Love and Other Poisons

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  “Not yet,” Andry said. “It’s still four days until the full moon.”

  “We’d have to go to Azun. It would take five days back and forth.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Well, I’m not willing to go anywhere. What are we going to get out of it?”

  “It would be the decent thing to do.”

  Brock crossed his arms but Andry turned to her mother and tried to sound as confident as she could.

  “We can do it. He doesn’t have to die. We could be back in four days. We could also use some supplies for ourselves. Please? It would be unkind if we didn’t.”

  “It would be unkind if we didn’t. Yes. Look at all this rain! It hasn’t stopped raining since we stepped out.”

  Mist drifted between the trees and blotted out the sun. They were reaching a large outcropping of rocks. Samsia’s Throne. It was a sacred place and a strange one.

  “Hush,” Andry said as Samsia’s Throne came into view.

  Legend said the great kings of old sat and observed the world from Samsia’s Throne. Beneath the rocky outcropping were a number of chambers, nothing more than holes, small caverns, where the priests had placed offerings to the water, the sky, the gods of old.

  The river-hag lives near, Brock said when they were children and Andry had believed him. She feared this place even though the child was gone and left a young woman instead.

  Andry and Brock regarded the rocky formation in silence. As they drifted away Andry looked into her leather bag and found a little bundle of flowers and herbs, tossing it into the water.

  “That may not be enough if the river-hag follows us,” Brock said, still trying to frighten her after all those years

  Andry hurried towards the boat, handing Brock several of the bundles of herbs, provisions and ointments she had purchased along with her leather bag which contained charms and special items.

  “You took too long,” Brock said. “We’ll have to spend the night in Azun.”

  “No we won’t,” Andry said. “We can still travel for a couple of hours.”

  “I would appreciate a good roof over our head,” Brock said as he looked at the dark sky.

  “Looks like more rain.”

  “We head back as fast as we can, remember?”

  “Andry . . .”

  “Come on Brock,” she said, tossing him an oar.

  Brock grunted and started cursing under his breath.

  The bad weather did not relent and Brock’s mutterings increased with the rumble of thunder. As for Andry, she did not complain and ate a piece of cheese and drank her water, watching the trees with indifference. Her arms ached from rowing and she was cold.

  “We should switch,” Brock said. “I am hungry.”

  “I haven’t finished my food.”

  “Andry, give me.”

  Andry handed Brock the bottle and he drank a liberal amount, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “I wonder if she as beautiful as they say, eh?”

  “Who?” Andry asked.

  “The river-hag. She’s supposed to be the most beautiful woman a man has ever seen from afar, but then she gets up close and turns old and ugly and drags you to the bottom of the river. What do you think? Beautiful or horrid or both?”

  She shook her head.

  “What does it matter?”

  “Don’t be dull. I’m trying to talk to you.”

  “Talk about something else,” Andry said because she knew Brock was trying to scare her with talk of the hag. He’d tormented her with tales of the supernatural since the age of seven.

  Soon he would start telling the stories of the men that had been dragged down the river into the hag’s clutches. He would tell her how in the old days the priests offered sacrifices of flesh and blood near Samsia’s Throne to appease the hag, and how the hag might sometimes give them gifts of fish and gold in return.

  “But where would she get the gold?” a younger Andry had asked. “She takes the rings from her victims’ fingers,” Brock replied. “Look! There she comes!”

  And Andry the child would run into her home in fear. As an adult, for all her bravado on dry land, she still feared the hag when they were on the skiff.

  “What should we talk about? The water? The fish? The weather? I could be having some beer over at old man Cothlo’s tavern.”

  “And sinning with the bawdy women there too,” Andry replied.

  “Ah, what do you know about bawdy women?”

  Andry did not know much except that even though her mother said such women were bad, some of them owned fancy jewels and beautiful embroidered shoes. Andry only wore shoes during the winter and these were ugly and too big for her feet.

  Sometimes Andry wondered what it might be like to go beyond Azun, to the great capital-city, and wear pearls in her ears and meet handsome men like the young stranger who was beautiful even in his waxen sickness.

  Beautiful and far removed from the hare lipped butcher boy of Azun or even Brock with his ugly, crooked nose and messy hair.

  “I know enough,” Andry said without much conviction. “I’ve even spoken to one or two of them.”

  “I’m going to tell your mother,” Brock teased.

  Andry turned her face away, irritated by his comment, and gasped.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  Brock frowned, looking in her same direction. He paddled towards the shore and they both disembarked. The reeds whispered as they pushed their way forward and stood still.

  “Soldiers?”

  “Deserters, most likely,” Brock muttered.

  Two corpses piled on top of each other and left to rot next to the river stared at the grey sky. Both men had their throat slashed and their hands tied. Brock and Andry watched in reverential fear.

  “We must go,” Brock said.

  “Shouldn’t we do something? A burial? Their ghosts will be angry.”

  “Let them. Come, we must go.”

  “Damn the soldiers. Damn the king’s men,” Brock muttered.

  The trees glided past them, Brock paddling madly while the sky rumbled above. Ill weather. Ill day.

  “I’ll luck,” Andry whispered, thinking of the angry ghosts.

  “Damn you for putting me through this,” Brock yelled. “I swear, they must be looking for him. Your deserter.”

  A loud thump startled Andry. She thought they might have hit a rock but before there was a chance to assess the damage the skiff swayed violently, tossing Andry into the water.

  The river’s pull was strong. Andry swam up, fighting the current and then she felt something, a strong tug. Something was pulling her down. Andry kicked and hit the surface, bobbing up for a breath of air before being pulled down again.

  Cold fingers wrapped around her wrist and the water swallowed her scream. She thought of the river-hag, its clammy flesh against her. Or perhaps the angry ghosts, outraged at their unkindness. But when she emerged Andry saw it was only Brock holding her, helping her move towards the shore.

  Brock shoved her unkindly onto dry land. Andry rolled onto her back and stared at the sky, her breath shallow. As soon as she was able to breath properly she sat up, scanning the water.

  “The skiff,” she said.

  “Gone,” Brock said as he tossed Andry her leather bag.

  “The medicine,” she whispered, clawing at the bag at once and finding that the carefully packaged bundle was still there. “Praise the gods.”

  “Praise the gods again. Maybe they’ll send us another skiff.”

  Andry clutched the bag and started walking, her feet sinking in the muddy ground.

  “Where are you headed? Azun’s the other way,” Brock said. “We need to get old man Oteh to take us down river.”

  “We’d never make it in time. He’ll be dead by then. We need to walk home.” Brock blinked.

  “Are you mad? We have no blankets, no food or drink or —”

  “My tinderbox is still here and my knife,” Andry said hold
ing up her bag. “If we follow the old path we can spend the night at the abandoned inn and if we move fast —”

  “Andry, there’s men near hear. Soldiers.”

  “Don’t be a coward.”

  “I’m going to Azun.”

  “Coward!”

  Brock walked away. Andry watched him for a few moments, wanting to follow and knowing she could not, before heading in the opposite direction.

  Andry reached the abandoned inn before dusk and gathered some wood. After several unsuccessful attempts she managed to start a fire and sat before the fireplace.

  She wondered how the stranger waiting at her mother’s house was faring and whether they might return in time to save him. Perhaps Brock was right and it was futile. Useless.

  She fell asleep quickly and dreamt the young stranger was a prince from a far away land. To thank Andry he showered her with gifts and they drifted down the river in a golden barge, beyond Azun and the world she knew.

  When Andry woke it was to the rumble of thunder and the hard floor of the inn. The barge and all her other dreams of luxury and happiness had vanished.

  There was a noise nearby, the creaking of wood. Andry’s hand slipped towards her knife.

  She thought of bandits, or even worse, the river-hag sneaking up behind her.

  “Andry, it’s me.”

  Brock stepped into the light, dripping of water and splattered with mud.

  Andry’s heart, which had been beating wildly, grew still.

  “You’re here,” she said, jumping to her feet.

  “I thought you’d be dying of fright without me.”

  “Would not,” Andry muttered.

  They sat down on the bare, dirty floor and looked at the fire in silence.

  “You shouldn’t do things like this, Andry.”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “You know.”

  “I told you I’m not afraid.”

  “One day you’re going to get hurt doing something stupid like —”

  “Like saving someone’s life?”

  “Precisely,” Brock leaned forward, giving her a stern look. “That man’s a deserter.”

  “Be quiet.”

  “The forest is crawling with deserters.”

  “So what if he is? Don’t we have a duty to help him?”

  Brock shook his head. They stared at the fire again and Andry wanted to hit Brock because he was such a selfish, idiotic man but then Brock reached into the folds of his clothing and handed her a salty hardtack.

  “I thought we had no food,” Andry said.

  “I lied,” Brock said. “One for you and one for me.”

  Andry shook her hair and tried to chew the biscuit without breaking a tooth.

  Andry dreamt the water-hag sneaked next to her during the night and whispered into her ear, telling her she would gift her a pretty strand of pearls if Andry would allow her a bite of flesh, a sip of blood. But when Andry lifted her head it was only Brock, his body warm against hers.

  She gave Brock a hard shove to wake him up and he cursed and demanded that they sleep some more, but he got up eventually and they were back on the road that led home.

  They had not walked far from the inn when they noticed three men heading their way. Even though their clothes were muddy and tattered, Andry recognized the crimson outfit of the king’s army.

  “Ah, the hag take me,” Brock cursed. “Let me speak. They’ll go away fast.”

  Soon enough the three men were up close and looking at them curiously.

  “Good morning,” said one of the soldiers, a tall, wiry man.

  “Good morning, sir,” Brock muttered politely.

  “Could you assist us? We were traveling to Ridra but we’ve lost one of our companions. A tall lad, fair haired. Perhaps you’ve seen him?”

  A deserter, Andry thought, recalling Brock’s words. For a moment she was afraid he would speak and tell the truth. Brock just gazed at them blankly.

  “No, sir.”

  “He might be injured. A bit confused maybe.”

  “No, sir. It’s just us here. Just traveling. To Soto, sir.”

  The soldier observed them for a moment, then seemed to dismiss them shaking his head and turning towards his companions. But then he turned his attention back towards them.

  “River folk, are you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, a good, strong river-boy you are, aren’t you? And a girl. Look at that pretty hair.”

  Andry bowed her head and stared at the ground.

  “We could use a guide,” the soldier said. “Someone to lead us around these parts. We are unfamiliar with the area.”

  “I’m not a guide, sir. We’re just river folk. We fish and we sell the fish at the market. That’s all.”

  “Come, come now. Walk with us some of the way.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. We’re wanted at home.”

  “We’d like you to come with us.”

  Another soldier raised a crossbow and pointed it at Brock.

  “Be pleasant,” the tall soldier said. “It’s best this way.”

  Andry recalled, dimly as if in a dream, the coming of the soldiers upon their home and the disappearance of her father a decade past. Or perhaps these were merely deserters who had turned to robbery and murder. Either way, what lay in Ridra was slavery. They would be sold to the highest bidder. That is, if they did not kill them for the sole sport of it.

  “Please, we have done nothing,” Brock said, grasping Andry’s hand.

  “Shut up. Tie them up.”

  “Oh, sir, please. We beg you.”

  Brock’s voice was a scared whimper, but Andry felt his fingers quickly untangle from hers. A quiet gesture. A signal.

  They were river folk but they were not foolish. Growing up together they had developed their own secret codes, their own silent signs. And now the sign was clear for Andry: run.

  Brock held his hands up for the soldier to tie together but then, before the cord could be firmly knotted, his fingers flew into his sleeve and Brock pulled out a knife. The soldier jumped back, startled.

  Andry, her own knife tucked inside her boot, elbowed the man approaching her and he stumbled, skidded and fell upon the muddy ground.

  They ran. Andry leapt forward with all the might she could muster and rushed through the mud, the trees and puddles and branches. She heard the loud screams of the men but Brock just yelled for her to keep running. So Andry ran.

  She ran until she could not breath anymore and as she leaned against a tree, Brock stumbled into her and they both lost their footing.

  “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t.”

  Then she saw that his eyes were watering and he was clutching the side of his body, blood staining his fingers.

  “Brock,” she whispered. “Oh, Brock, come. Keep going.”

  “I can’t. I can’t walk.”

  “Yes, you can,” she said her throat dry as dust. “Please, you have to.”

  “It’s too far.”

  “It’s not far. We’ll go to Samsia’s Throne. To the chambers. Yes? It’s not too far.”

  “Andry . . .”

  “They won’t follow. They can’t follow. It’ll rain soon and the rain will wash away any tracks. Come Brock. Please, please.”

  They ran, with Brock half-doubled in pain, and later on they walked, his hand on her shoulder, until they reached the dark silhouette against the dying sky that was Samsia’s Throne.

  Andry had bandaged Brock’s wound by tearing off a piece of clothing from her skirt. Then they sat at the back of one of the small chambers and Andry piled her cape upon Brock and huddled next to him.

  “Brock, don’t sleep,” she said, pinching him.

  “Andry, I hate you.”

  “Fine,” she said, pinching him again. “Just don’t sleep. Don’t. Tell me something.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Tell me anything. Please?”

  “Are you afraid?”

&
nbsp; “Yes, I’m afraid of the river-hag,” she lied, because she was really afraid Brock was going to faint and die; he was shivering and he was very pale and if it weren’t for her they would be home. Safe, warm and away.

  “Andry, you are so gullible. Remember when I used to make footprints in the mud and tell you the river-hag had come out of the water and into your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’d run crying to your mother and then she’d tell my brothers and I’d get beaten silly because I scared you again.”

  “I remember.”

  “Then when you learnt how to make charms against the river-hag and such you said you were going to hex me and I pretended the hex worked and for a whole day you thought I’d been turned into some kind of animal.”

  “It was a spider.”

  “True.”

  Brock shifted and winced.

  “You should go ahead without me. They want me. They need to replace the man they lost.”

  “Brock.”

  “No, you were right. I am a coward,” Brock whispered. “I should have gone to my aunt’s home a long, long time ago. But I was afraid they’d take me away, like my brothers. Her three sons, they’re all off fighting. But what can you do? The soldiers will come anyway.”

  “Not this time. Not here,” she said. “I promise.”

  Andry waited until Brock was asleep to make her way out of the chamber and towards the river bank. It was madness, to venture out alone.

  She knelt by the river and tried to recall the many stories Brock had told about the river-hag. Spells. Magic.

  Moonlight and water mingled together. Andry bowed her head and began speaking as well as she could. Her voice was shaking. She spoke to the river.

  Andry remained rooted to the same spot even with tendrils of mist coiling and unfurling around her, making everything terrifying and unseen. She sat there and slashed at her own palm, blood staining her knife and then she hurled the knife into the water.

  In the darkness the wind whispered and it mixed with Brock’s voice inside her head. Old whispers, old muttered stories in the dark and she not understanding all of what the stories meant, yet having memorized each word. She followed the stories diligently.