Fountains of Mercy

by Alma T. C. Boykin

  He crossed back through town, alert for backflow through the sewers, and for other things. Nothing seemed to be getting through the guards and gates, and he reminded himself to repeat the warning to the people not to flush, but to use containers for the time being, at least until the river dropped a little. He found a curious crowd gathering to inspect the trebuchet damage. Pete skirted the group and went up the wall once more. I’m certainly getting my exercise today!

  He looked over the top of the wall and felt his jaw drop and his mouth go dry. “Holy shit.” The Donau Novi lapped a meter up the side of the highroad, and as the sun broke through the clouds, he caught a glimpse of a shimmer to the west and south, at the foot of the little ridge. “Glasses?”

  “Here, boss.” Arturo loaned him his, and Pete zoomed onto the farthest setting. A white tongue raced across the pastures, coming to the farthest fields of the Heritage Center. “The Lord still works miracles.”

  “That He does.”

  Pete lowered the glasses and looked at the carnage on the highroad. Dead people and animals lay here and there, and the remains of the trebuchet hung precariously off the edge of the road. “Are you sending out a follow-up force?”

  “Not for a while. Most of the rabble tried to flee once we began shooting. A few shot back, but we had more disciplined fire. And then the river arrived and brought panic with it. They began fighting each other for space on the highroad, and we took care of the survivors.” Arturo turned his back on the scene. “I don’t want to hear screams like that again. In space, you don’t hear the screams.”

  “If the Lord wills, and word gets around, we won’t have to do this again.” Dear Most High, may we never have to do this again, nor our children.

  Of the fifty women from the Sisters’ farm, forty had made it into the city. Some had been too old to flee and had taken their chances on staying behind. The body of the woman who’d gotten the mercy shot washed away, never to be found.

  “We don’t have any valuables but our books and liturgical items,” their leader, Sister Maria Sabrina, said. “Mother Kiara took most of the books and crop with her when she went to start a new House south of Starland, leaving us with enough to get through the winter before we relocated.”

  “You are welcome to stay here,” Father Mou said. “Especially if any of you have nursing or elder care skills.”

  Sister Maria pointed to the sisters in the wagon. “They do, and many of us can sew fabric as well as sow crops, and do other things. Sister Martin is a carpenter, and two are vet technicians.”

  “You are welcome,” Pete agreed. “I’m Pete Babenburg, the acting head of Vindobona.”

  Sr. Maria looked around, as if searching for someone. “Who built the bridge? The company told us there’d never be a bridge, because of environmental preservation, but rumor reached a few months ago that someone had been working on one, and we took a chance once your messenger told us about Donaupas and Basileus.”

  “Gerald White, over there, did,” Fr. Jan Mou pointed to the engineer.

  “Truly, he is a saint among men!”

  Well, his wife might disagree, but I’m not going to argue right now, Pete thought. And I’m not going to tell him, either. It’ll just go to his head.

  The last of the floodwaters receded three weeks later, but the stench lingered in places until the first frost. An initial survey revealed that the Heritage Center survived, aside from what the looters had gotten to or that had been mined. The complex sat just high enough that the water missed it. Although sand had ruined the fields closet to the river, the flood left lots of timber, and even some stone, for salvage, as if in exchange. Of Raymond Young’s army, little trace remained.

  “Have you found Young?” Pete had inquired two days after the battle.

  Arturo and Ann exchanged a private look. Art planted his forearms on the table and leaned forward. “Some of the refugees and the tunnel rats did. We’ve confirmed the body’s identity.”

  “He died in the battle? Huh.”

  The expression in Ann’s eyes made the hair on Pete’s neck stand up, and he leaned away despite the width of the table between them. “We confirmed the identity of the body. I wouldn’t worry about it, sir.” Her tone suggested that Pete really, truly did not want to know the story.

  “Very well.” He glanced down at his files and changed the topic. “Gerald says the bridge footings on the far side of the river are intact, but the roadbed beyond’s going to need some work.”

  “What became of the ballista?” Cynthia asked a few weeks later at a general council meeting.

  Martin didn’t look up from his notes. “As Tom warned, physics got it.”

  Helga Starhemburg sighed a little at her husband’s terseness. “A ballista is a giant crossbow, so when they fired the first rock forward, the reverse thrust dug the stabilizing bar into the soft ground and the thing flipped over. Ruined it and smashed two men, or so I heard.”

  Martin sighed in turn. “Dear, by now everyone should know what a ballista does.”

  “This is not a class and no, they do not, dear,” Helga replied. Cynthia and Pete smiled at each other and held hands under the table.

  Kos Peilov decided to visit the city in late winter. Karina announced that she intended to stay “in the warm” with the youngest children, and Carl had just married Vanessa Kuyper, so he agreed to remain on the farm and watch the animals. Tildie and Basil packed their warmest things and went east with Kos, riding in a ski-equipped wagon. They’d decided to bring along several bales of fleece and sacks of nuts to use as trade goods. Kos also had copies of a few books they’d printed out and made duplicates of. “The city government’s paying well for books, especially practical or religious ones, or so the rumor tree has it,” Kos had informed them.

  The trip passed quickly. Basil had not gotten to see much of the world between Kos Peilov’s lands and ColLandPlat, and she stared around at the hills and the grey, ice-edged river. Snow covered much of the ground. Despite the excitement the past spring, the weather had stayed mild until a month after the winter solstice, when winter arrived with harsh ferocity, as if to make up for being late. “Good season in the ground,” Kos observed. “Not too many bugs can winter over, either.”

  Basil just rested and enjoyed the four-day trip. Sleep while you can. We’ll be lambing before much longer, and then no sleep for me, Carl, or the shepherds. The horses clopped along, pulling the wagon-sleigh up one final hill. Kos stopped the horses and pointed with his stock whip. Basil exclaimed, “That’s Vindobona?”

  Beside her, Tildie laughed. “Goodness, it looks like something from one of the children’s story holos!” And it did, with walls, and watch towers, and snow all around. Basil saw smoke rising into the afternoon air from a cluster of buildings, perhaps a small village, between them and the city. Feathers of cloud draped the pale blue sky, and a faint shadow extended ahead of them. “An hour at best and we’ll be there,” Tildie said, sounding happy.

  Kos took the hint and clucked the big horses back into motion. Paul Krehbiel’s mare and gelding snorted and plodded on. Kos had borrowed them to show in the city. They needed to start looking for other bloodlines to breed into the Peilov-Donatello Bend horses, which was another reason Kos had brought Basil, so she could look at all sorts of animals for later spring purchase or stud rental. She burrowed back under her blanket and watched the new-to-her world go by.

  They entered the city just before the sun touched the top of the hills to the west. The walls cut the wind, and the bustle and sound of voices and hooves filled Basil’s ears. I had no idea . . . I though it was a little bigger than the main village at Donatello Bend, or Crownpoint. This is a real city! There were shops with glass windows, and lots of people, and even what looked like fountains, now turned off and drained for the winter. Basil caught herself staring and shook a little, then had to laugh.

  Tildie gave her a funny look, and Basil told the older wife, “I was thinking that this is a big city.”

&nbs
p; The other woman smiled a little sadly. “Well, it is now. If the stories about ColLandPlat, New Benin, Delhi II, and the others are true.”

  The sledge creaked to a halt as the road opened into a market square. That is, Basil assumed it was a market, since people had tables set up around the edges and were haggling over things. She saw a glimpse of a corral at the opposite end of the area. A man in a dark blue coat came up to the wagon. “Greetings! Are you here to sell?”

  “Yes, or trade. And to look at livestock. We have nuts and shahma fleeces, and undyed shahma yarn.”

  “Have you sold here before, sir?”

  Kos shook his head, and the man pointed to a dark-blue portable building at the edge of the market. “You’ll need to get the rules and a sales tag from the market manager. Food is sold over by the fountain, and fleeces, yarn, and cloth are over here. You can get a map at the manager’s office.”

  Kos gave the booth and the man both suspicious looks. “And if I don’t care to register?”

  “You can still sell, but if someone asks you to leave, you have to, and you won’t be protected from theft as well. There’s no fee, but we, the city, likes to know who’s supposed to be here in the market and who’s scouting to cause mischief.”

  That sounds reasonable, more reasonable than anything the Company ever did, Basil thought.

  Kos considered, then handed Basil the reins. “Stay here.” He got down from the wagon and walked stiffly over to the manager’s box. He returned a very few minutes later, before Basil had time to do more than glance around this end of the market square. “That wasn’t so bad.” He sounded grudgingly pleased. “Basil, I’m going to go look at the animals. You and Tildie sell from the wagon, over there,” he pointed to a gap between two stalls, “and I’ll be back shortly. I’ll also find the overnight place for visitors.”

  The women shrugged, and Basil clicked her tongue, cuing the horses into motion. Once they parked, Tildie lowered the back of the wagon and began spreading out their wares, while Basil unhitched the horses and led them to a watering trough. She let them drink a little, then took them back to the wagon and fed them some of the grain they’d brought. Several buyers stood at the end of the wagon-sleigh by the time Basil returned, and Tildie seemed to be holding her own. Basil, unoccupied for the moment, pulled her spindle and wool bag out from the box in the wagon and began working as she watched the people coming and going.

  They seemed, if not prosperous, certainly not starving. She watched several individuals with miniature dung carts collecting the leavings of the animals passing through the market square. Even those in the plainest and most patched winter coveralls appeared clean and healthy. Well, we don’t have any major diseases yet, and this city is better off than some of the others. I wonder if the stories about the engineers kicking the company administrators out is true? And if the battle was as hard fought as that traveling merchant said. I wonder what it looks like after a battle? Lord, please may I never know. What the Book of Judges described didn’t sound all that pleasant, and the bits she’d seen in holos, or heard about from the reconquest of Deepak’s World, scared her. Lord, please may I never have to shoot people ever again, please. She still had nightmares of the man trying to crawl through the orchard.

  She shook herself out of her woolgathering to find two plainly-dressed women, one in a very simple brown dress and cap, and one in a black dress with a bit of white trim at the collar and on her hat, and an elderly-looking man, watching her with avid interest. “Your pardon, gentle lady,” the man began. “But are you making thread?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m using a drop spindle.” The attention made her a little uncomfortable, but the people seemed harmless.

  “Could you, please, if you don’t mind, do it slower so I can see how it works, please?” one of the women asked. Her timidity, and very plain dress, intrigued Basil. Are you his junior wife? Or a daughter?

  “I think I can, but if you go too slow, the thread won’t spin well.” Basil drew a large handful of wool from her sack and raised her hands to chest height, then began feeding the wool into the twist from there. It felt awkward, and as soon as the drop weight reached her knees, she stopped and had to wind the thread on the carrier. It seemed tight and even, so Basil repeated the process as the women peered intently at her hands and at the weighted drop spindle.

  “Why do you do it like that?” The second, less-starkly dressed woman asked. “Does it work better than using a machine?”

  “Not really. A spinning machine makes tighter thread faster, and is much better for linen and cotton, but I’m on the go most of the day, and this lets me work while I’m doing other things like watching the children.”

  Tildie’s voice interrupted. “Baa, there’s a man here asking about dying the yarn. Save me.”

  “Excuse me,” and the trio nodded and let her go take care of business. They walked away deep in conversation about something, and Basil wondered if they intended to try spinning for themselves. “Yes, sir,” she asked the man Tildie pointed to.

  “I noticed all your yarn and fleeces are undyed. Do you have any for sale that have colors?”

  “No, sir. We’re working on it, but until we can get consistent color in an entire batch, and something more than dark brown, we’re not going to sell anything but the plain wool.” She hesitated, thinking for a moment before adding, “We do have a good dark blue, but the mordant makes the cloth smell very strongly for several days after we finish dying the batch.” She caught Tildie giving her a raised-eyebrow look and winked back. What do you want me to say? That it stinks so much we have to leave everything outside for a week, at least, to air before we can even think about bringing the yarn or fabric back into the building, even the barn? After the second try, the Peilov women and the Krehbiels had agreed that it was work best done in summer, outdoors, by people with allergies or head colds!

  “Ah, pity. I have a tailor shop, and we’ve had requests for bright red. We have fabric enough for a while, but I’m trying to plan ahead.”

  “I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, sir, and see what we can devise,” Basil assured him. He bought four skeins of yarn and left, satisfied.

  By the time Kos finally returned from looking at livestock, his wives had sold all the yarn and nuts, and over half the bundles of fleeces. “Any trouble?” He asked, giving Tildie a peck on the cheek.

  She rolled her eyes, although Basil wasn’t sure if it was at her husband or the problem customer. “One woman threatened to have us thrown out of the city for selling dangerous, indigenous products without Company permission. Apparently paperhull nuts are not edible and will kill you on contact.”

  “Are they, Baa?” Kos asked with a wink.

  She sniffed and busied herself winding yarn. She’d almost filled the carrier and needed to tie off and switch out.

  “Anyway, several people bustled her off, and one apologized. Apparently she’s not exactly in her right mind. She’s one of a group that thinks the company will return any day now, and that everyone needs to keep living as if the Company were still here, or we’ll all get punished for not filling out forms and for breaking the rules.”

  Kos stroked the end of his beard and looked thoughtful. “Interesting,” he said quietly, after a glance around for potential customers. “I overheard someone proclaiming that the Holy One sent the auroras as a punishment for some sin.” He, Tildie, and Basil all shrugged. Disasters bring the nuts out of the woodpile, Basil thought. Half the prophets warned about disasters looming because of disobedience, and the other half explained that the disaster happened because people didn’t listen to the first group.

  “Since the market is closing for the day, I’ll hitch the horses and we’ll go to the lodging house. I found some potential animals, Basil, but nothing worth buying right at this instant.”

  The lodging met Tildie’s standards for cleanliness, although she didn’t think the food was as good as what she made. “Of course not, dear,” Kos assured her. “No one can cook as w
ell as you do.” Tildie’s eyes narrowed but her husband kept his serious and sincere look. For her part, Basil was wondering where the cook found fresh herbs this late in the year. When the young man serving them came back to remove the dishes, she asked.

  “The Mennonites at the Heritage Center built hothouses for the city. They tap the extra heat from the municipal building. The mayor’s wife, Mrs. Babenburg, and the chief engineer’s son came up with the idea.”

  It must be nice to live where the fusion generators still work, and you can heat entire buildings and have electric lights and machines, Basil sighed. But for how much longer would such luxuries last?

  “How much longer will we have fusion power for everything?” Pete wondered aloud.

  Don turned off his mini-computer and walked over to where Pete leaned against the wall, watching the generator do its thing through the heavy glass viewing port. “A generation, probably. Twenty five, thirty years? We’ll lose the relays, wiring, light bulbs, and other machines first. You know that we’re down to one rover?”

  “Yes. Cynthia says we should have a funeral when it finally breaks down for good.” He’d never admit it, but he wondered if it wasn’t such a bad idea, having a formal ceremony to mark the final, full return to animal power.

  “Wolfgang would be happy to write the eulogy.” Don’s partner occasionally wrote poems that made a teenager’s odes to dead trees sound positively upbeat and cheerful. “That Teutonic darkness showing or something like that.”

  It’s probably more a delayed reaction to having to write chipper ad copy for the Company for so many years, Pete thought to himself.

  Marie Montoya, Art and Ann’s adopted daughter, caught the two men as they got back to the administrative “palace,” as some people had tagged the official complex. “Sir, not to bother you, but Terry says that one Kossiusco Peilov from Crownpoint is staying at the lodge near the central market. Terry registered Peilov to sell wool and nuts at the market this afternoon, and asked around, since he knew you’d been wanting to get in contact with him.” Her words flowed out like a stream in spring spate, and Don turned away to hide a grin. Marie still couldn’t believe that Arturo, Ann, and the others wouldn’t toss her back out into the wilds, and tried a little too hard at times. This was one of those times.