The Window and the Mirror

by Henry Thomas

  “There, Wat!” Joth said excitedly, “We’ve almost made it. Just a bit more.”

  Wat nodded feebly. His horse was grazing at some scraggly grasses and was stepping through the reins Wat had dropped unknowingly. Joth dismounted quickly and jerked the horse’s head up. He gathered the reins to the big man’s horse as he remounted his own.

  “Can’t ride, Joth.” Wat wheezed.

  “You just hold yourself on that horse, Wat. I’ll lead you.”

  Wat mumbled something incoherently and gripped the saddle with both hands. Joth set off as fast as he could across the valley once they had climbed their way down the western slope, and Wat managed to hang on for a canter over the flats as Joth made for the pass with growing excitement. It was close enough to taste, yet it could all be lost if their enemy swept across the plain and barred their path to Rhael’s Pass. He felt too exposed as he crossed the vale, as though a thousand eyes peered from the western slopes, marking his and Wat’s progress. They were across the vale and riding under the retreating shadow of the mountain wall as the sun passed its apex, and Joth knew that they would make the pass and be in Oesteria by nightfall.

  They had made it! Against the odds he and Wat had escaped from certain death, but now that they were on the path to safety and solace, Joth began to think about the ramifications of this failed survey under Lord Imperator Uhlmet. What it meant specifically to he and Wat once they arrived back at Castle Immerdale as the lone survivors of the ordeal. Joth frowned. They might be taken for deserters. It wouldn’t look good, a wound in the back. Wat had been joking, but Joth knew that it was laced with truth. They had been running away when Wat was wounded, routed. The Magistry did not like their soldiers to run away, in fact it hanged them outright for good measure. Wat, of course, would be in no position to explain the events, so it would be put to Joth alone. There would be an inquiry with a jury and the mages would hold him in a cell and question him, and then once he had recovered from his wound, they would question Wat to see if their stories matched, and then it would be decided whether they had acted appropriately. Perhaps they would be rewarded; earn a rank or be marked as distinguished soldiers. Joth looked back at the pale and feverish Wat slumped in his saddle. They could as easily be marked as cowards and hanged just to keep the Magistry’s hands clean and to keep news of a defeat from spreading. It had been an ambush, a trap that Uhlmet had led them into in his arrogance. Surely the jury would see that.

  Crack troops routed by savages in a pigsty village somewhere west of the mountains—that would be met with disbelief. Joth did not even have a name to tell them for the village where Uhlmet was dragged from his horse. He could not say with certainty that he would even be able to find his way back there, as reckless as their first day’s flight had been. If they did believe him, he would be expected to guide the remounted expedition. He would be kept under lock and key and hanged if there was no evidence of the ambush. Then when the expedition returned they would check in on Wat to make sure he had healed enough to climb the gallows and dangle for his share in it. He could imagine the looks on his mother’s and sister’s faces when the paymaster refused them his home wages.

  “There’s a dreary outlook,” he muttered to himself as he pushed his horse back into a fast stepping pace. He was doing that more and more as his mount tired. The lather was showing on both of their mounts and Wat’s white horse was tossing his head obstinately. The one thing Joth could know with any certainty was that he did not want to get caught on this side of Rhael’s Pass by nightfall. If he had to, he would kill these horses to get to the other side. His own dish-faced gelding seemed to sense his thoughts and angled his head around to look at him. When he saw the animal’s nostrils flare and his head perk up; he marked it on Wat’s mount as well. He knew then that their horses had caught scent of something and his worst fears were confirmed when he looked across the vale and saw riders fanning out toward the pass from the western slopes. He saw by the way they sat their horses that they were natives, and he knew they meant to catch them before they made the pass. He and Wat were too far from the western slopes to turn back; it was now or never.

  “Hold on, Wat! Hold on for your life!”

  The big man barely seemed to acknowledge him but Joth kicked up his mount and the white horse kept pace. They set out for the pass for all that they were worth, and for all that they were worth was not going to be enough. Joth saw it happen almost the way he had imagined it a few hours earlier, with a few dramatic alterations; the underwhelming factor being that there were only five riders and not the sweeping horde that he had envisioned, and the fact that their mounts looked to be as near as tired as Joth and Wat’s own. He had near beaten them shortcut or no, but they had a natural advantage by being closer to the mouth of the pass and coming mostly downhill. Now they were closing ground rapidly as Joth felt his hopes dwindle and die. His mount was giving him his all, and Wat was doubled over his white gelding with his arms around his horse’s neck holding on with all his might as they ran for the outcrop that marked the mouth of the pass, racing their pursuers with their lives in the balance. Joth heard the cries of the riders behind him, he was screaming too, urging his mount onward over the broken ground. The five riders in pursuit were only a few hundred yards behind them when Joth and Wat made the mouth of the pass.

  For a moment Joth felt an overwhelming sense of victory at having won the race, but his hopes crashed as the white gelding stumbled and he felt the reins jerk free from his grip and saw Wat fly off and tumble from the struggling horse as it went down. Wat windmilled past him in a cloud of dust as the horse rolled and screamed in panic. Joth could have kept spurring his horse on. Somehow he knew that and yet he pulled his horse around and reined him in. He was leaping down from the bay’s back when he saw the first rider enter the pass. Joth ran as fast as his spent cramped legs would carry him. He moved to draw his sword and realized for the first time since his flight began that he had dropped it when he helped carry Wat up the hill just after they were ridden down. His belt knife would not be of much service but he had nothing else. So he stood over his friend’s body in the middle of the narrow pass with a knife in one hand and the largest rock he could find in the other and prepared for his death. At least they won’t take us without a fight, he thought, trying to embolden himself.

  What he was feeling was not fear but more a feeling of hopelessness and unavoidable mortal doom. He thought of his mother and sister. His father’s disappointment. He thought of Dierna at the river. At the very least he felt like he had known what it was like to love once. You are a bloody fool, Joth, he thought with a grimace. Had it not been for Dierna he would be a master bowyer now, working comfortably in his own shop with a few apprentices. Instead, he would die here in between his world and that of his pursuers and no one in Oesteria would ever know about Lord Uhlmet and his ill-fated company. He thought of these things all in an instant as he watched the first two riders dismount and draw their old-fashioned-looking swords. They carried spined round shields in their off hands, and Joth felt hopelessly unarmed in comparison. If he could throw his stone at one of the warriors as he was closing and get him to raise his shield, he might be able to slip in with his knife and take him out. Then what? He thought, I’ll be killed by one of the other four before I have a chance to turn around. No, you’re going to bloody die, Joth, so just get it over with.

  “Let us go! We don’t have a fight with you!” he found himself screaming. His heart was pounding in his chest like never before, thoughts were flitting through his head faster than lightning streaks across the sky. The warriors were advancing slowly behind their shields, golden ornaments in their hair tinkling and chiming with their movements. He recognized one of them as the youth who had followed him and Wat halfway up the hill, the young warrior who had thrown down the broken spear. He met his unwavering gaze, blue eyes burning into his own. This one really wants to kill me, he thought. He could see determination mixed wit
h hatred behind the cautious advance. The other three riders had arrived, but they sat their horses a short distance back. A stone’s throw away, Joth thought ruefully, and he would have laughed had Wat said it. Joth saw his death in the young warrior’s eyes and he was not ready to die yet. He wanted to save Wat and live. He wanted to see his mother and his sister again. His life was ending and he felt as though he had never had a chance to live. The two warriors spread out, one circling right while the other kept ahead. Joth knew he had to act quickly so he threw the stone as hard as he could at the flanking warrior and as he raised his shield he leapt with his knife toward the young warriors’ right side. The flanking warrior yelled something in his own tongue and the young warrior grunted and said something as he leapt back and raised his sword. It was then that Joth switched his attention back to the flanking warrior and gave him the strongest kick he could deliver to the middle of his shield and brought the man down. Quick as could be Joth was behind the struggling man, his knife at his throat and his free arm locking up the man’s sword arm, wrenching it behind him painfully. The young warrior screamed and charged, but Joth stood his ground and kept himself behind his hostage, and himself between them and Wat.

  “Let us go! We just want to go home!” Joth’s words echoed through the pass.

  The young warrior was seething, but he held back. Joth looked quickly behind him, but Wat just lay there motionless. He was still breathing, Joth could see that. Slowly he dragged his man backward as he retreated before the slowly advancing riders, lessening the distance between him and Wat.

  “Please, let us go.” He said it evenly but it sounded hollow and pathetic to him. For the first time he let his attention shift to the three riders, taking them in. He saw the old man from the village, the one who had spoken so boldly to Lord Uhlmet. There was another warrior there as well, one whom he did not recognize, and between them a woman, a girl, swaddled in a silvery gray cloak pulled up high to cover her head, hints of gold ornamented red hair peeking through. The man struggled against him for a moment so he wrenched his arm hard until the man complied with the pain. The young warrior started forward again.

  The old man said something sharply and the warrior reluctantly halted then screamed in frustration, his eyes never leaving Joth. The old man spoke again. “Put away your knife, Oestman. Let us speak.”

  Joth threw a quick look to the old man. “He’ll kill me if I do.”

  The old man said another sharp word and the warrior let fall his sword and shield, but he kept still and staring at Joth. “Release him now, Oestman.” This time it was the girl who spoke, and the world stopped.

  The voice she spoke with was more beautiful and pure than anything he had ever heard before. He could hear mountains and streams, forests and fields of flowers, rivers strongly running, and birds singing, speaking words he understood, the very earth and all its creatures speaking to him and welcoming him. He was a son of the earth and the sky, they said; they were his parents and they all implored him through her voice to listen and to do as she said, and so he let the knife fall and released the man he held. He just wanted to hear her voice again, he just wanted to hear more of it. A word would be like heaven…

  Suddenly, Joth realized the two warriors had slammed him to the ground. The shock of his teeth slamming together and the smell of the dirt clashed harshly with the beautiful reverie he had found himself in just a moment before. Joth was confused and unsure of where he was, who he was. He began to weep and he felt as though he would never understand anything again as purely as he had just moments before; he wept at the purity of the moment. The world had returned to him distorted and ugly, as it never had been before. He heard harsh voices and felt rough hands grab him by the hair and haul him to his knees. He blinked dumbly in the daylight and stared up into the faces of his captors. They regarded him as one might regard an animal. They will kill me next, Joth thought as he heard the sound of a blade clearing its scabbard.

  “Go on then, make it quick.” Joth sat up as tall as he could and waited as the cold blade touched his neck.

  “Stand, Oestman.” It was the old man speaking again. His sharp eyes cut left and right and Joth felt the blade press against his neck hard, but instead of drawing it over his throat the blade was simply taken away. Joth stood shakily.

  He felt at his neck and his hand came away bloody, but it was just a superficial wound. He looked to the warriors behind him and the young one said something harsh and shoved him forward, stumbling.

  The girl was looking at him calmly. He wanted her to speak to him.

  “What did you do to me?” Joth muttered quizzically, “What do you want from us?”

  The old man swung down from his horse spryly. He said something to the other mounted man who nodded and set about gathering the loose horses. “Wat—my friend is sorely wounded, please just let us go home.”

  “Yes. You will go home but your friend will stay with us.”

  “Please, let us both go. We are simple soldiers, we want no part of this!”

  The old man just gazed at him evenly and made his way toward Wat’s prone form. Joth looked behind him again and was buffeted on the head by the young warrior, who spat another harsh word at him. “Enough, my son. This boy is a threat no longer.”

  The young warrior said something in a respectful tone and inclined his head toward the old man. Whatever had been said, Joth could see that the old man was not pleased with the comment. He looked at the young man for a moment and then he turned his attention to Wat. He addressed Joth as he stood over Wat.

  “We have your Lord Uhlmet. He will be staying with us as well. Does this trouble you?”

  Joth blinked. “Lord Uhlmet was a bloody fool.”

  “Is a bloody fool. He’s quite alive still.”

  Joth shrugged. He did not quite understand what he should say.

  The old man pointed to the man on horseback who was leading the four loose horses back toward them now. “You very nearly escaped us. You chose your horses well.”

  Joth nodded. The girl was still staring at him.

  “How did you find your way back to the pass?”

  “We just kept going east.”

  “You know these lands? You have been here before?”

  “No, never.”

  The old man seemed impressed somehow. He looked as though he regarded their capture with amusement. Joth was growing more and more confused.

  “What are you called?” The old man asked.

  “Joth.”

  “Joth what?”

  “Andries. Joth Andries. I am a Line Leader.”

  “And this man is your Company Commander?”

  “Wat. Yes, he was. Is, I suppose.”

  The old man smiled faintly. “That is why you sacrifice your chance at freedom?”

  “He would do the same for me. We’re friends.”

  The man nodded. Joth took it as a signal and looked behind him frantically, but the two warriors hadn’t stirred at all. “Don’t worry yourself, Joth Andries. Had we meant to kill you, you’d have been dead already.”

  He motioned Joth over to him. “Help to carry your friend. Let us bring him to some shelter now so that he may live.”

  “Will he live?”

  “That depends upon many things.”

  The girl was still staring at him evenly. It was unnerv-ing him.

  “What did you do to me?” he muttered to her again. They all just watched him.

  “You were sleeping, Oestman.” She said in a calm voice. “I woke you.”

  Five

  It was late evening when Joth was brought under guard from a small wattle and daub hut to the large roundhouse in the tiny village. They had carried Wat on a stretcher put together with two spears and the warriors’ shields up through the western hills to a settlement next to a raging mountain river. The savages had regarded him with fierce
looks upon his arrival a few hours earlier, then at a word from the old man Joth was ushered into a hut lit by numerous small oil lamps and stripped naked by a group of chattering older women who slapped his hands away and hissed at him when he tried to resist them tearing at his jack lacings.

  They cackled and howled with laughter at his modesty when they insistently peeled his dirty hosen off. One even went so far as to grab his manhood appraisingly and say something that sent the rest of the old hens into a cacophonous laughing fit that seemed to last for ages as they tumbled him into a wooden washtub and scrubbed him with rough cloths and rubbed his skin with salts scented with oils that gave off a strange perfume. It might have been pleasant had the water been a bit warmer and the women a bit gentler, but Joth came out of the tub feeling abused and violated, albeit cleaner than he had ever been in his life. He asked for his clothes back but he was only hissed at again and made to stand shivering in the corner until his captors came with a thickly napped linen a few ells long and dried him as roughly as they had cleaned him.

  Then a linen shirt was pushed over his head, and he was cinched into slightly snug knee-length woolen trousers with a linen belt. Another woman appeared at the door and brought in a woolen tunic that was put on him and his costume was complete, or so Joth had hoped. He felt ridiculous, but the women chattered and looked on approvingly as though they were finally satisfied with him. His shoes were returned to him and his belt, though his belt knife had been removed. The shoes had been cleaned and the leather oiled. They smelled of walnuts now, Joth mused. He smelled like herbs. This is the way they smell, he thought. I smell like one of the bloody Dawn Tribe now. He had thought that the worst of his ordeal was over with until they started painfully combing out his hair and dressing it with more scented oil, as once again his protests and resistance were met with hissing and hand slapping. The combing and the pulling of hair continued until every stroke was met with no discomfort, and then and only then were his tormentors satisfied and he left standing alone in the hut without a word by his attendants. He had waited there for what seemed like forever and nodded off until prodded roughly with the butt of a spear and made to walk to the Roundhouse in front of the two warriors who served as his guards.