Forest Mage

I buried four more soldiers that winter. One had cut his foot with an ax while chopping firewood and bled to death. Two others died of pneumonia, and a fourth had got drunk, passed out in the street, and frozen to death in the dark. The last one was one of Spink’s men, and Spink accompanied the five other mourners to the graveyard to see him laid to rest. He lingered for a short time afterward, but could not stay long. I begged him to let me borrow any books he might have, for my mind was atrophying from boredom. He promised he’d do his best, and again asked if he could not let Epiny know I was there. Once more, I held him off, but he told me sternly that if I did not soon capitulate, he would have to tell her anyway, for he could not bear how she would look at him if she knew how long he had deceived her.

I promised myself I would think about it, and then procrastinated.

The long dark days of winter dragged on. Dark Evening came and was celebrated by the enlisted men with an orgy of drunkenness, fights, and the arson of one officer’s house. I had avoided the town that night, and only heard of the ruckus the next day. The general misbehavior of the troops brought more reprisals. Morale was no longer low; it was lost completely in a simmering hostility toward the officers. I feared the regiment was on the edge of general insubordination and avoided Gettys as much as I could. I went only for essentials and stayed as short a time as possible.

Despite that, I was in one of the mercantiles, buying some thread to mend my trousers, when I caught a glimpse of Epiny just as she came in the door. I stepped away from the counter and immersed myself in studying a row of axes behind a tall stack of blankets. Hidden there, I listened to her ask the man for her whistles. He told her that he had none in stock. She then complained that she had requested he order fifty brass whistles for her two months ago, and she considered it unreasonable that they had not yet arrived. He explained rather impatiently that Gettys did not enjoy regular delivery service from anywhere, and that doubtless her order would arrive when spring made travel less arduous. She pointed out that the whistles would make only a small packet, something a king’s courier could easily bring, and asked him if he did not care about the safety of the women and girls of Gettys. I wanted to step out of the corner and hit him when he told her that their safety was up to their husbands and brothers, and if she hadn’t noticed, he wasn’t the king and did not have the king’s couriers at his disposal. His words were sensible enough; it was his sneering tone that angered me. She departed in high dudgeon, observing as she left that perhaps she would make her concerns and efforts known to Colonel Haren, and perhaps he could arrange a swifter delivery of such essential items. Despite my irritation with the shop owner, I rather pitied Colonel Haren at that moment. I wondered what on earth she wanted so many whistles for and what they had to do with the safety of the female population of Gettys, but had no one to ask. I paid for my thread and left town.

Day after drab winter day dripped by, slow as cold molasses. The generous firewood stack that had come with my home began to dwindle. One clear winter day, I took an ax, some rope, and Clove and headed for the forest behind the cemetery. I wanted to find dead wood, either standing or fallen. I’d cut the log to a manageable length, have Clove drag it home for me, and then chop it into firewood.

Clove and I followed my footpath to the spring and then broke a snowy trail into the woods beyond. Here I found giant cedars, towering and stout, their needled branches heavy with snow. Most of them were scarred veterans of a fire many years ago. Around and between those survivors, the younger forest was deciduous, birches and cottonwood and alder, and most of these no bigger around than a child’s embrace. Their bare limbs supported wandering walls of snow. Frozen drops of water hung from the tips of their branches. It was a beautiful snowy scene, yet ethereally foreign to a Plains-bred man like myself.

A dozen steps into the shelter of the trees, I began to feel uneasy. I stopped and stood very still, listening. A good soldier develops a sixth sense for when he is being watched. I listened, I looked carefully around, and I even flared my nostrils and took a deep breath of the air. Carrion eaters like bears have a distinctive stench. But my physical senses detected nothing that I should fear. Small birds flitted through the trees. Occasionally the weight of one would dislodge a pouf of snow that would fall in a crystalline shower of tiny flakes. Other than that, I detected nothing, not even a winter breeze moving in the upper branches.

Clove was waiting passively for me to decide what it was I wanted to do here. His calmness decided me; if his senses gave him no cause for alarm or interest, then mine were probably at fault. I tugged at his lead rope and we walked deeper into the forest.