Darkthaw (4 page)

“Dangerous?” Sister Ann asks.

“Saw the soil turn to mush before my eyes in the heavy rain. Could drown a man. I went south as far as I could along the river before hitting land so dry and inhospitable there's no way people would settle there.” He taps a mass of dots at the bottom of his map. “If the unregistered folks are anywhere, they're settled up this way.”

Up this way
. Matisa said it would take us a week's ride to reach her people—that we'd head southwest. Are any of these people between Matisa's home and mine?

He rolls up the map and regards us. “I wouldn't necessarily go visiting, though,” he says. “Unless you want to take your chances.”

“And what does that mean?” Sister Ann frowns.

“Word is, these unregistered sorts mean to cause trouble for the Dominion. Claims to the land, and all of that. The Dominion wants to know where these people are. The tribes, too. They need to know what they're up against.”

“And they have sent . . . you?” Sister Ann's voice is laced with doubt.

Henderson sits up a mite straighter. “They'll send law soon as they've got the lay of the land.” He brushes at his shirtsleeves. “But they'll need my maps to do it. Right now, I'm their eyes and ears.”

Tom and I glance at each other.

“But these—these rogue types,” calls a mousy-looking woman. “Are you saying it isn't safe out there?” I recognize her as an old follower of Brother Jameson—the Council leader who spoke on the virtues fanatic-like, who wanted to keep our borders sealed tight no matter what, the Council
leader who shot my pa before Kane brought him down with his knife. There's no one in the settlement as powerful as Jameson anymore. His family—including my age mate, Charlie—was banished a day's journey from the Watch flats; being found any closer was punishable by death. But there are some who still let fear rule their thoughts.

The people around her begin to whisper. Soft, but it grows in volume. A sickness starts in the bottom of my stomach. They're getting agitated, fearful. Feels like when we thought the
malmaci
roamed the woods. When we'd send people to the Crossroads for being Wayward because we thought they put us in peril. We should be beyond that. Matisa showing up here in peace should have set everyone straight. At once I feel a flash of resentment toward this Henderson. Strolling in here, telling us to be afraid all over again.

Tom squeezes my hand again, as if to reassure me, and I notice some of the people around us look intrigued, not scared. But I catch sight of Matisa and see her face is ashen, her eyes troubled.

Henderson holds up his hands. “Don't get all bent out of shape,” he says, again with that calm one could confuse with foolishness. “Could just be rumors. You know how word gets twisted as it spreads.”

But if he knew what we've been living with, would he throw around these thoughts so careless? Telling us horrors in one breath, telling us not to overreact in the next?

“How many?” It's out of my mouth before I know I'm thinking it.

“Sorry?” he asks, squinting into the crowd. Takes me a moment to realize he's asking me to speak again.

I drop Tom's hand and push forward, stepping out of the semicircle. “How many people are out here?” I ask again.

He looks me over. “Hard to say. A couple hundred, maybe.”

“A couple hundred are here? Or a couple hundred left their homes in the east?” I ask.

“Aren't you the quick one.” His face splits into a grin. “Word is they're doing fine—no dying from sickness like the last time—which is both a blessing and a curse for the Dominion. Now they know for sure they can settle out here without risk of disease. Problem is, their law didn't get here first.”

The crowd buzzes.

I look back to Matisa. She's retreating slow, backing out of the throng.

“How can we know that what you say is true?” a man shouts. The crowd quiets at this.

Henderson frowns. “Why would I make it up?”

The man narrows his eyes. “You talk like you aren't even one of them.”

“I'm not.” Henderson's grin returns. “Government—the Dominion—is for sheep. I'm an
entrepreneur
.” He smiles wider. “More opportunistic than a rebel, less unlawful than a rogue.” He laughs, but since none of us know what he's speaking on, he laughs alone. This doesn't seem to bother him. He looks around at us. “Now, you mentioned sharing some grub? Could do with another breakfast.”

“MATISA!” I PUSH THROUGH THE DOORS OF THE
ceremonial hall and catch her disappearing around the side of the weapons shack. When I round the corner, I near run straight into her. She's huddled with Isi and Nishwa.

Her dark head snaps toward mine. “We need to go.”

“Now?”

“As soon as we can get packed.” She looks to her round-faced brother, Nishwa. “Can you ready the horses?”

He nods.

She speaks in her own tongue to Isi, who claps Nishwa on the shoulder. He seems relieved. They head off in opposite directions. I look at Matisa, bewildered.

“Let's get our things,” she says, beckoning to me as she sets off for the east quarter.

“All right,” I say, feeling like I'm not truly in the conversation and not understanding why. I hurry after her. “But I need to tell Kane.”

“I've sent Isi to get him,” Matisa says, pulling open the
door to our kitchen. She crosses the space and begins sorting through the dry goods we have stacked on the kitchen table.

“Kane said he can be ready in a heartbeat,” I say, still feeling at a loss, and shoving down a niggle of unease at the thought of him telling his ma.

“Good.” Her hands sort through packets of bulb flour and dried berries. She's rattled, and it's skittering me.

I grab her saddle-pack from the cloak hooks beside the door and bring it to the table. “This is about what that Henderson said,” I venture.

She nods, stuffing the dry goods in the pack. Her eyes are elsewhere, like she's thinking hard.

“Matisa,” I say, putting my hand on her busy arm. “He was enjoying the telling, but he might not be so sure on the knowing.”

“Oh, I know that,” she says. “He knows very little.” She abandons the dry goods and heads for the sleeping quarters. I follow her into Pa's old bedroom, where she begins pushing clothes into a pack she grabs from under the bed.

“Then what—I mean, why are you . . . so skittered?”

She doesn't pause. “It is not what he knows; it is what he brings.”

“And what is that?”

She stops.

“Matisa?”

She looks up, her eyes shifting to the door, back to me—they're troubled, like the rushing river. “I need to tell you something,” she says. “It is about the sickness that took your people when they first arrived.”

“All right,” I say.

“I tell this to you alone,” she cautions.

I frown. She's always spoken plain around us—Tom, Kane, her cousin and brother, me.

“Em?”

“Course,” I answer.

She sinks to the edge of my mattress. “I told you that we left this area when the sickness came. I told you that our people dreamt more death was coming and that we knew this meant people. Newcomers.”

I nod. Matisa's people moved into the mountains, away from the plains, after these dreams. They made peace with other groups of First Peoples to the south so they might be a unified front against an oncoming threat: settlers. Us.

“What I have not told you is that by the time we left this area, we had long been living with the sickness.” She twists her hands together. “For years our people and the animals around us died in ways we could not explain. It was not like the sicknesses in the east we'd heard about. This sickness was not passed from one person to another, and it appeared and disappeared with no obvious cause.” She hesitates. “Eventually we realized it was in the little waters.”

“The little waters?”

“Creeks, small rivers. Your people survived all those years ago because they moved out of the woods, away from it.”

I think about the remnants of those first settlements I found last fall; the crumbled cabins out in the woods, next to dried-up creek beds. Our stories tell us the settlers who survived banded together and built our fortification next to the big river, hiding away from the “evil in the woods” that had taken their kin. My eyes widen in understanding.

“For years, my ancestors studied this sickness. Boiling the water made it safe, but boiling was not something we could do forever, and it was impossible to know where the sickness was before it was too late. Over many years of watching certain animals survive, we discovered a remedy that keeps it away,” she says. “It remains our most closely guarded secret.”

I frown, trying to figure her words.

“Our protection from the sickness has always been our upper hand.” She holds my gaze. “Do you understand?”

The Bleed, they called it
, Henderson said.
Anyone who tried to settle out here perished from it
.

“You mean you could survive when others—people from the east—couldn't.”

She nods. “It has long been the reason we have lived in peace.”

“But Henderson said it's no longer here.”

“He does not know what he thinks he knows,” Matisa says. “It is here, but it comes and goes, appearing without warning. The remedy ensures we are protected, regardless.”

“And all of your people know it?”

She shakes her head. “Very few. Only an inner circle of healers. The remedy is prepared as a mix of many secret herbs and plants, but only one of these is any use against the sickness. The knowledge of which plant protects against the sickness remains within the circle alone. I”—again she hesitates—“I am a part of that circle.”

I stare at her. “You keep it from your people?”

“Please try to understand, it is valuable. If the knowledge were placed in the wrong hands . . .”

“Settlers' hands,” I state.

“It would be a disaster for us,” she continues. “Not everyone would understand that keeping this secret prevents what happened in the east from happening here.”

The east. I know the stories from Soeur Manon. When the Old World kingdoms arrived in the new land, the First Peoples—those already here—taught them how to survive. Then they were imprisoned, enslaved, and killed for their kindness. Matisa's people are right to worry.

“For years we have sent scouts, in secret, to bring us information from the east. We have learned the languages of the Dominion; we have studied their war weapons. We have done everything we can to know what we are up against. But the remedy is our true advantage.” She searches my face.

What she says makes good sense, but unease flickers in my belly. This secret—keeping the truth from people for their own good—feels familiar. Honesty is one of our virtues, but lies kept our settlement in fear for so long. Brother Stockham's pa lied to secure his position as leader, and Stockham kept his secret because he didn't trust people to make good decisions for themselves. Just like I didn't trust my pa with what I'd found in the woods: the journal explaining the truth. If I had, maybe he wouldn't be—

I shove the thought down deep.

“When the Dominion comes, we can offer protection from the sickness—we can treat them with the remedy—in exchange for peace and freedom. This has always been our plan.”

“But they are arriving already,” I say.

She nods, her face anxious. “This Henderson is the first of many newcomers. I believe he signals the beginning of . . .”

She trails off, but I know what she doesn't say:
war
. She believes he brings the war she's been dreaming on.

I look at my hands, try to think. I know that finding a way to deal with the newcomers on her people's terms is their best chance. And the more people who must keep a secret, the greater the chance it won't be kept. This is different from the secrets Stockham was hiding, I decide. This is necessary.

“The strongest and fastest of my people will be leaving my home soon to hunt the great herds. This leaves us vulnerable. I want to bring this news so they will stay to defend us.”

“When will they go?” I ask.

“When the season of rain has passed, they will set out.”

I think about how much time this leaves us. The balsamroot I've been collecting is only small shoots yet; it flowers once the rains have passed. And other summer plants I collect have not yet begun to grow. The Thaw, the rains, will be over in a couple of weeks, perhaps a bit longer.

“You say it will take us a week to reach your home?”

She nods. “I believe so.”

This makes me feel better. Still, I wonder. “When you found our settlement, you had been looking for us all summer.”

“We did not know where to look,” she says. “Our path was . . . circular. The journey home will be much more direct.”