Wintermoon Ice (2010) (20 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Suvi

Because of their extremely disciplined home life, Spear children tend to fall in two categories. Those who thrive on challenge will become tomorrow's Harrier officers, and should be encouraged to assume leadership roles within the class. But the child for whom authority is a chafing yoke will often act out in school, and may bully his or her peers. These children should be punished severely, preferably by other Spears, so that they may learn to take orders.

Know Your Students -- a Junior Educator's Handbook to the Soli
, Severnessan Ministry of Stations

* * * *

Suvi sat in the uncomfortable desk chair, playing endless solitary games of Prince and Poet. Her legs felt numb and useless, as though they would hardly bear her weight. She checked the clock, high on the wall and out of reach. Almost lunchtime, and even that would be a welcome change from nothing.

The guard banged on the door, and then opened the small hatchway. He shoved a tray of food through. "Wait!" Suvi called, as the aperture began to shut. "Where is Major Bennett? He told me he would return three days ago."

"The Major has gone north." He slammed the hatch closed before she could ask another question.

Suvi picked up the tray and took it over to the desk. She slumped back in her chair, and eyed the food. This lunch was identical to the previous two lunches; a pukka meat sandwich, a couple of hard-boiled eggs, some soggy tiffruit, and a plain sweet biscuit, with a cup of lukewarm kaffa to drink. Unimaginative fare, but plentiful.

She dipped the biscuit in the kaffa and nibbled at it, feeling very lonely. After the hectic bustle of Carina, the brig seemed utterly lifeless. Ebbetsfeld, too, had grown eerily quiet. She had not heard a single plane take off in the last day and a half. The air raid sirens had ceased their raucous day and night calls. But no one would tell her why.

The rest of the day passed in the same dreary way. Suvi looked up hopefully each time she heard steps in the hallway outside her door, but other than the guard with the evening meal, she had no visitors. At ten o'clock she undressed and got into bed, then lay in the cold, wakeful darkness, hoping for something, anything, to happen. Perhaps, tonight, Tom would return...

But it was not Tom's touch on her shoulder that jolted her awake some time in the deepest part of the night. She looked up with wide, frightened eyes.

"Ludde! How in the world did you..."

He looked haggard and in no mood for argument as he put his hand over her mouth and motioned for her to rise. She did as he instructed, letting their earlier friendship trump her suspicions over his recent betrayal. He used hand signals to indicate she should dress, and then turned away.

When she finished he took her hand and dragged her forward.

A reeling sense of movement caught her by surprise, though she instinctively understood that Ludde could travel in the same way that Tom did. As she opened her eyes she staggered a little. Ludde caught her arm and held her upright. They had come to an alleyway just off the main street of
Wharfan
Village
. Suvi rubbed her eyes in confusion. Cars cut through the snowy streets with headlights blazing. Light poured from unshuttered windows. "So much light! Are they not afraid of an air raid?"

He shook his head sadly. "There will be no more raids. The war is over."

A man passed them, weaving along the street. His expression and his drunken songs spoke not of victory, but of hopelessness. Sadness drifted through the air like ash from a long dead fire.

Ludde led her into a rundown drinking establishment, and they settled close to the fire. Other patrons at nearby tables sat silently, with their heads bent. The waiter came, looking as distraught as the rest. Ludde ordered a jug of hot tiffruit schnapps.

Suvi did not argue with his need for drink -- not tonight. "What in the hell happened? Did we lose? We must have."

He stared into his steaming cup. "There is peace. But the leaders of this country have cut out her heart to buy it. Severnessa, Ayedeen, Schippendorff, all of Fareniis and
Lake
Copaheg
... It belongs now to Berengarth, and the people have but three days to leave their villages."

Suvi put a hand to her mouth. Her home... Now lost to her, as though it had never existed. She could not comprehend such a loss, could not even begin to grieve. As Ludde continued to speak, she sat in numbed silence.

"Jack tried to prevent it. He served this country and her government well, kept her from defeat against an enemy of far superior numbers. But they would not listen to him -- not when Berengarth came up with this cursed land for peace deal. And then, when he heard Katy was missing, he stopped arguing and went north."

"Has she been found? And Tom? Is he all right?"

Ludde scratched the three-day growth of stubble on his chin. "Don't know. Jack sent a message today, said I should get you out of the brig, in case one of the officers decided they should tidy up by shooting all the prisoners. But he said nothing about the search."

"Why is Katy missing?"

"Three days ago the Grond began a push into Fareniis with men and artillery. There were heavy casualties when they breached the trenches. The rescuers have worked for the last forty-eight hours to dig out the survivors."

She sought some shred of emotion -- of grief or rage, but the loss of
Lake
Copaheg
overtook all other feeling. Nothing remained but a dry well of despair to throw herself into. "But they did not find Tom -- or Katy?"

Ludde shook his head. "Only some clothes belonging to the Captain. Nothing else."

"Is it not possible they escaped in the same way that you and I left the brig today?"

He poured more schnapps for them both. "If they had, they would have come straight back here, but no one has seen them."

His resignation abruptly woke her anger. "Why aren't you looking for them? With your good friend Major Bennett." She knocked back another glass of schnapps and poured herself another. "I thought I was your friend too, but I was wrong about that, was I not?"

Ludde's expression did not change. "I told you all the long that you shouldn't trust me. And I plan to join Jack as soon as I leave here."

How could she argue with that? Suvi sighed. "How long have you known them -- Tom and Katy and Jack?

He scratched his stubble. "Tom and Katy I knew from long ago."

"So you must come from their world as well?"

"I passed through many worlds to reach theirs. It is nothing like mine."

"How? How is it that you and Tom can travel without using a gateway like the one in the bottom of Carina?"

The waiter brought another jug. Ludde's cheeks flushed as he filled their glasses yet again. "I inherited the ability to shift between the continua from my father. But I learned to navigate from one who has traveled the broad expanse of the Gyre many times -- Elfair Ap Fyn."

"Finn, as in Tom Finn? Why did you call him that?"

"
Fyn
used to be his name, once upon a long time ago."

"You make it sound as though he is very old. But he isn't..."

Ludde actually smiled. "Tom has many memories. Though he has only lived for twenty eight years in this life. Katy, too, remembers much of what she used to be, though it took her a long time."

Suvi stared at him over the rim of her glass. "And Jack?"

He shrugged. "Despite what you think, I don't know him that well."

"Why did you spy for him then?"

His speech sounded a little slurred now. "That's a long story, and I have to get you back to Carina."

Suvi stood, suddenly remembering about Chelah. "Then tell me while we walk there." He stood too, and swayed slightly, then gazed at her. "Never met a women who could hold her liquor like you, girl. How do you do it?"

She took his arm and led him to the door of the bar. "Practice. That must be it." They walked out into the frigid street and turned south, along Rikard Svaate, traveling deserted sidewalks.

Ludde threw his head back and stared at the stars. "There is Carina -- look..." He pointed to a constellation on the eastern horizon. "My father used to call her the ship that ferries the fallen to Skyre. Perhaps he steers her, even now."

"Your father is dead?"

"Aye, and my mother too." A cloud of frozen air evinced his deep sigh.

"How?"

"I used to blame my brother Jakob, but now..." They turned on to Wharfan Svaate. He didn't finish the sentence.

They walked in silence until Suvi remembered something. She stared at Ludde's tall shadow rather than looking to his face. "Did you really murder your brother's wife?"

The shadow shrugged. "He says I did."

"Why does he think so?"

"Because I hated him for what he did to me, and he thought I wanted revenge."

His shadow shrank and then grew again as another car passed them. "And did you?"

"Yes, but not like that. His way -- to punish the innocent with the guilty -- was never my way."

Her voice crackled with unexpected emotion. "You should find him. Find him and reach some understanding. Don't you know how lucky you are to have some family left in the world?"

Ludde only grunted noncommittally.

She looked away from his shadow and into his eyes. The drink and her grief seemed to catch her at the same time. Her lips trembled. "I came from nothing and now I have nothing left. No one and no home. What will I do now? Sweet love of the realms, what will I do?"

They had almost reached the door of Carina. Ludde stopped and she did too. He put his arms around her awkwardly and stroked her hair as she cried, then bent his head so his whiskered jaw brushed against her ear. "Listen, girl. I have little enough, but if it would please you to share it, then you and I will marry. The sea belongs to no man or country, and neither do I. We will catch fish, and live well, whether Berengarth or Severness rule the rest."

Her astonishment stopped her tears short. "Did you just say you wanted us to get married?"

"Aye."

She shook her head at this. "But why? You don't love me."

His thumb came up to brush away a tear. It felt like sandpaper against her cheek. "Don't I? But anyway, love is like the tide. It comes and goes." His voice lost its gruffness and sounded almost tender. "You were a friend to me when no one else cared. Now let me be the same for you."

Suvi buried her face in Ludde's scratchy sweater as she considered her reply. Had the bombs of Berengarth truly caught Tom Finn? She couldn't believe so, no matter how hard she tried. He would be too quick and too clever for such a clumsy adversary. Another far less satisfying picture presented itself -- perhaps he had used the confusion after the raid to steal Katy away from Fareniis, so that they could be together.

I've loved her for years and years. But she chose Jack instead of me, and she is too loyal to leave him.

Yes, that seemed most likely, after all.

She took a deep breath. "All right. If you are sure you want me."

He brought his head down and pressed his closed lips solemnly to hers for a long moment. Suvi waited, holding her breath, hoping to feel something -- some spark of passion. But she didn't. "Get your things and Chelah, and then ride to my place. Plenty of pikken to keep you and your beast for a few days. I will be up at Fareniis, but I will come home as soon as I may." He smiled, and his blue eyes twinkled in the moonlight. "We'll do fine together, girl, don't you worry."

She smiled back, thinking on the irony. "You've told me lots of times not to trust you, Ludde."

"Aye," he said thoughtfully, and kissed her again. "Farewell." He stepped away from her and disappeared.

The uproar filled Carina to the top of its dusty rafters. People scurried about, dragging parachutes and possessions. Arguments over shared property broke out, frayed tempers bringing chaos rather than the cooperation that had once been the rule at Carina.

Suvi stood just inside the door, looking for a familiar face. Marja passed her, her arms full of boxes. She almost dropped them when Suvi called her name.

"Suvi, where have you been?" She caught her arm and dragged her into the office. "The MPs have been here twice looking for you. You had better stay out of sight."

"I know. They arrested me. I've been in the brig at Ebbetsfeld. Where is Chelah? Is she..."

"Back in my tent. She is fine. But have you heard the news?"

Suvi nodded desolately. "Yes, Ludde told me. What is going to happen, Marja?"

She shrugged. "They said we had three days to leave. That was yesterday. Some folk have gone all ready."

"Where did they go?"

"The Dogs left this morning, heading for their settlement outside of Brixaat."

Suvi wandered over to her desk, and saw that someone had rifled through every drawer and strewn the contents over the floor of the office. She stooped to pick up an old heliotype of her mother and father, now torn and muddy. "Did they say when they would be back? The MPs, I mean."

"No. So you shouldn't stick around. But I expect you will be going with Tom anyway, won't you?"

Suvi shook her head. "No... Not with Tom. He has... already left Severness. But don't worry about me; I have a place to stay." She shivered suddenly.

But Marja did look worried. "Where?"

"Ludde and I are getting married." It sounded so absurd when she said it out loud that it made her forced smile suddenly genuine. "We will live in his house on the Ayedeen beach and catch pikken all day long.

Marja's son came in the office, with Chelah in his arms. The degum growled happily when she saw her mistress. Suvi hurried over, smiling. "Chelah! I was so worried. Thank you for taking care of her, Riku."

He frowned a little. "Oh. You came back. I didn't think..."

"Riku! Give Chelah back to Suvi." Marja turned back to Suvi and smiled apologetically. "I am sorry. Riku has gotten a bit attached to your degum."

Suvi held out her arms and the boy handed Chelah to her, but his lip trembled. "We are going to my cousin's house in Taasendale. She would have liked it there. Lots of trees to climb."