“Jared would never have hurt you.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“He couldn’t always tell you everything. I swore him to secrecy.”
“So your poison seeped even into my marriage.”
“No, Jinet!”
“What would you call it when you make a man lie to his wife?”
“Necessity. But it never changed the way he felt about you, or how I feel.”
“And here in The Valley, how have your lies — your necessities — distorted things?” Jinet felt her body tighten against the onslaught of ideas that shook her very being.
“Jinet, please. You don’t understand.”
“You’re right I don’t. You’ve brought hate into this Valley.”
“No, the hate was here. Hate of the Mwertik, created by the Mwertik, perverting our Peace, making the Council question our most basic precepts and reason for being.” The venom in Savah’s tone was undeniable. “Kiv—”
“You hate her… one of your sisters!”
“I hate what she represents, what she is trying to do.”
“Such as…?”
“I fear she has brought the Mwertik’s own violence into our Valley and our ways.”
Shocked at what Savah was implying, Jinet stood abruptly, letting the journal fall to the floor. “Savah, I pity you. You’ve become so warped by your own fears—” The young Allesha struggled to find the right words, but was lost in the torrent of her disbelief and anger. She stomped toward the door.
“Wait!” Savah took a satchel from under her bed and filled it with a dozen journals from the cabinet. “Here, take these with you. When you have finished those, please return to me. Then you can ask me any questions, and I’ll give you honest and full answers, to the best of my ability — and more of their journals to read.”
Jinet snatched the bag without a word and turned to leave.
“Jinet, please. Don’t judge me and throw away everything you believe in before you have more knowledge.”
“Knowledge, Savah? Is that all this is to you? We’re not talking about another book you’ve rescued from oblivion. These are people’s lives. Jared, a man you claim to have loved, and my Winter Boy. People who can be hurt while you sit here safely under your mountain weaving your stories. Yes, I will read and ask you questions, but I’ll never return to you, not to what we once were.”
Jinet chose to not see the hurt in Savah’s eyes.
Chapter 55
Jinet/Rishana stood with her hand on her front gate latch, a thick snowfall drifting about her. She ached for the warm haven of her home, but dared not go inside. As cold and tired as she was, she still wasn’t in control of her emotions. Until she was, she knew she must stay away from her Winter Boy.
She had to find shelter, and someone to talk to who wouldn’t endanger her Winter Boy. But where? Who? In the past, she would have turned to Jared or Savah or, more recently, Dara. Whom could she trust here in this Valley that had proven so different from what she had believed it to be? Different and devious.
The snow had turned to pelting ice by the time Rishana reached the storehouse. Huge and filled to brimming with its accumulated weight of history, the storehouse was concrete proof of the far-reaching, generations-old Peace. Whatever storms raged outside, here she knew she was safe.
Rishana surveyed the nearby aisles to confirm that no one had seen her enter. Good. Now she needed to find a warm corner where she could be alone while she sorted out her thoughts. She retreated to a room on the far side of the storehouse, where she had once helped Caith inventory piles of thick lush furs, gifts from the Diaghts, who were seeking trade rights. After turning up one of the gas lamps, Rishana kicked off her drenched shoes and socks and wrapped herself in a large bear fur. Then she opened the satchel, arranged the journals chronologically on the floor beside her, and began to read. She had gone through about a third of the first from Mistral’s pile of journals when Caith entered the room.
“I saw the light and wondered who was in here,” Caith said with a smile as she walked through the door.
Caith paused in mid-step at the sight of Rishana hunched over with a heavy fur tented around her shoulders. Sweat trickled from the young woman’s temples. When Caith leaned down to touch her face, it was ice cold. Rishana looked up from the book on her lap; her eyes were shining feverishly.
“I’ll be right back,” Caith said. She returned a short time later with a large hot mug, which she handed to Rishana. “Drink it slowly and breathe in the fumes.”
When Rishana sipped the brew, she wrinkled her face in distaste and lowered the mug.
Caith wrapped her small, gnarled hands around Rishana’s, which still held the mug, coaxing her to bring it back up to her face. “I know it’s bitter. But we don’t have the leisure to fight this thing gently. You’ve got a chill that could turn into something much worse. Then what would happen to your First Boy’s Season?”
At the mention of Dov, Rishana spoke for the first time since Caith had entered. “My Winter Boy. I must….” But her words were slurred and indistinct. She forced herself to swallow more of the brew.
“Good, but sip it slowly and breathe the aroma in through your nose.” Caith watched as Rishana obediently finished the drink. Then Caith tried to guide her out of the room. “I stoked the fire in my steam room. It should be ready by now.”
Rishana wouldn’t budge until she had gathered the journals into the satchel. Then, with one fist clutching the bear fur around her and the other wrapped around the satchel’s straps, Rishana walked in silence beside Caith.
They disrobed in the small anteroom, where Caith retrieved three jars from a cabinet while Rishana concealed the satchel beneath the large fur. As they entered the steam room, the warmth enfolded them like a welcoming cloak. Caith took the chain of keys from around her neck — the ones she never let out of her sight — and put them in a hanging pouch far from the doorway. Then she poured oils and herbs from the jars and ladled water onto the heated rocks until aromatic steam filled the small room. They could barely see each other through the fog as they reclined on opposite wooden benches.
“I am very old,” Caith said. “I remember people in their youth who were long dead by the time you were born. Sometimes, their faces are clearer in my mind than those I saw just yesterday.” Caith paused, as she drifted through a cloud of memories. “With my First Boy, I was as young as you, maybe younger. They said I was the youngest Allesha ever, but how could they know? No one had marked my birth or counted my years. I thought myself so mature, especially after all I had survived to get here. Only when I was well into my First Season did I understand how much I still had to learn.”
Rishana’s whispered “yes” was little more than an exhale, a release of breath.
“My First Boy was a handful, questioning everything I tried to teach him.” Caith rolled onto her side to gaze through the steam toward Rishana. “Actually, you remind me of him, especially at times like this. He’d take his lessons deep into himself, as though he had to chew them completely before he could reshape them into something fully his own. Only then would he discuss them with me.
“Of course, back then, things were simpler. All I had to contend with was a rambunctious boy and the confusion typical of any new Allesha with her First Boy. With the help of my mentor and our sisters, I became stronger, more assured and capable.” Caith sat up and stared into the fog. She could almost see Rishana across from her, a shape that appeared to be sitting and leaning forward. “I never had reason to doubt the grace of any Allesha.”
“You do now?” Rishana asked.
“My doubts aren’t the issue, are they?”
“I need to know what you think.”
Caith considered the various answers she could give, then said, “Our sisters are split into opposing forces, and you’re caught in the middle.”
“Why?”
“Fear does terrible things to people. And we’ve got a lot to fear right now. The Mwer
tik seem to want to destroy us. How do we fight what appears to be unreasonable hatred?”
“Seem? Appear?”
“We don’t know anything about them for certain.”
“Don’t we, Caith? Doesn’t anyone?”
Caith breathed in the steam, letting it fill her, seeking strength from it. “Yes, there are some who may know. Dara, maybe.”
“And Kiv?” Rishana asked.
“No, Kiv is only guessing — I hope.”
“So you agree with Dara that she’s dangerous?”
“Her ideas definitely are. Some feel she is traveling a path that will change all of us.” Caith paused, remembering Kiv as a young Allesha not so many years ago. “Kiv has always been passionate, though with a fiery temper. If her hate has taken hold of that side of her, then I don’t know what she might do.” She shook her head sadly.
“What of Peren?”
“She’s your husband’s Allesha,” Caith said dismissively.
“She manipulated me, lied to me. I feel as if my whole world is coming apart.”
“In many ways, it is.”
“What do you know of my First Boy?” Rishana asked.
“You mean that he is probably Mwertik?”
The young woman gasped. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t, but my guesses tend to be pretty good. Better than Kiv’s, I hope.”
“I love him, Caith.” Rishana’s voice now came from the left side of the room, though Caith wasn’t sure when she had gotten off the bench.
“Of course, you do. He’s your First Boy.”
“But I hate the Mwertik. His people.”
As Rishana paced closer, Caith could see her furrowed face before she gradually disappeared back into the steam.
“They killed your husband, want to destroy all you love. And you have just been through the Exhilaration Stage. You’re raw, wide open, and you feel so close to your chosen boy.”
“Yes, but that isn’t why, Caith.”
“No, it isn’t. Still, even in a normal Season, Exhilaration wreaks havoc on a woman’s equilibrium. And yours is not a normal Season.”
“Dara and Peren want to use him.”
“Because they hope he may be the key to saving us.”
“But he’s more than their pawn,” Rishana said. “He has his own hopes and needs. He has a right to make his own choices.”
“Then he will have to be told when he is ready.”
“How do I tell a boy that the father he has struggled to love for so long is not his father? His mother not his mother? That he’s a Mwertik Zalog, a member of the very people who would destroy our Peace? It will crush him.”
“If so, then he isn’t the hoped-for intermediary others would have us believe.”
“That’s cold, Caith.”
“No, it’s reality. But I don’t believe he will be destroyed, because you won’t allow it.”
“I’ll be the one doing it.” Suddenly, Rishana was hovering over Caith, staring at her. “I still don’t know where you stand.”
“By your side, Rishana.”
“Do you agree with Peren and Dara, or with Kiv?”
“With you — uncomfortable with the choices at hand, knowing we must proceed with one if we are to survive without destroying ourselves.”
“While our world splinters and breaks.”
Caith took Rishana’s hands. “Our world is changing. You must decide for yourself whether you wish it to change by violence or subterfuge, or a combination of the two.”
“And my Winter Boy? What of him?”
“Love him, protect him, prepare him. If you’re smart, you’ll also enjoy the short time you have left with him. It will go by so quickly, and then all you’ll have will be memories.”
“It hurts, Caith.”
“I know, Rishana.”
“I’m not just talking about him. I’m afraid of trusting Dara… that she hasn’t been fully on my side. And Peren. I believed in her as completely as my own mother.” Tears mixed with the trailing sweat on Rishana’s cheek
“I know, child. It’s painful to discover that the people we love aren’t who we thought they were.”
Rishana pulled her hands out of Caith’s and sat back on the opposite bench. “Are you who I believe you to be?”
“No, of course not.”
“Who am I to believe in, then?”
“Yourself, Rishana. The rest will come only after that.”
“What of Peren and Dara?”
“You must give them a chance to earn your trust again.”
“And Kiv?”
“I cannot say, because I don’t know what she is proposing. Is her strategy a reasonable one? Does it have a hope of succeeding? I will talk with her when she comes for supplies.”
“No! I forbid it!” Rishana suddenly stood towering over Caith.
“How else can we protect you and your Winter Boy?”
Rishana started to protest, considered her options and nodded. “Fine. But if you—”
“I promise, child. I would never do anything that would hurt you. I know it’s hard for you to trust me right now. But we must find out.”
“I need to be able to trust you. I have no one else.”
“You have yourself and your boy.” Caith reached up to grasp Rishana’s hand. “Listen to your own heart. I’ve seldom seen one so strong and true.”
Rishana squeezed Caith’s hand, then released it and walked toward the door.
“And be careful, child.”
“Of everyone,” Rishana said before leaving the steam room.
Chapter 56
After Tayar bolted from the house, Dov tried to busy himself with chores, but didn’t get much done. He was constantly drawn to look outside into the snowstorm, to scan the path for his Allesha.
When Tayar did reappear almost two hours later, her shoulders were hunched under the weight of a heavy satchel, and her eyes downcast. What’s made her feel so defeated? he wondered. Something’s dreadfully wrong.
Dov rushed to the door, but she turned away once more before he could call to her. When he saw her disappear into the heavy snowfall, he hesitated for only a moment, then quickly threw on his overclothes, grabbed her boots, and sprinted after her. But the deep snow was churned up by so many crossing footprints, he couldn’t be sure which of the various intersecting paths she had taken. He called out, “Tayar!” The icy wind whipped his face, muting the sound of his voice, even to his own ears.
Fire and Stones! What could have been so upsetting that it would drive her out in a storm like this without her damn boots? Doesn’t she even have enough sense to find shelter?
Realizing that he, too, needed shelter, but not wanting to return to the empty house where he’d be alone with his worries, Dov set his feet on the one Valley path that he knew as well as the way home through the dark Birani forest.
Dov found Le’a in her kitchen, spooning a batch of cookies onto baking sheets. After their greeting embrace, he watched Le’a as she lit the oven and bent to put the cookie sheets into it. He could discern no hint that she knew what had happened that morning that could have so unnerved Tayar.
Straightening up, she gestured to the table, but he remained standing. “I really didn’t expect you today, Dov. Not in this storm. Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know. Well, yes. I’m certain there is, but I don’t know what. Was Tayar here earlier?’
“No. Why? What’s happened?”
“It was strange. Suddenly she wasn’t anything like herself. Then she ran off. Didn’t even put on her boots.”
“Dov, you know about the Every Woman.”
“No, Le’a, this was her, the real woman, and she was…” Dov paused, picturing Tayar with her red, darting eyes and nervous mouth. “…scared. I’m sure that’s what it was. She flew out of the house before I could see anything more. But it was something else, too. It was almost as though she had stepped off a cliff, where she’d expected solid earth. Does that make sense
?”
“Yes, it does.”
“You know something, don’t you, Le’a?”
“I can’t say, Dov. I wasn’t there, and you haven’t given me much information.”
“I have so little.”
“But much more than you would have had only a week ago. I’m proud of you, Dov. You’ve learned well.”
“This isn’t about damned lessons. Tayar is out there, without her boots, in this storm. I’m worried about her.”
“I’m sure she’s inside somewhere, warm and safe.”
Dov bussed Le’a’s cheek in farewell. “I’ve got to find her.”
Le’a put her two hands on his shoulders. “Dov, go home. You mustn’t be wandering about The Valley. Even if the weather were fine, you’re not permitted.”
“Surely, in a situation like this.”
“No, Dov. I will let Tayar know you’re worried, and she’ll return home soon enough.”
“But you said you don’t know where she is.”
“I can find her easily enough by notifying my nearest neighbors, who will send word to their neighbors and so forth, until the entire Valley is alerted. Tayar is undoubtedly visiting with another Allesha and will return soon.”
Dov could tell that Le’a wasn’t exactly lying to him, but her mouth was tight as though she were holding back something important. However, he understood that he’d learn nothing more by pressing her. “All right,” he said. “But I have her boots with me. Will you make sure she gets them?”
“Of course,” Le’a said without meeting his gaze.
“I’d really rather go with you. You’re not a woodsman. You might need my help in this weather.”
“It’s my Valley, and you aren’t allowed where I would look. Go home, Dov. It’s where you belong.” Le’a embraced him quickly, then patted him on the back, almost as though she were pushing him out the door.
Dov didn’t know why he hung back, hiding behind a large evergreen tree, to watch Le’a’s house. But when she came out, he saw that she didn’t carry Tayar’s boots. And she didn’t stop at her nearest neighbors, but went much farther afield. He followed her until he realized she was headed toward an area he’d never been, at the far edge of The Valley. Whatever she was up to, he didn’t dare go where he had been forbidden. Especially when he noticed another Allesha across the way, who appeared to be watching him. He waved goodbye to Le’a’s back, as though they had been walking together and were only now going separate ways.
The Winter Boy Page 35