Path of Fate (2 page)

“As for our squatter folk, fact is, we feed ’em. Kallas is tender about that,” he declared proudly. “We’re generous to those as don’t have much. They know it and so they stick around, keep coming back, ’stead of going back home and breaking their backs to build up what they lost. Wouldn’t be so bad, but a lot more have come the past month or two. Nest of beggars is what they really are. But now that the
ahalad-kaaslane
are here . . .” He trailed away, shrugging eloquently.

The
ahalad-kaaslane
were the Blessed Lady’s eyes and hands in Kodu Riik, dispensing justice, setting wrongs to right. No one disobeyed the
ahalad-kaaslane
without reprisal from the Blessed Lady. If even one ordered the squatters to leave, they would. Or face the Lady’s wrath.

Reisil shuddered. Those poor, ravaged people had already suffered too much. She hoped they would listen and obey. The Blessed Amiya was as generous as the sun and the earth, as unforgiving as the wind and the cold. The war had already inflicted a heavy toll on them, but the Lady’s retribution would be far greater if the squatters did not accept the judgement of Her
ahaladkaaslane
.

Reisil’s mind skipped to Juhrnus and she nearly groaned. Newly chosen
ahalad-kaaslane,
he had been the bane of her childhood. Time had done little to make him grow up. He was as malicious and hateful as ever, more so now with the power of being
ahalad-kaaslane
. To have him sit in judgment of those devastated people . . . Reisil shuddered again. “They’re back? When?” The four of them—two newly minted and two experienced
ahalad-kaaslane
—had departed nine weeks before, and Reisil had been grateful for the respite from Juhrnus’s endless pestering.

“Last night, just as we were shutting the gates. Not that they can’t come and go as they please. I expect Varitsema will talk to them first thing this morning about the squatter problem. He’s been frothing at the mouth about it.”

“That’s good. Until then, I’ll be careful,” Resil said with a ghost of a smile, uncertain that running the refugees off was the right answer, and departed with a little wave.

The streets of Kallas were mostly deserted. Lady Day ribbons and streamers still decorated doors, windows, trees and lampposts. The smell of cedar burned in the Lady’s honor wafted through the still air. Here a figure skulked along, huddled in a cloak too warm for the balmy morning, hastening home before an illicit absence was noticed. There a stray dog galloped after a scent, whining eagerly.

Upstairs above a cobbler shop, a rectangular window glowed, and from it emanated the wailing cry of a baby mingled with the sobbing of a woman. Reisil hesitated on the walk below, wondering if she should offer aid. The baby shrieked and Reisil made up her mind. In all likelihood she would be summoned later, after daybreak, but they would not find her then and she was here now. The baby was Shen’s and Ulla’s first child, only three months old, born in the last days of the fever. The boy’s unrelenting wail, despairing and frantic at once, told Reisil his colic had not not subsided in the week since her last visit.

Reisil rapped on the door, then dug in her supplies for what she might offer. She hadn’t brought much, intending to fill the pack with her harvest.

The door swung open. Inside stood a young woman clutching her hastily donned wrap tightly at her throat, her wide eyes shadowed, her sleep-tousled hair framing her face in a fuzzy halo.

“Yes? Oh, bright morning, Reisiltark!” Relief washed her voice and Reisil smiled sympathy. She doubted the neighbors had had much sleep in the night, much less the servants.

“I was passing,” she explained. “I have some things that might help your mistress, if you would take them to her?”

“Oh, but . . . don’t you want to come up?”

Reisil shook her head. “It’s not really necessary.” And Ulla would not welcome being seen in such a state. She was a young wife, and Shen was his mother’s favorite son. Though she desperately desired Nevaline’s approval, Ulla knew Shen’s mother found her wanting. And certainly as soon as news reached Nevaline about yet another wakeful night, she would bustle over to take charge, once again proving how deficient a wife Ulla was. All Reisil wanted to do was quiet the baby and let Ulla and Shen have a few hours’ sleep before the invasion.

“Give these to your mistress,” she said, handing the girl a jar and a pouch. “One spoonful of each into a cup of water every four hours. No more than that.”

Reisil made the girl repeat back her instructions twice.

“I’ll return later to see how he is,” she said, then shooed the maid upstairs.

The sky had begun to lighten, though the moon still leached color from the world. Reisil hurried along the side streets like a ghost, keeping her eyes fixed on the walk in front of her. Old pain pricked as she passed a narrow brownstone with deep windows and a dark door. The home of Bassien and his wife Kivi. When had she lived there? Maybe when she was seven or eight? Reisil shook her head. She couldn’t remember.

There had been so many houses, so many families. Dozens. Good families with money. No one who took Reisil in was forced to. Every three months she would move to another house—so that no one family would have to bear the burden of her keep for too long. They fed her, clothed her, kept her clean, gave her a place to sleep. As much as they’d do for any stray they took pity on. But she wasn’t one of theirs. They never forgot that. Neither did Reisil.

She sighed. It hadn’t been all bad. Not even mostly bad. The adults had always been kind. The worst had been the children, who had been . . . children. They had liked to tease her about having no parents: that she’d been found in a horse trough, the dustbin, a midden wagon, the gutter, a rain barrel. She made an easy target.

Reisil had also been a slight girl, all bones and angles. The children, often led by her nemesis, Juhrnus, called her a walking skeleton, and just as deaf and dumb, for her habit of restraint. Nor was it wise to invite further persecution by protesting or tattling. When they tired of name-calling, they liked to pelt her with the crab apples and juniper berries that grew abundantly in town, chanting rhymes like:

She could hear them even now, and remembered running away, remembered the black bruises from the hardthrown missiles.

Kolleegtark’s cottage had become Reisil’s refuge. He’d always let her in without any questions, leaving his back door open when he wasn’t home. He encouraged her to sit at his table as he worked, to watch as he treated his patients. It was there she’d learned to love healing. She’d coveted Kolleegtark’s independence and the esteem the townspeople showed him. She envied the way everyone seemed to be his friend. She swiftly concluded that being a tark meant a person’s background didn’t matter. Kolleegtark’s father had been a ragpicker, his mother a laundress. No one cared. Tarks were welcomed and respected everywhere.

Reisil scrubbed her hands over her face, surprised to find her cheeks wet. Idiot. That had all been long ago. It didn’t matter anymore. Or it wouldn’t, once she was confirmed as Kallas’s tark. Most of those who had teased her so unmercifully hadn’t done so out of real malice. She had just been different and an easy target. Usually Juhrnus started it and the rest just followed like sheep. Now those same children invited her into their homes, confiding their secrets, entrusting her with the care of their families.

Reisil squared her shoulders. She was no longer a child to cry over old hurts. No, her tears were in honor of Kolleegtark, who had died while she was away. He had been her first friend, kind and gentle, and he deserved the tears far more than the scrawny memory of Reisil, who now had so much.

Kallas continued to wake around her. Maidservants appeared with swinging baskets, heading to market. Fragrant scents of baking bread and roasting meats drifted tantalizingly in the air. Bells jingled, doors slammed, and birds erupted into song.

The eastern gate bustled with wagons loaded with vegetables and meat for market. Many of the farmers carried long-knives, cudgels and bows. Several of them surrounded the gate guards, voices raised in complaint about the squatter’s village.

Reisil edged past a sweet-smelling cargo of melons, carrots, radishes and lettuce. Good as it smelled, she couldn’t help but notice the melons were tiny, the carrots thin and leathery, the lettuce stunted. The farms were too far from the river to make use of its water, and there had been little rain.

Just outside the gate, Reisil paused at the common well, saving the water in her flask for her ramble. Situated just beyond the walls, the well was a kindness to thirsty travelers. Reisil selected a chipped pottery mug from those dangling from wire hooks around the well-house roof and scooped a cup from the already full bucket.

The wind brushed dry fingers over Reisil’s moist brow as she drank. She closed her eyes and lifted her face into it, drawing a deep breath, tasting dust. It was looking like a third drought year. Added to the damage caused by the Patverseme invaders, there would be precious little food for people like the squatters who already had nothing. Even Kallas was feeling the pinch, with a number of its wells running low and gritty. Several enterprising men had begun hauling water from the river in wagons and selling it in town. At least the truce meant an end to the fighting for a while. If only it would rain, there was still time to salvage crops before winter.

Reisil opened her eyes. The sky glowed sapphire, and she squinted against the sun’s fiery brilliance as it crested the eastern hills. Feeling time pressing at her, she drained the water from the cup, making a face. It tasted like metal. She replaced the cup on its hook and set off over a grassy swell, avoiding the traffic and dust on the road.

 

By the time the sun had risen overhead and the shadows had shrunk away, Reisil’s pack bulged with collected booty, as did the string sack she’d brought with her. Sweat dampened her undertunic and her stomach growled. She munched more nut mix from the pouch at her waist. Her day had been profitable. She was most excited about the seedlings she’d collected to plant in her garden. Growing the plants herself would not only save time and energy hunting for them, but it was another claim laid on her cottage and on Kallas.

She ambled down the crease of a hill, following a deer track. The sun flickered through the rustling leaves overhead, dappling her skin. Grateful for the shade, Reisil made no effort to speed her steps. Though she had worn a wide-brimmed canvas hat over her black hair, she felt prickly with the heat, and dirty. She wanted a swim in the river and some cream for her mosquito bites.

Throughout the morning, Reisil had worked her way through the hills in a long, sweeping arc, and now descended to the road east of Kallas. She waded through the hedgerow of purple vetch and betony, pausing on the dirt to adjust the straps digging into her shoulders. As she walked, puffs of dust rose about her feet and powdered her legs brown.

The road rose before her in a long, steady hill. Halfway up, Reisil stopped to unclip her flask and drink the last of the tepid water, pushing her hat back to wipe her brow with her sleeve.

The Lady Day celebration two days before had been boisterous, with games and dancing following the bonfire in the Lady’s grove. Everyone in town had contributed food or drink to the feast after, and the festivities lasted well into the night. Reisil had spent the next day attending to countless little injuries and maladies stemming from the previous day’s revelry. In all the excitement, she had not had a quiet moment to offer the Lady her own thanks.

“A tark is the Lady’s right hand,” Elutark always said.

“The
ahalad-kaaslane
dispense Her justice; tarks dispense Her healing. Our gifts come direct from the Blessed Amiya Herself.”

Kolleegtark had said much the same thing, and like Elutark, each night at dusk he had lit a rosemary-scented candle for the Lady, saying She cupped Her hands around Kodu Riik’s fragile light and kept the land safe from darkness. Reisil had marveled at the candles. Always set in a window to guide the sick and injured, neither wind nor rain ever doused the flame. This, to Reisil, had always been the definitive sign of the Lady’s endorsement of a tark. The night of her return to Kallas, Reisil had lit her own candle for the first time, setting it in the wind and watching into the early hours to see if would blow out. She had fallen asleep, and her joy in finding her candle still burning the next morning continued to bubble in her veins even now.

The Lady Day celebration and aftermath had not given Reisil the opportunity she wanted to properly offer her gratitude to the Lady. Reisil had therefore planned to break her noontime fast in the green silence of the festival grove, where she could also make her devotions. Thus, despite the heat and her fatigue, she continued to trudge along the dusty road, mouth dry, sweat trickling down her back and between her breasts.

She had forgotten the squatters in her fatigue and so was startled when she crested another hill and found herself suddenly in the midst of the “village,” which in reality was little more than a squalid camp.

She trailed to a halt. Bits of ragged clothing hung from bushes. Reisil supposed they had been hung there to dry after a wash, but they appeared dingy with dirt. Bloat-flies rose and fell in lazy swarms, while dogs and children chased each other in the dust. Woodsmoke stung Reisil’s lungs and there was a smell of burned porridge and rancid meat. The shelters were rude at best. A blanket spread over a framework of cut branches. A lean-to made by fastening green boughs to the lowhanging branches of a traveler’s pine. A sagging wagon box given privacy by attaching a quiltwork skirting of dried animal skins.