“Now,” Sara said, “for practicalities. Does anyone need anash? There is plenty of time yet this summer to harvest and dry it.” Every house had an anash bush, or two, in the garden, but they needed to be either harvested or pruned yearly to maintain the growth of the young leaves. The midwife’s house, not surprisingly, had several bushes, and I had picked leaves since earliest childhood as one of my chores. I knew my mother would have a lot put by, but I doubted the supply would serve the entire village.
A few hands went up. “See me,” my mother said. “Please remember to teach your daughters to steep it for at least three minutes and to drink it at the same time every day.”
“And to add honey,” Tali said, grimacing. “I can’t stand the stuff without honey.”
The meeting dispersed. Tice fell into step beside me on the path. “How about some wine? I’ve got a flask, not from Leste, but good southern stuff, and some food to go with it.”
I hadn’t eaten, and Tice’s invitation meant I would not have to go back to my solitary room. “Thank you,” I said. Where the path divided, we went left, uphill to Tice’s cottage. I hadn’t entered this cottage since old Minna had given up the wheel and kiln entirely to move in with her daughter, some eighteen months before. Tice had whitewashed the walls and softened the wide boards of the floor with intricately woven rugs in bright colours. On shelves, scattered around the room, stood examples of Tice’s craft—vases and pots in deep reds and rich cobalt blue. A tortoiseshell cat stretched itself awake from the windowsill, mewing a welcome.
“Have a seat,” Tice said.
I sat cross-legged on one of the rugs, holding out a hand to the cat. It approached warily, sniffed my fingertips, and immediately broke into an ecstasy of purring. I scratched its ears. It collapsed on the rug, rolling over. “Don’t!” Tice said, as I reached over to rub the cat’s stomach. I looked up. She handed me a wine goblet and a flask. “It’s a ruse. Rub her belly, and she’ll tear your hand to pieces with her hind claws.” She picked the cat up before sinking gracefully to the floor a few feet away.
I poured two glasses of wine. The cat curled up on Tice’s lap, purring. I held up my wine glass. “Health and luck,” I said.
“Health and luck,” Tice replied. “Although in the south we have a saying: choice is better than chance. “She sipped her wine. “Hence the anash.”
“Tell me about the south. I’ve never been more than a day’s sail from Tirvan.” The wine was spicy, tasting of blackberries.
Tice rubbed the cat’s ears, reflectively. “The land in the south is flat, with long fields running down to the sea. Karst isn’t really a village, not like Tirvan. No one wanted to waste land on a village, so each farm has its house and outbuildings, scattered over the district. There is a hall, at a central crossroads, for meetings. Above the meeting hall is a belfry. In an emergency, the bell is rung. It can be heard for miles across the fields.”
“It sounds lonely.”
“Do you find it lonely on the sea, in a small boat, all day?”
“No,” I answered, “but we come back to the village, and the baths, and the people.”
She nodded. “In the south, we reverse this. We tend to work communally, at harvest or in the spring when the grapes need tying. Each farm is slightly different: the grapes grow faster or slower depending on the soils and how close the farm lies to the sea. So, we’re together a lot, and there are many dances and celebrations and meals, but we go home to our own farms, and the open space above us, and the long views down to the water.”
I thought about this and my need today for space, and the wind and seaspray against my face. “Why did you leave?”
“Karst had no need of another potter, so I saddled my pony and brought my skills north, seeking a village that did.”
I hesitated, conscious of the warning in her voice. “Was it hard, on the road?”
“Hard enough,” she said. “You’re thinking of Maya?” I nodded. “She should be all right, if she thought to take warm clothes, and if she finds a place to stay before winter. The inns always need help. North, south or east, she will be able to find work and food and a roof over her head, if she wants it.” I knew very little of the world beyond Tirvan. A single dirt track, dusty or muddy according to the season, lay between Tirvan and a pass in the hills. I had never wondered, until now, what lay beyond those hills, where that track met the broader, paved roads of the Empire.
The cat meowed, a demanding, plaintive sound. “She’s hungry,” Tice said. “Let’s all eat.” She stood, holding the cat against one shoulder. I put my wine on a low table. Tice led the way into the small kitchen. She put the cat down on the stone floor, pouring milk from a blue jug into a bowl glazed to match the tortoiseshell of the cat’s fur. Tice caught me looking at the bowl. “That way I know it’s hers and don’t eat my soup out of it,” she said. She took a covered crock down from a shelf, handing to me. “Olives,” she said. “Put some on a plate. There are pickled onions in the red bowl.” I scooped pickles and onions onto a plate while Tice cut a loaf of barley bread. The cat lapped at the milk. Tice handed me the basket of bread. “It’s getting dark. Take the food back into the other room. I’ll light the lamp.”
We sat on the rug again, the lamp on the table and the food between us. The cat jumped onto the windowsill to wash. I bit into a pickle, relishing its tang.
“Has Dern said anything about when Skua will arrive?”
I shook my head, my mouth full. “Nothing more than what was said in meeting. Why?”
“Just wondering,” she said. “It’ll be a bit like Festival, won’t it?” The lamp gave enough light to eat by, but I could not read her eyes.
“I suppose,” I said. “Are you thinking of a liaison?” I wondered if I presumed too much in asking this, but Tice just smiled.
“No,” she said, “no liaisons for me. And you?” She took a piece of bread from the plate.
“I don’t know,” I said. She cocked an eyebrow in the quizzical expression I was beginning to know well.
“Dern will ask.”
“I know.” I took a mouthful of the wine. “Tice, have you—?”
“Have I been with a man? Yes. And you haven’t?”
“No.” I admitted. “I’ve only been old enough for one Festival, and Maya and I…well, we had each other. But now…I’m confused, Tice.” I was suddenly glad of the low light in the room.
“Do you want him?”
“Yes, I do.” I had said it.
She smiled, a slow and somehow sad smile. “He is an honourable man, I think,” she said, “and you are well matched. But only you can decide, Lena. Choice is better than chance.”
Through the open window, I could see stars in the night sky, and the rising full moon, the last of summer. We sat in silence for a while. The lamplight flickered in the night breeze. Tice began to sing, unexpectedly, a slow, sorrowful song.
The swallows gather, summer passes,
The grapes hang dark and sweet;
Heavy are the vines,
Heavy is my heart,
Endless is the road beneath my feet.
The sun is setting, the moon is rising,
The night is long and sweet;
I am gone at dawn,
I am gone with day,
Endless is the road beneath my feet.
The cold is deeper, the winters longer,
Summer is short but sweet,
I will remember,
I’ll not forget you,
Endless is the road beneath my feet.
“Is that a song of your people?” I asked, after the last bittersweet note had faded.
“No,” she replied. “It is a song from Casilla, which is many miles east of Karst. I learned it from an old soldier, a general, who had his retirement farm half a day from our vineyard. He grew grapes and raised horses and collected songs. Jedd, his name was.”
“A general?” I said, surprised. “But, then, there were men around? I mean, not just at Festival?”
Tice
laughed. “Not every day, no. But, Lena, the retirement farms have to be somewhere! And Jedd and his household were old, as old, nearly, as Casse. We traded with him, a bit, for new varieties of grapes, or we would buy casks or corks from a trading ship and then he would buy some from us.”
“If Jedd was that old, who worked the farm?”
Tice looked uncomfortable. “He mostly hired women from Karst, to prune and tie the grapes in the spring, and for autumn harvest. But there were some men, young men, I mean, who worked with the horses. Some of them were slaves, from the northern peoples.” She hesitated. “And some were not. But they never came to Festival.”
Nor would they, I thought, remembering what Dern had told me.
“I knew there were retirement farms, but somehow I thought they were far, far away, not near the women’s villages at all. Although I suppose there are villages throughout the Empire, too.”
Tice nodded in agreement. “Jedd showed me a map, once. Some of the villages are on the coast, but most are inland. But in the far north and east there are none, not near the Wall or the mountains. After all those years serving in the north, the men want warmth and sunshine.” She grinned. “And if they live to retirement, they are too old to want anything else, so they are not, shall we say, disruptive, to the villages.”
“There’s so much I don’t know,” I said, feeling both frustrated and foolish.
Tice shrugged. “Why would you? I didn’t know of the world beyond Karst, either, until I left, except what Jedd told me. And even now I can’t claim to know much more, except of the road between here and Karst, and the inns I stayed at.”
Tice filled my wine glass. After the lamp flame flickered and guttered, we sat in the moonlight, listening to the night sounds. The cat made a soft sound and jumped off the windowsill, heading out to her night’s hunting. I stood, stretching.
“Thank you, Tice. I enjoyed the evening.”
I let myself out. I could tell by the stars that it was near midnight. I looked east, into the night, toward the road I knew lay beyond the hills, the road Tice had ridden, the road Maya had chosen to take, and I had not.
Chapter Six
I spooned honey into my mug of anash tea, stirring it vigorously. After eight days, I had nearly grown used to its smoky, slightly bitter taste. I covered the teapot to keep it warm for Tali. I could hear her moving about upstairs. The day had dawned cloudy, with a band of sea fog about half a mile off shore. I could hear voices down at the harbour, but they would wait for the fog to lift before setting out. Already the sun showed weakly through the cloud. When it rose higher, in an hour or two, the day would heat up. The autumn equinox was approaching. Soon the fog would last all morning, and then all day. On many days not fogbound the wind would blow too strongly to safely sail, and the boats would stay in the harbour, sails furled, or be hauled up on the beach for repair.
Last night, Tice and Dern and I had eaten together at Tice’s cottage. Tice had cooked a spicy bean stew, and I had begged a loaf of fresh bread from my mother. We did not eat together every night, but I had suggested we needed to review the cohort’s progress.
“Little Aline is deadly with that secca,” Dern said. “She can throw accurately with either hand when she’s standing, and even crouched, she’s hitting the target most of the time.”
“She’s still resentful of me,” I said. “Not overtly, but there’s just a bit of sullenness there when I give her an order.” I sipped my wine.
“She wants you to notice her,” Tice said. “She’s very young. She needs your praise.”
“Which she gets,” I pointed out, “when she earns it.” The cat appeared from somewhere to wind around my legs. I put a hand down to pet her.
“Praise her privately,” Dern said unexpectedly. I raised an eyebrow. “I’ve worked with cadets like this, too. Praise on the field is good, but impersonal. I agree with Tice.”
“I’ll try. We need to begin working on the hiding places in the village.” I said, changing the subject. “Tice won’t know most of them,”
“Or even any,” she interjected, “saving the loft and cellar of my own cottage.”
“Do we give the cohort a day off, and the three of us investigate where we can hide, and how we can move across the village without being seen? Or do you, Dern, take the cohort, and Tice and I do it together?” I looked from one to the other.
“We don’t give them the day off,” Tice said immediately. “Aline and probably Camy would only follow us. I’ll take the cohort. You and Dern work together.”
I saw her logic. Dern had experience and training. I needed him with me to analyse the possibilities. “You’re right,” I said, after a pause.
“When do you want to do this?” Dern pushed his chair back to stretch his legs. His fingers played with the stem of his wine goblet. I wondered what they would feel like on my skin.
“Tomorrow?” I suggested. He nodded.
“Tomorrow, then, at our usual morning start.” He stood. “And now I should find Casyn. Goodnight, Lena. Goodnight, Tice. Thank you for the meal and the wine.” He smiled at us both, bent to stroke the cat, and left.
“You should find lots of possibilities, tomorrow,” Tice said, when his footsteps had faded. She grinned.
I blushed. “We’re working.”
“All day?” she inquired, eyebrow cocked. “I see the way you look at him. And the way he looks at you. Probably half the cohort is betting on it. Freya would like to use her secca on you, she’s so jealous.”
“Really?” I said, startled. “Freya?”
“Freya,” she confirmed. “Cohort-leader, you’re good with tactics and planning, but you need to think about your cohort as individuals. You’ve known them all so long, I think you just don’t notice things.” She shrugged. “I’m still an outsider, so they don’t have that gloss of familiarity for me. I’m trying to understand them. Maybe I see more.”
“Maybe you do,” I said slowly.
Dern was waiting for me at the forge, so I finished my tea, called a goodbye to Tali, and walked up the hill. I walked as Tice had shown me, rolling my weight along my feet. It no longer felt as awkward or as artificial as it had a week ago, and I thought I moved more quietly. Dern stood in the paddock, currying his horse, and I reached the fence before he looked up.
“Lena,” he said, surprised. “Did you come up the path?”
I grinned. “Yes. I could have put a knife into you ten paces back.”
“You could have,” he agreed. “Well done.”
“The waterfall masks a lot of sound up here. Are you ready?”
As he removed his horse’s headcollar, it nuzzled him, blowing through its nostrils, looking for a carrot or a piece of bread. “Nothing this morning, boy,” he said, slapping its shoulder. He took the headcollar and the brush to the stable, pausing to rinse his hands in the water trough. I looked up at the cottage.
“What exactly are we looking for?”
“A few things,” Dern said. “Places where a woman can hide, armed with a secca, and take a man by surprise. Ways to move through the village without being seen, to reposition part or all your cohort, or to send a messenger. Secret places, secret routes.” He looked up at the forge cottage. “There is a tiny loft above the rooms,” Dern said. I followed his gaze. “The door is in the ceiling of the west bedroom. It’s not much. You can only crouch. But there are ventilation windows, with sliding panels to cover them in winter.”
“Likely, no one would think of it being there,” I said. “It’s clear there is an attic of some sort over my mother’s house, and Tali’s, but here, and I think at Tice’s, you wouldn’t think of it.”
He nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “They will look for the forge immediately, to repair weapons or to make more. There would be no easy escape for a person hidden in the loft here.”
“Down the waterfall,” I said, without hesitation. “It’s dangerous. Some of the boulders are far apart, and you must jump from one to another. They’re also v
ery slippery, and some of them move, but I’d guess almost every eleven or twelve-year-old here can do it. It’s strictly forbidden, of course.”
“Of course,” Dern said, with a hint of a grin. He considered for a moment. “Did you ever climb up it?”
“I did,” I said. “It’s difficult. You have to jump up. I made it, but I never tried again. Freya has climbed up, too,” I remembered. “We talked about it, once, when we were fishing.” In unspoken agreement, we walked the short distance uphill to where the stream channelled out from the bathhouse pools to begin its westerly descent down the rocky cliff face. On either side of the watercourse, thick thorn bushes grew. In the spring, the thorn blossom hummed with bees from the hives kept nearby. “Where is the hardest part?” Dern asked. “Climbing up, I mean?”
I paused, remembering. “About two-thirds of the way up, there’s a spot where the cliffside has fallen away, leaving a sheer wall with just slight depressions in the wet rock for your hands and feet. Freya and I both made it because we’re tall and could reach the handholds, and because we’d already fished for a season and had strong arms.”
“If we fastened a knotted rope there, would it help?”
“Yes, I think so. But it would still be a dangerous climb.”
“These are dangerous times,” Dern said. He walked over to where the water began its descent. Green algae grew on the rocks, and a faint sulphur smell rose from the stream. He squatted to put his hand in the water. “Warm,” he said. “Does it freeze?”
“No,” I replied, following his train of thought. “But some of the pools form ice at the edges, further down. And the rocks ice over. I wouldn’t want to climb it, up or down, past the first snowfall.”
“Climb it soon, Lena. You and as many of your cohort as can manage it. Up and down, until you can do it in the night, if need be. If Leste takes the village, or even just the forge, this might be the only way up from the harbour. Add ropes or even ladders where they’re needed. Casyn will help you fasten bolts into the rock. Leste is a flat isle. Lestian men have no skill in rock-climbing.”
He straightened. “Lena,” he said quietly, “what is your father’s name?” The first question of courtship.
Empire's Legacy- The Complete Trilogy Page 9
