Shattered Stone

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  “Nia is what?”

  “She . . .” Mama had faltered. Zephy had looked at her evenly. “She . . . oh, Zephy, Nia’s different, she’s a child that . . . she’s just different.”

  “Different because she doesn’t run with the other girls her age and do all the stupid things they do? Different because she doesn’t giggle all the time? Different, Mama? Different like me and Meatha?”

  And now . . . now Nia Skane was dead.

  THREE

  Thorn glanced at the yellow ball of sun halfway up the sky. The day was beginning to grow warm. He had been skinning out two wolves; they hung red and naked from the eaves as he began to stretch their thick-furred hides across the hut wall. Behind him the mountain glinted. His stomach rumbled with hunger. He could smell the noon meal cooking; soon enough there would be fried goatmeat and mawzee cakes—his mother fed him up good when he’d been on the pastures all night.

  When he finished stretching the hides, he began to strip the meat from the carcasses—they were no longer animals now, writhing in the pain of dying so that he gritted his teeth and felt their agony. He had killed them as quickly as he could. Now, with the skins off, he had taught himself to think of them only as hanks of meat. He stripped off the meat in long pieces, sliced it thin, and laid it across the drying rack. It would be salted and cured and mixed with fireberries and otter-herb to make the squares of mountain-meat that would bide the winter nights when he or his father stood watch in the pastures, would bide them all, perhaps, if the winter should be harsh, or if there should be need of food taken hurriedly, without cook fires. He turned to shift the drying rack and saw his father standing silently at the corner of the house examining the hides.

  “You got that big dog-wolf!” Oak Dar said, fingering the wide black stripe that decorated the larger hide.

  “And his mate, I think,” Thorn said sadly.

  “Better to go together than parted.”

  Thorn nodded, feeling warm toward his father. The wolves killed because it was their living, and neither Thorn or the Goatmaster felt animosity toward them. But the wolves killed their herds, and must be taken in turn, that was the way of it.

  The Goatmaster examined the striped hide more carefully. “The bucks gored him good.”

  “Yes. The old wolf put up a battle.”

  “And you finished him through the neck,” he said, putting his finger through Thorn’s arrow hole.

  Thorn nodded. The older man took out his knife and began to work on the other carcass. Swifter and neater than Thorn he was, taking the meat off the bones clean and quick. Thorn tried to settle to his work but began to think of Burgdeeth for no reason so the unease within him stirred and rose as it had done again and again since his last trip down, a strong bristling of concern, as if a yeast worked there in Burgdeeth and part of it clung to him when he came away.

  The feeling had to do with the Kubalese apprentice to Shanner Eskar. Thorn grinned at the thought of Shanner’s bruised face, though he held him no enmity—just that he’d gotten his own back, that was all. Shanner was the best of the Burgdeeth lot, and Thorn had a liking for him. But the Kubalese, Kearb-Mattus, that was another matter. I wish I had the sight really, he thought, instead of these niggling itches. Then I’d know why the Kubalese is there. He turned the carcass and began to strip the other side; the stripping went faster with two working.

  He glanced up at the edge of the village once, where the does were being milked, and when he looked back he saw that his father had stopped work and was watching him. Silent, with that studying look. His father’s eyes were a rusty brown, and his thatch of hair over that square face as dark as the stripe on the wolf’s pelt. His look was unwavering. “You are troubled, son, and I think you do not know why.”

  “Yes father. Something . . . something . . .”

  “Some trouble you carried up with you from Burgdeeth. Is it the Kubalese? Have you heard more about his reasons for being there?”

  “Only the story that he was a smith in his own country, and came to Burgdeeth to increase his art.”

  Oak Dar snorted, unbelieving. “Likely the townspeople of Burgdeeth know no more than that. They believe pretty well as they are bidden. But there is a piece of news. A trader came up the mountain last night, he is staying with Merden’s family. He brought news that, if you had not been herding, you would know by now. It is like the rumors that have come, but sounding as if there are more facts to it. The Kubalese are arming heavy, he says, and have stockpiled supplies on the borders. It is thought they plan to work their way silently into Urobb and Farr. If this is true, they will take those two countries as surely as night drowns the sun.”

  “But that will mean—”

  “That Aybil is next. And then Cloffi.”

  “Will the trader take this word to Burgdeeth? But he has come from there. Did he stop with it?”

  “He did not stop, he came through silently under darkness. It is said in Sibot Hill that the Kubalese smith is thick with the Landmaster of Burgdeeth, and the trader thought to warn us first and to seek our advice.”

  “And that is?”

  “He must go to the Landmaster, he can do no less. I fear for him, but there is no other way but the direct one. To spread the word secretly would only stir fear and leave the men of Burgdeeth open to ridicule, unable to organize anything without their mounts and weapons that are all in the Landmaster’s Set. The men of Cloffi are not bold enough, or willful enough, to plan a good deceit against the Landmaster. They do not value their freedom sufficiently.” Oak Dar scratched his head, puzzling. “What good would it do the Landmaster to court collusion with the Kubalese? He would only lose his reign. Four times in the past the Kubalese had begun so, secretly, and each time has ended in conquerings. I can’t understand the Landmaster’s view of the world if he does not take warning from that.

  “Keep your ears open, maybe you’ll hear something of value. Market day is soon—meantime we must lay some plans. Our best weapon will be cleverness. Eresu knows the Landmaster would lift no hand to help us, and we are but a small band.” He gave Thorn a clear look. “If you had the runestone of Eresu the old man spoke of, would you have the sight?”

  “I would have it,” Thorn said with sudden conviction.

  “It would be a great help to Dunoon. Perhaps to many more.” Then Oak Dar grinned. “We would be stoned in Burgdeeth for such talk.”

  “Stoned, and worse. I have hunted the mountain caves, the old ruins and grottoes for the runestone.” Thorn’s eyes searched Oak Dar’s. “If it is hidden in the north of Cloffi, and if the power is in me to use it, then I mean to have it somehow.”

  Ever since the old man had spoken his prophecy, Thorn had spent every free moment in the caves of the ancient city Owdneet; he had discovered caves he had not known, had pressed into narrow crevices and seams and searched pools cold as winter. He had tried to send some unbridled sense of seeing out to touch the shard of jade; but such skill had not come on him, had left him as blind.

  And while he searched, the runestone lay somewhere in darkness. Found by the light of one candle, the old man had said. Carried in a searching. Lost in terror. What did it mean? He knew not, but he sensed that the stone would be needed soon, felt it in the very core of his being.

  Once, exploring along a cave’s high natural ledge, he had been startled to see a clear vision; though it had not to do with the stone. He saw two faces, young girls, very frightened. One of them was crying. He knew her, though not her name. The other, brown eyed, thin faced, was Zephy Eskar. They were kneeling before the winged statue in Burgdeeth; and he knew that this quick, unexplained glimpse was important to him, though he had no clue to help him understand it. It faded quickly, and his feeling of bereavement afterward was strange and powerful.

  FOUR

  Zephy didn’t know what was the matter, only that Meatha had appeared in the milk line pale as death, and when Zephy asked her in whispers what was wrong, she had burst into tears. Now they knelt at the
base of the god-statue, having come for privacy so they could talk; but three older women had pushed through the hedge to kneel in prayer, and they could say nothing; nor could they leave until they had been there an appropriate time. The statue towered above them, the winged god rearing into the sky, his human torso above the horselike body catching the sun, his arms reaching as if, indeed, he lifted on the wind; and beside him the two winged Horses of Eresu thrust skyward; the shadows of their wings swept across the girls’ heads and out across the cobbles. Meatha was trying to hide her tears from the women who knelt so near them.

  They could not talk until at last they made their way to the housegardens through Burgdeeth’s narrow streets, the smells of tannery and candlewax and of baking bread marking the little shops; and the small of cess from a row of outhouses. The gardens were blessedly empty.

  At midday, most women and girls found chores to do in the scullers, coming out again as the hot summer sun lowered. Beside Zephy’s vetchpea rows, their two donkeys drowsed in the pen, their ears twitching at the garden flies. The vetchpeas were getting ripe, their long pods dragging the turned earth. The smell of a rotten charp fruit, missed in the last picking, came sickeningly on the breeze.

  They sat on the edge of the irrigation ditch. Meatha had stopped crying, but she looked terrified. Her dark hair was dishevelled, and her lavender eyes seemed larger than ever and were bleary from the tears.

  Zephy was strung tight with impatience “Tell me! Whatever is it? Did some boy . . . ?”

  Meatha shook her head and swallowed. When she spoke at last, her voice was only a whisper. “Not a boy. It—I had a dream. No, it wasn’t a dream.” She stared at Zephy, shaken. “It was a vision, Zephy. I was awake. I was standing in the sculler. It was a seeing. Like Ynell.”

  Zephy caught her breath, fear rising; fear, and excitement.

  “A vision as real as if I were there; the wind was cold and I could smell the mountains. I was awake, Zephy. I didn’t see the sculler, I saw . . .” Meatha became silent Zephy stared at her, waiting, shocked with the sin of it—and with the wonder.

  When a dream occurred due to illness, it was supposed to be a gray colorless affair soon wiped clean from the mind with herbs and with sacrificial penances. To have a dream was a sin that could be cured—though Zephy and Meatha had never told anyone of theirs. But to have a true waking vision could only be dealt with through the sacrifice of death.

  “At first, before the cold wind came, I was standing by a wagon. The most wonderful wagon, painted with birds and flowers in bright colors. An old, tall man was driving. Lean and sunbrowned, with very white hair. I thought he was a man of great wonder. He didn’t say anything, but sat looking down at me while the horses churned and snorted. They were butternut color, not a stroke of white, and beautiful—like Carriol horses. He said—not in words, but in my thoughts and silently—that he must speak with me. There was something happening around us, some activity with many people. He spoke to me in silence, so they never knew. There was someone with him, a boy, but I could not tell who. Then the old man was gone and there was terror all around me, people were pulling at me and jerking at me and at someone else too. It was—they were pulling off our clothes . . .” Meatha caught her breath, her eyes full of such pain that Zephy’s own breathing was constricted. “Then it changed and I was alone in a place all barren, with white round boulders humping and a kind of white stone path that climbed the mountain. I was . . .” Meatha’s voice shook. “I was tied to the death stone, Zephy.”

  They had seen children dressed in rags and smeared with dung and filth, strapped across the backs of donkeys like sacks of meal, and taken away to the death stone. Children from Burgdeeth and from Sibot Hill and Quaymus, for only this one road led upward. Always the donkeys were accompanied by red-robed Deacons, and often by the town’s Landmaster himself, mounted and austere.

  They sat staring at the swirl of water in the ditch. Beyond the green rows of dill and tervil, the misty hills humped along the border between Cloffi and Kubal. To their left, the black towering mountains shadowed the town and fields. Up behind those peaks lay Eresu, where the gods dwelt. And those who defy the powers of the gods, those who sin as Ynell sinned, shall know death.

  Meatha was a Child of Ynell, they could no longer escape it. If discovered, she would die. Meatha, whose beauty was like the mabin bird, her pale translucent skin and dark hair, her incredibly lavender eyes. If Zephy had ever been jealous of that beauty, she could not be now. How could the Luff’Eresi be so cruel? What harm could Meatha possibly do?

  Meatha roused herself at last. “There’s bittleleaf to haul this afternoon; we won’t have time to hoe.”

  “We’ll be questioned about why we’re out here then. I wish . . . if we’d only be assigned to take a load of bittleleaf to Dunoon . . .” Zephy said hopefully.

  “The Deacons would never pick us again, not after last time. My mother said . . .”

  “I know. Both our mothers. And the Deacons mad enough to . . .”

  “To make a curse-penance on us at worship,” Meatha said with shame. But though they had been punished for swimming in the Owdneet, no one had discovered that the seats of their underpants were hairy from the donkey’s backs. For in a fit of boldness they had ridden the little beasts along the deserted shore of the Owdneet, galloping wild and crazy with delight, the word forbidden shrieking in their heads. No one had thought to look at their underpants, the wet condition of their hair being quite enough to send them, red-faced, to crouch on their knees for most of the seven days afterward, their hands and feet smeared with red clay to symbolize the destruction by fire that the anger of the Luff’Eresi could bring down upon all of Cloffi because of their sinning.

  Shanner had shouted with laughter when he heard. “Next time,” he had chided, “get the boys to take you; dallying with boys isn’t half so bad a sin as girls going by themselves to defy the Covenants. You could always say you fell in the Owdneet by accident in a fit of desire,” he had roared.

  But there would not be another time. Other girls, dutiful girls or girls clever in biding their activities, would be sent on the occasional hauling trip. Boys and men did not do such work. If the bittleleaf was delivered from Sibot Hill and there was no one from Dunoon to take its share up the mountain, then someone from Burgdeeth must. The bittleleaf, used for storing ice, did not keep well. Its replacement was needed often.

  For a long time, the shame the village had made them feel about that forbidden swim had been almost more than they could bear.

  “Even so, it was worth it,” Meatha said now, quietly and passionately. “It was the best day of my whole life. Swimming naked in the Owdneet and galloping in the wind was like—like being someone else, something . . . Oh, I don’t know exactly. Something wonderful.”

  “Yes,” Zephy said softly. And she remembered seeing Thorn of Dunoon there, high on the mountain above them guarding the flocks, his red hair catching the sun. She remembered the feeling it had given her of freedom—that one lone figure—remembered all the pleasure of that day, then the sudden weight of hatefulness that had nearly wiped it out when, returning home, they had been confronted by the Deacons. “Why is it that everything that’s a pleasure is a sin? When I was little, Mama used to tell me stories to make me forget the Deacons and their horrible meanness. Now I’m too old, I guess.” She missed the closeness with Mama, missed Mama’s understanding. Was Mama different because of Kearb-Mattus? Or did things just change when you grew up—is it me who’s different? She wondered.

  Now, the only time Zephy could touch that sense of joy that Mama’s stories had created for her was when she and Meatha went secretly to visit Burgdeeth’s teacher; and she said now, fearfully, “Are you going to tell Tra. Hoppa about the vision?”

  Meatha stared at her. “I don’t know. No. It would only put her in more danger. It’s enough that she teaches us secretly, tells us more than she teaches the boys, and that she’s told us about the tunnel. No one else in Burgdeeth
knows about that, not even the Landmaster, and we would all surely be killed if he found out. But now this—I can’t tell Tra. Hoppa this, I shouldn’t even have told you. Oh, Zephy . . .” Meatha dissolved into tears again, and Zephy, her brown eyes wide with compassion, held her and let her cry.

  But Meatha did tell Tra. Hoppa. She had needed desperately to tell someone older, and the little schoolteacher, who shared so many secrets with them, was the only adult they could trust.

  FIVE

  Tra. Hoppa’s house rose tall and narrow, alone at the edge of the village. Not attached to other houses, it found its own shelter in the ancient grove of twisted plum trees that had been there even before the Herebian Wars, before Burgdeeth was built.

  People said Tra. Hoppa was the only woman in Burgdeeth who didn’t work for her keep. As if teaching a bunch of fidgeting boys wasn’t work! The Landmaster sent only the youngest girls to tend her housegarden, thinking they wouldn’t be curious about the history of Ere, wouldn’t hunger to learn to read. For no Cloffi woman could read or do more than the simplest ciphering.

  Zephy had been only five when she tended Tra. Hoppa’s first garden; but Tra. Hoppa had made it easy for her, in her quiet way, to reach out: when the lessons began secretly they were wonderful to Zephy, who had been told all her short life that little girls did not yearn after reading and history, that only boys could attempt such tasks.

  But now, it was getting more difficult each day for Zephy and Meatha to make their way to Tra. Hoppa’s unseen. The excuses, when they were stopped by a Deacon, had become harder to think up. “What are you doing away from your garden? Why are you not in your sculler, threshing mawzee, baking bread?” There was a limit to how many times you could blame it on a loose donkey or an errand for Mama that might be checked on.

  Yet they needed these times with Tra. Hoppa. The Cloffi teachings in Temple were so depressing. Evil and sinning was all the Luff’Eresi seemed concerned about, and humans were weak vessels indeed, if you believed all the Covenants and rituals. Only when they were with Tra. Hoppa did they see, fleetingly, dignity and strength in humankind. Without Tra. Hoppa, they might have grown as sour as the dullest Cloffi woman.