Jay Lake: Endurance

Perhaps it did not matter in any case. For the first time since my days with Samma in the aspirants’ dormitory back in Kalimpura, someone cared to watch over me while I slept. And I felt safe enough to allow it. Such a rare trust at any time in my life then or since, I yet treasure the memory.

Everyone else was afraid of me.

I set that thought aside and accepted Ilona’s swift, welcoming embrace. “Where’s Corinthia Anastasia?” As I spoke, I let my lips almost brush her pale ear lest she had somehow forgotten my interest.

Ilona’s hands tightened on my shoulders. “She’s gone down to harvest onions. The stand along the Little Bright Creek has grown in nicely.”

Nothing up here was more dangerous than me; both Ilona and I knew that. The lynxes prowling these woods would not bother the child. The wolves stayed away from Ilona and any who smelled of her, through some old bargain I did not understand. I was fairly certain the ghosts had something to do with that. Even so, any number of things could happen to a girl wandering alone.

Bandits still roamed the lands Federo had for a time controlled in his incarnation as the nascent god Choybalsan. Most of his army had returned to their fields and farms on disbanding. Some had been burned out of their homes, or turned away for misdeeds and old grudges. A few simply preferred to carry on in predatory packs, knife-armed and ruthless. Most were smart enough to stay away from this part of the High Hills, but not everyone got the word. We’d found that out the hard way twice since I’d come here.

The hard way for them, I should say. I burned the two flames to the souls of each dead man, and made them decent graves in a beech grove far enough from the house that we would never be troubled by their unquiet shades.

We.

That word snuck up sometimes. When it did, it frightened the life out of me. “I’ll check on her,” I told Ilona, my left hand straying to cradle and protect my belly. Too many children had been stolen in my earliest youth. Starting with me.

“Green.” Ilona put a finger to my lips. “The war is passed. You ended it. If my daughter cannot gather onions for a few hours, then our problems are much larger than we know. Let her roam and let her learn.” The older woman grinned. “Besides, she runs fast, and is a fine hand with the boning knife.”

Ever since my previous stay here at the cottage, Corinthia Anastasia had made it her ambition to be a Blade like me. Though I was secretly flattered, I had absolutely refused to teach her anything about the business of violence and intimidation. This of course had not stopped her independent experiments in the matter.

“Fair enough.” I shuddered to think how far I’d run, only a little older than the girl was now. At least Copper Downs had been no nest of child thieves and youth gangs, as Kalimpura was. We tended to other vices here. The idea of Corinthia Anastasia trying her hand at political assassination made me vaguely ill. Yet slaying the Duke had seemed so needful to me at the time.

Another lesson there, I was sure of it, but I was heartily sick of lessons. Even now, I must laugh to admit it has ever been my habit to follow the long path to understanding. Instead I grasped Ilona by the hand and drew her across her own threshold. The overlay of my deep brown skin against her pale ruddiness was a blessing, a pair of contrasting gems, each highlighting the beauty of the other. If only she would see it. “Surely we can find some way to pass the time alone together?”

“Yes. You may chop the potatoes, and I will check how the quail stock is coming.”

I gave off a halfhearted attempt to squeeze her close again and went to look for a knife that was not intended for killing.

Corinthia Anastasia returned breathless and reeking of onions, with her feet caked in mud, and rain upon her face. “There’s a dark brown man down the hills looking for Green!” the girl shouted as she burst into the small cottage. “I was going to give him a good kicking to, but I ain’t got my knife-toed boots!”

“You don’t own any knife-toed boots,” I said sharply from my place at the table. I was shredding carrots with a too-short, too-safe blade. The nonweapon made my fingers twitch. “And even if you did, your mother wouldn’t let you wear them.”

Ilona abandoned the pot over the fire and knelt close to her daughter. The line of her thigh pulled my eyes, until I looked away again, torn between embarrassment and lust.

“Who is looking for Green?” Ilona demanded, her voice low and fierce. “Did he see you?”

“No, Mama.” Corinthia Anastasia stared at the floor. “I followed the Little Bright all the way to Briarpool hunting onions, and the man was down there talking to the Saronen brothers. I listened from the bushes, which I think maybe Eller Saronen saw me. But maybe not. He didn’t say nothing if he did.”

Ilona’s eyes met mine over her daughter’s head. No accusation glittered in her expression, but this problem was mine, following me into the High Hills. No question. I draw trouble the way a honed edge draws blood-fast and all too easy. I turned to fetch my long knife, the fighting blade I would choose every time over most Stone Coast swords, at least in the hands of most Stone Coast swordsmen. Ill-trained brutes, one and all, in this part of the world. With my long knife and the two short knives, I could bring a swift end to almost anyone’s regrets.

“ Wait,” said Ilona in a voice straight from the Factor’s house. We had both been trained there, at the hands of women focused on molding girls into a certain kind of female. Ilona had grown too plump for the role and been cast off, while I had slain my way out some years after her time.

As with so much of my life, that was another memory not bearing close examination, for behind it lay so many deaths. And worse, the broken terror of Mistress Danae, who did sleep among the graves of the High Hills. The horrible fractures in her mind were slowly being replaced with the horrible fractures of stronger wills long dead but yet restless.

Ilona turned back to her daughter. “Describe the man.”

“He was dark, like Green.” Corinthia Anastasia touched her own face, as if the freckled paleness of her skin were in doubt. “Brown skin, brown eyes, black hair. He talked funny.”

“A Selistani?” I blurted. “Here in the High Hills?”

“More than one, I’d say.” Ilona’s voice was dry but loving. “ You’re here, after all.”

I collected both my thoughts and my better judgment. At that time, I was still blind enough to believe the Bittern Court was not after me here, protected as I was by the width of the Storm Sea. With equally foolish certainty, I assumed that the Temple of the Silver Lily would not pursue me into the exile they’d laid upon me, either. Not with male agents, in any case. “What did these Saronen brothers tell the searcher?”

Corinthia Anastasia shrugged. “I don’t know. I left after a while.”

Ilona cast her eyes toward me once more. “They will not speak of you,” she said with confidence. “Still, your time of shelter here is nearing an end.”

I touched my growing belly. Within, my daughter stirred. Uneasy, already. Five months I’d spent up here, right into the margins of winter. I’d grown so. I blew out a long, slow breath before replying. “I’d hoped to wait until the baby came.”

“That day is three months away, on the other side of winter yet to come. You barely show even now, and your body has not yet begun forgetting the things it needs to forget in order to learn what it must know for the baby to arrive.”

Despite myself, I bristled. “I can still run and climb.”

“Exactly.” Ilona smiled.