I shook my head. “I had no idea,” I said. “She is just my mother, and our healer and midwife.”
Marta laughed. “It is always so,” she said. “What made you ask?”
“Something the General said, when he came to see me yesterday,” I answered. “Shall I do these dishes, Marta, and then chop vegetables for soup?’
I spent the morning doing kitchen chores. These tasks seemed unreal, but they were something for my hands to do, and my mind. If I did not focus hard on the steps, I forgot things, forgot even what I was doing, sometimes. When the bread was rising and the mid-day soup simmering, I poured myself tea and sat at the kitchen table. I leafed through Colm’s history, looking for other instances of Emperors choosing to banish a wrong-doer, rather than execute them. If I were given a chance to speak in my defense, I needed to know this history.
I found a brief reference to the exile of a murderer in Mathon’s reign, clemency granted because the Emperor thought the killing, retribution for a physical attack, a form of self-defence. Had I not killed the fisherman for the same reasons? I read the passage again, committing it to memory.
In the late morning, the skies cleared a bit, the fine rain giving way to a weak and watery sunshine. I took the book back to my room and went outside to gather greens and radishes for the meal. When I came back in, my mother was in the kitchen, setting the table.
“What else did Casyn say yesterday?” she asked. “Something has upset you. Will you be allowed to go home?”
I hesitated. I had planned what to say, when she asked this. “No,” I said, and saw her face fall. “Not yet. There will be a hearing, for me and Cillian, a formality, Casyn says, and then I will either be sent back to the Ti’ach, if the peace still requires hostages, or allowed to leave the Emperor’s service.” Half a lie.
“I see,” she said. “You must be disappointed, Lena. You wanted to come back to Tirvan.”
“I did. Or I thought I did, when I was first recovering. But I’m not sure, now.”
“Why not?”
What would she believe? “I’d like to see everyone,” I said. “But I don’t know how to live there without Maya. Everything we did, apprenticing, fishing from Dovekie, we did together. I don’t know if I can go back to that life.” And I never will, I thought, glad of the cold that numbed me, keeping tears from my eyes.
“Had you not left Tirvan, you might have found a way,” she said thoughtfully. “And you may yet, but I think I understand.” She held out her arms, and I let her hug me, and did my best to hug her back.
“Mother,” I said, when we had stepped apart, “should you not be going home, yourself? I am well, or nearly so, and I think you are worrying about Tirvan, regardless of how competent you know Kira to be.”
She laughed. “You are right. But I was more worried about you. And I still am.”
“But I am fine,” I insisted, hoping she could not see the lie in my eyes. “And the fishing boats will be growing busier as the weather warms; if anyone is going to make time to sail you home, it needs to be soon. I will be going back to the Wall, to the White Fort, for the hearing and the decision.” If she thought the hearing would not be here, at the coastal fort, she would have no reason to stay.
“Perhaps you are right,” she admitted. “You are past danger. I will stay, though, if the fisherwomen will bear with me, until you leave for the Wall. And you will send word?”
“Of course,” I promised.
“Oh, my dear,” she said. “I hope you find what you want, wherever you go.”
I tried to smile. “So do I,” I said.
How, I wondered, could I get a note to Casyn, once my mother’s plans were made? I could ask my mother how she had sent word of my health, if I told her I wanted to send greetings to Cillian. But I did not need to: after the mid-day meal, Casyn’s soldier-servant, Birel, arrived, leading a compact chestnut gelding behind his own horse.
“Guardswoman,” he greeted me, swinging down off his bay. “The General has sent you this horse and its tack, as compensation for the loss of your mare. He’s newly shod, and a good steady horse. I’ve ridden him myself, at times.”
“Hello, Sergeant,” I said. “This is unexpected.” Did this mean I would be riding to the White Fort? I stepped off the porch to go to the horse’s head. I let him smell me, rubbing his neck. He snuffled my hand, blew out, and stood quietly. “What’s his name?” I asked. He was slightly taller than my Clio, with heavier legs.
“Suran. He’ll serve you well, I’ve no doubt. I was also to tell you: his food and stabling will be paid by the General, while you are in Berge. And now I should be getting back.”
“Wait,” I said, adding quickly “if you would. I’d like to send a note to the General. I won’t be five minutes.”
“Of course,” he replied. He stood at ease, holding the two horses. I ran inside and up the stairs to my room. Writing as quickly as I could, I thanked Casyn for the horse and then made my request: could he, somehow, call me back to the fort some days before the trial? My mother would leave Berge then, I wrote. I signed the note, folded it, sealing it with wax from my candle.
Back outside I handed it to Birel. He slipped it into his tunic pocket. “I’ll see he gets it, Guardswoman,” he said. Then he held out his hand to me. Surprised, I took it. “You’re a brave soldier, Lena,” he said roughly. “There’ll be many who’ll speak for you, if necessary. Don’t lose heart.”
So he knew—but of course he did. Men like him, who served the senior officers, were privy to many secrets. The unexpected kindness touched me. “Thank you, Birel,” I said. He nodded, mounting his bay to ride back to the fort. I watched him leave, then turned to the horse whose reins I held. “Well,” I said, “what to do with you?” I looped the reins around the gatepost, and went in search of Marta.
She was mixing a salve in the still-room, instructing Kyreth. “Keep stirring,” she said to her apprentice. “What can I do for you, Lena?”
I explained about the horse. “Where can I stable him? The army will pay; I am still a soldier.”
She nodded. “They sent money for your care and food here, too. Our own ponies are pastured at the top of the village, and there is a barn for poor weather, but it won’t be an army stable.”
“It will be fine,” I said. “Army horses are adaptable; they are often picketed outside, in all weathers. Who do I see about it?”
“Risa. She’s probably up with the sheep, in the fields. If not, her apprentices will know where she is.”
“Thank you,” I replied. I went back out, looking east; there were sheep grazing on the uplands. I untied Suran, adjusted the stirrups, and using the steps as a mounting block, swung up into the saddle. He stood steady as I mounted, and obeyed the reins without hesitation.
I tested his paces as we rode towards the pasture, finding he had a comfortable trot and a rolling, easy canter. My own muscles ached even from this brief test, so I brought him back to a walk as I approached the lower fields where a group of ponies grazed. The breeze was off-shore, and their heads went up as we came closer, the wind carrying the smell of a strange horse to them. They trotted up to the wall. Three of them were heavily in foal. I brought Suran closer, letting them smell each other; if he was to share a field with them, the sooner they got to know each other, the better.
No one seemed to be around. I surveyed the higher fields, and there I could see two figures and a dog, working the sheep. I followed a track up between the walls.
“Are you Risa?” I called, as I approached them.
“I am,” she called back. “Give me a minute; we’re nearly done with this group.” I watched, recognizing the task she was at: dagging, clipping dried dung off the flanks of the sheep. Now the weather was warming, the dung attracted flies, which would lay their eggs in the dung; when the larvae hatched, they would burrow into the sheep’s flesh. I remembered why I hated sheep.
I dismounted, letting Suran drop his head to graze. Risa finished her work and, after a word
to her apprentice, came over to me. “Lena, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve just been assigned a horse, to get me back into riding shape before I return to duty. I’ll need a place to pasture him and store his tack, for a week or so. The army will pay. Can I turn him loose with the ponies?”
“He’ll need some hay, too, if you are going to be riding him daily,” she said. “But it’s there in the barn. There’s a tack room. Will you be taking care of him?”
“Yes.”
“Good; we’re busy right now, as you can see. There’s a small paddock just by the barn; put him there for a day or so. It adjoins the geldings’ field. I don’t want him in with the mares; they’re too close to foaling. Does that suit?”
She reminded me of Daria, from Karst: plain-spoken, practical, and good-hearted. “Yes, of course,” I said. “Can I ride around here for a bit, before I turn him out?”
She shrugged. “It won’t bother the sheep.”
“Thanks,” I said, and with a wave to the apprentice, I kept riding. The track curved up to the higher pastures. Near the top, I stopped. North of us, I could see the line of the Wall, following the landscape. I was high enough to see a couple of the watch-towers, spaced along its length. The coastal fort spread out southward from its line, itself walled and towered, and below both, ships stood at anchor in the harbour. One of them could be Skua. I hoped not. I did not want Garth, or Dern, to witness my trial. But maybe it would be at the White Fort. Why else would Casyn have sent me a horse?
I had tried to be a good soldier. From the first day Casyn had ridden into Tirvan, I had done what he asked. Except once, I reminded myself. ‘Will you come north?’ he had asked, in the hours after word of the Wall’s breaching had arrived. And I had not, not for long months. But when I did, I thought, I served the Emperor well, on the Wall and then as hostage. The anger in me twisted. Why had I done what Casyn had asked, and Callan, so blindly, so trustingly? Tears rose in my eyes. From the wind, I told myself. What a fool I had been, seeing only the adventure, and not the cost.
I rode back down to the barn and paddock. I unsaddled and curried Suran, turning him out into the paddock with a biscuit of hay. The geldings in the next field trotted over to examine him; nothing untoward happened, so I went back into the dim barn to put away his tack. My back and legs ached from the riding, and my thigh muscles trembled. I was glad the walk back to Marta’s house was downhill.
“The army has sent me a horse,” I told my mother at supper that evening, “so that I can re-accustom my body to riding. I would think I will be called back to the Wall in about a week, and then on to the White Fort.”
“I hope they do not ask you to ride all day,” she said, frowning.
I shrugged. “They know I have been very ill. I am to tell them when I can ride for half a day,” I lied, “so that is what they expect.” I concentrated on the fish on my plate. I had no interest in food, but I knew my body needed fuel.
“Don’t push yourself,” she warned. “I spoke with the fisherwomen today. Elga, who fetched me from Tirvan, is willing to take me back in a few days. While she was waiting for me to pack my things when she came to find me, she spoke with Dessa, and there are some ideas about boat design she’d like to discuss with her. So, she is happy to take me back, but as you guessed she wants to do it soon. I will tell her tomorrow to choose a day.”
“If the seas allow,” I said, the fisherwoman’s caution coming automatically to my lips.
The weather held, only small showers of rain blowing through, not enough to keep the boats off the water. I rode Suran daily, rain or no, testing his trot and his canter, strengthening my muscles and building my endurance. I wanted no weakness to prevent me from riding to the White Fort. I ached from the effort, and part of me wished Berge had baths like Tirvan’s, to soak my tired body in at the end of the day, but no hot springs bubbled out of the ground here. There was a bath house, but using it meant building fires to heat water, and I couldn’t be bothered to go to that effort.
I found no more mention of banishment in Colm’s history. I thought of the books on Perras’s shelves, at the Ti’ach, and wondered what the punishment for treason would be in Linrathe. I knew what it was in Varsland, under Fritjof. Was there an argument there, that we were better than the Marai? I turned that around in my mind, examining it from every side. I could not decide. Who could I ask? The only possibility was Cillian, were I allowed to talk to him. Where was he?
I needed to get to the Wall, I thought, frustrated. I was well, and the advice I needed now could come neither from my mother, nor the women of Berge. That afternoon, I turned Suran’s head north. A tower stood where the fort’s wall turned back toward the Wall. A lone soldier looked north, his eyes moving from the sea to the lands beyond the fort, and back again. He did not look south: what threat could be expected, from Berge?
“Soldier!” I called. He turned rapidly.
“What do you want?” he called down.
“I am Guardswoman Lena, lately of the White Fort garrison. I have been recuperating from injuries at Berge. I need to send a message to the General Casyn that I am well and can return to my duties. Can you take this message?”
“At the end of my watch,” he said. It would do.
“Thank you,” I called back. I saw him nod, his eyes returning to the sea. I reined Suran south, and gave him a gentle kick. He broke into a canter, and then with further encouragement from me a gallop. I turned him east, along the track that ran up into the hills, climbing higher, until we reached the highest ridge. From here the land unrolled before me in all directions, and just to the east I could see the road, the road that ran from the Wall south to the Four-Ways Inn, before turning east to Casilla; the road I had ridden almost every mile of, save this most northern section.
What if I just kept riding? The idea shimmered in my mind like a sea-mirage, beckoning, but like those false visions of islands on the horizon, I knew it had no substance. I would be followed, caught, to stand trial not only for treason but also for desertion. I sat on my horse, feeling the wind in my hair, my eyes taking in the space and distance that had always been my deepest solace.
A flash of movement, high in the hazy sky, caught my attention. I searched the sky. There it was, again: a tiny speck, blinking in and out of the high clouds to the west, circling, until it suddenly dropped, straight down, plunging arrow-fast toward the sea. A fuádain, I realized, the wandering falcon, remembering the bird I had seen hunt from Donnalch’s hand so few weeks earlier. But this one flew free.
Birel came for me the next morning. I had packed my bag in expectation, and given my thanks to Marta and Kyreth. Suran stood, saddled and bridled, at the gate. I sat on the porch of Marta’s house with my mother, waiting. I had to keep our speech light, or I would break.
“Mother,” I began, “I didn’t realize you were such an honoured healer. But both Marta and Casyn say you are. Shouldn’t I have known that?”
“Why would you?” she said simply. “And I don’t know that I’m all that honoured. Tirvan has a few more books on healing and midwifery than some other villages, and I have spent time reading them. I have shared some of what I have learned with other healers, by letters. That’s all.” She smiled. “And Marta is twenty years younger than I am, so she sees me as vastly more experienced. Although she knows things I don’t, such as different methods to treat frost-burn.”
“If there were somewhere you could go, to learn more, somewhere with more books, would you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Sorley—he was another student at the Ti’ach, the house of learning that I was at—told me there is one Ti’ach that specializes in healing. He said you could go there, for a season, if there was a peace. Would you, if you could?”
“Oh,” she said. “I don’t know. North of the Wall?” Her hands went to her hair.
“Yes,” I said, “north of the Wall. The Ti’acha are unlike anything we have in the Empire: communities of m
en and women, dedicated to learning and teaching. I would have enjoyed my time at Ti’ach na Perras, I think, learning more history, and about peoples we didn’t even know existed.” I sighed. “But other events took over.”
“Well,” she said. “It’s tempting, now Kira is qualified.”
“And you might have things to teach them,” I suggested. “Perras—he was the head of the Ti’ach where I was sent—was shocked to learn you knew of the Eastern Fever. He said he wished he could talk to you about it.”
“But there would need to be a peace,” she said.
“I think there will be,” I answered. “Casyn told me that Lorcann—he will be the new Teannasach of Linrathe—will sign a treaty; we need to be allies, if the Marai are to be held back.” And if the Emperor assuaged his anger with my punishment, and Cillian’s, I thought.
I looked away, hiding my face from my mother, to see Birel riding towards the house. “It’s time,” I said, standing. Fear and relief battled inside me. I glanced up at the sky. “The weather will hold,” I said, “for your sailing.” My mother had gone to see Elga yesterday evening, after I had told her I would be leaving in the morning. They would sail on the afternoon's tide.
I let my mother hold me, but only briefly. She kissed me on the forehead. “Say hello to Kira, and everyone,” I said. “I will write, when I know where I am posted.” My mouth felt stiff, the words forced out, hoarse to my own ears. I thought I was trembling, but my hands on Suran’s reins were steady. I swung up into the saddle.
“Farewell, my daughter,” my mother said. I could hear the tears in her voice. Did she know, or suspect, more than she was saying? I raised a hand, willed a smile, and walked Suran forward to meet Birel.
“Ready, Guardswoman?” he asked.
“I am, Sergeant,” I lied.
Chapter Eighteen
When we were free of the village, I moved up to ride beside Birel. “Where will I be taken, Sergeant?” I asked.
Empire's Legacy- The Complete Trilogy Page 58