It all goes wrong so quickly, and then, like every other job that gets dirty, Millie is trying as best she can to look away. Thereâs nowhere to bloody look, though â bloody is the problem. Itâs on her sleeves. Itâs in her mouth.
(They said it would be a clean one â they said â)
It had been going well, is the thing, theyâd done everything right â Margaid went scouting, and Am-Tul sparked the base of a half-dead tree so it fell over the road, and Millie had triple-checked her bow and stocked her arrows and made sure everything was just right. Usually sheâs just the lure, right, little girl in distress on the side of the road, please, sir, stop a minute â but ever since she turned thirteen thatâs started to wear. The older she looks the more people will remember to be suspicious. And sheâs well good enough to be doing shit properly, anyway, has been for years â sheâs a better shot than any of the rest of them, and sheâs okay enough with a knife if pushed, and sheâs been getting kind of tired of being babied. Sheâs not a little kid anymore; she can do more than sit with her mum lying prone next to the road with a dagger hidden in her sleeve and cry. And Mum said it was time she pulled a bit more weight.
So it had been going well â the wagon stopped, and there were only three people, and one of them was a year or so younger than her so probably didnât need much worrying about; she held her bow drawn and steady at him to keep the parents still, and when Dad plucked a half-eaten apple from one of their hands â fucking perfect â and held it aloft between index and thumb, just like they practised, she swivelled and loosed her arrow and had the next one drawn and nocked before the culls are done gasping. It nearly got knocked right out of his hand, juice dripping from the arrow-shaft shot into the core. That bitâs just showing off. But it works. It always works. Millie learned from her mum, and sheâs got a bluff no-one ever wants to call. It had been going fine.
But then, over in the tangle of them, someone pressed something a little too hard, tones turned a little too ugly, and Millie had split her attention to keep an eye on it â her first fucking job on this end of things, she wasnât having her mum turn it all thorny and difficult by running her fucking mouth, like she so often does with jobs that start out too easy â and then one of the wagon people yelled, and the kid freaked out, and â
He was stupid. He was so fucking stupid, because she hadnât been properly focused, and he leapt at her like he thought he could knock the bow out of her hands, and she hadnât been focusing because over there theyâd started yelling so she flinched â and her fingers â
And he â
The bowâs on the ground somewhere, now, and Millieâs hands are on his chest, around the shaft of the arrow, her breath stuck thick as glue in her lungs, his breath leaking out from the hole she made in his, and heâs still â looking at her â
(The arrow landed with the same wet thump it does when Carilweth takes her hunting for cavies, and everything had gone quiet; then Mum had said, âFuck,â at the same time one of the wagon people started screaming.)
When Millieâs acting lure her job is just to get people to stop, get them enough away from their stuff that they canât reach it, and then sheâs done; then thereâs nothing left but to watch, or, when things take that turn, stop watching, close her ears, turn away. Sheâs turning away from what her parents are doing now, but itâs just towards something else; she can hear the steel clanging; she can taste blood. Itâs not â she bit her tongue. It hurts. Thereâs blood on her hands, because sheâs pushing down on the kidâs chest, around the shaft, blood on her sleeves where they trail â her fingernails are gleaming, sputtering like a burned-out candle, but his skinâs not doing anything, not closing â sheâs not a good mage, never has been, can heal scrapes and bruises but thatâs about it. Canât begin to get the arrow out of him. Itâs barbed. Even if she got the skin to close around it, veins mended, lungs sealed up, heâd still be fucked with the arrow still in him; she canât even get it to close, and the harder she tries the faster the blood spurts, on her sleeves, on her fingers, spattered against her bowstring tattoos. Her throat hurts, a screaming pain, and itâs not until she realises that that she realises sheâs talking â âI didnât mean to,â sheâs saying, hoarse, âI didnât mean to, I didnât mean to ââ and heâs looking at her and not saying anything at all. Lips parted. He looks scared.
Then he stops looking scared and starts looking like nothing at all, and even her shitty healing wonât go anymore, but sheâs still putting pressure on the chest. She stops talking.
The noise has stopped, across the road. If she was still playing lure, it would mean itâs time to open her eyes again.
Footsteps. Squelching, a bit. This stretch of road runs too close to a swampy bit coming off the Niben; sometimes wheels get stuck in it and they donât even have to do anything. A vague shadow falls over her, drowning out the faint dappling from between the leaves.
Millie says, dry-mouthed, âI didnât mean to.â
âYou can let go of him,â says her mum. Her voice is what, for her, very nearly passes as soft. It doesnât help. It feels worse, actually.
Millie says, âI didnât mean â he started at me and I â my hand slipped ââ
âMills,â Mum says, âheâs dead. You donât have to keep pressure on it.â
âI didnât mean to kill him,â Millie says, and sheâs shouting, a bit.
Something presses at her shoulder. Carilweth is offering her a canteen. She shoves it away. She doesnât move her hands. Thereâs still blood on them. Itâs stopped gushing. Theyâre all standing around, and thereâs more bodies on the road she hasnât looked at, and there have been bodies on the road before, and she doesnât â
Itâs different, when sheâs got her hands around the shaft of the arrow, covered in blood.
It was supposed to be a clean job.
Dad puts a hand on her head, rough-palmed on her hair, stubby fingers brushing her forehead. She butts it off. âDonât.â
Mum says, âCome on, Mills. Take it easy,â and Millie looks up at her, at all of them; still crouched over a corpse with her hands around the arrow, staring. They all look tired. Theyâre all looking at her. Margaid, hair frizzy and loose round her head, mouth twisted in something approaching sympathy; Am-Tul, tail curled; Carilweth, face pinched; Dad, glancing over at the horses, still lashed to the cart.
Millie swallows and repeats, âI didnât mean to.â
âI know,â Mum says, like she really does, and lays a heavy hand on her shoulder. And then, âWe talked about how important it is to stay focused.â
(And itâs guilt that you feel, isnât it, when youâve killed someone without any good reason and you didnât mean to; thatâs how that feels, Millie knows, and so she knows thatâs how sheâs feeling, even if she doesnât feel much of anything nameable. Thatâs what makes sense. The feeling she gets next is so vivid she doesnât even need to think about it â rage, like in all her dog-eared Pelinal books, white-hot and spitting and like, for a moment, she could eat them all alive.)
She lashes out, flailing, violent, and her forearm hits her mumâs knee; her hand streaks blood on her trousers. Itâs a shit hit. Most times Mum would drag her up and tell her to do it better, but right now Mum can eat a dick.
âYou were distracting me! You were fucking yelling and keying everyone up, like you always do!â Millie hits her again, hard as she can, her form no better the second time. One handâs still on the boy. On the body. âI was keeping an eye in case shit went sideways, like you told me! You were fucking me up!â
Mum steps neatly back out of armsâ range, her mouth twisting but not ticking like it does when sheâs really mad; Carilweth says quietly, âYou said youâd take it easy on the kid, Nela.â
She jerks her head, sharp, derisive; the gold in her ears glisters in the dappled sunlight. The boyâs blood shines half-dried on the cloth at her knee. âSheâs well old enough to make a bit of balsam,â she says, voice tart; âI was out on the pad at her age.â
Margaid snorts. (Sheâs cleaning off her fucking knife. Millie is going to â sheâs cleaning off her knife. Sheâs laughing.) âYouâd knapped at her age, you werenât doing shit,â she says, and Am-Tul is looking over at the other side of the road like heâs planning disposal, and Dadâs looking at the fucking horses, and Millieâs had it.
âI fucking killed someone!â she says; bashes her bloody hand into the ground, dirt gumming to the heel of her palm, and she says it again, loud and raw enough to scrape, to make her throat hurt, until they all shut up and pay attention. âI killed someone, I killed someone, I fucking killed someone! Why didnât you do anything?â
âShould have caught your arrow, should I?â says Mum, voice acrid, a strand of hair loose over her eye.
âNelly,â Dad says.
Millie snaps, âGo fuck yourself.â
âNo, tell me how this is my fault,â Mum says; she gestures, short and sharp, at the whole circle of them, towering over her. âHow this is any of our faults. You fucked up, Mills â you want to cry about it, whatever, but donât try to pin it on me.â
Millieâs voice is cracking when she says, âIf you werenât showing off ââ
âYouâre not a colt,â Mum replies flatly. âYou know how this works.â
âNelly, sheâs upset,â says Dad, soft-voiced; âsheâs not going to listen now.â
The bodyâs still just there, on the ground, eyes open, mouth slack. And Millie isnât a colt. She does know how this works. Sheâs not new to scamping, and sheâs not new to violence; canât count how many fucking times sheâs seen a job go south and come to this. But sheâs the youngest, and she was always the lure, and before now sheâs always been able to look away. Itâs another thing when youâre looking it in the face. Itâs another thing when you did it and itâs your fault. Itâs different. Itâs new. She doesnât like it.
And she canât look away.
Mumâs looking at her, mouth twisted, close enough both to sympathy and irritation to get confusing. âLook,â she says, gruff. âYour first milling business, thatâs rough. I get that. But it was going to happen sometime. Maybe best to get it out of the way.â
Thereâs blood sticky and covered with dirt on her hands. The boy is on the ground. They havenât even closed his mouth.
âYou donât even care,â Millie says, and she fixes her eyes on the place where the wood of the arrow-shaft meets torn cloth and too much blood, which she really didnât want to look at before but feels rather like nothing, now. The bleedingâs stopped. Itâs all over. Itâs all over. Rough, she says, âLeave me alone.â
âYou going to clean up here on your own?â Mum asks, slanted, and Millie just kind of shuts her ears off after that. Thereâs a bit more conversation. She waits for it to be done. She waits for them to go away. Carilweth crouches down to kiss the top of her head, first; the ridges of Am-Tulâs tail brush against her back. Dad takes the horsesâ reins. Good fucking riddance.
The boyâs not bleeding anymore, because heâs dead. His eyes are open. He has freckles. Sheâs never felt good about looking away, exactly, but it was just routine; but all hell, she doesnât know how they kept doing it if it felt like this every damned time.
âCome on back to camp when youâre feeling a bit better,â says Dad; and he doesnât apologise. None of them have ever apologised. She wants it, suddenly, worse than sheâs ever wanted anything, and itâs about as practical as hoping she might sprout wings and fly off into the sky. Fuck. She wants to hit someone again. She wants it to be this morning again and for everything to go different. She wants to be five years old and for everything to be like it used to. Itâs not the same. It canât ever be the same.
She waits for them to be gone; watching the faint dappled sunlight shifting over her blood-soaked hands, listening to the faint complaining of frogs, the high-pitched sawing of cicadas. Somewhere, there is a bird. She doesnât know its name, but she knows its warbling call. She hates it, right now.
When itâs just her and the frogs and the cicadas and the bird that wonât shut up and the corpse, she walks forward a little on her knees and grabs him around the armpits. Leaves the bow where it is in the dirt. Begins to drag him out, to where the ground gets swampier, to where, a short few minutesâ walk away, thereâs the marshy bank of the river. Not one of the off-shoots, twisting twigs and branches, but the Niben proper. Sheâs never been to a funeral â sheâs only ever really known five people, and none of them are dead â but sheâs read about them. Thereâs no priests of Arkay out in the back-ends of Blackwood, the stretches of swamp-road between towns, and she doesnât have a shovel, but underwater is close enough to underground, and the river-spirits from the really old stories can make up for the consecrations.
They can say all the rites and whatever too, if thatâs important, because Millie sure as hell isnât.
She almost trips over one of the other corpses as she passes it; kicks its arm out of the way. The back of its hand is flushed red.
A bodyâs an unwieldy thing to carry, it turns out; Millie drops the boy in the mud twice. His clothes get stained. Thereâs spatters of dirt on his skin, which is cold. He was nearly as tall as she was, standing up, so thereâs a fair bit to manage, and his limbs flop all over, unsteady. Itâs like dragging a coil of rope, the ends going everywhere. He leaves a trail in the mud. That feels like exactly what you donât want when youâre hiding a body. But sheâs not trying to hide, and she canât heave him up any higher. She can hear the lapping of the river.
She drops him at the bank; stands over, looking at him. Eyes open, mouth open, arrow-shaft still sticking out of his chest. Bloody. Cold. His blood is still on her hands; so first, she kneels down in the muck, and she washes them as best she can without soap in the sluggish-running water, watching red bloom like rust in its surface. Sunlight glances off the surface of the river. The water is cooler than outside, but not cold. She rubs off what she can, watching it run clean, and employs her bitten-down fingernails for the gummy bits; scratches long, red marks parallel to her veins, running criss-cross over her palms, picking at the skin around her nails. The water is dirty. Thereâs no soap. Thatâs probably why it still doesnât feel clean.
She closes the boyâs eyes. Her fingers are wet, wrinkled; water dribbles down his face, like heâs been crying, which he hasnât, because heâs dead. She closes his mouth. It falls open again. His skin feels like normal skin. Thereâs mud on his cheek. She almost just rolls him into the water like that, but it doesnât feel right â his face uncovered â his arms all floppy, like octopus limbs. Thereâs no coffins here. If she had her scarf she could manage a shroud, but itâs a warm day; she didnât wear it.
Thereâs pale red running down her hands again. The damp end of her sleeves are still wet with blood.
Better than nothing, she decides, so she peels off her tunic, picks an arrow out of her hip quiver, sits down in the mud, and starts slicing through the thread at the seams. Itâs not easy, with the point of the arrowhead. Takes fucking forever. Half the fabric is wet with sweat. Her skin feels clammy. She feels a little bit insane, but also the most rational sheâs ever been.
(Sheâll need another tunic â a change of clothes or two, if she can grab them, which means a bag. A canteen, for water. Some lightweight food. Sheâll have to leave most of her books. Most everything. She can get new books. She can get new everything. Jewellery, though, good to keep â easy to carry, easy to hide, easy to sell â so sheâll need all of hers, and, fuck, some of everyone elseâs into the bargain, why not. Mum has gold enough. Margaid has a few pieces somewhere. Am-Tul has the horn rings. And Dad never wears any of his, so he wouldnât even notice. A bow, because sheâs not going back to the road to get hers. A knife, something that can be a tool and a weapon in a pinch. And cash. As much as she can carry. Talk about making a bit of balsam.)
(Everyone will be back at camp, now, the one with the broken wagon. They probably wouldnât all leave to do the cleaning, but figuring out the horses and the wagon in the road would be a job and a half; if sheâs lucky, theyâll all be gone to manage it by the time she makes her way back. At least most of them. Millie doesnât want to talk to anyone. She doesnât have to. Sheâd like to see them try and make her.)
(In and out, like housebreaking, that year they stayed in Leyawiin. Pack a bag and be gone. Thereâs other roads in the world. If sheâs old enough to kill someone sheâs old enough to find them.)
Her hand slips, nearly at the end of the side-seam; the arrowhead slips and carves a neat groove in the meat of her palm. Blood wells up, red as rubies, staining the creases.
Millie looks at it, for a moment; then she puts the fabric down, and she leans out over the water, and she retches. Only twice. Nothing comes up. Her mouth tastes sour.
(She has to leave, and she has to do it now, because nothing will ever really be the same but if she stays it will get back to being close, and it will be like it didnât matter. And it did matter. And none of them cared.)
She rips the last few stitches in the seam; they tear easy as grass. The boy is as unwieldy as he was before as she tries her best to swaddle him in it. The sleeves are dangling. Fabric is fraying. His jaw still wonât close, so she snaps the head off the arrow with a bit of her blood on it and puts it over his mouth, the point facing down. The rest of the fabric she puts over his face.
She looks at the cloth-clad lump of him for a moment. She does not apologise. She doesnât think she knows how.
She doesnât say anything. Thereâs nothing to say.
When she pushes him into the water â past the mud of the bank, into the current of it â he sinks, silent, under the sunlit oil-slick of the surface. The cut in her hand is dribbling into the river. The sky above is bluer than anything else in the world.
(Camilla Patesca will disappear that day. She will never be seen again.)