Table of Contents
63. A Visit
64. The Forest People
65. The Hunt
66. Men and Women
67. A Hunter of the Forest People
68. The Forest at Midwinter
69. A Bargain
70. Going Home
71. Turning Point
72. Sacrifice
73. The Mist
74. The House of Kindness
75. Elen's House
76. The Armorer
77. Thief!
78. Love
79. The Abyss
80. Freedom
81. Disenchanted
82. Battlefield
83. Best Laid Plans
84. The Northern Chieftains
85. Elen
86. Reunion
87. A Hero's Tale
88. The King
89. The Dead
90. Reasons
91. Battle
92. Excuses
93. You and What Army?
94. Victory
95. A Very Long Story
96. Home
97. The Battle of the Wilderness
98. A Time of Peace
99. The Dance
When Women Were Warriors Book III
A Hero's Tale
by Catherine M. Wilson
Shield Maiden Press
Boulder Creek, California
Copyright (c) 2008 by Catherine M. Wilson
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All characters depicted herein are the product of the author's imagination and do not represent any actual persons, living or dead.
ISBN: 978-0-9815636-3-3
Cover photo by Donna Trifilo
Published by Shield Maiden Press
P. O. Box 963
Boulder Creek, CA
95006-0963
Visit our website at
www.shieldmaidenpress.com
For my mother
Acknowledgements
Many people offered advice, support, and encouragement during the "quite some time" it took to finish this project.
It is an extraordinary piece of luck for a writer to find someone who is willing to discuss a work in progress, someone who can enter the world of the story and gossip about the characters as if they were real people, who will question their motivations, scrutinize their actions, complain when they step out of character, and cast a light on a side of them their creator may have missed -- someone who will take the work as seriously as the author does. For me that person is my friend and editor, Donna Trifilo, who, in addition to all of the above, pushed me through the hard times.
To everyone who was willing to read a work in progress, sometimes more than once, I offer my gratitude and the assurance that everything they had to say about it mattered.
Susan Strouse helped me overcome a major stumbling block at a crucial turning point. Lisa Liel, whose enthusiasm for the story rekindled my own enthusiasm, showed me how I could take a good idea and make it better. Ann Thryft's considerable knowledge of the time, place, and culture deepened my own understanding of the story and its characters. Jo Trifilo's insightful comments and careful critique gave me a new perspective on the story.
In ways too numerous to mention, significant contributions were also made by Jen Davis-Kay, Katherine Gilmartin, Rebecca Hall, Rob Field, Carmen Carter, Kate Maynard, the late Dr. Susan Barnes, Judi Miller, Jack Contento, Ru Emerson, the members of my first writers' group--Morgan Van Dyke, Barbara Murray, Cooper Gallegos, Sandralee Watters, Marlene Michaelson, Rebecca Morn, and Eileen Thompson--who suffered through my early attempts to get my story started, and Heather Rose Jones, who helped me find my characters' names.
And many thanks to George Derby and Marissa Holm for keeping me well fed.
63. A Visit
Maara's voice intruded on my dreams. I heard her mumble something about visitors.
"Wake up," she whispered into my ear. "Don't show surprise or fear. Treat them as you would treat a guest at home."
I opened my eyes and looked up at her. While she waited for me to understand, she held me firmly against her side, to keep me still. When she saw that I was awake and in control of myself, she let go of me and sat up.
By the pale light that sifted in through the cracks in the tree trunk, I made out the figures of half a dozen people sitting only a few feet away from us across the fire. They were dressed in furs from head to foot and were so small I thought they must be children until I saw their faces.
"Don't stare," said Maara.
She uncovered a few coals that still glowed under the ashes and fed them twigs and kindling. Soon she had a bright fire burning.
All the while our visitors watched us in silence. I couldn't keep from glancing at them out of the corner of my eye.
At last I whispered to Maara, "Who are they?"
"The forest people," she said.
"The old ones?"
She nodded. "Hand me the water skin."
When I sat up, I was aware of my nakedness. After I handed Maara the water skin, I looked around for my shirt, only to discover that several of the forest people were sitting on our clothing. Maara was naked too and didn't seem concerned about it, so I resisted the urge to cover myself. Maara filled our copper pot with water and set it to boil.
One of the forest people spoke. Her words were incomprehensible to me, but her voice was lovely, melodious and sweet. She spoke only a few words, then gazed at Maara, as if she expected an answer. Maara stared back at the woman, on her face an expression of delight. I was about to ask her if she had understood, when she spoke two or three words in the same incomprehensible tongue.
There was a moment of silence. Then all the forest people spoke at once, until the woman who had spoken first made them be quiet. She turned back to Maara and began to speak again. This time she made quite a long speech, and I took the opportunity to observe her more closely. She appeared to be the oldest person there. Her wrinkled face was dark. Wisps of black hair streaked with grey escaped from under a white fur hood that covered her head and shoulders. She wore fur leggings under a long skirt of deerskin and a cape of rabbit fur around her shoulders.
When she finished speaking, I whispered to Maara, "Did you understand what she said?"
"Some of it," she replied.
Maara thought for a little while before making her reply. Although she spoke awkwardly, the woman nodded that she understood.
Steam began to rise from the pot of water. I assumed that Maara had intended to make some tea. While I rummaged through our things looking for my package of herbs, I listened to the halting conversation. When I heard Maara speak her name, then my own, I looked up.
"Aamah," the woman said, and pointed to herself. She named the others too, but I couldn't keep the strange sounds in my head.
I took the pot of water from the fire and crumbled into it some chamomile. The fragrance of the flowers rose into the air. The forest people seemed to find it pleasant. When the tea had steeped for a few minutes, Maara offered it, first to Aamah, then to the others.
"Hand me the oat flour," said Maara.
"How much?" I asked her. We had very little left.
"All of it," she said.
With the last of our oat flour, Maara made oat cakes. While we ate, the forest people spoke softly among themselves. All of them were beardless, and I listened closely, trying to discover which were women and which were men, but they all had the same high, sweet voices. Soon my curiosity was satisfied. The heat of the fire and the crowd of people inside the tree made it uncomfortably warm, and the forest people threw off some of their clothing. Only Aamah wore a garment I would have called a shirt, although it was made, not of cloth, but of deerskin. The rest we
re naked under their fur tunics. Two of them were men. One sat beside Aamah and appeared to be advising her. The other was no more than a boy. All of the forest people were thin, light-boned, with their ribs showing.
Their clothing was cleverly made. They didn't have the ragged look of the men who had been prisoners in Merin's house. I saw no weapons among them other than the knives at their belts. Some wore carved tokens of wood or bone. At first their faces all looked much the same to me, but as I looked longer I began to see how each one was unique.
When I compared them to Maara, I saw both similarities and differences. Maara was bigger than the forest people, taller and more strongly built. Their skin was darker than hers, and there was a difference around the eyes, but I saw in them the people she had come from.
There were enough oat cakes for everyone to eat their fill and still leave a few left over. Maara wrapped them in a cloth and handed them to Aamah, who fingered the cloth and smiled. I believe she valued the cloth more highly than the oat cakes.
The others were becoming restless, but Aamah gave no sign that she was ready to leave us. She reached across the fire and touched Maara's cheek, turning Maara's face first to one side, then the other. Then she coiled a lock of Maara's hair around her finger. Maara submitted patiently to Aamah's curiosity. When Aamah spoke to her again, it was both a question and a command.
Maara settled herself and took a deep breath before she began to speak. Her speech seemed a bit more fluent than before, though she often groped for words and made up for the ones she didn't know with gestures. She spoke my name several times and pointed toward the south and east, where we had come from. Aamah asked an occasional question, but most of the time she was content to listen.
Something Maara said made the forest people giggle and whisper among themselves. Aamah hushed them with a sharp rebuke.
I couldn't contain my curiosity.
"Why are they laughing?" I whispered.
"They say I speak as a child speaks," Maara said.
"You were a child, when you spoke as they do."
"Oh," said Maara.
Again she spoke to Aamah, and I had an idea that she was telling her what I had said. Aamah nodded solemnly. Then she turned and spoke to the man who sat next to her. They conversed for several minutes, loudly enough for Maara to hear, although she pretended not to listen. At last they seemed to come to a decision. Aamah took a token, a piece of carved bone, from a pouch she carried on her belt and handed it to Maara. Then, as silently as they had come, the forest people left us. I turned to Maara, eager to learn what she and Aamah had talked about.
"She made us welcome," Maara said.
"Then we can stay?"
She nodded.
"What did she say?" I asked her. "What did you say?"
"She told me a little about her people, and she asked me about mine, as if she might have known the people I came from. What concerned her most of all, though, was why we're here."
"What did you tell her?"
"I told her the truth."
"You told her we were outlaws?"
"No," she said. "I told her that you are heir to a powerful house and that your enemies tried to kill you."
I would never have thought to put it like that. "That makes me sound like the hero of a story," I said.
"You are."
An icy finger touched the back of my neck. I was afraid to ask her what she meant. I thought about all the tales I'd heard of heroes. Were they once just ordinary people? Were they once just like me?
"Aamah agrees with me that no one from Elen's house is likely to come here in wintertime," Maara said. "Sometimes hunters will come, but the people of Elen's house stay away from the forest this time of year."
Again the icy finger touched me. "Why?"
"The forest frightens them. Old memories grow strong in wintertime."
As soon as she put it into words, I recognized my own feeling about the forest. This place that had at first felt so unfamiliar, now seemed more like a forgotten memory of childhood. Fragments of old stories hung in the branches overhead and told themselves in the sound of rustling leaves. Echoes of ancient songs murmured in the music of falling water. Childhood fears haunted my dreams.
"In a day or two, we'll return their visit," said Maara.
I brought myself back into the present moment. "Where do they live?"
"Their winter camp isn't far from where we were yesterday."
"Is that how they knew we were here?"
Maara chuckled. "They knew we were here from the moment we set foot in the forest."
"How many of them are there?"
"I have no idea."
"Is Aamah their leader?"
"She's their mother," Maara said. "Aamah means mother."
I took it to be a symbolic title rather than a literal one. Surely Aamah hadn't given birth to all of them.
Maara gazed at the carved bone, Aamah's gift, turning it over and over in her fingers. She frowned, as she watched the pieces of a puzzle fall together in her mind.
"I once thought Aamah was my mother's name," she said.
I wondered then if childhood memories were haunting Maara too.
"Was your mother one of the forest people?"
Maara shook her head. "We lived in a village. We were farmers."
"You speak the same language."
"Similar, but not the same."
"But you understood Aamah, and you made yourself understood."
"Yes." She smiled. "I don't know how I remembered so much of the old speech. I haven't spoken it or heard it spoken since I was a child."
"You speak it to me sometimes," I told her.
"I do?"
I nodded.
"I don't remember."
"You speak it when you're troubled," I said. "And when we make love."
The memory struck us both at once. When our eyes met, I forgot all about the forest people. My body longed for her so intensely that I feared I might burst out of my own skin without her arms around me.
I held out my hand to her. "Come lie with me," I said.
She didn't hesitate. We lay down and let our bodies entwine themselves together. I closed my eyes and felt myself slip back into the darkness where I had found her the night before. Now if I opened my eyes there would be daylight and firelight. I had seen her so clearly in the dark. Would the light reveal or hide her? I opened my eyes.
I had forgotten how beautiful she was. My gaze fell first on her cheek, covered with the softest down. Her lips were slightly parted, as if they were waiting for a kiss. At the base of her throat, the blood beat beneath the tender skin.
The curve of her breast seduced my eyes. I laid my cheek against it. Its roundness fit perfectly against the palm of my hand. To my tongue her skin tasted sweet and salt together. I heard my kiss release her breath.
"Show me what pleases you," I whispered.
"Your touch pleases me," she said.
It was sweet to hear.
I leaned up on one elbow and smiled down at her. I couldn't resist teasing her a little. "You leave me no choice but to discover the answer for myself."
Maara tried not to smile. "Do you intend to spend all day in bed?"
"Is there anything we need to do today?"
"I suppose not," she said. "Nothing that won't wait."
"Is there something else you would prefer to do?"
A little color came into her cheek. "No," she said.
I could have spent half the day just looking at her. I was not unfamiliar with her body. I had so often bathed her, dressed her and undressed her. We had swum together in the river and sunbathed on the riverbank. While I had always thought her beautiful, I had never seen her quite like this. Before we were intimate with each other, her nakedness had been clothed in a veil of courtesy. Now my eyes had permission to enjoy her beauty. Not my eyes only, but my hands and my mouth admired her.
Her body was no longer shy with me. She welcomed each new touch. When her muscles tigh
tened, they did so, not to protect her, but to express her pleasure. I still found a few tender places. I didn't avoid them. I touched them with tenderness and with great care, to teach them not to be afraid.
I took my time with her, both for her pleasure and for my own. I delighted in discovering how best to please her. Sometimes I caught her watching me, smiling a mysterious smile, as if she had a secret she was about to share.
As her desire grew, she closed her eyes. When she raised one knee, I took it as a sign that she wanted a more intimate touch, but when my fingers lightly brushed the curls between her legs and caressed the inside of her thigh, I felt the first hint of resistance in her.
"What shall I do?" I whispered.
With a touch of her fingertips, she turned my face to hers. Her mouth invited my kiss. We kissed until my own desire almost overcame my resolve to wait for her. At last she turned me so that I lay beside her.
"Touch me," she said.
As our knowledge of the world comes through the body, so too does the evidence of love. My heart's longing flowed from my lips in words and kisses, flowed through my body as I held her and through my fingers as they caressed her. Her body accepted the pleasure I gave her, and it was pleasure that opened the way for love to enter.
She put her hand over mine, to hold me still.
"I don't want this to end," she said.
"It never will," I told her.
And she slipped easily over the edge.
I woke late in the afternoon. Maara lay beside me sound asleep, one arm across my body, her breath warming my shoulder. The fire was almost out. Even under my heavy cloak, I was not quite warm enough, but I didn't feel like moving. My body was peaceful with satisfied desire, and the gentle glow of joy filled my heart.
Twilight drifted in through the smoky air. While I waited for Maara to wake, I amused myself by looking for meaning in the patterns of light and shadow overhead, as one might look for meaning in the shapes of clouds. Fantastic figures emerged from the texture of the wood -- here a goblin face, there the furry body of an animal.
The more I looked, the more I saw, and as I watched, the figures seemed to move, tumbling over and around each other, until they became one living tapestry. I saw, not whole figures, but bits and pieces, resolve themselves, then disappear -- the clawed foot of a hunting cat, a fin, a fish's scales, leaf shapes and flowers, a bird's wing, squirrels' tails. The tree itself was telling me a story, was telling me that everything that lives arises only for a moment out of a great sea of life before falling back into it again.
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