“Of course. You always have a choice. But be cautious how you decide. Reverberations of what you choose will range far beyond what is in front of your face.”
“Damn it! Why must everything be a lesson to you?”
“You came to me to learn. But, no, that isn’t the only reason. Everything in life is a lesson, a chance to learn. Those of us who take advantage of such opportunities are enriched by them. Those who do not become rigid, set in their ways, old before their time — and boring.” Her cheeks and ears flushed to nearly the color of her freckles. “I wouldn’t wish such a fate on an enemy, certainly not on a boy in my care.”
He was taken aback by her sharp tone and curt words.
“While we’re on the subject of lessons, here’s an important one for you. Your curse words have no effect on me. If you want impact, use language that has strength and originality, words that reflect who you are and what you want to say. Not the feeble echoes of boys, who in trying to sound like they are more than they are, reveal themselves as much less.”
“Look, I don’t know what I did to nettle you, but I’m sor—”
“You accused me of using you as a servant.” She stood up abruptly. “I’m going to clean my room. I suggest you do the same.”
Of course, the Allesha didn’t expect the boy to clean his room. What he did behind his door, she didn’t really care. And that worried her. Why had she reacted so fiercely? Not only was it unacceptable for an Allesha to lose control and show unintentional anger in front of her boy in Season, but it was unlike her.
The answer came to her while she scrubbed her bathtub with more energy than necessary: she was as eager as he to move forward. After the hunt, and then last night, she had believed they’d advance quickly past the barriers she had been told to expect.
No, fool! She flung the scrub cloth into her hamper. This boy can’t allow himself to be that easy. She’d have to fight for him against his very nature.
When she came out of her room, she found the boy not in the house, but in the front yard, throwing stones at tree trunks. She sent him to Dara, with the venison rump he had chosen for their mentor. Once he was out of sight, the young Allesha closed her outer door and set off to find Savah.
Chapter 19
The boy hesitated at the inner door of the older Allesha’s home. It didn’t seem right to barge in, even though they had told him that an open outer door was a sign welcoming visitors. He walked around to the back, and found her taking off her boots in the mudroom behind her kitchen.
She waved. “Come in.” When she saw what he carried, she said, “Oh, my, put that over there.”
“No, I’ll take it to your coldhouse.”
“In a moment, dear.” Stowing her boots on the floor rack, she walked toward him in her stocking feet. “For now, set it down so I may greet you properly and thank you for this handsome gift.”
After he swung the haunch off his shoulder, careful to not let it drop onto the counter, she placed both hands on his shoulder, kissed each of his cheeks, and, to his surprise, brushed her lips quickly and gently across his.
He lifted the meat up again, but onto his opposite shoulder, realizing how heavily it had pressed on his muscles during his walk to the elder Allesha’s home. Then he took it out to hang in the coldhouse.
When he returned, the Allesha was at the kitchen table, which was set for tea.
“Please sit,” she said, gesturing to the chair opposite hers. “Now tell me, how does it go with your Allesha?” She sat opposite him. “What did you do last night?”
“I read to her, that’s all.”
She held up a plate, and he took a cookie. “Sounds pleasant.”
“I guess it was nice enough, just not what I hoped it would be.” He bit into the cookie, chewing it thoughtfully, though he barely tasted it.
“No, not yet.”
“Why the hell not? Oh… she says I’m not supposed to curse. But damn it, she makes me feel like cursing.”
Sipping her tea, she studied him over the rim of her cup. “Yes, I can see that. What did you read?”
“A story from some book by a woman, called The Traveler’s Tales. It was pretty good, and reading to her made me feel that we were somehow closer. But then she pushed me away.”
“I see.”
“You’re not much help, are you?”
“I can’t make the world turn faster for you, just because you’re in a hurry.” She paused to put down her cup. “So, what questions do you have for me that I might be able to answer?”
“She told me it’s time to pick a name for you, too.”
“There’s no hurry. You’ll find it when you’re ready.”
“Did she tell you the name I gave her?”
“Tayar,” the Allesha said. “It’s a good, insightful name. You did well.”
“But what about me? Am I to answer to ‘boy’ with you women for the rest of the winter?”
“That will be up to your Allesha, not me. But I can tell you that our boys earn their names.”
“Well, she hasn’t given me a chance to earn it yet. Damn! When’s she going to let me in that inner room?”
“Patience, boy. This time will pass too soon. Enjoy it while you live it. Give your Allesha the courtesy and pleasure of being with her in the now, so that she may take you forward to your future. And, yes, into the delights of the inner room, too.”
“Le’a.”
“What?”
“It’s a mountain on the far side of our forest. It watches over everything we do. The children of our village are taught that, if they ever get lost, they should climb to the top of a tree and look for Le’a. She’ll show them the direction toward home, just by being where she always has been and always will be.” He looked at her expectantly, but when she didn’t respond immediately, he realized the old woman didn’t get what he was saying. “It’s your name.”
“Le’a. I like it. Thank you.”
Chapter 20
Rishana found the one the Alleshi called Peren in the yard outside her timber-and-daub barn, chopping firewood.
“Jinet!” the old woman called out, as she carefully lay down her axe and ambled over to her.
“Hello, Savah.”
The sound of the old, familiar names comforted the young woman. It was the same — always would be the same — coming home to Jared’s Allesha, whom he had named Savah when he had been a boy in Season. Nothing would ever change how rooted this one woman could make her feel. Alone with Savah, she could still be Jinet, the woman she had been before becoming the Allesha Rishana, or her First Boy’s Tayar.
She bent down to Savah, fitting her tall lean figure easily and comfortably into the small, round softness of her dearest living friend.
Savah broke the embrace to place her hands on Jinet’s shoulders and read her face. Then Savah walked to the block and picked up the axe. “Sit there while I do my chopping, and tell me what is bothering you.”
“I’ll do it,” Jinet protested. “You should be the one resting.”
“Thank you, dear, but no. Hester keeps telling me that, since retiring from the giving of Seasons, I need to find other ways to get my old heart pumping. Now you can tell her that I’m listening to her. Won’t she be surprised?” She hefted the axe and began to build a slow rhythm of placing and splitting logs.
Recognizing that she never could change Savah’s mind, Jinet sat down on the hard ground in the shadow of the stone wall that ringed the yard. She had to admit that Savah was building up a ruddy sweat that was probably doing her as much good as any exercise class at the Communal Hall.
“So, Savah, what library project are you working on now? I know you must have something. You always do.”
Savah paused and leaned on the axe handle. “We’re examining a large cache of books and scrolls we’ve recently acquired from far beyond our Peace borders. Some even have hints about the fabled civilization from before the Great Chaos. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could finally discover who
they were, what they knew? So much was destroyed during the wars of the Chaos. And, yet, if that civilization hadn’t collapsed into centuries of horror and cruelty, we wouldn’t be here, as we are today. The Alleshine Peace would have had no reason to exist.” Savah stared into the space between them, lost for the moment in her beloved library. Then she resumed her chopping, fitting her words into the grunting syncopation of her efforts. “However, you didn’t come to hear about that. Tell me.”
Now that the time had come to speak about what had happened, the young Allesha hesitated putting it into words and acknowledging her shortcomings. But it was that very fear that made her push forward. “Savah, I lost my temper.” She said it in a rush of words, hoping to outpace her shame. “I was emotionally reactive.”
“Did you really think that would never happen? None of us is perfect.”
“But this was with my Winter Boy, my First Boy.” Jinet frowned. “Savah, my training was too short.”
As Savah leaned over to put another log on the chopping block, she looked over at Jinet. A brief glance, but Jinet thought she sensed a shadow in it. Or perhaps the young Allesha was seeing what she herself felt.
Savah shook her head, then resumed the rhythm of swinging, chopping, removing the split wood and placing another piece. “I’ve reassured you repeatedly; you shouldn’t need to hear it again. You are fully ready, have been for some time.”
“Savah, please,” Jinet pleaded.
Savah rested the head of the axe on the ground. “You’re talking about more than this one incident, then?”
“I guess I am.”
“It sounds like everything is going as planned with your First Boy. Perhaps the Conflict Stage came sooner than you had expected, but that often happens with problem boys. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of your anger might have been because you were disappointed that it came so early. Or had you hoped to avoid it completely?”
“Fascination Stage… Conflict Stage…” Jinet bit her lower lip. “Why should any boy’s Season follow such a rigid pattern? It’s as though some mathematician had formulated it for us, and we were just going through the motions, surrendering our lives to her rule.”
“I see.” Savah put down her axe and sat next to Jinet.
“Do you? I had to believe that if anyone understood, you would.” Jinet leaned against the stone wall and, with a sigh of relief, realized how tightly she had been holding back a fermenting jumble of doubt. “So many different boys come to us, from widely diverse cultures. How can you predict how all of them will behave, using a single set of rules? Deep inside me, I feel that there’s something very wrong in this. It frightens me, Savah. Are the Alleshi… How do they know how to anticipate a boy’s…? Savah, what are we, really?”
“Just a society of widows from the far and near reaches of our land who have banded together to try to keep war and chaos at bay.”
“Yes, but to have such special knowledge and unerring insights?”
“Unerring? Never. The uninitiated may find comfort and surety in believing it of us… but no.” Savah placed her hand on Jinet’s knee. “Still, knowledge is a wonderful and strange thing. I’ve devoted the remaining years of my life to unearthing new knowledge for the pleasure it gives me and for the value it may offer our people. Of course, the Alleshi have always accumulated it for a grander, less personal purpose — to preserve it, use it — though some might say to control it. So you are right to fear knowledge. Its power is seductive.”
Savah’s easy acceptance that Alleshine power could be corrupted added fuel to Jinet’s anxiety. Before she had come to The Valley, Jinet had believed with all her heart in the authority, wisdom and rectitude of the Alleshi. Now that she was one of them, she couldn’t help have misgivings — about herself, and about the Alleshi for having accepted her.
“Jinet, every boy is unique. That we have given you the insights to see into a boy’s heart and to help you prepare to attend to his needs and education doesn’t negate his individuality. We Alleshi are very privileged to benefit from the best that our world has to offer. We have been given you. And you have been given this boy to teach and to love. Cherish the gift, the gifts, that have been showered upon you, because you are Jinet and Rishana and whomever else your boys will need you to be. Because you are Allesha.”
“I’ll try, Savah.” Even as she said it, Jinet wondered how she could ever be all that Savah apparently believed her to be — fully and unequivocally Alleshine. “Sometimes, I feel a dark shadow forming just beyond the corner of my eye. I don’t really know its shape or origin, but I fear it will overtake me. A hard seed of uncertainty that… Oh, I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”
“Yes, dear.” Savah patted the young woman’s hand. “The First Season can be most difficult, and you never were one to accept anything you hadn’t struggled to understand. If you have doubts, look to them to guide you. I’ve never seen you fail when you listened to your own heart. In certain matters, I trust that even more than the combined wisdom of long-dead Alleshi.”
Chapter 21
After seeing Ayne, Karinne knew she had to talk with her old friend Evanya.
Many years ago, when they had been young women known as Karinne and Evanya, whatever crises had beset them, nothing had seemed insurmountable. Now those names remained only as an ingrained habit that both clung to in the privacy of their friendship, something they could share that was aloof and apart from anything or anyone else in The Valley. They used the names most often as reminders that some conversations, certain subjects must remain private, hidden from the world. Neither found reassurance in the sounds of their old names, as they once had when life had been far less complicated.
Karinne didn’t waste time on preliminary pleasantries when she found Evanya alone in her workshop. “If you don’t tell Rishana soon, I will,” Karinne insisted. “She needs to be prepared.”
Evanya wiped the clay from her hands and flung the towel toward the sink. She didn’t bother to mask her annoyance. “We agreed that it would be my decision.”
“But Rishana senses that something is wrong. She’s turning it inward, doubting herself, thinking that it has to do with her inexperience.”
“Well, she’s right… in part.” Evanya sighed. “Karinne, don’t you remember your First? When everything was still new, fresh, innocent. Of course she’s uncertain, but her instincts are solid.”
“It’s those instincts that worry me. Do you really want her to guess the truth on her own? If it comes from you — or if necessary, from me — we’ll have more control over the situation.”
“Soon, Karinne, I promise. But let her remain innocent for a little while longer.”
Chapter 22
When the boy returned, he found his Allesha in her kitchen. He strode across the room in three quick steps. Then, in a surprising gesture that might have been taken as mockery if he hadn’t done it just right, he placed his hands on her shoulders, and pressed his lips on both of her cheeks, then firmly, but briefly on her lips.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “The old woman needed some help with her chores. Didn’t think you’d mind.”
She held herself in check so she wouldn’t show her wonder in his changed behavior. “I’m glad you were able to help her. Lunch is ready. Please set the table after you’ve washed up. I’ll reheat the soup.”
They discussed their afternoon chores while they ate, treading lightly, not wanting to pry or push in any manner that would upset the fragile equilibrium. But the Allesha knew how unfertile a placid balance can be. Maybe that’s one of the reasons this boy is always testing and unaccepting. His need to challenge for the sake of challenge is what marks him as a creature of power. It’s up to me to spark and provoke him, to mold and make a leader out of the problem child.
The boy broke through her reverie. “You didn’t ask me about my visit with the old woman.”
“If you have something to share with me, I trust you will.”
“Well, yeah, I gave her a
name, like you said to. Le’a.”
“Why?”
“Does there have to be a why for a name? Can’t it just be pretty?”
“Le’a. It has a good sound to it, but would you give our mentor a meaningless name?”
“Sure, why not?” He crossed his arms and grinned.
“Because I know how pleased I was when you explained why you had chosen Tayar for me. Because I don’t think you do anything for no reason at all. And because I believe you’re baiting me, the way a fisherman plays a trout, skipping some morsel over the surface of a stream. Do you think I’m so easily teased and hooked?”
“Hey, wait. You’re twisting things.” His sigh was more a huff of exasperation than acceptance. “Okay, look, the name does have a meaning. But I didn’t keep it back for any bad reason. Can’t teasing be good or fun?”
“Teasing for fun is delightful. For power or control, it’s offensive.”
“Control? I don’t understand.”
“You will.”
“Who’s trying to control now?” He tossed his napkin onto his empty plate, got up from the table and started toward the back door. “I give up. Thanks for the meal. I guess I’ll go out and get to work on the barn roof.”
“Whoa, boy! We have dishes to do first. Then we’ll both go up on the roof.”
Without a word, he noisily stacked the plates and utensils from the table and carried them to the sink to wash in an over-full basin of soapy water. He was rough with the china and glasses, but his Allesha said nothing. Let him simmer a while, she decided. We have time.
He continued in angry silence for much of the afternoon. After cleaning the kitchen, they fetched the ladder and climbed onto the barn roof to inspect it. Several shingles were loose and a few needed to be replaced. Without a word, they set to work.
The Allesha felt that the boy wanted to come out from behind the emotional wall he had thrown up, but didn’t know how to do it without appearing a fool. She considered helping him out of his discomfort, but realized that he’d have to learn to do it himself sometime. Might as well begin today.
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