The Book of Forbidden Wisdom (20 page)

I dismounted and ran to them. No pulses, no signs of life, but they were still warm.

In a minute I could see that Silky was nowhere in the camp. But even had she escaped, even if she had somehow gotten a weapon, she would not have been able to kill them all. They would have quickly taken her down.

“I don't understand,” I said.

That's when I knew that we weren't alone. In a semicircle around the camp, silent and still and blending into the night, stood—­women. They were women of all ages—­from a girl younger than Silky to an elder—­but all were dressed in muted colors and all were shadowed by the shifting patterns of foliage and shadow. They carried crossbows and longbows, and their raised weapons were pointed at my heart.

 

O
ne of the women, who was perhaps in her thirties, stepped forward into the firelight. They did not lower their weapons.

“Lady,” she said to me. “Are these your men?”

For a moment I had no idea what she was talking about. Then I heard Renn murmur, “This isn't a time to be silent.”

The woman looked toward him.

“You're right, but it definitely isn't
your
turn to speak,” she said. She looked at me.

“Wait—­yes.” I was stumbling over my words. “We're traveling together. We're Arcadians.”

“Zinda,” said a woman from the shadows. “Let the young one see them. See if she confirms their story.”

“All right, Caro,” said Zinda. “Let her come forward.”

And there was Silky. She ran straight into my arms. “Those ‘Lidans took me back to the camp,” she said, “but right away, the sisters came.”

On my right, Jesse exhaled, as if he had been holding his breath for a long time, and I saw his immense relief.

At that moment, I liked him.

The women emerged from the trees. There were twelve of them, and I was struck again by the broad range of ages among them. It was unlikely that they were literal sisters.

“You're lucky to get the golden-­haired one back,” said Zinda.

“I'm the Lady Silky,” said Silky.

“And where are you all going when you aren't being captured by ‘Lidans?”

“We're going to the north,” said Silky. “We're on an errand, and I don't think that Lady Angel, that's my sister, wants me to say anything about it. But when we're
done,
we can go back to Southern Arcadia. You see, it started when Lady Angel was getting married, and—­“

“Silky.”

She stopped.

“Your business is your own,” said the woman called Caro.

“But given the proximity of the ‘Lidans,” said Zinda, “it's best if we all went back to the village.”

“All right,” said Trey. Zinda gave him a surprised look, as if a dog had spoken. Then she looked at him more closely:

“The disease of the flesh is hard to bear,” she said. “And easy to spread.”

Trey didn't answer.

“There's no more fear of contagion,” I said. “The sores have all closed. Your village will be safe from the disease—­and yes, we'll go with you.”

She saw I was looking as the other women lashed the corpses of the ‘Lidans to their horses.

“We'll bury the bodies elsewhere,” said Zinda, “and we'll keep their horses. To the other troops, it'll be as if they'd disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“Are you from The Village of Broken Women?” asked Silky.

I sensed amusement among them.

“We are,” said Zinda. “But we're not as broken as you might have been led to believe.”

We kept walking until Zinda paused near an old oak with carvings on it.

“You just passed from Shibbeth into the spur of Arcadia that reaches into Shibbeth,” she said. “We're coming to the canyon that leads into the northern lands.”

Home. I wanted to bend down and kiss the land.

Soon we were going steeply uphill. I was out of breath, and Jasmine, even without my weight on her back, began to labor as she made the ascent. Somewhere I could hear water. We left the trail, and cliff walls rose on either side of us—­we had entered a canyon, and I could see the source of the sound of water. A shallow river ran through the center. At some time in a far distant past, it must have been a mighty force that had shaped the canyon walls. Now I would have been able to cross it without getting my knees wet. We stopped, and the horses sucked down their fill; I got down on my knees and scooped up the sweet water—­not realizing until later that the brimming cup in Trey's hands must have been meant for me.

Without his changing expression, I saw him give it to Silky.

In another hour of hard going over rocks and scree we came to small huts, clearly long deserted and in disrepair.

“When there were more of us,” said Zinda, “the village stretched all the way here.”

“Was that during the days of gold?” asked Silky. “Angel has gold from The Village of Broken Women.”

“I can imagine she does,” said Caro. “The bed of this river was once strewn with gold nuggets.”

“Bardsong,” said Renn, “would have it that one nugget was as big as a cabbage.”

“Ah, well,” said Caro. “In bardsong, sometimes things grow.”

We picked our way through the ruins until, finally, we were in the center of The Village of Broken Women.

I'm not sure what I had expected. Perhaps more half ruins. But these houses looked strong, compact and solid. They were all made of stone.

“That's hard work,” said Jesse. “Building with rock.”

“We're strong,” said Zinda. She looked at Jesse, our young giant, appraisingly. As if she were judging a horse.

“Are you—­are you married?” I asked. I couldn't exactly ask her if she was a Lady, but I couldn't place her caste at all. Marriage would have raised her status.

“I'm married,” she said. “Unless my husband's dead. He left with the others.” Her tone was even.

These women had clearly not disappeared into their husbands. I wondered who ran the village. Who sent out female patrols. Who called them sisters.

By the time we got to the village square, sixty or seventy ­people had gathered, almost all women. The men stood at the edge of the crowd. They were certainly not the leaders.

“Lark,” said Zinda to a young woman by her side. “Pick out ten for corpse duty. We need these ‘Lidan bodies underground. And hurry with the purification rituals—­there's an invasion on the way.”

“Easily done,” said Lark. Zinda turned to Caro.

“The ‘Lidan troops will be here soon,” Zinda said. She put a hand on Caro's shoulder. “We need to be strong and ready. Get Farno to slaughter one of the ‘Lidan horses.”

“I can do it,” said Caro.

“I need you here,” said Zinda. “Get Farno.”

“You're going to kill a horse?” asked Silky. “I thought you were
good
.”

“There aren't many alternatives,” said Caro. “We can't cook the dead ‘Lidans.”

Zinda tugged at a lock of Silky's gold hair. “Someday you'll understand, little girl,” she said, but Silky pulled away, clearly not wanting to understand.

I looked over as one of the horses was being led away, and I couldn't blame her.

Then Zinda stood on an overturned crate and addressed all those in the marketplace. As she spoke of invasion, a wave of excitement spread through the crowd, but I didn't sense fear.

“Bring weapons and food to the square,” she said. “The ‘Lidans think they're going to overrun us. Their surprise is going to be considerable—­if they have time for surprise before they die.”

The excitement in the square turned to murmurs and shouts and then, at her final words, a roar of approval, and I realized that these women, faced with the possibility of death and oblivion, were responding with the blood-­lust of warriors.

We went with Zinda and Caro and helped them stable the ‘Lidan horses—­all but the one marked for slaughter—­and the two women finally began speaking to Trey, Renn and Jesse more directly.

“Renn's a bard,” I said.

“A good occupation for a man,” said Zinda.

“I don't think,” whispered Silky, “that's a compliment.”

“Let's hear you sing,” said Caro.

Renn's song was complicated, like an intricate dance to which I did not know the steps, and it was also very beautiful and sad. Some women came into the stables to hear. I looked up at Renn's face, and I saw that, as he sang, he was watching me.

When he came to the end of the song, we all walked back to the square, where I caught the aroma of roasting meat. The ‘Lidan horse had, apparently, been dispatched.

Then I saw the weapons. Mostly I saw rocks and some kind of rope, carving knives and brooms. There were some longbows, and even a ­couple of crossbows, but it wasn't going to be enough.

“You should leave the village,” I said abruptly. “Go further into Arcadia. Bring troops.”

“This is our fight,” said Zinda.

“But brooms,” I said. “What on earth can you do with brooms? Sweep them away?”

“Brooms are useful,” said Caro.

“There're eighty of them,” I said. “Armed. Most on horses. You don't have a chance.”

“We're going to be all right,” said Caro softly.

“We'll take them at the canyon,” Zinda said carefully, as if explaining to children. “They can only pass in threes—­at most, fours. The rocks and the brooms and the arrows will spook the horses. And once a ‘Lidan's down, he won't get up. Ever.” She made a slashing motion with her hand across her throat. I glanced quickly at Silky, worried she was too young to see such a brutal gesture.

But Silky was staring at Zinda with openmouthed admiration.

“What do
we
do?” she asked. “I'm good with a crossbow, and I'm very enthusiastic about throwing rocks. And Angel, my sister, once killed a man after punching his sword. She just
punched
it.”

I moved uneasily.

“Don't get so enthusiastic about death, Silky,” I said. “It worries me.”

“Would you worry less if she were afraid?” asked Zinda, but Zinda was not waiting for a response. She was looking at Trey.

“What about this one, Angel?” she asked. “Bards entertain. The man Jesse has strength. But the faceless one?”

Trey stood there silently.

“You won't speak of him like that again,” I said. Zinda narrowed her eyes, but then she nodded.

“Trey
rescued
us,” said Silky. “Angel and me.”

Caro looked at Silky appraisingly.

“You should learn to rescue yourselves,” said Zinda.

 

T
hat night the whole village ate outside in the square. In the end they had slaughtered two of the ‘Lidan horses, and there was enough meat for everyone several times over. Garden vegetables went into a huge iron cauldron that hung over a fire, and woman after woman came up and added her produce. There would be enough for the next day and the day after that.

If these women lived that long.

Renn, Trey, Jesse, Silky and I ate apart from the other women by my choice; I didn't want anyone to stare at Trey's face. Silky was in a strangely ebullient mood that seemed at odds with the preparations for battle going on all around us.

“Land isn't so bad,” she said suddenly.

“Land greed's what got us here,” I reminded her.

“Affection is more important than land,” said Jesse seriously. He may have had a point, but I wasn't ready, at that moment, to grant it.

“I
want
affection,” said Silky, “but I want lots of land too. Timber. Meadow. Farm.
All
of it. Right now I don't have a thing.”

Jesse suddenly looked forlorn.

“You'll have what you want, Silky,” I said. “If Kalo doesn't manage to get my dowry, I'll give you half. I promise. And even half is a great deal.”

Silky frowned. “I don't want
yours,
” she said. “I want to get mine because of who I am. By marrying someone
rich
.”

Jesse looked even more forlorn.

“That's not quite the same thing as getting land-­rich because of who you are,” said Trey.

“He has you there, Silky,” I said.

Silky gave a great sigh. “I
hate
it when you're
right,
Trey. “When I was a child you always were. It's an annoying trait. I don't know why Angel feels so—­”

She looked up to find the four of us staring at her. All of us, I suspect, wondered how she was going to end that sentence.

“Never mind,” she said quietly.

We finished our horse soup.

L
ater, while Renn tuned his lute, and Trey and Jesse sat talking, and Silky was chattering with a group of girls her age, I went to find Zinda and Caro. They were going through the cache of weapons with some of the other women, and I took them aside.

“I must be direct,” I said. “You need to take your ­people to the hills; you can't withstand this invasion—­you have few horses and no soldiers.”

“We don't need help,” said Zinda. “We never have.”

“We'll kill them all, you know,” Caro said.

“They're going to come through,” I said. “They're going to swarm over your village, and then they're going to try and take Arcadia.”

“It's going to be all right,” said Caro.

“They have the land greed, Caro,” I said. “If Garth's heir has promised these soldiers land in Arcadia, and he would be a fool not to, they'll fight with all their hearts. They won't give in. They won't die easily.”

“Who does die easily?” asked Caro softly.

“We're going to fight for our village,” said Zinda. “And our hearts are greater than theirs.”

“It's going to be all right,” said Caro again. “Really.”

T
he cliff walls loomed over the shallow river below, but as the canyon approached the village, they declined until the rock walls were only waist high. If the ‘Lidans got that far, there would be no more women in The Village of Broken Women. There would be no more village.

I helped take carts of rocks up high on the canyon wall. Jesse pulled the heavier loads for me. Zinda and Caro had shown us all the vantage points from which we would be low enough to do substantial damage to the ‘Lidans but still too high for them to reach us on their horses.

At the entrance of the village, a group of women pounded sharpened pikes hardened in fire into the sand, a last stand against any horsemen who got through. As Jesse and I unloaded the rocks, I noted that the pikes, from above, looked puny and insignificant.

In the square, Trey helped re-­string longbows and crossbows. Many of the strings had long since perished from lack of use. Renn sang and did odd jobs. When Trey finished with the bows and began hauling stone, I saw how strong he had grown on our journey. Jesse looked tired, but he kept working—­now with Trey.

Silky showed the women who would be stationed on the canyon walls how better to use their bows. They imitated Silky's peculiar but effective stance, and, if they were using longbows, learned to raise their elbows ever so slightly when they released their arrows.

It was the longbows that might give the women an advantage. Crossbows were for close contact, and if the ‘Lidans got that close, we were in trouble. Perhaps the women I saw brandishing brooms could keep the horses at a distance.

But many of those whom I saw making preparations were no more than girls, girls who should have been sent to the mountains to hide.

“They're too young, Zinda,” I said between loads of rocks.

“They won't leave,” said Zinda. “And I don't see you leaving either.”

“We've brought the ‘Lidans down on you. And you saved Silky. But they should hide. They should—­”

But then I stopped, because I realized she was right. I had seen the determination on their young faces; they weren't going to leave. It hurt to think of any one of them wounded or killed—­and another thought struck me.

“Who's your healer? Do you have medicines prepared? Bandages?”

Zinda smiled. “According to you, we'll all be dead. No need of a healer.”

“Just in case.”

“Our healer died in the shuddering sickness last winter. If you know herb lore, you're all we have.”

“I know some,” I said, and I thought of my mother sorting through herbs in our giant kitchen.

“We're grateful for all you're doing,” said Zinda. “Even your men are helping. Jesse is strong. The bard brightens the women's spirits. And the Faceless One has been tireless.”

“His name is Trey,” I said. “Trey. You can at least learn his name.”

Zinda cocked her head at me.

“Your Trey has worked hard.”

“He's not
mine
.”

“He's not?”

I thought of Father calling Renn
my
bard, and I almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. But then I had a flashback. The summer I was twelve; Trey's peach trees laden with heavy, ripe fruit. We had been alone for a moment, and he had fed me portions of his peach until the juice ran down my chin. At that moment, perhaps, we had been each other's. Now it seemed as if my childhood had never been.

Caro, on Zinda's instructions, called a break, and an hour later the girls who had been practicing with the brooms started distributing food. I took my share of horsemeat and started off to find Silky. I found her still showing the villagers how to work with bows. Jesse had used the rest as an opportunity to find his way to her. When I took Silky aside, he looked at me woefully, but I wasn't there to speak of him.

“I don't want you so much as two inches from me when the ‘Lidans come.”

“You'll be with the bows?” she asked.

“I'm not much good with a bow,” I said. “I'm going to be in the square, preparing for the wounded.”

Silky looked troubled.

“But
I'll
be up on the canyon wall.”

“You need to stay with me.”

“They need me, Angel. Some of them are pretty good, but they will
not
keep their elbows up, and they've all learned that idiotic Arcadian stance, which almost guarantees a miss.”

“This is dangerous, Silky,” I said.

She looked at me in surprise. “Of
course
it's dangerous,” she said. “And I'll see you back in the square.”

She smiled. And then, for the first time in her entire life, she turned and walked away from me.

“Just—­just remember to aim at the horses,” I said, trying to be helpful. “They're the big targets.”

She turned back. She looked surprised. “The horses are innocent, Angel. It's the ‘Lidans who want to kill us. It's not as if I might miss.”

Jesse looked as if he was about to follow Silky, but I held up my hand.

“There's more to be done,” I said, and for some reason I said it gently. He left the archers and started to walk back to the square with me. Partway there he joined Trey, who was helping to bury ropes in the sand.

“We'll pull them taut when the ‘Lidans ride by,” one of the women said to me.

Trey turned his ruined face to mine.

Those peaches. Long ago.

As he gazed at me, I saw it all in his green eyes. All our lives together. I could not help but break one more rule. I went to him, took his hand in mine, and then I raised and kissed it. I didn't wait to see his reaction but left to steep willow bark.

Just in case any of us lived.

T
he signal came much earlier than any of us had expected. I was in the tent pounding herbs, and the girl assisting me called me to the entrance of the tent. Zinda and Caro had sent sentries south on the canyon wall. As I stood gazing out, the last woman visible to us on the canyon lip lifted a flag. The girl helping me said, “They must've just entered the canyon.” She was fidgety and nervous and knocked over a bowl of hot water.

“If you want to go to the hills, go,” I said.

She laughed. “It's not that,” she said. “I want to go to the front of the pikes.” Her face was shining. “When a horse goes down there, so will the man riding it.”

“And what're you going to do once this ‘Lidan's down?” I asked.

“I'm going to cut his throat,” she said. Then she smiled, took off her apron, grabbed a kitchen knife and ran for the final barricade.

The ‘Lidans would be here at any moment. Sure enough, as I looked out over the landscape, the ‘Lidans rounded the corner of the canyon and came into view; they looked like a long wave coming in to the shore.

Another of my assistants came to me and looked out to the surge of ‘Lidans and then to the women at the top of the cliff, who were signaling.

“The signals say,” she said, “that half the ‘Lidan force has come so far.”

“But look at them,” I said. “They're so many.”

“You're the color of cheese,” said my assistant, peering into my face. “You need to brace.”

“I need my sister.”

“Golden Hair? She's taking care of herself and the women around her. You don't need to worry about Golden Hair—­about the Lady Silky.”

I was surprised out of my worry. They normally didn't use titles. Silky must have impressed this woman, who couldn't possibly know Silky was only fourteen, who didn't know she needed protection. That Silky was a child.

Then I remembered how she had walked away from me to get back to the women working on the bows.

How she had killed men to save me.

How she had been brave time and time again, even when it seemed we would be subsumed utterly by the protocols around us.

And I realized that while she wasn't yet fully grown up, she could no longer be called a child.

All this time, the ‘Lidans kept coming.

I thought the archers would never fire, and I thought of Silky up there with them, and I wondered if she would wait until it was too late. I wondered how much skill she had managed to inculcate into these women.

The horsemen came on.

I saw three figures near the pikes, and I realized I was seeing Renn and Jesse and Trey trying to hammer the pikes more deeply into the ground.

The horsemen were already halfway to the pikes.

It began.

I didn't see a hail of arrows—­at first I didn't see any arrows at all—­but here and there a ‘Lidan was suddenly struck down from his horse.

Silky's work.

The arrows came more thickly—­I could see them in the air—­and now some of the horses were going down (not Silky's work). But then the ‘Lidans were lifting their shields as covers, and not many more of them fell. Soon the women would be throwing rocks and using the few crossbows they had.

Which meant that the women would have to be dangerously close to their targets.

Then the ‘Lidans who had been rushing forward changed their tactics. Instead of coming straight on, the horses on the outside were peeling off and making for the weakest point of all—­the place where the pikes did not yet begin but where the canyon wall was less than a waist-­high slope of scree. Their plan was obvious:

They were going to scramble up that scree, get onto the lip of the canyon and ride up and take out the archers.

Jasmine was a light-­boned mare. She would be no help for me this day. I ran to the barn for Trey's great Bran instead. By the time I was mounted and on my way to the low canyon wall, at least four ‘Lidan horsemen had managed to get up the scree on the left side, and three had clambered up the right wall.

Silky was on the left flank.

‘Lidan horses were massing at the pikes, and it was only moments before they would find a weak spot and overrun the village. But even as I watched, women wielding brooms were upon them—­and I suddenly understood their tactics. The woman in front ran close to one of the mounted ‘Lidans, lifted her broom, and, with a carefully timed swing, swept him off his horse. Others followed, although not all of them brandished brooms. I recognized my young assistant, and I watched as she bent over a fallen ‘Lidan who was still moving. She made a slashing motion. He did not move again.

I turned Bran around and took the first path that led to the left, and, sure enough, I was able to find my way around to the back of the canyon wall, where the way was steep but not impossible, and the terrain was grass, not scree.

I didn't fool myself. If they found me, I would be dead. But if I didn't get to Silky, she would be dead, too.