A Company of Heroes Book One: The Stonecutter

by Ron Miller

  As they drift north, the Zileheroum gradually narrows. The low hills that bound it to the east and west grow closer together and blue mountains become distantly visible in the northwest. They are not high but look dangerously jagged, like shattered glass. There is already snow on them. The canal no longer strays very far from the river, which is now almost continuously broken by frothing rapids. The canal itself passes through locks more often. Where they had been ten or even twenty miles apart at the beginning, they now came every five miles, or less, as the valley floor became steeper. It takes the barge upwards of fifteen minutes or more to transit a lock, and Bronwyn chafes and complains at every delay. They no longer pass villages, only an occasional shepherd’s or hunter’s hut. They see, more often than in the south, the tiny wayside Musrumic altars, pyramidal, gleamingly whitewashed, that lie deep within the thick woods that are gradually encroaching on the narrowing flood plain. They look like a collection of eyeteeth that some dentist has spilled onto a dark green carpet. They see fewer cows and more herds of goats, their bells clanking clearly from the hillsides. One of the gypsy women, a sister-in-law of Janos’s, gives Bronwyn an embroidered skirt and blouse to wear, with a bolero vest very much like the gypsy leader’s. The princess gratefully changes into them from the now-filthy clothes that Thud had found for her. Janos is delighted with the alteration in her appearance.

  “Ho! You look more like a gypsy than my own sister, by the hairy knuckles of Musrum!”

  “It is a beautiful dress,” she answers, pleased. “I’ve never seen such lovely embroidery!”

  “Thank you,” Janos replies, answering for his sister-in-law, who is blushing speechlessly at the compliment. “It is all Juditkha’s own work.”

  “I’ve never worn anything so beautiful,” Bronwyn says to the woman and Juditkha beams even more.

  “May I ask the Princess something?”

  “Of course.”

  “May I see your hand? Please?”

  “My hand? I suppose so; why...?”

  “The palm up, please?”

  A slender finger with a sharply pointed nail, more like a pen than a digit, traces one of the lines that crease Bronwyn’s palm. It tickles. The gypsy woman frowns.

  “Ah, yes...poor girl!”

  “What is it?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Doing what?”

  “You have put yourself into deadly danger, more danger than I think you know. Why have you done this? I do not wish to offend you, but I do not believe it is for love of your country.”

  “That should be offensive!” Bronwyn murmurs, her back stiffening huffily.

  “But she is correct?” Janos asks.

  “No...no, I guess not. I mean, no, she’s probably right.” Then, to the woman: “You’re not suggesting that I don’t love Tamlaght, I do!, what you’re suggesting is that I’m not here because of that love; that’s it, isn’t it?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Well, maybe it isn’t love of Tamlaght, maybe it’s hatred of Payne Roelt. But doesn’t that amount to the same thing? He’s going to destroy this country if he can!”

  “From what you have told us, that seems to be true,” says Janos.

  “Well, then, if I can get these letters to my cousin, it’ll destroy Payne and everything he’s done. Tamlaght will be safe.”

  “But why you, Princess?”

  “What do you mean, ‘why me’?”

  “Why are you doing this, Princess? There must be hundreds of people, soldiers, servants, I do not know, who can have acts as a courier for you, and would have known exactly what to do. That is why Juditkha asks why you do this yourself.”

  “Well...I don’t know. And so what if I am?”

  “I love this life, Princess,” says Janos, apparently irrelevantly. “That of my gypsy band. I would trade it for no other. But sometimes it is hard and often it is hungry. When we have set up our little carnival on the grounds of some great estate and performs for the beautifully dressed people, I admit to feeling envy. Wealth and position: accidents of birth, pfah! They cannot guarantee happiness. I am happy, I have been happy and I expect to die happy But still...still...it can be hard; money and position, these can be like the grease on an axle. So much of what I and my people do, it is just to stay alive. Only when there is something left over can we have anything more, a little luxury to us that to you would be nothing.

  “This trip north on the canal, it has cost us everything that we made in the City. Well, nearly; the owner of the barge line owed us a favor, but it is only a small one. We have very little more now than we has when we first entered Blavek’s gates. And what is this luxury? It is that we can travel to a new city while at the same time we can do all of this work we must do.

  “That is why she asks you what she does, Princess. We cannot understand why you would give up so much. You had all the freedom in the world to do and go whatever and wherever you pleased. And now you are hunted like a criminal instead of being treated like a princess. Why?”

  She had been watching the drifting landscape. Now she turns toward the gypsy.

  “Janos, you don’t know how many walls a palace has.”

  There are beautiful gardens, dressed in rainbows, roses in velvet gowns jewels with dew, quiet pools of pansies, irises like ribbons lances and a full breath of mignonettes. Beyond: hills of billowing blue gauze. And I, I would give the whole of it, and all my poor heart, to feel the salt wind on my face, to taste it on my lips, to look down from the bow of a ship at the foam spreading a lace coverlet over the waves. There isn’t a ship I saw pass down the Slideen but held my heart as a stowaway. One will sail to Peigambar, another’ll swing around the Cape, another to the vast archipelagoes beyond Socotarra; oh! I’d’ve been a happy girl if I’d been common-born! I swore that one day I’d break my bonds, close my books, burn my great globe and wander free, before my eyes and mouth are stopped up with clay. There are a thousand who’d take my place and no one would know the difference. There was so little I was doing in my life; the months and years were going by ghost-like as the days went. I ornamented parties and charmed hostesses and watched all my dreams evaporate like shining bubbles. I had nothing to hope for but a miracle. I don’t know, I can’t even explain to myself the way I feel. Somehow I seemed to see tall masts and swinging stars where I should have seen columns and chandeliers, and if Musrum pleased, I’d sail to the rim of the world. Maybe I would find there, and could keep, a dream or two I could sleep with. It would’ve been simple if it’d only been walls that surrounded me, but I was tied by golden strings that bound me tighter than iron bands. Why, oh why does Musrum give me dreams like these?

  But what she said to Janos was: “I don’t know. I guess I hadn’t thought things through.”

  “There is one other thing, Princess,” adds Juditkha.

  “What is that?”

  “Be wary,” the gypsy says as she traces a line on Bronwyn’s palm, “of large grey strangers.”

  Later that day Bronwyn takes the opportunity given her by her new dress to give her boy’s costume a well-needed wash, which she does in a deep wooden bucket full of cold water drawn from the canal. While she works, Bronwyn notices that Henda is perched on the rim of a wagon wheel, watching her. His face is unswathed, as it often is when he is alone among the gypsies. She is surprised that he is uncovered in her presence, something he has not done before. She nods to him, trying to keep her expression uncommitted; she does not feel comfortable with the idea of returning his smile. She would hate for him to think he is being mocked or reminded of his disfigurement. She continues her laundry, scrubbing the heavy, corrugated knickers on the corrugated metal washboard. She pushes back an errant lock of hair with a soapy fist and steals a glance at the boy. He is watching her intently and shyly.

  The wound on his face is terrible; she can’t imagine such cruelty being done to a child. She wonders how old he had been, what the pain must have been like; had it been done by his own father? Or was he
a child the Verstummellin had stolen? Does he remember his real parents? She glances at Henda again through strands of wet hair. Is he really smiling at her? Or is it just the scar? It is impossible to tell. The wound carved into his face is too deep. He would smile if he were happy, she decides, and he would smile if his heart was broken, he smiles in his sleep, he smiles when he eats, he smiles when he cries. The scar split his face in a sickle-shaped curve from ear to ear and as it healed it stretched what was left of his mutilated mouth into the tragic laugh that clowns try so hard to create on their faces but without anything like Henda’s success.

  On the morning of the third day, Bronwyn found Janos at the stern of the barge, studying the southern horizon. She looks in the same direction, shielding her eyes against the glare of the low autumn sun. There is a dun cloud where the canal meets the horizon.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “I think you have been found out.”

  “Guards?”

  “Yes, it must be. They will catch up with us long before we reach Biela-Slatina.”

  “They look so far off.”

  “No, only two hours, perhaps three at the most.”

  “We’re still more than a day from the town!”

  “Yes. We must make your preparations now. There will be another lock we must pass, one or two miles ahead. You must leave us there.”

  “But where’ll we go? It’s still more than a hundred miles to Piers’ camp! You can’t just leave us here!”

  “I do not have much that I can tell you. I am sorry, Princess.”

  “Please...don’t be sorry; you’ve helped us more than I have any right to expect,” she says to her credit and then spoils it by adding: “I’ll see that you’ll be well repaid...”

  “We are going to embarrass ourselves if we start thinking of obligations and debts. I, for one, never think of debts. You had better get your big friend while I have Juditkha pack some things.”

  “There’s no other way? No place we can hide?”

  “Not this time. We are not abandoning you: there is no other choice.”

  Bronwyn found Thud with Hottl, who was introducing the big man to the art of sleight-of-hand. The old gypsy is a skilled manipulator of playing cards, and they dance and flutter through his fingers like butterflies in a bouquet of weeds. Thud is absolutely entranced; watch as he might, he is unable to follow the intricate moves or discover where the cards came from or went to, when they appear with a snap or evaporate like snowflakes; in all his life he has never seen anything to equal it.

  “Thud,” Bronwyn interrupts, “Janos says we’re being follows by Guards and that they’ll catch up with us in a couple of hours. We have to leave the barge at the next lock.”

  “All right,” he answers, his usual agreeability tainted for the first time by reluctance. “May I watch Hottl for a few minutes more? I can’t figure this out...”

  “Yes, I suppose so. There’s nothing to do until we reach the lock. I’ll come for you in half an hour.”

  Thud replies with a nod only, already deeply reabsorbed into the whirlpool of painted pasteboard. She looks at the gaunt, morose gypsy and Hottl grins back at her, quickly; that is, grinning as best as anyone can with eight teeth. She nods a thank-you to him for pleasing her friend. A glint of mockery sparkles in the man’s eyes and Bronwyn feels herself flush with anger. There is a light touch on her shoulder and she turns to find Juditkha at her side.

  “I have food for you; and Janos, he wishes to speak.”

  Bronwyn follows the woman to her brother-in-law’s wagon where Janos is waiting. He holds a large canvas rucksack in his arms. He sets it at the princess’ feet and opens its flap. Inside is a densely packed assortment of food and other packages.

  “It is all that I have to give you; more than you can possibly carry yourself, but your friend’s powerful back will not notice it. You have far to go and there is no place you can stop for food or shelter with safety. You must carry all that you need. Without your friend, you can not go far.”

  “Without Thud, I suppose I wouldn’t have gotten even this far.”

  “I am glad that you appreciate him. Here are your clothes, and a fresh suit, and a coat, see? It is lambs wool inside, because the cold will be as steel needles in the mountains, and two blankets, one for each of you. You can carry these things in this pack. That is all that I can offer.”

  “It’s more than enough!” she says, but is distressed that it is not more.

  “Do not worry yourself so, though your honor flatters you. I will be repaid. Gypsies always are. Ah! Here is your friend.”

  “Princess,” says Thud as he joins them, “I can hear horses!”

  Bronwyn doesn’t want to believe it, but when she listens, she too can hear a faint vibration, as though the hills are muttering among themselves. She turns to the gypsy with panic in her eyes.

  “They’re almost here!”

  “No, they are still an hour away. The valley is like a hearing trumpet. We will be at the lock in a few minutes. There is time.”

  Bronwyn changes from her gypsy costume, reluctantly, replacing it with the rough clothes Thud had found for her. She is wrestling into her pack when Thud returns. He is wearing the great, shaggy fur coat in which he had masqueraded as the late Gretl; the massive sack of supplies on his back makes him look humpbacked, like a buffalo.

  She makes certain her precious satchel is well strapped across her shoulders. Just then, a cry from one of the boatmen announces, “Lock ahead!”

  Ahead is a low grey stone wall blocking the canal. In the middle is a wooden gate. On the bank is the rustic log cottage of the lockkeeper and beyond that Bronwyn can just see the thin blue line of the pond that supplies the lock with water. The lockkeeper is standing on the wall, signaling the barge with a small red flag. The mule driver brings his animals to a halt and disconnected the cable that attached the team to the barge. One of the bargemen reels this in, coiling it neatly on the deck. With their poles, the bargemen center the big boat in the canal, which is here more than three times the width of the barge, and begin to push it ponderously toward the gate. The lockkeeper meanwhile is spinning a massive wheel and the gates begin to swing inward. The water must have been at a slightly lower level in the lock for there is a rush of water into the stone basin. This made the work of the bargemen easier, since the water carries the boat with it. Bronwyn suspects this is probably intentional. There are one or two bumps as the barge squeezes through the gate. The lockkeeper immediately spins his wheel in the opposite direction and the gates begin to shut behind the boat.

  “Now,” says Janos to Thud and Bronwyn, “is the time for you to leave us.”

  “I’m sorry to say goodbye, Janos.”

  “No more than I. I hope Musrum speeds you. Perhaps we will someday receive an invitation to perform at one of the magnificent royal houses? Then we might meet again.”

  “I promise!”

  “See what I told you? Now, up that ladder. Cross the dam and you will be on the west bank of the canal. Not far is the Moltus, but you will have no trouble finding a place to cross it. It is still broad but it is very shallow this far north. You will easily find a ford; follow the trails the shepherds use. Do not follow the river very far: it will take you too close to Biela-Slatina. You will have to bear west. It will take you away from the most direct route to the border, which will delay you, but it will also take you away from the main roads, which will be much safer. You will soon find a road that will lead you through the mountains. I cannot tell you what to do beyond that.”

  “I suppose we’ll make our way,” she answers glumly.

  “Be careful, Princess, of your confidence, you are much too sure of yourself; these are new things ahead of you!”

  The water from the reservoir has been pouring into the lock, raising the barge to the level of the canal beyond. Bronwyn steps to the ladder, one foot on a mossy rung, straddling the gap between boat and wall.

  “Goodbye, Janos.”

>   “Musrum be with you, Princess. And farewell to you, too, my big friend.”

  “Thank you for the coat. I’ve never had one like it.”

  “You are more than welcome! Now, please, you must hurry.”

  Bronwyn scrambles up the slippery ladder like a monkey, Thud following like a sloth. She pauses for a moment, to turn and wave to her friends, Janos, Hottl, Juditkha and...where is Henda? There is no sign of the boy and she feels a little saddened.

  “Look,” says Thud, pointing downstream.

  From the vantage of the high stone dam, Bronwyn can see far down the valley. She is horrified to see that the plume of dust signaling the approaching horsemen is so close. The muffled rumble of their hooves is as clear as her own heartbeat.

  “Quick! We have to hurry!”

  Without another look back, she races across the top of the dam, Thud close behind. The floor of the valley is a broad, grassy meadow, crisp and brown now from the frosts that have been heralding winter. High hills wall it in on both the east and the west; a blanket of dark, shaggy pines cover them. Beyond the hills are mountains. The Moltus is less than a mile away to the west, flowing at the base of a steep slope. The forest comes to the water’s edge. Once they are across the river and into the woods they will be relatively safe. She would certainly feel safer not being as visible as she and Thud are on the open flood plain. She feels like a bug on a wall.

  It would be terribly close: under the best of conditions Bronwyn’s long legs can carry her three or four miles in an hour at a brisk pace. At that rate she could cover the mile to the river in less than twenty minutes. But unlike the manicured lawns and playing fields she had grown up with, or the scrupulously-leveled paved walkways, the deceptively smooth valley floor is booby-trapped with pits, crevices, hummocks, rocks, gravel, marshy pools surrounded by glue-like mud, and a thorny vine that hugs the ground in convoluted tangles that resemble nothing so much as barbed concertina wire. Its loops lasso their legs, lacerating their ankles and shins and bringing both crashing to the ground more than once. They are forced to stop, untangling themselves when the vine snares them, or take time to watch with care where each step is placed, either action slowing them maddeningly. Worse, sharp thorns have their pants legs in shreds and blood runs down their calves in a dozen rivulets. Their progress is little better than a casual stroll.