I'm riding on the wagon's front seat. We passed the bridge hours ago, and I'm watching the road in front of us. I'm looking for any signs of danger, like an angry mob armed with pitchforks warning us to turn back. We've been at it for two hours, but the surrounding land remains a bleak emptiness. Around us, the sun has reached its midpoint in the sky and I'm wondering when we'll stop for the first rest.
The man riding next to me leans forward, resting his elbow on his knee and a hand on the reigns of the horse pulling the wagon. He is the only man in the wagon who looks older than twenty. I notice his dirty blonde hair tie peeking from underneath his cap.
“Why don't you tell me something about yourself?” I ask him. I've stopped thinking about what's ahead of us. His skin is the color of the soil.
The man stretches his arms out, letting his cap drop onto his crown of gray hair. I spend a few moments studying his face. It's his eyebrows. They're always calculating, always in an excited state: a keen coldness spilling from his eyes as he laughs at people making dumb mistakes. His name is Marcus.
“My name's Brandt. I'm nine years old. My family died in an earthquake three years ago. I'm not sure which of my uncles was the last one I saw. They're all dead now, at the end of a long list of those who have died trying to find me after the earthquake.”
“To the land of misty happiness,” I recite. The others around us let out a long sigh and a few snake their eyes at me. Marcus reaches out an arm and touches my hair.
“Do you know what I'm going to do after this?” he asks me.
“No idea.”
“I'm going to become a lawyer.”
“You're kidding! I didn't know lawyers existed.”
“They do and I'm going to be one of them.”
“Is it something fun?” I ask, but he just grins. “I wish I knew more things in the world.”
“For a boy to grow,” Marcus said to me, “sometimes he has to leave certain things behind.”
“I'd like to leave all the things I know behind.” I'm sure he understands.
“When your parents are gone, you'll wonder from one place to the next. You'll see things you want to leave behind, and you'll wonder who you are. It's like a small puzzle. You'll put it together a piece at a time, and you'll notice something different about yourself as you get older. You'll be afraid of the things you value the most. But, like everybody else, the most important thing to you will always be the things you value the least."
I'm confused, and Marcus, who I can't read like all the others, would understand.
“I've been staying in a small village near the southern border of the empire. In the village, I've met a bunch of kids. I've been helping them with their homework and hunting for fruit in the woods, and I've been helping them with their lessons. I guess there's no reason for me to stay in the village.
“I want to find out what I am.”
“It is hard to simply not know.”
“Maybe we could talk about something else?” the women down at the end of the wagon pipes up. She looms over me, and I can feel the tension in her body. Marcus slaps the reigns and the horse speeds to make things less awkward.
After hours of travel along the desolate road, the red sun sinks below the horizon, leaving a layer of smog in its wake. The sound of the wagon wheels turning against the sandy ground grows heavier, and the gasps of people resting their aching bodies are heard. When the wagon slows, I step down and stare at a line of large gray tents. There are four of them - two small and two large - and an open area with a cookfire and a crowd of men and women. We had arrived.
“Can I come with you?” I ask Marcus.
“No,” he says. “I'm not going to find you. You can't be part of all this.”
“I want to be part of all this!” I say in a voice so loud that a couple of people turn to gape at me.
“Look, if I were you, I'd leave,” he says, “and maybe when you're older, you'll understand why.”
I reach out to him and I hug him. He holds still for a moment, and then pushes me away. This hurts my feelings, but that's Marcus.
“There's no use for you,” he says. “You're going to eventually find out who you are, but I won't. I'm going to be one of the ones left behind.”
“But, I still have to find myself,” I say, begging him. I know he understands.
“No,” he says. “Get inside. Find the one called Errol. Perhaps you can do something for him.”
I don't move, so Marcus rushes me inside.
A soldier in a red uniform is sitting in front of the largest tent, just out of the firelight. The tent is made of thin green cloth, and inside of it are two couches and a rug. A lamp sits on the rug, but he stares at the fire instead of using it. In the pile of sticks, we stack a few more.
The soldier is tall and thin. His face is pale and soft, without the white powder that all the soldiers have for their hair. He has a curly black mop on top of his head, held in place with a cap, and he has thick black eyebrows like a woman.
“He called his name Brandt,” Marcus says.
“Look at all the children they're hiding.”
“We're from the neighboring kingdom. Some of our people died trying to find us and help us. We're here in hopes of persuading their king to extend his mercy to us.”
The soldier grumbles, placing his feet up on the coffee table. “Ain't no mercy in this world. Why do you think they've been dying all these years?”
“Three years ago, our king died. Some of our people, who are smart and know things, are able to get through the empire's borders and hide. They can be in adjacent kingdoms, which have even less to do with us than this one. But, the next time you travel through the neighboring kingdom, you're going to have to fight a bear with a bullet in its stomach.”
“They pass out of the empire as soon as they start walking north. That's how we decided we needed to make our move when the king died. We thought we could sneak into their prisons first, but the king died before we could do anything.”
“I know Brandt.”
“So, did he tell you to say that?”
“It's what he told me to say.”
“Then you better say it.”
“It is what Brandt told me to say.”
The soldier continues his card game, balancing his cards in his hands without looking at them.
“So, did he tell you to tell me that it's coming up on midnight?”
“It is coming up on midnight.”
“What does he want me to do? We've been here for weeks, and now he's getting really impatient.”
“He told me to say that you should take my hand as we go inside and wait until it's almost time.”
“You talk in his voice all the time.”
“So, do you want to argue?”
“No.”
A couple of soldiers carry a large wool blanket inside the tent, and then another trampled. I'm expecting Marcus to take the lead and grab hold of my hand, but he stays back and watches us all. When the soldiers come back out of the tent, they're holding a big book. Marcus meets them at the tent door and starts to lead the group inside.
Inside the tent, there's another long wool blanket on the rug, and another rug on the ground. Bottles of wine, bowls of fruits and vegetables, candles, and two clay lamps hang from the ceiling. The soldiers place the book on the ground, and then get down on their knees. They're looking at Marcus, and then they all bow their heads.
“This is from God.”
“He told you to say that?”
“No, he told me to say, 'This is from God.'”
“Are you a prophet?”
“He's dead. I don't know what you want me to say.”
The clank of swords and the sound of plating armor can be heard outside the tent.
Marcus walks over to the soldiers and stands by their only door. He looked at me for a moment, as if he was about to say something, but then he ran to the door and waited for the group to walk inside. I don't know what's going on, but I don't see Marcus' spirit nearby.
When Joshua tells him that he is to go inside too, Brandt grabs my arm and pulls me inside.
In the center of the tent, two soldiers sit on two couches. They have on a light, bulky suit of armor, but they're all naked, apart from a couple of leather coifs to cover the rest of their bodies. Beside each couch sits a knife.
“I'm going to need you to take that off down to the floor,” Brandt says, pointing at the armor.
“Is it waterproof?” I ask, grabbing the armor and throwing it on the floor.
“Don't worry.”
Two soldiers sit on the couches, and two others sit against the walls. The two on the couches are holding a brown book in their hands. They stand and wait for the rest of the group to join them. The soldiers on the ground face the way we walked in. One by one, the guard walks forward. They bow their heads, approach the couches and sit with the same decency we show in entering the royal palace.
The two soldiers with the leather coifs take out two cups, a small bowl in which they've placed a few yellowish fruits, and two small pots of honey. The two of them continued to stare at the flames, waiting for Joshua to give the command.
“You, out!” Joshua says in a weak voice.
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