Stupid Mistakes, Foolish Choices, and Dangerous Decisions

Death In Harmony: Part Twenty-Nine of Twenty-Nine

Death In Harmony is the fifth in the Tales of The Lesser Evil and this is the twenty-ninth and final chapter.

This is a fantasy series—not quite grimdark, but dark nevertheless—with complicated and believable characters doing their best to survive in a world simply indifferent to their existence.

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Stupid Mistakes, Foolish Choices, and Dangerous Decisions

The Present: somewhere north of The Pit

Flin watched as the woman shook the man, the familiar, sour taste of fear back in her mouth, a sensation akin to falling in her chest, heart hammering and breathing shallow, fresh cold sweat and tight muscles. She twisted a strand of hair in her fingers, preparing to pluck it out.

‘Tell me, why did you try and take her baby?’ she repeated, ‘Why follow her so far and long?’

He replied, softly, coughed and spat blood to one side, then repeated his words, louder and clearer—the words Flin had been dreading.

‘It’s not her baby. It’s mine.’ He looked directly at Flin, ‘She stole it.’

The woman looked across at Flin, the look on her face clearly demonstrating she was not surprised.

‘She stole him,’ she said.

‘Yes, she stole it. Its mother talked to her, then she…’ he coughed again, longer this time, eyes tearing with the effort to breathe, ‘she,’ he tried again, then choked, bubbling and burbling, gasping and then, finally, falling silent. The woman dropped him to the ground and turned to Flin.

‘Now it’s your turn. You are a storyteller, tell me the real story. And do not forget, Flin, this is your one chance—and you only get that because you saved my life. The real story.’

Flin said nothing for a moment, breathing as deeply as she could, head down, preparing to calm herself. Then she realised—she was calm. Somehow, the revelation she had dreaded, now that it had come to pass, felt like a new chance, a last chance, perhaps, a chance to find a new way to live. She nodded and moved her legs under her, making herself more comfortable, folded her hands in her lap, and began her tale.

‘Sixteen years,’ she said, raising her eyes to meet those of the other woman. ‘It’s been sixteen years. Since then? Since then all I seem to have done is make stupid mistakes, follow some foolish choices and make dangerous decisions. For so many years I wanted my home, I wanted my mother, my sisters, my brother, and even my father—even after he sold me.’ She paused and stopped, swallowing, ordering her thoughts and putting everything in the right order.

‘I wanted the sheep and the shepherds, the dogs and the wolves and the bees in their skeps. I wanted the clear water from the mountains, the dancing night skies and bone numbing cold of the deepest winter. The white fox, the ermine, and the silent ghost owls from the north. I wanted my home more than anything.

‘I could not bring Kadan back, I could not change that, but somewhere my home was waiting and I was wishing, wondering and wandering, from village to town to city to ocean and across the face of the earth. All I wanted was Kadan, but I could not. I took too many risks, lost my path, began to lose hope and my mind. I did stupid things, drank deeply and smoked hard, not even knowing what it was I smoked. I gambled what money I earned and fell in with the wrong people, fell into debt and fell for lies and traps. I was last in The Pit. I was running, I,’ she paused, and stopped, trying to think of the best way to continue, knowing her tale was in the wrong order, that the years were jumbled, her memories jostling for space on her tongue, for their chance to be heard.

This was nothing like telling a story to a paying crowd, nothing like all the times she had dozens of people hanging on every word, every gesture of her hands and every movement of her body. Instead, it was a mess, beginning at the end and looping around to the middle, with no sense of time, no plotline running throughout. She breathed deeply, watching the other women, but she just stood there, looking back at her, no expression on her face at all, unreadable.

‘Sixteen years,’ she repeated and sighed. ‘In The Pit, I borrowed some money from The Tang, but they decided I owed more, wanted me to use my skills to help them kill someone. There are places a Merry can go when others can’t. I woke up, I knew this was not right, that it was not what I should be doing. I had killed before, myself, but this was different. For a day and a half I cried and shook and sweated. I hid away in the city, then stole what I needed. I knew Rharsle, my family, Kadan—they would not have wanted that for me, so I ran.’

She paused, and wiped away the tears she had not noticed she was shedding.

‘Go on.’

‘I stole a horse from The Tang and left the city, heading to the west towards Greystilts. I had arrived in The Pit from the east, so it made sense to go that way, they knew that, they knew I was searching for my home and would be unlikely to backtrack. I left the road and headed into the foothills of the Spires, following smaller routes, passing towns and villages and eventually ending up at the very edge of human habitation. The last place on the trail. That village was two days ride from the nearest and it was strange, odd. When I told you that earlier, it was the truth. The men were different, the women subdued, submissive and cowed. I had paid for a room for a week, some time to rest before heading into the wilder places, but then I began to see more of the women. I saw more than one injury, more than one badly-set bone. I knew I needed to get out as fast as I could so, after just one night, I bought my supplies, had everything ready, just needed to get a few repairs done and my horse reshod. It had slipped a shoe on the last part of the walk to the village; talk about bad luck. That’s when the woman caught me alone.’

‘What woman? Go on.’

Flin had not even noticed she had fallen silent, lost in her memories from scant days before, what now seemed a lifetime ago. She felt a nudge on her arm, one of the dogs seeking attention, and she scratched behind its ear. Seeing this, the other came to her, and she scratched it too.

‘See how they treated the dogs?’ She gestured to the scars, to their visible ribs, ‘See how they recognise I am not a threat to them, how they can trust me? Many animals are like that, they act instinctively, protect themselves when needed, seek affection when they know they can get it. I think the women of that village were the same, so starved of anything but violence, cruelty and abuse that she saw me as the only hope.’

She shook her head, still fussing over the dogs. She wondered if they had ever had any love in their lives.

‘I doubt any other woman had entered the village for years. I suspect no one did, maybe apart from a couple of times a year when traders came for whatever they had to sell or barter. The inn was little more than two rooms, only one merchant. The woman found me on my way from the farrier.’ She briefly thought of the man, now laying naked and dead in the forest below where she sat, and she felt nothing but a sure sense that justice had been done. ‘She had been beaten recently, one eye sealed shut, her arm broken, older bruises and burn scars everywhere. She had the baby.’

She wiped more tears away. As she had run through the forest she had fantasied about going back, slipping through the village unobserved, slitting throats and bringing justice, freeing those who needed freeing, executing those who needed death.

‘The baby you call Kadan, the baby you said was yours.’

‘Yes. She had a small pouch with moss and food with her. She had planned it in advance. She never told me his name, only made me promise to take him. Have you ever had children?’

‘No. I have not, it isn’t something that interests me, children or men. Or women, for that matter.’

‘I tried to get back to my horse, to my gear, my fiddle, but they saw me. I killed the man who had found me,’ she paused briefly, thinking of the look on his face as she had driven her blade up into his brain, ‘he looked surprised I had dared. I doubt anyone had ever stood up to him. I hate bullies. Then I ran.’

‘How far away is this village? Why do you think they followed you so far for one baby?’

‘Six or seven day’s walk, I think. I ran, for,’ she paused, counting in her head, trying to separate the blur of hours and days, ‘a day and a night, then walked quickly for another day or more. There’s not really any set path, just a network of animal trails for the most part.

‘I think the men came after me to kill me, maybe more for that than to get the baby. I think they wanted revenge for the man I killed—and I suppose the fact Kadan is a boy probably had something to do with it. I have never encountered anything like that, men ruling over women, not a single woman on the council, all of them terrified. Have you?’

‘No. I have not.’

Flin knew she had been trained by one of the best liars in the world. Rharsle could spin a yarn and have people believing they were someone else, that water was dry, that green was red, and that the moon could be hooked and pulled to earth. She knew she had been an apt pupil, and she knew she could convince almost anyone of her own stories, her own lies. Many times in her life, her existence had relied on her ability with words, to tease out the result she needed, to cloak truth and massage fact, yet she had surprised herself by simply telling the truth. It felt odd, but strangely liberating. She knew she had to tell the woman more, explain what had happened to her the last time she had fled with a baby. She drew a deep breath, and continued.

‘I’ve not even told you the important parts. If Rharsle—my old teacher—could hear this, I’d be flicked on my ear and made to start again. Kadan, Kadan is the important part. I had Kadan when I was just past my third Sixthday, giving birth in Youlbridge. We managed to escape the city, escape the great fire,’ she began, then paused. It was hard to think of the past, hard to think of something so raw, despite the passing of years. She had spent so long trying to move on, forget and bury the memories, all the time failing, all the time remembering.

‘We escaped through tunnels below the city, avoided men and monsters both, then managed to make it to the woods, avoiding the patrols who were stopping people fleeing. At one point, I met a man, a monk of the Temple of Healing, who told me that rats and their fleas were spreading the disease, were spreading the plague,’ again she paused, thinking back to that conversation, nearly half her life ago, the memory of the terror coursing through her, and the feel of the warm baby strapped to her.

The woman said nothing, waiting for her to continue.

Flin took a deep breath.

‘We were going to travel at night, it seemed safest to avoid people, so we stopped to rest in the day. I was cleaning Kadan when I found the flea and the bites it had left. He seemed well for two days, then the fever arrived. He did not last long, he was so small, so perfect, I…’ she trailed off, looking over at the corpse of the man whose baby she had taken as she gently stroked both the dogs, one of whom licked her hand, sighed, and settled down to sleep beside her. Tears were once more running down her face. It felt good to cry, good to let it out.

The woman stood there, still silent, waiting, with very little expression on her face.

‘I buried Kadan in the forest by the trail. It was a beautiful spot, a big old oak, climbing roses, some clematis and honeysuckle. The air smelled so good. After, I just sat there for two days, not sure what to do. Somebody found me that way, and together we walked through the Templelands, crossed the Southern Severed Spine to the Great Lake, and eventually travelled to Funnelside. I carried on looking for my home, kept exploring, trying to find my way but, but I…’ she said, thinking how best to phrase how she had felt over the years since.

‘I was doing relatively well for a few years, made some friends, saw much of the world, but I could not find my home. After, I got separated, and became as lost in myself, as lost in the past, as I was physically.

‘I have not thought clearly in a very long time, I’ve been irrational, taking dangerous paths and risking myself too many times. Then I reached that village, the woman offered me her baby, and something changed, something broken began to heal and mend. I knew this was a second chance, that it was the right thing to do.

‘I took the opportunity and ran with it. Running is something I am good at, and I did not think they would follow me all the way,’ she said, gesturing at the corpse of the baby’s father.

The woman just stood looking at her, still saying nothing.

‘I fled through the forest and eventually made it here, made it to you,’ she looked back at the woman, silent herself for a time. She cleared her throat and wiped her tears.

‘And I’d do exactly the same thing again,’ she tilted her head and continued, ‘There must have been a reason for this? To find you all the way out here? I am not a big believer in fate, or in destiny, or the Gods, but the chances of finding anyone out here, let alone you two, who could actually help me? Perhaps someone is guiding my steps?’

The woman snorted, loudly.

‘There are no Gods. You were lucky, that’s all. Very lucky.’ She sheathed her knife, walked over to Flin and sat down in front of her, briefly disturbing the sleeping dog, before it settled back with another sigh.

Flin said nothing.

The woman took out a flat leaf containing some fruit leather, the rich, sweet scent quickly crossing the distance between them before she passed her some, unhitched the gourd from her belt and drank deeply, before also handing that over.

‘Yes, you were very, very lucky.’

Flin took a drink, then a bite of the dried fruit.

‘So you won’t kill me and take the baby?’ Flin asked warily around her mouthful, chewing slowly and savouring the flavour.

‘Flin, your story was a mess, it was backward and inside out. That’s how I know it’s the truth. Someone like you, someone well travelled, smart, a professional storyteller? Sharing everything the wrong way around?’ She made a noise in her throat, then surprised Flin by laughing before she continued.

‘I’m glad it was a mess. If you’d told me the exact same thing, but in order, with flowery words and fancy storyteller tricks—then I’d have had my doubts. But that,’ she waved her hand, ‘that was just a woman who had decided she was tired of the lies, tired of half-truths and hiding what was real, and wanted to give the truth a chance instead. I know lies, I know how people work, and I know they hide things. As for your question? No. No I won’t kill you and take your baby. That baby needs a mother and, it appears, luck has given it three. Although I know fuck all about mothering, so maybe two, two and a half at best. Achiri, however, from what she’s told me, she’s an expert—as good at raising life as she is at taking it.’ The woman was silent for a moment.

‘Be careful with how you discuss this, how you tell Achiri about how you came by Kadan. I think she could easily be convinced you did the right thing, but I am not entirely sure. She’s a strange one when it comes to imagined slights and debts.’

They sat together in silence, chewing and resting, each wrapped in their own thoughts.

‘I know somewhere you are going to want to see,’ Flin reached into the secret pocket on her forearm and pulled out the tiny statues, passing them to the woman. ‘I know where the graveyard is.’

The woman held them up to the light, turning them, looking closely at each in turn, then together, comparing. Then she looked up at Flin, staring hard into her face, before she smiled and replied.

‘Well. It’s a fucking good job I didn’t kill you then, isn’t it?’ She held out her hand, and Flin took it, feeling the callouses and strength in her grip, ‘My name is Kees.’

‘Flinders Jeigur. It’s good to have met you Kees. Very good.’ Flin found herself smiling, a strange feeling in her chest, a feeling she vaguely remembered from a long, long time ago.

It felt like hope.

Thank you so much for reading, and making it to the end of this chapter of Flin’s life.

This story, as with the others of The Tales of The Lesser Evil, introduces characters, places, and plot points, all of which will return in a longer work, The Lesser Evil. As such, if you want to read more about Flin, Kees, Kadan, and Achiri, you will be able to. All these Tales are a prologue of sorts, all revealing details and backstory of the important characters in that longer work to come—readers of which will not need to have read these Tales, but those of you who have will find the experience enriched. I have hidden many points which will return amongst the words I have shared already, after all.

However, if you want to read more of Flin before The Lesser Evil is published, you can. Just stay tuned, stay subscribed—the next story I will serialise here is Dancing With Death, set at one point in the years between the two woven strands of Flin’s life I’ve shared here, in Death in Harmony.

Thanks again for reading, do please pop a comment below to let me know what you think of this Tale if you have the time.

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