"Lock him up," she said, in the language of the mighty.
This time no one tied me to a table. This time they put me in a tiny room and barred the door. It was smaller than Merin's armory, windowless and dark, without even a pile of rags to lie on. I didn't care. I lay down on the floor. Whatever plans they had for me, it didn't matter. There was nothing more for me to do.
Once I would have thought myself clever for deceiving Elen with the truth. Once I would have been amazed at what I had set in motion. Now I felt only relief, that my part in it was over.
Elen wasted not a moment. She called her warriors to battle. I heard them making ready. I knew the sounds. I had heard them all before, in Merin's house. Armored warriors clattered up and down the stairs and shouted orders to their companions. Servants rushed about, packing up supplies. I heard the sound of weapons taken from the wall. Swords clanged against their scabbard pieces, shields thudded to the floor. For half the day I listened to the din. Then silence fell.
I lay there in the dark and dozed a little. No dreams troubled me. I had passed beyond the land of dreams.
When I woke, I sat up and listened to the silence, wondering at what I had set in motion. Two armies would meet, and when armies meet, they must do battle. Blood would flow and men would die. And they would die for nothing. All because a fat servant had caught me stealing a roasted pig.
How the gods must laugh at us. How easily the courses of our lives are turned aside. This time the fates had given me an opportunity. I'd had a bit of luck, and I had made good use of it. For the present Merin's land was safe. At what cost I could not imagine, but the safety of my people would be dearly bought.
Once I would have cared for those whose lives would soon be sacrificed, as once I had cared for Merin's prisoners. They too had been the enemies of Merin's house. Where was the girl who spoke for them? I could not find that girl within me. She was an innocent. I was not.
I felt no pity for the dead, not because I loved my friends so much, but because I cared for life so little. Their safety was my doing, but even now it seemed a futile gesture. Though their lives were saved today, tomorrow death would come for them again. Did not death visit someone every day?
I knew the lessons of the forest. Life and death do battle there. Every day the fight begins anew. The fallen fall by chance, and those who win their lives today will fall tomorrow. Some may pity them, a few may mourn them, but should we not instead pity those who mourn? Those who will soon lie down upon the field of battle, they will face their death for just an instant. Then they will forget it all. Those who survive will feel as I feel now. It will not be the dead, but the living who will feel the absence, as death takes hold of them, bit by bit, its grip growing stronger with each loss.
Why do we bother living? I could not now imagine how I had once found life so sweet. I could not find that girl at all. I tried to remember her, and knew that she'd had something I did not. The self that once I was would have asked the Mother to keep my loved ones safe. I could not ask. No words of mine would reach the ears of Love. I had fallen into the abyss, where love is not.
Now I understood what lay in the depths of the abyss. The hunters of the forest people had found power there. They had drawn it up, as they danced along the edge. I too had drawn it up. But now I wasn't dancing. I had fallen. Death had already come for me, though in my living body I still walked among the living.
Now I knew the truth that lay behind the shields the living fashion for themselves. Death is our destiny, and nothing matters. In the depths of the abyss the end of all things lies. Death is too small a word. It is annihilation, not of my life alone, but of everything that lives and of the world itself. In the end the whole world will fall.
I felt grow strong within me a power that filled up the void where once my heart had been. If nothing matters, nothing is forbidden. All things are permitted to the dead.
80. Freedom
I must have slept for hours. There was nothing else to do. At last I heard footsteps in the hall. They stopped outside my door. The bolt slid back, the door opened, and a young woman came in. I thought of pushing past her and making my escape, until I saw the guard, who had followed her and now stood blocking up the doorway. In one hand he held a lamp. Its light revealed the woman's face. I remembered having seen her in the kitchen.
She was carrying a tankard and a plate. "I've brought you some breakfast," she said.
My hands reached out for the tankard before I was aware of being thirsty. I took a long drink. It was not ale, but water, cold and sparkling.
"I'm sorry," she said. "You must be starving." She set the plate down beside me. "In all the confusion no one remembered."
It was a feast of bread and cheese. I fell upon it as if it had been days since I'd had a bite to eat.
The woman turned to the guard and said, "I'll wait until he's done."
The guard handed her the lamp, and without a word he shut and barred the door. I heard his footsteps echo down the hallway.
The woman sat down beside me on the floor.
"Did you really steal it?" she whispered, as if we might still be overheard.
"What?"
"The knife."
She sounded like she thought the theft was something to be admired.
"No," I said between bites. "I didn't."
"You don't have to lie to me," she said. "That was just the bravest thing!"
"It was?"
"I thought I'd never seen any folk as arrogant as the mighty, but these so-called guests of theirs are worse!"
Clearly she expected my sympathy. I had to nod my understanding, because my mouth was busy eating.
"You're new here, aren't you?"
I nodded again.
"Are you a slave?"
I shook my head.
"You took an awful chance. What are they going to do with you?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Oh," she said, "I wish I could let you out of here. The last boy they caught stealing, they beat the daylights out of him." She gazed at me with sympathy. "I'd hate to see them hurt you. Maybe with the war and all, they'll forget."
She spoke of the war as if it were no concern of hers.
"Aren't you afraid of what may happen?" I asked her.
She didn't understand me.
"What if the mighty lose? What if the enemy wins?"
"Oh, nobody ever wins or loses," she said. "Nothing changes here. I wish it would."
While I ate, she chattered on, about the mighty and their doings, which seemed to have little to do with the life of the common folk other than to provide them with work to do and something to gossip about. It was almost as if the two peoples dwelt in different worlds, though they shared the place they lived in.
When my plate was empty, she took it from me and set it aside.
"Are you feeling better?" she asked.
I nodded and remembered to thank her for thinking of me.
"I have been thinking of you," she said. She sidled closer. "If you like, I could think of you a little longer."
She was flirting with me. She was more than flirting. She was offering herself. Then I remembered. It was springtime.
I was tempted. The touch of someone who cared for me, if only for the moment, was not a thing I would lightly turn aside. Yet how could I share with this young girl what I had so entirely given to someone else.
"What if the guard comes back?" I whispered.
"What if he does?" she whispered back.
"Won't they punish you?"
"What for?"
The answer had seemed obvious, until I thought about it.
"They don't care what we do," she said, "as long as we keep them warm and fed and don't cause any trouble."
"He may think you'll help me to escape."
"He thinks that already. That's why he came with me. That's why he barred the door."
Knowing as I did the pain of unwanted love, I tried to be kind to her. I took her hand. "You're lovel
y," I said, "but I can't."
"Oh," she said. "I don't mind if you're an innocent." She pouted at me. "Or do you have a sweetheart?"
She must have seen the answer in my face. Still she was undaunted. She leaned against my shoulder. "If you don't tell her, I won't."
"I had a sweetheart," I replied.
Speaking the word aloud brought tears to my eyes.
"Oh, dear," she said. "You've lost your sweetheart."
She put her arms around me, and from her body I took only comfort. I found no seduction there. A moment earlier she would have cheated another woman of my affection, but the loss of love was something she respected.
"There, there," she said. She held me for a moment more, then kissed my cheek before she let me go.
"My name is Lily, like the flower," she said. "What's yours?"
"Tamras," I whispered.
"So, Tamras," she said. "Tell me all about it."
"There's nothing to tell," I said. "I thought she loved me. For a while I believe she did. But she doesn't anymore."
"How do you know?"
"Because she loves someone else."
"Maybe she loves you both."
"It's not the same," I said.
"No, I suppose not. Some things can't be shared."
I remembered that I had recently had a few revelations about love, but now I couldn't think what they were.
"Love can be shared," I said, "but not hearts. No one wants a love that is half-hearted."
Lily laughed. "Aren't you clever!" She took my hand and squeezed it. "When your heart is whole again, pay me a visit."
The guard came to let her out. Before she got up to leave, she leaned toward me and again kissed me on the cheek. When I turned my face to hers, she kissed my lips.
"There," she said. "I think your heart has begun to mend already."
The door closed, but the light remained. Lily had left the lamp.
I looked around my prison but could see no point of weakness in it. Three walls of hewn planks, joined by stout pegs to the beams that supported the floor and ceiling, would resist all but the ax. The fourth wall, of mortared stone, was warm to the touch. One of the kitchen fires must be on the other side of it. The door was set so tightly in its frame that I couldn't see the bar that held it shut, much less slip something through the crack to coax it open. I resigned myself to staying where I was until someone decided what to do with me.
I still felt the touch of Lily's lips on mine. How sweet it was to find in this treacherous place a little unexpected kindness. Perhaps, as she had said, my heart would be whole again someday, though I could not now imagine it. I tried to conjure an image of myself loving someone else. I couldn't do it. Maara was too much a part of me. Like a forest tree that has grown up entwined with another may keep its shape long after its companion has been taken down, my spirit had bent to the shape of her and now could neither straighten itself nor accommodate to the shape of someone else.
Lily had reminded me of what was now beyond my reach. For me life's sweetness lay in loving and in being loved. That was all I'd ever wanted. I never coveted my place as Merin's heir. That was only something I was willing to accept because I did have what I wanted.
The voice of duty chided me. My destiny awaited me. There was still a place the world would make for me. I had no doubt of it.
I could defeat Vintel. Of that much I was certain. I never considered that I might die in the attempt. Death would be too easy. Death would be a gift.
From the abyss I had drawn the power to achieve my victory, and if I was wrong, what did it matter? But even if I found the will do to it, would I have the wisdom to wield the power I had won, or would I become another Merin, wise in many things, yet in the end defeated by the breaking of her heart.
I saw the irony. By losing what I valued most, I had gained the power to defeat my enemies. Yet I had a greater power, and I had had it all along. I had the power of refusal. Whatever power had anointed me, be it god or demon, I could cheat it of its victory.
I spoke aloud. "Not without love," I said.
After a few hours passed, the lamp went out. I slept the afternoon away. A woman brought me bread and meat for supper. It wasn't Lily. The air that came into the room with her chilled me. Though the kitchen fires would have long since burned down, the stone wall held their heat, and I sat with my back against it. I wasn't sleepy, but I lay down anyway.
A breath of cold air touched my face. It must be a draft from under the door, I thought, but what had drawn it in? When I sat up, I couldn't feel it. It only blew across the floor.
I lay down again and turned to face the wall. I saw a glow, so faint that I thought my eyes, deprived of light, had kindled it out of wishful thinking, but it shone just in one spot, and when my fingers explored there between the stones, the mortar crumbled and the stone wiggled a little, as if someone had been working at it.
I had no implement, so I used my hands, wearing my fingernails ragged, until I broke a bit of stone away. Then I used it to chip away at the mortar. When I stopped to listen, I heard snatches of conversation from the kitchen. I worked as quietly as I could, and at last an entire stone came loose, but no matter which way I turned it, I couldn't pull it into the room with me, so I gave it a push. Although it was level with the wooden floor I was lying on, it must have been at least a foot above the kitchen hearth, because it landed with a loud crack of stone on stone.
The sound stopped the kitchen talk for hardly a moment. I was glad that Elen's was such a noisy household.
When I peered through the hole I'd made, I could see nothing but the inside of the kitchen hearth. The fire had been banked. I could just make out the glow of coals beneath the ashes. I waited while the kitchen servants finished up their chores, quenched the lamps, and went to bed.
When I was certain no one remained in the kitchen, I went back to work enlarging the hole. Now that I had the one stone out, it was easier to loosen those around it. The mortar was old and crumbly, and when I pulled out a second stone, those next to it gave way, making a hole big enough for me to wriggle through. Once free of my prison, I fitted the stones back into place for no other reason than to baffle my jailers.
When I stood up I found myself inside the kitchen hearth. Covered in soot and ash, I was blacker than a demon's heart at midnight, invisible against the sooty fireback. The kitchen was almost as dark. I kicked the ashes from the coals, to make the fire flare up enough so that by its light I could find my way to the back door. A little lick of flame danced above the embers. I stepped through it.
My nemesis was sitting by the fire. Moments before he must have been asleep. The stout servant who had twice laid hands on me was now wide awake and staring at the apparition that had stepped from the flames. If he tried to take hold of me again, I resolved to run him through with a meat fork or whatever else might come to hand, but he only sat and stared at me as I walked past him and out the kitchen door.
I crossed the yard, keeping to the shadows, all the while expecting to hear him raise the alarm. Nothing happened. In the yard the guards slept on. The gate groaned on its hinges. They didn't wake. I pulled it shut behind me and turned my back on Elen's house.
81. Disenchanted
Dark and quiet, the village lay asleep. I walked through its empty streets, as bold as if I were an apparition. Too late I spied a watchman leaning against the corner of a shed, but he only wrapped his arms around his body and shivered as I went past.
Perhaps I was a disembodied wraith. Do the dead know when their bodies have been left behind? The thought amused me.
Wraith or not, I feared no one. I had nothing more to want. No one could prevent my having it or take it from me.
I had one more obligation, and I would fulfill it if I could. Others had put their lives at risk for me. I owed it to them to see them safely on their way.
When I rapped on the door of the armorer's house, no one answered. I rapped again, a little louder. At last it opened, and the armor
er, grumpy in his nightshirt, stared at me.
"It's Tamras," I said, remembering what I looked like.
He let me in.
Someone poked the fire into flame, and by its light I saw the forms of many men sleeping on the floor. Several had begun to wake. I saw Bru among them. He stood up and came to greet me.
"We feared you had come to grief," he said. "What kept you?"
"They locked me up," I told him, "but I got away."
The sleeping forms began to wake. The warriors of Bru's band sat up and gazed at me. Their faces I remembered from another lifetime.
"Why are you all here?" I asked.
"We saw their preparations," said Bru. "We were curious. We thought it might have something to do with you."
"How did you get down into the valley?"
"The same way you did." Bru chuckled. "Bands of armed men were everywhere. We blended in."
The men laughed.
Bru led me to the fire, to get a better look at me. "Are you all right?"
I nodded.
"Why have they sent their warriors out? Is Elen's house in danger?"
"They think it is." I sighed. "It's a long story."
Finn had built up the fire and now made a place for me beside him on the hearth. "Sit down, then," he said, "and tell it. We have all night."
I began by telling them about the army I had seen on my way to Elen's house and what I believed were its intentions.
"I chanced to mention it to Elen," I said, "and she saw it as a threat, not to my people, but to her. I meant to go myself, to warn my people. Now there is no need. Elen's army will turn the northerners aside."
The men were silent, but I saw their admiration in their eyes. It shamed me.
"It was no cleverness of mine," I said. "To Elen, everything that happens has to do with her."
"Not clever?" said Finn. "Clever enough to shoot two birds with one arrow."
"What do you mean?"
"Why did you go there? Wasn't it to free your friend from Elen's house?"
"Oh." How could I tell them that I had risked their lives for nothing?