Isobel

by Chloe Garner

  “Like they tell me,” he said, then looked away. “They’re good to me, and Saul says I can have the route when he retires. I’m just…” He looked at her, eyes quiet with a soft, unspoken desperation. “You’re more one of them than I am.”

  “No I’m not,” Andie said.

  “Yes you are. Saul is teaching you… things. All I do is keep the camp.”

  “He isn’t teaching me anything,” Andie said.

  “Then why are you getting rich?” the boy asked. Andie’s bedroll was lined with secret pockets, now, for the gold coins she stashed there. She asked once if Saul felt bad, taking money from these people who obviously had so little.

  “Andromeda,” he had said. “Where there’s a pair of men shaking hands over goods, so long as both of them know what’s being bought and what’s being sold, there’s no evil. They give me money for my goods because they need them. If I cheated them, they’d never let me back.”

  She wondered now if that was what Ben considered ‘teaching’. She rejected it. It was just an old man talking.

  “I make money at the markets,” she said.

  “They won’t let me go,” he said. “And I don’t have anything.”

  Andie pulled a comb through Valerie’s mane, thinking about the towns she had seen and the people she had talked to while Ben had minded the camp.

  “What did they do before you came with them?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he answered after a moment. She shrugged.

  “They did something. They let me go because I won’t take no for an answer.”

  There was a long silence, and she thought he had gone to do something else.

  “Huh.”

  She looked over her shoulder. He was leaning against a pile of bags, eyes distant. She grinned and resumed her work.

  They met another merchant on the way, once. He was headed south. They camped together, and he and Saul swapped stories all night in their own language. In the morning, they unpacked their goods and traded for an hour. Andie went through the other trader’s nest of jewelry, pulling out an orange stone that glowed in the morning light.

  “Your girl’s got good taste,” the other trader said.

  “How much is it?” Andie asked.

  “More than you’d want to pay,” Saul said, “considering.”

  “Considering?”

  The other trader grunted.

  “The further south they go, the more they’re worth,” he said. “Burning stones. Amber. Only place the world makes them is up there, and I bring them south, where the people are.”

  “I do the same,” Saul said, taking the gem from Andie to hold it up. “Good quality.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Andie said.

  “If you want to buy yourself one, do it once we get there. Mattias won’t part with it for less than he’d get in an Egyptian market. All up and down the coast, people kill for these stones.” He looked at the other man. “How many did you get?”

  “Dozen or so,” Mattias said coyly. Saul nodded, then glanced at Andie.

  “They don’t expect us, yet. Matty and I have been running this route for ten years, now, and a couple others of us, but it takes time to make a market out of a place. They don’t understand how much money we’d be willing to bring with us if they’d have boxes of them waiting for us.”

  “Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” Andie asked. “If they’re worth that much?”

  The two men laughed.

  “We say, back home, that if you aren’t doing something dangerous, you haven’t made it yet,” Saul said. She grinned and took the stone back from him, holding it up to the light. It gathered up the light at its core and winked at her as it turned, light as air and warm as dawn.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said again.

  There were wolves.

  And bandits.

  And cliff-edges.

  And snakes and lions and stray dogs.

  Andie learned which animals feared fire, and to sleep with a dagger under her pillow.

  Once she woke up to the smell of foul alcohol and, turning, found a strange man leaning over her, leering. She screamed and scrambled away, and the tent came down around them in a tangle as he came after her. There was a thud and the canvas fell still around her. She dug her way out to find Eb standing over a slumped shape holding a tent pole. They left him tied to a tree. Saul said he wouldn’t out-and-out kill a man if he didn’t have to, but if the animals got to him before the people did, it was his own dumb fault.

  Andie could tell that Ben kept waiting for her to wilt, to buckle under the intensity of what happened, but Andie felt like her life had finally started. She realized one morning how awful it was going to be to get to Isobel’s. The adventure would be over. She would be expected to go back to being a lady, to become some stranger’s wife.

  Wife.

  She shuddered and her stomach twisted at the thought.

  They made their way inevitably north, the tribes growing stranger and stranger. Men with thick, bushy beards and wearing skins instead of cloth. Their strange, grunting language. Saul caught her staring at a chieftain’s son in horror one evening as she realized that that might be what she’d agreed to.

  “Don’t be rude,” he murmured to her in Greek. She looked down, ashamed. She knew better. There was money to be made here, and misbehaving could cost Saul a lot. Saul laughed.

  “And we’re just passing through, here. Up on the water, they turn civilized again.”

  She glanced over at him and he gave her a crooked grin. He reached for a glass of mead and looked at the boy, Ben’s age, but hairy everywhere, face, head, chest, arms.

  “I wondered how long it would take you to make the connection.”

  She put her hand in front of her mouth, feeling her skin heat up, and Saul laughed.

  “I wouldn’t marry him, either.”

  Their host asked a question, and Saul was drawn into conversation again. Andie felt the boy staring at her and she looked away. There was more conversation, more mead, and then the meal ended and she and Ben went back to the tents.

  Andie wished she could have stayed with Saul, rather than letting him leave her with Isobel, but she knew she was inconvenient. She’d caught Saul and Eb talking about which villages would be safe for her. They were giving up sales to protect her.

  They wound their way into a river valley, and Valerie’s head went up.

  “What is it?” Andie asked. The horse blew air, tossing her mane, and then Andie caught it.

  “That’s the ocean,” she said. “I can smell it.”

  “It is,” Saul called. “We’ll be in town by afternoon and to Isobel’s by nightfall.

  It shocked her.

  She looked around, the phantoms of a young imagination failing to materialize. The trees were tall and straight and thick, the greens of them deep into summer hues, and where the river didn’t flood every year, there was a tree line of dark, old-growth forest. She’d seen thick forest before, but nothing this dark or this wild before. Not wild like this.

  Her childhood forests were humming with activity, wild in their own way, but these were somber and brooding, holding much darker, older secrets. A much wilder kind of wild.

  They’d been riding through them for days, but Andie had associated them with the wild men: thick, furry, and staring from under shaggy eyebrows. Now she saw them as the compatriots of the woman she remembered from her childhood.

  And she understood.

  She understood what she had left, and what she had now arrived to.

  Greece didn’t have this color green. It was too much forever in spring, all new growth competing for the sun. Winters here would be hard. She’d heard of men going missing, being found in the spring, at thaw, only yards from home. She’d dismissed them as campfire tales that the men in the little villages told to get a reaction from her. A forest that could hold secrets like this one, though, could also hold men.

  They followed the river valley down through a w
idening plain, the signal that they were coming to a sea, but instead of a sea, Andie found herself on a wide delta, thick with lighter vegetation like what she was used to. Men fished the river on one side, and others plowed fields higher in the floodplain and where the forest had been cut back. Some of them called out to Saul as they passed nearby, and Saul answered them.

  “These are going to be your people one day, girlie,” Saul said to her. “Take a long look.”

  They were clean-cut men, mostly bearded, but without the wild look the woodmen had had. They were lighter-skinned than the Greeks, but not so pale as Isobel had been, in Andie’s childhood memory. They waved at Saul as he went through, though many of them didn’t appear to recognize him.

  “They must not have wars here,” Andie said. Even by the ports, strangers were regarded with a certain measure of suspicion.

  “No, they have a constant battle with the tribes nearby,” Saul called over his shoulder. “They just know what they look like, and we aren’t it.”

  They came to a narrow dirt road and followed it through farmlands cultivated with grains and fruit trees. It was still early in the season for fruit, but Andie didn’t recognize the trees.

  “I’m going to like it here,” she said, watching the bounty of strange foods.

  “Child, you think with your stomach,” Saul said. Her mother had often said it, as well, though usually not with Saul’s good humor.

  “What’s better than a good meal?” she answered, grinning for the world’s benefit. It was a pretty land, one surrounded by wild men and wild woods, but pretty all the same.

  They came to a town with wood-built homes and storefronts. Here, Saul was received with great excitement. Women came to go through his cart, and Eb had to keep them off. Saul called apologies and there was a roll of disappointment when they didn’t stop.

  “We’ll be back,” Saul confided, slowing to let Andie catch up. “But we’re getting you delivered, first.”

  She looked back at the little settlement, women in strange clothes and men with strange faces, and realized what Saul was telling her.

  “I won’t get to come,” she said. He shook his head.

  “It’s been an honor,” he said. “You’re a damned fine trader, at the end, and one I’m proud to have trained.”

  She blushed at his language and his compliment, and they rode on.

  Before too long, the great old woods closed back down around the riding path. In Greece, sapling trees would have sprung up along the pathway, but here the canopy kept all of the light off of the ground, and they walked on soft, leaf-covered earth. They were going uphill again, away from the beaches and the river, but the smell of the ocean persisted. The woods were quiet and thoughtful, but Andie imagined that without strong daylight, they would have been gloomy. The horses startled something off the path and a small animal went bolting away through the forest. Valerie shied away and Andie pushed the mare back to her feet and back onto the path. Saul had told her that the flighty mare would be a major risk, but Andie had never considered leaving her. High-strung was in her blood, but she was smart and fast, and had been a worthy companion for the trip. Andie smiled, patting Valerie’s neck reassuringly, remembering the size of horses Isobel kept. They’d be dwarves, the two of them.

  A small troop of deer fled, to Andie’s right, and she marveled at them. They were beautiful, the northern deer. She’d wondered if the fact that they were different was the reason she was attracted to them, but she’d dismissed it. They really were prettier.

  There was a whinny ahead, and Valerie answered it, perking up. Horses meant a barn and grain, to her horsey little brain, and she sped up. The rest of the group seemed to sense the end of the journey as well, and they edged collectively up into a trot, rounding a bend and coming into view of a great stone building. It had been cut into the side of a hill, down into the granite, but most of the stone had been used to build up the front. The gray rock fitted against itself like it had only been cut apart to facilitate moving it. The doors and shutters were of thick, heavy wood that showed great age, but the stone was clean of moss or vines. The entire yard was clear, with just lichen and grass for dozens of feet in any direction before the great, noble forest started up again.

  A dog barked and there were more horses’ greetings, and Andie looked at Saul.

  “How did they do that?” she asked. He shook his head.

  “No one knows. Do your people have witches?”

  She shook her head. It was a term Charis had used sometimes, but she’d never known what it meant.

  “Women who are dangerous and powerful with magic,” Saul said. “They call her the witch of the east woods, down in town. They all respect her, but they’re terrified of her.”

  “She’s not a witch,” Andie said. Saul grinned.

  “She saves people when they’re ailing, and she predicts the weather fairly well. That’s all it takes, around here.”

  Andie shrugged.

  “She isn’t a witch.”

  Someone called out and the front door flew open. A woman with faded blonde hair darted out into the yard and ran to Andie. She opened her mouth, then, startled, closed it. Laughed. She reached out to touch the mare.

  “Valerie?” the woman asked.

  “Yes,” Andie said. “Valerie?”

  The woman nodded and opened her mouth again to speak, then laughed and shrugged, speaking to her in a stream of language that Andie didn’t understand. Andie shook her head and looked at Saul, but the man was helping Eb get the horses settled. Ben was staring, but it was apparent he didn’t understand either. Andie slid out of the saddle and let the woman hug her.

  “Where is Isobel?” Andie asked. The woman answered, but Andie only just barely understood Isobel’s name in the answer. Valerie gestured, and Andie gathered that Isobel was inside, and she was supposed to follow. Andie hung back for a moment, trying to make sure that her horse was cared for, but the mare’s namesake signaled one of the stable boys and spoke sternly to him for a moment, then took Andie’s hand and led her into the house, the matter settled. Valerie chatted all the way through the house, pointing this way and that, and Andie eventually stopped trying to communicate that she didn’t understand. They reached a large hall at the back of the house where she found Isobel sitting in one of two large chairs before an enormous fireplace. There was a certain amount of activity that Andie took for granted in a large household, but the room grew quiet as Valerie pulled her before Isobel.

  The woman hadn’t changed.

  Her long black hair fell to one side, over the arm of her chair and to the floor beside her, and her still, pale face was cold.

  “Isobel,” she said. Isobel stood and walked a slow circle around Andie as Valerie backed away.

  “I don’t recognize you,” Isobel said. “I’d hoped you would still have some of the child I knew in you.”

  Andie opened her mouth, but found no words. Isobel continued.

  “The staff that does speak Greek has been forbidden to use it. You are now a member of my house, and you will act like one. You are not a visitor nor a guest, and you will behave like a woman of your station is expected to, among these people. I will not introduce you to any of the men of the region until you do.”

  “What station is that?” Andie asked.

  “The daughter of a noblewoman, one who is eligible to be married.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “A great many things,” Isobel said. “But I don’t have the time or patience to teach them to you today. Valerie will take you to your rooms and introduce you to your maid.” She paused. “You are welcome here, Andromeda.”

  She spoke for a moment to Valerie, then the blond woman took Andie’s arm and led her away, her face betraying some disappointment that Andie couldn’t understand. Not that Andie wasn’t, herself, disappointed.

  “What’s going on?” she asked as they left the room. Valerie must have understood her tone, because she raised her hands to either s
ide and dropped them again.

  “Where is Rafa?” Andie asked. Valerie answered, but her reply was no more informative than any of the rest of her speech. Andie followed, bewildered, through a series of halls and rooms, up a set of stairs, and stopped in a doorway next to Valerie. Valerie made some word-noises that indicated that this was it.

  The room was huge, by any standard of a bedroom that Andie had ever seen, and had doors in two walls indicating additional space that would be hers. The doors were the same solid wood that showed on the outside face, and she had two shuttered windows that would face out over the front yard. She doubted they were high enough to see over the forest, but she would have a lovely view of it.

  “Thank you,” she said to Valerie. “It’s beautiful.”

  Valerie said some more things, and Andie imagined it would be something about having the rest of her things brought up. And then she left.

  And Andie was alone.

  She went to explore the two adjacent rooms, finding a large private bath and a sitting room that had a door out to the hallway. The space was generous, and the furniture solidly-built from stone and wood, but the lack of fabric made it feel cold and inhuman. She sat down on the bed, the only soft surface in all three rooms, and sighed. She hadn’t really gotten here, in her head, but without having any other specific expectations, she knew this wasn’t what she had expected.

  She had wanted Isobel to be excited to see her.

  She had wanted an enthusiastic welcome, and a celebration of her arrival.

  She had wanted to feel like she had finally found home.

  Instead, she sat, by herself, as the sun set.

  And she was lonely.

  She finally left her room, going out to explore the house, if no one else was going to show her. No one challenged her as she wandered, getting hopelessly lost and finding herself again, then getting lost once more. There were stairs up and stairs down, rooms where women worked with happy chatter, and many, many empty rooms, like a huge royal family had once lived here, and Isobel and Rafa were all that were left.

  She recognized some of the servants from Isobel’s time in Greece, but most of them were strangers to her, and none of them spoke to her unless they had specific reason to. All of them spoke in the strange language, when they did speak to her, and rapidly grew frustrated at her inability to understand.