by Heidi Heilig
Frightened by the shooting, the Chakrans in the surrounding areas swarmed the docks in an attempt to flee the town. Due in part to the avarice and cowardice native to their race, a riot broke out between the boat owners and the refugees unwilling or unable to pay the fee for passage. The ships were set ablaze, and the fire spread through the dock and the shantytowns of the sugar cutters. As the 314th Battalion does not have a fire suppression team and local housing is not a priority, it is still burning as of my writing. Unfortunately, the telegraph building was damaged as well, which is why this report is following you by rider. Please send all responses by horse or pigeon until the lines can be repaired.
Naturally Dumond could not be questioned, but rebel collusion is clearly indicated in his mutiny. A swift and decisive response is required. As Capitaine Legarde is still unconscious, I am left in charge of some three hundred men. I have made the determination to lead them into the surrounding villages to purge the area of insurrectionists and find the wanted rebels.
* * *
Chapter Ten
I don’t know what time it is when I wake. It could have been hours or days. The roulotte still clatters through the tunnels, the dark still presses in through the scrollwork. Maman and Papa have traded places, but everything else is still the same.
I lift my head—it seems to take all my energy. But as I move, Papa opens his eyes. “Are you all right, Jetta?”
“Yes.” The word comes out on a sigh—even nodding seems like too much work. Is it exhaustion? It makes sense after the show, the running, the monk in the temple. But I don’t feel tired. I don’t feel much of anything. Still, Papa is watching me, and the look on his face—it’s so different than Maman’s fear. It’s a look of love. So I force my lips into a little smile. “I’m fine. Just tired.”
He smiles back, but he shakes his head. “I’m not an audience, Jetta. You don’t have to pretend.”
The words are a balm. I want to go to him, to lay my head in his lap, but I don’t have the will. “You’re not angry with me,” I say instead.
“No.” He sighs. “But what were you doing up there?”
Now a spark of emotion stirs in me. A faint blush works its way to my cheeks: the memory of shame. “Not what Maman thought.”
“The boy told me you stopped for supplies.” Papa makes a face—the same face I must have made when Leo proposed stealing from the feet of the god. “But you know the temples are forbidden.”
“Then why were there so many offerings?” I hadn’t meant to say it—the words just slipped out. But I want to know. “Leo said that people come every day.”
I do not mention the monk, but her voice drifts through my head. I know what you are. But Papa only smiles a little. “What else did Leo say?”
“Papa.”
“I remember how it was, you know. I’m not so old.”
“Papa!” Now the blush is full-fledged, as is his grin. Disbelief propels me upright. It takes me another beat to realize what he’s doing. “Right,” I say, settling back against the wall of the roulotte. But now the smile on my own face—however small—is real.
And Papa knows it; his look softens as he drops the act. “It’s not so strange, you know.” Idly, he picks up Maman’s painted thom, running his fingers across the top before tucking it back in its spot on the shelf. “Romance isn’t always two lovers under a golden moon. Sometimes it’s stolen moments on the run.”
“There was no moment, stolen or otherwise,” I say—not for lack of my trying, I do not add. But even the embarrassment seems distant now—like something I overheard, not something I felt myself. Then I frown. “You never answered my question, Papa. If the temples are forbidden, why do so many people still go?”
Papa sighs, and I realize then . . . he wasn’t only trying to make me laugh. He was also trying to make me drop the question. I expect him to brush me off—to tell me that anyone who goes to the temple is a fool, or evil. But when he speaks, his voice is thoughtful. “They’re losing control—the armée. It’s not a good sign, for them.”
“For them?” Something about the way he says it tweaks my ear. “And for us?”
“It’s good that we’re leaving,” Papa says firmly, though there is regret in his voice—there always is, when he talks about going away. He passes a hand over the scrim on the side of the roulotte, where the bullet hole has torn through the silk. “It’s not safe here.”
“I know,” I say. “I meant for us Chakrans. For the country.”
“Ah. For that, who can say?” He drops his hand and gives me a little shrug. “It wasn’t all bad, before.”
I blink at him, taken aback. My uncle used to talk that way, but I’d never heard Papa say as much. “Maman hates the old ways.”
“It isn’t the old ways she hates, Jetta.”
“It’s Le Trépas.” I whisper the name, and though Papa purses his lips, he doesn’t try to hush me.
“Before he took power . . .” Papa’s voice trails off. Silence creeps back into the roulotte, and at first I think he won’t finish the story. I lean against the wall, letting my head rock gently as we rattle on through the tunnel. I have just closed my eyes again when he speaks. “When I was a boy, I spent rainy seasons at the temple. A lot of us did. The ones who didn’t have our own fields to work. We planted if we were able, but if we weren’t, we still had dry beds and full bowls. At night they taught us all to read, and at the end of the season, they sent us home with bags of rice. That’s how it used to be.”
I have not opened my eyes—instead, I see his story, as though on a scrim. The children tucking blades of young rice into the shimmering water, the monks with their turmeric robes pulled up through their belts to keep them dry. “What happened, then? What made Le Trépas different?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Papa says. “Even when I was a boy, there were problems. Land going over to sugar. People who craved riches more than rice. Boys started wanting to learn to smuggle and shoot more than to read and write. Do you want to know what I think?” Papa lowers his voice then, like he used to when he would speak to his brother, so his words wouldn’t go beyond the thin walls. But this time, it’s not the armée or the neighbors he is afraid will hear. It’s Maman. “I think the gods went a little mad when the Aquitans came.”
The word should chill me, but instead it saps the last of my energy. The silence returns as we roll on.
* * *
Capitaine Xavier Legarde
to Lieutenant Armand Pique
9 Août 1874
Lieutenant,
I recently learned of your sortie from Luda not from your own hand, but from a copy of the letter you sent to my father. My adjutant rightly guessed I would want to see the report when I awoke; though I am, as you say, “grievously wounded,” I am not mortally so. Nor am I incapable of reading correspondence, and I expect to be kept apprised of developments. I saw nothing in your report to indicate rebel collusion, nor, in the case of such an alliance, any hint of how the rebels involved might be found.
I am told you rode southeast toward Dar Som. What drew you there? I have instructed the rider to wait for your response.
Capitaine Xavier Legarde
* * *
* * *
Lieutenant Armand Pique
to Capitaine Xavier Legarde
10 Août 1874
Capitaine,
I am very pleased to hear you are recovering. Prognosis was poor when I left, and I did not know if you would wake. Forgive me for not addressing the report to you. Still, I have in no way disregarded the chain of command.
Have no fear; the men are restless and eager for the fray. I have the honor to report that at four o’clock this morning, I attacked and routed a rebel camp consisting of roughly a hundred people. The enemy made a small show of fight but quickly yielded. I suffered no losses. Weapons were discovered among their belongings.
Pique
* * *
Chapter Eleven
The tunnels roll on foreve
r, a dark and winding path. I lose hours watching through the scrollwork. Here, the tunnel branches; there, cavernous openings yawn in the rippled rock walls, leading off into shadows or, sometimes, toward a faraway light. We pass rivulets glimmering like streams of stars, where tiny fish and their vana nibble black algae; other times, I hear the crash of distant waterfalls in the deep gloom of wide caverns. Twice we come across other people—other smugglers—going the opposite way. They pass by with murmured greetings and furtive looks, as do we.
Maman and Papa trade places again. I want to ask her about her own childhood. She never talks about it. Had she ever worked the temple fields, planting rice beside the monks? Had she sat at a long wooden table, sharing rice with tattooed women, learning to read their sins? Is that where she heard about the blood offering, and the symbol of life?
But I am too tired to bring it up—no. Too tired to risk the anger the question might provoke. She’d always told me never show, never tell. But there was a third lesson, I realize now. Never ask.
But the monk’s voice won’t stop. What am I?
* * *
Capitaine Xavier Legarde
to Lieutenant Armand Pique
12 Août 1874
Lieutenant,
You did not answer my question: how did you identify the people in the encampment as rebels? The weapons you recovered—do they match the missing rifles stolen during the attack at La Fête? Did you question the prisoners?
Capitaine Xavier Legarde
* * *
Chapter Twelve
Time passes differently underground; I cannot count the days. We have stopped to eat several times, though I can’t remember exactly how many, nor what we ate. Nor if I ate. But it doesn’t matter much. I am not hungry.
The crawling feeling persists on my skin, like the brush of hair or a spider’s legs, skittering across the back of my neck. At least the monk’s voice is gone. Was it ever truly there?
* * *
Lieutenant Armand Pique
to Capitaine Xavier Legarde
14 Août 1874
Capitaine,
The weapons found were machetes, of the type usually used by rebels when they cannot steal guns. But rest assured, we will continue to search for the missing rifles.
Unfortunately we were unable to accommodate prisoners; the rules of war are by necessity circumvented when the enemy follows no such compunctions. But tomorrow we expect victory over a rebel hideout in the valley nearby. I’ll ensure any survivors are thoroughly questioned.
Pique
* * *
* * *
Capitaine Xavier Legarde
to Lieutenant Armand Pique
16 Août 1874
Lieutenant,
Machetes are common weapons among the rebels because they are also common tools for foragers in the jungle, as you well know.
Report back to Luda at once.
Capitaine Xavier Legarde
* * *
* * *
Lieutenant Armand Pique
to Capitaine Xavier Legarde
17 Août 1874
Capitaine,
I will not leave my men to fight without me, nor abandon the field at the edge of Dar Som, where just last week a rebel force executed a routine patrol.
I have watched your betters bleed to death in these savage jungles for sixteen years at the whim of diplomacy and half measures. For the glory of Aquitan, I will break this stalemate here and now. The rebels will be taught a lesson. I look forward to sending you word of our victory.
Pique
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
I wake from a dream, but it is still dark. If it was a dream.
If I am awake.
* * *
Capitaine Xavier Legarde
to Lieutenant Pique
19 Août 1874
Lieutenant Armand Pique, you are hereby relieved of command. You are to surrender to Lieutenant Hyo and B Company at once.
Capitaine Xavier Legarde
This letter was never delivered, but found later on Lieutenant Hyo’s body in a shallow grave outside Dar Som. B Company never reported back to Luda.
* * *
Act 2,
Scene 19
The tunnels. Outside the roulotte. Idly, LEO tunes his violin while PAPA pokes the fire, though both men watch the door of the wagon out of the corners of their eyes. When it finally opens, they look up expectantly, settling back when they see it’s only MAMAN.
PAPA: Well?
MAMAN: Still not hungry.
PAPA’s shoulders fall. MAMAN offers him the bowl she carries—it’s still full of rice and greens—but he shakes his head.
She hesitates for a long moment before offering it to LEO.
LEO: No, thank you.
MAMAN sits down on the steps of the wagon and picks at the food. LEO is still watching her. After a few bites, she puts down
the spoon with a look of exasperation and holds out the bowl again. Embarrassed to be staring, he turns back to his violin.
LEO: Sorry. It’s only . . .
He hesitates. When he speaks, the words come out all in a rush.
She told me. About why you’re going to Aquitan. About Les Chanceux. I think it’s wise. And brave. I wish I’d been able to take my mother there.
A long silence. MAMAN’s look softens.
MAMAN: You lost her.
LEO: Last year.
Another long pause. MAMAN holds out the bowl again.
MAMAN: No wonder you’re so thin.
LEO: I’m not hungry.
MAMAN: Eat anyway.
With a small smile, LEO takes the bowl.
LEO: Does this mean I’m forgiven?
MAMAN: Don’t test your luck.
Chapter Fourteen
The next time I open my eyes, something is different, though at first I am not sure what.
The light? The location? No, we are still traveling in the Souterrain, and maybe we’ll never leave. I am alone in the roulotte, but that isn’t it either.
I push myself out of the nest of pillows that surrounds me and take a deep breath. The air is cool and clear. The crawling feeling is gone, replaced by a new energy under my skin.
The difference is in me.
I stretch my legs—I clench my fists. Suddenly I need something to do. Looking around the roulotte, I find it easily. The place is a mess, and so am I.
The first thing I do is strip off my old sarong and don a fresh one; the clean fabric is like heaven on my skin. I wipe my face with a damp scrap of cloth, then scrub it across my teeth till the mossy feeling is gone. Then I brush my hair and pull it into a low bun.
It seems like such a small thing—to comb hair, to clean teeth, to change clothes. Why is it so hard sometimes? And why does it make such a difference?
Refreshed, I toss the dirty things into the corner. They land atop my other ruined dresses—one tattered, one bloody. Kneeling beside the basket, I run the fabric through my hands, holding up the skirts to look at them from various angles, trying to consider what I might do with the remains, how I might give them new life. This panel might become the silk wing of a bird; this line of ruffles might be salvaged to decorate another skirt. My fingers itch for the shears, the steady challenge of the needle and thread. Of course I’ll have to wash the dresses first. With a sigh, I tuck them back into the basket for later.
Then I stand, brushing the dust off my knees. Though I am put back together, the roulotte is . . . not. There is bedding scattered everywhere, and a musty smell: dust and sorrow. So I collect my makeshift nest, shaking out the pillows and stacking them on my parents’ little bed. There is a soft straw broom in the corner; I run it across the floor, pushing the dust toward the back door of the wagon. But there—on the boards, a flattened ball of crumpled paper trembles.
The kitten. I had forgotten about her, poor thing. I set down the broom and pick up the page. It rustles on my palm. It’s long past time I freed her from this middling inca
rnation.
Tucked onto a shelf, beside my folded sarongs, there is a little bag I made from a scrap of silk and a drawstring ribbon. I tip the contents out onto the floor—some incense, a few grains of black rice, my brother’s letters, and his battered lighter.
He’d given it to me the day he’d left. I still use it to light the lanterns before any performance—a way to keep him with us. I rub the dented steel with my thumb as vana drift in through the scrollwork, drawn by the rice. Then I flip the cap and hit the strike. A little flame springs to the wick; I touch it to the paper. In a curl of flame and ash, the kitten’s soul tumbles free.
She sits at my feet for a moment, as though stunned. Then she flicks her tail and bounds after the spirit of a fly.
As she cavorts around the roulotte, I pluck up the grains of rice and pour them back into the bag, followed by the incense and the lighter. Then I finish sweeping as the soul of the kitten bats at the broom. Now I remember why I put her in the flyer in the first place. But she has to get bored soon. And if she doesn’t, it’s only three days.
What next? The floor is clean, the shelves are straight—rows and rows of fantouches wrapped in burlap bundles. All but one, still in pieces. My eye is drawn to it like an old friend’s face in a crowd: my dragon.
I flex my fingers, and a smile touches my lips at the thought of real work—of creation. I’ve been crafting this fantouche on and off for nearly two years—ever since our old one burned up in the fire. When it’s done, it will be a masterpiece. Is now the time to finish? Better now than later. After all, if Aquitan has different gods, the souls there may be different too. And the dragon is much too large to control without their help: twice as long as I am tall, cut and crafted from water buffalo hide. Each scale is scraped translucent and rubbed in gold and carmine; the teeth are carved of cow bone. The skin is painted with two pots of red kermes and one of saffron, along with half an ounce of ground gold for shine. But a soul is not the only thing the fantouche needs. We are still missing the rivets to hold it all together. I had hoped to find some along the way, but copper is much scarcer than spirits these days. In the battle between war and art, war has better weapons, and the armée needs its bullets.