by D. J. Butler
She felt nothing below the neck. As the tiny fire licked itself into being, she collapsed in the bed and wept.
After a minute, she felt the powder horn digging into her back. Pulling it from beneath her with trembling hands, she looked at it more closely and saw a single word, a name, hidden cunningly within the vines and flowers of the carving.
Julia.
Dockery lurched back into view with an armful of dead wood. He knelt and laid two pieces beside the fire, where the flame would soon reach them, and piled the rest within reach.
Then he stood and pulled off his buckskinner’s clothing. In the light of the tiny fire, Kinta Jane saw knotted muscle and many scars as well as tattoos, although it was too dark to make out any details.
“I’m gonna get in with you now, Kinta Jane.” He crawled into the bed behind her. The shock of his cold skin felt as if an ice floe had drifted up against her back.
“I guess you better tell me your name.”
“We come all this way from New Amsterdam and you don’t know my name yet?” He chuckled, a dry rasp. “It’s Dockery.”
“Your mother called you Dockery?”
Dockery was still and quiet for a moment. Had he died?
“My mother called me Tim. Baptized Timothy, but nobody ever called me that. A man called Tim can’t be taken seriously.”
“I’ll call you Tim, then.”
“Don’t you go taking liberties, though. I’m in a vulnerable state.”
“Shut up,” Kinta Jane muttered through rattling teeth. “Shut up and just don’t die.”
And Gert Visser? And Isaiah Wilkes?
Kinta Jane stared as hard as she could and saw nothing beyond the light of the tiny fire.
“Hey,” Dockery said, just before she fell asleep. “Are you missing some toes?”
* * *
Sarah felt feverish.
She could keep her spells against detection up all day, no problem. In fact, she felt she had to keep them in place. Who knew how far south along the Mississippi the beastkind of Simon Sword were ravaging? At least as far as Irra-Zostim, likely farther. Who knew how far down the river the Imperial chokehold extended?
She’d brought a full bag of coffee beans with her from Cahokia, and she used that to accelerate their step, refreshing the spell with a mouthful of roasted beans every few hours. That was also not a challenge for Sarah.
Her problem was power. Energy. She could draw fuel for her gramarye from the Mississippi, but it burned her from the inside.
Hence the fever.
Once or twice, discreetly, when the pirate queen and the hedge wizard weren’t looking, she coughed up blood into the snow.
“This look like a good place to you?” she asked Montse. “Best I can tell, there aren’t beastkind in sight.”
“Hard to be sure with the trees,” Luman warned.
The Catalan surveyed the riverbank. A spit of land poked out slightly into the water. It was free of vegetation larger than trampled yellow grass, poking up dispiritedly through a blanket of snow.
“I’ll light two fires to signal Josep.” Drawing her saber, she stalked out onto the spit of land, watching the trees, just in case.
“I’ll watch her back.” The wizard drew two pistols from his coat and checked their firing pans. “Unless Your Majesty has more urgent tasks for me.”
“Go keep our smuggler safe,” Sarah told him. “I’m going to look upriver, see what I can see.”
A wave of pure envy washed over Luman Walters. In another man, that might have come with a will to commit acts of violence, but Sarah saw no such thing in him. Envy, humiliation, and a burning desire to know more.
He nodded and followed Montse.
Sarah climbed down as close to the river as she could and took a drop of cold Mississippi water and tipped it into her Eye of Eve. “Hostes video.” Gazing deeply into the Orb of Etyles, she sent her gaze into the green life-stream of the mighty river and up.
She saw the black taint of Robert Hooke and his shambling corpses, but it paled beside the darker, blacker taint of Oliver Cromwell. She watched them from afar, as a frog watching from the river itself. Cromwell’s unholy blaze poured from the body of an adolescent boy.
These she knew about. What else might be coming?
Sarah pulled her vision back in and then sent it up the Ohio River. Following her incantation, her spell ignored aid and allies and sought out enemies.
It found them. In a fleet of barges rushing down the Ohio River accompanied by soldiers in Imperial blue, rode guns.
Not muskets, but cannons. Long-barreled, large-mouthed cannons that dwarfed the guns her own renegade Pitchers operated atop the Treewall. Guns that would punch a hole through the wooden palisade and keep firing until every mound in Cahokia was flat.
She grabbed the writing slate. She had no idea how to intervene from this distance, but at least she could warn the city’s defenders.
“Maitre Carrefour, I beg you to ride in fire!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Young Andy barreled up the hill, yelling. Calhoun Mountain was blanketed with the sort of light snow it got in winter, thicker than usual, and Andy triggered several small avalanches onto his own head by crashing into tree branches on the way. He didn’t even slow down, just took the snow dumps with his head down, hunkering under his slouch hat and as deep as he could into the undyed wool coat he’d inherited from his father David.
“We got a visitor!” he hollered. “Hell if it ain’t a Fairy!”
Young Andy made a beeline for the Thinkin’ Shed, and Cal easily grabbed the boy by the back of his collar. Andy’s forward motion spun them both in a circle. Cal had to keep a firm grip to avoid dropping the boy in a snow drift.
“Don’t call ’em Fairies,” he told his cousin. “Or Unsouled or Serpentborn or Wigglies.”
“On account of Aunt Sarah’s one?” Young Andy was red in the face from the cold and the exertion, but he wasn’t out of breath.
“Also on account of it might give offense. How do you feel about people callin’ you Cracker?”
Andy shrugged his indifference.
“Lessen you mean to give offense,” Cal continued. “And then go right ahead. Also, mebbe don’t say ‘hell.’”
“Is it your place to tell me what to say, then?” Andy sneered.
“Well,” Cal said thoughtfully, “I am your kin. I’m older’n you, and iffen I ain’t wiser, at least I can whup your ass.”
“Grandpa says ‘hell.’”
“Grandpa’s a war hero and an Elector. You git that kinda stature, I reckon you can say ‘hell,’ too. For now, what about ‘Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat’ instead?”
“You’re gonna make me sound like an old woman,” Andy grumbled.
“Iffen you mean polite and wise, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Mebbe ‘durnit’? That’s shorter, be easier to say.”
“Damn…I mean durnit, Cal, they’s a…I dunno, what’s the polite word for a Wiggly?”
“Firstborn,” Cal suggested. “Or I reckon Eldritch ain’t too insulting.”
“They’s a Firstborn arrived at the bottom of the draw. Red Charlie’s a-bringin’ him up, ’cause he’s wounded.”
“What’s he want?”
“To talk, I reckon. Says he’s a messenger, but he ain’t yet said what the message is. His horse looks worse’n yours did when you arrived.”
“Where’s he come from?” Cal didn’t want to get his hopes up. “Is he wearin’ a gray cape, by any chance?” He was thinking of the wardens who stood on the Treewall and guarded the streets of Cahokia.
“No.” Andy shook his head. “Just a dirty brown one. Says he come from Sarah.”
“Dammit, Andy!” Cal hurled his young cousin in the direction of the Thinkin’ Shed. “You’s supposed to say that first! Lord hates a man as can’t do things in the proper order. Now go on, tell the Elector!”
Cal raced down to the draw. Unreasonably, he hoped the messenger would have a face he recognized: Bill’
s, or Jake’s—though they weren’t Firstborn—or Yedera’s, or even Chikaak’s. He didn’t, and Cal felt a tiny pang of loss.
The messenger was haggard. From three steps away, Cal smelled the stink of an infected wound on the man. His Eldritch complexion was so pale, if he lay down in the snow, Cal thought he might disappear entirely. He had his left arm over Red Charlie’s shoulder—under a brown cloak, Cal saw that the man’s right side was clotted black with blood.
“Hot water!” Charlie yelled. “Food! Aunt Sadie! Aunt Beulah!” Sadie had been a Pitcher in her youth. She didn’t have much occasion to fire cannons off the sides of Calhoun Mountain, but she’d never forgotten her medical training. Beulah was a hexer, never as talented as, say, Sarah, but she possessed a healing touch.
“Beer,” the Firstborn croaked, and he shot Calvin a ragged wink.
“Can I git under your other arm?” Cal asked him.
The Firstborn groaned.
“Best not,” Red Charlie suggested. “He’s in a bad way. But iffen you can take him the rest of the way, I’ll git my Polly to git a bath and a bed up, quick.”
Cal took over the carrying of the messenger. Up close, the wound stank worse. The man was gangrenous. Cal doubted he’d survive, whatever the healing talents of the Calhoun women.
Sarah would be able to save him, but she wasn’t here.
“You’re from Sarah,” he said.
“You’re Calvin Calhoun,” the messenger grunted.
Cal finally recognized the man. He’d been one of Alzbieta Torias’s soldiers. Cal remembered his thin lips and the horizontal scar across his entire forehead. “Olanthes,” he said.
“Olanthes Kuta.” Olanthes nodded. “Ole, if you prefer. I volunteered to carry the message, but there were many messengers, sent to many places. Her Majesty sent me here specifically because I’d know your face. And I have a message for you, in addition to the formal missive I bear for the Elector.”
“She’s queen, then?” Cal’s heart tried the impossible maneuver of simultaneously leaping for joy and plummeting into despair. If Sarah was now queen, that meant she had succeeded, or at least she was succeeding. On the other hand, if she was now queen, there was simply no way she could ever marry Calvin.
“When I left, she hadn’t yet been formally crowned. But as Beloved of the goddess, in practice, she rules her father’s city.”
“What’s the message?” Cal asked, half-afraid of the answer.
“She bids me tell you that she loves you. Despite anything that happened in the past, and no matter what happens in the future.”
Cal bit his lip so hard it bled. Young Andy reappeared with Caleb and Uncle David in tow, which was good, because suddenly Cal couldn’t see for the tears springing to his eyes.
He stepped back, let the others carry Olanthes on, and tried to catch his breath.
It didn’t mean what he wanted it to mean, he knew that. She loved him because he was kin. He’d helped her on her journey, fought at her side and against her enemies. She loved him for all those reasons.
But she was going to be Queen of Cahokia. The last monarch of Cahokia had married the Penn landholder. Sarah wasn’t going to marry a penniless cattle rustler from the hills above Nashville.
Iron Andy appeared in the Thinkin’ Shed’s dog-trot. “Red Charlie’s!” he called. “Polly’s got a tub a-heatin’ right now.”
Caleb and David turned toward Charlie’s place, cutting through a snow-covered meadow and a small stand of trees to save time.
“We’ll have you tended to,” Iron Andy said, falling in step beside Olanthes and dropping into Penn’s English. “Is there any message you need to give me verbally?”
“You’re Andy Calhoun?” Olanthes asked.
“Iffen I ain’t, I killed him and I’m wearin’ his skin,” the Elector quipped.
“Her Majesty bid me tell you you’re still her grandpa, and she still carries the staff you carved for her.”
“Good girl,” Andy muttered.
“I’ve seen the staff,” Olanthes added. “It’s true, she carries it. It has become her own staff of office, in a way. She has worked miracles with it. How did you come to decide it should have a horse’s head at the tip?”
“I’m old,” Andy said. “I know shit.”
“I also carry a written missive,” Olanthes added.
Andy nodded. “I’ll want every single detail I can git from you about what Sarah’s doing. First, we need to git you taken care of.”
Olanthes disappeared into Red Charlie’s cabin, carried by many hands. Iron Andy turned and found Calvin. He clapped his grandson on the shoulder. Cal saw a hint of tears in his grandfather’s eyes, too.
“Lord hates a man as don’t know when to cry,” Cal said.
“It warms my heart to hear such wisdom in one so young. Now git on down the mountain to Nashville.”
“Where am I a-goin’, Grandpa?”
“You know the Harvite convent?”
“By the river.” Cal nodded. “I’ll bring back a healer?”
“Not jest any healer, boy. They’s a Sister Serafina Tate there. She’ll say no, she don’t lay hands anymore, and mebbe the abbess won’t even want you to see her. You insist, you hear me? You tell her Dancin’ Andy Calhoun sent you, and he needs the best healer east of the Mississippi. You git her up here.”
Dancin’ Andy?
But the Elector was gone, disappearing into Red Charlie’s with Charlie and his wife Polly and a few of the women.
Grandpa had chosen Cal for a second time.
Cal quickly saddled two horses, sturdy little beasts, scarcely larger than ponies. But they could keep their footing on the steep slopes, and within fifteen minutes he was heading down the mountain.
He had a hard time focusing on the path, so it was a good thing the horses were mountain-bred. Sarah was alive! She was on her way to queendom!
And she hadn’t forgotten Cal!
Snow was falling by the time Calvin reached the gates of Free Imperial Nashville. Snow was unusual in Nashville, but more unusual was the fact that it didn’t melt off immediately. In the stone corners of the market town, the snow of this bad winter now piled up in dirty drifts. The town watch waved Calvin and his two horses through, and he headed down to the river.
The Harvite convent had a ten-foot tall stone wall surrounding a small complex of buildings. Cal had never been inside because he’d never been hurt enough. He assumed some of the buildings were dormitories for the Sister, and others held patients. Or maybe a library.
The front entrance was shut. It was a single door, four feet wide and eight feet tall, and a big iron knocker hung in the center. Cal knocked.
Almost immediately, a small window set above the knocker and protected by an iron grate opened. A scowling woman’s face pressed forward into the window and examined Cal. “Are you looking for healing, my son?”
“Yes, Sister,” Cal said.
“You look well,” she answered.
“Not for me,” he said quickly. “I come down from Calhoun Mountain. We’ve got an injured man up there, hurt real bad.” He showed his purse. “I’ve brought the customary contribution.”
“I’ll get a Circulator.” The Sister moved to shut her window.
“Sister!” Cal stopped her. “I need a particular Circulator.”
“You mean your injured man has an unusual injury?”
“He’s in a bad way,” Cal agreed, “but what I mean is I’s sent to get a specific Circulator.”
“Who?” The woman’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “We ordinarily don’t permit that, because some patients fall in love with the Circulators who tend them. But perhaps…”
“Sister Serafina Tate,” Cal said.
The woman snorted. “Absolutely not. Sister Serafina is half-blind and nearly ninety years old. If I sent her out in this snow, it would be her death.”
“But I’s sent—”
“No.”
“But I—”
“No. List
en, I can get you a Circulator. But not Sister Serafina. Do you want one or not?”
“I’m afraid I have to insist,” Cal said.
The woman shut the window.
Cal waited a few minutes. Had he been persuasive enough? Would the woman go ask Sister Serafina, who would then make herself available?
Though if she were really as frail and impotent as this woman made her out to be, Cal wasn’t sure she was the best choice.
But the woman didn’t come back, in any case.
Cal took a deep breath. He hadn’t failed the Elector in taking Sarah away from Calhoun Mountain, and he wasn’t about to fail his grandpa in bringing Sister Serafina to the mountain.
Behind the convent, in a patch of snow between the convent’s walls and the taller town walls, Cal found a pine sapling. It wasn’t tall enough or sturdy enough to climb, but it was enough tree to hitch the horses to.
Carefully, he climbed onto his horse’s back and slowly stood.
“Good boy,” he murmured to the beast. “Shh, everything’s fine. Everything’s normal. I’m jest doin’ a little bit of circus acrobatics, on account of I got no other way forward.”
Standing on the horse’s back, Cal was tall enough to grip the top of the Circulators’ wall. He dragged himself up and straddled it.
There was no parapet inside, just a ten-foot drop into a garden. That was unexpected, but nice. If he were ill, Cal might very well enjoy a garden stroll. A stone pathway was shoveled and swept free of snow. Cal saw sick and injured people in white gowns limping about, despite the fat snowflakes coming down.
He saw three buildings inside the enclosure. They all had tall windows, so Cal could see directly inside. One was clearly a hospital, with patient beds side by side. The second held a kitchen on the ground floor and books on the story above that. The third had more windows, but smaller. Through some of the panes, Calvin saw women reading, talking, kneeling to pray, and even sleeping.
That’s where he’d find the ninety-year-old woman.
Carefully, he stood again. Taking each step slowly out of fear of unseen ice, Cal walked around the stone wall. Men of the watch standing on the town’s wall gestured at him and laughed, but did nothing more.