Children of the Wolves

by Jessica Starre

  “I don’t think anybody would mind if you took that with you,” Michael said. Her back stiffened; she hadn’t heard him approach. The affection in his voice was worse than anger would have been.

  “You startled me,” Jelena said, catching her breath. She trailed a hand on the chest and glanced up at him again, feeling shy. She had known him seven years. For some reason, she’d thought he would be angry with her. But it turned out he was relieved, glad to no longer bear the burden of protecting her. “If you think it will be acceptable.”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Jelena — ”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you — was there any other reason you asked for me to be released from my duties as your protector?”

  “Any other reason?”

  “Other than your concern that I have too many other obligations to be your protector,” Michael said gently.

  “No,” she said firmly. It was too late to change anything. “No, you have too many demands on you and I’m obviously unawakened. It’s just time to accept the way it is, that’s all. Best this way.”

  “I see.”

  She gathered up her belongings. He stayed just inside the doorway, watching her. She hesitated, then began, “Michael — ” only to glance up and see Rodrigo and Teresa at the door.

  “I’m sorry! We didn’t realize you were here,” Teresa said. “Rodrigo was tired and I was going to show him the space, but we can — ”

  “No, no,” Jelena said, moving out of the small sleeping alcove into the main room. “Feel free.” She smiled at Rodrigo, bowed at the waist to him. “I’m Jelena,” she said to him. He wouldn’t remember meeting her earlier in the caves. He inclined his head shyly and she pulled back the curtain to her former sleeping room and said, “Here’s the place. It’s nice and cool in the summer, warm and snug in the winter.”

  He smiled at her and walked forward delicately, as if unsure of his step. A landsman aboard a ship. He paused at the curtain, looking at the black symbols she had embroidered there. His eyes widened. “The way of no way … the hard and the soft, the day and the night …” Then he stopped and shook himself, smiled apologetically at Jelena and went into the room to lower himself to the pallet. Jelena frowned after him but said nothing. She understood what he meant but she didn’t understand how he could know it. Perhaps when he awakened, he would explain.

  She passed by Teresa without a glance, paused by Michael and gave him a tiny kiss on the cheek, just as a sister might. He watched her go, leaning against the wall as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  Just as well. The outcry if the pastor had partnered with an unawakened woman would have been loud and fierce and unbearable. More than she could ask of Michael. Although she thought she herself might have been able to bear it, for him.

  Chapter Eight

  No wonder the unawakened threw themselves to the wolves, Jelena thought as she washed yet another cup. Everyone else moved with a sense of purpose, a higher calling — even Bertha. Especially Bertha. For Jelena, the days passed with an unutterable sameness. The chores never changed and the hope of awakening, so often the source of frustration, had disappeared, leaving nothing in its place but flatness, and emptiness.

  That evening, a few weeks after she’d declared herself unawakened, she pushed the kitchen door open to a buzz of excitement. Bertha was in intense consultation with Cara over specifics of a menu. Puzzled, Jelena turned to little Matthias, a trueborn boy who served as a helper in the kitchen.

  “Bertha says we’re to host visitors,” he reported, eyes wide at the thought.

  Jelena eyed the dishes piled in the sink and resolutely turned her back on them.

  “What visitors?” she asked.

  “They say it’s to be the Sithan warriors.”

  “The Sithans!” Jelena’s voice rose a few notes higher than usual. She stole a glance at Bertha and Cara, who ignored her. “Why are they coming?” she asked, lowering her voice. But here Matthias’s small supply of knowledge dried up. He shrugged his thin shoulders, picked up the wooden bucket and went over to the pump.

  Jelena turned back to the pile of dishes in the sink. Why were the Sithans planning to visit the Wudu-faesten? Perhaps it would be a chance for peace between the tribes. She thought of Rufus and his Umluan pony. Maybe they had caught wind of his plan to trade for more of the ponies. Were the Sithans afraid the Wudu-faesten tribe would become warlike? Surely the Wudu-feasten were no threat to them.

  Speculations ran rife through the kitchen and dining hall all morning long. It made a nice change from the tedium.

  After the midday meal had been served and cleared and washed up, Jelena sat at the wooden cutting table, a cup of tea at hand as she rested her feet for a few minutes before starting preparations for the evening meal. A few of the helpers scurried around, darting glances her way but not saying anything. She refused to feel guilty for taking a few minutes’ rest in the middle of another long and boring day. The truth was, no one demanded that the unawakened work as hard as they did. It was an internal pressure — ashamed of their very existence, they tried to prove they were meaningful, integral, by working ceaselessly.

  Yet they would always lack. They would never earn the respect and love of the community. They were tolerated as long as they were more helpful than burdensome. Their status could change at any moment. They had no voice. But did any of them, really, even the awakened? Maybe the unawakened were simply more aware of their tenuous position. Perhaps all of them were equally vulnerable, yet did not know it.

  Jelena closed her eyes, sipped her tea and tried not to think about her life stretching on and on before her, bleak and empty and unendurable. Even if the awakened were in as precarious a position as the unawakened, at least their lives were more interesting.

  “There you are,” Bertha’s voice boomed across the kitchen. Jelena glanced over at the big woman, who strode over to where she sat. It wasn’t as if Jelena had been hiding. She had been in this very spot ever since the last dish had been put away.

  “You’ve heard then?” Bertha said.

  “About the Sithans?” Jelena said, automatically rising to her feet.

  “Be up to you and me to do this right,” Bertha told her, settling a well-endowed haunch against the cutting table.

  “Probably.”

  “We’re the practical ones. We’ll have to get the rooms ready and fix a fancy meal,” Bertha said with a sigh, as if she hated to fix a fancy meal. Jelena knew better.

  “When is the visit to take place?”

  “Next meeting day,” Bertha said. “It’ll just be a small group, so we have plenty of time for preparations, but Lana has turned up sick again and those hall-keepers won’t accomplish anything without supervision.”

  “I’ll do it,” Jelena said, sensing an opportunity for a few hours away from the kitchen. Cleaning rooms instead of cleaning dishes. It would be a change. Anything for a change.

  The next few days were a bustle of activity and even a little fun. The villagers were curious about meeting members of the tribe they knew so much — and yet so little — about. Now and then Jelena came upon a knot of people talking in low urgent voices and overheard their gossip:

  “They say they are all tall and scarred from battle.”

  “They murder outsiders.”

  “They throw their unawakened to the wolves.”

  “Their warrior chief is a woman. You know what that means.”

  Jelena didn’t know what was true — and doubted the gossipers did, either — but she was extremely interested to discover if the Sithans were as frightening as believed.

  The best sleeping rooms in the main hall were turned out, cleaned and swept, furnished with the last flowers from the gardener’s greenhouse, although this late in the summer, as he to
ld everyone without griping range, it was only by the grace of all that was good that he had had any blooming flowers left to cut at all.

  Jelena scrubbed until her fingers were numb. She found solace in the nonstop work. She had little time to think and to brood over a life that suddenly lacked meaning. She no longer had any of those strange flashes of insight into her pastself that she’d once had. She told herself firmly that this was merely a sign that she’d been right; she would never awaken now.

  Now, she stood pondering what to do about the sleeping pallet in the room she was currently cleaning. Should she replace it, which meant hauling it out back, dumping the straw in the compost pile, cleaning the linen cover, and stuffing it with fresh straw or should she just fluff the thing? As she considered, she heard a deep throaty laugh from across the hall in the quarters she and Michael had once shared. She stopped cold.

  None of her business what Teresa did in her spare time, she reminded herself. Absolutely none of her business. She bit her lip, then gave herself up to curiosity and crept across the hall to crouch near the closed door. Through the slats she heard Teresa say in a low, teasing voice, “Ay, you’re catching on fast,” and then Rodrigo responding with laughter, “I’ve had a good teacher.”

  Teresa and Rodrigo. Jelena stood still, holding her breath as she peered through the slats to see the two locked in an embrace, Teresa’s golden hair spilling over Rodrigo’s arm as he pulled her close and kissed her, a purr of satisfaction rising from Teresa’s throat.

  Jelena’s heart thudded fast. She slipped back to the room across the hall where she’d been busy cleaning. This was wrong. Very wrong. Teresa shouldn’t allow it. Rodrigo was too newlyborn. He might never awaken. Hadn’t the rememberer told Jelena everything that could go wrong if a newlyborn and a protector became completely intimate?

  Not your problem, she told herself firmly. The future of the people no longer had anything to do with her. After a few moments, she turned back to the pallet, plumped it firmly and put clean, fresh bedclothes on it, then checked to ensure the hall was clear before making her way back to the kitchen where she belonged.

  • • •

  Bertha was in the midst of making final preparations for the welcome feast. “Colin nearly popped an artery when I told him to butcher another pig,” she told Jelena with satisfaction, clanging around the iron stove. “So take it up with the elders, I said to him. Get off my back.” She nodded to herself firmly. Jelena made no remark. She was debating whether to tell Bertha what she’d seen. Bertha would know what to do next.

  Jelena’s fingers moved over trays, working automatically, setting mugs upright, arranging Bertha’s cold starters in an attractive display. If she told Bertha what she’d seen between Teresa and Rodrigo, and Bertha looked at her with that warm pity, she didn’t think she’d be able to keep herself together. And she had to keep herself together during the Sithans’ visit.

  One of the helpers darted in, breathless. “I see their horses!” she exclaimed. Bertha nodded once and turned back to the stove with a purpose. Jelena double-checked the trays. Later, she could mention what she’d seen.

  After a few minutes, she heard the commotion in the courtyard that could only mean one thing: the Sithan warriors had arrived and were handing over their horses to the stable hands, the helpers showing them to the main hall.

  A stillness crept into the kitchen. Even Bertha paused. “That’ll be them,” she said, and then Jelena heard the plaintive notes of Viktor’s flute and realized the greeting ceremony had started. She peeked out the kitchen door to see a group of twelve richly dressed Sithans sweep into the dining hall, sniffing disdainfully at the size of the room and at the rustic furnishings. A tall blonde woman flung her riding cape at Archibald, who caught it and managed to hand it gracefully to a helper.

  “How charming. Cozy,” the woman said, striding across the hall to seat herself on a wooden bench near the far wall. “And the plain windows, very sweet view. We have stained glass artisans who create gorgeous pieces of art for us, but really, what’s better than nature,” she said, clearly implying that only the hopelessly provincial would have such a thing.

  Jelena stared at the woman who had spoken. Tall and blonde she may have been — in contrast to Jelena’s smaller, dark figure — but Jelena knew who she was, knew it in her very bones. She could not possibly mistake the resemblance. She knew that sometimes blood relatives had been saved — Karl the Mechanic and Joe the Farmer were believed to be blood brothers — but the bond of pastself blood was unimportant. No one remembered enough of their pastself to make such family ties meaningful. The trueborn and their parents held the only blood bond that mattered and yet even the trueborn belonged to the tribe more than to any small family.

  But Jelena stared at the blonde woman and knew she was a blood sister. And the blonde woman was awakened; she had reckoned her pastself. Maybe she knew something about Jelena. Maybe she remembered something.

  “Very rustic,” a tall bearded man said, stepping forward to join the blonde woman. His blonde height was well-matched with hers. They looked striking together. An imposing couple; an extremely formidable pair. “Of course, some tribes prefer not to flaunt their wealth,” he said.

  “True,” the blonde woman murmured. “True.”

  The two held each other’s gaze for a long moment and then the bearded man said, “Marguerite, I believe this little man is trying to say something.”

  Marguerite gave a tinkly laugh, then turned to face Archibald, who, red in the face, nonetheless began the gracious welcoming speech that he’d spent many hours agonizing over. He’d practiced it on anyone who’d hold still long enough. Jelena, trapped in the kitchen, had heard it five or six times.

  Marguerite listened for a few moments, her face growing bored and finally she flipped her hand at the Archibald and said, “Yes, yes, we’re happy to be here. The journey was quite long, so please, if you would be so kind as to offer refreshment?”

  Jelena gasped at the blunt rudeness. Archibald went pink but merely turned to a helper and said, “Please take good care of our guests.”

  Bertha poked Jelena in the ribs, then shoved a tray of mugs into her hands. Jelena pushed the door open and walked into the room, murmuring, “Something to drink, after your long journey?”

  Marguerite seized a mug. “At last,” she said, taking a long draft. Then, seeing Jelena stare at her, said, “Well, what is it? Off you go then.”

  Jelena blushed and moved through the crowd. She realized that the other Sithans had quietly arrayed themselves along the walls of the main hall, vague expressions of boredom on their faces. All stood tall and broad, dressed finely; all carried weapons. Weapons, in the main hall of another tribe. Insulting. Jelena despised them instantly.

  Chapter Nine

  Michael took the last mug from Jelena’s tray and smiled at her. “I haven’t seen you lately. Has Bertha been working you ragged trying to prepare for this visit?”

  “That’s my sister,” Jelena stammered. “Marguerite. She’s my blood sister. I’ve never met her. Michael, do you think — ?”

  She must have seen the compassion in his eyes because she flinched out of the way as he reached to touch her cheek.

  “No,” she said hoarsely. “You’re right, there’s nothing to gain. She won’t know anything about my pastself. But look at her. She’s — she’s someone powerful, isn’t she?”

  “Indeed,” Michael said. “She’s their warrior chief.”

  Jelena shivered, as well she should. The most vicious warring tribes all had female warrior chiefs. They thought of the tribe as their children, and battled against any odds, fighting like wildcats when any threat came near. The less warlike tribes — the Trinitarians and the Likura — had male warrior chiefs who drew up strategic battle plans and plotted careful military maneuvers, withdrawing when their losses mounted. The Wudu-faesten had no w
arrior chief at all, just Michael leading their small guard unit. And he knew well enough that he was no warrior.

  He knew that Cara — and all the elders — hoped Rodrigo would turn out to be their warrior chief. Michael was hopeful as well. But looking at the Sithan gathered in this very hall, he knew they needed more than hope.

  “Michael,” Jelena said. “What will become of us?”

  He looked at her. Of all of them, she, the unawakened helper, was most able to see clearly.

  “They’re here on a mission of peace,” he said, his voice hard. “We can all live in harmony.” At the expression on her face, he softened. “I don’t know, little one. I don’t know,” he said. Then he muttered an oath.

  “What?” she said.

  He sighed. “We’d better hope Rodrigo awakens soon.”

  • • •

  “We hear you have a newlyborn,” Marguerite said after the roast pig had been reduced to crackling and bones, the musician had played his part and the second barrel of ale had been tapped.

  “Oh, yes,” Teresa said, proudly putting herself forward. Michael could tell she was fascinated by the Sithans and wanted their attention desperately. But why? He could see Jelena out of the corner of his eye, stacking used mugs on her tray with a little more force than was absolutely necessary. He stood behind Teresa, who sat next to the Sithan Marguerite. Marguerite flattered Teresa with attention and interest, and now leaned forward as if they were close, intimate friends. Michael wondered why. He knew Marguerite never did anything without a reason.

  “I’m his protector,” Teresa said smugly. She glanced up and looked around the room. “Rodrigo!” she called, imperious as an elder. Rodrigo looked up, his face creasing into a smile for her. He stepped away from the group he was speaking with to join Teresa at the table.