WHEN WOMEN WERE WARRIORS
BOOK II
A JOURNEY OF THE HEART
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Also by Catherine M. Wilson:
When Women Were Warriors Book I
The Warrior’s Path
&
When Women Were Warriors Book III
A Hero’s Tale
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WHEN WOMEN WERE WARRIORS
BOOK II
A JOURNEY OF THE HEART
by
Catherine M. Wilson
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Published by Shield Maiden Press at Smashwords
Copyright © 2008 by Catherine M. Wilson
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction.
All characters depicted herein are the product of the author’s imagination and do not represent any actual persons, living or dead.
This book is available in print from Amazon.com and other online retailers.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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For my mother
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Acknowledgements
Many people offered advice, support, and encouragement during the “quite some time” it took to finish this project.
It is an extraordinary piece of luck for a writer to find someone who is willing to discuss a work in progress, someone who can enter the world of the story and gossip about the characters as if they were real people, who will question their motivations, scrutinize their actions, complain when they step out of character, and cast a light on a side of them their creator may have missed — someone who will take the work as seriously as the author does. For me that person is my friend and editor, Donna Trifilo, who, in addition to all of the above, pushed me through the hard times.
To everyone who was willing to read a work in progress, sometimes more than once, I offer my gratitude and the assurance that everything they had to say about it mattered.
Susan Strouse helped me overcome a major stumbling block at a crucial turning point. Lisa Liel, whose enthusiasm for the story rekindled my own enthusiasm, showed me how I could take a good idea and make it better. Ann Thryft’s considerable knowledge of the time, place, and culture deepened my own understanding of the story and its characters. Jo Trifilo’s insightful comments and careful critique gave me a new perspective on the story.
In ways too numerous to mention, significant contributions were also made by Jen Davis-Kay, Katherine Gilmartin, Rebecca Hall, Rob Field, Carmen Carter, Kate Maynard, the late Dr. Susan Barnes, Judi Miller, Jack Contento, Ru Emerson, the members of my first writers’ group—Morgan Van Dyke, Barbara Murray, Cooper Gallegos, Sandralee Watters, Marlene Michaelson, Rebecca Morn, and Eileen Thompson—who suffered through my early attempts to get my story started, and Heather Rose Jones, who helped me find my characters’ names.
And many thanks to George Derby and Marissa Holm for keeping me well fed.
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CONTENTS
28 TRUTH
29 THE WILLOW TREE
30 MIDSUMMER’S DAY
31 THE LADY
32 THE COUNCIL STONES
33 INNOCENT BIRDS
34 RUNNING AWAY
35 VINTEL’S WAY
36 FEAR
37 COURAGE
38 DEATH
39 POWER
40 SPOILS OF WAR
41 A CHOICE OF EVILS
42 A JOURNEY OF THE HEART
43 MERIN
44 A WICKED LIE
45 A WARRIOR’S BURIAL
46 TAMAR
47 A TIME OF TROUBLE
48 HEARTS
49 DEMONS
50 THE SPIRAL PATH
51 THE HARVEST
52 AN UNDIVIDED HEART
53 A DIFFERENT LIGHT
54 THE MOST IMPORTANT THING
55 A STRONG FRIEND
56 BLOOD DEBT
57 OUTLAWS
58 WILDERNESS
59 A FAIRY TALE
60 WINTER
61 THE FOREST
62 THE PAST
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28 TRUTH
Maara took the sword from my hand.
“What is this?” she said.
“It’s a sword,” I replied, as if she couldn’t see that for herself.
“What are you doing with it?”
“Practicing.” I wiped away the sweat running down my face. “I’m not used to its weight anymore.”
We were standing on the practice ground, where I had been giving a wooden post the benefit of my clumsy blows. I was discouraged. Although I had grown a little taller in the last year, I still had to use both hands to wield the heavy sword, and it had been so long since I’d practiced with it that I felt like a beginner again.
“Did I say anything to you about practicing with a sword?”
Maara leaned the sword against the post and beckoned to me to follow her. She found us a place to sit in the shadow of the earthworks where it was cooler.
I waited for her to speak. I had thought she would be pleased with me. Instead she sat frowning down at the ground.
At last she said, “I don’t want you to practice with a sword. Not even with the wooden ones.”
“Why not?”
“When will you be strong enough to wield a sword one-handed?”
It was a question I didn’t know how to answer.
“Someday,” I said.
“I don’t think so.”
What dreadful thing would she tell me next? Was she saying I would never be a warrior after all?
“You don’t believe I’ll ever be strong enough?”
“No.”
I couldn’t comprehend what I was hearing. Why would she have apprenticed me if she didn’t believe she could make a warrior of me? I almost suspected her of accepting me because she knew that I would fail and so release her early from her obligation.
“I thought you believed. . .”
“What?”
“That I could become a warrior someday.”
“Of course you can,” she said. “You will.”
“A warrior without a sword?”
“A warrior with a weapon she can use.”
She reached for something that lay hidden in the tall grass. I recognized at once the bow she took from the man who killed Eramet.
“The bow and the sword are very different weapons,” she said. “A sword takes both strength and endurance. A bow takes a different kind of strength. It also takes great skill and more patience than most people ever have.”
I was only half listening to her. I was grieving the loss of my dream of myself with sword and shield, standing with my comrades, as I had imagined my mother and her sisters standing, shoulder to shoulder, against the enemy.
“A bow is a coward’s weapon,” I said. I was mouthing words I’d heard somewhere without understanding what they meant.
My warrior frowned at me. “Any weapon is a coward’s weapon in the hands of a coward.”
I blushed with shame and looked away, but my pride was wounded, and I refused to understand her.
“Why did you accept me if you thought so little of me?”
“So little?” She waited for me to meet her eyes. “I think the world of you.”
A lump in my throat prevented me from speaking.
“If I did not,” she said, “I would hang a sword from your belt and a shield from your shoulder and pray that you never had to use them.”
If she was making a joke, I didn’t find it funny.
She turned the bow over in her hands, admiring it. Her fingers followed the carvings, swirling spirals that meandered up and down its length. When I had first seen it, it had no bowstring. Now a new string wound around the shaft of the unstrung bow.
“Do you know what kind of bow this is?” she asked me.
I shook my head.
“It’s a forest bow. Powerful, but meant to be used at close range. Easy to carry among the trees. Small enough not to get in its own way.”
“Small enough even for me?”
I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. She answered me in kind.
“Yes,” she said. “Small enough even for you.” Then in a kinder voice she said, “And like you, it is powerful and clever. Like you, it has strengths that are easily overlooked, but they are many nonetheless.”
The sweetness of her words was meant to help me swallow a bitter truth, but I was not yet ready to give in.
“If a bow is such a wonderful weapon,” I said, “why is it that you carry a sword?”
“For the same reason you want so much to carry one. A sword is a symbol of power. A hunter may carry a bow. Even a child can make a bow to shoot at birds that would scratch the farmers’ seed out of the ground. Only a warrior has the right to bear a sword.” She gave me a long look. “I understand your disappointment, but you must face the truth about yourself.”
“And the truth is that I’m too small and always will be.”
My words tasted bitter in my mouth. Nothing she could say would sweeten them.
“Too small?” she said. “Too small for what? Too small to wield a sword? Yes, I believe you are. But the whole truth is that you are small of body. That’s all.”
She stood up and took several steps away from me, then stopped and turned around. She still held the bow, and she shook it in a gesture of impatience.
“There is great power in this truth you can’t accept, and I don’t know how to make you see it.”
Now she had my attention.
“If you insist on acquiring the trappings of a warrior, that’s all you’ll ever have. A sword can’t make you something you were never meant to be.”
“What was I meant to be?” I wondered aloud.
“I have no idea,” she said. “Nor do you, but you’ll discover that only when you can face the truth about yourself.”
Although nothing could make facing the truth any less painful, she had made it a little easier. She had held out to me the hope that, by letting something go, I might be able to take hold of something better.
Maara came back and knelt down in front of me.
“You once told me that every warrior’s heart is different,” she said. “I never thought of it before, but you showed me that it is a warrior’s heart that matters, more than her size or the weapon she carries.”
Surely it was the power of the oak grove that had given me those words. I could never have thought of them myself.
“A woman with a warrior’s heart shouldn’t fear the truth,” she said. “No weapon in the world is stronger than the truth.”
I closed my eyes and tried to find the courage to face the truth about myself. I would have to let go of a dream I’d dreamed since childhood. For a little while grief filled my heart. I had no choice but to bear it. Then the pain subsided, and I put that dream away.
* * *
“It can’t be done.”
“Yes, it can.” She was trying not to smile.
With all my strength I tried to bend the bow, so that I could slip the loop of the bowstring into its notch. It stubbornly refused to bend.
“Let me see it.”
I handed Maara the bow. She placed one end on the ground and braced it against her foot. While I had been tugging hard on the other end, which only drove the bow straight down into the soft ground, she held it lightly, her fingers ready to guide the bowstring into place. With her other hand she grasped the belly of the bow and pulled. The bow bent, and the string slipped easily into its notch.
“Nothing about a bow is obvious,” she said.
She unstrung it just as easily and handed it back to me.
I didn’t succeed right away, but after struggling with it for a while, I was at last able to string the bow. She had me practice stringing and unstringing it until I was drenched with sweat and my arms trembled. Then she let me rest.
“That’s all for today,” she said.
“Oh.”
I was disappointed. She knew why.
“You’re not strong enough yet to draw a bow like this,” she said. “When you can string it without effort, you’ll be ready to learn to draw it.”
“If I were strong enough to draw a bow, wouldn’t I be strong enough to wield a sword?”
“A bow takes a different kind of strength,” she said. “To wield a sword, you must have the strength to lift it and to strike with it. Once you’ve drawn a bow, you must hold it drawn while you take all the time you need to find your aim. I’ve seen many who had no trouble wielding a sword in battle shake like an aspen in the wind after they had held a drawn bow for only a short time.”
* * *
Day after day I practiced stringing the heavy bow. After several weeks went by, it did seem to be getting easier. Maara found a lighter bow for me in the armory, and after I had strung and unstrung the heavy one until my arms were limp, she let me try drawing the lighter one. She had me hold the drawn bow as she circled around me, adjusting the placement of a foot or the angle of an elbow until she was satisfied.
I was impatient. If I was going to become an archer, I wanted to get on with it. Every day the other apprentices practiced with sword and shield. I watched them enviously, wanting to believe that someday my skill would be a match for theirs, though mine was a different weapon.
The day came at last when my warrior met me on the practice ground carrying a few arrows in her hand. She saw my eagerness and smiled.
“Let’s go down the hill a little way,” she said. “We don’t want to hurt anyone.”
She found a place where I could shoot the arrows into the side of the hill. I was more than ready to begin, but she sat down in the grass and patted the ground beside her. I resigned myself to waiting a little longer and sat down.
“Look,” she said, showing me the fletching of one of the arrows. “Like the feathers of a bird’s wing, these feathers control the arrow’s flight. They are as delicate as a bird’s wing, and you must be careful of them.”
She showed me how to hold several arrows loosely in my hand so that the fletching of each arrow didn’t rub against the others. Then she showed me that by putting a finger between each shaft I could hold them more tightly and still keep the arrows separated from one another. She sighted down the shaft of each arrow. None of them was perfectly straight, and she explained that each would fly a bit differently. At last she stood up.
“I don’t want you to try aiming at anything yet,” she said. “Just shoot the arrow and watch its flight.”
She handed me the light bow and watched me string it. Then she handed me an arrow and showed me how to lay the bow flat to nock it, how to align it in the bow, how to set the tips of my fingers against the bowstring. When I turned the bow upright, the arrow fell away from the bow and dropped at my feet.
After several tries I could keep the arrow more or less in place while I drew the bow. Maara had me hold the bow drawn while she examined my stance. I resisted the urge to find something to shoot at.
“Straighten your fingers,” she said.
I did, and the arrow tumbled out of the bow and hit the ground a few feet in front of me.
“Good,” she said. “Try again.”
I couldn’t believe how difficult it was. There were so many things to remember all at once. Draw the string with the fleshy part of the fingertips, not at the joint. Hold the bow upright. Don’t let it tip to the left, or the arrow will fall away from the bow. Don’t let it tip to the right either, or the arrow won’t fly true. Let the hand that grips the bow support the tip of the arrow without restricting its flight. Keep the elbows down, head up, back straight, feet well apart.
By the time Maara took me home, my shoulders ached. My fingertips burned from the bowstring brushing over them. The inside of the arm that held the bow was red and sore where the bowstring sometimes struck it. Worst of all I had succeeded only in sending arrow after arrow in every direction but where I wanted them to go.
Maara saw that I was discouraged.
“You’re doing well,” she said.
I didn’t believe her.
29 THE WILLOW TREE
One day, when Namet invited Maara to spend the afternoon with her, I thought I would pass the time by watching the other apprentices sparring on the practice ground. I found Sparrow and Taia there, using wooden swords and wicker shields. They were well matched. Taia was a head taller than Sparrow and had a longer reach, but Sparrow was more agile, and much more skillful.
While Sparrow was clearly enjoying herself, Taia appeared to be half-hearted. She didn’t seem to mind that time after time Sparrow’s sword found its way past her guard. At last she tossed her sword and shield aside and wiped the sweat from her brow with the tail of her shirt.
“Shall we try with real swords?” Sparrow asked her.
Taia shook her head. “It’s too hot,” she said, and went to join a few of the other girls, who were resting in the shadow of the earthworks.
Sparrow turned to me. “Will you practice with me?”
“I can’t,” I said.
“Why not?”
“My warrior doesn’t want me to practice with a sword.”
Sparrow knew, of course, that I had been learning the bow, but I hadn’t yet told her what Maara had said, that I would never be strong enough to fight with sword and shield. I was ashamed to admit that to anyone.
“Let’s go for a walk then,” she said.
We went down to the river. Sparrow undressed and waded into the water, to wash off the sweat and dust of the practice ground. Then she joined me on the riverbank. The cold water had made her nipples shrivel up, and I thought briefly about taking one of them into my mouth.
“What does your warrior think she’s doing?” Sparrow asked me.
I knew what she meant, but I didn’t know how to answer her.
“She’s putting you at a disadvantage,” Sparrow said. “Whether you’re any good with a sword or not, you must carry one if you’re going to be a warrior.”
“Maara doesn’t think so,” I replied. “She wants me to have a weapon I can use.”
Sparrow sighed. “What does the Lady say?”
“She hasn’t said anything to me.”
“She will.”
As much as I had protested Maara’s decision, I found myself defending it as if it were my own. “It is Maara who is under an obligation to teach me. She’ll teach me what seems best to her, and the Lady should have nothing to say about it.”
Sparrow pursed her lips, but she held her tongue. She knew better than to remind me that Maara wasn’t one of us, although I knew that was just what she was thinking.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t learn the bow,” she said. “We all train with the bow a little. But why not learn to use a sword as well?”
“Maara says I’ll never be strong enough to wield a sword,” I admitted at last. “She’s right. I’ll always be too small.”
“Listen,” Sparrow said. “Small has nothing to do with it. You saw Taia just now. She’s the tallest woman in Merin’s house and as strong as an ox, but she has no skill with a sword. She doesn’t work at it. She doesn’t have to. She’ll never be called upon to carry a sword into battle herself. Next year she’ll go home with her sword and shield and hang them on the wall and be done with them.”
“Taia will never go into battle?”
“Taia is the first daughter of her house,” said Sparrow. “She’ll wear a sword like the Lady does, as a symbol of her authority, but I doubt she’ll have to use it any more than the Lady has used hers.”
“But the Lady fought in the war.”
“Who told you that?”
No one had told me in so many words. “My mother sometimes talked about the war. She said that the Lady, young as she was, commanded warriors twice her age.”
“Yes,” Sparrow said. “She commanded them, but how could she have commanded them if she had been in the melee alongside them? She would have stayed where she could watch the battle, and her guard would have protected her.”
How was it that I knew so little of war when my own mother had been in the midst of it? By the time she earned her shield, the fighting was over, but she must have known the things that Sparrow was now telling me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my mother spoke very little about what had happened to her during the war. She had told me how terrible it was and how afraid she’d been, both for herself and for those she loved. She had shared her grief with me, but she had never told me about the things she’d seen and done and seen others do.
“How did you learn so much about the war?” I asked Sparrow.
“Eramet told me. She heard the stories from her mother and from Vintel.”
“How would Vintel know about the war?”
“Vintel was here. She spent her childhood here. She was young then, but she must have been aware of what was going on.”
“Oh.” I lay back in the grass. “I have so much to learn.”
“So have we all.”
I looked up at her, and the curve of her breast caught my eye.
“You can touch me if you like,” she said.
I blushed, embarrassed that she had understood what I wanted before I was aware of it myself. She took my hand in hers and held it against her breast. I forgot my embarrassment. I supported the soft weight of her breast in the palm of my hand and brushed my thumb over her nipple, to watch it shrivel up again. She closed her eyes. Her face showed me the pleasure my touch gave her, and seeing it gave me pleasure too.
She opened her eyes and caught me watching her. She smiled at me, then stood up and held out her hand. I took it, and she pulled me to my feet. When she started to undress me, I tried to help her, but she stopped my hands and made me stand still, as if I were a child.
Sparrow led me naked into the river and began to bathe me. Her hands slipped over my skin with a light and teasing touch. She caressed my breasts, and I felt my nipples harden. She drew her fingertips down my spine, over my hips and belly, and through the curls between my legs. Then I felt a more intimate touch.
“What are you doing?”
She was the image of innocence. “I’m giving you a bath.”
I laughed and let her do as she pleased. After a little while she embraced me and whispered in my ear, “Come with me.” Then she lay back and let the current take her.
We splashed ashore not far away, where the branches of a willow tree trailed their leafy fingers in the water. Sparrow pulled the branches aside. There was just room enough for the two of us to lie together under the tree. The ground was soft with moss, and the drooping branches hung like a curtain about our own private bower.
Sparrow lay down and would have pulled me down beside her, but I resisted her. I sat beside her and gazed down at her body. I found it beautiful in a way I didn’t understand. Beauty, I thought, is for the eye, but the beauty of Sparrow’s body demanded to be touched. Her beauty demanded to be held and kissed and changed by my caress into something yet more beautiful.
My fingers traced the line of her collarbone. She shivered, and I thought I’d tickled her, but when I glanced at her face, I saw that my touch had pleased her. I let my hand explore the hollow of her throat, the curve of her shoulder, the roundness of her breast and belly, the softness of the skin on the inside of her thigh. All the while she lay still, her eyes closed, her mouth half-open. Sometimes a certain kind of touch made her catch her breath or caused her body to move in a way that showed me the pleasure she felt.
I lay down beside her and propped myself up on one elbow so that I could continue to caress her.
“Show me how you like to be touched,” I said.
She reached up and took my face in her hand. “Kiss me.”
When I bent down to kiss her, she pulled away from me a little.
“Lightly,” she said. Her lips brushed mine, then retreated. “More than anything, I like to be kissed.”
“Why?”
“A kiss will always tell you how someone really feels about you.”
She kissed me again, and I thought I understood what she meant.
She took my hand and guided it to her breast.
“Show me,” I said.
She smiled. “I will.”
And her body did show me. By the way she moved and by the sounds she made, I discovered what gave her pleasure. I found the places where her body was most sensitive. I kissed her throat and felt her pulse quicken under my lips. I took a nipple into my mouth and felt it change.
Her skin grew warm. She took my hand, and I thought she would put it between her legs, but she had me touch her everywhere but there. She wanted me to stroke her belly and the insides of her thighs. Then she opened her legs for me.
I touched her lightly. Her body demanded more, but when I touched her more strongly, she put her hand over mine to stop me.
“Now you must stop listening to what my body asks of you,” she breathed into my ear. “Make it last.”
I caressed her more gently, and her body became less impatient. She moved in enjoyment of the pleasure I gave her. For a time it was enough. Then she put her arms around me and drew me into a close embrace. I felt her hips lift, and this time I didn’t tease her. I gave her body what it asked of me, and her cries of pleasure echoed in my ears like music.
For a long time neither of us moved. I held her close, while my heart overflowed with tenderness. When I brushed her hair back so that I could kiss her brow, I saw that her face was wet with tears.
“What is it?” I asked her. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter.” She brushed her tears away.
“Why are you crying?”
She snuggled into my arms. She didn’t answer me.
* * *
Sparrow woke me with a kiss.
“Why did you let me fall asleep?” she said. “I wanted to take my time with you. Now it’s almost too late.”
I looked for the sun and saw that it would soon be time for supper. Maara would be wondering where I was, and no doubt Vintel would be looking for Sparrow.
“It is too late,” I said. “We should get back.”
When I started to get up, she pulled me back down beside her and rolled on top of me. She gave me a long kiss, and I forgot what time it was.
“Can you come here tomorrow?” she asked me.
“I don’t know.”
Sparrow grinned down at me. “I won’t let you up until you tell me when you can spare a little time for me.”
“Soon,” I said.
She was satisfied with my answer. She kissed me again. Then she got up and dived through the willow branches into the river.
While we were getting dressed, I worried that we would be late for supper. Vintel would be angry, and the thought of Vintel’s anger made me afraid for Sparrow. Would Vintel ask her where she’d been? Would she be unhappy with the answer? I looked up to find Sparrow watching me.
“What is it?” she asked.
Without stopping to think, I blurted out, “Does Vintel know?”
“Does Vintel know what?”
I didn’t answer her. She knew what I meant.
“Whether she knows or not, it’s none of her business.”
“Vintel may not agree with you.”
Sparrow finished tying the laces of her shirt. When she looked at me, her eyes revealed her anger and her disappointment. She turned away and started back to Merin’s house.
I ran after her. “What’s the matter?”
She stopped and turned to face me. “If you’re afraid of Vintel, then you had better stay away from me.”
The anger in her voice hurt me more than her words. “How little you must know me if you think that Vintel could frighten me away from you.”
“Then why do you care what Vintel knows?”
“Because I’m afraid for you. I’m afraid she’ll be angry with you. I don’t want to be the cause of trouble between you and Vintel, and I don’t want you to be sent home.”
The anger left her eyes. I was about to tell her that if spending time with me was dangerous for her, I would understand and be glad for whatever she could give me, but she spoke first.
“I don’t know what Vintel would think,” she said, “but I doubt she’d be glad to give me the afternoon off whenever I wanted to spend some time with you.” She gave me a wry smile. “I ought to be more careful, I suppose. I’ll try. But I won’t let anyone, not even Vintel, tell me what I can or cannot do with my own body. Or with my heart. Never again. Even if Vintel breaks my apprenticeship and they send me home. Do you understand?”
I nodded. I admired her courage, but at the same time it frightened me.
“Let us both be careful, then,” I told her, “and perhaps the world will leave us alone.”
* * *
But the world did not leave us alone. The next day Sparrow stole a moment to tell me she would have to spend the entire day, and most of the next few days as well, making preparations for a journey. In three days’ time, on midsummer’s day, Vintel intended to travel with a band of warriors who would be returning to Arnet’s house. Eramet’s people had not yet been told of her death, and Vintel wanted to bring the news to them herself. It would be a journey of several weeks. She intended to take Sparrow with her.
“We won’t have much time together before I have to go,” Sparrow said.
I nodded that I understood. I tried not to show my disappointment.
“What will it be like for you to go back there?”
Sparrow shrugged. “I didn’t expect to see Arnet’s house again until I returned with Eramet. I don’t much like the idea, but perhaps I’ll find my mother there. I hardly knew how much I missed her until I thought I might see her again.”
“Why would you doubt that she’d be there?”
“One never knows what may happen to a slave. I don’t even know if she’s still living.”
A hard knot of anger formed deep in my belly. If my mother were to die, someone would be sent to tell me, so that I could go home and say my farewells to her before her spirit traveled beyond the sound of our tears.
“May you find her in health and power,” I said.
Sparrow smiled at the familiar words of the ancient blessing.
“Health I may hope for. Power I never will.”
“She will find her power in you,” I told her.
30 MIDSUMMER’S DAY
On the morning of midsummer’s day I woke early. Sparrow lay at my back, her arm around my waist. I kept still, waiting for her to wake. More than anything I would miss this closeness to her. I smiled to myself, remembering how impatient I had been with my mother when she would approach me silently from behind and slip her arms around me. As much as I needed to free myself from her embrace, I missed the comfort of being in her arms. I relaxed against Sparrow’s body and opened my heart to her, to draw this sweet feeling into me against the time when she would be far away.
Sparrow’s arm tightened around me, and her lips brushed the back of my neck.
“I have to get up,” she said.
“I know.” I turned in her arms. “I’ll miss you.”
Sparrow reached for something that lay hidden beneath her pillow.
“Maybe this will keep you from forgetting about me while I’m gone,” she said, and handed me something wrapped in a ragged shirt.
I sat up and unwrapped her gift. It was a bit of soft leather with a thicker piece sewn onto it and a few thongs that I thought must be meant to tie it to something, but I couldn’t imagine a use for it. Sparrow took it from me. She held it against the inside of my left forearm and tied it in place.
“This will keep that bow of yours from taking the skin off,” she said.
Once she saw that I understood its use, she started to untie it. I stopped her and pulled my shirtsleeve down to cover it.
“Let me wear it a while.”
She smiled with pleasure.
“Your gift is in the kitchen,” I said.
I took Sparrow into the cool pantry where meat and milk were kept. There I found the package I had made up for her the night before. Sparrow unwrapped it to discover a loaf of the sweet honey bread I knew she loved, a thick slab of cheese, hard and fragrant with age, and some dried fruit. One of the kitchen servants had baked the bread for me in exchange for three rabbit skins. The cheese and the fruit were an afterthought.
“For your journey,” I told her.
She was as pleased with my simple offering as if it had been a feast.
We hardly had time to exchange a few words of farewell before we heard Vintel and the others of their party clatter down the stairs. After a quick breakfast, they started on their journey, and I watched them out of sight.
* * *
Midsummer’s day was not a holiday in Merin’s house. The elders withdrew from the household to conduct the ritual of the longest day, but for the rest of us a bustle of activity marked the turning of the year. The warriors who had completed their time of service to the Lady would leave for home, as well as many of the young women whom the Lady had fostered. Others, like Vintel, would travel with them to visit the households of friends. By early afternoon all the travelers had left. The house felt empty.
Maara found me sitting in the shadow of the earthworks by the practice ground. I had gone there hoping to find someone to keep me company, but the field was deserted.
“We shouldn’t waste the day,” she said.
She took me by surprise. My mind was far away, thinking sad thoughts and missing Sparrow and my other friends who had left the household. All around me were the empty places where they should have been, at the companions’ table, in the bower, here on the practice ground.
“What’s the matter?” Maara asked me.
I shook the lonely thoughts out of my head. “Nothing.”
“Come on, then.”
She started down the hill. Then I noticed that she was carrying my bow and a handful of arrows. She had brought only the heavy bow. After I had strung it, she handed me an arrow. It was different from the arrows I had used before. The fletching was small and tight. It had a small stone tip, and the thick shaft was almost perfectly straight.
It took all my strength to draw the heavy bow. I drew it as she had taught me, with a steady pull until my thumb brushed the hinge of my jaw. I couldn’t have held that position for more than a moment. As soon as I had the bow fully drawn she said, “Let go.” The arrow flew straight and true and buried itself half its length in the sun-baked earth of the hillside.
I could hardly believe what I had done. Although I practiced with the light bow every day, sometimes for hours, I had never before done everything exactly right. This time was different, and my body knew it. For the first time everything had been in the right place. Elbows, shoulders, feet, all had been perfect. A surge of excitement went through me, and my body hummed with pleasure at what it had just accomplished.
Maara was as pleased with me as I was with myself, but when I reached for another arrow, she shook her head.
“That’s enough for today,” she said.
“Why?”
“Let your body remember what perfection felt like.”
She reached for the bow, and I unstrung it and handed it back to her. Then I pulled up my sleeve and started to untie the thongs of the leather guard.
“What’s this?” She took hold of my wrist and examined the guard.
“Is it all right for me to wear it?”
“Of course,” she said. “It’s a very good idea.”
“Sparrow gave it to me this morning, for midsummer’s day.”
“For midsummer’s day?”
“Midsummer’s day is a gift-giving day.”
“There are special days for giving gifts?”
“Yes,” I said. “The days when the year turns, at midsummer and midwinter, are gift-giving days. Year days too, at least for children.”
“What are year days?”
“When a child starts another year of life,” I said, “each member of her family gives her a gift.”
“And on midsummer’s day? Do members of a family exchange gifts on midsummer’s day?”
I nodded.
“Then I should have a gift for Namet.”
I was surprised that Namet hadn’t given Maara her gift already. Then I remembered that Namet would have been with the elders in the place of ritual since before dawn, and she might not emerge until late that evening.
“What does one give to one’s mother?” Maara asked me.
When I was small, I used to pick my mother a bouquet of flowers or give her something I had made myself. One year I gave her a lumpy sheep made of clay. Another time I wove a scarf for her that unraveled a bit every time she wore it. When I was bigger, I more often did things for her to make her day a little easier.
I couldn’t think of anything for Maara to give to Namet. Maara had so little, and everything she owned she needed.
“Well,” I said, “the reason for gift-giving is to let someone know you care for her, and if you care for someone, you pay attention to the things she likes. What does Namet like?”
Maara considered that for a minute.
“She likes the night sky,” she said.
“The night sky?”
“Her room has no window. Several times she’s come into my room in the middle of the night. When I asked her why, she told me she liked to look at the night sky.”
I remembered how my mother used to come into my room when she thought I was asleep. She would watch by my bed for a little while before she tucked my blankets around me and kissed me good night.
“I doubt it’s the night sky she comes to see,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“She comes to see if you’re all right. It’s something mothers do.”
“Oh,” she whispered.
I smiled at her. “What else does Namet like?”
“I can’t think of anything else.”
“Well,” I said, “you’ll think of something, but it will pop into your head when you’re not trying to think of something.”
She chuckled. “You’re probably right.”
While she went to retrieve the arrow I’d shot, I tried to come up with something for us to do that would keep us outdoors a while. I was in no hurry to return to Merin’s house. It felt too empty.
“We could go swimming,” I suggested when she returned.
“All right,” she said.
* * *
After our swim we lay in the sun on the riverbank until we were dry enough to put our clothes on. Once we were dressed, Maara was content to stay where we were. She sat cross-legged in the grass, gazing off into the distance, lost in her own thoughts. I lay on my stomach and watched the river go by.
At last Maara broke the silence. “I have a gift for you,” she said.
I turned to her, surprised. “You do?”
“A very small thing,” she said. “But it’s a gift you gave to me, in a way, and I want to share it with you.”
I didn’t understand. I had never given her a gift. And what gift could she have for me? Only an hour before she had never heard of our custom of gift-giving on midsummer’s day.
“When Namet took me into the place of ritual,” Maara said, “she made me a child again. She has a power in her eyes. When she looked at me, she saw the child, and I became the child.”
I nodded that I understood. I too had felt the power of Namet’s eyes.
“She touched me as a mother touches her child, and I understood that it was Namet, but at the same time there seemed to be another pair of hands that I remembered. Namet put her arms around me, and there was also another pair of arms. I felt her heartbeat and remembered the beating of another heart. She brought back to me the mother who gave me birth at the same time that she became my mother.”
While Maara spoke, I kept very still. I had forgotten all about the gift she’d promised me. It was gift enough that she would share these things with me.
“For a long time,” she said, “there were two women with me, and I was in two different places, and I was both a child and a woman. The child heard strange words she understood and smelled food cooking on the hearth and waited to be called to supper. She ate her fill and was put to bed, and her mother’s voice lulled her to sleep. Her mother told the child a story that the woman remembers.”
Deep in the heart of the forest, a little man lives. You may see the feather in his hat sticking out from behind the trunk of a forest oak, but if you look behind the tree he will be gone. You may hear him call his dogs to the hunt, and you may hear the voices of the pack baying in the night, but they will run past you unseen like the wind. You may wake in your own bed in the middle of the night to hear the softest footfall, and in the morning you may find a single leaf lying on your new-swept floor.
Deep in the heart of the forest, a little man lives. Ask him his name. He has none. Offer him bread. He eats none. Pour him good ale from the pantry keg. He will pour it out upon the floor. Water from the spring he drinks, and on his table you will find venison and quail. He lives in a house of twigs, the gift of trees that never knew the ax. He lives in a house of grass that never knew the scythe. He lives in dens dug by badgers under the roots of trees. He lives in the open air.
Deep in the heart of the forest, a little man lives. Go out singing to sow a field, and from the hedgerow you will hear him sing. Go out dancing to tend your flock, and you will see his shadow dancing by your side. Go out into the rain, and where the water pools, gaze at his reflection gazing back at you. Deep in the heart, a little man lives.
Maara looked at me. I met her eyes. They asked me if I would accept her gift. I couldn’t answer her. I could find no words that wouldn’t break the spell.
“I wish I had a better gift for you,” she whispered.
When I opened my mouth to speak, she silenced me with a wave of her hand.
“When you found me in the oak grove,” she said, “I know you were afraid. You could have told the Lady what you saw, and she would have broken the tie between us and set you free if you had wanted it. Instead you brought me Namet, and Namet brought my mother back to me, and my mother gave me back that story. It’s just a small thing, but it’s all I have of my own.”
“I wish I had a better gift for you too,” I told her, “but this is all I have.”
And I took her hand in both of mine and kissed it.
We walked back to Merin’s house in silence. I was still wrapped in the power of her gift. Someday I would tell her how beautiful it was, but at that moment no words of mine could be enough.
When we’d had our supper, Maara sent me off to bed. She waited up for Namet.
After Sparrow left that morning, I moved my bed from the bower back into the companions’ loft, and I lay where I could watch Maara sitting alone by the cold hearth in the great hall. She’d had no time to find a gift for Namet, but if she had thought of anything like the gift she’d given me, Namet would be delighted.
I fell into a heavy sleep. I may have slept for an hour or more. When I woke, the last of the long twilight was fading. Maara was still sitting by the hearth. I was about to close my eyes again when she stood up, and I saw Namet approach her.
They spoke a few words to each other. Although the murmur of their voices reached me, I couldn’t hear what they said. Namet took something from around her neck, a token of some kind, and placed it around Maara’s neck, and Maara took it in her hand and admired it. Namet turned to go, but Maara reached for Namet’s hand, took it in both of hers, and brought it to her lips. When she let it go, Namet stood quite still for a moment. Then she took Maara into her arms.
31. THE LADY
When I thought about how Maara and I had spent our first summer in Merin’s house, I wished that we could be as carefree now as we’d been then, though of course only I had been truly free of care. This year I had new responsibilities.
It was the task of the apprentices to teach the new girls their duties as companions. I tried to be both as kind and as demanding with them as Sparrow had been with me. Although they could be exasperating, I enjoyed teaching them. In them I saw myself as I had been the year before, and it reassured me to see how far I had come since then.
I spent time with the other apprentices too, mindful of the Lady’s charge to find new friends among them.
I also spent many hours practicing with the bow. I never again that summer made a shot as perfect as the one I made on midsummer’s day, but I was steadily improving, and each day I grew stronger.
I was beginning to come to terms with the choice Maara had made for me. Perhaps I finally saw the wisdom in it. While I could never have held my own against even as poor a swordswoman as Taia was, I believed that I might become as skillful with the bow as any archer in Merin’s house. I hoped in secret that someday I would surpass them all.
* * *
As Sparrow said she would, the Lady found an opportunity to speak to me. She chose a day when I went out alone to practice with the bow. Maara had set stakes into the ground all over the hillside, to teach me to judge distance. When I made a shot that sank into the ground inches from one of the stakes, I heard a voice behind me.
“Well done,” it said.
I turned to see the Lady standing there.
“Are you making progress?”
“I think so.”
“Good.”
Her eyes wandered over the hillside, taking in the broken ground around the stakes, as well as the evidence of many arrows that had gone astray. It must have been obvious to her how much time I spent there.
When she had finished her examination of the place, she turned back to me and said, “Come sit with me a while.”
I walked with her up the hill. We took shelter from the sun in the shadow of the earthworks.
“So your warrior is an archer too,” she said.
Although I had never seen Maara draw a bow, she must be a fine archer, or she couldn’t have taught me so well.
“Yes,” I said.
The Lady watched her hands as she carefully smoothed the wrinkles from the skirt of her gown. “Someone has mentioned to me,” she said, “that your warrior has forbidden you to touch a sword.”
“No,” I said. “That’s not true.”
“Have I been misinformed?”
“Forbidden is too strong a word.”
“So she intends to teach you the sword as well?”
Then I had to admit that Maara intended to do no such thing.
The Lady looked puzzled. “Why not?”
“I believe it’s her opinion that I shouldn’t waste my time on a weapon I can never master.”
“Master?” she said. “What does mastery have to do with war?”
I didn’t understand her question, but the Lady wasn’t waiting for an answer. She gazed past me into the distance with such a look of concentration on her face that I almost glanced over my shoulder to see what she was looking at.
“When I first set foot upon the battlefield,” she said, “I was not much older than you are now, but I was the daughter of my house, and it was my responsibility to lead our warriors into battle. How could I shelter safe inside the walls while others died?”
The Lady gazed up at the earthworks and the palisades that crowned the hilltop. “My mother’s archers stood on the walls and rained arrows down upon the enemy. They did a lot of damage, but in the end it was the courage of our warriors who went out and fought them hand to hand that won the day for us.”
She had put into my mind a picture of the battlefield. I saw the archers on the walls and the warriors on the ground advancing on the enemy behind a wall of painted shields. I remembered how my mother had described the din of battle — the war cries and screams of pain, the clash of sword on shield, the shouting, the confusion, the roaring in the ears that comes from fear. I imagined myself there. Would I be the archer on the wall who after the battle is joined can be of no further use, but must watch her friends fight the enemy face to face and hand to hand?
The Lady turned her eyes to me again. “Your warrior may not know what will be expected of you when you inherit your mother’s place,” she said. “You too will have warriors to command someday. What will you do then?”
I had no answer for her.
The Lady leaned toward me. Her eyes held mine. “I believe you still covet your mother’s sword.”
I looked away before she could read the answer in my eyes, but she knew what was in my mind.
“If you like,” she said, “I will speak to your warrior on your behalf. Perhaps I can make her see that when your mother’s sword comes to you, it would be well if you could use it.”
For a moment I was tempted. Vivid in my memory was the day my mother claimed that sword. For nine days, while we mourned her death, my grandmother’s place remained empty. On the tenth day, my mother took her mother’s sword down from the wall. Then she took her mother’s place at the head of the table, and by doing so unchallenged, she took the place of leadership. It seemed as if I were remembering myself taking the sword from the wall, as if I were remembering the future.
But an unseen force was pulling me in another direction. As much as I wanted to be worthy to inherit the weapon that was the symbol of my house, something new had begun to stir in me. Every time I had taken up a sword, I felt a sense of hopelessness, but the bow had given me hope, and it was my warrior who had given me the bow. Allowing the Lady to question Maara’s decision on my behalf would be a mistake. It would be a betrayal of the trust between us.
“I need no one to speak for me,” I told the Lady. “I can speak to her myself.”
“Certainly you can, but will you speak to her of this? Somehow I doubt that you will.”
“There’s no need,” I said. “She and I have spoken already, and I’m satisfied that she has made the right decision.”
“You’re as stubborn as your mother.”
The Lady’s voice was light, but her eyes flashed dark and angry.
My own anger loosened my tongue. “If I were apprenticed to any other warrior here, would you question how she was teaching me?”
“And impudent as well,” the Lady said, “which your mother never was.”
“I mean no disrespect, but it’s Maara’s place to decide these things for me, and if there are things she doesn’t understand about our ways, it is her mother’s place to teach her.”
The Lady was silent for a long time. She kept her eyes on mine. They made me uncomfortable, but I refused to be the first to look away.
“I will admit that Namet surprised me,” the Lady said at last. “She sees something in your warrior that others have missed. She seems to share your high opinion of her. I’ve known Namet almost all my life. I respect her, and I must take seriously her opinion.”
The Lady looked away from me and frowned. “I hesitate to say this to you,” she said, “but you’re no longer a child, and you have an understanding beyond your years. Namet is wise. This house depends upon her wisdom. She is also powerful, and I trust her power to see and understand things that I cannot. But you should also be aware that she can be as blind as anyone to the faults of those she loves.”
As are all mothers blind to their children’s faults, I thought to myself.
“Will we see your mother in the spring?” the Lady said.
She had changed the subject so abruptly that it took me a moment to understand what she was asking me.
“Next spring my sister will come of age,” I told her. “If nothing prevents her, my mother will bring her here.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing her again,” the Lady said. “Aren’t you?”
I nodded, but to be truthful, I hadn’t thought much about it. While I’d had a moment of missing her when Sparrow spoke about seeing her own mother, another part of me was apprehensive. I had grown up so much since I had been in Merin’s house. I was afraid my mother’s presence might make me feel like a child again.
“Your mother will be looking forward to seeing what her daughter has achieved since she saw her last,” the Lady said.
Before I understood her meaning, she got to her feet. “I know you doubt my good intentions, but I want what’s best for you. I want your mother to be pleased when she sees what you’ve accomplished here. I want her to be pleased with you, and I want her to be pleased with me for the care I’ve taken of you. Your warrior may still have enemies here, but I am not one of them, nor am I your enemy. I wish you would believe that and have a little trust in me.”
And she turned on her heel and left me there.
* * *
I spent the rest of the afternoon by myself, trying to understand my feelings. The Lady’s last words to me had left me feeling guilty, but I didn’t know what I was guilty of. I had done nothing more than affirm my right to choose my own teacher. While I had been angry, I didn’t think I had been disrespectful. I still believed it was the Lady who had been disrespectful, both of me and of my warrior, but for some reason I didn’t understand, I had wanted to run after her and tell her I was sorry.
That evening after supper I asked Maara to go for a walk with me.
“What happened?” she said, when we were on our way down the hill and out of earshot of the others who were enjoying an evening stroll.
“The Lady spoke to me today,” I told her.
Maara nodded. She didn’t seem surprised.
“She offered to speak with you on my behalf,” I said. “She objects to the way you’re teaching me.”