Forest Mage (69 page)

As his insults left me breathless with rage, he nodded at me and spoke in carefully measured words. “Let me point this out to you, Burvelle. When the trees fall and the Specks perceive that no disaster follows, they will more readily abandon their superstitious ways and enter the modern world. It is to their ultimate benefit that we take down those trees. When the road goes through and trade follows it, why, think of what it will bring to them. If you want to help us with the Speck problem, speak to them of the benefits of the road. Encourage their natural hunger for what civilization can bring to them. But don’t humor their superstitious fears.

“But for now, get yourself out of sight. I don’t need our visiting dignitaries to see you or hear you, and I certainly don’t need the females of Gettys stirred to wrath by your presence at this time. Off you go now. Dismissed. Good-bye.”

With his final words, he had lost interest in me. He had risen, walked to a mirror on the wall, and was carefully smoothing his mustache with one hand as he shooed me out of the room with the other. I made one last effort. “Sir, I think,” I began.

He cut off my words. “No. You don’t.
I
think.
You
obey orders. Dismissed, trooper.”

I went. I didn’t speak to the lieutenant as I left. I didn’t trust myself to say anything. The colonel had known. They’d all known. I’d thought I’d been so clever piecing it together. But they’d known of the significance of the trees and they didn’t care, because keeping Gettys on the road east was far more important to them. More important than what it did to the men to be kept on such a discouraging task. More important than felling trees that held the ancestral wisdom of a people.

I found I was nearly shaking with rage. My heart pumped magic like a poison through me. It took every bit of control I had to refuse to let my anger focus on those I wished to punish. It would solve nothing, I knew. If Colonel Haren dropped in his tracks tomorrow, there would be another man just like him right behind him. As I approached my cart, I noted with displeasure that Sergeant Hoster was standing near Clove, apparently inspecting my horse’s harness. I wanted a fight so badly. It would have been such a relief to put my fist in his perpetually sneering face. By a vast effort of will, I walked around the wagon to approach the seat from the other side rather than jostling Sergeant Hoster out of the way. “Good day,” I greeted him coldly, climbing up on the cart seat.

“In a hurry, soldier?” he asked me. His eyes glinted bright, as if he were seeing something that delighted him.

“Colonel Haren’s orders. He wants me to go immediately to the cemetery.” I gathered up Clove’s reins.

Hoster sneered at me. “He’s not the only one who thinks you should go straight to the cemetery.” He gave a “haw” at his own joke and then added cleverly. “Nice harness on your horse, soldier.”

I tried to find the insult in his words. “It’s just a harness.”

“That it is. That it is.” He stepped away from Clove.

I shook my head and drove away.

It took me longer to get out of town than I expected. The streets were thronged with people converging on the dais. Half of them walked in a Gettys tonic daze; the others glared at me as if
they could not believe my stupidity in trying to get a horse and cart through such a crowded street. The sun was well up now, and the day promised to be a sweltering one. I thought longingly of the forest shade as Clove picked his way through masses of people that grudgingly gave way to him. I was uncomfortably aware of turned heads and stares, but seated on my cart, there was no way to avoid scrutiny. The colonel’s remarks about the accusations against me had rattled me almost as much as his cavalier attitude toward the Specks and their trees.

We finally reached the gates of the fort. In the wider streets outside, there were fewer pedestrians. I was able to persuade Clove to a trot and we soon rolled out of town, leaving only our dust hanging in the air behind us. I wished I could get more speed out of him, but Clove was a creature of endurance rather than swiftness. We rattled along, and my anger burned inside me. I was furious with my commander, and soon that anger spread to include all my countrymen. My mind raced ahead of my body, planning how I would return to my cottage, unharness Clove, and immediately go into the forest in search of Jodoli. The news I must give him shamed me. Plans for how I could stop the road’s progress and whom I could enlist in my cause vied with the creeping suspicion that I was about to do something treasonous. I thrust that consideration aside. I insisted to myself that stopping the road until it could be completely rerouted away from Gettys would benefit both the Gernians and the People. A dim hope came to me. After I’d warned Jodoli that we must take steps today to save the ancestral trees, I would find a way to speak to Dr. Frye. Colonel Haren’s sarcastic suggestion might actually bear fruit for me if the queen herself could be swayed to our view.

Ahead of us in the rutted road, I saw a lady trudging along alone. It struck me as strange that on a day of festivities in Gettys, she was headed away from the town. Her bonneted head was bent against the sun’s heat, and she held her blue skirts daintily free of the road’s dirt. I admired her tidy figure from behind, and then swung Clove wide so that we might not choke her with dust as we passed. I thought I had done well, but as I passed her, she shouted at me. It was only when I looked over my shoulder that I
recognized that the lady was Amzil. I pulled Clove in and waited as she hurried up to us.

“Nevare! I was coming out to see you!” As she spoke, she climbed up on the cart seat beside me.

I shifted over as far as I could. I was still aware that she had to perch on the edge of the seat. I could not help notice how prettily she was dressed. There was not a smudge nor patch to be seen on the blue dress she wore. Even the white cuffs and collar were clean as fresh snow. A wide black belt cinched her waist, and somehow emphasized both the swell of her hips and the lift of her bosom.

“Well?” she said tartly, and I realized I’d been staring at her.

I lowered my eyes. “I’m sorry. You just look so pretty today. So clean and fresh.”

A long silence followed my words. I gave a wary sideways glance to see how angry she was. There were two spots of red on her cheeks. At my glance she muttered a stiff, “Thank you.”

Silence fell until I prompted her, “You were coming out to see me?” Whatever her errand was, I decided I needed to dissuade her from it. I needed to get to the forest, and I could not very well just walk off and leave her in my cabin. Telling her I had no time for visitors seemed harsh, and setting her back down in the road to walk back to town even harsher. “I have a great deal of work I have to do today,” I began. I tried to think of a gracious way to phrase it, but it came out bluntly. “I don’t have much time for a visit.”

She gave a sniff and sat up a bit straighter on the seat. “Well, neither do I, sir! I’m actually here on an errand. I don’t know why it would be of great concern to you, but Lieutenant Spinrek wanted to you to know that the Specks are going to perform the Dust Dance today. He called me aside to give me the news. He thought it important enough to volunteer to mind my children for me while I came out here to give it to you. I was not pleased to let him do it, for Mistress Epiny still goes green as glass at the sight of food, and the children were frantic at the thought of missing the music and the Specks dancing and all the rest of the festivities.”

“The Dust Dance? The Specks are doing the Dust Dance today?”

“It’s part of the welcoming ceremony for the inspection team. The Specks wished to perform for them.”

Before she had finished speaking, I had slapped the reins on Clove’s back. I turned him in a tight circle and urged him to a canter. “We have to get back to town right away. I have to stop them.”

She gave a small shriek, then held tightly to the back of the seat with one hand while clutching at her bonnet with the other. She raised her voice to shout over the rattling of the wagon. “Slow down! It’s too late to stop them. You probably won’t even get to see them dance. I told the lieutenant that, but he insisted that I go and tell you anyway.” Then, as we hit a hard bump, she abandoned her bonnet to its fate and clutched at my arm. “Nevare! Slow down! It’s already too late, I tell you.”

I paid her no heed. “It’s life or death, Amzil. The Dust Dance is how the Specks spread the plague! Everyone who watches that dance and breathes in the dust will catch it. And from them, it will spread to others.”

“That’s crazy!” she shouted back at me. “Nevare, pull him in! Slow down or I’ll jump. This is crazy!”

She sounded so sincere that I heeded her. As soon as Clove dropped down to a trot, Amzil let go of my arm and resumed her grip on her bonnet.

“Amzil, I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. It’s how I caught the Speck plague. Spink…Lieutenant Spinrek caught it the same way. That’s what I believe. I think it’s why they do the Dust Dance. To infect us and kill us.”

As the meaning of those words sank into my awareness, I suddenly felt doubly betrayed. Yes, it was why they danced, and it was especially why they danced today. They would kill nobles and generals as well as poor soldiers. The inspection team would be their targets, even as the academy had once been their target. Each time, I had unknowingly given them the information they needed to kill most effectively. I felt doubly betrayed by both my peoples, first the Gernians and now the Specks. They would find ways to hurt one another, and I would feel the pain of both sides.

Clove gave a snort, shook his head, and slowed to a walk. I let him. I thought of the only people I could protect and turned abruptly to Amzil. “Listen to me. Please believe how important this is. I’m taking you back to Lieutenant Spinrek’s home. You’ll have to show me the way, and I don’t want to pass through any crowded streets. Once we are there, you have to go inside and
stay
there. Do you understand how important it is? You have to stay inside with your children and not go out into the city. By tomorrow, if I am correct, people will begin to get sick. Stay away from them. Keep your children away from them.”

She was staring at me as if I were insane and possibly dangerous. I took a moment to get control of my voice. In a calmer voice, I told her, “Spink has these little bottles of water from his home in Bitter Springs. He thinks they may be a cure for the plague, or that they might prevent people from catching it. Ask him to set some aside for you and the children. And ask him to send a courier immediately to his brother, no matter the cost, pleading that Bitter Springs water be sent to Gettys in as great an amount as possible.”

“Spink?”

The way she said his name made me wonder if she had heard anything else I’d said. “Lieutenant Spinrek,” I amended, and muttered, “We knew each other a long time ago.”

She gave a curt nod. Then, staring straight down the road, she asked me, “And how are you related to Mistress Epiny?”

“I—”

She cut me off while I was still deciding whether to act bewildered or to lie. “You look alike around the eyes. And she often speaks to her husband of her fears about what might have befallen Nevare.” Her voice went hard. “I never would have taken you for a cruel man. She’s with child and having a bad time of it, and you leave her in anxiety, both of you. I don’t know who is more despicable, you or her husband.”

“You don’t understand. It would ruin her reputation to be connected to me. It would bring her great unhappiness. It’s better that for now she knows nothing.”

“So that when you tell her later, she can feel an even greater
fool? Most folk around town don’t know your name. They just call you the Cemetery Sentry. But sooner or later, she’ll put it all together. She’s not dim, that one, though you seem to treat her as if she is.”

I dropped all effort at pretense. “My cousin is not dim. But in many ways, she is too quick to risk herself. I won’t have her put herself in danger for my sake, especially when I do not think it would truly help me at all. All she could do is stain her reputation with mine, to no good end. I love her too much to allow her to do that to herself.”

I had not expected to speak with such vehemence, and when I uttered my feelings aloud, I was surprised at the strength of them. I think Amzil was, too, for she looked both taken aback and chastened. After a moment, she said more quietly, “I think I understand you better now.”

“Well. Good. And if we are finished with that, please let me know that you understood my earlier words as well. After the Dust Dance, at most a few days will pass before Speck plague sweeps through Gettys. I do not think we can stop it. Quarantine yourself and your children, and please do not let my cousin go out and risk herself. Remind her that if she does, she risks her child as well. That should get her attention.”

“I did hear you,” Amzil replied a bit testily. “And I will tell the lieutenant about the water and the courier. Mistress Epiny has told me of her journey here from Bitter Springs. I do not think you can expect that water to arrive soon.” She shook her head at me. “If you thought it worked, why did not they immediately start bringing it in to Gettys? If you know the Dust Dance could spread the plague, why did you not warn everyone ahead of time?”

“We’re not sure the water will work. It seemed to work for Spink and Epiny, and they did bring some when they came, as much as Epiny could manage, actually. As for the Dust Dance…we, that is, I believe it spreads the plague. I haven’t had much luck in convincing anyone else of that.”

We had reached the outskirts of Gettys town. The streets were still empty. Everyone, I suddenly knew, would have converged inside the fort to watch the welcome speeches and ceremonies.
As we grew closer, my heart sank. Where the Speck tent village had been there was little more than trampled earth. This morning, Clove and I had ridden past it. Now it was gone. They had melted away, leaving no sign of where they had gone. I suspected I knew why they had gone. They’d be well away from Gettys before the deadly dust rode the breezes. “I think we’re too late,” I said quietly. “They’ve left. And Specks don’t usually travel during the day, only in the evenings or nights.”