Red Mantle

by Maria Turtschaninoff

  “On your mother,” I whispered.

  “Yes. Father and Mother moved away from the farm, far enough away that no one would know of Father’s shame. As a child I always had to be on my guard, so that he’d never have reason to direct his anger at Mother or me.” He took a deep breath. “When I was a little boy my mother became very sick. Father said it was because she was a sinful woman, and the sickness was punishment. When I too fell sick, he said that it was Mother’s fault.” He clenched his fists and pressed his knuckles into his knees. “When Mother died he finally allowed Tauer to come and take care of me. I recovered.” I could see the muscles in his jaw tensing. “When I first worked as a timber-rafter there were several in the team who contracted the same sickness. We had reached the outskirts of Irindibul by then, and a healer was sent for. With a few concoctions he cured them all, and explained that it was an easily curable disease, but if left untreated it could be deadly.”

  He leaned forward and took my hand. I was utterly taken aback but permitted him to hold it between his hands. They were coarse and warm. “Knowledge is protection, Maresi. My parents’ lives could have been different.”

  “Thank you, Kárun Eiminsson,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for your help. I will do my best to be worthy of it.”

  ϖ

  Then he left me alone in the building, and now here I am breathing in the scent of my own school. I do not know how to go about filling it. But a gift such as this must be used, and used well. I cannot waste it or take it for granted. I am duty bound to continue building on the foundations that Kárun has laid.

  With love and respect,

  Venerable Sister O,

  Now I must recount what came to pass the day before yesterday. I have not written in a while.

  Spring is a hectic time here. We have been working hard to cultivate and fertilize the clayish, stony soil, and singing the ancient songs to the earth and sky asking for warmth and water in equal measure, and retreading the old furrows. For a time I have gone back to being simply Maresi Enresdaughter, with a place in our community. It has felt good to work side by side with Mother, Father and Akios. Spring came early and was beautiful, with light rain at night and warm sunny days—weather in all ways perfect for early sowing.

  The seeds sprouted well, and spring passed into early summer. Everybody in the village has been gazing contentedly at our green fields and predicting a record yield. Finally hunger and starvation are beginning to fade into a mere memory. The growth in my herb garden has picked up speed and everything is flourishing. The early evenings have been full of the sound of frolicking frogs, which is a sign of a long summer, according to Tauer. He is full of superstitions, but sometimes he is right. My little “school” has been put on hold during these busy times, despite the fine new schoolhouse I have acquired (I trust the Mother Abbess read that letter aloud?). We have all been busy with our spring activities, adults and children alike.

  On the evening I now want to recount, I went out for my usual walk around the villages. I have continued the habit since last autumn. The solitude does me good. I always bring my staff with me, and sometimes Gray Lady. When I feel tired, Mother usually chases me out, as indeed she did on this occasion. She had been standing out in the yard with her eyes fixed on the forest edge for a long while. She appeared to be listening to something. Then she sniffed the air and turned to me. I was sitting on a bench and resting my tired back. I had been weeding my garden all day and everything ached.

  “No time to rest now!” she exclaimed in vexation, jabbing the same familiar spike into my heart.

  I am not my own person here; I do not have authority over my own time. Mother will not suffer laziness or idleness. She went in to fetch my staff and cloak, which she handed to me with the same indecipherable expression she always makes when she looks at the cloak.

  “But Mother, I am so tired,” I said, though I knew it would serve no purpose.

  “Work must be done, tired or not,” Mother said sharply. Her lips formed a hard line. “You know very well what’s on its way.”

  I had no notion of what she was referring to, but was too tired to protest any further. I took the staff, wrapped my cloak around me and pulled up the hood so that Mother would not see my sour expression. It was a beautiful evening. Perhaps it is best to be out of Mother’s way when she is in this mood, I thought.

  I walked the path around our village and on toward Jóla. There the path descends into a valley where the stream meanders away. I leaned heavily on my staff with each step, sunken in thoughts of my herb garden and how I might procure more paper and new books to read. I was awoken from my musings by that same humming tone that resonates from the earth. I looked up.

  Mist was rising from the valley. It seeped out from the ditches and stream, groping with white, swirling tentacles up toward the hills and fields. And in that mist I recognized the unmistakable odor of iron and blood and icy chill: the breath of the Crone.

  It was you who taught me of the Crone’s dominion over not only death and wisdom, but also over cold and storms, darkness and ice. I have felt this icy chill before, streaming out from behind her door.

  “No,” I said, and banged my staff hard on the ground. “No.”

  I took one step and heard the newly sprouted grass crunch beneath my boots. Frost was coming. It is already summer. I have heard of frost coming this late in the year, but not in living memory. Frosty nights in the approach to midsummer are known as Iron Nights. A frost now would cost us our entire harvest. No seed remains for a second sowing. If we lose our crops now we will have no alternative but to borrow seeds from the nádor at extortionate rates yet again. Frost now would mean starvation.

  “No,” I said, and slammed the silverwood staff into the ground in time with my steps. “Not now. Not here. No.”

  Jóla is situated on a high ridge and is less vulnerable to frost than the low-lying fields of our village. I turned around and hurried homeward. On reaching our first field I saw more whitish, ice-cold mist come creeping up from the valley. I was exhausted, but I dug deep to gather my strength and beat all my own warmth and life force into the ground with both foot and staff. I know perfectly well that the Crone is too powerful for me to subdue. I know that she takes whatever she wants. But there was no choice: I had to try. I thought of those who would be worst affected by starvation: the little ones—including Dúlan—and the elderly. I walked around the fields, between them and the mist, muttering, “No!” with each step. I slammed the staff into the ground to reinforce my words. I refused to surrender. I saw people from the village come out and look on helplessly as the freezing mist rose higher and higher from the stream, from the icy realm of the Crone. But I did not stop to speak to them. I continued walking.

  Once I had walked the whole western edge of the fields, I heard footsteps behind me. Heavy, stamping steps. A voice broke into song. It was an ancient ballad that I had not heard before, but I recognized the voice, and it felt like a fire ignited inside me.

  It was Mother.

  She was singing an ode to the black swan known in Rovas as Kalma. She presides over death’s realm, and escorts the dead beneath the silverwood trees and over the great dark lake that rests in stillness beneath their white, shining roots. It was a song of darkness and cold and death, but also about how everything has its season, and how, now that it is summer, the swan ought to tuck her head beneath her wing and hide her face until her time comes. Her realm of cold and ice will return when the days are shorter than the nights.

  After hearing the ballad several times, I was able to join in. The song and Mother’s voice gave me the strength to continue. Step by step. I wove my own words into the song, words to the Crone: my teacher and friend; my foe and dread. I begged her to leave us be. I begged her to bide her time.

  White icicles had already formed on my staff.

  People appeared between the fields. They walked along the edge of the ditches, silent and r
esolute, watching the frost creeping ever nearer. Father and Akios were there, and so were Jannarl and the children, everyone from White Farm and even Árvan. They saw Mother and me. They said nothing, only looked on with expressions of grim concern.

  Then, from behind Mother and me came a beautiful, deep woman’s voice. I recognized Náraes, and my heart was filled with indescribable joy. The grass rustled and crackled under my feet and the sky was already darkening, but I continued to raise my knees high and stamp my feet hard on the ground. The earth trembled in response. I heard Jannarl join in with the song. Then Akios. More and more voices joined us and everyone followed me through the cold, dark night. Father sang, and Marget too, and Lenna as treble. The earth rumbled and hummed beneath our feet. My staff was like ice in my hand, but my heart glowed warm. Everybody in the village circled our fields and homes again and again, and I walked at the head of them all, beating and stamping and singing.

  All night long we walked, Sister O. Some carried lanterns and torches, but for the most part we found our way by the light of the waxing crescent moon. When morning dawned and the sun’s first rays crept over the forest edge, we saw that the fields between Sáru and the forest lay white with frost. Yet the sprouting green of our fields remained untouched, but for a narrow belt on the southern edge nearest the stream.

  I stopped walking, and I remember no more. Mother says that I was covered from head to toe with a thick layer of frost and had icicles hanging from my hair. Father caught me when I fell. He carried me home in his arms, and Mother heated water to warm me up enough to remove the staff from my stiff hand. My limbs were like ice, and my family feared I might lose some fingers or toes, or worse. But when Mother undressed me she found my torso glowing as hot as an oven, and this heat slowly diffused into my arms and legs, and my skin was not blue-black and frostbitten, but rosy and smooth.

  I slept all day yesterday, under a pile of blankets and furs in my room, and Mother woke me from time to time to urge me to take hot drinks. My sleep was dense with dreams: black and cold, but also boisterous and full of laughter—a laughter that still echoes in my mind as I write to you now. At times it felt as if someone were stroking my hair, and sometimes as if a familiar voice were whispering my name, both tender and stern.

  It was like your voice, Sister O, and yet different.

  Today, when I awoke and emerged, our table was loaded with food. Akios was busy eating and could only nod at me, his mouth was so stuffed. There was freshly baked bread, honey-scented cakes, a small smoked ham, fresh eggs, sausage, mead and even salted butter. I looked at Mother, who was tearing between hearth and table with flushed cheeks.

  “It’s for you,” she said. “Everybody in the village has been coming with gifts since yesterday.”

  I ate and ate as if I had never seen food before in my life, like after Moon Dance. I still felt that wonderful glowing warmth in my heart, and I know what its source is, Sister O. It is my people. Rovas itself is glowing inside me.

  That evening there came a knock on the door. The fathers from Jóla, among them Tauer’s son and son-in-law, came tramping inside. Gézor, who is married to Tauer’s daughter, spoke for them all.

  “The spring sowing is over and done. Don’t need the children on the farm for some time now. So if Maresi still wants to teach them reading and such, that’ll be just fine,” he said, and the other men muttered in agreement. “We can pay in food, if that’s all right with you.”

  I had just come out of my room and was met by Tauer’s tall son Orvan. “We want our children to know all the things you know.”

  “I cannot teach them what I did last night,” I said carefully. “That was not knowledge, but a gift.”

  “Be that as it may,” answered Orvan. “You know one thing that none here knows, and that’s reading. The nádor’s fooled us many a time with his written words. But he’s not gonna fool our children.”

  “No, he is not,” I answered seriously. “So it is agreed.”

  Once they had gone, Mother looked at me. “So it’s to be a real school now, then.”

  “Yes, Mother. And I can still contribute to the household if they come with food as payment.”

  “That doesn’t worry me. But what of your other work? It’s so important to us all.”

  She was standing with her sleeves rolled up after washing the dishes. Her apron was damp, and I suddenly noticed how tired she was. She had walked with me and sung with me before anyone else. All night she walked, and then she took care of me, prepared the food and cleaned the house.

  What strange things she was saying, Sister O. She had been saying strange things ever since my return. I sank down on a bench without taking my eyes off her.

  “What do you mean, Mother?”

  “You know perfectly well!” She dried her hands on her apron. “What you’ve been doing this whole time, all the more so since autumn.” I stared at her. “What you did yesterday!”

  “Yesterday I drove away the frost,” I said slowly. “What did I do last autumn?”

  Mother frowned. “Do you really not know?” She came and sat down beside me. She studied my face carefully. “You don’t know. By the bear’s paw, you don’t know!” She let out a short laugh. “Your walks around the village. The staff. And that comb I’ve seen you with.” I shook my head. “You’re protecting the village, Maresi. I thought you were doing it on purpose! Why do you think last year’s harvest was better than ever? Why do you think the nádor’s men haven’t been here to collect the taxes, or harass us common folk?”

  “That was me?” I whispered.

  “Did you learn nothing in that abbey? Of course it was you. You have more power inside you than anyone I’ve ever seen, Maresi. And with your steps and your staff you’ve pushed a protective barrier deep into the ground around the village. No merchants could even find us last autumn, don’t you remember? You’ve hidden the entire village from the world.”

  “That is why you have chased me out every evening. That is why you have been looking at me so strangely.”

  Mother’s face softened. “Have I?”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “It’s frightened me, that’s all. All the things you can do. I’ve seen it before, as a child. It frightened me then, too. I thought it was something they taught you at the Abbey.”

  “No. Not this. I thought you wanted to be rid of me for a while every evening.”

  “My daughter.” Mother took my hand. “I’d never want that! I never want to lose you again, you must understand that.”

  We sat quietly for a long time. Eventually I remembered that Mother had mentioned the comb.

  “What am I doing with the comb then?”

  “That I don’t know. But when you comb your hair it feels as though something’s being bound very tight. Sometimes I find it hard to breathe.” Mother coughed, as if the memory alone constricted her chest.

  I thought about how I imagined binding the nádor’s men tight with all the strands of hair I wound into the braid beneath my pillow. “I believe I am binding the nádor’s men,” I said slowly. “Holding them tight. That is a part of the protection.”

  Mother nodded. “The protection waned during summer. I don’t know why. Then you made it all the stronger after the soldiers beat that boy so badly.”

  “It was because of Géros,” I said, and felt my cheeks go hot. “I stopped doing all those things when I was with him.” Mother nodded, without looking angry. “But Mother, how do you know all this? You knew that the frost was coming, you were the one who made me go out to meet it. How can you sense what I am doing, when I never understood it myself?”

  Mother released my hand and turned away. “I learned to recognize these things when I was very little. It was a matter of survival.” She pulled a cardigan over her shoulders, still facing away from me. “Time to shut the chickens in for the night. I’ll do it tonight so you can get to bed.” She hurried out before I could ask her any more questions.

  ϖ

&n
bsp; Today I walked to the schoolhouse Kárun gave me, and saw the children coming up the hill. Every single child in Sáru and Jóla over the age of five was there, timid and wide-eyed. There were ten of them altogether, boys and girls. I admitted the boys too, for what else could I do? I still had no table or benches, so the children sat cross-legged on the floor, and I gave them all planed wooden planks and pieces of coal, and the sun poured in through the open window shutters, and thus my school began.

  Your novice,

  SUMMER

  Dearest Jai,

  Not long after the Iron Night, one of Tauer’s grandchildren rushed over to tell me that a trade convoy from the Akkade plains had been spotted in the north. I hurried to the crossroads with the standing stones, but there was no one there. I was terrified of missing “my” merchant, so I set up camp by the stones with Akios for company (and protection, I must admit), and there we slept and lived on foraged birds’ eggs, and some cheese and bread Akios had packed, and felt right at home. It was a welcome break from the endless chores of village life.

  On the second day the convoy arrived, trailing horses and mules fully loaded with high, swaying wool bales. I found my merchant friend and gave him my letters. He refused to accept payment, and gave me a sack of the finest lamb’s wool instead. And since then, well, I have been working harder than ever before.

  I run the school for four days, and then close it for two so the children can take part in necessary tasks at home, and then it is four days of school again. I try to mirror Sister O’s methods, teaching the children to read and write and think. But it is difficult to teach them to write without proper writing implements. The wooden planks and coal soon became impractical because one cannot rub out what has been written. I show them the letters, and teach them to sound them out and put words together. I read aloud often because most of my books are in a foreign language and I have to translate as I read. Only Erva’s book is in the local tongue. We do a little simple counting as well, with stones and fir cones. Many of the children are very good at counting because they have herded pigs and goats in the woods and know how many animals they have on their farms. I am frustrated, not at their pace of learning, but because there is so much I would like to teach them and do with them, but cannot because I lack the tools. Sometimes we go out into the forest and I teach them about different medicinal plants. I teach them to wash themselves as well, and that cleanliness is essential for one’s food, household and body in equal measure. I know that this is not always popular among their families, but it is one of the most important things we had to learn when we first came to the Abbey, wouldn’t you agree?