‘You think I’m happy here?’ said Tommy, soaking up the memories. ‘I want to get away as much as you do. I hate working, Nan’s always on my back, and I’ve known the same people my entire life and they’re everyone I’ll ever know. I want to go out there and see places and meet people. Kelgard snobs. Jungle tribesmen. Desert nomads. Even those Venecians we’re supposed to hate. What d’ya think they’re like?’
‘Fiery. Brown. Stinking rich or just plain stinking.’
Tommy was persuading himself that maybe Anna wasn’t crazy. ‘We could put our money together. Buy food to feed us for the first week and then live off other’s generosity like you said. People would be good to us, wouldn’t they? Two kids exploring the world. And we’d grow wiser with each day. Stronger. Think of the people we’d meet.’
Hearing her idea spoken by another’s mouth, Anna realised it was laughable. She gathered up her grass-stained dress and rose to her feet, stretching out a hand for Tommy. ‘We’d best be off.’
The boy’s eyes were on the horizon.
‘Tommy…’
‘Yeah, alright. Was your idea anyway.’
‘What was that?’
‘I said, “Don’t you look pretty today.”’
Passing through a wooden gate and down a path lined with oak trees, Anna and Tommy fought one another as they had done through childhood. The sky above seemed impossibly blue; the sun’s rays peeking through the treetops. The pair walked down the path, forgetting about work and society and hormones, caught up in familiar company and the enjoyment that a simple life brings.
Two – Enter the Daeva
The twosome came to the end of the shaded path, reminded by the beaded drops on their brows of the potency of the late afternoon sun. It was there as Tommy closed the gate that Anna got the wind knocked out of her, stumbling back to him and gesturing wildly with her hands. Tommy gave her a look of disbelief when she said bandits. He gave the three bandits a look of sheer fright when they started to run towards him. And he gave the leader of the bandits a bronze coin and a nervous smile when he grabbed Tommy by the shirt, Anna gnawing and clawing at her captor until he pinned her still.
‘This one’s b-bitten me. She has drawn blood!’
‘Quiet,’ replied the leader. ‘Where are we, boy? Tell me and be quick about it.’ Tommy’s face was squashed into the floor, causing his words to be lost on the winds. ‘Tell me or I will cut this lady friend of yours to ribbons.’
‘The kruk you will!’ cried Anna, writhing about like a wingless bird that still had ample command over its beak. The bandit leader spoke in a foreign tongue and then his underling pushed Anna’s face to the floor, trying to keep his fingers out of reach.
‘Leitrim, we’re near Leitrim,’ said Tommy.
‘Find it, Andres.’
The idle bandit pulled a map from his back pocket and poked it until he found the town. The good news was there was little chance of them being found here. The bad news was that here was twenty miles in the wrong direction. His map reading – it is a problem.
‘Who are you people?’ spat Anna, mouthpiece wrestled free.
‘Venecians, proud servants of King Barbosa et cetera, et cetera.’
‘I’m too young to die, mister!’ shouted Tommy.
‘And I am not going to kill you. Just let me think.’
They spoke in Venecian for a time, Anna writhing and Tommy playing the part of a corpse. He might’ve considered becoming an actor for the way he took to the role. At the side of the path the bandit leader paced up and down, up and down, Andres giving what seemed to be suggestions for possible routes.
‘Are you going to burn our village?’ asked Anna. ‘That’s a real crappy thing to do.
The leader marched to the girl and instructed his minion to lift her upright. As soon as she was able she flung her legs into the air, kicked the bandit leader to the ground, wrestled free of her captor and raced towards Tommy, getting as close as two paces away before the bandit leader grabbed her, tied her hands and feet, then held her with her back facing him.
‘You are a very interesting girl. What is your name?’
‘For some reason it slips my mind.’
He placed something sharp at the small of her back. A knife perhaps.
‘Anna, alright?’
‘Well, Anna Alright, my name is Cesar Castila of the Mendidos and I have no intention of killing you or your friend.’ He moved the sharp object to her eyes, revealing it to be a dagger scabbard and dangling it mockingly for a moment before he threw it to the floor.
‘The Mendidos?’
Cesar looked at her curiously. ‘The bandidos from Mesinos.’
‘Oh… Inspired. No, really, I was blown away.’
‘We three are, how you say, deserters. We came here thinking it would be fun – exciting – thrilling – and it has turned out to be none of those things. Now we want to go home and we’re having trouble finding our way. Where are your road signs? Green field after green field, iglesia after iglesia. Is life so bad you spend it praying?’
Tommy had somewhat perked up hearing this story, listening with the eagerness of a child at story time, though the seating arrangements left a lot to be desired.
‘Help us get home and we will let you go, what do you say?’
‘Do I have a choice?’ asked Anna.
‘I’d like to say yes.’
‘Then we’ll help you as best we can. We are, as you can see, simple folk—’ winking at Tommy, shifting her eyes conspicuously to the bandit pinning him to the floor. – ‘We know little about life outside of our home.’
Tommy stared back innocently.
Get ready to overpower him, Anna was gesturing. We’re going to make a break for it.
Tommy stared back innocently.
Stupid boy!
Cesar shifted Anna to an oak stump and sat her down. An underling removed a canister from the satchel and passed it to him, watching enviously as he gulped down its contents and wiped the sweat from his brow. Obscured from his view, the girl pulled at the rope that bound her hands, trying to loosen it.
The bandits were running low on supplies, Cesar said. ‘We need bread, cheese, butter – I greatly like the butter you have here – and warm beds to sleep in for the night. And wine to keep us warm until we get in them.’
Anna asked him whether it looked like she ran an inn. He said he couldn’t be sure. She should be fatter, no?
‘Listen, I’ve got a bed made out of straw and Ma should’ve made some broth for our tea today. You can have both if you ask her nicely.’
‘Butter?’
‘No butter.’
He looked utterly depressed, not that she cared in the slightest. The rope was almost there. So close. But he was inching closer too. To inspect the rope? To stare lovingly into her eyes? She hadn’t the foggiest. He stood with the canister of water and eyed her up and down.
‘Don’t you be thinking about it, mister,’ said Tommy. ‘She’s already lost her job today, she don’t wanna lose anything else!’
‘Tommy, would you keep that mouth of yours shut.’
The bandits laughed at the charade and the Venecian restraining Tommy eased up on his grip. Using it as a distraction, Anna tugged relentlessly at her hand ties and finally pulled her hands free, dropping the rope behind the oak stump. Tommy had at last realised what she was doing and began distracting them with a limerick.
With Cesar and the bandits listening intently, Anna picked at the easy knot tying her feet together. Come on you son of a birdman. Almost there. Little more. Yes! The rope dropped to the floor and Cesar spun his head round, seeing what she’d done, wondering how she’d done it, running to her, pushing her back down on the oak stump, sitting on her to stop her from moving, spilling some of the water from his canister on her face.
‘You said you’d help us.’
‘I lied.’
He bounced on top of her, forcing the air out of her lungs. As she lay there, struggling to breathe, the wat
er in Cesar’s container began to bubble. Anna pictured the serene water in the lake, changing its mild peaks and troughs into large, cataclysmic waves. The waves swirled up into the air like a tempest stretching out towards the sky, pulling in fish, sheep and trees from the surroundings and tossing them about like hay bales. The blue sky was rendered black; the sun hiding from the maleficent will of the squall. And while she willed she screwed up her eyes, and the bubbles in Cesar’s canister grew and grew, and the heat coming from it became so great as to make him suddenly spill its boiling hot contents down his shirt. Skin scolded, Cesar howled in pain, jumping off Anna and doing a dance of agony to try and cool himself off.
‘Now!’
Tommy shoved the bandit off his back and started to run, Anna a pace behind. Andres saw the blur speed past, looked at one comrade doing a jig, looked at the other taking in the superb foliage face down, and then sprinted after them, his leaf-loving friend getting up and joining him.
‘Don’t look back,’ gasped Anna, heartbeat in her head, yesterday’s fish supper at the back of her mouth.
Tommy couldn’t help himself. Shaper, they were a breath away.
‘I told you not to look back.’
‘Saying that only makes someone want to!’
Gate ahead, leafy path giving way to the sun, freedom in their grasp. They started yelling for help and running gave way to a fluid leap over the gate and out onto road. As in every situation of utmost importance, not a soul was in sight.
‘Left, go left,’ said Anna, thinking of the church up ahead. Just a little more, legs, please, just a little more.
She expected the marauders to spew up some rude words, a death threat or two, but they were completely silent. A little too silent. Glancing back briefly, Anna ground to a halt.
‘Tommy,’ she said, hands on her knees, head not far away, fish supper less tasty this time around. ‘They’ve gone.’
And so they had. Wary of getting too close to town and deciding to cut their losses, the two bandits retreated back to the country lane to seek guidance from their leader, marvelling at the events that had just transpired.
‘What d’ya mean you lost your job?’
She hadn’t listened to anything Anna had said. Not a word. Bandits. They were outside town. Coming here or, come to think of it, probably amongst them right now. Forget about the questionable-looking broth because frankly it is the least of her problems.
‘Erik, did you see anybody tanned around town today?’
After some consideration, and much scratching, ‘Uh…Mrs Somersby, yeah saw ‘er…and Joe Sinclair, yeah saw ‘im…and that Pete’s boy looking real shifty around that crone woman who I know’s a fence. Seen the thieves lining up round town to sell her their wares. You know she fell and emptied a bag stuffed with silver candlesticks right onto the cobbles last week? Who goes round with a bag full of candlesticks?’
Of course, Anna thought, the Venecians would blend in reasonably well at this time of year. Field workers, people’d say. Commoners. How terribly poor they must be. Bryony, keep in the shade. I will not have you ruin my reputation just because you insist on playing outside, even if you are seven years of age.
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ said Anna, spooning the slop into her mouth. Everything Ma cooked tasted like rotting potatoes.
‘Course I believe you, but what d’ya want me to say? The Council issued a statement saying the Queen’s cavalry would be here by tonight ‘cause of those recent pillagings and I believe them. Besides, I can’t exactly get up and leave everything I’ve worked for my whole life now, can I?’
Anna inspected the pokey hut with its table, four chairs, six beds squished together, dirt floor, and fireplace. Her parents had been fortunate enough to learn to read and write, instilling this knowledge in their children, but there were few books or indications of wealth in the hut. If this was an entire life’s work, then Anna was going to pass on that life.
‘Where are the rest of the boys, John?’
They were outside playing.
‘Get ‘em in.’
There wasn’t enough room.
‘They can eat on their beds.’
John considered the broth, diving in with his spoon and coming out with a lump-filled dollop. This was a punishment they did not deserve.
‘Something else happened today, Ma,’ said Anna, John passing by with the begrudging acceptance of a married man, not to mention a tucked-away bowl. ‘I can’t describe it. I was being held down by that man—’
‘The bandit leader, right?’ said her mother in a skilful display that indicated both civility and disinterest.
‘Mother, would you let me finish. I was being held down and then the world went dark. I can’t explain it exactly. I could feel the water in his flask and the rain drying on the leaves above. And I honed in on the water in that flask and I felt it boil. I made it burn.’
Jean raised her fingers to her mouth. At this rate they would be bloody stumps. ‘That’s a very nice story, Anna, but I gotta clear up now. Go outside.’
‘But Ma—’
‘I said: run along.’ The voice was quivering. In fact, her mother’s whole body was quaking with fear.
‘What is it with you? First you don’t believe what I said about the bandits and now you won’t even listen to me. I’m your only daughter, Jean.’
‘I told you never to call me that.’
Anna’s emotions, wild at the best of times, were surfacing. ‘I’ll call you whatever I like. You treat me with no respect and that’s exactly what you’ll get.’
‘You don’t understand. These are dangerous times. Don’t talk of magic.’
‘Or what? I’ll be tried as a witch? You’ll rat me out, will you? You’re being ludicrous.’
The steam rising from the bucket in the corner escaped their notice.
‘I want you to go outside. Now.’
‘Tell me what’s going on.’
‘Do as I say.’
‘No.’
Jean pushed her hands into her hair, gripping it into tufts to potentially force out wisdom from within. When nothing came she placed her hands at her side, reminded herself that she was the parent, not the child, and called to her husband outside, asking him to stay with the boys. She turned to Erik, who had sat through this episode meekly eating his broth on his bed, and asked him to join them. When the women were again seated, Jean began:
‘What d’ya know of the daeva? The women of the deserts to the south who live apart from men.’
‘Folktales. Bedtime stories about a bunch of old hags. Pa used to joke with me that they’d come and steal me away in the night.’
‘That’s almost right.’
Anna looked for humour in her mother’s face and found none.
‘The daeva are a band of women who, every eight years, travel round Torrodil to find girls to bolster their ranks. But they don’t want any girl. The girl they want has partic’lar abilities. Even latent a daeva can sense them.’
‘What abilities? What are you talking about?’
‘They’re elemental witches. And what they lack in numbers they make up for in raw power. Fought in countless wars, generally unseen, but where there’s been an unexplainable rain, or a powerful gale, or an earthquake that swallowed a fortress whole, there’s been a daeva or two.
‘Came to this house when you were six. John was out and I was nursing Erik. Told you to go run and play outside. Like you, I questioned what they said. I thought it plain and simple nonsense. So one them came to me, sat me down, asked me to close my eyes. I had shut ‘em for maybe five seconds when a brilliant light burnt my eyelids. There, in the palm of her hand, was a small rotating white light; an orb of the very lightning they command. And she could summon and dismiss it at will.’
‘Ma…’
‘What choice did I have but to believe her? To listen to the three of them? You were my child, Anna. Six years old. And they wanted to bundle you away? Take you into the desert? It was too mu
ch to ask of me and definitely too much to ask of you. I said that to them and then two left. The third…’ her mother’s voice drifted off, ‘well, she said you had to come with my acceptance or not at all. She said yours was a great gift that would reveal itself in time, whatever my wishes.’
Anna stood and let the words wash over her. She had known a world where physics did not allow mortal hands to wield the weather like the Shaper. If this was true, then what was stopping every bogeyman and mythical creature conjured up in poetry and prose from climbing out from under her bed and assailing her with their hands?
No, this was a trick; an exceptional performance from a woman well past her prime, eager to teach her daughter a lesson. What a performance, though.
‘I’m leaving, Ma.’
‘We need to talk about this.’
Anna felt hollowed out from the inside, devoid of anger or sadness. Kissing her mother on the cheek, part of her knew she had outgrown those four walls. She walked out of the door with a dull ache behind her eyes.
It was turning out to be a very bad day.
By Lake Leitrim, with the night nipping at her toes, Anna waited for sense to return. Her supple mind had been hacked away at, reduced to a bloody pulp and fed to the dogs. She had the wisdom of the earth, not of the university scholars. How to tend to a wounded knee with thistleroot and sage; the way to draw a fever from the head to the toes. This knowledge was special, but it was not supernatural. With her limited acquaintance of literature and the teachings of wise men, how would she be able to reconcile the extraordinary notions her mother had told her?
The sounds of the dark carried with the breeze. Men prowled and women wailed; dogs barked and cats scarpered; and Anna was safe under a blanket of stars, the universe unveiled before her. When her bones had turned to dust, they would still be. Nature’s patterns eased her and this was why she liked the lake and the countryside. Here she could watch the robins forage for twigs to build their nests, beating their wings as they passed. On the meadow to the left was where daffodils grew in spring. She did not dwell on the fact that they bloomed and perished within weeks, as that was their place. Come autumn, she would roll amongst the red and brown, lying flat to become one of those falling leaves, floating and swirling in an endless dance with the wind.
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