“It’s never easy for a woman—not even if you’re a Forester.”
“But Forester women are the equals of men. The only reason I didn’t go to Bridgetown with Karl and David and John was because of my age. Next year I’ll be able to do it.”
“Well, if not next year, then the year after. By the time you’re nineteen, no one will question your adulthood.”
“I’m already an adult now. Just look at me,” Zoë said, drawing herself up.
Helen complied, taking a step back to better appraise her daughter.
“Yes, Zoë. You’ve become a beautiful young woman. I wish your father could have seen you.”
“Maybe he will, someday.”
“Don’t say that. If he were going to return, he’d have returned years ago. How he died is a mystery, but it’s certain he’s no longer alive.”
“What makes it certain, Mother?”
“If he’d been able to come back to the Forest House, he’d have come back. It’s as simple as that. He’s been gone for ten years, Zoë. In that time a living man would have found his way home.”
“What if he’s a prisoner?”
“How could he be a prisoner? Your father never committed a crime, and who would dare imprison one of the Emperor’s Foresters without cause?”
Zoë turned away and walked to the window. The late spring night had been chill, but the sun had already warmed the air.
“I remember him, you know,” she said slowly.
“Of course you do. You were seven when he left to report to the Prefect. Karl wanted to go with him that summer. He was a month shy of eighteen, and he insisted he was old enough for the journey. But your father told him he’d have to wait another year. Rules were rules, he said.”
Zoë turned back to face her mother.
“You see, Mother. Father would have followed the rules and allowed Karl to go when he was eighteen, but you think I need to be nineteen to be counted an adult.”
“Different people become adults at different ages. Karl was an adult long before he was eighteen, and he’ll probably be an old man by the time he’s thirty,” she added with a smile. “But I didn’t say you’d necessarily have to wait until you were nineteen.”
“It sounded like that to me.”
“Only because you weren’t listening carefully.”
Zoë let this pass; she had something more important on her mind.
“Mother, what did you mean when you said that it was difficult for women?”
“I meant that, outside our kin, it’s hard for a woman to gain respect. When you go to Bridgetown, you’ll see that in the way outsiders look at you—as if a woman Forester wasn’t a Forester at all, but a child playing she’s a grown-up.”
“What will I have to do to prove myself?” A new earnestness entered Zoë’s voice.
“You never know. Things happen, and you react to them, and the way you react reveals who you are. But what the thing that happens is, there’s no foretelling. All you can do is be ready.”
“I am ready, Mother. I know I am.”
Helen walked over and took her daughter’s hand.
“I hope you’re right.”
Zoë leaned forward and kissed her mother’s cheek.
“I’ll make you proud of me someday.”
“I’m already proud of you, Zoë.”
“But tell me about it, Mother. What was it like when the great thing happened to you?”
Helen cast her eyes down for a moment.
“It never happened, Zoë. It never happened to me or to Ethel either. We’re both still waiting. And now we both fear it never will—although I’ve never said that to Ethel and she’s never said it to me.”
Raising her head, Helen now looked directly at her daughter.
“But at least I had my years with your father and I still have my four children.”
“Was that why Ethel never married?” Zoë asked. “Because she was waiting for the great thing?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think it was simply because she never found the right man.”
“But can’t finding the right man be the same as the great thing?”
Helen thought for a moment.
“It could be.”
Then she smiled.
“If you marry an Emperor, for example. Ethel used to talk nonsense like that. As a girl, she said she intended to marry no one but the Emperor himself—or, at the very least, one of his sons. But things like that only happen in fairy tales.
“However, it’s time you were off. John’s young man is probably famished by now. If you find him, invite him home for dinner. It would be nice to see a new face at the table. I miss my boys.”
Zoë usually left with a bound, but this morning she walked slowly from the clearing into the forest. Passing from sunlight into shadow, she shivered, reacting to an unexpected sense that she was entering an alien world. The forest was as much her home as the house she’d just left or the Mountain House where the Foresters spent the winter. Yet today everything seemed different. Was it because of what her mother had said? She’d have one chance, and if she didn’t meet the test she’d be a failure. But how could she recognize the test? And might it elude her the way it had eluded her mother and aunt?
Helen had said that having a husband and children had compensated, but compensation wasn’t what Zoë wanted. Any woman can have a husband and children; she was certain that men and women who boasted about parenthood had never amounted to much in their own lives. Besides, she couldn’t imagine herself a wife and a mother. She’d watched the women at the Mountain House showing off their babies—ooohing and aaahing at the sign of a new tooth or some burble they called a word. Surely there was more to life than that. But what if even these humdrum pleasures were denied her? Was that the reason Ethel hadn’t married—because she, too, had wanted something more, only never to find it?
▲
It was broad daylight when Jon finally opened his eyes. How had he slept so long? But he knew what had awakened him—yet another unexpected voice.
“About time you woke up.”
A young woman—or was it a girl?—was looking down at him. He felt for the broken arrowhead and found it still beneath his shirt. Then he scrambled to his feet, trying not to seem surprised.
He’d known at once that he faced no threat. These days he always seemed cognizant of things like that. And when he looked at her more closely, the woman reminded him of John. She was wearing the same green clothing; she had the same thick, dark hair and fair complexion; and her expression recalled his, with its open smile and bright eyes. Moreover, like John, she seemed to enjoy speaking out of the blue.
“I don’t usually sleep so late, but I was tired. I came a long way yesterday.”
“How far?”
“From the other side of the mountain.”
“Which one? There are mountains in three directions—if you want to call the big hill to the north of us a mountain.”
“I climbed what we call the Boundary Mountain. I came from the Valley of Women.”
“Is that where you live?”
“Not anymore.”
“And where are you going? I may seem nosey, but it’s my duty to ask questions. This is our territory, so you have no right to be here without permission. Not that I hold that against you.”
“How long have you been watching me?” he asked.
“Not long,” she replied. “I have better things to do with my time than watching boys sleep.”
Boys? It was a put down, for she couldn’t have been more than a year older than he was. But Lyla had warned him against making a fool of himself.
“I saw someone in the woods yesterday—was that you?” he asked.
The question caught her off guard.
“Where?” she asked eagerly.
“Back that way,” he said, pointing in the direction from which he’d come.
“Back that way doesn’t tell me very much. But if you came from the Valley of Women yo
u must have taken the trail from the outlook. I wasn’t there, so it wasn’t me you saw. And you couldn’t have seen one of my brothers, since they’re away. And I know for a fact that my mother and my grandfather and my aunt stayed at the Forest House yesterday. So if you saw anyone in the forest it must have been a Rand.”
“A Rand? What’s a Rand?”
She held back a moment. Should she tell him about the Rand? But why not?
“They’re people, sort of. Like us but not like us. I’ve never seen one up close—only in the distance, and only one time, two years ago.”
“That’s the way this was—in the distance. Afterwards, I thought it must have been a deer—I’d seen deer earlier in the day, so I knew they lived here. But that second time I got the feeling it was another human. I don’t know why I felt that way, but I did.”
“The Rand never come close. They’re afraid of us, we think. One minute they’re there, and the next they’re gone, without making a sound or even shaking the leaves. It’s strange.”
“Do they speak our language?”
“How should I know? I don’t even know if they speak at all. They’re like animals. They don’t wear clothes, even when it’s cold, and they’re very shy. You’re lucky to have seen one. My brother David saw one up close once—he’ll tell you about it if you ask him.
“But you must be hungry,” she added.
“I have food.”
“Let’s see.”
Jon knelt on the ground and opened the knapsack to show her the oatcakes and cheese.
“That makes no sense,” he said. “There’s something that wasn’t here yesterday. At least I didn’t see it yesterday. But it must have been here. There’s no other way.”
“What is it?” Zoë asked, squatting down to get a better look.
“I don’t know. It’s wrapped in a leaf.”
“Well, unwrap it, then.”
Jon was annoyed by the way she gave orders, but he wanted to find out what the mysterious packet contained.
“It looks like some kind of dried meat,” he said.
“Let me see.”
Without waiting for his response, she snatched it from his hand. Holding it up to her nose, she sniffed.
“It’s not meat.”
“Then what is it?”
“Dried fish, I think.”
She broke off a sliver and touched it with the tip of her tongue.
“Yes, it’s fish all right—but I don’t know what kind. One of my brothers catches fish—David, the one who saw the Rand. But this doesn’t taste anything like the ones he cooks for us. Here, take it back.”
Jon bit his lip as he carefully rewrapped the fish in its leaf. It couldn’t have come from the Valley of Women—even the red-veined leaf was unfamiliar. But if it hadn’t been Lyla’s gift, where had it come from? He’d gone to sleep using the knapsack as a pillow, but he must have moved during the night, because it was next to his head when he woke. It was odd how long he’d slept—especially on the hard ground. Had this woman slipped the leaf package into his knapsack while he was sleeping? No, she’d been genuinely surprised by the dried fish—he was certain of that.
“Well, are you ready to go?” she asked.
“Go where?”
“To where there’s a lot better food than the stuff you have.”
“Where’s that?”
“To the Forest House, of course, where my mother and three brothers live—when my brothers are here—and my aunt and my grandfather. Weren’t you paying attention to what I told you?”
“How will we get to this house?”
“Down that path,” she said. “It’s only an hour away—or maybe a little more, if you wash first. You’re pretty dirty, you know. If I were you I’d want to clean up before I met new people. First impressions are important. There’s a pool in the stream over there—although the water may be too cold for you.”
“It won’t be too cold.”
He sensed that this was exactly what she’d wanted him to say.
“I’ll go on ahead and wait for you,” she said, sauntering off down the path.
Once she was out of sight, Jon walked down to the pool, removed his clothes, and slipped into the water. It was far from warm, but not as icy as the lake in the Valley of Women; and he enjoyed washing the dust from his face and hair, ridding himself of the last traces of his former life. But, although he couldn’t see her, he was sure that the girl was watching him. The women forbade boys undressing where girls might catch sight of them—although some boys deliberately broke the rule—yet what did he care? Besides, he liked the thought of being naked like those Rand she was talking about. Wasn’t that the way all human beings had once lived?
Out of the water and relatively dry, he dressed and followed the path the girl had indicated. Minutes passed with no sight of her and he began to fear that she’d run away, but suddenly there she was, leaning against a tree.
“Was it cold?” she asked.
“Refreshing. Very refreshing.”
“Good. But you’re limping. Did you hurt yourself?”
“No. I’m just sore.”
“From what?”
“From the climb. I’m not used to mountains, and it was a long way.”
“It couldn’t have been all that far. I’ve climbed mountains a lot higher than the one between this valley and the Valley of Women.”
“Did you ever climb the White Wall?”
“No. What’s that?”
“Nothing important,” he replied. If he told her how difficult it had been she’d just describe a steeper climb she’d made with one hand tied behind her back.
“Well, we don’t have to hurry,” Zoë said. “But there’s no use standing here. Follow me.”
Jon realized why she’d waited for him at this particular place, for the woman took a side path he’d otherwise have overlooked. Leaving the streamside, they climbed a low hill.
“Our house isn’t far,” she told him. “You can get there on the trail that follows the stream, but this is a shortcut.”
At the bottom of the hill, they rejoined the main trail for a short distance, and then Zoë turned right, beginning another climb. In a few moments, the trees parted into a meadow full of tall grass dotted with orange poppies and a taller white flower he’d never seen in the Valley of Women. Halfway up the slope stood a long wooden house, pearl gray from the rain and sun, with no windows, but a long row of doors opening to a porch that ran the length of the building. At the right of the house, two ponies watched them from behind a rail fence. Next to their pasture, a creek had been dammed to create a pond; and, above the house, two people were working in a field while a flock of chickens foraged for food.
“There it is,” the girl said.
Even as she spoke, a tall, older woman appeared at the middle door and looked down toward them, shading her eyes with her left hand.
“Mother, I’ve brought a guest,” the girl called out as she hurried up the path, leaving Jon to limp along behind. “And I’m sure he’s the one John told us to look for.”
The older woman remained silent, watching them approach. A few paces from the porch, both stopped and waited for her to speak.
“What makes you certain he’s the one John spoke of, Zoë?”
“He fits the description—like one of us, except for the clothes. John didn’t say anything about the long hair. If I’d been him, I would have included that detail, since no Forester men have such long, stringy hair. But the rest was just as he told me. The boy had come down from the lookout and he was unsure of the way.”
Jon hadn’t been unsure of the way. That part was her invention. But at least now he’d learned her name without having to ask it.
“Did you happen to inquire if he knew your brother?”
“No. It seemed unnecessary.”
The woman turned to Jon.
“As you can see, my daughter has great confidence in her own judgment. But I have a question for you. Have you ever met my youn
gest son?”
“John?”
“Yes. You know his name because Zoë just used it, so you could claim you knew John whether or not you really did. Indeed, she even gave you a hint of what he looks like. That means I didn’t ask a very good question. Let me try again. Can you tell me anything to prove you know my son?”
As she asked the question, Jon felt her studying him intently, as if she were searching for something hidden. He pulled the broken arrowhead from his shirt and held it up.
“He gave me this.”
“Yes. I forgot to tell you,” Zoë interrupted. “He was wearing John’s arrowhead—the one he found in the stream. You remember it, Mother. I saw it on the boy when he bathed in the pond.”
Jon tried not to blush.
“You watched him bathe?” her mother asked, amusement in her voice.
“John said he might be wearing the arrowhead. It was the only way to find out without asking him.”
“What if you hadn’t seen it?”
“John didn’t say for sure that he’d be wearing it. He only said he might be. And he didn’t tell me the boy would be so skinny. You should see the way his ribs show. They must not feed boys in the Valley of Women.”
Her mother laughed outright this time, yet from this moment on she became warmly welcoming.
“Young man, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Helen. And I should also apologize for my daughter. She grew up with three brothers and therefore has bad manners. But, as I recall, John said that the stranger we were to expect might be hungry. It’s early for dinner, but perhaps you’d like a bite to tide you over.”
“John was right,” he said. “I’d be grateful.”
“Then follow me,” Helen said, hardly looking at him as she turned back into the house.
There was something wonderful about this woman. Perhaps because she reminded him so much of John, he liked her better than her daughter.
Inside, Jon found himself in a wide room, with a second door at the back opening to a kitchen garden. A long, rough-hewn table of reddish wood surrounded by an assortment of stools and benches occupied one side of the space; a massive cupboard stood against the opposite wall, not far from the corner hearth, where a fire had been banked up beside a cooking grill. Zoë came in and watched her mother serve Jon his meal—a slice of dark bread spread with fruit stewed in honey—sweet and tart at the same time. The girl, Jon thought, was right; their food was better than oatcake. The women in the valley boiled everything until it lost most all its taste, but this was different—something intended both to whet and to satisfy the appetite.
The Flight from Kar (The Emperor's Library Page 6
