He caught himself, then, and paused. Adria could see the pain in his features, and she did not urge him on. Nonetheless, he continued.
“There was little time, and I had no hope of resistance… what few men I could organize would have been outnumbered a hundred to one — and I knew not all of them would wish to fight such a battle. Many would be Godwinson’s, or the king’s. I was given the chance to be tried, but of course the best I could hope for was imprisonment. Taber’s law had already made it possible for them to order my death, if not for treachery then for heresy.
“Through circumstances beyond my control, I was given an escape. At the time, my pride might not have allowed it. But I had good counsel. I knew that if I behaved as a coward, and abandoned my men, none of them would have to fight, and could surrender without issue, and their lives and families would be safe. Godwinson was... not my friend, in the end, but I held faith that he would protect those who remained behind from what were deemed my sins. It was... the best I might have hoped for.”
Adria could see tears in his eye as he considered the stars once more. The Valley-Keeper? she wondered. Whispers-of-Smoke?
Much was left untold, but Adria understood that it might take time, that he… and perhaps she… might not be ready. So she helped him to the next part, with a grim smile.
“So you fled into the woods, after all the children you had sent ahead of you. And my father was the dragon, after all.”
He blinked a moment, uncomprehending, and then laughed, and some of the sadness of his story was broken.
“You remember that story? I had almost forgotten….” he smiled, shaking his head. “But there is some truth in it, and in how I left, I suppose. Many of the Aesidhe had taken my warning better than I had myself, and had been watching, and I soon found aid from them. I joined in their retreat, and I offered them my counsel and my strength.”
“You knew the Aeman Heiland world as they did not,” Adria nodded. “You knew my father... you knew the religion and the politics. You knew the structure of their armies, how they moved, how they fought. You knew how castles were built, and how they might be avoided, or even taken down, should the possibility arise. You knew the Matron, and you knew the Knights, and you knew that they would never stop, and that you, and the Aesidhe, would always have to keep running.”
He nodded grimly. “The tribes were disparate when I joined them, and some even warred with each other. They were used to Aeman incursion, but were slow to realize that their danger was fast increasing.
”Still, those who had recently been attacked had sent a few messengers among the tribes to warn them, and these were joined by others as the months and years went on. I became one of them myself, for, as you say, I knew the danger best. Over time, we became more than messengers. Those best at running, the best Hunters, began to serve as active scouts, and finally became warriors of a sort, the first and last line of defense.”
“The Runners,” Adria said. “Metehãloweye. This word I know. They became like the Wilding Ghosts of the stories, and for good reason. The Knights cannot fight what they cannot see. They fear it. They fear you, though they do not know you lead them.”
“I am only one among them. I did not make them as they are. I have learned more from them than they from me. But… the effect is the same. The Aeman at last have something to fear from the Aesidhe, even if it is half-shrouded in myth.”
They were silent for a moment, before Adria posed a deeper question, though she felt almost silly to ask it aloud.
“Did you mean for us to meet? Was that the point of your fable of the missing children?”
Surprisingly, he looked confused, and then smiled with a shrug. “I had not thought of it that way.” Then he paused. “Perhaps I did, in some way, though not so directly. I think I was warning you, maybe, but I was not asking you to run away. You were so young, the possibility of such a thing would have seemed so remote. And I was still loyal to your father at that point, despite our differences.”
“Then you were not looking for me when you found me in the wood?” She asked, a little disappointed. “Neither of us intended to find the other? It was simply a coincidence?”
“You mean an accident? No…” he hesitated. “Coincidence is never chance, but design. It has a purpose. We were meant to meet, just as you were meant to leave.”
“That sounds like superstition,” Adria frowned. “Taber would be proud.”
“You misunderstand me,” Preinon only shook his head, quite serious. “It was not an accident… we were led to you.”
“Led?” Adria said, shaking her head as well. “Led by whom?”
Again, he hesitated a little. “We followed a winter wolf.”
Had he worn a slightly different facial expression, Adria could almost have believed he was joking. She opened her mouth once or twice to speak, but could not really think of what to say. Now her first weeks among the Aesidhe made even more sense. The wonder children had for her seemed even more poignant.
Still, she did not know how to respond. Instead, she merely nodded, and returned to an earlier question. “Were there ever missing children, truly?”
It seemed a silly question, so she was again surprised at his answer.
“Yes,” he nodded. “I have heard stories of Aeman children missing, during our War for Union, but the ones I can attest to were Aesidhe. When the Knights of Darkfire began destroying the Aesidhe villages and camps, they often slew only the adults, or even just the adult males, and took the women and children.”
Adria blinked. “Where did they go?”
“Since I joined their cause, many of them have been saved. That is one of the tasks of the Runners.”
“And those who were not?”
He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know. It is said that many were chained and taken onto boats and sent across the sea, but it is always very secretive.”
“Slaves?” Adria ventured, a lump in her throat. “It is illegal under both the Sisterhood Doctrine and Heiland law, even, I should think, for Aesidhe.”
“It is,” he agreed. “Hence the secrecy. I have never been certain that the Knights were behind this, or the Sisterhood. When the Sisterhood first came to Heiland, it was a time of sickness, and they took Aesidhe children who survived to be educated in the cities. They lost their ways and became like Aeman, were the first among the Mewashemesitibopi. But… this is not what happened during the war, and since. It happens little now. We are vigilant.”
“Somana still allows some slavery,” Adria remembered. “And Kelmantium, I believe. And the Northlands are so divided… who knows what might happen on some of their islands.”
“Yes, and we hope to learn more.” Preinon nodded. “As time goes by, we may have word of them from the Moresidhe, where our efforts fail.”
Adria blinked. “I thought the Moresidhe were a myth.”
“Like the Wilding Ghosts?” Preinon laughed. “You have been too isolated in your tower... No, they are quite real.”
“I meant more like dragons,” Adria smiled. She had heard of these people, who supposedly lived in the mountains and mined gold and jewels. There were fairy tales about them which she had heard from Kaye, about a young princess who had lived with seven of them, and something about an evil stepmother. Adria couldn’t quite remember the details.
Preinon seemed to know what she was thinking. “Oh, there are as many strange stories about them as there are about the Aesidhe, and as little truth in them. Of course… most myths have some truth to them, if only hidden.”
Adria smiled. “As a child, I often thought that if I compared everything I learned from my servants with everything I learned from the Sisters and Taber, somewhere in the middle I’d find the truth.”
Preinon smiled. “That’s probably the most we can hope for, in life… the best of all our superstitions.”
They laug
hed, and as they quieted, Adria at last readied herself, emboldened by their shared humor, and with all their conversation still in mind. Her heart pounded, and she forced her throat not to constrict.
“Uncle?”
He nodded his consent for a serious question again, and Adria simply asked.
“Who was my mother?”
He made no sign of surprise, or even, at first, recognition. He watched her calmly, and yet it did not make her nervous. In fact, merely asking the question dispelled much of her anxiety, so long had she waited. She watched his face, waiting for any motion or voice, searching for any betrayal of answer or emotion.
“What have you been told?”
“Only… that she is dead.” Adria answered. “These were Taber’s words, but… I have no reason to disbelieve.”
She continued after a long count. “I once believed Taber to be our mother, but… If she were, she would long ago have acted upon it, for it would make her queen, and likely regent in the event of Father’s death.”
Preinon was still not forthcoming.
“Neither Taber nor my father would reveal more,” Adria said. “And no one else seems to know, or if they do are just as secretive,” Adria sighed. “Once, when Father was away, Hafgrim and I searched the catacombs for her tomb. But we grew frightened before we found anything.”
She was almost breathless as she grew wordless, and when she met her uncle’s eyes again, she found him as still as she had ever seen him. He might have become a fallen statue, or the roots of a tree long broken from the earth. He was still waiting, or still afraid of betraying something. He is not ready to give me an answer, or he thinks I am not ready to hear the answer.
“So there is only one possibility, given Taber’s secrecy regarding this, and her warnings to dissuade me from discovery — that she knows who my mother is, and that she can, in some way, use this knowledge against me.” Adria paused. “This may all explain why Taber keeps her secrets, but… why would my father keep this secret from me?” And she hesitated to continue, Why would… you?
Though Preinon’s face moved, at last, it revealed no emotion as he answered, “Your father will not tell you, because the question will make you stronger than the answer.”
Adria blinked several times. She appreciated, for a moment, how alike her father and her uncle truly were, and remembered the games of chess they almost inevitably drew between them. And while she was framing her final question, keeping this similarity in mind, Preinon, just as her father might have, rose from his place beside her and went to his own tent.
“Sleep well, Adria.”
First Moon
Adria awoke with a sharp pain in her belly. She touched her stomach gently, and rose hurriedly, only then realizing that she had stained her leggings with blood. Half in panic, half in embarrassment, she pulled her furs back over herself, blinking around to see if anyone had noticed. No one had, and it was not so obvious that anyone was likely to.
She had slept a little late, for the Runners were already gathering their packs, scattering and covering their fires, and returning the camp to its original state. As the sleep cleared from her head, she realized what had happened, and laughed to herself.
I asked of my mother, and see what happens…
The Sisterhood had schooled her on the nature of womanhood, so what might otherwise have been a frightening occurrence became more of a discomfiting inconvenience. With a sigh, she uncovered herself again and found that her sleeping furs remained unstained.
She had already recently been given a second pair, because those she had first been given had been particularly old, and Adria had protested at the smell — she had not known then that the smell of freshly cured hides would soon make her regret the decision.
But again, in this, they had spoiled her. She still bore a child’s name, and with it came appeasements they might allow both a child and a visitor still unaccustomed to a life in the wild.
Not a child any longer, she sighed. Assuming the Sisters’ lessons on womanhood are correct.
The Matriarch and the Sisterhood had paid an uncomfortable amount of attention to the details of Adria’s bodily functions, and Taber herself had insisted she be informed the very moment Adria became a woman. Adria understood that it typically would have happened at a younger age, and both Kaye and Twyla had been anxious for it.
Of course, it had never bothered Adria. It was the first sure sign that marriage was an imminent possibility, and Adria had never wished for that. She once insisted she would become a woman as soon as she was ready. But apparently, this was not a popular notion, and, indeed, Taber had sent her best midwives to examine Adria for any signs of “misuse or misfortune.”
Adria had protested at this, considering the examination itself both misuse and misfortune.
Still, the midwives had agreed that nothing seemed wrong with her physically, and both their prayers and astrological readings had agreed — though Adria had never seen these charts for herself. They were well pleased, at least, that she remained “intact,” though their discovery and revelation of this held somewhat less tact than Adria would have enjoyed.
Regardless, the nervousness grew among the Sisterhood, for an unmarriageable princess would prove a great difficulty, if not an outright disaster, for the royal house. Each time Twyla gathered Adria’s bedclothes, and took her sleeping garments to be cleaned, she carried them to the Matriarch first for inspection.
Even Twyla seemed a little embarrassed for her. Of course, the maid had herself become a woman at the age of eleven, and had already begun to fill out the particulars of her clothing, developed enough to gain at least the passing notice of the male servants, courtiers, and soldiery.
Adria had no one to take her sleeping clothes to now. In fact, her sleeping clothes were also her waking clothes, and though she had in part an extra set of most of them, she owned only a single pair of breeches, and these could hardly suffer to be ruined. So, with only a greeting or two exchanged with the Runners who were nearby, Adria made her way down to the river to wash herself and her clothes.
It proved too difficult a task for water alone, and she realized as well that she would likely need something to supplement her clothing, to prevent continuing incident. There were soaps and such the Aesidhe used to clean clothing, but Adria did not carry any of her own. And regardless, all practicality aside, she felt she should probably tell someone of the occurrence.
It seemed somehow unsuitable to tell Preinon. Though she felt closer to him than any other, she wasn’t certain he would even understand, or if speaking of such things to a male was even proper. It seemed like something she should discuss with someone Chushegi, Holy. Most of these Mechushegiya — the Aeman would have called them witches, or, somewhat more properly, shaman — were men, but fortunately Adria had already been acquainted with Shísha, the Lichushegi who served with the Runners, only the day before.
“It is dangerous to walk alone on your Moon,” Shísha said in Aeman as Adria approached. Shísha was packing her own camp, set a little apart from the others, and Adria watched the steady but slow motion of the woman’s hands, which knew the placement of all her things but were nonetheless alert to changes Adria might not have noticed.
Somehow she sees without seeing… Adria nodded. Hears me approach, knows that it is me, smells that I bleed. Feels… motion?
“This is why I come to you, Lichushegi,” Adria answered, pausing outside the circle of the woman’s small separate camp respectfully.
“If I know your blood, so do the animals,” Shísha continued, sternly but mildly. “Bears might eat little girls who forget they are women.”
“Yes,” Adria murmured, embarrassed. “It… is my first time.”
“Ima Chatechoku-yaihhe haipe? First Moon Time…” Shísha stilled her hands and turned her face to Adria, then nodded slowly. “So it is. I had paid little attention.”
>
Adria nodded, a habit she somehow could not break herself of in the woman’s presence. “I know I am older than… usual.”
Shísha shook her head, and her hands began removing small pouches from one of her packs, until she felt the one she wanted. She offered this to Adria.
“It is called chush’omezeto shehaipe. It is made of ashes… what is your word? Lye soap. You may keep it with you. Helps for cleaning after moons and arrows.”
“Thank you, Lichushegi.”
Shísha resumed her packing. As a Holy Woman, she took with her more than most Aesidhe, and certainly more than the other Runners. It was more than she could carry, and so another was always tasked to share her burden. It was worth the extra weight, for many benefited from the salves and medicines she mixed from the herbs and such in her pouches.
Shísha chuckled and smiled. “It is a full moon. It means you will be a powerful woman. Tell me, what do the women among your people do for their First Moon?”
Adria was not sure what she meant. She thought of her sheets and Taber, but it seemed like Shísha was asking something more. “We do nothing that I know of, but I was meant to tell a…” she hesitated to use the word, but could think of nothing else. “…Holy Woman. Perhaps something more was to be done.”
Shísha nodded. “The Aesidhe celebrate, and the women of the tribe gather in a Moon Camp, to welcome the new woman among them, and to tell her of her tasks as a woman.”
“But,” Adria sighed. “The women of the tribe cannot understand me, nor I them.”
Shísha stopped, and responded with her own sympathetic and thoughtful sigh.
“Yes,” Shísha agreed. “Much would not be meaningful to you. And… you will not be strong enough to do all you must do.”
Adria began to object, but Shísha waved her hand. “The Aesidhe girls must train for months before they are ready, and they already perform similar tasks. You simply do not have their same understanding yet.”
Heir of Scars I: Parts 1-8 Page 27
