by DAVID B. COE
Not far from the lake, along one of the many streams that meandered through the pale, golden fields surrounding their village, stood a tight cluster of low, gnarled trees. It was in a shallow dale, a place sheltered from the cold winds that swept across the highlands during the snowy turns. Yet, during the Growing season, when the sun's heat grew unbearable in the fields, the shade and the cool dampness of the stream and grasses kept it cool. And at this time of year, as the first hint of the Harvest breezes began to touch the crops, whispering softly that their time had almost come, the skies above the dale turned deepest blue, and the leaves of those misshapen old trees shaded to gold and rust.
Jynna couldn't remember when she had discovered this place. She was old enough to understand that she hadn't done so on her own, that perhaps Mama or Papa had brought her here the first time, or maybe one of her older brothers. But it often seemed to her that the others had forgotten about it, that no one else from the village knew it existed. So thoroughly was it hers that she never feared being found there. She went there to cry, to scream her rage at some injustice done her by her parents or brothers or teachers, or just to sit and watch the day float by, like the feathery clouds that drifted above the highlands on these cool Harvest mornings. Often while she was there she saw eagles soaring overhead. Once she saw a mountain lion skulking in the shadows by the trees, and she ran back home, vowing never to go there again. But the lure of the place was too strong. Eventually she returned, bearing an old broken ax handle to use as a club if she needed. She hadn't seen the lion again, but still she kept the ax handle by the trees, just in case she ever needed it.
On this morning, she had risen early with her father and followed him into the fields to check the grain and feed crops. In another half a turn, when both moons were full again, they would begin the harvest.
Her lessons at the small sanctuary were to begin at midday-their teacher was to be married this morning-and so after she had fed the cows and Papa's plow horses, she had nothing more to do. Of course she went to the dale.
She looked for the lion as she followed the stream toward the trees, but she saw nothing save a plump, brown grouse that watched her approach and flew away on whistling wings as she drew near.
Sometimes she stayed by the stream, just beyond the trees, but the sun was warm today and she made her way toward the shade. As she drew closer to the wood, though, she saw something that made her falter. There was someone hunched over within the copse.
Jynna didn't know what to do. For so long the place had been her secret, her sanctuary. It never even occurred to her that she might find someone else there lurking among the trees. Her first impulse was to run home and tell her father. But she was also tempted to march right into the copse and demand to know what this person was doing in her dale. In the end, she did neither. She did walk to the small wood, but she approached it slowly, peering into the shadows, trying to see if she knew the person who was in her secret place. She moved silently, as she had practiced in this very spot, trying to see how close she could come to the deer that often grazed here late in the day, and so the person hiding there took no notice of her approach.
When at last Jynna had a clear view into the shadows, she saw that it was an old woman, an Eandi by the look of her. The stranger knelt on the ground in a small open area. And arrayed around her in several curving rows, like a rainbow, were woven baskets of all shapes and sizes. The woman was whispering something to herself, but Jynna couldn't make out what it was. Moving a bit closer, she saw that the woman bled from a wound on the back of one hand, and that she held what looked to be dark mud in the palm of the other. Jynna still couldn't hear, so she took another step into the shadows, and doing so, she stepped on a dry twig, which snapped under her weight.
The woman looked up sharply, her dark eyes finding Jynna immediately.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
Jynna took a step back and started to run away.
"Wait!" the woman called. "I'm sorry! You startled me!"
Still the girl ran.
"My name is Licaldi!"
She nearly stumbled on a tussock of grass, but she righted herself, and kept running.
"I can show you magic! That's what I was doing!"
Jynna slowed, then stopped. Magic. She was Y'Qatt. So was everyone in Tivston. But that didn't mean that she didn't know about magic. But she'd been so sure that the woman was Eandi.
She turned and took a tentative step back toward the trees. As she did, the old woman emerged from the shadows. Jynna knew right away that she had been right: The woman was Eandi. So how could she do magic?
She carried a small basket in one hand-the hand that bled. The other hand hung at her side, but when she stepped into the sunlight something glinted there. A knife. Again Jynna backed away.
"It's all right," the woman said. She halted and held up the blade, a smile on her wizened face. "This is for me, not for you."
There was still a good distance between them, and Jynna felt reasonably certain that she could run faster than the old woman if she needed to. "You're Eandi," she said, watching the stranger closely.
"I'm Mettai," the woman told her. "Do you know what that means?" Of course. She'd heard her father and mother speak of the Mettai. They were Eandi sorcerers who used their blood to do magic. But her parents spoke of them the way they did of the horsemen of Naqbae or the warriors of the T'Saan clan, as if they lived leagues and leagues from Tivston. What was this woman doing here?
"Yes," Jynna answered. "I've heard of the Mettai. Is that why you're bleeding?"
The woman glanced at her hand and after a moment licked away a streak of blood. "Yes, it is. Blood magic." She held up the knife again.
"That's why I need this. A Mettai can't conjure without her blade." "What kind of magic are you doing?"
The woman beckoned to her. "Come here and I'll show you." She smiled again. "I won't hurt you."
Jynna walked back toward where the stranger was waiting for her, but she stopped several paces away, well out of reach of the old woman's blade.
"Good girl," the woman said. "Now watch this."
She dropped to her knees with an ease that seemed to belie her aged appearance and carefully placed the basket on the grass just in front of her. Then she laid the blade on the cut she'd already made on the back of her hand and pulled it slowly across the wound, wincing slightly as she did. Blood began to flow from the cut again, but before it could run away over her skin, the woman caught it on the flat edge of her knife. She carefully switched the blade to her wounded hand, then stooped, ripped away a clod of grass, and pulled out a handful of earth from the hole it left. Mixing the blood from her knife with the earth in her hand, she said, "Blood to earth, life to power, power to thought, flowers to basket."
After a moment, the bloody mixture in her hand began to swirl, as if stirred by some invisible hand. Once, twice, three times it turned in her hand. As it began to go around a fourth time, the old woman, with a light flick of her wrist, cast the mixture at the basket. But rather than merely splattering the lovely weaving, the dark mud appeared to turn to tiny flower petals, or shards of colored glass, or droplets of water shining with the colors of the rainbow.
And suddenly the basket, which had been empty an instant before, was overflowing with blooms. Aster and columbine, larkspur and lupine, snapdragon and pennyroyal, and others Jynna didn't know. Her fear of the woman forgotten, the girl ran forward and knelt opposite her. She started to reach out to touch the petals, but stopped herself.
"Can I touch them?" she asked.
"Of course, my dear. They're quite harmless."
She touched the lupine and the snapdragon. They felt real. Leaning forward, she inhaled, the scents of the blooms filling her lungs. She gently rubbed the leaves of the pennyroyal and then sniffed her fingers. They smelled cool and fresh, like the mint she often found growing beside the stream in her village.
"They're beautiful," she whispered.
"They're
yours, if you'd like them," the woman said. "The basket, too."
"Did you make the basket?"
"Yes, I did."
"With magic?"
The woman smiled and shook her head. "No, I wove all my baskets by hand."
"But you were doing magic on them before."
The woman's smile changed, the way adults' smiles did when they were annoyed but didn't want to show it. "What do you mean?" she asked.
"Before, in the trees, before you saw me. You had your baskets out and your hand was bleeding, and you were speaking to yourself, like you did just now when you made the flowers."
"You saw that, did you?"
Jynna nodded. She wanted to get to her feet again and put some distance between herself and the stranger, but she didn't know how to do it without seeming rude.
The woman looked at her bleeding hand and took a breath. After a moment she licked the blood away again, as she had in among the trees. She lifted her gaze, her eyes meeting Jynna's.
"The truth is," she said, "I weave my baskets entirely by hand, and usually I dye them by hand as well. But I've been wandering a long time, making new baskets as I go, and I don't have all my dyes with me. So occasionally, I have to color my baskets using magic. That way I can get gold enough to continue my travels. Do you understand?"
Jynna nodded.
"I usually like to keep this a secret," the woman went on. "We Met- tai aren't well liked by the other Eandi. They don't like our magic. But you being Qirsi and all, I didn't think you'd mind too much."
"Actually, we're Y'Qatt."
"Y'Qatt! Really!" the woman said, as if she'd never met one of Jynna's people before. "So then you don't use magic."
"Not at all."
The woman frowned. "Oh, my," she said, looking back toward the trees. "Do you think that means that no one in your village-what village is this, my dear?"
"Tivston."
"Tivston," she repeated. "Do you think this means that no one in Tivston will want to buy my baskets?"
Jynna shrugged. "I don't know. People buy things from Qirsi peddlers when they come through. Not that they come through that often, but when they do."
The woman turned slightly toward the trees and smiled, as if they were sharing a secret. "Would you like to see my baskets?"
"All right," Jynna said, shrugging again.
She followed the stranger back into the shade. The air felt cooler here, and damp.
"What's your name?" the woman asked.
"Jynna."
"That's very pretty. I'm Licaldi."
"I know. You said that before."
"Did I? Oh, yes, I suppose I did."
"Licaldi is a pretty name, too," Jynna said, and not only because she thought it polite to do so.
"Thank you, my dear."
They pushed through the low branches of the trees until they reached the small open area where her baskets were still spread in a small arc.
Jynna had never thought much about baskets. They were what she used to carry dirty clothes to the stream, or where her mother placed a loaf of bread when others joined their family for the evening meal. So she really didn't know much about baskets or weaving. But as far as she could tell, these were the most beautiful baskets she'd ever seen. They had been woven perfectly, and even in the shade of the trees, their colors seemed to glow, as if lit by the sun. Was that the magic Licaldi had mentioned?
"People will buy these," Jynna said.
"You think so?"
She turned to the woman and nodded.
"And you won't tell them that some are colored with magic?"
Jynna looked at the baskets again. She couldn't tell which had been hand-dyed and which hadn't. They all were so lovely.
"No," she said. "I won't tell."
"You're a sweet girl. Just for that, you can choose another one, to take home to your mother."
"Really?"
Licaldi nodded.
Jynna considered them for several moments, chewing her lip. Finally, she chose one that was golden brown and pale blue, like the grain fields that grew beneath the highlands sky. It seemed the perfect choice for this day, and it looked to he just the right size for the loaves her mother usually baked. It was oval in shape and it had a braided handle that twisted in the middle.
"You have a good eye," Licaldi told her. "I think that's one of my best." The girl smiled.
"It was nice meeting you, Jynna," Licaldi said. "But I have to get to work now. I need to put these back in those big baskets over there." She pointed at a pair of large baskets that were lined with old blankets. "And then I need to carry them to your village so that I can sell them in the marketplace."
"I can help you," Jynna offered. "I can help you put them in the baskets, and I can carry one. They shouldn't be too heavy."
"You'd be surprised. But you're right: You can help me. We'll fill the baskets and then if you'll carry my travel sack, I'll carry the baskets. How does that sound?"
"All right," Jynna said. It wasn't the morning she had in mind-a few quiet hours in her secret place-but she thought it would be fun just the same.
They worked wordlessly for some time, carefully returning the small baskets to the larger ones. By the time they were finished, the baskets were quite heavy, just as Licaldi had said they would be. Jynna was just as happy to be carrying the carry sack, which was pretty light, and the two baskets the woman had given her. As they walked toward the village, Jynna admired the flowers that Licaldi had conjured.
"How old are you, Jynna?" Licaldi asked as they walked. "I'm eight."
"Only eight? I thought you were at least ten. You seem very mature for eight."
"Thank you," Jynna said, unable to keep from smiling. "Do you have brothers and sisters?"
"Two brothers, but they're much older than I am. They're practically men. I had a third, but he died a few years ago."
"I'm sorry, my dear. What happened?"
"He got sick-a fever. And the healer couldn't save him. I don't remember it very well. I remember Mama and Papa crying, and lots of people being in our house. But that's all, really."
"I wonder if magic would have saved him."
Jynna looked up at the woman. She was eyeing Jynna closely, as if to see how she reacted to what she had said.
"We're not allowed," Jynna said.
"Not allowed?"
"The god doesn't want us to do magic. Qirsar, that is," she added, realizing that the Mettai probably prayed to a different god.
"But other Qirsi do."
Jynna shrugged. She didn't quite understand it either, but Mama and Papa seemed certain that they were doing the right thing. They had told her about the V'Tol, and she had done her best to listen, both to them and to the prioress. But always in her mind she heard the same words Licaldi had just said. Other Qirsi do.
"Well, we don't," she finally said, her voice low. She didn't want to talk about this. It made her feel strange, like there was something wrong with her and with her family, with everybody in Tivston. And the way Licaldi sounded made Jynna afraid that she found the ways of the Y'Qatt odd-so odd, in fact, that she might leave without going to the marketplace.
"I'm sorry, Jynna," the woman said after a long silence. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad."
"It's all right." They were nearing the village now. Already they could see the peddlers' stalls in the marketplace, where the narrow lane they were on ended. "That's the market," Jynna said, pointing. "And that's our house." She pointed eastward, toward the low roof of her home, just visible past Old Menac's farm.
"It looks very nice."
"It is. I have my own room now. I didn't used to. I had to share with my brothers for a long time. But Papa says that I'm becoming a young lady, and that young ladies need to have their own rooms."
"How very nice for you," Licaldi said. But she sounded distracted, the way adults did when they weren't really listening anymore.
Jynna watched the old woman as they drew near to the marketplace. Her
dark eyes wandered over the various peddlers' carts and stalls, no doubt seeking out the best place to sell her baskets. That was fine. She'd been nice to Jynna, mostly. But now she had things to do.
As if reading her thoughts, the old woman suddenly halted, and when Jynna did the same, she placed a hand lightly on the girl's shoulder.
"You've been very helpful, Jynna," she said. "But I think I'll be just fine now."
Jynna nodded, feeling a bit disappointed. She loved the marketplace and looked for any excuse to go there. But she also understood that the old woman didn't need a child with her while she tried to sell her wares. Besides, she knew that it would soon be time for her lessons. She pulled off Licaldi's carry sack and handed it to the woman.
"Thank you, my dear. You have your baskets?"
"Yes," Jynna said, holding them up. "Thank you again."
"My pleasure," Licaldi said, shouldering her sack and picking up her baskets again. "I hope you and your family enjoy them."
She was already walking away as she said this last, leaving Jynna to wonder if she had done something to offend the woman. She thought about going after her to ask, but at that moment the sanctuary's bell began to toll, its pealing rolling lazily over the village, beckoning to her and the other children. Reluctantly, Jynna turned her back on Licaldi and the marketplace, and hurried to the sanctuary.
The day's lessons were boring, as they always were for her. She knew her numbers and letters better than did most of the other children, and so Teacher had her help the little ones while he worked with the others. But they didn't learn anything new; they never did. Jynna liked lessons best when Teacher told them stories about the old clans or about the Blood Wars-not the most recent ones, but the ancient wars, fought hundreds of years ago. She often asked for them-she had today-and always the other children echoed her requests. But today Teacher had told her that their lessons were more important than old tales.
Bored as she was, Jynna left the sanctuary without her baskets and was nearly all the way home before she remembered them. She ran back and found both baskets resting on her chair. Teacher was still there at his table, writing out lessons for tomorrow.