Gabriel's Road

by Laura Anne Gilman

  "Our wardings—"

  "Aren't enough!" Samael, head of the weaving family, had been quiet until now. "You've seen how they keep moving closer, taunting us. They're not afraid—"

  "They're not afraid, no," Gabriel broke into the rising agitation, pitching his voice to carry without shouting. "But they're not going to attack. And not because of your wardings, because you're right; it would slow them down, make them uncomfortable, but it won't stop them." Not even the Mudwater or the Knife can stop a determined host, just dissuade them. "But they're not going to attack because they don't have to, not with the game they're playing."

  "The Agreement—" Joad protested, and the third woman, a healer named Althea who had introduced herself as Mercy’s mother, nodded her head vigorously in support.

  "Let Gabriel speak," Henry said when Samael started to argue. "Joad, Sam, let the man speak."

  Gabriel pressed his hands together, palm to palm, and lifted them to his mouth, trying to shape his word before he spoke them.

  "I've ridden the Dust Roads most of my adult life. I've shared camp hospitality with all sort of folk, some law-abiding, some not. I know how they think. And before that, I was an advocate. Back in the States." He waited, gaze moving around the group to make sure they all understood what that meant. He had been trained to argue all comers, from all corners of both Law and practice.

  "Brother Zacarías can confirm that I was the mentor to the Devil's Left Hand this past year. I've seen how she thinks, and how deep the devil moves." he thought of the dream-vision he’d had. The bones remain. He still did not understand what the devil meant, not entirely, but Isobel’s boss could see a larger picture, could see corners of the map that Gabriel could not.

  "Trust me," he said now, to the folk in front of him. "These bandits know what they are doing, and they have no plans to attack your town unprovoked. They don't have to. You're going to open the gate for them yourselves."

  He crossed his arms and waited for the renewed babble of voices to die down. Behind them, the bonfire blazed, sparks crackling into the darkening air, the burst of sweet herbs filling his nostrils, no matter how he tried to turn. He didn't think they'd use anything that fogged the senses, but the shapes forming and twisting within the fire were too disturbing to look at for very long, making him feel uncomfortable things. Everything he knew of science told him that salamanders were not beasts born of flame, and yet, every time he let a flicker catch his gaze, he could see a long, lean body stretching out on the log, red-flame tongue and soot-colored eye before the fire swept over it again.

  Eventually, the voices died away, their indignation dying for lack of response or fuel.

  "Explain yourself," Henry said, then added, grudgingly, "please."

  It was the reverse of the game the devil was playing. "They are provoking you. Watching in plain view, knowing that you can see them, without any sense of what they intend? They do that to make you uneasy, suspicious.

  "They know that they cannot attack, for all the reasons you have said. But by skirting at the edges, playing on your fears? They’re prodding at your worst instincts, taking advantage of every bump and hitch in your thoughts. And they’ll keep doing that until you stop speaking, and swing. And then they will be the wronged ones."

  "And at that point, we would have no grounds to call a marshal when they did attack," the old woman said. Resignation and bitterness was heavy in her voice, making him think that she’d encountered marshals before, and it had not ended well.

  Fair enough; marshals were only mortal, and some worse than others.

  "You could certainly call, and I could tell you the names of some to trust, but by the time one got here, likely the only recourse he’d have would be to take them before a judge and hope he ruled in your favor."

  Rachel scowled, but did not disagree.

  "So, you would have us ignore them? That if they cannot provoke us, they will go away?" Samael sounded rightfully dubious about that strategy.

  Gabriel could only shrug. "An old teacher of mine once told me that the only way to avoid conflict is to remove yourself from it. To go where it can no longer reach you." This wasn’t what Graciendo had been thinking of, but Gabriel thought the advice still fit.

  Henry shook his head. "We will not abandon our town."

  There was a mutter of agreement, and Gabriel inclined his head in unsurprised acknowledgement. "Then you will, eventually, take the bait. It's no insult to any of you or your kin; there's only so far a man can be pushed, even knowing he's being pushed, before he pushes back, and the longer he resists, the bloodier things will be."

  Henry looked as though he'd eaten something sour, his pale skin ruddy-cast in the firelight. "No matter what we do, we lose."

  "Mayhap not." Gabriel's mouth quirked up in an unhappy smile. "Not if you push them to action first."

  Soren perked his head up at that. "You have a plan."

  "It's more of a terrible idea than a plan, but... yes."

  passim

  There was bone and there was wind, and there was water. From bone came the world, and from the wind came medicine, and from water came the things that lived, and grew, and died.

  And together they shaped the Dust Road, that all walk for a span of time...

  9

  "Go on. Say it."

  "Say what?"

  "Whatever it is that you've been wanting to say all evening."

  Zacarías lifted both eyebrows and widened his eyes to create the appearance of heartfelt innocence. Gabriel tore a strip of bread off the loaf on the table in front of them and ran it through the juice remaining from his dinner, sopping up the last bits of chicken with it. They'd stayed at the bonfire, hammering out the details, for hours, and by the time they returned the tables were cleared and the kitchen gone quiet. Thankfully, there had been food left for them by the hearth, the fire keeping it reasonably warm.

  "There is nothing to say. This plan of yours is madness, and we are madmen for considering it, but we were madmen as well when we stood against the beast made of spell-malice, you and I, and that worked. Principalmente."

  "Mostly." And it had worked because Isobel had been with them, Isobel and the magician Farron. "We may all die."

  Zacarías blinked at him, still holding onto that façade of innocence. "We may all die at any moment, Gabriel. I have long since made my peace with my Lord."

  "Well, I haven't," Henry said from his seat lower at the table, his face set in a scowl. "So, I'd appreciate if we try very hard not to die."

  "Seconded," Samael said, and an echo of 'ayes' went around the table.

  Gabriel looked at Zacarías and raised his own eyebrows in challenge. "We may need to live, Brother."

  "If it is God's Will, we shall."

  Gabriel shook his head, biting back a reluctant chuckle. The plan itself was simple. Foolish beyond belief, and likely to fail, but simple: bring the bandits into the town itself, and push them to give direct offense, enough to threaten the town's existence, in the hope of redirecting the devil's –attention—and through him, his Hand. And then using the threat of –that—and Gabriel's own relationship with her as the –whip—to force them to back off.

  It was a terrible idea and a worse plan. There were too many ifs, too many places where it could splinter and fail. But if the bandits would not leave and the town would not give way, it was the only plan Gabriel could come up with.

  And since none of the others had anything better, they had agreed.

  Benjamin had the neatest hand, and so it fell to him to craft the message, Henry leaning over his shoulder to dictate the word, occasionally looking up at Gabriel for correction.

  It was an invitation, a safe-pass for five members of the bandit’s camp to enter town under a flag of parley, to discuss the matter of the well, and access thereof.

  "Five is too many," Joad had said, unhappy. "Why can they not just send one, who can speak for them?"

  "Would you send a single member of your town into the hom
e of those who might harm him?" Zacarías, surprisingly, was the one to respond. "One, they would refuse. Two even—two are easily ambushed. Three, perhaps?"

  "Five," Gabriel said. "Three suggests that we fear them coming into our town. Four is an unlucky number. Five allows them to feel confident, but also tells them that we are comfortable with five in our midst."

  "Then why not six?"

  A year of living with Isobel’s pungent side-eye had allowed Gabriel to imitate it to near-perfection, and he turned it on Margaret now.

  "Five, then." Benjamin had inked the words, then sanded and sealed the note with careful hands, ending all debate.

  A cloth envelope, waterproofed with wax, was produced, and the message placed within, then the next morning, one of the older boys in the village was summoned to carry it to the ridge where Gabriel had watched the bandit watching the town, left there for whoever came next to find.

  "They’ll ignore a young boy, if they even see him," Henry had said when Benjamin objected to using one of the children that way. "And it’s not as though the girls didn’t regularly bring the goats up that way, before all this started. No harm will come to the child, Benjamin, and he’ll be back in time for classes, worse luck for the boy."

  The council took turns observing the ridge, taking casual walks along the creek, or checking the field or flock. That first day, no observer came, but the morning after, Soren saw the silhouette of a figure appear—and then disappear.

  The next afternoon, five figures appeared on the other side of the creek. Three men and two women, all mounted on horses the image of the roan Gabriel had seen before, raw-boned and blunt-headed, as alike to his own Steady they could have been taken from the same herd.

  Road-horses. That wasn't to say these bandits had been Riders, before... but it increased the odds.

  Gabriel wasn't sure what that told him, but it was a detail, and every detail was important.

  "You wanted to talk, we're here to talk!" one of the men called out. He'd a northern accent, Gabriel noted; the broadly rounded A and flattened R familiar from his own childhood. A ways from home, but he supposed you rarely turned bandit in your own yard.

  Henry cast a sideways glance at Gabriel, who nodded without taking his attention from the bandits.

  "You're welcome to cross the river in accordance with the terms of parley, and in good faith of the Devil's Agreement," the older man called in response.

  Calling the creek a river was foolishness, but foolishness with a purpose. You call like to like and giving something power meant it would pay attention. Running water was proof against some spells and bindings, but not all. Hopefully, whatever they’d thought to bring in with them—and none of the council was fool enough to think they wouldn’t try—would be washed away.

  Hedging their own bet, Gabriel’d had Henry place a binding on their side of the bank where they’d invited them to cross. Nothing overt, nothing a medicine-worker or even an alert Rider would notice, but if Gabriel was –right—and he wasn't at all sure he – riding over it would bind them to any agreed—upon terms, even if they meant to break them.

  Of course, bindings didn't mean much if they carried their own bindings on them. And just naming the creek a river didn't actually give the water that power...

  Which was why none of them were relying on it.

  The riders crossed the creek en masse, the horse's hooves churning up mud in ways that looked deliberate. Beside him, Gabriel heard Joad mutter a curse, doubtless thinking of how that mud would affect everything downstream.

  "Don't," he said, keeping his lips a still as possible. "They're trying to rile you. Don't let 'em."

  There was no sign of any more bandits lurking up the ridge, and the road into town had clear visibility a mile down, with nowhere for a would-be attacker to hide. If the bandits had brought reinforcements, they weren't within sudden ambush range. But Gabriel slipped the tie on his knife holster and loosed the blade in his boot, just the same. Bringing the enemy into the heart of your town was an act of –confidence—but also one of idiocy.

  Joad led the group through town to the hall, with Gabriel taking up the rear. He saw the looks the bandits gave him as they passed by, saw them take in his holster, the set of his arms, and acknowledge it: if something were to happen, they would go for him first. Not ideal, but better than the alternatives.

  With luck, it would never become an issue.

  The woman who'd visited his campsite was among the riders. Interesting. He watched her as she settled herself at the table in the hall, but even with the once-over they’d given him, she gave no sign of recognition. He supposed that was to be expected; he'd not looked his best at that moment, and he'd slept, bathed and shaved since then. Besides, there was no reason for her, or any of them, to suspect he was anything other than a member of the community. Their watchers hadn't actually been watching, just making sure they were seen.

  While they'd been waiting by the creek, someone had pressed two of the long wooden tables together, giving them room enough to all be seated without jabbing elbows.

  Five and five: Henry, Zacarías, Joad, Benjamin, and himself for the town. If there'd been any way to remove himself from the table, Gabriel would have taken it, but no matter how many times he explained the idea to them, it was clear that they didn't understand, not truly. No fault on their intelligence, they simply didn’t have his training. And, bluntly, he didn’t trust any of them to be able to react quickly if something went wrong.

  Gabriel needed to be there, to make sure that things went the way they should.

  For all the seriousness of the moment, there were still moments Gabriel found himself wanting, inappropriately, to laugh. If they'd eyed and identified Gabriel as a Rider, they were clearly having difficulties with Zacarías, between his accent and his robes, the rough brown cloth covering him from shoulder to boots, the string of wooden beads wrapped around his wrist with the sigil resting in his palm.

  "You're a preacherman?"

  The one with the northern accent had given his name as Gauthier. He was a square-shouldered, blunt-nosed man of about Gabriel's age. Gabriel would definitely have called him out as a Rider, both for the distance he'd traveled from home and the way he kept track of his surroundings, calmly but with quiet and steady interest. A Rider, or a soldier.

  "I am a son of the Holy Church," Zacarías said calmly, accepting a mug of tea from Margaret, and making room for her on the bench next to him. "But my presence here is as a member of this town, and a voice for these people."

  "Just as well. God's not so much with listening in the Territory."

  "I find that God listens everywhere." Zacarías' smile was small, but his eyes were calm, and for an odd moment Gabriel was reminded of Old Woman Who Never Dies. "It is if we listen that is the question."

  "As interesting as it might be to watch you two argue theology," another of the bandits said, "this ain't what we're here for." He was younger than Gauthier, and rangier, but there was a coiled violence in him riding just under his skin. Not an angry man, Gabriel thought, nothing that simple. This was a man who held a grudge until it was cold, then ate it with relish. Gauthier named him Paul, while the others were Longfellow, a sallow-skinned man as tall as his name, a small, mean-looking woman named Kate, and the woman Gabriel had met before, Dag.

  Kate looked to have Pohoug blood in her somewhere, and Gauthier was likely metís, same as Gabriel, but the others were white as salt, and all five looked to be nobody's fool.

  "Do you speak for your entire camp?" Henry took lead as they'd discussed, keeping the attention on him, with Zacarías' robes as a secondary distraction. Preachermen weren't exactly rare in the Territory, but Spanish monks assuredly were, and Gabriel was counting on that to put the bandits slightly on edge, and keep their attention off him.

  "I do," Paul agreed. "And you're the, what, headsman of this town?"

  "They trust me to speak for them."

  "Huh. Hope they trust you to listen for them, to
o, then."

  Henry let his lips curl in what was almost a smile. "If you say something that is worth our hearing, yes."

  "Stay calm," Gabriel had told him over breakfast that morning. "Drop a little amusement into your voice if you can, like you're listening to a child tell you about their day, listening without taking them all too seriously, but nothing that they could grab onto as giving offense."

  Paul leaned forward, folding his hands together on the table. Every inch of his body proclaimed his wholehearted sincerity, and Gabriel felt the urge to reach for his knife in gut-reaction. "Then hear this, for all of them. We've been watching you. We know you're farmers and traders, craftsmen... and you're out here all alone."

  There was to be no gentle wooing, then.

  Henry didn't blink, but smiled back at him, a deeper, gentle smile that hid no teeth, and said, "Tua and P’wei are here as well."

  "And they leave you alone, and you return the favor. Whatever agreement you made with them when you took this land, it didn't make you brothers." Paul's smile was equally toothy and leaned back slightly as though he'd just made his winning point.

  "But we did make Agreement, and have upheld it," Henry replied. "And we maintain peaceful trade with them both. As you also know, from your... observations."

  Gabriel stretched his leg forward slightly, under the table, and nudged Zacarías' robed leg gently, a reminder. The monk coughed into his fist, drawing everyone's attention.

  "I realize that I am a stranger here, not born to the Territory as you all are, and much of this 'agreement' you speak of is still of an oddness to me. But it seems simple enough: we have been given claim to this land and the well within, and you may not take it from us. Your threats, and we recognize them as that, are nothing more than air."