And he lay back, with his head on her strong round thighs.
“Ignore them,” he muttered low. “If any remain staring, pretend they are not there. They are not my people.”
She looked down at him, her hair falling in separating strands of azure and sapphire and cerulean and perisine. “Who are your people, Jarik?”
He closed his eyes.
At last she said, “The Man Who Is Two Men.”
His eyes came open. He looked at her, upside down. “Yes.”
“Well, Jarik of the Black Sword, now you are the One Who Is Three, for this one is part of you.”
A part of you is a tree, and a part of you is a woman, and two of you lie on an island, close to union.
He remembered those words, thought-words of his Guide, those times when he left his body to journey where the Guide took him. Now he understood. A part of him was Oak, and oak was the name of a tree. Jilain was the woman, whom he had met — at crossed swords! — on an island. Was this their union? They had left the isle. Was this union? Was this being whole, Three Who Were One?
Now Jarik understood, without understanding. It was impossible. If it was so, was it fair to Jilain? Was it fair to him?
He heard a flutter, and saw the dove. The dove of Her. Impossible. He stared at the sky with eyes the color of the sky.
Impossible is only a word. Fairness is an invention of humans, and we humans do not make the rules. There are gods on the earth, and there is strife among them. The weavers weave, and the weavers are blind.
He listened to her again, in his mind: Well, Jairik of the Black Soord, naoo you are the Woon Who Is Tray, foor this woon is pairt of you.
He said, “What will you do? You belong to Kerosyr, on Osyr. To the Guardians, manless women. You know nothing but the island … and nothing there resembles the world of — of reality. The world, the broad world, the real world, off Kerosyr; it is … different. And most cruel, Jilain
Kerosyris. You will be a — an innocent child.”
Her brows rose, and she looked at him with pride and some hauteur. “One wears the red feather,” Jilain said sternly, “meaning that one has lain wit’ a man. And one is the best — the second best warrior ever to end bow or draw soord on Osyr’s island! Innocent babe, indeed! Why do you say such a silly thing to this one?”
“I cannot explain. I didn’t mean to insult. It is this: you will find things unfamiliar to you. Many things and most things, beginning with the people, who are most different of all. You will find cruelty, and malicious people, and terror, and mistrust and sadness, sadness.”
“Have you then had so terrible a life?”
It was a normal enough query; how could she know she posed it to one whose totally honest answer was so different, and ugly?
Quietly, sadly, he said, “Yes.”
She gazed down on him, and said nothing. His stomach rumbled while she felt herself tighten, not with hunger, at his single word. She stroked his cheek. Her fingers moved up onto his forehead. It was a good forehead, under the tangle of shoulder-length wheaten hair.
“A good forehead,” she said in a low voice. “This one regrets that she put this cut here.”
He squeezed the hand on his face. “No. It’s only a little cut.”
“It will leave a scar.”
“Only a little scar. I gave you one. Carefully, deliberately, I cut your forehead — maliciously. We will each bear a little scar of the other, all our lives.”
He remembered how he had put it there. I will fight no woman, he had arrogantly said, and maliciously added, much less a girl! And she, the queen’s champion of Kerosyr, had said, Refuse to fikht this one and you will die, for she — he — who would not fikht an armed woman once the battle-lust leaves him would not slit the throat of an unarmed one — boy! At the time he had been holding the Osyrrain, their ruler, and Jilain had been right. And so they had fought, she and he.
She was skilled, as well as being the fastest foe he had ever faced. She evaded strokes and slashes he could not have moved fast enough to avoid. She forced him to give it all his skill, else he be slain. This woman! He had had to chop up her shield to get at her. She had struck his forearm hard enough to leave a bruise he had no doubt still showed there. He gave her such a bruise by kicking her lower calf hard enough to knock her down — almost. And while he congratulated himself on that: You’ll limp tomorrow, bitch! — she had nearly killed him. He did not quite avoid her point, which carved this backward L between his wheat-hued eyebrows that put blood on his face. He had kicked her again — in the leg, again to save himself, in desperation — and Oh but there was strength in those dancer’s legs of hers with the unusually well developed calves! And he chopped her shield to flinders — while she gave him a shallow little cut on the thigh he never even realized had caught him. It bled and she nearly got him again and he kicked her ankle. Then he launched the most terrible chop with the Black Sword, and the shieldless woman’s iron blade could not withstand it. It was sheared through. He remembered her shocked expression and tone: You … bested this one! And he, with blood trickling between his brows and down his leg, bade her stand. And she did! She stood to receive the death blow, and stood unblinkingly while he extended his point toward her eyes. With care he pricked her above and between her thick black brows, and she made no sound and did not move. He turned the sword, just a little. Blood trickled from the wedge he had incised so deliberately.
Then I turned to advise the Osyrrain that I had defeated her champion — and only that rotten queen’s eyes told me that Jilain never gives up and doesn’t apply rules to combat — she nearly got me in the back with her dagger, and I had to defeat her again, with bare hands!
Thus he thought now, days later aboard Seadancer, and again he thought, What a warrior! What a woman!
The ship cruised, not rapidly now, before a gentle breeze. At the prow, foam was bleached beneath a sky of iridescent blue. The dove of Snowmist left again, to fly before them and enable Kirrensark to make a slight course correction. There was no place to go on the long boat called ship. Privacy was hardly available. A man stood with his tunic’s hem in his hand and his leggings partly unlaced, raising the level of the sea. He and the others gave Jarik and Jilain what privacy they could, without liking it. What a pity that such an arrogant bullcat was also so disgustingly competent — and had indeed saved them all!
For a time Jilain and Jarik said nothing, while they touched, and the weavers wove with yam that entangled two lives.
“As to the cruelty of your world,” she began after a long while, and he blinked and lifted his brows questioningly. “Oh. Were you asleep?”
“No. Thinking. Enjoying. Being. I hunger, I thirst, I have to empty my bladder. And I had rather be here with my head on your legs.”
“One will wait while you do these things. One’s legs will be here.”
“With my bruises on them.”
“Yes. They do not hurt.”
“I will wait,” he decided, or rather did not decide, for being motionless was better than moving, than deciding. Above all men Jarik knew that small changes, small moves, could bring enormous changes. The weavers had woven his life’s skein with much red, and black.
She lifted her eyes, and after a few moments she made a tiny gesture. Response was swift. The youth came to bend over Jarik. Jarik saw his stained buskins, and above them leather leggings once tawny and now walnut-hued and here and there splotched darker still. At mid-thigh they vanished up under his tunic, faded from brown to hazelnut, with loose sleeves to the middle of his work-thick forearms. His belt was a hand’s length longer than the lean youth was around and, pulled through its brass ring and doubled back and looped over and drawn through the loop, dangled. The belt was broad and thick. It bore three bosses of bronze and a copper-riveted tip. The attire was about the same as that of the others, and so was the hair that straggled down unbound; the youth of seventeen wore no helmet now, and there was yellow and orange in his straight stringy hair. He
was lean, strong of jaw and chin, straight of nose, with an almost invisible beard that was hardly worthy of being distinguished with that name. There was an odd darkness around both his eyes — in the sockets, not in the eyes — that had led to his nickname. Over the years — and as he grew strong and tall — “Coon-face” had-been shortened. Perhaps he worshiped Jarik. Doubtless he worshiped Jilain.
“Ah, Coon,” Jarik said. “I’m glad to see you unharmed!”
Coon blinked, for such words were not like Jarik; not like what he thought Jarik was like, that is, and expected of him.
“Coon,” Jilain said softly, and Jarik thought that she had got her voice from a dove along with her prowess from a swift youngling bear. “Jarik thirsts. But he and this one wish to remain here alone as any can be on this ship. Will you help, please?”
Coon stared at her, spellbound. His eyes asked what he might do.
“Will you fetch quietly some ale for Jarik?”
The youth stared a little longer before nodding, jerkily. “Oh. Aye! And for you?”
“No. Only for Jarik.”
“And Oak,” Coon said in a tone of reverence.
Jarik’s face lost its pleasant expression, but Coon did not notice. He went away as if on holy mission.
“He’s addled over you,” Jarik said.
“What?”
“Coon is infatuated with you.”
“Oh. And wit’ you.”
“Oak. It’s always Oak they love and want. Once I was taken in at a little wark of fishermen because Oak had saved one of their trappers. They were sore disappointed, because they had only Jarik.” He remembered the great half-circle of stone or pitted metal in that village of Hamstarl — Blackiron — and the strange sword all of black that had stood from it. He remembered that day of horror when he had yanked forth that blade and put it to awful use. The Black Sword of the Iron Lords. Those gods lived within the mountain that rose above Hamstarl as Snowmist lived on Cloudpeak above Kirrensark-wark, and Jarik had … visited with them. He was their agent, who wore their armor finer than iron and their Black Sword finer than anything. His mission was to slay their rival god, kith but not kin, the Lady of the Snowmist.
She heard what he said, and she knew a little more of him.
“You do not drink ale?” he asked.
“Guardians make beer, though we drink water, mostly. Drank,” she amended. “That is, they … One will have to learn to say ‘they’ of the Guardians, while ‘we’ are … something else. Anyhow, this one too has to drown a spider.”
After a couple of moments he decided that was Guardian for the act that all peoples euphemized: draining the bladder. “Oh! I will move, then — ”
Her hand pressed him back down on her thigh. It was sweaty there, under the tangle of his blond hair. He smiled, then frowned. “Has that been difficult? On the ship, with men only?”
“Oh, it is fascinating! What does one know of men? One stared and stared, until one discovered that they do not like one to look. It was rude, but one did not know. Yes, it has been difficult. On Kerosyr we say ‘One must drown a spider,’ and do so. Some look and some do not; it does not matter. Some prefer privacy. For — that other, we say ‘One must go alone’ and it is very private. One held her water as long as she could, until Oak noticed the fidgeting and asked what the matter was. Demanded to know what the matter was! Oh, but he does demand! A king, Oak is. Though he would make no good one, the impatient arrogant cat! He demanded to know, and one told him the cause of her fidgeting. First he told this one how silly and stupid she was. Then he called Kirrensark and told — told — him that he must always see that this one has privacy. Kirrensark understood at once. He had not thokht of it. So — one has privacy, when one has need.”
Jarik was chuckling. “One does!” he said, and his voice rose loud.
“Hush, Jairik Blacksword! So … one eats and drinks but little, for it is troublesome, the going alone on this ship, and the men are [a word unknown to Jarik].”
“What? The men are what?” The language had been theirs in common, he knew. Over the years and scores of years, differences had grown between the speech of her people and those of Lokusta, as it had been the Lokustans’ speech and that of Akkharia, whence Jarik had come when he was Orrikson Jarik. Phrases changed; pronunciations changed and euphemisms and expressions were born; words and phrases were born.
She felt some anger in him against the men who were whatever-she-said. She assured him that her word meant “uncomfortable.” He relaxed. Then he said it after her.
“Uncomfortable! Aye!” And Jarik laughed aloud at that. Many heads turned his way, for the somber wearer of the Black Sword and the enslaving Bands of Snowmist was not known for smiling, much less laughing. Laughing aloud while lying on his back, he choked himself on laughter, and sat up with a jerk. A terribly serious expression flowed over his face, and his grunt was a moan. Giving Jilain an apologetic look, Jarik hurried to the rail.
Men wondered why he laughed as he urinated — going alone.
*
Much later he was able to sit beside her again. He saw her bruised legs.
“Hello. I tried to kill you.”
She looked at him most seriously indeed, as though trying to memorize every pore of his face; what showed above the reddish-blond beard Oak had not bothered to scrape off.
“Yes. One tried to kill you,” Jilain said, almost in a whisper.
“You bear my sword’s mark on your forehead. You will have a little scar there. Like this.” He showed her a finger held in a crook, knuckle up; an inverted V.
“You will bear this one’s sword-scar on your forehead, too,” she told him, almost in a whisper.
Jarik nodded. “Well,” he said low. “Now I would fight for you, Jilain.”
Again that intense, studying look. “Yes. This one would fikht for you, Jarik Blacksword.”
He squeezed the hand that touched his cheek. “In a way, you killed for me.”
“No.” She shook her head with a rustle of blue hair. “That was justice. She made promise, and broke it. That cannot be, from the Osyrrain above all others. She was not honorable with regard to you earlier, either, whick you know bothered this one even then. One slew her for Osyr. It was justice.” She looked down. “One does not feel heroic, however. And expiation will have to be made.”
The word she used was unfamiliar, but Jarik said it over in his head and recognized it as the word for “expiation.”
He repeated it as a question.
She nodded. “It will come. Payments have to be made for our acts.”
He knew he was hearing a Kerosyran belief, and he knew that he would remember that phrase all his life, and not fondly. Of a sudden he squeezed her arm, which was bare below the short sleeve of Shranshule’s leather coat.
“Hail, warrior. I am your brother, warrior.”
The form was unfamiliar to her, but she heard the sound of a rite; of something helderen. She said, “Hail, warrior. This one and you are sisters.” Her voice was only just audible.
Jarik smiled, though he felt a tickle that was almost a sting behind his eyes. He did not like it. He looked at her, and looked away. “You began to tell me something. You began long ago: ‘About the world’s cruelty — ’”
“Yes. One remembers, and one would say it still. You spoke so strongly of the cruelty of your world, whick made you no happy worn — ah! Man, man, this one means. A man would not like to be called woman?”
“A man would not, Jilain. Would a woman like to be called man?”
She considered. She shrugged. “It does not matter. This one knows what she is, and words will not change that. What do words matter?”
He heard. He would remember that, too. She had proven herself. She had no need of words. He wondered when he would feel the same to be true of himself — he who had bested her in blade combat and by hand, and doubted whether any other man aboard could do so.
“Well,” she said, “consider. You know most of it, Jarik
Blacksword. What could be more cruel than Kerosyr? Women who live without men — and on the occasion this one changed feathers, she knew the difference! This one liked it, Jarik, the coupling with a man.”
Yes. He remembered. So she had said. “Some do,” he said, “I am told.” He did not smile, nor did he look at her. It was hard for him to believe that she had offered, she! — more, she had asked him to, and he had said her no.
It was not easy, being Jarik.
“It is forbidden to say so, among the Guardians! Did you know that?”
“To say that, uh, one enjoys coupling with a man?”
“Yes. Enjoyed, for there is only the once. One conceives or one does not. Men are dishonest, we are taukht, and dishonorable, and unnecessary. Except once! All a woman needs is herself and another woman, we are taukht. One captures men, and uses them. One changes one’s feather with them, changes it to red in order to beget, and continue the Guardianship of the God. That is all. It is only for reproducing, the coupling with men. Is that cruel, Jarik?”
“I suppose, uh, if one, uh, disagrees,” he said weakly. Realizing that “to change feather” with them was a euphemism for “lie with” or, as they and some men said, “use,” Jarik thought that yes, it was worse than cruel. It is sick, he thought, but he said no more and did not look at her, he who was not well. It was hard to be judgmental, when one knew that one was not well.
Besides, he was taught another way. One did not talk or think about women … doing that. For once, Jarik tried not to be shocked, to be more than the man his upbringing and his society had made him. It was hardly easy. A bigot of Kerosyr would condemn him more than he would her.
“What more cruel,” she said quietly, looking away from him, “than to welcome those hapless men who come to Kerosyr, and treat them well, so well — and then slay them? While those whose feathers they change must live forever on that single memory? Oh it is true that some Guardians did not enjoy it and did not want it again, that coupling with a man. And some merely said that they did not.” She was quiet for a space. Then, “And what more cruel than to slay all the issue that are male? Oh it is not that Guardians do not love Guardians, and exchange nikht-pleasures! It is not that such is not enjoyable. But … that is not … the same.” Her eyes went away for a moment, far away. “For Jilain,” she added, and gave her head a jerk that whirred short-cropped blue hair about her head. “What could be more cruel than the fate of the Pythoness, who from birt’ is trained for that post — and from the age of ten sees naukht but the temple, which she never leaves … and is slain in honor of Osyr and in sacrifice to him when she is twascore years of age?”
The Lady of the Snowmist (War of the Gods on Earth Book 3) Page 4
