The Mapmaker's War (13 page)

These considerations you had learned before your place in the apprentice's seat was held by hope. You were grateful to Ciaran, who had slipped materials from the castle's archive for you to study.

I throw out most of my pupils straightaway. They don't understand the basic concepts. This is not simple geometry! said he.

No, Adept, it's not, you said.

Work, Apprentice. Let me see what you can do.

He smiled, a feral yet friendly one.

Now, as a prisoner, you reviewed the old maps. You considered that some boundaries had changed. With time, land altered. Nature moved rivers and shores. Man cleared new paths and built places to live. You had to approximate. It was the best you could do with knowledge of geography, flora, and fauna.

You thought of the expectations. They would want the towns and villages where they could rest, eat, and make merry along the way. They would need that which didn't move easily. Hills, mountains, lakes. You knew you would give what they wanted and what they couldn't see.

The drafting began.

During this time, the twins weaned themselves. You had been feeding them the milk of fear. It could not have been nourishing. You were replaced by a goat and soft foods. They liked the textures. They grew as all babies did. The girl had her likes. The boy had his. They were very much their own little beings.

Wyl went to you. He couldn't stay away because, you believed, he didn't honestly think what you had done was wrong. But it was all too late. He informed you that the confrontation had begun. Confrontation. The word was meant to tame the truth. You shook your head. You hoped the Guardians had considered your words earnest.

This is for our own good, said he.

Is it, Wyl?

The woman suddenly entered after an outing with the twins. One in each arm. When they saw Wyl, their arms flung out. They smiled. They knew their father. He greeted them. The woman put them on the floor. They pulled themselves up and hung on his legs. The boy bounced at his knees. The girl patted his thigh. Their open affection surprised you. The woman left with clothing to wash.

You continued.

There are fathers who will never do again what you're doing right now. Men who will never return home. Why?

Your place is not to question, said he.

You knew what he meant. The implication was that you were unable to comprehend the complexity of the wider world.

Then what is it?

Swords have been brought back from the battle. I've seen them. They resemble what was in the hoard. This is right action, said he.

He kissed his children. You could tell in his eyes he wanted to touch you. He didn't. He kept his arms at his side. It was a complicated moment. You never thought Wyl was capable of what he had helped to set in motion. What he, as King, had ordered.

Raef came in to see your progress. His presence was intended to frighten you. To some degree, it did. He seemed volatile and moody. Unstable. His eyes were blank and glistening. You wondered if he would slit your throat right in front of the children. But he did not. He looked at what you had done since his last visit. He said nothing of what would come of you after you were finished. You didn't ask. He patted the twins on the head like dogs, then left.

You feared for your life. However, in your most secret moments in the darkness of night, you didn't fear death. Perhaps it would be preferable to what you imagined. Confinement of many forms.

You pondered escape. Who wouldn't? There was no way to dig under the foundation of the walls. There was no way to take the bars from the windows. You couldn't stack furniture to climb through the roof. Even if you could have, the house was tended by two guards at all hours. You knew they both stood at the door when the woman went in and out. Prisoners are safe on the inside. One doesn't know the lay of the land outside. You thought perhaps of running through the door, knocking down the woman, the babies. The surprise might be enough to startle the guards so that you may run. You thought it might be worth the risk of death.

There were the twins to consider, and not consider. Your primal tenderness made you protective of them. You didn't want to see them in harm's way. The desire you had for the life you'd had before didn't let you ponder taking them with you. Wyl and tradition would never allow it anyway. They were his. His son, the prince, would be King.

You had no idea what awaited you once the map was complete. Wyl had defied custom to marry you. There was no way he could be so outrageous again. You expected death and hoped for exile.

One day, you idled. You glanced at the spider that lived between the legs of the table. Its egg sac would split wide and spill soon. The quill's nib left overlapped circles on a scrap. You inked the shapes. You remembered such a sketch from your childhood. The circles were marked deer, squirrels, birds, bees, ants. It was a conjecture of shared space. As a girl, you saw the places where they met. As an adult, you saw the same places as voids. The intersections as keyholes, punctures, gaps.

The incantation, the response of Nature, your crouch into hollow trees. You arrived closer to your destinations than was chronologically or geographically possible. You didn't claim to understand what occurred, only accepted that it did.

At first, when you reached the dragon's realm, you thought you had traveled far enough. The location seemed a tremendous distance from the kingdom. Yet in your journey you had used the incantation. You went where you were led. You experienced the gap between the seen and the unseen. Simply because you couldn't explain it didn't mean it wasn't there.

Wyl thought the amulet gave him access to the realm. Protection was what it offered, you realized. Those he met along the roads didn't lie when he asked for direction. They pointed his way, but no one explained how to get there. He might have wandered for ages or died if you hadn't brought you both through. His path had converged with yours. You led the rest of the way. Perhaps it was possible to stumble upon a gap. You had doubts by the time you sat in that hut under guard.

By then, you knew you were mapping a lie.

Yes, the sun rose and set in the same locations. The stars changed their predictable places. You had not met an ocean, though the wind carried its salt. You had not crossed a desert, but suspected one was near. Somehow, you had noticed the flyways of migrating birds, left to right of the rising sun.

A literal map would lead to the destination but would not assure entry.

The bobbin and latch clattered. The door opened, its frame full, for an instant, of a shape that had once pleased you. For a moment, you forgot and smiled
at Wyl your lover. Then you re membered Wyl your husband. He had arrived to visit again as you were finishing the task. He caressed his children's cheeks | they resembled him | and sent them out with the woman.

He told you the settlement had been vacated. The residents were dead or in exile. The King's men, his men, had taken control.

Well, that they did, because the smithy and its materials revealed their strength. Quantities of iron, tin, and copper were found. A store of metals enough to make swords for an army, although there were no mines nearby, said he.

They don't make swords. They make cauldrons, you said. | you saw them, those cauldrons |

Then he spoke of expansion, the need for more. The population was growing. There was trouble in the fields in much of the kingdom. Crop failures, fungus. You wondered when those matters had become dire. The information was new to you. You questioned its source and validity.

Is this part of the justification now? you asked.

Would you see our people suffer?

You laughed. I traversed miles of this kingdom and saw pockets of plenty in the midst of want. Year after year, the same. How is now any different? you said.

I've been assured it is, said he.

You had not the strength or recent facts to argue.

What's to come of me, Wyl? I'm rumored a traitor to the kingdom. I have been forced, under intimidation, to create this map. And I know I can no longer be your wife.

He dropped his head. When he looked up, tears glazed his eyes. You realized he hadn't admitted the truth to himself.

I don't know what to do. There's pressure to make a decision soon, said he.

There is talk of execution, isn't there? you said.

I will not agree to that. You're the mother of my children, no matter the circumstances.

That leaves imprisonment or exile.

Wyl remained silent.

At least promise you won't allow Raef to harm the twins. Don't punish me with them. They are innocent, you said.

He seemed shocked. You knew then he had no idea what threats had been spoken or the depths of his brother's darkness. You wondered what power was truly his at all.

YOU FINISHED THE MAP. YOU PLACED A LARGE X WHERE ENTRY TO THE realm might be. You drew a swallow in the lower space between the lines. The bird was the second-to-last creature you had seen before you walked through the hollow. This notation was typical for you. The map was populated with animals here and there. It was your signature. You marked all of your maps with the presence of beasts.

The latch moved up. The bobbin came down. She is done, said the woman to the guards. The knock beat against the inside of the door. Yes, that is backward. You remember this strange order.

The guards let the woman out. She had taken the map. Proof. What if you went mad and destroyed it, had to begin again? If allowed to. The swallow was barely dry. You watched the sunlight sear through the doorway and cast a trapezoid of light on the floor.

The woman left the twins behind. They played with wooden blocks. A hard wood that could take the sharp edges of cutting teeth. You said their names. They looked at you. You smiled, and they smiled. Sweet little creatures. You will not leave me. I will leave you. Nature reversed, you thought. You took them suddenly to your breast, sunken and milkless. You held them, that innocence, that helplessness. It was the girl who cried out first to be let go. She sat on the floor with the small of her back against the spread of your leg. The boy pressed his toes into your right thigh. He beat his tiny hand against your chest, ma-ma, ma-ma. You didn't remember your mother teaching you shapes. Ciaran, he was present for that. You placed the boy facing his twin and held up the blocks, slightly gnawed, and told them, Circle, triangle, square.

Tell the truth.

In the moment, you thought you could love them. If you had more time.

Ciaran came first. That was how you knew the end was near. You sat across from each other at the table. He looked around. He glanced at the barred window. The pallets where you all slept. The chamber pot. The bundle of dirty clothes. On a shelf, long and high, the maps rolled tight. Your ink, quills, compass, straight edges in a box on the table, latched but not locked.

He told you the fighting had spread. In other lands, hidden in plain sight, there were more settlements like the one across the river. The people were often not prepared to defend themselves. It had become senseless, said Ciaran.

This was senseless from the start, you said.

We acted on good account. The decision wasn't made in haste. We deliberated. We cannot be blamed for unforeseen results, said he.

I told you they were no threat. Why didn't you believe me?

Your counsel was based primarily on impressions, not facts.

I can say the same of yours as well. But what's done is done.

Ciaran embraced you with awkward tenderness. He struggled with affection even at that moment.

Keep your courage, my bold sister, said he. Ciaran paused at the open door. Don't expect to see Father.

You hoped, but without good reason and in spite of all that occurred. You knew your father was ashamed that you had defied the dead King's authority. He had been proud of you as long as you did your liege's bidding. He'd approved as you as long as you obeyed and kept quiet. You remembered the way he had looked at you when you stood before the Council and implored caution. It was the slap's shadow. You tasted blood in your mouth, although he didn't touch you. As well, you had no doubt what he had advised the King | your husband | to do. Your father didn't raise a sword, but his actions were in every blow. How you wished to understand the reason for his violence.