Fires of Memory

by Washburn, Scott;

  “Sure hope they got something to eat here,” said Chenik. Matt heartily agreed. They had had almost nothing for days. There had been some stale bread in the bags they took with the saddles, and they had raided one deserted farmhouse along the way, but they were both terribly hungry. But that should soon be remedied. They had reached the town proper, and he could see a half-dozen armed men coming out onto the street along with an official-looking person with a gold chain looped around his neck. Matt rode up to him and halted.

  “Thank the gods we made it!” he cried. “You must send word to the capital right away! Fort Pollentia has fallen! The Kaifeng are through the pass!”

  “Have you got anything to eat?” added Chenik.

  The man with the chain stared at them for a while and then motioned to the men with the guns. To Matt’s amazement, they aimed them right at Chenik and him!

  “Get down off those horses,” snapped the man. He turned to the men with the guns. “They are under arrest. Put them with the other deserters.”

  * * * * *

  Kareen knelt on the carpeted floor of the tent and stared blankly at the lump of bread dough on the wooden board in front of her. She was supposed to be kneading it. She had been kneading it, as Thelena had ordered her to, but little by little her hands had slowed down until they had stopped of their own accord, and now they lay limply at her sides. Her mind was a thousand miles away from kneading bread dough. A thousand miles from here. A thousand miles from her nightmare.

  It still seemed like a horrible dream, and nothing could really convince her that it was all true. It was too terrible to be true. Some things just had to be too terrible to be true. Didn’t they? The whole world was upside down and backward, tumbling in crazy circles. When would it be right again? The explosions in the fort and the deaths of the soldiers and those people doing…things…to her just had no place in her world.

  The tent flap opened suddenly and Atark strode in. Kareen instantly grabbed the dough and bent over the board and furiously kneaded it, praying that the man would not notice her. She was terrified of the Kaifeng sorcerer. Fortunately, so far, he had almost completely ignored her presence in his tent. This time, however, he did say a few words. She recognized the Kaifeng word for ‘slave’, but nothing else. She just nodded her head and kept working. To her relief, he only remained for a few moments and then strode out again.

  She sighed in relief and slowed her kneading. But then she was sniffling and crying helplessly. She was so afraid! She had never known what real fear was until now. She wanted to go home! She wanted Phell and Matt!

  But her home was a pile of smoking rubble. Phell and Matt were probably dead. Everyone she knew or cared about was dead or a slave like her. Except for Thelena. But Thelena was a stranger to her now. The woman she had counted as a friend was like someone she had never seen before. It was like she had been wearing a mask all those years and had now taken it off.

  She could have saved her. Kareen told herself again and again that Thelena could have saved her—but did not. And so she’d been raped. Many times. Her face burned with shame as she thought about it again. A part of her said that it could have been worse. At least they had not been deliberately brutal or hurt her for fun. Well, the one had, but he had been very young and very drunk. She remembered the bloody, battered condition Thelena had been in when she first saw her, and part of Kareen told herself that she'd been lucky.

  The rest of her found that hard to believe. It had been frightening and painful and utterly degrading. They had not even had the decency to rape her one at a time inside a tent. They had done it right out in the open with everyone watching and commenting. And the Kaifeng women had even joined in! They had thrown off their clothes, just as the men had done, and joined in the ‘fun’. Her blush deepened.

  She remembered the whispered, giggling conversations she had had with her friends about the different kinds of love-making they had heard of and how wonderful it would be when they had a husband and could try them out. What fools they had all been! They all knew better now. Kareen was quite sure that all of her friends knew better now.

  She looked up as the tent flap opened again, but it was Thelena instead of Atark. Kareen was a bit relieved, but only a little. Thelena stood over her. “You should have been done with that by now. You have been slacking off.”

  “I’m sorry, Thelena. I’m just so… so tired.”

  “You will get used to it. Some real work will do you good.”

  “Thelena! I always helped around the house!” exclaimed Kareen indignantly.

  Thelena squatted down right next to her and looked in her eyes for a moment. Then she suddenly seized Kareen’s ears in both hands. “Don’t you ever talk to me in that tone again—slave! And any time someone might hear, you will call me ‘mistress’. I’ve taught you the word for that—use it!” She let go of her ears. Kareen stared at her wide-eyed.

  “Y-yes, Q-Qoyen,” she stuttered.

  “Good.” Thelena stood up and then went over and sat on some cushions. Kareen went back to kneading the dough but kept glancing at Thelena.

  “Oh yes, you helped out around the house—when it suited you,” said Thelena with a snort. “But never any of the unpleasant jobs. Who emptied the chamber pots? I did! Who scrubbed the pans? I did! Who did all the heavy carrying? I did! You would make the table arrangements and bake the pastries and spend hours fiddling with your clothes. Well, we don’t bother with table arrangements here! You’ll learn your tasks and you’ll do them well. Or you’ll be punished! I’ll take a switch to you, Kareen! Don’t doubt me!”

  “No, Qoyen,” whispered Kareen. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she was sniffling again.

  “What are you crying about?”

  “I…I thought we were friends. You were my friend, Thelena.”

  “I was your slave! You never let me forget that. Oh, you would talk to me and even play with me—as long as none of your real friends were around. Your eastern friends. Your proper friends. But as soon as they were there, it was: ‘Thelena, go to the kitchen and make us some tea. Thelena, could you run down to the village for a fruit pie for all the girls? Thelena, I’m too busy for you now!’” Kareen stared at the woman in surprise. She could not believe the anger in her voice.

  “I-I’m sorry, Thelena. I never…”

  “No, you never! You never thought of me as anything at all! And now you expect me to feel differently about you? Wake up! That world is gone! You are in my world now and you are the slave! And so are all your precious friends! Maybe we should go and visit them and see just how they are making out!”

  “No! Oh, please don’t do that, Thelena! I couldn’t bear it!”

  Thelena stared at her with a furious expression, and Kareen trembled in fear. More tears dripped down her face. Finally, the Kaifeng woman seemed to calm down.

  “Enough of this!” she grumbled. “You’ve kneaded that dough long enough! Go fetch some more firewood!”

  “Yes, Qoyen!” sobbed Kareen. She got to her feet and started to leave and then stopped. She looked down at herself.

  “Now what’s the matter?” snapped Thelena.

  “The… the clothes you gave me. They…they’re too small.” Kareen held her arms apart to show Thelena. They really were too small. None of Kareen’s clothes had been returned when she was delivered to Thelena, and she’d been given a rough woolen smock to wear. It was clearly made for a much younger girl. She was spilling out of the top and the bottom didn’t even come halfway to her knees. And she had no undergarments at all. “I can’t go out like this. Please.” Thelena frowned.

  “You’ll do as you are told or I’ll send you out naked! Now go!” Sobbing, Kareen fled from the tent. She stopped a few yards away and scrubbed away her tears and looked around. The world outside the tent seemed very strange and threatening now. The remains of the fort and the town still smoldered on the far hill, but the whole valley was filled with tents. The Kaifeng herds were grazing in the farmers’ fields. Nothin
g was as she remembered it. She felt like she wanted to run. Just run and run and run. Somewhere beyond those hills was the world she remembered, and she only had to run fast enough to find it. But she knew she could never run fast enough to get away from the Kaifeng horsemen. They would catch her and bring her back.

  There were people looking at her now. She had better find the firewood and get back as quickly as she could. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any near at hand. She spotted a pile by another tent, but there was a Kaifeng woman right there and she didn’t dare take any. She started walking along the rows of tents, staring back at where she had come from frequently so she could find her way back. The warm breeze touched far too much bare flesh, and the rocky ground stung her unshod feet. Wood, she had to find wood and get back to the tent. It seemed like she could sense dozens of pairs of eyes watching her.

  She neared a very large tent which had several guards outside and stopped in shock. She saw Teela Desseter struggling up the hill with a bucket of water, her red hair unmistakable. Kareen now realized that Thelena had been far more generous with the too-small smock than she might have been. Teela had nothing but a scrap of cloth knotted about her waist. Two small boys were hitting her with switches and laughing. Teela’s face was streaked with tears. Kareen quickly turned away before Teela could see her. Shaking her head, she hurried in the other direction. Wood, she had to find some firewood. She stumbled down the hill and looked for wood. There! She spotted a pile of wood just ahead and she hurried toward it—and stopped short.

  The pieces of wood were leftovers from building a large pen near the center of the camp. The pen was filled with the male prisoners from the fort. Kareen stared at it in shock. Several hundred dejected men stood or sat or lay inside a circle perhaps fifty feet in diameter. They had been stripped to the waist and their shoes were missing. Their hands were tied behind their backs. As she watched, one of them knelt down at the edge of the pen to drink water out of a bowl like a dog. A dozen of the Kaifeng warriors were on guard, and there were some small Kaifeng children around the perimeter taunting the prisoners or throwing pebbles at them. Kareen almost turned and ran off, but she really needed the wood lying there. As she nerved herself to take it, another thought struck her.

  Could Phell be in there? Or Matt?

  She had given up all hope for her fiancé or her brother. For herself, too, for that matter. But could they be alive after all? She stood on tip-toe and tried to see into the pen. The prisoners were all filthy and unshaven and they all tended to look alike. She moved around to get a look from another direction. No good. She did not recognize any of them. But so many of them were sitting or lying down and they were crammed in so tightly she might never see Phell or Matt even if they were right there. Her heart was pounding with a sudden need to know. She glanced around nervously. None of the guards were close by, and the children seemed to have lost interest in their game. Perhaps she could…

  She made her decision and walked right up to the pen. A few of the prisoners looked at her without much interest.

  “Please!” she hissed. “Is Phell Gerowst in here? Matt Krasner? Have any of you seen them?” A few more eyes turned her way, but no one answered. “Lieutenant Gerowst! Lieutenant Krasner! Has anyone seen them?” One of the guards was looking her way now. She didn’t have much time. “Please!” Finally someone was pushing through the crowd toward her. He looked familiar…

  “Miss Krasner?” said the man in near-disbelief, staring at her. One of Phell’s men!

  “Yes! Yes! Have you seen Lieutenant Gerowst?”

  “Gods,” he said, his face twisted in pain. “He’s dead, Miss. I’m sorry. I saw him killed. I’m sorry.”

  Kareen stepped away from the pen, shaking her head. She had thought that he was dead for days, but the fragile hope that perhaps she was wrong had filled her so suddenly and so completely that having it dashed was impossibly hard. She kept shaking her head and backing up…

  …right into the arms of one of the guards.

  She squealed and tried to twist away, but two more of them were right there. They grabbed her and she could not get loose. One stepped up in front of her and took hold of the neckline of her too-small smock. He gave a pull and it tore right down the middle, exposing her completely.

  She had time for one scream before they dragged her down to the ground.

  * * * * *

  Thelena sat on the cushions in the middle of the tent and looked around her with mixed satisfaction and uneasiness. This was her father’s tent. She was safe here. Her father was powerful beyond her dreams; not just his magical power, but in the influence he held over the ka-noyen and the tribal leaders. She could scarcely believe how much had changed in the four years since she had been carried off by the Varags. Her last glimpse of her father had shown him collapsed on the ground, dripping blood from a belly wound. She never expected to see him again.

  But she had seen him again. Up on the wall of that hated fort. The fort that had been her prison and her hell for four long years. He had smashed its walls and come to set her free. Seeing him, victorious and adored by the men, was the most glorious moment of her life. It seemed a miracle, and perhaps it was. Perhaps she had done something to please the gods and they had rewarded her beyond her wildest dreams. Free! Home!

  And loved. She and her father had loved each other very much, but for four years Thelena had been convinced she would never love or be loved again. But she had been wrong—oh, so wonderfully wrong! She and her father had spent an entire night holding each other and weeping for joy until they fell asleep in each others’ arms, neither one daring to let go in case it was all just some wonderful dream.

  But it wasn’t a dream. It was real. This was her father’s tent and she was the qoyen of it. She would make sure he had food and drink when he wanted it, clean clothes when he needed them, a soft bed when he was tired. She would make this tent his home—and hers. What greater bliss could she ask for?

  And yet, she was uneasy. Even though she had dreamed vivid dreams of being home almost every night of her bondage, now that it was no longer a dream it still seemed strange and unfamiliar. She stared at the lump of dough that Kareen had left. She wasn’t sure she remembered how to make the thin, crusty bread of her people. And the Yetchi, was it two parts mare’s milk and one part blood, or the other way round? She couldn’t remember. She’d have to ask…

  …who? Who could she ask? Her mother was dead. There were plenty of other women around, but she had seen how they looked at her when she walked through the camp. None of them had said anything, but she knew what they were thinking: You should be dead. We should have stoned you to death for disgracing your clan and your tribe. You should have fought your captors to the death and died with honor. Only your powerful father has saved you from our rightful wrath. You can live with us, but you will never be one of us again.

  Her anger swelled up in her. What did they know? Had any of them ever been raped and beaten by the Varags? Had any of them ever been a slave in a Berssian fort? What right did they have to pass judgment on her? She sat with her fists clenched.

  She jerked her head around when the tent flap opened and Kareen stumbled in. Where had she been? She went for the wood at least an hour ago. A quick glance told Thelena exactly why Kareen had not come back—and why she did not have any wood with her. The woman was filthy and her dress had been ripped open. She clutched it together with her arms. She fell on the carpet and sobbed. Thelena knew exactly what had happened, but she was still angry and she felt not the slightest pity.

  “Where have you been?” she snapped. “Where is the firewood I sent you to get?” Kareen looked up at her with a dazed expression.

  “I…I was raped!” she gasped. “They grabbed me and they raped me!”

  “I can see that. Why didn’t you bring some wood on the way back here?”

  “Thelena!” shrieked Kareen, clutching herself. “How can you say such a thing?”

  “You are a slave. These things happen
to a slave. You must get used to it—and still do your work.”

  Kareen shook her head and sobbed. “You’re so cruel, you are all so cruel! Phell is dead and I was raped and you don’t care!”

  Thelena blinked. The news that Phell Gerowst was dead was not unexpected, but it was not something she had considered either. Kareen had lost someone she had loved. Thelena’s emotions swirled in confusion. A feeling like sorrow or pity floated to the top for an instant but then was gone again. Kareen was blubbering on the ground and Thelena was suddenly furious.

  “Care? Care! Why should anyone care about you, slave? Did anyone care about me? They murdered my mother and my brother and I thought they had killed my father, too. They raped me and beat me for two days! Then they sold me to you. Maybe you didn’t rape me, but plenty of other people did! Do you think that when I was late getting back from the well I was off counting daisies? Half the men in the fort had me at one time or another—including your precious Phell!”

  Kareen’s head jerked up in shock. Shock gave way to disbelief and disbelief to anger. “You…you’re lying! That’s not true! Liar! Liar!”

  “Bitch!” snarled Thelena. “How dare you speak to me like that?” She sprang up from the cushions and grabbed her father’s riding crop from where it hung. Kareen reared back in fear. Thelena leaned over and struck. She was aiming for Kareen’s shoulder, but the woman tried to duck and instead was hit full in the face. A bright red line appeared across her right cheek. Her hands went to her face and came away bloody. She screamed in pain and surprise.

  Thelena was shocked, too. She had not meant to do that. But her anger was still burning in her. Not just the anger at Kareen’s words or the anger at the other women’s sneers. No, this was four long years of frustration and anger, pent up in her captivity, that was finally breaking loose. She needed to strike back at someone, anyone, but Kareen was the only one in reach.

  Thelena kicked Kareen in the ribs and then grabbed her arm. She dragged her over to the central pole of the tent and tied her wrists to it with a piece of rope. Kareen had been too shocked to resist at first, but now she struggled frantically. “Thelena! What are you doing? I’m sorry. I’m sorry! Please stop!”