by Myke Cole
“What are you working on?” Heloise asked.
“My groom gift,” Basina snatched up a rough metal armlet, still glowing cherry red from the forge fires. The ends were caked with ash, but Heloise could see the skilled twists in the metal, the grinning faces that marked the ends. “Randal said he doesn’t want anything too splendid.”
Heloise didn’t like being reminded of Basina’s betrothal. Basina married would mean she would be gone to her husband’s house, and an end to their nights whispering secrets by the fire, or days gathering wood together.
“You met the Order?” Sigir asked.
“They rode past us on their way to Frogfork,” Samson said.
“Then why do you look so worried? Maior Annalee’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’ll give them whatever plunder they’re bent on this time and then they’ll be on their way.”
“Churic’s lost his head.”
“He was born with a lost head,” Barnard shrugged.
“He was raving about being a wizard. Said he had the portal in his eye. Shouted it so loud, I’m surprised the Order didn’t hear it in Frogfork.”
Sigir and Barnard’s expressions froze. “Are you certain?”
Samson nodded. “Heloise was with me. I told them to turn Churic out.”
Sigir looked to Barnard. “Foolish words are the only things that travel faster than horses. They will know, and soon.”
“Don’t borrow trouble, Maior,” Barnard said. “When the Order knows, we’ll know. Jaran’s no fool. He’ll find a way to keep Churic quiet.”
“In the meantime,” Sigir said, “I’ll double the watch.”
“If the Order comes here,” Samson said, “the watch will do us precious little.”
“Is it true?” Basina asked Heloise.
“It is,” Heloise said. “They had a Sojourner leading them. He called Papa a liar and I . . . I talked back to him.”
Basina caught her breath. “Oh, Heloise. That was very stupid.”
Heloise grinned, proud of the awe she saw in Basina’s eyes. “I know. It was, but you should have seen him! He didn’t know what to do!”
Basina laughed and Samson turned to them. “That’s enough. Basina’s right, Heloise, it was very stupid.”
“You were lucky,” Sigir said, frowning.
“We were,” Samson agreed. “They had two dead in tow.”
“Did you recognize them?”
Samson shook his head. “The road had had its way with them. Wasn’t enough left to recognize.”
“Come on, Heloise,” Basina said, setting down her hammer. “Let’s go down to the well, and you can tell me about it.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Barnard scolded. “You owe me work until supper, as we agreed.”
“Fine, Father.” Basina rolled her eyes, and Heloise felt a stab of disappointment.
“Please, Master Tinker?” Heloise asked him. “I haven’t seen her all day.”
“You see plenty of one another,” Barnard said. “Basina’s a groom gift to finish, and I want the rough work done by tonight. Besides, I don’t think your father is feeling terribly indulgent after you tweaked a Sojourner’s nose.”
“She’s brave, I’ll give her that,” Samson said.
“Brave and young,” the Maior said.
“Brave and stupid,” Guntar groused from his workbench, then ducked his head as his father threw a brass mug at him.
“Shut your hole,” Barnard growled.
“Best you head home,” Sigir said to Samson. “Leuba will be wondering where you’ve gone to. I’ll send word on the sentries. I suppose all we can do now is watch and wait.”
Heloise gave Basina a hug, kissed her cheek. “I’ll miss you!”
“I’ll miss you too. Maybe I can convince Father to let us see one another after supper. I’ll work as fast as I can.”
“I’ll wait by the well,” Heloise whispered in her ear. “See if you can get away to draw water or something.”
Basina smiled at her as they turned to go.
Heloise paused by the common well on the way home, careful to seem pensive and worried.
“Come on, dove,” Samson said. “Your father’s no great harbor from a wicked world, but there’s more comfort to be found hearthside. Your mother’s soup and the sight of home will do you good.”
“What if the Order is coming here?”
“Then the sentries will give us warning long before they arrive, and we will be ready.”
“Ready for what? To run? To fight?”
“That will be for the Maior to decide.”
“Can I sit for moment? By myself? Just trying to take joy in the day, Papa, as you told me to.”
Samson blinked up at the sky, looked back down to her, eyes sad. “I’m sorry you had to see such things, Heloise. I would spare you the world if I could. That’ll be your husband’s task someday, and he’ll likely fail at it just as miserably as I have. But your mother’s done all right. Women are tougher than they look.”
She hugged him around his big belly. “We are. I’ll come in at the gloaming, I promise. I just . . . I want to be outside now.”
Samson kissed the top of her head and smiled. “At the gloaming now. Don’t want the Kipti stealing you away.”
Heloise rolled her eyes. “That’s just a story, Papa. The Kipti don’t really steal children.”
“Still, don’t make me worry.” He turned and walked off toward home, glancing at her over his shoulder as he went.
Heloise sat and watched the wind toss the trees at the common’s edge, but her mind was again full with the image of the dead woman’s face, her body coiled in chains and her own guts, sliding down the road. She tried to think of something else. A husband, being betrothed like Austre or Basina. Heloise would go to live in her husband’s house, to honor his father and mother, to tend to his trade. But when she closed her eyes and tried to imagine life as a wife, she saw nothing, only an empty space dragging out before her. It’s because of the shock you’ve had, Heloise thought. Try and think of the life you’d want.
The only image that came to mind was a day in the past spring when Barnard had made Basina and her a little kite with a tinker-engine to help it fly, puffing seethestone smoke as the wind filled the cloth and pulled it to the end of its string, and Heloise had only to run and look at Basina’s eyes and her smiling mouth. It had been warm, and chores were done and Heloise had thought she could run like that forever.
The thought made the sour feeling in her stomach ebb, so she returned to it again and again, and before she knew it, the wind had picked up and the sentries changed again, and the light began to fail. The gloaming had snuck up on her, and her father would be furious if she wasn’t home soon. At least the Order had not come, but Basina hadn’t either, and Heloise swallowed her disappointment.
Heloise ran for her house, so intent on beating the failing light that she blundered into a pair of legs as solid and hard as oak trunks. She stumbled back, went down hard.
The legs were clad in coarse gray wool, shot through with leaves and twigs. A rotten-looking leather pouch hung at the waist, along with a hatchet, head up so that the keen edge could be clearly seen, the only part perfectly clean, glowing with a fresh coat of oil.
The voice that boomed from atop the legs gave the lie to the hard appearance. It was soft and kind. “Where are we off to in such a hurry?”
The man bent at the waist, bringing the rest of him into view. The coarse wool leggings matched his shirt, and a leather pack slung over one shoulder matched his pouch. But there, the hardness ended. His face was warm and open. His wide black eyes danced, the corners crinkling. He reached out a long and gangly arm, offering fingers as knotted and cured as dried leather.
“Clodio!” Heloise scrambled up, letting the old man draw her to her feet and into a tight embrace, her head resting on his chest, smelling of old leather and leaf mold.
“Well, now,” Clodio said, his hard hand gentle on the back of her hair. “Are
n’t you a little wood tick today? It can’t be an old man’s soft clothes that has you so tucked in.”
He gently pried her loose and pushed her back. “What’s eating you, girl?”
Heloise thought of telling him about the Order. Clodio’s dark eyes seemed to talk to her, speaking more clearly than words. Life is a joy, they said. The world is wide and wonderful, and I am glad you are in it.
She couldn’t bear to see that humor fade, to have it replaced with concern or, worse, sympathy. She was so glad to think of something other than the dead woman and the chains and the Order.
She shook her head. “What did you bring?”
Worry bent the corners of Clodio’s laughing eyes. He knew she was avoiding the question, but he wouldn’t pry. She loved him for it.
“What makes you think I brought anything?” He asked, hands falling protectively to the leather pouch at his waist.
“You always bring something,” she said, reaching for it. She meant something other than what he had to sell. Clodio was a wanderer and a finder of things. This sort of bushpig quill that the jeweler needed for a necklace. That special mushroom, that crushed up in broth would break a child’s fever. Shells and stones and once even a box of tiny metal balls for the Tinkers, fetched all the way from the Far Tygres where men walked on their hands, if Clodio was to be believed.
“Well, that doesn’t mean I brought anything this time,” the old man said, spinning away from her. “At least, nothing that’s of interest to little girls.”
“I’m not a little girl,” she said, keenly aware of how her giggling made her sound like one. “I’m almost a woman grown and betrothed, and I want to see what you brought.”
“What I’ve brought for sale, or what I’ve brought for you?”
“You always bring me a present.”
“You’re almost a woman grown and betrothed, you just said. Too old to be chasing my hems for presents.”
Clodio spun away from her, faster and faster, reaching out one long arm to keep her at bay, Heloise chasing and laughing.
“You,” the old man breathed, “are the slowest little girl I have ever met.”
Heloise chased twice as hard, her laughter coming in great hiccups. They spun faster and faster, until he suddenly stopped and she collided with his bony hip, bouncing off and going down on her backside again.
“Ow,” she said. “That wasn’t . . .”
But Clodio wasn’t laughing anymore. He was straightening up, smoothing the front of his filthy clothes.
Samson made his way toward them, his mouth set in a hard line.
“Master Factor,” Clodio tugged his forelock, bowing slightly from the waist.
“I’m no lord,” Samson said, waving the gesture away. “Leave your courtesies for such men as have earned them. Tell me instead why you’re playing round-the-mulberry-bush with my little girl.”
Clodio frowned. “Just a game, Master. No harm in it.”
“Papa . . .” Heloise got to her feet in a rush.
Samson stopped her with a gesture. “I’ll not have you chasing the hem of a bush ranger,” Samson said, “and you said you’d be home by gloaming, which in case you’d not noticed, is upon us. I’m surprised at you. You’re nearly a woman grown, Heloise.”
Heloise opened her mouth to say something, but Clodio touched her elbow. “There, now. Your father is looking after you, as it should be.”
Heloise swallowed, looked down at her feet and did her best to look sorry. Samson straightened, his expression softening, but he did not smile as he unfolded his arms. “The Order is about.”
“I know,” Clodio said. “I’ve come by way of Hammersdown.”
“They’re wizard hunting. They were dragging villagers behind them.”
“I know that, too.”
“Do you know who they were?”
“Not yet. Out of Silverbrook, most likely. A man and a woman.”
“They said they were bound for Frogfork. Do you know if that’s true?”
Clodio shook his head, glanced at Heloise. “Best taken up with the Maior, I’d think.”
There was a long silence, and Heloise waited, hoping that one of them would say more, but all her father said was, “Well, what has your ranging brought this time?”
Clodio smiled again. He opened the pouch. “You’d asked for bloodvein.”
“You found it?” Samson asked, his expression lightening. Heloise brightened as well, leaning forward. Bloodvein’s deep orange color turned red when mixed with water. Ground in oil, the stone produced the precious red ink their clients liked for their signatures, and for which Samson could charge double the fee per letter.
“No,” Clodio’s smile didn’t waver, “but this is heartfruit rind,” he produced a handful of scraps of what looked like dried meat. The faint light brown color did not look promising.
Samson looked at Clodio’s open hand doubtfully. “What is this?”
“It is a delicacy of the desert Algalifes. Their champions quest for it in the height of summer, losing their lives for the chance to bring back but one fruited branch from the tree. For such a man may make his fortune.”
Samson sighed. “That may be, and I’d still count it worthless if it can’t color ink.”
Clodio laughed and moved to clap Samson’s shoulder, saw the man’s hard face, thought better of it. “It does as well as bloodvein,” he said. “Note the name. This is the heartfruit. Don’t let its skin blind you to the wealth within.”
“A ranger and poet,” Samson snorted. “All right, then. Heloise, fetch the mortar and pestle and meet us at the well before the light fails.” He turned back to Clodio. “If it’s as you say, might be there’s some coin for you. Then you’ll come with me to see Sigir.”
“Not coin,” Clodio said. “It’s a letter I need.”
Samson frowned. “Not the same letter.”
“The same. Always the same.”
Samson’s next words were soft, kind. “I’d spare you this chain, Clodio. Take coin. Leave off letters that will never be read.”
Clodio’s eyes went dead. The ranger’s voice was low, dry sticks rattling over sand. “Ranger I may be, but I’m man enough to have my letter without your gainsay.”
Samson looked angry, but Heloise could tell when her father’s anger masked fear. He threw up his hands. “Fool enough, you mean.” He turned to Heloise. “Did I not tell you to fetch grinding kit?”
Heloise nodded and ran for the house while her father and Clodio made for the well, arguing.
Leuba sat just inside the door. Heloise’s mother was a gray lump under her wimple, her small mouth working silently in time with the clicking of her knitting needles. Heloise knew her mother well enough to guess those silent words were prayers to the Emperor, reciting the Writ over and over, beseeching the sainted Palantines to protect the family, the village. Heloise felt the same mixed feelings she always did at the sight of her mother. Leuba was good and kind, but she was also . . . small, somehow. She cooked, and she cleaned, and she prayed. She never took an interest in the family trade, or the counsels of the men. Heloise knew this was right, how a wife was supposed to behave, but when she thought of that future for herself, it made her feel tired and sad in equal measure. She loved her mother, but her father had fought in a war, and traveled through the valley to ply his trade, and the Maior consulted him on matters of import. She felt a stab of guilt at the thought. Her mother did as the Writ said a mother ought. That should be enough.
Leuba started as Heloise came in. “What’s all . . .”
“Clodio’s come! He brought heartfruit all the way from the Tygres, and he says it’s just as good as bloodvein and . . .”
“Your father’s seeing to him?” Her mother’s voice was tight.
“Yes. And if you’re going to warn me off him, Papa’s already told me.”
“Mind your tongue. What’s got you in such a rush?”
Heloise was grateful to talk of something other than the Order. “Fat
her says I’m to bring his grinding kit to the well. We’re going to see the color of the ranger’s wares. Come on, Mama!”
Leuba swatted Heloise’s backside, pushing her into the house. “Well, you’d best be quick about it. Hurry along and get him his things.”
The main room of the Factors’ house was bare and black from the hearth smoke, the only decoration a bright silver statue set atop a thick beam and surrounded by long dead flowers that Heloise was supposed to have kept fresh. The statue showed one of the nine Palantines, devil-slayers, saints who, unaided, managed to kill the spawn of hell before dying of their wounds. The Palantine was shown with his arm extended, palm outward, forbidding the devils to cross the veil into the world of men. Heloise knew the statue should make her feel safe, but it didn’t. Even if a Palantine had killed a devil, none of them had survived the fight. To meet a devil was to die.
Beside him, just visible from the floor, were the family’s Knitting staves. One for each man or woman grown, as was required by the Writ. They had never been moved in as long as Heloise could remember, and a thick layer of dust covered them.
Heloise snatched her father’s mortar and pestle off the table, paused. “Mama?”
Leuba had set down her needles and was striping a dried chicken carcass, crumbling the pieces into a pot of boiling water. “Mm-hm?”
“Clodio wants payment in letters, Papa tried to get him to take coin. He won’t.”
Leuba looked up sharply, was silent for a long time. “Your father only wants to help him. Clodio is chasing something he lost, and it isn’t good for him.”
Heloise frowned. “What is he chasing?”
She expected her mother to dismiss the question, shoo her out the door. But Leuba was only quiet again. “Sometimes,” she finally said, “you can love something too much. So much that trying to love it starts to hurt you. Think of your heart getting too big for your body to hold.”
Heloise tried to imagine loving someone so much that it hurt her, but the only person she could think of was Basina, and the thought of something as good as that friendship causing her pain didn’t make sense.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Leuba sighed. “Enough of it. Leave the poor man alone. Bring your father his kit so we can get Clodio paid in the manner he chooses.”
