Art of War

by Triantafyllou, Petros

  In time, she stopped shaking. As mad as it was, there was no question she would follow Simon, but she required money for her fare. Violet examined her clothes and the contents of her pocket. She had nothing to sell worth a sea passage. Except… Her fingers went to the band around her throat. It was unthinkable to sell her Circle. She had never been without the Martyr’s protection. And yet she had been wearing it when Simon managed to steal a piece of her. It had not protected her then. Why would it protect her across the sea?

  Violet stopped in front of a jeweler’s and prayed, “Martyr forgive me.” She opened the door and entered the dim shop.

  The jeweler and his wife sat behind a dusty counter. Ten Circles of various sizes hung on the wall behind them.

  “What is it, child?” the woman asked. “Do you need your band adjusted?”

  “No,” said Violet, taking a deep breath. “I need to sell it.”

  The woman made a sound of horror, pushed back her chair, and stalked out of the room. The jeweler wasn’t angry, though. He rubbed his beard and considered her Circle. “What brings you to this madness?”

  “I need to go across the sea.” She raised her chin.

  A whistling noise escaped his throat. “Not the safest place to go without protection.”

  Violet reached up and, after a brief hesitation, undid the latch of her Circle and tossed it on the counter.

  He turned it with one finger. “You’re lucky, or unlucky. The war has made gold hard to come by. I’ll give you five degs.”

  Violet clenched and unclenched her fists. She had no sense of the Circle’s worth, or of the cost of sea passage. It looked so strange and lonely on the counter, instead of being part of her neck.

  The man gave her a sharp look. “That’s my offer. Five degs would get you across the sea.”

  “Five degs.” Violet pushed the Circle at him.

  He pushed a stack of coins her way along with a little pouch on a string. “Martyr be with you anyway,” he said. “If you come back before the end of the day, we can trade again. Lots of people change their view after a day without their Circle. But tomorrow, I melt it.”

  Violet nodded, but the choice had been made. She put the money in the pouch, and the pouch in her pocket, and pushed her way through the door to the noisy street. Her neck felt strange and light, but she was not scared: she was driven. Simon had left her with a burning need to be whole again. She would give up the Martyr’s protection for that. She pulled up her collar and moved on.

  Violet walked downhill, toward the smell of the sea. On the docks the wind bit through her clothes and the stench made her head swim. Some of the sailors would not talk to her when they saw she had no Circle. Bad luck, they said, but she tried and tried again. By midday, she found a foreign ship making the crossing. The price was two and a half degs. The jeweler had not deceived her. She found her place below decks, surprised by the darkness and the number of people. Her countrymen crushed together, on bunks, on the floor, and on barrels.

  A middle-aged man with a scarred forehead was telling a story. “…and so the captain called for us to move forward. I had my sword—”

  A young man interrupted. “The captain said to advance just because of the mage?”

  The old soldier waved a hand. “Of course. The mages knew what was happening with all the battles in my day.”

  A woman with gray hair shook her head. “If mages could do that, we wouldn’t be losing against the Peresine. Tell the story and don’t make things up.”

  The soldier hit his knee with annoyance. “But I am! The mage told us the enemy was trying to sneak away.” He looked up, saw Violet and her bare neck, and sneered. “Get away from here, you!”

  Shocked, Violet backed away and found a hammock in the corner. By selling her Circle, she had separated herself from her countrymen. Would the kind grower who had taken her to Peyne react in the same way? Wrapping her fingers around Thia’s portrait, she listened to the wash of the sea.

  Simon stood on the deck of a boat. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “What you took from me.”

  He frowned and crossed his arms. “What’s that?”

  She found she could not answer.

  She woke, feeling a tingling of her skin. She felt as if she had a breath of fresh air, though all was as dark and dank as before. She ate one more apple, savoring the taste of home, feeling the touch of her mother’s voice and the chubby fingers of her nephew. She saw the sun rising over the fields and the rain turning the house-stones purple. She smelled rising bread and freshly cut hay. All the things that had seemed so wrong on the day she left had begun to seem so right. And yet, if she returned, she would have to give up on what she had lost.

  No. She could not do it.

  On the fourth night, she dreamed of soldiers in green jackets. They marched and divided, making two parallel paths around a narrow valley. There would be fighting, she knew. She saw another man in green who looked at her and asked her a question. She shook her head. She could not understand his words. He looked angry. Screaming echoed in her ears. Had the fighting begun? Something hit her forehead. Violet opened her eyes, but all was black. She was falling, sliding across wet planks. She put her hands forward, searching in the blackness for something to hang onto. The ship groaned like a wounded animal. Water sprayed from between the boards. Salt pinched her tongue and burned her eyes. Finally, she caught up against something metal and wrapped her arms around it, shouting to the Martyr for protection. The other passengers screamed, their possessions tumbling everywhere.

  Light spilled in from the upper deck. Someone had opened the trap door and stood on the ladder shouting up.

  “That’s the one!” The gray-haired woman pointed at Violet, her face sharpened by shadows. “She’s bad luck! No Circle!”

  “She brought the storm on us!” A young woman with a screaming baby in her arms gave Violet an accusing glare.

  “Please, I never…” Violet struggled to find enough balance to stand up.

  “Take her!”

  Two men stepped forward, but the boat lurched, tilting back on its stern, and they stumbled, cursing. Violet grabbed onto a pole just as a barrel came loose from its ties and rolled between the hammocks. The passengers scrambled to get out of its way and the boat now plunged forward, bow down. In the confusion, something hit Violet from behind. She saw her own hands letting go of the pole, and the deck, moving again, rising up to hit her in the chest.

  Simon stood on a bridge, watching the river below. He looked up at her with a start. “You’re close,” he said. “Where are you?”

  Violet came to wedged between some crates. Calm waters lapped against the side of the boat. Efficient shouts and quick, measured footsteps carried from the top deck. The other passengers spoke to one another in cheerful voices. The storm was over. She tried to lift her head, but the world spun.

  She was alive and in the port of Arnot. He was close now. She could feel it. The thought of his magic made her mouth tingle. She reached for her last apple, but it had gone, probably falling from her pocket during the storm. Thia! She gasped and shoved her fingers deeper. Her hand closed around the little portrait. It was still there, and her money, too. She let out her breath.

  When at last she could rise and climb the ladder, she found the deck crowded with passengers. She kept away from them, standing close to a group of red-haired sailors. She waited a long time to disembark. Each person had to be interviewed by a white-haired official with a black tome. Violet felt dizzy and leaned over the rail. Soon, she thought. Soon everything would be back to normal. She had only to find Simon. The sun beat down on her hair. The mast’s shadow grew by inches, but most passengers still waited. They began to jostle one another trying to get to the front of the line. Violet stayed at the back.

  When she got to the end of the gangway, she pulled her collar up around her neck.

  The white-haired man looked at her and frowned. “Where did you come from?”

  “Th
e fields around Derman City,” she said.

  He wrote in his book. “Name?”

  “Violet Hanady.”

  He wrote this down also. “Destination?”

  “Well, I don’t know, sir. I’m following someone who stole from me, but I’m not sure where he went.”

  He looked up at her and pressed his lips together. “He took your Circle?”

  Violet put a hand over her naked throat. It would not be a lie if she did not answer. “Can you help me, sir?”

  He twisted the quill between his fingers.

  “If he came here,” she went on, “you must have written his name in your book. And his destination. Then I’d know where to go.”

  “What kind of young woman chases after a thief?” He shook his head. “You should go home and get another Circle made.”

  “Please, sir, whatever you say, I’m not going back.”

  He sighed and looked her up and down. She imagined how she must look: dirty, bruised, and disheveled. “Have you any means?” he asked.

  “Means? Oh…” Violet pulled a deg from her pouch. He grabbed it up and slipped it into his chest pocket.

  “He must have come in yesterday,” she prompted.

  He flipped through the pages. “I need his name.”

  Violet frowned. Why had she not thought of that? She remembered the traveler and the way his words rode up and down like a song. The way his breath fell against her cheek as he slept. Mages had no family, no possessions, and no life other than service to the queen. But they kept their names. And then his appeared in her mind, bright as sun on water. “Simon Marriett Jaines.” The dock shook under her feet. She felt as if the ship might tumble over on top of her.

  The official did not notice. He concentrated on his book. “Korban,” he said. “Mr. Jaines went on to Korban.”

  “Thank you.” Violet straightened her dress and took tiny steps to the end of the dock. Korban was the center of the queendom, where the palace rose over the Gardens without End and the buildings were whiter than snow. Sheltering travelers had described it to her. But not Simon.

  She would find him, but first she had to understand what was gone. She tried to piece it together like the feathered edges of a torn skirt. Somehow, he left her a different person than he had found her, a person who no longer fit, wearing someone else’s clothes. She lifted Thia’s portrait and studied her sister’s lovely face. She appeared so peaceful and wise. “What am I forgetting, Thia?” Thia didn’t answer, so she tucked the portrait away and entered the city. Violet walked with care, finding her body sore and her head woozy from being tossed about on the ship. Arnot was much like Peyne, except there were even more foreigners without Circles. She wished her hair were red or yellow, so that nobody thought it was strange she was not consecrated. She chose a foreigner to show her which road led to Korban and another to sell her cheese and a bit of bread. Sarna was more expensive than Peyne, and the food took almost all her remaining money.

  Violet walked until the sky turned lavender and her legs ached. She thought about her warm bed, or how comfortable it would be to nestle in a pile of straw. But she could not ask for Shelter. Without her Circle, she would be considered bad luck just as she had on the ship. Though the god demanded that all travelers be welcomed no matter what, few people ever did so in practice. There were consequences to the choice she had made.

  She lay against a rock, feeling the cold ocean air against her cheeks. This land felt stranger in the darkness than it had under the sun. She watched a man gallop by in a white cloak. His banner snapped in his wake, black on yellow, a raven on a branch. A royal messenger. She wondered if he brought news of the front.

  A twig snapped somewhere in the forest. She huddled, shaking, waiting for the next sound. She clutched her portrait of Thia. Thia had always been so strong.

  Only at sunrise did Violet relax and drift into sleep.

  Simon waited for her at the top of a hill. “Where are you?” he asked. Behind him stood the man in green, the one who spoke a strange language and moved with an army. His face twisted in hatred.

  Violet woke, her heart pounding. She had never felt so threatened by a dream before. But it had not been Simon. It had been the man in green who frightened her.

  That day, her body ached and her throat burned with thirst. She began to wonder why she had come. To find what she had lost, she had given up everything else. What madness had caused her to make herself an outcast, to exile herself from her home?

  At midday, a stream of growers flowed onto the road from the forest. They had bundles and carts full of animals, furniture, barrels, blankets—their entire households, or as much as they could carry or pull. Their faces were drawn and tired and their shoes were worn. One family seemed to disagree which direction to take. Violet watched them, one hand covering her throat.

  A young woman with blue-black hair nodded Violet’s way. “Martyr’s blessings,” she called out.

  Violet nodded, not daring to come any closer.

  “Please, how many days to Arnot?”

  “One…just one,” said Violet. Her voice surprised her, ragged and coarse from thirst.

  The woman motioned toward her face. “What happened to you?”

  “A storm…on my ship. I fell.”

  The growers murmured amongst themselves. “We came farther north than we intended,” the woman said to Violet. “We’ve been walking for weeks, and Korban would be four more days. We’ll go to Arnot.” She motioned behind her, to the east. “Peresine,” she explained. “Our homes are the new battlefield.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Violet.

  An old man with a ragged hat nodded her way. “Time was, mages didn’t let anybody in. They saw everything, eye to eye, like this.” He pointed at his own eye with an emphatic nod.

  The woman next to him smiled. “You’re welcome to join us.”

  “Thank you, but I am going the other way.”

  Waving, the growers headed down the road. Violet walked in the opposite direction, head down. By twilight, her head felt so heavy that she could not walk any more. She curled up beneath a pine but slept only in fits and starts.

  As she lay in the darkness, her waking memories drew sharper. In one, Simon rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. In another, he laughed, throwing his body backwards like a child.

  Morning found her digging crumbs of cheese from a pocket that somehow had become muddy. She kept an eye on the sides of the road for berries or the tops of wild onions. Thirst hollowed her throat. The memory of the apple she had lost tortured her. She kept on, no longer knowing why. At noon, she found a field of purple flowers and recognized them as pepper blooms. She ate a handful of petals and found a few drops of rainwater in the hollow of a rock. Temporarily sated, she curled up in the grass to sleep.

  Simon stood on the bridge again. “What did you do?”

  “Me? This is all your fault,” she said.

  He shook his head. “I think we are—”

  Behind him, she saw the man in the green uniform. He spoke to her again, strange words, and raised his fists at Simon. “Look out!” she cried.

  Violet woke to the sound of whispers and childish giggles. Thinking her nephew had sneaked into her bed, she reached out and touched the child’s hair. But the boy jerked back with a curse and moved away. She opened her eyes and looked out into the morning sun. Five boys ran across the flowered field, shrieking at one another.

  With horror, she reached into her pocket. Her money, as little as it was, had been stolen. But that was not what scared her the most.

  Thia’s portrait was also missing.

  “No!” Violet rose to her feet, head spinning. She tried to run but stumbled over her skirts. “Come back!”

  The boys waved at her as they disappeared into the woods.

  “Come back! Please!” She lifted her dress and went after them. Her body ached, and every step echoed in her head like thunder. She tried to run, but she limped and tripped instead. By the time she go
t to the woods, the boys were nowhere in sight. Their gleeful shouts and catcalls echoed through the trees. She followed their voices. Branches whipped across her face and thorns cut her ankles, but she walked on. This was her fault for giving up her Circle, her protection. Because of her choices, her last link to Thia and to home were gone.

  “What do you want?” the traveler had asked her, running his finger along her cheek. A lone piece of straw stuck to his hair.

  Violet shrugged. “I don’t want anything. Except maybe to see my sister Thia again.” She looked into his eyes to see them crinkle with sorrow.

  “I can’t do that,” he said, “but I can show you other things.”

  She remembered the touch of his lips, light and firm, and the way he cradled her head with one hand as the magic rose around them.

  At twilight, Violet stumbled across a stream. She fell to her knees and shoveled the water into her mouth with her hands. She drank until her stomach twisted into cramps, and then she crawled through the mud to a clearing. She lay on the blanket of pine needles, eyes on the darkening sky. She no longer understood why she had come, or why she had given up so much to do it. Only the memory of magic kept her heart beating now. Whatever more the world wanted, she would give it. She no longer cared.

  In the morning, Violet did not move. She kept her vigil by the stream. It began to rain, and she let the water flow over her. The stream rose and gushed over her feet, and yet she did not move.

  She heard the rider before she saw him. The horse was nearly silent as it picked its way through the trees. But the rider breathed with deep gasps and wheezes. Sometimes he groaned, staring up at the sky. Blood soaked his white cloak. Violet forced herself to her feet. His royal banner was missing, but she recognized the messenger she had seen before. As he passed, she reached out for him, and he for her.