7. A Reliable Horse
A Reliable Horse
I stood beside my father, watching Jens ride away, taking one of our mares with him as he set out for the Borg. Not the finest horse in our stables, but a reliable one. Da said he needed a reliable mount to carry him on his journey, but not so fine it would attract thieves.
My father lifted his hand in the air in an unmoving wave. I heard him speak, so low, so quietly, almost forlornly, and I felt it like a squeeze around my chest. “Be safe, son.”
All my life my father had been so strong, stoic, and stalwart in the face of hardship. Almost cold and unfeeling. Now he looked worn-out. I could see it, peeking out from the frayed edges of him—the passage of time etched into his face alongside his sadness, his vulnerability.
I stretched a hand toward his arm, the impulse to touch him, to comfort him, overriding the knowledge that I could not. My hand reached for him, missing him entirely, never landing on his arm.
Exhaling, I dropped my hand limply to my side and looked after my brother again.
I’d known it was only a matter of time before Jens left. I just never thought it would be this soon after Henrik and Meya. After me.
I thought he would remain with Da for another year at least.
Worry lurked deep in my father’s eyes, but he’d done nothing to stop Jens. Perhaps he’d learned his lesson and he was done getting in the way of his children.
Jens should have traveled with Henrik and Meya.
There was safety in numbers, but now he was recklessly venturing out on his own into the great unknown.
A lad of eighteen in a world of thieves and all manner of dangerous things.
Things like bandits and witches and wolves.
Battle boars, once used in the Threshing, now roamed wild, too.
There were huldras to the east in the boglands.
Harpies to the north in the Crags. There was no guarantee these creatures would stay in their chosen spaces or that Jens would not encroach where he shouldn’t and earn their wrath.
Even if he did not cross paths with any of these creatures, there were still the soldiers. An exhausting surplus of soldiers these days. From the south. From the Borderlands. From Veturland. Take your pick. They blazed paths like locusts wherever they went.
The Lord of the Borderlands—Lord Dryhten—did not force civilians into his army.
It wasn’t his way. The king’s army in the south, however, was notorious for conscripting boys right out of the schoolroom.
Henrik insisted that the Beast did not resort to such lowly acts because he possessed honor.
There was admiration in my brother’s voice when he spoke of the border lord.
Naturally, he would not have moved with Meya to the Borg, the epicenter of the north and the domain of the Lord of the Borderlands, if he did not have respect for the warrior lord.
He held no such respect for the lord regent or king of Penterra. Few in our village did, but then we were of the north. A border people. The Lord of the Borderlands was our champion and guiding force.
The year the king replaced the Beast with the lord regent’s son was not so long ago. Thirteen then, I clearly recalled the unrest, the tumult . . . the fear-laden air, sour as sweat in those days of the Terror.
There was a reason the lord regent’s son, Lord Dryhten’s replacement, became known as the Terror of the Borderlands.
He was a brutal tyrant, tithing those who had nothing to give and leaving bloodshed and destruction in his wake.
Never mind he did this to his own people, his own country.
He punished all without discrimination or mercy.
There was a grand celebration when word reached us that he had fallen in the Crags.
As happy as we were, no one ever forgot that King Hamlin and the lord regent had subjected us to the Terror. We had not forgiven. The Beast had returned to us, and as far as we were concerned, he was our king now and the south could just fuck off.
I cringed at the notion of Jens running afoul of the lord regent’s army, being swept up into their ranks.
They’d been conscripting civilians for the last several years all across Penterra, building their forces in order to lay siege to the Beast. Ever since the Terror was killed, the south and north had been divided, the fires of war burning on all side.
We’d heard the tales of boys younger than Jens ripped from their homes and forced into service and it only deepened our loathing for the distant king.
A king who offered us no protections, punished us without cause, and yet demanded our allegiance, our blood, livestock, food, and what little coin we possessed.
His emissaries appeared multiple times a year to demand tithes.
Despite the Beast’s attempt to shield us, his warriors could not be everywhere at once, and the lord regent’s agents inevitably found their way into the Borderlands and to our doors.
Anyone unwilling or unable to pay was dealt with swiftly, the agents confiscating anything they deemed of value.
A year ago, Meya’s uncle who lived north of Isstad and ran sheep in the foothills, lost his daughter—Meya’s cousin. I’d overheard Meya talking about it with Henrik through the wall separating our rooms. I’d sat on my knees and pressed my ear close.
Meya’s cousin was only a few years older than me, but a skilled seamstress. The lord regent’s agent had taken her, claiming her skills would be of use and serve as the tithe owed, but from the way he’d leered at her, there was no doubt he did not mean her skills with a needle and thread.
Now watching the straight line of Jens’s back, I knew it would be the last time I saw him.
I had not harbored such certainty when it came to Henrik and Meya, but there was something about Jens’s lone, gangly form astride his mount, disappearing into the fog.
It would be my last glimpse of him, and it only added to the gnawing sense of emptiness in my chest.
My life was unrecognizable. Everything was changing fast. Inevitable, I knew, in theory. The only constant in life was change. I’d heard the maxim. And yet knowing was different from knowing. Besides, invisibility did not count as an ordinary life change.
I glanced at Da. His face was impassive again.
Whatever sorrow I thought I’d detected from him earlier was not in evidence now.
When he turned and went inside, I followed him.
He closed the door and leaned his head against the solid length of it, his big shoulders sagging as though tired from holding up a great burden.
I glanced away, finding it difficult to see him like this.
Now it was just me and Da in a place that had always felt too small and crowded.
Before there was always someone around. You could scarcely move without bumping into a person.
The house overflowed with Jens and his friends coming in and out.
With Henrik and Meya and Meya’s family popping in. With Da and his heavy, tromping tread.
Now there were no visitors.
It was just Da and me.
The quiet was eerie. The space cavernous and haunting, every sound Da made echoing. The drop of his boot on the floor a thud that reverberated for minutes.
Before and now. My life was cut into these two camps.
Before I was seen.
Now I was not.
I did this, though. It was my fault. I brought this on myself—running into the woods on that cold night in a childish pique. I was a waving flag for a lurking witch intent on mischief.
Invisibility was aloneness. Aloneness was invisibility.
The two were the same.