Because Lormar was such an inconspicuous place – just farm country, really –most people thought of it as a piece of Portentia. No one argued with them about it; mostly due to the fact that, for the past twenty years or so, the people of Lormar had managed to escape the notice of the King (the prime benefit of which being that they were spared his hefty taxes). The true boundary of Portentia, however, lay some thirty miles away from the Misaria farm. Once it was crossed, the change was all but obvious. The wide, rolling hills gave way to a maze of paved streets, all of which were lined with shops and offices. It was the beginning of Portentia’s trade-centre.
When one stopped to think about it, it was somewhat odd that none had thought to situate Tolin and Nanik beside one another. The hustle and bustle of Tolin gave way for a little once one entered Torrence, which was set more upon education than commerce. Portentia’s only schools were in Torrence; and though usually only the most privileged were able to attend them, they still made a harsh contrast with their neighbouring cities’ whirlwind of trade.
David rode through all of it, impervious as always to the especial calamity of Nanik. Then it was through the Red Forest, and into Delvare – which was not a very large town, but a notably pleasant one. (It was an observation of David’s, that a lack of the former resulted in an abundance of the latter.)
Having finally gotten so close, even though he doubted in his heart that he would find anything very helpful to his chase, he found that his pace was quickening. He hurried directly for Bridgewater Street with hardly a glance to either side, and turned onto it with an inexplicable feeling of expectation fluttering about in his chest.
As he knew he would, he found the stable beside the little red house empty of its usual four horses. He left Wingspeed there, and then went to have a look round the rest of the place. He knew not why he did so, absolutely sure as he was that there was nothing to gain from it, but he made three circles round the entire yard; looking down at the ground, and up into the trees. Of course, he saw nothing. All he succeeded in doing, on his final circuit, was to trip over an iron stake which stuck up oddly out of the ground. He cursed beneath his breath, and limped over to the side door of the house.
Naturally, it was locked. Caring very little for the fact, however, he drew back an elbow, and popped out a pane of glass from the middle of the door. He reached inside and twisted the lock.
He had warned Jade countless times about that door.
“You shouldn’t have glass panes in an entry door,” he would tell her. “Don’t you realise how easy it would be, for someone to break inside?”
She would only laugh. “Who would want to break inside my house, brother?”
“First of all,” said David, “this is Granny’s house. It always will be. Secondly – who wouldn’t want to break inside it? There are four women living here, all alone. You should really do more to protect yourself.”
“I have all the protection I need,” said Jade. She waved a hand through the air, and without touching it, knocked the hammer from David’s hand, which he had been using to fix a broken cabinet.
“Very funny, Jade,” he said, stooping to retrieve his hammer. “But that won’t always be enough.”
“You’re only jealous.”
He gave her a serious look.
“Oh, all right,” she said with a sigh. “We’ll replace the door.”
And now, five years later, David found himself doing exactly what he had warned his sister that others might do. He was not glad of the convenience, for he could have found other ways inside. It only served to make him remember his point, and to prompt a brief surge of anger, at the way in which Jade ever ignored his warnings, and his useful advice.
And who knew what sort of a mess she had gotten herself into this time?
~
Travelling with the merchant woman and her husband (of whose name Helena was not yet sure, as thus far she had only heard him referred to as “old fool”) was something of a tedious experience. The husband would sometimes make an attempt at light or friendly banter, but would be thrust down immediately by the cynical, pessimistic, all-in-all terror of a companion who was known simply as Bethy.
Always, she would stare at Helena. She kept her eyes fixed uncomfortably upon her face, watching her every moment, as though suspicious of her nature or motives. Helena longed to ask after the reason; and wished even more to be able to tell her exactly what she could do with her prying eyes. Yet she resolved that either of these things would result only in her being dumped by the roadside, even farther from her destination than she had been to begin with. For they were still travelling Northwards; though the man behind the reins assured her every few hours that they would be stopping quite soon.
After he had said it about eight times, she ceased to believe him.
So on they went, after a while lapsing into a silence that was much easier than any words they had so far managed to exchange. If the husband said anything, Bethy hollered at him; and if Helena said anything in response to the husband (for Bethy had certainly not opted to say anything at all to her, since those first few minutes in the cart), she was fixed with a deathly glare whipped up especially for her. Helena would only look away; but it is nearly impossible to relax, when one has two hard, mean little eyes fixed upon one’s face.
All the while, the cart drove by familiar landmarks which Helena could recollect having already passed, as she travelled in the opposite direction. After a good deal of them had gone by, she began to feel that her selected mode of transportation had been a horrible mistake.
After two days and nights of the steadily increasing unbearability of silence and scrutiny, the cart arrived at the large market town which was called Birán, and which was located about twenty miles South of Esedd. Helena climbed down to the ground quite gratefully, feeling as though, with perhaps only a few more miles, the muscles of her legs would have been forever locked into their twisted positions.
“Go on an’ do what ye will with yerself,” said Bethy to Helena. “Meet us back in an hour. If ye’re late, we’ll leave without ye.”
Her husband laughed. “Oh, stop that, Bethy. Don’t ye worry, missus – we’ll wait for ye. Just go on and get yerself a nice stretch, an’ maybe a little something to eat.”
Helena smiled at him; but the smile was snuffed clean off her face, when Bethy’s glare fell upon it. She turned about quickly, with only the desire to put, for the moment, as much space as she possibly could between herself and the horrible Bethy.
She walked about, took some drink and a few bites of food, and then meandered along through the long rows of wooden stands as a way to pass the hour. She saw nothing too very spectacular; though she did see several things that were either terribly disgusting, shameful, or frightening.
There was a small boy who stood beside his mother’s yarn stand, eating live worms for a half-lússen per swallow. He held a little can of wriggly, squiggly things in his hand, and would receive a coin into the pouch he had tied about his waist before each consumption. Strangely enough, there was quite a crowd about him (made up, naturally, mostly of adolescents and youths), cheering him on as he dangled the things over his mouth. Helena could not help but stare at him for a moment. (During that moment, she saw him eat three worms, vomit once upon his mother’s shoes, and then receive a nasty stab in the shoulder by one of her knitting needles.)
There was a grown man standing half-naked in front of his own stand, who received much abuse (both verbal and physical) from the passing crowd, but who insisted that it was the only way to demonstrate the effectiveness of his remedy for burns. He kept an iron heated over red coals on the table behind him, and repeatedly pressed it to his stomach and chest – the result of which was, of course, many large and terrible scalds upon his skin. Blisters were growing upon them, and the skin around them was peeling and shedding like that of a snake. After each application of the iron, he spread some of his “homemade” salve upon the wounds. Helena watched, but could not say
that she ever saw any improvement made to his poor skin. She suspected that the fellow was simply insane.
She saw lastly (and afterwards hurried rather quickly back to the cart, even the company of Bethy having been made less dreadful in her own mind, in comparison to what she saw at the end of that last row of stands) an old woman whose stand seemed to hold nothing but herself and a crying infant. She was wrapped in a black cloak, and sat upon a low stool behind the baby, which was laid out across the wood. She sat quite still for some time; and Helena did not know what it was that made her so, but she felt incredibly curious as to what the old woman was doing. So she strayed a little closer to the stand. The old woman looked up at her, and grinned wickedly. Helena felt a quick chill of fear round her heart, but was held mesmerised by the woman’s eyes.
Knowing that she had captured Helena’s attention, the old woman rose from her stool. She did not beckon Helena closer, but only drew a shining blade from the folds of her cloak. “Ten dryas for a miracle,” she said to Helena.
“What?”
Without answering, the old woman raised the hand that held the knife, and brought it rushing down (much to the horrid disbelief of her only spectator) to pierce the baby’s chest. The little voice cried more sharply for a moment; but then the wailing dwindled down to a thick gurgling, and then to nothing at all. Its limbs twitched, and blood poured from its mouth.
But Helena seemed to be the only one watching.
“My grandson,” said the old woman simply, driving the knife even deeper into the body of the infant, who was quite obviously already dead.
Helena was frozen in fear. Screams of horror reverberated around betwixt the walls of her brain, but did not issue forth from her mouth.
The old woman pulled the blood-soaked knife from the baby’s chest, and dropped it down onto the table. Then she closed her eyes, and laid her hands upon the baby, whispering inaudible words into the oblivious crowd.
A moment later, the baby opened its eyes; looked all around, and began to cry once again. Its body was still covered with blood, but the tear which had resulted from the penetration of the knife seemed to have disappeared.
The old woman looked into Helena’s eyes. “Ten dryas for a miracle,” she repeated.
Helena turned and ran.
~
David remained for some days in his Granny’s old house, sleeping fitfully by night, and going by day round all the familiar places which his sister and her friends were known to frequent. He rode back and forth from Delvare to Tolin several times, desperate for some hint as to what his sister’s destination (or, at the very least, the direction of her road) had been. He talked to anyone and everyone who knew, or had ever known, those “odd, somewhat mysterious, but always delightful ladies of Bridgewater Street.”
Or so said Bartholomew the butcher of Lake Street.
After his third day of investigation, David returned to the house for a night of sleep on the cot in his Granny’s parlour. Rather gloomily, he looked all about, remembering how very warm and cosy it had been when Adda Hoppenadle lived there. There had been comfortable furniture, a fine table of oak, and a cheerful fire always blazing in the hearth. After she died, though, and Jade and her friends took to the place, it seemed that with each of David’s visits another piece of furniture had disappeared. “The cost of living,” Jade told him. “Not a thing to be taken lightly.”
It seemed that the only money she and her friends had in those days had been made by selling all of Granny’s nice things. Though David’s chief concern at the moment was finding Jade, and bringing her home safe, he still could not honestly say that he had ever forgiven her for desecrating Granny’s beautiful house.
Trying not to notice how bare, ugly and unfamiliar the room had become, David lay down upon the cot, and closed his eyes. He could have slept in the room off to the left, with its grand bed (presumably the only thing left of Granny’s original collection) and bright morning sunshine; or he could have taken either of the beds in the large room to the right, in which Jade herself had passed her nights. Yet he wished to remain there in the centre of things, in the case that anything were to happen. Strange and silly, this thought seemed at first; yet he was thoroughly surprised when, in the small, grey hours of the morning, there came the loud sound of the side door being thrown open. He bolted upright on the cot, and his pillow was lost to the floor.
“Who’s there?” he shouted thickly, reaching under the blanket to grasp the hilt of his sword. Identical to Jade’s, it was, down to the length of the blade and the shape of the hilt.
“Who’s there?” someone asked in response.
“What is this –”
He went round the little bed, so that he might see into the kitchen. The side door hung open; and a strange woman stood in front of the sink. She held a suitcase in her right hand, and looked upon David with weary eyes.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Who are you?”
“I asked you first.”
“What does that matter?”
“You can’t answer a question with a question. I asked your name, and you must tell it to me.”
“My name is Helena.” She paused, and bit her lip. “I have been known by two surnames; but whichever I give you, it will matter very little. You would not know me either way.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” said David, letting his sword fall to his side. “But I would like to know what you are doing here.”
“What are you doing here?”
He sighed. “Shall we spare ourselves this game?”
“I suppose.”
“And what makes you think, Helena of two surnames, that you can simply walk uninvited into others’ homes?”
She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “Is this your house?”
“No. It was my grandmother’s.”
“Your grandmother’s?”
“If you only keep repeating every word I do say, then we shall never get anywhere, shall we?”
“I suppose not.”
“Then for pity’s sake, woman – what do you do here?”
“I do not think that I like your tone of voice.”
He rolled his eyes, and said, “Pardon me.”
“You are not pardoned. Anyway, I am looking for my sister. I was told that she lives here.”
And with that, she proceeded to look all about, as if thinking that the sister she spoke of might step forth suddenly from some unexpected place.
“What is her name?” asked David.
“Heidi Bastian.”
He breathed a great sigh of relief, and threw his sword back onto the cot. “How you worried me!” he cried, passing his hands over his face.
“I expect that to mean that you know her,” said the woman.
“She is a friend of my sister’s.”
“Oh.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you not even going to ask my name?”
“Even if you told me, I would not know who you are. Neither do I know your sister.”
“You would, if I told you her name.”
“I assure you I would not.”
He sat down upon the cot, and looked at the woman strangely. “You cannot be very close to Heidi,” he said. “I cannot imagine her having told you nothing of Jade.”
Brief anger flickered across the woman’s face. “That is none of your business,” she said.
“I suppose not.”
She set her suitcase down on the floor, and then straightened up to look all around again. She seemed very tired, and very lost.
Sympathy took hold of David, and he stood up to take the woman’s cloak from her. He led her by the arm to the nearest bedroom, and left her in the doorway. He pointed to the bed under the window, and said, “I think that one is Heidi’s. Why don’t you rest a while?”
She eyed him nervously. “I don’t even know you,” she said. “I’m not going to sleep in a strange house, while a strange man sits in the parlour.”
He shrugged. “It is
all the same to me.”
He went back to the cot, and lay down upon it. Then he retrieved his pillow from the floor, and tucked it under his head.
“I am going back to sleep,” he said. “You can do whatever you like.”
He spied on the woman with a half-open eye, and smiled to himself when, after a furtive glance in his direction, she passed into the bedroom. She closed the door behind her. He could hear her twist the lock.
Part the Third
Episode V
XXXI: Demands
Though the road was long and hard, what with all of the snow that had fallen, Lila hurried with all due haste towards Eredor, pausing very little and sleeping hardly at all. She felt that something of great importance was awaiting her; and that it would not wait for long.
When she finally reached the North Gate, she was swimming in a haze of weariness and confusion, nodding on and off even as she sat atop Sonya, and mulling constantly over the things which Aponé had said to her. She still did not much understand them, and was beginning to wonder if she ever would.
At the gate, she scarcely understood that she was at the gate; and it took the voices of each guard who stood before it, mingling together in a kind of harsh discord, to alert her of her location. Surely, she did not think that she had made it there so quickly. No – she thought herself to be somewhere out amidst the plains, riding through the snow under a bright yellow sky, looking up at it ever and anon to assist her in her fight for wakefulness.
She looked up at it now, wondering at the perfectly-shaped, soft-looking white clouds, as the soldiers of her Army spoke to her in near-shouts. When she heard the hum of their voices in her ears, and looked down to investigate the source of the noise, she was altogether shocked to see them standing there before her.
Broken Earth Page 35
