A Journey of the Heart

by Catherine M. Wilson

  "If the good weather lasts, I think we can reach a forest I know of," she said. "It marks the boundary between the lands of the northern tribes and the place where I lived before I came to Merin's house. Because it's a boundary, people seldom go there."

  "We're going to live in a forest?"

  She nodded.

  "How will we find enough to eat?"

  "We'll hunt and fish and set snares. There are edible roots to dig. And nuts and acorns. Not even the squirrels can carry them all away."

  I still had my doubts. "Where will we find shelter in a forest?"

  "Where the people sheltered who used to live there."

  People who lived in a forest? Those who lived by farming didn't live in forests. There was only one people I knew of who lived in forests. A shiver of excitement went through me.

  "The old ones," I whispered.

  "The old ones, yes. And people who have nowhere else to go. Outlaws."

  "Outlaws?"

  Maara heard the fear in my voice. "Yes," she said. She didn't try to hide her smile. "Like us."

  "Oh."

  Maara was quietly laughing. I didn't see the humor in it. Outlaws were people to be feared. They belonged to no one. No one could take them to task about their misbehavior. They could do anything they pleased.

  When I lived at home, we never traveled alone in the wild places, for fear of outlaws. Were we now the people to be feared?

  Maara saw that I didn't share her amusement. "Did it never occur to you that it is possible to change places with anyone?"

  Her question baffled me.

  "With me?" she said.

  "You were an outlaw?"

  I saw the answer in her eyes.

  "And you lived in the forest?"

  "Yes, and I could have lived there very well, if I had not been hunted."

  She meant to reassure me that we would be able to survive in the forest, but I felt her loneliness and fear as if they were my own, though the danger was long past.

  "Hunted?" I said. "Why were you hunted?"

  Maara shook her head. "I lived another life then, a life I've almost forgotten."

  Was she asking me to allow her to forget? I didn't want her to forget. That life had led to this one, and I wanted to know her as she had been then. I wanted her to give me the gift of her past, so that I would no longer be shut out from any part of her life.

  Then I saw that I was jealous -- of the time she had spent apart from me, of the people who had shared that time with her, of any time or place or person that had known her in a way I had not.

  "I would like to hear about the life you lived then," I told her.

  "Someday," she said, "but not tonight. Tonight we need to sleep."

  We made a bed of leaves. With her cloak beneath us and mine tucked close around us, I snuggled against her back and listened for her breathing to tell me she was asleep.

  I wasn't sleepy. I had too much to think about. In all the time I'd known her, Maara had told me very little of her life before she came to Merin's house. At first I didn't like to trespass on something she kept private. Later, out of habit, I never thought to ask her. Now my curiosity was mixed with the desire to know each hurt she'd ever suffered and to comfort it.

  I thought about the things she had told me, about losing her mother and living for years as best she could among people who didn't care for her. Then she had been taken into a household of warriors. Sold or given, she had said. Either way, she had been someone's possession.

  How old was she then? How long had she lived there before she came to Merin's house? If that's where she was made a warrior, she must have been there for many years. About that time I knew nothing.

  A strange forest at nighttime isn't the best place for clear thinking, and my imagination began to supply images of what that time might have been like for her. My imagination may have been too pessimistic. My heart ached as I thought of all the painful things she must have endured. That she said so little about it was proof enough that it had been a difficult time.

  She murmured in her sleep. I stroked her back to quiet her, touching her more tenderly than I had ever touched her, as if I could give her now what she had needed then, as if mine could be the touch she had once longed for, a touch that never came. I wanted to take into my own heart all the pain, the loneliness, the heartache she had known, not to take it from her, but to bear it with her.

  My eyes filled with tears. I wiped them away. More fell. I felt her wake.

  "What is it?" she murmured.

  She sat up and turned to look at me. Although it was too dark for her to see my face, I tried to cover it anyway. Gently she pulled my hands away.

  "We're going to be all right," she said. "Don't worry. We'll be fine."

  "I know."

  "What is it then?"

  I had thought to comfort her. Now I was the one in need of comfort.

  "Tamras," she said, "I don't know what to do."

  She still held my hand. I drew hers to my lips and kissed it.

  "Lie down," I said. "Go back to sleep. I'm all right."

  I felt her hesitate.

  "I wish I'd known you then," I whispered.

  "I'm glad you didn't."

  "Why?"

  "It was a dreadful time," she said. "I wouldn't share that time with someone I care for."

  Someone I care for.

  "Will you share it with someone who cares for you?" I asked her.

  Her grip on my fingers tightened.

  "Yes," she said. "Someday I will."

  I woke first, still wrapped around her, my face against her back, as we had fallen asleep the night before. I kept myself from moving, so that I wouldn't awaken her. Half an hour went by, but when she woke, it was still too soon.

  That day we traveled through the hill country to the northeast of Merin's house. We were approaching the wilderness, where we had traveled with Vintel's band. Although we would find no cover there, by now that country would be deserted. The northerners had gone home.

  The day was cold. Late in the afternoon the cloudy sky scattered a few snowflakes around us. As the daylight faded, Maara took us deeper into the woods and built a shelter of pine boughs, just big enough for the two of us to lie down in, with a thick bed of pine needles to keep us from the cold ground. She lit a fire in the doorway, so close I was afraid she would burn the shelter down, but the heat found its way inside without the fire doing any harm. A few snowflakes drifted through the trees and dusted the ground around us, while we stayed warm and dry.

  After we had eaten, I reminded Maara of her promise to tell me the story of her past. We had been sitting side by side in the tiny shelter. Now I lay down and leaned up on one elbow so that I could see her face.

  She peered at me in the dim light. "Why do you want to know these things?"

  I had no answer for her. That I loved her she knew without my saying so, but the love that wanted all her secrets, of that love she knew nothing. I would have told her of it then if I'd known how. I could not have found a better way to reveal myself than to ask her to share her pain with me.

  "I want to know," was all I said.

  Maara sighed. I knew she was reluctant, but I was patient, and at last she settled herself and gazed into the fire, as she had seen me do a hundred times when I was about to tell a story.

  "You know all I know of my early childhood already," she said. "I don't remember much of it, although I used to. When I lay down to sleep at night, I called back the memory of my mother's house. I lay in the dark and imagined my home all around me. It was both a comfort and a hope. I believed that as long as I remembered, someday it would become real again, and I would wake one morning in my own bed.

  "When I grew older, I came to understand that my home was gone forever. Then the memories became too painful, and I made myself forget. Now those memories are only shadows. I don't know if they're real or if I made them up."

  She laid a few twigs on the fire. She said no more.

&n
bsp; "Do you remember the villages where you lived after you were captured?" I asked her.

  She shook her head. "I had nothing to remember by. Your people are always telling stories. That's how you remember. You tell one another the stories of your lives, but I had no one to tell. All I remember is that there were times when I had enough to eat and a warm place to sleep, and there were times when I had neither."

  My heart was beginning to hurt. "How long did you have to live like that?"

  "I don't know. Nothing measured out that time for me. Every day was the same as any other."

  "But you were taken into a warrior household. Surely you must remember that. How old were you then?"

  She shrugged.

  "Had you begun to bleed?"

  "No," she said. "That happened afterwards. I remember, because one of the servants there showed me what to do."

  If she had been taken into that household when she was still a child, I thought, it could not have been with the intention of making her a warrior.

  "Why did they take you in, when you were still so young?"

  She smiled. "I knew something about the working of metal."

  "You did?" I was impressed. A smith's skill was precious, and smiths were notorious for keeping their secrets to themselves. "Who taught you?"

  "No one taught me," she said. "I watched. There was a smith who needed someone to work the bellows and fetch charcoal for the forge. He thought I was stupid, no more intelligent than an animal. I never gave him reason to think differently. I never spoke. I never gave a sign that I understood more than a few simple words, but I watched everything he did.

  "While he was away, I practiced what I had seen him do. One day a young woman came in and caught me at it. She was looking for the smith, and when he came home, she sat with him in his house and spoke with him for a long time.

  "When she came out, she made signs to me to come with her. I refused to obey her until the smith came out and chased me away. I thought he was angry with me, but she must have bargained with him for me, because she took me into her mother's household."

  "What did you do there?"

  "A little of everything. When I could, I worked with their smith. It spared me from doing kitchen work or being someone's personal servant."

  "Did they treat you well?"

  "Very well," she said. "They fed me, every day, almost more than I could eat. I slept indoors. They gave me clothing, shoes, everything I needed."

  "But you were still a servant."

  Maara met my eyes. "I may have been a servant, or I may have been a slave. It made no difference, because my life was so much better there than it had been before. I was grateful to be there at all, and to be useful."

  "Did you have friends there?"

  "Friends." She gazed into the fire, considering her answer. "I suppose so. There was a group of us, all about the same age. We slept together, ate together, worked together."

  "But was there no one special, no one who cared for you more than for the others?"

  She turned her face away from me. "No."

  "No one you cared for?"

  She didn't answer me. I had blundered into a painful place, and I tried to think of something to ask her that might not hurt so much.

  "Who apprenticed you?" I said. "How did you become a warrior?"

  "No one apprenticed me. The girl who took me from the smith was the daughter of the house. She was an apprentice herself then. When she became a warrior, she took me to be one of her companions."

  "Not her apprentice?"

  Maara shook her head.

  "Then how did you become a warrior?"

  She smiled at me. "Tell me, am I a warrior now?"

  "Of course."

  "Then at some time I must have become one, apprenticed or not."

  "But someone must have taught you. Surely they didn't send you into battle untrained."

  "Even slaves were taught the use of arms," she said. "When the daughter of the house went into battle, it was my duty to protect her. For that I was trained."

  "What was her name?"

  "Elen."

  I felt a twinge of jealousy. I looked away from Maara, out into the forest where, beyond the circle of firelight, darkness gathered.

  "What?" said Maara.

  I answered her honestly. "I'm jealous of Elen."

  "Why?" she asked, surprised.

  "Because she knew you then. I wish I'd known you then."

  "Why?" she said, more softly.

  "Because I would have loved you."

  She made no sound. Had she heard me? I turned to look at her. She had been playing with a sprig of pine, rubbing the needles between her fingers to release their scent into the air. Now her hands were still. Her expression was unreadable. Not surprise, not gladness. More than anything, I thought she looked wistful, like a starving person gazing at a fairy banquet spread out before her in the grass, seeing there her heart's desire and knowing it will vanish the moment she reaches for it.

  I would not vanish.

  I sat up. Still she didn't speak. It was her eyes that questioned me.

  My love for her filled my heart. Everything was there all at once -- the sweet warmth of tenderness, the ache of longing, a joy that bubbled up inside me and made me want to laugh, a piercing pain that brought tears into my eyes, and a deep glow that would, with the slightest breath, burst into the flame of desire.

  Some hearts break from love, Namet said. Mine was about to break.

  "Why?" Maara whispered.

  The world was silent, waiting for my answer.

  "I don't know why," I told her. "I don't think love ever asks the question."

  The last flame of our campfire flickered out. The glowing bed of coals warmed us but gave little light. Her face was in shadow, and I couldn't see her eyes. I began to wonder if I had been mistaken, if I had misunderstood her, if the kind of love I'd offered her wasn't what she wanted.

  "Are you glad," I asked, "or sorry?"

  I waited a long time for her answer. As if my life were hanging in the balance, my heart held its breath.

  "Both," she said at last.

  It was the one answer I had not expected.

  "I don't understand," I said. "What does that mean?"

  Too dark. Too dark to look for her heart in her eyes.

  "I don't know how to say these things," she said.

  I waited for her. Perhaps she could say them in the dark.

  "No one taught me about love," said Maara. "It comes to me like a visitor. It sits like a guest at my fire for a little while, but it never stays."

  "Am I guest? Am I a visitor?"

  I felt for her hand. When I found it, I took it between both of mine and held it tight.

  "I'll give you all I can," she said. Her fingers entwined themselves with mine. "I'll teach you what I know. I'll fight for you. I'll fight beside you. I would give my life for you, but I don't know if I can give you what you want."

  "What I want? What do you think I want?"

  She didn't answer.

  "Beloved," I said, "my heart is full to bursting with things it doesn't understand. If they stay there, locked away, they'll die there, or they'll break my heart to pieces trying to get out. All I want is for you to want those things. Touch the door. One touch from you and it will spring open."

  She pulled her hand from between my hands and left them empty. What had I done wrong? Tears stung my eyes, and for a moment I glimpsed the future, a life as barren as the wilderness through which we soon must pass. Then I felt her fingers touch my breast, over my heart.

  The world turned on that touch. I felt my heart break open, and a brilliant light spilled out of it. As blinding as the darkness, the light surrounded us. I had to close my eyes against it, but I felt it on my skin, as warm as sunshine.

  I covered Maara's hand with mine and held it there. She was the one familiar thing in this strange world where I now found myself. I laid my head on her shoulder. Her breath warmed my cheek. She was r
eal. She would not vanish. The light faded. I opened my eyes.

  "Sleep in my arms tonight," I whispered.

  I lay down and waited for her. She found my cloak and with a mother's tenderness tucked it around me. Then she lay down and took me into her arms. For a long time we held each other, until we could resist sleep no longer. While snow fell all around us, I dreamed of summertime.

  58. Wilderness

  When I woke, Maara's arms tightened around me. I hid my face in the rough wool of her tunic and slipped my arm around her waist, wishing I could drift for another hour on the edge of sleep, forgetful of everything but that I was in her arms.

  She moved a little, as if she had lain too long in one position.

  "How long have you been awake?" I asked her.

  "A while," she said.

  I opened my eyes. Bright daylight glanced off the snow outside and spilled into our shelter. It was past time we should have been on our way.

  "Why didn't you wake me up?"

  In a voice soft with sleep, she said, "I didn't want to let go."

  Sweet words. My head lay in the hollow of her shoulder. I pulled aside the collar of her tunic and kissed her, just above the collarbone.

  "I don't want to let go either," I said, "but we have a long way to go today."

  "Yes."

  Still, neither of us moved.

  "I wish we were home," I whispered, "lying in a warm bed."

  "With Namet about to come in to wish me good morning."

  I chuckled. "I think Namet would understand."

  Then I thought about where we were and why, and I wondered if Maara would ever see Namet again.

  Maara must have been thinking the same thing.

  "I miss her," she whispered.

  "I made a promise I intend to keep. I promised your mother I would bring you back to her."

  "You did?"

  "I did," I told her. "And I will."

  Maara sighed. "I hope it's possible."

  "We have a home to return to. We both have family there. We can't be outlaws all our lives. In the springtime, we'll go back."

  Maara pulled away and looked at me. "Is that what you want?"

  "What else can we do?"

  She rolled over onto her back and gazed up at the roof of pine boughs that sheltered us. "I hadn't thought that far ahead. Anything could happen to us between now and then."