The Widow's House

Clara

The path through the mountains was not straight. The dragon’s jade curved through forest-choked valleys and rose to cling to the sides of grey-faced mountains. The air here was thin, and the nights grew colder than the season suggested. The body of the army took the lead, and Clara’s little caravan and a dozen others like it followed respectfully at a distance. If there were any travelers coming in the opposite direction, they postponed their journeys, for no one passed by them.

For seven days, Clara rode or, more often, sat her unmoving horse. Any delay in the column before her meant a dead stop, sometimes for hours, before moving slowly forward a mile or two and stopping again. She did not know the source of these delays, nor was there any way of discovering them. It was hers merely to wait and be patient. And, because it was her chosen task, to learn.

On the eighth day, the landscape broadened. Mountains still rose before them, but fewer. The valley in which they stopped spread wider. The army took up its camp along the road where there was soft ground to pitch tents on and trees to cut for wood. Clara’s ’van stopped farther up, where the land was still stone and the wood harder to come by. As night fell, the dark, sweet smoke of green wood thickened the air, and cookfires filled the valley below her like stars. Clara took her little writing kit and drew a bit away from the camp. Spring was well on its way to summer, and the evening sun was slow to fade. She found a flat-topped boulder with no obvious animal nests beneath it, sat, drew the steel-tipped pen over the tarry little ink brick, and continued the already impressively long letter.

I had been aware that certain women would follow the army, doing work of a sexual nature for the benefit of the soldiers. I had not—though perhaps you had—been aware that this is only one of many trading relationships that follow in a host’s wake. The army of Antea now marching is for the greatest part made of men who would otherwise be farming or plying trades in the towns and villages of Antea. They are far from home, possessed of little education, and rich with needs and desires beyond the merely sexual. The army includes a complement of scribes and couriers for the use of the highborn, but the caravans and low camps that trail include scribes and runners as well which the foot soldiers make use of for a price. The cunning men who wear the colors of the great houses are the only ones in this present valley, and more than healing, provide the service of fortune tellers, advisors, and even priests. Charms against death and illness can cost more here than they would in Camnipol. I am led to understand that there is often a trade in liquors and tobacco nearer the beginning of a campaign, though any such supplies have long been exhausted here.

It occurs to me that this unofficial and unrecognized support of the men is both significant and vulnerable.

“Lady,” Vincen said. Clara looked up, putting her hand over the letter. But he was alone. The light was fading quickly now, and she doubted she would be able to return to her report before morning. It wasn’t the sort of thing one wrote about the campfire where anyone might see it.

“Vincen, my dear.”

“It’s time to come back to the ’van.”

“Ah. Supper already.”

“No, ma’am. We’re breaking camp.”

Clara blew across the fresh ink to cure it, frowning as she did so. The fires dotting the valley below were steady. What little movement she saw had no urgency. Vincen followed her gaze and her thought.

“The ’van master’s been keeping watch. There have been twice as many scouting parties sent out and come back as usual. Last pass into the plains is half a day west of here. Thinking is that the locals will try to block us there.”

“And we’re pulling up stakes to go ahead?”

“Back, ma’am. The ’van master prefers we be a day’s ride behind when the fighting starts. Things go poorly, there can be some scatter.”

“Ah, I understand,” she said. Her knees protested when she stood. There had been a time, and it seemed not long ago, when riding all day and sleeping under the stars would have made her body stronger rather than just more pained. “But no.”

“I thought not,” he said. “We’ll be staying for the battle.”

“Well, I don’t see wading into it with a knife, but I’ve come here to see the war. This is it. I can’t imagine turning back now.”

“There’s the question of safety.”

“Safety would have been Camnipol. Or else nowhere.”

She started down the slope back toward the road. The stones grated under her feet, pebbles skittering ahead. Now that she knew to look, the ’van master was hitching his team to the carts. Likely he wouldn’t make much distance before it got so dark he had to stop again, and yet he’d make the effort. Fear of a night attack, then. Clara wondered how realistic that was. It seemed more likely to her that the forces of Birancour would wait for late afternoon when the sun would be in Jorey’s eyes.

Jorey.

It was easy to see the fires in the valley as the long arm of Geder Palliako. Perhaps she’d trained herself to look away from the fact that her sons were there too. The scouts that the ’van master had been watching had been going to and from Jorey’s tent. If the ’van master’s assessment was correct, he would be riding into battle the next day. In two days at the most. The Lord Marshal would be behind the main lines, keeping an eye on the battle, issuing orders, and so would be the least likely to fall in the melee. Still she could not help feeling anxious when she thought of him.

Part of her wanted to see Geder’s power reach its turning point, for his reach to go as far as it would extend and begin instead to fall back. That it meant Jorey’s battle lost and his army defeated complicated the feeling. She ached with fear and hope and dread, and couldn’t put a simple name to any of them. All that was left was to hope that nothing broke her heart again before tomorrow ended.

“There are others staying too,” Vincen said, his voice tentative.

“Vultures?” she asked, forcing her tone to be light.

“Well, and some cunning men to help with the wounded. But mostly body-pickers, yes.”

“Ah, my dear,” she said, tucking her arm in his, “what unexpected company we do keep.”

Clara managed to wheedle two days’ rations from the caravan master before he left. Salted pork, hardtack, and a bowl of beans with a crust all along the edge. There was room enough to set up their little hunter’s tent, and she was sufficiently tired that to her astonishment, she slept. Dawn had broken when she woke and crawled out from under the low tent to find Vincen sitting on a stone with a spyglass in his hands. A haze of smoke greyed the air that the valley cupped, the stale remnants of yesterday’s cookfires. No new fires burned.

“What’s happening?” Clara asked, dreading the answer.

“Birancour’s come,” he said, pointing. “You can see the banners between those two hills. The queen’s colors.”

“And Jorey?”

“No,” he said. “Vicarian’s the one that went out to meet them.”

“How long ago?”

“An hour.”

She sat at his side and plucked the spyglass from his lap. “I wish I knew what they were saying.”

“Something along the lines of You can’t come in and Oh yes we can, I’d imagine.”

“I believe it’s a bit more complex than that,” she said, putting the bronze tube to her eyes.

A white table stood in the field beyond the army, a flag of parley flying above it. Three men sat at it, so distant that even the spyglass couldn’t show their faces. One wore the brown robes of the spider priests. That was Vicarian, then. Knowing that, she could see something familiar in the way he held himself. The others were in dark cloth embroidered with silver or else some light mail. She couldn’t tell. The thing that had been her son raised his hands and shook his head. For a moment, she was back in Camnipol, in the little bed she and Dawson had shared, listening to the haranguing shouts of the high priest in the street. You cannot win. Everything you love is already lost. Everything you care about is gone. Listen to my voice, you cannot win. The morning was warm, but she shuddered.

The forces of Antea stood in ranks. Swords and pikes and bows were in their hands. At the head of each rank the banner of one of the great houses of Antea: Broot, Faskellan, Ischian. Marshallin and Hoit were there as well, though they were the court of Asterilhold. Or had been, before their kingdom fell. But then, those who had passed through Geder Palliako’s private court were among the trusted.

If they had turned, if she’d seen their faces, she could have named each of them. She’d eaten at their tables, and they at hers. She’d traded gossip with their wives and mothers and daughters. They didn’t turn back. But along each rank, another figure strode, walking up and down, gesturing at the men as they stood at attention. More priests. More men like Basrahip. Like Vicarian. Their faces were turned toward her, and she saw joy in them. Wide smiles, open arms. She watched them touch the shoulders and arms of the men. You cannot lose. The goddess is with you, and nothing can stand against her. She will protect you. She could even make out some of the words on their lips. Protect and cannot were particularly easy to recognize.

Something happened. She saw the men start. Not move, not yet, but suddenly sharpen. She moved the glass back, and the parley table had been overturned. Vicarian was on his feet now, shouting at the emissaries of Birancour. His fist was raised, and the other men were stepping back in dismay. The thing that had been her son turned dramatically and stalked back toward the Antean ranks. Jorey, in good mail on a white charger, trotted forward. For a moment, the two brothers spoke. Clara thought she saw Jorey’s shoulders sag, but it might only have been her imagination.

Jorey’s head turned. The rising tones that called the attack rang through the valley. Clara’s throat felt like she was choking on a plum pit. On the field, the soldiers shifted into their positions.

“No need to watch this,” Vincen said, putting his hand on her shoulder.

“These are my men. As much as the deserters were, these are mine. I won’t disrespect them.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Vincen said.

The forces of Birancour poured into the valley. She couldn’t think what Vicarian might have said that convinced them to charge into the morning sun, but they came nonetheless. Jorey’s men fell back, not in a rout, but with the discipline of practice and plan. Wings of archers swung to the fore, loosing their shafts and falling back. Birancouri cavalry came in answer, but now the priests stood in among the soldiers. They had speaking horns to their mouths, and even at distance, Clara could hear the muddle of voices. The attacking cavalry hesitated, and with every hesitation, a few more arrows fell among them. Clara wanted them to charge. She wanted them to fall back. She wanted the men of Antea and Birancour to join together and cut the priests down where they stood. She wanted her sons back.

With a rush, the cavalry of Birancour came. Their banners floated in the breeze of their passage. Foot soldiers followed, the sun glittering off bared blades. And now the men of Antea—exhausted from months of travel and battle—surged forward to meet them. She put down the spyglass. She would not turn away, but neither did she wish to gawk as men she could not save died.

The banners moved amid the chaos, the colors of Birancour spreading wide and then falling together. The screams of men and horses filled the world like the roar of surf, like a windstorm. The breeze shifted, and brought a smell unlike anything she had ever imagined. She sat utterly still, as if frozen. Vincen took her hand in his, and she squeezed his fingers to assure him that she was still there.

The first of the green-and-gold banners fell. The roar changed. The banners moved forward, toward the mouth of the pass and the fields of Birancour. The rout began, and the soldiers of Antea rushed after their fleeing foes, slaughtering. All banners but one, and it carried her own colors. She lifted the spyglass.

Jorey sat his charger, reins in his hands. His face was little more than a flesh-colored smudge, but he did not ride forward with his men. He watched as she did. And saw, perhaps, what she saw. It was well after midday before it ended. The Antean soldiers didn’t come back, but a trickle of servants did, come to collect tents and carts and move them forward, she assumed, into the conquered army’s camp. All around the bowl of the valley, the body-pickers and vultures began to inch forward, keeping wary eyes out for patrols of soldiers from either side. She stood and began walking down, one foot resolutely in front of the next. Vincen had to trot to catch up to her.

“My lady, please.”

“My people, Vincen. My people, my choices. Mine.”

The first body she came to was long dead, face and throat cut in a single blow. The next wasn’t so fortunate. He still lived and struggled, though there was no reason in his eyes. She poured a bit of water in his mouth, and she thought he tried to drink it, but she couldn’t be sure. When he went still, she moved on. The ground was churned to mud. Men and horses lay under the sun, dead and dying. Cunning men and vultures crossed the field, giving what they could. Taking what they could. A patrol of Jorey’s men arrived and began hauling away the injured of Antea. Only of Antea. The enemy were left to die.

The patrol took no notice of her or the others, and she had little care for them. Birancouri and Antean alike, she did what she could to ease the injured or dying, to help them. She bound wounds where she could, gave ease where there was ease to be given. She took nothing from the bodies of the dead. She had from them already what she needed.

“You should eat,” Vincen said.

“I will.”

“You keep saying that.”

“It keeps being true. I will.”

The evening had come. She and Vincen had made their way back to their little camp, their little tents. Somewhere far ahead, a bonfire was blazing, dark smoke rising into the indigo sky. A victory celebration. Her kingdom’s victory. Her son’s.

Her boots and the hem of her skirt were heavy with drying mud. Vincen held out a bit of salt pork he’d been boiling over their little fire, and she took it, bit off an end, and chewed slowly. She was aware that it tasted much better than it should have. Either she was desperately hungry or any sensation that proved her still alive had become precious. Perhaps both.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I will be.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“I am.”

He lapsed back into silence. The stars came out, scattered across the sky like a snowstorm. Clara drew her writing kit out, dropped another knot on the fire, and turned her back to it so that the light fell on the page and didn’t blind her. She took the pen in her hand, paused, and put it back. If ever in her life it had been time for a good pipe, the time was now. She packed the little clay bowl with leaf, lit it with a burning twig, and took the pen out again. She drew it across the ink brick, let the nib hover for a moment over the page. There had been some other thought she’d had before, some strategy for undermining Geder’s army. It was no longer foremost in her mind. She let it go.

Today I stood witness as the forces of Antea won their first battle against the defenders of Birancour. I presume, though I do not know, that we will turn south tomorrow for Porte Oliva. I hope to find a courier whom I may send north to Carse, and so to you. I will post to you what information I can in hopes that it will be of use in bringing this ongoing tragedy to an end.

It is important, as we consider our present conflict, that we understand it for what it is. The war now being fought is not with the people of Imperial Antea. Nor is it against the citizens of Birancour. These are the weapons that greater forces use against each other. Put two boys to fighting each other with sticks, and the boys may come away well or poorly, but the sticks will always be shattered. The enemy is within Antea, it has bored to the center of the empire, but it is not the farmers or the bakers or the beggars in the streets of Camnipol, nor even the court itself. This war is not fought against Birancour or the Timzinae or your colleague who has earned the Lord Regent’s particular wrath.

A cult of death has taken root in my kingdom, Geder Palliako at its center. And our present struggle is not how to defeat Antea, but how we may best rip out this weed and burn it before all that was once noble there is lost.