25. Now Patrol
NOW: PATROL
After the first few nights, we had a list of wagons signaling they needed the moss.
We carefully noted all of the numbered wagons with a flower garland, both from walking around the campgrounds at night and from Tessa riding Zara along the caravan, always in search of a falsely claimed missing goat.
I had protested that I could ride Zara along the caravan, but Ilsit rightfully pointed out that though Starling hated Tessa, he hated me more.
But two weeks into our journey, the garlands started to reappear. More women had learned of our service and were asking for the moss.
I laughed despite the stress this caused when, standing in line at the latrines, I overheard two men openly speculate as to why women, in groups of two or three, kept going flower picking when the caravan made camp at night.
We were flat out of moss and, despite asking anyone we spoke to, unsure of when we would find the river and thus god trees again.
When the public dust road finally led us back alongside the Oberlong, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I had grown worried that I would have to take Zara several hours’ ride in the dead of night off the path to find it, collect it, and return to the caravan, which seemed not only dangerous as it would draw attention, but as I may fall far behind.
Tessa and I had decided the best course was to hunt for the god trees in darkness as that would provide cover from any nearby Perpatanian soldiers seeing a woman disappear into thin air.
The moss glowed, and that faint light often gave a soft sheen to the outer bark.
“Only take a little bit,” Tessa said to me as I laced up my boys’ breeches. “You could get caught. You need to be able to shed it quickly. They know what mother’s moss looks like.”
“No, take lots,” Ilsit objected. “They say we’ll be up against the Oberlong for a long time, but who knows how many trees you’ll find?”
“Yes, yes!” I hissed at them, as they had both already said their piece twice. “Have a care or you’ll wake Fox and Jade.”
“They’re halfway to dead from walking all day,” Ilsit grumbled from her bedroll. “I still say one of us should go with you.”
“Absolutely not,” Tessa disagreed. “Two will draw more eyes than one.”
“Yes, but two can fight off guards better than one can,” Ilsit sniped.
“I’m off,” I interrupted them. “Try not to tear off each other’s heads while I am gone. I should not be more than an hour or two.”
“One hour,” they said in unison.
My hair was pulled back in a braid, and I wore a long, dark tunic of Avery’s over the breeches.
At a glance in the night, I looked like a boy or man on his way to or from relieving himself.
Most of the caravan was abed. I darted past clusters of Perpatanian soldiers who paid me no mind, most of them having a card game or standing in semicircles near dying fires.
Under the hum of their speech, I listened for the rush of the Oberlong.
Keeping my head down, in shadows cast by the wagons, I wove amongst what seemed like hundreds of little camps both for penitents and for soldiers.
I was nearly at the edge of it all, the sounds of the river louder in my ears as I neared it, but I found myself interrupted by the one-eyed man.
“Where are you off to?” his voice carried to me on the night air.
I startled, head on a swivel. I knew who spoke, but I could not see him.
“Here,” he whispered.
Eyes roaming, I finally made out the long outline of him leaning against a large oak tree, which loomed over other smaller trees behind it leading into forested land that must have banked the river.
I was frustrated. Beyond that outcropping of trees, I could hear the Oberlong.
I was so near the god trees, I could practically see that faint blue glow.
I stepped nearer to the Vyggian man. “Evening, sir.”
“Evening, midwife. Where are you off to at this hour?”
“I need to leave camp for a bit.”
He made a noise with his tongue and his teeth, a scolding noise. “Now that will not work out for you. I am on guard tonight. And no one is to get in or get out until we ride again in the morning.”
“Why is that? I am a free woman. Can I not walk on this road and its surroundings? I believe this is a public road.” I could just make out his face beneath that ever-present hood of his.
“Not right now. Not when this whole continent is at war’s doorstep. It is unsafe. And your lord, his two sons, the army captain and your priest have ordered it so.”
I placed my hands on my hips and sighed. I stepped closer. “Allow me this one lenience and I will not trouble you again. I promise.” I would get past him this one time and worry about subsequent foraging for god trees another night.
I could not quite see it, but I knew he was smiling that unbothered smile in the dark. “I am afraid your regular enchantments will not work for you this evening. I’m not like other men who crumble because you simply speak to them.”
“Crumble? What are you—Salt man, I begin my fortieth winter. I do not rely on charm. I’m asking you to let me pass. Again.”
He shrugged. “You have your tasks and I have mine. Go back to your people and your wagon. Try again another night with a weaker man, a guard with no ability to resist a woman’s wiles.”
“Wiles,” I said, dragging the word out. “You speak as if I am a maid with an unlined face. I know you only use the one eye, but really.”
He surprised me then and gave a low laugh. It was sensual, a note of satisfaction in it, as if he was glad for my being glib. “Thank you.”
“Thank you for what?”
“For mentioning it. So many folk dance around it. As if should they notice my only having one eye, they will draw my own attention to it. As if I do not know that I only have the one eye and they are frightened to be the one to tell me.”
I snorted. “I do not consider myself indelicate, but nor do I consider myself an idiot. I would have assumed you would have known, by now, that you only have the use of the one eye.”
“No,” he said, and his voice was even lower, smokier. “You are far from an idiot, madam midwife. You are, in my estimation, very clever.”
Though I opened my mouth to correct his continual use of “midwife” in regards to me, I did not speak because I was distracted by that voice. There was an ever-present rasp to it, a grating quality, as if he went long periods without using it. And as I could not see him very well, I noticed it more.
“You reference your age quite a bit, you know,” he continued.
“You reference my possessing the alluring qualities of a beautiful young woman. And I am not—”
Now he snorted. “You must think me the idiot now.”
“Explain.”
“You point out my having one eye. You know that I know I have one eye, yet when I point out you are beautiful, you act as if you do not know that you are beautiful. In a younger woman, this is forgivable, maybe even a bit charming to some men, but now let me be the one to reference your age.”
I squinted, trying to make out his face.
“You say you are forty,” the Vyggian explained.
“A woman that age has figured out what her face and figure can do for her. She has more than figured it out. She is adept. And what I say to you, lady, is that I know what you are about when you sweetly ask if you can leave the perimeter of this camp.”
“I was not sweet,” I protested, but my voice was thin and breathy.
He made a hmm noise.
“Sir,” I tried again, “you must let me leave camp for a short time. It is important. You are the one who tried to convince me to come based on this caravan’s lack of a midwife. I need supplies.”
“Supplies you could have more easily collected at the dinner hour? Supplies you seek in the shadow of night when the sun has made itself scarce? What supplies are those?”
“Am I a criminal to you? I don’t know what you could be accusing me of.”
The Vyggian gave a lazy shake of his head. “I’m not on watch tomorrow night. Some Perpatanian whelp who cannot resist the curvature of a woman will be more susceptible to your petitions. Go back to your bed, Robbie. And be more careful.”
My name in his mouth, said with that rasp, made the hair on the back of my neck prickle.
“How do you know my name?”
He tapped the side of his head, releasing one hand from where he had his arms crossed on his chest. “I have one eye, but I have two ears.”
“And I still do not know your name, Vyggian.”
The one-eyed man gave another of those slow smiles and said, “I like being your salt man.”