The Thousand Names

by Django Wexler

  • • •

  Ten days out from Nahiseh, the Colonials camped in the lee of a massive rock formation. The desert was changing as they marched farther west, Winter had noticed. The rocks were getting bigger, but also farther apart, and the stony ground underfoot was drier and sandier with every passing mile. Dunes had appeared, drifted against the rocks like huge gray snowbanks, and when the wind came up the men had to fasten handkerchiefs across their faces to keep their mouths from filling with flying grit.

  Like the rest of the army, the Seventh had dispensed with tents. Setting the pegs was nearly impossible, since the ground was either too hard or too loose, and the effort of erecting the canvas was too much for the increasingly exhausted men. Winter hadn’t changed clothes in days, and her undershirt was stiff with dried sweat and chafed her raw where it was tightly bound. Worse, most of the men in the ranks had at least a week’s growth of stubble, since there was no water to spare for menial tasks like shaving, and she was starting to worry that her smooth face would be commented on. Bobby, at least, was young enough that she could still pass for a beardless boy.

  Even campfires had grown scarce. What wood there was, gleaned from the pitiful local vegetation or carried on the carts, was reserved for cooking fires. For warmth, the troops had to make do with horse and ox dung, which they now collected and hoarded like gold. It burned well enough, but Winter found the smell cut through even the congealed stink of her own unwashed body, and she hadn’t bothered to kindle a blaze.

  The neat lines of the tent city at Fort Valor, much less the barracks at Ashe-Katarion, seemed like a distant dream. Winter lay on her bedroll, with a thin sheet across her middle and her pack for a pillow, amidst a crowd of increasingly ragged men who’d simply thrown down their things wherever they finished their march. The men of the Seventh gave her a bit of extra room, as a nod to her rank. She wished they wouldn’t. It made her feel alone under the great river of stars that blazed overhead. As she stared skyward, the sounds of the camp seemed to fall away around her, leaving only a silence as profound as if she were alone in the world. Her hands clutched the edge of the bedroll to keep from falling up into that vast, endless ocean.

  She thought about Jane. The dreams had left her, as though they knew that she had enough to deal with. Or, her traitorous mind supplied, perhaps they’d simply abandoned her in the end. She tried to call Jane’s face to mind, but all she could summon was a pair of green eyes, shining from within like the stars overhead. She remembered the warmth of Jane’s body, sweet and soft, pressed against hers, but all that did was make her feel the cold more keenly. She wrapped the sheet tighter around herself and shivered. How it could be so hot by day and still cold at night Winter never understood.

  The crunch of sand beneath a boot made her heart jump wildly in her chest. The colonel had ordered a double line of pickets to defend the encampment, but there were still rumors that the Desoltai could get through, worming their way like shadows across the bare rock or blowing in with the sand. Every morning, they said, men were found dead with a single thin dagger wound to the heart, while all those around them had seen and heard nothing. Winter wasn’t sure she believed it, but she wasn’t sure she didn’t, either.

  “Winter?” It was Bobby’s voice, a low whisper, as though she didn’t really want to be heard. “Are you awake?”

  Winter sat up. Bobby was visible only as an outline against the stars.

  “Sorry,” the corporal said. “I couldn’t get to sleep, and I thought . . .”

  “It’s all right.” Winter looked up at Bobby, but she couldn’t make out the girl’s expression. “Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” Bobby held one arm awkwardly, gripping it with her other hand. “I cut myself earlier today, when we were climbing over those rocks.”

  “Badly?” Winter said. “Do you want me to have Graff look at it?”

  “No,” Bobby said. “That’s just it. It’s . . . gone. When I unwrapped my sleeve to have a look, there was a little blood, but the cut was just gone. It hadn’t been five minutes.”

  “Oh.” Winter looked into the darkness toward where Feor was sleeping. The Khandarai girl was invisible, too, huddled miserably under her sheet.

  “I looked at it under the lamp,” Bobby went on. “The skin is there, but it looks—odd. Like . . .”

  “I know,” Winter said hurriedly, not sure who was listening. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “In the morning we’ll ask Feor. She has to know something.”

  Bobby nodded miserably. Watching her, silhouetted against the carpet of stars, Winter found herself wondering how she could ever have mistaken her for a man. She was so small, slender-necked and thin-shouldered. With her head bowed and her shoulders hunched, she looked like a little girl trying to hide her tears. She was shaking, Winter realized.

  “Bobby?” Winter ventured.

  “It’s c-cold,” Bobby said, arms wrapped tight against her chest. “During the day it was so hot I thought I was going to die. How can it be cold?”

  Winter shook her head. Then, impulsively, she extended her hand and took the girl by the arm, drawing her closer. Bobby looked up, startled.

  “Come on,” Winter said. “Old soldier’s tradition, huddling together for warmth on cold nights. I read that when Farus the Fifth fought the Murnskai, whole companies would pack themselves tight to keep from freezing.” Winter smiled. “I always had trouble picturing that. A hundred big sweaty men, with the ridiculous mustaches they wore in those days—have you seen the paintings? The smell must have been awful.”

  Bobby gave a weak chuckle. She folded her legs underneath her and sat on the ground beside Winter’s bedroll, and Winter put an arm around her shoulders.

  “Mind you,” Winter said, “I can’t imagine I’m any better off at this point.”

  “Me, either,” Bobby whispered. “I think I’d happily kill for a bath.”

  “A nice hot bath,” Winter agreed. “Did you ever have bath duty at the Prison?”

  Bobby made a face. “All the time. We hated it. Scrubbing all those tiles.”

  “After a while I started looking forward to it.” That had been after Jane had initiated her into the joys of not doing as she was told. “I mean, nobody ever checks to see that the tiles are scrubbed, and the doors locked from the inside. I would mix up a big batch of soapy water, for the smell, then just fill one of the tubs and soak for hours.”

  “Really?” Bobby giggled. “Did you ever get caught?”

  “Not once. Mistress Dahlgren once complimented me on my attention to detail.” Winter squeezed the girl’s shoulder. “Come on, I’ll shove over.”

  The bedroll was not really large enough, and Winter let Bobby have most of it, but she didn’t mind. And it was warmer, especially once Winter had twitched the thin blanket over them. Bobby’s body was tense against her, like a taut bowstring, and still shook with occasional shivers. Winter took the girl’s hands in her own and found them ice-cold.

  For a long time they lay in silence. Bit by bit, she felt Bobby relax, uncurling like a clenched fist as the shared heat warmed her. Winter let her eyes close, and found herself on the point of drifting off.

  I wonder what they’ll say when they find us in the morning. She couldn’t bring herself to care.

  “Winter?” Bobby said. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Only if I can ask you something, too.”

  “Fair enough. You go first.”

  “What’s your real name? You know mine.”

  There was a pause. “I’ve always been called Bobby,” she said finally. “But it’s short for Rebecca, not Robert. And Forester was my mother’s last name. I never knew my father.”

  “Oh. That’s convenient. At the Prison they called me Farusson, but that’s just the family name they give to orphans. I got Ihernglass from a book.”

  “It’s a good name,” Bobby said. “Makes you sound soldierly.”

  There was another pause.

  “You want
ed to ask me something?” Winter prompted.

  “I just . . .” Bobby hesitated. “I wanted to know the truth. About how you escaped. I’ve heard a hundred stories, but none of them sound right.”

  “Oh.” Winter swallowed hard. “That’s a bit of a long story.”

  Bobby wriggled, pressing against Winter a little tighter. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I don’t . . .” Winter trailed off, leaving a gaping silence. She felt a little tension return to Bobby’s shoulders.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” the girl said.

  Winter blew out a long breath. “It’s not that. It’s just that I’ve never told anyone.”

  “Of course not,” Bobby said. “Who else would understand?”

  That was true, Winter reflected. She was unlikely ever to meet another graduate of Mrs. Wilmore’s peculiar institution. She certainly never intended to return there. But forcing herself to speak still took an immense act of will, as though she were stripping off a final layer of armor in the face of enemy fire.

  “There was a girl,” she said, “named Jane. She was brought to the Prison when I was fourteen, or maybe fifteen, I don’t remember. At the time I was—well, not a model prisoner, but not far from it. When I first saw her—”

  “How long had you been there?” Bobby interrupted.

  “Since before I could remember. I couldn’t have been more than six when I arrived.”

  “How wayward could you have been at six?”

  “They throw little girls in there when their parents have been bad,” Winter said darkly. “I assume my father was a criminal of some sort. Or my mother, I suppose.”

  “I see.” Bobby shifted against Winter’s side. “All right. You met a girl named Jane.”

  “We didn’t get along at first.” Winter smiled, invisible in the darkness. “She was a hellion. Tried to escape three times in the first month, and the third time she bit one of the mistresses. Mrs. Wilmore whipped half the skin off her back for that. God only knows how I got to be friends with her.” Winter could barely remember how it had happened. She and Jane had come together like a pair of magnets, propelled by some strange internal forces. “But I did. We were . . . close.”

  There was a pause. Winter swallowed.

  “Do you know what happens to girls from the Prison when they get too old?” she said, after a moment.

  “If they’re reformed enough, they get married,” Bobby said. “Or else they get sent off to Murnsk to take holy orders.”

  “Married,” Winter said, pronouncing the word with distaste. “That’s one way of putting it. Do you know how that actually happens?”

  Bobby shook her head, her smooth cheek pressed against Winter’s shoulder.

  “When some farmer out in the country needs a new wife for himself or one of his sons, and doesn’t want to go to all the bother of courting a girl, he sends a letter to Mrs. Wilmore. She writes him back with the . . . the stockbook, who’s ready for marriage and each girl’s disposition, and the farmer chooses the girl he likes as if she were a side of beef in a market stall. Then he comes and picks her up.”

  “Oh.” Bobby was quiet for a moment. “What if the girl says no?”

  “She doesn’t have a choice. The Prison is a royal institution, which means that we’re all nominally wards of the king. Until we’re of age he can give away our hands to whoever he likes. Not that most of the girls would think of saying no,” Winter added bitterly. “Most of them look forward to it.”

  Another pause. Winter cleared her throat.

  “In any case. Jane was a year older than me, and a man named Ganhide decided she would be ideal. He was a real brute, bigger than Folsom and meaner than Davis. When we heard about it, Jane and I decided we had to run away.”

  Jane had tried to run away before, of course. It wasn’t really very hard to get out, but the problem was staying out. Everyone within a hundred miles knew Mrs. Wilmore, and that she paid a bounty on runaways. And even if a girl could get to the city, without a proper identity all she could ever be was a thief or a whore, and that would land her right back at Mrs. Wilmore’s, or worse.

  Winter took a deep breath. “Jane came up with a plan to run away and stay away. She was always the one with the plans.

  “Only Mrs. Wilmore was one step ahead this time. They knew Jane would try something, so they locked her up. It took me ages to find out where they were keeping her, but I managed to get to an outside window. It was behind the old building, you know, with all the brambles?” Winter shook her head. “I tore my dress half to pieces.”

  “I once chased a fox in there,” Bobby said. “I lost a shoe and never did find it again.”

  “Jane had a plan,” Winter went on, “as usual. She told me how to sneak in through the kitchens, and where she thought the proctors would be. And she told me”—Winter’s throat grew tight—“to pick up a knife, one of the big ones, while I was there.”

  “Why?”

  “In case I ran into Ganhide. He was due in that evening, you see. There was a rumor going around that Mrs. Wilmore had promised him his ‘wedding night.’ The other girls were laughing about it.” Winter’s hands clenched into fists. “I told her that if I found him, I’d . . .”

  “Take the knife,” Jane said, as though instructing a friend in how to carve a roast. “Put the point of it about here”—she raised her head and put a finger on her throat, just under her chin—“and press in, upward, as hard as you can.”

  “What happened?” Bobby said.

  “I found the knives in a locked cabinet, but I broke it open with the back of a ladle. It wasn’t hard getting into the main building after dark. There were hardly any lights, just a candle here and there so the proctors wouldn’t break their necks when they did their night rounds. Jane had gotten nearly everything right, except—”

  “Ganhide was there?” Bobby said in a strangled squeak.

  Winter nodded. “Right in front of her room. He must have only just arrived. He was trying to unlock the door. I think he was drunk. When I saw him, I must have made a noise, because he turned around. He was right there, right in front of me, stumbling and half-blind in the dark. It was like he was offering me his throat, and all I had to do was reach up . . .”

  Winter’s fingers had gone very tight on Bobby’s arm. It must have been uncomfortable, but the girl made no complaint.

  “I couldn’t do it,” Winter said, after a long silence. Her eyes were closed, but she could feel the tears leaking through. “I just couldn’t. I’ve thought about that moment a thousand times since then. I couldn’t bring myself to kill a man, a brute who was going to take my best friend and . . .” She swallowed. “And then I came here, and since then I’ve killed God only knows how many people just because they were fighting on the wrong side, people who probably had families and children who cared more about them than anyone ever did about Ganhide. It doesn’t make any goddamned sense.”

  There was another, longer pause. Bobby, finally stirring from her silence, whispered, “What actually happened?”

  “What?” Winter blinked away tears. “Oh. I dropped the knife, and it clattered on the floor and I got scared and ran for it. He didn’t get a good look at me, so nobody ever found out. But the next day he took Jane off and I never saw her again. I couldn’t even watch when they led her out of the building. I just hid in my bed and cried.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “I thought so at the time.” Winter closed her eyes again. “But it was nothing out of the ordinary, really. I mean, there are hundreds of girls in the Prison, and most of them go on to marry someone. They probably all have . . . friends who are broken up when they leave.” In the darkness behind her eyelids, two points of green light stared at her. Can you be haunted by someone who isn’t dead?

  • • •

  They lay in silence for another interval. Eventually, Winter cleared her throat. “Sorry. That’s not really the story of how I escaped, is it?”
>
  “You don’t have to go on if you don’t want to.”

  “To be honest, the rest of it isn’t much to tell. Jane and I had planned everything, and a couple of friends of mine helped out. I put together a knapsack, climbed the fence, and spent two very hungry weeks walking through fields and stealing food where I could. Eventually I got to Mielle, where I knew the sergeants recruiting for Khandarai service sometimes came. I made myself up as a boy so I could work on the docks, and made a little money. When the sergeant did come by, I told him I’d run away from my father because he was a drunk, and gave him everything I had to take me on without proper papers. I nearly got caught on the crossing, but—”

  “Shh,” Bobby hissed.

  She rolled over, and suddenly they were face-to-face, only inches apart. For a single frozen moment, Winter thought Bobby was going to kiss her. Her protest froze in her throat.

  The corporal sat up, tossing the sheet aside.

  “I heard someone moving,” she said.

  “Someone getting up to take a piss,” Winter mumbled, still slightly in shock. “Or have the Desoltai finally come to slit our throats?”

  “Feor,” Bobby said. “Where’s Feor?”

  Winter rolled over herself. The other bedroll was empty. She looked up, and just caught sight of a slim figure moving cautiously through the tangle of sleeping men. Winter surged to her feet, kicking the blanket off, and swore viciously. Then, with Bobby just behind her, she set off in pursuit.

  • • •