On the Banks of the River of Heaven

by Richard Parks

“I’m more interested in what it smells like, not how pleasant it is.” Ceren wondered for a moment why she was bothering to explain, since her Gran had been very adamant on the subject of secrets: “Best that no one knows how we do what we do. Little seems marvelous, once you know the secret.” And it was important for reputation that all seem marvelous; Ceren saw the wisdom in that as well.

  Even so, Ceren found it easy to talk to Kinan, she who barely had reason to speak three words in a fortnight. “My Gran taught me what scents to look for in a wound. A little like iron for blood, sickly-sweet for an inflamed cut like this one. Yet there’s something . . . .ah. You said you cut yourself on a saw? Fine new saw or old, battered saw?”

  He sighed. “Everything we have is old and battered, but serves well enough.”

  “Yes, this saw has served you pretty well indeed. There’s something in there that smells more like iron than even blood does. Unless I miss my guess, your saw left a piece of itself behind and is poisoning the wound. That’s why your arm isn’t healing properly.”

  He frowned. “You’re saying you can smell iron?”

  “Of course. Can’t you?”

  “Not at all. That’s amazing.”

  Ceren almost blushed again. So much for Gran’s ideas about secrets, Ceren thought. Or at least that one.

  Ceren reached into her box and pulled out a bronze razor, which she proceeded to polish on a leather strop. Kinan eyed the blade warily, and Ceren nodded. “Yes, this is going to hurt. Just so you know.”

  Kinan flinched as Ceren gently opened the edges of the wound with her thumbs. More pus appeared and she rinsed that away as well. She judged the direction the sawblade had cut from and looked closer. A black speck was wedged deep into the wound’s upper end. Now that she had found the culprit, it only took a couple of cuts with the razor to free the piece of broken sawblade. Kinan grunted once but otherwise bore the pain well enough and kept still even when new blood started to flow. Ceren held the fragment up on the edge of her bloody razor for Kinan to see before flicking it away into the bushes. She then washed the wound one more time and bound it again with a fresh strip of linen.

  “Considering what you’re likely to do with that arm, I really should stitch it,” she said. “And it’s going to bleed for a bit as things are. Let it, that’ll help wash out the poison. If you’ll be careful and wash the cut yourself at least once a day—clean, clear water, mind, not the muck from your stock pond—you should get to keep the arm.”

  “We have our own well now,” Kinan said. “I’ll heed what you say. I’m in your debt.”

  She shook her head. “You paid, so we’re square. But mind what I said about washing.”

  Kinan thanked her again and left. Ceren watched him walk back down the path toward the road. After a moment she realized that she was, in fact, watching him long past the point where it was reasonable to do so. She sighed and then went to clean her razor in the cold stream.

  That night Ceren dreamed that she walked hand in hand with Kinan through a golden field of barley, the grain ready to harvest. Yet no sooner had Kinan taken her in his arms than there stood his family: the brothers whom Ceren saw that day from the ridge, a mother and father with vague, misty faces.

  “Stay away from that witch! She’s evil!” they all said, speaking with one voice.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me!” Ceren said, but she didn’t believe it. She knew there was. Those in the dream knew it too. Kinan turned his back on her and walked away with his family as the barley turned to briars and stones around a deep, still pool of water.

  “You can’t do it alone, you know. Your Gran knew. How do you think you got here?”

  Ceren looked around, saw no one. “Where are you?”

  “Look in the pond.”

  Ceren looked into the water but saw only her own reflection. It took her several moments to realize that it was not her reflection at all. Her hair was long, curly, and black, not the pale straw color it should have been. Her eyes were large and dark, her rosy-red lips perfectly formed. Ceren looked into the face of the most beautiful girl she had ever seen, and the sight was almost too painful to bear. “That’s not me.”

  “No, but it could be. If you want.”

  When Ceren opened her eyes again, she had her own face once more, but the other girl’s reflection stood beside her on the bank of the pool, wearing golden hoops in her ears and dressed like a gypsy princess. Ceren couldn’t resist a sideways glance, but of course there was no one else there.

  “Dreams lie,” Ceren said. “My Gran told me that.”

  “This one is true enough and you know it. Even if Kinan was interested, what do you think his family would say if he came courting a witch?”

  “He’s not going to court me. I’d toss him out on his ear if he did. What a notion.”

  “Liar.”

  Ceren’s hands balled into fists. “I just met him! He’s not even that handsome.”

  The girl’s laugh was almost like music. “What’s that got to do with anything? He’s young, he’s strong, he has a touch of gentleness about him, despite his hard life. And he’s not a fool. Are you?”

  “Be quiet!”

  The strange girl’s reflection sighed, and ripples spread over the pond. “I never cared much for your Gran, but I will say this: she was always clear on what she wanted and never feared to go after it, too. So. She’s dead and now you’re the Mistress here. Tell me you don’t want him. Make me believe you, and I’ll go away.”

  “How do you know me? Who are you?”

  “I’ve known you all your life, just as you know who I am.”

  Ceren did know. Just as she knew how she felt about Kinan and how strongly she tried not to feel anything at all.

  “The topmost shelf. That’s you.”

  “No, there is no one there. What remains is little more than a memory, but it is a memory that can serve you in this, as the memory of the Oaf and the Soldier and the Tinker cannot. What remains is merely a tool. Your Gran understood that. Use me, as she did.”

  “No!”

  “Mark me—you will.” The ripples faded along with her voice and reflection, but just before she awoke, Ceren gazed into the pool once last time and saw nothing at all.

  For the next few months Ceren kept herself too busy to think about either Kinan or what lay on the topmost shelf. It was easy enough. There was always something that needed doing around her croft and a fairly steady stream of villagers and farmers from the surrounding countryside.

  After her grandmother was cold and buried, Ceren had worried about whether the people who had come to her Gran would come to her now, she being little more than a girl and not the Wise Woman of Endby, who always wore her Gran’s face so far as Ceren was concerned: ancient, bent, hook-nosed and glaring, while Ceren was none of those things except, now and then, glaring. But she needn’t have worried. A Wise Woman was always needed where more than a few folk gathered, and as long as there was someone to fill the role, there were always people willing to let her. Ceren knew she would grow into the part, in time. Besides, “Wise Woman” was them being polite; she knew what they called her behind her back. Such rubbish had never bothered her grandmother. Ceren couldn’t quite say the same.

  One day it will seem perfectly natural, she thought, but the prospect didn’t exactly fill her with joy. Fear and secrecy were the witch’s stock in trade, just as her Gran had always said. She had no right to complain if other, less pleasant things came with them.

  Ceren had just doled out the herb bundle that would rid a silly village girl of her “problem” when she heard an alarm bell clanging from the village itself. The girl mumbled her thanks and hurried away. Ceren looked south toward Endby but saw nothing out of the ordinary. When she looked back north it was a different story.

  Smoke.

  Not Kinan’s home, she realized with more relief than she cared to admit; this was further west. Still, too close, to all of them. Ceren didn’t hesitate. She didn’t think of
all the other things so much smoke in the sky might mean. She knew what the smoke meant, just as her Gran would have known. She went to the store-room and put on the Soldier, because it was the only thing she knew to do.

  The face and form of the Soldier remembered, so Ceren did too. There was no time to worry about what she did not want to see; it was all there, just as she’d left it the last time she had worn his skin, but now there was too much else that needed remembering.

  Too far from the Serpent Road for this to be the main body. Most likely foragers.

  This was what the Soldier knew, and so Ceren knew it, too. After a moment’s reflection, the Soldier took one long knife from the cutlery rack and placed it in his belt. Ceren had expected him to take the felling axe, but now she understood why he didn’t—too long in the handle and heavy in the blade to swing accurately at anything other than a target that wasn’t moving. A short, balanced hatchet would have been better for their purpose, but there was none.

  The Soldier trotted up the path toward the ridge, not hurrying, saving their strength. They passed the spring and scrambled up the ridge, and from that height the flames to the west were easy to see. Neither Ceren nor the Soldier knew which farm lay to the west, but they both knew there was one, or had been. The foragers would be spreading out from the Serpent Road; it was likely that they didn’t know the north road—little more than a cart path—or the village of Endby even existed, but it looked like one group was going to find it if they kept moving east.

  How many?

  That was a question that needed to be answered and quickly. From the ridge the Soldier simply noted that a group of farmers had arranged themselves at the western border of their field, armed with little more than pitchforks and clubs. Ceren noted that Kinan and his father and his two brothers were about to get themselves killed, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  They mean to keep the raiders from burning the field! thought Ceren.

  Foolish, thought the memory of the Soldier, they’d be better served to save what they could and make for the village. Ceren couldn’t disagree, since she knew the same could be said for herself. Yet here she was. She tried not to dwell on that or why her first instinct had been to don the Soldier. She thought instead of how hard the Balesons had worked to get their farm going. And how hard it would have been for them to let it all be destroyed.

  The Soldier’s thoughts closed in after that, so Ceren didn’t understand at first why they turned left along the ridge rather than descending to stand with Kinan’s family, but she knew better than to interfere. He was in his element, just as she was not. The Soldier kept low and moved quickly, using the trees and bushes that grew thick on the ridge as cover. Soon they left the bramble hedge that marked the edge of the Baleson farm. About three bowshots from the boundary, the ridge curved away south. They peered out of the thicket at the bend. There was still no sign of the foragers.

  “Maybe they’ve stopped.”

  The Soldier’s thought was immediate and emphatic. Not enough time. They’re not finished.

  Ceren and the Soldier found a way to descend and, once they were on level ground again, slipped away quickly into the trees. Ceren realized that they were approaching the burning farmhouse by a circular route, keeping to the cover of the woods. They heard a woman scream—and then silence.

  They found a vantage point and looked out in time to see a man tying the straps of his leather brigandine back into place. He was lightly armored otherwise, but well armed. A bow and quiver lay propped against a nearby railing. The of a man and a child lay nearby. A woman lay on the ground at the raider’s feet, unmoving, her clothing in disarray and even at their distance they could see the blood. It took Ceren a moment to realize that the sword that she’d thought stuck into the ground was actually pinning the woman’s to the earth. She felt her gorge rising, but the Soldier merely judged the distance and scanned the rest of the scene. The farmhouse was still burning well, though the flames were showing signs of having passed their peak. Another moment and the roof came crashing down in a shower of embers.

  Unmounted auxillaries with one scout. We have a chance, thought the Soldier.

  Kill him, she thought in her anger.

  The Soldier remained cold as a winter stream. Not yet.

  The memory contained in the Soldier forced her to look toward the east. She saw four more men armed and armored similarly to the one lagging behind, but only the straggler had a bow. For some reason this seemed to please the Soldier. The other four carried bundles over their shoulders, apparently the spoils of the farm.

  “You said there was another farm this way,” shouted one of them. “We need to hit it and then return before nightfall if we’re to be ready to move at daybreak. We haven’t got time for your dallying.”

  “I’m almost done,” said the first. “but this baggage has befouled my good blade. I’ll catch up when I’ve cleaned it.”

  One of them swore, but they didn’t wait. The other four disappeared into the trees, heading toward Kinan’s farm. Ceren still felt sick but now there an even greater sense of urgency.

  Kill him!

  Soon.

  They kept out of sight. They didn’t move until the man had carefully wiped his sword on the dead woman’s torn dress and sheathed the blade, then reclaimed his bow and quiver. The Soldier moved quickly and quietly, keeping to the trees at the edge of the woods, Ceren little more than a spectator behind borrowed eyes.

  The Soldier caught the scout from behind before he had taken six steps into the trees. The scout managed only a muffled grunt as the Soldier clamped his hand over the man’s mouth and neatly slashed his throat. The raider’s blood flowed over their arms, but the Soldier didn’t release their grip until the man went limp. They took the sword and the bow and quiver, but that was all.

  The armor?

  No time.

  Ceren felt a little foolish for asking the question in the first place, and the reason was part of why she so feared to wear the Soldier’s skin—she was starting to think like the Soldier. Like he had to think to serve his function. She knew why they left the armor, just as she knew why they did not follow the raiders along the same path, even though it was the most direct route. They took their course a little to the right, to place themselves just south of where the raiders would have to pass the barrier. At this point Ceren wasn’t certain if this was the Soldier’s direction or hers, but she knew they did not want to place the farmers directly in front of the raiders, not when arrows were about to fly.

  They found a gap in the bramble thicket bordering the field, but the raiders had already emerged and were a good thirty paces into the field, moving directly to where Kinan stood with his father and brothers. Their numbers were matched, but that was all. It was hay fork and club against sword and spear, the difference being that those who held the sword and spear knew how to use them for this particular form of work.

  Kinan, his family. . . . They’ll be slaughtered!

  The first arrow was already nocked, but the Soldier did not draw. Not yet. Ceren again knew why, and she hated it. The raiders were still too close. Fire now and they’d probably get one of them, but then the three left would charge their position. The Soldier was waiting for advantage; a longer shot versus time to aim and fire. Ceren understood the tactical necessity, just as she understood that it might get one or more of Kinan’s family killed. She let the Soldier wait until she could stand it no longer.

  Now.

  The closest raider went down screaming in pain with an arrow in his thigh. At first Ceren thought it was a bad shot, but then realized the Soldier had hit exactly what he aimed at. He wanted the raider incapacitated but calling attention to himself. The distraction worked. The raiders hesitated and turned toward their fallen companion. The Soldier’s second arrow hit the next-closest raider high in the chest. He went down with barely more than a gasp.

  This was the Soldier’s purpose, and he was serving it well. Ceren felt the Soldier’s satis
faction, and she felt sick as she realized that it wasn’t just satisfaction that he felt. The Soldier was enjoying himself, and thus so was she, no matter how much she did not wish to, no matter how much she had wanted to see the raiders die.

  Let them charge us now, Ceren thought, but it didn’t work out that way. The raiders charged the farmers. Ceren didn’t know if they meant to cut down Kinan’s family or merely get past them to use them as cover, but now the odds were two to one in the farmers’ favor. One farmer went down; Ceren couldn’t tell who because the Soldier had already tossed the bow aside, and they ran full speed toward the fighting, borrowed sword drawn. The man on the ground made a feeble cut at him as he raced past, and the Soldier split the man’s skull with barely a pause, but by the time they reached the farmers, it was all over. Kinan was down on the ground, a gash in his forehead.

  Somehow Ceren knew it would be Kinan. She felt cold, almost numb at the sight of him.

  The raiders were dead. The farmers were still furiously clubbing the bodies when Ceren in her Soldier skin reached them. The farmers eyed the Soldier warily.

  “Who are you?” Kinan’s father asked without lowering his club.

  “The Wise Woman sent me,” the Soldier said, sheathing the sword as he spoke. “She saw the smoke.”

  Ceren saw the look in the older man’s eyes. Relief, certainly, but fear as well. One more debt. Ceren shook her head, and of course the Soldier did the same. “She figured they’d be at her steading next. Best to stop them here. What about the boy?”

  They were all still breathing hard; Ceren wasn’t even sure they’d noticed that Kinan was down, but then they were all clustering about him. Ceren shoved her way down to Kinan’s side in her borrowed skin.

  It was a glancing blow, and that was probably the only reason Kinan was still breathing. Even so, it was a nasty gash, Kinan was unconscious, and they could not rouse him.

  “We should take him to the Wise Woman,” one of the brothers said, but Ceren had the Soldier shake his head for her.

  “No. Until we know how bad his hurt is you shouldn’t move him any farther than needs must. Lift him gently and put him in his bed. Clean and bandage the cut, and I’ll fetch the Wise Woman to you.”