by K V Johansen
“Do you darn?” he heard Ghu asking Yeh-Lin with easy interest in his voice. “Because we have quite a bit of mending that no one ever seems to get around to doing.”
“Not unless you have your pet assassin put a knife to my throat do I do any kind of sewing.”
“Could arrange that.”
“Do you want another war with me, Nabban?”
“Not this morning. You caught fish. Did you find my fish-hooks? I thought them lost.”
“I learnt to tickle trout in the kingdoms of the north. These are not trout, but I caught them just the same. And look—cresses. Greens! And eggs! I found a duck’s nest, and do not look at me like that; it was not a full clutch and she wasn’t setting yet. I took only three, which is one each, if you don’t insist the dogs have their share, and left her with a blessing that nothing else would disturb her nest. The world returns to life. Don’t stand there dripping and shivering at me. Hang that shirt by the fire—at least it will smell of fresher smoke then—and wrap up in a blanket or something. Dead king, you with the knives, come and earn your keep!”
Ahjvar ignored her, stripped and waded into the deep pool below the rocks instead. Ice cold and numbing, and when he did trudge barefoot back to the fire, his knife reclaimed, and the few bits of ragged clothing he thought he could spare for the afternoon washed, after a fashion, and dripping in one hand, the fish were sizzling on skewers and the eggs just boiled in the tea. Taking the time to wash, even in ice-water, had its merits.
“Unmerciful Great Gods,” Yeh-Lin said, eyeing his chest as she passed him tea in a cracked earthenware cup. “Has everyone you ever met in the past century tried to take a slice out of you?”
“Yes,” he growled, and pulled his coat on shirtless to hide the scars, for all that probably undid the good of ever having washed. It reeked of camels.
“Perhaps they weren’t entirely to blame.” She rubbed a fist over her ribcage. “So, here we are. Home, I suppose. Now what?”
“I . . . go to find my gods,” Ghu said.
And what then? What point asking? If the gods claimed Ghu and took him from the world, there was little Ahjvar could do.
Die, he supposed. At last.
Ghu said he did not know this forest, these valleys, and yet, when they set out again, he led them with the assurance of familiarity. Unknown birds whistled and carolled overhead and flashed away, half-seen flecks of colour. Small deer no bigger than a goat broke cover and darted across their path, crashing through brush and vanishing. A leopard, dapples fading into dappled light, stood and stared with burning yellow eyes. The dogs froze, flattened themselves to the ground. Ahjvar reached slowly for the crossbow, but Ghu, in the lead, held back a hand, not looking around.
“Go on,” he said softly, and the leopard blinked and paced on her way, not a rustle of leaves to betray her as she vanished from sight.
“Reminds me of someone . . .” Yeh-Lin remarked.
By evening, they were smelling smoke and seeing signs of human activity, stumps of felled trees—saplings, mostly—and trampled patches along the brook where the tightly coiled new fern fronds had been gathered. The ground was marshy here, flooding as the brook rose, carrying meltwater from the mountain snows. They spread out away from the watercourse, the dogs slinking and silent, not a sound from Ghu or Yeh-Lin either. Ahjvar paused to span and load the crossbow, worked his way ahead of the others again. No sign of any outlying sentries. A rooster crowed. If it was a village, there should be fields.
No fields, but, abruptly, a lean-to of poles built against the trunk of a pine, roofed with bark thoughtlessly stripped to kill that same sheltering pine. Ahjvar knelt slowly, shielded by a tall stand of some thick, winter-yellowed grasses. More huts were scattered about, no order to them, built against trees or freestanding, with just one communal fire in the centre. An old woman in a ragged gown sat on her haunches, turning the stone of a quern and tugging at a naked little child, leashed with a rope about the middle, whenever he tried to crawl away. Another woman milked a goat. Lean swine rooted around the shelters, churning the ground to muck with their tusks. Women worked at the fire, chopping fish into chunks for a steaming pot. Children, more women young and old, a handful of old men, were away on the other side of the encampment, grubbing up roots and trying to turn the soil around new-felled trees with spades and hoes. The smallest ones worked in the rough furrows, dragging baskets, planting and tramping down some brown tubers. Hardly any adult men, and they all looked half-starved; all wore little more than knee-length gowns and maybe a headscarf or a shawl. The naked child began to wail and was cuffed to a snivelling silence.
The ones in the field straightened up, watching, with a sort of sullen blankness, three newcomers, two women and a man. Better clothed—loose trousers, sandals, jackets, though all of brown or undyed cloth. One woman had a spear over her shoulder, the other a short, single-edged sword slung from a scarf knotted into a baldric of sorts, the man an axe.
“Nothin’ for the pot tonight,” the man called as they crossed the field, paying no heed to what had just been planted, and the older of the two women laughed and mimed a thrust at a child with her spear when the boy wasn’t fast enough to get out of her way. What game had they hoped to take, trampling and kicking along as they did and with only a single spear between them? The younger woman yelled in what sounded indignation, spotting the swine, and began shouting at the nearest children to get them out of her hut, though one only was poking its head in a doorway. She ran at them herself, beating with the flat of her blade, kicking snouts with her heel, and the creatures scattered, squealing and grunting. Her comrades flung themselves down by the fire, made no move to help the women preparing the food.
Gods, but Ghu could move like a cat when he wished. A touch on Ahjvar’s shoulder, a shadow in the corner of his eye. He had heard nothing. No sign of Yeh-Lin or the dogs at all.
“Fugitives from the fighting?” Ahjvar guessed, hardly more than a whisper.
“Likely. I know her.” Ghu raised his chin at the young woman, now picking her way, grumbling, around the stumps and muddy patches towards the stream. She was pregnant, enough to show but not yet heavy and slow.
“Send one of the kids for water,” the other hunting woman shouted, but the young one retorted, “Snares,” and kept on her way, scowling.
“Friend?”
“No.”
“Who is she?” Deserter, adrift from the fighting, would be his guess.
“Meli. One of the girls from my lord’s estate. A household slave’s daughter. They were training her for a silk-weaver.”
“Not your lord.”
“No, Ahj.”
“Good. Remember that. Don’t say it.” A conversation they had had years ago, he was certain.
“No, Ahj.”
“Will she know anything useful?”
“How she came here may be good to know.”
“Yes, then?”
“Yes,” Ghu said, “if you think we can get away without a hunt raised for us, after, and without harming her.”
Ahjvar retreated into the trees, eased off the bow and returned the bolt to the quiver. Ghu trailed him, around through the forest, down towards the water again, moving quickly, but his quarry turned their way, leaving the muddy ford where the animals watered and following a path along the bank upstream. Ahjvar shed his pack and slipped through brush still winter-bare, into a stand of some gnarled, broad-leafed evergreens, and rose to pull the woman down, hand over mouth, arms pinned to her sides, when she bent to glower at an empty sinew snare. He dragged her, kicking and twisting, back to clearer ground. Ghu plucked her chopping blade away and shoved it through his own belt. Still too close to the camp. Ahjvar gagged her with her dirty scarf, heaved her over his shoulder and set off upstream, until he found a place they could cross, keeping dry on stones. Ghu, with both packs, followed. She didn’t weigh all that much more than a child and hung limp, as if resigned to her fate. He wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking she was.
With distance and the sound of the water roaring down a narrow, rocky defile to cloak any shouting, he set her at the foot of a tree and pulled the cloth from her mouth, a knife in his hand for a wordless warning.
Ghu stood looking down on them both and asked, “Who are they?”
The woman cowered back against the tree, licked her lips.
“What’s left of Taza village, aren’t they?” she muttered. “A Zhung man, aren’t you? You should know.”
“But I don’t. And I’m no one’s man. What happened to Taza?”
“Burnt, wasn’t it?”
“Where are all the men?”
“Soldiers took them, didn’t they? You lot. General Zhung Musan’s soldiers. Labourers for the town, they said, but they won’t come home. They never come home.”
“What’s Taza?” Ahjvar asked, speaking Praitannec.
“A Daro manor,” Ghu answered, “south of Dernang.”
“They’re slaves?”
“Taza? No, serfs.”
“Same thing.”
“No,” said Ghu. “More like Grasslander bondfolk. They’re not owned outright—they can’t be sold. They’re folk of the clan and have a name.”
“The land’s not their own.”
“The land is the gods’,” Ghu said. “Neither do your folk own the land they hold under their lords.”
“They can leave it. The lords can’t wilfully take it from them. They can choose to pass their tenure of it to another. They can choose their heirs. They’re free. These aren’t.”
“No.”
“These people are starving.”
“Yes. My—Daro Korat was not so hard a lord. A philosopher, Ahj. He did not starve them. But their lives aren’t their own, you’re right. No rights, except not to be sold, no rights but to their own souls. Not even to live, if they offend their lord. And many lords do starve them, taking all, time and labour and all that the land will give.” Ghu turned back to the woman. “Who are the other two with you, Meli?”
“How d’you know my name? I’ve seen you before. You’re one of the assassins they sent in to spy on Lord Sia, looking for the prince.” But she frowned in doubt.
“No. Who are the other two?”
“Osion and Toi. I don’t know about her. She’s a pig. She’s from the town. Freewoman, I think, at least she claims the Daro name. Lai Toi’s a soldier. A deserter. But he’s a pig too, and what I’d pay to see his head along the road with the rest—” Her voice took on a whine. “If I help you take him, will you let me go, my master?”
“Not your master. Tell me about Lord Sia and the prince.”
“I don’t know anything. They said the prince was in Alwu and came over to Sia, but what does it matter? They’re all dead, you killed them all—there’s only us left and it’s not my fault, Toi made me come with him, him and Osion, into the forest to starve, but we found these witless dirt-grubbers and it’s better than being taken as a rebel. Show them a blade and they roll over like a dog. Look, it’s Toi you want, isn’t it? He’s the deserter—he’s the real soldier—I’m just a woman. You can let me go, or take me with you, you don’t have to give me to your lord. I can—” She licked her lips again, plucked at the neck of her jacket, glanced up at Ahjvar and cringed, tried to smile, straightening her back, thrusting out her breasts.
“Lord Daro Sia, Meli?”
“I only went with him because everybody did. I was afraid. I never spoke against the empress. I never did.”
Ghu dropped down to his heels, face-to-face with her. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
She frowned, squinted, rubbed her nose.
“We’re not imperial assassins. We’re not the empress’s men. It was a long time ago.”
“Mother be damned, you’re one of Horsemaster Yuro’s boys. From the stables. The simpleton. Ghu. You’ve grown.”
“Boys do.”
“You talk more than you used to.”
Ghu shrugged. “Lord Sia, Meli. You said rebels. He fought his father, the empress, who? What prince? What’s been happening here?”
“What’s it to you? Everyone thought you were dead, fallen in the river at last. You never ran away on your own, not you—caravaneers stole you, did they? I can guess what for. You always did have pretty eyes.” A glance up at Ahjvar again. “That doesn’t look so bad, better than Toi. You his, horseboy? Does he like women, too?”
“He’s mine,” Ghu said serenely. “And no, he does not. Not at all.” The corner of his mouth lifted, meeting Ahjvar’s eyes. Ahjvar kept a king’s guard’s impassive face. “Tell me about Daro Sia and the prince, Meli.”
“Stupid horseboy.” Contempt soured her voice. “You always were slow. Who cares about Sia? He’s dead and he never was anything to you so don’t pretend you care. Toi’ll kill the both of you. He’s a real soldier. And I can’t be bullied by some half-witted—” She flung herself forward and clawed at him, but Ghu was simply not there, rising and stepping aside. Ahjvar jerked her back, struck her face.
“Do that again and I will take your hand off,” he told her, pushing her against the tree, her arm hauled up over her head. He scored a line over the skin of her wrist. “Right—there.” She whimpered as the blood beaded in the knife’s wake.
“No, Ahj,” Ghu said gently. Just that.
Old Great Gods have mercy, what was he doing? The rage that boiled in him—it was her contempt for Ghu far more than the futile and childish attack that had ignited his temper. He had barely checked himself from putting the knife in her back.
“Sit down, Meli.”
She sat, shivering, her wrist to her mouth.
“Tell us about Lord Sia and the prince.”
“There’s a war. There’s been war ever since the old emperor died. War in the south forever, but you know that.” That was meant to be a sneer, but Ahjvar couldn’t see why. “Last spring they took all the boys from the villages for the army, not just the usual conscription levy. And Prince Dan tried to make himself a king down in Shihpan. So there was fighting everywhere. And I don’t know, some of the provinces were for Prince Dan and some for the emperor, and the headhunters from Dar-Lathi were going to come and kill us all, they said. They said the rebel prince freed the slaves if they’d fight for him. And then the emperor got killed—not the old one that died but the new one. The gods killed him, struck him down for murdering the prophet that said the princess was the daughter of the Old Great Gods and brought the prophet back to life, too. And nobody knew who was emperor any more, but the princess said she was the empress and a goddess too, and she sent for our master to come take oath to her. The Kho’anzi didn’t go. He was sick. A fever in his joints.” She glanced up at Ahjvar, cringed. “He didn’t want to go. Everyone knew that. Everyone knows the Kho’anzi is a Traditionalist at heart and thinks the gods will come back someday and overturn Min-Jan’s laws, make everyone free, which is what Prince Dan was doing, and the empress says the gods are dead and she’s the only goddess of the land, so he wouldn’t go to her, would he? There’s a prophecy going around the markets that the heir of the gods will break the emperors and make the land new. Mad old woman’s talk, and the magistrates arrest them, of course, and flog them for madness, which doesn’t make sense, if the empress is a goddess, because that’s what she’s done, isn’t it? Broke the emperors. But Lord Sia thought it was true and it didn’t mean the empress. He said he would be the sword of the gods in Choa. He thought Prince Dan might be the heir of the gods. So Lord Sia wanted to raise Choa and declare for Prince Dan, and Lord Korat said he was waiting and praying for a sign from the gods, that’s what he said. They argued about it, him and Sia. Yelling. I had a friend served in Lord Sia’s apartments. He heard. The Kho’anzi and Lord Sia fought about what the gods wanted.”
Then a rush, bitter. “And the old man wouldn’t. Our lord could say the gods meant all folk to be free someday, like in the long ago before Yeh-Lin, but he wouldn’t see anything changed now. He had to keep everything as it was, becau
se the gods set him over us all and he had to keep us safe, all Choa Province safe, as if he ever could, and he said Prince Dan wasn’t the one the gods wanted us to wait for, and he was going to lose his war, and it wasn’t the empress either. So Lord Sia called all the folk of the castle one night without his father knowing, and said, who would fight for him and not be a slave, a lot of Traditionalist rubbish about how everyone was born free in the eyes of the gods. And we all went with him, well, a lot of us. Some. All of us who were children with him, and others, too. All fools together. We took Dernang, and the village serfs rose because he said he’d give them the lands they worked for their own and they believed him, and half the soldiers of the province and some of the young Daro lords and ladies too, from the other families of the clan, even banner-lords, and we said we’d have Prince Dan as emperor. We fought the Kho’anzi’s officers and the soldiers that wouldn’t come in with us, but the old lord wouldn’t fight. Locked himself up in the castle and prayed, I expect,” she said in disgust. “So we had the town and we took the courier-stations, and some banner-ranked from Shihpan took the border-posts in the south—Shihpan’s all for Prince Dan—and General Lord Zhung Musan came up with an army through Numiya and there was fighting. Numiya was for the emperor in the summer, so now it’s for the empress. Zhung Musan’s the empress’s man. There was a lot of fighting. We were all penned up in Dernang in the end and the old lord closed up the castle—”
“Where was Prince Dan? In Dernang?”
“Stupid, how would I know? Dan was in Alwu. There was some big battle over there and he killed some Tua general, a lady from Numiya, I forget her name. We got a lot of soldiers from that, men of the general’s that escaped, and rebels, slaves and serfs from Numiya, useless rabble, mostly, Toi says.” She sniffed. “He should know; he was one of them, an imperial, before he decided he was through with fighting for anyone. They say the prince came into Choa with a picked band to help Sia but I don’t believe it. Why would he? And sometimes they said he was in Shihpan and sometimes they said he was still over in Alwu, so they didn’t really know, did they? And if he did he was too late. Or he got killed before he ever got to Dernang. I heard that. Whatever. So imperial wizards blew open the gates. They had fire-powder. Smoke everywhere. Toi and Osion and I got away with a couple of others. They’re dead. I thought we were going to die too, but we found this lot and they feed us. We protect them, Toi says. We hunt for them, see? The whole town’s full of soldiers and there’s all tents in the horsemarket, and they patrol all the roads in the daylight, but soldiers don’t like the night and they don’t come into the forest. Scared of demons.”
