Shards of History

by Rebecca Roland

  Malia frowned. “You’re not to come back until tonight.”

  Dalibor held his arms up, palms facing forward. “I’m just standing here.”

  Malia set the basket just inside the storage room tucked to one side of the hearth. She could stand in the center of the room and reach all the shelves. The cool interior smelled of dried meat, rosemary, sage, and dried peppers, and faintly of pecans. It held all her food and her cooking utensils. She peeked out to make sure Dalibor remained on the ledge.

  From a shelf in the main room, she pulled down a deerskin skirt, a cup holding beads, and a bone needle and thread. She sat and dipped her head, focusing on her work and doing her best to ignore Dalibor. The skirt fanned on her lap, she began replacing lost beads. They depicted the Velebit clan symbol, a fish jumping out of the river. As she worked, she listened for the creak of the ladder to announce Dalibor’s departure. She sewed on ten beads, and still he stood in the doorway.

  She sighed. “Are you going to stand there all afternoon?”

  “Malia, I want a chance to show you I can be a good husband. Breaking the bowl was a mistake. I will apologize a hundred times if that’s what it takes. Please don’t punish me for one stupid act.” His brows furrowed. “Let me earn your love. Give me another chance.” His voice rang with sincerity.

  Dalibor was like one of the harvest dancers, taking on the traits of the animal he represented as he danced around the fire. Only now he took on the role of apologetic husband and wore it like a second skin, but Malia had no doubts he’d shed it as soon as it suited him. He had shown his true self that night when he’d shattered the bowl. The bright anger in his eyes had been directed at Malia like a nocked arrow.

  She kneaded the taut muscles in her neck. One little thought niggled at her. Maybe she was wrong about him, just as she had been wrong about Jeguduns. Everybody made mistakes and did things they regretted. Spending a few days and nights away might have been just what Dalibor needed.

  “Malia,” Dalibor interrupted her thoughts. “Tell me the truth. I have to know.” He took a deep breath. “Are you doing this because there’s someone else?”

  Her blossoming good will shriveled. “Do you really think I’m capable of violating one of our most important laws?”

  “No, but …” He fidgeted. “But maybe, in your mind and heart, if not with your body—”

  “Oh!” Malia’s hands curled into fists, and her lips pressed tight together. “You … I can’t believe you. I was actually starting to think I could forgive you. But you don’t know me at all. Not at all.” She pointed out the door. “You need to leave.”

  Dalibor remained firmly planted. “The thought of you with somebody else drives me crazy. I would do anything for you, anything. I want to be everything for you.” He started forward, caught himself, and stopped. “Tell me right now that there isn’t anybody else, and I’ll believe you, and I’ll never ask you again.”

  “There’s nobody else. There never has been. Not in my mind, heart, or body.” Not even Enuwal? questioned a little voice in her mind. Shush, she thought. No, not even the healer. She had never allowed her dreams to take her there. Even as she’d been recovering under Enuwal’s care, she’d been promised to Dalibor.

  He studied her face, then nodded. “That’s all I needed to hear. I’ll be back later with your mother.”

  He climbed down the ladder, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Malia sat, took up the skirt, but she couldn’t focus on the beadwork. Finally, she gave up on it.

  Instead, she picked up a broom and began sweeping the floor, starting in the storage room and working her way out. Thoughts of Dalibor and her mother chased what she knew of the Jeguduns and the Outsiders. By the time she finished the chore, she was no closer to sorting out her thoughts, but at least the floor was clean.

  * * *

  The ladder’s creak announced someone’s arrival. Malia’s hands froze in the midst of crushing some of the shattered pottery she meant to use in a new bowl. It couldn’t be Dalibor already.

  Vedran’s head poked above the ledge. He gave her a wide smile. Although he’d regained most of the weight he’d lost during his recent five day fast, the experience had removed the last traces of boyish softness from his face. He had acquired a seriousness to match his new status as a man of the village. Malia missed his silliness.

  He held up a line of fish. “Would you grab these?”

  Malia set aside her work and hurried to take the fish. Vedran climbed onto the ledge. His hand rose unconsciously to check his braid. That, too, was new, an outward sign of the tests he’d survived.

  “What are these for?” Malia asked.

  “Oh, ah, I heard our mother and Dalibor were coming over for dinner, and I thought you could use these.”

  “But there are four fish.” Malia knew exactly what Vedran was after, but he was going to have to work for it.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, I think they’d really like that dish you make where you coat the fish in pecans and then cover them with pepper sauce.”

  “And?”

  A little whine crept into his voice. “You know it’s my favorite.”

  Malia grinned. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”

  Vedran rubbed his hands together and stepped inside. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  With his help, Malia made quick work of cleaning and filleting the fish. Vedran ducked out to bring the unused portions to whoever was working in the fields to use as fertilizer. He reappeared just as she finished crushing the pecans fine.

  She coated the fillets with the crushed nuts and set them aside. Then she cleaned and readied green peppers and husk tomatoes for the sauce.

  As she worked at the hearth, Vedran inspected two of her newer pieces sitting on a shelf. He held one, a pitcher with a fluted neck and double handles. Malia had fired it so it came out russet in color, and then, with black pigment, she’d painted five fish around the base.

  “You like that one,” she said.

  Vedran nodded. “I admit it, I’m impressed.”

  A genuine compliment from her younger brother? He had changed in many ways. She could get used to the new him. “Good. It’s yours.”

  He studied it anew, a little smile playing about his lips. “Thank you.” He set it gently on the shelf. “I didn’t see you last night.”

  Oh, yes. The men’s council had announced to the entire village what had happened at the falls. “Dalibor found me before the meeting. He told me what happened.”

  “Did he tell you what the council decided to do next?”

  “No.”

  “Paski already sent messengers south.”

  Malia looked up from the sauce. “Why did the clan father do that?”

  “He’s certain the Jeguduns are tampering with the river. He thinks we should seize the falls and the surrounding area, so he’s calling for all able-bodied men to march north.” He squared his shoulders. “And this time they’ll have to take me. They can’t use my recovery from fasting as an excuse.”

  As Vedran spoke, tightness grew in Malia’s chest until she found it hard to take a deep breath. She had to figure out a way to tell the council the truth behind the river. But even then, they would probably insist on engaging the Outsiders in battle. She imagined hordes of Outsiders astride those hideous flying lizards sweeping down on Taakwa men and shuddered. “But what convinced them the Jeguduns are to blame?”

  “What else could it be? Rainfall has been scant, but not to the point that it would cause the river to fall to half its normal level.” With his chin, he pointed to the pot. “The sauce.”

  It was bubbling vigorously. Malia stirred it back into submission. Every time she leaned over the pot, the aroma of peppers stung her nostrils like ant bites. She leaned back.

  “Some messengers have come back already,” Vedran continued. “The plan is for men from the southernmost villages to march north, adding men as they go. The first groups should start this way tomorrow.”

&n
bsp; Malia had to warn Tuvin. She wanted to avoid anyone, Taakwa or Jegudun, from getting hurt. Nobody had been killed that first trip to the falls. How many men would end up traveling north this time, prepared for battle? She ran through the numbers quickly. Roughly ten thousand men would descend upon the falls. How many Jeguduns were there?

  She stirred the bubbling sauce. The peppers and husk tomatoes had almost cooked down. Soon it would be ready for the fillets.

  Tuvin wouldn’t be able to get home in time to warn the Jeguduns, not by air nor by foot. Maybe there was some sort of signal he could use.

  “Malia? The fish?”

  “Hmm? Oh, sorry.”

  She slipped the fillets into the pot. In moments, her home smelled of roasted pecans and peppers. Next, with Vedran’s help, she spread a blanket on the floor. She took four wide, shallow bowls from the shelves and set them beside the hearth.

  “Your mind has been somewhere else,” Vedran said.

  “Yes.” Malia placed four wooden spoons next to the bowls.

  Vedran sat to one side, out of the way of her bustling preparations. He picked at a corner of the blanket, twirling a loose thread. “You’ve been thinking about Dalibor.”

  Malia checked the fillets. Almost done. “I suppose you agree with our mother about my taking him back.”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  Vedran hesitated, then said, “There’s something about him I don’t like.”

  Before the night she’d sent Dalibor from her home, Malia might have given little heed to what her brother just said. But now she was prepared to listen. She peeked outside. The village center was buzzing with people walking and talking and with children playing, but there was no sign of her mother or Dalibor. She sat cross-legged beside her brother. “What do you mean?”

  He let go of the loose thread and spread his arms, palms up. “It’s a bunch of little things. He’ll put me down in subtle ways, but he’s careful to do it when nobody else is around.”

  “What else?”

  “Lately he’s been asking me a lot of questions about when you were sick and we were in Posalo. He wants details about Enuwal.”

  The words weighed her down. “When was the last time he asked about Enuwal?”

  “Before he went to the falls.” Vedran resumed fidgeting with the thread, twisting it hard.

  “What else?” Malia asked again.

  “It’s nothing tangible. But … there’s something unpleasant about him.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s like he’s been pretending to be somebody else, and the real Dalibor is lurking just beneath the surface. I tried bringing it up with our mother this morning, but she doesn’t see anything bad in Dalibor. Or she chooses not to see it.”

  Malia had been thinking much the same thing herself. And she suspected her mother felt something similar, but she had the entire village to think of.

  The ladder creaked. A moment later, Dalibor climbed onto the ledge and stepped inside. He left his rolled sleeping mat, clothes, and weapons just inside the door in a small heap. He and Vedran exchanged cautious nods in greeting. Then Dalibor settled on the floor.

  Malia opened her mouth to protest Dalibor’s blatant entrance into her home, then realized she couldn’t. Lavender and pink tinged the sky, marking the near end of the day. According to the clan mother, he had every right to be here now. She sighed.

  “Something smells good,” he said.

  Malia went to the hearth and fiddled with the food so she’d have something to do with her hands. “Vedran brought trout.”

  Dalibor turned to him. “It’s been tough lately, what with the water receding. How many did you catch?”

  “Four.”

  He nodded. “Good work.” But he said it absently, already turning from Vedran.

  “Did you see my mother out there?” Malia asked.

  As if in reply, the ladder creaked again. Dalibor and Vedran rose hastily to their feet. Dalibor stepped outside to help the clan mother onto the ledge.

  Malia began filling the bowls with food and setting them out.

  When Malia’s mother stepped inside, Dalibor pressed his hands together and said the formal greeting of a man to the clan mother, “My life in your hands.”

  She waved aside his greeting and sat on the blanket with a huff. Dalibor and Vedran joined her. Malia sat to her mother’s right.

  Her mother dipped her spoon into the bowl, scooping up a bit of the pepper and husk tomato sauce with a piece of fish. She breathed it in first, reminding Malia of how Tuvin had sniffed at the dried venison she’d brought him.

  I have to get back to him and tell him the men are headed to the falls. But first she had to get through this dinner. She clasped her hands together in the folds of her skirt and squeezed as if that could prompt her mother to move things along faster.

  Her mother eased the spoon of food into her mouth, chewed, tilted her head to one side, then said, “You burned the sauce a little.”

  Vedran popped a heaping spoonful into his mouth. “It’s delicious,” he muttered around a mouthful. He gasped a few times, apparently trying to cool the hot food in his mouth.

  Malia’s appetite had disappeared, but she ate anyway, taking small bites.

  Her mother chattered about the marriage she’d arranged that morning. “The couple had known one another for a while already. In fact, the Chokar girl had approached me in the spring and asked if it was possible they could be married. Based on their families’ lineages, I saw no reason why not, so I agreed.” She wiped the bowl clean with her spoon. “And speaking of marriage…”

  Malia set her half-eaten meal down. Her stomach knotted up. Across from her, Dalibor folded his hands together in his lap. Only the blanching of his knuckles belied his otherwise calm exterior.

  Vedran sprang to his feet, gathering the dishes. “I’ll bring some water to wash these.” He piled the dishes beside the hearth, then hastily climbed down the ladder.

  Malia’s mother readjusted her seat. She muttered, “I used to think my mother was making it up when she said she’d get stuck in one position if she stayed in it too long.” She sighed. “All right. I spoke with both of you this morning, and I’ve had plenty of others willing to give their unsolicited opinions.” She frowned momentarily. “Malia, I was harsh with you this morning.”

  That would be the closest her mother ever came to apologizing.

  She continued, “And while I still stand by what I said, I realize also that you are unhappy. So my solution is this: you will take Dalibor back into your home until the winter season begins. The day we celebrate the harvest, if you tell me you still want to end your marriage with Dalibor, I will grant it to you, without question.”

  Malia’s hand clenched her knee. So she would get what she wanted, but first she had to go through another season and a half with Dalibor. She couldn’t help but notice the timing. By the time harvest came, Dalibor should have helped stock food for many families. But that was a long time to take care around him so as not to stir his temper. Could she last that long?

  Her mother turned to Dalibor next. “And you will respect your wife. If she tells you something, you will believe her. If she doesn’t want your touch, you’ll obey. If she tells you she wants silence, you won’t speak. Do you understand?”

  Dalibor’s face had darkened and pinched as the clan mother spoke, but at her question he merely pressed his hands together and said humbly, “My life in your hands. I will do as you say.”

  Her mother nodded. “It’s settled then. Dalibor, there are several families that need help with food stocks. Tomorrow you’ll begin by hunting for them.”

  At least he would be out of the house and out of Malia’s way if he had to help hunt for several families. It would give her time to warn Tuvin of the men approaching the cliffs, and maybe together they could work out a plan for stopping them. It would require them taking down the Outsiders’ dam. How to do that … maybe a diversion coupled with several Jeguduns re
moving the dam. But nothing would stop the Outsiders from just building it back up. No, they needed to drive them away, and she couldn’t imagine any way of doing that without a large number of people. Why did it always come back to a war? There had to be a way to get rid of the Outsiders without an all out fight.

  “Malia!” The exasperation in her mother’s voice let Malia know she’d been called a couple of times already.

  “Sorry, mother, I was just lost in thought.”

  Her mother’s lips thinned. “That much was obvious. As I said, I’m going home.”

  Dalibor hastened to his feet to help her stand. Once Malia’s mother had made it down the ladder, Dalibor placed his clothes and weapons in their old places, then leaned his sleeping mat against the wall. He smiled at Malia, but it did not touch his eyes.

  A shiver ran down her spine. She covered it by cleaning up from dinner. She hoped there were many families that needed Dalibor’s help over the next few months.

  Chapter 7

  Kushtrim lay in the dark, head pillowed on his arm, staring at the tent’s roof. Beside him slept an unmentionable. The cloying remnants of their earlier coupling filled the air. Dried sweat made his skin sticky.

  The unmentionable’s rhythmic, gentle snores filled the space, reminding Kushtrim of the years he’d slept next to his wife. This woman might be able to warm his bedroll and occupy his time, but no woman could fill his life as his wife Ashkati had.

  He dragged his thoughts back to the problem of getting through the barrier. The Jegudun he’d freed had never come back. Maybe she’d died, or maybe she’d left the others to their fate so she could save herself. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were down to two Jeguduns. Kushtrim had fulfilled his promise to kill the other one when the female didn’t return.

  He rolled onto his side and propped his head in one hand. With the other he caressed the unmentionable’s hair. If he pulled a few straw-colored strands over her face just so, she could pass for Ashkati. He tended to stay away from the more exotic unmentionables, but many of his men preferred the heavily tattooed, fierce southerners or the northerners with strange appetites for both food and coupling.