by Diana Rivers
This time, though my heart was beating fast, I did not try to slip by and ride on. Instead, I swung off my horse and picked up the central apple, kicking apart the willow twigs as I did so. “What is the meaning of that sign, Goodwoman?”
“If you do not know, then plainly it is not for you,” she answered me tartly, shaking her head so the fringe of her shawl moved as if in its own breeze.
Watching her closely, I took a bite from the apple. At the same time I slipped my pendant out from under my shirt, leaning forward so that it would swing and catch the light. She looked up. For that moment her face was clearly visible. I saw her eyes widen, but only by the slightest nod did she acknowledge what had just passed between us. Yet, in that glimpse of her face, I had seen a kind of plea or hopefulness.
“How much for an apple?” I asked loudly to cover our silent exchange. I found myself studying her for meaning. Surely it was no accident that she had set herself in my path.
“Why not buy the whole basket, young man. You could save me the trouble of sitting here. It is tiresome being hot and dusty, and too few pass by. I will make you a good price. Then I can go home.”
I shrugged, thinking I might as well take back some apples. She named a very low price, and I tossed her a coin. At just that moment I felt the hair go up on the back of my neck. I froze. There was no time to try to hide without arousing suspicion. I had stepped away from my horse and for that moment turned my attention on the old woman before me, instead of remembering the road at my back. I cursed myself silently, thinking what Pell or Jhemar would have said of my carelessness. Forcing myself to move against my fears, I quickly slipped my pendant back inside my shirt. I was about to pick up the basket when three guardsmen rode up, reeking of smoke. They looked at the apples and nodded to each other.
“How much are those apples, old woman?” the first of them asked impatiently, pushing past me to the basket as if I did not exist.
“They are already sold to that young man,” she answered calmly, making a nod in my direction.
“For how much?” he asked again.
She named a price, far more than I had paid. The guardsman gave a grunt and reached in his pouch. “Give him back his coins, woman. We will give you twice that.” He dropped some coins on her mat. Then, turning as if seeing me for the first time, he said, “Here, boy, pour those apples in my saddlebag and be quick about it. We have a fast ride ahead of us to catch up to the others.”
With lowered eyes I picked up the basket. It was all I could do to keep my grip steady, but I had no wish to be crawling about on my hands and knees after fallen apples. My skin prickled from the nearness of the guard. The acrid smoke burned in my nostrils. He even brushed against my hand with his as he opened the pack. The path of his touch felt like a brand or a burn. That was the closest I had ever been to one of them. Without a word he buckled his pack shut and leapt on his horse. In a moment they were gone as quickly as they had come. The other two had never even dismounted.
I found myself leaning against a tree to support my shaky knees, but the old woman had managed to keep herself calm throughout. She even remembered to make a little bow and call after them, “Thank you, good sirs.” Under her breath she mumbled, “Not a bad price for wormy apples.”
They had ridden off leaving us in a cloud of dust. It now settled like a thin layer of mud on my sweating face. The old woman stood up, shook out her skirts, and spit deliberately in front of her. “The curse of the Mother go with them. May She pluck off their hides. May crows pick their flesh from their bones. They have just been at some ugly business. I think they grow more dangerous every day. I suppose I should be glad they paid, instead of pilfering as they have taken to doing lately. After all, one does not argue with a spear or a sword for a few coins. The Zarns have loosened a plague in this land.” She shook her head, and at that moment her shawl slipped back from her face. There, in the middle of her forehead, dark red and puckered, I saw what I thought to be a caste brand.
Quickly she replaced the shawl and said angrily to me, “What are you staring at, fool? Have you never seen a brand before? Yes, I am branded, branded like cattle, like horses. That is how they do to ordinary folk there in that city. I am owned by Eezore. If the guards had seen that it would have cost my life. And first they would have taken me back for torture. If you choose to report me, you can get a fine reward. I think, though, that you yourself may have your own reasons for not calling back the guards, eh?”
I had gone on staring stupidly into her angry face until she said that last about the guard. Then I was able to pry myself loose from my tree and find the voice to ask, “What is your game, woman? Why the sign of the circle?”
“To show off my best apple,” she said with a shrug.
“Then I need to be on my way,” I told her, eager to mount and be gone from there.
Instantly she reached out her hand to stop me. “No, no, not so quickly. Do you know the old Witch? ‘The Old One’?”
“What old Witch?” I asked, full of suspicion now. “There are many old Witches in the world, far more than all the apples in your basket.”
“‘The Old One’, ‘the Old One,’” she repeated impatiently. “She was a Witch-healer in my village when I was a girl. I have things to tell of Eezore that someone must hear, and quickly. Her I would trust. What do I know of you?”
“And what do I know of you either, seller of wormy apples, that I should trust you or even be talking to you here. What is her name, this ‘Old One’ you seek?”
“Among us she did not have a name, even then. She was always just ‘the Old One.’ I hear she is with the young women now, those star-cursed ones. You know the sign and wear one yourself. You will know where to find her. Go fetch her to me quickly. Eezore has closed and sealed its gates. Many are trapped within. Help is needed. That is all I will say for now. Go! Go! Time is wasting, lives are in danger.”
Now I was filled indecision. Hamiuri must be “the Old One” she spoke of. Who else could it be? This woman had really come from Eezore. That much was clear from the mark on her forehead. If she could tell us the truth of that place, perhaps Pell would not have to go there herself to find it. “How do I know that I can trust you?” I asked again.
She gave me a nod, reached into her shirt, and drew out a talisman on a chain. It was much like the one I was wearing. This she slipped off and pressed into my hand. I looked at it in surprise. Then I looked back at her.
“No, no, it is not mine. I am indeed the old woman I seem to be. It is my daughter’s, a token of trust. That should bring ‘the Old One.’ Now take it and go quickly. Put that in her hand. You must fetch her to me. Tell her I will wait near here at the Nathron crossroads, hidden in the little glen by the stream. Tell her the woman who waits for her was once the child Askarth, from the village of Larimeer, the one who was her apprentice for a year.”
“Come with me, it will be faster,” I said, suddenly throwing away all caution. I so much wanted Pell to hear news of Eezore before she did something rash on her own.
“No, I tell you, I go nowhere till I see her face. Do not fail me! Make haste! Even now lives hang in the balance. And bring me a horse, a stout horse that can carry my weight. Also let it be a gentle one that will make the ride easy and not throw me to the ground.”
“You have no horse?” I stared around in surprise. “How did you come here?”
“Hidden in a farmer’s wagon after the guards had already searched it. You think they would have let me ride out of the city gates, the branded servant of a Great-House? The gates are closed, I tell you, the city is sealed. They search all who pass. If they had caught me they would have been glad enough to question me with tongs and a torch.”
Suddenly I felt the press of her urgency. I slipped the chain around my neck and heard the pendant click against my own as I swung onto Marshlegs’s back. “If it is still light, listen for the call of the tzatzi bird. If not, listen for the owl that hoots three times and then three more. Be re
ady to go at once. If there is any falseness in this it will cost your life woman, I promise you that.” An empty threat if ever there was one. She must have known that if she really knew us at all. I rode home in haste, feeling as if Askarth rode on my back, urging me on.
As luck would have it, Hamiuri was out hunting herbs. She was not pleased to see me when I tracked her down. Even Hamiuri seemed to be infected with the soul-rot of the camp. In no hurry to come with me, she stood there shaking her head. “Do I remember Larimeer? Yes, I remember it well enough. One of those many manure-ridden villages that are full of fools who hate Witches, yet need a healer for their cows and their brats. I cannot recall Askarth. Perhaps she was one of the little girls who threw rocks at me and called me names and then came sweet as egg-pudding to fetch me because her mother was birthing again. And why did I do it, tell me that? Why did I put up with any of it? Because I thought I should use my art and my skill for some good purpose. I was fool enough to think Witches should do some honorable work. They had taken everything that mattered from us during the Witch-kills, everything I would have been proud to turn my hand to. Girl, you had better believe that I would never do it again. Never! For all I care now those villages can rot in their own ignorance and sink back into the dung heap they came from. Now tell me again what this Askarth had to say?”
So I had to repeat again what little there was to tell. I had never heard Hamiuri speak in this way. Her words were so bitter she sounded more like Alyeeta or Telakeet at their worst. She even spit and said “humans” with contempt in her voice as Alyeeta so often did. All the while I was trying to urge her to hurry. “Please, Hamiuri, please. She said to come as soon as we could.”
With a maddening deliberate slowness Hamiuri gathered her herbs in her baskets, muttering, “Since when do I hurry myself for humans? What have they ever done for me?” After that I kept silent, only helping with the basket. At last I had her moving in the right direction.
Pell must have already gotten word. When we returned, she was there waiting for us with Torvir and two extra horses, both of them stout and gentle. She helped move Hamiuri along, although that one grumbled mightily at having to ride.
“My bones are too old to be moved about so fast,” she muttered as we helped her up. As soon as they started off I went to arrange for four others who were to follow, staying well hidden and keeping watch in case of trouble. Zenoria and Daijar had already left to track the guards, going to see if those two young women were still alive and could be freed from their captors.
When everyone was finally organized and on the road, I threw myself down on a mat, exhausted. Renaise came to rub the weariness out of my back and shoulders, and so we made our peace. There was even a little breeze that came at evening time, bringing with it a measure of relief.
That night the wind rose and the heat finally broke in a steady, driving rain. By morning, water had made its way through the leaf-and-branch thatch of my little shelter. I was wakened by water dripping on my face. Outside I could hear the stream running again. When I crawled out, stiff and wet, I was greeted by a noisy, joyful chorus of frogs and birds. The sun was just beginning to break through. Everything was bright and sparkling from the rain. Most of the camp was still asleep, but Hamiuri and Askarth were already up, or perhaps had never slept. They were sitting side by side at the cookfire, drinking tea. With their heads bent together, talking and laughing like old friends, they looked to be of one age, just two old women together. Then I remembered that Hamiuri had already been old when Askarth was still a child, and I felt again that familiar chill.
Renaise was up next, organizing a long overdue washing of dishes, pots, and clothes. Soon she had us in a line, passing jugs of water up from the stream and filling every available container. Before we had even finished, Pell called together a meeting, going about the camp beating on a pot to bring us together. Yawning, stretching, and grumbling, we ringed the speaking stump in several rough circles.
Pell spoke first, climbing on the stump and raising her hands for silence. “This woman” she said, pointing dramatically to Askarth, “this woman has brought us word of how it is in Eezore. She has just now come from the city.” The moment she said “Eezore” she had our full attention. The restless shifting stopped instantly and all eyes were fixed on Askarth.
Hamiuri stepped up next for just a moment. “Trust this woman and listen closely to what she has to tell you. I can speak for her. She was once my apprentice and I have known her all my life.”
Then with Pell’s help, Askarth clambered up on the stump. Once there, she threw back her shawl and turned slowly so we could all see her face. There were gasps from those watching. “In case any of you are wondering if I speak the truth of Eezore, you can all see it clearly branded on my forehead,” she said loudly, as if throwing out a challenge.
After that she spoke at length, repeating herself, pleading with us to go to Eezore and save those who were trapped there. She went on and on, saying far too much for me to try to repeat it all here. The sum of it was that some of the most powerful families in Eezore, uppercaste Shokarn, were resisting the Zarn’s edict. They had barricaded themselves in and were refusing to turn over their daughters to the Zarn’s guards for destruction. Instead, they were sheltering them and other young women as well in their Great-Houses, those houses within the city walls that had their own separate walls and gates and also their own guards. Most such houses were well supplied and could probably withstand a siege. The Zarn was apparently reluctant to launch a full-scale attack, thus provoking a civil war he might not win since he usually relied on these same Great-Houses for much of his support. Yet he found himself with both feet in the fire. He could not let his orders be defied in the very heart of his stronghold. It seemed that his plan was to wait them out, starve them out in fact, till they began one by one to capitulate. All those houses were ringed by the Zarn’s guards. People, if they could slip past the Great-House guards, were allowed to leave. They were even encouraged and helped as long as they were first searched by the Zarn’s guards and proved not to be the star-crossed in disguise. But none could return, no supplies or help of any kind could be sent back in. I listened to all this, thinking how right Jhemar had been. Eezore was indeed at war with itself and we, the star-cursed, were at the very center of it, a bone being fought over by snarling dogs.
Just as Askarth was about to begin her recital again, Pell interrupted, calling out to her, “And what is all of this to you, Goodwoman? Why have you risked your life to bring us this word?”
“Two of them are mine, one that I raised myself who is like a daughter to me and one who is my blood-child, though she does not know it. I want to see them safely free of that city and soon, but that will take help and horses. Is that answer enough for you?”
“More than enough, but we must make plans to crack open the city and free all the Star-Born who are trapped there. Understand me Askarth, I am not taking my women on a raid into Eezore just to free your two daughers. How can you help us? If, as you say, the city is locked and sealed, how can we breach it? How are we to free them and escape with our lives? Surely we cannot all come in as you left, hidden in a farmer’s wagon.”
At that there was nervous laughter from the women around me. Unperturbed, Askarth said loudly, “I can show you the way in, but will say no more now till there are ears to hear.” Instantly there was silence again. After looking all around slowly as if to make sure we could maintain it, she went on. “There is an old forgotten tunnel into the city. It starts by the Bargguell, the great garbage heap outside the wall, and runs under Eezore at least as far as the Central Prison. The tunnel was once used for taking out the bodies of executed prisoners, but has long since fallen into disuse. It has been blocked off with huge boulders that must be removed from the outside. There are smaller tunnels that lead into it. To one of these I have the gate-key. At another the gate is more rust than iron. My grandfather was a jailer in the Central Prison, as was his father and his grandfather be
fore that. He taught me many things. I may be the only person left alive that knows of the tunnel. Believe me, there are many secrets in that city that would surprise even the Zarn himself.” Askarth fell silent after that and stepped down.
Pell jumped up to take her place. “This plan is as full of holes as a fisherman’s net. Even if we succeed in getting into the city and past the Zarn’s guards, how are we to get past the guards at the Great-Houses? How will they know to open for us?”
“They will know,” Askarth assured her quickly. “They will be ready.”
“How? How is that possible, since none can pass between?”
“Birds,” Askarth said angrily. “Birds can fly where feet cannot pass. That is all you need to know. They will be ready for you. I tell you that on my honor, on my life.”
“And how are we to leave afterward?” Kazouri shouted, her loud voice booming from the back. “Once we have raided the city, that tunnel will more likely be a deathtrap than an escape.”
Askarth opened her mouth, but no words came. There was a silence followed by louder and louder muttering. Pell looked around the circle as if searching for an answer there. Suddenly Shalamith stepped into the center of the circle so that all eyes fell upon her. She raised her hands for silence, and sparks of light flashed from her fingers. “I will open the West Gate. That will be my part in this,” she said in clear musical voice that seemed to fill the clearing.
