[500 Kingdoms 04] - The Snow Queen

by Mercedes Lackey

  Veikko had also gotten mixed runes, Warrior and Mage. Most boys at twelve would have practically turned themselves inside out to get such runes. He had been calm—so calm! Happy, yes, even content. But also calm and sure. But there were no teachers for either the path of the Warrior or that of the Magician in so small a village—oh, everyone could use weapons, but not with the skill that could be attained by one so rune-marked. And as for Magic—how was she to teach the hard path of the Magic? She only knew the earth-ways, not the Iron-ways. Accordingly, he had waited until he was a fairly skilled warrior by village standards, then went in search of a Warrior Magician to teach him. For that, too, was the way of the Sammi; if a teacher did not come to you, it was up to you to find the teacher. Perhaps so many generations of following the reindeer herds had made them more willing to go great distances in order to obtain a desired goal.

  He had left behind not only his mother, but his sweetheart, Kaari—Kaari, the darling of the village, Kaari of the sweet voice and gentle hand, with hair like spun sunlight and the face of a flower. Their parting had been a reluctant one; Veikko would much rather that a teacher had come to him. Annukka loved the girl almost as much as her son did, and would gladly have had her living in the house as a daughter. But Kaari would not hear of it, refused to displace Annukka from the place she had held for so long. “When Veikko returns, we will have a house of our own,” she said with quiet certainty. “I will never displace you, Mother Annukka. This will always be your place.”

  Truth to tell, that had pleased Annukka. She had not been looking forward to giving up her room and the big bed to Veikko and Kaari, of having to climb that ladder to the loft every night, nor to eventually having to lose the peace of her working to the wails of babies and the mischief of toddlers. She had made the offer twice more after Veikko left, and had been twice refused with the same gentle courtesy. That made it final by Sammi custom. And so Kaari remained in her father’s house—though Annukka did not stint on gifts of her own making for the bride-chest. This cloak, for instance, was intended for Kaari, and besides protection, Annukka was weaving in a wealth of love.

  She brushed her hand over the warp-threads and listened to the whisper, like the ghost of a harp-thrum. She gathered to herself the warmth of the sun on her back, the memory of this golden afternoon, and wove that, too, into her cloth.

  The sun was westering, and even though the garden was warm and inviting—the earth giving up a scent of rich life, the herbs reminding her with their mingled aromas that she needed to be gathering and drying them—it was time to get more water for dinner, and that was Kaari’s job.

  It was laundry day as well—also Kaari’s job. She liked laundry day; there was something infinitely satisfying about spreading the freshly washed things to dry, although she could do without carrying the baskets of wet clothing up from the edge of the river. Squinting a little against the later afternoon sun, Kaari arranged the wooden yoke over her shoulders, balanced the buckets on the hooks on either end of it and headed for the well at the center of the village. Her mother was too old to be burdened with this now, and her brothers were all at their own work, so that left her. Of course, for Kaari, every trip to the well took twice as long as it did for anyone except the most inveterate of gossips. Everyone had to stop and greet her, so that had to factor into the time she took. And even though it was the last thing she wanted to do on a day already overfilled with chores, she had to stop as well. It was, after all, the polite thing to do. And by now, her parents were more than used to it.

  Virtually everything she did that brought her out of the house took more time because of this. And it was all because of her runes. Sometimes she thought that if she heard one more person tell her, “You must be the luckiest girl in the world,” she was going to do something drastic. Scream, anyway. But of course, she never did, because she fundamentally had too sweet a temper. Having runes like hers—well, she suspected that you either had a sweet temper to begin with, or you got one in a hurry, because you had to.

  Or else you went to the bad…and that did not bear thinking about.

  When Kaari was born, her runes were read then and there, because there was a Wise Woman already in the village reading for several older children. It was unusual, but by no means unheard of, for an infant to be read, and since the woman was there, her parents must have thought, “What’s the harm?” And at that time, the Wise Woman had pulled a strange face, for three runes had turned up instead of the usual one or two. Hearth, as expected. Also Craft.

  But then came the third rune, one that her parents didn’t recognize, the one that the Wise Woman pursed her lips over. She told them not to worry about it, and went on her way, with only a single, slightly odd, admonition.

  “Don’t spoil her.”

  Not that they were likely to do anything of the sort. She might have been the baby of the family, but it was a very large family, with many hands reaching for, and many mouths clamoring for, anything that happened to be desirable. Her brothers only considered another sister to be another nuisance. Her sisters already had enough of babysitting to regard the arrival of yet another child with resignation. Kaari had been destined to go through childhood wearing the hand-me-downs of four sisters, mended and re-dyed, turned and turned again, or cut down from much larger garments. Her toys were those her siblings had outgrown. She slept packed in the bed with all four of her older sisters, either too warm in the middle, or hanging on for dear life to her sliver of bed on the edge.

  And yet, she had sailed through her childhood with no real difficulty. By nature sweet-tempered, by the gift of the gods a lovely child, the older she grew, the more everyone wanted her around and made a kind of pet out of her, even her siblings. If it was a lean season, people found ways of slipping her tidbits; if the season was bountiful, they still slipped her treats, but always the juiciest apple, the most succulent grape, the most perfect venison pasty. Older children took her with them on adventures or dressed her up like a kind of live doll; younger ones looked at her in awe. And no one thought twice about it.

  Not until Kaari came of age and the same Wise Woman read her runes again, did she discover what that third one was. Because it turned up again.

  Kaari could still see it, in her mind’s eye, the little brown stone, flat, speckled with white, and the strange rune she could not read carved into it and filled with black paint. It had looked so harmless, and yet there was some feeling of portent about it, a heaviness in her chest, the sense that something was watching her.

  “This rune,” the woman had said, stirring the stone with her finger. “This rune is Heart.”

  Kaari and her parents had looked at her askance. None of them had ever heard of such a thing.

  “You must have noticed how everyone loves Kaari,” the woman had continued.

  Kaari’s mother and father had nodded. Of course they had, because by then, even the most sour-tempered old curmudgeon smiled to see her. On the very rare occasions when she got into naughtiness, it was always something mild, usually because she was the unknowing accomplice of an older child, and was immediately sorry for the results. Her peers made her the center of their games, and if it was work that was afoot, they made sure it went along with such singing and chatter that it seemed half play.

  “And you’ve noticed she’s not spoiled by all this.” Again the old woman had stirred the rune. “That is the effect of Heart. It is a power that can bring people together. But it is a double-edged sword. It can cause quarrels, when everyone wants to be first in her eyes—and more quarrels will come in the future, when boys think about courting her in truth. The older she gets the more careful she will have to be. When everyone wants to love and be loved by a person with the Heart rune, that can spawn jealousy, envy, acrimony. As yet, it has not expressed itself too much in her life in that way. That will change before long. Trust me.”

  They had sent Kaari away then, and spent long hours that night talking. It had given Kaari an uncomfortable feeling, knowin
g that they were talking about her—all because of this Heart rune. Surely she could give it up! Surely this was something that she could decide to have nothing to do with!

  A ridiculous notion, of course. The runes were only the expression of what you already were. Gradually, over time, she had learned herself what all this meant. For as she grew older, those innocent little flirtations over frogs became something a great deal more serious. When husbands said with enthusiasm how pretty she was growing, wives began to be troubled. When mothers complimented her, their own daughters wondered, even as they walked arm in arm with her, why their own mothers didn’t find them as sweet-natured or as pretty or as clever. Everyone wanted to be her best friend, but having someone as a best friend means that someone else must be second-best.

  Then things got even more complicated.

  It is a sad thing to have a boy fall in love with you when you do not love him in turn. It is worse when someone else is already in love with that boy, or wants to be. Brothers can fall out over such a things, and sisters take sides. Mothers and fathers wonder why you cannot see all the good qualities in their sons. Slowly, Kaari had learned how to tell these boys that she could not be theirs in such a way as to make their heartbreak less—for heartbreak there would be; there was no getting around it. Slowly, she had learned how to shape things so that she became the ally of other girls in love. She learned, too, how to turn away the less-innocent advances of older—and often married!—men.

  It was sad for her, too, for she realized by then that she could never be sure if someone loved her for herself, or because of her runes. She had to look on even the most handsome of boys with skepticism when they protested their love. Oh, yes, the Heart rune was the expression of her nature, and she did give her affections generously, but—

  She frowned a little at that memory, and brushed her hair, worn loosely, like all the village maidens, out of her eyes as she sighed with reminiscence. Even now, when she was betrothed, she had to forcefully discourage protests of love, and sometimes more than mere protests. In fact, she often said that it was only because Annukka was going to be her mother-in-law, and everyone in the village suspected that kind of sorcerous power Annukka could wield if she chose to, that someone hadn’t tried something…unfortunate. No one, however, wished to spend even a few hours as a frog—or, much more likely, find himself dressing up in a gown and apron and doing all of Annukka’s household chores until Annukka decided that the offense had been paid for.

  Fortunately, at this time of day, all the young men were off working. They would not return from the fields, river and forest—or be released from the tasks of an apprentice—until dusk. So Kaari was unlikely to encounter any of the most susceptible.

  It was a difficult dance; sometimes all but impossible. Impossible not to create some heartbreak, impossible not to invoke some resentment. And so very, very hard to remain friends with everyone involved.

  And then things became even more complicated—if that was possible—once she was betrothed. Kaari had always been the confidant of her playmates, now she found herself being confessed to and asked advice of, the holder of secrets she sometimes did not want to know. Everyone liked her; everyone trusted her; everyone wanted to know her opinion. She had long ago learned to keep a firm grip on anything she was told, but that became even more imperative when she was told secrets that could harm. People trusted her. She felt impelled to be worthy of that trust. The village did not have a priest, nor a Shaman; one had to go to White Birch for that. Young Kaari often found herself standing in bewildered stead for those worthies.

  As a result, Kaari, while appearing to be the most pampered, was probably the least selfish person in the entire village. She had to be. Keeping other people’s feelings more or less intact entailed an enormous amount of sacrifice. She found herself giving up everything—from time spent on others that she could have used for herself, to giving cherished possessions to soothe an emotional wound. For every pretty bead necklace of polished seeds and carved pendants she kept, she gave away ten; for every length of trim she wove, she gave four. And not just to girls, or at least, not directly. There were not a few young men in the village who had mended a quarrel with a sweetheart with some former possession of Kaari’s.

  There had only ever been two people around whom she had not needed to take such care—Veikko and his mother. He treated her no differently than he did any other girl when they were children, and teased her the same when they were older. His mother had made no more fuss over her than she did over any child other than her own son. As Kaari grew older, and had learned what Annukka could do if she chose, she began to understand that, because both of them were, or would be, magic wielders, they probably had some immunity to her own ability. Either that, or Annukka had cast a spell to protect them.

  So when Veikko fell in love with her, she had known it was not the effect of her Heart rune, and it had been a distinct relief to feel herself falling for him. Only when Veikko had fallen in love with her had she felt truly free and at ease. Because—well—for almost too many other reasons to count.

  Not least was the fact that all but the really lecherous regretfully had to decide that she was no longer accessible. And all the other single girls, with the exception of those who had been in love with Veikko themselves, heaved sighs of relief.

  But just to be sure, after Veikko had declared himself and gotten her parents’ consent, she had come creeping to Annukka to confess her power. Just in case.

  Somewhat to her astonishment, Annukka had looked at her and said, “I know.”

  As she had gaped at her mother-in-law to be, Annukka had smiled and patted her on the head like a little girl. “Bless you, child, who do you think has been tending to all the little storms you stirred up that you couldn’t fix yourself?”

  Well, that made perfect sense, but—

  “And who do you think Lyyli told when she read your runes the first time?” Annukka had continued. She had smiled to see Kaari’s expression. “Oh, now, you didn’t even know Lyyli’s name, did you?”

  “I never—” Kaari had stammered, “I thought—no one ever called her any name other than—”

  “Than Wise Woman, yes, I know.” Annukka had continued spinning, calmly, the drop spindle whirling hypnotically. “It’s better that way. They call me the same in her village.”

  “You’re a—in her village?”

  “Close your mouth, child, or a bird will come feed you,” Annukka had said kindly. “I act as Wise Woman for her village, she does the same for me. It’s not considered…appropriate for the runes to be read by someone from the same village as the child. Too much pressure. Everyone wants his or her own child to be extraordinary, a Wonder-smith or an epic singer or some other sort of prodigy. To have to cast runes for the utterly ordinary, to cast runes for something the parents are not prepared to deal with, or worst of all, to cast runes that suggest trouble to come, is not something you wish to do for the people you live around. Every day they look at you, they are reminded of what you said.” She sighed. “So Lyyli and I and those others with the Mage rune have an agreement. We all protect each other. And we alternate the other villages we go to, so that we never come to a village twice in a row. We each make sure that someone in a village knows about unusual runes that come up. Like yours. I have known about you from the time Lyyli first read your runes.”

  Kaari found herself nodding.

  “You may rest assured that Veikko loves you for yourself alone and not because your wyrd compels him,” Annukka had finished. “So now, shall we begin on filling your bride-chest? Nice, thick woolen blankets are always a good place to start.”

  No one could have asked for a better mother-in-law. How Kaari loved her!

  Only halfway to the well now, Kaari stopped in a patch of sunshine and bent her head gravely for little Taina to put a rather withered crown of flowers on her. Yesterday, another child had beaten Taina to crowning Kaari, and she had promised Taina that today she could be the one
.

  Taina blushed and giggled and ran off shyly. Kaari nodded to the child’s mother, who was spreading linen shirts on the hedge to dry in the sun, and went on her way again. No one liked doing laundry alone, but—as with most things—anytime that Kaari planned to do a chore that could be done communally, most of the village women and girls showed up at the same time. In this case—by unspoken consent—laundry day for the entire village was the day that Kaari chose. And by common, unspoken, practical consent, laundry day was the day the men picked to fish in farther waters. The chatter down by the river earlier had frightened all the fish away for the next day at least.

  The flowers that the child had used were asters—Autumn flowers—and even wilting, they had a crisp, clean scent to them. Harvest would be soon, and then Winter. She hoped Veikko would be home by then, or at least, would persuade his teacher to Winter over here.

  As she smiled and nodded to everyone in greeting, her thoughts were otherwise occupied. For some reason today, she had fallen to thinking about and speculating about her own runes rather than someone else’s. She often had to wonder what someone absolutely without morals or conscience would do if she had the Heart rune; it actually made her rather ill to contemplate it for very long. If the person was petty-minded, she would simply take advantage of everything and everyone, allowing herself to be treated as something special and showered with gifts. Not only could that be done, and with the greatest of ease, but anyone so exploited would actually think himself lucky that she used him so. And if she was clever and evil…

  Please, I would rather not see that sort of thing. With such charisma it would be possible to become—

  A tyrant? Certainly, but one with a difference. A beloved tyrant, who walked over the backs of his people while they praised him for doing so. Or the sort of woman who ruins men or nations simply because she can.

  Whereas someone with ethics and morals—

  Allowed herself to look silly wearing a little girl’s wilting flower-crown in order to make the child happy.