A bell rang somewhere in the middle of the camp, echoed by more bells around the edges. The passenger wagon driver barked a command at her horses, and the wagon lurched into motion. A cheer went up from the other passengers. Around them the other wagons began to roll as the mounted merchants and guards rode at an easy walk.
Keifon watched the receding city wall until a turn in the road put it squarely behind the wagon. Around him, the other passengers talked amongst themselves about their destinations and their homes – going back to the country from Vertal, or to the patrol garrison just up the road. A few were going as far as Laketon, which he remembered as a ranching hub in northern Kavera, just over the border from southern Yanwei.
His letter to Nachi would take several more days to reach her; he thought about the mail riders running north, cutting through the land he’d bypassed by sea, heading toward the home that wasn’t home anymore. Ceien had never really been home, after all. It was Eri’s family’s home, and Nachi’s now. The base had been home, and now he could not return for a long time.
Keifon had stopped listening to the other passengers. To distract himself, he turned his attention to the wagons and riders around them. He had visited the camp once with Chesler, briefly, introducing himself to the retiring Nessinian healers and helping them pack up their clinic tent. They had been gracious in showing him the quirks of the equipment that he had since inherited. They were middle-aged, looking forward to settling down – one in a private office in Vertal, the other in a hospital. Keifon had politely listened to their reminiscing and their good wishes. They had spoken to one another in half-sentences in their syncopated Nessinian accents, hardly needing to finish their thoughts before they were understood. They had clearly worked together for a very long time. At the time, Keifon had fought the rising dread that he would be forced to work with a partner. He wanted to work alone; he wanted to live alone. If he could not be with Kazi or with his daughter, he did not want anyone else near him.
He had his solitude for now, at least. The order of the procession slowly shifted as one wagon or rider passed another, moving as a loose body to the northwest. He spotted a textile merchant, a livestock driver with a herd of goats, the bookseller that he had noticed on his first visit, and several merchants who dealt in whatever they could fit on their carts, tarpaulined over to keep the piles of scavenged odds and ends from spilling out.
In the early afternoon, a rider picked his way around the wagons, tailed by a young apprentice. The pair called out like street vendors. As they pulled alongside the passenger wagon, the apprentice handed up paper-wrapped packages and glass bottles. A wine vendor? Keifon’s hand tightened on the bench back until he caught a rising savory smell from the rider’s saddlebags. A food vendor, food and drink. Keifon caught his breath and considered what he could afford and what he could digest. He noticed a passenger two rows ahead buying bread and two hard-boiled eggs, so when the rider passed his way, he bought the same, with a flask of water. He downed half of the bottle of water first to muffle his stomach’s complaints, then slowly finished the food. It settled his hunger without too much pain. He leaned against the roof support and watched the road as his body finished its ritual war with itself.
Along the road a series of inns, horse traders and general stores gradually thinned out. Keifon remembered the notes that the Benevolent Union had copied; the Nessinian healers had mentioned that they’d drawn maps. This ride would seem less interminable if he knew how long it would take.
He extracted the notes from his backpack and flipped through. They were written in Kaveran – translated, perhaps – and many of the treatments referred to Nessinian energy healing. A faint sick feeling swam through Keifon’s gut. The Nessinians had seemed kind and even welcoming, but they were still unbelievers in the end. They called on Tufar’s holy energy without proper training or attribution, an affront to the bronze god that could not be overlooked. Still, Keifon could learn something from their experience, however ill-gotten it might be.
The map folded out from the back of the logbook, with three dense pages of notes following it. The roughly rectangular trade route was heavily annotated, numbers and symbols peppering the countryside, each referring to the following text.
The caravan now pulled out of Vertal, the port in the south; Keifon located that. The route ran northwest to a city called Prisa, not far away, where the notes mentioned Benevolent Union clinics and a Church of the Divine Balance shrine – something the Nessinians would care about, but of no use to Keifon. From Prisa, the route turned east to the mountains, north to run near the border with Yanwei, then south again to return to Prisa and Vertal. Line after line, note after note, sprawled across the country. Mining villages all over this area, will come to the Feast of Darano market. Ask for the doctor here, will appreciate help. Risk of bandits in this wood. Refused treatment at first, came to trust us. Caravan might look into rerouting here; hard going. New BU road? Recommend permanent doctor in this town, lots of business. Water sickness common here. Tried to educate.
Ten years of experience had been distilled down to this. Keifon carefully closed the book. He couldn’t imagine traveling with the young, pampered Nessinian girl for ten years. He couldn’t imagine her sticking it out for ten years; she was throwing enough fits after one day. He fingered the outline of the coins in his belt pouch and wondered whether she realized how much she’d given him – enough to buy food for a week. His cheeks warmed with the memory. Had she meant to humiliate him? Or was she getting revenge for having been embarrassed? He had been harsh with her about calling the passengers porters. It seemed unbelievable that someone could be so thoughtless, and he was offended on the other passengers’ behalf. It was all part of the gods’ punishment, that he should be matched up with such a spoiled patrician.
The conversation on the wagon quieted as the afternoon wore on, a few murmurs blending with the wheels’ rattle and the hoofbeats of the horses. The members of the caravan kept more or less the same pace with one another, and the mounted guards in their leathers and brown cloaks weaved back and forth between them. The passenger wagon now rolled alongside an open-topped wagon stacked with furniture, cooking implements, barrels, crates, small plaster statues of gods and demigods, farming implements, and canvas-wrapped packages of unclear purpose.
When the sun slanted in from the left front corner of the wagon, the food vendor came around again. The other passengers bought more food, and this time, Keifon noticed several bottles of wine being passed up as well. He could afford to splurge with what the Nessinian had given him, so he bought one of the vendor’s Kaveran crepes – full of cheese and mushrooms and herbs – and more water. The passengers behind him uncorked a bottle and passed it back and forth, laughing as they opened their picnic baskets. Keifon could smell it from here, and his throat clenched. His feet were moving before he finished forming the thought.
Agna: Advice
As Agna started eating, she wondered whether the vendor would sell her any advice about cooking over a fire. Her family had always had modern enclosed stoves in their kitchen; Tane, the housekeeper, only cooked things like mulled cider over the fireplace, for the ambience. Agna had helped in the kitchen sometimes for the sake of learning about it, but she knew nothing about campfire cooking.
Footsteps creaked on the floorboards behind her. Agna turned; it was the Yanweian, grim-faced as ever, laden with his luggage.
“May I?”
“Oh. I suppose so.” She shifted down the bench toward the wall, and shoved her luggage over to make room for his.
“Thank you.” The Yanweian set down his backpack and valise on the floor and perched his case on the bench between Agna and himself. Agna realized that he had also bought dinner from the vendor, and he started to eat without another word.
Agna wondered whether his rudeness could be chalked up to a Yanweian cultural trait, or his personality. She wondered whether he were still angry at her. It wasn’t her fault that she had mistaken the passengers
for porters. They dressed like porters. She had, of course, noticed that she was the only well-dressed person on the wagon; everyone else wore plain clothes, mostly linen and wool and leather. They wore little jewelry, apart from some marriage torques, as people wore instead of rings in this part of the world. Even the Yanweian was simply dressed. She saw a glint of metal under his open collar. He was married? With that rude attitude? Why was he traveling alone? Or maybe that accounted for the attitude –
“Is there a problem?”
Agna jumped and snapped her gaze back to her own hands. “N-no. Just – drifted out to sea.”
“Hm.”
The passengers behind them erupted into laughter, and she felt the Yanweian’s posture tighten. She glanced around. None of the others were looking their way; they were engrossed in their own conversations, passing the vendor’s wine around. Agna finished her meat pie and the half flask of water that she had saved from lunch. She sighed contentedly, crumpling up the paper wrapper. The Yanweian was halfway through the crepe he’d brought. It seemed rude to talk to someone who was still in the middle of eating, and besides, he probably didn’t want to start a conversation. She had no idea why he’d come to sit by her, either.
Eventually he finished and drank a little water. He hadn’t bought any of the wine, either. Maybe he had refined tastes, too; Agna certainly didn’t intend to drink some homebrew from who-knew-where.
“So,” she began, “do you know much about camping?”
He watched her before replying, his tone guarded. “I know some things.”
“Oh, that’s good. I’ve never had to camp before, you see. If you could help me learn how to put my tent together, I would be happy to pay you for the privilege.”
“Hm. I suppose so.” He was looking at the Benevolent Union tents at their feet, bound up in cords. “I helped the previous healers to take this one apart, a few days ago. It’s a two-person job. I’ll show you how it works.”
“We’ll help one another, then.” She felt magnanimous and optimistic. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad. “If you help me put up mine, I’ll help you with yours.”
“They aren’t mine or yours. They’re ours. One tent for the clinic, one for camping.”
Agna couldn’t help but stare. “What?”
The Yanweian lowered his water bottle slowly. “The Benevolent Union only pays for one place at the campsite for both of us. They didn’t tell you that?”
“They just told me that they sent out teams,” Agna said. “That there were too many patients for one person to handle.”
The Yanweian’s voice picked up an edge of disbelief. “Yes, and we’re to camp together. The last pair, your Nessinians, bought a wagon – but they sold it off to another merchant before they retired. It wasn’t Benevolent Union property. They didn’t tell you that?”
Agna thought back to the briefing in the Benevolent Union headquarters. The intake agent had spoken perfect Nessinian; everything had been clear. She had scrambled behind the idea of the caravan itself, of not having a proper assignment with a clinic or a shrine, of traveling around the country and who knows even what else. They hadn’t gotten down to details. “They did not tell me that.”
The Yanweian sighed quietly. “That’s not your fault, then.”
Agna’s mind scrambled the rest of the way. She would have to room with this sour stranger who seemed to regard everything she did with contempt. They most definitely had not briefed her about this. She would draft a strongly worded letter to headquarters. And that still left her with a whole year before she could be reassigned. She wondered how much another place on the caravan campsite would cost, along with another tent. She had brought enough money, and she could ask her parents for more. – But that wouldn’t do. She could not complain to them, after they had barely put up with her decision to take an assignment overseas. It would be like admitting that they were right. All she had to do was to hold out until she found another arrangement, or thought of some way around this problem.
The Yanweian reluctantly continued. “They should have prepared you more than this.”
Agna was almost grateful for that flicker of sympathy, but she considered the possibility that the Union had expected her to research camping on her own. She hadn’t. She had gone sightseeing and moped around the hotel. She had looked up the history of the Golden Caravan and brushed up on her Kaveran history. There was so much more she could have done. “I... suppose they didn’t.”
“I’ll help you get set up in camp,” the Yanweian offered.
Agna waved a hand. “I’ll be happy to pay you.”
The Yanweian’s shoulders tightened. “No need. The Benevolents assigned us both to this task. For the success of the assignment I’ll do what I can.”
How not selfless at all. “Fine.” She paused, reluctant to ask him for help outright. “What do you think I’ll need for camping?”
“What do you have?”
“Some clothes, a few books, personal items.”
“No camping supplies?”
“I didn’t know that I was camping when I came here,” she retorted, the disbelief in his voice inflaming her temper. “And I don’t know what to buy. Are you going to help or not?”
His jaw clenched. “Yes. Fine. ...I have most of what I’ll need for cooking. I don’t mind if you use it as long as you take care of it.”
“I’ll pay for half.”
He waved it off. “Fine. You’ll need something to sleep on.” He hauled his backpack upright and patted a thick parcel lashed to the top. “And blankets. And we’ll need something to keep food and water in. You can split that, if you want,” he added, as if cutting off her question before she could ask it.
Agna took a deep breath. “I understand. I can do all of that.”
The Yanweian didn’t reply. He seemed to consider the conversation concluded. He didn’t make a move toward returning to his previous seat, however. She saw him glance toward the case between them.
“What is that?”
“It’s a nanbur,” he said. She didn’t understand the word, which tilted like the rest of the Yanweian language did, each syllable like a note in a song. He laid the case over his lap and unbuckled the latches holding it closed. The lid lifted away from an unadorned but beautifully made stringed instrument. She resisted the impulse to touch the glossy wood, but saw him stroke the strings at the neck.
“A lute?”
“It’s similar to a lute, I suppose.” He closed and secured the case again.
“It’s pretty.”
“Thank you,” he said uncomfortably.
“Will you be playing for everyone when we make camp?”
“...I don’t think so.”
“Why did you bring it, then?”
His voice hardened again. “Because it’s mine.”
Agna blinked, caught off guard by the nonsensical yet vehement answer. Perhaps her question had been too prying, but it seemed to stand to reason. If he wasn’t planning on playing it, he could leave it at home for safekeeping until he returned. She gathered her dignity and leveled her gaze past him, toward the front of the wagon. “Well. Suit yourself.”
He didn’t answer after that, and they rode until dark in silence. It was their last conversation for three days. Their interaction dwindled back to “excuse me” when they had to climb over one another during the brief stops. Agna knew that the state of things was for the better, even as his silent presence chafed her nerves. She seemed incapable of forming a sentence that did not offend him. He still seemed convinced that she was an idiot, which spurred vengeful fantasies of clubbing him in the back of the head with her nearly-memorized copy of Blackhall’s Human Anatomy and the Workings Thereof.
There were no proper campsites – if such a phrase even made sense – for three days. The caravan simply pulled aside from the road so that the horses could be rested and watered and fed. When morning came they moved on. For three days the Yanweian did not move back to his original seat, and showed no
intention of doing so. Agna refused to move herself, to spite him. She’d been here first, after all. They read, stared into the distance, ignored the other passengers, and ignored one another. Agna’s back cramped into a creaking mess after one night of sleeping upright in her seat, and her limbs went numb if she didn’t attempt to find new and undignified postures every few hours. It was the longest span of time in her life that she had been without a bath or a change of clothes – even the ship had allowed for sponge baths. Her head ached when the sun shone in her eyes.
The Yanweian’s silence took on an increasingly impatient tone. He was tense in the morning, at the dinner hour, at night, and any time that Agna muttered or sighed about the deplorable conditions. After the second day on the road, he put away the medical reference book that he’d been reading – it was printed in that dense Yanweian writing, but Agna had glimpsed some anatomical illustrations. He then started in on some Church of the Four tome with closely spaced text and somber woodcuts of gods and heroes. Sometimes he would pray silently, his hands making the prayer signs of one god or another. Sometimes he would stare into nothing and toy with the links of the marriage torque at his throat, sliding them between his fingers. The tiny sound of the metal clicking against itself, barely audible over the rumble of the wheels, aggravated her.
On the third day, Agna glimpsed a high log wall in the distance, between the edges of the carts. A city, or at least a town. The caravan would finally stop. Hot baths, and proper sleep! And getting off this wagon was a reward in itself.
By noon they had drawn within sight of a wide, level field of bare ground, fenced off from the surrounding fields. A rumble of talk and cheering rose from the leading edge of the caravan, and bells rang from the carts, piercing Agna’s foggy head.
The Healers' Road Page 3