Gabriel's Road

by Laura Anne Gilman

  "I really don't." Not the fate Zacarías spoke of, anyway. "But you do?"

  "God works in mysterious ways, and it is not for the likes of us to question, merely obey."

  Gabriel suspected his expression said what he thought of that, saving him from the rudeness of saying it. But Zacarías smiled gently, as though he’d expected nothing else from Gabriel, and was not offended.

  "And your devil, he does not care that I speak of God."

  "He really doesn't," Gabriel agreed to that without hesitation. The Old Man didn't care about much of anything folk did, so long as they stayed out of his hair, and didn't cause a fuss he had to deal with—or send his Hand to deal with. "You know he’s not actually the devil, right?"

  Zacarías gave him an odd look. "The Church is aware of that fact, yes. But he lays claim to the title and offers no other. It is not comfortable to speak, but how else does one call him?"

  "Isobel calls him the boss, but I guess that won’t work for you, no?"

  Zacarías shook his head, that gentle smile back on his lips.

  "Master of the Territory’s much of a mouthful, and not accurate, either. I suppose devil will have to do."

  Zacarías dipped a hand into the pocket of his robe, and drew out a delicate rope of beads, the sigil of the hanging man dangling from the end. He draped it over one palm, letting his thumb run over the beads, one by one. "It seems to me, after longer acquaintance, that the Territory is a beautiful, but very strange place."

  Gabriel rubbed a hand over his jaw, reminded that he’d wanted a shave. "It really is."

  Suddenly tiring of their tete-a-tete, he closed his eyes briefly, then opened them to look the other man square in the face, watching not his expression, but the movement of his eyes. "Why did Henry bring me here, Zacarías?"

  The monk's face was innocent as a lamb, but his lids flickered, dark brown eyes widening just a hair, and the motion of his thumb on the bead stopped. "I do not know what you mean."

  "Men of God should be better liars. I could tell he was with me on the Road before he said anything. He watched me before he spoke up, probably for a while." While the old man put up a decent façade of Unexpected Rescuer, the details didn’t add up, for Gabriel, least of all the question of why had Henry been out in that storm at all? He hadn't been hunting, hadn't been traveling... there had been no sane reason to be there, save one: that he was looking for something. Or someone.

  "He could have let me go, could have stayed quiet and I'd have ridden right by, but he didn't. And he brought me here, where you don't have so much as a guest-house to spare, and based on what I’ve seen, you barely scrape enough to feed your own.

  "And then you being here?" Gabriel didn't give the monk time to form a protest. “The Territory’s not infinite, but it’s plenty large, and yet of all everywhere, you’re here." He lifted a hand, and began ticking instances off, one per finger. "So we've a man who just happens to be out in the pouring rain, when sane folk are home safe and dry. And that man just happens to find a stranger, who is plucked off the Road and offered hospitality, despite the town being shadowed by bandits. Fair enough; some folk are that kind, I’ll grant you. But in that town, it just happens is another man who knows this stranger, and his connection to the Devil's Hand, if not the devil himself."

  Gabriel looked at his fingers, then closed them back into his palm.

  "Coincidences happen, but, as Isobel often reminded me, the devil doesn't believe in coincidences. Says it's just bad luck we're paying attention to. And I'm thinking that bad luck is mine.

  "So, tell me; why did Henry bring me here? If you were looking for Isobel, she and I don't ride together any more. She's finished her mentorship, she's out on her own now."

  Zacarías looked back into the main hall as though hoping for someone to come rescue him, but the few people who had been there earlier had gone off while Gabriel was washing dishes. They could hear voices outside, rising and falling as they went about their business, but Zacarías made no attempt to summon any of them.

  The monk’s shoulders lifted slightly, as though to shrug, then fell again, and he tucked the wooden beads back into his pocket. "In truth, Gabriel, we did not look for you. Nor the dama Isobel, although her presence would have been.... Well." The monk gave another delicate shrug. "It was not to be."

  Gabriel didn't want to get into another discussion of fate. "But Henry was out there looking for someone. Something?"

  "Someone. Anyone. And not only Henry, though he was the one to find you. And not only that night. For many days now, looking. Hoping.

  "You have seen the village. It is not small, but we are farmers, craftsmen, families, not soldiers. And we are isolated."

  Gabriel was beginning to understand. "And the bandits have been circling."

  "Sí. Closer and closer, like a zopilote in the sky, circling a thing that is dying, not quite ready to swoop, but biding its time, knowing that its prey cannot outrun death."

  Bandits, generally, were part of the risks of living in the Territory. You’d get one or two thinking the Road was their trough, and the occasional group setting up shop somewhere, feeding off the locals. So long as they left the native tribes alone, the devil didn't seem to particularly care, leaving them to Road Marshals to clear out as needed. But marshals were few and far between; Gabriel couldn't remember the last time he'd encountered one on the Road, and the last badgehouse had been…. a long while back. Nearest marshal he knew of was Rafe, back in Red Stick. But Rafe’d set down his badge and not seemed happy to pick it up again even for trouble in his own town.

  Thoughts of marshals brought a remembrance of the tree that had grown seemingly overnight, the silhouette of it against the sky so like their sigil.

  Gabriel wanted to say he didn’t believe in signs or portent, but he wasn’t a liar. But that didn’t mean he had to listen to them.

  "You're looking for protection? Against an entire camp?" He thought of the woman he'd encountered, her calm self-assurance, the way she'd determined that he was neither threat nor profitable target. "You'd be better off making a deal with them for the water."

  Zacarías rolled his eyes to the heavens, then gestured with one hand for Gabriel to follow him, walking from the kitchen back into the main hall. There were two old women sitting at the far end nearest the fireplace, spinning, but other than that it was now deserted. The clack clack clack of the drop-wheels was a half-forgotten sound from Gabriel’s childhood, and despite himself, some measure of tension in his body eased.

  "That was my thought as well, when I came here," Zacarías admitted, taking a seat on one of the wooden benches. "That reasonable men should not fight over what could be shared. But these are not reasonable men, Gabriel. They refused an offer to meet and discuss, do not come to us with an offer themselves. They only come and watch, one at a time, for days at a time. Up on the ridge, just beyond the wards.

  "They do not speak, they do not attack, but they wait, and they watch."

  "Huh." That wasn’t the pattern for most bandits. They tended to be impatient bastards, quicker to swing or shoot than not. "How long’s this been going on?"

  "Since before I came here. A year, a little more?"

  "Watching, and not talking. It's making the town nervous. And nervous men do foolish things." Gabriel was impressed by the cunning behind it, though he did not voice that thought. He ignored the bench opposite Zacarías, instead paced the space between the tables, thinking out loud. "They want, but they can’t just take. Why?" He was thinking out loud to himself, not expecting the monk to answer. "If the well was blessed, likely that the entire town was, too. The wards, were they part of the original grant, Old John’s agreement with the locals?"

  "I do not know."

  "They're on good terms, so probably. Native wardings are different things, we learned that the hard way." In the snow-town of Andreas, where Isobel had come too close to dying. He shook off the memory, forcing himself to concentrate on the now. "Even if they aren't, I'm gue
ssing the connection means there's a part of this town that's still tied to the local tribe. So they can't attack, not without breaking Agreement and risking the devil getting involved. But all they need is one of you to break, and they can claim that you were the ones who gave offense, that they had the right to respond."

  The Agreement kept the Territory intact, despite the seemingly endless waves of settlers arriving every year; it taught the newcomers how to behave while they learned to survive. But like any law, you could bend it if you were smart enough, foolish enough. And maybe not today, maybe not next week, but eventually, someone in the town was going to do something foolish. That was just how people were.

  He’d seen Isobel mediate a situation like this, keep it from getting worse. Well, not quite like this, but alike enough to be precedent. But he was no Hand to give and enforce judgement. Isobel was the one who should have been drawn to ride this way, not him.

  "It's not a pleasant situation you've come to," he told the monk. "I wish you luck in figuring it out."

  7

  The conversation died down into an awkward silence, after that. They’d had things in common, but those things were in the past, and there was little more to say. Gabriel, after asking for Henry’s direction, left Zacarías to whatever it was the monk did during the day and went in search of the older man. He reached into his pocket as he walked, jingling the silver bits there. It should be enough. He'd thank the old man for the night's lodging, hand over a few coins to consider his debt paid, and ride on.

  Outside the dining hall, Gabriel paused to take his bearings, nodding politely at the few folk who walked by. The shed where Steady was stabled was at his right elbow, the double doors open, allowing the morning sunlight to enter, a rope gate tied across to keep the animal within. Not that Steady was prone to wandering; he'd trained the gelding too well for that. Especially if there was grain and water where he was.

  Ahead of him, the clay-and-stone houses he'd noted earlier were grouped three or four in a clump, with well-trod paths snaking around them. Bursts of color appeared seemingly at random, clumps of flowering plants and bright-painted marker-posts set along the walls and pathways. He'd learned during dinner the night before that each family group had a house to themselves where they slept, but the meals were mostly taken together in the Hall, and there were several bathing houses scattered throughout the town, to conserve water during the dry summer months.

  Henry's home was distinguishable from the others only by the mosaic of stones set over the doorway, a circle of pale blue. A woman, a tiny bird of a thing, silvered hair tied up in a neat knot, had been working in her palm-sized garden outside when Gabriel walked up, and remained there after calling her husband to join them, her brown eyes wide and watchful.

  "Thank you, Greta," Henry said, and dropped a kiss on the back of her hand before turning to look Gabriel up and down. "You're looking better than you did last night."

  "Considerably less damp, at least," Gabriel agreed, smiling easily. But when he offered the coin, Henry looked down his nose and pushed Gabriel's hand away. "We've no use for your coin. We could use your help, though."

  Gabriel sighed, shifting uncomfortably. "I’ve already had this talk with Zacarías. One man's not going to be enough to save you, not if the bandits decide they want your town. Maybe a marshal, if one came your way." Rafe, or Isobel, if this were truly a matter for the devil. He could give them her direction; they could send a call for her, if she were still in town, or chase after her...

  But even the Hand couldn't be everywhere. If the devil didn’t send her or the Territory call her, if there was no underlying illness like she'd been drawn to before, would she even come? Could she?

  "I'm sorry. I can't help you." He refused to feel guilty; this wasn't anything he'd signed on for.

  "Then we are doomed."

  Gabriel knew when he was being manipulated; Henry wasn’t even trying to be subtle. "You need a marshal for this. Or... You could send a message to Flood," he said. "The devil—"

  "The devil has more important things to worry about than one small town in the middle of nowhere," Henry said, and since Gabriel had been thinking much the same thing, he couldn't argue.

  "Brother Zacarías says that you rode with the Devil’s Hand."

  "I did." And then before the older man could say anything, he shook his head. "I was her mentor on the Road, nothing more. I've no call or claim on her, and I've no knowledge of where she is, now. Last I saw her, she was in Red Stick." He suspected that without him she would return to Flood, her mentorship ride complete, and once there the devil would do with her as he would. “Have you requested the aid of the,"" and he racked his brain to remember the name of the nearest tribe, "the Tua?"

  Greta made a rude noise, and Henry threw up his hands. "Request them to do what? Stand with us against white men? White men who have given them no offense—have given us no offense, yet, save that they make us deeply uncomfortable, and make no secret of the fact that they covet what we have?"

  Gabriel inclined his head with a faint grimace.

  A marshal would say much the same, that no action had been taken, and the Law needs action to react. They would be sympathetic, of course, and maybe even deeply concerned, but useless.

  "We had hoped you..."

  Henry’s voice tailed off, and Gabriel ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "That I would what? What could one man do, that a town could not?"

  "We're farmers here, farmers and herders and crafters. Our hunting skills are best left to rabbits and fending off the occasional coyote. We are the rabbits, here. Or worse, sheep huddled in a herd and ready for clipping."

  There was absolutely nothing Gabriel could say to that; it was all true.

  "I'm not a soldier."

  "This is not a war. It is a trap, and we are already caught in it." Henry frowned, then looked back at Greta, who had turned her back on the both of them at some point, carefully picking over the palm-sized garden in front of their door, plucking leaves off the winter greens, one at a time. "I ask you, please reconsider."

  "I'm sorry."

  "As am I." Henry reached out with his hand, offering it to shake, and Gabriel took it, his eyes widening as he felt something sharp and hot engulf his palm, racing down his fingers and up his arm.

  "What?" He tried to pull away, but Henry held fast.

  "I'm sorry," Henry said again. "But we need you."

  Gabriel was furious. He’d blistered Henry’s ears, left and right, and the man had stood there and taken it, but refused to break the binding. Teeth gritted, Gabriel had stalked back to where Steady was stabled, had thrown the saddle over the gelding’s back, lashed his pack with hand that shook with rage, and ridden out.

  Whatever Henry had used to bind him, it was effective; the moment he crossed the town’s border wards, his body clenched so hard he nearly fell off the gelding’s back, and the further he went, the harder it became to breathe.

  "Arseworm. Villain. Shitgoblet." Gabriel tried to remember every rude phrase he’d ever heard, spitting them out as he tried to push Steady further. But the gelding could tell something was wrong with his rider, and balked, no matter how hard Gabriel but his heels to his side. If he’d a switch, he might have been tempted to use it on the beast, jut to take one step more.

  "Fine. Then I’ll do it on my own." He slipped form the saddle, barely hanging on to the reins as he did so and crumpled to his knees.

  "This isn’t pain," he gritted, willing himself to believe it. "I’ve scratches worse than this." The marks on his face, still visible when he shaved, from when the ghost-cat had attacked him. The scars on his torso, from the spell-beast. The crick in his knee, from when Flatfoot had kicked him hard enough he’d not been able to ride for a week. All those things had been pain. This was nothing.

  He got to his feet, pressing a fist against his chest, still pulling at Steady’s reins with the other hand, and took one step. Then another. A third, and the pain began to ebb, just slightl
y, giving him the strength to take another step.

  He had lost count by the time the pain faded, and he was able to breathe again.

  "Drown you and your bindings," he muttered, rubbing at his chest as though that could erase the soreness there, or the rawness in his throat. He turned back to Steady, gripping the horse’s mane to steady himself, then pulling his body back into the saddle.

  "The bandits can have them and be welcome."

  He kicked Steady into a gentle trot, and they went a dozen paces before he reined the horse in again, swearing more quietly under his breath. He half expected to hear the slithering laughter of the spirit-snake at Steady’s hooves, but there was nothing but the sound of his own still-labored breathing, and Steady’s gentle huffs.

  "Ahh…" He turned the horse and rode back the way he’d come.

  No-one stopped him as he rode back into town, the border wards barely a brush against his skin this time. He unsaddled Steady and gave him a rub-down, less because the horse needed it and more because he did not trust himself to speak with anyone in this town without violence.

  "You are angry."

  Of course they’d send the monk to plead their case. Gabriel rested the flat brush against Steady's neck, and exhaled, working his throat before he could get the words out. "It is, generally, the appropriate reaction to being restrained against your will and without cause, yes."

  He had broken the binding, but the offense remained, and he was not ready to let that go. Would likely never let that go, and better Henry—and all concerned—know that from the start.

  "He had cause. That is not to excuse it, but... he had cause. He is afraid. And you were a prayer of hope he could not bear to let go."

  "I assume that you're praying for his soul, for such hubris."