“There’s room in my knapsack, I think. Just wrap them carefully.”
She grinned and skipped away. “Eggs, eggs, a basket of eggs,” she sang, “and another for the chickadees.”
Jacian was silent for a long while, busy with some sort of make-believe. After a time, Lavendier, Adlena, and Viol emerged from the wood and put down their bundles of gathered treats, and Lavendier came over to him.
“Where is Cila?” asked Garrity, and Lavendier pointed back into the woods. “Alone?” he asked.
“No,” said Lavendier with a smile, and he smiled back.
“Oh.”
Jacian ran off to his mother and Viol, and Lavendier seated herself where he had been. She laid out the sticks and counted them.
“How many are there?” asked Garrity.
“Fifteen.”
“That’s after fourteen.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Lavendier gathered the sticks into her hand. She had been taking much better care of herself the past few weeks. Her hair, while not always shining, was carefully braided and pulled back from her face, with only little wisps curling around her ears. Her face was clean, and she changed between her two gowns every morning, washing them whenever she got the chance. Her long skirts had long ago vanished to be used as bandages and fabric scraps, and all the frills had fallen to the wayside, leaving only the practical, travelable fabric underneath. Altogether, she looked quite a different person from the spoiled, made-up princess who left Fort Jourinan, and different again from the frazzled, despairing wraith of their travels.
When next she spoke, her voice was musing and distant. “How far are we, do you think? What’s waiting for us?”
“I only know what I have heard from Asbult. That beyond these woods, he thinks, there is a brief strip of Karaka and then the Great Desert. Beyond that is a range of the Yellow Mountains and beyond them is the sea.”
“You don’t really think that? I mean, you wouldn’t be fighting so hard to take us to this place unless you really thought there was somewhere to go.”
“Conviction is not something I possess in any measure, Laven. In fact, I do not feel anything very strongly.”
She looked at him in astonishment. “How can you be so good all the time unless you believed in goodness?”
“I suppose I believe. Bur I don’t really feel conviction. I just act like I do.” He was silent a moment, then asked her suddenly. “Is that hypocrisy, do you think?” He was surprised that he was interested in her answer.
“Yes. I think it is. But I’m not sure it is necessarily bad. So you really think we’re not going anywhere?”
“What I think and what I choose to do are two different things.”
Her heart sank in frustration. “What? That makes no sense! That is bad hypocrisy.”
“I will do what needs to be done, and what I think is best, regardless of what I know.”
“How can you think it is best if you think it is not there?”
“I don’t know if it is there,” he answered in his quiet, slow way, her sharp tone making no more dint in his calm than a fly in a waterfall. “I want it to be but there is no proof, one way or the other. But there never has been in my life, and I have learned to carry on. But this time it is worse,” he said as if to himself, “because now I am responsible for others.” He spoke to her again. “If I am a hypocrite, I’m sorry.”
Lavendier was frustrated and went to find Viol. She helped her roast the nuts, but her face kept contorting into such awful grimaces of thought, that Viol finally cried out, “What is bothering you? You keep scrunching up her nose and looking at the sky.”
“Really?” she looked pleased at the image. “I didn’t know I did that.”
“So what were you thinking about?”
The smile fell away, replaced by a frustrated crinkle in her forehead. “Garrity is confusing me. He’s always confusing!”
“I never find him so.”
“He said he doesn’t believe in our journey. He does not think there’s a haven at the end.”
“I am sure he never said that, for I have spoken with him about it. He just thinks there is no proof, but that it is still our best option. Laven, he believes. Otherwise he would not take us.”
Lavendier sighed in frustration. “Do you want me to crack those walnuts?”
“Just be careful,” warned her sister, “they have only just come out of the fire. What do you think it will be like when we go back to Drian? Do you ever think about that?”
“Yes,” said Lavendier sadly, “I dream about it almost every night. In between all my dreams of death and dying.”
“Both of those?” said Viol dryly, “death and dying?”
Suddenly, they giggled.
“How can we laugh about something like that?” gasped Lavendier.
Viol laughed and shrugged. “If we didn’t, the reality would be unbearable.”
“Isn’t it though? Isn’t it already?” Lavendier sobered a little as she mused. “There’s one thing I’m glad of though – ow!” she stuck her finger in her mouth, burned on one of the nuts.
“I told you they were hot!”
“I’ll live. I was going to say that I’m glad I am not one of the men, and I do not have to kill as often as they do. I think it would make the horror that much more awful.”
“You get used to it,” said Garrity’s voice from behind them. He had come over when Lavendier cried out and heard the last thing she said.
“I know. But it’s still awful,” she said. “To get used to killing – how terrible is that?” There was a long silence in response. She looked up and frowned to see that he was upset by her question.
“I did not mean offense,” she said hesitantly. “I was thoughtless.”
“Garrity,” said Viol, but he held up his hand. He looked up and smiled reassuringly at the two girls.
“No matter. But you are right – it is a terrible thing to grow used to killing…” Although his mouth smiled, his eyes were frowning, and he walked away.
Lavendier cracked nuts in silence. Jacian came and asked for some, and brought her out of her brooding, but when she had satisfied his hunger, she went right back into it.
“Laven! Hey!” Viol called her name as if she had already called it, unnoticed, several times.
“Did you want something?”
“Yes. I want your attention,” she smiled. “You’ve been reflecting his mood, you know. And it’s annoying because I like it best when you’re happy; but he is seldom happy and so your usual cheerful self is absent more than I care for.”
“I always used to be cheerful, but I was never happy. Now, oddly, I’m far less cheerful; but I’m happier…I think.”
“I did not care for your old sort of cheerfulness. But it is good now: meant for others, not just for yourself.”
Lavendier blushed and smiled, and her thoughts jumped back to all that had led to her transformation. “How long have we been traveling? How many weeks?”
“I know not. Maybe two months?”
“That is such a long time! If I had known, when we departed, how long we would be gone…No, I would not have acted any differently.” Viol could hear pain in her sister’s voice and it only increased when she spoke again. “Viol, I…I want to tell you something. Something terrible that I did.”
“Don’t.”
Lavendier looked up in surprise and Viol met her sister’s bright green eyes with her own gentle brown ones. “Do not tell me about it. I do not want to know.”
“Why not?” asked Lavendier shakily. She was ready to confess, to take responsibility for her crimes and have her sister know her for who she truly was. A part of her wanted that, and a part of her shrank from it. “Don’t you deserve to know?”
Viol leaned over and touched her sister’s pale cheek. “You are not that person anymore. I am meeting you now for who you are, not then. I think that I never really knew you before. You had too many defensive walls
around your soul.”
“No,” Lavendier shook her head; “I had too few. You could not know me because I did not know myself.”
The sun had long since disappeared and the full moon now beamed down upon them her silver light. Shadows embraced the sisters where they sat and the stars glistened their companionable presence. Viol squeezed her sister’s hand and the two of them sat, comfortable and silent in the night.
65
Women, Pipes, and Organized Attacks
Garrity had pulled Asbult aside from the rest of the group, and now they stood atop a ridge, looking out in all directions as far as they could see through the trees. Until it grew dark, they would see if any gorgans came, and then, in the deep night, they would have only their ears to rely on.
With his arms folded across his chest, his auburn brown hair long and brushing past his shoulder, Garrity stood a formidable figure of a man. But his heart stirred uneasily within him, and he glanced all about like one uncertain of his own mind. Asbult, sensing his friend’s discomfort, reached inside his shirt and drew out a pipe.
Garrity raised his eyebrows with sudden interest. “You still have that – after all this time? I was certain that it must have been broken in battle, or lost along the way.”
“A man guards two things in this life,” said Asbult, tamping it down, “his woman and his pipe. Only when one has a woman does he truly enjoy his pipe, and only when he has a pipe does he have patience for his woman.”
Garrity laughed. “Marital problems?” he asked.
Asbult took a long pull, then handed it over to Garrity. Once his friend had enjoyed and then returned it, he smoked contemplatively.
“It is not the easiest thing in the world – marriage. Beware its superficial charms.”
“Come now, my friend. I know little of marriage, but I have never seen a happier couple than Cila and yourself.”
Asbult chuckled. “The happiest couple in the world will have its tiffs.”
“What is the problem?”
“I laugh too much. And now you laugh at me…but it is the truth. Sometimes, I don’t know when I should not laugh, so I do, and I upset her. But then she does not talk about it. No. I could handle it if she would speak right out and tell me what was wrong, but I have to guess, and that is worse than anything. It will blow over – it always does,” he took an extra long pull. “But in the meantime, I need patience. And unless I’m misreading your budding relationship with another of the princesses,” he handed over the pipe, “you might need some of that patience yourself.”
Garrity sighed and accepted the instrument, pulling a large cloud into his mouth, letting its smoky phouf play in his mouth and over his tongue, and then exhaling slowly. There is nothing like a good pipe to ease the tension of life. “I’m not sure what’s going on with her. She has latched onto me like a cocoon to a branch, and I cannot seem to detach her without doing permanent harm.”
Asbult chuckled, accepting his pipe back. “That’s Lavendier for you. She did the same to Merciec.”
“She confuses me. She has so much life, like it’s going to burst out of her and do something fantastic. But she kept it bottled up so long that it rotted away into meanness, and it is only just now venturing back into the light. What was she like as a child?” he inquired suddenly.
“She was magnificent.” Asbult suddenly laughed, remembering. “You couldn’t help but be happy in her presence. No matter how happy you already were, if she came into the room, you were ten times happier. It was like she took you over and you had no control of your emotions. If she was happy, you wanted to laugh and dance and kiss everyone. And if she was angry, it was the same thing. You wanted to rescue her, defend her from whatever had clouded the vitality and sweetness with which she was forever clothed.”
“You sound like you loved her.”
Asbult shrugged. “Everyone did. You couldn’t help it. And I still do…I suppose. The Nians were like family to me.”
“So what happened to her?”
He sighed. “One day, she was not happy anymore. She had come to think of herself so much that there was no more innocence or sweetness, and she had become a force of depravity. We grew up together you know, Trinian, Afias, Lavendier, Cila and I. We were a unit, until Trinian left for the army. And then Laven became a stranger to us, and we had to choose whether we wanted to be sucked into her self-destructive vortex, or break free of her. It would have been so easy to follow her… But we did not want to be used, and so in a way, I suppose, we cast her off. And she has hated us all for it. And, I think, been very lonely ever since.”
Garrity sighed. “Do you think this change for the better will last?”
Asbult did not answer right away. He knocked out his pipe and scooped it clean, then returned it to his shirt. “If she does anything, she does it with her whole heart. I would warn you to be cautious, except that it’s your only mode of being, so it is hardly necessary. But be open too. Who knows, you may need this connection as much as she.”
Garrity nodded, but did not move. His glance continued to scan the horizon, and at last, he said what he had come to say. “I think we should go back.”
“Why?” asked Asbult quietly, without surprise.
“What if there is something ahead, a paradise, and what if there is not? It matters not, and you know that, because we would have to pass through Karaka first. As many gorgans as we have met here, the numbers in Karaka must be uncountable. Too many for a soldier, a scout, and a princess to defeat. Why do you insist on going on?”
“There is a pattern,” said Asbult. “I can only feel it, but I know it to be there. There are beats between each attack, consistencies. They are scanning Mestraff for us, and they are piling up behind us. We have stayed ahead so far, but they’re piling, and I can feel it. The only thing that has given us an advantage is that they are stupid. Or rather,” he laughed, “we are. We’re going the one direction they don’t expect, so they’re scanning everywhere else first. I guarantee you it’s an organized search.”
“But you said it’s a feeling. You could be wrong.”
“I will tell you what I have seen. There were two days between attacks at the beginning, and then the long break. Why? Because they didn’t think we’d go through the no-man’s land. No one does. Now that we’re on the other side and they’ve found us, the attacks will grow more frequent again. They’ll close in. But we’ve got some time, I think, because most of their forces are to the south, looking for us in the middle of Mestraff, not the north. And hopefully, we’ll be in Karaka before they quite figure out where we’re going.”
Garrity felt like he sat with a noose around his neck that grew gradually tighter with each word. So the enemy was trying to bottle-neck them. And Asbult had led them through the danger of the no-man’s land intentionally. “You knew we’d face those monsters?” he asked. “Merciec was crumpled by that beast, Lavendier was nearly killed…”
Asbult was grim. “I had heard rumors about the beasts. It is a terrible burden to know I led a brave man to his death, and of course that path was not my first choice. But after yesterday’s attack, I am confirmed that it was the right one. The gorgan party we met on the bank, and the next one after, did not know who we were, and were not intentional about their attack, but every other foray has been coordinated. They know who we are and they are hunting us. We would never get back through Mestraff alive.”
Garrity said nothing more. He was far from convinced, but he looked upon his brother-in-law with fearful awe. Asbult’s exterior was forever cheerful and kind, belying the horrific decisions he had made and born in silence. They had all sacrificed, and to turn back now would be a terrible blow, but still the demi-god wavered. As terrible as the journey had been thus far, surely, Karaka would be far worse.
* * *
Asbult lay a distance from the camp – he could barely see the glow of the fire through the thicket – with Cila tucked in his arms. Garrity was on first watch so it was with no qualms that t
he husband and wife remained apart from the others the first half of the night. They were wrapped in conversation, sometimes with words, but mostly without.
Or rather, Cila did not use words – it was impossible, when Asbult gazed into his wife’s eyes, for him to say nothing, even if it was simply commenting once again on her beauty, or mentioning the coldness of the night and the warmth of her in his arms. Asbult could be a buffoon, but he was a sentimental one.
Cila was laughing at one of his jokes and stroking his beard when he commented, “It’s fortunate I married one of the king’s sisters, you know.”
“Oh?” she asked.
“Otherwise I would undoubtedly have been appointed to the position of court jester. No one would ever have taken me seriously if not for my marriage.”
Cila’s gentle eyes shone like the stars. “Your only talent is for marrying?”
“Well, naturally; for I am highly attractive. I can’t help that – I was born with it.”
“Jesters have to be funny, not attractive. And you, my dear love, are not.”
“What a low blow! And I thought you had forgiven me for laughing at you. Well, I’m a little funny. Depend upon it, my dear, I would have been a jester for the ladies: to be both admired and ridiculed. You saved me from a gruesome fate.”
“Ah! To be ridiculed and admired by only one woman – that is preferable?”
He laughed his lusty laugh, lowering his voice as she put a warning hand on his wide-parted lips. “I take your point. Yes, it is preferable – ridicule.”
They went on in such a manner as the night fell away and dawn was brightening the sky. Asbult’s shift for the watch arrived and he rose from the ground with a parting kiss. She grabbed his hand as he went, however, and pulled him back down for another. Then Garrity appeared at a crouching run, hastening towards them across the hilly ground.
“We’re surrounded,” he whispered. “I woke Laven and Viol—” but he was cut off by a speeding arrow that lodged above his head in a tree. Then, all of a sudden, the woods were full of cries and pounding footsteps and they were engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
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