He vigorously swept the floor with his willow broom. "We must create a space for our work, here." He disappeared into the kitchen, then returned carrying a tray filled with objects. Cups, a knife, candles and plants all rested there. A quilted robe with stars sewn onto a silvery blue was thrown over his shoulder. Placing the tray on the floor, he went to the windows and sealed the shutters. He pulled the door shut and dropped the iron bolt into place. Now the only light came from a metal lamp and the kitchen hearth's fire. The corners of the room disappeared into shadows.
She heard footsteps in the kitchen and Iranzu stepped into the central chamber.
He was garbed in a black robe, with the hood pulled up around his face. Behind him, Leila carried a bowl filled with water. A scarlet gown clothed her, the sleeves fitted to her arms, and her black hair fell in a single braid down her back. She nodded to Maríana, but her eyes were cold. Placing the bowl on the floor, she backed away from Ibrahim, standing opposite Iranzu.
"The back door is locked, now." Iranzu's voice was hushed.
Ibrahim nodded, then lifted a figure made of twisted vines off the tray. Dried leaves were still attached in the form of a skirt. He beckoned to Maríana. "This is the maiden," he said, placing the figure on a low stool he had set upon the freshly swept floor. "You will learn how to make your own later -- if you decide to travel to your mother's village. This one is old." He paused, stroking it, his face still and reflective. "Usually a new one is made every year at Txirringa Erreketa, the festival of the wolf moon, but you were not ready for this at that time last year." He shrugged his arms into his robe and fastened it at his waist.
"Why am I ready now?" Maríana asked, turning her head when Leila snorted.
"Maybe you will never be ready." Leila had folded her arms, but her eyes were fixed upon her feet.
Iranzu touched Leila's shoulder. "I think it is best that you go now, before we start. You will only hinder us if you cannot let go of your anger."
"Well!" Leila whirled around, glaring at Maríana, then stomped back through the kitchen. Iranzu followed her.
"It is difficult for Leila," Ibrahim shook his head. "She is the elder daughter..." He stopped speaking when Iranzu returned.
"Why did our mother leave her?" Maríana's fingers touched the crumpled leaves and vines that formed the maiden, her eyes lowered. She ached for her sister, but Leila's anger did set her teeth on edge.
"Leila's father was already wed. He is a merchant in Béarn, now, but at the time we knew him, he was a troubadour." Iranzu lit a stick of dried juniper. "Thérèse was very young. She left Leila with Adelie, and came with me to Egypt."
"You know what happened after that!" Ibrahim's eyes flashed as he carried five candles over to her. "Here. I will teach you how to make your own someday," he said, showing her the blue, green, red, orange and white candles he held. "These are made of beeswax and tallow. The scent comes from herbs that you put into the molds as the candles form. The wicks are made from hemp."
Maríana held a candle up to the light of the lamp. The color came from purple-blue flecks of lavender embedded in its shaft. Ibrahim placed the others in a rough circle around her, then looked into the black bowl filled with water that Leila had brought. He adjusted the candles and smiled at Maríana's raised brows. "We must have them aligned with the four directions," he said. He took the candle she held and placed it in the middle, then ignited all of them. Their smoke was blue and fragrant with pine and mugwort, lavender and thyme.
"This was your mother's." Motioning for Maríana to turn around, Iranzu lifted her heavy auburn hair. The touch of metal chilled her skin. A silver crescent moon on its side suspended from a sturdy silver chain; the horns of the moon faced upward. She ran her fingers over the surface. A four-armed design was carved into the metal. "It is the symbol of wholeness." Iranzu patted her hand and smiled sadly. "You should wear this. Your mother did. Until..." He looked down at his feet, then smoothed her hair back. "You can hide it underneath your gown like this." He slipped it beneath the neck of her gown and the moon symbol disappeared.
"I cannot initiate you." Ibrahim placed the knife and cup on the chair next to the vine maiden. "For that you must go to your mother's village on the mountain."
"How would they initiate me?" The metal of her mother's necklace warmed.
Ibrahim turned to her, then looked away. "For women, they have a rite of initiation where a man calls down the energy of the Lord of the hawthorn, and the woman initiate calls the energy of the Lady. The two of them couple inside the circle."
"What!" Maríana stared. He was not jesting. "Grandfather! Is this true?" Iranzu nodded. "Who would the man be?" she asked.
Ibrahim drew a deep breath. "As I understand it, a man of the woman's choosing."
She shook her head. "This is very different from what Father Gregory teaches."
Ibrahim took her hands. "It is not Christian," he agreed. "I will teach you what I can of your mother's way of life, and of mine, but you must decide whether you will follow the way of your mother -- and me -- or the way of your father." He looked deeply into her eyes. "Once we have completed this ritual, you will be able to heal with your hands alone. But you must promise me that you will use your plants and herbs to heal, not your hands. Unless there is no other way."
"Why?"
"Even using a physician's tools is dangerous. There are many who hold that cures can only be obtained through prayer."
"But is that different from using your hands?"
His eyes crinkled at the corners. "Maríana. Just believe me when I tell you it is dangerous! Only use your hands when it is absolutely necessary, and make sure that you protect yourself by saying that it was prayers that did the healing." He dropped her hands and drew a long wand fashioned from a rowan tree out of his blue robes. "Now, we want you to draw a circle. Start here at the east and move around the outside of the candles, following the direction the sun takes as it crosses the heavens."
She took the wand and moved to the eastern candle.
"East is breath." Ibrahim spoke from the center of the circle. She felt his eyes on her as she paced the distance across the floor.
She was now nearly to the south candle, moving past Iranzu. Ibrahim cleared his throat, saying, "South is heat." Was the air quivering? She glanced back. "Keep drawing the space between the worlds," Ibrahim commanded. The air outside of the circle started to thicken into a clear vapor, boiling and churning around the boundary she drew.
"West is blood." Now breathing hurt. Her eyes could not seem to focus. She held onto the rowan branch and forced her feet to carry her to the north candle.
"North is body -- going back to the earth." Didn't they notice her slowing steps? She could barely see now, yet the east candle was vivid, a beacon. She shuffled her feet toward it to close the circle, the rowan wand now hanging from her fingertips, dragging on the floor. When she reached it, a curtain of white dropped over her eyes.
She was flying, soaring at an immense height. Dark vistas of tree-covered mountains opened below her. Lakes gleamed in a lightening dawn sky, turning pale salmon as the sun's rays extended fingers of light over the horizon. Hills, mountains and meadows passed in a blur below her.
She raised her eyes to the sky. The dizzying spectacle rushing beneath her tugged and wrenched. Air twisted in a pearl and pink translucence, breathing and alive. She lifted her eyes higher. A large pool of light suspended in the brightening sky lay ahead. A frame bound it, weaving interlace patterns, like the patterns of light she had held between her hands so long ago. Letters formed across its surface. As she drew closer, the pool of brightness swung inward, as a door would, revealing the deep blue of an early evening sky, swimming with stars, beckoning. She was almost upon it.
"Don't go through it." Iranzu's voice shattered the vision. Pieces of radiance fell around her, flaring before they vanished. She lay on the floor, her head on Ibrahim's lap. The candles still burned.
Ibrahim took her hands. "You have opened it,
but you must not go through." His fingers rubbed the life back into her numb flesh.
"What would happen?" She wanted to pass through it, beyond to where the universe awaited. "If I went through it, what would it do?"
His hands stilled. "Your body would die."
"Then why open it at all? Why did you send me there?" She struggled to sit but a weakness had taken her limbs.
"I merely prepared you. You went there on your own. After this, you will be able to open the space between the worlds." He drew her up and held her against his chest. "But you will not ever open the door."
"Then I am an initiate?"
Ibrahim shook his head again. "I told you I cannot initiate you. You are like a daughter to me. But Iranzu can give you the Law that guides the Jakintzas."
Iranzu still stood near the south candle. He waited in silence until she nodded.
"You must know this," Iranzu started, "That you hold in your heart the love of all things in the world, for all that lives and breathes, every rock and stone, every creature above and below the water, the very earth on which we stand -- all serve the Guardian." He was reciting, his voice rose and fell. Other voices shadowed his words, but there was no one else there.
"That you walk the path between the worlds seeing both light and shadow on either side."
"And that you honor your gifts and the gifts of others." The last words were whispered.
Maríana stared at the smoking candles, the glimmering boundary of the circle. Outside was all she had known, the rules that governed her life. The lamb of God. Mary and the saints. Johanna. Her father. Being pushed away and hidden in the tower, the target of squires.
Richard.
Ibrahim watched her. Iranzu bowed his head.
"You need not discard everything, Maríana," Ibrahim said. "Your mother was as at home in the chapel as she was in the circle. She always told me that there were many paths, but they all lead to the same goal." He lifted her hand to his lips and his touch warmed her skin. "It is all baraka, all spirit."
Then she need not give up Richard. When he came to her, she did not have to turn away from him.
"There is more." The words were whispered. She could not tell now whether it was Ibrahim or her grandfather who spoke. "If you were ever caught, ever accused and imprisoned, we would not be able to help you." Iranzu's face was remote, cold.
She stared at her grandfather. "Why not?" They would not even help their own? What kind of people were they? "Grandmother Johanna would help me if I were in trouble. Why would you not help?"
"We cannot," Iranzu said, raising his hands. "It was part of our pact with the Guardian."
"Pact." Her fingers dug into Ibrahim's arm. She would not let Ibrahim refuse to answer. Not this time. "Like a pact with a daemon?"
"No." Iranzu's eyes warmed. "But one of our ancestors opened the Door and let loose an affliction upon the earth. We were saved, but we paid a price for what we are, for what we did."
"Did you know that I nearly let something through the Door years ago?" She leaned forward and peered at her grandfather through the gray-blue tendrils of smoke.
Iranzu nodded. "Ibrahim told us." His finger made a peculiar gesture upon the air, a short jab upward and two lines below. "You have been prepared -- you will not be able to do this now."
"So!" She leaped to her feet. "This is why you have prepared me? So I cannot let anything through the Door to save me? So I must leave everything I know, become someone even more hated than I was?" She glared at them. "You take me into danger, into heresy, teaching me all these things and leave me with nothing to defend myself?"
Ibrahim had paled, but Iranzu was laughing. "I told you Thérèse was in her somewhere," he said to the younger man.
Ibrahim's mouth tightened. "Maríana," he said, "do you think that any of us are safe?" He reached for her. "We are all of us in the same danger, using our gifts in this world." His hands dropped when she did not move toward him. "I have chosen this way, you know this. It is now your choice. You can go back to being what you were, but I warn you! Once your feet have trod this path, everything else in your life will pale."
Iranzu gestured and Ibrahim subsided. Then Iranzu stepped forward to Maríana and grasped both her hands. "If you wish," he whispered, "I can make it as if all this had never been. You could go back to being exactly as you were."
He was touching her. The wall of pines reared up before her, crowned with mountain mist. A large stone house snuggled at the mountain's base. Abruptly, the vision disappeared. "No." She withdrew her hands and shivered. "Ibrahim was right." A glance Ibrahim's way caught the gleam of his smile. "The damage is already done, I cannot go back to what I was." She lifted her chin. "It is too late."
"Then welcome, granddaughter." Iranzu still held back from her, his face shadowed and unsure.
She bowed her head and stepped back from both men. Yes, she would follow this path, walk in her mother's footsteps. Wherever it led, she would follow.
Chapter 9
MARÍANA climbed the stairs to Johanna's chamber, carrying roses she had picked, emblems of love and greeting, in large bunches in her arms. They were burgundy and palest yellow, apricot and dusty pink, ivory and mauve and golden amber. It was just after dawn the week following midsummer, one year since she had begun her training with Ibrahim, and two days after Louis-Philippe told her to move her things into the palais. She was certain Ibrahim had goaded him into it, but that did not matter. She even asked for a chamber facing the donjon, so the first sight she had every morning was its forbidding walls. No, she would never forget. But she was here, now.
The wedding of Louis-Philippe and Ysabel was still a month away, scheduled for the last day of July. The entire château buzzed with the excitement of preparation. Father Gregory had the château servants making hundreds of candles for the chapel, where the ceremony would take place. All the women were embroidering the banners that would hang in the great hall.
Maríana buried her face in the fragrant roses she had picked to honor the impending arrival of her new stepmother, Ysabel de Gréves. She had heard that Ysabel loved roses above any other flower, so much that her favorite sweet was the honey-covered rose petals which were so favored in the French court.
Her grandmother would have first choice among the roses, then she would place the rest in the chamber they had prepared for Ysabel. At Johanna's door, she heard voices inside, so she knocked and waited, her arms overflowing with the blossoms.
The door swung open to reveal Alys. "Maríana!" she exclaimed. "Look at what you have!" She backed away from the door, allowing Maríana entry. As Maríana went through the door, someone inside uttered a muffled cry.
Johanna clapped her hands in delight. "Granddaughter! Bring those closer. Ysabel!" She turned to a woman standing off to the side. "Look what Louis-Philippe's daughter has brought for you."
Ysabel was short, with a round face. She was all shades of brown-light chestnut hair, brown eyes, sallow skin-and wore a gown the rich red-brown color of the earth.
Maríana curtsied. Something unpleasant shone from her soon-to-be stepmother's eyes. But Ysabel smiled warmly enough.
"So, this is Louis-Philippe's daughter," she said, taking Maríana's hands in her own and gazing at her. Then Ysabel dropped Maríana's hands and turned to the young man who stood at her side. He was not as tall as Louis-Philippe, but his arms and legs were well-muscled and the sword he wore was obviously heavy and would take great strength to wield. His hair fell below his shoulders in a straight mane of black. A harp carved into the shape of a dragon rested at his feet. He stood in shadow; she could not see his face. Then he leaned toward her and his hair fell across his eyes. Shaking it back, his teeth showed in a grin, his brown eyes looked directly into Maríana's.
"Well," he said. "Maríana." A voice that warmed, deep and rich.
"Richard!" Her knees wobbled; her heart raced. "But your father, how is he?" she added quickly when she saw a glint in Ysabel's eyes. What were they to each othe
r?
"He is well, but my family still needed me," he said. Ysabel moved closer to him and he glanced over at her. "However," he bowed gallantly, "you see I did finally return to Reuilles-le-château!"
"I am glad." Maríana took his hands in hers and tried to still the trembling in her fingers, disguising it with a squeeze. Ysabel cleared her throat and Maríana pulled away. But Richard's hands remained where they were for a moment longer and a warmth unfurled below Maríana's heart. "You have a harp now?" Maríana asked, feeling the pulse ripple in her neck. Ysabel's eyes were shifting from her to Richard and back again.
He started to reply but Ysabel placed a hand upon his arm and said, "We have been traveling for weeks, Baroness dowager." Her eyes were on Richard. He closed his mouth and a muscle in his cheek jumped. "Could Louis-Philippe's daughter see me to my room?"
"I myself will show you to the room we have prepared, Ysabel." Johanna gave Ysabel a thin smile. "Maríana, you must show Richard to the knights' chamber."
Ysabel opened her mouth to speak, but Richard had already left her side, hefting his harp to his shoulder and stepping easily over to where Maríana stood.
The years had brought changes. His chest had broadened and somewhere, someone had slashed his forehead -- there was a thin white scar from his hairline through his left eyebrow.
Maríana turned to leave the room. Behind her, Ysabel spoke, "I must send my maid back. My mother has need of her." Ysabel's voice had lightened. She was every inch the lady now.
Johanna said, "We will provide you with all you require, of course."
Then the door closed and Richard was walking beside her. He carried his harp easily atop his shoulder and his sword swung with his step. She stole glances at him when she thought he could not see her looking; his eyes were fixed straight ahead. What could she say to him? He had gone away still a boy and returned a man, his boyhood slenderness had filled out into powerful muscles, his finely chiseled face now had the bones of a warrior. "You will find the knights' chamber an improvement over your squire's quarters in the stable." There. She stopped at the chamber entrance and pointed at the row of beds that marched along the south wall. "You have your choice now," she said, backing away. "Later, there will be so many arriving for the wedding we will need to send guests over to the donjon."
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