Faithful

by Michelle Hauck

  He stroked Sancha’s forelock, letting Jorga nuzzle his pocket for a treat, and cursed ever heeding a vision of his brother to steer him on the right path.

  Claire followed her grandmother into the house. The temperature cooled when she crossed the threshold, helped by the wide overhang of the porch keeping the sun from the small windows. A fine mesh covered them to add further shade and keep out insects. The back of the two-room building had been built right into the hillside, rendering it further insulated.

  Inside contained mostly crude, homemade furniture: stools, a makeshift box-like structure as an extra cutting surface in the kitchen area. The only better-made article of fixtures was the table and one square-backed, spindle chair that her mother had brought from the house of Claire’s father. The sole thing in the structure that he must have touched. The wide wooden arms and bottom had gentle slopes worn inward from the depressions of much use. Her grandmother went straight to it, but Claire lingered to take in the sight of home.

  An unfamiliar shawl hung on the peg her mother used for that purpose, the cornmeal crock sat slightly out of place, and the cold room door where their food was stored hung open—an occurrence never allowed—but all else looked the same. There was the pillow her mother gave her on her tenth naming day. The wicker baskets where they stored their spare clothing. Under the porch window, her mother’s bed where they had lain safe and cozy when storms raged, was neatly made. Her own bed and small private space was above in the tiny loft. She wanted to crawl into it now.

  Her lip quivered, and she bit down on it hard. She might shed a tear in front of Ramiro, but to do so in front of this stern stranger was unthinkable. She used closing the cold room door to give her time, before taking a stool, and settling her hands in her lap.

  “Tell me what happened to your mother.” The command was sharp and clear; no hint of emotion softened the woman’s cold face. Claire’s first instinct was to run and hug this woman for her similarity to her mother and their shared loss. But what happened outside and a darker instinct held her back. While her mother usually looked nearly as forbidding, her eyes were softer than this woman’s. Even when angry, the love showed in her mother. In Jorga, there was nothing but ice.

  Somehow Claire got out the story without her voice cracking, focusing on the way her jagged thumbnail—which she hadn’t had time to smooth—snagged on the fabric of her trousers. She told how the city men had encountered them. How her mother had struck first, much as her grandmother had done moments ago. The tragic consequences of her mother killing the men, but being given her death blow in return. The tale grew easier as Claire related being taken prisoner, her escape, and encountering Ramiro saving the village. Her change of heart toward him. Before she could describe the foreign army or the Song she had used against them, she was interrupted.

  “Tricks and lies,” her grandmother snapped, her face unchanged. “They took you in with tricks and lies, and you knew no better than to go along with it. A Woman of the Song needs no other people. Are you that soft, child? What did your mother teach you?”

  “She taught me to recognize truth when I saw it! You weren’t there!”

  Jorga waved a bony arm. “Tsk. You speak as if truth were the same for all. When you reach my age, you’ll recognize truth is a sphere of mirrors with many sides. It shows you what you want to see.”

  Claire stared at her jagged nail in silence, biting back a harsh answer. Her mother had babied her for her entire life, made every decision for her until she died. She could see that. But there was no way she wanted to fall into that again. Right or wrong, she made her own decisions now.

  “We came back here with the intention of finding you, Grandmother. We need your help.”

  “Jorga. Your mother swore you’d never call me grandmother. I’ll honor her wish on this. Foolish though it might be.”

  Claire frowned, looking up. Mentioning that her mother had put that name on a goat wouldn’t help the situation, she needed to stick to arguments that would. “Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to know why I need your help? Why I think you will need our help in return?” The woman hadn’t batted an eye to hear of her daughter’s death; what did it take to disturb her? And for that matter, why was she here in the first place, after visiting once in seventeen years?

  “It doesn’t need much intuition to figure it involves that man. So the answer is no.”

  The stool toppled over as Claire sprang up. She felt sickened, knowing this same sort of shut off life, uncaring of the world around, is what she had placidly accepted for her entire life. “It involves an enemy that kills the weak and helpless. Is that good enough for you? They chop off hands, heads. Kill children. They won’t stop with killing the desert people. But you are worse. You make your victims do it themselves.” Her hands fisted at her sides. “I wish . . . I wish I could make you see. See what I’ve seen.”

  “Then why don’t you, girl. Show me.” The woman sat straight as a pine. Her back never touching the chair.

  “What?”

  “Show me. Are you the one deaf? Use the magic and share memory.”

  Claire could only stare at her dumbfounded. “The magic can do this?”

  “You can’t be that ignorant. What did your mother teach you? Spill it, girl.”

  “The Hornet Tune.”

  A hand twitched in impatience. “And?”

  “And that was all.”

  “All? You’re telling me you know the first spell taught to an infant and nothing more?” Lips pursed. “This must be remedied. None of my flesh and blood can remain this ignorant. You will train with me. There is to be no argument.”

  “That is what I want. But my friend. Will he be safe from you? More, will you actually help us?”

  Again the lips pursed. “I give no help to men. But . . . I will make no hindrance either. If he is to die, then it will be upon him, not me. Don’t accuse me when he has an accident. That is the only promise I will give. Take it or leave it.”

  Slowly, Claire righted the stool and sat. “I don’t want it.”

  For the first time, the frozen façade broke, swiftly there and just as swiftly gone. A twitch of surprise, hidden in the blink of an eye.

  “I don’t want any part of someone who won’t listen to me,” Claire said. Her grandmother was stubborn, but she was cut from the same cloth. “I’m not sure I want to learn and I know I don’t want to learn from someone so closed-minded. Nor someone who would hurt those I call friend. I’ll find another Woman of the Song to help us—on my terms.”

  “You’ll not go begging to the others. Not while I’m alive.” Jorga stood and moved to her shawl, snapping it off the peg and around her shoulders. “I’ll . . . I’ll not interfere with him. You have my word. Your training starts this moment. Obviously, there’s nothing to build upon. We’ll need every instant. Tomorrow, we head for my house.”

  Claire sensed the control she’d won slipping. Her grandmother was a force that once it got rolling, bowled over anything in her path. “There isn’t time for that. The need for help is urgent. Will you listen?”

  “There is always time. What I must have for your training is there. I’ll not have you staying ignorant.”

  “You’re evading my question,” Claire said. “Will you listen to me?”

  “When I feel you have the basics—enough to survive—you can speak. Convince me then. Prove this army is a threat to us.”

  Claire frowned. “I never said anything about an army.” More thoughts bothered her. “And how did you know to come here? Why were you waiting? How did you—”

  “Are you one of us or of them? No secrets will you learn from me until I know. Now, show me how you stand properly to Sing.”

  At the command in her grandmother’s voice, Claire found herself climbing to her feet, even as she wondered what the woman meant by “them or us.” She very much feared she’d fallen into quicksand and gotten in over her head.

  But which do I fear more—the magic or my grandmother? />
  Chapter 19

  Teresa checked the burning sun as it stood a palm-length above the horizon. The noose around her neck tugged, and she stumbled forward another few steps behind the wagon house across the loose sand, trying to do her best to avoid being tripped or tripping another prisoner. She panted at keeping up this pace, but she feared stopping for the evening even more.

  Two nights ago, a few of the Northerners had picked out the younger and prettier of the female prisoners and taken them into the darkness beyond the wagon. Teresa had been ignored, but that hadn’t blocked her ears against the screaming. It left her sickened, guilty, and enraged. Yet those emotions paled in comparison to feeling fearful and helpless. Only some of those girls came back, more dead than alive, and most had been murdered the next morning when they’d been unable to walk. Teresa had helped carry one of the two survivors.

  The next night, the Northerners had picked out an elderly man and held him down as they shaved his beard off with a dull knife, taking large swaths of flesh with the hair, laughing and joking and leaving him bleeding and scarred. They had repeated the ridicule on several other men, all the while eyeing Alvito as one eyed a scrumptious dessert. The memory sent fresh waves of fear through her. Before they could select another victim, however, the officer had intervened in their indecipherable language, and shortly after their captors had settled into blankets, leaving the prisoners shaken and afraid.

  Who knew what deviltry they had in store tonight?

  The only time they had a reprieve from the violence was when they walked, and that, only if they didn’t falter. Anyone unable to keep pace was swiftly dispatched. They didn’t dare speak, and barely dared to share glances. The prisoners were given water, but little food, and that as much as exhaustion made it hard for Teresa to lift her knees for another step.

  She moved a foot forward and promptly bumped into the wagon, looking up in surprise to find that it had stopped. She turned to the woman—little more than a girl who just put up her hair—next to her to see her on the ground, curled into a ball with arms around her knees and head tucked in. Eva’s eye was swelled shut from the abuse two nights ago. She emitted a continuous keening whimper. Teresa hunched next to her and rubbed circles on the girl’s back, helpless to provide more than meaningless comfort, although ready to thrust the girl on her feet if anyone so much as looked their way. Shouts from up front caused Teresa to stand.

  By Santiago, it’s too early to camp.

  Hope flared and Teresa quickly tamped down on it. The shouts didn’t sound like a rescue, more like astonishment. A glance at Alvito showed him bent over with hands on knees, catching his breath. He gave her a small wave then looked away. They’d agreed to interact as little as possible to ensure they gave no leverage to their captors. Logically, she should use the time to rest as well. She cursed as curiosity drove its hooks into her.

  It was curiosity that had induced her to say yes to the Alcalde in the first place and leave the security of the university. Should she have resisted? Even now, her heart couldn’t decide if she’d made the right choice. A part of her wouldn’t have missed this adventure for the world. The other part believed the mission would be the death of her.

  “Stupid, woman. Keep your head down,” she hissed to herself. Captivity was not like drowning in quicksand in one respect: It went on so long that the panic had receded out of necessity. One could only exist on the edge of mindless terror for so long. There were moments of clarity between the gibbering fear.

  Teresa felt for her Santa Catalina medallion before she remembered the Northerners had taken it, along with everything else in her pockets. “You’re too stubborn for your own good.” But perhaps what happened up front could be used to her advantage. Knowledge was never bad, the braver part of her whispered.

  She edged around fellow prisoners to move past the wagon. An older woman with her hands clamped onto a black silk shawl followed. This prisoner had enough gray in her hair to be a grandmother twice over. None of the five guards paid them any mind. They both peered forward, seeing nothing but Northerners studying the ground.

  “What is it?” Teresa whispered to her companion. Talking was a quick way to draw a lash with the whips the guards kept close, but she couldn’t help it.

  The grandmother shrugged, when nothing happened, turning to make her way back, but Teresa held her spot as the officer spoke at length, pointing to something. He, too, seemed to shrug, then gestured and the men took their spots again on the wagon shafts. The Northerners employed manpower to draw their wagon instead of draft animals. As much as she was glad it wasn’t the case, Teresa had tried and failed to find an explanation for why they didn’t use the prisoners to pull the box on wheels. No one rode in it, nor did the officer sleep in it. It apparently contained their supplies and nothing else.

  The wagon began to move, and Teresa hurried back to her spot, careful to retrace her steps so the rope around her neck wouldn’t tangle with anyone else’s. She got a shoulder under Eva and lifted the girl onto her feet as the nightmare resumed. Teresa tried to fasten onto Eustance’s Principles of a Useful Life as she had the first two days, but exhaustion drove the litany out of her head. Eva leaned on her heavily, Teresa’s feet throbbed, and her stomach twisted with hunger. Instead, she latched onto a child’s rhyme as distraction.

  Saints above,

  Saints below.

  God’s hand spiritual,

  God’s rule made flesh.

  Covet not the miracle,

  It brings death.

  With the tune playing over and over in her head, the rope around her neck pulled, dragging her onward. To what, she didn’t know. Imagination took her to frightening places, giving anticipation almost worse horrors than reality. It was only her exhaustion that kept her from truly succumbing to the horrors in her mind, and that was the only blessing of her horrid existence.

  Her ankle gave, twisting, and she stumbled. She’d stepped in a place of wet sand, likely where a Northern had done his business. That’s what she got for not paying attention. Then she noticed another and another, some large and some small. All brownish discolorations in the sand. The prisoners around her stirred, noticing them, too. More and more of them appeared. One splashed across a rock, revealed by the sunshine, and Teresa gasped. Not urine.

  Blood.

  Puddles of blood lay all around them. She caught sight of a patch of rabbit fur, and scanned the sky searching for the hawk. It was empty, but it wasn’t long before they passed a hawk’s distinctive feather. The wagon wheel turned and in its track lay something roundish. Instead of a pincushion cactus, she retreated from a skull. The wagon wheel had run over the feathered head of a bird of prey.

  Over there lay a haunch of some black-furred animal, and her sinuses were assaulted with the putrid smell of skunk. The prisoners around her touched mind, heart, liver, and spleen as Teresa felt cold eyes at the back of her head. She turned to find nothing there, yet shivers of dread rippled up and down her spine.

  More animal carcasses crossed their track. The puddles of blood became tiny rivers—the width of a teardrop—that worked their way through the hillocks of sand. The jabbering terror returned, and her hands knotted on Eva’s clothing. What had done this?

  As quickly as the scene of death came, it ended, providing no answers. The eyes at her back vanished, taking the sense of doom. Her heart slowed to a more regular beat.

  Maybe there are worse things than stopping for the night.

  Teresa sat huddled among the other prisoners as the Northerners ate. It wasn’t much protection since they now numbered fewer than thirteen. The twenty or so Northerners didn’t bother with a detailed camp, just blanket rolls laid out in a circle around the wagon and two fires. The leaping light cast sinister shadows more than cheer.

  The prisoners had each received a dipperful of water and naught else. The smell of stew cooking in metal pots over the fires caused Teresa’s mouth to water and her stomach to complain, making her head swim with hunger
. If she didn’t eat soon, she’d be one of those who couldn’t carry on in the morning. Her legs trembled with weakness more than fear.

  Once again, she thrust such thoughts aside and tried to focus on why the Northerners wanted them. They weren’t given any tasks as a slave might be forced to do. The fact that they weren’t put to pulling the wagon or carrying anything still confused her. If they were wanted for more deviant desires, why keep the older or more unattractive prisoners? She had thought perhaps they intended some sort of ransom, but the few in silks, like the grandmotherly woman, were treated no differently than those in plain woolens. It made no sense.

  Another oddity—she had noticed, they almost never killed a prisoner after dark, only during the daytime. She glanced at the night sky but felt no relief. Death wasn’t the only terror.

  A heel of bread pelted the prisoner to her right, tossed with a laugh. A mad scramble ensued, and Teresa found herself diving for the food like everyone around her, driven by desperation. Another heel tossed on the other side sent the fight in that direction. The Northerners took obvious enjoyment from the scramble. A man with cuts across his face from having his beard removed kicked her in his haste to keep the morsel he’d secured for himself.

  “No,” the black-shawled grandmother whispered. “We are people of Colina Hermosa, not animals. We will share.”

  “Aye,” Alvito agreed.

  For a moment, Teresa thought reason would prevail, then the next crust of bread landed in the center of them and a fierce free-for-all with pushing and shoving broke out. The small bit of food was torn into shreds. She set her jaw and refused to participate.

  She had underestimated the Northerners’ lack of humanity. They kept the prisoners not for profit, but for fun. The creatures enjoyed seeing other humans suffer and debase themselves. They were nothing more than entertainment. Of all she had witnessed, this divisiveness sickened her the most.