“I don’t know,” I forced myself to answer. “I don’t know if Odysseus could get used to dealing with armies that have guns, or with people who believe in one God instead of lots of gods. You know it’s very hard for people to deal with a world completely different from their own.” I rubbed the boy’s hair, chewing on the future in my mind. Yes, we would have to guess how tall he’d grow, and teach him how to shave, and make decisions like this for himself, not just to be a good boy and obey when we said ‘no.’
Bridger’s smile would not dim. “Maybe Achilles couldn’t get used to gun armies, but Odysseus could. Odysseus is the cleverest ever. If Odysseus can get along with nymphs and gods and goddesses and ghosts and foreigners then they can handle Frenchmen.”
“Probably so, but I can’t see it going well. Odysseus managed to get lost for ten years in just the Mediterranean, and up in France there’s the whole Atlantic to deal with.” I mussed his hair again, its blond perhaps starting to dim. “You know that’s a very sad book, right? Les Misérables. Famously sad.”
Bridger hadn’t learned to avoid the eyes of others, but always met them honestly. “I know. Lieutenant Aimer already told me some of what’s going to happen. I’ll be ready when it comes.”
I used to forget sometimes that I was not Bridger’s only pseudo-parent.
“Why do people like sad books?” he asked.
“You like this book,” I answered.
“I’d like it better if it wasn’t sad.” He leaned his head against my shoulder. “I get mad at authors for doing that sort of thing to characters.”
“Some books have to be sad to get across the ideas the author wants to talk about. Victor Hugo is describing a very sad part of real history. Hugo wants you to understand that moment in time, what was beautiful about it, and what was horrible. Books, even made-up stories, can’t all have happy endings because they reflect the real world, and the real world isn’t always happy.”
The Major nodded, sagely slow. “If history is written by winners, fiction like that is written by bystanders trying to guess what the victims would have said if they’d survived.”
“So what?” The heedless boy elbowed me in the gut again as he sat up. “Even if it’s real life’s fault bad things happen, that doesn’t mean they aren’t bad. Don’t you get mad, Mycroft? Major? Whether it’s fiction or real life, don’t you get mad?”
I nodded. “That’s the sort of thing you can talk to the sensayer Carlyle about.”
The Major leaned back, his tiny arms swinging over the chair’s sides. “Anger doesn’t help. Men write books like that because they want history to remember, mourn, and make sure that sort of tragedy won’t happen again.” His voice was gentle, like an abdicated king happy that his words are words again and not commands. “Most of the characters in that story were willing to die for what they believed in. It’s a good bet that, given the choice, they’d be willing to suffer what they suffered in the book if it would insure that you in the real world don’t make the same mistakes.”
Bridger nodded, not the acceptance of a man convinced, but of a child willing to accept the answers of his elders until he has time to test things for himself.
“Is Thisbe here?” I asked.
The boy wiped his nose on his sleeve, then pretended he hadn’t. “Thisbe went to go meet that sensayer, Carlyle. They’re coming again.”
“Good. Did you like talking to them before?”
“No. But it was all right after.”
I frowned down at him. “Did you not like Carlyle?”
“I like Carlyle.” He smiled his cherub’s smile. “But I didn’t like what we had to talk about. This time I want to talk about something happier.”
I held his eyes. “Bridger, Carlyle’s job is helping you talk about things that are hard.”
“I know.” He flopped onto his side, winding me accidentally. “I guess we can talk about hard things. We can talk about sad books that make me mad.”
I smoothed his hair. “You should talk to Carlyle about what you said to me before, how sometimes you get mad when bad things happen in real life too, the same way you get mad at the authors of sad books. Carlyle can tell you about philosophers who talked about that too.”
“About getting mad?”
“About thinking about the world the same way you think about a book. There were some philosophers called Determinists, who sometimes talked about the creator of the universe as being like the Author of a Great Scroll, where all the events of history are written out—the Author of the world.”
“Did the Deternists…”
“Determinists,” I corrected.
“Determinists, did the Determinists also get mad at God for choosing to make the world a sad book?”
“Some of them did, but others said God had a reason for writing a sad book, just like Victor Hugo did, or that the book only seems sad because we’re in the middle of it, but if you read the whole thing start to finish you’d see a happy ending. Carlyle can tell you more.”
He smiled. It was good to know that Bridger could smile at the prospect of facing a near-stranger. “I like happy endings better.”
I smoothed his hair once more. “Is Mommadoll here?”
“I’m here. Have some cookies.”
“Yay!”
The boy picked the finest specimens from her tray of mud pies, which transformed to steaming gingerbread as they passed through his hands to mine. Mommadoll is tenderness itself, thirty centimeters tall, with rosy cheeks, bright glassy eyes, golden curls, and a permanent smile. Her tiny fingers are as adorable as an infant’s until you touch them and realize that their childish thickness comes from the calluses of a decade’s toil, and her apron is cheery with colorful patches when you do not think about the rips and stains beneath. I have caught her sweating as she fights to hoist a roast chicken twice her weight, or blistered to bleeding as she battles real-world cobwebs with her doll-sized broom. No human being can live without complaining even once, but she is a child’s mad ideal, far beyond human.
“Are they yummy?” Mommadoll asked, watching me with her too-bright eyes.
“Yes!”
“I’ve made some for the Major, too, see them?”
“Mmm!” His mouth already full, the boy grabbed the pill-sized cookies from the plate’s edge and passed them down.
The Major accepted. “Thank you.”
“I’ll have milk for the cookies in a moment, you boys just hold on.”
“That’ll have to wait. We need you here for this.” The Major straightened in his seat.
Mommadoll reached up, and at that signal Bridger lifted her and nestled her between his chest and mine. She is warm under that frilly skirt, precariously warm like an infant whose new heat might wink out like a candle. “What’s up?”
The Major’s silence forced me to go first. “We don’t know for sure yet, but we need to get ready in case we need to leave here soon.”
Bridger spat cookie in my eye. “Leave?”
“I’m sorry. It’s possible some strangers may search this area soon. We have to be ready to evacuate in case they come.”
I could hear the other soldiers’ mutters, soft as the skittering of insects, as they gathered in a nearby little turret.
“Strangers like Carlyle?” Bridger asked.
I shook my head. “Dangerous strangers. Bad things are happening in Thisbe’s bash’. People are coming there, and may come here. We need to pack up your most important things into just a few bags so you and I can carry them.”
“And Thisbe,” the boy corrected. “You and me and Thisbe.”
The Major shook his head. “No. If there are police and press involved, we won’t be able to see Thisbe for a while.”
“But—”
“Bridger.” Mommadoll stroked his cheek with her doll fingers, “Remember, what’s most important is that you stay safe. Nothing else matters. Right, Mycroft?”