Firethorn (55 page)

When I looked back I saw they had not done with killing. Riders on the slope herded the crowd uphill. On the tourney field, they chased drudges down one by one. I should stay in the thicket and hide. I was safe there.

One moment I determined to kill him, and the next I dithered. A straw was stiffer than my resolve. Why should it be hard to kill a man? I knew how it felt. I'd given myself to Galan, and Galan had killed. Hadn't I felt the elation, the lunge, the thrust? Now the horror of it came unbidden and I was weak.

I'd seen the Blood make meat of us, meat and offal. It didn't trouble them at all.

If he was dying anyway, there was no need.

Suppose he lived. There'd be no better chance.

I pushed through tall swamp rush. The ground was soft. I stepped from one tussock to the next and the mud squelched between my toes. The seep had no open water, not even a puddle, but water oozed up everywhere. I knelt in a clearing where stanchmoss and goosecress and slue cabbage grew, and my skirts were soaked to the knees.

I set the helmet down next to me and scooped up muddy water in my hands to drink. When I'd drunk my fill, I pressed the helmet into the mire to let water lap over the rim.

Then I saw what token Sire Rodela had carried to the tourney inside his helmet: short wiry copper hair on a scrap of flesh—my own flesh—stitched to the leather with a waxed thread. He hadn't dared to wear it on his crest, as he'd worn the trophy he took from Sire Bizco. But he had worn it nevertheless, and it was worse to me that he kept it inside, close to his own skin.

Rage came unsummoned then, and I shook with it.

I tore the flesh free of the helmet, and picked out the bits of hair and skin left under the threads. I found it hard to touch what he'd stolen from me, but I tucked the remnant under my bodice. I'd burn it when there was time.

The water was brown, flecked with bits of chaff, and it grew ruddy when it mingled with Sire Rodela's blood. A water strider slipped into the helmet and I flicked it away.

I set the helmet down against a tuft of sedge. There were stones everywhere and it wasn't hard to find what I sought: a smooth stone, nearly flat but for a dip in the center like the hollow of a palm, and a round rough stone that fit my hand. Mortar and pestle. I had carried the scraps of my headcloth with me. Now I spread them on the ground. The priest of Rift had sliced the headcloth into three pieces with one cut. One scrap still had a twist knotted into it, and through the linen I felt the shriveled berries of the dwale. I emptied the dwale into the hollow of the stone: eight berries. I wasn't sure it would be enough.

I spat on the berries and ground them, I spat again and ground hard, and Sire Rodela's face was under the pestle. The black flesh of the berries smeared between the stones. And I prayed, for I was sure Ardor would hear me now. Didn't we share this enemy? Sire Rodela had defiled Ardor's offspring as he'd defiled me.
Ardor Smith, make me a weapon in your hand.

And what god would I offend by this act? Gods and men, and many of them, no doubt.
Ardor Wildfire, hide me from their sight.
I would I had a poisoned kiss, he'd die and no one the wiser. I picked out the seeds and scraped the paste into the helmet with a twig and rinsed the mortar and pestle with water, careful to save every drop.

I crept back to the edge of the thicket. I saw men in the distance, riding, running, fighting, but there was such quiet at our end of the field that kites and ravens were already settling on the dead. One of the armigers on patrol rode at the birds and sent them flapping. I waited for the warriors to pass me, and when I judged them far enough away, I hastened to Sire Rodela, hitching up my wet kirtle to keep it from clinging to my legs.

Sire Rodela heard me coming and turned his head. The movement made him wince and groan. I put the helmet in his hands but he couldn't grasp it, so I held it for him. My hands were steady. He emptied it in four gulps, and water ran down his chin and made a runnel in the blood. There were flecks of black berry in his beard. I wiped them off with my hand and cleaned my hand on a tuft of grass. I thought he might complain that the water was foul, but he only looked at me as I squatted before him. His face was in full sun and he squinted, dazed. One pupil was small as a pinprick, the other huge. His skin was mottled white and purple, where it wasn't covered in blood. His jaw hung slack and breath came quick and shallow.

I picked up the bloody padded cap and set it on Rodela's head, and tied the laces under his chin. I put his helmet on over the cap, which took some effort, for it fit snugly. He never raised a hand to stop me, though he leaned sideways and I had to prop him up.

So I was startled when he lifted his hand to take a lock of my hair between his fingers. “So bright,” he said. “Brighter than what I had of you.”

I jerked away and stood up. He knew who I was, after all.

He looked up at me; he couldn't hold his head steady and it tilted on his neck. “I knew you were fond,” he said, and one side of his mouth smiled.

I took a step backward and tripped over the dead cataphract, and sat down abruptly. Rodela's head flopped forward and he moaned.

Though it was foolish of me, I bowed my head and stayed there, sitting on the ground. It was strangely silent, but for the roaring in my ears.

Die now!
I thought. But I knew he wouldn't die quickly: neither the wound nor the dwale would kill quickly.

There was a mace by my hand, the dead cataphract's mace, and I thought how I should take it up and finish Rodela. I'd taken a coward's way, a woman's way.

But I couldn't pick up the weapon. I shuddered to think of swinging at his head. I knew the sound it would make as it struck.

I'd called
him
a viper. Who had the stronger venom?

I'd killed him and I was glad. I should be glad.

If only he would die soon.

I heard the footsteps, but kept my head bowed, my eyes closed. Just then it was too much trouble to save myself. I felt the coolness of a shadow between the Sun and me. I knew him before I looked up, before he spoke.

“Well met. I've been seeking everywhere for one and the other of you, and here you are together.”

Galan had taken off his helmet and hung it from a hook on his baldric. The crown of his head was sunlit but his face was dark. I thought of how he'd left me that morning, how his jealousy had spoiled our parting. Now he'd found me with his former armiger, and I feared he might suspect me of what I had done.

“By chance,” I said. “I was running and nearly stumbled on him. And I could go no farther …”

He leaned toward me. “It cuts me to see you afraid of me, for I know I deserve it.”

“I never …”

“I know.” He touched my cheek. “Are you hurt? What is this blood?”

I heard weariness in his voice, no suspicion. It was like a fever, his jealousy. It waxed hot and then it broke. But it would come back.

“Not mine,” I said. I struggled to my feet, hampered by my wet skirts, and he reached out a hand to me and didn't let go.

I'd doubted my welcome; I'd doubted that he lived, after I'd been riven from him so suddenly. Now there was certainty of both, and I could do nothing but weep. My stony heart held a seed after all, and joy put forth a slender root and a green shoot that cracked the stone. I hid my face against his shoulder and pressed myself against the whole length of him, clad in all that cloth and leather and metal, and wished that, like his shadow, I could lie against his skin.

Oh, but it was better to be in the body and alive, both of us alive and shaking. I said his name. It was the only word that came to me.

He made me look at him. Sweat and blood had dried on his face, and he wore the smudge of Consort Vulpeja's ash on his brow. He looked sallow as wax, and when we kissed I felt the bones of his skull, his teeth, and thought how thin was the veil of flesh that covers us.

He said, “The way you sat there so still—I feared …”

“I'm unharmed and you're alive, praise the gods for it—I can't think how else we lived so long this morning!” I kissed him again, laughing and crying at once. “But we're not safe yet. We should get to shelter.”

Galan said, “Didn't you hear the king's horn? The tourney is over. The king put an end to it when the mudfolk overran the field. And it was noon anyway, near enough; no one can say he favored us. Gods—when I saw the green in their caps and knew our men were among those who ran—and you might be with them … But it's finished now, the killing is over. They're all dead or run off. All dead.”

Galan let me go and fell to his knees. He was trembling violently.

I knelt beside him and didn't flinch when he put his hand on my shoulder and his fingers dug into my burns. He stared at Rodela, who had slumped over on his side. It was plain he was alive, by his rattling wheezing breath. “What of him?” he asked.

“Dying,” I said. “His skull is broken.”

“The carnifex might cure him.”

“No, it's mortal, I'm sure of it.”

He eased his grip on my shoulder and looked at me. His straight brows were knotted; his eyes could not quite hold steady on mine. “I meant to kill him.”

“No need. Better that you didn't.” I looked down. I wished he had, then I wouldn't have done it.

“I meant to.” He put his hands upon his thighs and leaned forward and made a sound as if he were in pain, and I thought he must be feeling his wounds at last. But he said, “What was one more among so many?” and he clasped his arms over his belly and bent until his forehead almost touched his kneecops.

That is what I'd told myself.

I heard him gasp as if he stifled sobs, but when he straightened up, his eyes were dry. “Truly, I don't know how many,” he said. “Shouldn't I know? I can't remember them all. I must wait for the tallies.” He began to rock back and forth, still shivering. “They think this will be an end, but it will never end. I killed the Ardor's son. That's one I know for certain. He was good but I bested him.” He laughed. “A thing to crow about̬killing a beardless boy.”

I put my hand on his arm to stop his rocking. “Who won, Galan? Did anyone win?”

He looked at me in disbelief. “Why, can't you see?” he asked. “The honor is ours.”

here was not much wood left in those hills, but what little there was went under the ax: the scrub oak in the hollows, too scrawny to suit the shipwrights, the old thorn hedgerows between pastures, the twisted trees that here and there clung to the cliffs. All of it̬and even timber herded down-river from the mountains and bought for silver in the marketplace—burned that night to feed the pyres of the Blood.

The feast was over; the living had poured a little wine from every cup for the fallen, friend and enemy alike, with praises for their valor. Those who hadn't earned praise were flattered instead, for the dead must be sent on their journey garlanded about with fine words. They wouldn't be spoken of by name again, not for a long year.

The cliffs were crowded with those who came to honor the dead and those who came for the spectacle. Last night we'd gone there to burn Consort Vulpeja. Galan had avenged her; he'd washed his face of the mark of her ash. I wondered if her shade was content with so many deaths laid against hers, if it made amends for all he'd denied her in life.

Galan stood before the pyres clothed in a borrowed surcoat and firelight, sparks darting about his head. Not long ago his fellows had kept a certain distance lest his bad fortune tarnish them. Now they crowded close, they touched him as if he were a talisman.

I'd been as close to him as his own shadow, closer maybe. Hadn't I? Already I mistrusted my memory. It was as if I'd awakened from a dream, sweating and crying in its grip, and the dream had faded in the light of day. It was made of fragile stuff that could not withstand remembering, and tore to pieces as I tried to gather it up.

One thing was certain: I'd nearly lost myself in shadow, nearly given myself up to Galan. It had been as mortal a danger as the trampling mob and the riders who struck us down. I was still paying the cost, for I'd come back to myself somehow smaller than I was before, ill fitting. I rattled inside my skin like a dried bean in a pod.

And there was grief at the distance between us, the ordinary distance that now seemed so vast, each of us alone in our separate bodies. The binding I'd tied between us was a paltry thread, badly spun.

The taste of the firethorn berries was still sour on my tongue, but it might have been someone else who'd stood on that hill, swallowed them down. I could no longer recall what I'd been thinking, why I'd hazarded so much. I should not have done it.

I turned my back on the crowd and the fires and sat on a rock with my legs over the cliff edge. The wind came from the land and pushed like a palm against my back. I gripped the stone to keep from falling into the vastness of sky and water; I was worn thin and the wind had more substance than I did. Whether I closed my eyes or kept them open, I saw the same sights.

That afternoon, when the tourney was done, the Sun had glared as she climbed down toward the sea, and under her glare the bodies littering the field had looked like sea wrack, like drab empty garments tumbled by the wind. I heard the discordant moans and cries of the wounded calling for their mothers or cursing the gods or praying, and under those sounds the smothering silence of the dead. I'd gone back to look for Fleetfoot where the mob had met the horsemen, where the dead lay in heaps. I hoped I wouldn't find him there. I was one of many searchers: some looked for kin or friends, others scavenged for coins the dead hid in their purses, about their clothing, in their mouths.

How could I have kept Fleetfoot safe? Impossible—and yet I hadn't even thought to try, and the promise I'd made to Az was the more burdensome because I'd borne it too lightly. So I ran and ran in haste, calling his name. Every lanky boy I saw, I thought was him—and there were many boys. I turned them over, wiped blood from their faces. All of them had a blind stare, the living and the dead.

And I too was blind, blind and deaf to any other need; I held to my small purpose, as if it could serve to hold back the vastness of that desolation. But then I came upon the sheath Suripanta, entrails spilling from her belly, and stayed by her until she died. I gripped her hand as she traveled slowly inward to meet her death, and I wept, not for grief, but for weariness and despair. She never knew I was there.

I could not weep all day. After a time I got up again and wandered over the field, and it was then, after I stopped searching, that I began to find. I found Uly, Galan's horseboy, and he was dead; I found others of my acquaintance, foot soldiers and whores and peddlers from the market, and yet it was hard to say for sure I knew them, for death steals resemblance.

I found a woman—a laundress, by the look of her chapped hands—lying with her skirts about her hips and one leg broken below the knee, twisted and torn. Her face was clammy and her rough sunburnt skin had gone gray, and she cried out when I touched her and screamed at me to stop. Nevertheless, I straightened her broken leg and bandaged it, and bound it to her sound one, having no better splint, and she went from screaming to cursing to sobbing. I tied her skirt about her ankles so she wouldn't be molested and gave her water from a dead man's flask. She'd lost her little boy, who was of an age to crawl, and I found him wailing nearby and tied him to her wrist. She asked me to look for her husband, and I said I would. But how could I?

I left her lying there and set off to find some stanchmoss, and on the way I found a man calling for water and a woman bleeding, and that was how it went. I'd start a task only to find, sometime later, that I'd forgotten what I came for and even what I'd done. I'd never seen so much of what was inside us; those rents in the flesh bared what should have been hidden. And I'd never known how much a person could endure and live.

There were other healers on the field. I saw the stancher, the boneset, and even the midwife tending to the women. Two women I helped took heart from it, and aided me. The men had their carnifices, a few horse-gelders and such. One had a blazing hot brazier on a barrow and a handful of irons that he applied to the stumps of the maimed men. I could tell where he was by the screaming.

The injured women were cold, and I was fevered. I bound their wounds with rags stolen from the dead, I took them water, and I laid my hands on them and gave them warmth to stop their shivering. I no longer tarried to see the dying on their way, not when there were those who might yet live.

No matter how much heat I gave away, I burned, the fires fed with wrath. There is prayer in healing, so I suppose I prayed, after a fashion. But I didn't plead for any god's favor.

Whatever whim of the gods had spared me that day, had spared Galan, I knew them for what they were: carrion eaters. I saw Rift Dread descending on the dead mudfolk, manifest in the swarms of gulls and ravens and kites, dogs and thieves. And other gods came to feed as well, stooping to suckle on the last breath of the dying. Even under the bright stare of the Sun, the killing ground seemed overshadowed by great wings.

They feasted on what was left of the mob while their descendants, the slain cataphracts and armigers of the Blood, were gathered up and laid before the king in decorous rows, and every last and least of their belongings accounted for.

The Blood came down from their perches on the hills to gaze upon those killed in the tourney and reckon, with some awe, by how many the dead of Ardor outnumbered those of Crux. I didn't see or hear the tallies read, for by then—though the Sun was still high—I toiled in a darkness lit by one face at a time; by then the wide tourney field had grown as small as one wounded person and the next. But I heard about it afterward: how a priestess of Rift read from a long list, giving each dead man's name and the name of his killer, as attested by witnesses; how she paused so that anyone who wished to dispute the disposition of the prizes could do so; how eight times Sire Galan's name was called and there was only one objection, and that from Galan himself, who refused to claim the kill, saying it was Hazard's doing and therefore Hazard's prize. How King Thyrse had spoken, saying the feud was honorably ended, and those lost in the battle had died as men should, and their shades would be content; saying further that we'd disembark within the next hand of days, for the wind and tides and omens were all favorable, and commending us to the gods, who had drunk deep of our libation that day.

So the dead of the Blood were tallied with rites and speeches. No one counted the dead mudfolk. They were heaved into carts and taken to the charnel ground on the cliffs, stacked for burning.

It was not until the Sun went down behind the sea and I walked back to camp behind a cartload of wounded men that I found Fleetfoot. He was in the dog pen. Though he was a good runner, he hadn't outrun danger. He'd lost half of his left hand, severed through the palm, and part of two fingers from his right. It was plain he'd held up both hands to ward off a blade. I'd seen many such injuries that day. As if flesh could be a shield. The man-hounds had licked his wounds and Ev had bandaged him.

I was glad to find him alive; I dared hope that the little clay man with an acorn heart Az had given him would see him home safe, that he'd live long enough to father children and tell them the tale of how he was maimed. But he said he'd not go back to the village, to Az, even if Sire Pava released him. He'd not go home poorer than he set out and useless besides. He sat with his arm resting on a dog as we spoke over the thorn and stone wall of the pen, and soon he hung his head and said no more.

I turned toward the pyres and the flickering light slid over my eyes. I couldn't banish the visions I saw, but neither could they fill me, for I was a dull husk emptied of the long day; it had brimmed over, spilled away.