by Devin Madson
Our joint horror ran the same path to denial. It couldn’t be true. I still felt like me. She still sounded like herself. It hadn’t happened with Kaysa, had it? I’d always been me, and she had always been her irritating self, just a voice there to berate me. The only existence I had allowed her.
“I do apologise most sincerely for the observation, Your Majesty,” the captain said, bowing. “But I really did not feel comfortable letting you consider this option without knowing. There is a chance you could get… stuck. You could cease being yourself. Unus is…”
He didn’t need to finish that thought. We had seen him. We had seen him enthral a whole church full of priests like puppets in a play.
“I take your point, Captain,” the empress said stiffly. “Thank you for the warning.”
“Your Majesty.”
Saying no more, we ate and flipped through the notebook. Most of it was observations on the experiments Saki had carried out on me. It was all very interesting, but added nothing to what we already knew or suspected. Yet the word Memara kept nagging at me.
“Memara 21,” I murmured, setting the muddy book aside and hunting back through the stack I’d already checked. “Memara 21. Ah! Mystics and Memaras, I thought I’d seen that word before. Perhaps after all the religious bits there’ll be something about what Leo is.”
“We’ll have to take it with us,” Captain Aeneas said, licking the last of his meal off his fingers. “It’s time to get moving. But first we should take the rest of this food to Septum. Will you come and…?”
“Make sure he doesn’t leap out to eat your face off?” the empress said, tucking the book into her sash.
“Yes, Miss Marius, exactly.”
She took his proffered dagger rather than correct him.
Septum’s box had been left on the back of the cart. Leaving the stable doors open for light, the captain climbed up with enviable ease. I had to be helped up, Captain Aeneas taking my hand with a little bow of apology. Never to me, I realised, always to her, as though he was not only apologising for having to touch her hand but for the very fact I was with her at all.
“When you’re ready,” he said, stepping closer to the box.
I tightened my grip on the dagger. “All right, go.”
Captain Aeneas lifted the lid. There again the pale, unmoving form of Leo Septum, staring at nothing despite the lid opening like a door to the entire world. He showed no interest in the new sights or sounds. Even the smell of the food had no effect.
“Eat,” the captain ordered, dangling some salted meat above his lips.
The empty shell ate, chewing long and slow like he had all the time in the world before finally swallowing.
“Eat.”
And on it went until the plate was empty. Setting it down at his feet, Captain Aeneas adjusted his grip on the coffin lid and prepared to lower it.
“Ah, Captain, always so caring and considerate,” the body said, fixing its gaze on his face. The voice rasped and the words slurred like his lips were out of practice.
“Leo,” Captain Aeneas said, the words strangled.
“Yes, Captain, it’s me. I’m outside the house and would like my brother back now.”
8. RAH
I wanted to stay awake, but when you push your body too far it demands what it needs. The moment Derkka laid me down in one of the huts my whole body gave up on wakefulness.
Fears followed me into the darkness. People walked the paths of my memories, all as clear as if they had been sitting before me. There, Whisperer Jinnit commanded me to repeat the harvest calendar for our grove again and again while he sat listening for the inevitable mistake. Every mistake had to be followed with a prayer to the gods, but the prayer came out in a tumble of hoarse gasps, and there was old Herd Master Sassanji sitting before me, sharpening Snakegrass on his knees.
My trembling fingers found skin and I tried to hold on, to beg, to plead, to explain. “I’m sorry, Herd Master, I did not mean to cause such trouble. Please don’t exile me.”
The old man laughed and he laughed and he laughed at this little boy kneeling before him in trouble for having almost hit three Swords with a speeding barrel wagon. With Mother dead it was Gideon who sat supporting me, his hand holding mine and an indulgent smile on his face.
“Please. I don’t want to be sent away.”
Then the heavy weight of Horse Whisperer Jinnit’s hand was on my shoulder. I ought to have been proud, and I was in a way, but it was the pride of a martyr, built on the stubbornness of an indoctrinated child.
Gideon had not tried to talk me out of it. We were to leave at first light. The gods only knew when I would see my herd again, or Gideon. We must have had the same thoughts, yet no such words were spoken. We were Levanti. We had to do what was required of us.
“Here, take this.” He had given me a tunic, not a new tunic but one with little rips along the neckline and a bigger tear up one side fixed by inexpert hands. It was the tunic I’d always pinched from him whenever I felt sad, whenever I missed my mother or the world seemed bleak and pointless in the way the world sometimes does. He’d gotten annoyed at me and I’d been unable to explain, unable to give voice to the uplifting sensation in my chest when I wore it, when I breathed its scent and felt its soft fibres against my skin, so I had said something childish, that it was mine now, or that I wore it better, or that he had stolen it from me in the first place, and in our scuffle it had ripped right up the side and he’d fumed and called me an irritating child. I’d fixed it so poorly, taking care over every wonky stitch. To have it in my hand again, smelling like him, feeling like him, stole my voice.
He hadn’t come to see me off the next morning, though I had turned to look a hundred times as the herd grew ever smaller in the distance.
I woke in a sweat of panic, disoriented in the smothering darkness. The tunic was in my saddlebag and it suddenly seemed important to be sure it was still there, but as I patted shaking hands around the hut, it all came back to me. My saddlebags were with Jinso in Syan, and I was unwell from lack of food and rest and too many injuries in a camp run by a horse whisperer I wasn’t sure I could trust, while Gideon was in danger and I couldn’t get to him. And in the darkest hours of the night, I could not but wonder if he could be saved at all. Or if he even wanted to be.
I dozed through the night and the following day, not fully waking until golden evening light filtered into the hut and the smell of cooking once again filled the air. A whole day? Two? I ached all over, every wound and sore muscle creating a symphony of pain, and yet I berated myself for such weakness when everything hung in the balance, when at this very moment things could be happening I might have prevented.
Someone had left food and water beside my sleeping mat. I managed to prop myself up enough to eat, yet despite my hunger my stomach seemed to have shrunk, and I soon felt sick.
Outside, the quiet chatter over the cooking fires sounded cheerful and welcoming, and I lifted a leg in an attempt to rise. A sudden spike of pain made my head spin.
I tried again, but every part of me was achy and sluggish, and I fell back onto the blanket with a gusty exhale. Footsteps hurried past the door, but no one looked in.
On my next attempt to rise, I managed to roll before the pain sent my head spinning toward darkness and I had to stop and steady myself, breathing slowly. When the sick feeling retreated, I pulled myself up, but as I bent my good leg beneath me my head spun again. Having waited for the dizziness to pass, I eventually managed a step outside. Though to call it a step was optimistic, a shuffling limp a better description of my poor progress.
I couldn’t tell how late it was, but it didn’t look like the evening meal was in progress yet. Tor sat by one of the fires with the Chiltaen holy book open on his lap as though he hadn’t moved. An adapted Hoya game was taking place in an open area nearby, attracting a simple audience, while others sat around chatting and taking care of small tasks. The whole effect was so like being back with a herd that my heart a
ched.
Heads turned as I approached the closest fire, conversations trailing off. A few people began to rise to help me, but I lifted a hand in refusal and lurched on alone. I made it, but every part of me seared and ached and shouted that I was a fool to have moved.
“How are you feeling?” Tor said once I was down and catching my breath. “You look shit.”
“Thank you. I feel shit. But I would rather feel shit out here where I can see what’s going on.”
There was no sign of Whisperer Ezma, nor her apprentice, though I made doubly sure before I said, “Why was she exiled?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t heard.”
“Historically, I can think of only two others who have been exiled,” I said in a low voice. “And neither was exiled with their apprentice leaving a grove untended. That he’s here is almost worse than that she is. Worse still, to have been here longer than we have, yet I don’t recall a whisperer being exiled within my lifetime. Do you?”
“No, but my lifetime has been considerably shorter than yours so far.”
“A bit shorter, not considerably.”
“Considerably,” Tor repeated without pity.
Before I could ask what he thought of the whisperer owning a copy of the holy book, a pair of young men approached, saluting and seeking permission to sit by us. I gave it, and no sooner had they sat down than another arrived. Followed by Amun. He sat by me as one of the other newcomers—Diha, her name was—asked if I’d had my wounds tended that day. “I am—I was the healer of the First Swords of Bedjuti. We don’t really have positions here, but I would be honoured to tend you. Of course, if you wish to wait for Whisperer—”
“I would rather not trouble her,” I said, too fast for politeness but too sore to care. “If you could, I would be very grateful.”
“Of course, Captain. I’ll get my bag.”
She was up and off before I could correct her, leaving a short, awkward silence to fall between me and Amun. As his former captain I ought to have said something, but everything sounded trite in my head.
When Diha returned with her bag, she started by looking at the cuts and bruises on my face. Lifting the bandages, she whistled. “This is some impressive work. What happened?”
“Someone punched me.”
She laughed. “A lot, by the look of it.”
The feeling of Amun’s gaze on me intensified, and the urge to confess what I had done to Sett burned up my throat, but if the story hadn’t gotten around, perhaps I could be free of it just a little longer. “Yes, it was a lot.”
Diha cleared her throat. “I’m not used to having such a large audience while I work.”
I looked up. Not only had the circle seated around me grown, but at least a dozen more had gathered, standing around us, and forgetting the past awkwardness between Amun and me, I turned to him and said, “Why is everyone standing around?”
“Because you’re the great Rah e’Torin.”
“Last time I checked I was an outcast; that’s not very great.”
His smile was a sad thing pressed between thin lips. “Ah, but there is no love here for what Gideon is doing and you stood up to him, at least so I hear. You challenged him?”
“And lost. I challenged Yitti and lost too.”
Amun shrugged. “No one else has dared. Levanti are used to having leaders they can respect, and when one falls they replace them with another. You make a fine replacement.”
“I thought Ezma was doing that job,” I said, keeping my tone light.
“There is great comfort in having a horse whisperer around, but what we need is a herd master who can unite us. So far we’ve had no consensus on a herd master, so Whisperer Ezma fills the role as best she can.”
“Ah.” No wonder she didn’t like me.
“All right,” Diha said, patting something pungent onto the cut beneath my eye. “Arms next. Sleeves up or tunic off. Probably best to just take it off so I can check there’s no new internal bleeding we should worry about.”
All too many people were standing around, but with Diha’s help I struggled my tunic off. I hadn’t gotten a good look at any of my wounds while Yitti and Derkka were tending them, but I looked now at the spread of bruises mottling my chest and could only be grateful I hadn’t broken a rib.
Diha checked them all with a judicious prod, found every sore spot on my abdomen and, with a satisfied grunt, moved on to my arms. The exhaustion of being worked over began to take its toll, and I leaned against the pile of saddles and blankets Tor had built the previous day and let the chatter wash over me. Having been separated from other Levanti so long, it was a pleasant sound, none of it tense or important, just the everyday talk of herd members gathered around the fire after finishing their tasks. I could have dozed off lulled by their voices had Diha not been poking all my sorest spots.
By the time Whisperer Ezma approached, there were so many people gathered around me that she had to thread her way through, turning her shoulder and sliding between chatting Swords.
“Ah,” she said, looking down at me. “I see you are feeling a little better, Rah e’Torin. I ought to have guessed when I saw so many had abandoned their tasks who I would find. Tor, Amun, I require your assistance. The rest of you ought not crowd Rah e’Torin so much. He needs rest.”
She wove her way back out of the crowd, both Amun and Tor rising, a little reluctantly, to follow her. They shared a look, but only Amun glanced at me, something of a smile there before he was gone.
Diha kept working. Some of the crowd dissipated, but probably not as many as Ezma had hoped.
“Do you know why Whisperer Ezma was exiled?” I said to the healer.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think she’s talked about it. And it’s not the sort of thing one can ask a horse whisperer.”
“I would. If she’s going to lead us we need to know.”
Her curious look was hard to decipher, and she went on working through my injuries. Ezma kept both Amun and Tor busy all the while as though punishing them for talking to me, and my dislike of her grew.
Despite Diha’s handiwork, Derkka insisted on checking me over before the evening meal in the privacy of my hut. No doubt he had something he wished to say, so I let him help me back to my mat, but he said nothing, just began the task of checking over my wounds in silence.
“Why were you exiled?” I said, once it was clear he had nothing to say.
“That,” Apprentice Derkka said, putting more pressure on my leg wound than was needed, “is quite a disrespectful question.”
“I don’t see that. As it takes a full conclave of horse whisperers to exile one, the reason you were exiled seems important. Central, even, to whether we ought to trust you.”
He poked harder.
“And you need not tell me you were exiled because Whisperer Ezma was exiled,” I went on. “Because on no prior occasion was an apprentice deemed untrustworthy to continue their whisperer’s work.”
At least this time I had the satisfaction of seeing him flinch. He jabbed one of my bruises. Deliberately trying to hurt me? Or merely angry at my questions?
“Diha has already done a thorough job of this,” I said. “Why were you so intent on checking me over again?”
“Because it’s my job,” he snapped. “As it is Whisperer Ezma’s job to guide the Levanti, and your job to lie there and shut up because you aren’t even a captain anymore. You’re an exile from exiles and have no voice here.”
I had not arrived with any intention of staying, let alone leading, but the man’s aggression goaded me to say, “There are no herds here, so I have whatever voice my people choose to grant me. You, on the other hand, are holding on to your voice through deceit.”
Derkka sat back on his heels. “Deceit?”
“What else can it be called when you refuse to explain your exile? That you wish to keep it a secret surely means no one would want anything to do with you if they found out.”
He gripped my thigh, fingertips d
igging hard into the broken flesh. I couldn’t swallow my gasp, but gritted my teeth rather than satisfy him with a pained cry. “Shut. Up,” he snarled into my face. “Or I will make you. There are all too many ways I could kill you here and now and make it look natural, your wounds having been too great. A bleed in your gut we didn’t find. Such a pity.”
I could not speak, so intense was the pain shooting through my leg and up my back. He let go, but it didn’t ease and all I could do was breathe.
“Good. Now, you seem to be developing a fever, so I’ve brought you a tonic for that.”
“Fever?” I managed. Apart from the sharp pains I felt fine.
“Yes, it’s come on rapidly and needs to be tended before it takes you from us.”
He slid his arm under my shoulders and lifted me from the mat, pressing the mouth of a flask to my lips. Bitter liquid poured down my throat before I could think better of swallowing it, fear kicking in only in time to spray the last mouthful over him.
Derkka laughed. “Nice try, but that’s not going to make any difference to you or me.” He dropped me back onto the mat so hard my teeth snapped together. “Good night, Rah.”
I tried to roll. To get up. To speak. But already my tongue felt furry and my body weightless, as though I could float up into the sky like the woolly seed of the silk tree. This time my dreams owned no Gideon, no Master Sassanji or Whisperer Jinnit, just the swirling dust of a dry plain as thousands of Levanti hooves thundered toward a destination I couldn’t see.
I arose from my dreams a few times, mostly to silence, but sometimes to voices—many unknown to me, often chanting prayers. Sometimes I thought I heard Tor. Or Amun. Or Ezma. Sometimes it was Derkka there to pour more of the bitter liquid down my throat.
“Only one healer is needed here, Diha,” he said once, his voice piercing the haze around my head. “I know his health is important to many, but you can safely leave him to me.”