Brother, Betrayed Read online

  Denire’s eyes narrowed, deciding. Precautions he wished to voice were kept down; there were too many of them. “I will lead. Keep an eye on our flanks,” he directed, turning away from the silent princes.

  They led their horses with careful steps deeper into the mysterious woods. The horses stepped through ever-thicker brambles. The air, too, seemed thicker; its staleness made the princes uneasy breathing it. The hint of smoke floating on the air grew stronger as they ventured further, but the princes were distracted from it. The twisting, choking trees reached out to them and caught their legs, the folds of their riding capes. They reached to free themselves from the gray wood’s grasp, wondering if the trees were somehow aware. Their charge of guarding their sides from an ambush was forgotten, their thoughts consumed by the hazard ahead of them and the almost treacherous growth surrounding them.

  The knight felt strange, feeling he was leading them into danger. Then Denire stopped them with one movement, focused on something ahead. “There,” the knight whispered, pointing to a white stream of smoke rising through the canopy of branches to the gray sky.

  The princes advanced beside him. They followed the smoke down, but they could see no blaze of fire that produced it. The smoke seemed to appear from halfway up the trees. They blinked, wondering if their eyes deceived them. Denire dismounted, his eyes locked on the spot where the smoke originated. Like a deer approaching an open glade, he moved towards it with caution. The princes dismounted and led their horses without sound behind him.

  The knight’s eyes widened. The curves of the trees took shape –they were the edges and supports, the angles and coverings of a small house, and the smoke was rising from the chimney on the roof. What should have been logs or bricks was an assortment of branches and leaves packed with mud and straw, with wood thatched across the roof. Some of the sticks and logs might not even have been cut down, they realized, tracing the erratic lines of wood and thick, wild vines across the sides of the house. If not for the smoke, they might never have noticed it.

  “A dwelling,” Fasime whispered to the thick, smoky air around them.

  “Which means it’s not a camp, it’s not thieves,” Oman said.

  “Possibly,” muttered Denire, studying the makeshift dwelling.

  “Who lives there?” Syah asked. The space in which the house stood wasn’t even really a clearing. There was simply an absence of the twisting trees that were used to shape the house.

  “Are they of Arnith?” Oman asked, though nothing of the empty trees around it or the strange making of the structure would tell them.

  “Why would they be out here if they were?” Fasime asked.

  “People hide for many reasons,” the knight answered.

  “Perhaps they live out here to be alone,” Syah suggested.

  “But on the way to the outcasts?” Fasime responded.

  “If they live inside Arnith, they can’t think they will avoid us forever,” Oman said with firmness. “They are a part of Arnith, still.”

  “Is it your position to remind them?” Denire demanded of Oman.

  “We are…”

  “No,” the knight said, with precise emphasis. “You are just three travelers exploring Arnith. You have no authority to disturb them.”

  “Unless they are outcasts.” Again it was Fasime who argued.

  “Then it is best you leave them alone, for the time being.”

  “But how does someone live, out here on the edge of nowhere? They couldn’t possibly trade. What food could they grow or gather? What game is there to be had?” Syah voiced some of the many questions going through his mind.

  “And perhaps they are in need of goods,” Fasime suggested.

  “We have little enough to last us back to the capital,” Denire warned, agitated. “Besides, it could be a trap.”

  All three brothers stared at him. They were already decided.

  “What trap would be set out here, in nowhere?” Oman voiced what they were all thinking. He shook his head at the knight, and turned back to the forest house. “Let’s go see if anyone is home.”

  Distressed, Denire paused, but only for a moment. He moved in front of the three princes leading their horses to the strange dwelling in the overgrown woods.

  What might have been a garden caught their attention as they stepped out of the trees. Half-wild flowers, herbs, mushrooms and mosses grew haphazardly around the vine-covered house, and it was impossible to avoid them. The brothers didn’t recognize any fruits, vegetables or grains among them. Then their attention went to the dwelling. Smoke still rose out of the small chimney above them. They could see crooked windows, but nothing inside them. No sound could be heard from beyond the mud walls. The windows were black with dust or soot and hid what life, if any, was inside.

  Maybe we should leave it alone. Oman took a steadying breath. How many people could live here, anyway? We are just travelers…

  They tied their horses to one of the twisting branches of the forest, listening for sounds of life or ambush from inside the dwelling. The knight moved to the door, but didn’t open it. He stepped to the side, giving Oman and Fasime a silent, disapproving shake of his head.

  They continued to the door. Fasime’s hand reached for the handle. Then he lifted his hand in a fist and pounded on the door instead.

  There were noises inside the house then. Movement, but not frantic, and perhaps speaking. Then there was a sound from just behind the door, and the princes stepped back. The handle clicked and the door creaked open hesitantly.

  Messy yellow hair. A young girl stood in the open doorway. Faint dirt was dried across her thin face and hands, her dress an unknown color, looking as if she might just have emerged out of the dirt of the garden. Except for her eyes: stark gray-blue eyes stared at them. The eyes sharpened, and the skin above them tightened in confusion. Denire’s hand, ready on his sword, loosed from the hilt. The princes, surprised and unprepared for such a sight, could say nothing as she glared at them. Her dirty hand tightened on the handle and she opened her mouth, apparently to demand their immediate disappearance.

  “Girl,” a woman’s voice said from deeper into the room. At first it seemed the voice had come from the child – an unsettling thought – but she closed her mouth. “Let them come in.” The tenseness on the girl’s face subsided, replaced by confused curiosity and a decided lack of hospitality as she stepped back inside.

  The princes stood outside, contemplating entering. The young girl didn’t linger for them by the door; she retreated into the darkness of the hut. They saw her outline and her tangled yellow hair as she sat on the wooden floor, then her eyes, glowing like a wild creature’s. Oman and Fasime glanced at each other to see if fear rested on the other’s face, as if it would reflect their own.

  “Please come in,” the woman’s voice, smooth, beckoned from the shadows. “Travelers are welcome here, though few they may be.”

  Fasime and Oman glanced at Denire, to see if he had a warning for them now. He stood there stolidly, without blinking, till they turned their gazes back to the threshold. Oman stepped inside, then Fasime, welcomed by the agonizing creak of the floorboard.

  They stepped away from the doorway, into the smoky darkness, hearing two more creaks behind them. Their eyes went to a low fire burning beneath a cauldron in the small hearth that lit the darkness little. But their sight adjusted to it, and they noticed another figure beside the young girl, seated on a chair by the fire. They first noticed her hands, small and aged, training a thread through a cloth and then out again. Then her garments, a tapestry of different faded colors all around her. Then her face, with thin, white hair trailing down her back.

  “Please, sit with us by the fire,” she said and looked up at them. Their breath stopped at her eyes, the color of fog at dusk, seeming to glow in the faint light of the fire. Even the pupils, which should have been black and deep, were a film of gray, and the brothers wondered how well she could see them.

  They were able to discern some
of the inside of the hut now. Dust and soot darkened everything, as if from disuse, as if no one truly lived there. The inside walls were much like the outside, held together with mud and small trees, with little care to cut them. The hearth was made of small stones. For furnishings, there were two straw mats in the corners, a small table without chairs, and some jars and cups on a rough shelf along one wall.

  Encouraged, yet embarrassed, the brothers glanced at each other. They moved to sit before the woman, whose eyes followed them. Now they could study her face: the bones of it were meagerly covered with thin, aged skin, like a snake that should have shed cycles ago. Her face was human, they noted, but somehow she still seemed a trespasser. Her lips moved a little as if she was speaking, but she was silent. Looking down, they saw her hands kept moving restlessly on her lap, even after she stopped threading the needle through the pieces of cloth.

  “Have you traveled far? And where are you going?” the old woman asked, and they realized her voice was out of place. They expected a crackle, like the last fire in a forgotten room of the castle, or a whisper, like a wild river flowing through the forest, but her voice was neither. It was strong and pleasant, hinting at cordiality and intelligence. They were so interested in it that they forgot she had questioned them, until Denire answered from behind them.

  “We have traveled for half a season, and are about to return home.” The foggy eyes lifted to him, standing above the young men.

  “I hope you are not far from home now,” she said and the edges of her lips lifted slightly. She didn’t look directly at him. “Girl, serve them some stew from the pot.” The woman’s voice changed to a simple, unremarkable order, and the yellow-haired girl rose and walked to the end of the hut. “I expect you are hungry and weary from your journey. Please share our meal with us, though we cannot offer much.” Her voice hinted some sorrow, and her eyes shifted to the young girl as she passed with cups in her hands.

  “Do you live here alone?” Syah asked her, surprised at the raucous sound of his own voice.

  “Yes,” she answered, as if to herself. Her eyes moved to the youngest traveler and she seemed about to speak, but her lips moved slightly and she was silent. Risking rudeness, Syah lifted his gaze again to her eyes, staring and wondering. His brothers shifted in the comfortable silence. Syah thought, for a moment, he saw a darkness of color amid the pale shades of her eyes. He blinked and lowered his gaze; it was a play of light.

  “Here,” the girl said in a brash tone, handing them each a steaming something in hand-molded cups. Unfamiliar smells wafted from the cups, their scent diverting the travelers’ attention from the strange woman. Oman and Fasime lifted the mugs to test their contents when they heard a soft sound, like a grunt, from behind them. They lowered their cups and looked at the woman and girl, trying to ignore the knight.

  “We have jerky we can share,” Oman said, to distract them from the knight’s discourtesy.

  Denire smelled the cup and then sipped it, letting the liquid play across his tongue as they spoke.

  The woman’s eyes moved to the eldest. “No, traveler, that is much too difficult for me. But perhaps for the child.” Her voice was whispering elegance and mystery again. She looked over to Fasime as he shifted, taking something out from his shirt. The young girl stopped before him warily.

  “It’s venison, half a moon made, but it’s still good,” he told her and held it out. She paused, looking away from his face, and then reached for a piece of it. Fasime noticed how thin her arm and her fingers were. He thought of asking her name, but realized no introductions had been given. It was better that way, so they didn’t have to lie. She grasped a piece and then looked up at him, for as long as a fish jumps out of water for a fly. She turned, with the jerky in hand, and seated herself beside the old woman’s chair again. She clutched the wood, chewing the piece of jerky and watching the strangers seated before her.

  Denire swallowed and then exhaled audibly. They didn’t chance affirming glances to each other, or an accusing glance to the knight; they lifted their mugs and tasted the woman’s stew.

  They feared for a moment they might offend their host. The stew wasn’t rancid or tart; it was its unfamiliarity and texture that struck them. They tasted a spoonful of herbs and possibly mushrooms, no meat or vegetables for flavor or sustenance. But they managed to swallow it without a grimace. They looked at the woman in perplexity that she had any flesh on her at all. Denire set down his cup casually on a ledge, as if he were finished with it, and didn’t lift it again.

  “It is nice to have company. We get so few visitors,” the woman commented. She glanced down at the girl, and the brothers realized she had been waiting on them to eat till she spoke.

  “Why do you stay so far away from any city?” Syah asked her. After a moment, when she didn’t respond, he added, “If you were closer to a northern village, people would know of you and visit you more often.”

  She let out a long breath that couldn’t have been a sigh of her lungs, but of her bones. “I belong out here. If people want to see me, they will have to come live here.”

  “Are you of Arnith?” Fasime asked her.

  “Ah,” she sighed, and her gaze slid over him. “How can we belong to a name? I am of lands with gray skies and twisting trees. I am of the forests that have no name.”

  “But you are aware you dwell in Arnith?” Oman questioned.

  “Yes,” she answered, lingering on her ‘s’ like a snake’s hissing. “Arnith is an ancient kingdom, older than most of my trees.”

  “Then why doesn’t it know of you? If you live within Arnith’s borders, then you need to claim your rights and your responsibilities.”

  Her eyes drifted away from Oman’s face and stared off beside him, as if she thought she looked into his eyes.

  “What would Arnith have of us? We care not for concerns of leadership, and leadership has no concerns for us. We need no currency, and we have none to pay as tribute.”

  “If you care not for your kingdom, then you should not dwell there.” Oman’s tone was severe, and Fasime and Syah reproved him with a glance. He leaned back as he realized his rudeness.

  The woman paused, leaning back a little as well. “Do you think I am trespassing?” she asked him in a calm voice.

  Oman waited, feeling his brothers shift uneasily beside him. “I don’t know,” he answered at last.

  “Well, perhaps I don’t know either,” she said with a small smile, making Oman release the breath he was holding. “But if a trespasser I am, what does that mean for you?” One of her hands motioned to the soldier behind them, but she didn’t look at him.

  “As a servant of Arnith, I would require you to claim your loyalties. Or,” the knight paused with a glance at the princes, “I would be forced to relocate you.”

  “Well, then,” she said immediately, with no nervousness or malice in her words, “I should prove my loyalties, shouldn’t I?” Her face turned to them, her expression both playful and challenging.

  The soldier didn’t answer. His face became even more stern and suspicious.

  “How will you do that?” Syah asked. She set the thread and cloth down and rested her hands on top of it.

  “I know some things of Arnith you might not ever have heard. Ancient things that shape history, or just simply exist. If I could tell you such a story of Arnith, would it prove I belong here?”

  “Perhaps,” Denire answered after a silence, his tone softening as he watched the strange woman closely.

  “I can tell you a story forgotten by Arnith’s historians. Vines now grow on the vaults that keep this story from degrading.” She paused, seeming to study them with her lifeless eyes. “Are you sure you will trust me with your story? A story can change a person, stay with them, follow them through life.”

  “Stories can only take you where you wish to go,” Syah answered her. Fasime and Oman glanced at him. It was one of the White Cane’s antics.

  “Very well,” her lips pressed together, sti
ll a moment.

  “There once was a man

  Wisdom in his eyes

  Strength in his arms

  He drained his blood

  To feed his land

  And it became prosperous.”

  The old woman’s voice changed, became taut, disturbed, tentative.

  “There once was a man

  Three sons were his

  Enough to inherit his legacy

  But they couldn’t keep it

  Promises that can’t be kept

  Wash blood from their hands.”

  The princes stopped eating. The comfort they had felt from the warm fire and the strange house vanished.

  “The man loved each of them

  The man wanted to give them all

  To pass his life to their future

  Three sons each with strength

  And possession

  Wash blood from their hands.”

  More light seemed to come from the fire, though it hadn’t been stoked. They could see her entire form clearly, seated motionless in the chair, except for her hands, moving meaninglessly before her, and her colorless eyes, shifting from one to the other of them.

  “The man loved each of them

  They owned their destiny

  But the story is wrought with loss

  The father will fall

  And his heir will follow

  And the next, again and again.”

  The old woman looked at Oman.

  “Their love betrayed them

  Promises that couldn’t be kept

  Wash blood from their hands

  They will fall

  Until the man’s lineage is finally broken