The Winter Boy

by Sally Wiener Grotta

  “Yes, but not for us or herself, only for the boy’s sake.”

  “I knew she would,” Karinne said with pride. “What of the boy? Does he know?”

  Evanya shook her head. “No, not yet.”

  “You must help her prepare him.”

  “But I’ve lost an important measure of control.”

  “No one has control over Rishana when it comes to what she considers right and wrong, any more than you could have controlled Mistral when he saw an innocent baby being hurt.”

  “She is going to be difficult, even secretive,” Evanya said.

  “Does she know of my involvement, or the others?”

  “No, Karinne, all her anger is directed at me.”

  “Good. We can use that.”

  “You’re as fearful as I was, Karinne.”

  “More so. Not just for myself, but for Rishana.”

  “And when she finds out the full story?”

  Karinne sighed. “By then, I hope she will understand.”

  Chapter 45

  That night, before supper, the young Allesha retreated to her room to be alone and prepare herself for the evening ahead.

  She had held herself tightly all day, forcing her mind to concentrate only on the boy, struggling with every fiber of discipline to contain her fury. Only now could she allow herself to think back on the morning’s conversation with Dara, the days and weeks spent with Dov, the months of her training, the years of her devotion — seeking hints, truths, answers to questions she feared asking, even in the privacy of her own mind. Wherever her thoughts carried her, they returned, over and over, to visions of the drawing she had made of the scar on Dov’s foot, the runes gouged into Jared’s flesh. One branded for life; the other for death.

  Mwertik. The very name of evil. Murderers in deed and in essence.

  Yet, if the boy is Mwertik… A Mwertik, in my inner room. Touching me as intimately as Jared ever did. Not just my body, but reaching deep into the heart of me. If giving myself as an Allesha means that my boys will become a part of me, change me, will I, too, have some Mwertik within me?

  “Jared, forgive me; I didn’t know,” she cried in a strained whisper, knowing Dov couldn’t hear her through the thick walls, but not wanting to break the silence too loudly, not when there could never again be a response.

  Damn Dara! If only she had told me earlier, at the beginning.

  If only I had never learned the truth.

  A Mwertik, in my inner room. A boy I can’t desert; an enemy I cannot abide.

  “Jared, did you know?” she cried aloud.

  Dov was Mistral’s boy. How could Jared have not known? Mistral and Jared and Tedrac. Yes, Mistral would have told his Triats. Was that what Tedrac was hinting at when he sought her out, just before her Season began? Of course it was.

  “That doesn’t mean you knew the rest, does it, Jared? About Dara and Kiv and the divisions within the Alleshi and how everything we were taught to believe has been distorted?

  “Jared, what do I do if he is Mwertik?”

  He is my Winter Boy, one who could become a potent Alleman, if I do my job right. Do I dare give him that power and ability? Do I want to continue to devote myself, all I am, to this Mwertik?

  I hate the Mwertik. As much as I abhor hate.

  I hate the Mwertik because they taught me what hate is.

  How is my hate any different from Kiv’s — or Dara’s?

  Kiv and Dara. Enemies, not only of the Mwertik, but of each other. Allesha against Allesha, conspiring to outwit each other, to control me.

  What was Council doing during all this? Are they blind? Of course not; they’re Alleshi.

  No, that’s my mistake. There is no “they,” no unified whole working together to guide our people.

  Factions, then? Arraigned behind Kiv or Dara, choosing for or against aggression or manipulation.

  She rose from her desk chair to pace the room, using physical activity to try to her focus her mind. But her back-and-forth movement did nothing to help her untangle the winding paths of her thoughts.

  And Savah? What does Savah think of all this? Certainly, she agrees with Dara about Kiv. She said as much. That doesn’t mean Savah was party to Dara’s plotting. Does it? Savah, whom I’d trust with my life and all I love?

  She refused to allow herself to turn from the obvious. Of course Savah knew.

  Savah and Dara, then. And who else?

  In her mind, she roamed The Valley, picturing each lane and house, trying to sort the Alleshi by loyalties. Then she came to her own gate.

  Where do I stand? With Dara or with Kiv? Or completely alone?

  If I can no longer trust Dara, can I still believe what she has said about Kiv? I understand Kiv, her vehement loathing of the Mwertik, of all that conspires to destroy who and what we are and have. But is she capable of murder? Am I? If I stood face to face with those who killed Jared, what would I do?

  “Jared, what happened up on that mountain? You left me for a stupid hunt, to find a white antelope. You returned on a slab of wood, a frozen corpse.”

  Was it the Mwertik? Can I trust Dara’s insinuations about Kiv and Jared? Or was that no more than a clumsy parry to keep me away from Kiv? What does it say about me that I’m willing to consider that an Allesha, one of my sisters, might have been party to Jared’s murder? What does it say about Dara that she would set my mind in that direction?

  Is anything about The Valley as I had believed?

  Feeling unbalanced, she collapsed into her armchair.

  My First Boy is Mwertik.

  I hate the Mwertik.

  But I must not allow myself to hate the boy.

  Not Dov.

  If Dov is truly a Mwertik, if he is what he has been taught to hate and fear, I can’t desert him now, regardless of how many lies and half-truths led me to this point. Not when he will need me and everything I can teach him, now more than ever. As I was taught. In ignorance. Because he is not yet ready to learn the truth. Because I do not yet know the full truth.

  So, I go forward. For the boy’s sake.

  Even if he is a Mwertik.

  Chapter 46

  A few days later, Tayar walked with the boy to Le’a’s, on her way to the storehouse and Caith.

  To Dov, Tayar seemed distracted. While their conversation wasn’t less lively than normal, underneath the banter and smiles, something seemed to pull at her. He didn’t recognize his new awareness as anything unusual; he concentrated instead on trying to discern what she was thinking. When they parted at Le’a’s gate, he started to ask Tayar what was bothering her, but realized that she wasn’t ready to talk about it — whatever it was.

  Dov found Le’a in her barn, sitting on a stool in a small room he had never entered before. Le’a was so involved in working a potter’s wheel that she apparently didn’t hear him enter. While her legs pumped up and down in an even rhythm, making the wheel turn, her hands and fingers worked the clay. When Le’a reached for more water to smooth the paths her fingers plied, she glanced at him, clearly aware of his presence.

  Back home, he had never paid much attention to the potter’s work. Making the jugs and jars that women use hadn’t seemed a worthy task for a true man. But watching Le’a at her wheel, the boy felt something spark within himself. Though his eyes focused on her fingers and the clay, his mind pictured a particular glade two days’ walk from his village. There, by a pooled part of the stream, he liked to sleep so he could witness the forest’s rebirth, as it awakened to the dawn. Somehow, the way Le’a worked the clay reminded him of that.

  She stopped pedaling the wheel and, as it gradually slowed to a halt, leaned back to look over her creation. “What do you think?” she asked.

  “Nice.”

  “Nice? Is that the best you can say? If you like it, tell me why. If not, don’t give me an empty compliment.”

  “Hey, what did I do to get you angry at me?”

  “Nice is something you say when you don’t want to ma
ke any commitment. It’s a safe word. I hate safe words. They don’t belong between friends. Give me cruel honesty over safety any time. Then I would know you care enough about me to give all you are to our friendship.”

  “Look, Le’a, I’m sorry I upset you. I didn’t know what to say. I’ve never seen anything like that. Skies! It was a lump of wet clay, but you pulled and poked and coaxed, until it became that… I don’t know what to call it.”

  “You can call it a vase, though I may end up making it into a pitcher.”

  “A pitcher? But I’ve never seen one like that.”

  “You still haven’t told me what you think of the shape, the form.”

  “It curves like a woman. Not that it looks like a woman, but it makes me want to touch it, to see if it feels like a woman.”

  “Wonderful! Then I’ve accomplished what I wanted. Thank you.” She pointed to the vase on the wheel. “Why don’t you try it?”

  “I’d ruin it.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “No, I don’t want to touch it. I mean, I do want to touch it, but not like that. It needs to be preserved, not changed.”

  Carefully, with knife and hand, Le’a removed the vase from the wheel, placed it on a nearby shelf, and draped a damp cloth over it. “In that case, after I fire it, I’ll give it to you, to keep safe and touch whenever you wish.” Opening a barrel, she took two fistfuls of clay, balled them together and slapped it on the wheel. “Now make something for me.”

  He looked at the clay, then at her. “I don’t know how to work a wheel.”

  “You’d be amazed what you can do when you try.”

  Le’a’s mind was obviously set, so Dov stepped closer to the wheel. “Okay. What do I do?”

  Le’a punched the center of the clay down. “I’ll pedal for you. Pull up that other stool and sit across from me. First, wet your hands in the bucket.” Dov did as ordered. “Good. Now, take these sides…” she pointed to the edges her punch had created, “between your thumbs and fingers, with your thumbs on the inside. As I pedal, the wheel will turn, slowly at first, then faster, okay?”

  “Yeah, but what do I do?”

  “Lightly squeeze the clay between your fingers and thumbs.”

  Dov placed his hands as she had described. When the wheel started, he felt the clay move under his fingers. At the slightest touch, it climbed up into his hands as it thinned out between his fingers and thumbs. “Hey, wow.”

  “Don’t glance away!” Le’a’s warning was too late. The clay was already wobbling out of control.

  “Damn!” He hit the lump and stomped away. “I told you I couldn’t do it.”

  “Dov, come back here. Don’t give up so easily.”

  “I don’t know how to do it.”

  “You never will unless you try. Everyone makes a mess the first time. When you were learning how to shoot your bow and arrow, did you hit the target the first time?”

  “But archery is something I needed to learn, to be a man. This is nothing.”

  “Nothing? To make a thing of beauty that’s also useful? To learn how to do something you’ve never done before? No, I don’t think you believe that. I think you’re just afraid of failing.”

  “Look, I’m not afraid of anything.”

  “I don’t believe that either, because I know you’re not a fool. Only a fool has no fears. A brave person goes forward despite them.”

  “It’s just a stupid lump of clay.”

  “That’s all it is right now. But you can make it into something else, into anything you wish.”

  “You’re not just talking about the clay, are you? Okay, what’s the lesson today?”

  She pulled the lump off the wheel, rolled it into a ball, wet it, then punched it down onto the wheel again. “I want you to make something for me from this clay.”

  “In other words, you’re not going to tell me, are you?”

  “Come here. Dov. Stand beside me, and let’s do this together. Place your fingers over the back of my hand, your palms over my fingers and the tip of your thumbs over my thumbnails. Good. Now let your hands float rather than press on mine.”

  With his hands on hers, she moved them up and down, side to side, to give him a feel for following her motions. “Yes. I think we’re ready to start. I wonder what we’ll make.”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Oh, I have ideas, but my hands and the clay tend to take over. First, let’s wet our hands again.” He kept his hands on hers even as she dunked them into the frigid water. “Remember, remain on my hands whatever I do.”

  “It feels strange. You’d think that it would be easy to let you take over, but I have to keep controlling from my shoulders, so I don’t put any pressure on you. It’s harder than it was when I was doing it myself.”

  “That’s true. And there’s a lot to think about in what you say.” She began pedaling.

  Forcing himself to keep his hands as light as a bird’s feather, he rode her movements as she pressed outward with her thumbs, rolling the clay up with her fingers. A simple bowl quickly formed. “That’s pretty neat,” he said.

  “Yes, but let’s see what we can do with this.” She started to put her full left hand inside the bowl. However, with his hand on hers, she had to first widen the mouth, so both could fit. That done, she placed one hand inside and the other outside, and pressed them together, creating a indent where the bowl had bulged. Working from the base to the mouth, she alternated between softening and exaggerating the curves.

  The wheel slowed. With a sigh of pleasure, Le’a pulled her hands away from his, dunked them into the water and rubbed off the clay. “Yes, I do believe you have a feel for this.”

  “Can I try again?”

  “Of course.” She punched down the piece they had just created.

  “Hey! Why’d you do that?”

  “To give you a starting point.”

  “But we made that… you and me, together. And now it’s gone.”

  “When I work at the wheel, I’m constantly destroying what I’ve created.”

  “But that’s not like you.”

  “Dov, I’m an Allesha. I will always be changing. Whenever you think you know me, beware, because you’ll never see the whole of me. Then again, isn’t that so with any person?”

  He stared at her, uncertain how to answer.

  She pointed to the clay on the wheel. “Why don’t you try it on your own this time? But shall I pedal for you?”

  ”Okay.” Dov stepped forward, wary but intrigued. Hesitating only briefly, he formed the clay into a ball. After dunking it in the water, he put it dead center onto the wheel and punched it down, as he had seen her do. Le’a began to pedal once more.

  Dov pressed his thumbs and fingers around the rim, trying to recreate the movements and sensations they had shared. Like a living creature, the clay played with him, flowing up and around his fingers that rode the ever-changing shape. When he tried to force the clay to his will, it started to wobble again. This time, however, he didn’t stomp off in anger. Instead, he pulled his hands away, wet them again, and as she slowed the pedaling, he re-balled the clay and started over.

  Dov rode the clay once more, following it as it formed itself into a tall vessel. Seeing the shape develop, he gently guided it to curve here and there. It was like walking on a fallen branch across a river. He could go forward, but only carefully, stopping his effort and allowing the clay to take over whenever it began to protest. Then he pressed his will again, until his next retreat. The clay eventually formed into a strangely shaped bowl with a wide neck. After a while, Dov released the clay and watched the wheel spin down until it was still. “That was nice,” he sighed.

  “Nice?” But this time her voice held a tease, not scorn.

  “No, You’re right. Not nice at all. Sort of scary. It felt like it was alive and claiming me. When I let it, I felt so peaceful. But I couldn’t let it win, could I? Then it would be doing the potting, not me. I mean, I needed to put myself into
the thing, not simply sit there and let it take over. But I couldn’t force it, or it would fall apart again. So I had to coax it and watch it. Hey! That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Reading things, reading people. It’s what Tayar’s been teaching me, and you knew that, didn’t you?”

  “How does that relate to the clay?” she asked.

  Dov stared at the bowl on the wheel. “Well, she says that touching is like a partnership. It’s a gift, too. But a gift is valuable only if it’s what the person receiving it wants. The clay was like that. I couldn’t just make it move the way I wanted. Instead, I had to learn from it — learn how it wanted to move — then make small adjustments to influence it. But they couldn’t be so far off from its natural way that it would break or bend. I’ve got it, haven’t I?” His entire being felt suddenly alive with excitement and discovery.

  “Excellent! I knew you’d figure it out on your own. Of course, there’s more. But you’ve made a key connection. I’m very pleased.”

  Dov knew her words should have sounded encouraging. Instead, they made him feel that he had let both her and himself down. “What did I miss?”

  “Is influence a gift?” Le’a asked. “You started out saying a gift must be something the receiver wants. But then you explained how the clay taught you to be more effectively influential. Are they related?”

  He couldn’t decipher what she was asking. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “Actually, they are. Many of the same skills that you use to tailor your gifts can be used to influence those around you. When necessary, we must convince others that our gifts are indeed what they want and need. However, the power of influence can become addictive. That’s a trap you must never allow to ensnare you.”

  “Isn’t that what all this is about? Being an Alleman and everything? I mean, you’re supposed to teach me how to change things, and that requires knowing how to get people to change.”

  “Yes, and to leave things unchanged when that’s the best path. Then there are personal relationships, which are quite a different matter. You wouldn’t want to always be in control with your family, your wife, your friends, would you?”