After another five hours of travel, we veered off to the side of the road to rest for the night. There was a large clearing of grassland to the south, which made for an excellent rest stop. Night travel was notoriously dangerous. It took almost an hour for every cart to clear the road and find a spot on the flat, grassy plane. The cluster of carts, wagons, and carriages practically formed a city. The more well-to-do traders had personal fires near their tents and helpers attending to the horses.
Even within our clustered group of desperate travelers, there was class separation. Those who couldn't afford food slept closer to the barrier of carts lined up along the south end of the campsite. The soup on offer was little more than salty water and hardtack. But I was hungry and lacked the luxury of choice.
As I sat cross-legged on the grass, mopping up the last of my stew, I glanced at the rest. Envious eyes and sunken cheeks stared at our group sipping away at dinner. I felt some small amount of pity before I abandoned any notion of sharing my supplies.
What benefit would alleviating their hunger for a day solve? Precisely nothing but revealing that I have food in my bag and making myself a target.
Families huddled around the fires, shivering in the chilly wind, desperate to find some warmth in nothing more than their canvas sacks.
I finished my meal and, as usual, found somewhere to isolate myself. Keeping the forest to my back. The endless expanse of darkness seemed safer than the people, so I walked over to one of the carriages that sat along the edges of the camp, as a barrier, and rested against a wheel. My cloak provided enough protection against the night's chill, so I didn't need to sit by the fire.
Not every peasant was idle, however, I watched as a gaunt, brown-haired woman, her skin bronzed from the sun, walked over to a pair of guards. After a short conversation, they headed in my direction. Completely ignoring me, they walked behind the wagons away from the sight of anyone else.
I heard the ruffling of clothes and silent whispers. Then the slapping of flesh was punctuated by the grunts of one of the guards. It continued for some time until the first guard finished, and the other guard took his place. The entire process only took a quarter hour. The men left first, then a minute later, she walked back towards the other peasants, her gait slightly awkward, with a decently sized square of hard tack in her hand. She sat next to an older woman, sneakily handing her the hard tack before the old woman gave her the annoying child to nurse.
‘Is this what they meant by, ‘it could be worse’?’
I stared at the young mother, nursing her child. The pity I felt slowly curdled into anger. I couldn't care less about the guards. I even appreciated her willingness to do what needed to be done to make sure she and her child survived. Pride can't fill a stomach after all. Yet I couldn't stop resenting the woman.
Chances are, the child dies on the journey, and a despoiled woman wasn't worth much as a bride. Whoring was likely her fate.
At times, I wondered if Aalia’s promise of paradise in her eternal garden was a falsehood created to give comfort to the powerless. Why else would any of these wretches carry on with their meaningless lives?
‘Is that why suicide is an insult to Anier?’
The trade of flesh for food happened three more times before most fell asleep. I reached into my pack and sneakily pulled out a strip of dried meat.
~
Over the next week, I reached an epiphany. I was truly isolated from the real world, never appreciating the true depth of human depravity.
I’ve certainly suffered, but witnessing the filth and rot that existed amongst the lowest rung of society was like jumping into an ice-cold river. One night, I walked off to relieve my bladder only to stumble upon two of the peasants rutting away behind a low bush. The man didn't even stop his thrusting, even when we met eyes. From that point on, I made sure to keep a keen ear out for such things.
This morning served to lower my view of them even more. “What’s the fight about?” I asked a blonde man next to me.
“Fightn’ for bread, some bet I think,”
I recalled several war stories; how some Lords would gather up all the peasants to be used as fodder, their fate being a swift death on the battlefield. As a child, it spoke of cruelty. But now, as I watched two men locked in a deathmatch over a piece of bread, I understood them.
If the situation were right, humans would behave no differently than animals. Do we care when we slaughter them for food or work a horse until it dies? No, they were just animals, not people. This was why they could watch two desperate men fight each other to the death for entertainment. They were not watching people; they were watching animals.
I didn't know what started the fight or when the betting began, but the guards and a few of the well-off tradesmen were having a grand ole time watching the spectacle. None of the guards interfered. Even as the larger man beat the smaller senseless. So, it had to be something that occurred with some regularity. Eventually, the larger man got on top, pummeling the smaller with his heavy fists. After a particularly powerful blow, the smaller one stopped moving.
“Damn it, that's a silver gone,” Ruben complained. Coins were exchanged between some of the guards and merchants.
The winner walked over to one of the merchants, who clapped him on the back like a proud father and shoved a strip of jerky in his hand.
The man bowed respectfully, and the crowd dispersed.
‘Was it really so easy to control a person with food?’
My eyes followed him for some time. He sat with a young woman whose stomach was just starting to swell, and then I understood.
‘He has a family, that's how to control them. His love for them is a weakness. If I fell in love with someone, would I abandon my goals? I don't think I love anyone, save for myself. Even Sim, Dim, and Helan were at best a mild affection. I certainly wouldn't give up for their sake. If my mother and Bren loved me as a daughter, would I be content to marry whomever and push out children?’
The idea was disgusting.
‘I refuse to allow myself to fall into complacency; the only path is forward.’
The crowd cleared, leaving the unconscious boy lying in the grass. No one came to help him.
In the morning, after boarding began, someone kicked him twice. His body, even after an entire night, remained motionless. We left him behind to die. The porters had two jobs. Bringing us to the capital and protecting us from bandits, they seemed to follow that to the letter; everything else was fair game.
‘It was a meaningless and undignified death. The pain that the boy’s mother suffered from birthing him, the animals and plants that died to feed him, meant nothing. Everything, every hope or dream he ever had, ended, for a piece of bread.’
After an hour of traveling, I noticed something, or rather, the lack of something. The cries of a babe.
The silence without it was deafening.
~
It took us several days to reach a village. Duncask was a farming village; the houses were spread out wider to accommodate fields of barley, wheat, and groups of livestock. However, two hundred starving peasants watching a field of wheat was a recipe for problems. The forest wasn't exactly bountiful, so stealing, prostitution, and threats were common.
The most curious thing was that they were content to steal, threaten, and fight only those within their class. I was never bothered since I ate with the guards every other day. If they were motivated, they could take over the entire caravan with sheer numbers and desperation. But again, most had loved ones. If they died, then who would care for them?
No matter how I looked at it, the human need for love and companionship was little more than another weakness of our disgusting species.
Our path to the capital had curved north, like Farway before. Duncask was excited to see the massive trading caravan.
As soon as all the caravans parked off to the side, they were practically mobbed by a horde of people ready to spend coin.
We all disembarked, most of us sitting off to the side of the road.
Stalls were set up, and the mummers' troupe assembled their stagecoach to entertain the villagers.
I watched as the large man who won the fight for bread helped his pregnant lady down from the wagon. They walked over to Ruben and, after a short conversation, parted ways. Before they were halfway to the village, an elderly couple excitedly greeted them. The old woman wrapped the pregnant girl in a warm hug while the men shook hands and clapped each other’s shoulders.
There was something to be respected there. This journey wasn't easy by any means; he brought his wife and child halfway across Redstone unmolested and uninjured. Shame that kind of strength would be used for nothing but farming.
I shoved them out of my mind, ignored the chatter, and focused on the road ahead. One week left until the Capitol. I didn't dare take out my quill and ink; it was too valuable an item to show around desperate people.
Finding a sufficient stick, I practiced my writing on the dirt road. Names of businesses, people, and places. I moved on to math, formulating word problems in my head to solve.
I took a deep breath, savoring the scent of fresh air, wondering what my life would be like in the capital. Only in this moment of quiet contemplation did I realize how far I was away from home.
My name day would be in a week, and the new year the next. Already, I had ended the life of another human. Vile, though he may have been, it couldn't be ignored. I couldn't and didn't regret my actions; in fact, I was grateful for the lesson.
Ruthlessly using an advantage to get what you want was fraught with danger. How could Clark have known that I had a weapon on hand and the willingness to use it? It was his own stupidity and eagerness that got him killed. I would not make the same mistake. The dagger strapped to the small of my back weighed heavily.
‘What if I had to kill someone innocent to get my way? Could I do it? Would I hesitate? Must I abandon any sense of goodness? Magic requires sacrifice, Emyr said. Killing in self-defense would not condemn my soul. But could I murder?’
‘Magic requires sacrifice.’
‘Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice.’
The word echoed in my mind.
‘It seems I haven't even begun to understand its concepts. What would I become if I sacrificed my very soul?’