by Gregory Ashe
Chapter 23
Siniq-elb crawled across the short-growing grass of the Garden, wincing as bruised knees took his weight again and again. The pile of trash and debris had grown, with piles of sawdust and long peels of bark covering much of the garbage. Mercifully, the wood chips absorbed some of the foul odor. The heat of the ever-summer sun hammered down on Siniq-elb, magnified through the thick, humid air. It was a day that begged for rain, as though the water in the air wanted to break free and fall back to earth, but there was not a cloud in the sky. Siniq-elb was glad for the sawdust; if he had had to deal with the stench on top of the heat and humidity, it might have been too much.
“Agahm,” he called in a low voice when he reached the edge of the rubbish heap. The structure of broken branches lay further in, but Siniq-elb had no desire to go any closer. “Are you in there? I’m here for my crutches.”
He had not seen the man since the week before; Mece had kept her word, appearing at every meal to collect Siniq-elb’s food with a promise to deliver it to Agahm. She never stayed more than a few moments, resisting every effort at conversation, whether still discomfited by Siniq-elb’s advances, or perhaps still angry about his question about her hands, Siniq-elb did not know. Now he wondered if she had ever brought Agahm the food; she was an infidel, after all. Perhaps she had simply taken it for herself, laughing at his stupidity.
“Agahm,” he said again.
“Siniq-elb,” a voice said from behind him.
He turned and saw a man with a tanned face standing at the edge of the woods, opposite the garbage heap. The man gestured for Siniq-elb to follow and then disappeared back into the trees. There was something odd about the way he moved, slightly jerky and uneven, but the man was gone too quickly for Siniq-elb to make out anything else.
“Agahm,” Siniq-elb said again to the trash heap.
No response.
Palms and knees throbbing, Siniq-elb turned and made his way toward the woods.
“Come here, baby,” Crook called, voice sugar-sweet as though speaking to a child.
“We’ll find your mother to change your wet-clothes,” Bald said.
The words still brought the flush of embarrassment, but not as much. Siniq-elb had a job now, a purpose. More importantly, he had a war to win. He was used to taunts in battle; he used them himself, to lure a man into doing something foolish. Siniq-elb had let the eses goad him once before. He would not do so again, no matter how deep the words cut.
Sweat rolled down his muscled torso in tiny rivers by the time he reached the narrowing band of shadow at the edge of the trees. Thick air pressed against him like a second skin; this was the worst type of day in the ever-summer weather of the Paths. Rain would come and break the heat, bringing perfect days to come, but it might be days or weeks before it happened. Even under the trees the air was hot and heavy, although the sun no longer threatened to roast him in his brown tunic.
A few paces further in, at the base of a gnarled, broad oak, a structure stood. Sort of a pavilion, although with sloping eaves that ran almost to the ground on the sides, it wrapped halfway around the trunk of the oak and stood almost as tall as a man. In parts it was made of smooth-planed boards; in others, branches that had been peeled and straightened. Siniq-elb crawled around the pavilion, gritting his teeth against acorns that, despite his best efforts, found tender knees.
The tanned man he had seen earlier sat inside, a tray of food next to him—cold beef and cheese, a few bittergreen apples, and bread half-wrapped in a white cloth. When Siniq-elb rounded the eaves, the man looked up, eyes like emerald fixing Siniq-elb for a moment.
“Sit down and have something to eat,” he said. “You must be starving.”
Siniq-elb stared at him for a moment. The eyes—it took him a moment, but then he had it. No wild beard. No grime or filth. No stench. Yet somehow this was Agahm, looking tanned and healthy, in a shelter that seemed to have grown up overnight.
“Eat,” Agahm said. “Mece told me you’d been gathering nuts and plants, but that can’t have been enough. I’ve food to spare.”
Siniq-elb took one of the apples, more to stop the man’s insisting than out of any hunger. He took a bite, the fruit sharp and slightly sweet against his tongue. As he chewed, he gestured at the pavilion. “What in the tair’s name is this?”
Agahm let out a laugh and said, “Something I should have done years ago rather than huddling under those miserable branches. I kept thinking you’d come by to check on the crutches, but Father take me, I haven’t seen you since you asked me to make them.”
“I was busy,” Siniq-elb said, taking another bite to give himself time to think. “Gathering food. The plants Mece showed me were on the other side of the yard.”
“I thought as much,” Agahm said. “I’m sorry for how I’ve acted. It wasn’t right, the way I spoke to you, taking your food like that.” He reached behind him and pulled out a pair of crutches, the crook at the top padded with white cloth. “Here, these are yours. Tair knows you deserve them.”
Siniq-elb took the crutches and laid them across his legs, examining the woodwork. They were smooth and sanded, sturdy but with a little give. “My thanks,” he said. “But I have to ask—”
“Why the change?” Agahm said.
Siniq-elb nodded.
“You should ask your friend Vas,” Agahm said. “He’s been going on about this since I first met him.”
“What’s that?” Siniq-elb.
“A lot of stuff I don’t understand,” Agahm said. “Words pour out of him almost as fast as food goes in. But he kept telling me I should try to do something, help someone. By the gods-made-flesh, that boy might be stout and slow, but he’s not a fool—no matter how much he talks.”
Siniq-elb nodded; Agahm’s words mirrored his own sentiments about Vas. No matter how much he wanted to disregard the weak, almost childish man, Vas had a surprising tendency to be right.
“So making these,” Siniq-elb lifted the crutches, “was all it took?”
“No,” Agahm said. “I almost didn’t make them; I thought I’d teach you a lesson, take your food and show you for a fool. But that pretty little girl kept coming with the food, and she’d not say a word, but I could see her watching me, waiting for the crutches. One night, after she’d left, I lay there thinking about what I’d become. When I was a carpenter, I stuck to my word faster than a nail in aged oak. The eses had taken everything else from me; I wasn’t going to let them take that. That night, in the dark, I got up and started looking for wood. I made myself a pair first,” he held up a set of crutches, “and once I got the wood in my hands, I couldn’t stop. I made yours, then I started on this.”
Siniq-elb stared at him. “All of this in a week?”
“I have a lot of time to make up,” Agahm said. “Years I’ve wasted.”
“And the eses don’t mind? How’d you get tools? Did someone smuggle them in?”
“Father take me, no,” Agahm said with a laugh. The laugh was low and easy, but rough at the edge, as though it needed time and use again before it could be sanded down and made normal. “You’d be surprised how much needs doing around this place. Doors not hung properly, walls and floor needing to be ripped up and replaced. Temple either doesn’t care or can’t afford it, cause the moment I offered to start taking care of little things, they were falling over themselves to get me some tools. One clerk even offered to pay me, although he didn’t seem to be thinking straight. I’m not sure they knew what to do with someone from the Garden who actually wanted to do something.”
Siniq-elb felt a smile creep across his face. “I know what you mean,” he said. “I’ve been learning to cut onions in the kitchen; by the tair, I hate it, but at least it’s work.”
Agahm stared at him, mouth open, and then burst out laughing. After a moment, Siniq-elb joined him, laughing until his ribs ached. His own laughter was rough, he realized, sharp from disuse. It felt good to bring it out again, to feel something loosen in his chest. For a m
oment, the world felt almost normal.
When the laughter had died down, Agahm gestured at the crutches and said, “You’ll need some practice with those. And keep the stumps well-bandaged, to help with the support. I’ve fallen my fair share of times and scraped myself something fierce, but tair help me if it hasn’t been the best idea I’ve ever heard. Makes me feel like a man—not because I’m standing, but because I’m taking life on my own terms. Not letting the eses decide how I’m going to live.”
“That’s all we can do,” Siniq-elb said. “That’s how we fight back.”
“Fight whom?” a soft voice said.
Mece stood between a pair of elms, as slender as the smooth-barked trees, her autumn-light hair falling over one shoulder. Siniq-elb felt his heart contract, as though everything in the world had drawn into a single point, and suddenly the heavy air was hard to breathe.
“The eses, my girl,” Agahm said, his voice soft.
“You should practice with those,” Mece said, nodding toward the crutches in Siniq-elb’s lap. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
Agahm made a shooing gesture, and Siniq-elb nodded. Mece made her way to his side, but Siniq-elb shook off her offer of assistance. Rising to his knees, he set the crutches under his arms, and shoulder and arms flexing, pushed up.
The force of his vault was too much, and Siniq-elb rose up and started to fall forward. Mece was there, though, one arm around his waist, a hand pressed against his chest with only the brown linen stretched between their flesh. For a moment neither moved, Siniq-elb caught between trying to keep his balance and the feel of Mece’s body against his, the smell of her hair like autumn leaves filling his nose.
Mece let out a nervous laugh and stepped back, one mangled hand still resting on Siniq-elb’s shoulder.
“You’ll need to use your stumps to stay up, and the bandages will provide padding and support that you’ll need,” Agahm said. “Thank the tair his healers know what they’re doing; wounds heal here faster than they ever should, and better than they should too. It’ll take some time to build up some calluses, and it’ll hurt like the Father’s glory until then, but that’s the way it is.”
Siniq-elb let out a breath and nodded. Agahm was right; wounds healed remarkably fast, and remarkably well, in the Garden. Gingerly, he lowered his weight onto the stumps; there was some discomfort, a little pain, but nothing like what he had expected. The bandages helped, adding padding and stability to his ruined limbs. Mece let go, and Siniq-elb felt a pang of regret as her delicate hand left his shoulder. Then he realized he was standing on his own.
A smile grew on his face, so wide that his cheeks ached. He was standing. By himself.
“Come on,” Mece said, her smile mirroring his own. He had never seen her smile before, not really, and it seemed strange on that perfect oval face—strange, but beautiful. Like a sliver of the moon, cast off and forgotten in still waters.
She walked at his side, guiding him along the edge of the woods. More than once Siniq-elb tripped on a root or slipped on dry leaves, but Mece was always there, catching him. The feel of her breasts pressed against him, the pale expanse of skin below the line of her tunic when she stood just below him—these, as much as the novelty of the crutches, made Siniq-elb stumble and falter. Sweat dampened his dark red hair and stained his tunic, but Mece did not seem to mind. They did not talk, except for Mece’s words of encouragement.
And then she stopped him. The sound of someone singing reached him, weak but audible. Singing, in the Garden. It seemed impossible. They had followed the line of trees that marked the edge of the short-growing grass, and Mece now pointed out between a pair of trees toward a cluster of older women, their hair tied in elaborate braids. They sat with piles of cloth between them, and Siniq-elb saw the flash of needles in the ever-summer sun as their hands moved.
“I’ve not seen them before,” Siniq-elb said. “Are they new?”
Mece shook her head, the smile growing on her lips. “Those are the hog-women,” she said.
Siniq-elb stared, trying to find any likeness. Gone were the women coated in mud, their hair a mess of sticks and leaves; now they looked as respectable as any other middle-aged women of Khi’ilan. If not for their brown tunics, they could have set out for an afternoon along the Ladies’ Walk.
“How?” was all he could say. Agahm had been a transformation; this was like a rebirth.
“Agahm paid them to make the padding for the crutches,” Mece said with a smile. “And I think he’s having them make something else; hangings for his pavilion, or something like that. And over there,” she pointed again to a man with a clean strip of white cloth over his eyes, his mouth open. Ishgh, Siniq-elb realized. The mean old blind man. “Agahm pays him to sing; he was one of the most famous painters of temple murals, had his own shop with apprentices. A rich, influential man once. He told Agahm he’d never sung before in his life, but listen to him now. He sings old songs that the women teach him.”
Siniq-elb could only stare. Others in the Garden still slumped on the ground; others still stared out at the world with bitterness, or aggression, or both. But these few that had changed—how they had changed! It was like seeing a new world; somehow, under the crushing heat of the ever-summer sun and the humid air, these people laughed and chatted and sang. His heart hammered in his chest, painful and exhilarating, and this time it had nothing to do with the scent of autumn leaves or the velvet brush of Mece’s skin.
“It’s changing,” Mece said. “And you’re the one doing this.”
“It’s not me,” Siniq-elb said. “It’s Agahm. And Vas—he said this was all Vas’s idea.”
“They did their part,” Mece said, her lavender eyes locking with his. “But this was you. You’re the one who showed us that we can still do something. And now I want my part.”
Siniq-elb’s pulse shifted, and the warmth of the summer day faded compared to the furnace blast of heat that flared between their bodies.
“What’s your part?” he asked, his voice husky with desire.
“I,” Mece said, her voice firm and practical, “am going to teach you how to play the harp.”