Faithful

by Michelle Hauck

  Suero spat. “Speak for yourself. City men have no honor.”

  Ramiro started forward again, his anger on a hot simmer, then he noticed the boy. Still shirtless and brown, Bromisto stood near the edge of the huts, watching. He couldn’t very well beat the father with his ten-year-old son looking on. Ramiro kept his voice low, spreading his fingers wide as a sign of peace. “There are still greater enemies to deal with. Just tell us so we can go.”

  Suero sneered but visibly relaxed, as if he, too, didn’t want to be less in front of the child or, more likely, he’d noticed the tightening of Claire’s face and wanted no part of a witch. “Your people left of their own choice. Your bossy woman went to see what fared with your city—saints scourge it to the ground—and soldiers took your brats.”

  “What soldiers?”

  “Your city ones. They took back their own, and I had no call to keep them. Glad to see them gone. Now take your sirena and get, and don’t look to me for a guide this time. We are quits. Me and mine have no more to do with you.”

  Turning his back and returning to his horse sent a shiver of unseen eyes down Ramiro’s spine. Much like a snake, Suero was dangerous exactly because of his unexpectedness. You could never tell when he would strike, and it wouldn’t be from the direction you predicted.

  Sancha and Claire gave him the same blank stare, like they had practiced it. “What?” he said to both.

  “You could have been less aggressive. They aren’t our enemy.”

  “I had to know.”

  “You know. Can we leave?” Claire said. “I don’t like this place.” Sancha snapped her tail in agreement.

  “Gladly.” He slid into the saddle with a nod of farewell to Bromisto. He would have liked to speak to the boy again—he seemed nothing like his father—but not at the expense of remaining another minute. His conscience stung briefly that he hadn’t warned Suero that the Northerners may push deeper into the swamp, but the man had dug his own tomb with his hostility.

  The women in the tiny shelters watched him with frightened eyes as he directed Sancha to the lake. They didn’t deserve to be here either, with such husbands and fathers, but they had made their choice.

  He took Claire a ways down the shore, where he was sure Suero couldn’t watch them cross. Reeds cracked under the horses’ hooves and frogs jumped ahead by the score. The tension slowly left Ramiro as he put Suero out of his mind. They had a mission to find the witches—Women of the Song—there’s where his attention must lie. Not with Suero—or worse his desertion.

  “Those people wouldn’t accept me,” Claire said, breaking into his thoughts, “and I wouldn’t be happy if they did.”

  “What?”

  “Mother always said men dominate the women, and that’s true here. You can see it in the way they hide, unwilling to look in my eyes.” Her head tilted as if listening to a voice on the wind. “But the women from your city haven’t been crushed. They have their own spirit.”

  He frowned at her. “Who said they didn’t?”

  “Never mind,” she said, suddenly interested in arranging her clothing. “It’s not about the voting. Beatriz was right about that. I can tell the difference now.”

  He considered asking if her brain had too much sun today—perhaps he should see she got a hat—but other considerations intruded. The slime-green lake stretched out before them, waiting to be crossed. Ramiro sighed. He should be used to it by now. This would be—what?—his third trip across?

  “Stay on the horse—”

  “Jorga.”

  “Stay on Jorga. I’ll lead you across.”

  “I’m not a butterfly. I can manage on my feet.”

  “You’re a fragile and delicate flower, remember,” he added, referring to their argument of what seemed years ago. “I’m the one who takes on the fragile and delicate stink. It’s what I do.”

  “You do it very well, too,” she agreed too quickly and threw in a sly smile that warmed her whole face, putting a devastating dimple in her cheek. “Your mother would agree I should stay on Jorga.”

  “I’m glad that’s settled, though I wish you’d leave my mother out of it.” He didn’t need the reminder that she wouldn’t approve of his desertion.

  “I’m sorry Teresa wasn’t there,” Claire said. “I was hoping she’d go with us.”

  “Aye. Me, too. We must have missed her on the road.” Ramiro prayed she was safe and had made it back to Colina Hermosa—or what was left of it.

  “You can take me,” a thin voice said from a clump of reeds. Ramiro whirled, his sword in his hand, only to see Bromisto step out. “I’m ready to go with you.” The boy’s brown eyes snapped with anticipation, a smile on his thin face. He hadn’t donned shirt or shoes, but a small bag hung over one shoulder.

  “No,” Ramiro said automatically.

  “Who is this?” Claire asked. Before he could stop her, she half climbed and half fell from her horse. “A child. He’s so cute.” She reached out to touch Bromisto on the head.

  The boy slapped at her hands and stepped back. “I don’t need another sister or a mother. What’s wrong with her? Your sirena is loca.”

  “That’s not very friendly.” Claire stepped back, a hurt look on her face. “I won’t harm you.”

  “Who said you’d be able to? I can take care of myself.”

  Ramiro put a hand over his eyes and counted to ten. When he removed it, he found a wary standoff with Claire smiling hesitantly at the boy, and Bromisto frowning and keeping an arm’s distance between them.

  “You travel with her. Maybe I change my mind.”

  “You can’t come with us this time, Bromisto,” Ramiro said. “It’s too dangerous and we don’t need a guide. Claire can lead me.”

  Claire’s face brightened. “That’s true. Maybe another time, little boy.”

  “I can lead you better than her. She’s just a girl. What does she know of the swamp?”

  Ramiro secured Claire’s horse before it decided to wander. “Claire can barely explain me to the Women of the Song. How would you explain you? It’s too dangerous.”

  “I’m sorry, little boy. He’s right. It just wouldn’t be safe for you.” Claire reached out to touch him again as if to express sympathy, and Bromisto dodged.

  Ramiro sighed. “Bromisto, you have to stay here and help your family. This is where you’re needed.”

  “That’s nothing but chores and more chores. The excitement is where you are.”

  Bromisto’s eyes shone in a way that reminded Ramiro painfully of too many occasions of being turned back from following his older brother, being left behind again. His resolve began to slip. Maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world if the kid tagged along. Claire shrugged, and Sancha twitched an ear in indifference.

  “Everyone else says yes,” Bromisto wheedled.

  Something burned in Ramiro’s chest. It felt like the sunshine vanished behind thick cloud cover. “I just spoke to Suero, and your father forbade it. He said there is to be no more contact between his and mine. A son should obey his father. You stay here.”

  The boy’s shoulders slumped. “You’ll be sorry not to take me.” But without another word, he turned and vanished back into the scrub and out of sight.

  A weight like a rock settled in Ramiro’s stomach. “It’s the honorable course,” he called after the boy. “It would be too dangerous,” he repeated to himself.

  Claire had her hands on her hips. “He isn’t you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked tiredly as he held Jorga’s reins out to the girl.

  He froze in the middle of pulling off a boot and rolling up his pant leg, when Claire said, “Just because you didn’t obey your own father, doesn’t mean you should decide for the boy. You can’t make up for your own guilt by keeping the child from it. You did what you decided to be right. Your father will forgive you.”

  “Will he?” Ramiro pulled off the other boot, holding it in his hands. Likely his father would understand—more easily t
han his mother, anyway. The catch in his throat came not from fear of his father’s anger, but from letting him down. His father would forgive, but Ramiro couldn’t forgive himself. The military was all he ever wanted. He’d thrown that away, too. “Does it matter the reason I sent Bromisto back? It needed to be done.”

  For that Claire had no answer, but the light touch of a hand on his back. There then gone, yet it eased the guilt inside him. He removed his armor and tied everything atop Sancha with a lighter heart, ready to face the lake again.

  They crossed the rain-swollen lake without incident, avoiding quicksand, poisonous spiders, and most of the leeches—disgusted, Ramiro pried a few loose from private places within the safety of a blueberry bush while Claire had a good laugh at his expense, then he put on his armor again over his civilian clothing. Conversation stopped as they went through the area where their kin had died, each locked in their own thoughts. Claire took the lead, seeming to become more certain of her direction as the hours passed.

  As the day grew later, Ramiro had them walk, more to stretch his legs than to give the horses a break. They followed a slender path, wide enough for goats but not horses. Branches brushed against them as they passed, like welcoming hands. The ground was drier here than any other spot in the swamp, smelling less like mildew. His feet didn’t squish or sink in. No doubt why they’d chosen it for their home.

  The silence drew out, not clumsy and awkward, but with mutual acceptance, like a comfortable blanket. Claire spoke only to repeat they were close, excitement in her voice. He glanced over to where she walked ahead, leading her horse, to see her wiping at tears with the heel of her hand.

  He almost said nothing, but the ache of sympathy pulled. “For me the memories were the worst on patrol.” When she didn’t respond, he stumbled on, “All the uniforms. It . . . was painful. Always reminded he isn’t coming back.”

  She nodded, pointing to a tree. “She used to watch me climb that one. Apple trees are easiest. She let me start out on apple trees.” Fresh tears welled, her throat working as she swallowed. “I used to hide there to avoid cleaning the stable. She always found me. Memories . . . everywhere.”

  “Aye,” he said against the tightening in his own throat. He’d been ashamed at the tiny part of him glad his home was burned just so he wouldn’t have to be there without Salvador. It was selfish when so many others lost their homes, too. Sancha nosed his shoulder. “I . . .”

  She stopped to let him draw even with her as the trail widened out. “What?”

  “It’s silly.”

  “I want to know.”

  “I dream of him sometimes.” Moisture burned his eyes, and he jabbed at them angrily, trying to hide the motion with a scratch at his temple. “I pretend Salvador is speaking to me about things, still cares about me.”

  “Of course they still care about us.” Claire stared out into the distance and another tear rolled. “They do. It isn’t silly.”

  “Reading into dreams. Likely just too much stress.” He touched mind and heart. “It was only twice.”

  “I think it’s nice. I wish I dreamt about Mother.”

  “Perhaps you will tonight.”

  She took his hand and it felt right not letting go—after all she needed the comfort more than he. Hand in hand, they started walking again. She pointed ahead with the hand holding her reins. “Just there, through those bushes and down in a hollow. I wonder if the goats will still be there. After all this time, likely they strayed without anyone to tend them.”

  Her pace increased, drawing him along with her. They broke from the bushes to find a low wooden house cleverly built into the side of the hollow. Flowers bloomed in boxes under the windows. A churn stood on the porch. Beside it was a stable roofed with sod, grass growing atop it and blowing in the slight breeze, and several smaller outbuildings. A garden had a rail fence around it. It was a place that bespoke tidy, snug owners who tended their home with care.

  A warning went off in his head. It was altogether too neat for a home abandoned for over a sevenday.

  Claire dropped his hand to clap and bounce on her toes, her eyes glowing. “Home! It looks the same!” She turned on tiptoe to grasp his shoulder and her lips brushed his with an electric tingle. The hurried kiss lasting just a second.

  He stood in shock as she gave him a giddy smile, not even realizing what she’d done, and ran down the path. He tried to call for her to wait, but her kiss stunned him.

  The door to the cabin opened, and Claire stopped with a jerk as a woman in a brown dress stepped out. Tall and slim with a lined face tanned by sun, her white-blond hair hung in a single, thick braid.

  The woman’s eyes traveled over Claire. “Granddaughter. Where’s your moth—” But then the eyes caught on him and filled with fury. Her chin lifted, hands going to her side just as Claire did before singing.

  Then everything around Ramiro went dark.

  Chapter 18

  Ramiro existed in a whirl of blackness. It buffeted him, swallowing him whole. Howling like a hurricane without a breath of breeze. Unlike a sandstorm, there was no variation of light and color or any break from the suffocating darkness. Instead of the danger filling his eyes and mouth with sand and triggering his determination to live, it deadened the senses, reduced thought, turning him into a shell. He couldn’t think, couldn’t react—could only feel.

  Every dark emotion he’d ever harbored bore in on him. Grief. Shame. Fear.

  He wasn’t worthy. Shouldn’t tarnish the air by drawing breath. Everything he did produced failure.

  Deserter.

  All he loved found him repulsive. The core essence inside his body that made up him shrank into a ball of agony, rebelling against a force that sought to blot him from existence. Yet the force wasn’t foreign or an intruder. It could only be self—speaking truth. It showed his self-importance, his reasons for living were nothing but a lie, an illusion he built up of himself. The light that was him dimmed, unable to fight.

  He couldn’t fight off himself.

  Dimly, he heard screaming. As self-loathing swallowed him whole, he latched on to the sound where there was nothing—and held on. Gradually it resolved into words. Someone screamed his name over and over, along with “stop.” The darkness weakened.

  “Ramiro! Grandmother, stop!” The desperation in Claire’s voice tugged at him. “Stop!” The need of others meant more than self. The darkness faded.

  A force had ahold of his arm, pulling.

  He blinked and daylight returned. He smelled the moisture in the air. Claire had seized onto his upraised arm with both her hands, dragging it down with all her weight. His hand gripped his dagger, pointed only inches from his eye.

  He jumped and shouted, dropping the knife. With his resistance against her gone, Claire hit the ground, overbalanced by the lack of force. She lay gasping.

  Saints.

  He’d been trying to drive his knife through his eye socket and into his brain. Tremors ran up his body. Amazement struck him dumb. His brain lurched into action again, lifting his eyes from Claire to the woman on the porch.

  She had done this.

  The woman could have been Claire in looks, if Claire had aged forty years and had spent that time chewing rocks. She was Claire shaped to a hardness, with every bit of fun or kindness removed. His hand shot to his sword belt. Again Claire seized him. “Stop. Both of you stop. This is what killed my mother!”

  The woman on the porch bowed her shoulders. “Rosemund is dead?”

  Ramiro let Claire draw his hand from his sword. She clutched it as if doing so could keep him from violence. “Grandmother, I need Ramiro’s help. And so do you, though you may not know it. We came here for you.”

  The reminder of their mission drew the last of the anger from him, but he didn’t release his distrust. The power this witch had used against him made Claire’s seem like a gnat in comparison. Even her mother’s magic had been lighter the one time used against him. He’d been able to see through it eventually.
Without Claire’s desperation to awaken him, he would have never recovered from this woman.

  “I thought the magic could only work with what is in a man’s head,” he said gruffly.

  The older woman’s sharp eyes pinned him down, lingering on their joined hands. “Do you think we all don’t wish for death in some way? Then you are a child. Tell me of my daughter.”

  Ramiro freed himself from Claire, fumbling in the grass for his knife. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” he shot out. “She greeted us with the same tricks, and paid for them.”

  Claire’s grandmother drew herself up again, and Claire rushed between them arms upraised. “Please stop,” she pleaded. “There’s no need for that attitude. We are all friends here.”

  Ramiro gave her a disbelieving glare. He’d expected this reception, but not that Claire would lump him in with her. “She tried to kill me, not the other way around.” He cleaned his knife on his pant leg, did it again just to be sure, before ramming it home in his belt.

  “I’m not blaming anyone,” Claire said. “Maybe you should take care of Jorga and Sancha while we go inside and talk.”

  “I don’t need taking care of from any man,” the woman from the porch said.

  Ramiro frowned and then it came to him. “You’re Jorga.” Dark laughter welled up. It suited his mood. He turned to Claire. “I stand by what I said earlier: You’re insulting a good horse.”

  Claire scowled at him. “Not helping.” She swept toward the house, leaving him to fetch the horses. Suddenly, the air outside felt much preferable. He had no desire to go inside that house.

  He hadn’t given Sancha a good grooming in a while. He needed that peaceful time as his thoughts spun and his nerves felt shaken. He kept flashing to the knife inches from his eye. Perhaps a touch of Jorga’s magic lingered, because he couldn’t seem to shake the dark thoughts. Did he really want the witches among his people? With the swiftness of their reactions? What sort of damage could she do there? Inviting in the Northern army might be a better choice. He’d done nothing but breathe and she’d tried to end him. What would she do with a city full of people calling her witch? His second thoughts spun faster.