ABCtales serial part 3

It was near dusk when the camp came into view through the straggly coastal pines. Mateo hesitated before entering, watching as the inhabitants bustled around the fires; mothers settling their children into the elaborately decorated caravans. There was grandfather; father’s father to his mother. Had he heard what Mateo had done? If he had there would be no welcome in the camp. His eyes searched the people until he found her; she was sitting on the steps of her caravan stitching a shirt her eyes staring off into the deepening gloom as delicate fingers danced. Mateo remained beyond the camp as one by one the others settled into their caravans with the falling night, until only his mother was left sitting on her steps, her head resting on the door frame. Still Mateo waited, watching the fires burn low and the lanterns douse one by one. Finally his mother raised her head and, despite the darkness looked straight at him, motioning with her hand.
Mateo rose from his hiding place and entered the camp.
‘You were wise to wait.’ His mother said quietly as he wound his way around the dying embers, ‘Grandfather is very angry.’ Then she caught sight of his bruised face half concealed with dry blood. ‘Oh Teo!’ she was more angry than concerned. She stood, motioning him to pass her into the caravan that had been his home for a good deal of his life. She came in behind him with a bowl of water and a rag, pulling the door closed against the darkness and prying eyes.
‘Who did this?’ She began to wash away the dried blood.
‘A going away present from Krieg Donnagh and a couple of Troopers.’ He shrugged.
She clucked a tongue. ‘Then it’s true?’
Mateo’s face darkened, ‘Aye, its true.’
His mother said nothing; setting the bowl aside and leaning in close to examine the cut above his brow and the bruises on his jaw. The cut had already sealed and the bruises were fading to yellow; a gift of his Journeyman ancestry but she was still tender as she felt around the wounds. ‘Is he that good a fighter then?’
‘I wanted him to see that he couldn’t take me.’ Mateo grinned.
His mother stood, tassling his hair. ‘Men.’ She clucked, sitting beside him.
They sat in awkward silence and Mateo knew what she wanted to say.
‘Word has reached even here then?’ He ventured.
‘This morning.’ She could contain it no longer. ‘How could you do it Teo? You’ve dishonoured our family and especially Grandfather.’
‘That was never my intention.’ He replied quickly. ‘I couldn’t…’
He looked at her helplessly, saw the understanding in her eyes.
‘What did you think? That she would come and live in a caravan with you, travel the wilds and endure being spat on and driven out from each settlement once we’d served our purpose. Did you think she would be content lighting fires, cooking your food and mending your clothes?’
‘I don’t know, I just had to see her again.’
‘And for that you walked away from the tythe, you dishonoured our family?’
‘I told Malik I’d be back, I asked for a little time but all he said was he would give nothing for a Landsman whore. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.’
‘No you just broke his nose and walked away from an obligation, oh Teo.’ She shook her head. ‘Our society works on honour, trust. Like him or not even Malik knows that. Last year he traded food with us when we had little, his help kept this family alive. This year he needed extra hands and that’s why you were sent to him; to return the balance. Its been our way ever since the dark times and you broke it.’
Mateo sighed, ‘ I’ll go back, make the proper appologies and take whatever punishment he sees fit.’
‘It’s too late for that, Grandfather has already sent Kio to take your place—’
‘Kio’s too young—’
‘What other choice was there? You would have us break our obligation?’ There was anger in his mother’s voice now.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh Teo, You are my son and I love you dearly but you’ve spent too long among the Landsmen, their ways are not ours. You can’t walk away from an obligation, it’s unheard of.’
‘I can’t undo it, I would if I were able.’
His mother stood staring at him, hands on her hips. ‘And have you finally realised that you are not one of them? Have you gotten her out of your system?’
‘Donnagh said she knew what he had done.’ He answered quietly.
‘Given who her father is that wouldn’t surprise me greatly. Harran Wayd was always an ambitious bastard. His friendship with your father was based solely on your father’s position in the institute…’
‘Sara isn’t her father.’
‘You just said she knew of the Donnagh boy’s plan.’
‘I’ve only his word for that.’
‘They will never accept you Teo, you have Journeyman blood in you and to them that’s nothing more than a disease.’
‘I know.’
She sat down beside him again, putting an arm around him. ‘This is my fault, I should have never sent you to live with your father…’
‘I’m glad you did, he was a good man…’
‘To good for the Landsmen, he had the heart of a Journeyman.’ He heard the catch in her voice and shared the pain of loss.
They sat in their silent, shared grief for a time.
‘What are you going to do now?’ His mother asked finaly.
‘Well I can’t go back there now and it seems I can’t stay here—’
‘This is your home, we are your family. We’ll face grandfather together tomorrow and if he forces you out then you won’t be leaving alone.’
He stared into his mother’s fierce green eyes and felt a lump catch in his throat. At forty two she still held the beauty of her youth, the silver flecks in her midnight hair seemed only to highlight it. He could see the strength and determination in her face but he could also sense the edge of fear – fear that she might be cast out with him that they would be left alone in a very hostile world. He took her hand in his own, bringing it to his lips.
‘No, this is my crime. I won’t have you paying the price.’ He released her hand and stood. ‘I’ll leave tonight. Tell Grandfather in the morning that he should exile me. It’ll save face for the family and close the matter. Even Malik should be satisfied with that.’
She started to protest. ‘You think I’d ever allow you to be cast out?’ He interrupted before she could get the words out.
It was barely perceptible but it was there; the relief.
Wordlessly he began to unpack the things unnecessary for survival in the wilderness from his pack. Almost reverently he handed his mother the bound, leather covered journals of his father. ‘I saved them from the institute’s grubby hands. He wanted you to have them.’
Her eyes filled with tears as she took the tomes wordlessly. Mateo swallowed the lump in his throat and moved to the rear of the caravan behind a screen of silks quickly stripping off his Landsman attire for the soft leathers and moccasins favoured by the Journeyman. At his waist a wide belt with a sheathed knife and slim hafted hatchet, a leather thong tied around his head to keep his hair from his eyes. His mother looked him up and down as he moved from behind the screen and he saw it in her eyes, now he was Journeyman.
‘Where will you go?’
‘I hadn’t really thought about it, North maybe, father said there were cities there that had never been explored, he always wanted to go but the institute would never sanction an expedition.’
He saw her beautiful features darken. ‘There are far more than just old cities there. Choose a different compass point; there’s nothing in the north for you.’ Her tone had become waspish.
His eyes narrowed, ‘Am I not strong enough to look after myself? To make my own decisions?’
‘Not if you thinking of going into the northlands!’ His mother snapped in return, ‘There’s no reason to go there, nothing for a Journeyman! Only old memories better left buried. Aye you’re not the first with such a curiosity and that turned out to be a lethal bite for all the others that have felt it! There was a good reason the institute never sanctioned an expedition despite your father’s urgings – even their ravenous need for the knowledge of the old world wasn’t so rabid that they would risk travelling in such a place. Go anywhere else but I forbid you to go north!’
Mateo stared at her in shock as she stood shaking with rage. ‘I’ve lost a husband I’ll not loose my only son as well.’
‘Nothing’s going to happen to me besides where else can I go? How long will it take for word to reach the other families that the half-breed has been exiled?’
‘Don’t use that term!’ She snapped quickly but Mateo seemed unconcerned as he gathered things from around the caravan and stowed them in his pack.
‘I would have no other as mother or father though I had the whole world to choose from.’ He paused in his packing to place a hand against his mother’s cheek. ‘But we both know it’s how they see me. I’m not a true-blood, they’ll have no problem turning their eyes from me. And you don’t have the right to forbid anything of me.’
She stood cupping his face in her hands. ‘You are my son that gives me the right.’
‘I am your son,’ he agreed, ‘but I’m still going north.’
She released him, staring at him intently. There was no anger in her eyes but rather some kind of inner conflict that he couldn’t fathom. ‘There is nothing I can say that will turn you to another direction?’ The question was half-hearted, as if she already knew the answer that she didn’t bother waiting for. ‘If I can’t turn you from that path I can at least give you a fighting chance; Grandfather be damned.’ She pulled a cloth wrapped bundle from a hidden compartment in the wall, setting it on the bench next to his pack. He looked at her quizzically then at her prompt unwrapped the bundle. He stared at the contents, sheathed in a leather cover, glancing at his mother she nodded to him and with careful hands he picked it up and pulled it out of the cover. It was a squat weapon, a little over two feet long; shorter than the assault rifles carried by the Landsmen troopers and heavy with it. It was a shotgun, that much he could tell but the others he had seen were longer, more elegant looking weapons.
Jayna picked up a squat rectangular box from the cloth and taking the shotgun from his hand slotted it into the underside of the shotgun then pumped the action.
‘There are fifteen shells in the magazine.’ She said, handing the weapon back to him. It’s effective range is a little over ten feet, anything more than that and you can’t guarantee a kill. Less than ten feet it’ll drop a rhino.’
There weren’t many weapons from before the darktime left anymore; and less ammunition for them. It was rumoured that down south, in the bigger cities of the Presidium that there were weapon smiths resurrecting the old arts and making new weapons but in the northlands the only weapons were the reclaimed ones. Some had been salvaged from the ruins, some were family heirlooms passed from generation to generation until the ammunition was used and the weapon became useless.
‘There’s a shade less than thirty rounds left so use them sparingly.’ His mother said as if sensing his thoughts.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘From my mother’s family.’
Reluctantly he extended the weapon back to her. ‘I can’t take this.’
She took the shotgun, sliding it back into the cover before setting it in his hands once more. ‘If you go north you’ll have a greater need than me.’
Before he could say anything more she brushed past him to one of the overhead cupboards and pulled out two boxes of ammo, setting them in his pack.
‘It’s little enough but it’s all I have to give.’ She said without turning around.
He moved up beside her gently taking the pack from her hands, closing it up.
‘It’s not like I’ll never be back. Once things have settled down some I’ll drop back by.’
She gathered herself turning to face him once more. ‘Please choose a different road; I beg you, do it for me.’
He had the holstered shotgun slung on his back and was in the process of shouldering his pack, there was real anguish in her voice, fear even. The Presidium was a relatively small conglomerate of Cities, towns and villages, two days concerted effort would take him beyond their border to lands he had never travelled… He almost acquiesced. ‘I have to go north; I can’t explain it I just have to. I’m sorry,’ he finished lamely.
She pulled him into a fierce hug. ‘I lost Karl I don’t want to loose you too.’
He dropped the pack and folded his own arms around her. ‘You won’t.’ He hoped his voice sounded more convincing to her than it did to his own ears.
Before she could argue any more he broke the embrace and snatching his pack ducked out into the night.