“Without memory the stories are all you have ?”
She said quietly, “You want to be my friend, Lucky Man, because I am as monstrous as you are. Beware, or I will make you into a story.”
Gilly said, “Make it a good one.”
She gazed at him, unsmiling, her eyes hidden, as always, in shadow. “I am a collector of tales,” she said. “And I will tradestory for story.”
“No pay?” He glanced at Alrin. “Is this what you couldn’t tell me?”
Alrin sighed mightily. “Surely you see that I couldn’t let her work at the garrison for no pay—she would be no use to me, but I’d still be paying her expenses. Why would I do that for a complete stranger?”
“We’ll pay for her room and board. She can find a place in a boarding house, if you don’t want her here.”
“Oh, I’m willing for her to stay.”
“It’s settled, then.”
Alrin said worriedly, “But she says whatever she likes! She has neither manners nor fear!”
“That’s not your problem, is it?” He turned to the storyteller. “I will arrange for the soldiers to tell you their stories, as many stories as you tell them. Is it agreed?”
“It is,” she said indifferently.
“An escort will bring you to the garrison this evening. You can eat with us if you like, but I don’t recommend it.”
“I will eat with you.”
“Well, it is arranged.” Gilly lifted his cane, and thunked it to the floor again. “What was this punishment for?” he asked.
“Perhaps I murdered my wife.”
He looked at her, and she looked back at him, neither sad nor ashamed, nor even interested. “I’ll see you tonight,” he said, and left.
By evening, the snow covered the world like a flour paste, ankle-deep and ungodly slippery. Though men of unsteady gait should stay safely by the hearth on such nights, Gilly borrowed Cadmar’s aide, and leaned on him, and on his cane, and on whatever railings were convenient, and so managed to journey to the refectory without falling too disastrously. But it was the journey back to his rooms again that Gilly dreaded, for by then the snow would have hardened to slick ice. Too soon, the winter would lock him indoors, and the pain brought on by cold would cripple him truly, and in the darkness of winter he would wonder what his life was good for. It happened every year.
In the refectory, which, fortunately, had been rebuilt before the snow began to fall, they were just hauling in the cauldrons on wheeled tables, with one person pulling and one person pushing and a third person holding down the lid to keep the contents from spilling out. The soldiers stood drearily with their tin plates in their hands and held them out to the cooks in the hopeless manner of people who can no longer be disappointed. They were given as much stew as they wanted and fist-sized lumps of bread that were sure to be as hard as stones. Gilly had lived since boyhood on such fare, and when the aide brought him a serving, he broke his bread into the stew and ate what he had been given. The table at which he sat was slowly, discreetly emptying as its occupants spotted friends and casually went to sit with them. The big room became intolerably noisy; conversations between neighbors were conducted in shouts.
But the incredible racket faltered abruptly. Gilly raised his gaze from the splintered tabletop. The storyteller had arrived. The soldier who had escorted her was hanging the woman’s fine wool cloak from a peg, and then, proprietarily, he showed her to Gilly’s table. The soldiers turned and stared at her so frankly Gilly feared she’d take offense. But she did not seem to notice.
“The soldiers avoid you,” she commented as she sat beside Gilly on the bench.
“Like fish fleeing into a net.”
“And does that fearfulness make you rich? Or get you a good husband?”
“It merely makes me feared.”
She said somberly, “Your life is all wrong, then.”
The soldiers had let the storyteller’s escort cut into the front of the line. To pay for his privilege, though, he apparently gave those nearby an explanation of her presence, and Gilly watched the news spread like a wave across the room, and out the door. Gilly’s table quickly began to fill again; the soldiers, trying hard to behave with civility, introduced themselves and their friends to the storyteller, and asked eager questions that the storyteller, with no apparent effort, replied to without answering. They resorted to volunteering information: that the stew she was now eating was better than they had eaten for some time, but still was pretty bad; that the big, meaty beans in it were fallow beans, so-called because they were grown in fallow fields; that the kitchen had been rebuilt at last, which explained the improvement in the food. She looked up from her nearly empty bowl and said, “You know the difference, don’t you, between information and stories?” She glanced at Gilly, and it seemed she was curious and not intending to be mocking.
“You will be paid,” he gruffly said. “These soldiers here are just intrigued by you, and making idle conversation as best they can. We never see anything new here.”
She stood up, then, and stepped up onto the bench, and from there to the tabletop. She did not need to call for quiet; the only sound came from the soldiers, summoned by fleet-footed rumor, who struggled to get in the crowded doorway. She said in a loud, clear voice, “I am a gatherer, a carrier, a teller of tales. I have come to trade with you, tale for tale. Once, when I was walking through the southland, along the edge of a lake, I found an old man, who sat on a stone by the water and wept with sorrow. ‘Old man,’ I said …”
Sitting directly below her, Gilly could clearly see the thin scars that crisscrossed her hands. She shaped the old man in the air, with words and gestures telling how he was haunted by the ghosts of three women, each of whom blamed him for her untimely death. She stood balanced, poised, with her weight on her toes like a dancer. The tassel at the end of her braid bounced lightly, softly, communicating the rise and fall of the story, and then signaling its ending.
The soldiers pounded the tabletops and roared appreciation. And then her hands smoothed the air like a magician soothing a troubled ocean, and the voices fell silent. “I am sure you have heard of Haprin,” she said. “But do you know that Haprin has a spring that bubbles out of the ground so hot, you can boil eggs in it? And yet no one goes near that spring, not even in dead of winter, because it is a place of bad luck. Long ago, when Shaftal was a young and wild land…”
The refectory became so jammed with soldiers that no one could reach the food line any more, and the listeners passed plates of hot stew hand to hand, across the room, and even out the door. In the rapt silence that followed her sixth story—a love story, this time, with a satisfying ending—the night bell could be heard to ring. She glanced down at Gilly, and Gilly got stiffly to his feet. “Will you return tomorrow, storyteller?”
“You owe me six stories,” she said, speaking to the crowded room.
One of the captains, whom Gilly had spoken with that afternoon, promptly said, “My company will pay.” He named a place and time for her to meet with them the next day. She bowed, and descended, and though Gilly had to hold his ears against the din of acclaim, she did not seem to hear it.
“I’ll accompany you to the gate!” he shouted.
Once outside, he regretted his offer, for the footing was worse than he had expected. She held out her arm, though, saying, “It’s hobnail season already.”
“Hobnail boots are too heavy for me,” said Gilly. When he leaned on her, she was steady as stone, despite her light build. And that strength spoke to him again of the past she claimed she could not remember. He said, “Your body betrays that you are a knife fighter.”
“I have a warrior’s scars,” she confirmed. “Sometimes, I feel how muscle and bone remembers a long training. But I have been weaponless a long time, I think.” She added, after a moment, “Do you suspect me, Lucky Man? Do you think I am trying to disguise myself? I can’t disguise a self I do not know.”
“Only when I noticed your scarre
d hands did it occur to me to doubt your tale, peculiar though it is.”
She said, with just a trace of humor, “Oh, a storyteller can be most dangerous. Your caution is very sensible. Since I don’t care who hears my tales, or who tells them in return, simply send me away!”
“I am sure you don’t care. I think you are truly indifferent about everything.”
“The people who remember are the ones who live passionately. They believe they have something to protect or a future to anticipate. I am not that kind. What kind are you, Lucky Man?”
He could not answer her, and the rest of the journey to the gate, they walked in silence. The clouds were breaking up, and a brisk wind began to blow. As the storyteller went out the gate, the wind blew back her cloak, and in the faint light of the gate lamps, her red silk shimmered like flame.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Lieutenant-General? May I have a word with you?”
Clement had found one comfortable chair in the garrison, and had it put by the fireplace in her own spartan quarters. There she sat, with a washed uniform hanging nearby to dry in the heat of the brisk fire. She had slept in that chair no few nights, but now it was Davi who slept, curled in Clement’s lap, with her thumb in her mouth.
“Come in,” she said to the sergeant at the door. “But be quiet.”
“It looks like snow again,” he said in a low voice. “Unbelievable weather.”
“It was this bad when we first came here, thirty-five years ago. It’s been this bad every year since then.”
“Well.” The sergeant was a relatively young man, probably Shaftali-born. The habit of complaining about the weather was endemic, though, even among those who had never known anything else.
“Come closer to the fire,” she suggested. “What’s on your mind?”
“Ten days we’ve been here. The sick kids are getting better, and you’ve found that one you wanted. The company’s wondering when we’ll head back to Watfield.”
“Do they wantto make that journey?”
“If they have to do it,” he said honestly, “they’d rather now than later.”
“Well, I’m thinking they’ll be trapped here all winter. I know it’s not what they expected.”
The sergeant looked more relieved than apprehensive. “I don’t know that they’d mind. Conditions in Watfield are pretty bad.”
“It’s dirty work here, too.”
He shrugged. “We’ve got fresh food, warm beds at night—”
“Luxury!”
He gave a grin. They’d gotten comfortable with each other over the days; working elbow-deep together at one or another disgusting task had been a great leveler.
“I won’t tell the folks in Watfield how comfortable you are,” she promised. “So they won’t harass you about it, come spring.”
His jaw went slack with surprise. “But you—”
“Ssh!”
He lowered his voice. “How will youget there? And surely not alone!”
“Not quite. I’ll have Davi with me.”
“You can’tmake the journey unattended.” His voice was strained by the depth of feeling he struggled to convey without volume.
“You may be right, but I’ve got to try.”
“But how?”
“There’s only one way, Sergeant. By pretending to be Shaftali.”
He shut his jaw with a snap. “Huh!” he finally said. “But you look pretty military.”
“If I have to, I’ll pretend to be a Paladin.”
“You think you can?”
“You think it would occur to anyone that the Sainnite lieutenant-general would travel alone, on Toot, in winter, with a sick child? I’d think they’d find it more believable that I’m one of them, even if I do seem strange. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’ve got to try.”
“If the Paladins should capture you …”
“I’ll be dead.” She gave a shrug, and Davi mumbled a complaint. She stroked a hand down the child’s head to soothe her, and that seemed to work. “Cadmar would be angry about it, I suppose. But I can be replaced. And no one will blame you,considering how far I outrank you.”
“But still,” he said.
“You’ve told me your objection. You’ve done your duty. Anything else you want to talk about?”
He left, apparently more wretched than when he had arrived.
*
Davi awoke. Clement persuaded her to eat some of the sweet cake they were feeding all the convalescent children. She put her head onto Davi’s chest and listened to her breathe. The rattling sound had not returned, though Davi continued pale and weak. How soon, Clement wondered, did she dare take this hollow-eyed child out into the wind?
“Do you want more cake?”
Davi solemnly shook her head.
“I need to go hunt for something in the stable. Do you want to come along?”
Davi’s nod was no surprise. The child had gotten to the point that she could tolerate being out of physical contact with Clement, but if Clement went out of her sight she became hysterical. Clement was getting used to carrying Davi everywhere with her, balanced on her hip, and the soldiers had gotten used to seeing her and didn’t stare any more. Clement could swear the child was getting heavier, but at least she was no longer completely passive, did some of the work of holding on, and could even use a chamberpot on her own.
“You’ve turned me into a beast of burden,” Clement complained as she carried the bundled child to the stable.
Davi looked at her blankly. Her eyes reminded Clement of some soldiers—casualties, sometimes without a visible wound. But Davi was slowly improving, and lately had even said some words and had been coaxed to smile. In the stable, several older children, crowded into a big stall with a demonstration horse, were being instructed in hoof care. The horses were exceptionally popular; there had been interventions to keep them from being overfed by the doting children. Clement set Davi in a pile of clean straw. “I’ll be over there. Just call me if you want me.”
Davi huddled passively in the straw. Clement felt that stark gaze on her back as she began her hunt through the junk that filled what had once been the tack room. She kept in Davi’s sight, as if she were a helpful target and Davi the archer.
This odd, round building had once been a kind of school for Paladins, when Paladins were known as deadly philosophers, rather than as farmers who took up weapons in place of hoes. A sturdy building, with fireplaces and small windows, it was intended for year-round occupation. Surely it had once contained the kind of equipment Clement hoped to find, particularly since the Paladins had abandoned their domiciles in haste to attack the Sainnites after the Fall, leaving much behind.
Clement heaved aside a tangle of oddments and broken objects that should have been thrown out. Rats fled, squeaking outraged protests. She choked in dust and wished for a lantern. A generation’s worth of dirt and debris lay moldering here, and much of it had settled on her by the time she discovered the treasure trove: A rack of skis, their bindings rotted away; snowshoes, their webbings gone but the frames still intact; and a sledge. She could not restrain a whoop of triumph. A sledge!
She dragged it out. Davi crawled out of her nest to inspect it, and some of the other children abandoned their lesson to take a look. They soon lost interest, but Davi solemnly mounted the contraption and sat down. She pointed at the rotted remains of the harness. “How will you pull it, Clemmie?”
“I saw some old horse harness in there.” Clement went back to the junk and extricated some stiff leather, the buckles rusted, but nothing that some sand and grease could not fix.
“It’s too big,” Davi objected.
“Well, I am a soldier, which means I can make anything out of anything. Soldiers die if they can’t adapt, you know.”
Davi nodded somberly.
“You can help me clean the sledge. It’ll be a cold trip, but you’ll have blankets.”
“Will we stay in people’s houses?” Davi apparently had some experience wi
th this kind of travel already, perhaps from seeing visitors at her family’s farmstead.
“Yes. You mustn’t tell anyone I’m a soldier, though. It’s a secret.”
Davi shook her head vigorously.
“If you eat more, and rest, in a few days we’ll leave. I’ll take you home.”
“Home?” She looked confused.
“I’ll take you home because you’re a weight in the scale. Because your father is willing to be hated and persecuted just to have you back again. Why, I don’t know.”
“Mmm.” Davi gave a tentative, confused smile.
“Are you getting cold? I can take this harness to my room and start working on it. I want you to eat more cake to make you strong.”
Davi held up her arms for Clement to pick her up.
*
Another five days had passed before Clement took Davi and the loaded sledge out the gate. The runners had been sanded and sharpened, the snowshoes re-webbed, the harness adapted, and Davi had a straw-stuffed mattress to sleep on and an oilcloth cover to keep out the snow. Both of them wore the heaviest, warmest clothing that could be found, non-issue right down to the skin. Uneasy though she felt without weapons, Clement had left even them behind.
Her soldiers stood speechless; even Purnal seemed amazed. But the children, who knew an adventure when they saw one, cheered the travelers out the gate.
Clement had never worn snowshoes before, but managed to avoid tripping over her own feet until the watchers could no longer see her. That first day, she fell down regularly. That first night, she lay with Davi on the sledge, sleeping in short bits until, awakened by cold, she got up to put more wood on the fire and to turn her drying clothing. The child slept undisturbed in a solid, wool-clad lump, with a wool cap tied under her chin. When the snow began to glow faintly, reflecting a distant dawn, and the stars that populated the frozen sky began to wink out, Clement dressed in clothing that was almost dry and halfway warm, loaded up the sledge, strapped herself in the harness, and set forth once again.
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