~ CAROLINE ~
The stars looked beautiful from on high. The night air was cold, and somehow Caroline felt that those great balls of flame might be just as cold.
She’d still not spoken to Chris. She couldn’t bear to look at him, if she was honest. Every day she’d stayed a little longer at the hospital after her shift’s end, just so she wouldn’t have to go back home. Work was hard too. Someone had noticed that she was a little down, a little less her cheery self. Maybe it was Janna Davis? Whoever, they’d made a kindly comment—an offer of comfort, should Caro need it. And now everybody thought of her as damaged. Fragile. She was the woman afraid to go home. They lavished her with fake sympathies, the kind that came in the form of condescension and saccharine talk. The kind that lasted until the outer door of the hospital.
Nobody wanted to know her in the evenings. They all hung out together, she knew that—drinking and laughing and having fun. If she waited for an invitation to join them, it would never come. When she took it upon herself to follow, they always got awkward. Made excuses. Everybody was perfectly polite, but they said the bare minimum. It was obvious that having Caro around was weighing them down. She knew why. She’d been the same, in her Raconesta days. She was the boss, the out-of-touch middle-aged woman trying to seem with it by getting drunk together with her younger colleagues.
She understood, but that didn’t mean she was happy about the arrangement. It was a lonely old world, and vast as it was it seemed twice as empty now. When there was truly nothing left to do, no tasks to draw out longer than they should have taken, she’d wander the valley. Anything to not have to see Chris.
Often she thought of finding Ian, or David—once, at least, they’d called her friend. But she was always the extra. They were friends of Chris first and foremost, friends of Armand, friends of Tessa. Caroline was just the annoying little girl who always followed them around. If she was their friend, it was only because they couldn’t get away from her. If she poured her heart out to them, they’d take Chris’ side. Then she wouldn’t even have a friendly face to say ‘hi’ to.
So she sat alone. It took a half hour’s brisk walking to get to the really good viewing spots, up on the south-eastern slopes of the valley. She had to cross through the woodland, up muddy slopes and between ancient trees. Her leather boots were caked in dirt that she couldn’t be bothered to clean off—they’d only get dirty again tomorrow. This evening, she’d slipped on the muddy bank; her trousers were in need of a wash, now, and the wet fabric was cold as it pressed against her leg.
Somewhere high in the heavens, something exploded. It could have been a star ending its long life with flame. It could have been something else altogether. From this small corner of the universe, it was just a flicker of sudden bright in the darkness. Caro gripped the grass with cold fingers and felt her ego shrink away.
Look at the stars. Armand’s words came back to her, all of a sudden. Look at the stars, and think of me. I’ll be looking at them too. That was their connection. Millions of miles of darkness and emptiness, the breadth of the unfeeling void, but the stars Caroline saw were the same her brother was seeing, from his opaline balcony at the palace of Demesna.
Some of them were the same, at least. There were simply too many stars, too far apart, to be sure that they were exactly the same stars. But she could imagine they were. It made everything a little better, somehow. Armand wasn’t far away.
Armand would take her side, no matter what.
“I wish you were here.” She hadn’t meant to speak. The words came out in a hoarse, thin squeak, and disappeared into the thickness of the night without echo or reply. But of course they did. Armand wasn’t really here. Sure, if she closed her eyes, she could pretend he was sat with her, ready to listen her troubles away. In the cold face of reality, though, she was all alone.
Screw reality.
“You were right, Armand,” she said, her voice fuller this time. “All the time, you were right.” He’d always been on at her to find some friends of her own, since she was just a young teen. It’s not that we don’t like having you around, he’d explained, but this is a small circle. It’ll do you good to broaden yourself. But she’d never been good at making friends, and she’d never needed to—she had Armand, and Chris, and the Borrowood gang, and that was surely enough. Beyond them, the friends she’d made had drifted away. Terry Watling had been a great laugh, but he failed out of Raconesta and she hadn’t spoken to him since. When she was a charge nurse, she’d had wonderful times with Elestren Joliet—and then Elestren had taken a job on Arvila, and that had been that.
And now she had nobody, and it was only because of herself.
It was the phantom chill of the woodland wind that kept Caro from staying on the hill until dawn. There was some mournful whistle to way the breeze hit the trees—like the desperate whispers of the dead. What was their warning? Whatever it was, it left her ill at ease.
She gazed up at the twin moons, racing each other to their zenith in the night sky. It must be quite late now. Chris was probably getting worried, if indeed he’d actually returned to their bedchambers tonight. Perhaps that wasn’t the worst thing in the world, she thought. Let him worry. Let him realise what he was letting slip away.
The hill was deceptively steep. It had been easy enough to climb up, with the aid of full sunlight and not drunk on her own self-inflicted melancholy. Caro didn’t fancy trying to go back down the way she’d come. Already the shadows were heavy on that side of the hill. One wrong step and she might turn her ankle. Two and she might go tumbling. Nobody knew where she was, where to look for her. If she hurt herself she’d stay hurt. Until the elements got her, at least.
So instead she carried on up. East, the hill rose slowly, evening out onto a flat plain. Pockets of virgin’s bower grew here and there, spotting the grass with gentle purple. A timorous bird, its feathers pink and blue and yellow, watched her from the branches of a solitary tree. It flew away when she waved at it.
This higher promontory was somehow more beautiful. A pity she’d missed the sunset. Now there was only the fading glimmer of what used to be twilight, and when that was gone there’d be only the dark. If she hadn’t found her way back to somewhere she knew by then, she’d have a bitch of a time getting back to the valley. She walked on, quicker.
She was just about to start her descent, at the eastern tip of the hill where the decline was shallowest, when she heard a voice from somewhere distant. No, two voices. A man and a woman. Perfect. If she followed them, she wouldn’t get lost—and if she did, she wouldn’t be lost alone.
“I think we’ve gone off track.” That was the woman speaking, her voice clearly terse even from this distance. “Sixleaf didn’t leave a trail.”
The man’s voice was just as firm. “You saw the lights, Birgit. This is the way. If you’re pining for your husband’s cock, feel free to go back—but say that’s what you want. Don’t make excuses.”
Caro crouched down. Something about the strangers’ conversation wasn’t sitting right with her. She scuttled along to a nearby thicket of gorse, and burrowed inside it. The voices were coming closer. Best not to be seen until she was sure they were friendly.
The conversation continued. “I don’t think Ludlow can perform anymore,” laughed a third person, another man, his the deepest voice Caro had ever heard.
“If you ever want to share that twat of yours around,” said a fourth, “I can give you the satisfaction you’ve been missing.”
“I know why they call you Small Jack,” said the woman—Birgit, Caro assumed. “You couldn’t satisfy a flea.”
“She’s got you there, Jack,” said the man with the deep voice.
Through the gorse, Caro could see figures easing into view, five of them lit by the glow of two wooden torches. These were the ones who were speaking. None of them she recognised. The man at the front, squat and unshaven, thrust the end of one of the torches into the ground. It swayed gently in the breeze as he turned to face the others.
“Enough of this bickering,” he said. “You’ve been at each other’s throats since Alfred’s Port. Two-Tom would have had your hides.”
“Aye, well Two-Tom isn’t here,” said the one called Small Jack.
The rest of their conversation flew straight past Caro. Something the squat man had said was ringing bells in her head. What was it?
Of course! Alfred’s Port. Jem had talked of it. Called it home. As he lay dying, Caro had denied its very existence. She thought she knew better. But if there had been people on Essegena before—people who, perhaps, had carved idols—then who was to say that there weren’t anymore? Perhaps these were locals. Perhaps Jem wasn’t a mystery at all. Caro had just been too arrogant to accept his answers. He’d died pleading for his mother, and Caro was to blame.
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Without her realising, Caro had been leaning slowly further forward, shifting all her weight onto her toes as she strained to better hear the strangers. A sudden gust of vertigo drew attention to her mistake. Her balance gone, she toppled over. Her hands were stabbed by the hundreds of thorns in the gorse as she broke her fall, and...
“What was that?” The squat man had spoken. He’d heard her.
“A grimalkin, perhaps?” There was a fifth person, one who hadn’t yet spoken. He had scraggly red hair, receded almost all the way to his temples. The poor man sounded as though his voice hadn’t broken yet, but he looked middle-aged. Terrified, too.
Caro stood. There was no point hiding any more. These people spoke the same tongue, at least, so whoever they are she could reason with them. As she emerged from the gorse bush, she could see ten eyes widening. She must have looked a mess. Her cache-cœur was ripped by thorns, her arms covered in little scrapes.
“I’ve never seen a grimalkin like that,” said the man with the deep voice. His nose was crooked where it had once been broken, and his teeth were perfect ivory.
She extricated herself from the bush with difficulty, and began to walk towards the strangers. All of them had the look of ragamuffins, in dirty and tattered clothes. She’d fit right in, then, with her torn shirt. Before she’d made it halfway to them, she had a spear pressed against her belly. The woman was holding it, a fierce look in her eyes. “Not one more step.”
“Where’s Sixleaf hiding?” asked the squat man.
Caro looked over each of the strangers in turn. There was fear amongst them, uncertainty; they masked it behind bravado, but they couldn’t erase it altogether. Even the woman with the spear seemed a hair’s breadth from wavering. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” said Caro. “Caroline Heramey.” She hadn’t gone by ‘Heramey’ in all the years she’d been married. Today, it felt right.
The woman with the spear gritted her teeth. “Answer the question,” she snarled.
“I don’t know any Sixleaf, I’m afraid,” said Caro, with a smile. “Would you mind pointing your spear somewhere else? It looks sharp.”
The woman nodded. “The better to cut through liars.”
“Now, now, Birgit, you needn’t be aggressive,” said the man with the deep voice.
“Who are you, then?” said Small Jack. “Where are you from?”
“I’m with the colony,” said Caro. “Can I take it you aren’t?”
Birgit laughed. “What colony? There’s nothing this far south. This is a haunted land, full of empty fields and ruins. The Shadow’s seen to that.”
The squat man spoke. “A colony, you say? So you’re not from here? Well, it makes sense, I suppose. If our ancestors came from the stars, why shouldn’t more follow? Have you been here long?”
In answer, Caro looked to the gleaming spear, still pressed against her stomach. The squat man nodded. He gestured to Birgit, who spat and pulled the spear away. “Half a year, maybe,” said Caro.
“And are there many of you?”
Caro nodded. “A few thousand,” she said. “My— The Governor would know the exact figures.”
The squat man didn’t seem interested in the exact figures. “If Sixleaf’s lot came this way, your people would have picked them up. You were right, Birgit—this isn’t the way.”
“Do I get to gut this one, to make up for my wasted time?”
“So bloodthirsty,” said the man with the deep voice. “You should channel that aggression into better things, Birgit.”
“Maybe I’ll channel this spear into your arse, Joscelin,” snarled Birgit, but she stepped back. Joscelin and the squat man moved closer together, blocking Birgit from Caro lest she decide to point the spear again. Caro was grateful for that. Her evening plans hadn’t involved spilling her guts out on a cold hillside.
“Walk with us a while,” said Joscelin. “If you don’t mind. I’d like to talk to you.”
Caro nodded. “I can walk.”
The strangers didn’t seem to know the land any better than Caro did, but with their torches to light the way and each other to catch their falls, they made it down from the hill in quick time. They’d descended into a little furrow in the earth. Thick rows of forest closed in from three sides, and red gerberas grew in clusters in the grassland underfoot. A gently-smouldering fire sent a narrow plume of smoke high into the sky to disappear into the black night.
“I thought I told you to put that out,” the squat man snapped, as Small Jack—bringing up the rear—reached the bottom of the hill. “The whole place could have caught fire.”
“It didn’t, though,” Small Jack quipped.
The squat man’s face took on an ugly expression, but he said nothing. He planted his torch into the ground beside the lingering fire and sat heavily. “Sit,” he said, nodding at Caro as he wrestled with a tattered boot. “This is hard terrain to walk in.”
“And you’ve not got the shoes for it,” said Birgit, crouching beside the fire. “Toss us a flint, Jack.”
Caro sat. Now that she thought on it, her feet were aching and sore. Still, it could be worse. The squat man had finally won the battle with his boot, and was vigorously rubbing the corn-laden toes of a rotting foot. Caro tried not to let her distaste show. “Is this your camp?”
The squat man shrugged. “A temporary one. We’ll be gone by daybreak.” He pulled a stick from the edge of the fire and grated his foot against it. “You’ve told us your name, but we haven’t told you ours. Name’s Kenton, and these are my Rovers.” He held his arms out wide.
“Some of us at least,” said Birgit, busy trying to rekindle the flames. “The others are waiting back at Alfred’s Port.”
Caro saw the opportunity for some answers. “I’m sorry, Alfred’s Port? Is that far?”
Kenton spat onto the ground. “Not far enough.”
She looked around in the hopes of an elaboration, but none of the Rovers would meet her gaze. Birgit snapped the kindling twigs she held in two and threw them onto the fire with a furious cry. Joscelin took a sudden interest in his fingernails.
“We should kill her and be done with it,” said the squeaky redhead. “What gives her the right to come here? This is our world.”
“It’s big enough to share,” said Joscelin.
The redhead didn’t look as though he agreed. Despite the fire, the night had cooled. Caro’s arms were riven with goose-pimples. Bare arms were a bad idea.
She rubbed her hands together and edged closer to the fire. “I take it the wooden idols are yours.” It was about time Caro learnt what they were for.
The Rovers exchanged looks. “What idols might these be?” asked Kenton.
Caro told them about the figure Bess had found, and the ugly one she’d found to go with it. She took care not to say too much, straddling the line between reserved and evasive. She was still uncertain about these Rovers, not keen to furnish them with details they didn’t already have. She came undone when it came to explaining how she’d come about the figures.
“You would have had to look in a very specific place to find something like that,” said Joscelin, “and without even knowing there was something to find? I must say, it’s a little curious.”
“You’re not one of them dreamers, are you?” Caro’s heart leapt as Birgit spoke. Her hands were quivering, so she stuffed them haphazardly into her pockets, lest the Rovers notice. Give nothing away. If they think you’re a Foresleeper, you’re dead. But Birgit didn’t seem itching to kill. “Maisella’s always said there’s others like her.”
“Maisella’s a charlatan,” laughed Joscelin.
“If you’d seen the things she does...”
“Cheap tricks,” Joscelin scoffed. “Sleight of hand, so the Queen stays amused and the Regent keeps greasing the Minaret Witch’s purse-strings.”
Birgit shook her head. “You don’t have an imagination, Joscelin.”
“I do. I just know how to keep it apart from real life.”
“Sorry—Minaret Witch?” Caro’s head was running at a million miles an hour, trying to keep up with everything they were saying.
“She keeps a tower high up on the mount, where she can look down on the Firth,” Kenton explained. “They say she dreams there, and the dreams tell her the future. A load of hokum, if you ask me. The Minaret’s just for show. Nobody’s allowed to go there apart from Maisella and her acolytes, except by special invitation.”
“It’s not hokum,” said Birgit. “You must have seen her show, down at the docks? There’s power there.”
Joscelin laughed. “A fiction. It’s the same stooges every time. They put on a different-coloured jerkin, and gullible fools lap it up. Maisella can no more see the future than I can shit copper bricks.”
“I have dreams,” said Caro, unsure of why she’d suddenly decided to trust the Rovers. “Not like your Witch, maybe.”
Joscelin frowned, but Birgit’s eyes grew wide. “So you can see the future?” she asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” said Caro, nodding gently. “But not explicitly. It’s more like a coded message.”
“A metaphor?”
“I suppose.”
Birgit turned to Joscelin. “See, I told you this stuff was real. Can you tell me about these dreams of yours, Caroline? How do you know if a dream’s important or not?”
It was an unexpectedly tough thing to talk about. Caro had never met someone who had any real interest in the augury of the Foresleeper, not apart from those who had the dreams themselves and those who wanted the dreamers gone. She found herself fumbling through her explanations. When she strayed too close to those dreams she hated—the tower of jackdaws, the house on the hill, the wheat field poisoned by fog—she clammed up. None of the Rovers seemed to notice. The redhead aside, they all seemed fully engrossed what she said, though none half as much as Birgit. Caro’s stories washed over the woman just as Nana Raine’s stories had once washed over her. In Birgit’s eyes she could see the reflection of a girlish delight she hadn’t herself felt since she was only very small. Since she was counting flowers on the meadows.
She spoke until she found herself yawning, heavy eyes drooping almost shut. “Pardon me,” she said. “It’s getting late.”
Small Jack looked over at the horizon. “Early, rather than late. It’ll be dawn before long.”
Captain Kenton stood, gripping the handle of one of the torches driven in the ground. “Do you need help getting back to your people?”
Caro shook her head. “It isn’t far. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m glad we met you, Caroline,” said Birgit, half-asleep with her head lolling onto Small Jack’s shoulder.
“We’ll find you again,” added Kenton. “I would very much like to meet with your colony. There’s no point our people working at cross-purposes. As for the place, could you find that same hill again?”
Caro nodded. “I should think so.”
“Then look for us there. Not on the morrow, I think, but four nights hence. Maybe five. We’ll return to our camp, and bring a gift—as a gesture of our good faith.” Kenton bowed his head slightly, taking Caro’s hand and kissing her wrist. “Travel safely, Caroline. Don’t dwell in the shadows.”