with a faint smile.
“About anything to do with the past,” Henry replied.
Jack looked levelly at the older man. “Which just happens to be something you know all about.”
“Some of us like to preserve what we can,” Henry said. “We keep in contact. We make sure that knowledge isn’t lost.”
“So you’re some kind of wise man?” Jack asked.
“Wise? Ha!” Henry spat on the straw of the barn floor. “If I were wise I probably wouldn’t do any of this. I certainly wouldn’t live way out here. And don’t start thinking that I know everything. Do you know how this world came to be, Jack?”
“Are you about to sell me your religion?”
“Hardly,” Henry said. “And I don’t mean the world as a whole. I mean this world we live in now. I mean this world of kings and queens and the capital.”
Jack shook his head. “No.”
“Neither do I,” Henry said. “Oh, we all know that something happened. There are those who think that there was a war, and others who think that there was a natural disaster. There are a few who think that things simply fell apart, and people decided that things would be better without the old governments, or technology, or anything else. But no one knows, not really.”
Jack stood there for a moment or two. “You mean it hasn’t always been like this?”
Henry laughed at that. “No, it hasn’t always been like this. And my guess is that you knew that once.”
“But I don’t now,” Jack said. “So what does this have to do with me?”
Henry looked a little disappointed at that, the same way he did whenever Jack tried to shy away from completing a chore or argued too hard with Dahlia.
“That’s for you to decide, Jack. Maybe nothing. Maybe something. For now, I’m going to head back to the house.”
There wasn’t an invitation for Jack to join Henry, so instead, he stood in the middle of the barn. On impulse, he clambered up into the loft space where he’d been sleeping, coming back down with his sword in his hand. Jack stripped off his sweat soaked shirt, standing in the middle of the barn with the scabbard of the sword held in his left hand. He closed his eyes, and drew it with his right.
The first movements came smoothly, his body remembering what it had to do even while his mind couldn’t. Jack thrust at imaginary enemies, parrying blows that weren’t there before returning with sword strokes. The movements became more complex, taking in strikes from his hands and feet. Jack’s body moved slowly at first, aching with the stiffness of work and with the lack of practice. Gradually though, he sped up, whirling and spinning. He didn’t know how he was doing it. Jack reached for the movements, trying to feel his way through them. Trying to find whatever memories they were attached to. Jack tried to focus on each movement, knowing that the answers had to be in there-
His feet caught and he tripped. The floor came up to meet him, slamming into his knees as he fell. The sword went spinning away as he hit the ground, clattering away with a noise that was only matched by one sound: the noise of Dahlia’s laughter.
Jack’s eyes snapped open, staring at her. She stood with a plate of food in one hand and a small bundle of clothes tucked under her other arm. Jack was more interested in the amused expression on her face. Dahlia could be beautiful when she smiled, although she did that rarely enough around him.
“Enjoying my discomfort?” Jack asked.
“That and the view.”
Jack swallowed as he realized that he wasn’t wearing his shirt. He grabbed for the rough one he’d been wearing, holding it up in front of him.
“Father told me to bring you some spare clothes,” Dahlia said. She threw the bundle she held at him. There was a shirt of pale cotton there along with trousers in rough blue material. Jack toweled himself off with his former shirt then put on the new one. He left the trousers. He wasn’t about to undress any more in front of Dahlia.
“Is that food for me too?” Jack asked.
“I’m not carrying it here for the good of my health,” Dahlia snapped back. But she put the tray down on the floor for Jack. There was bread on there, and cheese, and a few slices of spiced sausage that he knew from plenty of meals there tasted of tomatoes and hot peppers. “You fight people who aren’t there pretty well. You know, for a man who likes to run away so much.”
Jack sighed at that. Dahlia was obviously in a mood to be sharp tongued today. Just as she was so many other days. Another day, Jack might have let it go. “Have I done something to offend you, Dahlia?”
“Where to start?”
“Seriously,” Jack said. “Your father wouldn’t give me a straight answer, but have I met you before? Because I can only assume you would be this angry with me for this long if I’ve done something to hurt you.”
“You hurt us just by being here,” Dahlia said. “The sooner you’re gone from here, the sooner you get running again like the deserter you are, the better.” She smiled again. “Sorry, were you hoping that your boundless charm would make up for it?”
“What does it matter to you if I’m a deserter?” Jack asked.
Dahlia frowned at that. “Aside from the part where they’d execute all of us if they found us harboring you?”
With anyone else, Jack might have believed that. “No, that isn’t it. It’s something else.”
“Maybe I just don’t like a man who runs away from his responsibilities,” Dahlia said.
Jack walked over to his sword, picking it up and carefully cleaning it before he sheathed it. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know as much as my father does. That you’re one of them. One of the ones who come around to take every scrap of knowledge. You’ve got scars on your body, Jack. Who were you killing while you got those?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said. “You know that.”
“I know that. I also know that I’m supposed to applaud you because you’ve run away from all that. But what did running ever solve?”
Jack didn’t owe her an answer to that. He didn’t owe her anything. So why did it feel like he did? “It will keep me alive.”
“And is that such a great achievement?” Dahlia shot back. “There are plenty of people out there who just drift through life. What does that do?”
“I take it you have a better idea?” Jack said. This was probably the most that Dahlia had said to him at any one time. Previously, she’d spoken to him only as much as necessary. She had been there to relay her father’s instructions, or bring food, or tell him to do things better. No more than that.
“There are people trying to make a real difference to the world,” Dahlia said. “People who try to preserve some of what we’ve lost from the past. People who want to bring back things that will make life easier for the people around them.”
“People like you and your father,” Jack guessed. He watched Dahlia’s expression, catching the small flicker of surprise that flashed through her eyes.
“He told you?” she demanded, but didn’t give Jack a chance to answer. “He shouldn’t have done that. You could be anybody. You could tell people what you’d seen.”
“Are you thinking of killing me with the crossbow or the poison?” Jack asked. He forced a smile, but beneath it, he was serious. He doubted that Henry would ever harm him, but Dahlia seemed like she would do whatever she needed to do to protect herself and her father. There were days when Jack even suspected that she would relish the opportunity.
“My father shouldn’t have told you,” Dahlia insisted.