"You're leaving, Charras?"
"Yes. My first year was up a week ago, so Harken doesn't have to give my father his dowry back."
"Did she send you away?"
"No! I decided on my own. That is--" She ducked her head and smiled a little foolishly. "Sholol and I decided. He's one of the king's guards. We're going to get married, and he doesn't even care about the dowry."
"Good for you. I'm very pleased to hear it. Sit down and have some tea with us before you go."
To her credit Charras took Joli's hand and smiled into her face without flinching when I introduced them. I got a pot of water and heated it with guile, which I'd been doing frequently, just to delight Joli. She'd seen Orath torture people and cast appalling spells but never do anything as simple and useful as boil water. We sat and drank tea together, and Charras told us more than we really needed to know about her young man. Finally I changed the subject.
"Have you seen Harken recently? Since she's come back from her travels, I mean?"
"Just for a few seconds," Charras said. "I was at the front when a carriage brought her, so I was going to help carry her things to her apartment. But Kaski and her friends pushed me away, and they huddled all around Mother Harken and hurried her down the hall. I saw her for a little bit, though. She looked awful."
"When was that, Charras?"
She got a far-away look, counting. "Three days ago," she said at last. "Or four. It was a day Sholol was on duty, so we couldn't meet. He had to--"
"Yes, I saw her yesterday and she still looked awful. Where did she go, do you know?"
Charras shook her head. "Nobody said. But I heard unofficially that she was somewhere in the East. She was gone for nearly a month."
It had been nearly a month since we started back across Maal after the meeting of the Queen's Council. Nearly two months since Orath's death.
"And she didn't announce where she was going or why?"
"No. In fact, Vivia, I don't think it was planned. She was going to give us all a talk, explain something, how to do something...I forget... But anyway, suddenly she was gone instead. And nothing was quite like it should be. Kaski was in charge, and she was angry. She treated old sister Keln very bad, for one thing. I saw her out by the orchard, whipping the old lady across the back with a stick! Can you imagine? I ran and grabbed the stick out of Kaski's hand and brought Keln in to my room and gave her some peppermint tea. Poor old thing."
Poor old thing indeed. Harken had been cruel to Keln, but not to the point of hitting her with sticks, for as long as I'd been here. I supposed it was only to be expected that Harken's minion would follow suit. As for where Harken had been and why, that mystery wasn't up to me to solve.
When Charras had gone to meet her guardsman, promising to let me know the when and where of their wedding, I got some breakfast for Joli and myself and went to help with the dishes later--it was a community, after all, and I hadn't done my share for a while. Afterward, I found some paper and pens and ink, a slate and some chalk, and told Joli it was time for her to start learning her letters.
It would be good for both of us to have something to do. Joli had always worked hard, which at least took up most of the hours in every day. Here there was nothing for her but dreary idleness. I intended to take more walks with her, introduce her to some of the countryside and its wildlife, and perhaps show her a few of the herbs and flowers that healers used in their art. She'd be my ward for at least a few years, after all, and I'd be working as a healer when we left Ladygate, no doubt. Joli could help me.
I, too, badly needed some occupation. Until three months ago, I'd spent my time with the community studying, working at the chores assigned me, and--I had to confess--nursing a grudge against Harken, most of my fellow witches, and especially Raym for leaving me here. Now all of that seemed to have happened ages ago. The woman I'd been then was another person, someone I could hardly identify as myself. I needed to move on and find a life.
Unfortunately, I was in no shape to think clearly about where and what that life might be. I dreamed about Raym every night, still, and woke up weeping often as not. And that was only part of the problem. Once, dragging myself to the kitchen to help with meal preparation, as I knew was my duty, I found myself thinking, I know. I'll take Joli to Muir Town when the snow flies, and we can stay for a season with my family... And then it hit me that I had no family.
For almost ten years I'd been accustomed to knowing that my father and at least one of my brothers were somewhere in Monsara, traveling or making preparations to travel. I hadn't missed them or the life I'd led with them, but somehow they were always there. Now, though, each time the realization that Father and Jareth were dead came back to me, it was as if I'd just learned they were gone. I felt like a ship whose hawser had been cut without my knowing, leaving me suddenly adrift.
Katra had told me that melancholy was the worst of illnesses, because it left the sufferer open to a host of other troubles but without the will to resolve them. I was fast sinking into such melancholy, and I knew it. Teaching Joli to read and write, I hoped, would at least help me to slow down this process, if not to reverse it.
A day passed, and then two more. On the fourth afternoon, when Joli had progressed silently to the recognition of cat, bat, and hat, her eyes sparkling with wonder at a form of language that didn't require sounds she couldn't make, I heard a wrangling in the hall outside our door. One of the voices was Kaski's.
"Mother Harken will see it first. She is to review all communication, coming or going."
"But the guardsman said to put it in Vivia's hand myself. It has the prince's seal!"
"It makes no odds whose seal. Mother Harken must--"
I opened the door. Thelia, one of the younger novices, was holding a letter above her head while Kaski lunged for it. She brought it down and I grabbed it. "Thank you, Thelia. Kaski, go away."
The older woman's eyes narrowed angrily, but at length she whirled around and stalked off toward Harken's quarters. I went back inside, locked the door, and opened the letter. It was from Tedor, saying he'd be at the end of our lane early the next morning with guards and a coach. He was ready to take Joli to Raym.
As we packed her few belongings, Joli seemed unhappy. I reassured her that Tedor would be kind, that Raym would be pleased to see her, and that I'd be waiting for her return. She already knew all this. What worried her, I realized, was something else entirely. Me.
I couldn't hide my misery well enough. I wanted to be going with her, and I would not be going with her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Having no reason not to give in to my feelings, for two weeks after Joli left, I was in a self-perpetuating funk. I'd had occasional black moods like this while living with Katra in my early teens. Periods of mental cloud descended lower and lower, until I crept around under them like a small, angry mole, moaning or growling when forced to speak, wanting to bite someone.
Katra had told me, wisely and very kindly, considering that she took the brunt of my meanness, that no one could lift that gloom but me, and that the only way to do it was to pretend to be cheerful. "Act," she'd said. "We're actors, among other things. Act as if you feel happy, even though we both know you don't. You can't act like that every minute, but do it for as long as you can, as often as you can. Eventually one of those times you won't be acting. It'll be real."
She could have used guile to lift my spirits, but she didn't, for which I've always been grateful. And she was right. Shadows that loom in the darkness evaporate in the light. The things that cast those shadows are usually pretty small. The trick is to light the light.
Try as I would now, I couldn't do that. I knew that I'd leave Ladygate when Joli returned. I knew I should plan for where to go, what to do then. But I had no plans and no incentive to make any. I ate my meals and they were tasteless. I worked in the kitchen, in the gardens, even in the laundry, only to be in motion, doing something that would wear my body out. I took no solitary walks, for solitude h
ad come to be a curse.
Charras was gone, staying with a cousin in Heart Town until her marriage would take place. I had no other friends at Ladygate, and the women who'd stood in the place of friends, casual acquaintances only, avoided me and my scowls and silences. I retreated to my room, picked up books and put them down, slept for hours. Only in sleep was I alive, and my dreams were all as dark as my waking.
One day someone came to my door in the early afternoon, not Kaski but another of Harken's friends. She told me that Harken wanted me. Now, she said, and although at another time I'd have resisted, merely perhaps to be resisting, I shrugged and went with her.
Harken looked better, almost like her old self. She hadn't used guile to improve her appearance. I noted this but didn't think much about it. She stood as I entered her room and smiled her usual false, smug smile. "Vivia. I'm sorry I haven't been at leisure to talk with you until now. And I've heard you've been unwell. Nothing serious, I hope?"
Only heartbreak. "A little cold," I said. "I'm over it now. You're looking better too."
She ignored this. "I've been curious, Vivia, about your recent adventure in Maal. Since I sent you there, I believe I ought to be privy to the details." Her smile was more of a smirk. "I want to hear all about it. Wouldn't you like to tell me?"
I didn't want to talk to her, so I shrugged. The only one I cared to see was far from here and would never talk to me again. "Why not?"
She looked at me curiously. "Why not indeed? You say Maltuk killed Orath; how did he do that?"
"With a sword. The blade was dull, but it was sharp enough at the point."
"I see. Why didn't she turn the blow? Where was her guile?"
"Gone," I said. "Like the foam on the river."
She looked at me blankly, as if putting it together.
Finally she said, "I want to tell you something, Vivia. Something just between us, something that doesn't belong here in this building. Come walk with me."
Another time I might have refused. I wasn't eager to hear her secret, if that was what it was. I certainly wasn't anxious to make her like me--rather the opposite, if anything. When I think of it now, I believe I simply didn't care. It was easier to say yes than no.
We walked, not toward the bridge which was always my choice, but along a little side path that ran about a quarter mile from and parallel to Heart Stream. Harken said nothing as we went, concentrating I supposed on the energy this exertion demanded, for she wasn't an active woman. At length we arrived at a lovely little meadow whose western boundary was the stream. The lower part of the meadow, I knew from having been here fairly often, was boggy, wet in the springtime and even now, after a rainy summer. We stayed in the upper part.
"We'll sit down." Harken sank with surprising grace onto the ground. "I've never told anyone this."
Something bothered me, although her feelings were cloaked. I remained standing. "Maybe you shouldn't tell me either. You may come to regret--"
"Quiet," she snapped. "Listen. Sit and listen. I'll never tell it again."
She used a bit of guile on me then, but even without it she'd broken through my bad humor. I realized that this might be something I ought to pay attention to. I sat on the ground a couple of yards from her, facing the path, and waited.
"When I was a little girl," said Harken, "I was left in the care of my eldest sister. She was my half-sister, really, my father's first child as I was his last. There were years between us, thirty at least, probably more. My mother had died at my birth. All his wives died, her mother first, mine last. He died then too, so I never knew him. She was my sister but was like a mother. The closest thing I had to one. I loved her. One does, I suppose."
Why is she telling me this?
"When I was twelve my guile came on me. I told her, of course. She wasn't frightened, as some women might have been. After all, she was a woman of guile herself."
Something came to me then, a memory...an alarm? I tried hard to bring it to mind, now very alert.
But Harken went on. "She tested me, and my guile pleased her. I was strong, she said. She'd give me another test. She took me walking with her in the woods beyond our house. We lived near here, you know. Over in the hills beyond Horok's fastness. We were farmers, and I never saw anyone but family."
She took me walking... I wanted to jump up and leave now, although I didn't yet know exactly why. But something, maybe a combination of Harken's guile and my own horrified fascination, kept me there.
"We came to a little meadow," she said, "and there she told me to go to sleep. There would be a surprise for me when I woke. Of course she used guile on me, and I did sleep.
"But when I woke it was to a sort of violence I hadn't known about, because she'd never told me. It was an animal thing. We were farmers, after all, and I'd seen cows being serviced by the bull, ewes by the ram. I'd always thought they were willing."
Suddenly I knew. I remembered Riga, and I heard Orath's voice again. Did you know I was born in your country? I was very close to my family, especially my younger sister, and to no one else. I knew now who Harken was.
She knew I knew. She smiled. "I'm glad you've heard it, Vivia. No one else ever will. Thank you for listening. Thank you for making her die."
I had paid no attention to her hands, but now I noticed that one was concealed in the folds of her dress. I tried to stand but I could not. I couldn't speak. My mind worked, my eyes and ears, and my lungs. I could think and I could breathe, and that was all. She stood up and turned her back to me, and then, quick as a wink, she was changed.
Before me was a whispering in the grass.
Everything happened as if we were caught in a place where time passed more slowly. There was a snake, coiled, swaying, its hood erect, its tongue flickering. Its eyes were like little black gems and its wide, flat head moved sideways, right and left. This was why Harken had been so sparing with her guile until now. She hadn't dared to overspend her power. Strong as she was, she was not as strong as she had been once.
I was filled with awe--and horror.
Stronger than Orath? How Harken must have hated Orath. And how Harken must hate me, the one she'd hoped could defeat Orath as she could not. The one who had.
The beautiful, terrible, reptilian head swayed back and forth. She'd saved the Great Shift to impress me. Not just to kill me, but to show that, despite what Orath had done to her, she was stronger than I.
Suddenly I heard pounding footsteps along the path, an unfamiliar voice crying my name. "Lady Vivia! Lady Vivia!"
I glanced quickly away from the serpent's hypnotic sway. Out of the trees, into the meadow came Joli, her eyes glowing.
"Vivia! Listen to me! I can say your name!"
The next instant she stopped still, her attention entirely upon the snake. "Don't move," she said.
I didn't. I had no choice, but Joli didn't know that.
She bent, her eyes never leaving the serpent that was Harken. She picked up a heavy, sharp-edged stone.
Why didn't Harken hear her? I've never been sure. Maybe, as some people say, because snakes have no ears, they can only feel movements through the ground. I've never troubled to investigate this.
It seems more likely to me that she did hear Joli's approach, or at least feel it, but was so intent on killing me that she ignored it. In any case, the serpent continued to sway, noiselessly, marvelously, enjoying the moment, preparing to strike. I saw it and couldn't move.
Joli came closer. "Don't move, Vivia," she said again, and took another step toward us. She lifted the stone over her shoulder and cast it down, swift and hard.
The sharp edge hit the snake a little behind its head, pinning it to the ground. It thrashed and whipped about. Before it could free itself, Joli bent again and pulled a little knife out of her boot. She took three quick steps forward and put one foot on the body of the thrashing serpent. At the same time she crouched and slashed with her knife. Her second slash parted the snake's head from its writhing body. The body kept thrashi
ng, whipping blood out onto the grass, as Joli backed up. "Don't go near the head," she said. "It's dead, but it can still bite."
She picked up the stone and slammed it down on the head. "There," she said. "Now that's got it. Get up, Vivia. Lady Vivia, I mean."
"Just Vivia." I'd never heard anything as beautiful as her voice.
* * * *
I spent the evening listening to Joli, who was trying to cram thirteen or fourteen years of talk into five hours. She stopped briefly to eat, and then went on. The prosthesis not only allowed her to speak plainly, but it also changed the look of her face. The defect was still apparent, but it was not the first thing one noticed about her.
She told me of her childhood, her parents, who were dead, her sisters and brothers, people she'd known at Maltuk's court, interesting stories she'd heard, funny or sad or simply curious things she'd seen. She mentioned the lady Orath once or twice in passing, her wide-ranging account skirting around the great witch she'd served, like a stream splitting itself at a boulder and rejoining itself seamlessly on the other side.
She spoke of her journey with Tedor, the sights they'd seen, the stories he'd told her. She came at last to Raym, a subject she obviously felt that she must avoid for my sake. She stammered for the first time and grew quiet, looking down, glancing at me from under her eyelashes.
I took advantage of the silence. "It's time for bed, Joli. Tomorrow comes early, and we have all that reading to review."
I put my arms around her and hugged her close, kissing her face as I had in Orath's guest room. "Thank you, Joli," I whispered, "for saving my life." And my sanity, although I didn't say it. My brush with death, Joli's return, and Harken's death had effectively cleared my mind of all the melancholy cobwebs. Then I thought of something. "Joli, today when you came back, how did you know where to find me?"
"Prince Tedor's coachman left me at the end of the lane. And on my way to the great house, I saw the lady who came to say goodbye to you the day after we got here. She was with her young man." She giggled. "They were kissing."
A Glimmer of Guile Page 17