The Belgrade Convoy

Crista leaned against on of the wooden beams that supported the inn porch. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was regular; for all the world it looked like she was sleeping standing up. But she wasn’t sleeping she wasn’t even resting: her mind was more active than it had ever been before. Crista Veers was listening.

More than four months ago she had stood in this very spot and watched as the Belgrade Convoy left the village, taking Starr with them. He had waved to her as he disappeared over the horizon, but his real goodbye was early on the morning of his departure, before even the sun rose.

Crista had awaken and walked out of doors to the Circle of Blue, the Boundary that she dared not cross; only boys who had passed their rite of manhood were allowed out of the Boundary. It was nothing, simply a ring of blue stone, barely knee-height, but it held Crista back as if it were a towering wall with no gate.

Autumnal leaves stirred in her wake, upset by her slippered feet, but they returned to the ground without a rustle. Her white gown seemed ethereal in the half-light of dawn, casting a glow on her face that was pale from the cold. In her hands she tightly held a tiny, short-stemmed rosebud, but there was a scarlet tint in the petals, as if it would bloom any minute.

Stepping as close as she dared to the blue stones, Crista kneeled and placed the rose on the ground, silent and reverent. Brushing away a tear from her brimming eyes, Crista glanced at the engraving on the largest stone before her.

If thou lovest, let go thine lover,

If they return, love was true and thine,

If not, never was it meant to be.

“Protect him,” Crista whispered her words just below hearing. “Turn his path homeward after seasons of time, guard his hands from danger, his feet from wrong paths, his eyes from horror, his mind from madness, his heart from-”

Suddenly a sound behind her broke the mysterious atmosphere, shattering her prayer in mid-sentence. It was the sound of a booted foot on leaves, crunching them ten times louder than she had.

It was Starr.

“I…I came to say goodbye,” he explained, nervous now that he saw what he had interrupted. “I knew not when I might see you again; today will be very busy.”

Crista left her rose and the blue stones, crossing towards Starr with no more tears in her eyes.

“Starr, please, for me…just one more year.”

His brown eyes were full of sorrow and undecided love; no young men desired to leave the village on the day after their manhood rites, but customs and traditions were unmovable.

“I cannot, Crista,” he tried to protest. “You know…”

But it was useless. He had prepared an entire speech to say to her, apologizing for leaving her –even though it was not his fault– and promising to return, though he knew not for sure if he would. Now he realized how pathetic his speech would have been; recorded, automatic words in the face of love. He had practiced, aye, but not with Crista’s blue eyes overflowing with tears before him.

Starr swallowed, twice, and then spoke again.

“I promise to return,” he said. “Upon my honor, I will return.”

Crista too had a speech, a persuading, nagging one, but she knew she could not say the words now.

“If upon your honor,” she replied. “I will be content.”

Starr stepped forward, but she shook her head.

“I cannot…not after…”

He understood, and left.

But that was four months ago. The harvest was gathered in, the preparations for a cold winter nearly done, the frigid nights gathering like white hairs on an elder’s head, everything signaled the time of return for the Belgrade Convoy. But they came not.

Crista stayed where she was until the sun set, taking the pale orange light and yellow-grey clouds with it. When finally it was dark she left the inn porch, her hair peppered by white crystals, every fold of her cape and hood full of snow. Beneath her overcloak she grasped a small rose, a faded and withered red from much time.

Crista left the village and turned her path into the wind, feeling every biting snowflake that hit her white face. Each step became harder than the last, struggling to lift booted feet against a foot of snow, struggling to push a flapping cloak back into place, struggling and stumbling at every step.

Finally she reached the Circle of Blue, but her skin was a blue that rivaled the stones’ own hue. Her lips were a ghostly purple as she muttered her prayer once more, laying the rose directly against the largest stone, the stone with the engraving.

If thou lovest, let go thine lover,

It was a cruel and dark world.

If they return, love was true and thine,

Starr was dead; nothing besides death could stop him from returning.

If not, never was it meant to be.

But it was, and Crista knew that. Even as she clasped her hands one last time, pleading life, the world, anything, even as her vision sparked and flared with slow fire, even as numbness crept up her body.

A few miles away, on the other side of a hill, lights swung on the ends of spears. Men chanted songs and prayers of thanksgiving, grateful for their safe arrival. At the head of the convoy a grey-headed elder walked, holding a small, wooden stick in his hand. He took another look at the stick and shook his head sadly, tracing the carvings with his gnarled finger. The carvings were names and numbers, carved with careful, graceful runes. The first, “Colban Tridderfeet, October 21st,” the second, “Nanon Killdeer, December 7th,” and the last, “Starr Cortulas, January 1st.”

He sighed and shook his head again.

“Crista will weep,” he murmured to himself. “She loved him deeply…too deeply.”