Passion Play

by Beth Bernobich

  So Ilse slid her arms over his back and kissed him with feigned passion, whispering all the words Brandt had taught her. She moved her body in time with his, urging him with every caress to finish quickly. Only when his breath came ragged, and she knew he was on the point of his climax, did she turn her head away, too weary at last to pretend. There, just beyond the circle of firelight, stood the scholar.

  * * *

  THE NEXT THREE days passed in a chill gray blur. The late autumn rains had commenced, a cold steady downpour that soaked their clothes and turned the hard-packed dirt road into sludge. Brandt’s mood, never good, turned as foul as the weather. He drove the men harder, ordering longer marches. The horses slogged through the mud, heads down, but their progress slowed to a few miles each day. Campfires served only to make wet clothes into damp ones.

  By nightfall of the fourth day, the rain had subsided to a heavy drizzle. Mist rose from the wet ground; above, a veil of clouds obscured the half moon. Ulf tried in vain to light his campfires and succeeded only in burning his fingers. The scholar used magic with greater luck, but the wet logs smoked more than they burned. In the end, Ulf handed out cold beef wrapped in flat bread.

  Tired and miserable and damp, Ilse finished her meal and drank her coffee. It was bitter stuff, thickened with bark, and hardly warm enough to ward off the cold. All that was left of her was an emptiness, a pervading chill and damp, and not only from the rain. But if she thought too long on that, she found herself weeping helplessly, and so she would not let herself dwell on Brandt, or her condition, or how she had once hoped for freedom. Even when Brandt summoned her, she obeyed but could not bring herself to pretend. Another week in servitude remained to her. Then a term locked up in Donuth. Then her father. After that, she would be just another kind of prisoner.

  Brandt leaned against a wagon. He grabbed Ilse’s hair with one hand. With the other, he pushed down on her shoulder. She knelt and opened her mouth. She was used to this routine as well. Her mind wandered. She let it, wondering idly if Brandt would increase her duties next week, or if he had set a limit.

  We want this one to last.

  Brandt pulled her head back and looked down at her face. Firelight cast blue shadows over his eyes, making her think of the fiends in her grandmother’s stories.

  “You’re daydreaming,” he observed.

  She licked her lips and suppressed a tremor. “I’m tired.”

  His free hand circled her throat, fingers resting lightly against her pulse. “From sitting all day?”

  Nervously, she nodded.

  Brandt studied her, running one thumb along her jaw. “Go to bed. It’s a wet night. You can make it up in the morning.”

  Niko led her to her bedding and made her ropes fast, grumbling all the while that Brandt had cheated him and the others. “He says tomorrow,” Niko said, half to himself. “But I know him. He’ll start us early, damn it, and me without a turn in three days.” He gave a last tug to the ropes, then tossed several blankets to her. “Keep warm for me, sweet.”

  Ilse wrapped herself in the blankets and lay down. The ground was cold, and the air tasted of winter. In Melnek, there would be snow on the streets and tracings of frost on the windowpanes. Her mother would have ordered the heavy curtains hung and the fires constantly lit throughout the family and servants wings. Home. Did they remember her? Was her father still searching? Was her grandmother alive?

  “Dobrud’n,” a man whispered. “Are you awake?”

  She recognized the scholar’s voice.

  “I am,” she whispered back in Károvín.

  He squatted beside the front wagon wheel. “I heard what the boy told you. About Donuth and your father. I have something for you. Here.”

  Uncertain, Ilse reached toward him. Their hands met, and he laid a hard round object in her palm. It was rough and gritty, flat like a disk, with sharp edges—a stone, shaped into a cutting blade. Ilse detected traces of magic beneath its surface, calling up images and textures that reminded her of the scholar’s hands and face and voice.

  “Wait until moonset,” he whispered. “Use it to cut your ropes. When you get past the perimeter, head east, then south. That should take you into Gallenz, into the valley and away from Donuth.”

  The valley was a week’s ride from here. Did he mean to give her food and a tent?

  It seemed he had thought out everything. “Dig a hole to keep warm at night. Cover yourself with leaves and dirt, if you have to. Look for pine nuts and groundnuts. Carrots and thistles and cranberries if you can find them. Drink from running streams.”

  He poured out a flood of details, things to remember, which foods to avoid and which to hunt for, how to build shelters and traps with just a knife and her own strength. Ilse listened hard, knowing she would forget the half of what he told her, but trying to remember just the same. In passing, she wondered where he had learned all these skills, or if he had read them in a book.

  “Your best chance is to find a village,” he said. “There have to be dozens in these hills. Beg for food. They won’t refuse you, not these people. They know what it’s like to starve. Once you reach the highway, you can go west—to Jassny, even Duenne.”

  “Not Duenne,” she said quickly. Not with Alarik Brandt heading there. And surely her father would expect her to go to Duenne.

  “East, then. Tiralien is closest. It’s a big city. Girl like you can find work.” He paused. “I’m sorry I did not come to you sooner. I— I didn’t want to take a wrong chance and hurt you worse than before. No, that wasn’t it. It was because—”

  Because he was afraid. Just as Brenn had been afraid. As she was now.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “I understand. And thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  He stopped her with a gesture. “Do not thank me. Please.” Then his hand brushed her cheek. “You remind me of my sister,” he murmured before he crept away.

  * * *

  ILSE WAITED UNTIL Ulf had banked the fire, and the guards had dispersed to their first watch. She would not forget herself this time. Gripping the stone blade between her knees, she rubbed the rope over the sharp edge. Back and forth. Back and forth. Her hands went numb from holding the rope taut, but she kept going. Once the watch changed. She paused until the new sentries had taken their posts and the old watch had retired, before resuming her work. Her wrists were bloody from pulling against the ropes, but she was nearly free. Just a few more strands.

  The last strand snapped. Ilse, taken by surprise, pitched forward and nicked her chin on the blade. She pressed her hand against the cut. Her hand came away sticky. She wiped her chin again before it came home that she was free of her bonds.

  Free.

  Her chin stung, but she was grinning. The first victory was hers.

  She wrapped her skirt around the knife and cut through the remaining ropes, then hid the stone in her boot. She rolled up the bulkiest blanket and draped a second one over it. It cost her something to give up the blankets, but unless someone checked, the guards would think her still asleep.

  She crept from underneath the wagon. The trees were little more than dark blotches against the gray mist blanketing the camp. Nearby, the horses shifted about restlessly. The horse pickets lay toward the sunrise, she remembered. She crawled in that direction. There was a danger that Brandt had posted an extra watch over the horses, but the horses themselves made enough noise to cover hers. If she were quiet and quick …

  A man coughed, not six feet away. “Damned rain.”

  Ilse froze. That was Niko’s voice.

  “Go back to your tent then,” said Otto, one of the drivers.

  “Not yet. Gimme another swallow.”

  She heard a gurgling, then Niko smacked his lips. “Ah. That’s better. One more, and I’ll go.”

  “You must want a headache.”

  “Already got one ’cause of the damned rain.”

  “You been sick a while. Did you catch something from the girl?”
<
br />   “Nah. Gave her something else, though.”

  Otto wheezed with laughter. “Well, if you didn’t give to her, then I did. If Brandt doesn’t get her back to Papa soon—”

  “Doesn’t matter. Brandt’s got it all worked out. Gods, she’s a sweet fuck. I told Brandt to keep her. He says no, we can always get another one.”

  They both took another swig from the bottle. She was lucky about that—all the guards were drinking hard these past few days—either from boredom or bone-deep weariness, or just because they could not bear the endless damp and cold. Alarik Brandt’s bitterest threats made no difference, except to force the guards to keep their liquor hidden.

  Niko took one last drink, then shuffled away toward his tent. Otto remained by the horses. He was one of the rougher men. He’d pinch Ilse hard enough to leave bruises, and sometimes took her during rest stops, when Brandt wasn’t looking. If he caught her …

  Her heart beating fast and hard, Ilse edged around the pickets, toward a ridge of boulders that lay just beyond the camp circle. The going was difficult. The rain had stopped, but the ground was soggy, and she feared the squelching mud would give her away. Twice, she paused, thinking she heard footsteps or voices from the perimeter guards, but once she passed the latrines and the trash pit, Ilse breathed more easily. The land ahead was covered in mist, with trees appearing as vague dark lines that reached upward to the darker sky, veiled by clouds.

  She glanced back to the camp. The campfire sent up a dull gleam from its coals, throwing one of the wagons into relief. She thought she could pick out Otto’s figure, standing somewhat apart from the horses with his legs planted wide apart and his head thrown back, a misshapen shadow against the drifting fog.

  She rose to her feet and started walking.

  * * *

  SHE WALKED UNTIL dawn, then dug a pit beneath a stand of oaks and buried herself. For just a moment, she breathed in the scent of dust and decay, a rich aroma like that of magic, before sleep overtook her. Nothing broke her rest until the midmorning sunlight filtered through the dirt and leaves. She jerked awake with a cry, half-forgetting what had happened.

  No Brandt. No bonds or guards. She was free.

  And alone.

  Once she might have feared the solitude, but now …

  I laugh and hear its echo in my heart.

  Ilse set off with Tanja Duhr’s poem running through her thoughts. She did not stop until she encountered a running stream, where she drank until her stomach was swollen. The scholar’s advice remained vividly clear, but she had no idea how to find pine nuts or groundnuts, or where carrots and thistles grew. She told herself stories as she walked to distract herself from the ache in her stomach.

  Her stubbornness lasted until late afternoon, when her legs collapsed beneath her. Ilse propped herself against a stump, staring blankly at the trees around her. Pine nuts, she thought. She swept the ground. Her trembling hands met needles and pinecones and the typical detritus of a forest floor. Wherever pine nuts were to be found, they weren’t here.

  Later, she wasn’t sure how, she stood up and walked on. The forest gave way to a meadow—she had climbed up a ridge without knowing it—and from here she could see the land falling away to the north and west. Somewhere out there, Brandt and his caravan were climbing through the hills toward the Gallenz River and its highway.

  It was cranberries she found first, a tangle of bushes half-hidden under a boulder. They were dried and bitter to the point of making her ill. She ate them anyway. In the same field, she discovered rosebushes from which she plucked the hips to eat raw. Gradually, she learned to see more provender in the fields and underbrush. Wintergreen grew in the pine forests, wild onions on the open slopes. Pine nuts and grapes, raspberries and thistles. There were days she went hungry, but she always gathered enough to survive.

  For ten days, she marched through the empty wilderness. The only voice she heard was her own, when she sang or wondered aloud. At first she reveled in her isolation, but when the nights turned cold, and her throat ached fiercely, she wondered if she would ever reach a village, or if she had accidentally wandered off the map of the known world. She could die of hunger or sickness or accident, she realized with a sudden pang, and no one would know.

  On the morning of the eleventh day, she stopped. Ahead, a dull gray stone tower poked through the blue-green expanse of pines. A village at last?

  “Hello?” she called.

  No answer, except for a bird rousted from the brush. Cautiously Ilse approached the building. It was large, built of rough-cut logs and covered with creeping vines. Her first excitement faded when she realized it was not part of a larger village.

  She edged closer, ready to bolt if necessary. Someone had dug a fire pit in the yard. It was cold, its ashes scattered with only a few charred sticks at the bottom. Closer to the lodge, she found a broken leash and a rusted knife, its blade chipped but still sharp. She picked that up, and holding it blade out, she pushed the door open. “Hello?”

  No one answered. She ventured inside.

  It was a hunting lodge, with just a single room and a stone-and-mud chimney. A few benches stood off to one side; straw pallets lay beside the empty fireplace. Most likely the owners used it in the autumn and winter, but visitors had come fairly recently—she found a stack of leftover firewood, three metal pans stacked in one corner, a net hanging from the rafters, with a cache of shriveled onions and smoked beef. Spare blankets and a carrying satchel had been stowed in one corner. It was the mantel above the fireplace that yielded the most valuable treasure.

  A tinderbox.

  She laughed, a breathy soundless laugh. With this she could boil water, brew hot tea, scrub herself clean. She could get warm.

  That night, she built a fire and roasted slices of meat for her supper. Once she filled her stomach, she chopped up more meat and the onions, and set that mixture to simmer in the coals. She washed out another pan and brewed tea from raspberry leaves.

  The night was fair, the moon full, and the skies clear. Ilse gazed upward into the violet expanse as the stars winked into life. “Ei rûf ane gôtter,” she whispered.

  At her words, the air stirred, and a green scent, like that of pines, drifted past her face. She thought of the nameless scholar who had painted her fingers with magic. She hoped he was safe and wished him well.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ILSE STAYED THREE days in the lodge. She slept, she foraged, she spent hours staring across the undulating hills, until her muscles unknotted, and the ache in her throat faded. But she knew she could not remain here through winter, and so, reluctantly, she packed her newly acquired gear into the satchel, along with blankets and as much food as she could gather, and moved on.

  She resumed her steady march through the hills, which changed over the miles from pines to stands of oak and beech, with their leaves a shimmering mass of scarlet and incandescent yellow. The autumn days were bright and clear, but cold. Ilse wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, and bent her head against the sudden bursts of wind, which plucked the leaves and sent them spinning round her.

  By the end of two weeks, she came to the southern edge of the hills. Below, the land fell away in pleats and folds toward a broad sluggish river—the Gallenz River. To the east, she could make out a golden blur. That had to be the port city Tiralien. Beyond it lay the dark blue band of Keriss Bay, whose waters also touched Melnek’s docks and quays.

  Within the day, Ilse reached the highway beside the river and turned east. Six more days to houses and inns, she told herself. Six days to people and work and living inside. People. It had been a month since she’d spoken with another human being. The thought made her mouth turn dry.

  She had the road to herself for a day. Then, late the next morning, Ilse heard the tramp of footsteps behind her, then grunts and squeals. She plunged into the brush and lay still, her breath coming fast. It was a drover, herding swine, nothing more. Once he passed, she retook the road, cursing herself for being a coward
, but she did the same when a caravan of mules passed, and again, to avoid a farmer’s wagon.

  On the third morning, she stopped to soak her sore feet in the river. One toe had a new blister. The heel was bruised from where she stepped on a rock. She would have to stuff more grass into her disintegrating boots. She had started to pluck some, when she heard a harness jingle. Ilse snatched up her boots and satchel, ready to dart across the road—

  No.

  She would not run away.

  Ilse sat down by the riverbank, taking quick looks to the side as the two wagons approached. The horses were dusty and shaggy and broad-chested; they trudged steadily as though plowing fields, head down. Three men, and a woman. Farmers, most likely. None of them were young. It was the woman who held the reins of the lead wagon. Like the men, she wore a patched brown tunic and loose trousers, tucked into old scuffed boots. A yellow scarf covered her hair, making her square face stand out. From time to time, she tossed back a comment to her companions in the other wagon. Ilse’s pulse beat quickly, but she continued to stuff grass into her boots.

  A rattling snort made her jump. It was the lead horse, leaning toward her as though to nip.

  “Hey, Graysmoke.” Reins slapped against the horse’s flanks, bringing out another snort, and a shake of its head. “None of that.” Then, “Did that monster hurt you?”

  Ilse shook her head. She edged back from Graysmoke, who eyed her from beneath his shaggy gray forelock. The woman slapped the reins again. The horse sidled, then took a few reluctant steps forward. “Stupid horse,” the woman muttered.

  “What is it?” called a man from the second wagon.

  “A girl,” the woman said. “Graysmoke playing his tricks.” She turned her attention back to Ilse. Narrow black eyes took in Ilse’s dirt-stained clothing, the worn-out boots with burst seams, the satchel and blanket. But all she said was, “You look tired, sweet.”

  “I’m … I’m fine,” Ilse said. Her voice sounded rusty. “He just startled me.”