by Micah Yongo
Forty-One
B L O O D
The sun was bright. The sky lay wide and cloudless. A daytime moon, a quarter full, lodged faded in the fresh spring blue like the chalky edge of a god’s thumbprint.
“Good omen,” Daneel said as they climbed onto their horses.
“So they say,” Josef answered.
But that wasn’t true. It wasn’t what they say. It was only Mother’s saying. Days like this once made him think of her. Days when the air’s very stillness was busy, clogged by the salty sour smell of too much pollen and the omnipresent thrum of hustling insects. On days like this Mother would be pulverising cardamom on a flatstone by the door, the crushed pods’ bitter scent kicking up off the rock as her slim tawny arms worked, forearms flexing, shoulders rowing, as she pounded and scraped, pounded and scraped, back and forth again as though to a song only she could hear.
She had always favoured him, Daneel knew. Father preferred Josef. Even now he could remember that whispering smile she’d smile that made him wonder what secret was in the offing, inviting his complicity, needing no words. She was so unlike Father.
In summer the old man would come lumbering in, heavy and breathy from the field. The wiry grey hairs of his chest would be slick and black with sweat and the air around him moody and stale. He’d beckon Daneel out to the cropfields to help and learn but Daneel never liked to go – all that tall yellow grass, huge golden rods thrusting up from the dusty soil, sharp as Father’s whiskers and like a forest. Daneel would plead not to go, over and over, until Mother intervened. “He can stay with me,” she’d say. “He can help me cook,” leaving Father to shake his head as he took keen, clever Josef instead.
Daneel could still remember the jokes she’d play, always with a wink in his direction; feathers under Father’s nose as he slept, or flicking water on his face, or hiding his clothes. Father would wake and laugh, though not always. And less so after his fall one harvest in the field. That fall cracked and wrenched his ankle and turned his stride to a limping hobble that never went away. That limp was like a god, touching everywhere and everything, taking Father’s strength, keeping him from the field, making him old, bringing them hunger.
Father never beat Mother before that limp but after a while it became a habit. And then one day he beat her so hard with a scouring pan by the stream that its narrow rocks and water turned copper red, just like when he cleaned his tools. He wept for an hour after that. Josef and Daneel watched him. And then he rose and took Mother beyond the crop fields and into the woods to bury her behind some tree he’d never tell them where. Funny how you never really believe in death until it happens. And then it’s everywhere, at the edges of things, like Father’s limp, waiting to come in.
After that, Father didn’t talk about it and wouldn’t let them talk about it either. Mother’s gone away. Mother’s sleeping. After a while he wouldn’t even let them talk about her. A vow Josef kept but Daneel wouldn’t, no matter how Father beat him. Daneel never forgave Josef for that; not speaking of her.
It was strange to think of it all now. So long ago. Before all this. Before Ilysia. And Father long since dead. But then Master Johann always said the sha is a funny thing. Like wind. You feel it, but cannot tell where it comes from, nor where it will lead.
They watched the boy climb up and into the cart and his father and mother come around from in the house with the provisions, handing them up to the child after him. The cart was hooded with dirt-coloured sheets, draped over on posts to keep the rain out. Which was good. It would make them easier to spot if there was a crowd on the road out.
In the end, there wasn’t. And so they followed easily as the mother, father and child – father at the reins, mother and son in the cart – rolled along the city streets and into the main road and then eventually on along the broad peopled way toward the city gates to depart.
Daneel and Josef were several miles out from Hanesda and down the desert road before the horse and cart they were following began to speed up. Only a little. Which, they supposed, was to be expected. The road was as lonely as Gahíd had said. Hard not to notice two strangers following on the same way, especially when those strangers had been following on that same way without nearing for over an hour no matter how you slowed or stopped or whatever else. And Hassan was a smart man, Daneel and Josef knew as much from watching him all that time in Dumea. And so they knew, in the end, they would have to chase him.
They sped to a trot to match his pace. The Brothers didn’t speak, didn’t glance to one another, and yet both tugged the hoods of their cloaks over their heads and their scarves up to cover their mouths and faces as the hooves of their horses began to skip over the dry yellow dirt of the highway.
The land was without vegetation. The horizon was broad, birdless and silent. The land would roll on this way for another two days were they to go that far, nothing more than sloping pebbly desert riddled here and there with briars, weeds and scorpions and only the wide but shallow muddy river running along the road beside them.
The road lurched westwards into the sun as Daneel and Josef quickened their pace, the quiet rumble of the cartwheels and the light hollow clap of hooves on rock the only sounds for miles in any direction. Broad cloud shadows crept along the dry stony hills like drifting continents. The quiet was loud, the stillness felt big. And then it began.
The cart bolted into a sprint, the horse whinnying at the snap of the father’s lash. No more pretence. Daneel and Josef dug their heels and sped after it. Dust from the road tossed up around them in sandy clouds as the horses’ hooves hammered the dried dirt of the highway. Ahead, the cart’s wheels danced as it raced, hopping small jittery leaps over the uneven road as if the ground beneath was hot to the touch. The road sloped upwards, air rushing as they chased, yanking and clawing at their clothes and buffeting their ears. They gained quickly; the cart was driven by a single horse, strong but tiring. The road came down again, turning north, the high sun working its way to their left, moving the cart out of shadow.
Daneel could see the boy in the back, his fright-grimaced face glimpsing out through the swinging drapes as he sat hunched, clutching his mother and the cart’s sidewall as the whole cart hopped and rolled from side to side. Josef rode alongside as the road narrowed, moving up to where the father, Hassan, sat at the reins as Daneel backed up the rear. Daneel saw his brother draw his feet up to squat in the saddle and steady himself. And then watched as Josef jumped, leaping across the short rushing void and landing chest first as the cart bucked.
The corner of the driver’s bench slammed up against his breastbone, knocking him backward. Josef scrambled to hold on, feet and legs dangling as the rocks and dirt raced dangerously beneath his heels. The father saw and kicked him in the face, snapping Josef’s head back but not dislodging him. He leaned back to try again but Josef saw it coming and swung to one side. Hassan’s thrust foot pushed at empty air as Josef slipped a dagger from his waist and plunged it handle-deep into his calf.
Hassan screamed and reeled back on his seat, leaning away and pulling the horse’s bit as he did so. Her jaw and brow yanked, turning her, steering her off the road and into the escarpment. Hassan tried to correct it but it was too late. Her forelegs slid, her hooves scrambling into loose rocks and shale for purchase, and then the cart wheel following after her. The carriage tipped as the mare anxiously pawed and the road slipped away beyond her, as the car’s full weight toppled onto the slope toward the water, yanking her down, screaming, tumbling, into the shallow river.
Daneel came to a skidding halt at the lip of the embankment and leapt down from his horse. He scrambled down the slope to the water’s lip. The cart was already sinking. Ends of upended timber lurched slowly to the muddy surface as sacks and pots and bits of bread began to bob and spread out along the river’s dirty pane in the cart’s wake. Daneel waited and watched and saw no other movement save the mare’s impotent kicks, thrashing weakly against the sticky muddy water as she tried to right herself, th
e tongues of leather from the bit still pulling her down.
He began to wade in, thigh deep, working his way toward the half-submerged mess, his steps mired in the soft silty riverbed beneath as the murky cold of the marsh wrapped around him.
“Josef!”
No answer. Just the horse’s whinnies and whimpers as she tried to free herself. Daneel looked back to the shore, saw no change there either, his own horse loitering above the escarpment, facing the road, tail swishing at flies, apparently disinterested. The sudden thrashing of water brought his gaze back around. Josef and the other man had surfaced a few feet from the now almost sunken cart, wrestling. Frothy suds of black greasy river rode up around them as they twisted and writhed. Daneel began to make his way toward them, wide slow strides through the watery sludge. Hassan had somehow managed to wrap something around Josef’s throat and was yanking, teeth gritted, jaw clenched, as Josef twisted to pull him beneath the water again. The mother was nowhere to be seen.
It was then Daneel heard the boy, his half-infant shout. He was on the opposite shore, had somehow freed himself from the wreck and stood there soggy and slick as a seal from the black grime of the river. The father heard the boy too and began shouting.
“Run, Noah! Run! Run!”
But the boy was standing there and not running, shivering and rigid and watching his father fight in the water. Josef was beginning to get on top of him now, his hand clutching the other man’s chin, his other arm locked around the man’s arm from behind.
“Run… Run!”
Daneel left them to it and began to swim and wade toward the shore where the boy stood, swiping at the heavy water in long steady strokes as he dragged himself to the other end. When he reached the bank the boy was crying, his voice broken by whimpers, looking for his mother, calling to his father. Daneel looked and saw that the other man had somehow wriggled free of his brother and was wading to shore, not far behind. The boy was bouncing on the balls of his feet, arms stiff against his side, his hands tight knotted fists of white worry, staring after his father as he swam toward him. Josef was nowhere to be seen. The father was getting closer. Daneel turned back toward the boy and dragged himself out.
“Father.”
“Run!”
And the boy could see him now. Daneel. Black from the river, face muddied, a dark long demon come to invade his world. Father was coming to shore, running, water sliding from his back. The child’s wide gaze switched back and forth between the two as they approached. He moved toward his father. Hassan’s mouth opened to call to his son, but he didn’t, he stopped, frozen, jaw locked, his throat panting and clicking. And then he flinched again, his arms jutting outward in a sharp brief spasm. He took a few clumsy steps forward, eyes locked with his son’s, snatching at breath that wouldn’t come, the air suddenly slippery.
“Run,” he whispered again.
And then collapsed, face first, into the dirt and sand, Josef’s two daggers sticking out from his back.
Josef came stalking slowly out of the river behind, his hair drenched and stringy. He looked at Daneel, who’d now come to stand by the frozen, shocked dull-eyed Noah. Josef gestured to his brother, apologetic shrug.
“My feet were caught in the horse’s reins,” he said. “Beast nearly pulled me under. Probably would have, had the father not been distracted by the boy here.”
Josef was breathing heavily. Daneel nodded. He’d now caught the boy and held him with a fistful of his tunic by the shoulder. The boy wasn’t struggling. His eyes were as dead as his father, staring at the prone body, at the blood. Daneel was staring at the body too. Josef followed his gaze and looked at the fallen man; perhaps he was still breathing. He saw that he wasn’t and looked back to Daneel again, puzzled. He looked at the boy. He looked at his brother.
“The mother,” Josef said, “have you seen her?”
Daneel shook his head.
“Well. Finish the boy and we’ll go back in and look for her together.”
Daneel looked down at the child, saw the paleness around his neck and the soft wet down of his cheeks, saw the many tiny spangled spots of water pimpling his face, saw his father’s fate already sinking into him, like cold venom, and whoever he’d been or would be forever leaking away, giving way to some other shadow.
“Daneel. Kill him.”
And then the boy looked up at him too, expressionless, his tear-mottled face and pallid baby flesh pinched pink at the ears and nostrils. And Daneel could somehow guess at what lay behind those dark flat eyes. The boy, all of a sudden, was so familiar, so transparent, so… known. Like seeing himself, what he’d felt and since forgotten, all those years ago by the stream where Mother lay prone.
“What do you wait for?” Josef said, walking toward them. “Kill him.”
Daneel didn’t move.
Josef stopped walking and waited. He watched his brother and the boy standing there. The clouds shifted in the silence, like spectators restless in their seats, letting the sun in. Daneel saw the white-gold light sweep over Josef, turning his drenched hair and sodden leather iridescent, as though clothed with a million tiny jewels. And then the clouds closed again, like shutting doors, the transfiguration reversed. And when his brother spoke his name again Daneel felt sure.
“Dan,” Josef was both smiling and frowning now. “Come on. We have our orders. Kill the boy and be done with it.”
“Orders.”
“Yes. Orders.”
“So precious, are they? So sacred?”
Josef’s breath, heavy from the river, stilled. “What’s wrong, Daneel?”
“We can’t kill him.”
“What?”
“I said, we cannot kill him.”
Josef looked at the boy as though expecting him to answer, to explain his brother’s words. The boy remained mute.
“Why not?”
“It’s not right.”
Josef squinted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Daneel didn’t answer. He didn’t move. Neither of them did. They just stood there, ten feet apart, the cloud-veiled sun at Daneel’s back.
Then Josef took another step forward. “Alright. Enough now, Daneel. We are not children anymore. You don’t get to play this game and do whatever suits your whim. We have what we have been decreed. That is what we have. That is what we are to do.”
Daneel just shook his head. His gaze drifted aside. “You know, I never understood it until now. You always do the right thing, brother, always… Ilysia. Here. Home… I never knew why it bothered me so much.”
“Dan.”
“I could never see why it troubled me… But now I do.”
“We don’t have time for this. We need to find the mother. The road is unoccupied but it shan’t remain so. And our horses…”
“Why do you follow the orders, Josef?”
“What?”
“Why do you follow them?”
“We… We are sworn to… Why are we even talking about this?”
“You pretend, brother.”
“If we lose the horses we’ll not return before nightfall.”
“You pretend it is for virtue that you follow. But it is not for virtue. You don’t follow because it is the right thing. You follow because you don’t know what the right thing is. You follow because you must be told. You follow because you’re lost.”
“Lost?”
“Yes. Lost… I see it now.”
Josef stopped scanning the water and turned square to his brother. “Dan. Listen to me. Whatever this is we can speak of later. But right now we must do as we have been bid. Now. Kill the boy.”
“No.”
“Daneel.”
“I said no.”
The boy’s teeth chattered, shivering as he watched them talk.
Josef took another step. “We were commanded, Dan. You cannot just… refuse.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? You swore an oath.”
“Then I’ll swear a new one.”
&nbs
p; “You… You’d be… You want to be an oathbreaker? For him? For this?”
“We are not going to kill him. We mustn’t. I feel it.”
“You feel it? What is wrong with you? You’re speaking like… like a fool.”
“Fool?” Daneel thought about that. “No. Perhaps folly is to take commands without meaning, from men we do not know?”
“Our commands are of the Brotherhood, the ones who rescued us when we were still children, when we would have been slaves. Or have you forgotten that? Have you forgotten what we swore?”
“I’m not as given to forgetfulness as you are, brother, and I never was as given as you to oaths either. That’s why I still remember our mother.”
Josef flinched as Daneel said the words. He stretched and worked his jaw as though he’d been slapped. “So that’s what this is about?”
“What this is about is refusing a yoke of worthless vows. But you do not see that, do you? You cannot. Just as you couldn’t with Mother.”
“This has nothing to do with Mother.”
“Doesn’t it? Did you do then as you do now? Did you reject sense for the sake of following your precious orders?”
“Hold your tongue, Dan.”
“As you did for Father? Is that what I should do? Be silent, like you? Follow orders, like you? Feel nothing, like you?”
Josef drew his sword, pointing it at him.
Daneel did the same. “Ah, so you do feel something.”
Josef remained silent. His lips clamped thin and tight.
Daneel stared at him. He looked down at the boy at his side and then back to his brother, blade still outstretched.
Josef remained silent.
“I shall tell you what I feel then, Josef. I feel no oath, except to my own will, and to what my own mind decides… and I decide that the boy will live.” The blade nodded in his hands as he spoke. “He. Will. Live.”
The cloud’s shade seemed to chill the air. They stood there, each watching the other, neither speaking until Josef gave a small careful nod.
