Forgotten Soldiers

by Joshua P. Simon

  I asked Zadok about Uncle Uriah.

  “He died a year before we got that letter I told you about.”

  “That long ago?” I shook my head in disbelief. Lasha never said a word about his death or any of the other stuff everyone endured in her letters.

  “Yeah, losing the farm really brought him down,” said Zadok. He walked a few steps ahead. “He started drinking away what little money Ma earned cleaning people’s homes. One day he and Ma got into it. Both said a lot of bad things to each other. Uncle said some stuff about you too, blaming you for our troubles. Ma slapped him for that. That ended the argument. Uncle Uriah left.” He kicked the dirt. “They found his body the next day. He hung himself out in the apple orchard.”

  “Molak be cursed.” I blew out a slow breath. “I’m sorry. I should have been here.”

  “It’s not your fault, Pa. Ma never blamed you. She said that you were doing the right thing, something I should be proud of no matter what the rumors said. We knew you weren’t killing kids and stuff. Right?”

  I recalled the young soldier near Myra’s age I had killed in our final mission. I thought of the dozens of others, some older, some younger, who had tried to kill me. I looked away and chose to ignore his question. “How does Myra feel about everything?”

  “Oh, she hates you.”

  Gods, that wasn’t exactly what I meant.

  Zadok continued. “Even though she thinks you’re dead.” He looked up. “But you’re here now, so you can explain everything to her and make it right. We can be a family again.” He frowned. “Well, mostly.”

  Though Zadok seemed to be in better spirits, I was still hesitant to press him about the particulars regarding Lasha’s death. I had only been reunited with my son for a short period. The last thing I wanted was to push him into a place he did not feel comfortable going.

  My hope was that Myra might be able to fill in the details where Zadok could not.

  “Did things get any easier after Uncle Uriah died?”

  “No. You would think so since there were fewer ways to split the food and we didn’t have to worry about him drinking all the time. But after they found his body, the people Ma used to do work for asked her not to come around anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they got to thinking that something was wrong with us on account of her.”

  “What!”

  He kicked the dirt again. “Yeah. They said it started when your Pa died just a few weeks after you married Ma.”

  “A rattlesnake bit him,” I said cutting in. “That had nothing to do with your Ma.”

  He shrugged. “They said we were cursed like the farm. Grandpa died. You went off to the army, and everyone thought you died too. We lost the farm after three generations of nothing but prosperity. Uncle Uriah hanged himself . . .” He sighed. “Ma kept looking for work, but no one would hire her. Not even to wash clothes or scrub floors.”

  “What did you do for money?”

  “We had no money. We slept in the woods and mostly foraged for food. Even with the few things we managed to trap or catch, we were always hungry. Myra was getting pretty angry then. She used to ask Ma why we didn’t just go live with her family down south. But Ma said it was too dangerous to travel that far alone, and besides, how would we pay to travel.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, we had been living like that for months. It wasn’t ideal, but we got by. But that was during the warmer months. Early that winter, before it got too cold, we huddled around a small fire trying to stay warm. I was shivering hard. Ma started crying. She got real angry and began stomping around the fire, swearing. That was the only time I ever heard her curse. It kind of scared me. Finally she stopped, kicked out the fire, and took us by the hands. She dragged us back to town in the middle of the night without a word.”

  “To go where?”

  “Somewhere she said she should have gone a long time ago, but pride wouldn’t let her. She said alive or dead she hoped you’d understand she had no other choice. After that, we all shared her room at the Soiled Dove. Well, except when Ma had to use it to work. Then me and Myra would have to try and sleep behind the stairs in the common room.”

  Zadok stopped talking then. I’m not sure why. Perhaps he saw something in the look on my face that begged him to.

  I fought hard to keep the tears at bay, figuring the last thing he needed to see was his Pa cry for the third time in one day. Despite my best efforts, more than a few escaped. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I had failed everyone I loved.

  His hand slipped into mine. I squeezed it, remembering how it felt to hold his hand years ago when things had been so much simpler.

  We walked in silence away from town toward Jareb’s plantation. Buzzing cicadas from the surrounding fields drowned out our footsteps.

  * * *

  The cicadas stopped and only the gods know how long we walked with no sound but our feet scraping dirt.

  Those were the same gods who I had always cared little about, and in light of what I just heard, cared less about than ever before. Their existence and influence no longer mattered to me. My dislike of them turned to hate. It would take a proverbial miracle for me to ever show them the respect their priests demanded.

  However, even if the gods existed only in the minds of men, I’d curse their names and every bit of their attributes. I figured that if they were indeed real, cursing them was the least I could do to recompense them for all they had done for me.

  People held different opinions on the role the gods played in our lives. Some felt that they intervened only when necessary, and took a passive approach to our lives. Others believed everything we did, down to the smallest detail, like wiping our noses on a sleeve instead of a handkerchief, had already been predestined by the deities who looked down on us.

  Both viewpoints had their flaws. It either meant the gods let bad things happen to people or actually made them happen.

  Thinking of all that my family and I had been through with not even the support of each other to lean on pushed aside some of the despair welling inside of me. Anger took its place. Before long, my jaw ached from clenching it.

  “Pa? Are you going to be all right?” Zadok asked.

  The sun had finally begun to set, bathing the rolling countryside in reds and purples. The bruised appearance of the landscape mirrored the ache coursing through my insides.

  Was I going to be all right? I didn’t know. But saying as much wouldn’t have done Zadok any favors. So, I lied.

  “I will be soon, son.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Your mother.” I decided to take a small chance. “Someone killed your mother at the Soiled Dove, didn’t they?”

  “Yes.” Zadok put his head down. “It was a . . . customer . . . as Ma used to call the men. He was drunk and . . .”

  I let go of his hand, and placed an arm around his shoulder. “It’s all right. I don’t need you to tell me everything about that night. I just wanted to know if my suspicions were accurate.”

  I felt him relax slightly.

  “Do you remember what happened to the man who killed her?”

  He nodded. “The sheriff gave him ten lashes and ordered the man to pay restitution to Omri for damaging his best worker for future money lost. Omri is the owner of the Soiled Dove.”

  I felt sick again, bile creeping upward. I managed to swallow it back down. My throat burned. One of the last conversations I had with Ava came to mind. “What if that had been Lasha?” she had asked me when referencing a whore who had been beaten by a soldier.

  At the time, Ava had been making a point about the women working our camp. Lasha had not made the decision to enter that life easily, or selfishly. She did it to care for our children. Pressed with a tough decision, she gave herself away like a piece of meat so that Myra and Zadok could survive. Did that make her a whore? Gods, my head spun just from thinking of that word in association with my wife. Or did
it make her a dedicated mother whose unselfishness continued to shine even in the darkest of moments? Did it just prove that she had been every bit as remarkable of a woman as I always knew she was?

  “How much restitution did you and Myra receive?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing!” I said, louder than intended, causing Zadok to jump.

  I cursed softly. Ten lashes and restitution for Omri. Nothing for my kids. A cattle thief would receive harsher punishment. Is that how everyone viewed Lasha for what she had become? Worth less than cattle?

  “What happened to you and Myra?”

  “Omri let us stay in the room for another week. But that ended when he brought in another worker. When she arrived, he kicked us out. We asked if we could keep sleeping behind the stairs, but he told us no.” He paused, head hanging. “Omri said that in a couple of years if we were still around, he’d give us a room of our own if Myra was interested in working for him. Said she had much of Ma’s look, and customers always paid more for satisfying their curiosity about the exotic.”

  Omri had not been the owner of the Soiled Dove when I left town. Stranger or not, I hated the man. I thought about having a talk with him, but knew that I couldn’t trust myself. The last thing I wanted to do was get arrested for killing him and abandon my kids all over again. Besides, I was more interested in seeing Myra at the moment than avenging Lasha.

  “What did you and Myra do next?”

  “We tried to find work, but no one was interested. We were getting pretty bad off again, sleeping where we could, eating whatever food we could steal.”

  He looked ashamed. I couldn’t fault them. Sometimes you did what you had to in order to survive.

  He continued. “Eventually Jareb offered us the jobs we have now.”

  “I didn’t think he would still be alive. He was old when I left.”

  “What? Oh, wait. You mean Jareb Senior. No, he died. Jareb Junior took over everything his father owned.”

  I grimaced. Jareb Junior had a year on me. Unlike Jareb Senior, Junior had been a donkey for as long as I could remember. I had put him in his place a couple of times when we were children and I caught him picking on Ava. He had backup for our last fight. I was not successful in defending my sister that time.

  That’s when Ava’s powers first manifested. It was also how I discovered my resistance to sorcery, as the only way to stop my sister from killing Jareb and his friends, was to hold her tight until she calmed down. It took weeks for them to recover. Pa had to do a whole lot of explaining so the town wouldn’t lynch and burn Ava as someone possessed with a demon.

  I grunted. Of course Ava had wanted to avoid Denu Creek.

  Anyway, Jareb junior didn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d change with age.

  But, ten years was a long time.

  We left the road a couple miles from town and walked the path leading to Jareb’s house as the sky continued to darken. The first stars began to appear in the clear night sky.

  “I thought we were going to see Myra,” I said.

  “We are.”

  “Oh. Is it common for her to work through dinner like this?”

  “Every night. If we’re awake, we’re working. Myra in the house. Me in the barn or fields. Sometimes we’re even woken up in the middle of the night if something needs doing.”

  I frowned. “That seems harsh.”

  He shrugged. “When we became indentured to him, those were the terms he offered. At least we have food and a place to stay.”

  My eyes looked at his bare feet. “But not shoes? Or better clothes for that matter?”

  “Jareb said money is tight. Maybe he’d get me some shoes next season.”

  I eyed the three-story home with columns and a wraparound porch. Light from oil lamps shone brightly in each window. Two burned on the porch near the door. Using such a large amount of oil served no other purpose than to flaunt the fact Jareb had the money to burn it. Money he could be using to buy shoes for my son.

  As a boy, the house had seemed enormous to me. As an adult, it was still impressive.

  “Yeah, I bet Jareb’s hurting for coin,” I muttered.

  “What was that, Pa?”

  “Nothing. Do you know the terms of your contract?”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve got eight more years to fulfill, but there is a buyout in year five if we manage to scrape together the coin to take advantage of it.”

  “So, he pays you too?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then how does he expect you to afford to pay the buyout?”

  Zadok shrugged. “It’s the same terms he’s offered the other servants.”

  Servants? I’d have called them slaves.

  “How much is the buyout?”

  “Forty gold pieces.”

  I staggered. “That’s over two year’s pay in the army. I guess it’s good I’ve been wise with my money.”

  “That’s actually the amount for each of us.”

  I spat, brows furrowing in anger. With contracts like that it seemed Jareb indeed hadn’t changed at all. I’d be able to cover their buyout though I’d have only a little left.

  But, at least I’d have my children. I could figure out the money problem later. Making us a family again was most important.

  We reached the steps to the porch. I took them two at a time while Zadok pumped his legs to keep up. My palms actually began to sweat, nervous to see Myra again.

  Zadok knocked.

  “You can’t just go inside?” I asked.

  “They don’t let the field workers in the house.”

  The door swung open.

  “Yes, may I—”

  “Myra!” Zadok shouted, grabbing her hand and pulling her onto the porch.

  Zadok began speaking so fast and with such excitement that it was hard for me to make out half of what he said. Myra understood though. She wore the same look of shock that Lasha would get. Same dark eyes, brightening in recognition. Same pursed lips as if ready to speak, but unable to find the right words to say. The short hair worn just as Lasha had only added to the eeriness I felt looking at my daughter, not seeing the little girl from ten years ago, but the young woman she was becoming.

  The only difference between mother and daughter was skin color. The dark chestnut associated with Lasha’s people, mixed with my pale skin gave Myra a coppery hue.

  Myra and I stared uncomfortably at each other as Zadok yammered on. I saw she could also stand to gain a few pounds to her wiry frame. Myra shook her head, turned to Zadok, and shushed him. “That’s enough.”

  The boy stopped.

  Myra’s eyes narrowed in a way that Lasha’s never had. I knew where she had inherited that look from. It had worked wonders for me in the army.

  “You’re supposed to be dead,” she said. Her tone was flat and even, not shaky in the least.

  “So, I’ve heard. The letter you got was wrong.”

  “Obviously.”

  This wasn’t going as I hoped.

  “I know this is a big surprise, but I’ve been discharged. I’ll explain everything later. Right now, I just want to take you and Zadok home.”

  “We don’t have a home anymore,” she snapped.

  “We can find a new one.”

  She pulled Zadok to her. “Zadok and I already found a new home. What makes you think we want to leave with you?”

  “Because I told him we do,” said Zadok. “Why are you acting like this? You hate it here more than I do, especially with Jareb—”

  “Zadok,” she hissed. The boy clamped his mouth down.

  I frowned. “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” she snapped.

  “All right. Look, I know you’ve both been through a lot. Zadok’s told me only some of it. I can never make that pain go away. And I can never make up those years I was gone. But, I still want to try anyway.” I held out my hand. “Please, let me try.”

  Her face softened, but not completely. She stared at my hand a
nd I could see her struggling with what to do—slap it away or take it.

  Gods, they had been through so much.

  “What’s taking so long, Myra? I asked you to get the door some time ago,” said a voice I recognized.

  Jareb stepped into view. Other than a poor attempt at a mustache, he hadn’t changed much in my time away. Brown hair, green eyes, defined jaw.

  He recognized me immediately, the surprise hindering his ability to speak for only a moment. He cleared his throat, stepped out of the doorway, pushing himself in front of Myra and Zadok.

  “Tyrus? By the gods, I thought you were dead,” he said. He looked over my shoulder, a bit nervous. “Ava with you?”

  I held back a smile. A decade later and he still hadn’t forgotten that thrashing. “No. She’s in Hol studying with Turine’s High Mages.”

  Jareb relaxed. His eyes went down to my boots then rose until they met mine. “You look like hell.”

  “I feel like it.” I nodded at his clothes—clean and wrinkle-free. You would have thought a tailor had made them that day. “I see you’re doing well for yourself.”

  A thin smile tugged at his face. “I certainly try to make it seem so. People have a way of not showing you the respect you desire if you don’t look like you deserve it.” He paused, looking down at the children who hadn’t said a word since he’d shown up. “I’d ask what brings you here, but I guess that’s rather obvious. They are doing well as you can see. Clothed and well-fed.”

  I wanted to refute that claim based on Zadok’s appearance and my own assumptions from Myra’s weight, but honestly, I didn’t have the time or inclination to argue. I just wanted to get my children and leave.

  “I’m ready to take them home. Now that I’m back, there’s no need for them to work for you. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate the chance you gave them,” I said, doing my best to keep the peace.

  Jareb clicked his tongue. “They have contracts with me.”