Chapter Five

As he stood in the warm, hazy rain that drifted ethereally down from the thin, fast-moving clouds, he wondered if the weather in his home country was ever depressing. It didn’t seem to be. Certainly, the drizzle had none of the haunting beauty of a crisp, cold sunrise, or the awe-instilling power of a coastal storm. But it was not displeasing. It fitted the mood somewhat, as he stood solemnly in front of the bulky stone he had carved for Sara.
The engraving was a simple daisy-like flower, and the words ‘Forgive Me’. He had not been sure of what else to say. After all, he wasn’t even sure if she was dead. But he owed her a lot, either way.
The sun broke gently through the jagged, rocky horizon, casting a metallic shimmer across the thick wet air, and painting the sky with a leaden glow. He felt his shadow darken behind him.
“Signor Gregorio? The general requests your presence. They wish to start planning the next offensive.”
He turned to face the rebel soldier, and his own shady silhouette lying across the floor. Amongst the sagging trees and muddy grass carpet, the fear burnt brighter than the resolve in the rookie’s eyes. Gregorio sighed. So be it. He followed the messenger towards the shacks, hastily erected as the troop moved quickly through the rural outback. Inside, the fires would light all sides of him, expelling his shadows, forgetting the rain, and allowing him to become a warrior again.

Bile lurched as always in the pit of Antonio’s stomach as he opened the crisp manila envelope, sealed with the sign of Oribe. More orders from the bloodthirsty buffoon. He wouldn’t know diplomacy if it turned up on a Sunday morning and married his daughter.
Antonio smiled, despite his disgust. Fortunately, it seemed he had inherited his grandfather’s skill for fitting in. He had been the commanding officer of the barracks south of Mino for over a year now, and though he wasn’t high-ranking enough to avoid combat entirely, at least he avoided combat with Oribe. Though Antonio had many reasons to argue with his father, politics was not one of them. They both knew to back the winning stallion. No matter how stupid or barbaric it was.
As he began to draw the papers out, he thought of his sister. It didn’t happen often, but his mind tended to drift back to her. Not in regret – no. In simple memory, perhaps. It was not his fault that he had come off so well and she so badly. They offered her a chance to come and side with the Blancos. But she had refused, tainted too strongly by the foolish bohemian. She had inherited her mother’s stubbornness, perhaps. Or caught Gregorio’s ignorance.
Of course, when they had come for him they did not know that Federico had disowned him as a son. All they knew was that they had found the battle-ready son of an Oribe-supporter. It would have been a feat to not get promoted, they loved him so.
However, the truth was that Antonio had inherited his grandfather’s arrogance, too. He was too blind to see that Oribe promoted loud-mouthed gulls that would rouse the men without complaint or mutiny. Too blind, even when the worst orders possible landed on his cheap, pillaged desk in the office which should have been a schoolroom. They were not bad orders, or suicidal ones. To him, they appeared as a test of the men’s courage.
Unlike ignorance or stubbornness, and for a very good reason, arrogance usually took men to their graves.

Time, relative to itself, whirled and eddied around Jacqueline. The footsteps rushed towards her, but in her mind she spent an age weighing up her choices. For a lifetime she tried to make the ritual choice between fight and flight. But with no information, and the possibilities open so wide to her, each option was as death-inducing as the last.
The outside world interjected her adrenaline-fuelled musing and sped up without warning. Time to decide. She chose indecision. A hand burst from the darkness and fell on her shoulder.
“Jacq?”
Her eyes diluted the darkness, allowing the figure of the woman she knew so well to filter in towards her. She was not pretty, but not plain either, a simple beauty that had been worn slightly, eroded through experience and revelation. Sara’s other hand was stretched out towards her.
“Jacq, we need to get back to the main village. They want to have a meeting.”
They always wanted to have a meeting. Ever since Oribe had properly discovered their pocket of resistance in the slum-like outskirts of Mino, the leaders had been on edge, and a lot less rallied around their causes.
“A meeting about what, Sara?”
She let her hand slip from Jacqueline’s shoulder and turned towards the edge of the path. Pockets of light thrust up from the darkness.
“They say it might be over for us, Jacq. They say we might be going over.”
The boundary between the distant firelight and the cold, dark night was hazy. Perhaps it meant something. They rose, and together they walked upwards, towards home.