by Jane Abbott
‘Six weeks,’ he said. ‘And bring back those tags, Jem. The whole fuckin’ lot of ’em.’
I glanced at the waiting Guard, before smiling at Garrick. ‘That name you asked for earlier? It was Brandon.’
He flashed a grin and clapped me on the shoulder, thanking me for the gift. But I figured it was the least I could do. For both of us.
I preferred travelling at night. The days were too hot and the wind too strong, driving dust into eyes and ears and mouths, often whipping it into dark clouds that choked and blinded; not as bad as the fierce storms that stirred without warning, billowing into thick brown waves that poured over the mountains and splashed the earth with grit hard enough to flay a man, but sufficiently frenzied to make any travel uncomfortable. At night, though, the wind dropped, the heat faded, and the cold took over, gripping everything tight and freezing it slowly. But as long as you kept moving it was bearable, and we set off at a reasonable pace, making good time on the rutted road. We didn’t use a light, letting our eyes adjust to the darkness. And, thankfully, we didn’t talk.
Most of the Guards I’d had dealings with never shut up. It was like blathering was a prerequisite for the job, a way to disguise their incompetency. But this one had the sense to leave me in peace, and I spent my time thinking on the Council and the Guard and the Watch, the report I’d read and the rumours I’d heard, shuffling and reshuffling everything, trying to make some sense of it. And it was hard work, because the side of my head throbbed where Garrick’s fist had caught it, and when I touched it under my hood I could feel the bruise, already tender.
Trust no one. Taggart’s words kept floating back, annoying but insistent. The Guard I could understand; I wouldn’t trust them to piss in the Sea without missing. But the Council was something else. I realised that in the time I’d been in the Tower I’d never heard a single name mentioned, apart from Garrick’s and mine. The faces of the Councillors had been as forgettable as ours, each pale, wrinkled head much like the next. Briefly, I wondered which of them was Cade’s father, then dismissed it because it made little difference to what I had to do.
So who were the men who’d sat at that table and decided my fate? Why all the interference with my schedule, and the route? And why were they so anxious to rescue those two Guards? Since when did a Guard’s life count for anything? Fuck knows there were enough of them that a couple here or there wouldn’t be missed. Question after question, and not a single answer.
And behind me, panting in his now-too-warm clothes and making way too much noise on the road, was the other, more immediate, question: why send a Guard on a Watchman’s assignment? We had different uses, carried out different tasks. The Guard supposedly kept everyone in line and when they failed we were sent in to clean up the mess. That’s how it was, how it’d always been. Not perfect, but it worked. And now the Council was screwing with it.
We kept walking and I kept thinking and the Guard kept panting. I hadn’t asked his name. We might have to travel together, but we’d never become friends. Watchmen had no friends. It didn’t pay to, coz you never knew when you might have to kill them.
By midnight the Citadel was far behind us and we’d come across no other travellers, not even camel-borne messengers. That didn’t mean the road was empty though. We could’ve passed others resting off the side – sheltering in sand and dirt, or curled beneath dead scrub – without even realising it. Come morning, they’d be up and walking again, while we slept. The world moved in shifts, everyone doing their best to avoid everyone else, a hangover from the bad days. Guards were supposed to patrol the main roads, but we never saw a single one that night. Just one of many things they couldn’t do right.
The jug of water I’d drunk passed slowly into my bladder, pressing for release, but I ignored the growing ache and walked on for another hour or so, picking up the pace a little. With just a few hours left until dawn, I pulled off the road and picked a path overland until I found a suitable rough outcrop of granite. The Guard followed, stumbling here and there, but without any complaint or curse.
Dropping the pack south-side of the rocks, I stretched my shoulders to ease the pain across my chest where the straps had rubbed at the new marks. They felt damp with fresh blood, but I’d have to wait until daylight before seeing to them. A half-moon lent us enough greyness to scrounge in our packs for what we needed. Untying my trousers, I pulled out the new pot and removed the funnel cap, sighing with relief as my bladder emptied, the liquid warming the container in my cold hand. Glancing at the Guard, I held out the pot. Better to share, and piss was piss after all. When he shook his head, I shrugged. It meant no matter, but if you didn’t put in you didn’t take out either. He’d have to make his own water, coz he’d get none from me. Replacing the cap and attaching the tube and cylinder, I set it down to catch the first of the morning sun.
Sitting with my back to the rock face, holding my shirt away from the wounds while the blood dried, I chewed on a bit of bread and a couple of strips of meat, washing them down with short sips of water. The Guard sat opposite doing much the same, and I stared at him as he ate, watched him pull at his layers, trying to get comfortable.
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ I said, when he removed his cloak and started shrugging off an outer vest. ‘You’ll have sweated under all that, and you’ll chill too quick if you take any of it off now.’
He looked at me but nodded at last, pulling the cloak around him and flipping the hood back onto his head. From what I’d seen his hair was short, his face thin, and he looked about ten years old. He couldn’t have been, but that’s how he looked, and for fuck’s sake what were they thinking? This kid was nothing more than a raw recruit, worse than useless. And if they thought I’d nurse him along, they were dead wrong.
‘This your first time out of the Citadel?’ I asked, already knowing the answer.
‘Uh, yeah,’ he admitted, his voice husky and low from the cold.
‘Why?’ I said, wrestling another mouthful of meat from the strip in my hand.
‘Huh?’
‘You. Why send you instead of someone more experienced?’ Someone who knew what to expect, and could take care of himself. A Guard who at least might’ve realised that we weren’t heading east.
He shrugged, not replying, and I swore loudly. Five days, four if I pushed it, until we reached the settlement. Then the little fucker was on his own. We sat in silence for a while, me thinking about what lay ahead, him probably missing his mother.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked him, at last. For later, if I needed it.
He hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘Alex. And yours?’
Surprised he hadn’t already been told but pleased to be one-up, I said, ‘You don’t need to know.’
Settling myself on the ground with my back to the rock, I pulled the pack under my head and brought my hood down over my face. One hand held the staff, the other rested lightly on a knife hilt, and without another word I closed my eyes, dismissing him.
Without the wind and away from the Citadel and the Sea, the land settled quiet at night, real still, like the world was holding its breath ready for the next sigh. Occasionally you’d hear the scurry of a lizard and the whine of gnats and mosquitoes, but that was about it.
It was the noise that woke me, unmistakeable and loud: running water, dribbling and spurting. I wasn’t used to travelling with anyone else, except when I returned with Garrick’s bound and gagged gifts, and I’d become accustomed to my own noise, and my own quiet.
It wasn’t yet light, and I figured I’d been asleep for less than an hour, which wasn’t nearly enough. I tensed but lay still, fully alert, keeping my breathing even and spaced while I adjusted to the sound, focusing on it. Inching one hand up, lifting the edge of the hood, I saw Alex hunched over, squatting low to the ground, his back to me. His cloak bunched around his widespread feet and there was that hollow, wet noise. Right where I’d left the pot.
My first reaction was irritation that he’d woken me, chos
en to take a piss right there instead of moving away or round the other side of the rock. Then anger, that he was mucking around with my pot rather than using his own. He’d been given the chance earlier and turned it down, and now he was disturbing my sleep with all his messing around in the dark. And finally, when it dawned, there was shock.
But I didn’t say anything and I didn’t move, just watched through slitted eyes as he finished and rose, pulling up his trousers, careful to keep his boots away from the pot. Which was a good thing, coz if he knocked it over I’d kill him, orders or not. Bending again, he replaced the lid, leaving it as he’d found it and then, with a quick glance at me, shuffled back to his pack and curled up again on the ground. Like it had never happened.
On my side, I stared across at the pot, the round jar sitting neat and precise on the uneven ground. I hoped the tube was still in place, but I didn’t dare get up to check, because I didn’t want to give away that I’d seen what I had. Lying still until I was as sure as I could be that Alex slept, I rolled onto my back, tucked both hands behind my head, and stared at the sky.
The stars all used to have names, or numbers at least. Tagged, just like us. Every one of them known, every distance to Earth calculated carefully, like it was important, as though knowing would somehow give us an edge – a hope that should disaster come knocking we just might have somewhere else to go. Perhaps there were some people around who still knew a few of the names, who could point up and tell you the constellations. And maybe there were still some books which’d survived and were now kept in the Tower that might’ve told us what was what. Except so few people could read, and the rest didn’t care.
But whatever they were called, the stars were still beautiful, thousands of pricks of light that winked on and off; the bigger ones silvery, others tinged red by the dust that hung in the air, many so faint they disappeared as soon as you tried to focus on them. Under the stars you knew your place. And it was small.
As I stared, I thought about what I’d just seen. I’d planned on sticking to the road for another night or two before cutting east, but after watching Alex I realised it was time to change it up. Time to start finding out what I needed to know. Away from any risk of being stumbled upon by other travellers or, worse, another Guard actually doing his job.
Yeah, sometime soon Alex and I were going to have a little talk and I was going to find out why they’d sent, not a boy to do a man’s work, but a girl.
And, sharing my secret, I smiled at the stars, suddenly feeling less small.
Excerpt ~ Letter #7
It’s strange, the things we remember; more strange, what we choose to forget. I can remember the tangy juice of an orange and the crunch of an apple, the cool cream of cow’s milk, the thin taste of hot tea, the thick aroma of brewed coffee, the velvet slide of warm chocolate on my tongue. I remember the sweet smell of flowers, the leathery musk of a book, the richness of newly cut grass. I remember the sleekness of a cat’s fur, and the sound of a dog barking, I remember the fall of leaves, the cold of winter and the warm green of spring. I remember the bright morning your mother was born, and the long evening shadow when she died. And I can remember the exact moment when I realised I loved your grandfather; the first time we touched, and our first kiss. All these things I remember, Jeremiah, but I can’t remember the last time I ever felt truly safe, or the cool of rain upon my face.
The diesel-powered lights didn’t run for long; no sooner had torches and lamps been lit and set into niches in the walls than the droning sputtered and cut out, the light in the tunnel dimming further to shadowy flickers. Whether it was to save fuel or simply to spare everyone from the heady fumes, Sarah didn’t know. In those first few hours, and over the days that followed, they were told very little, every question parried with a shrug, a small, grim smile and that inevitable, increasingly annoying, you’ll see.
Banjo was pronounced unfit to travel; he’d have to wait for the next party, though when that might be no one said. In pain, confined to a lumpy mat on the floor of a cubicle, he didn’t protest this decision and, bidding him farewell, Sarah almost wished that she too had been injured, just so she could rest alongside him. The time allotted hadn’t been long enough and every muscle quaked at the thought of the journey ahead, her heart an added weight in her chest.
They were each given a cloak – more of a crude poncho, Sarah thought, slipping her head through one hole in the dark square of material and her arms through two others – a soft carrier filled with water, and a large wrapped package. Food, they were told, but they were to eat sparingly; there was no guarantee they’d get a chance to supplement it along the way. Sarah opened hers to see more of what they’d been given on the other side of the pass: dried crusts, and a thick wad of stiff meat strips. Another bundle contained curled, dried flesh, pale and yellowed; a rancid smell, and the sharp tang of salt and fish filled her nostrils. She stowed everything into the pack before shouldering it; Daniel would carry Jeremiah. But their weapons – Jon’s gun that had become Banjo’s, Daniel’s and Cutler’s rifles, the blades they’d all carried – weren’t returned, and no others were proffered. Not necessary, Burns said when Daniel asked, before leading them to the far end of the tunnel where five others waited; three looked, if not as tired as Sarah felt, at least as confused; the other two bore the same quiet, grim demeanour as Burns. One carried a large rifle with some kind of scope, a thick belt of ammunition slung across his chest; the other held a crossbow, and a heavy short blade hung from his belt; again Sarah wondered where they’d found such weapons, and how many more they had.
There was no sign of the lieutenant. Would Burns be taking them after all? Cutler asked, and Sarah felt a stab of hope. Burns was certainly odd, with his half-answers and his half-face, but at least he was a known entity. Nope, was his easy reply; his place was at the garrison.
Sarah hadn’t been able work out the hierarchy: was there one and, if so, who was in charge? Was it Burns, or someone else? In the time she’d been there, she’d heard only of the young lieutenant, except it’d been made clear that this wasn’t his place; he’d come from somewhere else, hadn’t he? From the wall, whatever that might be.
No names were exchanged with the other five; there was no time for such niceties. Burns nodded to one of his men, a small door in the huge gate was opened, and they were pushed out into the still-warm open air. The sun had fallen behind the mound of the tunnel, enough to cast the narrow gorge in which they found themselves into deep shadow, but the long strip of sky overhead, yellowing with late light, provided a backdrop for the silhouettes of men Sarah could see keeping watch atop the craggy cliffs. Below, the old road continued on before twisting around a chiselled outcrop and disappearing. It seemed they’d made no progress at all, she thought, despairing. They’d simply walked through a door from one pass into another. You still got a way to go.
But no, she realised, as she peered around. This was more than just a road leading nowhere. Here there was life and noise beyond the grunt of the sea and the whistle of the wind. There were smells and shouts, calls and even laughter. There were little wooden huts, makeshift lean-tos hugging the rock face; one glowed orange, and she heard the comforting rhythmic clang of beating metal. A forge, she thought, and remembered the lieutenant and his rough swords. To their right a crevice burrowed into the cliff, letting in a little more light; above it, a short bridge swung in the wind, and below that a long post – wood or metal, she couldn’t tell – jutted out and away, over the churning water below. Two men circled a big wheel, hauling on it and winching something from below; a pulley of some sort, she realised and at her question, Burns nodded and said, shortly: Bringin’ up water. C’mon.
Still leading, he moved them along briskly, but while they gazed at everything their curiosity wasn’t returned, everyone too busy to pay them any attention. They skirted a couple of high-walled pens set in the middle of the road, three-sided and open to the south but roofless, like the cubicles inside the tunnel; the brief glimps
e she was afforded into their dark interiors added to their mystery: they were filled with assorted tubs and barrels, and reeked of excrement. Again, Burns’s explanation was singular: Grain. Was that possible, Sarah wondered, without bees or water or any nourishing soil? Then she remembered the stale tasteless bread, and felt her hopes flicker again. If these people were able to achieve all this, in such a remote and inhospitable outpost, then how much better must the Citadel be? She felt Daniel’s excitement too, in the sudden squeeze of his hand.
And there, off to the side of the road, leaning on rough-hewn railings, stood the man who’d deliver them to that place. His back was to them as he talked to another beside him – a smaller, slighter figure – and though he seemed at ease he bore a strange alertness, a sixth-sense awareness of everything, and everyone. Sarah could see movement beyond the rails, small bodies butting and bleating and any doubt that the meat they’d been given was indeed goat vanished. Even more marvellous was the rangy, long-legged creature in the midst of the small herd, and Sarah felt a sudden relief; she hadn’t imagined it after all. In front of her was proof of her sanity: a camel.
The lieutenant turned before Burns could call out, and his companion did the same. Sarah saw a face planed with shadows, older than the lieutenant’s, but just as fine. The woman was cloaked as they were, though hers was belted; a long, unsheathed dagger hung off one hip. When the lieutenant muttered something, she smiled, and he returned it; a private joke. Then, a quick kiss to her lips and his forehead pressed to hers in a moment of intimacy that anyone watching might recognise, before he pulled away and walked across to meet them. She didn’t follow.
Everyone ready? the lieutenant asked. When no one replied, he said, Well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?