“So that’s what’s been weighing on you,” said Kárun calmly. “I knew there was something.”
I looked up, my eyes a little misty. He had stopped before me on the path, with the evening sun illuminating him from behind. He looked at me with a steady gaze, without fear or disgust. I could not answer, and only nodded. We stood there awhile.
It was one of the best moments of my time in Rovas, Venerable Mother.
We walked farther and came to a place where the path divided and a newly trodden path led uphill to the north. We waded through a small sea of thimbleweed, then through a hazel shrub and emerged in front of Kárun’s building site.
However, it was no longer a building site. It was a completed house. It was beautiful and golden, steeped in evening sun and surrounded by wonderful scents. Kárun has cleared away all the timber and waste, but the ground around the house is covered in sweet-smelling shavings. It is a small building, just one room, but with a window to the south and one to the west, and a real chimney—not just a smoke hatch like many old houses here still have. It is lovelier than any house in the village, up on its little hill with a view across a field of grazing Jóla sheep, and a view of the little stream where it meanders in a merry curve. Behind the house, to the north and east, the forest is at its most beautiful, full of fanning leaves and birdsong.
I leant on my staff and beamed. “This is so beautiful, Kárun,” I said. “To think that you did all this alone.”
“Oh well, a few of the lads from Jóla helped me with the roof,” said Kárun, running his hand over his head. “And I had help to lift the final logs.” I gave him a playful shove in the side and he laughed in surprise. “But yes, it’s a fine setting. That’s why I chose this place. Do you want to come in?”
I followed him inside. Sunlight poured through the western window and made the fresh-wood walls appear as though daubed in honey, or gold. It is not a large room, about the size of Mother and Father’s cottage, but without a separate bedroom. There is a small mortared fireplace on the north side and some wall-mounted shelves beside it. That is all.
“It is wonderful,” I said, and the dimples in Kárun’s cheeks deepened. I could see that my approval was important to him, though I did not know why. “You are yet to move in though, I see?”
“I don’t intend to live here.”
I turned to him. He cleared his throat and started rubbing his hands together.
“I’ve built this for you, Maresi.”
I stared at him.
“For your school.” He looked at me searchingly.
“My school?” I whispered. “I have no school. Only three pupils.”
He shook his head. “You needed help to lay the first log, that’s all. Here, I’ve laid it for you. Now it’s up to you to continue building.” He looked around the room. “I didn’t know what the right furniture for a school would be, but you only need tell me and I’ll try to put it together before I have to travel south down the river. That day is fast approaching now.”
“A long table,” I said slowly, picturing it. “With benches.”
I looked at him, and perhaps it was the first time I truly looked at him. An entirely ordinary man, a little older than I. An entirely ordinary man, grown from Rovasian soil, like my father and brother. Yet not really like them. No, not like them at all. Broad shoulders, arms strong from swinging an axe through summer and winter, coarse hands—hands that he has used to build me this incredible gift. Furthermore, he wants nothing in return, Venerable Mother. I know this. I have communed with the Maiden enough to know.
“Why, Kárun?” I asked.
He hesitated. “Sit down, Maresi,” he said, and gestured to the floor. He sat opposite me with crossed legs. He searched for the words awhile. “My father was a wealthy man when my mother married him. But one night, when he’d been drinking, he played a game of dice not understanding what was written on the paper that defined the stakes. He lost our farmstead, the livestock, everything.” Kárun stared blankly out of the window. “Afterwards he was a changed man. He took out his anger and shame on everyone else.”
“On your mother,” I whispered.
“Yes. Father and Mother moved away from the farm, far enough away that no one would know of Father’s shame. As a child I always had to be on my guard, so that he’d never have reason to direct his anger at Mother or me.” He took a deep breath. “When I was a little boy my mother became very sick. Father said it was because she was a sinful woman, and the sickness was punishment. When I too fell sick he said that it was Mother’s fault.” He clenched his fists and pressed his knuckles into his knees. “When Mother died he finally allowed Tauer to come and take care of me. I recovered.” I could see the muscles in his jaw tensing. “When I first worked as a timber-rafter there were several in the team who contracted the same sickness. We had reached the outskirts of Irindibul by then and a healer was sent for. With a few concoctions he cured them all, and explained that it was an easily curable disease, but if left untreated it could be deadly.”
He leant forward and took my hand. I was utterly taken aback, but permitted him to hold it between his hands. They were coarse and warm. “Knowledge is protection, Maresi. My parents’ lives could have been different.”
“Thank you, Kárun Eiminsson,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for your help. I will do my best to be worthy of it.”
Then he left me alone in the building and now here I am breathing in the scent of my own school. I do not know how to go about filling it. But a gift such as this must be used, and used well. I cannot waste it or take it for granted. I am duty-bound to continue building on the foundations that Kárun has laid.
With love and respect,
MARESI
Venerable Sister O,
Now I must recount what came to pass the day before yesterday. I have not written in a while.
Spring is a hectic time here. We have been working hard to cultivate and fertilize the clayish, stony soil, and singing the ancient songs to the earth and sky asking for warmth and water in equal measure, and re-treading the old furrows. For a time I have gone back to being simply Maresi Enresdaughter, with a place in our community. It has felt good to work side by side with Mother, Father and Akios. Spring came early and was beautiful, with light rain at night and warm sunny days—weather in all ways perfect for early sowing.
The seeds sprouted well and spring passed into early summer. Everybody in the village has been gazing contentedly at our green fields and predicting a record yield. Finally hunger and starvation are beginning to fade into a mere memory. The growth in my herb garden has picked up speed and everything is flourishing. The early evenings have been full of the sound of frolicking frogs, which is a sign of a long summer, according to Tauer. He is full of superstitions, but sometimes he is right. My little “school” has been put on hold during these busy times, despite the fine new schoolhouse I have acquired (I trust the Mother Abbess read that letter aloud?). We have all been busy with our spring activities, adults and children alike.
On the evening I now want to recount, I went out for my usual walk around the villages. I have continued the habit since last autumn. The solitude does me good. I always bring my staff with me, and sometimes Grey Lady. When I feel tired, Mother usually chases me out, as indeed she did on this occasion. She had been standing out in the yard with her eyes fixed on the forest edge for a long while. She appeared to be listening to something. Then she sniffed the air and turned to me. I was sitting on a bench and resting my tired back. I had been weeding my garden all day and everything ached.
“No time to rest now!” she exclaimed in vexation, jabbing the same familiar spike into my heart.
I am not my own person here; I do not have authority over my own time. Mother will not suffer laziness or idleness. She went in to fetch my staff and cloak, which she handed to me with the same indecipherable expression she always makes when she looks at the cloak.
&nbs
p; “But Mother, I am so tired,” I said, though I knew it would serve no purpose.
“Work must be done, tired or not,” Mother said sharply. Her lips formed a hard line. “You know very well what’s on its way.”
I had no notion of what she was referring to, but was too tired to protest any further. I took the staff, wrapped my cloak around me and pulled up the hood so that Mother would not see my sour expression. It was a beautiful evening. Perhaps it is best to be out of Mother’s way when she is in this mood, I thought.
I had walked the path around our village and on towards Jóla. There the path descends into a valley where the stream meanders away. I leant heavily on my staff with each step, sunken in thoughts of my herb garden and how I might procure more paper and new books to read. I was awoken from my musings by that same humming tone that resonates from the earth. I looked up.
Mist was rising from the valley. It seeped out from the ditches and stream, groping with white, swirling tentacles up towards the hills and fields. And in that mist I recognized the unmistakable odour of iron and blood and icy chill: the breath of the Crone.
It was you who taught me of the Crone’s dominion not only over death and wisdom, but also over cold and storms, darkness and ice. I have felt this icy chill before, streaming out from behind her door.
“No,” I said, and banged my staff hard on the ground. “No.”
I took one step and heard the newly sprouted grass crunch beneath my boots. Frost was coming. It is already summer. I have heard of frost coming this late in the year, but not in living memory. Frosty nights in the approach to midsummer are known as Iron Nights. A frost now would cost us our entire harvest. No seed remains for a second sowing. If we lose our crops now we will have no alternative but to borrow seeds from the nádor at extortionate rates yet again. Frost now means starvation.
“No,” I said, and slammed the silverwood staff into the ground in time with my steps. “Not now. Not here. No.”
Jóla is situated on a high ridge and is less vulnerable to frost than the low-lying fields of our village. I turned around and hurried homeward. On reaching our first field I saw more whitish, ice-cold mist come creeping up from the valley. I was exhausted, but I dug deep to gather my strength and beat all my own warmth and life force into the ground with both foot and staff. I know perfectly well that the Crone is too powerful for me to subdue. I know that she takes whatever she wants. But there was no choice: I had to try. I thought of those who would be worst affected by starvation: the little ones—including Dúlan—and the elderly. I walked around the fields, between them and the mist, muttering, “No!” with each step. I slammed the staff into the ground to reinforce my words. I refused to surrender. I saw people from the village come out and look on helplessly as the freezing mist rose higher and higher from the stream, from the icy realm of the Crone. But I did not stop to speak to them. I continued walking.
Once I had walked the whole western edge of the fields, I heard footsteps behind me. Heavy, stamping steps. A voice broke into song. It was an ancient ballad that I had not heard before, but I recognized the voice, and it felt like a fire ignited inside me.
It was Mother.
She was singing an ode to the black swan known in Rovas as Kalma. She presides over death’s realm, and escorts the dead beneath the silverwood trees and over the great dark lake that rests in stillness beneath their white, shining roots. It was a song of darkness and cold and death, but also about how everything has its season, and how, now that it is summer, the swan ought to tuck her head behind her wing and hide her face until her time comes. Her realm of cold and ice will return when the days are shorter than the nights.
After hearing the ballad several times, I was able to join in. The song and Mother’s voice gave me the strength to continue. Step by step. I wove my own words into the song, words to the Crone: my teacher and friend; my foe and dread. I begged her to leave us be. I begged her to bide her time.
White icicles had already formed on my staff.
People appeared between the fields. They walked along the edge of the ditches, silent and resolute, watching the frost creeping ever nearer. Father and Akios were there, and so were Jannarl and the children, everyone from White Farm and even Árvan. They saw Mother and me. They said nothing; only looked on with expressions of grim concern.
Then, from behind Mother and me came a beautiful, deep woman’s voice. I recognized Náraes and my heart was filled with indescribable joy. The grass rustled and crackled under my feet and the sky was already darkening, but I continued to raise my knees high and stamped my feet hard on the ground. The earth trembled in response. I heard Jannarl join in with the song. Then Akios. More and more voices joined us and everyone followed me through the cold, dark night. Father sang, and Marget too, and Lenna as treble. The earth rumbled and hummed beneath our feet. My staff was like ice in my hand, but my heart glowed warm and hot. Everybody in the village circled our fields and homes again and again, and I walked at the head of them all, beating and stamping and singing.
All night long we walked, Sister O. Some carried lanterns and torches, but for the most part we found our way by the light of the waxing crescent moon. When morning dawned and the sun’s first rays crept over the forest edge, we saw that the fields between Sáru and the forest lay white with frost. Yet the sprouting green of our fields remained untouched, but for a narrow belt on the southern edge nearest the stream.
I stopped walking, and I remember no more. Mother says that I was covered from head to toe with a thick layer of frost and had icicles hanging from my hair. Father caught me when I fell. He carried me home in his arms, and Mother heated water to warm me up enough to remove the staff from my stiff hand. My limbs were like ice, and my family feared I might lose some fingers or toes, or worse. But when Mother undressed me she found my torso glowing as hot as an oven, and this heat slowly diffused into my arms and legs, and my skin was not blue-black and frostbitten, but rosy and smooth.
I slept all day yesterday, under a pile of blankets and furs in my room, and Mother woke me from time to time to urge me to take hot drinks. My sleep was dense with dreams: black and cold, but also boisterous and full of laughter—a laughter that still echoes in my mind as I write to you now. At times it felt as if someone were stroking my hair, and sometimes as if a familiar voice were whispering my name, both tender and stern.
It was like your voice, Sister O, and yet different.
Today, when I awoke and emerged, our table was loaded with food. Akios was busy eating and could only nod at me, his mouth was so stuffed. There was freshly baked bread, honey-scented cakes, a small smoked ham, fresh eggs, sausage, mead and even salted butter. I looked at Mother, who was tearing between hearth and table with flushed cheeks.
“It’s for you,” she said. “Everybody in the village has been coming with gifts since yesterday.”
I ate and ate as if I had never seen food before in my life, like after Moon Dance. I still felt that wonderful glowing warmth in my heart, and I know what its source is, Sister O. It is my people. Rovas itself is glowing inside me.
That evening there came a knock on the door. The fathers from Jóla, among them Tauer’s son and son-in-law, came tramping inside. Gézor, who is married to Tauer’s daughter, spoke for them all.
“The spring sowing is over and done. Don’t need the children on the farm for some time now. So if Maresi still wants to teach them reading and such, that’ll be just fine,” he said, and the other men muttered in agreement. “We can pay in food, if that’s all right with you.”
I had just come out of my room and was met by Tauer’s tall son Orvan. “We want our children to know all the things you know.”
“I cannot teach them what I did last night,” I said carefully. “That was not knowledge, but a gift.”
“Be that as it may,” answered Orvan. “You know one thing that none here knows, and that’s reading. The nádor’s fooled us many a time with his written words. But he’s not gonna fool our ch
ildren.”
“No, he is not,” I answered seriously. “So it is agreed.”
Once they had gone, Mother looked at me. “So it’s to be a real school now then.”
“Yes, Mother. And I can still contribute to the household if they come with food as payment.”
“That doesn’t worry me. But what of your other work? It’s so important to us all.”
She was standing with her sleeves rolled up after washing the dishes. Her apron was damp, and I suddenly noticed how tired she was. She had walked with me and sung with me before anyone else. All night she walked, and then she took care of me, prepared the food and cleaned the house.
What strange things she was saying, Sister O. She had been saying strange things ever since my return. I sank down on a bench without taking my eyes off her.
“What do you mean, Mother?”
“You know perfectly well!” She dried her hands on her apron. “What you’ve been doing this whole time, all the more so since autumn.” I stared at her. “What you did yesterday!”
“Yesterday I drove away the frost,” I said slowly. “What did I do last autumn?”
Mother frowned. “Do you really not know?” She came and sat down beside me. She studied my face carefully. “You don’t know. By the bear’s paw, you don’t know!” She let out a short laugh. “Your walks around the village. The staff. And that comb I’ve seen you with.” I shook my head. “You’re protecting the village, Maresi. I thought you were doing it on purpose! Why do you think last year’s harvest was better than ever? Why do you think the nádor’s men haven’t been here to collect the taxes, or harass us common folk?”
Maresi Red Mantle Page 17