Medric smelled strongly of smoke, and she wondered how the Sainnites were enjoying living in ashes. “Did your people blame you for failing to predict Fire Night?”
“Of course they did. What good am I to them if I can’t avert disaster?” His young face looked as old and tired as Emil’s did lately. “I fear they will never see that they brought disaster upon themselves.” With his chin resting in his hands, he gazed across the lush farmlands of the valley. “Only recently, I realized it myself. Everything I have done that my people admire me fore—or at least that they don’t vilify me for—has been wrong. I am a boy, misusing my talent to prove my worth to the people who will never accept me. To be a seer, the way I have to follow is a difficult one: difficult and terrible.”
He hesitated, with his head bowed over his hands. “I have dreamed of you, Zanja, and of the Man on the Hill, your commander, many times. You have a kinship with him, a kinship I first recognized as a danger, for together you constitute a formidable enemy. Together, you do much with little. Alone, I do little with much. So my admiration, I confess, is fraught with envy. I am asking you to give me an entrance to his trust. He is the way by which I might leave my father’s people and serve my mother’s instead. You are the way by which I might reach him.”
Zanja said, a long time later, “First you must find an entrance to my trust.”
“Yes,” he said. The single word seemed heavy, an acknowledgment, an acceptance, the marking of an irrevocable step already taken. But then, strangely, he began to tell her a story.
“When my father’s people, whom you call Sainnites, first arrived on the shores of Shaftal over thirty years ago, they were the vanguard of an influx of refugees. My father was my age then, and from childhood I have heard him talk of the lands left behind, and the battles he fought there, like his father before him. In Sainna and the surrounding countries, people were born into castes, and my father’s people were the Carolins, a caste of soldiers. They were mercenaries, really, living in bands or armies rather like your tribes, except that they might be hired by one warlord or another, and they would fight against another band of Carolins like themselves. This was how they had lived, for time beyond memory. Though the old people remember those times fondly, it seems as though they were a poor and even desperate people, especially during times of peace when they had little choice except to turn brigand.
“Well, I don’t really understand the entire story, because the Carolins themselves never wholly understood it—it was their business to do as ordered, not to understand. Apparently, Sainna and all its neighboring countries went to war with each other, a war that lasted many long years, in which thousands of Carolins died on both side. It seems as though it was the nature of this kind of war that it was ultimately a war of resources: How long could the warlords afford to field their armies before the resources ran out? As it happens, Sainna began to lose, and it became apparent that all the Carolins of Sainna would be executed without mercy. So the Carolins began casting about for a place to flee, and their only choice really was to set to sea. They bought, borrowed, or stole ships and over a period of some five years many thousands made their way here to Shaftal, though thousands of others died and continued to die in the last years of the war.
“My father was among the earliest to arrive, and the people of his band found ways to make themselves welcome in a small seaside community. Others, though, were met with hostility and fell into their old habits of thievery and brigandry, which brought the Paladins upon them. The Carolins did not know about Shaftali winters, and a good many of them died because they entered the season unprepared. Tradition and ignorance made it impossible for them to farm; they got no help from the people of the coast who rapidly grew intolerant of them, and I’m sure there were good reasons for it.
“In some places they turned to old methods of slavery, which is why the drug the Shaftali call ‘smoke’ first arrived here. Enslaving the farmers was a failure, for farming is far more complex and difficult to learn than we ever imagined it to be, and once the smoke killed the knowledgeable and experienced farmers we were worse off than we had been. Perhaps some ten years had passed by then, and at last the Carolins realized that they were not going to survive except by making war upon Shaftal, and so it happened that we became what we are today: we ourselves are warlords now, and I have to say that the whole history of the Carolin relations with Shaftal has been characterized by a kind of ignorant incompetence brought about by our inability to break with the past. We can only do what we have always done, even though it is destroying Shaftal and ourselves along with it.”
He stopped to sip some spring water, and, because he seemed to expect that Zanja would make some comment she said, with genuine astonishment, “Although I have fallen in with learned friends, not one of them knows this history. And you talk about ignorance on the part of the Sainnites!”
“Well, here is an example of it. The Carolins teach their children that the Shaftali are better off because of us—that we’ve released them from servitude to the Lilterwess magicians, and that most of the Shaftali secretly love us for it. At the very least, it is argued, the Shaftali have exchanged one bondage for another, which surely is no more onerous. They have no idea that the Shaftali were never subject to the Lilterwess, but that all of them were subject to the Law. They can’t imagine that Shaftal had no lords. It doesn’t help that the Shaftali and the Carolins speak different languages,” Medric continued. “Even my parents could barely communicate with each other.”
Zanja rummaged in the basket, but she had eaten all the grapes and she didn’t like the sweetmeats. She cut herself another piece of cheese, thinking about how much more likely it seemed that Emil might accept Medric, not because of everything he had told Zanja but because he clearly was, or should be, a scholar.
The silence had lasted quite some time. She glanced at Medric, and found him staring blankly over the top of his spectacles. She did not disturb him from whatever vision he was having, but in a moment he shook himself out of his reverie and murmured in his father’s language, “Almost I can see it—an ordinary winter day, writing my book by the fire—except that it’s in a Shaftali cottage and the windows open into vast spaces.” He sighed.
“What are you saying?” Zanja asked, so he would not know that she understood Sainnese.
“I’m sorry, I was talking to myself.”
“Your mother must have had fire blood, didn’t she? Did she fall in love as fire bloods do, for no good reason, and pay a high price for it?”
Medric said quietly, “Well, she always said there was a reason, a good reason that she herself could not explain, but I always had the feeling it had something to do with me. Certainly, if ever a fire blood felt herself driven by a sense of destiny and obligation to a future she could not wholly envision, that person was my mother. You’re a bit like her, I think, else why would you be here?” He smiled his tentative smile, like a man too accustomed to receiving a hostile reception. “You know the old saying, fire bloods are the hinges of history.”
Zanja did not know the old saying, but she replied with odd bitterness. “You will not lay your mother’s project upon me, Medric. You must open and close your own doors.”
“I know.”
After a moment, Zanja picked up his battered book and leafed through it. The book surely had been through the war before it ever made its way to the hands of a man who could actually read and use it. Much of it seemed to be philosophy, but it also contained whole chapters of practical advice on how to live. One phrase struck Zanja: “Live for the future or not at all.” She shut the book and gave it back to Medric, who had been anxious during the whole time she held it.
“All my books have come from the bottoms of soldier’s footlockers,” Medric said. “They keep odd things sometimes. The soldier who sold this book to me had it from a Lilterwess school that she helped burn down.”
Zanja said, “Do you happen to know why the Carolins attacked the Ashawala’i? They were a peaceful mountain people, famous for their woolens...”
“Oh, I know all about it. That whole incident is infamous, you know. But it was particularly important to me. There was another Shaftali-born Carolin seer, a year or two older than I. She had a dream that she interpreted to mean that the Ashawala’i were going to defeat and destroy the Carolins. Not one of the Ashawala’i could be left alive, she said, or her prediction would come true.
Medric opened his book and said, as if reading from it, “Such dreams should cause self-examination, reassessment of purpose and intention. But to simply react to dreams like puppets on strings leads to panicked, superstitious insanity. The best seer in the land sees only a very small part of the truth.” He shut the book. “The Carolins don’t understand that, and neither did the other seer until perhaps she realized, after the Ashawala’i had been destroyed, that the insane enterprise itself might be the cause of the Carolin downfall. We lost an enormous number of soldiers on that one campaign, and you cannot imagine what an impact such a loss had on a practically childless people. Anyway, she killed herself.”
There was a silence. “I don’t know why I didn’t learn from her mistakes,” he added. “Why do you want to know about the Ashawala’i?”
“They were my people,” Zanja said.
She felt the presence of the ghosts: the infants burned in their baskets, the children massacred in the arms of their parents, the old people shielding the young, the katrim with their light weaponry broken in their hands. Medric studied her through lenses glazed with light, and said quite softly, “So now you are the arrow in the bow we ourselves have strung.”
“Tell me how I am going to destroy the Sainnites. I am very curious.”
He gazed at her steadily, long enough that she began to feel uncomfortable, and finally said, “I don’t know what you are going to do. If I did know, I would not tell you. But I will tell you this, for what it’s worth: The elemental flame either transforms or destroys, and we fire bloods have the power to choose which of those it will be. I have made my choice. When you have made yours, I will meet you here again.”
He took a folded piece of paper from where it was tucked between the pages of his book, and gave it to her. It was a map, roughly sketched, though it was easy enough to identify Wilton, and the river, and the fens, and the location of South Hill Company’s encampment, which was clearly marked, along with the locations of the pickets. It wouldn’t have been too difficult for the Sainnites to locate such a large encampment, but still it was a shock to see it all neatly laid out like this. “We’re going to attack tonight,” Medric said. “We’ll come up the river, here, and through the woods.” He traced a path with his fingertips. “And we’ll surround you, trapping you between us and the swamp. We won’t attack until near dawn, so we’ll have enough light to shoot by.”
He took the map and put it back in the book. “Zanja, now I ask your mercy. It’s hard enough to live with the betrayals I’ve already committed, the deaths I’ve already caused. Please don’t use this knowledge to ambush the Carolins.”
Zanja could think of nothing to say, no promises she felt able to make.
Medric wrapped his precious book in linen and packed up the basket. He looked very tired. “I have been acting as my own enemy, finding ways to undermine my own plans. Our gaol is full of South Hillers who I insist must not be harmed. I have allowed you to burn down the garrison. Now, tonight’s attack will surely go awry. As you might well imagine, my position among the Sainnites will soon become impossible. But I will no longer dream for them, no matter what disasters result. I must find my way with a larger vision.”
He stood up. “I wish the same for you.”
Chapter 16
During the half day of furtive travel along backways and across planted fields, and finally across a portion of the fens which entailed much wading but at least was passable, Zanja had plenty of time to consider and reconsider her situation. Now, as sunset approached and she stopped on firm ground to strap her boots on before starting the last climb up the slope to the overlook, she marveled at how visible the campfires were. As she approached the camp her wonder only increased. No picket challenged her, and she walked into the heart of the encampment practically unnoticed.
There was much distracted hustle and bustle, with goose being roasted on spits, the mess of occupation being tidied up, and many excited people clustered in arm-waving conversations, for there never was a South Hiller who could talk without gesturing. At the smoky heart of the encampment, though, there was a stillness where Emil bowed and poured tea from his porcelain teapot. His three lieutenants flanked him, their faces pink with washing, dressed in their cleanest longshirts, their heavy boots tucked up close to their stocky farmer’s bodies. Annis sat among them, charmingly flushed by something being said to her by the erect, gray-haired woman who sat beside her upon Emil’s stool. This woman was boldly dressed, like the three other strangers who sat somewhat behind her, in Paladin’s black. Even from a distance Zanja could see the flash of three golden earrings in her left earlobe. The three earrings of Right, Rank, and Regard had once been worn only by a high commander, a general. Only one such person remained alive now, in all of Shaftal.
Zanja felt a great weariness, a heaviness so overwhelming she could not continue forward, and scarcely could continue to stand. Transfixed by this exhaustion, she did nothing when Councilor Mabin turned her attention to Zanja, as though, of all the gazes that were turned on her, it was Zanja’s that mattered. For a long, strange moment they looked into each other’s faces across the distance that separated them. Then she spoke to Emil, who hastily set down his teapot and walked over to Zanja.
“What’s the matter?” He asked her.
“The Sainnites are going to attack us tonight, here at Fen Overlook.”
It seemed a measure of their friendship, or perhaps of Emil himself, that he did not even make her explain further, thus making it possible for her to avoid directly lying to him.
He said, “Well, our watchers would have noticed if a company had left the city gates yet - it’s still light enough to see. So we have some hours at least in which to decide what to do.”
“I think so.”
“You look weary to death.” Emil gripped her by the shoulder and somehow she became able to walk with him up to the smoky fire.
The general had never taken her gaze from them. Now she rose to her feet. “Zanja na’Tarwein?” All the other conversations around the fire fell abruptly silent.
“Madam Councilor,” Zanja said, “You may not remember, but we have met before.”
Mabin said, “I remember you. You are much changed in fifteen years.”
Zanja scarcely could fumble a reply as Mabin, the legendary author of Warfare and the head of Shaftal’s shadow government expressed her sorrow over the massacre of the Ashawala’i and welcomed her formally into the Paladins. It was, or should have been, a triumph for Zanja to be greeted like this by the Councilor herself, with all the company watching. But her status in South Hill no longer seemed relevant.
“Norina Truthken has written to me about you several times,” Mabin said.
Zanja felt quite witless. Emil said quietly, “Sit down—maybe some tea will help.”
Zanja sat beside Annis and held up her porringer for Emil to fill with tea, for he had distributed all six of his teacups already. She drank too quickly, scalding her mouth, while Emil said to everyone at the fire, “Zanja thinks the Sainnites are going to attack Fen Overlook.” He added, for those who did not know, “She is a presciant.”
Silence greeted Emil’s announcement, and then a fierce argument and discussion which Zanja could not heed. In the midst of it Annis put her mouth against Zanja’s ear and whispered, “Mabin’s taking me away with her, to make rock
ets for the Paladins!”
“That’s good,” Zanja said, then realized, when Annis pulled away sharply, that she should have said something else. “I’ll miss you,” she added belatedly.
Annis showed her teeth. “Sure you will.”
Zanja tried to pay attention to the discussion that swirled around her. Willis argued that South Hill Company should set a trap for the Sainnites, if Emil was so certain that Zanja’s prescience was dependable.
“We must not attack them!” Zanja cried. They all looked at her, but Zanja couldn’t think of an explanation for her reluctance to ambush the Sainnites. She put her head in her hands and wished desperately that her skull would simply explode. “If we attack them,” she said, “it will be a disaster.”
Emil said, “Annis, please find Jerrell and tell her to bring a remedy for a head-ache.”
“Are we to spend the entire season running and hiding from a figment of the imagination?” Willis’s big fist had clenched. In the twilight, with the light of the flames moving across it, his fist seemed monstrous. It pounded upon his knee in a fever of frustration and Willis’s voice rose to a shout. “It is a coward’s way!” His fist opened up, and he pointed across the fire, at Zanja. “Before this—foreigner—came to South Hill, we were not cowards! Here we have a perfect opportunity—she says—to do the Sainnites some damage. . But no, we dare not—because she says no. Prescience is nothing but an impulse—an instinct—and maybe it’s the instinct of a warrior who has lost her nerve!”
Emil’s hand pressed down heavily upon Zanja’s shoulder. She had not even noticed him coming around to her side, but the hand on her shoulder shored up her disintegrating discipline. Emil said, “Willis, since you hold fire talent in such contempt, perhaps you might be happier in a company that does not have a presciant as its commander.”
Fire Logic Page 20