At first the women of the council considered what was best to do. If Maara's warning was the truth, our warriors must go south to the ravine to prepare a defense. How many should we send? How long should they remain there? And how would we defend against an attack from the north? Was Maara's news a trick? Where did the true danger lie?
Then they spoke about the river crossing. Some said that the Mother's river had always been the guardian of our western border and that the Mother herself would upend the boats and toss the enemy into the freezing water, as she had done once before, more years ago than most of them could remember. Others suggested that perhaps the northerners had learned to build better boats, or perhaps they were hungrier than they had ever been, as Maara had said.
Namet, a plump, rosy-cheeked woman with short, white hair that lay in soft curls around her face, told a story of a winter long past, when the enemies of her mother's house had sent their warriors out in wintertime. Her story shed only a little light on the current threat, and more stories followed from the other women that had even less to do with the troubles that beset us now.
I grew impatient. Then I grew bored. The next thing I knew, I awakened to find old Gnith's bony finger poking at my ribs and her face close to mine, grinning a toothless grin.
"Bunch of old women!" she whispered. "They'd put me to sleep too."
Then I saw that the Lady was looking at me. I scrambled to my feet.
"Did you talk with your warrior last night?" she asked me.
"Yes," I said.
"Did she tell you she hadn't intended to come back?"
"Yes."
In a soft voice, the Lady said, "That must have hurt."
"Yes."
She turned back to the elders. "Have you anything to ask her?"
"Do you believe the news your warrior brings us?" said Fodla.
"Yes," I said.
"Why?"
"My heart tells me."
"Your heart told you she was coming back."
"Yes," I said.
"So your heart was wrong."
"Not about this."
Fodla opened her mouth to speak again, but Fet, who sat beside her, brushed Fodla's cheek lightly with the backs of her fingers and shook her head, and Fodla said nothing more.
"Who else would question her?" the Lady asked them.
No one spoke. The Lady turned to Eramet, who had stood all morning by the doorway. "Bring Maara here," she said.
When Eramet had gone, the Lady came over to where I was standing by the hearth. She took my chin in her hand and lifted my face to hers.
"I am going to ask something difficult of you," she said. "You told me once that you would trust Maara with your life. Would you still?"
"Yes," I said.
The women of the council were restless. They had looked at the situation from every angle and had talked over every possibility. They had shared their memories and their experience. Their part was over. It was the Lady who would do what needed to be done. Fet and Fodla seemed to be the only ones who were still paying attention. The others fell to gossiping among themselves in quiet voices. Someone mentioned that it was past time for the midday meal.
Maara came into the kitchen. The Lady turned to face her.
"I'm inclined to trust your good intentions," the Lady said. "Even if the northerners' plans come to nothing, I can't ignore this warning. I will send warriors south to the ravine."
I saw relief in Maara's eyes.
"Lives depend on what you've told us," the Lady said. "If it's the truth, you will have a place here, and anyone who shows you disrespect will know my anger. But if you have been false to us, lives will be lost, and for that you will pay a price."
"I understand," Maara said.
"Is a life a fair price, do you think?"
My warrior nodded. "It's no more than I expected."
"Good," the Lady said. She turned to the women of the council. "I give this woman the freedom of the house. If she proves treacherous, the life she pledged is forfeit." She turned to Maara. "And if you leave this house, I will accuse you of treachery, and you will pay the same penalty."
"Hah!" said Fodla. "Hard to kill her if she's gone."
"Her life is not the price," the Lady said. "The child has put her life into her warrior's hands."
A silence fell that made even the mice in the grain bins grow still. No one spoke. No one moved. My heart leaped into my throat, then fell into my boots.
Maara stared at the Lady in disbelief. "No," she said.
The Lady turned again to face her. "If you have been truthful with us, what difference does it make whose life it is?"
I heard the whispered laughter of old Gnith. The Lady exchanged a few words with Fet, then left the room without a word to anyone else. The women of the council began to speak quietly among themselves. Servants went about their preparations for the midday meal.
I felt Maara's eyes on me and turned to meet them. She held my gaze for a moment before she turned on her heel and left the room. I would have followed her, but a bony hand wrapped itself around my ankle. When I looked down, Gnith beckoned to me. I knelt down beside her.
"She's caught her now," Gnith said. A gnarled finger waved in the direction my warrior had taken. "There'll be no more leaving for that one."
Her dark eyes sparkled with delight, as if what had just happened had been acted out for her amusement.
I was too distracted to pay much attention to her. I could hardly comprehend that I was now a hostage in Merin's house. The world that I had felt so safe in yesterday was gone. Nothing was as it should be.
Gnith's fingers were still curled around my ankle. I took her hand in both of mine to free myself. Her skin was cool and as dry as fallen leaves.
"How old am I?" she asked me.
"I don't know, Mother," I said. "Very old, I think."
She pulled her hand out of my grasp and touched my cheek with her fingertips. "Once I was like you."
The world shifted beneath me. My young eyes locked with her old ones, and my mind leaped ahead in time until I saw myself lying as helpless as Gnith upon this very hearth. I tried to look back on the memories I'd made, but the past was dark.
"What lies between, Mother?" I asked her.
"Lunch," she said.
"What?"
"Bring me some lunch," she said.
10. Hostage
All afternoon I wandered through the house feeling like a ghost. When I approached a group of the companions in the great hall, they turned to look at me, and for the span of a few heartbeats no one said a word. Then they all turned away and resumed their conversations, as if they hadn't seen me at all. At last I took refuge in the companions' loft. The handful of girls who were there when I arrived left soon afterward. I was glad to see them go. I felt less lonely by myself than among people who wouldn't speak to me. Sparrow found me there.
"Are you all right?" she asked me.
I nodded.
"Why are you here alone?"
"No one seems to want to be around me."
"They don't know what to say to you," she said. "They'll get over it." She sat down next to me and took my hand. "Are you afraid?"
"No." I didn't feel any fear. I didn't feel much of anything.
"The Lady didn't mean it. She only wanted to see what your warrior would do."
"How do you know that?"
"It's what everyone is saying. The Lady set a clever trap. If Maara were guilty of treachery, why would she have been upset when the Lady made you her hostage? If anything she would have been relieved."
"Why?"
"The Lady left her free. She could escape any time she likes and leave you to bear the consequences."
"Oh," I said. Somehow I didn't find that reassuring.
"Now the Lady has one more reason to believe she told the truth, and now she also knows her weakness."
"What's that?"
"You," she said. "You're why she came back to Merin's house."
; "No, I'm not."
"Others think differently."
I began to feel a little better. "What do you think?"
"I think there were many reasons for Maara to stay far, far away from Merin's house."
The warmth of Sparrow's body was a comfort. I leaned against her, and she put her arm around my shoulders.
"All the same," she said, "if I were you, I wouldn't try the Lady's patience."
I found Maara in her room. She looked up at me when I came in, and her eyes opened wider in surprise when she saw that I had my bedding with me.
"May I stay with you?" I asked her.
She eyed me suspiciously. "Are you afraid I'll run away again?"
That made me angry. "No," I said. "Run away if you like."
"Are you so quick to throw away your life?"
"No one here will hurt me." I hoped it was true.
She looked away from me and said nothing.
"I'll go if you'd rather be alone," I said.
She didn't speak or look at me. I waited for a few moments. Then I turned to leave.
"Stay," she whispered.
While I made up my bed on the floor, I felt her watching me.
"Do you need anything?" I asked her.
"No."
"Have you eaten?" It was well past suppertime.
"I've had enough," she said.
I sat down on my bed. I couldn't think of anything to say. For the first time I found the silence between us awkward.
"You shouldn't have stood with me before the council," she said.
I shrugged. It was too late to change what I'd done, even if I wanted to. I didn't think I wanted to.
"You didn't have to come back," I said. "When I freed you from any obligation to me, I meant it."
"What are you talking about?"
"You told the council you came back because you owed me a life."
"That's not exactly what I told the council."
"Oh." I was too tired to think about it. "Why don't people ever say what they mean?"
"Do you always say what you mean?"
"Of course I do." Then I stopped to think it over. "At least I try to. I think I do."
Her face softened, and a smile started in her eyes.
In the middle of the night, something woke me. It was so dark I couldn't see Maara's bed, but I didn't think she was in it. The room felt empty. I rose and groped my way to the door, along the narrow hallway, and down the stairs. In the great hall, by the light of the embers glowing on the hearth, I found Maara sitting on the hearthstone.
"What are you doing?" I asked her.
She didn't answer me. She looked at me with eyes that saw nothing. I recognized the look. She was ghostwalking. I knelt down beside her and put my hand on her shoulder.
"Wake up," I said. I shook her a little.
Strong arms seized me and threw me backwards onto the floor. Before I had time even to cry out, I was lying on my back with my warrior's hands around my throat. Darkness wrapped itself around my eyes. I struck out blindly, and my hand met something hard. I heard the breath go out of her. She let go, and the darkness lifted.
"What's the matter?" she said.
She was sitting on the floor beside me, rubbing her jaw.
"You nearly choked the life out of me."
"What?" Then she saw where we were.
"You were asleep," I said. "You were ghostwalking."
I struggled to sit up. I was dizzy, and my throat hurt.
"Ghostwalking?"
I nodded.
"How did you know?"
"You've done it before."
"I have?"
"You did it once last summer."
"I don't remember."
"You never woke up that time."
"Oh," she said.
She got to her feet and held out her hand to me, to help me up. She peered at me in the dim light. I still had one hand to my throat.
"Are you all right?" she asked me.
"I think so."
My legs shook a little. I took hold of her arm, to steady myself. Then I remembered the companions' loft at the far end of the hall. I glanced up and saw the silhouettes of several heads peering over the edge. I thought we'd been speaking too quietly to be overheard, but they must have heard the sounds of our struggle.
"Let's go upstairs," I said. "Quickly. Before someone thinks we're trying to escape."
"I'm hungry," said Maara.
"I'll get you something. Go on upstairs."
"Are you sure you're all right?"
"Fine," I said.
"I'm sorry."
"Go," I said.
At last she did as I told her. I lit a lamp with an ember from the hearth and went into the kitchen. There I found a pot of barley soup. I put some in a bowl and set it in the embers of the kitchen hearth to warm it.
While I waited, I thought of old Gnith and wondered if, in her long life, she had gained a little wisdom, because I had questions only the wise could answer. Her pallet lay by the ovens at the other end of the kitchen. When I approached her, I was glad to see that she was awake.
"Can I bring you something, Mother?" I asked her.
"Nice hot tea," she said.
I brewed her a tea of chamomile. I helped her to sit up and put the bowl of tea into her hands. Then I sat down beside her.
"Who are you?" she asked me.
"I'm Tamras, Tamnet's daughter."
"I don't know you."
"No, Mother."
"Did I know your mother?"
"She was here once, long ago," I said.
Gnith peered into her bowl and stuck her finger in the tea, to see if it was too hot to drink.
"I have a question, Mother," I said.
"Young ones full of questions," she muttered. "Full of questions. Never listen to the answers."
She sipped her tea.
"What is ghostwalking?" I asked.
"Ghostwalking?"
"Yes."
"Just what it sounds like."
"But it's the living who walk."
"Of course it is. The dead don't walk. But maybe their spirits come to their beloveds in their sleep. Maybe they try to lure them into the shadows."
"Do they ever succeed?"
"Sometimes."
"Can anything be done?"
"Leave her be," the old woman said. "Let the dead have her."
Her words frightened me. "I can't."
"Then you need a binding spell."
Although my mother was a healer, she had taught me nothing about spell casting. It was her opinion that such things go oftener wrong than right.
"I don't know any binding spells, Mother."
"Me neither," said Gnith. She knit her brows. "Can't be very hard."
She took a long drink of tea. Some of it ran down her chin. She didn't bother wiping it away.
"Tell you what," she said.
"What?"
"Bind her to someone living."
"Bind her?"
"Yes."
"With what?"
"A rope. A bit of twine. Anything."
"Tie her, do you mean?"
"Yes. Tie her. Tie her to the living. Someone she loves."
"I don't know if she loves anyone, Mother."
"Tie her to someone who loves her then," she said. "Can't see it makes a difference." She caught the doubt in my eyes and chuckled. "Someone doesn't want the dead to have her. Someone must love her at least a little."
Gnith yawned. She finished her tea, then set the bowl aside and lay back down on her pallet.
"My mother told me stories at bedtime," she said.
She closed her eyes and smiled, as if she could hear her mother's voice, as I sometimes heard in memory my own mother's whispered good night.
Gnith opened her eyes and looked up at me. "Who are you?"
"Tamras," I told her. Then I remembered something I'd been meaning to ask her. "Were there once only women warriors, Mother?"
"Don't know."
"Oh." I started to get up.
"Makes sense," she said.
"Why?"
"Who else should take a life? No man ever brought a child out of his body."
Something about that explanation bothered me. "Do you mean that a woman may take a life because she can give life back?"
"No, no," she said. "Think of a woman whose body has made a child. Who gave birth to it. Cradled and nursed it. Loved it. She will hold life dear differently than someone who has not."
I wondered if once only mothers had been warriors.
While Maara was eating, I opened the chest beside her bed, took out several long strips of leather that I had cut for bootlaces, and began braiding them together. Maara watched me with curiosity. When I had a braided thong as long as I was tall, I made slipknots at each end. By the time she finished eating, the thong was ready. I slipped one loop over her hand and pulled it snug around her wrist.
"What's this?" she asked.
"It's a bad time for you to go wandering about," I told her.
I put the other end around my own wrist and sat down on my bed to make sure the thong was long enough. Whether or not Gnith's makeshift spell would stop Maara's ghostwalking, at least it offered a practical solution. Now she couldn't go anywhere without waking me up.
Maara seemed doubtful. "What if I take it off?"
"In your sleep?"
"Yes."
"Can you think of something better?"
She tugged at the braided thong, to test its strength. Then she gave the slipknot another tug.
"Don't pull it too tight," I said.
I got up from my bed and sat down beside her. The loop was so tight that it had already marked the skin on the inside of her wrist. I loosened it.
"There. Leave it alone. It's tight enough."
"Tamras," she said. It was the first time she had ever spoken my name, and the sound of it went through me like a knife. I wished I could see her face, but she was gazing down at the thong around her wrist.
"Yes?" I said.
"Be careful how you wake me up."
"I will. Don't worry."
She looked up at me. Her eyes were fierce. She grasped my wrist with a grip so strong my hand went numb. "I mean it," she said.
The lid of the chest stood open. She reached into it and took out a small bronze knife. It had a walnut handle, bound with copper bands. The dark wood was worn smooth, and the copper had weathered to a color that was neither green nor blue, a color more beautiful than either. She handed it to me.