Garland couldn’t see Karis’s face. She was looking across the snow’s aching glare. But her big, dirty hands, belying the quiet, steady tone of her voice, had clenched into fists.
Garland said, “The two of you were a bit alike, I guess.”
Karis looked at him. “Let me fetch some eggs. It’ll be another hour in which I won’t go mad. I can stretch it out to two hours, probably, by chatting with the farmers about their livestock. When I get home, you’ll feed me a lot of good food, and only then will I have to figure out what to do with the rest of the day. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough that someone will break something, so I can fix it.” She sighed. “The G’deon of Shaftal?” she said belatedly.
“There’s a lot I don’t understand about that. But these learned people insist that’s what you are.”
Karis said dryly, “I’ve heard that rumor too. But I never gave it much credence. Do we need eggs?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“A kind man would have lied.”
“One never knows when a Truthken might be listening.”
She tilted her head back to look at him. The corners of her eyes were crinkled with squinting into the sun. “You mustn’t like us, Garland. It’s terribly dangerous. We’ll catch you up in some mad scheme. We’ll make you pack up your pots and abandon that sweet oven, in dead of winter, to trudge about in the teeth of various snowstorms, trying to convince a bunch of bored farmers to read a seditious book.”
“Oh, I don’t mind.” Garland looked at her sun-brilliant eyes, her weathered skin, the twisted mess of her hair. “To have my own kitchen used to be my life’s ambition,” he added in some amazement. “It was not too long ago.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake. What has that crazy seer done to you?”
Garland tried to think of an answer. He did not think Medric was even to blame.
Karis continued, with an agitation that seemed altogether unfeigned, “We come to you with our weary spirits, our broken hearts, our extremely baffled minds, and you make us biscuits, sausage rolls, jam buns, poached eggs with that amazing sauce, seed cakes, roast fowl varnished with that delicious shiny stuff—”
“Raspberry jam glaze.”
“I walk into your realm, and you hand me something to eat. Whatever it is tastes so good that my fears and worries drop dead on the spot. I sit there with my mouth full, knowing nothing but how good it is. It isn’t food, Garland. It’s sanity.”
Garland picked flakes of dried dough off his hands. He felt quite speechless.
“Don’t change,” she said.
“I’ll stop cooking for you when you stop needing to eat. And I don’t need a kitchen.”
“Is that a promise? I’ll hold you to it.” She was laughing. She had no idea what she had just given him.
Garland managed to say after a while, “Can you explain something?”
“Explaining things, that’s what Emil does.”
“But I have trouble understanding him, he uses so many words.”
She glanced back at him. “He does that to entertain Medric. Words are as good as sex to those two.”
“Oh,” Garland said. Then, as comprehension belatedly came to him, he exclaimed, “Oh!”
She was grinning. “But Emil can be perfectly plain-spoken; just ask him. What do you want me to explain? You understand I’ll do it badly?”
“Why is it so important that you don’t take any action, if inaction is driving you mad?”
Garland began to wish he hadn’t asked, after a while. He could see that Karis’s light spirits had gotten heavy, and she was squinting across the yard again, as though she could see through the woods, down the mountain, across the rough landscape of that rocky land, all the way to Watfield. And perhaps, he realized suddenly, that was precisely what she was doing. It was a dazzling, unnerving possibility. She said at last, “Imagine you’ve got a tray of food balanced on one hand. And you need to add something really heavy to the tray.”
“A steamed pudding?”
“Yes, a steamed pudding. The only place you can safely put that pudding is in the middle of the tray, right above your hand. If you get it even slightly wrong, the entire meal goes to the floor.”
Garland could almost see it: the shattered plates, the splattered gravy, the flying peas, the dismayed cook, the ravenous diners startled by the disaster. “I’d be very careful where I put that pudding,” he said.
“Well, I’m the pudding.”
“Oh.” There was a long silence. “I do need eggs after all,” Garland finally said. “And I was wondering if you could—” He hastily considered his long list of chores. “If you could sharpen my knives. And don’t you need to figure out how that press works? And where to get some wood for sledges?”
“So much to do,” said Karis gratefully. “And I haven’t even chopped the firewood yet. I’d better get busy.”
Chapter 26
It was a howling night, one of those god awful storms that made Clement wonder how humankind ever managed to get a foothold in this dreadful land. She had been checking on the progress of her sledges in the carpentry shed. The armorers had finally finished the runners, which should have been simple enough to fabricate, and all that remained to be done was the harness work. Soon Clement’s soldiers, who had finally developed a sullen competence with snow-shoes, would have something new to learn and complain about.
She built up the fire in her small, plain room, but unless she stood right on the hearth she couldn’t feel the warmth. The night bell had long since rung, Gilly would be deep in a drugged sleep, and Clement decided she might as well go to bed. Like all soldiers, she had saved up her housekeeping tasks for winter, and could have done some mending, or put a new coat of paint on her table. But it was too cold.
There was a knock at her door and she opened it with her tunic half unbuttoned. A man with snow thick on his hood gave her a shivering salute. “Lieutenant-General, the storyteller is at the gate.”
“The storyteller? What is she doing here at this hour?”
“She says you must come with her at once. Bring the money, she says.”
They exchanged baffled looks.
“The storyteller can be a bit close-mouthed,” said the gate guard, “So I thought you ought to talk to her yourself. I’m sorry, though. It’s a wretched night.”
“Here, stand by the fire for a bit, not that it’ll do you much good, since that wind is blowing directly down the chimney.”
After she’d bundled up in every warm piece of clothing she had, which she was certain would still not be enough, Clement left the guard still shivering by her poor fire and went downstairs to Gilly’s room. She didn’t bother to pound on his door, but simply went in and shook him vigorously by the shoulder until he mumbled. “What?”
“I have to go into town.”
“Clem?” He turned his head and blinked blearily at her. “That wind,” he said, articulating carefully, “Will flay you.”
“Hell, I’m half frozen and I haven’t even been outside yet. Gilly—I think Alrin’s decided to accept my offer.”
“Congratulations,” he said dryly. “You’ve succeeded in completely mystifying me. And why are you going out? Have you explained already, when I was asleep?”
“The storyteller’s been sent to fetch me, and she wasn’t too forthcoming with the gate guard. But—”
“Oh, Clem!” With his face muffled in the pillow, Gilly uttered a grunt of laughter. “You’re about to become a mother.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Early.”
“Apparently.”
“Unprepared.”
“Desperately.”
“What do you expect me to do about it?”
“Explain my absence to Cadmar, will you? If I’m not back by morning.”
“Clem,” Gilly said, as she stepped away. “What are you going to do with it?”
“With what?”
“With the baby.”
Gilly was just a shadow in the
darkness, but she stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“When Alrin hands you her baby,” Gilly said, “What are you going to do with it?”
She found herself incapable of reply. When she left Gilly’s room, he was still laughing, and she could hardly blame him.
When Clement finally reached the gate, having first awakened the garrison clerk to get her funds out of the lockbox, the storyteller waited in shelter, huddled by the brazier alongside the lone guard in the shack. At the sight of Clement, she rose quickly, wrapped a muffler around her face, and pulled on a pair of fur-lined gloves.
They went out into the storm. Clement was still speechless, but in any case, the storm would have made conversation impossible. A miserable journey, staggering down narrow roads with the wind blasting like a river down a canyon. One step at a time, tears freezing on her lashes, face numb, feet like blocks at the end of her legs. A killing wind, flinging ice like daggers. Shutters banged, a piece of slate torn loose from a roof shattered at her feet. “Bloody hell!” The storyteller glanced at her, her eyes a smear of black, rimmed in white snow stuck to the wool that wrapped her face. They staggered on.
The wind was barred from Alrin’s house, but still it roared, only somewhat muffled by latched shutters, locked doors, and heavy curtains. A single lamp-flame flickered in the hall, the house seemed empty. The storyteller pulled the muffler from her face. Clement followed her to the kitchen, where together they built up the fire, and then unwrapped themselves. When Clement’s face had thawed enough, she asked, “How long until the child is born?”
The storyteller stomped snow from her boots. “I will ask the midwife.” She left the kitchen.
A chair was drawn up to the fire, with a work-basket beside it. Clement sat down, shivering, and waited. She waited a long time. Once, she thought she heard a groan or cry, but it could have been the wind. The storyteller returned. “The midwife cannot say how long it will be.”
“But Alrin has borne several children.”
The storyteller held her hands out to the fire; her fingers were still gray with cold. “This one is different.”
She swung the kettle over the fire, and then went moving about the dark kitchen. Distracted, still thawing out, Clement stared into the fire until the kettle began to utter enthusiastic spurts of steam. Then she watched the storyteller make tea: a surprisingly fussy process of pouring small quantities of water, waiting, swirling the pot, sniffing the steam, and adding more water. The rich, grass-and-flower scent of the tea brought Clement out of her daze. “I’ve never seen anyone make tea like that.”
The storyteller paused.
“Usually, they just pour the water and let it sit.”
“This is the way I know.”
“How do you know it?”
The storyteller poured some water, took another sniff, and put on the lid. She brought over the tea table, on which she had laid bread and butter, and a selection of cold foods: pickles, cheese, salt meat, jam. She poured the tea, and Clement took a sip. Whether due to the method or to the ingredients, it was delicious.
“I can’t answer your question,” the storyteller said. “I know many things but I don’t know how I came to know them.”
After a moment, Clement said, “I suppose having no memories could be a blessing.”
The storyteller said nothing, as though loss and gain were no more important to her than they were to a dumb beast. She drew a stool up to the fire, and took a cup of tea.
Clement sipped her tea and waited, and the storyteller never became impatient, never looked at her questioningly, never seemed restless at all. She held the teacup in her palms of her hands and warmed her fingers with it. Her solitary, remarkably long braid lay across her wool-clad back like a mislaid piece of yarn. Her boots steamed in the heat of the hearth.
Clement said, “I haven’t even considered what to do with this baby when it’s born. I suppose I assumed I’d have time to . . . do whatever I am supposed to do.”
The storyteller said, “You must find someone to nurse it. A woman in milk, who will raise this baby beside her own, or whose own child is dead, or has been taken from her.”
“I have no idea how to find such a woman.”
“The midwife will know.” There was a silence, and the storyteller added, “It may be difficult.”
“You mean it will cost me even more money?”
“The Shaftali people do not raise children casually.”
While Clement watched in stunned silence, the storyteller sipped her tea until the cup was empty. “The child could die,” Clement finally said. “While I’m running around looking for a young, willing woman with milk in her breasts . . .”
The storyteller nodded indifferently. “The Laughing Man is doing his work tonight.”
“The Laughing Man?”
The storyteller reached into her boot and took out a pack of cards. Without looking, as though she knew the cards by feel, she took one out: A primitive woodcut of a man, laughing gleefully in the midst of a wrecked house. The storyteller’s fingertip touched the red symbol stamped on one corner. “This glyph means fate, or chance. The Laughing Man’s actions are so unexpected, and their effect is so profound, that his victims think it is a bitter joke. He destroys everything—even trust and hope. But there is one power that can counteract his.” She took out another card: a circle of people, arm in arm. “Fellowship,” she said.
Clement said, finally, as the storyteller secured the pack with a leather thong, “To own these cards is illegal. To use them, to know how to use them, to use them in front of a Sainnite officer . . . !”
Silent, serious, fearless, the storyteller tucked the cards into her boot.
The strangest aspect of this woman’s madness was how sane it seemed, how utterly coherent. If Clement asked the storyteller where she got her cards, or how she learned to read them, the storyteller certainly would respond that she did not remember. But she used them, as she used everything, as a tool for storytelling. She was not a friend or a lover, a member of a tribe, of a family; she had no past and neither feared nor desired the future. She was a storyteller only, and that was what both explained her coherence and defined her madness.
The storyteller gazed at Clement: a long gaze, incurious, unblinking.
Clement said, “Don’t let anyone else see those cards, or you will be a dead woman. Do I owe you a story now?”
“You told me a story already, a tale of a woman who contracted to buy a child without realizing that she also had to make a home for it.”
Clement snorted. “A ridiculous tale. Who wouldn’t realize—” There was a sound from upstairs, a wrenching cry of a sort Clement had heard too often in her life, but always before on a battlefield. “My mother’s gods!”
She leapt to her feet, but the storyteller’s voice stopped her. “Marga will not allow you into the room.”
“She’s dying!”
“Yes.” The storyteller picked up her empty cup from the floor, and re-filled it.
The house again lay still, a silence wrapped around by howling wind. The Laughing Man leaves wreckage in his wake, inevitably, unstoppably. Clement returned eventually to the chair; there was nothing she could do.
Sometime before dawn, the storm began to lose its force. Clement was awakened by the storyteller building up the fire. She had slept in the chair, covered by a blanket, but the storyteller had perched unmoving on the stool all night. Now, she swung the kettle over flame once again, and began the ritual of making another pot of tea. Clement said, “Has something happened?”
Her reply was a faint rapping at the front door. The storyteller went to answer it, and quickly returned. “The Lucky Man is here.”
“What?” Clement leapt to her feet, snatched the corner of the blanket out of the coals, and then wrapped it around herself like a shawl. She went out into the bitter chill, into a city glazed with ice, with drifts of snow piled head-high by the harsh wind. A snow plow, dragged by two massive, steaming plow-h
orses, worked its way slowly down the street. At Alrin’s gate, which was half buried in a drift of snow, Gilly waited on horseback, attended by a red-cheeked, shivering young soldier. The storyteller came out behind Clement, with cups of tea emitting clouds of steam in the chill. She gave one to Gilly and one to his aide, then disappeared into the house again.
Clement said vaguely, “It’s almost as if the storyteller knew that you were coming.”
“People with talents like hers often have some prescience.” Gilly gulped his tea. “Any word?”
“Not yet.”
Gilly looked grim. “And Alrin has been laboring all night?”
“The storyteller implies . . .” Clement took too deep a breath, and choked on the searing air. “Gods, Gilly, what are you doing here?”
“The storyteller says what?”
“Alrin will die.”
“Well.” He gulped his tea again, and handed Clement first the cup, then the basket that rested before him on the saddle. “I’ve made inquiries. But it will not be easy to find a nurse. Meanwhile, I think I’ve gotten everything you need, even some milk.” He spoke briskly, no doubt to cover his embarrassment.
She stared at him, speechless from gratitude and sleeplessness.
He continued, “Ask the midwife to show you how to care for the child. And offer her a commission for helping you to find a nurse. But don’t offend her.”
“How would I do that?” she asked humbly.
“By giving her orders as though she were a soldier.”
“Gilly . . . I can’t keep a baby in the garrison!”
“I’ll tell Cadmar it’s temporary. Now get inside.” He smiled a gruesome smile, twisted as always.
“I’m in your debt, I think.”
“Are you? I lost track several years ago.”
Earth Logic Page 28
