When Women Were Warriors Book I

by Catherine M. Wilson

  She stared at me with haunted eyes. Then she covered her face with her hands. I held myself very still. We were not quite in this world and not quite in the other, and I feared to upset such a precarious balance.

  When at last she looked at me again, in her eyes I saw the unmet need of long ago. I knelt beside her and took her into my arms. I rocked her and whispered to her a mother’s words of love and comfort.

  “No,” she said. She pushed me away. “It’s too late for that.”

  She stood up and strode away from me down the hill. It was all I could do to keep up with her.

  “Where are you going?” I asked her.

  She didn’t stop or answer me. When she reached the path by the river, she turned north to follow the trail we had taken so often together through the snow. We walked for a long time. I began to worry that she might never stop, that we might walk and walk until we trespassed on one of the northern tribes, and what would we do then?

  “Where are we going?” I asked her again.

  “We’re going to find her.”

  “Who?”

  “The child.”

  “What child?”

  “She’s alone,” she said. “Her mother let her go.”

  “Her mother died.”

  “No!” She whirled around and raised her hand as if to strike me. When I lifted my arm to shield myself, she grasped hold of my wrist so hard I thought the bone would break.

  “Please,” I said. “Don’t hurt me.”

  The pain in my arm was so great that I fell to my knees, and she let go.

  She looked around, confused. “We’ve come too far. It couldn’t be as far as this.”

  “We should go home,” I said. “It’s late. They’ll be worried.”

  “Home,” she said. Then she turned and walked away.

  I don’t know how long I stumbled along after her. I was afraid to keep going and afraid to turn back. Every choice I made would be wrong but one. I would not leave her.

  She turned onto a footpath that followed the river. A swirling mist lay over the water and in places encroached upon the riverbank. Whenever we passed through a patch of it, I had to pay careful attention to my footing, so that I didn’t slip on the muddy ground.

  Then I did slip. I fell to one knee and was soon up again, but when I looked for Maara, I saw only the mist, closing in around me.

  I listened for a footfall or the rustle of her clothing. All I heard was the sound of the river, and even that was muffled by the fog. I took a few steps, then stopped again to listen. I took another step and went up to my knee in water. It might have been a bit of boggy ground or the river itself. I couldn’t see well enough to know which it was, but I dared not take another step.

  I called out once to Maara. Then I began to cry.

  Strong arms lifted me. A voice whispered in my ear words of comfort I didn’t understand. I put my arms around her neck and laid my head down on her shoulder. She carried me to higher ground and set me on my feet. I was afraid that if I let go of her she would disappear again into the fog, so I held tight to the sleeve of her shirt.

  The ground was uneven. I couldn’t see a thing. I took a step and lost my balance. As I fell, I reached for her to steady myself and pulled her down with me. All around us the fog lay thick over the ground. It hid the starry sky. It hid the earth we sat upon. It hid us from each other.

  I still clutched her shirtsleeve, now torn to tatters, the most frail of ties binding us together. My body sought her out, and when I touched her, she took me into her arms. We clung together in the dark. She rocked me and soothed me with her strange, incomprehensible words.

  I have never known a deeper darkness. Neither moonlight nor starlight could penetrate the murk. I didn’t understand the meaning of her words, so I listened to the music of her voice. I settled myself against her and laid my head down on her shoulder.

  I was tired. Fear had worn me out. I slept.

  I dreamed of home, of my mother putting me to bed on a summer’s evening when I was very small. I lay awake through the long twilight, listening to the muffled voices of the grown-ups and the chirping of crickets outside my door. All the world had loved me then, and as I drifted into sleep, life whispered her sweet promises in my ear.

  “Tamras.”

  I was so tired. I didn’t want to wake. I felt myself lifted and carried in someone’s arms. I snuggled against her. “Mama,” I said.

  She set me down and sat down beside me.

  “No,” she said. “It’s me.”

  Reluctantly I opened my eyes. The stars twinkled overhead. The moon shone down on us. I sat up and looked around me.

  “Where are we?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know.”

  She looked exhausted. She was watching me, a guarded expression on her face, as if she expected me to tell her something she feared to hear. I wondered how much she remembered of what had happened that night and if she was herself again.

  “Are you all right?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you unwell?”

  She shook her head. “Why are we here?”

  I heard a tremor in her voice. She was afraid.

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “No.”

  “You were looking for someone,” I told her. “A child.”

  “A child? What child?”

  “The child you were.”

  “Oh.” She looked away from me. “I thought it was a dream.”

  I studied the sky. It would be a few hours yet before the sun came up. Our hair and clothing were damp with mist, but the air was warm. Her body sagged with weariness.

  “Lie down,” I said. “Sleep a little. We’ll go home in the morning.”

  She lay down, and I lay down beside her. When I put my arm around her, she shrugged it off and turned away from me.

  “Please,” I said. “Don’t push me away.”

  She kept still for a moment. Then she turned to face me and let me put my arms around her. I kissed her lightly on the brow and rubbed her back, and before long I felt her slipping into sleep. She murmured something I couldn’t hear.

  “What is it?” I asked her.

  “You left me.”

  You left me too once.

  “Never again,” I told her. “Never again.”

  27. Mothers

  As I held Maara through the rest of that long night, I thought and thought about what to do. She was exhausted, and those few hours of sleep wouldn’t help her much. I had to get her home. Then what? How long had it been since she’d eaten anything? And after food and rest, what else could be done for her? Although she seemed to be herself again, how could we go on as if this had never happened?

  I feared for Maara more that night than I had ever feared for her before. In the short time I’d known her, there had been much to fear on her behalf, but this wounding of her spirit terrified me.

  She had told me dreadful things about her life before she came to Merin’s house, but I hadn’t understood how deeply those things had hurt her, and it was clear that some of those hurts had failed to heal. Perhaps what I thought of as her strange ways were not instead something I might have recognized if she had been one of us, if she had not been a stranger in Merin’s house.

  From time to time she whimpered in her sleep. I soothed her with my voice and with my hands, not enough to wake her, just enough to chase away her bad dreams. The year before, I had held her like this, to keep her still, to keep her warm, to help her body heal. Now I wished I knew half as much about the healing of the spirit as I knew about the healing of the body.

  I watched the light grow in the east, then closed my eyes against the first rays of the sun as it rose above the horizon. I didn’t feel her wake, but suddenly she pulled away from me and sat up.

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  “That’s good. You must be feeling better.”

  She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples.

  “Bet
ter?” she said. “I’ve seldom felt worse.”

  “We need to get you home,” I said.

  I took a long look at her. Her clothes were rumpled and dirty. Her shirtsleeve was in tatters. Her tangled hair and dirt-streaked face made her look like the wild woman so many still believed her to be. Even if her face were clean, her haggard look would attract attention. I didn’t like to take her home the way she was, but I had no choice. She needed to be cared for.

  “What’s the matter?” she said.

  “I can’t take you home looking like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “You need a bath.”

  I stood up and held out my hand to help her up. Then I led her down to the river. We left our clothing on the riverbank and waded into the water. She bathed herself while I tried to comb the tangles out of her wet hair with my fingers. I made sure her face was clean.

  While she sat patiently on the riverbank, I shook the worst of the dirt and wrinkles out of our clothes. By the time I finished, we were dry enough to put them on.

  When we were both as presentable as I could make us, we started home. We left the meandering footpath beside the river and walked cross-country until we reached the main road. Even with having to make our way through thickets and over some rough ground, it was the quickest way.

  Every step was an effort for her, but she made no complaint. We didn’t talk. She was too tired to do more than put one foot before the other, and I was puzzling over how to get her safely into the house. When we were almost home, I led her off the main path and took her up to the oak grove. I wasn’t sure it was the best idea to take her back there, but I couldn’t think of what else to do with her. I didn’t want anyone to see her the way she was.

  When we reached the grove, she stopped.

  “What are we doing here?” she asked me.

  “You’re going to stay here while I bring you something to eat and some clean clothes.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I told her. “People are bound to notice us, and there are a few in Merin’s house who would be eager to believe the worst and give everyone else the benefit of their opinion.”

  Still she looked doubtful.

  “Are you afraid of the oak grove?”

  It was a clumsy attempt to get her to do what I wanted her to do, but I was too tired just then to argue with her.

  “No,” she said.

  She entered the grove and settled herself beside the same tree where I had found her the night before.

  As usual no one paid much attention to me. I slipped into Merin’s house through the back door and went to Maara’s room without anyone asking me where I’d been. I rolled a clean shirt and a pair of trousers into a bundle. Then I went down to the pantry, where I found some bread and meat and a jar of fresh milk.

  On my way out the back door I stopped. Maara needed food, but there was something else she needed more. I set everything down in an inconspicuous place and went upstairs to Namet’s room.

  “I need your help, Mother,” I said.

  “Come in,” she said. “Sit down.”

  “I can’t. Maara is waiting for me in the oak grove.”

  I didn’t know how to tell Namet what I needed, but she seemed to understand.

  “Then I’ll come with you,” she said, and followed me downstairs.

  As we walked down the hill, I told her what had happened the night before. I told her about finding Maara in the oak grove, about our journey north along the river, and as much as I could remember of the things she’d said to me. I also told her the little that Maara had told me about her childhood.

  “Why did she go down to the oak grove?” Namet asked me.

  “She says she doesn’t remember going there. I think she was ghostwalking.”

  “Ghostwalking?”

  I nodded.

  “Does she do that often?”

  “I’ve seen her do it only twice before,” I said. “I spoke to Gnith about it, and she gave me a binding spell to hold her.”

  “A binding spell to hold Maara?” Namet gave me an odd look. “What did this spell consist of?”

  I told her about the braided thong that had bound Maara and me together.

  “That’s not a binding spell,” said Namet.

  “It’s not?”

  “No,” she said. “A binding spell is meant to bind the spirits of the dead. I’ve never heard of binding a living person, although I suppose it could be done. Even so, you would bind someone only to keep her away, not to keep her by you.” She chuckled. “Gnith is a wise woman when she has her wits about her, but her binding spell sounds more like a love spell to me.”

  “Oh,” I said. I blushed with embarrassment.

  “Well,” said Namet. “You do love her, don’t you?”

  She smiled at me and nudged my arm to let me know that she was teasing, but the truth in her words touched my heart, and tears came into my eyes.

  “I care for her very much,” I said, “and I’m very much afraid for her.”

  Namet put her arm around my shoulders.

  “I know,” she said. “Don’t worry. There’s a healing for everything.”

  Maara was asleep. I hesitated to wake her, even to give her the food she needed, but when I approached her, she opened her eyes. Her gaze rested on me for a moment. Then she saw Namet. When she started to get up, Namet made a gesture to her to stay where she was and sat down beside her.

  “Let her eat first,” said Namet, and I gave Maara the food I’d brought.

  While she was eating, Namet sat at Maara’s side, gazing about her and smiling her contentment at being in this sacred place. Her arm rested against Maara’s arm and Maara didn’t move away from her.

  After Maara finished eating, I helped her change into her clean clothes and gathered her dirty ones into a bundle. When we were ready, I turned to Namet, expecting that she would come with us, but she remained where she was beneath the oak tree. She didn’t seem to realize that we were waiting for her.

  “Shall we go home now, Mother?” I asked her.

  “Wait a while,” she said.

  So Maara and I sat down to wait.

  The morning light filtered through the leaves and dappled the ground around us. Birds sang in the branches overhead. We heard in the distance the voices of children playing in the river. For the first time since I left the grove the night before, I felt that all was well.

  “How does this place feel to you?” Namet asked Maara.

  Maara gave a start at the sudden, unexpected question.

  “It feels as it used to feel,” she said. “This place was always a good place.”

  “Until night before last,” said Namet.

  “Yes.”

  “Why was this place a good place for you?”

  Maara smiled. “In this place someone told me I’d come home.”

  “What changed?”

  Maara’s face darkened. “I don’t know.”

  “Well,” said Namet, “that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are home now, and we must convince your spirit of it.”

  Maara looked surprised. I think she would have liked to ask a question if she could have thought of one.

  Namet sat quietly under her tree for a little longer. Then she got to her feet.

  “Now we can go,” she said.

  Maara and I stood up, and Namet looked us over with a critical eye.

  “Not too bad,” she said, “but let’s not call attention to ourselves.” She touched each of us on the brow. “Don’t speak. Don’t catch anyone’s eye. Don’t look at anything but what’s in front of your feet.”

  All the way up the hill, we passed warriors and country people, servants and companions. No one noticed us or spoke to us. As if we were invisible, we passed through the maze of earthworks, crossed the yard, and entered Merin’s house by the front door without attracting anyone’s attention. Through the great hall we went, and up the stairs, and no
one so much as nodded a greeting to us. When we were safe in Maara’s room, Namet took a deep breath and sat down heavily on the bed.

  “Maara should sleep for a while,” said Namet. “Will you brew her some chamomile?”

  I nodded, but I didn’t think the tea would be necessary. Maara’s eyes were already closing. When I returned with the tea, she was lying in her bed asleep.

  Namet took the bowl from me.

  “You must leave her to me now,” she said.

  Although I wasn’t hungry, I tried to eat a little breakfast. Sparrow found me sitting in a corner of the kitchen, a half-finished bowl of porridge in my lap.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked me. “Where were you all night?”

  She sounded a bit put out. Then she looked at me more closely and sat down beside me. “What in the world happened to you?”

  “I’m all right,” I said. “It’s Maara who is unwell.”

  “Maara is unwell?”

  I nodded.

  “Where is she?”

  “Upstairs in her room. Namet is with her.”

  “Namet?” Sparrow said. “Namet’s no healer.”

  “Maara needs more than a healing of the body. Otherwise I would have tended her myself.”

  I heard something in my voice that made me suspect I was a little jealous of Namet, and I was ashamed of myself. Maara’s healing might well depend on Namet’s kindness.

  Sparrow was about to speak when we heard Vintel’s voice in the great hall. Sparrow leaped to her feet.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  I nodded that I understood, and Sparrow ran to bring Vintel her breakfast.

  I remembered Maara’s warning. Had Vintel been angry that Sparrow spent the night of the spring festival with me? I almost wished I had followed my warrior’s advice, both for Sparrow’s sake and for Maara’s. Then I remembered the gifts I had been given that night, and I was ashamed of myself again. Gnith had told me, Only love can’t wait. Now I understood what she meant. I had felt both the Mother’s love and Sparrow’s in a way that might never come to me again, and to wish it undone was to turn that love away.

  I must have fallen asleep where I sat there in the kitchen corner. Then someone tripped over me. I didn’t want to go out to the bower in case Namet sent for me, so I went to the companions’ loft, where I fell into the nearest bed and slept.