Ammonite

“Yes,” Marghe said tiredly. “How’s Letitia?”

“She’s stable. Tell me about the FN‑17.” Hiam was very still, very white. Marghe knew this was going to be hard.

“The FN‑17 worked. Or at least, it worked as long as I took it.”

“But you said, your message said…” Hiam looked from one to the other. “I don’t understand.”

”The message that reached Da

“But why?”

Marghe wondered how long it would take for Sara’s puzzlement to turn to anger. “I was alone in Ollfoss, with about thirty days’ worth of vaccine left, facing a journey to Port Central that would take longer than that, if it was possible at all, which it wasn’t.”

“If you hadn’t insisted on going there in the first place, this wouldn’t have come up.” Da

“If I was going to learn anything, I had to go north. And it had to be winter: I only had six months.” That all seemed so long ago. Blame Company, she wanted to say. If they hadn’t landed me in autumn, I wouldn’t have had to go up there in the harshest season. But she said nothing. Da

“But you could have kept taking it,” Hiam said. “To see. You could have kept taking it.”

“No. Thenike told me–”

“Thenike?”

“My partner. She said the adjuvants were poisoning me, that–”

“What does a savage know about adjuvants?”

“That ‘savage’ is my partner.” She spoke very softly. “And she knew enough to save Letitia’s life.” There was a small silence while Hiam opened her mouth to argue, then closed it, and Da

Da

Marghe did not bother to answer that. “Sara, for you it was months of hard work–”

“Years.”

“Years, then. For me it was my life. But it worked, Sara. It worked.”

“Yes,” Sara said bitterly. “And that does us a lot of good now. Shall I call the Kursttomorrow, and tell them? No? No. Because they wouldn’t believe me. Because their spy has already told them it doesn’t work, and I’m down here. Contaminated.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” She laughed, a sharp bark. “So am I.” She lifted the hospital flap to go back in. “Tomorrow, when I’ve more time, I want you to tell me everything. About the vaccine, the virus, your pregnancy, everything.”

It was evening, and Marghe was leaning against a fencepost, watching the Singing Pasture horses, when Thenike joined her.

“You look tired,” Marghe said. “How’s Letitia now?”

Thenike slid an arm round Marghe’s waist and leaned her cheek on Marghe’s shoulder. “Steadier. She’s strong, and the doctor knows well enough what to do.” Thenike’s bare skin felt cool; the night was warm and soft. A fly buzzed nearby. “And you?”

“Angry,” They called you savage. “At Da

“What do the others make of it–Cassil, Holle, T’orre Na?”

“I don’t know yet. I wanted us both to speak to them, together. They’re waiting.”

But neither of them moved for a while; the night was soft and spicy and peaceful, and the talking that lay ahead would go on until morning. They watched the horses flicking their tails at the flies.

The late afternoon sun was a hot, orangey red, and the shadows of the seven women were begi

“Let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” she said. “These tribeswomen have driven Holle and her kin from their land and slaughtered half their herds. They’ve butchered eleven of my best people for no reason that makes any sense to me, despite what you’ve been saying, and maybe taken one hostage. Now they’re on their way here to wreak god knows what havoc upon us all. And you want to send Marghe here, and Thenike, unarmed, to talk to them.”

No one said anything.

Da

“You’ve accused me of suicidal tendencies before, and been wrong.”

“But not by much! Lookat yourself, for pity’s sake: fingers missing, scarred, wearing rags. By your own admission you nearly died at the hands of these same… tribeswomen.”

“There’s no other real choice.”

“There is!”

Da

Da

Maighe shook her head. “That’s the worst thing we could do. Da

Da

Marghe thrust her left hand under Da

“But if–”

Marghe ignored her. “Some of them, one or two, perhaps, might still be open to reason. And they know me. But if they see your line, nothing in the world will stop them throwing themselves upon you. Can’t you see that? It’s what they want: hundreds of deaths.”

They talked on, through dusk and into the night, until Da

Damn the woman. How could she risk herself like this? Couldn’t she see that she would just be throwing her life away, hers and Thenike’s? Throwing them away on a useless gesture. And their deaths would be added to the list of people Da

She fell asleep eventually, and dreamed she was standing alone on a grassy plain facing a hundred riders. She was holding a knife, but as they galloped toward her, she realized the knife was a child’s toy, clumsily carved of wood.

She woke before dawn, hooves still thundering through her head. She got dressed and walked barefoot through the dewy grass toward the hospital, enjoying the cool wet sliding between her toes.

Lu Wai was sitting patiently by Letitia’s bedside. The only noise was the faint hum of a machine at the head of the bed. Lu Wai straightened.