by Andre Norton
He walked away whistling, planning how to do this, then dreaming of Arona's love, in detail that would make his elders blush if their memories were short. First, to take care of his mother and the little ones. Then, to win Arona's seat. After that, he could win Arona.
Four
Elders’ Business
Heavy dark clouds hung in the sky, and the ground trembled under everyone's feet. Maris Guidasdaughter, the recorder, was often away from Records House, and spoke very little when she was there. She stared at the walls facing Falcon Crag, ate what was set before her without comment, cleared her place, then closed herself in the scroll room without a word. She came out hours later with dust on her hands.
Arona was left to record the names and placements of the strangers, and feared she was doing it wrong. “Mistress Maris,” she said. Then, louder, “Mistress Maris!”
The recorder looked up. “Yes?” she said, sharply.
Arona shoved the newest record scroll into Maris's hands and waited, trembling.
“I'll look at it later,” Maris promised, laying it down and looking west again.
Was her mistress sick? Arona considered calling the healer, then instead set water on the hearth to boil for an herb brew and the morning dishes. From there she went to sweep out the henhouse and lay the sweepings on the compost pile, and from there to the garden that had gone neglected that past week. She was weeding the vegetables when Dame Maris appeared at the back door. “You speak the strangers’ tongue as well as I do,” she said. “Will you help Egil Lishasdaughter find her family a new home?”
Arona straightened up and dumped the last weed on the pile of dead ones. Maris went on, “And, dear, you should use the masculine suffix for those strangers you know to be he-girls. You can correct it after you wash up; Egil's in no hurry.”
“Mistress, is it wise to set the he-girls apart?” Arona argued. “Dame Noriel is civilizing her new apprentice very well by refusing to set it apart.”
Dame Maris blinked her weak blue eyes. “But, dear, they are different,” she answered. “Go wash up.”
She was back being the recorder again! “Wretched he-girls,” Arona complained cheerfully in her own tongue, as she drew a bucket of water from the well.
“Oh, we aren't all that bad,” Egil said cheerfully, in his own language, from somewhere behind her. He snatched the well rope from her hands, saying, “Here. Let me.”
The bucket jerked, splashing water on the wellhead. Egil laid a hand on her shoulder, a delicate touch, just as gently withdrawn, and walked back to the house with her, carrying the bucket. “You shouldn't have to strain your eyes over those ‘wretched records,’ “ he said, using the negative ending of the village tongue on the end of the word in his own. “I liked seeing you gardening.”
The two statements meant nothing together, but Arona felt the small hairs on her arms stand up. She shivered. He looked curiously at her; she shrugged. “A ghost walked over my grave,” she said, then dismissed him to the parlor. She dared not say the ghost wore Egil's shape.
Maris had always insisted that Arona leave plenty of room between words for corrections. Carefully the girl squeezed ‘-id’ onto the end of every noun and pronoun she knew to refer to a stranger boy. A few times she scraped off the ink to rewrite, much smaller. At last, proud of her work, she straightened up and brought the scroll to Maris.
The Recorder wasn't there.
A crow fluttered in Arona's bowels; she ignored it and went upstairs to dress for visiting. She tied a yarn braid of many colors into her own hair braid on impulse; Egil gave her an admiring look as she came back down.
“We're still looking for a place,” he said immediately. “Gondrin the Alewife let us spend the night with her in return for some heavy builder's work, but I would really not like to see my sisters reared in an alehouse, with all due respect.”
Arona glanced at Egil's mother, who sat silent in the other chair, her lips pursed. “What trade were you reared to?” the girl asked, wondering why the elders had left it to an apprentice to bargain between grown women. Well! Arona would show them what she could do!
“I was a baker's (something), a miller's daughter, and somewhat renowned for my embroidery,” the stranger Lisha answered, a little doubtfully.
All women baked and did embroidery. They had already tried the miller. Noriel the Blacksmith already had a stranger family; so did Arona's mother, who was a carpenter. Who did not? Floree the Healer had a houseful of them, sick, weak, and wounded. Arona looked up. “How are you with the sick, Mistress?”
“Squeamish,” Lisha admitted. “Hanna, here, is an excellent nurse, though. She brings home all sorts of wounded animals and birds. Harald used to laugh about it and complain we had a howling menagerie at the bakery!”
That was a start. She and Egil were the only ones old enough for apprenticeship. Embroidery. Great-aunt Lorin, who owned several pair of scissors, did most of the sewing for the village. Would she be interested? They called on her. Egil did most of the talking. Aunt Lorin heard them out with a scowl.
“I have enough on my hands these days with poor, dear Eina,” she said bluntly, “without taking on another such.” Great Aunt Eina was slipping rapidly into senility.
Elthea the Weaver was even more blunt. “I need no witlings,” the old weaver said. “And when daughter speaks for mother and manages her affairs, what else have we but a witling and a busybody?”
Arona stood helplessly, looking from Elthea to Egil to Lisha. The woman seemed sensible enough, but then, why indeed did she let Egil speak for her? The girl settled her shoulders and translated directly. Egil bridled. “What you call witless,” he said directly, “I call a decent modesty. I promised my father I'd look after her… .”
Weak of wit, Arona translated in her thoughts, sadly, as Lisha nodded agreement. Though the older woman was frowning at her oldest child! Well. Loyse Annetsdaughter was rich, and noted for her kindness. She lived between the forest and the caves, a choice location, well-watered and well-hidden. The sky was clouding over again. “We'll try Dame Loyse,” she said.
It was a bright, crisp morning at the forge. Several strong young maids in trousers and sheepskin jerkins, carrying spears and ropes and backpacks, came past the dooryard fence. “Roundup!” one of them called. “We're going out after the sheep. Everyone's welcome.”
Noriel nudged Leatrice. “Go ahead,” she urged. “Your sister works for two, and you've never been on a roundup.”
Huana straightened up, mouth open, and blazed forth, “A decent, gentle maid like Leatrice, go with those trousered ruffians? Alone? Out on the open range with nobody to safeguard them and take care of them? What if they should meet strange men? It is not seemly. What can their mothers be thinking of?”
Leatrice looked from her mother to her mother's employer to the girls. From the middle of the group, Nelga Olwithsdaughter called, “I'll lend you a spear! I have two! Bring your harp and sing for us!”
“Just a bit,” Leatrice called back. “Mother, you know Nelga. All the other girls are going!”
“All the girls take their turn,” Noriel agreed, wiping her hands on her apron, “And you can't tie her to your apron strings forever. Did you know Ofelis the Bard wants to apprentice your daughter? You have a girl to be proud of, Huana.”
Leatrice, taking that for permission, handed her apron to her mother and dashed upstairs, shouting “Thanks!” And to Huana, “Daddy would have let me!”
Huana couldn't deny that. It was one of the things that wrung her soul when Morgath lived. Huana moaned. Why did they have to find refuge in a village where all thoughts of propriety and decency were lost? Though, she had to admit, she was neither starving, begging, nor reduced to harlotry!
Huge black thunderhead clouds had formed as Arona walked back from Dame Loyse's farm. From Lookout Mountain came the sound of a dove call. Arona left the path leading back to Records House and detoured towards the trail leading East through the forest, away from Falcon Crag. The s
pectacular sunset started to fade. Gunnora's Daughters, if that's who was coming, would have to spend the night. Maybe one or two of them would guest with Maris and Arona! Quickly she slipped down the trail, waiting to greet them.
Her heart sank as she saw, not the usual russet trade cloaks of those who followed the teachings of the good goddess, but three women in plain silver-gray hooded robes. Still, one saw so very few strangers! Though now there were more than one could get to know in a lifetime. How had they come here, and why?
As Arona watched, one of them took a thong which hung around her neck, and pulled forth a blue jewel. The gem shone with an inner light of its own even in the rapidly-darkening forest. The woman turned and looked directly at the girl hidden in the trees. Gently, in the tongue of the outsiders, but with a slight accent, the stranger said, “This is no place for curious children. Go home to bed, now, and forget you saw us.”
Arona suddenly felt defiantly adult, and would have insisted on her right to stay, but her mouth and her feet took on lives of their own. “Yes, ma'am,” her tongue said meekly as her heart raged with no meekness there. Slowly her feet began carrying her to Records House despite her will. She struggled to free herself from whatever bound her, but as she struggled, her purpose faded with the memory of the encounter, growing dimmer and dimmer. At last, she looked up to the treetops and saw it was quite dark. I must have stayed later than I thought at Dame Loyse's, she thought, and went quickly and quietly to Records House and her own bed.
On the plains to the west of the village, the girls ran and chased each other, shouted across the fields, and played tag with each other and the dogs. Leatrice Huanasdaughter, feeling her legs naked in the baggy, floppy trousers of the shepherdesses, followed. The wind blew her hair, and no skirts entangled her legs. “Come on, slowpoke!” Nelga called back. “You'll never catch any sheep that way!”
Leatrice had to stop and catch her breath. “Mother always made me slow down and walk,” she said, panting a little. “Like a ly-dee!” she mocked the last word. “Sorry!”
The sun was hot on her unbonneted head and sweat ran down her unprotected face. It tickled and itched. She wiped it off with her bandanna and raced after the other girls again. They called back and forth and she tried raising her voice experimentally. It carried over the hills until she thought they could hear it clear to Falcon Crag! She imagined her mother hearing it and winced a little inwardly. A lady does not raise her voice. A proper maiden speaks softly and sweetly at all times. “Damn!” she said, resoundingly, to the empty, Huana-less air.
Nelga fell back. “Are you all right?” she asked.
Leatrice nodded, her breath coming short. “Just thought of something,” she explained. “Back home, I mean.”
Nelga held out a leather canteen full of water. “Here.” Then they were off again, Nelga twirling a rope with a loop in the end to throw over strayed sheep—and bushes and anything else she could rope. She showed Leatrice how, but the outsider girl's hands had yet to learn the way of it. Both girls laughed at last. “Come on, let's chase some sheep,” Nelga offered, and showed her how to whistle for the herd dogs. Leatrice was delighted and shocked. “Whistling girls and crowing hens,” she quoted her mother under her breath, and finished defiantly, “have more fun than henhouse hens and henhouse maids!”
By the end of the day they were all tired, and when they had built a fire and started toasting their waybread and dried meat on green sticks, Nelga said, “Too out of breath for a song?”
Leatrice bit her lip. “I don't know any of your songs,” she said. “I can sing some from home. You won't know the words.”
An older girl said, “Sing. I'll interpret. My mother's a trader.” Leatrice placed her as Elthea the Weaver's granddaughter; she couldn't remember her name offhand. Leatrice found a pitch and started singing, a little selfconsciously, an ancient ballad of star-crossed love. Elthea's granddaughter was making a hash of the translation, turning it into old friends parted by a family quarrel; Leatrice, unsure in the new tongue herself, let it go.
Nelga giggled. “How about ‘Four Falconers Down From the Crag?’ “ The other girls seconded this with enthusiasm, and Nelga began to sing.
Leatrice listened, at first puzzled, then totally sure she was not hearing what she thought she was hearing, and then shocked and embarrassed beyond words. She had seen male farm animals; she had seen them mating. She had heard boys bragging of the strangest things and competing in truly loathsome ways. But unspeakable matters like this? Mother would have a fit if she knew!
Mother was never going to hear one word of this, and neither was Aunt Noriel, nor any other adult.
Elthea's granddaughter nudged Nelga. “I don't think she's Initiate yet,” she whispered when the song was over.
“She's got to be,” Nelga protested. “She's older than her sister, and Oseberg's been Initiated—I think. She knows some of the things, anyway. Leatrice! Have you been Initiated?”
“Initiated?” Leatrice looked from one to the other, suddenly afraid. “I'm a maiden,” she said in a voice now shaking. She quietly put her hand to the knife Noriel had given her.
“Oh, we know that,” the oldest girl, Nidoris—her name came back to Leatrice suddenly—said. “But are you still a child?”
“Have you had your moon-blood?” Nelga clarified.
“Oh, yes! For over a year now! Mother was after Father to find me a husband before I dwindled into an old maid,” Leatrice answered, blushing.
The logs on the fire crackled and one broke. Nidoris poked the coals with a large stick and added another log. “But you haven't been to the priestess to learn those things a maiden should know,” she stated. “Have you?”
Nidoris drew in her breath in a soft whistle. “You poor thing! Well! Just as soon as we get back, you go see Dame Birka. She'll teach you all the right things, so that even a Falconer visit won't be so horribly dreadful as it could be.”
Now Leatrice's whole body shook with a chill that would not let her go. “Falconer visit,” she croaked.
“How we get daughters. You don't have to if you don't want to,” Nidoris said in a soothing tone, “but most of us want babies, sooner or later, so we put up with it. You'll see.”
“Oseberg's not like a Falconer,” Brithis's voice came from the other side of the fire. She pulled her stick back and tasted her meat tentatively. “Ow! Hot! He's nice, like a sisterfriend, only I don't think anybody ever told him what to do, either.”
Leatrice stared in shock at the friend she had thought so nice. She and Oseberg—she had—she had done—they had done—Leatrice felt her face burn as she tried to imagine it. She tried to picture soft, puppydog-like Brithis as disgraced, a hard-faced outcast who brazenly made up to men for her living. She shut her mouth and then said, “Are you and Oseberg betrothed?”
“You mean are we promised friends?” Brithis asked with a cheerful laugh. “Sort of. We're promised best friends, but he doesn't want me over to spend the night because of, sorry, Leatrice! Your mother, well, she's… .” Her voice trailed off.
Leatrice tried to imagine Huana permitting Oseberg and his betrothed to bundle under her roof and failed miserably. She tried to picture Oseberg introducing Brithis to Huana as his intended bride and realized, with a shock, that her mother would make difficulties there, too. “If you have a great dowry,” Huana's daughter suggested, “Mother might not mind as much. Uh, would your family accept the match?”
Brithis was silent for a while and ate her meat, while the wind started blowing chill around their backs. “No offense, Leatrice. My mother likes Oseberg, and Aunt Noriel's one of her best friends. But she's having trouble with another stranger-woman in the family right now, and, well, everybody thinks, I mean, nobody wants to quarrel with your mother, too.”
Leatrice, dismally aware of her mother's reputation as a champion fussbudget, nodded. It was like the ballad she had just sung, she thought miserably, with her own mother as Lady Capela. Well! Then, she could be, could be—P
riestess Laura! She leaned over, her face closer to the fire. “Listen, Brithis,” she said confidentially. “We'll think of something. All right?”
“Right—sister,” Brithis agreed.
They clasped hands over the top of the fire, sang one more song, rowdy without being offensive, and curled up in their bedrolls as close to each other and the fire as they could get, against the autumn chill.
The morning was cold. Arona had stopped weeding the garden, and started laying the vegetables and fruits out to dry for the winter. The tree leaves were starting to turn golden yellow and a spectacular scarlet. And Mistress Maris, closeted all day with the elders on elders’ business, had almost ceased to live at Records House. Arona was the one left to record the death of the old stranger Melbrigda and the coming-of-age of Nelga Olwithsdaughter, one of her own agemates.
She had nobody to talk to. Her mother and Aunt Lorin, like her mistress, were away most of the time. Aunt Natha could only complain about that mealy-mouthed bird-chirping Yelen who sucked up to Bethiah and agreed with everything. Her agemates all had their own concerns. Egil, now stable helper for Darann Mulemistress and errand-girl for the elders, could only try to wheedle Arona into sewing torn buttons on her blouse. “I can't believe you can't do this for yourself,” she exclaimed, and offered to show the stranger how. Egil stood by, quite pleased, until she put the needle in his hand. Then he backed away as if it would bite him, and looked at her as if she had already bitten him.
Nelga's coming-of-age lifted her spirits somewhat. “I've really come to invite you, your mother, and your sisters to a maidenhood party,” she said as he stared at the button sourly. “One of my friends has left her childhood behind. I'll bring enough food for all of us; that's courtesy to strangers. And, don't get your back up, I know you haven't had time to make yourself any pretty clothes or trade for them. We lend clothes back and forth here, and I have a cousin about your size. What do you say?”