The Book of Forbidden Wisdom (18 page)

 

PART III

 

T
rey pulled the hood of his coat up over his head after he mounted Bran, so that his face was in shadow. I had wanted to examine his face before we left, but he'd turned away from me. I caught Renn looking with pity at Trey—­which made me angry. I knew I was being land proud, but Renn's good looks and dark attraction couldn't keep out the thought: who was Renn to pity Trey?

In a way, Silky was the worst. She couldn't hide her fear, and she avoided Trey; she could not seem to bring herself to look at him. I knew she couldn't help it, because I knew what was in her mind. There had been nights in the past when she had dreamt of beings like Trey—­when she would come to my room, fresh from nightmare. She would pad to my bed and, after crawling in, whisper to me her dreams of faceless men.

Perhaps in those dreams she had been Seeing what would happen to Trey.

Only Jesse behaved naturally. Only Jesse behaved
well
. He kept between Silky and Trey. He was solicitous, but he never peered into Trey's face. He spoke naturally and easily. At one moment, something he said even made Trey give a short laugh.

That was when I finally realized he was good enough to be allowed near Silky. To be, in fact—­and at a discreet distance—­her friend.

In this crisis, he was the best of us.

After we had all mounted, Jesse fell in with Trey as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Only I was close enough to hear Trey's response.

“I don't need pity,” Trey said. I cringed. But Jesse replied simply.

“I won't give it to you then,” he said.

“Why are you here?” asked Trey. “Do you want to see the monster?”

Jesse looked around quickly. I pretended to be particularly interested in something Silky was saying, but in fact I could hear their every word.

“To be truthful,” said Jesse, “I need advice.”

“What kind of advice do you need?”

“You've been friends with the Lady Angel since childhood.”

“Yes.”

Jesse paused.

“How do I get her to like me?” he asked finally. “I need her to like me.”

“You want the Lady Angel's good opinion?” Trey sounded taken back.

“Naturally,” Jesse said. “But especially because”—­he paused—­“because she won't let me near the Lady Silky. Only to talk. That's all.”

And just like that Trey gave a real laugh.

“From your words, I thought at first you were interested in Lady Angel,” he said.

“Of course I hold her in high esteem,” said Jesse carefully.

“Of course,” said Trey. “But I have to tell you—­it's tricky dealing with Angel on the subject of Silky.”

“I noticed.”

Trey laughed again.

“Listen—­” he said. But at that moment Silky demanded an answer of me to a question I hadn't even heard her ask. Jesse and Trey rode ahead, talking, thick as thieves.

They were friends after that.

We rode for a while until I felt I could no longer bear the weight of the heavy dresses and veils required for Shibbeth women. We stopped, and I put on traditionalist garb and once again braided my hair.

“What about me?” asked Silky.

“You keep playing the bride,” I said. “It raises our status.”

Not long after this we came upon a shepherd. He wasn't on the road proper, but stumbling along the rocky shoulder. He led two blue Shibbeth sheep with ropes around their necks, and three dogs followed him obediently.

Strange.

Three dogs could, under normal circumstances, control a flock of well over a hundred. I hadn't spent my childhood exploring my father's great lands for nothing. I knew about sheep and orchards and vineyards, the fields of crops, smallholdings that kept flocks and flocks of heavy-­wooled or fat-­tailed sheep. Unless this shepherd had just sold off his flock, there was some small mystery about three sheepdogs and two blue-­wooled sheep.

“Put your veil up,” I whispered to Silky, and she obeyed. I sat taller in the saddle and prepared to play the role of a haughty traditionalist.

The shepherd stared at us. When he saw Trey, he began to back away from the road. The dogs, barking furiously, followed suit.

“Master Shepherd, you're a stranger to us,” I said, using the Shibbeth formula to greet someone unknown.

“No longer,” said the shepherd, warily giving the ritual reply. Then he added, “You be on the ghost road.”

“But we're not ghosts,” I said.

The shepherd looked hard at Trey. Trey gave no sign, but I knew he was suppressing some sort of strong emotion, because Bran began fidgeting and pawing the ground, and Bran was a carefully mannered horse.

Jesse moved closer to Trey.

“Quiet down,” snapped the shepherd, and at first I thought he was talking to me—­until the dogs stopped barking and settled. The two blue sheep lowered their heads and began cropping the few blades of grass growing up among the rocks.

“We want to go north,” I said.

The shepherd looked at us suspiciously. “The road goes north,” he said. He paused. “Maybe you have food?”

“Food?” I said. “Where's your flock? Surely you're wool-­rich.”

“I was.” He turned his head and spat. “Two hours ago I had more than fifty sheep. But there be troops on the move—­some eighty strong—­and not the standard ‘Lidan troops. These be some Great Lord's troops. They took all but two of my sheep and called it charity. Fifty blue sheep. For slaughter! They would have taken the dogs and eaten them, too, but Kep and Nemo and Tigh wouldn't go.”

“Who eats
dog
?” asked Silky.

“The woman is forward,” said the shepherd.

“She's young,” said Jesse.

“I'm surprised she doesn't be knowing that dog is a delicacy,” said the shepherd. “But then you be having an accent. You're not from Shibbeth. Arcadia?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Why are you dressed like a traditionalist then?”

“It suits me.” That seemed to satisfy him.

“The troops be looking for two Arcadian women,” he said. “And one other from Shibbeth. When I first heard you coming, I thought you was them.”

“Tell me about these women,” said Renn. He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out the uneaten grommet and some sand potatoes.

“The Arcadian women be murderers.” The shepherd eyed the food. “A Lord of Shibbeth's dead, and his heir wants vengeance. That's what the captain of the troops says. The Shibbeth woman—­I don't know. Be those sand potatoes?”

“Yes,” said Renn. “Don't you believe the captain?”

“I believe. But I'd say he wants a piece of Arcadia as well as those murdering women. Those troops be following them women to the weakest point of the Arcadia border.”

“The weakest point,” I said. “The Village of Broken Women.” And our road north would take us there. It was the last place to resupply before the largely ruined Spiral City.

The shepherd looked at Renn. “Mayhaps I could relieve you of some of them potatoes,” he said. Renn leaned down and gave him what I knew was the last of our food.

“Keep talking,” said Renn.

“The more I think about that juicy northern part of Arcadia,” said the shepherd, “the less I believe in them two women what somehow killed a Great Lord.”

“It strains credibility,” I said.

The shepherd stared hard at me. “Have a care and keep to the ghost road,” he said, “or those troops will take everything you have. The lady who travels with you won't be safe.” He indicated Silky.

“Our way is north,” I said. “The road is the most direct way.”

“That be your business,” said the shepherd, “but if there really be Arcadian Lady murderers, and you run into them, you might give them a warning.” He pulled on the ropes attached to his sheep, whistled up his dogs, and turned to continue his way south. Then he seemed to hesitate. Finally he turned back to us one last time.

“The ones the troops seek,” he said, addressing himself to me.

“Yes?”

“If you see them, tell them that veils are the best disguise. Passing for a man works in bardsong, but not so much in life.” And with that he finally and resolutely turned his back to us.

“Well,” I said when he was out of earshot. “Well.”

“He
knew,
” said Silky.

“Yes,” I said. “He did.”

“Of course he did,” said Renn.

“What's that mean?” I asked.

“It means no matter how you tie your hair or keep your face dirty, it's hard not to see you're a woman,” Trey said quietly.

“My face is dirty?”

Trey changed the subject.

“Eighty troops.” He seemed to muse.

“So we're following eighty armed men,” said Jesse. “Eighty armed men who would love to capture the Lady Silky. And the Lady Angel too,” he added hastily.

“I wonder who the Shibbeth woman is,” said Silky.

The others ignored her.

“Behind us are Leth and Kalo,” said Renn.

“I don't like this,” said Jesse.

“It can't be helped,” I said. “
The Book
is north. We go north. If the soldiers are going to The Village of Broken Women, we need to get there first.”

“Everybody in Arcadia acts like
The Book of Forbidden Wisdom
is the most valuable object in the world,” said Silky. “What if it doesn't contain the deeds to the lost lands? What if it's a bunch of old herbal remedies? For frostbite. Or maybe
lovesickness
. Useful, but not—­”

“North, Silky,” I said.

It wasn't long before we began to encounter evidence of the ‘Lidan troops in front of us. They were crisscrossing the north road and raiding farms along the way. We went off the road to try and find a farm where we could get cheese and maybe sausage or dried beef—­perhaps some milk—­but when we found a small holding, it was deserted. No ­people, no livestock, no sign of life.

Silky, as we explored one of the huts, found an overturned chair.

And a woman's body hanging from a beam.

“Who would do such a thing?” she cried.

But there were no signs of struggle. I saw Jesse and Trey exchange glances.

“Go outside,” Jesse said to Silky. “I'll take care of it.” When she left, he righted the chair and cut the woman down.

We were out of food, and the landscape seemed stripped of wildlife—­no grommets, no sand potatoes, no deer, not even songbirds. We were too hungry to be particular, and Silky looked for raccoons as well as pheasants, and fat, slow brush snakes as well as rabbits.

Nothing.

As we cast a wider net looking for food, we began to pass burned barns and the occasional farm with pens and stables devoid of livestock. Sometimes the holdings were still occupied, and whole farm families would come out and watch us pass, and sometimes the women of the families were set apart, their veils rent, their sobs unheeded.

Jesse rode up to me. “Can't we do anything for them?”

“We don't have any food to give them,” I said.

“That's not what I meant.”

“There's nothing we can do.”

“It's as well Niamh went back home,” said Jesse. “This would break her heart.”

We came to a hamlet that was still smoking; the huts and barns had been burned to the ground. Nothing remained but a few stone walls. This time the troops hadn't taken all the livestock with them—­some pigs, two horses and a strange thing Renn called a llama had been corralled and set on fire.

The ‘Lidans were having fun.

In front of the remains of a small house, the body of a man lay across the doorway, and I crouched down next to him. He hadn't been long dead.

A carrion crow gave a harsh call and hopped close to us, its head to one side. Silky threw a pebble at the malign thing; her aim was true, and she knocked it sideways.

“Up you get, Angel,” said Renn. “Time to move on.” He took my hand.

I looked up into Renn's face, and I saw that Trey was watching.

As I took Renn's hand and he helped me up, Trey started walking away, walking away into the shadows cast by the blackened trees.

He didn't come back until we had almost finished surveying the area.

W
e found only one structure left whole in the entire village, and that was a chicken coop. As I looked at it in surprise, a hen came out, strutting, cocking her head sideways now and then as if to see if there was anything edible in the ashes.

“That chicken's
food,
” said Silky, getting right to the point.

“Don't point at it, then,” I said. “Shoot it!” The hen was ignoring us and seemed in no hurry to go anywhere.

“Are you kidding?” said Silky. “With the bolts I'm using, we'll end up with feathers and a head.
Do
something, Angel.”

Before I could, Jesse took matters into his own hands. He walked up to the hen and threw his outer garment over it.

“There,” he said. “Now it thinks it's asleep.”

“They must be
very
dumb,” said Silky.

“You have no idea,” said Jesse.

“Let's check the henhouse,” I said. But there was no need. Before I could move, a man poked his head out of the coop's door. His shoulders followed. He crept forward on his elbows, and I saw why. In each of his hands he carried a plump hen by the feet. His clothes were smeared with chicken droppings, and he had feathers in his hair.

“Don't kill me,” he said. “I'm a bard.”

Renn gave a long sigh.

“Petro,” he said. “What are you doing with those chickens?”

Petro looked relieved.

“Hello, Renn,” he said. “I stole them.”

“How did you escape the soldiers?”

“As you can see, I hid, and, luckily, they overlooked me,” said Petro. “There're more hens. And eggs. I'll trade for clean water.”