“Lena!” Grêt called to me, just as I turned to enter our hut.
“Yes?”
“Tomorrow, we go to the meadow, to the trees, to begin to gather sap. You must guard us.”
I nodded. “I will.” No different from guarding them while gathering firewood, I thought.
Cillian did not return until dark. “Ready to eat?” I asked. I'd stopped asking if he was hungry.
“No. Can we talk, first?” He ran a hand through his hair, long now, long enough to tie back. He hadn't shaved in some time, I noted.
“Of course. Tea?” I offered. He nodded.
“What do we need to talk about?” I asked, once we both had tea and had settled by the fire.
“Eryl has asked me to stay. Until midsummer, at least, and the gathering of the villages, when they can find a new vēsturni.”
“Do you want to?”
“What I want is not important. I should stay, if for no other reason to repay the hospitality and friendship he has given me.”
I thought of the plain to the east, of its wide, empty space. Knowing it was there had sustained me this winter. But all Cillian was asking was to stay a further six weeks or so. I could do that. Anyhow, did I have a choice? I wasn't going without him. But his first statement bothered me.
“How can you say what you want isn't important? It is.”
"Do not indulge in dreaming of what you do not have, but look at the blessings you do, and remember how much you would want them, if they were not yours,” he said, with the first hint of cynicism I had heard in months. “Good advice, would you not say, Lena?”
“Yes.”
“And I agree. What I want is nothing but a dream of what I do not have, and as such should be ignored. But I seem to be unable to be rational. 'Let men see and know a man who lives as he was meant to live', I was told, but understanding how I am meant to live is difficult for me, right now.”
This is beyond me, I thought. “Is this what you used to talk to Aivar about?” I asked.
“Yes. He was not familiar with Catilius, of course, but he had his own philosophy, and could debate wisely.”
“Which I cannot. I am sorry I am of so little help.”
“Just listening helps me order my thoughts. I should stay, Lena, at least until midsummer.”
“Then we stay.”
“You do not have to stay too, you know.”
I stared at him. “Don't be ridiculous,” I said. “Of course I'm staying. Do you think I would abandon you?”
A muscle jumped under his eye. “I cannot ask this of you.”
“You are not asking. I am offering.” I was getting exasperated. “When we go, we go together. Agreed?”
“And if at midsummer, I decide to stay longer? Maybe forever?”
“Cillian, you can't.”
“Why not?” He sounded serious.
“Because there is nothing here for you,” I said. “No books, no real learning. You are wasted here, all your training and education. We need to keep moving, to find somewhere where...where you fit, better.”
“What if there isn't anywhere? Would that not also be a waste of my training and education? Eryl wants me to create a written language for the Kurzemë, and teach it.”
“But there are still no books for you, no thought, just a task. I can't believe that Linrathe is the only place in the world where learning is honoured,” I said. “We just need to find another.”
“Why 'we', Lena? Say Casil does still stand? What is there for you, who needs space and freedom?”
“Those are two different questions,” I said slowly. “If I had stayed in Tirvan, if the last three years had never happened, in time I would have become a council leader, and dealt with the problems of a village, and lived my life not knowing there was anything more. But war came, and I met Colm, and then Perras and Dagney, and you, and now I do want to know more, to learn properly. At Casilla, if I needed space, I took my horse and rode out of the city. I imagine I can do something similar, wherever we go.”
I hadn't answered his first question. I wasn't sure I knew the answer, except that when I tried to imagine the unknown future, I was no longer alone. I did not want to face the plain, or whatever lay beyond it, without him.
We had made love only rarely in the past weeks, but this night he turned to me under the furs, his lips on my neck questioning. I responded readily, wanting him, wanting the connection, the communion that still, for me, transcended simple pleasure. I thought the same was true for Cillian, too.
How, though? Surely the asceticism of his philosophy should not allow this? I wondered if it was part of his confusion, and why we made love less often now. I curled against him. His breathing told me he was still awake.
“Cillian? What is it that you want, that is only a dream?”
“What do I want? Books. Thought. You were right, Lena.” He sighed. “And music, on a ladhar. My own language. Among other things.”
“You are homesick.”
“I suppose I am, in part. Aren’t you?”
“I miss Tirvan, but I had already decided I wasn't going back, you know. But I miss familiar things, yes. I think it is worse for you, because there is so little of what is important to you here. And you are considering staying, Cillian? How could you be happy?”
“Is happiness what we strive for, Lena? Or is it to be useful, as I would be, bringing literacy to a people, which is what Eryl would like me to do?”
“I would like you to be happy again,” I murmured. “You are not easy to live with, when you aren't.”
“No,” he said after a moment. “I do not suppose I am. If I am a burden to you, I apologize.”
“A burden?” I said. “Cillian, do you still not understand? I—” I stopped, shocked at what I had almost said.
“Understand what, Lena?”
I found words, through the confusion in my mind. “You are my friend, my lover, my companion. Not a burden, ever, although a worry, sometimes.”
“Look at the blessings you do have,” he quoted softly. “You are the best of them, leannan.”
“As you are, for me,” I said, suddenly, fiercely, needing to. “I hope you know that.”
“I have never thought of myself as a blessing,” he said, faintly ironic.
“Nor would I have, once,” I replied. “But I do now, as difficult and complicated as you are.”
He turned so he could look down at me, in the dim light. He ran a finger along my cheek. “I am difficult and complicated, I know,” he said softly, “and yet you still tell me I am a blessing? I am astonished.” He kissed me, gently. “But also pleased. Should we sleep now? It is late.”
I lay beside him, his hand on my thigh, feeling him slip easily into sleep. The familiar comfort should have allowed me to sleep too, but I could not. Over and over in my mind I heard the words I had so very nearly spoken: do you still not understand? I love you.
Stars gleamed on the eastern horizon as I stepped out of the door, water bucket in one hand, bow in the other. Yawning, I started down the path to the river. The ground squelched underfoot, soaking my deerskin boots. A wind blew off the mountains, a strangely warm wind. The day felt like sudden spring.
Voices in the half-light told me other women were about the task. I thought they sounded excited, this morning. Suddenly, I heard a deep creak, almost a groan, followed by snapping sounds, loud and explosive. Birds fell silent. The women cried out, a sound of exultation, running towards the river. I followed.
Another groan, a series of shatters, and then a splash, and another, and the unmistakable sound of water, running fast, and ice colliding and breaking. I reached the bank. The river, silent for so long under the winter's ice, ran free, pushing debris and chunks of ice up against the banks, carrying more as it churned its way eastward. The women fell to their knees at its brink, offering prayers, thanking their gods for another winter done. I did not kneel. My eyes moved along the river, and then behind us, and back to the river. Nothing moved.
Wate
r collected, I returned to our hut, Cillian had built up the fire and was stirring the porridge, begun the night before. He glanced up at me, smiling. I smiled back, unable not to, and bent to kiss him.
“Will you talk to Eryl today?” I asked.
“You are still sure, this morning?”
“I am,” I said. “We will stay till midsummer.”
He nodded. “The river is running again. Did that make it easier to get water?”
“You recognized the sound?” I said. “I didn't know what it was, at first, until I saw what was happening.”
“The river flowing free again at the end of winter was a time of celebration in Sorham, too,” he told me. “I have been there when it happened, a time or two.”
“The women were very pleased,” I answered. Chopping the ice every morning—and often every afternoon, too—had been a huge and dangerous chore. We ate breakfast. Cillian, I noted, had a good appetite this morning. He saw me watching him.
“I am hungry, it seems,” he said.
“One less worry,” I told him. “What are you doing today?”
“I thought I might check the snares, the higher ones.”
“Alone? I’m needed to guard the women this morning. Grêt said we were going to the meadow. The wind is very warm, and the snow will melt quickly today. I don't like the idea of you being up on those hills alone when the snow is unstable.”
“Perhaps Fél will go with me. If he can't, I will check the lower line. So as not to worry you,” he added drily, a smile playing on his lips.
“Thank you,” I replied, as equally drily. A tap at the door made me look up. Kaisa peered in. “Lena,” she said, “bring buckets.”
Birch sap, boiled down, became a sweet syrup; we had not made it, in Tirvan, but occasionally some had come our way, with a soldier at spring festival. I'd never seen it harvested, or made, though. “I am coming.” I said. Kaisa went on her way.
Outside, water dripped from icicles and snowbanks. The village women stood in the central clearing, talking and laughing. Children chased each other, throwing balls of the soft, clumping snow, excited. Clearly, this was a special day.
“Come,” Grêt said, beckoning to us. As a group, we followed her out of the village, along the river, the rapidly-softening snow making walking difficult. We began to climb, which was even harder. I needed all the discipline I had learned on the Wall to keep focused on my task, and not on last night's epiphany. Ahead of us, a stand of birch trees spread out across a meadow, intermixed at the higher end with denser evergreens.
In the birch grove, we unloaded children and buckets. To my surprise, Grêt called me forward. She held out her hand. “Your knife,” she said. “I will show you how to cut, and then you can do it. Your knife will cut deeper and better than ours, and make the work easier.” I gave her the secca. This was not what I should be doing, but she was headwoman, and I would obey her, for the sake of peace. “Watch,” she said, and made a deep slash in the tree, just at her waist height. From a bag hanging from her belt, she took a section of wood, carved to resemble half a hollow reed, pushing its sharp end firmly into the cut, then tapping it in with a mallet. Another woman stepped forward to place a bucket under the spigot. A drop of sap rolled down the conduit, splashing into the bucket.
“You see?” Grêt asked. I nodded. I made a slash in the next tree, stepping back to let Grêt examine it. “Deeper,” she ordered. I cut again, getting the feel of the wood's resistance to the knife. Satisfied, Grêt pushed a spigot into the slash, and nodded to me to move on.
I worked my way up the slope, concentrating on the cuts. This is better than just guarding, I thought. It needs focus. The other women followed to place spigots and buckets. Halfway up I stopped to pull off my heavy outer tunic; I was hot from the work, and the sun warm. When I found Kaisa next to me, I asked her, in my own language, “what will you do with the sap?”
“Drink it, this first gathering,” she said. “It is a—how you say?—it gives energy—after the winter.”
“A tonic,” I answered. “And then?”
She laughed. “Then we put the sap in pots near the fire, but not too near, and leave it there for one cycle of the moon, until it bubbles and foams. And then we have a big celebration!”
I nodded. There was no wine here, and only a thin, bitter beer. Whatever the birch sap fermented into, it would fuel a night or two of excess, I guessed. “Does Fél enjoy it?” I asked.
“He does now. Very much,” she added with a sly glance. “Two of our babies begin from it, I think.” She paused. “But he did not like it much at first, so maybe you won't either.” She reached out a hand to my arm. “Those trees are not good,” she said, indicating the birch intermixed with the evergreens. “Too thin, and the sun does not warm them to make the sap flow. We stop here.”
I stretched, flexing my back, surveying the area. From the hillside I could see the river, running down and round a bend, and the treed slope of the other valley wall. A confined world, but larger than the crowded space of the village and the low-ceilinged, dark huts. I watched the flow of the river, free now after its winter's freeze, wondering where it went. Out to the plain, I supposed. Could it be followed? I bent to take a handful of snow, to clean the blade of my knife.
My eyes were on the secca—working the sticky sap off the blade without cutting myself needed care—when I heard a scream. I looked up. A child lay in the snow screaming in fright: approaching her was an animal unknown to me. The size of a large dog, heavily furred, it swayed towards her on stocky, muscular legs, a band of paler fur across its forehead. Its bared teeth and focused stare left no doubt of its intentions.
“Jerv,” I heard Vesna moan. I straightened, slowly, my eyes on the beast, reaching for my bow. It stopped its approach, moving its stare to me, and then back to the child. She cowered, trying to curl herself into a ball. The jerv began to bound forward. Massive claws reached towards the child. No time for the bow, when my knife was in my hand.
The secca hit it just behind its front legs. It snarled and twisted, trying to bite at the embedded knife. Behind me I heard gasps and murmurs. Twisting and contorting, the animal shook the knife free, but blood pulsed from the wound, staining the snow bright red. It stopped its gyrations, panting a little, still looking at the screaming child, wavering. I let one arrow fly, and then a second. The jerv fell, convulsing. It twitched and lay still.
I walked forward to retrieve my arrows and my knife. I cut the animal's throat to ensure it was dead; blood drained but did not spurt. The little girl, in the arms of her mother, still wailed.
“Is the child hurt?” I asked.
“No,” Grêt said. “Just frightened. We thank you. We will honour this in the village, tonight.”
There was something I was supposed to say. What was it? I tried to remember. The hunters said it when they brought the kills home. Grêt waited. “I did only what I could,” I said, the words coming back to me. She nodded.
We gathered up the children and the shed clothes and unused buckets, and walked back in a loose line to the village. The little one had stopped her sobbing and appeared to be asleep on her mother's shoulder. The other children walked quietly, subdued for now by fright. Kaisa made her way to my side.
“What was that creature?” I asked. “I've never seen anything like it.”
“The jerv?” she replied. “They are cruel hunters. Be glad it was a female, and perhaps thin and weak from feeding her cubs. The males are twice as large, and vicious. Had you injured a male like that it would likely have turned on you.” I shuddered, remembering the claws and teeth. “The men will look for the cubs. It will have a den dug in the snow somewhere near and there will be a trail to follow. The men will kill them all, with spears, and there will be more rabbits and deer for us next summer.”
“What of its mate?” I asked. “Will it not attack the men?”
“If it is there, it might try, but it does not stay with the female and the cubs,” she answered. “Like
your men, Lena, in your land.” She laughed. “I will say to Fél that I have tamed a jerv, because he stayed with me, and did not leave me to raise the babies without him.”
We reached the outskirts of the village. The village's herd of sheep browsed on thin branches cut and thrown down for them, two men guarding them. Lambing had begun and the smell of blood attracted predators. Grêt called out as we approached the huts. Eryl and Ivor appeared. Briefly and succinctly, she told them what had happened. Ivor glanced my way, and back to Grêt, but he did not speak to me.
“You made sure it was dead?” Eryl asked.
“I cut its throat,” I said. He nodded. I turned away, taking the buckets back to our hut. Behind me I could hear orders being given to the men, to collect weapons and begin the hunt for the cubs.
Inside the dark hut, I fed a few pieces of wood to the fire to heat water. Cillian had gone, perhaps readying for the cub hunt with the other men. I made tea, picked up my knife, and sat, looking out the open door. Throwing the secca at the jerv had been an act without conscious thought. I had been trained to kill men in that way in another life. I rubbed at the secca's blade and hilt with a skin, cleaning it of the jerv's blood and the last traces of sap, just enough of my mind on the job to keep me from cutting myself. The rest of my conscious thought grappled with last night's revelation.
Cillian. I tried to analyze my feelings with the objectivity I had learned from xache. I had gone from disliking him to a reluctant respect, and then to true liking coupled with strong physical attraction born of proximity and shared experience, and appreciation. And, I admitted, he is beautiful: handsome, graceful, deft—and what we share as lovers has been an epiphany itself. Was I mistaking all this for love?
No. Difficult and complicated as he was—and I had not been wrong, last night, to describe him that way—he had breached a wall in me I had believed impenetrable. Quietly, almost unnoticed, he had found a way into my heart. I did love him.
What did it change? On the surface of things, nothing. We were already paired, by fate and by choice. But there is still that slight distance in him, I thought, that untouchable core of reticence, something held back, except when we make love. I wondered, not for the first time, what that meant.
Empire's Legacy- The Complete Trilogy Page 72
