Fool’s Quest

I struggled out of the wallow of blankets and rugs. My boots, they had pulled my boots off my feet and left only my socks. Find my boots or lose my chance to escape? The long robe of heavy white fur reached past my knees. I hiked it up, crawled to the far side of the wagon and dropped over the side. My legs crumpled under me and my face plunged briefly into the snow. I struggled to get up by pulling on the edge of the sleigh. I hurt all over, but it wasn’t just that. I felt as if I’d been disconnected from my muscles. I wasted precious moments working my legs until I felt I could walk without falling.

And then I stood up. I could walk. But what good would that do? At that moment, I hated being small more than I had ever hated my stature in my life. Yet even if I had been a tall and mighty warrior on a powerful horse, what could I do against so many armed men?

I felt sick and helpless as I realized the larger truth. Not even an army could undo what had been done. Nothing and no one could bring back Steward Revel or unspill FitzVigilant’s blood from the snow or unburn the stables. It was all broken. I might still be alive but I was just a salvaged piece of a life that had been shattered. Not one of us was whole. There was no going back, not for any of us.

I could not decide what to do. I was already getting cold. I could get back into the wagon, burrow under the blankets and let happen to me whatever might happen. I could run away into the darkness and try to find Perseverance under the snow and the cloak. I could flee to the captured people, and be once more dragged to the wagon. I wondered if I could steel myself and run into the burning stable deep enough to die there. How badly would it hurt?

Cornered wolves fight. Even the cubs.

That thought seeped into my brain, then was frozen and shattered by a long, shrill scream. It seemed so odd that I could recognize who the scream belonged to. It was Shun. I peeked around the side of the wagon. The man who had defied the plump woman gripped Shun by her hair. ‘We’ll go,’ he agreed affably. ‘But first I enjoy a prize of my own.’ He tugged Shun up on her toes. She squealed, sounding like a piglet. At any other time, it would have been a funny sound. Both her hands were on top of her head as she gripped her own hair, trying to take the pressure off her scalp. Her torn blouse gaped wide. It was as red as blood, that dress, with an overlay of white lace in a snowflake pattern. He shook her, not gently. ‘This one. This little cat tried to stick a knife in me. She’s still got some fight in her. I haven’t had her yet. And in some things, I am not a hasty man.’

Still gripping Shun by the hair, he dismounted. She tried to pull free of him but he just shifted his grip to the back of her head. He was taller than she was and when he held her at arm’s length her swinging fists could not touch him. The men of Withywoods just stood and watched. Their eyes were dull, their mouths slack. No one moved to help her. FitzVigilant would have tried to protect her. But I’d seen him earlier, sprawled in his blood in the snow. Shun struggled against her captor, as helpless against him as I would be. He laughed, and shouted over her shrieks, ‘I’ll take special care of this one, and then I’ll catch up with you. Before morning.’

The other mounted soldiers were stirring, suddenly interested, fighting the fog-man’s calm. Their eyes fixed on the struggling woman like housedogs watching a man tear the last meat from a bone.

The plump woman shot the fog-man, Vindeliar, a desperate look. He pursed his mouth until his lips thrust out like a duck’s beak. Even where I stood, ignored by them, I felt the suffocating drag of what he did. My thoughts softened at the edges like candles too near a flame. I had been about to do something, but it could wait. It would have been too much bother. Too much effort. The day had been long, and I was tired. It was dark here, and cold. It was time to find a quiet, safe place and rest. Rest.

I turned back to the sleigh and reached for the edge of it to climb back over the side. My hands in the immense fur mittens slipped and my forehead jolted hard against the wood.

Wake up! Fight. Or run. But do not fall asleep. Wolf Father shook my awareness as if he shook the life from a hare. I came back to myself with a shudder. Push it back. Push it away. But softly, softly. Don’t make him aware that you fight him.

It was not easy advice to act on. The fog was like cobwebs. It clung and muffled and dimmed my sight. I lifted my head and stared over the sleigh. Vindeliar had the others under his control. It was not that he was forcing them to do anything. It was that he had put their thoughts into a place where rest and sleep sounded more enticing than anything else. It was affecting even the captives. Some were sinking down where they stood, to fall on their sides in the snow.

Shun had ceased her struggles but the fog did not seem to be touching her. She looked up at her captor, her teeth bared. Hogen stared at her, shook her, and then slapped her. She regarded him with hatred, but she refused to fight. She had realized it only amused him. He laughed, a cruel and brittle sound. Then he seized her by the throat and threw her violently backwards. She lay where she landed. The skirts of her dress floated wide, like rose petals on the snow. The fog-man’s efforts rolled past her attacker. The handsome man stepped on Shun’s skirts to pin her down as his hands went to his belt-buckle.

His mounted commander looked at him with no interest. He lifted his voice and spoke to his men. It was an old man’s thin shout but that did not matter. He knew he would be obeyed. ‘Finish here. Put the bodies into the fire when you are done. Then follow. We are leaving now.’ He spared a glance for the handsome man. ‘Do not be long, Hogen.’ Then he turned his horse’s head and lifted his hand. His mounted men followed him without a backward glance. Others came from the shadows, some on horses, some on foot. More than I had counted. The plump woman and Vindeliar looked around. That was when I realized they were not alone. The others had been unnoticeable to me, as the fog-man had intended.

They were dressed in white. Or so I thought. But as they passed the firelight and ranged themselves around the plump woman and Vindeliar, I realized their garments were shades of yellow and ivory. They were all dressed alike, as if their close-tailored coats and quilted trousers were a strange livery. They wore knit hats that covered their ears with flaps at the backs of their necks that could be wrapped around their throats. I had never seen such hats. Their faces were as alike as if they were siblings, all pale of skin and hair, round-chinned and rosy-lipped. I could not tell if they were men or women. They moved as if silenced by exhaustion, their mouths downturned. They walked right past the handsome man struggling with his cold, stiff belt as he stood over Shun. They looked at Shun as they passed, pitying her but with no mercy.

The plump woman spoke as they gathered around her. ‘I am sorry, luriks. I wish as much as you that this had been avoided. But that once begun cannot be undone, as we all know. It was seen that this might happen, but there was no clear vision of the path that would lead both to this not happening and us finding the boy. And so today we chose a path that we knew must be bloody but would end in the necessary place. We have found him. And now we must take him home.’

Their youthful faces were stiff with horror. One spoke. ‘What of these ones? The ones that didn’t die?’

‘Have no fear for them.’ The plump woman comforted her followers. ‘The worst is over for them, and Vindeliar will ease their minds. They will remember little of this night. They will invent reasons for their bruises and forget what befell them. Gather yourselves while he works. Kindrel, go for the horses. Take Soula and Reppin with you. Alaria, you will drive the sleigh. I am weary beyond saying and still must tend to Vindeliar when all is finished here.’

I saw Shepherd Lin and his fellow leave the circle of huddled folk. They carried another body slung between them. Their faces were unconcerned, as if they carried a sack of grain. I saw the handsome man drop to his knees in the snow. He’d opened the front of his trousers and now he pushed Shun’s beautiful red skirts up to bare her legs.

Had she been waiting for that? She launched a tremendous kick at him, aiming for his face. It struck his chest. She gave a deep-throated, wordless cry of refusal and tried to roll to her side and flee, but he seized her by one leg and jerked her back. He laughed out loud, pleased that she would fight because he knew that she would lose. She grabbed one of his dangling braids and jerked it hard. He slapped her, and for an instant she was still, stunned by the force of that blow.

I did not like Shun. But she was mine. Mine as Revel had been, and never would be again. As FitzVigilant had been. They had died for me, trying to stop these strangers from taking me. Even if they hadn’t known it. And I knew, quite clearly, what the handsome man would do after he had hurt and humiliated Shun. He would kill her, and Shepherd Lin and his helper would throw her into the stable-fire.

Just as my father and I had burned the body of the messenger.

I moved. I ran, but I ran as a small person in wet and freezing socks, wearing a long, heavy fur robe. That is, I surged and trudged against a low wall of heavy wet snow. It was like trying to run in a sack. ‘Stop!’ I shouted. ‘Stop!’ And the roaring of the flames and the mutters and groans of the gathered folk of Withywoods and Shun’s desperate wordless cries swallowed my words.

But she heard me, the plump woman. She turned to me, but the fog-man was still looking at the huddled people and doing whatever magic he was doing to them. I was closer to the handsome man than I was to the plump woman and her followers. I ran at him, screaming wordlessly in a strange harmony with Shun’s cries. He was dragging at her clothes. He had ripped her embroidered Winterfest blouse to loose her bared breasts to the cold and falling snow and now he was tugging and tearing at her scarlet skirts, but he was trying to do it with one hand. His other hand was fending off the desperate blows and clawing efforts she was making at his face. I was not moving fast but I did not slow down as I thrust at him with the full force of my braced arms.

He grunted slightly, turned a snarling face toward me and clouted me with an outflung arm. I do not think he even used his full strength, for most of it was devoted to holding Shun on her back. He did not need his full strength. I flew backwards and landed in the deep snow. He had struck the air out of my lungs, but even so, I was more humiliated than hurt. Gasping and choking, I rolled and wallowed in the snow, finally managing to get to my hands and knees. I drew painful breath and shouted words that scarcely made sense to me, the most frightening words I could think of. ‘I will make myself dead if you hurt her!’

The rapist paid no attention to me, but I heard the outraged cries of the plump woman’s followers. She was shouting something in a language I didn’t know, and the pale-faced people suddenly swept in as a mob. Three seized me and set me on my feet, sweeping snow off me so anxiously that I felt like a carpet that was being beaten. I pushed them away from me and tottered toward Shun. I could not see what was happening to her, save that there was fighting there. I fought free of my rescuers, shouting, ‘Shun! Help Shun, not me! Shun!’

The knot of struggling people seemed to trample Shun and then the fight moved away. The pale folk were not faring well, except that there were so many of them and only one rapist. Time after time, I heard the solid smack of fist on flesh, and someone would cry out in pain. Then one of the plump woman’s minions would fall back, holding a bleeding nose or bending over and clutching a stomach. By sheer numbers they overcame him, flinging their bodies over him and holding him down in the snow. One cried out suddenly, ‘He bites! Beware!’ prompting a sudden reshuffling of the bodies on top of him.

All this took place as I wallowed forward, fell, rose and finally burst free of the deep snow onto the trampled ground. I flung myself to my knees beside Shun, sobbing, ‘Be alive! Please, be alive!’

She wasn’t. I felt nothing from her. Then, as I touched her cheek, her staring eyes blinked. She looked up at me without recognition and began to utter short, sharp shrieks as if she were a hen on a threatened nest. ‘Shun! Don’t be scared! You are safe now! I’ll protect you.’ Even as I made those promises, I heard how ridiculous they were. I tugged at her opened top and the torn lace, getting snow from my mittened hands onto her bare chest. She gasped and suddenly gripped the ripped edges of the fabric. She sat up, holding her collar closed. She looked down at the fabric in her hands and then said brokenly, ‘It was the finest quality. It was.’ She bowed her head. Sobs rose from her, terrible shaking sobs without tears.

‘It still is,’ I assured her. ‘You still are.’ I started to pat her comfortingly, then realized the mittens were still laden with snow. I tried to drag my hands free of them, but they were fastened to the sleeves of my fur robe.

Behind us, the plump woman was talking to the man on the ground. ‘You cannot have her. You heard the words of the shaysim. He values her life beyond his own. She must not be harmed lest he do harm to himself.’

I turned my head to look at them. The plump woman was nudging her charges and they were slowly getting off the man. The rapist responded with curses. I did not need to know the language to understand the depth of his anger. The pale folk were tumbling away from him, falling back and stumbling through the deeper snow as he came to his feet. Two were bleeding from their noses. He spat snow, cursed again, and then strode off into the darkness. I heard him address something angrily, the heavy stamping of a startled horse and then the sounds of a horse pushed abruptly into a gallop.

I had given up on the mittens. I crouched beside Shun. I wanted to talk to her but had no idea what to say. I would not lie again, and tell her that she was safe. None of us were safe. She huddled as deep into herself as she could, pulling her knees up to her chest and bowing her head over them.

‘Shaysim.’ The plump woman crouched in front of me. I would not look at her. ‘Shaysim,’ she said again and touched me. ‘She is important to you, this one? Have you seen her? Doing important things? Is she essential?’ She put her hand on Shun’s bent neck as if she were a dog, and Shun cowered away from the touch. ‘Is she one you must keep beside you?’

The words sank into me like FitzVigilant’s blood had sunken into the trampled snow. They made holes in me. The question was significant. It had to be answered and it had to be answered correctly. What did she want me to say? What could I say that would make her keep Shun alive?

I still did not look at her. ‘Shun is essential,’ I said. ‘She does important things.’ I flung an arm wide and shouted angrily, ‘They are all essential. They all do important things!’

‘That’s true.’ She spoke gently, as if I were a little child. It came to me that perhaps she thought I was much younger than I was. Could I use that? My mind tumbled strategies frantically as she continued to speak. ‘Everyone is significant. Everyone does important things. But some people are more significant than others. Some people do things that make changes. Big changes. Or they make tiny changes that can lead to big changes. If someone knows how to use them.’ She hunched even lower and then thrust her face below mine and looked up at me. ‘You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Shaysim? You’ve seen the paths and the people who are the crossroads. Haven’t you?’

I turned my face away. She reached out and took me by the chin to turn my face back to hers, but I put my gaze on her mouth. She could not force me to meet her eyes. ‘Shaysim.’ She made the name a gentle rebuke. ‘Look at me, now. Is this woman significant? Is she essential?’

I knew what she meant. I’d glimpsed it, when the beggar had touched me in the marketplace. There were people who precipitated changes. All people made changes, but some were a rock in the current, diverting the waters of time into a different channel.

I did not know if I lied or told the truth when I said, ‘She is essential. She is significant to me.’ Or if it was inspiration or deception that prompted me to add, ‘Without her, I die before I am ten.’

The plump woman gave a small gasp of dismay. ‘Take her up!’ she cried to her followers. ‘Treat her gently. She must be healed of every hurt, comforted of every wrong she has felt today. Be cautious, luriks. This one must live, at all costs. We must keep her out of Hogen’s hands, for thwarted as he is now, he will want her more than ever. He will be most determined. So we must be even more determined, and we must search the scrolls to know what we must do to hold him at bay. Kardef and Reppin, it will be your task tonight to confer with the memorizers and see if they can tease out any wisdom for us. For I fear nothing comes to mind.’

‘May I speak, Dwalia?’ A youngster in grey bowed deeply and held that posture.

‘Speak, Kardef.’

Kardef straightened. ‘The shaysim has called her “Shun”. In his language, it is a word that means to avoid or beware of a danger. There are many dream-scrolls that caution us, over and over, to avoid casting significant things into the flames. If translated into his language, could not the dreams have been telling us, not shun the flames, but Shun not into the flames?’

‘Kardef, you are reaching. That way lies corruption of the prophecies. Beware and beware again of twisting the ancient words, especially when you do it so blatantly to make yourself look more learned than your partner Reppin.’

‘Lingstra Dwalia, I …’

‘Do I look as if I have time to stand in the snow and argue with you? We should have been away from here before the night fell. With every moment that we linger the greater the chance that someone may see the flames from a distance and come to see what has happened here. And then must Vindeliar spread his talents even wider, and his control grows more tenuous with each passing moment. Obey me now. Convey the shaysim and the woman to the sleigh. Mount your horses, and two of you assist Vindeliar to the sleigh as well. He is nearly spent. We must away right now.’

Her orders issued, she turned and looked down at me where I crouched by Shun. ‘Well, little shaysim, I think you have what you wished now. Let’s get you onto the sleigh and be on our way.’

‘I don’t want to go.’

‘And yet you will. We all know you will, just as clearly as you do. For, from this point in time, only two possible outcomes have been documented. You go with us. Or you die here.’ She spoke with calm assurance, as if pointing out that rain could not fall on a cloudless day. I heard her absolute belief in her own words.