Tim Leach - A Winter War

No words had passed between them, in that time the others had been gone. She had called the Roman out of the tent, set him to readying the horses and gathering supplies. But she had found not a thing to say to her husband. He sat upon the earth, pulling up handfuls of grass and letting them slip through his fingers like grains of sand, a weary relief written upon his face. That they were soon to depart had lifted some weight from him. Yet still, he would not speak with her.

Arite thought again of what Laimei had said. And there must have been some invisible message that spoke through her skin, some way that her pain passed through her touch, sharp enough for Bahadur to know it in the way he always seemed to. For his hand was upon hers, and he looked at her like one waking from a fever.

‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I was not myself, before.’

Behind Bahadur, she saw Kai cease his pacing back and forth, his gaze upon hers. She let her head fall forward, until her forehead rested against her husband’s and he could take, in her silence, the answer that he needed. She closed her eyes and welcomed the darkness, the still quiet, until a dancing step of hooves gave her something else to look towards.

For another shape came from the shadows – a horse without a rider it seemed at first, as though it had heard the call go out and answered it alone. But there was a small shape moving beside it, almost seeming to hide in its shadow. Tamura, prayer-solemn as she took her place amongst them, eyes wide as a man’s who is drowning.

More came then, men and women that Arite did not know, the hungry and the proud and the lost, until more than a dozen were together in the darkness, clasping hands and embracing, just as their horses were mingling and rubbing up against one another, remembering old feuds and friendships of their own. Until the first touch of light was in the sky to the east, and they knew they could wait no longer.

‘I did not think Gaevani would come,’ said Tamura.

‘I hoped otherwise,’ said Kai. ‘But it is done now.’

‘And what of the Roman?’ This from Saratos, and they were all looking on Lucius then, as they might have looked on a horse of dubious heritage.

One of them, a man that Arite did not know, said: ‘Could buy some goodwill, returning a captive such as him.’

‘No harm in having a hostage,’ said another.

‘Can’t trust him with us, or to stay behind,’ said Phoros. ‘Who knows what he shall do or say? Better to slit his throat and be done with it.’

They were looking to Laimei then, awaiting her decision. But she gave a restless shrug. ‘He does not belong to me.’

‘Kai?’ This from Saratos, and Kai was smiling then, teeth shining in the dawn light, to be asked to command once again.

‘We shall ask him,’ said Kai. He spoke towards the Roman, who stood still, almost at attention. A man awaiting sentence or reprieve. ‘What should we do with you?’

‘Do you mock me,’ Lucius said slowly, ‘or do you ask honestly?’

‘No mockery. You are an enemy, and a slave. But you have earned the right to speak, and we shall listen.’

The Roman passed a thumb across his lip, lost in thought for a time. Looking upon them both standing there, the Roman dressed as one of them and with his beard untamed and hair thick, one would not have thought them enemies or of a different people. And it was another world Arite saw for a moment there, one free from the endless patterns of raid and war she had known all her life. An impossible fantasy, but beautiful for all that.

‘You should keep me here,’ the Roman said at last. ‘Others of your people will miss me if I am gone, will they not?’

A murmur then, from the Sarmatians. No longer were they smiling as those carving meat for the feast.

One spoke from the back: ‘A brave thing, to pass upon the chance to go home.’

‘If it is to be peace, then I shall be home soon enough,’ said Lucius. ‘And I am no prize amongst my people. I shall bring you no favour.’

Saratos hissed through his teeth. ‘And now he speaks thus, and I want to take him.’

Laughter then, as the breaking of soft thunder in the distance.

‘It shall be so, then,’ said Kai. ‘We have lingered long enough. Let us be gone.’

All was motion then – riders making their last preparations, tying and retying the knots on saddle and pack that might save a life, the horses tossing their heads and stamping at the ground, winter-mad and hungry to feel the steppe rolling away beneath them. Always, in such chaos, the time for the secret farewells.

A hand found hers, in the shifting crowd. Kai, his face solemn – nothing of the lover there now, only the captain.

‘I will keep him safe,’ he said, speaking so softly that she could barely hear him. ‘I swear—’

She cut him off. ‘There have been enough oaths sworn in haste, I think.’

‘Perhaps so.’ He hesitated, as another man jostled close. ‘I think that I must tell him what has passed between us.’

‘I ask that you do not.’

‘A hard secret to keep.’

‘I ask no oath of you,’ she said. ‘Just to keep it, if you can.’

‘I shall keep it.’

‘If you can,’ she said again.

His head nodded slowly – more in weariness than in accord, she thought, but perhaps it would be enough. And for a moment she had the hope that he would ask no more of her, that she would not have to lie to him. Then he spoke again.

‘What was it that she said to you? Laimei, when I went to search for the others.’

‘I asked her why she chose you,’ Arite said. ‘To go to the west with her.’

‘And what was it that she said?’

This was the time – these were the words that she had practised, over and over again while she waited in the dark, and when it was needed the lie came easily. ‘That you had earned your place.’ And Kai was grinning again, the shy smile of a child, and so Arite tipped her head forward and let the hair fall about her face so that she no longer had to see that smile.

‘Go say goodbye to your daughter,’ she said.

One more touch of his hand against hers, and he was gone. She looked about her, suddenly fearful, for when one lies in such a way it seems the whole world must know. That the wind whispers into every ear, that the chattering streams spill the secrets to all who walk beside them. And there was one who watched her, who had been close enough to hear them speak.

Not Bahadur, for he spoke closely with Saratos, those silver-marked veterans sharing an understanding of their own. Lucius watched her, solemn faced. Perhaps there was something of pity there, and she felt the old killing rage rise within her, to be looked upon in that way.

‘And what is it you think of,’ she said, ‘to stare so at me?’

‘I do not think that I have seen you lie before,’ he said.

She had been ready to speak hot words, to beat him as she might have beaten a stubborn horse. It was her right, when faced with a slave who spoke in such a way. But there was something in the way that he spoke that stole the fight from her.

She turned from him then – one more time, to embrace Bahadur, to feel him close against her. Over his shoulder then, through eyes filmed with tears, she saw the rising of a traitor sun, lighting the path towards death.

From the western edge of the camp, Arite watched the riders break away. A fragment of the people, a scattering of men and women and horses cast across the steppe. And as Kai and his company began their journey, they had an escort to see them out of the camp. Not of other warriors, or friends, or lovers. It was the children who followed them, the children of those who rode to the west. Sworn to secrecy, to tell nothing of why their mothers and fathers rode away, but they would not be denied their farewell.