Zaw woke up a few days later with the exhaustion that can only come from sleeping so long. Slowly he remembered what had happened. Jin Bu! She had climbed a tree to escape Pinkwetha. Was she safe? He sat up in bed and his hand brushed against some jasmine flowers that had been left by his pillow. They were tattered yellow and about ready to rot, except one that had been stained ruby red in blood. Zaw held it up to the light. He remembered that Jin Bu had gripped the branches so tightly they had cut her palms.

“You’re awake at last young man!” Kon said. He came through the door beaming at him like a ray of morning sun made human. “You must be hungry, I’ll get you some rice soup. If that’s ok with the healer” he said, putting a light emphasis on the last word as he looked towards the far corner of the room. Zaw noticed there was someone else in the room. A girl. but it wasn’t Jin Bu. She was knelt down by the corner grate scrubbing white cloth bandages.

“Where is Jin Bu?” he said, and moved as if to leave the bed, but collapsed immediately as a thick bolt of pain shot through his leg.

“She’s safe and unharmed, Zaw. Back at the village now.” Kon hesitated. He knew sooner or later someone would have to tell Zaw what had happened with Jin Bu and her father. It was too early now though and he moved to change the subject. “How’s the soup coming?” he said, turning to the girl in the corner, who looked up and made an awkward smile at Kon.

“Add an extra clove of garlic and some strips of sweetbark, they’ll help him get his energy back quicker.”

“Sounds delicious, I might make one for myself too!” said Kon. “Have you met Seng Nu, Zaw? She acts all quiet but don’t get on her bad side or she’ll chew you up like she did to the Big Man a few nights ago”. And then he quickly left, realising that he just brought up the subject he had tried to steer away from.

Seng Nu came to Zaw’s side and placed her hand on his forehead. She was only supposed to stay for one night but this was her third morning waking up in the camp. Not wanting to leave Zaw alone, or worse, in the hands of those who didn't know what they were doing, she took short naps throughout the day and night, usually curled up on a pile of blankets in the corner of the room.

“Big Man?” asked Zaw, pushing himself up to a sitting position.

“The fever has gone, that’s good.”

“I remember you now” said Zaw, “you were there in the forest. I thought you were a dream”. He was staring at Seng Nu now. She looked away. She had been the centre of attention in the camp recently and was used to seeing the men peering at her through the windows of the rest station, but there was something in Zaw’s eyes that captured her own too easily, perhaps because she had been waiting so long to see them. For the last few days she had tended him and had become familiar with his body. She had massaged his hands and fingers as he lay recovering and could see he had not worked at the camp long, they were still mostly smooth and unworn, except for the fresh calluses on the tips of his fingers and cup of his thumb, roughly ridged like bug tunnels on spring oak leaves. His hair curled as it reached his shoulders. She had combed it as he slept, even though this was a task quite clearly beyond what was expected of a healer.

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It was his eyes that she had waited so long to see. They were dark and jewelled and she had the sensation of falling each time she made eye contact.

“My dreams and memories have mixed together. I dreamed you knocked a tree clean over onto Pinkwetha with just a kick of your legs”

“Oh you dreamed that did you?” Seng Nu said, allowing herself the smallest of smiles.

“Yes you were lucky you weren’t hurt by the falling tree too” Said Zaw.

Seng Nu laughed and Zaw couldn’t understand why.

“Did I remember wrong?”

“A little.”

"Where is Jin Bu?"

/////////

A few days later Zaw collapsed by the edges of the forest. He had dragged himself out of the bed in the middle of the night and hobbled through the trees using a dead branch as a crutch. He had been trying to reach Jin Bu, knew that if he could just see her one more time, they would escape together. The effort had been immense, and had the pain, but his fire inside had been thinking only of her and their future’s dream. But his body could not support his passions that night. His legs had given out, his mind raged at his bodym and then blackness.

“It is for the best if your forget her”

He was lying in his bed again, rebandaged and embarrassed. That his and Jin Bu’s beautiful secret had become common knowledge was an extra sting that he could scarcely bear. Now he had only proven that he was not worthy of her, that he could not even rescue her. He turned away from the speaker.

“I know it must be hard, Zaw.” Dow Som said in a tone much lighter than the camp manager usually used to speak to the young mahouts. “But she isn’t coming back. She is off to the city now to be married to some merchant princeling”. It wasn’t exactly the truth, but Dow Som knew that it sounded more distant and intimidating than a trader’s son from the river run. “It’s best you get her out of your head now. Lying here moping about it won’t change anything.”

Zaw began to tense and Dow Som shifted uneasily, dropping to an even softer tone. “I know what it’s like to be heartbroken too”. He had been told to speak to Zaw by Gunthaw. “To close the door on any future romantic escapes.”

As Dow Som began to tell a story of a teenage affair he had with a baker's daughter, Zaw kept his eyes open just enough to pretend he was listening, but his mind could only think of Jin Bu. Their way to their future had always had many paths. If one was blocked, then there was another and another. But now all those paths were gone and so, it appeared, was that future.