The Fifth Season (6 page)

You pause. Revise that thought to something that better befits the woman you’ve chosen to be. Better: You will find him and ask him why he did what he did.
How
he could do it. And you will ask him, most importantly, where your daughter is.

Repacking the runny-sack, you then put it inside one of the crates Jija used for deliveries. No one will think twice of seeing you carry it around town, because until a few days ago you did so often, to help out Jija’s ceramics and tool-knapping business. Eventually it will occur to someone to wonder why you’re filling delivery orders when the headman is probably on the brink of declaring Seasonal Law. But most people will not think of it
at first,
which is what matters.

As you leave, you pass the spot on the floor where Uche lay for days. Lerna took the body and left the blanket; the blood splatters are not visible. Still, you do not look in that direction.

Your house is one of several in this corner of town, nestled between the southern edge of the wall and the town greenland. You picked the house, back when you and Jija decided to buy it, because it’s isolated on a narrow, tree-shrouded lane. It’s a straight run across the green to the town center, which Jija always liked. That was something you and he always argued about: You didn’t like being around other people more than necessary, while Jija was gregarious and restless, frustrated by silence—

The surge of absolute, grinding, head-pounding rage catches you by surprise. You have to stop in the doorway of your home, bracing your hand against the door frame and sucking in deep breaths so that you don’t start screaming, or perhaps stabbing someone (yourself?) with that damn skinning knife. Or worse, making the temperature drop.

Okay. You were wrong. Nausea isn’t so bad as a response to grief, comparatively speaking.

But you have no time for this, no
strength
for this, so you focus on other things. Any other things. The wood of the doorsill, beneath your hand. The air, which you notice more now that you’re outside. The sulfur smell doesn’t seem to be getting worse, at least for now, which is perhaps a good thing. You sess that there are no open earth vents nearby—which means this is coming from up north, where the wound is, that great suppurating rip from coast to coast that you
know
is there even though the travelers along the Imperial Road have only brought rumors of it so far. You hope the sulfur concentration doesn’t get much worse, because if it does people will start to retch and suffocate, and the next time it rains the creek’s fish will die and the soil will sour…

Yes. Better. After a moment you’re able to walk away from the house at last, your veneer of calm back firmly in place.

Not many people are out and about. Rask must have finally declared an official lockdown. During lockdown the comm’s gates are shut—and you guess by the people moving about near one of the wall watchtowers that Rask has taken the preemptive step of putting guards in place. That’s not supposed to happen till a Season is declared; privately you curse Rask’s caution. Hopefully he hasn’t done anything else that will make it harder for you to slip away.

The market is shut down, at least for the time being, so that no one will hoard goods or fix prices. A curfew starts at dusk, and all businesses that aren’t crucial for the protection or supply of the town are required to close. Everyone knows how things are supposed to go. Everyone has assigned duties, but many of these are tasks that can be done indoors: weaving storage baskets, drying and preserving all perishable food in the house, repurposing old clothing and tools. It’s all Imperially efficient and lore-letter, following rules and procedures that are simultaneously meant to be practical and to keep a large group of anxious people busy. Just in case.

Still, as you walk the path around the green’s edge—during lockdown no one walks on it, not because of any rule but because such times remind them that the green is
cropland to be
and not just a pretty patch of clover and wildflowers—you spy a few other Tirimo denizens out and about. Strongbacks, mostly. One group is building the paddock and shed that will segregate a corner of the green for livestock. It’s hard work, building something, and the people doing it are too engrossed in the task to
pay much heed to a lone woman carrying a crate. A few faces you vaguely recognize as you walk, people you’ve seen before at the market or via Jija’s business. You catch a few glances from them, too, but these are fleeting. They know your face enough that you are Not Stranger. For now, they’re too busy to remember that you may also be
rogga’s mother
.

Or to wonder from which parent your dead rogga child might have inherited his curse.

In the town center there are more people about. Here you blend in, walking at the same pace as everyone else, nodding if nodded to, trying to think about nothing so that your face falls into bored, disengaged lines. It’s busy around the headman’s office, block captains and caste spokespeople coming in to report what lockdown duties have been completed before heading back out to organize more. Others mill about, clearly hoping for word on what’s happened in Sume and elsewhere—but even here, no one cares about you. And why should they? The air stinks of broken earth and everything past a twenty-mile radius has been shattered by a shake greater than any living person has ever known. People have more important matters to concern them.

That can change quickly, though. You don’t relax.

Rask’s office is actually a small house nestled between the stilted grain-caches and the carriageworks. As you stand on tiptoe to see above the crowd, you’re unsurprised to see Oyamar, Rask’s second, standing on its porch and talking with two men and a woman who are wearing more mortar and mud than clothing. Shoring up the well, probably; that’s one of the things stonelore advises in the event of a shake, and which Imperial
lockdown procedure encourages, too. If Oyamar is here, then Rask is elsewhere either working or—knowing Rask—sleeping, after having worn himself out in the three days since the event. He won’t be at home because people can find him too easily there. But because Lerna talks too much, you know where Rask hides when he doesn’t want to be disturbed.

Tirimo’s library is an embarrassment. The only reason they have one is that some previous headwoman’s husband’s grandfather raised a stink and wrote letters to the quartent governor until finally the governor funded a library to shut him up. Few people have used it since the old man died, but although there are always motions to shut it down at the all-comm meetings, those motions never get quite enough votes to proceed. So it lingers: a ratty old shack not much bigger than the den of your house, packed nearly full with shelves of books and scrolls. A thin child could walk between the shelves without contorting; you’re neither thin nor a child, so you have to slip in sideways and sort of crabwalk. Bringing the crate is out of the question: You set it down just inside the door. But that doesn’t matter, because there’s no one here to peek inside it—except Rask, who’s curled up on a tiny pallet at the back of the shack, where the shortest shelf leaves a space just wide enough for his body.

As you finally manage to push your way between the stacks, Rask starts out of a snore and blinks up at you, already beginning to scowl at whoever has disturbed him. Then he
thinks,
because he’s a levelheaded fellow and that’s why Tirimo elected him, and you see in his face the moment when you go from being Jija’s wife to Uche’s mother to
rogga
’s mother to, oh Earth, rogga, too.

That’s good. Makes things easier.

“I’m not going to hurt anyone,” you say quickly, before he can recoil or scream or whatever he has tensed to do. And to your own surprise, at these words Rask blinks and
thinks
again, and the panic recedes from his face. He sits up, leaning his back against a wooden wall, and regards you for a long, thoughtful moment.

“You didn’t come here just to tell me that, I assume,” he says.

You lick your lips and try to hunker down in a crouch. It’s awkward because there’s not much room. You have to brace your butt against a shelf, and your knees encroach more than you like on Rask’s space. He half-smiles at your obvious discomfort, then his smile fades as he remembers what you are, and then he frowns to himself as if both reactions annoy him.

You say, “Do you know where Jija might have gone?”

Rask’s face twitches. He’s old enough to be your father, just, but he’s the least paternal man you’ve ever met. You’ve always wanted to sit down somewhere and have a beer with him, even though that doesn’t fit the ordinary, meek camouflage you’ve built around yourself. Most of the people in town think of him that way, despite the fact that as far as you know he doesn’t drink. The look that comes into his face in this moment, however, makes you think for the first time that he would make a good father, if he ever had children.

“So that’s it,” he says. His voice is gravelly with sleep. “He kill the kid? That’s what people think, but Lerna said he wasn’t sure.”

You nod. You couldn’t say the word
yes
to Lerna, either.

Rask’s eyes search your face. “And the kid was…?”

You nod again, and Rask sighs. He does not, you note, ask whether
you
are anything.

“Nobody saw which way Jija went,” he says, shifting to draw his knees up and rest one arm on them. “People have been talking about the—the killing—because it’s easier than talking about—” He lifts and drops his hands in a helpless gesture. “Lots of gossip, I mean, and a lot of it’s more mud than stone. Some people saw Jija load up your horse cart and go off with Nassun—”

Your thoughts stutter. “
With
Nassun?”

“Yeah, with her. Why—” Then Rask understands. “Oh, shit, she’s one, too?”

You try not to start shaking. You do clench your fists in an effort to prevent this, and the earth far below you feels momentarily closer, the air immediately around you cooler, before you contain your desperation and joy and horror and fury.

“I didn’t know she was alive,” is all you say, after what feels like a very long moment.

“Oh.” Rask blinks, and that compassionate look returns. “Well, yeah. She was when they left, anyway. Nobody knew anything was wrong, or thought anything of it. Most people figured it was just a father trying to teach his firstborn the business, or keep a bored child out of trouble, the usual. Then that shit up north happened, and everybody forgot about it till Lerna said he’d found you and… and your boy.” He pauses here, jaw flexing once. “Never would’ve figured Jija for the type. He hit you?”

You shake your head. “Never.” It might have been easier to bear, somehow, if Jija had been violent beforehand. Then you
could have blamed yourself for poor judgment or complacency, and not just for the sin of reproducing.

Rask takes a deep, slow breath. “Shit. Just… shit.” He shakes his head, rubs a hand over the gray fuzz of his hair. He’s not a born-gray, like Lerna and others with ashblow hair; you remember when his hair was brown. “You going after him?” His gaze flickers away and back. It is not quite hope, but you understand what he is too tactful to say.
Please leave town as soon as possible
.

You nod, happy to oblige. “I need you to give me a gate pass.”

“Done.” He pauses. “You know you can’t come back.”

“I know.” You make yourself smile. “I don’t really want to.”

“Don’t blame you.” He sighs, then shifts again, uncomfortable. “My… my sister…”

You didn’t know Rask had a sister. Then you understand. “What happened to her?”

He shrugs. “The usual. We lived in Sume, then. Somebody realized what she was, told a bunch of other somebodies, and they came and took her in the night. I don’t remember much about it. I was only six. My folks moved here with me after that.” His mouth twitches, not really smiling. “S’why I never wanted kids, myself.”

You smile, too. “I didn’t, either.” Jija had, though.

“Rusting Earth.” He closes his eyes for a moment, then abruptly gets to his feet. You do, too, since otherwise your face will be entirely too close to his stained old trousers. “I’ll walk you to the gate, if you’re going now.”

This surprises you. “I’m going now. But you don’t have to.” You’re not sure this is a good idea, really. It might draw more
attention than you want. But Rask shakes his head, his jaw set and grim.

“I do. Come on.”

“Rask—”

He looks at you, and this time you are the one who winces. This isn’t about you anymore. The mob that took his sister from him wouldn’t have dared to do so if he’d been a man at the time.

Or maybe they’d have just killed him, too.

He carries the crate as you walk down Seven Seasons, the town’s main street, all the way up to Main Gate. You’re twitchy, trying to look confident and relaxed even though you feel anything but. It would not have been your choice to walk this route, through all these people. Rask draws all the attention at first, as people wave or call out to him or come over to ask him if there’s any news… but then they notice you. People stop waving. They stop approaching and start—at a distance, in twos and threes—watching. And occasionally following. There’s nothing to this except the usual small-town nosiness, at least on the surface. But you see these knots of people also
whispering,
and you feel them
staring,
and that sets all your nerves a-jangle in the worst way.

Rask hails the gate guards as you approach. A dozen or so Strongbacks who are probably miners and farmers under ordinary circumstances are there, just milling about in front of the gate with no real organization. Two are up in the crow’s nests built atop the wall, where they can overlook the gate; two are standing near the gate’s eyeholes at ground level. The rest are just there, looking bored or talking or joking with one another.
Rask probably chose them for their ability to intimidate, because all of them are Sanzed-big and look like they can handle themselves even without the glassknives and crossbows they carry.