07 | A Time for Sorrow
Once again my neighbours proved to be kinder than I deserved.
They helped me get in touch with the local priest—a man neither me nor my brother had ever had any dealings with—who would arrange for the cremation, and they helped me pack my meagre belongings, arrange for my servants to find other employment, and eventually lock up the house after my departure. With my brother gone there was nothing to keep me in the east—I would return to the City and, in time, find a new assignment.
And so, three days after my brother's passing, I was on the road again.
The things I was taking with me easily fitted into the carriage, and with room to spare because I had given my brother's equipment to the engineer. I knew I wasn't supposed to, but he needed it to finish the task at hand, and I had no qualms to provide him with the means for it. If the Council, or whoever, back in the City were to question me about it, I would just tell them the truth. I doubted they were prepared to get a dioptre and measuring rod back by force...
The cremation had taken place on a dedicated site out in the open plain, northeast of the Settlement. As Guardian tradition required it had to be on the third day, counting the day of his death.
The entire Settlement seemed to be present for the cremation. It touched me, considering how little involved we had been with the community, and there was a small group of Miners, keeping their distance. I recognised the Smith and the engineer amongst them. As for the rest of them I wasn't sure—
On the morning of my departure the priest brought me his ashes to take with me to the City. Tradition asked for them to be scattered in the Mountains, our ancestral homeland.
I wasn't so sure that my brother would have approved of such a plan—to the best of my knowledge he had never had any particular love for the Mountains. He had hated the cold because it made his bones ache even more and, besides, he had never been north. All of us siblings had been flawed—each in our own way—and therefore none of us had been chosen to serve in the Mountains.
I reached the junction with the Eastern Road in good time, and to my surprise—and quiet delight—I found the healer waiting for me there.
"Thank you for coming to see me off," I greeted him. It should have been me to seek him out prior to my departure.
"Shame that you'll be gone," he replied, "now that you're starting to become useful at healing. I had hopes that we'd make a Miner of you yet."
I chuckled wearily. "No Miner would ever allow me to treat them, no matter how proficient I became," I reminded him. "Your kind is just as pig-headed as mine."
He cackled. "This is very true." He held out a small parcel to me, and as I took it with my thanks he added, "It's a small supply of the medicines I acquainted you with... Stick with it, lady—" He had never called me 'lady' before. "—you have a gift for healing... well, more than for bodyguarding, anyway—"
"You knew?" I was taken aback.
"We all knew—it's not as if your Council would trust us Miners with one of their own—and we had a good laugh at your attempts to pass as a surveyor's assistant."
"So had my brother," I said wistfully.
"He was a good man—"
"Let me give you this." I shook the last remaining lump of Spice out of the small bag I carried at my belt. "He would have wanted you to have it. Keep it for yourself, or give it to those who might have the most need of it... I know it's hard to come by in the Hills these days."
"You won't need it for yourself?"
"I don't think that Spice can give me anything that I haven't got in me already."
He held his head at an odd angle as he regarded me. I thought that he might speak up, impart with—I didn't know what... some secret wisdom, perhaps? But in the end he just mumbled, "Well... that's interesting," as he waved me goodbye amongst the rattle of the approaching trade caravan I meant to join for my return journey.
I would never understand Miners—
It had been my intention to go and see the healer on that in-between day before my brother's cremation. But I had made a detour on my way into Town to pay a final visit to the hidden valley, hoping to find a modicum of solace in its serene tranquillity, when an unexpected encounter had played havoc with my plans...
As I entered the hidden valley I saw that the storm of two nights before had caused some damage to the trees. Twigs and leaves were littering the ground, and a branch had broken off. I stooped to check if any of the birds' nests had fallen off along with it—and, indeed, there was one lying on the ground, but it seemed empty. There wouldn't be any fledglings at this time of year, and its adult inhabitants, if there had been any to start with, would have fled in time. When I shifted the branch to have a closer look, I saw that the wood was still green and the leathery dark leaves—though much scarcer than in summer—were not wilting yet.
I knew next to nothing about the art of tree care, but I suddenly wondered if there was a chance to regrow one from a fallen branch and, if so, if I could make it grow in the City. Surely, it had to be kept alive for that! After some consideration I drew a linen handkerchief out of my pocket, filled it with the soft sand from under the trees and wet it with water from the pool in the middle of the grove. Then I tied it around the base of the branch where the green splintered wood was showing. I was so immersed in my peculiar task that I was quite oblivious of my surroundings—
"What are you doing here?" A male voice behind me suddenly said. I nearly jumped out of my skin and twisted, still in a crouch, to face the speaker, my hand on the hilt of the hidden knife in my boot.
In an instant I recognised him—it was the Smith—and I relaxed; albeit only slightly because I felt embarrassed that he had caught me in my strange childish undertaking.
"Nothing," I said defiantly as I rose. Lately defiance seemed to have become my default reaction with him. "I didn't know that I was prohibited from coming here—"
"Strictly speaking, this place doesn't belong to anyone," he replied. He was slowly walking to one of the trees, leaning against it and looking up. "I daresay the Miners would have cut down this grove long since and used it for props and beams, if it wasn't for the birds. They—we—need the birds more than the wood."
It had come to my attention that Miners were only interested in living nature in its aspects of food or tools.
"It is strange, isn't it," he said conversationally, "how it is all interconnected. The trees need the birds for their survival, and the Miners the birds to warn them from firedamp in the deep tunnels. But the birds cooperate only up to a point. After a while in the tunnels they stop singing—some say they sing to call their lost mates, and when they can't find them they pine and grow silent. And thus they ensure their return to freedom."
"A relative freedom," I said. "They cannot leave the valley because their trees only grow here... and so they will be caught again and again—"
"They get fed and are cared for... As I said, it is all interconnected." He looked at me shrewdly. "Which brings us to—other things. The things we do for love, from obligation, or necessity—" He raised an eyebrow.
I knew then what he was doing. He was daring me to speak up—how I had come to help a murderer escape. But I had missed my chance to prove my trust in him; and now it was too late.
Soon I would be gone... and in time it would stop to matter. Or so I hoped.
I didn't answer, didn't accept the challenge. I just looked at him; his stern face, dull olive skin and hazel eyes under heavy brows—and I wished I would see them turn pure gold once again in candlelight—the mane of thick dark hair bound at the nape of the neck, and his powerful form all clothed in black.
I marvelled at how familiar he had become to me. But I couldn't give him an answer that would redeem me in his eyes.
I gave him, however, a small truth in parting. "I wished I'd had it in me to accept you at the time," I said in a low voice. I stooped to pick up the branch, and then I turned to leave.
"You and me both," I heard him murmur. His voice was tinged with resignation.
Looking across the meadow to the entrance of the valley, an image stirred in my mind—that of a young Miner girl—
I slowly faced him again. He still stood under the tree, watching me.
"Do you know the little girl that tends to the birds?" I asked him. He nodded, his face inscrutable. "I'd say she's ten, maybe eleven, years old. She doesn't have her name yet... Please, watch over her—" His expression changed to one of surprise. "—I believe she is a Changer, but she may not yet be quite aware of what she is... When the time comes, she may need a mentor."
He didn't question my discovery, but just nodded once again, solemnly.
I left the valley almost at a run, and this time I didn't stop my useless tears from falling.
"It really is you!" My cousin's exclamation greeted me the moment I entered the courtyard at my uncle's house. "But you shouldn't be here just yet! You said you'd return in the summer... What happened?"
"My brother died—"
Heading towards me she stopped short at my words. "May he rest in peace through the mercy of the Creator," she said eventually. It was a strangely formulaic response—and one I had no answer to—but I was talking to a priestess, after all. Then she rushed forward and took both my hands. "I am so sorry, cousin," she whispered and kissed both my cheeks.
It was then that I recognised something of my childhood friend in her again. It helped me face what came next.
"Is my mother at home?" I asked. It was only late afternoon, and she might be anywhere—foraging for medical plants or offering her services as a healer by the Citadel.
"There she is," my cousin said, indicating the woman who was just then opening the door of the turret. I ran to her and threw myself into her open arms.
She knew.
Of course, she did.
"There was no pain," I said, reassuring her as much as myself. "He died peacefully in his sleep."
She held me for a while and, enfolded in her embrace, I felt comforted, as if some heavy burden had momentarily been taken from me.
"My poor son," she sighed at last. "Your poor brother."
Something stirred in me at her words. Which one? was on the tip of my tongue to ask. "We need to talk," I said instead.
"We will... But today isn't a time for reckoning; today is a time for mourning."
Even in her sorrow she would remain sensible and composed. I suddenly felt very young again, chastened even... My mother still had that effect on me. It seemed that not everything had changed.
That evening a wreath of evergreens wound with a dark ribbon the colour of soot was nailed to the front door, and no lights were lit at my uncle's home throughout the night. Before she left for the Citadel, my cousin promised that she would keep my brother in her thoughts that night during the Vigil, sending his spirit north with the wind.
I wondered if she could—
I stood at my window in the eerie light of a half moon, watching gusts of cold wind rustle the sparse leaves of the old tree down in the yard. It was still blowing from the wrong direction.
I hadn't expected to find my cousin at my uncle's house upon my arrival. She had moved in with her husband's family after her wedding, but it transpired that, once he had returned to fight in the north, she had come back to live at her father's house, claiming it to be so much more convenient a distance to the Citadel than from the home of her husband's family by the southern gate.
By moving back to her childhood home, little seemed to have changed for her by getting married—and yet it had.
"I'm with child," she informed me the day after my arrival. She had just returned from the Vigil, and her face looked drawn from lack of sleep and there were purple circles under her eyes.
I regarded her carefully. She didn't seem particularly joyful about the pregnancy—and I hadn't yet heard her mention her husband in my presence, or her marriage.
"Oh... Shouldn't you take better care of yourself in that case?" I tentatively asked her. "I mean... those Vigils—"
She shrugged off my concern. "I'm as strong as a mule." She went past me on the way to the stairs. "I'm off to take a nap now. I think this should please you—" Again, as at her wedding, I found it hard to reconcile the memory of the affectionate cousin I knew from childhood with the aloof priestess I saw on this day.
With my cousin resting for the time being, I decided to see my mother. There was much to talk about, after all.
She asked me to follow her to her upstairs room, and offered me tea which I declined. I wasn't in a conciliatory mood that morning. The knowledge of having deliberately been kept in the dark had started to rankle... So much had gone awry in the recent past, and I wanted to hold someone accountable for it; someone present, hale, and other than myself—irrational as it was.
"How is my other son?" she asked me. As always she went straight to the point.
"Aside from the fact that he's a Changer, you mean?" I replied, irreverence intended. "In some respects he hasn't altered much—he still has a knack for getting himself into trouble."
"Recklessness is an unfortunate trait in a Changer," she agreed. "And now you want to know why nobody let you into the secret, I presume?"
"Two years ago, when my brothers crossed paths in the south, I wasn't a child any more. You could have told me at the time!"
"And how would you have felt about a brother of yours being a Changer?" My mother's voice was uncharacteristically sharp. "At seventeen you were so obsessed with becoming a great warrior and serving in the north... You had no knowledge of the world outside the City, and no doubt about the Guardians' claim on supremacy." She looked me deep in the eyes. "How, daughter, would you have felt about having such a brother?"
I was silent for a long time. At last I admitted, "I would have felt ashamed. Tainted—"
"I talked to your eldest brother about it, and we agreed that it would be best to let you grow up a little more before telling you, let you realise how the world outside the City and outside this Tribe really is like—and that it is, perhaps, very different, but not necessarily any inferior, from what you believed before."
"I just wished I would have known, before—" I stopped abruptly. What I meant to say but wasn't as yet prepared to tell my mother was, '—before I met a Changer and failed him'.
She let me dwell on my thoughts for as long as I needed to—my mother had never been daunted by prolonged silences—but then, to the best of my knowledge she had never been truly daunted by anything in her life. I wondered what it took to arrive at that level of equanimity, and if I would ever achieve it—
"What are you planning to do with that branch?" she suddenly asked me. "I shouldn't imagine that you've brought it all this way only to let it go dry in the courtyard."
The branch. It had seemed so important at the time—a symbol of something I couldn't quite fathom—and then I had forgotten all about it since my arrival. The thought upset me.
"It comes from a special place back in the Hills," I explained. "I thought I might grow a tree from it."
"This is not how it goes, daughter... This branch once was only a part of the whole thing; it cannot be whole all by itself." She must have noticed my crestfallen expression because she added, "It may, however, become a part of a different entity—"
"How so?" I said, intrigued.
"You must have realised how much it resembles the branches of the tree in our yard..."
"I did. That's one of the reasons why I brought it. But unlike ours the tree it comes from doesn't blossom, or so I've been told."
"... still, we may try something else, something the Farmers do. Cut shoots and insert them under the outer tissue of another tree of a similar kind. We shall have to wait for a little while yet, until early spring when the sap rises in our tree. Until then we'll have to keep the branch alive." She smiled at me. "A good thing that I had one of our Farmers see to it last night."
Winter was getting on and, gradually, I felt a change for spring. While the winds were still mostly blowing from the north, every once in a while they turned, and a milder breeze entered the narrow streets of the City.
I hadn't been looking for a new assignment yet. My uncle had asked me if he should recommend me to the services of someone the Council considered important enough to merit a bodyguard, but I had asked to defer. He had acquiesced without questioning my reasons. Truth be told, I would have been at a loss to explain them.
As the cold season dragged its feet, I gradually slipped into the habit of helping my mother, and ere long I was an assistant of sorts again; this time to her. Like the healer back in the Hills before her, she took me under her wing and taught me the basics of her craft. At first I had been reluctant, lest she should tell me that it required divine distinction to become a healer, but she laughingly assured me that it was just science, and that the only gifts required were a good memory and the ability to listen carefully and with an open mind. Not being squeamish would also be of help, she added with an impish smile.
And so I spent more time in the turret than I had ever done since my mother had moved there. To be busy again lessened my unrest, and the more I applied myself to grasping some of her knowledge, the more it gave me a sense of purpose—something I had missed both as my brother's protector and as his slow-on-the-uptake assistant.
"What is the matter with her?" I asked my mother one evening not long after I had started spending my days in the turret. We were watching my cousin in full priestess regalia walk by our window on her way out to yet another Vigil. "Why is she so indifferent?... It is as if being wed, and being with child, doesn't mean anything to her."
"You know, I could never quite read your cousin," she pensively replied. "For instance, I can never make up my mind whether or not she is a true believer. She is ambitious, though... in every aspect of her life." She looked at me. "And now that she's had time to weigh her married life, I think she may have found it wanting."
I said nothing in reply, because I knew all too well what had never happened between wife and husband.
"I don't know what her husband has done, or failed to do," she said as if reading my thoughts, "but, trust me, your cousin is not indifferent—she's out to get back at him, to hurt him—" We watched the azure of my cousin's priestess robe disappear in the doorway leading out in the street. "—whereas you, my daughter, are only out to hurt yourself," she added in a low voice.
I whirled around. "Why would you say that?"
"Who was he?"
"He was no-one... and it was over before it began." I compressed my lips in a thin line; I had said more than enough.
For a while we worked in silence, picking tiny dried leaves off brittle stems. When we were finished with our work for the day, and the surface of the bench was cleared and wiped clean, she said, "It is far from over, and you know it."
Once again the winds blew from the south, and once again the tree in the yard was teeming with purple blossoms—except for the scions. However, the grafting had been successful and they were developing new leaves. It was not what I had hoped for, but at least a small piece of the hidden valley was living on in the City.
With the arrival of the blossoms my cousin's husband and his brother returned from the north. The Vigils were over, and my cousin prepared herself to move back to her husband's family. There was to be a dinner at my uncle's house, including both families, to mark the occasion.
Both brothers looked haggard, and the younger one sported a new scar across his left cheek. It was healed but still an angry red. Throughout the evening their father, the priest, was boisterous to the point of being inane, repeatedly slapping their backs and calling them heroes. It was awkward to witness, and yet I was prepared to endure it with good grace because the new worry lines in their mother's face—such as I hadn't noticed at the wedding in autumn—told their own tale. Before she had become captain of the gate she had served her time in the north.
It appeared to have been a particularly hostile winter in the north—presumably, the creatures from beyond the Mountains hadn't given in without putting up a fight. Not that anyone mentioned them...
I hadn't witnessed the reunion of the young husband and wife earlier in the day. But what I saw at table left me worried—especially for my cousin who looked strained and withdrawn, and her husband's attentions seemed unwelcome to her. Throughout the meal she hardly spoke and ate even less.
I worried that, even if her plan was to hurt him, she might actually do the most damage to herself.
My observations were curtailed when the younger of the brothers approached me after the meal.
"One of the first things I heard upon arrival was that you were back in the City," he said. "I've also been told the reason... I am truly sorry for your loss."
I knew he had always liked my brother, and therefore I thanked him sincerely.
"I've heard other things about you, too," he continued, regarding me closely. "Such as that you are hardly ever seen at the drill ground these days... and that you are becoming a healer."
"I'm helping my mother, that is all," I said evasively.
"I've heard differently... that you're doing a lot more than just helping" he remarked. "Becoming a healer is a noble calling—"
"My mother would tell you it's only a craft." I gave him a tentative smile, guiltily remembering my testy behaviour at the wedding. "It is a useful skill, however."
"Not just useful but also eminently suitable... and, I dare hope, also more fulfilling than any previous pursuits—" He seemed to regard me with a renewed interest that I found, as always, alarming. Which, in turn, brought back my testiness.
"Don't be deceived—I'm still just me," I brusquely warned him, and at the earliest opportunity I excused myself.
The following day, when I told my mother, who as usual had been absent from the company, she laughed.
"He likes to think that you are getting in touch with your caring side these days—and from my acquaintance with the captain of the gate I'd say that the poor boy knew little enough of that growing up... The craft of a healer is a nurturing one, and the prospect of a gentle helpmeet has a great allure for many a man—especially those who feel challenged by your martial side."
I scoffed. "Maybe I should call him out on the drill ground to set him straight," I mused.
"Be aware, daughter, that he has done things in the north, and that he bears the scars to prove it—"
My mother's words should have given me pause, but I had been irritable for a while, and more so after an evening's entertainment I had found little enjoyment in. Truth be told, I itched for a good fight, and in the end I decided to ignore her words of caution.
I went to the drill ground only armed with my knifes, one up my sleeve and the other in my right boot. Having them on me was still a matter of habit, but in the knowledge that I would be provided with a choice of blunted practice weapons, there was no need to bring my full gear.
When I strolled into the enclosure, I saw that the place was busy. The captain of the gate's sons had not been the only warriors to return just recently; at present the City was fraught with young Guardian soldiers at a loss on how to spent their time and surplus energy.
The brothers arrived soon after me, and together we perused the racks of notched practice weapons. I knew that I wouldn't stand a chance with a sword against a seasoned warrior, therefore I chose a spear and dagger. My usual weapons to spar with my usual partner...
After only a few exchanges of blows it dawned on me that I wouldn't be able to hold my own against him for any length of time. A year in the north had taught him more than a trick or two—whereas I was seriously out of practice.
My poorly balanced practice spear took some getting used to—not that he gave me time for that. His thrusts came quick and hard. I was more nimble on my feet than he, but to parry his relentless assaults cost me a lot of strength, and my arms ached. Sooner or later I would have to do something about it. End it by some decisive action, preferably.
But as yet he left me no opening...
He began to scare me. Soon after we started I had seen his eyes glaze over, and as our fighting progressed, he seemed to work himself into a blind rage... I wasn't altogether sure if he still knew where he was, or who he was sparring with.
It felt deadly serious... and I was about to lose.
I was losing ground, and it wasn't long before my spear was knocked out of my numbed hands. Dagger in hand I slowly retreated, the blunted tip of his sword pointing at me. I would have to try some desperate feint to make him raise his sword, and thereby give up his cover for a moment.
It didn't work! The momentum was all wrong; my foot slipped on the gravel and I fell hard on my back. I saw the blade cut down on me, and on instinct I rolled.
There was a blinding pain at my back, just below my left shoulder blade... He hadn't pulled his stroke. The bastard.
I was on hands and knees, gasping for breath, when I felt the tip of his sword touch the side of my neck. I froze. I was half in shock, half incredulous.
Then his brother was by his side, knocking the sword out of his hand. "Stop it, freak," he hissed. He held out a hand to me.
I took it and staggered to my feet, still winded. Where I had been hit my ribs hurt like the blazes.
"Are you all right?" he asked, bending over me.
I nodded, though reluctantly. "I will be—" Out of the corner of my eye I saw that my sparring partner dazedly shook his head, as if coming to his senses. All around us the fighting had stopped, and there were whispers.
I slowly made my way to the side of the drill ground where I had left my knives. Stooping awkwardly I picked them up when I heard steps crunching on the gravel behind me. I spun around, and nearly cried out when the pain in my back assailed me afresh.
He stood behind me, but at a distance, and he raised his hands to show me that he was unarmed. "I... I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know what came over me—"
"Spare me the excuses," I snarled. "I'm not interested." I turned, and without another backwards glance I left. I held my head high, my posture erect, but I couldn't keep the tears of pain from rolling down my dusty cheeks as I slowly made my way back through the City.
At my uncle's house my mother helped me out of my leather mail and shirt because I could barely lift my left arm. After some careful examining she was fairly confident that nothing was actually broken—badly bruised, yes, and perhaps even a rib or two cracked, but nothing to worry about, and no permanent damage done.
She took me to the upstairs room in the turret and told me to lie on my stomach so she could cover the bruise with cold compresses against the swelling. After a while, when the pain was sufficiently numbed by the cold, she applied a cooling salve. Eventually she asked me to sit up so that she could dress the contusion. Soon my torso was wrapped in several lengths of linen strips.
"It's only until tomorrow, to keep down the swelling..."
"It wasn't an accident," I interrupted her.
"No?"
"He went entirely out of control," I admitted. "I never saw it in anyone else before—"
"So, you went out to punish yourself, and it got out of hand?"
"I don't punish myself," I said defensively.
"You do," she replied calmly. "And it is time for you to stop."
I stood up abruptly, snatching a blanket to cover myself, and walked out on her. I banged the door as I left. I was done with having my mother explain my life to me—especially when she was probably right...
Ten days after my cousin had left her father's house on the morning following the dinner—and with a small legion of Farmer servants helping her carry her belongings—she was back. She was brought in a litter, and she was weak and ghastly pale.
The night before, my mother had been called to the house by the gate at just before dawn. However, there was nothing she could do; by the time she had arrived my cousin had lost her child.
I spent a lot of time sitting by her bedside, but she lay with her face turned towards the wall, and she never spoke with me. Still, she didn't send me away, so, perhaps, my mere presence did something for her.
Physically, my cousin didn't take long to recover. But as she continued to remain silent, I wasn't at all sure about her state of mind. Was she grieving? Regretting?—or actually blaming herself? I had no way of knowing, and she gave me no clues.
One evening, a few days after she was up and about, she announced that she would seclude herself from society for a while and live in a cell inside the Citadel. Immediately after her pronouncement she rose from the table, and the following morning she was ready to go, small pack in hand.
This finally jolted my uncle into action. Until then, perhaps from feeling bewildered and out of his depth with his daughter's miscarriage and ensuing quiet grief, his presence in the house—at other times so dominant—had hardly been noticeable for days. I had thought them closer, and so his absence from my cousin's sickbed had both saddened and exasperated me.
Just as his daughter was leaving, he stopped her at the door leading from the yard out into the street. I didn't hear what he was saying, but it was obvious that he was entreating her to stay... It quickly became equally apparent she wasn't swayed. She just obstinately shook her head, and eventually she was gone.
Afterwards, it was as if a hush had descended upon the entire house. There would be no annual banquet that year.
—