Sunshield

by Emily B. Martin

  I bring the ax down again. Despite tireless sharpening, the head has almost entirely lost its edge. It bites into the wood only a fraction of an inch. I work it back out, feeling the handle wiggle loosely in the metal fitting. It doesn’t help that the wood slice I’m working on is two feet around. Our firewood is dwindling in camp, and we’re down to these stupidly thick lengths of pine. Crappy wood, and impossible to split. I’d use a wedge and a sledgehammer, but surprise—we don’t have any.

  I hear Rose’s step. Rat lifts his head and thumps his brushy tail.

  “You’re muttering to yourself,” she says.

  “I am not.” I wiggle the head out of the wood again—damn, this handle is getting loose.

  “Something about a sledgehammer.”

  “Oh. That was out loud?”

  She bends her knee—she’s not wearing her false leg today, relying on a crutch to hop around. Her trouser leg is tied below her stump. She lowers herself to the ground near the last few lengths of pine and takes out her pocketknife. She picks up a splinter of wood and starts shaving bits off to wrap into kindling bundles.

  We’re quiet for a moment, the silence broken only by the dull thud of the ax and the scratching of her knife. It was a blow to the others in camp when I returned two days ago with the news from Snaketown. I kept quiet about the scuffle with Dirtwater Dob and that gut-awful smell of guano coming off the traveler. I gave the blister cream to Rose and the tonic to Whit and Andras, but dinner that night was corn cakes hard with grit, and broth boiled from the last of a grouse carcass Sedge had trapped. Since then I sent Saiph and Pickle to the river to gather more cattail pollen and roots, and we’ve doubled down on laying game traps. We’ve been lucky—one of Sedge’s snares caught a jackrabbit, and I got a fat gopher in one of my pits. We set to smoking the meat yesterday—but that burned through the last of our wood. Which is why I’m here, fighting with a massive block of pine.

  “We need to take the horses down to the river and drag up one of those cottonwood falls,” Rose says, tying kindling into a bundle. “Then we can split it here in camp.”

  “I know, but there hasn’t been time. I need Saiph and Pickle for it, and they’re watching the road today.”

  “Sedge could probably help.”

  “I guess.” Sedge is big and muscular, but his longest stint in captivity was splitting wood for the glass forges in Moquoia, and he killed his back as a result. He can’t lift an ax above his head. But he could probably help hitch up a fallen tree.

  Silence falls between us again. My breast band is drenched in sweat; I pause to wipe my face with my bandanna, avoiding her gaze. I’ve been avoiding it since I came back, trying not to swirl up that sickly dread from a few days ago.

  “Are we going to talk about what to do about Snaketown?” Rose asks.

  I tie my bandanna back around my forehead and lift the ax again. “What’s there to talk about? I can’t go back. We’ll have to go to Pasul.”

  “Pasul’s a long way.”

  “A day’s ride isn’t too bad.” I try to keep the unease out of my voice at the thought of leaving the others in camp for three, maybe four days.

  “You don’t look Moquoian.”

  “Well, I don’t look Alcoran, either.”

  “You can pass for it, though—a Cypri-Alcoran mix. And folks were used to seeing you in Snaketown. But you’ll stand out a lot more in Moquoia.”

  “Well—so I’ll stand out. I’ll take Saiph with me. He can do most of the running around. We don’t really have another choice.”

  “I could go to Snaketown,” she says.

  I swing the ax up again. “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  The ax falls. “You think I stick out, Rose? How many one-legged Cypri girls go riding into Snaketown?”

  “Oh, I’m a girl now? I thought we agreed I’m at least two years older than you. If I’m a girl, you’re a tot, and a whiny one at that.” She bends her right leg and rests her arm on her knee. “You’re not the sole protector of Three Lines, Lark. You’re not our canyon queen.”

  “Well, someone has to be.”

  “No, someone doesn’t. You’re just one of us. I appreciate you taking charge, I do, and the little ones look up to you. But you can’t pull all the weight by yourself. You have to let some of us do it, too.”

  I lean on the ax for a moment, looking at her. “Look, I know you think otherwise, but I’m not just being stubborn. What’s it going to look like if I get chased out of Snaketown, and then a few days later a raggedy stranger comes riding in to get the same supplies? Patzo’s not an idiot. He’ll know you’re coming in my place. Then they’ll have a poster up with your face on it, if they don’t just toss you in jail right away.”

  “It’s a chance we may have to take, Lark.”

  “No, it’s not. And I won’t send Saiph or Pickle in for the same reason. Lila can’t defend herself. Sedge can’t go in because of the slave ring around his neck. Snaketown is out for us, Rose. It’s Pasul, or nothing—and that’s assuming they don’t have bounty sheets posted there, too.”

  “Then I’ll go to Pasul.”

  “What is wrong with you? No, you won’t!”

  “What’s wrong with you?” she shoots back. “You act like I haven’t helped you turn over a dozen stages and twice as many wagons. Is this some kind of fake survivor’s guilt? Are you still carrying around my calf like it’s a penance?”

  My next swing has a flush of anger behind it—the head bites deep into the wood. I go to wrench it free—and the handle pops clean out, leaving the head stuck fast. I swear in frustration and hurl the ax handle. It spins end over end and disappears into a thicket of scrub oak.

  Rose snorts derisively. “I was going to say at least the handle didn’t break, but . . .”

  I sit down hard in the dirt, rubbing the back of my hand across my forehead and leaving it there. The smell of bats ghosts in my nose again. “Why did you have to bring that up?”

  “I’m not the one obsessed with the memory.”

  No, because it hadn’t been her fault, and she’d been either liquored up or unconscious for most of it. I remember every second—the full momentum of the bull, the sight of its horn puncturing clean through Rose’s calf. Rose sailing through the air, Rose coughing through the whiskey they dosed her up with to start the surgery right there in the branding ring. The bow saw, the sound of the bow saw, how its teeth sank into her skin and below, grinding back, forth, back, forth. The cowhand’s set jaw, his dirty fingers around the handle, his sharp curse.

  “Damnation, Nit, shut up and hold her still. If you’d held the be-damned gate like I said, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  I rub my eyes. “It was my fault. I was supposed to be keeping the gate closed.”

  “Girl, that bull was well over a thousand pounds of muscle and madness. If it wanted to bust through the holding pen, your skinny little ass wasn’t going to stop it.” She flicks a splinter of wood at me. “Besides, it gave us the chance to get away from the rustlers, didn’t it? They underestimated me, and you. Aren’t you glad about that?”

  “No. You don’t have a leg.”

  “Dammit, I don’t have a calf, and so what? You act like a person needs to be whole to be considered a person at all. That crap’s tiring, Lark. I don’t move as fast anymore, but I ride just as well, and I’m a damn sight better shot than you. Quit treating me like a cripple on bedrest. Grow up. Worry about your own issues before you worry about mine.”

  I hear a deep sigh from Rat—he does that when tensions are running high. Rose glares at me with one eyebrow raised. I give my own sigh.

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” I say, unable to add you’re the only family I’ve got.

  “That’s something none of us can promise,” she says, resuming her work at splintering the pine fragment. “Least of all you. Listen. Let me and Saiph go into Pasul. We’ll set out tomorrow. While we’re gone, you take Pickle and Sedge down to the river and haul
up a cottonwood. Let Andras help. Build up a wall of firewood eight feet high. Then when we come back, we’ll have ourselves a feast of beef and potatoes and real honest-to-goodness griddle biscuits. All right?”

  I blow out the rest of my breath. “All right. Get some lard, too.”

  She nods. “And beans.”

  “Blankets.”

  “Soap,” she says. “The kind with flower petals in it.”

  “Perfumed scalp oil.” As long as we’re getting fanciful.

  “Plus twelve head of cattle.”

  “And a marble fountain of crystal-clear water.”

  “Bandages,” she adds. “We do actually need more. I’m bleeding right now, and Lila’s been cramping—she’ll probably have one of her blow-outs this time around. Sorry—the fountain reminded me.”

  I grunt and wipe my forehead with my bandanna. “Then get some of that Missus tea.” I think of the ax head buried in the wood. “And a new ax.”

  “Absolutely not.” She points into the bushes. “You go get that handle from the scrub, and if you get scratched up, it’s your own fault.”

  “You provoked me.”

  “You provoked yourself, my love.” She ties a last bundle of kindling. “Take it to Sedge. He’s been dying for something to keep his hands busy. I don’t want him adding wheels to my leg or anything.”

  I sigh and get to my feet. She reaches out to let me help her up.

  “Rose, I’m sorry,” I say as she tucks her crutch back under her arm. “I don’t mean to act like you can’t take care of yourself. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Probably rage-fling everything in camp into the scrub.” She pushes me toward the bushes.

  Before I can work up the fortitude to plunge into the scratchy mess of branches, running footsteps thump toward us. Saiph rounds the big boulder at the edge of the splitting ring, his angular black eyes lit with tense excitement.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask. “Stage?” I’m not going after any stagecoach right now.

  “No,” he says, his face fierce. “Wagon.”

  Veran

  I wake up on the floor.

  Dammit.

  I pushed myself too hard last night. I should have known better.

  A knock is coming from my parlor door—the sound must have jarred me awake. I flail in a web of sheets, my limbs hollow and watery. My elbow throbs, which means it probably took the brunt of the fall. I clamber to my feet, woozy, and stumble out into the parlor. I turn the wrong way at first, toward my glassed porch, before windmilling in a full circle and staggering to the door to the hall.

  On my threshold stands a black-liveried palace servant, holding a box in his hands.

  He says something, jumbled words that make no sense. His statement ends with a lift in his voice, as if he’s asked me a question.

  “What?” I slur.

  He blinks at me.

  “What?” he echoes.

  Oh—oh, right, the language. Moquoian. He’s speaking Moquoian, I think I answered in Eastern. I shake my head as if to rattle my brain into place. My whole body hurts.

  “Sorry,” I say in Moquoian. “I, uh, did not sleep well. What did you say?”

  “Have you lost a pair of shoes?”

  A pair of shoes? “I don’t think so.”

  “I’ve been told these are your shoes, sir,” he says, lifting the lid.

  I stare, befuddled, at the shoes in his hands, gripping the doorframe to counteract my dizziness. The purple silk has been cleaned and dried, and they’re tucked neatly in place with a swath of linen.

  “Mistress Fala said one of the groundskeepers found them outside the mezzanine garden entrance,” he explains, slowly, as if I’m a toddler—with good reason; I’m feeling about as coherent as one. “She inquired with the cordwainers, who matched them to your wardrobe. Or were they in error?”

  “Uh, no—no.” The patchwork memories of the previous night blink back to me like a guttering lantern. “No, they’re mine. Yes, the garden entrance. I left them there. By accident.”

  I take the shoes from him and tuck them under my arm. With the memories comes the mortification of my slipups on the royal balcony, along with the conviction to tell all the details to Eloise and start trying to fix a few things. Following that comes the unexpected image of a dead songbird lying broken in the mud.

  I rub my eyes. “If you please,” I say to the servant. “Do you know if the ambassador and princess are awake?”

  “I expect so, sir—it’s past breakfast. Shall I inquire with them for you?”

  “No, thank you—I’ll go myself.” I turn over my palm, which he stares at. Too late I remember that my folk’s automatic gesture of thanks isn’t universal. Hurriedly I tuck my hand back under my arm. “Thank you for returning my shoes.”

  I wait until he bows and heads away, and then I duck back inside my parlor. I set the shoes with the mud-stained outfit from the previous night and head to the trunk in my bedroom. I’m too achy from the night to attempt another Moquoian jacket and jeweled trousers—if Rou can be charmingly outlandish, so can I. I pull out the topmost pair of tunic and trousers, along with a leather belt and my softest, most comfortable pair of boots, the ones with the chevron fringe. I fumble to pull everything on.

  I’m just tugging my second boot over my toes, mentally rehearsing what I’m going to say to Eloise in a few minutes, when I’m startled out of my thoughts by a clanging bell. I pause, straining to hear.

  “Kualni An-Orra! Kualni An-Orra! To the northwest rails—Kualni An-Orra!”

  Colors in the sky.

  A rainbow.

  I wrench my boot onto my foot and stagger upright. The clanging continues as I run back to the parlor door and out into the hallway, soon accompanied by other cries in the corridor. Maids are dropping laundry baskets in corners, and other guests of the Moquoian palace are darting from rooms, pulling on jackets and shoes. I catch a whiff of lemon balm as one lady smears insect repellent over her face. I shuffle down the hallway a few steps, one hand on the wall.

  I’m halfway across the atrium when I realize I should have knocked on Eloise’s door—at least to see if she’s well enough to come outside. But I don’t want to miss the start of my first Kualni An-Orra prayer or run the risk of the rainbow fizzling out before I can get to a northwestern patio. Perhaps I’ll meet her outside and then, once the event is over, we’ll sit down and talk.

  The main doors out to the atrium porches are thrown open at last, with mosquito netting just barely forming a barrier to the open air. Folk slip through the netting, heedless of the damp wind gusting into the palace. The breeze rustles the tops of the indoor cedars, shaking needles from their usually stagnant branches and filling the air with a sharp evergreen scent. I grip the rail around the waving crowns, following the colorful silks of the last few Moquoian guests, one of whom has suds streaming from her wet hair.

  I’m slow, and a little nauseated—the night was harder on me than I thought—and by the time I get around the circle of the atrium, everyone in the wing has already poured out. I can see them through the windows, rushing around the wraparound porch to the right, seeking those northwestern viewpoints. The rain has stopped, lighting up the glass with patchy sunlight, and through the panes I think I can see it—a smear of colors growing bolder as the clouds shift, forming a definite arc.

  I don’t know what makes me do it—everything worth seeing is happening outside, on the terrace, in the sky; I’ve been looking forward to a Kualni An-Orra since we arrived, and I’ve been dying to get out in the free air, last night’s ill-planned excursion notwithstanding. But for whatever reason, despite the rushing breeze and billowing clouds, just before I release my grip on the rail, I look down, into the cedar trees. Normally, six stories up, the crowns block the view of the gardens below. But now, with the boughs bending in the wind, I catch a glimpse of the distant pathway, where I see a flash of gold-piped capelet flickering through the branches.

  I turn full
y to the rail, leaning over to be sure my dozy brain isn’t playing tricks on me. No, there’s his golden hairpin. While every other soul in the palace is rushing outside, Iano is stealing off the path through the cedar gardens. And not simply skulking or moping, either—he’s moving with purpose among the boles, pushing aside ferns and flowers with a destination in mind.

  I waver, looking again out the open doors. But it doesn’t take me long to make a decision—his snap and flight last night repeat in my head, coupled with the painful memory of all the eyes turned my way.

  He’s up to something, and I’m just off-kilter enough to decide it’s my business.

  Besides that, today I’m wearing my boots, not tippy hard-soled slippers, and that makes me feel invincible.

  Emboldened, I reverse my direction and head back for the staircase, slipping down the first few steps with blissful silence. Up above me, a single bell chimes, and a swarm of voices rises en masse in the first line of the twelve-verse prayer, starting with tekonnsi scarlet and the call for energy. The voices grow distant as I reach the third-floor landing and peer into the trees again. I can just see a flash of gold through the trunks, but Iano’s moving away fast. I don’t want to lose him—I’m moving faster than I ever could in the Moquoian shoes, but by the time I reach the gardens below, he may have vanished in the greenery.

  So, on impulse, probably channeling more of my mother than may be wise at the moment, I throw my leg over the rail, reach for the nearest stout limb, and swing into the branches.

  I’m showered with fragrant needles, and my palms are instantly tacky with sap, but it feels strangely glorious to shimmy and twist down through the branches. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve lived a sheltered life, but I’ve seen Mama scramble up an endless number of trees, bear bag in hand, and I’ve practiced on my own during the chancy stolen moments alone in the forest. I’d get an earful if Mama knew, or a full-blown panic attack if Papa found out, but I’ve learned to be fast and quiet enough not to raise suspicion. Besides, these trunks are strong, trained by centuries of pruning to grow in attractive arches thick enough to hold glassed lamps and pendants. I slither easily from branch to branch, angling down toward the ground in the same direction Iano disappeared.