by Keira Drake
“I’ve never bought groceries before!”
She gives me a sidelong glance. “That seems odd. Did your husband see to your household affairs in the Nations Beyond the Sea?”
My face turns red. “I’m not married. I’m scarcely of age!”
She stops walking. “How old are you? Fifteen, sixteen, surely?”
“I’ll be seventeen on my next birthday,” I say. “People do not marry so young in the Spire—there must be a long courtship, and all of the social traditions must be observed, and of course, a large wedding is something everyone desires.” I close my eyes for a moment, lost in reverie. “Ah, the cakes and sandwiches and wine, the bridal gowns and ribbons, and—”
“The Aven’ei marry with a word, so long as it is witnessed by others,” Yuki says, looking puzzled. “There is no cake.”
“You just…declare that you want to marry one another?”
“Of course.”
“Oh,” I say. “Well. I’m sure that’s quite lovely, in its way.”
“I was wed at fourteen,” she says. “But my husband, he took ill shortly afterward and died the following summer. Since then, I’ve been on my own.” She leans closer to me, a hint of mischief in her eyes. “To be honest, I prefer it that way. I’ve no interest in marriage.”
I give her another, longer look. She is so beautiful, so seemingly indifferent to all things inconsequential. Her eyes sweep over the crowd, over the wares in the marketplace, with a calculation that makes me feel oblivious in comparison. Along the final row, we stop before a table covered in books, and she turns to me once again.
“May I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
She takes a tattered book, thumbs through the pages, then sets it down. “In days long ago—when your people still came to the Continent and broke bread with the Aven’ei—we are told that the nations of your land battled fiercely.”
“Yes, that is so.”
“Mmm. And your leaders chose to abandon such conflicts, and this new resolve was the reason you withdrew from the Continent and isolated yourselves.”
“That is also true.”
She rests a palm on the table and taps her fingers on the cover of a fat volume titled Sheep: a Treatise. “But…have your people managed to uphold such an ideal? Do you truly come from a place of peace?”
“Yes. The Spire has not seen battle for more than two centuries.”
She smiles. “I thought it was a legend—nothing more than whispers and words. I can’t begin to imagine a life without the drums of war. Tell me, what is it like?”
As I turn the question in my mind, I think for perhaps the first time on the enormity of what I have left behind—the sense of utter safety. “It is quiet,” I say finally. “Not in a literal sense—how can I explain? I mean to say there is a…a tranquillity in the absence of such a threat.”
“Quiet,” she says, her dark eyes thoughtful. “Yes. I can imagine it, if I try. But…is there crime, at least? Surely the Spire is no utopia?”
“There is certainly crime,” I say. “A person can make a weapon out of anything if they like, and there are always those who do…but criminals are dealt with swiftly, and the justice of the courts prevails.”
“And there is no war.”
“No. I wish the Aven’ei could know such peace.”
She laughs, plucks a slim volume from the back of the table, and passes an oka to the merchant. “As long as a single Topi lives and breathes, there will be war upon the Continent.”
“But why?” I say. “Why do they seek to destroy you?”
“A debt is owed,” she says. “And furthermore, the Topi now understand the riches of the south. The fertility of our soil, the safety of our shores. The agriculture we have cultivated. They love the north, but desire what the north cannot deliver. And so they seek to take it from us, here in the south and east.”
“Well…the nations of the Spire eventually found a way to make a lasting accord. Perhaps some day, such an agreement might be found between the Topi and the Aven’ei—a sharing of resources and land.”
Her eyebrows rise, and she smiles. “You believe this—I can see it in your face!”
“With all my heart.”
A sadness comes upon her lovely features, and she shakes her head. “This hope of yours, I fear it will do you no good. Set it aside, or you will not see death when it comes.”
“I will never give up hope,” I say, but wonder for half a second if this is true.
She shrugs. “Hope for things that are possible, then. Hope for clear skies amidst the storms of summer, or for the safe return of our warriors from the battlefields at Sana-Zo and the Narrow Corner. Hope for a happy marriage and many sons, if that should please you. Never hope for peace, Vaela. Not here. Not on the Continent.”
“I can’t help it. After all, hope is not sustained by the likeliness of a thing, but by the desire for it, and it is my dearest wish that you and all your people would know the peace I have described.”
Yuki smiles. “What faith you have, and what goodwill.” She clasps a hand around mine. “It is good to know you, Vaela Sun.”
CHAPTER 16
SHOSHI KAKEN WASN’T KIDDING WHEN HE SAID “daybreak.” The morning light has scarcely made an appearance when he raps on the door, though I’ve been lying awake for some time, my stomach in a nervous knot.
I climb out of bed, already dressed—I wanted to be prepared, so I slept in my clothes—and hurry toward the door.
The old warrior gives me a look up and down as I step onto the porch, and grunts—whether in disdain or approval, I have no idea. “This way,” he says, and leads me through town toward the gate, away from the village center. Away from the comfort of my lovely green quilt, away from all things newly familiar, and into the unknown.
An adventure, I remind myself, though I feel a bit miserable. We’re outside the village gates now, moving south.
“It’s a lovely morning,” I say brightly, hoping to somehow break the ice between us. “Very cold, but I suppose that’s usual.”
Shoshi looks over at me for half a second, but says nothing. He begins to walk a bit faster.
I hurry along beside him, trying to keep pace. “You know,” I say, “I think perhaps we got off on the wrong foot. I really haven’t meant to impose on your people in any way, and I would go home at once if I were able to do so.”
Again, he does not reply, but I continue anyway. “I’m ready to work, you know. To work very hard, and do everything I can to earn an honest wage. Yes, farming is a far cry from cartography—oh, that’s mapmaking, did you know?—but I’m quite determined to excel. I hope to far exceed your expectations.”
Shoshi comes to a halt. “Stop talking. Do you hear me? Stop.”
“Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“No, see, you’re still talking. Don’t apologize. Don’t reply. Just stop.”
“All right,” I say, and put a hand over my mouth.
He stares at me for a moment, then continues on his way.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intimidated by Shoshi Kaken. Everything about him seems dangerous to me: his battered skin, zigzagged with scar tissue; the swirling, mysterious tattoos upon his face; his husky voice. But more than anything else, it is his hostility that puts me on edge. In truth, I am not accustomed to being disliked. I can’t understand why he loathes me, why the very sight of me seems to irritate him. I don’t know if he hates me personally or dislikes Spirians in general. Maybe it’s just my face that bothers him. I have no idea. But I decide with unequivocal certainty that I will make him like me. After all, I am the only Spirian on the Continent. I must set a good example and represent my country with dignity.
And in any case, people always like me. Shoshi doesn’t get to be any different.
* * *
It’s a long walk, nearly forty minutes, before we arrive. I must say, the farm is not quite what I expected. I thought there would be acres of lush fruit trees,
dozens of neatly plowed rows of soil, perhaps ten cows or so. Instead, there is a huge, rickety wooden outbuilding (to keep the cows warm when it freezes, I imagine), a smaller building in better repair, and miles and miles and miles of grass. Roughly two hundred cows—all black as night, with bored brown eyes—stand within a wooden pen before us.
“There are more than I thought there would be,” I say. “And how pretty they are!”
Shoshi looks at me in disgust. “They are not pretty,” he says. “They are cattle. Food. Heifers, cows, bulls—some for breeding, some for trade, some for meat. Don’t get attached. A cow is not a pet, and the ones meant for slaughter live only a year or so.”
I feel a pang of sadness, but keep it to myself. “Do they give milk as well?” I ask hopefully, picturing myself on a white stool, singing a soothing melody as milk fills a silver pail.
“These are not dairy cows. Some of them will be, when they’re old enough. But the milking animals are on another farm.”
“I see. And how am I to collect their…their deposits? And what do I do with the material?”
He points to a large device I cannot name. It’s like a bin resting on one wheel and two sticks, with something like handles on the back.
“Wheelbarrow,” he says. “You fill it, you carry it to the building behind that one—” he points to the wide, rickety barn “—and you fill the wagons inside. The farmers and tradesmen come to take it away every morning, before you even wake.”
“Right,” I say, eyeing the wheelbarrow and trying to figure out how it works. “Shall I just go in, then?”
He retrieves a pair of filthy gloves from the wheelbarrow and tosses them to me. “This is how it works: I bring the cows from the pen to the pasture. While they’re out, you clean the pen. When they go back in, you take your little shovel and move into the pasture. Do you think you can remember that?”
My blood boils with indignant fury, but I keep my temper in check. I will not give him the satisfaction.
“I can remember it.”
“All right then. Let’s get started.”
Manure stinks.
I may take away from this experience a lesson in the value of hard work, or a feeling of proud independence. I might even grow to love the tightness in my muscles and the aching in my back—after all, I’m working, and there’s nobility in that. But I will NEVER—not ever—get used to manure.
It’s in my hair. It’s in my ears. Its scent is so far up my nose, it will probably stay there forever. I am a disgusting wreck, covered in feces, having been glared at and insulted by Shoshi Kaken all day, and am now trudging back to the village in a cloud of filth.
“Dig in with that shovel—put your back into it, you lazy girl!”
“Oh, for pity’s sake—it’s like you’ve never seen a wheelbarrow before.”
“GET OUT OF THE MUCK. GET UP. GET UP! Gods, she’s an idiot.”
I think perhaps I was wrong in my initial assessment of Shoshi Kaken’s dislike for me. Possibly, I underestimated the sheer fervor of his dislike, the roiling alacrity of it. I honestly think he enjoys hating me. I have never before felt so inept. By the end of the day, this man has me half-believing that I am some sort of idiot.
All I can think about is the tub in my washroom at home, and how long it will take to fill with hot water, and how much water it will actually take to clean my body, and the fact that I have to do this again every day for the rest of the week. The saving grace in all of this is that the Aven’ei work in alternate weeks, so fourteen days of every month will not be spent in the presence of manure. I can do this. I can.
It’s early afternoon, and the sun dances in pinpricks on the path, dappled beneath the leaves of the trees overhead. I look around me, at the new flowers poking through the earth, leaves and petals stretching hungrily toward the sunlight. Spring on the Continent is a beautiful thing—at least, here in the south, it is. Everything is green and fresh, and seems to smell of honeysuckle. Well. It smelled of honeysuckle this morning, before the manure.
As humbled as I am by the disgusting beginning of my new career, I do feel somewhat satisfied. I took every one of Shoshi’s insults without a word, and shoveled pile after pile of feces—some of it still warm, as I was to discover when I slipped and fell. I wonder what my mother and father would say, if only I could tell them that I’d spent the day moving excrement from one place to another. I can only imagine my mother’s astonished expression, her dark eyebrows arching in bewilderment. And my father—would he laugh? Would he congratulate me on a job well done? I can never know. But still…I hope to make them proud. I want to bring honor to the name of Sun. I’m just not entirely sure I can accomplish this by mucking about with cow patties—and so I have another idea, a grander one, a plan that will at least allow me to make use of the skills I possess: I am going to create a map for the Aven’ei. Not a topographic map, but a tactical one.
The inspiration came to me this afternoon as I sat in the grass beneath an enormous oak tree, enjoying an apple and trying to claim a few precious minutes of rest. I was thinking about the Divide—the natural barrier formed by the Rukka and Kinsho mountain ranges that effectively partitions the Continent into two separate territories. The Rukka rise up along the south, blending into the Kinsho in the east; these mountains keep the Topi and the Aven’ei apart, for the terrain is so treacherous that the natives must move around the peaks rather than cross them to reach one another. This leaves two paths without obstruction: the Narrow Corner high in the northeast—the very place where I saw my first battle from the heli-plane—and the reaches of the south, which comprise miles of rocky cliffs and culminate in the great Southern Vale, very near to where Noro found me.
The Topi, as a rule, do not trespass into Aven’ei territory by way of the south, and rarely cross the mountains; most contact with the Aven’ei takes place in or around the Narrow Corner. And so it occurred to me that I might create a map and mark certain places where man-made structures might complement the natural terrain and provide improved defense against Topi attacks. I am certain the Aven’ei know their own territory well—but perhaps something comprehensive might prove useful. After all, I do have the unique position of having studied the Continent in great detail, along with the advantage of seeing it firsthand from above.
The more I think about this, the more excited I become. If I must wait until autumn for the kazuri ko to pass in order to make passage to Ivanel by ship, then surely I can fill my free hours with purpose, and perhaps even provide the Aven’ei with a resource that could turn the tide of the war. I make a mental note to ask Noro for parchment and quills when next I see him—though I shall keep the map a secret until it is ready for submission to the council. I marvel at how excited I was, a thousand years ago, to map the Riverbed, of all things—a place of great topographical interest for a cartographer, but of zero significance in terms of the tactical goings-on of the Continent. How strange it is that my skills as a mapmaker have shifted from the scientific to the strategic. And yet…if I can help, it seems a perfectly sensible transition.
The path home winds around an apricot tree, and the village comes into view beyond the gently sloping hillside. A burst of renewed energy floods through me—washtub, washtub, washtub—and I walk faster; I’m nearly jogging by the time I reach the village gates. As I make my way through the quiet residential streets leading to my own, I think again of Noro, gone as of this morning, sent out on some assignment or other. He will kill again, and soon.
He’s a murderer. The thought comes unbidden, and a chill runs down my spine. No. He’s an assassin—a soldier. Isn’t there a difference? He does what he must for the survival of the Aven’ei. And he saved my life. Is there no merit in that?
An image of his shadowed figure at the Topi camp comes to my mind: the effortless sweep of his knife across my attacker’s throat, the blood, shining black in the near darkness, the sharp scent of iron in the air.
He saved me. To think of him now, composed, at ease,
seemingly no different than any other villager—it is hard to believe what he has done. What he does. I recall Aaden’s words: We’ve traded our swords for treaties, our daggers for promises—but our thirst for violence has never been quelled. And that’s the crux of it: it can’t be quelled. It’s human nature.
Is it?
I brush the thought aside, disconcerted, and turn onto the little lane leading to my cottage. At the sight of my front porch, happiness becomes too small a word. I’m in such a hurry to get inside that I almost miss it—a small paper bundle on the porch. I pick it up; it’s oblong, and heavy, like a skipping stone.
I peel away the paper to find a bar of lilac soap, its glorious scent strong and powerful even through my haze of manure. I remember Noro at the marketplace, talking about such luxury items: Waste of oka if you ask me.
Noro! I clutch the soap to my heart. It is the single greatest gift I have ever received.
CHAPTER 17
A KNOCK AT THE FRONT DOOR AWAKENS ME ON the morning after my first full week of work. I open one eye. Dim morning light slices through the edges of the window drapery, casting stark white lines on the floor. No. I let my eye close.
Another knock comes, louder this time. This time, both eyes snap open. I flip my blankets to one side, swing myself out of bed, and hurry along the hallway to the door.
“Who’s there?” I say.
A muffled voice filters through the door. “It’s Yuki Sanzo, come to call.”
I rub the sleep from my eyes, try to shake off my drowsiness, and open the door.
There she stands, looking immaculate (and wide-awake) in an ensemble very much like mine: a long tunic with a fitted neck, split at the collar by a narrow notch, and dark trousers of heavy spun cotton. The tunic—cinched at the hips by a braided black belt—falls almost to mid-thigh; tapered, close-fitting sleeves are so long that they reach clear to the fingertips. My garments are of deep green, while Yuki’s are pale blue, which is striking against the inky blackness of her hair.