Ello’s gaze slid down to where Dárja now flexed her fingers. “Is it true?” she asked again. “You will travel Outside with the nieddaš?”
Dárja nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Her mind, all the while, struggled to understand how this news could already be known. If Ello knew, then it would soon be common knowledge.
Ello rocked on her heels. A sad smile trembled on her lips. Then she jumped forward and hugged Dárja as if she meant to crush her.
Taller than Ello, Dárja felt more than heard the nieddaš’s fierce, rushed words. When Ello released her, Dárja swayed unsteadily. Ello’s eyes shone with tears, and her cheeks were as red as her hair. “Thank you,” she said, then abruptly walked away. The scent of damp earth and herbs lingered in her absence.
Aware that whispers had replaced conversations, Dárja straightened. She glanced at these faces she’d known her whole life, convinced they judged her as the Noaidi had done. Then she resumed walking toward the apothecary, careful to hide her uncertain step with an affected swagger.
Dárja found Kalek and Okta working quietly, side-by-side. However, she could tell by their rushed movements that both were anxious. In an effort to temper her own fears, she smiled. But the muscles of her face twitched, and she could feel the lump in her throat forming.
They both stared at her as she approached the work table.
“They have agreed,” Kalek said, more a statement than a question.
“Yes,” Dárja said, keeping her voice from wavering.
Kalek turned to Okta, obviously displeased.
Then something unspoken passed between the two healers that Dárja could not decipher. Kalek pushed the gathered lichen toward the old healer. He took up a satchel bundled next to him. “I must tend to the sick.”
He was out the door before Dárja could say anything. The sight of the door closing on his back had a finality that nearly drove her to run after him. Only her fear of further rejection kept her rooted.
“He’s mad at me,” she said, her words sounding hollow.
Okta looked up from sorting through the lichen. “No. Dárja. He is not mad. He is hurting. You are not alone in disappointing him. I am afraid I also hurt him today.”
Okta’s painful expression made Dárja hesitate before asking, “What did you do?”
The old healer shook his head. “Nothing I care to discuss. It is something which can never be undone.”
Without waiting for an invitation, Dárja sat down beside Okta. Her bones felt as old as the stones in the hearth. She sensed Okta’s looming questions, but her own were more pressing.
“Why did you send Kalek to find me?” she asked.
“Because,” Okta started and then stopped, as though the answer eluded him. He cleared his throat. “At the time, I told myself it was to save lives: yours, Irjan’s, maybe all of ours. The Noaidi had set into motion plans with which I did not agree. I stood against him for the first time in my life.” He paused again. A heavy sigh escaped him in a single long stream. “I think I did it for Kalek as well. He and Aillun had parted poorly and I knew enough to believe that he would never forgive himself. I thought, if he could find you, then some of his guilt might be assuaged.”
“What did the Noaidi do when Kalek showed up with Irjan and me?” Dárja asked.
Okta snorted. “He very nearly banished the lot of us. But I persuaded him that Kalek acted innocent of my interests and that you were a faultless babe and Irjan, well . . . Irjan was Jápmemeahttun. At least, in part.”
“In part,” she repeated, adding to herself, But not truly Jápmemeahttun.
“He proved himself,” Okta said as if to convince her.
“But sometimes there’s nothing you can do to change what they think of you,” she said.
Okta regarded her, his bushy brows nearly touching. “What do you mean?”
Dárja shrugged. “I mean, it doesn’t matter what I do, I’ll never be truly Jápmemeahttun.”
There, I’ve said it, she thought, feeling like a weight had suddenly been lifted from her shoulders.
“Where did you get that notion?” Okta blustered, his expression suspicious.
“The Noaidi,” she said, feeling no anger toward the Elder. He’d spoken the truth.
“Einár said that?”
Dárja nodded. “He’s right.”
“He has never been more wrong,” Okta huffed, shifting his weight to stand.
Dárja put her hand out. “No, Okta. Don’t.”
The old healer settled himself again, muttering in displeasure.
“He must know,” she said, feeling foolish for only now realizing what she should’ve figured out the moment she’d learned the truth from Irjan. “He’s always known,” she said with more certainty.
When Okta didn’t reply, she suspected she’d hit upon something else the healer would rather not discuss. “It’s not like before,” she said. “I know the truth.”
Okta nodded but she could tell the subject bothered him.
“If he knows the truth, then why did he accept me when I returned from the battle?” she asked. “Why wasn’t I cast out?”
Okta grimaced and appeared to age before her eyes. But she had to go on. She had to know.
“If I’ll never give birth . . .”
“We do not know that,” Okta interrupted, a shadow of his warrior-self coming through. “None of us do, not even the Noaidi.”
“So we’ll just wait?” she wondered aloud.
“Yes,” the healer said decisively. “We will wait.”
Dárja looked at Okta, at his gnarled hands that shook. “And if that time never comes?”
“There’s more to you than giving birth,” he snapped.
“But I will never become an almai.”
He waved away her objection with a contemptuous gesture. “If you need to be almai, be almai.”
“But my body will remain nieddaš.”
“The body is not all that we are,” Okta said so fiercely that Dárja stopped forcing the matter. Though she was far from convinced.
Okta winced. A moan escaped him. To Dárja sounded as if his very soul was being taken from him. And then she understood. In her time running around the apothecary, she’d seen and heard enough about the boaris to know what was happening.
“Your time . . .” she said, but could get no further.
Okta nodded, his eyes shut tight.
Panic grabbed hold of Dárja. It twisted her gut and then her heart. “What can I do? Should I get Kalek?”
Okta shook his head. He said hoarsely, “No.”
“What am I supposed to do?” she asked, frantic in the face of his agony.
Okta slumped against his chair, panting, his body limp. He reached out for her hand. Dárja felt heat radiating through his papery grasp. She wanted to ask him again what she should do, but she feared he’d said all that he could.
Kalek had raised his hand to knock on the weavers’ door when the door opened, and one of the clothmakers moved past him carrying a large spindle. He started to speak his purpose, but the nieddaš spoke first, “I am off to the woodworkers. Ávrá is at her loom. Do not scowl at me, Kalek. I told her to rest, but she did not listen, and I am not her guide mother.” The weaver hurried off across the landing and clumped down the stairs.
“Hello,” Kalek called out through the clacking looms. “Ávrá?” The clatter stopped. Ávrá stepped out from behind a pair of large woolen looms.
“Kalek, I didn’t expect to see you,” she said, smoothing her tunic.
“I see that,” he said, feeling out of sorts.
Ávrá’s thin face reddened, highlighting its strong angles.
“I am sorry, Ávrá,” he said, immediately ashamed of his tone of voice. “My words were ill-considered and undeserved.” He smiled hesitantly and reached into his satchel. “I brought this for your cough. I did not like the way it sounded this morning.” He handed her a ceramic jar with a neatly fitted wood lid. “Rub this on your chest before
going to sleep and again in the morning. It will ease your breathing and help your discomfort.”
Ávrá took the jar, beginning to cough as if on cue.
“I will leave so you can apply it,” Kalek said. He stepped back toward the door, regretting that he had spread his agitation and foul mood.
Aware of Ávrá’s scrutiny, he said in a rush, “I would rather you rested. You may feel improved, but rest will serve you far better than work.”
“Lying down has become tedious,” she said, with a shrug, then added shyly, “Perhaps if you stayed and talked to me for a while I would be more inclined to rest.”
Luckily Ávrá had lowered her eyes so Kalek’s blush went unnoticed. He turned to leave, then stopped. “You are right, Ávrá,” he said, recognizing the reprieve she had offered him. “Resting can be tiresome.”
Ávrá looked up and laughed a full belly laugh that ended in a fit of coughing. Concern for Ávrá’s welfare made Kalek slow to reflect upon the odd choice of his words.
He smiled tentatively, saying, “Perhaps I can bore you with my chatter until you fall asleep.” Kalek tucked Ávrá under the woolen blankets, then sat on the stool beside the pallet, finding himself unable to think of a suitable topic.
“You don’t have to amuse me,” Ávrá said, arranging the furs around her. “But, perhaps it will help you to speak of what troubles you.”
Kalek felt the floor shift under him, and he tried to recover his composure by adjusting the stool.
“I may have a cough,” Ávrá said with a kind smile, “but it does not cloud my eyes or my reason.”
Called out for his pretense, Kalek flushed and looked away. As he wondered where to start, he felt Ávrá’s slender hands on his.
He took their warmth as a sign of a fever and promptly retreated to the role of healer.
“You feel warm,” he fretted, loosing his hands from hers to touch her forehead. It was deceptively cool to the touch. Kalek shifted to stand, his mind already reviewing which herbs might be needed. A firm tug brought him back to himself.
Ávrá lay upon her pallet. Her pale eyes were patiently expectant.
Kalek continued to stand, the need to leave rising along with his discomfort. But he found he could not take a step under the nieddaš’s watchful gaze. The weight of the burdens he carried in his heart pulled him down, guiding him to sit once again.
“I feel like everything I love has been taken from me,” he managed to say, then the truth of his confession overwhelmed him.
Ávrá said nothing as she waited for him to make his way through the tangle of his emotions.
“Okta . . .” he started to explain but knew instantly he could not begin with this loss. Instead, he said, “Dárja has received the blessing of the Elders. She will protect the life bringers. She and Marnej both. I know she believes this is the only way to help us, but I cannot accept it.” Kalek faltered, his fear squeezing the breath from him.
“You are afraid to lose her,” Ávrá said.
Kalek nodded. “When Dárja ran away to the battle and did not return . . . I could not survive that again.” First Irjan. Now Okta. And soon Dárja. No. I will not survive, he thought. Aloud he said, “I am not her bieba, but . . .”
“She is Aillun’s mánná. You love them both.” Ávrá drew herself to sitting. The furs slipped from around her narrow shoulders. “I remember Aillun well. We were close as mánáid. When she began training as a healer and I as a weaver, we drifted apart. Our lives did not often cross. But my memories of her are sweet. I am sorry for your loss.”
“And Irjan,” Kalek said without thinking.
“True,” Ávrá said. “I did not know him. There was not much occasion for me to cross paths with him. Although I did see him often.”
“He was Dárja’s guide mother,” Kalek said.
“And your friend.”
“Mmm,” he agreed, leaving the rest unsaid. “And now Okta will shortly leave for his Origin.”
“I am sorry, Kalek,” Ávrá said softly.
Kalek looked away, certain her pity would crush him. “Part of me refuses to believe it is true because my life will never be the same when he is gone,” he said, his voice quivering like birch leaves in a cruel eastern wind. He paused, feeling his despair about to crest. “I will be alone.”
“You do not need to be alone,” Ávrá whispered.
Kalek nodded, hearing little over his fearful reflections. Then he felt the warmth of Ávrá’s hands upon his. Through his welling tears, Kalek made out the shape of her fingers as they intertwined with his. His heart skipped a beat, aching from both hope and sorrow.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
THE MEN SAT SHIVERING in the cave as the wind howled, their horses outside, too large to be brought further into the sloping recess. Beartu withdrew the rabbit from the smoky fire. Prying off a small piece of flesh, he blew on it, swearing all the while as the meat burned his fingers.
“Ready,” he said to anyone listening.
Beartu laid the rabbit on a low flat rock, then pierced its charred flesh with his knife. “Hand me the cups.”
The men passed forward the few cups they had stolen. Beartu cut the rabbit into meager portions, adding it to the stew that remained to them. He waited for Válde to decide who would eat first.
“Redde, Mures, Edo, Feles,” Válde said, staring down the others who hungrily awaited their turn. When the first four were done, they handed their cups back to Beartu. But they held on to their bones.
“Gáral, Herko, Daigu,” Válde said, raising his hand to wave off the cup Beartu held out to him. “You eat. I will go last.”
Beartu did not need to be told twice. He pulled flesh from bone with his teeth, then took a swallow of the stew.
Mures cracked his bone between his forefingers and thumbs, then sucked on the marrow.
Between bites, Beartu barked, “Don’t throw those bones into the fire when you are done. Put them in the pot and I’ll make bone broth for us all.”
Redde tossed his bone into the iron pot by the fire. It made a tiny plink as it landed. He handed his cup to Válde, who scraped the remnants of the meat from the rock where Beartu had carved it. He chewed slowly in an effort to make each morsel last.
“That wasn’t enough for a mouse,” Herko stated, cracking his bone and taking his knife to it. “Not even marrow for me.” He tossed the bone in the pot.
Feles cracked his, then handed half to Herko. Herko took it with an appreciative mumble.
Feles resumed scraping out the center of his half, saying, “It is better for all of us if you do not bellyache.”
Herko opened his mouth.
“Leave it, Herko. Save your energy,” Gáral said.
Beartu stood hunched, and using the edge of his cloak, he took hold of the iron pot.
“Any more?” he asked.
Válde reluctantly added the bone he had been sucking on to the pot.
“The rest of you can add yours when I am back,” Beartu said, heading toward the horses and the snow beyond.
“Does anyone have a leather cord?” Daigu asked. “I need to tie off my boot. The cold’s edging down my leg to my foot.”
“You’re better off than me,” Redde snorted, “I haven’t felt my feet for days.”
“Listen to you,” Gáral sneered.
“The only time I’ve felt warm is when we set fire to the temples,” Herko added, and then grinned. “They do burn nice and hot.”
Beartu came shuffling back, the iron pot heaped with snow. He knelt and placed the pot upon the coals.
“Speaking of fires,” Edo said, cleaning his knife on his pant leg before putting it back in its sheath. “Do we continue?”
“Can’t we find somewhere safe to hide until the snow ends?” Daigu asked, then yelped. He turned to glare at Gáral, rubbing the back of his head.
“Listen to you,” Gáral said again, his voice dripping with disgust. “Have we grown so weak that we cannot survive a season of snow without ru
nning to our mother’s bosom?”
“That’s easy for you to say, Gáral,” Mures complained. “You’ve had respite in travelers’ huts. We haven’t.”
“We cannot exactly walk into a village and ask to stay,” Edo pointed out.
“No, but none of us are known by our looks,” Daigu said. “A couple of us could scout the next village for an abandoned farm.”
“And when a passing trapper sees smoke rising from the chimney? Do you not think it will raise suspicion?” Feles asked.
“We know a regiment has been sent to hunt us. If we sit cozy in a cabin we will be vulnerable for ambush,” Válde said. “Our best strategy is to keep moving. The snow is as hard on them as it is upon us. But we can gain ground faster than they can. Our best chance of success is to keep striking as we have been doing.”
“Maybe there’s a better way,” Beartu said, stirring the rabbit bones in the melting snow. He sat back on his haunches. “If we were disguised as soldiers, we could move as we wanted and stay where we pleased, without question or bother.”
“Until some commander pulls us into their unit,” Herko objected.
“Or we’re seen burning a temple,” Redde added.
Beartu shook his head. “Don’t you see? It’s a perfect disguise for burning a temple. It’ll turn all the eyes and suspicion onto the army. They’ll be so busy crawling through their ranks to find traitors, they won’t have time to look for us.”
Válde scratched at his growing beard. “It is a risk to seek out soldiers.”
“Those scouts proved no obstacle,” Beartu pointed out. “Nor any others we encountered.”
Edo shook his head. “Nine uniforms? That is a lot of men to dispatch at once without anyone taking note.”
“Perhaps we only need one or two to begin with,” suggested Beartu. “With a couple of uniforms we could gain access to a garrison, where there are more for new recruits.”
“You propose that we infiltrate a garrison?” Válde asked.
“Yes,” Beartu said. “We would gain access to not only the uniforms, but also information. It’s not enough to listen to gossip from farmers and merchants.”
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