by Diana Rivers
Tama rode up next to Pell, put an arm around her, and said gently, “Yes, Pell, yes, they have gone, all of them. It is over now.”
Pell looked around, dazed and strange. “What happened to me? I feel as if I had been spelled.” With those words, she slumped forward and slid from Torvir’s back like a sack of grain.
Jhemar, who had the largest horse among us, carried Pell in front of her while the rest of us followed. We were very tense and watchful now, no longer full of the careless pleasure of that lovely spring day. It amazed me that the day itself had not changed after witnessing such ugliness. It was still as fair as before, only now there was no more joy in it for us. I rode with my hand on Tama’s arm to comfort her. With a shake of her head she said sadly, “We thought to find a little peace and a little time together after all that awfulness. Now they have driven her mad. I only want to go as far from them as possible.” The grief and bitterness in her voice tore at my heart.
Soon afterward, we turned off the Zarn’s highway and began following Vaiya on a series of winding roads and tracks that would lead us to the Escuro River and to our meeting with Dhashoti and the others.
Chapter Nine
There was a loud outcry from among the women when we rode into the new camp with Pell’s limp, unconscious body over the back of Jhemar’s horse. Before we were even off our horses, many had rushed forward to carry her. They laid her down on a mat in a little brush shelter. Instantly, Tama came to kneel at her side. She took Pell’s hand in hers and began crooning softly, as if to a sleeping child, “Sleep, beloved…sleep, sweet one…” Alyeeta quickly gathered Olna, Amelia, Maireth, and others to consult together about Pell’s healing. Feeling myself not needed there, I turned to leave.
Grieving women were fast gathering around Pell to give advice or look or touch or question us on what had happened. Though it was all from love and concern, still it frightened me. Soon there would be no space or air around her, no way for the healers to work. I was looking about for help when Kazouri grabbed my arm. Together, we organized a circle to keep the others back at a safe distance. This way, women could approach Pell only one at a time and with the consent of her healers.
Afterward, when things were calmer and Pell seemed to be resting peacefully, Kazouri stayed to stand watch over her while I went to look for Dhashoti. I found her deep in conversation with several Hadra I did not know. She looked up with a smile and tried to draw me into the circle. I shook my head. “I wanted to ask you to show me this place they are calling Ishlair and tell me how you found it. I will come back when you are not so busy.”
“Wait, Tazzi, now is as good a time as any.” She gave a quick nod to the others and slipped her arm through mine. Together we walked down the shore, following a deep curve of the Escuro. Here the river was bordered by willows and then by a broad sweep of grassland that rose gently into wooded hills. Dhashoti stopped and stared out across the swiftly moving water. “I knew of this place because I remembered it from childhood. When I was a girl, my father would come here every summer with a wagon-load of goods from Mishghall. We would camp by the river for a few weeks while he traded with folk from the south. It was at this very spot on the Escuro that I learned how to swim. Truly I had more freedom here in those few weeks of summer than in all my time in Mishghall. Oh, Tazzi, it is so wonderful to be back here again.”
Dhashoti showed me everything while I followed her around, asking many questions. When we stopped to rest partway up the hillside, she made a broad gesture with her hand that took in the whole view below us. “I called it Ishlair in memory of a village the Shokarn burned to the ground. My grandmother escaped from there. Tell me, Tazzi, is it not beautiful? There is everything we need here for a settlement.”
“Indeed, very beautiful,” I answered with a nod, but I was shielding hard, trying not to let my thoughts leak through and spoil her joy. Yes, there was everything here that was needed for a settlement, but no room for the city I envisioned, the city that haunted me in my waking time as well as in my dreams.
When I came back, Kazouri was still standing guard. Tama was still kneeling just as I had left her, and Pell looked as if she had not moved. Everything was the same, except that Pell’s face looked softer, fuller, more relaxed than I had ever seen it, even in sleep. She was so still, her breath so light, I had to touch her to know for sure that she lived. I drew Alyeeta aside. “How is she? What has happened? Is she mad? Is this the gibbering madness? Will she ever be herself again?”
“Yes, indeed, it is certainly madness. What else could it be? Only a madwoman would ride at the guards that way. But no, it is not the same madness that attacked your women in the caves last winter. This is the madness of exhaustion, an exhaustion so deep it is bottomless. She has carried the world on her back for too long. She has depleted everything she had; mind, body, spirit. That rage was her last reserve. We will do the best we can for her, but do not expect her to come back to her old self—to return unchanged. A price has been paid. That is the truth, Tazzi, though I wish I could tell you differently.” I nodded silently and walked away with a terrible ache in my heart.
Pell came back to consciousness the next morning, opening her eyes and saying a few mumbled words before she slipped away again. For that day and part of the following one, she slept most of the time, hardly knowing where or who she was in her few waking moments. Tama stayed by her as much as she could, watching over her anxiously. Olna and I took our turns during those few moments when we could get Tama to leave. By the third day, Pell was conscious and more like herself, able to eat and talk and sit up for a short while. For the next day or so, I think she even gloried a little in being waited on. When I came to peer down at her anxiously, she was able to joke with me, saying, “Well, Tazzi, I told you I wanted to grow fat and lazy in the sun when we found our own place. Who would have expected it to be so soon?”
Before long, however, Pell grew restless. She became impatient with this enforced idleness and with us as well. “You all pretend to fuss over me, when in reality I am your prisoner here.”
“You should be more grateful, then,” Alyeeta answered sharply. “For a prisoner, you are being very well treated. Believe me, with all the special teas and herbs and tinctures your healing requires, I feel more like your slave than your jailer.” Olna, Tama, Maireth, and Alyeeta all insisted that Pell needed more rest. Though she was sounding more like her old self, her eyes still had a haunted look, an emptiness that frightened me. I wondered if this was how I had seemed to her, all that past winter. Now I understood why she had worried so for me. When I tried to talk to Pell about her moment of rage and madness, she shrugged and quickly turned my words aside, saying, “No cause for worry. Only fatigue, nothing more, nothing to be alarmed about.” I was not convinced. I knew Alyeeta shared my deep concern. But you cannot force talk with one who insists on silence.
Meanwhile, a new settlement was being established around us, and we were all learning to live with our new name. We were no longer Shokarn and Kourmairi and Muinyairin. We were now The Hadra, whatever that might mean. We held meetings, we made plans, we talked of the future as if we really believed we had one, and we worked hard to bring it about. Everywhere I looked, women were building shelters, laying paths and clearing for roads, digging cisterns and lining them with rocks, turning earth and planting gardens. As second-in-command, I tried to take Pell’s place while she recuperated, but in truth there was very little place to take. Pell had been leader when we were moving and gathering. Now, with our settling, everything had changed. Other women came forward to do the work and take the leadership, especially Dhashoti, since she had found this place.
I was not the one who was needed. None of my skills seemed to matter, not even the reading and writing Alyeeta had taught me, for it was not yet time for that, nor the healing, for I had long since been replaced as a healer by Maireth, Amelia, and others. Besides, I had probably burned out my healing powers. Even my skills at peacemaking were not needed. Unaccountably,
we had become more peaceful with each other. Perhaps we were really becoming the Hadra we called ourselves. As to organizing the camp, Renaise, Teko, Murghanth, and Thalyisi were far better at that than I could ever be.
I felt unsettled and out of sorts, as I had several times before among the Star-Born, an outcast among outcasts, unable to find my own place. Whatever it was of worth that Alyeeta and Pell had seen in me, I surely did not see it in myself at that moment. I alternated between trying unsuccessfully to take some sort of command and doing the humblest of work at the beck and call of Renaise or Murghanth or whoever else was organizing the camp. In short, I rushed about trying to do everything and in the end, did very little. Even that little, I did not do well. I worked hard, but only part of me was there. My heart was not in it, and that was the truth of the matter.
After a while, I became like a restless wind blowing through the settlement. However beautiful Ishlair might be, it was not the place for me. Not the place. Not the place. Not the place. I heard those words over and over in my head. In fact, I heard them everywhere I went: in the sighing of the wind, the rush of the water, the shurring of the grass. And yet, where was this place? What did I know of some other place? Ishlair seemed to me still within the Zarn’s reach. Surely we had learned that much from our last encounter with the guards. And for me, we were still too close to the city of Mishghall—though others among us counted that an advantage.
I needed to leave for a while. I felt almost as poisonous there as I had been in the Wanderers’ camp before the Witches had finally belled me out, something I certainly did not want repeated. I began to envy the horse that had a stall or a field, the dog that had a kennel, the cat that had a hearth to sleep beside. As for humans who had a place they could call home, no matter how small or humble, I could not imagine such luck. I felt like a leaf ripped from the tree and tossed in the wind. It was hard to help build a settlement I knew I could not live in. However beautiful it might be, it would never be my home. I felt it in my bones. It made my heart ache to see how happy the others were and not to share that happiness, to feel set apart one more time. I did not begrudge them their pleasure in this new place; I only wished I could feel the same.
I tried talking to Olna. In her kind, gentle way, she did her best to counsel me, but in the end I shrugged off her advice. It was as if I had a fever in me, a fever of agitation and an unreachable anguish. At last, even Alyeeta lost patience with me. “By the Goddess, Tazzi, you have what you wished for, peace and a place to make a home, but you are as restless as a bad wind and have no gratitude at all for your good fortune.”
I agreed with her. Every day I prayed to the Goddess for some gratitude, and some humility as well, but my angry spirit was not soothed nor my restlessness abated. Each time I went to try and talk with Pell, I would find her laughing and talking in the sun with the others or taking her ease with Tama, happily doing small tasks, such as repairing a pack or binding a handle to a hoe. When I finally found her alone, she shook her head. “Not now, Tazzi, that is all too serious. Today the sun is shining and I am glad just to be alive. Come sit down and share this bowl of fruit and tarmar with me. They feed me much too much when all I do is lie around.” I shook my head in turn and went away. It was a long time before I tried to talk to Pell again—on that or any other matter.
When Zari and Zenoria said they were taking a message to Ozzet’s settlement, two days ride away, I decided to go with them, hoping that the ride would distract me or that maybe I could find whatever I was looking for. I got much encouragement from Pell and Alyeeta and some of the others. I think everyone was glad to see me leave and take my ill-humor with me.
As it was, Zari and Zenoria talked of horses the whole way, so I felt very much alone on that trip, even with the sound of their voices. When we reached the site of the settlement, I could see that this spot was, if anything, even more beautiful than the one I had left. But it was not the place, either. I knew that instantly. It was much the same for me there as it had been at Ishlair. Everyone seemed happy, hopeful, busy. Again I felt out of step. This settlement was also too close to Mishghall, and I could still feel the presence of the Zarn’s men. Besides, something else was calling me, something that was not there, some other place, though I had no idea where it was and only a little notion of what it looked like.
As we were heading back to Ishlair, I noticed some steep bluffs on the other side of the river and what looked like a little footpath winding up a crevice between them. I felt pulled to climb to the top. I told Zari and Zenoria to leave me there and go on, that I had some thinking to do. Uneasy for my safety, they argued for a while, saying they would wait below or come with me. Finally, I was so insistent that in the end they had no choice but to go.
Dancer swam across the Escuro with me clinging to her back. Then I left her grazing while I climbed up the crevice. It was a fierce scramble the whole way to the top, but at least it kept my mind occupied. In the end, it was worth every hard step. When I finally hauled myself over the edge and struggled to my feet, the whole world lay spread out before me. I could see several bends of the river. Our settlement lay in the far distance in one direction, and what might have been smoke from Ozzet’s camp was visible in the other. I could even see the tiny line of the Zarn’s road far off in the misty distance, not a reassuring sight. I had no idea what I was looking for, only that I had been strongly drawn to that spot. The sun was warm, a light breeze was blowing, a soft carpet of moss covered the ground, and a beautiful view lay spread out below me. I took off my shirt and leaned back against a rock to watch a flock of kin birds dipping and rising, gray-white against the bright blue of the sky. Far off, a hawk was soaring over the river.
After a while, the hawk began circling closer and closer, till it was spiraling directly overhead. Almost in a trance, I watched that circular motion as if nothing else existed in the world. I think I must have dozed and dreamt—or perhaps I had a vision such as Witches have. Suddenly, it was as if I had slipped into the mind of the hawk and could see through her eyes. The view that lay spread out below me was very different from the one my waking self had just been looking at. With my hawk eyes, I saw three hills, bordered by ocean on one side and a wide bend of the river on the other. A white, stone city covered those hills. One of the hills was topped by a big, round, stone building gleaming in the sun. Wanting to come closer, even to walk those streets, I tried to will myself down to that city. Instead, with a sudden jolt, I found myself back on the bluffs above the Escuro, precariously close to the edge.
It was all gone! I sat up with a gasp, feeling the knife-edge pain of loss, but I could not linger. The sun was low. It was getting cool. I still had a hard river crossing and a long ride ahead of me, so I scrambled down as quickly as safety would allow. As it was, I was not back in camp till long after nightfall. Kazouri was just making ready to come look for me, with Zari and Zenoria as guides.
* * *
For those next few weeks, I carried my vision with me. I did not share it with the other Hadra, as no one else seemed to share my discontent, but at last I was able to work with a good heart. I would not stay. I knew that now, though I did not know how or in what way I would be leaving or who would come with me. But while I was there, I would do my best. I began to pay some attention to the others, Dhashoti in particular, for now that I was accessible again, she shared her plans with me. With my experience, I was able to help and advise her. In some way, I may even have been—for that time at least—her second there, as I had once been Pell’s.
Of the dozens of new women in the camp, there were two besides Dhashoti who particularly caught my attention. One of them was Zheran. What can I say about Zheran? That I had begun to notice her more and more, to really see her. In the beginning I did not think of her as someone like myself, but as someone much older, a wife, a mother, a woman of Darthill, a Kourmairi—someone of a different generation, like my mother, perhaps, though in truth she was nothing like my mother. At first, she was just some an
gry man’s wife, possible trouble, and the first woman to come live among us who was not a Hadra or a Witch—though no doubt she would not be the last. Her courage touched me deeply, but our fates and lives seemed to me irrevocably different. She was even physically different: rounder, softer, more full-bodied, from having children—not hard and lean like so many of the Hadra from our hungry time on the road.
At first, I could not believe she would choose to stay with us. I half expected her to be drawn home by her children, by the life she had stepped out of so suddenly, or even by some longing for the man she had left. I thought she might go back and try to sue for peace with Rhomar, perhaps getting Nhokosos to intercede on her behalf. But when I asked, she shook her head, saying with sadness and a sort of weary resignation, “I love my sons, but they are more Rhomar’s now than mine. They were born when I was very young, the first when I was only fourteen years of age, hard births both. The second tore me inside so that I almost bled to death. Rhomar is very proud of his sons. I think he had hoped to have an army of sons, but the midwife said I was to have no more children and gave me a potion of crushed jeezil seeds to prevent quickening.
“My boys were so sweet when they were young, but Rhomar quickly drove us apart, saying he did not want them infected with my womanly ways. According to him, it was not fit for sons to be close to their mothers. He said if I wanted a child to make my own, I should try for a daughter. How could he say such a thing when he knew it might kill me?
“It broke my heart to see how he set about training the boys for manhood, ‘hardening’ them, he called it. No weakness or tears were allowed. It grieves me to leave them, yet they are almost strangers to me now. I wonder if they will grieve for me. If so, they must never let their father know.”
