Chapter 9: Ch 8

Leah goes to practice with her team that morning, the rest of the five still celebrating her recovery. Having already run through her exercises after the nightmare, she is incredibly on-top of things – Comparatively, that is. I’m still miles behind the rest of them. Not to mention that I don’t think I could actually kill someone, if I had to. Her face falls. Too late for that, I guess. Huh. I killed someone yesterday. Funny how your brain protects you from things sometimes. She focuses on the training to stop from dwelling on it.

Everyone takes her intensity and gradually returning skill as another sign that she is nearly back to her old self, despite the fact that she’s only gotten the one memory back – and can now swing her shield without accidentally hitting herself in the face.

“How did it happen, though?” Iris asks, swinging a fake war-hammer at a slow speed for Leah to practice blocking. Leah still feels uncomfortable with any reminder of what Iris can do, but at least the dull wooden thunking of the practice weapon against her shield is different from the sound it made during the initial battle.

“I think…it was because of Wellen.” Leah shifts her stance and braces for the next impact, feeling it in her knees even after correcting her stance.

“Don’t stand all weird, go like this,” Iris says, placing her feet. Leah tries to copy, and Iris sighs a bit watching her shuffle around. She kicks Leah’s ankles into place until she is satisfied. “There, see? Stable.” She wallops the shield again, and Leah takes the impact better. “So what did Wellen do?”

“He tried a bit of magic on me, to try and recover some of my memories. He mentioned that it would be a dream, but I guess I just didn’t realise it would be so…dreamlike.”

Iris’s swings stop coming. She looks at Leah, side-eyeing her, as though checking if she can see any residual magic.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just…odd to think of magic in one of Volst’s provinces. Even this far out.”

“It’s not so uncommon,” Vivitha says, overhearing. “There are all sorts of ghost stories from the south, about people dabbling in magic and having it curse them, or turn against them, or consume them, or – ”

“We get it, Vivi.” Iris says. “Magic’s dangerous. Don’t need to tell me. Certainly don’t need to tell old empty-skull here.”

Leah chuckles. “I’m not looking to try and perform it myself, but I’ll consider anything that gets me back to normal.” Back to normal as in back home, or back to normal as in my memories back. Still not sure what I’m hoping for. Sort of existentially terrifying to think about it for too long. Let’s just focusing on beating each other up instead.

“Well, anything that gets you back to us,” Meredith says, with a casual shrug that seems only partly affected. The training resumes.

Leah takes a pause after a couple hours, to go up to her rooms for lunch. She has figured out the ‘normal’ path by now, and can get there without relying on the servants’ passages. I don’t really feel like bumping into Kimry, right now. Not sure how I’d react. A blush starts pre-emptively spreading, and she rubs her face to get rid of it. Stop that now. You’re a grown woman.

Distracted, she doesn’t notice anyone else in the hallway until Jeno clears her throat, a few feet away from her.

“Lady Jeno,” Leah says with a deep nod, mentally taking her earlier thoughts and stuffing them into a closet of her mind, then slamming the door.

“Leah,” Jeno nods back. “Will we do the tour of the walls today?” She asks it demurely, standing prim and proper in the hallway, in every way the perfect picture of a young Lady.

Leah remembers her face from two nights before and forces down another blush. “I can’t today,” she says, with an apologetic smile.

“Oh?” Jeno snaps out of her act, seeming sincerely disappointed.

“Nothing major. Team business,” Leah says dismissively, and Jeno buys it.

“There will be other days,” she says with a smile, then resumes her path to the dining hall, the hem of her robe swishing gently. Leah does not watch her go, lest someone catch her at it.

Doubling back down to the servant’s halls, she requests to the kitchen staff that they send up someone with her food, as she wishes to be alone this lunch. I’m not sure what to do if they send Kimry. God, how did this world’s Leah ever get into this situation? This is the single most irresponsible…well, hey now. I’ve hardly done anything to repair it, now have I?

Keep focused, Leah. Priorities. Is this really one of the other Leah’s memories, and did it really come back through magic? Or are the five just so desperate for any sign of my recovery that they’re grasping at straws?

In her rooms, she desperately riffles through the diary, seeing if it goes so far back as the Gael’s Gree mission, but she can find nothing about any mission. Even the ones that mark times – all about moon phases – only mention that, not what else is happening. She skims through to find the moon ones, or any that catch her eye.

“It’s the new moon tonight. I’m going to ride Beeswax to the apothecary. She likes the smells of his shop.”

“I wonder what the Ie Hossai faire is doing now. I miss travelling with them on the ships to new cities. It’s been years since I saw the copper-haired captain.”

“It’s the new moon tonight. I want to swim in the river, but Iris says it has leeches.”

“I know how to tie a fish hook knot now. Here is a very not good drawing of how.”

This one is followed by a scribble in the margins, which Leah can’t decipher at all. However, it does not look like the knot she has practiced with Kain.

“With my next earnings I want to buy a dark blue-purple headband. I’m tired of brown and green. I want to be recognisable.”

Leah snorts a bit at that one. At least I understand what it means. I wonder if they’re all code for something or other? She reads on.

“It was the new moon last night. We’re stuck in a swamp with no clean water. Yuck.”

“It’s the new moon tonight. Maybe the moon phase is running late, because I’m early.”

Suddenly she understands. She desperately tries to remember what phase the moon is in now, and so how long she has to figure out how periods are handled here. This, she decides, is something she won’t be able to talk to Wellen about.

She stands in the room, and decides to see how far her instinct can take her. She thinks of the notes she has found in the diary, of washing and going to the apothecary for menstruation, and tries to feel what she would do if she needed something for her period. She is struck by the realisation that she is essentially a human Ouija board, as she allows her feet to carry her where they will, her eyes closed, her arms outstretched. She stops when her left hand hits a wall, and she finds herself at the corner of her dresser. In the far corner on top, hidden behind a candlestick and a flint, she finds a wooden box with a moon symbol on it. Within are a number of brown rags, vaguely stained-looking but clean, like old underwear that have been hit unprepared by flow many times before.

Leah is ecstatic to have found a box of what are essentially pads, but rejoices in the mundane practicality of it. This is a success beyond what she anticipated. I can do so much unconsciously; fight, ride, and apparently find possessions? Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to get through life in this world without ever revealing myself to be an outsider.

Once again she is hit with the loneliness of life in this world from now on: never seeing her parents again, or their dog, or her friends. She’s a little happy to be somewhere where she seems to be supported and stable – at least I have a job here, she thinks to herself – but she remembers the fact that the washrooms here are all either latrines or chamber pots, with shells instead of toilet paper, and suddenly she misses the amenities of modern living. Would it be ethical for me to introduce these people to indoor plumbing centuries before they are probably due to do so?

A knock at the door signals that her lunch has arrived. She stows the box of pads and turns to answer it, and finds a new face at the door; a young-ish girl, maybe fifteen, with rough-cropped brown hair and scars on her ankles. Her fingernails are dirty, but she holds the tray of food very neatly.

“Thank you very much,” Leah says kindly, though watching with uncertain eyes.

The girl seems awkward under the weight of politeness, and turns away with a quick, clumsy curtsy. Leah notices that she has a bruise on her temple.

“Wait a moment,” Leah says, and the girl flinches and turns back. Leah gestures to her own temple, at the spot the bruise is forming on the girl’s head. “How’d you get that?”

The girl seems surprised to be addressed so directly. She stammers out something about a bit of roughhousing with the boys, and Leah sharpens her look. The girl seems truly afraid of her, so she tries to soften her voice when she asks the girl for her name, and what she means by roughhousing.

The girl’s eyes dart nervously, and she barely whispers out a name that Leah half-catches – Hay-something? – then runs off towards the servants’ passage leading back to the kitchens.

Leah closes the door and decides she must not stay here; that no matter how much she tries, she could never forget that this is a world which, as Wellen once described, both worshiped women and promoted their strength, yet denied their wisdom and teachings and restricted their education. That young girl was clearly abused, and I could not live in an estate where that happened. That Kimry was purchased was awful enough, but a child carrying food and getting beaten by the others…

She eats the food slowly, not touching half of it, her stomach writhing in anger. Finally she gives up on eating, and leaves for the stables.

Once there, she saddles Beeswax and mounts up, all without thinking, and starts riding off – past Wellen’s home, out to the farmland and orchards around the city. She tries to clear her mind of everything, even the dull ache of her ribs from when she fell, but the pain keeps intruding. As she rides, she gets more and more lost, and more and more in tune with Beeswax.

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Leah feels the knife at her hip, and the shield which she can’t remember picking up. She feels a jouster’s helmet on her head, and a lance under her arm, held against her side. She hears the cheering of an audience, and the clanking of metal plates and cups.

She thinks of the one time as a child that she went to a medieval show with her high school class – how theatrical the whole thing was, how they served chicken with peas and gravy, and unlimited refills of icy-cold water served by women in corsets and ringlets and bright red lipstick. She thinks of how unreal it was compared to the feeling she has now.

She feels the impact of her opponent’s lance on her breastplate, as choreographed, and she falls from the black horse she is made to ride for the shows, a shower of wood splinters falling over her.

When she hits the dirt road and Beeswax snorts in fear at suddenly losing her rider, Leah snaps out of the memory-fantasy. Her ribs ache intensely once again, and she gasps out and begins to moan. Almost instantly her eyes tear up, just as a sort of shock response, and Leah begins to cry, a few weak whimpers as she gets her air back. The shock passes, and the pain rushes in fully to show itself; lightning racing along her ribs at ever breath and every shift.

She is left gasping shallowly into the afternoon sun, sprawled on a dirt road as the spring shows its warmth. The sky is a wonderfully clear blue overhead, and Leah stares into it, tears spilling back and into her hair.

Faintly, memories return to her of lying in the hay fields in summer, green grasses rolling in the wind, scattered with clover flowers and alfalfa flowers. That’s real. That’s real. I was never a jouster. I’d never even ridden a horse before a few days ago. Growing up on the farm, hiding in the fields, watching the clouds. That’s me.

Beeswax walks back over to her and nuzzles her. Ah yes. But for now I have a very real horse who might step on me if don’t get up soon. Or might eat me. Are horses supposed to want to eat fabric?

Leah reaches up to pet the horse’s nose and push it away from where it is chewing on her shirt shoulder, but the movement makes her even more sore. Agonizingly, she manages to pull herself up with Beeswax’s help, holding on to the reins and moving bit by tiny bit. Upright at last, she turns around to see where she is.

She has never been this way before. Near her is a creek that feeds the river, and a few wide fields of very young plants, only a few inches tall, a half-dozen tiny leaves on frail little stems. Finally she recognises it from her trip to the market; she’s in the middle of farmland, between both bridges but closer to the south one.

What was that jousting thing? Was that another memory? I wasn’t asleep, though…how the hell was that spell supposed to work, anyhow? You’d think a guy would warn you when he’s going to give you something that causes spontaneous flashbacks. You know, ‘while using this product, don’t operate heavy machinery, and don’t ride horses.’

Someone calls out from a nearby house, rushing to the road to help her; Leah turns to him in surprise. He must have rushed far to only just be reaching me, after I struggled so long to get up. Or maybe I’m lucky and he didn’t see that part. She waves a hand to let him know she is alright, but it hurts to do so.

“What a fall! Did something spook the horse?” The man asks. Ah. He saw. “I can help you get back up, if you need it, or…” He trails off as his eyes slide to the shield. “Oh. Oh, goodness me! You’re one of the warriors, aren’t you? One of the five?”

His manner immediately becomes obsequious, and Leah cuts him off quickly. “Please, don’t. I don’t want to be treated like someone special.” She talks in short breaths with her ribs aching deeply, twingeing. “I’d appreciate some help getting back on my horse, though.”

The man watches how she holds her side, and shakes his head. “You took the fall rough, Miss. You come inside and wait, while I send for the physician.”

“Wellen?” Leah asks hopefully.

 “Dear no, not the scholar. You need medical help.”

Leah raises an eyebrow with humour, despite the pain. Have I been using second-rate alternative medicine all this time?

The man leads her down the path to a wooden cottage surrounded by vegetables. He sends his daughter to get help, while his wife helps Leah out of her outer layers and inspects the injury.

“Did something spook the horse?” the woman asks.

“No, she’s too steady for that,” Leah says, wondering if that’s even true. “I think I was just too distracted.”

“Not a good time to be distracted, running full-tilt like that.”

Leah bites back a joke at just how apt a descriptor ‘full-tilt’ is. “Certainly a lesson I’ve learned today, ma’am.” She lets out a tense breath as the woman prods gently at her ribs.

“It’s Mrs. Shesop, not ‘Ma’am.’ No need to be titling me, Miss, and I doubt you have the authority for it. And you’re lucky it wasn’t a sharper lesson,” she adds tautly. “Getting thrown can be lethal.”

“You don’t need to tell her that, my dear,” the man says, passing through the room. He pointedly does not look at Leah, but Leah still blushes a little. “The woman’s a warrior; Gods avow she’s probably seen people thrown to their deaths before, even outside of battle. There was a man up on Fullom road, got thrown two years back, and – ”

“She doesn’t need to hear that story, my dear,” the woman says with a snarky but soft look to her husband. “Mistakes happen, and that’s all this was. How far does the pain reach, Miss?” She presses on Leah’s side, and Leah yelps. “Oh dear. The doctor’s on his way?”

The man nods. “He won’t be long.”

Leah is there only another ten minutes before the physician arrives. When he does, he greets the family by name, setting up supplies on the cleaned-off kitchen table. He applies a comfrey poultice under linen bandages, and gives her willow bark tea, bitter and burning hot. At least it’s just willow, not whatever Wellen gave me last time. Leah drinks it slowly, holding it one-handed to minimise the movement of her injured half.

The family’s daughter is looking at her admiringly, head peeking around the doorframe of the house’s bedroom. When the physician leaves to pack his bags she finally dares speaking. “You’re an adventurer, aren’t you? One of the warriors?”

“I suppose,” Leah says, still nursing the tea.

“Where’s the furthest place you’ve ever been?”

Leah’s mind is blank. “Algi, I guess. Or out in Bair; Gael’s Gree.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a mountain range. We had to clear out a thieves’ den there.”

“What’s the maddest thing you’ve ever seen?”

“Uhh…” All of this? Every single moment of my life for the past week? “Giant spiders, probably.”

The girl narrows her eyes. “How giant?”

Leah shrugs, looking around the room. “About that size,” she says, pointing to a nearby cauldron, then wincing as the movement jars her ribs under the bandages. “With legs longer than yours.

The child’s eyes go wide. “Really?”

“Yeah, but they were far away from here. You won’t find any outside of Bair.”

“Was it magic?” the girl asks, in a conspiratorial whisper that carries to every corner of the house. The mother looks at her critically.

Leah nods solemnly. “Dangerous stuff, you know.” Or so I’ve been told. Sounds pretty cool, frankly. Well, not the giant spiders part. That sounds fucking awful. But the spooky ghost-story stuff is fun. This kid would probably love Vivitha.

The girl looks ready to ask her more, but her mother shoos her away to do chores and Leah is left to rest in the kitchen of the home, the fire burning at her side. After an hour’s rest the pain killer has kicked in, and Leah can mount Beeswax again – with the farmer’s help.

I’ll ask Meredith about repayment…I doubt there’s anything like Medicare here, and if there is I probably wouldn’t get it anyways because I’m apparently not a citizen. Or is it employer-provided? I wouldn’t mind seeing the contract, but it would just make them suspicious if I asked. Too smart. I’ll ask Meredith. Or Wellen.

It’s too late to go see him tonight, she decides glumly. Maybe I can send for him? Do I have that authority, or would it be presumptuous? Or, would it be seen as belittling to Wellen? Maybe if I phrase it as an invitation…whatever I do, I need to see him soon. I don’t want another of those dreams, not without warning at least.

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