The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) (31 page)

 
 
Law Links
4
THE BIRD
 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The twenty-sixth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.
The city physicians, after a final clucking of their tongues, have said that Carle and I may leave their house tomorrow. Carle and I have been restless to go since the day before yesterday, for we have no one here to talk with; the other guards left long ago.
Hoel and Chatwin and Devin were released on the first day back, into the care of their families, who had taken temporary housing in the city when they learned that their sons were trapped in the mountains. Quentin stayed only two days longer, though he looked as if he was one step into the gates of the Land Beyond. Although the rest of us had been carried back to Emor on blanket-muffled stretchers, Quentin had insisted on walking back, in order to assist with the navigation through the pass as only a borderlander could. He had seemed well during the journey, but the moment we reached within sight of Emor, he quietly collapsed and remained unconscious throughout the journey to the city.
Nor did he awake once we reached the warmth of the physicians' house. The physicians looked grave and refused to offer any prognosis. Devin, giving way finally to the strain, left here in tears, certain that he would never again see the lieutenant alive.
The only cheerful person was Quentin's grandfather, who had been awaiting us at the entrance to the pass, and who apparently had caused Malise a great deal of last-minute trouble by insisting that he must help with the rescue effort. Malise had finally placed him in charge of the carts left behind at the entrance to the pass. All the way back to the city, Quentin's grandfather distracted us from our worries about his grandson by telling us entertaining stories of his own days in the patrol.
The stories continued when we arrived here, so that Carle and I had no thoughts left for our painful healing. While we were sleeping or trying to sleep, though, Quentin's grandfather would go sit by Quentin and hold his hand silently. As far as I could tell, Quentin's grandfather never slept himself.
This lasted until Quentin awoke on the third day. His grandfather waited just long enough for the physicians to confirm that Quentin had taken one step back from the Land Beyond; then he announced that Quentin was well enough to go home.
This caused an uproar among the physicians. "Not
again
," I heard one of them say. The lieutenant eventually ended the argument by getting up and walking away. He only made it to the door before crumpling to the ground, but his grandfather had his way with the physicians after that. The physicians made him swear, though – on a freeman's blade, no less – that he would keep Quentin in bed for the next fortnight. "Not like last time," said the head physician, giving Quentin's grandfather a piercing look.
It was all very odd. I wish that I could have spent more time with Quentin's grandfather, to gain further insight into the lieutenant's upbringing.
The twenty-seventh day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.
Carle and I left the physicians' house today to find only a thin sprinkling of snow upon the ground. While the patrol was dying amidst blizzards in the mountains, Southern Emor has been enjoying a late autumn, with occasional dustings of snow that soon melt. Though the weather has chilled during the last few days, Carle says that it will be at least a month before the country roads become blocked to travellers. That's just as well, given the journey we've decided to undertake.
Our first duty, once we'd left the physicians, was to report to Wystan. He had dark circles under his eyes. Hoel reported to Wystan two days ago, and since that time, Wystan has spent his time with the families of Iain, Jephthah, Gamaliel, and Chatwin, explaining how their sons died. The interview with Chatwin's family was particularly painful, the only bright point being Hoel's announcement at the start that he would care for Chatwin's betrothed from now on. Chatwin's betrothed, having heard of Hoel through Chatwin's letters, wept on his shoulder for the remainder of the interview, and they left Wystan's tent together.
Wystan had nothing but praise for those of us who had survived, which Carle and I found embarrassing. Eventually, to our relief, Wystan passed on to other business.
"You two are planning to reside in the city this winter, I understand," he said, gesturing Carle back into his seat. Carle had been trying to rise when the captain did, though we're both still weak from our ordeal.
"Yes, sir," replied Carle, sinking down. "We hope to attend the city court as often as possible and to visit these headquarters daily in order to sharpen our sword skills."
Wystan nodded as he returned to the seat behind his desk. After a moment's silence in which Carle scrutinized the captain's face, Carle added, "Why do you ask, sir?"
Wystan flicked him an unreadable look before reaching over to pick up a folded and sealed paper on his desk. "I was wondering whether you intended to visit your family."
I did not have to look to see that Carle had gone rigid. The stiffness was in his voice as he said, "I had no plans of that sort."
Wystan gave him a look then that was all too readable. "Your father came to these headquarters the moment word reached him of your trouble. He stayed here for a week, to the neglect of his business at home, and only returned to Peaktop when word reached here that you had been rescued. Yet you have not asked after your family since your arrival back."
Carle's silence filled the tent like freezing snow. Wystan sighed and placed the paper back on his desk. "Sublieutenant, I know that you joined the army against the express wishes of your father. It is natural that there would have been tension between the two of you during the first year or two. Yet as far as I can tell, you have made no attempt to heal the wound between yourself and your family. Now your father has made an attempt of his own to reach out to you; I would hate to see his effort go wasted."
"Are you ordering me to return home, sir?" Carle's voice sounded as though it had been chipped from a block of ice.
"You know better than that, sublieutenant; I cannot interfere with your private life. I am simply offering you advice, as someone who also joined the army against the wishes of his family and remained estranged from his family for far too long. Believe me when I say that such matters become trivial over the years, in comparison with the memories of love and comfort one received as a child." Wystan took up the paper again and offered it to Carle. "Your father left this for you. It is a letter from your sister."
"I didn't know that you had a sister," I told Carle afterwards.
"Yes, a younger sister. And you?" Carle looked up from the letter. We were sitting in the mess tent, having eaten our noonday meal. After a diet of nuts and bread and snow-water, even army food tastes good to us.
"Two sisters, aside from the ones who died as babies," I said. "Leda is the eldest of us; she's married, with a son. My sister Mira will be coming of age soon – or she was, when I left. She's been insufferable for the past two years, telling Hamar and me how much more she'd enjoy the company of a husband than our company."
"My sister came of age late last winter, around her twelfth birthday," Carle murmured; his gaze had returned to the letter. "I remember her writing me about it at the time."
I nudged closer to him on the bench. "Does she say anything interesting in her letter?"
Carle shook his head. "She never does. The village blacksmith burned his hand . . . My mother was ill with stomach pains for a while but is better now . . . A noble came to visit this autumn – old and sharp-tempered, she said. 'Old' undoubtedly means my father's age," Carle added with one of his half-smiles as he folded the letter closed. After a moment, he opened it again.
"And what else?" I prompted.
"Nothing else," Carle said. "That's all she has written, aside from her usual threats to flay me alive if I come within a day's ride of her. She still hasn't forgiven me for leaving without saying goodbye to her." He started to fold the letter, re-opened it, and remained motionless for a while, reading the letter once more.
"There's something more," I said finally.
Under the loud chatter of the soldiers nearby, Carle said, "Yes, there's something more. I don't know what it is yet, though." He raised his eyes to me.
"We're taking Captain Wystan's advice, then?" I said.
Carle nodded. "I think I'll have to go home, at least for a while. You needn't come, though. You can search us out a city house in the meantime."
"Don't be foolish," I responded. "Of course I'll come. Unless—" Belatedly, it occurred to me that Carle might not be eager to introduce a southerner to his family.
I suppose that, if I ever die, Carle will be able to read my final moments from the look in my face. He gave another of his crooked smiles and said lightly, "Your presence is what will make the visit bearable."
The odd thing is, I think he was serious.
The twenty-ninth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.
It's early morning. We rested overnight at an inn that's north of the city. Although Carle's village is apparently only half a day's swift ride from the city, neither Carle nor I wanted to go swiftly. We have just enough energy left to stay seated on the horses we borrowed from the army headquarters.
The inn is one of the new-style lodges, with individual chambers for each travelling party, in addition to the common chamber for single men and for travelling parties which can't afford the individual rooms. The beds in the individual chambers are so broad that they could easily accommodate three men. Since Carle and I have slept in the same room together for over two months now, I was surprised that Carle paid for separate chambers for the two of us. I didn't realize the reason until I jerked awake last night, as if to the sound of a danger whistle, and heard Carle crying out.
I rushed for his room, of course, but the door was barred. I hammered on it, and the cry cut off. After a moment, Carle spoke in his normal voice.
He did not even ask why I was at the door, but apologized immediately for waking me, saying that he'd been dreaming. I lingered at the door, expecting him to let me in, but after a while I concluded that he was so exhausted from the ride that he'd fallen asleep after his explanation. I was likewise weary, so I returned to my warm bed next to the hearth-fire and fell asleep soon afterwards.
I awoke to Carle's voice, crying out. Again I rushed for the door; again I found it barred; again my hammering elicited an apology from Carle, but nothing more. Puzzled, I returned to my room and sat by the fire, waiting.
The cry was not long in coming. I tiptoed up to Carle's door and pressed my ear against it. I could hear snatches of what he was saying. What I heard chilled me more than the night wind whistling down the corridor.
Carle was dreaming that he was being tortured. From what I could make out, it appeared that his captor was a vicious border-breacher; I could hear Carle begging his torturer to stop. I strained for the name of the torturer, but even in his torment, Carle followed patrol custom in calling the breacher 'sir,' so I could not tell whether the torturer was Emorian or Koretian.
I stood uncertainly outside the door. Eventually, after far too long, the cries died down. I spent the remainder of the night sleepless beside my fire.
When I see the lieutenant next spring, I must ask him whether this was something real that happened to Carle. If it was, and if the man who tortured him was Koretian, then it's a wonder that Carle ever spoke in friendship to me, much less shared wine with me.
The thirtieth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.
Peaktop, Carle's home village, is located atop the southernmost of the signal-fire mountains. It is sprawled across the flat top of the mountain and is a little larger than Mountside. Its income derives mainly from horses and from orchard-fruit, the latter being more valuable than the former, as there are so few trees in Emor.
I learned all this throughout the course of yesterday. My first impression of Carle's mountain home was that its slopes are far too slippery.
I discovered this because Carle, having evidently decided that we were growing lax in our exercise, left our horses to be escorted to his home by some local country boys he knew, leaving the two of us to climb the side of the mountain, rather than take the easy road up.
I had thought that I knew how to climb mountains, but I'd never before climbed a mountain with a foot of snow on it. The last part of the journey, which required us to climb over a sheer rock with icicles hanging off it, nearly lost me my life, but Carle's hand grabbed me and hauled me onto safe ground. Then, before I had had a chance to decide whether I would ever breathe again, he demanded my impression of the village.
It was certainly a beautiful sight. Snow clung in soft clumps to the peaked rooftops of the village houses, lined all in a row along the curving road, but for an enormous house jutting up on a mound – the baron's hall, I supposed. Below the house was a vast orchard, lined on one side by a graveyard, and beyond that was a pasture with horses kicking the snow into the air as they raced to and fro.
I took a step in the direction of the village, but Carle smiled and shook his head, then led us down the shorter path to the pasture. As we crunched our way through the snow – soldiers' boots come in handy in Emor – I saw that the horses were being watched by a young man about Carle's age, who called out to them as they rode past, causing them to swerve their path in a seemingly ordered manner. Sitting at his feet, peacefully watching the horses' hooves thunder just paces away, was a dog with golden-red fur.
It caught sight of us at the same moment that the young man did, and bounded toward us, barking fiercely. I hesitated, unsure whether to draw my sword against this attack, but Carle merely went down on one knee and held out his hand to the dog. She leapt upon him and, in the next few moments, tried to drown him with her tongue.
The young man followed close behind. He skidded to a halt, churning up snow against his winter breeches, and smiled down at Carle and the dog. "She remembers you," he said.
"I had hoped she had forgotten me by now," said Carle, giving the dog a final rub behind the ears as he rose to his feet. "She belongs to you now."