Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

Winter sighed and rubbed her weary eyes. The lantern on her little table had guttered low while she’d been working. She blew it out, added another inch of oil, and wound out more wick, then struck a match and relit it. The sudden flare of light seemed bright as noon in the darkness of her tent.

What I ought to dois sleep. But awake, she could feel the captain’s orders for tomorrow staring at her from where she’d tucked them in her coat, and every time she lay down to sleep she found herself faced with accusing green eyes.

Her only solace lay in work, of which there was fortunately a sufficiency. In spite of Winter’s intermittent efforts, the company books were still badly out of date. Not only did the various infractions, minor penalties, and daily logs of the march still need to be recorded and approved, but the deaths of nearly a third of the men still needed to be processed. Each of the dead had left behind some pathetic bundle of possessions, all of which Bobby had carefully inventoried and assessed. These would be sold at the first opportunity, and the proceeds forwarded to the dead men’s kin along with the army’s standard benefits.

The lists made for sad reading. Winter tapped her pen beside a line that read, “One locket or keepsake, brass, containing a miniature of a young woman. Of indifferent quality. 2f 6p.” She wondered whether the girl had been a wife, a lover, or merely some object of brotherly affection. Then, frustrated, she tossed the pen aside and leaned back on her elbows. Her eyes, itchy with fatigue and lantern smoke, filled with tears.

“Are you unwell?”

The voice was Feor’s-there was hardly anyone else likely to speak to her in Khandarai-but Winter started anyway. The girl was so quiet it was easy to forget that she was there. She lay on her stomach on the extra bedroll Graff had cadged from the quartermasters, reading by the flickering light of Winter’s lamp. Aside from the occasional rasp of a turning page, she might have been a queer-looking statue.

“No,” Winter said, blinking away the tears. “Well, yes, but not how you mean. I’m tired.”

“Your diligence does you credit,” Feor said. Sometimes the girl’s tone was so solemn that Winter was sure she was joking, but her face never showed any hint of it.

“I’m sorry. I must be keeping you awake.”

“It’s no trouble. Since I have no duties here, I have time enough to sleep.”

With a broken arm, Feor could hardly set up tents, or cook, or clean weapons or uniforms. She spent most of her time bundled in a white robe, trudging along with the quartermasters and the rest of the camp servants. Graff escorted her to Winter’s tent when they stopped for the day, and she stayed inside until full dark. Bobby or Folsom brought food in at dinnertime.

Winter had been worried that someone would notice, and undoubtedly many had, but it hadn’t attracted the attention she’d feared. The army had started out with a considerable “tail” of servants and camp followers, and had only added to it during the slow progress up the coast road toward Ashe-Katarion. However much the Khandarai might hate their Vordanai oppressors, it seemed as if some of them were not averse to washing those oppressors’ clothes, selling them food and wine, or sharing their bedrolls. Not if the price was right. So while it was an open secret that Winter shared her tent with a young woman every night, she was hardly the only one, and the only response from the men had been some wistful grumbling about the privileges of rank.

No doubt Davis and the others were laughing at what their “Saint” was up to. Thankfully, Winter had not run across the sergeant since the battle. If her earlier promotion had angered him, her brevet to lieutenant would drive him to a frenzy. She hoped idly that he’d gotten himself killed somehow, but she doubted she would be so lucky.

“I’m sorry I don’t have more for you to read.” Winter’s inquiries among the servants and camp followers had produced only a couple of slim volumes, mostly myths and tales for children. “You must have seen all that before.”

“I consider myself lucky that I was rescued by someone with such a command of our language.”

“Most of the Old Colonials speak it, at least a little.”

“You have more than a little,” Feor said. “You must have made a study of it.”

Winter shrugged. “Here and there. There wasn’t much else to do while we were in camp.”

“In my limited experience, most soldiers seem to be satisfied with drinking, dicing, and whoring. These did not appeal to you?”

“Not especially.” Winter cast about, eager to change the subject. “What about you? I suppose you lived on the sacred hill, before the Redemption started?”

Feor nodded. “In a special cloister, with the other naathem .”

“What was that like? The old priestesses never let any Vordanai so much as set foot on the holy ground.”

The girl reflected for a moment. “Orderly,” she said. “We live our lives for Mother and the gods. Our days were tightly circumscribed-so much time for prayer, so much for study, so much for chores.”

“That sounds familiar,” Winter muttered. “Did it bother you, living like that?”

“I knew no other way to live, until the Redemption. We were kept from contact with the unholy.”

“What about before you came to the temple? Did you have a family?”

Feor shook her head. “We were all orphans. The word is sahl-irusk , sacred children. Those entrusted to the temples in infancy. Mother chooses her naathem from among these.” She paused, and there was a hint of pain in her eyes. “The last few months have been something of a shock. The Redeemers have brought us. . chaos.”

“And you want to go back?”

“Yes,” Feor said. “I must return to Mother.”

“Even if she locks you up again?”

“It is for our own protection. Naathem are in danger from the unholy world. It would use us, or destroy us.”

Winter frowned. “Then why tell me?”

“You saved my life,” Feor said. “Lies seemed a poor way to repay you.”

Winter nodded. She still wasn’t sure what to make of this naathem business. Feor seemed ordinary enough, for a priestess. But she clearly believed the title meant something, and Winter had been hesitant to challenge her on it. Let her have her beliefs, if it makes her happy. The naathem of the stories were monstrous figures, powerful and malicious, but perhaps the priests of the sacred hill meant the term differently.

“I should get some sleep,” Winter said. She glanced at her coat, as though she could read the orders through the pocket lining. “Tomorrow is going to be. . busy.”

“Another battle?”

“I hope not. God willing, we’ll just get a little wet.”

Feor nodded, but thankfully didn’t press for details.

“If. .” Winter coughed. “If something goes wrong, and we’re. . captured, or something like that, you may end up on your own. If you stick with the army, you shouldn’t have too much trouble.”

“I can wash clothes with the rest, if need be.” Feor fixed her with an oddly calm stare. “But you will return.”

“Is that a prophecy?”

Another little smile. “No. Just a guess. But hopefully an accurate one.”

Winter snorted and blew out the lamp.

• • •

If she dreamed, she was too tired to remember any of it. When Bobby came to wake her, an hour before dawn, Winter got out of bed feeling almost refreshed. She dressed in darkness and slipped outside to find the Seventh Company waking up around her, men emerging from their tents grumbling and bleary-eyed. Watching them tighten their belts and take their weapons from where they’d stacked them the night before, Winter felt the first fluttering of the anxiety she’d fought all the previous day.