She approached me and handed me a bowl of some strange-smelling liquid, and I drank. Then she took the bowl from me and handed it to Maara, and Maara drank. In a minute or two, whether from the heat of the fire or the effects of the drink, I began to sweat. I looked at Maara. Sweat gleamed on her shoulders and her arms. It beaded on her forehead and trickled down her body. I felt my own sweat running down my sides.
The woman who was no longer Namet brought another bowl and took from it a handful of black powder. She opened her hand and blew into it, and a cloud of dust enveloped me. I had to close my eyes. When I opened them again, the dust had settled over my body. My sweat dissolved it, so that it gleamed as red as blood. She turned to Maara and blew a handful of dust over her too, and we both looked as if we had been bathed in blood.
The woman who was no longer Namet returned to the table. For several minutes she was busy preparing something. Then she approached me carrying another bowl. She knelt down in front of me, and this time she took a handful of white powder from the bowl. She opened her mouth and tilted her head back as a gesture to me to do the same. When I did, she blew the powder into my nose and mouth. At first I thought it would make me sneeze, but the powder lay on my tongue as light as rain. It had no taste, only a slight aroma that reminded me of damp places.
The woman who was no longer Namet returned to the table and brought me back a bowl of tea. She made a sign to Maara not to drink any of it, and Maara nodded. She brought another bowl of tea and handed it to Maara. Then she climbed the ladder and drew it up after her. My warrior and I were alone.
Maara motioned to me to drink some of the tea. It tasted familiar, but I couldn’t recall its name.
The sky was dark. Only a scattering of stars reminded me of the hole through which we had descended into the earth.
Maara took a few sticks of wood from a pile that lay next to the hearth and laid them on the fire. I watched them catch and start to burn. Colors I had never seen before danced over the surface of the wood. One piece had a bit of flame dancing up and down it. I heard the music of the dance as I watched the dancing flame.
Then Maara moved. I had forgotten she was there. I turned to look at her. For a moment I thought I saw my father. Then I saw her breasts, and I laughed at the idea of my father having breasts. When I heard my own laughter, I was afraid, because the sound came from far away. I tried to speak. The voice I heard was mine, but the words were nonsense.
Maara began to sing. I had never heard her sing, nor had I ever heard a song like the one she sang to me that night. The colors of the firelight flickered in her eyes. I forgot to be afraid.
She made me drink more of the tea. She held the bowl for me as I drank. Then I was lying down, looking up at the hole in the sky where another world looked down at me. I tried to raise my arm, to point something out to Maara, but my arm would not obey me, so I gave up trying and lay still.
There were living beings in the air. Some of them noticed me and spoke to me. I understood them, but after a time I had forgotten what they said.
I opened my eyes. Maara made me sit up and drink more of the tea. Although she was touching me, she looked far away.
As I watched her, she began to change. A coat of dense fur sprang out all over her body. Her head grew large. She opened her mouth and bared her long, sharp teeth at me. She touched my face. Her long, sharp claws drifted over my skin. She did me no harm, and I knew that she would not. I forgot to be afraid.
I was cold. I tried to make her understand. She looked so far away. I reached out for her, and she embraced me. Her dense fur warmed me. I rubbed my face against it. It was soft.
“Maara is a bear,” I said.
I heard the words, but I didn’t understand them.
Someone was crying. The world was dark. I heard someone crying.
“Who is crying?” I asked.
“You are,” came the answer.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Someone who cares for you,” came the answer.
I sat up. I forgot that I was cold. The bear was gone.
Someone touched me. I couldn’t see who had touched me. I looked at the fire and watched the world shatter into pieces and fall at my feet. The pieces sprang up and rearranged themselves and made a picture that I understood for a moment. Then they shattered again. I closed my eyes.
Someone was singing. I forgot to be afraid.
Someone gave me more to drink. Someone touched me. Someone was singing. Someone held me. Someone kept me safe.
I leapt into the air and flew.
I looked down and saw myself lying in someone’s arms asleep. Someone cradled me as a mother cradles her child. She was not my mother.
I flew with the beings in the air. One of them began to tell me a story. I was too impatient to listen. I liked flying. I flew to the hole in the sky, but before I could fly through it, something stopped me. I flew with the beings in the air.
I began to hear the words. They were spoken. They were sung. They were the words that had been spoken to every woman who would become a warrior. They were the words of courage and of caution, the words of hope and the words of doom. They were the songs sung for warriors, for a warrior’s birth and for a warrior’s death. Every one of them was new to me, and every one of them touched a place deep within me that remembered them. For a time that may have been a moment or a lifetime, I listened to the warrior songs.
A hole opened in the sky, and a pale light sifted in. Through the hole in the sky, I watched the stars fade against the growing light. Through the hole in the sky, light poured in.
I grew tired of flying. I drifted down and settled beside the fire. I saw myself in someone’s arms. She cradled me like a child. I couldn’t see her face.
Someone appeared in the hole in the sky. Someone came down from the sky and touched the woman who held me. She looked up, and I knew her. She was my warrior.
The sky woman helped my warrior lift me from her lap. She bent over me and touched my face, while my warrior stood up and stretched her arms and legs until they worked properly again. All of this I watched from where I sat beside the fire.
I watched myself asleep. I was curious to see if what Sparrow said was true, if perhaps I might be beautiful. I gazed at my sleeping face, but I couldn’t tell if I was beautiful or not.
My warrior picked up my sleeping body, put it over her shoulder, and followed the other woman up the ladder. When she reached the hole in the sky, something pulled me, and I fell upward into the dark.
I opened my eyes. I was lying naked on the frozen ground with daylight all around me. Namet was standing over me. Maara knelt beside me. I forgot to be afraid.
18. Vintel
All I remember of that day was the cold bath. They insisted on washing me with cold water. They washed me there outdoors, where Maara had put me down on the frozen ground. After the bath, she put me to bed, and I slept through most of that day and night. Sometimes she woke me to give me something to eat or drink. I could hardly keep my eyes open. I slept, but I didn’t dream.
The next morning Namet came to see me. Although I had been awake since dawn, I didn’t feel like moving. Maara must also have been awake, because she got up right away when Namet came into the room. Namet knelt down beside me. She searched my eyes and touched my face and hands.
“How do you feel?” she asked me.
“Fine,” I said, “but I’m not sure I can stand up.”
“Like a newborn child,” she said, “you have just set your feet on a new path. You’ll find your legs soon enough.”
Namet stood up and moved aside so that Maara could help me up out of bed. She had me sit down on her bed while she and Namet dressed me. Then we went downstairs. We all three broke our fast together. It felt strange to me to sit with the two of them, a warrior and an elder, at the same table, but it was a sign to everyone that I was now a warrior’s apprentice.
After breakfast the three of us settled ourselves by the fire in the great hall. Althou
gh I was still tired, I didn’t feel like sleeping. I had begun to remember what had happened to me, and I wanted to try to understand. I remembered the beings in the air, but I couldn’t remember the stories they had told me or the songs they’d sung to me.
“May I ask you something, Mother?” I said to Namet.
“Of course, child,” she replied.
“Maara told me I should speak of what happened only to someone who was there.”
“Yes,” said Namet, “and you should speak of it as little as possible.”
“Why?”
“Because what happened can’t be spoken of. No one can tell you what it means. No one else can know that.”
“How can I understand it then?”
“What is it you feel you need to understand?”
“There are things I can’t remember,” I said. “Songs were sung to me, and stories were told to me, and I can’t remember any of them.”
“Your spirit remembers,” Namet said. “From time to time you may remember something. Each memory will come to you when you need it, or perhaps you won’t remember, but you’ll know what to do without knowing how you know.”
Namet’s words reassured me. I already knew that there was a voice within me wiser than my understanding. When I chose Maara over Vintel, I didn’t know how I knew it was the right thing for me to do, but I could not have chosen otherwise. It made sense to me that the part of me that had heard the warrior songs would remember them and would help me to act from the wisdom that was in them.
“What will happen now?” I asked.
“What you were is gone,” said Namet. “You have declared your intention to become a warrior. You can’t go back to being what you were before. The path you’ve chosen will take everything you can bring to it, and death may be the price of failure.”
I didn’t know whether the feeling in my stomach was fear or excitement.
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
“No,” said Maara. “You will do whatever is necessary.”
That evening Sparrow found me in my warrior’s room. Maara was still downstairs with Namet. She had seen me nodding and sent me up to bed. Sparrow handed me a linen shirt. It was the same shirt I had cut out, but it was finished. It was beautifully done. The stitching was tight and even, and the sleeves had been perfectly set. I couldn’t have done it half as well.
“When did you do this?” I asked her.
“Last night,” she said. “It didn’t take long.”
“It would have taken me weeks.”
“You mean it would have taken you weeks to get around to it.”
I laughed. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”
She smiled at me. “I’m glad you like it.”
We looked at each other for a moment. Then I took her face in my hand and kissed her.
I woke up feeling well and rested. As I often did, I woke before my warrior, and while I waited for her to wake, I thought about all that had happened since midwinter’s night. Only three nights had passed since I watched Maara’s face as she sat with Namet among the other warriors. Even then, the fear that she might leave me had cast a shadow over my heart. Now I was her apprentice, bound to her, as she was bound to me, by ties that would be difficult to break. I hardly understood how it had happened.
A little flame of happiness kindled in my breast. I let it grow. Only a few days before I wouldn’t have indulged it. I hadn’t dared to be too happy. I had been afraid that something would go wrong, but surely nothing bad could happen now.
I was too happy to lie still. I got up and dressed without waking Maara. I went downstairs and out the back door.
Dark clouds gathered in the eastern sky, and the rising sun turned them as red as blood. The beauty of the sunrise touched my heart. The beauty of the world around me reflected my happiness back to me. I went outside the earthworks so that I could have an unobstructed view. A gusting wind blew out of the northeast, carrying winter’s hard and bitter scent.
I heard a sound behind me. I smiled. Maara must have been awake after all and followed me. I turned to greet her. It was Vintel. I was too surprised to speak, and a fear I didn’t understand prickled along my backbone.
“Have you not the manners to say good morning?”
Vintel smiled at me, but her smile never reached her eyes.
“Good morning,” I said.
“You rise early.”
“Yes.”
“Earlier than your warrior.”
“Sometimes.”
She looked me up and down.
“You’re very small,” she said.
She looked at me as she would have looked at a fish she’d caught that was too small to keep. Her look made me feel small.
“Merin can be persuasive,” she said. “I think your foolishness has saved me from making an unfortunate mistake.”
I had no time to think about her strange remark. She was still smiling, a sly and dangerous smile. When I first saw her, she was standing at least ten paces from me. Now she drew closer, her steps slow and deliberate, as a wolf approaches a sheep that it has brought to bay. I resisted the urge to back away from her.
“I see that you’re also a thief,” she said.
What in the world could she be talking about?
“I am not a thief.”
Her eyes went to my belt. “Then how did you come by that brooch of Eramet’s?”
“It was a gift.”
“A gift? Who gave you such a costly gift? I think that Eramet did not.”
“No.”
She waited for me to tell her who had given me the brooch. I said nothing. I didn’t want to cause Sparrow any trouble with Vintel, but there was another reason I didn’t speak. Whether or not Vintel believed I’d stolen the brooch, the accusation was a deliberate insult, meant to humiliate me. An angry little flame began to burn inside my chest.
“If you can’t name the giver of the gift,” she said, “then I must believe that you took it from Eramet’s things when I sent you for her grave goods.”
“I did not,” I said.
A sudden gust of wind blew something into my eye. I ignored it. I didn’t want Vintel to think she’d made me cry.
“I gave that brooch to Eramet,” she said. “It should have come back to me. Give it to me now, and I’ll say no more about it.”
She reached out her hand. I didn’t move. I knew that I should give her the brooch, that once I’d given in her pride would be satisfied, but I couldn’t do it. I was too angry.
“You truly are a fool,” she said. She took another step toward me. “In that case, I’ll take back what belongs to me and whip the puppy that ran off with it.”
It was not her words that frightened me. It was her eyes. She was so close now that it was no use trying to run away, even if I could trust my legs to carry me.
Vintel saw my fear, and she enjoyed it. I braced myself to endure what was about to happen.
I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. Vintel saw it too. She turned in time to see my warrior step out from behind a stone wall that reinforced the earthworks. Maara’s hair lay loose over her shoulders, and the gusting wind whipped it across her face. She tossed it back with a motion of her head that looked like a challenge.
“Whose puppy were you going to whip?” she asked Vintel.
“I believe it’s yours. Would you prefer to whip it yourself?”
“What has she done?”
“She stole a brooch.”
“I don’t think so,” said Maara.
“How did she come by it, then?”
“Perhaps I gave it to her.”
“So,” Vintel said. “You are the thief.”
Maara smiled. “Will you accuse me before the household, or do you only insult people privately?”
Vintel opened her mouth, but she had no answer.
“Have you run out of insults already?” Maara said.
Vintel shut her mouth and glared at Maara. She grasped the hilt of her sword, bu
t before she could draw it from its sheath, my warrior’s body changed, like the body of a hunting cat that spies its prey. Vintel hesitated.
“Yes,” said Maara. Her voice was low, and it vibrated with controlled anger. “Draw your sword. My sword has been hungry for your blood since you let mine be shed.”
Although she wore no armor, my warrior’s sword hung from her belt. For a time that seemed very long to me, she and Vintel faced each other. Vintel’s knuckles went white as she grasped the hilt of her sword, but she made no move to draw it.
“What’s this?”
It was a man’s voice, coming from somewhere above our heads. I looked up and saw Lorin standing atop the earthworks.
“Is there going to be fight?” he said. He squatted down and looked at them appraisingly. “Vintel is bigger, but I think the stranger may be more angry. If you’re going to fight, why not come back inside? It would be a shame for a good fight to go to waste.”
“I don’t intend to fight for your amusement,” Vintel replied. Then she faced my warrior. “Don’t tempt me again.” She turned on her heel and went back inside the earthworks.
Maara looked up at Lorin and gave him half a smile. I glanced at him just in time to see him wink back at her.
“Come,” Maara said to me, and started down the hill.
“A storm is coming,” I said, as I followed her.
“We’ll go back inside in a little while. Let’s give Vintel time to control herself.”
We walked in silence until we reached the river. The memory of Vintel’s contempt and my own fear followed me, and my cheeks burned with anger and humiliation. I thought of several things I wished I’d said to Vintel now that it was too late. I hoped Maara would think it was the cold wind that was making my eyes water and my cheeks red.
When Women Were Warriors Book I Page 17