The Warrior's Path

  I waited, but she said no more.

  "What else?" I asked.

  "That's all."

  "What happened to you? What did the man do with you?"

  "I don't remember."

  "Who took care of you?"

  "No one took care of me," she said. "I learned to take care of myself."

  "But you couldn't have survived without other people."

  "There were other people."

  "I don't understand."

  "I lived in a village," she said. "Maybe several different villages. I don't know. I was too young to be useful to anyone. Maybe the man who took me gave me to his wife. Maybe she had no children. Maybe I was not the child she wanted."

  I heard the impatience in her voice, but I wanted to hear it all. I had never before dared to ask her about her past. It was painful for her to talk about, and no wonder. I didn't know if I would ever have the courage to ask again.

  "What happened to your family?" I asked her.

  "A long time afterwards, someone told me they'd killed everyone but me. I don't know if it was true."

  "When you speak about your people, who are you talking about?"

  "My people?"

  "You said a little while ago that among your people, no one would interfere in a blood debt."

  "When I was old enough to work, I was sold -- or given -- to a household much like this one. That's where I became a warrior."

  I opened my mouth to ask her where they were and why she'd left them, but she tossed a few handfuls of snow onto the fire and stood up.

  "It's almost dark," she said. "We should go."

  That evening after supper Maara took me with her to the Lady's chamber to make her report. She told the Lady only that we had found the body of the prisoner who lost his hand and that he had died, not of his injury, but of a knife wound in his chest.

  The Lady wasn't happy with our news.

  "Where did you find him?" she asked.

  "Well within our northern boundary," Maara replied.

  "So he was killed before our warriors left them?"

  "I would say so."

  "You know these northerners," the Lady said. "Does it seem likely to you that his own people killed him?"

  Maara shook her head.

  "Then it was one of ours." Maara said nothing, but the Lady didn't expect an answer. "I imagine you have drawn your own conclusions."

  "We haven't come to you to make an accusation," Maara said. "Tamras thought you should know that someone had dishonored your promise."

  The Lady glanced at me and smiled. Then she turned back to Maara. "Who else knows of this?"

  "No one else."

  "Good," she said. "I think this news is best kept between the three of us."

  Maara nodded and turned to leave. I started to follow her, but the Lady called me back, and Maara left me there.

  The Lady looked me up and down.

  "You look well," she said.

  "I am very well."

  "If a little oddly dressed."

  I had forgotten the leggings. Now I wished I had taken them off before we went to see the Lady. For the first time they embarrassed me.

  "Never mind," she said. "I'm sure they're very practical."

  I nodded.

  "Well," she said. "Is she what you expected?"

  The question made no sense to me. Maara was exactly what I'd expected. She was the woman I had always known her to be.

  "Her ways must seem a little strange to you," the Lady said, and glanced down at my legs. "They're certainly a little strange to me."

  There was something in her tone I didn't like, as if she was waiting for me to find some fault with my warrior. I remembered Gnith's words. Make sure of what you want, and when you get it, don't complain. Even if I'd had something to complain of, I would never have given the Lady the satisfaction.

  "I'm used to her ways," I said.

  The Lady put her hand on my shoulder. "Just don't forget the ways of your own people."

  "I won't."

  "Let me give you a word of advice then," she said. "Don't let your warrior keep you to herself. You need to find friends here. The friendships you make now will last you all your life, and each one will be a gift to your family."

  "I have friends here."

  "If you mean Sparrow, you have misunderstood me. You need friends whose families you can count on. Your mother is depending on you."

  I knew what she meant. My mother had made many friends in Merin's house. They never failed to come to us when we needed help, and the Lady Merin herself was always the first among them.

  "I understand," I said.

  "Good." She slipped her arm around my shoulders and drew me close to her. "You did well today."

  I forgot that I had been annoyed with her for speaking as she did about Maara. My heart was pleased by both her praise and her affection.

  "You gave up a powerful ally when you refused Vintel. You don't need to make an enemy of her. Do you understand what I mean?"

  I nodded. Of course the Lady didn't know that Vintel was my enemy already. Even so, there was no point in making matters any worse.

  "Go on back to Maara then," she said, "and tell her what we've talked about."

  21. Strong Friends

  I found Namet in Maara's room. She got up to leave as soon as I came in. After she'd gone, I asked Maara what she wanted.

  "Nothing in particular," said Maara. "I think she just stops by to remind me of her friendship."

  The irony did not escape me that my warrior, a stranger in Merin's house, already had a friend from a strong family, while I did not.

  "The Lady told me I need to make more friends," I said.

  "Oh?"

  "When I chose my friends here, it seems I thought more about their hearts than about their families."

  I slumped down on the foot of Maara's bed, my mind still preoccupied with what Vintel had done. I tried to understand why Maara believed she had a right to do it. The Lady didn't seem to think so. Making powerful friends was the last thing I wanted to think about just then.

  But Maara was already thinking about it.

  "The Lady is right," she said. "You need friends with strong families as much as you need friends of the heart."

  "I suppose so," I said.

  I began to undo the thongs that bound my leggings.

  "You won't make many friends if you spend all your time with me."

  A ripple of anxiety went through me.

  "It wouldn't hurt to spend some time with the other apprentices," she said gently. "They must wonder why you avoid them."

  "I don't avoid them."

  "It may seem that way to them."

  "I suppose."

  "You could start by eating supper at the companions' table," she said.

  "We're never home by suppertime."

  "Perhaps we should be."

  I nodded, but an anxious feeling had begun in the pit of my stomach. Something had changed too quickly, and I didn't understand how it had happened. I loved the feeling of freedom I had when I was alone with Maara. We were used to coming and going as we pleased. Would we now stop whatever we were doing and rush home to supper like children who must be home before the sun goes down?

  I would have been happier about joining the companions for supper if I had known that Sparrow would be there, but she was staying as close to Vintel as I usually stayed to Maara, and she seldom ate with the companions anymore. Then I remembered that I was supposed to be making other friends.

  Just as I began to resign myself to this new idea, Maara said, "Maybe you should sleep in the companions' loft."

  I felt as if she was sending me into exile.

  "No," I said.

  "You need to show the Lady that you're taking her advice seriously. How are you going to get to know anyone if you see the others only at suppertime?"

  My mind knew she was right, but my heart couldn't keep up with her. Angry tears started in my eyes. To cover up my feelings,
I busied myself with undoing my leggings.

  "You don't have to go tonight," she said.

  "Perhaps I should."

  "I'm not sending you away. I'm trying to do what's best for you."

  I took a deep breath. "I know."

  The ties of my leggings were in a hopeless knot. I tugged at them in frustration and only made the tangle worse.

  "Stop," said Maara.

  She came to sit by me at the foot of the bed and began to work on the impossible knot.

  "A lot has happened today," she said, "and we're tired, and it's dark."

  "What does the dark have to do with it?"

  She glanced into a corner of the room that was beyond the reach of our flickering lamplight. "The dark changes things."

  "How?"

  "You know how things look in the dark."

  "I suppose so," I said, although I wasn't sure what she was getting at.

  "In the dark, you can't see more than a little piece of anything, and most of what you see in the shadows might be things your mind makes up."

  "Oh," I said.

  She smiled. "Didn't your mother ever say that things always look better in the morning?"

  I had to smile too. "Everybody's mother says that."

  "Then it must be true."

  She undid the last knot and pulled my leggings off. She looked at them for a moment. Then she said, "You don't have to wear these."

  I took them from her. "I'm the only person in this house whose legs are always warm. If people look at me strangely, it must be only jealousy."

  Maara smiled at me. "Go to bed," she said. "Tomorrow is soon enough to decide what you should do."

  Things did look much better to me in the morning. I was surprised to find myself looking forward to having supper with the companions. I remembered how reassuring it was to be one of them, and now that I was an apprentice, I was more than just one of them. I was a person of some importance. Those who were not yet apprenticed looked at me with envy mixed with a touch of awe, and the other apprentices accepted me as their equal. I no longer had to find an empty place for myself at the table. Someone would always make a place for me. Sometimes two or three of them at once would invite me to sit beside them. I had remembered none of those things the night before. Maara had been wise in what she said about the dark.

  The day was drizzly. Ordinarily that wouldn't have bothered us, but Maara suggested that we spend the day indoors, and I was more than willing to keep warm and dry.

  I had awakened with new questions about what we had seen the day before. While I helped her dress, I asked her, "Why did no one try to stop Vintel from killing that man?"

  "Vintel is their captain. Who would have dared?"

  "I don't mean our own warriors. Why did his friends do nothing? Why did they let it happen?"

  "They aren't savages," she said. "They understand a blood debt."

  The prisoners may have understood, but I didn't understand at all. A man had died, yet Eramet still lay in the barrow, none the better for it. Was Vintel's heart any lighter? Was Namet's heart? Was Sparrow's?

  That afternoon Sparrow found me in the laundry.

  "Where have you been?" she said. She sounded cross with me.

  "I've been right here all afternoon," I told her.

  I hated doing laundry, and Maara and I had once again run out of clean clothes.

  "I don't mean today," she said. "You've hardly been home for weeks on end. Where in the world has your warrior been taking you?"

  "We go out walking. She thought we were getting too soft sitting all day long by the fire."

  "So all you do is walk?"

  "No," I said. "She's teaching me."

  "Teaching you? What could she be teaching you?"

  "She's taught me how to set snares, how to travel in cold weather, how to find food and make a shelter if a storm should overtake us. Lots of things."

  "Did your warrior trap the furs for those things you've been wearing on your legs?"

  "Leggings," I said. "She made them for me from the skins of rabbits we caught in our snares. They're warm."

  "I wish I'd had leggings at the ravine," she said.

  I smiled at her. Somehow Sparrow always said the right thing.

  "It sounds like she's teaching you the old ones' ways," she said.

  "Do you think so?" The idea appealed to me.

  "It stands to reason. She can teach you only what she knows."

  I had finished rinsing the clothes and wringing them out. Together we began to hang them up to dry.

  "Have you ever known any of the old ones?" I asked her.

  "Not really," she replied. "There was a woman named Bren in Arnet's house whose mother was one of them. Bren worked in the kitchen. She used to mumble nonsense words over every animal she butchered and paint her face with its blood. She frightened people."

  I remembered that, after Maara killed the fox, there had been a smear of blood across her forehead. I had thought it was from the blood that spurted out when she cut its throat.

  "Why did she do that?" I asked.

  "I'm not sure, but it seems to be traditional among them. I've even seen one or two of our own warriors mark themselves with the blood of a warrior they've killed in battle. Laris marked herself at the ravine, when she killed the man who tried to escape."

  No one in Merin's house had fairer hair than Laris.

  "Laris isn't one of the old ones," I said.

  "No," said Sparrow. "But I think she'd like to be."

  Laris was one of the warriors who had sat and talked for hours with Maara in the great hall.

  "Is that why she so often sits with Maara?"

  Sparrow chuckled. "Partly, I suppose, but mostly I think it's because she and your warrior have something in common."

  "What's that?"

  "They're the only people here who have ever challenged Vintel."

  "Laris challenged Vintel?"

  Sparrow hushed me and lowered her voice. "Last spring they had a falling-out. I don't know what it was about, but they almost came to blows. No one but Laris has ever had the courage to challenge Vintel, not that I know of. Not until your warrior did."

  "How would Laris know about that?"

  Sparrow laughed. "Everybody knows about it. Lorin was telling the story behind his hand to anyone who would listen before the day was out. And if he hadn't, I would have had to tell somebody, even if it was only the companions. It was too good a story not to tell."

  "Would you have been that disrespectful to Vintel?"

  "Disrespectful? That story isn't disrespectful. It's the simple truth. Vintel leads because people will follow her. People will follow the best leader they can find, but how can they know who that is? Only by seeing how people conduct themselves. If your warrior were not a stranger here, I would say that Vintel should beware of her if she wants to keep her position."

  "Maara isn't a stranger here anymore," I said.

  "Not to you," said Sparrow, "but she doesn't mix with the others much, and part of the strength of leadership is the number of strong friendships one can call on. Anyway, it's just as well for her that Vintel doesn't see her as a rival."

  "What about Laris?"

  "Vintel is wary of Laris. Laris is from a strong family, but she has too few friends here to challenge Vintel's leadership."

  We had finished hanging up the clothes. I was about to take the tub of dirty water outside to empty it when Sparrow put her hand on my arm and said, "Your warrior doesn't do anything so very strange, does she?"

  "I don't think so," I said. "Like what?"

  "I've heard some strange things about people like her. Bec says that when they kill an animal they cut the heart out and eat it raw."

  "She's never done anything like that," I said.

  Of course I had never examined the entrails of the animals Maara killed to see if the hearts were missing. Sometimes she had given me some of the liver to eat, but she had always cooked it first.

  "It's probably
just an old wives' tale," Sparrow said. "People will say anything."

  Then I knew where Sparrow's questions came from.

  "What are people saying?"

  "Nothing you should worry about. They're curious, that's all. They've never known anyone like her before. Neither have I, except for old Bren, and she was a lot more peculiar than your warrior."

  "What are they so curious about?"

  Sparrow hesitated. "Well," she said. "You've been so late coming home sometimes. They wonder if she's not out dancing to the moon."

  I burst out laughing at the absurdity of the idea. "She does nothing of the kind."

  Sparrow looked relieved. "Don't pay any attention to them then. They have nothing better to do than gossip."

  I began to see the wisdom of spending more time in Merin's house. As much as I loved the time I spent with Maara out in the snowy countryside, it was time for both of us to make a place for ourselves within the household. It was as important for my warrior as it was for me.

  In the days that followed, whenever the weather allowed, Maara took me outdoors during the day, but we were always back in time for supper, and I began to look forward to telling the companions what we had done that day. They listened with fascination to my tales of our adventures in the wilderness. I didn't tell them everything, but I told them enough to make them understand that I was learning useful skills, not some kind of ancient superstitious nonsense, as they had suspected.

  One morning, while we were preparing to go out and check our snares, Laris asked Maara if she and Taia, her apprentice, could join us. Maara made them welcome.

  Laris took great interest in everything Maara did, but Taia seemed bored and indifferent until she saw Maara make a fire. Maara had an uncommon skill with fire. Even in wet weather she could always find something that would burn. She would gather the down of cattails or pull the bark off a piece of deadfall and scoop out the dry heart of the rotting wood to use as tinder. There was no mystery in what she did, but Taia would watch her with delight, as if Maara had conjured the flame from the palms of her hands.