I noticed something flapping in the wind beyond the grass and climbed the rise to investigate. There was a stake in the ground with a bit of ribbon tied to it. The ribbon was red with the shape of a blue trout embroidered on it. I turned and there were several more stakes, green with golden stags, purple and blue stones, and black with white bears. I touched a ribbon I had passed by with orange and green ferns. What are these? They remind me of House banners, but the Biski have only clans. I followed the path I had taken the night before, back to Thero’s camp. My grandmother’s tent was further away from the others than I had realized, and it took me quite some time to reach the lake edge.
I wended my way through the crooked pathways between camps. I encountered a few tousled women in white gowns, their braids untied and bells hung about their neck along with different charms and beads. They saw me with my braided hair and gave me suspicious glances. I ignored them and hurried forward with my eyes glued to the ground. If I had let the dance with Johai take its natural progression, I would be just like them, ready to dedicate myself to the Mother’s service. Perhaps it would have made me better prepared for the journey ahead. I shook my head; these were dangerous thoughts. Is this more of Johai’s spell, or am I mad? I sensed him far away from me; he was waiting, I could tell. He wanted me to come to him. I will not come to you. I refuse to play your game. From there, I had some difficulty finding the Running River Clan’s encampment. I stopped to ask a small clan with one husband and his two wives. I used my halting Biski tongue and hand gestures. They seemed to get the gist of it and sent me in the direction of Thero’s camp.
When I arrived at Thero’s camp, the Running River Clan was gathered about, sharing their morning meal. Unfortunately Thero’s son Hett was the first to spot me. He looked up at my braided hair and frowned. I smiled and waved. I had hoped there would be no hard feelings. He picked up his bowl and walked over to the other side of the campfire. Yellen watched her son with a sad smile. She set aside her own bowl and came over to greet me. She threw her arms around me and absorbed me in a hug.
“You are woman now. Welcome, sister,” Yellen said in her accented Danhadine.
I saw Shewa smiling at me over her shoulder. I broke away from Yellen and went to Shewa. She rose to her feet to greet me. She petted my hair and asked me something. I only understood one in three words, but I got the meaning. “You did not undo your braids, why?”
Wey scolded her, saying something to the effect of, “She does not know our customs.”
Shewa tugged at my arm and tried to bring me into the tent, presumably to untie my braids. If I untie the braids, it means I’ve given my maidenhead, I suspect. If that is the case, I would rather keep them to deter any man who would think to dance the longest dance to the end with me again.
“No, I must speak with the elder first,” I told Shewa.
She tilted her head, looking at me with a perplexed expression.
Thero had been sitting by the fire and watching my exchange with his wives. He stood up and opened his arms. “I hope you had a good night, Dreau. My son came home licking his wounds after you rejected him to dance with a white-haired stranger. Will you say your vows today? You will be happy to meet the oracle at last, I am sure.”
I blushed. They all assume I danced to the end with Johai. And why would they think any differently when I was gone most of the night and slept in the oracle’s tent. “I had a pleasant night, thank you,” I said. As for the rest of his questions, I did not have answers for them, yet. Hett was looking at me again. I spied him from the corner of my eye. When I looked in his direction, he turned away again. We were of an age. He could not be more than three years older than me. Two years ago I might have been charmed by his interest, but I am not the girl I was when this journey started. I sighed. “Elder, can I speak with you, alone?”
His smile did not falter as he rose from his seat. “Of course.” He waved his hand, and we stepped beyond the tents. There was nowhere we could go to have a private conversation, not with camps lined side by side and children, chickens and dogs running about underfoot. As we went behind Nia’s tent, a pack of Thero’s children, nieces and nephews went rushing past. They called out for me to play with them, but I waved at them and told them to go along.
We watched them run down the crooked paths between tents, gathering children from other camps on their way down to the lakeside to play in the ice-cold water.
“What is it that you wanted to speak with me about?” Thero asked me.
“I wanted to thank you for your hospitality and welcoming me into your clan. It has been a pleasure to get to know you all.” I started with the formalities. It had been nearly two months I had lived among the Running River Clan. Though brief, it had been some of the happier times of my life. I had come to love them all like family. It hurt to part, but destiny and the prophecy were pulling me in another direction. It will be better to leave now before I draw them into some danger. I will leave for Keisan as soon as I have learned as much as I can from my grandmother.
He frowned. “You are not leaving so soon. I hoped you would travel with our clan a while longer. It would be an honor to have a dreau among us.”
“Thank you for the offer, but I must decline. Last night I met the oracle, and she has taken me into her tent so that I might train with her.”
He nodded, stroking his long beard. The beads in the tips of his beard clanked together. “I understand. You must go where the Mother leads.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “You danced beautifully last night. It would have been an honor had you lain with my son. We have not had a du-toath in the family for many generations,” Thero continued.
I stared at him in open-mouthed shock. Had that been their plan from the beginning? Did Thero want me to marry Hett and become one of his son’s wives? Even if circumstances were different, the idea of being one of multiple wives is not an appealing one.
I choked back my indignation and said, “I apologize if I ever gave any impression otherwise, but I cannot marry your son.”
Thero laughed. “Dreaus do not marry; it is not acceptable. You bear children to continue your line, but to take a husband? No. That could limit the potential of your offspring.” He shook his head as if it were a ludicrous thought.
That explains the virgin dance. They sleep with a man and hope to carry his seed so they can give birth to another generation of mystics. I wonder if a du-toath has multiple partners. I thought back to Johai’s allusions to my naivety—I had no idea how sheltered I had been. Even Thero, who had been raised in Danhad, thought nothing of this ritual, to him it was normal. I thought of the courtiers back home and their loose morals and ambitions; maybe it was not so different after all.
“I will give back Shewa’s gown as soon as I am able. Will you tell her for me?” I said instead of voicing my thoughts.
He frowned. “There is no need. That dress belonged to her sister who was promised to the du-toath. She died of a sickness before she had the chance to participate in the dance and make her final vows.”
I touched the border along the neckline of the gown. This was her sister’s, and she gave it to me. I felt bad for getting angry at Thero for tricking me into the dance. They meant it as a positive thing. They must believe greater power comes to a woman than a girl. They were trying to help, in their own way. Johai’s face came to mind once more, unbidden. I could feel the touch of his hand against my skin and the way my flesh seemed to burn. Would completing the dance bring me greater power? Enough to defeat him?
“Tell her thank you,” I said softly.
“She did it to thank you. She missed her sister after she died. Sharing a tent with you brought renewed joy to my wife. Seeing you as an initiate, it is like she has Kita back, eh? Besides, seeing you join the dance and wear the gown is helping her heal.” Thero patted me on the head this time.
I said my good-byes to the rest of the clan. Shewa cried as she embraced me. I promised to visit again before the end of the gathering. Nia gifted
me with a necklace made of woven twine with three blue glass beads woven into it. I thanked her, Yellen and Wey for all they had done. I hugged all the children one by one and even gave Hett a kiss on the cheek upon parting. I packed up my small bag of things and headed back to my grandmother’s tent. They were like a family to me when I lost everything. I looked over my shoulder only once before I lost sight of their tents among the hundreds that surrounded them.
When I returned to my grandmother’s tent, she was sitting outside crossed-legged in the grass with a mortar and pestle nestled between her scrawny legs. She was grinding some earthy-smelling herbs. She did not look up at me as I walked past her and put my things in her tent. When I came back outside, she spoke.
“Hand me the jug.” She pointed at a water jug by one of the tent poles. I ran to do her bidding and collected it for her. She poured a drizzle of water down over the herbs and continued grinding.
I sat down on the ground beside her and watched her work. “Is this some sort of herb that helps with visions?”
She put her pinky into the mixture and sucked on the end of it. She rolled the herbs about in her mouth, then spit them out onto the ground. “It is healing herbs for pain in the joints.”
I frowned in disappointment. “I thought you would teach me more about our people and our powers.”
She did not reply but continued to grind. The stone pestle clinked against the sides of the mortar as she worked. She picked up a green leafy bundle. “What is the purpose of this herb?”
I took the herb from her outstretched hand. It had a spicy scent. The leaves were thin and numerous. I had never studied herb lore, so I could not answer her.
“I do not know,” I admitted.
She sniffed and picked up a different bundle. “What about this?” She dropped a bundle of orange tubers into my lap. They were small, perhaps the size of my pointer finger.
“I’ve never learned anything about herbs, just scrying.”
She grabbed the leafy plant and waved it in my face. “This helps with a bad belly.” She picked up the tubers. “These help with swelling and heat on the skin.” She tossed me a bunch of twisted brown roots. They’d been dried and tied. These I knew.
“Valerian root,” I said. “I use it when I do dream readings.”
She smiled, showing her missing teeth. “I am glad you know something. Yes. The valerian root has been used by our ancestors for centuries, as have the fennel and turmeric plants. There is more to our gifts than seeing into the future. You are meant to heal and to guide. Wisdom comes with training. You will help me prepare the herbs and learn their names. Then we will train in the arts of the divine.”
I wanted to argue. I didn’t need to heal the specter, I had to kill him. What if I could find a way to heal him from these herbs? What if there’s some spell that we have not yet discovered that could save him? I pushed that thought away. I knew the truth: Johai could not be saved. We stayed outside on the chilly afternoon, my grandmother taught me about different herbs and their uses as she instructed me in the ways to dry and store them. The next day we went in search of herbs out in the grass plains surrounding Mother Lake. The day after that, she showed me how to dig for tubers in the soft earth at Mother Lake’s edge.
We had been bent over, collecting tubers, for quite some time. We went to a far side of the lake, one that I had not been to before. There were tents camped along here as there were along most of the shores, but these were different. The tents were lined in ordered groups of five to ten. The lanes between were orderly, and the animals were penned up with sturdy fences. I stood up to stretch my back and saw a group of men gathered around a cook fire talking. At the head of the circle, a man was speaking to the crowd. His bushy beard was forked and tied up with beads at the end. His long black hair was tied back in a long braid, and he gestured as he spoke to the men there.
I stared at him for a moment. I know him but from where? He spoke in the Biski tongue, and I picked up a few words here and there, like ‘war’, ‘brothers’ and ‘plenty’. It was then I realized where I had wandered. This was the Stone Clan’s camp, and the man addressing the crowd was Aland, the would-be king of the Biski. He was much as I had seen in my dreams, though the dreams gave no justice to his charisma. The men shouted when he spoke, thrusting their fists up. They cheered for him, whooping and stomping their feet. He would wait for them to finish shouting and then continue, smiling and gazing at each man in turn, as if he were speaking to them personally. He is charming. No wonder so many have joined his clan. He spotted me over the shoulders of the other men. I dropped my gaze and pretended to be looking for more tubers.
From the corner of my eye, I saw him break away from the other men and come in my direction. I stood up as he approached. He strode with an even swinging gait full of authority. As he drew close, I saw his expression go from anger to intrigue. He has seen what I am.
“Guruth, Dreau,” he said with a smile. He bowed to me with a fist pressed to his chest.
I smiled back. “I am sorry. I don’t speak your language.”
He startled for a moment before covering the action with a quirk of his brow. “A dreau from the north, how strange indeed.” He looked me up and down. I was wearing a long tunic and breeches rolled up to my knees so I could wade in the water. My feet were caked with mud. This is not how I thought I would meet the king of the Biski. “I’ve heard whispers of your existence, but to see you in the flesh is a delight indeed.”
The way his eyes continued to travel over me made my flesh crawl. You will try to win me over with your sweet tongue, but I am not so easily swayed, not anymore. Adair had a sweet tongue as well, and there was danger behind it. I imagine this Biski king is no different. I did not speak my thoughts. I might have need of this king of the Biski if I wanted to prevent the war.
“I hope you have heard good things about me.” I flung my braids over my shoulder to rest between my shoulder blades. I had kept the hairstyle. I would have all the Biski know that I was untouched. The king noticed; his eyes went from my hair to my neckline. He desires me—not for my flesh but for the power he thinks I have. He is one who is hungry for power and sophistication. I would bring both of those things to his clan.
He laughed. “Yes. Many speak of your power, but few of your beauty.”
I lowered my lashes and looked away in feigned embarrassment.
“If you have completed your training, I would be honored to have you travel with my tribe.”
“I have only begun my formal training, I am afraid, though I appreciate your invitation,” I demurred.
I miscalculated my answer. He narrowed his eyes and studied my face. “Your dialect is much more formal than the usual peasants we meet and trade with. Where are you from?”
I hesitated for a moment. Did I dare reveal my ties to the Johai that now was? Was it Johai that told him of my power? His offer may well have been part of Johai’s plot. Maybe this was no chance meeting at all.
“I was raised in the north and worked in the palace in Keisan as a lady’s maid,” I replied, deciding on a half-truth. I had grown up in the north, at Johai’s estate, and then when I came to Keisan, I had been a lady-in-waiting to Sabine. I dared not reveal my ties to the throne to this man, however, not yet anyway.
“Ah.” He nodded as if he had unraveled a puzzle. His eyes still regarded me with suspicion, however. “I must return to my men. We have many more things to discuss. I hope we meet again soon, and perhaps when you finish your training, you can join me and my clan to graze wider pastures.”
I left that part of the riverbank in search of my grandmother after that. She was thigh deep in the lake, pulling up cattails by the stalk. She had a pile of tubers and cattails on the shore nearby. I helped her gather up what she had found, adding it to my own discoveries. As usual she had found much more than I.
We ate roasted tubers for dinner that night along with a few fat trout my grandmother hand caught. As we ate, I told her about my interchange wit
h the would-be king. She sucked the grease from her fingers as I spoke. Once I was finished, she was silent for a very long time. I almost thought she had slipped into some vision when she said, “The Mother’s children are in need of guidance, and I fear they will be deaf to her words.”
“Do you think the Biski will agree to war?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I do not know. The waters have been dark to me on this matter, as they are with others...” She did not elaborate, and no probing of mine could get her to speak further.
That night I was kept up late thinking of ways I could prevent the Biski from going to war. How can I sway the king when Johai has him in his thrall? My grandmother had not come to bed, and it was late in the night. She was sitting beside her basin again, staring into the dark depths. I had tried on numerous occasions to coax her to sleep, but she only said, “I am an old woman. Soon I will sleep forever.” I had stopped trying to argue with her. I wondered what she was searching for in the water. If she found anything, she did not tell me.
The next morning, the initiates came. The tinkling of bells rolled over the hills, accompanied by the murmur of the song they sang as they came over the hills towards our tent. I stumbled outside to watch their procession. They were all women, girls more like, from ages fourteen to seventeen. They wore white gowns as pristine as fresh snow, their dark hair streaming behind them. They wore necklaces with charms and bells upon them. Their feet were bare, and in their hands they carried the small ribbons I had seen upon the hillside. My grandmother was outside when they arrived. She kneeled upon the ground in front of her tent.
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