters where something had
attacked him and torn his garments with its claws. His cavalla trousers
were stained with blood and dirt. He’d bound rags from his shirt across
his chest and his upper right arm. Lesser gashes scored his belly, and
showed on his legs through his torn trousers. The cuts were crusted dark
with scabs and soiled with leaves and dirt. It was hard to guess his age
through his whiskers and shaggy hair, but I thought him a man of middle
years. “Sir! Wake up!”
He groaned, his chest rising and falling with it. His eyes fluttered a bit and
then opened. “Big cat got me,” he said, as if I’d asked him. “I’d just
downed a fat grouse. I was plucking it. Cat decided that me and the bird
would make a nice meal for him.”
“Let’s get you down the hill and into the house.”
“I got to get to Gettys. I was due there today. Supposed to report in.” I
took his shoulders and raised him to a sitting position. He silently snarled
his pain as I did so. “You’re a scout?”
He caught a ragged breath. “Lieutenant Buel Hitch.” He grunted with
pain, and then found breath to speak again. “And by the king’s authority, I
can order you to help me. I got to get to Gettys.”
“You don’t have to order me. I’d help you anyway.”
“I’m sure you would,” he replied with tight sarcasm. “You just love the
king and his soldiers, don’t you?”
“I am loyal to my king. And as a second son, it is my fate to be a soldier.
Not that I’ve had much success at it. But if you have finished insulting me,
I’ll take you down to where your injuries can be cleaned and properly
tended.” He looked at me for a few moments. His hoarse breath sawed in
and out of him.
Then he said, “You’re no convict. What are you doing in Dead Town?”
“I was passing through on my way to Gettys. I ran out of supplies. So I
stopped for a few days, to barter work for food.”
“This town, I’m surprised you got anything at all for your trouble, other
than a rock behind the ear. Stoop down and let me get my arm across your
shoulders. You’re a big one, aren’t you?”
There seemed little need to reply to that observation. I did as he asked,
and once he had his grip, I grasped his belt and raised him to his feet. He
swayed against me. I carried most of his weight, but he tried to walk. He
gasped and groaned as we tottered along. It was slow progress down the
hill. I glanced back to see his horse following us.
Halfway across the stump field, I shouted for Amzil to put water on to boil.
I called twice before she came to the door of the cottage. Her eyes
widened, and she darted back inside. When we approached the door, I was
shocked to see her standing in it, her huge gun once more leveled at my
midsection. “What?” I asked her.
“You’re not bringing him in here.” She spoke the words flatly.

“But he’s hurt.”

“This is my home. I’ve my children to protect. You’re not bringing that
stranger in here.”

I just shook my head at her. Then I turned and started limping him
toward the other hut I’d inspected that morning. “Put my panniers
outside your door, then,” I said, and did not bother to hide the disgust in
my voice. Behind me, I heard the door of her cottage slam shut.
I took Lieutenant Hitch into the cottage that had the sound fireplace. I
eased him down, and then went to the shed for Clove’s saddle blanket. I
made it into a flat pallet and then fetched kindling and firewood from the
pile I’d made for Amzil. My panniers were outside her closed door, along
with a tumble of my other possessions I’d left inside her home. The
message was plain. I carried them all back to the hut where the soldier
waited.
“Looks like you pissed her off right good,” he observed. I couldn’t tell if he
was grinning or gritting his teeth with pain.
“It’s a talent I have with women,” I told him.

He hissed through his teeth and then fell silent.

I made a fire, and then fetched water and set my small pan over the
flames. When the fire had warmed the room a little and the water was hot,
I helped him undress.
I tended the minor wounds first, washing the ragged scratches as best I
could. Every one of them was warm to the touch and suppurating. He
hissed and swore as I washed them clean. The deeper ones bled a bit.
When I reached to undo the bandage on his chest, he stopped my hand
with his. “Got anything to eat or drink?” he asked me shakily. “I could do
with a bit of fortifying before we take this on.”
“I think I have a little bit of tea left. That’s about it out of what I can call
mine.”
“That would be good, then. There’s some dried meat in my saddlebags.
Could you bring them in?”
I took the saddlebags from his horse’s back, and then slipped his bit so he
could graze easily on the weeds between the huts, carefully moving him
away from the half-choked vegetable garden. As I passed the garden again,
I found two overgrown carrots and tugged them from the ground. When I
carried them into the cabin, the lieutenant looked at me curiously. “Soup,”
I explained. “They’re too tough to eat any other way. With the dried meat
tossed in, they ought to stew up fine.”
That was easier said then done. They were so woody I had to chop them
up with my hatchet. I cut them fine and tossed them in a pot of hot water.
I then went into Hitch’s saddlebag. He watched me, and as I took out a
large packet tightly wrapped in several layers of oilcloth, he said, “No. Not
that one. Put that one back.” The second packet, wrapped in greasy brown
paper, proved to be the smoked meat. I took a slab of it the size of my
hand, chopped it fine, and added it to my carrots. By then my kettle was
boiling. I made the lieutenant a cup of hot tea and waited while he drank
it. When he set down the empty mug, he nodded to me. “Let’s get at it,” he
said grimly.
I took out my untouched medical kit. Hitch’s eyes widened at the sight of
it. He clenched his teeth as he watched me dissolve the healing salts in the
hot water; he knew how they would burn and sting, but also knew they
were necessary. The bandaged claw slash across his chest was a nasty one.
The cat’s claws had gone deep and the wound, unbandaged, gaped open.
It, too, was festering. I washed it out with the warm salted water, an
operation that left Hitch hammering his fist against the dirt floor. He
swore, but did not cry out with the pain.
“It should have been stitched,” I said. “I think it’s too late to do it now.”
“I know that. Do you think I’m an idiot? Or that I could have stitched
myself up one-handed out there in the dark?”
I bit my tongue and made no reply. Instead I smeared the edges with salve
and rebandaged it more firmly, strapping the flesh back in place and
hoping it would find a way to heal together. The gash on his arm was
similar, deep and gaping and oozing pus. The smell was foul; my gorge
rose. Breathing through my mouth didn’t help. I gritted my teeth against
my nausea and treated the arm wound as I had his chest. It used up the
last of my bandaging and salve from home. “You’re a well-prepared
traveler,” Hitch said tightly. Sweat beaded on his face from the pain he’d
endured.
“I was,” I said with scant humor.
“Don’t worry. When we get to Gettys, I’ll see that everything you used for
me is replaced.”
“When we get to Gettys?”
“You said you’d help me. Even if I didn’t demand it of you. Well, I’ve got to
get to Gettys. And I know damn well that I won’t get there on my own.
You’ll have to go with me.”
The soup was beginning to bubble. I could smell the dried smoked meat
and the carrots simmering. I stirred it a bit. I looked around the room. I
could still see the possibilities there. I knew they didn’t belong to me. “I’ll
take you.”
He gave a short nod. “I want to rest for the rest of the day and the night.
And then we’ll start at dawn. You’ve done a good job on me, but I know
these things will pus up again in no time. There’s a doctor at the fort. He’s
my best chance. Is that soup done yet?”
“How good are your teeth?”
“Good enough. I’m famished.”

I gave him my bowl. I ate from the pot. The carrots were hard and stringy,
but they still tasted good to me. I ate as my habit prompted me, carefully,
savoring every bit. I drank the hot broth slowly, closing my eyes as it
passed over my tongue and down my throat. I felt the warmth of it reach
my belly. I opened my eyes and saw the bottom of the pot. I lowered it to
find Hitch staring at me. I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand.
“Where did you come from?” he asked me, and it seemed like more than a
request for my hometown.
“Back west,” I told him, and found I didn’t want to tell him even that
much. I used my favorite trick to shift his thoughts away from me. “What
happened to the cat that attacked you?”
He grinned humorlessly. “It won. I broke free of it and ran. Luckily, it let
me go. I suppose it decided the dead bird was enough. When I got back to
my camp and my horse, I fixed myself up as best as I could, and then
headed back toward the road. That was four days ago. No, five. Four?
Four, I think.” He pursed his lips for a moment and continued to regard
me steadily. I stood up.
He asked, “Can you get my sleeping roll for me? I’m going to rest now.”

“Good plan. I’ll build up the fire for you.”

“Thanks.”

I got him settled, built up the fire, and then left, shutting the door behind
me. Outside the cabin, I wiped my hands down the front of my trousers
and heaved a huge sigh. My feet had carried me to Amzil’s door. I didn’t
knock on it or try to open it. I stood outside and announced, “I’m leaving
tomorrow morning. I have to get that man to Gettys so his wounds can be
treated by a doctor.” She didn’t reply. I could hear the children inside,
their higher voices raised querulously. I turned to walk away. Behind me, I
heard the door open a crack. “You think I’m a terrible person,” she
accused me.

I thought and then replied, “I think you’re very afraid. And that makes you
hard.”
“Hard is better than dead, or raped and left for dead.”
“That man was injured. He was no threat to you.”

“He was a soldier, a scout. I’ve seen him before. And I know that where
one soldier is, others follow. If I’d let him in and he died, I’d have been
blamed. Better to have nothing to do with him.”

“He’s a human being in need, Amzil. How can you just turn your back on
that?”
“Just like they done it to me. That’s how. How many times have soldiers
ridden through here? At first, when my husband was dying, I asked for
help. They told me I’d brought my own troubles on myself, marrying a
convict and having his babies. Well, that’s what I say to that soldier now.
Whatever happened to him, he brought it on himself, by riding about
being a soldier.”
It was true, so I couldn’t argue with her. I no longer saw the point of
arguing with her at all. “I’ll be taking him on to Gettys tomorrow
morning,” I said. Her mouth went sullen. Almost angrily, she asked, “And
what about all your fine talk of building an inn here, and taking trade
from the road and all that? What about that?”
I was startled. “You told me it wouldn’t work. You gave me a dozen
reasons why it was a stupid idea.”
“If I was trying to do it alone, then, yes. But if a man were running it, even
a man like you, travelers might respect it. It might work then.” Even a
man like me. A fat man like me, that was what she meant. Scarcely a man
at all in her eyes, but big enough to be scary. I looked away from her. “I
have to take him to Gettys. If I don’t, he’ll die from infection. He might
still die.”
“Then why bother?”

“Because he’s a soldier. And I’m a second son. I’m meant to be a soldier.”

“You never told me that.” She spoke as if I had lied to her. I felt her eyes
run over me, and knew how unlikely she thought it that I’d ever be
anything of the kind. I admitted it. “Well, I’m not exactly what any
commander wants when he thinks of a recruit. Nonetheless, the good god
made me a second son. My plan was always to go to Gettys, to see if they’d
accept me as a recruit. If I can serve as a soldier, I will.”

“So you’ll just ride off and leave tomorrow.”
I wanted her to ask me to stay. Or at least, invite me to come back. I stood
straight before her, meeting her eyes as I looked down at her, and
wondered if she even guessed at what I hoped. “I have to take him to
Gettys.”
She looked away from me, as if there were something important on the
hillside behind me. I knew there wasn’t. “You’ve helped me a lot in the
time you’ve been here.” She paused, wet her lips, and then said, “The
children will miss you.”
“I’ll miss them,” I said sadly, and found it was not just a nicety. I would
miss them. But Amzil would not say she would miss me, nor ask me to stay
or if I might come back.
“Thank you,” she called to my back when I had gone a dozen steps. “For
the meat, you know. And the firewood.”
“You’re welcome.” I shifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Thanks for the roof
and the fireplace. And for sewing my clothes.”
“They look much better on you now.” She called the words after me.
“Thanks,” I said, not calling the word out, but loud enough that she would
know I had said it. I walked back to the cottage that might have made a
good common room for an inn. Hitch was still sleeping. His face was slack,
his mouth ajar. I put water within easy reach of him, took my sling, and
went out and up the hill. I hunted until dusk. “I owe her,” I said aloud to
the magic. “If she hadn’t let me rest here, do you think my horse would
have lasted? If I hadn’t taken the time here to rest myself, and eat
decently, do you think I’d be on my way to Gettys now? No. I’d be dead by
the road somewhere. I owe her and I want to pay her.”
I waited to feel something, that tingling stir of my blood that came when
the magic moved through me. Nothing happened. I hunted anyway. I
missed the first rabbit I saw, and a tree trunk deflected my missile from
the second. It was not the right time of day for hunting. And I’d been a
fool to think I could wield the magic. An hour later, I decided I’d been a
fool to believe in it at all. There had been coincidences and I’d had
nightmares. My faith and my rationality chased one another in circles
until I was certain that I was a fool to attempt to know the truth of
anything.
When I saw the deer, I cursed the fate that had made my father withhold
my weapons from me. He was not a large animal; probably he was a
yearling. I looked away from him, recalling that Dewara had told me that
any prey could feel the stare of a hunter’s eyes. I mouthed my new words
silently. “I need food for my journey to the territory of the Specks.”
There was a rock in my sling, smooth and hefty. It would easily have
stunned a rabbit or a bird. It would not kill a deer. When I moved my arm
to wind up momentum for the sling, the deer would startle and be gone. I
knew there was no magic in me, no magic anywhere. I was merely a fat
man, my body the freakishly rare result of my exposure to Speck plague.
My heart thundered in my chest as I let the stone fly.
It hit the young buck just above his left eye. I heard the crack of stone
against bone. The animal started, and a tremor ran through him. He took
two steps. His front legs folded under him as if he were going to bed down
for the night. He sank down. With a heavier crash, his hind legs teetered
under him and he fell. His entire body gave a jerk.
I did not wait. I rushed forward, running down the hill at him, drawing
my sheath knife as I ran. I turned one ankle slightly, hit a sapling with my
shoulder, and plunged on. When I finally reached him, he was trying to get
up. I fell on him. Using every bit of my strength, I punched my knife into
his throat just behind the curve of his jawbone. He gave a wild leap and an
inhuman cry of pain. I threw my weight on him then, and held him down
as I sawed with my knife, groping for some vital artery. He tossed his head
wildly, crashing his skull into mine. I shouted wordlessly and worked the
knife in him. A leap of bright red blood rewarded me. Still, his hind legs
kicked and it was some moments before he subsided into death.
Panting, I rolled off him, feeling shaken and bruised. For a time, I lay on
my back next to the dead yearling, staring up at a blue sky through yellow
leaves. I tried to decide if I’d been lucky, or if magic had prevailed. I
decided that as long as it came down to having meat, I didn’t care.
Dragging the dead deer through the forest was a trial that I shall never
forget. It would have been a task even if I’d been my old fit self. It had no
antlers to drag it by, only nubby spikes. I tried hauling it by the hind feet,
but the grain of its hair created more drag than I would have thought
possible. I ended up gripping the front feet and dragging it that way, with
the head flopping about and snagging on every imaginable obstacle. As
soon as I had it to the edge of the stump field, I left it and went back to the
door of Amzil’s house. “I’ve killed a deer,” I said to the closed door. “If you
help me butcher it, I’ll leave you a goodly share. But some I’ve got to take
with me, to travel on.” “A deer?” The door all but flew open. “How did you
kill a deer?”
“With a rock,” I replied.

“That’s impossible,” she said.
“I used my magic to help me,” I answered, and she took that for a joke. I
gutted the deer and cut its head off. I gave the liver, heart, kidneys, and
tongue over to Amzil, since they were best used fresh. With the hide still
on to keep flies off it, I hung the animal, head down, in the shed to bleed.
Even with a small deer, it was a lot of work. I left it with the dark blood
dripping onto the earth floor. I got my extra set of clothing from my
panniers. Hitch slept on. I went down to the river to wash.
I was sweating and sticky with blood. I gritted my teeth against the chill,
stripped, and waded out into the river to wash myself. It was an
unpleasant experience. I realized that it had been some time since I’d
washed myself, not because I enjoyed being dirty but because I’d been
avoiding my own body. I used sand from the riverbank to scrub myself. In
some places, I had to lift my flesh to wash in the deep fold beneath it.
There were sweat scalds under my arms and starting between my thighs,
the result of the afternoon’s endeavors. My navel had retreated into a deep
dent in my belly. A second pouch of fat beneath my belly had formed over
my genitals. My buttocks sagged, and my chest was fleshy with breast fat.
The experience of washing my own body shamed away any triumph I
might have felt in taking the deer. If this sagging fleshy body was the price
of having magic, I didn’t want it. It was small good to me. It only answered
at its own fickle will, and then only if what I was attempting benefited its
command for me. This magic offered me no power, only a tether to people
and forces that I did not understand.
And tomorrow morning, I would leave Amzil and her children and go on to
Gettys. The part of me that persisted in being my father’s son said that I
would once again attempt to enlist. If the commander at the stronghold
there took me, then I could write to Yaril and tell her that soon I’d have a
place for her. I wondered what the magic would think of that.
On the heels of that thought, I wondered what I would do if the
commander turned me away. I could come back here. I wasn’t sure that I
should, but I could. I waded out to the bank and dashed the water from
my body. I dried myself on my dirty shirt, dressed, and then spent some
time scrubbing the worst of the dirt from the clothing I’d been wearing. I
wrung out my laundry and carried it back to the cabin where Lieutenant
Hitch slept. I built up the fire and then stretched my wet clothes over the
broken table. I hoped they’d be dry by morning.
With the next day’s journey in mind, I emptied out my panniers and
repacked them. When I came to the pouch of my remaining coin, I smiled,
thinking how little good it had done me. I stowed it carefully. There was
very little to pack in the way of food. I glanced at the scout. Hitch must
have wakened at some point, for the water I’d left him was gone. I
wondered how well supplied he was; in his condition, I judged it best that
we push for Gettys with all possible speed. Stopping each evening early
enough to hunt was not going to be an option. Sheepishly, I wondered if
Amzil would let me take some of the smoked rabbit with me. I could take a
day or two of venison, but the uncured meat would not travel as well as
dried or smoked would.
I was just marshaling my courage to go back to her cabin when the door
opened. Amzil was preceded by an amazing smell: fresh deer liver sizzled
in goose grease and flavored with onions. My body came to alertness like a
hunting dog pointing out a bird. She halted just inside the door; she was
carrying the hot pan in her heavily padded hands. Her gaze didn’t quite
meet mine. “I thought you might be hungry.”
“I’m ravenous, and that smells wonderful.”
“There should be enough for the hurt fellow. My mother always said that
liver was wondrously healing food.”
The smell alone seemed to be working wonders. Lieutenant Hitch stirred
in his pallet and then opened his eyes. “What’s that?” he asked groggily.
“Fresh deer liver cooked in goose fat with onion,” I told him.
“Help me sit up. Please.”
The eagerness in his voice even woke a smile from Amzil. She set the pan
down near our fire. “I have to get back to my children,” she said
awkwardly to me.
“I know. Thank you.”
“It was the least I could do. Nevare, I’m…I’m sorry I can’t be
more…welcoming to strangers. But I have my children to protect. You
know that.”
“I do know that. And you do a good job of it. Before you go, I’ve another
favor to ask. Can I beg some of the smoked rabbit from you? We’ve a way
to go, and fresh venison won’t travel as well.”
“Of course. It’s your meat. You killed it and smoked it.” Despite her words,
her voice was stiff with dismay.
“And I gave it to you. Do you mind if we take some? I’ll be leaving almost
all the venison.”
“Of course it’s fine. I’ll be grateful for whatever you leave me. My children
have eaten well in the time you’ve been here, hunting for us. I’m grateful
for that.”
“The venison. You should let it hang for a few days before you skin it out.
Let it bleed well. It will be more tender that way. You can use it fresh, but
you’ll want to smoke or dry most of it.” It suddenly seemed to me that I
was leaving her an immense task.
“I have to get back to my children,” she said again, and I realized how
uncomfortable she felt without quite understanding why. “Of course,” I
said. “I’ll bring your pan back to you tonight.”
“Thank you.” And with that she was gone as abruptly as she’d come. Buel
Hitch had levered himself up onto his elbows. He looked toward the pan
longingly. “Coffee and some of that meat, and I’ll feel like I’m alive again,”
he said.
“No coffee, I’m afraid. But we have water and fresh-cooked liver, and
that’s not bad at all, really.”
“That’s true. But there should be some coffee in my saddlebags, if you
want to brew some up for us. It would go a long way toward putting me on
my feet again.” The mere thought of coffee set my mouth watering. I put
water to boil and then served up the meat for us. Hitch’s mess kit was of
battered tin, a pan and bowl and an enameled mug. The precious horde of
coffee was packed inside it. The aroma of the beans dizzied me.
We ate in silence. I gave my complete attention to my meal, only pausing
to add the coffee to the water when it boiled and then set the pot where it
would stay hot while it steeped. The smell of the brewing coffee enhanced
my appreciation for the meat.
She’d cooked the liver perfectly. It was moist and tender still; I could cut it
with the side of my fork. She hadn’t used much onion, but what she’d used
was evident in tender translucent pieces of the vegetable and its affable
flavor throughout the goose grease. The meat was the most alive thing I’d
eaten in a long time. I can think of no other way to express it. Liver is
always rich and flavorful, but that evening I was suddenly aware that I had
transferred life from the deer’s body to my own. There was something so
essential in that meat; I had no name for it, and yet I felt it replenishing
me as I chewed and swallowed. The taste was so thick and strong, the
goose grease so satisfying that when I scraped the last sheen of it from my
plate, I felt more satisfied than I had in days. I looked up to find Hitch
staring at me.
As I returned his stare, he grinned honestly at me. “Can’t say that I’ve ever
seen a man enjoy his meal as much as you do. That coffee done yet?” He
had wolfed down his portion of the meat. I doubt that he’d even tasted it,
and somehow that seemed a shame, that he did not realize as I did that
the life I’d taken from the deer had passed into us with this meal. It
diminished what I’d done in taking the deer’s life. I felt oddly disgruntled,
as if his gobbling of the meat were disrespectful of something. But I said
nothing of that, only poured coffee for both of us. He gulped his down and
had a second mug-full. I drank mine in long, lingering sips, and then put
more water onto the grounds to try to get a second brew out of them.
While it simmered, I took Amzil’s pan outside, cleaned it, and then
returned it to her. When I tapped on her door, she opened it a crack. She
took the pan from me with a quiet “thank you.” She didn’t invite me in
and I didn’t try to intrude.
When I returned to Hitch, he was pouring some of the re-brewed coffee
into his mug. He hunched near the fire on his blanket, looking miserable
but alive. “Well, that was quick,” he said.
“I was just returning her pan.”
He smiled knowingly. “She’s a difficult one, isn’t she? Sometimes she will,
sometimes she won’t.”
Dismay mingled with anger and churned in me. I tried to keep anything
from showing on my face. “Meaning?” I asked him.
He shifted slightly, his brow furrowing deeper. Obviously the move hadn’t
eased his pain. He rubbed at his face. “Meaning only that, for a whore,
she’s an odd one. Sometimes a man can buy a night inside and a bit of
comfort from her. Other times, she’s either boarded the door up tight or
there’s no one there. She’s moody. But good when you can get her, is what
I heard.” “Then you’ve never had her?”
A small smile crooked his mouth. “Old son, I never pay for it. Not Buel. I
don’t have to.” He drank the last of the coffee in his mug and tossed the
dregs into the fire. He grinned. “Guess that means you ain’t had much
luck with her.”
“I didn’t try,” I said. “Didn’t think she was that sort of a woman, with
three children around her and all.”
He gave a choked laugh. “What? You think whores don’t have kids? Well, I
suppose they don’t, if they can help it, but most can’t. That woman there,
she’s been there, oh, a year I guess. Used to have a husband, but he’s gone
now. Probably up and left. But it’s known a man can buy her. Not for coin;
she’s got no use for that. No, she only barters it for food, and only when
she’s in the mood for it.”
I could not begin to sort the emotions running through me. I felt stupid
and used; Amzil was only a whore, and even though I’d paid her fee in
food, day after day, she’d never allowed me to so much as touch her hand.
That wasn’t a fair judgment and I knew it. She’d as much as told me that
she’d sold herself for food when she’d had to. Doing what she must to feed
her children; did that make her a whore? I didn’t know. I only knew that
hearing another man talk of it so bluntly made me intensely unhappy. I’d
known what she was, I admitted. But until Buel Hitch had come here, I
hadn’t had to face that a lot of other men knew it, too, and far more
intimately than I did. I had pretended she was something else, and
pretended all sorts of other things about her as well. That she had a heart I
could win. That she would be worth winning. That my protecting her and
hunting food for her might make her something other than what she really
was.
“You still up to traveling tomorrow?” I asked Hitch.

“You bet,” he replied.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JOURNEY TO GETTYS
I did one final task before I left the next morning. I got up at dawn and
slipped out of the house before Buel was stirring. I needn’t have been so
quiet. His cheeks were red, and he slept the slumber of an ill man. But I
went like a creeping mouse, for I wanted no witnesses.
I went to the abandoned vegetable patch. I stooped down and set my
hands on the earth. I closed my eyes. I pressed my palms firmly against
the wet and matted vegetation and the soil beneath it. I spoke aloud, more
to focus myself than because I thought it necessary. “I will travel better
and more swiftly if I know that Amzil and her children are provided for.
Grow.” After a time, I opened my eyes. A fine misty rain was falling all
around me. It beaded in tiny droplets on my shirtsleeves and clung to my
eyelashes. My gut was in my way. It was hard to crouch low and touch the
ground. I felt like I was folding myself. I couldn’t take a full breath. And
nothing had happened. But I hadn’t really expected anything to happen,
had I? Revelation. How could anyone do a magic that he didn’t believe in?
I gave up my crouch. I knelt on the wet earth. I pressed my hands firmly to
the soil. I took a deep breath, and discarded both my disbelief and my
deep-seated fear that the magic was real and I could do this. I made
myself recall the sense of power I’d felt when I’d clasped the sapling
growing from Tree Woman’s breast. That power. That flowing
transference of being. That was what I wanted. I took a deep breath. Then
I clenched my fingers in the gritty soil and breathed out, breathed out
until there was no air left in my lungs, and still I forced something out of
myself, not from my hands but from my gut and through my arms and
down and out of my fingers. Colors danced at the edges of my vision.
Something was happening. I watched it. The ragged grasses and jagged
leaved weeds dwindled, sinking back into the earth. The vegetables I
blessed swelled and grew. Turnips shouldered purple tops above the soil. A
yellowing stalk of a potato plant went green, lifted from the ground, and
thrust up buds that opened to small white flowers. The fronds of carrots
lifted above the brown soil, stood tall and dark green. I held the flex of
whatever it was I strained, held it until spots danced before my eyes.
I opened my eyes, lost my balance as the world spun around me, and rolled
over on my side in the soil. I breathed, deep gasping breaths. My arms and
legs tingled as if they’d fallen asleep. I worked my aching hands, flexing
them, trying to get the blood flowing through my numbed limbs. When I
could, I sat up. I had expected the vision to pass. It had not. All around
me, in a perfect circle, the weeds had vanished. My chosen vegetables
remained, crisp and tall, ready for harvest. There were round heads of
cabbage set in wide-leafed cups of foliage and the tall feather fronds of
carrots, there were turnip leaves and red-stemmed beet tops and a patch
of potatoes gone to bloom. It took me three efforts to push away from the
ground and stand up. Then I teetered on my legs like a new colt. I was
giddy, not just with what I had achieved, but from the effort I’d spent
achieving it. It took me a few moments to realize another, even more
amazing change.
My clothing hung almost loose on me.
It was a minor change, or would have been to anyone else but me. The
uncomfortable binding of my trouser waistband, the way my shirt cut into
me under my arms, the tightness of my collar—in short, in every place
where a moment ago my garments had been uncomfortably tight, they
now rode looser. To prove it to myself, I seized the waistband of my
trousers and shifted them around my waist. They moved freely. I was still
a fat man. But I was marginally less fat than I’d been a few moments
before.
And I was ravenously hungry.
With that realization, my senses woke to the bounty all around me. An
overpowering drive to replenish what I had lost drove all awe from my
mind. I tugged a carrot from the earth. It was long and a deep orange-red.
The end of it broke off in the soil. I forced my fingers through the packed
earth, seized the broken piece, and pulled it up. I wiped the loose damp
soil from the pieces and then crunched into the carrot. The grit on it
ground between my back teeth as I chewed it, adding its own earthy note
to the flavor. I ground the orange root to juicy sweetness in my mouth.
Never had I tasted such a remarkable vegetable. The innermost core of it
was sweet, and the whole of it was crisp, not tough at all. I chewed on the
thick end of the green, curiously tasting the feathery tops of the carrot. My
glance fell on a turnip. The leafy top came off in my hand when I tried to
pull it. No matter. I stuffed the greens into my mouth and chewed them as
I dug my fingers into the earth around the purple-and-white root. I pulled
it up in one try. Smaller roots like seeking tendrils hung from it, crusted
with dirt. I shook it and then wiped it on my trouser leg. The skin was
fibrous and peppery. I peeled it away in a layer and ate it before I went on
to the shiny inside of it. My fingers left muddy prints. No matter. I
finished it and then stood tall, looking for what I wanted to devour next. I
wiped my mouth on the back of my hand. My lips left a mucky smear. I
frowned at it, trying to recall something.
And in that moment, Nevare the soldier son came to the fore again. I
scrabbled backward from the now thriving vegetable garden into the dank
weeds that ringed it. Despite the haphazard placement of the plants, it
looked as if someone had tended it, watering and weeding it, and now, at
full peak, it awaited harvest. I had been the center of the circle of tended
earth. Heart pounding, I stepped away from the garden and back into the
real world. Almost, I expected it to have vanished when I glanced back,
but no, it remained, as real as the misting rain falling all around me.
I fled. I brought in both horses that I had picketed for the night, for
neither had wanted to enter the shed with the hanging deer in it.
Feverishly, I readied everything for our journey. I moved like a hunted
man, darting in and out of the cabin with my arms full of Hitch’s gear and
my own. I went to the hanging deer and peeled back enough hide to cut
strips of journey meat for Hitch and me, packing as much as my cooking
pot would hold.
When all else was loaded on the two animals, I went and tapped on Amzil’s
door. She opened it, her hair still tousled from sleep. “Is something
wrong?” she asked me anxiously. I suppose my shock at the proof of my
magic still showed in my face.
“No,” I lied. “I just have to make an early start to use the daylight as best
we may. I’ve come to ask if I can take some of the smoked meat away with
me. I took some of the venison already, but I left all the rest of it for you.”
“Of course,” she said distantly. She turned from me, and I left her door to
go back to the other cottage and awaken Hitch.
He jerked awake at my touch, and then slowly sat up, shivering. “Is it time
to go?” he asked me miserably, knowing full well it was.
“Yes. If we leave now, we can put a good distance behind us. How far do
you think it is to Gettys from here?”
He knew I did not mean in miles. “If it were just Renegade and I, and I
were myself, we could cover it in four days. But that isn’t the case, is it?”
“No. But I think we’ll still make good time.” I tried to be reassuring. The
cockiness the man had exhibited yesterday was gone. I wondered if it were
because the infection was gaining on him, or if he could simply let his
guard down now, knowing there was someone to offer him aid.
“Well, then. Let’s go.” He wobbled to his feet and walked the few steps to
the hearth. He leaned there, taking in the fire’s warmth, while I packed the
few items that remained. When it was time to leave, I avoided the garden
patch. He leaned on his horse for a few moments before he mounted, but
he did that on his own. “I’ll just be a moment,” I told him, and turned to
go back to Amzil’s cabin for the meat she’d said we could have. But as I
looked up, she was coming toward me. She chose to walk down the road in
front of the houses. I breathed a sigh of relief. She wouldn’t yet have seen
the change in the garden. I didn’t want to answer any questions. She
carried a canvas sack in her arms. As I took it from her, she said, “You’ve
got two rabbits in there.”
“Thank you. That should get us there.”
“And you’ve got my best sack.”
I frantically racked my brains for something else I could put the rabbits in.
They’d have to be packed loose in my panniers. But when I started to open
the bag, she said quietly, “No. You can use it. But I expect to get it back.”

“I’ll make sure you do.” I was a bit startled by her demand. “I’ll hold you
to that,” she said. She was standing very straight. She looked almost
angry. I didn’t know what to say to her. She had very few possessions. To
trust me with this simple sack was evidently difficult for her. “Good-bye,
Amzil. Tell the children I said good-bye.”
“I will.” She kept looking at me, as if she were waiting for something.

“Will you be all right on your own?”

Then the anger did glint plain in her eyes. “I’ve been so before. Why
wouldn’t I be again?” she asked me tartly. She turned away from us and
walked back toward her house.

I wanted to just let her go, but I also wanted to be sure that she was the
one who had the advantage of what I had done that morning. “Harvest
those vegetables as soon as you can,” I called after her. “Before someone
else discovers them and takes them.” She didn’t turn. “Good-bye,” I said
more quietly. Lieutenant Hitch coughed and then spat to one side. “You
sure stepped on that cat’s tail,” he observed mildly.
“Let’s go,” I responded. I mounted Clove. From the draft horse’s back, I
towered over my companion. I felt foolish. We followed the road and it
took us out of the dilapidated ruins of the failed town. I glanced back once
at the rising chimney smoke thinking, Almost. Back there I’d almost taken
control of my own life. Now I was back to duty.
The misty rain lasted all day. I’ll say this of Buel Hitch: he wasn’t a whiner.
He rode beside me and didn’t say much. Now and then he coughed and
spat. He drank frequently from his water skin. When we came to the river,
I halted and refilled both our water bottles. Before we went on, we ate half
of one of the rabbits. It wasn’t enough for me, but Hitch looked as if he
had to force down every bite.
“Are you ready to go on?” I asked him when he cast the last of his bones
aside. “Do I have a choice? I know what’s happening to me. Cat claws are
dirty. The infection will spread.” He touched his chest gingerly. “I can feel
it. The heat. Let’s go.”
So on we went that day. Early in the afternoon, a couple of traders’ wagons
passed us going west. The men were crouched on their seats, hats pulled
low and shoulders hunched against the rain. I called a greeting, but
received only a sullen nod from one of them. I decided there was no point
in asking them for help. I glanced at Hitch. He made a scornful face,
evidently sharing my opinion. As we continued on our own way, I found
myself wondering if the carters would stop in the abandoned town, and
then tormented myself with wondering if Amzil would make them
welcome. It was stupid. I had no claim on her and she had made it clear
she had no interest in me. I should not care what she did, if she whored
herself out to strange men or not. She was out of my life, merely a woman
I’d met as I stopped on my way east. I’d forget her. I’d find someone to
take her stupid canvas sack back to her, and I’d put her out of my mind. I
wouldn’t think about her anymore.
The wet penetrated our clothes and soaked the horses’ coats into runnels. I
began looking for a likely place to camp before dark. I saw the stacks of
rocks, three and then two on top of each other, and turned our horses off
the road and into the brush. The trail was narrow, winding uphill through
the trees, but as the scout’s sign had promised, it led me to a cleared
campsite with a covered supply of firewood.
I dismounted. Hitch sat his horse a few moments longer. “So,” he observed
gruffly as he swung himself stiffly down, “maybe you are a soldier son.
What branch was your da?”
“Cavalla,” I said briefly. I had no wish to discuss my father or family with
him. I took firewood from the stack and dug in my panniers for my
hatchet to reduce some of it to kindling. The wind gusted and the trees
released a shower of raindrops and wet leaves on us. It was going to be a
nasty night. “Let me get a fire started, and then I’ll rig a shelter for us.” He
nodded, grimly silent. I could only guess at his level of pain. He stood
stiffly, his arms crossed as if to hold something in. He didn’t offer me any
help; I hadn’t expected any. His roll of canvas was designed to shelter one
man, not two, but I managed to rig it to the tree trunks in such a way that
it cut most of the wind and shed rain. It was not perfect. Errant gusts still
drove rain and wet leaves in at us, but it was far better than simply sitting
in the storm. The half-naked trees provided little shelter from the
incessant rain. I picketed our horses, got water from a nearby streamlet,
and brought it back to the fire, putting it on to heat while I took out the
venison. I cut it in strips, poked holes in the strips, and then threaded the
meat onto some skinny branches. I toasted them over the fire, and we
didn’t much care that the meat stayed bloody in the middle. We made
coffee from Hitch’s supply and ate the hot dripping meat from the
skewers.
I’d spent far worse nights on the road, but not as a fat man. My weight
and size made every small task of sharing a camp more difficult. The
shelter belonged to Hitch and he was injured. It was only fair that he get
the most benefit from it, but my bulk meant that part of me was always
out in the storm. Rising to bring more firewood, bending over the fire to
set the coffee in the coals, cleaning the pot and cups afterward: every small
task was made more onerous by the weight of flesh I carried. Even just
rising and then sitting down on the ground again was more of a chore
than it had been when I was fit. I told myself that it was my imagination
that Lieutenant Hitch watched every move I made. I angrily decided it was
what I must expect. People had paid to see the Fat Man in the carnival at
Old Thares. I was not as large as he had been, but a man of my bulk was
still a noteworthy sight anywhere. Once I arrived at Gettys, people would
stare. I’d best get used to it.
“You ain’t always been fat,” Hitch said suddenly.

I gave a snort of amusement. “How would you know?”

“The way you move. You act like a packhorse who’s carrying more than his
fair share, or one that’s been badly loaded. If you’d carried that fat all your
life, you’d be used to it by now. But I been watching you, and how you set
your feet before you try to sit down, and how it takes you two tries to get
up.”

I shrugged. “You’re right. This time last year, I was leaner than you.”

“What happened?”
Hitch’s eyes were a bit too bright. Fever burned in him. “If you want, I
could go back to those willows and shave off some bark. Willow bark tea is
supposed to lower a fever.”
“It’s supposed to, yes. It tastes awful. But actually, I’d rather you answered
my question. What happened to you?”
I tried to find a comfortable way to sit. My arse was sore from a day in the
saddle, and there was nothing to lean back against except an uneven tree
trunk. “I got Speck fever. Everyone else either died or came out of it like a
rack of bones. But I got better. Then I started to gain weight. The doctor
at the academy knew what was coming. He said that this is a rare side
effect of the plague. And they gave me a medical discharge.”
“Academy boy. Should have known,” Hitch muttered. He smiled derisively.
“So that makes you Lord Grand Somebody’s son, right?”
“No. I’m nobody’s son anymore. My father disowned me. I failed him. I
disgraced myself. I didn’t get through the academy to be a cavalla officer,
and he reckoned that I’d never be a soldier of any kind.”
“Probably reckoned right. Most regiments won’t take you in like that, not
even as a foot soldier.” He tossed his empty toasting stick into the fire.
“But if you wanted, I could put in a word with Colonel Rabbit for you.”
“Colonel Rabbit? Does he command Gettys?”
He laughed out loud. “Yes, he does. But his real name is Colonel Haren.
The other name is a bit more apt. He spends all his time hiding in his
hole. But you probably shouldn’t call him that if you’re trying to get on
with him.” His voice was wandering.
“I think your fever’s coming up. I’m going after some willow bark while I
still have light to see by.”
“Suit yourself.” He leaned his head back against a tree trunk. I took my
kettle with me, and went back to the streamlet. I knew little other than
that willow bark tea was supposed to be good for a fever. I scraped some
from the trunk of the tree there, and some from the more supple branches.
I filled the kettle half-full of tree shavings and then topped it off with
water. I took it back to the campfire, added a few more bits of the dry
wood, and left it to heat. The light was fading. As much to warm myself as
to be a good soldier, I took my hatchet and went looking for more wood.
Most of what I found was soaked by the rain, but I cut it into lengths and
stacked it for the next traveler who might come this way and read the
sign. By the time the willow bark tea was steaming, Hitch was shivering.
The tea didn’t smell appetizing, but it was hot and he drank two full mugs
of it. Then he abruptly closed his eyes and slumped down in his blankets. I
dashed the dregs from his mug and made myself as comfortable as I could.
It was a long night. Hitch moaned and twitched his way through it. The
wind finally blew the clouds on their way, but as the night cleared, it got
colder. I was awake and waiting for the dawn when it came, my body tight
with chill. Hitch was the opposite. He burned with fever.
I woke the fire and warmed the willow bark tea for him. I had to help him
sit up. He drank the first few sips while I held the mug for him. Then he
took it in both hands and nodded at me that he could manage on his own.
While he drank, I brought the horses up and saddled them. He had a hard
time standing up, but once he was on his feet, he moved around a bit
while I loaded our gear. I had to pack the blankets wet. I grimaced to
myself, thinking of how unpleasant it would be to sleep in them that night.
Before we mounted up, Hitch had me bind his injured arm across his
chest. “It’ll joggle less,” was all he said. I did as he asked, trying not to
wrinkle my nose at the smell.
“Maybe we should wash it out again,” I suggested.
“With no clean bandages, there’s no point to that,” he replied. I helped
him into his saddle and we set off again. He was quieter, giving all his
attention to sitting his horse. The day was a repetition of our first day
together, save that we left the river behind and began a steeper climb into
the foothills. About midday, the quality of the road sharply declined. A few
hours later, it had degenerated to a rutted wagon track, deeply muddy and
very unpleasant for the horses. Riding to one side of it was nearly as bad.
“Shouldn’t there be a crew at work along here, extending the road?” I
asked Hitch.
He lifted his head suddenly, as if I’d awakened him. “What?”
“Where are the road crews, the prisoners building the King’s Road?” “Oh.”
He looked vaguely around him. “They’ll have taken them on to the prisoner
camp outside Getty. The weather is starting to turn. They won’t get any
more miles of road until spring comes again. Not that they got many while
the weather was good. Can we stop for food and water?”
I wasn’t sure that stopping was a good idea. I was afraid that if he got off
his horse, I wouldn’t get him back on it. But I’d underestimated his
toughness. He dismounted and stood by Renegade, holding onto his saddle
while he drank deeply from his water skin. I took out the other half of the
smoked rabbit, and we made short work of it standing there. Lieutenant
Hitch sucked a stubborn bit of meat from a bone and then gestured at the
low hills to our left. “If we left the road and cut across those hills, we could
save half a day’s travel time.” I looked at him and then spoke frankly. “I
think I should stay to the road. It’s plainly marked and takes the easiest
path there. If I get you up in those hills and you reach a point where you
can’t tell me where I’m going, we’re both going to be lost. And you’ll pay
for it with your life.”
He set his hand briefly to his chest, winced, and then said, “We’re racing
against time now. Half a day might mean I live. I’m willing to gamble it.
Are you?”
I thought for a few moments. “It’s your life,” I said reluctantly. I didn’t
want to take a relative stranger into unknown territory and have him die
on me. But it did seem to me that he had the right to make the decision.
“That’s right. It is,” he said.
When we were mounted again, he turned Renegade’s head away from the
road. I followed him. He cleared his throat. “Renegade knows the way
home. If I die, you sling me across his saddle, and let him lead. Don’t you
leave me in the woods to rot.”
“Of course not. One way or the other, I’ll take you to Gettys.”

“Good. Now talk to me, Never. Keep me awake.”

“My name’s Nevare, not Never. What do you want me to talk about?”

“Anything. Women. Talk to me about women you’ve had.”

I thought back. “Only one worth mentioning,” I said, thinking of the
warm-hearted farm maid.

“Only one? You poor bastard! Well, tell me about her.” So I did, and then
he told me a rambling and feverish tale of a Speck maiden who chose him
as her own and fought two other women over him, and how she had
ridden him “like a lord riding to the hunt” for fifteen nights in a row. It
seemed wildly improbable to me, and yet parts of his tale rang true with
some hidden truth within me. Somehow I knew it was the custom of Speck
women to be the instigators of such a relationship, and that they jealously
possessed the men they chose. He talked until his mouth was dry, and then
drank all the water that remained in his bottle, and most of what I had. All
the while, he, or perhaps Renegade, led us further and further from the
road, up into rolling hills. The lower slopes were thick with bracken and
buckbrush, but as we went higher, we entered an open forest of deciduous
trees. We crested the first row of hills, descended into a shallow valley, and
then began a second, steeper ascent. The vistas were astonishing. Some of
the bracken had gone scarlet with early frost. The buckbrush was thick
with its seasonal white berries, while the leaves of the alders and birch of
the open forest were scarlet and gold. The day had stayed clear but the air
was moist, and the smell of the forest with rich and gentle. Something
inside me relaxed and felt a sense of homecoming. I said as much to
Hitch.
He was swaying in his saddle as he rode now, holding unabashedly to the
horn with his one good hand. A smile crossed his pained face. “Some men
feel it. Others don’t. Me, once I got away from houses and streets and
bricks and noise, I suddenly knew that I’d never belonged there in the first
place. There’s men that need that, you know. They need the shouting and
the crowds. They get two nights away from an alehouse, and think they’ll
die of boredom. They need other people to make them think they’re alive.
They only feel like they’re important if someone else tells them they are.”
He snorted out a laugh. “You can always tell who they are. They aren’t
happy just living their own lives. They want to control yours, too. You
know the men I mean…”
I smiled stiffly. “My father.”
“Your father. You don’t even have to tell me, Never. He’s still got his boot
on your neck. I can just about see it if I squint.”
“Explain yourself.” I spoke abruptly, stung by his words. He laughed at me.

“I don’t have to, Never. You feel it yourself, don’t you?”

“I left my father’s home. And when I did, I left him behind as well.”

“Sure you did.” His tone was mocking.

I reminded myself that he was a very sick man. But in the depths of my
soul, I suspected that Hitch had always been a needler and a digger,
always a man who took pleasure in provoking others. I made no response.
The silence lasted a bit. Then he laughed oddly, long and low. In a reedy,
childish voice he said, “I know you. I see you, Never. You can’t hide from
Buel Hitch. He’s been too long in the forest. You can’t hide behind the
trees.”

“I think your mind is wandering from the fever,” I said reasonably. “No. I
can see a part of you that ain’t no soldier son. I see something stronger
than your pa’s boot on your neck. You’re going to the Specks, ain’t you?
You got the call to be a Great Man.”

I knew it was a sick man’s rambling thoughts. Nonetheless, it stood the
hair up on the back of my neck and on my arms. “We’d best start looking
for a place to camp tonight,” I said uneasily.
“Very well,” Hitch replied agreeably. For a time we rode in almost
companionable silence. Renegade moved steadily along, and the horse
truly seemed to know where he was going. There was no true trail; instead
we had followed a deer track up a hill, diverged to follow a stream as it
wound down the next slope, traversed a valley beside it, and then climbed
the next hill on a game trail. We had been following a ridge as the sun
moved ever closer to the horizon. Now, as we descended again, the shadow
of the hill falling across us made evening seem much closer.
“You don’t much like it, do you?” he asked me. Then, before I could ask
him what he meant, he gestured at a stand of mixed trees. “There’s a good
place. There’s a spring down in those rocks beyond the trees. You don’t
much like the magic telling you what to do.”
“We’ll camp there, then,” I said, ignoring the words I didn’t want to hear
from this stranger.
“It’s a good spot. The evergreen trees break the wind. You don’t need to be
ashamed. I don’t like it, either. It was a poor bargain. Not that I had much
say in the terms of the bargain. You decide you want to live, and then it’s
got you. One way or another. I was sent to fetch you. I said no. But you
don’t say no to the magic, do you?”
“You’re raving, Hitch. Ride quiet. Save your strength.” He coughed, and it
was too weak a sound for a grown man. “I don’t have any strength left,
Never. Save what the magic gives me. I said, ‘No, I don’t have time.’ And
the magic sent me the cat, and I knew that if I wanted to live, I had to do
what it wanted. And I always want to live. Looks like you do, too. But I
think you got a dirtier shake of it than I did. Them Specks and their
diseases. You know, they don’t call them diseases. Or even sicknesses. No.
To them, they’re magic spells. Well, that’s not quite the way they’d call
them. The word doesn’t translate. But it means like a gate or a funnel. The
magic sends it, and the people go through it, and they come out dead or
changed. Even fevers from wounds, like I got. Even this fever now, they’d
say it’s a melting. A burning to purify the body and the spirit. If a Speck
does something really bad, they’ll put a fever in him to cure him. Scratch
him with something that makes him sick, or put him in a hut with a fire
in the middle and build fires all around, to fever the wickedness out of
him. You got any more water, Never? I’ve talked myself dry.”
We’d reached the campsite. The ring of fire-blackened stones said the
place had been used before, and the grass growing against the stone said
that it had been at least a season since it had last seen use. There was no
ready-cut supply of firewood, but the trees around the spring had shed
dead branches. I gathered what I needed and soon had a fire going. Hitch
just sat on the ground, his blanket around his shoulders, staring at the
fire. I was pretty sure I was looking at a dead man, and he knew it.
My mind had been sifting his ravings and finding far too much that made
sense, if the crooked logic of Speck magic could be said to make sense. I
felt caught in the middle of a bridge. On one side was the insanity of
believing that magic had made me fat, and that the magic had a plan for
me. On the other side was my faith in the good god, my destiny of being a
soldier son, and all the logic and science of Gernia. Somehow it seemed
that neither one worked for me, but that trying to weave them together in
the middle worked worst of all. I could disregard Lieutenant Buel Hitch
and his wild talk. I could put it down to a fever and ignore it. Or I could
encourage him to talk and try to find some sort of handle on whatever I
was battling.
I did my camp chores while I pondered it. I fetched water and set it to
heat, and cut toasting sticks for the venison. I was filling our water skins
at the spring when I noticed a water plant I didn’t recognize. Its leaves
were wide and a few were green, but most had gone spotty and pale with
the threat of winter. I stared at them. I was sure I’d never seen it before,
but it was uncannily familiar. I gave in to the impulse and reached into
the water to pull one up. It came up reluctantly, a thick white root sucking
out of the mud as I dragged on it. I rinsed it off and took it with me when I
went back to our campsite. Hitch had made an effort to be useful. He’d
scraped together a couple of mounds of fallen leaves and pine needles.
One-handed, he was trying to put my blanket on mine.
“In the good god’s name, Hitch, just rest. I can take care of that in a
moment.” He turned his whole head to look at me. “I hate being useless.”
Nonetheless, he sank down to sit on his own leafy bed. “I hate owing
anybody anything.”
“You don’t owe me anything. Stop worrying about it.” I handed him his
water bottle.
“What’s that you’ve got there?”
“These? Some kind of water plant. It looked vaguely familiar. You know
it?” He leaned closer, peering at it, and nearly fell over. He swayed back
into place, chuckling grimly. “Yes. I do. The Specks use it. They call it
drawroot.”
“How do you cook it?”
“You don’t. It’s medicinal. For a fouled wound.” With his good hand, he
fumbled at the buttons of his shirt. “You cut the fresh root and put it, cut
side down, on the wound. It sucks the foulness out.” He gave an
exclamation of disgust as his opened shirt permitted a wave of stench to
waft from his chest injury. “Damn magic seems to be working again. At
least this time it’s to my good.” I helped him get his shirt open, tugging it
gently free from his injured arm. He gritted his teeth so hard I heard them
grind. He directed me as I cut the root and placed it. I had to go back to
the spring for more of it. Luckily, it seemed plentiful, so I harvested a good
supply. He lay back on his bed near the fire, sections of cut root arranged
over his pus-oozing wounds. I had small faith in their efficacy. He closed
his eyes and dozed as I finished the camp chores and arranged our venison
to cook over the fire. The fresh meat was starting to sour, so I decided I’d
cook it all. It made a fine, toothsome smell as it sizzled over the fire. I
looked up at the deep blue of the evening sky. Scudding clouds obscured
the early stars. I hoped we’d have no more rain. “Food’s done,” I
announced, and he opened his eyes. He didn’t sit up at first. Instead, one
by one, he peeled the slices of root off his arm and chest. They came free
stickily, with sucking noises. He shied each one off into the woods as he
loosened it. Where the roots had rested, the angry wounds had calmed
from red to pink, and the swelling was substantially reduced. “That’s
amazing,” I said.
“That’s why they call it magic,” he replied.
I handed him a stick laden with dripping meat and took one for myself
from the fire’s edge. “How did you get caught by it?” I asked him quietly.
He smiled slightly in the firelight. “A woman. Of course.”
I was quiet, waiting.
He took a bite of the venison, holding the meat on the stick to rip it free.
The meat was good, juicy and flavorful, but not very tender. I was chewing
a mouthful myself when he added, “I wanted her. Not that it would have
mattered if I didn’t. She’d made up her mind to have me and with a Speck
woman, what she wants is what she gets. But there was a sort of initiation
she put me through. The first time it was a holy smoke she made on a fire
inside a small hut. We sat there, breathing it. And the second time, it was
a tree resin that she made me chew. I…traveled. I saw things and I was
tested.” He stopped speaking for a few moments and then said, “I don’t
really want to talk about that part of it. Does any man want to admit he
found the limits of his courage? When they asked me if I wanted to live, I
said yes. And they let me. As a servant of the magic.” I swallowed my meat
and took another skewer from the fire.
“You know how it is,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. We talked that
night. At first, we feinted and dodged, but slowly our two stories were
spilled to one another. They were in some ways similar and in others
wildly different. I told him how my father had given me to Dewara, and
how the Plainsman had sent me up against the Tree Woman. I spoke of
my other self, the one who lived and learned in a dream world. There were
two places where I faltered and nearly lied to him. I didn’t want to admit
that I had loved the Tree Woman. That I still did love her. And I didn’t
want to confess that I was the one who had given the signal to the dancers
she had sent to Old Thares. With a motion of my hand, I had bid them do
their Dust Dance, and in that motion, I had betrayed all of Old Thares.
Hundreds of people had died because of me. I confessed that guilt to
Lieutenant Hitch. He shrugged his shoulders to it. “It wasn’t you, Never.
It was the magic. You can’t hold yourself responsible for what it makes you
do.”
I winced. He had confided much to me. He had done things that shamed
him, though nothing so foul as what I had done. Nevertheless, although I
did not utter the thought aloud, I thought his sentiment a cowardly one. “I
think I have a duty to my own people to resist it,” was all I said.
“Do you?” he asked me quietly. “Do you believe that Gernians are the most
important people in the world? Or do you think so only because you were
born one? If you’d been born anywhere else, would you still think that you
had a duty to protect the interest of Gernia, no matter what it cost other
people?”
“I don’t see anything wrong with being a patriot. I love my country and I
respect my king. As soldiers, should we do less?” I felt pushed by his
words.
“As soldiers, that is very admirable. It’s only when we are being more than
soldiers that it comes into question.”
I let a silence fall. I considered all he had said. Realization dawned on me.

“You pretend to be common-bred. But you’re not.”

“I never said I was.”

“But you talk like it. Sometimes you sound like an ill-bred, ignorant man,
but I think you do that on purpose. There are moments when your
thoughts are too exact, too concisely phrased. I believe you were nobly
born.”

“And?”

“So why do you deceive people?”
He lifted one shoulder. He didn’t look at me. “Isn’t that what we scouts are
supposed to do? We blend. We cross borders. We live in the space between
peoples.”
“Did you want to be a scout? It doesn’t sound as if you admire what you
do.”
“Did you want to be a soldier? Pass me more meat, please.”
I did as he asked. “I had no choice in being a soldier. I’m a second son. It’s
what I am destined to be.” I took another skewer of meat off the fire for
myself. “But that doesn’t mean I’m opposed to being a soldier. On the
contrary. It’s what I always dreamed of doing.”
“You took your father’s ambition for you and made it your own.”
“No. I think that my father’s ambition for me and my ambition for myself
happened to be the same thing.” I said the words firmly, perhaps to cover
that I suddenly wondered if they were true.
“So you did consider other careers. Poet, engineer, potter?”

“Nothing else appealed to me,” I replied staunchly.

“Of course it didn’t,” he replied agreeably.

Stung, I demanded, “What do you want of me, Hitch?”

“Me? Nothing at all. But I’m not what you have to worry about.” He
shifted, grunting as he did so. His injuries were improved, but they still
pained him. “I don’t know why I’m even badgering you about it. Listen,
Never. I know a bit about this, but not everything. And maybe all I’m
trying to do is offer you my knowledge in exchange for yours. So I’ll go
first, and you tell me if anything I say goes counter to what you know.”

I nodded tersely, and tossed my toasting stick into the fire. “Very well,
then.” He cleared his throat, paused, and then laughed. It was the first
honest laugh I’d heard from him. “Damn. I still feel like a boy, telling ghost
stories by the fire. There’s a part of me that can’t let go of everything I
learned growing up, a part of me that just can’t believe this is real, let
alone happening to me.” I suddenly felt a loosening in my shoulders.
Quietly I said, “That lines up exactly with what has bothered me the most
about this. When I try to talk about it, people think I’m crazy. My father
was furious with me. He just about starved me to death, trying to prove I
was lying about it.”
“I’m surprised you even tried to tell him. Did anyone believe you?”
“My cousin. And Sergeant Duril, an old fellow who was my tutor. And
Dewara. He believed me.”
He squinted his eyes at me. “I’m not sure you should have told him. It
seems dangerous to me.”
“How?” I hadn’t told him Dewara was dead.
“I’m not certain. It just does.” He smiled grimly. “The magic has had me
for a long time, Never. A good ten years. I’ve grown accustomed to it, just
as a horse learns to wear his harness, no matter how much he might
resent it at first. And I’ve come to have a feel for it. I know a little of what
it can do for me. But I know a lot of what it can make me do. It’s ruthless.
Always remember that. Always remember that you are just a tool to it.”
His words put a chill in me. “I’ve used it,” I admitted. “At first I didn’t
know what I was doing. But in the last few days, I’ve used it twice,
knowing that I did so. Yet each time I was shocked when it worked.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What did you do?”
I told him first about the deer. He nodded slowly. “But that could have
been sheer dumb luck. You know how it is. You believe you can do a thing,
and then you actually do it.”
I nodded. “That’s what I thought. So I decided to prove to myself I wasn’t
imagining things.” And I told him about the vegetables. He whistled low
and shook his head. “That’s more than I’ve ever done. More than I’ve ever
seen done, even by the Speck village mages. I think you’d best tread more
carefully, my man. What you did was like flinging down a challenge to the
magic. You may think you mastered it and made it do as you wished. But I
think that sooner or later, it will demand payment of you for that.”
“What can it ask of me?” I demanded with a bravado I didn’t feel.
“Anything, brother. Anything at all.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GETTYS
Three days later, we finally rode into Gettys. We made an odd sight, I’m
sure. I sat on big Clove while Hitch rode hunched beside me on Renegade.
The drawroot had doubtless saved his life by sucking much of the toxic
infection from his flesh, but that did not mean he was a well man. His
fever had not abated. By night, it rose and tormented him. It had burned
the flesh from his bones. I took him straight to his regiment’s doctor.

That morning we had descended from the hills into a wide, shallow valley.
As we finally broke clear of the cover of the trees, I reined in, startled at
what I saw.
I’d always had a clear image of Gettys in my mind. I’d pictured it like the
great stone citadels of the west. It would have watchtowers on its high
walls, and secondary earthworks surrounding it. There would be banners
flying from its ramparts, and it would bristle with soldiers and artillery.
The flags would snap smartly in the breeze on that last fortification of the
Gernian kingdom. Savage wilderness would surround it.
What I saw was a cruel joke on my boyhood vision. On the hillside on the
other side of the valley, commanding a view of the valley, was a wooden
palisade that boasted a mere four watchtowers, one at each corner. In the
valley below us, we could see the King’s Road, cutting a straight line
toward the stronghold and continuing past it up the hills and toward the
mountains. Behind the fort, the land rose abruptly in steep foothills that
were the final line of defense before the Barrier Mountains. The
mountains, which loomed above them, were steep and tall and thickly
forested.
On the north side of the fortress, there was a compound with several long,
low buildings that reminded me of barracks surrounded by a lower
palisade, with two watchtowers looking over them. On the opposite side, a
neat town had been laid out, with straight wide streets and sturdy
structures. But outside that tidy heart a hodgepodge of makeshift cottages
and houses scabbed the valley floor. Smoke from several hundred
chimneys smudged the clear autumn air. The streets straggled and
wandered among the houses like a child’s scribble on rough paper. The
valley trapped the smoke, the smells, and the distant sounds of the
disorderly settlement below us. What struck me the most about the
sprawling community was that so much of it was made of wood. Old
Thares had been brick and stone, and Franner’s Bend had been
constructed of mud brick. I had grown up on the plains, where lumber was
used to decorate stone buildings. Never before had I seen so many
structures in one place all built entirely of wood. On the valley floor,
between the settlement and us, farms had been claimed. Few looked
prosperous. Rail fences had fallen, and in some fields the weeds stood tall
and brown. In others, the stumps of trees still stood where some ambitious
settler had logged off a pasture but gone no further with it. The whole
panorama of fortress, town, and surrounding farmlands spoke of an
endeavor begun with energy and order that had wavered and fallen into
disrepair and despair.
“There it is,” Lieutenant Hitch said without enthusiasm. “Gettys. Your
new home. My old home.”
“It’s bigger than I expected,” I said when I had recovered somewhat.
“Regiment’s about six hundred strong. It was almost a thousand in our
peak days, but with plague and desertion, it’s all the colonel can do to keep
us above five hundred men. We were supposed to get reinforcements this
summer, but the plague got them first.
“Thanks for getting me here. Let’s go down and see if one of the Gettys
doctors can mend me. And if they can’t mend me, let’s hope they’ll have
enough laudanum that I won’t care.”
We rode across the brushy plateau to the King’s Road, and followed it
down toward the city.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing dirtier than a very old city
is a rather new one. In an old city, people have established where the
garbage and waste of all kinds will go. It’s not that there is less of it, but
that it has been channeled to one place, preferably in a less desirable area
of the town. Gettys had no such protocol. Nor had it grown naturally, with
farms supporting a growing population and a pleasant setting that
attracted more settlers that in turn stimulated more commerce. Instead,
there had been a military occupation inside a fortification, followed by a
population of deportees that had scant skills for settling a wilderness.
Their failed efforts were manifest. Fields had been plowed and perhaps
planted once, but now were a rumpled tapestry of stones, broken earth,
and weeds. Drunken fences wandered across the land. Feral chickens
scratched in the earth and fled at our approach. We passed open waste
pits just off the side of the road. A flock of croaker birds hopped and
squabbled on one fresh rubbish heap. They did not flee us, but opened
their black-and-white wings and squawked menacingly to warn us off
their feast. I could not repress a shiver as we passed them. Always, they
reminded me of that dreadful wedding offering. We saw some scattered
cattle and one small flock of eight sheep with a little boy watching over
them. But for every sign we saw of industry and effort, a dozen failures
flanked them.
The outer town around the fort was a mixture of old shacks and hasty new
construction, interspersed with collapsed remnants of earlier efforts at
housing. The smells and sounds of dense human population surrounded
us. Cart and foot traffic vied with one another at the intersections of the
rutted, mucky roads. A bony woman in a faded dress and a tattered shawl
gripped two small children by the hands as she hurried along the windy
street. The children wore no shoes. One was bawling loudly. Hitch nodded
his head at them. “Prisoner’s family. Free workers live in this part of town.
Poorer than dirt, for the most part.”
At the next corner, I was shocked to see two Speck men sitting
cross-legged. They wore wide brimmed hats of woven bark and castoff
rags. The begging hands they reached out to passersby were disfigured
with peeling blisters. “Tobacco addicts,” Hitch told me. “That’s about the
only thing that makes a Speck leave the forest. They can’t take direct
sunlight, you know. Used to be a lot more of them, but a lot of them
caught a cough and died last winter. We’re not supposed to sell or trade
tobacco to Specks, but everyone does. You can get just about any
Speck-made thing you want for tobacco.”
“This place is even worse of a slum than Franner’s Bend,” I observed. “All
of this will need to be razed if Gettys is ever to become a proper city.”
“Gettys will never be a city. None of this will last,” Hitch pronounced. “The
Specks resist it with every bit of magic they can muster. That’s why it
can’t prosper. The Specks dance to make it fail. For five years now, they
have danced. No town can stand against that. It will wither and die and
go back to the earth. Wait a day or two. You’ll start to feel it, too.”
His words were no stranger than many of the things he had told me over
the last couple of days. I only wished I knew how many to give credence to.
The tales and admonitions he offered me were sometimes so far-fetched, it
seemed it must be the fever talking rather than a rational man. I now felt
that he knew more of me than I’d ever shared with anyone, and that I
knew far more of him than I was comfortable with. Even so, he remained a
stranger to me, for I wondered who he would be if I removed the fever that
both clouded and colored his thoughts. We drew curious glances from the
people in the streets. Their attention lingered on Hitch slouching in his
saddle as much as they did the fat man on the big horse. I soon discovered
one advantage to Clove and that was that people gave way to him. Even in
the crowded marketplace, the gathered folk parted to let us pass.
Renegade and his burden followed in our wake.
We came to the older, more prosperous section of Gettys. The main street
was lined with stores and warehouses. Their proprietors had smelled a
profit to be made off this ragtag town, and come east to take advantage of
it. Their dwellings were neatly maintained and tightly roofed, with glass
windows and rain gutters and sheltered porches. The side streets were
straight, and I glimpsed well-built if poorly maintained houses. “The
cavalla families live here,” Hitch told me. “This part of town was built a
long time ago. Before the Specks turned against us.” Outside a tavern four
men in cavalla uniforms sat on a bench, smoking and talking. They were
all thin and hollow-eyed. I stared at them for a moment, and then grasped
the reality of something I’d known for years. Plague regularly swept
through this town. Most of the regiment would be plague survivors. We
rode past a bake house, the clay ovens bulging from the side of the
structure out into the street. For a few moments we were warmer as we
passed. The aroma of fresh bread assailed me so strongly I nearly tumbled
from Clove’s back. I imagined it so strongly that I could feel the chewy
texture on my tongue, taste the golden butter that would melt as I
troweled it onto the bread, even the rasp of the crust against my teeth. I
gritted my teeth and rode on. Later, I promised my rumbling gut. Later.
We reached the wooden palisade. The skinned logs had been set vertically
in the ground. Weathering had silvered them, and bits of moss and tiny
plants had found purchase in the cracks. In a few places, ivylike vines were
twining up the logs as if they were a trellis. The plants, I thought to myself,
would devour those walls. Whoever had let them get started near the fort
was a fool. The gates stood open, but the sentries on duty there possessed
a military bearing that those at Franner’s Bend had lacked. I pulled in
Clove, but Hitch lifted his head and rode around me. “Let us through,” he
said gruffly. “I’m in a bad way and I need the doctor. And he’s with me.”
To my surprise, that was all that was needed. They did not salute the
lieutenant or ask him any questions, but mutely nodded and let us pass.
Renegade and Hitch had taken the lead and we followed. A few heads
turned to mark our passage, but no one impeded us. They seemed
unsurprised to see Lt. Hitch in such dismal condition. I merited longer
stares than he got.
The inner Gettys disappointed me as much as the outside had. Instead of
crack soldiers, I saw men who wore their uniforms with days of dust
settled in the wrinkles, and frayed cuffs and stained shirtfronts. Some of
them wore their hair longer than mine. I saw no one walking with
purposefulness, no troops drilling, and felt no sense of military
preparedness. The men on the streets looked listless and unhealthy. I had
expected to endure the avid curiosity of their stares. Instead they regarded
me with an almost bovine acceptance. Lieutenant Hitch kept up his
façade until we reached the doors of the infirmary. This structure
appeared to be better maintained than the rest of the buildings inside the
fort. I dismounted, exchanging the discomfort of riding for the new aches
of standing on my own feet, and went to help Hitch. “I can do it myself,”
he said, and then fell off his horse. With difficulty, I kept him from hitting
the street. He gave a soft caw of pain as I hauled his good arm over my
shoulder and walked him into the infirmary. The front room was
whitewashed with a single desk in it and a bench along the wall. A pale
young soldier looked up at me in surprise. His uniform was badly fitted;
his jacket, cut for a man with broad shoulders, drooped oddly over his
concave chest. He did not look competent to be left in charge, but there
was no one else there. “Lieutenant Buel Hitch has been mauled by a wild
cat. The wounds are badly infected. He needs a doctor’s skills right away.”
The boy’s eyes grew very wide. He looked down at the logbook and the two
pens and inkwell carefully arranged on the bare desktop as if hoping to
find some advice there. After a moment, he seemed to make a decision.
“Follow me,” he said. He opened a door opposite the one I had entered by,
and I found myself in a wardroom. There was a long row of beds along one
wall. Only two were occupied. In one, a man was sleeping. In another, a
man with his jaw bandaged stared disconsolately at the wall. “Put him on
an empty bed,” my guide instructed me. “I’ll go fetch the doctor.”
Hitch roused himself slightly. “Get me Dowder. I’d rather have a drunk
who knows what he’s doing than old Poker-up-his-ass,
I’m-a-doctor-because-I-read-a-book Frye.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy replied, unsurprised, and hurried off to do as he was
bid.
I sat him down on a tautly made bed. “You seem very familiar with this
place.”
Hitch began fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. “Too familiar,” he
agreed, but did not elaborate. As he worked his slow way down the row of
buttons, he asked me, “Do you have a pen and paper?”
“Do I have what?”
He ignored my incredulous question. “Go borrow some from the desk. I’ll
give you a note to the colonel. There’s no sense you waiting on me. They’ll
be keeping me here a few days, I imagine.”
“Longer than that, I’m guessing.”
“Go get the paper and pen. I’m hanging on by my teeth, Never. Wait too
long, and I’ll be no good for you.”
“Nevare,” I said, and went out to the boy’s desk to borrow the requested
items.
He was not there, and after a moment’s indecision, I simply took what I
needed.
I carried them back to Hitch.

He took them with a sigh. There was a small table by each bed in the
ward. He grunted as he leaned over it to write.

“What shall I do with your horse and gear?”
“Oh. Bring my saddlebags in here. Tell the boy to make sure Renegade is
cared for properly. He’ll call someone to take care of it.” By the time I
returned with his saddlebags, which he had me put under the bed, the
note was finished. He blew on it carefully and then handed it to me,
unfolded, so that I might read what he had written. “Take it to the
colonel.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay here with you until the doctor
comes?”
“There’s no point to it. The boy will find Dowder, they’ll sober him up with
a cup of coffee or two, and then he’ll do what he can for me. You got me
here alive, Never. That was more than I thought anyone could do.”
“It was the magic, not me,” I replied jokingly.
A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “You only laugh because you don’t
know how true that is. Get out of here. I’m going to sleep until Dowder
comes. Pull my boots off for me.”
I performed that service for him, and then helped him swing his feet up
onto the bed. He hissed out a stream of quiet curses as he eased himself
back onto the bed. In contrast to the clean blanket and muslin-covered
pillow, his filthiness was shocking. He closed his eyes and his breathing
deepened. “I’ll come by and see you later,” I told his still form.
I put the pen and ink back as I had found them. I walked outdoors into the
sunlight before I allowed myself to look at what he had written. The letters
straggled over the page, the scrawl of a very ill man. It wasn’t the kindest
letter of recommendation I’d ever seen.
“This is Never. He doesn’t look like much, but you should let him enlist.
He’s got a spine, and he sees things through. If he hadn’t come willing and
helped me, I’d be dead now, and you know how much that would annoy
my dear father, not to mention inconvenience you.”
That was it. No date, no greeting the colonel by title, not even Hitch’s own
signature. I stood staring at it, wondering if it were some sort of a terrible
joke on me. If I dared show this to the colonel commanding Gettys, would
I immediately be thrown out of his office? I was reading it over again
when I saw the boy soldier hurrying back. A tall, dapper man with a
captain’s insignia on his collar followed him. The boy stopped at the sight
of me. “What did you do with the scout?” he asked me worriedly.
“I left him on a bed in the ward, as you suggested. He asked me to ask you
to look after his horse.”
The boy scratched his nose. “I’ll get someone to do it.”

I turned to the captain. “Do I have the pleasure of addressing Captain
Dowder?”

“I’m Captain Frye. Doctor Frye to almost everyone. Who are you?” His
question was both brusque and rude. I kept my temper. I knew I did not
present a respectable appearance. No doubt I was nearly as filthy as Buel
Hitch.

“I’m Nevare Burv—” I fell over my own surname. I let it go. “I brought
Lieutenant Hitch in. A wildcat has mauled him badly. He asked that Dr.
Dowder be fetched for him. I’m sorry you were bothered.”

“So am I. But I’m sober enough to walk, and Dowder, as usual, is not. Nor
does Lieutenant Hitch command this entire post, though he seems to
think he does. Good day, sir.”
“Sir? If I might ask a favor?”
He turned back to me irritably. The young soldier had already vanished
inside. “Could you tell me where I might find the commanding officer?
And where, prior to that, I might find a bathhouse?”
He looked even more annoyed. “There’s a barber just outside the gate. I
think he has a bath in the back.”
“And the commanding officer’s headquarters?” I felt stubborn now,
determined to wring the requested information from him.
“You’ll find Colonel Haren in that building over there. The writing over the
door says, ‘Headquarters.’” He stabbed a finger in the direction of a tall
structure just down the street from us, and then turned on his heel and
went into the infirmary.
I took a breath and blew it out. Well. I’d asked for that, I supposed. The
faded lettering was almost legible from where I stood. I simply hadn’t
noticed it. With a sigh, I led Clove away.
I found the barber with little difficulty. It was a bit harder to get him to
take me seriously when I requested a bath, a shave, and a haircut. He
demanded my money first, and took it before he would even heat the
water. He had several tubs in the back room of his shop. I was glad to find
them all empty. It was not modesty, but shame that made me relieved no
one would witness my ablutions. None of his tubs were large enough for
me to bathe comfortably, and he was remarkably chary with the hot water
and soap. Nevertheless, I managed to get cleaner than I’d been in many a
day, and even to soak away some of my aches. I emerged from the
lukewarm water feeling more like myself than I had in a long time. When I
was dry, I dressed in my cleanest clothing and went out for my shave. He
was good at his trade, I’ll give him that. His tools were sharp and shining.
He gave me a soldier’s haircut. As he shaved me, he handled my face
familiarly, pulling skin tight as he worked and pushing my nose to one
side. “How many of these chins would you like me to shave?” he asked me
once, and I forced myself to laugh at his jest and told him, “All of them.”
Like most men in his trade, he was garrulous, asking questions of me
when it would have been very hazardous for me to attempt to speak, and
telling me all the gossip of the fort as he worked. I soon knew that he’d
been there six years, and that he’d come east with his soldier cousin,
reasoning that wherever there were soldiers, a good barber could find
work. Brede Regiment had been holding Gettys then. Brede had been a
good regiment before it came to Gettys. But everyone said that about
Farleyton Regiment, too, and look at it now. He hated Gettys, but would
never have the money to move back west, so he tried to make the best of it.
Everyone hated Gettys. He’d had a wife once; she’d run off with a soldier,
and when he left her, she’d turned to whoring. I could probably buy her for
less than what I’d paid for my bath and haircut, if I fancied heartless sluts.
I’d soon discover that I hated Gettys, too, he predicted. He asked me
where I was from and accepted a mumbled answer from me as he scraped
busily at my throat. While he was cleaning his blade, I told him that I’d
brought Lieutenant Hitch back to Gettys after he’d had a run-in with a
wildcat. “Hitch, eh? I’d probably have helped the cat myself,” he told me,
and then went on with a long tale of a very complicated brawl in a tavern
in which Hitch had distinguished himself by ending up fighting both of
the men who had originally been combatants. He seemed to find it very
amusing.
“So. You’ll be heading back home now,” he asked me when he’d finished
and offered me a towel to wipe my face on.
“Actually, I thought I’d try to see Colonel Haren and enlist,” I told him. He
took that as a knee-slapping joke. He was still roaring with laughter when
I handed his towel back to him and took my leave.
The sentries on the gate likewise found it amusing. Getting entry to the
fort was not as easy without Hitch, I discovered. After they had dismissed
my first request as a joke, I reminded them that they had admitted me in
Hitch’s company only a couple of hours ago. “Oh, yes. Now that you
mention it, I remember your great big…horse!” one exclaimed. After
several more jests of that subtlety, they consented to let me pass. I
reentered Gettys and went directly to Colonel Haren’s headquarters.
Colonel Haren’s headquarters were constructed entirely of sawn lumber
and once had been painted. Flakes of green paint clung to the weathered
timber. The splintery planks that made up its porch were uneven and
warping away from one another.
The slum that had sprung up around the fort, the lethargic air of the sickly
soldiery, and this final evidence of a commander without ambition filled
me with trepidation. Did I want to enlist with such a regiment, under such
a command? The rumors I had heard about Farleyton Regiment came
back to haunt me: once a top outfit, now fallen on hard times. Desertion
and dereliction of duty were rampant here.
What other regiment would take someone like me?
I ascended the two steps, crossed the rough porch, and entered. A sergeant
in a faded uniform sat behind the desk. The walls of the room were lined
with wooden shelves jumbled with books and stacks of paper at all angles.
A gun rack in the corner held two long guns and an empty stock. An
unsheathed sword kept them company. The sergeant had taken a saber
cut down the face in some distant past. It had healed into a fine seam
that pulled down at his left eye and the corner of his mouth. His eyes were
a very pale blue, so pale that at first I wondered if he were blinded by
cataracts. Gray hair in a wild fringe stuck out around his bald pate. As I
entered, he looked up from some bit of sewing. When he set it aside on the
corner of his desk to greet me, I saw he was darning a black sock with
white yarn.
“Good morning, Sergeant,” I greeted him when he just stared at me.

“You want something?”

I controled my disdain of his sloppy manners. “Yes, Sergeant. I’d like to
meet with Colonel Haren.”

“Oh. He’s in there.” He tilted his head toward the single door behind him.

“I see. May I go in?”

“Maybe. Try knocking. If he’s not busy, he’ll answer.”

“Very well. Thank you, Sergeant.”

“Yeah.”

He took up his sock and bent over his work again. I tugged my shirt as
straight as it would go, crossed the room, and rapped sharply at the door.
“Come in. Is my sock mended yet?”

I opened the door to a dim room, lit by the fire in an open hearth in the
corner. A wave of heat rolled out to greet me as I opened the door. I stood
a moment, letting my eyes adjust.
“Well, come in, man! Don’t stand there letting the cold get in. Sergeant! Is
my sock mended yet?”
The sergeant called the answer over his shoulder. “I’m working on it!”
“Very well.” He answered as if the delay were anything but “very well.”
Then he transferred his gaze to me and said irritably, “Come in, I said,
and close the door.”
I did as he bade me. The room confounded me. It was dimly lit and stuffy
with heat. I felt as if in one stride, I’d covered hundreds of miles and was
back west in Old Thares. Fine carpets covered the floors, and tapestries
hid the planks of the wall. An immense desk of polished wood dominated
the center of the room. Oak bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes
lined one entire wall, floor to ceiling. A marble pedestal supported a statue
of a maiden with a basket of flowers. Even the ceiling had been covered
with plates of hammered tin. The shock of contrast between this inner
sanctuary and the rough building that housed it nearly made me forget
why I was there.
The reason for his query about the sock was abundantly clear. One of his
feet was bare. The other wore a dark sock and a lambskin slipper. I could
see the cuffs of his cavalla trousers. Over them he wore an elaborate silk
smoking jacket, belted with a tasseled length of the same fabric. The silk
skullcap on his head also had a tassel. He was a pale, bony man, taller than
me, with long feet and hands. What hair he had was blond, but his
magnificent mustache looked rusty. The ends of it were waxed to points.
He looked like a caricature of a country gentlemen rather than the
commander of the king’s last outpost. There was a well-cushioned chair
with a footstool before the fire. Colonel Haren ensconced himself there and
then demanded of me, “What do you want, then?” “I wished to speak to
you, sir.” I kept my tone extremely civil despite his brusqueness.
“Well, you are. State your master’s business and be quick about it. I’ve
other things to do today.”
Two ideas fought to be first out of my mouth. At my realization that he
thought I was a servant, I longed to tell him in no uncertain words that I
had no master. The second was that I doubted he had anything else to do
today. I closed my teeth against expressing either and then replied tightly,
“I do not come as a servant with a message from his master. I come as a
soldier son, hoping to enlist with your regiment.”
“Then what’s that in your hand, man?” he demanded, pointing to Hitch’s
roughly worded letter of recommendation. I understood now, I thought,
why Hitch had phrased it so crudely. Even so, I did not want to present it,
lest he think the rough sentiments were my own. I kept a firm grip on it,
despite his open and waiting palm.
“It’s a recommendation from Lieutenant Buel Hitch. But before I present
it, I’d like to tell you a bit about myself and my—”
“Hitch!” He sat up straight in his chair, letting his unshod feet fly off the
footstool and slap onto the floor. “He was due back days ago. I could not
imagine what detained him! But he’s back at the fort now?”
“Yes, sir, he is. He was badly injured when a big cat attacked him. When I
met up with him, he was feverish and weak from blood loss. I’ve been
traveling with him for the last five days or so, to be sure that he arrived
here safely. I took him straight to the doctors when we arrived.”
He looked agitated at my news. “But…he was carrying a package for me.
Did he say nothing of it?”
I instantly recalled the oilskin-wrapped package in Hitch’s saddlebags.
“He said nothing of it to me, sir. But his saddlebags are intact. I put them
under his bunk in the infirmary. When I came away, Dr. Frye was going in
to see him. I have high hopes for his full recovery.”
I could have saved my breath. As soon as Colonel Haren heard that Hitch
was in the infirmary, he strode to the door of his office and flung it open.
“Sergeant. Stop whatever you’re doing. Go directly to the infirmary. Scout
Hitch is there. His saddlebags are under his bed. Bring them directly
here.” The sergeant moved with surprising alacrity to his command.
Shutting the door, the commander turned back to me. “Well done, man.
Thank you for letting me know Hitch had returned. You have my
gratitude.”
The way he spoke and the way he returned to his chair before the fire
indicated that our interview was at an end. When I continued to stand
there, he glanced back at me, nodded emphatically, and repeated, “Thank
you.”
“Sir, letting you know that Lieutenant Hitch had returned to Gettys was
not my sole reason for coming here. As I was telling you, I’m a soldier son.
I’m interested in enlisting in your regiment.”
He raised one eyebrow. I noticed it had a sort of a tufty twirl. “Impossible,
man. Don’t deceive yourself. You’re not fit to be a soldier.” He spoke the
words bluntly.
I advanced to him, desperately holding out Hitch’s recommendation. “Sir,
you’re my last hope,” I said bluntly. “If you will not take me, I do not know
how I will fulfill the good god’s destiny for me. I beg you to consider me.
Use me in any capacity. I will take the humblest assignment. All I wish to
be able to say is that I serve my king as a soldier.”
He seemed surprised at my vehemence. He took the piece of paper I
offered him, and while he read it, either slowly or several times, I
considered the offer I’d just made him. Did I mean it? Could I humble
myself to serve in any capacity? Was it still so essential to my pride that I
be able to call myself a soldier? A few short days ago, I’d been willing to
put all that behind me and begin a new life as an innkeeper in a ghost
town. Yet here I stood with my pride abandoned and my heart beating like
a drum as I hoped by all I held holy that the eccentric man before me
would accept me into his dispirited, sloppy regiment. He looked up at last
from the piece of paper. Then he leaned forward carefully and set it on the
flames of the fire. My heart sank. As he straightened up, he said, “You
seem to have made a good impression on my scout. Few people manage to
do that. Myself included.”
“Sir,” I said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
He leaned back in his chair and breathed out through his nose. His
wriggled his feet, one slippered and one bare, on the hassock before him.
“It’s not easy to keep men at this post. A lot of them die of the plague.
Those that survive are sickly, and often die of something else. Some desert.
Others prove unsatisfactory in an extreme enough way that I am forced to
dismiss them. Even so, I try to hold to a certain standard for choosing
those who will serve under me. Under ordinary circumstances, I would not
choose you. I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate on why.”
“Sir,” I managed to say again, keeping my tone even.
He did not look at me, but only at his own feet. He touched their toes
together. “But the circumstances are not ordinary.” He cleared his throat.
“My scout makes few requests of me. I make many of him. Most of them,
he fulfills for me. I am inclined to grant him this request.” As I caught my
breath in hope, he finally turned his head to look at me. “How do you feel
about cemeteries?” he asked me. He asked in a pleasant and engaging
way, as if he had asked a little girl her favorite color at a tea party.
“Cemeteries, sir?”
“We have one here at Gettys. Two, actually. The old one is just outside the
walls of the fort. That one doesn’t concern me. It’s the new one, an hour’s
ride from here, that is the problem. When plague first struck here, several
years ago, my predecessor had a new cemetery established some distance
from the fort. Because of the smell of all the dead bodies, don’t you know?
He’s buried there himself, as a matter of fact. That’s why I’m the
commander now. It passed me by.” He paused a moment and smiled a
tight and toothy smile, as if very pleased with his own cleverness at not
dying of the plague. I wasn’t sure what response to make, and when I was
silent, he spoke on.
“The cemetery is rather large considering the size of our living population,
and that it is only recently established. And Colonel Lope gave no thought,
when they started burying people there, that it might be a hard location to
defend. Four times now I have requested a budget and artisans so that
our cemetery might be properly protected with a stout stone wall, and
perhaps a watchtower. Four times now, I have been ignored. The road is
all our king can think of. His road. And when I ask for supplies and
funding to wall the cemetery, he always responds by asking me how many
miles of road I’ve built in the last season. As if the two were connected!”
He paused for my reaction. When it became clear that I didn’t have one,
he harrumphed and continued. “I’ve assigned men to guard the cemetery.
They don’t last long at the duty. Cowards. And as a consequence, the
depredations against our beloved dead continue.”
“Depredations, sir?”
“Yes. Depredations. Insults. Ignominy. Blasphemous disrespect. Call it
what you will. They continue. Can you stop them?” He gravely tugged at
the ends of his moustache as he spoke.
I had no clear idea what he was asking of me. But I did comprehend that
it was my sole opportunity. I rose to the occasion. “Sir. If I cannot, I will
die trying.”
“Oh, please don’t. It would just be another grave to dig. Well. That’s
settled then. And just in time, it appears!”
He spoke the last words as he leapt from his seat, for there had been a
knock on the door. Even before he reached it, the sergeant had opened it.
He entered, bearing Hitch’s saddlebags. The colonel seized them greedily
and dug though them to resurrect the same oilskin-wrapped packet that
Hitch had guarded so assiduously. “Oh, thank the good god, it’s not been
harmed or stolen!” he exclaimed. He carried it directly to a small table
near the fire’s light. I stood, feeling awkward, unsure if he intended me to
witness this act or not. I felt I should go, but feared that if I left, no one
else would recognize that I’d been accepted into the regiment. I needed to
know where to go to sign my papers and assume my duties. So I quietly
remained. The sergeant departed as quickly as he had entered.
Colonel Haren carefully untied the string that had bound the packet shut.
When the last fold of oilskin was carefully laid back to reveal the contents,
he gave a huge sigh of contentment. “Oh. Beautiful,” he exclaimed. My
nose had already told me what he had unwrapped. Smoked fish. I could
smell it, and my day’s hunger clawed at me with frantic desire. My mouth
watered, but my brain wondered how smoked fish could be so important.
“Alder-smoked river salmon. It’s glazed with honey. There is only one
small group of tribesmen who still prepare their fish this way. And they
will only trade with Scout Hitch. Now, I suppose, you see why a word from
him is held in such high esteem by me. Only he could obtain this for me,
and only at this time of year. Ah.”
As I watched in consternation, he pinched off a tiny morsel of shining,
dark red fish and lifted it to his lips. He set it on his tongue and then,
without closing his mouth, breathed in past it. Eyes closed, he finally
closed his mouth. I could have sworn that his mustache quivered with
delight. He moved the food about on his tongue like a wine connoisseur
savoring a vintage. His throat moved very slowly as he swallowed. When
he opened his eyes and looked at me, his face held a look of dazed
satiation. “Are you still here?” he asked me vaguely.
“You didn’t dismiss me, sir. And I have not yet signed my papers.”
“Oh. Well. Dismissed! The man at the desk out there will help you with
your papers. Just make your mark where he shows you. You can trust
him.” And with that, he turned back to his fish. As I opened the door, he
added, “Take Hitch’s saddlebags back to him, would you? Nothing else in
there for me, I’m sure.” I picked up the worn leather bags and slung them
over my shoulder. I shut the door quietly as I left, wondering if the man
was completely mad or just so eccentric that I couldn’t tell the difference.
Then I decided that it didn’t matter. I wouldn’t question my luck in
finding someone who had allowed me to enlist.
The sergeant put his darning aside with a sigh when I stood in front of his
desk. “What is it?”
“Colonel Haren said I should see you about my enlistment papers.”

“What?” He grinned, certain I was joking.

“My enlistment papers,” I said flatly.

The smile faded slowly from his face. “I’ll draw them up for you,” he said
with obvious reluctance. “It may take a little while.”

“I’ll wait,” I told him, and did so.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE CEMETERY
The sergeant took some time to draw up my papers. On purpose, I
thought. I signed promptly, as Nevare Burve, and then annoyed him
further by insisting that I would wait there until Colonel Haren had signed
my copy. When he came out of the colonel’s office, I asked him to whom I
should report. He vanished back into the office and reappeared quickly.
“You’ll be loosely attached. Rather like a scout. If you have any difficulties,
come here, and I should be able to get them sorted out for you.”
“Isn’t that rather irregular?”
He laughed. “The whole regiment is rather irregular just at present. None
of us expected to be here for another winter. We thought we’d be replaced
and sent off in disgrace by midsummer. Given that we are here and have
one more chance, as it were, to prove ourselves while we are more
undermanned than we have ever been before, irregular is about the best
we can do. Don’t worry; you’ll become accustomed to it. I know I have.” He
paused, then asked almost paternally, “Has anyone told you that you
should ride out to the end of the road, first thing? We recommend it to all
our new recruits. It helps them understand our mission here.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll make a point of it.”

“You do that, trooper. You do. You’re one of us now.”

His words warmed me, and he actually stepped around his desk to shake
my hand. Once that was settled, he sent me off to a supply sergeant. A
note from the colonel’s desk sergeant informed him of my “cemetery
guard” assignment. He laughed at me, and then diffidently gave me a kit
that included no uniform parts that fit me save a hat.

“Best I can do for you,” he dismissed that issue. The long gun they gave me
had seen hard use and little care. The outside of the barrel was badly
pitted, and the stock had cracked, but been repaired with brass tacks and
string wound tightly around it and coated with varnish. The butt plate
was missing entirely, and the saddle scabbard needed restitching.
“Probably wouldn’t be much good to you anyway,” the supply sergeant
answered my scowl. “Out where you are, if the Speck ever got serious, one
rifle wouldn’t hold them back. But chances are you’ll never see one doing
any mischief to take a shot at him. Don’t worry about it, sojer.” I accepted
my “weapon” with a frown, resolving to inspect it thoroughly for myself
before firing it. “You riding out to the end of the road today?” he asked
me as I turned to go. I turned back to him.

“Sergeant Gafney in Colonel Haren’s office did recommend it to me.”

He nodded sagely. “He’s wise to do so. ’Twill give you a much better grasp
of what we’re all about. Good luck, trooper.”
I had not been assigned to any patrol. I had no corporal, no sergeant, no
officer at all to report to. Like the scouts I had once disdained, I was
loosely connected to the regiment, given a task, and would be, I suspected,
ignored unless I failed. When I went to the infirmary to return Hitch’s
saddlebags, he gave me a dazed smile when I outlined my enlistment. The
laudanum the doctor had given him for his pain had made him very
genial. “So you’re off to the cemetery, are you, then? Better and better,
Never. You’ll have one of the more lively commands around here. It’s the
best I could have hoped for, for you and for me. Rest in peace!” He lolled
his head on his pillow. “Laudanum. Ever had laudanum, Nevare? It makes
getting hurt worth it.” He sighed, and his eyes started to sag shut. Then
they abruptly flew open, and he said with sudden command, “Before you
go to the cemetery, ride to the end of the King’s Road. It won’t take you
more than a couple of hours. Do it today. Very educational.” He flung
himself back onto his pillows as if he had told me something of great
import. And on such a note, I left him there, glassy-eyed and slack-jawed.
I made a final stop at a general store to buy food with some of my hoarded
coins. I was not sure how regular the pay would be in such a remote
location. I’d been told that I could ride into town each day to eat in the
mess, but thought it would be nice if I had food available at my lodgings at
the cemetery. No one escorted me to my new assignment, or even gave me
a list of expectations. The sentry at the east gate of the fort pointed out
my road to me. “Just ride that way, toward the mountains. You’ll see it.”
And that was that. The cemetery was more than an hour’s ride from the
gates of Gettys. The road got progressively worse the further Clove and I
went, while houses and other signs of settlement dwindled almost
immediately. Soon I had left all signs of successful settlement behind.
Occasionally I would see an overgrown cart track that led to an aborted
farm, but no one lived out this way. It seemed very peculiar to me that
every single farm east of the fort had been abandoned. As the road became
steeper, winding ever upward into the foothills, all attempts at settlement
vanished. The forest drew closer to both sides of the road, dark and
menacing. I caught myself riding as warily as if I knew I were being
stalked, but saw no one.
I came finally to a rough sign by the side of the road. “GETTYS
CEMETERY,” it read, and an arrow pointed to a narrower road that led up
a bare hill. The hill had been logged off; in some places, stumps still dotted
it, while beyond the cleared zone, the ranked trees of a deciduous forest
stood in a straight row where the logging had stopped. I started to turn
Clove’s head toward it, and then recalled Hitch’s words. “Ride to the end of
the King’s Road.” I glanced back at the sun, wondered how far it was, and
then decided that I’d find out. If I didn’t come to it by nightfall, I’d simply
turn back. I soon began to doubt that decision. The road led ever uphill. It
was poorly engineered; there were washouts down the center of it, and in
one place a stream had eaten a gully across it. It had been repaired badly
with coarse stone. I wondered at how shoddily the King’s Road was being
built. Was not this the king’s great work, the project on which he pinned
so many hopes? What ailed the men overseeing its construction? I could
understand that common criminals were not the best workers for such a
project, but surely competent engineers oversaw them?
The road narrowed, and the forest grew ever closer. Twice I startled at
motion, just at the corner of my peripheral vision. In each case, I turned
my head and saw nothing. Later, I caught a glimpse of the largest croaker
bird I had ever seen. It perched in a tree that was half dead, on a bare
branch that almost overhung the road. I marveled at the size of it, for it
looked like a black-and-white man perched up there. Then, just as I rode
alongside it, it suddenly separated into three birds that took flight. I
watched them go, wondering how I could have mistaken three for a single
entity, and wondering, too, what a scavenger such as a croaker bird was
watching for beside the road. I began to see signs of ongoing work. An
empty wagon rattled down the hill toward me. Clove and I gave way and
allowed the team to pass. The driver did not so much as turn his head or
nod at me. His gaze was set, and he hurried his team at a dangerous pace
for such a heavy vehicle going downhill. I began to hear sounds in the
distance and soon passed a rough work camp by the side of the road. In a
small clearing there were five crude shelters, a corral holding a dozen
horses, and an open-sided barn. Two wagons sagged on broken axles
beside the barn. It looked desolate and, except for the penned horses,
deserted. I had never seen a drearier place. Hopelessness wafted from it
like a bad smell. I suddenly did not want to go any further. I’d seen
enough. It was all adding up to something I didn’t want to admit. The old
nobles had been right. This was a futile, senseless project. It would never
be completed, no matter how long we worked on it or how much the king
spent. It was wasteful, stupid, and cruel to the men dragged from their
city lives to toil in a foreign wilderness. I wanted to turn Clove around and
go back. But in the distance, I could hear men’s voices raised in command
and the creak of heavy wagons. Hitch had told me to see the end, and I
resolved that I would, if only to satisfy my curiosity as to why he would
give me such a strange command. It did not take me much longer to come
to the work site.
I’d seen my father’s much smaller road crew at work and knew how it was
supposed to operate. There was a rhythm and order to good road building.
The best route should have been marked out, the trees taken down, and
the ground surveyed to grade. In some places, earth would have to be
scraped away and in others, wagons would dump the excess to build up
the roadbed. Rock and gravel would be brought in, to lift the roadbed
above the lie of the land. Done right, the operation was almost like a dance
as some men prepared the way and other workers followed. The operation
before me was chaos. The overseers were either ineffectual or did not care.
I saw a wagon driver shouting at men who were digging in the path that
his laden wagon must traverse. Further on, two groups of workers had
paused to watch their foremen come to blows. The men were fighting
doggedly, trading heavy blows in a sullen, mindless way. No one tried to
stop them. The convicts in their ragged shirts and trousers leaned on their
shovels and picks and watched the fistfight with dull satisfaction. The
workers wore leg irons that limited them to a short stride. It struck me as
barbaric.
Discord and disorder surrounded me. Weeds and brush grew on heaped
fill dirt beside the road. An overturned wagon, its load spilled beside it,
had simply been abandoned where it fell. I came at last to where the road
was only a raw scar in the earth, with stumps of trees sticking up to show
where it was supposed to go. The stumps were silvery, and on some moss
had started to grow. These trees had been logged at least a year ago and
more likely three. It made no sense to me. The road should have been
growing much more swiftly than that. A uniformed guard oversaw a coffle
of convicts ineffectually grubbing up the stumps. He waved an arm at me
as I rode through. He wore a corporal’s stripe on his sleeve. “Hey! Hold up!
Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded of me. I reined Clove in.
“Just to the end of the road.”
“The end?” He gave a great haw of laughter, and around him his fettered
prison crew joined in. It took him several moments to get his merriment
under control. “Is there a problem?” I asked him. I cringed as I realized
that I’d addressed him as a noble son would address a common worker
like himself. That was a reflex I’d best learn to control. Once I’d donned
the uniform of a common trooper, I doubted it would be tolerated. But he
didn’t appear to notice. “A problem? Oh, no, none at all. You just go your
merry way. Usually we only get new recruits visiting it, but for myself, I
think every visitor to Gettys should go out to the end of the road. It really
takes you to the heart of our mission.” He grinned broadly as he looked
around at his work crew, and I saw his dispirited workforce nodding and
smirking sourly among themselves, doubtless over my fat. I nudged Clove,
and we passed through the midst of their work. Beyond them, all work
seemed to have come to a complete halt. The road ended in a tangle of
three fallen trees. I had never seen logs so large, nor stumps so wide. They
must have been cut years before. The dead bare limbs and the stumps of
the trees had gone gray. Their giant bodies were a barricade of death
against the road’s progress. The standing trees beyond them were even
bigger. No wonder the logging crews had given up. No one could cut a
road through trees that size. It was an insane task. This was the king’s
great vision? Anger was growing in me beside a sudden self-loathing. It
suddenly seemed that everything I had been taught, all my pride in being
a soldier son, was a part of this fallen ambition. Stupid. I was stupid, the
king was stupid, and the road was a folly.
I sat on Clove’s broad back, disillusioned and discouraged, staring up into
the ancient forest. Then I dismounted and walked forward, trying to see
beyond the fallen giants. The ground was uneven, and underbrush of
thistles and thorns had grown up swiftly when the ground was granted
sunlight. The bushes were so dense and evenly spaced, they almost seemed
a deliberately planted hedge against intruders. These brambles had
sharp-tipped leaves as well as thorns all down their flexible canes. I made
a halfhearted attempt to push into the thicket, but soon tangled in their
barbed branches like an insect in a spider’s web. Withdrawing cost me
snags in my trousers and long bleeding scratches on my arms. I’d
wakened a horde of tiny stinging gnats and they swarmed about me. I
waved at them wildly and retreated to the road.
The gnats continued to hum about me, trying to settle and sting as I
climbed up onto one of the huge stumps. I could have hosted a dinner
party for twelve on top of it. The additional height gave me just enough of
a vantage to see into the forest beyond the barrier of brambles.
Only in my dreams had I seen such a place. The trees on the hill above me
made the stump I stood on seem a sapling. The trunks of some of the trees
were as big around as watchtowers, and like watchtowers, they soared
toward the sky. Their lower trunks were straight and limbless, and the
bark was rumpled and fissured. High over my head, the bark looked
smoother, and that was where the branches began. The smoother bark
was not rough and brown, but a softly mottled blend of greens, hazels, and
red-brown splotches. The leaves were immense, at least the size of dinner
platters. The branches of each tree interlaced and meshed with others,
forming a dense mat of foliage overhead. Beneath those trees, there was
little underbrush, only deep carpets of leaf mold and a silence that seemed
part of the permanent twilight under those behemoths.
Never in my life had I seen such trees.
Yet I had.
Not in this flesh, but as my other self. I knew it, and then the knowledge
flickered away from me. I reached after it, knowing it was immensely
important, but again it was concealed. I took a deep breath and sat very
still. I closed my eyes for a moment, focusing my concentration. He was
part of me; we were one. What he knew, I could know. What was the
significance of the trees?
My eyes flew open.
The trees were alive. They loomed over me. There were faces in their
rumpled bark, not faces such as men had, but the faces of the trees
themselves. They looked down upon me, and I cowered. They were so full
of knowing. They knew everything about me. Everything. Every despicable
thought or deed I’d ever committed, they knew. And it was within their
power to judge me and punish me. And they would. Now.
I literally felt terror flow up inside me. Like an engulfing flood, it rose
through my body. My feet and legs felt nerveless. I sagged and staggered
where I stood. When I was a boy, I had experienced nightmares in which
my legs turned to jelly and I could not stand. Now, as I collapsed, I
discovered that it could happen in real life. The fear that washed through
me loosened every joint in my body. I barely managed to crawl to the edge
of the stump, dragging my useless legs after me. I fell from the stump to
the thorn-choked earth. The thorns tore the flesh of my hands; their tiny
teeth snagged in my clothes and tried to hold me back. I sobbed and
wallowed toward Clove. My horse stood regarding me with distrust, his
ears folded back at my odd behavior.
More than anything, I feared my horse would abandon me here. “Clove.
Good boy. Good horse. Stand, Clove. Stand.” My words came out in a
hoarse, shaky whisper. I wanted to weep with terror; it was all I could do
to control myself. I managed to get to my knees. Then, with a huge effort, I
surged to my feet. My quaking legs would not take my weight, but I was
close enough that I fell forward against Clove’s side. My nerveless hands
gripped feebly at my saddle. “Oh, good god, please help me!” I moaned,
and somehow found the strength to drag myself upright. I got a foot in a
stirrup and, while I was only half in the saddle, urged Clove to move. He
did, meandering confusedly while I clung, shaking and sobbing, to his
saddle. I was inexpressibly grateful that he moved in the correct direction,
away from the end of the road and the hideous, crouching forest that
waited there. Waves of blackness threatened my consciousness. I was
ashamed of what a coward I was, but could not help it. I focused all my
thoughts, all my efforts, on getting my leg the rest of the way over the
saddle, and when I did and hauled my weight up onto Clove’s back, the
first thing I did was urge him to a gallop, heedless of the uneven surface
and how my panniers jolted behind me. Up ahead of me, standing across
the road like a barrier, I suddenly saw a group of road workers gathered in
mass. They stood like a wall, whooping and laughing. Clove’s good sense
more than my direction made him slow his pace and then halt before we
overran them. It was all I could do to hold onto the horn of my saddle. My
breath still rattled in and out of me. Tears of terror had left tracks down
my cheeks. I opened my mouth to shout a warning to them, and then
could not think what to warn them about. The fellow who had spoken to
me earlier asked with false solicitude, “So, did you find the end of our
road? Did you like it?”
I had the barest edge of control of myself. Shame warred with the last
fading shreds of panic. What had frightened me so badly? Why had I fled?
I suddenly had no idea. I only knew that my throat was parched and that
my shirt stuck to my back with fear sweat. I looked around at them,
confused by what I had felt and done and deeply insulted by their grinning
faces. One of the guards took pity on me.
“Hey, big man, don’t you know we’ve all felt it? That’s what the ‘end of the
road’ means here. Sheer shit-your-pants terror. Hey, don’t feel bad,
trooper. It gets done to all of us. Initiation, you might say. And now you’re
one of us. Gettys-sweated. That’s what we call it. You got a proper Gettys
sweat worked up.”
A roar of laughter went up as he approached me and offered me his own
canteen. I reached down, drank from it, and as I handed it back, I
managed a completely insincere smile and a weak laugh. “It happens to
everyone that way?” I managed to ask. “The terror?”
“Oh, yeah, that it do. Count yourself a tough nut. There’s no piss running
into your boot. Most of us here can’t brag about that.” The fellow slapped
me companionably on the leg, and strange to say, I felt better. “Does the
king know about this?” I blurted out, and then felt a fool when my words
woke another general laugh.
“If it hadn’t happened to you, would you have believed it?” drawled the
fellow who had befriended me.
I shook my head slowly. “No. Like as not, I wouldn’t.” I paused, then asked,
“What is it?”
“Nobody believes it until it happens to him,” he agreed with me. “And
nobody can say exactly what it is. Only that it happens. And that we can’t
think of a way to get past it.”
“Can’t we go around it?”
He smiled tolerantly, and I almost blushed. Of course not. If they could
have, they would have. He gave me a nod and a smile. “Go on back to
Gettys. If you go into Rollo’s Tavern and tell them that a Gettys sweat
requires a Gettys beer to quench it, he’ll give you a free one. It’s a tradition
for new recruits, but I think they’ll extend it to you.”
“I am a new recruit,” I told him. “Colonel Haren just signed me on. Loosely
attached me, that is. I’m the new cemetery guard.”
He looked up at me, and the smile faded from his face. Around him, the
other men were exchanging glances. “You poor bastard,” he said with
feeling. And then they opened their ranks and motioned me to ride back to
Gettys. The notion of a free beer at a friendly tavern was a powerful draw.
I considered it carefully as I rode back toward Gettys. I still couldn’t
decide if I felt insulted or hurt by the prank that had been played on me,
or relieved that they’d all seen fit to initiate me. In the end, I decided that
Hitch’s remark had been the most accurate one. It had been very
educational. And I was in no position to resent it, I reminded myself. I
wasn’t a junior officer and the son of a battle lord. I was a new recruit, at
the very bottom of the social order. I should probably have thanked my
stars that my initiation was no rougher than it had been.
Now that I was well away from the end of the road, I could ponder what
had overcome me. I didn’t want to try to remember that fear too clearly,
nor to dwell on it. A comforting thought came to me suddenly. It wasn’t
really my problem. I wasn’t building the road. All I had to do, simple
soldier that I was, was guard the cemetery. I heaved a sign of relief at that
thought and rode on. But when I reached the sign that pointed the way to
the cemetery, I decided that my visit to the tavern could wait for
tomorrow. Evening was coming on, and I wanted to see what my new
billet looked like.
A cart track wound up the hillside. Clove and I followed it. I soon reached
the first rows of rough headboards, for such they were, grave markers
made of wood, not stone. To come on such a sprawling cemetery so far
from any domiciles, was a very strange sensation. The graveyard was in an
open meadow on a gentle roll of hilltop. Tall grass surrounded it, and the
inevitable tree stumps. After the immense trees I had seen that afternoon,
these seemed quite small and ordinary. I reined in Clove and sat on his
back, enjoying that vantage of height. The only sound was the sweep of
wind across the grasses, and the calls of the birds in the nearby forest. The
cemetery told its own sad tale. There was a row of individual markers, and
then what I could only describe as a filled-in trench. The hummock of
earth over it showed that the dead had not been buried deeply. Beyond it,
the individual graves resumed, but soon enough, those tidy rows were
again interrupted by a long hummock of grass-grown earth. The farther I
went, the newer the grave markers became.
It was an efficient cemetery, without thought for sentiment or beauty. The
grass growing in it had been scythed, but not recently. There were no
plantings, no walkways wandering among the graves, and not even a fence
to indicate the boundaries of it. I rode Clove along a narrow track through
the graves until I reached my destination: three wooden structures on the
far eastern edge of the graveyard. As I approached the buildings, I found
them better constructed than I had dared hope. They were tidy and tight,
built of squared-off logs and well-caulked with clay. Grass had crept into
the walkway along with weeds. It had been weeks, at least, since anyone
had trodden them on a regular basis. I dismounted, slipped Clove’s bit so
he could graze, and set out to tour my new domain. The first shed held the
tools of my new profession. Shovels, rakes, a pickax, and several axes were
neatly hung on one wall. Four plank coffins, plain as dirt, were stacked
ready in the back for whoever might die next in Gettys. A supply of planks
for making markers leaned beside them. The very small building between
the other two was a necessary. A small paper-wasp nest on the eave by the
door showed it had not been used in some time. The other structure
proved to be my new home.
The single room held a bed built into a corner, a table likewise attached to
the wall under the sole window, and a hearth that would both supply my
warmth for the winter and cook my food. Three pots of various sizes hung
on hooks above it. A cupboard fastened to the wall would be my pantry.
There was a chair, but a single glance told me it would not hold my
weight. There was little else of note there. An enameled washbasin on a
shelf next to the hearth held a motley assortment of dishes and utensils. I
felt vaguely grateful that the previous occupant had at least washed them
before he left.
Dust and spiderwebs coated every surface. It did not look as if the cottage
had been occupied for months. Well, I’d have some washing and dusting
to do before I settled into my new abode. I went outside to see to Clove
first. I picketed him where he could graze the deep grass, and took his tack
to my tool shed before I returned to my cabin.
The straw tick on the bed was musty. I opened a seam and shook out the
old straw onto the earth. Tomorrow, I would cut fresh grass with my
scythe and put it to dry before I stuffed the mattress again. For tonight,
the bare bed would serve me.
There was a tidy rick of firewood outside the door. I started a fire in the
hearth and was pleased to find that the chimney drew well. I had to free
the broom from its cobwebs in the corner before I could put it to use. I
propped the door open and swept a cloud of dust, dirt, and spiders
outside. The work wakened my suppressed appetite to new fury. I found a
wooden bucket in the corner, and took it with me while I followed a faint
track from the door to the edge of the woods. There I found a sullen spring
seeping water up into a greenish pond. I scowled at the thought of using
such water for drinking or cooking. When I knelt down to fill my bucket, I
saw a wooden box peeping from the nearby reeds. I pulled off the clinging
grasses that had overgrown it, to find that someone had carefully set a box
into the spring and filled the bottom with sand and gravel. The water
standing in it was much clearer than the rest of the pond. As I sank my
bucket into it to fill it, a movement in the woods across the pond startled
me. I lifted my eyes, but saw nothing. My heart began to beat fast. The
fear the end of the road had wakened in me was still fresh in my mind. A
game trail led from the forest’s edge to the water. Doubtless the motion
had been a deer, or even the flicker of a bird’s wings. I seized the handle of
the bucket and heaved myself to my feet. As I did so, I heard a gasp, and
then the unmistakable sound of someone fleeing on two legs. I had a
glimpse of a bush shaking, but did not see the intruder. For a moment
longer I stood frightened. Then I sighed and shook my head at myself and
my fears; I had thought I was far enough away from the town that I would
be spared people peering at me. Perhaps with time they would become
accustomed to me, and the stares would stop. I took my bucket of water
back to my new home. As I returned to my cottage, I considered how
squarely and snugly it was built. Whoever had built it had put time and
thought into it. I suspected that Gettys had not always been the haphazard
place it was now. Once a real officer had commanded it; I judged that the
caretaker’s cottage had been built during his time. I was fairly occupied
for the next few hours. The simple work calmed me, and I was able to set
the last of my fears aside. I put water to boil on my freshly swept hearth,
and proceeded to put my food supplies away on the pantry shelves. As I
opened my panniers to do so, I rediscovered Amzil’s bag. I’d promised to
return it to her. I decided to ask Hitch when next I saw him if he knew of
anyone heading in that direction. A pleasing fancy came to me, that I
would put in a few things for her and her children. In the next moment, I
wondered if she would think me fatuous for doing so. She had made her
lack of interest in me plain. Even so, imagining the surprise and delight of
the three youngsters made me smile, and I decided that I didn’t care if
Amzil thought me foolish. I hung the bag on one of the hooks on the wall
so that I would not forget. When I opened the pantry doors, a pleasant
surprise awaited me. The previous inhabitant had departed but left a
goodly store of dried lentils and beans in two fat crocks with heavy
stoppers. Neither damp nor insects had reached them. I immediately put
some to soak for cooking. I had spent some of my remaining coin on
coffee, tea, sugar, and salt, along with four measures of meal and a rasher
of bacon. My biggest indulgence had been a loaf of freshly baked bread.
My days of travel had taught me a great deal about my new body. Limiting
my food intake did not dwindle me, but I did become more lethargic, and
in extreme cases very irritable. I had continued my habit of savoring food,
and I fancied that I better understood now how my body had changed.
Almost all that I took in as sustenance, my body retained. I produced very
little waste, a fact that had been rather disconcerting to me at first. When
I could not find as much food as I wished, I began to crave quantities of
water, which, thankfully, had been plentiful through most of my journey.
My hunger was a constant. I had come to accept it as a companion to my
life, just as some men had to deal with poor eyesight or deafness. The
cramp in my gut was always there, but I had learned to master it. There
were still moments when my hunger could seize my attention, as it had
near the bakery that morning, and in severe cases, it could distract me
until nothing would do until I had found something to put in my mouth. I
had learned to set aside a bit of food against moments such as that, for
when such hunger overtook me, I became almost irrational. It was a
terrible thing to fear that I might slip into such a frame of mind, almost
like dreading a bout of madness.
But tonight I had no such fears. I allowed myself a very hearty meal of
coffee, bread, and bacon. The drippings from the bacon made a wonderful
spread for the fresh bread. By the time I was finished eating, I felt more
satisfied than I had in weeks. I tidied up my pan and plate; checked on my
horse, which seemed as contented with his lush grazing as I had been with
my meal; and then resolved to walk the perimeter of my new domain.
I returned from that walk a sobered man. Grass grew past my knees
throughout most of the cemetery. The trench graves I had noted earlier
betrayed the regular waves of plague that had swept through Gettys. The
markers for individual graves, mostly made from slabs of wood, were
rapidly losing the painted or carved epitaphs they had once held, but they
retained enough information to be heart-rending. The cemetery had
begun in an orderly fashion. In the oldest section, officers and their family
members were grouped together, as were enlisted men. But after the first
trench grave, the burying ground had become a much more egalitarian
place. Infants reposed alongside captains, and humble nameless privates
rested next to colonels. I had thought every grave untended. That was not
so. True, wild grasses dominated the area, but here and there I would
literally stumble across a marker standing sentinel above a groomed grave
site. On a few, flowers grew. On one, perhaps a child’s, a simple string of
wooden beads, their paint fading in the weather, festooned the marker.
When I came to the most recent section of the graveyard, the change was
remarkable. Here, only a season had passed since the last wave of
interments. The last mass grave was a weed-covered hummock crawling
across the hillside. A row of individual graves marked the first rank of
those who had fallen to the plague. A second row after the trench grave
marked, perhaps, those who had lingered before they succumbed, or the
natural deaths that had occurred since the last wave of plague. The
markers were newer and easier to read. To my horror, I discovered that
some kind of animal had burrowed into one of the most recent graves. A
mostly decomposed hand had been brought to the surface and feasted
upon. It was a man’s hand by the size of it, shriveled and dark. The animal
had gnawed at the fleshy palm and mostly ignored the curled fingers with
their yellowed nails. I looked away from it firmly. The size of the burrow
made me think the scavenger was a fairly small creature. I wondered if
these were the depredations that Colonel Haren had been lamenting. If
they were, then a good watchdog might be my best assistant. Jaw traps
might also help me find a solution. But surely a sturdy coffin would have
been the best preventive of such incursions.
I performed my first act of duty, though I will admit that it made me feel
not just edgy but queasy. There were no sticks close at hand. With the toe
of my boot, I nudged the hand back into the creature’s excavation wishing
I had a stick to poke it farther in. Again with my boot, I scraped and
kicked soil back into the hole, and finished up by firmly plugging it with
several rocks of the right diameter. It did not seem a very respectful way
for me to deal with it, but I judged that in this case, promptness exceeded
the need for reverence. I patrolled the rest of the line of recent graves, and
found three other places where wildlife was intruding on the resting places
of the dead. I repeated my rock- and earth-scuffing at each site, resolving
that after this, I’d always take a shovel with me when I made my daily
circuit of the graveyard. The high clouds and fresh wind of the day had
thickened to dark overcast and bluster. The first heavy drops began to fall.
The moisture in the air made it hard to continue ignoring the clinging
smell of the place. Nothing smells quite like rotting human flesh, and my
experience at Widevale had forever associated that terrible stench with
my own stunning losses. It horrified me that such a foul smell carried my
mind immediately to thoughts of my mother. Worse were the mental
images of Elisi that came with it. Try as I might, I could not recall my
elder sister at her harp or sewing, but only as that perpetually sprawled
and futilely grasping corpse. The thought ambushed me that I had done
no better by my family with their hasty burials than Gettys had done with
theirs. It both shamed me and woke kinship in me.
This duty that had been given to me, however lowly anyone else might
regard it, was a trust. In life, these men had served their king as best they
might. They and their families deserved respectful rest. I saw now the
wisdom of the stored coffins in the shed. There were not enough of them. I
wondered if I could persuade my commander that we needed a warehouse
full. I grimaced as I imagined how that would affect morale at the fort.
Planning to be decimated by disease was scarcely optimistic. But I
thought I could convince him it was better than being overwhelmed with
dead bodies when the annual onslaught of Speck plague began.
I thought of the anonymous trench graves. Well, that was within my power
to correct or at least lessen. I’d proven myself as a gravedigger. If I dug a
grave daily and left it open and waiting, would I stay ahead of the plague
victims when the hot dusty days of summer brought the sickness again? I
was not sure, but it was worth trying.
The rain began to fall in earnest, a driving curtain of water. As I cut short
my tour of the graves and cut across their lines in my trek back to my
cottage, I resolved that I would remember that every body buried here had
been beloved by somebody. I passed Clove, hobbled in the tall standing
grass. He’d turned his big rump to the wind and had his head down. He
was already drenched, and I pitied him. I led him to the lee of the shed. If
winters here were as harsh as I’d heard, I’d need to put up some sort of
shelter for him. I’d forgotten to request his corn and oats; a cavalla man’s
horse received his own rations from the regiment. Tomorrow, I promised
myself. Winter was just around the corner, and I still had much to do to
make myself ready for it. The downpour firmed my decision that I would
not return to town this evening. I found I rather looked forward to my first
night in my own residence. Once inside my cottage, I shut the door firmly
behind me. I was pleased to find that the roof was tight, and that the
hearth was sufficient to warm the room to a comfortable temperature. I
took off my wet cloak and hung it on a peg by the door, and pulled off my
boots and stood them under it. And there I stood, suddenly safe within
doors in my own little place, with more comforts than I’d enjoyed in weeks
and with remarkably little to do.
I busied myself as best I could. The beans had begun to swell in the water.
I added more liquid to them and set the kettle at the edge of the hearth.
By tomorrow they would be softened. I would add salt and the last of the
bacon to them, and let them cook all day. Contemplating that gave me so
much satisfaction that I was rather shocked at myself. Surely I wanted
more out of life than to simply have my next meal secured and a tight roof
over my head. But did I?
It was strange to look around my little cottage and realize that I’d fulfilled
my ambition for myself. I was, technically, a soldier. I had a post and a
task. If I saved enough of my pay to afford it, I could have a uniform made
that would fit me and I could wear it. I doubted that my father would ever
be proud of me, but at some point I was sure that I’d let him know that
despite his lack of faith in me, I’d achieved what the good god had decreed
for me. And did I want no more than that out of life?
I was irritated with myself. I took the spindly chair and set it by the hearth
and cautiously perched in it. I’d come all this way to do this, and now that
I’d done it, the first thing I did was question the value of it. Could not I
take even one night of satisfaction in my accomplishment? What was
wrong with me? I added a bit more wood to the fire and stared at it for a
time. Yaril came to mind. I had said that I would provide for her, that I
would send for her as soon as I was able. In the next few days, I should
write to her and tell her where I was and that I was, indeed, a soldier. I
looked around my snug little cabin. Then I tried to picture my sister there.
My heart sank. Yaril had said that she would manage anywhere I did, but
I could not imagine my pretty pampered sister coping here. She had
always lived in privilege and comfort. Could she adapt to life here? I
would have to add another room onto the cabin. How long would she be
content, sleeping on a sack of straw, cooking on an open hearth, fetching
her own water to bathe in a pan? Gettys would offer her little in the way of
amusement or company. How soon would she become bored and bitter?
How could I offer this to Yaril as an escape?
I sat down with my journal. I took paper from my extra leaves, and wrote
Yaril a letter telling her briefly of my adventures on the road and that I
was now at Gettys and an enlisted man. It was hard to tell her that my
situation was such that I could not welcome her yet. I tried to make the
words gentle and affectionate, but feared that no matter what or how I
wrote, she would feel abandoned. I sealed the note, resolving to send it the
next day. My thoughts had spiraled downward. I suddenly saw that all my
life, I’d been shallow and without ambition, content to take my birth order
destiny and make it the sole focus of my life. I made my nightly entry in
my journal. I recounted how I’d finally enlisted, but also included my
terror at nothing and my final image of myself at the end of the day, a
lowly soldier unable to keep his promise to his sister. It was a savage
denunciation of myself. The tidy little cabin I had so enjoyed earlier in the
day now seemed an empty little shell that I had moved myself into,
something that would permit me no growth, nothing but existence.
My hearth fire was the only light in the cabin. I banked it, undressed, and
lay down on my hard bunk. I listened to the wind howl, pitied poor Clove
standing in it, and then fell into a deep sleep.
I dreamed of a smell, rich and spicy. It took me some time to identify it,
and then I recalled it. It was the smell of magic, the same aroma I’d
inhaled when I stood on the pinnacle of the spire and plunged my hands
into the magic of the Dancing Spindle. But in my dream, the scent of
magic became instead the perfume of a woman’s body. She stood naked
before me, perfectly comfortable in her speckled skin. Her nakedness
revealed the pattern of her markings. They were much like a tabby cat’s
stippling, suggestive of stripes. Like a curious cat, she moved soft-footed
and wary around my cabin.
I watched her. The palest parts of her skin were lighter than mine, the
darkest a smooth velvet black. She explored my cabin and my possessions.
She lifted my shirt, fingering the fabric, and then raised it to her face,
where she sniffed it with flared nostrils and half-open mouth. I caught a
glimpse of her white teeth and dark tongue as she tasted my scent. When
she set down my shirt and moved again, I could see the darker streak that
ran down her spine. The speckles that were almost stripes radiated out
from that streak. The nails of her hands and feet were dark. Once she
stopped her prowling and stared long at me. I looked back at her frankly.
Her belly was paler than the rest of her, but still speckled. The nipples of
her breasts were dark. Her hair was long and coarse and as streaked as the
rest of her. The rain had washed her, and her hair clung flat to her skull
and was a soaked veil down her back. Streaks of rain glistened on her skin
and small jewels of it sparkled in her pubic hair. She was not the first
Speck I’d seen, nor even the first Speck woman. But this time there were
no cage bars between her and me, and I felt her feral grace as a muted
threat. Her body was strong, her legs muscled, her thighs and haunches
powerful. She was easily as tall as I was. Her breasts were heavy, swaying
with her walk, and her belly curved frankly above the furred mound
between her legs. There was nothing delicate about her. She was as unlike
a Gernian woman as a wolf is unlike a lapdog. I watched her scoop two
fingers full of beans from my pot and taste them, frowning. She pulled her
fingers from her mouth and shook them disdainfully. Then she moved
again, and came to stand over me in my bed. She leaned down close to
me, so close I could feel her breath on my cheek. I smelled her. Arousal
shocked through me with an insistence I’d never felt before. I lunged for
her.
I awoke on the floor with skinned knees. I was shivering with cold, and still
desperately kindled. But there was no woman, not a scent or sight of her.
The cold wind and driving rain were coming in through the open door.
There were wet leaves tracked across my floor. I wanted most to believe
that there had been a woman there, but knew the more logical explanation
was that I had been sleepwalking again. The rain had chilled me and a few
wet leaves were still plastered to my feet and calves. I stumbled across to
the door, shut it firmly, and made sure of the latch. I added wood to my
fire and then crawled back into my bed.
I tried to find sleep again, but could only skim the surface of it for
moments, like a thrown stone skipping across a river. I listened to the
storm rant and rave outside, and toward dawn I heard it finally give up,
more from weariness than satisfaction.
I arose to a world washed clean, to blue skies and a fresh, cold wind
sweeping the world. Such mornings usually energized me, but today I felt
old and stiff and hampered by my weight. I was hungry, yet too bleak to
want to prepare food for myself. The swollen beans had burst their
wrinkled skins; they looked disgusting. I nudged them closer to the coals
and covered them to continue their slow cooking. I hated myself for being
too stupid and greedy to save some of yesterday’s loaf to break my fast. I
toasted the remaining bacon on a skewer over the fire, ate some, and
dropped the rest into the bean pot When I went for water, the tall
standing grass soaked me to the knees. When I stood up from dipping up
a bucketful, I looked up at the forest on the hillside above me. I felt an
echo of the wonder I’d felt once before at such a sight. But in the next
instant, a wash of fear swept through me. I imagined slogging through wet
leaves while water dripped down on me and tangled roots tripped me.
Buzzing insects would sting me, to say nothing of the threat of poisonous
snakes and the larger predators of the forestlands. No. I wanted nothing to
do with the forest. I turned away from that gloomy, dangerous place,
wishing my cabin were not so close to it. I hurried away with my bucket.
I made a morning of heating water, washing my clothes and myself, and
stringing a clothesline inside my cabin to dry my clothing. I put on my
cavalla hat, a jacket that would not button, and a shirt and a pair of
trousers still damp from washing. I built up the fire in the vain hope that
the rest of my clothing would be dry when I returned, saddled up a
disgruntled Clove, and rode back to Gettys. My cavalla hat was my
admission though the gates. I went back to Colonel Haren’s office. I had no
success in getting in to see him. When I told his desk sergeant that I
wanted to request supplies to build a shelter for my horse, he seemed
shocked that I’d have the ambition for such a task. He filled out a
requisition form for me, acquiescing to everything I asked him for, but
taking such a long time to do it that I felt I’d spent half my life in the office
before he gave it to me. I told him that I wished to speak to the colonel
about creating a supply of coffins against the projected need in plague
time, and that I wished to discuss the wisdom of digging graves
beforehand.
His smile might have been a grimace. “Well, aren’t you the ambitious one?
Do what you think needs doing, soldier. Either no one will notice it, or
someone will complain about it.” He smiled at his own jest and sent me on
my way. The supply sergeant took the requisition form from me, glanced
at it, and then told me to help myself to what I needed in the warehouse.
When I asked for the use of a wagon to haul it, he shrugged and told me
again to take what I needed. The warehouse was worse. I finally found the
men on duty behind the warehouse, leaning against the back wall and
smoking. Three of the four were bony plague survivors. I doubted they had
the muscle to lift a hammer. I showed them my form, and they told me, as
the sergeant had, that I might take what I needed. In the end, that was
what I did. I found a cart and a heavy harness, stiff with disuse. I put
patient Clove between the traces. The lumber was of poor quality, the nail
kegs were jumbled together, and there was no order to any of it. I took
what I wanted, including corn, oats, a sack of hay, and a currying brush
for Clove, and loaded it all myself. When I was finished, I found the
warehouse sergeant out at the back with his men. I asked him if he’d like
to inventory what I’d taken. “I’ll trust you,” he replied, and did not even
walk around to look at the laden wagon. It seemed to tax his ambition to
walk as far as his untidy office, where he put a sloppy signature on my
form and thrust it back at me. I left there feeling vaguely insulted by the
whole procedure. Before I left town, I took my letter to the dispatch office
and paid a breathtaking fee to have it delivered. Then I went to the
infirmary to visit Hitch again. He was much as he had been the day
before. When I complained about how slack discipline seemed at Gettys
and the apathetic warehouse men, he grinned lazily. He motioned me
closer to his bedside, as if to tell me a secret, and then said softly, “They
danced it out of us, lad. You went to the end of the road, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. I didn’t find it humorous, Hitch.”
“That’s Lieutenant Hitch, soldier!” he said sharply, and when I flinched, he
laughed softly. “You should see what happens every time they try to send a
road work crew into the forest. Half of them can’t remember their own
names by the day’s end, and in a week, you might get a day’s worth of
work done. Try it sometime yourself. Go walking into the forest. You’ll feel
it. You feel it already, I’ll wager. I’m surprised you had the sand to get this
far.” He lay back in his bed and let his eyes droop closed. “Don’t fight it,
Never. There’s no point in fighting it. Your pay’s the same whether you
work or slack. Relax, trooper.”
I put it down to the laudanum. As I stood up to leave, he reminded me,
“Hey. You didn’t salute me when you came in.”

I could not tell if his words were a rebuke or a jest. I stood and gave him
my best salute. He rewarded me with a faint laugh and a feeble wave of his
hand. I pulled my coat tighter around me as I emerged onto the
windswept street. If this were a foretaste of winter, I’d soon need to do
something about my wardrobe. The bleakness of Gettys struck me all over
again. Everywhere I looked, neglect met my eyes. Weeds straggled along
the sides of the street. The paint was peeling from the fronts of the
buildings, and shutters hung crookedly. Although people moved on the
streets, there was no bustle. A young soldier, his shirt stained with old
gravy, walked past me, his eyes on the ground. I wondered if morale was
always so low at this post, or if the stormy weather were to blame.
The lone exception was a young woman in a blue gown with voluminous
skirts. The wind had pressed her skirts against her legs, effectively
hobbling her. She wore a heavy black cloak as well, and this the wind
whipped wildly. She was struggling with it and a market basket she
carried, and did not notice my scrutiny. “Drat!” she exclaimed sharply
when the wind wrenched the garment free of her. It took flight down the
street like a crippled blackbird, and she raced after it and captured it by
making a wild leap and landing on it with both feet. As she picked up the
flapping cloak from the muddy ground, I suddenly recognized her. Epiny.
My cousin was older than when I had last seen her. A moment later, I
revised that. No. She was dressing as a woman now, but if she had
matured in any way, it did not show.
As I stared at her, a sergeant hurrying out the door of the store bumped
into me. “Stop blocking the door,” he barked at me. Then as he caught
sight of Epiny in the street, he glared at me. “Oaf. You’d rather stand and
leer at a woman than offer her help. Get out of my way.”
He hurried across the street to offer his aid. She thrust the heavy basket at
him and then spun in a circle, letting the wind lift the muddied cloak
wide, before she sort of danced herself into it, finally trapping it around
her. There was a large dirty patch on the back of it now. I blushed for how
foolish she looked as I heard her thanking the man for his help. I think
she felt my stare. They both glanced toward me, and I found myself
lowering my head and turning to one side. She did not know me. The brim
of my cavalla hat hid my face, and there was nothing about my body that
she could possibly recognize. I walked quickly around the wagon and
climbed up onto the seat. I could not find a clear thought for why I was
avoiding her. “I’m not ready,” I muttered to myself. “Not yet. Let me get
settled, and then I’ll make myself known to them.” I took the wheel brake
off and shook the reins, and Clove leaned into his harness. I think he was
grateful to be back to pulling rather than being ridden. The ride home
took longer than when I’d ridden horseback. The road had been soaked by
the rain, leaving the ruts full of standing water. As I let Clove pick his way,
I tried to sort out my thoughts and feelings on seeing Epiny. I’d felt that
lift of anticipation at the sight of a familiar face, followed by my surprise
that she and undoubtedly Spink were here and settled in already. For
some reason, I thought it would take them far longer to transfer their
home. I thought of how pleasant it would be to call on them, to sit down to
a meal and talk of people we knew. And then I laid my own dread bare to
myself: that would never happen now. Cousin or not, Epiny was an
officer’s wife. Spink was no longer Spink to me: he was Lieutenant Kester.
By now they probably had their own circle of friends among the other
young officers stationed at Gettys. What could I be to them, save an
embarrassment? Yet even as such a thought came to me, I knew that
Epiny and Spink would both stand by me, whatever my rank or physical
condition.
Yet it was not their reaction but my own that concerned me. Could I salute
my best friend and stand before him and wish him well, without spoiling
it with the greenest of envy? Could either Spink or I make Epiny
understand that no matter what had gone before, Spink was now an
officer and I merely an enlisted man, and thus could not fraternize with
any comfort? All I could see would be discomfort, embarrassment, and
shame on my part. I felt the greatest wave of revulsion that I had ever felt
for my body at that moment. It surrounded and engulfed me in a wall of
yielding flesh. I felt it with every jounce of the cart, how my thighs met
and my elbows rested against the roll of fat that masked my ribs. I felt the
heaviness of my jowls and cheeks. It was even in how my hat sat upon my
head. My soldier’s hat, the sole symbol that I was a soldier son. When I
reached home, I turned to what I always could rely on to empty my mind. I
worked. The sack of hay became stuffing for my mattress. It was clean and
fragrant, and Clove would not miss it. I unloaded my building supplies,
and put the harness in my storage shed. I’d take the cart back to Gettys
tomorrow, I decided. I doubted anyone would miss it.
It was a chill day, but I was soon sweating. I’d decided that Clove’s shelter
would be attached to the toolshed, to save myself constructing one wall. I
worked with shovel and pickax to level an area next to it that would make
a generous box stall for the big horse. Setting the two uprights made me
wish I had another set of hands and eyes to help me. I felt it even more
keenly when putting up the supports for the roof. The carpentry was a
different sort of work than I’d done in months, and I lost myself in the
simple pleasure of working steadily and watching what I had imagined
take shape. The smell of the sawdust, the rhythm and sound of a nail
squarely driven, the satisfaction that comes when the final plank fits snug
and true in a wall: there is a lot to be said for honest work and the ease
that it can bring to a troubled heart. The dimness of the early night had
crept up on me before I was finished. I felt more satisfaction over that stall
than I had over signing my enlistment papers. When I poured the corn
into the grain box, Clove came gratefully into his new shelter. I went into
my little cabin, taking my mucky boots off by the door. I built up the fire
again and lifted the lid off my bean pot. Fragrant steam rose gratifyingly. I
hung up my cloak, and then dismantled my makeshift clothesline and
folded or hung my extra clothing. As I put it all neatly away, I tried to
retain the sense of satisfaction I’d felt earlier. I set my little table with my
cutlery and bowl, and ladled myself a generous helping of the baked beans.
I had tea to go with it, and sugar. I ate my meal with pleasure, perched
carefully on my rickety chair. Tomorrow, I resolved, I’d remedy that. I’d
make myself something that not only could accept my weight but would be
comfortable to sit on.
As night lowered outside and the world grew chill and black, I was safe
and warm within my shelter. I had much to be grateful for, and very little
to complain about, I told myself. Nevertheless, when I sought my
now-softened bed that night, a bleakness of heart settled on me once
more.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ROUTINE DUTY
I began each day with a patrol of the cemetery, shovel in hand. Diligently I
repaired animal damage to any grave. I made notes of headboards that
would soon need replacing, jotting down information that might
otherwise be lost. I maintained the paths and improved them, evening out
the ruts and adding drainage. And every day, I dug a fresh grave. I
measured them precisely, and dug them deep and straight-edged. I
mounded the soil so it would not fall back into my excavations. I did this
past the time when the frosts came and froze the ground. I stopped only
when the snows began. My diligence was the only reason that when
Narina Geddo died from pleurisy at six years, three months, and five days,
an open grave was waiting.
I knew Narina Geddo’s age to the day because I was informed that one of
my duties as cemetery guard was to carve the grave markers. I did hers in
my cabin one long evening. I put the plank on my table and puzzled out
how to engrave the letters and numbers into the wood with the few tools I
had. I’d never been a whittler, but I fancy that I did well enough. I threw
the chips and shavings into my fire as I worked, and when I was finished,
for good measure, I heated the poker and burned black each letter and
number in the hopes they would remain legible a bit longer.
The next day I drove to town with a coffin in the back of my cart. Clove
snorted and steamed as the cart jolted along over the frozen ruts of the
road. When I stopped outside the small house that belonged to Corporal
Geddo, his older daughter opened the door, looked out, and gave a wild
shriek of fear. “It’s a croaker-bird man, come for little Narrie! Papa, don’t
let him eat her!” I heard later that the tale of her words scampered
through the town and brought laughter to those untouched by the tragedy.
But that day, no one laughed at her words. I bowed my head and held my
tongue. I suppose that with my cold-reddened face and flapping black
cloak, I did look like one of Orandula’s carrion birds. The little girl’s
solemn father came to my cart and wordlessly took the coffin from it. I sat
and waited in the biting wind. A time passed, and then he and another
man carried it back and loaded it. It weighed very little. I wondered if I’d
been thoughtless, bringing such a large box for such a small body. I
wondered if a man so gripped by grief could care about such things. Clove
and I led, and the small funeral procession of men and women on foot and
horseback followed.
I had cleared the grave cavity of fallen snow the night before, so there was
a trodden path for the mourners to follow. I did not stand with the
attendees. Instead, I watched from a distance as the family lowered their
child into the frozen earth, and Gettys’ sole priest, a thin, pale plague
survivor, said words over her. When they were gone, I went back with my
pickax and shovel to break the frozen mound of snowy soil into lumps that
thundered down on her coffin as I shoveled them in. It seemed a harsh and
cruel sound, and heartless somehow to bury a little girl beneath frozen
clods of earth. Yet, in a way, I was proud of myself. Without my foresight
to dig a grave, I was told, her little body would have been stored in the
coffin and toolshed until spring softened the earth and she could be
decently buried. So they had done in years past. Putting such a young
child to rest put me in mind of Amzil and her brood. I had not thought of
her in weeks, and her carry sack that I had borrowed still hung on my wall.
That day I resolved I would make good on my promise to myself, and also
attempt again to win an audience with the colonel. I saddled Clove in the
dim afternoon, and rode to town.
I was less of a spectacle than I had been when I first arrived. I still heard
the occasional sniggering remark as I passed, but fewer folks stopped and
stared. They’d probably had their fill of doing it. Now that I lived among
them, I’d lost my novelty. I came to town several times a week to take a
meal in the mess hall with the other troopers. I’d found Rollo’s Tavern and
claimed my beer and admitted my Gettys sweat. People knew me as
Nevare the cemetery guard, and some I called friend. It did not mean,
however, that everyone regarded me kindly or even neutrally. It still
unnerved me to find that my size stirred feelings of extreme dislike in
people, even when I had given them no other cause to take offense.
My pay as a common soldier was not generous, but I had relatively few
wants, and I’d been very stingy with the money that Yaril had slipped into
my pack, so I still had a small cache of funds. I took my saved money to
town and tried to be wise in the gifts I bought for Amzil and her children.
In the mercantile, I bought red woolen fabric, four loaves of barley sugar
shaped like flowers, a box of tea, and a small round cheese. I’d already
spent more than I’d intended when I saw the book of nursery tales with
hand-colored pictures in it. It would be a foolish gift, I told myself. None of
them could read it, and the price was very dear. Nonetheless, I found
myself giving over the money for it and sliding it into the worn rucksack
with the other items. “That’s more than I meant to spend,” I observed
innocuously as I counted out the scrip on the counter. “What you want it
for, anyway? Going to read stories to the dead?” The young son of the
storeowner had been waiting on me. He looked as if he were about twelve,
or perhaps a very unhealthy fourteen. Since I’d walked in, he’d regarded
me with the same disdain he exhibited to me every time I came in for
supplies. I was weary of him, but his father’s store had the best supplies in
Gettys. Nowhere else could I have found a picture book, let alone barley
sugar shaped like flowers.
“It’s a present,” I said gruffly.
“For who?” he demanded, as if he had the right.
“Some children I know. Good day.” I turned to leave.
“A bit early for Dark Eve gifts,” he observed to my back. I shrugged one
shoulder by way of response. I was nearly out the door when another voice
spoke behind me. “Nevare?”
Despite myself, I turned to my name. A young man in a lieutenant’s
uniform had stepped out from behind a tall rack of tools. The moment I
recognized Spink, I turned away again. I headed for the door as if I’d never
paused. “Wait!” I heard Spink exclaim. I didn’t. I was out the door and
mounting Clove before he caught up with me.
“Nevare! It is you! It’s me, Spink! Don’t you know me?”
“Excuse me, sir. I believe you’re mistaken, sir.” I was shocked he knew me.
I scarcely would have recognized myself as the trim academy cadet I’d
once been. I avoided looking at him.
Spink looked up at me incredulously. “Are you saying that I don’t know
who I am, or that I don’t recognize you?”
“Sir, I don’t think you know me. Sir.”
“Nevare, this is ridiculous! I can’t believe you’re going to insist on this
bizarre charade.”
“Yes, sir, I am. May I be dismissed, sir?”

“Huh.” He breathed out in a harsh sound of disbelief. “Yes. Dismissed,
soldier.
Whatever is the matter with you? What’s become of you?” If he expected
an answer, he didn’t get one. I rode away from him. The afternoon was
already dark, the yellow lights of Gettys leaking out from the small houses
and businesses. The streets were all dirty churned snow over hard ice ruts.
Clove’s big round hooves threw up chunks of frozen muck as I urged him
into a ponderous trot. I rode him toward the gates, but when I judged that
Spink would no longer be staring after me, I turned him aside to go to
Colonel Haren’s headquarters I resolved that I would not let my encounter
with Spink rattle me from my course. I told myself that I’d done what was
best for both of us. Spink was a lowly lieutenant, still new to Gettys, an
officer with no years of experience behind him nor good social
connections. It would not do him any good to admit that he was related by
marriage to the fat gravedigger. No. It was best to leave everything as it
was. My life served a useful purpose. Actually, I was more than useful. I
was succeeding at a task where all others had failed. Perhaps I was not
serving my king as an illustrious officer; perhaps I would never lead a
battle charge or win the day for Gernia. But then, neither would Spink, in
his role overseeing food supplies and deliveries for the fort. In reality, how
many soldiers ever did win a burst of glory? Even if I’d completed the
academy, like as not I’d have ended up doing some mindless task, much as
Spink had. It was not so bad, what I did. It was necessary. Even Colonel
Haren said as much. That day, I finally managed to get in to see him. I
think it was more his sergeant’s decision than his. I’d been coming in
every third day, and each day been turned away. When I’d tried to voice
my concerns to his sergeant, he’d gravely informed me that as I was
outside the chain of command, reporting directly to the colonel, he could
not help me. That afternoon when I walked into his room, the sergeant
had sighed heavily, flipped a hand at the door, and suggested sourly, “Go
ahead. Try your luck. Don’t blame me if it’s all bad.”

“Thank you.” I’d immediately crossed to the door and knocked briskly.
When the colonel barked irritably, “What is it?” I’d taken advantage of the
query to enter and present myself.
Colonel Haren did not look surprised to see me. He was exactly as I’d seen
him weeks before, as if he hadn’t moved the whole time. He still wore his
smoking jacket and cavalla trousers. This time, at least, he had two
slippers on his feet. As before, the warmth in his room was overpowering.
After a glance at me, he went back to staring at his roaring fire. “Well. I
knew you’d be back, trying to go back on your word. ‘I’ll do anything,’ you
said, didn’t you? Now I know what you’ll say. Can’t cut it, can you? Did
you come to me to beg me to reassign you, or threaten to desert? Or will
you say you’re ill? I’ve seen better men than you fail at this assignment.
‘He won’t last,’ I told myself when I gave it to you. And here you are.”
I was startled. “Sir?”
“Now you’re going to tell me all the same stories I’ve heard before. Haunts
and ghosties wafting out of the trees at night. Loneliness that cuts to the
bone. Strange chill winds when you walk through the cemetery, even on a
sunny day. Odd scratching sounds at night, and an utter discouragement
with your life that you cannot shake. Thoughts of suicide. I’m right, aren’t
I?” Although all of those things sounded somewhat familiar, I shook my
head. “No, sir. I’m here to discuss gravedigging, coffins, and what I am
allowed to do about renewing the markers on the old graves. Some are
scarcely legible anymore. Were any written records kept of who was
buried where?”
His eyes widened at me. “Well, what would be the sense in that?”
“For their relatives, sir. So they might know where their sons are buried.
In case they came to Gettys to visit the grave.”
He shrugged that off. “The ones that really care about such things pay to
have them carted home. The others…well. If you’ve the time and it gives
you comfort, repair the markers as best you can. Dismissed.”
“Sir, that isn’t the only reason I came.”
He compressed his lips and knotted his fists. Then he swung his feet off his
hassock and sat up straight to face me. “Do your duty, soldier! If graves
are being desecrated, then it’s your own fault for not guarding them well
enough! If a body is taken, it’s up to you to track it down, untangle it from
the tree, bring it back, and rebury it. Quietly. And I for one do not care
how many times you have to do it! So do it and don’t complain.”
I was shocked, stunned to silence. I finally had a complete description of
what my job was to entail. “No bodies have been stolen, sir,” I managed to
say. “But I would like to talk to you about coffins, sir. I think a ready
supply of sturdy coffins might be good planning. To prevent the very sort
of desecration you’ve spoken about.”
He seemed very relieved that I was neither trying to quit nor reporting
stolen bodies. “What do you want, man?”
“I’ve looked at the cemetery and how it has been filled. It’s obvious to me
that at regular intervals, such as every summer, we are overwhelmed with
Speck plague victims. Bodies are buried in one communal trench, without
coffins. I’d like to remedy that, sir. I’ve begun by digging surplus graves.
Now I’d like to suggest that we warehouse coffins. If we built them now
and set them by, any man who died would at least be assured of the
dignity of a proper burial.”
“Oh, and that would be a real morale booster, wouldn’t it, trooper? I could
address the whole regiment, ‘Well, fellows, seeing as how the foul weather
and utter lack of anything of cultural significance in this godforsaken
posting has left you idle, I propose that you each build at least one coffin
each, so that when summer arrives with the heat, dust, and plague to end
your miserable existence here, you’ll be assured of a nice burial.’”
I was aghast. “I didn’t mean it like that, sir. Only that, well, prudence
dictates that recognizing that a problem exists and taking measures
against it is…” I faltered to a halt. That bit of wisdom had come from an
engineering instructor at the academy.
“Quite so. But a warehouse full of coffins might not create the best
impression on visiting dignitaries the next time…if there is a next time…”
Now his voice dwindled away. I read in his silence thwarted ambition and
dreams gone awry. “This is a dreadful post,” he said quietly. “I was an
ambitious man when I arrived here. Now look at me. I can’t get out of my
own path. Something about this place sucks the heart out of a man,
trooper. The rate of desertion, suicide, and plain dereliction of duty defies
all common sense.” He stopped, and suddenly seemed to realize that he
was talking to someone so far his subordinate that we could have nothing
in common. He sighed.
“Very well. You are correct. We would be prudent to take measures
against the inevitable. But I shall not order the building of coffins. I shall
authorize the men to acquire a supply of wood, saw it into lumber, and
keep a supply of the needed dimensions to build coffins. Acquiring the
wood will be a difficult enough task. Are you satisfied? I’ll issue the orders
that will ready planks for our yearly devastation.”
“I’m sorry that it was necessary for me to ask, sir,” I said quietly. “And I
thank you for granting my request.” I longed to know more about the
other things he had mentioned, but there was no acceptable way for me to
ask those questions. I turned to go.
“Burvelle.”

I turned back to him. “Yes, sir?”

“You’re not very good at deception, are you?”

I stared at him, flummoxed. He said nothing. I think it took over a minute
for me to comprehend what I’d done. He’d called me by my proper name
and I’d responded. I looked down at the floor. “No, sir. I suppose I’m not.”

He sighed. “Neither am I. Your father would prefer that you not know he’s
aware you are here. But I’m in command of this fort, not him. And I’m not
going to play cat-and-mouse with any of my troopers.” He turned and
looked back at the fire. “He must have sent the dispatches out the same
day you left. I suspect he sent them to every place he thought it likely you’d
try to enlist. He stated, quite coldly, that you had no right to call yourself
his son or to use his name anymore.”

I felt like someone had fisted me in the gut and driven all the air from my
lungs. I hadn’t thought my father’s ire would push him so far. “That’s my
father,” I said quietly. “Always smoothing the path for me.”
“Indeed,” Colonel Haren replied grimly. “But I should let you know that he
also wrote that you were a soldier son, destined by the good god to serve as
a soldier, and that if any of us saw fit to sign you on, wretchedly unfit as
you were, we had his blessing to do whatever we thought best, no matter
how harsh, to hammer some sort of a soldier out of you. Even so, when I
first set eyes on you, I didn’t want to take you in. He’d made you sound like
a whining spoiled rich man’s son, hiding from his duty. You impressed me
when you said you’d take any post, no matter how dirty. So I signed you
on. Today you’ve surprised me. In a good way, I’ll add. I don’t regret
letting you enlist with my regiment.” There was an awkward pause
between us.
Then I said quietly, “Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me. It’s not a favor to you. It’s a matter of my own ethics.” A
hint of steel was shining through the rust on the officer. Truth to tell, I was
glad to see it. I remained at attention, looking straight ahead at the dim
tapestry on the wall. I wondered if he’d report back to my father. Did I
want him to? I kept my mouth shut. He’d tell me what he wanted me to
know. He took a breath and then let it out rapidly, as if he’d decided
something. He changed the topic abruptly. “Burvelle, I deplore the
‘initiation’ that most of our recruits are put through. But I assume you
endured it. What did you think of it? Speak freely.”
“It was horrible, sir. But it did do what everyone told me it would do. I
now understand our mission. And how hopeless it is.”
“I was afraid you’d come to that conclusion. Far too many of my officers
and men have. I sit here, day after day, and ponder my dilemma. I’ve a
road to build. But no one can get close enough to the end of it to push it
any further. We can’t even seem to finish the approach to it. You’re
academy-trained, in leadership as well as engineering, I assume. So with
all that fancy schooling, I’d hope that you’d have an insight for me,
perhaps.”
I didn’t, but I didn’t want to state it that baldly. “I only went for a year, sir.
And it was interrupted by the plague.”
“Nonetheless, you come from a good bloodline. New noble’s son or not, the
blood of the old Burvelle line runs through you. Continue as you’ve begun,
and I’ll see that you get a chance to rise through the ranks. You’ll have to
earn it, but I want you to know that I’ll not hold you down because of your
father’s ire. Nor raise you because of your name.”
“Thank you, sir.” His words kindled something in me, a hope that I’d
thought had died. I suddenly burned with the need to distinguish myself
before this man, as more than just a cemetery guard. “Sir, I see three ways
to approach the dilemma of the road.”
“Well. Let’s have them.”
“The first is obvious and I’m sure it has been tried. Go around whatever it
is.”
He shook his head. “The road’s development follows the old trading trails
that go up and eventually through the mountains. There is one good pass
fit for the King’s Road. Unless we intend to level hills and fill in valleys for
miles, this is the best and only approach. What are your other two
thoughts, trooper?”
I’d heard as much from the other men. There was seldom a night that the
dilemma of the road was not discussed in every tavern. Farleyton
Regiment had fallen on hard times, but they still had their pride. If there
was a way to succeed at this damnable mission, they wanted to find it.
“Find a way to shield the men from the terror.”
He furrowed his brow. “Do you have any practical suggestions for doing
that? Are you saying you think armor would stop it?”
“No, sir. But it’s well known that sometimes drink will make a cautious
man foolishly bold. Can a man be numbed to the terror, yet still alert
enough to carry on his work?”
“You’re suggesting liquor. Or a drug?”
“Laudanum seemed to set Scout Hitch’s mind at ease over his injuries.”
He gave a short sharp nod to himself. “That’s a new suggestion. I’ll speak
to the post doctors and see if there’s any value in it. And your third
thought?”
“Find what causes the terror, sir, and stop it. From the talk I’ve heard, the
old trading trail was used for generations. Now no one can pass that way,
and the Specks have to come down to trade. So I speculate that something
caused that fear to, well, to start. It wasn’t always there. And if something
can be made to start, perhaps it can be made to stop.”
He pursed his lips and then sucked them in as if he’d forgotten his mouth
wasn’t holding a pipe. “That’s an…unusual way to see it. But sometimes
that’s how you get around a problem. Looking it at from a new angle.” He
nodded to himself and for a short time stared at the lampshade. I hoped
he was pondering some new thought rather than completely forgetting
that I was still standing there. I summoned up all my nerve. “Sir. May I
ask a question?”
“You may.”
“Does the king know what we face here? Does General Brodg?”
“Attempts have been made to explain it to the king. He did not accept the
explanation. As for General Brodg, he has, as have the rest of us,
experienced a Gettys sweat. Often, when I hear him criticized as having
too much sympathy for the common soldier, I think that perhaps that is at
the base of it. He has come to Gettys; he has seen what we face here, not
just the terror, but the plague.” He suddenly cleared his throat, perhaps
feeling he’d said too much to a common soldier. “You’re dismissed,
trooper. Back to your duties. Tell the sergeant to write up the orders to
have the carpentry shop turn out planks of a proper length for fifty coffins,
but not to phrase it that way. I’m sure he can deal with that. And be
assured that I’ll be watching you, Burvelle. Burve. Dismissed.”
I about-faced smartly and left the room. After a brief conference with the
sergeant, during which I wondered if he were also aware of my secret, I
left the headquarters and went back out in the street.
I’d left the colonel’s office with more questions than I’d come with. I
couldn’t decide if our commander were mildly insane or a damn good
officer. The chance that he might be both was particularly unsettling.
The colonel’s unpredictable mood and my chance encounter with Spink
had disturbed me. I decided that rather than go back to my cabin and
dwell on those things, I’d take my meal at the mess with the other enlisted
men. It was something I did occasionally, when I was in a mood to endure
gibes and mockery for the sake of some socializing. Some of the men were
almost my friends. The mess was in a long, two-storey building. The lower
room was for the enlisted men; the officers always went up the stairs to a
more genteel atmosphere. At one end of the big open room, there was a
kitchen, with three large hearths for cooking and big ovens built above
them for turning out enough bread to feed everyone. It was probably
hellishly hot in summer, but in winter the heat from the cooking and the
smells of the food made it a welcome oasis. The ceiling was low and
darkened with smoke. In the enlisted men’s mess, the floor was made of
rough timber and permanently filthy. The tables were battered wood, and
the long benches were uncomfortable and awkward for me, but I’d come
to like the noisiness of the place. I missed the sounds of people talking,
laughing, and eating almost as much as I missed my books and lessons.
My glimpse of Spink had brought all those memories back afresh.
Ebrooks and Kesey were seated when I came in. I picked up a large bowl of
steaming mutton stew and four fresh rolls of bread and went to join them.
They were not the brightest of fellows. Their summer duty was to keep the
grass in the cemetery mowed down. In winter, they shoveled snow or
cleared ice from the walkways. In the plague season, they dug graves.
“Hey, Fats,” Ebrooks greeted me without malice. He called Kesey “Curly.”
The man was nearly bald. “How’s the gravedigging business these days?”
“Cold,” I told him, and he laughed as if it were funny. Then Ebrooks
lowered his face to his soup bowl to spoon up more food. He always ate
like that. His spoon never had to travel more than a couple of inches. I
sampled mine. It tasted like wet sheep smelled.
“What brings you to town?” Kesey asked. He was an older man and had
lost several teeth in the front of his mouth, but I didn’t know if it were to
fighting or rot. He made a lot of sucking noises at meals as he freed the
food trapped in his mouth.
“I had some questions for the colonel. And I wanted to do some shopping.
Do either of you know anyone who’s headed west on the road soon? I’ve
got a package I’d like delivered.” I stirred the stew in my bowl. A quarter
of an onion, three carrots, and some crumbling lumps of potato. There
were two gristly lumps of meat coiled defensively in the bottom of the bowl
and little slivers of meat in the flour-thickened broth. And pepper. Lots of
pepper. I think it was the only spice they used. I chose the carrot first. It
had been cooked too long; its texture was gone. But the flavor had lingered
and I savored it.
“Delivered where?” Kesey demanded, breaking into my food reverie.
“Dead Town. There’s a woman named Amzil there, with three kids. She
put me up for a while and loaned me a rucksack. It’s time to send it back
to her.”
“Oooooh, Amzil. Yessir. That’s a nice bit, when you can get it. I’m
surprised you don’t want to ‘deliver’ that yourself.” Ebrooks waggled his
tongue appreciatively.
“It’s nothing like that. Just a return for hospitality.” I tried not to let my
annoyance show.
“You’re out of luck, Fats. All the carters have stopped for the winter. If a
winter storm catches you on the road this time of year, you’re a dead man.
Snow comes down, wind blows it smooth, and whoops, where did that
road go? Most of them won’t chance it. There won’t be much traffic until
spring. You might find a scout heading out that way, but good luck getting
a favor from any of them. You might have to make the trip yourself if you
want it delivered. Just go. Who’s to know?”
“I might,” I lied. My feelings about Amzil were decidedly mixed. I wanted
to send her the gifts, not just for the children’s joy but to make her think
well of me. At the same time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see her again. I’d
heard too many men casually refer to her as the Dead Town whore. I
wasn’t sure I could visit her without her seeing that in my eyes.
“I think that one of the scouts might take it for you. Hitch, or that new
fellow, Tibber, Tiber, whatever his name is.”
“Lieutenant Tiber? He’s here?”
“You know him?” Ebrooks looked surprised.

“Not really. I’ve heard of him.”

“What did you hear?”

“Oh, just rumors. He’s a noble’s son, isn’t he? Didn’t he go to the
academy?”

“Who cares? Jumped-up bastards.” Kesey sounded disgusted that I’d even
give it a thought. As far as they knew, I was a common soldier’s son, as
they were. They expected me to share their disdain for officers who were
born to that calling. That stung, but I nodded and went back to my food.
The potatoes were as overcooked at the carrots. The bread was good,
though. I tore the bread and used the pieces to mop up the peppery broth.
I thought about the food, not about Tiber and the ambitions we had once
shared. The jealousy of the old nobles’ sons had dashed his hopes. My
brush with Speck magic had stolen mine. Ebrooks broke into my thoughts
again. “What’d you ask the colonel?”

“I asked him if we could stockpile more coffins. We know the plague is
going to come again. It comes every summer. And from what I can see,
every summer, we run out of graves and coffins and the time to make
more, and end up burying our dead in a trench. I just thought we could
admit what happens, and have coffins ready. I’ve been doing my part. I
dig a new grave every day.”

“Aye. See. I told you he wasn’t going to go off like Rheims did.” Ebrooks
addressed this to Kesey.

“Who’s Rheims?” I demanded.
“Last fellow who had your job.” Kesey paused to suck noisily at the gaps in
his teeth. “He come to town three times, begging the colonel to put
someone else out there. Then he killed himself. Or so some say. Some
fellows said they saw him dead over his gun, then come to town to report
it. When they sent us out there to see, there wasn’t anything there. No
gun, no body.”
“No blood?” I asked them.
They looked at one another and shrugged. They didn’t know. They
probably hadn’t looked for it. I suspected they’d felt only relief at not
having a body to bury. They weren’t curious in that way, I suppose. I’d
met them the second time I’d come to the mess hall to eat. They’d sat
down beside me and introduced themselves as gravediggers and
caretakers of the cemetery in summer. The graveyard was the common
bond that made us friends.
“Was his body ever found?” I asked. I expected that to be a negative.
Again, they exchanged a glance. “We found it. Finally. And we brought
him back and buried him.”
“Where did you find it?” I felt resigned to having to pull the story from
them a bit at a time.
Kesey ran his tongue over his teeth, then opened his mouth with a
popping sound.

“The usual place. In a tree.”

“Someone stole his body and left it in a tree?”

“’Course in a tree. Where else?”

I was bewildered. “Why a tree? Did an animal drag him up there?”

“You might say that,” Kesey snickered.

But Ebrooks was incredulous. “You don’t know about the bodies in the
trees? I thought sure they would have told you that when you took the
job.”

I shook my head. “All I know is that I’m a soldier son, I needed to enlist,
and after I helped Scout Hitch, Colonel Haren said he’d have me. And he
assigned me to guard the cemetery.” I knew a bit more, but I thought
feigning ignorance might encourage them to talk.

Again, they shared a look. “And you said he had to be some kind of brave
to take the job.” Ebrooks scoffed at Kesey. “Damn fool didn’t know a thing
about what he was getting into!”
Their grins were wide but also uneasy when I said, “So why don’t you tell
me, then? What about the fellows who have guarded the cemetery before
me? What about the stolen bodies?”
“Well, ain’t all that much to tell,” Kesey said cheerily. “Sometimes it
happens, sometimes it doesn’t. You bury somebody, and poof, the next day
the grave’s dug up and the body’s gone. Then you got to go into the forest
and look till you find it. And that’s damn hard, you know, cause one day
the forest will be full of spooky noises and the next you’ll go in there and
under the trees it’s so thick with weariness and discouragement, a man
can’t hardly keep his eyes open. But anyway, you find the body, tear it
free, and bring it back and bury it again. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, it
stays buried. Sometimes you got to go get it again the next day. Easier the
second time, because it will be in the same tree. But it will be worse for
dragging it around, because the bodies go bad so fast, after a tree has
been at it, you know.”
They spoke so calmly, and I found myself nodding. A long-ago memory
surfaced, of words overheard in the night outside my father’s study. “The
Specks do it?” I asked.
“Well, sure. Who else?”

“Why?”

“Because they’re savages, with no proper respect for the dead. They do it
to mock us!” Ebrooks was adamant.

“I don’t know about that,” Kesey said. “Some folks think they do it like it’s
a sacrifice to their gods.”
“No. It’s to make fun of us, to force us to go into their damned forest. That
place is enough to drive a man mad. But we know we’ve got to go in there,
to get our own dead back.”
“Why is it so difficult to go into the forest?” I asked. “I live right near the
edge of it. It’s not like the end of the road is.”
They looked at one another again, sharing their conviction of my idiocy. I
decided if they did it one more time, I might try knocking their heads
together. “Don’t you talk to anyone?” Ebrooks demanded. “Don’t you
know anything about the Specks?”
I fancied I knew a great deal more about the Specks than they did. Before I
could phrase a more tactful thought, Kesey grinned and challenged me,
“Why don’t you just try going into the forest, Nevare? Find out for
yourself.”
“I probably will, but I’d like to know—” My request was cut short by a
sergeant bellowing their names. They both rose hastily and followed him.
The sergeant gave me a disdainful glare before he turned and led them
away. I knew the man slightly. His name was Hoster, and he was the man
who had helped Epiny with her cloak that windy day. He’d formed a bad
opinion of me that day and had never troubled to change it. He seemed to
find my fat a personal affront. Today his harassment was veiled, limited to
sending away my dining companions on some trivial task.
I sat by myself, finishing my cooling stew and savoring the fresh bread. I
let myself focus on the bread, how it tore between my fingers, on the
difference between the brown crust and the softer interior. I felt my teeth
break it down with my chewing, the satisfaction of swallowing. This, I
could always rely on. Food never failed me.
I cleared my place at the table. Most of the men were dispersing. As I was
leaving, Lieutenant Tiber entered. He let the door bang shut behind him
and stepped to one side to unwind a long muffler from around his face and
throat before taking off the heavy woolen cloak he wore.
I had not seen him since he’d left the academy to become a scout. I still
could not look at him without feeling a measure of guilt. If I had spoken
up sooner about what I’d seen the night he was beaten and left for dead,
perhaps scandal would not have stained him. Winter aged him as it does
some men: he looked bitter, and the lines in his face were deepened by the
redness of his cheeks. The mud-spattered edge of his cloak seemed to
attest to a journey just completed. He glanced at me, grimaced with
distaste at my portliness, and then his eyes slid away, dismissing me as
being of no consequence. I watched him strip the gloves from his hands;
despite their protection, his hands were red with chilblains. I challenged
myself to approach him and ask if he could carry my gifts to Amzil on his
next mission in that direction. But he was an officer, and obviously tired,
cold, and in a hurry to get to hot food. I halted and he strode past me
without a glance. I left the mess hall. The ride home in the dark seemed
longer than usual. The rucksack hung at my saddle, a bag full of good
intentions. I idly wondered if Colonel Haren would grant me leave to
deliver my gifts myself. He’d probably think I was trying to desert. Then I
wondered if anyone would notice if I took half a dozen days to ride out to
Dead Town and back. Would Amzil be glad to see me? Or would she think
that I’d heard of her reputation and come to try my luck with gifts? I
clenched my teeth. I had no time for a schoolboy’s infatuation based on a
woman being civil to me.
The year was coming to an end and the night seemed darker and the stars
closer. Moonlight made the road a dirty streak between the
snow-mounded fields. I trusted Clove to find his way home. The thoughts
I’d been avoiding all evening occupied me. Was this duty my destiny, the
summit of my life’s ambition? Did my father know I was here? Did I hate
him more for how he’d sought to be sure I couldn’t use his name to gain
favor? I shook my head to clear it of thoughts of him. Almost immediately,
Spink came to mind. How long could I avoid him and my Cousin Epiny? If
Spink told Epiny he had seen me, I doubted it would be long. And then
what? She’d want to know every detail of my life and I didn’t think I could
stomach a long confession, let alone her misguided good intentions to help
me. Better for all of us if she never knew I was in Gettys. I offered a vain
prayer to the good god I had once so trusted that Spink would have the
common sense to hold his tongue and say nothing to Epiny.
My spirits sank deeper when I perceived that the single window of my
little cabin leaked yellow light into the night. I had left the fire banked on
the hearth. For light to spill out from the closed shutters meant that
someone had lit the lamp. I dismounted from Clove and dropped his reins,
creeping toward my dwelling cautiously. Who had intruded and what did
they intend? Strangely, I did not fear robbers so much as I dreaded that
Spink might have tracked me down. Then I recognized Renegade
standing outside my door. I advanced, relieved it was not Spink, but
puzzled as to why would Hitch visit me. I’d called on him several times
while he was recovering from his cat attack, but each time, the differences
in our ranks had become more awkward. It had been some weeks since I’d
last seen him. As I set my hand to the latch, I wondered how I should greet
him. I was annoyed that he would so freely enter my dwelling place; on the
other hand, on a night such as this, I could scarcely have expected him to
wait outside for me. Curiosity finally overwhelmed all else and I opened
the door. My cabin had undergone several changes since I’d first moved
in. I’d built myself an ample chair, uglier but much sturdier than the
original. I’d also reinforced the table and widened and strengthened the
bed. Hitch sat in the original spindly chair by the hearth. He didn’t startle
when I opened the door, but merely turned his face toward me with a slow
grin. The aroma of fresh coffee filled my cabin.
“Put the wood in the hole, boy. It’s cold out there.” I shut the door as he
bade me. Hitch had shed his wet outer garments in an untidy heap on the
floor.
“It’s pleasant to see you, sir,” I said stiffly. The smell of the hot coffee
beckoned me.
“I left my ‘sir’ on the other side of your door. Pardon me if I don’t get up to
fetch it.” He nodded at my pot full of his coffee. “Hope you don’t mind that
I extended your hospitality to myself. It’s a black, cold night out there, and
a man has to take comfort where he can.” He looked around my small
home. “So. It looks like you’ve done well for yourself.”
I wasn’t sure if he meant to be sarcastic or not. “It’s better than some
places I’ve been,” I said guardedly.
He laughed at my cautious tone. “Never, come on in and get comfortable.
Pull up a chair, have a cup of coffee. After all, it’s your house. Your life.”
“That’s true,” I said pointedly. “Back in a moment, after I put up my
horse.”
When I returned from seeing to Clove, Hitch had poured me a mug of
coffee. Several apples sat on the table next to the mug. As I hung up my
cloak and muffler, I asked him, “How on earth did you get apples at this
time of year?”
“I’m an officer. We have access to the better supplies.” He laughed at the
expression on my face. “You’re torn between ‘It’s not fair’ and ‘I should
have been an officer, too, so I could have those unfair apples more often.’”
“I think both statements are true,” I said with mangled dignity.
“True has nothing to do with what is,” he said blithely. “Sit down, Never.
Drink your coffee and eat an apple. Let us discuss our lives with one
another.”
“Let’s not,” I said succinctly, but I took an apple and the mug from the
table and moved my chair to join him by the stove. “What really brings
you to visit me?” I asked after my first sip.
“Renegade,” he said, and laughed at his own feeble joke. Then he cleared
his throat. “I don’t know, Never. I just had an impulse. Do you ever get
impulses like that? You suddenly feel like you ought to do a thing without
knowing why?”
“Not really,” I said.
“Really?” he asked conversationally. “Let me rephrase that. Have you ever
done something impulsively, and suddenly felt that your careless words or
passing touch would have far greater significance than you’d intended?”
A creeping dread invaded my bones. “No, I don’t think so.”
“I see. So you never attempted to enlist at a small courier station? And as
you left, you never departed with a quote from the Holy Writ? Something
like, ‘As you have seen to the needs of the stranger, so may your own wants
be met in your time of need?’”
I sat very still, looking at him. He smiled mirthlessly. “I range a bit.
Sometimes I go a bit beyond the scouting missions I’m sent on.
Sometimes I’ve a mission of my own. Such as when I’m sent out to set
something to rights after someone else has unbalanced it.”
“Do you do that often?” I managed to ask. The apple sat round,
smooth-skinned, and untasted in my hand. I could smell its
end-of-summer fragrance. It spoke of sweet juice and tart flesh just under
the red-streaked skin.
“Not before you came along.” He shifted in his chair, stretching his
stockinged feet closer to the fire. “Things are pretty strange at that courier
station, Never, my lad. Think about it. I’m guessing you wanted food and
they sent you away empty-handed. They remember you quite well, by the
way. It was the day after you passed through that the first supply wagon
arrived empty. No one had any explanation. The wagon pulled in, the
troopies came out to unload, and the crates were empty.”
“Bizarre,” I managed to say. A stillness was growing inside me.
“Once would be bizarre. The second supply wagon never arrived. Nor the
third. Well, let me make the tale short. In an incredible string of bad luck
and odd mishaps and inexplicable events, that particular courier stop has
gone unsupplied since you—or someone very like you—passed through and
cursed it. At least, that’s how the tale is being told.” He paused for a
moment and then added, “They’re not starving, exactly. They can go out
and hunt for themselves. But it’s been very disruptive. A lot of people have
heard about it and are paying attention to it. That could be bad for you,
Never.”
He was no longer asking if I’d done it, and I saw no point in denying it.
“The words just came out of my mouth,” I said. “I just meant to be
sarcastic. Not to curse them.”
He sank a bit deeper into his chair. “Speck magic has a life of its own,
Never. You might think you’re using it, but it’s always using you. Always. I
warned you to be careful of it.”
“That happened before I ever met you,” I retorted, and then felt childish
for needing to make the excuse. I took a bite out of the apple. The taste of
it overwhelmed me for a few moments. My head reeled with sweet and
sour, with the crisp texture of the flesh and the sturdy flap of apple skin
that I ground between my teeth.
“There he goes again,” Hitch muttered to himself. “You don’t listen to a
word I say. The more you use it, the more power it has over you. There. Is
that plain enough for you? The magic isn’t yours, Nevare. You belong to it.
And the more you use it, the more hold it has on you.”
“Like the ‘keep fast’ charm,” I said slowly. “Only it doesn’t seem to work
anymore.”
He shot me a look. “Yes. I was coming to that. You do seem to get around,
and to do a lot of damage in the process.”
Uneasiness ran over me with cold, wet little feet. “I don’t believe that
you’ve gone as far as the Dancing Spindle on a scouting expedition.”
“Me personally? No. But there were witnesses. And information like that
travels. If a person wants to hear about it, he only has to listen. And some
people very much wanted to hear what had suddenly impacted the whole
system of Plains magic. You’re fair on your way to being a legend in your
own time, Never.”
“Just who do you ‘scout’ for, Hitch? The information you’re gathering
doesn’t sound like something Colonel Haren sent you after.” I was
beginning to feel angry, the kind of anger that comes when fear threatens
and one doesn’t know the exact source.
“Damn you, Never. You sit there and I talk to you and you hear the words,
but it’s like you don’t listen to what they mean. It’s Speck magic, old son.
It’s got you. I told you before, it’s got me, too. It uses me. It uses you. The
scary part is that you seem to be using it and I don’t think you have any
concept of what you are doing. Or how heavily in debt you are to it. When
it demands to be paid back, you’re going to have to give it more than just
yourself. You’re going to have to give it things that don’t belong to you,
things I care about. I’m here to tell you that you have to draw a line with it
and fight. Be a Gernian, man, at least a little.”
“It seems to me that a few weeks back, you didn’t think so highly of my
patriotism. If I recall correctly, you mocked me for it.”
“I mock anyone who does things without thinking for himself why he does
them. And that is what you’re doing with your magic. You took out the
Dancing Spindle. And when you did, I think that what the Plains magic
lost, Speck magic gained. And certainly you seemed to have gained. You
do things I’ve never seen anyone do, and I’ve seen quite a bit of Speck
magic in my wandering. Last time I went through Dead Town, I saw your
little vegetable garden. You told it to grow. It’s still growing. Just as the
people at the courier station are still not receiving supplies, just as they
denied them to you. You’re setting things in motion, Never, with no heed
as to the ultimate consequences. You stopped the Spindle turning, but
you’ve set all sorts of little things spinning for you.”
“Look,” I said bluntly. “I did those things. Well, I guess I did them. You say
so, and I’m going to believe you. But I don’t know how I did them. And I
don’t know how to undo them. If anyone is at fault here, it’s the damn
magic, not me. It came into my life and took it over. I never sought it out.
It’s ruined everything for me. It’s taken my body, my career, my fiancée,
my family, even my name. I’ve lost everything to it. And I still don’t know
how it works or why it works or what it wants of me. But with all the
things it has done to me, why can’t I use it to do a little good? Amzil and
her children were starving. Was it so bad, what I did?”
He huffed out his breath in a blast of disbelief. “Damn me. You did do it.
You really did!” He took a breath as if to restore him steadiness. “Was it so
bad? You ask that as if you think I know the full answer. All I can tell you
is that this magic gets into you, like ivy putting roots into a tree trunk.
And it climbs up you and it steals your light and sucks out your
sustenance. It uses you, Never. And every time you use it, you give more of
yourself to it. Do you understand me? Tell me that you know what I’m
talking about.”
“I don’t! That is, I do and I don’t. How do you know so much about it,
anyway?”
“I told you. There was a woman, a Speck woman. She wanted me, and
what a Speck woman wants, she takes. And a Speck woman is just like
their magic. She makes you her own, and that’s it.” He stood up so
suddenly his chair nearly fell over. With lightninglike reflexes, he caught
it and then stepped clear of it. He walked a turn around my small house,
staring at the walls as if he could see through them. “Never met a woman
like her before. Once you start going among them, you’ll see what I mean.
They got a whole different way of seeing the world, a whole different idea
of how life works. And once they take you in, suddenly it seems that it’s the
only way to see things. They just accept the magic. They don’t go around
thinking that they’re going to decide how their lives go. They laugh at us
for that. Once, that woman showed me a little plant growing by a stream.
She said, ‘You see that little plant, all by itself, having its own life?’ And I
said, ‘Yes, I see it.’ And she said, ‘That’s you. And you see that other little
plant over there, on the other side of the stream? You see it, all by itself
over there? That’s me.’
“So I thought she was trying to tell me something, about how the stream
separated us, about how different we were. But then she went over and
grabbed the plant that was me and she pulled it up out of the ground. But
its tough little roots came with it. And she started following that root,
lifting it up out of the ground, and that root went from my plant to
another to another and to another and finally it went right under the
stream and come up on the other side and she pulled it up and it went to
the plant she said was her. And she stood there, holding up all this
network of roots, and she said, ‘See. There isn’t one little plant growing
alone. It’s all of us.’”
He fell silent, palm up and empty, reached out toward me, waiting for a
response. He seemed terribly moved by what he had told me. “It’s a nice
story,” I said at last. “But I don’t see how it helps me understand whatever
it is you’re trying to say.”
He shook his head at me in disgust and went back to sit in his chair. “For
her, it’s not a metaphor. It’s reality. She truly believes that we are
connected to one another and that in some way we are all part of one
big…something.”
“Some big what?”
“We don’t have a word for it. She’s told me about it a hundred times, but
her truth is in a place where our words don’t reach. It’s like disease. Our
children get sick, we try to find out why, and we try to make them better.
We cover them up with blankets to try to sweat the fever out or we give
them willow bark tea. Because we think sickness means something is
wrong with a child.”
“And Specks don’t think something is wrong when a child gets sick?”
“No. Do you think something is wrong when a boy’s voice changes or he
sprouts whiskers out of his face? They think children are supposed to get
sick. Some get better and live, and that’s fine with them. And some die,
and that’s fine with them in a different way.”
“Do you see her often?”

“Who?

“Your Speck woman!”

“Yes. In a way.”

“I’d like to meet her,” I said quietly.

He seemed to think about that for a long time. “Maybe you can, if she
wants. In spring.”

“Why not sooner?”

“Because it’s winter. No one sees Specks in the winter.”
“Why not?”

“Are you playing with me, Never? You are so damn frustrating. How can
you have Speck magic all through you and not know a thing about them?
Specks don’t come around in winter. They just don’t.”

“Why not?”
“Well—I don’t know. They just don’t. They’re gone in winter.”
“Where? Do they migrate? Do they hibernate?” I was getting as impatient
with Hitch as he was with me. He’d come here, full of mystical hints and
warnings, and told me next to nothing.
“I just told you, I don’t know. They keep to themselves in winter. No one
will see a Speck around here until spring.”
“I saw a Speck woman here, but it was only a dream.” I think I threw the
words out just to see what he would say.
He gave a huff of displeasure. “I like how you say ‘only,’ Never. Are you
that comfortable with it? Speck comes walking around in my dreams, it
still puts the wind up my back. Of course, to them it’s nothing; they go
journeying by dream all the time. Noselaca, she can’t understand why I
make such a fuss about it.”
“So you dream of your woman—Noselaca?”
“She’s not my woman, Never.” He spoke quietly, as if sharing a dangerous
secret with me. “Never talk about a Speck woman that way. She could put
you in a bad way over something like that. And I don’t dream about her.
She comes into my dreams.”
“What’s the difference?”
“In the world you and I grew up in, nothing at all. In her world, well, in her
world she walks into a dream like you walk into a different room.”
I’d almost forgotten the apple in my hand. I took another bite of it and
chewed it slowly, thinking. “She believes that she can visit you in your
dreams.”
“She not only believes it, she does it.”
“How?”
“Are you asking how I experience what she does, or how she does it? The
answer to the first is that I fall asleep, and I think I’m having an ordinary
dream, and then Noselaca comes into it. As to how she does it, I’ve no
idea. Maybe you should be telling me. You seem to be the one using a lot
of magic.”
The apple was down to a stem and the core. I looked at it for a few
moments, then put the core in my mouth and chewed it up. I tossed the
stem in the fire. “A year ago, I would have thought this whole
conversation was utter nonsense. Now half the time I don’t know what I
think. A dream is just something that happens in your mind at night.
Except when a Speck woman walks into it and starts teaching you things.
Hitch, I can’t make sense of my life anymore. Once, it was all laid out for
me so clearly. I’d go to the academy, graduate with honors, and I’d get a
good commission with a top-notch regiment. I’d move up fast as an
officer, I’d marry Carsina, the girl my father had chosen for me, and we’d
have children, and eventually, when I was old, I’d retire from the military
and go back to Widevale and live under my brother’s roof until I died.”
“Well, who wouldn’t dream of such a life?” Hitch asked with false
enthusiasm.
“You can mock me if you like,” I replied grumpily. “It wasn’t a bad dream.
If I’d been posted to the right regiment, I’d have had a chance for
adventure and glory. And I don’t see anything wrong with looking forward
to a well-bred wife, and quiet waters and a snug home at the end of one’s
days. What do I have to look forward to now? If I get really good at
burying bodies, perhaps I’ll earn a corporal’s stripes. And when I’m too old
to dig graves, what then? What then?”
“You can’t really believe that you’re stuck here the rest of your life?”
“Well, I don’t really see what else there is for me!” I retorted. Saying it
aloud made it more real. Maybe I’d be promoted. Maybe I’d get a few
stripes on my sleeve, but I’d still be fat and alone and digging graves. And
when I couldn’t do that anymore, when my body gave out under the strain
of carrying all this extra flesh, then I’d be one of those ex-soldier beggars
in some dingy town. I sat back in my chair. I couldn’t catch my breath.
“Take it easy, Never. You’ve got all this magic running through you. And
you’re worried that you’ll have a boring life. Actually, you should be
praying for that. Boredom is vastly underrated. Boredom means that
nothing is trying to kill you every day.” He smiled grimly at his own wit.
“I almost wish—” I began, but stopped at a sharp motion from Hitch.
“You, of all people, should be very careful what you wish for. If you haven’t
heard a word I’ve said all evening, then listen to me now. Your wishes have
an uncanny habit of coming true. Be careful where you bend your will.
Magic seems to go with it.”
“Perhaps once or twice,” I began, but again he cut me off impatiently.
“You wished to enlist here. And because it served the magic’s purpose, you
were allowed to. This duty you’ve been given—do you think this was a
random choice by our colonel? I venture to say there is Speckish benefit
somewhere here.”
“How could my guarding the cemetery be of any benefit to the Specks?”
“I don’t know,” he finally retorted in a low voice. “But it’s something you’d
best think about, Never. Why would they want you here? What do they
want you to do?”
“I don’t know. But whatever it is, I won’t do it. I won’t betray my people.” I
thought I knew what he feared. “I won’t be lax at my guardianship. I won’t
allow them to mock and desecrate our dead.”
“Mocking the dead would be very un-Speck-like.” Hitch said quietly. “They
show their own dead vast respect. They claim that wisdom gained never
passes away, not even with death. Did you know that?”
I shook my head. “This part of me that is here and speaks to you knows
very little about the Specks. But there is another part of me that I fear
knows too much and too well.”
He allowed himself a smile. “That you know that part exists and that you
admit it to me shows me that you are gaining wisdom, Never.” He heaved
a sudden sigh and stood up. “It’s late. I’m going back to town. There’s a
new whore at Sarla Moggam’s brothel. I plan to sample her before she’s
worn out.”
“But you said you had a Speck woman.”
He lifted one shoulder and gave a smile both sheepish and defiant. “Once
in a while, a man likes to be in charge of things. Speck women don’t give
you much chance of that. They do things their own way and expect you to
follow meekly along.”
For some reason, that put me in mind of Amzil. “You’ve reminded me. I’ve
still got Amzil’s carry sack. Next time you go by Dead Town, would you
take it back for me?”
“I could,” he conceded. “If you think you must. Nevare, it’s just a
rucksack.
Don’t put too much importance on it.”

“I promised her that I’d return it. My promise is worth more to me than
the rucksack. Besides, I’ve put in a few gifts. For the children.”
He shook his head at me. “I’ve warned you, old son. Amzil’s a hard nut to
crack. I don’t think you’ll get to her through the children. Save your time
and effort. Come to Sarla Moggam’s with me.”

The invitation was more tempting that I wanted to admit. “Another time,”
I said regretfully. “When I’ve got more money. Will you take the carry sack
to Amzil?”

“I said I would,” he agreed. “And will you be more careful in how you
spend your magic?”

“I would if I knew how. I wish I could undo what I did to the men at the
courier station. It was only their sergeant who was so hard-hearted to me.
I’d no wish to curse them all.”
“All the more reason for you to be careful. If that’s what you do when you
don’t mean to harm anyone, what would happen if you really intended
it?”
It was a sobering thought. “I’d undo it if I could. I don’t know how.”
He was standing by the door, the laden rucksack in his hand. “That’s a
feeble excuse, Never, and you know it. You said you did it without
knowing how. If I were you, I’d be trying to undo it.” He shook his head at
my expression. “Don’t be stubborn. This isn’t something you want
connected to you. You’re a dangerous man, Never. The fewer people who
know that, the safer you are. Good night.”
And so he left me to what was not a good night at all. I didn’t like that he
thought I was “dangerous,” and I liked it even less that, on consideration, I
concluded that I was. I was like a foolish boy with a loaded gun. It didn’t
matter if I knew how the gun worked; I’d fired it, and someone had
suffered the consequences. Was I so different from the two young fools on
the riverboat who had felled a wind wizard with iron shot? They’d
probably had no real notion of the harm iron could do him. I’d despised
them for it. But here I was, spraying magic out just as carelessly.
According to Hitch.
I lay in my bed and stared up at my shadowed ceiling. I wanted so
desperately to be able to go back to where magic was the stuff of tales, not
something that affected my life every day. I didn’t want it to be a power I
had, with no concept of how it worked or was controlled. The light danced
with the flames in my hearth and I decided I should try to undo whatever I
had done to the courier station. It wasn’t easy. In the moment I’d said
those words, I’d wholeheartedly desired that they suffer exactly as I did
from their lack of charity. There was still a hard part of me that thought
they deserved what had happened. I discovered that I would need to
forgive them before I could truly wish to undo what I had done to them.
That forgiveness was an easy thing to say, but a harder thing to feel in my
heart.
I groped toward an understanding of the magic I had done. It had gone
beyond what I’d said to what I’d felt toward them. Feelings, I discovered,
did not yield to logic or even to ethics. Why should everyone at the relay
station suffer because their sergeant had been so stiff-necked? Why should
any of them suffer at all, at my say-so? Who was I to judge them? I chased
my morality in circles that night, trying to find it. When it came to
actually living as an upright man, I discovered that I was no more truly
tolerant and forgiving than any worshipper of the old gods. The moment
that I realized I was no better than the men who had turned me away
when I begged their help, I was able to forgive. I felt something move
through me, a prickling in my blood, followed by a stillness and a sense of
effort expended. Had I worked magic? I couldn’t tell. I had no way of
knowing, no way of proving that I had or had not. Perhaps all of this was a
silly illusion, a game that Hitch and I played, pretending to powers that
didn’t exist. My refusal to surrender and completely believe in magic was
my final defense that enabled me to live in a world that made sense to me.
The early morning was a pearly darkness of falling snow. I burrowed
deeper into my blankets and finally slept.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
VISITOR
I tried to find the rhythm of my days again, but it was broken. The snow
was too deep and the ground too frozen for me to dig graves, and there
was very little else for me to do. I missed my schoolbooks. Writing in my
journal almost made things worse. I had far too much time to think.
Magic, my father’s opinion of me, Spink’s knowledge that I was in Gettys,
Colonel Haren asking my opinion on the road dilemma: I had too much to
ponder.

I tempted myself to go into town, thinking that any sort of company might
be a welcome distraction, but I felt an almost irrational fear that I would
encounter someone who knew me from my academy days. I isolated myself
at the graveyard until a rider came out one day to fetch me. An old man
had died. I hitched Clove to the wagon and went to town for the coffin and
corpse. The old man had been an ex-soldier and a drunk who had died in
debt to everyone who had tried to befriend him. The poor fellow had no
mourners to follow me out to the grave site.
Once I had him loaded, I steeled my heart to my own callousness and
completed my own necessary errands. I picked up hay and grain for Clove
and some basic food supplies for myself. I forced myself to take my noon
meal in the mess hall. Ebrooks was at table, shoveling his food into his
mouth as if it were a competitive sport. From him I learned that Kesey
was sick in bed with a toothache, but hadn’t the courage to have the molar
pulled. “That side of his face is swollen like a melon, and so tender he
can’t eat a bite. Even drinking water hurts him. I told him, go have it
pulled and be done with it. How could the pain be any worse? He still
hopes it will go down by itself. But he almost counts himself lucky to have
been sick in bed last night after what happened in the streets.”
“Why? What happened?”
He shook his head and then lowered his face to his plate to shovel in
another large spoonful of beans. He spoke around them, muffled. “Ain’t
sposed to talk about it. Gonna be hushed up and smoothed over, like they
allus do.”
“What?”
He swallowed noisily and gulped coffee to be sure the food had gone down.
He glanced around the mess and then leaned closer to me. “Murder last
night. I heard something ’bout a whore, an officer, and some soldiers.
What I heard was the officer fancied the bit and got mad when the
soldiers had her first. He shot one of the boys. Something like that.”
“That’s ugly,” I said, leaning away from his breath.
“Life’s ugly,” he agreed, and went back to his food. I turned my attention
to my own plate, and a short time after that, Ebrooks pushed back from
the table and left. My meal was four rashers of bacon and a steaming sea
of brown beans with biscuits. I enjoyed it more than the food merited,
until I noticed Sergeant Hoster at a nearby table with a couple of his
cronies. His friends were grinning broadly as they watched me eat, but
Hoster was regarding me with a stare of flat dislike. One of Hoster’s
friends rolled his eyes and muttered something to Hoster. The other man
snorted wildly into his cup of coffee, spattering liquid all over their table
while the first one leaned back, choking with juvenile laughter. Hoster’s
expression didn’t change. He rose slowly and approached my table. I kept
my eyes on my plate, pretending I didn’t know he was coming. I refused to
look up until he addressed me directly. “You look tired, Burv. Keeping
some late hours?”
I had to swallow before I could reply. “No, Sergeant.”

“You sure about that? You didn’t come to town last night for a bit of fun?”

“No, Sergeant. I stayed home last night.”

“Did you?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Must get lonely out there. A
man lives alone all the time, he can get real hungry for the company of a
woman. Isn’t that so?”

“I suppose.” I suspected he was setting me up for mockery. I was trying
not to rise to the bait.
He leaned very close to me and spoke softly. “Did you hear the news, Burv?
She didn’t die. In a few days, the doctors think she’ll feel well enough to
talk. She’ll be able to describe who attacked her. And I’d say you’re a hard
man to mistake.”
He was accusing me of being one of the rapists. Outrage vied with shock. I
kept calm with difficulty. “I was at my cabin all last night, Sergeant. I’ve
heard about the attack on the woman. It’s a terrible thing. But I had
nothing to do with it.”
He straightened up. “Well. We’ll see, won’t we? Don’t think about running
off.
You wouldn’t get far.”

All around the mess hall, men had stopped eating to stare at us. They
continued to stare even when Hoster sauntered away to rejoin his friends.
I glanced around at the speculation on their faces and then back at my
food. All pleasure in my meal vanished. I kept my eyes on my plate as I
finished eating, ignoring the sergeant and his friends even when they
walked out right behind my seat. The company of others, I reflected hotly
to myself, had done little to distract me from my own dark thoughts. I left
the mess and walked out into what was left of the cold day, I buried the
old soldier as the last of the day’s light fled, and I’m afraid the only words I
said over his body were a feeble prayer to the good god that I would not
end up just like him. The day was unpleasantly cold, the kind of cold that
cracks lips and numbs fingers even when a man is working hard. The hair
inside my nose froze and prickled me, while the muffler over my mouth
grew frosty from my breath. The soil that I threw down on the coffin was
as much ice and snow as earth. I mounded it well over the grave and then
trampled it down as tightly as I could. By the time I sought my fireside,
afternoon was darkening into evening.

I divested myself of my chilled garments, built up my fire, and swung the
pot on its hook over the awakening flames. This week’s stock was a good
one, with barley and a meaty beef bone as the base for it. I had taught
myself, via trial and error, to make hearth cakes using saleratus as
leavening. They were not bread, but my recent efforts had been palatable.
I stirred up some to go with my soup. Bending over my belly to crouch
down by the hearth to watch them and then turn them was
uncomfortable. Some days, I scarcely noticed the inconvenience and
simply accepted my body. At times like tonight, I felt as if like I were
bound up in someone else’s garments. I could recall so clearly how my
body used to work. I felt I should still be able to crouch low and jump high,
to chin myself or reach down and tie my shoe without holding my breath.
But every time I forgot the flesh that enclosed me and attempted such a
movement, I paid with a twinge or a cramp or failure.
When all my hearth cakes were browned, I stacked them on my plate and
with a grunt heaved myself to my feet. I set them on my table and then
ladled a generous helping of soup into my bowl. By virtue of great
self-control, I still had one of Hitch’s apples left to accompany my meal. I
sat down to my repast with anticipation. Food always worked. No matter
how distressing the rest of my life might become, food and the sensations
of eating it were always pleasant. Food had become my comforter and my
companion. I refused to dwell on what Hoster had implied. As he had said,
we would see. When the woman recovered enough to describe her
attackers, my name would be cleared of the sergeant’s foul accusation. I
was an innocent man with nothing to fear. Just as I sat down, I heard a
sound outside. I froze, listening. There were the small sounds of a man
dismounting from a horse, and then the squeak-crush of boots on packed
snow. I expected a knock at the door. Instead I heard a voice say firmly,
“Nevare, let me in.”
I had an almost overwhelming urge to sit silently where I was. I didn’t
answer. But after a moment I went to the door and lifted the latch. Spink
stood on my doorstep. The cold had pinched his face white, save for his
red nose and the tops of his cheeks. Steam came out of his muffled mouth
as he asked, “Can I put my horse in with yours? It’s cold out here and
getting colder.”
“If you want,” I said, for there seemed nothing else to say.
“I’ll be right back,” he told me, and turned to lead his horse off to Clove’s
lean-to. I shut the door to hold both the cold and my past at bay. And then
I did something that was probably childish. I went to my table and drank
down my hot soup as fast as I could, and gobbled down as many of my
hearth cakes as I could manage, listening always for the sound of Spink’s
boots outside. It was not greed. I was hungry, and I did not want to be
thinking about food while Spink was there, nor did I want to watch him
watching me eat. It was going to be hard enough to sit across from him
and try to ignore how his eyes would wander from mine to the rest of my
body, wondering and speculating on how I could have changed so much.
When I heard his footsteps outside, I went to the door and opened it.
“Thanks!” he exclaimed and came quickly in, immediately opening his
coat and moving closer to the fire. “That’s the coldest I’ve ever been in my
life, and I’m afraid the ride back to town will be worse. It’s absolutely clear
outside; the stars seem like you could reach up and pick them out of the
sky.” He drew off a set of heavy mittens, and then awkwardly peeled off his
gloves before thrusting his hands toward my fire. His fingers were nearly
white. His breath came in shuddering sighs.
“Spink, why did you come out here tonight?” I asked him sadly. I dreaded
the confrontation that I knew must follow this meeting. Why couldn’t he
just have let things alone?
He mistook my meaning. “Tonight was the first chance I’ve had to slip
away without Epiny demanding to know where I was going and why. She’s
having some kind of meeting at our house tonight, with women from all
over Gettys. All sorts of talk about bettering their lot and providing more
opportunities for soldiers’ widows and daughters. We don’t have a large
house; in fact it’s quite small, even by Gettys standards. Fill it full of
women who all seem to be talking at once and it gets even smaller. When I
told Epiny quietly that I simply must leave for a time, she scowled at me,
but let me go. And here I am.” He smiled sheepishly, as if loath to admit
that Epiny had so much management of his time. I had to smile back. I’d
never imagined it would be any other way. The moment I smiled, Spink
burst into a grin like a sunrise. He came quickly to me and seized my right
hand in both his icy ones and shook it, saying, “Nevare, I’m so glad to see
you alive! Everyone thought you were dead!” He let go my hand and flung
himself into my spindly chair by the fire. “Even Yaril has given you up for
dead,” he went on, “for she said you had promised to write to her, and that
it was a promise you would not break. Your father told her your horse
came home riderless. That made her nearly certain. Epiny has shed
buckets of tears over you. When I saw you in the mercantile, I could not
believe my eyes. Then, when you refused to admit it was you, it was
so…peculiar! I didn’t know what to think. I nearly told Epiny but then I
decided that before I allowed her to leap blindly into this, I’d find out
exactly what was going on. It’s just so hard to get a few hours away
without having to explain to her where I’ve been every moment that I’m
gone. But here I am, blathering on, when what I really want to hear is,
what has happened to you?” I tried to consider my response. As I took a
breath to speak, Spink broke forth again. I stared at him, somewhat
astounded. I supposed that living with Epiny, he had had to learn to speak
all his thoughts whenever he had the chance, or forever give up the
opportunity. “We had your letters from Widevale, of course. Then they
just stopped, but after a time, we began to receive letters from Yaril. Then
they stopped. That really worried us, but finally we had a stern letter from
your father, returning a letter that Epiny had sent to Yaril and telling her
that he would not brook anyone interfering with his daughter’s proper
upbringing. Epiny had only said that we’d welcome a long visit from Yaril
if she felt she needed some time away from home. Well…I’m making it
much milder than what Epiny actually wrote, to be honest.
“She actually wrote that if Yaril felt she could no longer tolerate living
under your father’s roof, she could come and live with us.” Spink sighed
abruptly and then drew a breath. He shook his head. “My dear wife is
sometimes a bit too frank, I suppose. Not that I’m telling you anything you
don’t already know. Her exhortations to Yaril to think for herself offended
your father. He wrote that Epiny’s letters were unwelcome, that Yaril
would not receive them, and that he was going to be sure his brother knew
how far his daughter had strayed from her upbringing.” The lines around
his mouth deepened as added. “You can imagine the sort of storm that
provoked in our home.”
“Yes, I can,” I said quietly. My father was still a good soldier. He
unerringly aimed for the weakest point in the enemy’s defences. Diverting
Epiny’s attack on him to make it a battle between her and her own father
was a brilliant tactic. I could imagine how he would sit, pipe lit, eyes
narrowed, smiling and nodding to himself over it. Telling Yaril that
Sirlofty had come back without me was the perfect way to end her hopes.
“I did write to Yaril,” I told Spink. “Several times. The news wouldn’t be
what she hoped for, for I told her of my situation here and pointed out
that it was impossible for her to come and stay with me as we’d discussed.
I assumed she didn’t write back because she was angry or disappointed.
Obviously, she never received them. Since my father has disowned me, he
will not feel I deserve the courtesy of a reply from him. Very neatly done. I
imagine he’s letting Yaril expend a lot of energy writing letters to Epiny,
which he then diverts. If Yaril thinks that I am dead and that Epiny no
longer replies to her letters, she will become very discouraged. And
probably much more tractable.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” Spink asked me.
I looked at him in surprise. “Do? What can I do? Nothing.”
His manner toward me stiffened slightly. “You didn’t give up so easily
when you were a cadet. I recall how you stood up to the old noble
second-years when they persecuted us. And how you solved the bridge
problem in engineering.”
I shook my head at him. “Those were schoolboy solutions to schoolboy
problems. And all of that happened before I was the size of a barn door,
and when I still had the prospect of a good commission and a real life
before me.” All my bleakness came flowing back. “You shouldn’t be here,
Spink. You’ll only damage your career by associating with me. I’m a fat
cemetery soldier, an enlisted man with no prospects save grinding toward
a stripe or two. The last thing I want is for people to know that we are
related, even if it’s only by marriage.”
He looked at me for a time in utter discouragement. Then he shook his
head and said quietly, “I should have known it would get to you, too. It
weighs us all down, but I thought you would see through it. The
discouragement you feel isn’t natural, Nevare. I’m not sure that I agree
entirely with Epiny’s analysis of it, but one can’t argue at all with the end
product.”
I sat like a sack of oats, refusing to be prodded by my curiosity. Spink gave
in before I did.
“Morale here is terrible. It isn’t just the prisoner-workers or the soldiers
who guard them, though they have the worst problems. Did you know, in
the last two years, there has been no substantial progress made on
pushing the road up into the Barrier Mountains?”
I looked at him. “I was initiated,” I said. “I’ve broken a Gettys sweat. I
know about the terror at the end of the road. I’m not surprised that we’ve
made no progress. But what does that have to do with me?”
“The discouragement you feel, the horrible depression, it’s not just you.
It’s every man who is assigned here. How much of Gettys history do you
know?”
I smiled sourly. “We didn’t get that far before I was pushed out of the
academy.”
“It’s not funny, Nevare, not when you know it. Gettys was a trade outpost a
long time before it was a Gernian fort. There was good fur trade with the
Minda folk, but none of them live around here these days. Traders came in
the summer to go up into the mountains and trade with the Specks.
“Then came the plains wars and the push east. King Troven decided that
this would be the eastern boundary and his soldiers made it so. The
fortress was built and the basic buildings, and the town was laid out
around it. You can tell just by looking at it what was done back then. It’s
all sound. And after the skirmishing was over, things pretty much went on
as they always had, with traders coming and going. But then came the
king’s idea for a road going up into the mountains, through the pass and
down to the sea on the other side. Survey crews came and marked out the
likeliest path. The Specks didn’t seem to care. Then the road started
getting built. Progress was rapid at first. Mostly it involved making
improvements to established trails. Then it reached the foothills and
started snaking up toward the mountains. And the pass. Right through
the forest.”
He paused in his telling and looked at me significantly.
I lifted a hand for him to proceed. I didn’t know what he was getting at.
“Nevare, the summer the road crews began clearing for the road to
venture up into the forest was the first summer that we ever had a bloody
clash with the Specks. They didn’t do well against our firearms, of course.
They retreated to the mountain forests for a time, and we pushed the road
on. We began to have trouble with morale at Gettys that year, and with
the prisoner-workers. They became lethargic; some would fall asleep
standing. Or there would be days when all the crews felt frightened of their
own shadows. It came and went, and it was put down to laziness or
cowardice.
“Eventually the Specks returned, and even came out of their forest to
trade. That had never happened before. It was hailed as progress, and
there were hopes that the road construction could proceed without any
more bloodshed. But that same summer, those three trees were felled at
the end of the road, the fear came, and work stopped. Before summer’s
end, we had the first outbreak of Speck plague. The fear has been at the
end of the road ever since then.” Spink’s voice had spelled me like a
fireside storyteller’s. I hung on his words. “Morale here plummeted. It got
so bad that General Brodg decided to do a complete changeover in the
troops here. The fellows here had lost all heart. They blamed it on the
plague coming, year after year, with no relief and heavy losses. Desertion
and suicide were taking as many soldiers as the plague was. Brede and his
crack regiment came in here to take things over and put Gettys back on
the map.
“They got here just in time for the plague season. They dropped like flies.
After that, everything went to the dogs. Desertion, dereliction of duty,
suicide, rapes, and murders. Good solid officers turned into drunkards.
The worst was a captain who came home and strangled his wife and then
drowned their two children before shooting himself. It was hushed up here
and the tale never went west, but there isn’t an officer in Gettys who
doesn’t know what happened.” He paused, his eyes looking far.
“That sounds awful,” I said faintly. I couldn’t even imagine it. Spink
nodded vaguely.
“Everyone thought so. That was two years ago. General Brodg reassigned
Brede to the Fort in disgrace. The Fort is the only outpost more desolate
than Gettys. He rebuked them for slovenliness, dereliction of duty, and
even cowardice because other officers had known the captain was losing
his mind and did nothing. General Brodg even confiscated their colors.
Then he assigned the Farleyton Regiment to replace them. Can you believe
our regiment were the golden boys at the time, the soldiers General Brodg
would send into any desperate situation when he needed real action?
Farleyton was a great regiment three years ago. We put down the uprising
at Hotchkiss Springs and lost only three of our own men in the process.
Two years before that, when some Plains warriors formed an alliance and
tried to overrun Mendy, Brodg sent Farleyton in and we not only broke
their siege, we ran them off completely.” He shook his head sadly. “I’ve
heard all the old glory tales from the senior officers, usually when they’re
drunk. It’s all about what used to be. None of them can really say what
happened. The regiment was assigned to Gettys, and ever since then, it’s
gone downhill.
“This meeting that Epiny is holding tonight, for the women? She said she
had to do it. Wives are fleeing back west and taking their children with
them. Married men are turning to whores for comfort here, and the
honest women who do remain are often treated like whores. There was a
rape last night, rape of an honest woman; she was Lieutenant Garver’s
sister, come to take care of his children because his wife died of the
plague. Some enlisted men caught her on the streets and, well, they left
her for dead afterward. Garver hunted one down and killed him, and
wants to kill the others when he finds them. They’ll hang, most likely, but
killing them won’t repair the insult to his family or the injuries to his
sister. Or the damage to our regiment’s reputation. None of the women
feel safe anymore. Not even Epiny. The very men who should be willing to
die to protect them are preying on them.”
I almost told him that Hoster had accused me of being one of the rapists. I
decided it would serve no purpose. Spink’s face had gone pale with his
telling. His fists were clenched with his anger. Slowly it came to me that
this wasn’t just his regiment he was talking about. It was mine, too. I’d
enlisted with Farleyton when I signed with Colonel Haren. Funny. I’d never
have said “my regiment” as Spink did when he was speaking of their past
glories. They were just the outfit that had finally let me sign papers. I
thought of how my father had always puffed up with pride when he spoke
of his old regiment. He lionized them as heroes, one and all. And what
were mine? Drunks, murderers, and layabouts. I still made excuses for
them.
“We’re isolated out here, Spink. Everyone knows that’s bad for morale.
Maybe Brodg should rotate his troops more often.”
“That’s not it,” Spink said gruffly. “And you know it. There’s a feel to this
place, Nevare. You come in through those gates, and you can smell the
despair. Everything is grimy and shoddy. The only people who stay in
Gettys are the ones who have to.” He met my eyes suddenly and said in a
challenging voice, “Epiny says the place is under a curse. Or a spell. She
claims there’s an aura to the whole town, a darkness that eyes can’t see. It
hangs in the air. We breathe it in, and it drowns all happiness. She says it
comes from the Speck. She said it’s the same sort of magic that held you
when first she met you.”
I plastered a cynical smile on my face. I felt queasy. “So Epiny is still
playing the medium, is she? I had hoped that being a married woman
would settle her down a bit.”
Spink didn’t smile back at me. “She’s not playing, as you very well know,
Nevare. I was there, remember? Why do you do that? Why do you pretend
not to believe things you’ve actually experienced?”
I’d made him angry. I looked away from him and tried to formulate a reply
when I scarcely knew the answer myself. “Sometimes, Spink, when all the
things in my life seem to collide and contradict each other, I pick one set
of facts and believe those, no matter what.” I lifted my eyes and met his as
I asked him, “Do you blame me?”
“I suppose not,” he said in a lowered voice. “But,” and here his voice rose
again, “don’t mock Epiny. She may be your cousin, but she is my wife.
Give her credit where it is due, Nevare. She saved both of our lives, I
believe, when she took care of us during the plague days. She defied her
family and society to make herself my wife. Her life since then has not
been easy, nor has it been at all what she supposed it would be. But she
hasn’t left me. A lot of the married men here in Gettys wish they could say
the same. They were soldier sons and they married women they thought
could be good cavalla wives. But the women couldn’t take what Gettys
served them, and they’ve left. Epiny looks it in the face for what it is, and
stays on.”
“And Epiny believes it’s Speck magic that is undermining morale at
Gettys.”
Spink didn’t flinch at my blunt assertion. “That’s right,” he said levelly.
“She does.”
I leaned back in my big chair. It creaked slightly as it gave to my weight.
“Tell me what she says,” I requested softly. I knew I wasn’t going to like it.
I knew I already believed Epiny.
“She’s very sensitive. You know that. The night before we reached Gettys,
when we were traveling here, she had her first nightmare. She woke
wailing, but couldn’t say what had scared her. Her dream was full of
macabre images with no sense to them. Jaws with rotting teeth. Babies
covered with mud, sitting alone in a swamp, endlessly crying. A dog with a
broken back dragging itself in circles. She couldn’t go back to sleep that
night, and the next day she was nervous and distraught. I thought she was
exhausted from travel. When we reached Gettys, I thought our problems
were over. Epiny could get some rest, have hot food, and sleep in a real
bed. We were both dismayed by the quarters we were assigned. They were
dirty. No, not just dirty, filthy, as if whoever lived there before us had
never cleaned at all. Everything was in bad repair, and I had to leave her
to it, for Colonel Haren put me to my new duties immediately. She was left
to cope while I was put to inventorying a warehouse full of dusty supplies.
The men they gave me were surly and lazy and incompetent.” He
practically spat out the last words and rose abruptly from his chair by the
fire. “But I don’t think they were always that way. I think it’s the haze that
overhangs Gettys. I believe it’s the Speck magic, Nevare. Ask yourself how
you’ve felt about your life since you came here. Do you feel drained of hope
and ambition? Does all of it seem pointless and drab? When was the last
time you awoke in the morning and actually wanted to get out of bed?”
He’d come closer to me as he asked each question, as if the answers might
prove something. I gestured at my swollen body. “If you were trapped
inside this, would you feel hope or ambition, or look forward to hauling it
out of bed each day?” A sudden thought came to me. “You haven’t even
asked what happened to me. You don’t seem shocked to see me this way.”
He tilted his head and smiled sourly. “Did you forget that Epiny and Yaril
have exchanged letters? If there is anything you told your sister, be sure it
has been shared.” He shook his head. “And I’m sorry about all of it,
Nevare. Losing your mother. Carsina’s faithlessness. And what the Tree
Woman’s magic has done to you. Unlike you, I don’t regard any of that tale
with any skepticism. I’ve seen the power of Speck magic too close.” His
voice had become very dark.
“What do you mean?” I asked softly.
“Epiny tried to take her life a couple of weeks after we arrived here.”

“What?”

“She tried to hang herself in the middle of our bedroom. If I hadn’t
forgotten my penknife and come back to get it, she would have succeeded.
I was barely in time, Nevare. I cut her down and pried the rope out of its
groove around her neck. I wasn’t gentle; I didn’t have time to be. But I
think the shaking around actually brought her back to the world of the
living. “I was so angry with her, so furious that she could even think of
leaving me that way. She said she didn’t even recall it as something she
decided to do. She only remembers odd bits of it, going to the stables to
get the rope, and then standing on a chair to get it over the rafter. And
tying the knot. She told me she particularly remembered tying the knot
because she had the most peculiar sensation of doing something she
hadn’t done before, but knew how to do.”

Ice was creeping through my heart. My mind raced and I asked the only
question that came to me. “How do you dare to leave her alone? Couldn’t
she be overcome again, at any time?”

Pride and trepidation warred in his expression. “She told me, ‘Fool me
once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me! I won’t let the magic
creep over me like that again. Never.’ And she battles it. As do I. As does
every officer and soldier in Gettys who’s worth anything. You can tell
which ones fight daily to go on being who they once were, and which ones
have given up and sunk down to the lowest level.”
When he said that, I wondered which he thought I was. But he did not
pause nor look at me accusingly. He continued, “We do all we can to shore
each other up, Epiny and I. Your sister’s letters were a great source of
strength to her, until they stopped coming. So now you can see that the
loss of that correspondence and your father’s threat to tell Lord Burvelle of
her waywardness were heavier blows than you might have imagined. Oh!”
He darted back to his chair and thrust his hand into the pocket of his
heavy cloak he’d slung over the back of it. “Your sister’s letters. I brought
them with me. I came here thinking you a heartless wretch to leave her in
such cruel suspense. I thought if you read how she has suffered, wondering
what has become of you, that you would be moved to write to her. Now,
knowing that your letters have no better chance of reaching her than ours
do, perhaps it is cruel of me to let you read these. Still, I think it is your
right to know what goes on at Widevale in your absence.” He tugged a
substantial packet of letters, bound together with a ribbon, from his
pocket. I recognized Yaril’s sprawling handwriting with a sharp pang.
When I’d seen that penmanship on letters sent to me at the academy, it
had always sent a thrill through me, for I knew she would have found a
way to smuggle me a note from Carsina. Now it was my own little sister
whom I missed with sudden and heartbreaking strength. I reached for
them.
Spink handed them to me, but with a warning. “I cannot let you keep
them long.
Epiny will surely miss them.”

I lifted my eyes to his. “Then you haven’t told my cousin that I’m here.”

“I wanted to offer you the chance to do that yourself.”

I shook my head. “I cannot, Spink. I’ve told you why.”

“And if you’ve listened to me, then you know why it is more important that
she does know you are alive and well. We three, we can be a strength for
each other, as we were before. Please, Nevare. I’ll let you think about it,
but not for long. I’ve held your secret from Epiny, and already that shames
and disturbs me. We do not keep secrets from one another, nor deceive
each other. Don’t put me in that position. It’s a shameful thing for one
friend to do to another.”

“Spink, I can’t truly be anything to you, or Epiny. I’m an enlisted man and
a fat gravedigger. We cannot socialize with one another. You know that.
And you know full well that Epiny will not recognize that, and it will make
difficulties for both of us. Do you wish to be mocked as the gravedigger’s
cousin? To have people sneer at your wife because of our relationship?
How can we be a strength for one another when I can only be a source of
shame to you?” I softened my tone at the look on his face. “I am humbled
and grateful that you’d want to continue being my friend under the
circumstances. And I am doubly grateful that you have offered to share
Yaril’s letters with me. As things stand, they are likely to be the last news
from home that I’ll have for a long time. If you don’t mind, I will keep
them, just for a night or so, to read them. I’ll find a way to quietly return
them to you.”

Sparks of anger lit in his eyes. “That’s the dulling magic of this place
talking, not the Nevare I knew.”
“Spink. Please. Just let me borrow my sister’s letters.”
He appeared to relent. “Do you think you can get them back to me with no
one the wiser?”
I thought. “If we decide on a place and meet by night, it should be
possible.”
He grinned. “So it should be equally possible for us to meet in such a way
for friendship, as well as the passing of letters between us.” He was
incorrigible.
I had to smile, but I did not share his optimism. “So it might seem, for a
time. But sooner or later, we’d be noticed. And then it would all come
unraveled. We are not talking about a pretence that must be kept for
weeks or even months, Spink. We are talking about years. For as long as
we both belong to the same regiment. To my death, most likely.”
“Well, aren’t you a cheerful, optimistic soul? The Nevare I knew had a lot
more spine! What happened to you, Nevare? Where did you go?”
“This isn’t school anymore, Spink. This is life. As to where I went, well,
behind this wall of fat. And I can’t get out.”
“Are you sure of that?” The way he asked it made it a genuine question.
“I’ve tried everything. Working hard, fasting…my father took me to the
edge of starvation, Spink.”
“I know,” he broke in quietly. “Yaril told us, in her letters. It’s still hard for
me to imagine that any man could treat his own son like that.”
“It’s true,” I said defensively.
“I believe it. But I think you’re overlooking the obvious.”

“Which is?”

“That magic brought this on. You have defeated that magic before, with
Epiny’s help. We have. Don’t you think Epiny would come to your aid
again? She’s already immersed herself in studying Speck magic, not just to
discover what is behind the miasma of depression that afflicts Gettys, but
also to research your condition. It’s not unique, Nevare. You must know
that.”

“I’d guessed it,” I replied grudgingly. “Dr. Amicas said as much.” I almost
feared to let him see how much he piqued my interest.

“Epiny has researched it as much as our rather paltry resources have
allowed. Most of what she knows is hearsay. There isn’t much written
about the Specks. They are a people who prefer to keep to themselves.
One of the doctors here in Gettys has quite an interest in the native
people. Unfortunately, he has quite an interest in drinking, also. Trying to
get information from him is like trying to squeeze it out of a wet sponge;
you get as much of the liquor as you do the facts. But according to him,
the Speck wise folk or holy folk are referred to as Great Ones and not just
because of their wisdom. According to Dr. Dowder, the Great Ones are
immense in size, so big that they hardly ever leave their homes high up in
the mountain forests. Their size reflects their power and their magic; the
bigger the man, the more important he is, and the more dominant.”

“And the women,” I said quietly.

He took it as a question. “Well…possibly. I’d never considered that
possibility. Oh. Of course. The Tree Woman. Well, she’s dead. What I’m
trying to say, Nevare, is that if this, er, fat is a consequence of Speck
magic, then perhaps it can be undone. The three of us, perhaps, could
break it, and loosen the gloom and fear of this place. We’d begin by
getting you back to who you were.”
I wanted so badly to hope and didn’t dare. “I don’t think so. I’ve felt the
changes, Spink. My body works differently than it did before. That’s an
inadequate way to express it, but it’s the best I can do. I don’t think I can
go back to what I was.”
“But you don’t know that,” he said triumphantly. “We should let Epiny
know you are here, and then see what can be done. And of course, a way
must be found to let your sister know that you are alive, and that if she
wishes to defy your father, she is welcome to join us here.”
I nearly told him that was not his task. She was my sister; I wanted to be
the one to protect her. Instead I said simply, “I’ll find a way to get a letter
to Yaril. Never fear.”
“I shall leave that in your hands, then. Well. It’s late. It’s been good to see
you, Nevare, but if I’m to keep your confidence for now, I’ll have to get
back to town before all Epiny’s company leaves and she starts to wonder
where I’ve been. I’ll find a way to come back this way next Sixday. Captain
Oford’s wife has invited all the officers’ wives to join her for a late lunch
and some inspirational readings. Epiny dreads it, but she knows that a
junior officer’s wife cannot shun her social duties. I’ll ride out this way
again, shall I?”
“If you can without anyone noticing you. If not?”
“If not, I’ll find an excuse for another late-night visit. I trust I’ll find you
in?”
“Small danger that I’d be elsewhere.”
“Until then. Nevare, you have no idea how pleasant it has been to talk to
someone simply as a friend, not as a fellow officer or a superior or as
someone under my command. I’ve missed you sorely. Epiny must know
you are here. Then we three shall find some better way to gather for
conversation than this!”
“Let me think about it, Spink, I beg you. And in the meantime, do be
cautious.”
“Oh, I shall be.” He’d already risen from his chair. He picked up his outer
clothes with distaste. “Brrr. I dread going back out into the cold. It bites
down to my very bones.”
As he was drawing them on, I noted something that had escaped me
before. “You’ve recovered well from the plague, Spink. In fact, I don’t think
I’ve ever seen any plague survivor who looked so much like his former self
as you do.”
He grinned unexpectedly. “I wrote to you about it, but I suppose you
didn’t credit it any more than I did at first. The water from Bitter Springs
cured me, Nevare. And Epiny. She’s as feisty as ever. The plague victims
who were able to get to the spring promptly survived, and many recovered
completely. It’s not a complete cure for everyone, perhaps, but it is better
than anything I’ve heard of yet.”
“They all survived? But that’s miraculous. Spink, you haven’t kept this
knowledge to yourself, have you?”
“Of course not! But it’s difficult to make anyone believe me who hasn’t
seen it for himself. Epiny brought a number of small bottles of Bitter
Springs water with us. I warned her that it might be less than useful;
we’ve no idea how much it takes to effect a cure such as we’ve enjoyed. We
used complete submersion and drank only that water for days.
Nonetheless, she told me she could not come to such a plague-ridden place
as Gettys without bringing the water in hopes of saving some poor souls
when next the plague strikes. I hope it does not make me sound cruel to
say that I almost look forward to the next outbreak so that our water can
be tested against it.”
A chill ran through me. “Don’t even say such things,” I begged him. “I
know the next plague season must come. And I dread it. I’ve made such
preparations as I can, but—”
“Your pardon, Nevare. I had not paused to think how gruesome your tasks
would be at that time. But if the good god wills it, our water may prove
effective, and it may be less horrendous than you fear.”
He was dressed again for the outside by the time he finished speaking.
“May the good god will it,” I agreed with him, with small faith that such a
thing would be. I’d come to wonder just how much power the good god
had against magic as old as the Specks’.
“Spink. You recall Dr. Amicas from the academy. Have you written to him
about this water cure? Dare I ask if you could send him a sample of your
water?”
“Getting it to him would be a fair trick. Have you any idea what it costs to
send a simple letter? But you are right, we can at least write to him, and
tell him about the Bitter Springs cure.”
I hastily donned my own cloak and boots, and carried my lantern to walk
Speck out to his horse. The gelding was a sorry mount for any cavalla man,
let alone a lieutenant. I said not a word of that, but only waited until he
mounted the shaggy beast and then bade him farewell. I watched him ride
off into the cold night and then hurried back to my cabin. I read all of
Yaril’s letters that night. There were only six of them, and in truth there
was not much of real news in them. Mostly she recounted, in excruciating
detail, all she and I had gone through when the plague struck our home,
and afterward. Spink had warned me, but I was still shocked at how
intimately she had written of my problem to Epiny. And Spink had read
these letters as well! Yaril’s description of the weight I had gained and how
it hindered me were far more accurate than flattering. When I’d set down
the last page, I tried to be grateful that my friends completely understood
my situation, without my having to explain it all. It was a very thin
comfort. There were a few other items of interest in there. Carsina had
attempted to renew her friendship with Yaril, but my sister had repulsed
her. Remwar’s family had engaged him to the eldest daughter of an old
noble family in Old Thares. Carsina’s father had found her a promising
young captain for her, and she would be traveling east in the spring to
meet her future husband. Odd how such news could still pierce me.
My father had received a letter from Vanze’s monastery. It commiserated
with him on his recent losses, and proposed that Vanze could be partially
released from his priesthood if my father wished to name him as his heir
son. Gar Sunwer, Vanze’s superior, recognized that it was a very unusual
offer for them to make, but said that in such times, it was only sensible to
be sure that the noble names of the king’s lords were carried on. Yaril’s
tone was cynical as she wrote of it. Father had received a note of
sympathy from Caulder Stiet and his uncle. They had taken my advice not
to visit while the family was in the first throes of grief, but would be
pleased to come in the spring. The uncle had been almost ‘obseequious’ in
his phrasing (here I paused, and wondered how Yaril would know that.
Was she sneaking into our father’s study and reading his letters?), and
Yaril feared that my father had fallen victim to his fawning style. He had
written back to say that they would be welcome and that he would find a
man to interpret the map I had sent them and help them to find the
locations where the interesting mineral sampling had come from. Yaril
had heard of Caulder from me and did not look forward to the visit. Yaril’s
final letter revealed that the estate was not prospering. My father had
dismissed many of the men I had put in positions of authority, including
Sergeant Duril, and his health was not good enough that he could teach
his new foremen their duties, let alone check on them properly. She
thought that some of them were dishonest, and said that if her father did
not soon take them in hand, she might do so herself. Such a thought
shocked me. In that same letter she mentioned twice that she feared I was
dead because she had not heard from me, and my horse had come back
riderless. That mention, along with the news that Duril had been cast out
for “conspiring” with me, were what cut me most deeply. I’d treasured a
brief hope that perhaps I could send a note to Duril and he could have
someone read it to him and then share the news with Yaril. To hear that
my old mentor had been so harshly rewarded for his years of loyalty to the
family sickened me. Where would he go and what would he do? I could not
find a way to get a letter to Yaril; I would have to beg leave of Colonel
Haren and return myself to rescue her and find out what had become of
Sergeant Duril.
As I refolded the last letter into its envelope, I felt both lonely and yet
comforted. I was alone, and yet there were still people in this world who
cared deeply about me. That night I did as I had not in some time, and
that was to go down on my knees by my bed and pray to the good god to
protect those I loved.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
WINTER
Spink and I met twice more during that long winter. The first time was
only a handful of days after the first meeting, when I returned the letters
to him. He could not stay long, and I scarcely had time to do more than
thank him and beg him not to betray me to Epiny just yet.
I am sure he intended to get out to see me again, but fate intervened. We
were given the news that the king was severely disappointed in us, and
that a contingent of highly ranked officers and several nobles were
scheduled to visit Gettys to inspect our regiment and review us before
offering their advice regarding us to the king. Depending on how we
showed, General Brodg might be replaced as commander of the eastern
divisions. This news did nothing to lift our morale, and everything to
panic our officers into an irrational frenzy of discipline and inspections. I
could guess at the pressure Spink was under, as a junior officer, to whip
his men into line. The higher officers would be counting on him to make
them look competent. I did not envy him his task. Even I, isolated as I
was, was not completely immune to the sudden rush to bring all of Gettys
up to a spit-and-polish standard. Sergeant Hoster made a trip out one
afternoon, for a “surprise” inspection of my quarters. I could tell he was
quite disappointed that I was not living in squalor. He still managed to
find a substantial list of things he wished corrected, one that included
everything from cutting my firewood to more uniform lengths before
racking it to acquiring a proper uniform for myself. His mockery was very
insulting as he stated that last requirement. I applied myself to meeting
his expectations, cursing him for every wasted moment of my time, but
when the day for his promised second visit passed, I decided that his first
inspection had simply been opportunistic harassment. I kept my quarters
tidy, in case he decided to descend on me again, but refused to dread him.
I buried four more soldiers that winter. One had cut his foot with an ax
while chopping firewood and bled to death. Two others died of
pneumonia, and a fourth had got drunk, passed out in the street, and
frozen to death in the dark. The last one was one of Spink’s men, and
Spink accompanied the five other mourners to the graveyard to see him
laid to rest. He lingered for a short time afterward, but could not stay
long. I begged him to let me borrow any books he might have, for my mind
was atrophying from boredom. He promised he’d do his best, and again
asked if he could not let Epiny know I was there. Once more, I held him
off, but he told me sternly that if I did not soon capitulate, he would have
to tell her anyway, for he could not bear how she would look at him if she
knew how long he had deceived her.
I promised myself I would think about it, and then procrastinated. The
long dark days of winter dragged on. Dark Evening came and was
celebrated by the enlisted men with an orgy of drunkenness, fights, and
the arson of one officer’s house. I had avoided the town that night, and
only heard of the ruckus the next day. The general misbehavior of the
troops brought more reprisals. Morale was no longer low; it was lost
completely in a simmering hostility toward the officers. I feared the
regiment was on the edge of general insubordination and avoided Gettys
as much as I could. I went only for essentials and stayed as short a time as
possible.
Despite that, I was in one of the mercantiles, buying some thread to mend
my trousers, when I caught a glimpse of Epiny just as she came in the
door. I stepped away from the counter and immersed myself in studying a
row of axes behind a tall stack of blankets. Hidden there, I listened to her
ask the man for her whistles. He told her that he had none in stock. She
then complained that she had requested he order fifty brass whistles for
her two months ago, and she considered it unreasonable that they had not
yet arrived. He explained rather impatiently that Gettys did not enjoy
regular delivery service from anywhere, and that doubtless her order
would arrive when spring made travel less arduous. She pointed out that
the whistles would make only a small packet, something a king’s courier
could easily bring, and asked him if he did not care about the safety of the
women and girls of Gettys. I wanted to step out of the corner and hit him
when he told her that their safety was up to their husbands and brothers,
and if she hadn’t noticed, he wasn’t the king and did not have the king’s
couriers at his disposal. His words were sensible enough; it was his
sneering tone that angered me. She departed in high dudgeon, observing
as she left that perhaps she would make her concerns and efforts known to
Colonel Haren, and perhaps he could arrange a swifter delivery of such
essential items. Despite my irritation with the shop owner, I rather pitied
Colonel Haren at that moment. I wondered what on earth she wanted so
many whistles for and what they had to do with the safety of the female
population of Gettys, but had no one to ask. I paid for my thread and left
town.
Day after drab winter day dripped by, slow as cold molasses. The generous
firewood stack that had come with my home began to dwindle. One clear
winter day, I took an ax, some rope, and Clove and headed for the forest
behind the cemetery. I wanted to find dead wood, either standing or
fallen. I’d cut the log to a manageable length, have Clove drag it home for
me, and then chop it into firewood.
Clove and I followed my footpath to the spring and then broke a snowy
trail into the woods beyond. Here I found giant cedars, towering and
stout, their needled branches heavy with snow. Most of them were scarred
veterans of a fire many years ago. Around and between those survivors,
the younger forest was deciduous, birches and cottonwood and alder, and
most of these no bigger around than a child’s embrace. Their bare limbs
supported wandering walls of snow. Frozen drops of water hung from the
tips of their branches. It was a beautiful snowy scene, yet ethereally
foreign to a Plains-bred man like myself. A dozen steps into the shelter of
the trees, I began to feel uneasy. I stopped and stood very still, listening. A
good soldier develops a sixth sense for when he is being watched. I
listened, I looked carefully around, and I even flared my nostrils and took a
deep breath of the air. Carrion eaters like bears have a distinctive stench.
But my physical senses detected nothing that I should fear. Small birds
flitted through the trees. Occasionally the weight of one would dislodge a
pouf of snow that would fall in a crystalline shower of tiny flakes. Other
than that, I detected nothing, not even a winter breeze moving in the
upper branches.
Clove was waiting passively for me to decide what it was I wanted to do
here. His calmness decided me; if his senses gave him no cause for alarm
or interest, then mine were probably at fault. I tugged at his lead rope and
we walked deeper into the forest.
All seemed peaceful. The snow was uneven around us, pocked with falls
from overhead, crossed with rabbit trails or smoothly hummocked over
the forest floor. Clove and I forged uphill, wading through snow that
varied from knee- to thigh-deep. Other than birds overhead, I saw no
creatures moving in the woods, but I could not shake the feeling that I was
being watched. More than once I halted and looked back the way we had
come. I wished I had a better weapon than the ancient gun that had been
issued to me. I’d cleaned it, the rod waking clouds of rust from inside it,
but I still had no confidence that it would either fire well or hit accurately.
I finally spotted a standing snag. It was uphill from us, and more massive
than I’d sought, but I resolved I would have it down and drag at least half
of it home with me. The tree was obviously dead. It looked as if a random
lighting strike had blackened one side of it. Great scabs of bark had fallen
away to reveal silvery-gray wood beneath. It was more than enough to
replenish my firewood supply, and dry wood would burn well with little
fouling of my chimney. I pushed aside my feelings of unease and labored
up the hill toward it. Clove docilely followed me.
When I finally reached my dead tree, I paused to breathe, leaning against
it. My heart hammered in my chest, and despite the chill of the day, sweat
coursed down my back. I scooped up a handful of clean snow and ate it
from my mittened hand to ease my thirst. But all the while, I kept
scanning the woods around me for any sign of an intruder. I moved Clove
well out of the way of my operation and took up a stance where I could fell
the tree downhill of us. The first blow brought down an icy shower of dry
snow on me. It fell again on the second and third chops, and then the
branches had lost their loads. I’d sharpened my ax that morning, and it
bit deep into the dry wood. I tugged the blade loose, set my feet firmly,
and swung again. The blade struck at an angle to the first cut. Tug, swing.
The first chips flew out onto the trampled snow. I poised my axe for the
next blow and clearly felt the presence of someone behind me. My
peripheral vision caught motion, and I felt the air of his passage. I turned
quickly. No one was there. I spun the other way. There was nothing, no
bird on the wing, no random fall of snow load from a tree. Nothing. Clove
stood, wearily patient, betraying no interest in anything. I’d imagined it.
Imagination or not, my heart still thudded in my chest. I took several
calming breaths and took up my ax again. I put the energy from my fright
into my swing, and the ax bit so deeply I had to wrench it loose. A
half-dozen blows later, chips littered the snow and my own sweat warmed
me. I labored on, trying to ignore my growing conviction that someone
was watching me. “Trust your gut,” Sergeant Duril had always told me. It
was getting harder and harder to ignore my instincts. A dozen ax swings
later, I straightened up and spun around, my ax at the defensive. “I know
you’re there!” I roared at the surrounding woods. “Show yourself!”
Clove lifted his head and gave a startled snort. I stood, chest heaving,
staring wildly all around me. My blood was thundering in my ears. I saw
absolutely nothing that could be considered threatening. My horse
regarded me with mild concern. I glared at the tree. I was not even
halfway through the trunk. I set my teeth, steeled my mind, and put
myself to chopping. I threw my not inconsiderable weight behind each
blow. The sound of my ax rang defiantly through the woods. “I refuse to be
afraid,” I said to myself, and then on my next blows, I began my grunting
chant.
“I’m.”
“Not.”
“Running.”
“Away!”
The ax bit deep and the chips flew. On my next four strokes, I said the
words louder, and soon I was shouting with every blow, putting all my
strength into each strike of the blade. The tree shuddered. I struck again,
and again, and then as it groaned, I jumped back out of range, for the
trunk seemed to literally jump from the stump as if fell with an explosive
crack that echoed through the frozen woods. It came down with a crash,
falling through the frozen branches of the adjacent living trees, injuring
them as it fell, shattering the stiff branches or leaving them to dangle
brokenly. For a brief moment, the falling snag jammed against the trunk
of a live tree, and then it fell with a resounding crash to the snowy forest
floor. I stood blinking in the hanging mist of crystalline flakes that the
falling snag had released. They stung my face like a cold rebuking slap
from the forest.
I had underestimated the task I’d taken on. After the tree had fallen, I had
to divest the trunk of all its branches. This included the ones that lay
underneath the fallen snag. The early evening of winter was threatening
me before I finally had a section of trunk cut that I thought Clove could
manage. I put a rope on it and fastened it to Clove’s harness.
I had never been so glad to put a place behind me. I wanted to hurry, but
dragging the log downhill through the snowy forest was not as simple as it
had seemed it would be. I put a rope on it so I could guide it to keep it
from running up on Clove or snagging on trees. I could not focus on the
task. The sensation of being watched blazed up in my mind, and I kept
glancing back over my shoulder at nearly every step. The sweat that
soaked and then chilled me was as much from fear as exertion. I could just
glimpse the open area beyond the outskirts of the forest’s edge by the
spring as the bluish shadows of the trees on the snow were turning to
black.
In Widevale, evening and night had always fallen slowly, with twilight a
long process of losing the sun to the flat horizon. Here on the edge of the
mountains, night came like the drawing of a curtain as rumpled hills
swiftly devoured the pallid sun. I felt the darkness coming on, and
suddenly I could no longer control my terror. I ran forward, floundering
heavily through the deepening snow, startling Clove by seizing his
headstall and tugging him along, urging him to haste.
We must have made a comical sight, the fat man and his heavy horse,
floundering through deep snow, encumbered by the tree trunk that Clove
dragged. I was making small sounds of terror, my panting becoming
higher-pitched. I tried to swallow my fear and could not; the more I gave
in to it, the greater it became, like the boy who gives way to shrieks of
hysteria when night terrors convince him that he cannot escape into the
safe world of day. There were no sounds in that darkening world save the
ones we made: the thud-crunch of Clove’s hooves through the dry, crusty
snow, my terrified panting, and the slow whoosh of the timber as it cut a
trough through the snow behind us. No sound at all, save a single peal of
laughter, clear and pure as any birdsong that rang out in the forest as we
left it behind us.
It was the final spur to my fear. Dignity abandoned, I ran, outstripping my
placid horse. I ran all the way to my own front door and burst into my tiny
cabin as if all the nightshades of the old gods were in pursuit of me. I
slammed the door behind me and stood panting and shaking. My heart
hammered in my chest, and my ears rang with it. The fire was blazing in
the hearth and the kettle singing next to it. I smelled hot coffee. Scout
Hitch was ensconced in my big chair by the fire. He looked up at me and
smiled.
“I see the forest is breathing terror today.” He rose slowly from my chair,
and sauntered to the door I had slammed shut behind myself as I entered.
He opened it and looked out over the dimming landscape. He whistled
softly, as if in admiration, while I stood burning with shame. But when he
glanced back at me over his shoulder, the wonder on his face seemed
genuine. “It’s later than I thought. I must have taken a nap while I was
waiting for you. Have you been in the forest all this time?”
I gave a stiff nod. My terror had fled, cast out by my embarrassment, but
my heart still pounded and my throat was parched too dry to speak. I
began to peel off my outer garments. Opening my coat released the stench
of my own fear-sweat. Never had I been so ashamed.
Hitch had continued to stare out of the door. “And you plundered a log for
yourself as well. Damn. Nevare, you never cease to amaze me. No, you take
your things off and get settled. I’ll put your horse up. I want to talk with
you.” By the time Hitch came back from seeing to Clove, I’d changed into a
dry shirt and felt a bit more like myself. He’d made free with my
hospitality but also contributed, I saw. He’d brought the coffee, and there
were another three apples on my pantry shelf. The crowning gift was a loaf
of bread that had been kneaded full of raisins and cinnamon. A dusting of
sparkling sugar crowned the round loaf. It sat amid its wrappings like a
king on a throne. I didn’t touch any of it. Instead, I drank three dippers
full of water from my water cask, and then washed my face and combed
my unruly hair back into order. I was mortified by my terror and
humiliated that he had seen it. And try as I might, I could not forget that
clear peal of mocking laughter.
Hitch opened my door, stamped the loose snow off his feet, and came in,
shutting the door firmly behind him. It was full dark outside now. “Ain’t
you cut up that bread yet? It’s best toasted,” he greeted me, as if he had
not seen me quaking like a coward.
I was grateful that he’d turned the subject aside and yet shamed even
more that he did. “I’ll do it now,” I said humbly.
I cut thick slices of the fragrant bread, and we improvised toasting forks
to warm it by my fire. The heat released the scent and flavor into the
room. We both ate it greedily, dunking the slices in the hot coffee and then
devouring the dripping edges. As I ate, I could almost feel my courage
coming back to me, as if I sated something more than hunger. Hitch
watched me knowingly, and after a time, I could not stand it.
“So. What brings you to visit me?” I asked him.
He grinned. “Told you before. Renegade.” He snorted a laugh at his tired
joke, and then said, “You were probably asking me why I come here,
right?” I nodded and tried not to scowl. It irritated me when he used
language that made him sound like an ignorant fool. I knew it was a
masquerade. Why did he continue to mask himself before me?
A second smile flitted across his face, and I suddenly knew why he did it.
To needle me. To remind me that I, too, pretended that I was not the
soldier son of a noble family.
“I come to let you know that I delivered your little present bag to Amzil.”

My interest leapt. “Did she like it?”

“Can’t say. She made me leave it on her doorstep; said she’d take it in after
I rode away.” He shook his head. “She’s cut a new hole by her door. A
horizontal slot that she can poke that old gun out of and threaten people
without opening the door.”

Unease replaced my anticipation of pleasure. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“No, it doesn’t. And it isn’t good.” He watched my face as he said,
“Probably the only thing more unlucky than being the poorest family in a
poor town is being the richest family in a poor town.”
“What do you mean? I didn’t send her that much; certainly nothing that
could be considered riches.”
“Well, it doesn’t take much to be the richest family in a poor town. A few
bulging sacks of potatoes, a cold bin full of cabbages and carrots, and the
like…that might wake the avarice in your neighbors. Folk have been
known to kill over a lot less than food.”
If he had hit me in the belly, the spreading pain could not have been
worse. I felt my heart lurch and then thud on unevenly. “What have I
done?” I asked myself softly. The vegetable garden intended to tide her
over through a harsh winter had made her a target among her neighbors.
Why could I not foresee that would happen?
“You used the magic for your own ends, and it hit back at you. I warned
you about that. ’Course, I warned you about that after you’d done it, so I
can’t really say, ‘I told you so.’ Only, learn from it, old son, and don’t let it
happen again.”
“How bad is it for her? Is she all right?”
“All I saw of her was the business end of her gun, and it seemed just fine to
me. Ever noticed how much bigger the muzzle of a gun looks when it’s
pointed at you? I swear, she stuck that thing out the hole, and it looked
just like a cannon to me. She’s smart. She cut that hole at gut level.
Biggest target on a man, and the worst way to die that I know.”
My question had gone unanswered, but my imagination was glad to
supply a hundred dark possibilities. I wondered if my good deed had had
the worst possible consequences for her and her children. Did she sleep
always with one eye open, afraid to leave her children for even a few
moments? The cynical side of my mind asked me if she had not always
done that.
I couldn’t bear to think about it anymore. My mind leapt sideways and I
found myself asking, “What did you mean when you said the forest
breathed terror today?”
He looked at me curiously. “How is it possible you don’t know? You live
right on the edge of it here, where most men can’t stand to be for long.
Except for people like us, of course.” He suddenly dropped his voice a note
and looked at me with sadness in his eyes. “The magic owns us, Nevare. I
can warn you not to do foolish things with it. But nothing I can say will
save you from the things it can make you do. I can’t even save myself from
that.” I couldn’t decide if he was being dramatic or deeply sincere. I leaned
back in my chair and balanced my coffee cup on top of the swell of my
belly. “Hitch, I’m not going to drag it out of you. Either you explain it or
you don’t.” He leaned forward for the pot, poured himself more coffee, and
then settled back in his chair with a groan. “Spoil all my fun,” he
complained. “Oh, very well. I know you’ve been to the end of the road, so
you know the terror that’s there. It’s worst there, and always there. The
rest of the forest isn’t so bad. Sometimes the forest breathes terror. Other
times, it’s utter weariness. And over all, always there is discouragement
and despair. That flows over all the land surrounding the King’s Road. You
have to ride for at least two days before you get away from it. Three if
you’re following the road itself. Some people are more vulnerable to it than
others, but no one, not even us, is completely immune.”
I tried Epiny’s theory on him. “That’s what is wrong with the morale at
Gettys. That’s why top regiments come here and within a year become
slovenly and prey to desertion.”
He opened his hands wide, as if acknowledging the obvious. “Prey to
desertion is an understatement.” he added quietly. “And things will only
get worse after our ‘visiting dignitaries’ see how we’ve lost our shine.”
“Do you think they’ll rotate us out of Gettys?” I asked him, and felt a vague
stirring of hope.
He looked at me flatly. “Never, never, Nevare.” He smiled at his own
words. “They may rotate the regiment out, but you and I, we shall never
leave this place. The magic lives here, and the magic owns us.”
“Speak for yourself,” I told him irritably. I was getting more than a bit
tired of being told I was a puppet plaything. “Where my regiment goes, I
follow. I’m at least that much of a soldier still.”
He smiled a different kind of smile. “Well. I’m sure there’s no arguing with
you. When the time comes, we’ll see who stays or goes. Right now, I’m the
one to go. I’ve a dark cold ride ahead of me, and a warmer one after that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m off to the whorehouse, man.” He looked at me consideringly. “Why
don’t you join me? Probably do you good.”
“Thought you said you never paid for it.”
“You know any man who admits that he does? Why don’t you come with
me, and you can pay for both of us?”
“Another time,” I said reflexively.
“Pining away for Amzil? Put her out of your mind, man. No one rides that
mare, save that she want to carry him.”
“I’m not pining for Amzil. I just owed her a favor in return for her
hospitality. That was all.”
“I’m sure it was. So. The whores, then?”
It was a cold dark ride to town, and all the way there, I questioned my own
wisdom. But there are times in the heart of winter when a man doesn’t
want to be wise, only satiated. If Hitch hadn’t brought up the idea to me, I
doubt that I’d have gone. But once it was presented, I couldn’t think of any
good reason to turn it down. I was tired of being alone and cold, and I
needed something to scrub the shame of cowardice from my soul. So I
went. We rode up to a long low building on the edge of Gettys Town. The
snow was well trampled outside it, and six saddled horses waited sullenly
in the cold. There were no windows.
I suggested that we enter separately. Hitch told me he didn’t particularly
care who knew that we knew one another, but he gave way to my request.
So, some moments after he had thumped on the rough wooden door and
been admitted, I knocked. They let me stand outside in the dark for a few
more moments. The man who opened the door was a big, burly fellow. He
wore a white shirt, a bit grimy at the collars and cuffs, and made-over
cavalla trousers. He was thick-necked and solidly muscled and scowling.
Yet as he ran his eyes over me, his scowl gave way to a delighted grin.
“Hey, Glory-girl!” he shouted over his shoulder. “I got a fellow here who’ll
match you pound for pound. Here’s finally a man you’ll notice when he’s
between your thighs.”
“Clamp your jaws, Stiddick. You know I’m not working tonight. My Auntie
Flo’s come calling. Less that’s something you prefer, big man?” A large,
heavy woman in a very tight pink gown loomed up from the dimness
behind the man. Tall as he was, she looked over his shoulder easily; I’d
never seen a woman so tall. She raised the corner of her upper lip at me in
a crooked cat smile. “Well. Look at you. Let him by, Stiddick. Mama
Moggam, come take a look at this one!” Sarla Moggam stepped up, seized
my wrist, and dragged me past both of them. With both Stiddick and
Glory no longer blocking my view, I was finally free to peruse the room.
Erotic tapestries draped the walls. Several scantily clad women lounged on
chairs scattered throughout the room. The lamps on the low tables had
their wicks turned down, and their glass shades were pink or violet. As my
eyes adjusted to the dimness and my nose took in the smells of the place,
my expectations dropped. I was still in Gettys. The trappings of the
brothel were tired and worn. Smoke had dimmed the florid pink flesh of
the preposterous nude in the painting over the fireplace. The dingy carpet
that floored the room needed beating. A huge fire roared in the big hearth
at the end of the room, but its warmth was feeble where I stood. There
were three tables with chairs around them, mostly unoccupied. At one a
man sprawled, facedown on the table. His lax hands still clutched at an
emptied bottle. Hitch was nowhere to be seen. There were four other
women in the room besides Glory. Sarla Moggam was the one who
commanded my attention. She was a small woman, well past her middle
years, with unlikely yellow hair that fell in loose ringlets to her bare
shoulders. I don’t know what to call the garment she wore. It had a black
lace skirt that barely brushed the tops of her knees and a beribboned top
that held her breasts up as if they were in goblets. The brazenness of it
would have been shocking on any woman; on someone of her years, it was
appalling. The flesh of her throat was lined with wrinkles. Even in the dim
light, I could see how her rouge was caught deeper in the lines of her face.
She held me firmly by the wrist, as if I were a petty thief she’d caught and
cackled as she turned to her girls. “Look at this one, sweeties! Who’ll have
him?”
“Don’t even look at me,” a raven-haired woman warned me in a faked
Landsing accent. She rolled her eyes in disgust that I’d even consider her,
and I felt a tingle of both anger and desire at how she disdained me, for in
truth she had been the first to catch my eye. I considered the other
woman. She was either drunk or exceptionally tired. She couldn’t seem to
make her eyes focus on me. One sleeve of her green dress was torn free of
the bodice and dangled at her side, unnoticed. She gave a few blinks and
then forced a sloppy smile onto her face. She muttered some sort of
greeting, but it was so slurred I couldn’t make out what she said.
“I’ll take him, Mama.”
I turned my head to see who had spoken.
I saw a woman about my own age, but only a third of my size. Her brown
hair hung loose to her shoulders in waves. Despite the chill of the room,
she was barefoot. She wore a simple blue shift, and I realized that I had
seen her, but had immediately classified her as a maidservant rather than
one of the prostitutes. She walked toward me with the assured arrogance
of a house cat. “I’ll take him,” she repeated.
Sarla Moggam had never relinquished her grip on my wrist. “Fala, you
greedy girl!” she rebuked her with a smile. Now she put my hand out to
the girl as if I had absolutely no say in the matter, and at that moment, I
didn’t. Fala smiled at me as she took my hand in hers; the simple warmth
of her touch inflamed me, and the light in her eyes grew knowing, as if she
sensed my immediate response to her. “Come with me, big man,” she said,
and led me away from the hearth, toward a long hallway that ran down
the center of the building. I followed her, docile as a lamb.
The brothel’s doorman stepped suddenly between us. “Pay first,” he
growled at me. Then, grinning at Fala, he asked her, “Aren’t you afraid of
biting off more than you can chew?” This provoked a round of general
laughter from the room. His manner was offensive and I felt a flash of
anger. But the girl ignored him, smiling at me so beguilingly that I handed
over to Stiddick more than twice what Hitch had told me a whore cost
here. I didn’t even quibble, and Fala laughed delightedly as Stiddick
stepped out of my way and I lumbered down the hallway behind her. He
leered after us, and chuckled knowingly. I ignored him. Doors opened off
the dim hall at regular intervals. Grunts and rhythmic thudding left no
room for doubt about what went on in the rooms. I heard a muffled yell
from one, of anger or ecstasy, I could not tell. My guide had taken my
hand again and she tugged me on. “The last door,” she told me
breathlessly, “is mine.”
She halted outside it and turned to face me. I could not help myself. I
pressed close to her. She set her small hands against my chest and laughed
up at me. “You like me already, don’t you, big man?”
“That I do,” I breathed down at her. I reached past her for the doorknob.
Her hand was there first, stopping mine.
“I’m going to do you special,” she said quietly. “Trust me. I know what
you’ll like.”
She turned from me to face the door, and as she did, she let her breasts,
free beneath her simple shift, brush against me. Was it deliberate that her
buttocks rested lightly against my thighs before she opened the door and
drew me into the small room?
A single candle, a tall fresh taper, burned in a clay holder beside a
rumpled bed. The room smelled of sex and other men, and at any other
time, I think I would have found it a repulsive odor. Tonight, it was an
aphrodisiac. I followed her in, shutting the door behind me. “Sit down,”
she bade me, and when I started for the bed, she caught at me and said,
“No, not there. In my chair. Sit down. Lean back. Be comfortable. I want
to show you something.” It had begun to seem to me that she was much
more like the friendly little kitchenmaid of my first experience than the
whores I’d known since then. I could not take the foolish smile from my
face. I sat down in a chair in the corner of the room. “Watch me!” she
bade me, as if I could have stopped myself from doing so. She reached
down and took the hem of her shift in both her hands, and then, in one
smooth movement, she lifted it up and over her head and then tossed it to
one side. She shook her tousled hair free, and her breasts moved with the
gesture. She was completely, smoothly naked. She danced toward me.
“Let’s not hurry. Touch me first. However you want. Then I’ll touch you.”
She halted before me, feet a little apart and eyes closed, inviting me. I
leaned forward in my chair and ran my hands over her warm, soft flesh. I
touched as I pleased, hefting the weight of her soft breasts, discovering the
warmth between her thighs. She gave a sudden shiver as I did so. I tried to
pull her to me, but she jumped back and then said suddenly, “My turn.
Lean back. Shut your eyes.”
I did as she bade me, lost in delight at her playfulness. I felt her tug at my
belt, and then the bliss of buttons giving way to her nimble fingers. For
one instant, I was free, and then, to my shock, I felt her clamp her mouth
on me. I opened my eyes, jolted to my core at such wild and strange
behavior. I knew it was not what I wanted. I tried to pull free of her, but
she held me fast, and in another moment, I suddenly knew it was what I
wanted beyond all else. I gave a groan of protest and delight and then
surrendered to her. It was happening far more quickly than I intended,
and with an intensity that left me mindless. I had read of such an act, in
one of Caleb’s more depraved journals, but I’d certainly never expected to
take part in such perversity. I felt unmanned that she had taken such
control of me, and yet completely dominant as she knelt before me with
my fingers tangled in her hair. Her small hands pressed against the
overflow of my belly, holding it back. I clasped her head between my hands
and feared my own strength, for her skull felt fragile as a child’s.
Sensations I’d never even imagined coursed through me. In the moment
before her skillful tongue freed me from all thought, I knew that I wanted,
more than anything, to grant her such bliss as she worked upon me.
And even in the midst of sexual release, I felt the telltale tingling of the
magic moving in my blood. Her mouth came suddenly free of me and she
gave a wild cry, a sound as elemental as a doe calling for a mate. She fell
bonelessly to the floor in front of my feet, her wet mouth ajar and
moaning. “Are you all right?” I asked her in alarm. I clutched my clothing
around me and knelt next to her. Her eyes were rolled back in her head.
She took a shuddering breath, coughed it out, and then gasped in another
one.
“I’ll get help,” I told her, and tried to rise. She grasped at me with vague
hands.
“No. No, please. I’m all right. I think.” She tried to sit up, and then
collapsed back to the floor. “That’s never happened to me before,” she said
in faint wonder. “That was…oh. I don’t know what that was…” Her voice
trailed off into incoherence.
“Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?” I asked her. “Mutual?”
“I…don’t know, I suppose. I didn’t know.” She caught a ragged breath. “I
didn’t know,” she said, almost defensively. “I didn’t know it was supposed
to be like that.”
Her comment stunned me. It had never dawned on me to wonder if
whores enjoyed their work. I had assumed they did, for the most part, or
why had they become whores? Then I recognized the cruelty of that
thought. Had I ever imagined that Amzil enjoyed the whoring she did to
keep her children alive? “I’m sorry,” I said quietly, not quite sure what I
apologized for.
“Don’t be,” she said, slowly sitting up. She peeked up at me shyly, her face
full of confusion touched with awe. “You didn’t even touch me,” she said.
“I don’t understand what happened.”
Her hair had fallen across her face and clung to her sweaty brow. With one
finger, I lifted a sheaf of it so I could see her eyes. She continued to look up
at me. “It is supposed to be like that,” I assured her. “It’s always supposed
to be this good.”
I helped her crawl up on her bed and tenderly tucked a blanket around
her. I knew she was a whore and I’d had the time I’d paid her for. She
owed me nothing more than what she had already given me. Reluctantly, I
started to leave her there, but with a cry, she caught at my hand and drew
me down beside her. “Stay a little while,” she said quietly. “I don’t want
Mama Moggam to make me bring another man back here. Not just yet.”
She gave a sudden shiver. “It’s like it’s echoing in me,” she said.
I lay down beside her. “You’re warm,” she said, and moved closer to me.
She put her head on my chest. “I feel like I could fall asleep.”
“If you want, you can,” I told her. For a time, I held her close in a warmth
that I suspect neither of us had felt in a long time. In its own way, it was
better than the sex had been.
The candle had long since guttered away to leave us in blessed darkness
when I heard a heavy pounding on the door. Stiddick’s voice rousted us.
“You! In there! You’re done now. Leave!”
I startled awake, for I’d dozed off for the second time. Even so, I would
have lingered for another go-round, but she pushed at me lightly. “No.
Enough. Good-bye, big man.”
As I walked out, Stiddick was waiting in the hall. He pushed past me to
get inside. As the door swung shut, I heard him ask her, “Did he hurt you?
I never known you to let a man stay so long.”
When I walked down the long hall to the entry room, I found it deserted
and the fire burning low. Hitch was long gone, I was certain. I rode a surly
Clove home in the cold and dark of early morning. Several days later when
I came to town again and dined in the mess hall with Ebrooks and Kesey, I
heard that rumors about me had circulated through the lower folk of the
town. Ebrooks muttered that some were saying I was strangely endowed
or unnaturally skilled. Fala had told the other whores that she’d never had
such a man. The next night, she’d refused to work. Within the week, she’d
abruptly left the brothel’s employ. No one knew where she’d gone, and
Kesey warned me to stay away from Sarla Moggam’s, for the brothel
owner blamed me personally for the ruination of one of her most
profitable whores. My brief spark of fame among the enlisted men was
poor compensation for the loss of a welcome at the brothel, nor did Hitch’s
evident enjoyment and mockery of me about it make it any easier to bear.
But I held tight to the moment of true tenderness that I’d shared with
Fala, and wished her well, wherever she had gone. It was the one warm
night I enjoyed that winter.
CHAPTER TWENTY
SPRING
Every season must eventually give way to the next.
There were times, during that winter in Gettys, when I doubted the truth
of this. It was the darkest, coldest time I’d ever passed in my life. Now that
Spink had enlightened me as to the nature of the magic that seeped
through Gettys’ streets like a fog and Hitch had confirmed it, I was more
attuned to it. I could feel the ebb and flow of the bleakness that afflicted
the town. I could sense, without entering the woods, the days on which
terror and panic emanated from them, and the days in which weariness
and discouragement lurked there. None of that, however, put me any
closer to bettering my own state of mind, let alone to breaking the magic’s
hold on me.
There were even times when I allowed myself to wonder if that was what I
truly desired. As the days slowly lengthened and spring softened the snows
by day, I had time to ponder Hitch’s warnings. I could see, now, the
danger of using the magic I’d been given. I’d intended good for Amzil, and
perhaps exposed her to danger. Had I cheated the man who had owned
Clove? But there were times when I’d felt the magic’s tingle, and no evil
had come of it that I had seen. Perhaps it was not as Hitch saw it, a
dangerous balancing act between my will and that of the magic, but only
the much older idea that the more power one has, the more carefully it
must be wielded. If I was trapped in this fat body, and if the magic was to
have a hold on me, might I not learn to use it wisely and perhaps even
well? Such were my thoughts in the evenings, at least, when I lay alone in
my bed. I will confess that, a time or two, I tried to summon the magic so
that I could use it in small and harmless ways. Could I kindle a fire with
it? Command water to freeze or turn a stone to bread as magicians did in
the old Varnian tales of magic? Those were feats I attempted and failed at.
Afterward, I laughed at myself for such foolish fancies. But late at night, I
would again wonder if such magic was that different from commanding
vegetables to grow, or waking a whore to true passion’s reward.
Summoning the magic, I decided at last, demanded not will or intellect,
but emotion. I could not raise such emotions in myself simply by thinking
of them, any more than a man can truly make himself laugh heartily when
nothing has amused him. Recognizing that the magic raced in my blood
only when strong emotion summoned it was a solid warning to me that it
was unlikely to be something I could ever rationally control. Wisely, I
decided to leave it be. During the day, I did my best to keep myself busy. I
missed books desperately, so much so that I often resorted to rereading
my own journal entries and adding notes in the margin from my older and
wiser perspective. I’d lost a strap from Clove’s harness somehow. It took
me most of a day in town to get another one from supply. I saw Spink
there, but we gave no sign of knowing one another. I came home feeling
angry and depressed.
I cut and stacked the wood that I’d brought from the forest. When that log
had been reduced, I forced myself to once more take Clove and reenter the
woods. I chose a day when only fatigue threatened, and forced my way
through the glum discouragement that tried to overwhelm me. My trophy
was another section of the trunk from the dead snag. Resisting the urge to
lie down even in the snow and take a rest demanded all my willpower.
Even after I reached my cottage, weariness debilitated me, and there I did
surrender to a long afternoon nap. Having to battle magic just to have
firewood awoke me to what the road workers had to endure daily. Hitch
had said that my connection to the magic gave me a slight immunity. I
wondered what Spink and Epiny battled each day. When I was a boy, my
father had kept me continuously occupied with lessons and chores. At the
academy, the first-year schedule was deliberately designed to be both
demanding and exhausting, the better to keep young men from finding
mischief when they had free time. That winter was the first time in my life
that I’d had dragging hours with nothing to fill them. There were dozens
of ways I could have improved my cabin, of course, but the most I did was
devise elaborate plans. The dull seep of magic from the forest drained my
will. As the snows melted and the sap ran in the trees, the tiny leaf buds
swelled on their branches. The forest beckoned, with game trails to follow
and hunting that could fill my dinner pot with meat, but the prospect of
battling either terror or fatigue dimmed my enthusiasm and kept me close
to home. Every morning, I’d stand by the spring with my water bucket and
gaze up into the forest depths. Birds flitted there, and new green leaves
bedecked both trees and bushes. I longed to enter, and knew it was a
foolish wish. It was a relief when the thawing ground allowed me to
resume my gravedigging. It gave me a physical task to occupy my body if
not my mind.
One welcome aspect of spring was that the supply wagons began to once
more make the long eastern journey to us. The dusty windows of the
mercantile stores were uncluttered and wiped clean. Fresh wares were
displayed in them: shining tin washtubs, woollen and cotton goods, a
gleaming long gun with a curly maple stock that no man could pass by
without ogling. Within the store, new casks of pickled herring from the far
coast had arrived, along with fresh stocks of sweet fruit preserves and
bright packets of garden seeds. All these and much more were bait for
hearts and eyes jaded by all the oldness of winter. Yet I had come to the
store that day not for anything so gleaming and grand but only in the hope
of looking through some of the newspapers that had finally reached us.
The articles in them might be weeks or months old, but they were a link to
Old Thares and the cities of the west that gave us an inkling of the changes
going on in the greater world.
Ostensibly, they were for sale, not casual perusing, but they were displayed
in a rack on the wall, and I was not the only fellow standing and reading
the front pages.
The papers were expensive, and I could spare money only for one. After I’d
read it, I might be able to trade it to some fellow reader for his purchase,
but I wished to make the wisest choice. At length I chose one with a
front-page story concerning a vote in the Council of Lords about taxation.
A side column was an editorial on the number of noble sons who had been
shifted into roles other than that prescribed by birth order following the
previous winter’s plague deaths. Evidently, some cousins who had hoped
to inherit titles were seeking legal redress against “heirs who were not
truly heir sons.” I took the paper from the rack and then waited, holding a
few packets of vegetable seeds and gripping a fistful of coins, for the clerk
to deign to notice me. He was the same supercilious youth who always
scorned to wait on me. Today he took my money and passed over the
journal with the comment, “Are you sure this is what you want? You can’t
eat it, you know. And we’ve a stock of plain paper for wrapping things.”
“Just sell me the seeds and the newspaper, please. I’d like to read it,” I
replied quietly.
“Ah, he reads! Will wonders never cease? There you go.”
I ignored his mockery, took my paper and my garden seeds, and turned to
leave. As I did so, two women entered the shop. One was a woman of
middle years whom I’d frequently seen around Gettys. I was puzzled to
notice that she now wore a large brass whistle on a fine chain around her
neck. But a greater shock to me was to recognize the finely dressed young
lady who accompanied her. My erstwhile fiancée looked lovely. Carsina
Grenalter was wearing the latest style from Old Thares, I was sure. Her
green bonnet could not contain the flaxen curls that bounced about her
shoulders. The cut of her forest-green dress flattered her buxom figure.
Little gold earrings gleamed in her earlobes. The fresh air of spring had
pinked her cheeks and the tip of her nose. She glanced about the
mercantile and gave a strangled laugh. “Oh, my dear Clara! This is
dreadful! Is this what they deem a dry goods store in Gettys? My dear, I’m
afraid we shall have to send away for the proper buttons and lace if we are
to retrim your dresses in the new styles!”
By the time Carsina had finished speaking, her companion was flushed a
bright pink. I did not know if it were shame for Gettys’ poor quality of
stores, or Carsina’s forthright announcement that Clara would be
retrimming her dresses rather than purchasing new frocks. It didn’t
matter. I looked at Carsina, and delightful as she appeared, I wondered
how I had ever believed I could be happily partnered with such a
thoughtless woman.
If I had thought to take vengeance on her, I got it without making any
effort at all. Carsina’s eyes had found me; it would have been difficult to
miss a man of my size in any setting, let alone amid the crowded shelves of
the mercantile. There I stood, unlovely and immense in my well-worn
“uniform,” looking back at her. Our eyes met. She recognized me. I knew
that from how her eyes widened and her silent gasp. She instantly turned
away from me and fled toward the door, exclaiming, “Come, Clara, there
must be other stores in Gettys. Let us see what they have to offer us.”
“But—but, Carsina, I’ve told you, this store is the best of them. Carsina!”
The door shut behind her. I hadn’t moved. “Can’t blame her for taking
fright,” the youth behind the counter smirked. “And what can I do for you
today, Mistress Gorling?”
Clara Gorling was a lady. I’ll give her that. She cast me an apologetic
glance before telling the lad, “Well, I thought we were going to look at
buttons and lace, but my husband’s cousin seems to have fled. I do beg
your pardon. She’s only newly arrived in Gettys. It’s been arranged for her
to meet Captain Thayer. Their families are discussing a betrothal. My
cousin spent the best part of the winter in Old Thares. You can imagine
the shock she feels, coming straight to Gettys from the society and culture
of the capital. Well. As I’m here, Yandy, would you please put up two
pounds of herring for me, and two measures of corn meal? At least I’ll get
the day’s shopping out of the way.” She glanced out of the window as she
spoke, and I followed her gaze. Carsina lingered outside the mercantile
with her back to the store. Did she think I would pursue her? Why would
she imagine I would want to, after she had treated me so badly and tried
to turn my own sister against me? Yet that random thought of Yaril
suddenly made me realize why I had to speak to Carsina. I hurried out of
the store.
The streets were muddy and rutted from the rains of spring. Carsina
lingered on a cobbled walk, trying to hold her skirts away from the mud
without flashing her ankles into view. The spring wind from the
mountains tugged at the scarf that she held close to her throat with her
free hand. There was no one near to overhear me. I walked softly up to her
and spoke in a low voice. “Such a surprise to see you in Gettys, Carsina. I
understand you’re here to meet your new fiancé. Congratulations. I’m sure
he’ll be as charmed as I once was.” I had intended my words as a
compliment, to calm her and make her regard me with gratitude before I
asked my favor of her. Instead, she seemed to regard them as either insult
or threat. She turned her head to look at me, eyes flashing, and then
jerked her gaze away. “Leave me alone, sirrah. We have not been
introduced, and I’m not accustomed to conversing with common
strangers.” She took several hasty steps away from me and then paused,
staring anxiously at the mercantile door. I knew that as soon as Clara
came out, she would flee. I only had a moment to convey my need to her. A
soldier who was riding past stared at us curiously. I approached her
again. “Carsina, please. There is just one thing I need from you, a small
and simple favor. Won’t you help me out, please, for old time’s sake? For
Yaril?”
Her face had gone white and she stood stiff as a stick. She looked all
around us, as if fearing someone would see me speaking to her. “Sir, I do
not know you!” she said quite loudly. “If you don’t stop bothering me, I
shall scream for assistance.” Two ladies had just turned the corner near
Gettys’ only teashop. They halted at the sight of us, staring.
“Don’t do that!” I whispered hoarsely. “You don’t need to do that. Carsina,
it’s about Yaril, not me. Once you were the very best of friends. Please, for
her sake, help me. She thinks I am dead. I don’t have any way to—” “Leave
me alone!” She all but shrieked the words as she took several more
tottering steps away from me.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Is he bothering you?” The voice came from behind
me, and I turned, dread in my heart. Sergeant Hoster, puffed up with
hostility, looked absolutely gratified to have an excuse to humiliate me. He
didn’t wait for Carsina to speak before he barked at me, “Step away from
the lady, Gutbag! I seen you whispering at her. She warned you off twice.
Now get on your way and leave her alone. Better yet, get back to the
cemetery where you belong.” Carsina stood with her back to me, trembling
as if with terror, her handkerchief clutched to her mouth. I knew what she
feared, and it wasn’t that I’d harm her. It was that somehow the folk of
Gettys would connect her with me. I spoke deliberately to her back. “I
meant no harm, ma’am. Obviously, I mistook you for someone else.” A
vengeful demon inside me wanted to call her by name, wanted to
announce to every fool on the street who had stopped to gawk that I had
once been engaged to her. Coldly I clamped down on the impulse. I must
not antagonize her. She was my best hope of getting a letter through to my
sister. If I could catch her alone, I could if necessary threaten her with
exposure to get her to write to Yaril. But that ruse would have to wait. For
now, I lowered my head and stepped back apologetically.
Clara Gorling had emerged from the shop at last. She gave an exclamation
of dismay at Carsina’s distress and hurried to her side. I turned and
walked quickly away. Behind me, I heard Sergeant Hoster apologizing to
her for “the lady’s bad experience. No woman should walk the streets of
Gettys alone, more’s the pity. Some of the enlisted men have no more
manners than savages. She’s not harmed, ma’am, merely shaken. A walk
home and a hot cup of tea will likely put her right.” He turned and shook
his fist at me. “I’d give you the thrashing you deserve, if it weren’t for all
these ladies watching. Count yourself lucky!” Clara Gorling was no
shrinking violet. She called out loudly after me, “You should be ashamed of
yourself, trooper! Ashamed! Animals like you are why the ladies of this
town must carry whistles and walk in pairs just to be safe in broad
daylight! I’ll be speaking to Colonel Haren about you! Don’t think I shan’t!
You’re a hard man to mistake! My husband will see that you get what you
have coming to you!”
And all I could do was hunch my shoulders to her words and slink away
like a chicken-killing dog. I almost expected the onlookers to stoop and
fling stones after me to make me run. For a terrifying moment, I wished
death on all of them. Yet the moment I felt my blood begin to seethe with
magic, a horror seized me and I quenched the emotion and the evil
thought it had spurred. I felt physically ill and more of a monster than
even the gawking folk believed I was. As quickly as I could, I turned down
an alley and escaped from their sight. I had not intended to take Sergeant
Hoster’s suggestion that I hurry back to the cemetery, but that was what I
did. For the rest of the afternoon, my mind seethed, not just with plans of
how I could persuade Carsina to help me clandestinely contact my sister,
but also with genuine fear of the emotions she had stirred in me.
Eventually I took out my dearly bought newspaper and tried to absorb
myself in the news from Old Thares and the civilized world. But the news
that had been of such pressing interest to me but a few hours earlier now
seemed irrelevant to me. I tried to care about the old nobles and the new
nobles and questions of birth order and life roles and could not. None of it,
I told myself, would ever touch me again. I was no longer a new noble’s
soldier son, but only an enlisted man who wasn’t even truly a cavalla
trooper, but only a cemetery soldier, a guardian of graves. The storekeeper
had been right, I told myself in disgust. Just because I could read the
newspaper did not mean that any of it applied to me.
No. I was a creature of this border world now, a man infected with magic.
A monstrous power slept inside me, and unless I could rid myself of it, I
would have to live in fear of my honest emotions. I had to find a way to rid
myself of the magic. I had starved my body of sustenance to no avail. I had
thought that if I could regain my former body, I could take back my
former life. Now I saw that I had been starting at the wrong end of the
problem. If I wanted to take back my old life or any semblance of it, the
first thing I had to do was be rid of the magic that lurked inside me. It was
the true change that had befallen me, not the layer of fat that covered me.
My fat was only an outward sign of the real transformation.
Spink had offered to help me. I suddenly longed to be able to seek him and
Epiny out and have someone I trusted on my side in this battle. Perhaps I
could find a way to contact Spink, and I tempted myself with the thought
of revealing myself to Epiny. I banished the hope by recalling how the folk
in town had looked at me today. Did I want to bring that kind of disgust
and shame to Spink’s doorstep? Did I want tales of whores and insults to
women on the street to attach themselves to my real name, as they surely
must if Epiny acknowledged me as her cousin? I imagined such gossip
reaching my father’s ears, and Yaril’s, and I cringed. No. Isolation was
better than shame. I would continue on my own. This was my fight and no
one else’s.
I stayed away from town for over a week. I was well settled in my cabin
now. I dug myself a garden patch, well away from the grave sites, and
planted a small vegetable garden. I tended the graves of the folk I had
buried over the winter; the frozen earth I had tossed down on their coffins
had settled unevenly. I leveled it now, and whenever I noticed wild flowers
sprouting near my path, I dug them up and moved them to the new
graves.
Rabbits and birds were attracted to the spring grass on the open hillside
of the graveyard, and I began employing my sling to obtain fresh meat for
myself. I began to wonder how independently I could live. Eventually I
must return to town for fresh supplies and to fulfill my duties, but each
time I thought of going, I found an excuse to stay home.
I was hoeing in my little garden one morning when I heard hoofbeats. I
hurried around the front of my cabin and then stood and watched as a
lone horseman followed by a mule and cart came up the rough road to the
cemetery. It took some time before I recognized Ebrooks and Kesey. Even
then, I was reluctant to go and meet them. I stood silently until they pulled
in their animals. Ebrooks dismounted and Kesey clambered down from his
cart. The cart held a coffin. “No mourners?” I asked as I approached
them.
Kesey shrugged. “New recruit. He managed to get himself killed the first
day he was here. The corporal that did it is locked up now. I expect that
before the week is out, you’ll be burying him, too.”
I shook my head at the sad tidings. “You could have just sent a messenger
out here. Clove and I would have come for him.”
“Yeah, well, it’s that time of year. You’ll be seeing me and Ebrooks regular
now. Colonel doesn’t like the grass to get more than ankle-deep here. We’ll
be cutting some each day; it’s the only way to keep it down.” It was
strange to have company. They helped me lower the coffin into the waiting
grave, and then watched me fill it in. It annoyed me that neither one
appreciated that a dug grave was already waiting, nor did they help to fill
it. At least they bowed their heads with me as I said a simple prayer over
the grave.
“Used to be every soldier from our outfit had a real funeral,” Kesey
observed. “But I guess funerals are like birthdays. Once you reach a
certain number of them, they don’t seem so special anymore.”
“As long as I’m here, I’ll do my best to see every man buried with dignity,”
I replied.
“Suit yourself,” Kesey said. “But Ebrooks and I won’t always have time to
help you, you know.”
His callousness angered me. I took a petty revenge. I professed ignorance
as to how to put an edge on a scythe. I watched them do all the tool
sharpening, and then feigned that I did not know how to use one and
spent the rest of the day “learning” by watching them. I discovered they
were actually very competent at their tasks. We began at the oldest section
of the cemetery, and worked row by row to take down the grass that had
grown too tall. As we raked it into piles and collected it, they complained
that once simply putting a couple of sheep out to graze had accomplished
this task. It had been stopped not out of exaggerated respect for the dead,
but because three times in a row, the sheep had been stolen. When I
expressed surprise, they laughed at me. Had I forgotten that most of the
population of the town around the fort were criminals? As the afternoon
shadows lengthened, we returned to my cabin. To my surprise, they’d
thought to bring food with them, and we made a meal together. They were
not companions I would have chosen for myself, yet it was still good to eat
and talk and laugh without regard to anything else.
After our meal, they headed back to town. They invited me to come with
them and join them in a beer, but I’d spent my money on the Old Thares
newspaper, and told them so politely. And so they departed, with the
promise or warning that they’d return to work again tomorrow. As they
waved at me, they laughed, and told me to keep good watch tonight, lest
the Specks come to steal my latest resident. I waved them off and went
back into my cabin. I’d worked longer hours than I had in some days, and
I went to bed early, actually anticipating the morrow with some pleasure.
After all my days alone, it would be good to have company each day. I
tried not to wonder if I would soon weary of the twosome. I slept well and
deeply.
Dawn woke me, and I rose and followed my routine. When I went to fetch
water, I received again the strong impression that someone was watching
me from the forest. I steeled myself to the magic’s insidious creeping and
shook my fist at the forest before I carried my bucket of water home.
While I waited for the icy spring water to boil for tea and porridge, I took
my sling and went out across the grave sites looking for rabbits or birds.
I’d resolved to make a nice meat soup for all of us for supper, and
suspected that the scent of newly shorn grass might have lured in a few fat
spring rabbits, or perhaps some birds come in quest of gravel or worms.
What I found instead shocked and horrified me. Somehow, the tales of
body-snatching had seemed only that: tales to frighten a man new to his
task as a cemetery guard. To see the gaping grave and the plundered
coffin crookedly perched upon the heaped soil raised the hair on the back
of my neck and sent a shiver down my spine. I approached it cautiously, as
if it were somehow dangerous to me. It was empty. Only a smudge of
caked blood from the dead man’s wound remained to show that a body
had been in there. In the loose soil beside the grave, I found two sets of
barefoot prints. I lifted my eyes to the forest that crouched on the hillside
above the cemetery.
The Specks had come and taken the body into those woods. Somewhere in
there, I’d find him. All I had to do was muster the courage to go and look
for the corpse. Ebrooks and Kesey found me gathering what I thought I’d
need. I’d found a piece of old canvas in the tool shed, possibly left over
from crude shroud-making for plague victims. I had the canvas and a
good length of rope. I’d slung those onto the back of Clove’s saddle. My
long gun was in the scabbard. I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it, and not
just because I didn’t want to face a difficult situation. I had no faith in the
battered weapon. I had expected them to share my horror at the body
snatching. Instead, simpletons that they were, they roared with laughter
at my predicament and wished me “good hunting” but declined to make
any effort to help me. Kesey offered me the only helpful bit of information.
“Sometimes they puts them right at the end of the road, where the
workers would find them. I think they do it to frighten them. But other
times, well, there’s just no saying. That feller could be anywhere in the
woods, from here to the other side of the Barrier Mountains.”
“Why do they do it?” I demanded furiously, not expecting an answer.
“Most likely because it bothers us so much. For a while there, Rheims, the
fellow who dug graves before you, he kept a list of the ones that were
stolen, and which ones he brought back and buried and which ones he
never found. Colonel Haren got angry about that.”
“That he never found some of the bodies? I don’t blame him! That’s awful.
Think of the families.”
“No, not that. He got mad that Rheims kept a list. Sergeant Hoster told us
a new rule for it, after Rheim disappeared. You got to go look for the body
at least three times. If you don’t find it after that, you can just fill in the
grave and keep your mouth shut about it. Now, Ebrooks and me, we asked
him, ‘What do you mean?’ Do we only have to go looking for the corpse
three times all told, or that we got to try to find it three times each time it
gets stole, no matter what?”
The horror I felt was only getting deeper. “What did Hoster say?” I asked
faintly.
Ebrooks laughed sourly. “Not much. He just shoved Kesey down and called
him an old fool and then stomped off. And over his shoulder he shouts at
us, ‘Work it out for yourselves.’ So we did. And we decided three times was
the maximum we’d go into the woods for any body. And that’s how we’ve
been doing it.”
I felt queasy. “And how many bodies have been lost that way?” They
exchanged a look. It was an agreement to lie. “Oh, not many,” Ebrooks
said airily. “But we don’t really know the count, because Colonel Haren
forbade keeping track of it. And neither of us are much good at writing
anyway.”
“I see.”
They went off to their grass-cutting after that, and I took Clove and my
corpse-packaging materials and went back to the empty grave. I resolved
that I would start there and see if I couldn’t discover any sort of trail. I
also decided that I would approach Colonel Haren about acquiring a dog,
to both help me guard the cemetery and to help track down stolen bodies
when the occasion demanded it. This time, however, I knew I was on my
own. From the tracks in the disturbed soil around the grave, I decided
there had been two intruders, one smaller than the other. They had walked
through the uncut grass burdened with a corpse. I mounted Clove to enjoy
a better vantage point. There had been a heavy dew the night before. As I
had hoped, the passage of the grave robbers had disturbed enough of the
moisture on the tall grass that I could see where they had gone. Even
better, it indicated they had left after most of the dew had formed. I
kicked Clove, and we followed their trail through the grave markers. It
made straight for the woods.
The forest looked beautiful in the morning light. The new leaves were at
their brightest, and the contrast between the shades of green shown by the
different kinds of trees made a springtime palette. The sky was a pale blue,
with wispy clouds. In the near distance, the mountains shouldered up
above the hills, still mantled with snow. It looked as if clouds had snagged
on their rugged tops and flew there like banners. The woods should have
looked welcoming, but the closer I got to them, the more they breathed
dullness and fatigue and deep dark despair.
At the edge of the meadow, I dismounted. From here, I’d have to walk if I
was to keep my eyes open for sign. And walking would force me to stay
awake. Already sleepiness buzzed in my ears and my eyelids were heavy. I
rubbed my eyes, scratched my head briskly to try to rouse myself, and
entered the woods. Clove came behind me.
The packed litter of the forest floor looked deep and undisturbed. I tried to
imagine myself as two men, burdened with a corpse. Where would I
choose to walk, what would I avoid? I picked my way up the hillside,
avoiding the denser thickets of underbrush. I struck a deer trail, and was
rewarded by a fresh scuff mark on the bark of a tree beside it. I yawned
prodigiously, shook my head, and forced myself to go on. The forest
smelled lovely, both lush and rotting in the rising warmth of the spring
day. It reminded me of something…no, of someone. Of her. Tree Woman.
It was the smell of her breath and body. In a sort of daze, I drifted into a
walking dream of lying beside her, in warmth and ease. My
discouragement turned to a shameful longing for a past that I didn’t even
remember.
Can a man fall asleep walking? I’m not sure, but it is possible to waken by
jolting into a tree. I shook my head, and for a moment I could not
remember where I was or what I was doing there. Then Clove nudged me
from behind, and I recalled my task. We had not strayed far from the deer
trail. I went back to it, and trudged on. I used every trick I knew to keep
myself alert. I bit my lip. I scratched the back of my neck. I forced myself
to walk with my eyes open very wide. Such antics kept me awake and
moving, but it was devilishly hard to focus on trying to find marks of a
trail. I saw nothing for a long time, and cursed my luck, wondering if in
my sleepiness I’d missed some key clue. Then I saw the unmistakable mark
of three muddy fingers on a tree trunk. Someone had paused there and
steadied himself. I tottered on, yawning. That hand mark meant
something more than the fact they had passed this way. My mind chewed
the thought slowly. I decided it meant they were getting tired. The nature
of the forest was changing. The woods right above the cemetery were of
fairly young trees interspersed with large charred stumps and fire-scarred
giants. Clove and I came now to the edge of that old burn, and in a dozen
paces the open, airy forest of deciduous trees abruptly gave way to
something darker and more ancient. The underbrush dwindled and gave
way. The crowded trees that competed for space and survival had no place
in this cathedral of giants. The forest floor became a deep carpet of moss.
A few broad-leaved plants and ferns broke the floor, and occasionally the
long, crookedly sprawling and fiercely thorned canes of demon’s club
sprouted like strange forest cacti. Previously, Clove had had to shoulder
his way along the narrow path. Now we were dwarfed. The trunks of the
trees were columns that held up a distant sky. The giants were widely
spaced, and I could not reach the lowest branch on any of them. Their
leafy limbs began far overhead and reached out to mingle in a canopy
that, when their leaves were fully developed, would completely block the
light. I had never walked in such a forest, and the magic’s sleepy spell was
abruptly dispersed by a jolt of genuine and deeply felt fear. I’d recognized
these giants of trees. They were the same as those at the end of the road. I
halted where I stood and stared all around me. The vista of thick columnar
trunks extended in all directions. I had no name for the trees; I’d never
seen them anywhere else. The upper reaches of their trunks were mottled
in color, from green to reddish-brown. But down here, at my height, the
surface of their bark was ropy, as if the trunks were braided tendrils
rather than a single stem. The roots that radiated out from the trees
raised hummocks in the forest floor. Their fallen leaves from last autumn
made deep leafy beds of humus among the tangling roots. The rich smell
of healthy rot filled my nostrils.
The silence in that place was a pressure I felt in my ears, and between one
heartbeat and the next, I suddenly acknowledged a thing I had always
known but never fully realized. Trees were alive. The colossi that
surrounded me were not the work of man or the earth’s bones of stone.
They were living creatures, each one begun from a tiny seed, and older, far
older than anything I could imagine. The thought sent a sudden shiver up
my spine, and suddenly I needed to see the sky and feel moving air on my
face. But the trees hemmed me round and closed me in. I glimpsed an
area that seemed more light and open and made directly for it, heedless of
leaving the deer trail that was now only a winding indentation through the
mossy earth.
My area of light marked where one of the giants had half fallen. It leaned
at an angle, its roots torn from the earth, and its bare branches pushing
half a dozen fellow trees aside. Its falling had opened a window to the sky;
spring sunlight reached the mossy forest floor. In that irregular patch of
light, several young trees had sprung up. I would have said they were
large, old trees if I had seen them growing in Old Thares. Among these
giants, they seemed like saplings. And fastened to one of the saplings I
found the corpse I had been pursuing. I had seen only his coffin when we
buried him. It was a shock to find him such a young man, little more than
a boy, really. He sat with his back to the tree, his head fallen forward on
his chest and his face covered by a sheaf of yellow hair. But for the
discoloration of his skin, he might have simply fallen asleep there.
His hands, darkened by death, lay in his lap. He looked at peace. I stared
at him, and wondered what I had feared I would find. The Specks had not
stripped his body. They had not cut his limbs away or in any way
dishonored him that I could see. They had simply carried him all this way,
only to set him down against a tree.
The shafts of spring sunlight falling from far above illuminated him as if
he were god-touched. Tiny insects danced above him in a flickering cloud
of gossamer wings. Behind me, Clove snorted impatiently. I glanced back
at my horse, and at the roll of soiled canvas and old rope he carried.
Suddenly it seemed that I would be the one disturbing the rest of the dead.
A man spoke beside me. “Please, sir. Don’t bother him. He is peaceful
now.” I leapt sideways and landed in a defensive posture. Clove turned his
big head to look at me curiously. The Speck man did not flinch or move.
He didn’t shift his eyes toward me, but stood with his hands clasped
loosely below his belly and his head bent as if praying. For a long instant,
we were frozen in that tableau. The Speck was a man of middle years,
naked as the sky. His long streaked hair was held back with a tie of bark
twine. He carried no weapons; his body was unadorned by jewelry of any
kind. As natural as an animal, he stood in submission before me. I felt
foolish in my wrestler’s crouch, with my fists held up before me. I calmed
my breath and warily straightened. “Why have you done this?” I asked
him severely.
He lifted his eyes to look at me. I was startled to see that his eyes matched
the streaking pigment on his face. A brown eye looked at me from the dark
blotch on the left side of his face, and a green eye peered from the tan area
around his right eye. His gaze was mild. “I do not understand your words,
Great One.” Clove and my scabbarded long gun were several steps away. I
edged toward them as I tried to think of a different way to phrase my
question. “Yesterday I buried this man in a coffin. Why have you
disturbed his rest by stealing his body and bringing him here?”
He puffed his cheeks at me lightly, a gesture I would later learn indicated
a sort of denial. “Oh, Great One, I cannot understand what you say.”
“Speak the language, can’t you?” The woman who suddenly stepped out
from the shelter of a tree snapped these words with asperity. She had been
leaning against the mottled trunk in a way that had allowed her to blend
with it. Now that she stood clear of it, I wondered how I had not seen her
before, and wondered, too, why Clove showed no sign of alarm. He paid
these Specks no more mind than if they were jaybirds hopping near him
in his pasture. When, I wondered, had he become so accustomed to them?
A paranoid fear that there were actually unseen Specks all around me
suddenly seized me. I glanced about and then put my back to Clove’s
barrel body. My long gun was on the other side of my horse. I started to
edge around him.
As I took that precaution, the woman walked toward me. She was as
naked as the man, and completely comfortable in her bare skin. She
reminded me of a large, heavy-bodied cat as she stalked me. She was lithe,
but there was nothing slight about her. As she drew closer, I halted my
flight. Her modest breasts hugged her body; muscle moved in her powerful
thighs. I tried not to stare at her nakedness, but it was just as difficult to
meet her eyes. They were the deepest green I had ever seen. A sooty streak
ran down the center of her face, dividing her eyes and darkening her nose.
She had more specks and larger ones than the man did; at some points,
the dashes on her body almost became stripes. Her streaky hair fell in a
mane down her back, and in color it reminded me of varnished oak.
If I felt uncouth staring at her body, she was not so inhibited about
perusing mine. Her eyes ran over me familiarly, and she said to the man,
“Look at him. He’s huge. He could make two of you even now, and yet it is
plain that no one cares for him. Think what such a man could look like
with the proper care.” She was only an arm’s length away from me, and
she lifted both her hands as if she would measure my girth with them.
“Keep your distance!” I warned her, unnerved by her casual attitude
toward me.
“Speak the language, I said! Are you rude, or stupid?”
“Olikea! It is dangerous to speak so to a Great One!” The man offered his
warning in a humble tone, as if he must defer to her. It made me wonder
what her status was; I tried to gauge her age and decided she must be
close to twenty. Her nakedness, I suddenly realized, confused me. I was
accustomed to dress defining both a woman’s status and her age.
She laughed, a clear peal that shattered the quiet of the woods. The sound
woke a memory in me. I’d heard that laugh before. “There is no danger,
Father. If he is so stupid that he cannot speak the language, then he will
not be offended by what I said. And if he is so rude as to speak his own
tongue to us when he can understand the language, well, then I have only
returned that rudeness to him. Is it not so, Great One?”
“My name is not Great One,” I replied testily. And then my tongue halted
of its own accord. I had spoken Gernian to her, until I came to the words
for Great One. That phrase I had returned to her in her own language. I
knew then that I could speak the Speck language, and recalled when I had
learned it and from whom. They were speaking Speck and I’d been
replying in Gernian. I took a breath and tried again. “Please. Keep your
distance from me.”
“There!” she exclaimed to her father. “I knew it. He was just being rude.
Because he thinks he can.” She turned back to me. “Keep my distance.
That I shall. This is my distance, Great One.” She stepped closer to me and
set both her hands on my chest. Shock paralyzed my body and my tongue.
She ran one hand down my side, and slapped me firmly on the hip as if
she were checking a horse or dog for soundness. Her other hand
simultaneously traveled up my chest and up the side of my neck and
stopped on my cheek. She ran her thumb lightly over my lips. Her bold
gaze held my own. She leaned in closer until her breasts brushed my chest.
Then the hand that had lingered on my hip suddenly groped my groin.
Startled, I sprang back from her, but Clove’s huge body blocked my
escape. She squeezed me playfully and then stepped back, grinning
broadly. She spoke over her shoulder to her father, who stood, his eyes cast
down, as if he wished to avoid seeing her outrageous behavior. “Oh, you
see, he regrets being rude already.” She cocked her head at me and wet
her lips. “Would you like to apologize to me?”
It was very hard to think. The sudden idea that I had succumbed to the
spell of the forest and fallen into a deep sleep came to me. If this was a
dream, I could do whatever I wanted, without repercussions. No. I recalled
the last time I had lain with a Speck woman in a dream, and all that had
followed. I made fists, digging my nails into the palms of my hands. I lifted
my hands and scrubbed roughly at my face. Either the dream was a very
strong one, or this was real. Either choice was frightening. I took a breath
and spoke firmly to the man. It was hard to summon an authoritative
voice when the woman still hemmed me in against my horse. “I have come
to take the body back to our graveyard. Stand clear of me and let me do
what I must.”
The man lifted his eyes to mine. “I think he prefers to be where he is,
Great One. Go to him. Speak to him. See if it is not so.”
He spoke with such confidence that I looked toward the corpse. Was it
possible that by some horrible error the man still clung to life? No. He was
dead. Flies were walking on him. I could smell him. I decided to put my
decision into words the savage could comprehend. “No. He wishes to be
back in his coffin, buried in the ground. That is what I must do for him.”
As casually as I could, I turned back to Clove. I took my roll of canvas and
length of line from his saddle and slung them over my shoulder. The
woman had not moved. I had to edge past her to walk toward the corpse.
She followed me.
The man clasped himself and rocked from side to side as I approached the
body. “Great One, I fear you are wrong. Listen to him. He wishes to stay.
He will make a fine tree. When the trees of your people fill our forest, the
cutting will have to stop. Your own trees will stop you.”
I understood each word that he said, but I could not take his meaning. “I
will ask him what he wishes,” I told the old man as I dropped the canvas
next to the body. I knelt briefly by the body and pretended to listen. “Yes.
He wishes to go back to the cemetery,” I told them.
I pulled the rope free of the canvas and unrolled the cloth. I bent to seize
the corpse by the shoulders. Insects buzzed over my head, and the
distinctive smell of death surrounded me. I held my breath. Resolved to
get it over with quickly, I seized him by his shoulders, intending to pull
him over onto the canvas and then quickly roll him up in it.
The corpse didn’t budge. I tugged at him several times, and then had to
step away to take a deep breath of untainted air. The stench of death
clung to my hands, and it took all my will to keep from retching. All this
while, the Specks had watched me, the man solemnly and the woman with
amusement. Their presence bothered me; if I must do such a distasteful
task, I would rather have done it without an audience. Obviously, they had
fastened him to the tree somehow. I stood up straight, unsheathed my
knife, took a deep breath of air, and once more approached the corpse. I
could not see any binding. When I could hold my breath no longer, I took
another gasp of air through the sleeve of my jacket. Then I tried to slide
my hand down behind his back, between him and the tree. Immediately, I
encountered a number of tiny rootlets projecting from the tree and into
the corpse, thrusting right through the fabric of his jacket and shirt and
into his flesh.
I could scarcely credit it. I knew that the man’s body had not been here
more than a few hours. That a tree could send greedy, questing roots into
him so quickly was macabre. I tried the blade of my knife against those I
could reach; it was a hopeless task. They were pencil thick and as hard as
oak knots. I do not like to recall the next half hour. The stench was
stronger because the rootlets had pierced his dead flesh in so many places.
Every atom of my nature rebelled against the idea of manhandling the
dead. Yet, in the end, that was what it came down to. I jerked him loose.
The rootlets that had entered his body so quickly had fanned out inside
him as a network of tendrils. By the time I pried the body loose, it was
leaking foul fluids from dozens of gaping wounds. It smelled far worse
than it should have; I suspected something in the roots was hastening the
breakdown of the corpse. Pulling the body free of the roots left the tangled
root masses dangling from the tree and dripping gore. Liquids and
particles of flesh and gut smeared my hands and arms before I finally
managed to lay him out on the canvas. I flung an end of it over him and
then dropped to my knees to roll him up in the coarse shroud. I bound the
parcel with my rope. I was tying the final knot when the Speck man spoke
again. “I do not believe he wished to go. But in this I will defer to your
wisdom, Great One.” He sounded ineffably sad.
The woman spoke with more scorn. “You did not even try to listen to him.”
She puffed her cheeks at me several times, making her lips flutter. When I
made no response, she said, “I will come to see you again. This time not as
a dreamwalker, but in the flesh.” She cocked her head and eyed me
appraisingly before she added, “And I will bring you proper food.” I could
think of no response. It was difficult to lift the swathed corpse to my
shoulder and even harder to rise with it, but I would have died before I
would have asked either of them for help. I lugged the dead trooper over to
Clove, who snorted his distaste, but accepted the nasty burden. I could
almost feel the Specks’ eyes boring into me as I secured the body to my
saddle. Both ends of my parcel stuck out awkwardly. The journey home
would be a complicated one once we reached the narrow path through the
younger forest. I spoke over my shoulder to the watching Specks as I
tightened the rope that lashed the corpse to my saddle. “The way of my
people is to bury our dead. It is my duty to protect their graves. I do not
wish to have problems with you or your people. You must leave our dead
alone. You must never again do what you did last night. I do not want to
bring harm down on either of you. But if you again take a corpse from our
graveyard, I must. Do you understand?” I tugged the last knot tight and
turned to look at them.
I was alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
OLIKEA
Much later that afternoon, I presented myself at Colonel Haren’s office.
After I’d reburied the unfortunate trooper I’d hauled bucket after bucket
of water and scrubbed myself raw, but the stink of death clung to me. I
wanted to throw away the clothing I’d been wearing, but I did not have
that luxury. Instead, I washed it and left it dripping on my newly strung
clothesline. I avoided Ebrooks and Kesey entirely. I didn’t want to speak to
anyone about my encounter with the Specks, but thought that perhaps I
must report it to Colonel Haren. The sergeant kept me waiting. I had
learned that the person I really had to wear down was his sergeant, not the
colonel. So I stood before his desk and watched him shuffle his papers.
“You could leave and come back later,” he suggested to me sharply at one
point.
“I’ve nothing more demanding to do. And I feel I should make my report
to the colonel as soon as possible.”
“You can simply give me your information to pass on.”
“I could, Sergeant, of course. It’s rather detailed. But if you wish to write it
down for the colonel, I could come back tomorrow for his response.” I
don’t know why he didn’t simply order me to leave. Perhaps because he
knew I would come back. There were a few chairs along the wall of the
office, but I had observed that my standing seemed to chafe his nerves
more than if I withdrew quietly. He sorted his way through a stack of
dispatches, assigning them to different piles. Then he looked up at me,
sighed, and said, “I’ll see if he can see you now.”
Despite the spring weather, the colonel still lounged in his chair by the
blazing hearth fire. No ray of daylight penetrated his chamber. I wondered
if he ever left this room.
He turned his head as I entered and sighed. “Trooper Burve. You again!
What is it now?”
“Specks stole a body out of the graveyard last night, sir. I had to enter the
forest to recover it. I had contact there with a Speck man and woman.”
“Did you? That’s the only part of your story that is unusual. Did you
antagonize them?”
I considered his question. “I took the body back. They didn’t seem to
approve, but I simply did it.”
“Well done.” He nodded sharply. “We’ve found that to be the best way to
deal with them. Approach what must be done calmly, inform them of it,
and then do it. They soon come to understand that we know what we’re
doing and it’s for the best. For the most part, they’re a passive people. The
only time they’ve ever attacked us, we had shed Speck blood first. They
became very distressed about the road construction and tried to interfere
with it. Instead of talking to them, some fool lost his head and shot one.
Instead of fleeing, the Specks charged at us. Well. We had no choice
except to use our weapons then. A lot of Specks died. Such a one-sided
battle was unfairly called a massacre. The papers in Old Thares published
a very biased account, and all the officers involved were rebuked. What
should they have told their men? ‘Don’t shoot until they’ve killed some of
us?’”
His indignation had brought two bright spots of color to his cheeks. He
took a deep breath to calm himself. “So. We don’t want a situation like
that again. Do as you’ve been doing. Simply bring the bodies back. Don’t
make threats. Don’t shoot at Specks. Just do your duty, but don’t provoke
them to bloodshed. Remember I assigned you to the cemetery to prevent
this, not so you could come here and complain about it. You did recover
the corpse and rebury it?”
 “Yes, sir, I did. Sir, I thought I should report my contact with the Specks.”
He lifted a wine glass from a table at his elbow and sipped from it. The
liquid was a dark crimson. “It’s of no consequence. It’s spring, trooper.
Spring always brings the Specks down to trade. Soon it will be summer.
Then it will be high summer, and people will die of plague. Lots of them.
And as fast as you bury them, the Specks will try to dig them up. By the
end of summer, if you don’t die of the plague, you’ll be like all the rest of
us. Praying for winter to come and cursing it when it gets here.”
He spoke with absolute certainty. When he was finished, he resumed
staring into this fire.
“Sir. It seems to me I might better serve in my post if I could find a way to
prevent the Specks from stealing bodies before summer and the plague
season hits.”
I waited for a response from him. When he didn’t give me one, I took it as
permission to speak on. “I’d like to acquire a dog, sir, with your
permission. He could serve in two capacities: he could keep watch in the
graveyard by night and bark to warn me of intruders. And if a body was
stolen, a hound could help me track the culprits and bring the corpse back
sooner.” He made no response. I tried again. “I’d like to keep a dog, sir.”
He gave a sudden harrumph of laughter. “So should we all, trooper. But
tell me this. Where would you get one? Have you seen any dogs in Gettys
since you arrived?”
It was such an obvious lack, I wondered how I had missed it before.
“Perhaps dogs could be brought from the west?” I ventured, certain that
this had already been tried.
“Dogs disappear from Gettys. Dogs do not seem to like Specks and Specks
certainly do not like dogs. Except in stew. So. You will not be getting a dog
to help you fulfill your duties.” He glanced away from the fire to look at
me, and when I didn’t move, he demanded testily, “Was there anything
else, trooper?”
“May I attempt to build a wall around the cemetery, sir? Or at least along
the side of it that is closest to the woods? It might not prevent all such
incidents, but I should like to make stealing bodies as difficult as possible
for them.”
He shook his head. The neck of the bottle chinked against the lip of his
wineglass as he poured. “Did you pay any attention when I let you sign on?
I told you that I’ve requested a shipment of stone for a wall. I’ve asked for
it several times now, and each time I’ve been put off.” He took another sip
from his wine. “Obviously, the King’s Road is far more important than our
troopers resting in dignity after they die in this forsaken place.” A silence
fell between us. I made a final unwilling effort. “I could build a fence, sir.”
He did not turn his head toward me but only shifted his eyes. “From wood,
I assume.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And where do you plan to get it? Not from our supplies. Wood, ironically,
is hard to come by. We can harvest it only from the edges of the forest
because…because, well, you know how difficult it is for our crews to enter
the actual forest. So how would you build a fence without wood?” Some
stubbornness I had thought long vanquished from me reared its head. I
did not point out that he seemed overly generous with his own supply of
firewood. “I’ll get my own wood, sir.”
He leaned deeper into his chair and considered me. “Taking wood from
that forest is not as easy as it might appear. Have you attempted it,
soldier?”
“I’ve been in the forest twice, sir. I know its challenges.”
“Yet you’d willingly attempt such a thing”
Perhaps he weighed my courage against the appearance of my body. I felt
as if he were seeing me for the first time rather than just the flesh that
enclosed me. I spoke the truth. “I’d rather try to take wood from that
forest than have to hunt down stolen corpses in it, sir.”
“I suppose you would. Very well, then. Feel free to attempt it. But don’t
neglect your other duties. I’ve had good reports of your predigging the
graves. Continue with that effort. But in your spare time, you may
attempt to build a fence as well.”
“Thank you, sir.” I felt anything but thankful as I left. I emerged into the
dusky streets of Gettys. The colonel had kept me waiting for longer than I
thought. Evening was coming on.
What had I been thinking, volunteering to fence in the cemetery? I had
enough work to do, and with no dog to help me, I might have to start
keeping a night watch over the fresh graves. I thought of the long
boundary the cemetery shared with the forest, and tried to picture a fence.
A tall fence of solid wood plank would be the most effective. A rail fence
would do little more than slow the graverobbers. I considered a palisade of
logs and rejected the notion. The idea of cutting that many substantial
logs, digging the holes, and erecting them was beyond a lone man.
Clove awaited me patiently at the hitching rail. I stared at it, and at the
weeds that grew vigorously at the base of its supports. It reminded me of
my father’s hedgerows, founded on lines of rough stones hauled from the
surrounding fields. I’d encountered no sizable stones while digging graves.
The largest ones were no bigger than my head. But even those, set in a
row, could provide a demarcation. And if I planted thorny or densely
growing bushes, I might make a barrier of the very stuff of the forest that
so daunted me. The moment the idea came to me, I recognized the
rightness of it. It would take time to grow, of course. So I’d erect a rail
fence to begin with, and any stones I encountered in my gravedigging
could go along the bottom of it. The Specks went naked. I’d plant
brambles and briers along it. Yes. Clove’s reins were loose in my hands.
He tugged at them, reminding me that I’d been standing there, lost in
thought, for some time. I realized abruptly that I appeared to be staring at
two women approaching me on the sidewalk. In an effort to counteract
that rudeness, I smiled affably and gave a friendly nod. One gave a squeak
of fear and her hand darted to seize the brass whistle she wore on a chain
around her neck. The other woman abruptly took her companion’s elbow
and steered her quickly out and across the street. They walked briskly and
glanced back at me once, whispering together. My cheeks burned in
embarrassment, but I also felt a tinge of anger. I knew, with absolute
certainty, that if those women had so encountered me two years ago, they
would have smiled and returned my greeting. I resented that the shape of
my body made them judge me so hastily. Within, I was the same man I’d
always been.
Almost. I realized I was still staring after the women, and mentally
contrasting their figures to the naked Speck woman I’d glimpsed earlier.
Walking about clad only in her flesh, she had still been less self-conscious
and more confident than either of them. And she had been aggressive, as
Hitch had warned me that all Speck women were. He’d said that his Speck
woman had simply chosen him and that he’d had no say in it, then or
since. I wondered what that would be like, and caught my breath at the
idea. It didn’t displease me. I hadn’t planned to go back to Sarla
Moggam’s. Yet I found myself there, and tying Clove to the railing. It was
stupid of me, I thought. Did I really want to spend what little remained of
my month’s pay on this? Fala was gone, I reminded myself as I knocked at
the door, and the other whores had appeared uninterested in my trade. I’d
be wiser to go straight back to my cottage. Stiddick opened the door to
my knock. “You!” he exclaimed the moment he opened it. Over his
shoulder, he said to someone, “The cemetery guard is back.” He stood
solidly in the door opening. I could not pass, nor even look inside. Before I
could say anything, he was thrust to one side and Sarla herself darted out.
She wore a red dress with many little white bows on the skirt of it. A layer
of lace inadequately concealed her shoulders and the top of her bosom.
She fairly quivered with anger. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here!” she
exclaimed. “After what you did to Fala!”
“I didn’t do anything to Fala,” I protested, but my voice went soft and
guilty on the last words. I had done something to Fala, I just couldn’t
explain what. “Then where is she?” Sarla demanded angrily. “Where does
a woman go in Gettys in the dead of winter? You come here, you spend the
whole night with her, something Fala never did with anyone. Then you’re
gone, and she just isn’t herself. Turns away every man who comes to her
for two days, and then just disappears. Where?”
“I don’t know!” I’d heard Sarla was angry with me over Fala’s leaving her
employ. I hadn’t expected her angry questions.
Her harsh smile of vindictive triumph deepened the lines in her face and
flaked the powder from the corners of her mouth. “You don’t know? Then
why didn’t you ever come back to see her? Everyone saw how satisfied you
were. You come to my establishment just once, spend the whole night with
one of my girls, and then she vanishes. But you never come back looking
for her. Because you knew she was gone, didn’t you? And you knew she
wasn’t ever coming back. And how does a man know that unless he makes
sure of it himself?”
I was dumbstruck for a moment. Then, with all the dignity I could muster
in the face of her outrageous words, I said carefully, “Are you accusing me
of something, madam? And if you are, would you state it plainly?” If I had
thought a blunt response would rattle her, I was wrong. She leaned
forward from the waist toward me, her hands on her hips, thrusting her
breasts at me like weapons. “I say Fala came to a bad end. That’s what I
say. And I think that you know just how. Is that plain enough for you?” “It
is.” Cold anger was building in me. “I only knew Fala for a few hours. But,
as you say, I was a satisfied man. I had no reason to wish her harm, and
every reason to be grateful to her. If she has met with foul play, I will be
very grieved to hear of it. But it will have been none of my doing. Good
day, madam.” I turned, seething with anger, to depart from her door.
When I turned my back, Stiddick struck. It was a doltish schoolboy attack.
He punched me squarely in the back, between my shoulder blades. I don’t
know what he thought would happen. Perhaps he thought that because I
was fat, I must also be weak or cowardly. I do know he wasn’t expecting it
when I spun around and gave him a straight-from-the-shoulder fist to the
face.
His head snapped back on his neck. Then he dropped like a rock. Time
seemed to observe a long silence while he lay there, flat on his back and
still. For one aching instant, I thought I’d killed him. Then he made a
terrible retching sound, rolled over on his side, and curled up in a ball.
Blood was flooding from his face, through his cupped hands and curled
fingers. He yelled wordlessly, and Sarla began shrieking. I turned and
walked away. As I mounted Clove, my hands started to shake. I’d never
struck a man that hard. Gravedigging builds up a man’s back and
shoulders and arms. I thought of my defense: “I didn’t know my own
strength.” Oh, that sounded good. I rode away, knowing that what I’d done
was justified, but also that I felt queasy about it. All the way home, I
wondered what consequences I might expect. An official rebuke was the
least of my worries. I had no witnesses who’d take my part in telling the
story. They could say anything. Sarla had already as much as accused me
of killing Fala. Dropping her doorman scarcely made me look more
innocent. I berated myself for rising to such a schoolboy goad. I could have
walked away. But by the time I reached my cottage, I knew the truth.
No. I couldn’t have.
If I’d walked away once, those sorts of attacks would have become a
constant in my life. I’d done nothing wrong. I hadn’t killed Fala, and when
Stiddick had struck me, I’d only struck him back.
The night was mild, the air calm. I put Clove up and went to my cottage,
thinking only that I’d wake the fire, eat something, and go to bed. When I
reached my doorstep, I was alarmed to see the door ajar and light issuing
from within. I reached for the door handle and almost fell over the basket
there. It was a curious sort of basket, with a frame and handle of hard
wood, but the sides woven of fresh green creeper, with leaves and flowers
still on it. It looked very pretty and yet it filled me with dread. It could
have come from only one place. I looked over my shoulder, across the
graves to the forest edge. But no lone figure waited there in the dim
shadows for me to find her gift. At least, my eyes could not pick out
anyone.
I looked at the door. But surely if she were inside, she would not have left
the basket outside? Cautiously, I eased the door open. I could see no one.
After a few moments of hesitation, I picked up the basket and entered my
cottage. The fire had burned down to coals. I did not have many
possessions, and as a result, they were kept in precise locations. Someone
had explored my home. My journal and writing supplies were
undisturbed, but my clothing seemed to have been examined. One of my
more frequently darned socks still lay in the middle of the floor.
Several items in my limited pantry had been sampled and rejected. I set
the basket down on my table next to the remains. The basket of cold
biscuits on the shelf was to have been part of my dinner. Those she had
apparently enjoyed. The napkin that had enfolded them held only crumbs.
I filled my tea kettle and swung it over the fire on its hook. Then, as
gingerly as if it were a basket of snakes, I opened the woven cover of the
basket. Incredible smells, earthy and rich, wafted up from it.
I ate everything that was in the basket.
I didn’t recognize any of it in a specific way. I knew that there were
mushrooms, roots, fleshy leaves, and scarlet gobbets of fruit that were
sweet as honey yet stung the tongue with tartness, too. Almost everything I
devoured was exactly as it had been harvested, uncooked in any way. But
wrapped in leaves were a stack of golden flat cakes. I could taste honey in
them, but whatever else they were made from, I did not know. I only knew
that they were particularly satisfying, as if this were food I’d been seeking
for a long time. The basket was the size of a book satchel. When I was
finished, I sat back, almost moaning with satiation. The skin of my belly
was stretched tight. I didn’t remember loosening my belt, but I obviously
had. My conscience fussed at me that I had been both greedy and foolish;
the food could have been poisonous. In all my days of travel and at Gettys,
my circumstances had protected me from gluttony. My low pay had not
permitted me to indulge in huge meals on my own, and my pride kept me
from excess when I was eating in the mess hall where others could see me.
This was the first time that I’d had access to a quantity of food that did
not have to be rationed out over weeks, food that I could devour in
privacy. I’d thought I’d had self-control. I’d just proved I did not. But
louder than my conscience was the satisfaction of my body. I felt
nourished as I had not in months. Waves of well-being washed through
me. The rightness of consuming it overpowered all my doubts, as did my
sudden urge to sleep, nay, almost hibernate. I walked from my table to my
bed, pausing only to latch my door. I dropped clothing as I went, and by
the time I reached my blankets had nothing more to do than crawl in and
close my eyes. I slept the sort of sleep that one never gets as an adult, a
deep, dreamless repose. I awoke the same way, between one breath and
the next, feeling alert and rested. For several long moments, I lay there,
taking simple pleasure in the comfort of my bed and the cool gray light of
dawn that found its way through my loosely closed shutters. No list of
daily tasks pressed upon me. All the things that usually weighted my soul,
that I was fat, alone, without prospects, that I had left my sister in terrible
circumstances, uncertain of my survival, that my life was as completely
different from how I imagined it would as it could possibly be—in short,
all of the things that always flavored my mornings with defeat and despair
were absent.
I sat up, swinging my bare feet to the wooden floor. And then those things
did come to me, but they came without teeth. So my life was different
from what I’d planned. Or, I thought to myself, more accurately, what my
father had planned for me. It was still a life. Even the thought that Yaril
believed me dead did not rend me as it usually did. I might as well be dead
to her, I thought, for I could not, in good conscience, ever bring her to a
place like Gettys. My father would attempt to oppress her, but from her
letters to Epiny, I had the feeling that she would stand up to him if she
finally believed that she had no other choice. Perhaps she could now begin
to govern her own life without hoping for rescue from someone else.
As for myself, I could now rise as I was, unencumbered by clothing or
shackles of any kind, and walk away from this ridiculous life of regulations
and expectations. I could go to the forest and live in freedom, learning to
serve my magic and my people.
I stood up to leave.
And my real life engulfed me like a wave washing over me. The dread, the
sadness, and the frustration rose like walls around me, cutting me off from
the peace and optimism that I’d briefly enjoyed. I struggled against it.
Was the bleakness that now enveloped me the miasma of magic that
Epiny had claimed to sense, or was the bright beckoning dream an illusion
that could not withstand the light of day? For a moment, I teetered on a
fence between the two realities, almost as if I could choose which world I
would step into. Almost. Habit made me stoop and pick up my worn
trousers from the floor. I put my familiar life on with them. I grunted as I
stepped into them, and cursed myself for being greedy when they proved
hard to fasten. By the time I had dressed myself, brewed my morning tea,
and decided to punish myself by going without breakfast, I heard the
sounds of Ebrooks and Kesey arriving. They would soon be at my door,
expecting to be invited in. I couldn’t face them. They were too sharp a
contrast with the world I’d briefly visited and too much an affirmation of
the world I now felt trapped in. I seized my jacket from its hook and
hurried out of the door. By the time they arrived, I had strapped a
selection of tools onto Clove and was leading him toward the forest.
“Where you going?” Ebrooks called after me. I could hear the
disappointment in his voice. A hot cup of tea or coffee together before
starting the day’s work had just begun to be a habit among us.
“Forest!” I called back to them. “I’m going to start my fence today.”
“Ya, sure you are!” Kesey mocked me. “We’ll see you back before noon.” I
made no reply. I half-suspected he was right. The forest exuded a dark mix
of terror and discouragement today. I steeled myself to it, and led Clove
into it. We toiled up the wooded hillside through the young forest.
Immediately the sensation of being watched by hostile eyes flooded me. I
took a deep breath and tried to focus my mind on what I needed. I wanted
a stout, straight tree to cut into lengths for a corner post and my first few
fenceposts. I resolved that I’d set the uprights first, and then use smaller
poles for the rails. The deeper I went into the woods, the more futile my
task seemed. It would take me ages to cut enough wood to fence even one
side of the cemetery. The trees here were all softwood. My posts would rot
through in no time at all. Why had I volunteered for such a senseless task?
And none of the trees seemed suitable. This one was too skinny, that one
too thick, this one forked, that one bent. In despair, I finally chose one at
random, telling myself that once it was cut down and limbed, Clove would
drag it out of the woods for me and I’d at least be away from the darkest
part of the woods’ magic.
I unpacked my ax from Clove and selected where I would begin my cut. I
lifted my ax to begin my swing.
“What are you doing?”
The voice didn’t startle me. I turned to look at the same Speck I’d seen the
day before.
“I’m cutting this tree down. I’m going to build a fence around the
cemetery, so that our dead can rest in peace.”
“Fence.” His tongue twisted the foreign word painfully. “Pieces of trees all
in a line. With limbs blocking the path. Other plants and bushes will grow
along it.” I searched the Speck language for words that would
approximate what I was doing. I had no qualms at all about letting them
know I was setting a boundary.
He frowned at me, slowly taking the meaning from my words. Then a
great smile dawned on his face. “You will put trees for your dead? Trees
will grow on the hill that was made bare.” I heard him draw in a great
breath before he exclaimed, “This is an excellent idea, Great One! It would
take one such as you to see this resolution that could be made.”
“I’m glad you approve,” I said. I wondered if he could sense the sarcasm
behind my words. I readied my ax again.
“But that is not the right kind of tree to take, Great One.” His tone made it
clear that he was very reluctant to point out my error. I lowered my ax
again. “What sort of tree do you think I should use, then?” I asked with
cautious curiosity. I’d heard rumors that the Specks were very territorial
of certain groves of trees. Perhaps the tree I’d chosen was precious to him.
I was willing to take a different tree. I was going to have to cut a lot of
trees before I had a fence. There was no sense in antagonizing the man any
more than I must. Besides, that was Colonel Haren’s order. He turned his
head at a slight angle and almost smiled. “You know! These trees will not
bring the dead peace or hold them properly.” We were talking past one
another again. I tried to find a clear question for him. “What trees should
I use then?”
Again, he cocked his head at me. It was hard to read his expression.
Perhaps it was only the colors that interrupted his face that made him
look quizzical. “You know this. Only kaembra trees will enfold the dead.”
“Guide me to the kaembra trees that I may take,” I suggested to him.
“Guide you? Oh, Great One, I should not so presume. But I will accompany
you.” He was as good as his word. I soon realized that in his presence, the
power of the forest to sway my mood waned. I did not know if he
distracted me from it, or if his presence neutralized the evil magic of the
place. In either case, it was a great relief to me. Despite his words, he did
take the lead. I followed him, with Clove lumbering along behind me, his
heavy tread nearly silent in the deep turf of the forest. “Why do you call me
Great One?” I asked when the silence had stretched too long.
He looked back at me over his shoulder. “You are filled with the magic.
Today you shine with it. You are a Great One, and so I address you.” I
glanced down at the swell of my belly and experimented with the notion
that I was not fat, but instead was filled with a power I did not completely
understand. What if my size were not a weakness, not an indicator of lack
of self-control or sloth, but a sign of strength? This Speck, at least, seemed
to regard me with respect and treat me with deference. I shook my head.
His reverence for me only made me uncomfortable, for I felt I deceived
him. We walked on, going ever uphill. Clove’s big hooves scored the forest
floor; even if my guide abandoned me, I’d easily track my way back. Birds
sang and darted overhead. A short distance away, a rabbit thumped an
abrupt warning and then fled. My perception of the forest shifted; it was a
pleasantly mild spring day. The young forest around me was leafy and
sunlit and smelled wonderful. A sense of well-being smoothed away all my
anxiety. I relaxed my shoulders even though I resolved to maintain my
wariness. I became aware of the silence and said awkwardly, “My name is
Nevare.”
“I am called Kilikurra. Olikea is my daughter.”
“She was with you yesterday.”
“I was with her yesterday,” he confirmed.
I glanced around at the surrounding forest. “And is she near today?”
“Perhaps,” he said uncomfortably. “It is not for me to say where she is.”
Ahead of us, the forest grew thicker and darker. We passed through an
intermediate zone of mixed trees, some youngsters and others
fire-scorched giants, before the morning sunlight gave way to the eternal
dusk of old forest. Single shafts of sunshine intermittently penetrated the
canopy. Insects and motes of dust danced in those beams, and where the
light struck the forest floor, flowering plants or patches of brush grew. One
bush was already bejeweled with hanging drupes of scarlet fruit. I
recognized it as the same luscious fruit that had been in the basket the
night before. The fast I had maintained since dawn suddenly seemed a
hollow and foolish thing to do. Denying myself food would not change the
shape of my body. All it did was torment me with hunger, and make me
both irritable and sad. “Shall we stop and eat the berries?” I asked my
guide.
He looked back at me with a smile. For the first time, I realized that one
reason his face looked so strange was that his lips were as black as a cat’s.
“As you will, Great One,” he said, but he spoke as if I’d honored him with a
royal invitation.
The drupes hung heavy on the twigs. Perhaps it was the open air or the
freshness of the fruit or simply the enhancement of greater hunger, but
the flavor exceeded anything I’d ever tasted. The bush was not large, but it
was laden with berries. They were a glowing scarlet in the sunlight, with
thin skins, almost liquid flesh, and a single pip in each. We shared what
was there, unhurrying, savoring the simple pleasure of absolutely ripe
fruit. When the last berry was gone, I sighed. “I do not know why I find
these so delicious and satisfying,” I said. It was true. Two handfuls of the
berries had been my sole meal that day, and yet my hunger was sated.
“They are a powerful food, Great One, and the rightful food of the mage.
You feed your magic as well as your body when you eat them. Everything
that comes from the forest is your rightful food, and all of it will nourish
what you are. But some foods are especially yours and fuel for your
growth. I am honored that you have allowed me to partake of these
alongside you. Already I feel my awareness unfold. I hear the kaembra
trees whispering even though we have not yet reached them.”
“Food for a mage,” I said. I wondered if I had eaten something that would
give me hallucinations. I recalled my experience with Dewara and the gore
frogs. Yet…had that been a hallucination brought on by poison, or a true
journey? If it had not been a true journey, would I be here now? Again, I
walked a thin line between realities. A disturbing thought came to me. I
could not straddle this boundary forever. Soon I would have to choose one
of these worlds and walk in it for the rest of my days.
If Kilikurra sensed my distraction, he did not show it. “Certainly, a mage
food.
Some, such as the reddrops, an ordinary man like me can enjoy when
invited. Others, as you know, are food for mages alone. Certain
mushrooms may be harvested only if they are to be taken to a Great One.”
I had to smile at how carefully he spoke to me. “You are telling me many
things that I have not known. Earlier you said that I must know these
things. Now I think you realize that I do not, and therefore you instruct
me.” His hands fluttered in a subservient gesture, one that shooed my
words away, but respectfully. “Great One, I would never presume to think I
knew anything that you did not. I am a talkative, foolish fellow. Anyone
will tell you that I am known for saying that which needs no saying, and
for repeating what all folk already know. It is a tiresome trait, I know. I
beg that you will tolerate it in me.”
The forms of another courtesy, unknown and yet known to me, niggled at
my mind. The proper sort of response came to me. “I shall enjoy your
conversation, I am sure. These many things are known to me, but it is
helpful of you to recall them for me.”
As I said it, I felt it was truer than I had intended it to be. That other self,
taught by Tree Woman, rippled through my awareness, like a fish seen
silver in the murky depths of a river. His knowledge was in me, and the
longer I walked in this world, the clearer it would come to me. We reached
the shoulder of the hill, went into a brief steep fold of valley, and then
climbed again. “I do not wish to go much farther,” I warned him. “I would
rather find suitable trees at a lower level, so that I do not have to haul
them so far.” He looked at me oddly. “But what you wish differs from what
is, Great One. The trees you must use do not grow lower down. So you are
jesting with me?” I could not think of a reply. So I said only, “When we get
to these trees, then I shall decide.”
Whether it was the berries or Kilikurra’s presence or simply that I was
becoming accustomed to the forest, I began to enjoy my journey. I was not
nearly as weary as I should have been. The light under the trees was gentle
and restful to my eyes. No wind stirred there. The deep moss muted not
just Clove’s hoof-thuds but also seemed to absorb our voices and to
cushion my footfalls gently. I was looking directly at a tall stump when
Olikea stepped out from its shelter. She had not been behind it, but
merged against it. She was naked except for several strands of
red-and-black beads around her waist and a tight necklace of blue beads
around her throat. She was so comfortable with her nudity that I felt no
embarrassment for her. Rabbits and birds were naked in the same way
she was. Kilikurra’s nudity had not even registered with my mind as
something important to notice. I was considering that as she came
towards us. She smiled when she spoke. “You are looking much better
today, Great Man. The food I brought replenished you.”
“Thank you,” I replied awkwardly. I was not accustomed to compliments
from women. She approached me until she was standing less than an
arm’s length away. She was almost my height. When she lifted her chin to
look me in the eyes, it was almost as if she were inviting me to kiss her. I
noticed now that she had dressed her hair. She had bound it back from
her eyes with a bark-cloth strip. Wooden beads secured several tiny thin
braids that hung down just in front of her ears. She smelled wonderful.
When she licked her lips, I noticed that her tongue was both dark and
pink, as mottled as the rest of her. She smiled wider, and I knew she was
enjoying my awareness of her, and my physical reaction to that awareness.
“I hope you enjoyed all of it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She shook her braids back from her face. “The basket of food I left for you.
I hoped you would be in your shelter, but you were not, so I left it for you
to find. I hope that you ate it all with great pleasure.”
“That I did.”
“Good.” She lifted her arms and stretched like a cat. Her eyes never left my
face.
My mouth went dry. I cleared my throat and then said, “Your father,
Kilikurra, is helping me to find trees I can use to build a fence around the
cemetery, so that our dead may rest in peace.”
“Is he?” She glanced around, and when her gaze came back to her face, her
smile was secretive. “But he seems to be gone now. And you know there
are no trees here that can be cut. So. Shall we occupy our time another
way?” While my attention had been focused on her, Kilikurra had
vanished. I now wondered if everything he had said and done had been a
ploy to lure me to his daughter. But why would any father conduct a
stranger to his waiting daughter and then abandon her to him?
I tried to awaken a sense of wariness in myself, but all I could recall was
how brazenly she had touched me on our first meeting. She reached a
hand toward me now and fingered the fabric of my shirt. “These garments
look uncomfortable. And ridiculous.”
I stepped back from her. “They protect me…my skin. From scratches, and
cold, and insect bites. Among my people, they are required. For courtesy.”
She puffed her cheeks briefly, the Speck gesture for denial. “I am your
people. I do not require them. How do these work?” She had stepped up
as she spoke and seized the front of my shirt. The first button went flying.
Her eyes followed its flight and she laughed delightedly. “They jump like
frogs!” she exclaimed. Before I could react, a sharp tug had sent a second
and third to join the first. With every fiber of my being, I longed to
tumble her immediately on the mossy forest floor. What held me back was
not morality or modesty, or even a reluctance to couple with a Speck.
Rather, it was simple shame at showing my body to her. This was different
from seeking out a whore. A prostitute took money and had small right to
quibble about her customer’s appearance. The last thing I wanted to do
was to have this young creature see me naked, and react with either
horror or laughter.
And so I stepped back from her, catching at the flapping front of my shirt.
“Stop!” I bade her. “This is unseemly. I scarcely know you.” My
embarrassment put a starch in my words that I did not intend.
I needn’t have worried about offending her. She laughed merrily at my
reluctance and advanced on me, unabashed. “You will scarcely come to
know me by fleeing from me! Why do you hesitate? Is the mossy floor of
the forest not soft enough for you?” She cocked her head as she looked into
my eyes. Her hands were on my chest again. “Or do you find me
undesirable?”
“Oh, never that,” I assured her, but one questing hand had already assured
herself of just how desirable I did find her. I could scarcely get my breath.
“But your father…will he not…object?”
She puffed her cheeks at me. “My father has gone about his business. Why
should he care what I do? Am I not grown, and a woman? He will be
pleased if his daughter should have a Great One at her hearth; all my wide
family will take a share of this honor.” My belt buckle gave way to her
fingers. The buttons on my trousers were more stoutly sewn than my shirt
buttons. One by tantalizing one she undid them. I scarcely heard what she
said anymore. “But mind you that my sisters and cousins take no more
from you than the honor of your presence. In all else, you will be mine. Oh.
Yes. You are ready. Here. Give me your hand. Touch me.”
I did. Her nipples were erect. She deliberately brushed them against me. I
wanted to howl in frustration. My great bulging belly was a barrier
between us. I pulled her close against me, but found the longed-for
contact denied. Shame coursed through me, strong enough that I tried to
pull away from her. She let me go, but then caught my hand and pulled me
down on the moss beside her. “Sit,” she bade me. “Let me free you from all
this.”
“Olikea, I am too fat. I don’t know how—”
She hushed my mouth with her fingers. “Sshhh. I do.” She stripped my
clothing away from me. Shirt, boots, socks, trousers were all flung aside.
Then, to my dismay, she leaned back and looked at me. I expected her to
recoil, but to my amazement, she gazed on me greedily, as if she were a
child contemplating a feast. She licked her dark lips with her dappled
tongue. Then she put her hands on my shoulders and pushed me back to
recline in the moss. “This is what you must do,” she whispered. “Lie on
your back. And resist me as long as you can.” “Resist you?” I was puzzled.
“Stay hard,” she clarified.
In that long afternoon and early evening, I learned about women and
sensuality. She was not to be rushed in her enjoyment. She spoke plainly
of exactly what she desired of me, with blunt words and a frankness that
went beyond anything I’d ever heard men say about sex. She found
multiple ways to fit our bodies together and used me shamelessly for her
own pleasure. It felt strange to be explored and exploited. At one point, as
she was posting along on top of me while I stared at the blue sky through
the branches overhead, it occurred to me to wonder if this was how
women sometimes felt when men mounted them and took what they
wished, as they wished it.
She was noisy in her enjoyment of me, and once even Clove came
wandering over to see what the fuss was about. She pushed his muzzle
away, laughing where another woman might have been horrified at his
animal curiosity. I lost all sense of time. The third time that we dozed off
together, I awoke to find it so dark that I could not see my hand in front of
my face. Overhead, only a few stars managed to show themselves in
patches of sky. I was shivering. “Olikea,” I whispered, and she drew a
great sighing breath and moved against me. “Are you cold?” After all she
had done for me, I suddenly wanted to shelter her from every discomfort.
“It’s night. It’s supposed to be cold,” she told me. “Accept it. Or, if it
pleases you, use your magic to change it.” She plastered her body against
mine once more. Where we touched, I was warm. She seemed to go back
to sleep. I thought about it. “I want to be warmer,” I told the night. But it
was my own body that answered me. I felt my skin slowly flush with
warmth. Olikea murmured with satisfaction. We slept.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
FENCEPOSTS
I opened my eyes to birdsong. I was on my back. There was a pattern
before my eyes. After a time, I resolved it into tree branches against a dark
gray sky. The air was cool and crisp as I breathed it, and very clean. I lay
perfectly still, wanting for nothing, in deep satisfaction and harmony with
all that existed. The sky above me lightened, and the frequency of birdcalls
increased. I don’t know how long I would have remained in that state of
awareness without connection if Clove had not come up and curiously
nuzzled my foot. I looked at him and then lifted a hand and scratched my
face. I felt as if I had returned from a very long journey, and now all that
had once been familiar was strange and new. I sat up slowly, and then
reached around to brush a few twigs and leaves from my naked back. A
glistening black beetle was crawling on my thigh. I brushed him off and
yawned hugely.
I was alone. “Olikea?” I called softly, but there was no response. I came
back more to the world, and noticed my scattered clothing on the nearby
moss. I yawned again and got up slowly. I had expected to be aching or
stiff. I was fine. “Olikea?” I called more loudly. A bird cawed a raucous
response to me, and then I heard it take flight from the upper branches. I
had no more than a glimpse of black-and-white feathers. Other than that,
my call brought no response. Either she had left me and gone back to
wherever Specks came from, or she was close by but choosing to remain in
concealment. It was unnerving to be uncertain. “Olikea!” I shouted her
name, and then felt almost angry with myself for calling for her like that.
She knew where I was. If she chose not to be there, then I would not
demean myself by bellowing for her like an abandoned child. I gathered
up my dew-damp garb. In the dim forest morning light, my clothes looked
drab and shabby. I felt reluctant to put them on, yet I was not accustomed
to walking about naked. It was difficult to dress. Pulling on damp, chilly
clothing made the day seem cold. I put on my old life with my discomfort.
I suddenly shivered, and became aware that my constant hunger was not
only present but raging. I rubbed my whiskery face and felt as if I had only
just wakened. I went to Clove and leaned on him, taking comfort in his
warmth and solidity. My experience with Olikea seemed like an excursion
into an imaginary world, one that made no sense to me as the stronger
light of day dissolved its mists. I felt a hundred years apart from yesterday.
“Let’s go home, Clove,” I told the big horse. I was troubled by the idea of
returning to the cabin after an absence and empty-handed, but not so
troubled as to linger to look for fenceposts. The urgency of my hunger was
strong enough to make me tremble. Olikea’s vanishing seemed a shoddy
trick. I couldn’t understand her behavior, and then I wondered why I was
bothering to try. She was a Speck. What had I expected from her? It was
time to go back to where I belonged. As I had anticipated, Clove’s big
hooves had scored the forest moss heavily. It was easy enough to go back
the same way we had come. I led and he followed willingly. There was little
in the shaded forest for him to graze on. He was probably as hungry as I
was. We wended our way down through the forested hills we had climbed
the day before.
It came to me that the forest no longer breathed either terror or weariness
at me. I wonder if the magic had stopped, or if I’d been granted full
immunity to it. In either case, it was something of a relief. I could finally
see the forest as it truly was. Its beauty was breathtaking. The shifting
shade of the overhead branches mitigated the bright sunlight. It was the
perfect light for the eyes of a hunter. I stopped to catch my breath and let
my aching calves rest. The long climb up the hill had become steep.
As I looked around me, two things struck me: this area looked very
familiar, and I did not recall going down such a slope as this yesterday.
But Clove’s tracks were clearly imprinted in the forest soil. I glanced up at
the sky, but the trees overhead obscured most of it. I could not tell if I
traveled east or north. An icy shiver ran up my spine. I knew this place, yet
I was suddenly certain it was not yesterday that I had walked this way, but
last year, and then I had walked as my Speck self and Tree Woman’s
acolyte. I knew that if I followed Clove’s trail up the steep incline to the top
of this ridge, I could then follow the ridge until I came to the path to the
Tree Woman’s waterfall. My mouth was dry. I wanted to go back. Yet I
knew trying to avoid this was futile. The forest had brought me to this
place, and the magic would not be satisfied until I had followed it. Behind
me, Clove snorted, irritated with halting on such a steep slope. I resumed
my steady climb. Now I could see, ahead of me, a large opening in the
forest’s canopy. I knew who and what awaited me there.
I cannot describe my feelings when I came to that intersection of my
worlds. I had heard of battle shock. I think I experienced something akin
to that. My ears rang and I could not get a full breath. My face and lips
flushed, tingled, and then went numb. My ears felt blocked and I was
uncertain of my balance. Yet I tottered forward, my shaking hand
outstretched.
The cold hilt of the cavalla sword rasped against my hand. Its blade was
deeply sunken in the partially severed giant stump of the fallen tree.
Impossible that such a blade could have cleanly swept through the huge
tree, but that was how it appeared. A single slash of a saber had felled a
tree, yet the cut was wildly disproportionate to the length of the blade. I
could have parked a wagon on the cleanly cut portion of the stump. I had
swung this saber, not at a tree, but at Tree Woman. And it had swept
through her belly and then stuck in her spine. I’d seen her entrails spill
and seen the slow gush of her sap-thick blood. She had toppled backward,
just as this tree had fallen, not cleanly split in two, but with part of her
torso still intact and the saber wedged deep in her. I had never been here
before. The last time I had physically touched this saber, I had been
standing on my father’s lands in Widevale. Months later, I’d found its
empty scabbard where Dewara had disdainfully discarded it. Now I stood
gripping the cold hilt and shaking with discord. I had called this weapon
from the real world into Dewara’s dream world, and it had come to anchor
one end of a spirit bridge. I had seized it and used it to slay Tree Woman,
and then abandoned it in the other world. And now, impossibly, it was
here. Which world did I stand in today? Did Gettys even exist in this
place? I looked around me again. There was no Tree Woman that I could
see. The fallen tree was of the same kind as the one that had gripped the
corpse, the same as the trees at the end of the King’s Road, though not
their equal in size. It was still a giant compared to any of the trees of the
Plains or Old Thares. The long trunk had measured its length on the forest
sward, brushing aside lesser trees as it fell and opening a huge gap in the
forest canopy. In the year that had passed since I’d felled it in a dream,
moss had crept up the sides of the fallen log. Mushrooms sheltered beside
it. What had been a branch on the top side of the trunk was
metamorphosing into a sapling growing upward from the fallen tree. And
as I looked at it, I thought of another thing Tree Woman had said to me.
“Such as I do not die as you do.” She had fallen to my sword, but her tree
lived on.
I tugged on the saber. It did not budge. I set my teeth and jerked on it as
hard as I could. It remained where it was, as if it had become a part of the
tree. I released it and looked around the clearing that Tree Woman’s fall
had created. Other great trees surrounded hers, but none were as large as
hers had been. I still felt a sense of antiquity that surpassed anything I’d
felt from the buildings of Old Thares. These trees had stood for
generations and unless something disturbed them, they would continue to
stand. But would they?
As if summoned, I left the uneven stump of her tree and followed what had
once been our path. After a short walk, it emerged from the twilight of the
forest onto the rocky end of the ridge. I toiled a little higher, to a jut of
stone that had been our lookout, and suddenly I felt I was standing at the
edge of the world. Below me was a billowing sea of green treetops in the
cup of a shallow valley. I recalled it as full and green from my dreamtime.
But when I looked down, I saw the King’s Road trickling to a halt in the
forest below me. It cut through the foliage like a worm’s trail in an apple
bound directly through the stand of ancient trees below me. I could make
out the road crews at work; they looked like busy insects eating their way
into the forest. That straight avenue of empty space was a gash of light
and bared soil that pointed directly toward me.
The roadbed would follow the easiest path up into the hills. From here I
could see what was not apparent from the road. All the trees along the
road’s edge had been weakened by the slash opened beside them. The
leaves of some were a sickly green; the road had cut through their root
systems. Some of the trees at the edge of the road gash were starting to
lean out into the open space. The next snow load would bring them down,
in turn weakening those who stood behind them. Those trees would die. I
was saddened by the thought but knew they were ordinary trees. More
could be grown. But the three trees that had been cut at the end of the
road were kaembra trees, the same sort of tree that Tree Woman had
been. They were irreplaceable. The loss of three of them was a cause for
mourning. For more to fall would be disaster. If the road continued, it
would cut a wide swath through an ancient grove of them. I turned and
followed the trail back to my tree.
“I see why you are making a stand,” I said. I stood beside the fallen trunk
of her tree. “I see why you thought you had to strike back at the very core
of my people. We had attacked the core of yours. But eventually, the road
will be forced through and the kaembra trees will fall. It cannot be
changed.” “Do you think so, still?” she asked me. Her voice reached my
ears plainly. I did not turn to look at her or her stump. I did not want to
look on what I had done. “They will not stop, Tree Woman. You can send
magic waves of fear or weariness or sorrow at us. But the convicts who do
the work are little better than slaves, and live constantly in fear, sorrow,
and weariness. Your magic will slow the work, perhaps by years, but it will
not stop it. Eventually the King’s Road will flow up these hills and through
the mountains. People, trade, and settlers will follow. And the kaembra
trees will be no more than a memory.”
“Memories are what we are right now. I have not been bone and flesh for
many hundreds of seasons. But age does not make me less powerful,
Soldier’s Boy. Rather, I grew in strength as I grew in girth. The wind
through my leaves carried my thoughts across the forest. Not even you
with your cold iron could fell me. You have brought me down, but I rise
again, and there will be another me, containing the past and sinking roots
and lifting branches into the future. Do you understand now?”
“I understand less now than I did before. Let me go, Tree Woman. I am
not of your people. Set me free.”
“And how shall I do that, when the magic binds me more tightly than it
does you?”
I could almost see her from the corner of my eye. She was a fat old woman
with graying streaky hair, or perhaps a willowy girl, her pigment-speckled
face as engaging as that of a fierce and friendly kitten. She smiled at me
fondly. “Flatterer!”
“Let me go,” I begged her again, desperately.
She spoke softly. “I do not hold you, Soldier’s Boy. I never did. The magic
binds us both, and it will have of us what it wills. In the days of my
walking the world I served it, and I serve it still. You, too, must serve.
From the moment it seized you from the Kidona coward and turned you to
its own end, you have served it. I have heard the whispers of what it has
done through you. With your hand, it stopped the turning of the Plains
Spindle, did it not? They will never threaten us again. That was the magic
working in you, Soldier’s Boy. It has quenched a mighty people who once
spilled over all the flatlands and thought to creep up into our mountains.
Do you think it will do less against those who encroach from the far sea?
No. It will use you, Soldier’s Boy. Some task of yours, some word, some
gesture, some act will destroy your folk.” “I did not do that,” I said faintly.
“I did not destroy the magic of the Plains people.” I spoke the lie as if by
saying such words I could undo it. Her truth had struck and sunk into me,
cutting and sticking just as my iron blade had done to her. I had been
there when the Spindle stopped turning. I’d felt that magic falter and fail.
If I had not been there, if I had not chased the boy from the Spindle’s tip,
would he have gone to work his mischief at the base of it? If not for me,
would that wedge of cold iron have fallen to where it stilled forever the
Spindle’s dance?
And if I had done that, and by doing it, had begun the final end of the
Plains people, did it have to mean that I would also be the demise of my
own folk? “I cannot do this. I cannot be this.”
“Oh, Soldier’s Boy.” The wind or the caress of a ghostly hand moved
through my hair. “So I said, too. The magic is not kind. It makes nothing
of what we would or would not do. It takes us as we are, small and simple
folk for the most part, and makes us Great Ones. Great Ones! So others
name us, thinking we have power. But you and I, we know what it is to be
a reservoir of power for the magic. We are tools. The power is not for us to
use. Others may think so, and they may think that by befriending us or
claiming us, they will gain influence over our power.”
“Are you warning me about Olikea?”
She was silent. I almost wondered if I had embarrassed her. Was it
possible that she felt jealous? I think she heard more than I intended. She
gave a soft laugh that held echoes of regret. “Olikea is a child. There is
little to her; you have already experienced all she has to offer you. But you
and I—”
“I have no memories of you and me,” I interrupted hastily.
“You do,” she asserted calmly. “They are deep in you, as deep as the magic.
As real as the magic.”
Her voice had grown warmer. I bowed my head, and my throat suddenly
tightened with a sorrow that did and did not belong to me. Tears pricked
my eyes. I groped out and my hand touched the rough bark of her stump.
“Do not grieve, Soldier’s Boy.” Fingertips of moving air caressed my cheek.
“Some loves go beyond bodies and times. We met in the magic and there
we knew one another. I schooled you for the magic; it was what the magic
demanded of me. But I loved you for myself. And in the place and time
where ages and shapes have no meaning, and there is only the comfort of
kindred spirits touching, our love remains.”
“I’m so sorry I killed you,” I cried out. I fell to my knees and put my arms
about the standing stump of the great tree. I could not embrace it; it was
far too large. Still, I pressed my chest and face against her bark, but could
not find her there. There was another man within me, one who was me
but who had lived a separate life from the young man who had attended
the academy. I had battled that self and won, but he resided in me still.
The tearing grief I felt was his. It was and was not my sorrow.
“But you didn’t kill me. You didn’t,” she comforted me. “I go on. And when
the days of your mortal flesh are done, you will go on with me. Then we
shall have a time together, and it will be a far longer time than humans
can count.” “That’s a cold promise for now,” I heard myself say. And it was
my own voice and it was me. The tree I leaned on was just a stump with
moss creeping up it. I pressed hard against the stump, trying to recapture
Tree Woman’s presence, but she was gone, and with her my awareness of
my Speck self. I stood up, and smeared the tears from my face. I left that
place. I was only a little surprised to find that a single set of hoof tracks led
me uphill to it. We had not come this way before. Neither Clove nor I had
ever been here in the flesh before.
I came eventually to where I had diverged from the correct trail home. I
plodded along it, hungry, tired, and confused. Was I a dutiful soldier son,
a loyal trooper in my king’s cavalla, or was I a disowned son masquerading
as a soldier in a threadbare frontier existence? Was I the forest mage’s
student who had both loved and slain her? Had I shamed myself deeply
last night by having relations with a Speck, or had I simply had a
wonderful, extravagant sexual experience? Without success, I tried not to
wonder what my encounter with Tree Woman and my other self meant. I
had felt the echoes of their emotions and could not doubt the sincerity of
what they had felt. It was all the stranger in that I had been a dumb and
blind participant in their romance.
When I saw daylight breaking through the forest roof ahead of me, I knew
it traced the demarcation between the ancient forest and the younger
trees on the burned hillside. My steps slowed. I would soon be leaving one
world for another, and as I approached the boundary, I was not entirely
sure that I wished to do so. If I left the forest, I would be making a large
decision, with consequences I didn’t fully grasp. What did the magic want
me to do? I didn’t know, and I also didn’t know if I wanted to fall in with
the magic’s plan for me, or fight it with every ounce of my strength. Tree
Woman had said that if the magic had its way, I would be the downfall of
my entire race. That seemed impossible. But I had been there when the
Dancing Spindle stopped turning. It seemed that with my aid, the Speck
magic had hastened the end of the Plains magic and all its people. Could I
possibly bring a similar destruction down on my own kind? As I led Clove
from the old forest to the new, my eyes fell on a neatly stacked pile of cut
poles beside the trail. There were about twenty of them, no bigger around
than my wrist, and only about eight feet long. They had rough gray-green
bark still on them. I had no doubt that Kilikurra had cut them and left
them there for me. I was surprised that he had felt comfortable cutting
trees in the forest when the Specks seemed to so oppose our tree cutting
for our road. My second emotion was disappointment. He had
misunderstood me completely. I had intended to harvest some hefty logs
for stout corner posts that I could set deep in the earth. By the time I dug
holes for these posts, my fence would be only five feet tall, and so spindly
that the wood would likely rot through in just a couple of years.
I half expected Kilikurra to step out of the dappling shadows and claim
the credit for his good deed. When he did not, I decided that I could not
be sure he wasn’t there, and that my best course was to appear grateful. I
put a hitch line on the bundled poles, and then bowed gratefully to the
forest. Clove didn’t like the strange contraption scraping and jolting along
behind him, but eventually we managed to get down to the cemetery. I left
the poles there, having decided I could use them as stakes to set out the
straight lines for my barricade. I was freeing Clove from his unwanted
load when I heard the heavy thunder of running feet. I straightened and
turned to find Ebrooks coming at me at a dead run. Kesey, panting
heavily, was some distance behind him. I looked behind me, saw no cause
for the alarm on their faces, and turned back to them, shouting, “What is
it? What’s wrong?”
“You’re…alive!” Ebrooks gasped out the word. He reached me, seized me
in a sweaty hug, and then leaned on me, panting. Kesey had given it up.
He stood, bent over, his hands on his knees, his mostly bald pate bobbing
as he tried to catch his breath. After a time for breathing, Ebrooks panted,
“When you didn’t come back by nightfall, we waited for you. But when
night shut down and fear was flowing out of the forest thick as tar, we
went back to town and told the colonel you were dead. God’s breath,
Nevare, how did you survive? Are you sane still? No one knows how you
can stand to live this close to the forest. And now you’ve gone and spent a
night in there. Are you crazy, man?” “Clove and I got turned around in
there. We had to wait for dawn to find the way home. That’s all. It wasn’t
pleasant, but I’m not hurt at all.” The lies were nearly effortless. “Why did
you tell the colonel I was dead?” Kesey had staggered up to us by then.
“Well. That seems to happen a lot to fellows that have this job.”
“And the colonel was really upset to get the news. He said, ‘That’s all I
need, with this review coming up! Another dead cemetery sentry.’ And he
tried to tell us we’d have to take on guarding the graves. But we said, ‘No,
sir, thanky kindly.’”
“I didn’t think you could just say, ‘No, thank you’ to an order.” Kesey and
Ebrooks exchanged a look. Ebrooks spoke. “It’s been a long time since the
colonel issued a real order. I expect he’s afraid of what he’d have to do if
he did and no one obeyed it. Easier not to test his authority than find out
it’s gone.”
Kesey shook his head sadly. “It’s a shame, really. That man used to be able
to blow fire when he wanted things done. But since we come here, well. He
ain’t the officer he used to be, that’s all.”
“And we ain’t the regiment we used to be, either,” Ebrooks pointed out
sourly. “It’s one and the same. We’ve lost so many men to desertion and
suicide or just plain bad ends that the colonel worries all the time about
his numbers. They keep sending us scads of prisoners to work the road.
Well, pretty soon they’re going to have more prisoners than their guards
can manage, even with soldiers to back them up. And if the prisoners
don’t turn on us and burn the place down, then the Specks will get us.
Gettys is a bad post. I wish they’d send their high mucky-mucks to inspect
us and have done. They’ll turn us out of Gettys, probably send us
somewhere worse. Though it’s hard to imagine anywhere worse than this.”
“Well. I suppose I’d best get cleaned up and go let the colonel know that
I’m not quite as dead as he’d heard.”
“That would be good,” Ebrooks agreed. I think he was happy that I’d
offered to do it myself, rather than suggesting that he should have to
correct his own mistake. They went back to their groundskeeping while I
went to my cabin. I was ravenously hungry, and I emptied most of my
small larder. By the time I’d washed, shaved, and changed my clothing, it
was late afternoon. I saddled Clove and headed for town.
Several surprises awaited me there. The first was that a contingent of
Specks had set up a scattered tent village on the outskirts of Gettys. I
would later learn that they always came by night to pitch their tents for
the trading season. When it was over, they vanished just as swiftly. Within
the tents’ shelter, both male and female Specks were strangely but
decently clad in a mix of Gernian garments and Speck versions of Gernian
garments. Those I saw outside the tents’ shade were veiled in head-to-toe
shrouds woven from bark cloth supplemented with fresh leaves and
flowers. The garments looked like fishnets that had been dragged through
a garden but protected their sensitive skins from sunlight.
Their trade goods were furs, carvings, smoked venison, bark, and leaves
for brewing what the Gettys folk called “forest tea,” as well as mushrooms,
berries, and a prickly fruit I didn’t recognize. I looked, but did not see any
of the fruits or mushrooms that Olikea had brought to me. Either Olikea
and her father were not among them or they were veiled and
unrecognizable. I thought it intriguing that despite our fear of the Speck
the trading was brisk, with local merchants competing with traders from
the west to buy the best furs. The Speck trade gave an oddly festive air to
Gettys. It was the liveliest I had ever seen that mournful place. The Specks
were acquiring fabric and felted hats, mostly for novelty, I suspected.
Glass beads and brightly painted tin toys were almost as popular as sugar,
candy, and sweet cakes. One wily Old Thares trader was exchanging casks
of honey for the best furs When I walked into the colonel’s offices, his
sergeant jumped as if he had seen a ghost. He didn’t make me wait to
speak to the colonel, but ushered me right in. When he left, I noticed that
the door didn’t shut firmly, and I suspected he listened outside it. The
colonel was extremely pleased to find me still alive. He actually offered to
shake my hand before giving me a rambling lecture on not straying too far
from my post and letting my superiors know when I thought I might be
gone overnight. He claimed that he had just been putting together names
for a search party to send after me, though I saw no signs of such activity.
He was singularly uninterested in what had befallen me in the forest.
Instead he actually patted me on the shoulder and gave me a silver piece
from his own pocket, telling me that he was sure I could use a drink after
my “jittery night.”
I thanked him for it as humbly as I could manage. Sometimes his
eccentric kindness toward me grated on my pride. He dismissed me, but
spoke again when my hand was on the doorknob. “And do something
about that uniform, soldier. You know we have a contingent of nobility
and officers coming to inspect us at the end of this month. Since we
arrived here, I’ve never had a man in my command look less like a soldier
than you do.”
“Sir. I’m sorry, sir. I’ve asked several times for a better uniform. Supply
always tells me that they have nothing in my size.”
“Then you may tell them I said they should issue you something that you
could have altered. You should at least be somewhat presentable, though it
would probably be best if you avoided town while the inspection was in
progress. I don’t intend to have our inspection team visit the cemetery,
but the good god alone knows what they’ll take it into their own heads to
do.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied grimly. I tried to keep my face expressionless. I knew
that he only spoke the truth, but it did not make it any easier to accept. I
touched the doorknob.
“Trooper. Regardless of what others may think of me, I know what goes on
in my command. Your efforts with the cemetery have not gone unnoticed.
I’ll add that although you look the least like a soldier of all my troops, in
your efforts to protect our honored dead, you’ve behaved more like a
soldier than most men in my command do at present. Now go have that
drink.”
His words smoothed my rumpled feathers a bit and I left in a better state
of mind. The silver piece was a generous bonus, and I decided I’d take his
advice and have a beer before I left town.
Gettys was a lively place today. In addition to the Specks coming to town,
several western traders had arrived with merchandise to sell to the
soldiery and trade goods to barter with the Specks. The streets were busy,
so when I encountered Spink and he frantically signed to me that I should
meet him in the alley behind the blacksmith’s shop, I was not much
worried that we’d be noticed together. Nonetheless, even in that noisy
area, I resolved to maintain appearances.
“Nevare! I heard you’d gone missing. Thank the good god that you’re alive
and unharmed!”
That was how Spink greeted me, but as he moved to embrace me, I
reminded him of our varying statuses with a brusque, “Thank you for your
concern, Lieutenant Spinrek. I assure you, it was not much of an
adventure, but mostly my own foolishness that delayed me.” I hoped the
look on my face conveyed that there was far more to tell, but that it would
have to wait. Behind us, the smithy’s harsh clanging of metal on metal
screened our words. He drew back and stood still for a moment. I could
tell from his eyes that he took no offense from my caution. Instead, he said
carefully, “A lot of mail has arrived from the west. A washed-out bridge on
the road had caused a great bottleneck of wagons and travelers. Perhaps
there is some for you. My own lady wife has been very pleased to hear from
her young cousin in the Midlands.” Now it was my turn to practice
restraint. I wanted to demand to see the letter from my sister
immediately. Instead, I kept my voice steady as I said, “I trust all is well
with her family, sir?”
“Oh, excellent,” he replied, but his eyes said differently. “She wrote that
they were enjoying a long visit with houseguests from Old Thares. Her
father seems to think that the young man would be an excellent match for
her, and his uncle is prone to agree.”
I racked my brain for whom he could be describing. No one came to mind.
At last I said, “Well, for her sake, sir, I hope the lad is of a good family.”
The pleasant expression on his face looked forced and sick. “Oh, they are
not of the first quality, but they are still well placed. His father was in
charge of the King’s Cavalla Academy for a time.”
That shocked me out of my pose. “Caulder Stiet? Impossible.” Spink’s
smile grew wider, but there was nothing of pleasure in it. “There Yaril
agrees with you. It’s a desperate letter, Nevare. She still thinks you are
dead. She risked her reputation to slip away from the house and go alone
to a little town to post her letter to us.”
“What am I to do? What can I do?” I felt frantic with worry. The thought
of Yaril being given over to that shallow, trembling boy filled me with
loathing. I hated the idea of him being near my sister, let alone claiming
her as his wife. I wondered if my father was mad, if this was his
vengeance on Yaril, or if he genuinely thought it was a good match for her.
Caulder wasn’t even a soldier son anymore. If Yaril married him, her sons
would be “gatherers of knowledge” like Caulder’s geologist uncle.
“Write to her. Tell her you’re alive. Give her a refuge, or at least the
strength to defy your father and refuse Caulder.”
“How can I get a letter to her?”
“Write to your father. Demand that he tell her. Write to your
priest-brother.
Write to her friends. There must be some way, Nevare.” Were the fates
listening? I looked past Spink’s shoulder. Carsina was crossing the street.
“You see that girl. That’s Carsina, Spink. My erstwhile fiancée and once
Yaril’s best friend. She’s the best chance I have of slipping a letter to Yaril
past my father. Excuse me.”
“We need to arrange a meeting later,” Spink hissed after me, but I didn’t
pause.
I strode hastily down the street, on a deliberate course to intercept
Carsina. She hadn’t seen me yet; I had to reach her before she did. I
cringed as I thought of my appearance. My uncut hair hung shaggy
around my ears. My boots were starting to crack at the sides. My trousers
showed wear at the knees and seat, and I had to buckle my belt under my
belly these days. Above my belt, my gut bloomed out in a swell that my
shirt strained to cover. I didn’t blame Carsina for recoiling in horror from
the thought that she had once been betrothed to me. But I didn’t desire
any acknowledgment from her, only a small and simple favor. All I needed
was an envelope addressed in her hand to my sister.
My hat was shapeless and dusty. Nevertheless, I removed it as I
approached her.
I’d give no one any reason to think I was being less than courteous to her.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I addressed her respectfully. I kept my eyes lowered.
“I’ve a favor to ask you, not for myself, but for my sister, once your friend.
Grant me this, and I promise I’ll never ask anything else of you again. I
won’t so much as nod at—” I got no further in my humiliating plea for her
aid. A sudden blast of sound assaulted my ears. I clapped my hands over
them and lifted my eyes. Carsina had raised a brass whistle to her lips and
was blowing blast after blast on it as if her life depended on it. Her cheeks
were distended with the effort, her eyes almost bulging. If her action had
not been so irrational, it might have seemed humorous. I stood transfixed,
staring at her.
But elsewhere on the street, others had sprung into motion. My first
warning was when a small woman in a white apron brought a broom
down firmly on my back. It stung and raised dust. “What?” I asked in
consternation as I dodged away from the enraged shopkeeper’s wife. But
that only brought me into range of a young woman with a furled parasol.
She whacked me solidly with it on the back of my head, shrieking, “Get
away from her! Leave her alone! Help! Help! Assault! Assault!”
All the while, Carsina continued to shrill on her whistle and women
continued to converge on me, also blowing whistles. I gave ground hastily.
“I’ve done nothing wrong!” I shouted at them. “I said nothing ill to her!
Please! Listen to me! Please!”
Men were gathering as well, some to laugh and point at the sight of the
big fat man beleaguered by a flock of angry women. Others were striding
more purposefully toward the scene of the confrontation, anger on their
faces. One tall, thin man was being dragged angrily toward me by his
fussing, scolding wife. “You get in there, Horlo, and you teach that rude
fellow what happens to men who say foul things on the streets to good
women!”
“I’m leaving!” I shouted, not wishing to be attacked by the
ineffectual-looking Horlo or anyone else. “I’m going. I’m sorry the lady
took offense. None was intended. I apologize!”
I’m not sure that anyone heard my words over the shrill whistles and
shriller voices that surrounded me, calling me names and raining abuse on
me. I lifted my hands over my head to show that I was not returning any of
the blows from the brooms, parasols, fans, and dainty fists. I felt both a
coward and a buffoon, but what could I do, assaulted by a mob of angry
women? I had broken clear of the circle and thought I’d escaped when I
heard an angry voice shout a damning accusation. “He’s the one they say
raped and murdered that poor whore! He’s the big fat scoundrel who
killed that Fala woman and hid her body!” I turned back in horror. “That’s
not true! I’ve never hurt anyone!” The mob of women surged toward me. A
flung stone struck me in the face. A larger one rebounded off my shoulder.
I didn’t know the man striding fearlessly toward me through the hail of
rocks, but he was well muscled, fit, and grinning the snarl of a man who
loves a good fight. A wash of cold rose through me. I could die here, I
suddenly knew. Stoned, beaten, kicked to death by a mob of folk who
didn’t even know me. I caught a sudden glimpse of Sergeant Hoster. He
stood to one side of the crowd. His arms were crossed on his chest and he
was smiling grimly.
Spink had always had more guts than common sense. Even when I’d been
a lean and fit cadet, Spink had looked small beside me. He charged into
the fray, shouting, “Desist! This moment! Halt! That’s an order!” He
reminded me of a barking, snarling terrier protecting a mastiff as he spun
to face the oncoming tide of roused people. “Halt, I said!”
They didn’t exactly halt, but they stopped advancing. The crowd roiled,
and another stone came winging from someone in the back and bounced
off my chest. It didn’t really hurt, but the fury it symbolized was
frightening. The women were all talking, and several were pointing at me.
I no longer saw Carsina anywhere. The large man I had glimpsed pushed
his way to the front of the mob.
“Halt!” Spink barked again.
“Sir, are you going to let a filthy lout like that get away with insulting a
decent woman? The least he merits is a good beating, and if the rumors
are true, he ought to be hanged.”
Spink’s shoulders were very square. He kept his eyes on the crowd as he
spoke in a stern voice. “I’d like the woman he insulted to come forward,
please. I’ll take her complaint right now.”
My mouth went dry. I knew he had no choice, but once Carsina accused
me in public, she’d be far too proud to back down. The least I’d get was a
flogging. “She’s…she’s not here, sir!” The young woman who spoke had a
quavery voice, as if she were about to burst into tears. “She was overcome,
sir, with what he said to her. Two other ladies have helped her home. I
imagine her brother or her fiancé would be glad to speak on her behalf.”
This last she uttered with savage satisfaction. She glowered at me as if I
were a rabid dog. “Direct them to me. Lieutenant Spinrek Kester. I’ll take
down the details of any complaint they wish to lodge. As for the other,
until a body or a witness is found, it remains a foul rumor and no more
than that.” The man’s brow furrowed and his face flushed an evil dark red.
“So what are you going to do, sir? Just let him roam around loose until we
find a body with him standing over it?”
Sergeant Hoster suddenly decided to act. He strode over to Spink, saluted
him, and then said, “I’ll be happy to escort him to the cells, sir.” Spink
held his ground. I felt a fool standing silent behind him, as if I were a huge
child cowering behind his diminutive mother’s skirts. “I appreciate your
offer of help, Sergeant Hoster. But we don’t lock men up on the basis of
rumor. If we did, likely not one of us would be walking free.” Hoster dared
to question his decision. “Perhaps this is a time when we should choose to
err on the side of safety, sir.”
Spink reddened at the man’s insubordination. But he kept his calm. “Do
you have any hard evidence, Sergeant? A witness?”
“No, sir.”
“Then there is no reason to hold this man prisoner.” Spink turned
suddenly on me, and the anger on his face was convincing. “You, soldier.
Take yourself out of town. Innocent or guilty, tempers are hot over this,
and I judge it best that you isolate yourself until these rumors are
resolved. I’ll speak to the mess hall, and have some supplies sent out to
you. And I warn you, behave in an exemplary manner. I’ll take it on myself
to check up on you from time to time. You’d best be where I expect you to
be. Now go. Now!” I looked from Spink to the mob. It would only take one
wrong word to ignite them. But I couldn’t just slink away like a kicked cur.
I came to attention and looked only at Spink. I spoke, trooper to
lieutenant, but I made sure that my voice carried to the crowd. “Sir. I did
not speak rudely or suggestively to the lady. And as to Fala’s fate, I do not
know what became of her. I am innocent of both these things.”
An ugly muttering rose from the gathered folk. I feared I had pushed them
too far, as did Spink from the expression on his face. He spoke sternly for
their benefit. “I hope in the good god’s name that you are speaking the
truth, trooper, for I will be looking into this personally. And if you have
lied to me, you will find the punishment I extract for a lie will be the equal
of the other two offenses. Now go!”
I obeyed him, my cheeks burning and resentment simmering in my heart.
I felt that all of Gettys stared at me as I walked to where I’d left Clove
tethered. It took all my self-control not to look back over my shoulder to
see if I would be followed. As I mounted up and rode out of town, I
wondered if I’d chosen the wrong world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TWO WOMEN
What are you doing here?”
It was not the kindest greeting I could have given her, nor the one I would
have preferred if I’d had the luxury of thinking what I’d say to her. But the
shock of seeing Amzil sitting at the table inside my cabin when I opened
the door jolted the words out of me.
She took it better than I had a right to expect. “Mending your shirt,” she
pointed out, holding up the offending item. “Half the buttons are off this.
These ones won’t match, but at least you’ll be able to button it. I took them
off that old shirt there. It looks little better than a rag, so I thought you
wouldn’t mind.”
Her literal answer to my question left me gaping. She seemed to find that
amusing, for a smile twisted her mouth. She looked gaunt and weary and
more threadbare than the last time I’d seen her. Yet her hair was tidied
and put up in a roll on the back of her head, and she wore a dress with a
skirt made from the fabric I’d sent her, almost as if she were trying to put
her best foot forward for me. I came cautiously into my own cabin, feeling
oddly displaced by seeing her sitting at my table. All my clothing had been
sorted into heaps around her. Her smile grew more anxious in my silence.
“I’ve made myself a cup of tea. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. You’re welcome. You’re very welcome. Where are the
children?”
“I left them in town. Another woman at the boardinghouse said she’d
watch them for me if I did her washing for her when I came back. It looks
as if you’ve done well for yourself, Nevare.”
“Yes. That is…yes. I was able to enlist, and the colonel gave me this post. I
guard the cemetery. Dig the graves and whatnot. But what brings you to
Gettys?” She set the shirt she had finished mending on the table, and
tucked the needle neatly into the thread on the spool. “Well. I had to leave
my old house. Things got very ugly there this winter. I know you meant
well when you left us plenty of meat. And I don’t know how you weeded the
vegetable patch like that; I had no idea there were that many plants there.
But the problem was what it always is. The more you have, the more
ruthless people will be in trying to take it from you. At first my neighbors
come to my door begging. And I said no. Not to be cruel, but because I
knew that what you left, while it seemed a lot at the time, was probably
just enough to keep us all fed through the winter.” She picked up the shirt
she had mended, turned it over in her hands several times, and set it down
again. She shook her head to herself, and the sunlight from the window
moved on her dark hair, making it gleam. She tried to smile, but it came
out more as a grimace.
“Then they came trying to trade, but I said no again, for the same reason.
How could they blame me? I have the three little ones; my first duty is to
keep them alive. And my old neighbors would have said the same to me
had the shoe been on the other foot! Well, after that, they started stealing
from me. I tried to defend what I had, but there was only one of me. They
were getting to my snares before I ever did; resetting them was a waste of
time, because I was just doing that work for them. But I thought, well, I’ve
got the deer meat, and I’d brought in all the garden vegetables to the shed.
“I put as much as I could inside the cabin with us, but then I scarcely
dared leave the place, for fear they’d come in and take it while I was gone.
They stole every bit of the meat that I had to leave hanging in the shed,
and dug all through the vegetable patch, looking for any small potatoes I’d
missed, for anything at all. I scarcely dared go to sleep at night. It was like
living in the middle of a pack of wolves.”
Her voice had dropped down to a murmur. She fell silent, staring at the
worn cuff of my shirt. When the silence stretched, I got up and put the
kettle back on the fire. “Hitch said you wouldn’t even let him inside the
door. Did you get the things I sent in the carry sack?”
She looked startled. “Oh. The book. And the sweets. Yes. Yes, we got the
gifts, the children loved them. I—thank you. I didn’t say thank you, did I?”
She suddenly smoothed the folds of her skirt and looked down, speaking
awkwardly. “At the time, I was shocked. Just shocked. I’d hoped that you
would come back, to return the sack if nothing else, but I didn’t expect you
just to send it with someone, full of gifts, for no reason.” She suddenly
pinched her lips together and her blue eyes flooded with tears. She took a
little breath. “I can’t remember the last time a man gave me a gift when he
didn’t expect something back for it.” She lifted her face, and her eyes
suddenly met mine. For a moment her vulnerability shone through her
tough expression, and with it, her youthfulness. I suddenly wanted to fold
her in my arms and protect her, for she seemed as small and defenseless as
my little sister. But the instant passed, and she abruptly looked as stony as
she ever had. I was glad I hadn’t acted on my impulse; she probably would
have scratched my eyes out. I sought for something to say.
“Well, you’ve saved me the trouble of mending my shirt. For that, I’m
grateful.” She made a dismissive gesture at the garments on the table.
“Your trousers need to be let out again. And what you are wearing now
looks no better. You look more like a scarecrow than a soldier.”
She said the words carelessly and probably didn’t intend that they stung,
but they did. “I know,” I said tersely. “The men in charge of uniforms have
not been very forthcoming. They simply say they’ve nothing that will fit
me, and give up. Today the colonel said that I might say it was his order
they be more helpful. But—” My words halted of themselves. I didn’t want
to tell her what had happened or why. “I didn’t have time to stop there,” I
finished lamely. An awkward silence fell between us. The kettle was
boiling. I took it off the hob and added more hot water to the teapot and
another pinch of leaves. Amzil was looking everywhere but at me. Her eyes
roamed around the room and then she suddenly said, “I could come and
live here and do for you. Me and my children, I mean. And I could keep
your washing done and sew you up a decent uniform, if you got the cloth. I
can cook and mind that little garden you’ve got going.” I was looking at
her incredulously. I think she thought I wanted more from her, because
she added, “And we can keep care of your horse, too. And all I’ll be asking
of you is a roof over our heads and what food you’re willing to spare us.
And, and, that would be all. Just those things.”
My mind filled in what she hadn’t named. She wasn’t offering to share my
bed. I had the feeling that if I pushed for that right now, she’d add it to the
list, but I didn’t want to have her. Not that way. I chewed on my lip, trying
to think of what to say. How could I tell her that I wasn’t sure I’d be
staying in this world? With every step of my ride home, the forest had
looked better to me. Her eyes had been scanning my face anxiously. Now
she looked away and spoke more gruffly. “I know what’s going on, Nevare.
What they’re saying about you in town. In a way, that’s why I came here.”
She folded up the shirt and set it very firmly on the table. Then she spoke
to it. “My children aren’t at a boardinghouse. They’re at a…one of Sarla
Moggam’s girls is watching them for me. She can’t work right now
because, well, because she can’t. But no one knows I came here. See this?”
She reached down the front of her dress. While I regarded her,
dumbstruck, she fished up a brass whistle on a chain. “The girls at the
house, they give this to me when I first got there yesterday. They told me
some officer’s wife in town, she started this thing where all the women
wear them, and if they feel they’re in danger, all they have to do is blow the
whistle, and every woman what’s wearing a whistle has to promise that no
matter what, if she hears a whistle blow, she’ll run toward the sound and
help whoever is in danger. That’s the deal. And when I said, ‘Well, what
kind of danger?’ they told me about not just whores but decent women
getting beaten up and raped, and that a girl from Sarla’s own house had
just vanished and everyone thought she was murdered and even though
most people knew who did it, no one was stepping forward to protect the
whores, so they’d decided they’d join the whistlers and protect each other.
And when I asked who killed the girl, one of them said a big fat
sonofabitch named Never that guarded the cemetery.”
She stopped and took a deep breath. The words had spilled out of her like
pus squirting out of an infected boil, and I felt much the same way about
what she had told me. I wanted to cry. It wasn’t a manly reaction, but it
was my overwhelming response to what she’d said. Even after what had
happened to me in town today, it was still shocking to hear that people
were talking of me as a rapist and murderer, naming me as the man who
had killed Fala. I wondered why they were so sure she was dead and why
they blamed me. I had no way to clear myself of their suspicions. Unless
Fala showed up somewhere, alive and well, I could not prove she hadn’t
been murdered and that I hadn’t done it. I muttered as much to Amzil.
“Then you didn’t do it.” She spoke it as a statement but I heard it as a
question.
I replied bluntly. “Good god, no. No! I had no reason to, and every reason
not to. Why would a man kill the only whore in town who would service
him willingly?” Anger and fear made my heart race. I got up and left the
table and went to the door to stare out across the graveyard toward the
forest. “They said—” I heard her swallow, and then she went on, “They
said that maybe she wasn’t willing, that you kept her in the room a lot
longer than any man ever had before. And that maybe you caught her
alone, and maybe she said no, not for any money, and that maybe then you
raped her anyway and killed her in anger.”
I sighed. My throat was tight. I spoke softly. “I don’t know what became of
Fala, Amzil. I hope that she somehow got away from Gettys and is having
a nice life somewhere. I didn’t kill her. I never saw her again after that one
night. And I didn’t force her to keep to her room with me. As far-fetched
as it sounds, she wanted to be there.” Even as I said the words, I realized
how unlikely they would sound to anyone else in the world.
“I didn’t think you had, Nevare. I thought of all the nights we were alone
in my house. If you were the kind of man who would force a woman, or kill
her if she refused, well—” She paused, then pointed out, “If I’d believed
what they said, would I have come all this way out here, alone, not telling
anyone where I was going and leaving my kids with strangers who’d toss
them out on the streets if I never came back? I didn’t believe it of you.”
“Thank you,” I replied gravely. I felt truly grateful. I thought about that. I
was grateful because a woman didn’t think I was a murderer. When I’d
been tall and handsome and golden, everyone had thought well of me.
Carsina had told me how brave I’d looked. Encase the same man in this
slab of flesh and these worn clothes and women saw a rapist and
murderer. I lifted my hands to my face and rubbed my temples.
“So. Nevare. What do you think?”
I dropped my hands and stared at her. “What?”
“I know it’s not much time to think about it, but I have to have an answer.
Last night they let me stay for free. They say that my little ones can sleep
in one of the empty rooms at night while I’m working. But that won’t
change that they’ll be growing up as the children of a whore. And I know
what will happen to my girls if they do. Don’t know what would become of
Sem. Truth to tell, I don’t even want to wonder what happens to a boy
growing up in a whorehouse. I got to get them out of there today, or I got
to go to work there tonight. And I know that you know in the past, I’ve
done whatever I had to do to get by, but Nevare, I never thought of myself
as a whore. Just as a mother doing what she had to do, once in a while, to
get stuff for her children. But if I start working there, night after night,
well, I will be a whore. And no denying it.” “Why did you leave your cabin
finally? What drove you out?”

She met my gaze squarely. “You remember that fellow up the hill? He tried
to break in. I had my gun and I warned him, four, five times I shouted at
him to get away from the door or I’d shoot. He shouted back that he’d
never seen me fire that thing and he didn’t think I knew how or that I had
any bullets. And the way he was yelling, I knew that he wasn’t just going to
break in and take what he wanted. He was going to get rid of us, to be sure
he could have all we had. So I shooed my kids behind me, and when he
finally got the door chopped in, well, I fired. And I killed him. And then I
packed up my children and what we could carry and we ran away from
there.” By the time she finished speaking, she was hunched over in her
chair as if she expected me to strike her, wringing her hands together. She
looked up at me from her cower. “So now you know,” she said very softly.
“I am what they accuse you of being. I murdered him. I’m telling you the
truth, because I want you to know the truth before you decide if you’ll help
me or not.”

I sat down heavily in my chair. “You can’t stay here, Amzil. It…it wouldn’t
be safe for you or for the children. I’m not even sure if I can stay here
anymore.” She was silent for a time. Then she said furiously, “It’s because
I killed him, isn’t it? You think someone from Dead Town is going to come
here and accuse me, and I’ll hang and you’ll be stuck with my children.”
The way she said it told me far more than she’d planned. She’d intended
me to be her hedge against that possible disaster. She’d intended to bring
her children to me in the desperate hope that if she was found out and
executed, I’d protect them. I tried to speak in a calming voice. “I’m
flattered. No, I’m honored that you would think of bringing your children
here. And it means a great deal to me that you would hear such stories
about me and disbelieve them. There are not many in town or in the fort
that would be willing to stand by me as you would. But I’m serious when I
say that it wouldn’t be safe here for you. Feelings are running high. Today,
when I was ordered to leave town, I worried that I would be followed. I
have no confidence that I won’t be attacked tonight or burned out of this
house. That was the kind of hatred I saw today. I can’t take you in, Amzil.
I wish that I could.”
“Of course you do,” she said with hard skepticism, and stood to leave. I
blocked her exit. Sparks of anger came into her eyes, but I didn’t move. I
took the colonel’s piece of silver from my pocket. “You take this,” I began.
“You don’t owe me anything,” she hissed.
“I owe you what you offered me. The belief that I know you well enough to
say that you didn’t murder that man. You did what you had to do in
defense of your children. Now you take this coin, for the little ones. It will
at least feed them tonight. Get them out of Sarla Moggam’s brothel. It’s a
foul place. Take them to—” For a moment I hesitated, then I plunged on,
“Take them to Lieutenant Kester’s house. Ask around. Someone will know
where he lives. Lieutenant Spinrek Kester. Tell him the same thing you
told me. That if he’ll give you and the children a place to sleep, you’ll help
cook and clean and so on. Tell his lady that you used to be a seamstress,
and you want to make an honest living for yourself. She’ll help you. She’s
like that.”
She looked at the money that I’d pushed into her hand. Then she looked
up at me, confused. “Do I tell them that you sent me? Do I…do you want
me to come back here sometimes? At night?”
“No,” I said quickly, before I could be tempted by her offer. “No. You
didn’t offer me that, and I’m not asking for that. And don’t tell them I sent
you. Tell them…No. Tell him that you wish your whistle were shaped like
an otter, that you’ve heard that whistles shaped like otters are lucky
enough to save a man’s life. But you only say that to him if no one else is
around. Do you understand me? It’s important.”
Bewilderment flickered over her face. “So, you want me to make him think
I’m daft, so he’ll give us shelter out of pity?”
“No. No, Amzil. It’s just something he and I both know, something that
will make him know it’s important to help you as he was once helped.” “A
whistle shaped like a beaver,” she said carefully.
“No. An otter. A whistle shaped like an otter.”
She closed her fist tight on the coin. Then she said suddenly, “Give me
your trousers, at least.”
“What?” It was my turn to be bewildered.
“Your dirty trousers there. Give them to me. I’ll wash them, and I’ll let
them out and bring them back to you.”
I was tempted. But, “No. Anyone who saw them would know to whom they
belonged. Amzil, until I can clear my name, you must not be associated
with me. Now. Thank you. Go and do as I said.”
She looked down at the floor. “Nevare, I—” She stepped suddenly forward,
and I thought she would hug me. At the last minute she extended her
hand and patted me timidly on the arm, as if I were a dog with an
uncertain temperament. “Thank you,” she said again.
I moved away from the door, and she fled. I watched her go, a small
woman hurrying down the dirt road, away from the cemetery and toward
the town. I yielded to an impulse, bowed my head, and asked the good god
to look after her. I hadn’t had an opportunity to buy food. Despite
everything else that had happened, I was ravenous again. I drank my tea,
trying to swallow my hunger with it. Then I methodically secured my
house. I closed and latched the shutters of my window. I took my
disreputable weapon down from its hooks on the wall and prepared five
loads for it. Then, scowling, I prepared an additional five. I hoped against
hope that I’d never have to use them. Perhaps, I thought sourly, I’d be
lucky, and if a mob came to drag me from my house, this ancient derelict
of a gun would blow up and kill me quickly.
Ebrooks and Kesey came to my door before they went back to Gettys for
the night. They were sweaty and tired and looking for a few moments of
talk and a cool drink before they began the walk back to town. I let them
in, and watched them dip up water from my cask. The room was small,
and while they were in it, they filled it with their noise. They talked about
how much grass they’d cut and what they had to do tomorrow as if it all
were of tremendous importance. It was trivial and meaningless to me.
Dead soldiers and their wives and children were all rotting back into soil,
and the soil grew the grass, and these two men would cut it to make the
cemetery look tidy, and then more grass would grow and they would cut
that, and more folk would die and we would bury them. I thought of the
body that had been stolen and how outraged I’d been, and all the effort I’d
put into recovering it. What if I’d left him there, a soldier whose name I
didn’t now recall, and the tree roots had penetrated his body and the
beetles and ants had carried off his flesh? How was that any different from
burying him in a hole and marking the spot by writing his name on a
plank of wood? I thought about what I’d claimed as my life, that I would
call myself a soldier and guard the place where bodies were buried. And I
would do this because I was the second son my mother bore, and therefore
I must wear the king’s uniform on my back and, at least ostensibly, serve
him.
It was all so meaningless when I looked at it that way. It was meaningless
in the same way as when I stood up from a game and then looked down on
the scatter of playing pieces, and realized that they all were just bits of
polished stone on a wooden board marked with squares. All the meaning
they’d had moments before when I’d been trying to win a game were
meanings that I’d imbued them with. Of themselves, neither they nor the
board had any significance. I could not decide if I were just a playing
piece, or if I’d finally stepped far enough away from the game someone
else had made of my life to discover that I no longer wished to be a playing
piece. I shook my head as if I could rattle my own brain, trying to find my
way back to my own world where all these things were accepted and
important and mattered.
“Something wrong, Nevare?” Ebrooks asked me abruptly. I realized that
both he and Kesey were looking at me oddly. I’d been staring sightlessly
out the window. Now I looked at them. Their faces were damp with sweat
and smudged with dirt, but their eyes seemed genuinely concerned.
“You know what they’re saying about me in town?” I asked them.
Ebrooks looked away and said nothing. Kesey looked stricken. It was
enough.
“Why didn’t you say something to me?” I demanded.
“Aw, Nevare,” Kesey exclaimed, “We know that ain’t true. You ain’t got
that kind of mean in you.”
“I hope not,” I said. “I just don’t understand how a rumor like that could
get started, or why so many people would be willing to believe it.”
“Well, it’s how you are, you know,” Kesey said ponderously. “Living out
here, all alone, near the forest. And being, you know, big like you are. And
no one knowing much about you. It just, well, maybe it makes it easier for
them to make up something about you. You ought to come to town more
often, drink with the boys, let ’em see you aren’t so strange.”
“Good advice too late,” I grumbled. “Not that I ever had the money to do
much drinking with the boys. I’m all but banished now. I nearly got stoned
to death today.”
“What?” Ebrooks demanded, horrified.
They listened to my tale, nodding gravely. When I described the man who
had come toward me out of the mob, Ebrooks nodded and said, “That’ll be
Dale Hardy. He’s new. Give him a month in Gettys and he won’t be so piss
and vinegar. He’ll get ground down like the rest of us.”
We talked for some time longer, and then they left, promising to bring me
supplies from the mess hall the next day. That was small comfort. I’d had
next to nothing to eat all day, and the hunger inside me now was not to be
ignored. An equation nudged into my awareness. I’d used the magic last
night to keep myself warm. And today my hunger was proportionately
strong. Magic, it seemed, demanded more food than physical effort. I
wondered idly if I could work enough magic to shed the wall of fat from
my body. I decided that the appetite it would create would probably drive
me insane before I succeeded. I went out into the gathering evening to see
if I could find anything to eat. I carried my gun with me, even as I told
myself I was worrying needlessly. If the mob were going to hunt me down
and hang me, they’d have done it by now. Wouldn’t they?
As yet, my vegetable garden wasn’t yielding. I went to Clove’s stall and
abashedly took a measure of his grain. It was coarse and hard and none
too clean, but I rinsed it and put it to soak in a pot near my fire. My water
cask was nearly empty; I took my bucket and headed down to the spring.
As I had that very first day, I had the strong feeling that someone was
watching me. I heard a shuffle of feathers overhead and looked up hastily
to find that a croaker bird had just settled in a tree at the edge of the
woods. The silhouette of the trees and the bird were black against the
day’s fading sky. He croaked suddenly. A shiver ran up my spine. I lurched
to my feet, and my brimming bucket sloshed a little cold water down my
leg.
“Nevare.” A voice spoke softly from the woods. It seemed to come from the
trees just below the bird’s perch. Although it was a woman’s voice and I
recognized Olikea’s tone, my first thought was that death had called my
name. On the fleeting heels of that thought, however, was the heated flush
of my memory of Olikea. All my senses came to sudden quivering
attention. I stared into the shadowy woods and saw no one and nothing,
until she moved. Then I could not understand how I had not seen her
before. She stepped clear of the sheltering trees, but did not venture out of
the forest.
Abruptly I became aware of the basket that she carried on one arm. She
held out a hand toward me, beckoning me. I took a slow step toward her,
trying to find logic in my mind. Did I wish to reenter her world? I saw her
flex her fist, and the scent of fresh crushed fruit suddenly filled my
nostrils. She had pulped something in her hand. “Nevare,” she called
again, softly, coaxingly. She took a step backward toward the forest. I
dropped my bucket and lunged after her. She laughed and fled.
I followed her into the forest. She paused and ran, dodged, hid, and then
revealed herself, and I pursued her mindlessly like a dog tracking a
squirrel as it jumps from tree to tree. She had reduced me to my most
elementary drives, food and sex. Dignity, intellect, rationality fell away
from me as I hunted her through the dusky woods.
Night deepened under the interwoven branches. My eyes adjusted to the
dimness and my nose became a keen ally. She did not seriously try to elude
me, but only stayed just out of my reach, laughing when I got close to her,
then fleeing with a sudden dash and vanishing again from my sight as she
camouflaged herself in the tricky sunset light.
Before I knew it, we had reached the eaves of the true old forest. Then she
ran in earnest, basket jouncing on her arm, and her buttocks bobbing. She
made no attempt to hide from me now, and I ran, heavily, panting, but
running like a dog on a scent, tirelessly and determined.
Did I catch her or did she turn and snare me in her arms? I could not say.
I only knew that near a welling spring, the game suddenly ended in
triumph for us both. She had splashed out ankle-deep into the water. I
followed her, and there she came to me, suddenly willing and not coy at
all. I kissed her, an act that seemed to surprise and intrigue her. She
pulled back, laughing and saying, “You do not need to eat me, Great One. I
have brought the right foods for you, the foods that will restore you, the
foods that will reveal you. I have the dream traveler’s berries and the bark
of the flight-of-eyes. I have ever-heal and never-tire. All that a Great One
needs, I bring to you.” She took both my hands and drew me to the
riverbank. There she would not allow me to do anything for myself. She fed
me from her hands, even to cupping cool water for me to drink. She took
my clothing from me, and then offered me more food and herself. The tang
of the soft, thin-skinned fruit was interspersed with the play of her warm,
wet tongue as she mixed her kisses with feeding me. She had learned so
quickly. She held mushrooms between her teeth and offered them to me,
refusing to let go so that I had to bite them from her mouth. Her hands
were sticky with the fruit she had crushed, and as she ran them over me,
the smell of the fruit nectar mingled with the musk of our bodies to
become one scent. Later, I would think it depravity. At the time, it was
lust and gluttony combined into one glorious, sense-engulfing indulgence.
The moon was high before we had finished our consumption. I lay back on
deep, soft moss, completely satiated in every way I could imagine. She
leaned over me, breathing her wine breath into my face. “Are you happy,
Great One?” she asked softly. She stroked the curve of my belly, following
the line of hair that led downward. “Have I pleased you?”
I was far beyond being pleased with her. And yet it was her first question
that clung to my mind. Was I happy? No. This was transitory. Tomorrow I
would be back in my cabin, fearing to go into town, digging holes to bury
men I’d never known, and planning a fence that would keep out this world
that I now wallowed in. I answered neither of her questions.
“Olikea, you are a very kind woman.”
She laughed at that and replied, “I am as kind to you as I hope you will be
to me. Will you be kind enough to come to my village? I wish to show you
to the people there.”
“You wish to show me to your people?”
“Some there do not believe that one of your kind could become a Great
One. They mock me and ask, ‘Why would the magic choose as defender the
one who has invaded us?’” She shrugged the question aside as if it were of
no consequence to her. “So I wish to prove I speak true to them. Will you
come with me to my village?”
I could suddenly think of no reason to refuse. “Yes. I will.”
“Good.” She stood up suddenly. “Let’s go.”
“Now? Tonight?”
“Why not?”
“I thought the Speck villages were far back in the forest. Days or even
weeks from here.”
She tossed her head and puffed her cheeks. “Some are. All the winter
villages are. But our summer village is not. Come. I’ll show you.” She
stooped and seized both my hands. I laughed at the thought of her being
able to tug me to her feet. With a groan and a lurch, I rolled over, got my
knees under me, and stood up. She took my hand. She led and I followed
her, away from the spring and my discarded clothing. Away from
everything. At the time, I didn’t even think that I was leaving my old life
behind, only that I was going somewhere with Olikea.
The night was velvet around us. Olikea occasionally swatted at the gnats
that hummed about her head, but none came near me. If she followed a
path, I could not detect it. We walked on banks of moss and waded
through drifts of fallen leaves from decades past. Other animals moved in
the forest, as softly as we did. Our way led us across the sides of steep hills
at a slant, always ever higher. We came to a place where the trees were as
big around as towers, their tops lost in leafy darkness. We topped a ridge
and went down into the shallow valley beyond it, and never once left the
shelter of the trees. Night was still deep around us when we came to her
summer village. I smelled first the soft smoke of small campfires. Then I
heard something that was more akin to the humming of bees in a hive
than music, but was pleasant all the same. I began to catch glimpses of
subtle firelight pooling in the hollows of the sheltered valley. As we
descended, I expected to see a humble village of rustic dwellings. Instead, I
saw only forest. It was only when we reached the edges of a natural
clearing that I could see shadowy folk passing in front of the several small
fires that dotted the dell. I estimated the population at about sixty, but
there could have been three or four times that many in the darkness. I
had almost forgotten my nudity. It had seemed completely natural to
move unclad and unencumbered through the soft darkness of the forest
night. Now that I faced the reality of walking into a community of Specks
unclothed, I suddenly felt intensely uncomfortable. I halted and said softly
to Olikea, “I need to go back for my clothing.”
“Oh, do not embarrass me,” she chided me and, seizing my hand, led me
inexorably forward.
I followed her as if unable to exert my own will in the matter. I walked into
a child’s nursery tale. That is as close as I can describe it. The soft glow of
the campfire was cupped gold in the mossy hollows that had formed
around each hearth; they lit no more than the circles around them.
Shadowy people moved intermittently as black silhouettes before it. The
dappled folk who dozed or lounged and spoke quietly around the fires
were, for that time, the legendary denizens of the forest, creatures forever
beyond my ken. They were comfortable in their naked skins. Their
adornments of feathers, beads, and flowers were aesthetic ornamentation
only, and all the more potently beautiful for that. The summer village
seemed a place where the forest had chosen to welcome the humans. The
earth had shaped itself to receive humanity, rising as mossy couches
around the fire circles. The curving roots of one immense tree cupped
three small children curled and sleeping in its grasp. In the hollowed trunk
of a still-living tree I glimpsed a couple indulging in unabashed passion in
a privacy granted to them by their fellows and graced by a flowering vine
that did not quite curtain them from the firelight. A hummock of earth
sheltered a moss-floored cave. Glowing insects formed chains of light on
the walls inside it, creating a mystical light for a group of women who
were weaving baskets. Our destination was a central firepit where a group
of people were singing. Olikea’s fingers imprisoned mine in a firm grip.
She led me on a winding path through the village. She did not pause as we
circled down and down to the lowest central firepit in the dell where the
song was continuing. I felt she deliberately led me past the smaller family
fires, as if she were leading an especially fine livestock purchase home and
wished to be sure that her neighbors admired it. If that were so, she was
achieving her purpose, for as we passed, people were rising from their
fires to follow us. At last we stopped on the outskirts of the musicians’
circle. The men were humming a series of deep bass notes. The women
were breathing out a sweet soprano counterpoint. A few shook bundles of
dried seed pods that made a soft shushing sound. It was a gentle concert.
At our approach, the music faltered, broke into pieces, and then died.
Olikea did not let go of my hand as she broke into the circle of gathered
singers, and so I had to follow her. I hoped my high blush was invisible in
the low light. She spoke not loudly, but in a clear, carrying voice. “Behold,
I have found a Great One of the plain-skin folk. I have made him mine and
brought him here. Behold.”
In the hush that followed her words, I could hear my heart beating in my
ears. I had expected only an introduction to her people, which had been a
frightening enough prospect. To be announced as a Great One and
presented like a prize bull filled me with uneasiness. As my eyes began to
adjust more fully to the firelight, I recognized Olikea’s father among the
singers. He had a contraption of leather thongs strung on a wooden frame
attached to something that was like a drum. He did not stare at me, but
looked into the flames. Next to him, a woman a few years younger than
Olikea suddenly stood. She pulled the man beside her to his feet. He was a
stout fellow, more dappled than most of the men gathered there, and with
a face made even odder by the dark mask of pigment around his blue eyes.
His hair was long and uniformly black rather than streaked. He wore it in
many plaits. At the end of each plait, the hair was knotted through a
small, polished animal vertebrae. He stared at me in astonishment and
dismay. The woman spoke angrily. “We have a mage already. We have no
need of your plain-skin Great One, Olikea. Take him away.”
“Olikea’s Great One is bigger,” someone said. The voice was not
aggressive, but was clearly audible. Murmurs of agreement followed this
announcement. “Jodoli is still growing,” Olikea’s rival protested. “Already
he has blessed us many times over. Continue to feast him, and he will
continue to grow and fill with magic for you.”
“Nevare has scarcely begun to grow!” Olikea countered. “Look at how big
he is, and he has never been properly fed. Since I have taken him over, he
has grown, and he will grow even more as he is correctly cared for. The
magic favors him. Look at his belly! Look at his thighs, his calves. Even
his feet are fattening.
You cannot doubt he is the better one!”
“He is not of our people!” the other woman declared shrilly. Olikea
feigned amazement. “Firada, how you talk! He is a Great One. How can he
not be of our people? Do you dispute one that the magic has chosen and
sent to us?”
Firada was not persuaded. “I…I do not see how it can be so. Who has
taught him the magic’s way? He is fat, that is true, but who could have
trained him? Why does he come to us?” She turned to address the
gathered folk. “Is this wise, my family, to take in a Great One who does not
come to us from our own? Jodoli we have seen since the day his mother
birthed him. We all witnessed the fever, and we all saw him return to us,
and when he began to fill with magic, we rejoiced. We know nothing of
this plain-skin Great One! Shall we replace Jodoli with an untried
stranger?”
I spoke, much to Olikea’s quick disgust. “I did not come here to replace
anyone.
Olikea simply asked me to come and meet you all. I cannot stay.”
“He cannot stay tonight!” Olikea hastily corrected me. Her hand gripped
mine firmly. “But soon he will come to live among us, and the richness of
the magic that swirls inside him will benefit all of us. All of you will be
grateful for the mage I have brought you. Never before has our
tribe-family been able to boast of such an immense mage loyal to our clan.
Do not doubt him lest he be offended and, leaving us, choose another
family for alliance. Tonight you must dance and sing a welcome to him,
and bring him food so that we may feast the magic.”
“Olikea, I cannot…” I began in a low voice.
She gripped my hand hard, digging her nails into me. She leaned close to
speak by my ear. “Hush. You need food. Eat now. Then we will talk. See.
They already scatter, to bring you food.”
No other words could have driven all my concerns so completely from my
brain. My hunger came back, a roaring beast. Like a returning tide, the
People came back, bearing with them every imaginable sort of food. There
were berries and drupes that I had no names for, but also the tender tips
of leaves and flower buds, a bowlful of nectar-heavy blossoms, and finely
shaved tree bark. They brought me dense, golden bread, made not from
grain flour but from ground tubers. It was studded with dried fruit and
spicy little nuts. I hesitated over a basket of smoked insects. The woman
offering them to me took honeycomb in her fingers and pinched it to
drizzle the honey over the gleaming black bodies. They were crunchy and
smoky and strangely oily. Delicious. I washed them down with a forest
wine served in wide clay bowls.
I ate, and as each dish was emptied, others were pushed forward to take
their place. Eating had become an adventure in sensations, with no
relationship to appetite or nourishing the body. I fed something larger
than myself, something that took satisfaction in every morsel that entered
my mouth. There were moments when my true self broke through,
moments when I realized the incongruity of my pale nakedness in the
flame-lit velvet darkness, moments when Olikea’s satisfied patting of my
swelling belly reminded me that in the streets I had walked this morning,
that distended paunch was a source of mockery and shame to me. My
hidden self that Tree Woman had nourished and educated emerged into
his own. He, at least, understood that this tribute was due to him and
proper, and he showed his satisfaction in ways that would have made my
aristocratic self shudder, had I taken time to consider it. He licked his
fingers and moaned with pleasure at some tastes, smacking his lips over
others, and licking bowls to obtain every last morsel of the best offered to
him. The People adored his praise of the food they brought him. As the
night progressed, they built the fires higher, making the circle of light
broader. They joined in the feasting, serving to themselves the lesser food
unfit to offer me. When I was full nigh to bursting and had reduced my
activity to sampling the best morsel from each dish presented to me, I
became aware that the other mage had seated himself beside me. I turned
to look at him. Jodoli gravely inclined his head to me.
“My people feast you well,” he informed me. There was no warmth in his
voice, only the statement of fact.
I suddenly felt awkward. The scattered fragments of my real self
assembled and I found myself groping for manners. “They feast me better
than I have ever been fed.” I started to thank him and then hesitated. Was
not I supplanting him? Would thanking him be rude? Who should I be
thanking for this amazing meal? I glanced toward Olikea for guidance, but
she was temporarily absent, circulating among her people. I watched her
for a moment, nearly forgetting Jodoli. Olikea walked like a queen
bestowing favor. Her nakedness was always graceful, but now her swaying
walk suggested a swagger that was both attractive and intimidating to
me. She inclined an ear to the people who sat or reclined on mossy
couches, eating and drinking. To some she nodded and smiled, to others
she raised her brows or waved a hand indecisively.
“Great Man Nevare.” Jodoli’s low voice summoned my attention back to
him. His gaze held mine. It was singularly uncomfortable to look at him.
His eyes were unnaturally light in the patch of darkness that swathed
them. “Have you come to take my place?” he asked me bluntly.
“Olikea said—” I began, but he cut my words off with a strange smile. He
was rubbing the fingers of one hand together as if he were polishing a
small coin. “These people of mine,” he warned me. “They may not be as
easy to win as you might think. You are bigger than me. And you know as
well as I that the magic courses through you. But magic is like any other
strength, Plain-skin. It must be trained to be useful. And I do not think
you have been trained.”
“And you have?” I asked him with a coolness that I did not really feel.
“My teachers stand all around you,” he said. I felt him watching me as he
spoke, and knew that I was being tested just as surely as I knew I was
failing that test. I looked at the gathered people and wondered what I
could set against them. Mentioning the academy would probably not
impress him. “My teacher is within me,” I said impulsively, mostly for the
sake of saying something different from what he had asserted. The words
had no meaning for me, but I was pleased to see a flicker of uncertainty in
his masked eyes. “I propose a small competition,” he said. “One that will
allow my people to choose wisely between one who is better schooled and
one who is greater in girth.”
His eyes flickered away from me as he made this challenge. I followed the
direction of his glance and saw the woman who had earlier championed
him standing at the edge of the firelight’s circle. I sensed how they
conspired to unmask my ignorance. For one instant, I scrabbled for a
strategy. Then I realized I simply didn’t have one. My Speck self might
have a working knowledge of magic, but I didn’t have access to it. I leaned
back lazily and smiled at him, wondering if I should bluff. What did Olikea
expect of me? She seemed to have deliberately maneuvered me into this
confrontation. My eyes roved the gathering, looking for her. The moment
my gaze touched her, she lifted her face. Our eyes met. I saw Olikea
become aware of my danger. She began trying to hurry back to me
without betraying her haste. Her gaze warned me, but I looked away from
her. The smile on my face was becoming fixed. I nodded at Jodoli as if I’d
been carefully considering his challenge. “What sort of a competition did
you have in mind?” I asked him.
“The simplest sort,” he replied complacently. “As you know, in times of
plenty, the People care for their mage. In hard times, we burn our magic
and ourselves to care for the People. So. Shall we show which one of us is
more capable of taking care of the folk in lean or dangerous times?” I was
not sure how to reply to him. A woman carrying a flat tray toward me
blocked Olikea. Her eyes flashed desperately toward me, but I looked away
from her at Jodoli. He’d judge me weak if he caught me looking at a
woman for advice. If I were going to move among these people, I must
make my own way. I sized up my rival carefully. If this fellow thought he
could best me in a competition of strength, he was wrong. I was not only
wider than he was, but at least a head taller. My daily labor meant that my
muscles were hard under the fat that coated him. He looked soft to me.
The food I’d eaten had charged my magic. I could feel it scintillating
through my blood, heady and intoxicating as liquor. Power. I had power
and I had it in greater quantity than he did. Hitch had said I’d worked
wonders beyond anything he’d ever seen a Great One do. Perhaps I had a
natural talent for magic. I knew I had the benefit of a military education.
Everything I’d ever learned about strategy warned me that now was no
time to appear indecisive or afraid. My only hope was to draw Jodoli out
and try to find a weakness. “Set the terms of the challenge as you wish,” I
told him affably. Did he look surprised at my nonchalance? I hoped I was
buying time. He bowed his head. I thought for an instant that he smiled,
but when he lifted his face to mine, his mouth was serious. “And when
shall we begin?” he asked me softly.
“Whenever you like,” I said magnanimously.
I opened my eyes to dim light filtering down through the forest canopy. A
light rain of dew was sprinkling down from the leaves high above me as
the morning breeze stirred them. The falling droplets sparkled in the
random rays that broke through the canopy. They fell on my face, my bare
chest and belly, for I lay flat on my back. I yawned and stretched. I could
not recall a morning when I had awakened feeling better. My belly was still
pleasantly full from the evening before, and I had slept as deeply as if I’d
been snuggled into the finest featherbed. I sat up slowly and looked
around.
I was alone on a forested hillside. The events of the evening before came
back to me in a rush of sensation and detail. Try as I might, though, I
could recall nothing after I’d accepted Jodoli’s challenge. As if someone
had blown out the lamp, darkness followed his words until I opened my
eyes to this day. Yet something must have happened, for there was
absolutely no sign at all of the fires or the feast or the Speck encampment.
The lay of the land did not match my recollection at all; the Specks had
been settled in a little dell and I rested on a slant of hillside. I doubted I
had been carried here, yet surely I would remember if I had come here
under my own power? Most annoying of all was Olikea’s absence. She
might at least have stayed by me after luring me to visit her people. I
stood up slowly, gradually realizing how peculiar my circumstances were. I
was stark naked. I had no supplies, nor tools nor weapons of any kind. I
was not sure where I was. Belatedly, I recalled that Spink had hinted he
would be coming to see me today. He’d even given me a direct order to
remain at my cabin so he would find me there. I needed to get back to my
world. I looked around me, trying to get my bearings and finding nothing
familiar. The leaves and branches overhead screened the sun. The forest of
ancient trees looked the same in every direction. I recalled that as I
pursued Olikea, we had climbed higher and higher up the forested flanks
of the mountain. Downhill seemed my best choice.
I walked the morning away. I could not see the passage of the sun, so I was
uncertain of the passage of time. I cursed my own stupidity for following
Olikea. I had been blinded by greed and lust, I told myself. And magic. I
blamed the magic, and tried to convince myself that it and not my own
poor judgment was responsible for my situation.
The immense trees towered over me. I walked on and on. Birds moved
overhead, and twice I startled deer. When I came to a trickling stream at
the bottom of a ravine, I stooped for a drink and then sat down with my
back against an ancient tree while I soaked my aching feet in the cold
water. When I heard someone whispering behind me, I sat up straight and
looked all around, both hoping and dreading that Olikea had returned to
aid me. I would have welcomed her guidance to return to my world, even
as I dreaded her disappointment in me. I could not recall what had
befallen me, but I was certain that I had lost to Jodoli’s challenge. That
would displease her. When I saw no sign of anyone, I forced myself to rise
and go on.
My feet ached. My ankles and knees complained and my back hurt. Sweat
streamed down me and myriads of insects came to dance around me,
humming in my ears and getting tangled in my hair. The moss underfoot
was mostly kind to my feet, but even small twigs and thorns are shocks to
feet accustomed to boots. The underbrush was not thick, but there were
places where I had to force my way through. By afternoon, I was sweaty,
scraped, scratched, and insect-bitten. I did notice that the abrasions to
my skin and the mosquito bites did not bother me as much as they once
would have. At least my fat did me some good. In late afternoon, I
recognized a lightning-scarred tree. I knew my way now. I could not
explain why it had taken me so many daylight hours to cover terrain that I
had obviously crossed in just a few hours the night before. Dusk was
thickening when I passed from the ancient forest into the burned zone of
younger trees. It was full dark, and I was grateful that it was when I finally
emerged, naked, scratched, and itching, from the forest onto the bare hill
of my cemetery. I was home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AN ENVELOPE

I awoke the next morning feeling as if I had a wild and drunken night to
atone for. I lay in my narrow bed, looking up at a cobweb in the corner,
and tried to make sense of my life. I failed. Then I tried to remember
something that I wanted above all else, and could not discover anything.
That was the lowest moment I’d had in a long time. Rescuing my sister
from my father’s oppression and starting a new life here seemed like a
wild fantasy for an idealistic cadet in a green jacket with bright brass
buttons, not something for a fat man covered with scratches and insect
bites and infected with a magic he could not master. Spink had come out
to see me yesterday. He’d left a note on my table, a very formal note from
Lieutenant Spinrek Kester, saying that he was extremely disappointed not
to find me at my post, and that the next time he came out to the cemetery,
he expected to find me at my duties. To anyone else, it would probably
look stern. To me it sounded desperate and worried. I wished he hadn’t
come; I wished he were not involved in what looked to be the continuing
disaster of my life.
When I eventually got out of bed, I was surprised to find that it was still
very early in the day. I hauled water and washed myself, dressed in my
second set of clothing (much regretting the loss of my other garments),
picketed Clove in fresh grazing, and generally tried to behave as if I were
starting a normal day. A normal day. That was something I could set my
sights on and long for.
Normality.
I cut and sharpened some stakes and with what simple means I could
devise, I shot a straight line for my new fence. I threw myself into that
engineering project as if I were constructing some life-saving rampart
rather than building a simple barrier to protect a graveyard. I was digging
my third posthole before I finally confronted the reason for my glum
spirits. I had run away to the Specks and found that even among a bunch
of savages, I could not prevail. I had failed. I dropped one of Kilikurra’s
poles into the hole, shoved earth in around it, and held it upright as I
stamped down the soil. My bruised feet protested. I missed my boots. The
low shoes I wore today were broken at the sides and worn at the soles. This
afternoon, I’d have to go back to the forest and find my discarded clothing
and boots. I dreaded it. It seemed that now I dreaded almost everything,
so it was simply one more task I had to face. I sighed, sighted down my
line of stakes, and moved on to dig the next posthole.
I was digging when Ebrooks and Kesey arrived. They had walked out from
town, and I did not hear them coming until they were right behind me.
They both seemed subdued until Kesey blurted out, “Where were you
yesterday, Nevare? Some lieutenant from supply came out here looking for
you and was really upset when he couldn’t find you. We didn’t know what
to tell him. At first we said you’d only been gone a little while, but he kept
asking so many questions that finally we had to tell him that we hadn’t
seen you all day, but that we thought you’d only been gone a short time
because you didn’t often leave for very long. He went into your shack.”
“I know. He left me a note.”
“You in much trouble?” Ebrooks asked worriedly.
“Some, probably. But I’ll tell him the truth. I went into the woods and I got
turned around and it took me all day to find my way home.” A silence
greeted my words. I’d expected them to accept my excuse. Instead, they
exchanged glances. Ebrooks shook his head slightly and then, seeing me
scowl, gestured toward the graves and said gruffly, “Kesey and me, we
better get to cutting grass.”
But Kesey stood his ground. Slowly he moved his shoulders back and his
chin came up. His dark eyes had always looked mournful to me, and
dispirited. But today he folded his arms on his chest and bored into me
with his gaze. “Nevare, I got something to say. Lots of people in the
regiment don’t like you, but me, I think you’re a decent fellow, just really
fat, and that shouldn’t count against you no more than me being bald or
Gimper having only two toes left. It’s just how you are. Now we got an
inspection coming up, and if every man don’t look good, it’s going to come
down hard on all of us. Maybe you think we aren’t much of a regiment,
and maybe we haven’t been since you joined us, but once we were plenty
proud and a damn crack outfit. Things aren’t the best for you, I know,
what with the rumors about you and that fancy woman making a big
squawk that you said something dirty to her. You might think going
native is a way out. You wouldn’t be the first to just walk off into those
woods and never come back again. But don’t you do it, Nevare. You take
some pride in what you are and who you are and you tough it out like a
true-born soldier son. Nobody says it much anymore around here, but I’ll
tell you this. You owe it to this regiment to be the best soldier you can be.
Not just when we’re stepping smart and pretty, and we’ve got our banners
flying and good days rolling along. Not just when there’s gunpowder and
smoke and blood. But during times like this, when no one thinks much of
us, not even ourselves, and we know we’re going to get our comeuppance
from that inspection team. Even in times like this, we got to do what we
can, and be soldiers like our fathers was before us. You hear me?” He took
a deep breath after he’d spoken his piece. It was the longest speech and
the most sense I’d heard out of the man since I’d met him. There he stood
in a wrinkled uniform jacket with one button dangling from a thread and
the knees of his trousers gone shiny with wear. His hat was dusty and rain
had speckled the dust. What hair he had stood out in tufts above his ears.
But he stood as straight as a ramrod, and his words sank into me like rain
falling on parched soil. They moved me as I hadn’t been moved in a long
time. They restored my true self just as absolutely as the forest food had
satiated my Speck self. Nothing could have stirred the dormant duty in my
soul as plainly as the heartfelt call to arms of that wizened old soldier.
I lifted my eyes to meet his. “You’re right, Kesey. You’re right.” That was
all I said to him, but he beamed as if I’d just given him a commendation.
He marched off to follow Ebrooks and as they went, I heard him say, “I
told you he was a right fellow, Ebrooks, now didn’t I? Just needed a bit of
reminding, that was all.”
I did not hear Ebrooks’s muttered response. I applied myself to my task
with fresh energy. By early afternoon I’d used up all of Kilikurra’s poles.
They looked pathetic: a widely spaced fence of shovel handles sticking up
out of the earth. But when I stood at one end of the row and sighted down
them, they lined up perfectly. I took pleasure in what I’d accomplished
with only crude tools. I carried my shovel and pick back to my tool shed,
returned to my cabin for water, and was just thinking of going to look for
my clothing when I heard the snort of a horse outside my open door. I rose
from my chair, but before I even reached my door, Spink rushed through
it. He stopped short when he saw me and exclaimed fervently, “Oh, thank
the good god that you have returned! Nevare, I feared I would never see
you again.”
“I was lost in the forest overnight, sir, but as you can see, I’ve returned
safely and taken up my duties again.”
Spink whirled as neatly as a cat and slammed my door behind him. Then
he turned back to me and I saw that the relief on his face had been
replaced with something akin to anger. “We’re talking plainly today,
Nevare. No hedging. Where were you yesterday? And I warn you, I want
the whole story.” It was not a tale I could imagine telling to Spink or
anyone else. Not just yet. So I replied stiffly, “I told you. I went into the
forest. It got dark faster than I thought it would, and I got turned around.
Even when daylight came, I couldn’t get my bearings. It took me a long
time to find my way back home. I returned late last night.”
“Why did you go into the forest in the evening, Nevare?” I hesitated too
long, trying to find a good answer for that. When I opened my mouth,
Spink waved his hand at me. “No. Don’t lie to me. If you aren’t going to
tell me, then just don’t tell me, but please, Nevare, don’t lie to me. You’ve
changed enough as it is. When you start deliberately lying to me, then I’ll
know there’s nothing left of our friendship to salvage.”
His eyes bored into mine so honestly, and the hurt in them was so plain,
that I was shamed dumb by it. I looked away from him. After a moment
he said, “Well, let me tell you what has been transpiring in my home, and
perhaps you can give me some answers to what you know of that.”
“In your home?” I asked, startled.
He took a seat at my table as if he expected to be there for a time. I slowly
sat down across from him. He nodded at me sternly, affirming that I
should take this conversation seriously. He cleared his throat. “Yesterday
morning, a woman came to my door. She told me that she had been told
that my lady wife could use a servant, and that she was willing to do
anything our household required in exchange for shelter and whatever
food we could spare them.”
“Amzil,” I said reflexively. I had completely forgotten that I had sent her to
Spink’s door.
“Yes. Amzil. The Dead Town whore.”
A small silence followed his words. I felt both angry that he called her such
a name and abashed that I had thoughtlessly sent a woman who merited
such a name to his door. The awkwardness built between us as I tried
desperately to think of something that would take us back to a place where
we were friends who could talk to each other.
Spink cleared his throat and then added accusingly, “Amzil AND her three
children. Of course, Epiny was immediately entranced with all of them.
Have you any idea what a junior lieutenant’s pay is, Nevare? And how
much noise three children make in a very small house? And how much
they eat, especially that little boy? It fascinates Epiny. She just kept
putting food in front of him, waiting for him to stop. But he didn’t, not
until he suddenly put his head down on the table and fell asleep.”
A leaf turns in the wind, and you suddenly have a different perception of
what color it is. It stung that Spink could call Amzil a whore, but he had
no way of knowing that she was someone I cared about. I wondered when
she had become “someone I cared about” rather than just Amzil the
whore. That realization was as jolting to me as the sudden knowledge that
I was the one throwing up barriers between Spink and me. “I didn’t stop
to think about that,” I admitted. “Amzil came out here, wanting to live
with me. She thought that was her only option, other than raising her kids
in a brothel.”
“And you turned her away?” Spink sounded surprised.
I shifted in my chair and then said grudgingly, “It was right after that
incident in town. I didn’t think they would be safe here. And she wasn’t
offering me—I know they call her a whore, Spink, but I don’t think that’s
fair to her. She’s done that occasionally, out of necessity, to feed her
children. And I suspect that sometimes she wasn’t given the option of
saying no, that men went out there, used her, and left money or whatever
so they didn’t have to think of themselves as rapists. Well. I don’t know.
But yes, I sent her to you. Without thinking of what a financial burden
they might be. Did you let them stay?”
“Epiny answered the door.” It was the only reply I needed. He went on,
“She’s a strong woman, my Epiny. Not in the flesh; I’ll admit that her
health has suffered since we came here, and that like the rest of us, she is
prey to the darkness of spirit that flows out of the forest. But she fights it.
She has made the women of Gettys her special project. Having a woman
come to the door and say that she’d rather scrub floors for us than be a
whore was a validation of all that Epiny has been trying to accomplish
with her whistles and meetings and night classes for women.”
“Classes? Classes in what?”
Spink rolled his eyes. “In whatever they want to learn, I expect. By the
good god, Nevare, you don’t think I’ve attended, do you? I’m sure you
recall how adamantly Epiny endorsed my mother’s idea that women must
be able to manage their own households in the event that one is widowed
or abandoned by her husband. Epiny teaches them the basics of
arithmetic, and gives them an understanding of banking and, well, I don’t
know. Whatever it is that she thinks women need to know when there are
no men about.”
I gave an involuntary snort of laughter. “Amzil might be a better teacher
than a student in such a class.”
“I suspect she might. She probably will be, if Epiny has her way. Despite
their differences, Epiny is quite glad to have another woman around the
house, because of her condition. She loves the children already. She has
very much missed her younger sister, you know.”
“Epiny’s condition?” I feared the worst. It was well known that plague
survivors often had impaired health and sometimes died young. “Is she
ill?”
“Quite the contrary,” Spink assured me. His cheeks had gone pink, but he
was grinning. “Nevare.” His voice suddenly deepened with emotion. “I’m
going to be a father.”
I leaned back in my chair, astonished. “You’ve got my cousin with child?”
His cheeks went redder. “Well, your cousin is also my wife. Had you
forgotten that?”
I hadn’t, but I’d never dwelt on exactly what that meant. I was suddenly
jolted to my core. They would be a family. They were a family. It was silly
that such a concept could shock me, but I hadn’t really seen Spink and
Epiny as a couple, let alone as the seed of a family. And now it was there.
It was shameful, but I suddenly pitied myself, losing both of them to each
other. I felt even more alone. I was glad for them, but my gladness was
edged with envy. I kept that out of my voice as I offered him
congratulations.
“With that the situation, you can see why Epiny feels that the good god
himself sent Amzil to our door. She’s had three children herself, and has
assisted at other births, she told us. And she’s a hard worker. She’s already
proven that. Epiny has tried to be a good housekeeper for us, but it is
work she was never taught, and there are no decent servants to be hired in
Gettys. So in some ways, it has been a relief for Amzil to come in and give
the floor a proper scrubbing and put the kitchen to rights.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Then it may work out well for all of you.”
He gave me a flat look. “It may work out in ways you hadn’t planned on,
Nevare. Your Amzil did find a way to get your message to me, not that she
needed to convince me to take her in. She already had Epiny’s goodwill on
her side. But it’s only a matter of time before she notices that Epiny’s
whistle matches the one in her ‘password’ and then what will she make of
it?” I considered it for a moment. “I don’t know.”
“Nor do I. But I already suspect Amzil is not one to let a mystery rest in
peace. How long before she asks Epiny what it means?”
“I specifically told her not to say anything about it to Epiny, only you.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “Oh, well, that’s such a relief. Nevare, don’t you
see that such a command would only add oil to the fire?” He was right. I’d
told Amzil that the otter whistle had saved a life, and when she saw
Epiny’s whistle shaped like an otter, she’d know it was the one I meant.
Spink was right; Amzil couldn’t leave such a mystery alone.
I sighed. “Well, if she talks to Epiny, then she does, and I’ll deal with it
then.”
“That’s not good enough, Nevare!” He slapped the table at me and leaned
forward earnestly. “I’ve kept your secret for you far longer than I should.
When Epiny finds out, she will be murderous toward me. Since she
became pregnant, she’s been more emotional than usual. Learning that
I’ve deceived her for months could destroy us. I came out her to ask
you—no, I came out here to tell you that I’m going to tell her the truth. So
you’d best be prepared for her.”
“Spink, you can’t! You mustn’t! You know what my reputation has become
in Gettys. You can’t allow her to link her name to mine. It will ruin both of
you. Which officers’ wives will keep their friendships with her after they
discover that her cousin is suspected of rape, murder, and propositioning
virtuous women on the streets? She won’t have a female friend left in
Gettys. Think what that ostracism would do to her. Think what it could do
to your child’s future!”
He looked down at his feet and then up at me. “I have thought about it,
Nevare. I’m not a saintly man, but I have my honor. I would lose more of
it by denying you than claiming you, especially at this time of need in your
life. Don’t look at me like that! I can see what’s happening to you.” He
stood up abruptly and paced around the room, halting by my window. He
stared out of it as he spoke. “You grow fatter daily. I don’t say that to
rebuke you, but to tell you I notice. And I do believe it has some magical
force behind it, for I don’t see any of our other enlisted men growing as
you do, and some of them spend far more time swilling beer and eating
than you ever have. But it isn’t just that. You go into the forest, Nevare,
and you stay there, far beyond the amount of time than any of the rest of
us could tolerate without going mad. You’re drifting away from us. I can
feel it when I talk to you. You remind me of that scout, Hitch. He gets that
same look in his eyes sometimes.”
He glanced back over his shoulder at me suddenly as he said this, almost
as if he expected to catch something in my expression. But I controlled my
face well. All the while I was weighing in my mind just how much of my
experience I could share with Spink. I would be ashamed to tell how I had
indulged myself with Olikea, or to admit how much contact I’d had with
the Specks. He was uncomfortably close to the truth; I had thought of
staying in the forest with them. I probably would have if I had not lost to
Jodoli’s challenge. I wondered again what had happened, then reined my
mind violently back to the present as Spink suddenly slapped his forehead.
“What an imbecile I am! Here we’ve been talking away, and I almost
forgot the most important reason for my visit, the one that makes it
absolutely necessary for Epiny to know that you are here. Look at this,
Nevare, and tell me that it changes everything for you.”
From inside the breast of his jacket he drew out a simple white envelope
and set it on the table before me. My heart turned over in my chest. At one
time, the sight of that handwriting had meant so much to me. The pen
strokes in Carsina’s hand spelled out my sister’s name and my home
address. I glanced at Spink, then opened the unsealed envelope and drew
out two sheets of paper.
My dear Yaril,
I regret that I could not find time to visit or write to you before my
departure to the east. The oppertunity arose and my beloved parents
judged it best that I act upon the invitation swiftly. I am staying with my
cousin and his wife, Clara Gorling, so that I may have the time to become
better acquainted with her cousin, Captain Thayer, my fiancé. Gettys is a
rather wild place, it’s true, but I think I will find true happyness here with
such an ambitious young officer. He is the most dashing fellow you could
imagine, with dark curly hair and the widest shoulders I’ve ever seen! Oh,
I do wish you could meet him! He is far handsomer than Remwar ever
was! I feel so silly when I think that I was jealous of your flirtation with
him. What children we both were! Please write to me at your earliest
convenience to say that you have missed me as much as I have missed you
and that we can renew the friendship that sustained us through so many
happy years.
With affection,
Carsina Grenalter, the future wife of Captain Thayer
“What is this?” I demanded of Spink, though my mind was already
putting the puzzle together.

“I went to Carsina. It was difficult for me to get in to see her, for it seemed
a score of women had closed in to stand guard over her and commiserate
with her on her terrifying experience. It was harder still to find a way to
speak privately with her. I pretended I was there to get a detailed
statement of exactly what you had said to her and how you had insulted
her. She’s a fine little actress, Nevare. She stuttered and wept and fanned
herself until I sent her maid out of the room to fetch a glass of water for
her. Then I told her, bluntly, that I knew who she was and who you were
and that I’d even seen some of the letters that she had written to you while
you were in the academy. I told her that you had saved them, and that if it
came to a court-martial over your behavior, you could produce them to
prove that your prior acquaintanceship gave you every right to speak to
her on the street. I think she came close to really swooning then.”
Spink was grinning as he spoke, and I found a rare smile stretching my
face as well.
“I told her that if she wanted the whole matter quieted down, she could
simply accede to your request and give me an envelope addressed to your
sister in her hand. I assured her that was all you wanted and that you had
no interest in her beyond that.
“By then her maid returned with her water. Carsina sent her immediately
for paper and pen, and this was in my hands before I left the room. I
suggested to her in the maid’s hearing that it was all a mistake, that I had
talked with you and you had said that you had only asked her name, for
she resembled someone you had once known. She very faintly agreed with
me. I am sure I left her with a dilemma, for she had been denouncing you
so rabidly that it will be difficult for her to retract what she has said. But
her fear of her own letters may keep her from taking her wicked lie any
further than it has gone. I can’t tell you that your good name has been
restored, but I don’t think Carsina will dare to blacken it further.”
I looked up from the letter in my hands. While he had been speaking, I’d
read it through again. I was sure that her references to her future husband
were put in to needle me. I was surprised by how little it bothered me.
“Truth to tell, I do have her old letters. They’re shut in my soldier son
journal, with all the rest of my papers.” I heaved a huge sigh of relief.
“Spink, I don’t know how to thank you. You’ve boxed her in quite neatly. If
I presented those letters, I’m sure it would be the end of her engagement
to Captain Thayer. I doubt that she’ll do or say anything that would
damage her own reputation in such a way.”
He glanced away. “I felt rather a bully at first, to tell you the truth. But
once I had threatened her with exposure, I could not believe how her sweet
little mouth stopped trembling; I swear she longed to spit at me. I know
you once loved the girl, Nevare, but I think she did you a favor when she
ended your engagement. I cannot imagine you harnessed to such a woman
for the rest of your life.”
“Nor I,” I muttered. The last remnants of my old fondness for Carsina were
long gone. I wondered if she had ever been the sweet and simple girl I had
imagined her to be. Was it possible that both Yaril and I had been so
mistaken about someone? Or had the harshness of fate changed all of us?
“Well, we have what we needed. You must write to Yaril at once, and I’ll
put it in the military post for you. Tell her that she is more than welcome
to come and stay with Epiny and me; Epiny would be delighted.”
Nothing would do for Spink but that I undertook that task immediately.
He stood over me as I took my pen and ink from my soldier son journal.
“You’ve filled pages and pages of that!” he exclaimed when he saw it. “I’ve
scarcely touched mine. I’ve been waiting for something significant to
occur in my career.”
“My father taught me that I should write at least a few lines every night,
for insight comes from detail, and often a man can look back and see that
a problem or a solution had its roots in earlier actions.” I glanced at the
dwindling supply of blank paper. “I suppose that soon I shall have to stop
keeping it. It wasn’t really intended for an ordinary soldier anyway, and if
my father ever read all that I’ve put into it, I think he would be horrified.
But I suppose I shall keep it until I run out of paper.”
“You won’t send it home to him when it’s finished, so he can replace it
with a fresh one?”
I looked at Spink to see if he was making a bad joke. He was sincere. “No,
Spink,” I said quietly. “I am dead to that man. He disowned me. He
wouldn’t want to see it.”
“Then entrust it to me, when you are finished, for I am sure you have
written many valuable pages. I’ll take care of it. Or give it to Yaril, to pass
on to her own soldier son.”
“Perhaps. If she has one. Now I need to think before I write.” Silence
reigned for a time. I’d dipped my pen, but that ink had dried before I
thought of what to say and how to phrase it. I did not write a long letter;
too fat an envelope might invite my father’s scrutiny. I told Yaril only the
bare facts, that I was alive and at Gettys, enlisted as a common trooper,
but that Spink and Epiny were living in a situation better befitting Yaril’s
station and had offered to make her welcome. With every word I penned, I
was painfully aware that my father might read my words and judge me on
them. I hesitated long over mentioning Spink’s invitation, for fear it would
prompt my father to some radical maneuver to keep Yaril at home. At last
I decided that I’d have to chance it. The sooner that Yaril knew she had a
bolt-hole, the more opportunities she could find to use it.
“How can she reply to this? She may need money to make the journey, or
she may need to let us know when she might arrive.”
Spink grinned. “I’ve already arranged it. Tell her to write back to Carsina,
but to enclose a second, sealed envelope addressed to me. That should
work. Be sure to let her know that Epiny is most eager for her to join us.” I
added the requested instructions. As I sanded and then sealed the letter, I
asked him, “Just how large a household are you planning to support on a
junior lieutenant’s pay?”
His smile faded slightly as he took the envelope from my hand. “Well, I’m
sure it will all work out some way,” he replied. And then, more sternly he
added, “And I don’t expect to shoulder it alone, Nevare. You realize that
once Yaril writes back to us, you will have to talk with Epiny. This
deception you practice will end. You will have to step up to your
responsibilities. Yaril will be coming here. You know that. Her only other
recourse would be to stay under your father’s roof and marry Caulder
Stiet, and I can’t imagine a woman of even rudimentary intelligence
taking that path. Your sister will be here. Both she and Epiny will expect
to see you living and working as a proper soldier son, even if you are not
an officer. So I suggest you begin now. “You need a proper uniform, and
you need to maintain yourself as befits a soldier. That means shaving and
keeping your hair cut and asking the colonel to position you in the
regiment in the regular chain of command instead of reporting directly to
him. Devote yourself to your duties, and you can earn some rank. The dice
rolled against you and you aren’t starting your career as a lieutenant, but
that doesn’t mean you have to surrender your ambitions. Many a man
with less intelligence and fewer connections, I might add, has managed to
work his way up through the ranks. For everyone’s sake, you had best start
conducting yourself as a soldier son. You’re a part of this regiment, and it
can only be as good as the worst soldier in it.”
His voice had grown sterner and more officious as he spoke. I raised an
eyebrow, and he flicked a sideways glance toward the window. I instantly
divined that either Ebrooks or Kesey was within listening distance. I came
to my feet as quietly as I could and quietly acceded, “Yes, sir. I’ll do better,
sir.”
“Yes. You will. Because this is the last warning you’ll be receiving from
anyone. Whenever I choose to drop by here, I expect to find you at your
duties, soldier, and looking like a proper trooper. Good day.”
“Yes, sir.”
Spink left immediately afterward. Outside, a light summer rain had begun
to fall. I knew that Spink had admonished me for show, but as he rode off,
I took his words to heart. I’d been teetering on the brink, but now I’d
stepped back to safety in my life as a soldier son. I would do more than
simply drudge along. I thought of Gord and how natty he had kept his
academy uniform despite his girth. I could do that. It would take effort,
but a soldier’s lot was effort. And there was no real reason that I could not
set my sights on making rank. I’d begun well with my cemetery duties.
Colonel Haren had said so. I could earn my stripes and perhaps more.
I spotted Ebrooks slinking away behind Clove’s stall. I hailed him as Spink
rode off into the sprinkling rain. “Well, that wasn’t quite as bad as I
thought it would be,” I told him, trying to sound like a man who had just
been soundly rebuked by his superior. “In fact, he said pretty much the
same things that Kesey did. Shape up for the good of the regiment and all
that.”
“Yah. I heard him. But you know, Nevare, he’s right. Things have been
hard for the regiment here, and there’s some of us as would welcome being
shipped off somewhere else, disgraced or not. But the rest of us remember
the old days, and while we’d like to leave, we’d like to see the road get
pushed through first. So that when we walk away, we can say, well, it was
hard but we done it.” I looked at rough, plain-spoken Ebrooks and noted
that although his uniform shirt was stained, it was as clean as it would
come. He was clean-shaven and his hair was combed. He wasn’t much of a
cavalla trooper, but right now he stood in front of a nobly born,
academy-trained soldier son and looked far more like a soldier than I did.
I felt ashamed of myself and also envious. “I wish I could have joined this
regiment in better times, and know it as you do,” I said humbly.
He gave me a sour grin. “Nevare, in better times, we wouldn’t have had
you. That’s harsh, but it’s true. So you come to Gettys and you got a
chance to join us. Make it an opportunity. Live up to what we were rather
than dragging us down any further. That inspection team won’t arrive for
another ten days. Get yourself together. I don’t suppose we’re going to win
any citations from them while our primary objective goes undone, but at
least we can try to avoid disgrace.”
“You mean the King’s Road? I thought it was up to the prisoners to build
it.”
“Well, the shovel-and-pick labor, yes. But our scouts and engineers were
supposed to lay it all out for them, and map out the tasks and say what
was needed to get it done and how fast it could be done.”
“And didn’t they?”
He gave me a look. “You go walking into that forest like it’s nothing,
Nevare. I don’t know how you do it. But for the rest of us…well, whips and
threats are all that keep the prisoners working, and even so, the progress
is so slow it’s like going backward. Colonel Haren thinks he’s onto
something. Rum. And laudanum. I don’t know where he got an idea like
that. Get a batch of prisoners drunk or doped up and give them
axes—that’s got to be a recipe for trouble.” He gave a lopsided shrug. “But
I hear that it’s working. Drunks are too stupid to be afraid of anything.
Some of them get gloomy or cranky, but a man with a whip or a gun can
persuade you that you’ve got to work no matter how gloomy or cranky you
are.
“They’ve started cutting into those monster logs and hauling chunks away.
Like ants trying to carry off a loaf of bread crumb by crumb is what one
guard told me, but it’s better than no progress. Even liquored up, most
prisoners can’t stand to work there more than an hour, and the guards
have to be almost as drunk as the workers are. Makes cutting grass here
look like a real pleasure.” Stillness washed through me. The road might go
through. And I’d given the colonel the idea of how to do it. Haren seemed
a fair man. He might not credit me with the idea, but I suspected I’d have
a stripe or even two on my sleeve by the end of summer. Crashing against
that idea like two waves meeting was the terrible sick sense that I had
betrayed the forest and Tree Woman. I’d given the intruders a way to
defeat the magic. They would keep cutting and gouging, an hour at a time,
one tree at a time, until they’d cut right through the heart of the forest
and the People. I’d betrayed the Specks just as completely as I’d betrayed
the Gernians when I’d signaled the Dust Dancers to spread their plague. I
felt queasy with what I had done. “You look pale. Are you sick?” Ebrooks
asked me.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Well. I got work to do. I’ll see you later.” He walked hastily away. Not
much was left of the day, but Ebrooks went back to his work and I went
back to mine. Some of my posts were leaning. I tamped them in more
heavily. I wished I could just stop thinking and do this simple work in
front of me. Why couldn’t my life be simple, like Ebrooks’s? He had duties,
he did them, he ate, had a beer, and went to sleep. Why couldn’t I have
that life? I knew the answer. Because I didn’t. When I reached the end of
my line of posts, I stood for a time looking up at the encroaching forest on
the hillside above me. Then I walked up the hill and into it.
As I entered the young forest, I tried to recall how terrifying and
depressing it had been for me the first time I’d walked here. It seemed like
a strange dream. I tramped through it, trying to remember where Olikea
had fled so I could retrace my path from last night. That seemed like an
even stranger dream. Spink and the letter and the lectures from both
Ebrooks and Kesey had recalled me to my duty and my life. What had I
been thinking, to even consider abandoning Yaril to a forced marriage
with Caulder Stiet? How could I have imagined that I could tear off my
clothes and run off into the forest to live among the Specks? Twilight was
falling when I found my scattered clothing and boots. I gathered them up
and as I did so, I noticed how worn and smelly they were. The cracked
leather of my scuffed boots was gray; I could not remember the last time
I’d blacked them or even cleaned them. When I held up my trousers, they
wrinkled and sagged into a parody of my buttocks and legs. Tomorrow,
regardless of consequences, I’d visit town and push hard for a proper
uniform from supply, even if I had to simply beg for fabric and then hire
Amzil to sew for me. The thought of going to Amzil for help made me
recall that she was living at Spink’s home now. Epiny was there, and Spink
had said he was going to tell her that I was alive in Gettys. The thought of
that filled me with both dread and anticipation. With my dirty clothes
draped over one arm and my boots in my free hand, I turned and started
back when suddenly a shape separated herself from a tree trunk. Olikea
stood before me.
“Now I find you!” she exclaimed accusingly. “Where did you go?”
“Me?” I was affronted. “I woke up in a strange place alone. I don’t even
know how I got there or what happened.” I halted my words. I was
speaking Speck; I’d made the transition without thought, without effort.
Again. She made a sound between a hiss and spitting. “Jodoli! What did
he say?”
“He challenged me to prove that my magic was stronger than his.” She
furrowed her brow at me. “But you are bigger than he is. You hold more
magic than he does. You should have won.”
“I may be full of magic. Sometimes I feel that I am. But that does not
mean that I know how to use it. Jodoli said as much.”
She puffed out her cheeks at me and made her disparaging sound again.
“Then he turned his power on you.”
“His magic made me fall asleep and wake up somewhere else?”
“It could be. Or he made you think you were somewhere else and just
awakening, and you wandered off. Or he made it so you could not see us,
or I could not see you. I do not know how his magic was done. I only know
that he did it. And my sister mocked me, and all the People had to bring
tribute to Jodoli and to her today to make up for their doubts.”
I felt a pang of defeat so immense that I could scarcely comprehend it. I’d
lost. It was impossible and horribly unfair. I who had undone the power
seat of the Plains people, I who had stopped their magic forever so that
they could never again menace the People or threaten our lands, had been
tricked and defeated by a mage scarcely worthy of the title. He was no
Great Man. He barely had the belly of a pregnant girl! And then, as before,
my perception shifted, and I was once more Nevare, the soldier son. I
looked down at the rumpled and soiled uniform on my arm, at the dirty
scuffed boots I still clutched. “I have to go back to my people,” I told her.
“I’m sorry I disappointed you. I have to go back. Others are depending on
me.”
She smiled at me. “You are right. I am glad that you have come to see it.”
“No,” I told her. She had come closer to me, and I could already sense the
warmth and musk that radiated from her body. It was so hard to deny her.
“Olikea, I have to go back to my own people. To the Gernians. I have to
become a good soldier, I have to make a home for my sister.”
She stood less than a hand’s-breadth from me now, tilting her face to look
up into my eyes. “No. You are wrong. You are not to be a soldier, but a
Great One. That is how you will serve the magic. And no man should
make a home for his sister. Women go out and make their own homes,
and it is not with their brothers.”
It was hard to find words when she stood so near. She put her hand on my
chest and my heart leapt to meet it. “I have a duty to my people.”
“Yes. You do. And the sooner you fulfil it, the less suffering there will be on
both sides. You must use the magic to make the Jhernians go away.” Her
lips twisted the name of my folk, and made them foreigners to my ears.
“The sooner the war ends, the sooner the suffering will stop for all.”
“War? What war? We are not at war with the Specks.”
“That is the most foolish thing I have ever heard you say. Of course we are
at war. They must leave, or we must kill them all. There is no other way.
We have tried and tried to make them go away. Soon there will be no
choice for us. We will have to kill them all.”
These dark words she breathed against my mouth as she carefully aligned
her body to mine and pressed herself against me. “Only you can do it,” she
said quietly when she lifted her mouth from mine. “Only you can save all
of us from that. That is your duty. You must stay and do it.” She ran her
hands down the sides of my belly, caressing it sensuously. The sensations
she woke drove all thought and internal division from my mind. She made
me hers again, and I fell to her willingly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE ROAD
I became a pendulum, swinging between two lives, committed to neither.
By days I labored in the cemetery. I dug graves and worked on my
cemetery wall. The third day after I had set the poles in the earth to mark
my fence line, I noticed that the bud nodes on their bark were swollen. In
the next few days, leaves unfurled. I decided I had nothing to lose by
watering them, and hauled each one a bucket from my spring daily. I
thought that the leaves were a last desperate bid at life, and expected
them to curl, wither, and die. But they did not. Instead the “poles” began
to thrive as swiftly as if they were carefully transplanted saplings rather
than posts. The rate at which they put out new stubs for branches was
astonishing. I devoted myself to moving rocks, flowering plants, and
bushes into alignment with my poles. I hammered stakes and strung lines
to mark where the other hedgerows would eventually be, and generally
took care that if the inspection party chose to visit, they would find
evidence of careful and daily industry.
Amzil surprised me with a visit, one that was all the more astonishing in
that she brought tailor’s tools and an assortment of worn cavalla uniforms
that she had disassembled into fabric. I was both relieved and
embarrassed to have her take on the task of making me presentable. She
obviously regarded it as a debt she owed me, for she went at it with
pinched-lipped determination. I made one effort at asking her how she did
in her new position. She narrowed her eyes at me and said that she much
admired the lieutenant’s lady, for she seemed like a woman who deserved
better than the hand that life had dealt her, but was nevertheless making
the best of her fortunes.
“Such a small woman, and having such a hard time just now. She can’t
keep a bite of food down, and yet she said she could watch my three while
I did a bit of sewing work.” Somehow her words seemed accusing, and I let
a silence fall that was broken only by her commands that I lift my arms,
turn, and hold a paper of pins for her. It was more humiliating than being
measured by my mother’s seamstresses, for this was a woman, I
reluctantly admitted to myself, for whom I had feelings, even if I was not
exactly certain what they were. Once I had been measured, she turned me
out of my own house. Midway through the day, she called me back and left
me to try on what she called “the basted pieces.” Both the jacket and the
trousers had more seams than any such garments I’d ever seen before, for
she had had to “ease them,” as she put it, to fit me. By the time I finished
my work and returned to my cabin that evening, I found a jacket and
trousers and a shirt that I could actually put on and button. I walked
around my small home, marveling at how freely I could sit, stand, and
even bend. Then, but with reluctance, I carefully hung them up, resolving
that I would not wear them again until the inspection team arrived. By
day I appeared content to be a cog doing this humble work for my king. I
resumed the proper regimen of a soldier. I rose early, as I always had. I
made an honest entry in my journal. I had resolved that no one but me
would ever read it, and thus I did not mince words. Afterward, I washed
and I shaved. Both Ebrooks and Kesey commented on my new demeanor,
and they themselves began to look more clean and trim. They both had
seniority over me, if not rank, but I began to notice that they deferred to
me in how the cemetery was kept. I was their de facto corporal even if the
sleeve of my uniform lacked stripes. By day, I was a good soldier.
By night, I belonged to the forest.
It was not always a conscious decision. I was coming to think of my other
self as my Speck self. He was part of me and apart from me. Some nights,
after darkness had fallen and Ebrooks and Kesey had left, I would enter
the forest and seek Olikea. At other times, when I tried to resist the double
sirens of food and sex and simply go to my own bed, I would awaken from
a dream of walking in the forest to find that I was, indeed, walking in the
forest, the dew-heavy hem of my well-worn nightshirt slapping against my
calves. I thought of tethering my wrist to my bed, as the sergeant in my
academy dormitory had once suggested to me, but I decided it would do
little good. I was living two lives now, and with a bystander’s neutrality, I
watched and waited to see which one would come to dominate me.
Olikea I did not understand. She had come too suddenly and too
completely into my life. Every night, she awaited me in the eaves of the
forest. Every night, she lured me into its depths, and then, when I reached
the ancient forest, she would claim me as her own. I could not look at her
without becoming aroused, and the food she brought me was the food that
a Great One should always eat in order to maximize the growth of the
magic. I could not refuse it any more than I could resist her favors. And
yet I was not sure that either one was good for me. I could almost feel
myself growing fatter when I ate what she offered me; it was not that there
was a vast quantity of it, only that it seemed always the perfect food and
exactly what I had wanted that evening.
As for the woman herself, she, too, satisfied my body beyond anything I
could have imagined. She was imaginative, daring, and completely
shameless in how she joined her body to mine. She relished our congress
beyond any expectations I’d ever had of a woman. Her response to me
seemed almost masculine, she was so aggressive, and she felt no qualms in
letting me know exactly what would give her the greatest pleasure. She
was noisy in her appreciation of my efforts, and in return, she left me
mindless with fulfilment.
Awkwardly, guiltily, I courted her. The small gifts I brought her delighted
her far beyond their worth. Brightly colored boiled sweets, brass bangles,
cinnamon sticks, and glass beads were treasured by her, but made me feel
as if I bought her with trinkets.
By day, it grieved me that she loved me so. I knew that in the long term,
nothing could come of it but sorrow. She could never join me as my wife in
my world. One evening, she took me to a place where she had hung a sort
of sling between two trees. It was low and very large, and before I knew it,
she had shown me how it could facilitate an entirely new form of coupling
for us. And afterward, as I reclined in it, she joined me, molding her body
along mine. The night was balmy and windless, and her body was warm
where it pressed against me. A wave of sentiment washed through me.
She deserved better from me than this casual sexual play.
I steeled myself to explain it all to her. I had been a cad, using her,
allowing her to become attached to me, when in reality I could offer her
nothing. I tried to express my apology for letting her become involved with
me. A better man, I was sure, would have refused her advances.
But my explanations only baffled her. I looked up at the black network of
branches against the starry sky and found myself groping for words I did
not know in her language. “I do not feel I am worthy of your love, Olikea,” I
spoke plainly at last. “I fear that you have plans and dreams for a future
that cannot be.”
“Any future can be!” she replied, laughing at me. “If it were not so, if it
were fixed, it would be a past. You say a foolish thing. How can a future be
impossible? Do you hold the gods’ powers in your hands?”
“No. I do not. But I speak of things I cannot or will not do, Olikea.” Now
that I had become determined to have this talk with her, what I had to say
sounded colder and crueler than ever. But cruelest of all, I decided, would
be to let her labor on under a delusion of a bright future with me. “Olikea,
my father has discarded me from his household. I doubt I can ever return
there as a respected son, and I will not return there as anything less. But
even if I could, I could not take you with me. He would not accept you. Do
you understand what I am saying?”
“I do not understand why you think I would wish to go there.” She was
genuinely puzzled. “Or why I would allow you to take me there. Am I a
sack that you would carry off with you?”
I perceived I had to be even blunter. “I can never marry you, Olikea. You
can never stand beside me as my—” I searched for a Speck word and found
I did not know one. I used the Gernian instead. “Wife. You can never be
my wife.” She leaned up on top of me to look down into my face. “What is
that? Wife?” I smiled sadly. “Wife is the woman who will live with me for
the rest of my life. The woman who will share my home and fortunes. The
woman who will have my children.”
“Oh, I will have my children,” she assured me calmly. She lay back beside
me. “A daughter, it is hoped. But I do not like your home, out there in the
bare lands. You may keep it. As for fortune, I have my own fortune, so I do
not need yours. You may keep it.”
Her calm assurance that she would have my child unnerved me. “I don’t
love you, Olikea,” I burst out. “You are beautiful and you are seductive and
you are kind to me. But I do not think we truly know one another. I do not
think we share anything beyond this passion for the moment.”
“I share food with you,” she pointed out reasonably. She stretched and
then settled more comfortably beside me. “Food. Mating.” She sighed,
pleased with herself. “If a woman gives these things to a man, then he is
fortunate and he should not ask for more from her. Because,” she added in
a tone between teasing and warning, “more than those things, he will not
get. Though he may earn her displeasure by asking.”
The last was plainly a warning. I let the conversation die away. Her head
was pillowed on my shoulder and her hair smelled sweet yet musky. I
decided that there were great differences between our people, greater than
I had imagined. There was still the one thing that I could not keep silent
on.
“And if you have my baby, Olikea? What then?”
“Your baby? Your baby?” She laughed. “Men do not have babies. Women
do. Your baby.” She chortled again. “When I have my baby, if it is a
daughter, then I will celebrate and reward you. And if it is a boy,” she
puffed her cheeks briefly, “I will try again.”
Her words gave me plenty of food for thought for several nights. I
remembered a saying that my father had: “Don’t measure my wheat with
your bushel.” He’d used it whenever our opinions differed so much that I
could not predict what he was likely to do next. It suddenly seemed that
that was what I’d been doing with Olikea. The Specks had a strange set of
values, and I decided that despite my continued contact with them, I knew
very little of their ways. Yet with each passing day, I knew that I was
closer and closer to having to make a decision. Things were happening,
and some of them were events I had set in motion. Sooner or later, I would
have to stop balancing on the wall between my worlds and make a choice.
Some days I dreaded the idea that a letter from Yaril might arrive; at
other times, I longed for it. As the days passed with no word from her, I
suspected that my father had intercepted the letter and destroyed it. Then
I decided it was equally possible that Carsina had received a letter from
Yaril for Spink and kept it. I tried to decide what I must do next, but I
could not think clearly. Little sleep and long hours of work interspersed
with frantic coupling do not lead to clarity of mind.
Dr. Dowder, ever an advocate of alcohol as a means to soothe his own
nerves, seemed to have come up with a balanced dose of rum and
laudanum that deadened both workers and soldiers to the terror at the
end of the road. Work was proceeding, not at a pace that would have
caused rejoicing in any other circumstances, but with a steadiness that
was nothing short of astounding given the record of the last few years.
It was, as Ebrooks had noted, a monumental task. Before the road could
progress, the three gargantuan trees they had initially felled had to be cut
to pieces and hauled away. According to what I heard from Ebrooks and
Kesey, it was being carried out as if it were a military operation. The
cutting crew, properly dosed with alcohol and laudanum, worked an
hourlong shift of cutting chunks of the logs and hitching teams to them to
haul the cut pieces away. Each piece was hauled beyond the “fear zone” to
where a sober crew of prisoners would take it over. The forward men
worked for an hour, then fell back to be replaced by prisoners and guards
who had been freshly fortified against the fear. Slowly but steadily, the
fallen trees were being diminished. A cutting crew had already been sent
forward to mark the next trees that should fall. Morale in Gettys was
improving, and not just because of the road progress. Colonel Haren, after
consulting with Dr. Dowder, had decided that a milder “Gettys dose” was
to be available to any man or woman who felt the need of fortification.
According to Ebrooks, the entire town was mildly intoxicated most of the
time. I had no way of confirming that, but did notice that both he and
Kesey smelled of rum. I did not venture into town anymore. Just as I had
hoped the furor over Fala’s disappearance would die away, her body had
been found. She had been strangled with a leather strap and her body
discarded in a pile of waste straw behind the stables. Falling snow and
subsequent piles of waste straw mucked out from the horses’ stalls had
been heaped over her, or she would have been found much sooner. As it
was, she was only discovered when the straw was being loaded into a
wagon to be hauled away for the general tidying-up that Gettys was
undergoing prior to our inspection.
I did not bury her, nor attend her funeral. Colonel Haren proved that he
was not unaware of the rumors and temperament of the town, for he
ordered me to take myself to the end of the road and lend a hand to the
work crews there for that day. I wished I could have paid my final respects
to a woman who had, although very briefly, been a comfort to me. Later, I
would learn from Kesey that the funeral had been “a regular tea social” as
he put it, for all of the Whistle Ladies of the town turned out to follow
Fala’s coffin to the cemetery and watch her lowered into the ground. I
think this display of sympathy was intended to inform the men of Gettys
that the women would not tolerate the mistreatment of any woman, no
matter how common. I wondered, but dared not ask, if Epiny had been
part of that delegation.
For me, the day was a peculiar one. Clove and I appeared, as ordered, at
the road’s end, just beyond the fear zone. Once we were there, however, no
one was quite sure whom I was to report to or what we were to do. I
passed the day as an object of curiosity to the prisoners and their keepers.
It was the first time I had observed the lot of the penal workers at such
close range. I still cannot decide which appalled me more, the brutal
treatment they received from their guards or the brutish nature of the
louts that made them seem almost deserving of such abuse. By the end of
the day, my only clear judgment of the whole operation was that it
dehumanized the keepers just as much as those who were kept. I resolved
to never belong to either group.
When I returned to my cemetery that evening, I went to Fala’s grave and
paused there for a moment of prayer. It pleased me to see that her grave
had been strewn thickly with flowers from those who had attended her
funeral. I fervently hoped that whoever had ended her life in such a brutal
fashion suffered similarly at his own end. What sort of a man could
murder such a slight woman so cruelly and then so heartlessly dispose of
her body under a heap of soiled straw? Her fate weighed on my mind as I
cooked my simple meal, and it was probably why I sought my bed that
night rather than seeking Olikea on the edges of the forest.
I had hoped to spend a night asleep if not at peace in my own bed. Yet
sleep eluded me, and when finally I wrestled my way into it, I dreamed not
of Olikea or of Fala, but rather of Orandula, the old god of balances. I
stood beside him, helping him to balance scales that were fixed, not with
two bowls, but half a dozen in a circle, very similar to the carrion carousel
I had seen at Rosse’s wedding. The cruel hooks impaled not doves, but
people, and worse, they were folk I knew. Dewara was gaffed on one, Tree
Woman on another, poor Fala on yet a third, and my mother on a fourth.
Around me in a circle, dully awaiting my choice, were Epiny and Spink,
Colonel Haren and Olikea, my sister Yaril and even Carsina.
“Choose,” the old god insisted in a caw as hoarse as a croaker bird’s, and
indeed he wore the head of a great croaker bird on his man’s body. His red
wattles wobbled when he spoke. “You unbalanced it. Now you must make
it balance again, Never. You owe me a death. Choose who next feels the
talons of death. Or shall it be you?”
It was not an idle question. When I tried to protest that I could not
possibly choose, he swung a tool like a hay hook as if he would gather
them all. I leaped forward to try to stop him, and felt the cold iron sink
into my sternum. I came awake with a gasp and a jerk. I was trembling all
over, with cold as well as fright, and I took a second shock at finding
myself standing on the rocky ridge near Tree Woman’s stump. I was facing
the edge, gazing down on the violation of the road visible to me as a streak
of darkness in the silver-leafed bowl of trees that the full moon showed me.
Of late, I had almost become accustomed to sleepwalking. I took several
deep breaths and had almost calmed myself to the point of wondering how
I would find my way home through the deeply shadowed forest when a
man’s voice spoke beside me. “So. Which would you choose?”
I gave an involuntary cry and sprang back from the dark figure that
suddenly stood beside me. It was too accurate an echo of my nightmare. “I
cannot choose!” I cried out, and it was my answer to Orandula that I gave
him. I blinked, and my eyes adjusted to the dimness of the moonlit night.
It was not the old god who stood beside me, but Jodoli, the Great Man
who had bested me in the Speck village. His eyes shone oddly in the mask
of pigment that barred his face. He grinned, and I caught a glimpse of his
white teeth. “That is the first sensible thing I have heard you say,
Plain-skin. You are right. You cannot choose, because the choice has
already been made for you. Yet you swing from side to side, delaying and
dawdling, careless of the hurt that you do to everyone. Look down there.
Tell me what you see.”
I didn’t have to look. “I see the road pushing deeper into the forest.”
“Yes. I walked down there tonight. I found many sticks driven into the
earth, marked with bright cloths. And I found the marks where cold iron
has bitten into the trees of our ancestors. The last time I saw such marks,
it meant those trees were marked for death. As I walked among them
tonight, they cried out to me, ‘Save us! Save us!’ But I do not think I can. I
think that magic is for you to do, if anyone is to work it. Why do you
delay? Is it because, as Kinrove has said, that the Endless Dance has failed,
and only bloodshed will save us now?” “Jodoli, you speak of things I do not
understand. I do not know this Kinrove, nor of the Endless Dance. Over
and over, I have been told that the magic has claimed me, and that
something I have done or will do will doom my people and save yours. The
idea that I will be the bane of the Gernians gives me great pain. Why must
there be this conflict? What do you fear? Our people have come together
in trade. I see that the People bring furs down to us, and I see you enjoy
honey and fabric and ornaments that you otherwise would not have. What
is evil in this? Why must our people be set against one another?” Jodoli
did an odd thing. He reached out a cautious hand and patted my belly
firmly. When I lifted my fists, affronted, he stepped back quickly. “I meant
no offense. I do not know how you can be so much larger than I am, so
filled with the magic, and profess not to know anything. When last we
met, I could not grasp how easily I defeated you. I pondered it for many
days afterward, and finally I thought that you had mocked me, or used me
for your own ends. All these days, I have waited for your vengeance to fall
upon me, and it has filled me with anxiety. I thought of running away, but
Firada threatened to disgrace me if I fled. Firada said that you were a false
Great One and that you had chosen to go back to your own kind. I knew
that was not so. I felt the magic running through you when last we met. I
dreaded you. Then tonight I was called by the magic, and when I saw that
you, too, had been summoned, I dared to speak to you.” I was distracted
from his words, for I felt another subtle presence. Tree Woman was not far
from where we stood. Someone else’s sorrow washed through me and I
suddenly longed to visit the stump of her tree, to feel for a time her
presence, dwindled as it was.
“Walk down with me,” he said, and I flinched as if awakening from a
dream. “Ask your question of the eldest ones.”
“Down where?”
“There.” In the dimness, he pointed at the valley and the road arrowing
into it.
Without waiting for my answer, he started out, and I found myself
following him. At first there was no path and the going was steep, but
Jodoli soon struck a game trail that led us at a slant across the face of the
steep hill and down into the valley. I followed him into the deeper darkness
under the trees. The moon became a silver memory, and I was surprised at
how my eyes adjusted to the darkness. As I followed Jodoli, I noticed a
strange thing. For a large fellow, he moved swiftly and was very light on
his feet. There was no ponderous sway or heavy tread to his progress. I
could hear him breathing through his nose as he hurried along, and I was
impressed with how fleetly he moved without tiring. Then it came to me
that I was keeping pace with him. It occurred to me to wonder at how
quickly I had moved in my sleep to pass from my cabin to the Tree
Woman’s ridge in the dark of night. I wondered briefly if we were truly
there at all, or if I was walking, not in my sleep, but through a dream of
this place. My impression of unreality was heightened as I became aware
of whispers in the stillness. Voices were quietly conversing in the distance.
I would have put it down to the soft rustling of leaves, except that there
was no breeze and the sounds followed the cadence of speech. I strained to
hear what they were saying, but could not pick out individual words, only
a tone of worry and anger. As we reached the valley floor and began to
move in the darkness of the true forest giants, the whispers grew louder. I
suspected that Jodoli was taking me toward a gathering of Specks at the
end of the road. I wondered what he intended. I did not wish to be the sole
Gernian in a mob of angry Specks. I slowed my steps. “Where are they?” I
demanded of him. “I hear them whispering. How many of them are
there?”
He halted and looked back at me, puzzled. “They are, as you see, all around
us. I have never thought to try to count them.” He took a step or two back
toward me, and now I could see envy plain on his face. “You can hear them
already? Without touching them?”
“I hear whispers. I can’t make out the words, but I can hear them
whispering.” For a moment he was silent. Then I heard him sigh. “Olikea
was right. You are full of the magic, and will always be a more powerful
mage than I could ever hope to become. I hear nothing yet. And it has
always taken all of my concentration and used up much of my magic to
listen for long. Sometimes Firada rebukes me for this, for twice I have
used so much magic that I have fainted, and she has had to come
searching for me, to find me with my skin lying loose around me. Then she
must feed me for days to restore my strength. She says I do no good for my
people just by listening and that I waste the magic she labors to build in
me. But I think that first I must listen if I am to learn the wisdom of my
elders.”
“Then you could use up so much magic that you wouldn’t be fat
anymore?” I asked him, and held my breath to hear his answer. He turned
and started walking again. I followed. He spoke over his shoulder.
“There are tales of it happening to Great Ones in the old days of war with
the Plains people. You can die from loss of magic, just as you can die from
loss of blood. But it seldom happens to us without the mage knowing
exactly what he is doing. It takes a great deal of will to burn every bit of
magic out of yourself. A mage would have to push past pain and
exhaustion to do it. Ordinarily the mage would lose consciousness before
he was completely dead. Then his feeder could revive him if she were
nearby. If not, the Great One might still perish. That was why Firada was
angry with me. She has invested much of her time in me. I have not
managed to give her a daughter. She says that if I die of my own
foolishness, she will not even bother to haul my body to a tree. That is how
angry she becomes. Even when I tell her that I think this is what the magic
wishes of me, she remains angry. She says that I should be content to do
only what the magic forces me to do rather than seeking out its will.
Sometimes,” and here he turned to flash me a liar’s grin, “I wonder if I
would not have been better off with the younger sister? But of course, I do
not ask Firada this! There is enough rivalry between those two to start a
war. Some even say that Olikea would not even have taken you on except
that she so longed to say that her Great One was larger than her sister’s.”
“They say that, do they?” I muttered, and instantly wondered if it were
true. It would explain so much. I suddenly felt disheartened, and was
surprised at how bolstered I had felt at the idea that Olikea was genuinely
fond of me. Only a few days ago I had thought I should tell her that I could
never truly love her. To hear that she did not love me, either, should not
have wounded me. But it did. I felt my pride bleeding.
“There. See how the light breaks through the wounds in the world’s roof,
even from the moon. During the day, it is hard for me to come here. My
eyes hurt and I grow dizzy. Now, those of us who can hear the elders can
only come by night to listen to them. It is hard. We know that even if the
Gernians are turned back, it will be generations before the light is
banished from this part of the forest and the People can walk freely here
again.”
Ahead of us, the trees had become pillars of darkness against faint
moonlight. We were coming close to where the King’s Road ended. The
whispering had grown louder.
“See this?” Jodoli asked me, and with his toe, he scuffed at a flagged
surveyor’s stake driven into the earth. “This is their sign that they mean to
cut deeper into the forest. Once before they came into the forest and drove
many of these into the earth, in a line that went far up into the mountains.
We pulled them all up. But this one, new planted, means that they intend
to try again.”
“Yes. It does.” I raised my voice to make myself heard above the muttering
of a hundred angry voices. Then my own words sounded strangely loud to
me. I looked around in the darkness. “Take me to the elders you spoke of.
Let me talk to them, and hear from them how they think this can be
resolved.” “They think there are only two ways. The Gernians must go
away. Or the Gernians must die.”
A chill went up my back at his words, but I replied, “Let me speak to them.
There must be another way. I know my people well. They will not leave.”
“Then they will die. I take no joy in telling you that,” Jodoli replied. “This
way,” he added before I could speak again and led me forward to the very
edge of the cut. Jodoli stopped when he was still in the shelter of the
woods, but I walked forward as if pulled by a magnet. I stepped out of the
forest onto the torn bare earth and looked around me in awe. Behind me, I
heard Jodoli’s frantic call of, “Come back! Come back!” I ignored it. I had
to see for myself what my king’s ambition had done.
The huge fallen trees were not completely gone, but the pieces that had
blocked the progress of the road had been cut to pieces and hauled away.
The ground under my feet was yellow with fragrant fresh sawdust that had
been churned and mixed with forest soil by the passage of heavy hooves.
The stumps had been removed by a combination of digging, chopping,
and burning. Nothing remained of them save a sunken spot in the earth.
With my back to the forest, the road stretched out before me, a wide
avenue of light. I could see that the repairs to the eroded parts of the road
had proceeded well. When the inspection team arrived in a few days, they
would be shown a stretch of well-constructed road with fresh progress into
the forest. Colonel Haren would be proud. Then I turned my back on the
road and looked into the forest. Squarely in the path of the road stood
another immense tree. The preliminary bite of the ax showed pale against
the dark bark. As yet, it was a small chip out of such a great trunk, less
than a mosquito bite on a man’s ankle. And yet that bit of whiteness
caught the moonlight and winked back at me, as if sharing an evil joke.
Jodoli leaned up against the tree, and the uneven shadows made his
dappled body difficult to distinguish from the mottled bark. He had
pillowed one cheek against the tree and his eyes were closed, his brow
furrowed. Slowly I left the Gernian world of the road and walked back into
the Specks’ forest. “Jodoli,” I said to him when I stood by him, but he
appeared lost in thought. Or asleep. I touched his shoulder.
The whispers rose to a roar and then thinned out to a single voice, a man’s
voice raised in anguish and outrage: “—and the fear no longer prevails
against them. They drug their senses and do not feel it. I have watched
them, pale little grubs, burrowing and chewing away at the others. They
are gone. Tomorrow I shall begin to die. It will take days for them to kill
me. This I know from what happened before. It is too late, perhaps, for
you to save me. So I do not ask this for myself, but for those who stand in
ranks behind me. Discouragement has not worked. Not even the
purification of the fever has awakened them. They dismiss the vision sent
to them; they ignore the messengers sent back to them. Only death will
stop them.”
“What of the plain-skin Great One? He is large with magic. Is not this
what he was supposed to do, to turn back the Gernians?”
I felt the wave of disdain that emanated from the trees. The scorn burned
me. “Lisana made him. Wise she is, but not the wisest. She said that the
magic commanded it, that the magic brought him to her and bade her
claim him. We doubted, and many said that she was too young and should
not have been set to guard the way. I was one of them. And look what has
befallen her. He turned on her, and set her plan awry. He turned our own
magic against us. She herself fell to him; now her trunk lies prone. It will
be many turns of seasons before she has regained the girth to speak loudly
and well again. Does this speak well for Lisana’s wisdom?”
Lisana. My heart knew that name. “Tree Woman,” I whispered. Bits of
knowledge tumbled through my mind and fell into a pattern. These great
trees were literally the elders of the Speck people. When we cut them, we
were killing their ancient advisers, the ones who preserved the wisdom of
centuries past. These were sacred trees to the People. We were at war
with them, without intending to be.
“I know what I have to do,” I said. My spoken words rang strangely loud in
the forest night. “I must return to the Gernians. I will go to my leader
tomorrow and tell him that the road must not go through here. Surely
there is another path that we can follow over the mountains and to the
sea? Lisana was wise.” Convincing them of that suddenly seemed very
important to me. “She made me to be a bridge between our peoples. I
cannot send them all away. But I can speak for you and make them see
that cutting these trees is a great affront to the Speck people. I promise, I
will do my best to save you, old one.” “Can it be so easy?” Jodoli asked me.
“No!” The spirit of the tree was contemptuous of my offer. “Do not trust
him, Jodoli of the People. He is a man of two hearts. He can be true to
neither.” I shook my head. “I can be true to both. You will see.”
It sounded so simple, there in the moonlit night.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DANCERS

I ran home as quickly as I could. I could feel the magic burning in my
blood with my need to be swift, and I was. It was as if the ground itself
hastened me to my destination. I followed a path that was impossibly
short, and arrived home before dawn had grayed the skies.
And when I arrived home, I sat up in my bed. I swung my feet over the
edge of the bed to the floor, my heart pumping urgency. Then I caught my
breath. For a long time, I sat still. Realities fought in me. I had just run
home through the forest. My bare feet were dry and clean. I could not
remember opening my cabin door, nor shutting it behind me, nor lying
down in my bed again.
One of two things was real. I had dreamed it all, and none of it was real.
Or I had used magic to travel in my dream, and it was entirely real. I
began to breathe as if I had truly run that distance. Sweat broke out on
my back and brow. A trembling ran through me. It became a shudder, and
suddenly I was clutching myself, teeth chattering and quivering like a leaf.
Waves of trembling passed through me as if I would tear myself apart. I
felt hot and then cold, and then as suddenly as it had all come on, it ebbed
away. My breathing slowed. I accepted it, whatever “it” was. I decided that
however the knowledge had come to me, it was real. I would act on it.
I bathed, I shaved, and I dressed in my best uniform. I knew I had
consumed magic to make that swift journey home. I knew the signs of it
now, not just the ravenous hunger that bread could not assuage, but also
that my trousers were almost loose on me. Almost. I still decided that I
would not risk their multiple seams by straddling Clove’s broad back. I
hitched my big horse to the cart and drove into town just as the sun was
coming up, feeling fired with purpose and even hope. If I could convince
the colonel that rerouting the road, difficult as it might be, would put an
end to our differences with the Speck and stop the evil magic pouring out
of the forest, then it was quite possible that I would have saved us all. I’d
be a hero. My smile twisted as I thought the word. A fat hero, and no one
would ever know of my heroics. But that wouldn’t mean I hadn’t done it.
It had been days since I’d last dared go into town. I was surprised by the
changes I saw. The Speck trade village was still set up on the outskirts of
Gettys, but it was Gettys itself that amazed me. A change had come over
the town. It was more than fresh paint and gravel in the worst ruts and
potholes, though those were changes enough. Cavalla-green bunting
festooned the doors and windows of shops and taverns. Windows had been
washed. But even those changes were not what impressed me. Even this
early in the day, the people moving on the street had lost the tension and
weariness that I’d come to accept as a normal part of Gettys. If anything,
the citizenry seemed relaxed, even lethargic. Two women, their best
bonnets lavishly decorated with green ribbons, strolled slowly arm-in-arm
down the street. I slowed Clove to a walk, for they seemed scarcely aware
of our approach, smiling and nodding to one another as they talked. I
guided Clove around them, and we continued on our way. I had to divert
from my normal route to the colonel’s office. The street in front of
headquarters had been roped off. A dais had been erected in the middle of
the street, and a squad of men were setting benches out in rows around it.
On the arch erected above the dais, a sign welcomed General Brodg and
General Prode, as well as a list of lords. I was surprised to see Prode’s
name there. He had been the king’s commander in the east before General
Brodg had taken over. I wondered if the presence of that old general was
intended to honor Brodg, or as a subtle rebuke that more progress had
been made in Gettys and on the King’s Road in the days before Brodg had
taken over.
I left Clove and the cart on a side street and walked to the headquarters
door. The paint on the building was so fresh I could smell it. The brass
doorknob was slick with polish. I had to grip it firmly to turn it. Stepping
inside the door, I received another surprise. The sergeant’s domain had
been completely refurbished. The walls were newly painted, the wood of
the desk gleamed with linseed oil, and there were plump cushions on the
waiting chairs. The shelves were dust-free and lined with books and
manuals. At the sergeant’s desk sat a lieutenant I’d never seen: he looked
as freshly renovated as the rest of the room. His buttons shone, and his
shirt was so starched it looked painful. His pale scalp contrasted strangely
with his tanned face: it was obvious his hair had been cut very recently.
I drew myself up straight at the sight of him, expecting to be rebuked for
entering so casually. Instead he gave me a level look and asked solemnly,
“Do you have an appointment, soldier?”
“No, sir, I do not. In the past, the colonel has been so kind as to allow me
to report without an appointment. I’ve brought information that I think
might be useful to him, sir.”
“I see,” he replied absently. He looked down at a paper on his desk, blinked
at it, and then back up at me. He gave me a vague smile. I kept my
soldier’s demeanor and waited. He picked up the pen from his desk,
fiddled with it for a bit, and then asked me gently, “You want to talk with
Colonel Haren, then?” There was a faint waft of rum on his breath. That
widened my eyes. Drinking on duty? No. Probably the Gettys dose that
Ebrooks had told me about. I found myself wondering about the two
placid women I’d see strolling down the street earlier. I cleared my throat.
“Yes sir, if that’s possible. I’d like to speak with Colonel Haren.”
He leaned back suddenly in his chair and out flung a generous arm at the
colonel’s door. “Be my guest, then, soldier. Be my guest.” Feeling furtive as
a mouse under a cat’s stare, I walked to the colonel’s door and tapped on
it, expecting that at any moment the lieutenant would change his mind.
But he seemed to have forgotten about me entirely, and was giving his full
attention to wiping the tip of his pen. At my second tap, I heard the
colonel’s muffled invitation to enter. I opened the door and walked in. I
was almost relieved to find the room largely unchanged. There were the
same layered carpets on the floor, the same tapestry-covered walls. The
fire burned smaller, but there seemed to be more light in the room
because all the lamp chimneys had been freshly cleaned. All the horizontal
surfaces had been cleared of clutter. Colonel Haren himself, nattily attired
in his uniform and a gleaming pair of black boots, sat bolt upright in a
chair beside a small table. At the sight of me, he exclaimed, “Oh, for the
good god’s sake, what are you doing here?”
I came to attention. “Sir, I’ve come to request a few moments of your time.
I have information about our problems with the road building and the
Specks. I think it may lead to a resolution of our difficulties with pushing
the road through.”
He lifted one eyebrow at me. “Where have you been, man? The problem
with pushing the road through was solved several weeks ago. Dr. Dowder’s
research has finally yielded fruit. Properly fortified, our road crews have
made more progress in the last few weeks than they previously had in the
last two years. That problem is solved!
“You, however, present an entirely different problem. Look at your
uniform, man!
Why is there a seam up the front of each trouser leg? That is not
regulation. And your general physical conformation leaves more to be
desired than I could possibly list at this moment.” He shook his head at
me and made a decision. “Back to the cemetery, trooper. The inspection
team is scheduled for a two-week visit here, with a possible extension to a
month if they feel they need more time to assess our performance. Busy
yourself at the cemetery for a month. And due to the nature of your duties
there, I give you permission…no, I require that you wear civilian clothing
to prevent soiling your uniform. And in the event that our inspection team
sees fit to visit the cemetery, you are to, uh, busy yourself elsewhere. Do
you take my drift, soldier?”
I took his insult as well, but I swallowed it. There was more at stake here
than my pride. “I do, sir. And I’ll see that the inspection team does not see
me or identify me as a member of your regiment.” I kept all anger from
my voice. “But before I vanish, sir, I would like to give you some
information about the Specks and the trees at the end of the road.”
“Well, then, do it, soldier, and then clear out. The inspection team arrived
last night. In a very short time, I’m to join them in the officers’ mess for a
special breakfast. I can’t be late.”
“Yes, sir.” I suddenly realized that I hadn’t formulated how I was going to
disclose what I knew to him without admitting that I’d been going into the
forest among the Specks. I thought of passing it off as a rumor I’d heard,
but knew that would be a betrayal of trust. I’d told Jodoli and the elder
that I would come here and present their case to my colonel. I had to do it.
“Last night, sir, I was in the forest with Jodoli. He’s a Speck Great One.
We might call him a wizard or a mage. He’s a reservoir of magic for his
people.” I paused, hoping for some sign of interest. Colonel Haren
drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Yes, soldier, I’m sure he is,” he
replied sarcastically. “And this Great One told you?”
“The trees at the end of the road, the ones marked for cutting, are very
important to the Specks. They hold the elder spirits of the Speck people.
Their advisers. Like ancestor spirits. The trees are important to them.
Holy.” I kept explaining, trying different words for what I was trying to
convey. His eyes had narrowed when I first spoke of the trees. With every
description I added, they seemed to go stonier.
When my words staggered to a halt, he asked me sternly, “Is this your
information? Is this ALL of it?”
“Yes, sir. Well, not quite all. The fear we feel at the end of the road, the
discouragement that drenches this town: it’s all Speck magic. If we
stopped threatening the trees, it would go away. If we backed up and
surveyed a completely different route through the mountains, one that
didn’t cut through their sacred groves, Gettys would be a peaceful place
again.” He made a contemptuous noise. He shook his head, then gave me
a painfully incredulous smile. “Soldier. If we stopped trying to build the
road, Gettys would be a near-useless place again. A place to come to trade
for furs each summer, and a place to leave again. Gettys’ only future is if
the King’s Road is pushed through the Barrier Mountains. If it goes
through, we become the last civilized stopping place on that route. If it’s
not, if we stop cutting the trees…pray tell, what purpose do we have in
being here?” I blinked, my heart sinking. “Then…you already knew the
trees were sacred to the Specks? That they house ancestor spirits?”
“Oh, please. Yes, of course we know of their quaint superstitions. If you
have more details on them, then take them to Dr. Frye. He will listen to
them carefully, write down your every word, and send it off to the queen
herself. He hopes to curry favor with her by supplying tales for her
collection of native lore. Burvelle, I’m surprised at you. The last time we
spoke for any length of time, you convinced me that your father was
mistaken in his evaluation of you. You seemed enterprising and
thoughtful. Now the town simmers with rumors of your whoring, to the
point at which twice ladies have come to me presenting petitions to bring
charges against you. I was still willing to give you the benefit of the doubt,
but here you come to my door on the day of an important inspection to tell
me tales of ‘ancestor trees.’ Try to think about it like an educated man,
Burvelle. After all, it was believed you were academy material at one
time!” I held my temper with difficulty. “Sir, I think I understand this
situation far better than anyone else. If we provoke the Specks by cutting
those trees, they will rise against us. They already perceive that we are at
war with them. This will push them into making it more deadly. You
yourself warned me that I should not antagonize them. Cutting their trees
will do far more than that!” He laughed. “The Specks? At war with us?
Yearly their trade with us increases. Do people at war with one another
trade together? Deadly? Oh, come, come. You can’t be serious. I told you
what happened the last time we ‘fought’ them. It was a slaughter for them.
Have you ever seen a Speck up close, soldier? They can’t even bear to be
out in the sun for more than an hour. They run about town draped in veils
with flowers stuck in them. They have no weapons. They barely have tools!
And you would have me fear a Speck uprising?” He cocked his head at me.
“I’ve told you before. The best way to deal with them is to let them know
what we intend to do, and then do it. Calmly. Without threats. Without
violence. They will not be happy with us at first, but once they see that
nothing bad comes of it, they’ll accept it. We’ve been out here for years,
young man, and I think that makes us better qualified to know how to deal
with them. What makes you think you understand the situation so well?
Have you had unauthorized contact with the Specks?” His gaze pierced me
accusingly. I was in it now. Might as well swim as wade. “Some, sir. Yes.
I’ve spoken to them about this.”
“And they told you that if we cut the trees, they would attack us?”
“Not in so many words, sir, no. But that was my understanding of it.”
“Do they have weapons that you know of? Trained warriors? A strategy?”
Honesty made me look a fool. “Weapons, no, sir, not in the sense that we
use the term. Warriors, again, no. But a strategy that demands neither,
yes, sir, they do. They have the plague, sir. They’ve been using the plague
against us for years. I believe they spread it with their Dust Dance. The
infection is deliberate.”
“Preposterous!” He spat out the word, and his mustache quivered with
indignation. “The plague is indigenous to this country, soldier. Do you
know what that means? It means that everyone who comes to live here
gets it sooner or later. The Specks get it, too. It’s a part of living here on
the far borders. We know the plague will come with high summer. It
always does and—” I interrupted my superior officer. “And do the Specks
always do the Dust Dance shortly before it hits?”
He stared at me for an instant. I read my answer in his outraged glare.
They did. Dancing Specks flinging dust did not fit with his concept of an
enemy attack on the fort. “Your father was right,” he said stiffly. “You’re a
fool. You’ll always blame your own misfortunes on someone else, won’t
you? I had thought him wrong. I had even considered promoting you. I
should have known. Who can know his son better than his own father?”
He took a breath and I saw a strange transformation. His eyes went from
steely to pitying. “I don’t suppose you can help it. You believe your own
ridiculous theories.” As his insults left me breathless with rage, he nodded
at me and spoke in carefully measured words. “Let me point this out to
you, Burvelle. When the trees fall and the Specks perceive that no disaster
follows, they will more readily abandon their superstitious ways and enter
the modern world. It is to their ultimate benefit that we take down those
trees. When the road goes through and trade follows it, why, think of what
it will bring to them. If you want to help us with the Speck problem, speak
to them of the benefits of the road. Encourage their natural hunger for
what civilization can bring to them. But don’t humor their superstitious
fears.
“But for now, get yourself out of sight. I don’t need our visiting dignitaries
to see you or hear you, and I certainly don’t need the females of Gettys
stirred to wrath by your presence at this time. Off you go now. Dismissed.
Good-bye.” With his final words, he had lost interest in me. He had risen,
walked to a mirror on the wall, and was carefully smoothing his mustache
with one hand as he shooed me out of the room with the other. I made one
last effort. “Sir, I think,” I began.
He cut off my words. “No. You don’t. I think. You obey orders. Dismissed,
trooper.”
I went. I didn’t speak to the lieutenant as I left. I didn’t trust myself to say
anything. The colonel had known. They’d all known. I’d thought I’d been so
clever piecing it together. But they’d known of the significance of the trees
and they didn’t care, because keeping Gettys on the road east was far
more important to them. More important than what it did to the men to
be kept on such a discouraging task. More important than felling trees
that held the ancestral wisdom of a people.
I found I was nearly shaking with rage. My heart pumped magic like a
poison through me. It took every bit of control I had to refuse to let my
anger focus on those I wished to punish. It would solve nothing, I knew. If
Colonel Haren dropped in his tracks tomorrow, there would be another
man just like him right behind him. As I approached my cart, I noted with
displeasure that Sergeant Hoster was standing near Clove, apparently
inspecting my horse’s harness. I wanted a fight so badly. It would have
been such a relief to put my fist in his perpetually sneering face. By a vast
effort of will, I walked around the wagon to approach the seat from the
other side rather than jostling Sergeant Hoster out of the way. “Good day,”
I greeted him coldly, climbing up on the cart seat. “In a hurry, soldier?”
he asked me. His eyes glinted bright, as if he were seeing something that
delighted him.
“Colonel Haren’s orders. He wants me to go immediately to the cemetery.”
I gathered up Clove’s reins.
Hoster sneered at me. “He’s not the only one who thinks you should go
straight to the cemetery.” He gave a “haw” at his own joke and then added
cleverly. “Nice harness on your horse, soldier.”
I tried to find the insult in his words. “It’s just a harness.”

“That it is. That it is.” He stepped away from Clove.

I shook my head and drove away.

It took me longer to get out of town than I expected. The streets were
thronged with people converging on the dais. Half of them walked in a
Gettys tonic daze; the others glared at me as if they could not believe my
stupidity in trying to get a horse and cart through such a crowded street.
The sun was well up now, and the day promised to be a sweltering one. I
thought longingly of the forest shade as Clove picked his way through
masses of people that grudgingly gave way to him. I was uncomfortably
aware of turned heads and stares, but seated on my cart, there was no way
to avoid scrutiny. The colonel’s remarks about the accusations against me
had rattled me almost as much as his cavalier attitude toward the Specks
and their trees.
We finally reached the gates of the fort. In the wider streets outside, there
were fewer pedestrians. I was able to persuade Clove to a trot and we soon
rolled out of town, leaving only our dust hanging in the air behind us. I
wished I could get more speed out of him, but Clove was a creature of
endurance rather than swiftness. We rattled along, and my anger burned
inside me. I was furious with my commander, and soon that anger spread
to include all my countrymen. My mind raced ahead of my body, planning
how I would return to my cottage, unharness Clove, and immediately go
into the forest in search of Jodoli. The news I must give him shamed me.
Plans for how I could stop the road’s progress and whom I could enlist in
my cause vied with the creeping suspicion that I was about to do
something treasonous. I thrust that consideration aside. I insisted to
myself that stopping the road until it could be completely rerouted away
from Gettys would benefit both the Gernians and the People. A dim hope
came to me. After I’d warned Jodoli that we must take steps today to save
the ancestral trees, I would find a way to speak to Dr. Frye. Colonel
Haren’s sarcastic suggestion might actually bear fruit for me if the queen
herself could be swayed to our view.
Ahead of us in the rutted road, I saw a lady trudging along alone. It struck
me as strange that on a day of festivities in Gettys, she was headed away
from the town. Her bonneted head was bent against the sun’s heat, and
she held her blue skirts daintily free of the road’s dirt. I admired her tidy
figure from behind, and then swung Clove wide so that we might not
choke her with dust as we passed. I thought I had done well, but as I
passed her, she shouted at me. It was only when I looked over my shoulder
that I recognized that the lady was Amzil. I pulled Clove in and waited as
she hurried up to us.
“Nevare! I was coming out to see you!” As she spoke, she climbed up on
the cart seat beside me.
I shifted over as far as I could. I was still aware that she had to perch on
the edge of the seat. I could not help notice how prettily she was dressed.
There was not a smudge nor patch to be seen on the blue dress she wore.
Even the white cuffs and collar were clean as fresh snow. A wide black belt
cinched her waist, and somehow emphasized both the swell of her hips
and the lift of her bosom. “Well?” she said tartly, and I realized I’d been
staring at her. I lowered my eyes. “I’m sorry. You just look so pretty today.
So clean and fresh.”
A long silence followed my words. I gave a wary sideways glance to see how
angry she was. There were two spots of red on her cheeks. At my glance
she muttered a stiff, “Thank you.”
Silence fell until I prompted her, “You were coming out to see me?”
Whatever her errand was, I decided I needed to dissuade her from it. I
needed to get to the forest, and I could not very well just walk off and leave
her in my cabin. Telling her I had no time for visitors seemed harsh, and
setting her back down in the road to walk back to town even harsher. “I
have a great deal of work I have to do today,” I began. I tried to think of a
gracious way to phrase it, but it came out bluntly. “I don’t have much time
for a visit.” She gave a sniff and sat up a bit straighter on the seat. “Well,
neither do I, sir! I’m actually here on an errand. I don’t know why it would
be of great concern to you, but Lieutenant Spinrek wanted to you to know
that the Specks are going to perform the Dust Dance today. He called me
aside to give me the news. He thought it important enough to volunteer to
mind my children for me while I came out here to give it to you. I was not
pleased to let him do it, for Mistress Epiny still goes green as glass at the
sight of food, and the children were frantic at the thought of missing the
music and the Specks dancing and all the rest of the festivities.”
“The Dust Dance? The Specks are doing the Dust Dance today?”
“It’s part of the welcoming ceremony for the inspection team. The Specks
wished to perform for them.”
Before she had finished speaking, I had slapped the reins on Clove’s back. I
turned him in a tight circle and urged him to a canter. “We have to get
back to town right away. I have to stop them.”
She gave a small shriek, then held tightly to the back of the seat with one
hand while clutching at her bonnet with the other. She raised her voice to
shout over the rattling of the wagon. “Slow down! It’s too late to stop
them. You probably won’t even get to see them dance. I told the lieutenant
that, but he insisted that I go and tell you anyway.” Then, as we hit a hard
bump, she abandoned her bonnet to its fate and clutched at my arm.
“Nevare! Slow down! It’s already too late, I tell you.”
I paid her no heed. “It’s life or death, Amzil. The Dust Dance is how the
Specks spread the plague! Everyone who watches that dance and breathes
in the dust will catch it. And from them, it will spread to others.”
“That’s crazy!” she shouted back at me. “Nevare, pull him in! Slow down
or I’ll jump. This is crazy!”
She sounded so sincere that I heeded her. As soon as Clove dropped down
to a trot, Amzil let go of my arm and resumed her grip on her bonnet.
“Amzil, I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. It’s how I caught the Speck
plague. Spink…Lieutenant Spinrek caught it the same way. That’s what I
believe. I think it’s why they do the Dust Dance. To infect us and kill us.”
As the meaning of those words sank into my awareness, I suddenly felt
doubly betrayed. Yes, it was why they danced, and it was especially why
they danced today. They would kill nobles and generals as well as poor
soldiers. The inspection team would be their targets, even as the academy
had once been their target. Each time, I had unknowingly given them the
information they needed to kill most effectively. I felt doubly betrayed by
both my peoples, first the Gernians and now the Specks. They would find
ways to hurt one another, and I would feel the pain of both sides.
Clove gave a snort, shook his head, and slowed to a walk. I let him. I
thought of the only people I could protect and turned abruptly to Amzil.
“Listen to me. Please believe how important this is. I’m taking you back to
Lieutenant Spinrek’s home. You’ll have to show me the way, and I don’t
want to pass through any crowded streets. Once we are there, you have to
go inside and stay there. Do you understand how important it is? You
have to stay inside with your children and not go out into the city. By
tomorrow, if I am correct, people will begin to get sick. Stay away from
them. Keep your children away from them.” She was staring at me as if I
were insane and possibly dangerous. I took a moment to get control of my
voice. In a calmer voice, I told her, “Spink has these little bottles of water
from his home in Bitter Springs. He thinks they may be a cure for the
plague, or that they might prevent people from catching it. Ask him to set
some aside for you and the children. And ask him to send a courier
immediately to his brother, no matter the cost, pleading that Bitter
Springs water be sent to Gettys in as great an amount as possible.”
“Spink?”
The way she said his name made me wonder if she had heard anything
else I’d said. “Lieutenant Spinrek,” I amended, and muttered, “We knew
each other a long time ago.”
She gave a curt nod. Then, staring straight down the road, she asked me,
“And how are you related to Mistress Epiny?”
“I—”
She cut me off while I was still deciding whether to act bewildered or to
lie. “You look alike around the eyes. And she often speaks to her husband
of her fears about what might have befallen Nevare.” Her voice went hard.
“I never would have taken you for a cruel man. She’s with child and having
a bad time of it, and you leave her in anxiety, both of you. I don’t know
who is more despicable, you or her husband.”
“You don’t understand. It would ruin her reputation to be connected to
me. It would bring her great unhappiness. It’s better that for now she
knows nothing.”
“So that when you tell her later, she can feel an even greater fool? Most
folk around town don’t know your name. They just call you the Cemetery
Sentry. But sooner or later, she’ll put it all together. She’s not dim, that
one, though you seem to treat her as if she is.”
I dropped all effort at pretense. “My cousin is not dim. But in many ways,
she is too quick to risk herself. I won’t have her put herself in danger for
my sake, especially when I do not think it would truly help me at all. All
she could do is stain her reputation with mine, to no good end. I love her
too much to allow her to do that to herself.”
I had not expected to speak with such vehemence, and when I uttered my
feelings aloud, I was surprised at the strength of them. I think Amzil was,
too, for she looked both taken aback and chastened. After a moment, she
said more quietly, “I think I understand you better now.”
“Well. Good. And if we are finished with that, please let me know that you
understood my earlier words as well. After the Dust Dance, at most a few
days will pass before Speck plague sweeps through Gettys. I do not think
we can stop it. Quarantine yourself and your children, and please do not
let my cousin go out and risk herself. Remind her that if she does, she risks
her child as well. That should get her attention.”
“I did hear you,” Amzil replied a bit testily. “And I will tell the lieutenant
about the water and the courier. Mistress Epiny has told me of her journey
here from Bitter Springs. I do not think you can expect that water to
arrive soon.” She shook her head at me. “If you thought it worked, why did
not they immediately start bringing it in to Gettys? If you know the Dust
Dance could spread the plague, why did you not warn everyone ahead of
time?”
“We’re not sure the water will work. It seemed to work for Spink and
Epiny, and they did bring some when they came, as much as Epiny could
manage, actually. As for the Dust Dance…we, that is, I believe it spreads
the plague. I haven’t had much luck in convincing anyone else of that.”
We had reached the outskirts of Gettys town. The streets were still empty.
Everyone, I suddenly knew, would have converged inside the fort to watch
the welcome speeches and ceremonies. As we grew closer, my heart sank.
Where the Speck tent village had been there was little more than trampled
earth. This morning, Clove and I had ridden past it. Now it was gone. They
had melted away, leaving no sign of where they had gone. I suspected I
knew why they had gone. They’d be well away from Gettys before the
deadly dust rode the breezes. “I think we’re too late,” I said quietly.
“They’ve left. And Specks don’t usually travel during the day, only in the
evenings or nights.” “Nevare, I believe you,” Amzil said suddenly. “Take
me home. I’ll keep my children in and do my best to keep Mistress Epiny
there, too. I won’t be able to do much about the lieutenant. But I’ve heard
that folks who have had Speck plague once don’t catch it again.”
“Most of them don’t,” I agreed. “But some do. Such as Spink and Epiny.”
As we were passing through the gate to Gettys, I saw something that
chilled me to the bone. Seven Specks, draped in their encompassing
network of vines, leaves, and flowers, were leaving the fort, walking swiftly.
I could not see their faces or even tell their sexes, but their bare speckled
feet were gray with dust. I wondered if it was the dust of the dance or of
the road. I felt a sudden urge to leap down on them from the wagon seat
and kill them all. I could not see their faces, but as if they could feel the
malice of my thoughts or sense the anger boiling the magic though my
blood, their draped heads turned toward me. I stared at them, feeling
coldness build in me. How many people would die from the dust they had
spread today? Amzil put her hand on my wrist. “Nevare. Let them go.
Take me home.” The sudden urgency in her voice swayed me.
I wondered what she had feared I would do. I could not stop what they had
begun. And how could I pretend that they were any worse or better than
my own folk? I had precious little time in which to act. A few people I
cared about could be spared.
As we went through the gate, the sentries exchanged a glance and then
waved me through. Despite their freshly cleaned and pressed uniforms,
they were not behaving like real guards. They were too busy craning their
necks to see what was going on down the street. Up on the dais, someone
was talking loudly, and his every pause was punctuated by applause. I
glanced back over my shoulder. The Specks were separating, each going a
different way. Did they see me look at them? Perhaps, for they all sprinted
away like startled rabbits. If my suspicions needed any confirmation, that
was enough. I gritted my teeth. “Go left here,” Amzil said quietly. “We can
get around the crowds that way. I want to get home as soon as possible.”
She guided me and we threaded our way through the back streets of the
fort. I’d never really explored the area where the officers were housed; I’d
never had reason to. The structures dated from the fort’s earlier days and
were tidily built. Most of them seemed to have a fresh coat of paint, but
that sprucing up could not completely disguise years of previous neglect.
Wooden steps sagged, window shutters were missing slats, and the few
gardens had the bare, brave look of fresh effort. The housing for the junior
officers and their families was humbler and had not been as well built.
“Pull in!” Amzil warned me, and at the corner of a street, I hauled Clove to
a halt.
“I’ll get down here,” she said, “so Mistress Epiny does not see you dropping
me off.” Before I could start to climb down to assist her, she gave a little
jump and landed in the dust of the streets. Her skirts billowed out around
her as she landed, and for a moment I had a glimpse of her stockinged
ankles. “Keep the children in,” I reminded her as I took up Clove’s reins.
“I will,” she promised and then, holding up a hand to bid me wait, she
asked, “What are you going to do?”
I almost laughed. “I’m going back to the cemetery. I’ve got a lot of graves
to dig. I may as well get started today.”
My words startled her. “You really do believe the Dust Dance will bring on
the plague in the next few days.” Her brow furrowed. “Aren’t you going to
warn Colonel Haren?”
“I saw him this morning. I had my say then, and he didn’t believe me. I
doubt he’ll believe me now. He’d only be angry to find I’d defied his direct
order and come back into town. I’m supposed to be hiding out in the
cemetery so his visitors don’t see me. I’m an embarrassment to the
regiment, you know.”
She squinted her eyes looking up at me. “Do you still care about things like
that?”
“Of course I do.” I shook Clove’s reins. “I’m a soldier son.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE AMBUSH
I guided Clove back through the streets the same way we had come. My
mind seethed and my blood simmered with both unfocused anger and
frustrated magic. My peoples were set on killing each other off. The
moment I recognized that thought in my mind, I realized how much the
magic had changed me. Not so long ago, I had belonged to only one
people. At one time I would have shared Colonel Haren’s conviction that
the road and trade would bring good to the Specks, and like him I would
have rejected the idea that the trees could be anything more than trees.
Yet the part of me that had been initially stolen and made Speck was now
as integral to my self as the soldier son was. Every day, his memories
surfaced more clearly in my mind. Removing those trees was the
equivalent of burning all Gernian libraries. The Specks might go on
without them, but they would lose their roots.
Yet at that moment I did not feel torn between my two peoples; my selves
were united in how furious I was with both factions and how desperately I
wished I could withdraw from them both entirely. We rattled through the
near-empty back streets and toward the gate. The sentries annoyed me by
stopping me. “Where you headed, soldier?”
I was in no mood for their sudden vigilance. They’d let me in
unchallenged, but would stop me on my way out? “Where do I always go?
Back to the cemetery. It’s my post.”
They exchanged a glance and a nod. “Right. You may pass.” I slapped the
reins on Clove’s broad back, jolting him up to a trot. I left the fort behind
and rattled my way out of town. Every time Clove tried to drop down to a
walk, I nagged him on. I wanted the noise of the empty cart and the
jostling and the dust. The violence of it suited my mood. As I left the town
behind me, I urged him up to a canter. The cart jolted and bounded,
bouncing in and out of potholes. I passed two struggling trees beside a
failed farm. A flock of black-and-white croaker birds had found something
dead by the trees. They rose, screaming their displeasure, as I careened
past them. I knew I invited disaster and didn’t care. The anger was
building inside me and I longed to have an outlet for it. Everyone was
acting in absolute certainty and righteousness. Was I the only one who
could see how wrong both sides were? Destruction and death awaited
everyone, and I saw no way to defuse any of it.
The lack of a focus for my anger made it a churning, clawing dragon
inside me. Time after time, Tree Woman had insisted to me that the
magic had chosen me because I was the one who could do something that
would send my people away from these lands. Over and over, she had tried
to wrangle from me what it was that I had done or was going to do. I’d
always thought her eager for the destruction of my folk; now I wondered if
she didn’t believe that driving the Gernian away was the only way to save
us all. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps the only way to avoid the coming
conflict was to make the Gernians retreat from the land of the People.
But I knew of nothing I could do to cause that. The coming month would
bring me dozens of plague victims to bury, and would see the felling of the
Specks’ ancestral trees. No one would triumph. The ancestor trees would
fall and the Speck culture with them. The Gernians would fall to the
disease the Speck had deliberately sown among them. Death, death, death
for everyone. Magic thrummed in me, drumming through my veins with
each beat of my heart, but I could not save a single soul from the misery
ahead.
Clove tried to slow down again. Sweat streaked his back and flanks, and I
felt shame for how hard I’d driven him for no good reason. The anger that
had coursed through me suddenly subsided into hopelessness. I let him
slow, and as the rattle of the cart decreased, my ears picked up the
thunder of other hoofbeats. I glanced over my shoulder, and had a single,
fleeting glimpse of mounted men coming up behind me, fast. I saw a
muzzle flash.
Something was very wrong. I was breathing dust instead of air. A great
crack had opened in my head, and light was pouring into my brain. It
hurt. I tried to lift my hand to cover the crack, but my fingers only feebly
twitched at dry dust. Every breath I sucked in pulled dust with it. I knew I
should lift my head from the ground. It was too much trouble.
“Think he’s dead?” someone asked me. I couldn’t work my mouth.
Someone answered for me.
“Good as dead. This could be big trouble. Damn it, Jace. Slowing him
down is one thing. Killing him is another.”
“He was trying to get away. You seen how he run that horse. Hoster said
he might try to get rid of it if we didn’t get it right away. I had to shoot.”
Jace was angry, not repentant.
“Calm down. No one’s going to care if we prove he’s guilty.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill him. When he slowed, it spoiled my aim. His own
damn fault for turning to look back at us.”
Someone else spoke. “I didn’t bargain for this. I’m sorry I got mixed up in
this whole mess. I’m going back to town.”
“We all are,” the first voice decided. “Jace, you drive the cart.” Horses’
hooves striking the earth. Wheels turning. Then silence. I tried closing my
eyes to keep the glaring light out of my skull, but my eyes were already
closed. It just went on hurting and hurting. I tried to be unconscious or
asleep. I failed. Lights bloomed across my vision and then faded. Pain
burst and ebbed with the light. I couldn’t make sense of what had
happened to me. Trying to think hurt too much. Stillness without thinking
still hurt. The intensity of the pain suddenly increased. The throb of my
heart was like a wave slamming against the inside of my skull.
Several days of agony seemed to pass. Then I could move my hand. I put it
up to touch my head. Blood. A flap of scalp. The hardness of bone beneath
my wet, questing fingers, and some rough splinters. The rip of the bullet’s
passage was a ragged groove across the back of my skull. I was dying.
Time stopped. It seemed impossible that dying could take so long. Perhaps
time dragged only because it hurt so badly, and because I was waiting for
it to stop. Dully, I began to count the throbs that corresponded to the
beating of my heart. I reached twenty. One hundred. Two hundred. I felt
my eyeballs pressing against my eyelids, as if they wanted to leave my
skull. Five hundred. A thousand. I managed to turn my head so I wasn’t
breathing in so much dust. One thousand, five hundred. I heard the caw of
a croaker bird. I felt the scuff of earth and the brush of its wings as it
landed beside me. I braced myself to feel the slash of its greedy beak.
“You owe me a life,” Orandula reminded me.
You can have this one. I no longer cared which god took my soul. I just
wanted the pain to stop.
“Give me a life that is yours to give before you die.” The croaker bird had
the voice of a nagging little old lady. I didn’t have the strength to frame a
thought in response to it. It didn’t matter. I was dying. Damn. I’d lost my
count. I started over again at one thousand five hundred. I knew I’d gotten
at least that far. A fly buzzed heavily near my ear. I lifted a hand and
brushed it away. No distractions. My heart pounded in my chest, and I felt
the throb of the moving blood in every part of me. When I reached five
thousand, I opened my eyes a crack. They didn’t feel quite as tight against
the lids as they had. I could see dust and scrub brush. I don’t know how
much longer I lay there before I gave in and admitted I wasn’t going to die
right away. The pain was still intense, and when I sat up, the world spun
around me so violently that I was sure I was going to vomit. Three croaker
birds took sudden alarm as I moved, but by the time I recovered from my
vertigo, they had resettled around me. They were large birds, and their red
wattles always made them look as if they had just finished a bloody feast.
I’d never realized their eyes were yellow. “Go away,” I told them feebly. I
waited for them to answer, but none spoke. One hopped three steps closer
and tilted his head to stare at me. I stared back.
After a longer time, I lifted a hand again to explore the wound where the
bullet had grazed me. Blood was caked thick on the back of my head. My
hand came away sticky and black. Don’t look. Don’t think about it. I
surveyed the world around me instead. It was afternoon at least. There
was no traffic on the road; everyone would have gone to the fort for the
welcoming ceremony. No help was going to come to me.
After five attempts, I remained standing. I wasn’t standing straight, but I
was upright. I looked around. The road was there, but my distance vision
was fuzzy. I couldn’t decide which direction led back to the fort and which
led to the cemetery. I could feel myself swaying. If I could just find the
cart, Clove would probably take me home. I couldn’t turn my head. I had
to turn my whole body in a slow circle, looking for my horse and cart. It
took me a very long time to realize that neither Clove nor the cart were
there. I was badly injured, probably dying, and on foot.
And suddenly I didn’t care
I walked. Not quickly. I followed the rutted road. The landscape was
blurry. At some point I found I had to hold up my trousers. My belt had
loosened, and I could not make my eyes focus well enough to tighten it. I
clutched the top of my trousers and staggered on.
Slowly my equilibrium came back to me. I walked more steadily. My vision
began to clear. I felt grateful when I saw the sign for the cemetery and left
the main road to follow the trail leading up to it. I lifted my hand to the
back of my head and felt about squeamishly. It was undeniably tender, but
I no longer felt torn flesh or scored bone. The magic was healing me. I
couldn’t decide whether to be grateful or angry.
When I reached my cabin, I filled a basin with water and wet a rag. I
gingerly dabbed at my wound. The rag came away dark with clotted blood
and small tufts of hair. I dipped it in the water and rinsed it clear. When I
wrung it out, I felt a splinter. I plucked it loose and looked at the tiny
fragment. Bone. From the back of my skull. I felt ill. I dipped the rag
again, squeezed it out, and washed all the blood, scraps of dead flesh, and
loose hair from the wound. When I was finished, I could feel a hairless
stripe of soft bare skin across the back of my head. I wondered if it would
be a scar.
The healing had consumed a lot of my magic. I could tell by how my
clothes hung loose on me. I moved my belt buckle two notches tighter.
Then, carefully not thinking, I dumped the dirty water from the basin,
washed it and the rag, and hung the rag on my laundry line to dry. I was
hungry, I realized, and the moment I acknowledged it, my hunger flared to
red and ravenous. I went back into my cabin and began rummaging
through my pantry. I longed for a certain pale mushroom that Olikea had
once brought me, and those hanging, thin-skinned berries. I longed for
them above all else. But what I had were some potatoes and an onion and
the end of a side of bacon. They would have to do. I think my injured body
recovered faster than my jumbled mind. I was frying chopped potatoes
and onion with a bit of fat bacon before it dawned on me that someone
had tried to kill me. They’d stolen my horse and cart. They’d left me for
dead. I put a pinch of salt on the cooking food and stirred it again. What
did I remember? Men on horses behind me. Long guns. The flash. I didn’t
even remember the sound, only the flash of black powder igniting.
Someone had shot me. Shot me! They’d left me for dead, and stolen my
horse and cart. The bastards! And in that arrowing of fury, I felt the magic
flare in me and then subside. Too late I regretted that surge of hatred and
vindictiveness. I knew I didn’t have the strength to call it back, and
suspected it was already too late to think of doing it. I sat down heavily on
the floor by the hearth, feeling as if I’d just burned the last bit of energy in
my body. I wanted to fall over on my side and sleep. By an extreme effort
of will, I managed to take the pan of food from the fire before it burned.
Once I had it on the floor, I ate from it, using the stirring spoon, with the
single-mindedness of a starving dog. When the last strand of translucent
onion had been scraped from the pan’s bottom and consumed, I crawled
into my bed, pulled my blanket over me, closed my eyes, and slept.
And slept. I woke to a foreign dawn, blinked at it, and closed my eyes
again. I awoke to darkness, staggered to my water bucket, and lowered my
face to drink like a horse. Chin dripping, I stood in the closed darkness of
my cabin. I thought I heard someone call my name softly, but I ignored it.
I found my way back to my bed, fell into it, and slept again. Dreams tried
to break into that rest. I banished them. I heard my name spoken gently,
then with urgency, and finally with both command and annoyance. I
pushed her away. She battered at the edges of my sleep, but I pulled it
tight around me and would not admit her. I rose with the next dawn,
famished, my mouth dry and sticky. My body stank with my own sweat. I
crunched through my last two potatoes raw, for my hunger would not wait
for me to cook them. I heated what water remained in my barrel, washed
myself, and got dressed in my other clothes. My head no longer hurt. I
went down to the spring. There I found the shallow prints of bare feet at
the water’s edge. So Olikea had ventured that far in trying to lure me back
to her. A spike of desire pierced me. I longed for her warm willingness
and the mindless pleasure she could wake in me with her body and her
food. No. Fervently and abruptly, I decided to end all my interaction with
the Specks.
I was not a Speck and I could not save them. This magic had been forced
onto me. I didn’t like what it allowed me to do or what it did to me. I
would be prey to it no longer. Let it punish me as Buel Hitch had said it
would. I no longer cared. With equal vehemence, I rejected my own
people. I no longer wished to have anything to do with any of them. Even
the thought of Spink and Epiny could not lure me back to being a soldier
and a Gernian. I would end my life here, I decided, in this role of
gravedigger. I could not save either people from their own foolishness. The
best I could do, the only thing I could do, was to bury them. So be it.
In that frame of mind, I went to my tool shed and began to dig a fresh
grave. I knew there would soon be bodies aplenty to bury. I might as well
be prepared. I dug it with professional competence, a good deep grave
with straight sides and plenty of room to lower a coffin. As soon as it was
finished, I drank more water and went right on to dig the next one.
The thought of going to town and reporting that someone had shot me
and stolen Clove and my wagon came briefly to my mind. I pushed it away.
I found I no longer cared for anything much except my gravedigging. I
found that my only thought on the subject was to hope that Clove was well
treated by whoever had him now. I went on digging. I tried not to recall
how the magic had felt as it had rushed out of me. I didn’t know who had
shot at me. Did that mean the magic could not target them with my
anger? I feared what I had done, and then felt furious with myself for
thinking about it. It wasn’t my fault, I angrily declared to myself. I hadn’t
sought the magic, and I’d never wished for it. Those who had imposed it
on me were to blame for all of this. Not I. I pushed the nose of my shovel
deep into the turf and ripped out another shovelful of earth.
Neither Ebrooks nor Kesey came to the graveyard that day. I missed them,
but I was glad they hadn’t come. I would have liked their casual
companionship if I could have looked at them and not wondered how soon
they would die. I wondered if plague was already prowling the streets of
town, or if the people were still intoxicated both with Gettys tonic and the
thought that the road was moving forward again. Even now, I was sure the
heavy saws and axes were biting deep into the flesh of the ancestor trees.
That thought made me ill, and for a wavering moment I was outside my
body, reaching up to distant sunlight as I felt the inexorable severing of
my connection to the earth and all it had been to me. I felt both the breeze
that shivered my leaves and the deep vibration of the blades gnawing
through me. A love of life deeper than anything I had ever felt rang
through me, coupled with the anguish that it would end so suddenly. I
jerked my awareness away from the magic’s greedy clutches. I didn’t care,
I told myself fiercely. It was only a tree, and a Speck tree at that! But even
that denial showed me how deeply I’d changed my way of thinking.
Sickened and shaken, I dragged my thoughts back to my work. I drove the
shovel deep into the earth again. I worked until there was no light left in
the day and then returned to my cabin. There was little left in my pantry,
but I made a meal off the last end of the bacon, a few vegetables from my
garden, and some hearth bread. After my day’s work, it was less than
satisfying, but I sternly told myself it was enough. And then the long night
stretched before me. I had nothing to read nor any way to occupy my
mind. For a time I sat and stared out my window and tried to empty my
mind. Despite my efforts, my thoughts returned to the looming plague, the
felling of the ancestor trees, and my determination that henceforth I
would be a part of neither people. After a time, I took down my soldier son
journal and made the longest entry that I had written in some weeks. I
poured my thoughts onto the paper, and when I had finished, I felt almost
at peace. I waited a few moments for the ink to dry, and then leafed back
through it. The entries I had made at the academy now seemed shallow
and boyish, and the sketches I had made of my classmates were the
scribbles of a child. As I paged through the leaves of the books, the entries
grew longer, and the thoughts more considered. I’d been lax in my duty to
be a naturalist as well as a soldier. There were few sketches, and other
than an attempt at showing how the specks were placed on Olikea’s hands,
they were all of plants I’d seen. The soldier son journals I’d seen at my
uncle’s house had been terse accounts of battles and journeys over difficult
terrain. In contrast, mine looked like a schoolgirl’s diary. I closed it.
“Nevare.”
Olikea’s call was a whisper on the night wind. I tried to pretend I’d
imagined it. But it came again and with more urgency, like a doe’s mating
call. “Nevare.”
Against my will, I felt stirred. I knew exactly where she would await me, in
the trees just behind the spring. I gritted my teeth. She would have a
basket of food with her, I knew. My will began to crumble. What would it
matter if I went to her one last time? Didn’t I at least owe her an
explanation? After all, it was not her fault that I was caught so harshly
between our peoples. Hurting her served no useful purpose; in a way, it
was giving way to the magic, to let it force me to be cruel to her.
I had almost convinced myself; indeed, I was rising to go to her when I
heard a sound that stood the hair up on the back of my neck. Hoofbeats. A
horse was coming up the road to the cemetery at a canter. In a rush of
wariness, I was sure it was someone coming to kill me. My attackers would
know I had lived because no one had found my body by the road. They’d
want to be sure I was dead before I could step forward to accuse them. I
suddenly saw how stupid I’d been not to go to town to report the assault
and the theft. If they killed me now, there would be no one to accuse them.
They’d go free and I’d be dead. I pulled my window shutter closed and
fastened it. In two strides, I reached my door and slammed the bar into
place. I took my disreputable weapon down from its hooks and checked
the charges I’d prepared for it days ago. I readied a load and waited
silently, the muzzle pointed at the door. Ears straining, I heard someone
ride up to my door and then dismount. An instant later, someone pounded
on the door. I kept silent. I didn’t want to kill anyone unless I had to.
“Nevare? Are you in there? In the good god’s name, open up! Nevare?”
Spink rattled the door loudly and then gave it a good kick. For a moment
longer, I sat still and silent. “Please, Nevare, be there!” he cried out, and
there was such despair in his voice that I relented.
“A moment,” I called, and set my gun aside and unbarred the door. The
moment I did, Spink came pushing into my cabin. He seized my forearm
and exclaimed, “Are you all right, then?”
“As you see,” I told him, almost calmly.
He slapped his hand to his chest and breathed out heavily. I thought he
was being dramatic, but when he straightened up, his face was pale save
for two bright spots on his cheeks. “I thought you were dead. We all
thought you were dead.” He tried to catch his breath and failed. “I left
Epiny caught between hysterics at the thought that you were dead and
fury that you had been so close and alive all this time and I never told her.
Nevare, I am in such trouble at home right now because of you that I
could kill you, except that I am so glad to find you alive.”
“Sit down,” I told him and guided him to a chair. He dropped into it, and I
brought him a cup of water. He was breathing as if he’d run all the way
rather than ridden his horse. “Catch your breath and tell me what
happened. Why did you tell Epiny I was out here? What made you think I
was dead?”
“Amzil told me.” He took another drink of water. “She’d gone out to do
errands for us. She came running back, sobbing her heart out, saying that
your horse and wagon had been found surrounded by dead men.” He
dragged in another breath. “Oh, and of course Epiny was not in the
bedroom napping as she thought, but only in our kitchen, and the
moment Amzil blurted out that ‘everyone in town is saying that Nevare is
either dead or the one who killed them all,’ she came bursting into the
room demanding to know what was going on and how there could be news
of you that she hadn’t heard.” He ran his hand over his head. “From there,
all was chaos. I was trying to explain, but Amzil kept interrupting me, and
at the same time I was trying to get Amzil’s story out of her, and when
Epiny started weeping and shouting at both of us, Amzil got angry at me,
saying I’d upset her now and she might lose the baby. So then Epiny
started crying even harder, and all the children joined in the wailing. And
Amzil threw me out of my own house telling me that I was just as useless
as any other man she’d ever met and I should at least come out here and
see what I could find of ‘that big idiot.’ Meaning you.”
He took a deeper breath and dropped his head onto the back of the chair.
Staring up at my rough ceiling, he added, “And here you are, alive and
fine, and my life is in an uproar and will be so until you come to town and
see Epiny. You’ll have to now.” Almost as an afterthought he added, “This
whole mess is your fault, Nevare. You know that.”
“Tell me about the dead men and my wagon,” I said quietly.
“Meaning you know nothing about it?” he asked quickly.
“I know something of it, I suppose. Yesterday…no. The day before, I think,
when I was last in town and sent Amzil to warn you about the
plague…what was Amzil doing out of the house? Why have you left your
home? Didn’t she give you my warning? You need to keep quarantine! The
Speck plague is going to break out any day now, Spink. It always follows
the Dust Dance. It’s how they spread it.”
“No one has been sick yet!” he defended himself, and then added
shamefacedly, “I told Amzil not to go. But Epiny has been so sick with this
pregnancy, and there’s some tea that an old woman in town makes that
seems to help her. Amzil insisted on going for a fresh supply when we ran
out. It was no good my telling her to stay inside. I tell you, Nevare, once
there is a woman under a man’s roof, he can just forget about being in
charge of his own life. Two women, and he doesn’t even have a life
anymore.” He shook his head as if bothered by gnats and then glared at
me. “But you were explaining how your wagon came to be in a barracks
stable surrounded by dead men.”
“No, I wasn’t,” I replied testily. “I was telling you that on my way home, I
was attacked. They hit me hard and I went down fast, so I can’t tell you
how many they were or what they looked like. When I came to, I was
facedown on the ground and Clove and my wagon were gone. I managed to
get home, spent a day recovering, and then got back to my work.”
“And you didn’t come to town to report it?” he asked me severely.
“No. I didn’t. Spink, I expected town to be in the first throes of the plague.
I’m surprised it isn’t, but I still think it will come. And when it does I’ll
have the graves dug and waiting.” I sat down in my own chair across from
him and rubbed at my face. I suddenly felt a hundred years old. “It’s really
the only thing I can do for anyone,” I added morosely.
“Well, I can see that you’re discouraged and worried. We all are, Nevare.
When the Speck magic isn’t flooding us with discouragement, we’re either
drugged or simply seeing how senseless life on this post can be. But to not
report the attack and theft now make you seem, well, involved somehow in
those deaths. You know there were rumors about you. That was why I
asked you to stay out here and out of trouble. And now people are
saying—” “How did they die?” I demanded suddenly.
“Well, I don’t exactly know. Amzil said they were just sprawled all around
your wagon, like they’d been gathered around it and then just died right
there.”
“Who were they?”
“Nevare, I don’t know. I didn’t hear the story firsthand, and between
Amzil’s blubbering over you and the hysteria that followed, I didn’t get
much information. Only that Sergeant Hoster was saying that you’d
probably killed them all to shield yourself and that you should be arrested
until we can discover what’s going on.”
“Hoster would say that. The man hates me, for no reason that I know. Do
you think they will arrest me?”
“Nevare, I don’t know! We still have the inspection team here, and the
mysterious death of four men inside the barracks stable doesn’t make any
of us look good. Command will have to cover it up, explain it away, or find
a scapegoat.” He rubbed his face and then looked a stark plea at me. “You
didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?”
If he hadn’t asked me directly, I could have maintained my deceit. But
Spink had always had that honest, open stare of a boy who wants to
believe the best of his friends. Even in a face that was beginning to show
the care lines of a man, that look still demanded honesty. If I lied to him
now, I’d know that I’d given up all hopes of ever being the man I thought
I’d become. “I probably killed them,” I admitted bluntly. “But I don’t
know how. And I didn’t do it on purpose.”
He sat very still, looking at me. His mouth was a tiny bit ajar, and I could
hear his breath going in and out of it. He looked as if he was about to
speak, and then his face crumpled. “Oh, Nevare. No. I can’t go back and
tell Epiny that. I can’t. It will kill her. It will kill her and the baby and
they’re all I have in this godforsaken piss-hole of a post.” He leaned
forward, his face in his hands, and spoke hoarsely through his fingers.
“How could you do this, Nevare? Who have you become? I’ve seen the
changes in you, but I always thought I knew the true heart of who you
were. How could you kill men in your own regiment? How?”
“The magic did it,” I said softly. “It wasn’t really me, Spink. It was the
magic.” It sounded like a childish excuse. I didn’t expect him to believe
me, but he didn’t lift his face from his hands or interrupt me. I found
myself telling him the whole story of what had happened to me in the last
week. I didn’t mince words or find excuses for myself. I told him
everything, even going back to fill in the truth about Olikea and myself. It
felt good, cleansing, to be honest finally with someone. His shoulders
sagged as I spoke, as if he took on the burden that I shed. When I was
finished, I felt hollow and he looked like a man crushed beneath the weight
of a world. Two worlds, I thought to myself. I got up quietly and filled a
kettle. My throat was dry and despite everything else, I was ravenously
hungry. Perhaps coffee could soothe that pang a bit. As I set the pot on to
boil, Spink finally spoke. “They’ve always known the trees were sacred to
the Specks?”
I lifted a hand in a dismissive gesture. “That was the impression I got.” I
was surprised that he cared.
“Do they know that the sadness and discouragement that overwhelms us
here is from Speck magic?”
“I don’t know. They must suspect. What else could bring on a fear like that
at the end of the road? They must know that’s Speck magic.” He spoke in a
low voice. “The doctor wants Epiny to take the ‘Gettys tonic.’ She keeps
refusing. He says that if she doesn’t, she will miscarry. Or that when the
baby comes, she won’t be a fit mother to him.”
He fell silent. “And?” I prodded him.
“And he might be right,” Spink said heavily. “Not that many healthy
children are born here, Nevare. And the women who do have children
seem…flat. Exhausted. As if they can barely care for themselves, let alone
their children.” “But Epiny seemed to have a great deal of energy. The way
she’s organized all those women with whistles. Didn’t you say she was
trying to hold classes or lessons…?” My questions trickled away as Spink
shook his head. “She starts things. Every day, she gets up, saying that
she’s not going to let it win. We both do. But by afternoon she is weeping,
or we’ve had a quarrel, or worst of all, she simply sits and stares out of the
window. This dark magic is devouring her, Nevare. It eats at me, but
Epiny is more vulnerable to it. You remember what she once told us? That
it was like a window had opened and she couldn’t shut it? The sadness
comes in that window and Epiny’s life leaks away through it. I’m losing
her, Nevare. Not to death, but to…sadness. Bleakness that never goes
away. And for what? So that we can push a road through by the shortest
possible route, regardless of what it does to the people who live here, or
what they do to us in retaliation?”
He stood up slowly. The coffee had just begun to smell like coffee. He
didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve got to go home to Epiny. I’m not going to tell
her all of this, Nevare, but I am going to tell her that you are here and
alive.” He walked toward the door.
“Spink—hold on a moment. Did Amzil give you my entire message? Did
she tell you to send for more of your Bitter Springs water?”
He smiled sourly. “Nevare, you are so accustomed to life on the King’s
Road, aren’t you? Bitter Springs is far more isolated. There is no regular
courier run to my home. Sending a courier to Bitter Springs would cost
me most of a month’s pay. And my message would not reach my brother
until weeks from now, if it arrived at all. Add to that the time it would
take for a wagon with casks of water to make the trip. With great luck, it
might reach Gettys before next winter’s snow closed the road.”
“So, you didn’t send the message,” I confirmed quietly.
He shook his head. “It would be pointless.”
I was silent for a time. “How many of those little bottles of water do you
have?”
“Now? I have three left.”
“That’s all?” I was horrified. “What happened to the rest?” He shrugged.
“Almost as soon as Epiny arrived, she began to give them away to people
she met. I hid three, for she was determined to pass it all out. I’ve told her
it may not be enough to help anyone. After all, I immersed her whole body
in the water to cure her. She seems to think if they drink it at the
beginning of the fever, it may cure them. As for ourselves, she believes that
since we took the Bitter Springs cure, we are immune. I’m not so certain
of that.” He hesitated, then asked, “Did you want some for yourself?”
“I…no. Thank you, but no. I’m sure the magic protects me now.”
“You speak of the magic as if it were a thinking entity.”
“I’m not so sure it isn’t. I still don’t know what it is. But I don’t think I’ll
need any of your water. If the magic can heal a bullet graze in three days, I
doubt it will let me die of the Speck plague.” A new thought chilled me.
“Unless, of course, it suits the magic’s purpose.” I shook my head, refusing
to let my thought follow where that might lead. “When I asked about the
water, I wasn’t thinking of myself, but of Amzil and her children.”
Spink smiled. “Epiny has already provided for them. She and Amzil have
become quite close. As for the children, they are almost like our own.”
“I’m glad of that,” I said, and was surprised at how grateful I felt. He was
quiet for a moment and then said, “For what it’s worth, Nevare—I think
she cares for you, too. Her terror at the thought you were dead surpassed
the caring of a friend.” He turned toward the door. “And speaking of that,
Nevare, I must go. It’s cruel for me to let them dangle in suspense while I
tarry here, talking with you. I’ll admit that I dread rushing back to Epiny’s
wrath. I fear her forgiveness will be slow in coming.”
“Blame it all on me,” I suggested apologetically.
“Oh, never fear. I fully intend to.” The grin he gave me was a cracked
imitation of his usual one. I was still glad to see it.
I spoke before I could lose my courage. “I’ll come to town tomorrow,
Spink. I’ll come to your house. We can tell people that I went there to visit
your maidservant, Amzil.”
He folded his lips for a moment and then decided to speak. “Odd how easy
it is for you to arrange a ruse once you decide to do it.” I bowed my head
to the rebuke in his voice. I could imagine the scene he was returning to,
and dreaded my own next encounter with my cousin. “I’ll see Epiny and
tell her that all the secrecy was my fault, not yours. And I’ll go to
headquarters and report I was attacked.”
He glanced back at me. “And prove it how? You’re completely healed of a
bullet wound in less than three days. There’s no evidence you can offer
that you were attacked. What are you going to tell them?”
“I’ll think of something.”
He nodded grimly and left. I barred the door after he’d mounted and
ridden away. I took the coffee from the fire and poured myself a cup. It
wasn’t what I wanted, but I sipped it anyway. It was hot and bitter and
did nothing to assuage any of my hungers. While Spink had been here, I’d
been able to call my thoughts my own. Now that he was gone, I felt
besieged again. “Nevare.” Olikea’s call sounded closer.
“No.” I said aloud. “I’ve had it with you and your magic.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
COFFINS
I did not intend to sleep that night. I did not want to wake finding I had
sleepwalked into the forest. I sat up in my chair by the fire. As the night
crawled past, I drank mug after mug of steaming black coffee. The
summer evening outside was balmy, so I let my small cook fire slowly die. I
watched the flames falter and shrink until they subsided as a ripple of
light over the dwindling coals.
From time to time, I heard Olikea call to me. With every summons,
temptation flamed up in me, but I was determined. Covering my ears did
nothing to muffle her invitation. The magic conveyed her call to me rather
than the utterance of her voice. Was she in league with the magic or only
the unwitting tool of it? Perhaps it was only that she wanted to use the
magic in me for her own ends. The last cup of coffee from the pot was
thick and bitter. I’d worked hard all day and my body ached for sleep. The
night had reached its coolest point, and I felt chilled. I longed to wrap
myself in a blanket but resisted. Too much comfort would make me more
susceptible to sleep. Dawn would come soon. I rubbed my eyes, stood up,
and paced around the room. I yawned hugely and sat down in my chair
again.
“Nevare.”
“I’m not coming.” I leaned my head back on the hard top of my chair and
stared into the shadowed corner of the room. I could picture how irritated
she would be at my refusal. She’d be standing just inside the new forest,
just beyond the spring where I filled my water bucket, naked to the night,
heedless of the chill and the settling dew. I had noticed something the last
time I was with her; even in the darkness, I could sense the dappling on
her skin when I ran my hand down the smooth curves of her back. There
was a very subtle difference in the texture from dark to light. My mother
had used to favor a fabric that had that texture. What had she called it? I
couldn’t remember, and that saddened me. Another little bit of my old life
gone from me.
“Nevare.”
“Leave me alone, Olikea. You don’t love me. You don’t even know who I am
or where I came from. You’re just the same as Amzil. She can’t see past my
fat to discover who I am inside. You can’t see past my body either. But to
you, it’s what makes me desirable. It’s probably the only thing that does.”
“Who is Amzil?” It was a sharp, suspicious query.
“Don’t worry about it. She is just another woman who doesn’t love me.”
“There are many women in this world who do not love you.” She puffed
her lips at me disdainfully and lifted her chin. “Why should you care about
one more?”
“There you are absolutely correct. There are multitudes of women in this
world who don’t love me. In fact, if we were looking for women who did
love me, I think we could quickly narrow it down to two. However, one
loves me as a brother and one as a cousin. Neither is very satisfactory to a
man.”
“Why not?” She stood just under the shadow of the trees. Her basket
rested on one outthrust hip. I could smell the mushrooms, and the soft,
heavy petals of a pale water blossom that tasted like sweet pepper. The
necklace I had given her glittered around her throat. It was the only thing
she wore. Her jutting breasts seemed to offer themselves to me, a warmer
sort of fruit. For a moment, I could not think.
“A man wants more than kindly affection from a woman. He wants all of
her.” She puffed her lips at me again. “That is a stupid thing to want. Only
a woman can have all of herself. You should be happy with what any
woman offers you, rather than to want everything she is. Do you offer all
you are to any one woman? I doubt it.”
That stung. “I would if a woman offered all of herself to me. It is hard for
me to be with someone who holds herself back from me. My heart doesn’t
love that way, Olikea. Maybe among your folk that is how you love. But
among my people—”
“Your people and my people are the same people, Nevare. Over and over I
tell you this. Cannot you learn it? The People are the only people you have
now, Nevare. And we offer you everything. So why do not you love us with
this ‘heart’ of yours? Why do not you come to us for every day and every
hour, and use the magic of the People as it should be used?”
“To do what?” I asked her. We had moved closer together. The cool mud of
the spring’s edge cradled my bare feet. The night did not seem so dark.
There was light in the spring water that glinted up at us. The light in
Olikea’s eyes was twin to it. I smelled the startling tang of crushed fruit. It
was a berry in her hand. She reached up to my unsmiling mouth to push it
gently between my lips. Her fingertips lingered a moment on my tongue
and then drew back, painting my lips with the stinging sweetness of the
fruit. My senses reeled with the flavor, the scent, and her touch.
“This is a new taste for you,” she whispered. “They grow only in our dream
country. And only a Great One like you is allowed to eat it. I can taste it
only when I taste it on your mouth.” With sticky fingers, she hooked my
face, pulled it closer, and lapped her tongue lightly across my lips. A man
can only bear so much. My dreams of true love and the fulfilment of a life
shared dissolved beneath a wave of simple lust. I caught her up and pulled
her close. She let the basket of food fall. I tasted the skin of her neck,
breathed in the scent of her hair.
She laughed softly. “Remember, I do not love you as your sister does, nor
as your cousin does. I do not love you as a plain-skin woman would love
her man. So this—” and she touched me teasingly “—is not enough for you.
Is it? You don’t want this from me, do you?”
“I want it,” I told her fiercely, imprisoning her in my arms. “I want it, but I
want more than just this. Can’t you understand that, Olikea? Are our
peoples truly so different?”
“Our peoples? I tell you and tell you. You have only one people. There is
only one people, the People. They are our people. All others are strangers.
All others threaten our ways.”
“I don’t want to talk right now,” I decided. I stooped and picked her up in
my arms. She gave a whoop of surprise and flung her arms around my
neck. I liked the feeling that I could startle her, that I could move her with
my strength. It fueled my lust.
I carried her deeper into the forest. Magic surged in me with the heat of
desire. I made a gesture, and moss and fallen leaves gathered themselves
into a couch for us. Another motion of my hand, and a tree branch
drooped to become a support for a vine that suddenly draped itself into a
bower around us. Fragrant flowers opened to perfume the night. I
banished the small stinging insects that had come to investigate us, and
invited instead the little glowing moths, that I might better see what I
touched. I lavished magic with a free hand. It was as simple and natural as
the way Olikea opened herself to me, and as mutually pleasing. This night
I led and she followed in that most ancient dance. In our previous times
together, she had always taken the role of aggressor, and I had been
astonished to find how much pleasure I could take in that. This night, I
think she was equally surprised to find that a male could command her
pleasure so completely. Discovering that I could render her near-mindless
with bliss bolstered my sense of myself as nothing else had in the previous
year. It spurred me to greater efforts, and when at last she lay beside me,
slack in my arms, I felt I had proven something to her, though I could not
have said exactly what.
We dozed. After what seemed a very long time, she asked, “Are you
hungry?”
I nearly laughed. “Of course I’m hungry. I’m always hungry.”
“Are you?” She sounded concerned. She set her hand on my side tenderly.
“You should never be hungry. Not if you would allow me to care for you
properly. Not if you allowed me to feed you as you should be fed. How can
you do all that the magic wishes you to do if you do not eat as you should?
You must pay attention when I call to you, and eat every night of the food I
bring to you. You must stay close by me so that I can bring you to the peak
of your powers.” She stood up and stretched. “I’ll be right back.”
I lay where I was on the moss, trying to find thoughts that belonged to me.
I hadn’t intended to come here. Yet here I was, enmeshed with Olikea
again, and listening to her scold me for not letting the magic have its way
with me. I knew it was a problem, but I couldn’t bring myself to care
about it. She returned and sat down in the angle of my body, her back
against my belly. She leaned back on me a little and rummaged in her
basket. Some of the fruit had been bruised in the fall. I could smell each
separate one quite clearly. She offered me a lily leaf. “Eat this first. For
your strength.” I took it from her and ate a bite. “So. You anticipate I will
need more strength tonight?”
I was surprised when she giggled. “You might. Just eat it.”
I obeyed and then asked, “Does each food you bring me have its own
virtue?”
“Here, yes. On the other side, sometimes food is just food. To eat. Here
each one is a piece of magic. What you eat here is far more potent than
anything you eat on the other side. It is why it is so important that you
come here every night.”
“What other side?”
“The other side of here,” she said impatiently. She took another lily leaf,
put an orange section of root in its center, and rolled the fleshy leaf around
it. “Like this. Eat it like this.”
I obeyed. The orange root was slightly sweet. Weariness fell away from me.
I reached over and pulled her basket closer to me. “What is this one for?” I
asked, taking a clump of pale yellow mushrooms.
“For walking the web more strongly.”

“I don’t understand.”

She puffed her lips at me, and then made a dismissive gesture with her
fingers.
“Just eat it. Trust me. I know these things.”

The mushrooms had an earthy flavor, rich and dark. She followed them
with a double handful of berries so ripe and sweet that they burst in my
hands before I could get them to my mouth. Each had a flat seed inside it,
strongly piquant. As I chewed a mouthful, she said, “You should go now,
so that you can come back to me on the other side before the light is too
strong. You do not need to bring anything with you. Simply go and then
come back to me.”

I didn’t understand, so I avoided the question. “The light doesn’t bother
me.”
“It troubles me. And you need to be with me, so that I can show you the
way to the deeper place. We think that one of the old ones will fall
tomorrow. The magic will waken with great fury then. It would be better
for us to be sheltered from that wrath.”
“I cannot go with you tomorrow, Olikea. I promised my friend that I would
come to visit him in Gettys. I have to keep that promise.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Tomorrow death sweeps through that place. It
will only make you sad to see it. Come away with me.”
Every word she spoke jabbed me like a small pin, awakening me to my
other life and the dangers that threatened it. While I loitered here with
her in satiation and contentment, my friends were in danger. The
closeness I had felt to her was thinning like darkness before the dawn.
“Were you there?” I asked her. “When your people danced the Dust Dance
in Gettys, were you there, spreading disease with the dust?”
“Of course I was,” she answered promptly. There was no shame in her
voice, no regret at all. “You saw me leave by the gate. I thought you would
come with me, but then I saw that you had her with you. So I left you.” I
lifted her hand that rested against my ribs and looked at it. “With this
hand, you threw the dust that will make all of them sicken with the
plague?” She twisted her hand from my grip, and then held it palm-up
and fingers loose. She shook it like that. “It is the winnowing. The dust
flies and blows and settles where it will. Some will walk the path of the
winnowing and some will not. Of those who walk the path, some will cross
the bridge and others will not. Some will serve the magic: they will cross,
but come back to us, briefly, as messengers from that far place. Among
our people, we honor those ones as worthy of a tree. They send down roots
to one world and reach up branches to another. They stay among us then
and grow, and wisdom grows with them. You, you bury your dead to rot,
as if you care nothing for the wisdom of that world. The messengers who
come back to you, you ignore and bury beneath the earth. We have tried
to help you be wiser. We have tried to give some of your people trees so
that they could grow in wisdom, but never does it work. The tree does not
thrive, or one like you comes to tear them free from the tree and throw
them back into a hole in the ground where they rot like bad seed.”
I sat very still. She took another lily leaf from the basket, rolled it around
an orange root, and passed it to me. I took it from her absently. I could
almost understand what she was telling me. The little I comprehended
frightened me. Olikea took pleasure in her musing. “A few, a very few like
you,” and she patted me fondly, “pass through the winnowing a different
way. No one knows what makes the dust change you. Perhaps it is not that
the dust changes you, but that you have already changed in a way the dust
cannot alter. Great Ones can cross the bridge more than once and return
to stay among us as members of the People.” She shrugged. “Perhaps it is
because the magic knows its own. It is a thing to think on, sometimes,
when one does not feel too much like sleeping. But it is not a thing to be
troubled about, because it does not matter if we ever understand it or not.
It is for the magic to know. We can be content with that.” She spoke softly,
contentedly, as if this was a philosophy of life. To me, it was her
justification for the slaughter of innocents. I felt sudden disgust with
myself that I had whiled away these hours in animalistic pleasure while in
Gettys men, women, and children were beginning to burn with the
sickness she had sown. “You can, perhaps, be content with that. I cannot.”
I rolled to my belly, pushing her away from me in the process. She made
an annoyed sound. I got my knees under me and then stood up. “I am
leaving, Olikea. I will never come back to you. I cannot be with you again. I
cannot accept what you have done to my people in Gettys.”
“What I have done? You make this my doing? It is the doing of the magic.
And perhaps it is more your doing than mine. Perhaps, oh plain-skin
Great One, if you had followed the magic’s calling more willingly, it would
not have had to be!” She sprang to her feet to confront me “If you had
done the task the magic set you, the intruders would be gone by now,
banished back to their own lands. You were the one who was to drive the
plain-skins back to their own lands.
Jodoli saw that clearly. We all saw that. For that task, the magic marked
you. And we have waited, we have all waited, and I have tried to nurture
you to your power, but always you run away and deny it and refuse it.
Jodoli humbled himself to show you the danger that threatened the
ancestor trees. He has explained it to you in every way it can be explained.
All thought that when your own eyes beheld the danger to the ancestor
trees, you would waken to your task. But now they teeter and sway, and
tomorrow one of them will fall and be no more! They are the oldest
memories of our people, and tomorrow we lose them. Because of the
intruders. Because they wish to make a path for their horses and wagons
to go where they have never needed to go before. They say it will be a good
thing for us, but how can they know what is good for us when they have
begun by destroying our greatest good thing? We have let them feel our
sorrow. We have let them feel our fears. Still, they are too stupid to go
away. So they must be driven away with harsher means. How can anyone
doubt that? But you, oh, you look at those intruders who live little short
lives known only to themselves, you look at those treeless people and you
say, ‘Oh, let them stay, let them cut the ancestors from their roots, do not
make them endure the winnowing, let them be.’ And why? Because they
are wise or kind or great of heart? No. Only because they look like you!”
“Olikea, they are my people. They are as dear to me as your people are to
you.
Why can you not understand this?”

She puffed her cheeks in a display of utter disbelief. “Understand what?
They are not the People, Nevare. They will never be the People of this
place. They must all go away, go back to their own place, and then all will
be as it should be again. Except, of course, that with their tools ‘your
people’ will have cut a hole in the sky of leaves and stolen from us the
oldest of our elders. But for this, you care not at all! Will you say what all
of ‘your people’ say? ‘It is only a tree!’ Say that, Nevare. Say it so I can hate
you as you deserve.” I stared at her in shock. Tears were running down her
cheeks. They were tears of fury, true, but up to that moment I had not
thought anything I said or did would wring such impassioned words from
her. I was a fool. I tried to reason with her. “The Gernians will never leave
here, Olikea. I know my people. Once they have come to a place, they do
not leave it. They stay, they trade, and their towns grow. Your lives will
change, but the changes will not be all bad. You could learn to accept it.
Think of your own people. From us they get tools and cloth and jewelry.
And sweets! Remember how much you liked the sweets? The Speck people
like these things, and we value the furs that they—”

“Be silent!” She shrieked the words at me. “Do not tell me in soft words
that our dying will not hurt! Do not tell me of trinkets to wear and tools to
use and sweet things to eat.” She tore the simple bead necklace I had given
her from her throat and the bright little glass beads went scattering,
littering the moss like tiny seeds of Gernia.

I looked at them, glistening orbs of red and blue and yellow resting on top
of the moss like a dew of gems, and for an instant I saw the future. A
hundred years from now, those shiny bits of glass trodden into the ground
would still remain intact, but the forest near the cemetery would be gone.
I felt a sudden sorrow that it would be so, but I also recognized the truth.
“Olikea, it is inevitable.”
Her hands rose as claws and she screamed wordlessly at me. I lifted my
hands to defend my face from her nails. “Stop!” I told her, and to my
horror, the magic obeyed me. She halted, straining against it, longing to
rake me bloody, but unable to push past the boundary I had put there. For
a moment she scrabbled against it wordlessly, a savage animal caged
behind glass. Then she stopped. Breasts heaving, eyes streaming tears,
she let her hands drop to her sides. She took a ragged breath. When she
spoke, I could hear how she forced the words past the lump in her throat.
“You think you can do this! You think you can swell up big with the magic
of the People and use it against us. You cannot. You will come to do what
the magic says you must. This I know. Of this, I say to you, ‘It is
inevitable!’ And you shake your head and make your eyes sad and do not
believe me. I do not care. The magic will convince you. It will send you a
messenger you cannot ignore, and then you will know. You will see.” She
crossed her arms in front of her and stood tall and straight, reclaiming her
dignity. “I did not think you were so stupid, Nevare. I thought that if I fed
you, you would see the path of wisdom and tread it.” She fluttered her
fingers dismissively. “You did not. But it does not matter. You will do
what the magic had destined for you. You will turn your people back to
their own lands. We all know this. Soon, you will know it, too.”
She turned her back on me and walked away. Her stride was arrogant and
free once more, not that of a woman scorned but rather that of a woman
who had won and no longer cared whether I recognized that or not. As I
watched her go, the dawn’s light broke through the canopy overhead. In
that sudden brightness, I could not see. I blinked frantically, but she
seemed to be disappearing even as I stared after her.
I shut my eyes and knuckled them.
When I opened them, fingers of strong daylight had reached through the
cracks in my window shutters to fall across my face. My back was stiff and
my neck ached from sleeping with my head thrown back against my chair.
I sat up, flinching as my neck bones crackled. Despite all my efforts, I’d
fallen asleep. And I’d dreamed…something. The first thought that came to
me filled me with dread. I’d promised to go and see Epiny today.
I groaned and rubbed the back of my neck, and then scrubbed my stiff
face with my hands. When I lowered them I was stunned at what I saw.
My fingers and hands were sticky and stained red from the fruit I had
shared with Olikea. My mind wobbled as it tried to integrate the idea of
dreaming myself into a world that left physical evidence of itself. The other
side, Olikea had called it. And now I was back on this side. The strength of
the sunlight filtering through my shutters told me that I had slept far past
my usual rising time. I rose and opened the window to the day. It was
sunny and fine, and the sun already stood high in the sky. I rubbed my
face again, and then grunted in annoyance. By the time I’d wiped the
stickiness of the dream fruit from my face and hands, I had another
distraction. The sounds of a horse and cart reached me through the open
window. I wondered if someone was returning Clove to me, but a glance
out the window showed me that was not so. A man with his face muffled
in a scarf perched on the seat of wagon pulled by a swaybacked black nag.
It took me a moment to recognize Ebrooks. Three coffins jutted from the
open back of the cart. My heart sank. It had begun.
I went out to meet him. He waved me back. “Speck plague!” he shouted at
me “Going though the town like a prairie fire. Here. Put this on before you
come any closer.” He tossed me first a small glass bottle and then a folded
cloth. The liquid in the bottle proved to be vinegar. “Wet the cloth with
that and tie it over your nose and mouth.”
“Will it keep away the plague?” I asked him as I obeyed him. He
shrugged. “It’s mostly for the smell. But if it keeps you from catching
plague, well, you haven’t lost anything.”
As I tightened the knot in the kerchief over my face, I heard a terrible
sound. It was like a distant scream, breathlessly and hideously prolonged.
It ended with a monumental crash that shook the earth under my feet. I
staggered a step or two from the impact and then stood unsteadily, dizzied
from the experience. “What was that?” I demanded of Ebrooks.
He gave me a puzzled look. “I told you. Just vinegar. But some folk say it
wards off the plague. Can’t hurt is what I say.”
“No, not that. That noise in the distance. The scream. That explosion.” He
looked puzzled. “I didn’t hear anything. There was some talk in town that
the high mucky-mucks from Old Thares were saying that we were wasting
time trying to fell those big trees with saws and hatchets. One fellow
suggested drilling a hole and packing a black powder charge into the
trunk and then touching it off with a long fuse. Don’t know that they
decided to do it, though. And I’m not sure you could hear if from here even
if they did.”
“Oh, I think I’d hear it,” I said faintly. The world still seemed to shimmer
at the edges. I knew what I’d heard. The ancestor tree had fallen. That
piece of the past had been destroyed. I had a sense of a gaping tear in
time, and a cold wind blowing through it. What had been known was
unknown now. Names recalled, deeds of old, all gone, as if in an instant a
great library had collapsed into ash. Gone.
“You all right, Nevare? You coming down with the fever?” “No. No, I don’t
have the plague. I’m just—forget it. Forget it, Ebrooks.” All would be
forgotten. “Three bodies. It seems so sudden.” “Yes, well, the plague is
always sudden. There will be more before the day is out. The colonel
himself has it; they say every officer that was on the reviewing stand is
down with it, and a good portion of the troops. The infirmary filled up last
night. Now they’re telling people to stay home and put a yellow flag out in
front of their houses if they have sickness and need help. Town looks like a
field of daffodils.”
“But you’re all right?”
“So far. But I’ve had it twice, and lived both times. Makes it less likely I’ll
get it again. Come on. No time for talking. We’ve got to get these ones
planted before the next load arrives. Kesey was waiting on coffins when I
left. Luckily, they had a batch of planks all sawn, just the right size.”
“Yes. Lucky.” I didn’t say that was due to my foresight. What had seemed
eminently practical when I had suggested it now seemed grisly and
foreboding. I felt as if I’d been the croaker bird waiting for the dead to die.
As if my thought had summoned them, I heard a hoarse cawing. I turned
to see three of the carrion eaters sail in from the seemingly empty blue
skies and alight in the branches of my newly planted trees, which bent
beneath the weight of their heavy bodies. One of the croakers spread his
wide black wings in alarm and cawed again. I felt cold. Ebrooks didn’t
even notice them. “All those empty graves you dug will come in handy
now. Time to show the colonel what you’re made of.”
“Is he very ill?” I asked him. I walked beside the wagon as he drove it
slowly to the opened and waiting earth.
“The colonel? I reckon. He’s never had it before. First year he was here, it
went through the ranks like a batch of salts. Killed the commanding
officer; that was when Colonel Haren got jumped up to commander. Well,
the day he did, he all but went into hiding.
You’ve seen how he is. Hardly ever leaves his rooms if he can help it. I hear
he’s got them all fixed up like a little palace in there. Comfy as a bug in a
rug. Winter and summer, he keeps a fire going in there; I know that
rumor is true, because I see the smoke all the time. Someone told him that
fire fights off fever; burns it right out of the air before it can get to a man.
Seemed to work for him, anyway. But maybe this was just his time for it.
He come down bad, I hear, and none of those visiting officers are likely to
go home. Well, actually, they will, but in boxes. Too good to be buried out
here in the wild east with us common soldiers. They’ll go home to their
fancy stone tombs. Well, here we are. Last stop, folks.”
His forced good cheer was already beginning to grate on me, but I didn’t
ask him to stop. I suspected that whatever feelings he hid behind that
mask would be harder for me to look at. We worked quickly and efficiently
to set each coffin in an open grave. The names were marked on each
coffin. Elje Soot. Jace Montey. Peer Miche. The waiting graves were ones I
had dug last autumn. Grass and weeds had sprouted on the soil mounded
next to each hole. “I’ll go get some shovels,” I said when the heavy coffins
were in place.”
“Sorry, friend. I won’t be staying to help you dig today. My orders were to
come right back for the next load. Oh. Wait.” He took a folded paper from
his pocket. “Here are the names. Better note down who went in each hole
if you want to make markers for them later.” He watched me closely as I
took the paper. “Oh. Yes. Thank you, I’ll do that.” I took the list, scarcely
seeing the names.
“I’ll see you later, then.”
“I’m afraid you will, and often.” He paused. “You didn’t know none of
them, did you?” he asked curiously.
“No. I don’t think I did. And it’s too late now.”
“Humph. Well, I admit I thought you might flinch a bit when you saw
those names. But either you’re cold as ice or you never knew them at all.
These fellows aren’t dead from plague, Nevare. These are the ones they
found dead around your wagon in the stable. Doctor still don’t know what
killed them. He wanted to keep them a bit longer, figure it out, but with all
the folks sick and needing the beds, he told me, ‘Just get them in the
ground. We’ll sort it all out later.’ You didn’t know nothing about them,
huh?”
A chill went up my back. Ebrooks had been testing me with that list. I
tried to speak slowly as if jolted by his news. “Someone found my wagon?
And my horse? I got jumped a couple days ago. Hit on the head. When I
woke up, I’d been robbed. My horse and wagon were gone. I managed to
walk back here and didn’t do much for the next day or so. You think they
were the ones who jumped me?”
“Well. I known them a little. Never figured them for thieves. Not that they
were gentlemen, either. Mean as a mad dog, that was Elje. And Peer just
liked to see blood. Everyone knew that about him. None of the whores ever
wanted his money. Still, I hate to see any of us go like that. They were all
twisted up like poisoned cats. That’s no death for a soldier.”
A terrible tingling ran over me. In a fit of anger, I’d killed these men. It
had been vengeance for what they had done to me, and yet it still bothered
me. Horribly. Ebrooks was right. Execution by unseen magic was not a
fitting death for any soldier. I felt as if I was made of wood as I lifted a
numbed hand to wave a farewell to Ebrooks. He waved back at me and
slapped the reins on the horse’s back.
I fetched my spade and began moving earth down onto the coffins. The
first few shovelfuls woke an empty thumping from the coffin below, but
soon I was shoveling earth onto earth. I’d finished the first grave and was
carefully packing the mounded earth into a smooth heap before it
occurred to me how commonplace this had become to me. I hadn’t even
breathed a prayer over them. Neither had Ebrooks. He’d behaved as if
he’d dropped off a load of grain sacks. All my life, I’d always heard of our
glorious military tradition of respect for the dead. After battles, our
soldiers were always buried with pomp, ceremony, and reverence. The
military cemeteries in the west were well tended, planted with flowers and
trees and solemnized with ornamental statues. Not here. Here we planted
our dead like potatoes.
Speck plague had made death mundane. Dealing with it had become
something we did efficiently. Mourning would come later, when danger
had passed and we had time for reflection. It saddened me, but on a deep
level of familiarity, I understood it. It was no different from how I had
been forced to bury my mother, sister, and brother.
I put my foot on the shovel and pushed it deep into the grassed-over heap
of soil. The first shovelful of earth and gravel rattled down onto the coffin’s
wooden lid. It was the only music that would be played to memorialize this
passing.
The day was warm, and sweat had long since soaked my shirt to my back.
I toiled doggedly on. My head throbbed. My brief sleep of the night before
had not rested me. On the contrary, whenever I allowed my mind to stray
to that “dream,” I felt even more drained of energy and purpose. I did not
think that Olikea would make a threat she could not fulfill. The only way I
could distract myself from that anxiety was to worry about Spink and
Epiny and Amzil and the children. Had the plague descended on their
house as well? If it had not, if her mind was free to dwell on such things,
would Epiny forgive me for not coming to visit as I’d said I would? I hoped
she would consider my profession and understand. I lifted yet another
shovelful of soil.
I promised myself that as soon as I finished the third grave, I would take a
rest. I’d make a trip to the spring for cool, fresh water. I was thinking of
that longingly as I used the back of the shovel to smooth the mounded soil
over the last grave when I heard an ominous sound. It was the rattling of
heavy wagons. On the first, driving it slowly, sat Kesey, his face swathed
against the plague. The wagon rode heavy; there were six coffins stacked
in it. A soldier I didn’t know drove the other wagon, equally large. Three
other soldiers rode in the back, perched on top of a load of lumber. The
second wagon halted near my shed. The men jumped down and began
unloading their cargo. Kesey drove the other wagon slowly toward me. He
hadn’t even reached me before I saw Ebrooks drive up his horse and
wagon, similarly laden. Kesey pulled his team in. “Give me a hand
unloading,” he requested gruffly.
“What are those men doing?” I asked, gesturing at the fellows unloading
lumber. He shook his head sadly. “The bodies are piling up at the
infirmary. I can only haul six coffins at a time. But if the supplies to make
coffins or the coffins themselves are already out here, then I can just bring
the bodies. We can crate them up here before we drop them in the holes.”
He spoke with deliberate callousness. He climbed into the back of his
wagon while I stood at the rear of it and shoved one of the top coffins
toward me. I caught an end of it, surprised by how little it weighed. Kesey
saw the look. “She was just a girl,” he said. “Martil Tane.”
“You have a list of names, then?”
“I do.”
We lowered the first coffin and went on to the others, taking each one in
its turn. The names were roughly chalked on the coffin lids. I put the list of
the dead in my pocket with the first one. By the time we were finished
with Kesey’s load, Ebrooks was ready to deliver his. We went by the order
of his list. I borrowed a pencil stub from Ebrooks to number the lists to
match the graves. Nine coffins awaited burial. I was relieved when
Ebrooks and Kesey both went for shovels. Even with three of us working, it
was heavy work. At one point, they walked to the shade of my fledgling
hedge while I went to the spring for a bucket of water. We drank, put fresh
vinegar on our masks, and cooled our heads. “How bad is it going to get?”
I wondered aloud.
Kesey lifted his mask and spat to one side. “The first few days are always
heavy. The weak ones go down fast. After that, it’s just steady for a while.
Then, just when you think it has to be over, there will be another flurry of
deaths. I think the people that have been taking care of everyone just get
too tired and let go. Then it trickles off until it’s only one or two a day until
it finally stops. And then winter comes.”
I wanted to ask him how many plague seasons he had seen, but could not
bring myself to form the words. I looked at the freshly mounded graves,
then toward my shed, where the ringing of hammers against nails had
been a constant since the men and lumber arrived. A glance in that
direction showed me a tidy stack of new coffins. As I watched, two men
stood up and moved another one into place. There was something so
implacable about the process that my heart turned over in my chest. It
was almost like an odd sort of peace.
This was the Gettys I had not been able to see before now. This parade of
coffins, this methodical burial of the dead, this was what had separated
me from the veterans of my regiment, far more than my body had. This
was the war they had fought without weapons every summer since they
had been stationed here. They lived the year around knowing that when
the hot, dry days of summer returned, disease would pick them off as
remorselessly as any enemy marksman. Like any battle-hardened
regiment, they looked askance at the newcomer, wondering how long he
would last and if, when the battle were joined, he would fight or break. I
had been green and I had not known it until then. We were at war with
the Specks, and today marked my first skirmish. How had I ever doubted
it? I had lived in the midst of this graveyard and never truly seen what it
meant until then.
“Let’s finish it,” I said quietly, and picked up my shovel. With a grunt,
Ebrooks stooped to take up his and Kesey followed.
I was smoothing the last mound with the back of my shovel when I heard
the creak and clatter of another wagon coming. I looked up in dismay. The
sky had begun to turn pink in the west; the light would soon be gone. Over
an hour ago, the coffin-builders had left their yield and departed for town.
Only the three of us remained.
I didn’t recognize the driver until Kesey grunted and said, “More joy to
come. It’s Sergeant Hoster.” Ebrooks uttered a muffled obscenity. I said
nothing at all, but my heart filled with dread. Yet when they picked up
their shovels and went to meet the wagon, I forced myself to trail along
after them. Hoster pulled in his team alongside the row of empty coffins
and sat waiting for us to approach. His vinegar-soaked mask was crusted
brown with road dust. “Got a few more deaders for you. The docs don’t
want them lying around the infirmary.”
“Couldn’t they have waited until morning? Night’s coming on fast,” Kesey
objected.
“You don’t have to bury them tonight. Just get me unloaded so I can head
back to town. There’s a double Gettys tonic waiting for me, and one of
Sarla’s whores, on the house.” He scratched the back of his neck and then
pretended to notice me for the first time. “Well, well. I thought you’d run
off and joined the Specks by now. You would have if you were smart, Burv.
But then you probably think you are smart. So smart that you think you
covered all your tracks and no one can prove what you done. But I can,
Tubs. And you won’t get away with it. This outbreak of plague may give
you a bit of a reprieve, long enough to dig more graves. But when it’s all
over, we’ll still find time to deal with you. I promise you, in the end you’ll
be filling a grave up here. Justice will be done.”
“I haven’t done anything,” I retorted, but even as I said the words, I knew
them for a lie and could almost taste the untruth in my mouth. I’d killed
those three men and now I’d just lied about it. Hoster laughed skeptically.
“Keep saying that. See how much good it does you. Bet you’re wishing you
could bury me, aren’t you, Fats? Shove me under a shitpile like you did
that poor whore. I’ll admit one thing. I’d love to know how you done those
men.”
“I don’t think he had anything to do with it,” Ebrooks defended me
suddenly. “He didn’t even know their names. He said he got jumped and
someone stole his wagon.”
“You don’t have to know a man’s name to kill him, stupid. Now shut up
and unload this wagon.”
He had the stripes. We did as he told us. There were three bodies, loosely
shrouded in sheets. The first was a woman. We set her in her coffin, and
while Kesey put a lid on top, Ebrooks and I went back for the next body.
The cloth came free of his face and I was shocked to recognize the barber
who had shaved me when I first came to Gettys. I hadn’t know him well,
but having the plague take an acquaintance was a sharp reminder that it
could strike much closer to me. No one I cared about was safe. I was
setting the lid in place on his coffin when I heard Kesey exclaim, “Damn!
Buel Hitch. I never figured him to die from plague.”
Sergeant Hoster laughed. “I always thought a jealous husband would do
him in. Or that Speck whore I heard he had.” He lifted his mask and spat
over the side of the wagon. “Get him out of there. I want to go home.” He
drove off as soon as the body was clear of the wagon. I stood, stunned and
numb, and let Kesey and Ebrooks carry the scout to his coffin. As they set
him in, Kesey said quietly, “He must have gone down fast. He’s still
wearing his uniform.” With unlikely tenderness, he reached down and
tugged Hitch’s collar straight.
“Or as much of the uniform as he ever wore.” Ebrooks gave a small, fond
laugh. “Damn the luck. That’s a shame. That man had the spirit of the old
regiment in him. Not many of us left like him. It’s too bad to see him go
like that.” I had picked up another coffin lid. As I approached the coffin, I
wondered if I wanted to look at Hitch’s face one last time or not. The
choice was taken from me. Kesey had reached in and covered him over,
and I found I couldn’t bring myself to touch the cloth. I set the
wooden-planked lid in place. Ebrooks spoke quietly. “You keep good
watch over him tonight, Nevare. Don’t let no Specks come and steal him.
He may have walked the line, and yes, we all know he crossed over it more
than once. But he was ours, he was cavalla, and he ought to be buried
here, not stuck to some tree somewhere.” “He had a Speck woman, I
heard,” Kesey added sagely. “She or her kin might come for him. You keep
good watch, Nevare.”
“You aren’t going to help me bury them tonight?” I was dismayed at the
thought of letting the corpses lie unburied all night.
“Tomorrow’s soon enough,” Kesey said, glancing at the sky. “Light’s going.
I don’t fancy filling in graves in the dark. Ebrooks and me, we got a long
drive back to town. We don’t leave now, it’ll be too dark to see before we
get there. But we’ll be back tomorrow. Probably with more bodies, may
the good god save us.” He shook his head at my shocked expression.
“Nevare, you’ll get used to it and more’s the shame. When they really start
dropping, there’s no keeping up with it. You done your best to get ready
for this, but before the week is over, you’ll be digging a trench and
covering them any way you can. And no one will think the less of you for
it.”
I could think of no response. I watched them mount the wagon. Kesey
slapped the reins on the horse’s back and they drove away. I was left
standing beside three coffins in the gathering dark.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE MESSENGER
I couldn’t stand it.
The thought of going to my cabin, eating, and then trying to sleep while
the dead lay in boxes outside my cabin was too much for me. I looked at
the darkening sky and resolved to try to bury them.
The problem was moving the laden coffins to the graves with neither Clove
nor my cart to help. The woman’s body had been the lightest, so I began
with her. I could not lift the laden coffin; the problem was not the weight.
The size and shape prevented me from getting a firm grip on it. Dragging
it was difficult and nearly disastrous. I crabbed along backward, dragging
the coffin over the uneven ground. The hasty workmanship of the coffin
builders was soon evident, as the flimsily built box began to give way. I
stopped and, muttering an apology to the dead woman, removed the lid
from the coffin and lifted her body out of the box. I tried to be respectful
as I lay her loosely shrouded body on the bare earth. I could not restrain
myself from hurrying as I carried the empty coffin to her grave site and
then all but ran back to fetch her body. Once I was at her grave, I
discovered a new awkwardness. I could not lower the laden coffin gently
into the earth by myself. I did what was expedient. I put the open coffin in
the grave and then lowered her body into it. I cringe when I think of how
awkward it was to straddle the coffin while I put the lid on it, and then
step on top of it to clamber out of her grave. I had acted with the best of
intentions, and yet I still felt as shamed as if I had deliberately been
disrespectful to her. The whole process had taken far longer than I had
expected. I shoveled earth in the darkness, working to cover her coffin
more by feel than by sight. When I stood beside her grave to offer a simple
prayer to the good god on her behalf, I realized I didn’t know her name.
The sergeant had not give me a list. I cursed him for his callousness. Then
I added a prayer for myself, that no matter how many bodies I buried, I
would remain properly respectful to the dead. Shovel on my shoulder, I
went back to my cabin. The light leaking out from the shutters was a
welcome beacon as I trudged past the freshly mounded graves. I wanted to
put this day behind me, to rest, and then find strength to move forward
through the dismal days ahead of me.
I planned to go inside, wash my hands, and then use one precious sheet of
my journal paper to carefully make a record of the folk I had buried that
day. I decided I’d record the woman as “unknown woman victim, blonde
hair, of middle years, delivered to cemetery by Sergeant Hoster along with
the bodies of Scout Buel Hitch and the barber whose shop was by the west
gate.” If anyone came looking for them, perhaps the date of death and that
brief description would be enough. I realized I faced a long winter of
making grave markers. I wondered if I dared try to sleep that night. No. I
feared I’d dreamwalk again if I did. And I had to guard Hitch’s body. My
heart sank as I considered his death. I’d lost a true friend. I took a breath
and closed my heart to the grief that tried to hollow it. I needed my
strength for the next few weeks. Later I could give way to mourning. I
pushed open my door.
In the same moment that I recalled my cabin should have been dark, I saw
Hitch sitting beside the little hearth fire he’d lit. I froze where I was. He
turned to me and grinned apologetically. His face had lost flesh from the
plague, and there were dark hollows under his eyes. His voice was hoarse.
“Come on in and pull up a chair, Nevare. We need to talk.” The foul smell
of the plague, familiar to me from my own experience with it, wafted to
me on his breath. I took two steps backward. Then I turned and ran to the
two coffins I’d left by my tool shed. The lid from Hitch’s had been kicked
aside. It was empty except for a rumpled sheet in the bottom. I went back
to my cabin. At the door I hesitated, then resolutely shook my foolishness
away. He hadn’t been dead. That was all. Dr. Amicas had been aware of
such incidents; plague victims sank into comas so deep they were
mistaken for death. The doctor had insisted on bodies being held
overnight to prevent anyone being buried alive. Spink and I had both been
“dead” for a time. I pushed my superstitious fears aside. “By the good
god’s mercy, Hitch, I’m so sorry. I thought I was imagining you there.” I
hurried past him to my water cask and began filling my kettle. “We all
believed you were dead. It’s only the sheerest luck that I didn’t bury you
tonight. I’m so sorry, man. Do you feel all right? I’m making coffee. Do you
need water, food? To wake up in a coffin! What could be worse?”
“Not to wake up at all, I suppose. But worst of all is to have someone waste
a man’s last bit of time with idle chatter. Be quiet, Nevare, and listen. I’m
here as a messenger. You were expecting me, weren’t you?” Olikea’s angry
words echoed in my mind. “It will send you a messenger you cannot
ignore.” Cold emanated from my spine and spread to every part of my
body. I barely managed to set the kettle on the hob without spilling it. I
was suddenly shaking, my teeth chattering with it. His grin grew wider, a
merry death rictus. “Are you cold? Sit down by the fire, Nevare. I don’t
have much time. Listen to me.”
“No. No, Hitch, you listen to me. Back at the academy, Dr. Amicas said
some of the plague victims seemed to die but then they revived. That was
why he wasn’t letting the orderlies take the bodies out of the wards right
away. You’ve just been in a very deep coma and now you’ve come out of it.
You’re disoriented and confused. You need to rest. The same thing
happened to me and to my friend Spink. We both lived. Let me get you
some water, and then I’ll ride for the doctor—No, damnit, they stole Clove.
But I’ll go on foot. I’ll get help for you. You just rest.”
He shook his head slowly. “There isn’t any help for me, Nevare. I made my
choice a long time ago, or rather, the magic made its choice when it took
me. After that, I had no choices. That’s one of the things I’ve come to tell
you. You have to understand this. You don’t have choices when it comes to
what the magic makes you do. It can turn you against your own people; it
can make you do things you’d be ashamed to whisper to a demon. Sit
down, Nevare. Please sit down.” I knew that I should insist on getting help
for him immediately. Instead, I slowly sank into my chair across from him.
He smiled at me, and for a moment he looked more like his old self. Then
he looked down at his feet. They were bare, I suddenly noticed. They’d sent
him to his grave without his boots. He spoke without meeting my eyes.
“I’m going to tell you one of those things I wouldn’t whisper to a demon,
Nevare. Because I think it may be the only way to convince you that you
have to do what the magic demands of you. And it’s the only way I can
clear my conscience. You’ve been resisting the magic, haven’t you?”
“Hitch, I truly don’t know what you are talking about. Olikea says the
same thing. So does Jodoli, and so did Tree Woman. They all tell me that
I’m supposed to do something that will send the Gernians away. They act
as if I know what it is I’m supposed to have done by now. But I have no
idea what they are talking about. If that’s what the magic wants, then it
should give me some clue of how I’m supposed to accomplish it. Because I
don’t think there is any action one man could take that would suddenly
cause King Troven to give up his road to the sea and the Kingdom of
Gernia to retreat from its frontiers. Do you?” He slowly shook his head.
“Well, I don’t know of any. But then it isn’t my task. It’s yours.” He gave
me a ghost of his old grin. “I’ll tell you one thing that was true of the magic
for me. When it wanted me to do a thing, I knew clearly what it was. And I
did it. It always seemed the most obvious choice to make. It made me
want to do it more than anything else in the world. Even if it was
something wrong, something that went completely against the grain, the
magic made it easy, even desirable. Nothing ever made me feel better than
just doing what it wanted me to do.” He coughed a dry little cough and
added, “I’ll take that drink of water now, if you please.”
His request comforted me. I’d been toying with the idea that I’d somehow
slipped into dream travel and was only speaking to him on that “other
side.” To have him ask for something as simple as water made me more
confident that we were still in my real world. I rose and went to fill my cup
from my water barrel. When I brought it to him, he took it and drank it in
long, smooth swallows. He lingered over that water as if it were nectar.
I spoke as he drank. “Your fever’s broken, Hitch. Let me find you some
food. If you drink a lot of water and eat some bland food and get some
good rest, you’ll be fine. You’ll live. I know how vivid fever dreams can be.
But you’re back in the real world now. You’re safe. You’re going to live.” As
he handed the cup back to me, our eyes met. He looked sorrowful. “Thank
you, Nevare. And not just for the water, but for hoping I’ll live. I won’t, not
in this ‘real world’ of yours. In that other world, well, yes, I expect to live
for a good long time. In fact, it has been promised to me. Especially if you
do the task the magic has given you. But my time here is ticking away,
even now. So let me talk while I can.
“You’re a good man, old son. You’d have been a good soldier, and I suspect
you’d have been a damn fine officer, given the chance. But then, so would
I, if the magic hadn’t taken me. I hope you’ll understand that what I did, I
did because I didn’t have a choice. Soldiers kill in times of war, and
sometimes they do even worse. They’re under orders. And everyone
understands that a man under orders does things he wouldn’t otherwise
do. When you think of me after this, think of that, please. ‘Hitch was
under orders.’ Will you do that for me?” A terrible foreboding rose in me. I
moved the bubbling kettle off the hob and then slowly sat down in my
chair again. “Tell me what you did,” I suggested quietly.
He shook his head, his lips pursed sourly. “You already know, don’t you?”
He sighed. “I tried to warn you about it. ‘If you resist the magic, then bad
things happen to you, things that force you to go the way it wants you to
go.’ I told you that. Never say I didn’t. It’s like being a sheep herded by a
big mean dog. Run where it wants you to, and you don’t get bit. I’ve been
bitten by it a few times. Did I ever tell you that once I had a wife and a
little girl? A real wife, I mean, a Gernian wife, one who dressed in ruffles
and set a fine table, and played sweet little songs to me on her lap harp.
Lalaina. And I loved her, Never. Loved her, and our little golden-haired
girl. But that wasn’t what the magic wanted from me. It wanted me out
riding the edges and doing its bidding, not sitting home listening to sweet
little tunes with a child on my lap. I wouldn’t leave them, though, not for
the magic, not for the world. So the magic took them away.
“The plague cut them down, and once my roots were gone, the magic
could roll me wherever it wanted me. Kind of like what it done to you. A
girl to marry and your mother’s love and a father who respected you? Well,
if you’d kept all those things, you wouldn’t be here now, would you? So
when you held onto those things too tight, whisk! The magic took them
away. See, that’s what I’m telling you. There’s something you’re still
holding tight to, isn’t there? If you love it, let go of it. Before the magic
destroys it, or finds a way to make you let go.”
“Epiny and Spink, you mean?” Amzil and her children came to my mind
also, but not from my lips. Not even then could I admit to Hitch that I
cared about them.
“I don’t know who or what you cling to, man. I’m not the magic! All I know
is that you stay here when the magic wants you to move on. So it found a
way to make you move on. Don’t hate me for this. I’m the messenger. But I
came here on my own just as much as because the magic made me.
Because, despite everything, I’m still a soldier son, like you. I’ve still got a
bit of honor left.” He shook his head ruefully. “Damn me. In a few more
minutes, you’re going to hate me, old son. I don’t like the thought of that.
But it’s got to be, before I go. So before I make you hate me, I’ll ask you a
last good turn. Because I know that if you give me your word, you’ll stick
to it, even if you hate me. “Never, will you do me a favor?”
“What kind of favor?” I asked him, suddenly suspicious. He gave a
croaker bird’s caw of laughter. “There, you see. I shouldn’t have warned
you. A couple of minutes ago you’d have agreed first and then asked what
it was. Well, it’s something easy, Never. Don’t bury me. That’s all I’m
asking. I’m supposed to get a tree. That’s a high honor from the Specks.
My own tree. And if they do, if the Specks come and take my body, let
them have it. All right? Just let them have it.”
The thought appalled me. I covered it as best I could. “I’m not going to
bury you, Hitch, because you aren’t dead.”
He folded his mouth into a stubborn smile and shook his head as if my
words amused him. “Just say you won’t bury me, and I’ll do whatever you
ask, Never. Because I know you’ll keep your word.”
“Fine. I won’t bury you.” I felt I was indulging a child. “Now do what you
said you’d do. Obey me. Go lie down. I’ll bring you more water.” He rose
slowly and when he did, I saw how the sickness had wasted him. His
clothing hung on his body. He walked slowly to my bed and sat down on it
while I got him water. When I handed it to him, he said, “Good-bye,
friend. Good-bye. Because this is the part I do for myself, so I can die
knowing that I warned you. So I say good-bye to you one last time as a
friend, because in just a few moments, we won’t be friends anymore. Will
you shake my hand a last time, Never? Nevare. See, I’ll even call you by
your real name. Just shake my hand a last time, and then I’ll tell you. It
will make you hate me, but I warned you.”
“Hitch, you’re raving. Just lie back. I’ll be back soon. Well, as soon as I
can.” I turned for the door.
He groaned. “Good-bye, my friend. Good-bye.”
I feared he was becoming feverish again. He sounded so strange. My hand
was on the door latch when he spoke.
“I killed Fala. I choked her to death with a strap I took from Clove’s
harness. And when it was done, I went to Rollo’s Tavern and I got drunk.
Good and drunk. Drunk enough to tell everyone that you were a nice
enough fellow, really, but you had a bit of a mean streak, and a temper
where women were concerned. And I hinted that Fala had laughed at you
when you couldn’t do the deed with her. We all had a good laugh about
that one, a big porker like you trying to prong a tiny little thing like Fala.
Everyone knew she’d never lie still for it. She’d mouth a man, but that was
all. Did ’em all fast, that was our Fala. Yes. We had a good laugh. And then
I drank some more, and threw up on Rollo’s floor, and passed out and
slept it off in the corner. And rode out the next day. And the worst part
was that I felt good about all of it. Really good. Because I was doing what
the magic wanted me to do. The magic wants you to come to the forest.
And if you won’t come because you’re being offered sweet foods and
sweeter flesh by Olikea and led that way, then it will drive you with
whatever whip or spur it can find. Just like it drove you away from your
home. There. I’m done. You hate me now, don’t you?”
“I think I will in a moment,” I said quietly. I was reeling from his
revelation. At the same time, all of the pieces were falling into place for
me. Hitch had taken me to Sarla Moggam’s brothel. Had he arranged that
Fala would volunteer to take me? It wasn’t an unheard of thing, for one
man to arrange a whore for a friend, as a favor or as a rough jest. I
remembered the missing bit of strap from Clove’s harness, and now I
recalled, with a groan, how interested Sergeant Hoster had been in Clove’s
harness the last time I’d gone to town. The three men who had attacked
me? That was what they’d been after. Not to steal my horse and wagon,
maybe not even to hurt me, but to get Clove’s harness, and show the one
new strap amid all the old tack he wore. I’d killed them for that. I
wondered where that harness was now. Did Hoster have it? Did anyone
else know its significance?
If I didn’t flee Gettys and take to the forest and the Specks, my regiment
would hang me for killing Fala. As Hitch had warned me, I had no choices
left. Not if I wanted to live.
And Hitch, my friend Hitch, had set me up for all this. He’d framed me
neatly. Who wouldn’t believe that a whore would mock a fat man who
couldn’t perform with her? Was that a reason to kill her? Enough men
would think so. And would they think me stupid enough to have throttled
her with a strap from my own horse’s harness? Yes, they would. I looked at
the wreck of a man whom I had trusted. I’d saved his life. I’d called him
friend. “You’ve ruined me,” I said quietly. “I know,” he replied as softly.
“And as a man and as your friend, I’m sorry about that, Nevare. Sorry
beyond anything you can ever know. All I can repeat is that the magic
made me do it. Maybe someday you’ll understand what I mean by that,
how it forces and lures a man to do what it wants. “I’ll only say one more
thing, and then you can do what you want. Beat me back to death, if it
brings you any satisfaction. I’m headed that way anyway. But before I go,
let me tell you this. Whatever it is you’re supposed to do, Nevare, you’d
better do it. Do it and have done with it, and know that you did what was
best for king and country, not to mention yourself. The Specks, they’re
determined to have us out of here. The Dust Dance plague and the fear at
the end of the road and the despair that rolls out of the forest and fills
Gettys: you might think that’s awful magic, but the Specks think it’s sweet
persuasion. They were sure it would send us all hightailing out of here. But
it hasn’t. And you and I both know that likely it won’t. But if you don’t find
a way to make it happen, well, then, all the Specks will say that Kinrove
has failed and that it is time to listen to the words of the younger men.”
I was scarcely listening to him. My mind was racing through solutions to
my problem. I could leave tonight and seek refuge with the Specks. That
solution held little appeal to me. I’d be abandoning all my friends, and
they’d believe what Sergeant Hoster told them about me. I also didn’t
relish the prospect of Olikea flaunting that she had told me so. But a
darker fear was that by giving into the magic, I’d be setting my feet on the
same path that Buel Hitch had followed. I didn’t want to become what he
was now, a decent man distorted and tormented by the foreign magic that
had infected him. I’d rather face a hanging than be herded like a sheep. I
would not flee directly into the jaws of what threatened me.
I could see two alternatives. One was to keep laboring at the cemetery and
hope that in the tragedy and the confusion of the plague, poor Fala’s
murder would be forgotten. Yet Sergeant Hoster had promised me he’d
never let that happen. The sole hope I had of remaining in Gettys and
escaping the noose was the man now reclining in my bed, talking in a
voice that sounded ever vaguer. “The youngsters, they say they have to
make it a war in the way Gernians understand war. Maybe they’re right.
They say that Kinrove’s dancing has failed, that all it has done is consume
the best and strongest of them. They’re the younger generation, and
they’ve got new ideas of how to deal with us. They don’t want to give up
what they get from us; they like the trade we bring. But they don’t want us
living here, and they’re tired of waiting for us to go away, and they won’t
tolerate us cutting their ancestor trees. Some of them think the best
solution would be open warfare, bloodshed that we’d understand, and
taking what they want from us. You were the last best hope for avoiding
that, Nevare. If you don’t do whatever it is you’re supposed to do, they’ll
bring war down on us. And there are two things you should know about
that: there’s a lot more Specks than the other scouts think there is. And
they’d all be willing to die, down to the last child, to protect one ancestor
tree.”
His voice had become a hoarse whisper. His eyes were drooping shut.
“Hitch?”

He had stopped speaking. He turned his head slightly toward me but
didn’t open his eyes.
“Hitch, I’m going for help for you. Just lie there and rest. I’ll be back. I
promise.”
He took a breath and sighed it out as if it would be his last. But then he
spoke. “Don’t fight it, Never. It all goes easier if you don’t fight it. I’m not
going to fight it anymore.”
“Hitch. I’ll be back.”

A very faint smile curved his lips. “I know you will.”
I wanted to run. I knew that if I did, I’d collapse long before I reached
town. So I set off at the brisk walk that I thought I could sustain. The
night was clear and the moon had risen. There was no color in the light it
gave me, but the longer I walked, the more my eyes adjusted. That bit of
moonlight and the feel of the road under my boots were enough to guide
me. I was tired to the bone. I’d had two solid days of hard physical labor,
with only a sleepless night full of strange dreams to rest me. My back
ached from all the digging I’d done. It was fear that drove me more than
the desire to save Hitch’s life. I wanted him to live, but only because I
hoped I could persuade him to confess to what he had done. It was a thin
thread of hope, but I still believed that I knew the heart of the man. He’d
done terrible things, if I were to believe his words, but in his heart he was
still a soldier son, born to duty. If Hoster did accuse me, I didn’t think
Hitch would stand idly by and watch me hang for something I hadn’t
done. Would he put his own head in the noose to save me? That was a
question I didn’t want to consider. I focused on the problem at hand; I had
to keep him alive.

More than once on that long walk I cursed the men who had stolen Clove
and my wagon. My big horse would have made nothing of this journey.
When the lights of Gettys came into sight, I had to resist the urge to break
into a run. I knew I had to pace myself. It seemed to me that more lights
than usual burned in the windows for such a late hour. When I finally
reached the town itself, I followed the main thoroughfare right up to the
gates of the fort without seeing a living soul on the street. I passed three
blanket-draped bodies set out in front of homes.
The annual invasion of the plague had created its own traditions for the
town. The dead were put out almost as soon as they had expired for the
corpse wagons that would make a circuit of the town three times a day
until the plague season ended. People, I thought to myself, learned to cope;
there was nothing so strange, so heartbreaking, or so horrifying that
people could not eventually become accustomed to it.
The wooden walls of Gettys stood tall and black against the night sky.
There was a lone sentry on the gate. A torch burned low in a sconce beside
him, making inky shadows at his feet. He drew himself up straighter as I
approached and then commanded me to “Halt!” When I did, he
announced, “This post is under quarantine. No one may enter who is sick
with the plague.”
“That’s the most useless measure I’ve ever heard!” I exclaimed. “There’s
plague both in and outside the walls. What is the use of a quarantine
now?” He looked tired. “Colonel Haren gave the order before he took ill.
And now that he’s dead and Major Elwig is raving with fever, there’s no
one to rescind it. I’m only doing my duty.”
“And I’m doing the same. I’ve come in from the cemetery. And I’m not
bringing any sickness that isn’t already here. Scout Buel Hitch was sent
out on a corpse wagon a bit prematurely. I think that if a doctor could
come to his aid, he might recover.”
He laughed. There was no joy in it, or even bitterness. He laughed because
I so casually suggested the impossible. “The town doctor is dead. Both the
regiment doctors are overwhelmed with the sick already. Neither will leave
the infirmary to go to treat a single victim, regardless of who he is.” ]
“I have to try,” I said, and with a skeptical nod, he passed me through. I
found my way through the darkened post to the infirmary where I had
brought Hitch on my first day in Gettys. Lanterns burned on either side of
the entry. Outside it, a double row of draped bodies awaited the corpse
wagons. I walked carefully around them and entered the building. The
same boyish soldier who had greeted me the first day was asleep at the
desk in the anteroom, his head pillowed on his arms on top of a thick
book. Even in his sleep, he looked pale and frightened.
I knocked gently on the desk to awaken him. He lifted his head
immediately, his mouth hanging slack. It took a moment for his eyes to
focus. “Sir?” he asked me vaguely.
“Not ‘sir,’ just ‘soldier.’ I need a doctor for Scout Buel Hitch.” He looked
sleepily confused. “Scout Hitch is dead. I logged him into the record
myself.” He gestured at the ledger he’d been using for a pillow. “He
revived at the cemetery. I think that he’ll live if he can get a doctor’s care.”
His eyes widened slightly. He sat up straighter and looked more alert.
“Lieutenant Hitch is a walker? Ah. Well, if anyone would be, it would be
him. But I doubt he’ll live. Walkers hardly ever live. They only revive for
an hour or so, and then die again. Dr. Dowder and Dr. Frye argue about it
all the time when Dr. Dowder is sober. Dowder says they just go into a
deep coma, rally briefly, and then die. Frye says they really die and then
come back. He wrote a big report for the queen about how the Speck
magic makes them wake up a final time after their first death before they
die their final death. She sent him a present for writing it. The big green
ring he wears on his left hand.”
“You seem to know a lot about it.”
He looked a bit ashamed. “I don’t eavesdrop. The walls here are thin and
they often shout at one another. They shout a lot, about everything. Today
Dowder wanted to bring the sick prisoners here so that they could treat
everyone in one place. Frye was angry about that. He says that soldiers
shouldn’t have to die alongside felons. Dowder said that three infirmaries
for two doctors is ridiculous. And he said that a sick man is a sick man
and deserves to be treated as well as they can manage. They fight about
the prisoners a lot. Almost all the prisoners who get sick die. They lime-pit
the bodies from the prisoner barracks. Dowder says they should be given
a decent burial.”
I’d never even stopped to wonder why dead prisoners never arrived at the
cemetery. Now I knew. Work on the King’s Road, die, and be flung into a
pit full of quicklime. A sordid end for anyone. “Three infirmaries?”
“The officers’ mess is an infirmary now for the visiting delegation from
Old Thares. Every one of them sickened. Dowder says they’re all going to
die because they haven’t been east long enough for their bodies to adapt to
the humors of this region. Frye says they’ll die because the Specks hated
them the most.” I was beginning to think that I needed to have a long
conversation with Frye. He was disturbingly close to what I perceived as
the truth. I wondered if he might lend his weight to my plea that we stop
cutting the ancestor trees to end our war with the Specks. Could he make
Colonel Haren see that we truly were at war? Then I remembered that
Haren was dead. I didn’t have time to feel anything about that. Callously, I
wondered if our next commander might be more open to the truth.
“I need to speak to Dr. Frye or Dr. Dowder. Can you take me to one of
them?”

He shook his head. “I’m not supposed to leave my post.”

“Can I go in there and look for one of them?”

The boy soldier yawned hugely. “Dr. Dowder took a Gettys tonic and went
to bed. You won’t be able to wake him. Dr. Frye is spending the night in
the officers’ ward. You won’t be able to get in there.”

“Is there no one else who can help me? Or at least advise me what I should
do for Scout Hitch?”
The boy looked uncertain. “There are orderlies on duty, but I am not
certain how much they know. And some townspeople have come to help.”
“I’m going to see if there is anyone who can help me,” I announced.
He shook his head at my determination. “As you will,” he conceded. Before
the door had closed behind me, his head was pillowed on his ledger again.
The infirmary ward was dimly lit. A few hooded lanterns burned on small
side tables between the beds, but the room was still shadowy and dim. I
walked into a wall of smell. It wasn’t just sweat and waste and vomit. The
plague itself seemed to exude a sour stink of illness from the bodies it
consumed, just as a fire gives off smoke as it devours fuel. My nightmarish
memories of being confined to a plague ward slammed into reality around
me. For an instant, I felt again the fever and disorientation. All I could
think of was fleeing. I knew I couldn’t.
I made the mistake of trying to take a breath through my mouth. I tasted
the plague then, a foul miasma that coated my tongue and throat with the
taste of death. I gagged, clamped my mouth shut, and furiously took
charge of myself. When I had first delivered Hitch here, the infirmary had
been a clean, sparsely furnished room washed with sunlight. Now the
windows were heavily draped against the night. Twice as many beds lined
the walls, and litters had been brought in and set haphazardly on the floor.
Each bed and pallet held a feverish victim. Some tossed and groaned;
others lay deathly still, breathing hoarsely. The door to the next room was
open. In that room, someone raved with fever. Three upright figures
moved among the fallen. A woman in a gray dress was making up an
empty bed. A man was going from bed to bed, emptying noisome basins
into a slop bucket. Closer to me, a woman in blue bent over a patient,
applying a wet cloth to his brow. I made my way awkwardly toward her,
stepping around the litters on the floor. I had nearly reached her when she
straightened up and turned around. For a moment, we simply regarded
one another in the dim light. “Nevare?” Epiny whispered furiously.
I was caught. I could not flee without treading on sick men. I stood staring
down on her. She had always been a slight woman. Now her face was even
thinner. Her features were sharper than I recalled, and she looked as if
she had aged much more than the one year since I’d last seen her. I
suddenly recalled that she was in the early months of a pregnancy.
“You should not be here, in your condition,” I rebuked her. Her mouth
dropped open in shock. Then she reached across the patient who lay on
the floor between us and seized my upper arm in a painful pinch. Keeping
a grip on me, she walked me along the patient and then tugged me after
her as she picked a path through the beds and pallets.
“Epiny, I—”

“Sshhh!” she hissed furiously.
Still not daring to speak, I followed her out into the anteroom and then
out onto the dark street. The boy soldier at the desk didn’t even stir as we
passed through the room.
Once we were outside, she turned to face me. I braced myself for harsh
words. Instead, she flung herself at me in an attempt to hug me. Her arms
couldn’t span my girth, but it still felt good, until I felt her shoulders heave
in a sudden sob. Then she pushed herself back and looked up at me
angrily. The lantern light picked up the streaks of tears on her face. “I
shouldn’t be nursing plague victims while I’m pregnant? But it’s fine for
me to be submersed in grief at such a time, I suppose! I thought you were
dead, Nevare! For weeks I mourned you as dead, and you let me think
that. And so did Spink! My own husband would rather keep faith with a
friend than ease his wife’s agony of fear. I will never, never forgive either of
you for what you’ve put me through.”
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately.
“Of course you are! You should be. It was despicable. But being sorry
doesn’t change anything about the shameful thing you’ve done. And your
own poor little sister, all this time thinking you’d gone to your death,
imagining your body rotting unburied in a ditch somewhere. How could
you do that to us, Nevare? Why?”
And in that moment, all my excellent reasons suddenly seemed shallow
and stupid and selfish. I tried them anyway. “I was afraid it would ruin
your reputation if people knew you were related to me,” I said awkwardly.

“And I’ve always cared so much for my reputation and what other people
thought of me!” she fumed at me. “Did you truly think I was so shallow as
to put such things ahead of family, Nevare? You are my cousin! And you
saved both Spink and me, at great risk to yourself. Do you think I would
forget that, and shun you because of what the Speck magic has done to
you?”
I hung my head. She had taken both my hands in hers, and that simple act
of honest affection in the midst of her anger moved me terribly. I spoke
simply. “Sometimes I think you need to be protected from your good
intentions, Epiny. Now is one of those times. You may have the moral
fiber not to care what others think of you. But what others think of you
may well cost Spink a promotion, or you may find that other officers may
not wish their children to play with yours. Think of what it would do to
your status among the women you have championed if they found out you
are related to a man they have accused of the two most heinous crimes
that exist. I think you must know by now that I’ve been accused of murder.
Until I can prove I am innocent, I do not think our connection should be
revealed.” I squeezed her hands affectionately, wincing at how thin her
fingers felt, and then let them go.
“No, do not argue with me about this now,” I cautioned her when she
opened her lips to speak. “I’m on a desperate mission tonight. The one
man whose testimony could prove my innocence has just escaped
premature burial. He’s what they call a ‘walker.’ He’s in my cabin
recuperating, but he’s still very weak. I need to get a doctor to come out to
see him. Or, failing that, I need to know what I can do to help him recover.
My life depends on this as well as his.” She began shaking her head slowly
before I’d even finished speaking. At my final words, a look of despair
crossed her face. She spoke softly. “I don’t know of anything you can do,
Nevare, other than the obvious. Give him water and thin soup, if he will
take it. I’ve seen one other ‘walker.’ A woman came into the infirmary
tonight, trailing a shroud sheet. She begged us all to leave Gettys forever
for the sake of her children. She begged us to make sure her children were
taken safely west. Then she lay down and died again. Someone recognized
her and went running for her husband. The poor man came racing to the
infirmary in shock. He said she’d died hours earlier and he had put her
body out. We had to tell him that she’d died again. Dr. Frye only made it
worse when he tried to tell the man that his wife had never revived, that it
had only been an evil Speck magic reanimating her body. I wanted to
throttle the man.”
“Dr. Amicas knew about ‘walkers’; remember how he insisted on waiting
before he sent bodies off to be buried?”
“Well of course I do! You were among those who ‘died’ and returned. As
were many whom you sent back across the bridge. As was Spink.”
“Where is Spink tonight? Does he know that you’re here?”
“He doesn’t. He was called away from our home early today. So many of
the higher-ranking officers have become ill that the junior officers are
being called in simply to keep some kind of chain of command
functioning. He didn’t want to leave us, but he had to go. Some sort of
trouble with the prisoners. It was his duty and I understood that.
“When a runner came to our door tonight saying that a sick man was
asking for me by name, I knew it was my duty to come here. The man in
that bed in there has no one else. His wife died in childbirth the year after
the regiment came here. I was shocked the first time I called a meeting for
the women of the post to talk about improving out safety on the streets,
and he walked in. I thought he came to mock us, or perhaps worse. But
ever since then, he has been one of our staunchest supporters. He was the
first man to join in our promise that if ever he heard a woman blowing a
whistle for help, he would stop whatever he was doing and come to her
aid. And he has kept that promise, more than once, even if the woman was
a common prostitute. He has been faithful to our cause. So, you see, now
that Sergeant Hoster is the one who needs help, I must return that
faithfulness.”
“Hoster?” I was shocked and amazed. It couldn’t be the same man. “But I
saw him just a few hours ago. He drove the wagon that brought Scout
Hitch’s body to the cemetery.”
“You know how suddenly the plague can strike, Nevare. And taking bodies
to the cemetery might be how he became infected. We know so little.” She
gave a sharp sigh of frustration. “And I should get back to him and ease
his discomfort what little I can. He’s very ill, the sickest man I’ve seen
tonight. It’s a shame to see such a charming, gentle man so stricken. I fear
he may die, and I should be shamed if there was no one at his side when it
happened.” My mind was reeling with that description of Sergeant Hoster.
It did not seem the right time to disillusion her. His deception of her made
me despise him more than ever.
“I’ll let you go, then. And you think there is nothing I can do for Scout
Hitch?”
“Nothing except pray that he has a strong constitution. Wait. I’ll give you
one of the powders we’ve been using. Willow bark, feverfew, and a bit of
sulfur steeped with simper leaves. We’ve been brewing it up as a tea. To be
honest with you, I can’t tell if it helps or not. I’ve been spooning it into
Sergeant Hoster for an hour now, with no change that I can see. The only
certain thing I know is that people who drank the Bitter Springs water as
soon as the fever came on seem to be recovering. Slowly, that’s true, but
their fevers are not as extreme and they aren’t hallucinating.”
“Do you think Bitter Springs water would help Hitch?”
“If we had any left, we could try it. But I’m afraid I’ve given it all away. I
doubt it would be of much help. The small quantities we brought with us
only help if taken at the first sign of the disease. I had one extra bottle that
I had kept in reserve. I sent it to Colonel Haren when I heard he was
stricken. He died anyway. I think the disease was too well established in
him to yield to so small a quantity of the water.”
My last hope fluttered and died away. “Well. Can I get one of those
powders from you for Hitch, please? And then I must be on my way back
out to him.”
“Of course. Wait here. I’ll fetch it for you.”
She went back into the infirmary. I was left standing outside. I tried to fit
my image of Sergeant Hoster with the man that Epiny had described.
Obviously, he showed such a very different face to the ladies. He’d always
been a tyrant to Ebrooks, Kesey, and me, but what sergeant is not seen as
a tyrant to the men beneath him? I tried to pare away his dislike of me to
see what sort of a man he might have been. I didn’t have enough to go on.
Nevertheless, I had to admit to myself that I’d felt a flush of relief at
Epiny’s news that Hoster seemed to be dying. He was the one who most
ardently believed in my guilt. Once he was gone, perhaps everyone else
would let the matter drop. I could hope. I felt a twinge of guilt at hoping
for the man’s death, but consoled myself that the feeling was mutual.
Epiny appeared a short time later clutching two little muslin bags of
herbs. “Steep one bag in boiling water, and be sure you squeeze it well to
make sure that it reaches full potency in the drink. I’ve given you two. If
the first one helps him, then give him the second one, and come back to
town for more. But, Nevare, don’t hope too hard. This round of Speck
plague is the most vicious I’ve seen. It’s worse than what you had at the
academy and even worse than the sort that hit Bitter Springs.”
“Epiny, I fear for you. What if you catch the plague again?”
“I don’t think I shall. Everyone I’ve talked to says that if you’ve had it twice
and not died of it, it won’t bother with you again. Besides, I don’t see you
cringing and hiding from your duty. You’re handling all the dead from this
plague, and from what you’ve said, you’ve a sick man in your own home.
Why do you think I should do less?”
I smiled regretfully. “That’s a discussion that we have no time for just
now.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “There are several discussions that are going
to have to wait. Just because I’ve spoken to you civilly, don’t assume that
I’m not still furious with you. And hurt by what you and Spink have done.
It’s going to be a long time before I trust either one of you again.”
“But Epiny, I—”
“No. Not now.” She was adamant. “But when this is over, Nevare, I intend
to give you no quarter. And I do not think that your sister will think kindly
of you when she hears of how she has been made to suffer by your silence.”
Her last words quenched me. I felt a selfish brute. Over the last few days,
I’d allowed myself to forget about Yaril’s plight. Betrothed to Caulder
Stiet; if my father could force that on her, she was completely under his
dominance. I discovered that I had been toying with the idea of fleeing to
the Specks because I suddenly recognized how selfish that decision would
be. No. I had to endure life at Gettys and make something of myself, and
that included providing a home for Yaril where she could have some say in
her own future. My resolve hardened. “I will do better,” I said aloud, and
the words surprised a feeble smile out of Epiny.
“You had better,” she warned me, “for I can’t imagine what you would
have to do in order to do worse.” She surprised me with another hug.
“Hurry along. We both have to get back to our patients.”
She had turned and was walking away when I called after her, “Are Amzil
and the children still all right?”
She stopped short and turned back to me, and this time her smile was
stronger. “They’re fine, Nevare. And now that I know they’re yours, I’ll
look after them even better.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I demanded, but the door had closed
behind her. I tucked the two herb bags into my jacket pocket. Then I went
to the regiment’s stable area and after a short search found Clove
crammed into a stall that was too small for him. I found a hackamore that
would fit him and strapped a blanket to his back for makeshift tack, and
we were soon on our way home. No one saw us. It had been a long time
since I’d ridden him that way, so the only pleasant part of the journey
home was how swiftly it went compared to my long walk there. Even so,
we did not gallop along, but went at a sensible pace through the
moon-silvered darkness.
Light still glowed faintly from the windows of my cabin as I approached it.
I dismounted, put Clove up hastily, and then, with a small shiver, hurried
past the two coffins to my door. “Hitch, I’ve brought medicine for you,” I
called. And stopped.
I didn’t need to cross the room to know he was dead. He lay on my bed,
one thin hand stretched out toward me as if pleading for understanding.
His face had fallen on his bones, and his jaw hung slack and awry. When I
did cross the room and touch him, he was still warm, but it was the fading
warmth of a recently vacated chair rather than the warmth of life. Still, I
shook him and called his name and even bent to put my ear to his chest,
but it was useless. Scout Buel Hitch was gone.
“Oh, Hitch. What have you done to me?” I asked his empty shell. It offered
me no answers.
He wasn’t a small man, and I was weak with both weariness and despair.
Nevertheless, I managed to carry him from my bed back to the cold
wooden coffin that awaited him. I draped him again with his sheet, and
set the lid once more on the box. Then for a time I stood there, staring
down at it and wondering at what moment life became death. I set my
hand briefly on top of his casket but could think of no prayer nor even a
final word to utter. He had been wrong at the end. I hated not him but the
magic that had poisoned him. I settled for “Good night, Hitch,” and left
him there.
Tired as I was, I still had a hard time bringing myself to lie down on the
bed where Hitch had finally died. It seemed slightly macabre and more
than a little unlucky to sleep in a dead man’s last bed, but I finally decided
that my luck was already so abysmal that I couldn’t worsen it. I thought I
would have a hard time falling asleep, for my mind whirled with worries
and conflicts, but I think I slept almost as soon as I closed my eyes.
I had no dream that night. I awoke when the dawn pried its way though
the cracks in my shutters. For a time I lay in my bed, wondering how I’d
face this new day. Hitch was dead. I’d never realized how comforted I’d
been to know someone else who was as infected with Speck magic as I
was. While he had lived, there had been hope to clear my name. That was
gone now. If Hoster lived, I’d face a court-martial. I pushed my fear down.
I tried not to be the sort of man who would hope for another’s death.
I washed, cooked, and ate some porridge, and then emerged to a fine
summer morning. The sky was an infinite, unclouded blue. Leaves on my
hedge fluttered in the early-morning breeze. Birds were singing, and the
summer day smelled new and alive. In anyone else’s life, it would have
been a beautiful day, rich with promise. I went to fetch my shovel to finish
filling in the woman’s grave. The lid was crooked on Hitch’s coffin.
I didn’t have to look inside to know his body had been taken. At one time,
it would have been a hard decision. That morning, it wasn’t. I carried the
empty coffin and lid out to the next available grave, lowered it in, and
buried it. By the time Ebrooks and Kesey arrived with the first two corpse
wagons of the day, I had Hitch’s coffin covered and had smoothed the
mound over the woman I’d buried the night before.
“Looks like you got an early start on the day’s work,” Kesey observed.

“Looks like it,” I agreed.

CHAPTER THIRTY
THE APOLOGY
The days creaked by on corpse-laden wagons. There was no respite from
the parade of death that stopped at my door. Every morning I arose to
bodies awaiting burial, and every evening I had to leave the dead in boxes
outside my cabin. All day long, the tack-tack-tacking of the coffin makers
was a steady counterpoint to the scrape of my shovel as I dug it into the
earth. The bodies went from the wagons to coffins and quickly into the
waiting graves. Whoever was in charge at Gettys sent us two more men to
help cover the graves. The empty holes filled at an alarming rate.
The gallows humor of the first few days gave way to an unremitting gloom
of spirit for all of us. We didn’t talk much. Most of my conversations were
with Ebrooks and Kesey, and limited to the logistics of our tasks. How
many coffins we had, how much wood was left, how many empty graves,
how many coffins filled but unburied, how many bodies in the latest
wagonload. I doggedly kept my tally of names, though often enough bodies
came to the cemetery with little identification. Still, I logged them in as
best I could: Old man, toothless, wearing worn cavalla trousers. Child,
female, about five years old, blue dress, dark hair. Mother and infant, in
nightwear, mother with red hair. The fourth day was hard for me. It
seemed a day of dead children, and the little bodies looked lonely and
abandoned, one to a coffin. Worst of all, mourners came that day,
doggedly following the corpse wagons like hungry dogs hoping for a final
bone. They watched us take the bodies from the cart and set them in the
coffins, and their eyes seemed to blame me for taking their children from
them. One mother, her eyes bright with fever, insisted that she must comb
her little girl’s hair before I could put the lid on. What could I do but let
her? She sat the child on her lap for that final grooming, and smoothed
her hair and straightened the collar of her little nightshirt before tucking
her into the coffin as if it were a truckle bed. Her husband took her away
after that, but late that evening, on the final corpse cart of the day, she
returned to us. I wished I could have buried her with her child. I kept
dreading that I would recognize Amzil or one of her brood, but I was
spared that.
The only body that I selfishly welcomed with relief came on the third day
after I’d visited town. Sergeant Hoster arrived with his arms crossed on
his chest, his eyes closed, his hair combed, and his face washed. A shiny
whistle on a chain was enfolded in his stiff hands. Pinned to his shirt was
a note in Epiny’s hand. “Bury him well. He was a good man.” She’d signed
it with a simple “E.” For her sake, I did just that, though I privately
thought that he had deceived her and the other women of the town with a
fair face over a foul heart. The brief prayer I said over his grave was to the
good god, and not for his mercy on Hoster but that Hoster’s accusations
against me might be laid to rest with his bones.
Occasional mourners brought their own dead to the cemetery or followed
the corpse cart. Usually they were parents mourning children. I dreaded to
see them come, for I knew the burial they would see would offer them little
comfort. There was no music, no solemn prayers, no bouquets or
memorial of any kind, simply the efficient lowering of a coffin into the
earth and the shoveling of soil down onto it. Perhaps that was all they
came for, to be able to return to Gettys knowing the body of the one they
had loved had been safely consigned to the earth.
I lost no more bodies to the Specks, and never mentioned to anyone else
that Hitch’s body had been taken. Several times Ebrooks or Kesey spoke of
how well I guarded the cemetery, for in years past the theft of plague
bodies had been a horrific addition to all the other troubles of the plague
season. I scarcely felt I deserved their praise, for I had done nothing to
deserve it. I had no idea why the Specks were respecting our dead; I only
felt vaguely grateful that they did, even as it gave me an ominous sense of
impending disaster. Sometimes I thought of Hitch and wondered who
had come for him and carried him off in the night. I hoped he had his tree
and wished him well of it, despite his betrayal of me. I knew only too well
the lure of the magic and how strongly it could affect a man’s mind. I told
myself that I would never fall as low as Hitch had done. Yet as I looked
back over my behavior of the last few months, there was much in it that
was reprehensible. The worst, I think, was that I had let my sister suffer
uncertainty for so long.
I threw caution to the winds. I would no longer wait for a secret letter to
reach me through Carsina. I wrote Yaril not one, but three letters posting
them days apart in the hopes that at least one might get through to her. I
told her that I was alive, a soldier, stationed at Gettys, and dealing with
the most current outbreak of plague. This I described to her in detail in
the hope that she would immediately see how impossible it was for me to
send for her. In the closing paragraph, I counseled her to consider all
decisions carefully and to be true to her own heart. I hoped it would give
her the courage to defy my father and refuse Caulder Stiet. I hoped such
advice was not too late. Kesey took the letters to town for me and sent
them off with the couriers who daily rode west. He also took it upon
himself to bring me food from the mess hall each day. It wasn’t especially
appetizing; the cook staff was reduced, and the food was usually a cold
serving of soup and bread in a dinner pail that had arrived on a wagonful
of corpses. But I ate it, and little else. Anyone else would have lost flesh on
such a regimen of constant work and reduced food. I changed not at all.
I didn’t return to town. Much as I longed to see Spink and Epiny, my days
were too full of backbreaking labor to make me want to give up a night’s
sleep to a long ride there and back. I almost hoped that Epiny or Spink
would come out to see me, but I recognized that we lived in dangerous
times. I hoped that Epiny’s nursing of Sergeant Hoster had not
endangered her pregnancy, and that she was not suffering too much in the
endless parade of hot days the summer had brought us. I was grateful that
she had the sense to stay home and safe, even as I hungered for the sight
of a friendly face and a kind voice. I had not known how much I missed
Epiny before that chance encounter.
All I knew of Gettys was what I heard from Kesey and Ebrooks. Some of it
was very bad, for the plague continued to rage as if the hot, dry days
fueled it. The sadness that flowed from the forest into the town seemed to
deepen. We buried suicides as well as plague victims, people who, having
lost loved ones, saw no reason to continue. Kesey and Ebrooks told me
tales of sordid crimes, too, of scavengers who robbed the dead left out for
the corpse carts, and thieves who robbed homes before the eyes of people
too sick to stop them. Yet there was news that gave me hope and renewed
my faith in my fellows. Gettys was a town that had known plague before,
on a yearly basis, and had learned to cope with it. Those who had the
plague in years past kept the town running. Several of the stores
remained open, though the merchants allowed no one to enter. Customers
had to shout their requests from the street, and then deposit the coin to
pay for their purchases in a pot of vinegar outside the door before the
shopkeepers put their purchases out in the street for them to collect. It
sounded like a complicated process, yet most customers were grateful to
be able to get supplies at all.
A different order emerged in the town. Men and women judged too feeble
to be employed at any other part of the year were now in demand. These
former plague victims could nurse families, care for livestock, and perform
other chores for households where the plague was rampant. I saw a
different side of Gettys. I had wondered previously why the regiment kept
within its ranks so many soldiers who suffered impaired health due to
previous bouts of Speck plague. Now I understood, as they became the
backbone of the regiment during a time when the hearty and hale were
either in hiding from the plague or succumbing to their first bouts of it.
The plague that the Specks had thought would drive the Gernians away
had, indeed, “winnowed” us, so that those who remained in Gettys were
stronger than before. As the people here acquired immunity, they found a
niche in the society. Surviving the plague in Gettys actually increased the
chance that folk would remain in the town, for only there could they have
their yearly season of strength.
The town and the fortress had immediately gone under “plague rules”
from the time of the first outbreak. Public gatherings were forbidden.
Alehouses and taverns closed their doors. Funerals were forbidden for the
duration of the plague season. It was forbidden to touch the bodies set out
for the corpse carts; only the men designated for that duty could handle
the dead. Those men lived apart from the rest of the regiment for that
time. Food was set out for them, but neither Ebrooks nor Kesey was
permitted to go into the mess hall. I suspected Epiny when I heard that
the women had organized a system of taking hot meals to homes marked
with plague flags. There was a grimmer duty for one crew of men. They
knocked daily on the doors of plague houses, and then stepped back into
the street to await a response. If there was none, the corpse handlers were
dispatched, for it was assumed that the entire family had perished there.
But for every evidence of adaptation and cooperation, there were horrible
instances of failure. A young widow fell ill and before it was discovered
that she had died, her infant had starved in his crib. A former prisoner
was caught sneaking into the homes of the ill to burgle them of valuables;
he was flogged and then hanged in the town square. In times of plague,
even relatively petty crimes were punished more drastically, lest others
follow the example of the criminals.
The prisoners lived in conditions far more crowded and unsanitary than
the military barracks. The plague burned through the place like wildfire.
In the second day of the fever and fluxes, those of the prisoners who could
offer resistance had rioted, believing that plague was only in their prison
and that their guards were deliberately confining them in a death hole.
They’d overcome their guards and almost a hundred had escaped. Several
dozen had attacked the town, looting supplies from untended businesses,
but most had simply gone to the stables, stolen horses, and ridden off. A
lieutenant had rallied a small force of mixed soldiers to reestablish order.
The prisoners who had been foolish enough to remain in the town were
shot down in the streets, and summarily consigned to the lime pits behind
the prison barracks. The ones who had fled were pursued, not for
themselves but for the horses they had taken. The pursuit had been
successful.
The upper echelons of our command had been devastated by the plague.
Ebrooks told me one day that Major Morson was now in charge, but didn’t
know it, as he had sunk into his fever before death bestowed command on
him. “But having an unconscious commander isn’t much different from
what we’re accustomed to anyway,” he added with sour humor, and I was
forced to agree. I lost track of time, not just hours but days. The plague
season ran together into a time of endless work for me. By the third day, I
had become so accustomed to the stench of death and decay that I
scarcely needed the vinegar and rag mask, not that it had worked very well
in the first place. There came a day when we ran out of both ready graves
and materials to make coffins. We did what was expedient, which was to
put one body in each coffin and another on top of the coffin in each grave
in the final row of waiting holes. I logged their names as best I could, and
told the coffin makers to join me in digging a ditch for mass burial. I was
surprised when they grudgingly complied. That night, before I closed my
eyes for sleep, I took a small moment of pride in how they, as well as
Ebrooks and Kesey, had accepted my leadership. I had no stripe on my
sleeve and less seniority than any of them. I recalled with regret how I had
angered Colonel Haren. Had he truly considered me for promotion? Well, I
thought grimly, the plague was forcing a change in command; I’d have a
second chance to impress my superiors when all this was over and I once
more knew who they were. Nights brought me no rest. The row of
unburied dead outside my small cottage was not even contained in coffins
anymore, but only in coarse white sacking. The scavengers of the forest
ventured forth to feast. I did what I could. I set pitch torches in a
protective ring around the bodies. That seemed to keep most of the larger
predators away, but nothing seemed to discourage the rats. Often it was
only when we went to move the bodies to their grave that the rodents
would scamper away, bellies bulging with human flesh. I hated them and
killed them when I could.
The carrion birds had become a constant. Red-wattled croaker birds
skirmished with crows over the open-pit graves. They followed the corpse
carts and gathered in the trees, watching while we placed the bodies in the
pit graves and covered them with a thin layer of quicklime and earth. As
soon as we stepped away, the croakers would descend. Kesey brought out a
shotgun and killed a dozen of them one day. He tied the bodies to tall
stakes and set them around the pit grave. The bird bodies served as a
deterrent to the rest of the flock, but they quickly rotted and stank in the
hot sun, attracting both buzzing flies and wasps. Worse, they reminded
me of the horrible little bird carousel at Rosse’s wedding. The croaker
birds seemed especially incensed by Kesey’s murder of their fellows. They
recognized him and would dive on him when he was driving the corpse
cart, stabbing at his hat and croaking loudly. Every evening, other
creatures ventured out of the forest to dig in the newly covered graves. Not
even the quicklime we used in the pit graves deterred them completely.
Every morning, I made a brief tour of our most recent graves to fill in little
tunnels and holes dug during the night. I felt as if I were under siege. My
growing hedge, lovely as it was, would never keep out such creatures, and I
reluctantly concluded that Colonel Haren had been right; a stone wall was
needed.
I had not slept well any night since Olikea and I had quarreled. I still
dreamed of her, and dreamed too of the wondrous foods from that “other
side.” But I couldn’t quite reach them. I walked there, but I walked there
knowing it was a dream. The food I ate in those dreams was substanceless
and unsatisfying. I would see Olikea, but always at a distance. If I called to
her, she did not turn her head. If I followed her, as I inevitably did in those
dreams, I could never catch up with her.
The days became weeks, and then a month. We toiled on, barely able to
keep ahead of the dead. The stink of decay and the burning of lye in my
nostrils became one sensation in my mind. Even when I heated water and
washed with soap, I could not cleanse the smells of my profession away.
The lime we sprinkled in the ditch graves drifted and made raw patches
on my skin. Worst of all was the terrible hunger that burned in me
constantly now that I no longer had the forest foods that Olikea had
brought me. The food I ate should have been enough to sustain me;
instead it was not even a taunt to the deeper hunger that devoured me
from within.
And in the midst of death and stench and plague, summer blossomed
around us. The days were lovely, long and bright under blue skies.
Butterflies danced above the flowers I had moved into the graveyard, and
songbirds sang in the trees at the edge of the forest. My “hedge”
flourished, and smaller bushes sprang up in the shade my little trees
provided.
The bony hands of the plague respected neither age nor rank. We filled
one ditch grave and started another. We buried tiny babies and old men,
delicate little girls and brawny men. That long hot day had brought the
body of Dale Hardy. He was the rowdy who had put himself forth as the
man to give me a beating the day that Carsina had said such foul things
about me. The plague had taken him down swiftly, Ebrooks told me. He
hadn’t lingered to die of the fever but had choked to death on his own
vomit the first day he sickened. I thought of how he had stood in the street
and threatened me that day. I could have taken satisfaction in his death.
Instead I only pitied him, felled in his prime so ignominiously. It was late
afternoon when we finished filling the second ditch. In an obscene way, it
reminded me of watching the cook in my father’s kitchen layer ingredients
into a casserole. Instead of meat and gravy and potatoes and carrots, we
layered bodies and lime and earth and bodies and lime and earth until we
finally mounded earth over the whole of it. “That’s it,” I decided when the
mound was patted smooth as a pie crust. I took my vinegar mask from my
face and wiped my brow with it. With the last bodies covered, the air
smelled almost clean. “That’s enough for today, boys. Tomorrow we’ll dig a
fresh ditch and begin again.”
“Pray the good god that it’s the last pit this season,” Kesey suggested, and
“Amen,” both of my carpenters-turned-gravediggers responded.
“It has to stop soon. Doesn’t it?” I asked them.
“It’ll stop when it stops,” Kesey replied. “The rains always end it. But
sometimes it stops sooner. I heard a rumor in town about some special
water that might cure it. Some spring water that a doctor back west has
been trying on people. The courier that brought the news said he’d heard
from the courier before him that they were trying to get some to us here,
before the end of the plague season, to see if it really worked or not.”
“Did you hear the doctor’s name?” I asked, wondering if Spink had written
to Amicas and if he had acted on it.
Kesey shrugged and shook his head. We had shouldered our shovels and
were making our way back to the tool shed when we heard a sound we all
dreaded: the clop and creak of a team pulling a laden wagon up the hill to
the cemetery. “Can’t they just stop dying for one day?” Kesey asked me
pathetically.
“I think they would if they could,” I replied, and one of my diggers smiled
grimly.
“Those poor devils will just have to lie bare under the moonlight for
tonight,” Kesey observed, and I shrugged. It would not be the first time
that shrouded bodies had had to wait for a fresh grave. But like Kesey, I
prayed it might be the last.
Ebrooks was the driver. He got down stiffly from the cart. “You boys had
better help me unload if you want to ride back to town,” he suggested, and
we began our grim task. There were seven of them. Ebrooks, knowing my
insistence, handed me a list of names. I thrust them into my pocket and
helped the other men drag the corpses from the cart. Three men, a boy,
and three women we laid out side by side. Kesey had brought a fresh
supply of pitch torches from town. Ebrooks helped me set up a circle of
them around the unburied bodies. Then the others climbed up on the
wagon, bade me farewell, and headed back to town as the long-awaited
night began to flow across the land. I hoped it would bring a little coolness
with it. I kindled the torches. They burned straight, nearly unwavering, in
the calm summer evening.
I went back to my cabin, washed my face and hands, drank deeply, and
then turned to the cold meal Kesey had brought me. There was bread and
meat and cheese. It was good enough food, and I devoured it hungrily but
as usual felt no satisfaction in it. It was only food, and I’d learned that the
hunger that burned me most was not a hunger for food. I forced myself to
set aside a portion to break my fast the next day, and left my table as
hungry as when I’d sat down. I washed up my few dishes and set them
aside. With a sigh, I took out what had become a ledger. I opened it to the
current page, and unfolded the scrap of paper that Ebrooks had given me.
He was not a lettered man; most often he depended on the family of the
dead or whoever was on duty at the infirmary to write down the names for
him. Sometimes there was only a tally mark on the page. I entered the
names as he had given them to me. They’d go into a ditch grave
tomorrow; there was little point any more in worrying about the order in
which I wrote them down. And so I logged Eldafleur Sims, Coby Tarn,
Rufus Lear, Joffra Keel, A Retired Soldier, Carsina Thayer—
I set down my pen. I looked at the name on the list, and the name my hand
had so obligingly written. Hadn’t my Carsina been betrothed to a Captain
Thayer? My nervous fingers scrabbled lightly against the tabletop. Carsina
Grenalter. Carsina Thayer. Many couples wed hastily in the face of the
plague. My friend at the academy, Gord, had done so. It seemed likely that
Carsina had wed her handsome captain. No matter how foolish or shallow
the attraction had been, Carsina had meant something to me. My first
romance, and my first heartbreak. And today her body had been unloaded
from a corpse cart and somehow I hadn’t even noticed. I rubbed my face
and took up my pen again. Reddik Koverton was the last name, and I
carefully entered it into the ledger. I blew on the ink to dry it and then
closed it.
Did I want to look on her again, dead?
No. Of course not.
Yes.
However we had parted, whatever I had discovered about her, she had
been my sister’s friend, a longtime friend of my family, and the first girl I’d
ever kissed. Her love letters to me at the academy were still bundled in
with my soldier son’s journal. Tears found their way to my weary eyes. I
wouldn’t bury her in a ditch, with strangers tumbled beside her and lime
eating away her flesh. I’d dig her a separate grave myself; she would not lie
in a common hole. I put my face in my hands and sat like that at my table
for a time. I knew that I was going to go out to look at her tonight. I could
not decide if I was motivated by sentiment or morbid curiosity. It
probably didn’t matter. I took my lantern and went out into the darkness.
The circle of torches still burned. Nonetheless, I heard a squeak of alarm
and then a rustling as I approached. Rats. I held my lantern high as I
entered my torch circle. The seven bodies lay as we had left them. Of the
three women, only one could be Carsina. I knew her by a single blonde curl
that had escaped her shroud. Unlike the others, she was not wrapped in
coarse white sacking. A fine fabric enveloped her, white linen with white
lace worked along the edge of it, and someone had wound the sheet
around her with care. I went down on one knee beside her and reached a
hand toward her face. Then I drew my hand back. It wasn’t that I feared to
see how the disease had ravaged her. I suddenly felt that I intruded.
Someone had lovingly prepared her for the grave; who was I to loosen that
cloth and look into a dead face that no longer belonged to me? Her name
on the papers indicated that she had been a married woman at her death.
I should respect that. I bowed my head and asked the good god to guide
her into peace. Then I said simply, “Good night, Carsina.” I went back to
my cabin. It was a warm night. The little cook fire in my hearth was down
to a few coals. I gave it another two sticks of wood, more for the company
of its light than for any other reason, sat down at my table again, and
made my day’s entry in my journal. I closed it and put it away. Too tired
to change, I lay down on my bed in my earth-stained clothes. For a time, I
watched the shadows mirror the dance of my little fire in the corners of
my ceiling. I thought of the women I’d loved in my life, not just Carsina
and Tree Woman, but my mother and sisters and Epiny, even Amzil. I
tried to work out why I’d loved each one and which sorts of love were real,
but came to no solid conclusions. I’d been born to love my mother and
sisters, and perhaps I had to include Epiny on that list as well. Tree
Woman I’d loved; I knew that without knowing the details of how my
other self had bonded to her. I loved her still, in that other place. Amzil I
loved perhaps for no better reason than that I thought she needed
someone to love her. I even thought of poor, unfortunate Fala. We’d
shared no more than an evening of closeness. Did the brevity of that
relationship mean that I couldn’t call it love? It had certainly been
something beyond lust.
And Olikea? Yes. I loved her. Not as a good Gernian loves his good
Gernian wife, not with romance and vows and a shared hearth until the
end of my days. I loved her as I had come to love her forest, as a thing that
gave me delight but never offered me mastery or any degree of control. I
had no partnership with Olikea. She did not want me to provide for her or
protect her. On the contrary, she had seen herself in the role of provider. I
wondered if we could ever truly know one another, and concluded the
opportunity for that was gone. I’d forsaken her in this world, and she’d
turned away from me in that other world. We knew remarkably little of
one another. But did I really know any more of Amzil than I did of her? I
knew Amzil better only in that we shared a culture. She was still as great a
mystery to me as Olikea was.
The shadows were fading as my fire died. I repeated my prayer for
Carsina, and added one for my mother and Elisi as well. I thought of the
women who had passed beyond my reach and the women who remained
to me, and resolved that I would treat Epiny, Amzil, and Yaril better while
I had the opportunity to do so. On that thought, I turned my lamp wick
down as low as it would go and closed my eyes for sleep.
Perhaps my evening thoughts had paved the way to her. I dreamwalked
strongly that night, and my footsteps led me not in pursuit of Olikea, but
to a stump in the old forest. The tree that had grown up from the fallen
trunk of Tree Woman’s tree stood straight and tall. I now recognized that
my hedge trees were of the same kind, and that they were growing very
well indeed; I touched it fondly, and felt an echo of Tree Woman’s
presence. I walked slowly to the stump and sat down with my back to it. “I
miss you, Lisana. I miss you terribly.” “Oh, you are a cruel one,” she
rebuked me, but still she reached to take my hand. “To call me at last by
my name at such a time. Did you know how hearing that from your lips
would wring my heart? But it is too late, Soldier’s Boy. I can do nothing to
spare you from what is to come. You’ve brought it on yourself. Still, if I
could, I would save you somehow.”
She was not there in the old way she had once been. She was a dream
within a dream. I could feel the warmth of her hands around mine, but I
could not enfold them. When I turned to embrace her, I felt only the rough
bark of her fallen tree’s trunk. I drew back from her. If I could not touch
her, at least I could see her. She was in the first guise in which I’d ever
seen her. She was an immensely fat woman in her middle years. Her
streaky hair tangled against the bark of her tree as if it were tendrils
uniting her with it. And, of course, they were. Her eyes smiled at me; they
remained unchanged regardless of what guise she showed me. And I
discovered that truly her body no longer mattered to me. She was as dear
to me in this form as she had been in those unremembered times when we
had first come together. She had folded her hands on top of her ample
belly. Her hands reminded me of little cat’s feet. They were small, and the
skin on the back of them was sooty dark, fading to a lighter speckling on
her forearms. I wanted to kiss them; the most I could do was hover my
hand over hers, feeling a ghost warmth. “Why aren’t you here?” I
demanded. She smiled in a bittersweet way. “Someone used iron magic
here, and cut down my tree. It fell in both worlds; you have noticed this,
perhaps?” I lowered my eyes in shame. “But it did not kill you.” “No. But it
weakened me. A hundred years from now, perhaps I shall have a quarter
of the strength I once had. Then, perhaps, we can kiss and touch as we
used to.”
“It seems a very long time to wait.”
She nodded, not in agreement but confirming her own thoughts. “And
that is where our worlds do not align, Soldier’s Boy. A hundred years from
now, if our people prevail, the soil here will be a bit deeper, the girth of the
trees will be greater, and little else will have changed. The same flowers
will bloom, the same pollen will drift, and the same butterflies will float
among the foliage. I am happy to wait a hundred years for that. What will
be here if the intruders prevail, Soldier’s Boy? What will you wait a
hundred years to see?” I thought of the Gernian answer to that. A wide
road up into and through the Barrier Mountains would lead to the land
beyond and eventually the sea. The king was open about his ambition.
Those lands were largely unsettled. Gernia could have a new seacoast with
access to trade. Goods would flow from the eastern seaboard into Gernia.
There would be growth and prosperity. New farms, burgeoning towns.
None of that was bad. But I could no longer say with certainty that it was
better than what was here now.
“People could live in prosperity and peace. The Specks would benefit from
the trade. They would have everything they need.”
She puffed her cheeks lightly at me. “We already have everything we need,
Soldier’s Boy. And we still have our forest and the ancestral trees. When
we have lost our shady places and the land that loves us has been cut wide
open to the sunlight, will we truly have everything we need? Or will we
simply have the things that you think we need?”
I couldn’t think of a response. A slight breeze or a ghost hand stirred my
hair. I lifted my eyes to look into hers and asked, “What do you think I
should do, then?”
“You know what I think. You have known from the beginning what I
think.”
“You say I should do what the magic wants me to do. And you say I should
have done it by now. You’ve told me that over and over. But I truly don’t
know what that means.”
“Perhaps the magic does not speak to you more clearly because you have
avoided it so earnestly. Perhaps if you had not resisted its efforts to fill
you, perhaps if you had come more promptly to its calling, you would
know what you were to do. Now, I fear, it is too late for you to seek the
magic.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I feel the magic reaching out to take you, Soldier’s Boy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said! Always you ask me, what do you mean? You hear my
words. When you don’t understand them, it is because you do not wish to
understand them. It is the same way that you resist the magic. Why?”

I didn’t even have to think of a reply. “Perhaps I want to have my own life,
the way I envisioned it, the way it was promised to me! Lisana, from the
time I was small, I was raised to be a soldier. I expected to go to the
academy, to be well educated, to become an officer and distinguish myself
in battle, to have a lovely wife and children, and eventually to return to my
home and retire with honor. The magic took all of that away from me. And
what has it given me? A fat body that is awkward and ugly to live in. A
power that comes and goes, that I don’t know how to use or control. What
good has it done me?” She looked at me sadly for a moment. She lifted her
arms as if to display her body to me. “Awkward and ugly,” she said, and
when she took the words to herself, it cut like a knife that I had uttered
them. “I didn’t mean—” I cried out, but “Hush!” she scolded me. “I do not
pretend that I don’t understand what you say! I know what you meant.
What good has the magic done you, you asked. I could say that through it,
you came to know me. And that you have come to know the forest in a way
you never could have before. But the real answer is that the magic is not
for your good, and so it does not matter if it does things that make you
happy or not.” She cocked her head at me slightly. “Don’t you remember,
Soldier’s Boy? I held you over the abyss and told you that you must choose.
I told you that you must say you wished to be taken up to this life. And you
said you did, and I brought you here.”
“But I did not know what I was choosing. I only knew that I feared to die.”
“None of us ever know what we are choosing when we choose life. If
certainty is so important to you, than you should have chosen to be dead.
That is a certain thing.”
“Look at the life I am leading, Lisana. I’m a soldier in name only; what I
truly am is a gravedigger. Tomorrow I am going to bury the woman I was
once supposed to marry. Did you know that? How cruel a fate is that? For
her, as well as for me, because if the magic had not intervened in my life, I
am sure Carsina would be safe at her home and awaiting me still. I am
lonely and alone, my body hampers me, I am always hungry—”
“And those are the things you chose instead of the magic.” She cut into my
diatribe. She sounded angry.
“What am I going to do?”
I meant the question to be rhetorical. I’d asked it of myself thousands of
times with no answers. Lisana had one.
“You are going to do what the magic wants you to do. It would have been
easier by far for you to have lived with the choice you made instead of
fighting it. Now it comes for you, Nevare. And no one can protect you
anymore.”
“You called me Nevare,” I said.

“Nevare.”

I was sitting up in my bed in my cabin. The echo of her voice saying my
name was still in my ears. It was such a physical memory that it was hard
to convince myself it had been part of my dreamwalking. I rubbed my eyes
and sighed. Only darkness showed through the crack in my shutters. It
was still night. I groaned. I doubted I would find sleep again that night.

My fire was nearly out. I forced myself to get out of bed and pad across the
room to give it another stick of wood. Feeding it now was easier than
trying to start another fire in the morning. I was getting back into my bed
when I thought I heard a noise outside. I swung my feet back onto the
floor. Soft as the wind, someone spoke outside my door. “Nevare?”
“Who’s there?” I asked. I stood up and took two steps.

My cabin door opened soundlessly.

I saw her nightdress first, a long confection of lace and white linen.
Expensive and elegant, I thought inanely to myself. Doubtless her
trousseau had been purchased in Old Thares from the most exclusive
merchants. A flirtation of veiling pretended to hide the cleavage of her
breasts, and a high collar of soft lace maintained a mockery of virginal
modesty.

I was trembling. I lifted my eyes to her face. She had always been plump,
with rounded cheeks. The disease had sculpted her face to sharper lines,
and her lips were chapped. Dark circles ringed her eyes. Our gazes met.
She entered the room, came to me, and took both my hands in hers. I
couldn’t move or speak. I was caught between horror and hope for her.
Slowly, she sank down in a graceful curtsy. She bowed her head, and her
flaxen hair fell forward to hide her face. I found my voice.
“Carsina?” I croaked.
She moved closer and rested her forehead against my knees. The hair
stood up on the back of my neck. Her voice was husky and low. “I’ve come
to beg your forgiveness, Nevare. Just as you said I must. I apologize for
how cruel I was to you at your brother’s wedding.”
I took a step backward. I felt faint. Our quarrel at Rosse’s wedding seemed
to have happened a century ago. Yet at her words, my angry prediction to
her came back to me, and I recalled too well the tingle of power that had
rushed through me as I had uttered my harsh words. “Carsina. Please get
up. Please.” My mind was reeling. Carsina was a “walker.” Could her life
be saved? I’d failed with Hitch. Epiny had told me that most walkers died.
But not all of them. I stooped down to offer her my hands to assist her in
standing. She remained on her knees, her head bowed.
“You have not said that you forgive me.” Her voice was low and hoarse.
“Carsina, I should be begging you to forgive me. I spoke angrily, never
thinking that I would bind you to this. I am the one who is sorry.”
Her voice was muffled. “I cannot rise from my knees until you forgive me.”
“I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you a hundred times.” I all but
babbled the words. It went against everything I’d ever been taught as a
gentleman to have her on her knees before me. “Please, please, let me help
you get up.” Despite my offer, she tried to get up by herself. She swayed,
and I barely managed to catch her before she fell over. I lifted her gently to
her feet and helped her to a chair. “Sit there and rest. What a nightmare
for you, to wake alone in a winding cloth in the cemetery among the dead.
But you’re safe now. Just sit and rest. I have medicine from the infirmary
in town. Let me put the water to boil for it. It’s feverfew and willow bark
and, and I forget what else, but the doctors in Gettys are giving it to the
plague victims there and they believe it helps. Just rest while I prepare it
for you.” I moved swiftly as I spoke, putting fresh water in the kettle and
setting it on to boil. I added more sticks of dry wood to the fire to send the
flames lapping against the kettle’s bottom. I found the little tisanes that
Epiny had given me, wiped my mug clean, and put one in it. “Do you think
you could eat a little something? Broth would be best for you, but I’m
afraid I don’t have any. I’ve some bread, though, and a bit of cheese, I
think.”
She looked pathetically grateful. “Water,” she managed to say. I hurried
to my water cask and came back with a dripping ladle. She clasped it with
both hands and drank so greedily that it ran down her chin. When it was
empty, I brought her more, and she drank again. Where the water had
fallen on her nightdress, the fine linen became nearly transparent. I tried
not to stare. I tipped my water barrel to fill the ladle a last time. She
drank it down, and then handed the ladle back to me with a small gasp.
“Thank you,” she managed to say.
“Sit still and rest. As soon as the water boils, I’ll have a healing tea for
you.” All the anger I had ever felt at her had fled. I could not look at her
without thinking of all the times she had been my sister’s playmate and
companion.
She covered her face with her hands for a moment, and then let them drop
limply into her lap. “Tea won’t help me, Nevare. You know that. I’ve only
come back from the dead to beg your forgiveness. Because you said I
must.” Her eyes flooded with sudden tears. “And now I have to die again.”
She sounded terrified. All pretense fled before her words.
“Carsina, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing. Truly I didn’t. And
I won’t let you die. Listen to me. Listen. I know you feel weak, but your
fever has passed. Let me take care of you.”
“You don’t hate me?” She sounded puzzled. “After what I did to you in the
street in Gettys? You forgive me for that, too?”
I am not as noble as others might be. I felt a flash of anger as I recalled
that scene. A suddenly selfish thought quenched it. Just as she had
accused me publicly, so could she also clear my name. If she lived, and if
she felt kindly toward me. I chose my words. “You thought you had reason
to fear me. You don’t. At one time, Carsina, I think you loved me. I know I
loved you. You are beyond my reach now, and in many ways I am beneath
your notice. But I do not think we have to hate or fear one another. Look.
The water is boiling. Let me brew you that tisane.”
“Oh, Nevare, you are too good. And I am so ashamed now of what I said
and did. But I was afraid. I hated coming to Gettys, but my father said it
was my last chance to make a good match for myself. He did not want to
send me to stay with my cousin, for he feared for my reputation. He was so
stern. He said I must not flirt or do anything that might invite a scandal,
and that if I did, he would disown me. He was still angry because he had
found Remwar kissing me when we both knew that Remwar had been
promised to Essilee Cummors. But Remwar had said that he truly loved
me and that the engagement was something his father had forced on him.
We were going to run away…or so he said. Oh, Nevare, I have been a fool,
over and over again. I lost your sister’s friendship over Remwar, and he
wasn’t worth it. But you must admit that most of that was your fault. I still
do not understand how you could have chosen to get so fat, and then to
embarrass me like that at Rosse’s wedding when I had been dreaming and
planning for months about how fine we would look together, and how my
green skirts would stand out when you spun me on the dance floor. I had
so looked forward to that, and then you dashed all my hopes!”
I had forgotten how much Carsina could talk. “None of it was my
choosing, Carsina. On that, you will just have to believe me.” I had poured
the boiling water for the little sachet of herbs. The sulfur in it immediately
betrayed its presence. It reeked. “I’m afraid this isn’t going to taste very
good, but it’s what the doctors at the infirmary are prescribing. Do you
think you can drink it?”
“I want to live, Nevare. I’d do anything to live.” Her eyes shone with the
intensity of her desire. A moment later, I interpreted that glitter a
different way. Fever. Her fever was coming back. As I handed her the cup,
our fingers touched briefly. Mine were warm from holding the hot cup,
but so were hers. I watched her put the cup to her lips, wince, and blow on
the hot liquid and then sip from the edge. She wrinkled her nose and
pursed her mouth at the foul taste but swallowed it down determinedly.
“That’s right,” I encouraged her. “But you need to drink it all, Carsina.”
She tried another sip. I saw her grip on the cup begin to loosen and
managed to take it from her before it fell. She looked at me with a gaze
both desperate and unfocused. “My mother died of the plague, Nevare. I
didn’t get to say good-bye to her. My father wouldn’t let me go near her
once she got sick. Only the servants tended to her. And I had to wonder if
they really did. She could have died alone.” She blinked her eyes at me and
then said unsteadily, “I’m married now. Did you know? My husband took
care of me until I died. He kept saying, ‘I’ll be right here, Carsina, my
sweet. I won’t let you die alone.’”
“He sounds like a very good man. I think you need to rest now, Carsina. Do
you want to lie down?”
“I…” She looked up at me, suddenly puzzled. “I want Jof. I want my
husband.
Where is he?”

“He’s probably at home, Carsina. Let’s put you to bed, shall we?”

“But…where am I? How did I get here? Please, can’t you get Jof? He
promised he would stay right by me.” Her lips were a darker red, and two
spots of color had begun to show on her cheeks. I did not think it would be
a good time to tell her that she’d come here on the corpse cart, or to point
out to her that Jof probably thought he had stayed by her side.

“Lie down and I’ll see what I can do.”
“I want Jof,” she repeated, and she suddenly looked very young, a child
asking for her daddy.
“I’ll go and get him,” I said reluctantly. I feared to leave her, lest she die as
Hitch had. On the other hand, I could see that she was working herself up
over her missing husband. “Can you drink the rest of your tea?” I asked
her, and was tremendously relieved when she nodded. I handed her the
cup, and she bravely drank it down. “I want you to lie down now,” I told
her firmly, and was rather surprised when she took the arm I offered and
accompanied me to my bed. “Lie down, Carsina,” I suggested to her. She
sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at me. She was breathing
through her mouth.
“You look like my first fiancé. Only fatter,” she said. Before I could reply,
she commanded me imperiously. “Fetch me a drink of water, and then
please tell my husband to come in to me.” Of her own volition, she lay
down. I helped her lift her feet onto the bed and tried to put my blanket
over her. She angrily kicked it away.
“Very well.” I saw no sense in upsetting her.
My water keg was empty. I damped a clean cloth in the dregs and put it
across Carsina’s brow. She did not open her eyes. She was fading rapidly. I
caught up my bucket and headed out to the spring. I’d fetch water first
and then saddle Clove and ride into town to find her husband. I wondered
how I’d locate him. Outside my cabin, the pitch torches around the
unburied bodies had burned low. Dawn would soon come. I started
toward the spring with my bucket and then turned abruptly back to the
torch circle.
No bodies rested inside it. A single shroud, probably Carsina’s, lay in a
tangle on the ground. The other six bodies were gone.
Horror and panic rose in me. The bodies had been stolen. I spun around,
scanning the graveyard in all directions to see if I might see Specks still
carrying the corpses away. What I saw was more frightening. The
torchlight did not carry far, but it picked up the figures stumbling toward
my hedge. Their shrouds trailed white behind them. As I watched, one fell
away and the woman who had been wearing it stumbled on. Numbly, I
counted them. Six. All six of them were walkers. Seven if I counted
Carsina.
It was not a coincidence. It was the magic. Why? What could it mean? I
snatched up a torch from the ground and hastened after them. “Come
back!” I shouted foolishly. “You need help. Come back.” I ran after them,
torch in one hand and water bucket in the other.
None of them paused or even looked back at me. The smallest one, the
boy, had already reached the hedge. I saw him halt there. Slowly he
tottered around. He reminded me of an arthritic dog walking in a circle
before it lies down. Awkwardly, he sat down on the earth by one of my
trees. Then he leaned back against it. He crossed his arms across his belly
and was still. The foliage of the little tree rustled as he sat down against it.
I saw the boy give his head a shake. Then his legs twitched, and the tree
rustled more strongly. As the others reached the hedge, they each selected
a tree, turned slowly, and sat down against it. A horrible suspicion filled
my mind. I recalled the body I had had to retrieve from the forest. “No!” I
cried as I raced toward them. “Get away from there! Don’t!”
The young trees shivered and trembled as if a strong wind were running
through their branches, but the summer night was still and warm around
me. The walkers twitched and jerked like puppets. One of the women cried
out, a high shriek cut short. I dropped my bucket and torch as I reached
her. I reached down and seized her hands. “Come away from there,” I
cried, pulling at her hands. She did not resist me, but neither could I
budge her. She looked up at me, eyes open, her mouth stretched wide in a
silent cry of pain. Her hands closed on mine and gripped tight with the
strength of terror. I pulled with all my strength but could not lift her. Her
legs kicked wildly against the earth. Not far from us, the boy gasped
suddenly and then sagged limply against the tree that gripped him. Then
something not his own muscles lifted his head from his chest and pressed
it back against the tree. In the light of the torch guttering on the ground
behind me, I could see black blood trickling from his nose and mouth. I
still held the woman’s hands, and she still gripped back at me. “Please!”
she gasped. I stooped, seized her shoulders, and with all my strength, I
tried to pull her free of the tree. She gave a long, agonized caw of pain, and
her head suddenly rolled limply forward on her chest. Her hands, which
had been gripping my forearms, fell away. “No!” I cried, and again heaved
at her inert body. “No way to treat a lady,” a voice rasped hoarsely behind
me. “You scoundrel. You raping bastard!” I let go of the woman and
turned, smelling earth and rot and quicklime.
Dale Hardy stood, legs spread, at the edge of the torchlight. He held my
wooden bucket by the bale. “I warned you!” he shouted as he charged at
me. As he came into the light, I could see that the quicklime had eaten
half his face away. He could not be alive, I thought wildly, he could not be
a walker. I took a stumbling step backward as he swung the heavy wooden
bucket in a wide arc. It was coming too fast. I could not avoid it. It hit the
side of my head, and I exploded into light.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
ACCUSATIONS
E brooks and Kesey found me a few hours later. When they arrived with
the first wagonload of bodies for the day, they were puzzled to see the dead
torches and only a single shroud remaining where they had left seven
corpses the previous evening. Thinking I had somehow dug a new pit and
begun to inter them on my own, they had walked out into the graveyard.
They’d found me, facedown, next to Dale Hardy’s body. As they
approached, a whole flock of croaker birds rose. They’d been feeding on
the six bodies that were neatly fastened by the swiftly growing rootlets to
my hedgerow trees. The whole area stank of rotting flesh and buzzed with
flies.
Kesey thought I was dead. He and Ebrooks assumed that I’d gone down
fighting with Specks who had come to steal our dead. Blood coated one
whole side of my head. But when Kesey rolled me over, I groaned. He sent
Ebrooks running to my cabin to get water.
“And that was when Ebrooks found Carsina’s body in your bed,” Spink
said quietly.
He stood outside my cell and spoke to me through a small barred window.
I lay on a straw-stuffed mattress on a narrow pallet and looked up at the
dim ceiling. The only light came from a lantern fasted to the wall in the
outside hall. Spink was the first visitor I’d had since I’d wakened in the cell
a day and a half ago. They’d fed me twice, food on a tray shoved through
an open slat in the bottom of the door. Grayish stuff in a bowl and a round
of very hard bread with water. I’d eaten it. The two meals had been the
only noteworthy events since I’d wakened there in the dark, head
pounding with pain.
I listened to the silence of Spink waiting for me to come up with a logical
explanation. Talking hurt. I didn’t like to move my jaw. Thinking hurt,
too. I made it brief. “Carsina was a walker. She came to me just like Hitch
did. I tried to help her, but her fever came back. She asked me to get her
husband for her. I was going to bring her some water first. I took the
bucket, went outside, and realized that all the corpses we’d received that
day were walkers. And they were all headed for the hedge. I ran out there
and tried to pull one woman free of the tree, but it was already growing
into her. I couldn’t get her loose. And that was when Dale Hardy came up
out of the pit grave, picked up my bucket, and hit me with it. And that’s
all I know.”
It was my turn to fall silent. I waited for him to say he believed me. When
the silence lasted, I waited for him to say he didn’t believe me. What he
finally said was, “That doesn’t sound good, Nevare.”
“Just say it sounds like a madman raving. I know it does.” I sighed and
slowly sat up. “I don’t remember any of what you’re telling me. Only that
bucket coming at me.” The vertigo passed. I felt dizzy every time I changed
position. I scratched the side of my head. Flaky brown blood came off
under my nails. The magic did not seem to be healing me as swiftly this
time as it had when I’d been shot. The answer came to me. The magic was
severely depleted. If I didn’t feed it, the next time death knocked on my
door, it might come right in. At that moment it sounded like sweet mercy.
“Spink, you shouldn’t be here. No one connects you and Epiny to me. Go
home. Let me just meet my fate.”
“Before you sounded mad. Now you just sound stupid,” he huffed. When I
made no response, he sighed. “If you only sounded insane, it would be
better for you.”
I stood up slowly and came to the window. “What do you mean?”
“Captain Jof Thayer nearly went mad when he heard that the dead body of
his wife was found in your bed. Captain and Clara Gorling are equally
distressed. It looks…very bad, Nevare.”
“What, that I tried to save his wife? What was I supposed to do? Look,
Spink, I’ve been here a day and a half. And if it weren’t for,” I lowered my
voice, “the magic, I’d be dead by now. No one gave me five minutes of care
for my smashed head. The guard won’t talk to me at all. I don’t even know
why I’ve been thrown into prison.”
Spink swallowed. He started to speak, then looked around as if he’d rather
bite his tongue out.
“Just say it,” I barked at him.
“It looks bad, Nevare. No one will believe that all those people were
walkers, not all at once. It looks as if you deliberately planted those trees
and then, when you had the chance, shoved fresh corpses up against them
to feed them. The trees had shot up almost three feet taller overnight, and
blossomed! They had to chop them down to free the bodies from them.
The trees had rooted into them so deeply that they had to bury them with
pieces of trunk still attached to them. And Dale Hardy’s body out there,
pulled right out of his grave? From the damage that the quicklime did to
him no one will believe he was a walker.”
“Look at the grave. You’ll find no shovel marks on it, at least, none that I
made. If anyone dug him up, it wasn’t me. And I don’t think anyone did. I
think he came crawling out on his own.”
Spink gritted his teeth again. “A bit too late to look for any evidence of
that sort. They put him back in the earth as quickly as they could. But it
was no secret that he’d threatened you in the street that day. How people
see it is that you took a macabre vengeance on both the woman who
accused you and the man who wanted to defend her. You dragged his body
out intending to give it to a tree.”
“And then what? I hit myself on the head with a bucket?”
“Good point. But people in the town are too scandalized and horrified to
think sensibly about this, let alone make allowances for claims of Speck
magic. Nevare, they found Carsina Thayer’s body in your bed.”
I was baffled. “I told you. She was a walker. I tried to save her. I gave her
water, and made her one of those teas that Epiny gave me for Hitch. I
never had a chance to make it for him; he was dead when I got back to
him. But I thought I had a chance to save Carsina. I took my bucket to get
her more water before I left for town to get her husband. But when I went
out the door, I saw the other walkers. I’m afraid they distracted me from
my errand.” Spink didn’t deserve my angry sarcasm, but my head was
pounding with the effort of talking. My jaw felt strange. When I touched
it, I found lumpiness at the hinge. Had it been broken, and healed by the
magic?
“They found Carsina in your bed,” Spink said again, heavily emphasizing
the word. Then, his face flushing dark scarlet, he added, “Her nightgown
was rucked up around her waist.”
It took me a moment. At first, his words made no sense to me. “Oh, by the
good god!” I felt as if I’d been punched in the belly. It had never even
occurred to me that Carsina’s body in my bed would be seen as anything
other than an act of compassion on my part. I felt dizzy. Rumors that I
could murder and rape had been hard enough to deal with. Adding
necrophilia to the list sickened me. I said as much to Spink, and added, “I
was rather counting on the fact that I’d tried to save Carsina to be to my
benefit.”
“You’re facing execution, Nevare.”
“I didn’t do it, Spink. Surely I’ll be given a chance to defend myself? They’ll
have to admit that someone struck me down.” A thought came to me. “My
journal. My soldier son journal. Can you get it?”
“I already thought of that. I have it safe at my house. No one will know
your secrets, Nevare.”
“I wasn’t worried about betraying secrets. I was hoping that it might be
accepted as evidence. Surely if a man keeps a journal faithfully, he records
what is true. There is a lot in there that I wouldn’t want widely known, of
course, but there is also much that will prove me an innocent man, if they
allow it.”
“Or a crazy man, Nevare. I don’t think they’d let you pick and choose what
your judge saw. Would you really want the whole thing bared to him?” I
thought of everything that was in there. My true name, among other
things. The shame a court-martial would heap on my father. My
unvarnished opinion of my father, hard things I’d said about Yaril, and my
trafficking with the Specks. No. “Burn it,” I suddenly decided. “I’d rather
hang than have my journal become fodder for the yellow press.”
“I wouldn’t let that happen,” he assured me.
Silence fell between us. The utter hopelessness of my position washed
through me. “Why are you here?” I asked miserably.
He shut his eyes for a moment. “Epiny demanded that I come. She did
something, Nevare. She did it for a friend, a deathbed favor. She had no
idea what it would mean. Sergeant Hoster entrusted a letter to her. She
promised that if Hoster died, she would deliver it to the commanding
officer of the regiment and demand that the letter be opened and read in
her presence, and the contents acted upon. Nevare, I swear she had no
idea what was in it! When Major Helford read it out loud, she fainted
there in his office. They came to get me, and I had to carry her home.
She’s been distraught ever since.”
I didn’t have to ask what it was. Epiny, my own cousin, had unwittingly
delivered Sergeant Hoster’s damning evidence against me. I spoke the
heavy words slowly. “The letter accused me of Fala’s murder. And it told
where to find Clove’s harness, with the one mismatched strap.”
He stared at me. Then, “Yes,” he said softly. His eyes were sad. I tried not
to see the question in them.
“Hitch did it,” I told him. “He confessed it all to me that night he walked.”
Spink glanced away from me. His eyes did not come back to meet mine.
“Spink, I’m telling the truth. He told me he took the strap from Clove’s
harness and that he killed Fala with it because the magic forced him to do
it. He’d set the whole thing up. He was the one who took me to Sarla
Moggam’s brothel in the first place.” I suddenly stopped talking, as I
recalled that no one there had seen us together. He’d entered before I had,
and I’d probably left after he’d gone. Oh, so neatly done, Hitch. You served
the magic well. Spink spoke hesitantly. “I’m sorry, Nevare. I believe you. I
do. But it all sounds so, well, so desperate. What possible reason could
Scout Hitch have for killing that whore? You’re accusing a dead man
whom almost everyone on the post respected. He was a bit of a rogue,
that’s true, but I don’t think anyone is going to believe that he killed Fala
because Speck magic made him do it.”
“But they’ll believe that I did it for pleasure,” I said heavily.
He closed his eyes before he spoke. “I am afraid that they will.” I turned
and walked away from the door. I sat down on the bunk. The wood frame
made a cracking sound. I ignored it. “Go away, Spink. Save your
reputation. I don’t think there’s anything that anyone can do for me now.
Go away.”
“I do have to go. But I’ll be back, Nevare. I don’t believe the things they’ve
said about you. Neither does Epiny. For what it’s worth, most of her
women are angry at her now, because although she gave Major Helford
the letter, she has tried to say that it’s all a huge mistake, that Sergeant
Hoster didn’t have the truth of it. But they found Clove’s harness hidden in
the stable, with the one odd bit of strap, and the strap they found around
Fala’s neck matches the harness perfectly.”
“So, in addition to knocking myself out with a bucket in the midst of
dishonoring the dead, I’m now stupid enough to have strangled a whore
with a strap from my own horse’s harness? Think about it, Spink! Can you
honestly picture any man planning such a murder? ‘I think I’ll take a
harness strap from my own horse’s harness, take it to town with me, lure
Fala away from the brothel, strangle her with it, and leave her body where
it’s certain to be found.’ Can anyone believe that I’m that stupid?”
The muscles stood out on the side of his jaw. He forced himself to speak.
“Nevare. These acts you are accused of are so hateful that given even a
scrap of evidence, they’ll find you guilty. The whistle brigade is demanding
that someone be punished, and the only someone in custody is you.” My
mind jumped back to what he had been telling me.
“Epiny took my part? Publicly?”
He nodded grimly.

“Tell her to renounce it. Tell her to say that she has changed her mind.”

“Oh, and of course she would do that if her husband commanded it.”
Spink’s voice was dryly sarcastic, but I saw something else in his tight
smile. Pride. He knew Epiny would not back down. And he took pride in
the fact that she would stand behind her convictions regardless of the
consequences.

“Oh, Spink, I am so sorry. She will lose all her friends over this, won’t
she?”

“Not quite. Amzil has come forward to stand beside her. She has told
everyone that you lived with her for nearly a month in Dead Town and
never put a hand on her or demonstrated any sort of temper. Of course, as
a former whore, her word counts for less, but she gave it nonetheless.”

I winced. “Go home, Spink. You’ve done all you can and I need to think.
There has to be some compelling evidence I can offer that I’m innocent.”
“You’ll have to come up with it soon,” he warned me. “Surely they won’t
try to hold a court-martial while the plague is still raging?”
“The plague has stopped. Just as if someone blew a lamp out. Some are
hailing it as a miracle. I’ve heard at least one person say that it’s the good
god showing his pleasure that a vile criminal like yourself has been
captured.”
“It stopped?”
“Like magic.” He smiled grimly. “Fevers went down. People rallied on their
deathbeds. There hasn’t been a death since you were brought here,
Nevare.”
“Like magic,” I agreed sourly. I lay back on my protesting pallet and
looked at the cobwebbed ceiling. “Go home, Spink. Tell Epiny I love her
and tell her to stop defending me in public. Tell Amzil the same.”
“That you love her?” He seemed incredulous.
“Why not?” I replied recklessly. “I can scarcely lose anything by saying it
now.”
“I’ll do it, then,” he said, and seemed almost pleased at the prospect. As
he turned to go, I called after him, “I’ll be sent some sort of counsel, won’t
I? Someone who will help me present my defense?”
“They’re trying to find someone willing to represent you,” he said. If he
meant the words to be reassuring, they were not. I wondered if they would
still hold the court-martial if I had no representative.
If I had remained at the academy, I should have eventually had to
complete a course that covered martial law and how it was administered.
What little I had heard of that course convinced me it would have been a
dry study. Little had I ever thought that any of it would apply to me. I
closed my eyes for a moment and tried once more to be the boy who had
set off so joyfully for the academy, so full of anticipation of a glorious
career and a golden future. That future was to have included an obedient
and doting wife, a woman raised in the traditions of being a cavalla
officer’s wife. Carsina. What had we done to one another? Then I clenched
my jaw and admitted that she was little to blame for all that had
happened.
If I wanted to parcel out blame, I had only to look at myself. Hitch had
warned me that using the magic for my own ends would always extract a
harsh price. If I had not put Carsina under a command to apologize to me
before she died, she might have died quietly of the plague. I had sealed my
own fate. At least hanging would be a swift end for a man of my girth. The
physics of such an execution probably meant that my head would be torn
completely from my body. Grisly, but much swifter than dangling and
strangling. I shook my head and tried to rattle such thoughts away. I could
not think of that just now. And I could not think of anything else, either.
I was in pain from the blow I’d taken from the bucket. Feeling my face and
the side of my skull, I became convinced that I should have died of such
injuries if my residual magic had not undertaken to swiftly repair them.
Tender spots convinced me that the least injuries I had taken were a
cracked skull and a broken jaw. I was torn between being glad the magic
had preserved my life and wishing that I had died a swift death. The
healing of my injuries, though not as fast as my recovery from my bullet
wound, was a liability to me, I slowly realized. It was likely that when I
stood before the court-martial, I would appear fully healed and in good
health. No one would believe that I had taken a deadly blow from a dead
man. They would find some other way to account for me being
unconscious.
My cell was a small bare room. I could see the cot, a chamber-pot, the
barred window in the door, and the food slot in the door. Light, dim but
constant, came from a lantern on a hook in the hall outside. It was very
quiet. Either the other inhabitants slept a lot or there weren’t any. Other
than my visit from Spink and the guard on his regular rounds to check on
me or feed me, I did not see a soul. With no pastimes and nothing to
distract me from my predicament, my thoughts chased each other in
ever-smaller circles.
I was going to die. That much seemed very certain. I hoped I could
maintain my dignity. Just thinking of ascending the steps to a gallows
made me shaky. I resolved I would not shake or weep or beg. Probably all
condemned men resolved to go bravely; I hoped I’d have the strength to
keep those resolutions. I dreaded my trial and yet longed for it, to have it
all be over. I made and unmade final decisions a dozen times a day. I
would ask that all my possessions be left to Amzil and her children. No, I
would not mention her or the children lest association with me taint them.
I would tell the court everything: who I was, how I had become infected
with magic, the dangers of the Dust Dance, how I had consorted with
Specks and been tricked into planting ancestor trees in the graveyard, and
what the matured trees meant to the Specks—No. I would stand silent and
say not a word and let them convict me. That would shelter my father and
sister from further shame. I would tell them only of the walkers, and how I
had tried to save Carsina. I wondered if they would think me a liar or a
madman. The days dripped by. A Lieutenant Roper came by to tell me my
trial had been delayed until it could be determined if the town of Gettys
had more right to try me for crimes against its civilian citizens than the
military. He came to the door of my cell, imparted this to me, and left
before I could ask me if he was my defense counsel. I feared he was.
My next visitor wakened me in what I thought were early-morning hours.
A tall man with bloodshot eyes breathed brandy fumes into my cell as he
gripped the bars of the little window in my cell door and shook it on its
hinges. “You great fat bloody coward!” he slurred at me. “I ought to drag
you out of there and rip you limb from limb for what you did to my
beautiful wife. You desecrated the most gentle and honorable woman the
good god ever made! You filthy dog! You unspeakable filth!” He shook the
barred window again, working the heavy door against its hinges and the
stout bolt that locked it. I wondered if he had a gun with him. I wondered
if I would move out of range of its muzzle if he did. When he had spent his
fury shaking the door, Captain Thayer suddenly slammed his head against
the wood of it. He rested it there, leaning on my door and breathing
harshly. Then his breath caught. His ragged breathing gave way to the
heart-wrenching sounds of sobs ripping out of him. Into the lesser noise of
his weeping, I foolishly spoke.
“I did not dishonor your wife, sir. I did not touch her. Carsina was a
walker; she roused from what we thought was death but was only a coma.
I gave her tea and cold water. I was on my way to fetch you when—”
You lying scum!” My words had kindled him to fresh fury. “Don’t you dare
say her name so familiarly, you piece of filth! Hanging is too good for you!
You should have to suffer as you’ve made me suffer!” He thrust his hand
and arm between the bars and made groping motions, as if it could
somehow stretch across the room and throttle me. It would have been
humorous if his murderous intent had not been so sincere.
“Captain Thayer! Sir! Captain, please, sir! You should come away now.”
The guard who addressed him had a thin reedy voice. Thayer turned his
head to stare at him. “Please, sir. You have to come away. I shouldn’t have
let you in at all. He’ll come to trial soon, and you can confront him there.
Sir.” Thayer seized the bars again and tried vainly to shake the door. The
guard let him. When he finally gave up his vain effort, he sagged against
the door, breathing hoarsely.
“Come away, sir. Justice will be done. Come away now.” And with that, the
guard led him away.
I suspected I had burned away whatever magic I’d had left. I ate the
prison food, but the sophistication of taste that had allowed me to take
pleasure in even the simplest of foods had fled my palate. It was a bowl of
slop each day, with a hunk of hard bread and some water. I ate it only
because I was constantly ravenous. As if to make its mockery of me
complete, the magic that had kept me fat even in far more dire
circumstances now failed. My clothing hung looser on me every day, and
my skin began to sag. When I slept, I only slept. The dreams I had were
fragmented nonsense or ominous nightmares of hanging. After the initial
burst of healing that had kept me alive, my recuperation from the bucket
blow was slow. My jaw ached and my head hurt most of the time. Sudden
motion as simple as turning my head toward a sound produced dizziness.
And the waiting dragged on, day after day, with no one seeing fit to
inform me of anything. The guard who fed me and checked on me refused
to exchange a single word with me. I lost track of the days. Sometimes I
dozed and thought only a few moments had passed, only to hear the rattle
of an insipid meal being pushed through my doors. At other times, I could
find neither sleep nor true wakefulness, but lay on my cot suspended,
feeling as if all time had stopped. The waiting came to an abrupt end
when I jerked out of such a reverie to find Spink once more peering
through the barred window.
“I thought I told you go to away,” I greeted him, even as I could not deny
the relief I felt to see a friendly face.
“Well, you’ve been outranked. I’m here under orders.”

“From Epiny?” I jested, and he almost smiled.

“If her commands could have gotten me through the doors to you again,
I’d have been here a hundred times. No. From Major Helford. His search
for anyone willing to act as your defense finally discovered me. And here I
am.”

“But…” Dismay filled me. “You’re in supply. How on earth could they select
you to act as my counsel? Do you know anything about military law?”

“They did not select me so much as work their way down to me. I’m afraid
everyone above me who was asked begged off. Man after man said that he
could not defend you impartially. As depleted as the ranks of our officers
are, you should probably be grateful that you don’t have Ebrooks or Kesey
in this role.”

“How do you know Kesey and Ebrooks?”

“I was given this task yesterday. I immediately rode out to the cemetery to
interview them.”
I’d sat up too suddenly. I closed my eyes to let the dizziness pass, then
opened them and asked, “And what did they tell you about me?”
“That they had liked you. Not at first, but when they saw you doing your
best at a task no one else wanted, and living out there despite the forest so
close by, they came to admire your ‘guts,’ as they so elegantly put it. They
said it was hard to believe you had done such a thing.”
His tone told me everything. “But not impossible. They do believe it.” He
folded his lips tightly and then gave a curt nod. “The evidence is against
you. Every man who has held the post of cemetery guard before you has
come to a bad end. Desertion or suicide. One man simply drank himself to
death. They found him neatly laid out in the grave he’d dug for himself.
Kesey and Ebrooks both think you went mad.”
“How do they explain the injury to my head?”

“Self-inflicted.”

“They think I hit myself in the head with a bucket?” I was incredulous.

“It’s the only possible explanation, Nevare. And therefore, as unlikely as it
is, they have to believe it.”

I turned away from him. My hands went to fists. Irrational tears stung my
eyes. Foolish as it was, I’d expected them to believe me. I hadn’t thought
their good opinions would count for much, but I’d believed there would be
at least two speaking in my favor at my trial. To hear that even Kesey and
Ebrooks could believe such evil of me destroyed all hope. “I’m going to
plead guilty.” I could scarcely believe I’d said the words, but the moment I
had, I saw the wisdom in them.
“What?” Spink was horrified.
“I’m going to plead guilty and get it over with. I don’t want a drawn-out
trial with spectators flocking to listen to people say vile things about me. I
don’t want to stir things up until my execution becomes a social event. I
just want to plead guilty and be done with it.”
“Nevare, you can’t! You didn’t do it, you didn’t do any of it!”

“Can you be sure of that? How do you know I’m not mad, Spink?”

“Because of your journal,” he said quietly. I thought he sounded
embarrassed.

“You read my journal?” I was outraged.

“No. Not directly. Epiny read it. She found it soon after I hid it, though
she didn’t tell me she’d found it until after she’d finished reading it.”

“Oh, by the good god. Is there no mercy left in the world?” For one
horrifying instant, every demeaning thing I’d written about Epiny flashed
through my mind, along with my accounts of my sexual encounters with
Olikea and every other stupid thing I’d recorded in there. Why on earth
had I written such things down? They didn’t belong in a soldier son’s
journal! And now Epiny had read them all.
And through her—“How much did she tell you?”

“Enough,” Spink replied, his ears going pink.

Silence reigned between us. To have the last two people in the world who
thought well of me know exactly what sort of man I really was
overwhelmed me in a tide of despair. Execution would be a mercy.

“I’m going to plead guilty, Spink. If you have any regard left for me at all,
burn that damned book and then forget you ever knew me.” I felt a sharp
pang of regret as I recalled the letters I’d sent to my sister. A heartfelt
prayer went out of me that my father had been vigilant and had destroyed
them unread. “Good-bye, Spink. If there’s anything left of mine in the
cabin that has value, sell it off. And Clove. See he goes to a good master.
Use the money however you think best.”
I heard Spink shift his feet on the floor outside my cell. After a moment he
spoke almost calmly, the anger muted in his voice. “I thought you had
more courage than that, Nevare.”
“You were mistaken, then,” I retorted.
I heard the rustle of paper. “There are certain things you should know. The
town of Gettys wanted to try you. Major Helford decided that the military
has more right than they. But he conceded to them that when you stand
before your seven judges, three of them would be from the town. Now,
they haven’t given me much time to prepare. I have statements from
Ebrooks and Kesey. Can you think of anyone else who might give a
testimonial as to your character?” I didn’t reply. After a short time, he
pushed on doggedly. “I have a list of questions here that I need you to
answer. They’ll help me to defend you.” I said nothing.
He cleared his throat. “Under what circumstances did you first meet Fala,
a prostitute working in Sarla Moggam’s brothel?” His voice was absolutely
neutral. I refused to answer.
After a moment, he asked, “On what date were you first betrothed to
Carsina Grenalter, Nevare Burvelle?”
I came to my feet faster than I thought I could possibly do it and flung
myself at the door. I tried to thrust my hand through the bars to seize his
damnable list of questions, but he simply stepped back out of my reach. I
was dizzy with my sudden motion and with the fury he had awokened in
me. I clung to the bars to keep from falling and growled through my teeth,
“Don’t you dare reveal my real name at the trial! Don’t you dare connect
me to Carsina!”
“Nevare, it’s your only chance. Tell the whole truth. All of it.”
“I won’t. If you even try to bring it up, I’ll disrupt the whole proceeding.
I’ll attack my guards and force them to kill me right there.” It came to me
that that was an excellent idea in any case; it would avoid all the ceremony
and suspense of a hanging. I think Spink must have seen that in my eyes.
He suddenly looked very tired and defeated.
“I know you think that your life is in shambles and not worth saving,” he
said quietly. “But for a moment, I wish you’d stop being so selfish and look
at what you are doing to Epiny and me. She loves you, Nevare. I can’t fail
her and then spend the rest of my life with her. She has already said that if
we have a boy, she’s going to name him Nevare. Does that mean nothing
to you?”
“It means that as usual, Epiny is acting without a grain of sense. You
should stop her. You have a duty to protect your son from his mother’s
foolishness.”
There was a long, cold silence. He spoke formally at last. “Well. I will
tolerate many things from you, but not insult to my wife. You may do as
you please. I will put forth my best effort, and I will never have to
apologize to my wife or anyone else for being derelict in my duties. Go to
your death a coward if you must, Nevare. Good day.”
And with that, he left me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
LISANA

For the rest of that morning, I laid on my pallet and wondered exactly
what Spink would think he must do. It was good to know that he would
stand by me as a friend, even when I chose to give up, but it was
intolerable that he should defy me, for if he chose to betray my real name
and then speak of my involvement with the Specks, he would ruin my
family’s name. Even if he won clemency for me that way, I thought grimly,
I would emerge from my cell into a life I preferred not to face.
I reined my mind away from such thoughts and began to make my plans,
feeble as they were. At the very first opportunity after I came into the
courtroom, I would attack whoever was presiding. I’d have to make it a
real effort, not just a dramatic show. I wanted to force them to kill me. I
wondered if I’d be moved from my cell to the courtroom by armed guards.
If so, a simple escape attempt might win me what I hoped for. Now that
the magic had forsaken me, a bullet or two in the back should end it all. I
shifted on my bunk, and the abused planks beneath me gave a final
protesting crack before they collapsed onto the floor. I sighed, but did not
bother getting up. After a time, I closed my eyes. Sleep opened under me
like a trap door.
I fell to my knees in the deep moss. Around me, the summer forest
hummed with life. I blinked, for even the leaf-dappled sunlight was a
shock to my eyes after the dimness of my cell. The rich, earthy smells of
moss and earth filled my nostrils. A pale green butterfly came to dance
around me, perplexed, and then suddenly lifted and wafted away on the
foliage-filtered breeze. Slowly I stood and looked around me, then turned
my feet to the path that led up the ridge to Tree Woman’s stump.
I felt a difference in my presence in this place. I was not there under my
own power but at her command. I was as footless as a ghost, as if I drifted
over a path where before I would have felt the mossy earth beneath my
feet. The cool breeze touched my face but did not move my hair or stir my
clothing. When I came in sight of Tree Woman’s stump, I halted,
perplexed. “And here he is,” I heard Tree Woman say. But not to me.
Epiny stood there beside her, leaning on Tree Woman’s trunk, looking pale
and sweaty and disturbingly real. She had been wearing a straw sun hat;
she had pushed it off and it dangled down her back by the ribbon around
her neck. Her hair had been pinned up as befitted a married woman, but
it had come down messily in tendrils around her face. The dark blue dress
she wore struck me as peculiarly shapeless and unflattering. Then I
abruptly realized it had been cut to accommodate the growing child inside
her.
“You cannot be here,” I said to her. She peered at me, her eyes widening.
“You can’t be here,” I said more loudly, and then she seemed to hear me.
“I am here,” she asserted, an edge of anger in her voice. She squinted at
me and then, with a small gasp, lifted her hand to her mouth. “You are the
one who cannot be here. Nevare. You are rippling.”
“It is only by her pleading that you are here,” Tree Woman rebuked me as
she wavered into view. She sat on top of her stump, looking older and
wearier than I had ever seen her. She was thinner, I realized. Depleted of
her fat. That was disturbing. “You see what you have reduced me to!” Tree
Woman rebuked me. “This is your own fault, Soldier’s Boy, that I have so
little strength to help you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He never understands anything,” Tree Woman observed to Epiny in the
voice of an older woman advising a much younger one.
“I know,” Epiny replied. She sounded both exhausted and fearful. She was
breathing heavily, and when she set her hand to the top of her belly, my
heart tightened.
“You shouldn’t be here. How did you get here?”
“I walked.” She took a breath. “Uphill. And against the fear.”
“I am surprised she managed it,” Tree Woman observed. “She came into
the forest calling for Olikea. She is fortunate that I answered instead of
that one. She is still very angry with you, Soldier’s Boy. I can imagine too
well how she would have vented that anger.”
“I don’t understand how any of this can be,” I repeated. “Isn’t this the
other place? Aren’t I dreamwalking?”
“Yes. You are. And you have dreamwalked to a real place, just as your
cousin has hiked here. So. Here we all are. And she tells me she would do
anything, give us anything, if the magic will help her find a way for you to
live.” Tree Woman cocked her head at me and her eyes went cold.
“Perhaps I should ask for her firstborn child.”
“No!” I roared, but my roar had the strength of a cat’s hiss. Epiny had
gone paler, but she said nothing. She looked at me and her eyes filled with
tears. She bowed her head.
“She is going back to her husband right now,” I announced. “Oh, is she?”
Tree Woman laughed humorlessly. “Stop giving commands. You are
powerless here. And you are powerless by your own choice. Again and
again, you refused to serve the magic. Repeatedly, you refused to answer
Olikea’s summons so that she could build you up with the correct foods.
You have been like a small boy refusing to do his chores. With your
willfulness you have tangled the magic until I begin to wonder if anyone
can make it work again. But some tasks must be done, and if the proper
person will not do them, another will be found. Your cousin has come
here of her own will. I do not know why the magic did not choose someone
like her to begin with. I think she will serve it far better than you have.”
“You can’t do this! You can’t take her instead of me!”
“Do you think not? She has strength, and a natural affinity for this world.”
The woman on the stump looked down on Epiny, and her smiled
narrowed. “I recall the first time that she and I fought over you. I was
surprised at her strength then. And on the day you cut me, she came into
my world and dared to challenge me for a life the magic had already
claimed. She took him back with her, and a man who should have fed the
magic has instead fathered her child. It would suit me very well, Soldier’s
Boy, to see her bow her head to the magic. It would be fitting if she lost
what I lost.”
I looked at Tree Woman. I still felt my love for her, but I also felt the gulf
between us that she could even threaten Epiny so. “What can I do to
persuade you to let her go free?” I asked bluntly. “I’ll give you anything to
see her safely home.”
“That’s the wrong bargain,” Tree Woman replied. “She has already told
me several things she is willing to do to win your life back for you. The
only thing that is left for me to decide is if we have any use for you.”
“Let Epiny go. Help me to live and I will come to you and serve the magic.
Even if it means going against my own people to do so.”
Tree Woman cocked her head. She was quiet for a time, but it was more
as if she were listening than thinking. I stood beside Epiny and tried to
take her hand. She watched owlishly as my phantom hand swept through
hers. I put my arm around her. She gave me a pale, tired smile and then
turned her worried glance back to Tree Woman. I looked past the
meditating woman to the new tree sprouting from her prone trunk. Its
leaves hung limp and motionless in the summer breeze. Lisana focused
her gaze on us again. “The magic will take both of you,” she announced,
obviously pleased.
“That wasn’t offered!” I retorted angrily.

“Of course it was,” she replied. “Epiny said she’d give anything to save
you.
You said you’d do anything to see her safely home. The magic agrees to
both.”

“That isn’t fair!” I cried.

“What would be fair, Soldier’s Boy? Shall we let her go, let you die, let the
intruders cut down the ancestor trees? Let the road gash through the
forest like your blade cut through my trunk? Cut the People loose from
their roots as you severed me from mine? That would be fair?”

“I’m sorry I did that,” I said again. I suddenly understood that Epiny’s
venture into the forest had reawakened all of Tree Woman’s hurt and
anger. Lisana and I had set our great battle behind us; we had even seen
ourselves as victims of our own conflict. Epiny’s presence tipped the scales
a different way. She was my ally who had aided me in Tree Woman’s
defeat. Tree Woman felt afresh the ignominy of her defeat. Epiny was the
living embodiment of my other life and my loyalty to it. She represented
everything that kept me away from the magic. “Please, Lisana. Please let
her go,” I said simply at last. “You ask that as if you think it were in my
power. She came here howling out Olikea’s name like a she-cat in heat.
She is lucky that one did not come to her. Olikea and the others have fled
into the mountains. They fear what is to come. When the magic is
angered, all suffer. The People are converging on Kinrove’s folk now. They
fear his magic has ceased to work. The Fear his dancers make no longer
holds the intruders at bay; the ancestor trees have begun to fall again.
Kinrove is the oldest and fattest of our Great Ones. They will petition him
to stop the dancing, and begin a war such as your folk will understand.”
“There is no need for that!” Epiny broke in. She gave me a single sideways
glance and then said, “I can do what you have asked of me. I can stop the
men from cutting down your ancestor trees. And I will do it, if you find a
way for Nevare to live.”
For a long time Tree Woman regarded Epiny silently. Then she said, “I
told you.
The magic has accepted. It is up to the magic now, not me.”

“But what are we supposed to do?” I asked.

“Whatever the magic wants you to do,” Tree Woman replied. “Lisana,” I
begged. “I have told you over and over again. I do not know what the
magic wants of me. If I knew, I would have done it by now.”

“You are the only one who can possibly know. I suggest you listen more
closely to it,” she replied stiffly. I suspected I had offended her by calling
her by name in front of Epiny. She turned her back on both of us, and
then, suddenly, she wasn’t there. In the instant she vanished, I suddenly
felt frail, a shadow blowing in a black wind. Then Epiny looked at me and
set her hand on top of mine, which rested on her shoulder. Her fingers
went through my hand; she clasped her own shoulder but I felt more
stable.

“You’re holding me here.” I said, amazed.
“I’m trying to. I don’t quite know how any of this works.” She looked
around fearfully. “Do you know the way home?”
“I might. It’s a long trek through the woods. Do you think you’re strong
enough?”
She gave a strained laugh. “What choice do I have? I’ve read that phrase
over and over in your journal, Nevare. That the magic leaves you no
choices. Now I think I understand what it means.” She turned away from
Lisana’s stump and walked back along the ridge and I drifted with her, a
child’s toy on a string.
“Why did you come here? Why were you looking for Olikea?”
“I thought…I don’t know what I thought. That perhaps she would know a
way to save you. Spink came home heartsick that you had decided to plead
guilty and be done with it. I waited until he left the house. And then I
borrowed a horse…”
“From whom?” I cut in.
She was unfazed. “Very well. I stole a horse and cart and drove out to the
cemetery and walked into the new woods behind your spring. The fear
wasn’t so bad there. So I thought I could do it. And I pushed on up into
the old forest. But I could barely make myself go under those trees. So I
stood there, and I called for Olikea. I think my shouts stirred something
up, because then the fear flooded over me. Nevare, I have never been so
frightened. My heart was racing and I couldn’t get my breath. My legs just
turned to jelly and I sank down where I was. I was so terrified I couldn’t
even run away. And it made me, well, angry. So I screamed for Olikea
again. And then something happened. I was still very scared, but I felt I
had to get up and walk. So I did. I walked and I walked, up steep hills and
through brambles, and I was so tired I knew I couldn’t keep going. But I
had to. And finally I got to that stump. And when I saw your sword
sticking out of it, the fear came on me so strong that I thought I would die
of it. Because I knew that somehow I’d come to a place that we had all
dreamed together.”
She stopped walking. I halted, too, not because I willed it but because I
was somehow fastened to her. She drew a deep and shuddering breath.
“How did you stand it?”
“What?”
“The fear. Even though I know that it’s something being done to me, I
can’t ignore it.” She put a free hand to her chest as if to calm the pounding
of her heart.
“Epiny, I didn’t. The magic took it away, or I never could have ventured so
freely through the forest. I don’t know how you forced yourself to come
here. Keep walking. I want to see you safely home.”
“I wish you were really here. I wish you could protect me.” Those words
stabbed deeper than any knife could. It took a little time before I could
speak.
“Epiny, I don’t think you’re in any real danger right now, other than
exhaustion. Go down that way, to the left. See that little rabbit trail in the
moss? Follow it. There’s a stream down there. Drink some water and rest
for a bit before we go on. I’m amazed that a woman in your condition
could make this hike at all.”
She followed my suggestion, but as she worked her way down the steep
path, she asked me, “So you are one of those men who think pregnancy is
a ‘diseased state’? You can’t even bring yourself to say ‘pregnant,’ can
you?”
“I was afraid you’d consider it rude.” Even to myself, I sounded priggish.
Tired and scared as she was, she still managed a small laugh. “It’s only
rude because you think how I got this way is somewhat shameful.
Well-bred women shouldn’t be pregnant. Isn’t that true?”
I thought over her words, and then had to laugh with her. “You make me
think about how I think about things, Epiny. You’re one of the few people
in my life who can make me do that.”
“If we both live through this, I intend to do a lot more of it. At this rate, I
fear I will never have time to scold you properly for how badly you treated
me by concealing that you were still alive. I want you to know I’m just
putting it off until it’s more convenient. I have not forgiven you.”
“There, through those trees—see it? That’s the stream.” I forced myself to
add, “I probably don’t deserve to be forgiven for that. I don’t expect it.”
She halted for an instant and then stumped her way down to the stream,
complaining as she went, “And that is probably the only thing you could
have said that would make me instantly forgive you, no matter how much
you deserve to endure my disdain and contempt for, well, at least months!
Oh, how lovely! It’s beautiful, here.” She pushed through the foliage of a
bush and emerged onto the mossy banks of a stream.
“It is. I’m surprised that you can see that through the fear.” Something
else caught my attention. “Epiny. Do you see the berries on that bush? The
one we just passed?”
“I do.” She ventured closer. “They’re lovely. Such a rich color.”
“Do you think there is any way you could pick some and bring them to me
in the jail?”
“I’ve nothing to carry them in except my handkerchief.” She walked past
them to the stream. She sank down carefully onto the moss. She dipped
the handkerchief she had just mentioned into the water and wiped
perspiration from her brow and the back of her neck before cupping some
water in her hand to drink. All the while, she never let go of my phantom
hand pinned to her shoulder. “When I get back to town, I can buy you
some berries at the market if you wish.”
“Not like those,” I told her. A faint but tantalizing scent wafted to my
ghost nose. My mouth watered, and my suppressed appetite woke with a
roar. “It’s a special sort of berry. They facilitate magic.”
“Really?” She stood up slowly and went back to the bush. “Such an
unusual color,” she said. She picked one. And before I could utter a sound
of warning, she ate it. I felt her consume it. “Oh, my! I’ve never tasted
anything like that!”
“Epiny, stop! Stop!” Her hand hovered over another berry. “I’m afraid if
you eat them, the magic will gain more power over you. Don’t eat
anymore.” With just the one berry, I sensed a change in her. She did as
well. She gripped my hand now, not her own shoulder. Some of her
weariness had fallen away. Tree Woman was right, I realized. Epiny did
have an aptitude for their magic. I recalled what Epiny had told me so
long ago in Old Thares: that once a medium had shown her how to open
herself to magic, she had felt it was a window inside her that she could not
close.
“They’re so delicious,” she murmured. She picked a second berry.

“Epiny! No!”

“Just one more. It made me feel stronger.” It was already in her mouth. I
knew the moment she crushed it, for I felt a surge of magic wash through
her.

“Epiny! For the sake of Spink’s child, stop now! You cannot use this magic
without it taking something from you. You’ve read my journal. Let me tell
you what isn’t in there, what I didn’t have time to record. This magic, it
grows in odd ways. You’ll use it without meaning to. I made Carsina a
walker! I forced that on her, by my foolish words spoken in anger at
Rosse’s wedding. I was too ashamed to tell Spink what I’d done to her.
Carsina came back from the dead, forced to do what I’d cursed her with. I
forced her to go on her knees and beg my forgiveness before she could
die.”
“Oh, the good god’s mercy!” Epiny leaned over and spat. It was too late; I
knew she had absorbed the berry’s potency already. But the simple act
showed me that she had the strength of will I’d lacked. She took a breath,
and then straightened. “Show me the way home, Nevare.”
“Pick the berries for me, Epiny. Even a kerchief full will restore some of my
power.” I felt tantalizingly more substantial. The smell of the two berries
she’d eaten was on her breath. I longed to devour every one that remained
on the bush.
“But you said they’d put me in the magic’s power,” she protested. “Won’t
they do the same to you?”
“I’m already in the magic’s power. If you can get them to me in the prison,
I may be able to rejuvenate enough magic to be able to help myself. Then
you won’t have to.”
“But—”
“I’ve already given Lisana my word. Pick the berries for me, Epiny.” She
stood a long time considering it. Then she spread her handkerchief on the
moss and began, one-handed, to pick berries and drop them on it. When
she had a goodly pile, she gathered up the four corners of her kerchief and
picked it up. “The way home?” she asked me again.
I made a decision. “Going home the way you came is far too long. Follow
this stream,” I told her. “It has to flow downhill. It will take you closer to
the end of the road. From there, I think you can beg aid of the men
working there. They’ll put you on a cart and get you home.”
It was a long and weary walk for her. The berries, she told me, seemed to
have calmed the fear in her and lent her strength. Even so, my heart ached
for her. She’d had the sense to put on boots before she stole the horse and
cart, but her heavy skirts were scarcely the best hiking garb. I greatly
feared that night would fall before we were out of the forest. I wondered if
I’d misjudged the way until we heard the muted sounds of axes falling and
smelled the smoke of burning brush. “We’re nearly there,” I said quietly.
“All you have to do is go toward the sounds. The men working on the road
will help you.”
 Her response was as subdued. “She took me to the end of the ridge and
made me look down on what we had done to her forest. I don’t pretend to
understand completely what the ancestor trees mean to her. But for that
moment, I felt what she felt, and my heart actually went out to her,
Nevare. Different as we are, I still understood that all she wants is to keep
things as they are, to protect her people.”
“But we both know that things never remain as they are, Epiny. It’s a lost
cause already.”
“Perhaps. But I’ve already said that I’d stop them from cutting the
ancestor trees. Do you know exactly what they are?”
“I think that when a Great One dies, the Specks give the body to a tree.
And that the tree absorbs the body, and somehow that person lives on as a
tree.”
“That’s what Tree Woman is? Lisana?”
“I think so. We’ve never discussed it directly. There are so many things
that she assumes I know, and—”
“But that’s horrible! We’re literally killing their elders when we cut those
trees! By the good god’s mercy! No wonder they think we’re monsters!
Nevare, when you went to Colonel Haren, you should have told him what
those trees were! If only he had known!”
“Epiny. I know you’ve read my journal. I did go to Colonel Haren, the
morning before the Dust Dance. I told him what those trees meant to the
Specks and even warned him that if the cutting did not stop, we’d be
facing a different kind of war. He dismissed my concern, and said that he
thought less of me for having it. He’d heard it before. He saw it as silly
superstitious nonsense, and said that once the trees were gone and
nothing bad happened to the Specks, they’d see they’d been foolish and
come around to our way of thinking. It was as if he believed that if we took
their culture away from them, they’d instantly convert to thinking like
Gernians. As if our way of seeing the world were the only real one, and
that anyone, given the opportunity, would think like we do. I couldn’t
make him see any other point of view. Even if I’d told him that the trees
were actually the Specks’ ancestors, he’d have been unable to believe me.
But, yes, we knew those trees were sacred to the Specks. We’ve evidently
known it for a long time. And we keep trying to cut through there
anyway.”
“We’ve been fools! Couldn’t someone, for just a moment, have believed the
Specks knew the secrets of their forest better than we did? We’ve brought
all this on ourselves! The fear, the despair, the Speck plague! It’s all our
own doing.”
“I wouldn’t go that far—” I started to say, but she interrupted me.
“So what did you try, then, to stop the cutting?”
“I—well, that is, what else could I do? I told the colonel and pleaded with
him to stop it. He refused.”
“Well, you should have done something more!”
“Perhaps I could have, if I’d had time. But on my way home, your friend
Hoster’s men shot me.”
“He thought you were a murderer,” she said. She sounded angry and
embarrassed.
“I still can’t believe you trusted that man!” I retorted. She stopped and
looked up at me, and her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“You should just say it and get it over with, Nevare. It’s my fault that
you’re in that cell facing death. I betrayed you. I’m so sorry! So sorry.”
“Oh, Epiny, I didn’t mean it that way! You didn’t betray me. All you did
was what you thought you should do, keep faith with a man you trusted.
And maybe by his own lights, he was a good man. If he believed me such a
monster and a threat to the women of the town, then maybe he was
justified in sending those men after me. It’s all about what we believe, isn’t
it? Not just Gernians and Specks, but even down to individuals like Hoster
and you. All we can do is what we think is right, driven by what we know,
or what we think we know.”
“Nonetheless, I feel it was my fault. And that was why I had to go to the
forest today. To do whatever I could, at any cost, to free you from that
cell.” She was no longer meeting my eyes. She trudged on. The forest brush
was getting thicker. She pushed her way through.
“Epiny, you don’t have to do anything more.” The ringing of axes came
louder now. I could see the sunlight at the edge of the clearing ahead and
smell the drifting smoke of the burning slash piles. The work crews were
close. “Just get yourself safely home. And if there is any way you can get
those berries to me, please do that. And then stay away from whatever
happens next, knowing you’ve done your best.”
“Would you go back on your given word, Nevare?” Her hair had tangled in
a bush.
She stopped and made an exasperated sound as she pulled it free.

“Of course not!”

“Then how can you suggest that I do that? I told Lisana that I’d do
whatever I could to save the ancestor trees. I intend to keep my word.”

“Epiny, I don’t think that Major Helford is going to give you any more
credence than Colonel Haren gave me. Less, because you’re a woman.”
“Such a comforting thing to say to me, Nevare!” I could sense her anger
coming to a boil and felt helpless to stop it. I feared that when it bubbled
over, we would all be scalded.

“Epiny, what can you do?”
She halted. We could hear men’s voices ahead of us. I felt a sudden bolt of
fear. I’d brought her here assuming that the work crews would offer her
help. What if they didn’t? What if they abused her?
“I shouldn’t have brought you this way, Epiny. Most of the men on these
crews are prisoners. And their guards don’t strike me as much better.”
“Actually, I think this is the best way you could have guided me, Nevare. It
will give me the opportunity to see how they are working, and where, and
what they are using. That is information that will help me stop them.” She
was patting her hair back into order and brushing at her skirts as she
spoke. She was tidying herself, I realized, before she walked out to meet
the work crew.
“Epiny, what can you possibly do to stop them?” I asked in a low voice.
“I was thinking explosives,” she replied brightly. “I’ve heard they’ve been
using them to fell trees. Perhaps they’d work to make them stop felling
trees.”
“Oh, the good god’s mercy on us all! Epiny, let that idea go. All you’ll do is
succeed at hurting yourself or others. Where would you get explosives,
anyway?” She turned and gave me a sly smile. “Have you forgotten? My
husband is in charge of supply.”
Then she lifted her hand from mine. All around me, the forest sparkled
unbearably and then dissolved into floating dust. A moment later, I was
staring up at the ceiling of my cell. I groaned and covered my eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
COURT-MARTIAL
They woke me early on the day of my trial. I was given a basin of warm
water and a rag to wash myself. When I thanked the guard, he told me
gruffly, “It’s for the benefit of the court, not you!”

The water was filthy long before I finished. Just the caked blood from the
side of my head had turned it a rusty brown. I wished for a mirror, then
was glad I didn’t have one. My hair and my whiskers had grown out. I
hadn’t changed my clothing since the day I’d awakened in the cell. Grave
earth still smudged my knees, and my own blood stained my shirt and
jacket. The cuffs of my trousers seemed to have picked up some very real
burrs and thorns on my dreamwalk. I’d lost weight, but not in the way of a
man who had worked it off. My flesh hung slack on my body; my face
sagged. I suspected that many people would flock to my trial expecting to
see a monster. Thanks to my confinement, I would look the part.
The last two days had been an agony of suspense. No one had come to talk
with me. I didn’t know if Spink was too furious or too busy trying to
collect evidence in my favor. In the long lonely hours that had passed since
I had “returned” to my cell, my emotions had peaked and fallen in an
endless series of waves. Lisana had said that if I did what the magic
wished, I’d be saved. I’d promised to do anything. But the magic had not
asked anything of me. I’d sat, idle and hopeless, waiting for something to
happen. I tried to feel some spark, some turmoil in my blood to suggest
that the magic had not abandoned me. There had been nothing. If the
magic had given me a task, I didn’t know what it was. Nothing and no
one could save me now. It was time to meet my fate like a soldier.
Spink arrived by midmorning. When I heard his step in the corridor, I
went to the window of my cell. Over one arm, he carried my spare
uniform, freshly mended, washed, and pressed. The glint in his eyes
warned me that he was still angry over my earlier comments about Epiny.
What I had to say to him today would please him even less, I thought. I
might have only one chance to bring up that topic.
So I greeted him with, “Epiny plans to use explosives to stop the road
crews from cutting the Specks’ ancestor trees.”
He stopped dead and stared at me. Then he turned to the guard who had
been outside my range of vision. “Bring this man more water and a razor!
He cannot be presented to the court this way. We have the dignity of these
proceedings to consider.”
“Sir, he may do himself an injury with a razor.”
“And how much would the court care about that? Less, I think, then
having an unshaven bumpkin presented to them as a soldier facing trial.
Corporal, this is still our regiment. Doubtless this man will exit it one way
or another in the next few days. Let’s have him leave looking somewhat
like a soldier, shall we?”
“Yes, sir,” was the daunted response. I listened to the scuff of his boots as
he left.
Outside my door, Spink gave a sudden sigh. “I shall hope I can pass your
greeting off as lunatic raving. How are you feeling?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“I did. I hope the guard thought it was gibberish. And you obviously
expect me to be surprised by it. Nevare, it grieves me that you don’t
understand at all the depth of love and trust that exists between Epiny and
me. You think she has concealed this from me, don’t you?”
I was left speechless. It had been inconceivable to me that Epiny would go
home and confide her intentions to Spink. He was right. I had had no
concept of the strength of the connection between them. But when I
replied to him, I spoke to something else. “That isn’t the only reason you’re
furious with me, is it?” He spoke tightly. “No. It’s not. In a very short time,
Nevare, after you’ve gone to the trouble to shave and wash and put on your
best uniform, we will walk under guard to the courtroom, where you will
face seven men all intent on condemning you to a vile death. I’ll put on a
mimicry of a defense, not because that is my intent but because I literally
have nothing to work with. After that, they’ll condemn you. And
tomorrow, as your friend, I’ll watch you hanged. Then Epiny and Amzil
and I will bury you. We’ve already decided that it’s better that the children
not attend any of this. It would scar them for the rest of their lives. We’ll
allow them to pray for you at home.”
Slow tears formed in his eyes. He ignored them when they began to roll
down his cheeks. He stood very straight, stiff as a soldier facing deadly
fire. And as brave, I thought to myself. I tried to find a gentle way to ask
my next question. “You’ll keep Epiny safe, won’t you? You won’t allow her
to do anything to endanger herself?”
His voice choked. “I’m afraid I already have. She’s been in bed since she
was brought home after her little stroll in the woods. She had—that is, we
feared she was going to lose the baby. The doctor says her situation is still
grave, but that if she stays in bed, she may still carry the child to term.
Such is our hope.” He took a deep shuddering breath. “For a short time, I
feared I would lose Epiny and our child, as well as you. I’ve had a very dark
three days, Nevare. I know I should have come to see you and consult with
you on your defense. But it all felt so hopeless.”
“It is hopeless for me, Spink. But if you keep Epiny home and safe and she
gives you a healthy child, well, then, that is hope enough for me. Don’t
think you have to watch my execution. In truth, I think I could bear it
better knowing that you were not there. Please.”
He’d gone paler. “Military laws demand it. I’ll be there, Nevare. Epiny
wanted to be at your trial today. Only the threat of losing her baby kept
her at home. Amzil is taking care of her. If there is an opportunity for her
to testify on your behalf, I’ll send a runner for her. It was very difficult to
convince Epiny that there was nothing she could contribute to your
defense without putting you in deeper water. I’ve been grateful for her
weakness in one way—at least I know she won’t be running off to explode
things.” He took a breath and then asked wistfully, “Is there no chance the
magic will save you?” How peculiar the world had become. A year and a
half ago, we would have mocked such a fantastic idea. Now we both tried
to cling to it as a last hope. I had to shake my head. “It’s gone, Spink. I
haven’t felt even a tingle of it.” I did not add that with Epiny unable to
fulfill her end of the bargain, I had no chance at all. I would die tomorrow,
her bargain with the magic would be broken, and its ability to manipulate
her would be gone.
Spink spoke suddenly in an official voice. “Ah. Here are your water and
razor.” The guard commanded me to stand well back from the door as he
entered to give me the fresh water, a mirror, soap, and a razor. Spink
passed in my clean uniform. Then they withdrew while I made myself
presentable. I wadded up my filthy clothes and tossed them in the corner
with the pan of dirty water. Not much chance I’d need to worry about
having spare clothing anymore. The mirror showed me that I looked even
worse than I had supposed. Haggard would have been an understatement.
I cleaned myself as best I could, shaved, and then got dressed. The
many-seamed uniform that Amzil had sewn for me hung oddly on my
reduced frame. When I heard Spink and my guard returning, I stood
straight awaiting them.
They both peered into my cell through the barred window. The guard’s
eyes widened. Even Spink looked rather impressed. “You look a lot more
like the soldier I know you are,” Spink observed. The guard made a
derisive sound, but when Spink turned on him, he pretended to have been
clearing his throat. “Shall we go?” Spink asked me.
The guard shook his head. “Sir, we’re to await an armed escort for the
prisoner.
They should be here shortly.”
“Do they truly think I’m going to try to escape?” I almost laughed. “What
would be the use of that? I’d still be inside the walls of the fort.”

They were both silent for a moment. Then Spink said unwillingly, “The
armed guard will be protecting you on the way to the courtroom, soldier.
Feeling has run very high against you. There have been threats.”

“Oh.” Cold washed through me. The studied calm that I’d been practicing
for the last two days suddenly cracked. This was real. This was now. I’d
step out into sunlight, walk a short distance, and then stand before seven
men who would condemn me to death. My legs felt weak, and I was
suddenly terrified that I would faint. “No!” I forbade myself in a low rough
voice, and the vertigo passed.

“While there is life, there is hope,” Spink said suddenly. I heard the
cadenced tramp of feet at the end of the hall. I recalled my resolution.
They would be armed. If the opportunity presented itself, I would make a
run for it. I could force them to kill me. I just had to find the right
moment and the nerve to act. I had to be ready.
The men they’d sent to escort me were brawny fellows. The sergeant was
half a head taller than me, and his steely gaze left no doubt that he’d
happily shoot me down if I ran. I primed him for it, meeting his stare with
an insolent smile. They formed up their patrol around me. Just when I
thought fate had finally smiled on me, the sergeant produced a set of leg
irons. As he went down on one knee to fasten them tightly above my
ankles, he observed, “We promised the ladies of the town that there would
be no chance you’d escape trial and the death that you deserve.”
Having my solution yanked so neatly away from me paralyzed my thoughts
for an instant. He clamped the iron cuffs tightly around my legs, just
above the bones of my ankles. “He’s too damn fat for the irons!” he
observed with a guffaw, and then crimped them tight enough to make
them latch anyway. I cried out in pain and anger as the iron crushed the
tissue of my calves, but he latched the second one anyway.
“They’re too tight!” I complained. “I won’t be able to walk.”
“Your own damn fault for being so fat,” he observed. “Let’s go.” It was only
when he was once more standing beside me that it occurred to me that I
should have kicked him while he was down. If I tried to escape now, all I
would earn myself was a severe beating rather than the bullets in the back
I’d anticipated. Another opportunity lost.
The patrol stepped out smartly around me and I trudged in their midst,
taking quick short steps in a futile effort to keep up with them. The leg
irons bit instantly and painfully. In three steps I was limping. I awkwardly
double-stepped up a short flight of stairs. By the time the outside door of
the prison was flung open and the harsh sunlight assaulted my eyes, the
pain was such that I could think of nothing else. “I can’t walk,” I told
them, and the man behind me gave me a firm shove in the back. When I
tottered and nearly fell, they laughed. I jerked my head up and looked
around me as I minced painfully on. Beside me, Spink’s face was scarlet
with fury, his mouth held so tight that his lips were pinched white. I
caught a quick sideways glance from him, steeled myself to the pain, and
walked on.
The short walk from my cell to the building where I would be tried was a
gantlet of mockery. The only other time I’d seen the streets of Gettys so
packed with people had been right before the Dust Dance. The crowd
surged forward at the sight of me. A woman I had never seen before
screeched the foulest invective I’ve ever heard before falling to the ground
in a sort of hysteria as we passed. Someone shouted, “Hanging’s too good
for you!” and threw a rotten potato. It struck the guard next to me and he
cried out angrily. This seemed to incite the mob, for a veritable fusillade of
rotten produce was launched at me. I saw a ripe plum bounce off Spink.
He kept walking, eyes straight ahead. The sergeant roared at the crowd to
“Give way, give way!” and they reluctantly let us pass. The pain from my
chained ankles vied with the flood of hatred that rolled out from the mob.
The courtroom was stuffy. I shuffled up a short flight of steps to the
prisoner’s box. A solid half-wall topped with iron bars separated me from
the spectators but permitted all the gawkers a good view. Below and in
front of me, Spink sat alone at a table, a small stack of papers before him.
Opposite, at a larger table, sat a captain and two lieutenants. Behind
them, seated on benches, an assortment of witnesses waited impatiently to
testify against me. Captain Thayer, Captain Gorling, and Clara Gorling
were seated in a special section. My seven judges sat at a high table on a
dais in the center of the room. A line of guards held back the mob that had
surged in to watch the proceedings. Folk who could not crowd into the
room peered in through the windows. I thought I caught a glimpse of
Ebrooks, but when I turned my head, he was gone. Other than that, the
only soul I recognized was Spink.
I stood still and straight and tried to ignore the agony of the iron clamped
tight into my flesh. I could feel blood seeping down my left ankle. My right
foot buzzed and went numb.
The proceedings began with a lengthy reading of a document that said
that the military would conduct my trial, and in the event that I was found
guilty, the town of Gettys would have authority over my punishment for
crimes against the citizens of Gettys. I listened to it through a haze of
pain. We were momentarily allowed to sit down. Then we had to stand
again for an extended prayer to the good god that asked him to help the
judges to fearlessly render justice and condemn evil. I could barely stand
upright for the wave of red pain washing up through me; my ears rang
with it. When we were finally allowed to be seated, I leaned forward to
explain my discomfort to Spink, but the officer in charge of the
proceedings commanded me to silence.
I sat, agony rippling up from my legs, and tried to listen to the testimony
against me. The officer in charge listed my misdeeds. The charges began
with my rape of Fala, moved on to her murder and my subsequent
concealment of the crime, my assaulting of respectable women on the
streets of Gettys, and my poisoning of the men who had managed to claim
my horse’s harness as evidence against me and finally reached a crescendo
with a long list of my supposed crimes the night Carsina had walked into
my cabin. One woman fainted when the words “necrophiliac depredations’
were uttered. Captain Thayer lowered his face into his hands. Clara
Gorling stared at me with the purest hatred. Witness after witness spoke
against me as I endured the silent torture of my leg irons. Once I leaned
down to touch them, to try to shift them on my compressed flesh, and the
judge shouted at me to sit straight and show some respect for the court.
The damning evidence piled up against me. A horde of women testified,
one after another, that they had witnessed me terrorize poor Carsina in
broad daylight on the busy streets of Gettys. Others told how I had
scowled at the noble Dale Hardy when he had sought to protect Carsina’s
honor from my scurrilous behavior. One claimed to have heard me mutter
threats against him as I left. A doctor I’d never seen before testified that
the manner of my ambushers’ death was such that poison was the only
explanation. Sergeant Hoster’s letter from beyond the grave was read
aloud, and Clove’s harness held up so that all might behold the telltale
piece of less worn harness compared to the strap that had been “pried out
of the livid flesh about poor dead Fala’s neck.” Late in the afternoon, Spink
was finally allowed to address the judges. I heard his speech through a
haze of pain. A runner was sent to fetch Amzil to testify. While we waited
for her arrival, Spink read aloud statements that both Ebrooks and Kesey
had thought me a good man and that I tended the graveyard well. After a
significant wait, during which the judges scowled and the spectators
shifted and muttered, the runner returned. He stated only that “the
witness is unavailable.” That sent a buzz of speculation through the
courtroom. Spink gave me one stricken glance and then maintained his
composure. With the judge’s permission, he read a statement from Amzil.
I wondered why she had refused to come, but when I looked around the
courtroom, I realized it did not matter. My fate had been decided before I
even left my cell.
The seven judges stood as one, and then filed out of the room to consider
their verdict. I sat, sweat rolling down my face and back from the pain in
my ankles, and waited. The spectators shifted, murmured, and then, as
the wait continued, began to openly converse with one another. Clara
Gorling spoke furiously to her husband. Captain Thayer sat silently and
stared at me. I met his gaze briefly and then looked aside. The genuine
suffering in his face moved me. He believed me guilty of the horrific crime.
I found I could not resent his hatred of me. How would I have felt in his
place? That thought put a new face on what was happening to me. I
glanced about the courtroom. The eyes that met my gaze were avid with
hatred, yes, but fear and horror were what sparked that hate. I lowered my
eyes before it.
When the judges filed back in, the courtroom quieted immediately. I knew
by the looks on their faces that I was condemned. As one by one they spoke
the word “Guilty,” I hung my head.
When they announced my execution by hanging, it was anticlimactic. I’d
hang. My execution would bring a measure of healing to a town
traumatized by my imagined misdeeds. And my death would free Epiny of
her bargain with the magic. I took a breath and accepted my fate. I
thought my ordeal was over. But then one of the civilian judges stood. He
smiled as he announced that the justices of the town of Gettys had decided
that justice would be best served if the victims most wronged by my
misdeeds were allowed to determine my punishment for my crimes
against the citizens of Gettys Town. I stared at him in consternation. I’d
already been condemned to hang. What punishment could they wreak on
me beyond that?
Clara Gorling stood. Her husband and Captain Thayer rose to flank her.
She was well prepared for her moment. She unfolded a small sheet of
paper and read her statement from it.
“I speak for the women of Gettys. I do not ask this just for my poor dear
cousin, but for all the women who live in Gettys.” Her hand crept up to
clasp the brass whistle that hung on its chain around her neck. “Gettys is a
rough town. It is a difficult place for any woman to live, yet we do our best.
We strive to make homes for our husbands and our children. We are
willing to face the privations of living in such an isolated place. We know
our duties as cavalla wives. And our husbands and loved ones try to
protect us. Recently, the women of Gettys have banded together to try to
protect ourselves. We have tried to bring the gentler virtues to this rough
place, to make our homes havens of civilization and culture.
“Yet despite all our efforts, a monster has roamed free among us, raping,
murdering, and—” she choked for an instant, but forced herself to go on,
“dishonoring our dead. I ask that the honorable judges imagine the terror
that the women in Gettys have endured. Hanging, my friends, is too good
for this creature. It offers him too swift an end for his misdeeds. And so we
ask that before he meets his end, he receive one thousand lashes. Let any
man who thinks to perpetrate such evil against defenseless woman witness
what his wickedness shall bring him.”
Tears were running down her cheeks. She paused to dab at her face with
her handkerchief. A profound silence held in the courtroom. Coldness
spread through me. Clara Gorling took a breath to speak on, but suddenly
sobbed instead. She turned abruptly to her husband and hid her face on
his shoulder. The silence held an instant longer, and then gave way to
cheers and applause. I heard the request spread to the crowd outside in a
rippling roar of satisfaction. Then a terrible silence fell as all waited for
the officer in charge to make his decision.
He commanded me to stand to receive my sentence.
I tried to. I placed my hands flat on the railing of the box before me and
tried to lever myself onto my numb and swollen feet. I stood up, teetered
for a horrid moment, and then crashed to the floor. A wave of hate-filled
laughter greeted my mishap. “The filthy coward fainted!” someone
shouted. My head was swimming with pain and humiliation. I scrabbled
my hands against the floor but could not even sit up.
Two of the brawnier guards came to my box and hauled me to my feet.
“My legs are numb from the irons!” I shouted at them. I don’t think
anyone heard me over the commotion in the courtroom. They hauled me
to my feet and held me up while the officer confirmed that the town of
Gettys wished the military to honor the request of the victim’s next of kin
that I receive one thousand lashes before being hanged by the neck until
dead. When it was confirmed, he made it official, and then issued a
lengthy apology on behalf of the cavalla that a man such as I had ever been
admitted to the ranks. He deemed it a misplaced act of kindness by his
worthy predecessor.
I think they judged me overcome by terror when I could not walk out of
the courtroom on my own. The soldiers who dragged me from the
prisoner’s box from the courtroom, through the streets, and back to my
cell were not gentle. Spink walked silently beside me, his face grim. The
rejoicing mob closed around us, shouting curses and making the short
walk from the courtroom to the prison seem endless. My chained ankles
flopped and clanked behind me, and every impact was a clout of pain as
they dragged me down the steps and back to my basement cell. My
captors dropped me inside my cell. The sergeant knelt to retrieve his leg
irons as I sprawled on the floor. I had thought nothing could increase the
pain of that stricture, but when he undid the locks and jerked the
embedded metal cuffs from my swollen flesh, I roared with new agony.
“Serves you right,” I heard him say, and then consciousness fled from me
in a red wave.
When I came to myself, I was still lying on the floor of my cell. I groaned
and managed to sit up. I wondered how much time had passed. It was
hard to reach the cuffs of my trousers to try to pull them up and see the
damage to my legs. The leg irons had crushed and gashed the tendons
above my ankle. The flesh above and below the imprints left by the leg
irons was dark and swollen. Both my feet were puffy and tender. I tried to
flex my feet and could not. I dragged my bulky body over to where my
single blanket was mingled with the collapsed wreckage of my pallet,
pulled my blanket free, put it around my shoulders, and leaned back
against the wall. I was cold and hungry and I could barely move my feet. I
would die tomorrow.
That knowledge came to me just like that. All my petty concerns for cold
or thirst or pain gave way to numbing awareness of my impending death.
Yet I couldn’t even focus on dying. All I could think of was the agony that
would precede it as the lash ate the skin and flesh from my back. They’d
strip me for the flogging. That was customary, as was tying the man by his
wrists to the post to keep him upright. Details of what I would endure ate
into my mind like acid. The mockery of the crowd. How they would dash
me with vinegar water to revive me if I lapsed into unconsciousness. I
would die a varlet’s death, and I already knew that I would not go to it
with dignity and courage. I’d scream. I’d faint. I’d piss myself.
“Why?” I asked the dimly lit cell, but received no answer. I tried to pray,
but could not find enough faith to do even that. Pray for what? A miracle
that would save me and return me to a life worth living? I couldn’t
imagine what could possibly happen to do that. I didn’t know what to ask
of god, nor which god would hear my appeal. I sat and stared at the stout
wooden door of my cell. I would have wept, but even that ambition was
beyond me now. I sank into a sort of stupor.
I heard the door at the end of the corridor open and then footsteps, and
slowly lifted my eyes to the barred window. My bowels had turned to cold
liquid. Was it morning already? Had I spent my last night in the world?
My lips suddenly trembled like a scolded child’s, and useless tears flooded
my eyes. I wiped them hastily on my sleeve and stared stiff-faced at the
window. When Spink’s haggard face appeared there, it nearly unmanned
me. His eyes were red-rimmed and shot with blood. For a moment, we
were both silent. Then he said hoarsely, “I’m sorry, Nevare. I’m so sorry.”
“There was nothing anyone could have done for me,” I said.
“They’ve allowed me fifteen minutes to speak to you.”

“What time is it?” I demanded.

For a moment he looked puzzled. Then he said, “Evening is just coming
on.”

“What time is my execution scheduled?”

He choked for a moment, then managed to say, “Noon tomorrow, it will
commence.”
Silence fell. We were both thinking that no one know when it would finally
end.

And then, to say anything at all, I asked him, “How is Epiny?”

“Strangely calm,” he said. “She encouraged me to come here for a final
visit. She said I should tell you that she loves you and doesn’t forget
anything. I thought she was going to insist on coming with me, but she
didn’t. I didn’t want to leave her alone. Amzil is off on some errand of her
own, and the children are minding themselves. But she said she was well
in control of her mood and insisted I should come to you. She said you’d
want to know that we had heard back from your sister. Yaril received the
letter you sent through Carsina. She wrote back to Carsina, but she also
had the sense to write to Epiny as well.”

I swallowed my words. I didn’t say that I wished I’d never sent the letter.
I’d told her that I was alive. By the time she read Spink’s response that
would no longer be true. I wondered, very briefly, if Captain Thayer had
received my sister’s letter; it probably would have puzzled him mightily if
he had. I hoped that he had discarded it and would never plumb the
mystery of what it meant. I wished to die as Nevare Burv, the gravedigger,
not Nevare Burvelle, the disgraced soldier son of a nobleman.

“Don’t ever tell Yaril how I died,” I pleaded with him.

“I’ll try to find a way to avoid it,” he told me, but could not meet my eyes.

I cleared my throat. “Is she well?” I asked him.

“She is engaged to marry Caulder Stiet.” His voice was flat as he
announced this. “She says that she does not think it so evil a fate as she
once did, that she thinks she can manage him. The actual phrase she used
was that she found him ‘tractable.’ Your father had a stroke and has had
difficulty speaking. She does not say that this has made her life less
onerous, but that is what Epiny reads between the lines.”

“Who is running the estate?” I wondered aloud.
“Yaril, by the sound of her letter. She mentions that a Sergeant Duril, her
new foreman, was very proud to hear you’d become a soldier. He asked her
to send his best wishes along with hers, and to remind you that you’d
promised you would write to him.”
And that was when I broke. I lowered my face into my hands and dissolved
into tears. Spink was silent, doubtless embarrassed to witness this. I
managed to calm myself enough to say, “Spink. You have to find a
plausible lie for me. If it’s the last favor you can do for me, please do it.
Don’t let any of them know how I died. Not Yaril, not Caulder or my
father, not Sergeant Duril. Please. Please.”
“I’ll do what I can,” he replied hoarsely.
I lifted my face in surprise. Tears ran unchecked down his face. He was
not a tall man. He stood on tiptoes and thrust his arm into my cell window
as far as the bars would allow. “I’d like to shake your hand a final time,” he
said.
“I don’t think I can stand up, Spink. I’m hamstrung. Those leg irons cut
into my ankle tendons badly.”
He pulled his hand back and peered down at my feet. He narrowed his
eyes in sympathy. “Those bastards,” he said with quiet feeling.
“Lieutenant Spinrek! Sir?”
“What is it?” Spink scrubbed angrily at his eyes as he shouted back at the
guard. “My time isn’t up yet.”
“No, sir, it isn’t. But you’re wanted right away. All the officers are being
called to report. There’s been a disturbance out at the road’s end, some
sort of sabotage. And—” Before the guard could complete his sentence, a
muffled explosion shook my cell. The guard gave a yelp of terror. Dust
sifted down from the ceiling. A sudden crack ran across the back wall of
my cell.
The guard’s voice shook as he called down the corridor, “That sounded like
it came from the prison quarters, sir! Do you think it’s an uprising?”
Epiny! I mouthed silently at Spink in horror.
“It couldn’t be,” he said aloud, but I heard the terrified doubt in his mind.
There was a second, smaller explosion. Dust hung in the air now, and I
coughed. Spink looked in at me and our eyes met for a last time. “She sent
you this,” he said hastily, and vanished for an instant from my sight.
Something wrapped in a napkin was thrust through the food slot in the
bottom of my door. Then Spink bobbed into sight again. “Farewell, my
friend,” he said through the bars, and then he was gone. I listened to the
clatter of his boots as he hurried down the hall.
I noticed that he had not said, “Good-bye.” I hoped that he would be in
time to whisk Epiny away from the scene of her mischief and get her safely
home before anyone knew she was involved. And I wondered, with a
sudden hope too sharp to bear, what else had she set in motion?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
SURRENDER
I waited until I heard the door slam behind both Spink and the guard. I
could not tear my eyes from the napkin that rested on the floor of my cell.
My nose picked up a tantalizing scent emanating from it. I grunted as I
leaned forward over my belly and tried to massage my injured legs. It only
awoke fresh agony in them. I gave up the thought of standing up and
dragged myself over to the door to see what Spink had left. My hands
trembled as I carefully unfolded the napkin to reveal a small pastry. I
looked at the browned crust sprinkled with sparkling sugar as if I were
beholding a treasure chest of jewels. My nose told me that it was stuffed
with the forest berries from Epiny’s kerchief. In a transport of joy, I
devoured it. There were scarcely three mouthfuls to it, but when I had
consumed it, a sense of well-being flushed through me. It muted the pain
in my legs. I was tugging at the cuffs of my trousers, trying to see if the
magic was healing my injuries, when I heard a peculiar sound.
I looked around, trying to discover its source. The crack in the wall was
running. I watched it wander a crazy path across the face of the plaster.
Bits of whitewashed plaster popped off and fell to the floor in a dusty
shower, revealing the heavy bricks and thick mortar behind it. The
engineer in me concluded that the building was resettling after the
concussion of the nearby explosion. I decided that either the crack would
soon stop, or the whole thing would suddenly give way and fall on me. It
was difficult to care about either outcome.
More plaster flaked away. A chunk of mortar fell to the floor and
shattered. I sat up and stared at the wall. Near the bottom, a brick shifted
out of place as if pushed from behind.
I tried to stand and found that still sent agony shooting up my legs.
Gritting my teeth against the pain, I rolled over onto my knees. I crawled
to the back wall of my cell and put my ear against it. I heard small sounds,
as if hungry mice were at work in the wall. Mice in a wall of mortar and
brick, set below ground level? Tiny grindings and popping sounds came
from the besieged wall. Plaster popped off the wall near the ceiling, and
the crack ran along the top of the wall. At the same time, a dusty stream of
mortar drizzled from between two lower rows of bricks. It cascaded down
the wall, forming gritty little piles at the bottom of it. Then, as I watched
in awe, one brick midway up the wall very slowly began to seesaw its way
out of the wall. In fits and starts, it ground its way out from its fellows.
When it protruded enough from the wall that I could get a grip on it, I
seized it in both my hands and tried to pull it from its niche. It didn’t
budge. I let go and moved back to watch. The wall continued to shed
crumbs of mortar and bits of plaster in a nearly continuous sprinkling. A
second brick wriggled slightly beside the first one. Little grinding noises,
pops, and cracks sounded.
The two bricks suddenly hinged out into my cell, and I smelled earth. A
cascade of tiny white rootlets flowed out though the wall from behind the
bricks. Clods of moist earth moved with the seeking roots, plopping down
onto the floor. Sudden horror filled me as I recalled how the roots had
emerged from the young trees and plunged into the bodies of the walkers.
I hitched myself away from the wall, my heart hammering. I wanted to call
the guard. No. Horrible as this might be, it would still be a faster death
than being dissected by a leather lash. A third brick above the first two
gave way and fell with a small thud to the floor. More roots emerged into
the room and hung down the wall, a frill of white lace.
I took a deep breath and moved closer to the roots. I could smell earth
clearly now. In the wall above the fallen bricks, a new crack appeared,
zigzagging up the wall as it followed the mortar lines. The wall swelled in,
and suddenly half a dozen bricks fell onto my ruined bed. Evening light
and fresh air flowed into my cell through an opening about the size of my
head. Hope rippled through me. The magic was providing an escape route
for me. At what cost? I wondered, but found I didn’t care.
On my knees, I crawled to the wall. I reached up and this time the brick I
tugged on came out easily. The hole at the top of the wall gave me a
ground-level view of a neglected, weedy alley behind the prison. I took
bricks from the edge of the hole one after another, trying to drop them
quietly to the floor. The roots continued their work, both pushing bricks
and mortar into my prison and shoring up the wall so the hole didn’t
collapse on itself. When I judged that the hole was large enough, I took a
deep breath, gritted my teeth against the pain, and reached up to seize a
double handful of roots to pull myself to my feet.
And in that moment, faint as mist, I saw her. The specter of a skinny, very
old Speck woman materialized before me. Her skin sagged from her bones.
I recognized her eyes, and her dark little hands that she reached toward
me. For a moment, I felt my face held between their phantom palms. Her
smile deepened the wrinkles on her face.
“Lisana?”
“You didn’t really believe I would leave you to die, did you, Soldier’s Boy?”
Her words were faint.
“What’s happened to you?” I asked.
“I’ve spent my strength,” she told me sadly. “It’s taken me all this time and
used all my magic to grow my roots this far. Don’t waste this chance. It’s
the only one I can give you.” Her wrinkled hands slid away from my face.
“Lisana!” I whispered urgently, but she was gone. I bent my face and
kissed the pale roots that now spilled in a cascade into my cell, framing
my escape route. As I did so, I smelled a familiar aroma. It came not from
the roots, but from the corner where I had discarded my filthy uniform
and dirty wash water. I knelt down in the dim corner. The magic had kept
its part of the bargain. Mushrooms were growing from the caked soil on
the cuffs of my trousers. I could see the pale caps thrust up, open, and
expand.
It took all my willpower to refrain from gobbling them at first sight. I
forced myself to wait until they had reached full size and ceased growing.
Then I snatched at them, cramming them into my mouth by the handful. I
swallowed the half-chewed mouthfuls and immediately shoved more into
my mouth. Magic and strength coursed through me. When they were all
gone, I stood up. My legs still twinged with pain, but held my weight. I
seized Lisana’s roots, kissed them gratefully, and then hauled myself up
and out of my cell. I slithered on my belly out of the hole and into the
alleyway. The night wind seemed a blessing. I lay there gathering my
strength, formulating my feeble plan. I was out of my cell, but still within
the fort. I was on foot and just able to hobble. Even if I managed to get
past the guards on the gate, I’d never escape any sort of pursuit. All Tree
Woman had won for me, I regretfully concluded, was the opportunity to
persuade someone to shoot me when he caught me escaping. Compared to
being flogged to death, it did not seem a bad bargain at all.
I sat up and tried to get my bearings. At one end of the alley, I could see
flames in the distance over the rooftops of the buildings and the wall of the
fort. That would be the prison. Evidently the explosion had sparked a fire.
I could hear shouts in the distance. I wondered why Epiny had blown up
the prison. A wry smile twisted my mouth. I wasn’t wondering how she
had done it or if she had done it. Only why. Oh, cousin. May the good god
keep you safe this night! A more immediate question came to mind.
Could I stand? Leaning on the wall, I pulled myself up and onto my feet. As
my feet flattened against the ground, pain bit into me and sweat broke out
all over my body. The magic was healing me, but not quickly. I clenched
my teeth tightly together and took three tottering steps toward the dark
end of the alley.
From behind me, I heard the clop, clop of a slowly led horse. I glanced
back over my shoulder. My worst fears were instantly confirmed. Someone
was leading a horse down the alley toward me. In his free hand, he carried
a long gun; I could see the silhouette of the barrel. I wanted to run, but
resisted that impulse. I turned back toward him and tried to look
menacing. “Give me your horse or I’ll kill you!” I growled.
Horse and man halted. Then, “Nevare? Is that you? How did you get out?”
Amzil hurried down the alley toward me. Patient Clove followed her even
though she had dropped his lead rope. The pry bar she had been carrying
rang loudly on the cobblestones when she dropped it. “Sssshh!” I hissed at
her. “How did you get out?” she demanded in a hoarse whisper.
“How did you know to come here?” I countered.
“I knew to come here after I got home and Epiny told me I’d blown a hole
in the wrong prison. I thought they’d keep you with the working prisoners;
I suppose that was a stupid thing to think, but when Epiny told me to
blast out the east wall of the prison, that was what I did. I’d already set off
the bombs she’d made out at the road’s end. I blew up the culverts and
two equipment sheds; it will be weeks before a wagon can get to the road’s
end. I thought the buildings would just fly apart, but it made a big hole in
the ground as well.” She sounded very satisfied with herself as she peered
up into my face seeking approval.
“You did that?”
“Well, yes. I had to. The mistress is still too weak to stand. Epiny said that
if we stopped the road building, the magic would find a way to save you.
But then she decided to help it along, just in case, by making a big hole in
the side of the prison. So I did. Only then the master came home, to make
sure she was still sick in bed, and told her that while he’d been with you,
someone had blown up the workers’ prison. Oh, I felt such a fool when I
got home and she told me. And we didn’t have any powder left. But I
promised her that I’d take a pry bar and the horse and see what I could do
to get you out.” I’d never thought Amzil could chatter like that, let alone
speak so calmly of magic. Too much time with Epiny, I thought to myself.
“What are you smiling about?” she demanded. “You’re not out of danger
yet.”
“I know. I’m just glad to see you.”

“How did you get out?”

“Epiny was right. The magic got me out. Tree Woman tore down the wall
for me.” I shook my head in wonder, still moved by what she had done.
“She rescued me, at great cost to herself.”
Amzil scowled when I said that and then retorted, “Well, much good that
did. She didn’t get you out of the fort, did she? It looks like she’s left the
hardest part for us. And there’s no time to waste.”
“Amzil. I’ll never get through the gate. But I want you to know I thank you
for trying. That you would do all this…”
“You’ll never get though the gate if you don’t shut up and listen to me,” she
corrected me. “We only have a little time. We stole your horse and he’s had
a good feed of oats earlier today. Mistress Epiny said that would give him
staying power. We put food and a bottle of water in your panniers. It’s not
much, but it will do you for a day or so. Now, this is the plan, or as much
of one as we could come up with. I’ll go first. At the gate, I’ll find a way to
keep the guards busy. Give me some time. Then, when you judge it’s best,
put your heels to the horse and gallop on through. A lot of the soldiers
were sent out to the road’s end to see what the first blast was about. Most
of the others are busy at the fire, trying to put it out and round up the
prisoners who escaped. So there aren’t a lot of folk on the streets just now,
but we don’t know when they’ll start to come back. We need to get you out
of the gate as quickly as possible, and then hope the darkness will hide
you.”
I stood gaping at her. When she finally ran out of words, she scowled up at
me and asked, “What are you waiting for? We’re losing what time we
have.” “Why are you doing this?”
She stared at me for a moment, lost for words. Then she said with
indescribable scorn, “The mistress is right. You are an idiot. Let’s go.” I
took a step toward her and my legs folded under me. As I sank down,
hissing with pain, she crouched down beside me. “What’s wrong with
you?” she cried in alarm.
“The tendons in my calves are badly cut. From the irons they used on me
today.
They put them on cruel tight.”

She was silent a moment. Then she said, “I’ve seen what those can do to a
man’s legs. They did that to you on purpose, Nevare. To hurt you and
cripple you.” She sounded furious.

“I know.”
Her pragmatism came back in a rush. “You’ll have to get on your horse
now and ride from here on. Makes you more obvious, but what else can we
do?” She stood up, then suddenly crouched down again next to me. She
seized my face in both her hands and kissed me on the mouth. I thought I
had been kissed before. I was wrong. I reached for her, but before I could
pull her close, she drew back from me. Her words were breathless. “The
lieutenant told me—what you said. He gave me your message. And I, I
think I love you, too. But we haven’t got time to talk about it now.”
“Amzil?” I said, too shocked to say more.

“Shhh!” she hissed at me, and stood up.

She brought Clove to me. He stood, patient as ever, as I dragged myself to
my feet. My calves hurt less this time, but Amzil had to steady me as I
lifted my leg to put my foot in the stirrup. I hissed with pain as I put my
weight on that foot trying to get up onto my horse. The most humiliating
moment was when Amzil put a firm shoulder into my rump to boost me
up into Clove’s saddle. I settled onto his back, feeling oddly whole again,
even though Amzil had to help my other foot find the stirrup. “I’ll go first,”
she told me hoarsely. “Stay well back.” She had just kissed me and said she
loved me. And now she would go to another man to save me. No. “Amzil.
Please don’t do this. Don’t whore yourself to the guards for me. Stay here.
Clove and I will make a run for it.” “You’ll never get through the gates if
they see you. You just mind your own business about how I do things.” She
hissed the words, and I thought she was angry. “Give me a few minutes to
go ahead. Be careful when you come out of the alley. Look around first.
You’re a hard man to mistake.”
“Amzil, I—”
“Look, Nevare.” She took a ragged little breath. “You have to let me help
you however I can. You helped us with no thought of thanks. Now it’s my
turn.” She was quiet and then added in a very low voice, “You know that
I’d go with you if it weren’t for my children. I can’t just leave them. But if I
didn’t have them, I’d go with you now. You know that.”
Her words left me speechless. “No,” I said at last. I looked down at her, but
her face was shadowed. “No, Amzil, I never thought you’d come with me.
You take good care of the children. And take care of my cousin for me.”
“I’ll do that,” she said quietly. Her hands moved up to her face. Perhaps
she wiped away tears, or perhaps she just pushed the hair back from her
eyes. She cleared her throat. “Everyone will expect you to run to the forest.
Don’t you do that. Go west. Don’t stop in Dead Town. They’ll look there for
sure. Just keep going, as far and as fast as you can. If you want…” She
hesitated and then plunged on, “Go to Darth. Mistress Epiny says it’s on
the road to Mendy. Within a year, we’ll come there, the children and I. If
you want, we’ll find you there.”
I was speechless at what she offered me. For a moment, the prospect of an
entirely new life floated before me. We’d be starting with nothing. I’d have
to find a trade to support us. It would be a hard life, but it would be mine.
Almost as soon as the temptation formed in me, I felt the magic roil
forbiddingly in my blood. Would I try to break my bargain with it? It
would leave nothing standing that would keep me from coming to it. I
could almost see the shimmer of impending doom it cast around Amzil.
“Amzil, you must not—” I grasped for words that would forbid her, words
that would send her fleeing from me and the magic that marked her.
“There’s no time now, Nevare. Later, we will have time for words. Now you
have to listen to me. Wait here!” She leaned close and pressed her cheek to
my thigh in a farewell embrace. Before I could touch her hair, she whirled
away, lifted her skirts, and ran off toward the dark end of the alley. In a
moment, she had vanished from sight.
I sat on Clove in the dark, my heart thundering with dread. Only a coward
would let a woman do for me what Amzil was about to do. “I’m not going
to her,” I whispered to the night. “I’ll keep my word. I’m coming to the
forest and the Specks. I’m not going to Darth. No life with Amzil and the
children awaits me.” Childishly, I hoped the magic would hear and heed
my words. My wayward heart yearned after the future Amzil had sketched.
“No,” I growled at myself, and tried to believe that as long as I went to the
forest, the magic would leave Amzil untouched. What could I do about my
creeping suspicion that it would burn every bridge behind me, destroy
every person who might draw me back to my old life?
I sat on Clove in the alley because she had told me to, because she and
Epiny had planned it so carefully that it seemed an insult to let my man’s
pride get in the way of their women’s wiles. My hands became fists, and
when I suddenly knew that I couldn’t stand it, couldn’t allow her to whore
herself out to save me, fate intervened.
I heard pebbles rattle in the darkness. I turned to peer in the direction of
the sound. In the dimness behind me, the guard poked his head out of the
hole Lisana had made in my cell wall. He gasped and then shouted, “Help!
The prisoner’s escaping. Stop him, stop him!”
Startled, Clove lunged forward. I kicked him awkwardly and leaned
forward, kneeing him on. I wasn’t sure that anyone would respond to the
guard’s outcry. I wasn’t going to wait to see.
Amzil had not gotten far. Clove and I passed her at a gallop as she hurried
down the street. She shouted angrily at me as she scurried out of our path.
I wanted to look back, to see her one last time, and didn’t dare. I yelled
encouragement to Clove, and the big horse pounded through the streets
headed directly for the gates of the fort. Behind us I heard the guard
ringing the alarm bell. I leaned low on Clove, urging him on.
There was a single man on duty on the gate that night. The sound of the
bell had alerted him. He stepped out into the opening, peering toward me
through the dim evening, perhaps thinking that I was a messenger sent on
a desperate mission. He held his long gun across his chest at the ready.
“Messenger!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs, hoping he would believe it.
It bought me a few moments; by the time he realized I did not wear the
garb of a courier and lifted his gun, I was on top of him. Clove’s big
shoulder spurned him aside, and we were through the gate. I heard his
gun clatter as it hit the cobbles. I leaned in tight to my horse and urged
him on. A few moments later, there was a muzzle flash behind me and a
bullet whizzed past us. I was already at the limits of his range. He would
not kill me tonight.
I glanced back over my shoulder. The fires at the laborers’ prison made a
red glow against the night sky, silhouetting the walls of the fort. The alarm
bell was still clanging. Ahead of me, the streets of Gettys Town were
deserted. Muted lights showed through a few windows, and welcoming
lanterns still burned outside Rollo’s Tavern. A few faces peered out the
door, wondering what the ruckus was about. The guard fired another
futile shot after me. I grinned as Clove stretched into a harder gallop.
I heard questioning shouts behind me, and to my horror, they were
answered by other cries. My eyes picked out a mounted troop of horsemen
coming at a trot down the street toward me. The troops who had gone out
to investigate what had happened at the road’s end were returning to
Gettys. I reined Clove hard, but he was no cavalla horse, to wheel on his
haunches and gallop away. The troops had spurred their own animals, and
before Clove could even turn they had surrounded me. Gloved hands seized
his bridle while other men clutched at me. “It’s the cemetery guard. He
was trying to escape!” someone shouted. In the next instant, I was pushed
and dragged from my saddle. Horses and men milled around me in the
dark. Voices shouted angrily. My calves burned with pain as I stumbled
and then tried to stay on my feet, struggling against hands that clutched
at me from all sides. I could smell smoke and sulphur on their clothing. A
fist hit my jaw, reawakening the old pain. I yelled and tried to strike back,
but my arms were held. In the darkness, someone hit me in the belly, once,
twice, thrice. The blows drove the air out of my lungs and I sagged down,
gasping. Wild laughter fenced me. Someone brought the lantern from the
tavern’s door, pushing though the mob toward me. Someone else had
found a torch. He reached me just as Captain Thayer seized the front of
my shirt in his fists and dragged me up to face him. His eyes were wild
with grief and fury. “You won’t escape me!” he roared. In the lantern’s
bobbing light, I had a fleeting glimpse of a white-faced Spink trying to
elbow his way to me through the mob. The mob surged closer to me; I
could no longer see him. Thayer was strong. When he hit me, I felt my
head snap back on my neck. I fell backward into the roaring, jeering
crowd. They seized me and pushed me back toward their captain.
“Carsina!” he cried and hit me again, unholy joy lighting his face. I went
down, tasting blood and bile. The torchlit night spun around me. I’d die
here, beaten to death in the streets.
As I was hauled yet again to my feet, I heard a sound that froze my blood.
“Stop! Let him go, let him go! He didn’t do any of those horrible things.
He’s innocent! Let him go!” Amzil’s shrill cries cut through the deep
laughter of the men. The troopers holding me for their captain turned
toward her. Someone laughed harshly.
“It’s the Dead Town whore, come to rescue her lover!”

“Let her through! I want to watch them go at it!”

“No! Bring her to me!” someone else shouted. “I’ll comfort his widow!” I
could not see what was happening. Men ringed her. I heard her furious
shouts and then a shriek of outrage and pain. “No!” I roared, but the men
holding me only shook me roughly and laughed. I thought I heard Spink’s
voice raised in outrage, but the rough laughter of the men who dragged
Amzil forward drowned him out. The front of her dress was torn, her
breasts bared to the night and the harsh groping of jeering men. Two men
gripped her roughly as they presented her to me.

“Hey, Nevare! Want to watch us do your woman before you die?”
“Let me through! Captain Thayer. Take charge of the men! Are we soldiers
or scum? Let me through!”
Spink finally eeled his way past the taller men blocking him and into the
circle of light. Captain Thayer looked down on him, breathing hard. He
still clutched the front of my shirt.
“Sir.” I heard the desperate plea in Spink’s voice. “Take command. Restore
order, or we’ll all have to live with this for the rest of our lives!” Thayer just
stared at him. Then he let go of my shirt. Stillness fell over the mob. It had
grown. Townsfolk had tumbled from their beds and come out into the
street to see what was going on. They ringed the troop of uniformed
soldiers, their eyes avid for blood and spectacle. Thayer’s control of the
moment teetered on a pin’s head.
He hit Spink. The blow sent my friend flying backward into the crowd. The
men behind him parted to let him fall, and then closed up the gap. I heard
Spink cry out and knew someone had kicked him while he was down.
Thayer turned back to me. His eyes glittered in the wavering torchlight.
“Shall we do to your woman what you did to mine?” he asked me in a
hoarse voice devoid of humanity. “Shall we rape her after she’s dead?”
A roar went up from the gathered men. Months of fear and bleak spirits,
suppressed anger, and the bestial impulses of deepest night spoke. “Let me
do her while she’s still alive!” someone shouted, and laughter rose in a
night lit by fire and hatred. Thayer drew back his fist. A man stepped out
of the crowd, fumbling at the front of his trousers, while another man
pulled Amzil’s arms back behind her and thrust her at him. For a horrible
instant, our eyes met. “Stop.”
Blood sprayed out from my broken lips with the word. I did not shout it.
But as I spoke it, I finally surrendered completely to the magic. It was the
only thing that could save her. In that single spoken word, I gave up all
hopes, all dreams, all futures I’d ever imagined for myself. The word was
like lightning, and the power that surged out from me was its thunder as
the magic rumbled through the crowd and filled the street. The power of
the magic settled on the people like a light only I could see. They froze as
they were, Thayer’s arm drawn back, the man opening his trousers, Amzil
with her head thrown back in a wild cry of fear. Spink stood as he was,
blood running down his face, his hand gripping the shoulder of a man in
front of him as he tried to get to me. All was sudden stillness. Only the
flames of the torch still wavered and leaped. I was shaking as I jerked
myself free of the hands gripping me. The men who had been holding me
let me go, their hands dropping to their sides. Thayer slowly lowered his
fist, a puzzled expression on his face. Around me, the magic rippled and
began to ebb. I summoned the power inside me and burned it furiously.
“Stand as you are!” I commanded them. “And believe me.”
I stepped forward to Captain Thayer. “You beat me to death. You avenged
your wife. You were satisfied. And you went home. Now.” I tapped his
brow, and he blinked, then turned and walked away from me.
I reached through the crowd to seize Spink’s hand and drew him to me. I
spoke hoarsely. “I died tonight. There was nothing you could do to save
me. But you did what you knew I would want you to do. You saved Amzil.”
I led him unresisting to her. Then I tugged her away from the men who
feebly gripped her. I gathered the torn remnants of her dress around her,
and then stooped to kiss her mouth. She made no response to my touch.
Her eyes were full of darkness and fear. I whispered to her. “You fought
them off. They didn’t take you. You know now that no man will ever take
you against your will. You’re strong, Amzil. Strong. You’ll keep going and
build a life for yourself and your children. Lieutenant Kester helped you
get safely home.” As if I were posing dolls, I put Spink’s protective arm
around her shoulders. I gave them both a slight push. “Go home now. Go
home. It’s done. I died here. You did all you could for me. There was no
way you could have saved me.” I watched them walk away into the dark
street. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and as my heart yearned after them, I
felt my control of the magic waver again. I instantly repented. “No,” I
promised the magic. “I sever myself from them. They are no longer a part
of my life. I am dead to them. Let them go, let them be.” I took up the
reins of the power again. I moved swiftly through the crowd now, touching
men as I passed, speaking to them quickly. “You regret your part in this.”
“You saw me die.”
“You were there. You saw me beaten to death.”
“You held me for your captain. You know I died.”

I moved from man to man, repeating the lies that would become truth in
their memories.

“The Dead Town whore escaped you. You’re sorry for what you nearly did.”

“You’re ashamed of how you treated the woman. In your heart, you know
you’re a coward.”

As I worked my way past the inner circle of men who had ringed me, I was
kinder.

“You turned away, sickened by what you’d thought of doing.”
“You tried to stop it from happening.”

“You saw nothing.”

“You never came out of your home tonight.”

I did not stop until I had spoken a command and sealed it with a touch to
every person on the street.

At the outermost edge of the crowd, I found Ebrooks. He crouched in the
darkness, his hands over his face, his shoulders bowed. Despite my
command that all be still, he was sobbing softly. I touched him gently.
“You did what you could for me. After it was all over, you took my body.
You buried it in a secret place. It was all you could have done. You bear no
guilt.”
I found Clove. I mounted him without difficulty. My injuries were healed. I
rode him to the end of the street and then looked back at the frozen mob. I
spoke a final command to them. “You don’t see me ride away. You don’t
see each other, you don’t speak to each other. Go home now!” I sat a
moment longer, watching them slowly stir to motion and then begin to
disperse. Then I turned again and slowly rode away. Behind me, I heard
doors closing and horses slowly ridden away.
The magic had kept its promise. I would keep mine. I urged Clove to a
quiet trot. The streets were empty and the houses quiet as we passed
through town. When we passed the edge of town, I kicked the big horse
up to a canter. The road unfurled before me, a ribbon of paler gray over
the dusky land. Directly ahead of me were the hills and upon them the
forest. The sun was a pale streak of rose on the horizon. I rode, not to
freedom, but to the magic that now owned me.