“Yes, they should be,” Freda agrees. “But not for the reasons you might think. They—” She stops, and I see her back expand with a deep breath of her own.
She turns to face me again, and the candle’s glow gives her a warmth but also a thinness, like she’s fading into the darkness.
“They want to follow you,” she says after a moment. “And they will. They understand how to follow Patrick. But now they have no Semper. They have only Darius, whom they no longer trust, and Patrick, of whom they are unsure.” She pauses and looks at me, her eyes dark with shadows. “And now, you.”
“Okay,” I say, but my anger has disappeared and I don’t really know why I’m making myself still sound angry. “But why praying? What is that all about?”
“Like I said,” Freda says with a benevolent smile, “they are people of faith. Remember, it wasn’t so long ago they thought of Tawtrukkers as heathen mu—” She snaps her mouth shut.
“Mutants,” I finish. “Whatever. Don’t worry about it. I already had that conversation with Dane.” I snap my mouth shut. Why did I have to say his name out loud? Whether she loved him or not, he was still her husband, and he’s gone now.
“Yes, mutants,” she says, ignoring the mention of Dane. “So, look what you’ve become in their eyes. You were already a growing legend among your own people, and among Darius’ army, before Dane and I arrived. They whispered about you. They mentioned Forsada when they talked about you.”
“Yeah, whatever, so what.”
“And in the last two days you’ve become Forsada for real. A wild warrior of the forest. Lupay, they need to know you aren’t just a crazy girl with a whip.”
“So I pray.”
“Yes. It helps.”
“And I become a crazy girl with a whip and a god. Great.”
“Look, I know you don’t like it—”
“God is what started this whole thing, isn’t it? Darius getting all worked up over god this and god that, right?”
“Darius started it for Darius’ reasons. Do you want to end it or not?”
I keep my mouth shut as all kinds of answers fly through my head. Of course I want to end this. How dare she suggest I don’t? Aren’t there other ways than pretending I am something I’m not? Forsada doesn’t pray. Forsada fights. Forsada does what’s right, not what god tells her to do.
All these thoughts wrap themselves around my tongue and keep me from saying anything at all.
But of course she’s right. She’s always right, and it infuriates me. I need Patrick and his army. Without them, we’re all dead.
“Remember,” Freda says with a gentleness that twists my spine into knots, “it was Garrett’s idea.”
Maybe she hopes that will make me feel better, but it just reminds me that Garrett’s been buddying up to her and Patrick while I’ve been “praying.”
Slow down, Lupay. This isn’t Freda’s fault. She wants to get Darius as much as I do. When this is all over, if I’m still alive, I can get mad at everyone then. But now, remember who’s the bad guy. I take one deep breath that doesn’t relax me at all but which seems to make Freda feel more at ease. I need to talk about something else.
“So,” I say without really knowing what’s coming next, “how come no one came with you when you left Southshaw, anyway? I mean, your parents want to get rid of Darius, too, right?”
Freda’s calm expression hardens, and her jaw sets itself. Uh oh. Probably a bad topic to have picked. I’m about to say something else when she says, “They didn’t understand.”
“Understand what?” Oh Lupay, why can’t you leave it alone?
“How far Darius would go. How wrong it would be to sit there, safe in their homes, while everyone else was off killing innocent families. They met you, but they didn’t get to know you, or Tawtrukk, like Dane and I did. And… They’re set in their ideas and their ways.”
She says this with a finality that sounds like this discussion, and in fact all talking for tonight, is done. She stands in brooding silence for a half minute, and just when I think she’s going to lie down or something, she clenches her fists and slams them into her hips.
“Ooh! I get so mad thinking about their small mindedness. Can you believe it? They say they hate war, they say Darius is wrong, but do they do anything about it? No. They just talk each other into doing nothing but sitting around, wringing their hands. They hope it will all just work out. They hope Darius will change. They say, ‘Oh, he can’t be as bad as all that,’ and they wait until he returns.”
She stomps. It’s a little funny. She’s got a gracefulness to her when she walks, in how she holds herself. But she’s so awkward and childlike in the way she balls up her fists and stomps her feet. I like her anger. She’s no fighter. She’s a seamstress, a maker of pretty clothes, a creator of beauty. A girl who takes something raw and makes it into something lovely. But here she is, stomping and frustrated and just plain mad, and I like her for it. She can’t do what she wants—she wants to rip someone’s head off. And suddenly I feel totally at ease, stifling a laugh.
“Well, if he does return, it won’t be like they all think. Even Judith… can you believe it? Darius does all these things—murders her husband, exiles her son—and in the end she chooses to wait it out.”
“But,” I say, “wasn’t there anyone who wanted to come with you?”
This puts her off her course. “A few.”
“Why didn’t they come, then?”
“You don’t know them. They mean well, but they wouldn’t have survived the trip here, let alone what we’ve been through since. And there were only a few of them.”
I can imagine what she means. Not one of the Southshawans I met was like Garrett or Shack. All of that type were already here, following Darius. Who would come? Judith? Gregory? That willowy blond girl?
“So we snuck off in the night.”
And that sounds like we’re done with the conversation. She looks sad now, and nothing about her anger or sadness makes me want to laugh. Freda sighs, turns, and kneels on the blanket set out for her. The candle lights up her side of the tent.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like a little time to myself right now.”
“Sure.”
“You can light your candle off mine if you like.” She looks up at me from where she’s kneeling and holds out her candle to me.
I take it, step past one of the poles holding up the tent, and tip it to light the other candle. I come back and set it down next to her on the ground, where it had been. She kneels, her hands folded together on her lap. Her eyes are closed, and as I step away, she says, “Could you close the flap? The one between our rooms.”
I’m surprised that this hurts my feelings a little. I don’t need to be with her or anything, but I didn’t expect her to want to shut me out, either.
Freda says softly, so softly I almost don’t catch all the words, “I know you don’t like praying.”
So that’s what she’s doing. I stand for a moment and watch her. The darkness surrounds her and fills the space between us, and the little candle glows through her hair with a mild, subtle radiance. She lowers her head, and her shoulders slump. She could be falling asleep or crying quietly. But she’s not.
And it’s actually kind of beautiful. I capture the sight and keep it in my mind as I close the flap between our rooms and sit on the blanket. Beside the candle, someone’s placed Micktuk’s copy of Robin Hood. I smile as I think of Ginger carrying it with her all through the caverns. I open it to the first page and begin reading.
Voices drag me from a deep, dreamless sleep. Is it time to get up already? It feels like I only just lay down.
No, it’s the middle of the night. Freda has her candle lit in her side of the tent, its light seeping under and around the edges of the blanket that separates us. I pull myself awake and listen.
Freda’s saying, “… will they fight, Patrick?”
I wonder if it’s just the two of them. Is Garrett with them?
; “I think so,” he says, but he sounds entirely unconvinced.
“Will you?” Freda asks this so softly of him that it takes a moment for me to make out what her words were.
Patrick pauses. “I think so,” he replies at last.
They sit in silence for a minute. I can hear their steady breathing.
“I still hope we can do this without fighting,” Freda says.
“What is the real chance of that? I think we both know the answer.” Patrick sighs. “Even after all this time, even after living side by side with the Tawtrukkers for a half year, Darius still has so many of them believing his lies. The truth stares back at them, and they don’t see it.”
“Truth can be difficult to recognize,” Freda says. “Sometimes it takes an act of faith, or an act of defiance to expose the truth.”
“Defiance?”
“Of course. Can you find that point when you finally realized what you were doing was wrong?”
“Yes.” Patrick is quiet, but the word is clear.
I already know. It was when he saw me coming to rescue the prisoners in the blackened meadow.
“It was when Travis killed that first Tawtrukker, at the bridge. I saw the terror in his eyes, the surprise. He couldn’t believe we would attack. So when I went at the man I was supposed to kill, I did it badly.”
“On purpose?”
“Yes.”
“And he lived?”
“Of the four who came out to the bridge, he was the only survivor. Yes.”
Slow recognition chills me. That moment floods into my memory as bright as midday. Garrett and Shack and me standing on the ridge overlooking the bridge. A Southshawan lunging at Marshall Turner and hacking him dead, and another leaping at my father…
I stifle a gasp. Was it my father he spared?
“That,” Freda whispers, “was your act of defiance.”
“I’ve spent the rest of the six months here trying to keep Darius from killing the rest of them. I convinced him they’re useful as slaves. He appointed me in charge of the slave camp, so I was able to keep them from starving, to keep Darius from working them to death.”
“An act of faith,” Freda whispers.
“Not really. An act of compassion, perhaps.”
“Yes,” Freda agrees.
“And now,” Patrick says, “I have to kill my own friends and countrymen to make this all right.”
I try not to wriggle as my stiff body begins cramping.
“An act of violence,” Patrick finishes.
“An act of heroism,” Freda responds.
“No. I’ll never call it that. Killing someone is never heroism. I’ve learned that the hardest way possible.”
“You know,” Freda says, her voice switching suddenly to a businesslike tone, “the battle will be the easy part. It’s what happens afterwards that will test us all.”
“One step at a time.”
“But it’s important to prepare for the next step when taking this one,” Freda says.
“True enough. So, what do you have in mind?”
“We need to give them a chance to surrender without a fight.”
“Ha!”
“We must try.”
A long pause. Patrick is thinking this over, and I know what’s going through his mind. I’ve seen it before. The sacrificial lambs walk out to the slaughter. Darius laughs at them, then kills them.
“I can’t send anyone else out there,” he says after a long silence.
“I know.”
The silence stretches out again, and after a minute I wonder if maybe I dozed off and missed the point when Patrick left. But candlelight and shadows still seep through the curtain.
Eventually, Patrick says, “Just me, then.” It sounds like Shack’s voice that last morning, when we were heading out into the meadow. Patrick expects to die.
“No,” Freda says. “I will be with you. And Lupay and Garrett.”
“What? No, we can’t allow that.”
“Patrick,” Freda says calmly and with a self-assuredness that would convince a blind man he could see, “this is everything. If we don’t all go out there, the people won’t have the confidence they need to win the battle. They need to see all of us there.”
Patrick sighs again, this time clearly frustrated. “Of course, you’re right.”
“I’m sure you can figure something out.”
Patrick laughs, his frustration melting. “Another act of faith on your part, Freda?”
“The First Wife told me, not so long ago, that if we have faith everything will turn out fine. I do have faith, Patrick. I have faith in you, like I have faith in Lupay, and in the goodness of people.”
“But so many of them have let us down,” he replies.
“But so many of them have not,” Freda says, and I feel myself wanting to take her side. Her quiet confidence seeps in with the candlelight, and I feel lifted up by it.
Patrick laughs again. “Okay. If I’m going to figure this out, I’ll need to get some sleep.”
Rustling and shuffling sounds allow me to roll over again, and now I’m on my side facing the curtain between our rooms. I’m looking at the curtain’s blackness outlined by a line of firelight. It’s beautiful and eerie.
Suddenly the curtain moves, and I shut my eyes and pretend to be asleep. Orange fills the blackness. I can feel Patrick looking at me, standing there with the flap pulled back.
The darkness returns, and I sneak a peek to see the flap has closed again.
“She’s a remarkable girl,” he says.
“Yes, she is,” Freda replies.
“In another time, maybe…”
Maybe what? Maybe what? Finish your sentence!
“Good night, Patrick,” Freda says.
He leaves the tent, and I listen to Freda preparing herself for bed as the phrases remarkable girl and in another time roll around in my thoughts.
CHAPTER 24
A quarter mile of road lies between us and Darius’ army. On our right, the river snakes along the edge of a sharp cliff that rises into the gray morning. On our left, a meadow stretches a hundred yards and ends at a rock wall which soars up in a steep forest to the top of the ridge. Above us float thick clouds.
“It’s been a long morning, hasn’t it?” Garrett sounds exhausted. I’m sure he was up all night. I’d be surprised if anyone got much sleep.
Patrick says, “That it has. Time to get started, don’t you think?”
“We’re really just going to walk out there?”
“Yes, Garrett, we are,” I say, and I start off down the slope. He, Patrick, and Freda hurry after me. We fall into step together, but I slow my pace for Freda. Also, I’m not terribly eager to rush to my own death.
We walk a long, shallow slope along the road where the river narrows and the canyon constricts. Before us waits a wall of men. It’s toward this wall we walk, trying to look confident and calm, when the first snowflakes dot the ground before me. Tiny and thin, they fall here and there and disappear. A bad omen. But for which side?
As we stride into the empty space, a line of six men breaks from the wall and walks at us. Darius will hear what we have to say, then.
“He’s not there,” Patrick says.
“What?” Freda sounds concerned.
“Darius,” Patrick replies as we keep walking without pause. “I don’t see him. Garrett, look up at the ridge. Do you see anything?”
Patrick giving Garrett orders? This won’t go over well.
“Nothing… no, wait,” Garrett says. “It’s hard to see against the sky—it’s so bright, and the snow’s getting thicker—but… yes, there.”
“Don’t point,” Patrick says.
“On our left. Two people. From where they’re standing, they can see us and they can see the main square in Lower.”
“You’re sure?”
“He’s sure,” I say. That’s the same spot in which Garrett, Shack, and I stood when Darius and his army arrived. That’s where I stood whe
n I thought I was watching my father die.
“Darius is in Lower, then,” Patrick says.
“Getting signals from those men?” Freda asks.
“Yes. When we get back, we’ll have to let someone know to watch them. What Darius sees, we can see.”
If we get back, I don’t say.
It’s not long before we near the approaching six men. We slow and stop, keeping fifteen yards between us. They look mean. I don’t recognize them. Should I try to look mean? Like Forsada ready to turn them to dust? I’m sure I would look like a pouty girl, not like Forsada. So I try to look unimpressed. Bored.
Patrick speaks first. “Roger. Good to see you, friend.”
“Cut the bullshit, Patrick. We know what you are.”
“Right to it, then.” Patrick puts out his hands. “All right, then. We’ve come out here to try to avoid a fight.”
Roger sneers. “I can see why.” He nods at the ragtag army behind us up the slope. I’d feel confident if I were him, too.
“Don’t judge the strength of the fight in these people. You will underestimate them.”
“Patrick, don’t be a fool. We outnumber you three to one. At least. We want to finish this here. Today. All of us want to go home.”
Patrick says, “You can go home now. We don’t have to fight. We can give Tawtrukk back to—”
“The mutants?”
“The rightful owners.”
“You say pup, I say dog. And I see you brought two mutant dogs with you,” the Southshawan says, his gaze lingering momentarily on Garrett, then on me. He stares me in the eye for a few seconds, then looks me over once, head to toe to head again. He’s the one that’s a dog. No, I take that back. Dogs at least can be friends. This Southshawan disgusts me.
Freda breaks in. “We want only to bring Darius to justice,” she says, and for a moment I believe the complete authority in her voice. “Once authority is returned to its rightful place—the First Wife—we can begin trying to heal the rifts he’s created in the Southshawan people.”
“Oh, really? The rift he created?” This Roger dismisses Freda with a wave of his hand. I glance at his army, around at the woods. I see Garrett twitch beside me and know he’s watching the two men on the ridge. Was that dismissive wave actually some signal? I can’t tell.
Forsada: Volume II in the New Eden series Page 26
