by Diana Rivers
Maireth looked up at Alyeeta with a grimace. “This is the healer you brought?” There was no mistaking the contempt in her voice. I glanced at Alyeeta. She did indeed look very strange, nothing to inspire confidence. From the ride her kerchief had slipped sideways. The wisps of white hair were all askew, giving her the appearance of a tipsy and very unreliable old crone. I whispered to her to take off her disguise.
“Ah yes, I forgot,” she said, untying her scarf and dropping it carelessly on the floor. When she shook her head, her own wild dark hair came tumbling down. I saw the look of surprise on Maireth’s face. While I was watching Maireth, Alyeeta turned to searching though her bag. “Make a fire quickly, Tazzia,” she said with impatience. “We need hot water. This infection is running away with itself, as anyone with a nose could easily tell.” In a few quick motions she had cleared the table of Pell’s things. Then she lit a cone of thiur-paste to burn against smells and infection. After that she laid out the contents of her bag with care.
Now I was the one who scurried about taking orders, building up both fires, hauling and boiling water, ripping cloth into strips, and holding the light where it was needed. All the while I watched everything Alyeeta did and tried my best to remember. I followed her around as if I were again a child of seven helping Old Tolgath on a call. Alyeeta worked fast and in silence. When it came time to scrub away some of the scabs and corruptions, not even a strong dose of diraithia was enough for the pain. Maireth cried out and tried to strike at us. “Hold her hands or bind her wrists with one of those strips,” Alyeeta said abruptly. “This must be done right if she is to heal cleanly.”
Maireth ground her teeth against the pain and took fast, harsh breaths. When it grew too much for her to bear she dug her nails into me, but did not cry out again. I had to lean on the wall to steady myself against her pain so I could hold her and not pull away. At last Alyeeta gave a great sigh. “Done,” she said as she laid on new compresses. Then she nodded, turning to me. “Now the healing will come right.” Afterward she turned to Maireth and added, “You may not think so now, but later you will thank me for this.”
Maireth released her grip on me. She spat off to the side, spit bloodied by her bitten lips. “May the demons bite off your tits, Witch!” she snarled to Alyeeta through her teeth. “It will be a long, cold day in summer before I thank you. You are a torturer, not a healer.”
Alyeeta stepped back unconcerned, drying her hands on her skirt. “And this one,” she gave a nod in my direction, “This one was probably much too gentle with you. Those burns must be cleaned of putrescence each day.” Then she gave me a sudden grin. “I think your patient will live, Tazzia. No one so rude and bad-tempered dies easily.”
Then, with one of those sudden changes of mood, Alyeeta stepped forward again. With a very different look on her face she began moving her hands about in patterns I could not understand. She cast no spell or signs that I could see, but at moments she would stop, shut her eyes, breath deeply, and cup her hands over a burned place without actually touching Maireth’s body. She would stay that way, utterly still, till a strange, deep hum came from her that resonated back from the stone wall of the shelter and even set the cups to ringing. At those moments I would feel such a pull of power as to make me unsteady on my feet. Maireth had mysteriously lost all will to argue. She lay back motionless, her eyes open wide, staring at nothing. As suddenly as she had begun, Alyeeta stopped. She stretched her hands far from her body and shook them as if shaking off some noxious liquid. “That is the real healing,” she said to me. “I can teach you that if you want, but it is not easy.”
I nodded, still shaken from Maireth’s pain and from her blaze of anger. I was also dazzled by Alyeeta’s performance. Alyeeta reached out and pressed her fingers to my forehead. It was like cool water flowing through me. When I looked at her with surprise, I saw again that look of absolute compassion in her eyes, so different from the mockery that was often in her words. Softly, almost in a whisper and as if for my ears alone, she said, “Truly you are a very good healer, Tazzia. You have done your best here. It is only that you carry too much pain. I can also teach you how to let loose of that. Otherwise it will bum away your talent, and your heart as well.” Then she said loudly, “Take that filth outside and make sure to burn it all with care. Then wash thoroughly with hot water and perthali before you come back.”
By the time I returned, Pell had come in. Alyeeta was stirring something over the fire and Pell sat watching her with a strange, brooding look on her face. Maireth in turn was watching Pell while running her hands over her own face and breasts. Suddenly she burst out in her raspy voice, “I suppose I should be grateful to you for saving my life, but I am not so sure I want it. Now I will be scarred from these burns to mark me like a brand as one they hunt, scars that will make me easy prey. Since the Goddess saw fit to keep me among the living, I suppose I must get used to it. I am glad there is no mirror here. I might be tempted to look and then regret it. Men used to tell me I was beautiful. No one will ever bother me with such rubbish again.” The bitterness of her voice was like a sharp nail scraping up and down my spine.
Pell stood up and walked over to her. “You may not believe this now, Maireth, but someday you will wear those scars with pride, wear them like a mark of honor. You will show them in remembrance to your granddaughters when you tell your stories.”
Maireth made a strange sound in her throat that might have been a laugh, a curse, or a cry. “Easy enough for you to say,” she growled, “since they are mine to bear, not yours.” Then she said, more thoughtfully, “Perhaps I will be able to thank you later.”
Pell shrugged. “Later or never, it matters little.” She turned to us. “Well, what do the healers say? Is she well enough to answer some questions? Her tongue and mind seem sharp enough.”
Before either of us could answer, Maireth said curtly, “I can speak for myself. I am not a child in your care. Ask whatever questions you please, Pell.”
Pell sat down cross-legged by Maireth’s mat. Alyeeta faded into the shadows. I drew a mat over to the wall so I could sit leaning against it. While Pell, sitting hunched forward and listening intently, began her questioning, I made little effort to follow the story, though some of it still came through. From what I remember, Maireth and Shaleethia were both from the village of Karthi. It seems they scarcely knew each other, but for safety their families had sent them together to the market of Ghomarth, by ill chance the very day the death edict was to be posted. All unknowing, they had stayed late to enjoy their rare time away from home. On the way back they had been stopped by the very guardsmen who carried the edicts. Frightened, they had dropped everything and fled to a barn for shelter, a shelter that had all too quickly become a trap.
“Shouting curses and threats, the guards formed a circle around the barn. I watched through a crack in the wall while one of their number made a spiral of some greenish white powder right up to the barn. The others picked or dug a wide ring down to the dirt and cleared it of leaves and grass. When the powder was lit, it made a roar like the winds of a winter storm, and a wall of flame shot up all around.”
“Fastfire!” Pell sat up suddenly and spat out the word like a curse. “The thing they use when they lay siege to a fortress. They tip their arrows with it and also keep a circle of fire around the walls. This is a war being waged against us. How did you survive? Not many can survive fastfire.”
Maireth did not answer. There was a long silence. When I looked at her I saw she was staring ahead strangely, not conscious of Pell or of any of us. Her eyes were wide and empty. She seemed to be looking back into the fire itself. Even trying to shield myself I could see pictures of it in her mind and feel some of that heat. When she began to talk again it was as if someone else spoke through her. “I kept telling her to stay down flat, but she would not listen, she would not listen to me. Now she is all burned. She is dead and gone, all burned. I kept telling her to stay low, but she would not listen. What could I do?” T
he hair went up on the back of my neck at the hollow, lifeless sound of her voice. She said this over and over as if to some unseen judge, until Pell shook her gently and asked, “Where have you gone, Sister?”
“Nowhere,” Maireth answered impatiently, as if none of this had happened. “I am here answering your questions. What else do you want to know?”
“How did you survive?” Pell asked again.
“There was an old stone part to the barn, some of it underground. I tried to get Shaleethia to stay there with me, but her fear drove her to run about in search of exits.”
Pell was shaking her head. “I wonder, I wonder if together you could have stood them off. It seems once we are afraid and turn our backs to run, too much power is lost. Perhaps if you had both held your ground you could have faced them down.”
“And perhaps not! You were not there. What do you know? If there had been three or four, we might have managed, maybe six, even, but they came on us so suddenly, ten or more. Besides, Shaleethia had little power, not much at all. I wonder if she was truly one of us or only of the right age for their edict or if her real powers had not yet come on her. Even if we had stood our ground, they still would have used their fastfire, only then we would have been out in the open with no hope of shelter.”
Pell was shaking her head again. “Fastfire, eh? There is no way I know of to fight it, but perhaps we can find something. I must talk to Jhemar.” With that she jumped to her feet and began pacing around, suddenly infused with angry energy. “So, fire is their way around our powers. What else will they think of to use? Men have always been good hunters. Perhaps we are no more to them than some exotic wild new quarry to use for sport. They will compare methods with each other till they have learned the best way to bring us down. We must move quickly. There is little time.”
Alyeeta suddenly stepped out of the darkness. “Well, is that not always the way of it with humans? What they cannot understand they must destroy. There is nothing new in that. Now that is enough questions for the moment. Let the girl eat her peaches in peace. She needs them for healing. Come show us what you carried away from the market in your coat. That coat, by the way, is the best of its kind I have ever seen. I shall have to make a copy of your design. It could have many uses.”
***
When Pell tired of displaying her new found wares she began methodically packing them away. Maireth had long since signaled me to help her lie down again and was sleeping soundly, her breathing easy for the first time. I still could not accustom myself to stealing, and said as much to Pell. Without stopping her work to look at me, she answered, “Well, Tazzi, as you can see it is not so simple for fugitives to find steady employment in this world. You will have to learn to live by a whole new set of rules or not live at all. That is the choice they have forced on us. I, for one, do not intend to die or at least not die easily, so for now I will live however I must. I have no objection to earning my bread by the work of my hands if that is possible. If not, however, then my hands have other uses. Speaking of bread, however gotten...” She cleared one corner of the table and set on it a loaf of dark, fragrant bread and a pale yellow round of cheese. As she took the knife from her boot and began to hack thick slices into three piles, Alyeeta was quick to gather her healing things together at the other corner.
We had not eaten since morning. At the sight of food my mouth began to water and my hands tremble. Clearly, I was not ready to die even if I did not have Pell’s easy scruples. When Pell finished her work, she pushed a pile in my direction. I began stuffing it in my mouth, bread and cheese together. Alyeeta had stood silent all this while, watching us intently. She made no move now that she had rescued her things from the shower of crumbs Pell made with her knife.
Pell looked up at her. “Well, Witch, will you share some bread with us, or do you think stolen bread is tainted to the taste?”
“I was not sure you intended to invite me,” Alyeeta said coolly. Then she sat down suddenly and fastened Pell with her stare. “Girl, I have lived in this world a long time. I have baked bread and borrowed bread and begged bread and stolen bread to keep breath in this body. As long as it is fresh, I have never noticed any difference in the taste. Do you think, at your green age, to teach me something of surviving on this earth, or to teach me anything at all for that matter?” She reached for a bowl and heaped on her share. “Stolen bread goes stale like any other and is best eaten fresh, though my appetite may not be as crude as some.” She turned and looked at me.
I felt my face flush under this assault, but Pell answered tartly, “I do not think you have much to teach us of manners considering the welcome you gave us in your home.”
Suddenly the bread turned dry in my mouth and hard to swallow. I gulped down some tea and said angrily, “Can we not have some peace in this place? You both sound not much better than that rabble of men at the tavern.”
Pell looked at me in surprise and Alyeeta said sweetly, “We are just getting to know one another.”
Feeling the fool between them, I flushed again. Without another word I gathered up my bread and cheese and went out quickly into the night. There I found myself a comfortable rock and sat cooling my hurt pride. I ate slowly, listening to the first owls of the night calling to each other from the hills.
When I came back in, Pell and Alyeeta were deep in talk together. Neither one looked up nor spoke to me. Feeling no need to join them, I drew my mat over to the far edge of the shelter and lay down. I hoped only for sleep, but that took a while in coming. Suddenly I felt Alyeeta’s eyes on me with a stare I could not fathom. It made me shiver, as if a cold wind had blown across my soul. Clearly, they were talking about me. I turned angrily to face the wall and pulled up the covers to shut them out.
In spite of the sound of their voices, I must have slept then, for I woke with Pell shaking my shoulder. “We go to meet with Renaise,” she told me.
I sprang to my feet. We were quickly ready, for I had not taken off my clothes, not even my boots. Alyeeta said she would stay to watch with Maireth. I had no need to ask Pell if she trusted her.
All to no use. We waited in misery through the long, uncomfortable hours of the night, each in our appointed tree. As well as being stiff and chilled, I was filled with guilt and apprehension, afraid for Renaise and ashamed of myself. At that moment her unpleasant voice would have filled me with the greatest pleasure. I found myself hungering for her grating words and her annoying mannerisms, if only to lift the terrible burden of that guilt. After all, annoying habits are not good enough reason for dying a terrible death. All through our watch I saw in my head dreadful scenes of fire, and pictured Renaise burned as Shaleethia had been. I longed to speak to Pell and had to force myself to keep my silence.
Several times we heard owls, though none of them were ours. Twice, men on horseback passed beneath us. With the darkness already graying into dawn, we rode back weary and discouraged, to find Maireth still sleeping soundly and Alyeeta dozing by the fire. Her pony lay on the floor beside her with his head on her lap. I looked at Pell. She shrugged and signaled me to bring our mats outside.
There, in a little shelter of bushes, we reached out to touch before we slept. We found in each other’s bodies the comfort we could not find on the road. It was there that Alyeeta sought us out later in the day. I woke to see her peering down, as if she had just discovered something interesting but slightly unpleasant. Pell drew me to her with a protective gesture she had never used before. It was instantly clear to me that she intended Alyeeta to find us this way. Two dogs and a bone, I thought angrily as I wrested myself free of Pell’s grip and jumped to my feet.
“You did not have to go off and hide,” Alyeeta said with her mocking smile. “If the earth itself had shaken I would have slept through it after that hard ride you took me on.”
Later, Pell left on one of her searches, and my education with Alyeeta began. It seems they had agreed that Alyeeta was to teach me what Pell could not. They had decided my fate between them w
ithout consulting me, as if I were a small child with no sense or will of my own. Yet why should I say no? My moment of anger flared and passed. What does it matter? I thought. It is something to do, it passes the time, and I have no better plan. I had been uprooted too suddenly. Kara was dead, and all that had meaning in my life was gone. Not driven like Pell, I was mostly content to be used by her. Why should I care if Alyeeta used me as well for some purpose of her own?
But Alyeeta, for reasons I could not comprehend, was determined I should learn to read and write. This was harder than all Pell’s teachings, this making of letters and the meaning of them. I could not grasp the shape or purpose of it. It was like nothing I had ever learned. The trying of it made my head throb and ache. I thought myself likely too old to learn and not smart enough besides. Alyeeta, however, was patient, far more than I would have expected, more than I myself would have been. Nodding with approval, she told me to trace the letters over and over in the dirt till mind and hand together grew accustomed to their shape. My fingers cramped, my eyes crossed, and I had six elbows. When Alyeeta went to tend to Maireth, I wanted to throw the stick down and shout, “I cannot understand! This is bending my mind! Why are you forcing this on me?” Instead, I struggled on, hoping for light, for ease. There was nothing else to occupy my time. I could see that in spite of her bitter words, Maireth had given herself over to Alyeeta’s care in a way she never had with me. She did not need me for that time. It was with a strange mixture of relief and regret that I saw myself dismissed as a healer and so freed to learn this new thing I could not learn.
***
We went back to our vigil that night with no incident and no Renaise, but the third night, on our way home, we had our encounter. I was riding behind Pell in my usual semi-doze when suddenly she stopped her horse. I sensed the riders only a moment or two before I heard them. It sounded as if there were many, and they were riding fast. I made ready to charge up the bank into the woods, but Pell laid a restraining hand on my arm. “Too late for that now. It would only worsen things. Just remember that you are a very humble and not overly bright farm lad.”