Adria could see that a stool sat nearby, so she quickly retrieved it for the woman, setting it in easy reach of the cooking pot, a bit more loudly than she otherwise might have.
“Thank you, Lilene,” the woman said as she rested herself and leaned in over the pot to stir.
“You are welcome,” Adria said reflexively, before even realizing that the woman had spoken her language. “You… you speak Aeman?”
“I speak Tiniya, yes.” The woman answered. “Though it feels heavy on my tongue. Do not be so surprised with the knowledge of the People, Idonea. We are not so savage as those who’ve raised you may wish to claim.”
Adria grew embarrassed. “Of course, I did not mean offense. Did… did my uncle teach you?”
“Your uncle has taught us many things, but you should be more concerned for your education, don’t you agree, Likshochuhalene?”
Adria nodded stupidly. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“I am no Ma’am, child,” the woman frowned. “I am called Shísha.”
Adria was certain she had heard the name now. “Be, Lichushegi.”
There was the slightest of smiles on the blind woman’s face, and then it was gone. She said nothing more, but after carefully tasting the steam from the pot, she dropped the honeycomb in carefully.
“Shall I stay and help you, Lichushegi?” Adria asked.
“The rest that I need is in my tent,” Shísha answered as she placed the honeycomb into the hot water. “Bring me a bunch of old man’s beard, the container of pine rosin, and the oils which smell of lavender and marigold. Can you find these?”
Adria did not answer, but simply did as asked, marveling as she stepped into the woman’s hide tent. Shísha certainly kept an impressive store of herbs, unguents, oils, and agents.
Adria wondered just how Shísha was not overwhelmed by the aroma of all the flowers, roots, and leaves which hung from the lines stretched from pole to pole of her hide lodge.
I wonder if they change her dreams? Adria thought, before an even simpler curiosity occurred to her. She saw the old man’s beard at once, hanging from a branching of one pole just as it did from the trees — a green moss which, when pulled apart, proved bound together with a white filament. She found pine rosin in a wooden container among many in a simple chest Shísha also used as a table.
The rows of small clay vials were another matter. There were two dozen of them or more, and Adria had to open a number of their wax-coated stoppers to discover those with the right smell. She closed her eyes each time to concentrate, and imagined each vial with a flower or plant blooming from inside.
Rosemary… juniper… wormwood… Some she did not recognize, but the violet flowers of lavender seemed to sprout right up out of their vial and into her nose. The marigold of her imagination, when she found it, sat beautifully near the lavender, a little lower, just beside.
By the time she returned with these, Shísha was carefully scooping wax from the top of the water. The comb seemed to be melting, sending billows of light yellow blobs to the surface. Shísha leaned in closely over the pot, so that Adria could not tell whether she smelled the wax, heard it meet the surface, or even felt the wooden spoon tap against it somehow. Without distracting, she lifted a smaller clay pot beside her and raised it before Adria. “Fill this with water.”
After the wax was separated, Shísha cooked down the old man’s beard, and then rearranged the pots so that the larger held water, and the second was placed inside. While Adria stoked up the fire and added more wood, Shísha added the ingredients into the smaller pot and cooked them together while the water boiled, eventually forming it all into a thick paste.
“What is it called?” Adria asked finally, as Shísha poured some into a bed of leaves, then bound it together with twine.
“I don’t know.” Shísha shook her head, then gave the bundle to Adria. “This is for you to carry.”
“Then… what is it for?”
Shísha waved dismissively as she began cleaning her pots. “Burns. Rashes. Cuts… it is good for any wound. All the Runners carry some, and many a Hunter. Your skin has taken fire this summer. This will cool the worst of it.”
All the Runners… Adria smiled and again foolishly nodded her thanks as she took it and put it in her pack. “I hope my skin will not burn so readily this next summer.”
There was more Adria wished to ask, but Shísha waved her away. “Go and see that Mateko helps with the meal, or if that boy ate all of our honey.”
“Ka, Lichushegi…” Adria smiled. “Perhaps he is already sleeping like a bear.”
“Tell me of Shísha, Uncle,” Adria began the next evening when she had a moment of quiet with Preinon.
Preinon nodded. “What do you wish to know?”
“How did she…” Adria thought. “How does she know me? I mean… she asked me to perform a task, but how did she know I was nearby? Or Mateko, for that matter… And how does she speak Aeman?”
“You have a lot of questions tonight, Lilene, but I think that those are questions for her.”
Adria nodded. “I see.”
Preinon nodded as well. “You know Mateko?”
“Yes,” Adria said simply.
“He is a Runner,” Preinon continued. “Newly named. Very young for it, but he shows great promise, even wisdom. It is no wonder you should meet.”
Adria wasn’t certain she wished to talk about this, so she only nodded again and looked into the fire.
Preinon leaned back onto his elbows to look through the canopy of evergreen and up to the stars. The fire nearby was over-warm — Adria, still unaccustomed to sleeping out of doors, was allowed a place near the flames, so she did not awaken shivering, as she had the first night.
Adria also leaned back, and named a pair of constellations that could be seen. “Amos, the mountain bear...” she pointed. “Mana, the basket of the gods, which bears their perfect fruit.”
Preinon chuckled, and took her hand, and traced different shapes with her finger out of similar stars. “Yakseanitáo, Valley-Keeper,” and over… “Watemichaechi Súsha, Whispers-of-Smoke.” He let her hand go, then patted the top of it as it settled on her stomach. “They are ancient Ancestors of the Aesidhe. Yakseanitáo watches over the People of the lowlands, protecting them from floods and famine and keeping the trees from falling to flame. Watemichaechi Súsha collects all our prayers from the Spirit Helpers, and delivers them to the Ancestors to answer.”
Adria had always wondered that the Aeman still named constellations, even as the old gods were mostly forgotten in favor of the Sisterhood’s. These Aesidhe myths felt much the same as those. No one bowed down and worshiped these stars, Aeman or Aesidhe, nor paid tolls in their names.
Still, the Aesidhe were quite reverent, even ritualistic, though somehow none of it seemed to make Adria feel angry. She did not feel controlled by it, as she did by Taber and the Tenets of the Sisterhood.
When she had first been asked to give a prayer among them, she had done so in Aeman, nervously and without real focus. And still, those in the circle had welcomed it, though very few had understood, and it was in the tongue of their enemy.
For now, it is enough to give voice, Preinon had explained afterward. The proper words and the proper gods are unimportant. It is enough that you speak, and that you share your heart with those around you. The prayer will find where it needs to go.
She had smiled then, thinking of Sisters who had corrected her prayers, word for word, into the proscribed formula — which she had known perfectly, of course, but often resented giving them the satisfaction that she had learned.
Adria had always thought it unreasonable that an unknown god, whose rules changed over time, could somehow demand exactitude of prayer. Had she been anyone but a princess, her mistakes might have earned her a more physical reprimand, like those Twyla described from her own brief schooling.
Again, Adria grew sick for home, as she and her uncle watched the stars, but then a soothing music began, and her thoughts returned to the present. Distantly, in the camp proper, just down the hillside from where Adria made her camp with Preinon and the Runners, someone sang a lullaby, and as she tried to make out some of the words, she grew a little sleepy. She sat up and rubbed her eyes to clear them.
“I am ready to speak, Uncle. You did not intend to speak merely of stars.”
There was a formality to serious conversations which the Aesidhe followed, Adria had already learned. Even an adult needing to lecture a child would simply say they wished to do so, and then would wait for the child to ask. Aesidhe children had many parents to watch over them, and they learned rather quickly what dangers existed in the world around them, and that what mistakes there were to be made must be corrected as a matter of survival. There was little reluctance or fear of punishment.
“Do you know what we are going to talk about?” he asked.
“I… think so…” Adria nodded, and a lump formed in her throat. Her suspicions had grown in recent days, as the Runners grew more busy, even restless. She was glad he had given her a day to think about this, even with only such a simple warning. Still, he waited for more of an answer.
“We are going to speak of my fate among the People.” She took a breath. “It is going to be summer soon, and you will have much to do to protect the other Aesidhe camps and villages which remain… to protect them against Father’s armies. There is a reason this camp is separate. You and the Runners do not camp here all year. Do you?”
“No,” Preinon nodded. “And I am impressed by what you can see without hearing the words.”
“Thank you, Uncle.” She frowned, looking down through the trees to where the lullaby was being sung, to a larger fire, with more substantial dwellings built up around it — though still a temporary affair of saplings and skins, ready to break down in an hour or two and move. “I am… meant to remain behind, and this is the last tribe you will camp with for awhile.”
“Shema Ihaloa Táya are a good tribe, and this is a good camp. It is safe for now, but they are also aware of the danger which comes, and you will learn much among them.”
Adria’s homesickness from before returned in double, but she managed to hold back her tears. “When do we say goodbye?”
“Tomorrow.”
Adria heard herself say, “But I am an excellent archer. I could… at least help guard the Runner camp while everyone else…” but she quickly realized she was pleading, and a little foolishly.
Perhaps she could guard the camp, but if the camp had to be abandoned and the Runners had to flee, she would only hold them back, or else would have to be left behind. That much she had seen when following Mateko.
Adria finished arguing with herself and sighed her resignation. “No, I know that is not the way.”
“You are wise already.” Preinon smiled, but then his face turned serious. “Learn everything you can this season, and work hard for them, and… should anything happen, protect them with your life, and, if need be, your name — for it may yet bear some weight in the worst of circumstances. You would not easily come to harm, even at the wickedest hands in Heiland.”
“I will, Uncle,” she nodded. He was not being frivolous — not merely trying to keep her out of danger. They were on the borderlands, and Adria knew there were safer camps west or south he could have left her with. No, here she could be put to better use, and could learn more quickly.
By the next summer, this camp would likely have to move deeper into the forest, for by next year the Knights would march a little further, the forest would shrink a bit more.
He smiled. “We will return occasionally, even during the summer. And should you choose, we will begin your training in earnest before winter comes. We cannot make great promises to each other, when this season could break them as easily as a life, but… the others have watched you, as have I. You have an able body, a strong will, and a sharp mind. It is possible you could be trained to be one of us, in time.”
“A Runner…” as much as she had wished to go with them, their abilities often seemed far beyond what she could attain.
Adria was confident that her ability with blade and bow could grow to serve the Aesidhe well, but these seemed the least of their skills. Had she not been with Mateko the day before, she would never even have known they were around, and even their bird calls would have fooled her.
But Preinon would not have mentioned the possibility of her becoming one of them were it not real. They had already made concessions for her inadequacies and ignorance, as they would a child, but she knew that he would not neglect the needs of the People merely for the sake of her feelings.
“Thank you, Uncle,” she smiled, and he reached over to grip her shoulder and nodded into the sky again, silent. Adria’s thoughts filled with fantasies of walking silent and invisible, of her arrows appearing out of nowhere lodged near the feet of enemies who turned about, but could not find anyone to strike.
She forced her thoughts to calm, otherwise she might not continue their conversation, much less get to sleep that night. Already, Adria was anxious for his return, but this was still a goodbye. Adria knew quite well that, with the paths the Runners walked, it might still be the last time she ever saw her uncle.
“There is something I wish to speak of, then,” Adria began. “We started last night, but… there is more I would understand.”
Preinon seemed to have been expecting this, and nodded solemnly. “Say what you will, and I will listen.”
Adria collected her thoughts a few moments longer. Her life had changed quickly, remarkably, and she only gradually had begun to piece together the past and the present of her circumstances. Preinon had a longer memory, and a deeper point of view, both as an Aeman and an Aesidhe. She had many questions, and he was one of a few who had many answers. Still, the enormity of her ignorance, now that she found the courage to diminish it, left her awestruck and nearly dumb, and she struggled for a place to start.
“I… remember the night you left Windberth for the last time, and… I know that my father made war with you soon after that. I know that you gave me hints, before, about the Aesidhe, and about you.” And here she had to guess a little. “I think that you rebelled against my father only when Taber and her Knights began to destroy the Aesidhe, and that my father and the Knights defeated you. Is this all true?”
“True enough,” he answered, after a moment of thought. “I did not truly rebel, though in the end this was a mere formality. Ebenhardt marched against me before I could have organized anything like a true resistance. I was never the diplomat that Taber was, and could never rally enough of the nobility to me. It…” he hesitated, sighing, and shook his head.
Adria knew he was not ready to tell her anything like a whole story. Still, she could not easily imagine betraying Hafgrim, or even him betraying her. She wanted to know something of how a brother could fight a brother.
“Did you fight my father’s armies, or were you forced to retreat?” She softened the words a little.
“You must understand,” he continued. “The duchy that your father gave me, the role was mostly... administrative. It lay across the western divide, against and beyond the Greywards. They called it the Violet West, even before the banners of Idonea flew there, because of how the mountains showed in the sunset.” He seemed a little wistful at this, but continued without changing his tone.
“Most of it was actually owned by the crown — I was merely placed there to guard it against corrupt silver or iron barons of Ebonfold or elsewhere. I oversaw the transport of lumber and metals to Windberth and the lowlands. I was given a few small estates for my own subsistence, but even what profits I was allowed from wood and ores had to be traded for food and necessities. You father never placed great trust in me. He allowed me the prestige and title due me by
blood, but never risked giving me the means to oppose him.”
“How did you, then? Why did you?” Adria urged. She wanted a picture.
“To tell the truth, with some shame... I didn’t resist him,” he frowned. “At least, not until it was too late… I was betrayed even as I would have acted to betray him.
“This…” The wistfulness now fully gone, he hesitated in how to continue. “Is not the best story for tonight.”
Adria did not hesitate. “And if you should not return after the summer, who then is there to tell it?”
Preinon considered her words, then nodded. “There was a man in my court, a banneret by the name of Sir Godwindson. He was an excellent captain, and indeed a good friend. But he harbored ambitions of becoming an officer among the Knights of Darkfire — or perhaps he had already been promised such.
“When the Sisterhood began its aggressions against the Aesidhe in earnest, I was… far from certain of their cause. I had dealt with some among the Aesidhe personally, and had made some effort at establishing treaties, had bartered for the use of what they considered to be their land.
“Because of my status, such efforts were mostly overlooked by your father’s zealots, and were even welcomed by many within my demesne. In the less settled Violet West, many had long grown accustomed to dealing with the Aesidhe as a matter of survival.
“When the Knights of Darkfire began their destruction, at the time mostly in secret, I quickly learned of it from both sides of the conflict. I knew I would have to make some difficult choices. I knew that the Knights would in time move west, and that the treaties I had made would be broken. I did not wish to be forsworn, but also did not wish to defy Ebenhardt.
“So instead, I sought a peaceful solution. I warned the Aesidhe tribes with whom I had dealt, and I aided them in their retreat... those who chose to, at least. By the time I turned my attention toward the Heiland nobility, Godwindson had already carried word to Windberth of my… betrayal, it was called. So when the Knights of Darkfire came, they came for me first, with King Ebenhardt and Matron Taber at their fore.”
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