From Across the Clouded Range (18 page)

That seemed to set Pete back. “I’m
glad ta hear that. But you’ll firgive me bein’ wary. Every one of
us has tangled with that cat at some point. Let me ‘sure ya, the
counselor, the women round here, all of us, we done everything we
could ta tame her, but nothin’ takes. Every once a while she tames
down fir a week or two then she’s out running on the far side of
the river again. Some folk say awful things ‘bout what she’s doin’
over there with the animals and all. Others say its evil spirits
she’s with – that’s where Valatarian sent the Exiles, ya know. But
ya won’t hear none of that from us. Not ‘bout a girl gonna be
joined. And we, ever’ one of us, wish ya the best of luck with ‘er,
but we’re thinkin’ if ya ever want ta tame ‘er down, ya got to show
‘er she’s a girl. Ya know what I mean?”

Jeb returned with the jug, pulled the
cork and filled every glass. Dasen sipped at the liquor, felt it
now sliding easily down his throat. “That is what I plan to do,” he
confirmed. “I think that is the very problem. She has not had
anyone to show her how to act in a way that is proper.”

Pete grinned. “I mean you
gotta make ‘er be a girl, use ‘er the way the Order intended a man
ta use his woman. That’s the one thing none of us ever been able ta
do. I know it’d be strange, like fuckin’ a boy.” Pete managed a
shudder and his friends cringed. “But I think she’s got it in ’er
head she
is
a
boy. Only way ta convince ‘er otherwise is ta show ‘er she’s not.
Gettin’ a baby in ‘er’d be even better, but I guess one leads ta
the other, aye?”

Pete refilled Dasen’s somehow empty
cup. He looked at it dubiously. He needed to get some food.
“Unfortunately, I can’t do that,” he said. “If she catches a baby,
I will be kicked out of the university.” He turned to Rynn, but he
was engaged in a boisterous – and lewd – conversation with the
other villagers. Many of them were laughing heartily and pounding
the table.

“
By the Order, I’d of
pounded that filly right there with the books!” one of them
yelled.

“
It get’s better,” Rynn
assured them.

Dasen’s thoughts were muddled, he felt
he should know what they were talking about. “Rynn,” he called,
“could you get that innkeeper to bring us some dinner? I have
barely eaten all day, and this liquor is going straight to my
head.”

“
Jeb’ll get it fir ya,”
Pete assured and motioned to the boy. Jeb made a face but jumped to
obey. “Now what’s that yir sayin’ about a university? Why da they
care what ya do with yir wife? Seems counter ta the Order ta
me.”

“
A baby would be too much
of a distraction to our studies . . . .”

“
Ta the Maelstrom with
that,” Pete cursed. “Tellin’ a man he can’t bed his own wife. Well,
there’s ways ta keep ‘er from catchin’ a baby, ya know. Besides,
that girl ain’t never gonna be no lady until ya make ‘er inta one.
Ya can put ‘er in a dress, but she’ll just be a boy in a dress. She
needs ta be treated like the girl she is, and a good fuckin’ is the
only way it’s gonna stick.”

On the other side of the table, Rynn
had reduced the villagers to a writhing mass of uncontrolled
laughter. He was beaming, drink forgotten as he reveled in finally
having a receptive audience. For his part, Dasen found himself
imagining Tethina in ways he had not previously allowed himself. He
could not deny his longing, even for a woman as strange as Tethina.
Could what Pete was saying be true? He was not thinking clearly,
but it seemed logical that sex was an integral part of what defined
the roles of men and women. He allowed his thoughts to go in that
direction for the first time and found himself more and more
attracted to the idea. Maybe being shown her place as a woman
extended beyond dresses and manners. And if there were ways to do
it such that she wouldn’t catch a baby. . . .

Somewhere Dasen realized that Pete was
still speaking in his ear. “Prob’ly have ta force ‘er,” he was
saying and Dasen found himself nodding without hearing the words.
Pete was smiling wide, seemingly sure that he had won Dasen to his
side. Before he could refute what the big man was saying, the
innkeeper arrived with plates heaped with greasy stew. He and a boy
brought enough for each of the men then laid out three loaves of
dark bread to accompany them. Dasen looked at the stew with relief.
His head was buzzing and the room had taken on a slow
spin.

“
I’m glad we could talk,”
Pete clapped him on the back again. “I think our Tethina’s gonna be
in good hands. A strong man’s what she needs. I hope ya don’t spare
anythin’ ta show her that’s what ya are.”

Dasen did not know how to respond to
that, so he just said, “Thank you. I will think about what you
said. Now while we eat, tell me about Tethina. Did she really win
five coins at the district games?” He found his spoon and shoved a
big bite of stew in his mouth. It was better than he expected,
which made it just barely edible.

For a second, Pete looked upset by the
question, then his smile returned. “She did,” he started then laid
out Tethina’s exploits in great detail, made it clear how he and
the other villagers thought of their ‘wildcat’.

#

The sun was well below the mountains
by the time, Ipid managed to pry himself from Governor Rawlins and
make his way through the town. Hours of conversation on the state
of the district, the need for roads, repairs to buildings, and any
number of other expenses that were ostensibly the responsibility of
the landlord still rang in his ears. He had agreed to each request
with less and less resistance, just wanting to leave. Why had the
insolent man been bothering him with all that now? He was going to
be here for days. Just now, the thought crossed his mind that the
governor was savvier than he gave him credit for being, that he
knew exactly what he was doing and it wasn’t all for the benefit of
the district – he did seem especially prosperous. Ipid filed it
away for future consideration and returned to the
present.

He walked slowly through
the village, the pull of nostalgia weighing on his every step.
Elton followed, his lone companion. At several of the houses,
people watched him pass. The women bowed, men removed their hats,
children stared in awe. He tried to acknowledge them, smile and
wave, but it all made him feel sick to his stomach. Twelve years
ago he had been nothing more than the local shopkeeper. Wasn’t he
still that same man?
No
, he told himself.
That ended as
soon as you bought the lumber rights. Now you are the lord. Their
lives are in your hands and they know it. It can never be the way
it was.

He had always been somewhat of an
outsider here. His father had sent him to Thoren when he was just a
boy. He had studied there like his father, then apprenticed with a
merchant family who ran caravans into the western woods, and only
returned to stay when his father died and the shop became his.
Somehow, he had found Kira waiting for him. They had been joined
that next summer, and she proved to be his perfect match. She was
smart, strong, independent, and beautiful. She was far more than he
ever deserved.

With that thought, he came to the far
south-western corner of the village and pulled to a stop at his
destination. There, standing well away from the other buildings,
was the only unoccupied house in the growing village. He had heard
that they considered it haunted and could see why. The roof had
caved. The shutters had fallen away. The glass windows were broken,
leaving leering holes. The walls were a weather-beaten gray marked
green with moss and lichen. The porch sagged, stairs broken and
falling away. The house did not need ghosts. It was a ghost. And
beyond it, past an overgrown field of grass, were the charred
remnants that he had come to see. A few black posts still stood,
rotting boards clinging to them like starving children. The scrap
pile, more rust now than iron, defined where one of the walls had
been with its multitude of sharp angles. Opposite it, the big stone
hearth was clear, as was the anvil. The mighty stump that held it
was charred but too big to have been consumed, even in that fire.
The grass that grew around it was almost tall enough to make it
appear that the great metal shape floated above it.

“
Please leave me,” Ipid
whispered to Elton without looking back. He was not sure he could
manage any other words.

“
I’ll be by the road,”
Elton assured. “You won’t be out of my sight.” The big man paused
but did not withdraw. “May I say,” he started, his booming voice
little more than the rumble of distant thunder, “I would have loved
to have met them. I am sorry.”

“
Thank you, Elton. I am
sure they would have loved to meet you as well.” A big hand came to
rest on Ipid’s shoulder. He heard a low rumbled prayer. Then he was
alone.

Ipid took a few more steps into the
sea of grass. It reached well above his knees. Bugs swarmed around
him. Mosquitos sought his exposed hands and face, buzzed in his
ears, crawled through his thinning hair. Sweat dripped from his
nose, ran down his back. The collar of his shirt was soaked. It
chaffed his neck. His jacket weighed heavy on his shoulders. His
belt pinched at his belly where it strained to hold his growing
gut. His feet ached as did his back. But all these discomforts were
outweighed by the ache in his middle, the sensation of his heart
breaking all over again. He was so overcome that he could not even
cry, could not feel anything but that numb ache. Then, as if the
strings holding him up had suddenly been cut, he collapsed into the
grass. His knees buckled, and he crumpled into a ball. The grass
hid his shaking. The whir of insects drowned out his
sobs.

When he recovered from that first
blow, he sat for what seemed a long time, watched the shadows
lengthen, felt the mosquitos draw out his blood, listened to the
cicadas whir. Finally, he found his voice. “Hello, my love, Burke,
Marin. I have missed you. You have no idea how much I’ve missed
you.” He stopped, felt his emotions rise, tears replaced the sweat
running down his cheeks. “I have made a mess of things, I’m afraid.
You were always right, Kira, I am hopeless. I was never meant to do
this on my own. I needed you. I still do. I don’t know what to do.
I don’t want to lose them, but I don’t know how to keep them. I can
only seem to push them away.” From there, he started his story. He
stopped many times, too overcome to continue, but he told it all,
every foible, triumph, pyric victory, and they listened. Somehow,
he knew they were listening and that they understood.

#

Ipid could only make out the barest
shadows of the burnt out smithy in the distance. The sun was down.
It was dark despite a rising full moon and the light of a billion
stars. He had forgotten how many stars there were in the sky, had
not even bothered to look for years. He was just sitting now,
trying to gather the energy to return, to face his son and the
villagers. It seemed a daunting undertaking.

“
I think he wants to be
alone,” Elton said from somewhere behind him.

Ipid turned and looked back toward the
road. Elton was a huge black shadow framed by the light grey of the
house behind him. Standing next to him was a figure nearly as tall
as the Morg but only half of Elton’s girth. He leaned on the Morg
in a familiar way and seemed to sway slightly even with that
support. “Let him come,” Ipid said into the darkness. “I could use
some company.”

“
Are you certain, sir? The
young master has seen the bottom of a bottle.”

“
So did I the night before
I was joined, and so did you.”

“
Yes, sir,” Elton
acknowledge, but he did not let Dasen go immediately. His voice
turned low, his words for Dasen alone. Ipid could almost see the
warning on his face. Dasen nodded.

Ipid turned back to the ruins. “Here
he is, Kira. Please help him. Guide him the way you used to guide
me.”

“
Father,” Dasen said as he
dropped into the grass next to Ipid. “I remember this. I remember
watching the fire. Tethina saw it first. I was still washing my
face, and . . . and I heard her screaming. I ran out, but it was
too late. I never even saw them go in.” He paused. Ipid prayed he
would stop, but he drew another breath. “I think it was harder for
Tethina. She saw them. She saw the roof collapse, heard them crying
out. I can only imagine that. It must have been terrible, seeing
that and knowing there was nothing she could do.”

“
Please, Dasen,” Ipid just
barely managed. “Please, stop. I . . . That’s enough. Just sit with
me for a while.”

“
Sure.” And though he
swayed slightly, Dasen sat, shoulder touching his
father’s.

When he had thought through everything
Dasen had said, considered the terrible truth of it and recovered
enough of his composure to speak, he broke the silence. “I am glad
you came here tonight. Your mother would have been proud of
you.”

Next to him, Ipid heard Dasen sniff
hard. He rubbed at his eyes and nose but did not make a sound, did
not respond. And that was all that was said.

Eventually, Ipid found the strength to
stand. Dasen joined him, and they walked silently back past the
flickering windows to the main street. But as they left, Ipid was
sure he saw a shape moving in the trees beyond the ruins, that he
heard another snuffle, a pant, a muffled cry. He looked toward the
trees and silently wished Tethina goodnight.