Broken Earth

by C M Blackwood

  “Well, of course, miss,” said Rilga. “Is there something you would like me to do for you?”

  “No, no,” said Heidi, shaking her head. “Only the water, Rilga, thank you very much.”

  “Of course,” repeated Rilga. Then she was off in search of the requested bucket.

  She returned with commendable promptitude, and handed the bucket over to Heidi, obviously wondering as she did so what the purpose of it was. But Heidi only thanked her again, nodded once, and returned to the stairs.

  When she arrived back at the door to her chamber, she realised that she had forgotten to ask for a cloth. “No matter,” she said to herself, setting down the bucket to search for something she could use as a rag. She looked through her pack, and found an old shirt which she had stained somehow in the journey from home. It was this which she dipped into the bucket of suds, and brought up to the door to scrub rather violently at the red stains upon the wood. She rubbed long and hard; but the marks would not be completely gotten rid of. Still, even when she had come to the realisation that she could do no more with her pitiful materials, she scrubbed on. The shirt, which she had rolled into a ball, was nearly worn through, by the time she dropped it down into the bucket.

  She was just about to shut herself up in the chamber, when the door to the left opened wide, and Dera stuck her head out into the hall.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, looking curiously upon Heidi’s sweaty face, mussed hair and rolled sleeves, and then down at the bucket which was filled not with red water.

  Instead of answering, she only shook her head.

  Dera looked hard at her. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing is the matter.”

  A long gaze – and then: “Your sister is here.”

  “Don’t you know that I hate it when you do that?”

  “You should have answered my question.”

  Heidi shrugged in concession, and said, “There is breakfast down in the dining room.”

  “What are you telling me for?”

  “In case you were hungry, you ungrateful little wretch.”

  They both smiled.

  ~

  After breaking away from the others at the gate, Lila went to fulfill the plans she had made to look in on Thomas Henry. She was slow in the coming, however, for she was not altogether excited about it. Yet she walked with a firm step, and held head high, down the corridor to his office, and knocked upon the door without reservation.

  “Captain Henry,” she said.

  He was a few moments in the answering; but finally she heard him say, “Is that you, Princess Lila?”

  “It is. May I come in?”

  “Please do – oh, please do.”

  Lila released the lock, and stepped into the room. Thomas Henry was sitting in the exact place she had left him, and was looking at her expectantly.

  “Are you feeling better, Henry?” she asked, looking warily into his eyes. They were dark now, with no hint of flame whatever. She watched his face for a long moment; and it looked so much his own, she began to wonder if his alteration had been nothing but a product of her own madness.

  “Oh, yes,” said Henry, nodding his head emphatically. “I do feel much better. I honestly don’t know what was the matter with me! It seemed that I could not stop thinking of my son; and my anger piled higher and higher, until I began to fear for myself – and for what I might do to others, if I was allowed it. I do believe that you may have saved my life.”

  Lila nodded, though her suspicions had not been completely done away with. Yet she left Henry to himself, and left his door standing open; for she was more willing to let him loose, and to risk his doing ill, than to shut him up for fear of his being anything other than what he had always been.

  ~

  They had been sitting for a long while in Dera’s chamber, when they heard the sound of several pairs of footsteps coming down the hall. A minute later, Rilga walked past, and a small group of people halted outside the open doorway. David looked in and waved, and then hurried off to follow Rilga. Jade looked from Heidi to Helena, flashed a smile, and was off after her brother.

  “I suppose you must be Helena,” said Dera, when it became obvious that Heidi did not mean to say anything.

  “I am,” said Helena. Her voice was soft, and full of caution; and Heidi could feel her eyes upon her as she spoke.

  “Come in and sit down,” said Dera, pointing to the chair beside the closet.

  When all three were seated in something of a triangle, with Dera and Heidi positioned beside one another on the bed, and Helena just across from them in the chair, Dera suddenly stood up. Heidi looked at her, and tried to request wordlessly for her to stay; but whether she did not notice, or was only pretending not to, she told Helena that it was quite nice to make her acquaintance, and then left the room.

  Heidi kept her eyes upon the wall, and said nothing, in hopes that Helena would eventually grow tired of it, and make her way from the room. But then her own curiosity got the best of her, and she asked:

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” said Helena simply, watching her with eyes that were no longer timid.

  “Why in the world would you be doing that?”

  “It is really so strange?”

  “Yes!” said Heidi loudly, leaping to her feet. “It is very strange, and I don’t mind saying it.”

  There was no opposing argument.

  “And how did you find me, anyway?”

  “I cannot explain it,” said Helena. “It was like a waking dream. I was only sitting there, doing nothing at all – when a vision of this place came to my mind. I had been thinking of you when it came. Although I was far from certain, I took it as a sign that I was meant to come to you.”

  “Dera,” said Heidi angrily, thinking of how she would wring her skinny little neck, next time she saw her.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  Helena took a long, shaking breath, and asked: “Will you listen to what I have to say?”

  “I will not,” said Heidi, her voice as petulant as a small child’s.

  “You will.”

  “I will not!”

  “What is the point of this?” asked Helena. She was looking at Heidi with eyes that resembled the last letter she had ever sent; and Heidi remembered burning it to ashes, and watching it smoulder like the years she could never earn back.

  “The point, Helena,” said Heidi, voice rising to meet the high ceiling of the chamber, “is that I want not to speak to you. I want not to look at you. I want not to think of you. I want nothing to do with you!”

  Helena only nodded. “I don’t blame you,” she said. “I deserve all you say, and much more.”

  Heidi was so surprised by this, she found herself unable to utter what next string of hurtful words came to her mind. She only stared dumbly at Helena, whose face was possessed by a guilty, humble expression, the likes of which Heidi had never thought she would see in that particular face.

  “You’re right, Heidi,” she said. “You were right about everything. It has taken me six long years to find the courage to tell you – but I am telling you now.”

  “And does that make it all right?” asked Heidi, her voice much quieter now. She watched her sister’s face, and wondered with some interest what she would say.

  “It isn’t,” admitted Helena. “It isn’t meant to, because it never could. I can’t take back anything I said, or anything I did. I’ll not pretend to be able to.”

  For a moment – just for a moment – Heidi felt her resolve beginning to break down. But then she realised what was happening, and snatched her own resistance back with disbelieving fingers. She was filled with rage at Helena’s careful words, and her crafty reception of years-old responsibility.

  She would not be taken so easily. She shook herself violently, and passed a hand over her flushed face. Then she raised her head, and looked upon Helena with eyes full of iron. Sh
e cast them from her, and they fell in all their heaviness upon Helena, who seemed to falter at their impact.

  “If you have come looking for forgiveness,” she said calmly, making a valiant effort to still her shaking limbs, “you will not find it here.”

  All of the intentions that were written upon Helena’s face, crumbled then in a mess of sorrow and disappointment into her lap.

  With that, Heidi turned her face from Helena, and walked quickly from the room. She stomped off down the corridor with heavy feet; but when she reached the staircase, she ran down it as if she were flying, and felt her heart rise contentedly to the bottom of her throat.

  Her only thought, as she burst through the South Door and raced off towards the stables, was that cruelty, in and of itself, can be quite satisfying.

  ~

  Just as she had on that long-past night some weeks before (though perhaps not in altogether the same way, as the woman had been hiding in a stall that night), Lila Bier encountered Heidi Bastian as she entered the stables. She caught sight of her outside the door to her horse’s stall, stroking his head lovingly and whispering inaudible words to him.

  “Miss Bastian,” said Lila, as she stopped outside Sonya’s door.

  The woman seemed startled by the sound of her voice. She turned her head quickly to look at her, with eyes wide and face pale; though Lila suspected that these things had nothing to do with her own arrival.

  “Princess,” said Heidi, nodding towards her.

  Lila walked a little closer, and then leaned her shoulder up against the wall, so that she might speak to the woman for a moment or two.

  “I already told you,” she said. “You need not address me that way.”

  Heidi seemed about to ask when she had told her that; but then a look of recollection passed over her face, and she nodded absently. “All right,” she said simply. “But it would be hard to think of you as anything else.”

  “Why is that?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose it’s because that is what I have called you, and how I have seen you, since I came here. You are the Princess of Eredor; and I am Heidi Bastian of Delvare.”

  She looked away at this, as though she were in some way ashamed of the discrepancy.

  “And what is wrong with being who you are?” asked Lila.

  “There is nothing wrong with it, I don’t suppose. But I would never be held – and at this you cannot argue – in quite the same regard as yourself. In that, I would find it difficult to call you anything but what I do.”

  Lila felt a smile (her first in many days) spread across her face. “I would not be so sure of that,” she said. “There are many people from my own city, from my own Army, who would not very much mind seeing me strung up in a tree like Mikhael Lorin.”

  “Like who?”

  Lila shook her head. “Never mind. It’s not a very pleasant story.”

  The woman only sighed, and went back to petting her horse, who had lowered its head to nuzzle her cheek.

  “Have you had a nice visit with your sister?” asked Lila.

  A look of disdain came into Heidi Bastian’s face, and she answered nothing.

  Deciding that it would be unwise to say anything more on the subject, Lila only asked, “And have you been out here all this time?”

  “Mostly.”

  Lila frowned. “Well,” she said, “that simply will not do. Come on with me, and I will try to cheer you up.”

  “Thank you, Princess – but I am sure that you have more pressing matters to attend to.”

  “Such as what?”

  The woman finally smiled. “I would not know. I am not a Princess.”

  “Ah!” said Lila. “And you should be glad for that. But come away from there, eh?”

  She seemed to think on it for a moment more; but then she moved away from the horse, and came to meet Lila at the place where she stood.

  “Do you wish to ride, or to walk?”

  “I would rather walk, thank you.”

  “Well, come on then! Follow me.”

  And so they set out from the stables, across the sloppy ground that had been made thus by what seemed the melting of any snow what had been left from morning. They struck off South across the grounds, towards the lights of the soldiers’ barracks, which glimmered just inside the wall of the city.

  “Why are we going this way?” asked Heidi.

  “Your mind is preoccupied,” said Lila. “I am taking you to the only cure I know for such an ailment.”

  Heidi asked no more questions; but a look of nervousness came into her face, as they moved nearer to the barracks. When they came to them, Lila led her into the second building, where their eyes met a sight which was familiar to Lila, but a cause of some anxiety for her companion.

  At this hour of the evening, the building was filled with smoke. Men all about had pipes sticking out of their mouths, and were either lounging in their bunks, or sitting at a large assortment of tables strewn all about the centre of the room. The building was very long, and through the thick smoke that persisted in the eyes of the viewer who stood by the entrance, the far end of it was not even visible.

  Several moments after the women entered the building, a short and stocky man came to meet them. He, too, had a pipe in his mouth, but he smiled broadly at the sight of Lila.

  “Princess!” he exclaimed, reaching out to take her hand. “What brings you here at this time of night?”

  Lila smiled and said, “I am no Princess tonight, Commander. My heavy thoughts are in need of recreation; and there are none better than you in such a department.”

  “Ah ha!” he exclaimed, pulling her into the room. “It is true there are none, dearest Lila. Come on with me, and we shall kick off our shoes for a while.”

  As she approached to the tables, most of the men stood up to salute. “Hurrah!” they shouted; for Lila’s was not an unfamiliar face in that place. She would never have admitted it to him, but she was quite as much in the line of the aforementioned recreation as was that younger brother of hers.

  When she sat down at a table with Yuvi Flay, Heidi Bastian sat down somewhat mechanically beside her. The look upon her face was enough to set everyone at the table laughing. That, of course, set a flush blazing in her cheeks; but it could be said of her, at least, that when a soldier named Dihvny Call smiled at her, she did try to smile back.

  Everyone roared with laughter again, this time for no apparent reason. Then fellows all about the room were off to fetch their instruments; and a few minutes later, the place was filled with the loud and merry sound of music. Lila took a pipe from the pocket of her cloak, and accepted a bit of the leaf which Yuvi Flay offered her. A match was lit, and yet another smoking pipe was added to the thick fog that had already come to take hold of the room.

  In the midst of all that warmth and noise, Lila felt some of the tension that she had begun to consider permanent seeping from her shoulders. She patted Flay on the back as he finished a round on his lute; and then tilted her head towards the ceiling to blow a perfect smoke-ring, which was applauded heartily by her companions.

  The men played on, and the building was filled with the sweet, but somewhat discordant, sound of their music. They lifted their deep voices up in song; and before long, everyone was singing a different version of the same tune. Then they began to pass round the spirits, of which there was much; and their music and voices became tinged with the effects of the liquor, while they sat at the tables wreathed in smoke and playing all sorts of different betting games.

  After a time, even Heidi began to show signs of enjoying herself. Dihvny Call sat beside her, teaching her the rules of the game that was being played at their table; and she followed along with eager eyes, screaming with laughter each time she won; and doing much the same thing each time she lost. She stole the pipe directly from Lila’s lips, and puffed upon it; afterwards attempting to blow a smoke ring, which issued forth as only a cloud of smoke before her face. She laughed even harder at this, and then ro
se from the table with the pipe in her hand.

  “If you want it back,” she said to Lila, “you shall have to catch me!”

  At this point, both women had already consumed a good amount of spirits. Lila thought very little of it before she gave chase, winding after Heidi through the numerous tables. The men cheered them on (for they had had a good amount of spirits themselves), and shouted after the one whom they hoped would win.

  Finally, Lila overtook the thief. She grabbed the pipe, but Heidi tripped her up as she made to run back to their table; and both fell down to the floor with shrill bouts of laughter. The pipe rolled from Lila’s hand and went out. At this, they laughed quite so loudly, that anyone who had not taken any of the spirits might have thought that there was murder taking place.

  XXXVII: Collection

  Dain Aerca knew no such thing as sleep, that night before the siege. She had gone to the Master earlier in the evening, to relate her plans to him; and she found relief, at least, in the fact that he seemed to approve of them.

  Nevertheless, her return to Grénha found her unspeakably wearied and dejected. She thought of what lay ahead, and wished for the first time that it was not she who must do it. She thought of the partnership she had forged with Zana, and looked upon it very ruefully. What had she been thinking?

  She took comfort only in the fact that, with Zana on her side, she was sure to succeed. There was no chance of losing. There was no risk; and there were no stakes.

  Still, she was terribly sorry that she would not be exacting vengeance alone (if it were, as it truly was, she who must work to exact it). True enough, her first and foremost objective was to follow the Master’s orders; but she could not help thinking of it as her own mission, as well. Reciprocation for what they had taken from her. What she had taken. Whom of the others could have done it? Who would have dared, save that wretched Auren?

  She caressed the smooth glass of the Sphere with one hand. Then she raised it up before her, and looked deep into its black depths. The darkness parted for her, and showed her what she wished to see.