“Jehan?” Aude had followed him out. She set the carbine down against the steps and held out a hand.
He stepped backward. “Don’t. Don’t touch me. We don’t know what that was. What it might do.”
“Jehan, it’s gone. It was just a…a shell. Like…like a shed skin.”
“It was a man.” He shook himself, turned into the wind, let its cold grasp scour flesh and cloth. “We have to get out of here.” He spoke louder than he intended; one of the ponies, disturbed, flung up its head.
She unhooked a canteen from one of the saddles and handed it to him. Over her scarf, her eyes were warm and loving. “Here.” He took a small mouthful, rinsed his mouth, hesitated. He hated to waste any of their precious water. He did not want to swallow.
He wanted a bath and fresh clothing and clean sheets, far away from this place of wind and death. He could have none of it, not now, not for days. He spat and took another mouthful, making himself swallow this time. Aude fished a cleanish kerchief from one of her inner pockets and rubbed it over the mouth of the canteen, picking up a faint film of moisture. She touched his cheek with her gloved fingertips, wiped the cloth over the exposed flesh of his face. She said, “You should put your coat back on. You’ll freeze.” She patted his cheek again, then moved in to drop a light kiss on his lips. “It can’t hurt you, whatever it was. It was only interested in the water. And now it’s gone.”
“There could be more.” But the house behind them was silent, save for the creak and moan of the wind through its bamboo fibers.
“If you’re worried, I’ll go and check.”
She would, too. Her ridiculous confidence knew no bounds. He held up a hand, said, “Wait.” And then, stooping to gather his coat, “If you must, then I’m coming with you.” He shook the garment hard, downwind, let its mantle of dirt blow away on the wind. She was quite right. If he did not put it back on, he’d freeze. He’d be no good to her dead. He shrugged back into the jacket. The sooner she realized this place was empty, the sooner they could start the journey back to safety and habitation.
They searched through each of the few rooms of the Woven House, seeking threats and finding only dirt and desiccation and emptiness. Dust hung in the air of the largest room, turning in the cold light, powdering the scant furnishings: A low stool, gray with age, and a flat loom, its strings hanging down in weeping hanks. A small office was cluttered with document rolls, spilled askew across the floor from a collapsed bookcase. In one corner a desk stood, with an account book open atop it, marred by a trail of flaking ink. Behind the office, completing the circuit back toward the kitchen, was a bedchamber. Its door hung loose, the upper part wrenched free of its leather hinges. The chamber smelled musty and sour; the floor was stained and foul, littered with shards of pottery and flakes of skin. In the center of the bed lay a dark, crusty, body-shaped stain. Jehan turned away with a low gasp, too late to block Aude’s entry. The hand he reached out to her shook. She took it, and her fingers were cool. She said, “We won’t sleep on that cover, I think.”
He did not want to sleep anywhere in this house or, indeed, anywhere near it. He did not want to say so. He had to hang on to what calm he still possessed, for her sake if not his own. She released his hand and slipped into the room. She said, “The mattress underneath should be sound enough once we air it.”
“But…” Jehan dropped back into silence.
Raising her scarf to cover her face, Aude crossed to the window and began to work at the latch. “Help me with this, will you? It’s stuck solid with dirt.”
If she opened the window, the dirty wind would fill the room to blind them. Better that than go on inhaling decay. He wrapped his own scarf about mouth and nose and joined her at the window. Under its mantle of grime, the latch was old bamboo, wrought to fit sharp and tight, hard to grasp with gloved fingers. He did not want to touch it with bare hands.
If he did not open it, Aude would expect him to drag the mattress the length of the house. He set his teeth and wrenched. The shutters bent and buckled. Through his gloves, he felt his knuckles whiten. One last tug and the latch sprang up. One shutter flew into his face against its hinges. He stepped back, ducking his head against the icy grit. Aude coughed, then she was beside him, heaving the stained bedcover out over the sill in a backwash of rotted skin. He stepped back. She said, “Help me drag the mattress over. If we hang it there for a few hours, the wind will clean it out.”
They manhandled the mattress to hang over the narrow sill. Its bulk blocked a little of the wind, but the toothaching chill still whistled through into the room. Flakes of skin and muscle scoured from the cotton cover swirled back toward them. Choking, Jehan tugged Aude back into the center of the room.
She put her arms about him. “Oh, love…”
“We shouldn’t stay here.”
“There are records in the small room. I should look at them. They may be what I’m looking for. And there’s supposed to be a Stone House here somewhere. If I can find that…”
“We have water for four days at most. And it’s two days back to the last village.” That had been a poor place, with barely enough water for its inhabitants. They could afford to linger here no more than one night and it would be foolish to attempt to journey any farther into the steppe. “We haven’t seen a good water source for over a week.”
“It’ll be all right.” She stepped back and smiled at him. “I only need a day to look at these scrolls. Two at the most. And the Stone House can’t be far. When we find it, we can go back.”
As long as she found what she was looking for. But Jehan was far from convinced that this desolate house—this desolate steppe—could contain the answers she was looking for.
He helped her with the mattress, then went outside to attend to the ponies. The remains of an old shed provided some shelter as he removed their tack and rough-groomed each of them. They nuzzled at him, trying to lean on him to scratch the places where the dust made them itch. They were bred to this steppe and its hazards, but even with their reduced water requirements, there would not be enough water for all three of them and two humans if Aude lingered here. He did not want to have to kill one of these small trusting beasts. He had had enough of killing in the Brass City. He might have no choice.
He gave the ponies their evening feed and their small water ration before carrying the saddlebags into the house. If there had once been a water source here, it was long dried out. With fire and fine muslin, however, he could purify the few cupfuls of water that lingered in the kitchen storage jar. And then, the oilskin spread out and weighted down might garner them a few drops of moisture overnight. That trick worked better with a shallow pit below, but the earth was bound by its chill to the texture of rock. He paced the compound until he found a small dip and laid the cloth out over it, loaded down with stones. By the time he was done, the sky was muting toward night.
Inside the house, he found Aude in the office, outer robe bundled tightly about her against the drafts, bent over a faded account book. She had not heard him enter. When he touched her arm, she started, looked up with eyes blurred by concentration. Her face was drawn, and even through the dirt he could see the dark smudges that circled her eyes. She said, “Jehan?” And then, “This…these figures…none of them make any sense.”
He dropped a kiss on the crown of her head and said, “You need rest. Look at them later.”
“But…” She shook her head. “I need to read as much as possible while the light lasts.”
There were two hours of daylight left, perhaps three. They would not get far back along the way they had come in that, even if she could be persuaded to leave. And the ponies needed the rest. The open steppe made an uncomfortable camping place, devoid of shelter. This ramshackle house and its outbuildings reduced the wind a little.
They had checked it from one end to the other and found nothing. Whatever that creature had been, it had been alone. He was pretty certain of that. He said, “One night. But we have to leave tomorr
ow.”
“Umm.” Aude had already turned back to her records. He stood watching her a moment or two longer, then sat down on the floor and began, methodically, to strip and clean the carbine.
Darkness fell. In the kitchen, Jehan found a small clay lamp and enough oil to light it. He placed it at Aude’s elbow; she gave him an absent smile but made no move to stop working. When he brought her food, she picked at it, scattering crumbs across the cracked parchment. About them, the wind shoved at the woven walls. Seated in the doorway, he watched her until the movement lulled him into broken sleep.
He woke to gruel-colored light and cold and a stiff neck. Aude slept across her books, the oil lamp burned dry beside her. Without its frown, her face was artless. Her lower lip still held the full undercurve of childhood. The ends of her hair, which, in a fit of impatience, she had hacked short with his saddle knife two months earlier, hung ragged over her cheeks. Exposed beneath it, her nape was gray with travel and the dye from her innermost scarf. Her locket had once again escaped and lay on the desk beside her. With one careful finger, he brushed a strand of hair away from her lips, felt her sigh in her sleep. Sometimes she had nightmares. But not now, not tonight. Like the wind, she had tugged and prodded and tripped him ever forward on her pilgrimage of ownership. And now he must be the cliff in her path and deflect her back along her old course. He should wake her, persuade her while she was soft with sleep. He could not bring himself to disturb her. With a fingertip, he transferred a kiss from his mouth to her cheek and went out to check on the ponies.
It might have been the day before, or the one before that. There was no change to the wind, to the sky, to the landscape. Dust swirled up to meet him, settled onto his outer robe. His water trap had collected barely enough moisture to cover the bottom of a cup, and that mixed with a handful of soil. If Aude insisted on tarrying, if some mishap befell them, they would die before the land ever gave up enough water to succor them. He swallowed, fighting to ignore dry mouth, aching throat. Feeding the ponies, he remembered tales he had heard of tribesmen who in times of drought drank the blood of their mounts. He did not know if he could do such a thing. He could not answer for Aude.
He rubbed a hand over a rough-coated neck. The pony turned its head, soft lips mouthing his fingertips. He patted its muzzle before giving it a gentle shove, encouraging it to follow its fellows foraging in the thin dry grass. He thrust his hands into the folds of his sleeves. Beyond the fence, infant dirt storms squabbled. Narrowing his eyes, he stared out into the distance, scanning for any hint of green. Nothing. Nothing, save that to the west the gray haze lay even dirtier.
He turned back to the house. The steps shifted beneath him as he climbed. The place was barely more solid than it was pleasant. Surely Aude could not hope to find her answers here. He went into the kitchen to light the stove and to try, with heat and a cloth filter, to render the small harvest of water potable.
When he returned to the office, Aude was again bent over her scrolls, hair shoved back roughly, as though she had simply woken, raised her head, and resumed reading. He placed a half-cup of water and a handful of dried fruit at her elbow. She did not look up. He stepped back, watched her.
He said, “Aude.”
“Umm?”
“We need to talk.”
She wriggled her shoulders, loosening them. “Is something wrong?” She turned. “Another of those…those dead things?”
“No.” He straightened, inhaled. “How are you getting on with those?” He gestured at the heaps of old parchment.
“They’re muddled.” She sat back, wriggling her shoulders. He moved to rub her neck and she leaned into him. “Mmm. That’s nice.”
“I try to please.”
She twisted to blow him a kiss. But a thin line worked its way between her brows. “This lot…” She picked up a scroll and waved it at him. Chips of parchment sifted floor-ward. “These don’t make sense. It should be rice: I looked it up in the records at home. My family began as rice growers, and they lived here. But these…” Another gesture. “Goats and caravan tolls and scratchings from weaving—nothing that earned more than pennies. No mention of a Stone House, either. And none of it is more recent than about a hundred and twenty years ago.” She dropped the scroll to the desktop. Dust puffed outward. “There should be rice harvests and renders and employment records. But as far as I can make out, this place hasn’t made a profit or forwarded any monies for even longer than that, and no one even noticed.”
“Perhaps it’s the wrong place.”
“It can’t be. I checked all the family records. You marked the maps. We followed all the directions.”
He did not think he had led them astray, but on this featureless plain, it was easy to go amiss. He said, “We don’t have enough water to go on searching.”
“I know.” She sighed and her head dropped. He stopped his massaging and gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. She said, “This has to be the right place. Which means that the records have to be here somewhere. I have to find them.”
Records could get lost, destroyed, misplaced. Some long-forgotten ancestor might have bundled them up and sent them to a new home or thrown them away as worthless. Jehan could not bring himself to say that. She was troubled enough as it was. He said, “Maybe we could pack some of them and take them with us?”
“There are too many.”
“The important ones?”
“But I don’t know which those are!” He saw her swallow, hard. She said, “I need more time.”
It would do her no good to understand the origins of her family wealth if she died here of thirst. He looked away, said, “We should leave today. If something goes wrong…We should keep back a day’s water for an emergency.”
“If we went at first light tomorrow…”
He stared at the floor. His fault, that her thoughts had turned in this direction to begin with. His meddling, back where the Silver and Brass Cities touched. He could not compound that by risking her life.
“Jehan, please.”
“It isn’t sensible.”
“Then go without me.” The stubborn note was back. “Leave me one of the ponies. I’ll find my own way back.” He looked up at that. Her face was set. “I won’t go till I’ve found what I came for.”
He was taller than she was and stronger and older. He might, if he chose, overpower her. He had not stopped her wanderings in the Brass City. He would not, he knew, stop her now. If he spread the oilcloth again and was sparing with himself and her when it came to water, he could perhaps squeeze them one more day. He sighed.
He said, “One more day. But that’s all. Tomorrow morning we leave.”
“Thank you.” She leaned back against him for a brief moment. “I’m sorry. I’m such a trouble to you.”
“A trouble and a scourge.” But his words were lighter than his heart.
Outside, the wind prowled and pushed at the woven walls.
The map was new, but the information it recorded was long out of date. Aude had brought it with her from the Silver City, wrapped in oilcloth and stowed in the center of her saddlebags. It showed the wide bounds of her property in these parts, marked in crisp red against the sepia lines of rivers and contours. By its testimony, a river named the Lefmay flowed some half a mile to the southwest of the Woven House. Muffled in heavy coat and gloves and scarves, Jehan stared down at its relict, no more now than a graze of shingle leading away across the face of the plain. Perhaps, somewhere along its length, some trace of moisture lingered. At his back, the pony shuffled its feet, nosing at his shoulder. Dirt particles bounced and crackled in his clothes. His eyes stung as he tried to peer out along the dead watercourse. The wind made him restless, had driven him out from the Woven House and the scrolls and Aude’s desperate concentration into this pointless search for a well, a spring, a scrape of mud. He looped the leading rein more securely about his hand and led the pony down into the streambed. Its hoofs kicked up swirls of earth; the wind answered with handful
s of dust. Man and pony ducked their heads and began to walk carefully westward. To all sides, the steppe spread out, gray dead grass on gray hard earth. The long cuts of old irrigation channels fed away from the streambed at regular intervals, checkering the land. Jehan told off the distance by counting the cuts—five, twenty, thirty—step after trudging step. He could see no sign of habitation to either side, beyond the occasional bones of yurts jutting out of the ground. The wind had scoured the landscape of all its features; it tugged at him, unwound his scarf, clasped his fingers, fretted the pony’s tail into hessian. At the fiftieth dyke, he hesitated. There was no change to be seen, and, it seemed to him, precious little hope of one. Perhaps he should turn back. A glance upward suggested it was still before noon. He looked at the pony, nose down, mouthing at a scrap of dry grass. If he could find water, he might buy Aude the extra time she craved. He took a small sip from the water flask he carried, poured a little more into a leather bowl for the pony. According to the map, he should be no more than two miles from a spring. He looked along the watercourse. Up ahead, the ground began to slope upward. It was worth continuing a little way.
More ditches, more wind and iron earth and dead grass. The watercourse twisted upward and somewhat more westerly. Beyond it, shaded by dust spirals, another hill rose, crowned by ghost-glimpses of cliff or walls. Jehan shielded his eyes from the dirt, trying to discern any trace of windows or roof. The wind kicked up grit, blurring his vision, doubling the image into a furze of sepia and taupe.
The Grass King’s Concubine Page 10