by Dana Marton
Morning came. The tiger ate the half fish, then padded off.
I relieved myself on the rocks by the sea, then went back to my spot and lay down again. I stared up at the sky, hoping to see a cloud in the shape of Batumar’s face, hoping for a message from his spirit.
Every part of my body hurt still, with an unending ache. My spirit was too broken to heal my injuries. I lay with my eyes closed. If I could somehow go back, I thought. If I could do something differently.
I did not know how much time passed as I lay there. Then a shadow fell over my face. I thought the seabird was returning to see if I was yet dead. But when I opened my eyes, I saw Graho bending over me.
“You live.” The merchant sounded oddly pleased.
He looked haggard, his face drawn, his hair hanging in twisted locks. His clothes were rent where the pirates had stabbed him. I had healed his injuries, but his garments carried their own wounds.
Anger washed over me that a man such as he should live while Batumar was gone. Hot tears leaked onto my face in a spurt of fury.
Then the children surrounded me, their blue eyes large and haunted. Only six. My breath caught. Had the others been lost to the sea?
The merchant bent to me and tossed me over his shoulder, carrying me away as easily as if I was a child. He was strong for a merchant.
If he thought he could get coin for me at Ishaf, he was bound to be disappointed. No wise man would pay for what I was now.
Being moved hurt, but I did not moan.
He carried me to a gap in the rock wall, then up steps that looked man-made. At the top of the cliffs, after a stretch of rocks, a forest waited with bare trees.
He carried me into the woods, to a small campsite. I gave thanks to the spirits when I spotted the three missing children tending a fire.
The merchant laid me down on a bed of dry leaves, close enough so I would feel the warmth of the flames.
He offered me his flask of water and a handful of berries. “You must regain your strength.”
I turned away and closed my eyes, shutting out the sounds of the children coming and going, talking in a language I did not understand.
When night came, the tiger walked up to the edge of our campsite. She lay down and called to me, chuffing softly, like a mother to her cub. I stumbled over to her and slept curled against her side. She was as warm as the fire.
“Thank you, Marga,” I named her with the Shahala word for mother.
In the morning, Marga was gone, and the merchant was back, standing over me.
“Who are you?” he asked.
I did not have to think. “I am nobody.”
I had once been a Shahala healer, but now I could not even heal myself. My belt of herbs had been lost in the waves. I had once been the favorite concubine of the High Lord of the Kadar. Batumar now rested on the bottom of the ocean.
“Lady Onra,” the merchant started.
“My true name is Tera,” I corrected on a sigh, in case he was the one who would recite the Last Blessing over my grave. If his people even offered a Last Blessing.
“Lady Tera.” Once again, the merchant offered me berries and water. “You must eat and drink.” He sounded brisk, like a teacher ordering his pupils.
A brittle laugh escaped my chapped lips. “For what purpose?”
I had no coin for travel. Even if I did, I did not fully know Batumar’s plans. And even if I knew every last detail, kings and generals would not negotiate with a woman. I had no authority to represent the Kadar and sign treaties in their name.
Graho sat down next to me, crossing his long legs in front of him. Then he said, in a softer tone than before, “Eat so that you may live.”
So I can sell you at the market, he meant.
I had been a slave before and had survived. Perhaps I could survive it again. But did I want to survive in a world where my people wouldn’t?
Batumar was lost. Our quest was lost. As soon as the Gate opened, our people would be slaughtered.
“We shall stay here another day to rest and recover,” the merchant told me, “then we shall go to Ishaf.”
“I wish to remain.”
Anger flattened his lips. His blue eyes flashed. “You wish to die.”
I said nothing. What did I wish? I wished that Batumar and I had never left on our journey, but I could not turn back time. “I wish to return to my people.” Yet another impossible wish.
“To be locked away in the next High Lord’s Pleasure Hall?” The merchant snapped out the words.
I closed my eyes. So he knew the Kadar customs and had recognized Batumar. As a traveling merchant, he’d probably been on our island before.
I hated his words, but they held truth I had not considered. If I returned to Karamur, I would become the next High Lord’s concubine. Batumar had no living brothers. Lord Samtis, the warlord who was in charge of Karamur in Batumar’s absence, would likely be elected the new High Lord now.
I had seen Lord Samtis at the High Lord’s feasts many a time. He was younger than Batumar, and, according to Batumar, a true warrior. He was built for battle, yet quick to smile. But to live in his Pleasure Hall, or any man’s… No. In truth, I found death preferable.
“Why don’t you heal yourself?” Graho asked, his voice back to a kinder tone.
I said nothing. I knew well the source of his sudden interest in me and concern for my well-being. He would receive more for a healthy woman than one half-dead.
“Why did the High Lord of the Kadar leave the island in the middle of war with no guard?” he wanted to know next. “On a pirate ship? With a concubine?”
When I did not answer, he puzzled it out for himself. “He was heading somewhere to make some kind of an alliance.” Graho paused. “The High Lord should not have brought you. That was ill done.”
He pushed to his feet with a frustrated grunt and strode away.
A little while later, the children scampered over. They brought water in a flask, berries in their hands, and a few sea mussels in a nest of seaweed, their large blue eyes watching me with worry.
I could not find it in my heart to send them away, so I ate, even if the food made my empty stomach cramp.
Afterward, they snuggled against me and lent me their warmth. How could I say no? For certain, they missed their mothers.
Soon the tiger returned, but the children weren’t scared in the least, perhaps because they had seen her earlier with me. She brought a leg of deer and dropped it at my feet. Then she curved her great body around us as if we were her cubs. She looked bigger and stronger already, after two days of fishing in the sea and hunting in the forest.
I was pleased for her. I wanted one of us to live.
Marga’s side rose and fell in a steady rhythm. The children slept, their soft breath a contrast to the tiger’s snoring. Heat seeped into my aching body.
As I stared up at the night sky, I felt the first flicker of strength, my thoughts clearing at last. I could not save Batumar, I could not save my people, but maybe I could save these children. My forehead furrowed. What could I trade with the merchant?
I had my waterlogged boots and my ruined clothes. My cloak was gone, and so was my belt of herbs. On my leather belt I still had my empty water flask and my simple kitchen knife, both worth very little.
The tiger was worth considerable coin, according to One-Tooth Tum, but the tiger was not mine to trade, and even if she was, I would not have traded her. I thought hard for half the night, coming to the only possible answer with dread: I had only myself to give.
I sent a prayer to the spirits then and tried to heal myself again so I might have more value in the bargain. Nothing happened.
None of the pain or the soreness or the tightness went away. I tried again, without result. Deep in my empty heart, I cried out to the spirits. They did not answer.
A sense of heavy defeat settled on me once again. I closed my eyes and let the tears wash down my face.
I truly was nothing. Good, part of me
said. If I was nothing, then nothing more could be taken away from me. This brought some odd measure of comfort that made sense to my grief-addled brain. I closed my eyes and went to sleep.
In the morning, I dragged the deer leg over to the fire, skinned it with my knife, and roasted it, ignoring the merchant’s curious gaze.
The children liked the meat. I even caught a couple of smiles, and caught their names. Nala, Kera, Tana, Mora—the four girls. Petars, Mikal, Willem, Andrev, and Gregno—the five boys.
I ate with them, a little, not wanting to overtax my stomach that had been without substantial food for many days.
I could not heal myself with powers, but food was another kind of healing.
The merchant fried a fatty fish next that he must have caught earlier, careful to catch the dripping fish oil in an empty shell. He worked that into his boots and gestured for me to do the same. This gift I accepted gratefully.
The leather of my boots had been treated for winter to repel water. Walking through snow or even puddles would not have done much damage, but the extended swim in salt water had soaked the leather through, and it had dried stiff, chafing my skin at every step.
The fish oil helped some, but no matter how much I worked the leather, I knew those boots would never be the same again. Before we went anywhere, I would have to fill them with dry moss to make a long walk possible.
I walked into the forest and gathered that moss, then some herbs, made a strengthening tea, and shared it with the children, who, while taking turns drinking from the flask, shyly asked for a story.
I could not remember any.
Packing up to leave for Ishaf did not take long, as we had nothing but the clothes on our backs. Instead of the rocky beach that would have slowed us down and likely caused injury, we walked through the forest, the merchant in the lead.
He had lost his rapier in the water, but since the tiger walked with us, I did not worry overmuch about being set upon by bandits.
We progressed slowly, all of us still too weak, the children’s short legs taking only very small bites out of the distance. Here and there, when I saw healing plants, I cut a few bunches without conscious thought and tied them to my belt. They made me feel slightly more whole. I wore them like the Kadar concubines wore their charm belts.
“At least there is no snow on the ground,” the merchant remarked.
I nodded. No snow, but a stiff wind blew, and the leafless trees and bushes blocked little of it. Being cold slowed us further still.
By nightfall, we were only halfway to the city, according to the merchant. He did not berate me or the children for slowing him down. Instead, he made a fire and we sat around it, eating what we had foraged: more berries, some mushrooms, and wild grapes that had dried on the vine. We could not hunt without bow and arrows, and we could not even hope for eggs, for no bird laid eggs in winter.
Once again, our main, and only, satisfying meal came in the morning when the tiger presented me with the hindquarters of a wild boar. This we roasted and ate.
I did not broach my idea of offering myself for the children. I wanted to wait until I was more recovered. As we walked, I thought about the famous stone temple of Ishaf and its priests, the daily sacrifices they made for their gods and goddesses. I had heard that many orphans served at the temple.
If I could not return the children to their families, they’d be better off serving at the temple than serving a beggar lord, starved and forced to beg on the streets.
The merchant treated them well, even giving them food before he ate, but, of course, he wanted them in fine shape for the sale. The children did not seem afraid of him. But I knew well that slaves grew used to their captors and their fate. Still, at least he showed no unkindness toward any, no violent discipline, not even when one tripped on a root and wailed.
When we reached a wide stream, he even carried the children across one by one. And when I slipped in the middle of the stream, he came back for me and carried me out over his shoulder.
I looked back for the tiger, but Marga was off exploring some other corner of the forest. She often wandered away, then returned to check on our progress, soon padding off again. Maybe we were walking too slowly for her.
“Where were you headed?” the merchant asked, falling in step next to me as we took a wider animal trail.
Landria. But I no longer had need to go there. I would have no army of mercenaries to ship back to Dahru to liberate our island. I said nothing.
“What will you do when we reach Ishaf?” he asked then.
This I answered. “The spirits willing, I shall make a trade.”
He watched me with a puzzled look in his blue gaze. When I added no further detail, he said, “I shall be taking the caravan to Muzarat. Come with me.”
But the very name made me shudder. Muzarat was possibly the biggest slave market in the world, on the other side of the great Cetrean Desert. I looked away from him. He did not plan on selling his little beggars at Ishaf. He was taking them where he could receive top coin.
Or maybe he lived in Muzarat. I did not care enough to ask.
He kept watching me as we walked. “I offer you my protection for the journey.”
For the journey. But not at Muzarat. He intended to lure me along, then sell me.
I said nothing.
* * *
We stopped to rest often and made little progress by the end of the day. I helped the children gather branches while the merchant cleared a spot for us to sleep and made sure we would not be lying next to any poisonous snakes.
We had no shelter, but in this, the spirits favored us at last, for it neither snowed nor rained. The night remained mild for the season.
At dawn, the tiger found us and gifted us with the shoulder of a brown horse.
“We must be close to the city,” the merchant said later as he roasted the meat.
He was proven right. We reached the edge of the forest by midday.
The pirate ship was gone from the harbor. The port city spread out before us, its distinct red tower in the eastern quarter of the city proper, the white spire of their stone temple in the west. A multitude of peasant huts crowded outside the city’s wooden walls, horses and cows and sheep milling among the huts with the peasants. Servants and soldiers passed in and out the city gate. The slight wind carried the scent of wood smoke and animal waste toward us.
Ishaf.
I stopped for a moment, and the tiger paused by my side.
I had reached Ishaf. Without Batumar. The dark void inside my chest felt large enough to swallow the whole city.
The merchant and the children moved forward, toward food and warmth and relative safety. I followed them. I would save the children if I could, I resolved again.
Marga stayed at the edge of the woods. She gave a mournful roar behind me. I turned just in time to see her disappear in a flash of gold.
Thank you, great mother, I called after her. May the spirits keep you safe.
Then I caught up to the merchant, who said, “I wondered what would happen if she tried to come into the city with us. I am relieved that she likes the woods better.”
He sounded almost as if he cared for the tiger. Then again, in all that time we had been together, he had made no attempt to capture Marga, despite her trading value. I thought that odd for a merchant.
We followed wagon tracks to the city gate. The city guard did not question us but let us through. They must have seen their share of war refugees of late.
An oxcart rolled by us; narrow houses lined the road. To our right stood the City Gate Inn, a two-story building with a handsome thatched roof and green shutters. We stopped in front of it.
The merchant said something to the children in their strange tongue, and they ran off. He had probably sent them off begging.
To me, he said, “We meet here at nightfall,” then strode off to pursue his own affairs.
I looked around. Ishaf was a great deal different from Karamur. The port city was more cro
wded, dirtier. The streets lacked the orderliness of the High Lord’s seat—a city run by soldiers.
A rosy-cheeked woman came to the inn’s door. “Wantin’ a room, lovey?”
I had no coin. But I had an idea. “Greetings, mistress. Would you please tell me the way to the town healer?”
I had plenty of herbs to sell. I was beginning to look below the belt like a small hut with a thatched roof, the upper part of my body like a great chimney on top.
The innkeeper’s wife furrowed her forehead as if not quite understanding, but a moment later, her face cleared. “Ye’d be lookin’ fer Ina the herb woman, eh?”
I nodded with some hope. And the innkeeper’s wife sent me on my way.
I found the herb woman on the outskirts. She was in the back of her small lot, harvesting what little she could from her winter garden. She was at least four times my age, in a wide black skirt made of layer and layer of material. She looked like the wind-ruffled crows who followed the plow and bobbed for turned-up bugs.
“Grandmother,” I called out to her.
She peered up at me from her bent position, her face as crackled as the wall of her wattle-and-daub hut. Her fingers were knobby and gnarled, the small sickle in them halting over a bunch of thyme.
I had foraged all along our two-day walk through the woods, tying my herbs in large bunches to my belt. She looked them over.
“Ye a travelin’ healer?” She straightened as much as she could, which wasn’t all the way. “I am Ina.”
“Tera is my name. I come from Dahru.” I did not think I would need my disguise any longer.
She brightened at that. “Shahala?”
I nodded. “I was wondering if you might be able to use some of what I collected in the forest. My traveling companions and I are short of coin.”
She shuffled closer and fingered some of the green and silver bunches I was offering. “I ’ave nay much coin mineself. These days, people are poor. They pay fer mine services in trade.”
“I would trade for food, Grandmother,” I said quickly.
Food would be most welcome now that the tiger would not be hunting for us. She had cared for us as if we were her cubs. I hoped she would not come to harm in the forests of Ishaf.