Grudging (14 page)

But there was no one else.

“Do you remember the way, cousin?” Teresa asked. Atop Sancha, she would have the best chance of spotting any threats. Hopefully, she kept her eyes open.

He pushed against the muck sucking at his heels and got a tighter grip on the pair of reins, checking to see that Valentía followed. “Hi-­ya.” In truth, he'd paid little attention to the trail Bromisto had taken through the swamp. He spared a fleeting thought that the boy had made it home safely. Better Teresa didn't know his clueless lack of direction. Beyond the landmark of the fallen tree, he remembered none of it, too sure someone else would be there to be the guide.

How could he have been so stupid?

As far as he knew, they'd cut straight across. He'd keep a watch on the ripples, pray the saints kept the snakes away, forge east, and hope for the best.
Welcome to wise leadership.

The Northerners were still out there. He had to keep the witch under control. He would have to tell his mother about . . .
Oh God.
If only he could have a second alone, a second without this burden. Already, he preferred the lesser task of quicksand and snakes.

A great heron, walking on stick-­thin legs in the shallows, followed them with one beady eye. It looked like God had put it together with leftover parts, its looping neck seemingly meant to swallow snakes.

A tug on the rope around his torso demanded his attention. The nit had slipped and fallen to one knee. Instinctively, he increased the tension on the rope so she could pull against it and avoid slipping beneath the stagnant water. As soon as he caught her, he wished it undone, but she was already climbing to her feet.

He stroked his hatred. “A reflex and nothing more, witch.”

The witch gazed ahead, refusing to look at him.

Teresa rolled her eyes. “The girl did not kill your brother. Ramiro did not kill the witch. It was all a tragic accident. How many times do I have to say it?”

Ramiro turned away. “Forever. She would see us dead.” The older witch hadn't hesitated, and the younger would be no different. That Teresa couldn't deny.

Apparently she could. “She has as much to fear from the Northerners as us.”

“I doubt she'd see it that way,” he snapped, sending ripples rolling ahead as he moved forward, pulling his three tethers with him.

“Then she'll hear the story from the beginning and make up her own mind.” Teresa turned and directed her words at the witch. “The Northerners appeared for the first time over a month ago. They strode into our city in several small groups, immediately standing out with their jade-­colored eyes and dust-­light hair, and gave no indication of being our enemies.”

Ramiro shook his head. Only the whir of the cicadas and the sluice of the water as they walked impeded the witch's hearing, but that didn't mean she'd listen. Teresa might as well address her words to Sancha or the stump up ahead that Ramiro would have to detour around. She carried on anyway.

“Like any other travelers, they inspected our markets, attracting no small attention with their foreign appearance. They watched our blacksmiths at work and sat in our inns, trying to pay with bits of jewels. They entered our churches and loitered near the great gates. All the time, they were sizing up our strengths and weaknesses—­a pair even hiked a circuit around the outside of our walls.”

“I did not hear that,” Ramiro admitted. He splashed ahead of him to chase away a particularly dense patch of green scum to avoid walking through it. Teresa had more information from his father than he did, since no doubt an expert on other cultures would be a valuable resource to consult. Still, it bothered him that he'd been—­once again—­left in the dark.

“We thought nothing of their appearance,” Teresa continued. “A free and easy ­people, we welcome all within our city—­even witches,” she said, smiling. The girl ignored her, and Teresa shrugged, once again wincing at the gesture, before carrying on. “Then a week after they left, panicked travelers brought word of an army appearing. The Northerners surrounded Zapata, and the villages of Suseph and Crueses, killing all they found outside the safety of the city walls. Our
Alcalde
took heed and brought ­people and foodstuff inside.”

“Salvador said they had settled there,” Ramiro mused reflectively. “He believed they'd be busy in the east, until the day they split their army, and Northern troops set up their siege outside our walls. Their force was powerful enough to pin down two cities at once.”

“Just before we left, we heard more news,” Teresa said, taking back the story. “The Northerners blocked the gates of Zapata and used their siege machines to shoot fire inside the walls. So much fire.

“Zapata tried a direct offensive to force an opening in the Northerners to get the civilians out. Thousands of arrows cut them apart. That and the ferocious battalion the Northerners had installed before the gates. So the ­people of Zapata burned. All of them. The city collapsed around them. Women, children, little babies, the old . . . the innocent and the sinful. Our scouts brought word that thousands perished.”

Frogs croaked, and insects hummed in the silence that descended. The air reeked with rot. Ramiro's jaw tightened. His mother, father, the remaining members of his
pelotón
, innocents like Lupaa and her sweet honey bread waited for the Northerners to send fire over the walls of Colina Hermosa. Waiting for them to take it down as easily as they had the ancient walls of Zapata. And the only foreseeable hope rested on the shoulders of a just-­bearded soldier and a slip of a girl with only hate in her heart.

“Look, cousin,” Teresa whispered. “She sympathizes with our plight.”

Ramiro turned. The girl still kept her head turned away from them, staring resolutely at the stump they'd bypassed, but tears made tracks down her cheeks and vanished into the gag.

Ramiro let the sullen lines on his face harden. “She feels for herself, cousin, not for us.”

The witch cried in front of her enemies. Did she feel no shame? Ramiro shook his head. Not if it killed him would he give in to the ache in his chest and show tears to anyone. Furthermore, a slight wind could knock the spindly thing off her feet. The girl walked head-­on through the swamp instead of turning her body sideways to offer the least resistance, sending splashes of water fountaining up before her like an ungainly bear. She wallowed as badly as one, too. The horses made less noise. She didn't even bother to wash away the mud covering her. Grief should never consume a person. Duty came first.

This weak thing was to save his city from the hordes of Northerners? What chance had magic against such numbers?

The shadows had grown long and spindly. Time got away from him. He didn't want to be caught in the water when night arrived.

“She slows us down,” he told Teresa. “Hurry up back there!”

“It's been a day of shock for her,” Teresa protested.

“And not for me? For you?” Ramiro growled back. He sought the shrouded bundle securely tied on Valentía's back. Why did the witch deserve more right to mourn than he did? “I don't let myself fall apart.”

“No,” Teresa agreed. “You fill with anger instead.”

He scowled at her, then traced a path back along the trailing rope until he reached the nit, leaving hardly a ripple with his smooth passing. “Walk faster or ride.” She didn't increase her pace, so he reached for her shoulder. She thrashed and flailed to avoid his hand, and he settled for seizing the rope just before it wrapped around her wrists.

He half guided and half dragged her sloshing over to Sancha. “Get on. You can ride behind Teresa.”

The witch stared at him in horror, the whites of her eyes showing all the way around like Sancha when the
caballo de guerra
saw the snake.

“She's a horse, not a wolf. You won't be hurt.”

More tears leaked, but the witch turned to face Sancha though she made no move to mount. Ramiro heaved a sigh.
Cursed civilians.
Sancha turned her head, and he thought he read the same disgust in his horse's eyes. He put a hand under the witch's bottom and gave a push and a yank, practically throwing her over Sancha's rump, where she clung, dripping foul water all over Teresa and Sancha. He removed the rope attaching him to the witch and anchored her instead to Teresa.

Ramiro
hmmphed
with relief at having that settled. Teresa didn't know what she was talking about. He was not filled with anger. Frustration, maybe, but that's because he had a mission, and it was as if the saints were conspiring to prevent him from accomplishing it. No, he was perfectly rational. The only rational one in the group, beyond the horses.

I'm not angry, he told himself.

I'm . . . not.

Scowling again, he said, “Let's get out of this mess before we lose the light.”

 

CHAPTER 16

T
he ever-­pervasive stench of the swamp as vegetable and animal matter slowly rotted filled Ramiro's nose. Covering his face or holding his breath did no good when surrounded by the foul water. There was no escape from it any more than he could avoid the burn of the sun. If there was one positive, the smell nullified the rank stink of his body odor.

Thank the saints for small favors.

As the hours wore away, so did his irritation, replaced with a dull numbness that sank through skin to muscle and bone. The numbness of exhaustion settled deep and ran from his toes to his hair, encompassing his brain in a foggy haze until nothing existed but the reek and the urge to find dry land. Even Teresa no longer attempted to engage him in conversation, riding slumped against Sancha's neck. The witch lay upon Teresa's back—­in either a
siesta
or a swoon, Ramiro cared not which.

As the reed-­lined bank of the eastern shore drew nearer and nearer and the water shallower, Ramiro fought within himself to stay on his feet and not crawl onto the waterless land like a
bebé
. His legs wanted to collapse, and his spirit, sunk so low, agreed with the idea. Only pride kept him upright as he led the horses out of the water and into a clearing of matted grasses, scraggly bushes, and a scattering of white-­clad birch trees. Frogs greeted their safe return to land by springing for the water with muffled plops.

“We can camp here,” he said, not even bothering to shake off the fetid liquid clinging to him.

Teresa slid down from Sancha with a groan of relief. At the same time, the little witch came to life, springing off the far side of Sancha's flank. She dashed for the safety of the trees with a flash of long braid. For a split second, Ramiro's mind staggered, unable to comprehend. Then came the dull thought that he could let her go and be done with her. Stand still, and he could wave good riddance to one trouble.

What was one more failure?

“Hell and damnation!”

He threw down the reins and dodged around his horse to hustle after her. He couldn't blame her for the escape attempt—­who wouldn't do the same?—­but they didn't have time for it.

The rope still hugged Teresa's middle. The witch must have worked her end loose over the long, miserable ride. What surprised him more than that, though, was her speed. The girl could run.

But so could he.

He caught her just before she broke past the edge of trees not far from the water's edge, grabbing a fistful of her hair and dragging them both to a halt. Her arms remained lashed together, her skin red and swollen from the leather straps. Somehow, the sight brought up his anger.

“That was stupid,” he shouted, swinging her around. “Never try it again unless you want me to thrash you.”

Her odd blue eyes shot defiance and anger, while her garbled shouts from under the gag were better left unheard. He almost slapped her as if she were a spoiled child—­and the thought disgusted him. Hitting a woman, witch or no . . . that wasn't the man Ramiro wanted to be, no matter what threat he might make. Mustering his control, he marched her back to their camp, where Teresa handed him the rope that had recently bound her to the witch.

He couldn't resist a taunt as he made sure her gag was secure. “You should have worked this free and used your magic on us instead of running. I guess you're too stupid to realize that.” Without looking at the witch's face, he lashed her securely to a slender birch, then turned his back on both his guilt and her and went to Valentía.

Where he hesitated. Finally, he reached out, but even then, his fingers fumbled on the bonds that would release Salvador's body. He wanted to hide his head against Valentía's flank, hide from the truth, but someone had to set up a camp.

“I'm sorry, cousin,” Teresa said, coming to stand next to him. “I should have kept a better watch on her.” She turned around, showing him her back. “Untie my sling. I want to help, and two hands would be more useful.”

“But your injury,” he protested. “You shouldn't be doing this.”

“Let me decide. It's not broken, and you need help.” She gestured at the horses waiting to be cared for. “Besides, it is a danger to me to be one-­handed here. The knot, cousin.”

Water and tension had worked their power on the material of the knot, forming it into a tight mass, so Ramiro pulled out the knife from his boot and sliced through the fabric in a smooth tug.

Teresa hesitantly swung her arm, bending and flexing while her brow contorted with evident pain. A forced smile crossed her face. “Not nearly as bad as I expected. Hardly a twinge,” she lied. She jerked her head at the witch. “You'll have to deal with her sometime. You can't deny her existence forever.”

“I'm not denying her existence,” he said. “I'm
loathing
it.” Yet even as he said it, a pang cut at Ramiro as he remembered the welts on the witch's arms, the bruising on her throat. This rough, brutish behavior wasn't him, but maybe it was a new version of him. After all, Teresa had lost the laughing and jesting countenance she'd showed the world ever since he met her. None of them was untouched by change during this cursed journey. But the thought frightened him.

Trying to shake that thought, Ramiro worked at the straps covering his brother. Blankets could conceal Salvador and shut out the sight of his brother's mangled body, but it couldn't change the truth. Just as denying the facts would only lead to further pain and fail to solve anything.

“
Think, brother,
” Salvador would urge.

He had to face the situation sometime. Painful as it was to admit, the witch had used a magic that made them attack one another. Best of friends since childhood, and still they'd been unable to see through the cloud in their minds and resist her. Common sense shouted that sort of magic turned on the Northerners could swing the tide in their favor.

Common sense shouted they needed the little witch.

If, he thought, the slender twig of a girl actually had the same magic. Because for all this effort and their assumptions of her power, so far she'd shown none. Ramiro might infinitely prefer she never did, but Colina Hermosa needed it otherwise. He looked at Teresa.

“Dealing with her is last on my list,” he said curtly, and went back to his somber task.

Together they freed Salvador's body from its confinement and laid it in the driest spot they could find. Then, while Teresa collected dry wood and prepared what food remained, he tended the
caballos de guerra
, finding a thin stream that trickled relatively clear into the swamp lake for them to drink. Ramiro's own tongue was gummed to the inside of his mouth with thirst. By the way Teresa attacked her canteen, she felt the same. They'd have to boil more water for tomorrow.

He lifted his canteen to his lips and caught the witch staring at him fixedly with her red-­rimmed eyes. A hint of pleading entered them. Ramiro cursed himself for a fool. The witch would have to drink and eat sometime. Dread ran through him. That meant lifting her gag.

Apparently last on his list had come sooner than he'd like.

T
he horses grazed free on marsh grass, and a fire crackled happily at the center of the murderer's tidy camp. It held the gathering dusk at bay, except where Claire slumped against the tree at the edge of the light. There was nothing happy or content in her position, though at least the rough feel of the tree's bark was less intrusive than the straps around her body. At first her arms had throbbed and burned, but now they'd gone dead, a lifeless weight. With her arms numb, thirst was the prime pain that tortured her. Her throat already sore from the throttling, it now ached with a double torment, while the gag acted like a sponge to absorb the little moisture her mouth could produce and stole it away.

Thirst and fear.

She held back a shiver. The two murderers knelt opposite, favoring her with their unwanted attention. The peasant woman sat with hands neatly folded in her lap as if the damp ground didn't deter her. She sat so close their knees almost touched. The youth, on the other hand, kept a distance between them. He held a canteen, the sight of which made her throat work, while a knife rested on his bent thigh.

“Tell us what we want to know and you get this.” He held the canteen before her eyes, taunting her with its proximity.

The murderer had handled her as easily as if she were a newborn goat. He'd moved with a fluid grace, compared to her floundering run. Stopping her flight had given him no trouble, and the idea terrified her. Even if she escaped, he'd find her again. Primal determination shone from his eyes whenever he condescended to look at her.

His meaning was no great mystery. He wanted to know about the Song. Her mind raced, trying to decide what to tell him. Did she admit everything? Say she had no magic in the hopes they let her go? Say nothing? She searched her brain for the advice Mother would give, but came up with nothing.

He seemed to sense her intention to lie. Holding up the canteen, he said, “Give me any trouble, and you can go without until we get back to Colina Hermosa.”

“Really, Ramiro,” the peasant woman Teresa said. “We're not barbarians.”

“We are what the world makes us.”

“But, through the saints' grace, we can strive to be more than that.”

He scowled and picked up the knife. “Hold still,” he directed Claire.

She shrank against the tree, but he seized her bound arms in one hand and brought up the knife with the other. She closed her eyes, only to feel tugs as her arms pulled at her shoulders. Opening one eye revealed him using the tip of the knife to wiggle lose the knot on her bindings. The leather thongs came away, and, for a moment, Claire felt nothing. Then blood rushed back, proving her arms weren't dead—­far from it. She writhed against the tree as pain bloomed in her wrists like sharp, tingling daggers.

How had this happened? She wanted to go home. The goats. Who would tend them now? Her mother. The deep ache in her chest stirred to life, leaving her feeling so alone. Why had she ever wished to leave home? To test the Song? This day proved there was no one to save her. No one to care.

She sobbed.

Oh so gradually, the agony lifted. The world stopped whirling, and she heard a rough, keening moan coming from her gagged mouth. Hot mortification flooded her skin, but she forced her head upright.

Did she imagine the hint of satisfaction in the murderer's eyes? There and gone in an instant, it allowed her to reclaim her hate. She reached for him to scratch out those eyes, but the rope binding her to the tree wouldn't allow her to reach.

He held aloft the canteen again. “Tell me what I want to know.”

She let her arms drop. Fighting solved nothing. Not with thirst twisting her thoughts. Without water, she'd soon be good for nothing. Without water, her escape chances went from slim to zero. There would be other chances to show her resistance.

“Ramiro.” Teresa frowned. “Don't torture her like that.”

The murderer shrugged. “Listen well, witch. I'll give you water when you tell us if you have the voice magic. I'll even feed you. When I lift your gag, you'll make no attempt to cloud our minds. You'll say nothing unless asked, not unless you want to go without. Is my point clear?”

Claire nodded, having no doubt he was capable of anything.

He leaned close, and she smelled swamp and sweat and something musky but not unpleasant, like a mix of cedar shavings and leather. His hands fumbled in her hair, and the pressure around her head vanished. She lifted trembling hands to her face and touched welts at the corners of her mouth.

The murderer held her gag as if posed to replace it. “Do you have the magic?”

Her attempt to speak came out as a dry croak. Did they really fear she'd sing when she could barely get her swollen tongue to move?

“Cousin,” the peasant woman remonstrated. “We'll get nothing this way.”

The murderer put the canteen in Claire's hands. She grasped it with difficulty, surprised to see her hand shake. The water was flat and warm. Pure heaven.

Before she could manage a second swallow, he plucked it away. Claire held what was left in her mouth, letting it soothe her parched tongue.

“You want more?” the murderer said. “Tell us. Do you have magic?”

The peasant Teresa shifted in the flattened grass. “We need magic to stop the Northerners. To turn the minds of their army so we can act to save our ­people. Just as the other witch acted to save you.”

The youth frowned but sat quiet.

Claire's gaze turned to the canteen on his knee. To get more water . . . “Some,” she admitted, raw throat robbing her words of music. “I have. Some magic.”

“Some?” the murderer asked. His eyes hardened. “What kind of answer is that?”

“Please—­” Saying such a word to them shamed her, but her mouth was a desert, killing her by inches. “Please water. I'll. Answer.”

The peasant Teresa brought out a second canteen from behind her back and handed it over without even receiving a nod of permission. Didn't city men dominate the women? This one argued and acted on her own often enough. It went against everything Claire knew about city ­people. Was their relationship typical or extraordinary?

But the answers to those questions were nothing compared to the need for water, and Claire drank like a glutton, trying to get as much down as possible before they took it away again.

“Well?” he said.

By his tone Claire knew he expected her to go back on her promise. Maybe hoped she would so he could make good on his threat to withhold future drink. She reluctantly let Teresa take back the water. They would not believe she had no magic. Yet claiming to have the full ability could be a potentially lethal lie. What if they forced her to use it? She could not defeat an army even if she wanted to do so.