“I know,” said Precious Wind. “Try not to focus on that. Just keep moving. Chew a bit of apple and spit it out. Keep littering the way, leaving a trail.”
“I didn’t get to say good-bye to Father. Where was he?”
“Prince Orez said he had to go up to the pinnacle. Something happened up there—nothing to do with all this—but he felt he needed to speak to his men personally.”
“Can Abasio come walk with me?”
“He will, a little later. Just along here we want the trail to be unmistakable, not cluttered up by the smell of anyone else. We’re saying ‘smell’ because we don’t know what the real sensory apparatus is. And we’re trying to keep the target specific, so extraneous people don’t get hurt.”
“Only us specific people will get hurt, right?”
Precious Wind bit her tongue, made herself sound calm. “If we do this right, Xulai, nobody gets hurt except it. You and Abasio will have a long life together.”
“Together,” Xulai agreed. “Yes, we will be together.”
They walked up the hill. When Xulai was too weary to walk farther, she sat on the wagon seat next to Abasio and spit bits of food into the road while two of the Tingawan warriors walked alongside. They were dragging some of Xulai’s clothing behind them. She pretended this was an ordinary trip, from which she would be returning. If it had been, she would have had a good excuse for having Nettie Lean make some new clothes. Certainly her old ones wouldn’t fit her. What did women wear when they were pregnant? Would she live long enough to care?
They went around the fourth switchback and began moving to the north once more. “Two more,” said Xulai.
“Two more what?” murmured Abasio.
“Two more switchbacks. The becoming-pure village came after the sixth switchback.”
“How many, all together?”
“Thirteen,” she said. “Thirteen turns, fourteen trips along the cliff. Last time I quit being afraid of the road collapsing after about the first six or seven traverses.”
“You didn’t tell me you were afraid of heights.” He wanted to put his arm around her but decided not to. It was better to keep everything ordinary. Very ordinary.
“I’m not. I’m afraid of roads collapsing. All those heavy nets made me worry. I’m glad we’re not going all the way to the top. I had nightmares about falling into those falls. I wondered if the duchess had some way to get up the falls, like a fish jumping or something.”
“She and Jenger had their own way to get back and forth.”
“Poor Jenger. There was something in his eyes, Abasio. Something that wanted out.”
“I’ll bet. Like a tiger out of a cage.”
“No. That’s how he was trying to be. But in his eyes he was like a child that’s been locked in a dark closet. I saw it just before he died.”
Abasio said nothing. He knew too well what she meant. He had had acquaintances, maybe friends, who had looked like that when they died. Mean, no good, violent, cruel, and when they died they had looked like children, whipped for no reason. He put his arm around her after all.
“Do you think Jenger’s gone somewhere happier?” she asked.
What could he say? Nothing ugly. Not now. “No. I think he’s gone somewhere where nothing will ever lock him in the dark again. Where there is no unhappy. Just birdsong and leaves rustling and the wind.” There was a long silence, interrupted only by the squeak of wagon wheels. Abasio made a mental note to oil them tomorrow, maybe.
She said, “You know what we’re going to do when we get up there, don’t you?”
“I know what you and I are going to do while everyone else is yelling and horses are whinnying. We’re going to climb the wall along the road and get down behind it.”
“Really?” What he had said had sounded like actual information. “Nobody told me. I’m not sure I’m up to climbing . . .”
“There’ll be a net to climb. You’ll do fine. I’ll be right behind you. What you can do now is watch for a couple of wagons coming down. They need to reach the way-halt where we camped just after the sun has gone down, as it’s getting dark.”
“Blue isn’t pulling us. Is there some reason?”
“I didn’t want to risk him. We didn’t need him, so . . .”
“I’m glad. I hope none of the other horses get hurt.”
He thought, I hope no one gets hurt. But if other horses do, they at least won’t blame me for it. Or curse me in absentia.
Time went by. They came to the fifth switchback. Someone had built a path at the end of it, one that led away, around the edge of the cliff to the right. Perhaps there would be a new village there. More time went by. They turned the sixth switchback. They were headed north once more.
When they had gone about halfway, she remembered to look for the wagons coming down. “I see the wagons coming down.”
Abasio looked high to his right, then spoke to one of the walking warriors, who sprinted forward. “We need to drag it out a little,” he said, pulling on the reins. “I’ll check the wheels.”
All the wagons stopped, people watered horses, checked hooves, checked wheels, made considerable fuss about nothing. Above them, at the next switchback, other wagons were doing more or less the same thing. One of the drivers ahead of Abasio raised his voice, shouted something unintelligible, then crawled under a wagon. Someone else shouted about axle trouble. There was some to-ing and fro-ing, this one with a pot of axle grease, that one with a hammer. There were hammer blows, voices raised. Time passed. Abasio spoke to one of the men who again went up the road to see what was happening, which stopped happening upon his arrival. The
