A Consuming Fire, page 10
Anya squinted up at him. Even in the rainy gloom, she could see the pent-up anger in his hazel eyes, and the hard-set line of his jaw.
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “You came and got me from the Elect, even though it cost you. You didn’t have to do that.”
Tieran scrubbed a hand across his shorn scalp in frustration. “Wasn’t a good deed. Already told you—I don’t like being beholden to nobody.”
“That’s another thing,” Anya said. “You claim you don’t like to be beholden, but nobody who hates to be indebted steals from the people who raised them. Not unless they have reason to. So you’re lying about something, or you’re lying about everything, and I think it’s the last.”
“Awfully good at spotting a lie for a girl what’s supposed to be righteous,” Tieran said, his temper fading to sullenness as quickly as it had sprung up.
This time, it was Anya who stepped closer to Tieran, who put her hands on his shoulders and stood on her toes to speak next to his ear in the rain. She wasn’t sure what possessed her to do it—a spark of Ilva, perhaps, or of the courage her reckless sister had always wished for her to find.
“Maybe it’s only this,” Anya said, looking to where Ilva stood not three yards away, staring at the pair of them in the rain as skin sloughed from her bones and months of decay occurred in moments. “Maybe I can see you’re a liar because I’m one too.”
She drew back, just a little, and Tieran swallowed, his throat working visibly.
“Go home,” Anya told him, waving a dismissive hand. “Go back to your family and make things right. I’ve got a mountain to climb and a god to deal with. It turns out I can’t manage a wayward thief on top of that, after all.”
“No,” Tieran said.
Anya sighed. “Don’t be difficult. I’ve told you, I’m busy.”
“I won’t go back unless you come with me,” Tieran went on. “Matthias says he’s keeping everyone on the road for now and they’re heading north, same as you. They’re private people—don’t like to be noticed by the law or the Elect. And if you want to keep clear of your grayrobe friends and the Nevis guard, neither’ll be looking for a girl in company with wanderers what know how to keep out of sight. They’ll be looking for a lamb in a collar, alone on the high road. You couldn’t do better, if you want to get to Bane Nevis on your own terms.”
Despite her reluctance, Anya knew what he said to be true.
“Very well,” she conceded gracelessly. “But if I change my mind, I won’t give you the chance to try and follow me a second time. I’ll find a way to get clear of you, and then I’ll just be gone.”
Tieran gave her a rueful look. “Dunno how I feel about that, Anya Astraea. I’ve always been the one leaving, never the one what got left.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” she sniffed, but when Tieran reached out, she took his hand.
“Want my coat back,” he said, nodding at the oilskin she wore.
“It’s my coat. I’m reclaiming it on account of you being so much trouble.”
“It’s never yours. I stole it, fair and square.”
“I’m leaving now. Enjoy your family.”
“… It’s your coat.”
TEN Low Roads
If the lanes and fields Anya had journeyed across with Tieran seemed out of the way, the paths the wanderers chose were like relics from a forgotten world. They favored the low roads, which predated the Romans—ancient lanes sunk into the earth itself, with tall soil banks surrounding them on either side. In open areas, grasses overgrew the embankments, but most often, trees grew up around them and dappled the hollow ways with green light. The wanderers seemed to know instinctively where they might speak among themselves and where they ought to fall silent, if they wished to pass through the countryside entirely unnoticed.
The group had no beasts of burden—everyone, down to the smallest child, carried a pack. Midge was, in fact, the only animal among them, and she frisked along from family to family, basking in the adoration and tidbits bestowed upon her.
Even Anya was in a better frame of mind. After their conversation of the night before, Tieran seemed petrified that she’d vanish if he looked away from her for a moment, and he was clumsily attempting to make himself agreeable. He wasn’t particularly good at it, but she appreciated the effort.
Matthias, too, was trying with obvious desperation to be as considerate as he could of both Tieran and Anya.
“Have you traveled with our Tieran for long?” he asked courteously as Anya and the thief walked with him at the head of the procession of wanderers.
“For a few days,” Anya said.
Matthias glanced at her worriedly. “And he hasn’t… taken anything of yours?”
“I’m right here!” Tieran protested. “I can hear you both.”
Anya ignored him. “No. Yes. Well, that is, he stole my pack and left me in a churchyard crypt, but I found him in the end and took back what was mine. And before that, he got me out of some trouble in Sarum. I don’t like to think what would have happened if he hadn’t come for me. So all in all, one thing balances the other out.”
Matthias gave the two of them a searching look, as if he were trying to solve a puzzle. “And would you say you’ve been traveling with him, or he’s been traveling with you?”
“The last,” Tieran and Anya said simultaneously.
Matthias blinked. “Really? Only I’ve never known my boy here to go out of his way for anyone.”
“Oh, um. I suppose I’m just persuasive,” Anya said. The scarlet band, tucked away safely in her pocket, felt as if it might burn clear through her skin.
Tieran, momentarily forgetting his dedication to being agreeable, caught her eye behind Matthias’s back.
Liar, he mouthed.
Anya gave him a fierce look before taking a brisk step forward and smiling up at Matthias in an attempt to hide her guilt.
“I suppose you are,” the big man said thoughtfully.
Not long after, Matthias called a halt, so that the littlest ones and the elders could rest and food and water could be passed around. Anya settled herself in with Midge, and Tieran wordlessly sat down on the dog’s opposite side. The thief hunched himself into the oilskin coat like a brooding crow, and Anya wasn’t entirely sure how he’d got it. She’d used it as a makeshift pillow the night before, but couldn’t remember packing it or giving it to him either. She’d begun to think idly of chiding him for that, when a pair of bright voices rang out.
“Hello!”
Ella and Janie stood before them, arm in arm and beaming as they shot meaningful looks from Anya to Tieran and back again.
“We never really got a chance to chat last night, what with you disappearing so sudden-like,” Janie said. The more outspoken of the two, she had a narrow, clever face and laughing, deep brown eyes. Ella by contrast was shorter, soft and sweet, her eyes lit with gold. “We’re Tieran’s cousins, so we thought we’d better come make you feel welcome.”
“Not my cousins,” Tieran said around an enormous mouthful of one of Anya’s cakes of waybread. She wasn’t sure how he’d got that, either—she hadn’t even opened the pack yet.
“Well, we’re as close to cousins as you’re ever likely to have, unless you found some long-lost family during your latest spontaneous absence,” Janie said.
“Oh, leave him be, Jane,” Ella said easily. “You snipe at him too much and he’ll just leave again. Then you’ll be back to pestering me.”
She turned to Anya with the same warm smile she’d offered the night before. “You said your name’s Anya, yes?”
Anya nodded. “Anya Astraea.”
A swift look passed between the sisters.
“Have you considered a name for the road?” Ella asked. “None of us go by what we were called before… well, before we started traveling. It’s just safer that way, leaving your name and your past behind.”
“Anya’s common enough,” Janie pointed out. “You could keep that, but Astraea’s not a name you hear very often. Why not take a page out of Tieran’s book, and try on something new?”
Anya blinked. “Right now?”
Ella gave her an encouraging look. “We’ve all done it, most of us more than once. No one changes as often as Tieran here, but among our people, it’s fairly ordinary. So let’s hear it. Who’s the new Anya?”
“Leave her be,” Tieran grumbled.
“You know it’s for the best,” Janie chided him. “And as you up and vanished half a year ago without a word, you don’t get a say in what happens with the rest of us. Matthias and Mum worry when you go, there’s no use any of us pretending they don’t.”
“Didn’t ask for anyone to worry over me.”
“Doesn’t matter if you asked or not, we do,” Ella said reproachfully.
“Anya of Stull,” Anya said without thinking. No sooner had she spoken the words than she wished them back, because Tieran stared fixedly at the ground before him and went red to the tips of his ears.
Janie frowned. “Where’s Stull?”
Anya shrugged, feigning casualness for Tieran’s benefit as much as for anyone. “I don’t know, and I don’t much care. But I heard of it in passing and it’s the first thing I thought of. It doesn’t mean anything to me, though.”
Tieran’s glance at her was sharp as steel, and Anya felt entirely at sea.
“You should pick someplace else,” Ella told her sensibly. “A place you’ve got a connection to, so you’ll remember it.”
Anya opened and shut her mouth. She had no connections to anywhere beyond the wood—all her roots were in Weatherell, and she’d torn them up to go to the mountain.
“If she says she’s Anya of Stull, she’s Anya of Stull, just leave it at that.” Tieran was bristling now, though Janie and Ella seemed entirely unbothered by his ill temper. Janie laughed and bent over him, planting a kiss on the crown of his shorn head as he glared daggers.
“Love, you know we’re only here to tease,” she said. “You’re such an easy mark. And we’re trying to sort out what Anya of Stull sees in you. You’re not exactly charming.”
“Or attractive,” Ella chimed in with an impish grin, finally switching to her sister’s side of things.
“And you’re much less clever than you think,” Janie finished.
Salvation for Tieran arrived in the form of Lee, who came up behind the girls and gave them a warning look.
“You’d better not be bothering our new girl,” Lee said. “She’s not used to the two of you. Give her a few days to get adjusted, for pity’s sake.”
“We’re not bothering her at all,” Janie said airily. “We’re bothering Tieran.”
Lee grew easier at once, giving each of her daughters a fond smile. “Well, that’s all right then, he can look after himself. Just see you’re both back to help me with Nell and Finch by the time we halt this evening—they’re getting up in years for the pace we’ve been setting, so best we make sure they get a rest while they can. Tonight we’ll camp along the low road, and tomorrow we stop for work.”
“What kind of work?” Janie asked, looking intrigued.
Lee shook her head. “You’ll find out tomorrow, same as everyone else.”
“I was just going to pry Janie away from tormenting Tieran anyhow,” Ella said, slipping her arm through Lee’s. “We’ve promised the Prynns we’ll walk with them for the afternoon.”
And then all three of them were gone, leaving the space around Anya and Tieran feeling empty and quiet. When she glanced at the thief, his face was drawn into an unconscious scowl.
“What’s wrong?” Anya asked. But Tieran’s attention was fixed on Matthias.
“Why’re we stopping for work in warm weather?” he said. “Thought that was too risky. Thought we only stayed in one place and hired folk out for jobs in the cold months, when there are fewer people about.”
Matthias gave no answer. He kept his eyes fixed on the next untraveled bend in the low road and took a stolid bite of cheese.
Tieran swore under his breath.
After a short while, Matthias got to his feet. For a moment, he let one of his big hands rest on Tieran’s shoulder.
“I won’t lie to you,” Matthias said to the thief. “You know that’s not my way. But I’m not blaming you, either, understand?”
This time it was Tieran who said nothing, as Matthias stumped off in the direction Lee and her girls had gone.
“It’s my fault,” Tieran said once Matthias was out of earshot. There was a cutting edge to his voice, and Anya knew it was meant for no one but himself. “They’re taking risks they wouldn’t otherwise, because they’re missing what I stole from them.”
“I’m sorry,” Anya murmured.
Tieran shrugged, but his usual sharp look had given way to consuming regret.
“Just gonna have to fix it,” he said. “Just gonna have to find a way to pay them back.”
* * *
A hushed but festive air hung over the wanderers the next morning, as Anya got up stiff and damp with dew. They all seemed to be anticipating what was to come, with the possible exception of Tieran and Matthias. The thief sat morosely on his own, and Matthias kept casting anxious glances in his direction, transparently afraid that his flighty charge would vanish.
Anya busied herself with making a pot of porridge, to hide the fact that she had no idea what her role for the day was to be.
“Well, that’s just lovely. Thank you, Anya,” Matthias said with a surprised smile when she brought him his shallow tin bowl, filled to the brim and steaming. He radiated a constant kindness she couldn’t help but feel drawn to, and her feelings of being out of place and at loose ends began to dissipate as they ate in congenial silence.
Tieran did not touch the porridge Anya set down beside him. After a moment, Midge appeared from somewhere in their straggling, makeshift camp and bolted down Tieran’s breakfast on his behalf. Absently, the thief reached out and stroked one of her silky ears.
“He gets like this, on occasion,” Matthias said apologetically to Anya as he caught her eyeing the boy and the dog. “It’s none of our faults, and nothing any of us can do much about. Best to just let him find his way to better spirits.”
“You’re right, it’s his own fault,” Anya said, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her chin atop them. “He told me as much. Said he stole from you, and the rest of the wanderers, and feels awful about it all. It’s weighing on him dreadfully—he means to find a way to pay you back.”
Matthias gave Anya a searching look, forehead furrowing, gray eyes thoughtful. “He told you all that?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never known him to own up to a wrongdoing before, much less let on he was sorry for it. I think you may have had more truth from Tieran in three days than I’ve got in all our years together,” Matthias said ruefully.
Anya’s face went hot. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to—”
Matthias raised a hand. “Don’t be. Every night, I pray to whatever god might be listening that my boy will find someone he can be honest with. Didn’t ever think it had to be me. I’m glad he crossed paths with you, Anya Astraea.”
“Oh… it’s Anya of Stull now,” she said. “Ella and Janie seemed to think I ought to call myself something different on the road.”
“They’re clever girls,” Matthias said, an amused light in his eyes. “Don’t let Janie convince you otherwise with her chatter. The pair of them see more of what goes on among our lot than anyone else, and what’s more, they keep other folks’ business to themselves. There’s not much anyone here wouldn’t do for either of them, and they’re kind to Tieran, in their own way. They’d be good friends to you, if you let them.”
The last was gently pointed, and Anya knew Matthias had been watching her, and the way she kept herself at a distance and felt at odds among the wanderers.
“I know,” she said. “It’s just, I’ve never been much good with people I don’t know well. And I had a sister—a twin—who d—”
Anya’s voice faltered, and she took a moment to steady herself before carrying on. “Who died, this past spring. We were very close. She was everything to me, and I can’t seem to sort out how to be without her.”
“It’s not been long,” Matthias said, and the reassurance behind his words made Anya want to weep. “Losses like that take time. And you don’t get past them all at once—some days, you’ll think you’re all right, and then others it’ll all come back to you. That’s the way of grief. You never really lose it, you just learn to live with it better.”
Anya said nothing, but Matthias could sense the question in her.
“I lost someone I loved a great deal,” he said gently. “It’s been a long while, and I still feel it some days. But if I could weather that, I think you’re enough to weather what you’re walking through. And we’ll help if we can. Thing is, Anya, if you lie down with us and break bread with us, then in our eyes, you’re family. Same as Tieran, same as me or Lee or her girls. Can’t help unless you let us, though. That’s your decision to make.”
The prospect of telling Matthias everything was almost unbearably tempting. Anya’s lies of commission and omission haunted her as surely as Ilva did, and it would be a relief to unburden herself to someone. But she could not bring herself to do it. Could not meet kindness and welcome with secrets that might pose a danger to their hearer or lower her in the estimation of this considerate and gentle stranger.
“Can I ask you something?” she ventured instead. “Something about… all of this?” Anya gestured vaguely about herself, encompassing Matthias and Tieran and the sunken lane and the wanderers scattered across a quarter mile of its length. Matthias squinted, as if he could already anticipate what she meant to ask.
“You can,” he said. “Only thing is, I might not have an answer for you.”
“I only wanted to know why you’ve all chosen this,” Anya said. “Why you stay on the move, and keep to the low roads, trying to go unnoticed by the Elect and whatever guards happen to be about.”
