The Wandering Soldier, Chapter Six.
This chapter was a difficult one to write. Not only because I wanted to cover Gorenne's change of heart, but I was deliberating whether or not it should be done in one chapter, or across several. I decided to do it this way because while it doesn't have the same impact as if it were over a greater span, it should be apparent once her perspective turns from this point forward that this was a key moment in her life.
Since the medicine girl refused to do her part some days ago, Gorenne had to fend for herself entirely. She washed her own clothes, dressed her wound twice daily to stave infection and began to stitch it back together with the boiled claw of a rabbit. The medicine girl wasn’t completely heartless, however, because watching Gorenne struggle to follow a desirable path with the thread while her head spun from the pain was enough for her to intervene, but only for that. Yet however much she tried, hunting was never something she could do particularly well, and the occasional nut or berry wasn’t enough to sustain her. Bows and arrows always felt awkward in her hand and the logic behind being completely still to make a kill confounded her. Why couldn’t animals face her in battle like true denizens of the wild instead of running from her like cowards? It was as though they had no surety of their own ability to fight! Since she had begun her independence, while the other girl continued to exist in the camp quite merrily, Gorenne had lost a decent amount of mass, and in her hunger spent much of her recovery sleeping and attempting – nay, failing – to hunt.
Her thoughts were quickly dispelled when the bush within her line of sight rustled again. The tiny leaves covering the intricate weave of bramble parted. Then from its covering, a large rabbit clamoured forth. Its nose twitched in the open air and beady eyes in the crevices of long fur seemed to dart every which way for signs of danger. Even if its long, fluffy ears swivelled atop its head, her position was miraculously left undetected. Gorenne watched the creature intently, catching her breath in her throat, and all her senses rose with dizzying, yet steady, determination. Catching the notch of the arrow in her bow, she slowly, achingly, drew it back toward her chin. In the days leading to this moment, Gorenne trained to use this makeshift weapon; her sword and arm to hail stones on her prey proved meaningless. When the medicine girl wasn’t watching, Gorenne dug the intestines from a rabbit she found half gnawed by birds yet left the rest behind. She knew carcasses could pull things to the world of the dead if they were feasted on. There, before her, was the taste of victory she so sought for days. Ensuring the arrow was in perfect line to the creature, she let the arrow loose and let a silent prayer reach the Stars when the arrow flung through the air. The instant of that journey seemed to drag on for eternity, but it was clear when Gorenne loosened the grip of her bow, that the long days leading to this moment were worth it. Her first kill lay dead, her arrow having made its mark raised proud from the side of its chest. Gorenne stifled a cry of victory as the end of the arrow she loosed swayed victoriously. She reached behind her to set the bow on her back, then dragged her body across the forest floor with her elbows to her kill.
The camp they had settled in more than a week ago had begun to form a decent clearing, where the stones for the campfire carried a layer of soot from the days it burned to cook food and boil water. It took the mercenary a good twenty minutes to crawl back to it, but once she had, she made it to the flat stone used as a cutting board to begin stripping the creature down to its parts – bone for arrow tips, meat for cooking or curing, and hide for bedding, clothing, armour, or whatever else furry strips of leather could be used for. But as soon as Gorenne set the rabbit down, she noticed half of its fur was missing, and the exposed skin was dry, cracked and diseased. Aching with fury and hunger, she threw the carcass to one side and struck the earth with a furious howl. She then bent down and held her hand that seared with agony. She must have broken it.
Hearing the alarm, the medicine girl raced from wherever she had been, her form seeming to form out of the trees surrounding their campsite, to see what all the commotion was about. She might have been expecting an attack, or maybe the King’s Men had located them but all she found was an emaciated mercenary down on her luck. The medicine girl dropped what she was carrying which looked to be an obscene amount of food including fish, rabbit and some wild fruits or vegetables and went to see what had happened to the poor thing. Indeed that is exactly what had become of her – poor.
The cutting stone was placed close to the fire, where a ladle rolling in a pot of boiling water could be used to wash debris and blood from the rock. The girl must have thought Gorenne had burned herself, for she squatted next to her and told her to lift her head or show her hands. Gorenne refused, crawling away. She refused the help – she could do it all on her own without the aid of some upstart survivalist to rub in her face how much better she was at everything. While her pride caught her in dire straits, the mercenary thought about how small and pathetic she was, how little she was able to achieve in the days between the last they talked until now. She thought that if she was a shining star in the sky that it must be the smallest and most pitiful, and it was soon to be snuffed out.
Gorenne thought about why she couldn’t do anything while she crawled away, why she kept running in to poor luck all the time. She lost everything and now she was losing her life through starvation – why the Stars would do this to her kept swirling in the back of her mind but the answer didn’t find her. Maybe they saw her as a killer? She didn’t know how many people she killed in the service of Captain Frelon, but the number could easily have been in the hundreds. She didn’t remember their faces but if she thought about it, all she could picture in her mind was a bloodied, seething mass of hate. Maybe that was how they saw her. Those countless souls watching her from their unknown vantage point only saw a heartless murderer in her. They couldn’t see the girl fighting for her survival, nor the pride she felt in battle against every foe she faced. Perhaps the path they took was one that demanded they protect their home, and to them she was the enemy. She was always the enemy, but the people she killed were nothing more to her than fodder at the end of a coin purse. Thinking about it made her realise how much pain she caused to so many people, and it made her sick. Why did she stick to the same path for so many years?
She followed it because it was easier than to change. Suggesting that the easier path would be the killing of men and women would horrify most people, but for Gorenne it was all she had known. That, and being an intrepid, ignorant fool of a child in the middle of a sheep’s farm with a future glowing in her soul. How strange it seemed to her that glow would be the flames of death, and her journey would be stained with blood. Perhaps the Stars had decided she was unworthy of life with the countless lives she had taken when she travelled the lands wielding the power of death. If she couldn’t succeed in the art of survival, then by all accounts she was better off dead, and the world would do well to have her gone. She looked at herself and realised just how disgusting she really was, and she began to sob.
Unsurprisingly, the medicine girl followed her. “What’s gotten in to you, girl?”
“I’m a murderer, aren’t I?” Gorenne whimpered in her arms. Her knuckles throbbing with the pain was numbed by the pang of sorrow welling up inside her. “I’m a horrible person.”
“What are you talking about?” the girl stammered, gingerly placing her hand on Gorenne’s back. It felt strangely comfortable yet undeserving, like a warm meal shared with thieves.
“I killed so many people. I killed and killed and killed and I had the nerve to hate when it happened to me.” By this point Gorenne’s arm was sodden with tears and dribble, but wherever this mess came from seemed to never end. “I wanted to see the world and share it with so many people but I killed more people than I met. I caused so much pain and I just want to not feel pain.”
“Gorenne, you were a soldier. You played a part in the battles you fought just like anyone had done. Just like I had done.” She truly sounded sincere, as though the words came from her soul. Gorenne hadn’t really thought about it, but the medicine girl was a truly kind woman. A girl with her sense of being in this world would surely be watched over by the Stars. She could have left Gorenne to die in the woods a long time ago and yet she stayed and watched her with a careful eye. How could it be that her identity was about helping others, about being there for others?
“You are a medicine girl. Your job was to help people, not kill them.”
“I helped the people that were killing all the others. I’m just as guilty of causing harm just as much as you or any soldier or mercenary.”
“Yet you help the sick indiscriminately,” Gorenne muttered, slowly looking up from the crotch of her arms crossed over her knees. “Your duty is not to judge the people you help but to help them with the same care no matter what they had done.” She thought she must look terrible covered in so much mess, but it is hard to be concerned by such small things at the precipice of despair.
“Just because they had done terrible things doesn’t change what they can do. I help the sick and the dying because I like to think people have the chance to change if that was given to them. I wish more people gave themselves the same credit.” The medicine girl gave her a level look as she said this, almost as though it was the most sensible idea to her. The words were uttered with conviction. Gorenne wondered if that’s was why she had helped her. It was not because she was a decent person or because she had something to offer – far from it. If Gorenne was given the chance to live, she might learn to change, but in to what, exactly, she had no idea.
“Why did you stop helping me if you want to help others so much?” Gorenne ventured, looking at the young girl’s face framed in long, straight and thin mousy hair. “Isn’t that against your own conviction?”
To this the girl chuckled, and a cheerful glimmer shimmered in her deep green eyes. It reminded her of the inebriated whelp she met that night when she discovered the faint fragrance of sausages wafting through the trees and despite the tremors having shaken her world since then, she felt warmth. “I’m only good at fixing the body. Matters of the heart are best handled by whomever carries it.” To that, and the days they had known one another, Gorenne could see the girl in a new light. No longer did she see a fool, or a drunken child clumsily stumbling in the world. She was not the stranger burdening her mind with pointless endeavours and ridiculous notions of alcohol or frivolity, but a friend, and a very wise and powerful one at that. Gorenne began to wonder who this girl was, what her story was, and…
“I never caught your name. What is it?”
The girl sat down beside her, they turned to face the fire and felt the warmth bathe their faces. Gorenne could feel a weight lift inside her, and the pain of her heart was shed like leaves dropping to the earth with grace. Her hand still throbbed, and the motion of turning made her wince, but that was something she could fix in due time. Then, despite her hunger and exhaustion and the pain in her leg which seared with a new ferocity, she believed the Stars had yet to forsake her. She was alive, and she was glad for this moment she could share with her new friend.
“Tanaea,” she said, looking at Gorenne’s dirty face. Both could hardly keep themselves from smiling. “Now lie down while I make you something to eat. You broke your hand on that rock and you opened the wound on your leg. What in the name of Igattigas were you thinking, doing things on your own like that?”
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