Lloi cocked her head to the side and looked at me queerly. “Huh. I was thinking Captain Noose must have told you a fair bit more than he done told you.”
She stood, having to stoop only a little. “Real nice chatting with you, bookmaster. Real nice. Excepting the part about your family. But I’m thinking we won’t be doing much more of that before you round some things off with the captain there. Gets real particular about who says what without his say so. Anytime you want to share some seeds, though, you just say as much. Got near as many as you got questions.”
Lloi stepped over my legs, nearly tripping on an ankle as I tried to pull them out of her path. She disentangled herself and looked down at me. “This wagon gets tiny right quick, don’t it?”
Then she hunchwalked to the fore of the wagon, pulled the flap back, and shouted, “Coming through, Captain Noose.”
Braylar jumped slightly just before the flap fell closed behind her. I heard him say, “I’ve told you before, don’t shout in my ear, yes?”
“You said so, yeah. But I also know how you don’t like being snuck up on much neither. Last time I snuck up on you, you got more raw than the last time I shouted coming through, so I figured I’d go with the shouting again.”
“I take your point. But if you shout or sneak again, you’ll be walking the rest of the way. Perhaps in the harness.”
I suspected that wasn’t as much of a jest as it should’ve been.
They fell silent and left me to wonder at this strange former savage turned whore turned, what, exactly, scout? Servant? Retainer? I nearly laughed, though the whole thing was infinitely more sad than funny. And yet she told her story—what she did tell of it, anyway—in such flat, emotionless terms, so at odds at the utter tragedy of the tale. It was all so exceptionally strange and perplexing.
⊕
We rode the road from Rivermost for some time, though it was mostly just a collection of ruts. After setting my pages to dry, and hearing no noteworthy conversations coming from the front of the wagon—Braylar and Lloi had lapsed into that silence only old comrades or complete strangers can sustain or tolerate—I moved to the rear. There were some travelers far in the distance, but their wagon must have been going just a bit slower than ours, as it incrementally grew smaller on the horizon until it was barely distinguishable as anything at all.
I fell asleep like that, head resting against a barrel. When I woke, we weren’t on the road, the sun had slipped much lower in the sky, and my face probably looked like the wood. I climbed out of the wagon and looked around. The road was some distance off, and I would’ve missed it in the tall grass if it weren’t for a single man leading an ox-drawn cart down it. I walked around to the front. Braylar had unharnessed the horses and led them off to graze. Braylar’s own horses were still tethered on the side, and one looked up at me briefly before returning to its grassy meal. Neither Lloi nor her horse were in sight. Braylar was brushing the horses while they ate. I raised my arm and waved. The gesture wasn’t returned.
I waited for some time as he led his horses back and fitted them to the harness again. I thought he’d ask for my assistance, but he didn’t, which I thought just as well—my experience with horses was certainly of little value, and I was sure I would’ve only gotten in the way.
Braylar pulled himself back up to the bench and acknowledged me for the first time when I said, “Lloi doesn’t stay in one spot for very long. Where’s she off to now?”
“I do believe you’re infatuated. She’s off scouting the area.”
I looked around, seeing little besides rut and grass. “Is there that much to scout?”
“There are four basic elements to soldiering: training, logistics, strategy, and tactics. Of these, the first is the only one you can do—that is, with even moderate success—without the aid of intelligence. There’s more than one way to gather intelligence, but scouting is surely the most fundamental and immediate. Particularly in a foreign land. So, while we’re not a full company on a large-scale campaign, the principles remain the same. I have enemies, known and unknown, I’m not in friendly territory, and I wouldn’t travel without intelligence of what is over the horizon, yes? Lloi rides the horizon.” He cast a sideways glance at me and added, “Fear not. She’ll find us. She’s a creature of the steppe. We could be a thousand miles distant, but so long as we were still in the grass, I’m confident she would track us down. More importantly, she knows the route we intend to take.”
Like so many things he said, this did nothing to clarify anything. I asked, foolishly perhaps, “Is Lloi your woman?” I would’ve said lady, but that clearly didn’t apply.
Captain Killcoin laughed and punched me on the arm so hard I nearly fell off the bench. “That’s the height of hilarity, Arki. Truly. Even if I could love one such as her—and that, if you failed to observe, is what I find so amusing—but even if that were possible, do you suspect I’d retain her on a dangerous journey such as this? Or order her to scout alone, and not rend the hair from my scalp in worry? No. A camp follower who cooks a good quail or sucks a good cock, you keep around. But someone who’s ensnared your heart is someone you leave at home for peace of mind.”
I started to ask something else but he cut me off, “Enough on that. When I determine the time is ripe, you shall know more of her… utility to me, and not a moment before. And if that only inflames your curiosity, I say to you, a writer without curiosity is a bird without feathers.”
I expected he’d turn us about and return us to the road, but we continued rolling on over the tall grass, gusts of wind turning it about like choppy waves. I held my tongue, waiting, thinking perhaps he was simply anticipating a curve in road ahead, and that we were only crossing a relatively small stretch of steppe before stumbling across it again.
However, the time passed in silence and nothing was going as expected. As calmly as possible, I said, “We’re not returning to the road.”
“Very astute. And I’ll preempt a few more observations to save you the trouble: the sky is still above us; the sun continues trekking west; our wagon is pulled by horses, not unicorns.”
“But… I don’t understand. Why did we take the road at all if you only intended to leave it?”
He replied, “Immediately riding off into the wilderness would have drawn undue attention. It’s simply not done. But there are few eyes this far out, and I no longer wish to be part of traffic. And as to the why of it, that’s for me to reveal, not for you to puzzle out. I hired you to archive, not navigate. When next you’re hired to navigate, your counsel on such subjects shall be welcome and warranted, but not before.”
I tried to quell the small bursts of panic in my chest. “But we’ll… we’ll get lost won’t we?”
He laughed. “I don’t intend to strike through the heart of the Green Sea. We only cut across one small bay. And though Lloi hasn’t called this place home for some years, she still knows it well enough to guide us through. Fear not, Arki. I’ll return us to civilization soon enough.”
I could tell his patience with my line of questioning was growing thin, but I couldn’t stop myself. “But… but the grass isn’t safe, is it? There are Grass Dogs, and I’ve heard of a number of creatures that—”
“We will be safer there than on the road. Of that, you can be sure.”
“But there are Hornmen on the road, to protect travelers. And—”
“And do you believe no one is accosted or robbed or killed on the road?”
Now I understood the point Mulldoos was arguing before leaving Rivermost. “I didn’t say that. But surely it must be safer than going where there’s no protection at—”
“Enough.” He pulled his gloves tighter on his hands and glared at me. “You yammer like an old addled woman. Be silent or go back in the wagon.”
So rebuffed, I opted to get off the bench and walk alongside the wagon for a few miles. As the sun neared the horizon, he signaled that we were halting for the day to make camp. Braylar leapt down and unharnessed the horses. I offered to help, hoping he’d decline, but he nodded. While I was hardly comfortable around them, I followed his lead, unbuckling the straps as he had. We didn’t lead them out to graze, however. Braylar retrieved some hobbles from the wagon and fitted them to the horses’ legs. Then he handed me a brush. Not being a groom, I wasn’t sure about the best way to proceed and made the mistake of asking.
He replied, “You stick it as far up their asses as you can. When you’re through, withdraw it and brush your hair. It will make your coat shine.”
Opting not to follow those lovely directions, I did the best I could. Though I’m sure it was an inexpert and clumsy job, and I was probably too delicate, or too rough, the horses were benign enough, and the chestnut-colored one even bumped me with its snout in what I assumed was approval of sorts.
Braylar returned with a bucket of grain and fed them. I wondered aloud why we fed the horses grain when there was grass in every conceivable direction.
“A mixed diet is best. You’re bookish in the extreme. Have you never encountered a horse before? Or were all of your previous patrons walkers?”
I ignored that and asked, “Do you need help preparing a fire?”
“We’re still not so very far from the road you were so loath to leave, and a fire would serve as a beacon for any brigands. One fire means only a few people huddled around it. And that means easy prey, yes?”
Knowing that I was likely to only irritate more, I asked, “What about a lantern?”
“By all means,” he said, “if you want to draw every raider in the territory down on us, light one. Light two! Did we bring two? If not, then one will have to suffice.” He laughed. “I brought it in the event that I must use it. If that time comes, you’ll know, because it will be lit. Not before. Record whatever you wish to record before the light fails, or wait until after dawn. Your choice. Were it mine, I would eat some of that goat and find a spot in the wagon before the whole world goes black. For one accustomed to the city, it can be disconcerting. So, sup and repose. Or starve and be fretful. The choice is yours.”
⊕
The night was mostly undone by fretting. While I enjoyed seeing new cities and locales, I never really enjoyed the travel between, and that was even with companions on a short road, with fires, hot food, and a modicum of merriment. Not all at my expense. From the university in Highgrove to Rivermost, with all the small stops in between, more often than not I begged the kindness of strangers to allow me to travel with them, and given the dangers on the road, most travelers were more than happy to have one more among their number, even if I clearly looked incapable of defending anything or anyone. But those were well-trod byways patrolled by Hornmen, and the duration was never all that long.
Here… we’d clearly left behind traffic, and commerce, and community. All the things ordinary people clung to as they moved from place to place. There was nothing at all out here, except the unknown, and large quantities of it. Emptiness in all directions. Or the appearance of emptiness. Who knew what things crept or slithered among the grass, or buried beneath it.
And Braylar was correct about the dark—I’d never seen the stars look so sharp, and the crowned moon was in its full glory, both the moon itself and its single ring bleeding bright light everywhere. Sleeping in the wilderness didn’t prove restful. The pots gently chimed against each other throughout the night. The wagon rocked on its springs, driven by the wind, and while the flaps were secured front and back, they billowed like the sails of a small ship as cold drafts found their way into the wagon and beneath my blankets.
I finally fell into a fitful slumber when I heard Lloi ride up. She unsaddled her horse, fed it, saying gentle things in her tongue, which must have been soothing, because I went back to sleep immediately. When I awoke at dawn, she was gone again. I rose and stretched, splashed some water on my face, and climbed out the front of the wagon. Braylar was finishing rolling up his sleeping mat.
After filling our bellies, we took care of the other tasks that needed tending: feeding the horses, harnessing them, checking all the straps and wheels and axle and tongue and anything else that moved for something in need of repair. Discovering nothing, we set off. I took my place alongside him on the bench and asked, “Would you like me to get the writing table? Is there anything you’d like to record or dictate?”
Without looking at me he said, “Record the grass.”
Most of my previous patrons could hardly stop their mouths—they regaled me with mundane minutia and inane stories, most of which involved the glories of mercantile conquest. Hardly riveting, but it was why they hired me. Pollus the apothecary, old wheezy Winnozin the priest, Nullo the foul-mouthed (and foul-smelling) tanner, Lektin the pinched-faced banker. Dull and duller, the whole lot. Even the Lady Anzella, who inherited her husband’s shipping business after the plague took him, and managed not only to keep it afloat, but to make it thrive… beyond the novelty that she was a woman entrepreneur, and a successful one at that, she was just as mannish in her ability to bore a person to tears.
They all shared one thing in common—they loved to talk about themselves, and it was my job to keep them prattling as long as possible, asking as many questions as I could think of to keep their narratives (and my employment) going. However, few jobs lasted more than a year; only one patron kept me on for near two. Being social-climbing burghers who’d generally made their own fortunes rather than inheriting them in noble fashion, they clutched those hard-earned coins tight, which ultimately always proved at odds with just how long-winded they were inclined to be. They would have talked forever if they hadn’t had to pay for the recording.
But the captain seemed completely disinterested in talking to me at all, except when absolutely necessary, and rebuffed most attempts at conversation. So long as I was paid, I wasn’t particularly bothered by this, but it was queer, and more than that, had the effect of stretching the hours out interminably.
Sitting inside the wagon, I often looked out the back. Except for the cloud of dust and absence of horses, it was identical to the front—an endless trail surrounded by an endless expanse of tall green grass, rustling as far as the eye could see. We couldn’t have been more alone, and it felt as if we were truly the last travelers on Earth, doomed to travel these steppes together forever.