Arona called the most ancient scrolls to mind, and all the lines concerning this. At last she said, “I understand. But I will have to think long about this. Will it be as Huana Guntirsdaughter said, all submission and duty and obedience like a bondsmaid?”
“Great Gods, no! That woman hates men, marriage, and everything about it except the respectability of a married name, and that's because I sincerely doubt her la-di-dah grandsire ever existed except in her granddam's imagination. Did you notice, ‘Oseberg’ is a town's name and not a man's? I'd love you, cherish you, protect you. You'd be somebody of importance, for I'm already well on that road. Our sons could be big men in this town.”
He spoke largely in his own tongue, which had too many strange concepts for Arona to understand fluently. She sat watching him, her yellow eyes unreadable. “Would it be as the old scrolls said, how these he-sisterfriends became masters over their ladies?” she demanded.
He scoffed. “Fairy tales and legends. I should hope I'd be better to you than they! Though I should also hope you would never poison my soup for a moment's harshness. Truce?” His eyes solemn, he reached for her hand. “I can see I outraged your modesty, and to tell you the truth, it's all to your credit.” He took her hand, not as a bully, but as a friend. He cocked his head and said gently, “It's a foul rumor among us … strangers … that you girls have no modesty to outrage. I know that to be false. But it's plainly not like ours. Accept my apology?”
“Done,” she agreed reluctantly. When, on the way back, Egil insisted on moving his things to the records cellar or the barn, her suspicious heart melted a little. But she slept lightly that first night, dressing and undressing in haste and—Maris would have a fit if she knew—taking one of the kitchen knives to bed with her.
Ten
A Quest for Wisdom
I am the recorder's apprentice; one day I shall be the recorder. Arona stared out the loft window and tried to convince herself. Up till now, she had never questioned it.
Egil was determined to succeed to Mistress Maris's post. Did the recorder know that? The hungry winter had been hard on the frail old woman. Now that a few green shoots showed through the melting snow, Dame Butthead foraged more freely and gave a bit more milk. Arona could find fresh greens along the stream and in the woods. The nights, still bitterly cold, gave way to middays that were pleasant if she wrapped up well. Yet, the old recorder was still sick. Slow to wake in the morning, confused when she did wake, she could deal with nothing until she had eaten, and her appetite was poor. It had come about that Arona tended her mistress while Egil took over many of the other chores of Records House.
Yet, he was as docile and kind as a beloved big sister these days, unfailingly polite, deferential to Mistress Maris, and considerate of Arona's wishes. With a smile, he relieved her of the heaviest and most unpleasant chores. Joyfully he talked history and legends with her, sitting on the front porch in the rocker with his feet propped up on the rail. Acknowledging his junior status in the house, he slept in the front room and left Arona the bedroom-loft.
He courted her friendship. With gentle tenderness he would offer hugs, kisses, and small gestures that made her wonder if every day were to be her nameday. He began sentences with, “When we are together.” He talked of the babies she would bear, and of his own desire to start them. Maris began beaming like a doting mother whenever she saw them together.
He dreamed of working with Arona as partners, like sisters. With him as the eldest, she thought viciously. For he was still a sneak and a bully. Four times he had handled her against her will, once in connection with that nasty prank which caused such trouble with the Mistress. Several times she had seen him watching her exactly as the cat would watch a mousehole. Had Mistress Maris seen it, too?
But one day, when the old recorder had fallen into a deep sleep, Arona thought of her old scrolls and went down to the records room to look for a parchment scrap. The door was bolted and fastened with a heavy knot.
“Did you tie up the records room door, Egil?” she asked, tracking him down in the writing shed. She looked over his shoulder to see what he was writing; he moved to block her view.
“We can't let stray animals and curious children make free with the records,” he said, his voice making plain his surprise and disappointment that Arona hadn't realized this immediately.
“Yes, but I need to get in,” she retorted.
“If you need to get in,” he answered patiently, “all you have to do is ask me.”
She seized his shoulders in both hands then and tried to turn him around. “I will ask my mistress for access to the records,” she exploded. “I will not ask another apprentice! We have never locked those records up, and never have children or animals disturbed them until you came.” She turned around, found her utility knife, and began sawing at the rope. Egil left his writing to stand behind her. “That rope was not easy to come by,” he said darkly.
“Pity,” she said angrily, and rummaged through the scrap pile. He had rearranged things down there, she saw immediately. Several of the scrolls had been set apart. After much searching, she found a scrap barely large enough to write her name on. “Is this all we have left?” she demanded. “What happened to the rest?”
“I'll see to it we get more,” he answered, still patiently. “Why don't you see if the recorder is all right? Or if you really need something to do, I'm sure the garden needs attention.”
“I have plenty to do,” she retorted. “It's just that somebody has hogged all the materials to do it with. Let's have the rest, Egil; I need them. Now!”
He smiled indulgently. “A little more honey in the asking might get you further than temper tantrums, sweetheart.” He put his arm up to block the door. Arona shrugged, turned around, and began examining the scrolls he had set aside. “I can let you have three sheets,” he said then. “That's all I can spare.”
Leaving with her precious gains, she looked inside the writing room. He had used twice that amount recording the ballads he had sung to her. Annoyance mingled with understanding: of course he would not want his peoples’ stories lost; and he had never learned to share things fairly. But why would he lock up the records room?
What kind of people had lived in Cedar Crest?
She called at Elthea the Weaver's just to talk to Egil's little sister about him. Lowri adored him. She told no tales of mean pranks or petty cruelty, but boasted, “Nobody pesters us when he's around.”
His nearest age-mate among the strangers, Leatrice Huanasdaughter, doled out her words like precious spices. “He's handsome,” she said. “He's ambitious. Everybody says he'll be a man of importance some day.” In other words, Leatrice loathed him.
Mulemistress Darann said, “Good worker. Smooth talker. Bossy. Had a way with the mules.”
“Egil?” Oseberg said enthusiastically. “He's great, the best ever.”
Arona perched herself on the edge of a worktable at the forge. “He's not jealous that you found a sisterfriend in Brithis?”
Oseberg hooted. “Jealous? He's glad. He told me so. Anyway, she's not his type.” His face fell. “But it's awful, only seeing Brithis because Mother's out there all alone.” Oseberg loved Egil. Whatever his manners had been, Oseberg's heart was kind.
Brithis was pleased to tell Arona what it was like to live with a he-stranger. “Nice. Like a sisterfriend, only better. Oh, Oseberg has a few funny ways,” she conceded. “She was terribly upset about me going to the Falconers and asked me not to any more—not that I need to, now!” She giggled and ducked her head, then peered up shyly. “Starting babies their way is nice. You should try it.” She thought a few minutes. “She likes me to do the inside chores while she does the outside, but she's so strong and does so much, that's fair enough.” She pursed her lips. “She wouldn't see me, though, until she found out her horrible old mother wasn't going to starve or freeze after all. I guess that's only fair; she's her mother.”
Was there something in Egil Arona was too blind to see?
She made one last call, to the new farm Egil's mother had traded her pot for. Dame Elyshabet, her skirts tucked up and her hair bound in a scarf, was out in the fields with a hoe. Egil had promised her, You won't have to work the land, Mother; I'll do all that. Then he had run off to Records House, leaving her with a farm she had never wanted, and all the work to do. He was a liar and a bully and hopelessly spoiled. Arona stood in the path, irresolute, then hailed the house.
“You know he was the eldest,” Dame Elyshabet said as they sat on the porch drinking hot herb tea. “For so long I could not rear a living child; perhaps we made too much of him. He had neither uncles nor cousins nor older brothers to cut him down to size. And of course, he stood to inherit Harald's bakery.” Her eyes asked Arona just what the girl was interested in knowing.
Arona, herself the eldest in a large family and the one earmarked for distinction, nodded. Dame Elyshabet, so inarticulate in the village tongue, was as wise as an elder in her own. “Why do you let him speak for you?” she blurted out. “And tell you what to do and force you to do things you don't choose? You're his mother, and he's still a maid! Why does he play the bully sometimes and then be so sweet and kind? Why does he think Aunt Noriel would act like a Falconer and why is he always so sure he alone is right?”
Elyshabet shook her head and laughed softly. “You never met his father's mother. Norine was as rigid as Huana in many ways, but clever and smooth-spoken … when she needed to be. Egil takes after her, and while she lived, he was always her favorite. That's the trouble.”
Huana Guntirsdaughter appeared in the kitchen door then and sniffed contemptuously. Dame Elyshabet shook her head. “I couldn't let her starve,” she apologized.
The last Arona had heard, Huana Guntirsdaughter had taken refuge in one of the Visit huts, working the garden there and living on whatever meager food supplies and tools she could borrow from hard-pressed villagers and blood-bound kindred. Serves her right, the girl thought intolerantly, remembering Aunt Nortel's face that day. But Oseberg Morgathschild didn't deserve to be torn between his mother and her enemies.
Egil openly admired Huana's folly, and sang Arona several ballads of women who chose death before “dishonor"—having a child started in them by force. Demanding to know what that had to do with Aunt Noriel's offer of partnership, she heard him out with growing amazement. “Egil! That's a contradiction in terms! Besides, even if Aunt Noriel could do that, she never would.”
Dame Elyshabet was too kind, and it made her easy prey, Arona realized with a sinking heart.
The Witch refused to speak of Egil, saying the privacy of a mind was inviolate unless a life was at stake. Arona bit her lip at the thought of the Witch. How much help could Dame Witch be these days? People in the village were starting to look oddly at the Witch, muttering as she passed and making Falcon-away signs behind her back, to ward off bad luck. “They blame me for the disasters of the Turning,” the Witch told Arona when she asked, tablets in hand.
“You saved us from the worst,” Arona argued, remembering the night in the caves.
“They remember it was my kind who started these events,” the Witch said gently. “And if I had the power to save them from the worst, why did I not save them from everything that befell them this winter? It's an old, old tale, child. But I'd take your doubts about Egil to the Elders.”
Arona shook her head. “It's too soon after the last meeting, All I've heard from anyone is that they want no more quarrels. And Egil's manners are beautiful when older women are about,” she said bitterly. “Mistress Maris will hear no evil of him.”
It seemed to Arona that the word senile hung in the air between them, but neither dared say it out loud. She left Witch House and went back to look in on Mistress Maris.
The recorder lay in bed, feebly coughing, wheezing as if the effort to breathe had worn her out. “Egil!” Arona shouted. There was no answer. Arona ran for the healer.
Dame Floree and her apprentice Hanna Elyshabetsdaughter came into the sickroom. As the healer placed an ear against the old recorder's chest and bade her cough, her apprentice cried out, “Egil!” The girl's face lit up as he entered the sick room.
Egil scooped up his little sister and hugged her tightly. “Hello, apple blossom,” he said lightly, then set her down. “What ails the recorder?” he asked Dame Floree directly, as if neither Arona nor Hanna were there.
Dame Floree shook her head. “It's a lung fever. I'll make up a potion for her cough; keep her warm and make her drink plenty of liquids.”
“Did you hear that, Arona?” Egil asked. “I'll be in the records room.” He left; Dame Floree raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.
They had no honey in the house. Frowning, Arona scraped up whatever she could spare of her ornaments to trade with Olwith the Beekeeper. Egil put his head out of the writing room to offer a bracelet Darann Mulemistress had given him, which was gracious of him. But whatever was he writing in there that he could so neglect his sick mistress? Friend, bully, bully, friend, what was Egil Elyshabetsdaughter?
The beekeeper could only spare a little honey; Brithis, her apprentice, was pregnant and needed it more. The lookouts on the mountain gave a quail call, and Arona suddenly decided on one last desperate course. She would beg Cousin Jommy to advise her and the Elders about Egil.
The first boy ever reared in the village of women, Jimmy had a twisted foot. Most sickly or deformed daughters were given the Mercy of Jonkara by the midwife, at their mother's word. Jommy was male, and males belonged to the Falconers, who gave Her Mercy to all such. His mother, almost past the age of bearing, had no living daughters, and vowed to keep him and rear him as a girl.
To the fear that a male in the village was as a wolf in the flock, his mother Eina had said, “Dogs are the daughters of wolves, but we took the pups in at birth and brought them up to be members of our families, and we are all glad now.”
Mistress Maris, then young, had spoken for .Tommy. “The first woman to adopt a wolf pup was attacked as a danger to the village and to us all,” she said. “The first women to fashion ourselves spears and knives against wild beasts were told they would bring all the Falconers down upon us to kill us all. The first to ride forth in search of metal was nearly Shunned for her daring, and the first to build herself a house nearly had it burned down by her sisters for fear of the Falconers. Would any of us do without the gains they made?”
He had dealt with grave matters while still a boy. He had lived outside and seen their ways for a year and returned under a great cloud of scandal, for he had killed a Falconer. Now he lived self-exiled, seeking wisdom. Every full moon the elders sent up provisions for him, and whenever he finished weaving a rug, he sent it back down again in payment. It was time to trade with him again. Generally a woman rode with the pack mule. The next moon it would be Arona.
But before she could do so, she was summoned once again to deal with the traders from outside.
The lookouts gave the quail cry again. The trail was clear and traders were riding again. Arona grabbed her Visit veils and ran. She had loaded a borrowed mule with every pot the kitchen could spare, every piece of jewelry she owned, every weaving not needed to keep them warm. From the other direction came Asta Lennisdaughter, dressed in her best clothes, with a finer mule equally laden. Several other women, some with donkeys and some with mules and one—Nidoris—with a baby tame horse!—joined her at the trailhead huts.
“Arona!” one of them called. “You speak the traders’ tongue. Could you teach me when you get a chance? I have some onion and egg salad for your mistress.”
“Nidoris, what a cute little horse!” someone called. “Did you catch her when you took the sheep out?” Half a dozen girls crowded around to pet the filly and admire her. The first women in the village, seeing there were wild horses on the plain, had tried to catch and tame them. But where could they ride one that a mule or donkey, cheaper to feed, couldn't go more easily? Only on the plain, and Falconers left their long arrows in any riders the
y found on that particular plain. Horses were pets, mothers of mules, or wild herd animals running free.
“Traders ride tame horses,” Nidoris said with a bold grin. “Maybe they'd like a baby one to bring up.”
She tethered the filly to a tree by the huts and looked around. “These aren't bad!” she exclaimed. “Sheepherders would love them!”
The trade caravan, a pack of perhaps twenty horses and donkeys and mules, rode into sight. It was led by bearded he-people with hard leather jackets and as many knives as a butcher's kitchen, but there were hooded and cloaked women in divided skirts riding with them, and one robed Daughter of Gunnora. Arona ran forward to greet the cowled woman and asked, “Where are the rest of you?”
The Daughter of Gunnora laughed. “We have always been very, very few on this side of the ocean, child, and it comes to me you no longer need us. But we are here if you do!”
Asta Lennisdaughter was searching the caravaners’ faces for the youngster who had talked to her that fall. Failing to find him, she cornered a bearded one who seemed receptive. “Is it true that in your homeland,” she began. Arona didn't listen to the rest, for one of the traders’ packs held just what she needed.
“Parchment,” she was saying a few minutes later. “We make our own, but someone used it up without taking that into account.” The trader woman smiled indulgently. “And honey for my mistress's cough. The bees were all shaken up last fall and their Eldest Mother never got over it.”
The trader woman conferred with one of the bearded ones briefly. Arona caught the word, or name, Lormt. Another recorder? Or another village whose recorder she was. She asked; the woman tilted her head and raised an eyebrow.
The bearded one said gravely, “Lormt is a place where old scrolls are kept, and scholars go to learn of them. It is,” he peered at the mountains and idly sketched in the sand with his knife-tip, “roughly north and east of here. You leave these mountains and cross the valley of the river Es, of which your river is a tributary, and you'll see a small mountain range joining a great one. There where they join is Lormt, and there we go to sell the parchment you ask for. Why? Are you a scholar, too?”