Caged Warrior Read online

  “When you don’t have a pot, it’s really the glowing ambers that you want most,” she said, knowing that most of her daughter and Bov’s cooking had been in one pot over the fire. It was a type of food that was suitable for a home where you could have belongings that were not depending on weight. She knew people on the road who carried a small pot with them, but she never bothered with that. It could be practical sometimes, but mostly it was a heavy item preventing you to move in stealth.

  Putt helped her out with the meat, mounting it on rods over the fire. It was something caring with his help, and she was moved. It felt like he did want to help her, and not only did it because a child was expected to help an elder. It was like he wanted to comfort her in a silent way. It made her heart warm, and at the same time, she felt that she was not worthy of it. She knew too little about children. How she had managed to raise one herself from the start she would never understand. On the other hand, she had been younger, and they had been two. Arica’s father had been a blacksmith and a stable and safe man not only by profession and sheer size but also in mind.

  “Is this the way home?” Putt asked out of the blue as he contemplated the valley stretching out below them. “I don’t remember this view.” Home? She had not even considered taking the route back to Peragri. While Viseran and his tribe had continued north, she had taken the route east, crossing a pass leaving Putt’s homelands behind her.

  “No” she answered. “Your village was burnt down to the ground. There’s nothing for you there.”

  “So mom and dad are dead?” It was something in his tone only asking for confirmation of what he already knew in his heart. Avia felt bad. She had presumed the boy was aware he was an orphan.

  “Yes. I’m sorry.” Putt’s pose shifted, and she could see he became tense. He lowered his head, shoulders came up. Maybe he cried, standing there with his back to her. She let him be, knowing she had no comfort to give him. His parents would remain dead. She was way too practical and all too familiar with deaths and tragedies to have any words of sympathy. Life would move on with or without her help.

  “So where are we going?” Putt asked. They ate of the meat. Avia had put the rest to dry in the smoke and buried the liver and the heart in the embers as she said she would. Going? She had no goal. That she rarely had unless she was on a mission. She had taken Putt along because she was his grandma and he had no other relatives. There was no place she intended to take him. This was the way her life was. She walked. Sometimes her services were needed, and she took on a mission. At times she met interesting persons or places and stayed awhile, but she had few aims in her wanderings. How could she have a goal, when she did not know what was behind the next curve of the path?

  “Don’t you know where we’re going?” Putt asked when he saw her face.

  “Is it important for you to have a goal?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. You leave home for a reason, like an errand.”

  “Are you on an errand?” Putt considered his food, thumbing it. He shook his head. Avia saw a hint of a tear before he swept it away.

  “So, we’re going to find a new home?” There was hope shining like a beacon in the boy’s voice. Avia fought a feeling of being trapped.

  “Putt, I know you lived in a house. Not everyone lives like that. Some move from house to house, some live in a tent and take their home with them, some, like me, live with few belongings, following the winds of their hearts.”

  “Can’t you work to get some money?”

  “It’s not about money, boy” Avia snorted, hearing her son-in-law’s attitude behind Putt’s words. “I live the way I do because I want to. Because it makes me happy and satisfied with my life. I hope you’ll learn to like it too.” Avia had avoided saying ‘learn to love’ because she had little hope a boy who had been taught that wandering people were lazy and weak would ever learn to enjoy that way of life as much as she did. She hoped she was wrong.

  She, on the other hand, had little understanding for leaving the fate of your life in the hands of the weather, as her daughter and her husband had done. Farmers depended on the right amount of rain and sun and not only for their income but their whole life. Conditions which could not care less about their fate. Bov, her all-so-orderly son-in-law, had told her about ways to appease a destructive weather. That whole idea was depending on that weather had a consciousness, was someone, with a thinking mind. In Avia’s world, that was such insane idea that she had laughed. Which, of course, had made Bov and Arica upset, and Bov had blamed the next winter’s hard storms on her. She had many times thought if it had been better if she had become angry about their stupidity? Laughing was a sign of a good spirit and a happy mind, which were admirable things in her world. Yes, you could laugh at someone and cause misery, but if someone acted stupid, was it not better to become amused than getting furious, after all? Perhaps all reactions but a pure agreement to his words were forbidden for Bov. The option to ask him was gone now though. Not that she ever had any discussions of any depth with him. Difficult to have a conversation with someone who is always right and think you are a lazy hobo.

  “So, I’ll be following you then?” Putt asked.

  “You say ‘so’ a lot” Avia comment. The boy got a defensive expression. Avia unpacked two blankets from her pack, both a generous gift from Viseran to honor the ‘mamasiente’. She was glad Viseran would never know if she would live up to that title or not. Putt had nothing but aired his father’s option. Did a wise woman get angry of a trace of an attitude in a boy who learned it from a parent, like all children did? She threw one of the blankets to Putt.

  “Yes, you can travel with me if my company is good enough for you. If not, feel free to leave and return to that burned down ruin of a village that you call home.” ‘Mamasiente’ my ass, she thought. No one could trap her in a title.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A warrior's apprentice

  “So, what do you do?” Putt asked behind her. They were following the valley downward. She was pretty confident the path they walked was a trail caused by animals, rather than men. It was narrow in a way that paths rarely became when they were used by humans. Animals wanted to be invisible while people tended to make their way through as if vegetation was an enemy. With the bushes so close, this was an animal path, she thought as she disappeared among the leaves and branches. The droppings she found told her at least that deer used the trail.

  “Granny, what do you do?” Putt caught up with her where she had stopped in the bush.

  “Deer droppings.” She showed him and told him her conclusions about the path. His reaction surprised her.

  “Does that mean we’re lost?” he gasped and looked like a monster was lurking around the corner.

  “No. It means that we’ll not likely meet other people.” Avia considered if she should collect the droppings and try to use them for a fire, but passed for this time. She was not in the mood for experiments. She continued. The path sloped towards the valley’s bottom where there was water. Putt followed. He tried again:

  “Granny, what do you do? For a living?”

  “I’m a warrior” she replied and since that was pretty obvious and apparently did not supply Putt with enough information as it was, she continued, “Sometimes people with money hire me to trace someone or bring a criminal to justice. Some want protection during a journey. Once I was sent to fight a dragon.”

  “Fight a dragon?!” Avia smiled at the boy’s impressed yelp.

  “The legend said a dragon lived in the dungeons under a castle where a high lord lived. He paid me to fight it, so I went down there.”

  “Did you find it?”

  “It was a vast empty cellar with a lot of halls and rooms, but no dragon. If there ever been any dragons in this world, there would be no reason for them to occupy that lord’s basement. I think a dragon want to be out in the wild, free.” Putt frowned, disappointed. Avia wondered what he would say if she told him; she had made it a little more interesting when tel
ling the lord and gained quite a share of gold coins for her job. Since she had lied to the lord, it was not a suitable thing to tell a child, or anyone, for that matter. She had not felt comfortable to return to the hall and its ruler, insisting that it was all a fantasy. It would have indirectly told him he had been a fool and that someone in his household might have tricked him. Not that she thought that they had, because they had seemed honestly scared for the dungeon, but rich people with a lot of minions tended to get paranoid, in her opinion. To tell that there had been a dragon once had been far more satisfying for everyone. It had been a lie with no complications and no harm done to anyone.

  “So how did you get your scars then?” She looked down at her arms and knew that her face had the same pattern of healed old wounds. She drew her right-hand sword and held it out to Putt.

  “Feel the edge” she requested. The boy slid his thumb over the sharp edge and blood seeped out. He whimpered, pulled his hand back and pressed his fingers against the cut.

  “I’m a warrior, Putt. Warriors fight. Often with swords. Sometimes with knives, axes, arrows, spears and other weapons. They are all sharp. That’s why I have scars.”

  They reached the bottom of the valley and the water flowing there. It was a warm day, and Avia took off her pack, bow, quiver, swords, and dagger, undressed and stepped into the water. She felt the cold water embrace her body and she lay on her back in the shallow water. It was moments like these she felt nature the most. The water came from the snowfields still left on the shadow side of the mountain tops. Probably there were some glaciers there too. It melted in the summer, water running downhill, forming a stream, a river, reaching further down where there would be arable land, giving life to so much before it finally reached the sea. Up here it was still fresh, ice-cold water. It was just her, the water and the mountains. And Putt.

  She turned her head to the boy and found him staring, red-faced. She had embarrassed him by her nudity. He was too young to feel any sexual desire and she would not be able to rise it in him even if he had come of age, an old granny as she was. Then why was he so uncomfortable with her being naked? She dipped her head into the water and then rose, stepping up on the brink.

  “Why don’t you get in too? It’s refreshing.” Putt stared at his toes. The rocky brink left no habitat for bushes. There was no place he could hide if he wanted privacy.

  “I can turn my back to you if it makes you more comfortable.” Putt nodded. Avia turned around and waited for her body to dry a bit before she put her clothes back on. She heard no movements behind her, but she did not want to jeopardize whatever trust Putt had in her, by peeking over her shoulder.

  “Isn’t there fish in the water?” he finally asked. “I don’t want to get bitten.”

  “No, there is no fish this far up. Have you never taken a swim outdoors before?”

  “No.” She had asked the question as a joke. In her world, everyone had swum in lakes or rivers at least once or twice each summer. ‘No’? Had he honestly answered ‘no’? Was it possible? Arica, what did you do to him, Avia thought. She and her daughter had been swimming a lot in the lake close to their home, every summer. Yet, Arica had not been doing the same with her son. She listened to Putt undressing as she put her own clothes on.

  “It’s cold!”

  “Just get in and dip your whole body in the water. You’ll feel fine. Trust me.” She heard him get into the water, splashing about.

  As a mother, she had always felt inadequate. Her husband had said she did a good job, and Arica had expressed her love and insured Avia’s fitness for the job of being her mom. She had rarely criticized another mom, knowing children and parents can make strange situations together that appeared odd to outsiders. Though she would have scolded Arica for not letting Putt out in the lake back in their village. How could she leave out taking a bath outdoors? Avia knew they had a bathtub - a bulky thing in metal with an itchy smell about it - they brought out and filled with heated water when needed. Not only had they denied Putt access to nature and its own bathtubs, but also refused a flexible attitude to how you could get yourself clean.

  Putt was back up on the brink now. At least he did not ask for a towel, but let himself dry in the warm sun, as she had done. He watches and learns, she thought, pleased.

  “If you need to get paid by rich people, why are you up here, where there are no people?” Putt asked as they continued down the valley along the stream. Money again, Avia thought.

  “What would you do if you had a purse of gold coins?” she challenged him. He considered.

  “Buy food. Clothes. A house.”

  “If you have no need for a house, can get your own food, and have no need for new clothes, then why do you need money?” Putt was silent. Avia stopped and faced the boy.

  “Listen to me, Putt, this is the life I love and this the way I want it, with or without money. I risk my life when I earn money. What money I make I want to spend to be able to live like this. And I see no reason to risk my life earning more money than I can spend. Do you understand?” Putt nodded.

  “My life is far from what you’re used to, I know. Don’t be afraid to ask, but be prepared that the answer may be different from what you expect. There’s no right or wrong way to live a life, no right or wrong emotions. People are different, that’s all. Some you’ll like, some you won’t, but those you don’t like are never ‘wrong’ or ‘incorrect,' they are just thinking differently from you.” Avia watched Putt take in what she said and waited a moment. Then she turned and continued down the path.

  “So those men who killed mom and dad didn’t do wrong?” His voice was upset, questioning. She liked that he questioned things.

  “Of course you have the right to feel that they did wrong to you. That doesn’t mean that they believe they did something wrong. Sometimes different ways of thinking clash and cause destruction. It happens all the time. Always had. Probably always will. Either you can react by causing more damage, or you can try to understand and accept that we’re different.”

  “I want to kill them!” he yelled, tears welling up in his eyes. Avia halted again and watched Putt. She had the urge to yell back that all he had to do was to walk back the way they came and follow the tracks, tracing the men that spared all the children’s lives. But Putt was only ten. Emotions ran strong in his body, still uncontrolled. Most people never learned to handle them well, acting on them without thinking. It was not strange that a young boy did not know better than wanting a whole group of people killed. He did not know what he wished for.

  “Nothing can turn back time. Revenge only brings more death. Will you be happy when you see their children cry for their moms and dads that you just killed? What will you say when they come and kill you and hundreds of others, to revenge their dead loved ones?” She clinched her teeth to keep her from shouting at the boy even more. After a long exhale she added:

  “Will you make them regret that they didn’t kill you in the first place? Do you want them to slaughter the children as well, next time they make a raid?” She felt she was about to start yelling again, so she snapped her mouth shut and walked away along the path. There was little else for Putt to do than follow her she thought. And if he did not, but instead turn to walk back and get his revenge she had to deal with that then.

  She always had little patience with stupidity and some things were so foolish that she was surprised every time she heard those thoughts expressed. At times, she heard talks about revenge on a daily basis, and still, she wanted to smack their stupidity out of their heads, like it was a wise solution. That it came from her own grandson made her even angrier. She was upset enough to think that if the boy did not follow her, she would not return for him. She was not his mother, and she had taken on the responsibility based on an agreement by them both. In her heart, Avia knew she would go back if she had to, but she did not listen to that voice right then when she marched down the path.

  It took a shorter time than she had thought it would before she
heard his footing behind her. He did not say anything, just fell into her pace and followed her. Nothing was said. The rest of the day passed without a word, and they made camp for the night. Putt collected wood and made fire. To her surprise, he also cut up and served her some of the meat they dried the night before. Touched and embarrassed, she took a slice. It was a sense of care for her in his doings which felt strange and sweet, and cutting the meat was far more than she ever cared to do. Usually, she took a piece and used her teeth, not her knife. She sensed that Putt was used to better manners.

  “We need to replace your pants” she noted. Putt looked down at his legs with wonder.

  “They’re worn and too small for you” she explained as she unpacked the skin from the deer. She put it out on the ground and scraped away the remainder of meat and fat and kept the skin soft.

  “We’d better get you a pair of leather pants.” The fabric had been torn and worn the last days. He needed something to protect his legs.

  “Is that what you’re doing?” It dawned on her that Putt had had little experiences with animals that were used as food. He knew the cows they milked and the sheep they used for milk and wool, but where he came from you rarely ate your cattle.

  “No. I just keep the skin in good condition so I can trade it at a tanner. If I don’t do this, the skin will get stiff, and the meat left on it will start to rot. I’ll keep doing this until we get to a tanner.” Off his look she added, “I think we’ll find a village - and a tanner - tomorrow.” Putt pulled the legs of his pants but said nothing.