We Leave Together

by J. M. McDermott

  “I like your new name. It is a strong name for a strong boy. Have you finished your soup?”

  “No. Can I have dessert?”

  “No dessert tonight, Jona. If you’re done, help me with the dishes.”

  Jona picked up his bowl of awful soup and threw it across the room. The bowl shattered into tiny pieces and the soup splattered like red paint.

  His mother said nothing.

  If she had had any tears left in her, I imagine she would have cried again.

  Jona stomped off towards his room. He slammed the door to the dining hall, the door to the stairs, and the door to the hall. In his room, he left the door open. He wanted to wait for someone to come by so they could hear him when he slammed it shut.

  No one came all night.

  ***

  A father is not remembered in a picture, or a voice. He’s remembered in a smell, and a way of moving. This man, Jona’s father, Lord Severa Joni, smelled like flecks of iron, rich garlic butter, and ink stains on his fingers and sleeves like a printer. His face, like Jona’s, was narrow and firm and tended towards sour scowls. His hair was red as strawberries—Jona had inherited his mother’s plain black hair—which he often tossed about with his hand. Lord Joni rarely stepped into the yard. When he did, he was walking towards his carriage, and holding a parasol over his head to keep the sun off his brow.

  I see an image of the man, in Jona’s memory, the only time Jona saw him and it stuck. Lord Severa Jona has one boot on the carriage step. He hands the parasol to his servant. Lord Severa turns back once to look at his house.

  Jona catches his father’s eye from a second story window. Jona waves. His father clenches his jaw. Then, as if catching his bad behavior and correcting himself, the father smiles. He lifts one hand up in a wave. He gets into the carriage with the three old king’s men and he’s gone forever.

  CHAPTER 17

  We climbed over the rubble that used to be his home. We dove into the sewers after him, smelling his stain in the ground. We ran through the dark.

  He was here. He had to be here. There was nowhere else to run with Sabachthani burned to ash except into the ground, into the inns of the city, or into the streets. He had no safe harbor, now. He had no known place to hide. Eritrean was looking for him. There were king’s men at all harbors. Erin’s faithful swarmed the hills, howling wolves, packs of wolves that never bothered to pull the skin of man across their beautiful, terrible bodies—claw and tooth and strength of the wild beasts.

  The dogs of the city know that we hunt. They that remember the woods in the their blood howl back to us. They howl when they smell the demon stink on their streets and alleys.

  Howl, dogs. We howl back, and we run.

  The streets are clean enough of the stain that we can find him.

  The fires have burned enough down that we can find him. He has no harbor here.

  Cry out for us, dogs. This is your city, dogs, where you piss your boundary lines and claim all buildings and streets. You would have his stain removed.

  They cry back.

  We all hunt.

  ***

  Jona spent weeks alone after Rachel left. He drifted listlessly in and out of alcohol. He showed up for duty his uniform torn and wrinkled and the undershirt showing through the places where the old uniform had burned through. Calipari sent him home, and docked his pay. Jona needed new uniforms soon, but his mother couldn’t make them fast enough.

  Jona didn’t care.

  Jona spent his nights drinking and avoiding his mother. For weeks, he showed up for work a little drunk, and sobered up slowly in the daylight until night came and he drank again.

  In the daylight, Jona sank like his father’s burning ships. Calipari wrote a letter to the lieutenant requesting a change of duties for his troublesome corporal gone to pieces over a woman. Sergeant Calipari was concerned that after he retired, Corporal Lord Joni would be put under a new sergeant that didn’t know how to keep Lord Joni in line. The lieutenant wrote back word that Jona was going to be the new sergeant, and probably an officer soon after if his friends in the nobility had anything to say about it, and it didn’t matter what happened in the Pens to anybody as long as whatever happened stayed there, and the meat kept coming through.

  Calipari waited two weeks out until the end of his assignment, watching Jona show up dirty and drunk, and the other king’s men avoiding him.

  Nothing mattered in the Pens.

  Calipari asked for an early out of the desk job, and a chance to travel to his promised ground. His request was accepted. To his surprise, he was assigned Corporal Jona Lord Joni to go with him, for the inspection tour of the northern guard towers. The lieutenant suggested it would be a chance for Calipari to clean up and train the next boy in the Pens.

  Calipari thought nothing of it, then, and just wanted to drag Jona away from the drinking halls a while and help him clear his head.

  As far as Calipari knew, Jona had never had a girl before, so he had never lost one before. It takes a few to learn how to lose one.

  Jona died on this journey. We found his skull where he fell. Calipari drove a sword through his chest where Rachel destroyed him.

  ***

  There are two nations on this isthmus. We have spoken long of Dogsland. North of Dogsland, past a series of fat hills that stretches one bumpy finger into the sea, there exists another sea power. I call it Northland, for it is north of Dogsland, though this, too, is not the real name. Let them not burn our woods over mere words in a scroll.

  To talk of Northland is to talk of Lord Sabachthani. Lord Sabachthani stood on the hills that border the two lands, and sacrificed to the demons of Elishta. In one particular valley, the two main land armies smashed together. The king commanded Lord Sabachthani to win the field with his magic, no matter the cost. Sabachthani called upon his demon lords.

  Purple smoke followed a powerful wind into the valley, and this presence ignited in the blood-stained grass with a purple flame. No flesh or fragment of grass burned in the flame. The souls inside the flesh burned, and the force of life in all the grass. Each body that fell dead below the thrust of sword stood up again, and turned their weapons upon the living.

  Everything the fire touched was blighted. The armies of the dead marched along the red valley, guarding their red valley until their bodies and bones rotted into dust.

  The fighting stopped. Neither nation had the land army to overcome the city walls after this. The merchant companies forged expensive alliances with both nations, and commerce continued. Guard towers line the hillsides, each with a signal fire in view of another tower. The people grow up, marry, give birth, work, and die in this state of endless hostility as if they live in peace.

  Because the guard towers were built by the king, city guards manage the towers, not the army.

  And every year, Northland gave some soldiers the clothes of raiders, to wear in Dogsland’s hillsides. They hassles merchants until the army chases them back north of the valley. Dogsland did the same in return, out on the waters, blockading and stealing and sinking ships under no city’s flag or port of call as if it is not done by Dogsland.

  And my husband and I watched these raiders from the shadows. We cleaned up the broken camp to help the wild places thrive again where they’ve been trampled and burned. We bury the dead. We planted new trees.

  ***

  Nicola Calipari’s apartment hall was cramped with destitute beggars. Jona crawled over the stink and the human waste with his hands on his pant legs. He pulled the cuffs up out of the worst of the stink. Beggars saw his uniform and pulled away from him. Jona could have arrested the lot of them for trespassing.

  Jona reached the door where Nicola Calipari was still sleeping. He knocked politely. He knocked again, a little louder.

  A muffled voice from behind the door muttered something unclean. Jona jiggled the doorknob, and recognized the kind of lock. Jona slipped a dagger in the gap between the door and the wall. He wiggled the blade back and f
orth to coax the bolt out of the wall. Less then a minute, and Jona had the door open.

  There wasn’t any sunlight in the cheap flat. The only light came from the hallway beyond the gaps between door and wall. Jona flipped a match from his pocket. He lit it, and held it up while his eyes adjusted.

  Two full chamber pots sat at the foot of the bed, covered in black flies. Clothes were strewn across the furniture. A single candle sat on a nightstand next to the bed. Jona carefully picked his way across the floor to the nightstand. He lit the candle with his match.

  “Sergeant Calipari?” he said.

  The man in the bed snored, lightly.

  Jona pushed at his arm. “Sergeant Calipari?”

  Nicola rolled over and moaned. “Mm… You got the wrong room.”

  “I have the right room, Nic. You awake?”

  “Oh,” he said.

  “You were late for muster. Captain sent me here. It’s mid-morning. We’ve got to hit the road.”

  “That’s nice. I’m almost through with all this pomp and circumstance. Bloody Elishta but I’m done with all that.”

  “You get your supplies together?”

  “My what?”

  “We’ll be on the road for three weeks. Did you get food, Corporal?”

  “Was I supposed to?.”

  “I figured you wouldn’t. A little hunger is good for you.”

  “You ever leave the city before, Lord Joni?”

  “Who would do a fool thing like that?”

  “Place is a pit. I’m glad to be rid of it.”

  “You still drunk?” Jona leaned over and sniffed. Calipari stank of piss gin.

  “It’s nice out past the wall, Corporal. Gets your head clean when there isn’t anything but fresh air and the sun and the birds. These days I wake up in the Pens, I feel like my bones are put together wrong.”

  Sergeant Calipari stepped up from bed, and he was already in his uniform. He had slept in it. He pulled his boots on over bare feet and grabbed his cloak and belt from the night table, which was almost the only furniture here. “You hungry?”

  “I ate. I thought we’d be at the wall by now.”

  “I’m starving. Let’s go get something to eat before we go. “You’re acting like you already quit. You going to make me do all the work?”

  “That’s the idea, Lord Joni. You’re still the king’s man. I’m just biding one last trip. I’ll get something on the way. We’ll be at the Owl and the Ass by midnight, if we leave right away. The other sergeants hate it, but I like it. I met Franka on this detail. It gets me out of the Pens.”

  “How long will it take? It’s already mid-morning.”

  “It’s going to take a week to make the first post. An hour now and then won’t bother the king’s biscuits.”

  “It’s your call Sergeant.”

  “Are you still drunk, too, Jona?”

  “No,” he said. It was mostly a lie.

  Calipari was up and ready, and leading the way out the door. He locked it behind him.

  “Because the one thing about this detail is I don’t want you puking on my stuff. Get your head cleaned out, you know?”

  “Are you going to talk this much on the road? Because I’ll be drinking more if I have to put up with that.”

  “Bloody Elishta, Corporal, but life kicks you in the teeth.”

  ***

  Sergeant Calipari stopped at a fruit vendor and bought seventeen apples. The vendor piled them into a cloth sack. Jona carried sixteen, and Calipari chewed on one slowly while they walked to the main station for the cart.

  Calipari didn’t talk. He just ate. Jona carried the apples.

  When they arrived at the station, Calipari tossed his apple core at the man at the door.

  “Hey,” said Calipari, “spread the word to the towers for my girl Franka, at the Owl and the Ass. I’ll be by and by come midnight easy.”

  The guard nodded, and tossed the apple core back at Sergeant Calipari, who let it fall at his feet. “Don’t forget your apple, Sergeant.”

  Inside, the captain didn’t look up from the desk.

  “When are you retiring, Nic?” he said.

  “Soon, sir.”

  “You won’t if you keep showing up late. I’ll give you so many demerits, you’ll spend the rest of your life scrubbing pots in the bowels of the training ground and your city land will be assigned to some crazy buck private who won’t last twenty years to claim it.”

  “Sorry, Captain. I was getting supplies for the trip for us both. Didn’t Corporal Lord Joni tell you?”

  “Is that true, Corporal?”

  “My fault for not saying anything, sir.”

  “Corporal, you’re a disgrace to your noble blood. Sergeant?”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “Close the door.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “The courts were busy last week. They gave me more things than I can handle. I’m sending you out with a full load to restock the outposts. All these sharp things are no longer a threat in the alleys, and they got you a cart for once, so be grateful. Your boys rang some good bells, and lots of teeth showed up in the trash. Lord Joni’s got a knack for turning out trouble. When you reach the dead valley, open this envelope. Can you read, Sergeant? You aren’t one of the desk sergeants who foists all his work on the scriverners?”

  “I can read, Captain. You know that. I’m the best desk sergeant you ever had.”

  “Well, go out a ways, and then read this message. It came straight from Sabachthani. Lord Joni’s got quite a career sponsor. You hear that, Corporal?”

  “Sir?” said Jona. ”I don’t know a thing about it.”

  “Right. Don’t linger with your wife, Sergeant. You’ll be sick of her soon enough.”

  “We ain’t married yet, Sir.”

  “More reason not to linger on the king’s business. Get out there, gentlemen.”

  “Sir,” the two Pens’ guards said, in unison.

  “Wait,” said the captain. He eyed Jona up and down and curled his lip. He didn’t like what he saw. “I just wanted to get a good look at you before you go. Bloody Elishta, but I don’t see anything worth the trouble. You the one found our troublesome boy lying at a hookah in the night?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, that’s good enough for me, and Lady Sabachthani says you’re her friend. You’re alive, too. A lot of the boys in the Pens don’t last. Still, you don’t look like you’re worth much to me, Corporal. I don’t care who your friends are if you don’t work hard and keep your head clean. You hear me, Lord Joni?”

  “No, I don’t,” he said. “I don’t have to put up with you going on like that, pushing me around. You don’t know a thing about walking where the Joni estates used to be all orange orchards, and now it’s all meat. You’ve never set foot in the Pens. You never jumped into a sewer line below the abattoir. You’ve never rang the bells for the hookah dens and the men that keep the pinks hot. I’ve never seen you at Lady Ela’s parties, either, invited or not. What do you know about the city, Captain? Paper. Nothing but paper. Can you read? Can you walk home at night without a beggar dying at your door? Let’s go Sergeant.”

  The captain said nothing.

  Outside, Sergeant Calipari whistled.

  “What, Nic?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “It’s a nobility thing, Nic. I’m noble. He’s not.”

  “He’s still the captain.”

  “I obey the king.”

  “So do I,” said Calipari.

  “Also, I’m going to fire him soon. If I got friends, then I got friends, and I can do something good with them. The captain’s no better than a scrivener private.”

  Calipari nodded. “He’s got friends, too, Jona. Everyone has friends. I hope you remember that.”

  The captain of the guard had said nothing about this, to us. I assume it was because he was angry he couldn’t whip the corporal for it when Sabachthani had him in her fold.

  (Sabachth
ani is gone now, and the captain remains.)

  ***

  The donkey was tall and bumpy. The little spots of spine stuck out in his back. One look and both men knew no one was riding on top of the animal. The cart was full of steel weapons in piles beneath burlap. A few bits of armor hid inside of a smaller sack.

  “Decent armor. We hardly ever get armor from the streets. Must have been a privateer in the shipyard getting rolled.”

  Calipari reached inside, and wrapped his palm around a helmet. He pulled it out.

  “This one’s still shiny. Looks brand new.” He popped it on his head. “How does it look?” He turned over to Jona.

  “It looks like it’s going to be hot when the sun starts coming down. Another rainstorm is coming tonight. It looks like it’ll rust.”

  Nicola laughed. “You’re a real happy fellow, you know that?” he said, “Franka likes it when I come in with all this shiny stuff on.”

  “Guess it’s better than seeing your face,” said Jona, smirking.

  “Keep it up, Corporal, and you’ll be walking next to the cart,” he said, “I’ll drive the donkey since I know the way. You watch the stuff.”

  Jona stretched. “With both eyes open,” he said. He didn’t mean it. He hopped up into the cart. He sat down next to the bags of weaponry, and rested his elbows on his knees.

  Calipari climbed up to the front of the cart. He grabbed the reigns. “When we turn west, on the way back, I’ll show you my parcel of land. I figure we rush through the mission, and swing west to check my land. I need to spend a little time on the roof. Raining like this, and I haven’t been over to put more slats down. I’ve gotten the left side of it, but the right is still a mess. Franka has some things for it at the tavern. Hammers and nails and stuff. Lucky you,” he said, laughing, “you won’t have to carry anything this time unless the donkey dies.”

  ***

  They rode the cart to the wall. It took all day. Jona sat on one side of the cart, and he watched the sun fall down over the rooftops, into the slanting shadows of crowded alleys. He wondered when the alleys became more crowded than the streets. People needed places to live that weren’t alleys. Beggars needed work. When he became king, he’d try and get Ela to do something.