by Diana Rivers
Sometimes I was embarrassed by all this. It felt as if I had a servant or a secret slave. When I finally protested that she did too much for me, Zheran looked hurt and asked sharply, “Are you going to take this away from me, Tazzil? You promised I would be free to use my skills when I came here. Would you go back on your word?” Then, more gently, she added, “I am only trying to be useful. I see what needs doing and I do it. I need to make some place for myself here.” I did not have the heart to protest again, and so I learned to live with my embarrassment.
Not until much later did I understand that in some way Zheran was the wife in my life, much as Yolande was to become Lorren’s wife and manage the details of his life. If I had understood, I would not have approved. And yet, how much I needed that help and relied on that quiet steady power. I was burning my life away with wanting to do and do and do. If someone had not fed me and loved me and slowed me down, I would have turned into ashes in my haste. I did not ask this of Zheran, nor would I have. As she said, she simply saw what was needed and did it. Most of the time I was either immensely grateful or too weary to quarrel with the justice of it. And, in spite of this, Zheran herself did not take to our Hadra ways. She did not wear trousers, but a long traditional Kourmairi skirt; did not cut her hair or shorten her name; did not ride much and never for pleasure, and, I think, never came to trust horses. She spoke quietly, not in that quick, impatient Hadra style. Though she was part of us, she was also apart from us and kept it that way with her quiet dignity and her Kourmairi pride.
* * *
While we were struggling with our own crude beginnings, Lorren and Yolande were settling near us on another hill and many of the Wanderers were gathering around them. Those two were married in the first warmth of spring. The ceremony was held down by the river and was followed by a big feast. Being a very private person, Yolande might have wished for something smaller and more personal. I knew she had no love for the Hadra and little trust for the Kourmairi, either. Lorren might have preferred that too, but I suppose he thought this a good occasion for peacemaking, for bringing us all together in one big, joyous gathering. Though the year was not yet up, Kourmairi from Zelandria and Indaran had been invited, as well as Wanderers and Hadra.
The women mingled freely, but most of the Kourmairi men from the two camps kept a wary distance from each other, at least at the beginning. Then, as the day wore on and the drink flowed freely, some of the men began drinking and laughing together. By evening, a few were even talking earnestly in small clusters. Weapons had been forbidden and there were no fights. Even so, I was glad for the presence of so many Wanderers. I stayed sober and very watchful the whole time.
Even old Norn came, much to Lorren’s delight, and so did his wife, Segna. Norn walked around their settlement, nodding and looking at everything. “Well, Shokarn, you have done good work with this place, in such a short time.” Later he mingled with everyone, making toasts and talking trade, listening to the Wanderers’ stories of their travels, questioning the Hadra about our progress at Zelindar, and always keeping a watchful eye on the Kourmairi from Indaran. Garrell, on the other hand, was made obvious by his absence, something I could not find it in my heart to regret. Instead, his cousin Ossan came to represent him. Garrell’s wife, Friana, was also there, though without her baby, charming us all with her quick smile and kind words.
Spring comes much earlier in the southland than in the north. Indeed, we seemed to have had almost no winter at all, not that I missed it much, especially after the hard winter of the year before. The first spring rains had washed everything clean, and now the sun was blessing us with gentle warmth. There was an extraordinary abundance of birds and flowers. New leaves were beginning to clothe the trees in various shades of green and yellow. The beauty of the day matched the occasion; bright, clear, and near perfect for a wedding. If I shut my eyes, I can still see Yolande as she looked that day, standing by the river, so beautiful in her long blue dress, her arms full of flowers and her red hair rippling in the breeze. She was smiling at Lorren and holding out her hand to him.
That evening, as we sat on the shore, relaxing and listening to music, a small group of Wanderers rode in. There was a cloaked and hooded woman among them who instantly stirred my curiosity. She came to stand by the fire. When she threw back her hood, I saw Shalamith’s golden hair shimmering in the firelight. My heart leapt with joy. She had come back to us with the spring. After Shalamith rested for a while, she consented to play her ferl and sing for Lorren and Yolande and their company. For that time, at least, there were no thoughts of old conflicts and hatreds. We all sat late into the night, caught in the spell of the music.
Chapter Sixteen
Lorren’s dream was to set up a semipermanent camp for the Wanderers, as well as a place from which he could observe the Hadra without intruding on our lives. I think he also wanted to watch over our safety. The place he chose to settle was a hill not far inland from the three hills of Zelindar and part of the same range. It had once been called Oshameer by the Kourmairi, but later it came to be called Wanderer Hill, or, more simply, the Hill.
It was a little craggy hill that rose gently from the broad grassy plain where the horses grazed. Lorren and the Wanderers were building a vast gathering hall at the top, overlooking the plain in one direction and looking off toward Zelindar in the other. They were reconstructing what was apparently a Kourmairi ruin from a much earlier time, making it big enough for a Great Gather. All around the sides and going on down the hill were smaller, individual shelters attached to the main hall by tunnels or paths or passageways. The Wanderers seemed to like the idea of having a place of their own as long as it was not too permanent. They wanted a place they could return to but did not have to stay. Often the little huts or shelters were begun by one person, finished by another, and lived in by someone else, or maybe several others in succession. Some of these shelters were no more than small hollows dug into the hillside with their fronts partially rocked up. From a distance they looked like a huge cluster of mushrooms attached to a central core, growing—or rather, pouring—haphazardly down the slope in all directions; many little humps without apparent plan or purpose but with some sort of overall beauty, like a thing of nature that takes on its own particular form from some wordless knowledge.
If a surprise attack were to come from any of the Zarns, it was likely to come from the direction of the plain. It seemed as if Lorren had purposely put himself between us and danger, though he gave me many other reasons, reasons that had to do with convenience and distance or the lay of the land. In truth, I was grateful for that protection, however slight it might be. A constant flow of Wanderers came and went from the Hill. I felt as if they were our eyes and ears, out in the world. They were always gathering: making music and smoking jol; trading horses; sharing gossip and news and stories from everywhere, even the Zarn’s cities; bringing supplies; helping with the main building; starting their little shelters; and then vanishing again like smoke on the morning breeze.
I had heard that Hereschell was back in Eezore again, working as a gardener for Lorren’s father and being our watcher in that city. He smuggled Lorren’s books to him when he could, sending them with whatever Wanderers chanced to be passing through the city. Also, Lorren had put out the word that he was interested in artifacts, natural or otherwise: bones, precious rocks, feathers, and samples of rare wood, as well as implements and shards of pottery from old times, even back to Asharan times. The Wanderers were always bringing back with them little treasures they had found or traded for.
Off one corner of the great hall, Lorren built a little private shelter for himself and Yolande that few were invited to enter. He also built himself a study where others were welcome. It was in this study that he gathered his books and artifacts on shelves that went from the floor clear up to the ceiling. I studied all this with care, wanting to make a place much like it for the Zildorn we Hadra would someday build in Zelindar. No matter how hard I looked or how much time I
spent in his study, there was always something more to see, something I had not noticed before.
After that first year or so, as my work at Zelindar began to ease, I found myself more and more often drawn to visiting with Lorren. We had a friendship no one else could understand. Yolande was jealous. It did not take mind-speech to read her distress. Though she treated me with scrupulous politeness, there was always a chill to her manner. I would have preferred anger or directness, anything but her cold, stiff, quiet ways that hurt and left no room for me. Lorren, of course, was always glad to see me and would send Yolande to fetch me some tea. I loved that tea; it reminded me of my village. Yolande made it herself from herbs she gathered. Sometimes I felt contemptuous at how quickly she went to do his bidding for someone she despised. I suppose Yolande was afraid that I wanted to take him away from her. Nothing could have been further from the truth. I wanted him exactly where he was, close by but not in my way.
Of course, I had no sexual interest in Lorren, or, indeed, in any man. Once, in my own way, I even tried to tell her that. Lorren had gone from the room to fetch another book and Yolande had just brought us some tea. I leaned forward and said to her in a low, urgent voice, “Yolande, you have nothing to fear from me. What you and Lorren share, I do not want. What we share, you do not care for, nor do you comprehend. Believe me, I am no threat to you at all.” She gave me a cool look from her green eyes, then turned and went out of the room without a word. Clearly, she did not trust me, for she continued to keep a frosty distance between us. Somehow her beauty made the hurt even sharper.
Though Yolande had been born among the Wanderers, where men and women had easy friendships, she had grown up with the Kourmairi. In her Kourmairi world, men and women were not friends. They came together as mates or lived in separate, parallel worlds. Nothing else was considered possible. As for the Hadra, she did not trust or approve of us at all. Our ways were altogether too strange and wild for her. I think she would have been glad to move far away from us, but to her way of thinking, a woman’s place is at her husband’s side. The man decides where they should live, and so, for Lorren’s sake, she tolerated our presence.
Yolande was not the only one who disapproved of our friendship. Alyeeta gave me endless grief on the matter. One morning she caught me on my way to Wanderer Hill, blocked the path, and said in her most cutting manner, “What is it that you find there that you cannot find with us? More books? Better food? Or have you suddenly become a lover of men?”
“Alyeeta, you know perfectly well that is not the case. Now let me by.”
“What then…?” She put her hands on her hips. If Telakeet had not called her at that moment, distracting her and so allowing me to slip by, she might have continued to block my way, insisting on an answer I could not give her, since I scarcely understood myself. Rishka echoed Alyeeta’s words, saying mockingly, “I see the Hadra are not good enough for you anymore. You had to find yourself a Highborn Shokarn lover. Is he better in bed than we are?” Even Tama asked, “What is there for you, Tazzi, that you cannot find here among your own?” No matter, I was drawn over and over to the Hill, as if by a magnet.
After the weariness and pressures of being councilor in Zelindar, what greater pleasure could there be than to come to Wanderer Hill and sit in Lorren’s study, looking at the books and artifacts that crowded the shelves? And what greater pleasure than to talk to him for hours about anything and everything in the world, while staring out over the grassy, horse-dotted plain or enjoying the spicy tea and little round biscuits that Yolande brought us so silently? Lorren was my brother of the mind. No one else talked to me the way he did.
Not that we had no differences between us. He was older, he was a man, he was a Shokarn and a Highborn. All that gave him an easy arrogance of assumptions he was hardly aware of, though in my own bristly way, I lost no chance to point this out to him. Lorren often said that all knowledge could be found between the covers of books. True, much was there, much that I wanted. But I had known many things before I could read or write and had found little of that knowledge between the covers of any books. Once, because I understood some ideas in a book of his, he made the mistake of saying to me, “Tazzil, you have an amazing mind for one who is untrained.”
“I have been trained,” I snapped. “And by one of the best, one whose knowledge could easily rival yours.”
“Please excuse me,” he said quickly. “I had meant to offer a compliment, and I see that I offered an insult instead.” I looked to see if he mocked me, but his face was very serious. “I only meant untrained in the ways that are familiar to me,” he added.
“Even there I have training, for Alyeeta’s knowledge is very wide, whereas you, yourself, have no training at all in that other realm.”
He threw up his hands. “I stand rebuked, Tazzil. I have no wish to trade insults. I only wished to say in my own clumsy way how much I admire you.”
“Well,” I conceded grudgingly, “that admiration falls on both sides.”
And I, of course, had powers, which was the greatest difference between us. It was something of endless fascination to Lorren, but it also made for envy and a kind of longing. Altogether we were as likely to argue as agree. No matter, I still spent many an afternoon and evening there, thinking I had the best company in the whole world.
Sometimes I brought others there to share those books: Maireth for the information on healing or Ozzet for what she could learn of plants, as she had become our seed-gatherer. Pell came to look at the maps, as she had undertaken to make us some maps on real paper instead of drawing lines with a stick in the dirt. Once I let Ursa, Zheran’s foster daughter, come with me because she begged so hard, but she touched everything and asked so many questions that Lorren and I could hardly exchange two words with each other. He answered her with patient kindness, but I never made that error again. Even Alyeeta came to talk with him of books and long-ago times, though she was so rude and abrupt she embarrassed me, and I had to ask her not to come again when I was there. Sometimes it was the Wanderers who came to sit and tell of their adventures in far places or bring offerings for Lorren’s collection. All this was well enough, but the times I liked best were when we were alone there, questioning each other intently for information or letting our minds wander on whatever strange and interesting paths they chose to take.
It was on one such afternoon that we planned our trip south together. Full of eagerness, Lorren had been telling me of this wonderful place. “The Wanderers took me there once. Ever since, I have been longing to go back. It is at the far southern tip of Yarmald, where the Escuro flows into the sea. There the river forms a wide swampy delta, rich with life, teeming with more natural specimens than any other place I know. I could show you many things out in the real world, Tazzil, that up till now I have only shown you in books. And I also need some help gathering specimens for my collection. I could even show you the ruins of Bayrhim, the ancient Kourmairi fort-city that sits on the top of a great hill above the swamp.”
Suddenly I understood what Lorren had been leading up to. He was asking me to accompany him on this journey. “No, not possible,” I said quickly. “I have too much to do here.” I was very flattered, but I shook my head emphatically and at once began explaining, objecting, protesting, saying I had no time for such things.
Lorren was patient and persistent. And I, of course, wanted very much to go, so in truth, he had a secret ally. It was only that I felt I had no right to take so much time away from my work. Finally, he won me over by saying, “As councilor of Zelindar, it is important for you to have such knowledge. Think how much it will matter to your people in the future. Only you, Tazzil, there is no other Hadra I would take on such a journey.”
“What of Yolande? She will not be pleased.”
“I will settle things with Yolande. Not even her great love for me would persuade her to undertake such a journey. She already knows that I am thinking of this trip and planning to ask you to go.”
“I will
have to bring it before the council and find others to take charge in my place.” Even as I said those words, they had a falseness to my ears. I knew the Hadra of the council would be only too glad for me to go. They were constantly urging me to slow down my pace and, take some time away.
Now that I could think of this trip as having some official purpose, I felt free to plan in earnest. For the rest of that afternoon, we made notes and lists while we pored over books and charts and maps. Suddenly it was dark, and Yolande was lighting the lamps.
* * *
I have chronicled the whole trip in an attached account. It details the natural wonders we discovered. It also describes at length the great ruins of Bayrhim, which for me had special meaning as if I had lived there in some other life. Our last view of Bayrhim came as the day was darkening and the ruins were outlined stark and black against a blazing southern sunset. This trip south was one of the great adventures of my life, not because of the risks and dangers but because of the extraordinary beauty of the place and because of Lorren’s company. Later, I was to have cause to think on it often and with some pain.
In terms of danger it was an uneventful trip, at least until we were almost home. Then, on that last morning, a storm began to threaten. Jagged flashes of lightning lit the sky, fast followed by the mutterings of thunder. With less than half a day’s travel before us, we were riding hard, trying to outrun that storm, when suddenly the whole sky darkened, the wind came up with a roar, and the rain began pelting down on us. “We should climb up to that overhang,” Lorren shouted over the din. “There is no shelter here by the road.”
The place he pointed to was the lower edge of a bluff partway up the hillside, a long cut in the rock face that seemed high enough to shelter our horses. Looking up at it, my heart sank. The way there was steep and rocky, and there was no path. Also, I felt some other, less tangible uneasiness that I did not share with Lorren. In spite of that, I nodded. It seemed like the only possible refuge and we needed one quickly. We turned off the road and set out, dodging branches and weaving around trees and rocks. Soon we were soaked through. We pushed forward doggedly, our heads bent against the wind. At least we had not far to go, though for the last of it we had to get off the horses and lead them, struggling with them up the steep incline and stumbling over rocks and fallen logs. As soon as we reached the shelter of the cliff, I helped Lorren unstrap the collection packs from Pharoth’s back. Then, groaning with weariness, we sank down against the wall of the overhang, not even dealing with our wet clothes.
