Fires of the Faithful (21 page)

PART THREE
 
The Weapon You Know How to Use

B
y morning, I had moved on, but I could barely walk. By midmorning I had reached an abandoned farm. I broke into the barn—I felt like it would be less likely to be haunted—and decided I’d spend a day or two there to let my feet heal. Now that I was alone, really alone, my thoughts were deafeningly loud. I tried to find tasks to occupy myself—getting water to wash my feet, mending a ripped seam in the edge of my bag, tuning my violin—but nothing seemed to drown them out.

Except for the day that my father took me to see the mage who’d given me apples even though I couldn’t burn stone, I had rarely thought much about the Circle before the war. To play for the Circle was the highest position a musician could hold, and back at the conservatory I had sometimes imagined myself playing in Cuore, closing my eyes as I practiced and imagining the glitter of a banquet hall in place of the gray stone walls around me. In the shadowed barn, I lay back and stared at the rafters, then closed my eyes, imagining myself back at the conservatory.

The Emperor rules, the Circle protects, the Fedeli guide
. I could hear Domenico’s even voice, and Bella’s challenge, and I wondered if Domenico really believed what he’d told us. And whether he still believed it now.

During the war, I’d felt a new respect for the Circle, and for the protection they offered us. We had gone to war with Vesuvia after their cross-border raids had led to atrocities, with families burned with their crops. The war had raged for two full years, with neither army advancing more than a few miles except on rare occasions. In the end, the border was left more or less where it had been before. Army detachments were left to keep an eye on things and the Circle retreated to Cuore.
The Circle protects
. Opening my eyes again, I stared up into the dark rafters. Some birds had gotten in and built nests; I could hear the squawk of squabbling fledglings, and see the flutter of wings. Who had been there to protect my family? What the Vesuviani had done was nothing compared to what the Circle had done. My mouth turned bitter and I almost retched. I closed my eyes again.

I briefly considered returning to the conservatory. The Dean wasn’t supposed to take me back, but he’d bent the rules before. And under the circumstances … but no. If I became a student at the conservatory again, it would be under the sponsorship of the Circle.
I’d rather starve
, I thought. Besides, I couldn’t imagine being sequestered again. I was part of the world now, for better or worse.

I sat up after a while, and eased my boots off to take a look at my feet. I had worn away big strips of skin, and those parts were raw and bloody. I wet the edge of my cloak and wrapped my feet in it; the cold water might bring some of the swelling down. I hoped the cloak would dry by evening.

I stayed at the abandoned farm for almost a week,
eating the provisions I’d stolen from Gervala. I stayed in the barn during the day, limping out at night to fetch more water as necessary. I was afraid that someone from Gervala might see me and bring a group of people down to punish me for stealing food. At least the former residents of the farm refrained from haunting me. Perhaps they were satisfied that I was staying in the barn, or perhaps they felt sorry for me.

I thought about the Circle a great deal, and Mira, and Bella and Giula. I managed not to think about the ashes of the house, the wreckage, the bones of my family.

As soon as I had skin on my feet again, I padded my feet carefully, gathered my belongings, and moved on. I passed through villages that day, but no one would meet my eyes. My first thought was that they could tell I was a thief, but I realized quickly that my ragged clothes and hopeless wariness marked me as a refugee. Refugees brought danger; they knew what had happened to that village just to the north. A young child asked her mother why I was walking south—“Nobody goes south, do they?”—but she was quickly hushed, and her mother made a sign to ward off the evil eye as I passed.

The land died around me as I walked. That first day, I had been in territory that had never seen war. The second day, I saw farms that had been burned in the war, but had since been rebuilt; the landscape was scarred, with dead trees, but the spring flowers were in bloom and the fields were green. The third day, I saw shrunken weeds and withered flowers; when I knocked on the door of a farmhouse, no one answered.

On the fourth day, I came to the wasteland.

The wasteland was just on our side of the border with Vesuvia. The war had raged there for more than a year, with each army pushing forward just a few miles, then
falling back again. The people who lived in that part of Verdia fled the fighting during the war, trying to get out of the way of the armies. Some of them never came back. They made the right choice.

Not even weeds grew in the wasteland. The fields were black, or baked sand-brown by the sun. I felt as exposed as a rabbit on the treeless plain, and quickly grew hot in the sun. Streams still ran through the wasteland, but the water tasted strangely bitter, and I found myself wanting to rinse my mouth with the last of my wine, just to get rid of the taste.

As I rested in the shade of a ruined barn, a column of refugees passed by. Guarded by soldiers, they were being marched south.

“Hey there!” one of the soldiers called when he spotted me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Ravenna,” I said.

The soldiers laughed. “You don’t
go
to Ravenna,” one said. “You get
taken
there.”

“So, do you have any other recommendations?” I asked.

“You’re pretty much out of options, at this point,” he said with a shrug. “Our orders are to bring in anyone we find, no matter where they say they’re going.”

“What if someone wants to stay with their farm?” I asked. That was really hilarious; the soldiers laughed again.

“Where are you from, girl?” one of the refugees asked as I joined the column of marchers. “Not from around here, that’s obvious.”

“I was at a conservatory until recently,” I said. “I came home to find my village burned. I heard that the survivors were taken to Ravenna. I’m looking for my family.”

He sobered. “Which village?”

“Doratura. Have there been so many?”

“Enough. I don’t know anyone from Doratura. It may be that only refugees survived. That happens sometimes.” He patted my shoulder apologetically. “Good luck to you, though.”

We reached Ravenna in late afternoon. Ravenna itself was a valley of blackened earth and ragged makeshift tents made of blankets and stitched-together cloaks. Three buildings stood in the center of Ravenna: a keep, a barracks, and a stable.

A fence ran along the hills surrounding the valley, golden in the setting sun. Sticks had been planted in crossed X’s, set close together; it was the sort of arrangement used to block a cavalry charge, but in this case it had been designed simply to keep the Ravenessi from leaving. The fence could not possibly be all that sturdy—it would be easy enough to work one of the sticks loose—but I could see patrols of soldiers along the edge as well.

“They shoot on sight if you try to leave,” the refugee whispered to me. “So if you make a run for it, do it after dark, on a moonless night, and hope the soldiers don’t see you.”

Just beyond the valley, draped with shadows, I could see a wall, winding past the camp like a gray river until it was hidden from view by the rise of another hill.

“What is that?” I asked.

“That’s the wall,” the refugee said. “That’s what Ravenna is for. The Circle wants a wall built along the border, to protect us from the Vesuviani.” Below us, the workers had finished for the day; I saw no signs of life by the wall, but a long line had formed below us in Ravenna, and I could see a large pot over the flicker of a single fire.

The soldiers led us down into the sea of tents. The camp looked worse close up; many of the “tents” were simply cloaks staked up, barely waist-high. Except for the single
road that passed through to the keep, the tents were crammed together so tightly I’d have to turn sideways to pass between them. People came out of their tents to stare as we passed. Their eyes and cheeks were hollow. I could feel their eyes burning into me, and I tried to stand up straighter, to show that I was not afraid.

“Hey,” one of the soldiers said. “Here.” He handed me a string, with fifteen chips of wood strung along it. A small star had been burned into each, and a hole cut in the center for the string. “Ration chits.” I stared at the wood chips stupidly, and he sighed. “One chit gets you breakfast, one dinner. This is a week’s worth. Once you start working you’ll be able to earn more, but—I thought I’d let you get settled in.”

I slipped the string over my head and tucked the chits inside my shirt, next to Bella’s cross.

“Stay out of trouble,” he continued. “Anyone tries to steal from you, or tries to make trouble with you—well, you can come find me. My name’s Mario. Don’t get into fights—Teleso doesn’t give a rat’s ass who started it, if you’re found fighting.”

“Who’s Teleso?” I asked.

“The camp commander, and you don’t want to piss him off—got that?” Mario clasped my shoulder briefly. “They’re serving dinner now,” he said. “You should go line up and get some.”

The light was fading from the sky. “I gather I am not permitted to leave?” I asked.

“No one is allowed to leave,” he said.

“I thought slavery was against the Law of the Lady,” I said softly.

“You’re not a slave,” Mario said. “No one will make you work.”

“But I’m not allowed to leave,” I said. “And if I don’t work, I don’t get any food.”

Mario looked wounded—I was a bit startled, as I hadn’t honestly expected my snide comments to make much of an impact. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I hope you find your family.”

I joined the long line of people, shuffling slowly forward. The bravado I’d felt earlier had evaporated like the last of the life from the fields around me. Whatever I was going to do now, I could do after I’d eaten. I’d finished the last of my provisions that morning.

As the twilight deepened into night, I realized that I had never been anywhere so dark in my life. Torches burned near the front of the line, but that seemed to be the only light in Ravenna. I cupped my hand and tried to summon witchlight, just to be able to see the people around me, but nothing happened.

“Doesn’t work,” the person behind me grunted. “No magery works here.”

Even on moonless nights on my parents’ farm, I had been able to summon witchlight to light my way. Anywhere but the wasteland, a crowd this size would be lit with hundreds of tiny lights, cupped to illumine conversations and to keep people from tripping over the uneven ground. Here, the torches cast only a small circle of light, and there was almost no moon.

It was a long, chilly wait. I pulled my cloak around me, but still could not get warm. The food, when I finally reached the head of the line, was a thin gruel. I surrendered a chit and they filled my bowl. I was ravenous, and moved only a little way from the soldiers serving the food to take out my spoon and eat it. I scraped the bowl clean with my fingers, but was left hungry, even so.

As I watched, scraping out my empty bowl, a boy dodged in between the soldiers, grabbing a handful of wooden ration chits from the barrel by the cauldron of food. “Hey!” one of the soldiers yelled, giving the boy a cuff to the head that sent him sprawling.

“Let him go, Niccolo,” the other soldier urged in a whisper. “Just get the chits and let him run. He’s only a boy.”

“Not bloody likely,” Niccolo hissed back, hauling the boy up by his collar. “I’m turning this runt over to Teleso. They’re all thieves, and I’ve had enough of them.” The other soldier watched helplessly as Niccolo stalked off into the darkness, hauling the boy behind him. I watched a moment longer, then went to find somewhere to sleep.

In the darkness, there was no way I could navigate the sea of tents. I continued down the path, past the keep and toward the far edge of the valley. I finally came to an edge where there was a little space and lay down, wrapped in my cloak. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep. The ground felt harder than any hearthstone. I rolled onto my back and looked at the sky.

The sky was very clear that night, and the moon was a narrow crescent. It occurred to me that there were more stars than I could normally see. When I went out at night, I usually held some witchlight to see my way, and that clouded my night vision; here, I couldn’t make witchlight at all, so there was nothing to keep me from seeing the stars. In places, I couldn’t see individual stars, but there was a misty white glow. The sky was beautiful, but oddly threatening. I thought of the Redentore God, who Giorgi said sent pain as well as joy; I could imagine Her creating such a sky simply to impress upon me how small I was. I stared at the stars for a long time before my weariness pulled me down into restless sleep.