“Yes, of course.” Kiv picked up her mug and sipped it.
“Kiv, are you sure about the Mwertik, that they are so different from the others we have turned, that we couldn’t win them over with our usual methods?”
Kiv set the mug on the table and leaned forward on her arms. “Yes, I am certain. They are murderers who would destroy us. I would have us survive instead.” Kiv stood. “I believe I hear your Winter Boy moving about. It wouldn’t do for him to find me here.”
Rishana had not heard anything coming from the other room, but being tired and worn out, she didn’t disagree. She walked with Kiv to the back door. “Thank you for answering my signal candle,” she said out of courtesy, though she wasn’t sure she felt anything akin to gratitude. If anything, she felt more confused and conflicted than ever.
“We must talk again, Rishana. I believe there’s much you don’t know.”
“Yes, but not now, not in the middle of my Season.”
“We have so little time. Do you think the Mwertik are delayed by such niceties?”
“Perhaps not, Kiv, but one thing worries me about what you say. If we fight as they do, how would we be different from them?”
“Because we would fight to survive, to save the Peace for the many villages and people who depend on us. They fight to destroy the Peace. It’s an important distinction, don’t you think?”
“Yes, Kiv. That it is.”
Kiv stroked Rishana’s shoulder in a surprisingly warm and tender gesture. “You know, Rishana, your boy isn’t the only one with power in him. But such power can be frightening when you don’t know how to best use it or whom to trust. Remember, my dear, you can depend on me to tell you the truth. Untarnished and sometimes unappealing, but always the truth.” Kiv drew her fur-lined hood around her head and walked away.
As she watched Kiv’s retreating back, Rishana noticed the sun’s red glow already crowning the eastern mountain. She closed the door on the chill morning, made her way back to her room and fell into her bed, still fully dressed.
Chapter 51
Dov tossed about on his bed, trying to reconstruct all that had happened. When he thought back on the gentle beginning of the evening, it seemed entirely unrelated to what had followed. So, too, did the violence that his mind refused to own. He knew that everything had changed, but how?
Eventually, he must have slept, because one moment all was dark outside his window and the next, early morning sunlight filled The Valley. Still dressed in the clothes from the night before, he walked into the greeting room and was forced to recognize the shambles he had made of everything. It was an easy matter to pick up books and put them back on the shelf. Not so the blood smears that stained the two walls where he had hammered his anger.
Remembering his mother’s claim that vinegar in soapy water would clean anything, Dov tackled the blood stains, with varying degrees of success. He swept up the shards of glass and tried to put the pictures back together. Finally, when he could no longer avoid it, he examined the wrecked table.
What is it about me? Is there something evil inside me that wanted to smash this table just because she liked it?
Dov gathered the fragments of the table and set out for the barn. After only a few steps outside, the bitter cold cut through his cotton shirt. What am I doing? It’s winter!
He returned to the house, put on his coat, gloves and boots, and took the table pieces to the barn. There he was greeted by the anxious bleats and cackles of the unfed animals.
“Shut up! Let a man think.” he yelled at them, and immediately felt ashamed.
Danide butted him gently and nuzzled a gloved hand, looking for a scratch behind her ears. The boy bent down to pet the goat with the lively affection the animal had learned to expect from him. “Oh, Danide, what am I going to do?”
As though the goat understood the words, she walked to the bin where her food was kept, butted the lid, then looked at the boy.
“Okay, Danide, I’ll feed you, but that isn’t what I meant.”
While the boy fed the animals, he continued to talk to Danide and her sister, Draville. The goats’ eyes followed Dov, almost as though they were listening. “Well, girls, I guess I really did it this time, and I don’t know how to fix it. Not just the table, but everything.”
With the animals fed and quieted for the moment, Dov went to the workbench and tried to reassemble the broken table. Eventually, Danide and Draville wandered in to be near him.
As he fit the pieces into place, Dov saw that most of the fragments could be put back together, if he took care. However, the one leg was shattered. Dov searched the barn, but found no suitable replacement. Then he remembered seeing a pile of carpentry wood in Le’a’s barn. He scratched the goats goodbye and left, with the pieces of the broken table leg in hand.
In Le’a’s barn, he found some good-quality lumber, but none that matched the table. The closest was some nice, straight cherry wood. Le’a must know where to get the right one, he thought.
The outer door of Le’a’s house was closed. So he sat on the back steps, staring at a piece of cherry wood and the broken leg.
When Le’a returned from the library, she found the boy crouched in deep thought on her back steps. “Dov! What are you doing out here in the cold? Come in quickly, before your backside freezes to the steps.”
“Hi Le’a. This cherry’s nice, but not quite right. I need a piece of fine-grain walnut, like this. Can you help me?”
“Of course. But come inside.”
Le’a preceded him into the warm kitchen, coaxed his coat, gloves and boots off, then sat him at her table. But the boy wouldn’t release his hold on the wood for longer than it took to remove his outer clothes. She turned up the fire under her kettle. Soon it was boiling.
“Be careful not to burn yourself,” she said as she placed a steaming mug in front of Dov. “Sip it slowly. Have you eaten?”
“About the lumber — Le’a, can you help me?”
“Put those things down and hold the mug. You need to get some warmth in you.”
“But it’s important, Le’a.”
“Even if it’s important, it can wait a few minutes.”
“No!” Dov stood up, jarring the table and almost spilling his tea. “I need your help, but if you can’t…”
Le’a placed a gentling hand on his shoulder and guided him back to his chair. “Of course I’ll help you, Dov. Now, sit down and sip your tea while I prepare our breakfast. After we eat, we’ll see about the wood.”
Dov sat down, but still held the fragments of wood in his hands. Le’a took them from him, meeting only initial resistance, and placed them at his feet.
“Now tell me what’s happened?”
“I broke her table.”
“I see.” Le’a busied herself with preparing breakfast, to make it easier for the boy to talk. “Did you break anything else?”
“A couple of pictures, and I got some blood on her walls.”
She spun around to look at him. “Blood! Whose?”
Dov held up his battered hands for her to see. “Mine.” Then, realizing what she feared, he added, “You don’t think I’d hurt her?” His voice quivered on the question.
“No, no, of course not.” Still shaking, but determined to not show it, Le’a turned back to the counter and cracked eggs into a bowl.
“Well, I wouldn’t. At least, I don’t believe I would. But I don’t know, something got into me. You don’t think I’m… that I’m bad, do you?”
“No, never, Dov. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s why you broke the table and hurt your own hands.” She picked up the bowl and leaned against the counter. While whisking the eggs to a froth, she looked at the boy, reading his face, letting him read hers if he wished. “Something apparently upset you last night. You became angry. But you vented your anger onto the table and your own hands. You chose to not hurt your Allesha.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Oh? Did you hurt her?”
&nb
sp; “Yeah.” He didn’t meet her gaze and swallowed his words deep into his chest, so Le’a had to strain to hear him. “I did hold her too tight, and I guess I went a little crazy.”
“Is she all right?”
“I think so. But that isn’t what I meant about you being wrong. I don’t know if she’s still my Allesha.”
“I see.” Le’a turned back to the counter to chop some sausage and vegetables, and adjust the fire under her frying pan. “What happened?”
“I found out the truth. Well, I guess I always knew it, but then she admitted I was right, and that made me angrier.”
The truth? Did Rishana tell him about his birth already? It’s too soon. Le’a continued to busy herself with scrambling the eggs and turning the toasting bread.
“I guess I didn’t want to be right,” he continued. “Not about that. Now, everything is changed, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I mean, she said she thought I could still be an Alleman, but well, I don’t know if she meant it, or if she was tired or scared and just wanted me to leave her alone. And if she did mean it, do I want it? I don’t know. It’s all lies, and it would make me part of the lies. But I’m tired of not being part of anything. It seems that it might still mean something, but I don’t know what.”
Holding her emotions tightly, Le’a kept her back turned to him to give herself time to regain her composure. “Dov, please set the table, breakfast will be ready shortly,” she reminded him.
“Huh? Oh. Okay.”
“Please, do go on. What is this truth that you found out?”
“About the Alleshi and their Allemen? That they aren’t anything, really.”
Recognizing the signs of Conflagration, Le’a stifled a sigh of relief. Nothing out of the ordinary. Not yet.
They met back at the table, where Dov was laying the plates, condiments and utensils. She doled out the eggs and bread, freshened their tea, and they sat down to eat. He tackled the food as only a hungry boy can.
“Tell, me, Dov, what do you mean by saying we’re not anything?”
“Well, you know, not anything magical. Just ordinary people.”
“Magic? Hmmph, this is no hearthside tale we’re living. Of course there’s no magic or sorcery. Only lots of hard work and responsibility.”
“That’s what she said.”
“Of course. Please pass the preserves.”
Dov handed her the jar of strawberry jam. “But everyone always talks about how special the Alleshi and Allemen are.”
“Dov, others — those who are not Alleshi or Allemen — may attribute magical qualities to our successes because it’s a simpler answer to their many questions and fears. We can’t allow ourselves the luxury of simple answers.” Le’a paused, took a forkful of eggs, but put it back down on her plate, and sighed. “The luxury or the danger.”
“What danger?”
“Believing in magic would make us lazy and set us on a path to failure. We’ve too much we must accomplish: maintain the Peace, build trade, help our villages prosper, bring new villages under our influence, protect our borders. At the same time, we must continue to learn, amass new knowledge for our people, train the next generation. We’ve no time to waste on believing in magic. It’s something reserved only for the innocent, the young, and the gullible.”
Dov hid his uncertainty by concentrating on his eggs. She allowed the silence to continue for a few minutes, knowing he had more to digest than food. When he finally looked up from his plate, she gave him a half-smile that was both sad and peaceful. “Dov, do you understand what really happened last night? You’re no longer innocent or young. You cannot drift in ignorance. Now, you must either take hold of your future or see the choice disappear from your grasp.”
“You know, she said I can still be an Alleman. Even after all I said and did.”
“Yes.”
“And you, Le’a, do you believe I can still be an Alleman?”
“Always, but that isn’t the important question. You need to decide whether you believe in yourself— and in us.”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t just what I found out, but what I did, Le’a. I really messed up.” Feeling suddenly too tired to even move, he yawned.
“Dov, did you sleep at all last night?”
He shrugged.
“Come.” She guided him to his feet and out of the kitchen. “I think you need to lie down. While you nap, I’ll see if I can find your lumber for you.” Le’a led him upstairs to her second bedroom and opened the door. “Rest here. I’ll be back soon.”
He stretched out on the bed and was asleep before she left the house.
Bundled up against the cold, she carried the wood to the storehouse, certain she would find its match among the vast lumber stores there.
Chapter 52
When Dov awakened, he didn’t recognize where he was. Then it all flooded back — last night’s horrors and the morning’s greyness, and being brought to this room by Le’a.
This was his room, he realized with a jolt. Dov looked around and saw the bookshelves, the bureau, and the four doors, so similar in idea, if not structure, to his own room in Tayar’s house. And yes, one door led to the bathroom, another to a closet, the third to the stairwell hallway, and the fourth was locked.
Pa’s inner room.
The room he had shared with Dara when he had been a Blessed Boy.
Unable to avoid picturing his pa with Dara, he tried to blur it with memories of his time with Tayar. The sex, the readings, the chores, and all the lessons — everything a lesson. In his mind’s eye, he saw his father as a struggling innocent, brought to the Alleshi by his own father, who viewed them as magical.
But did Pa? Or did he know in his heart that they were as ordinary as anyone?
“Hello?”
Startled by Tayar’s voice calling from below, he rushed downstairs, barefoot and disheveled. She stood in the greeting room, clearly surprised to see him there.
“She, uh, Le’a told me to sleep there.” Dov pointed upward, to the second floor.
“You slept here?”
“Yeah, well, no, not last night. After breakfast.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” How awkward he felt, as though Tayar had discovered him somewhere he shouldn’t be.
“Is Le’a home?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Le’a!” he called out.
“Le’a!” she echoed.
“I guess not,” he said.
They stood on opposite sides of the greeting room, stiff and unmoving. Tayar seemed shrunken within herself, paler than usual.
“Are you hungry?” Dov asked, needing to say something. “I guess that’s a silly question. You’re always hungry. I had breakfast with Le’a, but I’d like something else to eat now.”
“As well you might. It’s far past lunchtime. And, yes, I’m hungry. Let’s see what Le’a’s pantry has to offer.”
They went into the kitchen, made tea and took some brownies from the jars on the counter. When they could busy themselves no longer, they sat at the table.
At first, Dov looked everywhere but at Tayar, not wanting to meet her gaze. But he gradually realized she was fully focused on her mug of tea, the flavors of the sweets, on everything but him, as though she, too, didn’t know what to say, how to act. Eventually, he broke the stillness. “I’m sorry about everything. I don’t know how it happened, why I did it.”
“You were angry.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t have to smash everything, scare you.”
“Maybe you did.” Tayar’s voice sounded cool, distant, almost as though she wasn’t fully there.
“That’s the thing. I break things, hurt people. You said I have to decide whether I want to be an Alleman. And Le’a said that I have to decide if I believe in myself. But I don’t. Believe in myself, that is. I think there’s something evil inside me that destroys things. I’m tired of doing that. I’ve got to put an end to it. So I can’t be an Alleman. Because I’d just end up hurting yo
u again. I think I should leave. I know the passes are still snowed in, but I could stay at one of the inns, couldn’t I? Not as a guest; I don’t have any money. But I could work for the Battais, as one of The Valley’s maintenance crews or maybe in the steam plant.”
Tayar shook her head slowly. “Do you know how sad it makes me feel?”
“You don’t understand. I’m trying to protect you. Le’a saw the blood on my hands.” Dov held up his scabbed-over palms, then quickly retracted them, anchoring them under his arms. “You know what she thought?” Dov lowered his gaze, staring at the floor without seeing it. “There’s something in me, Tayar. And it’s bad, really bad.”
“No…” Tayar held the word as though she were testing it, making sure it fit her mouth, her thoughts. Then she was silent for a few breaths before adding, “Just human, like the rest of us.” But her voice was tight, almost strangled, and too quiet.
Dov knew then that he had broken something precious, and no amount of glue, nails or lumber would ever fix it.
At that moment, Le’a came into the kitchen. “Hello, Tayar. I’m glad you’re here.” Le’a thrust a piece of wood toward Dov. “Look at this. Isn’t it beautiful? It’s a near-perfect match to the grain of the leg, and just the right size and shape. And this” — she handed him a small glass jar filled with dark liquid — “is the stain for it. One of our Alleshi is a skilled carpenter, so I took the broken leg to her. She selected the wood, turned it on her lathe and mixed the stain to match. She recommends several applications, with intermittent fine sanding, and this beeswax to finish it.” Le’a pulled another jar from a pocket and put it on the table. Then she prepared a mug of tea with water from the still-hot kettle.
“Le’a, Dov has decided to leave us.” Tayar’s voice was so devoid of emotion that it was almost deadened.
Le’a sat down, folded her hands on the table and looked at him. Dov felt too ashamed to meet her gaze.
“I see.” Le’a didn’t say anything else, which surprised Dov.
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, and then at Tayar, who studied her teacup. Was she avoiding looking at Le’a, too? Or only him?
The Winter Boy Page 32
