Eyes in the Water (12 page)

“How’re things back on Alatrice?” Darse
asked, looking from the road to Brenol.

Brenol shrugged. “Much the same. There have
been rising conflicts on Trest, so even though Paraff is removed
from it, the king is still tense. And making the whole kingdom feel
it… The price of conscription passes raised this last orbit. It was
nearly double the usual rate. I had to sell four chickens
after
all the harvest just to earn enough.” Brenol’s face
screwed up in irritation, but then he met the older man’s gaze with
glittering eyes. “Your door has never been so clean, though.”

Laugher spilled from Darse’s lips. “Yes, I
hadn’t thought about that. It must feel good to have the town free
of traitors.” He narrowed his eyes at the young man. “You probably
drank all my coffee to celebrate the victory.”

Brenol mimed guilt. “I cannot confirm a
thing.”

“Next you will tell me you sold my
pallet.”

“No,” the man began. His mouth spread into a
wide, handsome smile. “I did give my milkers to Mager, though.”

Darse gave an exaggerated groan. “Mager?” he
asked incredulously. “Mager? The little thief? You gave your dairy
cows to
her
?”

Brenol laughed heartily; he had expected as
much from Darse. “She finally did admit to nipping from your
stores.”

Darse raised an eyebrow. “Was this before or
after you gave her more than she could ever earn in her
lifetime?”

Brenol pinched his lips together to stifle
his laughter. “Well, she’s going to look after your place. And ma.”
His features clouded momentarily.

“Mager was always able to sniff out a good
deal,” Darse huffed, but then he asked quietly, “How is your
mother?” His eyes were both concerned and curious.

“Ever the same,” the man replied. “She…”
Brenol thought back to their last encounter, how for a brief moment
he had connected with her. But it had ended just as everything
always ended with her: bitterly. “Ever the same,” he repeated
blandly.

Darse, without slowing his easy gait, settled
his firm hand on Brenol’s shoulder. The warm pressure was solid,
good. It stirred a sorrow loose in Brenol while simultaneously
settling his heart. Darse knew and understood. He had perceived the
truth about his mother before Brenol ever had. The older man had
always been like a father—yet somehow now also his peer—and his
support seemed to make everything bearable, even the deepest, most
untouchable wounds.

Brenol gave Darse a quick dip of the head,
Darse recalled his hand, and the two continued on. Their
relationship, if changed at all, had only matured in their orbits
apart.

~

The journey to the lugazzi dragged on and on.
By the fourth day, they were left trudging through mud and muck
left from the previous evening’s showers. While none of them
harbored joy at the terrain and weather, Colette in particular
matched the dismal skies with her clouded mood and step. Her
initial pleasure in seeing Brenol after so long seemed to Brenol as
fleeting as a dream. She was completely lost in herself.

Brenol and Darse communicated with their
eyes, but there was only so much that could be relayed in silence.
The young man noted to himself that he must insist that Darse learn
Arman’s aural code at the earliest opportunity.

As they rested that night, still a day’s
journey from the border, Colette’s voice woke Brenol. “Bren? Are
you asleep?”

He elbowed to a sit and stared at the woman.
She had barely spoken since Sleockna, and he was loath to pass up
the opportunity to hear her voice, no matter how exhausted he
was.

“Are you okay?” he asked with concern. Her
face was yellow in the light of the jumping flames, and her
features were wracked with tension. Brenol glanced to Darse. The
man did not stir.

Colette’s lips parted as if to speak but then
shut again. Finally, she pointed. “Your hair is a mess.”

Brenol granted her a small smile and ran his
fingers through the tangled crop. “My ma couldn’t understand why I
grew it out. She all but snuck into my room at night to chop it
off.”

“What happened with your mother?”

Brenol felt his stomach harden. While he did
not want to talk about her, he was willing to do practically
anything to feel connected to Colette again. He sighed. “When I
left? Or in general?”

“Both.”

Brenol inhaled heavily and met her gaze. “She
let me go.” He rubbed his tired features. “But as for the other?
She’s… she’s not well.” Brenol shifted his feet closer to the fire
and tugged the blankets around his shoulders. “I didn’t understand
it for so long. And really, I still don’t entirely. She…she’s so
nervous and jumpy. She doesn’t think the way that other people
do.”

“What do you mean?”

“She says things that are all wrong. And
does
things all wrong too.” Brenol’s eyes narrowed in
memory.

“What’s something she did?” Colette
persisted.

“You really want to know?”

Colette gazed back solemnly.

Brenol sighed. The scene was burned into his
mind as though branded there with a scarlet hot poker. “Well…you
know how we eat differently on Alatrice? Abstaining from meat isn’t
a mark of being civilized. Kings and queens eat meat. The educated,
the poor. And really, the rich can afford it more often. So, on
Alatrice, we eat all. But there are still taboos.”

“I see,” Colette replied cautiously.

“Well, when I was a boy, eight orbits old, a
stray in the area had a litter of puppies. I knew we didn’t have
enough food for ourselves, but when that pup’s ma left him behind
after a few septspan, I wanted to keep him like I wanted to
breathe. So I hid him out by Darse’s place and gave him any scraps
I could come by.

“He grew and was the best pup in town. Black
and white, with this patch of brown over his snout, so I called him
Muzzie. I loved that dog. The other kids loved him too. Not a mean
muscle on his furry frame. When school started up again, Muzz’d
follow me and wait in the play yard just to follow me back to
Darse’s. I had to tie him up there at night or else he’d follow me
home, but he seemed to understand that I’d always come back.

“But one day he escaped. I know it wasn’t
Darse, but someone must have untied Muzz. I woke up in the morning
to find him snuggled in my pallet with me. I nearly threw up right
there.” Brenol shook his head sadly. “Little boy of eight and I
nearly heaved up my stomach in fear because I loved that dog so
much.”

Colette listened, rapt.

“I was so scared. I knew she’d beat me ragged
if she found I’d been keeping him. So I dressed and crept out of my
room with him in my arms…” He paused and winced. “I… I don’t know
if I should tell you. I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to see
her in any other way…”

She waited silently.

Finally, staring off into the darkness, he
continued, his voice carrying unmistakable sadness. “She was awake.
She took him out of my arms and drowned him in the washing tub.
Right before my eyes. I begged her to stop, but she had this glassy
look, like she wasn’t even there. She handed me his body and told
me to skin him. Beat me when I didn’t listen. She beat me over and
over, but I couldn’t do it. She finally did it herself and then
roasted him and gorged herself sick on his flesh. I wept for
days.”

“And she knew?” Colette asked in wonder.

“I told her, I screamed, I shook her. But she
just has something missing inside her. You might think she is
normal, but if you’re ever with her for long, you realize she
isn’t. At least, that’s what I finally realized. I showed up at
Darse’s lashed and choking on tears. It was then that he sat me
down and explained about my ma.”

“What did he say?”

Brenol shrugged his shoulders. “At the time?
Not much. He told me she wasn’t healthy inside, but it was the kind
of sickness that didn’t really heal. Not that she’d let anyone come
near her anyway. She barely let me touch her as I grew up. She just
wasn’t…right inside.”

Brenol exhaled, and his eyes closed briefly
as he shook his head. “But later…later, Darse told me more.”

“More?” Colette asked.

“More.” Again Brenol shook his head. “Darse
often traveled to sell his crops. Locals were not always so eager
to do business with him, so he’d pack up a wagon and travel to the
nearest city… Well, he was out bartering at a town over and, to
skip through a bunch of unnecessary details, a woman he spoke with
mentioned Ma.”

“Yes?”

“She was surprised Darse knew Ma, and she
told him that they’d grown up in the same village.” Brenol gazed up
to the skies, not actually taking in the heavenly lights. “She said
Ma had been strange and different as a child. She really wasn’t
well in her mind even then. But a blight hit the crops pretty
significantly one summer. And her parents, without a drale or mark
to their names, offered her up for the king’s service. For girls,
this means a life of sewing, cooking, or some other castle service.
So she left. They taught her to be a seamstress, but when they
realized that she was…different, I guess the local physicians began
experimenting on her. To try to fix her mind… Anyway, it only
exaggerated her condition.”

“I’m sorry,” Colette said quietly.

“Me too,” Brenol replied. He sighed, thankful
she did not question him further about all that the doctors had
done. Some things did not need to be repeated.

“And Muzzie…did you ever forgive her for
that?” she asked.

“I think so. I hope so, at least. I finally
realized that her sickness sent me to Darse in a way nothing else
would’ve. So even though sometimes that memory still sends my
stomach hopping, I try to remember how the whole thing gave me my
relationship with Darse. And now Massada.”

Colette glanced over to the slumbering
bundle. The man’s chest rose steadily, and his aging face lay
serene and mild in repose. Without another word, the lunitata drew
her own bedding up and curled her small frame into a huddled
ball.

Between the dark night and all that he had
revealed, Brenol felt a sudden intense weariness. “Anything else
bothering you?” he asked softly.

She did not respond. She clamped her lips
shut and feigned sleep.

Brenol sighed and lowered himself back down
into his blankets.

~

Colette entered the lugazzi and paused,
eyeing Brenol curiously. She, the nurest, had hardly blinked upon
exiting Veronia, but the young man had stopped, stooped, and
caressed the soil with a gentle hand, whispering both thanks and
farewell. No answer came, but the clear eyes that rose and locked
into hers revealed much; he did not expect one. She blushed and
shied her face away.

Twilight swept the skies with a hungry haste,
and Darse and Brenol scrambled to make camp so they could eat and
rest their fatigued legs. Colette, not even pretending to busy
herself, sat with expectant eyes, watching Brenol. He completed his
tasks but sensed her gaze as an uneasy tickle upon his neck.

Brenol firmed his heart, recalling the
fish-child he had shrouded in soil, and seated himself beside the
princess. Her delicate lunitata glow was a faint golden amber, the
only soft aspect of her hard face. The young man’s hand itched to
grasp hers, to find some sense of the woman she had once been, but
he knew the time was far from ripe. So he simply and plainly
relayed the terrible facts of Jerem’s poison.

Darse listened silently, soon wishing he
could erase Brenol’s words. The hatred Colette already harbored for
the villain kindled under the fury of this new trespass. Every word
seemed to sour her heart further. Brenol, even though he had seen
the untamable fierceness in her, was shocked. She seemed more
animal than human.

Colette began to pace and circle the
campfire.

Is this her fate? To live only through her
rage?
Brenol wondered. His face betrayed nothing, but his heart
trembled for the lunitata
.

Darse gave Brenol a gentle prod. “What about
the hos
?”

“Yes, the hos…” After rolling the code
through his mind for many matroles of travel, he almost did not
know where to start. But simplicity seemed best at this point.
“It’s an antidote.”

Colette halted with a gasp. Her trim figure
leaned in, and her ravenous eyes scoured Brenol as if in pursuit of
the hos’s location on his person.

Brenol held up a hand to implore patience.
“There’s much more. The story on the hos is twofold—written in two
hands. Plus, some of it I have pieced together from Deniel’s
memories… Anyway, orbits ago, a man, Jerem, began working on a
poison.”

“The fool who never relents,” muttered
Darse.

Colette hugged her arms around her slender
body. Her eyes were haunted and wide.

“He required a few rare supplies but was so
immersed in trying to dissect the secret about the nuresti that he
hired another to find them, concoct his creation, and test it. I
can only imagine that Jerem had planned to kill this man from the
beginning, for he knew too many of his secrets.”

Darse sat nearby, quietly attentive.

“So after the hireling made it, he tested the
cocktail on a maralane child—”

“How?” Darse interrupted. Confusion and
horror etched his somber face.

“I don’t know how the man stole her, but he
did. She was very young, but smart enough to see beyond her own
suffering. She wrote invisibly upon her hos, hoping the story would
somehow find its way back to the maralane. She, Larest, was held in
some tank in a house. The man poisoned her water daily to determine
its results. She only briefly mentioned the intense pain.”

“Three save us,” Darse muttered.

Brenol quirked an eyebrow at Darse’s
invocation—he wondered to what degree Darse had taken the gods of
Massada as his own—but continued, “Larest could see that her end
was coming. Her one hope was for the hos to tell her story so the
maralane could prepare for whatever was going to happen. She knew
very well that she would not be dumped back into Ziel even if she
survived the poison…” Brenol lifted a hand to indicate time
passing. “The hired man was later repaid for his efforts with a
knife to his chest, and Jerem ran off with the cocktail. The hos
then fell into Deniel’s hands.”