A Veteran Returns Home: Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
‘He was just like all the others anyway,’ Vispa said.
‘All the others?’ Nemo raised an eyebrow. ‘And you are the common link between them all. Maybe it’s you,’ Nemo added.
Vispa shrieked. Her cheeks burning red. ‘There haven’t been that many,’ she spat through her clamped teeth.
‘I would have thought there hadn’t been any,’ Nemo said.
‘You don’t get to a city much do you?’
‘I don’t want to know. I don’t care either. You aren’t my daughter, despite the age similarity, it doesn’t matter,’ Nemo said more to himself than Vispa. He could not quite convince himself.
‘I preferred it when you just listened,’ Vispa said.
‘So did I,’ Nemo replied.
The road to Tanussi stretched over endless arid plains. The grass had retreated to patches and the earth had cracked under the heat of the sun and the disappearance of rain. Once it had all been farmlands in every direction, well before Nemo had been around. Well before his parents or parents’ parents even. He muffled Vispa’s ranting out of his mind as he surveyed the lands trying, and failing, to picture them like the far north. Green with grass and trees on the land and clouds in the sky.
‘Are you listening?’ Her shrill annoyance breaking his calm.
‘No.’
‘Ahead. Two people,’ she pointed.
Nemo pulled his gaze away from the western plain and towards the road ahead. In the far distance, still in the haze of the horizon, where two travellers. Wearing blue all over and walking. Walking between cities? That ain’t right.
‘Well who ever they are they aren’t going to travel very far on foot. Or at least not very fast,’ Nemo said.
‘Mmm. I recognise the colour,’ Vispa murmured tapping her chin with one knuckle.
It was a distinctive blue, darker than the sky, deep and rich. The duo burst from the azure sky and the endless grain coloured ground behind.
‘You’ll see them soon enough,’ Nemo said reaching into a saddle bag. He rooted past cloth packets of bread and cheese and dried spiced tea. Where is it? He leaned over and held the flap of the bag up with one hand as he searched with the other.
He heard a crunch. Followed by a slurp. A second eager crunch emanated from Vispa. ‘This is really good,’ she said, ‘You should have picked one.’
Nemo lifted his head, hands still searching his saddle bag, to see Vispa holding a shining red apple in one hand. The pale green-yellow of the flesh inside shimmering with juice. She took another bite into the firm fruit and a drip of juice rolled down her chin.
‘This is really good,’ she said again.
Nemo fastened his saddle bag and asked, ‘Where did you find that apple? Pretty rare this far south. Not many merchants have any left after Tanussi.’
‘Oh you know, just picked it fresh off a tree,’ Vispa smiled as she chewed. She wiped her lips with the back of a hand. ‘Here you can have a bite if you want,’ she held the apple out.
Nemo reached across and snatched the half eaten apple from her hand, ‘It’s rude to steal from a travelling companion,’ he said biting into the apple.
Delicious did not describe it. Months of nothing but bread and oil with dried meats. Fresh fruit and vegetables where scarce even in the army let alone in the cities. Sweet, sweeter than any tea could hope to be, and satiating unlike constant flat bread. His mouth popped with pleasure.
Such reliance on northern merchants venturing south had caused shortages of foods once grown in abundance just a few generations ago. Now, reliant on Thesusian merchants which had also dried up, many foods had disappeared and what people ate had yet to catch up.
‘Hey don’t eat all of it,’ Vispa cried as Nemo went for a second bite.
‘You stole it out of my bag.’
‘You picked it off the tree in Tura’s garden without asking.’
‘What use is an apple tree if you aren’t going to eat the apples,’ Nemo bit a huge chunk out of the remaining apple and tossed it to Vispa.
She caught it and looked deflated, ‘There’s barely any left,’ she nibbled around the stalk and bit into where the seeds were held.
‘It was mine to begin with,’ Nemo protested.
‘If you can’t keep track of it then you don’t deserve it,’ Vispa shot back.
‘Must be a thieves code or something,’ Nemo said.
‘Maybe you should learn how to spot a thief rather than complaining there are thieves,’ Vispa said as she finished the apple down to its stalk and seeds.
‘Is this another thing you are going to teach me?’
‘One thing at a time, you haven’t even managed to pick my pockets yet,’ Vispa tossed the inedible bits off to the side of the road.
‘I haven’t been trying.’
‘Exactly! You should be otherwise you’ll never improve,’ Vispa licked apple juice from her fingers.
‘I suppose stealing my apple is some sort of lesson in pickpocketing?’
‘Sure,’ Vispa said unconvincingly. She finished licking the remaining juice from her fingers and twirled Simbar’s reins over one wrist. ‘Those two are getting near. Look like monks or something.’
Nemo squinted. The duo in blue blurred, focussed, and blurred again. He strained his eyes again forgetting the last time he had to see so far. Shaven heads and faces. Full length robes. ‘Yep, look like monks to me.’
‘Wonder where they are going.’
‘It doesn’t matter to us. We are going the opposite way. Delivering this letter,’ he tapped a pouch on his belt, ‘and on to Beargarth. Or I am. You do what you want.’
‘Maybe they need food, or have food and a cool, relaxing, monastery nearby,’ Vispa said.
‘Don’t trade lifelong vows for a comfy bed and a hot meal,’ Nemo said.
‘I wouldn’t…’
Nemo rose an eyebrow at her.
‘I wouldn’t.’
‘Seriously. Those vows are harder than any farm work, construction, or sleeping in an alley.’
‘Wandering from city to city, talking to possible converts, praying, writing books, hell even learning to write. Taking large donations. Always having food. Yeah. Sounds awful,’ Vispa tsked.
‘Living a positive is far harder than living a negative. Being surrounded by food and money but living as an ascetic life is the challenge. Those two,’ he pointed up the road, ‘could use those donations and buy horses, a carriage, and pay a coachman. But they don’t,’ he settled back into his saddle, ‘instead they choose to walk. Deal with the hardship and gain from doing so. They learn countless skills, perform work for no pay, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and heal the sick.’
Vispa backed off, raising two hands, ‘Seems you have some connection here.’
‘Not really,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘Only the ones at home have done far more good than anything I could do.’
The blue duo had came into focus for Nemo. A single coil of fabric covered their bodies. Heavy furls of fabric straddled their right shoulder and ran diagonally across the torso. Where the front piece wrapped around their waist and hung over their rear. The robe covering their back twisted around the other side of the torso and hung over the front of their waist. The whole thing held in place by a dark umber cummerbund.
The left arm and shoulder was left exposed to the elements. The tails of the simple robe were frayed from being dragged along the rough ground revealing their feet clad in the simplest sandals.
‘Smile if they smile, wave if they wave, but keep moving,’ Nemo whispered to Vispa.
‘Don’t want to stop for a chitchat with your friends?’
‘Monks, priests, nuns, even their attendants can talk for hours without ever noticing you growing bored and regardless of how busy you are. We can’t afford that. I can’t afford that.’
The monks, or maybe priests, of some faith Nemo didm’t know where engaged in fierce debate. Both had wide noses and thin eyes. Dark, sun baked skin owing to the length of time spent walking in blazing heat all seemingly without any waterskins.
They argued in the lyrical language of beyond the Black Wall of Dohanlu. The land of an Emperor keen on shutting himself away. Though Nemo doubted it was the same Emperor that had built the wall over a century ago. But a more impressive feat was that these two monks had survived The Wastes with nothing but faith. And now bickering on the road as any regular travellers did.
Nemo caught eye contact with one of them as he flicked his eyes down to the ground to watch for stones or rocks. He tapped his partner on the arm and muttered something while pointing to Nemo.
‘Here we go,’ Nemo said rolling his eyes.
The monk nearer to Nemo, the skin on his shoulder red, raw, and peeling off in thin paper-like slivers started to speak to Nemo in Mapethi. He looked from Nemo to Vispa with a plea. Neither understood the plea and looked to one another with a shrug.
‘Sorry, I don’t know what you are saying,’ he said in Tanussi and pressed his palm to his chest as he and Vispa rode passed. He bowed his head to show respect eager to pass by without incident.
‘Oh you’re from Tanussi then?’ The monk said stopping. He held his hands by his stomach, his fingers intwined and the tips of his thumbs pressed together.
Damn it all. ‘Near enough,’ Nemo answered, pulling Atars to a halt. He turned in his saddle to see the monk.
His round face and hairless scalp where a harsh red. Skin lifted from the folds of his ear in a thin, white, leaf. White cracks roamed over his lips. Small black eyes seemed adrift without eyebrows above them. The faint shape of an eyebrow was present in the monk’s complexion, marred as it was from the weeks of sun baked travel.
’So you know how to get there?’
‘Yes,’ Nemo said wondering how he knew Tanussi. Did they have teaches in Dohanlu that knew the languages of the Free Cities and further? Or had they been here long enough to know? If they had been that long they wouldn’t have became lost.
The other monk turned as well. His hands buried in the folds of his robe. A small pouch on and a cylinder made of ebony hanging from his belt.
‘How?’ The monks asked in unison, both looking up at him with their black eyes. Even their eyelashes had been removed.
‘Follow this road,’ he pointed ahead of himself, ‘that way for a few days. Take no joining roads.’
The monk who noticed Nemo slapped the sun burnt monk across the back of the head and shouted something in their own tongue. The other responded in despondence, hissing at the pain of his sun burnt skin being slapped and raised his hand to defend himself from another strike. A second strike never came and he started to trudge back the way he had came.
‘Thank you, stranger,’ one of them said, his left arm still inside his robe and the right swinging as he walked.
The sun burnt monk repeated the thanks with less joy.
‘See you when you get there then,’ Nemo said as he clicked Atars on.
‘Safe travels,’ Vispa added as she passed the two monks on Simbar.
Nemo and Vispa rode out of earshot of the monks. The blue robed duo now walked in silence, the sun burnt one trailing a few steps behind the other.
‘That was… weird,’ Vispa said. ‘You would think they knew where they were going if they could speak the language.’
‘You would think.’
‘Unless they have just came from Dohanlu. But then how could they speak so well in a foreign tongue. Maybe they learnt in Dohanlu,’ Vispa clicked her fingers for effect, ‘But who would teach them?’
This could go on for a while. ’Stop.’
‘Aren’t you intrigued?’
‘Yes. But without having a potentially endless discussion with them we will never know and I am also okay with that.’
‘But it’s fun to guess. We used to do it all the time about the men who came in,’ Vispa said.
‘When was that?’
Vispa turned peach, ‘Oh just before I was helping the Resistance.’
‘Doing what?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Nemo left her secrets to her. Much like how the monks came to be this side of The Wastes. Yes he wanted to know but he was also fine not knowing. And Vispa seemed to have sewn her mouth shut staring across the drylands to the east. At the very edge of the horizon, where the earth met the sky, was a thin black streak that separated the two.
Tanussi was further to the east than Ramascus. There the Black Wall of Dohanlu could be spotted at times, stretching further than the horizon did in both directions. Taller in some places and shorter in others, but always there. Some said the walls where higher than the mountains of the north. Others that not only did they rise to the sky but also dug down into the depths of the earth. That the Emperor hadn’t built the wall but summoned them out of the ground through sheer will. All Nemo knew was that seeing it meant he was on the right road.
They rode into the late afternoon. Having put a considerable distance between themselves and the monks that Nemo wondered if they would ever make it to the city without food and water. Maybe I should have offered something, he said sipping from one of his many water skins hanging from his saddle. The water was warm from being against Atars’ flank and in the heat of the day.
‘How much further is it?’ Vispa groaned. She arched her back and winced as the bones clicked and cracked. Pressing her knuckles into her sides.
‘Far,’ Nemo said.
‘Are we not going to stop for the night then?’
‘We have hours of day left,’ Nemo gestured to the sun half way through its downward turn.
Vispa moaned.
They rode in silence a bit further.
‘But,’ Vispa said suddenly, ‘if we stop I can teach you how to pickpocket properly.’
Nemo sighed, ‘you could or we could cover a few more miles.’
‘We will get up really early and set off. Can we please just stop for the night,’ Vispa pleaded. She was now slumped against Simbar’s neck pressing her forehead into the horses ear.
Nemo watched her try and stretch her legs in the stirrups. ‘Fine,’ he surveyed the horizon for a suitable place to make camp.
Nothing. Not a jot of a hillock or an old, decrepit, tree or an abandoned farm house. The plain stretched either side of the road for miles flat and even.
‘There’s no where to camp,’ Nemo said.
‘Sure there is. All of this land is flat and great for lying down on.’
‘But we can be seen from the road.’
‘Then we won’t have a fire while we sleep. Heat is a luxury anyway.’
Nemo gave her a quizzical look, ‘Alright.’ Sleeping in alleys has taught her something.
He led Atars off the road. The horse stepped over the rock barrier between road and plain and they set off north west.
Soon after he stopped. The road was visible and easy enough to reach come morning but far enough away that no one should stumble across the camp.
‘Doubt we could light a fire even if we wanted to,’ Nemo said as he untied his bedroll from Atars.
‘Why?’
‘Can you see a tree, log, or even a stick anywhere?’
Vispa held her palm flat above her eyes and scouted, ‘Nope,’ she said after stepping in a circle.
‘No where to hitch the horses too either,’ Nemo said as he unfurled his bedroll on a particular patch of ground with little dead grass and no cracks in the earth. He lifted the saddle, bags and all, from Atars’ back and lay it by his bed. The horse whinnied.
‘Sleep with the reins under your bed,’ Vispa suggested unrolling her own bed.
‘I’d rather not wake up to a horse nibbling my ear,’ he pulled out three parcels from his saddle bag. Each wrapped in cloth and tied off with string.
‘Alright, how about around the saddle?’
‘Atars will still just walk off.’
‘Well it’s better than nothing right? Leave him and Simbar near a patch of grass and it will be fine,’ Vispa said.
‘You are too confident about that working,’ Nemo said. But there isn’t anything else to do about it, he knew. ‘Fine. Where is this grass you have seen?’
‘Simbar’s found it too,’ she nodded towards her horse who was wandering off towards a patch of yellow grass a few yards away.
Nemo saw the grass, ‘That’s quite far. Wouldn’t be able to have a quick escape if something went wrong in the night.’
‘Oh come on! Nothing will go wrong,’ Vispa began to shout. ‘Who else is travelling this road? You saw what the Thesusian’s were doing to travellers! That will have spread to everywhere and I bet they are doing it on other roads. It’s a miracle we weren’t stopped, robbed, and crucified.’
That was true. It was nothing short of a miracle they had been allowed to pass through. Not having a cart full of goods nor looking like refugees certainly helped but it was no guarantee.
‘If the monks can travel without food, water, or weapons, then we can sleep for a few hours in the open,’ Vispa added to her tirade. She sat on her bed roll with her knees pulled up and her arms resting on top of them.
‘Fine,’ Nemo spat as he lead Atars with one hand and carried his saddle, sans bags, over to the patch of grass.
Atars pulled Nemo along, eager for the meal. The horse bit into the long strands of yellow grass with no concern for Nemo pulling on his reins and tying them around the saddle. The stirrups, a single bar of metal on the end of the leather straps, hung free along the ground over cracks and crags. Nemo picked up and wedged it into the ground. Giving it a tug moved it a little. He wiggled the stirrup into the dirt a bit more and gave it another tug. It stayed.
‘Are you not doing yours?’ He shouted to Vispa still resting on her roll.
She tossed her head back and pushed herself to her feet with a show of struggle. She gripped her saddle by the pommel and half carried, half dragged, it towards Simbar.
Nemo picked up Simbar’s reins and moved as the horse moved around the patch of quickly disappearing grass.
Vispa dropped her saddle close by with a thud.
Simbar brayed and sidestepped.
Nemo hushed the horse and patted its’ flank.
‘Push a stirrup into the ground too. Really wedge it just to be safe,’ Nemo said handing her the reins.
‘Right,’ she huffed and tied the reins to the pommel, looping the leather round numerous times.
Nemo patted her on the shoulder as he returned to camp. He unwrapped one parcel and found dried, salted, meat. He hoped it was beef, but it could have lamb, goat, pig, or something else. He bit into it. The dried meat fought back unwilling to tear. He bit down with his back teeth and pulled hard. The strip of meat snapped with an audible pop. He chewed.
Salt. Salt. And more salt. That was the overwhelming flavour. Nemo guessed it was goat by the toughness but all he could taste was salt. Glad Tura didn’t serve this, he thought finishing the first strip.
He began to open a second parcel as Vispa returned. Raisins. He grabbed a handful and offered some to Vispa who took a handful, poured them into her mouth, and took a second.
‘So, about that pickpocket lesson,’ Nemo started.
Vispa grumbled and looked away. She placed a lone raisin into her mouth. ‘Fine. Pass me your coin purse.’
Nemo freed it from his belt and handed it over. ‘More purse taking than pickpocketing.’
Vispa shot him a glance of barely contained annoyance. ‘Do you want to learn or not?’
Nemo jumped up from his bedroll, ‘Come on then.’
Vispa ate the rest of the raisins from her hand, dusted off her hands, and walked a few yards away. ‘Right, same as last time. Come up to me and take the purse without me noticing. Or at least not until you have the purse and can run. Got it?’
‘Sure,’ Nemo nodded.
‘Good,’ Vispa turned her back towards him.
He removed his sword, knife, and his jacket. He had to be light and have nothing that could make too much sound. In the bazaar of a bustling city it would be different. Maybe. He didn’t know. A whole clandestine world was waiting for him. Though he refused to look deeper than the skills of it.
Crouching he stepped towards Vispa. Leading each step with his toes and balancing on the balls of his feet before lowering his heel to the ground. Each step was a single, slow, movement. How people ran like this he failed to fathom.
His knees ached. Halfway between the bedrolls and Vispa. He stood straight and stretched his legs without moving his feet. He pressed on the front of his knees and leant over. Much better, he thought before he crouched again.
Within moments Vispa was within two arm lengths, maybe less. He spotted a stone on the ground where his next step would be. It rested on top of another, flatter, stone. He couldn’t kick them away. He couldn’t step on them. If he stepped too far to her left or right she would see him.
That left one option.
He stretched his front leg, his right, a further step ahead. Reaching with his right hand he lunged for the purse. The soft leather brushed against his finger tip.
Vispa began to turn her head to the right.
Damn it. He pinched the slim bit of purse within his grasp and pulled. The strings snapped free from Vispa’s belt as she turned around and reached for the purse. Over balancing he used his right leg to push himself backwards into a standing position. His left kicked out and hit the stones as he leapt out of reach of Vispa. He tumbled backwards and landed on his rear.
Vispa grasped at empty air on her belt. ‘I noticed. You failed,’ she declared.
‘Don’t think so,’ Nemo rattled the purse in his hand.
‘But you were meant to do it so I wouldn’t notice.’
‘That’s impossible. I noticed you steal it in Ramascus.’
‘That’s because I wanted you too.’
‘Sure. All that matters is I have it now.’
‘No. If you are trying to lift a set of keys off someone you don’t want them knowing.’
‘When am I ever going to be needing to do that?’ Nemo threw his arms wide.
‘You don’t know that’s why you learn now,’ Vispa snapped. She headed towards him.
‘I got it. That was what I needed to do,’ he scurried backwards, standing up as he did so.
‘That doesn’t matter. It wasn’t to see if you could get it but if you could do it without me noticing,’ she snatched for the coin purse.
Nemo lifted it high out of her reach.
Vispa hit him on the arm and then the chest. Pushing off his shoulder she tried jumping up to try and reach.
He moved it away each time while stepping backwards so she almost fell each time.
She snarled.
He laughed.
Vispa grabbed a handful of his shirt collar and pulled herself up to him planting her lips on his.
Nemo pushed her away with both hands. ‘What are you doing?’ He shouted.
Vispa plucked the purse out of his hand. ‘What? It worked didn’t it. And besides…,’ she motioned to herself.
‘No chance,’ he wiped his mouth with the back of his hands, ‘There are just things,’ he stopped himself. ‘Doesn’t matter. You aren’t my daughter.’ He pushed passed her grabbing the purse from her hand and went to fetch the string laying in the dirt.
‘Daughter?!’ Vispa growled. ‘What do you mean daughter?’
‘I have a daughter. Around your age. You, however, act like… I don’t know what. Sometimes adult other times bizarre. Delara is still a child,’ he spoke with spiked words and close to her face.
‘Oh,’ she said with force.
Nemo retied his coin purse to his belt as he returned to his bedroll. The sky was glowing amber. He peaked over to the road. Clear.
What did I mean? Do I think of her as my daughter?No, because she isn’t, he answered himself. What had she meant? He replayed the incident in his mind. He shivered. What got into her?
Vispa slunk back to her bedroll without a word. She crawled inside and turned her back towards him.
Good, he thought pulling off his boots. He placed a saddle bag under the bed roll where his head would be. Up before dawn. Up before dawn. Up before dawn. He repeated the mantra to make sure it would stick. And to distract him from other thoughts now littering his conscious mind.
Nemo awoke to the dead of night all around. A fuzziness clouded his vision around him except for the sky. There were thousands of stars in all manner on constellations. Blue stars, orange stars, red stars, but most where a pale, flickering, white.
Some where solid. One in particular was a solid light orange in the sky. Unmoving. Unblinking. Just there. Forming the centre piece of a god’s crown he imagined. The jewel to signify his glory.
He turned to see Vispa asleep. She had turned in the night and there she lay facing him. Her features velvet in the night, her eyes closed, mouth slightly ajar. Why are you with me? He wondered.
Watching the eastern horizon, far passed the road, The Wastes, and the Black Wall of Dohanlu, he listened and waited. Vispa’s breathing was the slow and steady of a woman asleep. Not a cricket stirred at this hour. Nor bird chirp. Or wolf growl. The horizon remained its nightly blue.
Before he knew it he had closed his eyes again and drifted into half-slumber. Where dreams felt more real but were known to be dreams and the outside world was an annoyance. He sank into the unreal comfort of a dream.
He sat at a table surrounded by the smiling faces of his kin. No one spoke. All watched him as he ate a feast for the ages. Dishes filled with olives, oranges, apples, in between roast lamb, spiced beef, honeyed pheasant. Pheasant?
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up to see no one. He returned to his feast with the unspeaking family. The tapping occurred a second time accompanied by a girl’s voice and an orange hue bleeding through the walls. Delara sat in silent joy.
‘Come on. Dawn approaches,’ the girl’s voice said.
He jerked awake. The feast, family, and home turning to ash in his mind. All gone with the wind of reality’s intrusion.
‘Get up. We’re late for the dawn.’
Dawn? Damn it, he shot up and stepped into his boots sitting on the ground next to him. He hastily wound the lace round the ankle of his boot and pulled. ‘How long?’
‘A few minutes. Not late,’ Vispa slurred. She hurried herself with packing her bedroll. Avoiding eye contact.
‘Right,’ Nemo could think of nothing else to say. He thought of what to do next but the fog of sleep still resisted all thought. Do that, he thought, and began to pack his bed roll.
Vispa stepped away leaving her bedroll bound with two leather straps on the dirt.
What is wrong with me… Nemo thought, missing the dawn. Haven’t done that in years. He fastened the iron buckles of the leather straps around the bulk of his bedroll. He checked over his saddle bags. Nothing was missing.
Vispa returned holding the reins of two horses. Both saddled and ready to go. Atars puckered at the ground snorting each time he found only earth and sand.
‘Ahh good. They didn’t run off in the night,’ Nemo whispered. Feeling the darkness all around him.
‘Yeah, trapping the stirrups in the ground seemed to do the trick,’ Vispa returned the whisper.
The slow rising glow of dawn spread across the eastern horizon. Rust reds and burning oranges drove back deep blues and paling purples. Dashing all of the stars and constellations from the sky in one explosion of day.
‘We should be going. Eat on the road,’ Nemo said attaching his saddle bags, and bedroll, to his saddle. He found a package and tossed it to Vispa. ‘Breakfast,’ he said.
Vispa caught it with one hand and clasped it to her chest before she dropped it. Larger than her hand and part of it felt soft. ‘Thanks,’ she said. Her voice softening with time.
‘Did you bring any food from Forgiskill?’ Nemo asked mounting Atars.
‘A little. Not enough for the whole journey. I should have asked how long we were on the road for,’ she said pulling herself onto Simbar’s saddle.
Nemo clicked his tongue and Atars sprang into a trot. He headed towards the road, in the direction of the rising sun. His stomach rumbled but he refused to fetch his own food before finding the road again.
He whipped Atars about the neck with the reins and the horse kicked into a canter. The minimal dew that settled on his beard whisked away by the breeze and dried by the crescent of sun peering over the horizon. He ran his hand through his dishevelled appearance trying to straighten curled hairs and rebellious locks into something more becoming. Something less bandit on the road with rusty sword and more professional bounty hunter with sharp arrowheads.
A crest of light flashed ahead. Numerous crests of light followed. Nemo pulled on the reins, slowing Atars down to a walk, there it is, he thought. The rocks lining the edge of the road catching the sun and moon light in equal measure.
Atars stepped over the rock line onto the road. Not much different under hoof than the dry lands around them. Nemo waited for Vispa to catch up to him. He squinted towards the still dark horizon.
In one hand she held the open cloth covering bread, and in the other an apple, she took bites out of both as she guided Simbar with her knees. The horse veered left and right as she ate. She planted the cloth against her open mouth inhaling the last of the bread. She wiped apple juice from her chin and stowed the cloth in the waist of her trousers.
‘Hungry by any chance?’ Nemo quizzed as she neared.
‘Famished. I think I was being spoilt back in Ramascus the last few months,’ she said with a mouthful of apple. She slurped as a trail of juice escaped from the corner of her lips.
Nemo left the obvious question that had plagued him thus far unasked. After Tanussi it wouldn’t matter anymore and the week between Ramascus and Tanussi would be dream-like in memory. Instead he dug both stirrups into Atars’ ribs to coax the horse to action. Simbar, and Vispa, fell in beside him on the road once more.
He unfurled his own breakfast from the confines of the cloth wrap and string. A flatbread about the size of his hand, an apple, and a single piece of sun-dried goat. He pocketed the apple back into his saddle bag aware of Vispa’s hungry eyes following him. He moved it to the side furthest away from her.
He tore a length of bread and wrapped it around the goat meat. Biting into it proved a challenge. The bread tore easily but the meat was tough. The bread he held begin to come apart in his fingers and he folded it together and chewed it as one piece. He felt his teeth pushing up into his gum and his jaw ached.
Yet still Vispa watched him eat.
‘You had yours,’ he muttered through a full mouth.
‘Still hungry though,’ she complained, swallowing before she spoke.
‘Well only a days ride before we eat again. And a few days before Tanussi. You’ll just have to get used to life like it was before,’ Nemo said. He rubbed his jaw as he finished the goat.
‘Seems like it,’ Vispa huffed.
Nemo bit into the remainder of his bread. He couldn’t avoid it any longer. He looked to the sky as it turned a lighter shade of blue. Then turned to Vispa, ‘Why are you here?’ He asked.
‘Here where?’ She said.
‘Here, now, travelling with me. Why? What benefit could you gain from uprooting yourself from one city to another. Having to learn whole swathes of a different language, a different culture, different ways of being, of eating, of doing, of thinking.’
‘It won’t be that different,’ Vispa assured him, ‘its only a few days ride.’
‘That’s enough distance for a different way of speaking,’ Nemo reminded her.
‘True. But…’
‘Tanussi is a democracy, or it was, like Thesus,’ Nemo interrupted, ‘Any family that owns property within the city walls has a single vote on who will sit on the council. Any man of the city over the age of forty can seek election. That creates a whole host of complications that Ramascus is free of. Was free of,’ he corrected himself.
‘But that won’t effect me,’ Vispa said.
‘Probably. Things change far quicker than other cities and not always for the better. But that doesn’t matter. Why are you with me? Why did you leave the Resistance in Ramascus?’
‘Because they didn’t want me!’ Vispa screamed.
Nemo remained almost motionless. Rocking only as Atars moved.
Vispa breathed heavily. She padded her eyes with her sleeves. Tears had yet to fall but her eyes were red and puffy.
After a few moments of silence Nemo said, ‘So you chose to travel with a stranger than stay in the city?’
‘Yes,’ she replied with a mumble.
‘Why? How could this possibly be any better?’
Vispa turned away from him as much as she could. Twisting in her saddle to see the blue sky reach the far horizon.
Nemo stared at the back of her head. Grunted and returned his attention to the road. ‘Fine. Keep it to yourself. Better that way anyway,’ he grumbled to himself pushing Atars ahead of Simbar.
Vispa sulked behind him. Perhaps sulked was unfair but it was accurate. Nemo needed answers. He was unwilling to accept responsibility for her. She seemed torn between burdening herself and burdening him. Running from one group to another, albeit much smaller group, instead of carving out her own life.
Soon after Vispa trotted up next to him on Simbar. ‘They said I was a “liability”.’
‘A liability for what?’ Nemo took the opportunity.
‘For the Resistance.’
‘How could a young girl be a liability for that?’
Vispa shot him a look, ‘Because of my past. Who I… dealt with and worked with.’
‘Where you an informant or something?’ Nemo snickered.
‘No. Not really. I… it wasn’t for the Republic or anything. We, a group of women I was part of, would deal with wealthy and powerful men, sometimes women, and that often lead to finding out information we shouldn’t. It was meant as just a small bonus to us as a group. But some knowledge we dealt in was… related to the war in some way.’
‘Stop speaking in ifs and half truths,’ Nemo snapped.
‘I worked in a brothel. Okay? We found stuff out. Stuff we shouldn’t have and sold it to the wrong person at the wrong time. This was a year ago, more, before the war was anywhere near Ramascus. It wasn’t even my client I just knew about it from the other girls,’ she cried.
‘And the Resistance threw you out because of that? Because you were a prostitute who knew the wrong thing.’
‘No, because we sold the information to those who surrendered the city. You can figure out the rest,’ she returned to sulking. She folded her arms and curled her back. Looking away from Nemo.
‘They thought the information you had sold was what made them decide to surrender?’
‘Yes.’
‘You weren’t followed where you? Out of Ramascus I mean?’
‘No. I checked. They followed me around the city and to the gate but no further,’ she admitted. Her voice smothered by a clenched jaw.
‘Well we would have seen them in Forgiskill if they had anyway. In Tanussi it will be different. At least with the Resistance and no one knows you, which has its advantages,’ Nemo spoke into the wind coming down the road. Offering what came to mind in the moment.
‘That’s the hope,’ Vispa said.
Hope. Too much wishing for my liking, Nemo thought of home. Of Mani, Delara, and Avaya. Of Bearsgarth. Of the well at the centre of town. Of friends. And, finally, of Mani again.
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