Shiloh

by Helena Sorensen

  “Hardly ever,” Darby said, “but there are some, you among them.”

  “How can ya tell?”

  “Some things I see that my eyes never told me. There are other ways o’ seein’, child.”

  “But why don’t the night weavers come fer everyone whose light fades away?”

  “Ahh, there’s a difference between givin’ away yer light and havin’ it stolen away. Imogen’s uncle stole the child’s hope as sure as ’e stole ’er light. ’Twas he who snuffed out the girl’s flame.”

  Phebe considered a moment. “Was ’e sent into exile then?” she asked.

  “The four eternal laws had not yet been written, my girl. The tale of Imogen’s takin’ spread such fear that MacDowell, Father o’ the Fire Clan at the time, called the leaders o’ the other clans together. They drafted the laws and sent messengers all over the land. The stonemasons had their work cut out fer ’em, engravin’ the laws on a stone in every village.”

  It was enough for one day. Phebe had heard all she needed to hear. “My thanks ta ya, Darby. Truly.” She grasped the weaver’s hand and made for the door to the front room. In all their years of friendship, Darby had never invited Phebe into this back room, this inner sanctuary. As she turned to go, she noticed for the first time a piece of embroidery displayed on the wall above the door. At first glance, it looked to be no more than the sign of the Fire Clan, but on closer inspection, dozens of tiny figures appeared. Men clothed in tunics of bright crimson and blue danced with women in deep purple and green shifts. Children, carrying flowers and branches heavy with golden leaves, wove their way through the other dancers. They, too, were dressed in rich colors: red clay and flaming orange. All these gathered, in three great tongues of flame, from the outer edges of the circle to the inner core where red and gold threads mimicked the edanna from the mosaic in Market Circle.

  “Oh,” Phebe gasped, and Darby understood.

  “’Twas my comin’-of-age gift,” she explained. “My Ma must’ve guessed I’d have no need of a white dress ta be wed in.” She laughed a little to herself.

  “Won’t ya stay fer a cup o’ cider?” Darby said. “Cora brought it only this mornin’. Payne just finished a new batch.”

  “It’s kind o’ ya, but I best be goin’,” Phebe answered. She went out into the familiar front room. Bolts of cloth still covered the shelves, and the table where customers bought and sold sat in its usual place. The coveted basket of colored yarn still beckoned from the back wall, and the vertical loom, tall as a man, waited in the front corner for Darby to take up her weaving.

  “Wait!” Darby called out, jumping from her seat and hurrying into the front room. “I nearly forgot.” She snatched up a large sack and handed it to Phebe. “Ta pass the time,” she said.

  Phebe pulled open the knotted cord at the top of the sack and peered down at its contents. Raw wool.

  “It’s not been carded yet, mind ya,” Darby said. “But once it’s spun, ya can trade me fer cloth ta make a new shift.”

  She wondered how Darby could have known. The woman couldn’t see her wrists protruding from her sleeves.

  “Ya grow as if ya spent all yer days feastin, child,” Darby said with a smile. “I hear the change in yer voice, the change in yer movements. And besides, every young girl needs a new shift now and again.”

  Phebe didn’t know how to thank her. She tightened the cord at the top of the sack and slung it over her shoulder.

  “Be off with ya now. It’s gettin’ late.” Darby sat at her loom, her hands moving in graceful rhythm over the threads.

  Phebe scooped up her lantern. She would make just one more stop before returning home.

  Under the Shadow, beneath the stifling weight of the darkness, year had faded into year. In the village of Emmerich, the cottages and shops remained much as they had been when Phebe was a small girl. But the terrible blue ague, that fever so feared by the people of Shiloh, had come with a vengeance a few summers after Amos’s disappearance, and hardly a family had reached the first frost unscathed.

  The ague always came on a wind from the south, infecting the people with an unseen fire. Men and women groaned and burned with fever; then, in a sudden turn, the fires went out, and their bodies turned cold and blue. Elah, the apothecary’s husband was the first to go. Then Lark, the chandler, and one of Payne’s sons; Caedmon lost two daughters.

  Phebe never fell ill. While Jada oversaw the burning of the dead and the tending of those without able-bodied nurses, Phebe cared for Simeon. She hovered over his cot, bathing the sweat from his face, as he mumbled and shouted, nearly senseless with the raging fever. He spoke often of Abner and of Amos during those weary nights, and it brought fresh grief to Phebe’s heart. Her father was lost to her forever, and Amos?

  She had stopped looking for him after the first year or so. When the door of the cottage swung open, she no longer held her breath. When a flash of fire appeared in the distance, she no longer imagined that it was Amos coming home. She didn’t forget. She couldn’t forget. But hope was a merciless companion, and she buried it.

  Amos did not come back to her for many lonely years. What came to Phebe instead were snatches of stories and whispered rumors of one who opened a path for the night weavers. Men who sat drinking and cursing in Payne’s alehouse could not speak their name without dropping their voices and sending furtive glances out into the street where the children played. Travelers spoke of a spreading despair that moved faster and struck harder than the blue ague. For, if Amos, Wielder of Fire, could fall prey to the Shadow, what hope could there be for any of them?

  The apothecary’s shop was crowded with the scents of dried herbs, of strange flowers, of fire and smoke. Just inside the door was a long table, covered with fresh and dried leaves and roots, stems and buds. A mortar and pestle sat at one side, crusted with powdery green residue. Hanging in bundles from innumerable hooks in the ceiling beams were morning glory, flowering tobacco, night phlox, belladonna, and mandrake. The walls were lined with wooden shelves, each heavy with the weight of a dozen clay pots, piles of wooden pipes, and a smattering of glass vials.

  “What brings ya, Phebe?” Aspen shuffled in through a side door, carrying an armload of firewood. She was bent with the toil of nearly ninety winters, and her hair was white as Darby’s finest wool. Her dark eyes had always flashed with life until her husband’s death. Elah had kept the stables at the southern corner of the village, and he had been her steady companion through many weary years. His death had been a heavy blow, and Aspen was tired. Without Elah, even small tasks drained her, and she wasted no breath on pleasantries or idle chatter.

  “I’ve a fresh mandrake root prepared if it’s sleep yer needin’. The bark’ll help ya through the long nights.”

  “It’s kind o’ ya, but I’ve come fer . . .” Phebe lowered her head and turned the left side of her face toward the wall.

  “I see,” Aspen said, rising from the hearth and seating herself at the long table. “You’ve come about the scar. Is that it?”

  “Aye,” Phebe answered. “I thought, perhaps, ya might have somethin’ that might make it fade, even just a little.”

  “Yer da came, when it first happened, ya know. It grieved me ta tell ’im so, but there’s naught I can do ta heal the marks o’ the wolves and the cats. I’ve no medicine ta cure so deep an ill. Were ya scarred from a fall, or even the point of a dagger, the night phlox would wipe away all trace. But, as it is . . .” With effort, Aspen stood and circled the table. She stretched a gnarled hand to brush the silky hair back from Phebe’s shoulder. The girl turned her face away, but Aspen placed a hand on her cheek and turned her back.

  “Ya always were a lovely girl,” Aspen whispered. She spoke the truth, for Phebe’s fair skin and flowing hair, the fine set of her nose and brows, the coal-black spark of her eyes were indeed beautiful. “No scar could outshine so much beauty.”

&nbs
p; Phebe flashed her a look of such cold disbelief that Aspen dropped her hand and returned to her chair. This girl was too deeply marked for an old woman’s words to leave any impression.

  “Won’t ya take some mandrake bark, just in case?”

  “No,” Phebe said.

  “I’m sorry, Phebe,” Aspen said, and meant it.

  “I best be goin’.” Phebe hurried out into the street, shouldering the heavy sack of wool and raising the lantern to light her way. As she passed, she felt the cold presence of the stone, lying just outside the circle of light cast by her lantern. That silent sentinel, for more than eight hundred years, had spoken alike the doom of the guilty and the innocent. Phebe imagined tendrils of black mist stretching out from the stone, grasping the hem of her shift, weaving dark fingers into every thread until she was clothed in darkness and rooted to black earth. Its power had taken hold, and it would never let go. Its words would haunt her, weighing more heavily with every struggling step homeward.

  For any who steals a man’s goods, payment in kind.

  For any who steals a man’s name, payment in flesh.

  For any who steals a man’s life, payment in blood.

  For any who steals a man’s light, payment in exile.

  Twenty-Three

  Sullivan’s travels carried him farther and farther into the hill country, and in his absence Rosalyn came once more under a watchful gaze. The man could not be called a suitor or an admirer. He was more akin to a predator. At times he came very near the cottage, his eyes searching the interior for any sign of her. But more often, he paced along the lane that led to the cottage, growing increasingly agitated as the hours passed. Isolde sat in the empty stable, watching him with her keen, quick eyes, the anger simmering deep in her.

  “I won’t let ’im take ya,” she told her sister one morning. The sisters sat across the table from each other, chopping herbs and wild onions.

  “If not him, it’ll be someone else,” Rosalyn said. “It’s the way o’ the clansmen. Ya know that.”

  Isolde slammed the blade of her cutting knife into the table. “It doesn’t have ta be that way! Ya don’t have ta lie down and take whatever they give, whether it’s a boot in yer ribs or a child in yer belly! Ya can run! Ya can fight!”

  “Not I, Isolde,” Rosalyn said, shaking her head and wiping her tears with the back of her wrist. “It’s you must go, you must fight, fer those of us who can’t.”

  Isolde fled. As dear as Rosalyn was to her, she couldn’t understand this resignation, this despairing acceptance of fate. A long line of days unbroken by joy or hope or change lay before Rosalyn. It was a future too unbearable for Isolde to even consider.

  She ran down the hillside, snatching at her long shift and pulling it away from her boots. Through the dim light of mid-morning, she raced to the cherry trees in the valley. She dropped to the ground beneath their spreading branches and looked up at the dark leaves and the thickening darkness beyond. She breathed, in and out, in and out, quieting her racing pulse. She listened to the rustling of leaves and the distant roar of the wind in the mountains. She let the moments slip away.

  If Da were dead, she thought, I could leave this place. Sullivan could not keep her locked in the cottage forever. He had neither the power nor the desire. Her father would have rejoiced if someone carried her away to be his wife. There would be one less mouth to feed, one less useless mouth at that. What was it, then, that kept her chained to this stagnant, changeless place? Rosalyn. Apart from a cryptic prophecy about her fate and a chestnut mare that might still be waiting for her in Dunn, Isolde had nothing, nothing but her sister. What if she were to take Rosalyn and run? What if they took up Valour’s quest together? The risk was great, the road fraught with dangers. Their beauty would kindle the lust of cruel men; the warm blood coursing through their veins would rouse the hunger of the beasts; the darkness would hinder their every step.

  To linger in Fleete, though, was to die a slow death, giving way to the comfortable despair of their people. She had to move. She had to overcome the gravity of doubt, of hesitation, the gravity that held all that remnant of the Lost Clan to their solitary hill.

  She stood and hurried up the path toward the village, running when the climb wasn’t too steep, pushing herself until her lungs burned and her legs were weak beneath her. She ran to the cottage and flung open the door, her eyes searching for her sister.

  “Rosalyn!” she shouted.

  The iron kettle hung on its hook above the fire, its contents boiling over and hissing and steaming in the coals below. The blankets of Rosalyn’s cot were disheveled, and the floor was smeared with mud. But no one was home. A matter of moments, the separation of one argument, had changed everything. Rosalyn had been taken.

  “Rosalyn!” she cried.

  Isolde slumped down onto the cot, despairing. Her hand came to rest on something, and she flicked it away without thought. It landed on the stone floor with a little “ting” that made her look down. It was Rosalyn’s necklace, the leather cord and the charm with the sign of the sun.

  She didn’t wait for Sullivan’s return. She tied the cord around her neck and took what hunting gear was left in the cottage; an old saddlebag, a water skin, a bow and quiver, and a coarse gray blanket. She took the Red Map, carefully concealed beneath the straw mattress on her cot.

  On the threshold, Isolde turned back for a last look at her home. On the edge of the village, she turned again. But her gaze could not penetrate the gloom that enshrouded the summit of the hill. So she set her face to the unknown. She wrenched free of the cords that had kept her so long bound and stepped out on the road. She would find Valour’s Glass, find what remained of the Lost Clan, find the fabled sun, and return to find Rosalyn.

  Twenty-Four

  Five years after Amos’s disappearance, in late spring when Payne finished brewing the year’s first batch of huckleberry ale, Simeon came of age.

  In Shiloh, births were not much celebrated. There were no weddings, and funerals were dark, savage affairs. But when a young man or woman came of age at seventeen, the whole village joined in the celebration. It didn’t matter if he or she was particularly liked or accepted by the community. People were slow to buck tradition, and even slower to pass up a chance for feasting and dancing.

  Coming of age meant that a boy could take on his father’s work, and a girl could take a husband and have children. It was the single greatest transition of a person’s life, and as such it was accompanied by several time-honored traditions. A young man always received a special weapon or tool from his father. Often, he would also receive a quiver, belt, or guard with the mark of his clan. A young woman received a white shift or apron embroidered by her mother.

  Throughout the day of the celebration, people would come and go, bringing gifts to the young man or woman. They would drink and talk and return to their work at their leisure. Then, in the evening, the village magistrate would come at the head of a great procession. Every villager watched as the father offered a blessing to his son or the mother offered a blessing to her daughter. Many in the procession carried firewood, which they piled and lit to make a bonfire. Others brought food, benches, and tables. And there, in their makeshift banquet hall around the fire, they feasted and danced late into the night.

  For all his childhood fears, Simeon’s coming-of-age celebration was a great success. The villagers were generous, bringing blankets, candles, dried herbs, tools, and earthenware mugs and bowls. All these he set aside to furnish his future home. Phebe brought him a tunic she had sewn herself. He put it on at once, and praised her embroidery work on the hem and neckline.

  In the evening, against tradition, his mother spoke a blessing over him, and both she and Orin presented him with gifts. Hers was a very old bow, carved with leaping flames that sparkled with inset edanna. This was a great heirloom of their clan, and where she had kept it all these yea
rs, Simeon could not tell. Orin’s gift was a hammer and anvil. He had made a four days’ journey to the west of the river to buy it, and Simeon was deeply moved. The celebration that followed was wild and joyful. There was roast venison and sweet bread, cheese and ale, and the drums and the panpipes and the flutes played loud and long.

  The passing of five years had changed Simeon. The frail, frightened boy of twelve had taken on the look of a fierce and able man. The villagers argued among themselves, that year, about what exactly had wrought such a change in Simeon. Some said it was his appearance, and the normal physical changes a boy experiences as he grows into a man. Though his hair and eyes were fair as ever, his skin had darkened a shade or two, toasting in the constant heat and light of the blacksmith’s furnace. His arms, once unable to conquer the weight of a yew bow, had thickened and strengthened. His chest was broad, and his jaw, much like Orin’s, was covered in yellow-brown stubble.

  Others argued that it was Simeon’s confidence that had changed him so, and they made a strong case. For one thing, he had excelled at the craft of blacksmithing. Under Orin’s careful instruction, Simeon had progressed rapidly. The iron seemed to bend to his will and not merely to the heat of the forge or the pounding of the hammer. Men traveled from neighboring villages with commissions for Simeon. At seventeen, he could breathe life into dead iron, making it sprout from the base of a candlestick into the delicate branches and cascading leaves of a willow tree.

  Simeon had also gained skill with the bow. Abner, of course, had taught him to shoot, but it was Orin who taught him to hunt. Whenever their work permitted, Orin would mount Brand, the white stallion, and Simeon would take Willa, the gray mare. They would travel sometimes west, over the river, and sometimes south of the village. Once or twice, they worked their way back along the Hunter’s Path that Abner and Amos had followed so many years ago. There, to his great surprise, Simeon made his first kill, a large bull elk. He had smiled to himself sadly as they journeyed home that night, remembering Amos’s ambitions for the Great Hunt.