The shrine was empty when we reached it. We would have to wait there until someone came for us. I wanted to search our old campsite for the band but knew it would be wiser for Tal to meet them on holy ground, where a truce would be in effect and he would not be moved to a rash act.
It came to me then that the band, or some members of it, might not have survived their journey to this region. They might have tarried too long near the shrine where I had met Wise Soul and been found by their enemies, or they might have met danger elsewhere. If they did not send a man to this shrine soon, I would have to search for them and might find that we had no band after all. Part of me hoped for that, so I would not have to face Birana again, yet I also wanted the band to be safe.
We went through our rituals as Tal showed Hasin how to pray. I put on a circlet and told the Lady that I would soon join my band and rid it of Birana, then took the crown off, not caring if the Lady blessed me with a visitation or not. Although I still longed for that pleasure, a part of me recoiled from it.
I gazed at Tal and Hasin. They lay on their couches, their eyes closed. I was lost, alone, apart from the Lady and the community of men. I thought: The Lady needs me to defeat an evil one instead of using Her own powers against that evil. I thought: A soul can wear the form of the Lady, yet not be one of Her aspects. I thought: If men, who are thrown by the Lady into this world, can win their way back to Her realm with their prayers and be reunited with Her at their deaths, then why can Birana not do the same, and renounce evil? Why must she die now?
My doubts had grown. I did not know if I could find my way back to the shelter of faith. I went to the altar but did not kneel before Mary. I would do as the Lady had bid me in the hope that Birana’s death would restore my peace of mind.
We dwelled in the shrine for two days. We made journeys outside to a stream for water and feasted on a small pig Tal and I speared. I showed Hasin how to gather watercress at the stream and pointed out the small reddish clumps of new dandelions. I told him of the berries we would find on bushes later in the season and of trees that bore fruit. I held him back when he reached out for a mushroom. “Those you must not gather,” I said. “The lore of mushrooms takes time to master. Some can be eaten, while others will poison you. Pick nothing until you are sure of what it is.”
The boy had learned more words in our tongue. “Fish. Mud. Water. Pig.” He grinned as he spoke each word. He no longer cried, though I sometimes saw a sorrowful look cross his face. He seemed unhappiest when we were with Tal, who was often impatient with him. I tried to recall if Tal had treated me the same way when I was first given to him, but my memories of those early days were few. Perhaps he had been kinder to me, but he had been part of a familiar band then, had not faced the prospect of joining strangers.
On the third day, I said to Tal, “Perhaps I should go to our old camp.”
Tal scowled and shook his head.
“You could wait here,” I went on, “and I could see…”
“No,” he answered. “You shouldn’t go to them. They may have turned against you and, away from holy ground, they could strike at you.”
“We have pledged…”
“Don’t talk to me of pledges, Arvil. Who knows what lies in the hearts of strangers? I shall see them here, where they must speak the truth.”
I was about to speak angrily to him of his stubbornness when Shadow and Ulred entered the shrine.
I ran to Shadow and pounded him on the back. “You are well!” I shouted, and my joy at seeing him safe and strong made me forget my fears. Shadow opened his coat and pulled up his shirt, showing me his scar. Ulred gripped me around the neck with one arm and jabbed me in the belly with the other; I caught him around his leg with mine and sent him sprawling on the floor. We laughed together until I saw that Tal was watching us with narrowed eyes.
“A boy,” Shadow said as he pointed at Hasin.
“We were blessed.” My joy was fading, for I was again thinking of Birana. I could speak of her true nature in this shrine. Surely Shadow and Ulred would believe me then, for a man could not lie there.
“We have been fortunate also,” Shadow replied. “Birana has brought us luck.” I started as I heard her name, and the warmth and awe in Shadow’s eyes kept me from telling what I knew. He would not listen to me. He would have more faith in a false aspect than in me and would think I was the one under an evil spell. He would say that Birana had been found in a holy place and would wonder why the Lady had not struck her down then instead of allowing her to live.
I should have spoken then, but I did not, and then I remembered Birana’s face and form and how I had longed for her. I could not let her die yet.
I led my friends to Tal and Hasin. They said their names to Tal, but my guardian hesitated before telling them his own. As we squatted by the altar, Tal said, “Say your prayers now and put on the Lady’s crown. We can talk after you have given Her what She asks of those in Her shrines.”
“We don’t have to pray here, or wear Her crown,” Ulred said, “for as long as Her aspect dwells with us. That is what Birana has commanded, for is She not with us to hear our prayers? Only if She leaves us must we return to a shrine.”
Tal made an angry gesture and was about to jump to his feet. I motioned at him to be still. “That seems unholy,” I said carefully.
“How can it be unholy,” Shadow said, “if it is Her will?”
I could not reveal what I knew. Shadow went on to speak to Tal of how he would be welcomed, while Ulred told him a little about the band. Tal frowned and plucked at his beard.
“Will you join us?” Ulred asked outright.
“I shall,” I said, knowing that if I did not join the band, they might wonder why and grow suspicious of me. “Tal must speak for himself and for Hasin.”
“I shall pledge a truce for a time,” Tal said stiffly, as if granting a great favor. “I’ll decide what to do when I meet the others.”
We traveled back to the camp along a familiar route. I remembered the last time I had traveled that way, when I had been returning with Tal to tell our band that he had been called again. I had not known then how soon the world I knew would change. Now the land was growing green, promising a new season, yet I felt the chill of winter inside me.
“Much has happened,” Ulred said to me.
“Tell me of it.”
“You will see for yourself. You’ll be surprised. Birana gives us courage.” He cast a sly glance at me. “We have been lucky.” He would say no more.
As we came to the hill leading up to the camp, I heard the sound of horses’ hooves. I was back in that other time, when the horsemen had come to treat with us and had led my old band to its death. I was about to pull my spear from my back when Wanderer, riding a white horse, rounded the hill.
“Hold!” I cried to Tal, as he prepared to loose an arrow. Hasin screamed and clung to Tal’s leg. “He is a friend.” Tal lowered his bow.
Another rider on a second horse was behind Wanderer. Birana was the rider, and for a moment I could not gaze up at her.
Ulred howled with merriment as his elbow dug into my side. “How amazed you look, Arvil. I wanted to see your face when you saw this.”
I was angry with him for this joke; in another moment, Tal’s arrow might have found Wanderer’s chest. “You were foolish not to warn us,” I muttered. “She won’t protect you from your own carelessness.” I was about to say more, but Birana was staring at me coldly. I shrank from her gaze. Tal’s hand tightened around his bow.
Birana and Wanderer rode up the hill ahead of us. Tal wore a grim look on his face, and his lips moved as if he were whispering a prayer. As we neared the camp, Wise Soul emerged from a lean-to and greeted us. He laughed as he swept up Hasin, who wriggled out of his arms. “A boy! That’s a good sign.”
Wanderer dismounted and tied his horse to a tree. Birana remained on hers and gazed steadily at me. She is with them, I thought. She has not been taken from them as she said she would be if I b
etrayed her in the enclave. That proves she is not what she said she was. I wondered if she knew, or could guess, what I had been sent to do.
“What is all this?” I asked as Wanderer strode over to me. “Where have you found horses?”
“We captured them a few days after we reached this camp. Two horsemen, alone, had stopped to rest not far from here, and we attacked. They were careless. It is a lesson to us. We must not let greater strength overcome our caution.”
“Aren’t you afraid that the rest of their band will seek you out?” I asked.
Wanderer shook his head. “It was my wish to see if we could gain a truce with them, but their band is far from here, and the men with us still remember how horsemen dealt with the rest of their old band. Wise Soul is not ready for a truce with such men yet. His men made certain that other horsemen would not seek out those two and then took their lives.” He did not tell me how the two dead horsemen had been brought to reveal that.
Birana’s horse whinnied. Tal shook his head as he retreated toward a lean-to. “That is Tal, my guardian,” I said as the other men greeted me. “He’s afraid of horses.”
“So am I,” Hare said, laughing. “But I grow braver.”
I looked up at Birana but did not meet her eyes. “You know how to ride?” I said in the holy speech.
“I learned long ago. It’s harder without a saddle, but I can ride.”
“A saddle?”
“I know many things. Do you doubt Me?”
“No,” I said quickly.
“She fell off once,” Wanderer said. “We feared She was hurt. She mounted again. Now She rides like the wind.” Birana slid off and led the horse away as Wanderer leaned closer to me. “This aspect has forgotten some of what the Lady knows,” he murmured, “but She regains a few powers as the days pass. She can ride, and She speaks some words in our speech now. Our band is learning of these horses, and we shall capture others in time.”
The shadows of the trees had grown long. We settled around the fire for our evening meal. Tal crouched apart from the group with Hasin and gnawed at his meat as he looked from one face to another. The boy seemed about to crawl closer to me until Tal pulled him back.
“There is a story I told on the first night we were all together again in this place,” Wanderer said. “The three with us today have not yet heard this tale.” He turned toward me. “I heard it in a place far from here, from a band whose oldest man had heard it long before that.”
Wanderer began his story, saying the words in the holy speech. He told of an aspect of the Lady Who had come to dwell for a time among men. As She walked by a stream, an arrow struck Her in the heart, for a man had not clearly seen the form She wore and had shot Her from afar. The man soon sickened and died, and the rest of his band lay under an evil spell. They brought down no game, and no rain came to their lands. The stream where the aspect’s body had fallen dried up, and no plants grew there. The band’s members were no longer called to the Lady’s enclaves. No boys were given to them. All the men in that cursed band died until only one was left, and as he lay dying, the Lady appeared to him. But no one knew what She had said or whether She had finally forgiven that band.
“That cannot be true,” Tal muttered when Wanderer had finished his tale.
“How can you say that, now that you have beheld the One called Birana?” Wanderer responded. “Another aspect died near the shrine where Arvil found Her. Those who raised their hands against Her will forever be cursed, while we shall be blessed. I tell you this also. The man who told me this tale had spoken to one who had seen that lifeless form of the Lady, and saw the arrow in Her heart, and the sight turned his hair white in a day.”
This was not a tale I wanted to hear. I remembered the body I had found outside the shrine by the lake. Had that form been worn by another evil one? Birana had mourned for the other as if sorrowing for a companion. Or had the other been a true aspect Whom Birana had led into danger? Perhaps her grief had been false. Birana might have powers unknown to me. I longed to question Wanderer, who had seen and heard of many things; but he, like the others, was under Birana’s spell.
“When I first heard this tale,” Wanderer went on, “I did not understand its meaning fully, but it has come to me during the days we have passed here. I think I know what the Lady said to that man when he was dying. She was telling him that not every stranger is an enemy and that a lone traveler may be a Holy One in disguise. She was telling him that one should not be so quick to strike out at what one does not know.”
Tal grimaced. “That cannot be the meaning,” he said. “Strangers are enemies. A man makes truces when he is weak. When he and his band are strong, there is no need for truce.”
“I have traveled among strangers,” Wanderer said. “I wasn’t their enemy. We must know who our true enemies are, but also who may be a friend.”
“Unholiness,” Tal grunted.
A few of the men were near Birana, waiting to offer her food. Firemaker, stretched out at her feet, held out a piece of meat. She ignored him but accepted a drink of water from Hare. He gaped at her as she took his waterskin, gazing at her with adoration. I would never convince them of her evil; I saw that clearly. She handed the skin back to Hare, who clutched it to his chest.
She looked across the fire at me, as if something in my soul drew her, as if I might be one she knew well, and yet her look did not frighten me.
At that moment, when the light of the fire made her skin like gold, and her blue eyes shone, and her dark hair seemed redder in the light of the flames, even I could not accept her evil. I thought of disobeying the Lady and allowing Birana to live among us, but knew that the Lady would find out if I disobeyed. All of the band might then be punished, while I would suffer most of all. Before being sent from the enclave, I had been given another taste of the torment that would be mine if I did not act; I would not willingly visit that torment on my new band. Whatever my doubts and questions, I would have to act alone to protect them as well as myself.
“Birana has blessed us,” Shadow said to me as we ate. “We have drawn together to serve Her. I think we would not have had the courage to attack the two horsemen if we had not known we were doing that to be better able to guard Her. She is our soul.”
I forced myself to swallow. “Has She spoken to you of the Lady?”
“She has told us that She will speak to us of some of the Goddess’s magic. She has told us that we are greater than we know and that we will be granted many blessings. We are pledged to Her for as long as She chooses to remain with us.”
I knew then that the others would kill me if I told them of the Lady’s command.
I did not act. I also did not tend to Birana as did the others, for I feared her spell and saw that she noticed how I shied from her. She gazed at me piercingly whenever I passed, as if seeing what was in my mind. I stared back boldly, unwilling to let her see my fear. Often, she seemed about to speak to me before she drew away. I told myself that she could not know of my purpose, or she would have ordered my death at the hands of the other men.
At last Tal took me aside. “The Lady has commanded you,” he muttered as we gathered wood on the hillside. “Yet you still wait.”
“I must choose my time.”
“She will ensnare you as she has the others. Hasin goes to her side when I’m not there to prevent it.”
“Let the boy be. She’s gentle enough with him.”
“She is evil. How can you question the Lady’s will?”
“I have grown to question much,” I said rashly.
He threw down his wood and lashed at me with a twig. I darted out of the way. He hurled me to the ground, dug a knee into my back, and lashed me as I struggled to throw him off. Swinging with my free arm, I struck him in the face. His twig whistled, then broke against my brow, narrowly missing my eyes. I jumped up and punched him, knocking him flat.
“Don’t ever beat me again, Tal. Next time, I shall beat you.”
He panted as he s
tumbled to his feet. “You wait too long. If you do not act soon, I will, and the Lady will bless me and curse you.”
“If you act, the others will kill you.” I knew also that, if Tal failed, Birana would be more closely guarded. The others might even punish me for having brought Tal to them. “Listen to me, Tal. I must be careful. I must be sure that, when I strike, I do not fail.”
Tal turned away and picked up his wood. I left him there and descended the hill. Below me, Wanderer was leading the white horse by the reins as Hare rode, his body slouched over the horse. The reins had been made with strips of leather, and we had examined them so that we would know how to make our own. Birana sat on the bay horse, watching. I summoned up my courage and went to her.
“You did not betray Me,” she said, but her voice rose a little on the last word as if she were asking a question.
“You were with us,” I answered. “The Lady has not taken You from us, and I have returned safely, while my guardian was blessed with a boy. Does that not show that I obeyed You?” Her mouth twitched a little. “Teach me to ride,” I went on.
She raised her eyebrows. “Wanderer will teach you.”
“But You have greater knowledge than Wanderer. You are an aspect, after all.” She looked at me sharply as I spoke, and I lowered my eyes; I was being too bold and might betray myself. “I ask You humbly to teach me. I have ridden a horse before and know a little. I would be grateful for Your help.”
“Very well, but if you don’t learn quickly, I won’t teach you any more.”
“I shall learn, if it is Your will.”
She dismounted. “Let me see you get on.”
Bint had taught me how to mount. I vaulted onto the beast’s back. It danced a bit, reared, and dumped me to the ground. Hare laughed as Birana steadied the horse.
“I see you know something,” Birana said, “but you did not stay on for long.”
“I should have said,” I answered, “that I did not ride alone before.”
The Shore of Women Page 17