The Warrior's Path

  I turned my thoughts back to Sparrow.

  "Do you mind?" I asked her.

  "Mind?"

  "That Eramet lies with someone else."

  "I shouldn't," she said, "but I do."

  I waited to see if she would tell me more, but she stood up and said, "We should go back. It's late."

  She gave me her hand to help me up. When I was on my feet, she would have let go, but I kept hold of her. I held her hand all the way home.

  In the morning I went to Vintel's room. When she answered my knock, I lifted the curtain and went in. She had stood up to greet me. Perhaps she was expecting someone else.

  Although I had seen Vintel almost every day in the great hall, I had never before spoken to her, nor had I ever been this close to her. A woman of impressive height and even more impressive presence, she filled the tiny room. When she saw me, she sat down, and the way she moved, graceful and sinuous, reminded me of a weasel. Her features were unusual, but not unpleasant. She regarded me with curiosity.

  "I'm sorry to disturb you," I said, "but have you any news of Maara?"

  Vintel shook her head.

  I thanked her and turned to leave.

  "Do you still expect her?" she asked me.

  I nodded.

  "I believe she will disappoint you."

  Her words brought tears to my eyes. I bit my lip, to make them stop.

  Vintel looked at me then as if she were taking my measure.

  "You could go to the frontier with me," she said. "I'm going back tomorrow. I returned to Merin's house only to bring Maerel's body home."

  Maerel had been Vintel's companion. I hadn't known her well, but the news of her death shocked me when I heard of it the night before in the companions' loft. They told me she didn't die at the hands of an enemy, but drowned when they made a river crossing. The Mother's river can be as dangerous as the northern tribes.

  Vintel cocked her head at me. "Well?" she said.

  I didn't know what she was asking me. I was still thinking of Maerel.

  "Will you come with me or not?" she said.

  "As your companion?"

  "Of course."

  It was a tempting offer. I would have jumped at the chance to go to the frontier with Maara, but it felt disloyal to companion someone else. And I was cautious for a reason I didn't understand until I had a chance to think about it. I was afraid of what Vintel would require of me.

  I shook my head. "I thank you for the honor," I said, "but I believe my warrior will return."

  That evening, just as the sun began to set, we laid Maerel's body in the barrow. With her we put everything she owned except her clothing. There wasn't much. She was to have married in the spring, and she had a bride necklace her betrothed had given her. Her comb, her knife, and a small bronze mirror were laid beside her. Each of the companions gave her a grave gift. I set a pot of sweet herbs at her feet. Sparrow gave her a blue stone.

  I had seen death before. Children die of fevers. Women die in childbed. I had lost childhood friends. This death, though, touched me in a way no other death had done. Maerel was a companion, as was I. She had awakened on the morning of her dying day as alive as I, and as certain she would rest that night in her own bed as I was certain I would rest that night in mine.

  8. Homecoming

  It was Sparrow who told me my warrior had come home. She found me in the oak grove. Two months had passed since Maara left us, and most of our warriors had returned from the frontier. Soon only the winter weather would guard our borders. The gloomy day matched my mood. No one now expected Maara to return. The Lady had mentioned to me more than once that Vintel needed a companion. I hid, even from myself, how little hope I had of seeing my warrior again. When I heard Sparrow say, "She's come back," I felt as if the sun had come out from behind the clouds and brought the color back into the world.

  Then I saw that Sparrow could hardly catch her breath, that she must have run all the way from Merin's house. I thought she was just eager to bring me the good news. As soon as she could speak again, she said, "Come quickly, before they kill her."

  I left Sparrow, winded as she was, far behind. Even before I entered Merin's house, I heard angry voices. Warriors filled the great hall. Some had drawn their swords, and for a moment I feared to see my warrior lying dead in their midst. Eramet stood facing them. Sword in hand, she blocked the narrow stairway that led upstairs. I pushed through the crowd.

  "Where is she?" I shouted over the din.

  "She's with the Lady," Eramet replied. She moved aside for me, but as I went past her, she caught my arm and said in a low voice close to my ear, "Tell the Lady I need her here."

  I ran on up the stairs and burst into the Lady's chamber. Three faces turned toward me -- Vintel's, the Lady's, and my warrior's.

  "Eramet needs you in the great hall," I told the Lady.

  The Lady turned to Vintel and said, "Stay with them," before she left the room.

  Maara's sword was in Vintel's hand. Her shield and armor lay beside her on the floor, along with the knife and hatchet she carried on her belt. As frightened as I was, I couldn't help smiling at her. Her expression didn't change. She looked defeated. She returned my gaze for a moment, then turned away, as if I meant nothing to her.

  The Lady was gone no more than a minute or two. When she returned, she told Vintel to lock Maara in the armory.

  "Why would we disarm her only to lock her in with the weaponry?" Vintel protested.

  The Lady had little patience left, but she gave Vintel an explanation, although she owed no one an explanation for her actions.

  "Where else should I keep her?" she said. "I want her here in this house. No other place is safe for her. The armory is as hard to break into as it is to break out of, and if anyone does break in, the woman will be able to defend herself."

  The armory was downstairs, between the kitchen and the great hall. The heavy door usually stood open, but it could be barred from either side, so that the armory could also serve either to confine someone or as a refuge of last resort. It was filled with wooden chests and wicker baskets containing weapons of all kinds -- swords, hunting spears and battle spears, and bows, with arrows for small game and big game, and for war. With the door closed, it would be hot and airless and uncomfortably small. I would have wished for my warrior a better homecoming.

  Vintel made a gesture to Maara to go ahead of her. When I started to follow them, the Lady touched my arm.

  "Stay," she said.

  The Lady drew her chair up to the small fire burning on the hearth and sat down. She gazed into the flames and was quiet for so long that I thought she'd forgotten I was there.

  I shuffled my feet a little, and she looked up.

  "Sit down," she said.

  Hers was the only chair in the room, and I didn't like to perch on the edge of her bed, so I sat down on the hearthstone.

  "Maara has brought me some disturbing news," the Lady said. "If it's true, many may owe their lives to her. If it's not, we may waste our warriors on a diversion while our enemies take what we must leave unguarded."

  I didn't know if she expected a reply or if she was just thinking out loud, so I held my tongue, although I was bursting with questions.

  "Maara won't tell me why she failed to join Vintel," the Lady said. "I believe I know the reason, but I would like to hear her confirm it. I would find it easier to trust the news she brings me if I knew the truth about that." She turned in her chair and looked at me. "Eramet just told me that Maara was wounded last spring because none of our warriors would stand with her or leave their friends to help her."

  I could hardly believe my ears. When I understood her meaning, my anger loosened my tongue. "How could they be so cowardly!"

  "Hush," the Lady said. "We don't yet know the truth of it. Eramet wasn't with them, and I didn't ask her how she knew, though I could guess."

  Vintel was one of the warriors who carried Maara home. Perhaps she told Eramet what had happened that day.
/>
  "If they wanted her dead, why didn't they leave her to bleed to death?"

  "It's not that they wanted her to die," the Lady said, "but it seems they saw no reason to risk themselves or their friends to help her. I won't judge anyone until I know the whole truth, although I doubt that any of them will speak to me. Such matters are settled between warriors."

  I listened as calmly as I could. Later I would have to think over what she'd told me and try to find my own feelings about it. At that moment I had enough to do just to take everything in.

  "If it's true," she said, "it's no wonder that Maara didn't join Vintel at the frontier. I don't blame her for trying not to make the same mistake a second time."

  I realized then that, if Maara never intended to join Vintel's band, she had lied to me, and I found the knowledge painful.

  "Why didn't she tell anyone what happened?" I said. "Why didn't she tell me?"

  "If it's true, she understood their reasons and accepted them. Otherwise she would have spoken to me or dealt with them herself."

  For the first time I understood how lonely Maara must have been in Merin's house.

  "Has she no friends here?" I spoke more to myself than to the Lady.

  The Lady smiled at me. "Only you," she said. "And possibly me."

  "Possibly?"

  "I know you trust her, and I might trust her for my own life, but I dare not trust her for all the lives that depend on me. After I've had some time to think, I'll speak with her again. I must be as sure as it's possible to be that she is telling us the truth."

  "If I'm her only friend here," I said, "then I should be the one to speak with her."

  "This is beyond your skill."

  "I know her better than anyone. I know how to talk to her. I know how to get her to talk to me. If she tells me the truth, I'll know it, just as I would know a lie."

  "She has already lied to you at least once," the Lady reminded me.

  "I know."

  The Lady weighed my words, then shook her head. "You're too young for this. I will talk to her. You can sit with us if you like, and if you notice something in her face or in her words -- "

  "No!" I said. "I won't be used against her anymore. If I'm her only friend, then I must be her friend and not use what I know of her against her."

  The Lady frowned, and I thought she would remind me to whom I owed my loyalty, but she said nothing. Her silence encouraged me to speak my mind.

  "Everyone insists on telling me how young I am, as if that makes me no more aware of what's going on than the dog lying under the table. I can't help being young, but I have eyes and ears, and I can understand, if anyone would bother to tell me things, more than you give me credit for."

  I paused for a moment to catch my breath and to control my anger.

  "There's another reason why I must be the one to speak with her," I said. "Maara won't explain herself to you. If she were lying, she would have an explanation for everything, to convince you she's telling you the truth. She would try to persuade you, and that would give her away."

  "If what she says is true, why would she not try to persuade me of it?"

  "Because she will do no more than simply tell the truth."

  "So she will tell you the truth because you will believe her?"

  "She will tell me the truth because she's truthful."

  The Lady went downstairs with me. Outside the armory, Vintel stood guard. I made them both wait while I brought some cold meat and bread and a pitcher of ale.

  When Vintel opened the armory door, I saw that Maara had no lamp. She had been lying on the floor in the dark, and when the light fell on her face, she sat up and shielded her eyes.

  "I need a lamp," I told Vintel.

  "What if she sets the house on fire?"

  "Then we'll both burn with it," I replied.

  "Bring a lamp," the Lady told Vintel.

  Vintel brought a lamp and handed it to me. By the time I set it down in a niche inside the armory, Maara's eyes had grown accustomed to the light. She started to get up, but the flat of Vintel's sword on her shoulder stopped her.

  "May I bring water to bathe her?" I asked the Lady.

  She nodded.

  "And some clean clothes for her?"

  "Get whatever you need," the Lady said.

  She waited patiently until I returned with a pot of soap, some clean cloths, a bucket of warm water, and a change of clothing for Maara. I went inside the armory and set everything down.

  "Tomorrow morning," the Lady said, "I will call the council together, and we'll hear what Maara has to say. In the meantime, I expect no more trouble." She turned to Vintel. "I don't think we need a guard posted, as long as there is someone to let Tamras out when she's ready."

  "No," I said. "I'll stay with her."

  "As you like," the Lady said.

  She nodded to Vintel, who shut and barred the door.

  Maara reached for the cold meat. I pushed her hand away.

  "Not until I bathe you," I said. "You smell like you fell into a bog."

  "I'm hungry," she said, but she sat still.

  I don't know why I was so abrupt with her. As glad as I was to see her, I had been very frightened, and I was in a hurry to put the world back the way it used to be, so that it would make sense to me again. I untied the yoke of her shirt and pulled it off over her head. She winced, and I saw a dark bruise covering the ribs on her left side.

  "I'm sorry," I said.

  She shook her head, as if it didn't matter, but after that I was more careful with her. I got her boots and trousers off and washed her as well as I could. She did little to help me. Her body hurt, and she was exhausted, but I felt something else in her that frightened me. I felt that she had abandoned herself, that she no longer cared what happened to her. I worried she might not recover her spirits before she had to face the council in the morning.

  When she was as clean as I could make her, I dressed her, and then I let her eat. She offered some to me. I shook my head. She needed all of it.

  There was just room enough on the floor of the armory for both of us to sit. While she ate I watched her, until I forgot my fear and my anger. My warrior had returned. I smiled at her.

  "What?" she said.

  "I'm glad you're home."

  "Well," she said, "you're the only one."

  She finished the last of the bread and washed it down with ale.

  "Are you too tired to talk?"

  "About what?"

  I started with the thing that bothered me the most. "You lied to me."

  Maara looked away.

  "You never intended to join Vintel."

  "No," she said.

  "Will you tell me why?"

  "No," she said.

  "Eramet told the Lady what happened last spring."

  "Eramet wasn't there."

  Then she realized that she had confirmed Eramet's story.

  "You should have told me."

  At last she looked at me. "Why? What would you have done? Would you have told the Lady? Does a warrior need a little girl to run to the Lady with every wrong done to her?"

  Her words stung me. "I would never have done anything you didn't want."

  She looked away again. "It was between me and the others."

  "Not when you made everyone believe you came here to spy on us. When you didn't join Vintel, they thought you'd gone back to your own people in the north, to tell them what you'd learned of us."

  She didn't answer, and I thought she might have misunderstood me.

  "Everyone but me," I said. "I knew you wouldn't abuse our hospitality."

  "Well," she said, "you were right about that."

  "I wish you hadn't lied to me."

  I wanted her to tell me she was sorry. Instead she said, "Did you believe I didn't know you were the Lady's watchdog?"

  Although it was not an accusation, she took me so aback that I couldn't think of what to say. I had done nothing that would shame me in her eyes. How could I expla
in to her that she was both right and wrong?

  "I have been a very poor watchdog," I told her.

  She tried to smile. "You did make it much too easy for me to get away."

  "I believed you," I said. "I trusted you. You told me you would join Vintel, and I never doubted that you would. That's why I didn't tell the Lady you were going to go alone to the frontier, although I should have."

  Maara still wouldn't meet my eyes. I tried to make her understand.

  "The Lady wanted to know more about you," I said. "She asked me to repeat to her anything you might tell me about yourself. Didn't you ever wonder why I never asked you where you came from or why you'd come to Merin's house? I couldn't break faith with the Lady by telling you what she asked of me, but I never broke faith with you."

  Maara leaned her head back against a crate and closed her eyes. "I'm sorry I got you into trouble."

  "I don't care about being in trouble!" I spoke so sharply that she opened her eyes and looked at me in surprise. "I care that you took advantage of my trust in you. I care that you had so little trust in me. What the Lady asked of me, I couldn't do. She asked it of me again tonight, and I refused her."

  "I trusted you," she said.

  "Then tell me why you lied to me."

  "If I had not, my escape would have been your fault."

  "The Lady blamed me anyway."

  "Of course she did, but she never questioned your loyalty, did she?"

  "No."

  "If you had known that I was going to the frontier alone and that I had no intention of joining the Lady's warriors there, and if you had kept that knowledge from her until it was too late, what would that have led her to believe?"

  She was right. The Lady had thought me too trusting to see through my warrior's words. She'd scolded me, but she had understood, and she had forgiven me at once. If Maara had told me what she intended, I would have had no choice but to break faith with one or the other of them.

  There was something more. I felt it hang unspoken in the air. Before I had time to think about it, Maara spoke again.