IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume
III: Responsibility
Chapter 58 Mountain Melancholy
Monday, August 3, 2708 I sit and hold my knees, my
sleeping-bag wrapped tight around me, within the chapel of St. Teresa, as I
watch the dawn slowly light the sky behind the mountains, beyond these
unfinished walls. I breathe in the
scents that only reach their fullest at the margin of the day. Soft snores surround me, all the little
bodies huddled in their own bags, blankets, and furs, under tarps and tents
where possible, or simply pulling their heads under the covers—those who didn’t
win the lottery for enjoying the limited room indoors. More fill up the storeroom, the greenhouse
and the garden shed, but at least this roofless space gives us a windbreak. Fortunately, the Charadoc makes the very best
sleeping-bag in the world, stuffed with the warm seed-fluff of a jungle tree,
useful only at those altitudes where the tree can't grow. Some kind of lesson there, in the kapok and
the eyeworm trees. I light up the first
cigarette of the day and breathe in its wake-up call aroma. A single winter-hardy bird sings out,
piercingly sweet; it doesn't know, nobody seems to realize, really, what soon
must happen here, and the consequences. That’s the dardie huddle-call;
I recognize it from my bird-code lessons.
Almost like the mating call, with a doubled, higher note thrown in at
the end. A lone bird cries out for
others to come find him in the snow and huddle with hir, warming hir. The rest of the flock might show up, if they
haven’t already flown downslope for the winter.
Or they might leave hir to freeze to death, if the forage is too poor to
share with one more mouth. I spoke with the Abojans
last night, before they left the wedding.
They urgently need us to cut our rations, if we can; the newcomers have
strained their stores. They have agreed
to share whatever portions we decide among us, unaccustomed though they are to
hunger. I agreed last night, but here my
stomach growls for breakfast in the morning, and already I regret it. What, Deirdre—have you now
become accustomed to feasting every day?
Feasting! I wouldn’t have called
it that seven months ago. I also weigh everything
that Shermio told me about General Aliso and about the aftermath of Branko’s
Pyrrhic victory. Have we the troop
strength, yet, to take full advantage of what that child bought us with his
blood? And to think that Cyran chose to
hold this pass originally as a ploy, not yet realizing how the government needs
these barren, lonely rocks as much as we do. Stratagems, stratagems,
stratagems! My poor head hurts. I wish, oh Lord, I wish that I could do this
any other way. I’m not sure, but I think I
heard in Branko’s words, the last time that we spoke, the first trembling hint
of a crack, the kind that comes before a boy attains his man-voice. Bite my lip, wipe my eyes, turn and stare out
over the extreme landscape with its pinnacles and plunging depths. No use in starting the day sobbing like a
heartsick little girl; someone’s got to be the adult around here. I suck hard on my cigarette to burn the
weakening away. I need more
information. I'm going to have to wake
Cyran. No, I don't need to—let hir sleep
through as much of the hangover and the crash and the anxieties of generalship
as e can. Learning the disposition or
the timing of the coming army couldn't change a detail of how I need to set up
our fort here, within these never-to-be-sacred walls. No one faces the truth but me: we have
nowhere else to make our stand. Blood
will spill here, and it will never get to be a chapel. * * * (Sir. He called me Sir. Forget about it—it means nothing; our
language has no respectful term for me, that's all, and not everyone has yet
picked up on Deirdre’s Tilianach import.
Bury your head in the pillow, convince yourself that you're asleep. But...he could've said Ma'am. He could have said General. He said Sir.
Malcolm perceives me as male. Ai, Cyran, what use? They all see you as a
man, down to the least child, no matter what you feel. Because you march, because you have to kill
now and then, because you wear the trousers most convenient for your fated
work, because you rarely have the chance anymore to heap on all the jewelry and
the makeup that you love. Will somebody please shut
that damn bird up? Don't tell me that
that high-pitched shriek is some kind of mating call—if I were a lady-bird I'd
kill such a mate and let the breed die out.
If Malcolm hadn't confiscated my weapons I'd shoot it dead right here
and now—or else myself, if I couldn't silence it. Dear ol' Malcolm, wise of you to take my guns—you'd
never do me harm. Except to call me
"Sir". How many of them see the
woman in my breast, side by side with the man?
How many guess that if I had to pick, if God would finally do as E meant
to all along and split me into one thing or another, it's the woman I would
choose? All those children in the
ranks. They need a father, a stern
father to teach them how to shoot, how to spit in the devil's eye, how to live
on bugs and weeds and angry laughter—a father to yell them back onto their
feet, make them keep on going when it all seems so sickeningly hopeless that
we'd just rather crawl on home and starve than spend another day trying to
fix the world that has always been what it is, even on that other planet
that died of what it couldn't change. But it takes the mother in
me to care enough to try anyway.) * * * We've got enough rocks and
timbers to turn some of the existing walls into real battlements. Snow falls as we work, and we have to keep
brushing it away to make secure purchases, but we almost don’t mind as still
more snow comes down upon our heads, because it looks so soft, so pure and
light—a relief from the burning thoughts of battle to come. Almost
don’t mind—it’s still as cold as virtue, falling indifferently from heaven,
interfering with our preparations to kill. Aziz tries out some of the
weapon-fire chinks for use by slings; he and the other mosquitoes will need
larger, more dangerous windows for their work.
We build in platforms for the various sizes among our troop. We add steps to take us to strategic heights,
careful not to slip on the snow that carpets them as fast as they take
form. We guard all sides, because Aliso
engulfs, we all know that. Even knowing
it as we do, she wins a little bit, because it takes extra manpower
(childpower, whatever) to prepare for her onslaught. Hard work, but I want to
stretch this moment out as long as I can.
I want the army never to arrive, and some part of me hopes that if I
just keep piling stick upon stone, they never will. I would gladly spend the rest of my life
building defenses against an absent foe. On my way to check out the
observation/sniper platform built in what we have of a bell-tower, I see the
back of a teenage blonde.
"Alysha," I say, "You're supposed to be rest..."
then she turns and I see her purpling face. "Hide me," she
says, "Before Cyran sees.
E'll..." "E'll what?" Cyran comes up behind me to her. "This?" E slams her against a wall, tears in hir
eyes. "You let him do it to you
again! You fornicatin' let him do it to
you again!" I pull hir off and send hir
sprawling to the ground. "She
doesn't need you to beat her up twice," I say, while Alysha babbles,
"It was the wine and the leaf on top of that. He couldn't help it. It was my fault. I got pushy, talking weddings to him—Damien
and Kanarik gave me big ideas and I needed brought down to size. It was nobody's fault. It just happened. It just..." The tears spill down from two bruised eyes,
across her swollen cheeks. I help Cyran back to hir
feet. "Sorry, Memsir. You'd be hating yourself pretty badly right
now if I hadn't stepped in." E glares at me, saying,
"Will you please allow me at least an hour to resent you before I have to
acknowledge that you're right?"
Dusting off snow with exaggerated vanity, e says, "And when will
you learn never to apologize for acting as commanding officer? Women!" But now e glares at Alysha,
who still sobs against the wall, run out of words. "You're never going to command troops
again, Alysha, you realize this. Nobody
respects you anymore." She only
whines and presses her sore face against the stones. "All those brains and you've got no use
for them." E shakes hir head over
her. "I'd rather put Aichi in
charge—at least she does her best with what she's got." I have to say
something. "I'll arrange for
Marduk's punishment—something that'll leave him fit for combat when the time
comes, but something he'll remember."
She wails and runs away; I know that I can only make things worse, but
nothing better comes to mind. Half rations, I decide,
until we sight approaching troops—that should chasten him. That, at least, will weaken Marduk for
awhile, what with the general ration already cut before it gets to him. * * * (They don’t understand—even
the Tilián woman doesn’t understand, and you’d think she’d know better than
anybody. Love conquers all. I can cure him. I know I can.
I’ve done it before. I shiver under the cold
compresses that the fat man lays on my face, so he tucks another blanket around
me after warming it at the fireplace.
Stupid ol’ fat man—doesn’t he realize that I deserve to suffer? Who is he to interfere? But it feels so soothing...I’ll lie here just
a little longer. Here, indoors, where
the sick people go. I’ve done it before. I was born with a kind of magic power that
way. Didn’t I change my grandmother’s
hard heart? All I had to do was
persevere. I called her Gramma no matter
how she punished me for it, the shocked, sudden lashings out, the kicks, the
slaps, the venom-words. I wept and
hugged her anyway, again and again, even when she used her fists, so desperate,
the frail old fists, the knuckles bled so easily. I remember kissing those poor, bleeding
knuckles, like my mother would've kissed my own skinned knees. I would persist, day after
day. I would smile at her, bring her
wildflowers, reach out to her with gentle touches until one day she took my
hand into her soft, dry one, suddenly squeezed my fingers and then she wept,
not me. This time when I hugged her I
consoled her, I let her cry on my shoulder.
And I felt so wise, so beautiful, so big! After that she took an
interest in me, laughed when I laughed, shared moments with me, and taught me
things from books. She marveled that I
could learn to read so young, and I thrived in her praise. She treated my mother better, too—she even
made my father treat my mother better, called her “Mother of your child” to his
face. Treats sometimes waited for me by
the kitchen’s back door. Sometimes I
could stop my little child-chores to see a new colt or a pretty sunrise. And then there were the books that I’d hide
in my blanket in the servant’s quarters. Once my grandmother even
invited me upstairs—very quietly, very discreetly—to spy out of her bedroom
window into the branches of a tree, where she’d discovered a bird’s nest just
that morning; I couldn't have seen the nest from any other place, all the
little bitty chicks cheeping with their mouths wide open. The two of us just stood there watching for
the longest time, there amid all the handmade lace and the scent of
lavender. I will never, ever forget it:
the most magical moment of my entire life. Ah, power! I had so much power to do good in those
days. Just by loving I created a
family. Where did it all go? I didn’t mean to whimper,
but Malcolm heard me. He brings me that
bitter tea that eases the pain, but it only reaches as far as my face; the pain
inside just gets bigger and bigger. Something happened. I lost the power. No matter how charming I tried to be, how
compliant with every request, how devoted in the face of rejection, my father
married a highborn lady anyway. I tried,
oh dear ghost of my mother, I did try to get the power back and save you, but
father beat me for my efforts, and then he beat you, too, and then he sent us
both away. He didn’t even tell us,
himself—he sent his new wife, smiling viciously, to say that a house of their
stature could not tolerate unwed mothers on the staff. And then you beat me, too,
dear mother, of course you did, just as I deserved for letting you down. You said that I made him send us away. Of course I did. I failed to change his heart. I promised that I wouldn’t fail ever again,
but you hit me for saying that, too. Of
course. And so we had to go to that
other village, the doomed village—Tensei.
But I didn’t fail again. I
persevered. I heard you, Mother. I heard you screaming in the fire, but I
heard you shape your scream with your last breath into the words, “I love you!”
right before the priest led me away, his hands as bloody as Christ’s. I knew that I had made you love me again. So I know that I can do it.
I’ve got the power in me. But it
wasn’t enough, that last time—I took too long to change your heart,
Mother. I lost you too soon. This time I’ll do it better. I can reach Marduk, no matter what anybody
else says, and do it long before he dies and leaves me. This time I’ll make it right for good.) |
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