Bad Words
Before I could reach the barn, the Path of Thorns and Roses caught up with me. I hadn’t even heard her following me.
‘You needn’t worry, Ferius Parfax. I dealt with the boy before I set off the explosives.’
Dealt with him? Oh, no. Please, no. Don’t let this cold-blooded lunatic have—
As I arrived at the old timber and stone building, I could hear the soft pounding of a young boy’s fist on the other side of the doors, which I now saw were barred with a heavy oak plank. I was just about to lift it when a much louder crack to my right preceded the iron-shod hoofs of a big, angry horse smashing through the stable wall. Shards of wood, stone and crumbling mortar exploded out at us. Apparently Quadlopo wasn’t done though, because he bludgeoned two more sections of the outer wall until there was enough room for him to wander out and give me a baleful look.
‘Wasn’t me who locked you in there,’ I said.
Quadlopo seemed dubious about the degree to which such testimony exonerated me in the matter of his unlawful confinement.
Binta ran through the gap behind him, wide-eyed and weeping. When he saw me standing there he raced for me, arms and legs pumping for those few steps even as his fingers twitched ‘Good Dog’ over and over.
I grabbed him up into a hug and held him tight. His whole body shook as he sobbed in silence.
‘As I told you,’ the Path of Thorns and Roses said behind me. ‘I took care of the child for you.’
I am going to redouble my efforts to learn the Argosi ways, I promised myself. I am going to master arta eres as no one has mastered it before. All so I can one day beat the crap out of you, lady.
I gently put Binta back down and knelt to face him.
‘Are you hurt?’ I signed.
‘I am unharmed. Who is that awful bitch?’
Almost reflexively, I signed back, ‘That is a bad word.’ Master Phinus, my old Daroman comportment instructor in the ways in which proper young boys and girls should behave, would’ve been proud.
‘She is a bad woman,’ Binta replied unapologetically.
When I turned back, the Path of Thorns and Roses was watching us. Though I could see she didn’t know the monkish silent voice, still I could tell she was starting to work out the gestures Binta and I made, inferring from the context and our expressions what they might mean.
We don’t look more than a year or so apart. How can she be so much better at all this than me?
Binta tapped me on the arm and informed me it was rude not to introduce him to our unpleasant rescuer.
Trying to come up with the exact signs to explain that her name was ‘The Path of Thorns and Roses’ proved remarkably difficult. After three tries, Binta shook his head and signed, ‘Rose. She is Rose.’
I tried to correct him, but I suppose the boy had decided the subject was closed.
‘What did he say?’ the Path of Thorns and Roses asked.
‘He signed your name.’
‘It seems . . . short,’ the Argosi said, and repeated the sign herself, graceful fingers already mastering the shapes. She seemed disappointed by its simplicity.
‘It means Rose,’ I explained, then, seeing the irritation on her face, decided to do one better. ‘Actually, it means “Rosie”. Binta says your name will be Rosie from now on.’
I left Rosie to her discomfort and entered the barn through the ruined wall to retrieve Quadlopo’s saddle, which he’d somehow wriggled out of during his escape. After undertaking the unnecessarily difficult steps of saddling a horse who wanted to make sure I knew just how displeased he was with me, I turned to find the Argosi and Binta staring at each other as if locked in some sort of contest of wills.
‘The boy is unusually defective,’ she said, apparently unaware at how horrible that sounded. ‘He does not appear to read lips, which any deaf child ought to have learned. And while he does not react to sound, still I see signs that some part of his mind does, in fact, notice noises around him. Furthermore, when the mayor began reading the Scarlet Verses inside the hall, he screamed, which suggests he ought to be capable of at least rudimentary speech. Yet he makes no effort to use words. From this we may deduce that his peculiar behaviours around language are the result of conditioning, which means his father at the monastery trained him to be this way.’
‘You got all that out of a minute of glaring at him?’
She responded with a light, almost musical snort. ‘I “got” far more than that, Ferius Parfax.’
‘Enlighten me.’
She pointed at Binta. ‘The child appears to be immune from the Red Scream, which explains why he was the only survivor of the massacre at the Monastery of the Silent Garden. Furthermore, given you were closer to the dais where the mayor recited the Scarlet Verses than many of the villagers, it is clear that the boy’s own scream so close was able to protect you from the effects. Thus an avenue of inquiry opens to us, as well as a source of substantial concern.’
I helped Binta up and settled him on Quadlopo’s saddle. ‘What concern?’
‘The Traveller, whoever she is, enacts a sophisticated plan towards a purpose that we do not yet know. To have discovered the means to concoct a plague that infects the human mind using only a sequence of syllables indicates our enemy possesses an unparalleled intellect. That she has done all this without anyone yet uncovering her scheme demonstrates significant cunning. We cannot, therefore, be in doubt that either this woman is already aware, or will soon become so, of the boy’s immunity. The Traveller will come for him.’ She glanced back at me. ‘You and I will have to keep the boy alive until we can find a way to replicate his resistance to the Scarlet Verses.’
‘And how do we do that? We don’t know anything about this “Traveller” woman, nor are either of us experts in whatever science or magic we’ll need to counter this plague. Besides, where are we supposed to take Binta?’
The Path of Thorns and Roses tightened the leather straps that kept her billowing linen sleeves in place around her shoulders and forearms. ‘As the first evidence we have of the plague is from the Monastery of the Silent Garden, the inevitable conclusion is that the final pieces the Traveller needed to construct her plague were found there.’
‘Sure, but if all the monks are now dead, how does that do us any good? You think she left some of the relevant books behind?’
The Argosi gave me a look that wasn’t so much withering as curious whether I’d prove to be any use at all or whether she’d have to save the world all by herself. ‘Obviously not. However I said she found the final components of her seven deadly verses at the monastery, not all the elements. The Silent Garden was unlikely to have been the first stop on her journey, and thus if we extrapolate her intentions to other places where forbidden texts are held, we may well find someone alive who has met the Traveller, and through them gain insight as to her purpose and destination.’
‘Or just follow the trail of dead bodies,’ I muttered.
Binta, sensing he was the subject of discussion, asked, ‘What does the unpleasant woman say?’
I considered my reply, still trying to piece together in my thoughts all that the Path of Thorns and Roses had deduced so swiftly.
‘She says that she and I will protect you,’ I said at last, which had the virtue of being true, if incomplete.
‘I do not like her. She has a smug face.’
I chuckled, and signed, ‘On that, little one, we agree.’
The Argosi started heading back up the path into the village. When we didn’t follow she stopped and turned. ‘Well, are you going to help or not? I thought you were so filled with compassion for the souls of this poor village that your heart would fairly burst if you didn’t exert yourself in their cause.’
‘You said everyone here was dead!’
‘I said the villagers were dead. There are still animals here. Livestock in pens, dogs chained in their kennels. Do you not hear their barks and braying? Or are their lives unworthy of our efforts?’
She continued her march up the path.
‘What’s wrong?’ Binta asked, staring down at me from Quadlopo’s saddle. ‘You are twisting your face in confusing ways.’
I gave a tug on Quadlopo’s reins to follow the Argosi so we could set about freeing the easily forgotten innocent denizens of this cursed place.
‘This is the face I make when I feel foolish.’
As we began what would be a task of many hours to release all the various goats, sheepdogs and other animals from their captivity, the enigmatic young woman who, despite pursuing the Argosi ways as I did, and was utterly unlike me in every conceivable way, stopped and turned to me as if she’d arrived at some momentous conclusion.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
She tugged down the linen coverings on her face, full lips pressed into a thin line, brows furrowed and cheeks flustered as if she’d just experienced embarrassment for the first time in her life.
‘I have decided that I do not enjoy this name “Rosie”,’ she informed us. ‘From now on you will refer to me as “The Path of Thorns and Roses”, and teach the child to do the same.’
I gave her a wink before leading Quadlopo with Binta on his back up the path towards the first of the fenced cottages.
‘Anything you say, Rosie.’