Ghost of the Wall

by Jeff Mariotte

  After noticing her lack of woodcraft, which was always the first thing Kral measured when encountering a new person, the next thing he saw was her hair. He had never seen anyone with hair like hers. His clan worked gold from time to time, but this girl’s hair was as if someone had spun that metal, finer than the most delicate thread, then piled it on her head, sweeping it away from her face and holding it back with a wooden device Kral didn’t recognize. When she turned her head the sun caught her hair, bathing her in its glow as if recognizing a kindred soul.

  Kral wondered for a moment if she was perhaps a goddess instead of a human being. Her skin was pale and unblemished, her arms and legs smooth and rounded like none he had ever seen. She had the same features as everyone else he had ever known: two eyes, a nose, a mouth, ears on the sides of her head; but they were put together in a fashion the likes of which he had never imagined. Her eyes were the blue of the clearest sky, her lips the richest red, her features precisely formed as if by a craftsman’s hand. Underneath a pale, nearly white shift of some remarkably smooth material were the curves and bulges of a youthful body growing into full maturity. Threads of gold, accented by her hair and the late-afternoon sun that slanted through the firs toward her, were woven into the bodice of the tunic, which was cinched by a belt of brown leather from which depended a silly, useless dagger. The shift ended midway down her thighs. Her ankles were encircled by the straps of sandals, and on her wrists were golden bracelets.

  When he had absorbed her beauty for a few minutes, it occurred to Kral that the girl was entirely unprepared for survival in the woods. Never mind that she was clearly too far from the fort for safety from his own kind, should one of them other than himself happen upon her. The forest held bears, wolves, and other dangers against which she had no protection except that dagger.

  But then again, maybe she was divine. The natural and supernatural worlds mingled easily in Kral’s mind and the minds of all the Picts. The rising sun and the twinkling stars gave evidence of the activities of the gods, as did the continued supply of beasts in the forests and fish in the rivers, despite the best efforts of the Aquilonians to kill them all. There was nothing to say that this girl was not the emissary of a god or even a goddess herself, in which case she would have little need for steel or other protection against man or beast.

  In the end, it was her lack of awareness of his own presence that convinced him of her humanity. A goddess would have seen him, sensed him, even though he kept himself hidden. The girl did not. Despite the evidence of his own eyes, he had to believe that she was flesh and blood,

  He didn’t want to take his eyes off her, but the sun kept sinking. She would be going back to the fort soon. And if he had any hope of bringing down a rabbit or something else for dinner, he had to be on his way. With one last, longing glance at the most splendid female he had ever seen, Kral melted back into the forest and started home.

  ALANYA OF TARANTIA, daughter of Invictus, glanced at the position of the sun. She knew that she should return to the protective walls of Koronaka. She loved being out by herself, though—out where her little brother, Donial, couldn’t pester her. Away from the fort, where soldiers and settlers alike seemed to think that a girl of passing beauty was like some art object; to be gazed upon and commented on as if she had no feelings of her own. The men of the fort were not the civilized ones of Tarantia, who could see women of far more stunning aspect on any given day, and they seemed to take Alanya’s presence in their midst as an invitation to ogle and leer.

  And perhaps it was her own overactive imagination, but some of the women of Koronaka seemed to hold Alanya responsible for the effect her appearance had on their men. She went with them when they left the log walls to pick berries, or down to the Black River to launder their garments, but she never felt part of them. There always seemed to be whispered conversations that excluded her.

  So the moments she liked best were those where she was able to steal away by herself. She came often to this meadow, where she could lie in the soft grass or sit on the trunk of the old, downed tree, and daydream. She thought about her girlfriends back in Tarantia, who would even now be preparing for balls or parties to mark the beginning of autumn. Often, she imagined herself back there—back home—whenever her father’s mission here in the Westermarck was finished. Her time away would give her an aura of the exotic. Boys she had grown up with, who had become men over the intervening span of time, would hardly recognize her because of her own blossoming here in the wilderness. This place was only a temporary stop for her. Tarantia was where she belonged.

  Some told her that she shouldn’t go off by herself, shouldn’t risk being found away from the fort by the savages who had inhabited the woods before civilized man came to settle. Stories were told about attacks by Pictish headhunters in the forests. But the peace between the Picts and the settlers of Koronaka had held for three years, her father said. King Conan himself had sent Invictus here to learn what made this peace so secure, and to travel to other border areas to try to extend it there. Given that, Alanya felt relatively safe in the woods. The stories gave her a little thrill of the forbidden, but nothing else. No savage who hoped to maintain the truce against a vastly superior force would dare lay hands upon the daughter of the king’s ambassador.

  Today, she watched the birds winging overhead or lighting on the thickly draped green branches to scold and cackle at her. A black squirrel provided entertainment for a time, scampering up and down the trunks as if in search of precious treasure. After a while, she lost herself in memories of home, the trees and grasses of the border region disappearing in favor of the cobbled roads and walled residences of Tarantia. Before she knew it, the sun had sunk low in the sky. Donial would be beside himself with worry, and if she weren’t lucky, he would rouse the concerns of others. She might find herself watched more carefully by those in the employ of her uncle, Lupinius, or others.

  So without even a last look around at her favorite meadow, which she knew by heart already, she struck out for home, beneath the spreading oaks, then south and west, into the setting sun.

  2

  “YOUR BROTHER TELLS me that you disappeared today.”

  Alanya fixed a wide smile, even though it felt as if she might break her face. “My brother should tend to his own affairs.”

  “Nonetheless, he was worried about you.”

  “I was out with the other ladies, Uncle, picking berries and nuts.”

  “I see,” her uncle said, rubbing a hand across his slick black hair. There was, Alanya supposed, a vague family resemblance between Lupinius and her father, Invictus. Both men had dark hair and eyes almost as black, both had powerful builds with broad shoulders and hands that seemed as big as cooking pots. In spite of his youth—he had seen only fourteen winters, one fewer than she—Donial looked as if he would follow in the same mold.

  Not Alanya. She took after their mother, whose hair was every bit as flaxen as her own, with eyes of blue and skin of alabaster. Illness had taken her away years ago, when Alanya was not yet ten, but the girl remembered her mother’s aspect as clearly as if her death had been a week ago.

  “And what did you do with those nuts and berries?” her uncle asked. “I saw none in the kitchen.”

  Alanya hesitated for only a moment. “I . . . I gave them to a little girl,” she lied. “The daughter of Sharian, who had been unable to gather many of her own.”

  “I see.” Lupinius did not look convinced. He had summoned Alanya and Donial into the dining area of his expansive log-walled home, where they stayed while their father was away on his ambassadorial mission. Alanya would have words for Donial later. Her brother should have known better than to go to Lupinius with any kind of problem. He was their uncle, but neither of them quite trusted him, and Alanya especially wanted his influence over their lives kept to the barest minimum. “I should not have to remind you, Alanya, that these forests are thick with wild beasts, and possibly worse. A Pict was seen just today, very near the fo
rt. We have a tenuous truce with these savages, but they can’t be trusted to keep it.”

  “I know, Uncle,” Alanya said. He was right, she didn’t need reminding. She just liked to do what she liked to do, and she felt safe enough doing it. Besides, even if she were captured and used as a human sacrifice, as the tales of the old people claimed the Picts did, what worry was it of his? He was not her parent, nor did he seem to want to be. He just liked to control anyone he could. “I was careful.”

  “Well, see that you remain so,” he urged. He turned away, and Alanya knew at once that she and Donial had been dismissed. She restrained the urge to shrug. Instead, she just walked from the room, toward the empty bedroom that had been assigned her when their father had left town. Donial followed. Once they were well clear of Lupinius, she spun around to catch him smirking behind her.

  “Why did you complain to him?” she demanded angrily. “What were you thinking?”

  The smirk faded from his face, replaced by a sullen, defiant glare. “I do not think you should go off by yourself.”

  “And I said that I did not!”

  “I saw the group of women and girls returning with their baskets,” Donial explained. “You came back much later.”

  “Anyway, why is it your concern what I do?” Alanya demanded. “I am older than you—old enough to be mistress of Father’s house, without our having to stay here with Uncle, if only Father could see it.” Since their mother’s death, their father had been overprotective, treating them as if they had not grown up at all since he had been widowed. Alanya felt smothered by it, which was part of why she liked to get away from Koronaka by herself.

  “It is my business, because I am your brother,” Donial countered. “And because Father told us to watch after one another. That’s all I was doing.”

  Alanya could barely keep from screaming. Brothers. Maybe older brothers were all right, but little ones were nothing but an annoyance.

  “Then watch after me, if you will!” she said. “But do not bring him into it. And learn when to mind your own business!”

  Instead of going to her room, she turned on her heel and headed out the door, into the small town contained by the fort at Koronaka. It was dark out now, but fires and torches lit the town’s center, providing plenty of illumination for her to walk around.

  Lupinius’s house was one of the grandest villas in the town, with its own central courtyard flanked by wings that contained the various bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, storage spaces, and other chambers. In the courtyard a great variety of herbs, spices, and flowers grew. Its front gate faced the bulk of the civilian homes in the little town, houses occupied by the families of soldiers as well as the merchants and tradespeople who provided necessary goods and services to them.

  Arranged around Lupinius’s place were the barracks of his Rangers, a military force loyal to Aquilonia but more specifically, to him. Behind the barracks was an array of official buildings, including the governor’s house and his administrative offices. Adjoining this area was a basilica containing public buildings, grain storage, and, ranked along the interior colonnade, a number of shops and taverns. A temple to Mitra stood nearby, with four steps leading up to a small, enclosed building, topped with a peaked roof. Finally, closest to the parapeted log wall that faced out toward the Black River, stood the military barracks, row after row of wood-framed buildings that housed the fort’s soldiers. A tower stood at each corner of the wall, so the soldiers could keep watch toward the Thunder River, which flowed at their backs, even though the greatest threat was presumed to come from the Pictish clans across the Black, to the fort’s west.

  A man came around the corner, headed in her direction. A soldier, by the look of him. Moments later they both passed beneath one of the torches that lit the boulevards at night, and recognized each other. It was Calvert, one of Lupinius’s Rangers. He was a hard-looking man, with narrow slits for eyes, a thin-lipped sneer of a mouth, and a thick, muscled build. He wore a belted tunic, leather breeches, buckskin boots. A short stabbing sword hung at his side. “Good evening, Alanya,” he said. “What brings you out so late?”

  “Just walking,” she replied, with a smile. “I am allowed to do that, am I not?”

  “Of course,” Calvert said. She suspected that humor was completely beyond his capabilities. “But it can be dangerous at night—I would hate for you to get into any trouble.”

  Alanya looked around. Sometimes there were—as at home in Tarantia—brawls that spilled out of the taverns, occasional thievery or murder, or drunkards just out for a good time who picked the wrong people to harass. But that night, the town was as quiet as a cemetery.

  “No trouble,” she said simply.

  Calvert nodded as if she had imparted some great wisdom. “All right, then,” he said at last. “Good evening to you.”

  She watched him wander off, and wondered if he’d just come from a tavern himself. When he was out of sight, she continued her own aimless roaming, into the more populous area of the basilica.

  Townspeople and soldiers alike nodded to Alanya or greeted her by name as she walked. Her father was well-known; therefore, so was she. In almost every way, she preferred Tarantia, a city of sufficient size that she could be anonymous. In the fort, any misbehavior at all would be noted by a score of people who knew her father or uncle. Not that Alanya hoped to misbehave—she just wanted to be able to if she chose.

  So she didn’t. Instead, she just walked through the town, enjoying the crispness of the early-autumn air, the sweet scent of night-blooming flowers, and the freedom from the oppressive presence of her uncle.

  IN SPITE OF her brother’s meddling and her uncle’s warnings, two afternoons later Alanya was back in her clearing. The day was warm, with only a few clouds scudding across the blue sky. That warmth put her in a dreamy state of mind. She lay on her back in the thick grass, watching the breeze vibrate the needles of the towering pines and the birds wheeling about overhead, their wings catching sunlight and throwing it down toward her like darts. A girl needed some time alone, she had decided. Time to think, time to plan for the future, time to wonder and dream.

  She had seen no sign of the dangerous wild animals her uncle had warned her of, no sign either of Pictish warriors on the march. She felt every bit as safe here as she did in Koronaka, and far more at ease because there was no one staring at her, no soldier or merchant wondering when she might be willing to take a husband.

  She guessed that she had been in the clearing less than an hour when a shadow detached itself from the trees and walked toward her. Her heart hammered in her throat at his appearance. Her hands quaked uncontrollably. If she had been standing, she doubted her knees would have supported her weight.

  As he passed from darkness into light, she saw what he was—her uncle’s worst fear, become horrible flesh. A Pict, she was convinced. Probably only a year or two older than she was. His shoulders were wide, his chest broad and flat. A brief loincloth draped around his waist provided his only coverage. His dark brown hair was pulled away from his face and kept back by an unseen band, but a wide copper one encircled his wrist, and a narrow band of copper, joined with leather, hung at his throat. A wicked-looking knife hung from his girdle.

  But he also carried a spear, and he made a point of laying it to one side before he approached her. His face was surprisingly handsome for a savage, with a strong jaw, clear dark eyes, and high cheekbones. His mouth was set in a smile that seemed at once tentative, yet genuine. She didn’t know if that meant he was looking forward to beheading her, or perhaps grilling her flesh for his dinner, or whatever it was Picts did to their captives according to the stories she had heard.

  If he had in mind taking her prisoner, though, wouldn’t he have kept the spear? Not that he’d need it to stop her if she tried to run or fight—the muscles of his arms and legs bulged with strength. Still, the action had the feel of something done to reassure her that he meant her no harm. Whether he did or not, the next few moments would t
ell. He was already too near for her to hope to escape. Alanya forced herself shakily to her feet and tried to greet him with a friendly grin.

  He stopped a few feet away from her and stood with his arms hanging loosely at his sides. His brow knitted as if he was concentrating deeply, and he spoke.

  “Hello,” he said, in ragged-accented Aquilonian. “I am . . . Kral.”

  “Kral?” Alanya echoed, astonished that he spoke instead of simply attacking. And her native tongue, at that. “I’m Alanya. You speak Aquilonian?”

  A cloud seemed to pass over his face, and she guessed that he was busy translating her reply. Finally, he answered her. “A little,” he said. His accent was so awful that she had a hard time understanding the words. But he spoke slowly and uncertainly, which helped a bit. “A missionary . . .”

  She understood immediately. She had heard of a few missionaries who had gone into the Pictish wilderness in search of souls to save. Some were immediately sacrificed to whatever dark gods the Picts worshiped, others returned horrified at what they saw there. But a few had stayed for years, teaching the savages the tongues and ways of civilized society. Likely this young Pict had encountered one of them and learned some of the Aquilonian language.

  “Of course,” she answered. “You learned it from a missionary.”

  Again the brow knitted, almost comically. “Yes.”

  Perhaps the missionary had also trained him not to eat human flesh. She could hope, anyway. “I am from Aquilonia,” she told him. “My name is Alanya, daughter of Invictus of Tarantia. I’m staying at Koronaka, with my uncle, and . . .” She let the sentence trail off, realizing that she was going much too fast, no doubt confusing him.

  “I am sorry,” she said. “I will try to speak more slowly.”