Verity 3.

All those hours poring over the eastern atlas have the way firmly fixed in my memory. The water roads head from Cork to the Sunburned City, winding through first the desert then the dense forest. Many caravans travel along it, selling water to the villages along the way and selling expensive crops in the inner cities. It was with one of these that I intended to travel. The capital of the Dawn Empire is not really called ‘the Sunburnt city’, of course, that’s just its Cork moniker. Its real name is Cinnabar.

Now we are headed there, a place I only dreamed of reaching. It is not quite in the comfort or style I imagined. It is rather embarrassing to be bundled along like Anna’s baggage and jostled on the back of her horse. As of now, however, my body is irritatingly incapable. Since before I can remember, I have been suffering of some malady or another, whether an anaemia or a sickness doing its best to keep me bedbound, my body has always betrayed me. It is too weak to live out the desires of my mind. Now, after spending more than five turns out on the moor, in no more than a shift - it is failing. I can feel the sun thawing out my numb limbs for the first time since the moor, but it leaves behind a wet and raw sickness. My limbs feel more like sacks of a liquid than part of my body. A hacking cough shakes out rusty phlegm every quarter turn or so. This raises such a patronising look of worry from Anna that I start stifling them in what remains of my dress. A new one should be a priority when we return to society.

Anna sets the horse a brutal pace, explaining that whoever attacked me and Veronica – Striega she calls him – has likely been promised all the land from Summerfield to the border with the Empire. As this includes Mainsford, we must outpace the occupation. From their cloths and manner, Anna says they must be northmen and I trust her judgment in these matters. They are the threat that lurks in many a popular play back in Cork. They are primal, the antithesis to our practiced civilisation, but possessing a grace and beauty – a kind of savage honour. I saw none of that in the Northmen on the moor. They where clumsy, brutish things, despoiling Cork first with their presence then their actions. I saw whole towns burning from where I hid amongst the rocks.

It does not come as a surprise to me that my family would do such a thing. That surprises me, but not the thing itself. I suppose I have always picked up on mother’s ambition, though if I am to be honest with myself it has always scared me a little. My father, as I remember him, was a gentle man. When he died my unquestioned belief was that he had been unable to withstand mother’s intensity, and had simply been withered away.

I was too young to miss him, and I do not think that I will miss the baroness of Cork terribly either. I will miss Veronica, however. Not because I loved, or even liked, her, but because I feel responsible. It was solely because of me, a result of my actions and careful cajoling that she met her fate on the moor. There is even a chance that she still lives – not that I would know. Anna insisted on our not going back for her, pre-empting my suggestion. I’m glad she did, because it allowed me to pretend that I had tried my best for her. It allowed me to pretend that without her influence I would have had the bravery to return. It allowed me to pretend I even would have thought of it. Shame crawls up my neck at the thought and I bury myself further into Anna’s back.

I have too long to contemplate my actions as we make our way back down from the mountains into green Valley. It is not quite true that the empire stretches to whatever the sun touches, as is often claimed. The green valley is famous across both the empire and Cork as a place of great beauty, though it formally belongs to house Summerfield. The combination of runoff from the mountains to the west and the sun shining from the empire mean it is one of the only green places in the known world, hence its unimaginative name. Naturally, it is a popular destination for the nobility of Cork even if its protectors are now in disgrace. I myself spent a few seasons here as a ward. It is also a favourite haunt for the wealthy of the Empire. In fact, most of the money Summerfield earns comes from the tourist industry in this area. Let no one (Anna) say that I lack concentration in my studies. Though truthfully what I know is not down to diligence in my studies but my good friend Dame Summerfield who rules here and taught me much.

It hits me again then, a little like grief, for Dame Summerfield, already implicated in corruption, is now likely a casualty of the plot. Nothing can be the same now – I will never again visit the orchards or take a walk among the sunflowers – it is a different world.

I remember the sights of the green valley, but it still manages to awe me. The sheer colour of it, the deep, layered green and the accents and splashes of brighter hues. I had an art tutor back in Cork who could pick out these landscapes with astonishing accuracy, but it has always amazed me how the real and random thing is so much better composed. She could design it with all the strength of her talent, but she could never fully capture its randomness, and neither could she pass any of her talent onto me, unfortunately.

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We trot at a brisk pace down from the mountains, zig-zagging down through the wild growing tangle that climbs the slopes. The air is not peaceful but filled with the sound of life, its vibrancy contrasts unhappily with my weakened state. Where Anna may once have driven me down the monochrome streets of Cork in our great old carriage, I am now rushed without dignity through this wild place with a conversely better view.

I blink and the unruly greenery becomes ordered fields of poppies and sunflowers with the occasional orchard, trees set out in ordered rows. I am dimly aware that I have become feverish and Anna glances back more often. But perhaps that is my warped perception of time. The beautiful countryside blurs together, mixing colours as my art teacher once did, until it is all a brown fuzz in my memory.

Anna 4:

I stop to inquire as to the situation in Vasingston – a quaint and slightly backward place nestled at the foot of the mountains. It seems we have travelled faster than the occupation but not faster than news of it. Reactions are divided between those packing and readying horses and those too old or infirm or stubborn who are shut up in their houses. News came by rider not a turn ago and an argument still rages in the town square. It revolves around whether to join the defence of one of the larger towns or whether to flee – and what to do about the elderly in both cases. Around them the town collapses as its inhabitants roll in awnings and scurry out of sight, leaving empty shells of houses. It disintegrates before my eyes, even as we pass through the town shuts down and is left derelict.

Verity is now only infrequently lucid, and she has started to mutter nonsensically. I know enough medicine to diagnose yellow marsh fever and that she will die if not brought to a physician within a half-dozen turns. To my discredit I know not enough to treat her. My father would ask the point of my studies and reading when they do not help at this critical juncture. My father now stuck in Cork, at the disposal of its chief house and a traitor to the Empire. He taught me independence well and the methods of laying aside personal feelings for the charge’s wellbeing, but this long and fraught ride tests my ability. Wandering thoughts ambush me from the dark and tired parts of my mind. They worry about father and my own betrayed loyalties; they worry most about Verity and the real threat that she may die. There is a small but insidious worry, easily pushed away but quick to return, of the uncertain future and the possible directions our lives can now go. A proverb says that to worry is to suffer twice. My father taught the same but amended that, to a point, a worried mind can work to avoid the second suffering. To ‘only worry about things you can change’ is the logic I am now using to stave off the gnawing thoughts. They occupy my mind with concern of the future – there are so many things I cannot change; the state of the world as I knew it changes on such a grand scale without me.

More immediately there is the worry of the slowing horse that cannot – and should not - be ignored. Rosie is purebred and well trained, chosen by me as the best among the herd of one hundred or so that Cork keeps (after those my father chose to drive the Baroness herself). This perhaps explains why I have been able to drive her at a trot almost non-stop in three consecutive four-turn stints. But she is nearing her limit. Her normally glossy flanks are run ragged and dull, her breaths come in huge wracking heaves that disrupt her rhythm and, when I peer into her face, I see her eyes rolling madly. Half a mile down the track I feel her start to shake violently and I decide I will have to dismount. I leave the now unconscious Verity tied to her back and start to lead them both on foot. It breaks my heart to force Rosie to push on against her obvious suffering, but Verity must come first.

We trudge on through heat that has become blistering. Our skins, unused to the sun, take this literally and I take the time to cover Verity’s reddening face. My own face is already feeling tight and raw. The grey coat, the ideal in Cork, has become worn and dusty about the hem and it traps the heat altogether too well. I can feel Rosie flagging, even at this reduced pace, until I am almost dragging her along.

I unhitch her before she can collapse and possibly injure Verity. It pains me to leave her, a last piece of Cork and a fine horse in her own right. She has saved our lives. I tie her to a tree, close enough to a stream to drink. I hope I will be able to return to her but she needs to the water and a good deal of luck if she is to survive.

We have very little food left and I decide to finish it all now. A last feast before the last slog. I liquify bread and mash fruit from a nearby orchard to get it down Verity’s throat but she will eat little and regurgitates much of what slips in. I take what bread is left and as much fruit as I can, this will certainly test my physical ability – never exceptional - to the limit. It is not in my normal purview, all this practical, undignified sweat and work. I feel slightly detached from it all, able to put the pieces together and work out what to do, then watch numb hands complete assigned tasks. By my rough estimate and a consultation of a half-remembered map we are halfway down the valley and still ten leagues from Mainsford. There is a certain comfort in being forced to follow a certain channel – a release of responsibility. Eventually though I have to start the journey. I change my mind and untie Rosie; after all there is no such thing as luck, but perhaps she can make her own fortune.

Then I pick up Verity in both arms and begin the long walk Mainsford.