Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

It had seemed simple enough to join the group-a matter of good boots, a pilgrim’s robe, and the muslin cloth to cover her eyes. Now that she was a part of the throng, however, her stomach knotted inside her. The odds of being recognized were low, especially with the blindfold; nearly a million people lived in and around Annur, and those emigrating to Olon were not likely to have spent any time in the Dawn Palace. On the other hand, Adare had ridden in dozens of imperial processions over the years, spent countless days sitting before the court. Just months earlier, thousands upon thousands of citizens had seen her at Sanlitun’s funeral. Her newly cut hair and pilgrim’s robes felt like a meager disguise in the midst of so many eyes.

She wondered what would happen if she were discovered. It would be insanity for them to kill a princess, certain treason, but then, no one in the Dawn Palace had any idea where she was. Her fellow pilgrims could beat her bloody, slit her throat, and toss her in the canal without anyone the wiser. Bodies washed up in the Basin all the time. She imagined her corpse, bloated and rotting, face disfigured. One of the canal tenders would fish her out with a long iron hook, toss her body on a cart, and dispose of it in some shallow pit outside the city, all without a second glance. The missing princess would remain missing. Ran il Tornja would remain on the throne.

She set her jaw, shoved the thought from her mind, pushed into the crowd, searching for a wagon that wasn’t too overloaded. She’d bought only a few changes of clothes, a decent-sized water skin, a wool bedroll, and a supply of fruit and nuts in the event that the caravan didn’t pass through a town for a day or two. It didn’t look like much-plenty of the men and women clustered on the Godsway were laden with three or four times that weight-and yet Adare could already feel the leather straps of the pack biting into her shoulders, the muscles of her neck and back clenching beneath the unfamiliar load.

She had no idea how long it would take her body to adjust. It was tempting to simply grit her teeth and carry the pack herself, but the thought of walking fifteen miles a day already had her nervous. The group of pilgrims provided both her shield from il Tornja and her protection from bandits along the road. An injury that forced her to leave the caravan partway could well prove disastrous. Better to be cautious. For a few copper flames, one of the families would be willing to toss her small pack on the back of a wagon each day.

Most of the carts were piled so high she didn’t even bother to approach. A converted carriage seemed a likely choice until she drew close enough to see the way the boards bowed at the sides, the warp of the wheels. She didn’t know much about transport, but the thing didn’t look as though it would make it past the Annurian walls, let alone all the way to Olon. She was sizing up a low farmer’s cart when a vicious cursing cut through the conversation around her.

“Ya’ve cross-lashed it, ya shriveled nutsack! Straight-lashed, I said. It’s t’be straight -lashed.”

Adare turned to find a tiny, wizened woman, well into her eighth decade judging from the bone-white hair pinned up on the back of her head and the wrinkles etched into her weathered skin. She was cursing at a crabbed, gray man in a voice so loud it seemed impossible such an instrument could issue from such a tiny form. Despite her stoop, the cane in her right hand appeared superfluous: rather than leaning on it, she used the worn length of wood to stab at the provocative lashings.

“I swear,” she continued, spitting as she spoke, “if our mother hadn’t’a squoze us out’a the same fuckin’ cunt, I’d knock ya on that fool fucking head of yours, take the cart my own self, and have done with ya.”

“Please, Nira,” the man replied, muddling with the straps. “We are part of a religious pilgrimage now. This is no way to speak among these devout folk.” His language was more precise than hers and a good deal more polite, but there was a vagueness to his voice when he spoke, an emptiness in the eyes, as though he had just woken up, or were immensely weary.

“Pilgrimage my withered, bony arse!” the woman replied. “It’s a bunch’a fucking cretins never spliced a yoke or mended an axle in their lives.”

The words produced an eddy of discontent in the crowd. People paused in their work or their farewells, turning toward her angrily. Several appeared on the verge of speech, but the woman’s advanced age seemed to earn her a reprieve. The old man had not so much as glanced at the other pilgrims or looked at his sister. He continued to tug with obvious futility at the wrong knot. His mind was going, Adare decided, irritated at the woman for so abusing him in his dotage.

“I will fix the lashing, sister,” he said quietly, “if you will cease prodding it for a moment.”

The old woman snorted, but she lowered her cane and turned from the wagon as though searching for another target. Her eyes lit on Adare.

“And what in the fine fuck is wrong with you ?” she demanded, squinting beneath her wrinkled brow.

Adare froze, uncertain how to respond.

“Ya blind?” the woman pressed. “Dumb?” She took a step closer, waving her cane in the air before Adare’s nose in the way a horse breaker might show a beast the halter. “Sweet ’Shael, ya ain’t sluggish in the head, are ya?”

“No,” Adare managed finally, trying to keep her voice low. The old woman had drawn too much attention already.

“Good,” she snapped, “’cause I got more than plenty a’ crazy with this brain-buggered arsehole.” She jerked a thumb at her brother, shook her head in irritation, and half turned back to the wagon. Adare started to blow out a sigh of relief, but the woman hesitated, cursed under her breath-something about letting the fool girl wander- then, with obvious reluctance, rounded on her once more, stepping in close this time. “What’s with the cloth on your eyes?”

“Nira,” the man interjected, shaking his head and peering suddenly up into the sky, “the young woman’s attire is really none of our business. The clouds,” he waved a vague hand, “ they are our business. The clouds and the sky and the rain…” He trailed off, staring blankly into the distance.

“Oh bugger off with your business, Oshi,” the woman snapped. “Child’s standing ’ere like a poleaxed steer, baffled as a bitch in heat, and you’re on about business. What about fixing the fucking lashing while you’re at it, eh? What about that business?”

She turned back to Adare, waving her over imperiously.

“Quit standin’ there like a silly slut and let me have a look at the problem. River blindness, is it? I’ve seen plenty river blindness, and a strip a’ cloth is no way to handle it.…”

Adare tried to back away, but the knot of people had tightened around her as more pressed in from the periphery. She could try to force her way free, but that seemed likely to draw more attention than the old woman herself.

“It’s not river blindness,” she muttered. She knew as soon as the words were out that the lie was foolish. She’d already told Lehav that she did have river blindness, but this woman seemed intent on checking the injury for herself. Adare raised a nervous hand to the blindfold. “I don’t think it’s river blindness,” she said again, a little more loudly. “I don’t have the bleeding or the lesions.”

“Let me have a look,” the old woman said, stretching up and frowning. “No good hiding from the truth.”

Adare jerked back. “I’m not hiding,” she snapped, more loudly than she had intended. More heads turned and she cursed herself silently. “It’s a normal case of dimming,” she went on more quietly. “My physician said binding them, shielding them from the light, would slow the damage.”