Water Logic

by Laurie J. Marks

  The commanders were waiting for her to speak. Ellid gazed at her with concern, Taram with a suggestion of apprehension, Doley and some of the others with open hostility.

  Clement cleared her throat. “Good day, Commanders. You have seen what you needed to see in Watfield, and I won’t keep you away from your garrisons any longer.” She added after a moment, “When you arrive, you’ll find a missive from the western commanders awaiting you. That letter will urge you to join their mutiny.”

  She should have made them sit down, for most of them were taller than she. They gazed down at her, and it was impossible to know which of them were dismayed by her use of this dreaded word, and which were overjoyed to learn that so many had joined this mutiny. Their expressions had closed and now revealed nothing at all.

  Clement said, “The western commanders will call it something else, no doubt, something more palatable. They’ll explain themselves in words you find appealing, and they’ll laud Heras: her bravery, her cleverness, her loyalty to tradition. No doubt they’ll call her honorable, while claiming that I have dishonored all Sainnites because I permitted bitter reality to replace these heroic stories. Perhaps you’ll agree with Heras and her cohort—some of you agree with her now, and some of you might have joined her insurrection had you known of it sooner. Perhaps you, too, will find it easy to pretend that you’re doing something else. But it is mutiny, and the penalty for mutiny is death.”

  She regretted her words instantly, for she had said them in hope of finally gaining something from them, and still they gave her nothing. Now she could tell them to sit down. She could talk to them as she had already done many times during the five days they had attended her, like a friend rather than an enemy, like a fellow soldier suffering with them through a lousy campaign. But words had failed, and would continue to fail, and to persist in this tactic would only emphasize her poverty of options, which would make her seem even weaker when they demanded the illusion of strength.

  The Shaftali talk; the Sainnites act. With every word Clement spoke, she proved to the commanders that she was not one of them at all.

  “That is all,” Clement said. “You are dismissed.”

  Late in the afternoon Emil arrived in Watfield Garrison. His hair, tied back in its usual tail, still was damp from a bath; his chin was pink from recent shaving. “I’ve slept most of the day,” he admitted, as he unpacked his basket onto the battered table: meat pies, baked apples, sweet cakes, a wedge of cheese, bottles of ale. “The Paladins waited for me to start moving before they gave me your note.”

  Gilly came in bearing the duty rosters from the five western garrisons, and his eyes lit up. “Cake!”

  Emil handed the cakes to Gilly. “Any problem seems unsolvable on an empty stomach.”

  “Is that Garland’s philosophy?” Clement bit into a meat pie and remembered that except for a mouthful of scorched bread at dawn she had eaten nothing. Inedible food made it easy to go hungry. That seemed to be the philosophy of the garrison cooks.

  Emil uncorked a bottle of ale and picked up a wedge of cheese. “Oh, Garland’s more of a doctor than a philosopher.”

  “Whatever he is, he was ours first,” said Gilly.

  They had been arguing for months over who had the better claim to Garland, but Clement couldn’t bring herself to play any games today. They ate, and talked about the kinds of things people like to discuss when they’re eating. When Clement had eaten two turnovers and Emil seemed to have satisfied his appetite, she raised the topic of the note, which Gilly had transcribed shortly after her final meeting with the garrison commanders. She said, “Most of the commanders have already departed, even with a storm coming. I could have kept them here longer, but I didn’t think it would serve any purpose.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Even should you become a Paladin, you won’t have to justify yourself to me unless I ask you to. Or is it yourself you’re trying to persuade?”

  “Clem is browbeating herself,” said Gilly, though he would never have said such a thing in the presence of a Sainnite.

  “That’s not my particular weakness, fortunately,” said Emil.

  Clement said, “I told the commanders that the western commanders are engaged in mutiny. Now that I’ve called them mutineers, I have to kill them. And I can’t.”

  “There’s a third choice,” Emil said.

  “Shall I unsay the words I’ve already said? Shall I contradict the rule on which all Sainnite discipline is based? Shall I demonstrate to my commanders that I’m as soft and indecisive as they think I am?”

  “There’s another choice. We just don’t know what it is.” But Emil’s voice seemed flat and hollow. Perhaps it was an effect of the threatening storm.

  Clement said, “For you, maybe. Why don’t you just use fleas to assassinate the mutineers? Or all the commanders? That would give you the general you want with no further difficulty.”

  Gilly said, “Well, as far as I’m concerned it would be a pleasure to kill some of those commanders—I’ve even got an idea or two of my own about how to do it. But we mustn’t lose the loyalty of the soldiers in their command by arbitrarily doing in their commanders. And as far as I know, there’s only one way to gain a soldier’s allegiance.”

  “Earn it, of course,” said Emil distractedly.

  “The penalty for mutiny is death,” Clement said. “That’s the way it is. And I can’t start killing my own people. I could hardly bring myself to kill Shaftali, even when I believed it was necessary and right.”

  “Agh,” said Gabian. She stood and took him up out of the cradle. He blinked at her somberly, as though he somehow knew her every pain; as though he understood better than she herself did what it was like to have the survival of seven thousand depending on her blind decisions. And one of those seven thousand was him, this sweet-tempered baby. For his sake, could she order some thirty Sainnite soldiers to be put to death?

  The very idea revolted her. “I can’t do it,” she said to her son. “It’s like Karis says, there’s all kinds of dreadful things she can do, but what she can’t do is be the kind of person who does such things.”

  Gilly, always pragmatic, began to explain that in any case they could only break into the barricaded garrisons by force at the cost of many lives, so whether Clement could execute her fellow Sainnites was irrelevant. But Emil, whose attention Clement had never before known to waver, started halfway to his feet, sat down, then abruptly rose again. “Excuse me,” he said. “I must talk to a raven.”

  By the time he entered the hallway he was running.

  “Erp!” exclaimed Gabian as Clement pushed him roughly into Gilly’s arms. She ran after Emil.

  She shouted for the surprised soldier in the hallway to follow her. She heard Emil bang out the front door. “Come with me!” she cried to the startled door guards, who had been warming themselves at the fireplace. She pushed out the door, and the bitter wind took the breath right out of her lungs.

  Emil had stopped a few paces from the building and was shouting at the sky. Already, a raven was plummeting down from the eaves to land, flapping wildly for balance, on Emil’s outstretched arm. “Tell Zanja she’s in danger!” Emil cried.

  “You get our coats,” said Clement to one of the soldiers that crowded out the door behind her. “You find me a signalman,” she said to the next. “You—go to the training field and muster any company that’s already geared up.”

  The soldiers scattered. Clement could hear the raven saying, “Zanja senses no danger. She asks for Medric’s opinion—Karis is finding him now—and she is seeking shelter. The raven is lifting to survey the—” the bird broke off its narration, then said in a tone oddly like Karis’s racked voice, “Zanja has fallen through the ice!”

  “Clement, I need some soldiers,” Emil said.

  “I already am mustering a company o
f fifty.”

  “Seth is trying to grab her,” the raven said. “No! She has gone under! Under the ice!”

  “What is Karis is doing?” Emil asked.

  “Running down the street.”

  “Are Paladins following her?”

  “Yes.”

  The soldier appeared bearing their coats, and Clement sent him to find Commander Ellid.

  “What is Seth doing?” Emil asked the raven as Clement put his coat over his shoulders.

  “Trying to track Zanja under the ice. The ice is opaque, but the dogs seem to know where she is. No—the dogs have lost her. Seth has dropped her scarf there. She’s running towards the farmstead.”

  Clement said, “Emil, go. Leave the raven to guide us.”

  Emil’s hair may have been gray, but he could still run like a boy. He had disappeared from sight when Captain Herme and his company appeared in one direction, a signalman in another, and Ellid in a third. All of them also were running, as they should do when urgently summoned by their general.

  The Sainnites had learned the dangers of Shaftal’s river ice, and Clement knew they were unlikely to even find Zanja’s corpse. But if they did, it would change nothing, for Karis could only heal the living. And even as Clement buttoned her coat, put on her hat and gloves, and assessed her own readiness to travel in a snowstorm, Zanja was already dead. Nothing would be gained by hurrying. Nevertheless, they all did so.

  The day was darkening and a few flakes of snow had begun to fall by the time Clement and fifty soldiers, guided by a raven, reached the place Zanja had fallen in. It was an insignificant place, a common crossing, where the break in the ice had already healed itself and become indistinguishable under fresh snow. Seth’s rust-red muffler lay near a hole that had been chopped in the ice. A couple of farmers stood by the hole as though waiting for Zanja to pop up, but Emil and six Paladins, vague shapes obscured by falling snow, were searching the ice downriver. At the nearest bend, probably the likeliest place for Zanja’s body to be lodged, Karis stood on shore, with Seth and two dogs beside her, flanked by unmoving trees. The snowfall had grown heavier, and it became dreadfully quiet.

  Clement went downriver with Herme’s company, carrying tools and lanterns. They scraped snow from the ice and peered down as if through a cloudy glass, seeking a shape or floating shadow. Occasionally, someone imagined something was there, and they chopped a hole in the ice, but everything they did was futile. Hours later, with snow falling thick in the lightless night, Clement sent Herme to collect his people. Alone, she sometimes lost her bearings and wandered into the center of the river, but the ice didn’t even crack.

  Lanterns hanging from a tree branch illuminated the spot where Karis still stood, ankle-deep in freshly fallen snow. Seth huddled at her feet, with the two dogs pressing her knees. Someone had recently brushed the snow from Karis, but snowflakes were quickly covering her again, as if she were a statue in a garden.

  A vague figure extricated himself from the nearby knot of Paladins. “Clement, is that you?” Her lantern briefly illuminated Emil’s harrowed face.

  “Emil, I’ve told my people to stop searching.”

  He looked downriver, and Clement turned and saw the approaching lanterns of Herme’s company. “Then bring them to shelter,” he said.

  “Is there room for us in that barn over there? They should have rations in their kits. And if they don’t, they deserve to go hungry.”

  Emil nodded. He gazed blankly downriver.

  “Your people are even colder than mine,” Clement said.

  “The Paladins must stay with Karis,” he said. “And Karis will not leave this place.”

  Captain Herme was a stickler for regulations. Every last member of his company carried the required rations, even though they had only been engaged in routine drills when Clement summoned them. She told Herme she was glad it had been his company that happened to be out in the field. Herme, who was nursing frozen fingers, said glumly that it had been luck, but not good luck. The farmers arrived with buckets of drinking water and kettles of hot tea, and the shivering soldiers eagerly dug tin cups out of their kits. It was obvious that Clement must allow Herme and his company to warm up before she told them they’d be taking turns watching over Karis out in the snow all night.

  She assessed the resources in the barn and went back out into the storm. The specks of distant light at the riverbank appeared and disappeared behind the dizzying veil of snowfall. She followed the lantern flames as well as she could, slithering on the hard ice that lurked beneath the soft, fresh snow. When she lost her footing entirely, she fell onto stones and realized only then that she had reached the rocky edge of the river. Limping, she finally joined the frozen cluster of people, the lanterns that dripped melting snow. The six Paladins were discussing how to build a shelter around Karis where she stood. Emil was nearly invisible at a distance, still staring downriver. Snow-covered Karis and her snow-covered attendants already seemed paralyzed by the cold that might well kill them by dawn.

  Clement squatted beside Seth. The dogs lifted their heads, snorting snow out of their noses, and looked at her suspiciously. “Seth, you’re going to freeze to death,” Clement said. “You don’t have these dogs’ advantages.”

  Seth gave no reply. Clement brushed at the snow until she could see Seth’s eyes and eyebrows—the rest of her face was covered by her hat and coat collar. Seth’s eyes were squinted shut. With her breath, Clement melted the ice that froze her lashes. Seth’s eyes opened. “I’ll help you get up,” Clement said.

  “But—Karis—”

  “She’s got seven other people looking after her.”

  “—my fault.”

  “You did everything anyone could have done.” Clement tried to lift Seth by the arm but found her immovably rooted in the snow, as some boulders are rooted in earth. The immobility of earth logic. Little wonder Karis, who had twice Seth’s size and strength, could not be forced to abandon her vigil.

  “Commander Saleen!” Clement yelled in exasperation.

  The Paladins came over and helped haul Seth to her feet, and Clement wrapped her arms around the Basdown cow farmer to keep her from sitting down again. She said to Saleen, “Commander, I’ll send my soldiers to you with the building materials and tools that are in the barn. After we’ve put Karis in some kind of shelter, we’ll rotate people in and out every hour. At least we’ll all suffer the same.”

  “I’m staying with her,” Seth mumbled.

  “You’re not in your right mind,” Clement said.

  “What do you know?”

  “You think I’ve never felt responsible for someone’s death? Then you have no idea what my life has been like—no idea at all!”

  Bloody hell! When had it become acceptable to indulge her hurt feelings, like a child? “You’ve been out in this weather all day, Councilor,” she said. “Come indoors for a while, drink some hot tea, let your fingers thaw.”

  A clot of snow fell, and another. Clement realized Karis was moving, very slowly. Eventually the G’deon was looking at Seth, and her face was as pale as the snowflakes clotting the mad curls of her hair. “Go inside, Seth,” she said.

  “Not until you do.”

  Two earth bloods, equally intractable, might stand here all night glaring stubbornly at each other. Clement said, “Karis, don’t you see that none of us has any choice but to freeze with you?”

  Karis looked around herself at the cluster of Paladins, and then towards Emil, who was outside the reach of light. Her stiff shoulders slumped, and she turned and began walking.

  In the barn, the soldiers who had finished eating were bedding down in pairs on the cold stone floor, using one coat as a mattress and the second as a blanket. The farmers had run out of straw, explained Herme, and he had refused to use the hay they offered instead, for he thought this
family had too little hay for their animals as it was. He reported that the soldiers had all checked each other for frostbite and put on dry stockings. He told her where the latrine buckets were, and then gestured towards the women’s side. “Your old bedmates asked me to say they’d be glad to sleep with you as they did on our last campaign.”

  “Thank them for me, Commander, but I doubt I’ll even lie down tonight.”

  Saleen and the Paladins appeared in the passageway to the ell, bearing lanterns, bowls of soup, and lumps of bread. Clement, who had neither the standard rations nor dry socks, shared their supper and their silence. No one said the elegies one might expect to hear upon a person’s death. Clement felt oppressed by that silence, but she didn’t think it was her place to insist they acknowledge that Zanja was dead. Seth, Emil, and Karis all refused food and beds, and disappeared into the dark barn. The Paladins bedded down with each other, and then Clement sat alone beneath the only lantern with its flame turned low, and the darkness and silence took on a quality of unsettling permanence.

  Like Gilly, Zanja had done her work invisibly, but to Emil as well as Karis she certainly seemed indispensable. Yet only a few months ago her family had thought she was dead, and they had managed without her. They would do so again.

  But Zanja had become a friend who both understood Clement and was not subject to her. Now she had only Gilly once again. Could she weep for herself on this dreadful day? Was self-pity ever permissible?