The alleyway finally opened up onto a wider street that buzzed with more people. The tall surrounding structures blocked the sun, and ramshackle huts balanced precariously on their ledges. The city was woven of a weft and warp that defied reason. Sometimes only a canvas wall trembling in the wind defined a living space. People lived where they could, overflowing dark smoky lanes and whittling out a space to call home.
Children followed after us, offering horse patties for fires, amulets strung on leather, or mice that wriggled in their pockets. Mice as pets? Would anyone actually pay for such a thing? But when one little boy described his as plump and meaty, I realized they weren’t being sold for pets.
We walked for at least a mile before we reached a large open market. This was the jehendra. It was the widest open space I had seen in the city thus far, as large as three tourney fields. Only a few permanent structures filled it. The rest were sewn together like a colorful quilt. Some stalls were no more than an overturned crate to sell the smallest trinket. Bells, drums, and the strings of a zitarae strummed the air in a jangling beat that matched the city.
We passed a stall with skinned lambs hanging from hooks, flies getting the first taste. A little farther down, shallow clay pots brimming with powdered herbs were set out on blankets, women offering a pinch for free to lure us their way. Across the aisle, three-sided tents showed off piles of clothing, some of it threadbare and torn. Other stalls had freshly woven fabrics that seemed to rival those brought in on the Previzi wagons. Cages of scrawny bald doves cooed across rutted pathways to pens of fresh pink piglets. I saw row after row of wares, from food, to pottery, to darker shops in the permanent structures that offered unseen pleasures behind drawn curtains.
In contrast to this city painted in soot and weariness, the jehendra teemed with color and life. Though he said nothing, I felt Kaden studying me when I stopped at stalls and examined the goods. Was he fearful I would use the word barbarian with the same distaste as I had crossing the Cam Lanteux? Some of the offerings were the humblest of efforts, rags twisted into dolls or balls of rendered fat tied up in animal entrails.
I was tempted to spend the Komizar’s coin on all manner of things besides clothing, and it was hard to walk away when earnest faces were hopeful I would buy their goods. I walked through a stall of talismans. Flat blue stones inlaid with white stars seemed to be the favored design, sometimes with a splash of red stone bleeding from the center, and I wondered if it hailed back to the story of the angel Aster.
I remembered what Kaden had said, that the one thing Venda was not short of was rock and metal. At least some Vendans didn’t seem to be short on memory either. Their stories of history might not be accurate, but at least they had them—and some, like these artisans, revered them enough to fashion jewelry into remembrances.
That was one thing I hadn’t heard this morning in Venda, the singing of remembrances that always greeted mornings throughout Morrighan. I’d never thought I would miss them, but maybe I just missed those who sang them: Pauline, Berdi, my brothers. Even my father never missed morning remembrances, singing of the braveries of Morrighan and the steadfastness of the chosen Remnant. I rubbed my thumb across the amulet, the inlaid star a remembrance as carefully wrought as any musical note.
“Here,” Kaden said, and he flipped the merchant a coin. “She’ll take that one.”
The merchant put the talisman around my neck. “I knew you’d take it,” he whispered in my ear. He stepped back, his gaze fixed on mine. His manner set me on edge, but perhaps it was the way of Vendan merchants to be so familiar.
“Wear it in good health,” he said.
“I will. Thank you.”
We continued down the path, Kaden leading the way, until we came to several tents in a row with clothing and fabrics hanging from poles. “One of those should have something for you,” he said. “I’ll wait here.” He sat on the end of an empty cart and folded his arms, nodding toward the tents.
I walked past them nonchalantly, not sure which one to go into, especially since I had no interest in finding something “suitable” to wear. I perused from a distance, not committing to stepping inside any of them, but then I heard a small voice. “Miz! Miz!” From the darkness of a tent, a hand reached out and grabbed mine, pulling me inside.
I sucked in a startled breath but saw it was Aster. I asked what she was doing here, and she said this was her bapa’s shop. “Not his shop proper, but he works here sometimes. Lifting things too heavy for Effiera. Not today, though, because he’s sick, so he sent me, but Effiera doesn’t much think that someone my size—” Aster clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, Miz. There I go again. It doesn’t matter why I’m here. Why are you here?”
Because I was yanked into your tent, I wanted to tease, but I knew Aster was self-conscious, and I didn’t want to add to her insecurity. “The Komizar says I need suitable clothes.”
Her eyes grew wide, as if the Komizar himself were standing there, and in the same instant, a squat woman bustled into the middle of the tent from behind a curtain stretched across the back.
“You came to the right place, then. I know just what he likes. I have—”
I set her straight immediately. I wasn’t one of the Komizar’s “special visitors.” Aster enthusiastically offered more details about who I was. “She just got here! She’s a princess. She came from a faraway land, and her name is Jezelia, but—”
“Hush, girl!” The woman looked back at me, chewing on something tucked inside her cheek, and I wondered if she was going to spit it at me now that she knew I came from the other side. She studied me for a long while.
“I think I have just what you need.” She judged my measurements with a practiced eye and said she’d return shortly. She ordered Aster to keep me company in the meantime.
As soon as Effiera was gone, Aster squeezed her head through a slit in the side of the tent and let out a deafening whistle. In seconds, two bone-thin children smaller than Aster slipped through the flap. Like Aster, their hair was cut short to the scalp, and I wasn’t sure if they were boys or girls, but their eyes were wide and hungry. Aster introduced the smaller one as Yvet, and the other was a boy named Zekiah. I noticed he was missing the tip of his forefinger on his left hand. The stump was red and swollen, as if the injury had happened only recently, and he rubbed it self-consciously with his other hand. At first they were too shy to speak, but then Yvet asked in a shaky voice if I had really been to other lands as Aster claimed. Aster looked at me with expectant eyes as if her reputation lay on the line.
“Yes, what Aster says is true,” I said. “Would you like to hear about them?”
They nodded eagerly, and we all sat on the rug in the middle of the tent. I told them about forgotten cities in the middle of nowhere, savannas of copper grass that spread as wide as a sea, glittering ruins that shimmered for miles, meadows high in the mountains where the stars were so close you could touch their sparkling tails, and an old woman who spun star shimmer into thread on a great spinning wheel. I told them of bearded animals with heads like anvils that rode together in groups more numerous than the pebbles in a river, and of a mysterious tumbled city where springs flowed with water as sweet as nectar, streets gleamed gold, and the Ancients still cast their magic.
“Is that where you’re from?” Yvet asked.
I looked at her, not sure how to answer. Where was I from? Strangely, it wasn’t Civica that came to mind.
“No,” I finally whispered. And then I told them about Terravin. “Once upon a time,” I said, making it into a story as distant and removed as it now felt, “there was a princess, and her name was Arabella. She had to flee a terrible dragon that was chasing her, intending to make her his breakfast. She ran to a village that offered her protection.” I told them of a bay as bright as sapphires, silver fish that jumped into nets, a woman who stirred up bottomless pots of stew, and cottages woven of rainbows and flowers, a land as magical as any princess could ever dream up. But then the dr
agon found her again, and she had to leave.
“Will the princess ever go back?” a new voice asked.
I looked up to my left, startled. Four more children had slipped in and crouched on their knees at the entrance of the tent.
“I think she’ll try,” I answered.
Effiera breezed in from behind, clapping her hands and shooing them off.
“Here we go,” she said, and I turned to see three more women standing at the back of the tent, their arms piled with fabrics. Among them were soft leathers of every shade—tans, browns, and fawns, and some dyed in purples, greens, and reds. Another woman held accessories like belts, scarves, and scabbards in her arms.
My heart pounded, and I wasn’t sure why, but then I knew—before they even unfolded them.
Barbarian clothes. These weren’t like the ones Calantha wore, made of light and delicate fabrics, brought in on Previzi caravans. I looked at Effiera uncertainly. Her expression was resolute. I was sure it wasn’t what the Komizar had in mind, but somehow these fabrics seemed right. It was the same strange feeling I had felt the first time I rounded the bend and saw Terravin. A feeling of rightness. Clothing, of course, was not the same as a home, I reminded myself. “All I need is something simple, trousers and a shirt. Clothes I can ride in,” I said.
“And that you’ll have, and a simple change of clothes as well,” Effiera answered, and with a quick wave of her hand, the women moved in, a whirl of motion, and began measuring and pinning together a basic riding outfit.
* * *
Kaden and I walked back toward the Sanctum. Effiera promised to send the two outfits I had ordered with Aster later today after a few alterations had been made. The fear I had carried ever since I had crossed the bridge into Venda was momentarily lifted. My brief time in the tent, first with the children, and then with the women as they held up fabrics, vests, shirts, and trousers, was a soothing balm. I felt less like an outsider, and I hoped I could hang on to that feeling.
“It seems foolish to spend money on clothing when there’s so much need elsewhere,” I said, still questioning the Komizar’s loose purse.
“How do you think Vendans go about their everyday lives? They have jobs and professions and mouths to feed. I gave Effiera twice what she would get from anyone else. Making clothing is how she survives.”
“Effiera? Do you know every shopkeeper’s name in Venda?”
“No. Just hers.”
“So you’ve brought other young ladies to her?”
“As a matter of fact, I have.”
He didn’t elaborate, and his silence made me wonder who they were. More visitors of the Komizar’s or young ladies of his own fancy?
“Why are we going back already?” I asked. “It’s still early. I thought you wanted me to see your city. I’ve seen only a small part.”
“The Komizar has some matters for me to look after in the Tomack quarter.”
“Isn’t that what the quarterlords are for?”
“Not this matter. It has to do with soldiers.”
“I could go along with you.”
“No.”
His reply came hot and clipped and not like Kaden at all. I turned and gave him a long dissecting stare.
“I’ll take you back another way,” he offered. “Past some of the more interesting ruins.”
A compromise, because whatever was in this Tomack quarter, he didn’t want me to see it. Again we traveled down narrow lanes, alleyways, and some paths that seemed little more than rabbit trails, jumping over rain-washed gullies and slipping on trampled dead grass. We came at last to a wide, well-traveled street, and Kaden walked me over to a large cauldron bubbling over a fire. There were rough wooden benches scattered in a circle around it, and an old man offered mugs of the brew for a modest price.
“It’s thannis,” Kaden said. “A tea brewed from a weed.” He bought one for each of us, and we sat down on one of the benches. “Thannis is another thing that Venda has in abundance,” he explained. “It grows almost anywhere. Ledges, cracks, the rockiest of fields. Sometimes the farmers curse it. Once it takes hold, it’s hard to stop it from spreading. Thannis is a survivor, like a Vendan.” He said the leaves were purple, sprouting bright above the snows of winter, but in late autumn, for only a few days before seeding, it changed to bright gold. That was when it turned sweet, but also to poison. “A drink of the golden thannis will be your last.”
I was glad to see ours was a strange purplish brew and not golden. I took a sip and spit it out. It tasted like dirt. Sour, horrible, moldy dirt.
Kaden laughed. “It’s an acquired taste but a tradition in Venda, like the bones worn on our belts. It’s said that thannis was all that kept Lady Venda and the early clans here alive those first few winters. In truth, it’s probably all that kept me alive more than one winter. When other supplies run out, there’s always thannis.”
I braved another sip and forced a swallow down, then immediately tried to summon saliva to my mouth to wash the taste away. I was sure it wasn’t a taste I’d ever acquire, not even in the bleakest of winters. I glanced up at the old man stirring the cauldron, singing a chant to passersby: Thannis for the heart, thannis for the mind, thannis for the soul, thannis, live long the children of Venda. He repeated it over and over, a snaking song with no beginning or end.
Hovering above the steam of the cauldron, I spotted someone standing on a distant high ledge watching me. A woman. Her figure seemed to ripple through the steam, hazy, fading, and then she vanished. She was simply gone. I blinked and looked down at my steaming cup of brew.
“Just what’s in this?” I asked.
Kaden smiled. “Only a harmless weed, I promise.” He called to the old man and asked him if he had any cream to sweeten my drink. He happily obliged, for though he nearly gave the thannis away, the cream, honey, or spirits to flavor it came at a greater cost. Even with a hefty dosing of cream, the thannis was only marginally palatable. The spirits might have helped more.
We sipped our drinks and watched children chasing after those who passed by, begging to do anything that might bring something in trade.
“They seem so young. Where are their parents?” I asked.
“Most have none, or their parents are on another street corner doing the same.”
“Can’t you do something for them?”
“I’m trying, Lia. So is the Komizar. But he can butcher only so many horses.”
“And raid so many caravans. There are other ways of managing a kingdom.”
He glanced at me, a smirk on his lips. “Are there?” His gaze turned back to the street. “When the ancient treaties were drawn and borders established, Venda was not part of those negotiations. The fertile lands of Venda were always few, and each year more fields have fallen fallow. Most of the countryside of Venda is far poorer than what you see here, which is why the city grows. They come searching for hope and a better life.”
“Is this how you grew up? On the streets of Venda?”
He swilled down the last of his thannis and rose to return the mug to the old man. “No, I would have been lucky if I had.”
“Lucky? Are your parents that bad?”
He stopped mid-step. “My mother was a saint.”
Was.
I stared at him, a raised vein snaking at his temple. This was it. His weakness. The buried part of him that he refused to share. His parents.
“We need to go.” He put his hand out, waiting for my empty mug. I wanted more answers, but I knew what it was like to ache with memories of a mother and father. My own mother had deceived me, trying to thwart my gift, and my father—
My stomach squeezed.
It was only a single small notice in the village square. Walther had told me that as if it might comfort me, but the notice was still a call for my arrest and return for treason, posted by my own father. Some lines should never be crossed, and he proved it when he hanged his own nephew. I still didn’t know what role my father had played in the bounty hunter’s
attempt on my life. Maybe he’d seen it as a convenient way to eliminate a messy court hearing altogether. He knew my brothers would never forgive him if he executed me.
“Lia, your mug?”
I shook off the memory, handing him the mug, and we continued on our way. Here, as in the savanna, ruin and renewal lay side by side, and sometimes it was impossible to discern one from the other. A massive dome that must once have topped a great temple was sunk in rubble, and only a glimmer of carved stone peeked through the earth to reveal that it was more than a mound in the landscape. Next to it stone was piled upon stone, creating a pen for a goat. Animals were carefully guarded here, Kaden told me. They tended to disappear.
We walked on for a long way until Kaden finally stopped at one unassuming ruin, resting his hand on a tree that engulfed one wall like gnarled fingers. “This one used to reach higher than any tower in Venda.”
“How would anyone know?” I looked at the partial walls that formed an enormous square. Trees grew atop the remains like twisted sentries. None of the actual remains were more than a dozen feet high anymore, and one wall was almost entirely gone. It seemed a fanciful notion to suppose that it once towered over the entire city. “It may have been only the walls of a manor,” I said.
“It wasn’t,” Kaden said firmly. “It rose almost six hundred feet into the sky.”
Six hundred feet? I grunted my disbelief.
“Documents were found that confirm it. As best as they can decipher, this was a monument to one of their leaders.”
I didn’t really know much about the Ancients’ history before the devastation. Little was recorded in the Morrighan Holy Text—mostly just the aftermath. We knew only of their demise, and the scholars had collected the few relics that survived the centuries. Paper documents were rare. Paper was the first thing to crumble away, and according to the Holy Text, when the Ancients were trying to survive, it was the first thing they used for fuel. Survival trumped words.