12. Now Exodus
NOW: EXODUS
When Tessa, Fox, and I signed the penitents’ list, it was to confess our sins to a priest from Perpatane alongside an army officer who would take down our names and properties.
We lined up in the church along with other penitents who had finally felt the pressure to escape Tintar.
Folks from the next town over, Carver, were grateful for Sheridan’s close affiliation with King Pollux, as their own lord was a man who did not seem to revere any god but drink.
Though while their sharecropping did not yield as much as ours, they did not suffer the indignities of Saint Rodwin’s faith.
In the church, I averted my gaze from the box up at the front.
I had not been punished with a public boxing, having to lay in it for a day or two at a time for my sins, since I was a teenaged girl.
But it still unnerved me to see it. And every tenth-day service, I managed not to look directly at it.
I heard Carver residents whisper to each other how lucky they were, and I tried not to roll my eyes.
When we approached the tables set up at the front of the church and saw the men we were to report to, I tried not to smile either.
Starling was standing to the side of the pews with his arms crossed, eyeing me with barely concealed ire and interest.
“Oh he wishes he were taking our confessions,” I said to Tessa. “But he has to watch me claim only pride and sloth to the priest the king has sent.”
Tessa nodded. “I’m not saying a thing other than gluttony,” she said and patted her stomach.
“And I already spoke to someone about Fox.” She turned to our girl.
“I said you can’t read or speak, but you can mark your name on the list. Soldier I spoke to said that would be fine.
Ilsit’s right when she says you’re the smartest of all of us, but the less they know of you, the better.
I don’t want them saying you not speaking is some demon thing.
And they don’t like girls reading. What do you think? ”
Fox smiled and signed, I appreciate you saying I’m the smartest. Age does not always equal wisdom, I suppose.
Tessa covered her mouth so as not to guffaw in the church.
“Cheeky,” I said and pinched her arm.
Tessa and I exchanged a more solemn look. Starling had more than once implied our sign language was spell craft.
The army’s coin man did not give me nearly what I should have gotten for Magda’s farm.
And when I arrived at the fields next to the Sheridan castle keep, where the new troops were camped, where Thane’s transport wagons were all lined up and more wagons were being built, I was directed to a very small vehicle that clearly had once been an oxcart.
It had no bows or any slats with which to secure a covering and would barely hold the five of us let alone our belongings.
As she was not a landowner, Tessa was not supplied with a wagon when she signed the penitents’ list and was expected to walk.
“Tell Thane Sheridan,” I said to the soldier, pointing towards the oxcart, “I don’t want an army wagon. I want one of his transport wagons, and I want four fresh horses to pull it. I only have the one horse left alive and she’s old.”
The young man stared at me.
“Do you know who he is? He is a personal friend of mine and a relative by marriage. He is the lord’s second son and technically in charge of this expedition, just as much as the priest and Captain Gerard.”
“Madam.” The soldier tried to reproach me, but I was twice his age and I stared him down until he sputtered out, “Very well. I will deliver your message.”
“Tell him I want it delivered to my farm directly. I’m not visiting town again after this.
” I left the poor boy agog at the edge of the field, rather astonished at myself.
But if Wynne was right and Thane did still pine after me, then he could work his way around the pettiness of Starling’s clear direction to the army that the midwife that lived on the Nyossa border was not deserving of a good wagon.
The next day, Tessa arrived at my farm with four horses and the largest size of wagon Thane’s transport outfit used, waving from the driver’s seat. The number four hundred and twenty-three was painted in fresh black pitch on the side.
“Look what your brother-in-law provides,” she called out.
“Oh I suppose this miserable undertaking is real now,” Jade said, standing next to me in the yard. “I cannot believe I have to leave Nyossa.”
“I cannot believe I am stuck following Gerard around again,” Ilsit complained. “I cannot believe it has to be he in charge of the army part of this. I’ve only been free of that prick for a full four seasons.”
“We’ve days to accomplish what other folks have had weeks to do,” I said. “Now we pack. And we harvest.”
And that is what we did. Jade and I went into the forest and gathered everything we could think of that was in bloom for medicinals.
I stepped inside the trunks of the god trees to scrape out as much of the mother’s moss as I could.
Magda had always instructed me to gather it conservatively and not rob the tree entirely of its magic.
Though she had told me god trees could grow everywhere there was a river, and though we had been informed the caravan would proceed down the most traveled dust road that connected the low country settlements to the rest of the continent, along which the river Oberlong flowed, I was concerned. I took all that I could.
The one-eyed man had been right. There were so many women on this journey that might need my services.
“I spread the word with women in town,” Tessa had informed me. “They’re to put up any garland of any kind of flower, as we won’t know what grows along the dust road, hanging it from the front of the wagon. And we’ll put the mother’s moss tins inside the wheel well of the front left wheel.”
“What about the tins?” I had asked.
“They can return them when they’re empty, whenever they get a chance. We’ll have to figure that out as we go. And Kate, the wheelwright’s woman? Her cousin lives in Carver. And she’s telling Carver women of this.”
“So we’re on a rescue mission for a snot of a girl, and we’re still outlaws committing crimes right under the noses of the church and army?” Ilsit had asked. “Sounds wonderful. I can’t believe we ever dickered over going.”
At the farm, Tessa and Ilsit stacked tins and jars of already made medicinals in crates with hay.
They gathered up all of our possessions and consolidated them into what they would discern as necessary.
I had already put everything I wanted into a small trunk, my new copy of The Life of Una wrapped tightly in a scrap of leather inside.
I trusted that Tessa would be compassionate and Ilsit would be cutthroat, so that we would not leave all of our dearest things behind but neither would we drag our whole lives behind us.
I did not let myself look too long at the place I had called home since I was a young woman.
I did not let myself think twice when Tessa offered to walk into town and lead the milk cow behind to sell her for coin.
She had sold her own horse for a good price to the army and said they were paying well for livestock.
Tessa had explained the cow would slow us down and when Ilsit suggested we make jerky of her, Jade and Fox had started to cry.
“We keep the two goats and the chickens though,” Tessa explained. “For eggs and milk. They can ride in the wagon during the day. I think I can set up a pen for them when we make camp. Stretch their legs.”
I turned to Fox. “You had better keep Daisy from harassing those chickens. You’ve done a good job keeping that creature out of my henhouse all these winters, but this is different.”
You always act like she is a nuisance, Fox signed at me. But then you kiss the top of her head when you think no one is looking.
“That animal is too stupid to do anything but chase a chicken,” Ilsit said, dismissing me. “She’s been here since she was a kit? Then she can’t hunt. I bet she wouldn’t even know how to kill the bird.”
You say she is stupid, Fox replied to Ilsit, but you too kiss her on the head and carry her around the house. I’ve heard you call her ‘darling Daisy.’
“I do not,” Ilsit snapped. “And I have never called that thing darling.”
“Yes, you have,” Jade said with a hand on Ilsit’s arm. “We all do it.”
Ilsit let it go. No one could argue with our Jade.
My tears came when we had to leave. Everything we could manage was packed into the wagon, our new horses yoked in front with Zara tied in back.
On my last trip to the wagon, bringing yet one more crate to stack nearly to the tops of the bows over which the tarp was stretched, I turned back and saw the old house and its little stable, henhouse, orchard, and gardens.
I saw the tree line of Nyossa that ran along one side.
“My man is laid to rest in this land,” I choked out and felt Jade’s arm come around me. “My Avery is here.”
“I know it,” she said.
I turned to her. “You’ve spent nearly the whole of your life in that forest. I shouldn’t complain to you of this. You must grieve this too.”
She kissed my cheek. “Who better to complain to than someone who has the same heartache?”