Gene Wolfe - In Green's Jungles

"Bird glad!" Oreb crowed.

They joined us, Mora in furs, boots, and trousers, and Eco gleaming with gems and wearing a big saber with a golden hilt under his greatcoat. Between the deference accorded her and the area required by his broad shoulders and long blade, they made the room unbearably crowded.

She waved a cheerful greeting. "I'm sorry, Incanto. We've interrupted something."

"No, not at all," I told her. "We haven't begun. I've been ill-"

"The woman outside told me."

"Jahlee." From what Mora had said and the way she had said it, I knew she thought Jahlee human.

"Jahlee said she'd been taking care of you, but I'm going to take care of you myself. Grandmother and I took care of Papa when he was sick. Besides, she looks like a whore." She had elbowed her way to my bedside by that time; she pressed her wrist to my forehead. "You're feverish. How do you feel?"

"Wonderful."

"You'd say that if you were dying."

She swung around as she spoke, and I saw that she wore a sword with a shorter, lighter blade than Eco's, as well as a needier.

"People!" She raised both hands as well as her voice. "Get out! All of you! I know you mean well, but you're making him worse. Outside, everyone!

Out !"

When we were alone except for Oreb, I said, "I wouldn't have thought you could do that."

She grinned. "Neither did I, but it was worth trying. Anyway, my husband would have chased them out for me if I couldn't."

"I didn't-I'm very happy for you. For you both, Mora. He's a nice young man, and a brave one. I'd ask you to give him my congratulations, but I'll do it myself in a minute or two."

"When you go on with your meeting, or whatever it was?"

I nodded.

"Then you're going to let him sit in? May I sit in, too? Only I'd like to talk to you for a minute first."

"And I would like to talk to you. I'm very anxious to, in fact, though it will be painful."

"You want to scold me. I know you must have been worried, and Papa worried half to death, and I'm sorry. Really and truly I am. Only I didn't think about it until later. All I thought about was-"

I raised my hand. "I know what you thought about, and I excoriated myself again and again. We were terribly worried, exactly as you say-and so proud of you we nearly burst, both of us, and went half mad trying to hide it from each other. No, I'm not going to scold you, Mora. That's your husband's task, if it is anyone's."

"You said it would be painful. Is Papa…?"

"Perfectly healthy, as far as I know, and at the head of his troops."

"Then let me go first. All right?" She found the spindly chair Sfido and I had sat in to pull off our boots, and sat down. "You're going to want to know a lot about where I went and what I did, so I'll say something about that before the other. You know I took the short messenger's horse? I forget his name."

"Yes. Rimando."

"That's it. I took it because I knew Papa's letter was in the saddlebag, and I didn't want to start changing tack. You always have to adjust something for the new horse, and sometimes it takes a while to find out. I wanted to die like a hero."

She smiled. "I kept thinking how I'd be wounded and I'd come galloping up to Novella Citta dripping blood and find out who was in charge and hand over Papa's letter and fall dead. Only it was the horse. Rimando's. They shot it and it died under me.

There were a few seconds there when I was riding a dead horse."

"They didn't hit you?"

"No. I had Papa's needier. Did they tell you?"

I shook my head.

"I did. I knew he slept with it under his pillow. I went in and got it without waking him up. Only I never used it. I thought I'd shoot a lot of them and they'd shoot me, and I'd ride through their ranks and off I'd go, but my horse was dead and I'd have been dead too. I held up my hands instead and I yelled don't shoot. I wasn't brave at all."

"You were sensible."

"I hope so. So they got me, and about an hour later they got Eco, too. They'd been watching the road, I think."

"Their Duko and General Morello are both here. You can ask them."

"Those men with their hands tied? I saw them. That's great!"

"We think so. They took you and Eco back to Soldo and imprisoned you there. Isn't that correct?"

She nodded. "They took Papa's needier and sent our letters to their Duko, that's what they said. And they locked Eco up in a cell with some other men. I got a cell of my own because I was the only woman there. Do you mind if I call myself a woman?"

"Why should I? You are a woman."

She nodded again, solemnly. "My tits are starting. Want to see?"

I shook my head.

"Mostly I was just in the cell at night. During the day they let me out to work. I scrubbed floors and emptied slops and a lot of other stuff I'd done before we got Onorifica. I could've gotten away from them pretty easily, but I wanted to get Eco out too, and it was a while before I could get hold of the keys."

I said, "That was very brave," and she blushed like the girl she had been.

"May I ask where you were married?"

"In Novella Citta. They had… You know. They did it to me when they caught me, and then they caught Eco, and then they did it again that night, four of them."

"I'm sorry, Mora. I'm deeply, terribly sorry."

She shrugged. "You know how it is when you get thrown? You jump right up if you can, and you jump right back on. Because if you don't, if you let yourself have time to think, you'll never be any good. So I kept thinking I've got to get back on, I've got to get back on. That was after the first time. Incanto, this isn't even what I came here to tell you about."

Oreb commiserated with her. "Poor girl!"

"I think it is very probable that this is more important than whatever matter you originally wished to confide to me."

"Yes, but I don't need advice about this. They caught him too, and he was so brave. When they did it to me again he called them names and tried to get loose, and they hit him with their slug guns. They hit me, too, but only with their hands."

"They will be found and punished. I realize that won't help you, but it may save someone else."

Mora nodded, although I do not believe she had been listening. "He was so nice while we were going to Soldo and then when he was locked up there; and I said to myself, that can't have been what Grandmother got married over and over again for, and I've got to get back on. I could imagine what it was like when it was love. They hated me. That wasn't love, what they did."

"No, it was not."

"So I stole food for him in the jail, and he kept telling me not to worry about him, to get away if I could. But I opened his cell, and we stole horses-only there was no way we could get Papa's letters back or his needier. We rode a lot slower the second time, being a lot more careful, and we got through and I told them I was our duko's daughter, and Eco said I was too. And I talked about how we were going to win. They knew they had to give us to the Duko fast or come in on our side, and that's what they did. They gave us cards and jewelry, and swords and needlers and new horses, so on the second night we sort of slipped away and found this place and got one of the holy patres there to marry us. I'm glad you're smiling."

"How could I not smile?"

"Papa's going to be mad because Eco's a foreigner, I think. Only I don't know. You never can tell about Papa."

I remarked that Torda was a foreigner as well.

"Not from Grandecitta, I mean. Only Grandecitta's a long, long way away now, up in the sky somewhere, and nobody will ever see it again. We were afraid the patre would ask us a lot of questions, and he did. Only not the stuff we were afraid he'd ask about, like how old are you and where's your father? He was afraid we didn't love each other and wouldn't stay together. We had to tell him over and over that we did and we would. And we will."